I have an idea..make a world we can actually "play" within and not "through". That's probably a bit hard for most of the MMO devs out there to understand. Think about this for a second..would you rather resub to a game you've built your own house up in, built up an actually community (think of UO housing in a sense), and actually established yourself in the WORLD you are playing in or rather resub to something where your 2nd alt hit 50 and you need to grind those points to get that purple so you can get that 3498398 critical?
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
I have an idea..make a world we can actually "play" within and not "through". That's probably a bit hard for most of the MMO devs out there to understand. Think about this for a second..would you rather resub to a game you've built your own house up in, built up an actually community (think of UO housing in a sense), and actually established yourself in the WORLD you are playing in or rather resub to something where your 2nd alt hit 50 and you need to grind those points to get that purple so you can get that 3498398 critical?
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
How do you equate having a virtual house with being bored? I have an awesome house in UO and EQ2 both and neither game leaves me "bored." I don't see the connection of boredom and housing.......
I played Asherons Call for about 5 years, many many years ago. tried to start up Asherons Call again, and just couldnt get hitched.
Reasons why I think old MMO's were harder.
Quests -
There was no Quest book that told you what to collect, where to go, who to talk to. When a quest came out, it took a community, guilds, an army of people to sometimes figure out even where a quest started.
Town Criers in cities would give you hints of where quests would start but that was all.
Spellcasting -
You couldnt just cast magic missile a million times. First you had to learn it by mixing different types of spell componants to learn the spell. Then you had to carry enough of those componants to be able to cast that spell. And each time you cast that spell it would consume some of the componants.
Same goes for archery, you couldnt just sit and plink away forever. You had to buy your arrows, and make sure you had enough stock.
Classes -
There were no classes. You had to make your own character with your own stats and skills. You werent just handed pre configured classes.
Im sure there is more, but thats all I can think of now.
I have an idea..make a world we can actually "play" within and not "through". That's probably a bit hard for most of the MMO devs out there to understand. Think about this for a second..would you rather resub to a game you've built your own house up in, built up an actually community (think of UO housing in a sense), and actually established yourself in the WORLD you are playing in or rather resub to something where your 2nd alt hit 50 and you need to grind those points to get that purple so you can get that 3498398 critical?
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
because you will log onto your theampark and do the same..standing in some town with a chat macro ..saying raid? raid? invite to raid plzkkthx? anyone raid? i was never a fan of player houseing but im pretty sure if your sitting there by yourself looking at the walls..you have problems lol
I have an idea..make a world we can actually "play" within and not "through". That's probably a bit hard for most of the MMO devs out there to understand. Think about this for a second..would you rather resub to a game you've built your own house up in, built up an actually community (think of UO housing in a sense), and actually established yourself in the WORLD you are playing in or rather resub to something where your 2nd alt hit 50 and you need to grind those points to get that purple so you can get that 3498398 critical?
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
How do you equate having a virtual house with being bored? I have an awesome house in UO and EQ2 both and neither game leaves me "bored." I don't see the connection of boredom and housing.......
Is the mere action of owning a virtual house the reason you play the game? Or is it because there are activities associated with the house that you find fun?
I owned a house in SWG and I quickly realized that merely owning the house did not make the game fun and I found the activities associated with the house to lack much fun. I was bored with the game and the act of owning a house did nothing to relieve that boredom.
I have an idea..make a world we can actually "play" within and not "through". That's probably a bit hard for most of the MMO devs out there to understand. Think about this for a second..would you rather resub to a game you've built your own house up in, built up an actually community (think of UO housing in a sense), and actually established yourself in the WORLD you are playing in or rather resub to something where your 2nd alt hit 50 and you need to grind those points to get that purple so you can get that 3498398 critical?
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
because you will log onto your theampark and do the same..standing in some town with a chat macro ..saying raid? raid? invite to raid plzkkthx? anyone raid? i was never a fan of player houseing but im pretty sure if your sitting there by yourself looking at the walls..you have problems lol
Correct. If I find that the themepark game to be boring and unchallenging I will quit it as well. Just because a game is considered a sandbox, does not mean that it won't be utter bore. People tend to assume that just because a game has a particular feature, it means that the feature and the game as a whole will be fun.
When I started Meridian 59 in '96 I got a nice color map in the box, that was it. No in game map, no place on the net I could find at the time close to all wikis and similar things today.
When I a few years later started beta testing Lineage I found a small map on a webpage, with very little information.
Today the game have in game detailed maps and webpages telling you how to beat any boss and do any mission. Before you had to find out everything yourself. That is one of the biggest differences for me at least. You don't get lost in a modern MMO.
There are of course many other differences. I know noone forces anyone to use the map or to check out what to do on the net but we all know it is pretty hard to not after you wiped a few times or after you get lost.
Harder isn't really better or worse, everyone have a personal difficulty level they prefer and some like some things that makes a game harder but can't stand others.
I for one likes when it actually get dark at night, but I do like an auction house, broker or player run store...
I like to explore but spending 4 hours to get from one city to another is just too long (20-30 minutes are fine).
Go play EQ classic, say, Project 1999. Role up a Rogue or a Wizard. Start from scratch and never accept anything from anyone.
There is your "harder" old skool.
Next question, make it faster.
Funny you should mention that, I have a level 10 High Elf Wizard in Crushbone on the Project1999 server as we speak and the only thing about EQ that I found to be tough was a corpse run without knowing the /loc because I didn't know I had to do that before I died and I solo'd quite a bit upto that level as well and that was excruciatingly slow but not really that hard.
What is your definition of hard in a game? I mean you're only level 10, but a high elf wizard was a pretty decent race/class combo. At least you dont need to carry a torch or crank your gamma to see at night like humans and Eruds.
Presumably you are bound in Felwithe or Kelethin, so if you die you are fairly close to your corpse. If there's a decent population to clear the crap out of your way then a corpse run is fairly painless considering Crushbone is a big circle. But at level 10 you are not going too deep in, I doubt you could kill much past the entry way and maybe a few things on the hill or across the bridge.
I also dont know how accurate their aggro ranges, aggro behavior after being trained to zone line (attack anything on the way back usually), health amounts and ability access are versus the original content...
Personally I thought WoW was a little more difficult in the 1 to 20 range when I played than the 20 to 40 range simply because you didn't have many abilities or decent items early on. So it may actually be closer in difficulty than any other portion of WoW (although I haven't played WoW for many years so it may be easier now that they've redone early quests via Cataclysm).
At a point in WoW you get to where you can chain kill (solo) without resting on every class I've ever played, in Everquest chain pulling is only going to happen if you have very special conditions such as kiting or are fighting things that are on the verge of being grey (no XP) to you. At least that's my memory of the game. I may try Project 1999 myself, I played Shards of Dalaya because they made some changes and zone re-arrangements I thought were interesting.
Somebody correct me if my memory is failing me, but I recall that soloing Crushbone in EverQuest was pretty standard fare. As was Blackburrow and other starting zones. We didn't need to group until later on. I know that I was grouped for hunts out in the Karanas by level 20. We'd hear preposterous tales of people soloing to 50 and be convinced that there were some crazy people out there.
EverQuest was 'hard' because so much of the game required interacting with other people. It's easier to look at a map than ask directions. It's easier to solo a mob camp than organize a group to do it. It's easier to do a search on the auction house than listen to the auction spam in East Commonlands. We were constantly talking to each other. For a bunch of guys, that's hard
Like mapping ... it is not hard to map by hand (i did that for M&M ... too much work now i think about it) ... just tedious and time-consuming. So i prefer a mapping feature.
Ditto for searching for an NPC. It is not hard to go around in orgrimmar and talk to everyone to look for quest .. it is just tedious and time consuming .. so an exclamation mark on top is welcomed.
Even fights .. if you are camping the boss with 50 players (back in EQ) .. the fight is super easy .. you don't actually need to do much .. the others will kill him .. for your turn to loot .. and hurry you along so it will be their turn faster.
I would MUCH rather play today's MMO than EQ or UO.
Well, the two older mmos I played extensively were Asheron's Call 1 and DAoC. Neither game was "harder" than current mmos, just more time consuming, a little more tedious, but also more fun in many regards.
Asheron's Call was extremely solo friendly, and played very much like the MUDs I was used to playing. Planning out a character's skill set took thought, and you needed to make a template to follow so that you got the most needed skills first, and the more tertiary skills later on. When I played there was no respecing and no reassigning of stats. You also carried expensive, but useless items so that when you died you had a lesser chance at dropping a weapon or armor.
AC was a ton of fun, but the over-reliance on magic really killed the game for me. It was basically impossible to run around without some form of magic school, usually Item magic for weapon and armor enchants as well as faster travel. Soon the rise of 3 school melee, 3 school archers, Og Mages, War Mages dominated the game, and content was designed around the assumption that you were using a popular template.
DAoC was a great game especially because it brought meaningful PvP to the masses. There were quests at certain levels, that ended with you being rewarded with your epic armor set. Things were pretty well balanced, and there wasn't a lot of importance on gear, since most folks were relatively the same gear wise.
So many things annoyed me in DAoC though. The reliance on grouping to level at a decent rate. XP loss upon death, you could literally lose hours of work because of a lag spike or a dropped connection from anyone in your group. ToA ruined so many parts of the game, adding massive amounts of PvE to a mostly PvP game was a bad choice. Also, the game became heavily reliant on gear when they released enchanting, and over enchanting, and then people started making templates to maximize their resistances, etc. DAoC died for me when the reliance on gear took over, that and the damned buff bots so many people were running.
It's not that older mmos were harder, they just had tedium placed into the game as part of the content. Players were punished harshly for taking risks, and that made most groups run safe and boring content. I can say I have more fun in today's mmos, I just wish there was more depth to them.
Somebody correct me if my memory is failing me, but I recall that soloing Crushbone in EverQuest was pretty standard fare. As was Blackburrow and other starting zones. We didn't need to group until later on. I know that I was grouped for hunts out in the Karanas by level 20. We'd hear preposterous tales of people soloing to 50 and be convinced that there were some crazy people out there.
EverQuest was 'hard' because so much of the game required interacting with other people. It's easier to look at a map than ask directions. It's easier to solo a mob camp than organize a group to do it. It's easier to do a search on the auction house than listen to the auction spam in East Commonlands. We were constantly talking to each other. For a bunch of guys, that's hard
Without having a suped up low level character, the castle in Crushbone was pretty hard to do alone unless you outlevelled stuff considerably. There are a couple other portions of Crushbone that were kinda tricky doing solo because of how they would path and plus they would aggro through walls/doors sometimes.
Blackburrow you had to group to go down into it, the stuff roamed and there was just too much stuff to be completely alone there. This may not apply if you are way above their levels or outlevel them, but if you are fighting level appropriate stuff...you needed a group due to the density and roamers.
Also don't forget some things in EQ flee, so if you couldn't kill it before it fled away from you and into some other stuff you'd pull even more things.
I was one of those people who soloed often with my druid, admittedly I went with a few groups but most times I was solo....only way to do it was be some place you could run. Karanas for many many levels. Used it to equip other lower level guys so I didn't have to worry about equipment as much with them when I joined groups...I'd be good enough for most groups instead of being a burden then.
I think one thing that's being avoided in the discussion is that if you took these old games and took out what you didn't like about them...what would you end up with? In the case of Everquest, if you took out death penalities, binding, having to eat/drink (it's method not WoW method), slow regen rates. Added in more instant travel/faster travel, more rewarding quests, instanced dungeons...you're only a few steps away from having WoW. But there's A LOT of people who only play WoW when a new expansion comes out then quit again...people want something else because what's in that game has been done.
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded? I will stipulate that Everquest had a lot of flaws, poor designs, and just general tedious stuff...enough that I got tired of putting up with them and moved on. But there was something lost in the transition through all the new MMOs from EQs inception to WoW as it stands today... and it seems like people think it should be the challenge...since we are discussing how "hard" the games are. So what is challenging? What makes an MMO hard, but not negatively so.. The thing that gets me about all these games coming out that copy WoW, they never do anything significantly different. In my mind, WoW 1.0 was the next iteration of Everquest (more so than EQ 2 was, they botched that) with more user friendliness (less time consumption, faster travel, clearly designated icons, minimaps to direct you, etc) and skill trees. But ...I guess there's just a "flavor" that was lost in the copy over that kept a community that was fun to participate in overall. I'd like to think it was the lack of the modern amenities WoW brings, and some of the difficulties those introduced.
Somebody correct me if my memory is failing me, but I recall that soloing Crushbone in EverQuest was pretty standard fare. As was Blackburrow and other starting zones. We didn't need to group until later on. I know that I was grouped for hunts out in the Karanas by level 20. We'd hear preposterous tales of people soloing to 50 and be convinced that there were some crazy people out there.
EverQuest was 'hard' because so much of the game required interacting with other people. It's easier to look at a map than ask directions. It's easier to solo a mob camp than organize a group to do it. It's easier to do a search on the auction house than listen to the auction spam in East Commonlands. We were constantly talking to each other. For a bunch of guys, that's hard
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded? I will stipulate that Everquest had a lot of flaws, poor designs, and just general tedious stuff...enough that I got tired of putting up with them and moved on. But there was something lost in the transition through all the new MMOs from EQs inception to WoW as it stands today... and it seems like people think it should be the challenge...since we are discussing how "hard" the games are. So what is challenging? What makes an MMO hard, but not negatively so.. The thing that gets me about all these games coming out that copy WoW, they never do anything significantly different. In my mind, WoW 1.0 was the next iteration of Everquest (more so than EQ 2 was, they botched that) with more user friendliness (less time consumption, faster travel, clearly designated icons, minimaps to direct you, etc) and skill trees. But ...I guess there's just a "flavor" that was lost in the copy over that kept a community that was fun to participate in overall. I'd like to think it was the lack of the modern amenities WoW brings, and some of the difficulties those introduced.
I did mention in one of my posts that for me MMO's have probably gone too far the other way in removing the more immersion supporting features in favour of quick fix easy access gaming, so modern MMO's don't feel like a online world anymore. My personal favorite game was Lineage 2 as it made me feel like I was living in a fantasy world with great lore and actual players could effect the game world as guilds would fight over control of the 9 regions through PvP and in game politics. The class system made me feel like I was growing as I played with the class changes that you went through, I left becuase the lack of any control of the economy from NCSoft saw it get out of control so a newer player ie ME... found it hard to progress once they entered the mid game, it wasn't impossible but it was really tough you had to really roll another toon, a Dwarf Treasure Hunter to be specific, that would be your money maker so to get one class to the higher levels you need to play two toons at once.
Really for me needs to be a balance on things like travel, downtime, complexity, group play, slower leveling pace etc... not to long or short, not too harsh or soft, easy to learn (good tutorials) but not completely idiot proof, not too long not too short, as just removing what was deemed tedious as what many a modern MMO has done, I'm looking at you Rift, AOC, WAR... seems to me to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I play f2p MMO's mainly now because they still have much of these elements like slow leveling which is what really put me off Rift & WAR among other things.
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded?
Your view is black and white - a game doesn't have to be a masochistic endeavour to be worthwhile. It simply has to be fun.
For example, there was nothing hard about logging into an MMO, getting into character and heading off to roleplay at a player venue. There was no success/failure measure other than whether people wer eentertained and enjoying themselves. There certainly was no penalty. Surprisingly, hundreds, if not thousands found that a worthwhile and rewarding thing to do on a regular basis in the older MMOs.
But to stick the grind/level formula, a lot of people go adventuring for the purpose of doing something with other people. There are significantly more people that rather have a casual romp through a dungeon where a portion of the time can be spent joking around, geting coffee and stopping for smoke breaks than there are people who are looking for a punishing test of one's personal spreadsheet against the computer's spreadsheet, with an entire column of data at stake.
What makes it worthwhile? For many it's the social interaction, the entertaining diversion, the feeling of having accomplished something, the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast)... there are plenty of things that make pressing 7,8,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5 a worthwhile and rewarding experience.
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 "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Hear hear lokofeit. It's not about the risk, and for me, never has been. It's about the entertainment, the diversion, the comraderie and a bit about the epeen.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Everyone here has been making a lot of good points about old mmos. Rather than writing paragraphs of differences, here's my list that mixes up strong points from various games:
Exporation and Adventuring was the main focus of the game.
Nothing was obvious... you had to discover on your own.
Because of that, the world felt "real".
The environment was mysterious for a long time.
Skill-based systems made more sense. The more skillful you were, the more you were respected.
You always felt that you had to look over your shoulder.
The world was full of danger, and you felt relieved when you found a "safe" place.
Death meant something serious.
Avoiding death was very important.
Dying brought on deep emotions.
Finding your corpse was like going to your own funeral (deep emotions).
Corpse runs, in some games, were rather long, but that's when you were social.
World events were sponsored by the players.
Being invited to some world events made you feel special and wanted (even if there were no guilds).
PVP was generally open and didn't feel like an arcade game.
Town invasions were so much fun.
So with all those highlights, I think the main difference between mmos today compared with mmos of yesteryear is that the old ones played with your emotions a lot more, whereas today's games lean more towards the feeling of playing a board game.
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.
With the exception of "Bosses" I wouldn't classify older games as "harder".
I would say they were "Harsher" in that they punished mistakes much more. They were also not solo friendly past a certain point. However, that didn't actually make them harder. There was no extra difficulty in playing EQ1 than there is WOW. It just punished you more when you died, and required you to be in a group to succeed. Once those two things were met, it generally wasn't hard to play.
longevity i.e 1 year plus before you run out of things to do.
I would argue that there is much more content in todays MMO's. The reason that you still had things to do a year from launch before was that you were still trying to get to level 20 but since you picked the wrong race class combo you rarely found a group. Oh, plus the lag spike (thanks Dial-Up) got you killed and you lost a level. Whoops.
longevity i.e 1 year plus before you run out of things to do.
I would argue that there is much more content in todays MMO's. The reason that you still had things to do a year from launch before was that you were still trying to get to level 20 but since you picked the wrong race class combo you rarely found a group. Oh, plus the lag spike (thanks Dial-Up) got you killed and you lost a level. Whoops.
Sanitised gaming is no fun.
People have this self imposed view that winning is being the best player stat wise.
Some people find it a challenge to develop a character ; and in older games you could pick the worst build ever and succeed with friends.
These days if you don't play off a spreadsheet and act like a guild slave you get booted...... Sounds more like a job than fun .....
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded?
Your view is black and white - a game doesn't have to be a masochistic endeavour to be worthwhile. It simply has to be fun.
For example, there was nothing hard about logging into an MMO, getting into character and heading off to roleplay at a player venue. There was no success/failure measure other than whether people wer eentertained and enjoying themselves. There certainly was no penalty. Surprisingly, hundreds, if not thousands found that a worthwhile and rewarding thing to do on a regular basis in the older MMOs.
But to stick the grind/level formula, a lot of people go adventuring for the purpose of doing something with other people. There are significantly more people that rather have a casual romp through a dungeon where a portion of the time can be spent joking around, geting coffee and stopping for smoke breaks than there are people who are looking for a punishing test of one's personal spreadsheet against the computer's spreadsheet, with an entire column of data at stake.
What makes it worthwhile? For many it's the social interaction, the entertaining diversion, the feeling of having accomplished something, the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast)... there are plenty of things that make pressing 7,8,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5 a worthwhile and rewarding experience.
Hardly black and white, I have never said Everquest was perfect. I have never said WoW is perfect. There are aspects I like of both games, the topic of which game was harder. Personally I thought Everquest was harder, but then people come along and say none of them are hard. So without some sort of definition of what people perceive as points that make the game hard there is no way to compare. If the topic were fun, then I'd say all the games were fun at points and mind numbing/tedious at others.
The only game I am aware of that had graphics and had pathways built specifically for roleplaying and/or socializing was Star Wars Galaxy with the cantinas. MUDs had more roleplaying than any MMO server I've ever played on, but I am not on roleplaying since it never seems to fit what I envision when it comes to interaction from the mind's eye image.
That's fine if people want casual, easy, pause-button experiences. But they certainly wouldn't fall into the topic of MMOs where their difficulty is called into question.
And as for the last paragraph:
What do you think facilitates the topics you mentioned?
Social interaction - Does global chat help or hinder? I find myself overwhelmem with chat spam in some zones, for instance Barrens chatter. Do mail systems facilitate or hinder? It's like the choice between emailing or telephoning a friend, instant interaction is more social in my opinion. Auction houses would definitely cut down on the social opportunities.
the entertaining diversion - Not even sure what this is referring to beyond the whole aspect of the game world.
the feeling of having accomplished something - the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast). Is hitting 50 in WoW even an accomplishment for most players anymore? I know every level in Everquest didn't feel like it was given to you, because you could lose it if you screwed around. At what point is levelling too fast? I mean if you kill one thing and gain a level each level....why bother having experience bars?
My point is there is a balance, and a black and white view of the games would say "fun" is all that matters. Since "fun" is based off of so many things, one of which is how "hard" a game is based on a myriad of factors that can be controlled and one big one that can't be ......and that is population numbers. You need a certain amount of people playing a game to make it an MMO in the first place, I'd say an active crowd of at least 500 minimum at any hour of the day upwards of 2000 with how the games are handled at this time. Some could even do 4000, but if you got into the 10000 active players on a server range (I dont think any game today can even do this since there's the potential for a large number of them to be in a specific city...and I don't count instancing as "handling" it.)...I don't think the current game designs would hold up. If you were to drop the levelling aspect of WoW...how many people would leave? If they removed dungeons, how many would leave? What if they removed any of these: variable dungeon difficulty, all but 1 character slot, instant travel, spirit world for CRs, crafting, enchanting, any specific class, the myriad of other things you get used to. It could be any one of those things keeping people in the game world making the social aspect viable. Now, what if one of those things is not quite keeping people entertained by being too easy and they leave?
So again, I ask. What makes a game "hard"? It might be as simple as being unfamiliar with the game, and once that is gone...you can only replace it partially with expansions.. If they add too much to it to make it more novel/unfamiliar other people get upset.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Old games are not harder .. just need more work. Like mapping ... it is not hard to map by hand (i did that for M&M ... too much work now i think about it) ... just tedious and time-consuming. So i prefer a mapping feature. Ditto for searching for an NPC. It is not hard to go around in orgrimmar and talk to everyone to look for quest .. it is just tedious and time consuming .. so an exclamation mark on top is welcomed. Even fights .. if you are camping the boss with 50 players (back in EQ) .. the fight is super easy .. you don't actually need to do much .. the others will kill him .. for your turn to loot .. and hurry you along so it will be their turn faster. I would MUCH rather play today's MMO than EQ or UO.
Don't you think the imagination suffers though? Sure, everything is easier, but all you are left with is what you see and hear. Nothing is feared. Nothing is sacred.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
But one thing Everquest had that no MMO can replicate and be competitive is a sense of adventure. You weren't walked through everything.
This right here. A sense of ADVENTURE. This is what no themepark can deliver. It's the difference between going to Disneyworld with some friends and going on an unguided safari with some friends. You come back from both with pictures and stories, but the experiences are just totally different.
longevity i.e 1 year plus before you run out of things to do.
I would argue that there is much more content in todays MMO's. The reason that you still had things to do a year from launch before was that you were still trying to get to level 20 but since you picked the wrong race class combo you rarely found a group. Oh, plus the lag spike (thanks Dial-Up) got you killed and you lost a level. Whoops.
Sanitised gaming is no fun.
People have this self imposed view that winning is being the best player stat wise.
Some people find it a challenge to develop a character ; and in older games you could pick the worst build ever and succeed with friends.
These days if you don't play off a spreadsheet and act like a guild slave you get booted...... Sounds more like a job than fun .....
Hah, I made a gnome warrior in EQ1. Just because I could. (To those who don't know what that meant, he was a severely underpowered race for the class, no way in heck could he match a real tank at higher levels). In one of his early, level 10'ish solo fights, he was in a desperate battle just off a main pathway. He actually gathered a CROWD CHEERING HIM ON. And nobody buffed him or healed him, because it was his fight to win (although they did throw tips and advice aplenty).
And when he did win (by like 1-2 hits tops), he got a full crowd roar and someone gave him a somewhat better weapon to help him out. Man I miss playing with those kind of people.
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded?
Your view is black and white - a game doesn't have to be a masochistic endeavour to be worthwhile. It simply has to be fun.
For example, there was nothing hard about logging into an MMO, getting into character and heading off to roleplay at a player venue. There was no success/failure measure other than whether people wer eentertained and enjoying themselves. There certainly was no penalty. Surprisingly, hundreds, if not thousands found that a worthwhile and rewarding thing to do on a regular basis in the older MMOs.
But to stick the grind/level formula, a lot of people go adventuring for the purpose of doing something with other people. There are significantly more people that rather have a casual romp through a dungeon where a portion of the time can be spent joking around, geting coffee and stopping for smoke breaks than there are people who are looking for a punishing test of one's personal spreadsheet against the computer's spreadsheet, with an entire column of data at stake.
What makes it worthwhile? For many it's the social interaction, the entertaining diversion, the feeling of having accomplished something, the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast)... there are plenty of things that make pressing 7,8,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5 a worthwhile and rewarding experience.
Hardly black and white, I have never said Everquest was perfect. I have never said WoW is perfect. There are aspects I like of both games, the topic of which game was harder. Personally I thought Everquest was harder, but then people come along and say none of them are hard. So without some sort of definition of what people perceive as points that make the game hard there is no way to compare. If the topic were fun, then I'd say all the games were fun at points and mind numbing/tedious at others.
The only game I am aware of that had graphics and had pathways built specifically for roleplaying and/or socializing was Star Wars Galaxy with the cantinas. MUDs had more roleplaying than any MMO server I've ever played on, but I am not on roleplaying since it never seems to fit what I envision when it comes to interaction from the mind's eye image.
That's fine if people want casual, easy, pause-button experiences. But they certainly wouldn't fall into the topic of MMOs where their difficulty is called into question.
And as for the last paragraph:
What do you think facilitates the topics you mentioned?
Social interaction - Does global chat help or hinder? I find myself overwhelmem with chat spam in some zones, for instance Barrens chatter. Do mail systems facilitate or hinder? It's like the choice between emailing or telephoning a friend, instant interaction is more social in my opinion. Auction houses would definitely cut down on the social opportunities.
the entertaining diversion - Not even sure what this is referring to beyond the whole aspect of the game world.
the feeling of having accomplished something - the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast). Is hitting 50 in WoW even an accomplishment for most players anymore? I know every level in Everquest didn't feel like it was given to you, because you could lose it if you screwed around. At what point is levelling too fast? I mean if you kill one thing and gain a level each level....why bother having experience bars?
My point is there is a balance, and a black and white view of the games would say "fun" is all that matters. Since "fun" is based off of so many things, one of which is how "hard" a game is based on a myriad of factors that can be controlled and one big one that can't be ......and that is population numbers. You need a certain amount of people playing a game to make it an MMO in the first place, I'd say an active crowd of at least 500 minimum at any hour of the day upwards of 2000 with how the games are handled at this time. Some could even do 4000, but if you got into the 10000 active players on a server range (I dont think any game today can even do this since there's the potential for a large number of them to be in a specific city...and I don't count instancing as "handling" it.)...I don't think the current game designs would hold up. If you were to drop the levelling aspect of WoW...how many people would leave? If they removed dungeons, how many would leave? What if they removed any of these: variable dungeon difficulty, all but 1 character slot, instant travel, spirit world for CRs, crafting, enchanting, any specific class, the myriad of other things you get used to. It could be any one of those things keeping people in the game world making the social aspect viable. Now, what if one of those things is not quite keeping people entertained by being too easy and they leave?
So again, I ask. What makes a game "hard"? It might be as simple as being unfamiliar with the game, and once that is gone...you can only replace it partially with expansions.. If they add too much to it to make it more novel/unfamiliar other people get upset.
You went off on a roleplaying tangent there and I'm not sure why. I think you saw that word and got yourself sidetracked... badly. As a result of that, though, it seems you completely missed that my reply was to your question about what makes a game worthwhile if it isn't hard or full of penalties.
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 "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
If all I am doing is standing in my virtual house, bored out of my mind, then I will not blink twice about switching to a thempark game where I actually still have fun doign stuff. I play games to enjoy and challenge myself. Tedious and repetive gameplay does not challenge me so I do not consider it 'hard'.
How do you equate having a virtual house with being bored? I have an awesome house in UO and EQ2 both and neither game leaves me "bored." I don't see the connection of boredom and housing.......
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I played Asherons Call for about 5 years, many many years ago. tried to start up Asherons Call again, and just couldnt get hitched.
Reasons why I think old MMO's were harder.
Quests -
There was no Quest book that told you what to collect, where to go, who to talk to. When a quest came out, it took a community, guilds, an army of people to sometimes figure out even where a quest started.
Town Criers in cities would give you hints of where quests would start but that was all.
Spellcasting -
You couldnt just cast magic missile a million times. First you had to learn it by mixing different types of spell componants to learn the spell. Then you had to carry enough of those componants to be able to cast that spell. And each time you cast that spell it would consume some of the componants.
Same goes for archery, you couldnt just sit and plink away forever. You had to buy your arrows, and make sure you had enough stock.
Classes -
There were no classes. You had to make your own character with your own stats and skills. You werent just handed pre configured classes.
Im sure there is more, but thats all I can think of now.
because you will log onto your theampark and do the same..standing in some town with a chat macro ..saying raid? raid? invite to raid plzkkthx? anyone raid? i was never a fan of player houseing but im pretty sure if your sitting there by yourself looking at the walls..you have problems lol
Is the mere action of owning a virtual house the reason you play the game? Or is it because there are activities associated with the house that you find fun?
I owned a house in SWG and I quickly realized that merely owning the house did not make the game fun and I found the activities associated with the house to lack much fun. I was bored with the game and the act of owning a house did nothing to relieve that boredom.
Correct. If I find that the themepark game to be boring and unchallenging I will quit it as well. Just because a game is considered a sandbox, does not mean that it won't be utter bore. People tend to assume that just because a game has a particular feature, it means that the feature and the game as a whole will be fun.
When I started Meridian 59 in '96 I got a nice color map in the box, that was it. No in game map, no place on the net I could find at the time close to all wikis and similar things today.
When I a few years later started beta testing Lineage I found a small map on a webpage, with very little information.
Today the game have in game detailed maps and webpages telling you how to beat any boss and do any mission. Before you had to find out everything yourself. That is one of the biggest differences for me at least. You don't get lost in a modern MMO.
There are of course many other differences. I know noone forces anyone to use the map or to check out what to do on the net but we all know it is pretty hard to not after you wiped a few times or after you get lost.
Harder isn't really better or worse, everyone have a personal difficulty level they prefer and some like some things that makes a game harder but can't stand others.
I for one likes when it actually get dark at night, but I do like an auction house, broker or player run store...
I like to explore but spending 4 hours to get from one city to another is just too long (20-30 minutes are fine).
What is your definition of hard in a game? I mean you're only level 10, but a high elf wizard was a pretty decent race/class combo. At least you dont need to carry a torch or crank your gamma to see at night like humans and Eruds.
Presumably you are bound in Felwithe or Kelethin, so if you die you are fairly close to your corpse. If there's a decent population to clear the crap out of your way then a corpse run is fairly painless considering Crushbone is a big circle. But at level 10 you are not going too deep in, I doubt you could kill much past the entry way and maybe a few things on the hill or across the bridge.
I also dont know how accurate their aggro ranges, aggro behavior after being trained to zone line (attack anything on the way back usually), health amounts and ability access are versus the original content...
Personally I thought WoW was a little more difficult in the 1 to 20 range when I played than the 20 to 40 range simply because you didn't have many abilities or decent items early on. So it may actually be closer in difficulty than any other portion of WoW (although I haven't played WoW for many years so it may be easier now that they've redone early quests via Cataclysm).
At a point in WoW you get to where you can chain kill (solo) without resting on every class I've ever played, in Everquest chain pulling is only going to happen if you have very special conditions such as kiting or are fighting things that are on the verge of being grey (no XP) to you. At least that's my memory of the game. I may try Project 1999 myself, I played Shards of Dalaya because they made some changes and zone re-arrangements I thought were interesting.
Somebody correct me if my memory is failing me, but I recall that soloing Crushbone in EverQuest was pretty standard fare. As was Blackburrow and other starting zones. We didn't need to group until later on. I know that I was grouped for hunts out in the Karanas by level 20. We'd hear preposterous tales of people soloing to 50 and be convinced that there were some crazy people out there.
EverQuest was 'hard' because so much of the game required interacting with other people. It's easier to look at a map than ask directions. It's easier to solo a mob camp than organize a group to do it. It's easier to do a search on the auction house than listen to the auction spam in East Commonlands. We were constantly talking to each other. For a bunch of guys, that's hard
Old games are not harder .. just need more work.
Like mapping ... it is not hard to map by hand (i did that for M&M ... too much work now i think about it) ... just tedious and time-consuming. So i prefer a mapping feature.
Ditto for searching for an NPC. It is not hard to go around in orgrimmar and talk to everyone to look for quest .. it is just tedious and time consuming .. so an exclamation mark on top is welcomed.
Even fights .. if you are camping the boss with 50 players (back in EQ) .. the fight is super easy .. you don't actually need to do much .. the others will kill him .. for your turn to loot .. and hurry you along so it will be their turn faster.
I would MUCH rather play today's MMO than EQ or UO.
Well, the two older mmos I played extensively were Asheron's Call 1 and DAoC. Neither game was "harder" than current mmos, just more time consuming, a little more tedious, but also more fun in many regards.
Asheron's Call was extremely solo friendly, and played very much like the MUDs I was used to playing. Planning out a character's skill set took thought, and you needed to make a template to follow so that you got the most needed skills first, and the more tertiary skills later on. When I played there was no respecing and no reassigning of stats. You also carried expensive, but useless items so that when you died you had a lesser chance at dropping a weapon or armor.
AC was a ton of fun, but the over-reliance on magic really killed the game for me. It was basically impossible to run around without some form of magic school, usually Item magic for weapon and armor enchants as well as faster travel. Soon the rise of 3 school melee, 3 school archers, Og Mages, War Mages dominated the game, and content was designed around the assumption that you were using a popular template.
DAoC was a great game especially because it brought meaningful PvP to the masses. There were quests at certain levels, that ended with you being rewarded with your epic armor set. Things were pretty well balanced, and there wasn't a lot of importance on gear, since most folks were relatively the same gear wise.
So many things annoyed me in DAoC though. The reliance on grouping to level at a decent rate. XP loss upon death, you could literally lose hours of work because of a lag spike or a dropped connection from anyone in your group. ToA ruined so many parts of the game, adding massive amounts of PvE to a mostly PvP game was a bad choice. Also, the game became heavily reliant on gear when they released enchanting, and over enchanting, and then people started making templates to maximize their resistances, etc. DAoC died for me when the reliance on gear took over, that and the damned buff bots so many people were running.
