Something I have noticed in my years of playing, is that as players have shifted from pen & paper games to 'old school MMORPG's ' and to newer twitch control games, is that the connection to the character is being lost. I know when I first started MMORPG's that
I really thought about what my character was doing and why, and I had a back story for all my characters. But now I feel less invested in my characters, they are not really my alter egos anymore and even though the graphics are better it seems like the immersion is less because I just don't have that same connection anymore. Maybe it is because I am older and real life is more demanding, or maybe it is because the games are more shallow.
WoW was the first of the "new school", and even Everquest2 was transitioning to the new way.
The fundamental thing that changed at that time, is that mmorpgs went from trying to be virtual worlds where the players were entities that held high amount of agency, to the story driven themepark where players are herded (handholding) through a specific narrative setup.
You could also say that players used to be adventurers in a world/setting whp would make their stories through their choices and actions, and now they passengers in a story and all choices are tightly controlled and mostly not actual choices.
This is what changed ... The rest are just results of this change plus evolution and the fact that mmorpg devs are more focused of profits than before.
Tbh I think it is wrong to divide these into "old" and "new" category; for me it is more a question of what kind game certain types of players would like ..... And there are just more money to be made from the "new" way, so no one makes mmorpgs for the adventurer type of gamer anymore.
I love to adventure...i have to look at single player games and Survival games to scratch that itch.....MMOs haven't been able to do that since 2004.....Basically MMOs became just following a script from then on......It was no longer about playing a role or going to an unknown place...It was about doing quests and being lead around by the hand,,,it was kind of embarrassing how much the genre was dumbed down. I remember being really nervous (in an excited kind of way) when I started exploring in games like EQ.....Danger was literally around every corner.
The combat in old school MMO's was not designed with the intent to be slow or boring, they did not intend for you to stand still. They HAD to do it that way.
In order for multiple people to fight the same target, they have to be coordinated. Their actions have to be synchronized. When Everquest was released, high speed internet was a 56k dial up connection. I myself was limited to about 18k due to very, very old telephone lines that had massive interference. The 'stand still and mash icons' method was the only way they could synchronize the actions of multiple people on different speed connections. Some of those differences could be vast.
So the evolution of MMO's and their design was not just about designs being updated, it was also about connection speeds being updated.
When cable was finally available, I went from about 18k to 20mb and I thought I was in heaven!
The moving, active combat of modern MMO's is dependent on faster computers and faster internet. These games simply would not run on a dial-up connection and my AMD 300 processor with an 8mb video card.
I'm not sure I would say World of Warcraft is an old school mmorpg.
I would say that it was a theme park and I would say it was the beginning of the (for lack of a better term) "new school" games.
It seems to my thinking that old school games not only had less hand holding/leading the player but the player could just pick what they wanted to do and do it a LOT in order to level up.
World of Warcraft started the whole new way of playing where you had more stories, where it was a specially crafted leveling experience that led you easily and quickly to the next stop on your leveling journey.
Oh sure, you could have stayed in one area and killed mobs like old school games but I suspect the quest experience trumped that.
Yes, WoW started the new template but was still a hybrid MMO, it kept a lot of the Old School feel. As time has gone on though it has shifted further and further away from old school often seeming to be playing catch up with the new school developments in newer MMOs.
Was it? Did it?
I would say it's more "new world" than old world. But then it's all an evolution right? it's not that World of Warcraft didn't come from the older/original mmorpg's but that it was informed by them and then the developers changed what they considered the pain points from the earlier mmorpg's.
I think you need a refresher by playing WOW classic. Compared to modern MMOs, WOW Classic has much more in common with the first gen MMOs than with modern ones.
That's certainly the way it felt to me when I played a couple of years ago.
There is no doubt that it marked the start of QOL conveniences that were adopted by others but those have evolved hugely over time.
This is all a matter of degree, I think WoW launched leaning more to its new vison than the old, but the old way was still there. That as Iselin said is proved by classic and how many people play it in fact.
Also if they were really pain points why did people go back? Though I am not offering old school as a panacea for what's wrong with MMOs today, a hybrid playstyle taking elements from old and new is the way to go for me. We have lost so much that three faction RvR is an oddity these days and you can't be sure MMOs will have extensive end game raiding, housing, any grouping at all, crafting to be meaningful, the list just goes on.
We went from MMORPG to MMOG ... we lost the RP elements on the way. I'd even argue we went to MOG as these days massive open worlds are rather the exception ....
I can get behind the essence of what Niklas is trying to point out, however, I think we all overlook a big change/trend with the newer MMO's to me and one of my big peev's is the 3D isometric game design.
There are plenty of developers out there trying to make MMORPG's you can find lists anywhere of straight garbage, the issue for me is the 'new guard' are making them all; 1) Isometric 3D..i.e.(Diablo 2, PoE, etc.), 2) Stylized graphics (think Fortnite) and 3) The hyper focus on PVP element.
I think the worst thing that has happened to MMORPG is the loss of immersion, which for me is because of the previous 3 reasons I listed. I don't want to play a game...I want to get lost in a world/universe.
Yep, pretty much my same exact thought.
The landscape I've observed in mmorpg's over the years is that developers have progressively forgotten how to create a rpg.
The role-playing experience has to come first in the creation process; otherwise it's a online environment with nothing in it.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013 Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005 Fishing in RL since 1992 Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Before WoW, it felt like the companies were trying to make good games...Every one was very unique and very different....From WoW on though, it felt like they tried to follow the WoW formula and the emphasis shifted from trying to make a unique fun world to how do we make money on this? It felt like we went from nerd gamers making the games to corporations and suits making the games.
"World of Warcraft (2004) is not only an old school MMO"...
On what planet?
A lot of text just to explain:
*Sandbox = skillbased mmo = good for gamers who want a challenge or doesnt want to be forced to follow a linear path
*Themepark = linear, lvl based mmo = good for kids
Imo, wrong angle. The difference is not years (old school vs new school), but Sandbox vs Themepark, since the games are still the same as back in the 90's. I.e bad ones and good ones.
Regards
Dexxah
First MMO: Habitat/club carib released 1989 on Commodore 64 (old school baby)
Same old navel gazing argument about the nature of change on what is truly a minute section of gaming. Trying to dissect cabbages and kings on this topic will always fail as the perceptions of all involved are myriad and subjective.
What has really driven change in the MMO and gaming industry as a whole is simple economics. These changes did not come about through the effort of trying to create a better game, they exist because they are adaptations meant to get these games into the hands of as many consumers as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible. And then further modified to maximize the return of profit from their customers in as short a time as possible.
There are a lot of parallels to the MMORPG evolution. Like chess vs. checkers.
I started out gaming in the 1960's with Avalon Hill war games. These were complicated and time consuming simulations of wars, with complicated statistics for each unit, and required lots of reading and thinking. Very few people played them.
The "dumbed down" version is Risk, where you still have units, and battles, but most of the thinking and planning has been replaced with lots of dice rolling. Little or no reading required. No details about units and everybody's units are the same. Lots of people played that.
In the 70's, I played "Adventure", a text based dungeon crawler like Zork. We had that on our UNIX machine. Again, lots of thinking and reading required. The "dumbed down" version was in the arcade games you could play. One of my favorites was "Defender".
So there's always been a kind of dual track, with some games requiring reading and thinking, and characters that grow and evolve. And the arcade style games that featured minimal thinking and reading, and more action.
The first MMORPG's had lots of reading and thinking. Planning how to build your character, what "role" you will play. DAOC was my first MMO in 2001, and there was a lot of complexity. Heck, most of the classes had several paths to take, each full of different powers, etc.
I think what has happened is that game designers, being businessmen in the final analysis, have figured out that complicated games that require lots of reading and thinking, are expensive to make, and the target audience is small, much smaller than for arcade type games.
The broad market they want to reach today doesn't want to read, they don't want to have to take time to think, and plan. That used to be the fun part, but not anymore. Many people simply don't read anything, and skip over any text more than one line long.
So the cheapest games to make have little complexity. Instead of many classes, each of which has many different paths to choose from, we get a "class" with 5 skills. Instead of a big manual with lots of rules and details, we get twitch action combat. Instead of a complicated story, with characters that grow and change based on your choices, we get "survival" games where there are no rules, nothing to read, and your character's choice is what weapon to use.
I would argue that the market for the old-style thinking game is still there, and maybe even a little larger than before. People still play the old games, like DAOC and EQ. But that market is tiny compared to the dumbed down games that require little thinking and reading. It always has been like that. Lots more people play checkers than play chess.
Let's say you are an investor who is interested in gaming. You can invest in a game that takes a long time to make, is very complicated, expensive to make, and reaches a small audience. Or, you can invest in a cheap to make, simplistic game that appeals to a large market.
I promise I could use this speech in a board meeting, edit it a bit to make it slightly more like a sale pitch and get millions invested to make a mobile game or F2P MMO...
and I hate that as I agree with you 100% EQ was my first real depth game and I look forward to games that require thought more then button mashing ever since then. I notice over the years the trend to less and less depth and more and more games that are BOOM pretty graphics and if you pay X you will be awesome and beat everyone else who stayed F2P.
