Originally posted by Abuz0r 1) Nobody was max level.2) You shared your account with 2 ppl so as a team you could have the best character.3) If you died you were so screwed.......What else...?
Hell, I remember the days when MMORPGs were so hard that they didn't EXIST. If we wanted a bit of role playing we had to flock to the same geocentric location, create our characters on bits of paper, Ha! PAPER! And instead of RNG we had to settle skill outcomes with dice. DICE I TELL YOU!! Like fucking cavemen!!!
And you know what!? We were happy.
Then along came these annoying repetitive time wasting simulators and no one wanted to bother with having to actually go somewhere to meet up with friends for entertainment. Not when they could sit at home on their fat holes in front of the computer and kill the same fucking digital baddie twenty thousand fucking times in lieu of actual meaningful storied game play with real live companions. At least that's how I felt during the dawn of the MMORPG.
Of course as time went by these new games grew on me. Not that this means I feel they are in any way superior to the entertainment I enjoyed with real pen and paper gaming. They are simply different. Same goes for the MMORPGs of yesterday. And oddly enough if I had to make a complaint about either it would be the same one. The sheer amount of time invested, read WASTED. That's right, as fun as both the aforementioned activities can be, they took an exhausting amount of time out of your day. And these days that's just way too much. Its not just that I find my life too busy to take time out for entertainment, its the fact that there is so much more entertainment choices to choose from to lock myself into spending all my time on just one.
Which kind of half assed segues back into the OPs actual topic. The idea that the MMORPGs of days gone by were in someway more challenging than the ones of today. I'm sorry my friend but I have to say BOLLOCKS to that. They were just more time consuming and tedious. Anyone with enough time and patience could bumble their way to greatness like a determined tortoise.
I feel this attitude that games of yore were better simply because they took more time, needs to die. There are far better examples of why many feel the older games felt more alive than many of the carbon copy, paint by numbers, one size fits all games we have today.
Maybe if we started focusing on those reasons rather than continuing this holier than thou attitude that we older gamers are somehow superior to the ones of today, we could convince companies that when it comes to making MMORPGS one size does not fit all.
I remember those days, too. That dice and paper thingy. The first time I tried DnD I fumbled twice in a row right away and the DM killed off my character. They offered to let me reroll, but I'd lost heart at that point. So I went to the little row of arcade machines in the corner (we were playing in a comic book shop after hours) and I played Joust for the rest of the night while my boyfriend played DnD.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
Leveling
Old Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 100 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_PER_QUEST = 50 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play. Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull MOB_LEASH = NULL MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius MOB_LEASH = 10 yards MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
Wooooow... No one is touching this one?
It's a point not only I agree with, but what I've been trying to get across to all the wowTards. But I just gave up.
I believe it is all fairly simple math and percentages. You have a death penalty. You have many factors increasing your chance of death. You have a longer time to get to the next level which also increases you percentage chance you will die during that time. Having no ideas where to go or what to do because of no tutorials increasing chance of death. Having poorer damage output and health ten mobs increases chances of death. There are many different factors that make leveling up a harder task. If we compare the factors from modern games to those older games it's fairly difficult to say that it's harder to level up in modern games. Leveling in modern games is intentionally made easy so that you will quickly get to the end of the game and feel satisfied.
With that said there are valid arguments against this type of gameplay like it's addictive, a waste of time, unhealthy, tedious, not enjoyable, and others I'm sure. I was having a lot of fun playing Ultima Online and EQ, but I would say that I did feel sick at times from the sheer amount of time I was spending at my computer and doing nothing else. I guess that was part of the difficulty though. You had to endure some measure of suffering if you wanted to succeed. That turned a lot of people off.
It's possible we could find a happier medium somewhere in modern games where the chance of not succeeding in leveling is much greater, but you don't have to spend so much time it makes you sick to level up and skill up. It may be enough just to have a death penalty of significance and add in factors that will increase chance of death. The amount of experience needed to level doesn't need to be some insane amount. The leveling process needs to increase in complexity IMO. Taking mobs off leashes, increasing mob agro, having less equipment available, having less quests, having more varied/complex/interesting skills, having more player interaction based on encouragement, and many other things I'm sure.
Originally posted by ArtificeVenatus Wooooow... No one is touching this one?
Flyte's posts are spot on; and the additional depth provides more evidence that older games were harder.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by jesteralways That you spent 1 week waiting for a boss to respawn on world, then 10 hours recruiting 80 people, then 15 hours wiping and finally when you quit you thought :"hey at least 79 other failed like me and quit" and that was your only consolation.
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
Flyte's posts are spot on; and the additional depth provides more evidence that older games were harder.
It goes without saying. Try to replicate this one in the modern era:
7572500
L100
112500
112.5
That's 112 (average) hours to earn a single level.
To reach that L100, average time is 7460 hours. Three and one-half YEARS playing at 40 hours a week. Assuming that you never, ever do anything but earn xp at the maximum possible rate.
And this is post-liberalizing the xp curve! It used to be far worse!!!
But have you ever notice how easy the time data is to post up, but how little it actually really says about difficulty?
We've been trained, since the late 70s, to accept that "It took a lot of time to accomplish" equates to "only the elite few will ever do it" equates to "that must have been really hard".
It's a false equality, of course, but it's ingrained deeply in everyone's soul anyway.
Flyte's posts are spot on; and the additional depth provides more evidence that older games were harder.
It goes without saying. Try to replicate this one in the modern era:
7572500
L100
112500
112.5
That's 112 (average) hours to earn a single level.
To reach that L100, average time is 7460 hours. Three and one-half YEARS playing at 40 hours a week. Assuming that you never, ever do anything but earn xp at the maximum possible rate.
And this is post-liberalizing the xp curve! It used to be far worse!!!
But have you ever notice how easy the time data is to post up, but how little it actually really says about difficulty?
We've been trained, since the late 70s, to accept that "It took a lot of time to accomplish" equates to "only the elite few will ever do it" equates to "that must have been really hard".
It's a false equality, of course, but it's ingrained deeply in everyone's soul anyway.
It is hard to accomplish a long term goal that isn't always enjoyable, but I think in my post I showed that it is not just time, but many other factors that made the game hard. Time was just one factor that when combined with other factors made it difficult to level up. It wasn't grinding all day that made it difficult. It was all the things that could prevent you from leveling up in general if you didn't figure out how to exist in the world.
Originally posted by jesteralways That you spent 1 week waiting for a boss to respawn on world, then 10 hours recruiting 80 people, then 15 hours wiping and finally when you quit you thought :"hey at least 79 other failed like me and quit" and that was your only consolation.
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
It is hard to accomplish a long term goal that isn't always enjoyable, but I think in my post I showed that it is not just time, but many other factors that made the game hard. Time was just one factor that when combined with other factors made it difficult to level up. It wasn't grinding all day that made it difficult. It was all the things that could prevent you from leveling up in general if you didn't figure out how to exist in the world.
And in the previous era, if you couldn't write a decent macro, the critturs would eat you alive. The best coders, naturally, didn't have any difficulty writing or customizing their own scripts.
So coding skill was a factor in "difficulty"?
Some players obviously invest tons of ego in "my game was harder than yours".
But in the end, it was just time invested and buttons pushed. And occasionally, communications skills and/or reflexes.
That's an enormous ego load being carried by a relatively small set of "skills".
----
False superiority is constant work to justify, right?
But gamers been doing this "mine's bigger" pose and flex measuring as long as gamers have existed. It's just high school played out in the message-board-verse.
It is hard to accomplish a long term goal that isn't always enjoyable, but I think in my post I showed that it is not just time, but many other factors that made the game hard. Time was just one factor that when combined with other factors made it difficult to level up. It wasn't grinding all day that made it difficult. It was all the things that could prevent you from leveling up in general if you didn't figure out how to exist in the world.
And in the previous era, if you couldn't write a decent macro, the critturs would eat you alive. The best coders, naturally, didn't have any difficulty writing or customizing their own scripts.
So coding skill was a factor in "difficulty"?
Some players obviously invest tons of ego in "my game was harder than yours".
But in the end, it was just time invested and buttons pushed. And occasionally, communications skills and/or reflexes.
That's an enormous ego load being carried by a relatively small set of "skills".
----
False superiority is constant work to justify, right?
Generally this is just a discussion about weather or not leveling was more difficult and that's all I aimed to prove. It had little to do with ego. It had all to do with mathematical facts.
In EverQuest, you were risking something every time you stepped out of a safe zone. You were risking the hours and hours it took to get to the level you were. You knew that if you died, that those hours would have to be replayed. Add to that the real possibility that you would have to spend anywhere from 10-30 or more minutes to recover your items, let alone the possibility that you might *lose* everything you had.
So when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
Many MMOs these days, death means nothing more than a handful of coins and a two-minute interruption in your playtime, and in dungeons or quests, unless success is mechanically impossible, it is guaranteed with enough time. Risk has been effectively removed from the equation.
If losing is meaningless, then how much more meaningful can winning be?
The only difference these days seems to be that if you win, you get a shiny hat.
Back then, just winning the fight itself was awesome, whether you got a shiny hat or not.
So when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?
Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?
At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.
Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Originally posted by jesteralways That you spent 1 week waiting for a boss to respawn on world, then 10 hours recruiting 80 people, then 15 hours wiping and finally when you quit you thought :"hey at least 79 other failed like me and quit" and that was your only consolation.
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
Wrong kid.
I'M talking about before Shadowlands and you Heckler noods ruined the game for everyone. All you guys did was grind on those stupid mobs and didn't know how to play the game or your class if your life depended on it. Shadowlands ruined Anarchy Online. Most of the real players left the game because of players like you.
Old Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 100 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_PER_QUEST = 50 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play. Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull MOB_LEASH = NULL MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius MOB_LEASH = 10 yards MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
You're arguing that walking across a concrete bridge over a lava field takes more skill than the tightrope with a net.
I'm saying that the skill involved in a task is what makes it challenging.
You're saying that repetition-without-error makes things challenging.
Walking over that bridge a thousand times doesn't change the fact that walking over that bridge is incredibly easy
The major element to skill in early MMORPGs was avoiding pulling the wrong mobs.
The major element to skill in later MMORPGs was a mastery of the much more plentiful decisions made during combat itself.
So yes, you've shown why walking over that lava bridge is more punishing of failure, but you've neglected the fact that combat was simpler and you were just casually walking over a bridge rather than doing something that continually rewarded mastery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well "dev laziness" is a term that gets thrown around a lot. Often without merit.
In this case we're talking about a game where the developers literally and objectively are being lazier. They're demanding more time from players while providing less content.
If you want to turn around and call it "hyperactive" for a game to have lots of content, that seems pretty strange.
In any event, the numbers speak for themselves and players will overwhelmingly choose the game that offers them tons of high-quality content over the game that asks them to repetitively grind the same content (because there isn't enough content to do anything else.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's a point not only I agree with, but what I've been trying to get across to all the wowTards. But I just gave up.
So you and Flyte would say Progress Quest (a game with no decisions, but requires infinite time) is infinitely hard, simply because of the time requirement.
Or to be more fitting of Flyte's breakdown the game is a variant of PQ:
Fighting monsters is a simple "Do you wish to fight too many monsters? [YES/NO]"
Beating monsters is a simple "Do you wish to win? [YES/NO]"
You lose all XP if you answer NO to either question.
You continue progressing if you answer YES to both.
And somehow you feel this makes games hard, and not simply time-consuming.
No, the true difficulty of a game revolves around the skill required to succeed. That's what sets the challenge. Do you have to perform a complicated, hard-to-master rotation while reacting dynamically to boss abilities and/or environmental threats? Well then that game is going to be much more challenging than a game where the main threat is pulling too many enemies at once and the combat itself is dramatically shallower (as it was in pre-WOW games.)
Which leads us to this brilliant and concise summary of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by mrneurosis Originally posted by Hariken Originally posted by jesteralways That you spent 1 week waiting for a boss to respawn on world, then 10 hours recruiting 80 people, then 15 hours wiping and finally when you quit you thought :"hey at least 79 other failed like me and quit" and that was your only consolation.
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
Wrong kid.
I'M talking about before Shadowlands and you Heckler noods ruined the game for everyone. All you guys did was grind on those stupid mobs and didn't know how to play the game or your class if your life depended on it. Shadowlands ruined Anarchy Online. Most of the real players left the game because of players like you.
Before hecklers there were ninjas and borgs, though. I enjoyed all of the above, ninjas, borgs, tiggie teams, hecklers, and even those endless Broken Shores missions. I think what ruined AO is that it was unaccountably niche. Not enough players knew about it and/or not enough players were into sci-fi. Pity, I've always wanted to see an AO2 with all the twinking, TOTW training, huge open world, flying in my yalm for hours, and dancing atroxes in string bikinis festivities it had to offer. If my real life first had been as good as my AO MMO first, I'd probably have a restraining order out on me right now.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
2am wake up calls because said persons epic mob that they had been camping for 2 days was up. They calling 80-100 people in the guild to wake up and help.
Being a guild officer then was so much more and I didn't get paid for it >.<
2am wake up calls because said persons epic mob that they had been camping for 2 days was up. They calling 80-100 people in the guild to wake up and help.
Being a guild officer then was so much more and I didn't get paid for it >.<
We just got woke up to come drag so-and-so's body back for a rez so that he doesn't lose his gear, because the dumb cluck went and offed himself at 3am when there was almost no one else awake.
Breakage AND droppage AND full loot pvp. And Critical Hits that could (often did) kill even very careful and experienced players purely due to a bad die roll. When you died, you lost very much more than a small portion of a level.
And the pre-MMO games had really, truly boring, predictable crittur AI. But frequent swarms and invasions.
So where does that fall in the "I'm tough as nails and you weenies never were" bragging-rights spectrum?
Who cares? It's leveling content. It doesn't now, and never did, matter very much.
4/ You could lose 3 hours worth of grinding in 5 minutes
5/ You could lose a level just by dying.
Lol!!! That happened to me a few times
The devastation following a mis-timed monster engagement, or a simple bad decision, that basically undid all you had done for the past day. I miss these older games so much, they gave you so much to work for, and they weren't afraid to let you make mistakes. The new games are so easy now, a death doesn't matter at all, and no decision you make really matters. The games are all reward and no risks. Everybody likes ice cream but it really starts to get old after a while. I saw a more recent post about what killed mmorpgs for you, I'd say all the ice cream.
The mmo was never meant to be a rainbows and unicorns experience, well, some of them were. Now pretty much every new game that comes out touts it's resume of content, end game, leveling speed, and how you can get past all that nasty grind for just a few extra dollars. All of the zones are ghost maps, there's typically a hub city where everyone stands around waiting for something to do. You used to have to put on music, and kill some mob for 3 or 4 hours a day hoping to get a super rare item that you knew people would pay crazy amounts for. Now everyone gets the item through a rite of passage, and if u do get one, it's bound to you.
Originally posted by jesteralways That you spent 1 week waiting for a boss to respawn on world, then 10 hours recruiting 80 people, then 15 hours wiping and finally when you quit you thought :"hey at least 79 other failed like me and quit" and that was your only consolation.
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
Wrong kid.
I'M talking about before Shadowlands and you Heckler noods ruined the game for everyone. All you guys did was grind on those stupid mobs and didn't know how to play the game or your class if your life depended on it. Shadowlands ruined Anarchy Online. Most of the real players left the game because of players like you.
Oh look you called me a kid so that makes your point valid right?
Yes shadowlands made it easier for power grinding but people were doing so even in classic AO before shadowlands (remember Borgs?). I remember joining a group and sitting there doing nothing while making a coffee and gaining levels. After two hours we had to give our spot to someone else. And everyone was doing it to level alts. There were no quests and no guy with question mark to talk too. Just good old group grinding on mobs.... weee so much fun right?
People left because AO was a technical mess not because shadowlands was bad. I find it ironic that you call me a kid and then use words like 'noob'. That is not how grown ups talk.
I really doubt you even played classic AO and just trying to sound cool and a ''grown up''.
Old Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 100 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_PER_QUEST = 50 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play. Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull MOB_LEASH = NULL MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius MOB_LEASH = 10 yards MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
You're arguing that walking across a concrete bridge over a lava field takes more skill than the tightrope with a net.
I'm saying that the skill involved in a task is what makes it challenging.
You're saying that repetition-without-error makes things challenging.
Walking over that bridge a thousand times doesn't change the fact that walking over that bridge is incredibly easy
The major element to skill in early MMORPGs was avoiding pulling the wrong mobs.
The major element to skill in later MMORPGs was a mastery of the much more plentiful decisions made during combat itself.
So yes, you've shown why walking over that lava bridge is more punishing of failure, but you've neglected the fact that combat was simpler and you were just casually walking over a bridge rather than doing something that continually rewarded mastery.
I would say that finding out how to level with the many different factors that could get you killed is far more like walking over a tightrope then a game where you are pretty much set up to win until the end of the game. You really don't need any skill to level up in most of these games. I think my math pretty much proves that. It takes zero skill and that is why it is both boring and repetitive. It is also why so many people play MMOs now.
I believe that having setbacks is exactly what makes something difficult. If you can overcome setbacks then you are doing something many others can't. The many others who will instead give up and quit the game.
Another major factor is problem solving. Having to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to do it on your own with no guidance is something that again makes it more challenging.
What I don't believe makes a game challenging is that you have to execute a combination of buttons during a fight. That requires a small amount of invested time. You will quickly figure it out (especially with no death penalty and overpowered equipment). Then you just have to repeat for the rest of the game. You are basically saying this is what makes a game challenging. This is like walking on a tightrope. It is not.
The difficulty comes from many factors that I have pointed out.
Time (no one has patience or can handle any long term goals)
Interaction (trains, trading in person, helping others, hindering others, ect.)
Death penalty (you can't level up if you can't figure out how)
Item power (with powerful items and underpowered mobs anyone can level easily)
Monster persistence (mobs with leashes are easy to escape from and lower agro radius also makes things easier)
Lack of need for CC in anything means you generally just have to figure out how to kill it
Quests/Maps Figuring out where to go and what to do is again part of basic problem solving that most people lack
These are all factors that add into preventing you from gaining a level or causing you to quit from frustration. Frustration is part of difficulty and something to overcome.
You can belittle the difficulty of old games and continue to say the only thing that shows skill is pushing a few buttons accurately during a fight, but this seems to me like someone just trying to justify that games today are indeed just as hard or harder even though they are not. If that makes people feel better about playing these games then more power to them. I consider games today to be much more of a leisure activity. In the days of early MMOs they were more of a job, but like a job were more rewarding when you completed something.
I'm not saying any of this is rocket science, but in general many people lack some of the most simple skills in life. That is why games have been made easier to appeal to the masses. The niche players are not geniuses, but they are a step up in their ability to problem solve, look at long term goals, and in general just have the patience to work things out for themselves.
I find in life that most things can be done if you are willing to put the time and effort in. Most things are not something only a few people are capable of. Generally it is just a matter of patience, persistence, dedication, and discipline which many people are lacking.
I would say that finding out how to level with the many different factors that could get you killed is far more like walking over a tightrope then a game where you are pretty much set up to win until the end of the game. You really don't need any skill to level up in most of these games. I think my math pretty much proves that. It takes zero skill and that is why it is both boring and repetitive. It is also why so many people play MMOs now.
I believe that having setbacks is exactly what makes something difficult. If you can overcome setbacks then you are doing something many others can't. The many others who will instead give up and quit the game.
Another major factor is problem solving. Having to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to do it on your own with no guidance is something that again makes it more challenging.
What I don't believe makes a game challenging is that you have to execute a combination of buttons during a fight. That requires a small amount of invested time. You will quickly figure it out (especially with no death penalty and overpowered equipment). Then you just have to repeat for the rest of the game. You are basically saying this is what makes a game challenging. This is like walking on a tightrope. It is not.
The difficulty comes from many factors that I have pointed out.
Time (no one has patience or can handle any long term goals)
Interaction (trains, trading in person, helping others, hindering others, ect.)
Death penalty (you can't level up if you can't figure out how)
Item power (with powerful items and underpowered mobs anyone can level easily)
Monster persistence (mobs with leashes are easy to escape from and lower agro radius also makes things easier)
Lack of need for CC in anything means you generally just have to figure out how to kill it
Quests/Maps Figuring out where to go and what to do is again part of basic problem solving that most people lack
These are all factors that add into preventing you from gaining a level or causing you to quit from frustration. Frustration is part of difficulty and something to overcome.
You can belittle the difficulty of old games and continue to say the only thing that shows skill is pushing a few buttons accurately during a fight, but this seems to me like someone just trying to justify that games today are indeed just as hard or harder even though they are not. If that makes people feel better about playing these games then more power to them. I consider games today to be much more of a leisure activity. In the days of early MMOs they were more of a job, but like a job were more rewarding when you completed something.
I'm not saying any of this is rocket science, but in general many people lack some of the most simple skills in life. That is why games have been made easier to appeal to the masses. The niche players are not geniuses, but they are a step up in their ability to problem solve, look at long term goals, and in general just have the patience to work things out for themselves.
I find in life that most things can be done if you are willing to put the time and effort in. Most things are not something only a few people are capable of. Generally it is just a matter of patience, persistence, dedication, and discipline which many people are lacking.
Setbacks aren't exactly what makes things difficult. A short hurdle where you're forced to go back 5 hurdles if you miss one aren't harder than tall hurdles where you have to repeat the hurdle you missed.
We're talking about the overall skill involved, not in simply leveling. Offhanded comments like that it's 'easy to level' allude that you're more of a destination-only sort of player only interested in traveling to the foot of the mountain (where the mile-markers end) and yeah if you don't continue onward then you're not going to experience a game's toughest challenges where the skill depth really emerges.
Gaining levels was never difficult in early MMORPGs. You had to avoid too much aggro, but apart from that the real limitation was time which doesn't involve skill (it just involves time.) "Pushing a few buttons" is decision-making. Those buttons represent the game's decision-making, and decision-making is the biggest aspect of skill there is.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Hell, I remember the days when MMORPGs were so hard that they didn't EXIST. If we wanted a bit of role playing we had to flock to the same geocentric location, create our characters on bits of paper, Ha! PAPER! And instead of RNG we had to settle skill outcomes with dice. DICE I TELL YOU!! Like fucking cavemen!!!
And you know what!? We were happy.
Then along came these annoying repetitive time wasting simulators and no one wanted to bother with having to actually go somewhere to meet up with friends for entertainment. Not when they could sit at home on their fat holes in front of the computer and kill the same fucking digital baddie twenty thousand fucking times in lieu of actual meaningful storied game play with real live companions. At least that's how I felt during the dawn of the MMORPG.
