Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Mmoprg: Now and then, A Comparison Approach
Cauthon88
Member UncommonPosts: 7
Now and then, A comparison approach.
With this thread I want to give my view on the metamorphosis of the MMO genre, as a player that started with the most hardcore mmorpg of them all, Tibia. I think the contrast between that game and today's standard might be interesting. This is NOT a thread bashing the modern player, but may give some insight to them and their way of playing. My approach to this is to compare two games that I played extensively during their "Golden Days", the latter game being World of Warcraft of course.
A short introduction to Tibia
Tibia was created as a school project by some regular guys, and their goal was to create a 2d graphic oriented multiplayer roleplaying game. This was in the year 1997. They continued to create a seamless world, primitive by today's standards, that was intriguing. It was not the graphics or gameplay that made it great, but the game rules, the integrity of the world and its players. Tibia was probably meant to exist for a playerbase of about 400-1000 players at its outset.
Tibia versus World of Warcraft, Small scale vs Large scale.
To be systematic in my approach, I will compare the key areas that influence and shape what the games are about, what they want to achieve and as result what kind of world they create. Many opinions will of course be subjective.
The core mechanics, stats and loot and such.
Tibia
Unlike today, Tibia had two key elements that made up character strength. Resources and Level/Equipment progression. Resources could be Food(To regenerate hp/mana), Torch (Light up dungeons), Rope (To ascend or descend from a dungeon), shovel (To open pile of stones) and Runes/Mana potions (To heal, replenish mana instantly or attack) As you progressed with your character you gained Health Points, Mana points, Skill points (Magic, Weapon, Fishing). To progress you could either buy equipment or train your weapon/magic (Become strong) or hunt monsters and level up = Health/Manapoints and Speed (Become Powerful). There are four classes (Knight, Paladin, Mage and Druid). Knight being strong at hp/melee, carry much, little to no waste when hunting. Paladin being strong at distance fighting, carry medium, wasting ammo when hunting. Mage/Druid being strong magic, carry little and waste considerly when hunting.
Thus, all classes had distincly different gameplay. Mages was strong, had little HP but had hard time progressing because it cost so much leveling up. They had to use weak melee to hunt weak monsters to progress, but they could make runes and sell to make money. Money = Progression for most classes, but money is most vital for mages because of their expensive nature. Paladins being middle and Knight being most efficient. But coincidently knights had hardest time fighting "Strong monsters", while paladins and mages could run from them and kill without being hurt.
Loot was really important, and could be dropped on the ground. Everyone could loot your monster, so you had to beware. Every common sword, mace and armor that dropped was worth money, but at the same time they weigh and you couldn't carry everything. Thus you had to come up with strategies how to hunt most efficiently, considering weigh/gold, cost of hunting the monster, the remoteness of the hunting location and how crowded it was. (Yes everyone could attack each others monsters and each other). There were NO instances, and you could push people, rope people up from places, trap people with obstacles. Rare equipment, that was hard to get by, was obtained by hunting the REAL monsters. These monsters, like dragons, could spew fire waves and fireballs, and had good melee. The main purpose of hunting them was the loot, they could drop rare equipment that would be worth your while. This kind of equipment was probably never sold to vendors, and thus were unique and would probably pass from player to player by trading as they progressed.
The game had an evil death penalty, dying equals chance of loss of equipment, certain loss of % of exp and skills and finally your backpack with all your resources. At the same time, since you could store up alot of resources, it was often rare to die, except connection failures "$¤%!". You would maybe die if you were a mage facing a Giant Spider. GS could hit 200 hp, while the mage at lvl 20 maybe had 250-300 hp. But still there was chance to escape, if you found a ladder or stair to another level,up or down. Monsters could be lured a long way, to roads where low levels travelled, and thus create havoc. Those problems were common but at the same time exciting. There were always a hero valiantly saving all the new guys in trouble.
World of warcraft
Well, I guess most people know the mechanics. Depending on which class you have, you've got HP, MANA, RAGE, ENERGY. As you battle an enemy you need to run if you get low hp/mana and in emergencies you can pop a health potion.
As there is so much weapons and armors, they are all bound to the player when equipped. At one point or another you will sell your weapon to a vendor, thus they are not unique in any way. There is no weight limit. The abundance and relative ease to get makes armor/weapon cheap. Also considering that when you hunt, you almost never go broke, this was something fundamentally different from tibia. Many high progression based areas was instanced, seperating players.
