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To players who started with Ultima, Everquest, DAoC etc.
labryinth
Member Posts: 37
Ok so this is a question to everyone who started with the now 'oldschool' MMORPGs like EQ and Ultima etc.etc, not WoW or Guild Wars, but just 1990-2003.
A lot of people really hate what the MMO market is now, but I was wondering if everyone who played the older MMOs actually felt exactly the same way when WoW and GW and all those types of games came out?
Did you all think 'WoW is way too casual, same with GW and EQ2' compared to EQ1 etc in 2004 and whenever GW came out?
Or do the oldschool and vanilla WoW, GW etc. players all agree that back in 2004 and downwards was collectively when MMOs were the best? Or do you think only EQ and Ultima Online were the best MMOs?
It's hard to explain but basically: was Everquest, DAoC and Ultima Online better than World of Warcraft (Vanilla) and Guild Wars (Vanilla) in your opinion, or do you think WoW and GW were the same games but just improved? Or did you think WoW and GW were in fact better than Everquest and Ultima even though you started with Eq and Ultima?
Hopefully you understand what I'm trying to ask.
Comments
well, I started playing daoc and anyone will tell you at the time,, wow was filled with bugs and was terribly unbalanced... like awful.. but they actually put work towards it and here we are about 7 years later... ohh and daoc was super fun,, cept like when it came out their was so much crazy shit goin on with september 11th and whatnot... lol a lot of people stopped playin and worried about other shit..
Wakka wakka wakka - Pac-Man
When WoW was being developed I was playing DAoC, my third MMO, I remember reading about WoW in a PC gamer mag. Everyone said it was going to fail and that it was super casual because of this invention the "rested" exp bar. Tried WoW, it was ok, went back to DAoC until Burning Crusade.
WoW does get better the more they work at it, but yes, I do miss the "Good ol days" back when developers tried all sorts of new things because we didn't really have an "MMO formula" yet.
Well, I cut my teeth on Lineage 2.
When I finally tried the WoW beta and the launch day of Wow I have to say I felt the quests were a breath of fresh air. In Lineage 2 there are a few quests but no one ever really did them unless they had to. With WoW I liked that there was a storied reason for me to go to a field and kill mobs.
Of course, I would stay in that field well after I collected the "10 of" and the "5 of" whatever It was I was supposed to collect and then return for the reward.
What I didn't like about WoW at the time was the art direction.
It all seemed a bit silly to me and that was a turn off.
Going back later on I enjoyed WoW for brief spurts but it never kept my interest for longer than a week or a few days at a time.
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A lot of what made those games better was the community. It was a new experience. Usually the age of someone playing was at least 18+ since you had to have an internet connection (dial-up). . be able to tie up your own phone line (not your parents) and pay the sub.
Also, they were new. . there were no online guides or maps. people had fun exploring and asking questions. . this is why the games were social.
Today if you ask for directions you are told to goggle it. Also not only are there online guides now but there are buit in quest helpers. No need to talk to anyone.
If the games were truly better you could play them right now. UO (second age) is running strong and Meridian is free to play now (no item shop even!). Go play UO again and you will find a fun game. . but that 'new' experience is gone.
I think it is less about the games and more about the people. As a casual player now with old-school roots I am out of luck. I don't have time for a game community (MO, UO, Xsyon etc) and the newer "easier" games bore me to tears.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
that wasn't what I got from it.
WoW seemed extremely polished compared to the two games I had tried/played which were shadowbane and (as above) L2.
As a matter of fact that was one of the things I marveled at which was the level of polish and lack of bugs I experienced.
Oh, I imagine it had bugs but I never encountered anything that was game breaking.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
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I started playing MMOs back in 1998 with UO. I really enjoyed WOW when it was released, but it couldn't compare to old school UO or SWG. The communities in UO and SWG were great, and the freedom of sandbox games are so much better then the new themepark genre.
