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Questions about old MMOs
mindw0rk
Member UncommonPosts: 1,356
Hey! Im trying to learn more about early era of MMOs and have few question to veterans who played UO, EQ, DaoC at their peak or even earlier games like Habitat. Can you guys pls share your experience?
1. If you played in 90s or early 00s what was your favourite MMO back then and why?
2. How playing MMOs in 90s differed from playing MMOs today? Was community different?
3. What old MMOs had that modern MMOs dont?
4. What ingame moments from early MMO era you still remember and are nostalgic about?
1. If you played in 90s or early 00s what was your favourite MMO back then and why?
2. How playing MMOs in 90s differed from playing MMOs today? Was community different?
3. What old MMOs had that modern MMOs dont?
4. What ingame moments from early MMO era you still remember and are nostalgic about?
Comments
1) I mostly played EQ1. It had a huge area to play in from the start. There were a number of character classes that were interesting. The incompleteness of the classes tended to force people to play together to accomplish anything.
2) The community was definitely different. There weren't as many spoiler sites around, and reliable information was difficult to come by. Few people knew how to operate with other classes, especially around mez or root. The entire community was learning as we went -- the option to look it up on ZAM wasn't an option, and people had to rely on others more.
3) Early MMORPGs didn't have anything that is radically different from modern games. There were fewer convenience options for players, and quite a few of the systems were exceedingly harsh (corpse runs, death penalties, etc.) Newer games have toned down the unforgiving nature somewhat, and implemented numerous convenience feature (group finding tools, fast travel, etc.) I'm rather disappointed how little the genre has progressed in 17+ years.
4) Most memorable moment for me was helping someone who had lost their corpse underwater in Surefall Glades. I was an 11th level enchanter, with the Water Breathing spell and a dozen fish scales. It took about 3 hours to find and recover his corpse. Probably mid-to-late June of 1999.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
2a) As someone mentioned, death penalties and such were much harsher(It was awful doing naked corpse runs, don't let the rose-tinted masochists fool you). Groups were often required for content more than today.
2b) Community was very, very different. It was more like a small-town mentality. Everyone knew the people around them, and people tended to be respectful(though competition was huge). In EQ specifically, if you were a jerk or a "ninja looter"(read: thief) or whatever, the whole server would know it before long. Back then it wasn't that easy to change your identity or level up a new character and start over.
3) One thing I loved about EQ(this wouldn't apply to UO, for example) - The game was designed with first-person perspective in mind. So, when you went into a dungeon, it actually felt like a real dungeon. There were ceilings and tunnels. You actually felt like you were inside a cave or whatever the area was, unlike games like WoW where they didn't even have ceilings and everything just felt open and outdoorsy.
The zone designs were great. Invisible walls/secret passages, pit falls, etc. Unfortunately, all the zones and spawn points were incredibly static, too. So, a veteran knew exactly where everything in the game was.
4) I started as a human, which were practically night-blind. I still remember how insane and thrilling it was to try crossing the continent from the one major human city to the other at night with a bard friend I'd met in a group at the local gnoll dungeon. After our group broke up, he talked me into running all that way with him.. I had no idea where we were going(was a newbie) and couldn't see a bloody thing. I think alot of players from
EQ remember that run from Qeynos to Freeport. It was a bit of a suicide run at lower levels. Werewolves and bandits, lions and coyotes, minotaurs, undead, giants, griffons, gnolls, cyclops, to name a few things you could encounter along the way.
In other words, travel was dangerous and exciting... but also time-consuming. I still really miss the player-teleport systems that EQ had with the Wizards and Druids. I think it was a perfect setup for fast travel without making the world seem small and instantly traversable. I guess you could add that to "3)".
I loved UO but hated the PKing. It ruined the game.
This was a game too where player really got to know other players. The social aspects of the early MMO's were far beyond anything since WoW. I did play WoW but never maxed a character. Loved some things about it, but it just lacked that social stuff.
UO also offered loss. Even MOBs looted your corpse (and held that loot until the MOB was killed and looted). Players made friends by helping each other recover lost gear and stuff.
The lore was more a part of the game, with a running plot that GM's pushed. Players could participate if they wanted, but didn't have to to play the game.
Wayyyy too many stories to tell. Totally different than the WoW clones where it's all the same basic story for each class.
Each player made their own story and place, had their own things to boast about and their own things to laugh about.
Once upon a time....
2. I'll simplify it and simply say older mmos were like a second life basically and modern mmos feel more like a game you don't have to dedicate as much time to. The community was very engaging and it felt like you were part of a world so yes it is very different. In fact it was frowned upon if you jumped from guild to guild, or constantly switch factions there would be some sort of blacklist and some guilds wouldn't recruit you because of that so loyalty was a big thing. They simply took it a lot more serious back in the day and today the community is more laid back.
3. Older mmos were more difficult and they didn't hold your hand back in the day and you don't see that same experience in modern mmos. Modern mmos take ideas from older mmos just like wow taking ideas from every mmo created before them. So some of the features are still the same.
4. There were alot of moments from the early mmo era but I'll mention one or two of them at least. In my guild's city we had a wedding going on in SWG with proper decorations and properly wearing the outfit for it etc, it was fun af and we would spawn different things, npcs, mobs or whatever after the wedding. The other one is raiding player's cities and their faction base that is placed in their city. I'm nostalgic about those moments but I'll still be nostalgic about the music every time I load into a planet.
One of the Nostalgic soundtracks I'm talking about:
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
1. If you played in 90s or early 00s what was your favourite MMO back then and why? EQ1. The server I was on was awesome(Innoruuk) the adventures I had I swear I could write a book on, the memories good and bad were unforgettable.
2. How playing MMOs in 90s differed from playing MMOs today? Was community different? An MMO back then tossed you in and let you go and learn. They didn't guide you or train you. You learned by trial and error and from other players. Pulling mobs in the early days of eq1 was an art, pulling as a warrior a little more challenging, chain pulling and tanking as a warrior was non stop fun! Now you have encounters, each section is like a set number of mobs, back then each pull was an encounter(not sure if that makes sense now but in my head I know what I'm saying!) Communities in eq1(specific to my server) were awesome. You had the bad apples just like today but you had a lot of good players, you would earn a name for yourself and shouting for a group wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Guilds earned names for what they did and were looked up to, some end up being known on all servers because of how good they were, when you saw them it was like seeing a celeb or something.
3. What old MMOs had that modern MMOs dont? Feel and Unknown. The feel you got when you achieved something you worked hard for is gone, going into an area that you don't know what to do or where to go is no more. Mini maps, previews and sites like this all but ruined that for us(not saying I don't enjoying seeing whats coming) Back then we knew about 20% of what was coming, now we know about 80%.
4. What ingame moments from early MMO era you still remember and are nostalgic about? So many really, could be my first travel from Halas(barbarian starter city) to Freeport by foot at about level 10 or less. Crossing the ocean for the first time, my first raid, dungeons, not sure. A funny story though was when I was the MT for my guild and were were about to set up for Trakanon in Seb when he glitched out and attacked us through the wall for no reason at all. Its been so long now I want to say we died, had to do a corpse run(monks FTW) get set back up and if my memory is right we killed him after we got back together. Added an extra hour or two to that raid :awesome:
Loving FF14 right now but as a 40 ninja I don't see anything coming up or anything that's on the horizon in this game that will give me that sense of accomplishment or excitement I had back then. Dungeons are quick and have no soul. Gaining new gear is all too common to get excited about. New games are not terrible its just they haven't broke the mold far enough to give anyone a new feel. WoW players will start feeling this more and more with each game released.
Community has been covered, so I will try to exlain a few of the most important differences between eq in the era 1999-2005 and todays mmos. I could go on for hours about details and comparisons, and despite its flaws no other mmorpgs since has come close to comparing. Some will fire the argument that wow devs were inspired by eq and therefore they were similar, but that is just uninformed nonsense if you look at the basic design philosophies.
First and most important is handholding, which is fundamentally a question of how the devs view the player. In eq the player is entering a world and is given the control of how to experience the game. In eq you feel like an adventurer because the world feels like it would exist regardless of your presense. Wow on the other hand (I am going to use wow to describe all modern themepark mmorpgs since they all follow the same paradigm) takes the player by the hand and lead them through a designed experience, an optimized journey to experience as much story content as possible (this is the real definition of themepark). In wow the player enter the game themepark, as opposed to entering a living breathing world like eq.
