The problem with that (OP) is that you want to relive those memories, somehow. In fact, not just you, I too have "the same problem" with SWG pre-cu. Unfortunately though, it's not possible. You will wonder aimlessly looking for something to bring back that feeling you got when you lived in EQ, but you won't find it. Your mind was a virgin to the MMO genre and so it was like sex the first time. Now, as good as the game is, I don't think you will ever be able to reach that point of immersion. Because if you do experience the same level of immersion/feelings you did for EQ with whatever new game you find, it would mean that EQ no longer is the "top" in your mind and that truly epic feeling you have for EQ would be gone and in the future, you would come to these forums and talk about how immersed you were with that "old game" which would be that new game you played and not EQ.
I know, it's a bit weird, but it's just an experience you most likely (imo) will never re-experience and looking for it in another game, is like looking for youth as you age.... the closest you will ever get, is glimpses. Nothing will truly replace those moments or even get close. That's what makes it truly amazing.
OP, I don't think you'll get a return to that while we continue to have game companies and developers making games for pure profit instead of for gamers. You only have to look as far as recent games such as Aion or FFXIV to see box sale money grabs but no real love gone into the games.
And WoW is just one example of alienating long time gamers and creating a situation where the community deteriorates, where exploration has little meaning, where immersion comes in the form of a 25 dollar rainbow horse...because subs and money > gamers and game integrity.
I'd also love a game like you describe, albeit with PvP options, but I'm not seeing any company (EVE creators aside) that is willing to risk millions in development costs on attracting anything less than mass casual players. And yet because it becomes a 'WoW clone' that lacks the polish Blizz has put on over five years, the masses still stay away. It's also strange considering the appeal of Facebook and social networking that very few games are putting the emphasis on communities and long term interaction.
I do wonder if game companies are taking the wrong approach with marketing to two hour a night gamers. If a truly decent hardcore game came out, they might see a lot of the guilds from various games jump in to try it, like many did from EQ to WoW. Which in turn attracts the more casual crowd.
Either way, I think it'll be an Indie developer that brings the love back to the games for the gamers, no one else would be willing to risk it.
Err, where's exactly the immersion on waiting a named mob to respawn?
Or on dying and respawning/ressurect countless times?
I don't think that MMOs have much to do with immersion, or that it was different in the past - if anything, at least instancing gives you the opportunity to make permanent changes in some part of the world that can't be accessed any other way. I think of permanent changes on a world that doesn't really matter a bit more immerse than temporary (in an artificial way) changes on a world that matters.
But still, when i really feel like getting immersed, i prefer offline games, where i can kill permanently and die permanently.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
The problem with that (OP) is that you want to relive those memories, somehow. In fact, not just you, I too have "the same problem" with SWG pre-cu. Unfortunately though, it's not possible. You will wonder aimlessly looking for something to bring back that feeling you got when you lived in EQ, but you won't find it. Your mind was a virgin to the MMO genre and so it was like sex the first time. Now, as good as the game is, I don't think you will ever be able to reach that point of immersion. Because if you do experience the same level of immersion/feelings you did for EQ with whatever new game you find, it would mean that EQ no longer is the "top" in your mind and that truly epic feeling you have for EQ would be gone and in the future, you would come to these forums and talk about how immersed you were with that "old game" which would be that new game you played and not EQ.
I know, it's a bit weird, but it's just an experience you most likely (imo) will never re-experience and looking for it in another game, is like looking for youth as you age.... the closest you will ever get, is glimpses. Nothing will truly replace those moments or even get close. That's what makes it truly amazing.
I Personaly think that your are wrong here. The first game I got hyped up about and feelt true Imersion in was Linage2. Secomnd game Was EvE, it once again made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat.
Games that have come close are: Age of Conan at realease, before item buffs etc... It was a shitload of fun killing people with keyboard and mouse skills. I remeber Pawninga Assassin when I was lvl 45 and he was lvl 70. I killed him like 5 times. And he kept shouting stand still and trade blows. LOL my polearm had longer reach why would I let him get in close.... In the end though the bugs killed the game.
EvE is also a game about Keyboard skills... and like a chess player you need to plan your moves a ahead of time.
Even WoW held my intrest the first year or so. It brought some new things to the MMO market and back then we dident have instant tavel all over etc.
The problem is that we No longer se anny Innovation in MMO games. Nobody is willing to take a risk. And developers are gunning for the SOLO experince.
I say the reason for this is the PIRACY on the interenet no longer can studios make singleplayer PC games because they get riped the day after they are released.
SO they make singleplayer games and throw an MMO tag on them to try and stop people for Pirating there games. But the gams are actually not REAL MMOS but single player Rpg games.....
I agree to a certain extent... but there really are some crucial points to old games that IMO made them better...
You really, most of the time, needed to group to get anywhere or anything special. FOR INSTANCE... back in the day you basically build ur char off of cloth armor or chain mail or w/e until you did some solo quest to get OKAY armor or weapons but if you really wanted THE BEST for your level you needed to group up and kill a really difficult to get to named mob. This actually made you feel like "wow i got something special". Now you go kill a giant rat and get something like "Long Sword of the plague" and im like wtf is this shit... then i go kill an orc pawn and get "Shoulder Plates of Destiny!" and im like okay wtf. I want to have a sense of accomplishment getting things in game not just have them handed to me. Because of that I don't even care about gear anymore in games i don't even pay attention i just auto equip w/e might be better. That entire aspect of the game is GONE, which makes it much less worthwhile to play.
Another thing is, i can basically die without any penatly or fear of what might happen... i just die and magically get sent back to the safe point. So because of that i become careless about initiating fights because it won't matter anyways ill just run back here in a minute after i die. Im not looking for that ina game... i want a game to present a challenge to me... maybe im oldschool but weren't games back on nintendo great that you had like 3 lives and maybe you'de get some lives on the way... you had to do your best and play smart or else game over. OBVIOUSLY i don't want it that harsh in an MMORPG but i want something that makes me care about dieing... if you die your corpse is gonna stay right here with everything on it and your not gonna be going to a safe point you'll need to fend for yourself or get someone to help you so u can save ur stuff that you WORKED HARD to get.
And lastly travel/world size... K, so many of these new games pride themselves on having VAST and HUGE worlds... yet the only way you can get there is by clicking on this little thing here, and you magically teleport to this far world! That too me doesn't feel like the same game or like im traveling it feels like did nothing to get there, cuz i didn't! Okay i don't exactly like spending huge amounts of time getting to places by foot... but it makes the world of the game seem that much bigger. Then maybe there's some teleporting device here or there and with player porting that requires help from the community which is also a nice thing in an MMORPG... (thats another thing, i can group and not have to say a word to the group... thats not very useful in an MMO, these games should make it necessary to communicate and create strategy
I know most of you have no idea what I mean by that statement. To you the community is just the forums you go to or your close friends online or your guild and immersion is nothing more to you than entering an instance.
Im talking the immersion and community that I knew in my first MMO which was EQ...
I do not recall all of these nice things you speak of from the days of yore. Some of that existed but the early, primative mmos weren't all that great, in my opinion, and neither were the communities. Mostly , I recall having a good time and being excited by the potential the games had; it was all new. Now, game companies have learned what maximizes profit and what does not. It is not a flourishing community, either, it's really an anti-community where players are atomized and fed everything in profitable bites according to the needs of the company.
I'd like to see all the things you want to happen, too, but the mechanism is not there to support it any more, which I would say was, simply, necessity. Now, game companies got that shit all locked up and make money from it.
The problem with that (OP) is that you want to relive those memories, somehow. In fact, not just you, I too have "the same problem" with SWG pre-cu. Unfortunately though, it's not possible. You will wonder aimlessly looking for something to bring back that feeling you got when you lived in EQ, but you won't find it. Your mind was a virgin to the MMO genre and so it was like sex the first time. Now, as good as the game is, I don't think you will ever be able to reach that point of immersion. Because if you do experience the same level of immersion/feelings you did for EQ with whatever new game you find, it would mean that EQ no longer is the "top" in your mind and that truly epic feeling you have for EQ would be gone and in the future, you would come to these forums and talk about how immersed you were with that "old game" which would be that new game you played and not EQ.
I know, it's a bit weird, but it's just an experience you most likely (imo) will never re-experience and looking for it in another game, is like looking for youth as you age.... the closest you will ever get, is glimpses. Nothing will truly replace those moments or even get close. That's what makes it truly amazing.
I Personaly think that your are wrong here. The first game I got hyped up about and feelt true Imersion in was Linage2. Secomnd game Was EvE, it once again made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat.
Games that have come close are: Age of Conan at realease, before item buffs etc... It was a shitload of fun killing people with keyboard and mouse skills. I remeber Pawninga Assassin when I was lvl 45 and he was lvl 70. I killed him like 5 times. And he kept shouting stand still and trade blows. LOL my polearm had longer reach why would I let him get in close.... In the end though the bugs killed the game.
EvE is also a game about Keyboard skills... and like a chess player you need to plan your moves a ahead of time.
Even WoW held my intrest the first year or so. It brought some new things to the MMO market and back then we dident have instant tavel all over etc.
The problem is that we No longer se anny Innovation in MMO games. Nobody is willing to take a risk. And developers are gunning for the SOLO experince.
I say the reason for this is the PIRACY on the interenet no longer can studios make singleplayer PC games because they get riped the day after they are released.
SO they make singleplayer games and throw an MMO tag on them to try and stop people for Pirating there games. But the gams are actually not REAL MMOS but single player Rpg games.....
I'm talking about true immersion with feelings of belonging as described by the OP, that you can only get after a longer period of time that you've been playing the game.
I'm not talking about some cool new games that came out, that we got really hyped about, that we bought the game, played for awhile, had some awesome time but eventually left because the game crapped out. I mean, I have my own share of games that have done that for me (by that definition) WoW, EQ2, COV, even as of lately Atlantica Online. But nothing comes close to the memories and feelings I have for SWG. It was beyond the mechanics of the game, it was a sense of family.
You're referring to innovation which is gameplay mechanics, thats not what we mean by sense of belonging or sense of family.
For instance, my favorite part of SWG was the stories. The stories people would speak of about Jedi sightings (before when Jedi was ultra rare). People would say that Jedi existed, but almost no one had ever seen one, it was a true mystery. We would gather around and hear stories or tell stories about what we saw, or though we saw, or heard, etc.... That had nothing to do with actual combat/crafting/etc.... it was true player immersion and it really felt like we bonded and that is the sense of family the OP describes, which I have been fortunate enough to have experienced.
I played WoW for 4 years, EQ2 for over a year, CoV about the same as EQ2 and none of these games have ever done that for me, provide that sense of immersion/story telling from players. Even though the combat/crafting/exploring (in other words gameplay) has been really fun.
New games might come out, with cool new whistles and bells, but will they ever create or replicate that sense of immersion and community we had (as described by the OP in EQ and as I mentioned about SWG)? That is what a lot of people are looking for and that is what all these games, WoW included, cannot provide. (Vanilla WoW offered a slight variation of that, but It dint last nor did it really come close)
A huge thing that takes away from that player made sense of family is Alts. In WoW or almost all games now, you can roll alts and that kills the connect people have. SWG was 1 character per server (with the exception of Jedi). When you logged on, it was your main, no alts, no BS.
Days when MMORPG's were virtual worlds filled with immersion and great communities are a thing of the past.
They just don't build them with the game mechanics and player interdependencies that fostered those great communities, and it seems when they try to (see FFXIV) players scream that it forces them to do something they don't want to do. (grind, craft, group etc).
No, for those who weren't there in the early days of MMO's there's no frame of reference, they have no idea what they missed out on .
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There is a reason for that. No one plays them. There are still huge sandbox communities that are immersive like eve online out there. There is star wars galaxies, The problem is u dont get that sense cause no one plays it.
U know why more games like wow are being made. woww has 11.5 mil subs. I bet if u take the top 5 subs and looked at what kind of game they were most of them will be wow clones.
Why people dont have time to do 30 hr raids, or 10 hr dungeons hoping to find a boss. Or take 3 hrs searchign for a place to kill. sure games today are easier but its because in todays world people have short attention spans.
If no one plays your game u have no game. so companies build games thats are newbie easy, EAsy to level, and give players the ability to do raids and dungeons in a time fram they can actually do them in.
There is a reason for that. No one plays them. There are still huge sandbox communities that are immersive like eve online out there. There is star wars galaxies, The problem is u dont get that sense cause no one plays it.
U know why more games like wow are being made. woww has 11.5 mil subs. I bet if u take the top 5 subs and looked at what kind of game they were most of them will be wow clones.
Why people dont have time to do 30 hr raids, or 10 hr dungeons hoping to find a boss. Or take 3 hrs searchign for a place to kill. sure games today are easier but its because in todays world people have short attention spans.
If no one plays your game u have no game. so companies build games thats are newbie easy, EAsy to level, and give players the ability to do raids and dungeons in a time fram they can actually do them in.
Can't disagree with you there, the early games appealed to limited niche market, and the only refuge for a person like me is smaller indie games, hence I play EVE and now Fallen Earth which are the best I've found in recent years.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
The problem with that (OP) is that you want to relive those memories, somehow. In fact, not just you, I too have "the same problem" with SWG pre-cu. Unfortunately though, it's not possible. You will wonder aimlessly looking for something to bring back that feeling you got when you lived in EQ, but you won't find it. Your mind was a virgin to the MMO genre and so it was like sex the first time. Now, as good as the game is, I don't think you will ever be able to reach that point of immersion. Because if you do experience the same level of immersion/feelings you did for EQ with whatever new game you find, it would mean that EQ no longer is the "top" in your mind and that truly epic feeling you have for EQ would be gone and in the future, you would come to these forums and talk about how immersed you were with that "old game" which would be that new game you played and not EQ.
I know, it's a bit weird, but it's just an experience you most likely (imo) will never re-experience and looking for it in another game, is like looking for youth as you age.... the closest you will ever get, is glimpses. Nothing will truly replace those moments or even get close. That's what makes it truly amazing.
OP, I don't think you'll get a return to that while we continue to have game companies and developers making games for pure profit instead of for gamers. You only have to look as far as recent games such as Aion or FFXIV to see box sale money grabs but no real love gone into the games.
And WoW is just one example of alienating long time gamers and creating a situation where the community deteriorates, where exploration has little meaning, where immersion comes in the form of a 25 dollar rainbow horse...because subs and money > gamers and game integrity.
I'd also love a game like you describe, albeit with PvP options, but I'm not seeing any company (EVE creators aside) that is willing to risk millions in development costs on attracting anything less than mass casual players. And yet because it becomes a 'WoW clone' that lacks the polish Blizz has put on over five years, the masses still stay away. It's also strange considering the appeal of Facebook and social networking that very few games are putting the emphasis on communities and long term interaction.
I do wonder if game companies are taking the wrong approach with marketing to two hour a night gamers. If a truly decent hardcore game came out, they might see a lot of the guilds from various games jump in to try it, like many did from EQ to WoW. Which in turn attracts the more casual crowd.
Either way, I think it'll be an Indie developer that brings the love back to the games for the gamers, no one else would be willing to risk it.
Err, where's exactly the immersion on waiting a named mob to respawn?
Or on dying and respawning/ressurect countless times?
I don't think that MMOs have much to do with immersion, or that it was different in the past - if anything, at least instancing gives you the opportunity to make permanent changes in some part of the world that can't be accessed any other way. I think of permanent changes on a world that doesn't really matter a bit more immerse than temporary (in an artificial way) changes on a world that matters.
But still, when i really feel like getting immersed, i prefer offline games, where i can kill permanently and die permanently.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
I Personaly think that your are wrong here. The first game I got hyped up about and feelt true Imersion in was Linage2. Secomnd game Was EvE, it once again made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat.
Games that have come close are: Age of Conan at realease, before item buffs etc... It was a shitload of fun killing people with keyboard and mouse skills. I remeber Pawninga Assassin when I was lvl 45 and he was lvl 70. I killed him like 5 times. And he kept shouting stand still and trade blows. LOL my polearm had longer reach why would I let him get in close.... In the end though the bugs killed the game.
EvE is also a game about Keyboard skills... and like a chess player you need to plan your moves a ahead of time.
Even WoW held my intrest the first year or so. It brought some new things to the MMO market and back then we dident have instant tavel all over etc.
The problem is that we No longer se anny Innovation in MMO games. Nobody is willing to take a risk. And developers are gunning for the SOLO experince.
I say the reason for this is the PIRACY on the interenet no longer can studios make singleplayer PC games because they get riped the day after they are released.
SO they make singleplayer games and throw an MMO tag on them to try and stop people for Pirating there games. But the gams are actually not REAL MMOS but single player Rpg games.....
I agree to a certain extent... but there really are some crucial points to old games that IMO made them better...
You really, most of the time, needed to group to get anywhere or anything special. FOR INSTANCE... back in the day you basically build ur char off of cloth armor or chain mail or w/e until you did some solo quest to get OKAY armor or weapons but if you really wanted THE BEST for your level you needed to group up and kill a really difficult to get to named mob. This actually made you feel like "wow i got something special". Now you go kill a giant rat and get something like "Long Sword of the plague" and im like wtf is this shit... then i go kill an orc pawn and get "Shoulder Plates of Destiny!" and im like okay wtf. I want to have a sense of accomplishment getting things in game not just have them handed to me. Because of that I don't even care about gear anymore in games i don't even pay attention i just auto equip w/e might be better. That entire aspect of the game is GONE, which makes it much less worthwhile to play.
Another thing is, i can basically die without any penatly or fear of what might happen... i just die and magically get sent back to the safe point. So because of that i become careless about initiating fights because it won't matter anyways ill just run back here in a minute after i die. Im not looking for that ina game... i want a game to present a challenge to me... maybe im oldschool but weren't games back on nintendo great that you had like 3 lives and maybe you'de get some lives on the way... you had to do your best and play smart or else game over. OBVIOUSLY i don't want it that harsh in an MMORPG but i want something that makes me care about dieing... if you die your corpse is gonna stay right here with everything on it and your not gonna be going to a safe point you'll need to fend for yourself or get someone to help you so u can save ur stuff that you WORKED HARD to get.
And lastly travel/world size... K, so many of these new games pride themselves on having VAST and HUGE worlds... yet the only way you can get there is by clicking on this little thing here, and you magically teleport to this far world! That too me doesn't feel like the same game or like im traveling it feels like did nothing to get there, cuz i didn't! Okay i don't exactly like spending huge amounts of time getting to places by foot... but it makes the world of the game seem that much bigger. Then maybe there's some teleporting device here or there and with player porting that requires help from the community which is also a nice thing in an MMORPG... (thats another thing, i can group and not have to say a word to the group... thats not very useful in an MMO, these games should make it necessary to communicate and create strategy
I do not recall all of these nice things you speak of from the days of yore. Some of that existed but the early, primative mmos weren't all that great, in my opinion, and neither were the communities. Mostly , I recall having a good time and being excited by the potential the games had; it was all new. Now, game companies have learned what maximizes profit and what does not. It is not a flourishing community, either, it's really an anti-community where players are atomized and fed everything in profitable bites according to the needs of the company.
I'd like to see all the things you want to happen, too, but the mechanism is not there to support it any more, which I would say was, simply, necessity. Now, game companies got that shit all locked up and make money from it.
I'm talking about true immersion with feelings of belonging as described by the OP, that you can only get after a longer period of time that you've been playing the game.
I'm not talking about some cool new games that came out, that we got really hyped about, that we bought the game, played for awhile, had some awesome time but eventually left because the game crapped out. I mean, I have my own share of games that have done that for me (by that definition) WoW, EQ2, COV, even as of lately Atlantica Online. But nothing comes close to the memories and feelings I have for SWG. It was beyond the mechanics of the game, it was a sense of family.
You're referring to innovation which is gameplay mechanics, thats not what we mean by sense of belonging or sense of family.
For instance, my favorite part of SWG was the stories. The stories people would speak of about Jedi sightings (before when Jedi was ultra rare). People would say that Jedi existed, but almost no one had ever seen one, it was a true mystery. We would gather around and hear stories or tell stories about what we saw, or though we saw, or heard, etc.... That had nothing to do with actual combat/crafting/etc.... it was true player immersion and it really felt like we bonded and that is the sense of family the OP describes, which I have been fortunate enough to have experienced.
I played WoW for 4 years, EQ2 for over a year, CoV about the same as EQ2 and none of these games have ever done that for me, provide that sense of immersion/story telling from players. Even though the combat/crafting/exploring (in other words gameplay) has been really fun.
New games might come out, with cool new whistles and bells, but will they ever create or replicate that sense of immersion and community we had (as described by the OP in EQ and as I mentioned about SWG)? That is what a lot of people are looking for and that is what all these games, WoW included, cannot provide. (Vanilla WoW offered a slight variation of that, but It dint last nor did it really come close)
A huge thing that takes away from that player made sense of family is Alts. In WoW or almost all games now, you can roll alts and that kills the connect people have. SWG was 1 character per server (with the exception of Jedi). When you logged on, it was your main, no alts, no BS.
Days when MMORPG's were virtual worlds filled with immersion and great communities are a thing of the past.
They just don't build them with the game mechanics and player interdependencies that fostered those great communities, and it seems when they try to (see FFXIV) players scream that it forces them to do something they don't want to do. (grind, craft, group etc).
No, for those who weren't there in the early days of MMO's there's no frame of reference, they have no idea what they missed out on .
Perhaps they are the lucky ones.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There is a reason for that. No one plays them. There are still huge sandbox communities that are immersive like eve online out there. There is star wars galaxies, The problem is u dont get that sense cause no one plays it.
U know why more games like wow are being made. woww has 11.5 mil subs. I bet if u take the top 5 subs and looked at what kind of game they were most of them will be wow clones.
Why people dont have time to do 30 hr raids, or 10 hr dungeons hoping to find a boss. Or take 3 hrs searchign for a place to kill. sure games today are easier but its because in todays world people have short attention spans.
If no one plays your game u have no game. so companies build games thats are newbie easy, EAsy to level, and give players the ability to do raids and dungeons in a time fram they can actually do them in.
Can't disagree with you there, the early games appealed to limited niche market, and the only refuge for a person like me is smaller indie games, hence I play EVE and now Fallen Earth which are the best I've found in recent years.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon