I think most of old school FFXI feel the same way.I have actually given up hope on these new VERY fast rushed cheap game designs,so i went back to play some FFXI.
As for EQ1 i never really adhered to their systems,as you said yes some ideas were great but i preferred ffxi much more.
The way i felt back then that EQ1 was just not good enough to win me over,i still preferred my fps's Quake and Unreal,However when FFXI came along i was really hooked a game very close to what i wanted in a mmorpg.
Now a days it is impossible to feel exploration because all the games are on rails,heck you don't even need a world because it's all about chasing around yellow markers,the npc's really don't even matter.
Then after playing connect the dots,these new END GAME gimmicks are again nothing to do with a RPG.With end game instances you again don't even need a world,.just click auto dungeon finder.I would say these new designs are extremely close to nothing more than lobby games and YES WOW is one of those.
The MMO aspect grouping and interacting with other players should happen in the MMO world,not via some mechanic that acts like a lobby.I am not the least surprised though because even before i had any idea of Blizzard's popularity,i thought their games were rubbish,i never considered any of them as playable.The ONLY reason thta design became popular is $$$$$,every dev saw dollar signs and jumped on the bandwagon,NOT because the game design made any sense at all,they just saw cha ching.
World of Warcraft was originally designed with hardcore players in mind and it modeled itself off Everquest. This abomination that is WoW today is what happens when you advertise on MTV and turn over the team to a guy like ghostcrawler who basically gutted the game for hardcore players. Now instead of putting content in games they simply put up gating mechanisms so that hardcore players can progress faster than casual players.
WoW was in no way designed for "hardcore" players! It and EQ2 were designed for more casual types. There were a lot of whiners that couln't cut it in EQ that quit because they didn't want to learn their class, learn tactics, learn to work and play well with others, and just plain didn't have the skills to succeed in EQ. In other words, they sucked.
Blizzard simply saw a massive opportunity. People wanted a game that was easy and didn't feel like a second job. EQ took a lot of time to become good and the term EQ Widow was coined to symbolize the time sink. SOE was actually first out with EQ2 but of course the morons running it made some absolutely idiotic decisions looking back. Blizzard was first with the dumbed down, easy mode, and EQ failures/teenager/family gamer that couldn't afford a new rig to play target audience CLONE MMO that was successful.
i totally agree that it's an abomination though. It always has been and has done more to destroy what MMOs were and what the OP and many others miss than any other game ever developed. Games are getting so easy they are boring except to the newer generations of gamers that cry if they die, want to get the best rewards with little or preferably no work required making elite raiders obsolete. Was it this easy at launch? Not by today's standards, but every other company wanted a slice of the casual market and followed the same business model but they had to make games easier and more mind numbing to attract players. WoW of course had to do the same and now you have what we have. Games are so easy a brain dead chimp in a medically induced coma can lead a raid/group and no one would know.
I have ran dungeons with people that literally freaked out if they died one time on the first trip in. I've seen people on this site slam a game if it didn't have rapid travel, flying mounts, max soloable content, group and raid finders and they better be cross server LFG/LFR tools, and OMG! it damn well better allow mods and addons that tell them when to move, which attack to use, gear score, etc, etc.
Here's an idea for all you WoW and newer players (djcincy, none of this is directed at you BTW); stop reading what a mod or addon tells you to do and learn your damn class, learn the damn game mechanics, learn to play with others, and learn the damn telegraphs! A telegraph isn't a red area on the ground either. If that's what you thought you are what's wrong with MMOs these days. In the EQ days you would be suffering from a curable disease known as LOFT. It's pretty bad and can lead to mental and physical harm to the player (you don't qualify to called a gamer if you suffer from it) if not treated early. LOFT is an acronym. It stands for Lack Of F'ing Talent.
One last thing, it doesn't hurt to actually communicate with others playing the same game, at the same time, in the same instance you are playing in. When everyone does that it forms what us old farts used to call a community! Don't be scarred now, you might actually make a real life friend that's actually a living breathing human being! Yes, they do exist, I promise.
All of these EQ1 fans *could* be playing EQ1 basically unmodified. But they aren't.... Why? Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it. So they cooperated the best they could in a bad game. Yes, you miss the feelings of cooperating. But that doesn't mean that you weren't basically cooperating because you had too since your game sucked.
Today, people can choose a game that does not suck. So they don't need to cooperate as much to overcome the shortcomings of the game. This hurts some of the people that liked this facet of games...
I think most of old school FFXI feel the same way.I have actually given up hope on these new VERY fast rushed cheap game designs,so i went back to play some FFXI.
As for EQ1 i never really adhered to their systems,as you said yes some ideas were great but i preferred ffxi much more.
The way i felt back then that EQ1 was just not good enough to win me over,i still preferred my fps's Quake and Unreal,However when FFXI came along i was really hooked a game very close to what i wanted in a mmorpg.
Now a days it is impossible to feel exploration because all the games are on rails,heck you don't even need a world because it's all about chasing around yellow markers,the npc's really don't even matter.
Then after playing connect the dots,these new END GAME gimmicks are again nothing to do with a RPG.With end game instances you again don't even need a world,.just click auto dungeon finder.I would say these new designs are extremely close to nothing more than lobby games and YES WOW is one of those.
The MMO aspect grouping and interacting with other players should happen in the MMO world,not via some mechanic that acts like a lobby.I am not the least surprised though because even before i had any idea of Blizzard's popularity,i thought their games were rubbish,i never considered any of them as playable.The ONLY reason thta design became popular is $$$$$,every dev saw dollar signs and jumped on the bandwagon,NOT because the game design made any sense at all,they just saw cha ching.
World of Warcraft was originally designed with hardcore players in mind and it modeled itself off Everquest. This abomination that is WoW today is what happens when you advertise on MTV and turn over the team to a guy like ghostcrawler who basically gutted the game for hardcore players. Now instead of putting content in games they simply put up gating mechanisms so that hardcore players can progress faster than casual players.
WoW was in no way designed for "hardcore" players! It and EQ2 were designed for more casual types. There were a lot of whiners that couln't cut it in EQ that quit because they didn't want to learn their class, learn tactics, learn to work and play well with others, and just plain didn't have the skills to succeed in EQ. In other words, they sucked.
Blizzard simply saw a massive opportunity. People wanted a game that was easy and didn't feel like a second job. EQ took a lot of time to become good and the term EQ Widow was coined to symbolize the time sink. SOE was actually first out with EQ2 but of course the morons running it made some absolutely idiotic decisions looking back. Blizzard was first with the dumbed down, easy mode, and EQ failures/teenager/family gamer that couldn't afford a new rig to play target audience CLONE MMO that was successful.
i totally agree that it's an abomination though. It always has been and has done more to destroy what MMOs were and what the OP and many others miss than any other game ever developed. Games are getting so easy they are boring except to the newer generations of gamers that cry if they die, want to get the best rewards with little or preferably no work required making elite raiders obsolete. Was it this easy at launch? Not by today's standards, but every other company wanted a slice of the casual market and followed the same business model but they had to make games easier and more mind numbing to attract players. WoW of course had to do the same and now you have what we have. Games are so easy a brain dead chimp in a medically induced coma can lead a raid/group and no one would know.
I have ran dungeons with people that literally freaked out if they died one time on the first trip in. I've seen people on this site slam a game if it didn't have rapid travel, flying mounts, max soloable content, group and raid finders and they better be cross server LFG/LFR tools, and OMG! it damn well better allow mods and addons that tell them when to move, which attack to use, gear score, etc, etc.
Here's an idea for all you WoW and newer players (djcincy, none of this is directed at you BTW); stop reading what a mod or addon tells you to do and learn your damn class, learn the damn game mechanics, learn to play with others, and learn the damn telegraphs! A telegraph isn't a red area on the ground either. If that's what you thought you are what's wrong with MMOs these days. In the EQ days you would be suffering from a curable disease known as LOFT. It's pretty bad and can lead to mental and physical harm to the player (you don't qualify to called a gamer if you suffer from it) if not treated early. LOFT is an acronym. It stands for Lack Of F'ing Talent.
One last thing, it doesn't hurt to actually communicate with others playing the same game, at the same time, in the same instance you are playing in. When everyone does that it forms what us old farts used to call a community! Don't be scarred now, you might actually make a real life friend that's actually a living breathing human being! Yes, they do exist, I promise.
Originally posted by GeezerGamer "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
"85% of the people travel someplace they've already been. Where's the fun in that?"
For that, throw in maybe 2 classes of players that do have teleport abilities (like EQ's Druids and Wizards). Now, you have the very limited ability to fast travel to specified points, but have to go through another player in order to do so, not simply everyone clicking on a point on their map.
This creates player interaction and reasons why it is a multiple player online game
Maybe I should refine my point to "unlimited fast travel sucks."
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.
I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it.
That makes no sense at all....if EQ "sucked", people simply wouldn't have played it. There were a million other games ppl could have played, but they played EQ.
How do ppl even come up with these arguments.
"Many people watched Frozen over 20 times. Basically the movie sucked. But there were no other options. So people made the best of it."
More People than you think bought and tried the old games like EQ, SWG and decided it was not for them and quit than anything else. Those games were always Niche games we just didn't realize it then because the MMORPG market was still developing. Then WoW burst on the scene and showed everyone what MMORPGs were like. Tried SWG played it for two months till I realized how ridiculous it was spending about 3 hours a day running in a game when I could be out getting exercise or doing anything else. A lot of the people that you find playing WoW or some of the WoW clones were the people that played the games your talking about and quit in droves that have now found homes in the newer style of game that is less demanding on our time and respects the fact that we have other interests than just games.
I honestly think mobas should incorporate instanced pve content and expand character development a bit. Maybe expand the lobby a bit too. Whether you consider mmo's getting closer to moba's or moba's getting closer to mmo's is inconsequential, but I think the change will be good for mmorpg's. Even if it means much less major corporations, advertising and less monetary focus on graphics and voice acting.
With mobas/light mmo's/what ever draining the mmorpg market of what is considered the majority, perhaps then it becomes more and more visible that the other end of the spectrum might not have been all in for the "main features". It already is, but with the blurred distinction the majority might not know what they really want as perhaps evidenced by the game hopping phenomenon.
Guess it's slowly happening already. It would be nice to see the terminology get cleared too, but that might be long ways off.
Originally posted by nennafir All of these EQ1 fans *could* be playing EQ1 basically unmodified. But they aren't.... Why? Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it. So they cooperated the best they could in a bad game. Yes, you miss the feelings of cooperating. But that doesn't mean that you weren't basically cooperating because you had too since your game sucked.Today, people can choose a game that does not suck. So they don't need to cooperate as much to overcome the shortcomings of the game. This hurts some of the people that liked this facet of games...
The game itself for the time wasn't terrible and it laid the ground for better games. I'm one of those that think it was just the game in that moment of the internet (before pop culture, memes, etc) when many people just didn't know enough to be a$shats. Even those of us who played at that time have been changed by how the internet has evolved. Those times are just gone now.
Originally posted by BannukGames are getting so easy they are boring except to the newer generations of gamers that cry if they die, want to get the best rewards with little or preferably no work required making elite raiders obsolete.
This is so true, but it's only set to get worse. Soon we'll be at the stage where you Press A to Win!
Of course it's not nostalgia. I don't play Simcity 4 (2003) instead of Simcity 2013 because of nostalgia. I don't play Medieval Total War 2 (2006) instead of Rome Total War 2 (2014) because of nostalgia.
I play those games because they knew who they target audience was, because they had more depth, more scope and provided with more possibilities. I play those games they offer more value than their more recent iterations, because they are much much better. Simple as that.
What I'm not going to play is a game that is designed by people who don't give a f*** or understand the genre, whose only motivation is to generate revenue on the shortest possible time and who try to direct their product to people that don't like nor understand the genre.
This MMORPG business has lost its raison d'etre, it's just a bloody mess, an empty carcass of flash with no soul inside, an insult to intelligence.
Fuck current MMORPGs, the point that they are still called MMORPGs is an obscenity.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar Their purpose is to entertain. If they do not entertain we stop playing. Simple.
So yes fun now. Fun every time i play.
And their is not any more or less depth. Their is virtually no more or less significant decisions to make in the majority of games old or new. Eq did not have more depth. You just liked it more and so participated more or liked it less and participated less.
Ding Ding Ding....someone gets it.
Did you both have "fun" the last time your arse was handed to you on a plate in PvP? This conflation of why we game with "fun" is quite erroneous.
