Originally posted by Horusra So...you can pull maybe 200k with just ok EQ...doubt most of those would sub....another 50k with modern graphics and nothing else. So what kind of budget could a game with say 250K subs support as initial investment to create. That to me would determine what kind of game you could realistically get. This is what I see holding back an "old school" mmo.
A AAA quality, fully backed fantasy PVE MMORPG with modern graphics, smooth combat, would probably pull in 10 million players. This is NOT a niche concept.
When EQ Next releases, it will likely do just that.
What fails, repeatedly, in spite of game polish and how much money is thrown into development, is on-rails forced-storyline gameplay. Just falls flat every... single ... time... There is a virtual graveyard of single player games which have passed themselves off as MMO's.
Every time, I hear a game company devs talk about how "we have tailored special storyline paths just for your character", I nod my head and wonder why they are spending their way into their own doom, when all they need to do is to allow a bit more player freedom into their design.
You seriously think EQN is going to pull in 10 million subs? I just spit coffee all over my work computer and it has to be replaced.
With that said, in my opinion the success of EQ Next will be determined by what kind of game is available at release. The name EQ in the title will bring it quite a bit of initial subs, although as ESO and GW2 have proven a hyped title is not enough to keep people playing. You need a fairly polished game, with plenty of stuff to do, and a smooth launch.
Someone had mentioned 10 million subs, in my honest opinion I don't ever think we will see those kinds of numbers in an MMO again. I think most companies would be happy with a title that held onto 2 million subs for at least a year or two. I honestly don't think I would want to play a game with 10 million subs ever again as WoW proved to us that when that many people are paying $15 a month the only focus of the company is to keep everyone paying $15 a month for as long as possible at any cost, even at the expense of the game itself.
Well, lol, staring at the spellbook brings you back to the release of EQ1. Yeah, that's how it was while meditating for mana. A later patch made the UI different with a smaller spellbook so one could actually see what was happening and not just hear it.
Then also, while sitting watching your group members (yeah, socializing was available back then, ) hit points and meditating for mana, you chatted with the members while you were killing mobs. Before you realized it, you had been in that group for an 1-2 hours. It was a lot fun and made the time pass very quickly.
Or, you were the puller of the group which required skill. Pullers didn't have much "sitting" unless the group was very effective and could keep a steady pace of mobs coming. The healer would run out of mana which had the puller forced to sit as well.
Those were the days...
Of course there was a lot more to it than that but "staring at the spellbook" needed some deeper explanation.
May be fun for you. It is horribly boring compared to modern games to me. And you have to chat because there is no better things to do. And if i want to chat, i can talk to my wife, kids, friends, or go to a random chatroom.
In D3 (or any other modern game), you control the pace. You can play non-stop as much as you want .. .or as little. The "down-time" is when i decide not to do the next dungeon and quit. Not a single second of chat with a stranger is needed.
If you don't like to chat in a game, and that is fine your choice, then why are you spending so much time on an MMO forum?
Seems a little strange to me....
You are not the only one that finds this strange. He certainly is quite chatty on this site.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
OP this is so flawed. Its like wishing for that 1st Model T again. They dont make them anymore. It was awesome because it was the only one the 1st one ever.
World of Warcraft comes along put a few mmo's in to one and BAM! Others have been trying to make that spark happen but it will never happen again.
Something has to change. ALL mmos are now almost the same. Quests, dungeons easy/hard, raiding get that armor, PVP. You get a bunch of NPC's put them all over the map and to this day you are still trying to figure out WHY and HOW did they get there. ALL just waiting to die.
You are not the only one that finds this strange. He certainly is quite chatty on this site.
What is so strange? When i want to talk about MMOs, i come here. When i want to play, i log into a game. No one says i need to do both at the same time.
You don't believe using the best entertainment product to have fun?
Is it? Damn, I won't be playing then. I don't buy into the whole f2p model, I think it creates a pay to win mindset where they can bleed money out of you by selling you end game loot instead of earning it. If they don't do so then they end up not having enough money to regularly put out content patches.
All and all I find the f2p model a terrible idea. What is wrong with paying for a service that is being provided? My gym charged me a signup fee, yet I still have monthly dues. I had to pay money when I purchased my cell phone, yet I still have a monthly bill. Never really understood why some gamers complain about a small charge each month so that the company can pay artists, developers, designers, etc so the company can keep releasing good content.
Is it? Damn, I won't be playing then. I don't buy into the whole f2p model, I think it creates a pay to win mindset where they can bleed money out of you by selling you end game loot instead of earning it. If they don't do so then they end up not having enough money to regularly put out content patches.
All and all I find the f2p model a terrible idea. What is wrong with paying for a service that is being provided? My gym charged me a signup fee, yet I still have monthly dues. I had to pay money when I purchased my cell phone, yet I still have a monthly bill. Never really understood why some gamers complain about a small charge each month so that the company can pay artists, developers, designers, etc so the company can keep releasing good content.
It makes less money because whales cannot spend an arm and a leg?
I don't know where people get the 200k number ... in this day and age of free games, i highly doubt a EQ clone can get anywhere close to that.
People said the same thing about old school rpgs and look at what happened.. Kickstarter has shown that their interest was wrong. Look at how well Legend of Grimrock sold.
All "AAA" means is that you have a company with huge overhead, screwed up management, and bloat.
Originally posted by Horusra @Slapshot1188...3.7 million a month is not much if the game cost 100 million to make. Investors, employees, bills....all want to be paid.
Your false assumption is that it would cost $100M to make. It would take a fraction of that. Look at the budget for Camelot Unchained...
Nobody said it has to have voice acting and cutting edge/next gen graphics.
The scope of CU is far, far smaller than any modern EQ1 clone would have to be. There's also the fact that it's highly unlikely that the former will break 200K players once/if it releases. I think it says something that the people who created EQ in the first place are going off in all sorts of novel gaming directions rather than pursuing the most obvious one. If they had any faith at all in the draw of revisiting original EQ they would be in the perfect position to finance and reap the rewards from it.
" If they had any faith at all in the draw of revisiting original EQ they would be in the perfect position to finance and reap the rewards from it."
That isn't how this business works. Sequels, copying/cloning successful games, etc. Big publishers only play safe nowadays. That is why it took kickstarter to fund Broken Age, Wasteland 2, etc. It took an indie company to make Legend of Grimrock.
It would be a waste of time for former EQ developers to pitch their ideas over and over to deaf ears. Do you know how many times the Wasteland 2 creator pitched his idea? Do you know how many years of pitches it took to make Might and Magix X? It took the kickstarter successes to even consider a low budget version.
Is it? Damn, I won't be playing then. I don't buy into the whole f2p model, I think it creates a pay to win mindset where they can bleed money out of you by selling you end game loot instead of earning it. If they don't do so then they end up not having enough money to regularly put out content patches.
All and all I find the f2p model a terrible idea. What is wrong with paying for a service that is being provided? My gym charged me a signup fee, yet I still have monthly dues. I had to pay money when I purchased my cell phone, yet I still have a monthly bill. Never really understood why some gamers complain about a small charge each month so that the company can pay artists, developers, designers, etc so the company can keep releasing good content.
Yep four times as many voters in my poll last week hated F2P compared to those who loved it. So you aren't alone.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
People said the same thing about old school rpgs and look at what happened.. Kickstarter has shown that their interest was wrong. Look at how well Legend of Grimrock sold.
How well Legend of Grimrock sold? How many millions?
I doubt any AAA dev will be interested if we are not talking about milions and millions here.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Why would they have any faith in a game that never even broke 1M subs?
EQs most subs concurrently was something along the lines of 600k or more. But Smed said over 5 million people have played Everquest as of like 2004 or something. And it wasn't free to play back then.
SOE made tons and tons and tons of profit off EQ. Complaining that it didn't have WoW's numbers is sort of like telling some multi millionaire he's a loser because he isn't Bill Gates.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
SOE made tons and tons and tons of profit off EQ. Complaining that it didn't have WoW's numbers is sort of like telling some multi millionaire he's a loser because he isn't Bill Gates.
And why should devs be inspired by a mere millionaire when they can be inspired by Bill Gates? We are talking about following their footsteps here, not just appreciating.
Do you want to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, ... more than just some millionaire who wrote an APP? I thought people here are for challenges, and shooting for the sky?
