Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What old MMOs had that new MMOs will never have
Trolldefender99
Member UncommonPosts: 416
Small, tightknit communities.
It was the reason I played Asheron's Call so long. Devs (or gms actually) talked to EVERYONE on the forums. Not only that, but on one server, everyone knew each other.
And this one is a funny one, but I played AdventureQuest for 3 years, almost every day. A simple browser game. The community (not anymore, thanks to the horrible moderators, that have imposed 1,000,000 rules)...but back when it was new...they had an IRC chat. I met a lot of good people, even the owner of the game, Artix (who never posts anymore, he may not even be a part of the game anymore)...and if it wasn't for that one IRC chat, where everyone knew each other...and even the forums back then were great...I wouldn't have nearly played as long as I did.
Then AQ became popular. It was no longer tight knit, you became...well...just another brick in the wall. Then it had other problems, as I stated.
That is the problem with MMOs...when it is small, everyone (well usually) is friendly, everyone knows each other. Then it gets big, and it isn't the same at all.
For me, Youtube channels are like that. I subscribe to newly started out Let's Players and it is great...the person communicates to everyone, and you are actually a part of the channel. He/she even takes suggestions from everyone. Then he/she gets many subscribers...and no longer communicates, or there is so many comments, your's will probably just be missed.
Granted, a large community is a great thing. A large Youtube channel is amazing, to see success. To have watched the person go from 50 subscribers, to almost a 1000 in a short time. A large MMO means the MMO will live on. A Youtube channel that gets big means the person can do what he loves to do.
But again, despite a success...
You are just another brick in the wall.
Comments
No game will ever match Asheron's Call 1 & 2 for community or GM involvement. Guild Wars and FFXI were pretty good though. also early WoW before cross server Bg and such.
Only one way to really fix that, make a MMO together with your friends and have restricted access to it, or pay a company to make a server for you and your friend (I think you actually could bribe SOE to get a personal vanguard server for example).
That more players play MMOs have both advantages and disadvantages, originally it was just us gamers but now everyone plays. On the plus side can the devs spend a lot more money on a game now.
Guilds create that feeling for me though. When I am in a good guild with old friends I played for a long time it really does start feeling like you are just playing with them. Especially if you can turn off the general chat off.
i agree with the tightknit communities, and what made that happen in AC was the fact that there wasnt quest hubs. people actually lived in the towns that were in the world. and when sombody new would join the game alot of times the people liveing in that town he started in would help the noob out and show him the ropes.
now its quest hub to quest hub and other players are just in your way.
They help but they are not really the same as communities were in the first MMOs.
I'm playing a bit of C9 in between other activities.
The kiddies yesterday were fixated on the term "whale penis".
I went to sleep soundly knowing that the future is in capable hands.
I disagree. You can still form your own small, tight knit communities in games. My friends and I do it all the time. There are usually about 5 - 10 of us depending on who's available. We then pick up a few within game who tend to mesh well with the rest of us. We played a few years of WoW. We played a few years of EVE. We tend to do both PvE and PvP at a high level together. We are now shifting our attention to GW2 and are, at the very least, going to check it out.
I think you can still get that sense of community through the bigger games. Small, tight-knit communities exist within the larger mass. The question is, are you willing to search for those communities within a game or are you going to accept your fate as another brick in the wall.
I also disagree that small communities tend to be friendly communities. But I do think that people feel a bigger sense of responsibility in games when it is much harder to be anonymous. And in smaller communities, it is much harder to remain anonymous.
so true, in AC a mentor could just hang out in starter towns, looking to meet new players, show them the ropes, and get them as a vassal, the Patron/Vassal system was such an awesome concept, exp chains ruined it, but it was truly great before chains started, and even after. It was fun helping your vassals gear, level and explore, cause it was also helping your character advance some as well. I met a ton of gamer friends in AC, in the first 4 yrs I played, probably more then Ive met in the 20 other games I played since.
hell in SWTOR I met exactly 0 people
In Wow me and 2 RL friends server jumped looking for like minded people
In Rift I made some pretty decent friends, but in a year I was in 6 guilds, 3 servers etc, and never did groups with the community
I wish AC's successor would be built from ground up, such a stellar game, that done with modern graphics engine and some updated UI stuff would be such a great game.
I remember getting into an argument IN GAME with Ken Karl who was at one point the lead producer, during the shadow wars, that was great, you will never see that again
QFE, I think that's the direction that the devs have tried to push us in but it's not the same at all. It's a reason I'm not looking forward to any AAA releases. Those popular, "next big thing" games are the very antithesis of good communities. I'm happily playing an old AAA game on not so much an exclusive server, but one you'll only find if you're looking for it. Overall, despite losing much of my rose-colored glasses for that game, I can't think of another game within the last ten years that has been as enjoyable.
Ah, the good ole' days. I've concluded recently that I will no longer try to play a themepark MMO, I've never been able to play one for more than 1-2 months, but still I've tried pretty much every MMO that I've gotten my hands on.
So instead, I've been searching for games with little to no emphasis on questing and games that almost force you to talk to the people that surround you in game. Needless to say there aren't many choices out there but you better believe that the ones that do exists are tight-knit communities.
MMORPG's back in the day spoke to a specific type of gamer, one who craved social interaction in some form. In general, todays MMO's are little more than single player games that just happen to be online.
I played AdventureQuest for 3 years, almost every day. A simple browser game. The community (not anymore, thanks to the horrible moderators, that have imposed 1,000,000 rules)...but back when it was new.
Guess you can't have that with games made for a mass audience.
Stick to small indie or older games and you find the community. You'll miss some polish, you'll miss a lot of convenience, you'll miss AAA features but communities you will find. Your call.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I havn't found a game I could really adventure in like AC, seeing this thread also kindled hope, but killed it realizing we've come to the same conclusion that games just are not the same anymore
An AAA game with a small community is an economic failure.
Though even for bigger games, for several developers (not just forum moderators!) to post a few things a day on the game forums goes a long way toward making them look involved in the community.
"Guild Wars and FFXI were pretty good though."
Not familiar with FFXI's community involvement, but ArenaNet is about as uninvolved in the Guild Wars community as any game I've ever seen. At one point, they held an event to mark that the game's community manager was transferring to a different position. As best as I could tell, this constituted the initial announcement that the game had a community manager. Had. Past tense. No word on whether she was replaced.
This made me smile as I recall a place in AC known as " The Hub"
AC was truely a great game considering how it came into being, a very interesting story in of itself.
Although WOW is a much bigger game population wise there is also a healthy server farm to accomodate them all.
Seems like a great deal of that community feeling evaporated when your chosen server had little meaning and you instead become a part of a larger grouping of servers. Great for finding groups for instances, terrible for any sense of community.
The idea of subleasing a server for a game is something that could happen in the future. Coke presents their own WOW server for example. Or facebook game pass for a servers in a few different games.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Unfortunately the majority of those old MMOs no longer have those close knit communities anymore either.
Yea its sad but if Asherons Call had more then the 80 some odd players it does have on any given time I might still be playing full time. As it stands there is no economy, no serious questing, and hardly anyone to group with and socialize.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
What you're describing, though, are cliques or "personal groups of friends". That's not the same thing as what's being described here. Not at all.
Sadly, that's what "community" has come to mean to many people in newer MMOs. I can only guess it's because it's the extent of what their experience with an in-game community has been.
What's being described here are server communities, where everyone knows (or seems to know, or is at the least familiar with) other players on their server.
In the older MMOs (AC1, AC2, FFXI and so on), even if you were part of a guild, you still knew others on your server. It really was like a neighborhood in real life where all the neighbors seem to know each other.
People used to *want* to get to know other players, to group up and help out (of course, unless someone was an idiot). These days, unless it's someone in your personal clique or circle of friends people prefer to be on their own, or are only interested in helping if there's something in it for them.
It's a very different world in MMOs these days. Very different. Much more impersonal. Much more about the individual rather than the community. Too much about "me", not enough about "we".
Tera ia actually a AAA MMO that actually emphasizes community thanks to their class design and Political System, also GvG wars encourages players to build alliances to combat their rivals.
Don't come in here plugging Tera
And this is why it doesn't bother me to play on the less populated servers. Because everyone knows each other!
Smile
When FFXI first came out (here in NA) it was a awesome community, much like you guys describe AC (I never played it)
I actually probably wouldn't have gotten into MMO's if it hadn't been for my LS (linkshell, AKA guild)
I was leveling solo in FFXI only had been playing a week or so, (still like level 4 >.<) and I was getting ready to give up, but then someone came along and rez'd me once when I died, we got to chatting and kinda hit it off, so he invited me into his LS, and they helped me understand what a MMO was and helped me level and whatnot, and then I turned around and helped other newbs and stuff.
And that was...almost 9 years ago? something like that, and I still play with that original guy who helped me, (we don't play FFXI anymore) but we play halo..a little bit of WoW.. and a few other titles, I would consider him my closes none RL friend..
...and you just don't get the connections like that anymore.
(Oh and btw, FFXI sucks now.. community wise, started going downhill around 06'-07')
Please check out my channel. I do gaming reviews, gaming related reviews & lets plays. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/user/BettyofDewm/videos
And?
"Massive" carries some implicit assumptions and some inescapable consequences, yes.
But the gaming public has demonstrated a general preference for those results over smaller and more community-oriented venues (MUDs for example).
Are you certain those community-orieted people in your early games were a result of smaller population rather than a (rapidly decreasing now) percentage of players 'raised' in non-MMO venues initially? Different attitudes and expectations, perhaps?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I used to play a browser g ame called dungeon inquisitor. It was really poorly designed and implemented but somehow we had a fabdiculous community dynamic. The forums were garbage and the GMs too but somehow the community just gelled and it kept me playing a few extra months.