Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Quirhid
 

You arguing this is the most foolish thing in the entire thread.

 

You honestly think that the people out there who approach all games casually are a wholly seperate group from playing iPhone games? How can a personly possibly be that dense in life? Yes report this post for being true.

 

Anyone who thinks markets are that segregated have NO IDEA how the markets work.

Are you suggesting the customer segment which enjoys iPhone games is the same which rarely plays MMORPGs past their first 3 months? Seriously?

Are you seriously suggesting that those who play MMOs don't play any phone/tablet games and vice/versa. Wake up.

I thought about drawing you a Venn diagram, but since this is well within the reach common sense, I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. Instead I'm only going to tell you: Those two groups are not the same.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Quirhid

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Originally posted by Quirhid
 

You arguing this is the most foolish thing in the entire thread.

 

You honestly think that the people out there who approach all games casually are a wholly seperate group from playing iPhone games? How can a personly possibly be that dense in life? Yes report this post for being true.

 

Anyone who thinks markets are that segregated have NO IDEA how the markets work.

Are you suggesting the customer segment which enjoys iPhone games is the same which rarely plays MMORPGs past their first 3 months? Seriously?

Are you seriously suggesting that those who play MMOs don't play any phone/tablet games and vice/versa. Wake up.

I thought about drawing you a Venn diagram, but since this is well within the reach common sense, I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. Instead I'm only going to tell you: Those two groups are not the same.

Thanks for clarifing something I never said.

The groups are not the same, the groups are also far from seperated. There is more cross over from people who play MMOs to those who play casual games than those who only play MMOs and never touch casual games.

I actually think that most of the people that play MMO's casually are exactly the same people that do/would play games on tablets and phones.

Just data pulled out of my own rear end :)

What I miss most is the need of other players. 

My first game EQ the majority of my enjoyment came from the time I put into my character and the interactions with other players. 

The only other MMO I really enjoyed since, DF I enjoyed that I had to rely on other players to help take out other clans.

I enjoyed not being the best (and knowing that) and having to have other people who were not as skilled as many others to try to take a better geared, better skill, better all around player.  I like to work towards improving my characters skill, gear, and my skill/ability to play the game.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by eddieg50

 

   Ok, I am done laughing so I can  comment, but please dont say BG is a sand box game, you will make me start laughing again. I read over your last few posts and you do make some good and thoughtfull comments. This may be a personal thing but I did not enjoy Istara one bit and thought it paled when compared to Ryzom. Yes in Ryzom you have to dig in the dirt, but there are many skills you can use to do it or find out exactly where you need to go digging, and when you dig you can be attacked by mobs which makes it exciting.  "decorating my house" ? I know that was big in SWG but i dont play games to decorate my house. Speaking of which SWG while having some excellent elements reminded me of a giant chatroom where everyone hung out in the cantina chatting and waiting to get buffed to go out and play some bad combat. Space game-= Good,  Harvesting and crafting==Good, Combat and performance===Bad. An MMO with bad combat combined with bad performance is an mmo that sony takes over and makes even worse LOL. As a matter of fact this has been the problem with Vanguard, The combat is fair but the intense lag makes it seem worse and has really hurt this fine game.   By the way I have to dissagree again on Fallen Earth combat, it is not tera or AOC combat but I had fun useing guns and the fact that you get a horse right away is cool, and crafting takes some thought. 

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P  ruled the roost there.

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.

   Anyway as I said not many people  play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Eve (little dots in outer space make me blind and irratate me).  However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes

First let me clarify, that was Uhwops post as I stated (I went back and redid the font to make that part clearer) however I do generally agree with it. 

Decorating your house is not the issue.  The issue is about having some place to call your own, and being able to customize your world.  Building, desiging and then decorating a home/castle/city farm... would do this, decorating is the least of it and Ryzom doesn't even have that

"Sandbox= Open ended gameplay that doesn't have a conclusion"--I have never seen a mmo that had a conclusion, I have seen some where the quests ran out but never one that had a conclusion.  No most MMO's do not have a conclusion which is why there is not a single MMO that does not at least have some sandboxy elements.  Every single MMO out is somewhere on the line between full sandbox and full linear gameplay.

"Player isn't always defined within a set role"--In Ryzom you are not in a set role, you are what you want to make yourself, if you want to be evil or good that is up to you, Combat in Ryzom,you can use several different types of magic or combine it with melle, it is a skill based building block game that takes ten times more thought than WOW ever did.

And that is the only thing that Ryzom has that makes it a sandbox, it's skill based.  There is nothing else there. 

