Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

"Oh, because it's not the same, they've dumbed the games down!"

Typical excuse.  These people want to live in the early 1990s.

Why do you have a vendetta against people who want old style MMORPGs with tons of innovation and deep gameplay mechanics? (in before LOLOLOLOL TIME SINKS trolling attempt) 

Originally posted by cyphers

EQ was a lot of fun but more unforgiving than other MMO's, and it didn't cater to the instant-gratification crowd as much as a number of current MMO's. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of taste: yes, you could lose XP when you died up to even a few hours of playtime, but it made you more aware of what you could lose when you died in battle and it made hard won victories that much more satisfying. And yes, you had long travel times but it made you appreciate more the landscape you were traveling through and contributed to the feeling of vastness of the world in EQ.

 

The whole tank-healer-dps trinity emerged and became popular in EQ just as a number of other tactics like the pulling, kiting and cc that have since then become standard combat tactics in other MMO's. I can't say for sure if UO had it, but raiding definitely made its mark first in EQ.

So, a lot of things that originated from EQ and that made it the fun it was. Maybe not to everyone who played it, but that applies to any MMO. Combat was definitely tougher in EQ than in WoW, Lotro and a number of the other current MMO's around.

Don't get me wrong, I have a ton of fun in EQ.  It was a different time when the internet was just taking off and gamers coming together online instead of in basements.  EQ wasn't really catering to anyone, because it was uncharted waters.  They simply put in what they thought would work and that was to punish and restrict players.  The mindset being the longer it took to do something the longer people would stat subscribers.  That is why the access quests got so out of hand.

Other things had a negative effect on the ability for EQ to draw in masses other than the time sinks, xp loss and travel.  Over expanding left huge areas of the game dead, but still required players to grind through it to catch up to the rest of the pack.  The forced grouping only compounded the effect of to much terrain and not enough players.  The barrier to entry for the game grew with the first expansion and didn't stop until it was much much to late.

UO and muds had most of the features you mentioned, but not always to the same degree you mention. 

I am curious though, what you think made EQ combat so much harder than current mmos?  Fewer skills, abilities and mechanics came into play and honestly the majority of fights were nothing but tank and spank encounters.  There was so little in the way of tactics, reaction or things of that nature.   Auto attacking did most of the work with an ability sprinkled in every 5-10 seconds followed by 5-10 seconds more empty time. 

I will concede that soloing today is easy, but that is because players naturally take things to a certain sweet spot where success is almost always a guarentee.  Soloing would be much more difficult if people fought monsters a few levels highers, but the risk/reward just isn't there and a constant flow of ensured kills is better.  Just like grouping in EQ was.  People would find a nice comfortable spot to camp and pull just enough mobs to the group that it was never really a threat, but a nice safe steady flow of xp.  Those classes that could solo did and often did so with multiple creatures at a time.

(textwall alert; only noticed after I was done typing how large the post had become :-/)

I think if Everquest would be released in this day and age it wouldn't do as well as it did back then: MMO's have evolved, and likewise gameplay mechanics have progressed in several ways. You're right that it wasn't so much as catering to the "hardcore" crowd what they did, but more pioneering new fields what UO and Everquest did. There were a lot of things that Verant hit right with Everquest. If you could say that one of Blizzard's core philiosophies was that their MMO should be a "fun ride" from the start, then "risk vs reward" was one of Verant's/SOE's with Everquest, the higher the reward, the larger the risk.

I agree with a number of things you say, it was a different time back then, we had different expectations of MMO's or went in it blank and I think that EQ until Shadows of Luclin could be compared to WoW vanilla: after Velious the game seemed to change from its base and a number of the fun elements that were there the first few years seemed to vanish when a large part of the still existing playerbase went to the high end content of the growing list of expansions and the world became larger but emptier and harder to form groups in.

Now, what made the combat more challenging? Keep in mind, this is just my own personal experience, it can be different for everyone. I like to compare it with going on vacation, some will go the tourist way in another country, following the tourguide and guided excursions and such, where others follow their own way, go to villages and places outside the tourist routes and whose goal is to get to know the local culture and hang out with the local people in their vacation. There is no "right" or "wrong" here, as long as you had fun it doesn't matter what activities you were looking for as holiday entertainment abroad.

I think that the things that made the most difference between Everquest and MMO's I played afterwards, was the threat of death and the feel that we were all actually pioneering, in a gaming genre that was still very new, with combat and gameplay mechanics that most of us had no experience with before EQ. It was in EQ that such things were picked up first by most of us and finetuned: I already mentioned the pulling tactics and kiting, and next to that you had the several ways of crowd control. But also such things as the aggro management and  the pet control were pretty new. For a pioneering experiment Everquest hit a lot of things right the first time.

But next to that, there was the high risk of death: besides that most of the combat tactics were still fresh and evolving, it was the (healthy) fear of death that made you more aware of your environment when exploring and more alert in combat. In contrast to some other current MMO's there was less room to mess up: the higher you became in level, the more mobs that could only be taken on in groups, effective groups, for example when your enchanter went down and crowd control went out the door your fights became a lot crazier and hectic, and your mana management and your timing when you used a spell could be the difference between success or defeat. And failure gained you more 'punishment' than other games: a long journey back to where you all died, considerable XP loss, several minutes downtime. In general, fights in EQ were on average harder and needed more smart play than in other MMO's I have played.

That was the upside: forced grouping stimulated socializing and social behaviour - I had great fun and made good friends in pikc up groups - and the death threat and tough mobs especially in the medium to high levels made the combat more challenging and victories sweeter. The downside was that looking for a group could become very frustrating if you didn't find one since from the medium levels onward mobs became increasingly tougher to beat solo, and when miscalculated the fight or if you were in a less effective group, several times dying with many hours of lost XP could be very irritating.

Looking back, not that I didn't like combat in other MMO's that I played, but the fact that death has become meaningless with little loss, has made fights also less challenging and victories on average less sweet.

After Everquest, I've been able to basically use the same standard tactics that we were confronted with first in Everquest, with some changes here and there depending upon the MMO. The only major innovations and feel of experimentations I encountered after EQ was with Guild Wars: the wide range of creative and innovating tactics I've seen in GW very often made my jaw hit the floor. I've played Magic: the Gathering and that was what the multitude of different creative team combat in GW often reminded me of. Tactics I've only seen in GW and that couldn't be used in any other MMO.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

"Oh, because it's not the same, they've dumbed the games down!"

Typical excuse.  These people want to live in the early 1990s.

Why do you have a vendetta against people who want old style MMORPGs with tons of innovation and deep gameplay mechanics? (in before LOLOLOLOL TIME SINKS trolling attempt) 

What innovation?  Most of these games were among the first in their genre, everything they did was innovative by definition.  Today, however, not so much.  The "deep gameplay mechanics" that most of them are so impressed by *ARE* the time sinks, etc.  Sitting around waiting for a boat that only comes along every 30 minutes, only to take another 20 minutes to cross, that's not a deep gameplay mechanic, sorry.  Waiting for hours for a boss to respawn, surrounded by dozens of other people who are similarly waiting, is not a deep gameplay mechanic.  Ganking everyone in sight is not a deep gameplay mechanic.  I played these old school games too and I didn't think they were particularly deep back in the day.  Absurd difficulty is not the same as deep.

Where is this mythical deep gameplay mechanics of which you speak?

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Daffid011

I suspect you are right that most wow players will not leave wow for a game that is nearly identical, but it is hard to say that based on past offerings.  Lotro played like a travel sized version of wow that lacked many of wows features and the other games were just a terrible mess at release.

 

It is very possible that people have had so much of wow they might just play a reskinned clone IF it was done well enough.  However I think most companies would do better emulating what made wow a success and not emulating wow itself.  Take the popular game model and imporve upon that.  Listen to what players are asking for and find solutions to that.

 

 

 

That's already what WoW did with EverQuest. They took what made it money and then dumbed it down for mass appeal. Can't really dumb it down any further than WoW already has. There's nowhere lower to go. Games are gonna have to start doing something different. 

People didn't flock to EQ, because more people did not find it entertaining to sit around for 15 hours straight only to have 15 minutes of entertainment.  Once you get past the ridiculous time sinks put into the game, EQ wasn't any harder than current mmos and I would argue that current mechanics and encounters are way more difficult. 

Time is not a measurement of skill or intelligence.  It does little more than challenge a players tollerance. 

EQ never captured the mass market, because it was the first of its kind and loaded with problems and mechanics that prevented it from attracting masses of people.  There was a ton of areas that needed improvement and the results are clear. 

EQ did have the mass market for it's time in MMO history. It was a different time in 1999, PCs were more expensive and bandwidth was low. Also MMOs were still a pretty new thing. EQ was a hit because EQ was a great MMO. Just because you didn't like it doesn't mean alot did not. I remember when EQ even was mentioned in the news because it was such a big thing. You must have not been old enough to remember EQ or just wasn't into online games then.

EQ was fun. Did it take an extemely long time to level in EQ? Sure it did. I didn't say I agree with everything about what EQ was. What I do find funny though is why is everyone in a rush to finish an online game they pay monthly for? I want my online games to take a very long time to level as long as there is content to go with it. I would love a game to take a long time to level if it had a great many dungeons to do at every level and other meaningful activities.

Only thing it shows when a game makes leveling trivial is, the game doesn't have much to content. End game doesn't have to be the focal point. I say if leveling is meant to be trivial as all devs seem to think now, lets remove it then . There is no point having levels if they mean nothing.

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

If you are smart you would realize the games of the past don't exist. What exist is a mutation of once great games and this includes WoW. I will admit the original WoW was fun, now it is so dumbed down it's trivial and boring.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

"Oh, because it's not the same, they've dumbed the games down!"

Typical excuse.  These people want to live in the early 1990s.

Pathetic response given because you have nothing real to offer. I still play Final Fantasy VII becaue it is still the great game it was. MMOs don't exist anymore in the original stated that made them a hit in the first place. They are all mutated garbage of features mangled together with their direction changed at least 15 times. Even WoW was a good game in 2004, the current babyfied version is awful. The original game had crowd control and tactics in dungeons .. not just smashing your face on the keyboard ADD running through as fast as you can with no chance of death. I find a lack of challenge not fun.

Originally posted by qombi

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

If you are smart you would realize the games of the past don't exist. What exist is a mutation of once great games and this includes WoW. I will admit the original WoW was fun, now it is so dumbed down it's trivial and boring.

Well said. Fact is, even the classic games are hollow shells of what made them great, DAOC is a joke today compared to its glory days, which is why I won't play it.

Has very little to do with nostalgia.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by uquipu

Lots of nostalgia going on in this topic.
.
Fact is, you can play EQ or UO right now. Why aren't you? Experience the tedium for yourself.

"Oh, because it's not the same, they've dumbed the games down!"

Typical excuse.  These people want to live in the early 1990s.

Why do you have a vendetta against people who want old style MMORPGs with tons of innovation and deep gameplay mechanics? (in before LOLOLOLOL TIME SINKS trolling attempt) 

Because he may have been one of the people that was unable to get groups. You had to be social and friendly to level in EQ

Originally posted by Thedrizzle

Originally posted by negentropy

Some people just cannot let go and move on. I played all of those games back in their heyday and while I had great times, I'd rather remember them they way they were and not try to revisit them today.

 

I've tried to go back to UO and DAoC, but its just not the same. The games have changed and so have I.

 Im sorry, new member to MMORPG.com, is that you have a new account cause youve pissed people off with your old account or are you new to MMO gaming?

Did you even play any of these older games? Most of the people who talk smack about, "people not being able to let go" are people who in fact never played these games.

It has nothing to do with letting go, it has to do with playing games that are somewhat a challenege, with real consequence. All you new school gamers who entered an industry of clear "pussification" and all you cry babies who don't like to loose your "shiney" new weapon clearly ruined this industry.

What the industry isn't ruined? Games like WoW have millions of subs? Yes youre right, from a business standpoint the industry is doing just fine, but from a challenging game standpoint it clearly sucks.  Hell now its so farking easy we have mods that time down to tell us when a boss mob is going to do its special ability? Seriosuly gaming is so easy these days its not even worth playing. Yes... lets all go hold our peckers and mash buttons so just maybe we can get a single piece of gear if we're lucky, and if we're not we'll do it over and over again till we get our full set of poorly designed low poly count gear. Ohhhh even better!!! There will be a new patch next month with even better gear, so we can go grind and grind again to get that even better gear...  It all makes alot of sense, like hamsters on a wheel.

Maybe you should check out my profile next time to avoid the taste of feet in your mouth. I'm over 50 -- I was playing D&D before you were born, genius.

MMO games evolve and there isn't thing you can do about that. It's a new genre and no one really knows what makes it tick yet. There is no formula for success yet so they will all continue to change.

IMHO, it's the players who fail to adapt in some cases. Sure, looking back is always fun but at it's core it isn't about the mechanics, it's about the experience with the environment and other players. 

"Take off your nostalgia goggles" is such a crap argument. I hate it, I hate the fact that people use it so often in regard to computer games... and yet, there is some merit to it, I must admit.

For example, scientific studies have shown that human being's musical tastes "crystallize" not long after their teenage years. I'm 27 years old, so I enjoy listening to alternative rock bands such as Bush, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and other bands from my own formative years.

I'm not a fan of modern alternative music, however. It sounds girly to me, "pussified" if you will, and I just find it completely unappealing. By the same token, someone like Negentropy may enjoy Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and Alice Cooper, but not Bush or Nirvana.

(I actually like those three older bands, too, and I don't hate ALL modern music, which proves that there are exceptions to the rule.)

So:

Older gamers have a "crystallized" idea of which computer and video games they like to play. Since old-school games become increasingly rare as the years march on, old-school gamers become irritated and bitter. Because they like the older games better, they begin to think of the newer games as being inferior.

Personally, the late 1980s, 1990s, and very early 2000s are what I consider to be the "golden years" of computer gaming. That age is now dead.

It's not just "nostalgia goggles" or "you've changed over the years." I played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri for the very first time a few years ago (a game from the 1990s), and I LOVED it. I can't have nostalgia for a game I've never played, can I?

Of course not. My actual nostalgia is for the game design philosophies and gameplay of those older games, not just memories of my teenage years connected to a certain game or whatever.

They really don't make them like they used to, unfortunately. I buy only a few computer games per year nowadays, and by 2020, I'll most likely have stopped gaming altogether. Only books and board games retain that classic feeling decade after decade, I've found.

Originally posted by DoktorTeufel
 

"Take off your nostalgia goggles" is such a crap argument. I hate it, I hate the fact that people use it so often in regard to computer games... and yet, there is some merit to it, I must admit.

There can be, in the cases that it is true. What remains to be proven, and nigh everyone who uses the argument, is which cases those are. Hint: more often than not it's used as a discussion-ender whereby they have no more logical ammunition, so they resort to using inflammatory remarks that can't be proven, or disproven.

For example, scientific studies have shown that human being's musical tastes "crystallize" not long after their teenage years. I'm 27 years old, so I enjoy listening to alternative rock bands such as Bush, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and other bands from my own formative years.

Close. It's 25. It's linked to the end of development of the prefrontal cortex, which governs reason and decision-making. It's not just music.

I'm not a fan of modern alternative music, however. It sounds girly to me, "pussified" if you will, and I just find it completely unappealing. By the same token, someone like Negentropy may enjoy Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and Alice Cooper, but not Bush or Nirvana.

(I actually like those three older bands, too, and I don't hate ALL modern music, which proves that there are exceptions to the rule.)

'Exceptions' to what 'rule'? 'Alternative' or 'modern' are nothing more than categories used to bundle many different styles and tastes into an easily identifiable label. Bite-size recognition for the brain.

So:

Older gamers have a "crystallized" idea of which computer and video games they like to play. Since old-school games become increasingly rare as the years march on, old-school gamers become irritated and bitter. Because they like the older games better, they begin to think of the newer games as being inferior.

Logical fallacy. While desires and wants become more or less cemented, they can still continue to evolve. Additionally, left of an abundance does not make anyone 'irritated and bitter' out of sheer cause:effect. There are elements that anyone with experience in any field can point out as being flaws with any recent crop of products. No game is perfect, and an average 'aged' gamer who is able to identify elements of 'current' games that he doesn't like because he labels them as inferior deserves more merit, not less, considering the amount of games, the experience, they have played. But this is no different than an 'aged' gamer picking up an 'aged' game and identifying those same elements. The disconnect is that 'new' gamers identify the 'old' gamer' and 'new' game and come up with a nice, convenient, reasoning for why their tastes 'need' to be defended.

Personally, the late 1980s, 1990s, and very early 2000s are what I consider to be the "golden years" of computer gaming. That age is now dead.

It's not just "nostalgia goggles" or "you've changed over the years." I played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri for the very first time a few years ago (a game from the 1990s), and I LOVED it. I can't have nostalgia for a game I've never played, can I?

The funny thing is, these are mutually exclusive. You DON'T change over the years after the age of 25 (or very little). And yet people toss them around not realizing their lack of correlation.

Of course not. My actual nostalgia is for the game design philosophies and gameplay of those older games, not just memories of my teenage years connected to a certain game or whatever.

They really don't make them like they used to, unfortunately. I buy only a few computer games per year nowadays, and by 2020, I'll most likely have stopped gaming altogether. Only books and board games retain that classic feeling decade after decade, I've found.

Books and board games are not the cutting edge of profit gathering. The cost of a book or a board game remains very stable, or dropping, considering inflation. Whenever quality and profit share the same stage, only one can be in the limelight. Thankfully, some mediums don't have two characters battling for the primary role.