With barelty no death penalty, streamlined progression through zones and relative ease of progression, it felt really different when I started to play it. The largest difference was the relative safety and non existent player interaction when adventuring.
The kindergarden phase
All games have an introductionary part in which they want to teach and conform the player . They want to convey what the game is about and the rules of engagement.
Tibia
Entering the game you were approached by a text clarifying some basic rules, like the use of a torch, the meaning of health and mana, etc. That was it. The starting area was seperated from the real world, and had "PVP" disabled.
A view of the map. http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1595/wallshv6.jpg
The first thing on your mind is, what do I do? You want to progress, get higher level and such, but to do this you must explore. Not only the surroundings but also what other players do, which monsters you can attack and why (i.e loot, exp) There were mainly 2 starting options of monsters to kill, rats and wild animals (sheep, rabbit, deer) The rats dropped gold coins, and if you saw others sell, or had talked to the npc, you would know that you could sell dead rats for 2 gold. Another options was to kill wild animals and sell the meat they dropped for gold. When you had enough money, you had once again 2 options. You could buy common equipment at the vendor, decent but expensive, or try to catch a player selling some awesome stuff that would make you strong. Now, next phase, if you were level 2, you could venture outside the city gates. The dungeons and monster areas was distributed in a randomly but handcrafted way, thus you would never know if you would walk upon an orc, or a spider. The rest of the time at "Rookgard" was spent adventuring dangerous dungeons. If you adventured alot, you could find good hunting spots, secret quest ares. But you never knew what you would meet down a hole, thus making it risky.
World of warcraft
You start, get quests. Get some equipment, search for quest monsters, kill. At certain level, no quests left. You leave for next area. --------> stream on the line. (Realising this thread is getting long). No player interaction, more or less figure out how to hit the right hotkeys on monsters.
The world
Tibia
A seamless and static world. Monsters has spawn pints, but they can be lured away from their spawn point. There are four main cities, in which you can live. You can buy houses in those areas, and kinda set ut stores. People gather here for trading, talking or PKing. Dangerous monsters are hard to find, good thing is that, or lots of newbs would die. But there are regular hardies you can encounter if you stray from the main road, like hunters. Many newbs has died in this manner.
There is no order in progression as you travel the world. Some areas are hard, some are easy, you just have to be careful when you explore. There's also mysterious places not many been to, like a place called Demona, since it was really deep under the earth with labyrinths on the way there.
World of warcraft
Streamlined, mostly seamless world. Quests are the main fun in leveling. When the quests are over, it's time to move on. And thus you go from zone to zone until you're level 60. Atleast there was multiple zones of for example level 30. No houses! 
. Auction houses was a nice and needed addition. Large cities where people traded, mostly profession based wares.
Conclusions
When I first played World of Warcraft I must admit there was magic in the world. The relative large scope of the world, freedom(Yes I was fooled) and amount of things to explore made it special. But the more I played, I realised how vastly different it was. I thought heck, at last I dont have to be afraid of dying. But why is there nothing else to do than to run through zones doing quests?, in essence you really were steered into a predestined direction. There were no value in exploring. The only reason to interact with players was to either join for quest, trade, world pvp och instance. But could we really affect each other? Did I really need to know anyone? In tibia you had an identity, you couldn't just swear at someone or take his hunting spot. Being friendly would net you better trades, possible friends and probably more security in the world.
In world of warcraft, I never really thought, gee I wish I was rich. In tibia money was everything, it had a real economy. If you really broke your back and doing some hard work (for exmple killing rats), someday you could afford a "Knight Armor"! You could not possible get good equipment on your own, you would have to farm these easy monsters with low yield. There was strategies to make this faster, put all common weapons in a lootbag that you could drag on the ground, and take it to a city to sell. Your progression was directly equal to how rich you were, and thus a REAL economy existed.
IMO, there must be a place for these kind of mmorpgs where resources play a large role, and where you have high interactability. Where equipment is worth something and your identity being important as you are part of the world not just a spectator (more or less). Most new games is just another, follow this way, cooperate with others to progress, end game get cool equipment. etc... Less emphasis on creating a real world, where as it feels special to progress, as strength and resoruces is vital to survive, not just from encountering monsters, but also in a social context.
One could argue that most games do it the "World of warcraft" way since lots of people are casuals and just want to have fun. And that it's impossible to make a stable game and coindicently have lots of players in game without these mechanics. I think that rather, the core mechanics in Tibia is something rarely touched upon in todays games. And frankly, I thought those mechanics was ingenious. Just put those mechanics in a 3d game, figure out how to make it work and you'll have an awesome game. Try to encourage people to work together, form alliances that kill people who steal/murder. Of course, there will also be alliances of thugs, but hopefully the good prevail?
I first thought, yay, World of Warcraft is gonna take MMORPGs to a whole new level. But they took 1 step forward, and 2 step back. They gave us 3d but stripped us of the game world.
Comments
Eh... excuse me?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Eh... excuse me?
Well, you are excused! :XSince the completness your question equals an equation without a variable, I guess I'll have to fill in the blanks.
I was portraying my experience, and at that time I knew only games like MU and other isometric 3d games. I guess Everquest gave us 3d! :P
I guess World of Warcraft gave us, like The world of warcraft! A streamlined adventure, with a classic fantasy setting and some lore. I wish I played Everquest <.<
edit: Why isnt my spaces getting included -,-
So, one cannot talk about a game thorougly without being accused of advertising? Well then, let me prove you wrong. Tibia, is at its current state as entertaining as toilet paper. It's evolution toward massconsumption has made it a 2d World of Warcraft carbon copy. Heck, they even incorporated mounts in the last update, also cooldowns on spells etc.
Its overrun by polish people whom care not about what the game once were about. Actually, CiP themselves has gone stray from what they once believed in. I would not recommend tibia today, rather I'd say it's a waste of time.
And finally, there's now botters, gold farmers and douches everywhere. To play the game you either have to play non-pvp worlds, else you'll be power abused off the server.
Well hmm, guess I'll have to buy that book Aganazer, thanks for your tip!
Almost everything you talked about in Tibia is still happening in WoW.
Unlike today, Tibia had two key elements that made up character strength. Resources and Level/Equipment progression. Resources could be Food(To regenerate hp/mana), Torch (Light up dungeons), Rope (To ascend or descend from a dungeon), shovel (To open pile of stones) and Runes/Mana potions (To heal, replenish mana instantly or attack) As you progressed with your character you gained Health Points, Mana points, Skill points (Magic, Weapon, Fishing). To progress you could either buy equipment or train your weapon/magic (Become strong) or hunt monsters and level up = Health/Manapoints and Speed (Become Powerful). There are four classes (Knight, Paladin, Mage and Druid). Knight being strong at hp/melee, carry much, little to no waste when hunting. Paladin being strong at distance fighting, carry medium, wasting ammo when hunting. Mage/Druid being strong magic, carry little and waste considerly when hunting.
In Wow you still get resources (as you define them here) that help you. You still level to get hp, mp, skill points (talent points), you still need to use your weapon/skill to get that skill higher or stronger or more powerfull, and you have amost the exaxt sme classes.
Thus, all classes had distincly different gameplay. Mages was strong, had little HP but had hard time progressing because it cost so much leveling up. They had to use weak melee to hunt weak monsters to progress, but they could make runes and sell to make money. Money = Progression for most classes, but money is most vital for mages because of their expensive nature. Paladins being middle and Knight being most efficient. But coincidently knights had hardest time fighting "Strong monsters", while paladins and mages could run from them and kill without being hurt.
This also largely happens. A mage plays pretty different from a paladin, which is pretty different from a subtelty rogue. The costs to level up is the same. But I can tell you my protection paladin at lvl 27 can solo dungeons my 32 hunter can't. In todays games warriors (Knights) still often are the hardest to level because of inefficient healing.
Loot was really important, and could be dropped on the ground. Everyone could loot your monster, so you had to beware. Every common sword, mace and armor that dropped was worth money, but at the same time they weigh and you couldn't carry everything. Thus you had to come up with strategies how to hunt most efficiently, considering weigh/gold, cost of hunting the monster, the remoteness of the hunting location and how crowded it was. (Yes everyone could attack each others monsters and each other). There were NO instances, and you could push people, rope people up from places, trap people with obstacles. Rare equipment, that was hard to get by, was obtained by hunting the REAL monsters. These monsters, like dragons, could spew fire waves and fireballs, and had good melee. The main purpose of hunting them was the loot, they could drop rare equipment that would be worth your while. This kind of equipment was probably never sold to vendors, and thus were unique and would probably pass from player to player by trading as they progressed.
This also still happens. In WoW loot is the most important and everyone wants that rare peice and some are very rare. True not eveyrone can loot your monster so that is different, and WoW does not have a weight limit (which I like). But every peice of loot is worth money. Instances have been discussed ad nauseum and is a difference. Monsters today still spew fire waves, and fire balls, the purpose of hunting them is still loot. However bind equipment is new compared to Tibia. Whehter the melee was good or not is subjective.
And true the death penalty is light. Also discussed ad nauseum but is a difference from Tibia.
And WoW is only as streamlined as you choose it to be. It does direct you to certain areas, but you are perfectly welcome to leave those areas and go someplace else. There are quests everywhere so can't use the argument, "best to level here for quests"
Entering the game you were approached by a text clarifying some basic rules, like the use of a torch, the meaning of health and mana, etc. That was it. The starting area was seperated from the real world, and had "PVP" disabled.
A view of the map. http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1595/wallshv6.jpg
The first thing on your mind is, what do I do? You want to progress, get higher level and such, but to do this you must explore. Not only the surroundings but also what other players do, which monsters you can attack and why (i.e loot, exp) There were mainly 2 starting options of monsters to kill, rats and wild animals (sheep, rabbit, deer) The rats dropped gold coins, and if you saw others sell, or had talked to the npc, you would know that you could sell dead rats for 2 gold. Another options was to kill wild animals and sell the meat they dropped for gold. When you had enough money, you had once again 2 options. You could buy common equipment at the vendor, decent but expensive, or try to catch a player selling some awesome stuff that would make you strong. Now, next phase, if you were level 2, you could venture outside the city gates. The dungeons and monster areas was distributed in a randomly but handcrafted way, thus you would never know if you would walk upon an orc, or a spider. The rest of the time at "Rookgard" was spent adventuring dangerous dungeons. If you adventured alot, you could find good hunting spots, secret quest ares. But you never knew what you would meet down a hole, thus making it risky.
Once again no different to your first time in WoW. Yes you had someone telling you should hunt this but you still didn't know how powerful things were (unless you had some MMO experience). You still could explore. You still ask what do I do, you still progress, get high level and can explore. And you get rewarded for doing so. So I don't see any difference between this paragraph and WoW
The world
Tibia
A seamless and static world. Monsters has spawn pints, but they can be lured away from their spawn point. There are four main cities, in which you can live. You can buy houses in those areas, and kinda set ut stores. People gather here for trading, talking or PKing. Dangerous monsters are hard to find, good thing is that, or lots of newbs would die. But there are regular hardies you can encounter if you stray from the main road, like hunters. Many newbs has died in this manner.
There is no order in progression as you travel the world. Some areas are hard, some are easy, you just have to be careful when you explore. There's also mysterious places not many been to, like a place called Demona, since it was really deep under the earth with labyrinths on the way there.
World of warcraft
Streamlined, mostly seamless world. Quests are the main fun in leveling. When the quests are over, it's time to move on. And thus you go from zone to zone until you're level 60. Atleast there was multiple zones of for example level 30. No houses!
. Auction houses was a nice and needed addition. Large cities where people traded, mostly profession based wares.
Yes the areas are more streamlined, and admittedly some randomness does add to the fun, however there are multiple leveling areas fory your level, and for the new player they don't know where they are. Just like in tibia you need to be told where they are or explore.
Conclusion.
I really don't think very much has changed. Which is one of the major complaints on these boards. We are still playing slightly different versions of the same game we played a decade ago. To me they are more fun than they were a decade ago, but still largley the same.
Venge Sunsoar
I don't mean to come across as harsh as I probably did. We've all had our favorites and most of us think the genre is getting dumbed down and has lost sight of what the genre could and should be. You could probably replace the word "Tibia" in your post with "Ultima Online" or maybe "Everquest" and it would hit the mark for 75% of the people on this forum. Its just a matter of where we came from in the genre.
Becouse OP dont explain it very well how it was back then, you get replys from new WoW generation gamers and saying WoW is almost same as tibia thats fault of OP lol.
Tibia or UO or AC (before 2000)can't be compared to WoW or most mmo's of today you eather need to play as they where back then, or new generation wont undertsand how it was back then.
In many ways Darkfall was old skool when it launched but becouse of majority that started playing are new generation they want even Darkfall more like WoW:(
But Darkfall at launch was closet to old skool mmo.
Im affraid that old skool wont comeback and when some developer try its killed by gamers of today before it even launched:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Maybe I just don't see a difference because the way I game hasn't changed since 1999 in EQ. Literally everything I did then, I'm doing now. So I don't see any difference.
Venge