As, I said you're point out spawn camping. The game world was a lot harder. Others have point out the differences. I have played modern MMOPRGs to my 30's where I simply never died. Everquest you could die easily to things you simply couldn't control from level 1. If you died somewhere bad it was hard to get your body back. If you died you lost something.
Not untrue .. but again, spawn camping is 99% of the game, including leveling & gearing up.
If you want games with 1% very hard content .. you don't have to go back to EQ. WOW hardcore raid is hard. D3 Greater Rift pushing is hard.
And EQ has the added disadvantage that not only spawn camping is easy mode, it is boring (to me) compared to running instanced dungeons. At least you get to kill different stuff.
You have a couple of things wrong.
First spawn camping is not easy mode. It had a lot higher risk of death then any of the solo content or group content in MMOs today. It's been pointed out why this is many times. Generally because the mobs were artificially harder, there were wandering mobs, large aggro radius, trains, pathing issues, mobs that never stopped following you, etc. You also needed to be able to split up groups of mobs which required some measure of skill. It wasn't just run in and kill whatever attacks you like most solo content and even group content int today's MMOs.
I would again point out that those games offered far more freedom even if you consider the only activity to be killing things (which is pretty much what modern MMOs offer as well). There was a complex set of factions throughout the game. There were more utility spells in EQ than any game I've ever played. A lot of them were just fun stuff like being able to take the illusion of another race to overcome racism. Another would be growing and shrinking characters to different sizes. It's true that you mostly would just focus on killing different things, but your choice of what to kill was infinite. Based on what you chose to kill would often go along with your class and it's abilities. Clerics and Paladins were good against undead. Druids and Rangers were good against animals. Necromancers were shunned everywhere so pretty much anything goes with them. They often had hidden places to go to buy spells in the sewers since no one liked them. This was often difficult to find without help. Really though the sky was the limit on where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do. There was no direction or guidance. There were no instances or mob variance in difficulty. There were no specific items for specific classes. Most people started with cloth armor no matter what class they were. There were no sets or colors to differentiate items. It was just go out and wing it. That was the best part. Not having someone telling you what needs to be done or what to do. You just go out in the persistent world and figure things out as you go. This resulted in things like bazaars being formed, social areas being formed, and different social tendencies like coming up with ways to share camps. It all added to the great player formed society in the games.
As, I said you're point out spawn camping. The game world was a lot harder. Others have point out the differences. I have played modern MMOPRGs to my 30's where I simply never died. Everquest you could die easily to things you simply couldn't control from level 1. If you died somewhere bad it was hard to get your body back. If you died you lost something.
Not untrue .. but again, spawn camping is 99% of the game, including leveling & gearing up.
If you want games with 1% very hard content .. you don't have to go back to EQ. WOW hardcore raid is hard. D3 Greater Rift pushing is hard.
And EQ has the added disadvantage that not only spawn camping is easy mode, it is boring (to me) compared to running instanced dungeons. At least you get to kill different stuff.
Do you really think spawn camping was a piece of cake? Do you think its like current games where you can you DPS everything and it dies and you're probably stronger than the whole crowd solo mobs? Mobs were stronger than you individually in most cases where it was worth camp spawning. Sometimes even if they were "weaker" than you. You also had to deal with special abilities, wandering mobs, runners who called for help, players training on you. Sounds like you never really played the game.
You wouldn't want to play old MMO's. The standard back then was totally unforgiving & unrewarding. Games actually do that now and people complain... lol.
Lets compare to say Everquest one of the most popular MMO's for its time.
1. Racial & class exp penalties.
I played a troll shadowknight. People used to complain saying that when I joined their group exp slowed down. Sometimes people wouldn't group with Troll Shadowknights. Turns out they were right. Due to troll shadowknights racial & class exp penalties they sucked more exp per kill from everything which reduced the rest of the groups exp. Verant would later remove this after many years of denial.
2. Vanilla EQ had 2 dungeons for end game
There was Solusek B & Lower Guk for levelling to 50. That was it. Back then you had to zone in & ask to get on lists for a group. Nothing was instanced. Wherever a named npc spawed a group would sit and wait and kill stuff. Sometimes the named wouldn't even spawn you'd get a placeholder. So you'd sit there for hours killing the same shit hoping for the named npc to spawn. If you were lucky to get into a group. If you didn't get a group you'd be killing guards outside cities. That was it !
3. Quest givers didn't have ! above their heads.
You actually had to type key words to trigger quests... npc's would talk and their dialogue would have key words that led to other options but you had to actually type the key word to trigger that.
4. Hell levels.
Once you get to level 30, every 5 levels after was called a hell level. Verant would eventually acknowlege & remove this but to be honest they were fucking horrible. So you'd get to 35 and find damn.. exp is super slow. Turned out yes every 5 levels took double the exp to get through. You'd be farming for 3 hours and get half a bubble of exp. If you died you lost almost 2 bubbles of exp.
