Originally posted by JthX Who would like to see some of the old school MMO features come back to MMOs today? Does anyone even care? I mean features like Ultima Online offered. I think nowadays MMOs are to instaned and not enough World play. Does anyone know, miss, or want to see a MMO make a livley world where you are free to do w/e and create your own story? How does everyone else feel about MMOs today and how the used to be? Are you happy with how they are or would you like to see them good ol' features come back to life?
I'm playing an old school MMORPG right now (Darkfall), and I bet you aren't. It's great btw, but I'm sure you don't wanna old schools to come back...
The mantra of todays MMOs is: "Achieve much, fast". I think this is a short sighted idea. Because those achievements are shallow. This mantra leads to the leveling race to a faster burnout or a raidcore expirience. Or to a "what now" expirience in alot of new MMOs that don't deliver content in the end game at release. Which I think is total idiocy, because by design of most new MMOs, reaching the end game fast is all there is to do. That shows me, that alot of developers have no idea what they are doing and focus on the bling bling to increase initial sales than on quality to hold subscriptions.
Nowadays, alot of people play an MMO for 6 months and then move on to the next. They basically are waiting for a new MMO while they play their current one. They don't even plan to stay for longer than a half year because they have seen and done everything there is in those 6 months.
Can you blame them? No. It's the developers fault for releasing the boring, unoriginal, repetive crap that todays MMOs are.
Yes, I want to have some Old School elements back. Not all, but some. Because not everything was good back then, but it wasn't all bad either. The feeling of value is missing in alot of todays game. Leveling to the top in EQ could take months. But the journey was fun. You met people and socialized with them. You made friends that would then group again with you the next day and maybe raid with you a few years later still.
In todays MMOs you usually don't even care who just autojoined your group. It doesn't matter because you don't have to talk to them for the 5 minutes it takes to complete a quest. Awesome!
Lastly, heavy instancing of WORLD zones is total crap. It sucks, there is no good reason for it except saving money in production.
Even most dungeon instancing is crap. How cool was it when you walked through a forest, and you knew that deep below you, in the depths of the earth, there were people fighting monsters. In the same zone as you. If you had a showel you could dig yourself down to them! Or you could try and reach them without a loading screen.
And when you were down in that dungeon and hadn't seen the sun for hours you knew that up there the sun was actually shining. But you were stuck in that hell hole and would have to fight out...
Face it, todays MMOs are for the new generation. Little princes and princesses that want to have everything, NOW! Who then run around hold in a ultra rare item up and screaming "look what I have!" and around them 100 people say: I have that too... yawn.
In todays standards, The Lord of the Rings would have been finished in about 10 minutes.
Frodo would take the ring, talk to a travel NPC, get portet to the mountain, run past a few orcs and throw the ring into the fire.
Who would like to see some of the old school MMO features come back to MMOs today? Does anyone even care?
I mean features like Ultima Online offered. I think nowadays MMOs are to instaned and not enough World play. Does anyone know, miss, or want to see a MMO make a livley world where you are free to do w/e and create your own story?
How does everyone else feel about MMOs today and how the used to be? Are you happy with how they are or would you like to see them good ol' features come back to life?
Dark blue on Black.... Unwise choice.
What most people overlook is many of the "old school" games are still running and have refined and corrected many of the negitive aspects of the games.
I'd love to see a game with graphics on par with Aion, a crafting/harvesting system like original SWG, faction system like DAoC, Non-instanced dungeons for group and raid encounters like EQ1, player housing/cities like SWG, a death penalty that would make the game seem like more than a game of quake with die, respawn, die, a questing system like EQ where a quest actually meant something and didnt just feel like errand boy tasks. It would also allow you to group at lvl 1 and run dungeons that are just as enjoyable as the end game dungeons. Raids wouldn't be reserved for only the max level players, they would be available to different range of players throughout the game. They would also be designed to support more than 10/25 players and actually be challenging again. Whether its class based or skill based does not matter to me as long as one character cannot master every role. I dont want to see anymore Paladins DPSing, tanking and healing well.
Well put and I am sure many would like such a game!
But the golden age of oldschool MMOS went away fast I think a lot is nostalgia over a time when you had much more playtime I remember when my platytime got less in EQ after Luclin but before PoP and at level 50 even then you found yourself in the nowadays all to common "nothing to do as you can not get a group".
