As opposed to axehilt throughout the forums shouting down people and insulting them? No MUDs or PnP games were as restricted and linear as TOR is. Neither were early rogue likes. Axehilt is arguing that TOR is more RPG than ultima or wow or everquest. Thats patently ridiculous. I will leave Axehilt to play his beloved TOR if that is what he desires.
To claim TOR wasn't an RPG would get you puzzled stares from anyone who played any videogame RPG made in the last 25+ years. It's very obviously an RPG.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
(for reference: Old school player started with MUDs. new school player started on WoW TBC) The other night over VOIP, i listened to two people argue over the current state of MMOs. One person arguing they were upset with the current direction the genre has taken (much like what is seen on these boards) The other person arguing they were happy with the direction, and games being offered. Started off with a discussion on WoW, the old school person (henceforth known as Old), stated they stopped playing WoW after Cataclysm. The new school person (henceforth known as New) asked why. "There is no sense of community, and the game has turned into nothing but who can have the highest gear score" New argued there is community, and the carrot on the stick is what MMOs always were about. The argument went in circles for a while about how games all about items destroyed community, and how Old needed to find a guild that catered to his wishes. Then the grind issue came up. Old argued the grind promoted grouping and allowed you to learn many people on the server. New argued LFD does the same thing, but that the game should not be about the grind and should be about end game. Another looping argument about boring grinds, more community talk, back to the items argument, and how WoW has more subs than all old school mmos combined due to its ease of access. It went of for about 30 min, neither side budging both sides making strong points, but never agreeing to disagree. It reminded me of a political argument. Two different thoughts, neither willing to agree with the other, and a lot of looping arguments. (i guess there isnt too much of a point here, just that the old vs new argument is never going to accomplish anything given they are different schools of thought)
That is why there use to be a premium market for MMORPG's. Since your argument also mirrors dochtomy within the playerbase.
YOUNG players want to kill and focus mainly on that, because they don't yet have fully developed cognascent skills, wich allow them to play subtextual meta-games along within their MMORPG.
Elf in an enchanted woodland in UO was preserved by roleplayers for years. Nothing a developer can do to match that.
It comes down to that young kids want to be entertained, while the older gen (or up-n-coming) graduates from WoW want to be challenged! (No matter what anyone says... who can argue that early EQ offered the most incredible challanges offered @ any depth, in any other MMORPG.)
It was sooo challenging that It was soon ruined by flagging & instancing because the younger gen had to spend years to become as advances as a guild as some 7 year clans. SOE cowtowed the the WoW gen and ruin Everquest as a challenging game. It's laughable by yeaser-years standards. The Progression servers proves this.
Challenging game are a costly choice, because the customer can be quite noisy and whinning and complain about being in our world now... and demand less challanging content.
Secondly, I feel the market will shift into upgraded accounts. Once SOE comes out with EQx.. they can again charge a premium, hopefully $25/month. With active and live GM roleplaying like in the old'n days.
Old vs New:
Oldschool = deeper crafting, deeper plotting, deeper delivery of war & battle. Freeform open worlds. Your in-game actions stand for who you are.
Newschool = instant gear, stats, scores, showboating, glitz, glamour. Their perceived by their online persona (facebook, twitter, vent/ts, forums)... than known for anything whorthwhile done in game. (ie: accomplishments).
At about age 27 they stop liking WoW's 1 dimensional play and graduate looking for something moAr... just like COD n00bs finding BF3.. & learning how bad they really are. It comes down to how much your willing to spend/invest in yourself... moneterilly and timewise.
this makes no sense from my point of view. So I ask, define this "Challenge" you speak of. I don't understand how you people view Challenege. Seems like Challenege is a synonym for time sinking correct? Because for example. I remember people saying WoW is easy. I assume, when somebody uses the word "Easy" they mean the opposite of Challenging.
first am I wrong to assume that when you people say WoW is "EASY" you mean the opposite of a challenge?
well if that's the case, than why is it, that most of these same players that complained about WoW being easy, never completed the Hard Core raid dungeons? Even in WoTLK, I seen this argument from players that didn't beat hardcore Lich King. So I get a little confused by what they mean by challenging. Because if you can't beat something, doesn't that make it a challenge? This is why I assume people are confusing the terms "Challegen" with the term "Time Sink".
matter of fact, I have another question for the people here. Is GUILD WARS 2, a more old school MMO, or new school MMO?
As opposed to axehilt throughout the forums shouting down people and insulting them? No MUDs or PnP games were as restricted and linear as TOR is. Neither were early rogue likes. Axehilt is arguing that TOR is more RPG than ultima or wow or everquest. Thats patently ridiculous. I will leave Axehilt to play his beloved TOR if that is what he desires.
To claim TOR wasn't an RPG would get you puzzled stares from anyone who played any videogame RPG made in the last 25+ years. It's very obviously an RPG.
If the game last say 5 years then the RPG element probably represents 10 - 20% of that time of that time which is maybe where the confusion comes from. End game raiding is not RPG. The levelling/storytelling is however and I agree it is as much RPG as anything else out there.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
me that when you people say WoW is "EASY" you mean the opposite of a challenge?
well if that's the case, than why is it, that most of these same players that complained about WoW being easy, never completed the Hard Core raid dungeons? Even in WoTLK, I seen this argument from players that didn't beat hardcore Lich King. So I get a little confused by what they mean by challenging. Because if you can't beat something, doesn't that make it a challenge?
Counting blades of grass on the lawn is easy, it's just not very fun. Most people never did the raid content in WOW because they don't find that content all that fun. Difficulty and challenge had nothing to do with it unless we are talking about the ability to tolerate the elitist attitudes prevalent in most raiding guilds - that's a challenge all its own.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
me that when you people say WoW is "EASY" you mean the opposite of a challenge?
well if that's the case, than why is it, that most of these same players that complained about WoW being easy, never completed the Hard Core raid dungeons? Even in WoTLK, I seen this argument from players that didn't beat hardcore Lich King. So I get a little confused by what they mean by challenging. Because if you can't beat something, doesn't that make it a challenge?
Counting blades of grass on the lawn is easy, it's just not very fun. Most people never did the raid content in WOW because they don't find that content all that fun. Difficulty and challenge had nothing to do with it unless we are talking about the ability to tolerate the elitist attitudes prevalent in most raiding guilds - that's a challenge all its own.
By that argument no MMO ever is "hard".
To make a game "hard" and create difficulty, you would need to have an environment that is non-min-max-able and relies purely on skill.
EVE is not hard, it only requires you to avoid getting ganked while mining and keep paying monthly so your skills lvl.
I think personally that WoW perfectly found the balance by making leveling and questing almost absurdly easy (i mean shit if you can actually solo Felreavers as a frostmage at lvl70) but making raiding (relatively) challenging.
Its because the game-mechanics of your class really don't count for that much in raiding if you can not coordinate as a group in endgame raids.
This is what MMOs should go towards, the challenge needs to come from the social interaction and organization/coordination, not -necessarily- from the gameplay mechanics themselves.
Anyone that has raided at some point or another will tell you that not standing in the fire is actually challenging when you first raid, because its a different game than your leveling experience where 3 mobs can be wailing on you for hours without little to no effect.
I mean especially when you are playing "easy" lvling classes like Hunter or Paladin the experience at endgame changes. You can't out-heal enrages, or insta-kill events.
By no means do i think that WoW does the -best- job in the challenge department, but its doing a good job, and most importantly, the challenge is in the right place.
The genre WAS dominated by us true nerds that loved role play and exploration and to team up with ppl to conquer dungeons.
Now this genre has become too popular and is overflowing with the 15 year old fan boys who don’t know what to do with themselves if they are not HAND HELD through a stupid story line and hand fed boring quest content with a silver spoon.
Since wow is now the developers poster child for mmos, they will continue to create the linear boring mmo's where you quest by yourself to to kill 10 boars, grab 15 black rocks, and speak to 7 other npcs. GRATS now I am eligible to go to the next zone and do the exact same thing - Hope there isn’t any other players over there to steal my quest mobs!!!
Until they start making MMOs like they used to be. You won’t see me playing crap like STWOR.
This. =D
To add, atleast if some games had actual diversity instead of BS add-ons like cutscenes and crappy rifts that have made no difference to the situation at allll!
Like a previous poster said different playstyles like blade&soul tries to incorporate which still wouldn't be enough to get me playing again.
The problem is that there is a disagreement/difference in preferences in terms of what quality makes an MMO stand out from other games.
Most of the "older" school games, the ones prior to 2003, were quite virtual world oriented. This was true of UO, EQ1 (to a large degree), SWG, EVE -- all 2003 or earlier releases. Some of these games had raids, all of them had ways to advance to character and so on, but what made them special was the virtual world they created and the interaction between players in that virtual wold.
Beginning in 2004, with WoW, the MMO model was retuned to emphasize gameplay and game-iness over virtual world. Azeroth is a virtual world, but it's a tongue-in-cheek one that doesn't take itself seriously as a virtual world, and sees itself as a backdrop to the multiplayer gameplay (i.e., instances and raids) that the game is focused on.
So the older school gamers tend to see the virtual world aspects as what makes an MMO special, while the WoW and post-WoW MMO players tend to see endgame multiplayer content as what makes an MMO special. It really is as simple as that. And because WoW was so successful in doing it Blizzard's way, that paradigm of MMO design has virually taken over the entire space. This is also because the older school virtual world type playerbase is much smaller than the endgame multiplayer content playerbase is.
To make a game "hard" and create difficulty, you would need to have an environment that is non-min-max-able and relies purely on skill.
EVE is not hard, it only requires you to avoid getting ganked while mining and keep paying monthly so your skills lvl.
I think personally that WoW perfectly found the balance by making leveling and questing almost absurdly easy (i mean shit if you can actually solo Felreavers as a frostmage at lvl70) but making raiding (relatively) challenging.
Its because the game-mechanics of your class really don't count for that much in raiding if you can not coordinate as a group in endgame raids.
This is what MMOs should go towards, the challenge needs to come from the social interaction and organization/coordination, not -necessarily- from the gameplay mechanics themselves.
Anyone that has raided at some point or another will tell you that not standing in the fire is actually challenging when you first raid, because its a different game than your leveling experience where 3 mobs can be wailing on you for hours without little to no effect.
I mean especially when you are playing "easy" lvling classes like Hunter or Paladin the experience at endgame changes. You can't out-heal enrages, or insta-kill events.
By no means do i think that WoW does the -best- job in the challenge department, but its doing a good job, and most importantly, the challenge is in the right place.
Min-maxing is skill. Anything based on player decisions (tactics/strategy) or execution (twitch) is skill. And min/maxing is part of a game's strategic skill.
Leveling in WOW basically acts like a tutorial, which is why it's fairly rapid. (Although if you tank and group while leveling, and pull huge groups, you can change WOW from a tutorial into a challenging and rewarding experience.) Still, WOW would clearly be better with difficulty options (so you can choose for the game to be harder, with the tradeoff of faster advancement and better rewards.)
Challenge which is purely social interaction results in things like open world PVP which feel completely crappy (you win by zerging; you zerg by amassing a large guild/alliance.)
Challenge in games is about the more interesting choices (learning to react to not standing in the fire), and is usually best when there's a lot of individually simple mechanics layered onto one another. In WOW's case it's a lot of simple minigames layered on top of one another: the personal rotation minigame, the threat/aggro minigame, the prefight min-max minigame, the boss mechanic minigame(s), the team coordination minigame, and sometimes an environmental hazard minigame too.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
To make a game "hard" and create difficulty, you would need to have an environment that is non-min-max-able and relies purely on skill.
EVE is not hard, it only requires you to avoid getting ganked while mining and keep paying monthly so your skills lvl.
I think personally that WoW perfectly found the balance by making leveling and questing almost absurdly easy (i mean shit if you can actually solo Felreavers as a frostmage at lvl70) but making raiding (relatively) challenging.
Its because the game-mechanics of your class really don't count for that much in raiding if you can not coordinate as a group in endgame raids.
This is what MMOs should go towards, the challenge needs to come from the social interaction and organization/coordination, not -necessarily- from the gameplay mechanics themselves.
Anyone that has raided at some point or another will tell you that not standing in the fire is actually challenging when you first raid, because its a different game than your leveling experience where 3 mobs can be wailing on you for hours without little to no effect.
I mean especially when you are playing "easy" lvling classes like Hunter or Paladin the experience at endgame changes. You can't out-heal enrages, or insta-kill events.
By no means do i think that WoW does the -best- job in the challenge department, but its doing a good job, and most importantly, the challenge is in the right place.
Min-maxing is skill. Anything based on player decisions (tactics/strategy) or execution (twitch) is skill. And min/maxing is part of a game's strategic skill.
Leveling in WOW basically acts like a tutorial, which is why it's fairly rapid. (Although if you tank and group while leveling, and pull huge groups, you can change WOW from a tutorial into a challenging and rewarding experience.) Still, WOW would clearly be better with difficulty options (so you can choose for the game to be harder, with the tradeoff of faster advancement and better rewards.)
Challenge which is purely social interaction results in things like open world PVP which feel completely crappy (you win by zerging; you zerg by amassing a large guild/alliance.)
Challenge in games is about the more interesting choices (learning to react to not standing in the fire), and is usually best when there's a lot of individually simple mechanics layered onto one another. In WOW's case it's a lot of simple minigames layered on top of one another: the personal rotation minigame, the threat/aggro minigame, the prefight min-max minigame, the boss mechanic minigame(s), the team coordination minigame, and sometimes an environmental hazard minigame too.
Any game where the number of humans per team is not hardcoded results in zerging. Period. How can a virtual world avoid zerging? Its not possible. In fact most non zerg pvp in any game is "battlegrounds" where its capped 20v20 or w/e. Battlegrounds are basically just MOBAs stuck in WoW.
Frankly I think it could do WoW a lot of good to make in-game MOBAs a much larger part of the game. That makes them LoL but with other stuff too. Although of course LoL can be F2P and WoW isn't.
The only way that zerging doesn't happen irl all the time, still happens most of the time, is that our world has "content" that cannot be accessed by everyone, much like the strategies of Germany in WW2 when fighting the whole world. Hell 50% of German strategy was "LOL france logged off, aka sleeping, night attack!"
Any game where the number of humans per team is not hardcoded results in zerging. Period. How can a virtual world avoid zerging? Its not possible. In fact most non zerg pvp in any game is "battlegrounds" where its capped 20v20 or w/e. Battlegrounds are basically just MOBAs stuck in WoW.
Frankly I think it could do WoW a lot of good to make in-game MOBAs a much larger part of the game. That makes them LoL but with other stuff too. Although of course LoL can be F2P and WoW isn't.
The only way that zerging doesn't happen irl all the time, still happens most of the time, is that our world has "content" that cannot be accessed by everyone, much like the strategies of Germany in WW2 when fighting the whole world. Hell 50% of German strategy was "LOL france logged off, aka sleeping, night attack!"
Well that's the point -- using game rules to prevent zerging, in the name of creating good gameplay. You can do this in the game world, although existing examples are clunky (locking world raid bosses to a single raid and stunning/killing anyone else who gets involved, for example.) Without such rules, any non-instanced gameplay is never really going to be all that difficult because it can simply be zerged -- and without challenge, there's not much gameplay.
I'm not sure why you'd compare BGs with MOBAs specifically. BGs are similar to all good PVP games.
Good PVP is about competition. As such, adding any game mechanic which isn't skill (like zerging) reduces the importance of skill, and worsens the competitive nature of the game. Non-skill factors dilute PVP, basically. The more of them which exist, the worse the PVP is.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Any game where the number of humans per team is not hardcoded results in zerging. Period. How can a virtual world avoid zerging? Its not possible. In fact most non zerg pvp in any game is "battlegrounds" where its capped 20v20 or w/e. Battlegrounds are basically just MOBAs stuck in WoW.
Frankly I think it could do WoW a lot of good to make in-game MOBAs a much larger part of the game. That makes them LoL but with other stuff too. Although of course LoL can be F2P and WoW isn't.
The only way that zerging doesn't happen irl all the time, still happens most of the time, is that our world has "content" that cannot be accessed by everyone, much like the strategies of Germany in WW2 when fighting the whole world. Hell 50% of German strategy was "LOL france logged off, aka sleeping, night attack!"
Well that's the point -- using game rules to prevent zerging, in the name of creating good gameplay. You can do this in the game world, although existing examples are clunky (locking world raid bosses to a single raid and stunning/killing anyone else who gets involved, for example.) Without such rules, any non-instanced gameplay is never really going to be all that difficult because it can simply be zerged -- and without challenge, there's not much gameplay.
I'm not sure why you'd compare BGs with MOBAs specifically. BGs are similar to all good PVP games.
Good PVP is about competition. As such, adding any game mechanic which isn't skill (like zerging) reduces the importance of skill, and worsens the competitive nature of the game. Non-skill factors dilute PVP, basically. The more of them which exist, the worse the PVP is.
MOBAs are basically identical to GW battlegrounds. Its even 5v5. Heck Guild Wars characters are even only 2 levels above the max level in LoL. The thing is that battle grounds break immersion. The limitation makes no sense from a lore perspective. But I guess thats just not something that interests most gamers.
They only care about Harry Potter because its popular and they only know about Game of Thrones because it had an HBO series with lots of nude scenes. They only know about LoTR because of the movies.
Too bad they can't just stick with WoW and SWTOR. They have to use up 99% of the game industry resources for their story content that they blow through in a few months when a single successful sandbox with no expansions could keep 80% of sandbox players busy for 5 years.
Originally posted by SpottyGekko But MMO developers can eventually be blamed for being stupid, because they don't seem to be learning from the mistakes of their peers. Beating WoW by making a "better WoW" is virtually impossible. WoW have had 7 years to add content and polish to their game. No new game is going to have that amount of content at launch, not even vaguely. So it may pull players away from WoW, but they soon drift back because WoW has everything the clone has, just lots more of it, and besides, half their friends are still in WoW...
Add to that characters that many players have been developing for YEARS and you have a tough wall to break down.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
The problem is that there is a disagreement/difference in preferences in terms of what quality makes an MMO stand out from other games.
Most of the "older" school games, the ones prior to 2003, were quite virtual world oriented. This was true of UO, EQ1 (to a large degree), SWG, EVE -- all 2003 or earlier releases. Some of these games had raids, all of them had ways to advance to character and so on, but what made them special was the virtual world they created and the interaction between players in that virtual wold.
Beginning in 2004, with WoW, the MMO model was retuned to emphasize gameplay and game-iness over virtual world. Azeroth is a virtual world, but it's a tongue-in-cheek one that doesn't take itself seriously as a virtual world, and sees itself as a backdrop to the multiplayer gameplay (i.e., instances and raids) that the game is focused on.
So the older school gamers tend to see the virtual world aspects as what makes an MMO special, while the WoW and post-WoW MMO players tend to see endgame multiplayer content as what makes an MMO special. It really is as simple as that. And because WoW was so successful in doing it Blizzard's way, that paradigm of MMO design has virually taken over the entire space. This is also because the older school virtual world type playerbase is much smaller than the endgame multiplayer content playerbase is.
I don't think it is that simple actually. I read somewhere, and believe this to be true from my own experience, that most people (even in WoW) don't get to end game and a only a small percentage actually regularly participate in raids. '
Therefore I propose that both old and new schoolers believe that the progression and the virtual world are what make a game great. However they fundamentally disagree on what makes a great game and what makes a great virtual world. IMO timesinks don't make a great game, nor do they make a great world.
Blizzard was successfull because they still gave the feeling of participating in a world, while playing a great game.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The problem is that there is a disagreement/difference in preferences in terms of what quality makes an MMO stand out from other games.
Most of the "older" school games, the ones prior to 2003, were quite virtual world oriented. This was true of UO, EQ1 (to a large degree), SWG, EVE -- all 2003 or earlier releases. Some of these games had raids, all of them had ways to advance to character and so on, but what made them special was the virtual world they created and the interaction between players in that virtual wold.
Beginning in 2004, with WoW, the MMO model was retuned to emphasize gameplay and game-iness over virtual world. Azeroth is a virtual world, but it's a tongue-in-cheek one that doesn't take itself seriously as a virtual world, and sees itself as a backdrop to the multiplayer gameplay (i.e., instances and raids) that the game is focused on.
So the older school gamers tend to see the virtual world aspects as what makes an MMO special, while the WoW and post-WoW MMO players tend to see endgame multiplayer content as what makes an MMO special. It really is as simple as that. And because WoW was so successful in doing it Blizzard's way, that paradigm of MMO design has virually taken over the entire space. This is also because the older school virtual world type playerbase is much smaller than the endgame multiplayer content playerbase is.
I don't think it is that simple actually. I read somewhere, and believe this to be true from my own experience, that most people (even in WoW) don't get to end game and a only a small percentage actually regularly participate in raids. '
Therefore I propose that both old and new schoolers believe that the progression and the virtual world are what make a game great. However they fundamentally disagree on what makes a great game and what makes a great virtual world. IMO timesinks don't make a great game, nor do they make a great world.
Blizzard was successfull because they still gave the feeling of participating in a world, while playing a great game.
Venge
There's also the huge and simple fact that most people who play in this genre today never played anything but a WoW-era themepark. This is true of the vast majority of the millions of gamers WoW brought in. We have no idea at all what percentage of the current MMO population would like an "older" style game, because few of them have even tried one. I came to this genre from FPS games and never played Pen and Paper or MUDs at all, and I gravitate towards sandbox gameplay.
Also, one of the key reasons for WoW's success was accessibility. You could play WoW on almost any computer whereas a lot of other games were far too demanding for standard non-gaming computers. As I have said before, WoW was a perfect storm at the right time. I doubt we will see many games that big ever again. If we do, they will be few and far between. A decade or more.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think outwith the intensely dogmatic and prescriptive the division is almost an artificial one.
Why can't we like old school (sandbox or whatever) and new school (themepark or whatever)?
I am happy to play both if they are fun. I have played both btw as there have been PLENTY of sandbox AND themepark mmorpgs released over the past 10 years. The sandboxes - with the exception of EVE - have just not been that good, not necessarily because they are sandbox, but because they weren't enough fun to a large enough player base.
I also think people who promote "old-school" will have harder time convincing anyone until they prove that old-school can be the new new-school; that there can be a new kind of sandbox that somehow appeals to more than just a niche.
I certainly like single-player sandbox games so the genre isn't dead; it just needs a successful (by that I mean popular) mmorpg model. I think that the idea (professed by both sides of the argument btw) that sandbox needs to be uber-grindy and demands a gameplay style that is punishing for casual players and rewards only the hardcore holds back the debate. Skyrim isn't grindy, is casual friendly and it has many features that would be considered sandbox, at least in a single player context; and of course is one the most popular and respected games released to date.
Aside: I remember the old days when I was a junior and senior high school student when me and my mates at the same time (as school finished at the same time for all of us) would have 3-6 hours every night to chill and play Dungeons and Dragons, even more over the holidays. Those were great days and good memories; we would have loved old-school mmorpgs back then because we had the time, the obsessiveness and the freedom to be hardcore. I remember spending summer months entirely focused - and I mean entirely - on making new Call of Cthulhu scenarios for my mates to play. There are people who are able to extend that playstyle into mmorpgs well beyond their school and college days. However, for most of us adulthood prohibits us being too hardcore and we become casual due to work and family. A successful sandbox mmorpg is going to have to recognize this demographic and make a game that doesn't punish players because they can only play for a few hours a week.
This is why some recent attempts at some indie sandbox mmorpgs have failed: they are usually low budget and it shows (i.e. Mortal online) and sometimes (i.e. darkfall) they were so aggressively proud to be niche and hardcore and uncompromising to casual players as some perverse badge of honour that it seemed like they wanted us casual player weaklings to stay away so as not to pollute their hardcore gene-pool.
Give me a big-budget sandbox mmorpg version of Skyrim and I would be thrilled. Until then I am playing theme-park not because I am hardwired and predisposed toward theme-park, but because I have yet to play a current sandbox mmorpg (with the exception of EVE) that is actually fun, welcoming and casual-friendly; make one with a decent enough budget and support and I would play it.
(i guess there isnt too much of a point here, just that the old vs new argument is never going to accomplish anything given they are different schools of thought)
That's pretty much the state of affairs of the MMORPG community in general. "New" is happy, "Old" isn't... and what they are looking for doesn't seem to fit well into a single game.
I'll tie this in with the sandbox vs. themepark debate. One flaw I see in themeparks is that they eventually become so top heavy that there is little choice but to abandon the journey part of the game since most everyone has "been there, done that", and set a direction that the game becomes endgame raiding centric.
It is my opinion that WoW tried to address this by bringing new life back into the journey with the shattering event and nearly full rebuild of the Vanilla zones content. To be honest, I'm not sure how well that plan worked for them. For me, I'm cheesed that they reworked the Vanilla zones that I've had much fun in. The fact that they went with long chain quests that use phasing made this worse because it's virtually impossible to get friends to help with questing because they seem to always be out of phase.
I'm also unsure if the Vanilla zone rework has had much of an impact on "New" players because to them the journey part of the game is very little more than an entertaining tutorial to burn through, or completely skip by running dungeons over and over using LFD tool.
What I find ironic is Blizzards solution to the statement that there's nothing to do at endgame other than PVP or raid. Their solution? Make raiding available to casuals with the LFR tool. I see this as an attempt to convert the rest of the playerbase into "casual raiders", which seems somewhat of a self-contradiction in my eyes.
Same stuff different day. I can't fault devs for going where the money is. I can't fault players for wanting more than a gear treadmill with optional capture-the-flag PVP. It's just the way things have worked out.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
this makes no sense from my point of view. So I ask, define this "Challenge" you speak of. I don't understand how you people view Challenege. Seems like Challenege is a synonym for time sinking correct? Because for example. I remember people saying WoW is easy. I assume, when somebody uses the word "Easy" they mean the opposite of Challenging.
first am I wrong to assume that when you people say WoW is "EASY" you mean the opposite of a challenge?
well if that's the case, than why is it, that most of these same players that complained about WoW being easy, never completed the Hard Core raid dungeons? Even in WoTLK, I seen this argument from players that didn't beat hardcore Lich King. So I get a little confused by what they mean by challenging. Because if you can't beat something, doesn't that make it a challenge? This is why I assume people are confusing the terms "Challegen" with the term "Time Sink".
matter of fact, I have another question for the people here. Is GUILD WARS 2, a more old school MMO, or new school MMO?
I hate to simplify things this much but it really comes down to numbers:)
content designed to require 20 people can not possibiliy be harder then content designed to REQUIRE 72 people. there isnt enough resources from the player side to accomplish the truly sadistic raids that EQ1 players are used to in a 20 man raid.
I'm talking about boss mobs that can crit on a single hit and flat out kill the best dressed/skilled tank on the server:D i'm talking about needing a full 2 groups(12 people) JUST to deal with 1 sub boss add... i'm talking about splitting up the raid to 3 sub raids of 24 man each while the main tank/cleric group hold down the main boss.
how many WoW raids really REQUIRED a main tank, a secondary tank, a tertiary tank, AND a backup/rampage tank behind that:D why do you need so many? because at any given time the main tank or the rampage/backup tank can be 1 rounded and someone else will need to take their spot immediately or the raid = wipe:D
and i've only covered a single aspect (tanking) side of the raid. there are so many other things that can make a raid go wipe if just 1 person makes 1 mistake in the whole raid:D how many raids have you been to where any single person dying will trigger a domino effect and wipe the entire raid?
I think there are aspects of both old and new school that are good.
From new school, I love that you can search for a party for a dungeon or a quest or something through a user interface instead of talking through chat channels or asking guild members and all that falderal, and be matched with people from other servers when your own might not be that populated or generally is too far ahead from where you are. On the one hand it's not as fun as making friends, but on the other it saves a ridiculous amount of time when you think about it, and nobody enjoys sitting there begging for a group.
From old school, I like that you somehow encourage yourself to explore the game world. In new school you're not encouraged because it's not progression to do that, areas like that aren't part of any plot points or quests. There's something to be said for being dropped into a game world and figuring everything out yourself. I have fond memories of Graal Online and how there was nothing in-game telling you how to get more HP, the items were just scattered across the game world and you had to come across them... same thing for all the items/tools/equipment that you could get. In an environment like that, people are encouraged to talk to each other, help each other, and work together. You can also find out through player-written FAQs and Wikis and that kind of thing which also promotes a sense of community.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
Actionmmorg my thought are almost identical to yours. Modern themeparks focus on the stuff that the majority love but have neglected mist other parts of the virtual worlds they present. The result is obvious to those that do not care about unbalanced and greedy profits - stagnation. The answer is that people need to realise that given enough minority activities do matter- it provides something for everyone, and it is ok to have activities in a game that you dont like, because there are other activites you will like. This is what a virtual world is all about.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
MOBAs are basically identical to GW battlegrounds. Its even 5v5. Heck Guild Wars characters are even only 2 levels above the max level in LoL. The thing is that battle grounds break immersion. The limitation makes no sense from a lore perspective. But I guess thats just not something that interests most gamers.
They only care about Harry Potter because its popular and they only know about Game of Thrones because it had an HBO series with lots of nude scenes. They only know about LoTR because of the movies.
Too bad they can't just stick with WoW and SWTOR. They have to use up 99% of the game industry resources for their story content that they blow through in a few months when a single successful sandbox with no expansions could keep 80% of sandbox players busy for 5 years.
I guess I never played those GW BGs, since I only remember it being team deathmatch with no item progression or mid-match level progression or NPCs.
Your last paragraph is a tad confusing, since most gamers areplaying WOW and SWTOR. And most industry resources are (obviously, intelligently) aimed at providing what most players want. And while I think a very gameplay-heavy sandbox has potential, "80%" of the current sandbox crowd represents a tiny fraction of the overall playerbase. Simulation games (which include classic sandboxes) are less popular and have always been less popular since the very beginnings of videogames.
Also, not sure for the need of randomly insulting the scifi/fantasy knowledge of the average gamer. You're a pretty angry guy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Checkout latest Archeage videos and Jake songs understanding of mmorgs and virtual worlds. Now compare the potential innovation on offer here against this years stale offerings. This is a game to get excited about!
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Note development resource inthis game is spread across many of the things that people consider dull, and lo we are seeing innovation, and new exciting activities emerging as a result.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Tell me how you guys feel about this but the summary of the old school vs new school argument seems to me as follows:
Old school players look at time invested in a game as a good thing, the more time I have invested into obtaining a goal the better I feel for completing it. It gives it a sense of worth and puprose. It sets you apart from the majority of players and maybe only a few people have gotten this far it makes you feel that much better about it.
New school players look at time spent as unneccessary, small micro achievements and reinforcing the idea that you are succeeding often is the way to go. While time spent may or may not make a goal achieved feel better it's not fair to the player who can't spend as much time and should be rewarded for his efforts regardless of time invested.
The genre WAS dominated by us true nerds that loved role play and exploration and to team up with ppl to conquer dungeons.
Now this genre has become too popular and is overflowing with the 15 year old fan boys who don’t know what to do with themselves if they are not HAND HELD through a stupid story line and hand fed boring quest content with a silver spoon.
Since wow is now the developers poster child for mmos, they will continue to create the linear boring mmo's where you quest by yourself to to kill 10 boars, grab 15 black rocks, and speak to 7 other npcs. GRATS now I am eligible to go to the next zone and do the exact same thing - Hope there isn’t any other players over there to steal my quest mobs!!!
Until they start making MMOs like they used to be. You won’t see me playing crap like STWOR.
Been saying that myself. The same thing happened with FPS games.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
Comments
To claim TOR wasn't an RPG would get you puzzled stares from anyone who played any videogame RPG made in the last 25+ years. It's very obviously an RPG.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That is why there use to be a premium market for MMORPG's. Since your argument also mirrors dochtomy within the playerbase.
YOUNG players want to kill and focus mainly on that, because they don't yet have fully developed cognascent skills, wich allow them to play subtextual meta-games along within their MMORPG.
Elf in an enchanted woodland in UO was preserved by roleplayers for years. Nothing a developer can do to match that.
It comes down to that young kids want to be entertained, while the older gen (or up-n-coming) graduates from WoW want to be challenged! (No matter what anyone says... who can argue that early EQ offered the most incredible challanges offered @ any depth, in any other MMORPG.)
It was sooo challenging that It was soon ruined by flagging & instancing because the younger gen had to spend years to become as advances as a guild as some 7 year clans. SOE cowtowed the the WoW gen and ruin Everquest as a challenging game. It's laughable by yeaser-years standards. The Progression servers proves this.
Challenging game are a costly choice, because the customer can be quite noisy and whinning and complain about being in our world now... and demand less challanging content.
Secondly, I feel the market will shift into upgraded accounts. Once SOE comes out with EQx.. they can again charge a premium, hopefully $25/month. With active and live GM roleplaying like in the old'n days.
Old vs New:
Oldschool = deeper crafting, deeper plotting, deeper delivery of war & battle. Freeform open worlds. Your in-game actions stand for who you are.
Newschool = instant gear, stats, scores, showboating, glitz, glamour. Their perceived by their online persona (facebook, twitter, vent/ts, forums)... than known for anything whorthwhile done in game. (ie: accomplishments).
At about age 27 they stop liking WoW's 1 dimensional play and graduate looking for something moAr... just like COD n00bs finding BF3.. & learning how bad they really are. It comes down to how much your willing to spend/invest in yourself... moneterilly and timewise.
this makes no sense from my point of view. So I ask, define this "Challenge" you speak of. I don't understand how you people view Challenege. Seems like Challenege is a synonym for time sinking correct? Because for example. I remember people saying WoW is easy. I assume, when somebody uses the word "Easy" they mean the opposite of Challenging.first am I wrong to assume that when you people say WoW is "EASY" you mean the opposite of a challenge?
well if that's the case, than why is it, that most of these same players that complained about WoW being easy, never completed the Hard Core raid dungeons? Even in WoTLK, I seen this argument from players that didn't beat hardcore Lich King. So I get a little confused by what they mean by challenging. Because if you can't beat something, doesn't that make it a challenge? This is why I assume people are confusing the terms "Challegen" with the term "Time Sink".
matter of fact, I have another question for the people here. Is GUILD WARS 2, a more old school MMO, or new school MMO?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
If the game last say 5 years then the RPG element probably represents 10 - 20% of that time of that time which is maybe where the confusion comes from. End game raiding is not RPG. The levelling/storytelling is however and I agree it is as much RPG as anything else out there.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Counting blades of grass on the lawn is easy, it's just not very fun. Most people never did the raid content in WOW because they don't find that content all that fun. Difficulty and challenge had nothing to do with it unless we are talking about the ability to tolerate the elitist attitudes prevalent in most raiding guilds - that's a challenge all its own.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
By that argument no MMO ever is "hard".
To make a game "hard" and create difficulty, you would need to have an environment that is non-min-max-able and relies purely on skill.
EVE is not hard, it only requires you to avoid getting ganked while mining and keep paying monthly so your skills lvl.
I think personally that WoW perfectly found the balance by making leveling and questing almost absurdly easy (i mean shit if you can actually solo Felreavers as a frostmage at lvl70) but making raiding (relatively) challenging.
Its because the game-mechanics of your class really don't count for that much in raiding if you can not coordinate as a group in endgame raids.
This is what MMOs should go towards, the challenge needs to come from the social interaction and organization/coordination, not -necessarily- from the gameplay mechanics themselves.
Anyone that has raided at some point or another will tell you that not standing in the fire is actually challenging when you first raid, because its a different game than your leveling experience where 3 mobs can be wailing on you for hours without little to no effect.
I mean especially when you are playing "easy" lvling classes like Hunter or Paladin the experience at endgame changes. You can't out-heal enrages, or insta-kill events.
By no means do i think that WoW does the -best- job in the challenge department, but its doing a good job, and most importantly, the challenge is in the right place.
This. =D
To add, atleast if some games had actual diversity instead of BS add-ons like cutscenes and crappy rifts that have made no difference to the situation at allll!
Like a previous poster said different playstyles like blade&soul tries to incorporate which still wouldn't be enough to get me playing again.
MoS resurecci
The problem is that there is a disagreement/difference in preferences in terms of what quality makes an MMO stand out from other games.
Most of the "older" school games, the ones prior to 2003, were quite virtual world oriented. This was true of UO, EQ1 (to a large degree), SWG, EVE -- all 2003 or earlier releases. Some of these games had raids, all of them had ways to advance to character and so on, but what made them special was the virtual world they created and the interaction between players in that virtual wold.
Beginning in 2004, with WoW, the MMO model was retuned to emphasize gameplay and game-iness over virtual world. Azeroth is a virtual world, but it's a tongue-in-cheek one that doesn't take itself seriously as a virtual world, and sees itself as a backdrop to the multiplayer gameplay (i.e., instances and raids) that the game is focused on.
So the older school gamers tend to see the virtual world aspects as what makes an MMO special, while the WoW and post-WoW MMO players tend to see endgame multiplayer content as what makes an MMO special. It really is as simple as that. And because WoW was so successful in doing it Blizzard's way, that paradigm of MMO design has virually taken over the entire space. This is also because the older school virtual world type playerbase is much smaller than the endgame multiplayer content playerbase is.
Min-maxing is skill. Anything based on player decisions (tactics/strategy) or execution (twitch) is skill. And min/maxing is part of a game's strategic skill.
Leveling in WOW basically acts like a tutorial, which is why it's fairly rapid. (Although if you tank and group while leveling, and pull huge groups, you can change WOW from a tutorial into a challenging and rewarding experience.) Still, WOW would clearly be better with difficulty options (so you can choose for the game to be harder, with the tradeoff of faster advancement and better rewards.)
Challenge which is purely social interaction results in things like open world PVP which feel completely crappy (you win by zerging; you zerg by amassing a large guild/alliance.)
Challenge in games is about the more interesting choices (learning to react to not standing in the fire), and is usually best when there's a lot of individually simple mechanics layered onto one another. In WOW's case it's a lot of simple minigames layered on top of one another: the personal rotation minigame, the threat/aggro minigame, the prefight min-max minigame, the boss mechanic minigame(s), the team coordination minigame, and sometimes an environmental hazard minigame too.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Any game where the number of humans per team is not hardcoded results in zerging. Period. How can a virtual world avoid zerging? Its not possible. In fact most non zerg pvp in any game is "battlegrounds" where its capped 20v20 or w/e. Battlegrounds are basically just MOBAs stuck in WoW.
Frankly I think it could do WoW a lot of good to make in-game MOBAs a much larger part of the game. That makes them LoL but with other stuff too. Although of course LoL can be F2P and WoW isn't.
The only way that zerging doesn't happen irl all the time, still happens most of the time, is that our world has "content" that cannot be accessed by everyone, much like the strategies of Germany in WW2 when fighting the whole world. Hell 50% of German strategy was "LOL france logged off, aka sleeping, night attack!"
Well that's the point -- using game rules to prevent zerging, in the name of creating good gameplay. You can do this in the game world, although existing examples are clunky (locking world raid bosses to a single raid and stunning/killing anyone else who gets involved, for example.) Without such rules, any non-instanced gameplay is never really going to be all that difficult because it can simply be zerged -- and without challenge, there's not much gameplay.
I'm not sure why you'd compare BGs with MOBAs specifically. BGs are similar to all good PVP games.
Good PVP is about competition. As such, adding any game mechanic which isn't skill (like zerging) reduces the importance of skill, and worsens the competitive nature of the game. Non-skill factors dilute PVP, basically. The more of them which exist, the worse the PVP is.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MOBAs are basically identical to GW battlegrounds. Its even 5v5. Heck Guild Wars characters are even only 2 levels above the max level in LoL. The thing is that battle grounds break immersion. The limitation makes no sense from a lore perspective. But I guess thats just not something that interests most gamers.
They only care about Harry Potter because its popular and they only know about Game of Thrones because it had an HBO series with lots of nude scenes. They only know about LoTR because of the movies.
Too bad they can't just stick with WoW and SWTOR. They have to use up 99% of the game industry resources for their story content that they blow through in a few months when a single successful sandbox with no expansions could keep 80% of sandbox players busy for 5 years.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I don't think it is that simple actually. I read somewhere, and believe this to be true from my own experience, that most people (even in WoW) don't get to end game and a only a small percentage actually regularly participate in raids. '
Therefore I propose that both old and new schoolers believe that the progression and the virtual world are what make a game great. However they fundamentally disagree on what makes a great game and what makes a great virtual world. IMO timesinks don't make a great game, nor do they make a great world.
Blizzard was successfull because they still gave the feeling of participating in a world, while playing a great game.
Venge
There's also the huge and simple fact that most people who play in this genre today never played anything but a WoW-era themepark. This is true of the vast majority of the millions of gamers WoW brought in. We have no idea at all what percentage of the current MMO population would like an "older" style game, because few of them have even tried one. I came to this genre from FPS games and never played Pen and Paper or MUDs at all, and I gravitate towards sandbox gameplay.
Also, one of the key reasons for WoW's success was accessibility. You could play WoW on almost any computer whereas a lot of other games were far too demanding for standard non-gaming computers. As I have said before, WoW was a perfect storm at the right time. I doubt we will see many games that big ever again. If we do, they will be few and far between. A decade or more.
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
I think outwith the intensely dogmatic and prescriptive the division is almost an artificial one.
Why can't we like old school (sandbox or whatever) and new school (themepark or whatever)?
I am happy to play both if they are fun. I have played both btw as there have been PLENTY of sandbox AND themepark mmorpgs released over the past 10 years. The sandboxes - with the exception of EVE - have just not been that good, not necessarily because they are sandbox, but because they weren't enough fun to a large enough player base.
I also think people who promote "old-school" will have harder time convincing anyone until they prove that old-school can be the new new-school; that there can be a new kind of sandbox that somehow appeals to more than just a niche.
I certainly like single-player sandbox games so the genre isn't dead; it just needs a successful (by that I mean popular) mmorpg model. I think that the idea (professed by both sides of the argument btw) that sandbox needs to be uber-grindy and demands a gameplay style that is punishing for casual players and rewards only the hardcore holds back the debate. Skyrim isn't grindy, is casual friendly and it has many features that would be considered sandbox, at least in a single player context; and of course is one the most popular and respected games released to date.
Aside: I remember the old days when I was a junior and senior high school student when me and my mates at the same time (as school finished at the same time for all of us) would have 3-6 hours every night to chill and play Dungeons and Dragons, even more over the holidays. Those were great days and good memories; we would have loved old-school mmorpgs back then because we had the time, the obsessiveness and the freedom to be hardcore. I remember spending summer months entirely focused - and I mean entirely - on making new Call of Cthulhu scenarios for my mates to play. There are people who are able to extend that playstyle into mmorpgs well beyond their school and college days. However, for most of us adulthood prohibits us being too hardcore and we become casual due to work and family. A successful sandbox mmorpg is going to have to recognize this demographic and make a game that doesn't punish players because they can only play for a few hours a week.
This is why some recent attempts at some indie sandbox mmorpgs have failed: they are usually low budget and it shows (i.e. Mortal online) and sometimes (i.e. darkfall) they were so aggressively proud to be niche and hardcore and uncompromising to casual players as some perverse badge of honour that it seemed like they wanted us casual player weaklings to stay away so as not to pollute their hardcore gene-pool.
Give me a big-budget sandbox mmorpg version of Skyrim and I would be thrilled. Until then I am playing theme-park not because I am hardwired and predisposed toward theme-park, but because I have yet to play a current sandbox mmorpg (with the exception of EVE) that is actually fun, welcoming and casual-friendly; make one with a decent enough budget and support and I would play it.
Regards
Melmoth
That's pretty much the state of affairs of the MMORPG community in general. "New" is happy, "Old" isn't... and what they are looking for doesn't seem to fit well into a single game.
I'll tie this in with the sandbox vs. themepark debate. One flaw I see in themeparks is that they eventually become so top heavy that there is little choice but to abandon the journey part of the game since most everyone has "been there, done that", and set a direction that the game becomes endgame raiding centric.
It is my opinion that WoW tried to address this by bringing new life back into the journey with the shattering event and nearly full rebuild of the Vanilla zones content. To be honest, I'm not sure how well that plan worked for them. For me, I'm cheesed that they reworked the Vanilla zones that I've had much fun in. The fact that they went with long chain quests that use phasing made this worse because it's virtually impossible to get friends to help with questing because they seem to always be out of phase.
I'm also unsure if the Vanilla zone rework has had much of an impact on "New" players because to them the journey part of the game is very little more than an entertaining tutorial to burn through, or completely skip by running dungeons over and over using LFD tool.
What I find ironic is Blizzards solution to the statement that there's nothing to do at endgame other than PVP or raid. Their solution? Make raiding available to casuals with the LFR tool. I see this as an attempt to convert the rest of the playerbase into "casual raiders", which seems somewhat of a self-contradiction in my eyes.
Same stuff different day. I can't fault devs for going where the money is. I can't fault players for wanting more than a gear treadmill with optional capture-the-flag PVP. It's just the way things have worked out.
or when BF3 people finally graduate to ARMA2.... and found out they actually have to learn how to shoot a gun:D
I hate to simplify things this much but it really comes down to numbers:)
content designed to require 20 people can not possibiliy be harder then content designed to REQUIRE 72 people. there isnt enough resources from the player side to accomplish the truly sadistic raids that EQ1 players are used to in a 20 man raid.
I'm talking about boss mobs that can crit on a single hit and flat out kill the best dressed/skilled tank on the server:D i'm talking about needing a full 2 groups(12 people) JUST to deal with 1 sub boss add... i'm talking about splitting up the raid to 3 sub raids of 24 man each while the main tank/cleric group hold down the main boss.
how many WoW raids really REQUIRED a main tank, a secondary tank, a tertiary tank, AND a backup/rampage tank behind that:D why do you need so many? because at any given time the main tank or the rampage/backup tank can be 1 rounded and someone else will need to take their spot immediately or the raid = wipe:D
and i've only covered a single aspect (tanking) side of the raid. there are so many other things that can make a raid go wipe if just 1 person makes 1 mistake in the whole raid:D how many raids have you been to where any single person dying will trigger a domino effect and wipe the entire raid?
I think there are aspects of both old and new school that are good.
From new school, I love that you can search for a party for a dungeon or a quest or something through a user interface instead of talking through chat channels or asking guild members and all that falderal, and be matched with people from other servers when your own might not be that populated or generally is too far ahead from where you are. On the one hand it's not as fun as making friends, but on the other it saves a ridiculous amount of time when you think about it, and nobody enjoys sitting there begging for a group.
From old school, I like that you somehow encourage yourself to explore the game world. In new school you're not encouraged because it's not progression to do that, areas like that aren't part of any plot points or quests. There's something to be said for being dropped into a game world and figuring everything out yourself. I have fond memories of Graal Online and how there was nothing in-game telling you how to get more HP, the items were just scattered across the game world and you had to come across them... same thing for all the items/tools/equipment that you could get. In an environment like that, people are encouraged to talk to each other, help each other, and work together. You can also find out through player-written FAQs and Wikis and that kind of thing which also promotes a sense of community.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
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rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I guess I never played those GW BGs, since I only remember it being team deathmatch with no item progression or mid-match level progression or NPCs.
Your last paragraph is a tad confusing, since most gamers are playing WOW and SWTOR. And most industry resources are (obviously, intelligently) aimed at providing what most players want. And while I think a very gameplay-heavy sandbox has potential, "80%" of the current sandbox crowd represents a tiny fraction of the overall playerbase. Simulation games (which include classic sandboxes) are less popular and have always been less popular since the very beginnings of videogames.
Also, not sure for the need of randomly insulting the scifi/fantasy knowledge of the average gamer. You're a pretty angry guy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Tell me how you guys feel about this but the summary of the old school vs new school argument seems to me as follows:
Old school players look at time invested in a game as a good thing, the more time I have invested into obtaining a goal the better I feel for completing it. It gives it a sense of worth and puprose. It sets you apart from the majority of players and maybe only a few people have gotten this far it makes you feel that much better about it.
New school players look at time spent as unneccessary, small micro achievements and reinforcing the idea that you are succeeding often is the way to go. While time spent may or may not make a goal achieved feel better it's not fair to the player who can't spend as much time and should be rewarded for his efforts regardless of time invested.
Been saying that myself. The same thing happened with FPS games.
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.