5. Death & Corpse Runs
If you died you not only lost exp & possibly a level but you'd respawn wherever you were bound. You could get bound outside cities. Then you'd run naked all the way back to your corpse to loot items.
6. Racism
Different factions were killed on sight. I played a troll shadowknight who worshipped Cazic Thule who was pretty much the Satan of the universe. My poor TSK was killed on sight EVERYWHERE in the game world other then a few evil cities, even then tney let the godamn froglock race have the hometown of Grobb and moved trolls into Dark Elves city.
7. Quests sucked
Quests usually required a ridiculous amount of time & effort by 20+ people for miniscule rewards. They'd often require rare drop items from rare spawning npc's that you'd hand in for something that wasn't even that great. When I say rare spawn in some cases you'd get one per week. Or you'd have to form raids to get your quest done and hopefully everyone was into helping otherwise you got jack.
8. No instances
Everything open world.. sound good ? Nope. Once guilds could actually raid stuff you'd enter a so called raid area and find the entire place cleared with a respawn of couple days. Guilds had to make schedules for raiding so everyone had their chance & if you had one guild that said F-you and took it all guess what you couldn't do shit.
+1 for truth. I never want to go back to any of this crap. Newer games really aren't easier, the fact is we just suck less. We're used to raid mechanics and theorycrafting. Back then everything was new. The games were new, and we were new. Furthermore, most of the 'challenge' of older games came from obtuse mechanics and massive time sinks designed to make up for the fact that they had little to no actual content.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
+1 for truth. I never want to go back to any of this crap. Newer games really aren't easier, the fact is we just suck less. We're used to raid mechanics and theorycrafting. Back then everything was new. The games were new, and we were new. Furthermore, most of the 'challenge' of older games came from obtuse mechanics and massive time sinks designed to make up for the fact that they had little to no actual content.
Older games were harder. Really, I rarely die in todays MMOs and died a lot in the old ones (and no, I ain't playing better).
The time consument is a different thing though, it has nothing to do with difficulty at all. If you need 1 hour or 20 hours for a level doesn't actually mean that it is harder but if you die 1 times in 5 hours or 20 times tells us something.
Almost all games were harder 20 years ago, a lot harder. Try playing the original Diablo if you don't believe me, even the easiest level were challenging to a new player.
MMOs also were more confusing, no wiki and no hints helping you out with the quests and dungeons. I don't miss that part even if many games do take this too far now, letting you click on a quest to autorun to it and similar things.
Outside of PVP I have never played a 'difficult' or ' hard' MMORPG. The only thing you need for this genre is time, not skill. EQ was not harder, it was just more time consuming. This was simply because of lack of actual content, they made everything take 10 times longer. Some players gave that the label ' depth' because they needed meaning where non was given. MMORPGs these days have a shitload of stuff to do, it only takes a lot less time to actually get anything done and this is being labelled as ' dumbed down.' Killing 1000 skeletons is just as hard as killing 10 skeletons to gain a level, not hard at all. Same goes with traveling, watching your screen for 15 minutes as your character rides a horse from one end of the forrest to the other isn't 'deeper' then watching your screen for 15 seconds as your character flies over that same forrest on a flying gryphon.
I could go on and on. More skills on a skill bar does not equal depth (Damn you EQ2 and your ridiculous bloat!). Confusing crafting systems does not make a more meaningful experience. A messy UI with lots of windows and clickable buttons does not make for a more mature game.
I am not saying older games are worse but I sure as hell ain't saying the modern games are. It is just different and people that keep bashing one or the other just seem really immature, or ones completely out of touch with the genre, aka dinosaurs .
/Cheers, Lahnmir
I can agree with this. The only difference is how soon you reach the content drought. Developers should pace their game so that most of their players won't reach the end until more content is implemented.
It's nice if even super casuals who play only few hours a week can progress in a game, but if that means the majority of your players gets max lvl in 2 weeks and hits the progression cap in end game 2 weeks later and then wait 9 months for more content, you know the game is badly designed.
There were a range of games in days long past, some "easy" some "grindy" - don't want to use the word hard. And there are a range of games today some "easy" and some "grindy". (Won't say hard, agree with the concept that time is the big factor).
Some game had / have filler as well - waiting for boats in EQ1 say. So a game that removed a lot of filler could feel swift - DAoC say, didn't take long to max out. Whereas Destiny - a modern game - has been accused of having "loadsa grind".
In short there was variation twenty years ago and there is now.
Umm there are tons of games with looting corpses, building your character how you want, great housing and everything old games had. Try stuff like Albion Online, Shards, Shroud of the Avatar and many more of these "sandbox" or "hardcore" MMORPGs.
Sick of people talking about the great old days, games nowadays have all that those had and more.
There were a range of games in days long past, some "easy" some "grindy" - don't want to use the word hard. And there are a range of games today some "easy" and some "grindy". (Won't say hard, agree with the concept that time is the big factor).
