MMO Urge

[DaveSimmons]

I'm 100% care bear, no PVP for me.

Star Trek does have bugs to put up with, but the space combat is fun. It's also relatively slow-paced, more like Star Wars TOR ground combat where you're using powers than like Wing Commander. The only PVP is through queues and invites to duel, never in normal play. If you decide to try it, you might as well wait for the April 2 new content.

 

[pontifex]

I'm 100% care bear, no PVP for me.

Star Trek does have bugs to put up with, but the space combat is fun. It's also relatively slow-paced, more like Star Wars TOR ground combat where you're using powers than like Wing Commander. The only PVP is through queues and invites to duel, never in normal play. If you decide to try it, you might as well wait for the April 2 new content.

I have no interest in star trek though.

 

[Zenoth]

The only ones I'm playing currently are TERA (for the dynamic combat mostly, still unequaled in my opinion), and Champions Online (for the heck of it, and for role-playing mostly, and only play it occasionally). And the only other MMORPG I'm sort of waiting for is Black Desert, seems interesting (I'll certainly give it a go for a time, maybe one or two months). But other than those, nothing of interest for me (well DC Universe Online is "OK", but I haven't touched it in about three months).

 

[Riceninja]

FF14 is the best carebear MMO out right now.

Black Desert looks really amazing graphically, I'm going to try it out for the character customization and world roaming if nothing else. 4K Black Desert Images

 

[zinfamous]

If you like ARPG then give Marvel Heroes a go. It's a really solid version of the genre, and not nearly as grindy as others.

It's way better than the initial release, too, for anyone that has memories of that. Oh, and totally free. All heroes can be had for free (you're only allowed certain choices for first character)...that does require a bit of grinding, though less than it would seem.

 

[gammaray]

Just say No to MMO .

agrees. In reality they are nothing but barbie dressing contests. cuter gears, ohhh i look so hot. oh wow i found purple boots. Seriously?

 

[EDUSAN]

you can say no to mmo until you try one and you get hooked

if the mmo is good and you get a bunch of people to have a guild its a blast to do raids or pvp or to interact between their different professions to get hard items (talking about my time in wow)

 

[xantub]

agrees. In reality they are nothing but barbie dressing contests. cuter gears, ohhh i look so hot. oh wow i found purple boots. Seriously?

That's not how or why I play MMOs. I couldn't care less about appearance, but I did love getting a group together and going to some dungeon to have fun. I don't PVP and I don't raid, but I do love enjoying an afternoon of fights and socializing with a small group of people.

 

[clok1966]

I think most of us have the same problem, you played that first MMO and it blew you away, you played the crap out of it and wanted to move on to "better" things. But nothing can achieve that original feeling. As an "old guy" I played muds, then some slightly graphics games (gemstone on Genie or Compuserve) etc.. Drakkar was my first true Graphic MMO, think Ultima Online without animation, it was a top down view of a world (ad&d goldbox?) like combat system and open world (surprisingly this game is still going today). Then Meridain 59 and a few odd ones (one was based on the Gold box games but I forget the name). Ultima online was "almost" it when it came out, it was such a good mix/blend. But then EQ came out and we went real 3D, there was real danger (besides gank squads in UO). The griffins in the commons, the PLAYER made market in the tunnel, playing a human with no night vision in the dark (and not cheating by cranking your contrast or tint). Running a level 10 form one side of map to other for MONK quests (was all but impossible). that game was "oh wow" and such all the time to me, it was something I had never seen, and playing with a few friends made it a game experience I would gladly pay good money to repeat. The problem is, like so many things you do for the first time, it very hard to repeat that. EQ was massively flawed, and now days is as close to unplayable for me as it gets (and the fact they have simplified it didnt help). But we all didn't know how massively flawed it was, nothing was like it at the time. Now there are many many games in the same vein and some do some great things, many are done much better, but they are all "second" or "third" so they are not new, they cant evoke that original feeling again. But all us MMO addict are still looking for the feeling we had that first time.

I still love playing them, but as so many here have stated, once it gets past that new game suck you in with wonder" the game is same old same old. Probably not a bad thing, EQ had a "played" time command when I gave the game up (7 years of playing it) i had a played time of over a year and half.. I had a great amount of fun, but its really damn scary to think you take a full time job, sleep, and subtract that from 7 years, take the free time and subtract another year and 6 months.. I fit the stereotype, get out and see the sun dammit!

good luck finding a gem that hits you like the old days, and let the rest of us know.

 

[bystander36]

^ There is a lot of truth to that, but some of it due to them taking away the awe in MMO's. In the early MMO's, death was harsh, and they made the environment rough to survive. EQ used to have a super mob in every zone that people leveled in, that at times might go bezerk on everyone. When you died, your possessions were on your corpse. Now there isn't much fear in a zone unless you play PvP. There is also no penalty other than pride.

You used to have to talk to people and form relationships as you played, now everything is automated to get into groups. It makes it harder to connect to people.

You used to only interact with people on your server, and you kept running into the same people. Now we do everything cross server, have instances so we don't see others.

There are advantages to what we have now, but it has taken away the excitement we used to have and social interactions. I just find it hard to get into new MMO's. Before WoW and WotLK, MMO's were a lot more interesting to me.

I personally held the MMO excitement through several MMO's. After WoW and WotLK, I just haven't gotten into another. Part of it may be age, but it is also partly due to the direction these games have gone.

 

[xantub]

I think most of us have the same problem, you played that first MMO and it blew you away, you played the crap out of it and wanted to move on to "better" things. But nothing can achieve that original feeling. As an "old guy" I played muds, then some slightly graphics games (gemstone on Genie or Compuserve) etc.. Drakkar was my first true Graphic MMO, think Ultima Online without animation, it was a top down view of a world (ad&d goldbox?) like combat system and open world (surprisingly this game is still going today). Then Meridain 59 and a few odd ones (one was based on the Gold box games but I forget the name). Ultima online was "almost" it when it came out, it was such a good mix/blend. But then EQ came out and we went real 3D, there was real danger (besides gank squads in UO). The griffins in the commons, the PLAYER made market in the tunnel, playing a human with no night vision in the dark (and not cheating by cranking your contrast or tint). Running a level 10 form one side of map to other for MONK quests (was all but impossible). that game was "oh wow" and such all the time to me, it was something I had never seen, and playing with a few friends made it a game experience I would gladly pay good money to repeat. The problem is, like so many things you do for the first time, it very hard to repeat that. EQ was massively flawed, and now days is as close to unplayable for me as it gets (and the fact they have simplified it didnt help). But we all didn't know how massively flawed it was, nothing was like it at the time. Now there are many many games in the same vein and some do some great things, many are done much better, but they are all "second" or "third" so they are not new, they cant evoke that original feeling again. But all us MMO addict are still looking for the feeling we had that first time.

I still love playing them, but as so many here have stated, once it gets past that new game suck you in with wonder" the game is same old same old. Probably not a bad thing, EQ had a "played" time command when I gave the game up (7 years of playing it) i had a played time of over a year and half.. I had a great amount of fun, but its really damn scary to think you take a full time job, sleep, and subtract that from 7 years, take the free time and subtract another year and 6 months.. I fit the stereotype, get out and see the sun dammit!

good luck finding a gem that hits you like the old days, and let the rest of us know.

For a while I thought the same thing, that it was just a problem of perception, that I only liked EQ because it was the first one and I was looking it through rose-colored glasses. But then, a few years ago, they created a new server that was close to the original EQ1 (without all the expansions that changed the game). I gave it a try... and I had the most fun I'd had since City of Heroes. It wasn't rose-colored glasses at all, it was the style of MMO what I was missing. In two days of playing EQ1 I had already made a group of friends that we would go every afternoon after that to do dungeons and chat and joke around for months. Because of the game being not 'solo friendly', people needed to group up from almost the beginning, and you formed bonds. That's what it's all about to me.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

^ There is a lot of truth to that, but some of it due to them taking away the awe in MMO's. In the early MMO's, death was harsh, and they made the environment rough to survive. EQ used to have a super mob in every zone that people leveled in, that at times might go bezerk on everyone. When you died, your possessions were on your corpse. Now there isn't much fear in a zone unless you play PvP. There is also no penalty other than pride.

You used to have to talk to people and form relationships as you played, now everything is automated to get into groups. It makes it harder to connect to people.

You used to only interact with people on your server, and you kept running into the same people. Now we do everything cross server, have instances so we don't see others.

There are advantages to what we have now, but it has taken away the excitement we used to have and social interactions. I just find it hard to get into new MMO's. Before WoW and WotLK, MMO's were a lot more interesting to me.

I personally held the MMO excitement through several MMO's. After WoW and WotLK, I just haven't gotten into another. Part of it may be age, but it is also partly due to the direction these games have gone.

I believe in these things. Making things too easy, instancing, it all waters down the experience, and makes it a self fulfilling prophecy - take away some of the things that made it feel right. Obviously there are aspects of the first experience that can never be recreated, but it's made worse by these things.

 

[Craig234]

As I was playing EQ vanilla, I felt that competition would force all MMO's to get less punishing, while recognizing the community built by the harsh gameplay.

It has gone pretty much as I thought.

Few players today would choose to have to ask strangers to drop what they're doing and spend an hour or two helping them get their body and items back.

Not many would put up with crowding that led to player-run wait lists for camp spots.

I have old papers with 20 names written down of the players waiting to get rotated into a simple 'wait for the spawn and kill it for exp and a little loot' group.

 

[ImpulsE69]

you can say no to mmo until you try one and you get hooked

if the mmo is good and you get a bunch of people to have a guild its a blast to do raids or pvp or to interact between their different professions to get hard items (talking about my time in wow)

Been there done that (Eve Online). Do not want to go through that again.

 

[bystander36]

As I was playing EQ vanilla, I felt that competition would force all MMO's to get less punishing, while recognizing the community built by the harsh gameplay.

It has gone pretty much as I thought.

Few players today would choose to have to ask strangers to drop what they're doing and spend an hour or two helping them get their body and items back.

Not many would put up with crowding that led to player-run wait lists for camp spots.

I have old papers with 20 names written down of the players waiting to get rotated into a simple 'wait for the spawn and kill it for exp and a little loot' group.

While the original EQ did not have enough realistate for everyone, once the first expansion came along, there were all sorts of places you could go and rarely see people. Granted, most people who didn't have a group to join would go to the same zone to look for a group, those who could form one had a pick of many zones which few people entered.

Anyways, vanilla EQ had problems with too few places to go, but no other MMO had that issue since, yet the basic idea of an MMO kept going. MMO's were founded on the idea of grouping and social interaction. It wasn't until WoW WotLK, that things really started to change, though others dabbled with solo friendly MMO's, after WoW went that way, it has been hard to find a group centric MMO. One that forces social interaction to be successful.

Some of the new games get so instanced, that it is hard to run into the same people. You no longer have to talk to people to group, and this cross server stuff makes everything worse. In games prior to WoW WotLK, you felt like you were part of an active universe with social connections. Now you feel like you are a solo player with others around you who are doing their own thing.

And while I seem hard on WoW WotLK, I still enjoyed it due to past relationships still being around. I was in a good guild even during that time, but it was the downfall of what I felt was good in MMO's. WoW BBC was one of the peaks of MMO's. The dungeon crawling was great. (I'm ok with some dungeon instances, I'm not ok with world instancing).

Note: My most memorable, and enjoyable memories of EQ were doing corpse recoveries. Coming together to help people was very fun. I preferred the process before necros could summon corpses.

 

[Fire&Blood]

One of the reasons I've backed out of MMO's is their time consuming nature, the grind heavy games just demand too much of both my time and money.

I have a WOT account, play 5-6 battles a month now but there is no way I would to grind those tech trees now or the equivalent of it in any game. I also play BF4 and these 2 games alone let many other great games slip by unnoticed.

 

[TeknoBug]

I used to be a HUGE MMO player, not anymore. After the punch in the crotch from SWTOR, I haven't been able to find another decent MMO to hang onto- enjoyed Guild Wars 2 for about 6 months, now majority of my guild of 12 years (originating from SWG) is playing ArcheAge and I don't care much for that game. I do once in a while still fire up Guild Wars 2 and Aion and SWGemu. And I would have been still playing City of Heroes if it wasn't for what NCSoft did to it.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

While the original EQ did not have enough realistate for everyone, once the first expansion came along, there were all sorts of places you could go and rarely see people. Granted, most people who didn't have a group to join would go to the same zone to look for a group, those who could form one had a pick of many zones which few people entered.

Anyways, vanilla EQ had problems with too few places to go, but no other MMO had that issue since, yet the basic idea of an MMO kept going. MMO's were founded on the idea of grouping and social interaction. It wasn't until WoW WotLK, that things really started to change, though others dabbled with solo friendly MMO's, after WoW went that way, it has been hard to find a group centric MMO. One that forces social interaction to be successful.

Some of the new games get so instanced, that it is hard to run into the same people. You no longer have to talk to people to group, and this cross server stuff makes everything worse. In games prior to WoW WotLK, you felt like you were part of an active universe with social connections. Now you feel like you are a solo player with others around you who are doing their own thing.

And while I seem hard on WoW WotLK, I still enjoyed it due to past relationships still being around. I was in a good guild even during that time, but it was the downfall of what I felt was good in MMO's. WoW BBC was one of the peaks of MMO's. The dungeon crawling was great. (I'm ok with some dungeon instances, I'm not ok with world instancing).

Note: My most memorable, and enjoyable memories of EQ were doing corpse recoveries. Coming together to help people was very fun. I preferred the process before necros could summon corpses.

There was enough space for everyone (certainly after Kunark if not at classic), the issue was more of people wanting to camp specific items, but needing a group to do it, and a group wasn't always available, and when they were they were full or they didn't want your class.

Those things are issues, yes, but to totally remove those issues waters down the game and makes it too easy/not enough risk/not enough prestige for completing and accomplishing things. I've not actually played any MMORPGs other than EQ1 and SWTOR and briefly Rift...while greatly different, all 3 of those are still level-based and whatnot. How well do non-level MMORPGs work? Which I ask since EQN is going that route...

 

[bystander36]

There was enough space for everyone (certainly after Kunark if not at classic), the issue was more of people wanting to camp specific items, but needing a group to do it, and a group wasn't always available, and when they were they were full or they didn't want your class.

Those things are issues, yes, but to totally remove those issues waters down the game and makes it too easy/not enough risk/not enough prestige for completing and accomplishing things. I've not actually played any MMORPGs other than EQ1 and SWTOR and briefly Rift...while greatly different, all 3 of those are still level-based and whatnot. How well do non-level MMORPGs work? Which I ask since EQN is going that route...

Original EQ didn't really have enough space. There were only 2 high level dungeons, but Kunark certainly added more than enough space.

I've only seen two non-level based games in action. Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Both were pretty good, although they didn't have the same long term draw as some level based ones. They both used homes and player driven merchants as ways to create social interaction. Neither of which held me more than 9 months, but they were fun for a bit.

 

[Craig234]

I used to be a HUGE MMO player, not anymore. After the punch in the crotch from SWTOR, I haven't been able to find another decent MMO to hang onto- enjoyed Guild Wars 2 for about 6 months, now majority of my guild of 12 years (originating from SWG) is playing ArcheAge and I don't care much for that game. I do once in a while still fire up Guild Wars 2 and Aion and SWGemu. And I would have been still playing City of Heroes if it wasn't for what NCSoft did to it.

Is City of Heroes' shutdown by NCSoft the biggest MMO publisher crime? Perhaps.

Curious, have you checked out Rift? But need to spend a bit of time to get to know it.

 

[Craig234]

There was enough space for everyone (certainly after Kunark if not at classic), the issue was more of people wanting to camp specific items, but needing a group to do it, and a group wasn't always available, and when they were they were full or they didn't want your class.

To clarify, it wasn't usually a 'specific item', but just a place for exp.

So there were limited dungeons, with specific camp spots.

For example, in the basement of highkeep, the camps were divided into the upper room and two lower rooms - but battles erupted when one group was strong enough to kill all the spawns in both lower rooms, and wanted to claim ownership of them, while a second group wanted to claim a room. A battle between 'ya you CAN do it' with 'but people want exp, so share'. (Then there was the mod wandering between the two rooms up for grabs).

There weren't that many decent exp spots, leading to the long wait lists I mentioned.

You COULD always go find an open area, but usually get a lot less reward.

Sol B was one of the highest 'list' spots along with Highkeep for exp groups, but another classic - but this one was also about item camps along with exp - was lower Guk.

Other dungeons were more about taking a group through it on an adventure instead of camping a spot - places like the lava zone dungeon (usually) and Sol A and upper Guk.

Those things are issues, yes, but to totally remove those issues waters down the game and makes it too easy/not enough risk/not enough prestige for completing and accomplishing things. I've not actually played any MMORPGs other than EQ1 and SWTOR and briefly Rift...while greatly different, all 3 of those are still level-based and whatnot. How well do non-level MMORPGs work? Which I ask since EQN is going that route...

Another prediction I had during vanilla EQ but one that hasn't happened is that some MMO's might go level-free.

The reason I predicted it is how expensive it is to make zones for level 10-15, 15-20, 20-25 that went unused after a brief visit, and how crowded the end game got anyway - so why not forget levels, which also kept players from playing with each other if different levels, and put the resources into a LOT of content for everyone, and replace the 'grinding' of levels with grinding of raid bosses, faction, gear upgrades?

I suspected that character leveling might come to be viewed as an outdated anachronism of earlier games and not cost-effective for developers.

While that hasn't exactly happened, Rift has almost done that by letting people change their levels to play any content and get rewards.

 

[pontifex]

To clarify, it wasn't usually a 'specific item', but just a place for exp.

So there were limited dungeons, with specific camp spots.

For example, in the basement of highkeep, the camps were divided into the upper room and two lower rooms - but battles erupted when one group was strong enough to kill all the spawns in both lower rooms, and wanted to claim ownership of them, while a second group wanted to claim a room. A battle between 'ya you CAN do it' with 'but people want exp, so share'. (Then there was the mod wandering between the two rooms up for grabs).

There weren't that many decent exp spots, leading to the long wait lists I mentioned.

You COULD always go find an open area, but usually get a lot less reward.

Sol B was one of the highest 'list' spots along with Highkeep for exp groups, but another classic - but this one was also about item camps along with exp - was lower Guk.

Other dungeons were more about taking a group through it on an adventure instead of camping a spot - places like the lava zone dungeon (usually) and Sol A and upper Guk.



Another prediction I had during vanilla EQ but one that hasn't happened is that some MMO's might go level-free.

The reason I predicted it is how expensive it is to make zones for level 10-15, 15-20, 20-25 that went unused after a brief visit, and how crowded the end game got anyway - so why not forget levels, which also kept players from playing with each other if different levels, and put the resources into a LOT of content for everyone, and replace the 'grinding' of levels with grinding of raid bosses, faction, gear upgrades?

I suspected that character leveling might come to be viewed as an outdated anachronism of earlier games and not cost-effective for developers.

While that hasn't exactly happened, Rift has almost done that by letting people change their levels to play any content and get rewards.

i thought there have been some that were level free? wasn't ultima online level free?

 

[bystander36]

While some of the new ideas are good, some of them have killed the genre as many of us wish it was.

I'm happy about shortened regeneration times, but I would rather have slower paced combat where strategy and thought was a big part, and twitch reactions were taken out.

I'm ok with some dungeon instances for dungeon crawls. This gives a great D&D experience. I dislike the automated grouping, especially when cross server, and making these dungeons too easy. WoW Burning Crusade did this well, WoW Wrath of the Lich King killed it for me.

I'm ok with player queue lists, where you join the queue and people ask you to join their group, on the same server. This lets you pick your members, but makes it easier for people to find others. It also leads to social interaction and possible in game friends. I do not like automated queues that leads to grouping with strangers, which people rarely talk to, and when it is cross server, you can't even friend those you grouped with for future runs.

I personally liked the corpse run. Even if everything you owned didn't drop, and just an item or 2, it made death mean something, and recovery important. The completely lossless death system takes away the excitement of trying to survive a difficult situation.

I dislike the solo nature of todays MMO's. Even if grouping is available, when solo is just as easy to level up, people stop looking to group, it makes grouping difficult. And you find that those without in game friends, tend to not find in game friends, leading to short lived subscriptions. MMO's are terrible solo games. It shouldn't be catered to solo play. It's ok to have some limited soloing, but group play should almost be forced if you want to advance in a meaningful way to promote social interaction.

MMO's are only successful if people are playing together, and creating friendships. They are terrible solo games.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I dislike the solo nature of todays MMO's. Even if grouping is available, when solo is just as easy to level up, people stop looking to group, it makes grouping difficult. And you find that those without in game friends, tend to not find in game friends, leading to short lived subscriptions. MMO's are terrible solo games. It shouldn't be catered to solo play. It's ok to have some limited soloing, but group play should almost be forced if you want to advance in a meaningful way to promote social interaction.

MMO's are only successful if people are playing together, and creating friendships. They are terrible solo games.

This.

I am the first one to call for grouping mechanics, but, at the same time, if the game developers make it super easy solo, then duh, I'm going to solo even if I recognize that as not the best way to play the game. It needs to be moderately required.

But game companies see people doing this and assume that players will rebel against things that push grouping...

 

[bystander36]

This.

I am the first one to call for grouping mechanics, but, at the same time, if the game developers make it super easy solo, then duh, I'm going to solo even if I recognize that as not the best way to play the game. It needs to be moderately required.

But game companies see people doing this and assume that players will rebel against things that push grouping...

I'm sure a lot of people would rebel, but a lot of others would become more attached to the game as well. Those looking for a solo experience in an MMO will stop playing it, but I doubt those people play the game very long to begin with. Eventually they have to realize that these games aren't very good single player games.

People used to whine about being forced to group, before they all went to solo play. They got what they wanted, but unfortunately it killed the genre for players like us.