{mod edit}
Currently Playing: DAOC Uthgard
Previously Played: UO, DAOC, Shadowbane, AC2, SWG, Horizons, COX, WOW, EQ2, LOTRO, AOC, WAR, Vanguard, Rift, SWTOR, ESO, GW2.
EQ classic (EQ original + 3 first expansions) was much much better than any other MMO that came later.
Of course WOW brought a much more polished game (in EQ we had "mouse lag" for instance) with amazing graphic design, but the game play and the community interaction was nothing compared to EQ classic.
Still original WOW was ten times better than what it is now.
And so the MMO genre is "improving" over time.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
WoW was fine before the expansions started. I can remember reading somewhere one of the Blizzard "biggins" said they would be adding "hero" classes with expansions, but when TBC came out, it didn't have a hero class
TBC was ok, but I couldn't stand the fact that Greens in TBC were better than my Sulfuron Hammer I spent months crafting. That was a big deal breaker for me. I played it and beat up Illidan and his kin. I got my Twin Blades of Azzinoth and figured they were "the end all be all". Then WotLK came out, and finally a hero class. I still say they should've added a mage hero class with it as well, not everyone wants to be a melee tank/dps. Necromancer? yes, please. Anyways, yet again greens in WotLK were better than TWO legendaries...Then the Battle.net accounts came, worst idea ever in gaming history. Now hackers can easily steal your account, because battle.net has always had horrible security since Warcraft 2 battle.net edition. My account got hacked, with all my "phat lewts" so I quit, even though I was already getting ready to quit anyways. WoW is the ONLY game in 20+ years of online gaming that has been hacked...guess that says something. Well, I guess playstation network too, if you want to count that hehe.
WoW was so much better than EQ to me, though there are still some mechanics that I think EQ did better. The noticable shift, for me, was shortly after our guild alliance started raiding MC. I actually witnessed the shift from friendship to accomplishment as the primary motivation of the majority of players. It was a sad day when the guild alliance broke up because one of the guilds in the alliance did not want to share the loot with anyone else. Not only did they leave the alliance, they took most of the players from the remaining guilds with them. Like an asshole, I joined the other guild because I wanted to get the loot. Such a big mistake. MMORPGs have never been the same for me since then.
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Haradek Shadowstalker
EQ,EQII,SWG,AO,DAOC,Planetside,COH,WOW
EQ2 had a great first impression with it's atmosphere and the questing to gain XP felt organized.
The visuals were nice. (The spell effects were weak early on, and mocap action still sucks compared to animated) But the world was SMALL and there wasn't a lot to explore and see. That's the biggest difference from EQ1 to EQ2. You got xp for finding the same static locations over and over in EQ2. Also the world design outside of the 2 starter cities was so uninspired. Seeing Qeynos and Freeport fleshed out was awesome, but seeing Qhills and other areas shrunk and just filled with "level 10 to 14" quest hub, next go to "level 15 to 20" quest hub. It just felt like you were getting your hand held.
Vanilla WoW had a lot of the improvements MMOs needed. Large world that didn't feel instanced. Each class had a lot of abilities. The original talent trees also felt like you were "alternately advancing" way early in the game. Where as before that was something reserved for capped players in other games. The classes really stood out. Where EQ2 sort of made each class play very similar in their roles; rogues in WoW had to watch where they were sneaking, Wizards could change people in to sheep, warriors could go from being sword and board tanks to flurry making fury fighters.
The onset of casual fans tho'- The unique features became really plastic compared to a unique world to discover. With singular challenges to face.
The Sleeper aside; anyone else remember the first time they were strong enough to roll down the Oasis of Marr and kill the giant and hunt Spec island?
The sense of WORLD I think is an underestimated difference between then and now. The hand holding has gotten to be a bit much as well.
Nope, I'm like you, I judge a game on it's merits and also don't care that there are similarities to other games. Probably because I am more than conscious of the fact that there are more than similarities in other types of media, whether it be movies, books or music.
