In Part I and Part II of Adam Tingle's Fighting Talk: Old vs New MMOs, "experienced" games were pitted against "the new kids on the block" in categories including community, solo play, instances and more. In today's installment of the three-part look at Old vs New MMOs, Adam discusses Guilds, Crafting and the Time Sink factor. See which group comes out victorious (for today)! Let us know your thoughts, as always, on the forums!

Welcome back to part three of Old vs. New MMORPGs. By now you should be firmly sitting inside a camp of opinion and chanting for your champion. Who will emerge victorious? Who will be named winner? Well I don’t know, this isn’t part four yet, you’re such a pushy reader you know that? All that is left to say is: Let’s Get Ready To Rummmbbbllle! (for the third time)

Check out Fighting Talk: Old vs New MMOs Part 3.

Wow!!!! I'm going to disagree big time with you when it comes to crafting in older mmos.

Crafting was everything, the older games basically revolved around crafting.

Crafting in todays games are a side mini game while in older games crafting was the life blood!

I honestly think the OP did that on purpose for a reaction even the old school mmo haters know how important crafting was in those games.

After reading that I've honestly lost all interest in the rest of this series...

Edit: Man... I'm generally pissed at this dudes opinion. I just feel really strongly about crafting in older games. From UO to EVE crafting has been much more indepth and generally important game wide than in todays offerings. Only two games could make a case for half decent crafting.  Vanguard & Fallen Earth other than that crafting has been worthless imo.

What game is the pic from that shows the statue and the painting?

I completely disagree on the matter of crafting.

Ten years ago, crafting tended to be designed for and performed by crafters. It was an alternative way to play the game that didn't (necessarily) involving slaughtering thousands of mobs. And crafting was powerful -- in UO, if you wanted a good weapon, you asked someone to make it for you.

The trend recently is to dumb down crafting, to make it quick, cheap, and unsatisfying -- something everyone dabbles in and no one specializes in. And crafted items are, at best, on par with the best quest rewards. We don't make anything for ourselves anymore. We queue up at amusement park rides that hand us what we want when we reach the end.

Originally posted by UnleadedRev

What game is the pic from that shows the statue and the painting?

 

That, believe it or not, is from the "old" camp: Everquest: House of Thule (which launches in October). :)

I'm guessing he's never crafted old or new school.   Old school =  involved crafting that had an actual purpose.  New School = collect a million non stated resources,  hit the go button and craft 10,000 useless widgets.  When you are bored go grind some gear you will actually use. 

agree with oher posters. No sure what new game he is playing where crafted items actually matter. I can think of one, I am sure there are others but certianl not major titles.

I too disagree very much in case of the crafting.

SWG was released 2003 and had the best Crafting and Economy of all times.

Horizon at release had a thoughtfull crafting system.

Many Crafters in Daoc made a fortune bach in the days even the mechanics of the crafting process were rather simple in this case.

In old games crafting had a purpose while in new games loot and questitems are much stronger than crafted stuff and only consumables are in need.

Besider the rather boring crafting mewchanics in most of the new games that handle crafting as a checklist feature and making it a stepchild of gameplay.

Of the new games i know Vanguard had ambitious crafting and Eve is an "old" game.

Are you out of your ever loving mind? The crafting in all these modern(post 2004) games is an f'ing joke. That's it and that's all.

UO, SWG-PreNGE (especially...check that, king of the crafting hill), Ryzom and ATITD. Those games should be the NORM as far as where crafting begins in an MMO.

Originally posted by stormwaltz

I completely disagree on the matter of crafting.

 

Ten years ago, crafting tended to be designed for and performed by crafters. It was an alternative way to play the game that didn't (necessarily) involving slaughtering thousands of mobs. And crafting was powerful -- in UO, if you wanted a good weapon, you asked someone to make it for you.

 

The trend recently is to dumb down crafting, to make it quick, cheap, and unsatisfying -- something everyone dabbles in and no one specializes in. And crafted items are, at best, on par with the best quest rewards. We don't make anything for ourselves anymore. We queue up at amusement park rides that hand us what we want when we reach the end.

Couldn't be more true. I played a dedicated crafter in UO, and it was an awesome escape from my PvP character, or the mage I used to chill with in Wind. The fact that almost any item that mattered to players in the game was craftable made a huge difference, and the fact that Darkfall Online didn't have a stat cap made me unhappy for this very reason: dedicated crafters simply weren't important at that point (even though they exist, to some extent). Of all things that I'd like to see return to the MMO's of today, it would be a crafting system that actually puts the important, usable items that everyone wants in the hands of the players to make (and open world housing, that'd be sweet too).

Scoring was fine... up until crafting.

The crafting in newer games is absolutely horrible compared to that of older MMOs.

The absolute best crafting of any MMO to date, is Star Wars Galaxies, and that falls under the "older" generation of MMOs. Second place for crafting goes to Ultima Online. There are other older MMOs like Ryzom and such that others mentioned that were also good. The majority of other older MMOs had crafting that was on par or slightly better than today's myriad of shallow  crafting systems.

Crafting was by no means amazing in every older MMO, but it was better than than pretty much every single recent MMO. Older MMOs also had UO and SWG which are the undesputable champions of MMO crafting systems.

At best, the scores should be reversed. At worst, they should at least be equal because old MMO crafting wasn't any worse than today's shallow and bland crafting.

Seriously, fix your scoring.

As many others have stated I disagree on the crafting side, but then such is life. I still half expect you to swing this one around to newer mmos in the final part just to appease the current crop of casuals.

I love this series, it highlights almost 100% of what I believe. Seems strange to me that if someone disagrees with a small portion of your article, they blow up about it, and leave out the parts they do agree with.     Why would anyone compliment? It is so much easier to attack!

The social part of new MMO's is completely gone. They are so user friendly, that they are not difficult any more. Most games go this route because the market is larger for that audience. I have yet to see a game come out that reflects what alot of people are seeking in new MMOs: a challenge.

Couldn't be more wrong on the crafting, wth man!

The rest of the scoring in part three I am in agreement with and have been agreeing, in most part, with the previous two articles, but there is no way on God's green earth that newer crafting systems are better than old crafting systems.

Just wow, I am stunned

I have to say it seems odd to bash newer games for being more accessible. Allowing players who actually have a life to attend to to experience all the content without having to grind for hours on end to see the endgame can surely only be a good thing? Sure it shouldn't be done at the expense of rewarding players who do have lots of time to put in, but I feel that many modern games do achieve this.

I personally don't think much of this series. It does make some good points, but overall it just seems like a massive generalisation and an extended "back in my day..." rant.

You, sir Adam Tingle, are not capable of bringing out a proper fighting talk.

Why on earth do you count EVE a a "post-2004" game?! What part of that game reminds you of WoW?!

Amazing column, wrong in every sentence.

Hmm, for AO I have to say that even if crafting was simple (just combine two items to get third) there is wide variety of things to do with it and also best armor and best items are often crafted. Might also rely on point that item upgrading is often done by crating and might need acctual crafters to do, anyone could theoreticly do them, but only certain classes are effective and it hinders other aspects of gameplay...

On, other hand games like AoC which I started leveling crafting around lauch are just burdesom grind, I mean make a few sets of worthless armor to level? Just a boring grind game...

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

As many others have stated I disagree on the crafting side, but then such is life. I still half expect you to swing this one around to newer mmos in the final part just to appease the current crop of casuals.

My feelings right there, I wonder if the score is being kept artificially close so that the new MMOs somehow flip it around win :P

I wonder if FE shoudl be counted as older even though it is newer, hehe.

this column is so biased to older games and influenced by nostalgia, it makes me sick