People have changed too in the beginning the hobby was new, nearly all came from pen and paper RPGS and most had much more in common with each other than gamers nowadays have. The problem is to design something that are FUN and challenging and not requiring 5 hours and 5 friends online and as that obviously is to hard for developers we get the dumbing down ala WoW or the excusion of players from content ala EQ2's tougher instances.
EQ1 actually seems to have a pretty healthy population, if you go by number of servers and how they continue to create new ones.
I like old school elements but not the down time and such, which is why I just can't play EQ1 anymore. But I have gone back to playing DAOC. It just doesn't feel grindy at all to me and there is so much content I always have things to do. The content just seems so small in most of the newer MMO's, that I'm getting bored too quickly.
I don't know how they made these huge worlds on smaller budgets back then, while now we seem to get less for these huge budget games.
There are two aspects of oldschool MMOs I'd love to see brought back. Open Worlds ( No Instancing ) and meaningful questlines ( Unlike the new *kill 10 rat* model ).
Instancing has literally killed any sense of MMO feel and made games like WoW and EQ2 feel like lobby games rather than MMOs. And the real reason that all of these new "wow" style games are failing is because people are sick of running thousands of lame *kill 10 rat* quests again and would rather stick with their WoW character who is finished with them. When leveling was about grouping up to dungeon crawl or kill mobs it was much easier to get into the game and enjoy the leveling process, rather than doing the same tired quests that you've done over and over again.
Originally posted by Jimmydean There are two aspects of oldschool MMOs I'd love to see brought back. Open Worlds ( No Instancing ) and meaningful questlines ( Unlike the new *kill 10 rat* model ).
Instancing has literally killed any sense of MMO feel and made games like WoW and EQ2 feel like lobby games rather than MMOs. And the real reason that all of these new "wow" style games are failing is because people are sick of running thousands of lame *kill 10 rat* quests again and would rather stick with their WoW character who is finished with them. When leveling was about grouping up to dungeon crawl or kill mobs it was much easier to get into the game and enjoy the leveling process, rather than doing the same tired quests that you've done over and over again.
Nostalgia is a bitch sometimes. Let's not forget the good instancing has brought into the genre. I cannot forget the bad sides of the non-instancing aspects of the game albeit its needed, but to the extreme of no instancing at all? No, I'm sorry, its just too impractical and that in itself impedes on my game play experience. If you think adventuring equals sitting ina dungeon or an open field for hours while one guy pulls the same respawns every 4-5 minutes, then I would be at a serius loss for words.
How about when I leave the city to adventure in the "wilderness", I'm met with more houses rather than open plains or foresty areas full of monsters. Or going down ni the dungeon to fnid the Oprah book Club clearing the whole thing and liches all of a sudden became high in demand. That's no fun
I'll admit kill 10 rats and questing is an abused feature and it does trivialize many things. I think MMO's should start considering creating more meaningful activities outside of the combat focus since I think there's too much focus on combat today.
Just remember, before wishing for the old school features to come back especially something big like non-instancing, just remember the bad equally as the good rather than just feed nostalgia into it. If you can't get past the good old times yet alone if the game commpanies couldn't get past the good ole times, than how are we expected to move as an industry/genre? We'll just be stuck with the same old variations of the same system.
It depends on which features you miss. If you mean things like spawn camping, open pvp, no instances, long travel times, players putting up houses haphazardly anywhere, forced grouping, etc., then no, I'll pass.
There's nothing wrong with turning an eye to the past, people do it all the time irl. But remember the bad with the good.
I'm old school and miss many of the old world mechanics.. IMO, I think mmo's are getting away from a true social enviroment. As many have already stated and I would add to the list of things I miss:
World Bosses.. I hate the WoW version of raid bosses, that restricts players from joining. I miss the old world boss raids that EQ1 had. A boss would spawn randomly and guilds and people would mobilize to whatever raid size they can get up (30+) to take down the big bad dragon
Delete all group instancing. This was one of the worst ideas for a social game.. It's anything but social.. I want to see more world grouping.. There is no reason why solo play and group play can't co-exist.. You can have certain zones or cities that require group action, without instancing everything.
More dynamic quest lines. I love EQ1's epic quest lines. Quest need to be more then just "bring back 10 rat tails".. I would like like to see more epic armor questlines then epic armor boss drops.. YES, boss drops would be nice, but would not be the end all, be all loot that everyone chases.. like it is in WoW..
More meaningful crafting similar to SWG, and make crafting something "current".. not where you craft stuff at 40th level that is outdated at the same time.. Really!.. Why would I want to craft 30th level items at 40th level? lol
Return the games back to level and skill based, instead of gear based.. Gear should never be the measuring tool to see if you are worthy enough to group up.. In fact I hate the "Monty Hall" syndrome.. For those that don't know that is when the devs give out magic armors like candy.. EQ1 started perfect on this, but caved into kiddy demands for better shineys As a druid in EQ, I worked at crafting to make my own armor, and often sought out more advanced crafters to make me a better piece.. Warriors early on chased after "bronze" wearing mobs to upgrade their stuff..
Class distinction.. EVERY class should be different then each other.. even if it means balance issues.. I'm sorry, but a priest should NOT be able to fight and beat a warrior.. That is just simple logic and tough shit to the priest.. Unlike WoW's new changes that will pretty much turn everyone into 1 of 3 classes.. I loved the art of pulling, crowd control, medding, fighting and healing in a group situation.. Sorry, I'm not a fan of the "INSTANT" health or mana back from a spell or drink.. That takes the challenge out of playing your class, and working as a group..
I would love to see more SIM features as well.. such as Player housing.. etc etc. aka more hobbies as well.. something to pass the time for fun other then killing things..
You get the idea.. MMO's today are so arcadey? (is that a word?.. lol )
There are two aspects of oldschool MMOs I'd love to see brought back. Open Worlds ( No Instancing ) and meaningful questlines ( Unlike the new *kill 10 rat* model ).
Instancing has literally killed any sense of MMO feel and made games like WoW and EQ2 feel like lobby games rather than MMOs. And the real reason that all of these new "wow" style games are failing is because people are sick of running thousands of lame *kill 10 rat* quests again and would rather stick with their WoW character who is finished with them. When leveling was about grouping up to dungeon crawl or kill mobs it was much easier to get into the game and enjoy the leveling process, rather than doing the same tired quests that you've done over and over again.
Nostalgia is a bitch sometimes. Let's not forget the good instancing has brought into the genre. I cannot forget the bad sides of the non-instancing aspects of the game albeit its needed, but to the extreme of no instancing at all? No, I'm sorry, its just too impractical and that in itself impedes on my game play experience. If you think adventuring equals sitting ina dungeon or an open field for hours while one guy pulls the same respawns every 4-5 minutes, then I would be at a serius loss for words.
How about when I leave the city to adventure in the "wilderness", I'm met with more houses rather than open plains or foresty areas full of monsters. Or going down ni the dungeon to fnid the Oprah book Club clearing the whole thing and liches all of a sudden became high in demand. That's no fun
I'll admit kill 10 rats and questing is an abused feature and it does trivialize many things. I think MMO's should start considering creating more meaningful activities outside of the combat focus since I think there's too much focus on combat today.
Just remember, before wishing for the old school features to come back especially something big like non-instancing, just remember the bad equally as the good rather than just feed nostalgia into it. If you can't get past the good old times yet alone if the game commpanies couldn't get past the good ole times, than how are we expected to move as an industry/genre? We'll just be stuck with the same old variations of the same system.
Why is it that you feel that you can put down my likes and dislikes by calling it simply nostalgia? Who are you to say what I like and dislike, and to speak for the whole MMO genre? There are thousands of players with the same mind set that I have, and you are saying it is all simply nostalgia? In some people's cases, maybe it is. But that is not your call to make. FFXI and EQ1 are still my favorite MMOs to date even in the state that they are in now.
Adventuring equals what you make it. And yes, as weird as it may seem, I do enjoy camping and pulling mobs more than quest grinding. I enjoy fighting and getting better at my class with a group of like minded individuals, while socializing with them, more than killing 10 rats 5 feet from the questgiver by myself. I must be insane.
Why is it that you feel that you can put down my likes and dislikes by calling it simply nostalgia? Who are you to say what I like and dislike, and to speak for the whole MMO genre? There are thousands of players with the same mind set that I have, and you are saying it is all simply nostalgia? In some people's cases, maybe it is. But that is not your call to make. FFXI and EQ1 are still my favorite MMOs to date even in the state that they are in now. Adventuring equals what you make it. And yes, as weird as it may seem, I do enjoy camping and pulling mobs more than quest grinding. I enjoy fighting and getting better at my class with a group of like minded individuals, while socializing with them, more than killing 10 rats 5 feet from the questgiver by myself. I must be insane.
