Old school communities weren't all that great.

Kiyoris

I don't think they were all that great. Maybe it's because I visited the pantheon forums and saw so many nastyness, that I'm reminded that old school communities used to have just as many jerks as games do now.

I completely forgot we had just as many bad apples as MMO now, if not more.

I forgot there were elitists, I forgot there were jerks, I forget there were people who trained, I forgot you had PK killers. I forgot we had killstealers. I forgot we had hackers.  I forgot we had gankers.

I forgot there were people's who's only goal in the game, was to make your life a living hell.

And because death cost you XP, it allowed them to drive people far enough until they quit the game. It was easy for them to destroy other people's fun. That's part of the reason people were also upset at heavy death penalties, someone putting you in a death loop on purpose, would completely ruin your fun.

You only remember the good things of old MMO, not the bad.

Vorthanion

There is good and bad in any situation where people are involved.  What is most striking is the difference in the size and depth of community compared to most modern games.  With gameplay geared to be twitch and everything being instanced and isolating, it's no wonder there is less community now than there was back when games were slower paced and were more focused on social systems and virtual worlds over today's bunny hopping arcade extravaganzas.

ste2000

You just described every MMO community right there.
But I am positive Old School Communities were much better than today's
If you behaved like a jerk you'll get zero invite in groups and you could just as well uninstall the game.
You could not solo easily in those games so you either behave and tried to get along with people or just quit.

How was Hello Kitty by the way?
Was it the bestest MMO evah?

Kiyoris

ste2000 said:

How was Hello Kitty by the way?
Was it the bestest MMO evah?

Haven't been able to log in yet.

It won't accept my login, so now I need to create a new email somewhere because it won't accept the same one.

I had to take off yesterday, might try again today.

ste2000

Oh dear............It's not a good start is it?

Amathe

I see the OP's point. But when people say the older games had a great community, they don't mean a jerk free population. They mean there was a sort of glue that held people together in the game. You needed other people. They needed you. If you acted badly, people tended to remember. 

Also, modern games tend to be designed around the expectation that you will win. They may challenge you as you journey, but they expect you to win. EQ never expected you to win. It would drop a high level mob right in the middle of a newbie zone, kill you, drink your tears as you make your naked corpse run and steal your lunch money. That type of design forged an "us against the game" mentality shared by most players, which gave everyone common cause. 

DrDread74

I think MMOs and games in general need to build some mechanics into there games to allow an outlet for this kind of behavior but they never do. These people are never going to go away but instead of trying to police them, devs should try to incorporate them into the game.

You can make it so you don't lose much of anything when killed by another player, it might even give you XP.

You can make it so when you've become murderous, you slowly become a "Bad guy" of the game. The normal friendly towns start to not interact with you and actually start to attack you on sight. But the evil towns or locations that are normally hostile to players become open. And when you are a "bad guy" when YOU die you lose a EVERYTHING, when YOU get attacked in your evil town, the guards don't help you. You essentially put yourself into a hardcore version of the game which is usually what they are after anyway. But you can also recruit a smallg group of Orcs from the Orc camp and attack a friendly town for XP. Normal players can defend with no risk and with XP gain for participating. Its a win win for everyone and makes the game far more interesting.

These player killers and jerks make THE BEST "Bad Guys" in the game

nariusseldon

Of course they are not great.

Back in the EQ days, you have trains, mob stealing, loot ningjaing, camp dramas and so on. It is not by accident that interactions in newer games are limited so that one player cannot spoil the fun of another.

ste2000

nariusseldon said:

Of course they are not great.

Back in the EQ days, you have trains, mob stealing, loot ningjaing, camp dramas and so on. It is not by accident that interactions in newer games are limited so that one player cannot spoil the fun of another.

I don't know if you meant it as a positive thing but, Trains, Mob Stealing, Camp Dramas made the game feel alive (Though I never been a big fan of ninja looting that's been always lame)
Players will police themselves, today the game does it for you, and it is not as fun as it was back then.

Vada_G

There were actually many more griefing and exploitable mechanics back then. The difference was that the games had other elements which increased accountability. From non-solo-able content, no group finders, crafting dependencies, etc. You really had to focus on your main toon to progress, and your reputation stuck to you. I remember this being the case during EQ and Vanilla WoW.

As the consumer base for MMORPGs grew, it became much harder for this accountability to be maintained (just way too many people), and in order to capture the larger base - many tools/gameplay features were added/changed that even further limited this accountability. I think the ratio of jerks initially going into games has been the same (obviously, more players = more jerks), but because of various gameplay mechanics, most of the jerks in the 90s didn't stay long in a game. It became a trade-off.. 

Kyleran

@ OP, you probably believe EVE has a terrible community, but you would be incorrect in thinking so.

All the bad elements EVE has today and early MMORPGS had in the past only served to encourage players to bond together against the common foe, forging much closer ties to even random strangers than typically occurs today.

Guess you had to be there.

nariusseldon

Kyleran said:

All the bad elements ..... of early MMORPGS had in the past only served to encourage players to bond together against the common foe, forging much closer ties to even random strangers than typically occurs today.

nah .. the bad elements encourage players to switch games. Like people switched to WOW from EQ.

(i erase the part about Eve since i only play a 21 day trial and don't want to include that in my comments.)

Flyte27

A lot of the memorable things in older games seem to come when you have something bad experiences that you overcome in game. 

I know most sane people aren't looking for that, but it did add some real obstacles to overcome that weren't made by the developer (who want's everyone to win and make money).

I also remember the forums and in game chat being a lot nastier, but to me that was normal and entertaining in many ways.  It doesn't fly in today's politically correct environment, but people were a lot more relaxed in terms of insulting comments.  Heated arguments that made little sense were something of a fun game to many antisocial deviants/introverts.

There seemed to be a lot more cliches when I was growing up as well.  Now it seems everyone is integrated and more respectful (political correctness again no doubt and also the knowledge available on the internet).

I still think things were more fun with the nasty, anti social, rude, irrational people that were around.  It made things a lot more interesting.  The bland politically correct lines and politeness can get old in game fairly quickly.  Especially with the way games are made today to be fairly simple in many regards (tutorials and guided paths).

Tamanous

Old mmorpg communities were indeed better than today.

Because the games themselves were better? Not the reason regardless of opinion.
Because the games were more group oriented? Part of the reason but not the main answer.

The main reason is because it was 15 years ago. Online attitudes and overall friendliness was better than today. It is due to the proliferation of the internet culture. Many more times the people are online today and online behavior is heavily influenced by modern social media. We can all agree it can be a very nasty place for many involved. A sense of entitlement and independence is strong and games have evolved to reflect this.

There are still online mmo communities that are very friendly as they are built upon good people. The real issue is that most mmos today provide very little reason to get involved with such people. I can log into games like ESO and Swtor and play 99% of the content without ever entering a guild. THAT is the real issue. You need a game that fosters community instead of isolation. That said, the modern internet culture will not support such a cooperative game. It will not have to be an uphill battle to retrain people into thinking socializing in games is a positive thing.

ste2000

nariusseldon said:

Kyleran said:

All the bad elements ..... of early MMORPGS had in the past only served to encourage players to bond together against the common foe, forging much closer ties to even random strangers than typically occurs today.

nah .. the bad elements encourage players to switch games. Like people switched to WOW from EQ.

(i erase the part about Eve since i only play a 21 day trial and don't want to include that in my comments.)

Not really.
WoW created a new player base.
EQ retained pretty much the same player base for many years.
EQ2 stole more players from EQ than WoW did (awful business decision from SoE)

nariusseldon

ste2000 said:

nariusseldon said:

Kyleran said:

All the bad elements ..... of early MMORPGS had in the past only served to encourage players to bond together against the common foe, forging much closer ties to even random strangers than typically occurs today.

nah .. the bad elements encourage players to switch games. Like people switched to WOW from EQ.

(i erase the part about Eve since i only play a 21 day trial and don't want to include that in my comments.)

Not really.
WoW created a new player base.
EQ retained pretty much the same player base for many years.
EQ2 stole more players from EQ than WoW did (awful business decision from SoE)

Have you actually looked at the facts? Here is a MMO sub chart in the time period of questions. Look at EQ .. it peaked at 550k a little after 2004, and a sharp drop to 200k by 2006.

You don't think losing more than 60% of its sub is "players switching away"? And even if those players are not switching away to wow (a huge drop right after 2004 seems to like a HUGE coincidence to me), they are switching away from EQ to something else, which is my point. 

Theocritus

The old school games did have its share of jerks but there was a safeguard in some of them.....It used to take so long to level that if your level 60 main was a total jerk people would learn the name and you wouldn't get invited to groups.

ste2000

Maybe it lost more player than I thought, but as I mentioned in my previous post that wasn't due to WoW, but the launch of EQ2, if you notice the EQ2 curve it equals pretty much what EQ is losing.
And were do you think EQ2 players came from?
I consider EQ+EQ2 the same player base, if you add the two games numbers it adds up to around 400K for few years.

On top of that, let's not kid ourselves, EQ had an awesome gameplay (IMO) but it could not compete with any of the newest MMO in terms of accessibility and graphics, that's why after playing EQ2 I could not get back to it.

Howbadisbad

DrDread74 said:

I think MMOs and games in general need to build some mechanics into there games to allow an outlet for this kind of behavior but they never do. These people are never going to go away but instead of trying to police them, devs should try to incorporate them into the game.

You can make it so you don't lose much of anything when killed by another player, it might even give you XP.

You can make it so when you've become murderous, you slowly become a "Bad guy" of the game. The normal friendly towns start to not interact with you and actually start to attack you on sight. But the evil towns or locations that are normally hostile to players become open. And when you are a "bad guy" when YOU die you lose a EVERYTHING, when YOU get attacked in your evil town, the guards don't help you. You essentially put yourself into a hardcore version of the game which is usually what they are after anyway. But you can also recruit a smallg group of Orcs from the Orc camp and attack a friendly town for XP. Normal players can defend with no risk and with XP gain for participating. Its a win win for everyone and makes the game far more interesting.

These player killers and jerks make THE BEST "Bad Guys" in the game

Player killers being heavily gimped is what killed off tree of life to be honest.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Yes there were always bad people in all communities.  You just knew who they wers.  These days you barely know anyone on your server.

Xiaoki

ste2000 said:

Maybe it lost more player than I thought, but as I mentioned in my previous post that wasn't due to WoW, but the launch of EQ2, if you notice the EQ2 curve it equals pretty much what EQ is losing.
And were do you think EQ2 players came from?
I consider EQ+EQ2 the same player base, if you add the two games numbers it adds up to around 400K for few years.

On top of that, let's not kid ourselves, EQ had an awesome gameplay (IMO) but it could not compete with any of the newest MMO in terms of accessibility and graphics, that's why after playing EQ2 I could not get back to it.

LOL What?!

People left EQ1 to go to EQ2 at launch then immediately left. Which is why EQ1 and EQ2 both had severe drops at the same time.

Seriously, are you even looking at the chart? EQ2 didnt overtake EQ1 until mid 2006.

And the only time after 2005 that both games would add up to around 400,000 is 2006 because in 2007 both games start dropping again.

But, hey, deny it all you want. Maybe it is only coincidence that EQ, DAoC, UO and SWG all began irreversible drops starting in 2004.

nariusseldon

ste2000 said:

Maybe it lost more player than I thought, but as I mentioned in my previous post that wasn't due to WoW, but the launch of EQ2, if you notice the EQ2 curve it equals pretty much what EQ is losing.
And were do you think EQ2 players came from?
I consider EQ+EQ2 the same player base, if you add the two games numbers it adds up to around 400K for few years.

Not really .. EQ2 got rid of many of the problems of EQ1 (camping and bad community) .. precisely the point of the topic. Whether EQ players went to EQ2 or WOW is because they were encouraged to leave games that promote bad behavior.

Not to mention by 2006, both EQ1 & EQ2 were down to below 200k .. which made a total of 400k. That is more than 27% of the EQ peak players (out of 550k) gone. Tell me, losing 27% of the EQ players .. that is not significant?

By 2008 .. both EQ1 & EQ2 were down to less than 150k (total of 300k) So in two years, they lost another 20%, and almost half compared to the height of 500k in 2004. So they lost ALMOST HALF of its players in 4 years.

Don't tell me those players were not switching to something else.

nariusseldon

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Yes there were always bad people in all communities.  You just knew who they wers.  These days you barely know anyone on your server.

Which is great .. no need to keep track of the bad and the good. 

Nanfoodle

There is good and bad in modern and old school games. Whats missing from the new games when it community is as follows. 

1. You name means nothing. You caused problems like you listed, your name got around and you were banned from most end game content by the players. So you had to quit or reroll and you learned not to be a jerk this time around. Not now, you just pay to change your name or servers and the problem keeps going.

2. Old school the community learned how to work together. You know your class and your roll in a team because you could not level without people. Your class was needed as well. A team was all about balancing and people used to ask. What class do we need with what classes we have. Now any class will do and most content getting to end game can be soloed. So most people dont know how to play their class with other people and they dont get to know people like we used to. People dont matter any more other then to fill a hole the rare time you need them.

If I had to pick the communities then and now. After 17 years of MMOing, I would pick the communities from EQ1, DAoC and SWG any day of the week. There was ways of dealing with jerks long term, you just dont have in todays new MMOs. You name means nothing in a game now, if its gets bad, 20 bucks you have a new name.

nariusseldon

Nanfoodle said:

There is good and bad in modern and old school games. Whats missing from the new games when it community is as follows. 

1. You name means nothing. You caused problems like you listed, your name got around and you were banned from most end game content by the players. So you had to quit or reroll and you learned not to be a jerk this time around. Not now, you just pay to change your name or servers and the problem keeps going.

2. Old school the community learned how to work together. You know your class and your roll in a team because you could not level without people. Your class was needed as well. A team was all about balancing and people used to ask. What class do we need with what classes we have. Now any class will do and most content getting to end game can be soloed. So most people dont know how to play their class with other people.

If I had to pick the communities then and now. After 17 years of MMOing, I would pick the communities from EQ1, DAoC and SWG any day of the week. There was ways of dealing with jerks long term, you just dont have in todays new MMOs. You name means nothing in a game now, if its gets bad, 20 bucks you have a new name.

None of that sounds bad to me.

"Name means nothing" = you can play as you want in a sea of strangers. If someone don't like it, he can play with someone else. A group is always just a click away.

"learned how to work together" = even better .. don't have to waste time to coordinate with a bunch of people. Again i can play as I want. If i don't like someone (he is not playing well, don't listen ...), exit is just a click away. And it goes both ways. No one has to tolerate me, and I don't have to tolerate anyone for any reason.

madazz

Kiyoris said:

I don't think they were all that great. Maybe it's because I visited the pantheon forums and saw so many nastyness, that I'm reminded that old school communities used to have just as many jerks as games do now.

I completely forgot we had just as many bad apples as MMO now, if not more.

I forgot there were elitists, I forgot there were jerks, I forget there were people who trained, I forgot you had PK killers. I forgot we had killstealers. I forgot we had hackers.  I forgot we had gankers.

I forgot there were people's who's only goal in the game, was to make your life a living hell.

And because death cost you XP, it allowed them to drive people far enough until they quit the game. It was easy for them to destroy other people's fun. That's part of the reason people were also upset at heavy death penalties, someone putting you in a death loop on purpose, would completely ruin your fun.

You only remember the good things of old MMO, not the bad.

I don't think OP actually participated in MMO's back in the 90's. The communities were fantastic. In EQ everyone had to work really hard together to achieve goals. In UO you had gankers who hunted, those who hunted gankers, those who went after bounties, those who tried to ignore pvp. In DAOC there was so many people willing to help you are include you in a group. You never had to spend too long to get in a group for Darkness Falls or most dungeons for that matter. Early WoW was also great too. SWG was amazing as most know. It just goes on and on. 

You can pretend that people are looking through rose coloured glasses, but you'd be wrong. There is a reason we (people who actually played back then) would subscribe to a game for not just a couple months, but for years. It was because the community drove us. I am not a super social person in most games. But I always ended up making friends. Now a days there is no real community. Everything is meant to be RNG. 

So please, before you make a comment about old school mmo's, talk to someone who actually played them and don't spew out BS.