We didn't say LONG downtime, ANY downtime, or  any social dynamics at all, gives people a chance to socialize. When the fastest way to level or do anything is to solo, theres no social aspect to a game.

"gives people a chance to socialize" is NOT the same as forcing them to chat because there is nothing to do.

Having a GAME with periods of "nothing to do" is a BAD idea. People don't play games just to chat. You can always chat up people in any MMOs, including WOW. If you think there is no socialization in WOW, you are mistaken. Where are all the guild and guild chat comes from?

You do NOT need down-time .. any down-time .. to have a chance to socialize.

I miss the timesi n DAoC when we had to sit on the pad with our medallion on, waiting on the NPC to come down to port us to the enemy frontier, all the chatting, joking and regular siege check was actually quite good, met some of my good online friends in that pad!

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Even for those in which your comment is true am I to sit here and to believe that the possibility totally escapes your mind that an inherent "but adjusted" variable is also in play here? Or do they have to specifiy it to you with each feature they mention? Sure, I think I could be on board with ditching instances and going back to camping mobs? I also think that each mob should be evaluated as to whether it is a high traffic quest mob or a rare item quest mob, and that the game should look at how many people are in the area with that quest and adjust up or down the spawn times.

 That won't help with high-end characters who are camping the boss for the rare drop so they can sell it or give it to lower-level toons.  That happens all the time, I've seen groups of top-end characters camping rare drop mobs for weeks or months at a time, 24/7.  Every time it respawns, they kill it, they get the drop, they get to set the prices on the sales because they're the only ones who can get the item.  Making it respawn faster won't help, it'll just make those characters richer.

Besides, even if you're going to modify the old-school elements, you'd have to modify them so dramatically in most  cases that the old-schoolers wouldn't want to play.  It's a matter of financial stability vs. minority desires.  There was a discusison around here not too long ago about scaling mobs.  They get harder and act differently depending on whether a soloer is playing or a group, therefore everyone gets a challenge and the game doesn't cater to one gameplay style over another.  The groupers hated it, they wanted mobs to *ONLY* work for groupers, they wanted it to be absurdly hard so that no soloer ould ever do the content and they'd be forced to group.  That's exactly the same thing that I foresee with modifying old-school content.  Either it stays primarily old-school, which will drive away the majority mainstream players, or it changes so much that the old-school players keep complaining.  I'm not seeing a middle ground.

I doubt that anyone really wants to wait 30 minutes on a a boat, for example. That said, I see nothing wrong with a 5 or 10 minutes wait. If anything it'll give those with ADD who cower at that little bit of time a chance to go to the bathroom, get a drink/smoke or go check on their kids/check facebook/make pub plans (for those who complain that they don't want downtime because they "have a life").

 Funny, people were saying they liked it in this very thread.  They hailed the downtime as forced socialization  because you really had nothing else to do and if people weren't talking, at least they could be beating each other's brains out.  I'd have a problem with a 5 or 10 minute wait because my playtime is limited and valuable.  I'm playing to have a good time, to be entertained.  I'd no more sit around waiting for a boat in a game that I'm paying for than I would go to a movie and sit around for 10 minutes watching a blank screen in the middle.

That's the problem (as I see it and I'm certainly not suggesting you you see it). Those older systems haven't seen subsequent iterations. They instead were dumped sum total for something totally else and the people that loved them but knew they could do with a little tweaking here or there were left hanging in the wind. And those aren't the only features that get brought up. As I said before, those are just the ones some folks keep focusing on because of the possible shock value they can get out of them in a counter argument. Especially when they don't even acknowledge that time variable of those, which seems to be causing all the fuss, can be pared down a little to not be as extreme as before but not be so insignificant.

 They were dumped because they didn't make the cut.  They were evolutionary dead ends.  The majority of people who liked them moved on to WoW-style games, as well as the millions of mainstream players who would never have played UO or EQ to  begin with.  The marketplace changed, you have to deal with it.