First of all, don't take a dissenting opinion as a personal attack, it has nothing to do with your likes and dislikes. When you sit there, you look back and wish you can have some of it back, thats called nostalgia. I don't care how you wrap the cookie, its still features from the past, not inherent today, that you want to experience again.
My underlying message wasn't about bashing the likes and dislikes. It's to balance out the view since its easy to look back and say how awesome it was if you're not satisfied with where the world is at today and also easy to neglect the bad parts that the world has pushed forward. There's nothing wrong with remindin people that the grass is always greener on the other side.
You might remember the most awesome times in the world where everything was perfect about old games and I can remember thjose too. I also remember arguments with groups, frequent disbands and another hour LFG to pray that they don't wipe me again and take further exp hits. Or gettnig pk'ed and getting full looted with nothing to do to fight back properly or get revenge.
I also ended my post, a much neglected part of my post, with a question: If we are just stuck wanting things of the past, how does the industy/genre move forward to a better future/more progression? I can't see that occurring when you rehash the same systems because they work. That also stales out the genre in itself.
EDIT: Sometimes you have to keep looking forward and be open to new experiences because realistically, its next to impossible to get those same feelings back. If it was that easy, everyone would just go back to playing UO, EQ1, DAOC etc. Don't expect the MMO genre to stay the same forever, its constant change is one of its big draws that makes it exciting.
If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).
So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.
*haha* thnx for the advice Khalathwyr. Actually i've been coming to this site for years, but not to often, seeing through out the years i've been very active into the MMOs i was playing. Nowadays though i've finally got burned out, so i am currently not playing anything at the moment, but am waiting to see if FFXIV is going to bring me back again. So yeah, here i am now. After all this time ,i made an account on here and now just want to discuss MMOs and kinda see whats going on with them seeing i will always have a place in my heart for it.
Welcome to the club! I've noticed an increasing amount of MMORPG'ers who have been experiencing burnout with the genre- moreso than any other point that I've stopped to look around.
Funny you mention FFXIV. That, along with GW2 (don't know if you're into it), 40k and other titles being revealed at E3 are legitimitely looking to be deliverers rather than hypebusts.
Well i hope one of them can actually deliver something great. It would be nice to get that old feeling i used to get for MMOs again
Why is it that you feel that you can put down my likes and dislikes by calling it simply nostalgia? Who are you to say what I like and dislike, and to speak for the whole MMO genre? There are thousands of players with the same mind set that I have, and you are saying it is all simply nostalgia? In some people's cases, maybe it is. But that is not your call to make. FFXI and EQ1 are still my favorite MMOs to date even in the state that they are in now.
Adventuring equals what you make it. And yes, as weird as it may seem, I do enjoy camping and pulling mobs more than quest grinding. I enjoy fighting and getting better at my class with a group of like minded individuals, while socializing with them, more than killing 10 rats 5 feet from the questgiver by myself. I must be insane.
First of all, don't take a dissenting opinion as a personal attack, it has nothing to do with your likes and dislikes. When you sit there, you look back and wish you can have some of it back, thats called nostalgia. I don't care how you wrap the cookie, its still features from the past, not inherent today, that you want to experience again.
My underlying message wasn't about bashing the likes and dislikes. It's to balance out the view since its easy to look back and say how awesome it was if you're not satisfied with where the world is at today and also easy to neglect the bad parts that the world has pushed forward. There's nothing wrong with remindin people that the grass is always greener on the other side. You might remember the most awesome times in the world where everything was perfect about old games and I can remember thjose too. I also remember arguments with groups, frequent disbands and another hour LFG to pray that they don't wipe me again and take further exp hits. Or gettnig pk'ed and getting full looted with nothing to do to fight back properly or get revefnge.
I also ended my post, a much neglected part of my post, with a question: If we are just stuck wanting things of the past, how does the industy/genre move forward to a better future/more progression? I can't see that occurring when you rehash the same systems because they work. That also stales out the genre in itself.
I never said that what I like is "perfect". I simply said I'd like it to go back to that model because it is better than what we have now. To me it is not nostalgia because I am not looking back, I am looking forward. I still play EQ1 and FFXI and still think the systems that they use are better than the systems presented in newer MMOs. The grass is always greener on the other side analogy doesn't work when I am standing on both sides.
And to answer your question, progress is not simply a time-line. If you have a great product and turn it into a shitty product, the fact that one came later than the other does not make it progress. MMOs have taken a step backwards, and the only way to move forward again is to go back to how it was, and improve on that design rather than improving on the current design to only have it still be a step behind what we once had.
Old school is old school, i have learned to adapt with time because change is way of life. i love the new casual style MMORPGS, i am not 14 any more don't have luxury of time to spend on MMOS that i once had.
I hear ya' Shastra. I myself am older now and don't have the time i once had. I am not talking about old features that required much of your life. I am talking of features that made the game feel alive and active. Like when i used to play UO. I had a house at Yew gate felluca. Don't know if you know about UO but that was an exciting place to be back in the day. I could pop on, and even for only a hour have about the greatest time ever. Everyone, everywhere just fighting to prove who was the best guild there. It was a completely player driven world. I would like to see some of them features brought back. Not a HUUGE world that has no point or meaning, or no people wondering it.
I never said that what I like is "perfect". I simply said I'd like it to go back to that model because it is better than what we have now. To me it is not nostalgia because I am not looking back, I am looking forward. I still play EQ1 and FFXI and still think the systems that they use are better than the systems presented in newer MMOs. The grass is always greener on the other side analogy doesn't work when I am standing on both sides. And to answer your question, progress is not simply a time-line. If you have a great product and turn it into a shitty product, the fact that one came later than the other does not make it progress. MMOs have taken a step backwards, and the only way to move forward again is to go back to how it was, and improve on that design rather than improving on the current design to only have it still be a step behind what we once had.
You look forward by looking back? That's what I'm maknig of your response. I'll leave it up to you to reinterpret that for me.
Sure, you're right in that regard that newer products does not always mean better products. However, why is it in science, we can accept failures as progress within a field of study but a failure in the industry couldn't be considered progress? Whether you think so or not, we as humans adjust from mistakes by ourselves and others, for the most part. That's how society progresses as human beings etc.
I'm sorry, I cannot accept the fact that despite your view of MMO's taken a step backwards, backpedaling even further isn't going to resolve matters. It makes more sense to push forward. Even if you do not view the industry progressing, doesn't necessarily mean its not just like systems in the past aren't necessarily better than new ones today. It's pure opinion and looking backwards sounds a lot like nostalgia to me, keyword "sounds".
I don't necessarily want EVERYTHING the same. Saying nothing good came out of modern MMOs is a bit silly. Very few good things came out of them, in my opinion, but some good. I don't think its necessary to have such a loooooong path to leveling up. Grinding mobs with friends and socializing is much more enjoyable than the throwaway quests, but even that eventually gets old.
And I do not want another EQ raiding game. I just want oldschool DAoC, and then I'll be happy. Where quests were done for story and a rare item now and then, no spawns were camped for loot, and raids were done with 100 buddies now and then for some fun, not due to some item you absolutely needed. Focus was always on the frontier!
But yes, I miss having no map, I miss having open dungeons. I miss having no zone lines and wide open places to explore. I miss the level design. Man, the Stonehenge dungeon went on forever, branching into so many awesome places that after 4 years I still hadn't seen it all. It was because they made it to accomodate a lot of people and several epic level quests. No silly instances. And the classes were all different and could specialize into 5+ different areas!
Who would like to see some of the old school MMO features come back to MMOs today? Does anyone even care?
I mean features like Ultima Online offered. I think nowadays MMOs are to instaned and not enough World play. Does anyone know, miss, or want to see a MMO make a livley world where you are free to do w/e and create your own story?
How does everyone else feel about MMOs today and how the used to be? Are you happy with how they are or would you like to see them good ol' features come back to life?
I'm playing an old school MMORPG right now (Darkfall), and I bet you aren't. It's great btw, but I'm sure you don't wanna old schools to come back...
I'm alittle confused by your comment. Anywho, i've heard of Darkfall. I might give that a try. I heard though it was a very time consuming game to get those fun moments poping.
Who would like to see some of the old school MMO features come back to MMOs today? Does anyone even care?
"Massively Multiplayer"... to me it means a lot more than "single player with lobby".
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
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I'm playing an old school MMORPG right now (Darkfall), and I bet you aren't. It's great btw, but I'm sure you don't wanna old schools to come back...
The mantra of todays MMOs is: "Achieve much, fast". I think this is a short sighted idea. Because those achievements are shallow. This mantra leads to the leveling race to a faster burnout or a raidcore expirience. Or to a "what now" expirience in alot of new MMOs that don't deliver content in the end game at release. Which I think is total idiocy, because by design of most new MMOs, reaching the end game fast is all there is to do. That shows me, that alot of developers have no idea what they are doing and focus on the bling bling to increase initial sales than on quality to hold subscriptions.
Nowadays, alot of people play an MMO for 6 months and then move on to the next. They basically are waiting for a new MMO while they play their current one. They don't even plan to stay for longer than a half year because they have seen and done everything there is in those 6 months.
Can you blame them? No. It's the developers fault for releasing the boring, unoriginal, repetive crap that todays MMOs are.
Yes, I want to have some Old School elements back. Not all, but some. Because not everything was good back then, but it wasn't all bad either. The feeling of value is missing in alot of todays game. Leveling to the top in EQ could take months. But the journey was fun. You met people and socialized with them. You made friends that would then group again with you the next day and maybe raid with you a few years later still.
In todays MMOs you usually don't even care who just autojoined your group. It doesn't matter because you don't have to talk to them for the 5 minutes it takes to complete a quest. Awesome!
Lastly, heavy instancing of WORLD zones is total crap. It sucks, there is no good reason for it except saving money in production.
Even most dungeon instancing is crap. How cool was it when you walked through a forest, and you knew that deep below you, in the depths of the earth, there were people fighting monsters. In the same zone as you. If you had a showel you could dig yourself down to them! Or you could try and reach them without a loading screen.
And when you were down in that dungeon and hadn't seen the sun for hours you knew that up there the sun was actually shining. But you were stuck in that hell hole and would have to fight out...
Face it, todays MMOs are for the new generation. Little princes and princesses that want to have everything, NOW! Who then run around hold in a ultra rare item up and screaming "look what I have!" and around them 100 people say: I have that too... yawn.
In todays standards, The Lord of the Rings would have been finished in about 10 minutes.
Frodo would take the ring, talk to a travel NPC, get portet to the mountain, run past a few orcs and throw the ring into the fire.
Quest done.
Dark blue on Black....
Unwise choice.
What most people overlook is many of the "old school" games are still running and have refined and corrected many of the negitive aspects of the games.
Certain features of older games would be welcome.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Well put and I am sure many would like such a game!
But the golden age of oldschool MMOS went away fast I think a lot is nostalgia over a time when you had much more playtime I remember when my platytime got less in EQ after Luclin but before PoP and at level 50 even then you found yourself in the nowadays all to common "nothing to do as you can not get a group".
People have changed too in the beginning the hobby was new, nearly all came from pen and paper RPGS and most had much more in common with each other than gamers nowadays have. The problem is to design something that are FUN and challenging and not requiring 5 hours and 5 friends online and as that obviously is to hard for developers we get the dumbing down ala WoW or the excusion of players from content ala EQ2's tougher instances.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
EQ1 actually seems to have a pretty healthy population, if you go by number of servers and how they continue to create new ones.
I like old school elements but not the down time and such, which is why I just can't play EQ1 anymore. But I have gone back to playing DAOC. It just doesn't feel grindy at all to me and there is so much content I always have things to do. The content just seems so small in most of the newer MMO's, that I'm getting bored too quickly.
I don't know how they made these huge worlds on smaller budgets back then, while now we seem to get less for these huge budget games.
Ultima Online people won't play an old school Everquest game
Everquest people won't play an old school Ultima Online
And if some developer takes the huge risk of writing one of the two old school games....
Many of the current subscribers will refuse to leave everquest or ultima just like they refused to leave everquest for Everquest 2.
So there you go, only a tiny group of people would sub to such a game.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
There are two aspects of oldschool MMOs I'd love to see brought back. Open Worlds ( No Instancing ) and meaningful questlines ( Unlike the new *kill 10 rat* model ).
Instancing has literally killed any sense of MMO feel and made games like WoW and EQ2 feel like lobby games rather than MMOs. And the real reason that all of these new "wow" style games are failing is because people are sick of running thousands of lame *kill 10 rat* quests again and would rather stick with their WoW character who is finished with them. When leveling was about grouping up to dungeon crawl or kill mobs it was much easier to get into the game and enjoy the leveling process, rather than doing the same tired quests that you've done over and over again.
Nostalgia is a bitch sometimes. Let's not forget the good instancing has brought into the genre. I cannot forget the bad sides of the non-instancing aspects of the game albeit its needed, but to the extreme of no instancing at all? No, I'm sorry, its just too impractical and that in itself impedes on my game play experience. If you think adventuring equals sitting ina dungeon or an open field for hours while one guy pulls the same respawns every 4-5 minutes, then I would be at a serius loss for words.
How about when I leave the city to adventure in the "wilderness", I'm met with more houses rather than open plains or foresty areas full of monsters. Or going down ni the dungeon to fnid the Oprah book Club clearing the whole thing and liches all of a sudden became high in demand. That's no fun
I'll admit kill 10 rats and questing is an abused feature and it does trivialize many things. I think MMO's should start considering creating more meaningful activities outside of the combat focus since I think there's too much focus on combat today.
Just remember, before wishing for the old school features to come back especially something big like non-instancing, just remember the bad equally as the good rather than just feed nostalgia into it. If you can't get past the good old times yet alone if the game commpanies couldn't get past the good ole times, than how are we expected to move as an industry/genre? We'll just be stuck with the same old variations of the same system.
It depends on which features you miss. If you mean things like spawn camping, open pvp, no instances, long travel times, players putting up houses haphazardly anywhere, forced grouping, etc., then no, I'll pass.
There's nothing wrong with turning an eye to the past, people do it all the time irl. But remember the bad with the good.
I'm old school and miss many of the old world mechanics.. IMO, I think mmo's are getting away from a true social enviroment. As many have already stated and I would add to the list of things I miss:
World Bosses.. I hate the WoW version of raid bosses, that restricts players from joining. I miss the old world boss raids that EQ1 had. A boss would spawn randomly and guilds and people would mobilize to whatever raid size they can get up (30+) to take down the big bad dragon
Delete all group instancing. This was one of the worst ideas for a social game.. It's anything but social.. I want to see more world grouping.. There is no reason why solo play and group play can't co-exist.. You can have certain zones or cities that require group action, without instancing everything.
More dynamic quest lines. I love EQ1's epic quest lines. Quest need to be more then just "bring back 10 rat tails".. I would like like to see more epic armor questlines then epic armor boss drops.. YES, boss drops would be nice, but would not be the end all, be all loot that everyone chases.. like it is in WoW..
More meaningful crafting similar to SWG, and make crafting something "current".. not where you craft stuff at 40th level that is outdated at the same time.. Really!.. Why would I want to craft 30th level items at 40th level? lol
Return the games back to level and skill based, instead of gear based.. Gear should never be the measuring tool to see if you are worthy enough to group up.. In fact I hate the "Monty Hall" syndrome.. For those that don't know that is when the devs give out magic armors like candy.. EQ1 started perfect on this, but caved into kiddy demands for better shineys
Class distinction.. EVERY class should be different then each other.. even if it means balance issues.. I'm sorry, but a priest should NOT be able to fight and beat a warrior.. That is just simple logic and tough shit to the priest.. Unlike WoW's new changes that will pretty much turn everyone into 1 of 3 classes.. I loved the art of pulling, crowd control, medding, fighting and healing in a group situation.. Sorry, I'm not a fan of the "INSTANT" health or mana back from a spell or drink.. That takes the challenge out of playing your class, and working as a group..
I would love to see more SIM features as well.. such as Player housing.. etc etc. aka more hobbies as well.. something to pass the time for fun other then killing things..
You get the idea.. MMO's today are so arcadey? (is that a word?.. lol )
I would love a game like EQ1 with better graphics and a few other improvements.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Why is it that you feel that you can put down my likes and dislikes by calling it simply nostalgia? Who are you to say what I like and dislike, and to speak for the whole MMO genre? There are thousands of players with the same mind set that I have, and you are saying it is all simply nostalgia? In some people's cases, maybe it is. But that is not your call to make. FFXI and EQ1 are still my favorite MMOs to date even in the state that they are in now.
Adventuring equals what you make it. And yes, as weird as it may seem, I do enjoy camping and pulling mobs more than quest grinding. I enjoy fighting and getting better at my class with a group of like minded individuals, while socializing with them, more than killing 10 rats 5 feet from the questgiver by myself. I must be insane.
First of all, don't take a dissenting opinion as a personal attack, it has nothing to do with your likes and dislikes. When you sit there, you look back and wish you can have some of it back, thats called nostalgia. I don't care how you wrap the cookie, its still features from the past, not inherent today, that you want to experience again.
My underlying message wasn't about bashing the likes and dislikes. It's to balance out the view since its easy to look back and say how awesome it was if you're not satisfied with where the world is at today and also easy to neglect the bad parts that the world has pushed forward. There's nothing wrong with remindin people that the grass is always greener on the other side.
You might remember the most awesome times in the world where everything was perfect about old games and I can remember thjose too. I also remember arguments with groups, frequent disbands and another hour LFG to pray that they don't wipe me again and take further exp hits. Or gettnig pk'ed and getting full looted with nothing to do to fight back properly or get revenge.
I also ended my post, a much neglected part of my post, with a question: If we are just stuck wanting things of the past, how does the industy/genre move forward to a better future/more progression? I can't see that occurring when you rehash the same systems because they work. That also stales out the genre in itself.
EDIT: Sometimes you have to keep looking forward and be open to new experiences because realistically, its next to impossible to get those same feelings back. If it was that easy, everyone would just go back to playing UO, EQ1, DAOC etc. Don't expect the MMO genre to stay the same forever, its constant change is one of its big draws that makes it exciting.
Well i hope one of them can actually deliver something great. It would be nice to get that old feeling i used to get for MMOs again
I never said that what I like is "perfect". I simply said I'd like it to go back to that model because it is better than what we have now. To me it is not nostalgia because I am not looking back, I am looking forward. I still play EQ1 and FFXI and still think the systems that they use are better than the systems presented in newer MMOs. The grass is always greener on the other side analogy doesn't work when I am standing on both sides.
And to answer your question, progress is not simply a time-line. If you have a great product and turn it into a shitty product, the fact that one came later than the other does not make it progress. MMOs have taken a step backwards, and the only way to move forward again is to go back to how it was, and improve on that design rather than improving on the current design to only have it still be a step behind what we once had.
I hear ya' Shastra. I myself am older now and don't have the time i once had. I am not talking about old features that required much of your life. I am talking of features that made the game feel alive and active. Like when i used to play UO. I had a house at Yew gate felluca. Don't know if you know about UO but that was an exciting place to be back in the day. I could pop on, and even for only a hour have about the greatest time ever. Everyone, everywhere just fighting to prove who was the best guild there. It was a completely player driven world. I would like to see some of them features brought back. Not a HUUGE world that has no point or meaning, or no people wondering it.
You look forward by looking back? That's what I'm maknig of your response. I'll leave it up to you to reinterpret that for me.
Sure, you're right in that regard that newer products does not always mean better products. However, why is it in science, we can accept failures as progress within a field of study but a failure in the industry couldn't be considered progress? Whether you think so or not, we as humans adjust from mistakes by ourselves and others, for the most part. That's how society progresses as human beings etc.
I'm sorry, I cannot accept the fact that despite your view of MMO's taken a step backwards, backpedaling even further isn't going to resolve matters. It makes more sense to push forward. Even if you do not view the industry progressing, doesn't necessarily mean its not just like systems in the past aren't necessarily better than new ones today. It's pure opinion and looking backwards sounds a lot like nostalgia to me, keyword "sounds".
I would love an MMO with random loot like AC1.
I don't necessarily want EVERYTHING the same. Saying nothing good came out of modern MMOs is a bit silly. Very few good things came out of them, in my opinion, but some good. I don't think its necessary to have such a loooooong path to leveling up. Grinding mobs with friends and socializing is much more enjoyable than the throwaway quests, but even that eventually gets old.
And I do not want another EQ raiding game. I just want oldschool DAoC, and then I'll be happy. Where quests were done for story and a rare item now and then, no spawns were camped for loot, and raids were done with 100 buddies now and then for some fun, not due to some item you absolutely needed. Focus was always on the frontier!
But yes, I miss having no map, I miss having open dungeons. I miss having no zone lines and wide open places to explore. I miss the level design. Man, the Stonehenge dungeon went on forever, branching into so many awesome places that after 4 years I still hadn't seen it all. It was because they made it to accomodate a lot of people and several epic level quests. No silly instances. And the classes were all different and could specialize into 5+ different areas!
I'm alittle confused by your comment. Anywho, i've heard of Darkfall. I might give that a try. I heard though it was a very time consuming game to get those fun moments poping.
"Massively Multiplayer"... to me it means a lot more than "single player with lobby".
I agree with you, but people are never going to bend on this board.
I agree 100%.