Originally posted by redbug People don't remember all the down time that the original EQ had. The holy trinity is dead due to downtime, sad but true. No one is going to want to play a warrior who can't solo a rat while LFG. Graphics didn't kill EQ, gameplay did. After PoP, you either raided or went to WoW. Lack of PvP for PVE downtime didn't help matters either. Does anyone here remember how freaking hard it was to get to some of the camps where people were grinding XP? Sure some classes didn't have issues getting places but I played a cleric for pretty much the first 5 expansions and I remember some pretty bad runs. When PoP released druids and wizards were pissed due to losing port money, others were pissed because they said it made the world feel smaller. They obviously were not playing a cleric or warrior. Tons of reasons I don't want the original EQ with better graphics and more than a few reasons why it wouldn't get 500k subs.
While I remember and love all these flaws with nostalgia and rose tinted glasses, I don't think I could go back to old school games like this either. Far too much time spent just waiting around, instead of playing the game.
Originally posted by Horusra So...you can pull maybe 200k with just ok EQ...doubt most of those would sub....another 50k with modern graphics and nothing else. So what kind of budget could a game with say 250K subs support as initial investment to create. That to me would determine what kind of game you could realistically get. This is what I see holding back an "old school" mmo.
A AAA quality, fully backed fantasy PVE MMORPG with modern graphics, smooth combat, would probably pull in 10 million players. This is NOT a niche concept.
When EQ Next releases, it will likely do just that.
What fails, repeatedly, in spite of game polish and how much money is thrown into development, is on-rails forced-storyline gameplay. Just falls flat every... single ... time... There is a virtual graveyard of single player games which have passed themselves off as MMO's.
Every time, I hear a game company devs talk about how "we have tailored special storyline paths just for your character", I nod my head and wonder why they are spending their way into their own doom, when all they need to do is to allow a bit more player freedom into their design.
QFT - and quoted for brilliance. I wish we could round up every developer, put them in a huge auditorium and have your words on a screen repeatedly being read from some prerecorded narrator, over, and over, and over, ad naseum, until it finally sunk into the thick skulls of every fool with a corporate sponsor, that their games are utter crap until they redesign their fiscal predictions to include what would happen if something they actually fashioned was (drum roll)...fun.
Here I am playing free shards and old mmorpgs that barely have a pulse, so that I too can group with people, and experience every damn level with them. This solo nonsense fits in today's world of automatons - a world where entire troups of kids numbly exit their schools each day, cell phones in hand, eyes only upon their screens and not one another. The mmorpg industry is seemingly no different.
While I remember and love all these flaws with nostalgia and rose tinted glasses, I don't think I could go back to old school games like this either. Far too much time spent just waiting around, instead of playing the game.
This .. in fact, is one of the biggest criticism of those games, and it is not by accident that most devs don't ask players to wait around for no good reason. That is bad for business.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by Arclan SOE made tons and tons and tons of profit off EQ. Complaining that it didn't have WoW's numbers is sort of like telling some multi millionaire he's a loser because he isn't Bill Gates.
And why should devs be inspired by a mere millionaire when they can be inspired by Bill Gates? We are talking about following their footsteps here, not just appreciating.
Do you want to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, ... more than just some millionaire who wrote an APP? I thought people here are for challenges, and shooting for the sky?
Ok but their strategy for trying to be like Bill gates is to cut their hair in retard fashion, wear thick glasses, and boss everyone around, then wonder why they never came close.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by Arclan SOE made tons and tons and tons of profit off EQ. Complaining that it didn't have WoW's numbers is sort of like telling some multi millionaire he's a loser because he isn't Bill Gates.
And why should devs be inspired by a mere millionaire when they can be inspired by Bill Gates? We are talking about following their footsteps here, not just appreciating.
Do you want to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, ... more than just some millionaire who wrote an APP? I thought people here are for challenges, and shooting for the sky?
Ok but their strategy for trying to be like Bill gates is to cut their hair in retard fashion, wear thick glasses, and boss everyone around, then wonder why they never came close.
At least they have ambition.
Plus, LoL made $600M in 2013 .. not the billions and billions that Gates made ... but not too shabby, IMO.
Don't forget that a lot of people playing eq1 back in the day only played it because there were not many mmorpgs to choose from so even 200 000 will be an optimistic number. While I don't agree with nariusseldon on what types of game worlds are best for mmo, I agree that interdepency is not a fun concept especially in today games where most players are not even interested in a polite chat and consequences in mmorpgs means boring sink times and letting guilds control entire servers.
Edited : Sorry, I should have said "favourite type of world" in a mmo setting instead of best.
Don't forget that this was 1999+ and a lot of people didn't even have computers and internet access, so 200,000 would be an easy number in todays technological world. Interdependency is not a fun concept in todays games because they're all based on single player activities. Working together (or against each other) has always been the focus of multiplayer games, that's why they're multiplayer in the first place. You don't make a multiplayer game just to have a bunch of people sitting around doing their own thing... oh wait, in modern MMO's you do.
An excellent point. Good grief did the internet turn to crap once all the regulars got machines. I knew it was the end when they were offering free PCs with any purchase of a double-wide. That was in 96-97. I miss those pristine early days of WWW before it filled up with, well, look at 99% of the comments anywhere.
(has flashback about Netscape and how cool it was to watch 128bit encryption be adopted across the web)
Alot of people started playing EQ back in the day, not because it was one of a few MMOs out there. EQ was one of two, UO being your other choice, and as for the masses knowing what mmorpg meant...forgeddaboudit. So there weren't folks sitting around going, damn I want to play a MMO, which one should I pick. No, a lot of the initial draw was because EQ was...OMG.... D&D + Doom!!!!111!1oneoneeleven. That particular magic is not going to happen again until we figure out what is past 3D gaming. VR, probably. Maybe?
Don't forget that a lot of people playing eq1 back in the day only played it because there were not many mmorpgs to choose from so even 200 000 will be an optimistic number. While I don't agree with nariusseldon on what types of game worlds are best for mmo, I agree that interdepency is not a fun concept especially in today games where most players are not even interested in a polite chat and consequences in mmorpgs means boring sink times and letting guilds control entire servers.
Edited : Sorry, I should have said "favourite type of world" in a mmo setting instead of best.
Don't forget that this was 1999+ and a lot of people didn't even have computers and internet access, so 200,000 would be an easy number in todays technological world. Interdependency is not a fun concept in todays games because they're all based on single player activities. Working together (or against each other) has always been the focus of multiplayer games, that's why they're multiplayer in the first place. You don't make a multiplayer game just to have a bunch of people sitting around doing their own thing... oh wait, in modern MMO's you do.
An excellent point. Good grief did the internet turn to crap once all the regulars got machines. I knew it was the end when they were offering free PCs with any purchase of a double-wide. That was in 96-97. I miss those pristine early days of WWW before it filled up with, well, look at 99% of the comments anywhere.
(has flashback about Netscape and how cool it was to watch 128bit encryption be adopted across the web)
Alot of people started playing EQ back in the day, not because it was one of a few MMOs out there. EQ was one of two, UO being your other choice, and as for the masses knowing what mmorpg meant...forgeddaboudit. So there weren't folks sitting around going, damn I want to play a MMO, which one should I pick. No, a lot of the initial draw was because EQ was...OMG.... D&D + Doom!!!!111!1oneoneeleven. That particular magic is not going to happen again until we figure out what is past 3D gaming. VR, probably. Maybe?
That's nothing new. Way back in the early 80s, we'd lament the coming of the Christmas Kiddies, the people who got modems for Christmas and would flood the BBSes, in the days before the Internet, with their stupidity. I always laugh at people who think that being around 15 years ago makes them the grand old protectors of the online world. There was once a time when they were the newbies and those of us who have been around since before they were born rolled our eyes at their stupidity.
Don't forget that a lot of people playing eq1 back in the day only played it because there were not many mmorpgs to choose from so even 200 000 will be an optimistic number. While I don't agree with nariusseldon on what types of game worlds are best for mmo, I agree that interdepency is not a fun concept especially in today games where most players are not even interested in a polite chat and consequences in mmorpgs means boring sink times and letting guilds control entire servers.
Edited : Sorry, I should have said "favourite type of world" in a mmo setting instead of best.
Don't forget that this was 1999+ and a lot of people didn't even have computers and internet access, so 200,000 would be an easy number in todays technological world. Interdependency is not a fun concept in todays games because they're all based on single player activities. Working together (or against each other) has always been the focus of multiplayer games, that's why they're multiplayer in the first place. You don't make a multiplayer game just to have a bunch of people sitting around doing their own thing... oh wait, in modern MMO's you do.
An excellent point. Good grief did the internet turn to crap once all the regulars got machines. I knew it was the end when they were offering free PCs with any purchase of a double-wide. That was in 96-97. I miss those pristine early days of WWW before it filled up with, well, look at 99% of the comments anywhere.
(has flashback about Netscape and how cool it was to watch 128bit encryption be adopted across the web)
Alot of people started playing EQ back in the day, not because it was one of a few MMOs out there. EQ was one of two, UO being your other choice, and as for the masses knowing what mmorpg meant...forgeddaboudit. So there weren't folks sitting around going, damn I want to play a MMO, which one should I pick. No, a lot of the initial draw was because EQ was...OMG.... D&D + Doom!!!!111!1oneoneeleven. That particular magic is not going to happen again until we figure out what is past 3D gaming. VR, probably. Maybe?
That's nothing new. Way back in the early 80s, we'd lament the coming of the Christmas Kiddies, the people who got modems for Christmas and would flood the BBSes, in the days before the Internet, with their stupidity. I always laugh at people who think that being around 15 years ago makes them the grand old protectors of the online world. There was once a time when they were the newbies and those of us who have been around since before they were born rolled our eyes at their stupidity.
PSSH you are all pathetic. When I was young we didn't have a bunch of modems to do this for us. We built our networks by hand! With string and tin cans! When I see you people thinking you are better then others on the internet because of how long you have been using it I pick up the old can and have a good chortle with my friend. You ridiculous nincompoops.
Comments
You seriously think EQN is going to pull in 10 million subs? I just spit coffee all over my work computer and it has to be replaced.
Steam: Neph
The OP was obviously trolling...
With that said, in my opinion the success of EQ Next will be determined by what kind of game is available at release. The name EQ in the title will bring it quite a bit of initial subs, although as ESO and GW2 have proven a hyped title is not enough to keep people playing. You need a fairly polished game, with plenty of stuff to do, and a smooth launch.
Someone had mentioned 10 million subs, in my honest opinion I don't ever think we will see those kinds of numbers in an MMO again. I think most companies would be happy with a title that held onto 2 million subs for at least a year or two. I honestly don't think I would want to play a game with 10 million subs ever again as WoW proved to us that when that many people are paying $15 a month the only focus of the company is to keep everyone paying $15 a month for as long as possible at any cost, even at the expense of the game itself.
Because modern MMOs are not like EQ, and much better games. You don't think i would be here if all MMOs are like the ancient EQ, do you?
isn't EQN f2p? What subs?
You are not the only one that finds this strange. He certainly is quite chatty on this site.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
OP this is so flawed. Its like wishing for that 1st Model T again. They dont make them anymore. It was awesome because it was the only one the 1st one ever.
World of Warcraft comes along put a few mmo's in to one and BAM! Others have been trying to make that spark happen but it will never happen again.
Something has to change. ALL mmos are now almost the same. Quests, dungeons easy/hard, raiding get that armor, PVP. You get a bunch of NPC's put them all over the map and to this day you are still trying to figure out WHY and HOW did they get there. ALL just waiting to die.
What is so strange? When i want to talk about MMOs, i come here. When i want to play, i log into a game. No one says i need to do both at the same time.
You don't believe using the best entertainment product to have fun?
Is it? Damn, I won't be playing then. I don't buy into the whole f2p model, I think it creates a pay to win mindset where they can bleed money out of you by selling you end game loot instead of earning it. If they don't do so then they end up not having enough money to regularly put out content patches.
All and all I find the f2p model a terrible idea. What is wrong with paying for a service that is being provided? My gym charged me a signup fee, yet I still have monthly dues. I had to pay money when I purchased my cell phone, yet I still have a monthly bill. Never really understood why some gamers complain about a small charge each month so that the company can pay artists, developers, designers, etc so the company can keep releasing good content.
It makes less money because whales cannot spend an arm and a leg?
^ confused.
People said the same thing about old school rpgs and look at what happened.. Kickstarter has shown that their interest was wrong. Look at how well Legend of Grimrock sold.
All "AAA" means is that you have a company with huge overhead, screwed up management, and bloat.
" If they had any faith at all in the draw of revisiting original EQ they would be in the perfect position to finance and reap the rewards from it."
That isn't how this business works. Sequels, copying/cloning successful games, etc. Big publishers only play safe nowadays. That is why it took kickstarter to fund Broken Age, Wasteland 2, etc. It took an indie company to make Legend of Grimrock.
It would be a waste of time for former EQ developers to pitch their ideas over and over to deaf ears. Do you know how many times the Wasteland 2 creator pitched his idea? Do you know how many years of pitches it took to make Might and Magix X? It took the kickstarter successes to even consider a low budget version.
Yep four times as many voters in my poll last week hated F2P compared to those who loved it. So you aren't alone.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
How well Legend of Grimrock sold? How many millions?
I doubt any AAA dev will be interested if we are not talking about milions and millions here.
Why would they have any faith in a game that never even broke 1M subs?
EQs most subs concurrently was something along the lines of 600k or more. But Smed said over 5 million people have played Everquest as of like 2004 or something. And it wasn't free to play back then.
SOE made tons and tons and tons of profit off EQ. Complaining that it didn't have WoW's numbers is sort of like telling some multi millionaire he's a loser because he isn't Bill Gates.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
And why should devs be inspired by a mere millionaire when they can be inspired by Bill Gates? We are talking about following their footsteps here, not just appreciating.
Do you want to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, ... more than just some millionaire who wrote an APP? I thought people here are for challenges, and shooting for the sky?
While I remember and love all these flaws with nostalgia and rose tinted glasses, I don't think I could go back to old school games like this either. Far too much time spent just waiting around, instead of playing the game.
QFT - and quoted for brilliance. I wish we could round up every developer, put them in a huge auditorium and have your words on a screen repeatedly being read from some prerecorded narrator, over, and over, and over, ad naseum, until it finally sunk into the thick skulls of every fool with a corporate sponsor, that their games are utter crap until they redesign their fiscal predictions to include what would happen if something they actually fashioned was (drum roll)...fun.
Here I am playing free shards and old mmorpgs that barely have a pulse, so that I too can group with people, and experience every damn level with them. This solo nonsense fits in today's world of automatons - a world where entire troups of kids numbly exit their schools each day, cell phones in hand, eyes only upon their screens and not one another. The mmorpg industry is seemingly no different.
This .. in fact, is one of the biggest criticism of those games, and it is not by accident that most devs don't ask players to wait around for no good reason. That is bad for business.
Do you want to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, ... more than just some millionaire who wrote an APP? I thought people here are for challenges, and shooting for the sky?
Ok but their strategy for trying to be like Bill gates is to cut their hair in retard fashion, wear thick glasses, and boss everyone around, then wonder why they never came close.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
At least they have ambition.
Plus, LoL made $600M in 2013 .. not the billions and billions that Gates made ... but not too shabby, IMO.
An excellent point. Good grief did the internet turn to crap once all the regulars got machines. I knew it was the end when they were offering free PCs with any purchase of a double-wide. That was in 96-97. I miss those pristine early days of WWW before it filled up with, well, look at 99% of the comments anywhere.
(has flashback about Netscape and how cool it was to watch 128bit encryption be adopted across the web)
Alot of people started playing EQ back in the day, not because it was one of a few MMOs out there. EQ was one of two, UO being your other choice, and as for the masses knowing what mmorpg meant...forgeddaboudit. So there weren't folks sitting around going, damn I want to play a MMO, which one should I pick. No, a lot of the initial draw was because EQ was...OMG.... D&D + Doom!!!!111!1oneoneeleven. That particular magic is not going to happen again until we figure out what is past 3D gaming. VR, probably. Maybe?
That's just, like, my opinion, man.
That's nothing new. Way back in the early 80s, we'd lament the coming of the Christmas Kiddies, the people who got modems for Christmas and would flood the BBSes, in the days before the Internet, with their stupidity. I always laugh at people who think that being around 15 years ago makes them the grand old protectors of the online world. There was once a time when they were the newbies and those of us who have been around since before they were born rolled our eyes at their stupidity.
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
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PSSH you are all pathetic. When I was young we didn't have a bunch of modems to do this for us. We built our networks by hand! With string and tin cans! When I see you people thinking you are better then others on the internet because of how long you have been using it I pick up the old can and have a good chortle with my friend. You ridiculous nincompoops.