Recently me and my closest buddies have put gaming aside amidst the stagnant state of mmos, but that sort of opened the door for conversations leading down memory lane; Camping the mile gates in Emain, Hunting the Obby plains in Dereth, Working on our epics in EQ, the list goes on.

We talked about the fun times we had, what characters were dearest to us and the guilds we enjoyed most. But the conversation evolved into What do you miss most about mmos?

We came up with some good ones, but I would like to hear some that maybe we didn’t think of, because I love talking about the mmo glory days!

Ones we came up with-

Needing to form a group:  I really miss this.. In almost every game I played pre 2006 I would max out my friend’s list with healers, tanks, good rogues, good casters. And I also had a notebook with names of people on it and why I liked to group with them. You would Schmooz up on people who had connections and try to make a name for yourself so you got the good groups. Now it’s just lobbies and queing up... blah.

Buffing:  Man did I love to buff, I would sit in Drum Ligen on my druid and just buff the NPC guards for fun! But even on the other side of it, being buffed was great! It mattered! Being buffed turned you into a machine, taking on reds like they were nothing; it was a noticeable and sizable difference between being buffed and not being buffed. This in turn made you seek out buffing classes and added to that crucial social element. Now a days it’s just a group clicky, and you don’t even notice if it’s on you or not.

Relying on others:  In the glory days, you didn’t do anything unless you have someone with you, hell,.. In Daoc you could barley get around unless you had a bard with you. You could barley exp, getting around was hard, crafting required funding, dungeons were not available unless you helped take keeps. Some people would read what I just typed and say F*ck that... not me. I play mmos to rely on others, and for others to rely on me, that's what creates a social game.  Everything now is instanced and solo'able, you can do anything and everything with out even having to say a word to anyone, thats not an MMO to me.

Meaningful PVP:  UO and AC pvp was awesome, pvp mattered and it was scary. But that feeling carried over not just in full loot pvp, but pvp like daoc. When I was in Emain and saw a Unicorn Knight, or a Thundarer i would shit my self. Dying meant more than just having to trek all the way back to Emain, your death and who killed you was splattered all over the zone, embarassing!   Now it’s just pvp farming, if you see 30 of them and 1 of you, you just run in and fight anyway. Because death is meaningless and victory is meaningless..

    That’s all I can remember right now, anyone else have anything they miss about the MMO Glory days?

*grabs popcorn and sits back to enjoy the EQ Flagellate Reunion*

Reply to the topic: Less whine about the "good ol' days".

1. Need to form a group? Huge inconvenience. Probably one of the biggest hinderances of the genre.
2. Buffing. Stupid mechanic, imo. Needlessly creates dependencies. Long term buffs should be permanent (meaning no long term buffs) and buffs more tactical in general. All removable by offensive abilites ofcourse.
3. See number 1.
4. Meaningful is entirely subjective. I don't find any meaning in fighting over a virtual castle. It is pointless. I'd much rather play for ladder rankings and tournaments.

Originally posted by vandal5627
MMOS with Depth...MMOs these days are really shallow, all glitz and glamour with no soul.  Very forgettable.

This and everything the OP mentioned. In EQ I remember that everything you did mattered to some group within the game. If you killed Orcs for instance every Orc you killed either added or subtracted your standing from about 5-6 different factions within the game. I remember having to kill Orcs in the West Commonlands for over a week in various groups to get my Freeport faction up enough so I could trade there as a Dark Elf. Some would look at this as a form of grind but I saw it as adding to the overall immersion factor of the game. Depending on who you were and what you had done dictated where you could go.

And then there were mobs like Fippy Darkpaw...

Bren

Originally posted by DukeDu
NO BOTS

Because nobody gave a f***.

Developers willing to take a chance on something new. Everything now is so researched. It's all done based on what has worked in the past. Everything is trying to recreate a past success. To redo what others have done.

Very few games in general are looking to do something totally new never been tried before.

The golden age of mmos everything was never been done before. That type of innovation has big risks. Something game companies try never to do anymore.

Originally posted by waynejr2
Posts about the Golden Age of MUDs and the "real gamers" who played them.

Really?

I really miss standing around for 6 hours, spamming

"LFG! Level 100 needed for dungeon"

"Want to trade Olthoi Armor for pyreals!"

And seeing chat go by so fast that no one sees your LFG or trade messages, because 1000 other people are spamming chat for the same thing

And I miss standing in one spot killing the same mob over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

I miss being able to grief people and scam people and get away with it (well EVE lets you do this)

I miss being forced to group, and being grouped with a bunch of people that I don't even like or would ever actually talk to or be a real friend with and I'm only with them so I can get something out of them

I miss being killed and losing hundreds of hours it took to get items and losing everything. I have nothing better to do with my life than lose hundreds of hours worth of items and levels/skills/stats...I really miss this.

I miss being able to run around at the highest level and gank level 1s and tell them "GTFO out of the game nooby"...some MMOs allow you to do this though. 

That about sums up the things I really miss in the classic MMOs.

I'd go with community. Enjoyment shared by likeminded people.

Community right now is devided. So whatever the game is, you'll have a great deal of ragers, naggers, smartasses, winers etc.

Bring back the scammers and beggers. I loved those guys.

Originally posted by TheScavenger

I really miss standing around for 6 hours, spamming

 

"LFG! Level 100 needed for dungeon"

"Want to trade Olthoi Armor for pyreals!"

And seeing chat go by so fast that no one sees your LFG or trade messages, because 1000 other people are spamming chat for the same thing

And I miss standing in one spot killing the same mob over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

 

I miss being able to grief people and scam people and get away with it (well EVE lets you do this)

 

I miss being forced to group, and being grouped with a bunch of people that I don't even like or would ever actually talk to or be a real friend with and I'm only with them so I can get something out of them

 

I miss being killed and losing hundreds of hours it took to get items and losing everything. I have nothing better to do with my life than lose hundreds of hours worth of items and levels/skills/stats...I really miss this.

 

I miss being able to run around at the highest level and gank level 1s and tell them "GTFO out of the game nooby"...some MMOs allow you to do this though. 

 

That about sums up the things I really miss in the classic MMOs.

 

That right there is why I'm glad MMOs had to evolve. +1

I think that the biggest issue is that we are different people than when the "Golden Age" happened.  When I 1st started AC in beta, I thought this is the coolest thing ever.  It's like a real D&D universe and a vibrant world interacting with other people.  At the time working up to killing Olithoi was hard we would sit around with 20 people trying to kill the 3 or 4 at the mountain shortcut with many deaths. 

Back then it was fun getting guildies together to spend 2 hrs trying to get your corpse being guarded by umbral shadows and dying a lot to get it.  It was fun to finally get in the Olithoi horde nest to kill them over and over for days getting xp. 

These things would probably drive me insane now. 

A.  I'm almost 15 years older and don't want to devote my limited time to grinding/LFG etc...

B.  I will never get that WOW factor back that I got playing AC/EQ/DAOC because even though mechanics and graphics may change and I still have fun.  It's just plain not amazing anymore. 

C.  Mindsets have changed.  Back then we were trying to learn how to exist in this new world and there was a lot more tolerance and helping.  Nowadays you get bounced even if the grp is doing fine but your not adding x amt of DPS.   It seems that people just want to run through the content to get to endgame. 

My 2 cents anyway.....

But to the OP - those were some good times back in the day!!

In my opinion looking for a fully party was always a shitty experience. But I do believe in an mmo you shouldn't be able to solo. It makes the community... cease to exist.

I'm in favor of wanting a full group but needing at least a group of 2-3 for ALL basic content.

Basically interdependability, reliance on others and the community it spawned. People didn't want to group with an idiot and your rep tended to follow you.

Miss the longer leveling curve that really forced you to learn your class or, again, your rep tended to follow you. There are still names I remember from EQ that I hated grouping with if I got invited to a group with them in it...and it's been 10 years.

Days before queueing for dungeons. I was fine with the first LFG tool that EQ put in. Basically a sortable list of people looking for groups and groups looking for people. There at least you could avoid people you didn't want to group with and couldn't just kick someone because they wore the same armor as you and instantly get another random to replace them. Again...where rep mattered and you couldn't just be a total douchebag to everyone because you could queue up and be forced into a group.

Less focus on story LINES and more focus on world lore. Letting the players actions tell their story instead of it being told to them by the devs.

Classes that stray from the strict Tank / Heal / DPS. True hybrids that could do a bit of everything, CC classes, utility, ect. Looking at you Bard, Enchanter, Shaman...

Mobs that couldn't be grouped into 20 and burned down with minimal effort. Dungeons that couldn't be cleared and picked clean in no time at all that only one group can fit. 

Originally posted by WellzyC

 Needing to form a group:   

Buffing:   

Relying on others:  

Meaningful PVP:   

 1. You still have to do this in many of todays MMOs, at least modern games are trying to bring down the amount of time this used to take. Its still up to the PLAYER to make friends and aviod the PuG madness that comes from it because PuGs used to be an issue back in the day as well.

2. I have always had mixed feelings about this. As much as I loved Asherons Calls spell system and ability to protect yourself from every type of attack, having to stand around and buff for 5 MINUTES if you wanted full buffs was a royal boring PITA.

3. You still have to do this in every MMO that I know of, even very solo friendly GW2 requires that you group for large events and dungeons. And as pointed out in #2, Asherons Call was very solo friendly if you had the right skills trained.

4. Meaningful in what way? In Asherons Call, you provided the meaning because it had no effect on the world itself in any way and there was no "rank" or "title". It was basically just bragging rights and whatever you looted from them.

The thing I miss most about the golden age is more players having perspective and realizing that an MMO can only do so much and requires the player to put in their own imagination to provide a ROLE PLAYING experience...saw this same stuff in SWG, its a sandbox, if you are not willing to create a castle then all you have is sand.

I used to play ffxi hardcore and heard it was just like eq,

1. I miss the all night xp parties we had going on, like in yhoter jungle, quicksand caves, crawlers nest, ect.

2. I miss the fact that you had to travle quite a bit to get anyware, and had to find a whm to tele to the gate crystals

3. I miss all the content they had throughout the game from start to finish, i literally played for years and most of the time i never even did end-game stuff.

4. I miss it being purely PVE, although it had pvp it was rarely used.

5. I miss Camping NM's with my Linkshell, all the work it took to get really good gear in that game.

6. I loved the fact that you could be every job with one character, great for remembering who ppl are and even leveld up multiple times with um on other jobs. Could much eazier rememberd there names.

7. I miss that there was a penelty for dying, you would loose more xp the higher level you was, and it would take while to get that back, you could actually delvl and not beable to use some of your gear or spells till you got your level back.

8. I miss the really slow leveling curve, you'de get like around 100 xp per kill and get abit more with kill chains, but as you level the xp for next level would increase, but your xp per kill was always the same. At lvl 70 it took like 6 hours or more to level.