But for some reason mmo's don't get that luxury. If it's not brand new or never seen before then suddenly it's a strike against it. Which of course is ridiculous as nothing exists in a bubble.
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It think it's a lot like the old adage "be careful what you wish for". When I first played WoW after spending so much time in EQ I thought, "cool, exclamation points to tell who has quests" "cool, they tell where you where to go and what to kill" "cool, they tell what the reward is ahead of time, and you even get to chose to sometimes""cool, the dungeons are instanced with no camping or competing for mobs"
I quickly learned that all of the things that made EQ harder also made the reward that much more valuable. I also learned that a quest completed in 30 mins or less is not a quest, it's a task and the quests quickly started to feel more like tasks as the game progressed.
So to answer your question, no I didn't feel that way when WoW first came out. What was gained was obvious from the start, as with most things it took awhile to realized what was lost.
One of the biggest differences back then that, for me, made them better was challenge. In the early MMOs. I started with UO and Meridian 59, there were no overhead maps, no quest helpers, no little icons over all the NPCs names. You had to really think, explore, and take risks. As MMOs went along more and more of the difficulty was drained out of them culminating with Little Tykes World of Playskool. Now having a tough boss fight in WoW is not the same. I am talking about the feeling you get when you are lost six levels deep in a dungeon maze with no map, monsters around every corner, and death could mean the loss of hours of progress and possibly, if you cannot retrieve your body, gear. Now todays players hear that and say, how can that be fun? The truth is, it may simply be the same way some kids were raised on brussel sprouts and asperagus. Other kids, who grew up eating Mc Donalds and Froot Loops cannot fathom that we like it because it is what we grew up on. These challenges, this level of risk and intensity is what we know and love.
EQ1 was my starting point, it was great fun, then again I didn't have much of a choice either so I had to make do or go back to playing single player games, and after playing EQ1 for the first day I can tell you I was well and truly hooked.
However I have always looked forward to new MMO's coming out, refining the genre, getting rid of the frustrating elements that held you back, such as meditating for hrs on end just to have enough mana to take out a few mobs then rinse repeat.
However it's still a double edge sword isn't it, take too much out of the genre and it becomes way too easy, you still need that challenge, you still need to feel that it's all worth the effort otherwise whats the point in playing!
I want my old school MMO's, but I don't want alot of the crap that came with them, I like alot of what has been changed along the way, but don't take away the challenge or the need to socialise with your fellow players, the silence while ploughing through a dungeon is soul destroying at times.
Since I prefer solo play, WoW was a godsend. EQ was my first MMO. I had RL friends who got me hooked, and I joined their guild but was never crazy about the guild politics, and all the ass-kissing of the guild leader etc... But EQ, at the time, was a game that was very hard to solo. Now I know some here think MMO's are group games, yadda, yadda. Let's not rehash that. Since then, my RL friends and I have spread out to diffetrent MMOs and I am very hesitant to play with strangers who seem to always want to tell me how to play. I, for one, really appreciated and enjoyed the more casual, solo style of WoW at the time. Looking for something more now, as we all are ( please deliver GW2 and TSW).
Same thing here. . you summed it up well. At a cross-roads it would seem.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
I started playing long before WoW.
That said, when WoW came out I had a blast playing it. To this day it still remains a great game... just one that I stopped playing many years ago. Like many games... it plays one way while you level up and then it changes when you hit the cap. That is really the achilles heel of casual games. Once you take away that sense of accomplishment and character improvment gained by "leveling"... all you are left with is a gear grind.
Same thing with it's PvP... I was on a PvP server and we had some pretty fun times in the open world. Then came the Battlegrounds. At first they seemed great.. and even worked with open world PvP as people would travel to the BG entrances. Then, people just started queuing up in the cities and open world dissapeared. At the same time you as the player start to realize that you are playing Capture The Flag... and it's not really PvP but rather a fantasy version of Battlefield 1942
So.. I will say that originally I welcomed WoW... but soon grew to miss the feeling of playing in a living, breathing fantasy world. Everything became instanced. The world really just became one big quest hub where people zoom from instance to instance. PvP became synonymous with instanced "Arena Combat"...
I will also agree with Aetheryn as well. The old games had a great sense of COMMUNITY which was driven by this virtual world. Nothing has ever come close to the feeling of Real Pride generated by the original DAoC. Today everything is focused on instant gratification.. everyone wins but no one loses.. character uniqueness is frowned upon and class mirroring is favored in the name of "balance".
So yeah, I miss the old days.
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I think it was a combination of things. When I look back at EQ's gameplay mechanics and features I don't see them as superior than what came afterwards.
Sure, more community oriented features like sandbox mechanics or enforced grouping and 1 non-instanced world all contributed to a different feel.
But what made the difference with hose early MMO's was that it was the first time for everyone who started playing those MMO's. It was that sensation of 'holy f*ck, we're all playing together in a vast online world', that feeling of wonder, pleasant surprise, exploration - not only of the ingame world but of the experience of playing in an MMORPG in itself - that made players as a group more openminded and positive towards their gaming and eachother than 10 years later.
It was that 'first time' feeling that made players more forgiving towards a lot of ingame features or rough edges and lack of polish.
Also, I think that the players of those first years were collectively of a different mindset than later generations, just like early adapters of any new trend or product that becomes successful are often collectively of a different mindset than the mass that comes afterwards.
Personally, when GW and WoW were released I didn't think 'oh, now it's going downhill', I merely thought of them as new MMORPG's with their own distinctive feeling and gameplay sensation in a field where all kinds of varying MMO's existed and sprung up. I was only disappointed in EQ2 that wasn't what I expected an EQ sequel to be, it had a very different feel to it than EQ had, less fun, less magical.
I think only afterwards MMO's started to feel less diverse, with less different visions and ideas being tried out.
When I look at the new batch of MMO's, with an SWTOR, TSW, GW2, Firefall, WoD, ArcheAge, Defiance, Undead Labs' zombie MMO and TERA in it, then I'm getting that same feeling and sensation back that I had in the period of 2001-2205, again a wide variety of ideas, innovations and very distinctive MMORPG's on the horizon.
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Well here's the thing, I enjoyed EQ1 back in the day for a number of reasons primarily because the game didn't hold your hand through anything. The game was hard and even small things like navigating took some effort and knowledge because there was no maps at the time and you needed to know landmarks to navigate zones. Another thing that I enjoyed was that it was a slower paced game, now in games everyone in a rush to get someone and they HAVE to be there as fast a possible, I still remember the boat ride in EQ1 taking a half hour in real life.
Also, games nowadays lack any suspense whatsoever and you OG EQ heads know what I mean. Traversing Kithicor forest at night time, the tiny tinge of fear you get when someone yelled Spectres to docks in the Oasis of Marr, or the frantic panic of trying to find a safe place to hide when some guild set loose The Sleeper. No game now seem to have any of that suspense because no games have any real penalty of death, death in EQ1 meant lost experience that could have been several hours worth so without that no one gives a damn about dying, I know I don't.
Honestly I miss the player to player interaction for selling merchandise pre-Luclin expansion the most, Shadows of Luclin killed it for me with the bazaar. I enjoyed the simple things in that game like sitting in Kelething spamming chat with my wares and the whole negotiation and bartering with people mmos nowadays don't have these things or at least they don't feel anything like the original mmos.
Lastly, I miss the community. Back in those days the only people who played EQ1 were mature and older individuals , with the exception of myself; I believe I was 15 at the time. Games now are filled with immature players that spam chat with the most pointless rantings about Chuck Norris or why they are so much more l33t than you. Back then the only spam you got was trade spam or people yelling about a train to the zone.
