One of the big difference i have notice is the social aspect, cause most things couldnt be done solo in the games before EZ mode mmorpg came along you had to be social and find groups unless you were one of the few classes that could solo then sit for 15 minutes medding back your mana, reputation actually meant something back then, if you were an asshole leveling or getting gear became alot harder so the most toxic ppl got weeded out (not completely of course but no where near as many toxic ppl thanks to auto grouping dungeons now)
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Another aspect of older MMORPGs was the chance to fail that is gone from today's games. Your crafting always creates an item. Your spells always cast when you hit that button/key. The chance for failure is now only in the combat area.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Games we play are basic carrot and stick, or monkey hooked up to a wire in the pleasure center of the brain. Give them the ability to keep pushing that button to get rewarded, and keep them hooked and alive as long as possible.
People confuse what MMO games were built for. First ones were built to try to get everyone to spend more hours paying and playing. Everything since then has been to refine that process.
Believe it or nor...but UO was the first game that was easy mode..and made where it was quite easy to solo. People blame WOW...but UO was first.
EQ was a throw back to muds, to get people to spend crazy amounts of time playing to achieve anything.
WOW was just the first that got the refining process right, and was rewarded. Easy to get that jolt of pleasure from rewards. Easy for almost everyone to join and play.
Only real "clones" are the zombie players jumping from game to game, expansion following additions...all looking for those fast fixes...keep pushing those buttons....
Believe it or not a streamer said this last night on one of the WoW classic beta streams...
Vanilla WoW wasn't hard... in fact, no game is really hard... once you figure out the mechanics, they're ALL easy.
I agree with that.
A hard game would be one that forever changes based on your input... being that if it knows you are going to try and sneak by them, they learn to detect stealth... and so forth. That would be a hard game. A game that is static... and most games are because they have no real intelligence to adapt to players, can never really be hard. Your toughest adversary is always other players... not NPCs.
And in regards to whether a quest giver does or does not have a ! over its head... that's moot. Once someone knew where it was, everyone did... either by word of mouth or other means. Did not knowing there was a quest there break the game? No. Make it hard? No. It just slowed you down... a bit.
To brutally honest... all MMOs back in their heyday would have been dog shit if it weren't for the fact of one simple thing... the people who chose to play them. And let's be frank... some of those people were dip shits. So even Eden had its serpent back then.
If Everquest and UO and the like were such great games... why did most people stop playing them? Same old same old drives folks away no matter if it's 1984 or 2019.
Played EQ for 5 years....Alot of my friends left for EQ2 and WoW, they were new......Couldn't justify paying a sub anymore....Like many here have said, the game itself wasn't great, but the community was....Never found another like it afterwards.
One of the big difference i have notice is the social aspect, cause most things couldnt be done solo in the games before EZ mode mmorpg came along you had to be social and find groups unless you were one of the few classes that could solo then sit for 15 minutes medding back your mana, reputation actually meant something back then, if you were an asshole leveling or getting gear became alot harder so the most toxic ppl got weeded out (not completely of course but no where near as many toxic ppl thanks to auto grouping dungeons now)
Long time lurker, forgot my login... lol It's really sad, I read more about MMO's than playing them.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread as one of the few that started with BBS Door games (Legend of the Red Dragon) and also beta tested Meridian 59. As I know community and such has been brought up a lot here... But I wanted to also point out that old school MMO's were all about grouping and you could very seldom get to "end game" soloing.
I remember a time in FFXI when you'd see someone in Jeuno looking for a group day after day week after week... but you recall grouping with said player and THEY WERE TERRIBLE. They never got past late 30s early 40s. I guess what I'm trying to say is you had to group and if you were terrible you didn't get invited to groups and were weeded out. Only the "elite" few would see all the content the game had to offer.
It's not going to become reflexive if it's not repeated often enough to become a reflex as opposed to a conscious reaction.
So they kinda go hand in hand.
Ah. I was thinking along the lines of quicktime events (QTE), where reactions were timed to different stimuli, different from each other.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Long time lurker, forgot my login... lol It's really sad, I read more about MMO's than playing them.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread as one of the few that started with BBS Door games (Legend of the Red Dragon) and also beta tested Meridian 59. As I know community and such has been brought up a lot here... But I wanted to also point out that old school MMO's were all about grouping and you could very seldom get to "end game" soloing.
I remember a time in FFXI when you'd see someone in Jeuno looking for a group day after day week after week... but you recall grouping with said player and THEY WERE TERRIBLE. They never got past late 30s early 40s. I guess what I'm trying to say is you had to group and if you were terrible you didn't get invited to groups and were weeded out. Only the "elite" few would see all the content the game had to offer.
You'd never see that in today's MMO world...
You are not really a member of our forums until you post, so welcome to the forums!
Long time lurker, forgot my login... lol It's really sad, I read more about MMO's than playing them.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread as one of the few that started with BBS Door games (Legend of the Red Dragon) and also beta tested Meridian 59. As I know community and such has been brought up a lot here... But I wanted to also point out that old school MMO's were all about grouping and you could very seldom get to "end game" soloing.
I remember a time in FFXI when you'd see someone in Jeuno looking for a group day after day week after week... but you recall grouping with said player and THEY WERE TERRIBLE. They never got past late 30s early 40s. I guess what I'm trying to say is you had to group and if you were terrible you didn't get invited to groups and were weeded out. Only the "elite" few would see all the content the game had to offer.
You'd never see that in today's MMO world...
That might've been a big part of the problem though...i remember in EQ the tanks had to have a certain amount of HP/AC or they got rejected...In WoW, they wanted players with a certain gear score or they got rejected...In time, players tire of this....Weeding out isn't necessarily good because you are also losing players.
After awhile, I saw EQ as basically making it take as long as possible to drain as much out of sub paying customers as possible....It is why even to this day I despise the P2P model.
Old MMOs were all about community but to be honest I never was entertained with any of them (and I played plenty) - it took too much time to achieve anything...
Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but older MMORPGs weren't afraid to let a player vary their builds or even screw up their character entirely.
Lineage 1 and DAOC both had class or racial stats during character creation which influenced what weapons you could best use, summon more pets, or do higher burst damage at the expense of endurance.
They also tended to lock a player into a build more, there were few or no respecs, or very cost prohibitive, so choices mattered.
These may seem like negatives, but it definitely imparted more of feeling like your choices mattered, and influenced your experiences later in the game.
EQ had a racial faction mechanic I believe which influenced what cities a player could enter safely, someone who played it can probably explain better.
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
Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but older MMORPGs weren't afraid to let a player vary their builds or even screw up their character entirely.
Lineage 1 and DAOC both had class or racial stats during character creation which influenced what weapons you could best use, summon more pets, or do higher burst damage at the expense of endurance.
They also tended to lock a player into a build more, there were few or no respecs, or very cost prohibitive, so choices mattered.
These may seem like negatives, but it definitely imparted more of feeling like your choices mattered, and influenced your experiences later in the game.
EQ had a racial faction mechanic I believe which influenced what cities a player could enter safely, someone who played it can probably explain better.
Good mention!
Yes, EQ had "factions" that differed the play. Racial was one, religion was another, and mobs you fought had their own factions, too. The Velious expansion had he Dwarves vs Giants factions. Help the Dwarves, make the Giants mad and vice versa. Killing animals as a Druid or a Ranger could cost you their faction standing and make the animals attack on sight.
Also, at character creation in EQ, you were allotted points to put into abilities. You could mess that up, but not game breakingly so. Now, EQ auto-points each character you create for "optimum builds", though you can manually redistribute them
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Lineage II (early versions): 1): Maps with little GPS, just mark a symbol on the map, and won't tell you what kind of dangers lies on your road. 2): Jobs/Skills System vague at the very beginning, just divide into mage/warrior before lv20, and have mage/healer/rogue/knight before lv 40. After that, almost every race have its own specialized mage/healer/rogue/ranger/knight. 3): Open map, with so-called Raid elites in every small region, then with the update of versions, have simple dungeons and massive raids which have hundreds of people participated in. 4): No food/drink system as WOW, things you can acquire to replenish HP and MP is kinds of potions, similar to diablo II and MU Online.
was thinking today, i remember back in the days in AC at one point the best armor in game was Nexus armor and there was literally ONE set per server. so out of everybody on your server only 1 person had it.
could you imagine that today? could you imagine the crying and end of the world thats not fair that would happen today? those games back then just had a different breed of gamer.
I see alot of talk about grouping with others and its true, in the older games there was alot more of that. i noticed right away when i tried wow, people where not there to group with, they were in my way! when there was 20 people killing the 5 scorpions because we need tails that wasnt promoting group play. that was promoting anger towards my fellow player. because everybody is trying to tag the mob at fast as possible to get the kill.
I think not just the social aspect of the old MMOs was different, the more glaring difference was the commerce aspect of older MMOs.
In older MMOs player makes items and player runs vendors and in player-made cities to sell them also. A lot more contents was allowed to be player-made to faciliate ingame economics.
In older MMOs player makes items and player runs vendors and in player-made cities to sell them also. A lot more contents was allowed to be player-made to faciliate ingame economics.
I'm sure there are games like that "today", just it isn't popular. Which is why I say the real difference is they are successful(have decent population) before. Either because they have relatively better budget before or lesser competition.
You hear comments like "I tried to went back to some game, but it is different because there is no longer a population".
AC was nothing like EQ actually, other then being of the same era.
You slaughtered entire dungeons solo in AC, taking on dozens of mobs yourself often. The world was zoneless for the most part.
The charm of AC was that it was a very different game from EQ and UO.
If someone hasn't already pointed this out: One MAJOR difference between pre and post-Wow era was that nearly every mmorpg of that age were extremely different than each other.
As soon as one took off and crossed over into mainstream ... the world became overtaken by clones. Mmorpgs attempted to be RPG world simulators, some literally just single player RPGs turned massively multiplayer. When the RPG was taken out, the genre lost any purpose to exist and became something entirely else.
I would offer a third definition: having good spatial awareness and forethought.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Comments
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
People confuse what MMO games were built for. First ones were built to try to get everyone to spend more hours paying and playing. Everything since then has been to refine that process.
Believe it or nor...but UO was the first game that was easy mode..and made where it was quite easy to solo. People blame WOW...but UO was first.
EQ was a throw back to muds, to get people to spend crazy amounts of time playing to achieve anything.
WOW was just the first that got the refining process right, and was rewarded. Easy to get that jolt of pleasure from rewards. Easy for almost everyone to join and play.
Only real "clones" are the zombie players jumping from game to game, expansion following additions...all looking for those fast fixes...keep pushing those buttons....
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread as one of the few that started with BBS Door games (Legend of the Red Dragon) and also beta tested Meridian 59. As I know community and such has been brought up a lot here... But I wanted to also point out that old school MMO's were all about grouping and you could very seldom get to "end game" soloing.
I remember a time in FFXI when you'd see someone in Jeuno looking for a group day after day week after week... but you recall grouping with said player and THEY WERE TERRIBLE. They never got past late 30s early 40s. I guess what I'm trying to say is you had to group and if you were terrible you didn't get invited to groups and were weeded out. Only the "elite" few would see all the content the game had to offer.
You'd never see that in today's MMO world...
So they kinda go hand in hand.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
early MMOs: make them work for it, it will mean more.
WoW: get them back to the fun ASAP. If it’s not fun cut it out.
i wouldn’t say either one is right or wrong, I could make a good case either way.
Lineage 1 and DAOC both had class or racial stats during character creation which influenced what weapons you could best use, summon more pets, or do higher burst damage at the expense of endurance.
They also tended to lock a player into a build more, there were few or no respecs, or very cost prohibitive, so choices mattered.
These may seem like negatives, but it definitely imparted more of feeling like your choices mattered, and influenced your experiences later in the game.
EQ had a racial faction mechanic I believe which influenced what cities a player could enter safely, someone who played it can probably explain better.
"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
Yes, EQ had "factions" that differed the play. Racial was one, religion was another, and mobs you fought had their own factions, too. The Velious expansion had he Dwarves vs Giants factions. Help the Dwarves, make the Giants mad and vice versa. Killing animals as a Druid or a Ranger could cost you their faction standing and make the animals attack on sight.
Also, at character creation in EQ, you were allotted points to put into abilities. You could mess that up, but not game breakingly so. Now, EQ auto-points each character you create for "optimum builds", though you can manually redistribute them
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
1): Maps with little GPS, just mark a symbol on the map, and won't tell you what kind of dangers lies on your road.
2): Jobs/Skills System vague at the very beginning, just divide into mage/warrior before lv20, and have mage/healer/rogue/knight before lv 40. After that, almost every race have its own specialized mage/healer/rogue/ranger/knight.
3): Open map, with so-called Raid elites in every small region, then with the update of versions, have simple dungeons and massive raids which have hundreds of people participated in.
4): No food/drink system as WOW, things you can acquire to replenish HP and MP is kinds of potions, similar to diablo II and MU Online.
Right now most of the successful and large budget game are generic themepark games. The games which try to be different dont' have much population.
You hear comments like "I tried to went back to some game, but it is different because there is no longer a population".
You slaughtered entire dungeons solo in AC, taking on dozens of mobs yourself often. The world was zoneless for the most part.
The charm of AC was that it was a very different game from EQ and UO.
If someone hasn't already pointed this out: One MAJOR difference between pre and post-Wow era was that nearly every mmorpg of that age were extremely different than each other.
As soon as one took off and crossed over into mainstream ... the world became overtaken by clones. Mmorpgs attempted to be RPG world simulators, some literally just single player RPGs turned massively multiplayer. When the RPG was taken out, the genre lost any purpose to exist and became something entirely else.
You stay sassy!
I would offer a third definition: having good spatial awareness and forethought.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance