Originally posted by phantomghost

One day maybe a good developer will take what EQ was before the days of Planes of Power and modernize it and release it. It would be so nice to have what EQ was again.

Well SOE is developing EQ Next which is suppose to give the feel of EQ gameplay  just updated.  Of course, I am sure it will not be quite the same nor feel as good, but I think it can come close.  For example, I believe stuff such as PoP and after that made the game a bit easier will be implemented.  I do not hate that.  I played earlier when I spent hours traveling to get to my next leveling area.  I did enjoy both.  In reality, I just want that overall gameplay style to come back and I am willing to wait and hopeful they do follow through with the productions.  That is why I am still currently subscribed to EQ, even though I do not play it much any more, I will support them just for the possibility this game is released.

 

With PoP they made it less time require to travel, but IMO the raiding in PoP was very fun for me.  This was about the time I became a hardcore raider and not just a casual raider.  I remember killing the bosses to flag people to move on, going back to flag those who missed, going back to gear up because we cannot progress.  I remember forming guild groups to grind out AA's just to be more prepared for the next attempts.  Overall, I though EQ did a great job evolving the game to suit the needs, unfortunately populations declined and they had to resort to making the game more soloable because it is all people can do when there are 2 people in a zone.

It sounds good yes but those things that made EQ easy ruined the community that EQ was. The auction market killed the EC tunnel for selling. The easy travel killed the need for friends lists as you no longer needed a druid to give you a lift someplace. I remember when the travel spires came out. I could just hop all over Everquest without much thought at all. It made me sad to be honest as I saw immediatly how it killed part of what made EQ EQ. I was a Shaman and made a bit of income selling SOW's. Not any longer once POP came out. POP also introduced instances which is the last nail in killing the realism of the game. No more trains, no more camps just you own little private world to which all the spoils are yours. Fake Fake Fake - No thanks.

I will never forget my first run from Everfrost to Freeport. What a rush!

I'm always in hope for a good group of programmers starting a project. The more options the better more job opening ect, and I miss that old feeling of game companies having their own graphics/game engines.  Now days it seems like they are all using the same one, how fresh is that.

I test games all the time for idea's of all sorts of genres, i hobbist in programming and game design atm. Took 10 years out of school to be a cook and a gamer and hobbist programmer, it got kind of old so, currently im doing an AS in EET and hoping i can stick it out for a BS in CS in the future. The game industry is where I would like to be in the end but who ever really knows what's in store. Ultimatly I would like to see my mmo unfold and become a reality. But in the end it's all really for enjoyment, but if you don't try it's never going to happen. If you try and fail it's better then not trying at all... and all that jazz.

I find the hardest part is getting yourself to do something that's full of headaches and problems just in the learning and adaptations of your techniques along the way.  All the time having to not do other entertainments, so you can get the understanding needed to make a game of todays standards.  Not only that your going to need to start a company so you have enough man power to get it done.

The past has shown that it is possible, Macintosh, Microsoft, IDsoftware, Origin, hell the whole pc revolution and starting of, was practicly done with new companies and people of hobbist nature. It's an industry of pretty low resource costs compared to others, you just have to pay man hours and electricty and equipment, but no cost for produtions resources besides cd's and paper once and only if you even do a box set these days. These companies with billions being spent on development is more from structure then anything, anarchy online was made from a small group as well as companies above, you just have to find the right approach, or be willing to do the work yourself, finding the time and sticking with it.  Most companies probably fail from lack of devotion, people leaving from stuggles or work problems, a down fall in moral that even the leader starts to feel and eventually a lack of efforts all around. Everyone may have to work other jobs and put efforts in the project for free, rewards to come latter, a hard thing for sure to accomplish, but this type of group I beleave most of the above were at one point. Sure you can get investments but your probably going to lose control and your innovative idea is going to turn into just another clone.

Stick with it, if it's in your bones, sounds like you would like to be part of a project one day.

And nothing says you can't work for a company, start a company, sell a company, work for a company, circle around and do it again. I wish more people already in the industry would make a split even, find a group of people and start something different.  IMO we need more groups of their own thinking, instead of these mass groups where your forced into someone elses thinking.  Not that, that's bad, it's needed but not so strictly as it seems to be morphing into.

In short, just trying to say, sitting and waiting brings nothing good.  Nothing but someone elses idea's anyway...

And, there is no guarantee for success or failure.

It sounds good yes but those things that made EQ easy ruined the community that EQ was. The auction market killed the EC tunnel for selling. The easy travel killed the need for friends lists as you no longer needed a druid to give you a lift someplace. I remember when the travel spires came out. I could just hop all over Everquest without much thought at all. It made me sad to be honest as I saw immediatly how it killed part of what made EQ EQ. I was a Shaman and made a bit of income selling SOW's. Not any longer once POP came out. POP also introduced instances which is the last nail in killing the realism of the game. No more trains, no more camps just you own little private world to which all the spoils are yours. Fake Fake Fake - No thanks.

I will never forget my first run from Everfrost to Freeport. What a rush!

I think GoD introduced instances.  Because I know people use to fight for PoT and all other PoP mobs.  They did implement an instance for time, later to accomdate the numerous guilds fighting for a week respawn.

I did enjoy many of the old stuff such as EC tunnels and forming groups and 2 people go claim a camp for the members on their way, then a whole group comes up and fighting over it begins.  Trains are intentionally pulled.  It was very fun.

Originally posted by Painlezz

In my experience, "old school EQ gamers" are the ones who tend to enjoy the F2P games most and are actually willing to only play for free and farm all of the shit... 

Meaning they don't support the developers enough to make it worth appealing to them.

Plus, there are just far too few EQ old school gamers to be profitable anymore...

Personally I hate F2P games. They are like penny slots in vegas. Sure a penny sounds cheap until you find out you have to play 500 to do a Max bet which gives the Max reward. Sure you can play just 9 lines but you might as well just keep your penny as playing that way is a waste of time.

Originally posted by Roqoco

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

Actually this here is a really good point.  Now that gaming is no longer a kids only endeavor (not that it ever was entirely, but moreso now than ever) since many kids from the 80's and 90's still play as adults, we have the situation of making a game intellectually stimulating for both youngish kids, older kids, young adults, and older adults.  Very hard to please all of them.  And very hard to make it intellectually stimulating for all of them.

Actually in the 1980s/90s *pc* gaming was close to an adults only environment, since very few young kids had access to a suitable pc in the first place, as they were very expensive. And further, since it was pretty tricky to configure a pc to run games at all, due to memory limitations, most players were techies of one sort or another. That's why a lot of older gamers have a background in programming and other IT related skills and are of above average intelligence /duck and run.      

 

I disagree.  Most PC games were still played by kids in my opinion.  I was a gamer since the 1970's and my parents didn't play any games on the PC but I did.  For every game geared towards adults there were probably dozens geared towards kids.  Just because parents own the PCs doesn't mean their kids didn't play them.  Kids don't own anything then or now:  their parents buy them their xbox just like my parents bought me my PC and Atari 2600 (I did eventually buy my own PC in high school but most of my friends played their parents PC).  My friends who didn't have PCs came over and we played on mine.

But regardless, my point still stands.  Many MMO's try to capture gamers of all ages and the least common denominator aspect comes in and being "pro" is achievable by 12 year olds.  Thats fine, but it doesn't scratch the part of my brain that likes to sift through data and analysis.  And who likes to solve problems without internet walkthroughs.

Originally posted by phantomghost

It sounds good yes but those things that made EQ easy ruined the community that EQ was. The auction market killed the EC tunnel for selling. The easy travel killed the need for friends lists as you no longer needed a druid to give you a lift someplace. I remember when the travel spires came out. I could just hop all over Everquest without much thought at all. It made me sad to be honest as I saw immediatly how it killed part of what made EQ EQ. I was a Shaman and made a bit of income selling SOW's. Not any longer once POP came out. POP also introduced instances which is the last nail in killing the realism of the game. No more trains, no more camps just you own little private world to which all the spoils are yours. Fake Fake Fake - No thanks.

I will never forget my first run from Everfrost to Freeport. What a rush!

I think GoD introduced instances.  Because I know people use to fight for PoT and all other PoP mobs.  They did implement an instance for time, later to accomdate the numerous guilds fighting for a week respawn.

 

I did enjoy many of the old stuff such as EC tunnels and forming groups and 2 people go claim a camp for the members on their way, then a whole group comes up and fighting over it begins.  Trains are intentionally pulled.  It was very fun.

If memory servers the very first instance in EQ was the one in Everfrost. I can't remember if it was an expansion or a patch that put it there.

POP was the first big Instance expansion and ruined EQ for me due to the keying. I live on the West Coast and was in one of the top 3 guilds on my server. In order to move past the first 3 instances you needed keys. My guild did key runs early so by time I got home I missed them, fell behind and then had to sit there and watch my guild progress without me. It sucked and sucked bad.

Basically EQ was great until SOE got their hands on it and Brad sold out.

i agree with ColumbiaTrue . . games have gone downhill from when i used to play EQ  . . . all these little kids have no idea what tough is in a game . . or challenge . . they get everything just handed to them . . lame MMOs . . i've tried countless since EQ and all are trash . . some had their good moments til they tried to make it into another WoW or the like . . just horrid . . due to these "easy mode" MMOs every idiot thinking they are some "pro" gamer is crawling outta the wood works . . sad really that these fools had to ruin good games for us true gamers.

pretty sad when old school nintendo games are tougher / more of a challenge , with only a few buttons, than all these games today on the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well . . just saying how shitty games are these days . . more focused on graphics and such instead of gameplay and story . . .

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

Originally posted by Bravnik

Originally posted by phantomghost

It sounds good yes but those things that made EQ easy ruined the community that EQ was. The auction market killed the EC tunnel for selling. The easy travel killed the need for friends lists as you no longer needed a druid to give you a lift someplace. I remember when the travel spires came out. I could just hop all over Everquest without much thought at all. It made me sad to be honest as I saw immediatly how it killed part of what made EQ EQ. I was a Shaman and made a bit of income selling SOW's. Not any longer once POP came out. POP also introduced instances which is the last nail in killing the realism of the game. No more trains, no more camps just you own little private world to which all the spoils are yours. Fake Fake Fake - No thanks.

I will never forget my first run from Everfrost to Freeport. What a rush!

I think GoD introduced instances.  Because I know people use to fight for PoT and all other PoP mobs.  They did implement an instance for time, later to accomdate the numerous guilds fighting for a week respawn.

 

I did enjoy many of the old stuff such as EC tunnels and forming groups and 2 people go claim a camp for the members on their way, then a whole group comes up and fighting over it begins.  Trains are intentionally pulled.  It was very fun.

If memory servers the very first instance in EQ was the one in Everfrost. I can't remember if it was an expansion or a patch that put it there.

POP was the first big Instance expansion and ruined EQ for me due to the keying. I live on the West Coast and was in one of the top 3 guilds on my server. In order to move past the first 3 instances you needed keys. My guild did key runs early so by time I got home I missed them, fell behind and then had to sit there and watch my guild progress without me. It sucked and sucked bad.

Basically EQ was great until SOE got their hands on it and Brad sold out.

You are thinking of LDoN's maybe.  Which was right after PoP then LoY then GoD I think... been so long lol.  So, yeah they did have instances then,for grouping and eventually raiding.  I did forget about that.  Although, I will admit I actually liked LDoNs because they changed everytime, you never had the same instance... and grouping was promoted soooo much because of it.

Yeah, I had the same problem with the flagging and keying.  I got home from school at 4:30 or so.  Had to eat dinner sometime around 6 and I was not allowed to play and eat dinner.  (Yeah I started when I was young)  Then I had to be off by 9:00PM .  I was fortunate to find a guild that was mostly East coast but also had many EU gamers and we raided at like 6:00-9:00 exceptions of course were made, but it worked out well for me.  So the 6pm raids worked where as many guilds were 8pm earliest raid times.

Originally posted by Ecoces

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

 

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

 

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

 

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

 

 

I am not sure you even read the thread.

People here are well aware of many issues with old games, although they disagree that other things were actually issues. Are you trying to troll by starting with that rose colored glasses nonsense?

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Ecoces

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

 

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

 

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

 

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

 

 

I am not sure you even read the thread.

People here are well aware of many issues with old games, although they disagree that other things were actually issues. Are you trying to troll by starting with that rose colored glasses nonsense?

Not to mention that time sinks just changed is all. Heck, the major moto of every single MMO evermade is TIME SINK. If you need examples just list the MMO your currently playing and I am sure most here can list several...

      I think it depends on when you played EQ1 as to whether it was challenging or grindy......When I first started in early 2000 the game was challenging....There were very few max level players on my server and for the most part we had to group to do everything....Also we died quite a bit and lost XP for it...You had to be skilled at pulling and work together to do very well in the game.....Once people started to get geared from the POP expansion (especially time gear) the content became easier.....By the time I left in 2005 the game was much easier but just took time like some of you are saying....I've been playing MMOs since 99 (started with UO) and heres why I still think EQ was the best game:

1. No matter what class you played it was unique and had something to offer (I cant say that about any other game)

2. In the early days we had to group and work together....It formed a nice community and you knew who was a good player and who wasn't

3. death penalty...once again, in the early days it was tough....You died often and some days literally lost more XP than you gained.....As the game got older the death penalty wasnt as much of a factor.....Later expansions pretty much made it void

4. I made way more friends in EQ in 5 years than in all other MMOs combined the last 13 years...The way the game was set up you pretty much had to socialize....I dont think I knew anyone that soloed exclusively in EQ...Even if you played a Druid or necro you still needed other people at times (for buffs if nothing else)....

5. A huge world to explore....Other than maybe Anarchy online I dont remember any world where there was so much to explore....All the questing games today dont have the exploration that EQ did.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Ecoces

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

 

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

 

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

 

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

 

 

I am not sure you even read the thread.

People here are well aware of many issues with old games, although they disagree that other things were actually issues. Are you trying to troll by starting with that rose colored glasses nonsense?

nonsense? hardly, i played EQ1 I did VERY well in EQ1, but unlike many on this forum trying to hold it up as the pinnicale of the MMO genre ... I remember all the BS that was in that game. i remember all the complaining about "the grinds" "the forced grouping" the "downtime" and many other things that some of you on MMORPG.com say was the "best" things about EQ1.

Originally posted by sonicbrew

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Ecoces

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

 

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

 

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

 

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

 

 

I am not sure you even read the thread.

People here are well aware of many issues with old games, although they disagree that other things were actually issues. Are you trying to troll by starting with that rose colored glasses nonsense?

Not to mention that time sinks just changed is all. Heck, the major moto of every single MMO evermade is TIME SINK. If you need examples just list the MMO your currently playing and I am sure most here can list several...

games as a whole are just timesinks. but some timesinks are just BETTER than others.

sitting for 20 minutes regening mana/health after 1 fight only to do it again the next. not my idea of fun gameplay

sitting 20 minutes on a boat ride because there is no quick travel system ... again not my idea of good gameplay

killing 100000 mobs to gain a level instead of 10000 ... thats not challenging thats just making it longer more tedious

only in MMORPG can tedium = challenging.

nonsense? hardly, i played EQ1 I did VERY well in EQ1, but unlike many on this forum trying to hold it up as the pinnicale of the MMO genre ... I remember all the BS that was in that game. i remember all the complaining about "the grinds" "the forced grouping" the "downtime" and many other things that some of you on MMORPG.com say was the "best" things about EQ1.

And I still say they are the best things about EQ1. 

Grind- Loved it

I like knowing that my effort shapes the overall power of my character.

Downtime- Loved it

A good part of the grind.  This is also what made grouping more efficient.  And even with downtime while grouping this was a great way to socialize.

Forced Grouping- Loved it but it was not forced

You were not forced to group.  It was more efficient to group.  It minimized the downtime between mobs.  It made the grind feel less like a grind. 

Simple answer: They made the games easier so more people can play. More people = more revenue.

I'm one of the older players myself. I've cycled through so many free to play games and pay to play games and it's all the same. First thing I do when i try a new game is find the first quest person. Don't even read it , just go kill or get what I need and continue. I would say 95% of the time I click the quests not even knowing what I need to do and I'll find out later when I narrow it down.

It's all very automatic now, I dont even worry about the community. Oh? Someone needs help? screw it I'm going to go solo a bit.  Really its sad. I used to be big with people by helping them out, questing with them , farming with them and getting to know new people as they come along. Now it's just screw it Imma go solo.

games as a whole are just timesinks. but some timesinks are just BETTER than others.

sitting for 20 minutes regening mana/health after 1 fight only to do it again the next. not my idea of fun gameplay

sitting 20 minutes on a boat ride because there is no quick travel system ... again not my idea of good gameplay

killing 100000 mobs to gain a level instead of 10000 ... thats not challenging thats just making it longer more tedious

only in MMORPG can tedium = challenging.

 

 

I agree/disagree

I hated waiting hours to travel.  I never waited 20 minutes to regen.  But I would prefer waiting a couple of minutes to regen because I decided to solo, rather than be ready to kill again within a few seconds solo.  This is what made grouping more viable.  As far as killing 10000 compared to 100000.  All games are like this when it comes to leveling.  You can kill 500 mobs as a group or 200 solo or you can do 40 quests solo because that all there is.  To me killing the mobs was more fun because I was grouping with others.

I think people are willing to give some.  I am 100% ok with making travel faster.  But look at all the games... which one did make it fastest.  WoW you didn't have to do anything to travel... except watch a bird fly for 10minutes.  While EQ at first you had to run to a boat/run through zones, becareful of mobs... made it more exciting.

The fact is the games are all being implemented towards themepark only there is no combination.  There is no compromise in the middle.

How many people can say with the recent games that they have played it for years... I can't say after EQ that I played another game for more than 6 months... most do not even make it to the second full month before I have beat the game imo.. (done everything because there is no more gear to get... and nobody will implement AA's as an additional alternative to playing a main character)

Originally posted by Painlezz

In my experience, "old school EQ gamers" are the ones who tend to enjoy the F2P games most and are actually willing to only play for free and farm all of the shit... 

Meaning they don't support the developers enough to make it worth appealing to them.

Plus, there are just far too few EQ old school gamers to be profitable anymore...

Exactly. This is first and foremost a BUSINESS. The object of the exercise is to make the best ROI possible. If that means pandering to the lowest common denominator, then thats what they will do.  Like it or not ( I certainly do NOT) that is the reality that we all face.  While I've never been one for "community", I do agree that many of the people in the early games (EQ and Asherons Call)  to name but two, had a much better attitude. 

But those days are long gone, and they aren't coming back.  Given that these games cost many millions to create, we are going to have a long wait, for someone to risk that type of money on some of the old school dynamics.  Now all of you get off my lawn! ^^

Originally posted by Ecoces

ah its the typical nostalgia post, lets remember everything with rose colored glasses. like your first love you remember all the good things about her but forget all the BS that came with those good things, and even those good things are over exaggerated.

 

you talk about a different type of endgame besides raiding ... wait did we play the same EQ1? because thats all that game had at the endgame. And raiding in EQ1 for many fights was nothing but a zerg fight, raiding now is MUCH more complex than the days of EQ1, i think your rose colored glasses are too "rosey".

 

community is still there they have just moved away from knowing everyone on the server to guildies. that was bound to happen when the genre became more mainstream, this genre is not just for the "nerds" any longer.

 

finally lets talk about challenge, because this is the thing the "old schoolers" like to hang their hat on with EQ1. sure there were some challenging elements to eq1. but most of EQ1 just require more time to do, thats not challenging thats just tedious. they were just major timesinks ... longer does not mean its challenging.

 

 

Ah, it's the typical reply. I think you seem to see it wrong. I know personally...as an old school EQ player myself, I am not asking for an exact duplicate of the original EQ. Too many of you want to use this rose colored glasses comment too liberally.

What I would like to see from the original EQ is the following:

- Open world that feels alive. Yes, I am aware that EQ had loading screens...it was huge and amongst the first after all...so it was crude in design. But even with EQ's loading screens, the world FAR exceeded any world we have in today's MMORPG's.  It felt huge and dangerous (Kithicor Forest, Palaudal Caverns, etc, etc.). Creatures chased you forever...and some zones had random cratures that exceeded the normal level range of the area.

- Questing. Although I'd rather see an MMORPG without quests that have huge yellow ?'s over NPC's heads. Rather see the player having to search via talking to NPC's to find quests if they want to do them. But quests took you to many zones iN EQ's day, and took time and effort. The NPC's were at times very vague on where to go and what needed done...it left it to the player to think and over come.

- COMMUNITY. The biggest of them all. You could solo in EQ...however, it took a LOT longer to accomplish things if you did, and was MUCH tougher to do.....but you could do it. This made for more grouping...which in turn, had people interact and make friends, etc. Even having to meditate to recover health and mana that so many new schoolers find as "non gameplay", which it is, was beneficial. Players would sit and chat about strategies or whatever else they wanted during the downtime...and in many cases, make friends and adventuring partners that would last throughout their time playing EQ, and even after (I have several friends I still chat with on the phone, by mail, or in person I met in EQ). Talking to people can be entertaining and just as interactive as fighting monsters, etc.

- Longer leveling. I'm not saying ridiculous long...as in it takes you a week to get one level. But something between EQ and ...er, say WoW. Being able to hit cap in a few weeks is just stupid.

- Death Penalty. This is taboo to so many new age players. I'll put it this way... when I played EQ....I thought about what strategy I wanted to use in a particular area, and studied mob pathing to best decide how to execute what I had to do with the least aggro triggered...effectively increasing my survivability. You HAD to do this if you wanted to avoid being killed (And losing xp and even possibly a level if not far into your current level), or pulling a train on others and making them angry with you. It made it scary, and at the same time, very gratifying if you pulled it off because despite what soem may say...it took skill to pull it off flawlessly.

In today's MMO's? I don't get that feeling of excitement or fear. Why not? Because dying means nothing but a small inconveinience of travel time back to where you were. You can rush mindlessly into a sea of mobs and it doesn't matter much becuase I know I will just respawn with full health, etc. It's like dying in Mario Bros.

Other than those things...having modern MMO UI's, combat systems, and a multitude of other items developer's have improved upon I welcome.

It's just today's MMO's are nothing more than lobby games. Heavily instanced, fast paced, solo heavy..making community stagnant and unnecessary, and stat boards. This is why I feel companies have strayed from monthly subs. Not because they don't work...but because they are pointless when the players don't stick with any MMO longer than a few months because they blow through the content so fast and move on to the next hyped MMO for more of the same. There is no longetivity. So box sales take prescedence, as well as cash shops to sponge as much more cash as they can from the players before they leave...and laugh all the way to the bank while doing it.

P.S. ANY MMO even post-WoW has grind...they just hide them better now. And if you don't think they do, you need to wake up.

Originally posted by jdlamson75

So a guy who doesn't play MMOs comes to a website dedicated to MMOs and tells us why he no longer plays MMOs.  Brilliant. 

He has every right to speak about how he feels.  He clearly loves mmorpgs.  He is expressing his frustration and I happen to agree with him for the most part.  This new generation of trolling and overall selfish behavior hinders the genre.  Of course its about money, but hopefully the market evolves past the current simpleton trends.