Let's talk MMOs, /v/.
With all the outcry following Blizzard's shutdown of Nostalrius I've been wondering what exactly made vanilla WoW and other MMOs around that time (oldschool Runescape, etc) so special.
What did you enjoy in those MMOs?
Would you still enjoy those same things in a new MMO?
Is there something else you'd like to see?
Also how much do you value graphics in a MMO?
>>334465927
Why they are special is because they happened to be the a good blend of casual and hardcore, so everyone felt they got something out of them.
Vanilla WoW was just a casual EQclone, in the same way most modern MMOs are WoWclones and modern WoW is casualised compared to Vanilla. I'm enjoying WoWfags get their well deserved comeuppance
>>334466530
How has that changed then? Too much casual?
>>334466702
Well what would you like to see instead now?
Novelty.
Interactivity with other people.
Choices, positive or negative.
Freedom.
The more freedom an MMO has, the better, whether that means the freedom to choose shitty skills, the freedom to kill other people/help them, the freedom to explore a world.
>>334467568
This
Imagine if EVE's primary mechanics were actually fun. EVE/MechWarrior when
Well, the #1 advantage of World of Warcraft was always in the polish, atmosphere and such like, and those are still there in a way.
What separates games like legacy WoW from modern theme parks is the general design paradigm. There's a lot more emergence in them while the modern games tend to be overdesigned. For example, because the content isn't specifically designed for a certain difficulty level, some mobs like Defias Pillagers and Sons of Arugal turned out to be incredibly tough for their level and players would ultimately come to remember their encounters with them with fondness.
Because there isn't a designated linear questing route from A to C through B, some quests would end up with similar identity (for example, I'll forever remember Guns of Northwatch as particularly difficult quest because I did it when it was still red) and it generally feels more organic to, you know, actually discover quests and areas and stuff instead of getting on to the guided through the zone, with no ability to deviate.
Because the game wasn't designed to be played in a specific super-intuitive manner (with the game literally telling which buttons to push) and the game was yet to be solved, players had an opportunity to experiment and figure out the mechanics and what works (now, this phase isn't going to last forever, but game designers would be idiots not to take advantage of this in a new game).
Games aren't designed to have that one bit of content that's "the thing" you're "supposed" to do so players actually do whatever they want and don't even come across a concept such as "content drought", while the designers aren't pressured to make "the thing" (the only worthwhile thing in the game) accessible for everyone so the players who choose to do it feel more accomplished after having beaten it.
Datamining killed MMOs.
>>334465927
I can't speak for any other MMO, but the reason why I liked Runescape 2 so much is because of it's simplicity. It taught you everything you absolutely needed to know in the tutorial then let you loose in the world to learn every thing else.
You could explore and do quests that actually were quests and not "collect 10 bear cunts." Dying had actual consequences and money had real worth to it.
>>334467720
And this kind of features make the world feel like a much more real, mysterious, interesting and grand, while promoting the kind of player behaviour you'd want to see in the game. For example, non-elite mobs like Defias Pillagers might encourage players to group up. Unstructured questing makes veteran players feel good about themselves, having figured out efficient levelling routes and such like. Novice players in turn might seek help from those veterans, again bringing players together.
To answer your other questions, yes, I enjoy that kind of stuff and I'd expect to see that kind of design paradigm used in all games. Overdesigned games are sterile and boring and whatever good things modern games have can be picked and chosen individually rather than taking the whole package.
Also, it's worth noting that I only answered from theme park perspective, thinking of what legacy WoW does differently compared to the bulk of themepark market right now. I fully admit I like theme parks until they go overboard, but this isn't the only way to make an MMO. Many people would argue that the MMO ideal is to not necessarily even have "content" that sometimes brings people together in ways that I described but instead have the whole thing being built on top of player interactions and player-driven content(ie. sandbox MMOs).
So guys get this, I've been left by this virtual girlfriend I had a week ago because I didn't grant her access to the guild bank.
Three days later I wasn't getting any more nude pics from her and I was horny so I basically let her in and gave her access.
Today I log in and the bank is EMPTY like not even fucking level 90s epics are there anymore and the girl gquit.
I was just an officer and I'm pretty sad about how things turned out which made me gquit aswell out of shame.
Planning of not logging this character or any of my guild alts ever again.
The thing is she deleted me from battlenet and skype too. She probably thinks I'm angry with her which I'm really not, just disappointed.
Already tried sending friend requests on skype and sent her a tell on my characters but she ignores all of them.
I deleted my 100 shaman which I didn't use anyway to make an alt and tell her Im not mad but she ignored me and doesn't answer to mails.
Would asking some random person in Orgrimmar to talk in my behalf (for some gold) be too much?
>>334468416
Get out.
It's just that early to mid shit is super easy and people don't get a feeling of achievement (even if they get ACHIEVEMENTS) after doing so, and mostly nobody does hardest raids.
Before playing Nostarlius I thought it was just nostalgia, but after playing for some time I realised that the game is just better.
I just would like to know how runescape changed. I haven't played it since it was originally oldschool and it does look more appealing to me, but it might be because of nostalgia (But probably not since its much better game than newer version)
>>334468416
>virtual girlfriend
I don't want to be the first one to shill, but what I really like about FFXIV so far is the fact that it mostly follows old, classic formulas, but in a very polished and fleshed out form.
It didn't create anything new, but combines several good aspects from other games and the basic principles of old MMOs in one game.
I don't want to sound conservative here, but most MMOs that try out "innovative" new stuff fail at it, although the ideas themselves might not even be bad. They just don't give it enough time or money to really flesh it out.
The game isn't about getting to the max level, it's more about the journey, the adventures, the interaction with others. Current day WoW is pretty much designed to get you to max level as soon as possible and even gives you the option to skip most of the leveling process altogether.
I feel like they made too many hubs in these new expansions. A lot of people sit in their garrison or at some auction house, making the original world feel empty as fuck. Hell even PANDARIA feels empty now that auction house autists can just auction in their garrison.
>>334468416
>I've been left by this virtual girlfriend
How whipped can you get, whitebread?
>>334465927
Create dedicated ERP servers so the cancer is away from the real servers
>>334465927
Some MMOs are intricately crafted fantasy world simulators.
Others are depressing skinnerboxes and their content creators scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Some start as the first and end as the second.
>>334467825
A bigger issue is games being designed in a vain attempt of trying to combat the phenomenon of players going to 3rd-party websites, ending up with a sterile game that doesn't really even have anything worth datamining. A game that has an arrow leading you to "hidden treasure" is infinitely worse than players going to a website to see where "hidden treasure" spawns.
First of all, while it's not as desirable as getting people to adventure their friends and ask for help from strangers, ultimately websites like Wowhead are community efforts. You interact with the community to build a stronger knowledge base of the game.
Secondly, it guts the integrity of the world (it's one thing to have quest givers go "I'll mark it on your map" but overuse simply takes out any and all mystery: the end result might kinda be the same but I certainly feel different about going to Thottbot if I can't figure something out myself than if the game itself tells me something). And even if you could technically disable the quest helper functionality, this kind of design where everything must be intuitive and straightforward has already harmed the game (in oldschool design you might travel all around the world, in the new design you get 5 quests at once, all to the same area) and often the developers don't think of, for example, offering any directions through quest text or other organic means.
And if you're thinking of datamining in the sense of bosses being figured out before they are even released, artificial difficulty slider and obsoleting older raid tiers is a WAY bigger problem in that regard because that completely lifts the shroud of mystery from them for everyone.
Besides not giving in and gutting the game yourself, there are ways to try to dissuade players from going to 3rd-party websites, though. Like good quest text with clear directions, built-in coordinate system, ability to place markers on the map yourself, maybe official "quest help" chat channel.
>>334468796
What should happen at the endgame though?
>>334469153
I don't think ERP is the cancer killing MMOs but I get where you're coming from.
What's the best way to reinforce the community aspect of a MMO?
I think it's just difficult for MMOS to age. Old players originally leave and the companies need to find ways to draw in new players but no developer has ever hit that sweet spot and end up losing their playerbase. Maybe something more innovative and cooler comes out that appeals to the new wave of MMO players.
I think that's why vanilla servers do so well in any MMO that's gone through large changes. The original players are nostalgic for the good ol days just running bosses with friends but they realize the feeling just isn't the same which is why a lot of third party legacy servers have a pretty low playerbase or low high-level playerbase.
My favorite MMOs are the ones where I've been a part of the closed beta or open beta and the launch. Rift, Elder Scrolls Online, SW:TOR, Archeage; all of those games everyone was on basically the same page, it's like the flood gates were opened and this crowd of players are all cautiously stepping out into an unknown world, all experiencing everything together for the first time so the game becomes so much deeper than a min-max endgame PvP grind. Even the players that speedgrind to top level miss out on the story and exploration and are just as surprised at a newfound easter egg as the noob that found it.
The nostalgia factor is a big one as well. The only MMO that really has that nostalgia kick for me is Maplestory since that was the first MMORPG I really played, and I discovered it in 5th grade and started playing regularly in middle school. The old maplestory maps, classes, and playstyle take me back to a time where I could just get hoke after school, throw all my stuff on the floor, and start up some maplestory. Now Maplestory has completely changed their maps, added a million classes and bonus skills, removed the need for classic farming, have made travel much faster and instantaneous, and have made party quest lobbies and travel ports barren which has taken away a huge community of waiting with people,
>>334465927
>What did you enjoy in those MMOs?
Vertical progression, not every (worthwhile) content locked behind being max level, different ways to earn XP.
>Would you still enjoy those same things in a new MMO?
Yes, but I rather have a new game with these things than play on some old school/vanilla servers.
>Is there something else you'd like to see?
Devs not trying to cater every piece of content to everyone. Have hard content be for people, who want to put in the time/effort for it.
>Also how much do you value graphics in a MMO?
Obviously i like if it looks good, but I rather have better gameplay than good graphics.
>>334470153
playing minigames, and meeting new friends or even just freaking out over some random event with strangers.
I've tried legacy maplestory servers and while the beginner leveling and first job brought back great memories and was pretty fun, it just wasn't the same old game and community and I was chasing a game that's moved on.
I think there's a point with MMOs where you have to enjoy the times you had but move on when it doesn't bring you the fun it once did. Going back to old online games it's always been the same result for me and legacy servers only act as shovels to dig up the old memories better, but they're not very good for making new ones. I forgot my initial point while writing all this on my phone but I guess I think that legacy servers won't bring back what people are really looking for. Maybe it's better to find a newly developed game that's understood and implimented what you missed from the old games.
>>334470524
Community plays a massive part in enjoyment of MMOs and I think Nostalrius was the only private server big enough to provide a sliver of that big community feeling.
>mfw my gf told me she had a runescape boyfriend when she was 12 and they cybered
>>334469656
There is no max level. There is no end game. Just more powerful monsters and dangerous territories till the end of time.
You hunt monsters to get money and loot to go on more and longer hunts to raise your level and skills even higher. You need to constantly resupply your resources between these hunts. You might need to hunt in groups so you share the loot. Sometimes you get shitty RNG and barely cover the cost of your supplies.
First you hunt most powerful monsters in the games in groups. Someday you'll manage to kill one solo and eventually you'll manage to hunt them solo in a way that you can actually manage to make profit.
There are also of course places in the world that have those powerful monsters in groups and mixed along with less powerful monsters. Going into those places alone might be a suicide. Some of those places are not also simply suitable for hunting alone because there is not enough running place to keep the monster at bay while pelting it with attacks or you might also run into more of the monsters around and you can't risk running into them.
So you group up and go there with a team instead to make the hunting more relaxed.
Oh yeah. No instances. All the areas in the game are shared. There is world pvp. So better build up good relationships with others. or you're fucked.
>>334470623
>slither of community feel
>5 times more people than on biggest retail servers
>SLITHER
>>334470770
>GRINDAN FOREVER
Tibia go away
>>334470874
I meant the overall player base but you're right, it was a single bustling server,
>>334470623
I never played WoW but I would imagine it's legacy servers would be able to bring in a large enough audience to recreate the old community feeling.
I guess there's just a generally more rushed feeling in the world, old players that are now min-maxing and rolling new toons want to get to max faster and skip all the stuff they've seen along with new players not getting or enjoying having to wait in real time for a ship to arrive and ens up dropping the game through boredom. It pushes devs to streamline games and make travel and questing easier and faster which in turn spreads the playerbase thinly across their world, only meeting to run a dungeon then disbanding the party.
>>334470874
Well half the server was chinese who didnt communicate with anyone.
Most of it is just nostalgia. Only crybabies played private servers because they couldn't get their hands on mommy's credit card to pay for retail. Thanks god blizzard removed nostalrius before the launch of legion.
>>334471804
The MMO I grew up with so to speak was Ragnarok. Greatest days of my gaming life.
It was nice because for one, no god damn cooldown based rotation gameplay. And just amazing synergy and variety by today's standards amongst classes. Not to mention there was build variety within each class due to the skill and stat point systems along with gear customization via the card system.
You could always contribute something to your party too because you needed so many different abilities from different classes to make a fully functional fighting machine.
It was non-instanced too, so everyone running around in the same world space and competing for boss (MVP) kills and their loot. Cool thing as well was that there was always some monster type on each map/area of the game that had loot even high level players wanted. So you'd see even high level players running around and partying up or bartering with newbies and everyone just helps each other out.
The guild vs guild PvP end game was so damn great too. Huge battles with alliances and tactics + strategies were needed.
Bonus points for the amazing soundtrack and the visuals weren't bad either, 3d environments that... didn't age too well, but monsters and characters were all done as high quality sprites.
My only complaints were how ridiculously grindy it was even by korean MMO standards. But it was the most fun MMO to level up in that I've played so you just didn't mind. Also bots, of course.
>>334471259
Even if the guy is chinese having chinese by your side is better and more community than having nobody.
>>334472331
Faggots cried that some classes were OP, as a result gravity, after the original team left, made every stat calculation more homogenized, stopped updating non-combat focused professions and tried to implement a themepark lite on the game.
We'll never get the same amount of freedom we had when building a character ever again, not on RO, not on any MMO, not on any game.
>>334467449
>Well what would you like to see instead now?
I'm really hoping that all these upcoming big-name MMO's just fail hard and things get quiet for a while. The genre is due for a renaissance much like the early 2000's when Kunark came out for Everquest, SWG and Asheron's Call were hitting their respective prime.
But that will probably never happen again as f2p models and "soical games" take over so MMOs are pretty much doomed beyond repair.
I enjoyed vanilla because I was 15, had never played an mmo before, loved warcraft and had an awesome guild
Nothing can bring that back
>tfw the last guild mate I still talked to got shot on Christmas day 3 years ago
>>334469153
>Every single MMO puts females in bikini armor
>Surprised when the demographic these games are catering to start playing the game
>>334465927
My favorite MMO was actually not the first one I played (Asheron's call). While it did have some great features, my favorite of all time (still) was D&DOnline before it went free to play and put in an actual pay-to-win cash shop (it included significant stat upgrades and gear).
I know that instanced dungeons and partyfinders get shit on all the time, but it was just so convenient. And for every chest, everyone got their own loot from it so you weren't battling with each other about who gets what. Everyone got something.