Eq had stories that devs designed just like wow, so what is the difference? This is a sum of many details, but I would describe it like this. Eq's stories were subtle, optional and fragmented; an example would be finding a piece of parchment with some information, combined with the mystic writing in blood on the wall the player can choose to investigate into that and thereby follow a questline.. fractional meaning often the stories and quests were intertwined with lore and npc's taking you places where even more adventures could begin for the curious player - All optional, no quest log, no handholding.
I hope I don't need to explain how wow/themepark stories are much different in nature.
So the basic difference is that in eq the player to a very high degree created his own unique stories through interaction with the world and other players, and this was only possible because of the way the game was designed with extreme amount of options, harsh consequences, co-dependence of other players, and gigantic world full of lore and variety - Every player found unique experiences within these.
This is so hard to explain with words, it is almost like if you didn't experience it you can not understand. I have a friend who is a hardcore mmo player with loads of days clocked in wow, eve many of the new mmos.. and even him, because wow was his first and he has not experienced true non-themepark (eve is kindda an off-mmo), do not really understand the differences in depth, except if we go into pvp and how that gives player freedom to create their own stories.
Already this is starting to turn into a 100 page report, and I have only begun to cover one thing. This will have to do for now.
Ah ok a few key things:
-Feeling of accomplishment because achieving something was an actual achievement
-True class variation that no other mmorpg has been able to replicate, this includes spells and abilities variation and the multitude of ways they could be used, that is still completely unmatched by any mmorpg.
Some will say, in eq you just turn on auto attack and come back 5 minutes later - If you hear this you are listening to someone who has only scratched the surface, you can play eq on many levels and a real good player who optimize his actions, will be several times more valuable and successful - What you put in is what you get out.
-"No number game" meaning numbers were hidden to a high degree, creating a mystic atmosphere where much of the gameplay were based on knowledge, experience, adaptation and gut feeling.. examples includes number free aggro management, crowd control, resists, order of skill usage for different situations, no dps counters, no red indicators.
One last thing, eq had many flaws and room for improvement.. it is just no other mmorpg picked up the banner and ran with it so it was never improved. Instead the other games went the themepark way, and you could argue that they are a different genre that just added selected technical features (which no doubt has improved vastly) from mmorpgs.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
2) The last half of the acronym: RPG. Yes, community was very different. There was one.
3) Same as above: RPG. Also, the very present chance for failure. Nothing was "automatic."
4) Overcoming difficult encounters with a group. It was the total party wipes, regrouping, planning anew, and then finding victory. A lot of memoris centered around group chat, too. It was the banter, the making acquaintances, telling jokes, laughing, yelling, crying.
VG
I only played one old school MMO so it is by default my favourite. I hadn't even heard of the genre before SWG. I was still a relatively normal teen and hadn't really embraced the geek side of my personality, so between school / gym / skateboarding / sailing / drinking / girlfriends I just wasn't really into gaming that much. I got into SWG because my best mate was playing it and I loved Star Wars.
2) Yes, different experience
First was the time involved. With the buff system in SWG, you really needed to dedicate 2-3hrs to get the most of your buffs. Second, it was very group orientated. Whilst you could solo just about everything, most people grouped up. So, when learning a new profession, I'd head to Anchorhead on Tattooine and join a "squill" group. This would be a raid of 15-20 players, we'd all grab squill quests (clear out a nest of squills in the desert, 10k credit reward, best xp) and then head out into the desert for an hour to complete 30-40 squill quests.
In essence, it was just mob grinding, but it was very social, very quick to level and a lot of fun. But, it meant that the community was used to working together from an early stage. In my experience, you spent more time grouped at low level (well, didn't have levels but u know what i mean) than you did when capped.
Add to this the crafting system and non-combat professions, you basically had a whole game that revolved around community. Thus, the community became very open, welcoming and cooperative. You knew the best jedi, you knew the best pvpers, you knew the best crafters etc.
3) Different Philosophy
This is what is boils down to in my opinion. Older MMOs explored the concept of virtual, living worlds. Sure, they didn't have a clue how to achieve it which is why there were so many approaches and so many hit-and-miss features, but each of the old school MMOs wanted you to live in a virtual world and built systems to make that possible. These days, that is not the case. The philosophy has changed from virtual worlds to shared experiences. The experiences are tightly controlled by developers and they want you to go through them with friends. Thats fine, but it is very limited and doesn't embrace the "MMO" bit of MMORPGs.
4) I have 2 primary experiences from SWG that stand out
The first is my guild's first clear of the Geonosian Labs on Yavin. This was an open-world dungeon, fairly linear. As a newbie it was very exciting. We went in with a raid and worked our way through in an hour or so. In addition to tough enemies, there were minor puzzles throughout (well, locked doors that you needed to find the codes for). The final boss was Acklay - the big insect thing from Attack of the Clones - which we promptly beat.
The dungeon wasn't particularly hard - I eventually created a template (build) that allowed me to solo it - but the creatures were awesome to fight and SWG didn't really have dungeons, so was fun just being in one.
The second memory is of a player event. On my server (EU-Chimaera) an imperial guild, Keepers of the Dark Side, organised a mass pvp event at their player city. So, on the day, we all got buffed up, put on our best armour and headed out as a rebel guild to try and destroy KDS's pvp base. The GMs on our server spawned in an AT-AT (something you couldn't see in game really) and 100s of people turned out.
Now, my PC couldn't handle it, so was a lag-fest, and eventually we killed the server and couldn't play for 20minutes. But, it was my first experience of a server-wide, player-run event. I was impressed that so many people turned up. I was equally impressed with the AT-AT and, to my teenage mind, I was honoured that someone working for SOE had taken the time to support the event and attempt to make it more fun for us.
Having said that, I have equally vivid memories and nostalgia from all MMOs I've played. That is because I play MMOs to play with other people, for the "MMO" part, so whenever you create connections with real people you're going to get fond memories. I've been back to SWG-emu and whilst the features are the same, the feeling isn't. There isn't enough of a community to create those leveling groups, to create the robust economy etc. Pretty much everyone is fully-templated, endgame orientated and so the community lacks the diversity it used to have.
I really enjoyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Both were inherently social experiences. The design was based less on the experience of a single player, more on the community working together.
2. How playing MMOs in 90s differed from playing MMOs today? Was community different?
There were a lot less expectations. You did not have hundreds of MMOs to choose from. Ultima Online was the only available MMO when I started.
I remember walking into a PC game store, looking for a new game to buy. The guy was saying "We have this new Star Wars game in. Apparently you can play with other players. We only have one copy, I know little about it, but my friend in the States is saying it's good."
That's the kind of environment you were playing in. MMOs were brand new. Noone knew what to expect and everyone was eager to explore. It's very different today, people can't be bothered to really explore a game. Everything is so optimised to provide the best experience possible, leaving you little choice in terms of what you do.
3. What old MMOs had that modern MMOs dont?
You had very stable communities. Playing one MMO for years was the norm. This was partly due to the limited selection of games. It was also due to the social nature of the games.
If you leave WoW for another game, noone will notice. That's the big difference. A game like WoW is mainly designed around the single player experience. If you left Ultima Online, people noticed. They did not have their blacksmith to get them weapons, if you were a miner, they lost access to their resources.
You did not have to be in a guild either. Simply playing the game meant you were having an impact on others. In modern MMOs, you have little to no interaction with others, unless you join a guild.
4. What ingame moments from early MMO era you still remember and are nostalgic about?
I have a lot of memories from Star Wars Galaxies. I spent 10 years in that game. It was amazing to know a lot of people, watch their progress. A few years in, I set up a newbie helping group. I remember helping a crafter set up her first mineral harvester. A year later, she was one of the top tailors around. Similarly, I remember showing a new guy how to buy a jukebox. Two years later, he is the owner of a famous city that does weekly roleplaying events.
A lot of my memories involve other people. I'm curious if this is the same for others. I recall working with doctors to advertise for them. Meeting a Jedi for the first time. Towards the end, a friend of mine helped me to become a Jedi as well. I recall hunting animals on Kashyyk with friends.
My memories from recent MMOs are very different. They are individual experiences. More like personal milestones.
As someone has mention things like fishscales that or seeing stones that help you see in the dark.
One side of a whole planet enveloped in darkness unless you were a wizard and had the spell or a Val Shar who came from that planet.
Npc vendors that have not been seen since. Players that relied on other players through having certain spells. You wanted to go somewhere then you would need a wizard to port you or a druid.
When the last time have you seen the spell levitation in an mmo other than Vanguard.
I could go on and on.
You could rebuy stuff from stores that people had sold.
There was no formal auction house. An item might actually go for more gold in Freeport than Queynos.
Crafters were actively sought out, known, sponsored, and had major reputations.
There were no goldsellers. Back then selling stuff for money was actually still not an offense, and yes people did sell a 113 bow, or that amuli with the right colors for $3, but without the magnet goldsellers who were in it just for the money, it was people to people in forums and ebay and via shouts by the east commons tunnel. It wasn't until it became against the rules that the big goldsellers came about.
That sort of thing makes me wonder if protecting players as modern games do is really good for the overall social aspects of MMORPG's.
But regardless of that, the point is that players earned their reps.
They had strategies they developed to build their game play and put in the effort. They did what other players didn't. They were "go to" players that the societies of gamers inside that world could deal with.
They were guild leaders, merchants, even runners, and general builders of things beyond the game code.
They were Social Hubs for the player base.
There's no "earning it" in MMORPG's these days. Just be there and punch the right buttons at the right time, wear the right gear designed for "this or that". That's "Paint-By-Numbers".
That's hardly what I think of as truly "earning it".
Once upon a time....
EQ - A buddy convinced me to try Everquest..He said it was nothing like UO and to give it a try......THe first thing I loved about the game was you were just thrown into the world.....No maps, no tutorial, jsut a huge world to explore.....The combat was fun....Each class varied greatly and you had to figure out how you fit in and had to learn how to play with others if you were going to survive.
THe community was very different than MMOs today.....SUre there were a few jerks but for the most part people were very friendly and cooperative.....Like others have said, if you didnt play nice you didnt play..... I met a high level character fairly early and she ported me around all over the world so I could see more than just my starting area.....I remember thinking that porting was really sweet so I made a Druid as my main character.
Another huge difference was the rate of XP gain....In EQ you progressed slowly but for the msot part people didnt seem to mind, at least in the first year or two of the game......THe game was much more about the journey than about the final destination.....ALso you had to learn how to play your class...Classes that had high mana demands like Clerics and Wizards couldnt just heal or nuke non stop or they would have alot of downtime waiting for it to restore....Also if you over did it you would draw the ire of the monsters and get attacked.
THe corpse runs and death penalties were hard no doubt BUT they taught us a huge lesson in risk and reward.....You learned to have some fear of your environment and to pay attention.....Also EQ was about exploration and boss hunting than about questing...There were some quests and I think every class had what was called an Epic quest where they would do a series of quests leading up to a very nice piece of some sort for your toon...Often epic quests required a group and some even a raid to help accomplish steps..... THe great thing about it was we all worked together.
Sorry this was so long but you asked lol....ALot of people that started with WoW as their first MMO didnt know what the genre was really liked in its beginning......WoW was a walk in the park for most veteran EQ players...The mobs were much easier and so were the raids.....The community wasnt the same and it was very spoiled with what most of us called an instant gratification playerbase......To me the genre changed alot in 2004 and has never been the same since.
2. Mostly answered this above: early MMORPGs were far more boring and far less enjoyable than modern MMORPGs, due to the grind, the weak gameplay, and the weak graphics. They had very little going for them except the idea of a persistent world.
3. Old MMORPGs didn't really have anything important that modern MMORPGs lack. The one exception is City of Heroes let you select your difficulty level, so that no matter what your skill level was you always had exactly the challenge you wanted out of your game session (right from the start; in the first ~30 minutes you could reach that NPC and set things to be very challenging if that's what you wanted.) You'd advance much faster if you set things harder than if you kept them easy.
4. Not really nostalgic for any of it. It was the dark ages of MMORPGs. Memorable moments include AO's awful launch where I stared directly at the ground in order to have enough framerate to get through the capital city, the awful gameplay that I suffered through running a dungeon in DAOC with real world friends (really it was just a cave that had monster respawns; calling it a "dungeon" implies a set of modern gameplay that DAOC lacked), and the long travel distances it took to get to the farming spot from an AC town.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
2. The internet was a different place in 2003; YouTube, Facebook, didn't exist. Wikis were still kind of a new thing. More emphasis was on word of mouth by players in the real world, from my perspective. As such, the game / community felt much more like an island rather than a single star in a constellation.
3. I think the design philosophy has moved away from emphasizing a 'real place' to emphasizing individual player experiences. WoW famously tried to minimize downtime and implemented 'instancing'; highly copied by many MMOs thereafter. MMORPG no longer necessarily means 'thousands of players interacting in a digital space' but may mean 'many players adventuring together via instanced encounters'.
4. First time I got spawn-camped and ganked repeatedly. I logged off so upset that night I could barely sleep.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance