Ok ill give u pvp for old Why it is genrally known the best pvp title of all time is daoc. So i cant fault u there having the best title in a certain genre of all time give u the win.
Id argue that warhammer online has pvp on par with daoc but thats me. I play wow mostly. what id really love to knwo is do u play the old mmos anymore? if not why? Im betting because newer games have much bettter uis and are easier to play.
I level alts and i really enjoy doing so in wow. U forgot hwo companion pets,mounts and other things are really more fluff then not i think new mmos have some amazing fluff. My gf loves to do achievements.
I also think the end game part is so wrong . TO raid for 12-20 hrs isnt plausible for most people. Wows end game isnt to me abou gear i ll give u most players think of it that way. I still do 10 mans on my shammy cause i love to do them not because i want the gear. Gear is nice but i know ill replace it in 2-3 months when a new tier or raids or a new xpac come out.
YOur biased opinon overruled common sense. I think if ud dont this with an unbiased view it would of been closer. Ill give u community for old mmos and ill give u group play. Now adays mmos are solo freindly. But when it comes to pve experiance wow is much more fun. Grinding for 10 hrs only to die and lose your xp or all your gear isnt fun.
Newer mmos penalty for death is less harsh. Thats a plus to pve. Imsorry but theres a reason wow is the number 1 mmo of all time in terrms of subs and it is because of its pve.
That said had this been a less biased view. Meaning u pointed out the plus and minuses for both sides u didnt do that. Hell i felt like this was a story about why mmos of old was better not a realist veiw of them. U never told us much about what the mmos of today do well u just ranted on and on abou twhat they do wrong.
Thats the beauty of UO. Sure when you die you COULD lose all your stuff, but then when you can gather all the resources yourself and craft all the stuff you had back, you really arent losing much at all. Run through the woods to find a priest and get back in time to get your stuff. There was NO exp loss because it was a stat based game. I dont see anything terrible about that. You can mix and match your skills, afraid of losing your stuff? Run around look for some reagents kill some orcs or ratmen or lizardmen with magic (spellbooks stay with you permanently as long if its in your main bag) for an axe or what not and start chopping down some trees and craft yourself a staff. Feel like not wanting to do all that? Become a tamer, get yourself a pack of wolves, or a bear, or when you're brave enough a dragon. Let your pets do the dirty work for you while you sit back and give commands. Feel like death penalty is still harsh? Start talking to the dead people and give other people a break and ressurect them with simple bandages you can make from shaving off sheep hair go to a tailor building turn it into cloth. At best everything you're doing is gaining skill points. The possilibities are almost endless.
As far as I'm concerned that doesn't seem to be a harsh death penalty at all. The experience to become almost anything you want in UO, thats the PvE I wanna play again. If today UO was like how it was back in 1997-1999 I would still be playing. Having to compete with newer MMO's standards just ruined everything. Stat based weapons and armor and all the other garbage like WoW made UO too unbearable to play. The whole core just isn't what its supposed to be anymore.
And for the record, if you could just co back and read part 1-3 again he did give newer MMO's some higher ratings than old.
Adam, seriously, if you are going to try and pose a topic such as this as an even "fight" if you will, don't pit the best views/perspectives of the old vs the worst views/perspective of the new. Obviously, you're bit on this series is heavily biased into what started as a 5 parter and ended on a 4 parter (surprise surprise). If I took the best of the New and put it against the worst of the Old, I'm sure I can score a big one for the New as well.
Poorly written, very unbalanced views unreflective of all gamers, save for the old-school hardcore crowd which are an ever dying breed these days as newer and better games take over. At least the worst of the New didn't end up wasting hours and hours of time to earn zero experience to negative experience (which happened quite often).
If you truly were to even include a balanced view at least include some categories that you know New could win such as Game Mechanics and Group Play. Seriously, dungeon/instancing with Old beating out New is a joke. Sitting in one corner of a room pulling the same 2-3 groups of mobs for hours on end in a dungeon filled with more players than monsters isn't dungeon crawling IMO, but hey if you really feel justified that the Old was THAT much greater.
It all sounds like a reality check for the writer and maybe you suffer a little bit from nostalgia Just a little. Let me know how your Ultima Online and Everquest 1 is like these days and let me know if you're still enjoying them. I'll hunker down and try to move with the times.
Finaly someone that shares my view on this "Fight". It's so terribly biased towards the writers nostalgia. For example, let me summarize the last part of the fight, PvP:
"Older games had bad pvp, except DAoC. New games have great PvP, and Eve is awesome, but hey lets give thme both an 8 because i can't believe my opinions could be flawed.
SteamID: Sertii
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Funny how many people rag on his comments and assesments, yet, not one modern MMO has emerged past the worthless beast that is w0w. So that's supposed to be the big modern representitive? Please, seriously. Everyone seems to want to bitch about most modern MMO yet now they scream "no no!" modern is so much better. Is is just all w0w fanboi's posting (and I'd almost put w0w into the old catagory by now) or what? Then again, contradictions always seem to abound on these boards. People love to complain if it's not their opnion.
I know this is just a website, and websites do not generally care about such things. However, I love this website so I guess this may be worth mentioning. You may want to hire some editors. This article had several spelling and grammatical errors. I did enjoy its content. Thanks.
The reality of this whole thing is this article isnt Old vs new its Old versus WoW.
Bitch about him being bias all you want but honestly if you did this piece all you would be doing is judging the "NEW" by what WoW has done and completely ignoring the worthless shit thats come after 2004.
Wanna really judge Old style vs New style take the freak of nature out of the equation.
Lets see UO,EQ, AC, DAoC, AO, SWG, EVE, FFXI, Ryzom, FE, DF, Vanguard vs EQ2, CoH,Lotro, WAR, AoC, AION, STO, CO, FFXVI you would have to of totally missed the old school days and its style to side with the new lol.
Old school or old school influenced mmos clearly are the better games.
Liked the content of the whole series although as has been stated previously the weights of the different points seem pretty heavily skewed. I would love to see a return to some of the older gameplay mechanics- but I certainly woin't hold my breath, so to speak.
Easy as this: If people would have supported complex worlds, we would have complex worlds.
Back in early 2004 Microsoft cancelled their grand scale MMORPG "Mythica" with the general perception and argumentation that the MMORPG-market was saturated. They later, at a time when WoW already hit like a bomb, bailed from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to extreme financial risks they weren't willing to take.
And as most of the time, Microsoft made exactly the right business decisions. Virtual worlds like Vanguard/EQ1/UO/Darkfall, are not reaching huge playerbases, they appeal to the same type of player that used to play MUDs or do P&P 20 years ago. That's the reason nobody is bringing this concept to the table any more. Not because the devs and corps are all bad and cookie cutter, but because _we_ the players, chose WoW/Aion/WAR/LotRO over building your own house and learning Ogre just for the heck of it...
One solution could be btw that virtual worlds detach from the MMORPG genre as it is today with exclusive and more expensive P2P. This has already been discussed (by the old McQuaid for exa,ple) and looks like something that could split the market into premium-games (charging maybe 25-35$/month which would literally double the value of one customer) and F2P-hybrids, eventually catering to both player types.
Easy as this: If people would have supported complex worlds, we would have complex worlds.
Back in early 2004 Microsoft cancelled their grand scale MMORPG "Mythica" with the general perception and argumentation that the MMORPG-market was saturated. They later, at a time when WoW already hit like a bomb, bailed from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to extreme financial risks they weren't willing to take.
And as most of the time, Microsoft made exactly the right business decisions. Virtual worlds like Vanguard/EQ1/UO/Darkfall, are not reaching huge playerbases, they appeal to the same type of player that used to play MUDs or do P&P 20 years ago. That's the reason nobody is bringing this concept to the table any more. Not because the devs and corps are all bad and cookie cutter, but because _we_ the players, chose WoW/Aion/WAR/LotRO over building your own house and learning Ogre just for the heck of it...
M
If thats what everyone wants then please explain why post WoW sub averages and Pre- wow sub averages are exactly the same (Dead locked at 150k)?
Sure WoW hit the mark but since then? Maybe people just need to realize that the entire mmorpg genre is niche and WoW is just the exception and not the rule.
Easy as this: If people would have supported complex worlds, we would have complex worlds.
Back in early 2004 Microsoft cancelled their grand scale MMORPG "Mythica" with the general perception and argumentation that the MMORPG-market was saturated. They later, at a time when WoW already hit like a bomb, bailed from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to extreme financial risks they weren't willing to take.
And as most of the time, Microsoft made exactly the right business decisions. Virtual worlds like Vanguard/EQ1/UO/Darkfall, are not reaching huge playerbases, they appeal to the same type of player that used to play MUDs or do P&P 20 years ago. That's the reason nobody is bringing this concept to the table any more. Not because the devs and corps are all bad and cookie cutter, but because _we_ the players, chose WoW/Aion/WAR/LotRO over building your own house and learning Ogre just for the heck of it...
M
If thats what everyone wants then please explain why post WoW sub averages and Pre- wow sub averages are exactly the same (Dead locked at 150k)?
Sure WoW hit the mark but since then? Maybe people just need to realize that the entire mmorpg genre is niche and WoW is just the exception and not the rule.
It's not about the sub numbers in strict P2P games, its about the general phenomenom of social gaming, including F2P and social games like Farmville, or any item-shop grinder with people playing on it. Additionally, more and more P2P games go hybrid F2P like DDO or LotRO, that's a market shift that holds possibility for the deep and complex game to make a return; Detached from the clickie games, at a higher price and larger retention rates.
Finally, the pain of finishing up this series is over. The following line from the closing says it all to me:
"For myself, immersion is key, I revelled in the virtual world created in earlier games and see the accessibility and overall gameness of newer MMORPGs to be a betrayal of the genres roots."
The amount of tint on those glasses is mindblowing. How old was he when he played older games again? Now, if we could get someone with less bias and more objectivity in here to write a proper versus article, it might actually be enjoyable to read.
To be fair he says at the bottom that these are all his opinions! and they seem to follow a lot of opinions on these forums. People keep coming up with this "rose tinted glasses" remark like it's the "in thing" at the moment but please, cut it out....myself i still love the older games....do i wear rose tinted glasses? ...no way, i still sub to EQ and it is still the most enjoyable for me out there!
Am i biased? of course i am just like each and every one of us
One key thing that i think wasnt discussed, is the quality of players. One great thing about those old school MMOs were the people you not only played with, but socialized with. Todays quality of gamer has dropped dramatically. Gone are the days of well educated, well read people to whom manners were not a foreign concept. I dont want to generalize because there are some smart kids out there, but frankly there are far more egotistical chest beating adolescent heirarchy clinging social maladjusts floating in the shallow end of the gene pool these days.
Take a look at some of these posters, you wrote a decent piece, presented it well, and what happened? You had a bunch of ADD kids bash it for the fact you stepped on their toes. Thats right theyll bash you simply for the fact you didnt say what they wanted to hear. Thats right, they get angry if you dont give them what they want instead of making them work for it.
MMORPGs were great because you could not just relate to your fellow player, but you could empathize with them. You coexisted in a harsh world together, and the only way anyone was getting anywhere is if you stuck together and worked it out. Not so these days, for the most part, you can solo through anything, and most players dont give a rats patoot about their fellow gamers because they do not depend on them.
You can keep your Chuck Norris jokes, your d00d speak, your gratuitous hate speech and your selfish solo style games, those arent mmorpgs anymore anyway.
Frankly Im ashamed of the new school players and dont even like being clumped in with them anyway.
peace out, make sure you insult me with all the fervor you are famous for in your posts that follow after this new schoolers.
The only reason i see OLD MMORPG's being better than the NEW MMORPG's is the fact, that at the time of the OLD ones, the variety in from which to pick was 2-5 games compared to the current day plethora of hundreds if not thousands of MMORPG's, so obviously you appreciated those games alot more by the groundbreaking mechanics and MASSIVELY ONLINE abilities, which today is like mac 'n cheese - a standard.
You viewed the games through the eyes of a guy who only saw things through nostalgia about older mmo's. Besides being more time consuming just about everything in older mmo's is so inferior to the new stuff its crazy.
This entire series was seen through the rose colored glasses of someone who views the older MMO as the holy grail of games, which is fine but lets be honest, this is one of the few places on the web where you're going to get majority support for those viewpoints. For as great as those games were back then there was also a lot of bad, bad enough that stuff like that wouldn't fly in today's games. But don't take my word for it, the proof is in the numbers. There's a reason why there was a mass exodus from EQ once WoW launched. There is a reason why these older games never reached even a million players. Heck even Everquest, the shining beacon for all the nostalgia folks, changed it's mechanics to the point where it's a shell today of what it once was, mainly for the reason to attract players. To use an sports term, Scoreboard.
This entire series was seen through the rose colored glasses of someone who views the older MMO as the holy grail of games, which is fine but lets be honest, this is one of the few places on the web where you're going to get majority support for those viewpoints. For as great as those games were back then there was also a lot of bad, bad enough that stuff like that wouldn't fly in today's games. But don't take my word for it, the proof is in the numbers. There's a reason why there was a mass exodus from EQ once WoW launched. There is a reason why these older games never reached even a million players. Heck even Everquest, the shining beacon for all the nostalgia folks, changed it's mechanics to the point where it's a shell today of what it once was, mainly for the reason to attract players. To use an sports term, Scoreboard.
Yes and there's a reason that since WoW released All mmos have sunk right back down to Pre-wow mmo sub levels.
You viewed the games through the eyes of a guy who only saw things through nostalgia about older mmo's. Besides being more time consuming just about everything in older mmo's is so inferior to the new stuff its crazy.
Except the people that make up the communities, the worlds, the complexity, the RP, The crafting, the pvp mechanics, Depth of character development, An actual risk,
You viewed the games through the eyes of a guy who only saw things through nostalgia about older mmo's. Besides being more time consuming just about everything in older mmo's is so inferior to the new stuff its crazy.
Except the people that make up the communities, the worlds, the complexity, the RP, The crafting, the pvp mechanics, Depth of character development, An actual risk,
You got me at combat and graphics... gratz.
Community wise current mmo's are just as good. The game worlds are larger and more varied. They are just as complex minus the annoying little things. RP is alive and well. Crafting is just as great. You got me on pvp DAOC has yet to have been topped. Character dev is better. Risk is up in the air. Dying once and losing everything you have done in the last week is just a failed mechanic used to help extend a games life due to lack of real content.
MMORPG's of the past are dead. As stated before, they are simply MMO's now... there is no RPG left in them. Everything is lined out and set up so anyone can play at any time and to just about everything needed on their own. There is no immersion, no community and no feeling of acomplishment. Games used to draw you in and keep you drawn in. How long did you play UO?... Everyquest? Asherons Call or DAoC?.... I played a total of two MMORPGs for over ten years, and 7 in the past 2 years, usually going back to the old ones in between trying new ones.
The new ones just don't offer what the old ones did. They are shiny, new, graphically superior, full of fluff ..... and hollow as f'k. Sure the older MMORPGs had times where you sat for hours farming, grinding, lost, confused or whatever... but your brain was working, your social skills were being used, you made friends and you earned what you had.
Talk about a conclusion you coul d see coming from a mile away.
I didn't read all the replies and frankly I quit reading the article after part II because it became obvious where this was going. It was a nostalgia piece through and through. That's all. Now it's come down to "Back when we were first gaming we walked to school, uphill, both ways and we were damn glad to get the beatings from the teacher because we knew it was for our own good! You kids just don't get it!"
After money and in-laws you know what causes the most divorces in the world right now? High School Reunions. People go to them and get caught up in trying to relive the past and it messes up their present and future. One thing about these boards, and internet message boards in general, that you can bank on is that the glass is ALWAYS half empty. I'm as guilty as the next guy for jumping ugly on the latest and greatest. Somehow that has become the indicator of an "intelligent and discerning" gamer and anything less is derided as rabid fanboi-ism. It's become a knee jerk reaction to simply down something because it's new. Maybe if we let the new games be what they're supposed to be instead of trying to shoe horn them into places where they don't fit, like our memories of the past, we'd find out that these new games are actually pretty good and there is a reason that they are sporting good subscription numbers and our old favorites are closed down or on life support.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
This entire series was seen through the rose colored glasses of someone who views the older MMO as the holy grail of games, which is fine but lets be honest, this is one of the few places on the web where you're going to get majority support for those viewpoints. For as great as those games were back then there was also a lot of bad, bad enough that stuff like that wouldn't fly in today's games. But don't take my word for it, the proof is in the numbers. There's a reason why there was a mass exodus from EQ once WoW launched. There is a reason why these older games never reached even a million players. Heck even Everquest, the shining beacon for all the nostalgia folks, changed it's mechanics to the point where it's a shell today of what it once was, mainly for the reason to attract players. To use an sports term, Scoreboard.
Yes and there's a reason that since WoW released All mmos have sunk right back down to Pre-wow mmo sub levels.
Again WoW is the exception not the rule.
And what is that reason? An MMO developer these days knows going in that he/she cannot design a game similar to EQ circa 1999 and expect to get over 500k of subs. But that same developer knows that if he/she designs a game without some of that 'bang your head against the wall' limitations, then at least the game has a shot as a high number. You can look at something like crafting. Everyone says the older games had better crafting which is probably true, but that doesn't mean a ton of people want it. FFXIV has crafting that like reading a textbook, you think players are going to flock to that game because of it? Quite the opposite.
People like the old stuff because it introduced a genre and like everything else you never forget the first time of anything. But the bad stuff gets casually ignored, even praised as great game mechanics. A lot of players put up with that stuff not because it was great, it was because that's all there was. It wasn't like there were a ton of alternatives back in 1999-2000. Saying that EQ had revolutionary combat is downright laughable. I never knew that hitting attack, cast spell, taunt and parry were revolutionary. Saying end game content was great back then is laughable, where in EQ most fights came down to numbers and how much you can zerg the fight.
I'm not saying those games weren't great for what they were, but they were also hampered by the technology of the time. If people love those old games so much, why isn't games like AC and DAoC flooded with people? Maybe it's because even though you remember how great some of those games were, that doesn't mean you're going to put up with them again. I've learned the hard way that nostaliga only takes you so far (I probably retried EQ 4-5 times over a span of 8 years) and once that wears off, you're reminded of reasons why you quit the game initially.
This entire series was seen through the rose colored glasses of someone who views the older MMO as the holy grail of games, which is fine but lets be honest, this is one of the few places on the web where you're going to get majority support for those viewpoints. For as great as those games were back then there was also a lot of bad, bad enough that stuff like that wouldn't fly in today's games. But don't take my word for it, the proof is in the numbers. There's a reason why there was a mass exodus from EQ once WoW launched. There is a reason why these older games never reached even a million players. Heck even Everquest, the shining beacon for all the nostalgia folks, changed it's mechanics to the point where it's a shell today of what it once was, mainly for the reason to attract players. To use an sports term, Scoreboard.
Yes and there's a reason that since WoW released All mmos have sunk right back down to Pre-wow mmo sub levels.
Again WoW is the exception not the rule.
And what is that reason? An MMO developer these days knows going in that he/she cannot design a game similar to EQ circa 1999 and expect to get over 500k of subs. But that same developer knows that if he/she designs a game without some of that 'bang your head against the wall' limitations, then at least the game has a shot as a high number. You can look at something like crafting. Everyone says the older games had better crafting which is probably true, but that doesn't mean a ton of people want it. FFXIV has crafting that like reading a textbook, you think players are going to flock to that game because of it? Quite the opposite.
People like the old stuff because it introduced a genre and like everything else you never forget the first time of anything. But the bad stuff gets casually ignored, even praised as great game mechanics. A lot of players put up with that stuff not because it was great, it was because that's all there was. It wasn't like there were a ton of alternatives back in 1999-2000. Saying that EQ had revolutionary combat is downright laughable. I never knew that hitting attack, cast spell, taunt and parry were revolutionary. Saying end game content was great back then is laughable, where in EQ most fights came down to numbers and how much you can zerg the fight.
I'm not saying those games weren't great for what they were, but they were also hampered by the technology of the time. If people love those old games so much, why isn't games like AC and DAoC flooded with people? Maybe it's because even though you remember how great some of those games were, that doesn't mean you're going to put up with them again. I've learned the hard way that nostaliga only takes you so far (I probably retried EQ 4-5 times over a span of 8 years) and once that wears off, you're reminded of reasons why you quit the game initially.
The people that play now are different though, so your examples don't really fit in context, in my opinion. There are still many players, who played those old games, that like all that old stuff. But most of that old stuff is gone now, since the old games have tried to keep up with the newer games who are full of players who don't really care about that stuff.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Comments
Thanks for the articles. It was fun to read such a detailed analysis of one of my favorite subjects to ponder and debate.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Thats the beauty of UO. Sure when you die you COULD lose all your stuff, but then when you can gather all the resources yourself and craft all the stuff you had back, you really arent losing much at all. Run through the woods to find a priest and get back in time to get your stuff. There was NO exp loss because it was a stat based game. I dont see anything terrible about that. You can mix and match your skills, afraid of losing your stuff? Run around look for some reagents kill some orcs or ratmen or lizardmen with magic (spellbooks stay with you permanently as long if its in your main bag) for an axe or what not and start chopping down some trees and craft yourself a staff. Feel like not wanting to do all that? Become a tamer, get yourself a pack of wolves, or a bear, or when you're brave enough a dragon. Let your pets do the dirty work for you while you sit back and give commands. Feel like death penalty is still harsh? Start talking to the dead people and give other people a break and ressurect them with simple bandages you can make from shaving off sheep hair go to a tailor building turn it into cloth. At best everything you're doing is gaining skill points. The possilibities are almost endless.
As far as I'm concerned that doesn't seem to be a harsh death penalty at all. The experience to become almost anything you want in UO, thats the PvE I wanna play again. If today UO was like how it was back in 1997-1999 I would still be playing. Having to compete with newer MMO's standards just ruined everything. Stat based weapons and armor and all the other garbage like WoW made UO too unbearable to play. The whole core just isn't what its supposed to be anymore.
And for the record, if you could just co back and read part 1-3 again he did give newer MMO's some higher ratings than old.
Finaly someone that shares my view on this "Fight". It's so terribly biased towards the writers nostalgia. For example, let me summarize the last part of the fight, PvP:
"Older games had bad pvp, except DAoC. New games have great PvP, and Eve is awesome, but hey lets give thme both an 8 because i can't believe my opinions could be flawed.
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I much preferred the PvP in Asheron's Call to DAoC. I still miss AC's PVP to this day. No other game has come close. Fastcasting FTW!
True mages don't die. They strategically miscalculate.
Funny how many people rag on his comments and assesments, yet, not one modern MMO has emerged past the worthless beast that is w0w. So that's supposed to be the big modern representitive? Please, seriously. Everyone seems to want to bitch about most modern MMO yet now they scream "no no!" modern is so much better. Is is just all w0w fanboi's posting (and I'd almost put w0w into the old catagory by now) or what? Then again, contradictions always seem to abound on these boards. People love to complain if it's not their opnion.
I know this is just a website, and websites do not generally care about such things. However, I love this website so I guess this may be worth mentioning. You may want to hire some editors. This article had several spelling and grammatical errors. I did enjoy its content. Thanks.
The reality of this whole thing is this article isnt Old vs new its Old versus WoW.
Bitch about him being bias all you want but honestly if you did this piece all you would be doing is judging the "NEW" by what WoW has done and completely ignoring the worthless shit thats come after 2004.
Wanna really judge Old style vs New style take the freak of nature out of the equation.
Lets see UO,EQ, AC, DAoC, AO, SWG, EVE, FFXI, Ryzom, FE, DF, Vanguard vs EQ2, CoH,Lotro, WAR, AoC, AION, STO, CO, FFXVI you would have to of totally missed the old school days and its style to side with the new lol.
Old school or old school influenced mmos clearly are the better games.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Liked the content of the whole series although as has been stated previously the weights of the different points seem pretty heavily skewed. I would love to see a return to some of the older gameplay mechanics- but I certainly woin't hold my breath, so to speak.
Easy as this: If people would have supported complex worlds, we would have complex worlds.
Back in early 2004 Microsoft cancelled their grand scale MMORPG "Mythica" with the general perception and argumentation that the MMORPG-market was saturated. They later, at a time when WoW already hit like a bomb, bailed from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to extreme financial risks they weren't willing to take.
And as most of the time, Microsoft made exactly the right business decisions. Virtual worlds like Vanguard/EQ1/UO/Darkfall, are not reaching huge playerbases, they appeal to the same type of player that used to play MUDs or do P&P 20 years ago. That's the reason nobody is bringing this concept to the table any more. Not because the devs and corps are all bad and cookie cutter, but because _we_ the players, chose WoW/Aion/WAR/LotRO over building your own house and learning Ogre just for the heck of it...
One solution could be btw that virtual worlds detach from the MMORPG genre as it is today with exclusive and more expensive P2P. This has already been discussed (by the old McQuaid for exa,ple) and looks like something that could split the market into premium-games (charging maybe 25-35$/month which would literally double the value of one customer) and F2P-hybrids, eventually catering to both player types.
M
If thats what everyone wants then please explain why post WoW sub averages and Pre- wow sub averages are exactly the same (Dead locked at 150k)?
Sure WoW hit the mark but since then? Maybe people just need to realize that the entire mmorpg genre is niche and WoW is just the exception and not the rule.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
It's not about the sub numbers in strict P2P games, its about the general phenomenom of social gaming, including F2P and social games like Farmville, or any item-shop grinder with people playing on it. Additionally, more and more P2P games go hybrid F2P like DDO or LotRO, that's a market shift that holds possibility for the deep and complex game to make a return; Detached from the clickie games, at a higher price and larger retention rates.
M
To be fair he says at the bottom that these are all his opinions! and they seem to follow a lot of opinions on these forums. People keep coming up with this "rose tinted glasses" remark like it's the "in thing" at the moment but please, cut it out....myself i still love the older games....do i wear rose tinted glasses? ...no way, i still sub to EQ and it is still the most enjoyable for me out there!
Am i biased? of course i am just like each and every one of us
Amen and sadly they are like this in society also
The only reason i see OLD MMORPG's being better than the NEW MMORPG's is the fact, that at the time of the OLD ones, the variety in from which to pick was 2-5 games compared to the current day plethora of hundreds if not thousands of MMORPG's, so obviously you appreciated those games alot more by the groundbreaking mechanics and MASSIVELY ONLINE abilities, which today is like mac 'n cheese - a standard.
You viewed the games through the eyes of a guy who only saw things through nostalgia about older mmo's. Besides being more time consuming just about everything in older mmo's is so inferior to the new stuff its crazy.
This entire series was seen through the rose colored glasses of someone who views the older MMO as the holy grail of games, which is fine but lets be honest, this is one of the few places on the web where you're going to get majority support for those viewpoints. For as great as those games were back then there was also a lot of bad, bad enough that stuff like that wouldn't fly in today's games. But don't take my word for it, the proof is in the numbers. There's a reason why there was a mass exodus from EQ once WoW launched. There is a reason why these older games never reached even a million players. Heck even Everquest, the shining beacon for all the nostalgia folks, changed it's mechanics to the point where it's a shell today of what it once was, mainly for the reason to attract players. To use an sports term, Scoreboard.
Yes and there's a reason that since WoW released All mmos have sunk right back down to Pre-wow mmo sub levels.
Again WoW is the exception not the rule.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Except the people that make up the communities, the worlds, the complexity, the RP, The crafting, the pvp mechanics, Depth of character development, An actual risk,
You got me at combat and graphics... gratz.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Community wise current mmo's are just as good. The game worlds are larger and more varied. They are just as complex minus the annoying little things. RP is alive and well. Crafting is just as great. You got me on pvp DAOC has yet to have been topped. Character dev is better. Risk is up in the air. Dying once and losing everything you have done in the last week is just a failed mechanic used to help extend a games life due to lack of real content.
Gratz on not proving me wrong.
"The game worlds are larger and more varied...." i stopped reading here..
Back with the old!!!
MMORPG's of the past are dead. As stated before, they are simply MMO's now... there is no RPG left in them. Everything is lined out and set up so anyone can play at any time and to just about everything needed on their own. There is no immersion, no community and no feeling of acomplishment. Games used to draw you in and keep you drawn in. How long did you play UO?... Everyquest? Asherons Call or DAoC?.... I played a total of two MMORPGs for over ten years, and 7 in the past 2 years, usually going back to the old ones in between trying new ones.
The new ones just don't offer what the old ones did. They are shiny, new, graphically superior, full of fluff ..... and hollow as f'k. Sure the older MMORPGs had times where you sat for hours farming, grinding, lost, confused or whatever... but your brain was working, your social skills were being used, you made friends and you earned what you had.
Sad thing is that guy actually believes all that bullshit he typed. He doesn't even deserve a response after his crafting comment...Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Talk about a conclusion you coul d see coming from a mile away.
I didn't read all the replies and frankly I quit reading the article after part II because it became obvious where this was going. It was a nostalgia piece through and through. That's all. Now it's come down to "Back when we were first gaming we walked to school, uphill, both ways and we were damn glad to get the beatings from the teacher because we knew it was for our own good! You kids just don't get it!"
After money and in-laws you know what causes the most divorces in the world right now? High School Reunions. People go to them and get caught up in trying to relive the past and it messes up their present and future. One thing about these boards, and internet message boards in general, that you can bank on is that the glass is ALWAYS half empty. I'm as guilty as the next guy for jumping ugly on the latest and greatest. Somehow that has become the indicator of an "intelligent and discerning" gamer and anything less is derided as rabid fanboi-ism. It's become a knee jerk reaction to simply down something because it's new. Maybe if we let the new games be what they're supposed to be instead of trying to shoe horn them into places where they don't fit, like our memories of the past, we'd find out that these new games are actually pretty good and there is a reason that they are sporting good subscription numbers and our old favorites are closed down or on life support.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
And what is that reason? An MMO developer these days knows going in that he/she cannot design a game similar to EQ circa 1999 and expect to get over 500k of subs. But that same developer knows that if he/she designs a game without some of that 'bang your head against the wall' limitations, then at least the game has a shot as a high number. You can look at something like crafting. Everyone says the older games had better crafting which is probably true, but that doesn't mean a ton of people want it. FFXIV has crafting that like reading a textbook, you think players are going to flock to that game because of it? Quite the opposite.
People like the old stuff because it introduced a genre and like everything else you never forget the first time of anything. But the bad stuff gets casually ignored, even praised as great game mechanics. A lot of players put up with that stuff not because it was great, it was because that's all there was. It wasn't like there were a ton of alternatives back in 1999-2000. Saying that EQ had revolutionary combat is downright laughable. I never knew that hitting attack, cast spell, taunt and parry were revolutionary. Saying end game content was great back then is laughable, where in EQ most fights came down to numbers and how much you can zerg the fight.
I'm not saying those games weren't great for what they were, but they were also hampered by the technology of the time. If people love those old games so much, why isn't games like AC and DAoC flooded with people? Maybe it's because even though you remember how great some of those games were, that doesn't mean you're going to put up with them again. I've learned the hard way that nostaliga only takes you so far (I probably retried EQ 4-5 times over a span of 8 years) and once that wears off, you're reminded of reasons why you quit the game initially.
The people that play now are different though, so your examples don't really fit in context, in my opinion. There are still many players, who played those old games, that like all that old stuff. But most of that old stuff is gone now, since the old games have tried to keep up with the newer games who are full of players who don't really care about that stuff.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.