General Discussion

Originally posted by Creasian

 

This may be long winded..

 

 

WoW has been an success because they made a very easy to get into mmorpg, fitted with alot of solid mechanics from it's senior mmorpg releases, and went with it.  WoW, in essence, is a solid mmorpg.  They understood that massive also meant extremly forgiving technical requirements, and a good solid interface that didnt confuse new people to the genre. 

Everquest was an success because of the sheer freedom at release.  It didnt hold your hand, but it didnt tell you no.  You had unique classes, isolated starter zones that were surrounded by natural barriers of higher level mobs, that if you faced, allowed you to go to other cities.  That was a big thing for me in everquest.  The natural mob barriers enticed you to try to see what was on the other side.  Not only entice, but you also knew somewhere, across that dangerious plain or forest, was another race thinking the same thing about your side.  You could run it and maybe escape from a giant or deadly orcs, even halfing bandits on your way to the ButcherBlock docks as a high elf to meet your Human friend.

Vanguard suffered from an inability to tell the players a gameplay model and stick with it.  They couldnt give the players the benefit of knowing that their time was placed in [b]confident[/b] hands.  The game had everything it needed, at launch mind you, to keep players there and going. It lacked confidence in itself, and that lack of stability screamed a potential waste of time, rather than a potential to succeed.  Over time it has slowly been shifted to another mindset and has yet to find what niche it wants. 

Age of Conan is an attempt to take the environment of guildwars and mix it with attitude.  For some, and maybe even many, this is their niche.  However the game wont sustain anything past a niche because it constricts too many aspects of MMO in trade for sheer action.  Perhaps, in some perceptions, it is a MMORPG for the FPS crowd.  The action is fast, the focus is AoE and wide spread carnage.  There is a somewhat lack of focus in trade for the mass destruction effect, and once again, some are attracted to it.  They are going to keeping going where Guildwars left off, and it is going to work for the audience they intended to have. 

 

We, the audience overall, is the issue however.  We are so vocal on what we want that we forget to also let the developers know what we can live with as well.  AoC was never, nor will it ever, be a smashing hit with longevity.  It will have, like lotr, a stable sub base that enjoy what they have to offer.  But that is good, because in the end, I think that is what everyone from all sides wants. 

 

You want a mmorpg like the old days?  It will never happen.  What can happen is a simplistic mmorpg to come out with enough to entice the grand masses, and slowly, but surely, complicate it's focus and be able to adopt and satisfy several playstyles.  WoW cannot do this because it is too late to move in those directions.  I have been in this market as a customer for over 10 years myself, and have no plans to leave. 

 

Even if I hate a mmorpg, I will buy it, and pay a first month or two sub.  Why?  Because every single mmorpg success will entice more companies to build a team and make one as well.  Each time one is built, I have a chance to FIND a home again for years, not months.  Each failure results in a potential team that can build what I will truely enjoy again never being made because a company dosent want to waste 30-40million dollars on a market with no peices of the pie left to share.

I hate AoC and how it plays, but I will support them and hope they succeed so another company might be encouraged to take a leap and bring some freash blood to the market.  Sounds like idiocy to some yes, but for me, its a waiting game and I can wait.  I am just going to do my part.

Great post. Very well-written. I happen to agree as well, though I'm not so sure that there will never be another hardcore MMO.

Although we're obviously not the majority, I've talked a great many players who miss the sense of accomplishment, teamwork, danger, excitement, challenge, and downright player involvement that Everquest 1 provided and are disappointed with all the dumbed down MMOs that have come out since (and including) WoW. Gamers looking for these things may not be in the majority, but I believe a game could draw at least half a million subscribers if they created a game like that. Just look at how many people still play EQ1 despite the fact that it's leveling system and economy are completely hosed and it's got 9 year-old graphics.

Originally posted by lomiller

 

Originally posted by vajuras

 

Originally posted by jusomdude

You know what's funny? In any open world MMO you play, it's highly unlikely to find more players in an area the size of one of AoCs zones than the AoC player limit.

Open worlds are highly overrated. Once you're out of tortage you get to explore vast zones. Anyone remember EQ1-2?... yeah, they had zones, and still turned out to be good games, isn't that weird?

 

What was good about EQ2 I remem that was our first instanced MMO we ever saw. my buddy and I were talking to the same NPC but we were in different instances. We were like tripping out. Then we finally figured out what instances were and joined each other

Finally we get to the towns hoping to see hundreds of players all in one place and what do ya know we are split again. then we go outside to kill some wildlife and what do ya know they sharded that too

 

I left EQ2 over that it didnt feel like an MMO too me. I hate to say this but I left it for WoW which felt like 100x an MMO at the time. I did miss the nice sound track and well done characters in EQ2 thats bout it. didnt miss the crafting or lack of pvp at launch or team debt XP etc

 

Back before battlegrounds I remem WoW surged in a big way in world pvp somewhat. Well it got a little better. You saw hundreds of players at Tarren mill. but then blizz ruined it

Some people like instanced MMO but I dont and it makes the pvp suffer (edit- to clarify I am speaking of EQ2 here)

 

 

I think you still haven’t figured out what instances are.  EQ2 is a zoned world and it does allow multiple copies of the same zone but it was nowhere close to the first game to do this.  In MMO parlance an  instance is when the game takes you and your group outside of the shared world and puts you in a private area all your own.  EQ2 does some of this but less then most games on the market. 

For programmers there is little distinction. Server side they are spawning a copy of the world for a selection of people. You are in an instance in EQ2 when they shard the entire region. Eq2 does it too much of this and the sad state of the game at launch was pretty inexcusable. I hear AoC gamers talking about running out of quests at Lvl 40+. We ran out of quests in EQ2 wayyyyyy sooner

While i agree that this game removes one of the mmo's trademark(immersion) i cant agree that it deals a coup-de-grace to the genre.I think that the people who share op's opinion are afraid that the rest of the games that will come out, will be the same(having graphic engine that a few pc's can handle and making the game instanced).They are blinded and cant see the good outcome of all this.

By having commercial mmo's like aoc or war introducing some new features or lets better say different from the usual ones(combat system,crafting,customization,better storylines and making things like building standard ) they upgrade the whole genre they dont kill it, instead they are making the market more competitive so things like the one's mentioned above will be taken in serious consideration before a game is even created.About instancing, lets be serious now i haven't seen any other mmo like aoc having such graphics so what the problem people?Do you think a lot of other companies will do the same thing?I think not.

Originally posted by The_Vasonist

While i agree that this game removes one of the mmo's trademark(immersion) i cant agree that it deals a coup-de-grace to the genre.I think that the people who share op's opinion are afraid that the rest of the games that will come out, will be the same(having graphic engine that a few pc's can handle and making the game instanced).They are blinded and cant see the good outcome of all this.

By having commercial mmo's like aoc or war introducing some new features or lets better say different from the usual ones(combat system,crafting,customization,better storylines and making things like building standard ) they upgrade the whole genre they dont kill it, instead they are making the market more competitive so things like the one's mentioned above will be taken in serious consideration before a game is even created.About instancing, lets be serious now i haven't seen any other mmo like aoc having such graphics so what the problem people?Do you think a lot of other companies will do the same thing?I think not.

 

 

 

I'm not going to toss salt at Age of Conan because I havent played retail yet but come on the alpha MMOs were way ahead of their time. Too far ahead. People weren't ready

Games like UO and AC1 were attempts at seamless worlds. AC1 had real time dodging SERVER SIDE, run-and-gun spell casting, dynamic classification, mobs that 'grew', server side collision, and the whole works

In UO you could own houses, dynamic classification (use based), impact in the world itself, light barriers between newb and veteran, etc

These newer MMOs are a regression of a sorts

Again, I'm not going to toss salt at AoC right now because this is something I only do after I reach high level in a game. But this is the general consensus amongst many old skool players that fully appreciated the direction of games back then

But if you're a fan of WoW and their ilk- perhaps you see EQ as a major progression which is probably the way most newcomers may see it too

The more I play it the more bored I become. It has zero depth. On its surface it is very fun but for a game that sold 400k boxes it feels so empty. Chat is almost non existent and there is no social aspect. The graphics are great and love they stuck to the conan universe but its pretty shallow. All cities look alike and crafting is pointless.

Well Vajuras i agree with you about regression, we cant compare the seamless worlds of the mmo's you mentioned (i still cant forget the first time i saw my older brother playing AC,no words to describe the excitiment) on terms of  freedom or unique ideas on gameplay but they are long gone now and we have what we have now,so my point is as mentioned above that(even if some of these things were done in the past) we will have some features that people like in this genre implemented (once again maybe) in future games and also new gameplay(the most important)  and who knows the outcome might be something stunning(i am not reffering to already announced titles).

Uh, the main developer of Vanguard might have been possibly drug addicted - there is only one very obscure source who ever claimed that - but even if that was the case, that doesnt mean his project was a scam.

Other than that, I really dont understand people who complain about AoC. Wasnt all that already known a long time before release ? Why do you complain about it now ? Dont you inform yourself about a game before you play it ?

And I dont think AoC will be the end of MMOs.

fair enough but I would add to your post that EVE Online has taken the AC1/UO model forward whereas everyone coexists on 1 server (40k+ concurrent players), realtime collision detection server side, no instancing ever (even in a mission a player can jump in via probing), player owned terriority, etc

EVE Online took that model forward. I see other MMOs as a regression of a sort. But I admit I did see WoW as a weid sort of progression in that it established that it is important to try to make a product accessible. However it has inadvertantly changed the face of MMOs today because its just a bit too strong. But hey, I always said Blizzard was blessed. They earned my respect way back when on consoles