Some game had / have filler as well - waiting for boats in EQ1 say. So a game that removed a lot of filler could feel swift - DAoC say, didn't take long to max out. Whereas Destiny - a modern game - has been accused of having "loadsa grind".
In short there was variation twenty years ago and there is now.
But sadly these people, will never understand that. Grandpas sitting on front porchs talking about back in there day........yet what they want does exist in games today, they choose to be a**hats and not move on to them.
I would put part of the blame on the internet itself. Before the internet, Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't know what each other was up to, so each one of them was in thier own world just plugging and chugging away, nothing to be envious of, nothing to spoil the surprise, no one saying oh yeah I did that already. Everything was more of mystery before you could just Google or YouTube it, Google and Youtube have made the world even smaller than it was even outside of video games.
While EQ1 is still limping along, we can't call it healthy. Some of its original contemporaries are, too; others are not.
Its prime "Evil Empire" competition could not possibly have survived a decade, right? Yet it has.
We'll find out in five or eight years if this mystical "longevity" exists, for any of the newer titles. Some of them have already exceeded their "Its Dead" doomsayers predictions by several years. But wait, they don't count, they're just clinging to life...
But does "clinging to life 'cause we've still got a fragment of our peak population" prove anything useful?
(P.S. Offer your populace "rares/uniques", and they'll hang on to protect their Sunk Cost Fallacy "valuables" (virtually) forever. Does that mean the game's better?)
While EQ1 is still limping along, we can't call it healthy. Some of its original contemporaries are, too; others are not.
Its prime "Evil Empire" competition could not possibly have survived a decade, right? Yet it has.
We'll find out in five or eight years if this mystical "longevity" exists, for any of the newer titles. Some of them have already exceeded their "Its Dead" doomsayers predictions by several years. But wait, they don't count, they're just clinging to life...
But does "clinging to life 'cause we've still got a fragment of our peak population" prove anything useful?
(P.S. Offer your populace "rares/uniques", and they'll hang on to protect their Sunk Cost Fallacy "valuables" (virtually) forever. Does that mean the game's better?)
I am not talking about what games still exist. I am talking about how 10 years ago and earlier, the time that a player would spend in a given game consecutively, was measured in moths (years?) where as now, it's weeks.....if that.
Older games were harder. Really, I rarely die in todays MMOs and died a lot in the old ones (and no, I ain't playing better).
Sorry, but dying more often doesn't make a game harder. Why did you die more often in (e.g.) EQ? Because the game was filled with group only mobs, which required specific group setups, and no matter how skilled you were, you'd die if you didn't have one of those setups.
Want to do something fun, hard and different in any of today's MMORPGs? Do an Iron Man challenge. That means going to max level with a character of your choice withou dying once. If you die, you have to delete the character and start from scratch. I did that in both GW2 and WoW, and trust me, that's hard. You have to get rid of all your habits and be very skilled and careful.
I think that one of the main thing that changed with today's MMORPG gamers compared to before is that the new generation is unable to set its own challenges. They need everything pre-made in cookie cutter fashion or they are lost. That's why older gamers I'm thankfully part of are still able to find fun and challenge in modern games, because we play those games like we were playing the old ones, and not like an Excel spreadsheet which numbers you have to increase.
In what world do you live in that stronger NPCS isn't part of a harder difficulty? And again it's focus on one aspect of why EQ was harder to try to dismiss the whole thing. 90% of hard difficulty has stronger NPCs.
EQ had uncontrollable variables as well. Again wandering NPCs, trains, spell fizzles, inability to easily escape combat, NPCs running for help, NPCS that assist like kinds, NPCs returning from chasing someone attack.
Things that happen in game that make a game harder to play = more difficult.
GeezerGamer said: I am not talking about what games still exist. I am talking about how 10 years ago and earlier, the time that a player would spend in a given game consecutively, was measured in moths (years?) where as now, it's weeks.....if that.
The effect of years of experience, a shorter effective lifetime for any new title For A Veteran (jaded) Player.
New Players (go figure) don't seem to be subject to this effect.
Is the game to blame, or the player's overexposure to the Formula?
Umm there are tons of games with looting corpses, building your character how you want, great housing and everything old games had. Try stuff like Albion Online, Shards, Shroud of the Avatar and many more of these "sandbox" or "hardcore" MMORPGs.
Sick of people talking about the great old days, games nowadays have all that those had and more.
Nope, new games are missing longevity.
No, just no. Way to massively simplify things just to support your own views. Khameleon mentions games that have more substance and depth your precious old games ever did and you blindly dismiss it. it is easy to say these games are lacking longevity if you are not even looking for it, how shallow.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
You wouldn't want to play old MMO's. The standard back then was totally unforgiving & unrewarding. Games actually do that now and people complain... lol.
Lets compare to say Everquest one of the most popular MMO's for its time.
