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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: What made old skool MMO's harder than modern day MMO's.

CalerxesCalerxes Member UncommonPosts: 1,641

I was not there at the birth of the fully graphical online roleplaying game aka the MMORPG, I've tried free shards of EQ, UO and SWG, I picked shards that tried to produce an authentic version of the original game but really its not the same as actually being there at the beginning so I did not stay long, though I do pop back in every now and again. 

 

I started my MMO career with...... yeah you guessed World Of Warcraft (boo hissss) in 2007 and I read much about this malligned game for being easy mode, solo centric, anti social etc.. but my time in the game was far removed from those coments. I spent from about a week in game predominately in groups up until about a month before I left in late 2008, I inherited leadership of a guild early on so I built that up to about 10/11 regulars on ever night so grouping for quests and instances was easy and we went through loads of 5 mans but never really made it raiding status. Eventually real life got in the way for a few people and the guild imploded. During that time we took on orange and red quests out in the open and took part in, with a fellow guild, some overland raids on places like Southshore, jumped into BG's regularly and helped each other gain specific gear or in my case my Warlock's epic mount. I've played many other MMO's since I left WoW and have grouped up in every one of them (well except the low pop ones of course) to do quests, I've socialised, helped people out and just made merry and thats why I play MMO's to interact with others.

 

Of course I'm not saying its a bed of roses in MMO land and I left WoW because it became a bit one dimensional for me and I wanted to explore the MMO landscape a bit, Rift left me wondering what the fuck were they thinking, Darkfall drove me up the wall with its tedious combat and general gameplay, Aion could have been great but fell before the winning line,why didn't Fallen Earth just copy pre-cu SWG as its bloody obvious that was its inspiration and the less said about AOC and Warhammer the better. While exploring the wider MMO world I found some great games along the way both p2p and f2p that I feel have depth and challenge coupled with great social building elements ie... EQ2, LotRO, Lineage 2, DDO, Vanguard (though VG has many problems still) POTBS, EVE, UWO, Atlantica, Perpetuum, Loong, Forsaken World... though these games all have problems to some degree they all throw up an immersive, challeging world for me. Also as a final point is that there is variety out there if you look and that its not just the older MMO landscape that had it, its here today also though the more sandboxy style game is a bit in a sorry state I must say.

 

So correct my ignorance as I was not there.... what makes Ultima Online, Everquest, Asherons Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age Of Camelot, FFXI more difficult and immersive than modern day MMO's like I have listed? 

 

 

Cal.

  

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Comments

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247

     

    Online resources weren't as prevalent. For example, wikis didn't exist and fansites were more about events and guild news than walkthorughs.

    NPCs weren't marked and quest logs weren't as detailed.

    You could actually do things or have certain rep levels that would get you guard-killed in otherwise-friendly towns.

    In UO, there was no global chat and even when one was introduced, no one used it. All chat was based on proximity.

    Ingame maps were very limited, IIRC, in EQ, I had to constantly spam 'Sense Heading' to raise the skill that told me what compass direction I was facing.

    No respeccing or skill builders available. If you took cooking on your swordsman in AC and were 30 levels into the character (took al ong time to do that back then), you either lived with it or rerolled.

     

     

    People also played very differently back then, though.


    • People used their first character or two to learn the game before making their actual character. The first character almost always ended up a mule with a skillset or build that was entertaining to see years later. Now people expect their frist character to be their main and, as such, MMOs are designed to support that which means less expeerimentation and more direct information, less choice and more handholding, and definitely as little consequence as possible.

    • People back then also came from group gaming backgrounds. The early MMO gamers were that cross section of PnP gamers and computer users. They were people that actively looked for groups, wanting to emulate the teams they read in their fantasy books or played in their DnD games. As such, with a group-focused audience, the games were designed to offer challenge to groups, resulting in often torturous gameplay for most solo players (*cue the jackass that has to reply with how that isnt' true because they leveled their druid/necro/whatever to cap solo*).

    • Politics were more a part of gameplay.In the older games there was more of a hierarchy, and when you had a problem with someone you didn't start spouting profanity in general/local but rather went to your guild leader who went to their guild leader to resolve it. As such there were a lot of rules, written and unwritten that players generally followed.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
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  • prizm1234prizm1234 Member UncommonPosts: 109

    there was an actual sense of danger. you did not res with all of your items still equipped, you could have a realistic chance of not only losing things like your level, but everything you carried with you, plus you would have to run back to your corpse naked unless you had a spare set of equipment in the bank. what that means is that groups generally learned how to play, and do it well, they did not have the slobbering retards who just rush into everything like they have in most newer MMOs (WoW had a lot of these). things like strategy and discussing pulls actually mattered.

    image
  • montinmontin Member Posts: 218

    Getting kill and having to run back to your corpse naked. And then of course trying to avoid the thing that killed you in the first place whilst you retrieve all your kit. Did that a few times in AC. The games these days cause very little problem if you get killed. In fact being killed is something that I no longer even care if it happens.

    Though go back further than AC and EQ, back to the days of MUDs and being killed then was a real pain. As most of the games would have xp loss from death. Of course there was no broadband then and often the dial-up connection would drop. It was annoying to play for 6 or 7 hours, go link dead and log back in to find you had been killed and lost all the exp you had made during that time.

    Ah yes, corpse looting. That was a real kick in the teeth. You get killed, run naked back to your corpse only to find some bugger had stolen all your kit.

    I could on (been online gaming for 15 years now), but you get the idea. Basically mmorpgs are a pale imitation of those first days of real hard core games. Which all I can say is thank god. As I'm too old now to play for hours only to get killed and lose everything I just did ;)

  • mastersam21mastersam21 Member UncommonPosts: 70

    Ive been playing MMORPGs for a very long time now, Im currently 26 years of age. It all started with Ultima > EQ > FFXI > WoW > many others. I dont think MMO back in its infant were more difficult, but rather just...new. No one really knew what can come from it so it really the genre just fell on me before I knew  I was getting into. In those days MMO really did earn its RPG hence MMORPG was born conpared to todays stale and lackluster MMOs. The world felt immersive... a true living breathing world. I know you use this word as well, but I dont think your immersive is the same as mine. 

     

    Community - 1st generation MMORPG felt like I was apart of it, lets take FFXI for example. FFXI required you to group to get anything done because of this grouping is required pretty much throughout the entire experience except the first 14 levels give or take. There was a time when players took responsibility for their actions good or bad if you were branded as a type of village idiot... people knew about. No server transfer and no name change can save you, rerolling was the only way to get away from it. This is probably one of the biggest reason why Im so fond of those early MMOs because I pretty much felt like the entire server was one big guild/linkshell, I even made a ton of Japanese friends.

     

    I can probably list many other points, but it's late so maybe ill update it later. I really like to hear some other comments on the matter. Again I don't think there were more difficult, we all have fond memories of our first MMO that we still clinge onto hoping one day we can relive that experience again. In fact I would say some of todays MMOs are more difficult because it challenging mentally, and the MMOs of the past more about its community.

  • KenFisherKenFisher Member UncommonPosts: 5,035

    Just a few things that have changed in WoW since I started (in the middle of Vanilla).

     

    Tough group quests to get epic mounts for Paladin and Warlock.  Now they are just purchased from a trainer.

     

    Priests wore healing gear with +heal stat.  Mages wore cloth with +DMG.  Now healing gear is no more and +DMG also helps healing.

     

    Training a pet for a specialty pet for a hunter meant that the pet stayed at its own level and you had to work to level it up.  This took days of effort.  Also pet started out as unhappy and working with it improved its happiness.  Now pets are full happy and full level as soon as they are trained.

     

    Earning skills on some classes meant special quests to get them.  Now, I'm fairly sure most or all of these has been removed.

     

    Many classes were designed to fill specific group roles.  For example, Druid made a good second healer but couldn't heal damage quickly enough to main heal.  Mages were crowd-control plus burst DPS.  Many of the classes have been stripped of most of what them special, so now a healer is a healer is a healer... etc.  (I hear that some of this improved with Cata.)

     

    Mobs with loot or items on that ground that needed to be picked up for quests did not have anything about them that made them look special.  Sparkling was added to make it easier.

     

    Using a web resource to do quests was considered cheating at first.  Then quest helper mods were made available by third party mod suppliers.  Then Blizzard added their own which made questing on par with playing Playskool games.

     

    Mounts at 40, epic mount at 60, flying at 70.  Who knows where they are now, but it is normal for people to quest Outland on a flyer.

     

    I'm sure there are more, these are off the top of my head.


    Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security.  I don't Forum PVP.  If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident.  When I don't understand, I ask.  Such is not intended as criticism.
  • someforumguysomeforumguy Member RarePosts: 4,088

    Back then I played shooters and RTS games. The early MMO's were too boring for me. I never had any understanding for the dull and painfull mechanics that made everything take so long. The only challenges I saw in oldschool MMO's were challenges that had nothing to do with gaming in my eyes. Camping, corpseruns,waiting for mana to replenish, travelling times even if you were just going back and forth were ridiculous in my eyes.

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

  • nytemarehnytemareh Member UncommonPosts: 156

    I started in DAoC just after the Shrouded Isles. expac.  Imagine no map.  No quest tracker.  No global chat.  Just you out somewhere in this huge world without a clue of where you are.  I remember being lost one time for 10 hours.  Just kept making wrong turn after wrong turn.  I don't think todays mmo gamers as a whole could deal with that. 

    Also, mobs could actually destroy you at anytime.  The cost of death was much higher than it is now.  So death meant something.  Not only did your armor, and weapons degrade badly you had a  long walk back to that sweet spot you found to grind.  Ontop of that you didn't get xp at the rate you do in games now.  You was lucky if you got 1 out of 10 bubbles in a session, and even luckier if you got in a group that didn't wipe.  There was no such thing as /faceroll through anything.

    oh, and no personal mounts.  no addons.  Alot of times just the player versus the game.  I miss those days.  Developers made players lazy, and completely dumbed down a great genre.  I personally find that most games that come out are far to easy.  That is what the genre has evolved into now. 

    The best thing about it was that your guild members would travel for 45 mins. just to help you out on one mob.  They would take time to help you get a few bubbles of xp.  Which would take hours depending on your level.  I miss those days.  The challenge.  The thought of what will happen to me today.

  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 16,947

    Originally posted by someforumguy

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

    And THAT my friend is the difference.  You want a twitch ("player skill) based RPG which is kind of like asking for a round square.  In an RPG you are playing the role of a character.  When my archer who is 35 and lived in the woods for the last 20 years draws back his bow to shoot, his success (to me) shouldn't depend on my twitch skills.  Not in an RPG.

     

    Today's games are moving more toward persistent world MMOFPS.  They might be fine games.  They might be much more popular. But they are very much a different genre than an MMORPG.

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  • echolynfanecholynfan Member UncommonPosts: 681

    Well OP - I'm not sure if "harder" is the word to describe old school MMO's - try more interesting than the current offering.

    I've played many MMO's but one of my favorties was Star Wars Galaxies and as messed up as the NGE was/is - it's still one of the most fun MMO's around. Why? Because it's not raid, dungeoun, gearscore, raid, dungeon blah blah blah. Every freaking MMO is a fantasy one which involves getting to level cap and basically raiding for gear and loot and this is supposed to be fun?

    I recently tried Rift and while this is a very polished game - it's the same thing: Dungons for gear and I'm just plain sick of this.

