MMOs - Where they all went RIGHT

[TeoHTime]

You had to know your group and your mates (not privately) to get something done. So social skills in terms of evaluating others were required. In comparison to games like WoW you mostly keep looking on Gear Rating or other useless stuff which doesn't say anything.

 

What about the social skills of bringing together and leading or working with a group of 30+ people to complete team encounters, using voice comms, organising strategy through a guild forum, agreeing on fair player rotation and loot distribution among yourselves and dealing with inevitable group drama and fallouts that arise from such a large group of people working together. How about those social skills lad? What does gear rating have to do with that exactly?

 

WoW goes out of its way to encourage and facilitate this type of social interaction, by removing the barriers that would normally prevent people from playing together. Getting people levelled up doesn't take long, getting them geared isn't difficult, because of welfare gear, getting them online to participate in raids isn't difficult, because there are no excessive time requirements. You can run a successful end content raiding guild full of people with day jobs who log on to raid for 3 hours 3 times a week. That's a casual schedule, they just need to be good.

 

 

These are only a few examples. Does this mean, that everyone would have to spend countless hours infront of their PC, like OP stated? No. Because you were somehow smart back then, you didn't need to get your 'reward' immediately or lvl within days and therefore skipping your real life - because we enjoyed the difficult game progression in small chuncks and had the maturity to play only for 1-2 hours (not even that, some times) a day and the patience.

 

You don't *need* to play the game in the first place, you don't need to do anything. You could pay your subscription and do nothing other than run in circles around the bank roof all day. It doesn't matter if you needed to spend your life online or not - the game explicitly rewarded you for doing so. If you didn't spend countless hours on time sinks, then your character would be notably less powerful than the character of someone who had performed repetitive tasks day in day out for a longer period of time than you had. In some cases the difference would be insurmountable.

 

It's a game design that directly rewards time invested, as opposed to any measure of performance, and by doing so it destroys the concept of playing the game "well". If a paraplegic monkey facerolling the keyboard can achieve greater progression in a game because he has the luxury of being online 12 hours a day and so is rewarded by your time sink MMO, should we praise the monkey?

 

 

THERE IS A REASON why things like 'lfg'-systems, immediate reward, easy encounters were developed - and people still keep sitting countless hours infront of their PC farming useless cosmetic ****.

 

If the encounters are easy, and the rewards are immediate, why had less than 0.5% of raiding guilds cleared HM Lich King by the time the stacking ICC buff hit 30%? Your entire viewpoint is based on the idiotic assumption that WoW progress was easy. Since you repeatedly reference things like LFG queues and gear score, i'm going to assume that you simply never participated in organised raiding. Perhaps your social skills weren't up to it.

[marshalleck]

If OP is sooo right on, why do all modern MMOs with the exception of WoW struggle to keep and maintain a subscription rate that MMOs of old used to boast? EQ and SWG each had at least 400,000 players. MMOs now don't even have that many after going F2P, which usually drastically boosts the number of players logging in.

 

OP is a severe case of misdiagnosis, the same sort of mentality that feeds this cycle of boom & bust casual MMOs we've been watching for the last 7 years.

Edited February 2, 2012 by marshalleck

[TeoHTime]

You saw it in WoW. Dungeons dropped to childlike complexity outside of some boss fights

 

 

Which WoW was this, and how many world firsts do you hold in it.

[Dalle]

I would love to see the QQ on the forums if Bioware every released something like the Vex Thal key quest.. If you played EQ during the Luclin era you know what I'm talking about.

 

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=2000

 

Also, in regards to point c) in the OP, try setting up a CH chain in EverQuest (if you don't know, google it) before saying that the "old school" MMOs was only hard because of timesinks and grinding. I doubt the majority of "new" MMO players could handle that. Or split the pulls in NToV with a monk/bard. THAT require skill and teamwork.

 

And, yes, I definitely consider the older MMOs harder then the newer ones. Harder, as in that they actual required a specific set of skill. However, I'm not saying that it's only a good thing..

[VorpalK]

Not always. (see: Ultima Online)

 

They work just fine in a co-operative or single player experience, but all they do is provide guaranteed grief for players in a competitive game.

 

You still had progression. Skillups, for instance.

 

An MMO without any kind of progression/reward will fail hard.

 

It will be popular with a small group of theorists who enjoy playing social modeling games.

[Quip]

I would love to see the QQ on the forums if Bioware every released something like the Vex Thal key quest.. If you played EQ during the Luclin era you know what I'm talking about.

 

I think a lot of the people who get so nostalgic fail to realise that we aren't high school or college kids any longer. The truth is that the majority of us just couldn't play an EQ these days.

[VorpalK]

A MMO can be skill based (ak: free giving gear), and still have time sinking content for us hard core to get stuff casual will NEVER GET playing 1 hour a day.

 

 

And here we see the root of the "hard core" mentality.

 

"I want to be SPECIAL."

 

You're not.

[Aljabik]

NToV was the coming of age for my monk. Good times, and good friends made on the endless VT key camps. Those big events stay with you for life.

 

Edit Vorpal, we ARE special in game. We strive to excel and be the best. Find the quest, raid the area, work out the tactics to kill the boss. If you do not want to do any of those things why are you even playing an mmo? There must be a star wars themed PvP lobby game for that play style somewhere?

Edited February 2, 2012 by Aljabik

[TeoHTime]

If OP is sooo right on, why do all modern MMOs with the exception of WoW struggle to keep and maintain a subscription rate that MMOs of old used to boast?

 

Because they keep returning to somewhere. I don't think it's EQ though.

 

Nowhere in my post did i say that SWTOR was the ideal embodiment of this idea, but i have to fight the mindset before i can quibble over the details. Lets give the details a go now:

 

SWTOR makes it easy to get people together and raid, the levelling process is quick and so far there is no giant gear ladder that would be a barrier to starting content. There are few if any PvE time-sinks in the game as money is of little importance, consumables are limited, and gear progression is tied to raid and dungeon locks. For PvE in general, the game doesn't penalise you for not having excessive time to play the game.

 

That's a good start. Here's the problem though - the challenges currently provided by the PvE raiding are limited. Compared to the latest WoW expansion for example, the first raid content is set at a much lower difficulty level. Comparing my first step into raiding armed with a bit of heroic dungeon gear in SWTOR versus the same situation in Cata, EV and KP on hard mode are tuned at a significantly lower difficulty level than the normal modes of Blackrock Descent or Bastion of Twilight. The content is too easy, this means that skilled raiding guilds will very quickly clear everything on insane.

 

Don't take this as an appraisal of your argument though - my point is that SWTOR would be better off more closely copying WoW in terms of raid mechanics and difficulty. I stand by my oriignal post.

 

Then there's PvP... the current PvP system in SWTOR is a mess precisely because it is a straight up time limited grind. Gear can only be aquired by grinding bags for a long period of time untill you happen to have lucked out on enough drops, and achieving Valor60 is almost entirely a function of time invested, not ability.

 

By comparison, PvP progression in WoW Arena is very closely linked to performance. While it is possibly to quite quickly 'grind' entry level gear, the top tier of gear is limited by rating, and rating can only be achieved through ability, not by grinding out time in BGs. In order to mimic this system SWTOR would need some form of competitive PvP, as they have no way of measuring and rewarding performance right now. The obvious choice would be rated 8v8 premade BG teams.

[MariusZane]

Well i dont know about you, but a play games for the achievement of "victory."

Just as i want the food o cook to taste great, and put effort in to make it so.

Just as a football player plays to win, and puts effort in to do so.

Just as a rally driver pushes himself and the car to the edge to win.

 

If the food was a finished in a bag and just had to be put in a microwave to taste awesome it would be a complete bore.

If you play in a football team that crushes everyone with 20-0 without any effort whatsoever its not fun playing football anymore.

If the rally driver only have to sit in his car and maybe press the accelerator and the car did the rest it would not be any fun being a rally driver anymore.

 

This is why people are getting more and more depressed, you need less and less effort to do anything. Might aswell sit in a chair and do nothing and just live untill your dead. Fun right?

 

And this is the reason i think MMO's of yesterday was way more fun and awarding. Not because of time sinks - but because of the challenge and gratification of completing that challenge.

It is the "cater to everyone" that is ruining the MMO's, hell not just MMO's, pretty much everything else on this planet.

If everything is doable by everyone, there is no meaning anymore.

 

And it has nothing to do with the time available to play, i have maybe 2-4 hours a day.

Edited February 2, 2012 by MariusZane

[VorpalK]

what makes me laugh is the idea that raids of any type are actually difficult outside a typical gear grind. IMHO Raids are for those people that want something to do in between the real challenge,facing other players . although that being said thats not really all that hard either.

 

I used to Raid in everything from EQ to WoW. I certainly didn't do it as something to do between PvP sessions. I hate PvP. I have no interest in competing against someone in this setting. 95% of the people I have played with feel the same. We had a couple people who just had to be PvPing right up until the raid started.

 

Sometimes they got left behind in favor of someone who could pay attention and focus on the evening's goal. Making 30 people wait so you can capture the flag isn't really a good skill to develop.

 

I haven't done any raiding in several years. I'm a lot happier in smaller group content, like the flashpoints in this game, where I can run with actual freinds and not have to deal with guild politics and people that think they're hard-asses because the run around flagged on a PvE server.

[Dalle]

I think a lot of the people who get so nostalgic fail to realise that we aren't high school or college kids any longer. The truth is that the majority of us just couldn't play an EQ these days.

 

That may be true for many people, however I had a full time job and managed to play EQ just fine though. It's all how much sleep the human body really need.

 

I also think it's about priorities, at that time the only thing I did was to work and then play. I was single, no kids, no commitments. Nowadays it's a different matter..

[Emeda]

And here we see the root of the "hard core" mentality.

 

"I want to be SPECIAL."

 

You're not.

 

Wanting to have something to do in the game is wanting to be special?

 

Is wanting to play the game more than 1 hour a day bad?

 

The casual mentality of, the game must only put in enough content so I can see it all playing 2-3 hours a week is the problem.

 

Everyone should have something to do in the game when they are logged in. You not wanting people to have something to do because they play more than you is more selfish than someone wanting something to do in the game.

[lordgracy]

I haven't seen many people accuse SWTOR of being too easy, or handing out epics like candy.

 

Its mostly laggy, unbalanced, and badly designed that gets my goat.

 

We almost cleared hardmode 8 man Eternity Vault last night(up to last boss with some solid attempts). It was basically our first night there and two of our members just dinged 50 within the week. I'd say its way too easy. There is no progression path either. There is no reason other to experience flashpoints to ever do them because you dont have to progress through them to be able to attempt operations. People will blow through this content very fast because its too easy.

[Jomppa]

Well i dont know about you, but a play games for the achievement of "victory."

Just as i want the food o cook to taste great, and put effort in to make it so.

Just as a football player plays to win, and puts effort in to do so.

Just as a rally driver pushes himself and the car to the edge to win.

 

If the food was a finished in a bag and just had to be put in a microwave to taste awesome it would be a complete bore.

If you play in a football team that crushes everyone with 20-0 without any effort whatsoever its not fun playing football anymore.

If the rally driver only have to sit in his car and maybe press the accelerator and the car did the rest it would not be any fun being a rally driver anymore.

 

This is why people are getting more and more depressed, you need less and less effort to do anything. Might aswell sit in a chair and do nothing and just live untill your dead. Fun right?

 

And this is the reason i think MMO's of yesterday was way more fun and awarding. Not because of time sinks - but because of the challenge and gratification of completing that challenge.

It is the "cater to everyone" that is ruining the MMO's, hell not just MMO's, pretty much everything else on this planet.

If everything is doable by everyone, there is no meaning anymore.

 

And it has nothing to do with the time available to play, i have maybe 2-4 hours a day.

 

I have to agree 100 and 10% to this, these days generaly games are easier, the real good challenge I had and still have is when I play Dark Souls

 

But in SWTORs defence the game does sometimes offer a challenge, I try to memorize how most of the mobs do work, if I meet a new mob and I haven't fought its type before it can be a small challenge

[hardicon]

the only real problem with your line of thinking is not everyone that wants a harder game basement dwelling welfare toads. i probably have less time than most on these boards yet I want a game (scratch that, I want a world I can immerse myself in) where accomplishments truly feel like accomplishments and not things that were given to me because i showed up.

 

Now i truly like swtor. I enjoy the storylines, I enjoy the raiding, what I dont enjoy so much is this is a game, not a world i feel invested in. They had that chance when they were going to make your choices matter and if you picked certain choices they could affect your entire storyline. They scrapped that idea for the most part and made the choices just about darkside and lightside.

 

sure wow and now swtor has made more money than other games but games like asherons call, uo, eq and swg made people feel invested in the world. In Ac we had a dungeon that we claimed as ours so our people could level up and have a safe spot to adventure in to level up, at certain times people would try to come take our dungeon, then we had a big old fight on our hands as our entire guild plus friends would show up to hold it from the player killers.

 

it wasnt always about time invested, my level 90 character that i got from playing a few hours a night could fight against max level characters pretty well even with their hours and hours of more playtime. when you accomplished something in the old days, it felt like an accomplishment, not something that was handed to you for showing up. epics in games these days feel like a consolation prize given out to everyone rather than something you worked for. there are games on the horizon that are trying to bring back the past glory of mmos and I will support them wholeheartedly because in the end I prefer that type of game.

 

people always like to bring up player skill in an mmo with wow and swtor. the words player skill has no business being used in the same sentence with anything about games created nowadays, because it requires very little of player skill. you cant dodge attacks at all, attacks are gonna hit based on a rng based on accuracy and defense. that is not player skill, that is gear skill. anybody can learn to not stand in stuff that hurts you that is also not player skill. games nowadays are about fighting a boss enough times you learn what he does, you want to see player skills make the boss abilites random so he does different stuff each time you fight him and in different orders, then you might see some player skill.

[Aljabik]

K Vorpal I think we are on the same page then. My days of 50 man raids are over too.

 

What I want from this game is something to do when I log on. At the moment I am on a sick day, and any other game would see me online and grinding out some loot, levels, faction, something. Swtor has nothing for me to do until my friends log in to do a hm FP tonight. No reason even to make an alt, they are all the same.

[Skoll]

I'm one of those jobless wonders who spends almost every waking hour in front of the computer AND I think the OP hit the nail on the head. Five stars for you!

[rafter]

Buddy, there was NO immersive experience in EQ. Get over yourself. Ya camping, lets bring back that retarded game mechanic. Btw, you do want a timesink, don't kid anyone., you want that shiny so you can actually think you are superior to someone in game. So sad.

 

EQ was one of the most immersive MMO's ever made, what's sad is you don't know that. Today's MMO's are on training wheels, they are roller-coaster rides that know nothing of exploration, nothing of community or the feeling you are in an actual world.

 

I don't think you know what immersive means. Immersive is certainly not sitting in a city waiting for your dungeon to "pop".

 

 

And here we see the root of the "hard core" mentality.

 

"I want to be SPECIAL."

 

You're not.

 

The funny thing about this mentality is that it didn't become a major issue until the genre went casual mode. Back in the day you rarely ran into people with this mentality. Of course the community at large was better as well. For a bunch of "basement dwelling toads" we sure as hell acted more like adults and treated people better than current players.

 

 

As to the Op, you could have missed the point any further than you did. The reason why so many of us lament the death of the genre and how easy it has become has to do with many things that you think are just great. The fact that you think raiding is all there is to MMO's is pretty sad.

 

1)First off, for most of us old school MMO'ers the journey was every bit as important as the destination, and modern day MMO's treat the journey like we are all retarded. My dog could level a character to cap these days.

 

2) Because leveling is so **** easy, it completely removed the necessity to play with other people, thus killing the "massively" part of the genre. Community used to be important, now people think you're crazy if you even bring up that fact. Most current day MMO players have no clue what an MMO community even is anymore. I get it, all the FPS dick waggers and Farmville casuals want to play MMO's now, great, but they've killed one of the best parts about these games.

 

3) There is more to an MMO than the last 1% of the game, which is where you post fails the most. The fact that you can pretend that the current games are more challenging by falling back on the final 1% of the game that is actually hard just proves this. These games should be engaging and challenging from the beginning. I can level a character in WoW and hit cap without ever dying...that's just stupid. Even if I did die, there is no down side. People actually die in these games because it's more convenient than running or traveling...that's stupid. So yeah, you can talk about how hard top end raiding is, but that doesn't make up for the other 99% of the game.

 

4) Basing any MMO argument on WoW is asinine. Everyone with any intelligence knows that it's an aberration and not indicative of anything. Saying that they did it right and that's the way the genre should have went based off of one games success is stupid. WoW is the ONLY MMO to be more successful than EQ...the only one! EQ had more people playing after FOUR YEARS than any other MMO has had 6 months down the road. Look at all the failures that copied the WoW model. If it's such a successful model why had NO OTHER MMO touched what EQ did 10 years ago?

 

4) The idiocy that we were all "basement dwelling toads" back then is just silly. I've never played a game with more professional, working, and mature non "basement dwellers" than back then. If any group should be disparaging another it should be those old time gamers laughing about how horribly pathetic and childish the current playerbase is.

[Dezzi]

If you believe developers aren't marketing to a casual, lowest common denominator market these days, then you're deluded. And it's not just MMOs, but just about every genre of game out there.

[knightblaster]

The difference is also that older MMOs were really virtual worlds with communities, while newer MMOs (post-WoW) are more online games with players. That's the main difference. After WoW, MMOs became about being online games you play for a bit each day much more than being virtual worlds you virtually live in. That's really the main difference, rather than "difficulty".

[Frostvein]

Nostalgia is the bane of mmo's as are elitist snobs, neither can make a popular mmo.

 

The hard modes are there for a reason and it always amazes me that 95% of the people that whine insensently about the ease of wow were no where near completed the hard raids available or hadn't stepped foot in one.

 

I don't whine about a game I've set to easy being to easy. There's plenty of room for both types of groups in an mmo, and I think both are well represented here one of the things bioware nailed having not done the hard mode ops myself (I rolled and leveled a 50 on a dead server)I can't say how well they've managed but time will tell.

 

To be fair, WoW PvE is easy. The hard part was finding 24 other people who aren't bad.

 

6/7 HM Pre-nerf top 500 guild with 350+ wipes on Rag because we couldn't find someone to replace the 2-4 idiots who would get hit with Lava Wave in Phase 1 or couldn't move their character during the seed phase.

 

PvP, that is a bit different. Not only do you need an intimate knowledge of other classes, you need more situational awareness. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't all that good at PvP (1800 rated most of the time) but I recognize that PvP is much harder then PvE at the highest level.

[Truga]

Well said, sir! I love it. And you are correct on all points.

 

Also, still chuckling at "basement dwelling welfare toads". Because that's actually very true.

 

Funny, I spend 8-10 hours per day at work and I still prefer the old model of actually leveling up, rather than grinding "end-game" equipment tiers.

[Mekrath]

EQ was one of the most immersive MMO's ever made, what's sad is you don't know that. Today's MMO's are on training wheels, they are roller-coaster rides that know nothing of exploration, nothing of community or the feeling you are in an actual world.

 

I don't think you know what immersive means. Immersive is certainly not sitting in a city waiting for your dungeon to "pop".

 

 

 

 

The funny thing about this mentality is that it didn't become a major issue until the genre went casual mode. Back in the day you rarely ran into people with this mentality. Of course the community at large was better as well. For a bunch of "basement dwelling toads" we sure as hell acted more like adults and treated people better than current players.

 

 

As to the Op, you could have missed the point any further than you did. The reason why so many of us lament the death of the genre and how easy it has become has to do with many things that you think are just great. The fact that you think raiding is all there is to MMO's is pretty sad.

 

1)First off, for most of us old school MMO'ers the journey was every bit as important as the destination, and modern day MMO's treat the journey like we are all retarded. My dog could level a character to cap these days.

 

2) Because leveling is so **** easy, it completely removed the necessity to play with other people, thus killing the "massively" part of the genre. Community used to be important, now people think you're crazy if you even bring up that fact. Most current day MMO players have no clue what an MMO community even is anymore. I get it, all the FPS dick waggers and Farmville casuals want to play MMO's now, great, but they've killed one of the best parts about these games.

 

3) There is more to an MMO than the last 1% of the game, which is where you post fails the most. The fact that you can pretend that the current games are more challenging by falling back on the final 1% of the game that is actually hard just proves this. These games should be engaging and challenging from the beginning. I can level a character in WoW and hit cap without ever dying...that's just stupid. Even if I did die, there is no down side. People actually die in these games because it's more convenient than running or traveling...that's stupid. So yeah, you can talk about how hard top end raiding is, but that doesn't make up for the other 99% of the game.

 

4) Basing any MMO argument on WoW is asinine. Everyone with any intelligence knows that it's an aberration and not indicative of anything. Saying that they did it right and that's the way the genre should have went based off of one games success is stupid. WoW is the ONLY MMO to be more successful than EQ...the only one! EQ had more people playing after FOUR YEARS than any other MMO has had 6 months down the road. Look at all the failures that copied the WoW model. If it's such a successful model why had NO OTHER MMO touched what EQ did 10 years ago?

 

4) The idiocy that we were all "basement dwelling toads" back then is just silly. I've never played a game with more professional, working, and mature non "basement dwellers" than back then. If any group should be disparaging another it should be those old time gamers laughing about how horribly pathetic and childish the current playerbase is.

 

 

THIS is just a great post. I couldn't agree with you more. When I played EQ, I had no care or thought of reaching 'endgame'. The whole leveling process was fun, immersive, and I felt like I was part of a world.

 

These days, there is no challenging content except the hardest of raids. If you don't raid (which I don't for various reasons, but lacking 'skill' isn't one of them), there is no chance of finding a challenge in these games.

 

And what makes a video game 'hard' anyway? To me, it is when it is unforgiving. I found EQ challenging becasue if I died, I would lose a bunch of experience and be pissed off. To me, that is more difficult than fighting a scripted encounter that once you know the mechanics, is no longer difficult. Sure, it might take you a bunch of tries to learn the script, but there is no downside whatsoever to failing as many times as you need to before you finally figure it out.

[grania]

I just thought I'd share a conversation in general I "overheard" on Tatooine a week or so ago. It was a scoundrel who was asking for help with his class mission. Not really advice, not hints or tricks or anything of the sort, he/she wanted a real live person to join up with him and help him complete his mission.

 

After another player chimed in the with typical "buy stimpacks, medpacks, use this strategy, I did that mission on my scoundrel 5 levels lower than you with no problem, learn your class, etc" he reminded us all that what he wanted was someone to play with, in his mission. With him.

 

I felt bad for this guy. Getting berated for actually wanting help and company. Who cares what his strategy was or what his skill was, aren't we supposed to be playing this game together? Aren't we supposed to learn how things work by teaming up and seeing what's successful and what isn't? It's been so long since I even played a game that way with a random person, everyone is so scared of screwing up or looking bad or not already knowing absolutely everything about the mechanics, I think.

 

I'm sure if anyone even cares what I say they'll point out every flaw in every sentence, but I also have those rose colored memories of old games and how they used to work. And how we used to make friends in them and how we used to recruit members.