The default mode of EQ was group-based. The default mode of WoW is solo-based. The default mode of play is completely different and that has consequences. Some of those consequences are liked by some people and disliked by others. It's not complicated. It's no different to one person preferring Chinese food and another preferring Pizza. For some reason the people who prefer the 1-80 in six seconds games won't accept that other people can have other preferences and like to pretend it's all nostalgia. If someone prefers Chinese food and used to have a great Chinese place nearby but it closed down and was replaced by Italian and they moan about it then it's not because of nostalgia. It's because they prefer Chinese to Italian.
Oh I missed a point in this, rather than editing I am making a new post not sure which is prefered. (other than me just leaving it alone I suppose)
The Default mode of play is Group-based in both. WoW has more options and opportunities to solo but it is still a game designed on the trinity concept. although you can choose to solo to max there is also a significant portion of the game that requires a group. just like in EQ you could choose to solo a druid to max (it is very tedious) again this is just more options.
again that human nature thing kicks in and for many players if they can solo they will, (and some feel they must) especially if it takes less effort. but again this is a choice and in my opinion more choice is better. and many will then complain that there is not enough grouping. even though they have deliberately skipped so much content to solo. again it is a choice and balance can be found with little to no effort.
I know this is far to late in the forum to say this but, well, gonna say it anyway...
Alot of people here seem to hold the idea: "Your first MMO can never be beaten." and I don't really think that's true.
My EQ2 experience was a load better than DAOC. Really loved EQ2 - I stopped playing it once they allowed party dungeons to obtain raid loot through the crystal or whatever hand in... I honestly wished I hadn't but there's no going back now. But to the point - while I loved DAOC, I thought EQ2 was better.
In FPSers I loved Doom, hated everything about Quake, begrudgingly played through Unreal and then FarCry came along.
Far Cry is the best FPSer I've ever played, bar none. Oh, and I'm playing through Dead Space and it's second - I'm enjoying the game a load more than I enjoyed Doom.
So the idea: "Your first MMO can never be beaten."? I disagree.
Originally posted by molitar Sorry I forgot to post the most unique and fun aspects of the classes.. Barbarians when they went berserk they kept pumping up hitting the berserk button were BERSERK! The person controlling the barbarian had to keep the clickng praying the barbarian did not land on a party member because they would ONE SHOT KILL the part members as they were so strong! Talk about unique game play! The idea was to go to the lair.. everyone wait outside the lair.. barbarian go off screen and pump up than run back onscreen and attempt to get in the lair before killing anyone.. as soon as barbarian went in everyone else jumped in and started casting on the barbarian and hoping that the boss monster kept it's agro on the barbarian because if it didn't than not only was the boss a threat the barb was a threat too! Until the barb could get back in control and get back to attacking the boss and not the party members! Now that is what a Barbarians Berserk is suppose to be BERSERK!
Lol, reminds me of Minsk from Baldurs Gate. "Jump on my sword while you can, I wont be as gentle."
Originally it was to mask spartan content so that people could not blow through it too quickly. The developers wanted you to prolong your subs. It wasn't immersion or any other romantic ideals. Simply a way to slow people down from finishing the limited things to do.
This is a bogus argument. Asheron's Call had long travel times. Why? Because it was a virtual world, with content all over the place. Ultima Online had long travel times. Why? In order to provide the player with random content, both from other players and monsters. Again it was a virtual world.
I think MMO's today have lost the entire virtual world concept which is relatively open ended and instead embraced the game scope concept where there is a start and a finish. Yes the genre is growing because of it, but I think what people are getting at here is that the genre is growing away from the concepts that originally made it appealing in the first place.
It is no longer virtual reality that is being sought by many games. This is what old farts like me who were around at the beginning wanted, and the next game to improve on the virtual reality aspect will be the game we play.
Asheron's Call really didn't have a lot of content though. Most of the content involved going from specific hotspots to specific hotspots, leveling in generally generic dungeons by repeatedly bashing something's skull in (unless you were a mage...) and then going to a different spot when it was convenient.
The thing that drove asheron's call wasn't its use of content, but by just having a large, open, easy to traverse world unless you really wanted to go to a particularly far-reaching space (such as fort teth without a portal) and the like with many exploration opportunities for areas that generally were filled with some interesting architecture or dungeon but very little to no real explanation as to it's existence. This relatively hollow "content" was merely augmented by the dev's desire to actually have a story, something most MMO's these days generally miss, make completely static and reusable, and generally don't advance short of token patches every so often, maybe, that adds one dungeon you're expected to do 20 million times over because you have to.
Asheron's Call's content was purely driven by one's desire to explore, and it still fell down to exploring in areas designed for people around your level, else you got horribly murdered by a lugian or an olthoi or virindi or some other bastard that wanted to kill you. However, the game generally wasn't quest driven, it wasn't a sandbox in the sense of "build your own world" and hardly, by today's standards, constituted a lot of content.
It was an explorer's wet dream, but that's just because it had large, expansive spaces with a lot of lore-less dungeons with some lore-driven dungeons intersperced here and there. In general, however, it may as well have been a completely flat world with monster spawns at progressively higher levels with the occasional cave every so-often tailored to a specific level range (or level range for a group) of people.
But, again, the driving force of that game if you weren't into exploration like I was was to simply wait one month for the next wall of text story, the new handful of lore-driven (or simply random) dungeons, a new big-bad (or continuation as such with in-game events) and in general just more of the same. Running around, finding a new dungeon through exploration, and seeing what you can do.
It really didn't have a lot of content. It just happened to spark a person's imagination and make them believe it had a lot of content when it mostly was a barren world. To that end, it actually succeeded really well at the purpose of a video game, which is one of the reasons I still hold it so highly despite its obvious and apparent flaws by today's standards.
As someone who most enjoys exploration in mmos, I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to play AC, but I've found it's quite easy to self-direct in games with expansive open worlds to explore - so long as there are actually interesting things to be found.
The only games I've played that really had that completely openworld feel were SWG and Lineage 2 - but even those (mostly SWG) where really just bumpy planes of terrain with randomly scattered trees and the occaisional river. It's when you realize that fact that exploration becames kind of pointless.
On the flipside, I've even enjoyed exploration in games such as WoW and FFXI - very handcrafted and defined worlds - because they had plenty of interesting things to see. The problem with those is you'll get to most places and realize "oh, this place seems designed for a quest." So the cool stuff doesn't happen unless I go back and get the quest, then come here. And even then, probably almost everyone has seen that cool and interesting place, because they've been directed there by the quest. Again, kinda takes the fun out of it after you realize that.
I wonder if there ever has been/will be a game with a large, open, handcrafted world (nothing randomly generated or repeatedly plain) that is full of things to discover, but you aren't necessarily directed toward them, nor do you need a quest to see them...
So far the only game I see on the horizon that might accomplish that particular goal is TERA, but we'll see - GW2 also seems to cater to explorer types but in a different way with dynamic events. I'm hoping developers understand the pull of this kind of gameplay and start to design for it.
old school games are made by a handful enthusiastic programers who loved what they did. newer games are made by 150 worker studios with a multi 10 million budget who have to do what their bosses, the publisher bosses, tell them to do.
the publisher bosses are ONLY interested in profits and calculate the most efficient system therefor. creativity, feeling of a virtual world, authentic fantasy is nothing they even knew about. they sell games without knowing anything about games. ---thats true ! ---
and worse : games became a tool for brainwash and mindcontrol. they became a tool to manipulate the way people think, feel and behave. they go deep into under conscousness to disturb peoples way to live.
and even worse : games became a tool for satanic and demonic influences. you dont believe that ? then youre already a victim of it ! check it, get yourself informed and see the truth if you are ever able to do so !
thats why old school gamers can never live with new games ! you didnt get that point !
Why I do agree that your first MMO (Mine was UO in 98) everything after you will compare everything to it. For me though the main reason no Newer game can compare is simple.
1 UO had housing that you could place in the world and set vendors to sale for me before the AH in games took over everything. AH takes the fun out of it cause you can see everyones prices and compete with 195 pages of the same stuff. No where near as smart as setting a house up in a good area and getting good sales. All the houses these days are Instanced and no fun any more.
2.Crafting systems have gone overboard In wow you need 100 of everything plus the rare heart of a Raid boss the spleen of another raid boss and 25 things from the AH that costs more then you will ever have. Old games were simple and fun get an axe chop a tree make some arrows end of story.
3.This is maybe the most important to me The people back then were more friendly I could walk into the middle of town start talking and have people talking back and having fun now when I open my mouth I get told to STFU and go ask chuck Norris and take my epeen with me. I dislike most games now and funny thing Is i will only play an MMO if it is under the radar with a good set of players.
This is a total biased comparison. Most of the things you say aren't even true. For example.
"Linear is the word that comes to mind when describing the worlds of newer games."
Ok just because you don't get that same feeling you had with your first game doesnt make any other game linear and have no immersion.
To be honest everybody's first MMO is more than likely be their best experience ever.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I read this line. I would describe newer MMOs as more focused, maybe, but I found Eq no less expansive than WoW. Of course, WoW was my first MMO (prior to 2005 I had a Mac. And prior to the Mac I had no computer at all for several years...so when I tried EQ it was a couple months after discovering WoW....EQ felt unplayable to me, as a result).
WoW in 2005 was a different beast, though. The game's still huge today....but after years of playing it and all the changes, it just doesn't have that "thing" that I liked back then. However, I know that's something having to do with my own experience at the time; I am pretty sure the game would have wowed me today (pun intended?) had I discovered it for the first time as my first MMO. As it is, I'm quite enjoying DDO.....which is decidedly less expansive, albeit very, very focused; hardly linear, though.
Why I do agree that your first MMO (Mine was UO in 98) everything after you will compare everything to it. For me though the main reason no Newer game can compare is simple.
1 UO had housing that you could place in the world and set vendors to sale for me before the AH in games took over everything. AH takes the fun out of it cause you can see everyones prices and compete with 195 pages of the same stuff. No where near as smart as setting a house up in a good area and getting good sales. All the houses these days are Instanced and no fun any more.
2.Crafting systems have gone overboard In wow you need 100 of everything plus the rare heart of a Raid boss the spleen of another raid boss and 25 things from the AH that costs more then you will ever have. Old games were simple and fun get an axe chop a tree make some arrows end of story.
3.This is maybe the most important to me The people back then were more friendly I could walk into the middle of town start talking and have people talking back and having fun now when I open my mouth I get told to STFU and go ask chuck Norris and take my epeen with me. I dislike most games now and funny thing Is i will only play an MMO if it is under the radar with a good set of players.
See, I love the AH minigame where it's supported. The idea of setting up shop is such an anathema to what I actually want to do in a game. I can see why some would like it, though.
Crafting in WoW seems ridiculously easy after playing Fallen Earth. You may want to avoid that one!
On the people issue: pretty much spot on. I have abandoned WoW, it has been taken over by teh Haloz, frat boys and the football jocks....pretty much all the scummy ordinary run of the mill daily life people I despise in the Real World seem to have manifested in all their perfidious glory as sudden "officionados" of MMOs in WoW. It's made WoW the runaway success it is....at the cost of making the game plebian, a watery pablum for the teeming anti-intellectual asocial masses. The best place to find decent players who remember that these games end in -RPG is the smaller venues. I'm enjoying DDO for this reason right now, even though a fair number of WoWtard rejects show up there on occasion.
"I am an EQ explorer type also and a WoW explorer. I mostly played a war and a druid in EQ so stealth/invis was never an option."
Camo.
I thought you were probably trolling. Now i know.
Actually I was thinking of the rogues ability to use both Hide and Sneek to get past mobs, among other things e.g. quest turn-ins and merchants with bad faction. etc..
but if you makes you feal better to just pass me off as a troll, enjoy
Let's see. Pre 2004 I invested my time in uo, eq, swg, daoc, ao & eve. Post was wow, gw... And that's it really. I've tried other games like WAR, lotro and AoC but I didn't really Invest like I did then. Guess the old wins for me.
(what does "in reality" mean when refering to your opinion.. The use of "in reality" is to imply it's fact that your opinion means something.. I agree.. You are allowed an opinion, but you should delete the "in reality" part.. This is just nitpicking my choice of words meh.(if you claim it was poorly worded, then I'm ok with that)..lol
(can you give us a list of all those things you think is refined.. I would like to compare your thoughts vs others.. It's hard to give credit to your opinion of refinement when you con't explain what you think is refined)almost everything in my opinion is refined/improved it would be a rather long list to go over every feature of both games so was omitted as this was/is already a rather long post.(cop out.. as long as this response is from you already, lets see you LIST of refinements that are so HUGE)
( IN your opinion.. WoW is seamless, but having mobs in the zone lose agro after running 50 feet is LAME and carebear, IMO) A zone line in EQ is a seam, and having a mob get tired of chasing you and giving up is an improvement to hitting an invisible wall where the mobs suddenly disappears, in addition to being able to skirt around the edge of a zone where no mobs existed/went. Where as in Wow it would be more dangerous to attempt this through most of the world.
(I dont' care about the seamless stuff, you were the one that brought it up.. I howver do think it's stupid for a lion that is biting your ass to pieces to just give up after you run 50 yards, I think EQ mechanic of agro and social agro was far superior)
(agreed, WoW is great for hte casual linear quest option for new players to MMO, however, Where is the WoW option to group camping? Where are the trains in WoW? etc etc) The need to camp was fixed in WoW you no longer need to head out into the world and do a camp check (aka commons goblin camp one taken etc..) that again does not prevent you from sitting at a particular spawn and endlessly kill it. again trains are fixed by eliminating zone lines for the most part.
(technically they were orc camps.. lol but that's ok.. goblin were in misty.. I like camps it made the game much more social then new games that do the solo thing.. There isn't any challenge in a group camp in wow.. infact it would boring as hell cause the respawns are slower then you could possibly kill.. and with mobs there is no "pulling"..
(obviously you never played the old original EQ where rooting, mezing, pulling, snaring, kiting mobs was indead almost required or expect a train in Crushbone, or Blackburrow, Splitpaw, KC, etc etc.. Now that was some fun shit.. CHOO CHOO) I find it funny as hell that WoW has the emote "train" from characters when it's impossible to have trains in the game.. LOL I did indead play EQ1 from launch, While it was exciting when trains happened it was also a great tool for griefing. and of great frustration for many people. (must of been a server thing,, we never had that many issues with people pulling trains on others.. why? because with EQ1 being very social and heavly reliant on groups.. if you got a bad rep, you were DONE.. We policed our own, which is something you cant' really do in the new games)
you can explore(even more than you could in EQ),( in YOUR opinion) adding flight paths / faster travel does not take away your abailty to explore (hmm, at least at the times I played, with all expansions EQ could be larger I guess you are right I dont really know.)
(Customize more in WoW.. are you serious?.. Really?.. I think you need to go check EQ1 AA system, plus much much more.. Especially the roles a player can fill in the game.. i.e. monks pulling, chanters mezing, druids snaring and kiting, etc etc) ok Lets take paladin as an example in EQ you can off tank and off heal, but reguardles of how you spend your points on stats a Paladin is a paladin with very little variationin to what you can do, I agree that this does get better with AA but not alot a paladin is still a paladin. (obviously you never played old origonal EQ pre AA) In WoW you can spend your talents in three trees thus providing three very distinct types of paladins. This holds true for all classes.(using Palidin as your example was silly.. EQ Pallies were never a healing class.. , even as off heals they were very limited.. WoW has 3 roles , dps, tank, heals aka the holy trinity.. EQ has far more.. and with the 2,000+ AA now, that just blows WoW talent system right out of the water..
as for the rest, there are many forms of croud control in WoW that can be performed by many different classes. (hunter pulling/ Ice trap/cuncussion shot, mage sheeping/ even War hamstring different skills on different classes similar affects) ( I will agreee that these have become less necessary post BC)exactly all those other viable roles for combat were pretty much nerfed , and no longer needed in dungeons.. Name me one dungeon that isn't an AOE dpsfest?.. Just one please..
you can do everything you did in EQ and more while you play WoW, Because you didn't/don't is not a flaw in design it is a flaw in the player.Im sorry Im going to have to call "BS" on this whole thing that WoW has more options and versitality then EQ1
Forcing yourself to play hard mode to challenge yourself is a rather silly excuse to WoW's carebear system.. That would be like me saying, 'OK, WoW is too easy, so from now on, play WoW with no mouse, and one hand tied behind your back to challenge yourself".. Why would one want to gimp themselves from normal gameplay.. (but acording to you normal gamplay is killing mobs with no purpose other than gaining exp. therefore not doing the quests would be normal gameplay ) As the one above poster already said.. WoW's default play is simple silly..For someone to gimp themself for a challenge is not a solution to the problem.. I have to admit doing SM dungeon as a high level naked toon is fun the first time.. (shits and giggles), but I wouldn't do it again, no need to.. The flaw here is not in one being carebear, the only thing "harder" in EQ was the need to grind for experience with no other options on how to progress.(thats not hard just time consuming) again you could increase the challenge by fighting yellow cons vs. blue or gren cons, WoW gives you other options for gaining experience without taking that away.
Again it has been addressed by one of the above posters..
so to make sure I understand, because the option does not exist in EQ, it is good, because it does exist in WoW it is bad, and you feal you Have to do it. so rather than more options you feal there should be less options? I'm really not sure I understand this thinking. is it so you can get to max level through the one and only method thus feal superior to those who are not there yet? I don't get it.
But I suppose most humans will take the path of least resistance and instant gratification, and then complain that it was too easy.
I see you along with many WoW fans that are always comparing games.. keep ignoring the raid mechanics of WoW, (which is 90% of their end game) and how restricting raids to 10 or 25 man limits is a PRO, moreso then a CON.. I fail to see any good from a players perspective, that restricting raids to certain classes and number, The only restrictions to the classes (outside of player created restrictions) is dictated by the Trinity, same as EQ. restricting the number of players actually adds to challenge, If you can bring as many as you want then you just overpower everything where is the challenge in that? (that said, I dont care for raiding) in fact I dont like the end game premise at all in either EQ or WoW
How does it add to the challenge? Please go in depth to this.. I would love to hear it..
then add the ID system ontop of that.. (are you refering to "real ID" if so this is an optional feature that that has nothing to do with gameplay. and for most players has nothing to do with anything) if something else let me know, I dont know what this is. Are you sure you play WoW? ID mechanics.. remember, that is what PROHIBITS you from joining in multiple raids per week..You get ID'd to a dungeon.. or did you forget about that? So explain to me how me wanting to join 2 different raid groups in the same week is a BONUS to me.. I'm all ears
Please do address that major part of the raid game, and WHY it's good.. Again in my opionion niether are good.
Please do address that major part of the raid game, and WHY it's good.. Again in my opionion niether are good.
My origonal post is my point of view and opinions based on my experiences. Because yours are different you will never agree with me reguardless of what I say, We can go back and forth tearing apart each others opinions as much as we want and solve nothing. we just have differing views on what is important. this entire topic in fact is a matter of opinion no matter how you stack it. Which I clearly made the mistake of assuming was a given.
That said you do bring up some great points I had not considered. eg the ID mechanics.again I dont like end game raiding so I had not considered this. I for the most part agree with your views on WoW raiding. I guess thats part of the problem I view end game as, well kinda the end of the game for me in both games.. when I no longer enjoy the journey I no longer enjoy the game. (this automatically invalidates my opinion for alot of people I am sure) but the Journey for me can last a very long time.
I also don't think we are discussing the same thing whan refering to the "holy Trinity" my meaning of this is the fundamntal design of class dependancy for grouping, eg you need group consiting of a Tank, DPS and heals.
I did not refer to this to point out that Pally can spec into any of the three required roles in WoW that was a seperate point of customization and the ability for a class to customise the fundamental play style of said class as apposed to from my experience being able to tweek minor abilites of a class but not really affect what role a class can fill.
in the end its all just my opinion. i do think WoW was designed from the get go to compete directly with EQ using the approach of taking the basics of EQ and improving/refining them, and again in my opinion this is exactly what they did, the fundamentals of the two games are in my opinion the same.
That said. the two games have diverged from what they were through expansions. (EQ has evolved since I played it last too) But the fundamentals remain the same thus are comparable, unlike say UO to WoW where they are extremely, Fundamently different, therefore not comparable in my opinion though that is what the the Writer of this article is trying to do.
I started gaming with UO and although I am a part of the old school gaming group I still think that games are getting better all the time. One thing I was almost always crying for when playing EQ1 and AO was a way to get from point "A" to point "B" faster and it was delivered in later games. As time goes on devs seem to be implementing more of what the gamers want (not necessarily in the same game) and gaming is getting better all the time. Polish is GOOD, and shiny graphics are GOOD. Try playing a Playstation 1 game now and your eyes will probably fall out of your head it's so hard to look at. Maybe sometimes devs give us too much of what we ask for and it takes away from the game but there have been so many great innovations over the last 13 years I can't fault them for at least trying to give us what we want.
I started gaming with UO and although I am a part of the old school gaming group I still think that games are getting better all the time. One thing I was almost always crying for when playing EQ1 and AO was a way to get from point "A" to point "B" faster and it was delivered in later games. As time goes on devs seem to be implementing more of what the gamers want (not necessarily in the same game) and gaming is getting better all the time. Polish is GOOD, and shiny graphics are GOOD. Try playing a Playstation 1 game now and your eyes will probably fall out of your head it's so hard to look at. Maybe sometimes devs give us too much of what we ask for and it takes away from the game but there have been so many great innovations over the last 13 years I can't fault them for at least trying to give us what we want.
Polish and shiny graphics are meant to bring out the quality of a product, not be it sole raison d'etre.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Why I do agree that your first MMO (Mine was UO in 98) everything after you will compare everything to it. For me though the main reason no Newer game can compare is simple.
1 UO had housing that you could place in the world and set vendors to sale for me before the AH in games took over everything. AH takes the fun out of it cause you can see everyones prices and compete with 195 pages of the same stuff. No where near as smart as setting a house up in a good area and getting good sales. All the houses these days are Instanced and no fun any more.
2.Crafting systems have gone overboard In wow you need 100 of everything plus the rare heart of a Raid boss the spleen of another raid boss and 25 things from the AH that costs more then you will ever have. Old games were simple and fun get an axe chop a tree make some arrows end of story.
3.This is maybe the most important to me The people back then were more friendly I could walk into the middle of town start talking and have people talking back and having fun now when I open my mouth I get told to STFU and go ask chuck Norris and take my epeen with me. I dislike most games now and funny thing Is i will only play an MMO if it is under the radar with a good set of players.
See, I love the AH minigame where it's supported. The idea of setting up shop is such an anathema to what I actually want to do in a game. I can see why some would like it, though.
Crafting in WoW seems ridiculously easy after playing Fallen Earth. You may want to avoid that one!
On the people issue: pretty much spot on. I have abandoned WoW, it has been taken over by teh Haloz, frat boys and the football jocks....pretty much all the scummy ordinary run of the mill daily life people I despise in the Real World seem to have manifested in all their perfidious glory as sudden "officionados" of MMOs in WoW. It's made WoW the runaway success it is....at the cost of making the game plebian, a watery pablum for the teeming anti-intellectual asocial masses. The best place to find decent players who remember that these games end in -RPG is the smaller venues. I'm enjoying DDO for this reason right now, even though a fair number of WoWtard rejects show up there on occasion.
It is nice to find another player who like myself understands what a drag it is to have a bad player base. Although the AH thing I dis agree with mainly I like to take the time and set up shop so to speak, I can understand many dislike it. My 2 Fav games of all time were UO and SWG for those reasons really made those games magical to me. I am playing LOTRO at the moment not for the players just for the lore to it.
Games keep getting better - technically, but they keep getting more and more soulless.
A good example could be WoW, which started out fairly well but years of dumbin-down leaves me a void feeling playing it - Cataclysm may fix some of this, but I want to see it before I beleive it Blizzard.
Aion - Looked so good but felt so crappy to play.
Do we dare hope for Guildwars2 to give us some quality ? They sure think they can.
Face it, the audience changed. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. It has to do with preference. Odds are, those that still play games from that time still have their preferences - but they are in the minority. There will be no going back. The numbers are not there to sustain a game in today's world. Anything that tries to break the mold of the current preference finds itself in the red.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Decent idea for an article but broken down and graded all wrong. Reading it reminds me of those so called game shows when the only question that really matters is the last one because it's worth more points than all the others put together.
The simple fact is that the older MMO's required intelligence and a certain level of commitment to play beyond simply logging in and following a quest trail. I don't need to know the inner workings of WoW, just login, spot the floating quest marker and then become just another game zombie following the well laid out road to completionville. Once I reach this pinnacle of success I spot another quest marker and repeat the process until at last my toon becomes a carbon copy of every other toon of that class in the game world.
This approach to one of the older games would have seen your beloved character dead by the wayside; unable to cope with the rigours of what lay ahead. Progression wasn't simply a matter of hitting the next level and getting tougher; there was much more to consider than that. How many of you out there agonised for hours over just how to fit that shiny new arm implant so that you could equip that fancy gun that you had been carrying around for the last three levels ( Ao for those not in the know ) ?
In the older games guilds meant something other than l33t ra1d d00dz guild number one. Unlike the new games where guilds are ten to the dozen filled with wannabe fashion models strutting around in top level raid gear so that others on the server can point and go "oooh!" in their best awestruck tones; Guilds in the older games were like true gatherings of equals that existed for the greater advancement of all, and it wasn't unusual to see high level members giving their time to help out those below them in level to reach the next step. Although I suspect this is because the community in general was much better back then.
Most importantly perhaps is the fact that unless your guild had something pre-arranged for a particular evening you really had no idea which direction your gaming session would take when you logged in; unlike now where you can pretty much plan out your complete route through the game at character creation and not veer away from it much. Unfortunately the genre has become mainstream instead of niche and along with those millions of new players has come a certain mentality within the industry that says everything has to be easy, which in my opinion is a bad thing that has given rise to all those so called WoW clones that now plague us on a daily basis.
Not everything in the old games was good and they had some real rough points but the good far outweighed the bad. If anyone needs proof that new games are all alike then just think about this: I'm willing to bet that all of you out there already know how to play SWTOR and it is still about a year from release; Where is the wonderment in that?
Eric that was prefectly said.. Well done.. I sure do miss the old days that even at "max" level, you could still earn experience tweaking your character with AAs, and have fun joining in on end game raids as well, and not worry about being excluded from that raid that night because of a hard camp limit, or gear score.. I still play EQ, just miss the the population..
Decent idea for an article but broken down and graded all wrong. Reading it reminds me of those so called game shows when the only question that really matters is the last one because it's worth more points than all the others put together.
The simple fact is that the older MMO's required intelligence and a certain level of commitment to play beyond simply logging in and following a quest trail. I don't need to know the inner workings of WoW, just login, spot the floating quest marker and then become just another game zombie following the well laid out road to completionville. Once I reach this pinnacle of success I spot another quest marker and repeat the process until at last my toon becomes a carbon copy of every other toon of that class in the game world.
This approach to one of the older games would have seen your beloved character dead by the wayside; unable to cope with the rigours of what lay ahead. Progression wasn't simply a matter of hitting the next level and getting tougher; there was much more to consider than that. How many of you out there agonised for hours over just how to fit that shiny new arm implant so that you could equip that fancy gun that you had been carrying around for the last three levels ( Ao for those not in the know ) ?
In the older games guilds meant something other than l33t ra1d d00dz guild number one. Unlike the new games where guilds are ten to the dozen filled with wannabe fashion models strutting around in top level raid gear so that others on the server can point and go "oooh!" in their best awestruck tones; Guilds in the older games were like true gatherings of equals that existed for the greater advancement of all, and it wasn't unusual to see high level members giving their time to help out those below them in level to reach the next step. Although I suspect this is because the community in general was much better back then.
Most importantly perhaps is the fact that unless your guild had something pre-arranged for a particular evening you really had no idea which direction your gaming session would take when you logged in; unlike now where you can pretty much plan out your complete route through the game at character creation and not veer away from it much. Unfortunately the genre has become mainstream instead of niche and along with those millions of new players has come a certain mentality within the industry that says everything has to be easy, which in my opinion is a bad thing that has given rise to all those so called WoW clones that now plague us on a daily basis.
Not everything in the old games was good and they had some real rough points but the good far outweighed the bad. If anyone needs proof that new games are all alike then just think about this: I'm willing to bet that all of you out there already know how to play SWTOR and it is still about a year from release; Where is the wonderment in that?
Very well said! Can't tell you how many times I died and just lay by the side of the road hoping someone would come along to revive me-hehe. And the guilds I joined were great! Everyone helped everyone!
you can do everything you did in EQ and more while you play WoW, Because you didn't/don't is not a flaw in design it is a flaw in the player.Im sorry Im going to have to call "BS" on this whole thing that WoW has more options and versitality then EQ1
Ok that is a total and utter LIE! Only in Everquest 1 could you find a real use for things like water breathing, freefall, levitation! ONLY IN EQ 1! These features were even removed from games like EQ 2! Games have gotten dumber and dumber.. they have become cookie cutters that are utterly boring after a while! My only complaint I had with EQ 1 was I had to spend most of my game time resting or waiting for ridiculously long times for a spawn to spawn. The rest is still better than anything newer out there.. Only in EQ 1 did water breathing have an entire underwater dungeon to visit where swimming and water breathing played a part! Only in EQ 1 was the real advantage of using things like camouflage. I loved running around with SoW, Camo, and Levitation! But yet all newer games swimming is a useless and uneeded since no underwater dungeons.. and levitation does not exist. Free fall no use for it since their is no cliffs to go running off of like in EQ 1. EQ 1 still has some of the most unique aspects of a Fantasy World and the classes were closer to the AD&D classes we grew up with.
Good read, I absolutely agree in terms of golden age from 1999 - 2003, but I strongly disagree with your comments about the newbie experience.
Getting to know your game should and needs to be part of going forward. Throwing you out in a world full of danger is the right way to do it. Thing is, it helps building up a good player base, because you have to talk to others instead of listening to a dumb tutorial holding your hand like a baby and showing you click per click what to do. As a really welcome side effect it works like a player filter, those who are refusing to learn the game will quit and (hopefully) never be seen again --> better community more interactive.
I mean, this was a huge part why the community of former MMORPGs has had a tremendous quality in terms of knowing the game and interacting with others player lets face it: you did need others players to advance!
Games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 created a game instead of a virtual world: guides all over the place, small worlds and very little to almost no danger outstide of lazy game design called "instancing", oh well a roaming elite mob here and there. People did no longer need other players to advance which led to the downfall of our beloved communities and games. Till then we had the choice of going back to Everquest 1 which at this point got dumbed down with Omens of War and we all know what happened next: SOE got even more greedy and tried to copy World of Warcraft's success by copying almost every damn feature pissing off the NON WoW crowd.
This is for me was the beginning of the dark age and the end of MMORPGs, introducing MMOs made for former Counterstrike, FPS gamers and people that just wanted a walk in the park instead of a virtual world. Sadly this fact hasn't changed nowadays even Everquest 2 in his already dumbed down form seems to be hardcore compared to the crap it turned into.
I absolutely hate the fact that you can't customize your stats anymore, Vanguard had a system like that and I loved it though it was the old game coming close to Everquest 1 (till Beta 2, Beta 3 = downfall). Would have loved some Vanguard features in Aion such as state customization, huge open world NO instancing but overall Aion is at least more challenging than most newer MMOs esp. Wow, Lotro and Aoc.
Hopefully someday the golden age will return, till then all we can do is hoping for a big big MMO Cataclysm, exterminate MMOs so MMORPGs can be built up again :-)
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Comments
Oh I missed a point in this, rather than editing I am making a new post not sure which is prefered. (other than me just leaving it alone I suppose)
The Default mode of play is Group-based in both. WoW has more options and opportunities to solo but it is still a game designed on the trinity concept. although you can choose to solo to max there is also a significant portion of the game that requires a group. just like in EQ you could choose to solo a druid to max (it is very tedious) again this is just more options.
again that human nature thing kicks in and for many players if they can solo they will, (and some feel they must) especially if it takes less effort. but again this is a choice and in my opinion more choice is better. and many will then complain that there is not enough grouping. even though they have deliberately skipped so much content to solo. again it is a choice and balance can be found with little to no effort.
I know this is far to late in the forum to say this but, well, gonna say it anyway...
Alot of people here seem to hold the idea: "Your first MMO can never be beaten." and I don't really think that's true.
My EQ2 experience was a load better than DAOC. Really loved EQ2 - I stopped playing it once they allowed party dungeons to obtain raid loot through the crystal or whatever hand in... I honestly wished I hadn't but there's no going back now. But to the point - while I loved DAOC, I thought EQ2 was better.
In FPSers I loved Doom, hated everything about Quake, begrudgingly played through Unreal and then FarCry came along.
Far Cry is the best FPSer I've ever played, bar none. Oh, and I'm playing through Dead Space and it's second - I'm enjoying the game a load more than I enjoyed Doom.
So the idea: "Your first MMO can never be beaten."? I disagree.
Keep the faith!
Lol, reminds me of Minsk from Baldurs Gate. "Jump on my sword while you can, I wont be as gentle."
p.s. @Adam TROLL MOAR!
IZI MODO?! Ha-ha-ha!
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
old school games are made by a handful enthusiastic programers who loved what they did. newer games are made by 150 worker studios with a multi 10 million budget who have to do what their bosses, the publisher bosses, tell them to do.
the publisher bosses are ONLY interested in profits and calculate the most efficient system therefor. creativity, feeling of a virtual world, authentic fantasy is nothing they even knew about. they sell games without knowing anything about games. ---thats true ! ---
and worse : games became a tool for brainwash and mindcontrol. they became a tool to manipulate the way people think, feel and behave. they go deep into under conscousness to disturb peoples way to live.
and even worse : games became a tool for satanic and demonic influences. you dont believe that ? then youre already a victim of it ! check it, get yourself informed and see the truth if you are ever able to do so !
thats why old school gamers can never live with new games ! you didnt get that point !
Why I do agree that your first MMO (Mine was UO in 98) everything after you will compare everything to it. For me though the main reason no Newer game can compare is simple.
1 UO had housing that you could place in the world and set vendors to sale for me before the AH in games took over everything. AH takes the fun out of it cause you can see everyones prices and compete with 195 pages of the same stuff. No where near as smart as setting a house up in a good area and getting good sales. All the houses these days are Instanced and no fun any more.
2.Crafting systems have gone overboard In wow you need 100 of everything plus the rare heart of a Raid boss the spleen of another raid boss and 25 things from the AH that costs more then you will ever have. Old games were simple and fun get an axe chop a tree make some arrows end of story.
3.This is maybe the most important to me The people back then were more friendly I could walk into the middle of town start talking and have people talking back and having fun now when I open my mouth I get told to STFU and go ask chuck Norris and take my epeen with me. I dislike most games now and funny thing Is i will only play an MMO if it is under the radar with a good set of players.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I read this line. I would describe newer MMOs as more focused, maybe, but I found Eq no less expansive than WoW. Of course, WoW was my first MMO (prior to 2005 I had a Mac. And prior to the Mac I had no computer at all for several years...so when I tried EQ it was a couple months after discovering WoW....EQ felt unplayable to me, as a result).
WoW in 2005 was a different beast, though. The game's still huge today....but after years of playing it and all the changes, it just doesn't have that "thing" that I liked back then. However, I know that's something having to do with my own experience at the time; I am pretty sure the game would have wowed me today (pun intended?) had I discovered it for the first time as my first MMO. As it is, I'm quite enjoying DDO.....which is decidedly less expansive, albeit very, very focused; hardly linear, though.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
See, I love the AH minigame where it's supported. The idea of setting up shop is such an anathema to what I actually want to do in a game. I can see why some would like it, though.
Crafting in WoW seems ridiculously easy after playing Fallen Earth. You may want to avoid that one!
On the people issue: pretty much spot on. I have abandoned WoW, it has been taken over by teh Haloz, frat boys and the football jocks....pretty much all the scummy ordinary run of the mill daily life people I despise in the Real World seem to have manifested in all their perfidious glory as sudden "officionados" of MMOs in WoW. It's made WoW the runaway success it is....at the cost of making the game plebian, a watery pablum for the teeming anti-intellectual asocial masses. The best place to find decent players who remember that these games end in -RPG is the smaller venues. I'm enjoying DDO for this reason right now, even though a fair number of WoWtard rejects show up there on occasion.
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
@Aruvia
"I am an EQ explorer type also and a WoW explorer. I mostly played a war and a druid in EQ so stealth/invis was never an option."
Camo.
I thought you were probably trolling. Now i know.
Actually I was thinking of the rogues ability to use both Hide and Sneek to get past mobs, among other things e.g. quest turn-ins and merchants with bad faction. etc..
but if you makes you feal better to just pass me off as a troll, enjoy
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
My origonal post is my point of view and opinions based on my experiences. Because yours are different you will never agree with me reguardless of what I say, We can go back and forth tearing apart each others opinions as much as we want and solve nothing. we just have differing views on what is important. this entire topic in fact is a matter of opinion no matter how you stack it. Which I clearly made the mistake of assuming was a given.
That said you do bring up some great points I had not considered. eg the ID mechanics.again I dont like end game raiding so I had not considered this. I for the most part agree with your views on WoW raiding. I guess thats part of the problem I view end game as, well kinda the end of the game for me in both games.. when I no longer enjoy the journey I no longer enjoy the game. (this automatically invalidates my opinion for alot of people I am sure) but the Journey for me can last a very long time.
I also don't think we are discussing the same thing whan refering to the "holy Trinity" my meaning of this is the fundamntal design of class dependancy for grouping, eg you need group consiting of a Tank, DPS and heals.
I did not refer to this to point out that Pally can spec into any of the three required roles in WoW that was a seperate point of customization and the ability for a class to customise the fundamental play style of said class as apposed to from my experience being able to tweek minor abilites of a class but not really affect what role a class can fill.
in the end its all just my opinion. i do think WoW was designed from the get go to compete directly with EQ using the approach of taking the basics of EQ and improving/refining them, and again in my opinion this is exactly what they did, the fundamentals of the two games are in my opinion the same.
That said. the two games have diverged from what they were through expansions. (EQ has evolved since I played it last too) But the fundamentals remain the same thus are comparable, unlike say UO to WoW where they are extremely, Fundamently different, therefore not comparable in my opinion though that is what the the Writer of this article is trying to do.
I started gaming with UO and although I am a part of the old school gaming group I still think that games are getting better all the time. One thing I was almost always crying for when playing EQ1 and AO was a way to get from point "A" to point "B" faster and it was delivered in later games. As time goes on devs seem to be implementing more of what the gamers want (not necessarily in the same game) and gaming is getting better all the time. Polish is GOOD, and shiny graphics are GOOD. Try playing a Playstation 1 game now and your eyes will probably fall out of your head it's so hard to look at. Maybe sometimes devs give us too much of what we ask for and it takes away from the game but there have been so many great innovations over the last 13 years I can't fault them for at least trying to give us what we want.
Polish and shiny graphics are meant to bring out the quality of a product, not be it sole raison d'etre.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
It is nice to find another player who like myself understands what a drag it is to have a bad player base. Although the AH thing I dis agree with mainly I like to take the time and set up shop so to speak, I can understand many dislike it. My 2 Fav games of all time were UO and SWG for those reasons really made those games magical to me. I am playing LOTRO at the moment not for the players just for the lore to it.
Games keep getting better - technically, but they keep getting more and more soulless.
A good example could be WoW, which started out fairly well but years of dumbin-down leaves me a void feeling playing it - Cataclysm may fix some of this, but I want to see it before I beleive it Blizzard.
Aion - Looked so good but felt so crappy to play.
Do we dare hope for Guildwars2 to give us some quality ? They sure think they can.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Hey, I have an idea... if you don't like the articles, don't click that magic left mouse button. Amazing where you'll find yourself NOT going.
People act like they're forced read things they don't want to *boggle*.
Face it, the audience changed. It has nothing to do with nostalgia. It has to do with preference. Odds are, those that still play games from that time still have their preferences - but they are in the minority. There will be no going back. The numbers are not there to sustain a game in today's world. Anything that tries to break the mold of the current preference finds itself in the red.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Decent idea for an article but broken down and graded all wrong. Reading it reminds me of those so called game shows when the only question that really matters is the last one because it's worth more points than all the others put together.
The simple fact is that the older MMO's required intelligence and a certain level of commitment to play beyond simply logging in and following a quest trail. I don't need to know the inner workings of WoW, just login, spot the floating quest marker and then become just another game zombie following the well laid out road to completionville. Once I reach this pinnacle of success I spot another quest marker and repeat the process until at last my toon becomes a carbon copy of every other toon of that class in the game world.
This approach to one of the older games would have seen your beloved character dead by the wayside; unable to cope with the rigours of what lay ahead. Progression wasn't simply a matter of hitting the next level and getting tougher; there was much more to consider than that. How many of you out there agonised for hours over just how to fit that shiny new arm implant so that you could equip that fancy gun that you had been carrying around for the last three levels ( Ao for those not in the know ) ?
In the older games guilds meant something other than l33t ra1d d00dz guild number one. Unlike the new games where guilds are ten to the dozen filled with wannabe fashion models strutting around in top level raid gear so that others on the server can point and go "oooh!" in their best awestruck tones; Guilds in the older games were like true gatherings of equals that existed for the greater advancement of all, and it wasn't unusual to see high level members giving their time to help out those below them in level to reach the next step. Although I suspect this is because the community in general was much better back then.
Most importantly perhaps is the fact that unless your guild had something pre-arranged for a particular evening you really had no idea which direction your gaming session would take when you logged in; unlike now where you can pretty much plan out your complete route through the game at character creation and not veer away from it much. Unfortunately the genre has become mainstream instead of niche and along with those millions of new players has come a certain mentality within the industry that says everything has to be easy, which in my opinion is a bad thing that has given rise to all those so called WoW clones that now plague us on a daily basis.
Not everything in the old games was good and they had some real rough points but the good far outweighed the bad. If anyone needs proof that new games are all alike then just think about this: I'm willing to bet that all of you out there already know how to play SWTOR and it is still about a year from release; Where is the wonderment in that?
I go back to UO beta and was so excited to play it. Opened up a whole new world for gaming!
I just don't know if its possible to re-create what fun was had with the great games like AC, DAoC, and WoW. But I'm sure trying!
Eric that was prefectly said.. Well done.. I sure do miss the old days that even at "max" level, you could still earn experience tweaking your character with AAs, and have fun joining in on end game raids as well, and not worry about being excluded from that raid that night because of a hard camp limit, or gear score.. I still play EQ, just miss the the population..
Very well said! Can't tell you how many times I died and just lay by the side of the road hoping someone would come along to revive me-hehe. And the guilds I joined were great! Everyone helped everyone!
you can do everything you did in EQ and more while you play WoW, Because you didn't/don't is not a flaw in design it is a flaw in the player.Im sorry Im going to have to call "BS" on this whole thing that WoW has more options and versitality then EQ1
Ok that is a total and utter LIE! Only in Everquest 1 could you find a real use for things like water breathing, freefall, levitation! ONLY IN EQ 1! These features were even removed from games like EQ 2! Games have gotten dumber and dumber.. they have become cookie cutters that are utterly boring after a while! My only complaint I had with EQ 1 was I had to spend most of my game time resting or waiting for ridiculously long times for a spawn to spawn. The rest is still better than anything newer out there.. Only in EQ 1 did water breathing have an entire underwater dungeon to visit where swimming and water breathing played a part! Only in EQ 1 was the real advantage of using things like camouflage. I loved running around with SoW, Camo, and Levitation! But yet all newer games swimming is a useless and uneeded since no underwater dungeons.. and levitation does not exist. Free fall no use for it since their is no cliffs to go running off of like in EQ 1. EQ 1 still has some of the most unique aspects of a Fantasy World and the classes were closer to the AD&D classes we grew up with.
Good read, I absolutely agree in terms of golden age from 1999 - 2003, but I strongly disagree with your comments about the newbie experience.
Getting to know your game should and needs to be part of going forward. Throwing you out in a world full of danger is the right way to do it. Thing is, it helps building up a good player base, because you have to talk to others instead of listening to a dumb tutorial holding your hand like a baby and showing you click per click what to do. As a really welcome side effect it works like a player filter, those who are refusing to learn the game will quit and (hopefully) never be seen again --> better community more interactive.
I mean, this was a huge part why the community of former MMORPGs has had a tremendous quality in terms of knowing the game and interacting with others player lets face it: you did need others players to advance!
Games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 created a game instead of a virtual world: guides all over the place, small worlds and very little to almost no danger outstide of lazy game design called "instancing", oh well a roaming elite mob here and there. People did no longer need other players to advance which led to the downfall of our beloved communities and games. Till then we had the choice of going back to Everquest 1 which at this point got dumbed down with Omens of War and we all know what happened next: SOE got even more greedy and tried to copy World of Warcraft's success by copying almost every damn feature pissing off the NON WoW crowd.
This is for me was the beginning of the dark age and the end of MMORPGs, introducing MMOs made for former Counterstrike, FPS gamers and people that just wanted a walk in the park instead of a virtual world. Sadly this fact hasn't changed nowadays even Everquest 2 in his already dumbed down form seems to be hardcore compared to the crap it turned into.
I absolutely hate the fact that you can't customize your stats anymore, Vanguard had a system like that and I loved it though it was the old game coming close to Everquest 1 (till Beta 2, Beta 3 = downfall). Would have loved some Vanguard features in Aion such as state customization, huge open world NO instancing but overall Aion is at least more challenging than most newer MMOs esp. Wow, Lotro and Aoc.
Hopefully someday the golden age will return, till then all we can do is hoping for a big big MMO Cataclysm, exterminate MMOs so MMORPGs can be built up again :-)
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."