    In SWG for example: I can have my own houses...vendors and shop where people can visit and buy things 24-7. Currently I'm working on mutations for Beastmaster which in itself is a game. Space combat is awesome with multiplayer ships (I know Eve has done this and I've played Eve but you can keep the hours and hours of gate hopping and pvp gate ganking) and while the combat stuff is not the best - there is so much in the game to do BESIDES combat it doesn't matter.

    And this leads me to my main point: Old School games may appear harder, but they're really were/are more involved and require a little more brain power. My thinking on why this was the case is that early MMO's were directed towards the table top D& D gamer who was generally a more thinking kind of gamer and not an FPS type.

    World of Warcraft was released and all of a sudden coprporate interests took over and SWG was eventually ravished with the NGE mess to compete with Wow which was making HUGE amounts of $$. We all know how well that worked out. This same kind of corporate interest has ruined the music industry which basically churns out short term bands for cash and discards them. I don't think you'll see any current bands doing the senior type Rolling Stones touring gig in the future.

    I'll be camping out on SWG until The Old Republic comes out but I'm not holding my breath for that game to be any different than a Sci-fi version of Wow. We'll see.

    Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.

  • CastillleCastillle Member UncommonPosts: 2,679
    Well... At most i can say umm... If you turn mobs everywhere in wow to elite mobs that should give you an idea on the difficulty difference o.o start of the game =easy. But usually by the time you reached 20 or before that, youll usually start fighting mobs a lot lower level than you unless you have team mates o.o

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  • EndDreamEndDream Member Posts: 1,152

    Originally posted by someforumguy

    Back then I played shooters and RTS games. The early MMO's were too boring for me. I never had any understanding for the dull and painfull mechanics that made everything take so long. The only challenges I saw in oldschool MMO's were challenges that had nothing to do with gaming in my eyes. Camping, corpseruns,waiting for mana to replenish, travelling times even if you were just going back and forth were ridiculous in my eyes.

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

    UO was all about skill.

    Remember Old School Ultima Online

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,937

    Originally posted by Slapshot1188

    Originally posted by someforumguy

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

    And THAT my friend is the difference.  You want a twitch ("player skill) based RPG which is kind of like asking for a round square.  In an RPG you are playing the role of a character.  When my archer who is 35 and lived in the woods for the last 20 years draws back his bow to shoot, his success (to me) shouldn't depend on my twitch skills.  Not in an RPG.

     

    Today's games are moving more toward persistent world MMOFPS.  They might be fine games.  They might be much more popular. But they are very much a different genre than an MMORPG.

    Yeah, I agree with you, there is a contingent of players are are looking for mmofps and that's not what early mmo's were about.

    I miss some of the old school ways. This is probably why, even though I have a Rift account, I keep a Vanguard account and I'm even finding myself playing final fantasy 14 precisely because I do need to figure things out such as crafting because it's needed or that I can get a mob that will devastate me if I'm not lucky.

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  • BCuseBCuse Member Posts: 140

    i find newer games hold your hand too much.  The people playing tend to want everything given to them in a short period of time rather than building up your character. 

  • bunnyhopperbunnyhopper Member CommonPosts: 2,751

    Originally posted by someforumguy

    Back then I played shooters and RTS games. The early MMO's were too boring for me. I never had any understanding for the dull and painfull mechanics that made everything take so long. The only challenges I saw in oldschool MMO's were challenges that had nothing to do with gaming in my eyes. Camping, corpseruns,waiting for mana to replenish, travelling times even if you were just going back and forth were ridiculous in my eyes.

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

    Wait, aside from DF which models itself on 'oldschool' mmos, which modern mmos have these challenging twitch mechanics again?

     

    The gameplay challenge in oldschool mmos came from working with dynamics which promoted community interaction and, you know, actually working with others. Most modern mmos you simply log in, within a few days you've solo'd to level cap (with big fucking arrows showing you exactly where to go, because actually having to work it out for yourself is such a chore isn't it...) and then it's just the same old repetitive arenas over and over again.

     

    Not trying to be rude but if you think the whole point of an mmo is about twitch or some kind of rts challenge then you are missing the main point of an mmorpg.

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  • MaakuMaaku Member Posts: 90

    Everythime this topic pops up, it makes me reminisce ((I have no idea if I wrote that right)) and laugh a little.


     What made old skool MMO's harder than modern day MMO's

     

    The truth... Crappy design :) Haha. It's not that it really was crappy but simply that the medium was still very new and designers/programmers and etc... Didn't know better.

     

    You think that if back then we had todays ideology, experience and technology people would still make a game like UO or EQ1? Hell no. In 10 years from now the same topic will come around and people will say: What made WoW so popular? Because compared to the games of the future it will most likely suck... Or not be on par with whatever is coming. But WoW did have/ and still having a really good run but hey, UO is still running right? So, who's really the king of mmo's?


    Awards

    Ultima Online's success resulted in Guinness World Records awarding the game 8 world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records include "First MMORPG to Reach 100,000 Players", "Longest Running MMORPG", and "First and Only Person to Kill Lord British", which was done by a player named Rainz during a server reset which turned off his invulnerability.[21]

    In 2010, Ultima Online was the first inductee into the Game Developers Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame.[22]

     

    WoW definitely merits many awards as well but it will never take away those above :)

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  • khanstructkhanstruct Member UncommonPosts: 756

    Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

     Tough group quests to get epic mounts for Paladin and Warlock.  Now they are just purchased from a trainer.

    Ah, I remember trying to get a mount in UO. I had to find a grandmaster animal trainer, then head out to a dangerous part of the forest and protect him while he worked to tame a swamp dragon (this could take a few minutes to well over an hour). But in the end, my necromancer had a very cool dragon mount :)


  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247

    Originally posted by Slapshot1188

    Originally posted by someforumguy

    Not fun and not a gameplay challenge. I wanted to be challenged in skill (twitched based) or tactically. This was nowhere to be found in those oldschool MMO's. Oldschool MMO's would never become popular in current market. (Most) people have a job already.

    And THAT my friend is the difference.  You want a twitch ("player skill) based RPG which is kind of like asking for a round square.  In an RPG you are playing the role of a character.  When my archer who is 35 and lived in the woods for the last 20 years draws back his bow to shoot, his success (to me) shouldn't depend on my twitch skills.  Not in an RPG.

     

    Today's games are moving more toward persistent world MMOFPS.  They might be fine games.  They might be much more popular. But they are very much a different genre than an MMORPG.

    People want stats to be the defining factor until their skill is more competent than the stats, then they want it the other way around. A good example is stealing in an MMO, The thief always has to get flagged because if it was done based on character skill, the players would go ballistic when they watched that sack of gems disappear from their bag but their character didn't notice it.

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  • soulmirrorsoulmirror Member UncommonPosts: 124

    "easy mode, solo centric, anti social"

     

       What made the Original MMO's harder?  I really can not say they were harder, they just required a different  generation and computer timeline. 

        When I cut my teeth on computers cutting edge technology was the 75 baud acoustic coupler at the local Radio Shack and the computer accepted programming 2 ways, user input or cassette tape.  As such, not a lot of people used computers recreationally and those who did, and set up bulletin boards, were hard core as it demanded a lot of time.  That ethic translated to early gaming, not easily accessible, difficult to play, impossible to master.  Catering to that crowd was not easy and back in the day software pushed the limits of hardware, another thing separating games from the common community.  So games were not harder, they just tended to attract a certain type of person.  Because this generation cut their teeth on king of the hill, playground mentality, it's idea translated to early games.  Playing as a team was rewarded and even encouraged as player types were clear cut in their abilities and without certain classes, the chance of success exponentially decreased. (Warrior, Healer, Crowd control anyone?)

      WoW changed that, as a corporation they knew that by making the game and not maxing out processes to push hardware to a new level, they would get more people to play the game with existing hardware and that person, casual gamer, found a way to finish the game, attracted a lot more people to the gaming community.  WoW also catered to it's clients which were B-Net script kiddies, the game had to be easy on the pocket and easy on the atention span.  With that came a blurring of the class lines, more different types of characters could tank, heal or control crowds, making it easier to complete the game.

     

       In the end it comes down to what makes corporations the most money, the easier you make it to log in and kill moss snakes with out insulting anyone's intelligence, the more money you make for the company.

       

  • Akarn1007Akarn1007 Member Posts: 47

    the endless leveling system. AC, EQ, both had you grinding XP for YEARs on end to max out your character, same with AO. WoW started with the once you hit cap its over.

  • CalerxesCalerxes Member UncommonPosts: 1,641

    So, so far I'm getting the feeling that older MMO's were not really that more difficult than modern ones they just had you work things out for yourself and did not guide you in any of the overriding mechanics, which seems to me to be a sin of omittance rather than commitance, in other words it was not intentional because they were low down the list of priorities of the devs to build ingame guides and time ran out. Other things like death penalties and forced grouping seem to vary in severity, like having corpse runs, from game to game as in you could solo and avoid combat in UO but not in EQ and FFXI and they really don't make the game harder as just force a certain situation on you and reduce choice. Though I can understand that these things at the time seemed harder but in reality were just being unknown quantities and thus took time to learn pulling people together. 

     

    The other elements like closer communities, involved ecomonies, server reputation and politics can be found in the upper eschelons of many modern games, my UK server on EQ2, Runnyeye, has all of these things intact. For me the older community spirit is still there but it has fragmented into guilds and alliances moving to the latter more commited part of the game rather than being there for all to see. So in those rarefied atmopsheres you can have a server reputation as in the infamous Goonsquad and affiliates. I feel this is a natural progression as the MMO movement became more popular that you branch off into the groups that support your way of playing be it casual, core raider, fun loving criminals, altoholics anonymous or any other subset of MMO player. I used to be part of the really early UK Acid House scene before it exploded into popularity but even when it did there was still great clubs/raves that existed within this new found popularity but of course the flipside was loads of idiots coming in thinking they knew it all and it only began when they found out about it 3/4 years after the first underground clubs started up. So I know where a lot of the early MUD/MMO players are coming from its just harder to see through a sea of epeens and in our case, posers.

     

    My conclusions could be off the mark but I don't think the genre has really taken that much of a nosedive really as some would have it, though a little more variey is always welcome but remember there is an old skool heart in all MMO's you just need to find it and in the immortal words of an Acid House icon.... 

     

    "In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove.

    And from this groove came the groove of all grooves.

    And while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldy declared,

    "Let there be HOUSE!"

    and House music was born."

     

    Big thanks to all the originals from Chicago and London.image

     

     

     

    Cal.

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  • FennrisFennris Member UncommonPosts: 277

    AC1 Darktide:

    1) Originally you had to figure out the formulas for your own spells.  There were lots of materials and ways to combine them and the combinations were different for every account.  It was insane (until someone figured out the pattern and published a program to predict the formulas based on your accound name).

     

    2) PVP was rough - just to sell and restock comps you had to go into a town.  But there were limited places to go for the good mats, it took a few minutes to actually select and buy/sell everything, and there were tons of people camping the area because they could kill and loot your character while he was in the buy/sell window.

     

    3) It took several minutes to fully buff a character.  The buffs lasted < 15 minutes.

     

    4) There were lots of loopholes and tricks to PVP because the devs didn't know what they were doing when they designed it (godmode running, buffing robes instead of individual pieces, metal armor was useless against most attacks even with buffs, martial arts was the cheapest melee skill and it was also much much better than the most expensive, some skill combos made characters much much better than others, etc).  This separated experienced/rutheless players from others. 

     

    5) AC1 was before google.

     

    6) Competition for hunting grounds.  You were either in one of the good spots or you were taking a lot more time to get levels.

     

    Most of the above are bad things that probably cost Microsoft/Turbine customers and all/most of them have since been changed.  But playing was much harder than Wow or any game is now.

     

     

  • DrunkWolfDrunkWolf Member RarePosts: 1,701

    I will try to keep this short as i can go on for ever about this topic.

     

    Let me explain how it worked real fast in Asherons Call.

    You log in to this huge open world with not a single instance. you have a dagger, some bread and no idea were to go. all you know is the little dots on your mini map that are orange will kill you.

    you set out to explore the land and die many times before you figure out what you are doing. each time leaving a body on the ground with money and some loot you had picked up. you can either go get your body and loot or just leave it. You open up your world map and it shows towns and points of interest on it, yes thats it. you learn to stay on the road because its safe to try and find a town.

    then you find a town with people running around doing their thing, you start asking questions and figureing out whats going on. trying to make some friends and maybe join a monarchy. after this your real journey begins.

    This game was made in 1999 had no classes had a skill system that is way more advanced then any garbage i see today.

    the loot system was 100% random off mobs wich means you never know when your going to find that awsome piece of loot that is better then what you already have. no boss grinds in some stupid instance for a piece of loot you looked up on the internet so you know right were to get it.

    you could dodge magic and arrows, wich i found to be so awsome about this game. the physics engine was just amazing no heat seeking magic spells/arrows.

     

    Now this is what happens when u log into a newer game.

     

    You log in you ( first thing is first Turn off general chat )  then you see the NPC with the ! above his head, talk to him, hit Yes a few times without reading the garbage he is saying because it doesnt matter.  Do this to all the NPCs in the area then hit quest jornal see what one is the closest go kill 10 boars then return. then the same NPC says go kill same boars this time bring 30 boar tusk. ( and they call these quest ).

    you do this almost the entire game. and people doing the same quest are only in your way.

     

    pretty much you log on the game holds your hand and walks you threw panzy land makeing sure everything is ok and happy go lucky. if you die its ok nothing happens because we dont want you to get upset.

  • DeriumsDeriums Member Posts: 38

    Originally posted by BCuse

    i find newer games hold your hand too much.  The people playing tend to want everything given to them in a short period of time rather than building up your character. 

     

    exactly.

     

     Games like WoW tell you what to do next, they hold your hand every step of the way and give you rewards left and right.WoW is a childs game to be honest. It's a great game for someone who isn't good at MMOs, because even 8 year old kids play WoW and are main tanks... That tells you how dumbed down the game is.

     

     Old school games like UO (Played in 1998 until they killed the game in 2003 with AoS) Were nuts. Not only did you have NO idea how strong a mob was before you fought it, you also had players attacking you left and right. That sweet sword you found? Yup, there was about a 95% chance if you used it you would lose it when you died.

     

     There was no quests in UO, no levels, no raids, no item stats (other then the +1-+5 damage on weapons) you were dropped into a world and that's all you knew. YOU had to figure out what to do, the game told you NOTHING.

     

     to be honest, I miss those days. The game had a real economy, friends you made were either real friends in the end, or people who backstabbed you and robbed you blind. I STILL talk to many friends I met in UO. *sigh* they need another true sandbox that doesn't hold you by your hand.

  • Garvon3Garvon3 Member CommonPosts: 2,898

    Deeper RPG mechanics

    Harder raids (no instancing, mobs shift tactics based on how many is attacking and with what)

    More in depth combat and classes

    Quest NPCs didn't glow like neon signs, and a yelllow brick road didn't appear to take you to your objective

    No GPS maps

    Penalties for failure

    Night was actually dark

    in dungeons you had to account for roaming mobs, some that got attracted to certain inventory items, other players (this could fall under deeper RPG mechanics)

    things weren't always blatantly obvious

    PvP that mattered and had lasting consequences for success and failure

    PvP that wasn't always scaled into sports teams of perfect even sides.

  • GolelornGolelorn Member RarePosts: 1,395

    Inability for most classes to solo.

    Slow recovery times.

     

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