It's kind of funny though thinking back on this game because it still does quite a few things that new games haven't implemented, like speaking in your own racial tongue and being able to learn others like dragon, orc, etc. The drunk effect and building tolerance lol, I remember not being able to cast as a mage because my character was so drunk he was swaying from side to side and the only way I could cast was to wedge myself between to object to keep myself still.
While I agree with you Labryinth, unfortunately I feel those days are over, people nowadays don't have that much time to dedicate to playing and I think it's just these companies and game devs know that so that make games that cater to all players the best way possible, which unfortunately is much more casual than we are used to. That's just my opinion though.
Brecca - Tunare
Devillan - Vazaelle
Current MMO: Aion
MMO Watch: Warhammer 40k Online, SWToR, GW2.
Played: Planetside, SWG, EQ, EQ2, L2, WoW, RFO, KAL, MxO, Voyage, RO,Vanguard,Tabula Rasa, Horizons, CoH/CoV,, Lotro, FFXI
First MMO: Everquest (Tunare Server, Ronin/Tide Guild)
First I'll have describe my view on casual. Casual is being able to log on for as long as I can and feel like I actually completed something.
To me UO was casual friendly because I could log on do something for even 10 minutes and feel like I was one step closer to my goal. Even if that step was only filling up my wood, ore or leather supplies. To me UO was the perfect game because it was casually hardcore. It offered so much more then todays mmos and it didn't tie revolve around combat.
The EQ came along and took the genre in the wrong direction with its excessive time sinks, not being able to wipe my rear end without a buddy, rigid level/classs design.
WoW and most of the games after are ADHD friendly.
Well, I am a old dude. My son and I beta tested "basically" the first online game. Meridian59. When EQ came out I sat at my computer launch day and hit "log on" for about two hours. When I finally got on I was breathless. <grin> At one time I had three computers going to take the "Fin camp" in Camelot when a full group of six. I think a factor most people neglect to talk about is the "New" factor. Back in the day everyone was full of excitment and a newness that allowed for commrodery and helpful personas. Things (for lack of a better word) were inocent as we all learned together. I am currently playing Eve. (Just started) and personally, I don't think the mentality of the old days will return. Those were happy by-gone days. I have lost intresst in online gaming but might try Guild wars two. Looks like potencial.
Game till you bleed
King of the world
The one thing I believe has improved since the early days are the graphics. Game mechanics haven't evolved that much IMO. The thrill of exploration was my favorite thing. I played UO pre-trammel days and while I hated the ass-hats that liked to gank newbs, the excitement that came from stepping out of the town gates was a rush. When EQ came out, I remember the shiver that ran down my spine when I left Freeport into the East Commonlands for the first time. Hearing the night sounds (crickets, owls, etc.) and the darkness that pervaded the forest where intoxicating. Having to learn the lay of the land through exploration and finding those areas that were best to avoid if you wanted to live.
Like Sovrath, I didn't care for the art direction WoW took. Had they not opted to go for the "cartoonie" look, I probably would have stuck around longer than 6 months. I preferred the DAOC graphics up until I discovered L2. The last MMO I played was Vanguard which I quit about a year and a half ago. Loved the world, graphics, and lore, but left due to low population. For the last 3 to 4 years I played MMOs, I found myself more and more doing the solo route. I can play RPGs and get the same experience, so that's what I pretty much do now. I also do not like the "loot centric" focus of today's MMOs. Would love a fantasy based game using COH game mechanics.
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I started with Daoc and have therefore played the best PvP-mmorpg as my very first one.
SWG was the next one, EQ2 + WoW came after that.
When WoW was in beta and slowly moved towards release anyone i did know hoped that it would not be that bug ridden crap swg was, or one of the other old mmos.
Blizzard had a huge following and its not a majority who has said WoW would fail its a minority. With Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft and the Battle.Net Blizzard had probably already million of players eager to try WoW out.
And WoW was the best, most polished launch i have experienced for that time and not only was the launch that good, the first time newcomers had a chance to slide slowly into a mmo with a good tutorial and a huge world with nice travel options and responsive combat with great diversity.
No camp grinding, quests all over the place and not hidden but marked.
That was a big improvement.
Sadly we today know that it was not the start into a better age of mmos but into the clonewars of mmos and the "streamlining" of anything out of combat fun and even combat fun (gameplaymechanics) mmos had offered in the past b4.
I played WoW 6 month bcs it lost its fun as soon as i realized it would never be a virtual world and such features would never be added and also the art direction was going the mean route with even more oversized anything.
After WoW there is no gameplay advanced + feature complete mmo released.
They be so tight focussed on 97% combat that you lose the fun even faster than in much more advanced single player games.
So WoW is both success and fail, blessing and curse the same time.
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Everyone have their own record of history. I will now tell you mine.
There are two main things, we need to consider here -
1. Is the honeymoon. Most MMORPG players have one. Usually the honeymoon is the "great time" a player had with the first MMORPG they really got into. It's not always the first MMO they ever play, but the first game they play and really, really love.
It's a period that seems to pop up again and again in many MMORPG players. The people who got into Everquest had one. Or Ultima. Or SWG(the honeymoon group I was in). Or WoW. Or Lord of the Rings Online.
Following a honeymoon, what seems to happen to most players is that they become less happy. The honeymoon was great. Everything was new and exciting, and the player had the best prospecting waiting for them.
But as time went on, something changed - Perhaps it was a patch that altered something the player did not like, or an expansion that took the end game in a different direction. Perhaps it was the release of a new MMO that made the players friends and guildies leave for this new game. Whatever the case, the experience usually never becomes the same after the honeymoon. Sometimes the honeymoon lasts a month, sometimes years.
Using myself as an example, my honeymoon game was SWG. I had played MMORPGs before, and even loved a MMO before(Planetside) but it was SWG that really defined my playstyle. My newbieness, with MMORPGs having nothing to compare it to, made it easier for me to ignore the bad things. It was not like I had played 10 other MMORPGs before extensively and was able to hand pick each of their strengths against SWG. No. My lack of experience made me a lot more forgiving for SWG.
And then I was able to focus on the strengths of SWG. The things I had never seen in "normal" games. Like building a player city. An actual freaking player city, that altered the planet and server, with the powerful crafters and good salesmen and politicians that branded it. The sense of being part of something larger would to this day, be part of what I consider a MMORPG to be.
As my first real MMORPG it deeply affected me.
I am sure people can tell you the same with other games. People who started with DAOC would probably say, that their expectations for server altering events and PvP are very high, and that they have been left unsatisfied.
In the end, it's not that people hate MMORPGs now. In fact there are lots of people who love MMORPGs. Many people would never have considered paying for one, before WoW came out. It took WoW to create a cultural mainstream change in peoples deception. The majority basked in an ignorance of believing that it was the ultimate ripoff and retardiation, and something to be shunned at, to pay monthly to a boring stinky online game with lame combat.
What has changed for old school MMO'ers is expectations. MMORPG's are a large time investment. Many people seem to become cynical as they grind in yet a new game, and with the release of these new F2P games like Hellgate and Age of Conan, I am doubting myself, and then even when I am able to get these games for free, if they are worth my time. I think we have become so crictical and so selfaware of our limited time, during our best years, from child to age 60 or something, that we do not wish to squander them on mediocre MMO experiences, or merely decent MMORPGs.
When are some developers going to make a MMORPG worthy of us? I believe SWTOR and GW2 are trying. They are trying to be responsible of their time commitment. But only time will tell if they can live up to their word of not giving us a grind, but an actual real narrative throughout the levelling process.
As for end game... I think that's a different discussion. I've rambled long enough.