Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place) and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will.
See^.. truth
But people who started with WoW don't see how WoW and their own ignorance ruined the MMO space with the incessant complaining and dumbing down of the entire genre', not just WoW.
What many WoW Players don't even realize, is that even games like Everquest and DAOC where changed after 5~6 years of running, after WoW massive success. Everquest, DAOC, SWG, etc.. all started getting easier, with more "perks" & "hand outs" and dumbed down mechanics when both SOE & Mythic lost their minds & went after the WoW players.
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game. These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
That is why a good many oldscool players are on the fence waiting for a developer to bring back challenging game play & have high disdain for these people who think every game, now has to be like WoW and are perpetuating this insanity. .
Everthing since WoW has to be a themepark, because it is all the new MMO space knows (ie: newbies)... because some 16 million players no nothing other than themepark.
You good sirs get gold stars!
People get gold stars for for stating lies as truths now?
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place) and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will.
See^.. truth
But people who started with WoW don't see how WoW and their own ignorance ruined the MMO space with the incessant complaining and dumbing down of the entire genre', not just WoW.
What many WoW Players don't even realize, is that even games like Everquest and DAOC where changed after 5~6 years of running, after WoW massive success. Everquest, DAOC, SWG, etc.. all started getting easier, with more "perks" & "hand outs" and dumbed down mechanics when both SOE & Mythic lost their minds & went after the WoW players.
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game. These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
That is why a good many oldscool players are on the fence waiting for a developer to bring back challenging game play & have high disdain for these people who think every game, now has to be like WoW and are perpetuating this insanity. .
Everthing since WoW has to be a themepark, because it is all the new MMO space knows (ie: newbies)... because some 16 million players no nothing other than themepark.
You good sirs get gold stars!
People get gold stars for for stating lies as truths now?
& you sir get a brown star. Hope you like it anyways.
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place) and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will.
See^.. truth
But people who started with WoW don't see how WoW and their own ignorance ruined the MMO space with the incessant complaining and dumbing down of the entire genre', not just WoW.
What many WoW Players don't even realize, is that even games like Everquest and DAOC where changed after 5~6 years of running, after WoW massive success. Everquest, DAOC, SWG, etc.. all started getting easier, with more "perks" & "hand outs" and dumbed down mechanics when both SOE & Mythic lost their minds & went after the WoW players.
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game. These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
That is why a good many oldscool players are on the fence waiting for a developer to bring back challenging game play & have high disdain for these people who think every game, now has to be like WoW and are perpetuating this insanity. .
Everthing since WoW has to be a themepark, because it is all the new MMO space knows (ie: newbies)... because some 16 million players no nothing other than themepark.
You good sirs get gold stars!
People get gold stars for for stating lies as truths now?
& you sir get a brown star. Hope you like it anyways.
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
Wonderful OP! I couldn't have said it better. I wish others would wise up. I don't really play any MMOs right now because of them becoming more and more like Walmart.
WAy to make a counter point to the op w.o realizing it.
Ass. with something stigmatized ... check.
Lack of understanding both services renderd from both areas... check.
Agrument agist op despite support for ... check.
This maybe offtopic, but be careful of the comparisons you make.
WAlmart only exists becuase its provides a desired service. It doesn't exists like many of the banks, auto , electronic co., insurence co., utility co, etc. becuase they are supported artifically by the governement. Infact, walmart has to fight aginst artifical boundrys more than most co.s So why then does it do well?
First off it offers cheap prices. I understand s like hershy of hershy's chocolet did that if you sell enough of something you can sell if for less profit but still make more.
It buys it for less. Using bulk orders, competitive pricing, and cheapest suplier is gets its good cheaper than most. For other co.s that understand, if we sell more at less profit we still make more money (it might be harder work, but thats a point of a business, it works harder the consumer works less hard). One evil aspect of this is ordering from out of country , oddly enough walmart doesn't do this anymore than other general shopping stores. However, it is occcuring. But there are insentives for this, that even small local stores were enguging in. Basiclly, if it cost $20 to by froma us co (after , unions, high pay, benifits, taxes, taxes, more taxes, even more taxes, crazy inspections for non edible goods, the list of burocracy to form compeitors, etc the list goes of for the forces agisnts effect compitions and wealth generation inside the us. [not to say its a bad thing, but you get what you desireve] instead without many of these barriers to wealth generation it would cost a fraction of this). However, this system that walmart is employing does increase our PPP (purchasing power parity). (The us today would still have the higherst save for a few blocks of very unproductive citezens, misapproperaton of state/federal funds, gov. corperate collusions). Those for most US citizens however PPP remains very high (it has been hurt attemping to spend those with low individual PPP ways out of low PPP. Which is not possible).
Sp what is walmarts role in this system. Most jobs walmart replaces do not pay much more, however it emplyees more people than the previous stated small shoppign centers. (This results is aloss of payment to employees for that community/country) However, its marked lower prices increase EVERYONE (a great deal more peoples) purchasing power by making each of the dollars they spend on food/general goods worth MORE. This is a net gain (no agruments its a fact google studies, statistics, and/or economics of it) there are more people in socirty purchesing goods from walmart than employed by walmart. This = MORE MONEY/GOODS FOR EVERYONE.
So why the sh** storm over Walmart? Well one its successful. People today (often libs) hate successful bussinesses. THEY HATE THEM EVEN MORE WHEN THEY AREN'T PAYING THEM YET (politicains). Walmarts simply wasn't paying our federal and state politicians enough so they started tons of hate fair to send a message, pay or suffer.
Check this out whens the last time you heard all the media and gov. generated wal-mart hate? A lot less now well now that they are paying the man with the underhand.
The man's stick was you, legislation, and the american people too uneducated and intelligent to understand what was going on, how markets and economies work.
They also did this to microsoft for not payign enough.See microsoft was succedign becuase of its marketing and product. They were payign the gov. with the underhand $20k (or in other words nothing). So mircosofts competitors who were paying the gov. had their dudes take MS to court/ thorugh senate/etc. for monoply. Well they lost
The above article basiclly shows, how MS didn't have much money in the system at the time all this anti MS stuff went down. So they took their lesson (IF YOU WANT TO BE A BUSSINESS IN THE US, you better get ready to pay the politicans with the underhand, or theyll force you to). So MS, being the size it is, has a lot to loss so it has to pay the man.
Isn't it funny that people want more gov. whens it clear gov. is already steeped in coruption; these are not the angels you want to trust your life and economy to, who will run everything.
Also the question is not if MS or W-M has enough money, the questions is the system corrupt? Now will smaller bussinesses that don't have the lobbyist/money stand a chance. LESS than before, see now MS and WM have politicians in their pockets and they make sure other co./corps. can't compete with them as well. So instead of this system favoring what is best for the markets and the US citizens it now simiply favors the ruling class of the US, the politician.
Like these co.s, WOW (and like games) is only offering a service, they give peoiple what they want, until someone else does it better. DF is a good example of a non walmart game but your not playign it why? There are a lot of non walmart games out there, but lets be honest the walmart games are better. What you really want is a wal mart game that has some of those old adventure type level schemes (they could make hybrids, but so very few people EXPRESS this desire. Instead they turn their backs and call names). Will it be the exact same no but you can't have perfection (just like these anti walmart people want walmart prices and selection, but non walmart employees and unions).
And lets be honest wow doesn't give people free stuff, if you want the best you got to work for it. Will it give you stuff with a bit of work that makes you not a total Scro. Although you might still talk like one , hehe.
Sorry for the long post its just i wish people would how was it put "wise-up". Agruing agist what people want (as you know better) seems very elitist to me and not a good place.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Some people like putting effort into something, and the more effort they put in, the more gratifying the result is. In part of this, the actual act of effort is a large part of the enjoyment.
Hobbyists, such as say model builders, derive enjoyment and pride out of assembling and painting models. The act of working to put it together and paint it is where much of the enjoyment comes from, and a lot of that pays off upon completion of the effort invested. To them, simply being given, or buying a completed model, isn't nearly as enjoying, or meaningful, as if they put it together themselves.
And that's what many of the "old school" gamers are. They're hobbyists, on top of being gamers. They don't want everything to be mind numbingly straightforward and easy. They don't want everything to be handed to them. Why? Because then the "accomplishments" mean very little. They want to enjoy a good challenge.
The other camp, which is a growing number of the new MMO gamers, care more about the ends. They want to blaze through the actual game to get to the carrot at the end of it. They more often than not don't care how they get there, so long as they get there, and fast. The sad irony of it is, that when a game is very easy to progress in, then everyone is "powerful". And when everyone is powerful, then noone is powerful. If anyone can level to max level, and then quickly and easily deck out their character in epics, then what sense of accomplishment is there when you just did what anyone with half a brain and a credit card can do?
Interestingly enough I also think in terms of model plane building when this issue comes up. When I was a kid I used to put together plastic model planes and had my own set of paints, knifes, filesso I could do the task properly. When the planes were done, I would put them on a shelf and they would collect dust and get destroyed when my mother cleaned my room Once the challenge was done, I really had no interest in the finished product. In MMORPG terms building the plane was 'epic' and the finished plane was just 'trash loot'. I view that as the only 'sane' way to play a MMORPG as otherwise you start obsessing over bytes and pixel in a computer.
The area I strongly disagree with the 'old school' players is when it comes to repetition. I see nothing interesting or challenging in repeating content I have already conquered. Going with the model plane analogy, building a nice B-17 model can be a nice challenge but I would not then go and build the exact same model from scratch unless it was because I did not do a great job on the first one and wanted to do the job right. However, I would not then build a 3rd, 4th, 5th copy of it each weak. At that point I would want to move on to a bigger challenge.
Finishing a dungeon and beating a tough boss can be a worthy challenge. Having to repeat that dungeon over and over once you have mastered it, is just pointless busy-work. Any players who measure their accomplishments in number of times they have merely repeated the content are deluding themselves into thinking that they are 'epic'.
Your final question seems to contradict your model plane analogy. What sense of accomplishment is there in building a model plane from parts if anyone with 'half a brain and a credit card' can buy a finished version in a store? You know that the sense of accomplishment is in actually doing the difficult task yourself rather than just having the final result handed to you. Who cares how others get their epics if you got yours doing a challenging and fun task. If you doing it just to feel more 'powerful' then others then I really do not want you to be playing the same game as me since that is a very toxic way to approach games.
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place) and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will.
See^.. truth
But people who started with WoW don't see how WoW and their own ignorance ruined the MMO space with the incessant complaining and dumbing down of the entire genre', not just WoW.
What many WoW Players don't even realize, is that even games like Everquest and DAOC where changed after 5~6 years of running, after WoW massive success. Everquest, DAOC, SWG, etc.. all started getting easier, with more "perks" & "hand outs" and dumbed down mechanics when both SOE & Mythic lost their minds & went after the WoW players.
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game. These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
That is why a good many oldscool players are on the fence waiting for a developer to bring back challenging game play & have high disdain for these people who think every game, now has to be like WoW and are perpetuating this insanity. .
Everthing since WoW has to be a themepark, because it is all the new MMO space knows (ie: newbies)... because some 16 million players no nothing other than themepark.
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Please.. most EQ & DAOC players did try World of Warcraft, but most didn't play it for long. I beta tested WoW for 5 months and bought the game, within 4 months we were killing dragons & laughed our way back to Everquest.
Not many long term EQ player stayed in WoW, if anything they went to the stupid EQ2. Those who did stay, did so because of an outside influence, like their wife, or freinds started to play. WoW was an inferior product when placed up against Everquesat back then, even EQ2 was inferior. Everquest was 5 years old when WOW was released. SOE didn't market EQ well, at all. Didn't ever pay extra to have a stand-alone kiosk with EQ game boxes enticing patrons to buy the game.
Blizzard did.
Blizzard IP was well known, so that, along with marketing, world of warcraft stole the show.
I do agree with you on "rushed games". It's more than obvious that every MMO since WoW has been hurried and dumbed-down to entice the WoW crowd. But now that they have had a taste of the MMORPG soup, they are looking for something more and have no idea where to look.
There is only one place for a burnt out WoW player to get that high again, is goto the core.
Everquest & DAOC will provide a real good experience for those who are sick of WoW.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place[ [Im happy that YOU GET TO DECIDE FOR EVERYONE ELSE WHAT MMOS ARE "MEANT TO BE ABOUT" what a rude and elitist comment, i knew they would start popping up more. So answer me this what gives you the right to tell others what they should like or want? Oh no i got you number buddy. Go back home and stop spreading this i know better than anyone BS.] and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will. [Yes your right, supporting your player base is bad]
See^.. truth
More like delusion
But people who started with WoW don't see how WoW and their own ignorance ruined the MMO space with the incessant complaining and dumbing down of the entire genre', not just WoW.
Just like your ignorence of elitism, than k you for for telling us all how MMOs are ruined. Hey maybe if your old mmos listened to their player base like blizzard does this wouldn't have happened. OH SNAP. See blizzard didn't change those games, their dev. did so the fault of your precisious games beign ruined were no other than their dev.s. Happend to may fav. MMORPG daoc, but see im SMART enough (or maybe not dumb enough, not sure which it is) to realize this was mythic's fault not blizzards. Wow has not ruined anything.
What many WoW Players don't even realize, is that even games like Everquest and DAOC where changed after 5~6 years of running, after WoW massive success. Everquest, DAOC, SWG, etc.. all started getting easier, with more "perks" & "hand outs" and dumbed down mechanics when both SOE & Mythic lost their minds & went after the WoW players.
And whos fault was this?
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game. These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
Bingo so why you hate wow/blizzard. Sounds like you should hate those companies.
That is why a good many oldscool players are on the fence waiting for a developer to bring back challenging game play & have high disdain for these people who think every game, now has to be like WoW and are perpetuating this insanity. .
No lets be honest there are a lot of games like pre wow mmos but many of the old mmoers no longer are willing to play them, or they wouldn't be here QQing. DF is not wowish, nor was FE but, eve, the list truly does go on. The real issue if most of these people themselve expect more. Not all, for certian, but many. FF14 is comming out soon and its old school so there ya go.
Everthing since WoW has to be a themepark, because it is all the new MMO space knows (ie: newbies)... because some 16 million players no nothing other than themepark.
Df wasn't.
You good sirs get gold stars!
People get gold stars for for stating lies as truths now?
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
Frost gets a yummy cookie.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
Frost gets a yummy cookie.
No! I said he gets a brown star... thats it.
It stinks too, but he said that he liked it so I guess he 'll be alright without your cookie ty.
These old stories are great, whether its corpse running through lguk (which btw, I camped the ghoulbale for 27 hours straight once) or getting the infamous blade of zek. Those were memories that other games these days do not generate.
bad memories for me.
I was at LGUK for 6 hrs, getting nothing. Most of the time was EXTREMELY boring because you are doing NOTHING but waiting in lline for the other 50 guys to kill the boss, and there is zero challenge.
BAD game design. I will take any ICC or RS fight anyday.
Some people like putting effort into something, and the more effort they put in, the more gratifying the result is. In part of this, the actual act of effort is a large part of the enjoyment.
Hobbyists, such as say model builders, derive enjoyment and pride out of assembling and painting models. The act of working to put it together and paint it is where much of the enjoyment comes from, and a lot of that pays off upon completion of the effort invested. To them, simply being given, or buying a completed model, isn't nearly as enjoying, or meaningful, as if they put it together themselves.
And that's what many of the "old school" gamers are. They're hobbyists, on top of being gamers. They don't want everything to be mind numbingly straightforward and easy. They don't want everything to be handed to them. Why? Because then the "accomplishments" mean very little. They want to enjoy a good challenge.
The other camp, which is a growing number of the new MMO gamers, care more about the ends. They want to blaze through the actual game to get to the carrot at the end of it. They more often than not don't care how they get there, so long as they get there, and fast. The sad irony of it is, that when a game is very easy to progress in, then everyone is "powerful". And when everyone is powerful, then noone is powerful. If anyone can level to max level, and then quickly and easily deck out their character in epics, then what sense of accomplishment is there when you just did what anyone with half a brain and a credit card can do?
Interestingly enough I also think in terms of model plane building when this issue comes up. When I was a kid I used to put together plastic model planes and had my own set of paints, knifes, filesso I could do the task properly. When the planes were done, I would put them on a shelf and they would collect dust and get destroyed when my mother cleaned my room Once the challenge was done, I really had no interest in the finished product. In MMORPG terms building the plane was 'epic' and the finished plane was just 'trash loot'. I view that as the only 'sane' way to play a MMORPG as otherwise you start obsessing over bytes and pixel in a computer.
The area I strongly disagree with the 'old school' players is when it comes to repetition. I see nothing interesting or challenging in repeating content I have already conquered. Going with the model plane analogy, building a nice B-17 model can be a nice challenge but I would not then go and build the exact same model from scratch unless it was because I did not do a great job on the first one and wanted to do the job right. However, I would not then build a 3rd, 4th, 5th copy of it each weak. At that point I would want to move on to a bigger challenge.
Finishing a dungeon and beating a tough boss can be a worthy challenge. Having to repeat that dungeon over and over once you have mastered it, is just pointless busy-work. Any players who measure their accomplishments in number of times they have merely repeated the content are deluding themselves into thinking that they are 'epic'.
Your final question seems to contradict your model plane analogy. What sense of accomplishment is there in building a model plane from parts if anyone with 'half a brain and a credit card' can buy a finished version in a store? You know that the sense of accomplishment is in actually doing the difficult task yourself rather than just having the final result handed to you. Who cares how others get their epics if you got yours doing a challenging and fun task. If you doing it just to feel more 'powerful' then others then I really do not want you to be playing the same game as me since that is a very toxic way to approach games.
You bring up a rather ironic point. You say that old school games are very repetitious. I do agree to that, they are in certain ways. However, many of the modern MMOs aren't much different. Take WoW for example. You're still running the same instance, raid, etc, dozens of times. So again, I really don't see how that is a failing that is specific to oldschool MMOs, because modern MMOs are rather ripe with it as well.
As per the sense of accomplishment issue... it does diminish it if other people can accomplish the same goal easily. Furthermore, MMOs are social arenas, and can be competitive between players as well. Even if I take my time to enjoy a game, do difficult things, ad don't rush to gear up, then I'll quickly find myself at a distinct disadvantage from those who have. This on the surface may not seem like an issue, but it is if you're competing for resource nodes, or quest mobs, and the other player is faster and/or can kill things much more quickly.
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
Why do you keep defending Blizzard?
Who is attacking blizzard? Nobody! We are simply stating what happened to the industry after WoW was released. It doesn't matter who fault it is, it just is...
Secondly, you are wrong about why older game were harder. They required alot more though & patients. Old school games had more CHALLENGING gameplay. There is very little in WoW that challenges an adult. WoW was more about entertainment and themepark, than open ended adventure.
Content? Bro you are just trolling. Everquest now and upon's WoW's release has significantly more content, more so than any game in existance. It would take you a good 10 years to plow threw the content Everquest has..
Lastly, you miss the oldschooler's point. No game since WoW has been worth playing. Name one? Aion.. lol. Conan..lol Warhammer... thats an even bigger hand-holding themepark than WoW. Mortal Online is the only game that might shed some light on oldschool gameplay.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Whine all you want but blizzard didn't do anything to ruin the genre. Most old school players actually play WoW, LOTRO, or Eve. Also its not that they don't know about more than themepark mmos they particularly choose to play WoW because almost everything else out their is second rate besides a select few. It really isn't blizzards fault that other company refuse to realize one simple rule to success. POLISH AND TIME. You need both to create a good game. Pretty much everything thats been released since WOW was rushed and had minimum content with 2nd rate game play. Literally LOTRO and EVE are the only two games that actually proved that.
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
UO didn't change after WoW, but it did change prior to WoW with the Age of Shadows expansion, which destroyed the game design from being skill focused, to item focused.
I present to you the following:
Tom Chilton, AKA Kalgan, was the lead developer in charge of the Age of Shadows expansion. He was the one who pushed for the fundamental shift in gameplay into beign item centric. Shortly before release of the AoS expansion, Chilton jumped ship to join the WoW development team.
Therefore, I present the idea that WoW pre-emptively destroyed UO.
The above is a bit tongue and cheek. I moreso blame Chilton more than WoW... and Chilton is to blame for some of the bad design in WoW, such as arenas. All in all, it does seem to be that certain individuals in the industry did damage to it, rather than a singular company... it just so happens that most of those people work for said company...
Everquest was nearly ruined as they tried to copy WoW success of making easy game... but all they actually did was alienate their own core players who could no longer stand their fav game.
These developers ruined their own games, in hopes of luring subs from WoW. With it, came all the incessant complaining that is still prevelaint on almost any forum you goto.
This is so true. I went back to EverQuest as it was the only MMO worth playing, and I enjoyed it up to level 65, it was the same old game that I played and loved for years, albeit a little quicker to level due to the mercenaries. It was after level 65 that the game went downhill - the new expansions had added their version of the Quest-Chain that you see in just about every MMO these days, and I hate that stuff. It bores the hell out of me. "Go here, kill X mobs, come back. Then go here, kill Y mobs, come back.", and so on.
EverQuest never had that sort of thing before, it was a more open ended, do your own thing, sort of game. I couldn't stand it. I got to level 70 then got fed up and quit. A sad state for what was once the greatest MMO.
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place[ [Im happy that YOU GET TO DECIDE FOR EVERYONE ELSE WHAT MMOS ARE "MEANT TO BE ABOUT" what a rude and elitist comment, i knew they would start popping up more. So answer me this what gives you the right to tell others what they should like or want? Oh no i got you number buddy. Go back home and stop spreading this i know better than anyone BS.] and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will. [Yes your right, supporting your player base is bad]
And where ya came out jetrpg saying to fusion what he can think and what not. Start thinking and use a lil brain (if ya have some) to understand MMO = Massive Multiplayer. Then how da hell solo play is a) massive b) multiplayer? And I'm proud there are ppl like we, oldschooler eliticists who are proud to be elite, not dumb-downed brainless casuals. And even casual can be with brains. And casual can be eliticist. I must not eat in Michelin Star every day and be casual gourmet but I still spit towards crappy fast-food I never use. So be with games.
And there comes a day for us tooo. And I hope that game's devs are learned from past and DON'T listen to any wowboys whine and make what needed - hard game with challenging adventure. Game where ordinary 50-70% of wowers can't lvl more than first few. Then they skills are done and they start to cry and yell in forums and bomb devs. And they smile ... and no answer.
Interestingly enough I also think in terms of model plane building when this issue comes up. When I was a kid I used to put together plastic model planes and had my own set of paints, knifes, filesso I could do the task properly. When the planes were done, I would put them on a shelf and they would collect dust and get destroyed when my mother cleaned my room Once the challenge was done, I really had no interest in the finished product. In MMORPG terms building the plane was 'epic' and the finished plane was just 'trash loot'. I view that as the only 'sane' way to play a MMORPG as otherwise you start obsessing over bytes and pixel in a computer.
The area I strongly disagree with the 'old school' players is when it comes to repetition. I see nothing interesting or challenging in repeating content I have already conquered. Going with the model plane analogy, building a nice B-17 model can be a nice challenge but I would not then go and build the exact same model from scratch unless it was because I did not do a great job on the first one and wanted to do the job right. However, I would not then build a 3rd, 4th, 5th copy of it each weak. At that point I would want to move on to a bigger challenge.
Finishing a dungeon and beating a tough boss can be a worthy challenge. Having to repeat that dungeon over and over once you have mastered it, is just pointless busy-work. Any players who measure their accomplishments in number of times they have merely repeated the content are deluding themselves into thinking that they are 'epic'.
Your final question seems to contradict your model plane analogy. What sense of accomplishment is there in building a model plane from parts if anyone with 'half a brain and a credit card' can buy a finished version in a store? You know that the sense of accomplishment is in actually doing the difficult task yourself rather than just having the final result handed to you. Who cares how others get their epics if you got yours doing a challenging and fun task. If you doing it just to feel more 'powerful' then others then I really do not want you to be playing the same game as me since that is a very toxic way to approach games.
You bring up a rather ironic point. You say that old school games are very repetitious. I do agree to that, they are in certain ways. However, many of the modern MMOs aren't much different. Take WoW for example. You're still running the same instance, raid, etc, dozens of times. So again, I really don't see how that is a failing that is specific to oldschool MMOs, because modern MMOs are rather ripe with it as well.
As per the sense of accomplishment issue... it does diminish it if other people can accomplish the same goal easily. Furthermore, MMOs are social arenas, and can be competitive between players as well. Even if I take my time to enjoy a game, do difficult things, ad don't rush to gear up, then I'll quickly find myself at a distinct disadvantage from those who have. This on the surface may not seem like an issue, but it is if you're competing for resource nodes, or quest mobs, and the other player is faster and/or can kill things much more quickly.
That's the biggest failing of WoW as I see it. It is still too much 'old school' in the way it approaches repetive content. WoW is just not 'modern' enough in its approach to endgame content. A truly modern' MMORPG would make gear acquisition trivial and focus on the challenges of the content.
The irony to me is that the 'old school' players seem to be looking for challenging content but are asking for the repetive no-challenge paradigm of the old way of designing MMORPGs.
I view MMORPGs as cooperative games. PvP and other competive parts of it are just a means for all the players involved to get better together. I also view accomplishments as relative to the individual. eg for me to code up a simple PHP website is trivial. For someone without my coding experience doing so would be an accomplishment. The fact that I can do it in my sleep does not diminish the accomplishment of the other person, On the other hand cooking a gourmet meal for me is an accomplishment while for a trained chef it is an everyday chore. I can accept that other players are better than me and the real challenge is not to beat them but to push my personal limits beyond what they are.
@Torik you are absolutely right. What Ive always wanted is choice in games, a game rife with so many things to do that you just cant decide. Free realms has the right idea but is aimed at younger kids. Its all about offering not just content, but varied content.
And Gm run events, I love GM run events and always have. I know its harder to do on a large scale, but i still think the idea of a world that isnt static would be the best.
@Torik you are absolutely right. What Ive always wanted is choice in games, a game rife with so many things to do that you just cant decide. Free realms has the right idea but is aimed at younger kids. Its all about offering not just content, but varied content.
And Gm run events, I love GM run events and always have. I know its harder to do on a large scale, but i still think the idea of a world that isnt static would be the best.
Yea. When LOTRO was my game, one dude from our kin wrote some scripts, and GM came, and we run open-kin event. Tho not so "tuffed with content" but something special - and unique that many people run with us to see what happens and why happens. Sad the game went where it's now, and our ppl left incl. me.
And in my game atm, Fallen Earth, GM-s started some events they playing evil baddies and players called to defence town. Or find purpose of some events and take measures to overcome them. That's good start.
MMOs used to be a team sport like basketball, now theyre the equivalent of shooting hoops in the backyard by yourself.
That is the true damage that WoW has done to the genre. In their effort to be more inclusive and to allow more people a better chance at more content they have in effect killed off the social aspect of the game. The great thing about the old 40 man raids was that if you had 4 or 5 people that weren't fully up to speed come along it didn't kill the raid. They could come along, learn, chat and have fun without being a problem. As the raids got smaller and each person had to contribute more it became harder to give people that level of slack. Just getting started people would run around and catch up on what each person did and as the raid progressed people would chat and call each names and generally abuse the gnomes when ever possible. Now, it is all about getting in and getting out as fast as possible. Even PuGs were more chatty now they are down right hostile with people having hissy fits over the littlest things.
With the original Everquest that was the purpose of the game. To do the quests. Leveling was just part of the process but it wasn't really the goal (at least not until much later). Running around trying to figure out how to get your newbie armor and chatting with all the people was a huge part of the game. Even with the early WoW this feeling persisted. But, now the 1 to 79 levels are just something to get through as quickly as possible and with as little interaction with others as you can do. WoW has become all about the player and very little about the group.
With the games earlier on the gratification came from doing the quests or accomplishing other tasks in the game. With WoW the gratification really now is in getting the best bits of armor that you want or need and how you get them is just incidental.
The problem is that when there are games that try to return to that they seem not to get the numbers of players needed. I'm not sure that any game will ever get the numbers that WoW has and WoW is on its own downward trend. I expect that server consolidation is on the horizon for them as already some servers are struggling to have a viable economy (outside of the gold famers).
Answer to the thread topic is as simple as you could assume: Ever since the impatient kids in WoW started to whine about stuff being hard for solo players (which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place[ [Im happy that YOU GET TO DECIDE FOR EVERYONE ELSE WHAT MMOS ARE "MEANT TO BE ABOUT" what a rude and elitist comment, i knew they would start popping up more. So answer me this what gives you the right to tell others what they should like or want? Oh no i got you number buddy. Go back home and stop spreading this i know better than anyone BS.] and Blizzard giving into every crying kids demands. Afterwards they haven't been the same again and probably never will. [Yes your right, supporting your player base is bad]
And where ya came out jetrpg saying to fusion what he can think and what not. Start thinking and use a lil brain (if ya have some) to understand MMO = Massive Multiplayer. Then how da hell solo play is a) massive b) multiplayer? And I'm proud there are ppl like we, oldschooler eliticists who are proud to be elite, not dumb-downed brainless casuals. And even casual can be with brains. And casual can be eliticist. I must not eat in Michelin Star every day and be casual gourmet but I still spit towards crappy fast-food I never use. So be with games.
And there comes a day for us tooo. And I hope that game's devs are learned from past and DON'T listen to any wowboys whine and make what needed - hard game with challenging adventure. Game where ordinary 50-70% of wowers can't lvl more than first few. Then they skills are done and they start to cry and yell in forums and bomb devs. And they smile ... and no answer.
Wow. Try to solo ICC i dare you (your core argument gone, wow clone are mmos). So basiclly your agruments are flawed/incorrect/ as well as narsissistic. See the issue here is not what Wow type game are they are what YOU want. Which is fine, but for a person critizing another brain, you yourself made no valid agruments. Lets recap, those are not mmos becuase they have more soloability. This is the real argument you have made. Wow raids are not solo, you can level solo (you can't dungeon solo). So apply this to eq or daoc, IS not the same true? I could solo in daoc and level (not end game pve tho), i could level in eq solo (same with daoc not as well or dungeons, etc.) So your REAL ARGUMENT IS NOT THAT WOW = SOLO BUT THAT WOW = MORE SOLO LEVELING.
Maybe a valid agrument for someone with such a large brain as yourself is simply too much to ask for. I beg for your forgiveness. "And where ya came out jetrpg saying to fusion what he can think and what not." Answering this is easy, Im not telling him what he can think, hes aloud to want whatever he wants, But hes not allowed to speak for everyone else (Try to wrap your massive brain around this) "(which MMO's were never meant to be about in the first place". There it is MMO are suppost to be . . . What gives him the right to CLAIM WHAT MMOS ARE. And i refuted that point. He doesn't have that right, its for each person themselves to decide what they want in an mmo and what an mmo should be (as long as it have massive numbers and is online, i personally go as far as saying persistant world but GW1, as well as others, is still listed here).
And i don't even know what your talkign about in regards to causals with brains. I mean the only responce is "ok, good", " yes", or maybe"thats nice". I mean talk about a non-argument, it doesn't even mean anything.
Well it could mean something, if your point was that, people who liked forced group play are some how more "elite". This is another golden argument from you and your wonderful brain i guess. I simply can't seem to understand how its valid or logical but maybe thats just my small brain.
Oh btw, people who write in green must have big brains, while people who write in light blue must be dumbies. Because i said so and i has cheezburger. Maybe now your big brain can understand my small brain with that equally accurate statement/argument.
Its funny how uz big brain was all like im so smart and i will point out his small brain. That will teach him. And then it was like i'll make some agruments what really don't address the topic/issue i am discussing. Other than in imaginary ways, which is cool because my big brain is good at imagineering reality.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
MMOs used to be a team sport like basketball, now theyre the equivalent of shooting hoops in the backyard by yourself.
With the original Everquest that was the purpose of the game. To do the quests. Leveling was just part of the process but it wasn't really the goal (at least not until much later). Running around trying to figure out how to get your newbie armor and chatting with all the people was a huge part of the game. Even with the early WoW this feeling persisted. But, now the 1 to 79 levels are just something to get through as quickly as possible and with as little interaction with others as you can do. WoW has become all about the player and very little about the group.
Doesn't this happen with most games tho. I mean it happened in eq b4 wow was ever released. Maybe its convenient to forget, but may people levelign another toon often pushed pace one the 2nd or 3rd time through. This happened in daoc, ao, uo, wow, etc. Maybe not everyone did this, but you don't have to do this in wow also. But if you know the game, its level spots, quests, etc. Well many people will tend to pay less attention to them the second time around. So is it fair to place this part of human nature on Wow? Now some people may pay MORE attention and may group MORE the second time around. I have seen examples of both in daoc, wow , and many other games. I have been guilty of both.
I actually like 1-79 in wow more than 80, i made a ton of leveling toons. Cata is redoing 1-79. I mean it seems like blizzard has already adressed this. Which is pretty amazing. (But after peopel have leveled 1-2 toon in Cata it will be the same, hit max level.)
Maybe you should ask youself why you were playing wow. The game is largely what you make it. (other than drama, greifers. Which sadly were in daoc and eq also).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Comments
People get gold stars for for stating lies as truths now?
& you sir get a brown star. Hope you like it anyways.
Its cool I like to be different anyways
Eve was released before WoW, and it was designed with the old school philosophy in mind. Furthermore, the game was hardly polished at release, and suffered from a number of issues. Despite this, the game still did what it was aiming for quite well, and that is why it is where it is today.
As per LOTRO... it's going F2P, 'nuff said.
And the reason why so many old school gamers play WoW, is because every other option has been turned into a cheap clone of WoW, which makes WoW the least bad MMO option for many players. Even the "oldschool" MMOs like UO, EQ, SWG, etc, have all been significantly altered into being hack clones of WoW.
WAy to make a counter point to the op w.o realizing it.
Ass. with something stigmatized ... check.
Lack of understanding both services renderd from both areas... check.
Agrument agist op despite support for ... check.
This maybe offtopic, but be careful of the comparisons you make.
WAlmart only exists becuase its provides a desired service. It doesn't exists like many of the banks, auto , electronic co., insurence co., utility co, etc. becuase they are supported artifically by the governement. Infact, walmart has to fight aginst artifical boundrys more than most co.s So why then does it do well?
First off it offers cheap prices. I understand s like hershy of hershy's chocolet did that if you sell enough of something you can sell if for less profit but still make more.
It buys it for less. Using bulk orders, competitive pricing, and cheapest suplier is gets its good cheaper than most. For other co.s that understand, if we sell more at less profit we still make more money (it might be harder work, but thats a point of a business, it works harder the consumer works less hard). One evil aspect of this is ordering from out of country , oddly enough walmart doesn't do this anymore than other general shopping stores. However, it is occcuring. But there are insentives for this, that even small local stores were enguging in. Basiclly, if it cost $20 to by froma us co (after , unions, high pay, benifits, taxes, taxes, more taxes, even more taxes, crazy inspections for non edible goods, the list of burocracy to form compeitors, etc the list goes of for the forces agisnts effect compitions and wealth generation inside the us. [not to say its a bad thing, but you get what you desireve] instead without many of these barriers to wealth generation it would cost a fraction of this). However, this system that walmart is employing does increase our PPP (purchasing power parity). (The us today would still have the higherst save for a few blocks of very unproductive citezens, misapproperaton of state/federal funds, gov. corperate collusions). Those for most US citizens however PPP remains very high (it has been hurt attemping to spend those with low individual PPP ways out of low PPP. Which is not possible).
Sp what is walmarts role in this system. Most jobs walmart replaces do not pay much more, however it emplyees more people than the previous stated small shoppign centers. (This results is aloss of payment to employees for that community/country) However, its marked lower prices increase EVERYONE (a great deal more peoples) purchasing power by making each of the dollars they spend on food/general goods worth MORE. This is a net gain (no agruments its a fact google studies, statistics, and/or economics of it) there are more people in socirty purchesing goods from walmart than employed by walmart. This = MORE MONEY/GOODS FOR EVERYONE.
So why the sh** storm over Walmart? Well one its successful. People today (often libs) hate successful bussinesses. THEY HATE THEM EVEN MORE WHEN THEY AREN'T PAYING THEM YET (politicains). Walmarts simply wasn't paying our federal and state politicians enough so they started tons of hate fair to send a message, pay or suffer.
Check this out whens the last time you heard all the media and gov. generated wal-mart hate? A lot less now well now that they are paying the man with the underhand.
The man's stick was you, legislation, and the american people too uneducated and intelligent to understand what was going on, how markets and economies work.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/03/07/afx4747935.html
They also did this to microsoft for not payign enough.See microsoft was succedign becuase of its marketing and product. They were payign the gov. with the underhand $20k (or in other words nothing). So mircosofts competitors who were paying the gov. had their dudes take MS to court/ thorugh senate/etc. for monoply. Well they lost
http://www.forbes.com/1999/11/05/mu12.html
Oddly this article does adress how much money MS is giving so the next oen supports this well.
http://www.zdnet.com/news/microsofts-lobbying-efforts-eclipse-enron/120716
The above article basiclly shows, how MS didn't have much money in the system at the time all this anti MS stuff went down. So they took their lesson (IF YOU WANT TO BE A BUSSINESS IN THE US, you better get ready to pay the politicans with the underhand, or theyll force you to). So MS, being the size it is, has a lot to loss so it has to pay the man.
Isn't it funny that people want more gov. whens it clear gov. is already steeped in coruption; these are not the angels you want to trust your life and economy to, who will run everything.
Also the question is not if MS or W-M has enough money, the questions is the system corrupt? Now will smaller bussinesses that don't have the lobbyist/money stand a chance. LESS than before, see now MS and WM have politicians in their pockets and they make sure other co./corps. can't compete with them as well. So instead of this system favoring what is best for the markets and the US citizens it now simiply favors the ruling class of the US, the politician.
Like these co.s, WOW (and like games) is only offering a service, they give peoiple what they want, until someone else does it better. DF is a good example of a non walmart game but your not playign it why? There are a lot of non walmart games out there, but lets be honest the walmart games are better. What you really want is a wal mart game that has some of those old adventure type level schemes (they could make hybrids, but so very few people EXPRESS this desire. Instead they turn their backs and call names). Will it be the exact same no but you can't have perfection (just like these anti walmart people want walmart prices and selection, but non walmart employees and unions).
And lets be honest wow doesn't give people free stuff, if you want the best you got to work for it. Will it give you stuff with a bit of work that makes you not a total Scro. Although you might still talk like one , hehe.
Sorry for the long post its just i wish people would how was it put "wise-up". Agruing agist what people want (as you know better) seems very elitist to me and not a good place.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Interestingly enough I also think in terms of model plane building when this issue comes up. When I was a kid I used to put together plastic model planes and had my own set of paints, knifes, filesso I could do the task properly. When the planes were done, I would put them on a shelf and they would collect dust and get destroyed when my mother cleaned my room
Once the challenge was done, I really had no interest in the finished product. In MMORPG terms building the plane was 'epic' and the finished plane was just 'trash loot'. I view that as the only 'sane' way to play a MMORPG as otherwise you start obsessing over bytes and pixel in a computer.
The area I strongly disagree with the 'old school' players is when it comes to repetition. I see nothing interesting or challenging in repeating content I have already conquered. Going with the model plane analogy, building a nice B-17 model can be a nice challenge but I would not then go and build the exact same model from scratch unless it was because I did not do a great job on the first one and wanted to do the job right. However, I would not then build a 3rd, 4th, 5th copy of it each weak. At that point I would want to move on to a bigger challenge.
Finishing a dungeon and beating a tough boss can be a worthy challenge. Having to repeat that dungeon over and over once you have mastered it, is just pointless busy-work. Any players who measure their accomplishments in number of times they have merely repeated the content are deluding themselves into thinking that they are 'epic'.
Your final question seems to contradict your model plane analogy. What sense of accomplishment is there in building a model plane from parts if anyone with 'half a brain and a credit card' can buy a finished version in a store? You know that the sense of accomplishment is in actually doing the difficult task yourself rather than just having the final result handed to you. Who cares how others get their epics if you got yours doing a challenging and fun task. If you doing it just to feel more 'powerful' then others then I really do not want you to be playing the same game as me since that is a very toxic way to approach games.
Please.. most EQ & DAOC players did try World of Warcraft, but most didn't play it for long. I beta tested WoW for 5 months and bought the game, within 4 months we were killing dragons & laughed our way back to Everquest.
Not many long term EQ player stayed in WoW, if anything they went to the stupid EQ2. Those who did stay, did so because of an outside influence, like their wife, or freinds started to play. WoW was an inferior product when placed up against Everquesat back then, even EQ2 was inferior. Everquest was 5 years old when WOW was released. SOE didn't market EQ well, at all. Didn't ever pay extra to have a stand-alone kiosk with EQ game boxes enticing patrons to buy the game.
Blizzard did.
Blizzard IP was well known, so that, along with marketing, world of warcraft stole the show.
I do agree with you on "rushed games". It's more than obvious that every MMO since WoW has been hurried and dumbed-down to entice the WoW crowd. But now that they have had a taste of the MMORPG soup, they are looking for something more and have no idea where to look.
There is only one place for a burnt out WoW player to get that high again, is goto the core.
Everquest & DAOC will provide a real good experience for those who are sick of WoW.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
I agree on eve keep forgetting how old that game really is. BTW LOTRO isn't going full F2P so it obvious you know nothing on the matter. Btw that game has more active subs than everything but EVE in the west. EQ2 was also released before WoW btw. UO hasn't really changed much besides the graphics update. SWG was a giant mistake before NGE. You can keep spouting whatever you want but Blizzard didn't force anyone to copy them. Everyone who had tried to do so failed to create a half decent game. Kinda glad knowing there will probably never be a game to satisfy you since your so blind to see whats really going on. BTW what made the older games hard was just the sheer time it took to do anything. It took forever just to get from point A to point B in EQ. Severe Death penalties were only put there due to lack of content rather than to increase the difficulty of a game. All these old outdated methods found in the grandfather age of mmo were all just put in place because devs at the time were unable to pump out very meaningful content and this was their way to help players kill time. Sorry the only real thing blizzard did for the genre is bring it into the eyes of millions who would never have even known these games existed. Many of the current mmo probably wouldn't have come to exist if it wasn't for blizzard.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Frost gets a yummy cookie.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
No! I said he gets a brown star... thats it.
It stinks too, but he said that he liked it so I guess he 'll be alright without your cookie ty.
bad memories for me.
I was at LGUK for 6 hrs, getting nothing. Most of the time was EXTREMELY boring because you are doing NOTHING but waiting in lline for the other 50 guys to kill the boss, and there is zero challenge.
BAD game design. I will take any ICC or RS fight anyday.
You bring up a rather ironic point. You say that old school games are very repetitious. I do agree to that, they are in certain ways. However, many of the modern MMOs aren't much different. Take WoW for example. You're still running the same instance, raid, etc, dozens of times. So again, I really don't see how that is a failing that is specific to oldschool MMOs, because modern MMOs are rather ripe with it as well.
As per the sense of accomplishment issue... it does diminish it if other people can accomplish the same goal easily. Furthermore, MMOs are social arenas, and can be competitive between players as well. Even if I take my time to enjoy a game, do difficult things, ad don't rush to gear up, then I'll quickly find myself at a distinct disadvantage from those who have. This on the surface may not seem like an issue, but it is if you're competing for resource nodes, or quest mobs, and the other player is faster and/or can kill things much more quickly.
Why do you keep defending Blizzard?
Who is attacking blizzard? Nobody! We are simply stating what happened to the industry after WoW was released. It doesn't matter who fault it is, it just is...
Secondly, you are wrong about why older game were harder. They required alot more though & patients. Old school games had more CHALLENGING gameplay. There is very little in WoW that challenges an adult. WoW was more about entertainment and themepark, than open ended adventure.
Content? Bro you are just trolling. Everquest now and upon's WoW's release has significantly more content, more so than any game in existance. It would take you a good 10 years to plow threw the content Everquest has..
Lastly, you miss the oldschooler's point. No game since WoW has been worth playing. Name one? Aion.. lol. Conan..lol Warhammer... thats an even bigger hand-holding themepark than WoW. Mortal Online is the only game that might shed some light on oldschool gameplay.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
UO didn't change after WoW, but it did change prior to WoW with the Age of Shadows expansion, which destroyed the game design from being skill focused, to item focused.
I present to you the following:
Tom Chilton, AKA Kalgan, was the lead developer in charge of the Age of Shadows expansion. He was the one who pushed for the fundamental shift in gameplay into beign item centric. Shortly before release of the AoS expansion, Chilton jumped ship to join the WoW development team.
Therefore, I present the idea that WoW pre-emptively destroyed UO.
The above is a bit tongue and cheek. I moreso blame Chilton more than WoW... and Chilton is to blame for some of the bad design in WoW, such as arenas. All in all, it does seem to be that certain individuals in the industry did damage to it, rather than a singular company... it just so happens that most of those people work for said company...
This is so true. I went back to EverQuest as it was the only MMO worth playing, and I enjoyed it up to level 65, it was the same old game that I played and loved for years, albeit a little quicker to level due to the mercenaries. It was after level 65 that the game went downhill - the new expansions had added their version of the Quest-Chain that you see in just about every MMO these days, and I hate that stuff. It bores the hell out of me. "Go here, kill X mobs, come back. Then go here, kill Y mobs, come back.", and so on.
EverQuest never had that sort of thing before, it was a more open ended, do your own thing, sort of game. I couldn't stand it. I got to level 70 then got fed up and quit. A sad state for what was once the greatest MMO.
That's the biggest failing of WoW as I see it. It is still too much 'old school' in the way it approaches repetive content. WoW is just not 'modern' enough in its approach to endgame content. A truly modern' MMORPG would make gear acquisition trivial and focus on the challenges of the content.
The irony to me is that the 'old school' players seem to be looking for challenging content but are asking for the repetive no-challenge paradigm of the old way of designing MMORPGs.
I view MMORPGs as cooperative games. PvP and other competive parts of it are just a means for all the players involved to get better together. I also view accomplishments as relative to the individual. eg for me to code up a simple PHP website is trivial. For someone without my coding experience doing so would be an accomplishment. The fact that I can do it in my sleep does not diminish the accomplishment of the other person, On the other hand cooking a gourmet meal for me is an accomplishment while for a trained chef it is an everyday chore. I can accept that other players are better than me and the real challenge is not to beat them but to push my personal limits beyond what they are.
MMOs used to be a team sport like basketball, now theyre the equivalent of shooting hoops in the backyard by yourself.
@Torik you are absolutely right. What Ive always wanted is choice in games, a game rife with so many things to do that you just cant decide. Free realms has the right idea but is aimed at younger kids. Its all about offering not just content, but varied content.
And Gm run events, I love GM run events and always have. I know its harder to do on a large scale, but i still think the idea of a world that isnt static would be the best.
Yea. When LOTRO was my game, one dude from our kin wrote some scripts, and GM came, and we run open-kin event. Tho not so "tuffed with content" but something special - and unique that many people run with us to see what happens and why happens. Sad the game went where it's now, and our ppl left incl. me.
And in my game atm, Fallen Earth, GM-s started some events they playing evil baddies and players called to defence town. Or find purpose of some events and take measures to overcome them. That's good start.
That is the true damage that WoW has done to the genre. In their effort to be more inclusive and to allow more people a better chance at more content they have in effect killed off the social aspect of the game. The great thing about the old 40 man raids was that if you had 4 or 5 people that weren't fully up to speed come along it didn't kill the raid. They could come along, learn, chat and have fun without being a problem. As the raids got smaller and each person had to contribute more it became harder to give people that level of slack. Just getting started people would run around and catch up on what each person did and as the raid progressed people would chat and call each names and generally abuse the gnomes when ever possible. Now, it is all about getting in and getting out as fast as possible. Even PuGs were more chatty now they are down right hostile with people having hissy fits over the littlest things.
With the original Everquest that was the purpose of the game. To do the quests. Leveling was just part of the process but it wasn't really the goal (at least not until much later). Running around trying to figure out how to get your newbie armor and chatting with all the people was a huge part of the game. Even with the early WoW this feeling persisted. But, now the 1 to 79 levels are just something to get through as quickly as possible and with as little interaction with others as you can do. WoW has become all about the player and very little about the group.
With the games earlier on the gratification came from doing the quests or accomplishing other tasks in the game. With WoW the gratification really now is in getting the best bits of armor that you want or need and how you get them is just incidental.
The problem is that when there are games that try to return to that they seem not to get the numbers of players needed. I'm not sure that any game will ever get the numbers that WoW has and WoW is on its own downward trend. I expect that server consolidation is on the horizon for them as already some servers are struggling to have a viable economy (outside of the gold famers).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Doesn't this happen with most games tho. I mean it happened in eq b4 wow was ever released. Maybe its convenient to forget, but may people levelign another toon often pushed pace one the 2nd or 3rd time through. This happened in daoc, ao, uo, wow, etc. Maybe not everyone did this, but you don't have to do this in wow also. But if you know the game, its level spots, quests, etc. Well many people will tend to pay less attention to them the second time around. So is it fair to place this part of human nature on Wow? Now some people may pay MORE attention and may group MORE the second time around. I have seen examples of both in daoc, wow , and many other games. I have been guilty of both.
I actually like 1-79 in wow more than 80, i made a ton of leveling toons. Cata is redoing 1-79. I mean it seems like blizzard has already adressed this. Which is pretty amazing. (But after peopel have leveled 1-2 toon in Cata it will be the same, hit max level.)
Maybe you should ask youself why you were playing wow. The game is largely what you make it. (other than drama, greifers. Which sadly were in daoc and eq also).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
No. Most people are leveling by dungeons now in wow. It is more like shooting hoops with a few frds or strangers.