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Returning to older games..
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
how much fun can older games be?
i thibk the main point is getting used to the older graphics..
i recently returned to lotro after 3 years ..
the latest Mordor expansion allows you to finish the most important part of the journey
to witness or maybe even be part of the destruction of the ring..
which for me was reason to give this game a go again.
i quit 3 years ago, because i could not enjoy the Epic battles..
actually i am really enjoying the friendly community
old guild seems gone..
but i decided to start a new character to enjoy the whole journey..
and after one weekend it feels like being home again
in good old middle earth..
Sometimes graphics and high tech arent everything
and i allways loved this game, the epic story, the gameplay
but most of all the lore and the worldfeel..
oh and playing a Warden, my favorite class ever in any game also helps a lot.
i think i may have finally found a new home for the next few months to come.
anyone else finding comfort in reliving the memmories of the past?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
Last night, I was on my level 8-9 dwarf doing the starter quests. The graphics and the combat just hurt my eyes. I thought that if I wanted to play an old game like this, WoW is so much better (in combat, animations, smoothness, etc.) As far as quests go, I cannot say yet. The game was so ugly in the starter zones, I kept thinking I needed to play BDO to heal my eyes.
I just uninstalled LOTRO *again* and then I see this thread.
Please, help me understand.
Games are for playing, not looking at. Does it have good systems and mechanics? You seem to be one of those people who think graphics can make a game better. I disagree as much as I do with someone saying more fancy chess pieces make that a better game. But there are enough of you that have been around from the start that I won't argue the point. I'll just say that the graphics are what they are and if you can't get past them at early levels there probably is no reason to continue. I played BDO for a couple hours and couldn't get past the bad systems and mechanics myself, and no amount of graphic goodness is going to make a bad game worth playing to me.
But to answer the original post - I play games until I get bored and logging in seems like a chore, currently I'm playing DDO trying to improve my character through rebirths in prep for the expansion.
Before that I played Age of Conan for a couple days and it was the first time I ever had an issue with customer service. In essence they stole about $400 from me and closed my account because I literally did nothing and was inflicted by a vindictive CSR. Well, I did do something - I did what a livechat CSR told me to do when a purchase didn't go through. And then the email support used that as an excuse to close my account and toy with me.
This sucked for me because I also have Anarchy Online in my rotation as a game I love. And once in a while I would try TSW again to see if I'd like it this time.
I play mainly old MMOs, as they seem to be the only ones with acceptable character development. The newest game I play is Wildstar.
But I also go through phases. I notice when work gets more hectic while my wife gets more yappy I tend to want to play an MMO. And then when I get burnt out on whatever one I'm playing I stick to single player games for a while, usually playing old ones in rotation too. This whole Funcom debacle is the first time I ever went from MMO to MMO.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Really, though, it's not an old game. It's had loads of updates and expansions. Mordor is brand new.
One thing that makes it difficult returning to MMOs is the transient community. Whenever I play something at launch, It's a nice experience of bumping into random people in zones, having chats with strangers and easily finding groups. All of that disappears if you're returning to an old game.
When I came back to Everquest 2 for the longest time, about 6 years ago, me and my sister made a guild for new players by new players. It took a lot of effort, constantly scouring the starter zones for possible guildies, but we managed to have a guild of about 100+ (20 online) players. We completed all of the games content over the next year, all the zones, dungeons and even some of the raids. I am extremely greateful for that, as I got to experience the game the way it was intended.
It has so much to offer. When I showed it to my sister's boyfriend, who is a WoW veteran, he was swept away. He joined us and played through all the content too. I think many people won't give it a try because of the dated graphics, missing out on all the rest. Similarly to BDO, Everquest 2 has a lot of clutter in their systems. All of this means it takes a pretty strong commitment and resilience to give the game a solid try. I'd imagine the same is true for most older games.
I tried resubbing last year, but the game really lacks a community now. None of my friends want to play it anymore either, so it would be a lone wolf experience.
It's a shame, because I miss a lot of the zones. The dungeons and encounters were some of the best I've seen in a game - from dilapidated catacombs full of hidden passageways, to flooded temples or a djin's palace where the dungeon tries to separate your group by a series of traps, taking you on when you're isolated.
The games may look visually dated, but many of them have 10+ years worth of content in them. In the case of EQ2, it's been one of the most immersive MMOs, due to the zone design, music and lore. Those things are still there, even with older graphics. So I got one of my best experiences in gaming from it, even years after release.
I'll also add, that it's not just those visual features, but some of the core mechanics as well. Nowadays, we expect our animations to be fluid, our hitboxes to be accurate and the combat to be tight. Not in these older games though! You could stand 10 feet away forman enemy but still swing and hit eachother. Enemies can fire a spell,, you run out of range and sight, but still get hit by it. You can stand on one side of a wall and hit an enemy through a poorly clipped corner of the wall. You can have a party of 12 occupy the same square inch of a dungeon.
My biggest gripe with LoTRO and these older games is that you never seen anyone or interact with anyone anymore! If you happen across other players in these starter zones, you can guarantee they're high levels players on their alts. The whole feel of exploration and adventure that takes place during the early phase of an MMO is lost and the experience of finding new places and exploring new areas, killing different creatures, etc. is missing. By the time you get to level 50+ or its equivalent, you've heard EVERYONE talking so much about all of the content, it's already old and stale to you before you even step foot in it.
It's completely unintentional, but all the multi-year vets in the MMOs end up killing the experience new players have in these games. You read the forums or listen to in game chat and you know what you're getting into before you ever get there. You join a guild and one of the first things everyone wants to do is give away their excess stuff that's garbage to them, but would normally takes you weeks to acquire on your own. They invite you to group, then end up power-leveling you through 90% of the content without you getting to experience it on your own. These things add up after time and just kill a game for new/low level players.
Some older games I play still have decent art even if the poly count is low. Some 2D games still look fairly good to me like Baldur's Gate and even some of the old NES and SNES games.
A good example of art preference to me is comparing say Neverwinter Nights with The Witcher 1. Both use the same engine, but IMO The Witcher 1 looks much better. Most of that is due to 2D textures that are pretty to look at IMO.
I played through Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 recently and didn't have issue with the graphics. I still had a lot of fun. To prove it isn't nostalgia I even played through Dragon Warrior 7 for PlayStation and had a lot of fun with it. I had never played the game before. The graphics weren't exactly pretty, but I found the story and dialogue very enjoyable.
The main issue with poor graphics is there are so many games in the market it's difficult to find or try out one. Many old games already have a reputation which gives them an advantage in this department.
After playing for awhile I don't even notice the graphics until someone like my husband comes in says OMG!!! How can you play that ? I am like huh ? I was going to start by long trek to HighHold Pass on my level 8 enchanter to get my pet spells and while worrying about the number of zones I have to cross with invisibility and it dropping at the wrong time or the path up the pass of course I got lost in Gorge of King Xorbb went the wrong way and worrying about things that can see through invisibility the last thing I noticed was the graphics.
The fact that I can cast something like alliance on a NPC to improve my faction or stand behind them and change into an inanimate object and have even better faction so that an NPC that might kill you on sight no longer wants to and will even sell to you. Or just change my race .
Spell and abilities you about never see in games any more. So what if the graphics suck I don't care I am there for the game .
I think it takes till, atleast level 20 to get a good idea what this game is about.
like most older MMO's Lotro starts really really slow
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Eq2 was an incredible game..
sadly it keeps crashing on me since i have this laptop..(for over 5 years now)
its one of the games that has so incredible much to offer. In the end it was a better game then good old EQ1.. as it addapted to todays MMO experience much better...
best thing in the game, downleveling to the level of your low level friends...
Worst thing, the new starting areas, i liked the orriginal ones much better...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I always thought the whole faction concept was neat in terms of Enchanters being able to change factions by casting race illusions or charm spells. Druids could become friendly with Brownies by casting the wolf polymorph spell.
Having to find your spells at different locations in the world was another part of the challenge. They were scattered all over and there were no guides to tell you where to go or if the spell even existed at all. Sometimes you even had to research the spell as it wasn't sold by a vendor. This was usually the most challenging as ingredients were not scattered all over the world with no hints on where to find them.
I never really had an issue with EQ graphics. I always found the colors and art style pleasing. The main issue with EQ being ugly is that it was limited to a certain amount of polygons. One might argue this lead to more complex dungeons though as the low poly count made it easier to create large and complex dungeons (they didn't have to worry about complex high poly meshes).
I tried topside but there were a few people on the docks that conned 'threatening' that women in the blue robe who wanders around and without invisibility which the shadowknight only gets at level 30 I have to shout for someone to come cast it on me but then to have to find someone to do that every time was a nuisance so I braved the aquaducts. With my awful sense of direction it was a bad idea.
Haha, I think that is part of the charm of EQ for people who like that kind of thing. It is both frustrating and rewarding finding your way through these places and potentially dying. There were lots of invisible walls and false floors. My most hated was probably Befallen. I died many times in there being fear kited by necromancers and getting trapped behind the locked door on the lower floor.
Others have answered you. I am just going to say the graphics of lotro are superior to cartoony WoW. That's obvious with just a quick look at a couple of videos, go to You Tube.
Something changed at Sony though about 6 years ago, basically after the TSO expansion they started driving the game into the ground, introduced cash shops, F2P and any other way they could money grab you. Basically, they went from creating amazing games to focusing on selling and getting as much money from the gamer as they could.. and it destroyed the game. Today's EQ2 is a shell of what it use to be which makes it very difficult to go back and play, even the old content.
Now one game that is very interesting to go back and play is DAOC. To get the full effect though you have to stay away from all the fast leveling instant gratification that they have put in the game. Just create a new character, go out in the world and do the old quests, the old leveling/grind. It's an AMAZING experience that has been lost in MMORPGs today. Think you could pull a group of mobs at level 5? Let me know how that goes for you! Fighting is much more tactical, knowing how to pull, not getting wiped etc. So many elements of combat that have been forgotten over time.
Would I want to play all the old DAOC? No, the questing system was bad and it had other problems but there are elements of that game that today's games don't come close to capturing... and that's just on the PvE side. It's criminal that after 15 years there hasn't been another game that that has put together 3 factions and recreated the RvR concept.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.