Originally posted by TCTC
Rose colored glasses everywhere. The old MMORPG model would not do well with how players have changed since then. And most likely the genre would just cease to exist if they stoped being profitable.

The CURRENT MMORPG model does not do well either. Yet there are millions of veteran MMORPG gamers that KNOW what they like and haven't had a game that caters to them since Vanguard. Considering how well Vanguard sold in its first few weeks, despite the bad press of the horrible launch bugs, I'd say there's a STARVING marketing for classic MMORPGs.

I'd venture to say that almost every single aspect of Dark Age of Camelot circa 2002 is better than any modern MMORPG.

I can remember with clarity what I liked and disliked about both DAoC and WoW/all its clones, and I find many MANY more faults with WoW's design (built on the flawed EQ design, minus all the good parts of EQ) than DAoC's.

There is a bunch of crap in this thread. Gaming is about using your brain, solving puzzles, strategizing, risk and reward and reveling in the accompanying excitment. Virtually all MMORPG's in the last decade have lacked key components of those mentioned.

The EQ1-ShadowBane-Asherons Call1-Dark Age of Camelot era were the glory days. Everything post and including WoW has taken away from that combination that makes a good game and has handed it over into a massive money grab.

How do you get money? By giving people what they want. Most people don't want to be challenged, most people don't want to solve puzzles or strategize. They want to be spoon fed garbage as they vegitate. Hence that massive trite trash we have now called MMORPG's. You people call that progress? I call it a joke. The dumbing-down of society. 

And your not wrong for that, you know what you like and what you don't, great.  There are many people that don't like the current model, and maybe the current model has run it's course.

However IMO while there claim to be a lot of people that want a return to the old days, I don't think that many of them would actually support it, they like the idea more then the product, they like other factors such as their youth, their inexperience or the people they played who have also changed now, all of which were a not insignificant part of what made the game so good for them.  I think it would do significantly worse than any of the new games.  Lots of people would try it and then just like today there would be a massive player loss. 

I think the initial launch would have less players than in many/most games today, and the end stable launch would have less players than many/most today.

Vanguard sold 242,000 copies in it's first few weeks (wikipedia claims anyway), not millions.  I don't think there are milions of veteran MMORPG gamers that would even want to play a game, like the old style.  Yes there are some.

Definately yes there are some that want some of those systems, but they want many of today's systems as well. 

I'd venture to say that almost every single aspect of WoW, Lotro, EQ2, TSW, Rift and yes even Vanguard circa 2012 is better than MMORPG before 2004.

I can remember with clarity what I liked and disliked about both SWG, EQ and WoW/all its clones, and I find many MANY more faults with EQ's design than current WoW.

See what I did there.  Express interest, likes, dislikes all you want.  But lets not make any more claims other than our own opinion.

Gamers were never about about using your brain, solving puzzles, strategizing, risk and reward and reveling in the accompanying excitment. Some games had that, many others didn't.  There was no real puzzle in final fantasy.  Street fighter only had a few secret moves.  There was no real reward or risk in Sonic the Hedge hog, or super mario brothers.  They were just fun.

The golden years of MMO's are not past, they have not even begun.  We had the first generation figuring out systems and what people liked, didn't like.  Then the 2nd generation was probably a bit too similar (not not clones) too each other.  Now we are starting to branch out again. 

In the future there will be many many many types and styles of games.  Sandbox and Themepark genres will just cease to exist.  Trust me there will be far more opportunity to play as you like.  The real golden years are yet to come.

I dont get you, OP. I mean you can still make indie games with low budget as the genre had before Wow.

Everquest had a budget of $8M, even if you count it into todays money it wouldnt be a huge sum. That mainstream games are being made does not stop people from making nished games.

It is like saying that you cant play metal or classical music because pop music earns more money.

Originally posted by Loke666

I dont get you, OP. I mean you can still make indie games with low budget as the genre had before Wow.

Everquest had a budget of $8M, even if you count it into todays money it wouldnt be a huge sum. That mainstream games are being made does not stop people from making nished games.

It is like saying that you cant play metal or classical music because pop music earns more money.

EQ had investors. It's hard to get investors for hardcore MMOs these days. And that 8M today would produce a very outdated looking game with poor animations, I'd wager.

Darkfall went 5 years before they found someone willing to loan them 600 thousand dollars. Each publisher said "Sure we'll give you money, if you add instances, safe zones, and add levels."

What I want to know is, who defines who is "really a fan"?  I'm a 50 year old housewife who loved City of Heroes, never cared for WOW, and still enjoys LOTRO 5 years in.  I'd say that qualifies me as a fan, but according to you, I'm not.  Well, guess what?  My money is worth just as much as yours, and the game companies are smart enough to see that.  They understand that the hardcore gamers of 10-15 years ago are now (if they're not living in Mom's basement) out working a 40-50 hour week; when they have the time to game, they want to have fun, but be able to step away from the keyboard if the kids need them for a moment.  There's nothing wrong with that; there's nothing wrong with wanting to mostly play solo because you know you can't commit to an hours-long raid.  There is - or should be - room enough in the MMO world for all of us.

It's also ridiculous to expect the games to be designed without profit in mind.  How do you think these companies are paying for the servers you play on, the devs who continue to improve upon the product?  Without making the game accessible to a majority of players, without having spiffs and extras you can buy, there is not going to be enough cash flow to keep your beloved game alive.

So here's a suggestion for you:  if you don't like the current gaming community, create one of your own.  Start a kickstartr campaign to raise the startup costs for your own game, find a Dev who can create the world you envision, and then make it as exclusive a game as you wish. 

If you don't want to do that, how about this:  find a way to convince your game company of choice to allow people to rent private sub-servers.  Pay the money to have exactly the kind of community you want.  You win, the company wins - it's all good.

Originally posted by coyotewoman

What I want to know is, who defines who is "really a fan"?  I'm a 50 year old housewife who loved City of Heroes, never cared for WOW, and still enjoys LOTRO 5 years in.  I'd say that qualifies me as a fan, but according to you, I'm not.  Well, guess what?  My money is worth just as much as yours, and the game companies are smart enough to see that.  They understand that the hardcore gamers of 10-15 years ago are now (if they're not living in Mom's basement)

Stopped reading there...that joke is old. There seems to be a misconception here. Old MMOs do NOT = bigger time sink.

When we're discussing who the real fans are, we're discussing this.

There are those who liked MMORPGs when they were immersive vritual social worlds.

And there are those who liked MMORPG when the meaning became twisted to cover basic singleplayer focused online games. The latter group, by the very nature of the games they are fans of, usually don't stick around in MMOs very long, because those "MMOs" are designed to be burned through like a singleplayer game. Catering to them has led to the death of many a "MMO". But publishers keep on trying.

Originally posted by Adokas

Right now, most games are made purely for profit which makes sense from a business perspective. It means that games suffer a bit, I guess. It's all subjective I think.

It is a shame that developers don't really make games that they themselves would like to play anymore. But if I have to note some, then EVE and perhaps even Darkfall are great, because they stick to what they are, and don't try to cater to everyone.

I don't think the genre needs to die, I just think people need to turn down their expectations, and also, developers should make the games they themselves would actually want to play. Sadly, that's just not how the world spins around anymore. Few developers have that power, to freely choose their own direction.

Devs do make games that they would play its called Indies games, to bad gamers won't support them because of them being different games like DFO, MO, Xsyon, Dawntide , Earthrise, and others.... I mean I'm a new Dev and become one because I want to makes games I would love , the problem is people today wany everything handed to them, and they want there hand held, I would never ever make a game for free because its alot of work to make a game and I need to pay off students loans that got me here and I need to live..

Gamers today wany everything for free alls I see is go F2P bleh, bleh, thats killing me because that does make the companys way more money in the end and it destorys most communitys, the cheaters come in and such... So its not all devs fault its alot to do with todays gamers. They want games like WOW wether they wanna admit it or not because look at how many subs they have, so that shows how many gamers like that game and those types...

There is a bunch group of us who are sick of them games, people like to jump on the band wagon and troll, but funny thing is WOW has million of subs and every one bashes it, I find that a bit odd...

You made the comment that you want more games made by gamers, will its happening , people need to support those people to because we are not rich either.. So if you do not support gamers who are making games, you won't see them, its tough buisness to get into it and do well so if you want different MMo,s then support indies ....

I know in school for game design they call me MR MMO, because no one like them in my school, but me, that tells me no new Devs have an interest in making them, the more I go to school , the more I make games, the more I hate them to and I been playing since MMo came out, with UO, merdian and such.. SO I know what it takes to make them its alot of work , but why should gamers make a game like that, so they can troll the game, and want it for free???  Nah..

I rather make Mobile games and smaller games because you won't deal with stuff like that and its way less work, and that is a main reason why, we won't see MMO's made by gamers, gamers need to grow up and give indies a little more respect and support......

PS: I laugh when people call hardcore gamers that they live in momma basements which is untrue.

I gamed before when I work 70hrs a week, I owned a 400k house , kids , wife etc, and ran a game community for 14 years, and gamed alot, so those comments make me laugh..

People think its hard to play some games and assume you play a million hours, most games are common sense and easy so to get certain things in a short time, its called looking stuff up, research etc, and knowing the game welll, I have heard people stupid comments that tells me there jealous is all....

Back in the old days a 50.000 playerbase was considerd a massive succes.
Nowdays a mmo is considerd a failure if they dont sell more then 3 million copy's

Its quantity over qaulity these days.

WoW brought million of players into the market i give em that, but they also made mmo's mainstream, arcade like so to say.
Altough Vanila wow was still a pretty brutal game, even TBC i consider hardcore.
But WoTLK made WoW arcade and we all know what happend after WotLK.

Subs in EU / USA plummed each year, still respectable sales, but the easier they made WoW the more people run away from it.

At this moment i can only name 1 hardcore mmo out there, and that tittle goes to Eve Online.
They should earn alot more respect that they are credited for tbh.
I quited Eve online as i got bored of the way you fight.
But i still have EPIC memory's and will still vote it as one of the best mmo ever created.
But it doesnt have a 10 million playerbase so its a failure on the forums.
Same as Guildwars 2, it dont sell 10 million boxes in week one and that why wow is better according to these baords.

Numbers mean evrything and nothing :)

Originally posted by Darkcrystal

 

 

SWTOR was a success no matter what people think the game made money, if I owned it I would not be pissed because I would of made my money back and then some, so if you have a job or a buisness and made 100k for that year, you think you failed??

No......

 

If a company goes offline means they failed

So an MMO thats running for 15 years and then shuts down, is a failure?

You have a very VERY bad sense of how economics work. If SWTOR wasn't a failure, then how come they fired half the development staff, merged the servers, and are going FTP?

They have to leave the game open in a desperate hope to make back the 300 million it took to develop (and 100 million more to market)

Originally posted by rush1984

Before you jump the gun , im not saying they need to die completely

what i beleive is that in order for mmorpgs to get back to the original state,for example UO , vannila wow etc

i beleive the genre needs to die, it needs to die so badly that all those those players that aint really Fans get bored and leave

it needs to die to the extent that only the true fans are left so that once again  the games become games made for fans by fans of the genre.

your probaly thinking whats a true fan? maybe im using the wrong choice of words so ill try to explain, back when mmorpgs were only played by us geeks (sorry to be blunt) the communitys was 10x better heck even 100x but with the success with wow it ultimately brought alot of players to the genre that woulnt have had  given it a second glance previously. This imo is what destroyed the community its like a bunch of party crashers that refuse to leave and then make demands on the host to change the music..."think forums and whines for nerfs .. and "this is too hard" or "i dont have enough time in teh day to do this its not fair i want my free epics"

I just feel these games aint made for "us" anymore

So thats why i think this genre needs to die if only to be reborn and be for "us" once again

  

Maybe you should hire some company to program mmo just to your liking. :-) But what every company likes mainly is MONEY. And even if you would like to start riding again horses ... this will not happen. Cars are here to stay. And YOU would do the same.

And for me, 50, now is much much better. Ok, loved pacman once. That is history. I do not miss a lot from once.

Originally posted by rush1984

 im not saying they need to die completely

 

I don't think that word means what you think it means. 

Lol. 'True fans'. The genre belongs to 'us'.

Sure, make the genre die because the OP doesn't like the current MMO's. And then the companies will start creating MMO's he likes again ofc (riiight) and all will be well. And that is not egoistic at all ofc :/

Misplaced sense of entitlement ftl.

Originally posted by grimgryphon

Originally posted by nariusseldon

It is a good thing "hard to get the same feeling of EQ" .. it was boring, lots of camping & frustration. I am glad those days are over.

^^^ This

I played UO from day one and if you asked me to go back and play the "vanilla" game again, I'd tell you to drop dead. Same for EQ1.

Too many self-professed MMO vets still wearing those rose-colored glasses. Those games were not as great as we remember them. Really, they were not. The modern MMO is far superior, not only in graphics, but in gameplay.

Let the dead stay dead.

Problem is they are not dead, far from it.  EQ1 just got another ex-pack not so long ago.

I will give you they Modern MMOs are superior in graphics but not even close in gameplay.  

Today MMOS require zero thinking, that is not good game play. 

Games have always been about problem solving, using your brain to over come the problems (levels, bosses, puzzles, etc) that the game has to offer.   PAC MAN is a great example, the game was all problem solving and if PAC MAN was made today they would have a path that highlighted the safest path for each level.

The game would hold your hand and not allow you to fail unless you did not follow their instructions.   

EQ1 had some of the best zones and encounters of any MMO to date.  Nothing comes even close to the Raid zone Candy land on the moon.  Nothing has even come close to that raid event.   Even on farm status you could still wipe if not everyone was paying attention which is how it should be.  SSRA Emp fight was another fun raid that even on farm status required everyone to be on the same page or it was a wipe.

Raids and group Dungeons should never get to the point where you can win without trying because you know the events inside and out.   EQ1 even if you had done the raid or group event hundreds of times, it still required you to be on your "Game" to win or you could wipe.

In Modern MMOs, 80% of the game is soloable and only 20% requires help of others, that is so wrong and such bad MMORPG gameplay that I wonder how you can even claim it is better today then the old days, it makes me wonder if you ever played an MMO prior to WOW.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Daneril
Now that Mmorpgs are so popular that everyone knows about them it's hard to get the same feeling that you got playing some of those old school Mmorpgs. I sorely miss the days of old school Everquest but i know that a lot of that is just nostalgia and i know that no game will make me feel that way again. Mmorpgs are in the mainsteam and they will propably stay there for a while. Its still possible though to have a good time in a mmorpg, you just need to surround yourself with players like yourself. I always find guilds of old school players to play with and it makes the whole experience way more fun no matter what game.

It is a good thing "hard to get the same feeling of EQ" .. it was boring, lots of camping & frustration. I am glad those days are over.

EQ1 was anything but borning.  Camping and grinding with a group was so much fun.  I miss that.  Today if you want to group you have to run dungeons, everything else is solo play.  

Talk about boring. 

Frustration?  Yes dying sucked and that is a good thing, today this dying means nothing and is used as a quick port thing sucks. 

Todays MMOs forgot about the Risk vs Reward.

Everquest had the Risk vs Reward down.  The more risk you took, the more reward you got.  

I wish the old days of MMORPGs would come back.  If they did it would kill 60% of the population as they might have to use their brain to play a game for once in their lifes.

Games are about problem solving, always have been and always should be.  No so much in today's MMO world, if you can follow directions, you can be successful in today's MMOs.  No problem solving required which is what has been missing since WoW.

LOL .. you like take a number and do nothing for 30 min then spend 1 min to kill a boss? I will pass. LFD running dungeon is 100x more fun than EQ camping for me.

No .. today's MMO has MUCH better risk vs reward. You risk wasting time to respawn, and the reward is killing the boss. You don' t risk losing days of progress.

EQ is wrong on risk vs reward, is wrong on camping, is wrong on fast travel, is wrong on no easy fast grouping.

I am very glad those days are gone and hopefullyl never returns. At the same time, if you like to play EQ type very boring (to me) games, be my guest. Just that i will never play such a game again.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

 

Problem is they are not dead, far from it.  EQ1 just got another ex-pack not so long ago.

Not a problem. I really don't care if these old games are alive. I won't play them anyway.

I will give you they Modern MMOs are superior in graphics but not even close in gameplay.  

NO. Superior graphics and gameplay. Camping is not gameplay. LFD with good fast dungeon run is 100x better gameplay for me.

Today MMOS require zero thinking, that is not good game play. 

Agreed. Camping requires zero thinking. Grinding EQ mobs requier zero thinking. Very bad gameplay.

In Modern MMOs, 80% of the game is soloable and only 20% requires help of others, that is so wrong and such bad MMORPG gameplay that I wonder how you can even claim it is better today then the old days, it makes me wonder if you ever played an MMO prior to WOW.

I played UO beta, EQ for 1 year. Horribly experience. WOW is better. DCUO is better. Almost any modern MMO is better. Heck, Diablo 3 is MUCH better. Even torchlight is better.

And what is this 20%? IF you play wow, you will use LFD most of the time to level and end game.

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by grimgryphon

Originally posted by nariusseldon

It is a good thing "hard to get the same feeling of EQ" .. it was boring, lots of camping & frustration. I am glad those days are over.

^^^ This

I played UO from day one and if you asked me to go back and play the "vanilla" game again, I'd tell you to drop dead. Same for EQ1.

Too many self-professed MMO vets still wearing those rose-colored glasses. Those games were not as great as we remember them. Really, they were not. The modern MMO is far superior, not only in graphics, but in gameplay.

Let the dead stay dead.

That's very naive to say that.

Those games are 10 y/o with a 10y/o technology and concept.

Of course no one would play EQ1 or UO today as they are.............

What the MMO industry has to do is to update those concepts to 2012 standards with better graphics, better UI, better gameplay (less grind)

And yes those 2 games have each a distinctive selling point which current MMOs do not have, therefore they could be NEW material  for the WoW generation

Nope. Those 2 games are old ideas in term of gameplay. Camping in EQ is horribly. Waiting is horribly. Grinding is horrible. Combat has very little complex mechanics compared to today's games (like procs, CDs, rotation, synergies with different mechancis ...).

I wouldn't play it even if the graphics is updated. There are much better games.