"There has yet to be a single sandbox MMO created in the last decade, that wasn't all about PvP"---I played Ryzom for about 75 hours and never even thought about PvP and I dont think I ran into anyone who did, with the occasional exception of a duel, UO on the otherhand was all about griefing and PvP. yes there was house building and such but Pv P ruled the roost there.

See above.  I personally don't consider Ryzom a sandbox.  I played for about 3 months, no idea how many hours that was.  There is no impact on the world either through your character, or building, there is no market to speak of because everyone can and does build everything.  All it has is skill progression and there isn't even any variety in that.  How many hours did you spend whacking those bushes to build swords, magic, and whatever other melle and magic they had.  It was always exactly the same routine without variation, most even had the same animations.  There was no variety in gameplay, no variety in crafting (yes there was tons of variety in stats but nothing in appearance, there were only a dozen or so styles of armor).

Again the only sandbox element it had was skill selection.  So if Ryzom is a sandbox it is the worst implementation and description of one.  I would consider Vanguard to be more of a sandbox. 

"Sandbox gameplay is all about providing a world for you to inhabit, and letting you loose in it"---hmmm if this does not define Ryzom i dont know what does.  Ryzom doesn't have anything for you to do in it.  There is no impact on the world at all. 

Anyway as I said not many people play Ryzom so yes people do find it limiting, although I blame the developers for stagnating the game, however I will take games like Ryzom, Shadowbane, and fallen earth any day over SWG, UO and Eve (little dots in outer space make me blind and irratate me). However BG and BG2 are two of the greatest rpg's in history---but no not sand boxes.

Here is Larsa's description of Sandbox which we use to keep the sandbox list going.  Yes it is subjective, however I do agree with it.

An open world, not a collection of small maps

• A non-instanced game world, no private instances for story mode or private dungeons (zones are okay if technically needed)  Ryzom has this
• Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading.  Ryzom has this
• Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)  Ryzom has this
• Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design  Ryzom has this
• Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items  --- Not really but that is because there is a very low population and everyone can make everything, so iffy on this one.
• Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes  Ryzom has this
• Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters  Ryzom has this
• In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items.  Ryzom has this with stats. 
• In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay)  Yes Ryzom has this
• Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent.  Ryzom has this. 
• Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world  Ryzom has this only with taking control of outposts.
• Some form of customizable player housing/building  Ryzom does not have this.

So Ryzom has enough to be called a sandbox yes, but the implementation and what you actually do there is very very shaky.

 

But we are digressing. I don't want to talk specifically about Ryzom. More about what makes a sandbox, and by extension I guess, "What makes a true MMO".

   LOL, I get it, you think Ryzom is a sand box but you personally do not like it, you should have said that earlier instead of saying BG, LOL   ROFL, sorry man every time I think of it I laugh is a sand box. 

MMORPGs these days are like footraces where all of your opponents are drooling savages.   It's depressing just to do. The stupidly easy content, completely unenjoyable and formulated, why would anyone think this is a good idea? It seems like you're working towards something but what? If a game isn't fun you put it down. Classic WoW was fun, classic EQ was fun. Both were built on the idea that players were playing to enjoy and experience the world. Building an MMORPG like a tiered pyramid with the early game  here and the end game there is designing by numbers not by thought. Developers these days don't seem to understand the history of MUDs and MMOS. The 'end game' was just an indulgence for a very worldly playerbase. Never has a good MMORPG been designed with the end game in mind, not EQ, EQ2, FF XI, or WoW.

I agree about the hard RPG. In fact, with spoiler sites these days, MMORPGs need to be harder than ever, employing randomization in addition to the old tricks. That they aren't is a lack of good developers.

This is beyond wishful thinking, though. There will never be another good MMORPG. It's been, what, 7 years since WoW and EQ2? The failure of Vanguard was the nail in the coffin. If you've played Diablo III you will get a pretty good idea of the state of RPGs today. Games like that make modern WoW look good. These are dark, dark times indeed. The glory days of MMORPGs were far too short for most of us. I would have been playing non-stop back then had I known how things would turn out. 5 dozen RPGs today and every one of them is the damn same. Compare that to AC, UO, EQ, DAOC.

Originally posted by Salahudin
I would pay a premium to buy and per month to get what the OP is describing... and that may be what developpers should look into.  The current variety of mmos are geared for people living in their parents basement, or kids having their parents pay their subscriptions... If it costs a little more, then you better really want it... I for one, would be willing to pay more for something like what the OP is describing.  I DO want difficulty, I don`t care how frustrating it is to the "average" player, charge me extra to make up for the loss...

I agree.  For a very long time I had three paid SWG accounts, because the game had only one slot per account.  $45 per month and I didn't even blink.

                        Meh, After i quit SWG pre-cu i was never really happy with any mmo's.  I played WoW for a while but it was pretty boring. DarkFall released and i fell in love, but it had WAy too many underlying problems so i left it.  Kinda as if i was dating Andriana Lima and after all the foreplay i pull off her panties and shes rockin a solid slong, Kind of a bummer.

...Annyyywhooo I'm looking forward to

Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now. 

A short story of what was :

My first mmo was World of Warcraft.  I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game.  In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime.  I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues.  I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.

Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW.  I was amazed that other real people were on my screen.  I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar.  It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.

Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream.  This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell :).  Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks.  Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day.  I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.

World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features.  None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.

Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people.  Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok.  Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue.  We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice.  It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!.  Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new.  We chatted, and they explained how to play.  No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group.  THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group.  I knew my place as a Rogue.  At the end I had four new friends.  They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.

Now the point of all this :

Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true.  But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.

1) easy, no dependence

2) auto group features

3) chain quest and cinematic

4) personal stories

5) cross realm crap

6) Kick-a-buddy feature 

How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by delete5230

Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true.  But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.

1) easy, no dependence

2) auto group features

3) chain quest and cinematic

4) personal stories

5) cross realm crap

6) Kick-a-buddy feature 

How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!

What happened depends who you ask, but can take wow since thats your first game.

#1. People foreign to mmorpg have a hard time getting started in the game.

Blizz: Make the first levels a lot easier.

#2. People started to talk about how the game started at cap:

Blizz: Let's make levelling a lot quicker

#3. People complain that its hard to get groups for quests..

Blizz: Let's remove group quests

#4. People complain that it takes too much time to find people for dungeons.

Blizz: let's create a dungeon finder.

#5. People wants to see raid content but don't want to be part of a raid group

Blizz: Let's create a raid finder.

The effect is what you see in dungeon finders, people that cares about quick loot and there is little to no socializing in dungeons. If someone makes a mistake you kick them, and the game finds you a replacement. All the tools and current gameplay has removed the need for social interactions, and online games needs the social aspect to be interesting for more than three months

Although most people would disagree I feel a true MMO should'nt a themepark but a sandbox with PvP. I just feel that themeparks are glorified multiplayer games rather than true virtual worlds - which is something I feel MMOs should be. However the domination of themeparks shows that I am in a minority. 

Originally posted by delete5230

Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now. 

A short story of what was :

My first mmo was World of Warcraft.  I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game.  In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime.  I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues.  I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.

Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW.  I was amazed that other real people were on my screen.  I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar.  It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.

Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream.  This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell :).  Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks.  Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day.  I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.

World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features.  None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.

Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people.  Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok.  Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue.  We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice.  It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!.  Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new.  We chatted, and they explained how to play.  No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group.  THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group.  I knew my place as a Rogue.  At the end I had four new friends.  They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.

 

Now the point of all this :

Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true.  But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.

1) easy, no dependence

2) auto group features

3) chain quest and cinematic

4) personal stories

5) cross realm crap

6) Kick-a-buddy feature 

How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!

I know exactly how you feel, even Vanilla WOW was a huge improvement over the communities I find in more modern MMO's. 

I've given up pugging anymore, not worth the anxiety of screaming arses and getting kicked for making a mistake because you didn't learn the fights back in beta.

People call it nostaligia, but the communities back prior to 2006 were more forgiving, more helpful and more friendly.  Things have definitely changed for the worse and your only real survival technique is to find a good group of guild mates to hang with to insulate you from the rest of the mostly broken community.

People don't believe me in this, but right now EVE has one of the best communities out there, once you learn the ground rules and how to integrate yourself into it.  (I've had better conversations with pirates who killed me than those in recent MMO's)

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by delete5230

Then and now......What I fell in love with, is not what we have now. 

A short story of what was :

My first mmo was World of Warcraft.  I had no one to talk to or ask questions about the game.  In fact I don't think I had ever talked to another gamer in my lifetime.  I had no idea what to expect. In fact the guy at my local EB Games store tried to talk me down on a high end PC game because of Video card and ram issues.  I ignored his advice and did the minimum up grades to get my computer ready for WoW.

Well, after purchase and loading Vanilla WoW.  I was amazed that other real people were on my screen.  I was on the island of Teldrassil and made my way to the level 4 area called Dolanaar.  It seemed like forever to reach a single level because of both leveling was slower, and I had no clue, and I guess you could add I did not even care what level I was, I was that intrigued.