It's not that older mmos were harder, they just had tedium placed into the game as part of the content. Players were punished harshly for taking risks, and that made most groups run safe and boring content. I can say I have more fun in today's mmos, I just wish there was more depth to them.
Without having a suped up low level character, the castle in Crushbone was pretty hard to do alone unless you outlevelled stuff considerably. There are a couple other portions of Crushbone that were kinda tricky doing solo because of how they would path and plus they would aggro through walls/doors sometimes.
Blackburrow you had to group to go down into it, the stuff roamed and there was just too much stuff to be completely alone there. This may not apply if you are way above their levels or outlevel them, but if you are fighting level appropriate stuff...you needed a group due to the density and roamers.
Also don't forget some things in EQ flee, so if you couldn't kill it before it fled away from you and into some other stuff you'd pull even more things.
I was one of those people who soloed often with my druid, admittedly I went with a few groups but most times I was solo....only way to do it was be some place you could run. Karanas for many many levels. Used it to equip other lower level guys so I didn't have to worry about equipment as much with them when I joined groups...I'd be good enough for most groups instead of being a burden then.
I think one thing that's being avoided in the discussion is that if you took these old games and took out what you didn't like about them...what would you end up with? In the case of Everquest, if you took out death penalities, binding, having to eat/drink (it's method not WoW method), slow regen rates. Added in more instant travel/faster travel, more rewarding quests, instanced dungeons...you're only a few steps away from having WoW. But there's A LOT of people who only play WoW when a new expansion comes out then quit again...people want something else because what's in that game has been done.
So if old MMOs weren't "harder" and new MMOs are just as "hard" but with less time consuming things/penalties. Then what would make a game worthwhile? If all you want is the carrot and never any stick, are you ever going to be challenged and rewarded? I will stipulate that Everquest had a lot of flaws, poor designs, and just general tedious stuff...enough that I got tired of putting up with them and moved on. But there was something lost in the transition through all the new MMOs from EQs inception to WoW as it stands today... and it seems like people think it should be the challenge...since we are discussing how "hard" the games are. So what is challenging? What makes an MMO hard, but not negatively so.. The thing that gets me about all these games coming out that copy WoW, they never do anything significantly different. In my mind, WoW 1.0 was the next iteration of Everquest (more so than EQ 2 was, they botched that) with more user friendliness (less time consumption, faster travel, clearly designated icons, minimaps to direct you, etc) and skill trees. But ...I guess there's just a "flavor" that was lost in the copy over that kept a community that was fun to participate in overall. I'd like to think it was the lack of the modern amenities WoW brings, and some of the difficulties those introduced.
I did mention in one of my posts that for me MMO's have probably gone too far the other way in removing the more immersion supporting features in favour of quick fix easy access gaming, so modern MMO's don't feel like a online world anymore. My personal favorite game was Lineage 2 as it made me feel like I was living in a fantasy world with great lore and actual players could effect the game world as guilds would fight over control of the 9 regions through PvP and in game politics. The class system made me feel like I was growing as I played with the class changes that you went through, I left becuase the lack of any control of the economy from NCSoft saw it get out of control so a newer player ie ME... found it hard to progress once they entered the mid game, it wasn't impossible but it was really tough you had to really roll another toon, a Dwarf Treasure Hunter to be specific, that would be your money maker so to get one class to the higher levels you need to play two toons at once.
Really for me needs to be a balance on things like travel, downtime, complexity, group play, slower leveling pace etc... not to long or short, not too harsh or soft, easy to learn (good tutorials) but not completely idiot proof, not too long not too short, as just removing what was deemed tedious as what many a modern MMO has done, I'm looking at you Rift, AOC, WAR... seems to me to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I play f2p MMO's mainly now because they still have much of these elements like slow leveling which is what really put me off Rift & WAR among other things.
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Your view is black and white - a game doesn't have to be a masochistic endeavour to be worthwhile. It simply has to be fun.
For example, there was nothing hard about logging into an MMO, getting into character and heading off to roleplay at a player venue. There was no success/failure measure other than whether people wer eentertained and enjoying themselves. There certainly was no penalty. Surprisingly, hundreds, if not thousands found that a worthwhile and rewarding thing to do on a regular basis in the older MMOs.
But to stick the grind/level formula, a lot of people go adventuring for the purpose of doing something with other people. There are significantly more people that rather have a casual romp through a dungeon where a portion of the time can be spent joking around, geting coffee and stopping for smoke breaks than there are people who are looking for a punishing test of one's personal spreadsheet against the computer's spreadsheet, with an entire column of data at stake.
What makes it worthwhile? For many it's the social interaction, the entertaining diversion, the feeling of having accomplished something, the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast)... there are plenty of things that make pressing 7,8,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,1,1,2,3,5 a worthwhile and rewarding experience.
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
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Hear hear lokofeit. It's not about the risk, and for me, never has been. It's about the entertainment, the diversion, the comraderie and a bit about the epeen.
Venge
Everyone here has been making a lot of good points about old mmos. Rather than writing paragraphs of differences, here's my list that mixes up strong points from various games:
Exporation and Adventuring was the main focus of the game.
Nothing was obvious... you had to discover on your own.
Because of that, the world felt "real".
The environment was mysterious for a long time.
Skill-based systems made more sense. The more skillful you were, the more you were respected.
You always felt that you had to look over your shoulder.
The world was full of danger, and you felt relieved when you found a "safe" place.
Death meant something serious.
Avoiding death was very important.
Dying brought on deep emotions.
Finding your corpse was like going to your own funeral (deep emotions).
Corpse runs, in some games, were rather long, but that's when you were social.
World events were sponsored by the players.
Being invited to some world events made you feel special and wanted (even if there were no guilds).
PVP was generally open and didn't feel like an arcade game.
Town invasions were so much fun.
So with all those highlights, I think the main difference between mmos today compared with mmos of yesteryear is that the old ones played with your emotions a lot more, whereas today's games lean more towards the feeling of playing a board game.
The older MMOs were;
Original
FUN
Had depth and immersion
longevity i.e 1 year plus before you run out of things to do.
Great communities, it used to cost a lot more to play the early MMOs and you had to have a lot more money to do so
This resulted in more educated and mature playebase
Fewer Guilds with only one agenda to beat the game destroy it and move on
This did not used to be the case , people use to enjoy have fun and mess around.
No killer Game Features including;
Instant Mail
Auction Houses
Localised shops at best in the old MMOs
Hands on selling in the ols MMOs ,At worst selling personally to people(A game in itself)
Insta Travel
World had to be explored and featyres discovered
End Game (Poor design has led to Lazy implementations where you beat the game in mere minutes
Not forgiving; Detah penalties that earned respect
And a lot of stress , dying just as you were about to log of and realiseing you had to get a corpse within 10 minutes before it decayed.
Challenging MOBS could actually kill you.
Great Days Great times and great gameplay ; their is mopre gameplay in MUDs these days with 50 online people who play to beat the world they live in.
The real MMORPG is dead; Barring maybe 3 games.......... SAD times.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
With the exception of "Bosses" I wouldn't classify older games as "harder".
I would say they were "Harsher" in that they punished mistakes much more. They were also not solo friendly past a certain point. However, that didn't actually make them harder. There was no extra difficulty in playing EQ1 than there is WOW. It just punished you more when you died, and required you to be in a group to succeed. Once those two things were met, it generally wasn't hard to play.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I would argue that there is much more content in todays MMO's. The reason that you still had things to do a year from launch before was that you were still trying to get to level 20 but since you picked the wrong race class combo you rarely found a group. Oh, plus the lag spike (thanks Dial-Up) got you killed and you lost a level. Whoops.
Sanitised gaming is no fun.
People have this self imposed view that winning is being the best player stat wise.
Some people find it a challenge to develop a character ; and in older games you could pick the worst build ever and succeed with friends.
These days if you don't play off a spreadsheet and act like a guild slave you get booted...... Sounds more like a job than fun .....
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Hardly black and white, I have never said Everquest was perfect. I have never said WoW is perfect. There are aspects I like of both games, the topic of which game was harder. Personally I thought Everquest was harder, but then people come along and say none of them are hard. So without some sort of definition of what people perceive as points that make the game hard there is no way to compare. If the topic were fun, then I'd say all the games were fun at points and mind numbing/tedious at others.
The only game I am aware of that had graphics and had pathways built specifically for roleplaying and/or socializing was Star Wars Galaxy with the cantinas. MUDs had more roleplaying than any MMO server I've ever played on, but I am not on roleplaying since it never seems to fit what I envision when it comes to interaction from the mind's eye image.
That's fine if people want casual, easy, pause-button experiences. But they certainly wouldn't fall into the topic of MMOs where their difficulty is called into question.
And as for the last paragraph:
What do you think facilitates the topics you mentioned?
Social interaction - Does global chat help or hinder? I find myself overwhelmem with chat spam in some zones, for instance Barrens chatter. Do mail systems facilitate or hinder? It's like the choice between emailing or telephoning a friend, instant interaction is more social in my opinion. Auction houses would definitely cut down on the social opportunities.
the entertaining diversion - Not even sure what this is referring to beyond the whole aspect of the game world.
the feeling of having accomplished something - the sound of a critical hit, the collection of loot, the speed of leveling (slow or fast). Is hitting 50 in WoW even an accomplishment for most players anymore? I know every level in Everquest didn't feel like it was given to you, because you could lose it if you screwed around. At what point is levelling too fast? I mean if you kill one thing and gain a level each level....why bother having experience bars?
My point is there is a balance, and a black and white view of the games would say "fun" is all that matters. Since "fun" is based off of so many things, one of which is how "hard" a game is based on a myriad of factors that can be controlled and one big one that can't be ......and that is population numbers. You need a certain amount of people playing a game to make it an MMO in the first place, I'd say an active crowd of at least 500 minimum at any hour of the day upwards of 2000 with how the games are handled at this time. Some could even do 4000, but if you got into the 10000 active players on a server range (I dont think any game today can even do this since there's the potential for a large number of them to be in a specific city...and I don't count instancing as "handling" it.)...I don't think the current game designs would hold up. If you were to drop the levelling aspect of WoW...how many people would leave? If they removed dungeons, how many would leave? What if they removed any of these: variable dungeon difficulty, all but 1 character slot, instant travel, spirit world for CRs, crafting, enchanting, any specific class, the myriad of other things you get used to. It could be any one of those things keeping people in the game world making the social aspect viable. Now, what if one of those things is not quite keeping people entertained by being too easy and they leave?
So again, I ask. What makes a game "hard"? It might be as simple as being unfamiliar with the game, and once that is gone...you can only replace it partially with expansions.. If they add too much to it to make it more novel/unfamiliar other people get upset.
Don't you think the imagination suffers though? Sure, everything is easier, but all you are left with is what you see and hear. Nothing is feared. Nothing is sacred.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This right here. A sense of ADVENTURE. This is what no themepark can deliver. It's the difference between going to Disneyworld with some friends and going on an unguided safari with some friends. You come back from both with pictures and stories, but the experiences are just totally different.
Hah, I made a gnome warrior in EQ1. Just because I could. (To those who don't know what that meant, he was a severely underpowered race for the class, no way in heck could he match a real tank at higher levels). In one of his early, level 10'ish solo fights, he was in a desperate battle just off a main pathway. He actually gathered a CROWD CHEERING HIM ON. And nobody buffed him or healed him, because it was his fight to win (although they did throw tips and advice aplenty).
And when he did win (by like 1-2 hits tops), he got a full crowd roar and someone gave him a somewhat better weapon to help him out. Man I miss playing with those kind of people.
You went off on a roleplaying tangent there and I'm not sure why. I think you saw that word and got yourself sidetracked... badly. As a result of that, though, it seems you completely missed that my reply was to your question about what makes a game worthwhile if it isn't hard or full of penalties.
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
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre