Originally posted by rodingo In 1903 the Ford Model A had an engine that had an output of 8HP and could reach speeds of 28 mph (45 km/h). Have car manufacturers been missing the "point" all this time since then as well? Things change my friend. You don't have to like it, just acknowledge it.
You are assuming the games improved. You would have a hard time proving that, imo.
To play on your analogy, for someone disappointed with modern mmos a modern mmo is a car without a trunk, back seats and going at most 50mph, being told by people like you that it is a improvement because its cheaper and that that stuff is not needed for driving around town anyways, what "most" people do...
That is if the car has all four wheels "on release" anyways
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
Yeah, there was, held it on Genie and Compuserv but you were too young and missed it.
No Internet either so can't post you any links, sorry, you'll just have to take our word on it.
Compuserve was such a ripoff back in early 90s-- was like $10.00 / hour
Actually, I think the rates were 15.00 /hr daytime rates and 6.00 / hr nights and weekends, at least that's how it was on Genie, some folks easily ran up $150/mo bills playing early airplane and mechwarrior games on it. Talk about your pay to win.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
You're acting like it's just common sense that anyone that was part of the past would have the same interpritation of it. That anyone that played an mmo 10 years ago would have this " understanding" of what they should be and what their intent was. Yet when you look around obviously they/we don't all agree. In fact we often aren't even on in the same book let alone the same page.
MMOs were built to entertain, there was no common " intent" beyond that. Anyone that tells you different is just trying to force their narrow view of them on other people.
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
No, it's not well know.
Let's take the family favorites.
EQ
DAOC
UO
SWG
If there was a unified intent between the four most talked about and popular games on these forums, I just don't see it. They are all quite different, unless someone wants to tell me that they were the same (I'm going to have a difficult time believing it without a good explanation - which I am open to).
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
You're acting like it's just common sense that anyone that was part of the past would have the same interpritation of it. That anyone that played an mmo 10 years ago would have this " understanding" of what they should be and what their intent was. Yet when you look around obviously they/we don't all agree. In fact we often aren't even on in the same book let alone the same page.
MMOs were built to entertain, there was no common " intent" beyond that. Anyone that tells you different is just trying to force their narrow view of them on other people.
Wasn't it suppose to be something like dungeons and dragons but a computer virtual world version?
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
No, it's not well know.
Let's take the family favorites.
EQ
DAOC
UO
SWG
If there was a unified intent between the four most talked about and popular games on these forums, I just don't see it. They are all quite different, unless someone wants to tell me that they were the same (I'm going to have a difficult time believing it without a good explanation - which I am open to).
There was unified intent! The intent was to let people have fun - and fun was had.
Was there an International MMO Decision Summit held in Geneva 20 years ago or something that I missed?
Because, try as I might, I can't find anything pointing to "original intent" of MMO's.
This also doesn't really make much sense. Things don't need to be told to the entire world for a specific intent to exist.
. . . but the OP knows the intent. How does he know what their intent was?
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
I worked at Origin Systems for about 3 years during the production of UO, so if my opinion of the intent of MMOs differs a little bit from the OP does that mean I am more correct? The answer is no, his experience playing the early MMOs is his experience and it helped shape what he feels the intent of the early MMOS were. I am sure that many people who played along with him have similar or even different feelings on what the intent of MMOs were, so in this case intent = opinion.
Games are no different than any other piece of software/hardware in that they evolve over time, sometimes the change is good and other times it is bad, but change is inevitable.
I think some of you are not connecting with the Ops point. I don't think he is saying bring back a 14 year old game (some of them never died), but more so the genre didn't evolve from where it started. In the beginning choice was rampant. Huge skill trees. Multiple trade skills. And Vast places to explore (and find something interesting). Today games are more restrictive. Less classes. No real skill trees. And advancement being by and large narrow.
its not to say games today are bad or wrong but to point out they are missing the very things that defined them in the first place. I play all MMOs (I'll be in ESO beta on Friday) and none of these titles come close to the breadth and depth of the past.
Don't bring back the old stuff. Make new stuff that evolves the old stuff. Key word being evolution.
please help us kick starter, you are our only hope.
We were younger and full of wonder... now we're just a bunch of cantankerous jaded critics...'nough said
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Loved your thread, great read, just wanted to say that I agreed with some points disagreed with others, but all in all I think you have a point, that point being that the mmos of today are not what we used to dream a mmo could be back when playing DaoC, UO or SWG or any of the other mmos that started out with what seemed to be a great vision only to be patched into ... the only word I can think to describe what they have become are arcade mmo's. I also long for a living breathing online world that takes me out of the mundane babylon and into a world of wonder. I still have hope that one day that game will arrive. Unity is the only way, this competitive corporate attitude the world has adopted the last 20 years only produces shallow, fastfood style everything, including mmos.
Originally posted by Cephus404 No, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the MMO genre was originally intended to be, it only matters what it is now. Intentions are like assholes, everyone has them and all of them stink. Who cares what some people playing UO or Meridian 59 wanted 15 years ago? It's entirely irrelevant to the modern day MMO which are driven by market forces and what the majority of people actually want to play now.
I think you're missing the point completely then, because an MMO is very specific in nature, and it has been bastardized by big company producers thinking they can get away with labeling their product an MMO without it actually being one.
Nope, you're utterly and totally wrong. You *WANT* an MMO to be very specific in nature. That doesn't mean that it is. Nobody died and put you in charge of defining what the MMO genre actually is. Get over yourself.
those games of the past were suppose to be evolution of pen and paper rules in the actual virtual worlds and that is why IMO they were called mmoRPGs
now there is only a shallow action combat rainbow country of visuals MMOGs without any real depth of systems and mechanics and the substance which was the mostly non instanced world to explore in the lobby based abomination format...
the achievement of the old without any special effects UI panels and so on and so forth was to get to the end game through long journey and the end of that journey which was hard and rewarding was a start of another journey....
now we have only shallow gear checks raid fests and nearly instant travel to end game
"no air to breathe in the game" no dangers in semi narrated environment in which you still could've build something
no time to chat even because everything has to be instant after the years of vocal minority called that journey is boring...
long live the dream of that old pen and paper version depth in the virtual world game environment thing coming to fruition...
PS. for most people i could have been seen as casual now real life work wife kids....
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
without any need to even achieve of something in this one short session of play time
slowly with my own pace and that would be more gratifying for me then this new "era" MMOGs achievements all together...
Gone are the days of mindless mob grinding for that last bit of XP, or that one rare chance that a named would spawn and hopefully drop your loot (screw you Phinny!)
Here are the days of mindless quest grinding for that massive amount of XP, so you can level to cap, and then mindlessly grind through mobs to clear that dungeon to get your token, to get your piece of gear to get you into raiding....so you can, yet again, grind more.
Looking at it from that perspective, I think MMOs are dead on. In fact, they've gone further. Their objective is to keep you invested beyond the "socialization" (which I will touch on shortly). They want you to keep coming back and playing so they can milk you for your hard earned $15 for subs, or whatever you spend on those F2P games.
Gone are the days of socialization that keeps you in game. Let me explain. I played Everquest for many years (on and off due to financial constraints as a late teens early 20s college student). What kept me playing wasn't the combat, or the raiding (although, the raiding helped). What kept me playing was my guild (shout out to the Blood of the Phoenix and New Dawn Rising from Torvonnilous, and Praxium from Cazic-Thule). I had numerous people that I was grouping with since the day I logged in and started playing the game. I would chat with them on our forums, and some I hung out with in real-life.
I digress.
The point that gamers miss is the experience of playing the game, not the genre, not getting to cap level. Not everyone likes PVP, not everyone is a socializer, or crafter, or raider. What matters is the enjoyment and the experience of playing in a virtual environment. The ne games lack this, IMO.
What gets me into the game is the features, customization, and combat. What keeps me in game is the content updates and my friends (whether real-life or in-game). I don't care if it is PVP, PVE, space, fantasy, or the new "action combat" fetish that developers seem to be in-love with. As long as I'm enjoying myself, all is good.
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
to perplex people like you and introduce them to the wonders of 'growing old'.
yes, this is what it looks like.
and yes, this is what you will do as well.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
No need to blow a gasket even if you want to dump hours into a game, and don't think you can have fun with short sessions.
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
Here is something I don't get.
If the mmos we have now are not worth "dumping" time into, why is doing ^ this worth your time ?
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
No need to blow a gasket even if you want to dump hours into a game, and don't think you can have fun with short sessions.
Hey, i am not judging you. Calm down.
fun my friend is very subjective and for you those few hours are not fun maybe, but for me they are relaxing and if immersing at the same time, that is fun for me
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
Here is something I don't get.
If the mmos we have now are not worth "dumping" time into, why is doing ^ this worth your time ?
doing what posting on interesting for me topic on forum?
or trying to express a bit of myself and find someone with similar opinion maybe ?
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
Here is something I don't get.
If the mmos we have now are not worth "dumping" time into, why is doing ^ this worth your time ?
doing what posting on interesting for me topic on forum?
or trying to express a bit of myself and find someone with similar opinion maybe ?
please elaborate
Yeah ... what is wrong with having fun in a forum? Plus, forum is much less time demanding .. you can make 20 posts in 10 minutes .... no need to commit your evening like raiding.
Comments
You are assuming the games improved. You would have a hard time proving that, imo.
To play on your analogy, for someone disappointed with modern mmos a modern mmo is a car without a trunk, back seats and going at most 50mph, being told by people like you that it is a improvement because its cheaper and that that stuff is not needed for driving around town anyways, what "most" people do...
That is if the car has all four wheels "on release" anyways
Flame on!
By being part of it? Being there? I don't know, there could be many ways. XD What kind of question is that lol?
Not to mention, it's fairly well known, it wasn't exactly hidden from the public o.o.
Compuserve was such a ripoff back in early 90s-- was like $10.00 / hour
EQ2 fan sites
Actually, I think the rates were 15.00 /hr daytime rates and 6.00 / hr nights and weekends, at least that's how it was on Genie, some folks easily ran up $150/mo bills playing early airplane and mechwarrior games on it. Talk about your pay to win.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You're acting like it's just common sense that anyone that was part of the past would have the same interpritation of it. That anyone that played an mmo 10 years ago would have this " understanding" of what they should be and what their intent was. Yet when you look around obviously they/we don't all agree. In fact we often aren't even on in the same book let alone the same page.
MMOs were built to entertain, there was no common " intent" beyond that. Anyone that tells you different is just trying to force their narrow view of them on other people.
No, it's not well know.
Let's take the family favorites.
EQ
DAOC
UO
SWG
If there was a unified intent between the four most talked about and popular games on these forums, I just don't see it. They are all quite different, unless someone wants to tell me that they were the same (I'm going to have a difficult time believing it without a good explanation - which I am open to).
Wasn't it suppose to be something like dungeons and dragons but a computer virtual world version?
There was unified intent! The intent was to let people have fun - and fun was had.
I worked at Origin Systems for about 3 years during the production of UO, so if my opinion of the intent of MMOs differs a little bit from the OP does that mean I am more correct? The answer is no, his experience playing the early MMOs is his experience and it helped shape what he feels the intent of the early MMOS were. I am sure that many people who played along with him have similar or even different feelings on what the intent of MMOs were, so in this case intent = opinion.
Games are no different than any other piece of software/hardware in that they evolve over time, sometimes the change is good and other times it is bad, but change is inevitable.
I get you Op, and agree.
I think some of you are not connecting with the Ops point. I don't think he is saying bring back a 14 year old game (some of them never died), but more so the genre didn't evolve from where it started. In the beginning choice was rampant. Huge skill trees. Multiple trade skills. And Vast places to explore (and find something interesting). Today games are more restrictive. Less classes. No real skill trees. And advancement being by and large narrow.
its not to say games today are bad or wrong but to point out they are missing the very things that defined them in the first place. I play all MMOs (I'll be in ESO beta on Friday) and none of these titles come close to the breadth and depth of the past.
Don't bring back the old stuff. Make new stuff that evolves the old stuff. Key word being evolution.
please help us kick starter, you are our only hope.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Loved your thread, great read, just wanted to say that I agreed with some points disagreed with others, but all in all I think you have a point, that point being that the mmos of today are not what we used to dream a mmo could be back when playing DaoC, UO or SWG or any of the other mmos that started out with what seemed to be a great vision only to be patched into ... the only word I can think to describe what they have become are arcade mmo's. I also long for a living breathing online world that takes me out of the mundane babylon and into a world of wonder. I still have hope that one day that game will arrive. Unity is the only way, this competitive corporate attitude the world has adopted the last 20 years only produces shallow, fastfood style everything, including mmos.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Nope, you're utterly and totally wrong. You *WANT* an MMO to be very specific in nature. That doesn't mean that it is. Nobody died and put you in charge of defining what the MMO genre actually is. Get over yourself.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
i agree with OP also
those games of the past were suppose to be evolution of pen and paper rules in the actual virtual worlds and that is why IMO they were called mmoRPGs
now there is only a shallow action combat rainbow country of visuals MMOGs without any real depth of systems and mechanics and the substance which was the mostly non instanced world to explore in the lobby based abomination format...
the achievement of the old without any special effects UI panels and so on and so forth was to get to the end game through long journey and the end of that journey which was hard and rewarding was a start of another journey....
now we have only shallow gear checks raid fests and nearly instant travel to end game
"no air to breathe in the game" no dangers in semi narrated environment in which you still could've build something
no time to chat even because everything has to be instant after the years of vocal minority called that journey is boring...
long live the dream of that old pen and paper version depth in the virtual world game environment thing coming to fruition...
PS. for most people i could have been seen as casual now real life work wife kids....
but i would still rather devote my few hours of free time in a weak to play something for many seem as hardcore, deep, immersing, punishing for mistakes without any haste or race mentality.
without any need to even achieve of something in this one short session of play time
slowly with my own pace and that would be more gratifying for me then this new "era" MMOGs achievements all together...
Gone are the days of mindless mob grinding for that last bit of XP, or that one rare chance that a named would spawn and hopefully drop your loot (screw you Phinny!)
Here are the days of mindless quest grinding for that massive amount of XP, so you can level to cap, and then mindlessly grind through mobs to clear that dungeon to get your token, to get your piece of gear to get you into raiding....so you can, yet again, grind more.
Looking at it from that perspective, I think MMOs are dead on. In fact, they've gone further. Their objective is to keep you invested beyond the "socialization" (which I will touch on shortly). They want you to keep coming back and playing so they can milk you for your hard earned $15 for subs, or whatever you spend on those F2P games.
Gone are the days of socialization that keeps you in game. Let me explain. I played Everquest for many years (on and off due to financial constraints as a late teens early 20s college student). What kept me playing wasn't the combat, or the raiding (although, the raiding helped). What kept me playing was my guild (shout out to the Blood of the Phoenix and New Dawn Rising from Torvonnilous, and Praxium from Cazic-Thule). I had numerous people that I was grouping with since the day I logged in and started playing the game. I would chat with them on our forums, and some I hung out with in real-life.
I digress.
The point that gamers miss is the experience of playing the game, not the genre, not getting to cap level. Not everyone likes PVP, not everyone is a socializer, or crafter, or raider. What matters is the enjoyment and the experience of playing in a virtual environment. The ne games lack this, IMO.
What gets me into the game is the features, customization, and combat. What keeps me in game is the content updates and my friends (whether real-life or in-game). I don't care if it is PVP, PVE, space, fantasy, or the new "action combat" fetish that developers seem to be in-love with. As long as I'm enjoying myself, all is good.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
<_<
>_>
Why does this thread exist?
to perplex people like you and introduce them to the wonders of 'growing old'.
yes, this is what it looks like.
and yes, this is what you will do as well.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
And i won't devote time to mere games. So what is your point?
LoL that is my opinion based on my experience and the point is that shallow and so called action only instant raid BS games are not worth my time now.
i will repeat it for you twice then because i see you could not grasp the meaning after reading my post, shallow pretty MMO games as we have now are not worth the time to waste from my life
are you happy now?
No need to blow a gasket even if you want to dump hours into a game, and don't think you can have fun with short sessions.
Hey, i am not judging you. Calm down.
Here is something I don't get.
If the mmos we have now are not worth "dumping" time into, why is doing ^ this worth your time ?
fun my friend is very subjective and for you those few hours are not fun maybe, but for me they are relaxing and if immersing at the same time, that is fun for me
doing what posting on interesting for me topic on forum?
or trying to express a bit of myself and find someone with similar opinion maybe ?
please elaborate
Yeah ... what is wrong with having fun in a forum? Plus, forum is much less time demanding .. you can make 20 posts in 10 minutes .... no need to commit your evening like raiding.