I've started playing Lotro again, and man did they dumb it down. It use to be HARD. I just got to the Barrows....what a joke! My question is, is there a game out there that is still hard and not dumbed down for the masses?
Yeah, I guess I should have phrased my question this way. What new/newer game out or coming out is suppose to bring back the traditional toughness of dungeons of the past? I've been reading about Legends of Edda, and although the cutesy art style is not my cup of tea, they claim the dungeons are going to be hard and scale properly. I guess they are going to have a toughness meter you can change before you go in them.
On a side note, I really do miss the dungeons that were like 4 hours long. Not that I want all my dungeons that long, but remember when it felt like you accomplished something when you successfully got through an instance? Man, those were the days.
...On a side note, I really do miss the dungeons that were like 4 hours long. Not that I want all my dungeons that long, but remember when it felt like you accomplished something when you successfully got through an instance? Man, those were the days.
I completely agree. While I can certainly see where other players come from with a strong dislike of this kind of time requirement, it really made places like this more special to me, especially when it was non-instanced. Plane of Fear/Hate from EQ1 come to mind especially- was it a pain to have to get into a calendar/schedule with other guilds on the server? Certainly, but it also fostered some amount of comradery among the competition from what I had seen, it also made these places seem more special as I'd only get to see them once a month and would actually plan ahead for that time on a weekend- it certainly felt like less of a chore than playing in guilds with scheduled raids 2-3x a week.
I also agree that not all dungeons need to be like this- variety is a good thing. However on the same note I think that there is a growing population playing MMORPGs that think a subscription fee entitles them to all content at their whim which I find really sad. Was it really that bad on nights you only had 20-30 minutes to play that you spent that time working on tradeskills, or languages, or sitting in EC tunnel trying to sell some drops?
We all get older and RL takes more and more time for the responsibilities that come with it, but dumbing down content and making it all easily accessible also takes away any feeling of achievement for what you may accomplish, and robs us of having fond memories of games and other players that that made these games exciting. It just leaves you with forgettable, meaningless content where people see the gear rewards as being the focus moreso than just a bonus to the time spent clearing that content.
Do you want to know if they are harder or more adventurous?
Because I think just every single DDO dungeons is more adventurous than the stuff in EQ1. The only old school MMO that comes close is Asheron's Call which isn't surprising since they are made by the same company.
I mean I can put your balls in a vice, but it doesn't sound like much of an adventure to me. Navigating the The Pit or Rainbow in the Dark or the Blood Road in DDO is an adventure.
Are you talking about just he mobs? Or actually having a dungeon with novel things besides just where the mobs spawn and how many of them there are and how much pain the game will inflict on you if something bad happens?
Even some of the straight up very low level harbor quests in DDO like Stealthy Reposession are more "adventurous" than most EQ stuff. I am sure some crazy stuff could happen in EQ and I am sure dying hurt alot and therefore you got an adrenaline rush. But I don't really think of it as adventurous.
In fact the emphasis on the negative reinforcement of corpse runs shows just how much adventure it really lacked. Without your pain you have nothing but boring repetition.
We all get older and RL takes more and more time for the responsibilities that come with it, but dumbing down content and making it all easily accessible also takes away any feeling of achievement for what you may accomplish, and robs us of having fond memories of games and other players that that made these games exciting. It just leaves you with forgettable, meaningless content where people see the gear rewards as being the focus moreso than just a bonus to the time spent clearing that content.
A key area of disconnect here is that I consider any content that requires players to 'take turns' and have to wait a month to do again, as 'dumbed down' as it gets. So removing those types of restrictions is 'smarting up' the content. In fact making the content as accessible as possible and letting them players themselves choose the difficulty level seems the smartest design.
Too often it seems like 'old school' players went through pretty lame and rather insane things for no really good reason and cannot accept that others no longer see this as much of an accomplishment.
I played Lineage 2 for 4 years so i dont wanna hear it about not knowing what older games were like, or ffa PvP, or losing gear, or trains or grinding mobs or any number of things that a lot of people here think make a game "hardcore". Losing XP was in no way fun and discouraged PvP specially at higher levels where losing 5% of a level meant 24 straight hours of grinding to get it back. The only thing i remember about older dungeons is the frusteration of having trains dropped on you or getting cought in the middle of clan wars or some other crap excitement...maybe for the PvP that randomly happened. For the most part older dungeons sucked and the only thing entertaining about them was talking to friends in vent while doing the mindless grind that older games were.
Take a look at the highlighted part... there is the problem.
First off, most of us are going back farhter than lineage 2 (although I did use some examples from more modern games like requiem).
Second, lineage 2 was a severe grind-fest, and I quit it fairly quickly for exactly the reasons you described above. I, at least, am emphatically NOT talking about lineage 2 when I give examples of old-school dungeons.
The problem with modern dungeons is that they are like carnival rides(which is an especially apt analogy when people keep comparing the games to themeparks), which isolate you from everyone else. The content is the same each time you repeat it(other players add an element of randomness which doesn't otherwise exist) and no matter how gritty the ambience, it just does not have the same feel as a more open dungeon. There were also plenty of scripted encounters and things to do, with or without other players...
Stuff...
How far back you want to go? wanna go back to text based mmo's that i played on dial up that was only available if you were a university student or employee?? How far back do you want to go are we talking 3-d MMO's or we going back farther we talking 2-d text based?? Whats your point i played way back when too doesnt matter pick the game it's still the same old crap. Other players add randomness....like the trains those were fun ask the kids that got one dropped on them. Plenty of other scripted encounters that were all the same which is the thing you are complaining about in the first place. The point with L2 was that i played the worst of the grindfests but EQ, UO they were the same just a grindfest heres an open world with ffa PvP and death penalties. Dungeons were the same not physically the same but the same bunch of static mobs maybe a rare spawn or boss mob here and there but they were the for the sole purpose of setting up camp and grinding your ass off.
Well I dont play for the penalty I play for the experience.
Risk, the possibility of losing, heightens the sensation of victory when you complete a task. Even in a videogame.
Eitherway I fail to see the 'experience' in repeating the same instanced dungeon with the same people, whilst the npcs do exactly the same thing, over and over as in modern games. At least in the past when you stepped into an area you had no idea how it would play out and who would be there.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
i can barely remember dungeons in newer games but i clearly remember naked corpse runs deep into kael drakkal or equestrielle the corrupted camping my corpse.
LOL there was nothing like being forced to do naked corpse runs deep into dungeons if there weren't any bards or necro's around, :P I remember being around skyfire mountain on my druid.. I was levitating over the mountains while in chat with a friend.. Suddenly, I fall to my death cuz levitate wore off, lol.. I wasn't paying attention obviously, and it almost cost me ALL of my characters items.. I spent so long trying to find a bard or necro to locate or summon my corpse.. I would even log on another character to keep the timer from running down faster. Finally after a few days later, I found a Bard willing to help for 50 plat, lol.. After levitating around for a long time, we managed to find the corpse. It was literally stuck inside the mountain.
In a way, I miss the days of dungeon TRAINS, naked corpse runs, and large open dungeons where groups would set up camp at a hotspot hoping to kill some named mobs for rare loot. During this time, you could really get to know people after literally spending hours grouping with them.. Social interaction with EQ was the best I've ever witnessed in any MMORPG.. You pretty much had to group to level, as group exp was better than solo exp... Nowadays, people only group to do "instances" for loot whereas the rest of the leveling is easily soloable.. To me, that's just ridiculous.. It's not how mmorpg's were meant to be played... Blizzard really changed this concept and now most newbs who played WoW as their first MMO would look at it's key features and compare them with other new MMO's and believe that new MMO should play similar to WoW's gameplay mechanics.. It's just how it is today..
Most vet MMO gamers haven't tasted a game similar to EQ's concept in a long time.. I'm crossing my fingers on Rifts: Planes of Telara and Curt Schillings 38 studio's new MMORPG will take us back to the good ol days when MMORPG's were exactly what the title says. Massive amounts of people living and adventuring in a online virtual world "together" grouped up doing open world dungeons for fun, fame, and to socialize...
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Things always look greener in the rearview because the view is fertilized with bullshit.
Seriously though I think there are games out now that have dungeons like those of old. Vanguard has some good dungeon crawls. As does EQ2. Conan has a couple I really like. I did love AC's though. Game was much better than EQ imo.
Yet EQ2 and Vanguard are getting long in the tooth as well so the Next Gen needs to come on already lol
Naaa you missed it man. I can attest that one zone alone in Black Burrow was more fun than the whole of wow. Ever seen a train and get into that fight at the zone and get knocked out the zone by a darkpaw and thinking you are safe because you almost died only to zone in on the otherside to see someone trained the deadbones from the crypt into the cave hahahaha!
Or, Oasis and have the orc trains running all over, the failed Spectre party trains and the Giants. Or, or being in that swamp waiting to get into Cazic andthe bouncer runs up trained in back slapping people all over, or, or.... I could just go on an on.
Things always look greener in the rearview because the view is fertilized with bullshit.
Seriously though I think there are games out now that have dungeons like those of old. Vanguard has some good dungeon crawls. As does EQ2. Conan has a couple I really like. I did love AC's though. Game was much better than EQ imo.
Yet EQ2 and Vanguard are getting long in the tooth as well so the Next Gen needs to come on already lol
Naaa you missed it man. I can attest that one zone alone in Black Burrow was more fun than the whole of wow. Ever seen a train and get into that fight at the zone and get knocked out the zone by a darkpaw and thinking you are safe because you almost died only to zone in on the otherside to see someone trained the deadbones from the crypt into the cave hahahaha!
Or, Oasis and have the orc trains running all over, the failed Spectre party trains and the Giants. Or, or being in that swamp waiting to get into Cazic andthe bouncer runs up trained in back slapping people all over, or, or.... I could just go on an on.
That is YOUR opinion. I can attest that Black Burrow is a lot less fun than ANY dungeon of WOW has all the spawn spot is camped by multiple players.
And you think trains are fun? I would take a instance dungeon any day. Train is nothing but just chaos. No design, no boss, just incovenience and detract from the real game.
That is YOUR opinion. I can attest that Black Burrow is a lot less fun than ANY dungeon of WOW has all the spawn spot is camped by multiple players.
And you think trains are fun? I would take a instance dungeon any day. Train is nothing but just chaos. No design, no boss, just incovenience and detract from the real game.
Just like you pointed out in the previous post, these are your opinions. WoW dungeons are designed for 5 players to get pre-raid or leveling gear without having to interact or be effected by anyone outside of your small group.
EQ dungeons were designed for a much larger number of players, who were expected and encouraged to interact with one another.
Comparing dungeons in EQ to WoW is pretty pointless and almost always ends up with "my opinion is better than your opinion" arguments like this.
Things always look greener in the rearview because the view is fertilized with bullshit.
Seriously though I think there are games out now that have dungeons like those of old. Vanguard has some good dungeon crawls. As does EQ2. Conan has a couple I really like. I did love AC's though. Game was much better than EQ imo.
Yet EQ2 and Vanguard are getting long in the tooth as well so the Next Gen needs to come on already lol
Naaa you missed it man. I can attest that one zone alone in Black Burrow was more fun than the whole of wow. Ever seen a train and get into that fight at the zone and get knocked out the zone by a darkpaw and thinking you are safe because you almost died only to zone in on the otherside to see someone trained the deadbones from the crypt into the cave hahahaha!
Or, Oasis and have the orc trains running all over, the failed Spectre party trains and the Giants. Or, or being in that swamp waiting to get into Cazic andthe bouncer runs up trained in back slapping people all over, or, or.... I could just go on an on.
I remember those Sand Giant/Spectre/Goblin trains to the docks in Oasis oh so vividly..
watching as the high level mobs would obliterate the afkers in 2 or 3 hits...or watching someone run for their lives from a gaggle of Desert Mad Men..lol
In my opinion, being an original old fart gamer.. Dungeons of the past were better.. They were less linear, and more social.. The past MMO's were more risk v. reward.. Was DP more serious? Yes.. Could a jerk ruin your day? Yes.. Was this common? NO.. and was the social reward of the old games better? YES.. I played EQ1 for a number of years, seldom ever have anyone train me deliberately.. Did trains happen regularly? NO, but they did happen often enough to get your attenion and earn a reputation even 10 years later.. My experience was the only camps that people fought over, were those that had "epic" quest drops, or known drops that could be sold.. Those problems could of been corrected easily without losing the fun of the group gameplay of old..
Todays dungeon is nothing more then a path of mobs from start to finish.. So predictable, and easy that using the LFD finder option is viable because everyone in the MMO world can run the same dungeon without saying a single word to each other.. Do you need anymore evidence to prove how flawed that is? From a social aspect.. When a group of strangers can enter a dungeon, complete it, and NEVER say anything to each other says one thing.. EPIC FAIL..
EQ dungeons had to have been done by someone on crack They were so winding all over the place, and insane. They did have an appeal, aside from the linear dungeons WoW has.
There are levels of risk that can bring back the old without making death a grind. An permanent xp reduction but not loot lost or corpse run is an idea.
But not all more current mmos are like WOW. Vanguards dungeons are great. IMO of course. I think they are as good as EQ1 and AC. I remember vividly as well the old days but these days and games are better in my opinion. The feeling of the players being excited and the genre being fresh and new brought the communities together and THAT is why I think people still hold onto the 'old days'
I agree somewhat about Vanguard,
Which is no surprise because the mind behind VG was the same mind behind EQ1 -Brad McQuaid
There are levels of risk that can bring back the old without making death a grind. An permanent xp reduction but not loot lost or corpse run is an idea.
xp loss is a grind. There is no way around it. Anything that need time playing to recover is a grind. It really is a matter of how much.
Well Everquest 1 (not the carebear crap it is now) has had the most dangerous, rewarding, exploring and of course adventurous dungeons I've ever seen in a game. If you messed up, well you really messed and were in for some huge trouble in order to recover your corpse.
Only game that really game close to this great feeling has been Vanguard because it did away with the carebear-grouping called instancing, which isn't a real adventure. Aion's open group areas did have some adventure feeling too, since there were no corpse runs sadly the fear factor hasn't been the same but still better than all the crap games like Everquest 2, Wow, Lotro, Warhammer had to offer.
So to answer your question simple yes god I miss these dungeons crawling evenings.
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."
Todays dungeon is nothing more then a path of mobs from start to finish.. So predictable, and easy that using the LFD finder option is viable because everyone in the MMO world can run the same dungeon without saying a single word to each other.. Do you need anymore evidence to prove how flawed that is? From a social aspect.. When a group of strangers can enter a dungeon, complete it, and NEVER say anything to each other says one thing.. EPIC FAIL..
Multiplayer Mutism Online Roleplaying Game
I have borne witness to this, it is sad, and disheartening, and cheapens the entire game in that, people from different servers, lumped together in an instance, ignoring each other socially, and only speak when something goes wrong. Its depressing and disheartening. It becomes rote, and boring and monotonous. No chance to make a social connection because after that dungeon, you just queue up for another and get another mixed bag or randoms you will likely never see again, or go do something else because you realise that the game is stagnating and the playerbase is growing more isolationist and insular.
I never got to play EQ or the old games people mention. I dabbled a very little in Lineage 2 recently, enjoyed the game, the grind was starting to itch at me, but I didnt mind it. I stopped after one month and found something else to do after attempting to stay over level 20 5 times and failing miserably. I got into Aion, much less of a punishing grind, in 3 months made it to 50 from release, had a friend not shown me how to grind effectively, id still be running piddlyarse quests, a bad habit I picked up in WoW. I loved that game, but for the people in the legion, and the fun we would have, the social interaction that I have not found in WoW, which is ironic, becuase I used to hear WoW talked about as a very social game.
Apples to oranges I know. I dont mind the grind, I loved the outdoor elite areas in Aion, digging in, grinding away in a group, watching out for the bastard chinese farmers that would train everyone, and training them right back. Situational awareness was developed or you didnt level. Risk was there in death penalty, so you didnt just afk snooze through on follow. Reward was there in Experience you sorely needed due to dying once or twice that day, items and coin. Competing with other groups, or making friends with them, and allowing them the first kill as they were there first. I can remember running from a train set by someone else, my group running, and another group dead. I made time to res their healer just so that they wouldnt have to release and fight back into the area, then kept running my train off. Thankfully, the mobs had a short leash and while you could chain train, it was never that difficult to stay alive unless it was a merciless train like in Dreagion.
What I liked in Aion, those open dungeons and the social aspect, I think that perhaps I may have loved in these older games you speak of. I will keep my eyes open for any future games with a similar design principle. Putting the Social aspect into an MMO and fostering a community, rather than a insular and selfish "What about ME?!" gamer mentality that has been nourished of late. I just want everyone to have a game they can enjoy. Maybe I just never got into a decent guild/legion outside of Aion, got lucky there, shame they all quit. Any suggestions of up and coming MMO's that may pique my interest?
Yes, plain and simple. Dungeons are scripted in today's games. There is only adventure on the first complete play-through. There is very little diversity after that.
Comments
I've started playing Lotro again, and man did they dumb it down. It use to be HARD. I just got to the Barrows....what a joke! My question is, is there a game out there that is still hard and not dumbed down for the masses?
Original EQ1 dungeons were the hardest, before corpse summoning. Hours and hours to complete a raid. Not like the fast food raids of today's mmo's.
Archlinux ftw
Yeah, I guess I should have phrased my question this way. What new/newer game out or coming out is suppose to bring back the traditional toughness of dungeons of the past? I've been reading about Legends of Edda, and although the cutesy art style is not my cup of tea, they claim the dungeons are going to be hard and scale properly. I guess they are going to have a toughness meter you can change before you go in them.
On a side note, I really do miss the dungeons that were like 4 hours long. Not that I want all my dungeons that long, but remember when it felt like you accomplished something when you successfully got through an instance? Man, those were the days.
I completely agree. While I can certainly see where other players come from with a strong dislike of this kind of time requirement, it really made places like this more special to me, especially when it was non-instanced. Plane of Fear/Hate from EQ1 come to mind especially- was it a pain to have to get into a calendar/schedule with other guilds on the server? Certainly, but it also fostered some amount of comradery among the competition from what I had seen, it also made these places seem more special as I'd only get to see them once a month and would actually plan ahead for that time on a weekend- it certainly felt like less of a chore than playing in guilds with scheduled raids 2-3x a week.
I also agree that not all dungeons need to be like this- variety is a good thing. However on the same note I think that there is a growing population playing MMORPGs that think a subscription fee entitles them to all content at their whim which I find really sad. Was it really that bad on nights you only had 20-30 minutes to play that you spent that time working on tradeskills, or languages, or sitting in EC tunnel trying to sell some drops?
We all get older and RL takes more and more time for the responsibilities that come with it, but dumbing down content and making it all easily accessible also takes away any feeling of achievement for what you may accomplish, and robs us of having fond memories of games and other players that that made these games exciting. It just leaves you with forgettable, meaningless content where people see the gear rewards as being the focus moreso than just a bonus to the time spent clearing that content.
Do you want to know if they are harder or more adventurous?
Because I think just every single DDO dungeons is more adventurous than the stuff in EQ1. The only old school MMO that comes close is Asheron's Call which isn't surprising since they are made by the same company.
I mean I can put your balls in a vice, but it doesn't sound like much of an adventure to me. Navigating the The Pit or Rainbow in the Dark or the Blood Road in DDO is an adventure.
Are you talking about just he mobs? Or actually having a dungeon with novel things besides just where the mobs spawn and how many of them there are and how much pain the game will inflict on you if something bad happens?
Even some of the straight up very low level harbor quests in DDO like Stealthy Reposession are more "adventurous" than most EQ stuff. I am sure some crazy stuff could happen in EQ and I am sure dying hurt alot and therefore you got an adrenaline rush. But I don't really think of it as adventurous.
In fact the emphasis on the negative reinforcement of corpse runs shows just how much adventure it really lacked. Without your pain you have nothing but boring repetition.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
No.
Now, off to the next thread...
A key area of disconnect here is that I consider any content that requires players to 'take turns' and have to wait a month to do again, as 'dumbed down' as it gets. So removing those types of restrictions is 'smarting up' the content. In fact making the content as accessible as possible and letting them players themselves choose the difficulty level seems the smartest design.
Too often it seems like 'old school' players went through pretty lame and rather insane things for no really good reason and cannot accept that others no longer see this as much of an accomplishment.
How far back you want to go? wanna go back to text based mmo's that i played on dial up that was only available if you were a university student or employee?? How far back do you want to go are we talking 3-d MMO's or we going back farther we talking 2-d text based?? Whats your point i played way back when too doesnt matter pick the game it's still the same old crap. Other players add randomness....like the trains those were fun ask the kids that got one dropped on them. Plenty of other scripted encounters that were all the same which is the thing you are complaining about in the first place. The point with L2 was that i played the worst of the grindfests but EQ, UO they were the same just a grindfest heres an open world with ffa PvP and death penalties. Dungeons were the same not physically the same but the same bunch of static mobs maybe a rare spawn or boss mob here and there but they were the for the sole purpose of setting up camp and grinding your ass off.
How about Asheron's Call, Darktide.
Nothing theme park nor carnival ride ish in that game. Some of my best gaming experiences happened in that game.
Risk, the possibility of losing, heightens the sensation of victory when you complete a task. Even in a videogame.
Eitherway I fail to see the 'experience' in repeating the same instanced dungeon with the same people, whilst the npcs do exactly the same thing, over and over as in modern games. At least in the past when you stepped into an area you had no idea how it would play out and who would be there.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
LOL there was nothing like being forced to do naked corpse runs deep into dungeons if there weren't any bards or necro's around, :P I remember being around skyfire mountain on my druid.. I was levitating over the mountains while in chat with a friend.. Suddenly, I fall to my death cuz levitate wore off, lol.. I wasn't paying attention obviously, and it almost cost me ALL of my characters items.. I spent so long trying to find a bard or necro to locate or summon my corpse.. I would even log on another character to keep the timer from running down faster. Finally after a few days later, I found a Bard willing to help for 50 plat, lol.. After levitating around for a long time, we managed to find the corpse. It was literally stuck inside the mountain.
In a way, I miss the days of dungeon TRAINS, naked corpse runs, and large open dungeons where groups would set up camp at a hotspot hoping to kill some named mobs for rare loot. During this time, you could really get to know people after literally spending hours grouping with them.. Social interaction with EQ was the best I've ever witnessed in any MMORPG.. You pretty much had to group to level, as group exp was better than solo exp... Nowadays, people only group to do "instances" for loot whereas the rest of the leveling is easily soloable.. To me, that's just ridiculous.. It's not how mmorpg's were meant to be played... Blizzard really changed this concept and now most newbs who played WoW as their first MMO would look at it's key features and compare them with other new MMO's and believe that new MMO should play similar to WoW's gameplay mechanics.. It's just how it is today..
Most vet MMO gamers haven't tasted a game similar to EQ's concept in a long time.. I'm crossing my fingers on Rifts: Planes of Telara and Curt Schillings 38 studio's new MMORPG will take us back to the good ol days when MMORPG's were exactly what the title says. Massive amounts of people living and adventuring in a online virtual world "together" grouped up doing open world dungeons for fun, fame, and to socialize...
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Naaa you missed it man. I can attest that one zone alone in Black Burrow was more fun than the whole of wow. Ever seen a train and get into that fight at the zone and get knocked out the zone by a darkpaw and thinking you are safe because you almost died only to zone in on the otherside to see someone trained the deadbones from the crypt into the cave hahahaha!
Or, Oasis and have the orc trains running all over, the failed Spectre party trains and the Giants. Or, or being in that swamp waiting to get into Cazic andthe bouncer runs up trained in back slapping people all over, or, or.... I could just go on an on.
That is YOUR opinion. I can attest that Black Burrow is a lot less fun than ANY dungeon of WOW has all the spawn spot is camped by multiple players.
And you think trains are fun? I would take a instance dungeon any day. Train is nothing but just chaos. No design, no boss, just incovenience and detract from the real game.
Just like you pointed out in the previous post, these are your opinions. WoW dungeons are designed for 5 players to get pre-raid or leveling gear without having to interact or be effected by anyone outside of your small group.
EQ dungeons were designed for a much larger number of players, who were expected and encouraged to interact with one another.
Comparing dungeons in EQ to WoW is pretty pointless and almost always ends up with "my opinion is better than your opinion" arguments like this.
I remember those Sand Giant/Spectre/Goblin trains to the docks in Oasis oh so vividly..
watching as the high level mobs would obliterate the afkers in 2 or 3 hits...or watching someone run for their lives from a gaggle of Desert Mad Men..lol
nothing can match EQ's heyday.
In my opinion, being an original old fart gamer.. Dungeons of the past were better.. They were less linear, and more social.. The past MMO's were more risk v. reward.. Was DP more serious? Yes.. Could a jerk ruin your day? Yes.. Was this common? NO.. and was the social reward of the old games better? YES.. I played EQ1 for a number of years, seldom ever have anyone train me deliberately.. Did trains happen regularly? NO, but they did happen often enough to get your attenion and earn a reputation even 10 years later.. My experience was the only camps that people fought over, were those that had "epic" quest drops, or known drops that could be sold.. Those problems could of been corrected easily without losing the fun of the group gameplay of old..
Todays dungeon is nothing more then a path of mobs from start to finish.. So predictable, and easy that using the LFD finder option is viable because everyone in the MMO world can run the same dungeon without saying a single word to each other.. Do you need anymore evidence to prove how flawed that is? From a social aspect.. When a group of strangers can enter a dungeon, complete it, and NEVER say anything to each other says one thing.. EPIC FAIL..
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
EQ dungeons had to have been done by someone on crack
They were so winding all over the place, and insane. They did have an appeal, aside from the linear dungeons WoW has.
There are levels of risk that can bring back the old without making death a grind. An permanent xp reduction but not loot lost or corpse run is an idea.
I agree somewhat about Vanguard,
Which is no surprise because the mind behind VG was the same mind behind EQ1 -Brad McQuaid
xp loss is a grind. There is no way around it. Anything that need time playing to recover is a grind. It really is a matter of how much.
Well Everquest 1 (not the carebear crap it is now) has had the most dangerous, rewarding, exploring and of course adventurous dungeons I've ever seen in a game. If you messed up, well you really messed and were in for some huge trouble in order to recover your corpse.
Only game that really game close to this great feeling has been Vanguard because it did away with the carebear-grouping called instancing, which isn't a real adventure. Aion's open group areas did have some adventure feeling too, since there were no corpse runs sadly the fear factor hasn't been the same but still better than all the crap games like Everquest 2, Wow, Lotro, Warhammer had to offer.
So to answer your question simple yes god I miss these dungeons crawling evenings.
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."
Multiplayer Mutism Online Roleplaying Game
I have borne witness to this, it is sad, and disheartening, and cheapens the entire game in that, people from different servers, lumped together in an instance, ignoring each other socially, and only speak when something goes wrong. Its depressing and disheartening. It becomes rote, and boring and monotonous. No chance to make a social connection because after that dungeon, you just queue up for another and get another mixed bag or randoms you will likely never see again, or go do something else because you realise that the game is stagnating and the playerbase is growing more isolationist and insular.
I never got to play EQ or the old games people mention. I dabbled a very little in Lineage 2 recently, enjoyed the game, the grind was starting to itch at me, but I didnt mind it. I stopped after one month and found something else to do after attempting to stay over level 20 5 times and failing miserably. I got into Aion, much less of a punishing grind, in 3 months made it to 50 from release, had a friend not shown me how to grind effectively, id still be running piddlyarse quests, a bad habit I picked up in WoW. I loved that game, but for the people in the legion, and the fun we would have, the social interaction that I have not found in WoW, which is ironic, becuase I used to hear WoW talked about as a very social game.
Apples to oranges I know. I dont mind the grind, I loved the outdoor elite areas in Aion, digging in, grinding away in a group, watching out for the bastard chinese farmers that would train everyone, and training them right back. Situational awareness was developed or you didnt level. Risk was there in death penalty, so you didnt just afk snooze through on follow. Reward was there in Experience you sorely needed due to dying once or twice that day, items and coin. Competing with other groups, or making friends with them, and allowing them the first kill as they were there first. I can remember running from a train set by someone else, my group running, and another group dead. I made time to res their healer just so that they wouldnt have to release and fight back into the area, then kept running my train off. Thankfully, the mobs had a short leash and while you could chain train, it was never that difficult to stay alive unless it was a merciless train like in Dreagion.
What I liked in Aion, those open dungeons and the social aspect, I think that perhaps I may have loved in these older games you speak of. I will keep my eyes open for any future games with a similar design principle. Putting the Social aspect into an MMO and fostering a community, rather than a insular and selfish "What about ME?!" gamer mentality that has been nourished of late. I just want everyone to have a game they can enjoy. Maybe I just never got into a decent guild/legion outside of Aion, got lucky there, shame they all quit. Any suggestions of up and coming MMO's that may pique my interest?