Take a look at New World made by Amazon... that game is a big POS... I tried it and it's straight up garbage.. it looks and plays just like all the other mmorg's out there now.. just generic trash..
Even with all the money in the world Amazon has they still produced trash
It's Amazon....Some people are desperate for a new MMO of any kind, others will try it because of Amazon in the name.....They may not even be aware of it, but name recognition is huge for many people.
"World of Warcraft (2004) is not only an old school MMO"...
On what planet?
A lot of text just to explain:
*Sandbox = skillbased mmo = good for gamers who want a challenge or doesnt want to be forced to follow a linear path
*Themepark = linear, lvl based mmo = good for kids
Imo, wrong angle. The difference is not years (old school vs new school), but Sandbox vs Themepark, since the games are still the same as back in the 90's. I.e bad ones and good ones.
Regards
Dexxah
First MMO: Habitat/club carib released 1989 on Commodore 64 (old school baby)
Welcome to the forums!
Club Carib that is old school, C64 though, Amiga was of course the better machine.
I think vanilla WoW is a transition game. Was not as tedious or hard as Everquest and other older games but not as easy as the current ones.
I think you're right. It's probably still an oversimplification but I see 3 distinct (without getting into obscure MMOs that were played on an abacus way back when ) MMO eras rather than 2: the first gen with UO, Asheron's Call, EQ, Lineage, DAoC, SWG, etc., the 2nd gen characterized by WOW and quest-hub driven design that was hugely copied and dominated MMO design for a decade or more - stil does to some extent - and the new gen like GW2, ESO, BDO, New World, etc., with a more modern take on game play and typically some form of active action combat.
Everything also borrowed from what came before so there have never really been any clear cut and definitive demarcations except in the minds of some with an agenda.
I'm speaking in broad, general terms., but I can see three distinct types more than 2.
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I think vanilla WoW is a transition game. Was not as tedious or hard as Everquest and other older games but not as easy as the current ones.
I think you're right. It's probably still an oversimplification but I see 3 distinct (without getting into obscure MMOs that were played on an abacus way back when ) MMO eras rather than 2: the first gen with UO, Asheron's Call, EQ, Lineage, DAoC, SWG, etc., the 2nd gen characterized by WOW and quest-hub driven design that was hugely copied and dominated MMO design for a decade or more - stil does to some extent - and the new gen like GW2, ESO, BDO, New World, etc., with a more modern take on game play and typically some form of active action combat.
Everything also borrowed from what came before so there have never really been any clear cut and definitive demarcations except in the minds of some with an agenda.
I'm speaking in broad, general terms., but I can see three distinct types more than 2.
I can see that too because we are looking at it from where we are now. If WoW had not achieved such notoriety and success there would have been a completely different progression in the types of games we see now.
That is why I feel it is a transition game. Both in terms of difficulty and the type of game it spawned as a result of its success. I don't think there would have been that many quest driven games had WoW been only just successful instead of the mega status it garnered.
I think vanilla WoW is a transition game. Was not as tedious or hard as Everquest and other older games but not as easy as the current ones.
I think you're right. It's probably still an oversimplification but I see 3 distinct (without getting into obscure MMOs that were played on an abacus way back when ) MMO eras rather than 2: the first gen with UO, Asheron's Call, EQ, Lineage, DAoC, SWG, etc., the 2nd gen characterized by WOW and quest-hub driven design that was hugely copied and dominated MMO design for a decade or more - stil does to some extent - and the new gen like GW2, ESO, BDO, New World, etc., with a more modern take on game play and typically some form of active action combat.
Everything also borrowed from what came before so there have never really been any clear cut and definitive demarcations except in the minds of some with an agenda.
I'm speaking in broad, general terms., but I can see three distinct types more than 2.
I can see that too because we are looking at it from where we are now. If WoW had not achieved such notoriety and success there would have been a completely different progression in the types of games we see now.
That is why I feel it is a transition game. Both in terms of difficulty and the type of game it spawned as a result of its success. I don't think there would have been that many quest driven games had WoW been only just successful instead of the mega status it garnered.
What also helped WoW was that Blizzard marketed it heavily......Really none of the MMOs before it went out of their way to promote their games like WoW did. That's why I think New World will succeed...not because it is a great new groundbreaking game, but because of the resources it has behind it. Amazon can spend the money that no other gaming company can.
The World has changed and MMO's with it. No cursive in school, core math etc. We have become (we as a collective with notable exceptions) more likely to follow an easier path. I have been in MMO's since 1999, even I don't want a north wall Karnors castle (Everquest for the younger crowd) grind for a weekend resulting in 1 level.
I am not sitting here writing this on AOL dialup nor would I want to. I am not going places in my 1979 Ford Pinto with AM radio and no air conditioning. I am driving my new modern car with all the toys. We move forward.
There are far more distractions in life now. People generally do not spend hours/days at a time in games that we did decades ago. A true grindy old school MMO, while popular with some, would die a quick death with little love from the masses.
The World has changed and MMO's with it. No cursive in school, core math etc. We have become (we as a collective with notable exceptions) more likely to follow an easier path. I have been in MMO's since 1999, even I don't want a north wall Karnors castle (Everquest for the younger crowd) grind for a weekend resulting in 1 level.
I am not sitting here writing this on AOL dialup nor would I want to. I am not going places in my 1979 Ford Pinto with AM radio and no air conditioning. I am driving my new modern car with all the toys. We move forward.
There are far more distractions in life now. People generally do not spend hours/days at a time in games that we did decades ago. A true grindy old school MMO, while popular with some, would die a quick death with little love from the masses.
Forgive this new account. Had to make one for when at work.
What you are saying is about you. It is not about the world changing. YOUR life changed.
You are generalizing. You are suggesting that games can't be a certain way because YOUR life doesn't conform to them.
Many young kids 20 years ago played games 8+ hours a day as many young kids today also play games 8+ hours a day (and are glued to screens far, far more then 20 years ago). The difference between then and now is that gamers today have been conditioned to think they must play the limited scope of industrialized games offered to them. Gamers today are victims of mass advertising propaganda where flashy graphics and cloned game play and design are the only choice.
You had real choice when you were younger. You wanted to play a slow grindy game and you had the choice to play it. Today that choice is dead. Indie gaming struggles to make mmorpgs of that scope. The problem is the monopolized and industrialized developer industry, and you speak as if you advocate this change, and call it "evolution".
In the end it sounds like you support the death of genre gaming. If the "masses" don't support it, it shouldn't exist? You have gotten older, but wisdom has not followed you.
The World has changed and MMO's with it. No cursive in school, core math etc. We have become (we as a collective with notable exceptions) more likely to follow an easier path. I have been in MMO's since 1999, even I don't want a north wall Karnors castle (Everquest for the younger crowd) grind for a weekend resulting in 1 level.
I am not sitting here writing this on AOL dialup nor would I want to. I am not going places in my 1979 Ford Pinto with AM radio and no air conditioning. I am driving my new modern car with all the toys. We move forward.
There are far more distractions in life now. People generally do not spend hours/days at a time in games that we did decades ago. A true grindy old school MMO, while popular with some, would die a quick death with little love from the masses.
This might get a little deep.
Yes, the world has changed. Not long ago, people read books. It took a long time, and required reading skills and a good imagination. You savored over your favorite book, I spent months reading Lord of the Rings and all the supporting information (Silmarillion, etc). Today, we can watch the whole thing in a few hours. No reading required, and you don't need an imagination, it's all displayed for you in seconds.
When I was a kid, we had 3 TV stations in black and white, and cartoons for a few hours on Saturday morning. Now we have several 24/7 cartoon networks. It isn't special anymore.
Even nature seems to be speeding up and miniaturizing. Gone are the big dinosaurs, only the little ones we call birds are left. No more woolly mammoths, or giant cave bears. We have only the smaller versions left.
MMORPG's have done that too. How can we provide the simplest, most minimal game, that requires no reading and provides instant gratification? That will appeal to the masses and make the most money.
Comments
I really thought about what my character was doing and why, and I had a back story for all my characters. But now I feel less invested in my characters, they are not really my alter egos anymore and even though the graphics are better it seems like the immersion is less because I just don't have that same connection anymore. Maybe it is because I am older and real life is more demanding, or maybe it is because the games are more shallow.
I love to adventure...i have to look at single player games and Survival games to scratch that itch.....MMOs haven't been able to do that since 2004.....Basically MMOs became just following a script from then on......It was no longer about playing a role or going to an unknown place...It was about doing quests and being lead around by the hand,,,it was kind of embarrassing how much the genre was dumbed down. I remember being really nervous (in an excited kind of way) when I started exploring in games like EQ.....Danger was literally around every corner.
In order for multiple people to fight the same target, they have to be coordinated. Their actions have to be synchronized. When Everquest was released, high speed internet was a 56k dial up connection. I myself was limited to about 18k due to very, very old telephone lines that had massive interference. The 'stand still and mash icons' method was the only way they could synchronize the actions of multiple people on different speed connections. Some of those differences could be vast.
So the evolution of MMO's and their design was not just about designs being updated, it was also about connection speeds being updated.
When cable was finally available, I went from about 18k to 20mb and I thought I was in heaven!
The moving, active combat of modern MMO's is dependent on faster computers and faster internet. These games simply would not run on a dial-up connection and my AMD 300 processor with an 8mb video card.
Also if they were really pain points why did people go back? Though I am not offering old school as a panacea for what's wrong with MMOs today, a hybrid playstyle taking elements from old and new is the way to go for me. We have lost so much that three faction RvR is an oddity these days and you can't be sure MMOs will have extensive end game raiding, housing, any grouping at all, crafting to be meaningful, the list just goes on.
We went from MMORPG to MMOG ... we lost the RP elements on the way. I'd even argue we went to MOG as these days massive open worlds are rather the exception ....
Yep, pretty much my same exact thought.
The landscape I've observed in mmorpg's over the years is that developers have progressively forgotten how to create a rpg.
The role-playing experience has to come first in the creation process; otherwise it's a online environment with nothing in it.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I'd say Ryzom was the best virtual world. And the only true sandbox MMORPG that I know of.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
Another trollish burner account.
On what planet?
A lot of text just to explain:
*Sandbox = skillbased mmo = good for gamers who want a challenge or doesnt want to be forced to follow a linear path
*Themepark = linear, lvl based mmo = good for kids
Imo, wrong angle. The difference is not years (old school vs new school), but Sandbox vs Themepark, since the games are still the same as back in the 90's. I.e bad ones and good ones.
Regards
Dexxah
First MMO: Habitat/club carib released 1989 on Commodore 64 (old school baby)
ReDevils [rDe]
I promise I could use this speech in a board meeting, edit it a bit to make it slightly more like a sale pitch and get millions invested to make a mobile game or F2P MMO...
and I hate that as I agree with you 100% EQ was my first real depth game and I look forward to games that require thought more then button mashing ever since then. I notice over the years the trend to less and less depth and more and more games that are BOOM pretty graphics and if you pay X you will be awesome and beat everyone else who stayed F2P.
It's Amazon....Some people are desperate for a new MMO of any kind, others will try it because of Amazon in the name.....They may not even be aware of it, but name recognition is huge for many people.
Club Carib that is old school, C64 though, Amiga was of course the better machine.
Everything also borrowed from what came before so there have never really been any clear cut and definitive demarcations except in the minds of some with an agenda.
I'm speaking in broad, general terms., but I can see three distinct types more than 2.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
That is why I feel it is a transition game. Both in terms of difficulty and the type of game it spawned as a result of its success. I don't think there would have been that many quest driven games had WoW been only just successful instead of the mega status it garnered.
What also helped WoW was that Blizzard marketed it heavily......Really none of the MMOs before it went out of their way to promote their games like WoW did. That's why I think New World will succeed...not because it is a great new groundbreaking game, but because of the resources it has behind it. Amazon can spend the money that no other gaming company can.
I am not sitting here writing this on AOL dialup nor would I want to. I am not going places in my 1979 Ford Pinto with AM radio and no air conditioning. I am driving my new modern car with all the toys. We move forward.
There are far more distractions in life now. People generally do not spend hours/days at a time in games that we did decades ago. A true grindy old school MMO, while popular with some, would die a quick death with little love from the masses.
What you are saying is about you. It is not about the world changing. YOUR life changed.
You are generalizing. You are suggesting that games can't be a certain way because YOUR life doesn't conform to them.
Many young kids 20 years ago played games 8+ hours a day as many young kids today also play games 8+ hours a day (and are glued to screens far, far more then 20 years ago). The difference between then and now is that gamers today have been conditioned to think they must play the limited scope of industrialized games offered to them. Gamers today are victims of mass advertising propaganda where flashy graphics and cloned game play and design are the only choice.
You had real choice when you were younger. You wanted to play a slow grindy game and you had the choice to play it. Today that choice is dead. Indie gaming struggles to make mmorpgs of that scope. The problem is the monopolized and industrialized developer industry, and you speak as if you advocate this change, and call it "evolution".
In the end it sounds like you support the death of genre gaming. If the "masses" don't support it, it shouldn't exist? You have gotten older, but wisdom has not followed you.
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.