Has there ever been a challenging MMORPG?

pkpkpk

Has there ever been a challenging MMORPG by the standards of the golden age (1975-1985)?

Are they all effeminate and degenerate?

If so, are there any MUDs that aspired to the standards of the golden age? 

pkpkpk

Everquest operates on a completely different model from the golden age. Your character never dies permanently, so it is easy. It is full of girly men.

simsalabim77

The old-school MMO's weren't challenging. They required a gross amount of time investment and game knowledge. 

Quizzical

What does it even mean to ask if a game is challenging by the standards of an era that had no concept of play balance?  Some games were basically trivial and others basically impossible.  Some had adjustable difficulty so that you could choose either trivial or impossible, but nothing in between.  And how exactly does that mess constitute a "golden era"?

I don't mean to be hard on the programmers of early video games.  Just getting the game to run and be playable at all was an accomplishment of sorts.  But let's not pretend that the games were better back when game mechanics were very harshly constrained by the meager capabilities of the available hardware.

pkpkpk

Both game knowledge and time investment could be considered challenging. Everquest was not challenging because it was not designed to be. Telengard (1976) showed how a simple RPG with line drawings, real-time commands and one character could present immediate challenge. The game was often lost within a minute or two. Wizardry (1981) presented a less immediate challenge, but was never easy. The game could end at the first battle if it were highwaymen (decapitation) or zombies (paralysis). The later levels of the dungeons were almost impossible. The game was always tense and always challenging.

postlarval

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

^ This


There is no such thing as a challenging MMORPG.

People tend to confuse time consuming or grinding activities as challenging. They aren't.

As for challenging content, it doesn't exist. All content that appears difficult only involves figuring out the pattern or trick and then it's smooth sailing from there.

That was true in the early days as well as today.

Bestinna

yes, there have been challenging mmorpgs.

Quizzical

postlarval said:

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

^ This


There is no such thing as a challenging MMORPG.

People tend to confuse time consuming or grinding activities as challenging. They aren't.

As for challenging content, it doesn't exist. All content that appears difficult only involves figuring out the pattern or trick and then it's smooth sailing from there.

That was true in the early days as well as today.

Spiral Knights has some fairly challenging content.  Even given the best gear in the game, most people probably wouldn't be able to beat most of the third tier danger rooms without dying.  People on this forum probably wouldn't consider it a "massively" multiplayer game, but it was very much a multiplayer online game.

VengeSunsoar

Every one I have played had parts that were challenging but has a whole they were simplistic.

ZoeMcCloskey

Global Agenda!

Horusra

nothing like a sexist OP.

pkpkpk

Challenging in the golden age meant "game over" could happen. If an online RPG does not have a "game over" it is not challenging, by those standards.

Anyway, not looking good for online RPGs. But I did not play Meridian 59, The Quest, Dark Sun Online, Lineage, Ultima Online, etc. I am assuming all the early ones were like the games of their era (mid to late '90s), which let you save anywhere and load if you died (adapted for a multiplayer environment).

Avanah

There were no MMORPGS in the timeframe the OP mentioned.

MMORPGS didn't start until 1996 with Meridian 59 (Hello Shadow Rose, Server 102)
followed by UO in 1997. In 1999 EQ became the staple and blueprint on which WoW's success is based upon today.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Avanah

postlarval said:

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

^ This


There is no such thing as a challenging MMORPG.

People tend to confuse time consuming or grinding activities as challenging. They aren't.

As for challenging content, it doesn't exist. All content that appears difficult only involves figuring out the pattern or trick and then it's smooth sailing from there.

That was true in the early days as well as today.

Ummm, that's what Challenging means. When figuring out something, it's a challenge. It's why the word "Challenge" exists.

No one is going to say: "That Puzzle sure was hard figuring out the pattern to complete it."
They will say: "That Puzzle sure was challenging."

You are misinterpreting the meaning.

Moguy3

EQ was challenging. How we forget so easily you had to zone to dump off mobs ( or feign death ). How getting to the bottom of Seb to farm golems for spells was a challenge. Not falling off the icy paths in Velks lab and creating a train of death was challenging. Always looking for Martar Icebear and not hearing that evil crunch of bones when he hit you. Losing that root when camping ice giants. The list goes on and on. But sure it took time. But there was a FEAR factor and a challenge factor that most games dont have at all today. 

Temp0

Avanah said:

postlarval said:

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

^ This


There is no such thing as a challenging MMORPG.

People tend to confuse time consuming or grinding activities as challenging. They aren't.

As for challenging content, it doesn't exist. All content that appears difficult only involves figuring out the pattern or trick and then it's smooth sailing from there.

That was true in the early days as well as today.

Ummm, that's what Challenging means. When figuring out something, it's a challenge. It's why the word "Challenge" exists.

No one is going to say: "That Puzzle sure was hard figuring out the pattern to complete it."
They will say: "That Puzzle sure was challenging."

You are misinterpreting the meaning.

Agreed.... 

This has to be an example of some of the worst logic in common use. The idea that you can learn to do it so it isn't challenging is insanely backwards. If that were the case then nothing is challenging, you can learn to do well at pretty much anything. 

On the other hand the ops logic (which i'm not entirely convinced isn't just trolling) isn't any better. They seem to have some stance that if the game isn't penalizing you (examples being permanent death/restart on death, randomized death (wizardry unlucky highwaymen example), or fast death (death within minutes example)) in the exact ways they want then it isn't challenging. This is simply false. There are many ways of making something challenging, just because you enjoy that type doesn't mean it is the only way that exists. 

Scorchien

UO is still pretty dam challenging , many encounters in game that one wrong move , and you are dead ... Some very challenging content in UO for sure

Loke666

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

Dunno about that, a PvP match in Guildwars were pretty challenging as I remember it. And not time consuming at all.

For PvE a rather large part of the difficulty was coordinating with the other players but most of the old games had plenty of challenging content. You could max out your level in them with just persistence and grinding easy areas but games like M59, Lineage and EQ had plenty of challenging dungeons as long as you played them at the right level.

I have to admit that I don't know much about the difficulty of games between 75-83 besides Space invaders and Spy hunter at my local arcade but I did play plenty of C-64 games the last 2 years. And some of them were indeed harder then any MMO I ever played, like Ghost and Goblins and Megaman. At average I don't think they were so much harder then the 90s MMOs, the difference was more that in MMOs you can skip certain areas, dungeons, quests and raids while with a C-64 game you had to complete everything.

Also, before the 5.25" floppy you couldn't save your game, you did at times get a code to start later but it would drive most people born after 1990 insane if they tried it.

I think the huge difference in difficulty both in MMOs and other games came around the year 2000, about the same time ordinary Joe's started to get the Internet and bought a PC. If you want to really notice the difference, compare Diablo and Diablo 2, it happened somewhere between the releae of those games. 

The C-64 and Amiga games were harder then the average 90s game but not by that much. The last 17 years have made games easier and easier all the time.

It can be nice to have a simple silly game at times but it is also nice to have something really challenging to beat. Completing something easy is nowhere near the rush I get when I beat something really hard, be that a singleplayer game or a MMO.

Anyways, my point is that this is a complicated question and a "no" is not really a good answer (neither is a simple "yes").
If nothing else, EQ had an raid for years that no-one beat (the devs screwed up so it was actually impossible) and that is harder then most older games (not all, for instance had Microsoft flightsim a bug that made landing impossible, you crashed no matter what you did and no-one told us until years later).

pkpkpk

postlarval, I would say the confusion runs deeper, in a different direction. Online graphics RPGs were instantly controlled by corporations from the start.  There is no "golden age" of online RPGs, because the technological ceiling was so high when they became feasible that 3DO, Sierra, etc. instantly took control by virtue of their monetary power. Thus few can envision online RPGs being anything more than sterile CD-ROM games. I wonder how the world of MUDs is holding up. I can see I am on the wrong board for that.

Dullahan

Moguy3 said:

EQ was challenging. How we forget so easily you had to zone to dump off mobs ( or feign death ). How getting to the bottom of Seb to farm golems for spells was a challenge. Not falling off the icy paths in Velks lab and creating a train of death was challenging. Always looking for Martar Icebear and not hearing that evil crunch of bones when he hit you. Losing that root when camping ice giants. The list goes on and on. But sure it took time. But there was a FEAR factor and a challenge factor that most games dont have at all today. 

This^

Yes, EQ and first many first gen games simply took more time. They were also challenging mechanically though. The fact that dying resulted in major setbacks meant knowledge, preparation, caution and execution were much more important so as to avoid those setbacks. That is challenge any way you slice it. Sure, you could trivialize that challenge by simply bringing more people than what the game was designed for, but that meant resigning yourself to slower progression and a reputation of mediocrity.

The renown players and guilds were generally both devoted and skilled, which made them stand out from their peers.

mgilbrtsn

Darkfall was very challenging because of the brutal nature of open world pvp/full loot.

Secret World can be very challenging with some of it's quests.

Shadowbane was challening because of the pvp and the territory control.

EVE is challenging because of the vastness and the pvp. (and nobody can say the learning curve isn't challenging )

Just my opinion.

Loke666

pkpkpk said:

postlarval, I would say the confusion runs deeper, in a different direction. Online graphics RPGs were instantly controlled by corporations from the start.  There is no "golden age" of online RPGs, because the technological ceiling was so high when they became feasible that 3DO, Sierra, etc. instantly took control by virtue of their monetary power. Thus few can envision online RPGs being anything more than sterile CD-ROM games. I wonder how the world of MUDs is holding up. I can see I am on the wrong board for that.

Lets see, the first 3D MMORPG was Meridian 59 and it was done by a few guys called Archetype Interactive who started their own company to make it. It was actually rather good and most games today still uses it's base mechanics. It is true though that 3DO published the game in early '96 when it released but Archetype funded the game from their own pockets.

You had other companies that started small,  Simon & Schuster Interactive made a small cheap game called Eve online that did pretty well for itself. 

 CyberSpace, Inc was a really small company that jacked out Asherons Call, changed their name to Turbine and gave us DDO and LOTRO.

NC Soft was also a small indie companie until it first game Lineage became an insanely huge success. Heck, it is still huge and might just pass Wow in active subscribers a year or 2 from now (it is rather stable with 3 million subscribers while Wow is dropping). Yeah, calling NC Soft an indie company sounds like a joke but they started out that way.

That is the first 4 that comes to my mind,

My point: you are just plain wrong, a first successful MMO actually made many companies larger or even turned them into corps but many of the earlier successful MMOs were created by indie devs on a small budget.

bcbully

Any with ffa pvp. The rest are dumb simple.

postlarval

Avanah said:

postlarval said:

DMKano said:

Nope.

Time consuming yes.

But challenging - nope.

^ This


There is no such thing as a challenging MMORPG.

People tend to confuse time consuming or grinding activities as challenging. They aren't.

As for challenging content, it doesn't exist. All content that appears difficult only involves figuring out the pattern or trick and then it's smooth sailing from there.

That was true in the early days as well as today.

Ummm, that's what Challenging means. When figuring out something, it's a challenge. It's why the word "Challenge" exists.

No one is going to say: "That Puzzle sure was hard figuring out the pattern to complete it."
They will say: "That Puzzle sure was challenging."

You are misinterpreting the meaning.

Just because you have to "figure something out" doesn't make it challenging.

Most of the time, you run a dungeon once and you know the pattern. I wouldn't consider figuring that out challenging.

I think you are misinterpreting what 'figure out' means. It means to calculate or understand something. That alone doesn't make something challenging.

someforumguy

I have been challenged a lot by MMORPG's in the past.

I have been challenged by :

- mindnumblingly boring combat.
- mindnumblingly repetitive character progression grind.
- insane goldsinks.
- accepting that most new content enters through cash shop.
- my favourite class being nerfed in a way that they managed to suck out all fun of that class.
- game killing bugs.
- multiple deaths by lag.

I never was able to beat those challenges. I know, I must sound entitled to you.