Ultima Online peaked in 2003 with over 250,000 subscribers.

Back in the "glory" days of pvp griefing, it barely had 150,000.

More people came then left, after Trammel.

Originally posted by Fly666monkey

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

"Pre-Trammel UO was a magical place full of comradery and wonder, where there was a real sense of community and danger wherever you went. Trammel destroyed all that."

Which is funny, because I know some people who played Pre-Tram UO, and their description was a bit different:

"Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me. Wanna know why there was no dungeon finder when SWTOR launched? Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?" when the game went public. And yet I still hear people complaining that "The Dungeon finder is what Ruined WoW and should never appear in another game again." Which is funny, because if the MASSIVE amout of complaining about it's absense in SWTOR (amougnst that game's many issues) is an indication, most people thought the Dungeon finder was a wonderful idea.

Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

UO to EQ1

was the first major example of why Themepark MMO are and will always be more popular than Sandbox MMO.

First big Sandbox MMO (UO) lost subs to the first big Themepark MMO (EQ1)

kind of reminds me of the modern Sandbox vs Themepark aguments on this forum lately. people in those discussions overlook this historic event which is why Post EQ1, the genre took a more themepark model design.

AC --->AC2------>AC3

aka

Sandbox ---->Sandpark---->Themepark.

this is all pre WoW, so WoW wasnt the blame here like many on this forum tend to blame.

this change in design started with the jump from UO to EQ1

Originally posted by XAPGames

 

 

To the people who like those things, there are reasons:

To the people who do NOT like those things, here are the reasons.

• Fast travel speeds up pace of gameplay.  Faster pace means content is consumed more quickly.  Once out of content, a player can become bored because there's nothing more to do.  Fast paced games need more content, which given finite development resources means the quality level of content goes down as quantity goes up.

Replacing content with slower, tedious, REPEATED travel is not a solution to the lack of content. And fast paced does NOT need more content. You  can always finish content, unsub .. and resub when new content is out. No one says you have to play the game non-stop.

 

 

• Auction house eliminates a need to interact with others in order to obtain goods.  Reducing interaction causes more isolation of individual players.  Isolation of players works opposite of building community.

People don't care about community building as much as you do. Efficiency in trading is more important. Looking at how AH is a standard feature, and the popularity of it, i will say efficiency wins.

• Dungeon Finders cut down on the need for guilds and friends lists as a primary means to grouping.  This also is opposite of community building.

Same as the last one. Community building is not an excuse to make the players engage in tedious, unwanted part of the game. If people don't like to look for groups, do it for them. Obviously people don't play a MMO to spend 30 min to lfg.

• Battlegrounds are a mini-game embedded in the world.  They isolate PVP gameplay from the world, making the world less active.  They isolate players from each other making population seem less dense.  This also applies to instanced dungeons.  Some people believe that MMOs work better if they are not lobby-games.

People like pvp to be more fair, and NOT intrusive to world travel & questing. Some people believe that MMOs work better if they ARE lobby-games. In fact, many MMOs are played by a MAJORITY of players like lobby games.

• If there is no reward to being a hardcore player, there is no reason to be a hardcore player.  Hardcore players stay in games for long periods of time which is good for subscriptions.  They also play for long hours which is good for population.

Hard core players will play raids hard mode (which few do) to be rewarded with unique mounts, hard to get items and achievements/titles.

 

At least from an objective standpoint, if tons of people are playng a game, it stands to reason that, yes, it IS what the people want. Otherwise they wouldn't be playing it.

Now, I'm not harping on the Sandbox crowd, I myself am VERY excited for archeage. However, even in AA, they have made it clear that there will be limits and rules. 

- I think in the beginning, when people were first starting to burn out on wow, and older gamers wanted to go back to single persistent worlds, players went a little overboard with their demands for freedom. Also, devs were unaware of the longer term implications that their decisions regarding the openness of their world and systems, especially PVP, would have on the way their digital societies unfolded. DF and MO are good examples of this. In this way, games themselves served as the "betas" that would lead to compromises on how free we should be allowed to be. Clearly, totally open PVP was not the way to go; there were just enough a$$holes out there to ruin games for the masses. Thus, in the next-next-generation of MMOs, games like AA, Embers of Caerus, etc will allow open pvp, but with guidelines and disencentives designed to make griefing a harder thing to profit from.

I'm not trying to be hateful or spiteful, but from a purely objective standpoint, I have to ask why you think these things would improve the game as a whole.

In what way did the Dungeon Finder ruin WoW?

-It is clear that the dungeon finder killed the World in World of Warcraft. Everyone from level 15-85 would just stick in town, queue in the finder, watch some tv until they were picked up, after finishing sell loot, rinse, repeat. Having played WoW on and off for a long time, I can say that this totally negated any reason for me to explore the world. Sure, there were plenty of zones and quests that could level me just as efficiently or faster than queueing, but it was a dead world full of npc monsters. Some, especially older players, miss the open worlds where you encountered random people and made friends or enemies in your travels. For me, this game was Tibia. For many it was EQ or UO. Dont get me wrong, for a while I can appreciate the ability to simply plug and chug with a PUG (that rhymes!) but it gets stale quickly.

Why is full Loot PVP more fun?

-I wouldnt call losing items/skills/exp upon death more fun, but I would say that it does add a certain amount of intensity to combat. When there is the prospect of real loss in a game, you tread more carefully and are (ideally) more careful before picking fights with random people. Now, there are some serious problems with open PVP in most sandboxes (Ive only played DF) including griefers and a lack of connection/love for your items, but these things can and will be addressed in future games/versions of already existing games. It also (assuming you are in a single server open world without inter-server grouping ala dungeon finder) makes PVP more legendary. Back when I played Tibia, players could turn to legends by being good at PVP; killing other players and getting away with amazing loot.

Why should games not have auction houses?

-I would be hard pressed to find a person that totally wants to do away with any form of auction house, but the fact is that AH's do take away a certain social-economic aspect of gameplay. When you are forced to make a sale/purchase using a trade chat or some such system, you are forced to interact with the other players of the server. You get to know who is selling which items most often, get to know who to go to for sales first, who pays top dollar, who rips people off.. etc. It just adds a little depth to gameplay, and doesnt make combat the sole aspect of the game.

Tons of people say these things will make the MMO genre better, but nobody seems to want to go into too much detail about it.

-there ya go. Im sure theres more but thats all i could spew out off the top of my head.

Its not that inter-server dungeon finders, global AHs or instanced pvp has no merit. Its that time has moved on, and technology now allows us to have many of the systems used in old 2.5d/isometric games, which were and are still good, in a lush, amazing 3d world. WoW/GW1/EQ2 did instancing because they had to or because they didnt want players to have to compete for dungeons. We dont HAVE to have that anymore.

edit: of course by the time i write and submit this there are people who beat me to the punch

This thread is going to explode.

Lol you guys are getting Trolled hard by the OP.

well played OP well played.

     I tried UO when it was pre-Trammel and I hated the game....There were alot of griefing jerkoffs that absolutely ruined that game.....ALot of people bitched when Trammel was introduced, but IIRC UO stated that it actually increased the playerbase quite a bit and many of them stayed subbed.

Was I the only one that thought this thread was going to be about Guild Wars 2?

Originally posted by SuperXero89

Was I the only one that thought this thread was going to be about Guild Wars 2?

well actually I did as well. it adds to my research on how marketing effects the blind MMO market consumers that fall for the same cleaver marketing tactics over and over again..

but I digress. OP makes a interesting point.

Originally posted by Theocritus

     I tried UO when it was pre-Trammel and I hated the game....There were alot of griefing jerkoffs that absolutely ruined that game.....ALot of people bitched when Trammel was introduced, but IIRC UO stated that it actually increased the playerbase quite a bit and many of them stayed subbed.

Me too. I played beta .. and jumped ship when EQ was released. There is a reason why UO is never that popular compared to EQ.

If it is not the first, no one will remember it.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by SuperXero89

Was I the only one that thought this thread was going to be about Guild Wars 2?

well actually I did as well. it adds to my research on how marketing effects the blind MMO market consumers that fall for the same cleaver marketing tactics over and over again..

Marketing effort may be successful to entice people to buy, but why would you play it long term if you don't like the game?

I played WOW for years (and recently less so because it is getting boring, and that i can play D3) .. no marketing effort can get me to play more than a few hours. In fact, most MMO trials lasted less than that for me.

And buying is less and less relevant since more and more MMOs are F2P.

Originally posted by Fly666monkey

"Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

This is exactly why I stopped playing UO.  In order to continue playing UO, I had to play like a ganker/PvPer.  I had to fight with the best PvP means (archery or magic, not melee or my bard-skills I loved so much), and I had to travel in big groups and constantly deal with the gankers we ran into.  This simply is not fun for me, so I quit.

FFA PvP is fun for people who like hardcore PvP.  If you don't like hardcore PvP, it makes the PvE unplayable because of all the gankers you run into.  So a game needs to do one of three things:

1. Decide it's meant for people who like PvP, and go FFA PvP.  This will alienate people who don't like 100% PvP (most players).

2. Decide it wants a toned-down PvP system where people who don't like PvP can easily avoid it.  This will alienate hardcore PvPers (minority of players).

3. Come up with a system that allows for FFA PvP but somehow puts a leash on the gankers.

No one has yet accomplished #3 (to my knowledge).  Word of Darkness might have a solution (gankers can meet perma-death, while non-gankers won't, via Blood Hunts being called on gankers who constantly kill other vampires, a potent violation of the Traditions).  Since this game won't be out for many years, it'll be a while til we see if this works.

Originally posted by dave6660

Yes we do.

Now I have a question for you.  Are the rest of us allowed to have an opinon that you don't like?

Opinions are fine, but you have to be realistic with your opinions.  I've got plenty of opinions that I recognize will never be implemented.  In fact, there are plenty that should never be implemented.  I understand why and I accept that conclusion.

Far too many people think just because they came up with something in their head, it's the best idea ever and everyone ought to be catering to them.

Originally posted by Normantis

 

If more games took the approach of how to get people together and give them tools to make content for themselves (Eve is excellent at this).  Instead of tools to make life easy as possible and remove great possibilities for player made content and drama.  We may see a good mmo yet. 

 

 

Now it's been years since I played EvE, but it was probably the best example of a game that dearly needs fast travel.  If you're going anywhere distant, you set your course and go watch TV.  Maybe in a half hour or so, you come back to see if you've finally arrived.

I don't want to watch TV, I want to play a game.  If I wanted to watch TV, I'd turn the computer off.

Originally posted by Fly666monkey

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

"Pre-Trammel UO was a magical place full of comradery and wonder, where there was a real sense of community and danger wherever you went. Trammel destroyed all that."

Which is funny, because I know some people who played Pre-Tram UO, and their description was a bit different:

"Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me. Wanna know why there was no dungeon finder when SWTOR launched? Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?" when the game went public. And yet I still hear people complaining that "The Dungeon finder is what Ruined WoW and should never appear in another game again." Which is funny, because if the MASSIVE amout of complaining about it's absense in SWTOR (amougnst that game's many issues) is an indication, most people thought the Dungeon finder was a wonderful idea.

Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

We do know what we are asking for. A good game that people like myself enjoy. Get over yourself. I don't go into all of your games and ask them to remove or add things I want. I ask for another game. 

Then again, you are the kind of guy whose opinions spawn rehash after rehash of the same game. 

"Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?""

You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for that. SWTOR was a better game for not having LFD. Of course the game had a laundry list of unrelated problems .. but thats another topic.

Originally posted by Fly666monkey

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

"Pre-Trammel UO was a magical place full of comradery and wonder, where there was a real sense of community and danger wherever you went. Trammel destroyed all that."

Which is funny, because I know some people who played Pre-Tram UO, and their description was a bit different:

"Pre-Tram UO was a horible place full of griefing jackoffs who spent all their time waiting outside towns and dungeons for vulnerable people to step out, kill them, and take all their hard-earned loot. Top brass PVP guilds went out of their way to ruin the game for everyone else, especially new players, and nothing could be done about it. Trammel finally did something about this, but by that time I had quit to play Everquest. Oh, and if anyone tells you that subs for UO dropped after Trammel, Everquest was why."

And it's not just the Pre-Tram crowd that irks me. Wanna know why there was no dungeon finder when SWTOR launched? Because the vocal minority asked for there not to be one. And then the non-vocal majority went "WTF?" when the game went public. And yet I still hear people complaining that "The Dungeon finder is what Ruined WoW and should never appear in another game again." Which is funny, because if the MASSIVE amout of complaining about it's absense in SWTOR (amougnst that game's many issues) is an indication, most people thought the Dungeon finder was a wonderful idea.

Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

Cross server dungeon finders, characrters of opposing factions on one account on the same server, and cross server pvp ques are in fact the death of community.  I know generation occupy has profound ADD, I have some of my own so I am fully aware of this, but a little bit of effort to have fun in an mmo isn't a bad thing. Everything doesn't have to be spoon fed to you. Everquest and UO were like steak houses. WoW is McDonalds, just because they server more burgers than I do steaks doesn't mean its a better joint to eat at.

First the problem with trammel was that it was targeted at a group that by that point had already quit or had no interest in the game.  It was the first NGE patch, so it just ailenaten the people that liked the game as it was.

Now for the other complaints:

Dungoen finder:  Nothing wrong with it but when you make it cross server it just creates jerks and ninjas because the people you are grouping with are now nameless.  You know you will never ever see them again.  (same with cross server instance pvp)

Fast Travel:  Nothing wrong with fast travel but it should be in the fourm of mounts and bus, not flight points where your basicly just in a loading screen, nor should it be instance travel where you are just in a loading screen.

Auction Houses:  Player vendors are way better but AH in no way hurt a game.

Full Loot PvP:  Only a small group of gankers want true full loot.

Battleground:  They are boring and kill open world pvp.   PvP should be about defeating the emeny faction not about getting the pvp coins so you can get that next piece of armor.

Best stuff isn't barred from casuals but it shouldn't just be handed out .  In a gear game the goal is to get the best stuff, if the best stuff is super easy to get why would anyone play?  If you want to pay 60+ for an online trophy, why not just go to a trophy shop and have one made?  it would be cheaper...

But  thats just IMO... not that it more right then yours.

Originally posted by Fly666monkey

Tell me if you've heard this one before: "Trammel ruined Ultima Online."

Whenever I'm asked this, I just want to retort with: "Why?" But I know the answer I'll get:

[...]

Everywhere I go I hear all the same complaints: We don't want Fast Travel, We don't want Auction Houses, We Don't want Dungeon Finders, We want Full Loot PVP, We Don't want Battlegrounds, We want the best stuff in the game to be barred from casuals, etc.

Do any of these people truly understand what it is they are asking for?

Why in the world you're making equality sign between limits on full loot FFA PvP and no AH or Dungeon Finders & Arena type of gameplay?

You're just trolling?  I am just puzzled.

Newsflash - I am all for limits in FFA PvP.

Actually I think Trammel was GOOD IDEA.

Just implemented badly and TOO LATE.

Still I would like an mmorpg without AH, but with player shops.

Mmorpg without instanced dungeons grind that you have to do over and over, but also without automagical LFG tool.

Fast travel is ok - if it has LIMITS and is not 'I go absolutely everywhere instanly at all times in all circumstances'.

"Best stuff barred from casuals" - maybe hardcore PvP'ers from DFO or something - no idea.

==============

You're either intentionally trolling or maybe you're putting whole sandbox crowd into one 'bag' with so called "reds" / hardcore PvP griefers from UO.

Newsflash - actually most sandbox people on mmorpg.com want sandbox with certain limits and with solutions to many sandbox griefer&similar problems that were implemented into UO and SWG long months or years after release.

Like Trammel in UO or way to keep your house after you unsubscribed, but at same time removing it from open world. etc

You're sorry mistaken if you think most sandboxers here voice for releasing UO like it was in Day 1.

We had worse version of that, focused almsot purely on PvP - is called DFO. 

How that ended up all knows. (yeah was alot of fun for hardcore pvp'ers, but ultimatelly only for them and they were always miniority in UO).

I think people stick to old games for the design merits and in spite of bad mechanics.

Just as people play new games for the polished mechanics, in spite of bad design merits (i.e., linear gameplay)