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Nifty game features that went away, when nobody asked
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
Every now and then a game feature falls to the wayside, despite it being popular or at least noncontroversial.
For example, weather. I can remember when it used to rain and snow in game. Sometimes there was fog. Where did that go? I can't recall anyone having a problem with it.
Daylight and nighttime having meaning. There used to be zones that were populated by diffrent creatures depending on whether it was day or night in game. And you could really tell if it was day or night. Everyone I knew liked that.
Using a light source. Maybe that one was less popular, but I liked it. Going somewhere torch in hand made stuff spooky. I don't recall anyone ever saying it bothered them.
Anyone else remember cool features that seem to have gone away, despite no one wanting them to?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
I didn't realize I missed it til I started playing FFXI recently, but I miss actually having to work to figure things out, like quest givers and so on. Starting to abhor the floating !
Games releasing nowadays barely have enough content to get to the lvl cap, all this fluff is too much for them.
The only mmo I can really remember as of late that I have played with weather effects was WoW, but then again in the past 7 years I have oinly played WoW, Eve, RO, and Guild Wars. The weather effects in WoW were simple, but they did help me feel that the world was a bit more alive.
Day light cycles I would really like to see a lot more improvement in. I would like to see them more like in games like TES: Oblivion. In Oblivion it was actually dark at night and made things a lot harder to see. Torches really were needed or some spell that produced light or gave night vision. Having real night would really make things more fun, and I think have groups work together more at night to stay close and stay alive.
If the majority of the potential gamers are anything like some of the posters here, I'd be willing to believe that this would actually hinder their process in reaching the level cap so that they could complain about lack of content. They don't want night to limit their vision, they don't want to carry a torch because it would occupy their hand where a weapon would be so they couldn't kill as efficiently. And the whole weather thing would also be a visual problem because once again it would limit their ability to walk 5 steps and find what they need to do.
The Day/Night cycle spawning different mobs would have all these people in an uproar because "it's night and I can't find the mobs I need to kill, I don't want to wait around I want to PLAY NOW!".
You know this just as well as I do. I for one would love to have the day/night cycle back, with weather effects like thick fog and all that other good stuff, but it just won't fly in todays market.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I miss random loot from AC1. Not the random " if we kill this boss I have a 25% of getting the sword of XXXXXness" that every warrior/rogue has. You know what I mean? In AC1 every mob you killed was like a lottery of random goodness. Thats what I miss, Random loot
Encumberance. No one likes it but realism it brings.
Hmmm i remember this in the AC1 days. I think DAoC had it also.
Well there actually are a few game sout there that do have some of these features, problem is its usually an indie game that winds up being poor in many other ways, or it has just a couple of thos etypes of features, but not the rest.
One example woul dbe Craft of Gods. Theyve got the whole day/night & weather effects (also effecting your actual skills/powers as well), but the game itself (at least when i tried it during beta) was not very good. They had a lot of great concepts for the game, but just poor execution, likely due to a lack of funds & knowledge to get things done like optimizing the game properly (for the graphics it had, it ran pretty poorly on a mid range system, and on my work PC which im able to play plenty of other MMOs on it would instantly freeze up as soon a si tried to login my character and load the world).
What we're lacking is a company with the money, the people, the experience, and the dedication to combine some of the amazing features that indie companies have tried to do with lots of polish and stability. Until that happens though we're stuck with nearly unplayable indie games, and AAA big budget MMOs that are bland, unoriginal, and in many cases pretty unplayable as well.
The magic system in AC1 was great also. you have to put together the components to learn the spells
Weather effects and seasonal changes take place in AC - at least they did back in the day. It is to bad more weather effects are not found in most other MMORPG's as they use to be. I remember rain falling in the frontier in DAoC so think you couldn't see more than a few meters in any direction. That was awesome. More games need to make use of rain, snow, and fog and make it have an impact on travel and combat.
God how I wish we'd see the return of a serious RPG-MMO where RPG actually means something. Return to the days when we explored living, breathing vibrant, huge virtual worlds - with deserts, mountains, swamps and forest and such. ::sigh::
Hehehe...I remember the first time I cracked the 6th level tapers for my magic...OMG I was like - this frakking rocks!!!!!!!
Thats exactly what im talking about. Stuff like that makes you feel like you accomplished somthing. I also remember the weather In DAoC. You could not see the Mids ot hibs till they where in your face.
I've played various MMOs with weather effects. LOTRO has weather. It can rain, or become a thunderstorm, or in areas of the Misty Mountains it can turn into a blizzard. where you can barely see 30 feet. LOTRO also has day/night cycles, and although in most areas the mobs remain constant, there are exceptions like in the Trollshaws, where the trolls only appear at night (because they'd turn to stone in broad daylight). The Shade questgiver in Bree used to only appear at night but he sticks around all the time now since people complained they had to wait 2-3 hours to do quest turn-ins if it became daytime.
Ryzom has seasons that change every few days. I recall it could rain there too. The seasons change the migration patterns of the herd mobs and what nodes can be dug up for crafting.
Those are current games. There may have been more in earlier days, but it hasn't completely vanished.
And I do heartily agree that I miss truely random loot like AC1 (or AC2). Every mob kill was a spin of the wheel, and it was great. Now every game seems to prefer fixed loot tables.
I for one wish Mythic would quit screwing around and make DAoC 2. The rain was a small thing but something I now miss, lol.
As others have been saying, LotRO has all three (Alt+F10 lights your "torch," but only during the nighttime hours). The only difference is the mobs that are around during the day stay during the night; no new mobs appear (that I know of). But try going to a place like the Barrow-downs or The Old Forest during the day, then again during the night, and tell me which one sucks more.
WoW has weather changes, but I actually dislike the day/night as it's more inline with our 24 hour clock so playing at night I tend to be... playing at night. And night isn't dark just not bright. Dark should be dark and mobs should be different. I would think a 3-4 hour clock that equals a day would be effective.
I prefer EQ2's night were its dark, if you don't carry a torch or turn up your gamma. Love the in game calendar/clock so you know what time it is and date too.
I'd love to see weather and events that really affect the world - blizzards, tornadoes, etc. I know some would complain but everyone wants instance gratification. EQ2 (I'm not sure if they've adjusted it) but has quests that you turn in and can't get the reward/pick up for a few hours or longer. There are gates that lock at dusk, so you have to go around or be creative at jumping.
Definitely prefer - what many view as inconvenient - long runs to flight paths, mobs available only at certain times, weather, etc. It makes these worlds feel more 'real'. Too this day in WoW I won't use the convenient port me to Shat or Dal until level appropriate. Makes it inconvenient but I prefer seeing the world.
Random drops - wouldn't that be great in all games versus lets farm boss/instance X for the sword of omg! I'd enjoy the randomness that much more.
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
I don't think kids these days are that stupid. I Think they took these things away because of lazy devs and the fact that it takes up memory and processor power.
But I miss these things as well.
As for the theory of night and day it matters little since most games are starting to get so instanced now. Wow is showing the way by taking away anything that has a meaning in a open zone and the rest are following after. This is of course a trend and those changes so anything can happen in the future.
But I think that weather at least will make a comeback with the latest gen of GFX cards. Day and night still exist in many games but the only difference between them is that the sky is darker in the night.
I hope someone creates a MMO in the future with more stuff like this, seasons would be a great thing too.
Weather effects are great. If people don't want them, simply open up options and turn them OFF.
I don't think that a lot of these features missing is so much that a lot of people were against them, with the exception of dark nights, but moreso because a lot of developers simply don't think that these features are 'important' enough to spend time and effort developing.
But, that's just in line with where the industry is headed. They're no longer trying to create virtual worlds to immerse players in. They're creating quest grinding platforms to keep people playing, and paying. Unfortunately, we lose a lot of the little nuances that seem little individually, but add a lot when it's all combined.
You can’t win features; you can’t get them as an achievement or to rack up a score of some sort. So they were doomed to die.
Being a virtual world is still a priority but it is way down the list these days.