The only old game I'm nostalgic for is RO. I would prolly be playing RO2 right now if they had made it in the old 2D style but with improved graphics like Wakfu.
Good luck for you to find your true MMO. There are new MMOs on the near horizons, like Neverwinter, Wildstar, ESO and beyond the horizons, like the newly funded Camelot Unchained, the secretive Everquest Next, Pathfinder Online and so forth. Surely one will be the One.
I doubt it. Even the upcoming games we are all hyped for, are just going to be wow clones, quick runs then nothing at end, or 'dead' copies of 'dead' games.
I doubt we will ever, ever see games which reach the same level of inspiration and originality as the old greats. those days are long gone, since the birth of wow, Which took the 'great' things from each past game and tossed out the 'trash' nobody liked -- Which nobody really gets that the 'trash' in a game IS much of why said game is good as whats 'good' about it, if that makes sense. Without 'hardship' anything you gain means nothing.
From this day forward all we can hope for, is the 3-6 month enjoyment in a game before we jump to the next. This is reflected by current cash shop systems, which are focused on trying to squeeze every last possible dime from the player BEFORE that player realizes the game itself is quite shallow and short.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So, with a whole slew of mmorpgs out there, are there any players now still loyal to their one original old game, most probably pay to play? Sure everyone can have occasional flings with new free games, and owning those buy to play games, but what is it compared to your one game that you are truely dedicated on?
A decade or 2 ago, when Neverwinter AOL was the GAME, people had no other choice to select from, so paying $5-$10 hourly, they get to be dazzled by the 2D, 320 by 240 pixels and played nonstop, as they got to actually interact with other real players rather then AI.
Then, Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call and so forth started appearing in the late 90s, charging by subscription fee instead. Note though, it was still dial-up period, so cost of internet connection is high. Choices were more, but MMORPGs were still rather mysterious during the "Golden Era". Only those who were hardcore into online gaming stuck to their favorite game, camping for days on a rare loot, forming guilds and alliances, scheming to become the richest virtually etc. It gives a sense of accomplishment.
Fast forward to now, where the fad is f2p and b2p. With no obligation to pay (for b2p games, no subscription fee), players jump around like testing hookers/gigolos (I know, it is not a good analogy, but sadly it is kind of true), and ended up getting lost, penniless, cheated, made used of, frustrated, burnouted, and random crapload of STDs... er... computer viruses.
Anyway, for me, rather then seeking the one true game and getting burnout, I do feel I am loyal to Everquest, to some extent. I did not have a subscriptios, and only bought some station cash stuff like extra mercenary slot, but whenever I wanted to play an mmorpg, Everquest will always be first in queue. Yes, bad graphics, bad animation, bad sound effects etc, but to a loyal player, all these will not matter... at least not much lol.
I tried Everquest a few months back as I wanted a change, I've only played a handful of MMO games in the last 5 years and they were P2P or B2P.
The biggest gripe I had with F2P Everquest was the popup windows suggesting you upgrade that I seemed to get every hour and the limits on what items you could craft. The crafting mini-game was fine and I can understand why it was there (anti-botting) and actually made it a tad more interesting.
Compared to other F2P games it reminds me of shareware from the 1990s that used to be called "nag ware" and unlike say Forsaken World spams you with "buy me buy me""
However, looking at the game on it's merits you do get alot of content so if anyone was to ask me if I would recommend EQ I would say it's OK and F2P, try it and see what you think.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
Empty or not, apparently far more seductive than text-based....state-of-the-art a half decade earlier.
I still have a fondness for the first multi-player game I ever encountered (Bridge, poker, various casino games, 8bit graphics, 1200 baud, GEnie). Later came AOL, now we're all the way up to 16-bit, even some wireframe graphics (MPBT), and a dazzling 9600 baud (if you paid extra for it)) What, someone's going to do a new version of ultima? Sure, we'll give that a go.
"Empty" is in the eye of the beholder, definitely. I don't discount Jurassic Park simply because the CGI is pretty primitive compared to, oh, Avatar. You do the best you can with the tools you've got.
Empty meaning light on gameplay. I've played several text-based games over the years which involved more gameplay, and deeper gameplay than early MMORPGs.
But what really matters were all the other games around the same time which were dense gameplay-intense experiences:
Starcraft
System Shock 2
Diablo 2
Quake 2
Basically you had these games which offered rich, deep gameplay without massive timesink requirements to reach it, and then you had early MMORPGs. Gaming forums at the time were filled with comments about how time-inefficient early MMORPGs were (and also a lot of upheaval over the advent of subscription-based gaming; nearly identical to the upheaval we see nowadays over F2P, actually.)
So empty means light on gameplay. Everyone could tell the genre had potential, but it took a while before the games were actually fun; before they were time-efficient to be worth playing.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet people are still playing those early MMO games. Apparently they have some form of interest and staying power to establish communities, even through change, growth, and decline.
As far as the question goes I would say it's not my first, but it established many of the concepts that I found myself to value.
Planetside. That game was one I got to take a look at early on and then enjoyed it's progress in development immensely. The elements of that game created a much more active large scale experience that only a few other games were even approximating (bit of opinion here, as I know some others prefer certain games more, I have gripes about their mechanics and their world that causes me to see Planetside as being a better built game).
It's got a large part to do with the potential of what Sony had tried doing with the title. Tinkering with a wide array of mechanics from resource control and fauna to building NPC elements and scaling the conflict across the macro to the micro scale. A lot of the interesting details like these were culled from the game as they built their way into a title that could actually operate on the tech of that time, but the ideas it inspired in the ability to re-engineer a genre and create a novel experience not replicated in such a way anywhere else, it contributed greatly to my own interests in how games could be designed more creatively and more uniquely.
Now there was plenty wrong with the game too, but that wouldn't stop me from enjoying all that was still good in it.
Not gonna damn the lot because of a few bad gears if it was still a great ride.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And yet people are still playing those early MMO games. Apparently they have some form of interest and staying power to establish communities, even through change, growth, and decline.
Always seems like people have a hard time understanding the difference between "unpopular" and "absolutely nobody is interested in this game." The lackluster early success of MMORPGs is due in large part to the genre not having learned what makes the games work well and be fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet people are still playing those early MMO games.
I wonder if there's a way to measure how many are motivated by sunk costs.
Because we surely get a lot of people (round this forum) who would "totally still play that, if only it had updated gfx" (or some other "if" conditional).
Of course, there's no way to measure "I would totally" sincerity, either. This particular topic is (even more than usual) one that's prone to a lot of BS...er, bluster.
And yet people are still playing those early MMO games. Apparently they have some form of interest and staying power to establish communities, even through change, growth, and decline.
Always seems like people have a hard time understanding the difference between "unpopular" and "absolutely nobody is interested in this game." The lackluster early success of MMORPGs is due in large part to the genre not having learned what makes the games work well and be fun.
That's a fun opinion! And you're free to opinions.
I think I'll also remember the general factors like internet accessibility and speed, hardware and technical capability, and the consequentially finite scale of the original online user base that could actually both play and have an interest in playing games.
The potential user base itself was physically smaller. The math has been done by multiple people calculating the growth of online gaming as a genre and the relative scale that early games would have likely operated at had their market been as large then as it is now.
As for Antiquated.
I would believe that yeah there is a large part of perceived investment in a given MMO that makes a player stay with it. It was possibly a more natural thing with some of the older style games catering to a more community level of interaction beyond the lobby approach.
It was a strong enough aspect of those games that it created university studies such as the one by Dr Lawrence Sanders on MMO game loyalty.
It's actually an unfortunate characteristic of more modern games and the modern gaming market that new MMOs have such a rampant drop-off rate in subscriptions. In a sense it might be because people are not finding the games to have a unique enough experience, the games are being made to be too forgettable, and/or the community itself became inundated with a player base that's sort of looking for fun in all the wrong places and experimenting in a genre that ultimately won't keep them.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
So, with a whole slew of mmorpgs out there, are there any players now still loyal to their one original old game, most probably pay to play? Sure everyone can have occasional flings with new free games, and owning those buy to play games, but what is it compared to your one game that you are truely dedicated on?
No.
Old games are much worse than modern games, for me.
I don't dedicate myself to one game. We are talking about entertainment here. New experiences is essential. I have no loyality to electronic entertainment.
its hard to be loyal to a very old and clunky game. At least WoW is so smooth nothing is clunky about it. And while still look old they keep improving the visuals with each expansion.
Cant say the same about other ancient mmos. The other ones are uglier and choppy, clunky, whatever you want to call them.
Remake them with todays graphics and i would surely play them.
I've played Lineage II for close to 6 years. Started in 2005 on a private server (didn't know it was a subscription based game back then) and half a year later I started on the NCSoft servers. Stayed there till late 2011 when the Goddess of Destruction was launched and the game was kinda changed in the core - no more level grind but gear-token grind >:(
Right now I'm extremely happy with Neverwinter and hope I'll be playing that one for at least one year (I want an angel companion ). Somehow I think Neverwinter is one of the last MMORPGs I'm playing. Nothing really new or innovative came around the last 3 years and there's nothing new and innovative around the corner either
So old game loyalty..? No longer for me sadly enough...
I'm not loyal to any game and I think the whole idea is rather stupid. I play a game so long as it's fun. When it stops being fun, I stop playing it. Some games I've played longer than others because they've remained fun longer than others. Some, I drop after a day or two because they were no fun at all.
Why bother with loyalty? Just enjoy yourself! It's a game!
Comments
Still working on my SK in EQ every now and then.
I've kind of been looking at AC1 lately though. I tried it out when AC2 was re-released, and the first dungeon I ran through was a lot of fun.
I doubt it. Even the upcoming games we are all hyped for, are just going to be wow clones, quick runs then nothing at end, or 'dead' copies of 'dead' games.
I doubt we will ever, ever see games which reach the same level of inspiration and originality as the old greats. those days are long gone, since the birth of wow, Which took the 'great' things from each past game and tossed out the 'trash' nobody liked -- Which nobody really gets that the 'trash' in a game IS much of why said game is good as whats 'good' about it, if that makes sense. Without 'hardship' anything you gain means nothing.
From this day forward all we can hope for, is the 3-6 month enjoyment in a game before we jump to the next. This is reflected by current cash shop systems, which are focused on trying to squeeze every last possible dime from the player BEFORE that player realizes the game itself is quite shallow and short.
RIP AC, UO, even EQ. And (Sadly) Long live wow.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I tried Everquest a few months back as I wanted a change, I've only played a handful of MMO games in the last 5 years and they were P2P or B2P.
The biggest gripe I had with F2P Everquest was the popup windows suggesting you upgrade that I seemed to get every hour and the limits on what items you could craft. The crafting mini-game was fine and I can understand why it was there (anti-botting) and actually made it a tad more interesting.
Compared to other F2P games it reminds me of shareware from the 1990s that used to be called "nag ware" and unlike say Forsaken World spams you with "buy me buy me""
However, looking at the game on it's merits you do get alot of content so if anyone was to ask me if I would recommend EQ I would say it's OK and F2P, try it and see what you think.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
Empty meaning light on gameplay. I've played several text-based games over the years which involved more gameplay, and deeper gameplay than early MMORPGs.
But what really matters were all the other games around the same time which were dense gameplay-intense experiences:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And yet people are still playing those early MMO games. Apparently they have some form of interest and staying power to establish communities, even through change, growth, and decline.
As far as the question goes I would say it's not my first, but it established many of the concepts that I found myself to value.
Planetside. That game was one I got to take a look at early on and then enjoyed it's progress in development immensely. The elements of that game created a much more active large scale experience that only a few other games were even approximating (bit of opinion here, as I know some others prefer certain games more, I have gripes about their mechanics and their world that causes me to see Planetside as being a better built game).
It's got a large part to do with the potential of what Sony had tried doing with the title. Tinkering with a wide array of mechanics from resource control and fauna to building NPC elements and scaling the conflict across the macro to the micro scale. A lot of the interesting details like these were culled from the game as they built their way into a title that could actually operate on the tech of that time, but the ideas it inspired in the ability to re-engineer a genre and create a novel experience not replicated in such a way anywhere else, it contributed greatly to my own interests in how games could be designed more creatively and more uniquely.
Now there was plenty wrong with the game too, but that wouldn't stop me from enjoying all that was still good in it.
Not gonna damn the lot because of a few bad gears if it was still a great ride.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Always seems like people have a hard time understanding the difference between "unpopular" and "absolutely nobody is interested in this game." The lackluster early success of MMORPGs is due in large part to the genre not having learned what makes the games work well and be fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I wonder if there's a way to measure how many are motivated by sunk costs.
Because we surely get a lot of people (round this forum) who would "totally still play that, if only it had updated gfx" (or some other "if" conditional).
Of course, there's no way to measure "I would totally" sincerity, either. This particular topic is (even more than usual) one that's prone to a lot of BS...er, bluster.
That's a fun opinion! And you're free to opinions.
I think I'll also remember the general factors like internet accessibility and speed, hardware and technical capability, and the consequentially finite scale of the original online user base that could actually both play and have an interest in playing games.
The potential user base itself was physically smaller. The math has been done by multiple people calculating the growth of online gaming as a genre and the relative scale that early games would have likely operated at had their market been as large then as it is now.
As for Antiquated.
I would believe that yeah there is a large part of perceived investment in a given MMO that makes a player stay with it. It was possibly a more natural thing with some of the older style games catering to a more community level of interaction beyond the lobby approach.
It was a strong enough aspect of those games that it created university studies such as the one by Dr Lawrence Sanders on MMO game loyalty.
It's actually an unfortunate characteristic of more modern games and the modern gaming market that new MMOs have such a rampant drop-off rate in subscriptions. In a sense it might be because people are not finding the games to have a unique enough experience, the games are being made to be too forgettable, and/or the community itself became inundated with a player base that's sort of looking for fun in all the wrong places and experimenting in a genre that ultimately won't keep them.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
No.
Old games are much worse than modern games, for me.
I don't dedicate myself to one game. We are talking about entertainment here. New experiences is essential. I have no loyality to electronic entertainment.
its hard to be loyal to a very old and clunky game. At least WoW is so smooth nothing is clunky about it. And while still look old they keep improving the visuals with each expansion.
Cant say the same about other ancient mmos. The other ones are uglier and choppy, clunky, whatever you want to call them.
Remake them with todays graphics and i would surely play them.
I've played Lineage II for close to 6 years. Started in 2005 on a private server (didn't know it was a subscription based game back then) and half a year later I started on the NCSoft servers. Stayed there till late 2011 when the Goddess of Destruction was launched and the game was kinda changed in the core - no more level grind but gear-token grind >:(
Right now I'm extremely happy with Neverwinter and hope I'll be playing that one for at least one year (I want an angel companion
). Somehow I think Neverwinter is one of the last MMORPGs I'm playing. Nothing really new or innovative came around the last 3 years and there's nothing new and innovative around the corner either 
So old game loyalty..? No longer for me sadly enough...
I'm not loyal to any game and I think the whole idea is rather stupid. I play a game so long as it's fun. When it stops being fun, I stop playing it. Some games I've played longer than others because they've remained fun longer than others. Some, I drop after a day or two because they were no fun at all.
Why bother with loyalty? Just enjoy yourself! It's a game!
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None