All of these EQ1 fans *could* be playing EQ1 basically unmodified. But they aren't....
I played EQ up until last year or something. I still play of and on.
But your argument isn't any good.
The fact EQ still has people playing after 15 years, even though ppl bail on current MMO after merely weeks or day, kind of invalidates your whole argument and argues against you.
Why people eventually do quit the game has other reasons.
-EQ changed drastically, the game is completely different now. Corpse runs were removed, ooc regen was introduced, death penalty was removed, population is gone to the point that almost everyone multiboxes. People who remember EQ fondly are people who tend to have enjoyed the Kunark expansion, and those ppl won't like how EQ is now I think.
-That thing called Real-life got in the way.
-People might say "Project 1999", well, the problem is that's an illegal server, someone could shut it down, it has an uncertain future and most people want to play a game that is still supported.
Not to mention that EQ is 15 years old now, pretty sure many people are fond of games, but I see few play games over and over for 15 years, because that's what EQ is, you play the same game over and over, you get the same AA and abilities, and they just increase the ranks every time, mobs repeated over and over, same classes, same everything really.
EQ was even worse for endgame because it only had raiding. There was not even real PvP. So all you had was raids.
EQ never pretended to be a PVP game, it never advertised it was a PVP game, and 99% of players couldn't have cared less about PVP.
If you joined EQ expecting PVP, it's your own fault, it's like going to an Italian restaurant complaining they don't offer chinese food.
It says Italian restaurant before you go in. Just like everyone knew EQ was a PVE game.
Not sure why after 15 years of the game being a PVE game, this is just dawning on you or something.
PVE games having raids is normal too, welcome to PVE MMO I guess, not sure what you were expecting as endgame, Dance Dance Revolution?
Trust me I was never expecting PvP from EQ. Common criticism all MMOs receive is that there is nothing to do at endgame if you don't raid. I was pointing out that was case for EQ too. People constantly talk about how the MMOs of old were much better and you never ran out of things to do and complain that more recent MMOs like WoW only have raiding for PvE. My whole post that you cut down was trying to make the point that ultimately EQ's PvE was just as "meaningless" at max level as WoW's is. Cause all you do is loot grind. This was also referring to one of the other posters who accused recent MMOs of only beeing loot grinders which was clearly the case for EQ too. There wasn't much beyond raiding at max level.
There is 0 need for your "welcome to PvE MMOs". I am just saying that all that criticism going around modern MMos can just as easily be applied to EQ and other oldschool MMOs.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by fivoroth So many people frown upon loot grinding but then EQ was the same? EQ had massive grinds. You had to grind like crazy to level up and grind like crazy when you hit max level. EQ was even worse for endgame because it only had raiding. There was not even real PvP. So all you had was raids.
Previously
PVE content in MMOs.
EQ - Start up a toon - grind mobs until max level, raid or die.
WOW - start up a toon - grind quests until max level, raid or die.
See the resemblance?
EQ was a pain to level up at launch.
WoW was a pain to level up at launch.
Fast forward to the present.
EQ is ez as shit to level up.
WoW is ez as shit to level up.
16 YEars later, endgame is still raid or die.
Do you guys see something fundamentally wrong with this?
yep, EQ was a huge grind far worse than wow. but the difference? first of all, you are not getting max level in a week or two like you do in wow (not talking about pl'ing)
even the EQ of today takes a long ass time to get to level 105 because you have to grind AA's or you will be severely gimped post 90.
when i first started playing EQ it took me over a year of dedicated playing to reach max level, which included mostly grouping. so endgame content wasn't quite as important as it is in a game like wow because you are getting to the end game extremely quick.
secondly, back in the day EQ had a huge emphasis on grouping. sure it was a grind but it allowed you to actually chat with people in your group and socialize.
To be honest your way of comparison is very flawed. You're comparing what some consider "classic" EQ to WoW now. When I started playing "classic" WoW in early 2005, it took me 4-5 months to get to max level on my first toon. And since I loved the levelling so much I rolled yet another toon which took me another 4 months. So it was almost a year before I even seriously thought about endgame in WOW. Now that is still quicker than EQ but is certainly not 2 weeks as you said.
There is no way you could've levelled to max level in 2 weeks in WOW cause my /played when I hit max level was more than 14 days. So unless you played 24/7 and you POWERLEVELED you were not getting to max level in 2 weeks, no way.
I grouped a lot in WoW before max level. I did every dungeon on the way to max level and there were tons of group quests which you did in groups. A lot of specs couldn't effectively solo - e.g. warriors. I was a druid and was specced feral for max dmg but if I wanted to be a tank/healer or balance, it would take ages. And it's not like you could easily respec without ramping up HUGE gold bills. This also made dungeons more difficult because your healer was rarely specced for healing because that would mean their levelling would be disgustingly slow. So a lot of people who specced tanks/healers were in groups quite often because of how slow and terrible soloing was.
Grouping was always much faster way of levelling in classic WoW than soloing unless you rolled one of the easiest classes to solo. Cloth wearing classes would often die if they pulled more than 1-2 mobs.
SO when you freaking compare classic EQ compare it to classic WoW. EQ is piss easy to level up NOW, you could easily do it quite quickly with mercs.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
It was a different time that will never return again.
There is so much competition in online gaming these days that an 'old school' theme park just isn't viable anymore. You may look back at 6-12 month level grinds and harsh death penalties as mechanics that made the game 'hard', but the reality is that these systems were just artificial grind meant to extend subscription months.
Games like WoW removed the overly tedious/grindy aspects of MMOs through quest hub grinds and faster leveling speeds which made the genre way more popular. Its only in the last couple years that the standard themepark is losing its appeal.
Um..no...WoW didn't remove them. They just put the grind at the "endgame". Grind forever to get top tier gear.
As if EQ didn't do the same. EQ had sick grind before max level and sick grind at max level. EQ endgame = grind forever to get top tier gear. If you say that's not true you are just being sneaky and dishonest.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it.
That makes no sense at all....if EQ "sucked", people simply wouldn't have played it. There were a million other games ppl could have played, but they played EQ.
How do ppl even come up with these arguments.
"Many people watched Frozen over 20 times. Basically the movie sucked. But there were no other options. So people made the best of it."
lol
So you can't grasp what he is saying or are you trying to play dumb? He meant that there were not many MMO options and that's completely true. If I want to play an MMORPG, Doom will not be an option. So he's right there were very few options when it comes to MMORPGs.
WoW on the other hand thrived despite all the other mmos at its launh and the huge number of MMOs that came out in its 10 year life.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by nennafir All of these EQ1 fans *could* be playing EQ1 basically unmodified. But they aren't.... Why? Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it. So they cooperated the best they could in a bad game. Yes, you miss the feelings of cooperating. But that doesn't mean that you weren't basically cooperating because you had too since your game sucked.Today, people can choose a game that does not suck. So they don't need to cooperate as much to overcome the shortcomings of the game. This hurts some of the people that liked this facet of games...
I am proud to say that I have 5 characters on an emulation server. I do not play a lot, but when I do, I actually (brace yourself) enjoy my time in the game.
As I write this, there over 500 players logged in, 430 on the PvE server and 90 on the PvP one.
- 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
Originally posted by GeezerGamer "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
"85% of the people travel someplace they've already been. Where's the fun in that?"
For that, throw in maybe 2 classes of players that do have teleport abilities (like EQ's Druids and Wizards). Now, you have the very limited ability to fast travel to specified points, but have to go through another player in order to do so, not simply everyone clicking on a point on their map.This creates player interaction and reasons why it is a multiple player online game :)Maybe I should refine my point to "unlimited fast travel sucks."
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
I understand the point of view, and generally agree. I enjoy player freedom, too. But sometimes, I get really sick of the "player freedom" mantra. Why should everyone be able to do everything? Where are the differences? Is the only difference going to be character models?
- 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
EQ was even worse for endgame because it only had raiding. There was not even real PvP. So all you had was raids.
EQ never pretended to be a PVP game, it never advertised it was a PVP game, and 99% of players couldn't have cared less about PVP.
If you joined EQ expecting PVP, it's your own fault, it's like going to an Italian restaurant complaining they don't offer chinese food.
It says Italian restaurant before you go in. Just like everyone knew EQ was a PVE game.
Not sure why after 15 years of the game being a PVE game, this is just dawning on you or something.
PVE games having raids is normal too, welcome to PVE MMO I guess, not sure what you were expecting as endgame, Dance Dance Revolution?
Trust me I was never expecting PvP from EQ. Common criticism all MMOs receive is that there is nothing to do at endgame if you don't raid. I was pointing out that was case for EQ too. People constantly talk about how the MMOs of old were much better and you never ran out of things to do and complain that more recent MMOs like WoW only have raiding for PvE. My whole post that you cut down was trying to make the point that ultimately EQ's PvE was just as "meaningless" at max level as WoW's is. Cause all you do is loot grind. This was also referring to one of the other posters who accused recent MMOs of only beeing loot grinders which was clearly the case for EQ too. There wasn't much beyond raiding at max level.
There is 0 need for your "welcome to PvE MMOs". I am just saying that all that criticism going around modern MMos can just as easily be applied to EQ and other oldschool MMOs.
EQ had 3 or 4 pvp servers early on. Rallos zek FFA pvp was the best PvP I ever experienced in any game. Theres more strategy involved in actually pvping with diverse classes in dungeons and around mobs than the lifeless "sandbox" pvp games that people pretend are fun today.
Im playin Albion Online alpha, and all that feeling about old MMORPG returned!!!
Travel is not instant, if u die u lost everything.. huge world... free pvp outside cities (some newbie areas still safe), skill related ( not lv)... equipment tiers but not GODs (even if a lower tier u still competitive ).... banks and auction houses per cities (u can earn money by trading each cities) .. farm... houses, player based economy... omg... i cant wait till its alive
Originally posted by GeezerGamer "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do something."
"85% of the people travel someplace they've already been. Where's the fun in that?"
For that, throw in maybe 2 classes of players that do have teleport abilities (like EQ's Druids and Wizards). Now, you have the very limited ability to fast travel to specified points, but have to go through another player in order to do so, not simply everyone clicking on a point on their map.
This creates player interaction and reasons why it is a multiple player online game
Maybe I should refine my point to "unlimited fast travel sucks."
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.
I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
I understand the point of view, and generally agree. I enjoy player freedom, too. But sometimes, I get really sick of the "player freedom" mantra. Why should everyone be able to do everything? Where are the differences? Is the only difference going to be character models?
"Player freedom" is just another one of those passive aggressive terms that people throw around to shame you into changing your position on something.
Comments
WoW was in no way designed for "hardcore" players! It and EQ2 were designed for more casual types. There were a lot of whiners that couln't cut it in EQ that quit because they didn't want to learn their class, learn tactics, learn to work and play well with others, and just plain didn't have the skills to succeed in EQ. In other words, they sucked.
Blizzard simply saw a massive opportunity. People wanted a game that was easy and didn't feel like a second job. EQ took a lot of time to become good and the term EQ Widow was coined to symbolize the time sink. SOE was actually first out with EQ2 but of course the morons running it made some absolutely idiotic decisions looking back. Blizzard was first with the dumbed down, easy mode, and EQ failures/teenager/family gamer that couldn't afford a new rig to play target audience CLONE MMO that was successful.
i totally agree that it's an abomination though. It always has been and has done more to destroy what MMOs were and what the OP and many others miss than any other game ever developed. Games are getting so easy they are boring except to the newer generations of gamers that cry if they die, want to get the best rewards with little or preferably no work required making elite raiders obsolete. Was it this easy at launch? Not by today's standards, but every other company wanted a slice of the casual market and followed the same business model but they had to make games easier and more mind numbing to attract players. WoW of course had to do the same and now you have what we have. Games are so easy a brain dead chimp in a medically induced coma can lead a raid/group and no one would know.
I have ran dungeons with people that literally freaked out if they died one time on the first trip in. I've seen people on this site slam a game if it didn't have rapid travel, flying mounts, max soloable content, group and raid finders and they better be cross server LFG/LFR tools, and OMG! it damn well better allow mods and addons that tell them when to move, which attack to use, gear score, etc, etc.
Here's an idea for all you WoW and newer players (djcincy, none of this is directed at you BTW); stop reading what a mod or addon tells you to do and learn your damn class, learn the damn game mechanics, learn to play with others, and learn the damn telegraphs! A telegraph isn't a red area on the ground either. If that's what you thought you are what's wrong with MMOs these days. In the EQ days you would be suffering from a curable disease known as LOFT. It's pretty bad and can lead to mental and physical harm to the player (you don't qualify to called a gamer if you suffer from it) if not treated early. LOFT is an acronym. It stands for Lack Of F'ing Talent.
One last thing, it doesn't hurt to actually communicate with others playing the same game, at the same time, in the same instance you are playing in. When everyone does that it forms what us old farts used to call a community! Don't be scarred now, you might actually make a real life friend that's actually a living breathing human being! Yes, they do exist, I promise.
All of these EQ1 fans *could* be playing EQ1 basically unmodified. But they aren't.... Why? Because the game sucked. Yes, back then, there were no options. So people made the best of it. So they cooperated the best they could in a bad game. Yes, you miss the feelings of cooperating. But that doesn't mean that you weren't basically cooperating because you had too since your game sucked.
Today, people can choose a game that does not suck. So they don't need to cooperate as much to overcome the shortcomings of the game. This hurts some of the people that liked this facet of games...
I think I love you. Absolutely 1000% agree.
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.
I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
That makes no sense at all....if EQ "sucked", people simply wouldn't have played it. There were a million other games ppl could have played, but they played EQ.
How do ppl even come up with these arguments.
"Many people watched Frozen over 20 times. Basically the movie sucked. But there were no other options. So people made the best of it."
lol
Your argument wouldn't make sense if EQ was the only game ever made either. If it was a horrible game, people simply wouldn't have played it.
These anti-EQ arguments some ppl come up wtih are so silly, make some sense please.
Not sure about niche, EQ had 500k active subs in 2004. Half a million people playing a game is a lot, even in 2015.
Most MMO nowadays don't have that many players after 5 years.
I honestly think mobas should incorporate instanced pve content and expand character development a bit. Maybe expand the lobby a bit too. Whether you consider mmo's getting closer to moba's or moba's getting closer to mmo's is inconsequential, but I think the change will be good for mmorpg's. Even if it means much less major corporations, advertising and less monetary focus on graphics and voice acting.
With mobas/light mmo's/what ever draining the mmorpg market of what is considered the majority, perhaps then it becomes more and more visible that the other end of the spectrum might not have been all in for the "main features". It already is, but with the blurred distinction the majority might not know what they really want as perhaps evidenced by the game hopping phenomenon.
Guess it's slowly happening already. It would be nice to see the terminology get cleared too, but that might be long ways off.
The game itself for the time wasn't terrible and it laid the ground for better games. I'm one of those that think it was just the game in that moment of the internet (before pop culture, memes, etc) when many people just didn't know enough to be a$shats. Even those of us who played at that time have been changed by how the internet has evolved. Those times are just gone now.
This is so true, but it's only set to get worse. Soon we'll be at the stage where you Press A to Win!
This scares me: http://www.pcgamer.com/eas-chief-creative-officer-says-their-games-are-too-hard-to-learn/
Of course it's not nostalgia. I don't play Simcity 4 (2003) instead of Simcity 2013 because of nostalgia. I don't play Medieval Total War 2 (2006) instead of Rome Total War 2 (2014) because of nostalgia.
I play those games because they knew who they target audience was, because they had more depth, more scope and provided with more possibilities. I play those games they offer more value than their more recent iterations, because they are much much better. Simple as that.
What I'm not going to play is a game that is designed by people who don't give a f*** or understand the genre, whose only motivation is to generate revenue on the shortest possible time and who try to direct their product to people that don't like nor understand the genre.
This MMORPG business has lost its raison d'etre, it's just a bloody mess, an empty carcass of flash with no soul inside, an insult to intelligence.
Fuck current MMORPGs, the point that they are still called MMORPGs is an obscenity.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Did you both have "fun" the last time your arse was handed to you on a plate in PvP? This conflation of why we game with "fun" is quite erroneous.
I played EQ up until last year or something. I still play of and on.
But your argument isn't any good.
The fact EQ still has people playing after 15 years, even though ppl bail on current MMO after merely weeks or day, kind of invalidates your whole argument and argues against you.
Why people eventually do quit the game has other reasons.
-EQ changed drastically, the game is completely different now. Corpse runs were removed, ooc regen was introduced, death penalty was removed, population is gone to the point that almost everyone multiboxes. People who remember EQ fondly are people who tend to have enjoyed the Kunark expansion, and those ppl won't like how EQ is now I think.
-That thing called Real-life got in the way.
-People might say "Project 1999", well, the problem is that's an illegal server, someone could shut it down, it has an uncertain future and most people want to play a game that is still supported.
Not to mention that EQ is 15 years old now, pretty sure many people are fond of games, but I see few play games over and over for 15 years, because that's what EQ is, you play the same game over and over, you get the same AA and abilities, and they just increase the ranks every time, mobs repeated over and over, same classes, same everything really.
Your argument isn't a good one.
Trust me I was never expecting PvP from EQ. Common criticism all MMOs receive is that there is nothing to do at endgame if you don't raid. I was pointing out that was case for EQ too. People constantly talk about how the MMOs of old were much better and you never ran out of things to do and complain that more recent MMOs like WoW only have raiding for PvE. My whole post that you cut down was trying to make the point that ultimately EQ's PvE was just as "meaningless" at max level as WoW's is. Cause all you do is loot grind. This was also referring to one of the other posters who accused recent MMOs of only beeing loot grinders which was clearly the case for EQ too. There wasn't much beyond raiding at max level.
There is 0 need for your "welcome to PvE MMOs". I am just saying that all that criticism going around modern MMos can just as easily be applied to EQ and other oldschool MMOs.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
To be honest your way of comparison is very flawed. You're comparing what some consider "classic" EQ to WoW now. When I started playing "classic" WoW in early 2005, it took me 4-5 months to get to max level on my first toon. And since I loved the levelling so much I rolled yet another toon which took me another 4 months. So it was almost a year before I even seriously thought about endgame in WOW. Now that is still quicker than EQ but is certainly not 2 weeks as you said.
There is no way you could've levelled to max level in 2 weeks in WOW cause my /played when I hit max level was more than 14 days. So unless you played 24/7 and you POWERLEVELED you were not getting to max level in 2 weeks, no way.
I grouped a lot in WoW before max level. I did every dungeon on the way to max level and there were tons of group quests which you did in groups. A lot of specs couldn't effectively solo - e.g. warriors. I was a druid and was specced feral for max dmg but if I wanted to be a tank/healer or balance, it would take ages. And it's not like you could easily respec without ramping up HUGE gold bills. This also made dungeons more difficult because your healer was rarely specced for healing because that would mean their levelling would be disgustingly slow. So a lot of people who specced tanks/healers were in groups quite often because of how slow and terrible soloing was.
Grouping was always much faster way of levelling in classic WoW than soloing unless you rolled one of the easiest classes to solo. Cloth wearing classes would often die if they pulled more than 1-2 mobs.
SO when you freaking compare classic EQ compare it to classic WoW. EQ is piss easy to level up NOW, you could easily do it quite quickly with mercs.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
As if EQ didn't do the same. EQ had sick grind before max level and sick grind at max level. EQ endgame = grind forever to get top tier gear. If you say that's not true you are just being sneaky and dishonest.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
So you can't grasp what he is saying or are you trying to play dumb? He meant that there were not many MMO options and that's completely true. If I want to play an MMORPG, Doom will not be an option. So he's right there were very few options when it comes to MMORPGs.
WoW on the other hand thrived despite all the other mmos at its launh and the huge number of MMOs that came out in its 10 year life.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
As I write this, there over 500 players logged in, 430 on the PvE server and 90 on the PvP one.
- 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
- 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
EQ had 3 or 4 pvp servers early on. Rallos zek FFA pvp was the best PvP I ever experienced in any game. Theres more strategy involved in actually pvping with diverse classes in dungeons and around mobs than the lifeless "sandbox" pvp games that people pretend are fun today.
Im playin Albion Online alpha, and all that feeling about old MMORPG returned!!!
Travel is not instant, if u die u lost everything.. huge world... free pvp outside cities (some newbie areas still safe), skill related ( not lv)... equipment tiers but not GODs (even if a lower tier u still competitive ).... banks and auction houses per cities (u can earn money by trading each cities) .. farm... houses, player based economy... omg... i cant wait till its alive
Take care.
Brunno
"Player freedom" is just another one of those passive aggressive terms that people throw around to shame you into changing your position on something.
Just like "forced grouping".
Pay no mind to that bull feces.