WISH Cancelled

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: MrBond

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: TheAudit
WoW has been the only MMO I've stuck with since UO.
I can't imagine that there will ever be a sense of community like there was in UO again.

Remove levels, remove soulbound bs, relax the skill system, lessen the importance of equipment drastically, allow unrestricted pvp all the time and fully lootable player corpses, increase world size compared with population and it will happen.

Soulbinding needs to be in place - otherwise the economy would be trashed. With Thottbot, its not that hard to find where something drops if you want it for yourself.

Fully lootable corpses and unrestricted PVP would probably make me stop playing. I work a regular job, I'm tired when I come home and have other things to do besides play a game all night so I can get my character to level 60. I like the fact that even though I'm level 26, if I'm running through a level 20-30 contested zone to pick up something (like I was last night with the expert cookbook), I'm not going to lose gear because some level 60 decided to be an asshole and lie in wait to gank me. It's annoying, but if they could loot everything on my corpse, I'd be out of equipment by now. I don't mind PVP, hense why I play on a PVP server. Ganking turns off the casual player and WoW is more geared towards the casual player.

The world size thing isn't really a factor when you get out of the lower level zones. They fixed most of the problems by increasing the spawn rate for stuff that's quest related. Maybe the high level zones are packed now, but where I've been lately, it's not too bad.

'97 uo economy wasn't trashed - nor was it trashed for 2yrs beyond that.

You mentioned levels, levels would be irrelevant in my scenario and you wouldn't care that much about losing your equipment...equipment wouldn't define your character.

Repeat after me - levels are a crutch, levels are ruining the genre, levels are a crutch, levels are ruining the genre :frown:

World size is essential, as are mobile monsters...ranging, travelling, living monsters.

 

[skace]

Yea UO and EQ were different beasts and EQ has become the adopted norm for many games, DAoC and WoW including. But that does not make WoW a terrible game nor does it make DAoC a terrible game. The thing about EQ is that it brought so much to the table, but did so many things wrong. It left so many holes where another developer could say "yea I could do that better". If you look back at UO and EQ as a developer, which do you think you could do better? I sure as hell don't think I could have done UO any better.

WoW is all about making EQ better. They took every concept from DAoC and EQ and asked how they could make these concepts work more for the player and be less annoying at the same time. And they did this to GREAT SUCCESS. It is the underlining reason why WoW is as good as it is. The other reason that most people overlook is that WoW has an awesome world and story. It is a world that you want to be a part of. The story is so rich that it makes me want to play WC3 again. Anyone who has read half the lore that you can find on bookshelfs in WoW knows how much story is available.

Now, as to getting rid of soulbound in WoW. That is another terrible idea because if you got rid of soulbound you'd have to make item drops more rare ala EQ. Soulbound was WoW's solution to rare drops.

And finally, Matrix Online isn't the end all be all that Malak makes it out to be and neither was WISH going to be. Let me know when a game as good as UO gets cancelled and maybe I will actually be sad. By the way, huge worlds in mmorpgs are played out, Anarchy Online and Shadowbane did the huge world things into the ground. Running for hours is about as fun as slamming your head into a brick wall.

 

[skace]

Oh and Malladine, I agree with you. Levels ARE a crutch, UO had it right and nobody followed suit. Skill gain and Skill apathy was the best system ever invented and also the most natural. Gain through observation, research, practice and experience.

Owning houses and boats was also a huge perfection of UO that hasn't been done in 3d yet. Not this instanced house sh!t from FFXI and EQ2, but real houses that have an affect on your server. A tent, a vendor by the side of the road, a ranch or a castle. Shadowbane tried and failed, keeps were too big, too centralized, too expensive and not unique or customizable at all. People don't want to build a town that looks like every other town, they want to build a home that looks exactly the way they want it to look.

Fishing and treasure hunting were perfect also. Not only could you fish, but you had to worry about sea monsters. You could own your own boat and fish wherever you wanted to off a wooden throne with a cache to store your fish. You could make a fire on your boat and cook your fish the second you brought them up. It was all so perfectly worked out.

Runes were also perfect. Rune books categorized by every possible secret location. People would sell them or house libraries. Runes to mobs, runes to mines, runes to reagants or dungeons or towns. It was even fun to come up with your own rune locations even if you were terrible at magic like my lumberjack was.

I think the problem with UO is that even in this day and age it would be hard to reproduce in 3D. There was just always so much going on. Reagants littering the ground, mobs every which way, player houses, etc.

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: skace
Oh and Malladine, I agree with you. Levels ARE a crutch, UO had it right and nobody followed suit. Skill gain and Skill apathy was the best system ever invented and also the most natural. Gain through observation, research, practice and experience.

Owning houses and boats was also a huge perfection of UO that hasn't been done in 3d yet. Not this instanced house sh!t from FFXI and EQ2, but real houses that have an affect on your server. A tent, a vendor by the side of the road, a ranch or a castle. Shadowbane tried and failed, keeps were too big, too centralized, too expensive and not unique or customizable at all. People don't want to build a town that looks like every other town, they want to build a home that looks exactly the way they want it to look.

Fishing and treasure hunting were perfect also. Not only could you fish, but you had to worry about sea monsters. You could own your own boat and fish wherever you wanted to off a wooden throne with a cache to store your fish. You could make a fire on your boat and cook your fish the second you brought them up. It was all so perfectly worked out.

Runes were also perfect. Rune books categorized by every possible secret location. People would sell them or house libraries. Runes to mobs, runes to mines, runes to reagants or dungeons or towns. It was even fun to come up with your own rune locations even if you were terrible at magic like my lumberjack was.

I think the problem with UO is that even in this day and age it would be hard to reproduce in 3D. There was just always so much going on. Reagants littering the ground, mobs every which way, player houses, etc.

:thumbsup: To add to that, I firmly believe that the combat and loot system was central to UO's effectiveness

On the last paragraph: i'd willingly sacrifice looks for that kind of gameplay.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: skace
Oh and Malladine, I agree with you. Levels ARE a crutch, UO had it right and nobody followed suit. Skill gain and Skill apathy was the best system ever invented and also the most natural. Gain through observation, research, practice and experience.

Owning houses and boats was also a huge perfection of UO that hasn't been done in 3d yet. Not this instanced house sh!t from FFXI and EQ2, but real houses that have an affect on your server. A tent, a vendor by the side of the road, a ranch or a castle. Shadowbane tried and failed, keeps were too big, too centralized, too expensive and not unique or customizable at all. People don't want to build a town that looks like every other town, they want to build a home that looks exactly the way they want it to look.

Fishing and treasure hunting were perfect also. Not only could you fish, but you had to worry about sea monsters. You could own your own boat and fish wherever you wanted to off a wooden throne with a cache to store your fish. You could make a fire on your boat and cook your fish the second you brought them up. It was all so perfectly worked out.

Runes were also perfect. Rune books categorized by every possible secret location. People would sell them or house libraries. Runes to mobs, runes to mines, runes to reagants or dungeons or towns. It was even fun to come up with your own rune locations even if you were terrible at magic like my lumberjack was.

I think the problem with UO is that even in this day and age it would be hard to reproduce in 3D. There was just always so much going on. Reagants littering the ground, mobs every which way, player houses, etc.

:thumbsup: To add to that, I firmly believe that the combat and loot system was central to UO's effectiveness

There are two types of players. One, while standing there as a ghost watching a PK loot their corpse for the first time, will shudder at the absolute horror of having their character toppled from the throne of the pinnacle of importance and reduce to fodder for somebody else. The realization that their character's fate is partially in the hands of other players shatters their ego so they log off, curse the game, and cancel their subscription. The other also recoils in horror at the site, but having their destiny forged, in part, by the random and inconstant actions of other players, while frightening, is also thrilling. Afterall, this is just a game....a multi-player game at that......and that fact will never be so clear as when you gate into the fourth level of a dungeon with several friends to recorver a friend's corpse and come under attack from a group of PKs.

Sure, everybody says they don't want to deal with the hassle of having to reequip, but in UO reequipping was no big deal. Grandmaster crafted weapons and armor were only marginally less powerful than the most powerful magic weapons. The need to reequip was fundamental to the economy and need for a house and need to hunt with friends. Until, of course, AoS and artifacts and runic crafting kits. :roll: Last time I played I made myself an all 70 resist suit and carried the axe of the heavens......it was sick what I could do.....and now they have ninjas and samurai with one hit kills and hurricane spin moves. :roll: Damn EA.

And I don't believe all new MMO games need to be 3D. I thought they'd eventually port UO to 3D and still believe they might with the UXO engine. But I'd be happy with a gorgeous 2D game myself.

*sigh*

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Malladine

Originally posted by: skace
Oh and Malladine, I agree with you. Levels ARE a crutch, UO had it right and nobody followed suit. Skill gain and Skill apathy was the best system ever invented and also the most natural. Gain through observation, research, practice and experience.

Owning houses and boats was also a huge perfection of UO that hasn't been done in 3d yet. Not this instanced house sh!t from FFXI and EQ2, but real houses that have an affect on your server. A tent, a vendor by the side of the road, a ranch or a castle. Shadowbane tried and failed, keeps were too big, too centralized, too expensive and not unique or customizable at all. People don't want to build a town that looks like every other town, they want to build a home that looks exactly the way they want it to look.

Fishing and treasure hunting were perfect also. Not only could you fish, but you had to worry about sea monsters. You could own your own boat and fish wherever you wanted to off a wooden throne with a cache to store your fish. You could make a fire on your boat and cook your fish the second you brought them up. It was all so perfectly worked out.

Runes were also perfect. Rune books categorized by every possible secret location. People would sell them or house libraries. Runes to mobs, runes to mines, runes to reagants or dungeons or towns. It was even fun to come up with your own rune locations even if you were terrible at magic like my lumberjack was.

I think the problem with UO is that even in this day and age it would be hard to reproduce in 3D. There was just always so much going on. Reagants littering the ground, mobs every which way, player houses, etc.

:thumbsup: To add to that, I firmly believe that the combat and loot system was central to UO's effectiveness

There are two types of players. One, while standing there as a ghost watching a PK loot their corpse for the first time, will shudder at the absolute horror of having their character toppled from the throne of the pinnacle of importance and reduce to fodder for somebody else. The realization that their character's fate is partially in the hands of other players shatters their ego so they log off, curse the game, and cancel their subscription. The other also recoils in horror at the site, but having their destiny forged, in part, by the random and inconstant actions of other players, while frightening, is also thrilling. Afterall, this is just a game....a multi-player game at that......and that fact will never be so clear as when you gate into the fourth level of a dungeon with several friends to recorver a friend's corpse and come under attack from a group of PKs.

Sure, everybody says they don't want to deal with the hassle of having to reequip, but in UO reequipping was no big deal. Grandmaster crafted weapons and armor were only marginally less powerful than the most powerful magic weapons. The need to reequip was fundamental to the economy and need for a house and need to hunt with friends. Until, of course, AoS and artifacts and runic crafting kits. :roll: Last time I played I made myself an all 70 resist suit and carried the axe of the heavens......it was sick what I could do.....and now they have ninjas and samurai with one hit kills and hurricane spin moves. :roll: Damn EA.

And I don't believe all new MMO games need to be 3D. I thought they'd eventually port UO to 3D and still believe they might with the UXO engine. But I'd be happy with a gorgeous 2D game myself.

*sigh*

Me, you and Skace need to get together and design a decent mmo

 

[Mellman]

Surprised to see such wow bashing...

I'm an mmo newbie, I tried to play EQ, DAoC, UO etc etc, but i hated the fact that I had to give up my social life to stay competitive and not get PK'ed all the time.

with WoW I can keep my social life, and play when i want to without worrying i 'll fall behind. I recently went on a 2 week vacation, didn't login for 15 days to my WoW account, but when i came back, my quests were still there for me to do, I didnt have to worry about anything, And i got right back into the swing of things.

I can't comment on Matrix online, but from what i've seen it looks pretty bad, the idea itself is just bad but thats just my opinion. I would like to try it out and see how it is though because im always willing to give any game a chance.

There was a time, back when EQ was starting out that i swore i would never get into an MMO. I didnt like the fact of paying $15 a month to play (i've realized it costs more then that for a 2 hour movie at the theaters anyways) and I felt I didnt have the time to have a "good" character in the world, so what was the point. While i have met some immature CS type players on WoW, a majority of the community is great, everyone is helpful to noobs, groups are easy to form etc etc.

Now that I'll probably get flamed for this by the people who hate WoW, meh.

*goes to look into MXO*

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Mellman
Surprised to see such wow bashing...

I'm an mmo newbie, I tried to play EQ, DAoC, UO etc etc, but i hated the fact that I had to give up my social life to stay competitive and not get PK'ed all the time.

with WoW I can keep my social life, and play when i want to without worrying i 'll fall behind. I recently went on a 2 week vacation, didn't login for 15 days to my WoW account, but when i came back, my quests were still there for me to do, I didnt have to worry about anything, And i got right back into the swing of things.

I can't comment on Matrix online, but from what i've seen it looks pretty bad, the idea itself is just bad but thats just my opinion. I would like to try it out and see how it is though because im always willing to give any game a chance.

There was a time, back when EQ was starting out that i swore i would never get into an MMO. I didnt like the fact of paying $15 a month to play (i've realized it costs more then that for a 2 hour movie at the theaters anyways) and I felt I didnt have the time to have a "good" character in the world, so what was the point. While i have met some immature CS type players on WoW, a majority of the community is great, everyone is helpful to noobs, groups are easy to form etc etc.

Now that I'll probably get flamed for this by the people who hate WoW, meh.

*goes to look into MXO*

For an MMORPG newbie, WoW is an excellent choice. They took a tried and tested formula and polished it. But for us jaded old vets, this is recycled hash. I also don't know why you were afraid of being PKd in DAOC or UO unless you deliberatly chose to go to the non-consensual PvP areas.

But, honestly, for a hardcore casual gamer, I think CoH is the better choise unless your set on the fantasy theme. In WoW, you get fedex quests or go kill the named mob. In CoH, you get a mission and you go to an instanced location and clear it of bad guys. You can also add WAY more personalization to your character which is important, I feel, for the casual gamer who really has few other ways to distinguish or identify themself in the game world.

 

[Mellman]

Im at work right now so i can't look...but is it still possible to get into a MXO beta?

 

[abaez]

As a ffxi player and given a 10 day pass for wow this weekend (and subsequently playing all weekend), WoW is a very good mmorpg.

I play on the pvp server and I think they could do two things to make the game much better: 1.put a level restriction on pvp +-7 levels, AND when you get killed they can loot your corpse of one item. This would probably make it tons more interesting and add some skill into the mix. There's this level 58 player vixen who will kill anyone even level 10's just because, which is silly and stupid.

There also needs to be a penalty for dying. I can understand catering to the casual gamer and all that, but I was doing a quest where I had to kill a level 16 mob (I was level 12). I basically kept going in and trying until I beat him. I died several times with no penalty at all which was just dumb and makes me feel like I am playing a game for preschoolers.

 

[Mellman]

Im not entirely sure, but i heard that there is a penalty for dying at higher levels? I could be wrong so don't flame me for that...

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: malak

The only truly unique MMO I've ever played was EVE, which happens to also be one of the most beautiful games I ever played as well. Even Gamespy gave it an award one year for the best looking game of the year. Not best looking MMO, best looking game period. But unfortunately a space sim isn't as popular as a medieval RPG, so it's not going to attract everyone.

Unfortunately some of the uniqueness of EVE involved such things as shooting a floating rock with a laser for several hours at a time. Not that you actually had to, you know, aim or anything, it locked on and proceeded to shoot the rock for you while you stared at it. Occasionally you got fly back to a base because your cargo hold was full, which involved staring happily at the shiny hyperspace screen for 10-20 minutes - not that you needed to steer or anything, the autopilot took care of that for you.

On the plus side your character would happily 'level up' for you while you were asleep or at work, so you could be uber without actually having to play it.

Also a plus, if you spent weeks saving up to get a big heavily armed ship, you could have someone come and PK you, destroying it, and leaving you back where you started - assuming you paid for insurance otherwise you character dies and you lose a big chunk off all your skills.

There were a lot of reasons EVE was not popular which have nothing to do with the relative popularity of space sims vs medieval RPGs.

Except you never had to mine once, if you didn't want to. You only get pked if you don't pay attention to the 2 ships that just entered your system with negative ratings. And having to take so much time flying between locations was a sign of just how massively huge the universe was compared to any game world in any other MMO, or any game for that matter. You were only flying at 20 million kilometers a second...

Nah, it was boring for people who can't play a completely open game. With something like WoW, it's easy to follow a straight line of progression, no thinking involved at all. With EVE, they hand you a starter ship and say have fun. It's completely up to you to choose your adventure and make friends.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: Mellman
Surprised to see such wow bashing...

I'm an mmo newbie, I tried to play EQ, DAoC, UO etc etc, but i hated the fact that I had to give up my social life to stay competitive and not get PK'ed all the time.

with WoW I can keep my social life, and play when i want to without worrying i 'll fall behind. I recently went on a 2 week vacation, didn't login for 15 days to my WoW account, but when i came back, my quests were still there for me to do, I didnt have to worry about anything, And i got right back into the swing of things.

I can't comment on Matrix online, but from what i've seen it looks pretty bad, the idea itself is just bad but thats just my opinion. I would like to try it out and see how it is though because im always willing to give any game a chance.

There was a time, back when EQ was starting out that i swore i would never get into an MMO. I didnt like the fact of paying $15 a month to play (i've realized it costs more then that for a 2 hour movie at the theaters anyways) and I felt I didnt have the time to have a "good" character in the world, so what was the point. While i have met some immature CS type players on WoW, a majority of the community is great, everyone is helpful to noobs, groups are easy to form etc etc.

Now that I'll probably get flamed for this by the people who hate WoW, meh.

*goes to look into MXO*

For an MMORPG newbie, WoW is an excellent choice. They took a tried and tested formula and polished it. But for us jaded old vets, this is recycled hash. I also don't know why you were afraid of being PKd in DAOC or UO unless you deliberatly chose to go to the non-consensual PvP areas.

But, honestly, for a hardcore casual gamer, I think CoH is the better choise unless your set on the fantasy theme. In WoW, you get fedex quests or go kill the named mob. In CoH, you get a mission and you go to an instanced location and clear it of bad guys. You can also add WAY more personalization to your character which is important, I feel, for the casual gamer who really has few other ways to distinguish or identify themself in the game world.

There are plenty of instanced missions in WoW...

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Hardcore

The worst part of it is, they made it this far. Unfortunately for Mutable Realms, their game sucked. It was beautiful, world design was great, monsters looked really cool... but it was more boring than watching paint dry. I think that this is a growing trend in MMOs today. They stick to the same basic gameplay as the first generation of MMO's and think it works. But the hot word for the day is level treadmill. Getting stuck killing goats for hours is not my idea of fun, I wouldn't do that even if it were free. But they expect you to pay to do this. What's worse is that 5 million of you gamers do just that.

Well hell, if you reduce games to this simplicity, all games sound dumb. Who wants to go around eating yellow balls in a maze and be chased by ghost? How much fun can arranging blocks as they fall down? I find it downright mind numbing to shoot other players on the same maps over and over again with the same damn weapons, but others like it. And what about those that drive cars around the same laps over and over again?

These games are ROLEPLAYING GAMES. The abilities of your character isn't dependent on your skills and experience you may have in real life, but in the development of your character. And character development, like traditional RPGs, is through experience, which is often through combat. What's the point in playing these games, if you can max your lvl in a week like you would in traditional games?

Ok, for example in DAoC, there was something to do at max level, something infinitely more fun than the first 49 levels. Realm vs Realm. Ok, but you have to suffer the first 49 levels of boredom killing the same thing over and over for an hour to get just 1/10th of the experience you need to get to the next level. I gave up, I wasn't going to pay anyone for that kind of boredom. If it had been significantly easier for a casual gamer like me to get to max lvl and enjoy what I actually liked in this game, then I would have stayed. The battlegrounds got setup for every level, and I thought that would have worked. RvR from lvl 1-50. But they were always empty.

Some games don't even have anything to do after max level except try the packrat game. That's all fine and cool except I can do that in plenty of free games, don't have to pay a monthly subscription for it. There has to be a reason to play an MMO, something that takes advantage of the massively multiplayer. WISH had something like that, but again the basic gameplay sucked. Some games get the massively multiplayer stuff right but fail at the method of a player reaching it. It's all fine and good for the gamers who take less than a month in an MMO to reach max level, but not for someone like me. You don't know the meaning of level treadmill until you deal with the gaming schedule I have. And I'm not a random gamer, I represent millions of people who just login for an hour or two a day, if they login today. That time is very valuable to me, and I expect it to be filled with fun. The grind of current MMO's is not fun in the least.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: malak
<SNIP discussion on EVE and providing unique options, some of which were boring>
And having to take so much time flying between locations was a sign of just how massively huge the universe was compared to any game world in any other MMO, or any game for that matter. You were only flying at 20 million kilometers a second...

You know, this is an interesting concept, although not an entirely new one.

What's larger ? A universe 100km across with 1000 points of interest, or a universe 1 billion km across with 1 point of interest ?

The discussion came up a lot with regards to daggerfall, which had an absolutely breathtakingly immense gameworld, most of which was empty and/or randomly generated, and noone saw because they always used automove between points where there was something interesting to look at.

If the speedometer in EVE showed 20 metres/second instead of 20 million km/s when on autopilot, would it actually make any difference to gameplay whatsover ?

 

[HardcoreRobot]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: malak
<SNIP discussion on EVE and providing unique options, some of which were boring>
And having to take so much time flying between locations was a sign of just how massively huge the universe was compared to any game world in any other MMO, or any game for that matter. You were only flying at 20 million kilometers a second...

You know, this is an interesting concept, although not an entirely new one.

What's larger ? A universe 100km across with 1000 points of interest, or a universe 1 billion km across with 1 point of interest ?

The discussion came up a lot with regards to daggerfall, which had an absolutely breathtakingly immense gameworld, most of which was empty and/or randomly generated, and noone saw because they always used automove between points where there was something interesting to look at.

If the speedometer in EVE showed 20 metres/second instead of 20 million km/s when on autopilot, would it actually make any difference to gameplay whatsover ?

IMO its all about content, not scale

 

[Malladine]

Scale is mostly important when related to population

 

[SagaLore]

What they should do is team up with several other vendors, and timeshare the online subscriptions. So instead of paying $$$ for 5 different games that you can only play one at a time anyway, you pay a single fee that is split among the different game vendors based on how long you've played each game per month.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Malladine
Scale is mostly important when related to population

It's a single world server cluster. Everyone logs into the same one, so they need it to be big enough to support all that. They've gotten 12,000+ logged in at once. They have a little over 5000 solar systems. Each solar system can probably support 20 ships max, some of the newbie area ones always have around that anyway, so there's plenty of room for expansion. But it's not too big.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Mellman
Im at work right now so i can't look...but is it still possible to get into a MXO beta?

AFAIK, signups never ended. I could probably hook you up with an account if you are really interested.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: malak
<SNIP discussion on EVE and providing unique options, some of which were boring>
And having to take so much time flying between locations was a sign of just how massively huge the universe was compared to any game world in any other MMO, or any game for that matter. You were only flying at 20 million kilometers a second...

You know, this is an interesting concept, although not an entirely new one.

What's larger ? A universe 100km across with 1000 points of interest, or a universe 1 billion km across with 1 point of interest ?

The discussion came up a lot with regards to daggerfall, which had an absolutely breathtakingly immense gameworld, most of which was empty and/or randomly generated, and noone saw because they always used automove between points where there was something interesting to look at.

If the speedometer in EVE showed 20 metres/second instead of 20 million km/s when on autopilot, would it actually make any difference to gameplay whatsover ?

Yes. Although there were many set locations you could warp to at 2 AU/s, there were some hidden areas, much cooler and totally secret, that you had to normally fly to. In all that space, you had to find them. And AFAIK, nobody was about to give up the locations of spots once found. If you have the patience for exploring this can be exciting when you find one. But it'll take some time if you are in a slow ass ship.

 

[Zap Brannigan]

It's a shame World War II Online was so unplayable because it was a great idea.

 

[torpid]

Sorry Hero, but saying WoW is the same game as DAoC is the same thing as saying half life, doom, etc. are the same game as wolfenstein 3d. WoW has about 300x the content of DAoC. WoW is the first MMORPG I have played that actually seems to operate on the idea that making things easier to do is actually better for their business. Other MMORPGs operate on the idea that making something take longer and making it more difficult and tedious will increase business. This may seem like a pointless differentiation, but if you actually knew anything about games then you would realize its significance. WoW has focused itself on ease of use to the point where something compeltely unrealistic will not be discarded if it contributes to the enjoyment of the game.

I can't tell you how surprised I was recently when my item went to 0 durability and I did NOT lose the item. Any other MMORPG would have made me lose it or (in the case of FFXI) required me to hire a level 4 billion alchemist to fix it.

When I played DAoC, around the same time in its life as when I started playing WoW, at least half of the quests were broken or badly worded. Many had no real reward at all other than experience, and almost none had any sort of tangible story attached. True, the first quest you get in the game to kill 10 wolves is not exactly shakespeare, but there are many quests later that are pretty well thought out. For example, there's an elaborate, multi part quest involving the assassination of the human king. There are numerous steps to the quest. Some are slightly tedious, but all of them build atmosphere and add some small amount of detective work.

WoW certainly stole a lot of good ideas. Though not many from DAoC, which didn't have many good ideas in the first place. It is basically a highly refined blend of some of the best parts of previous 3d MMORPGs. This is no different than far cry being a highly refined blend of previous FPS games. It had very little, if any, innovation, but it was still quite a good game.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: torpid
Sorry Hero, but saying WoW is the same game as DAoC is the same thing as saying half life, doom, etc. are the same game as wolfenstein 3d. WoW has about 300x the content of DAoC. WoW is the first MMORPG I have played that actually seems to operate on the idea that making things easier to do is actually better for their business. Other MMORPGs operate on the idea that making something take longer and making it more difficult and tedious will increase business. This may seem like a pointless differentiation, but if you actually knew anything about games then you would realize its significance. WoW has focused itself on ease of use to the point where something compeltely unrealistic will not be discarded if it contributes to the enjoyment of the game.

I can't tell you how surprised I was recently when my item went to 0 durability and I did NOT lose the item. Any other MMORPG would have made me lose it or (in the case of FFXI) required me to hire a level 4 billion alchemist to fix it.

When I played DAoC, around the same time in its life as when I started playing WoW, at least half of the quests were broken or badly worded. Many had no real reward at all other than experience, and almost none had any sort of tangible story attached. True, the first quest you get in the game to kill 10 wolves is not exactly shakespeare, but there are many quests later that are pretty well thought out. For example, there's an elaborate, multi part quest involving the assassination of the human king. There are numerous steps to the quest. Some are slightly tedious, but all of them build atmosphere and add some small amount of detective work.

WoW certainly stole a lot of good ideas. Though not many from DAoC, which didn't have many good ideas in the first place. It is basically a highly refined blend of some of the best parts of previous 3d MMORPGs. This is no different than far cry being a highly refined blend of previous FPS games. It had very little, if any, innovation, but it was still quite a good game.

DAoC had multi part quests too. But I could care less about the lame contrived stories around these quests as well as the ones in WoW...which I did beta for a month before release. You're going to assassinate the king and then 500 people after you are going to assassinate the king. Heck, Neverwinter Nights had some very good quests, so if that's your thing, then give that game a try. For me, I play MMORPGs because I like what they have to offer that to single-player game can offer......human interaction.

Since you went to analogies, let me use one. Take counter-strike. Amazing game and practically infinitly replayable and it's based around a core of human interaction and everything else in the game is built around balancing and hightening that interaction. Now take HL2. Amazing game, but can't be replayed much because once you've gone through it the suspense and sense of discovery is gone. Now, somebody creates a counter-strike that includes the option to complete single player objectives. Somebody logs onto this new counter-strike and now has to choose between playing the team part of the solo objective. Now, let's say the solo objectives get to be so interesting that that's all anyone ever does when logging into this new counter-strike. They are still playing multiplayer counter-strike are they not? But the multiplayer aspect that made counter-strike great is now reduced to a novelty or even a supplementary role to the solo objectives.

Sounds cooky, but that's exactly what DAoC and WoW are.....awful hybrid games. The objective in UO was to secure your interests. What interests? Whatever ones catch your fancy. The objective of EQ, AO, DAoC, WOW is to level and try not to get bored doing so. Interaction is now in the form of grouping......which is, again, to help you advance in levels.

WoW is a polished as hell rehash of this formula with a big franchise attached to it, but it is a rehash. Hell, DAoC has 3x the classes and 3x the races and has RvR for high level characters. That's at least an objective outside leveling. It's shallow and, inevitably pointless since it's a contrived objective that, in reality, means nothing to you.

Wish was going for the UO formula of "throw them in a pit and see what happens". What's more entertaining UFC or WWF? One you know what will happen and it's all scripted.....though it is very flashy. The other is unpredictable and real but not flashy at all.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: torpid
Sorry Hero, but saying WoW is the same game as DAoC is the same thing as saying half life, doom, etc. are the same game as wolfenstein 3d. WoW has about 300x the content of DAoC. WoW is the first MMORPG I have played that actually seems to operate on the idea that making things easier to do is actually better for their business. Other MMORPGs operate on the idea that making something take longer and making it more difficult and tedious will increase business. This may seem like a pointless differentiation, but if you actually knew anything about games then you would realize its significance. WoW has focused itself on ease of use to the point where something compeltely unrealistic will not be discarded if it contributes to the enjoyment of the game.

Doom and Wolfenstein 3D were the same thing. Different theme, same game. And from what I've seen, WoW has even less content than DAoC, but that's mostly because DAoC has been out long enough to popout several expansions. And I haven't seen any examples of how WoW makes things easier. Seems to be just as hard as DAoC.

WoW certainly stole a lot of good ideas. Though not many from DAoC, which didn't have many good ideas in the first place. It is basically a highly refined blend of some of the best parts of previous 3d MMORPGs. This is no different than far cry being a highly refined blend of previous FPS games. It had very little, if any, innovation, but it was still quite a good game.

But that's just what blizzard does, takes the old, puts a warcraft theme onto it, and releases it, and that's my point. It doesn't cut it with the other games, it won't cut it with blizzard. I didn't like DAoC, but I'd still rather play it than WoW. I still haven't seen anything new in WoW worth mentioning, and they are lacking in areas older games already explored.