MMOs - Where they all went RIGHT

[Calsidian]

The shear amount of vitriol and insults laden throughout your post rob it of all relevance or impact on the discussion, and weaken any argument you put forth; therefore, it can be disregarded entirely.

 

Have a nice day!

[TeoHTime]

How do I know your "knowledge" is only pretend?

 

^ Thats how I know. WoW was originally an extreme time sink. It was a game that required months of daily 10hours+ grind in PvP to hit rank 13, or that would have players raiding 6 hours a night 5 nights a week to be able to complete high end raiding. It was also a challenging game (PvE) that pushed you to play to the best of your ability to succeed.

 

Haha, my knowledge is pretend? I didn't post about myself in the OP because i intend my points to stand on their own merits. I don't need to wave an e-peen and argue from authority, but since you want to make this about me, you can take a look at this:

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&hl=en&q=cache:pQRHazCTjWwJ:http://www.wow-europe.com/en/contests/test-of-honor/index.html+teoh+fleetwood+twilight%27s+hammer&ct=clnk

 

The cached page of the Vanilla WoW test of honour competition, tabards awarded to the player on each server who farmed the highest rank in the original world PvP honour rank system, prior to the introduction of BGs. 7th from the bottom, Twilight's Hammer.

 

The original WoW honour system was a time orientated grind, it rewarded players for spending as much time killing people in the world as possible. It was a bad system, and beyond the initial novelty only a very tiny portion of the playerbase made an effort to farm it. I know, because i won the damn thing. It was a bad system, and that's why it was replaced by various other ideas in later expansions.

 

To claim that it was this system that was responsible for WoW's success, and that the game fell apart when it was removed and improved upon, is utter lunacy. Infact, if you asked the millions with active subscriptions during BC or LK what the original vanilla PvP system was, i would wager a majority could not tell you.

[Stonedsoul]

Haha, my knowledge is pretend? I didn't post about myself in the OP because i intend my points to stand on their own merits. I don't need to wave an e-peen and argue from authority, but since you want to make this about me, you can take a look at this:

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&hl=en&q=cache:pQRHazCTjWwJ:http://www.wow-europe.com/en/contests/test-of-honor/index.html+teoh+fleetwood+twilight%27s+hammer&ct=clnk

 

The cached page of the Vanilla WoW test of honour competition, tabards awarded to the player on each server who farmed the highest rank in the original world PvP honour rank system, prior to the introduction of BGs. 7th from the bottom, Twilight's Hammer.

 

The original WoW honour system was a time orientated grind, it rewarded players for spending as much time killing people in the world as possible. It was a bad system, and beyond the initial novelty only a very tiny portion of the playerbase made an effort to farm it. I know, because i won the damn thing. It was a bad system, and that's why it was replaced by various other ideas in later expansions.

 

To claim that it was this system that was responsible for WoW's success, and that the game fell apart when it was removed and improved upon, is utter lunacy. Infact, if you asked the millions with active subscriptions during BC or LK what the original vanilla PvP system was, i would wager a majority could not tell you.

Aaaaah, I see your problem.

 

You think that PvP = the entire game, or even what I was talking about.

 

See, here is the thing: read a post before replying.

 

It was also a challenging game (PvE) that pushed you to play to the best of your ability to succeed.

I rest my case: you have no idea what you are talking about. Vanilla WoW was about raiding, not PvP. The honor system was an afterthought tacked on post-release by popular demand.

 

P.S. I never said it wasn't a time grind, in fact quite the opposite. You are the one who implied it in your OP.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Stonedsoul

[ihateyouall]

 

With this system, they manage to provide the best tuned and highest level challenge of *skill* provided by any MMO to date, to the point that guilds at the top level of play become internationally renowned with sponsorship deals.

 

I tried to read it, but had to stop there. Couldn't stop laughing.

[Bobinator]

...Killing 400 wolves for hours?

 

 

What the hell..you're telling me piss poor free to play cash shop korean MMO grindfests are doing it right?

[Lordlok]

I think the biggest problem right now is that MMO'S have entered the "Pop Music" era.

 

Sure Justin Bieber and Lady gaga are wildly popular, but to argue that they make quality music is laughable at best. They might have some catchy songs, but there is no substance.

 

They do, however, make money.

 

This is where I feel MMO's are right now. Everyone is striving to be the next boy-band(WoW) so that they can appeal to the widest audience, and rake in the big bucks.

 

I personally believe that things will eventually come full circle, but I'm not holding my breath because I think it will be a long-term evolution.

 

Perhaps once the market is flooded with mini-Ushers with stupid haircuts,and piano-playing prostitutes(read as: a dozen WoW clones), the door will once again be open for something with substance to be able to succeed.

 

As of now, MMO innovation and ambition is on hold while everyone races to get their carbon-copy to market.

[vvp_pe]

naa i played eve

 

it is pretty hard alright. you can play it for years and not discover all the mechanics or what you can do.

 

if you want a hard game go play it, it's there

 

i don't have the time at this point in my life.

 

and if you think EA is going to put 200 million dollars into a spaceship excel you are mistaken.

 

edit - oh my god look at the dude above me complaining about boybands in 2012.

Edited February 2, 2012 by vvp_pe

[Lordlok]

edit - oh my god look at the dude above me complaining about boybands in 2012.

 

Sorry, maybe my example of what is "Pop" these days is a bit dated. I guess I'll have to defer to your judgement on that.

 

Replace "Boy-band" with whatever soul-less drivel you're currently listening to on your ipod and you might get my point.

[vvp_pe]

Sorry, maybe my example of what is "Pop" these days is a bit dated. I guess I'll have to defer to your judgement on that.

 

Replace "Boy-band" with whatever soul-less drivel you're currently listening to on your ipod and you might get my point.

 

yeah, sorry dad that he beatles are no longer popular or nirvana or whatever it is you grew up with.

[TeoHTime]

I rest my case: you have no idea what you are talking about. Vanilla WoW was about raiding, not PvP.

 

So are you saying you want a list of my PvE achievements as well before you'll cut your bollocks about 'pretend knowledge' and try to present a real argument?

 

I know exactly what your position is on the matter, and it reads like this:

 

"The last expansion i played before i stopped was the worst one"

[Niblik]

Dear OP,

 

You get respect for using "Asheron's" in your post. Asheron's Call was my first MMORPG... good times.

[Classicalbor]

EQ forever, that is all.

[Bowlan]

I think the biggest problem right now is that MMO'S have entered the "Pop Music" era.

 

Sure Justin Bieber and Lady gaga are wildly popular, but to argue that they make quality music is laughable at best. They might have some catchy songs, but there is no substance.

 

They do, however, make money.

 

This is where I feel MMO's are right now. Everyone is striving to be the next boy-band(WoW) so that they can appeal to the widest audience, and rake in the big bucks.

 

I personally believe that things will eventually come full circle, but I'm not holding my breath because I think it will be a long-term evolution.

 

Perhaps once the market is flooded with mini-Ushers with stupid haircuts,and piano-playing prostitutes(read as: a dozen WoW clones), the door will once again be open for something with substance to be able to succeed.

 

As of now, MMO innovation and ambition is on hold while everyone races to get their carbon-copy to market.

 

I would have agreed 3-5 years ago, but I think now, people are MMO'ed out and tired of playing the same thing with a different skin. My opinion, developers are noticing and trying different things, while staying with a formula that's been proven. To get something that breaks the mold, its going to take a developer to blow up the MMO model, take a big risk, and create a model completely out of the norm.

 

Personally, a game that took mechanics like Skyrim and turned it into an MMO, would be epic. Ability to roam wherever, do whatever, etc. Go on a quest and get your rear beat...come back later. Basically, take players off of the rails and move back to sandbox MMOs. Let the players decide, make choices, learn from their mistakes, etc., but keep the dungeons, raids, world bosses, and let players find the quests rather then, "You finished said quest, go see X because they need help."

[MasterKayote]

Haha! Good post. I also laugh at those "WoW ruined MMO's" speeches when WoW actually saved the genre. No wait, WoW brought the genre to life is more like it. Sure, its taken it a little too far NOW ... but I dont think there were even 1 million MMO players before WoW. There definitely werent any MMO's that even broke that much back then.

 

Oh and the "this is too easy" crap when they really mean "fast" is just hilarious, every single time.

 

"What? I got my epic weapon? But this is only my third run on this instance! This is way too easy."

 

"What? The boss died in under 3 days of basic tank n spank? What an easy piece of ****"

 

"I got to end game by doing quest, instances, PvP, and actually interacting with the world? *yawn* This is so easy and boring, I want to fight the same mob respawns for months on end again please."

 

... its funny, but so so sad that its true.

 

Next time you want to hate on WoW, just remember you'd probably still be playing nothing but online shooters and console RPG's if it wasnt for WoW. The rest of you would still be level 6 out of 100 in Everquest 3, which you've been playing for a year and a half, fighting rats in a group because you cant even solo them, outside the starter zone

Edited February 2, 2012 by MasterKayote

[bentcurve]

I don't know, I find things today frustrating. Am I the only one that misses looking for quest? Just having something that says "there is a pack of wolves by the river north of town that has been eating babies" and then you need to find the river, and then find the wolves? I find that in the modern mmo I run everywhere with my map open, pay almost no attention the world, and play almost thoughtlessly, because it tells me exactly what to do. It tells me where to go, the mobs are super easy, and there is no sense of excitement, intrigue, or exploration anymore.

 

SWTOR is almost on rails, as was Rift, and I just do not enjoy it. I do not want things nerfed to the ground. I do not want to be able to AOE pull everything. I want a game that makes me try. One that makes me interact with the world around my toon.

 

I played WoW for many years, and I find the assumptions of some of the people here funny. I am guessing most of them were not pre-BC or they would remember grinding skele's for Argent dawn rep for endless hours, the lull in levels in the 40's, the sheer amount of time it took to run Maraudon, or wailing caverns. There were tons and tons of time sinks in early WoW. From the paly epic mount quest, to farming mats for the very very rare craftable epics, to simply farming **** to pay for your lvl 60 mount. People want to forget that WoW started as a much more traditional MMO, and sort of lost it's way over the years.

[supertouch]

wow was not popular because it had instances and was casual-friendly. it was popular due to its brand name, marketing, popularization of the mmo genre in the west, and prevalence of home computers.

 

in essence, most wow players don't know what's good for the genre.

[hardicon]

I think the biggest problem right now is that MMO'S have entered the "Pop Music" era.

 

Sure Justin Bieber and Lady gaga are wildly popular, but to argue that they make quality music is laughable at best. They might have some catchy songs, but there is no substance.

 

They do, however, make money.

 

This is where I feel MMO's are right now. Everyone is striving to be the next boy-band(WoW) so that they can appeal to the widest audience, and rake in the big bucks.

 

I personally believe that things will eventually come full circle, but I'm not holding my breath because I think it will be a long-term evolution.

 

Perhaps once the market is flooded with mini-Ushers with stupid haircuts,and piano-playing prostitutes(read as: a dozen WoW clones), the door will once again be open for something with substance to be able to succeed.

 

As of now, MMO innovation and ambition is on hold while everyone races to get their carbon-copy to market.

 

 

LOL so true, ive never seen anyone compare mmos to music really but you hit the nail on the head. everyone wants to be the next big American Idol so to speak and rake in the bucks rather than being a good game.

 

What i disagree with is there is no place for a company to try something new. A few companies are even doing it, one game in particular that im watching right now looks very promising. the only real problem is most of these indie companies dont have alot of funding so they have to cut corners which results in some bad gameplay, just go look at mortal online. the other problem is most of those sandbox games are only concerned about the pvp aspect and if you dont like kicking sand in others peoples faces all the time or knocking over their sandcastles then the sandbox isnt alot of fun. there is very little pve content and most of the time the pve is tacked on and put there but serves no purpose just like the pvp in most themeparks game is tacked on and serves no purpose other than to say it is there. One company is trying to change that right now by integrating a pve into a sandbox world and making the sandbox depend on the pve also, I personally cant wait to see how it turns out.

 

wow more created a subgenre of mmos and that is endgame themepark mmos. eq was kind of themepark but it wasnt entirely focused on endgame. asherons call didnt truly have a focus except for on the monthly story which was pretty good but wow at first was not a easy game, it was a huge timesink at first and even with bc it still was a bit of a timesink although they made it alot easier than vanilla wow, but with wotlk it was fullblown esport pvp arenas and easy mode pve with free epics for showing up. in another xpac or so wow wont even have a leveling up process anymore, you will just start at max level I think.

[Nytak]

I agree, however you could really sum it up in one sentence.

 

Games and gaming have, do, and will evolve; not all gamers follow suite.

[supertouch]

it's unfortunate that most mmo players will never realize how sterile and linear world of warcraft is. basing the mmo standard on wow's popularity is like trying to copy the twilight series' success because roaring masses of teens gather at every movie premiere. Edited February 2, 2012 by supertouch

[hardicon]

I don't know, I find things today frustrating. Am I the only one that misses looking for quest? Just having something that says "there is a pack of wolves by the river north of town that has been eating babies" and then you need to find the river, and then find the wolves? I find that in the modern mmo I run everywhere with my map open, pay almost no attention the world, and play almost thoughtlessly, because it tells me exactly what to do. It tells me where to go, the mobs are super easy, and there is no sense of excitement, intrigue, or exploration anymore.

 

SWTOR is almost on rails, as was Rift, and I just do not enjoy it. I do not want things nerfed to the ground. I do not want to be able to AOE pull everything. I want a game that makes me try. One that makes me interact with the world around my toon.

 

I played WoW for many years, and I find the assumptions of some of the people here funny. I am guessing most of them were not pre-BC or they would remember grinding skele's for Argent dawn rep for endless hours, the lull in levels in the 40's, the sheer amount of time it took to run Maraudon, or wailing caverns. There were tons and tons of time sinks in early WoW. From the paly epic mount quest, to farming mats for the very very rare craftable epics, to simply farming **** to pay for your lvl 60 mount. People want to forget that WoW started as a much more traditional MMO, and sort of lost it's way over the years.

 

 

oh yeah wailing caverns 3 to 4 hour dungeon for level 16.

 

maraudon could be a 6 hour dungeon if you did all parts.

 

blackrock spire would generally take 8 hours just to get the group and complete it.

 

wow was a whole different beast from what it is today, and it turned away from what i enjoyed about the game which is why i no longer play it. i heard the original devs were either fired or quit for the most part when blizz wanted to go a more casual approach but I cant confirm that. wow was doing great in vanilla with all that hard content, it was growing steadily but it also had a big fanbase from their rts games. dont really know why they decided to go more casual when they had a good fanbase in vanilla but they did and the rest is history but around cataclysm i got to the point where wow just wasnt what it was originally and decided to move on.

[Andryah]

The reason that "hardcore playing" was so acclaimed in the past is that MMOs weren't popular enough and the hardcore playerbase was the thing that sustained their profits.

 

Nowadays, MMOs are extremely popular and casual players don't like "hard"

 

I agree.

 

Further, the "hardcore" became and will continue to be a minority in most modern MMOs (though there will always exist niche games for their special needs, and they should make use of them IMO).

 

So the sense that they (the vocal hardcore) still get to dictate (or QQ) about MMO feature sets is kind of hilarious. Free market dynamics dicate MMO product evolution, not minority opinions. But if the hardcore segment has an issue with this, they need to take it up with Blizzard because it was Blizzard that made the observation and altered MMO design fundamentals to serve a much much wider audience.

[RadehX]

c). Actually challenging in the sense that a great deal of individual skill, planning, teamwork or gameplay knowledge is required to accomplish the feat.

 

 

Guess which of these things are being referred to when a forumite makes a comment about how difficult classic MMOs were. I'll give you a clue, it's not c).

 

In the case of EVE Online it is actually c)

[Mephismo]

oh yeah wailing caverns 3 to 4 hour dungeon for level 16.

 

maraudon could be a 6 hour dungeon if you did all parts.

 

blackrock spire would generally take 8 hours just to get the group and complete it.

 

wow was a whole different beast from what it is today, and it turned away from what i enjoyed about the game which is why i no longer play it. i heard the original devs were either fired or quit for the most part when blizz wanted to go a more casual approach but I cant confirm that. wow was doing great in vanilla with all that hard content, it was growing steadily but it also had a big fanbase from their rts games. dont really know why they decided to go more casual when they had a good fanbase in vanilla but they did and the rest is history but around cataclysm i got to the point where wow just wasnt what it was originally and decided to move on.

 

Well when you get a job maybe you will appreciate the casual games more .

What kind of sane person would want to spend 8 hours looking at a computer screen.

Unless they are getting paid for it

[supertouch]

you really should try to understand that game design being dictated by newcomers isn't always a good thing. furthermore, you should stop equating popularity with superiority.

 

do you think everyone who played uo and everquest was hardcore? you DO realize wow owes its success to those games, right?

Edited February 2, 2012 by supertouch

[TotalKitty]

Concerning what happened pre-WoW, it looks like that cdertain people forget, that WoW has a massive background as well, which created a lot of hype.

 

Warcraft anyone?

 

A game like Dota (and now Dota 2) sprung from Warcraft 3.

 

Blizzard were lucky with WoW. If they hadn't produced the Warcraft games to begin with, along with Diablo - hell even Lost Vikings, there would be no WoW.

 

With that said, the MMOs before WoW was a different genre. Even WoW was a different genre, looking at the amount of time regular dungeons could take. Also the battlegrounds was starting out more and less time consuming. Alterac Valley battles could with ease take 12 hours.

Trying to maintain your pvp rank that constantly went down and down, unless you did some pvp. You losing honour when killing someone below 10 levels of yourself or killing an NPC from the opposing faction, who weren't a guard.

 

If anything, WoW got dumbed down, cause all of a sudden, it got the attention from all the people, who normally wouldn't have time to fully play the game.

 

So accusing the so-called "basement toads on welfare" is wrong. It's nothing else but ignorance.

 

Yes, the genre has changed, but if it's for the better I really doubt that.

A modern MMO got nothing to do with a roleplaying game. I haven't played an MMO within the past 4 years, that have made me feel like I was the character. All I have felt was that I have been taking part in something everyone could do - it killed the magic.

 

Further, modern MMOs lack the "alive" feeling.

 

Someone mentioned something about big areas with pointless enemies. Those "pointless" enemies helped making the game more "alive".

 

The point of an MMO was to create a virtual world, and none of the current MMOs can say they do that. You can now log on for 2 hours a day, and still be up to speed. I remember when that was impossible.

 

You might think you're a hardcore MMO player, but you're nothing else but a money resource for the MMO creators these days.

 

So assuming that the MMOs got it right by dumbing down their games is ignorance talking.

Edited February 2, 2012 by TotalKitty