You're missing the point that to many, perhaps most players, *ANY* time variable will be too extreme and these are the people who pay the bills of MMO developers.  I don't want to wait 30 minutes to have fun.  I don't want to wait 10 minutes to have fun.  I want to have fun right now.  That's what I'm paying for.  I'll bet you anything that if you gated off an area with a 10 minute boat ride, that area would die a slow, lingering death.  People just wouldn't do it and if they had to, they'd complain long and loud about how long it took.  That's the MMO marketplace today and they have a lot more money than your group does, by several orders of magnitude.  Who do you think will get catered to?

And ultimately, I haven't seen one single person who likes the old school style demanding that all future games be made in that manner such that everyone has to play those type games. They're just looking for one modern made game to capture those things made by a company who has the money to even be in this business in the first place.

What you miss is that every  game out there has to make money.  All of them.  So you can't ask that some company throw away their financial future and millions of dollars in investor money to make your tiny little niche group happy.  The companies who have money have it because they make intelligent business decisions.  They know who their audience is and what their audience wants.  Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of MMO players do not want what you want.  It would be a crapshoot to even try to modify old-school mechanics into a new-school game for the reasons I outlined above. There's no guarantee that *ANYONE* would like it and that's millions of dollars and years of development down the drain if they're wrong.

So yes, it is too much to ask for a single game to cater to your minority playstyle, at least unless you can demonstrate that such a game has as much potential to make as much money as a modern day game would.  But every time I bring that up, old-schoolers whine "It's not our job!"  Of course it is.  You want the game, you have to show it's financially viable.  Of course, I think the old-schoolers know that it isn't, which is why they don't even try.  It's easier to whine about something you know is wrong than to try and prove it and have everyone else know it's wrong too.

Originally posted by Daywolf

Lets just pretend for a moment, just pretend, those are the two main issues that the old-school-players want in their game. If they want them, how come you say “no one wants them”? Are they no one?

As a financial force, no they are not.  Just because one guy somewhere wants some bizarre game mechanic doesn't mean their desire is worth taking into consideration.  Games are all about making money.  Either you bring a large contingent of people to the table that can pay enough to make the game mechanic worthwhile (while not having a mechanic that drives away other paying players) or you're not going to get what you want.

Nor should you.

Originally posted by Pedrob

I miss the timesi n DAoC when we had to sit on the pad with our medallion on, waiting on the NPC to come down to port us to the enemy frontier, all the chatting, joking and regular siege check was actually quite good, met some of my good online friends in that pad!

That is fine for you.  But if you force me to do this I will do mean things to you, since you are trying to torture me and waste my time. 

Many people want to force everyone into this or they feel that the mechanic itself won't work.  Well that is fine for you because you clearly value one benefit over the other penalty.  But if anyone tries to play the petty tyrant against me like that they will a gigantic "FUCK YOU". 

Realize this, these sorts of constraints are chains you are putting on other people.  This may or may not be a good idea.  But whenever you do this you better be really careful.  People are not stupid, they often act stupid but are not actually stupid, they can smell this stuff a mile away and they will only tolerate it for a VERY good reason especially the NA market.  I hate to bring culture into this but culture is extremely important because in essence that is what we are taking about; the laws and procedures of a community.

Anyone from a country that has a high amount of beuracracy foisted upon the common person will be more likely to tolerate this sort of stuff, simply because to them that will be the way of the world.  A few rare individuals will hate it even more than someone from an NA market, but by and large the population of a highly regulated and controling country will react very differently.

But in the end you are sitting on your high seat getting to decide what I will be forced to tolerate?  No think again.  I am not your bitch.  Everytime you envision games trying to do this you need to ask yourself "Will people be my bitch in exchange for the benefit?  Do I really want to make people my bitch anyway, maybe there is a better way to get the same effect?"

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Even for those in which your comment is true am I to sit here and to believe that the possibility totally escapes your mind that an inherent "but adjusted" variable is also in play here? Or do they have to specifiy it to you with each feature they mention? Sure, I think I could be on board with ditching instances and going back to camping mobs? I also think that each mob should be evaluated as to whether it is a high traffic quest mob or a rare item quest mob, and that the game should look at how many people are in the area with that quest and adjust up or down the spawn times.

 That won't help with high-end characters who are camping the boss for the rare drop so they can sell it or give it to lower-level toons.  That happens all the time, I've seen groups of top-end characters camping rare drop mobs for weeks or months at a time, 24/7.  Every time it respawns, they kill it, they get the drop, they get to set the prices on the sales because they're the only ones who can get the item.  Making it respawn faster won't help, it'll just make those characters richer.

Besides, even if you're going to modify the old-school elements, you'd have to modify them so dramatically in most  cases that the old-schoolers wouldn't want to play.  It's a matter of financial stability vs. minority desires.  There was a discusison around here not too long ago about scaling mobs.  They get harder and act differently depending on whether a soloer is playing or a group, therefore everyone gets a challenge and the game doesn't cater to one gameplay style over another.  The groupers hated it, they wanted mobs to *ONLY* work for groupers, they wanted it to be absurdly hard so that no soloer ould ever do the content and they'd be forced to group.  That's exactly the same thing that I foresee with modifying old-school content.  Either it stays primarily old-school, which will drive away the majority mainstream players, or it changes so much that the old-school players keep complaining.  I'm not seeing a middle ground.

I doubt that anyone really wants to wait 30 minutes on a a boat, for example. That said, I see nothing wrong with a 5 or 10 minutes wait. If anything it'll give those with ADD who cower at that little bit of time a chance to go to the bathroom, get a drink/smoke or go check on their kids/check facebook/make pub plans (for those who complain that they don't want downtime because they "have a life").

 Funny, people were saying they liked it in this very thread.  They hailed the downtime as forced socialization  because you really had nothing else to do and if people weren't talking, at least they could be beating each other's brains out.  I'd have a problem with a 5 or 10 minute wait because my playtime is limited and valuable.  I'm playing to have a good time, to be entertained.  I'd no more sit around waiting for a boat in a game that I'm paying for than I would go to a movie and sit around for 10 minutes watching a blank screen in the middle.

That's the problem (as I see it and I'm certainly not suggesting you you see it). Those older systems haven't seen subsequent iterations. They instead were dumped sum total for something totally else and the people that loved them but knew they could do with a little tweaking here or there were left hanging in the wind. And those aren't the only features that get brought up. As I said before, those are just the ones some folks keep focusing on because of the possible shock value they can get out of them in a counter argument. Especially when they don't even acknowledge that time variable of those, which seems to be causing all the fuss, can be pared down a little to not be as extreme as before but not be so insignificant.

 They were dumped because they didn't make the cut.  They were evolutionary dead ends.  The majority of people who liked them moved on to WoW-style games, as well as the millions of mainstream players who would never have played UO or EQ to  begin with.  The marketplace changed, you have to deal with it.

You're missing the point that to many, perhaps most players, *ANY* time variable will be too extreme and these are the people who pay the bills of MMO developers.  I don't want to wait 30 minutes to have fun.  I don't want to wait 10 minutes to have fun.  I want to have fun right now.  That's what I'm paying for.  I'll bet you anything that if you gated off an area with a 10 minute boat ride, that area would die a slow, lingering death.  People just wouldn't do it and if they had to, they'd complain long and loud about how long it took.  That's the MMO marketplace today and they have a lot more money than your group does, by several orders of magnitude.  Who do you think will get catered to?

And ultimately, I haven't seen one single person who likes the old school style demanding that all future games be made in that manner such that everyone has to play those type games. They're just looking for one modern made game to capture those things made by a company who has the money to even be in this business in the first place.

What you miss is that every  game out there has to make money.  All of them.  So you can't ask that some company throw away their financial future and millions of dollars in investor money to make your tiny little niche group happy.  The companies who have money have it because they make intelligent business decisions.  They know who their audience is and what their audience wants.  Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of MMO players do not want what you want.  It would be a crapshoot to even try to modify old-school mechanics into a new-school game for the reasons I outlined above. There's no guarantee that *ANYONE* would like it and that's millions of dollars and years of development down the drain if they're wrong.

So yes, it is too much to ask for a single game to cater to your minority playstyle, at least unless you can demonstrate that such a game has as much potential to make as much money as a modern day game would.  But every time I bring that up, old-schoolers whine "It's not our job!"  Of course it is.  You want the game, you have to show it's financially viable.  Of course, I think the old-schoolers know that it isn't, which is why they don't even try.  It's easier to whine about something you know is wrong than to try and prove it and have everyone else know it's wrong too.

And you have to deal with the point that there are more people out there than you want that like old school style games. No matter how much you try to trivialize it. As others have said those features ar slowly creeping their way back in because your current style of games aren't making the cut and getting the WoW numbers. And your claims of "minor playstyle" are utter rubbish when considered that the freakish variable of WoW, whose numbers are greatly composed of "social and hip" people who play because Paris Hilton says "it's hot (tm)" and Mr. T. says to get a Nightelf Mohawk, yeah, marketing genious I'll give them that but it disqulifies it to be used in these talks. Heh, yeah, "your group" has alot more money, and you turn around and keep putting it back into WoW. That should tell investors something right there: You ain't leaving WoW for something that mirrors it (which has been tried multiple times) so try something very different.

That said, comparing Eve to other themeparks whos subs are more toward the norm, there is a sizeable market. We're just going to have to look at CCP as the only AAA old schooler company out there and if they maintain that with World of Darkness Online continue to support them. Eve continues to grow (at 350K+ now) and considering its hindrance (no avatars and it's been proven people prefer to play with avatars) it's doing quite well.

Now, that's not to say that you have to like it or even admit to it (which I doubt you ever would). But I've demonstrated to you that an old-school type game (Eve) has that money making potential. Yet I still don't understand why you and others champion so much trying to shout down anyone who says they'd like to see more of this variety. The only thing I can conclude is that you want every single AAA game that comes out to be made for you.

If that were the case one could always just play an older MMO. I know several that are still in existence. I play Ryzom and it wsa released around the time of WoW and has some of the features I have come to really enjoy from the older generation of MMOs. I happen to think that older MMOs are the better ones.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Daywolf

Lets just pretend for a moment, just pretend, those are the two main issues that the old-school-players want in their game. If they want them, how come you say “no one wants them”? Are they no one?

As a financial force, no they are not.  Just because one guy somewhere wants some bizarre game mechanic doesn't mean their desire is worth taking into consideration.  Games are all about making money.  Either you bring a large contingent of people to the table that can pay enough to make the game mechanic worthwhile (while not having a mechanic that drives away other paying players) or you're not going to get what you want.

Nor should you.

So now it's no one to one person. There is just no reasoning, end of line.

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Daywolf

Originally posted by Moaky07

 

 No there isnt anyway to know about a present full feature MMO sandbox....but those of ya that keep spouting on about games like SWG sure indeed were the niche before WOW.

 

The biggest sandbox to date is EVE with ~350k....and it still doesnt top EQ1 sub numbers from 04 era which stood at 450k.

 

You guys belong to the virtual reality/sims clubs of America....which wasnt popular among us longtime video-gamers back then. Well before MMOs went mainstream, bringing in a mulititude of newer gamers which joined in the WOW phase.

 

That's right it was a niche, where were these "longtime video-gamers" when many of us were playing MUD's before we developed them into what is now called old school mmorpg's? Most of the pioneers of the old school mmorpg's were mud developers, and old school mmorpg's reflected that.

See, I don't care about WoW, I played it for a bit and it's not the experience the niche has been playing for years. If people want to play WoW, that's fine, but when they go to all the other game sites and say we want this and we want that and the devs listen to them because of their numbers, well it destroys that niche, especially in the end when they wind up not playing those games and they are left for ghost towns.

 

Well, you can't really blame developers to listen to their customers. Niches are being destroyed everyday in the business world. Corner independent bookstore is giving way to B&N, Borders & Amazon. There is no going back. Ditto for MMORPGs.

If you don't want to move forward with the genre, be left behind and play niche games.

Plus, "they" have as much right to go to game sites and state what THEY want as you.

Which is cool. It's just more often than not the "THEY" you refer to get down right beligerent with the "they" that I guess you'd put me into for even mentioning some of the things I'd like. Outright attack mode. Evidence here on these forums and on the TOR forums if it is required. Rarely do I see those coming from my side of the table (not all of whom I agree with on every little feature) launch a nuclear verbal attack on another for liking a certain style of gameplay. I can count, for certain, 3-4 individuals in this thread who have and if they had addressed me in the real world, face to face, in this manner they'd be on their way to a hospital (or worse) and I'd be on my way to county or federal.

I still just don't see why it's so terrible to have AAA versions that appeal to both sides. Currently AAA means around 300K to 500K subscriptions. A goal which both types can achieve.

 Really Khal? You wanna play that "We are innocent card"?

How many "if you dont enjoy sandbox games you are an idiot" threads have you spouted out in alone? It is  an epidemic on this site....the same threads basically re-gurgitated ad-nauseum.

The bottom line is this....even before WoW, themeparks controlled the NA subs charts thanks to my native EQ1. The thing it did share with old sandboxes was the persistent open world. Later themeparks have gotten away from it to their detriment. Instead many went with instance hubs, thus further diminishing the role of communites.

With the influx of new gamers, of the WoW generation, it has further pushed the ratios of those who prefer directed content vs those who are content to sit around the camp fire telling stories. Which goes back to the analogy I ripped from a DnD book I once read....Role Play vs Roll Play. Roll players(be it PVE or PVP) far outnumber the Role players(tradeskills and dedicated role players). The proportions arent even close.

As far as what constitutes the AAA rating...I would disagree. I would think of it more in terms of budget used to produce a game. The sandbox crowd should be looking to indie developers. CCP as a prime example of what happens if folks support their sandbox style. Pity other games havent had that fortune(Ryzom/DF/etc).

Originally posted by Aercus

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

Well said. I would place money on #1 too.

Note that these old school stuff have been TRIED. It is not like they are new or innovative or anything. There are good reasons why they are abandoned.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Aercus

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

 

Well said. I would place money on #1 too.

Note that these old school stuff have been TRIED. It is not like they are new or innovative or anything. There are good reasons why they are abandoned.

Neither of these options is right.

No, there is no HUGE potential market to be exploited...

There is just no market in which a HUGE profit can be attained.

Make no mistake... there is a market for old school (walked uphill both ways in the snow) gaming values . It's just a small market. Oh snap I said the "S" word.

It was abandoned because it isn't going to make stockholders obscenely wealthy due to the fact that old school stuff does not cater to the lowest common intellectual denominator. You know the people that don't actually know anything just look everything up on google.

The current trend is developing for no-patience, no-thinking, no-time to game gamers. Of which there are more of those than patient, thinking, dedicated hard core gamers.

The kids that do actually have the time to play, have never been exposed to games that actually take some effort, so you can't blame them, they are just innocent bystanders sucked up in the whirlwind or money hungry game companies, and since they know nothing else, they are also less likely to accept something different.

That, my friends, is the real reason, the reason which governs almost everything... the almighty $.

Originally posted by Farulosonoth

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Aercus

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

 

Well said. I would place money on #1 too.

Note that these old school stuff have been TRIED. It is not like they are new or innovative or anything. There are good reasons why they are abandoned.

No, there is no HUGE potential market...

There is just no market in which a HUGE profit can be attained.

Make no mistake... there is a market for "these old school stuff".

It was abandoned because it isn't going to make stockholders obscenely wealthy due to the fact that "these old school stuff" does not cater to the lowest common intellectual denominator.

That, my friends, is the real reason, the reason which governs almost everything... the almighty $.

Oh please, get off your high horse. There was no more intellect needed for old school games, just more patience. I played MMO's before I started college and after I finished college. I have enjoyd the ones after I finished a lot more than the once i played before. By most standards I have become more intellectual after my education thus negating your point from my situation.

Gamas are not made by charitable organizations, nor have they ever been. So yes, it's all about the dollars. Just like its always been.

Originally posted by Moaky07

With the influx of new gamers, of the WoW generation, it has further pushed the ratios of those who prefer directed content vs those who are content to sit around the camp fire telling stories.

You get back into the bad formula, this "WoW generation" (fork in the road)  is locked onto World of Warcraft. Many of these only started playing mmo's because Blizzard got into the market, hear of Warcraft, Diablo, Star Craft? RTS's and Hanck-n-Slash, not mmorpg's. But it's Blizzard, so they took the carrot, and nothing else will do no matter how much they pester other game companies into doing their bidding.

Publishers are stuck on this phenomenon, they think they can abandon the traditional mmorpg style and draw from the 10 million subscriber pool, looks like big money, but they just cant break it, they have been trying for a few years now wile they loose their subscriber base or fail on start-ups. In the end, they fail and collect food stamps. At some point some will return, start new projects with the mmorpg community in mind, and their games will float as they did before. But they are only beginning to realize the rude awakening now as once popular games (now changed) of the mmorpg community fail and new ones are ignored by the fickled Blizzard players.

I agree on one point though, at least in part, the indie community is getting there, maybe not the spectacular graphics that the people seeking carrots want (better than awful though), but the engines and features are emerging for the core mmorpg players to get back to community based gaming. Not the end, but may be for a time as publishers work on finally getting a clue and then spend the years to dev mmorpg’s again, with both ‘m’s’. That may happen before or when Blizzard releases the next carrot an all their players funnel to that game, which may not necessarily be an mog.

Originally posted by Aercus

Oh please, get off your high horse. There was no more intellect needed for old school games, just more patience. I played MMO's before I started college and after I finished college. I have enjoyd the ones after I finished a lot more than the once i played before. By most standards I have become more intellectual after my education thus negating your point from my situation.

Gamas are not made by charitable organizations, nor have they ever been. So yes, it's all about the dollars. Just like its always been.

I know... the truth hurts.

Try not to take it too personally. 

Even in your rebuttle, you confirmed my entire post with your last sentence.

We are all entitled to our opinions, even the impatient.

I find it amusing and disturbing that anyone who appreciates thought provoking, patience and critical thinking are pounced upon with such disdain when speaking against the masses.

Originally posted by Farulosonoth

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Aercus

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

 

Well said. I would place money on #1 too.

Note that these old school stuff have been TRIED. It is not like they are new or innovative or anything. There are good reasons why they are abandoned.

Neither of these options is right.

No, there is no HUGE potential market to be exploited...

There is just no market in which a HUGE profit can be attained.

Make no mistake... there is a market for old school (walked uphill both ways in the snow) gaming values .

It was abandoned because it isn't going to make stockholders obscenely wealthy due to the fact that old school stuff does not cater to the lowest common intellectual denominator. You know the people that don't actually know anything just look everything up on google. This is the current trend, developing for no-patience, no-thinking, no-time to game gamers. Of which there are more of those than patient, thinking, dedicated hard core gamers.

That, my friends, is the real reason, the reason which governs almost everything... the almighty $.

^This.

Despite the ridiculous arguments between console players and pc players, game developers have been saying for years that every genre has been growing every single year to date.  If there were 5 million mmo players, or old school, pre-WoW, there are probably more than 20 million after WoW.  Of course the AAA companies know that it was the casual themepark nature of WoW that brought most of those players.  And they are just going to chase that money.  But to say there is zero market, or even more ridiculous, that that style was dying, is absurd.

This threat asked a simple question directed to people who currently don't have many options to their style of play.  And not surprisingly, the same 4 to 5 members show up to tear it down, and turn it into an argument.  You really don't understand why these threads pop up?  You have literally, as stated by yourselves, hundreds of choices.  We have, what... 3?  And they are all bloody FFA PvP games, which I don't care for personally.

If the answer is because some old schoolers belittle the new players, yeah, I agree its taken too far often.  But in the same light, most of your counter-arguments ( again, why does it always have to devolve into arguments when you already have tons of games in your playstyle? ) are taking the most extreme forms of the old game, or even better, mechanics which didn't work, and brushing the whole genre with those.

Open FFA PvP, huge worthless downtime ( 30 min boat rides or whatever ), harsh death penalties and spawn camping does not have to represent the old mechanics, just as pointless kill boars quests, cartoony graphics and instanced only battlegrounds do not represent themeparks.  Those are all just flawed designs that should be improved.  I would bet even your favorite game has stuff in it you don't like.

As always, people devolve into arguing for the sake of arguing, with exaggerated facts and idiotic conclusions.

Bravo.

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Even for those in which your comment is true am I to sit here and to believe that the possibility totally escapes your mind that an inherent "but adjusted" variable is also in play here? Or do they have to specifiy it to you with each feature they mention? Sure, I think I could be on board with ditching instances and going back to camping mobs? I also think that each mob should be evaluated as to whether it is a high traffic quest mob or a rare item quest mob, and that the game should look at how many people are in the area with that quest and adjust up or down the spawn times.

 That won't help with high-end characters who are camping the boss for the rare drop so they can sell it or give it to lower-level toons.  That happens all the time, I've seen groups of top-end characters camping rare drop mobs for weeks or months at a time, 24/7.  Every time it respawns, they kill it, they get the drop, they get to set the prices on the sales because they're the only ones who can get the item.  Making it respawn faster won't help, it'll just make those characters richer.

Besides, even if you're going to modify the old-school elements, you'd have to modify them so dramatically in most  cases that the old-schoolers wouldn't want to play.  It's a matter of financial stability vs. minority desires.  There was a discusison around here not too long ago about scaling mobs.  They get harder and act differently depending on whether a soloer is playing or a group, therefore everyone gets a challenge and the game doesn't cater to one gameplay style over another.  The groupers hated it, they wanted mobs to *ONLY* work for groupers, they wanted it to be absurdly hard so that no soloer ould ever do the content and they'd be forced to group.  That's exactly the same thing that I foresee with modifying old-school content.  Either it stays primarily old-school, which will drive away the majority mainstream players, or it changes so much that the old-school players keep complaining.  I'm not seeing a middle ground.

I doubt that anyone really wants to wait 30 minutes on a a boat, for example. That said, I see nothing wrong with a 5 or 10 minutes wait. If anything it'll give those with ADD who cower at that little bit of time a chance to go to the bathroom, get a drink/smoke or go check on their kids/check facebook/make pub plans (for those who complain that they don't want downtime because they "have a life").

 Funny, people were saying they liked it in this very thread.  They hailed the downtime as forced socialization  because you really had nothing else to do and if people weren't talking, at least they could be beating each other's brains out.  I'd have a problem with a 5 or 10 minute wait because my playtime is limited and valuable.  I'm playing to have a good time, to be entertained.  I'd no more sit around waiting for a boat in a game that I'm paying for than I would go to a movie and sit around for 10 minutes watching a blank screen in the middle.

That's the problem (as I see it and I'm certainly not suggesting you you see it). Those older systems haven't seen subsequent iterations. They instead were dumped sum total for something totally else and the people that loved them but knew they could do with a little tweaking here or there were left hanging in the wind. And those aren't the only features that get brought up. As I said before, those are just the ones some folks keep focusing on because of the possible shock value they can get out of them in a counter argument. Especially when they don't even acknowledge that time variable of those, which seems to be causing all the fuss, can be pared down a little to not be as extreme as before but not be so insignificant.

 They were dumped because they didn't make the cut.  They were evolutionary dead ends.  The majority of people who liked them moved on to WoW-style games, as well as the millions of mainstream players who would never have played UO or EQ to  begin with.  The marketplace changed, you have to deal with it.

You're missing the point that to many, perhaps most players, *ANY* time variable will be too extreme and these are the people who pay the bills of MMO developers.  I don't want to wait 30 minutes to have fun.  I don't want to wait 10 minutes to have fun.  I want to have fun right now.  That's what I'm paying for.  I'll bet you anything that if you gated off an area with a 10 minute boat ride, that area would die a slow, lingering death.  People just wouldn't do it and if they had to, they'd complain long and loud about how long it took.  That's the MMO marketplace today and they have a lot more money than your group does, by several orders of magnitude.  Who do you think will get catered to?

And ultimately, I haven't seen one single person who likes the old school style demanding that all future games be made in that manner such that everyone has to play those type games. They're just looking for one modern made game to capture those things made by a company who has the money to even be in this business in the first place.

What you miss is that every  game out there has to make money.  All of them.  So you can't ask that some company throw away their financial future and millions of dollars in investor money to make your tiny little niche group happy.  The companies who have money have it because they make intelligent business decisions.  They know who their audience is and what their audience wants.  Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of MMO players do not want what you want.  It would be a crapshoot to even try to modify old-school mechanics into a new-school game for the reasons I outlined above. There's no guarantee that *ANYONE* would like it and that's millions of dollars and years of development down the drain if they're wrong.

So yes, it is too much to ask for a single game to cater to your minority playstyle, at least unless you can demonstrate that such a game has as much potential to make as much money as a modern day game would.  But every time I bring that up, old-schoolers whine "It's not our job!"  Of course it is.  You want the game, you have to show it's financially viable.  Of course, I think the old-schoolers know that it isn't, which is why they don't even try.  It's easier to whine about something you know is wrong than to try and prove it and have everyone else know it's wrong too.

If you played as much as you type in forums, you would be a hardcore gamer. In fact I don't think you should have an issue with downtime to chat in a game. That is what we do on these forums and we keep coming back.

First off a game can't and shouldn't please both. I can honestly say I do hate 80 % + of Wowplayers. They know nothing about MMORPG's but still claiming they'd have a clue, its obvious most of them don't. This thread is the best proof for the big of returning old school mechanics. If things like long downtime, campspots, no instances and slow progression are keeping people like uquipu, Aercus, nariusseldon and Cephus away --->instant better community.

If I've learned one thing from the ez-mode MMO's (they aren't really MMORPG's) its this: give the instant crowd one finger and they'll ask for the full hand -->endless dumbing down. Hell this whole thing wouldn't even be a problem, if our beloved games were still the same but because of some stupid greedy companies they all got dumbed down to please a crowd that already has a game. Vanguard could have become our new home its so sad what happened to this game, hopefully FF14 will be our next savior without having to deal with the ROLLplaying crow, we want to play ROLEplaying games. If you can't deal with down time, camp spots and slow progression leave the game alone better for everyone :)

as a side note: had WAR tried a more oldschool (Daoc fashioned) skin the game wouldn't gimp at a 100k base, they'd have 500k + and a loyal playerbase.  There is a really big market for oldschool games just the stupid big dogs are blindsided by the game that shall not be named.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

And you have to deal with the point that there are more people out there than you want that like old school style games.

Prove it.  Where is your evidence?  Where is your market research?  Come on, you're making a claim, now back it up or stop making the claim.

I'll wait.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Aercus

In the end it boils down to one of two things:

1. There us no old school MMO because there isn't a market for it.

2. No company has been smart enough to exploit the huge potential market.

Why hasn't there been a true old school for 10 years and hundreds of game launches? My bet is on number 1. If you think number 2 is true you have an excellent opportunity to get rich. 

 

Well said. I would place money on #1 too.

Note that these old school stuff have been TRIED. It is not like they are new or innovative or anything. There are good reasons why they are abandoned.

Exactly.  If there was a huge market for old-school MMOs, people would be making old-school MMOs.  The market goes where the money is.  If there is no money in old-school MMOs, which clearly there isn't, then the market won't go there.

It's not difficult if you actually think about it, but a lot of these people are reacting entirely emotionally, not intellectually.  They want it, whether or not they have any rational reason to think they can get it.  Then they treat it like a giant conspiracy by the MMO industry to specifically deny them these wildly popular games that would make billions if anyone ever made them, but they're not, just out of spite.

Give me a break.