You say I do not remember the bad things in my first MMO? You say I only remember the good and forget all the bad times? I say your way off target. My first MMO was Everquest (1) back in 1999/2000.
I remember trains, I remember corpse runs, I remember slow leveling, I remember hell levels, I remember exp lose on death, I remember kill stealing, I remember rare spawn timers, I remember all the so called bad things but that is were you are missing the boat. These are not bad things, they are good. They made the game fun and rewarding.
Trains - sure they sucked but it was very exciting as well. Some zones you watched chat waiting for that dreaded "Train to zone" . Either your ran or you tried to help that poor soul being chased by the mobs.
Corpse runs - they were not fun and time consuming but they taugh you a valuable lesson, DONT DIE. Anyone that played EQ learned quickly that dieing sucked and it made better players out of us. It made players learn their character. No you did avoid hard challenges you just learned how to win them, you learned how to use your character to its fullest.
Slow leveling - sure it was not fun taking a week to gain one level but it also allowed us to enjoy the journey and not worry about rushing to the max level, it allowed us to meet new people and explore new zones.
Hell Levels - Some of you may know what I am talking about others may not but EQ had hell levels, levels that took twice to three times the exp to level as the normal levels but guess what. It was rewarding getting passed them, you felt like you accomplished something. Max level players were respected and in return those max levels helped lower levels out because they knew what the lower levels were going though. In todays game a max level character is a dime a dozen and means nothing.
Exp lose on Death - This is the one all the "new" players hate or are scared of. Losing exp was not fun at all but it did serve a good funtion, if you did something stupied you paid a big price. I lost lvl 50 3 times before I final was able to keep it (50 was max level). Losing exp helped teach players how to play their class better and also how to play the game better. It also created a good community because other players had been their before and knew how hard it was. Help was always a /Shout a way in Everquest.
These things are looked at as bad things, poor design but they are not, they created better communities, they created a more skilled player base. Players had to play smarter then todays players due to gameplay design. I am willing to bet that someone that started playing MMOs with WoW could not beat a player that started in UO or EQ in a fair MMO fight.
I played a Warrior and Necromancer, my Necromancer was my main and during a raid one night my guild wiped on a raid mob and I was the only one left alive, I was able to rez a cleric and kite the raid mob around till the rest of the raid was ready to re engage the mob. Guess what it was one of the greatest moments I have ever had in any MMO to date. I saved the raid by myself because I learned how to play my toon and knew what I could handle and exactly how to do it because i was able to learn from my pass mistakes. I learned because death hurt and it forced me to learn ways to stay alive. I can't tell you how many times during my EQ career I walked away from a battle thinking "how the hell did I live?"
Games today require no thinking, no problem solving. I play video games because I love problem solving and I love figuring things out. Today you get your hand held though out the game and you are not allowed to make mistakes let alone learn from your mistakes.
There are a few encounters in WoW that are hard and make you think but most of the game is on easy mode and that is just not fun for me any many others.
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
Ditto. I started playing MMOs back in the 90s, but I didn't really enjoy them until 2004. The camping. The grinding. The exploits. The cheating. The forced grouping. The impossibility of getting anything accomplished unless you glued yourself to the PC for 3_hrs. The game breaking bugs. The lousy UIs. The bad control. The lousy graphics. The lack of direction. The constant beta-like state of the games. I prefer well designed modern gameplay like WOW has that feels "finished", much better. Yet, I haven't really enjoyed a MMO since I quit WOW, so oh well=) There were a few bright spots early on, like E&B, but it was all mostly garbage by todays standards.
All those distractions that UO had that newer MMOs don't just don't add to any real fun. Decorating a house? Who cares. Making a gimped collection of skills that gets blown away by others? Who cares if I can say its unique. It still sucks. I can NOT bother to train any talents in WOW and say I'm unique, but why would I? Same with UO. Just because you can do something doesn't mean theres a point to it. You enjoy drawing a map on graph paper...congrats to you. You still enjoy using an abacus as well? You still enjoy using a paper map instead of Google Maps? You actually ENJOY a lousy interface because it forces you to "figure it out". Please. You enjoy killing the same exact mob in the same exact place using the same exact tactics for weeks on end? All the power to ya. You enjoy hitting a tree 1000 times to skill up Sword? You enjoy combat thats slow and requires very little actual choice or options? Have fun with that. You enjoy classes that have 1 role and no alternate ways to play it? You probably enjoy only 3 TV stations as well;) You enjoy waiting for 20+ mins to travel someplace because it forces you to talk and socialize with people even though you can chat with anyone anytime you like? You enjoy sitting down between every fight for minutes at a time doing NOTHING because it forces you to talk? You enjoyed losing exp when you died so you had to replay the time you just lost? You think the developers deliberately did that for social purposes and not to make you forget theres no content in the game and the longer you sit around the longer you play and the longer the subscription money comes in? You see, that doesn't work NOW, because people have lots of choices and will choose NOT to play that sort of game. Back then, thats all there was.
You just remember the newness of it all. But the games were BADLY designed by all conventional standards. Everything was designed to slow you down or was counter intuitive and tedious because the developer just didn't know any better. They didn't know what was fun or what worked. They were figuring it all out and over the years they've figured out what works and what doesn't. Thats why games aren't designed like they were in 2000. Don't get me wrong though. Certain new games suck as well, but for different reasons.
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
Ditto. I started playing MMOs back in the 90s, but I didn't really enjoy them until 2004. The camping. The grinding. The exploits. The cheating. The forced grouping. The impossibility of getting anything accomplished unless you glued yourself to the PC for 3_hrs. The game breaking bugs. The lousy UIs. The bad control. The lousy graphics. The lack of direction. The constant beta-like state of the games.
The camping only existed in EverQuest and other gear based games. There were plenty of different MMOs out there. The cheating still exists. The exploits exist on a much larger scale now. The forced grouping? Why are you playing an MMO? You can get enough done on your own, but don't expect to do better by yourself in a social game unless you're real good. The UIs were mostly customizable back then. As early as 2002 Dark Age of Camelot let you design your own UIs. The bad control? Again, controls were totally custom then. Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game. Lack of direction? If you mean, sandbox games, then don't diss the whole of games that came from before 2004, because Sandbox games weren't the only ones around. And some of us like not being led by the nose like a dumb cow.
Judging from your post, you were a kid at the time UO BETA came out, and you played a BETA (back when it was meant to be an actual beta) and didn't know how to do anything, or care. Sorry if you like linear games with absolutely no options and slowed down simplified combat, the rest of us don't.
True to a point. The reality is even though I loved everquest (I played m59, lok, uo, muds, etc.) if it was released today with spectacular graphics I wouldn't touch it with a stick. It's mostly just a case of bt;dt. Which brings me to most 'modern' games... when you're an old school guy or gal, the incremental improvements don't cut it. Everquest was such a spectacular game because it was ~innovative~ massively. Ditto on UO. The same can be said of WOW, yes other fantasy themed games came out but they were largely ripped off of eq... so was wow, but at least wow innovated a lot of the game system it used and it set a new standard for interface. There has been very little innovation since wow, just a lot of copying... and the developers wonder why their games are flopping?
There was a reason the people who liked old-school galaxies were so passionate about it, no it didn't appeal to everyone, but it was different, a lot of vets of other games played it just for that reason, it was innovative, it was different, it was fun. it wasn't the same game I'd been playing for the last few years.
The only way to be at the top is to innovate and that's something that the devs seem unable to comprehend.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
Your right new games look better.
Back when we first started in this genre the graphics weren't bad. Remember playing Old Rpgs like Diablo or final fantasy? Did the graphics look like shit then? nope.
I remember when anarchy online was considered cutting edge lol.
Obviously new games look better. In ten years we will be called AoC and Aion graphics dog shit.
My issue with a lot of these so called vets that are ripping older games with comments like "Graphics, combat, ui sucked!!!" well if they really played those games at the time all of those features were bleeding edge.
Just look at games from 1999 and check out EQs graphics. So I call bullshit, this is why i dont believe posters like Josher.
I mean seriously why stick with a genre from 1997 to 2004 if you hated the games??? its hilarious that anyone could take guys like him seriously.
no most of us just don't have A.D.D. where we need new shiny things flashed at us every 10-15 seconds too keep us interested. sorry you "young" emos do, that you need to have an "oooooo shiny, pretty" moment every few seconds or else you might take a razor blade to your wrists.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
It really depends on your tastes. DaoC went for more realism in their art and world design while WoW went for a more exaggerated look. DaoC is full of more neutral and earthy tones/colors , while WoW went for more pastels and vibrant colors.
That being said and taste aside, a good example of DaoC's graphics in their shining moments were Epic Armor you received from your Epic Quest at 50. The detail in these armor sets exceed the detail of WoW's armor considering that DaoC had created them 10 years ago.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
Best part is, even with those graphics, DAoC could handle 500 man battles. Something "pretty" modern games buckle at, Age of Conan, I'm looking at you.
Games like EQ and DAOC had a few components that have been largely lost in later games that I miss:
Non-Combat/Utility Spells - non-mount movement speed increases, invisibility, teleporting, levitation (had some fun with that spell in EQ!), etc
Random Buffing - Being able to buff non-party members. Why? Because it is the nice thing to do! I used to love being a class that could award an armor or weapon buff and randomly buff other characters.
No concept of "group-scaled" monsters - If you wanted a challenge, you gathered up a few people and fought monsters several levels higher than you for optimal rewards. I hate the concept of monsters being "designed for groups" as they scale the statistics very differently than just having a harder fight.
Everything back in the day seems better because people intentionally only remember the good things while completely blocking all the bad things from their memory.
I'm sorry but I'm so tired of hearing that bullsh!t. I know what I remember thank you... the good & the bad. They were 10x better as a whole then the striped down games lacking about everything that makes a great RPG that we get now a day.
Here's whats missing from the top of my head:
- A journey ( not gettting max lvl in 1-2 months ) So making leveling take longer somehow makes it a journey
- Housing I would rather have castles and clan halls but thats just me.
- meaningfull class interaction Such as...what makes class interaction meaningfull?
- travel time ( whats the point of playing in a virtual world if you don't see the damn thing) Traveling is fine but there is also a fine line between wasting my ttime and trying to drag things out and having it feel like a journey. I would venture to say that shorter travel times are better because i never travel a path once and having it take a while is fine the first time but after that it gets boring to run the same path over and over.
- Group combat mechanic. ( like skill chain in FFXI, just to clarify ) Group dynamics are different in every game learning to play your class well and take advantage of and play off your group mates is key in any group setting.
- unlockable content ( maps, classes, skills, etc...) Most games have this.
- Diversity in what you can do ingame ( not just raid this , PvP that ) Older games lacked in this department most were grind till you level, very little questing some had decent crafting systems but most were straight foward grind to level.
- Meaningfull crafting ( crafting thats actually hard to lvl up ) Hard to level =/ meaningfull, having crafted items that are sought after and usefull makes for meaningfull crafting system.
Thats just the 1st thing that comes to mind & I'm sure other ppl could add even more of whats missing in todays junk.
This cannot continue, but we have no choice we take what we get, and if all we get is shit we have no choice, this forced acceptance of said shit is inevitably taken as a perverse sign of continuing support and the market spirals downwards despite great advances in both game development and cost-product efficiency.
The problem is, you *DO* have a choice. You can refuse to play these crappy games entirely. Stop giving them your money! Stop signing up for idiotic lifetime subscriptions! Stop playing on day one! Get a goddamn life and only play the games that are worth playing and let the rest fail miserably.
Unfortunately, people jump on bad games, keep paying for bad games and then sit around here and complain about the bad games. The developers don't care if you like their game so long as you keep shelling out a monthly fee. Anyone who is playing a game and hating it is an idiot and to blame for the current market. If nobody paid for this crap, the developers would have to give us actual good games or go out of business.
This cannot continue, but we have no choice we take what we get, and if all we get is shit we have no choice, this forced acceptance of said shit is inevitably taken as a perverse sign of continuing support and the market spirals downwards despite great advances in both game development and cost-product efficiency.
The problem is, you *DO* have a choice. You can refuse to play these crappy games entirely. Stop giving them your money! Stop signing up for idiotic lifetime subscriptions! Stop playing on day one! Get a goddamn life and only play the games that are worth playing and let the rest fail miserably.
Unfortunately, people jump on bad games, keep paying for bad games and then sit around here and complain about the bad games. The developers don't care if you like their game so long as you keep shelling out a monthly fee. Anyone who is playing a game and hating it is an idiot and to blame for the current market. If nobody paid for this crap, the developers would have to give us actual good games or go out of business.
Herein lies the problem, its but an illusion of choice. Its the same thing with voting, you can say that every vote counts and perhaps technically it does but the point is that -it makes no difference-, the circumstances in which your choice personally makes a difference are so improbable it boggles the mind. One can be as stubborn as he wants, can stand their ground for a worthy cause but alas unless lots and I mean -lots- of people do the same it means nothing in the end. And even if they do its up to some arbitrary mind to decide whether your choice to not buy is the result of the intention you wish to convey or a 1000 other reasons.
Sure you can protest by not buying into the latest crap mmo, I can do the same and a handful of other reasoned minds but the masses, as you so astutely pointed out, -will- fall for the pretty banner, the cool looking screenshot, the impressive trailer and just go for it like they always do, thats the problem and what signal do the devs get ? what signal do the investors get ? hell yeah 'we are the shit' look at all those people lining up, this is what we must do, this is what they want !
And once the initial hype starts waring off, once even the least demanding gamers see the game for what it really is and start leaving, and this point is important, there are a 1000 reasons lining up conveniently that all explain the drop in subs. The simple fact that the game is crap, the simple fact that it is -not- what the market wants gets buried beneath the details. Furthermore, even if the devs are observant enough to truly notice that something is not right, people just leave and the devs are left to wonder WTF went wrong. Smart devs will consider what the players themselves think, looking at reviews and forums is a clever thing to do, isn't it ? Well considering the endless metric craptons of bullshit being delivered constantly by people on this site and oh so many others its no wonder devs are left confused. Its like the whole mmo market has finally said 'fuck it' lets not bother and just go for it, hit or miss, and thats what we get.
im 23 years old. MMO's today blow massive dick. I'm compairing all mmos of the past to todays mmos. They suck. MMO's back in the day had more innovation in their tutorials then any of the ones of today so........
Sure you can protest by not buying into the latest crap mmo, I can do the same and a handful of other reasoned minds but the masses, as you so astutely pointed out, -will- fall for the pretty banner, the cool looking screenshot, the impressive trailer and just go for it like they always do, thats the problem and what signal do the devs get ? what signal do the investors get ? hell yeah 'we are the shit' look at all those people lining up, this is what we must do, this is what they want !
You can only act for yourself, you cannot control what other people do. If they want to keep playing, then let them keep playing, it's their lives, their money and their freedom. However, if enough people can be convinced to stop playing these rotten games, developers are going to sit up and take notice and change their games to appeal to the majority.
That's the thing, when you're in the minority, you have virtually no say. That's why the pro-groupers are losing out, the pro-harsh-death-penalty people, the "good old day" gamers, all are losing because they're not part of the majority. They're not even close. The idea that you ought to get your way, just because you want it is absurd. It takes raw numbers, tons of people who are willing to take a stand and speak out. If you can't attract those kinds of numbers, your cause is lost.
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
I never played UO, but my first MMO was Earth & Beyond! Look how awesome it was! I'm also a SWG Vet and will never ever forget the good old days I had in that game. And I know I will never get that back. Why not? SWG was the first real MMO's for me, I never played anything like it. It's also the first MMO where I joined my first Guild ever. Does feelings will never return. But I still hope that new MMO's can have same nice looking combat animations (melee) that SWG had before that game was destroyd by Lucas & SOE. For a game that old I never seen any other MMO come close to does animations. AoC might be the only one. Some call me troll, that I'm too negativ about games. Well I have seen most and I know the Dev's can do better. Big or small company. It's about what you focus on and most of the time the MMO Dev's focus on wrong things and thats why they fail over and over. They also fail when they remove negative people and only lissen to people that love what they made. How can you make something better when everything is great? You need both type of people. And right now I don't know why I just wrote this... haha. I had to get it out. Oh back in the days...
The problem we have is that one mmo, World of Warcraft, has 11.5 million subs - vastly more than any other P2P game. So almost every company is using that as the benchmark for what people want when they design new games. That translates into styles of gaming that many people still enjoy being kicked to the curb, with nothing new on the menu for them.
It's as if every movie made for 6 years was a romantic comedy. Everything else - action, adventure, suspense, drama, horror, history, fantasy, science fiction - all gone. Then when someone protests, you get oh don't tell me how you walked to movies in the snow "back in the day" when there was more than one kind.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
These things are looked at as bad things, poor design but they are not, they created better communities, they created a more skilled player base. Players had to play smarter then todays players due to gameplay design. I am willing to bet that someone that started playing MMOs with WoW could not beat a player that started in UO or EQ in a fair MMO fight.
You forget that quite a few UO and EQ players switched to WoW disproving this. Not to say all of them sucked, some were actually good, but there were no shortage of bad ones. I've been guilded with former UO and EQ players I could beat with my eyes closed. I'm sure it feels good patting your own back (I guess I'll use the nice term here), but I've not seen a lot that comes close to proving this claim.
I would have to disagree. First of all, dirtyjoe pointed out what was fundamentally wrong with some UO mechanics. Secondly, I would love to point out Fallen Earth has some of those features and much improved. Including a community which is livelier and better then UOs was. So that's a +1 for modern games.
At everyone saying I "do not understand" well.. i started playing MMORPGs when Anarchy Online came out and have been on and off the genre since. It's the offtimes that allowed me to look at it from a perspective, as did coming back to AO in the last 2 years (and quitting around lvl 70ish).
Not playing MMOs is not a solution. It might stop games from being worse, but it will certainly not help any small game get any better. Most probably such an approach will just stop them from being at all. There are many niche MMOs currently which do single small things right. Together they greatly contribute to the genre and form a complete picture. You never know if you are not going to like a certain game unless you try to get into it. Adopting and listening to communities is great, but sometimes has to be taken with a pinch of salt because of Internets anonymity effect. Where would EVE be now, if everyone left it?
SF
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
What's better about todays mmos? The combat? Graphics? maybe a easier to use UI? I would trade in todays combat, graphics and UI for a community that wasnt clueless anti-socials for Devs that dont to create Shallow, Single player rpgs and label them mmos. Where have the communities gone? Where's the need to group outside a dungeon or pvp mini-game? What happened to just enjoying a game? why must everything need to have a reward attached to it? MMOs are more than just combat and a UI man.
Agree.
MMO's should be about the journey, not the destination.
You people are just getting old. Get used to it, it won't get any better with time. Yes, i am talking to most of the forum reads. We all have a soft spot for our first MMO, as it was pointed out in the recent article but sometimes too far is too far.
The growth of such a group in the gaming population is actually quite an interesting phenomenon. It creates some nice stratification, which IMHO is pretty entertaining to watch since till now gamers were regarded as hardcore or casual. Now we have the elderly ladie... i mean "veterans" too.
The problem is, just like your grandparents, you are not comparing the past (MMOs) with the present. We are comparing what we though the past MMOs were and what we remember of them. An idealised image. And let me tell you two things.. past MMOs, even the western ones were complex because they were not functional, and even if you did not notice it, they had grind as bad as the current "Korean".
There is a reason why I don't play Anarchy Online. I still compare modern games to it, but they ARE better then AO *sad face*. Still, nowhere near as good as my fondest memories of the days when I started...
SF
Thanks for lumping us all together.
But sorry, you're incorrect. I remember all the "bad" things about old MMOs. I remember the clunky interface, the primitive mechanics.
I also remember the things modern day people would consider "bad mechanics", that I consider, a good part of the game. No map or radar, was a good thing. No icons over quest NPCs, was a good thing. Grind based gameplay vs quest based, was a good thing. Very little instant teleportation, was a good thing. No instances, good thing.
Let me explain why.
I'll use the shining example of old time MMORPGs. Dark Age of Camelot.
There was no map. There was only zoning when you went into dungeons, and there were no instances. Quests existed, but they were quests. Heavy on story, light on hints, you went out into the wilderness and you solved the puzzle, or asked friends for help. You'd come back, get a piece of armor, some coin, maybe a little exp. "Gasp! How could you get by without doing all your leveling from quests!" Well, there were also tasks, which you get from border guards. They'd give you one monster to seek out and kill, you'd come back and get JUST experience. Quick way to get exp if you were solo waiting for a group.
But groups were much better, for these reasons. You could kill harder mobs, kill them faster(there was down time, and groups mitigated this, yet another reason to seek them out) and you TALKED to eachother and became FRIENDS. Some people still enjoyed soloing, and it was an option, it just wasn't the fastest option.
Ah, dungeons, not instanced. A sin you say? What about trains and kill stealing? Oh he's just an old fart who forgets those. No, I do not forget those, because with good game design, and not lazy instancing, that wasn't a problem. In my 5 years of playing DAoC, I ran into 2 people who stole kills, ever. Ahh but what if you're camping a rare drop mob and someone tries to take your camp! Well in DAoC, the game was properly balanced so that items didn't rule the world, and there were far more interesting things to do than get the next shiney. And crafted gear was on par with quest/dropped gear. You had several ways to do everything.
So, in DAoC, ran into a dungeon, see other people, they need help, or you need help, you become friends, team up, fight through the dungeon the entire night, and suddenly, you've got a new friend who you can call on to help in the future. Occasionally you'd get to a room with other people in it, that's ok, you just went to another room. The horror, right? Want to just run through a place alone? Find a dungeon nobody goes in, or play a single player game. Guides were always valuable people, veterans that knew their way around. They'd teach others how to navigate through dungeons.
To ease this grind, there were battlegrounds. These battlegrounds were insanely fun, and rewarding. So if you got tired of killing mobs, you went there. A ceremony every 10-15 minutes would transport people to the battlegrounds. This made it so that, you could WIN a battle, and the enemy would actually be gone for a bit, and you could use that time to attack the central keep and take it over. There was no FPS like instant respawn endless pointless conflict.
At an end game level, you fought in the frontier. There were raids. They weren't instanced. The bosses were made well enough so that it could adjust to any number of people fighting it. You would NEVER run into another group trying to kill the dragon at the same time, because dragon raids usually took 100 people, and if that 100 were killing the dragon, the other guilds would know enough that they need to defend the frontier while those 100 are off raiding. Raided gear was nice, you did it for fun, once and a while, then back to the frontiers. You didn't have to grind the raid gear, because you could get crafted gear instead, but raid gear looked cooler, and crafted gear was expensive.
Different ways to get everything.
With GOOD game design, you don't need stupid instancing, or maps, or constant pointless quest grinds.
As for games back then only being complicated because they were bad. I'm going to question YOUR ability to remember the past. Not my own. There were so many new innovative features coming out then, almost every MMO felt entirely different from the other. You don't have that anymore, cause any company with money is too afraid to do something different.
TLDR
You can toss derogatory comments at us all you want, but things were better in the industry back then. Enjoy playing your Free Realms/massively singleplayer SWTOR style "MMOs" in the next 5 years. How would you feel if your favorite genre of video games completely and totally dissapeared, changed into the total opposite of what it used to be, and the new people who enjoy the new genre simply said "it's better now, it's progress, go bugger off".
Also agree with this. It was fun to have challenge, because yes, there was frustration in losing, but it was forgotten when you finally discovered a tactic that worked and triumphed. Solving puzzles was as much a reward and the xp and/or gear, etc, etc. I really don't see what is fun in a "supposed" quest telling you exactly what to look for, where to get it, and what to get it off of. As well as giving you quest On-Star for it.
Comments
You say I do not remember the bad things in my first MMO? You say I only remember the good and forget all the bad times? I say your way off target. My first MMO was Everquest (1) back in 1999/2000.
I remember trains, I remember corpse runs, I remember slow leveling, I remember hell levels, I remember exp lose on death, I remember kill stealing, I remember rare spawn timers, I remember all the so called bad things but that is were you are missing the boat. These are not bad things, they are good. They made the game fun and rewarding.
Trains - sure they sucked but it was very exciting as well. Some zones you watched chat waiting for that dreaded "Train to zone" . Either your ran or you tried to help that poor soul being chased by the mobs.
Corpse runs - they were not fun and time consuming but they taugh you a valuable lesson, DONT DIE. Anyone that played EQ learned quickly that dieing sucked and it made better players out of us. It made players learn their character. No you did avoid hard challenges you just learned how to win them, you learned how to use your character to its fullest.
Slow leveling - sure it was not fun taking a week to gain one level but it also allowed us to enjoy the journey and not worry about rushing to the max level, it allowed us to meet new people and explore new zones.
Hell Levels - Some of you may know what I am talking about others may not but EQ had hell levels, levels that took twice to three times the exp to level as the normal levels but guess what. It was rewarding getting passed them, you felt like you accomplished something. Max level players were respected and in return those max levels helped lower levels out because they knew what the lower levels were going though. In todays game a max level character is a dime a dozen and means nothing.
Exp lose on Death - This is the one all the "new" players hate or are scared of. Losing exp was not fun at all but it did serve a good funtion, if you did something stupied you paid a big price. I lost lvl 50 3 times before I final was able to keep it (50 was max level). Losing exp helped teach players how to play their class better and also how to play the game better. It also created a good community because other players had been their before and knew how hard it was. Help was always a /Shout a way in Everquest.
These things are looked at as bad things, poor design but they are not, they created better communities, they created a more skilled player base. Players had to play smarter then todays players due to gameplay design. I am willing to bet that someone that started playing MMOs with WoW could not beat a player that started in UO or EQ in a fair MMO fight.
I played a Warrior and Necromancer, my Necromancer was my main and during a raid one night my guild wiped on a raid mob and I was the only one left alive, I was able to rez a cleric and kite the raid mob around till the rest of the raid was ready to re engage the mob. Guess what it was one of the greatest moments I have ever had in any MMO to date. I saved the raid by myself because I learned how to play my toon and knew what I could handle and exactly how to do it because i was able to learn from my pass mistakes. I learned because death hurt and it forced me to learn ways to stay alive. I can't tell you how many times during my EQ career I walked away from a battle thinking "how the hell did I live?"
Games today require no thinking, no problem solving. I play video games because I love problem solving and I love figuring things out. Today you get your hand held though out the game and you are not allowed to make mistakes let alone learn from your mistakes.
There are a few encounters in WoW that are hard and make you think but most of the game is on easy mode and that is just not fun for me any many others.
Sooner or Later
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Ditto. I started playing MMOs back in the 90s, but I didn't really enjoy them until 2004. The camping. The grinding. The exploits. The cheating. The forced grouping. The impossibility of getting anything accomplished unless you glued yourself to the PC for 3_hrs. The game breaking bugs. The lousy UIs. The bad control. The lousy graphics. The lack of direction. The constant beta-like state of the games. I prefer well designed modern gameplay like WOW has that feels "finished", much better. Yet, I haven't really enjoyed a MMO since I quit WOW, so oh well=) There were a few bright spots early on, like E&B, but it was all mostly garbage by todays standards.
All those distractions that UO had that newer MMOs don't just don't add to any real fun. Decorating a house? Who cares. Making a gimped collection of skills that gets blown away by others? Who cares if I can say its unique. It still sucks. I can NOT bother to train any talents in WOW and say I'm unique, but why would I? Same with UO. Just because you can do something doesn't mean theres a point to it. You enjoy drawing a map on graph paper...congrats to you. You still enjoy using an abacus as well? You still enjoy using a paper map instead of Google Maps? You actually ENJOY a lousy interface because it forces you to "figure it out". Please. You enjoy killing the same exact mob in the same exact place using the same exact tactics for weeks on end? All the power to ya. You enjoy hitting a tree 1000 times to skill up Sword? You enjoy combat thats slow and requires very little actual choice or options? Have fun with that. You enjoy classes that have 1 role and no alternate ways to play it? You probably enjoy only 3 TV stations as well;) You enjoy waiting for 20+ mins to travel someplace because it forces you to talk and socialize with people even though you can chat with anyone anytime you like? You enjoy sitting down between every fight for minutes at a time doing NOTHING because it forces you to talk? You enjoyed losing exp when you died so you had to replay the time you just lost? You think the developers deliberately did that for social purposes and not to make you forget theres no content in the game and the longer you sit around the longer you play and the longer the subscription money comes in? You see, that doesn't work NOW, because people have lots of choices and will choose NOT to play that sort of game. Back then, thats all there was.
You just remember the newness of it all. But the games were BADLY designed by all conventional standards. Everything was designed to slow you down or was counter intuitive and tedious because the developer just didn't know any better. They didn't know what was fun or what worked. They were figuring it all out and over the years they've figured out what works and what doesn't. Thats why games aren't designed like they were in 2000. Don't get me wrong though. Certain new games suck as well, but for different reasons.
Ditto. I started playing MMOs back in the 90s, but I didn't really enjoy them until 2004. The camping. The grinding. The exploits. The cheating. The forced grouping. The impossibility of getting anything accomplished unless you glued yourself to the PC for 3_hrs. The game breaking bugs. The lousy UIs. The bad control. The lousy graphics. The lack of direction. The constant beta-like state of the games.
The camping only existed in EverQuest and other gear based games. There were plenty of different MMOs out there. The cheating still exists. The exploits exist on a much larger scale now. The forced grouping? Why are you playing an MMO? You can get enough done on your own, but don't expect to do better by yourself in a social game unless you're real good. The UIs were mostly customizable back then. As early as 2002 Dark Age of Camelot let you design your own UIs. The bad control? Again, controls were totally custom then. Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game. Lack of direction? If you mean, sandbox games, then don't diss the whole of games that came from before 2004, because Sandbox games weren't the only ones around. And some of us like not being led by the nose like a dumb cow.
Judging from your post, you were a kid at the time UO BETA came out, and you played a BETA (back when it was meant to be an actual beta) and didn't know how to do anything, or care. Sorry if you like linear games with absolutely no options and slowed down simplified combat, the rest of us don't.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
True to a point. The reality is even though I loved everquest (I played m59, lok, uo, muds, etc.) if it was released today with spectacular graphics I wouldn't touch it with a stick. It's mostly just a case of bt;dt. Which brings me to most 'modern' games... when you're an old school guy or gal, the incremental improvements don't cut it. Everquest was such a spectacular game because it was ~innovative~ massively. Ditto on UO. The same can be said of WOW, yes other fantasy themed games came out but they were largely ripped off of eq... so was wow, but at least wow innovated a lot of the game system it used and it set a new standard for interface. There has been very little innovation since wow, just a lot of copying... and the developers wonder why their games are flopping?
There was a reason the people who liked old-school galaxies were so passionate about it, no it didn't appeal to everyone, but it was different, a lot of vets of other games played it just for that reason, it was innovative, it was different, it was fun. it wasn't the same game I'd been playing for the last few years.
The only way to be at the top is to innovate and that's something that the devs seem unable to comprehend.
Shadus
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
Your right new games look better.
Back when we first started in this genre the graphics weren't bad. Remember playing Old Rpgs like Diablo or final fantasy? Did the graphics look like shit then? nope.
I remember when anarchy online was considered cutting edge lol.
Obviously new games look better. In ten years we will be called AoC and Aion graphics dog shit.
My issue with a lot of these so called vets that are ripping older games with comments like "Graphics, combat, ui sucked!!!" well if they really played those games at the time all of those features were bleeding edge.
Just look at games from 1999 and check out EQs graphics. So I call bullshit, this is why i dont believe posters like Josher.
I mean seriously why stick with a genre from 1997 to 2004 if you hated the games??? its hilarious that anyone could take guys like him seriously.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
no most of us just don't have A.D.D. where we need new shiny things flashed at us every 10-15 seconds too keep us interested. sorry you "young" emos do, that you need to have an "oooooo shiny, pretty" moment every few seconds or else you might take a razor blade to your wrists.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
It really depends on your tastes. DaoC went for more realism in their art and world design while WoW went for a more exaggerated look. DaoC is full of more neutral and earthy tones/colors , while WoW went for more pastels and vibrant colors.
That being said and taste aside, a good example of DaoC's graphics in their shining moments were Epic Armor you received from your Epic Quest at 50. The detail in these armor sets exceed the detail of WoW's armor considering that DaoC had created them 10 years ago.
Lousy graphics? I could post screenshots of Dark Age of Camelot that blow WoW and LotRO out of the freaking water, and that's a 10 year old game.
I'll call your bluff on that one. And try making wow and lotro look bad by picking poor screenshots too while you're at it.
Best part is, even with those graphics, DAoC could handle 500 man battles. Something "pretty" modern games buckle at, Age of Conan, I'm looking at you.
Nostalgia FTW!
Games like EQ and DAOC had a few components that have been largely lost in later games that I miss:
I'm sorry but I'm so tired of hearing that bullsh!t. I know what I remember thank you... the good & the bad. They were 10x better as a whole then the striped down games lacking about everything that makes a great RPG that we get now a day.
Here's whats missing from the top of my head:
- A journey ( not gettting max lvl in 1-2 months ) So making leveling take longer somehow makes it a journey
- Housing I would rather have castles and clan halls but thats just me.
- meaningfull class interaction Such as...what makes class interaction meaningfull?
- travel time ( whats the point of playing in a virtual world if you don't see the damn thing) Traveling is fine but there is also a fine line between wasting my ttime and trying to drag things out and having it feel like a journey. I would venture to say that shorter travel times are better because i never travel a path once and having it take a while is fine the first time but after that it gets boring to run the same path over and over.
- Group combat mechanic. ( like skill chain in FFXI, just to clarify ) Group dynamics are different in every game learning to play your class well and take advantage of and play off your group mates is key in any group setting.
- unlockable content ( maps, classes, skills, etc...) Most games have this.
- Diversity in what you can do ingame ( not just raid this , PvP that ) Older games lacked in this department most were grind till you level, very little questing some had decent crafting systems but most were straight foward grind to level.
- Meaningfull crafting ( crafting thats actually hard to lvl up ) Hard to level =/ meaningfull, having crafted items that are sought after and usefull makes for meaningfull crafting system.
Thats just the 1st thing that comes to mind & I'm sure other ppl could add even more of whats missing in todays junk.
The problem is, you *DO* have a choice. You can refuse to play these crappy games entirely. Stop giving them your money! Stop signing up for idiotic lifetime subscriptions! Stop playing on day one! Get a goddamn life and only play the games that are worth playing and let the rest fail miserably.
Unfortunately, people jump on bad games, keep paying for bad games and then sit around here and complain about the bad games. The developers don't care if you like their game so long as you keep shelling out a monthly fee. Anyone who is playing a game and hating it is an idiot and to blame for the current market. If nobody paid for this crap, the developers would have to give us actual good games or go out of business.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The problem is, you *DO* have a choice. You can refuse to play these crappy games entirely. Stop giving them your money! Stop signing up for idiotic lifetime subscriptions! Stop playing on day one! Get a goddamn life and only play the games that are worth playing and let the rest fail miserably.
Unfortunately, people jump on bad games, keep paying for bad games and then sit around here and complain about the bad games. The developers don't care if you like their game so long as you keep shelling out a monthly fee. Anyone who is playing a game and hating it is an idiot and to blame for the current market. If nobody paid for this crap, the developers would have to give us actual good games or go out of business.
Herein lies the problem, its but an illusion of choice. Its the same thing with voting, you can say that every vote counts and perhaps technically it does but the point is that -it makes no difference-, the circumstances in which your choice personally makes a difference are so improbable it boggles the mind. One can be as stubborn as he wants, can stand their ground for a worthy cause but alas unless lots and I mean -lots- of people do the same it means nothing in the end. And even if they do its up to some arbitrary mind to decide whether your choice to not buy is the result of the intention you wish to convey or a 1000 other reasons.
Sure you can protest by not buying into the latest crap mmo, I can do the same and a handful of other reasoned minds but the masses, as you so astutely pointed out, -will- fall for the pretty banner, the cool looking screenshot, the impressive trailer and just go for it like they always do, thats the problem and what signal do the devs get ? what signal do the investors get ? hell yeah 'we are the shit' look at all those people lining up, this is what we must do, this is what they want !
And once the initial hype starts waring off, once even the least demanding gamers see the game for what it really is and start leaving, and this point is important, there are a 1000 reasons lining up conveniently that all explain the drop in subs. The simple fact that the game is crap, the simple fact that it is -not- what the market wants gets buried beneath the details. Furthermore, even if the devs are observant enough to truly notice that something is not right, people just leave and the devs are left to wonder WTF went wrong. Smart devs will consider what the players themselves think, looking at reviews and forums is a clever thing to do, isn't it ? Well considering the endless metric craptons of bullshit being delivered constantly by people on this site and oh so many others its no wonder devs are left confused. Its like the whole mmo market has finally said 'fuck it' lets not bother and just go for it, hit or miss, and thats what we get.
Hit or miss games, evolution ? Lets hope so...
- Shijeer
im 23 years old. MMO's today blow massive dick. I'm compairing all mmos of the past to todays mmos. They suck. MMO's back in the day had more innovation in their tutorials then any of the ones of today so........
mmo's "back in the day" didn't have tutorials! :P
You can only act for yourself, you cannot control what other people do. If they want to keep playing, then let them keep playing, it's their lives, their money and their freedom. However, if enough people can be convinced to stop playing these rotten games, developers are going to sit up and take notice and change their games to appeal to the majority.
That's the thing, when you're in the minority, you have virtually no say. That's why the pro-groupers are losing out, the pro-harsh-death-penalty people, the "good old day" gamers, all are losing because they're not part of the majority. They're not even close. The idea that you ought to get your way, just because you want it is absurd. It takes raw numbers, tons of people who are willing to take a stand and speak out. If you can't attract those kinds of numbers, your cause is lost.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Nope I don't. My first MMO is UO beta and it was a bad game. My second is EQ and i could not stand the camping and down-time. And i like modern MMOs like WOW much much better. So no nostalgia here.
UO was a bad game? Being able to do virtually anything you want, from sheer sheep, to sail in a boat and find sunken treasure, do raids, quest, PvP, dye your clothes, interact with items in the world... that was a bad game?
Sorry, I think you need to look up the difference between "I don't like something" and "Something is a bad game"
Very bad game. You get Pk-ed everywhere. Mining means click click click on a ROCK for hours (that is just BAD design). All the mining caves are full of people (where is the adventure)?
Do virtually anything i want does not makes a good game if most things that can be done are BORING. Why would I want to DYE clothes in my fantasy game? I want to go fight dragons and have adventures. There is a reason why EQ is 5x more popular than UO once it came out. Despite all its faults, it is a BETTER game. You interact with the game LESS (the game focuses on hack-n-slash & progression other than all these worthless freedoms) but it is more fun because the combat mechanics are better done.
picture looks a lot like EVE, lol
The problem we have is that one mmo, World of Warcraft, has 11.5 million subs - vastly more than any other P2P game. So almost every company is using that as the benchmark for what people want when they design new games. That translates into styles of gaming that many people still enjoy being kicked to the curb, with nothing new on the menu for them.
It's as if every movie made for 6 years was a romantic comedy. Everything else - action, adventure, suspense, drama, horror, history, fantasy, science fiction - all gone. Then when someone protests, you get oh don't tell me how you walked to movies in the snow "back in the day" when there was more than one kind.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You forget that quite a few UO and EQ players switched to WoW disproving this. Not to say all of them sucked, some were actually good, but there were no shortage of bad ones. I've been guilded with former UO and EQ players I could beat with my eyes closed. I'm sure it feels good patting your own back (I guess I'll use the nice term here), but I've not seen a lot that comes close to proving this claim.
I am so far loving the discussion, and am glad i brought the topic up. Haven't seen a thread so level-headed on MMORPG for... uhm.. a long time.
@Nekrataal:
I would have to disagree. First of all, dirtyjoe pointed out what was fundamentally wrong with some UO mechanics. Secondly, I would love to point out Fallen Earth has some of those features and much improved. Including a community which is livelier and better then UOs was. So that's a +1 for modern games.
At everyone saying I "do not understand" well.. i started playing MMORPGs when Anarchy Online came out and have been on and off the genre since. It's the offtimes that allowed me to look at it from a perspective, as did coming back to AO in the last 2 years (and quitting around lvl 70ish).
@Cephus
Not playing MMOs is not a solution. It might stop games from being worse, but it will certainly not help any small game get any better. Most probably such an approach will just stop them from being at all. There are many niche MMOs currently which do single small things right. Together they greatly contribute to the genre and form a complete picture. You never know if you are not going to like a certain game unless you try to get into it. Adopting and listening to communities is great, but sometimes has to be taken with a pinch of salt because of Internets anonymity effect. Where would EVE be now, if everyone left it?
SF
Agree.
MMO's should be about the journey, not the destination.
Thanks for lumping us all together.
But sorry, you're incorrect. I remember all the "bad" things about old MMOs. I remember the clunky interface, the primitive mechanics.
I also remember the things modern day people would consider "bad mechanics", that I consider, a good part of the game. No map or radar, was a good thing. No icons over quest NPCs, was a good thing. Grind based gameplay vs quest based, was a good thing. Very little instant teleportation, was a good thing. No instances, good thing.
Let me explain why.
I'll use the shining example of old time MMORPGs. Dark Age of Camelot.
There was no map. There was only zoning when you went into dungeons, and there were no instances. Quests existed, but they were quests. Heavy on story, light on hints, you went out into the wilderness and you solved the puzzle, or asked friends for help. You'd come back, get a piece of armor, some coin, maybe a little exp. "Gasp! How could you get by without doing all your leveling from quests!" Well, there were also tasks, which you get from border guards. They'd give you one monster to seek out and kill, you'd come back and get JUST experience. Quick way to get exp if you were solo waiting for a group.
But groups were much better, for these reasons. You could kill harder mobs, kill them faster(there was down time, and groups mitigated this, yet another reason to seek them out) and you TALKED to eachother and became FRIENDS. Some people still enjoyed soloing, and it was an option, it just wasn't the fastest option.
Ah, dungeons, not instanced. A sin you say? What about trains and kill stealing? Oh he's just an old fart who forgets those. No, I do not forget those, because with good game design, and not lazy instancing, that wasn't a problem. In my 5 years of playing DAoC, I ran into 2 people who stole kills, ever. Ahh but what if you're camping a rare drop mob and someone tries to take your camp! Well in DAoC, the game was properly balanced so that items didn't rule the world, and there were far more interesting things to do than get the next shiney. And crafted gear was on par with quest/dropped gear. You had several ways to do everything.
So, in DAoC, ran into a dungeon, see other people, they need help, or you need help, you become friends, team up, fight through the dungeon the entire night, and suddenly, you've got a new friend who you can call on to help in the future. Occasionally you'd get to a room with other people in it, that's ok, you just went to another room. The horror, right? Want to just run through a place alone? Find a dungeon nobody goes in, or play a single player game. Guides were always valuable people, veterans that knew their way around. They'd teach others how to navigate through dungeons.
To ease this grind, there were battlegrounds. These battlegrounds were insanely fun, and rewarding. So if you got tired of killing mobs, you went there. A ceremony every 10-15 minutes would transport people to the battlegrounds. This made it so that, you could WIN a battle, and the enemy would actually be gone for a bit, and you could use that time to attack the central keep and take it over. There was no FPS like instant respawn endless pointless conflict.
At an end game level, you fought in the frontier. There were raids. They weren't instanced. The bosses were made well enough so that it could adjust to any number of people fighting it. You would NEVER run into another group trying to kill the dragon at the same time, because dragon raids usually took 100 people, and if that 100 were killing the dragon, the other guilds would know enough that they need to defend the frontier while those 100 are off raiding. Raided gear was nice, you did it for fun, once and a while, then back to the frontiers. You didn't have to grind the raid gear, because you could get crafted gear instead, but raid gear looked cooler, and crafted gear was expensive.
Different ways to get everything.
With GOOD game design, you don't need stupid instancing, or maps, or constant pointless quest grinds.
As for games back then only being complicated because they were bad. I'm going to question YOUR ability to remember the past. Not my own. There were so many new innovative features coming out then, almost every MMO felt entirely different from the other. You don't have that anymore, cause any company with money is too afraid to do something different.
TLDR
You can toss derogatory comments at us all you want, but things were better in the industry back then. Enjoy playing your Free Realms/massively singleplayer SWTOR style "MMOs" in the next 5 years. How would you feel if your favorite genre of video games completely and totally dissapeared, changed into the total opposite of what it used to be, and the new people who enjoy the new genre simply said "it's better now, it's progress, go bugger off".
Also agree with this. It was fun to have challenge, because yes, there was frustration in losing, but it was forgotten when you finally discovered a tactic that worked and triumphed. Solving puzzles was as much a reward and the xp and/or gear, etc, etc. I really don't see what is fun in a "supposed" quest telling you exactly what to look for, where to get it, and what to get it off of. As well as giving you quest On-Star for it.