Anyway, living in Dolanaar was like a dream.  This is where I made some friends and learned how to spell :).  Since leveling was wayyyy slow, I met others and we were in this area for days if not weeks.  Even the players I have not chatted with I would remember seeing day after day.  I REALLY FELT LIKE I WAS IN A COMMUNITY.

World of Warcraft was somewhat new and it only had the basic features.  None of that mattered anyway, I was hooked on immersion of the zone and COMMUNITY !!!....We were like a family.

Moving ahead a little, I reached about level 22 and had a friends list of about fifteen people.  Around then, I was questing in South Shore when I got a /tell invite from a stranger asking if I would like to go to Shadowfang Keep....I like what ?...well, ok.  Next thing I know I was in a group of five running across the land of unknown with out a clue.  We reached my first instance, went in and I got my group killed twice.  It's obvious I got yelled at, and I was scratching my head as to why !!.  Well, things just stopped right their and group members began asking me if I were new.  We chatted, and they explained how to play.  No auto kicking, in fact that was out of the question for the group.  THEY EXPLAINED EVERYTHING, and after that we worked like a well oiled group.  I knew my place as a Rogue.  At the end I had four new friends.  They even told me to need the nice dagger at the end....We stayed friends, and I ran many dungeons after that.

 

Now the point of all this :

Sure it was my first love, but that was not it !!!!!........It was more about community, in a low featureless mmo. WE MADE OUR OWN FUN........Guild Wars 2 is not like this. SWTOR is not like this, The Panda Bear thing is not like this. You could argue that players are not like that anymore, this is true.  But come on....Developers are wayyyyy more responsible for the non social experience we have now.

1) easy, no dependence

2) auto group features

3) chain quest and cinematic

4) personal stories

5) cross realm crap

6) Kick-a-buddy feature 

How many friends do you have on your friends list in GW2 ?........WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED !!!!!!!!!

I know exactly how you feel, even Vanilla WOW was a huge improvement over the communities I find in more modern MMO's. 

I've given up pugging anymore, not worth the anxiety of screaming arses and getting kicked for making a mistake because you didn't learn the fights back in beta.

People call it nostaligia, but the communities back prior to 2006 were more forgiving, more helpful and more friendly.  Things have definitely changed for the worse and your only real survival technique is to find a good group of guild mates to hang with to insulate you from the rest of the mostly broken community.

People don't believe me in this, but right now EVE has one of the best communities out there, once you learn the ground rules and how to integrate yourself into it.  (I've had better conversations with pirates who killed me than those in recent MMO's)

 

Next week I have to go to Germany for a month, when I come home I may give EVE another try. I know the learning curve is hard, and never gave in much of a chance with the trial.

So its a toss up between EVE and trying one a World of Warcraft free realm sites or both :)

Sorry but the idea that todays locust gameplayers go back to MMO's they have played is making me laugh. How many players here go back to a MMO they have not played for a few months? Todays players are locusts, they land at launch, eat all the content and are gone in two to three months. This behaviour is a result of design changes but feeds back on itself to ensure the "polished for launch but little end game" MMO model remains the only game in town.

And remember there are a lot of old school types on here and I still recon very few will say they do. How many of the Facebook generation do you think are playing games their mates moved on from two months back?

Ive been reading this forum and im glad we see this topic risen. Very good questions and points.

I have played UO (Im a Ultima Online fan myself), Shadowbane, WOW and  Iam playing GW2 (thou im not THAT excited)

Someone mentioned Shadowbane etc, if there would be a sequel etc. Look what I just found:

http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/35170/changyou-ressuscite-shadowbane (translate from french to read) and check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane ( i didnt knew the MUD creator have design this game, MUD was a great game...)

Anyone remember MUD? Lol, that was a HARDCORE GAME!

ps: I really wish UO was back with better graphics, I dearly wish that. I miss this game so much...

Chears

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Wizardry Online

 

Thanks a lot for this.

I registered for the BETA.

As for the OP, I tend to agree. I've been let down by every MMO I've played for the past few years, sadly culminating in my resubbing to World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot. But, even WoW has become a completely different game from when I really enjoyed it. The game is too easy.

I'd be, at least temporarily, happy with a Vanilla or Burning Crusade official server in WoW. (I don't like playing on EMU servers) It really grinds my gears that Blizzard is too greedy to even consider this. I feel like I supported a game, that they changed beyond recognition. It doesn't seem fair, but that's life.