Maybe its time for a HMORG or a NSMMO (not so massive multiplayer online).

I fell in love with MUDs in the 90’s and began believing in a higher power when UO and EQ came on the scene, as if answering my dreams…to be able to see these things which I /killed . After many years now of elation at being able to juggle 6 hamsters, decorating my house just right, after slaying Karg the Icebear, after earning my first Yalmaha, at beholding my rare polar bear mount, at getting my first fatality and creating my first ATV, I think I may finally be burned out and this saddens me. Trying to rack my brain to figure out what had changed, what was missing; I came to one conclusion. It’s not that I got too old, it’s not that I just got bored—Developers have taken away what made these games magical by trying to be too mass market. Massive back in the day meant.. thousands, not millions.

By being smaller-- you had a reputation.. if you were an asshat, you wouldn’t last long in the games , If the GMs were unfair , which they weren’t normally, word got around and that game would lose it’s playerbase. Devs were GODS. (They were taller back then and walked on water. ) They allowed you to grace their presence and sometimes smiled upon you or gave you a very special trinket to remember the event and you treasured it. You made friends and learned to interact with each other and learn from them because there was no Wikipedia, no gold farmers and usually no fancy manuals. You respected people of the highest rank because they earned something special and you wanted to be like them. If you were a priest you didn’t expect to be able to solo anymore than the tank expected to heal himself.

Most importantly, You were a needed part of the community and you needed others. There were unwritten rules. You didn’t take advantage of the new guy because you knew how hard it was to find your way around in the beginning..and everyone knew everyone. If you killed someone unfairly, you were probably going to get some kind of retaliation.. there were consequences. Worlds or servers with 5000 or 10000 players were just right, you logged in and your world was there..familiar faces. People missed you if you weren’t around for awhile. Many real relationships were formed and you had spent so much time with these people it was like they were family.
Where’d it go wrong?
I can’t truly blame a certain Blizzard title and then all the companies that tried to replicate as much as myself and others for staying with the things as long as we did. Suddenly .. “millions” couldn’t be wrong. People could play MMOs who didn’t know what a cat 5 was or how to make a macro. The groups became so diverse, so large that something was lost. The games were big money and it was the “in” thing to have an even bigger world, more character slots, less risk, easier to play. Levels seemed to get cheaper. “Rare” items could be bought, could be gained for simply pre-ordering. You didn’t really have to have others because one of your alts could do most things you needed. You could be an asshat because you could simply change your name, server or character. You could find whatever you needed to know due to search engines and if you didn’t feel like earning something , chances were you could buy it. You didn’t have to trust those you were playing with to not rip you off, fancy auction houses took out the worries. Devs , who knew if they even played the games? Gms.. seem to have lost the ability to reason and make decisions and became automated for the most part. Who can blame them when it’s impossible to know their community these days. Give me the days when Joe the GM could say , “yah I can’t prove you lost xxx item but hey you’ve never requested anything before and I know you’re always helpful and I believe you..here”.

Today, after trying most of the current offerings and there is definitely more choice than ever; I feel like I’ve got a choice between a Big Mac and a Quarter Pounder when I want Filet Mignon. I don’t mind paying more . I don’t mind viewing ads or whatever I need to do, but give me back what made MMOs..MMOs; communities of like minded people that were enjoying a journey together. If the game’s too difficult, that means it’s not your community ..go elsewhere. Stop watering it down . If a curse word offends someone or a name.. let the GMs deal with it and say hey if you don’t like it go elsewhere, or if you don’t fix the name I’ll rename you to whatever I wish..and if people don’t like it..again..let them go elsewhere. This natural selection process did a great deal for the worlds. Sure, griefers were around even in the day..but they didn’t seem to find such joy after awhile when they needed others and others wouldn’t help them due to their reputation. It was a social learning tool.

Today’s mmos seem like decent single player games to me but they have lost something vital. Hiring 20 community managers does not a community make nor does having huge forums. I expected games to evolve. I expected graphics to get better, performance to improve.. but at what cost? I don’t know that you can have a close knit community when the pool is too large and it is far too easy to level or to change identities.

Why can’t we have games that have numerous smaller servers but servers that are ran differently.. ie. Full loot , no rules pvp server if that’s your thing, a care bear let’s put on a show community on one . Each server should have its own identity and not just be a carbon copy of the others. Trying to make a world that appeals to all just seems to me to end up only slightly appealing to any group. Let different devs run each . Making changes to a game that satisfy one like minded community has to be easier than trying to make changes that are to appease a very diverse group of people in mass quantities. Couldn’t you save a fortune by not constantly trying to bring in a million this month to replace the million you just lost, if 10000 were happy for many years?

Anyhow, ramblings of an older gamer. Very interested in hearing what others think of today’s mmos whether you’re a newcomer or a veteran. The thread on wow ruining the mmo genre made me a little reminiscent this morning.
 

This was one of the better reads I've found on this board in quite some time, I'm not quite certain I agree with you one hundred percent and it may have to do with the fact that I didn't enter mmo's until SWG launch, you certainly have a perspective of these games that I couldn't have.  But the interesting thing was I found myself thinking back to all of the mmo's I've played since and how alot of the experiences you relayed I have had them too.  From COH to WOW or LOTRO I've made great friends that I have loved and love to play with.

  With so many more mmo offerings it's much easier to not see everyone trying every game that comes out as I'm sure was more the case then just as it is now.  I recall times in SWG where the general community chat was about what "new" mmo was coming out and who was going to try it, that has become more and more of a rarity for various reasons and not all bad.  But ultimately any game I have played and left if I came back I often ran into old friends just as you do in real life and had a great time thinking back and catching up.

  I think mmo's in general get a bad rep as far as "ease of play" goes games are often criticized as being too "carebearish" and "handholding" yet I think what vet's tend to forget is to this point that hasn't changed what in my opinion makes mmo's stand apart in such a unique position from other video games and that is the time required to "involve" yourself as a player in the community.  First alot of these features are truly just the evolution of things innocently suggested by some of the same vets who hate them now taken in total and often many of the features I often here complaint about are not forced upon any individual player though I can to a point understand the effect it has on "community".

  What sparked my interest most was the idea you had later in the post about a game with specialized servers, simply put it is one of those frward thinking ideas that one would really hope to see happen someday though my fingers aren't crossed just yet.

 I think in the end though I feel as this post decries and that is that a change is necessary in the direction of mmo's.  The only ones who seem to be willing to try anything truly different are totally inept at doing so but hopefully within the next five years we may start to see these companies master both craft and code and compete with the large companies who stand out so visibly and control the market.

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

The massive component has been lost.  Everything today is easier and smaller, and as a result I really don't consider games like wow and its clones to actually be mmos.  They're just online multiplayer games as far as i'm concerned.  Of course, that's just my opinion, since in the general sense of "mmo" those kind of games really are mmos.  However, I was drawn to the complexity of mmos with large worlds, meaningful crafting, a large variety of professions and skills, player cities, shops, and merchants, and the idea that a game will keep a hardcore player for years with quality repeatable mechanics.  To me, raiding and forced grouping has nothing to do with the massive component.  It's all about the variety in things to do that really set a mmo apart.  I guess since SWG was my first mmo I was spoiled, and pretty much every mmo afterwards has been very shallow.

Interesting to hear from those that started with SWG.  Maybe our first always just holds a special spot whether it was a graphical game, a mud , a mush or a moo and  we just can't replicate the magic?  

Any around here that have just tried there first MMO and if so,  are you finding these experiences we speak of?

Originally posted by Varny

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

exactly its sad that these games are becoming less world like and more single playerish with a giant chat box. that was the whole draw to me when i first played MMOs the idea of interacting and seeing thousands of people online ... going into a city and see crafters crafting, people shouting for groups or just interacting.

now most games and gamers seem to want to log into thier own private little world where the only interaction with someone is calling them a retard in general chat or ganking them.

Amen OP, amen.

Great post, one of the best I have read in a long time, and one that really sums up exactly how I feel, although I could never have worded is so well :-p

Originally posted by Varny

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

So what? If "not massive" makes a better game, i say go for it.

Just look at Diablo 1 & 2. They are two of the BEST games ever made and they are not massive. Massive-ness is quite meaningless in dungeon adventures anyway. I want to adventure with a few friends into a dungeon and have tough fights with the boss. I don't want to rush the boss with 100 people.

its also sad that single player RPGs are becoming more sandboxish (Oblivion, Fallout 3 and others) open world with open ended character design. while MMORPGs are becoming more single playerish, linear theme park.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Varny

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

 

So what? If "not massive" makes a better game, i say go for it.

Just look at Diablo 1 & 2. They are two of the BEST games ever made and they are not massive. Massive-ness is quite meaningless in dungeon adventures anyway. I want to adventure with a few friends into a dungeon and have tough fights with the boss. I don't want to rush the boss with 100 people.

because some people play these for the massive feel, thats what drew them to this genre. maybe you're playing the wrong genre.

A well written post :) I want to share my experince.

I begun to play mmo with wow and the only massive experince Ive is when the alliance and horde (once) clashed in blackspire rocks when we all were on our way to MC. That was awsome becuse no side wanted to give the fight to the other side and more and more reinforcement was called.... and everything looked so epic in the redish enviorment. That is the only player based massive doing Ive seen in a mmo and how long ago was it? 3-4 years? I dont play wow anymore but I remember that fight with alot of joy :) 

Originally posted by Ravanos

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Varny

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

 

So what? If "not massive" makes a better game, i say go for it.

Just look at Diablo 1 & 2. They are two of the BEST games ever made and they are not massive. Massive-ness is quite meaningless in dungeon adventures anyway. I want to adventure with a few friends into a dungeon and have tough fights with the boss. I don't want to rush the boss with 100 people.

 

because some people play these for the massive feel, thats what drew them to this genre. maybe you're playing the wrong genre.

Arguably the 11M of WOW players show that people are drawn to GOOD multiplayer games. WOW has become more and more instance oriented (less and less open pvp) and the game became more and more popular.

And to be honest, i really don't care abt how massive a game is. I play wow because it is a good online GAME. At most i will be grouping with 25 people except may be WG battles. And if the WG battles are instanced with no more than 40 people, i won't be able to tell anyway.

May be the whole genre should focus less on the "massive-ness". That is the trend anyway.

Sounds like a rant that could be made about the internet and cell phones.

the only TRUE MMORPG i have ever played was SWG (pre-NGE). I say TRUE because it was the only one that felt like a living breathing world. Unlike most games now where everything is just a giant timesink or linear path to the "next stage". In SWG i had my own "business" see i was a slicer one of the first master smugglers on the server so my slices were powerful. I went into business slicing weapons for a guld mate and man did we make money together.

or for the first time i spent a whole night just laughing it up in say in a Cantina watching a band play LOL

those are things i miss now everything is about your own small little private box.

and before the Eve fans say anything ... I briefly tried EVE but couldn't get into it to stay too long.

Good read OP, good read.

I agree to some extend: The best times in MMOs for me are those I have with some friends, be they RL or ingame. And it's also much more thrilling to fight battles against other players you recognize and have learnt to "hate". In Warhammer I began to recognize the more prominent enemies and my guild even went the extra step to take them down if they were spotted on the battlefield. In WoW by contrast I hardly recognized anyone, because they merged servers to battlegroups (?) for the battlegrounds.

On the other hand MMOs are about freedom and exploration for me as well. If the world is too small or instanced I have a hard time feeling to be in a real world and not just some 3D chat area. I don't mind having areas where no one ever comes by, just like in real world. But I guess for the developers it's wasted time to put the effort into developing large areas where only very few will ever come through. The exploration is also spoiled for me by the dozens Armoury-style websites, that basically have all the answers there already. There's nothing to explore anymore, since you can read it on those pages anyway.

We should not forget that the more games we play the more we have already seen and the more difficult it is for developers to come up with something new. But a bit nostalgia is always allowed I guess... :)

It's less a Quarter Pounder/Filet Mignon comparison, and more a comparison between a tasty fish purchased at a restaurant, and a person who says, "I prefer to go out, catch the fish myself, cook it myself, then eat it knowing I did all that."  Often the fish caught and prepared yourself isn't actually as tasty as the one bought at a restaurant, but because you enjoyed the process it was a more enjoyable experience.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Ravanos

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Varny

One thing i wanted as tech got better was for the Massive to get more massive.

You know I wanted worlds to be seamless with boss mobs wondering around the landscape with groups of hundreds of people taking them on.

I wanted SWG Pre CU 2

I wanted Planetside but BIGGER.

All we seem to get is instanced and smaller and upcomign games like APB with only 100 people per server........ that ain't massive.

 

So what? If "not massive" makes a better game, i say go for it.

Just look at Diablo 1 & 2. They are two of the BEST games ever made and they are not massive. Massive-ness is quite meaningless in dungeon adventures anyway. I want to adventure with a few friends into a dungeon and have tough fights with the boss. I don't want to rush the boss with 100 people.

 

because some people play these for the massive feel, thats what drew them to this genre. maybe you're playing the wrong genre.

Arguably the 11M of WOW players show that people are drawn to GOOD multiplayer games. WOW has become more and more instance oriented (less and less open pvp) and the game became more and more popular.

And to be honest, i really don't care abt how massive a game is. I play wow because it is a good online GAME. At most i will be grouping with 25 people except may be WG battles. And if the WG battles are instanced with no more than 40 people, i won't be able to tell anyway.

May be the whole genre should focus less on the "massive-ness". That is the trend anyway.

no 11m players are drawn to easy Online singleplayer games. apparently you don't care about the massiveness of the Genre but many people that was the draw of the whole genre. now the online hermits have come and destroyed the genre by wanting more and more instanced crap.

pretty soon we will have a game where you log in and go on your merry way never seeing another player unless you choose to. only seeing their little names a chat box.

maybe WoW and all the new games should be thrown into thier own genre ... the Online RPG. so those that "don't care about the massiveness of a game" can go play in thier little theme parks. while allowing those of us who want TRUE MMORPGs can find those game easily.

and remember typical WoW fan, popular does not equal good.

To some extent the size of games has influenced how MMORPG's play to be sure, but I think most of the changes (for the worse) that the OP has laid out are more the result of changes in game deaign more than due to just their size.

You interacted with people back in the day because you had to.  There were no auction houses, so you sold stuff in town.  The game mechancis frequently favored grouping, so people grouped to prosper.  Crafting was deep, varied and useful, so much so pretty much everyone had to craft something to propser, so people crafted and sold their wares.

Most of this is different now and I think that's what has lead to the negative perception about the decline of the MMORPG experience for those who enjoyed games the way they were 5+ years ago.

Sadly though, we were in the minority, and companies would rather have WOW's sub numbers and arent really interested in devloping living worlds.

Originally posted by thinkerbelle

Interesting to hear from those that started with SWG.  Maybe our first always just holds a special spot whether it was a graphical game, a mud , a mush or a moo and  we just can't replicate the magic?  

Any around here that have just tried there first MMO and if so,  are you finding these experiences we speak of?

   Sorry to avoid your actual question here, as I am not a new player, but I wanted to comment on the "replicate the magic" statement.  I do not buy the rose coloured glasses arguments often used against the old games.  I also think that the two arguing camps do not properly discribe complexity, as you always hear an old gamer say the old games were more complex, which their opponents take to mean that mobs were tougher to fight, thus team play was required.  I think that is incorrect as well.

   The games today function better in my opinion.  The quests are better made generally, the graphics are better, I don't get much performance issues relative to older mmorpgs, the combat animations are very good and less clunky, and in most cases, I think the combat is better.  Mobs are no easier to kill.  Virtually all newer games are more user friendly... but they included many help tools I don't like either.  Quests are too easy to find, too numerous ( to the point they just replaced grinding and are just as tedious ), insta-travelling.  Somebody decided loot was better, so crafting is worthless.  Housing clutters the games too much, healing wounds is too time consuming, and money should be easily made for some reason.

   In my opinion, they removed the community by doing those things.  All the current games are almost solely combat games period.  I actually loved Champions Online, but since there was nothing to do but fight mobs and the few dungeons, I basically concelled after I 'finished' the game.  Same is true for LOTRO, Warhammer and WOW.  I liked all of them too.  In my opinion, there are no decent arguments for why those systems were removed.  After all, PvP is also not what the majority want from the statistics I have read, yet they games all cater to combat and loot progression.  There is zero reason to interact with others, except to advance.

  And the group/solo arguments are also meaningly to me personally.  I played SWG solo probably 50% of the time.  But I knew my crafters, befriended my doctor in a hospital, and said hello to the dancers.  The only things my circle of friends sought in that game were the badges and earning enough credits to replace weapons and armour.  When we felt like combat, we did that.  We could also gather resources, craft if you had the skill, train pets, deal with your property etc.  There simply was more to do.  Now there is only combat, and your progress is largely as an anonymous person.  This is what I feel is meant by complexity.  Each of those things on its own is not hard in any way, although many would find them tedious.  But really, what difference is it if you are grinding quests for loot, or grinding missions for money to buy something from a crafter?  People still buy buffs, have to look for loot on an AH etc.   To me its the same thing, and same amount of time.

  I recently bought Fallen Earth.  It is not as good as the core elements of SWG, but I still got that ' wow! ' feeling, and I am totally into the game.  Have not felt this way since SWG.  I am finding that setting the small goals, because they are more difficult to attain ( again, that doesn't mean the actual combat gameplay is harder, it is not ) is making the game fun.  I have to plan to earn money, sometimes I just want to craft better gear for myself.  If I am bored of those things, I can take quest missions or explore areas.  They are adding housing later.  Quite simply, there is a lot to do, and my goal every night isn't simply another level or quest hub.

  I have concerns with the game, it is not exactly what I want, yet I am still hooked into the world, and I can't say that has happened in years.  I do not believe we are nostalgic for our first games.  I believe the communties have been systematically removed by some simple design changes, and for people like us ( yes we are niche likely ) it has made most of the games a bit stale.  The changes can be very suttle.  In my opinion, SWG was destroyed with the addition of holocrons as an example.  There was a social, group oriented game that turned into a solo-fest with just that addition.  That was the first time I quit, when all my crafters disappeared, the cantinas became AFK dancers and the hospitals were full of tumblers.  And that was the exact same gamers as before the change.

   The majority of focus group tests these companies did showed them that those systems were seen as tedious, so they got rid of them.  I heavily play military flight simulators as well, so I can only imagine what would happen to the community if the companies started to remove the ' tedious ' features from those games.  Easy radar, very short flying distances, more arcade-like physics, remove take-offs and landings, more missiles on the wings, no mid-air refueling.  That is not even the same game, even though the controls and combat are the same.  That community would be in an uproar.  But those companies already know we are niche, and are content with the money they make.  MMOs cost to much to think like this for the most part, not to mention there is too much money to be made by drawing in the casual gamers.

Just my thoughts.  I agree with the ideas of your OP too, just maybe a different view on why.

Ohatro