New World's got a huge gear set problem. Players report running 5+ sets of gear, and that's just not a fun type of "strategy" to include when the game doesn't support gear swapping to that extent short of dropping serious cash on extra set slots in the cash shop.
Five? Was reading a thread recently on NW sub-reddit where players complained of needing to keep up to 20 gear sets on hand.
They literally have a set for each of the 5 or so mutation types, 4 for each gathering type, 4 for each crafting type, chest run sets, PVP sets, luck sets etc etc.
A truely awesome and yet terrifying level of min maxing I've not often seen outside of EVE which has ship types and fittings out the wazoo.
While AGS recently added a gear set manager, you only get first 3 slots free, they charge for more but have a limit of like 10 I think, way under what some desire.
Now some might fault Amazon for this design but I'm sure it's a case of AGS not really comprehending that some of their player base would take optimization to such an extreme, seems a bit of a mental issue to my way of seeing, it's irrational to put that much effort into gaming...but that's just me.
That's just creating the problem to sell you the solution. Cash shop 101.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
New World's got a huge gear set problem. Players report running 5+ sets of gear, and that's just not a fun type of "strategy" to include when the game doesn't support gear swapping to that extent short of dropping serious cash on extra set slots in the cash shop.
Five? Was reading a thread recently on NW sub-reddit where players complained of needing to keep up to 20 gear sets on hand.
They literally have a set for each of the 5 or so mutation types, 4 for each gathering type, 4 for each crafting type, chest run sets, PVP sets, luck sets etc etc.
A truely awesome and yet terrifying level of min maxing I've not often seen outside of EVE which has ship types and fittings out the wazoo.
While AGS recently added a gear set manager, you only get first 3 slots free, they charge for more but have a limit of like 10 I think, way under what some desire.
Now some might fault Amazon for this design but I'm sure it's a case of AGS not really comprehending that some of their player base would take optimization to such an extreme, seems a bit of a mental issue to my way of seeing, it's irrational to put that much effort into gaming...but that's just me.
That's just creating the problem to sell you the solution. Cash shop 101.
It sounds like the problem is really that NW only lets you have a small number of skills at any one time, less than a handful. And those skills are dictated by what you have equipped, so if you need to do fire damage you equip the fire skills/items, and if you want ice damage you have to equip the ice skills/items.
I like the old-school games where you could have both fire and ice skills equipped at the same time, since you aren't limited to a ridiculously low number of skills at any one time. I like playing the jack-of-all-trades where the challenge is in picking the right skill to use at the right time.
So first they create a real bottleneck, requiring you to swap out items all the time, and then limit how many swaps you get before you have to pay.
New World's got a huge gear set problem. Players report running 5+ sets of gear, and that's just not a fun type of "strategy" to include when the game doesn't support gear swapping to that extent short of dropping serious cash on extra set slots in the cash shop.
Five? Was reading a thread recently on NW sub-reddit where players complained of needing to keep up to 20 gear sets on hand.
They literally have a set for each of the 5 or so mutation types, 4 for each gathering type, 4 for each crafting type, chest run sets, PVP sets, luck sets etc etc.
A truely awesome and yet terrifying level of min maxing I've not often seen outside of EVE which has ship types and fittings out the wazoo.
While AGS recently added a gear set manager, you only get first 3 slots free, they charge for more but have a limit of like 10 I think, way under what some desire.
Now some might fault Amazon for this design but I'm sure it's a case of AGS not really comprehending that some of their player base would take optimization to such an extreme, seems a bit of a mental issue to my way of seeing, it's irrational to put that much effort into gaming...but that's just me.
That's just creating the problem to sell you the solution. Cash shop 101.
It sounds like the problem is really that NW only lets you have a small number of skills at any one time, less than a handful. And those skills are dictated by what you have equipped, so if you need to do fire damage you equip the fire skills/items, and if you want ice damage you have to equip the ice skills/items.
I like the old-school games where you could have both fire and ice skills equipped at the same time, since you aren't limited to a ridiculously low number of skills at any one time. I like playing the jack-of-all-trades where the challenge is in picking the right skill to use at the right time.
So first they create a real bottleneck, requiring you to swap out items all the time, and then limit how many swaps you get before you have to pay.
It's actually even worse, players often have to swap attribute points at a cost (200 gold?) to go along with each gear set switch.
It isn't at all convenient like ESO employed where gear sets and skills could be saved into a single, easily swappable template.
Rather the player has to open the attributes page and reset them manually.
So if I'm playing my Fire Staff build and want to switch to healing I have to manually respect out of an int/con build to a more split spec build which is more heavily based on focus /con healing strength is derived mostly from focus, not int.
Same with my DPS alt, all strength/ con to support the Great sword / BattleAxe, but don't try to pick up a weapon which doesn't at least split spec with Str, then it's respec time, gear switch time , just a big waste of time honestly.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I still play everquest 2 to this day. I love old school MMO's. What is with players soul searching for deeper imminent immersion? You want better problems to solve, not a better lore experience.
wow isn't going to replace daoc for me. I want daoc back.
Legit question.
Do you really consider EQ2 to be an old school MMO?
I remember when it came out, I thought that it embodied some of the best aspects of the original generation, but I also saw the Exodus to WoW, and it's rapid ascension. When I came back to EQ2 a few years later, it's ties to the old school genre seemed more tenuous to me. It is, in my mind really the same generation as WoW.
I haven't played it in years, so I probably misremember what it actually was, and had to offer. Honestly, despite months playing, it's one of the games I remember the least about, so that's the story behind the question, and why I'm curious. Do you feel that EQ2, is really then one of the last old school style MMO's?
It was an in-between game. People were heavy into DAOC and Everquest and really wanted something new. EQ@ came out and it was very involved at first. It was so hard to level in and craft and then there were leveling the spells and abilities and then they killed the game with pay to win cash shop. Pay to win cash shop was why it died and why people left. Pay to win EQ2 PvP became so bad, they started logging faze players to train them and even they cried in real life about pay to win. There are actual videos on YouTube about this. Faze really cried about losing to the greats of that time period. Yes. I do feel that it is the last real great old school MMO. I also think blizzard inspired the cash shop to ruin the game and get the upper hand with WOW. I loved the lore of EQ2 and the worlds they created. There are so many nooks and crannies to search through. EQ2 was a great way to relax your mind if you were to hard into the PvP scene. EQ2 has the superior crafting system in my opinion. No one has beat it yet. They have a great holiday system and great housing as well. I think they did a better job at housing than most. The quests are endless and can keep you playing for 20+ years. If EQ2 was a car, it was a Toyota. The quality quest content was just good.
This user is a registered flex offender. Someone who is registered as being a flex offender is a person who feels the need to flex about everything they say. Always be the guy that paints the house in the dark. Lucidity can be forged with enough liquidity and pharmed for decades with enough compound interest that a reachable profit would never end.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
after having years in game, I asked myself what for? there's nothing tangible there. hard work gets deleted nearly every patch.
then i started web3 games. nah not rich yet, but i have meet amazing people in person form all over the world, won some eth and earned some bragging rights. I im in a tournament tonight. free to quilify, with about $1600 on the line.
Running around Cyrodill ganking noobs for nothing all day cant really compete anymore.
after having years in game, I asked myself what for? there's nothing tangible there. hard work gets deleted nearly every patch.
then i started web3 games. nah not rich yet, but i have meet amazing people in person form all over the world, won some eth and earned some bragging rights. I im in a tournament tonight. free to quilify, with about $1600 on the line.
Running around Cyrodill ganking noobs for nothing all day cant really compete anymore.
LOL.
You are straight up a walking advertisement for failed crypto.
I promise you, all your 'bragging rights' for playing web3 games will never get traction, and it's sad when you try to push it.
You still bettin' on that NFT stuff to work out too even after then 70% downfall in nearly on NFT markets, aren't ya?
Please, share the game you're playing that you are qualifying in a tournament for. Real $1600, not some weird coin in a random game that you'll never be able to flip.
People are straight up tired of the money-schemes, scams, and nonsense coming from others like yourself. The sad thing is, you all get called out on a near daily basis for shady practices, but you have no shame so you just go right back to supporting it.
after having years in game, I asked myself what for? there's nothing tangible there. hard work gets deleted nearly every patch.
then i started web3 games. nah not rich yet, but i have meet amazing people in person form all over the world, won some eth and earned some bragging rights. I im in a tournament tonight. free to quilify, with about $1600 on the line.
Running around Cyrodill ganking noobs for nothing all day cant really compete anymore.
LOL.
You are straight up a walking advertisement for failed crypto.
I promise you, all your 'bragging rights' for playing web3 games will never get traction, and it's sad when you try to push it.
You still bettin' on that NFT stuff to work out too even after then 70% downfall in nearly on NFT markets, aren't ya?
Please, share the game you're playing that you are qualifying in a tournament for. Real $1600, not some weird coin in a random game that you'll never be able to flip.
People are straight up tired of the money-schemes, scams, and nonsense coming from others like yourself. The sad thing is, you all get called out on a near daily basis for shady practices, but you have no shame so you just go right back to supporting it.
playing for eth. nah no need to shill. just telling my why.
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
Um.
I have honestly no idea what you're trying to say ?
I played Vanguard for its whole run. It didnt changed in nature with the fixes. It just was less buggy after the fixes.
If at all, I felt that especially the noob island was one of the most awesome parts of the game. I literally played it to death, trying to unearth every detail of it. I played it with every class. It looked like nothing at the start but there was so many things you could do !
... and now I'm back to the "damn I want to play Vanguard" feeling again ...
Anyway the noob island was one of the newer additions, but possibly even more oldschool than many earlier parts. It offered a nice level of challenge in every dungeon. I definitely died in all of them. The final dungeon was definitely meant for grouping, but on most classes it was soloable if you would be really careful, possibly also lucky. On a level 10 dread knight, once they got their lifetap, it was even quite manageable. Level 10 paladin wasnt too bad either.
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
Um.
I have honestly no idea what you're trying to say ?
I played Vanguard for its whole run. It didnt changed in nature with the fixes. It just was less buggy after the fixes.
If at all, I felt that especially the noob island was one of the most awesome parts of the game. I literally played it to death, trying to unearth every detail of it. I played it with every class. It looked like nothing at the start but there was so many things you could do !
... and now I'm back to the "damn I want to play Vanguard" feeling again ...
Anyway the noob island was one of the newer additions, but possibly even more oldschool than many earlier parts. It offered a nice level of challenge in every dungeon. I definitely died in all of them. The final dungeon was definitely meant for grouping, but on most classes it was soloable if you would be really careful, possibly also lucky. On a level 10 dread knight, once they got their lifetap, it was even quite manageable. Level 10 paladin wasnt too bad either.
The fixes are what I was talking about, in reference to "a fine game", and that I played after the fixes. Is that hard to understand? How do you feel about my first sentence? Do you understand that? I'm interested because that's the main point I was making.
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
hmmm I think it was on the cusp. I never played a lot of Everquest but from what I did play, I would say that Vanguard was very much in the mold of Everquest. Sure, it had "quests" but I don't really think you had to do the quests. I know I did very few quests in Vanguard.
It felt far less "theme park than, say, World of Warcraft. It still was a theme park but it was clearly inspired more from Everquest. At least from what I could tell.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
For me it's the silly prices to purchase a game these days. Some PC games are £60 to £75 now, and in all honesty they're still only worth £20 or £30, really. None of them bring anything new to the table and all they do is plaster HD eye candy and OTT particle effects on top of the same old, same old.
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
hmmm I think it was on the cusp. I never played a lot of Everquest but from what I did play, I would say that Vanguard was very much in the mold of Everquest. Sure, it had "quests" but I don't really think you had to do the quests. I know I did very few quests in Vanguard.
It felt far less "theme park than, say, World of Warcraft. It still was a theme park but it was clearly inspired more from Everquest. At least from what I could tell.
Yes, I didn't do many quests in Vanguard either. But you still had to follow the level trail, and weren't free to explore the world the way you wanted. At least in the early levels. That's where I gave up on it, in the second "zone", across a bridge, where there was a mountain peak where I was happy to see a dragon flying around, but which I heard was too tough for my level (which I would expect under any design. So maybe the following zones changed all of that, I don't know.
This is the separation from "old style" to new, in my mind. Going from UO's freedom to this sort of controlled path of levelling. If course, these days many games have Scaling to fix the issues, mainly the harm to socialization. But Scaling has it's own drawbacks, and the games are still locked into that design. Better, IMO, but the affects of Scaling are a major downturn in their own right (lack of feeling a solid, but not overwhelming, progression within a world).
In my mind, EQ was in the middle if this change. They had the worldly feel, but the huge power gaps between levels made that worldliness impractical. WoW fixed that by their world design that clearly separated the level sets into parts of the world, a trail that you followed through said world. Quests to help you follow said trail. Other games started mixing up the level-zones back into a more EQ like world, using quests to guide you. Still a fixed trail/path to follow. How boringly controlled and contrived! That doesn't feel like you're in a world.
And that's where we're still stuck, after too many years. It's that old D&D paper and pencil levelling design. It's great for small groups, but not for "massively." Those small groups were made into grouping in MMORPGs, and that worked, except for the almost complete loss of socialization. That's what power gaps do when they are too big. EQ even said it themselves, when they announced that the power advances between levels would be much greater than even D&D had, was to keep the players excited. Using psychology like that always backfires in the end. Just like with CSs, which more gamers now see through too.
So in review, the way I see it in the big picture, "old school in MMORPGs was UO, and likely AC and EQ. EQ was setting the tone by using a D&D like game design, but not entirely to the "new school" yet. Even though D&D was much older, but not in MMORPG parlance. WoW kicked in the "new school." And their polish, their masterful creation, and the expectations of D&D from gamers, created that monster that still grips this market.
Gamers have to realize what those power gaps do to socialization. And this isn't talking about group sized socialization, nor is it talking about chat about music, sports, or whatever RL conversations. Socialization on the "worldly" scale and in-game. Getting to know others outside of your small group or guild. It's dealing with strangers often enough to get to know them to some extent, and making associations so that if your little world of friends changes, you have other friends to go to.
Many of you are hardcore enough to have this fall-back of associations, but the vast majority of gamers don't. That's why grouping has become negative, because it's so often with strangers. Strangers don't care much about those others, they may never see them again. This allows for bad interactions, because it doesn't matter. And gamers have gotten tired of being treated like a potato in their groups. Being "booted", scorned sometimes, falling short of high expectations and chewed out, etc.
We need worlds, we need player interactions in every way possible. And the only way to do that is to minimize the divisions that power gaps create.
This is what "old world" vs. the "new" status quo is all about. (As I see it.)
You can still have a D&D design, but you need even lower power gaps than D&D, paper and pencil, had. With computers, even a D&D design can be greatly enhanced from that P+P gaming. But Skill Based is even better for this. We should have both by now, if people would only see that huge numbers are meaningless, relatively, and very harmful in the big picture.
These game worlds need to be more exciting than just hack and slash "module" style gaming. There are many things gamers are interested in besides just that. It's time to create worlds again.
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
You have a different definition of old school. For you it's about levels, but I distinguish between camp grinders vs quest grinders in terms of primary progression and I see VG as one of the last grinders.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
You have a different definition of old school. For you it's about levels, but I distinguish between camp grinders vs quest grinders in terms of primary progression and I see VG as one of the last grinders.
No, for me it's not about levels, it's about game play and what system allows for it. "Worldly" game play (freedom of choice in said world, interactions, "realism") instead of gamey designs, so gamey that they make you do it all according to their itinerary. Fixed, unchanging, and eventually as boring as swatting flies all day long.
Notice that I said that even D&D (levels and all) could fit into what I'm trying to explain, IF the power gaps are reduced so as to remove the divisions (of the player base) that they cause if said power gaps are too big.
What is this "camp grinder"? I understand "quest grinder."
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
You have a different definition of old school. For you it's about levels, but I distinguish between camp grinders vs quest grinders in terms of primary progression and I see VG as one of the last grinders.
No, for me it's not about levels, it's about game play and what system allows for it. "Worldly" game play (freedom of choice in said world, interactions, "realism") instead of gamey designs, so gamey that they make you do it all according to their itinerary. Fixed, unchanging, and eventually as boring as swatting flies all day long.
Notice that I said that even D&D (levels and all) could fit into what I'm trying to explain, IF the power gaps are reduced so as to remove the divisions (of the player base) that they cause if said power gaps are too big.
What is this "camp grinder"? I understand "quest grinder."
Camp grinders included Lineage 1/2, EQ1, DAOC, other early MMORPGS.
Instead of completing quests to progress ones character you would find yourself a camp of npcs to kill, and you ground that same spot endlessly, or at least until the camp bonus expired.
Camp grinding could be done solo, in duos, full groups, in a raid size body of 40 people.
Camps could be in open world, in dungeons, etc and as you leveled up, you moved on to new camps of higher level NPCs.
What the NPC's conned at was important, and groups could pull purple and red con packs for greater experience per kill vs the orange and yellows one generally killed one at a time when solo.
I spent thousands of hours repetitively killing npc after npc both solo and in groups until I thought my eyes would bleed.
When WOW first came out it was a very welcome design change but like most things, quest based progression had its pluses and minuses.
Didn't take long to see the big downside to quest progression.
My 50 person DAOC guild moved to WOW at launch and quickly fragmented as we could no longer progress together as a team, became every person (or clique) for themselves.
No more did the guild gather to level up lower level members en masse, and then as folks made it into raids it finished guild off for good, as everyone joined different raiding guilds.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I probably would call Vanguard the last of the old school games...
Not me. I think Vanguard was right in there with the modern themepark and paint-by-level type, which is where I see the main division. I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
You have a different definition of old school. For you it's about levels, but I distinguish between camp grinders vs quest grinders in terms of primary progression and I see VG as one of the last grinders.
No, for me it's not about levels, it's about game play and what system allows for it. "Worldly" game play (freedom of choice in said world, interactions, "realism") instead of gamey designs, so gamey that they make you do it all according to their itinerary. Fixed, unchanging, and eventually as boring as swatting flies all day long.
Notice that I said that even D&D (levels and all) could fit into what I'm trying to explain, IF the power gaps are reduced so as to remove the divisions (of the player base) that they cause if said power gaps are too big.
What is this "camp grinder"? I understand "quest grinder."
Camp grinders included Lineage 1/2, EQ1, DAOC, other early MMORPGS.
Instead of completing quests to progress ones character you would find yourself a camp of npcs to kill, and you ground that same spot endlessly, or at least until the camp bonus expired.
Camp grinding could be done solo, in duos, full groups, in a raid size body of 40 people.
Camps could be in open world, in dungeons, etc and as you leveled up, you moved on to new camps of higher level NPCs.
What the NPC's conned at was important, and groups could pull purple and red con packs for greater experience per kill vs the orange and yellows one generally killed one at a time when solo.
I spent thousands of hours repetitively killing npc after npc both solo and in groups until I thought my eyes would bleed.
When WOW first came out it was a very welcome design change but like most things, quest based progression had its pluses and minuses.
Didn't take long to see the big downside to quest progression.
My 50 person DAOC guild moved to WOW at launch and quickly fragmented as we could no longer progress together as a team, became every person (or clique) for themselves.
No more did the guild gather to level up lower level members en masse, and then as folks made it into raids it finished guild off for good, as everyone joined different raiding guilds.
That's an excellent depiction of what's wrong with MMORPGs. Your explanation of what happened to your guild fits right in with the point about long term social game play.
This is why I keep hammering on the power gaps. I once said that you could take any of these games, reduce the power gaps, and have that social aspect back again. It removes that "sparklie" Big Numbers, but makes the game much more fun. It also opens the door for the freedom to play as you want. But the game then needs to add all sorts of things to catch players' attention. An in-game "newspaper" would be great for this, relating all the things of interest, player discoveries, GM events, etc.
UO had "Town Criers" that would shout out news about GM events. They were dressed in a particular fashion, and other player running their own "events" would create a character, dress them the same, and shout out their own event news around the banks.
Imagine a game world with all kinds of mysteries, some deep and some simpler, all kinds of big and little "quests", all kinds of news (including player character names of accomplishments), and even secrets that some players hold onto themselves.
Plus you'd have the typical resource gathering, Dungeon runs, and etc.
Then you can also have clues to secrets scattered all over the game world, for the deeper mysteries, broken up into small pieces. And clues hidden in books and tomes, on grave markers, symbols and magical portents, on and on.
These things can be added as the game matures. The Lore can come to life like never before. Lost treasures, artifacts, unique rewards, the whole shebang.
Add in Skill or ability discoveries, too. I've used the simple example of a mason character studying an arch in a ruins to be able to build arches themself, just as a basic example of what can be done.
It's an entirely different kind of game, as far as how you go about playing it. And I think it's time is here. Naturally, such a game needs ways to help players think of what they want to do, and a lot of that would be character development driven. Web sites and forums would be full of the possibilities, as well as the in-game newspapers, libraries, dungeon carvings, messages carved in stone, etc.
"No more did the guild gather to level up lower level members en masse,
and then as folks made it into raids it finished guild off for good, as
everyone joined different raiding guilds."
lol I remember my last guild in WoW....every day someone new would join, and every day we ran them through the same dungeons, over and over and over......95% of them quit shortly after joining so it ended up just being a total waste of time.....
Camp grinders included Lineage 1/2, EQ1, DAOC, other early MMORPGS.
Yeah I would put UO into the camp grinder catagory for sure. I cant think of any old school MMO's that was not camp grinders actually.
My DAOC guild broke as well moving to WoW. It was hard to keep people together in early WoW.
I think big issues not only was the level difference (which is big), but also with the quests, you could be on the same exact line as someone, but be at different stages in the line, so you cant even group together doing that. Also smaller group sizes, forced people to wait outside the group. I like WoW raiding, but WoW definetely broke up a bunch of old school guilds.
Camp grinders included Lineage 1/2, EQ1, DAOC, other early MMORPGS.
Yeah I would put UO into the camp grinder catagory for sure. I cant think of any old school MMO's that was not camp grinders actually.
My DAOC guild broke as well moving to WoW. It was hard to keep people together in early WoW.
I think big issues not only was the level difference (which is big), but also with the quests, you could be on the same exact line as someone, but be at different stages in the line, so you cant even group together doing that. Also smaller group sizes, forced people to wait outside the group. I like WoW raiding, but WoW definetely broke up a bunch of old school guilds.
To add insult to injury, when BC came out the raid guild I was in collapsed because the focus switched to smaller raid sizes.
A good portion of the guild's more hardcore members rushed to the new level cap, 65 I think, and began the raids.
This included the guild's raid leader, who was the main tank, along with the guild leader himself, (mage), the secondary tank and a couple of the better healers.
While they rushed forward, trying to be server first or whatever they had no interest or care for the other 40 or so members who quickly peeled away in search of other guilds they could join so to continue their progression.
I said fk-it all to WOW and raiding in general, seemed like a silly treadmill which I no longer wanted to run on.
10 years of EVE followed, interspersed with a variety of games that came out between 2006 - 2014 which never lasted long for me as most followed WOWs gear grinding, raid centric formula.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Not played an MMO I liked since 2005/6, so for me it's just the genre being utter crap. Modern MMOs are not massive, they're not trying to make worlds either, they're all Guild Wars today. Even FF14 people rave about, it's just loading screen after loading screen... It's not a world then.
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It isn't at all convenient like ESO employed where gear sets and skills could be saved into a single, easily swappable template.
Rather the player has to open the attributes page and reset them manually.
So if I'm playing my Fire Staff build and want to switch to healing I have to manually respect out of an int/con build to a more split spec build which is more heavily based on focus /con healing strength is derived mostly from focus, not int.
Same with my DPS alt, all strength/ con to support the Great sword / BattleAxe, but don't try to pick up a weapon which doesn't at least split spec with Str, then it's respec time, gear switch time , just a big waste of time honestly.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
" I want an Oompaloompa and I want one now Daddy"
Yes. I do feel that it is the last real great old school MMO. I also think blizzard inspired the cash shop to ruin the game and get the upper hand with WOW.
I loved the lore of EQ2 and the worlds they created. There are so many nooks and crannies to search through. EQ2 was a great way to relax your mind if you were to hard into the PvP scene. EQ2 has the superior crafting system in my opinion. No one has beat it yet. They have a great holiday system and great housing as well. I think they did a better job at housing than most. The quests are endless and can keep you playing for 20+ years. If EQ2 was a car, it was a Toyota. The quality quest content was just good.
Someone who is registered as being a flex offender is a person who feels the need to flex about everything they say.
Always be the guy that paints the house in the dark.
Lucidity can be forged with enough liquidity and pharmed for decades with enough compound interest that a reachable profit would never end.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I played it a little, and I thought it was a fine game for its type, and of course it had a lot of extra's that a lot of games of any type don't have. But I played it after, evidently, many fixes, so my opinion is likely different than those who quit before the fixes.
Once upon a time....
then i started web3 games. nah not rich yet, but i have meet amazing people in person form all over the world, won some eth and earned some bragging rights. I im in a tournament tonight. free to quilify, with about $1600 on the line.
Running around Cyrodill ganking noobs for nothing all day cant really compete anymore.
LOL.
You are straight up a walking advertisement for failed crypto.
I promise you, all your 'bragging rights' for playing web3 games will never get traction, and it's sad when you try to push it.
You still bettin' on that NFT stuff to work out too even after then 70% downfall in nearly on NFT markets, aren't ya?
Please, share the game you're playing that you are qualifying in a tournament for. Real $1600, not some weird coin in a random game that you'll never be able to flip.
People are straight up tired of the money-schemes, scams, and nonsense coming from others like yourself. The sad thing is, you all get called out on a near daily basis for shady practices, but you have no shame so you just go right back to supporting it.
Is that hard to understand?
How do you feel about my first sentence? Do you understand that? I'm interested because that's the main point I was making.
Once upon a time....
It felt far less "theme park than, say, World of Warcraft. It still was a theme park but it was clearly inspired more from Everquest. At least from what I could tell.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This is the separation from "old style" to new, in my mind.
Going from UO's freedom to this sort of controlled path of levelling.
If course, these days many games have Scaling to fix the issues, mainly the harm to socialization. But Scaling has it's own drawbacks, and the games are still locked into that design. Better, IMO, but the affects of Scaling are a major downturn in their own right (lack of feeling a solid, but not overwhelming, progression within a world).
In my mind, EQ was in the middle if this change. They had the worldly feel, but the huge power gaps between levels made that worldliness impractical. WoW fixed that by their world design that clearly separated the level sets into parts of the world, a trail that you followed through said world. Quests to help you follow said trail.
Other games started mixing up the level-zones back into a more EQ like world, using quests to guide you. Still a fixed trail/path to follow.
How boringly controlled and contrived! That doesn't feel like you're in a world.
And that's where we're still stuck, after too many years.
It's that old D&D paper and pencil levelling design. It's great for small groups, but not for "massively." Those small groups were made into grouping in MMORPGs, and that worked, except for the almost complete loss of socialization. That's what power gaps do when they are too big. EQ even said it themselves, when they announced that the power advances between levels would be much greater than even D&D had, was to keep the players excited.
Using psychology like that always backfires in the end. Just like with CSs, which more gamers now see through too.
So in review, the way I see it in the big picture, "old school in MMORPGs was UO, and likely AC and EQ. EQ was setting the tone by using a D&D like game design, but not entirely to the "new school" yet. Even though D&D was much older, but not in MMORPG parlance.
WoW kicked in the "new school." And their polish, their masterful creation, and the expectations of D&D from gamers, created that monster that still grips this market.
Gamers have to realize what those power gaps do to socialization. And this isn't talking about group sized socialization, nor is it talking about chat about music, sports, or whatever RL conversations.
Socialization on the "worldly" scale and in-game. Getting to know others outside of your small group or guild.
It's dealing with strangers often enough to get to know them to some extent, and making associations so that if your little world of friends changes, you have other friends to go to.
Many of you are hardcore enough to have this fall-back of associations, but the vast majority of gamers don't. That's why grouping has become negative, because it's so often with strangers. Strangers don't care much about those others, they may never see them again. This allows for bad interactions, because it doesn't matter. And gamers have gotten tired of being treated like a potato in their groups. Being "booted", scorned sometimes, falling short of high expectations and chewed out, etc.
We need worlds, we need player interactions in every way possible. And the only way to do that is to minimize the divisions that power gaps create.
This is what "old world" vs. the "new" status quo is all about. (As I see it.)
You can still have a D&D design, but you need even lower power gaps than D&D, paper and pencil, had. With computers, even a D&D design can be greatly enhanced from that P+P gaming.
But Skill Based is even better for this. We should have both by now, if people would only see that huge numbers are meaningless, relatively, and very harmful in the big picture.
These game worlds need to be more exciting than just hack and slash "module" style gaming. There are many things gamers are interested in besides just that.
It's time to create worlds again.
Once upon a time....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"Worldly" game play (freedom of choice in said world, interactions, "realism") instead of gamey designs, so gamey that they make you do it all according to their itinerary. Fixed, unchanging, and eventually as boring as swatting flies all day long.
Notice that I said that even D&D (levels and all) could fit into what I'm trying to explain, IF the power gaps are reduced so as to remove the divisions (of the player base) that they cause if said power gaps are too big.
What is this "camp grinder"? I understand "quest grinder."
Once upon a time....
Instead of completing quests to progress ones character you would find yourself a camp of npcs to kill, and you ground that same spot endlessly, or at least until the camp bonus expired.
Camp grinding could be done solo, in duos, full groups, in a raid size body of 40 people.
Camps could be in open world, in dungeons, etc and as you leveled up, you moved on to new camps of higher level NPCs.
What the NPC's conned at was important, and groups could pull purple and red con packs for greater experience per kill vs the orange and yellows one generally killed one at a time when solo.
I spent thousands of hours repetitively killing npc after npc both solo and in groups until I thought my eyes would bleed.
When WOW first came out it was a very welcome design change but like most things, quest based progression had its pluses and minuses.
Didn't take long to see the big downside to quest progression.
My 50 person DAOC guild moved to WOW at launch and quickly fragmented as we could no longer progress together as a team, became every person (or clique) for themselves.
No more did the guild gather to level up lower level members en masse, and then as folks made it into raids it finished guild off for good, as everyone joined different raiding guilds.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Your explanation of what happened to your guild fits right in with the point about long term social game play.
This is why I keep hammering on the power gaps.
I once said that you could take any of these games, reduce the power gaps, and have that social aspect back again. It removes that "sparklie" Big Numbers, but makes the game much more fun. It also opens the door for the freedom to play as you want. But the game then needs to add all sorts of things to catch players' attention.
An in-game "newspaper" would be great for this, relating all the things of interest, player discoveries, GM events, etc.
UO had "Town Criers" that would shout out news about GM events. They were dressed in a particular fashion, and other player running their own "events" would create a character, dress them the same, and shout out their own event news around the banks.
Imagine a game world with all kinds of mysteries, some deep and some simpler, all kinds of big and little "quests", all kinds of news (including player character names of accomplishments), and even secrets that some players hold onto themselves.
Plus you'd have the typical resource gathering, Dungeon runs, and etc.
Then you can also have clues to secrets scattered all over the game world, for the deeper mysteries, broken up into small pieces.
And clues hidden in books and tomes, on grave markers, symbols and magical portents, on and on.
These things can be added as the game matures. The Lore can come to life like never before.
Lost treasures, artifacts, unique rewards, the whole shebang.
Add in Skill or ability discoveries, too.
I've used the simple example of a mason character studying an arch in a ruins to be able to build arches themself, just as a basic example of what can be done.
It's an entirely different kind of game, as far as how you go about playing it. And I think it's time is here.
Naturally, such a game needs ways to help players think of what they want to do, and a lot of that would be character development driven.
Web sites and forums would be full of the possibilities, as well as the in-game newspapers, libraries, dungeon carvings, messages carved in stone, etc.
"A world to play in."
Once upon a time....
My DAOC guild broke as well moving to WoW. It was hard to keep people together in early WoW.
I think big issues not only was the level difference (which is big), but also with the quests, you could be on the same exact line as someone, but be at different stages in the line, so you cant even group together doing that.
Also smaller group sizes, forced people to wait outside the group. I like WoW raiding, but WoW definetely broke up a bunch of old school guilds.
A good portion of the guild's more hardcore members rushed to the new level cap, 65 I think, and began the raids.
This included the guild's raid leader, who was the main tank, along with the guild leader himself, (mage), the secondary tank and a couple of the better healers.
While they rushed forward, trying to be server first or whatever they had no interest or care for the other 40 or so members who quickly peeled away in search of other guilds they could join so to continue their progression.
I said fk-it all to WOW and raiding in general, seemed like a silly treadmill which I no longer wanted to run on.
10 years of EVE followed, interspersed with a variety of games that came out between 2006 - 2014 which never lasted long for me as most followed WOWs gear grinding, raid centric formula.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon