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The requiem of the "DING!!!"
Alasti
Member UncommonPosts: 287
A lot of you who will read this post will not appreciate the nostalgia of the title of this thread because you are too young to have played Everquest in its earliest stages. I use Everquest to make my point, not because I think it was the greatest game ever (although I did think that for many many years, and quite honestly it is still on my "Top 3 games of all-time list), but because it was in the game of Everquest that the "DING!!!" was born. I will explain...
In Everquest, leveling was by no means guaranteed. Even in the earliest levels of the game (levels 2-5), leveling was slow and difficult. I say difficult, not because it felt like work gaining the levels, but because death was scary. Death was meaningful because when you died, you lost experience AND whatever you had on your body, including all weapons, armor and whatever was in your bag. You were teleported back to town, naked, and were required to go back to your corpse (exactly where it fell) and get all your stuff back (even if that was in the deepest level of a dungeon). This took time, not only because you had to travel there, but a LOT of the time, you were not entirely sure WHERE you died. I honestly believe I died at least 20 times before I got to level 2, as I was a lowly wizard, wielding my worn staff at level 1 skeletons that quite frankly were at least equal to me, if not more powerful. When I finally got to level 2, (TWO!!), I was STOKED!! My friend who I was playing with truly congratulated me on my achievement, as he was still working on getting to my new uber-high level. When he did get there, I truly congratulated him as well, because I KNEW how hard it was to level as I had just been there.
It wasn't until several WEEKS later, when I was fighting in the Oasis killing caimans and running in terror from the Sand Giants, that I started to see people shouting to the zone "DING!!!!" People would shout "DING!!" whenever they would gain a level. In Everquest, the game would sound a loud and shaking "DIIINNNNGGG!!!! when you would level. I still remember the sound vividly! It was AWESOME. I too started shouting "DING!!" every time I leveled as well (which was about once a WEEK). I would get at least a half dozen to as many as a dozen or more "CONGRATS!" from players I had never met. They were congratulating me on an accomplishment that had meaning. High level players congratulated me too, as they knew what it took to level. Not every player in the game even got to level 15, so when someone shouted "DING 15!!!!", it truly was an accomplishment! When was the last time you heard someone in a game (Not in your guild, or a friend of yours) announce to the world that they had gained a level? Why would anyone do that, since EVERYONE who plays these new MMO's nowadays are GUARANTEED to gain 10 levels in the first 2 hours? People would think someone was crazy for telling the zone that they just got to level 8. In the old games, getting to level 8 was a BIG DEAL.
I remember in Everquest seeing another player flying (he was actually levitating, but you can see where I would be slightly confused). When I saw him floating there, my reaction was that of awe and wonder. I remember HOPING that one day I would get to be level 20 and get to fly myself. At that point in the game, I was not sure I would ever get there, and I was not guaranteed that I would ever be able to fly. When I did get there, it felt AWESOME! It was a true gaming accomplishment.
What games lack now is ANY real feeling of accomplishment. A lot of people reading this will balk at this and tell me that getting to level ____ in the game ____IS an accomplishment. What made accomplishments in games like EQ MUCH more significant is that when you died, you lost experience and your gear (until you got it back, which instantly became a non-experience quest in-and-of-itself that was put on the fore-front). You didn't lose just some paltry amount of experience. Deaths in Everquest cost you a few HOURS. And getting your corpse back many times cost you your life again, and again. There were many days that my toon had less experience at the end of a 4-6 hour session than he had when I started....making leveling all the more rare and important.
I know that a lot of people simply wouldn't play a game like that now. And I understand...you don't WANT to EVER lose experience...you don't want to EVER go backwards... Hey...I get it...me either....I never LIKED dying, or losing experience, or having a day where I was a level LOWER than when I started. But I do understand that with real risk, comes real reward. What do I mean when I say "real" reward? I am not talking about a reward I get in the game like a new sword or armor or even a mount. The reward I am talking about is the reward of the feeling of accomplishment. The feeling that I did something hard and succeeded. Gaining a level was a BIG deal...as it should be in my opinion!
I miss the "DING!!" in games....not because I don't hear them (for the love of God, I hear them all the time), but because they don't mean anything.....
Comments
I do recall and relished that sound
Video for your viewing (reminiscing) pleasure
- 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 might be wrong but that was just the sound of a quest or turn in ding. The level ding was quite a bit more jarring
As shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZlCGGO8NNw
(skip to about 1:05)
They was a certain irony that your video had an ad to Play DC Universe Onine Free!
Quite agree with the OP, levelling was a real achievement in the early days, now it is an "achievement" on par with entering a new zone.
No, that was just a hand-in noise. This is the level-up noise.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7070432/eq_levelup.wav
How I loved it, when levelling MEANT something.
Definitely quest turn in sound :-).
Memories...ahhhh
I do miss the nostalgia days of EQ 1. Yes you can play EQ 1 today, but it is not the same game as it was back then. That "/shout (or /ooc) DING!!" meant the world to you and the jealousy and congratulations from everyone else. There was a certain amount of pride, respect and just a great community crafted from the labors of death. Having random strangers help you get back your corpse. Paying people for corpse runs even. It was awesome. I think it would be wise for any game company to see the value in this "hardcore" community that yearns for a game with this feeling (as you put OP) of accomplishment.
Brought a sliver of a tear to my eye. :-)
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Something you never see anymore a low level almost dying in combat. Now a days its rare if your bar goes below 75% in a combat as you level.
A most excellent post and I agree.
When I first played EQLive just getting to level 20 was a big deal. It took weeks and you could petition a GM to get your last name. The whole zone would congrats you just for hitting level 20. It was a major milestone and by then you'd probably been slaughtered by giants, had miserable deaths in dungeon zones, and were fairly hardened to the rough life in EQ. You might've soloed the first few levels and struggled doing it but by 20 you'd already been spending most of your time in groups.
Hitting 50 in early EQ was also a big deal. It took months. It wasn't a "ding" now I can finally play the "real game" - instead it was the capper off of a long and enjoyable journey, the summation of a great deal of accomplishment.
There were times in EQ, or DAoC, or even AC, where you could spend days leveling the same general area. You would often go from, holy crap, I can't handle this, this is insane, to finally being on par but still having to tread lightly, to getting to I own this area and it's time to move on but let me just beat down a few more things here to enact revenge for a few days ago.
I've played almost every major MMORPG to come out and a lot of lesser ones. I played WoW for 6.5 years. I only played EQ for 1-2 years. I will never forget places like crushbone, or unrest, or befallen, or ANY of the dungeon zones in EQ. There has never been anything remotely like those places for danger, intensity, or feeling of accomplishment when you finally master and dominate them. I will always remember MOST zones in EQ because in EQ you spent quite a bit of time in each zone, since you didn't make 5-10 levels a day blasting thru forgettable content. In new MMORPGs it's like zones are eye candy, something to admire as you blitz thru the game. In EQ you lived in the zones for days and you respected the content.
Many people bemoan leveling in MMORPGs and just want to blast thru it to get to "the real game." I never felt that way in EQ. I always felt engaged and felt like every level meant something and was an accomplishment. Even doing camp and grind for days on end, something I ultimately think is fairly unsophisticated content, I felt like I was fully engaged at all times. Leveling in modern MMORPGs may sometimes have slick content that feels like something that should be in a single player RPG but it's always kind of lacking because single player RPGs happen to do single player content a lot better. Plus, we're playing MMORPGs - it shouldn't be a single player experience! And it should be something that's such a boring exercise in gaining xp to get to cap that so many people just want it over with as fast as possible. Devs think dressing up leveling to be more like single player RPGs makes it more interesting but they're so very wrong - what makes leveling better is to do it like the classic MMORPGs where leveling actually feels dangerous and leveling itself feels like an accomplishment, not just something to get thru.
In FFXIV when my guildies ding 50 or any level I'm like, so what. Leveling in that game is beyond easy, is super fast, and in no way is an accomplishment unless you aim very, very low. When people die in FFXIV and ask for rezzes in public chat I'm like, really? You want to publicly admit that you just died to the easiest content ever put in an MMORPG?
For the longest time I've been against the idea of xp loss on death, or dropping your gear, as being just not fun. But, more and more I'm thinking it's something this genre is badly missing. There is no sense of danger anymore. No tension. Very little risk, because when there's nothing to lose, risk has no real meaning. Part of the appeal of the older MMORPGs, and part of the fun, was the tension, the knowing that if you made a mistake you were going to pay, and the reward of playing carefully and smart to avoid disaster.
There is no incentive to play well while leveling in modern MMORPGs. There's nothing to lose if you fail. You can slop thru with no clue. In the newer games like FFXIV you don't even need to keep your gear up to date. You can just grind fates to speed level with zero risk, zero chance of failure, and no need of a shred of gear, clue, or skill. People complain that, damn, this lvl 50 character has level 20 gear in a lvl 50 instance...wtf-omg-bbg! Well, when the game itself is so patheticly easy that player never had a reason to ever keep their gear up to date, or learn how to play, or give a crap.
In most modern MMORPGs, grouping is entirely optional while leveling. So players not only never learn how to play their class solo worth a crap, but they don't learn how to group or play within a group worth a crap. Oddly, these mostly single player games mutate when it gets to "the real game" at endgame where it's often mostly about grouping, and then these players are useless and hit a wall of "who pulled the rug out" on my solo easy mode? One might think, WHY? WHY have two distinctly separate game experiences...the leveling of solo easy mode and the grouping against sometimes challenging content at endgame. What does this accomplish? (other than to sucker a lot of soloists into buying and paying for a while before they figure out they never wanted anything to do with this style of game to begin with)
To me, games are boring when they're too easy. I like some element of challenge. Sadly it seems like so many modern MMORPG players want their gaming to be something like TV. Just tune in and zone out. Go thru the motions. I guess it makes corporations money to supply this but to me it's just sickening. I don't watch much TV either. I prefer entertainment that's a little more stimulating than sitting and staring. It would be so refreshing to see a new MMORPG that felt more like the classics and less like the modern fast food/TV style. Who cares if it doesn't appeal to the drooling masses? If you can make a game a smaller number of people would love and sub to for years and still be profitable...would it be so bad?
The whole tension and feeling of danger thing is something that in many genres go out of their way to accomplish, because it makes for a much deeper and intense gaming experience that you remember. MMORPGs USED to be able to provide this with ease, and for whatever reason completely abandoned it. Seemingly just to chase bigger numbers of players, which would seemingly make little sense when those casual masses don't stick around and don't pay subs. Big numbers on release aren't so amazing when your game ends up going F2P - which has what's happened to every MMORPG since WoW except for WoW itself and even bliz is saying WoW will be F2P some day.
Doesn't this mean that the new formula doesn't work as well of the old formula that was never broken to begin with? I guess I don't understand the goal of MMORPG designers any more. If I was designing, I'd rather create a game like EQ, DAoC, FFXI, AC - a game that people will love and play for years and call an online home, and not a game like (pick modern MMORPG here) where players treat it like a single player game, play for a few months, and move on to "the next big thing."
Of course some of the newer MMORPGs end up with diehard fans who stick around for a while, but when those games eventually go F2P they completely sell their soul. F2P is a disaster for any MMORPG since MMORPGs are all about accomplishments, and once you start selling game data for cash, you are diminishing the earning of accomplishments and gutting the core of the game.
There are two reasons why community came about at all in older MMORPGs, why it was so strong, and why modern MMORPGs simply cannot reproduce it. For one, you had to group most of the time, and when you have to group, you end up meeting people and seeing the same people regularly - and people need to play well and not be tools or you stand out in the wrong way. For two, when you are facing very hard challenges and enduring trials, and doing content that leaves a lasting impression, and when you are doing this together (as in a group), it ends up forming strong bonds. It's like enduring trauma brings you together. Newer MMORPGs completely lack this. You can sometimes get it in endgame raiding but outside of that, for the bulk of the game and for the bulk of players, it's not there at all. Sharing idiocies in public chat is not community.
Sure, a lot of players wouldn't like it, but to me, one problem with this genre is the whole idea of "broader appeal". The early MMORPGs were successful. The formula was never broken. The genre never NEEDED to expand and bring in tons of players - especially when those players don't actually LIKE real MMORPG gameplay. Would it be so bad if the genre returned to its more hardcore roots and far higher quality of gameplay if that meant fewer, more high quality and serious players were playing, if the games could still be successful? Does it really help an MMORPG to sell a million+ boxes just to fail to stay sub-based because casual players don't stick with games and the games themselves aren't worthy of subs anyways because they play like ultra easy and weak single player RPGs?
I can sort of see why MMORPG devs wanted to try to bring in more players. At the time of WoW online gaming was still fairly new and exploding. Trying to entice new players to MMORPGs was a good idea. But, those times are long gone. Everything is online now, especially games. There is a huge array of online gaming choices for players now. Going with casual design is an even worse idea now because if you don't fully hook your players they absolutely will be flitting around between a lot of different games, not just MMORPGs. It would seem to make sense to try to create a more gripping product to isolate a particular part of the online gaming population - ie, make a serious MMORPG for the more serious MMORPG player - something many of us badly want and would stick with IF somebody would just make such a game and it not suck.
I would agree that the sense of accomplishment is missing in modern MMORPGs. Content is trivial and nothing to get worked up about. What's really bizarre is that many MMORPGs now have achievements (which are a joke in some of the newer MMORPGs like FFXIV) whereby you can do side things in content, or do content in bizarre or extreme ways, or do long grinds or find and seeks, and THIS is where your achievements/accomplishments come from. The main content in the game is a joke. You have to do these things specifically designed to add some degree of personal challenge and that often give no reward (or no gear/progressive reward like the ez-mode content gives out non stop) other than the warm fuzzy feeling of actually doing something hard. The mainstream content is a joke by comparison usually. It's a really weird setup.
Sadly I see little hope on the horizon. MMORPG designers are going EVEN MORE heavily into solo (to the point of having no structured grouping or defined roles at all, ala GW2) and fast food gaming content instead of returning to the always successful and still successful roots of the genre. All that matters is how many players you can brag about having tried your game, even if ultimately those players bail out quick. All that matters is corporate profit. Devs are coming up with new business models to make money off of casual gamers and players who do not stick around for the long haul.
So instead of going back to the genre's roots - to what worked and was never broken - devs instead keep tweaking and dinking around and producing games that more and more are becoming something that don't resemble MMORPGs at all. As someone who considers MMORPGs to be the best games and best gaming genre in all of gaming, I find this absolutely crushing.
What's more important...creating some of the most amazing games ever or mutilating those games to try to get more people to play them?
Chess is a hard game. Some people love it. Some people can't understand it at all. Some people play it and like it but never get into the deeper analysis and strategies. Nobody has ever said, you know, if we dumbed Chess down and made it more shiny, we could get more people to play it. Nobody has ever said, if chess was more accessible, more people would play it! Because...if you change chess it would no longer be chess. I kind of feel the same about MMORPGs. It's getting to the point where the gameplay has changed so much that it no longer resembles real MMORPGs anymore. MMORPGs have become slightly glorified single player games....and I weep.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
HEAR HEAR!!!
Its like I keep telling people, and even the 'older vets' of mmo's will often disagree... its the NEGATIVES of a game, if said negatives are part of the gameplay, that make a game truly great. We just do NOT have that these days, not JUST because of 'free power' in the cash shops, or the pretty much instant lv 1-10, or the games focus on having hundreds and hundreds of levels to gain...
In AC, if u died, was pretty much like eq, except we had it 'easy' in that dropped a corpse with our high value items left behind.. die too often and you will eventually lose everything. Also, we had it easy in the sense that we could have friends retrieve our corpses for us. (Not easy, esp when you die at the bottom of the acid pools, used to be that 1 corpse would result, over the next few hours, in 15+ corpses of doogooders trying to save eachothers items)
But yes, without any real 'cost' for being stupid, we can pretty go 'glass cannon' and get that big shiny new level as fast as possible, without any real consequences if we fail: Just press respawn button and run back.
They have dumbed down Chess.
That's why we have Checkers, and Monoply, and Chutes & Ladders.
The problem isn't that the MMO industry moved on - many of those old games, including EQ, are still there.
The problem is that ~we~ moved on, as players.
If you wanted to play the original EQ, as it was in release, you can do that. Most of that original content is there; you just need to choose not to use all the added conveniences that have been put in place since.
However, not many people do that. Because conveniences are nice.
People play Chess, but not nearly as many as play Monopoly, or Scrabble.
If you're referring to the "Ever" part of it then yeah, I got that ~12 years ago (whenever it launched) and I realized it was going to las.. take forever.
I love EQ btw, and I'm awaiting the day that I can play/create something of equal quality.
I was thinking the same thing.
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
I also don't like when games (or successive versions of older games) get easier over time. Like, initially Runescape's death penalty was that you lost all but your 3 most valuable items (and there was no money pouch then). That applied to carried inventory and equipped items. It fell on the ground and people swarmed your pile, and it was gone (unless no one was around and you could get back to it within 90 seconds before the game swallowed it...which rarely happened). you also can't change where you respawn to.
While that one last bit remains the same. Now (12 years later) you get to choose the 3 items that you keep, Money that is in the money pouch (which is by default though you can withdrawl some to inventory and bank if you choose to) is exempt, tools as well since there is now a tool belt (which you can put really expensive tools onto), and plethora of other items are exempt as well or are easily reclaimable. To top that off we now have gravestones that (I think) last 10 minutes by default. And longer if you have a higher prayer level (at 70 prayer you can bless grave stones to make them last longer). And given that most monsters are no longer aggressive. It is not usually hard to retrieve if you do die.
Death in my game of choice most of the time now (accept with high level bossing and PvP in wilderness) has become only a minor inconvenience. If all of that were not enough. It can be hard to actually die in normal play. There are foods that heal a lot of constitution. But if your just training and not bossing you likely won't even need them because of regenerative skills.
The end game is still very difficult. and higher level play can still be a challenge. But, the low to mid level play is a walk in the park now, the way I see it. I do have to wonder if people are just getting dumbed down so much that they won't play anything that isn't a challenge. Amongst gaming in general. I can't even recall having seen a game over screen in at least 7-8 years. And, that's the thing...There is hardly any actual loosing now...mostly just getting set back. Or not advancing as quickly as others.
I'd like to take any 10 year old today. set them down in front of super mario brothers and say "Okay...you have one week to figure out how to beat this game in 10 minutes or less...and no youtubing or googling it." I am not sure they could do it. I am not confident that the ability is there.
I don't miss it at all.
"Ding" to me .. means that i wasted a lot of time camping the same mobs again and again. It creates the illusion of an achievement at the time but it means nothing to me now.
I learn not to take games too seriously.
Trust me EVERYONE at the time saw the implied irony in the name. You're well over a decade late in seeing it as well, but you got there in the end.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Well, I never played EQ1...during that time I was in a series MMORPG built on what we now call a social MMO platform. Then I was in runescape...not even sure when the first everquest came out actually, lol.
Yeah realy wish they make thing harder even for low games, i remember dieing at lvl 1 to a large rat as my enchanter hehe
learnt to use my spells (my 2 spell both being self buffs at the time if i recall correctly) after that lol
+1