1. Racial & class exp penalties.
I played a troll shadowknight. People used to complain saying that when I joined their group exp slowed down. Sometimes people wouldn't group with Troll Shadowknights. Turns out they were right. Due to troll shadowknights racial & class exp penalties they sucked more exp per kill from everything which reduced the rest of the groups exp. Verant would later remove this after many years of denial.
2. Vanilla EQ had 2 dungeons for end game
There was Solusek B & Lower Guk for levelling to 50. That was it. Back then you had to zone in & ask to get on lists for a group. Nothing was instanced. Wherever a named npc spawed a group would sit and wait and kill stuff. Sometimes the named wouldn't even spawn you'd get a placeholder. So you'd sit there for hours killing the same shit hoping for the named npc to spawn. If you were lucky to get into a group. If you didn't get a group you'd be killing guards outside cities. That was it !
3. Quest givers didn't have ! above their heads.
You actually had to type key words to trigger quests... npc's would talk and their dialogue would have key words that led to other options but you had to actually type the key word to trigger that.
4. Hell levels.
Once you get to level 30, every 5 levels after was called a hell level. Verant would eventually acknowlege & remove this but to be honest they were fucking horrible. So you'd get to 35 and find damn.. exp is super slow. Turned out yes every 5 levels took double the exp to get through. You'd be farming for 3 hours and get half a bubble of exp. If you died you lost almost 2 bubbles of exp.
5. Death & Corpse Runs
If you died you not only lost exp & possibly a level but you'd respawn wherever you were bound. You could get bound outside cities. Then you'd run naked all the way back to your corpse to loot items.
6. Racism
Different factions were killed on sight. I played a troll shadowknight who worshipped Cazic Thule who was pretty much the Satan of the universe. My poor TSK was killed on sight EVERYWHERE in the game world other then a few evil cities, even then tney let the godamn froglock race have the hometown of Grobb and moved trolls into Dark Elves city.
7. Quests sucked
Quests usually required a ridiculous amount of time & effort by 20+ people for miniscule rewards. They'd often require rare drop items from rare spawning npc's that you'd hand in for something that wasn't even that great. When I say rare spawn in some cases you'd get one per week. Or you'd have to form raids to get your quest done and hopefully everyone was into helping otherwise you got jack.
8. No instances
Everything open world.. sound good ? Nope. Once guilds could actually raid stuff you'd enter a so called raid area and find the entire place cleared with a respawn of couple days. Guilds had to make schedules for raiding so everyone had their chance & if you had one guild that said F-you and took it all guess what you couldn't do shit.
God when you list it like that it does look pretty bad. I suffered through it all since I think I played from May of 1999 and long after Velious as a wizard. Lot of time invested in that game and a lot of emotions well up when I think about it. However if you ask me now if I'd play a game like that I would have to say no. That is because in hindsight the game was not that great it was the people I met that made the game great.
Everything from WOTLK on killed MMOS for me and yes the dumbing down of content. I can understand not making anymore BRD 8 hour long Dungeons because people have less time BUT that does not mean Ramparts, or Stratholme, or Deadmines or any of the other 60 to 90 minute dungeons if your group knew what they were doing were not done right. But like the OP today's games are not the answer and I will say the new games coming up that are all kickstarters are not the answer either. Because I dont have 10 hours non stop to farm the Shadow Wyrm room like I did in UO when I was 18. I need Vanilla/TBC WOW again and no I do not give a rats ass about 5+ month leveling accept if its WOW again. I just leveled so many times in WOW I just cannot do it again, ever. 10+ alts that were max level in MOP, plus leveled another 10 more alts to around level 80? Yea no thank you.
In what world do you live in that stronger NPCS isn't part of a harder difficulty?
NPCs which require 3 people to kill instead of 1 aren't harder. They just require more people.
Just balance NPCs to do a higher damage/health damage ratio to you than you will ever be able to do to it no matter how skilled you are, and taaadaaa!!! you have EQ's leveling. That definitely doesn't make them harder.
I suppose if you want to take it down to its simplest equation , then this would apply .. But there were/is mobs in EQ and other games that take a bit more effort than that .. When other classes are needed for heals , debuffs, interrupts, dps burts taunts..etc... its not as easy as that .. Altho after you do it enough and you have 3-4 w/e # of players knowing and doing there jobs it can become easier ...
But this not what todays Red Bull chuggin Xbox generation wants .. They want fast instant gratification , and participation soccer trophies like they have gotten there entire lives...They want to be able to do everything themsleves , which has dumbed down many mechanics in todays games ... (altho there are some good games out there)
What worse imo is the resources that devs waste catering to solo players in an MMO enviroment , (now waste to them isnt waste, as it targets there audience that spends more money , i get that ) but if those resources would be better spent developing group mechanics we would have Better more immersive in depth MMORPGs ... not these solo-centric messes many games have evolved into ...
What i dont get is why do the solo players want this so badly ( the endless whining on every game forums ) how they cant solo X Or why cant they have X gear like the Raider has ..." why cant i pay money to " lmfao ... Or .. is it just to have chat window... is it just a Look at Mee... i am player 1,287,659 to solo X mob and got this cool cape ..
I mean there are great solo games out there .. Dragon Dogma the latest .. and just open a chat system with some friends ..
Im hoping Pantheon can deliver for the market that wants more of a group centric old school game .. But i have my reservations .. as even when Vanguard launched from the same team (BM) the forums were assaulted with ..." I want fast travel .. " I cant tell how hard that mob is .. wahhhh plz put dots over there heads .... lmfao .....
I could go on ... but ... mehh ... its imo ....and i realize that is a minority in todays gaming world ...
/facepalm indead mr. Picard. A huge fuckin facepalm to the face of common sense.
Ah, a "you are wrong" post without any argumentation. How original. The EQ1 world was exactly like I posted it... mobs with a too high damage/health ratio to be killed alone. With a couple of other people, it was utterly mindless grinding, without even the story that comes with it in more modern quest based theme park games.
With the right classes and strategies you could kill any warrior class mob solo, but I don't think the intention was to have people solo. That's why everything was what would be considered elite level in current games. I always found breaking up the mobs during solo was risky. I would often play classes like Druid and Necromancer in EQ because they had a wide array of solo skills like snare, movement speed, invisibility, lull, feign death, damage over time, and healing. I often found that it was very possible to die even in safe places from wandering mobs. I remember fighting in east comonlands against snakes and would often have something sneak up on me and kill me when I was sitting at the zone wall. The snakes had a poison bite that could easily kill you if you had not way to heal yourself. There was also a shadow knight and sand giant of high level that wandered around zone killing everyone.
Disregarding mob difficulty having wandering mobs, increased aggro radius, and mobs that would follow you until you hit the zone line made dying a lot more likely.
The inflated mob difficulty did have an impact in groups as it meant making a mistake and being efficient was a bit more important. Usually you needed someone to pull the mobs and that required some skill so as not to pull to many accidentally. You needed a good CCer and off tank to take care adds that the tank couldn't handle on their own. DPS had to hold off so as not to draw aggro from others. You had to be careful of mobs wandering in as they could one shout an important group member like CC or healer and then the group was dead. Due to the time it took to take down mobs respawn time was a concern. The mobs might start respawning to quickly for your group to handle and possible right on top of a low armored character.
In the end there were just a lot more factors you had to think about. You couldn't really relax and go through the motions unless you were soloing or grouping in a really safe spot, but most people didn't because the best experience and loot came from mobs that were clustered together in large groups with
Wow. Auto-pathing? Quest map markers? Instant fast travel? Dungeon finder? Leveling while AFK/Offline?
Oh my gosh, there's so many ways to raise up all your variable indicators in video games without actually having to do the R, P, or G in RPG. Yes these games are massively multiplayer and they have WOWZOR graphics and really neat animations and excellent music.
I spent the last weekend playing Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III for those of you in Rio Linda,) and realized the same things have happened in Oblivion and Skyrim / Fallout NV and Fallout V. Even the single player games are getting worse not better. Some how game developers think games are better when you have to be less invested in them. You go on there, next next next, fast travel, accomplish mission, look for next quest indicator, have no idea what you just did or why you did it, but YAY you finished a quest.
I remember spending 3-4 hours in the afternoon farming skeletons in a dungeon. It wasn't dreary or monotonous... We were looking for epic loot, it was 0.00001% for the epic loot, but me and 3 or 4 people I didn't know would have some of the greatest conversations while doing it. The games were super fun. Max level? End Game?? What's that?
The problem is not the grind, or lack of grind, it's purely the presentation. Games have gotten so focused on removing all essence of grind, that it's usually a slippy slide to max level, then an ATARI game once you get there. That's why these games die, once people get to the bottom of the slippy slide and realize they don't care for the ATARI game, they come back on these forums looking for the next one.
So here are my list of things that are obviously getting scraped off of games that's making them less fun: Time investment, critical thinking (Figuring out what you're supposed to do, and where you're supposed to go,) social interaction (dungeon instafinder,) decisions, consequences, and risk/reward (just reward).
Oh, you clicked the exclamation point guy, here's you're new sword!!!!! YAYYYY. I want to puke, you don't have to earn anything on games anymore, you're just supposed to spend 3 days clicking next and auto-pathing in line with all the gold-farm bots. What happened to crafting your gear, or rounding up friends to go try to take down a big monster that might drop it. LOL even the big monsters are easy now, I remember back in the day raid bosses were usually failures and guilds would take turns pulling them.
Can 1 developer, just 1, please, download Morrowind and play it for 24 hours in-game time. Can just 1 download... Well, I was going to say Lineage 2, but it's been made over into a 'modern game' lol. I was going to say put 8 hours into the original Runescape, but I don't think they let you do that either. Ultima Online? Try it for 6 hours for the concepts, no I don't want the graphics. Forget you ever saw WoW, it's not to be replicated, the reason there's the drought of amazing games is because of the constant incessant attempts at bringing WoW elements into other games.
Hah, lets even follow the progression of WoW. Vanilla: With a baseline of quest indicators and other things we really hadn't seen before, lots of talents (hundreds of viable builds), very expensive to change them. Black rock depths was a dungeon most casual players couldn't finish. Getting to the entrance of the dungeon with your group was a task of itself, really meant if you died in the dungeon it was going to be even more frustrating. Timed dungeons where if you weren't really good you'd actually fail the dungeon. ... Molten core? Youtube: MC Raiders "We ain't got no lifffeee" BWL, 90% couldn't get past the first boss. BC: Missed it won't pretend. WOTLK: I played this one. A lot less talents by now, less decisions, more similar character builds. In fact, it got to where you weren't viable unless you put your points in the right places so there were like 20 to 25 viable builds per class. Easy / Hard mode dungeon, so everyone can win!! Play easymode until your gear = X then go to hard mode and maybe fail a dungeon once or twice, but then back to winning. (Did dungeon finder come at the end) Cataclysm: Dungeonfinder!!!! Now I can troll global chat in Orgrimmar while getting ready for my dungeon. Even less talents, Down to like 15 viable builds per class. Rated battlegrounds were freaking awesome. If you enter a dungeon you can finish it, you might wipe once or twice, but you can finish it, no problem. (Raids are still hard) Pandas: Raidfinder!!! Now I don't have to get a group for that either. Less talents, down to like 8 viable builds. Got mad and quit about the talent dumbing down. Now: Almost to atari game.
Just to show you how over the last 10 years games have been made more narrow and freedom has been traded for fairness. Risk/Reward has been traded for quest rewards. Even social grouping has been traded for random grouping.
Argh!
These damnable young people! Sheesh they just don't understand what it was like to really have to work at having fun! Why I ought to just spank the lot of those young whippersnappers!
Imagine having to try and get back into game because of antiquated game servers! The nerve of these young'uns! Why the type of computers they demand to play such simple drivel just sends me over the moon! Why you'd think we would need computers from NASA. wouldn't you?
Have a look at this you young whippersnappers and be glad you have us older curmudgeons to learn from!
LOL, enjoy folks...I think it was Einstein that said time is relative, or something like that...
Alyn
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
/facepalm indead mr. Picard. A huge fuckin facepalm to the face of common sense.
Ah, a "you are wrong" post without any argumentation. How original. The EQ1 world was exactly like I posted it... mobs with a too high damage/health ratio to be killed alone. With a couple of other people, it was utterly mindless grinding, without even the story that comes with it in more modern quest based theme park games.
Yeah the original idea of having enemies that were basically gestalt in comparison to the characters was to encourage group play, not make the game harder as some people think. MMORPGs in the traditional sense came from table top games that had enemies meant to be tackled by groups of players. The trouble that MMORPGs ran into was that it often ended up being more efficient to grind the enemies than get rewarded for adventures to gain experience points, or the game simply didn't award experience for completing an adventure.
I don't think there was anything wrong with pre-lfg group play forcing people to socially interact with one another and enter a commitment to play for x amount of time. It's just what we had to work with at the time was utterly boring tripe that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy these days.
Also, games are going through a lot of evolution with swapping and borrowing systems from one another right now. The big sweep that has happened (which is hitting both single player and multiplayer titles) is the inclusion of social modules. People like to show off and share with one another, and that is a very powerful hook that easily covers for poor game design. MMOs are in a dying state at the moment because many are shit designed mouse traps that completely relied on social modules to keep afloat.
The snakes had a poison bite that could easily kill you if you had not way to heal yourself.
And that is HARD in your book? Jeez, I'm glad that my definition of hard doesn't rely on some random mechanism you can do nothing against unless you're of the right race/class combo.
I think Hard is not the word that is intended here or in this thread ... As more so these game mechainics encourged and in many ways forced group play ... Nothin g in any of these games is HARD ... nothing at all .... just challenges to enjoy and learn your way thru .. Some folks find more challenge in group content , and enjoy assembling a group that can take down a dragon or qwikly cure that inadvertent snake bite ... And so,me folks enjoy .. curing that snake bite ...
Umm there are tons of games with looting corpses, building your character how you want, great housing and everything old games had. Try stuff like Albion Online, Shards, Shroud of the Avatar and many more of these "sandbox" or "hardcore" MMORPGs.
Sick of people talking about the great old days, games nowadays have all that those had and more.
Nope, new games are missing longevity.
No, just no. Way to massively simplify things just to support your own views. Khameleon mentions games that have more substance and depth your precious old games ever did and you blindly dismiss it. it is easy to say these games are lacking longevity if you are not even looking for it, how shallow.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Yes, just yes. And it is that simple. Games used to be designed for a prolonged experience with slow small steady rewards over time. Now, it's all about instant gratification quick and easy rewards given for nothing more than logging in. As if that was even an exaggeration now. It isn't. There's no need to keep logging into a game for 12 months when I have everything out of it after 2.
By the way, you claim I am "supporting my views" but then you go on to counter it with your own subjectivity. I suppose you can verify that games currently have "more substance and depth" than my "precious old games" ever did? and that I "blindly" dismissed it (What is "it" here that I have blindly dismissed anyway?) And what exactly do you know what and how I have looked for in newer games? And end it with an Ad-Hom to punctuate your post. Nice one.
Yes, just yes. And it is that simple. Games used to be designed for a prolonged experience with slow small steady rewards over time. Now, it's all about instant gratification quick and easy rewards given for nothing more than logging in. As if that was even an exageration now. It isn't.
The lengthy leveling process was only put in place to keep you subbed as long as possible. The mechanics didn't require the lengthy leveling as they were very simple to master.
Now a sub isn't required gamers can no choose to speed through the content to the part of the game they find fun/challenging.
GeezerGamer said: There's no need to keep logging into a game for 12 months when I have everything out of it after 2.
Exceeding familiarity with the Formula comes with a price.
Such a steep price, you don't even need to play the game (at all) before critiquing it. You already know exactly what to expect from "games these days."
Purchase it? You'd only be paying money for your confirmation bias. Why bother?
You're done with MMORPGs. They have nothing new to offer. Move on.
Comments
Less is more...
And more is less...
There you go.
First spawn camping is not easy mode. It had a lot higher risk of death then any of the solo content or group content in MMOs today. It's been pointed out why this is many times. Generally because the mobs were artificially harder, there were wandering mobs, large aggro radius, trains, pathing issues, mobs that never stopped following you, etc. You also needed to be able to split up groups of mobs which required some measure of skill. It wasn't just run in and kill whatever attacks you like most solo content and even group content int today's MMOs.
I would again point out that those games offered far more freedom even if you consider the only activity to be killing things (which is pretty much what modern MMOs offer as well). There was a complex set of factions throughout the game. There were more utility spells in EQ than any game I've ever played. A lot of them were just fun stuff like being able to take the illusion of another race to overcome racism. Another would be growing and shrinking characters to different sizes. It's true that you mostly would just focus on killing different things, but your choice of what to kill was infinite. Based on what you chose to kill would often go along with your class and it's abilities. Clerics and Paladins were good against undead. Druids and Rangers were good against animals. Necromancers were shunned everywhere so pretty much anything goes with them. They often had hidden places to go to buy spells in the sewers since no one liked them. This was often difficult to find without help. Really though the sky was the limit on where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do. There was no direction or guidance. There were no instances or mob variance in difficulty. There were no specific items for specific classes. Most people started with cloth armor no matter what class they were. There were no sets or colors to differentiate items. It was just go out and wing it. That was the best part. Not having someone telling you what needs to be done or what to do. You just go out in the persistent world and figure things out as you go. This resulted in things like bazaars being formed, social areas being formed, and different social tendencies like coming up with ways to share camps. It all added to the great player formed society in the games.
Do you really think spawn camping was a piece of cake? Do you think its like current games where you can you DPS everything and it dies and you're probably stronger than the whole crowd solo mobs? Mobs were stronger than you individually in most cases where it was worth camp spawning. Sometimes even if they were "weaker" than you. You also had to deal with special abilities, wandering mobs, runners who called for help, players training on you. Sounds like you never really played the game.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
The time consument is a different thing though, it has nothing to do with difficulty at all. If you need 1 hour or 20 hours for a level doesn't actually mean that it is harder but if you die 1 times in 5 hours or 20 times tells us something.
Almost all games were harder 20 years ago, a lot harder. Try playing the original Diablo if you don't believe me, even the easiest level were challenging to a new player.
MMOs also were more confusing, no wiki and no hints helping you out with the quests and dungeons. I don't miss that part even if many games do take this too far now, letting you click on a quest to autorun to it and similar things.
It's nice if even super casuals who play only few hours a week can progress in a game, but if that means the majority of your players gets max lvl in 2 weeks and hits the progression cap in end game 2 weeks later and then wait 9 months for more content, you know the game is badly designed.
There were a range of games in days long past, some "easy" some "grindy" - don't want to use the word hard. And there are a range of games today some "easy" and some "grindy". (Won't say hard, agree with the concept that time is the big factor).
Some game had / have filler as well - waiting for boats in EQ1 say. So a game that removed a lot of filler could feel swift - DAoC say, didn't take long to max out. Whereas Destiny - a modern game - has been accused of having "loadsa grind".
In short there was variation twenty years ago and there is now.
Its prime "Evil Empire" competition could not possibly have survived a decade, right? Yet it has.
We'll find out in five or eight years if this mystical "longevity" exists, for any of the newer titles. Some of them have already exceeded their "Its Dead" doomsayers predictions by several years. But wait, they don't count, they're just clinging to life...
But does "clinging to life 'cause we've still got a fragment of our peak population" prove anything useful?
(P.S. Offer your populace "rares/uniques", and they'll hang on to protect their Sunk Cost Fallacy "valuables" (virtually) forever. Does that mean the game's better?)
EQ had uncontrollable variables as well. Again wandering NPCs, trains, spell fizzles, inability to easily escape combat, NPCs running for help, NPCS that assist like kinds, NPCs returning from chasing someone attack.
Things that happen in game that make a game harder to play = more difficult.
New Players (go figure) don't seem to be subject to this effect.
Is the game to blame, or the player's overexposure to the Formula?
Complex questions don't have simple answers.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
But this not what todays Red Bull chuggin Xbox generation wants .. They want fast instant gratification , and participation soccer trophies like they have gotten there entire lives...They want to be able to do everything themsleves , which has dumbed down many mechanics in todays games ... (altho there are some good games out there)
What worse imo is the resources that devs waste catering to solo players in an MMO enviroment , (now waste to them isnt waste, as it targets there audience that spends more money , i get that ) but if those resources would be better spent developing group mechanics we would have Better more immersive in depth MMORPGs ... not these solo-centric messes many games have evolved into ...
What i dont get is why do the solo players want this so badly ( the endless whining on every game forums ) how they cant solo X Or why cant they have X gear like the Raider has ..." why cant i pay money to " lmfao ... Or .. is it just to have chat window... is it just a Look at Mee... i am player 1,287,659 to solo X mob and got this cool cape ..
I mean there are great solo games out there .. Dragon Dogma the latest .. and just open a chat system with some friends ..
Im hoping Pantheon can deliver for the market that wants more of a group centric old school game .. But i have my reservations .. as even when Vanguard launched from the same team (BM) the forums were assaulted with ..." I want fast travel .. " I cant tell how hard that mob is .. wahhhh plz put dots over there heads .... lmfao .....
I could go on ... but ... mehh ... its imo ....and i realize that is a minority in todays gaming world ...
Disregarding mob difficulty having wandering mobs, increased aggro radius, and mobs that would follow you until you hit the zone line made dying a lot more likely.
The inflated mob difficulty did have an impact in groups as it meant making a mistake and being efficient was a bit more important. Usually you needed someone to pull the mobs and that required some skill so as not to pull to many accidentally. You needed a good CCer and off tank to take care adds that the tank couldn't handle on their own. DPS had to hold off so as not to draw aggro from others. You had to be careful of mobs wandering in as they could one shout an important group member like CC or healer and then the group was dead. Due to the time it took to take down mobs respawn time was a concern. The mobs might start respawning to quickly for your group to handle and possible right on top of a low armored character.
In the end there were just a lot more factors you had to think about. You couldn't really relax and go through the motions unless you were soloing or grouping in a really safe spot, but most people didn't because the best experience and loot came from mobs that were clustered together in large groups with
These damnable young people! Sheesh they just don't understand what it was like to really have to work at having fun! Why I ought to just spank the lot of those young whippersnappers!
Imagine having to try and get back into game because of antiquated game servers! The nerve of these young'uns! Why the type of computers they demand to play such simple drivel just sends me over the moon! Why you'd think we would need computers from NASA. wouldn't you?
Have a look at this you young whippersnappers and be glad you have us older curmudgeons to learn from!
LOL, enjoy folks...I think it was Einstein that said time is relative, or something like that...
Alyn
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
I don't think there was anything wrong with pre-lfg group play forcing people to socially interact with one another and enter a commitment to play for x amount of time. It's just what we had to work with at the time was utterly boring tripe that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy these days.
Also, games are going through a lot of evolution with swapping and borrowing systems from one another right now. The big sweep that has happened (which is hitting both single player and multiplayer titles) is the inclusion of social modules. People like to show off and share with one another, and that is a very powerful hook that easily covers for poor game design. MMOs are in a dying state at the moment because many are shit designed mouse traps that completely relied on social modules to keep afloat.
By the way, you claim I am "supporting my views" but then you go on to counter it with your own subjectivity. I suppose you can verify that games currently have "more substance and depth" than my "precious old games" ever did? and that I "blindly" dismissed it (What is "it" here that I have blindly dismissed anyway?) And what exactly do you know what and how I have looked for in newer games? And end it with an Ad-Hom to punctuate your post. Nice one.
Now a sub isn't required gamers can no choose to speed through the content to the part of the game they find fun/challenging.
Such a steep price, you don't even need to play the game (at all) before critiquing it. You already know exactly what to expect from "games these days."
Purchase it? You'd only be paying money for your confirmation bias. Why bother?
You're done with MMORPGs. They have nothing new to offer. Move on.