Of course as time went by these new games grew on me. Not that this means I feel they are in any way superior to the entertainment I enjoyed with real pen and paper gaming. They are simply different. Same goes for the MMORPGs of yesterday. And oddly enough if I had to make a complaint about either it would be the same one. The sheer amount of time invested, read WASTED. That's right, as fun as both the aforementioned activities can be, they took an exhausting amount of time out of your day. And these days that's just way too much. Its not just that I find my life too busy to take time out for entertainment, its the fact that there is so much more entertainment choices to choose from to lock myself into spending all my time on just one.
Which kind of half assed segues back into the OPs actual topic. The idea that the MMORPGs of days gone by were in someway more challenging than the ones of today. I'm sorry my friend but I have to say BOLLOCKS to that. They were just more time consuming and tedious. Anyone with enough time and patience could bumble their way to greatness like a determined tortoise.
I feel this attitude that games of yore were better simply because they took more time, needs to die. There are far better examples of why many feel the older games felt more alive than many of the carbon copy, paint by numbers, one size fits all games we have today.
Maybe if we started focusing on those reasons rather than continuing this holier than thou attitude that we older gamers are somehow superior to the ones of today, we could convince companies that when it comes to making MMORPGS one size does not fit all.
I remember those days, too. That dice and paper thingy. The first time I tried DnD I fumbled twice in a row right away and the DM killed off my character. They offered to let me reroll, but I'd lost heart at that point. So I went to the little row of arcade machines in the corner (we were playing in a comic book shop after hours) and I played Joust for the rest of the night while my boyfriend played DnD.I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I believe it is all fairly simple math and percentages. You have a death penalty. You have many factors increasing your chance of death. You have a longer time to get to the next level which also increases you percentage chance you will die during that time. Having no ideas where to go or what to do because of no tutorials increasing chance of death. Having poorer damage output and health ten mobs increases chances of death. There are many different factors that make leveling up a harder task. If we compare the factors from modern games to those older games it's fairly difficult to say that it's harder to level up in modern games. Leveling in modern games is intentionally made easy so that you will quickly get to the end of the game and feel satisfied.
With that said there are valid arguments against this type of gameplay like it's addictive, a waste of time, unhealthy, tedious, not enjoyable, and others I'm sure. I was having a lot of fun playing Ultima Online and EQ, but I would say that I did feel sick at times from the sheer amount of time I was spending at my computer and doing nothing else. I guess that was part of the difficulty though. You had to endure some measure of suffering if you wanted to succeed. That turned a lot of people off.
It's possible we could find a happier medium somewhere in modern games where the chance of not succeeding in leveling is much greater, but you don't have to spend so much time it makes you sick to level up and skill up. It may be enough just to have a death penalty of significance and add in factors that will increase chance of death. The amount of experience needed to level doesn't need to be some insane amount. The leveling process needs to increase in complexity IMO. Taking mobs off leashes, increasing mob agro, having less equipment available, having less quests, having more varied/complex/interesting skills, having more player interaction based on encouragement, and many other things I'm sure.
Flyte's posts are spot on; and the additional depth provides more evidence that older games were harder.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
It goes without saying. Try to replicate this one in the modern era:
That's 112 (average) hours to earn a single level.
To reach that L100, average time is 7460 hours. Three and one-half YEARS playing at 40 hours a week. Assuming that you never, ever do anything but earn xp at the maximum possible rate.
And this is post-liberalizing the xp curve! It used to be far worse!!!
It is hard to accomplish a long term goal that isn't always enjoyable, but I think in my post I showed that it is not just time, but many other factors that made the game hard. Time was just one factor that when combined with other factors made it difficult to level up. It wasn't grinding all day that made it difficult. It was all the things that could prevent you from leveling up in general if you didn't figure out how to exist in the world.
And this is what you call glory days?
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
And in the previous era, if you couldn't write a decent macro, the critturs would eat you alive. The best coders, naturally, didn't have any difficulty writing or customizing their own scripts.
So coding skill was a factor in "difficulty"?
Some players obviously invest tons of ego in "my game was harder than yours".
But in the end, it was just time invested and buttons pushed. And occasionally, communications skills and/or reflexes.
That's an enormous ego load being carried by a relatively small set of "skills".
----
False superiority is constant work to justify, right?
But gamers been doing this "mine's bigger" pose and flex measuring as long as gamers have existed. It's just high school played out in the message-board-verse.
Generally this is just a discussion about weather or not leveling was more difficult and that's all I aimed to prove. It had little to do with ego. It had all to do with mathematical facts.
Risk vs. Reward.
In EverQuest, you were risking something every time you stepped out of a safe zone. You were risking the hours and hours it took to get to the level you were. You knew that if you died, that those hours would have to be replayed. Add to that the real possibility that you would have to spend anywhere from 10-30 or more minutes to recover your items, let alone the possibility that you might *lose* everything you had.
So when you won a tough fight, it was a real triumph. The reward was meaningful because you actually risked something tangible to get it.
Many MMOs these days, death means nothing more than a handful of coins and a two-minute interruption in your playtime, and in dungeons or quests, unless success is mechanically impossible, it is guaranteed with enough time. Risk has been effectively removed from the equation.
If losing is meaningless, then how much more meaningful can winning be?
The only difference these days seems to be that if you win, you get a shiny hat.
Back then, just winning the fight itself was awesome, whether you got a shiny hat or not.
If you failed, developers came to your house and punched your mother?
Or is the definition of "tangible risk" somewhat different?
At worst, a reset cost you more time. Something you were (and are, by definition) always spending liberally in any mmo anywhere, ever.
Nightmare mode one-death-and-you're-done games just might, might present a tangible risk. But in point of fact, most of them just create hyper-risk-averse players dragging their buffbots behind them and generally never risking much of anything.
Wrong kid.
I'M talking about before Shadowlands and you Heckler noods ruined the game for everyone. All you guys did was grind on those stupid mobs and didn't know how to play the game or your class if your life depended on it. Shadowlands ruined Anarchy Online. Most of the real players left the game because of players like you.
You're arguing that walking across a concrete bridge over a lava field takes more skill than the tightrope with a net.
I'm saying that the skill involved in a task is what makes it challenging.
You're saying that repetition-without-error makes things challenging.
Walking over that bridge a thousand times doesn't change the fact that walking over that bridge is incredibly easy
The major element to skill in early MMORPGs was avoiding pulling the wrong mobs.
The major element to skill in later MMORPGs was a mastery of the much more plentiful decisions made during combat itself.
So yes, you've shown why walking over that lava bridge is more punishing of failure, but you've neglected the fact that combat was simpler and you were just casually walking over a bridge rather than doing something that continually rewarded mastery.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well "dev laziness" is a term that gets thrown around a lot. Often without merit.
In this case we're talking about a game where the developers literally and objectively are being lazier. They're demanding more time from players while providing less content.
If you want to turn around and call it "hyperactive" for a game to have lots of content, that seems pretty strange.
In any event, the numbers speak for themselves and players will overwhelmingly choose the game that offers them tons of high-quality content over the game that asks them to repetitively grind the same content (because there isn't enough content to do anything else.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So you and Flyte would say Progress Quest (a game with no decisions, but requires infinite time) is infinitely hard, simply because of the time requirement.
Or to be more fitting of Flyte's breakdown the game is a variant of PQ:
Which leads us to this brilliant and concise summary of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The funny part is you chose to do this. I played Anarchy Online and from what i remember few players chose to play like this because the game had other things you could do. AO had 200 levels and plenty to do to get max and it took a long time. So that fact made the player base not to be in a mad dash to get to max like you have in today's mmo's. Yes they were harder and had grind but you didn't care because that's just the way it was. You had just as much fun at level 50 as you would at level 200. The big problem with today's mmo's is the silly quest hub to hub crap. I made most of my friends in AO from hunting parties. You got great XP for doing hunting parties in the wild and mobs in the wild hit really hard by design. So you had to really be careful and it was fun.
No it didn;t. AO had many grind spots for power leveling and it was a breeze in groups. Hecklers being mother load for experience. Everyone was in mad rush to hit max even in those days. Player base back then wasn't that different. Your post is typical case of rose tinted glasses.
Wrong kid.
I'M talking about before Shadowlands and you Heckler noods ruined the game for everyone. All you guys did was grind on those stupid mobs and didn't know how to play the game or your class if your life depended on it. Shadowlands ruined Anarchy Online. Most of the real players left the game because of players like you.
Before hecklers there were ninjas and borgs, though. I enjoyed all of the above, ninjas, borgs, tiggie teams, hecklers, and even those endless Broken Shores missions. I think what ruined AO is that it was unaccountably niche. Not enough players knew about it and/or not enough players were into sci-fi. Pity, I've always wanted to see an AO2 with all the twinking, TOTW training, huge open world, flying in my yalm for hours, and dancing atroxes in string bikinis festivities it had to offer. If my real life first had been as good as my AO MMO first, I'd probably have a restraining order out on me right now.I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
2am wake up calls because said persons epic mob that they had been camping for 2 days was up. They calling 80-100 people in the guild to wake up and help.
Being a guild officer then was so much more and I didn't get paid for it >.<
Well to be fair, if you addressed my points you wouldn't be repeating yourself...
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
4/ You could lose 3 hours worth of grinding in 5 minutes
5/ You could lose a level just by dying.
We just got woke up to come drag so-and-so's body back for a rez so that he doesn't lose his gear, because the dumb cluck went and offed himself at 3am when there was almost no one else awake.
Breakage AND droppage AND full loot pvp. And Critical Hits that could (often did) kill even very careful and experienced players purely due to a bad die roll. When you died, you lost very much more than a small portion of a level.
And the pre-MMO games had really, truly boring, predictable crittur AI. But frequent swarms and invasions.
So where does that fall in the "I'm tough as nails and you weenies never were" bragging-rights spectrum?
Who cares? It's leveling content. It doesn't now, and never did, matter very much.
Lol!!! That happened to me a few times
The devastation following a mis-timed monster engagement, or a simple bad decision, that basically undid all you had done for the past day. I miss these older games so much, they gave you so much to work for, and they weren't afraid to let you make mistakes. The new games are so easy now, a death doesn't matter at all, and no decision you make really matters. The games are all reward and no risks. Everybody likes ice cream but it really starts to get old after a while. I saw a more recent post about what killed mmorpgs for you, I'd say all the ice cream.
The mmo was never meant to be a rainbows and unicorns experience, well, some of them were. Now pretty much every new game that comes out touts it's resume of content, end game, leveling speed, and how you can get past all that nasty grind for just a few extra dollars. All of the zones are ghost maps, there's typically a hub city where everyone stands around waiting for something to do. You used to have to put on music, and kill some mob for 3 or 4 hours a day hoping to get a super rare item that you knew people would pay crazy amounts for. Now everyone gets the item through a rite of passage, and if u do get one, it's bound to you.
Oh look you called me a kid so that makes your point valid right?
Yes shadowlands made it easier for power grinding but people were doing so even in classic AO before shadowlands (remember Borgs?). I remember joining a group and sitting there doing nothing while making a coffee and gaining levels. After two hours we had to give our spot to someone else. And everyone was doing it to level alts. There were no quests and no guy with question mark to talk too. Just good old group grinding on mobs.... weee so much fun right?
People left because AO was a technical mess not because shadowlands was bad. I find it ironic that you call me a kid and then use words like 'noob'. That is not how grown ups talk.
I really doubt you even played classic AO and just trying to sound cool and a ''grown up''.
I would say that finding out how to level with the many different factors that could get you killed is far more like walking over a tightrope then a game where you are pretty much set up to win until the end of the game. You really don't need any skill to level up in most of these games. I think my math pretty much proves that. It takes zero skill and that is why it is both boring and repetitive. It is also why so many people play MMOs now.
I believe that having setbacks is exactly what makes something difficult. If you can overcome setbacks then you are doing something many others can't. The many others who will instead give up and quit the game.
Another major factor is problem solving. Having to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to do it on your own with no guidance is something that again makes it more challenging.
What I don't believe makes a game challenging is that you have to execute a combination of buttons during a fight. That requires a small amount of invested time. You will quickly figure it out (especially with no death penalty and overpowered equipment). Then you just have to repeat for the rest of the game. You are basically saying this is what makes a game challenging. This is like walking on a tightrope. It is not.
The difficulty comes from many factors that I have pointed out.
I'm not saying any of this is rocket science, but in general many people lack some of the most simple skills in life. That is why games have been made easier to appeal to the masses. The niche players are not geniuses, but they are a step up in their ability to problem solve, look at long term goals, and in general just have the patience to work things out for themselves.
I find in life that most things can be done if you are willing to put the time and effort in. Most things are not something only a few people are capable of. Generally it is just a matter of patience, persistence, dedication, and discipline which many people are lacking.
Setbacks aren't exactly what makes things difficult. A short hurdle where you're forced to go back 5 hurdles if you miss one aren't harder than tall hurdles where you have to repeat the hurdle you missed.
We're talking about the overall skill involved, not in simply leveling. Offhanded comments like that it's 'easy to level' allude that you're more of a destination-only sort of player only interested in traveling to the foot of the mountain (where the mile-markers end) and yeah if you don't continue onward then you're not going to experience a game's toughest challenges where the skill depth really emerges.
Gaining levels was never difficult in early MMORPGs. You had to avoid too much aggro, but apart from that the real limitation was time which doesn't involve skill (it just involves time.) "Pushing a few buttons" is decision-making. Those buttons represent the game's decision-making, and decision-making is the biggest aspect of skill there is.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver