Generation "Instant Gratification" ruined MMORPGs

Tandor · June 2019

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

mann9753b16_ESO wrote: »

Generation "Instant Gratification" ruined MMORPGs

It's a factor.

But really... youtube and the proliferation of the internet was what ruined mmo's.

Back in the early days of mmo's, there was an advantage to exploration and finding locations. Knowing your way around a "dungeon" was enough to get you in a group. Now it's "check youtube" as the default. Boss fight? Check youtube. etc.

Overall, I don't blame "youtube" or "the internet" though. It's the developers that didn't account for the fact that any game with enough users would have *spoilers* propagated about.

I don't blame those things, not even the developers. I blame the players whose answer is "Check youtube" rather than "Come along with us on Saturday evening and we'll show you". I imagine they're the same players whose idea of recruiting guild members is to spam random invites and zone chat appeals, rather than actually getting to know the players they're going to entrust their guild bank contents to!

Delsanab14_ESO · June 2019

Myrm wrote: »

ChunkyCat wrote: »

At first I was baffled that this post has so many replies.

Then I saw the original post has 26 “agrees”, and counting.

These are the reasons I’m so cynical about humanity.

Talk about 1st world problems.

My goodness. Do you have to be so cynical? It's 26 likes. 26. And you think that makes humanity something to be cynical about? I think you’re the one who needs to get priorities straight. Laughable.

Humanity is something to be cynical about but not for that reason.

Goregrinder · June 2019

Yup, this new generation of MMO gamers killed what those of us who were around during the golden age of MMORPG's loved. Unfortunate, but I mean....at least now I am old enough to have money and can just join the crowd of these youngsters and buy whatever I want now.

LiraTaurwen · June 2019

Casuals is what killed mmos.

zaria · June 2019

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

Yes, we all know that WOW 1.0 or WOW classic in newspeach replaced it as it was more causal.
And it was better as you could quest to level up rater than grind.
Now this is an novel concept for dolmen zerglings

I entered MMO late because of rural internet back at home.

And yes I blame developers a lot to, we see that today, game as service work long term, it has worked for WOW so far.
However it kind of need content. Simple advice wait a year.

rfennell_ESO · June 2019

Tandor wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

mann9753b16_ESO wrote: »

Generation "Instant Gratification" ruined MMORPGs

It's a factor.

But really... youtube and the proliferation of the internet was what ruined mmo's.

Back in the early days of mmo's, there was an advantage to exploration and finding locations. Knowing your way around a "dungeon" was enough to get you in a group. Now it's "check youtube" as the default. Boss fight? Check youtube. etc.

Overall, I don't blame "youtube" or "the internet" though. It's the developers that didn't account for the fact that any game with enough users would have *spoilers* propagated about.

I don't blame those things, not even the developers. I blame the players whose answer is "Check youtube" rather than "Come along with us on Saturday evening and we'll show you". I imagine they're the same players whose idea of recruiting guild members is to spam random invites and zone chat appeals, rather than actually getting to know the players they're going to entrust their guild bank contents to!

Eh... people always value time. If you can achieve in less of it... the majority will take that route.

The other side of the coin is that developers have created encounters where so much is going on that you can't necessarily see easily that people require videos to see them or encounters that are so difficult at face that people need guidance in mitigating the issues with them.

Point being... the "look it up on youtube" mentality is here to stay for the majority (phrased as such as there is always those that don't do it). It's in the nature of design that these things become prevalent in my opinion.

Streaming has added a whole 'nother dimension to things.

People that played Everquest in the late 90's to early 2000's played a game that can never exist again. There was no voice chat (even with 3rd party programs)... there were no videos/streams to guide you. There were spoiler sites, sure... but they didn't come close to the level of detail that games now get revealed.

I don't think there really is a way to account for these things for a developer. Thing I don't see is them even addressing it in design at all. The path of least resistance is now the mantra of mmo gamers...but, it also does sort of ruin mmo's for them.

Jeremy · June 2019

LiraTaurwen wrote: »

Casuals is what killed mmos.

In the sense that "casuals" are willing to pay vast sums of money for low-investment features through the use of a cash shop I would agree with you.

The basic fact is companies can make more money recycling a casual audience then trying to appeal to a long-term audience through the use of a subscription fees because it takes a lot more work and investment to keep a game interesting long term.

It's quantity over quality basically.

Jawshoeuh · June 2019

mann9753b16_ESO wrote: »

They want everything, right away, with no obstacles to overcome, and then they are still not, because getting showered in rewards somehow doesnt feel special enough, so they demand more and more, because surely if these blue items you get for free now dont make me happy, I am sure free epic/Legendary Items will...

Konstant_Tel_Necris · June 2019

Blue sharpen BSW fire destro still great treasure lol

EQBallzz · June 2019

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

I should be upset with myself that there are no games like EQ anymore? That makes no sense. Consumers may have changed but I doubt most MMO players today even know what a real MMO plays like so how could they have changed? They grew up playing some loot box laden *** show so they think that is completely normal.

As for EQ content being a grind..I went back and played EQ classic on the P99 TLS for a while about a year ago. I played long enough to raid Plane of Hate, Plane of Air, Halls of Testing and Kael Arena etc..Also, got my monk epic and helped a bunch of guildies get their epics as well. Having done that and being able to compare the content of EQ (in today's terms) to modern MMOs I can safely say that it holds up more than fine if you can get past the dated graphics.

Yes, there is "grinding" of mobs and leveling is slow but most of the time it's still more entertaining than the faceroll button mashing of modern MMOs. There are few quests in EQ but they are more impactful and interesting IMO because you have to look for them or hear about them (word of mouth or Internet or whatever). No quest markers telling you where they are.

Content requires grouping and usually a competent execution of your class to even work. Group requires someone to "pull" the mobs without training the group or interfering with other groups. The healer has to keep people alive and the tank has to keep mobs off the healer. Buffs have to be kept up. Loot rules have to be established by the players. The real interaction with other players + the real difficulty of mobs is what creates the content and it's frequently emergent content because you never know what is going to happen in a camp or a shared dungeon or a raid. So I think it's a bit of an over simplification to just say it's "grinding the same mobs over and over" although there certainly is that.

I will play Pantheon if it ever actually comes out but who knows if/when that will ever happen.

EQBallzz · June 2019

Drachenfier wrote: »

Everquest is still the best mmo ever made....if that game had an update to put it on par with other games graphically, I'd never play anything else

Brad McQuaid (one of the original creators of EQ) is working on the "spiritual successor to EQ". It's called Pantheon. Who knows if it will ever get released but there are some tantalizing live streams of their progress online you can watch. It's basically EQ with a dash of Vanguard but with updated graphics and a few twists.

EQBallzz · June 2019

Chadak wrote: »

Automobiles ruined the horse industry and devastated buggy manufacturers.

If automobiles also included little gremlins that bugged you constantly to buy their garbage in a little gremlin shop every time you got in the car and charged you a microtransaction every time you used your blinker, the brakes, the AC, adjusted the radio or allowed any passengers...I feel certain we would all still be riding in a buggy.

rfennell_ESO · June 2019

EQBallzz wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

Content requires grouping and usually a competent execution of your class to even work. Group requires someone to "pull" the mobs without training the group or interfering with other groups. The healer has to keep people alive and the tank has to keep mobs off the healer. Buffs have to be kept up. Loot rules have to be established by the players. The real interaction with other players + the real difficulty of mobs is what creates the content and it's frequently emergent content because you never know what is going to happen in a camp or a shared dungeon or a raid. So I think it's a bit of an over simplification to just say it's "grinding the same mobs over and over" although there certainly is that.

I will play Pantheon if it ever actually comes out but who knows if/when that will ever happen.

The current model of gameplay is quite literally pulling the same mobs over and over in that there is little to no variation past "ranged" or "melee" and it's become an AOE fest to deal with it.

In EQ the "puller" was very important and the spawns might be the same, but their pathing and locations made for a different pull (and sometimes a disastrous pull). The spawns were also varied in some cases in that you could get a a respawn that was far tougher than what you just killed.

The main difference in mmo's now (past what's been said already) is the strength of the average mob. Current mmo's have gone with this pull 'em all approach where care in pulling is very understated. In EQ... if you pulled them all... you were pretty much doomed as the game revolved around fighting single creatures and using CC on adds (or having a puller good enough to be able to split spawns and/or pull fewer by tactics).

In higher content in EQ... monks with feign death would pull and feign the pull so it could be split up. That's an entire play style lacking in current mmo's.

The thrill I once had of saving half a raid by keeping plane of hate mobs mezzed while meditating for mana to remez while people that were just saved a long run back and an experience loss chanted my name in /zone is something I miss.

That or keeping a monster train in plain of fear mezzed with an enchanter buddy so that most of the zone full of mobs were standing there waiting to be grinded down after another guild foolishly trained them not realizing that the guild I was with had two good enchanters with them. All while trying to keep durations of mezzes and order in mind while I sat to meditate (which was a 100% one shot on a clothy)... it's just something foreign to current mmo's.

I played a mmo for a number of years where I wasn't a tank, I wasn't a healer and didn't put *any* dps abilities on my bar at all. All I did was buff, debuff and cc... and it was the best mmo experience I ever had. Another playstyle eliminated by the current crop of mmos.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2019

Jawshoeuh wrote: »

mann9753b16_ESO wrote: »

They want everything, right away, with no obstacles to overcome, and then they are still not, because getting showered in rewards somehow doesnt feel special enough, so they demand more and more, because surely if these blue items you get for free now dont make me happy, I am sure free epic/Legendary Items will...

Just so we all know Marcia ended up trading sex for Drugs and ruined her her life . jan on the other hand is a very successful painter and still owns her mansion in malibu she bought for 55 k that is now worth 6 mil.

Sylvermynx · June 2019

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

"Getting a blue item in an early 2000's MMO = Precious"

And then, three weeks later & you had a purple item, all those blue items were trash.

...also, just because things have the same color in different games, doesn't mean they have the same value/meaning/rarity. Even between games released in the same year.

edit: I'm 48 years old and I've been playing games since 1979. All you young'uns crying "doooom" and "was better in The Olde Days" and "it's all ruined!" are hilarious.

Yeah, actually I was pretty happy to see that the gear color in ESO is quality not rarity. I much prefer that angle!

As for games, I started with pencil and paper AD&D in the mid-70s, DMing games for my daughter and her friends in jr high school. Then I got a computer in 1984, and found games like Stonegate. And later the SSI Gold Box games set in Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms.

And, as for generation - I'll be 72 the end of the year. The only thing I don't do with tech any more is build my own computers... now I just want to order one using CyberPowerPC's configurator, and have it delivered. So far, they've exceeded my expectations.

Tandor · June 2019

LiraTaurwen wrote: »

Casuals is what killed mmos.

Casuals keep them going, actually. They play on because they don't take their games too seriously. It isn't casuals who camp this forum more than the game and continually cancel their sub because of this, or stop playing because of that. Casuals stick with it and provide the level and continuity of income that enable developers to keep a game going.

Some think that casuals are all whales who spend their time in the Crown Store but they're not, they're the ones taking their time to play the game while the non-casuals are in the Crown Store buying up skill points and standing at a dolmen for 50 levels so that they can more quickly reach the point where they can come back here and talk about quitting again because the casuals have ruined the game and they're bored

!

EQBallzz · June 2019

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

Content requires grouping and usually a competent execution of your class to even work. Group requires someone to "pull" the mobs without training the group or interfering with other groups. The healer has to keep people alive and the tank has to keep mobs off the healer. Buffs have to be kept up. Loot rules have to be established by the players. The real interaction with other players + the real difficulty of mobs is what creates the content and it's frequently emergent content because you never know what is going to happen in a camp or a shared dungeon or a raid. So I think it's a bit of an over simplification to just say it's "grinding the same mobs over and over" although there certainly is that.

I will play Pantheon if it ever actually comes out but who knows if/when that will ever happen.

The current model of gameplay is quite literally pulling the same mobs over and over in that there is little to no variation past "ranged" or "melee" and it's become an AOE fest to deal with it.

In EQ the "puller" was very important and the spawns might be the same, but their pathing and locations made for a different pull (and sometimes a disastrous pull). The spawns were also varied in some cases in that you could get a a respawn that was far tougher than what you just killed.

The main difference in mmo's now (past what's been said already) is the strength of the average mob. Current mmo's have gone with this pull 'em all approach where care in pulling is very understated. In EQ... if you pulled them all... you were pretty much doomed as the game revolved around fighting single creatures and using CC on adds (or having a puller good enough to be able to split spawns and/or pull fewer by tactics).

In higher content in EQ... monks with feign death would pull and feign the pull so it could be split up. That's an entire play style lacking in current mmo's.

The thrill I once had of saving half a raid by keeping plane of hate mobs mezzed while meditating for mana to remez while people that were just saved a long run back and an experience loss chanted my name in /zone is something I miss.

That or keeping a monster train in plain of fear mezzed with an enchanter buddy so that most of the zone full of mobs were standing there waiting to be grinded down after another guild foolishly trained them not realizing that the guild I was with had two good enchanters with them. All while trying to keep durations of mezzes and order in mind while I sat to meditate (which was a 100% one shot on a clothy)... it's just something foreign to current mmo's.

I played a mmo for a number of years where I wasn't a tank, I wasn't a healer and didn't put *any* dps abilities on my bar at all. All I did was buff, debuff and cc... and it was the best mmo experience I ever had. Another playstyle eliminated by the current crop of mmos.

That's exactly what I was talking about. The "mobs" weren't the content really. The interaction of the players and the mobs and other players was the content. I don't think EQ was ever considered a sandbox game but it was more or less a sandbox or a foundation that allowed players to interact with it and each other in many times unexpected ways.

All the rules that emerged about camps, training mobs, group etiquette, loot, raids, epic weapons, trading..all of that was created and established by players to the point that it became the norm and almost part of the game design. In fact, what players came up with in EQ became automated in future games like WoW. NBG used to be a player created loot system..in WoW it became a clickable loot window.

Wifeaggro13 · June 2019

EQBallzz wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

Everquest is still the best mmo ever made....if that game had an update to put it on par with other games graphically, I'd never play anything else

Brad McQuaid (one of the original creators of EQ) is working on the "spiritual successor to EQ". It's called Pantheon. Who knows if it will ever get released but there are some tantalizing live streams of their progress online you can watch. It's basically EQ with a dash of Vanguard but with updated graphics and a few twists.

way more game systems in place , vanguard was pretty friggin interesting with its crafting system.

barney2525 · June 2019

mann9753b16_ESO wrote: »

They want everything, right away, with no obstacles to overcome, and then they are still not, because getting showered in rewards somehow doesnt feel special enough, so they demand more and more, because surely if these blue items you get for free now dont make me happy, I am sure free epic/Legendary Items will...

Best part is once they get everything the easy way, they complain about how easy the game is for them and it needs to be changed to be more challenging.

jainiadral · June 2019

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

"Getting a blue item in an early 2000's MMO = Precious"

And then, three weeks later & you had a purple item, all those blue items were trash.

...also, just because things have the same color in different games, doesn't mean they have the same value/meaning/rarity. Even between games released in the same year.

edit: I'm 48 years old and I've been playing games since 1979. All you young'uns crying "doooom" and "was better in The Olde Days" and "it's all ruined!" are hilarious.

Heading up on 48 myself, and I'm glad games have become accessible to ordinary humans. But I guess I'm weird like that.

I don't miss the oldie times when on allowance day I'd head to the arcade or the local supermarket for my ten second dose of PacMan or QBert. Quarters didn't go far, especially if you royally sucked. It was a grim, dark, extremely expensive era of gaming. Short of handing me a cool billion tax free, there's no way in hell you could get me to go back. Modern gaming is a kajillion times better.

I went back and took a nostalgia visit to the Internet Archive where you can play Qbert and other classics for free. It was still hard and not particularly fun.

I fired up some nice, shiny modern games after my Two Minutes Nostalgia and lost myself in beautiful music, graphics, art style, voice acting and writing. I felt the real world slip away as I immersed myself in the totality of a new world. Sign me up for Generation Instant Gratification, whatever the heck it is. (Hey, OP, what generation is it?)

These days, we have great writing, beautiful graphics, vast lands to explore. We have stories in every corner of the map, moments that haunt us. We can play these games on devices the common man can afford. So many more of us can step out of our lives for a moment and occupy a different world for a little while. We don't have to torture ourselves for brief flashes of enjoyment anymore-- instead, we have a huge array of options we can choose so we can have fun the way we wish.

And that's all games are-- play and fun. If you're looking for real meaning in them, you're kinda doing life wrong.

Ohtimbar · June 2019

Back in my day we had to shovel snow all day and walk ten miles barefoot over lava if we wanted a fancy costume or a fetching new hat. Now these millennials and gen zeds come along and expect shoes and horseless carriages.

RANKK7 · June 2019

RavenSworn wrote: »

It's post like this that gives me splitting headaches.

You are luckier, they give me diarrhea.

Corpier · June 2019

Ohtimbar wrote: »

Back in my day we had to shovel snow all day and walk ten miles barefoot over lava if we wanted a fancy costume or a fetching new hat. Now these millennials and gen zeds come along and expect shoes and horseless carriages.

You had shovels and hats in your day? We would have killed for shovels, let alone hats.

rfennell_ESO · June 2019

EQBallzz wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

Content requires grouping and usually a competent execution of your class to even work. Group requires someone to "pull" the mobs without training the group or interfering with other groups. The healer has to keep people alive and the tank has to keep mobs off the healer. Buffs have to be kept up. Loot rules have to be established by the players. The real interaction with other players + the real difficulty of mobs is what creates the content and it's frequently emergent content because you never know what is going to happen in a camp or a shared dungeon or a raid. So I think it's a bit of an over simplification to just say it's "grinding the same mobs over and over" although there certainly is that.

I will play Pantheon if it ever actually comes out but who knows if/when that will ever happen.

The current model of gameplay is quite literally pulling the same mobs over and over in that there is little to no variation past "ranged" or "melee" and it's become an AOE fest to deal with it.

In EQ the "puller" was very important and the spawns might be the same, but their pathing and locations made for a different pull (and sometimes a disastrous pull). The spawns were also varied in some cases in that you could get a a respawn that was far tougher than what you just killed.

The main difference in mmo's now (past what's been said already) is the strength of the average mob. Current mmo's have gone with this pull 'em all approach where care in pulling is very understated. In EQ... if you pulled them all... you were pretty much doomed as the game revolved around fighting single creatures and using CC on adds (or having a puller good enough to be able to split spawns and/or pull fewer by tactics).

In higher content in EQ... monks with feign death would pull and feign the pull so it could be split up. That's an entire play style lacking in current mmo's.

The thrill I once had of saving half a raid by keeping plane of hate mobs mezzed while meditating for mana to remez while people that were just saved a long run back and an experience loss chanted my name in /zone is something I miss.

That or keeping a monster train in plain of fear mezzed with an enchanter buddy so that most of the zone full of mobs were standing there waiting to be grinded down after another guild foolishly trained them not realizing that the guild I was with had two good enchanters with them. All while trying to keep durations of mezzes and order in mind while I sat to meditate (which was a 100% one shot on a clothy)... it's just something foreign to current mmo's.

I played a mmo for a number of years where I wasn't a tank, I wasn't a healer and didn't put *any* dps abilities on my bar at all. All I did was buff, debuff and cc... and it was the best mmo experience I ever had. Another playstyle eliminated by the current crop of mmos.

That's exactly what I was talking about. The "mobs" weren't the content really. The interaction of the players and the mobs and other players was the content. I don't think EQ was ever considered a sandbox game but it was more or less a sandbox or a foundation that allowed players to interact with it and each other in many times unexpected ways.

All the rules that emerged about camps, training mobs, group etiquette, loot, raids, epic weapons, trading..all of that was created and established by players to the point that it became the norm and almost part of the game design. In fact, what players came up with in EQ became automated in future games like WoW. NBG used to be a player created loot system..in WoW it became a clickable loot window.

Yep. The design was such that the most efficient route was being social. It was basically a necessary thing and players had to create the dynamic and reputation of those players meant something.

Having a guild or a "perma group" was a big thing and was taken much more seriously.

The path of least resistance is the path most trodden. When it's grouping and cooperation.. that's what you get.

It's design and developers that create that... but, wow's runaway success (for a time) made it the model. It certainly doesn't have to be... but it's sort of the way things are until something comes up that's different and successful.

Androconium · June 2019

I'm still waiting for the level 10 gold item.

rei91 · June 2019

All those ppl whining about "casuals wanna everything for free, they don't want to spend decades to git gut, they wanna story mode trials and Cyro, blah blah blah"
You know what?
This is firstly a TES game. TES is famous for their plot, books, quests, talking with NPCs, world and exploration.
Only secondly this is MMO with its grind and other mechanics.

(No I don't whine about things I mentioned either. If I want story from dungeon or Cyro - I go and solo them. And you know what, you actually need some decent gear to survive that, the more decent - the less pain in the process. And in ESO you can actually get it without tediously long grind - what a concept!)

You want to kill years of your life on mindless grind to have that sense of being cool and special? Go find yourself hard oldschool zero-story MMO, and take your stupid years-length grind and pseudo-hardcore-whining away from TES series game.

Linaleah · June 2019

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

Former Everquest player here too. I absolutely loved that game. When it came out in 98 I blown away and a Evercrack addict from the get go. The idea I could play a rpg with all these from all over the world was mind blowing. Grind? Their really was no quests. You leveled up grouping up with other players and finding a good camp spot for your level and grinding to he same mobs over and over till you was ready to move to a higher level spot. Ever group required at least the 3 holy trinity Tank, Healer, Enchanter / Bard ( crowd control). Solo? Some classes could effectively grind low lvl mobs that were just about to stop giving xp. I remember there being a joke about a Warrior solo’d a green conning mob. Time to nerf them!

I still remember when one of the main developers sent a system wide message asking for everyone to get their friends to log in cause they was about to hit 400,000 players online for the first time. 400,000? Modern games have way more than that online all the time.

This generation didn’t ruin anything. Consumers changed it cause their more of us that enjoy the content that you don’t like. While it was a blast back then it was mainly cause there’d never been any thing like it before. When we realized we could still have fun playing a Mmorpg without having to stay in one spot killing the same mobs over and over we voted with our wallets.

If anything you should be upset with people like yourself who haven’t found a game that caters to your likes. Maybe Brads new game will come out someday and do that.

Content requires grouping and usually a competent execution of your class to even work. Group requires someone to "pull" the mobs without training the group or interfering with other groups. The healer has to keep people alive and the tank has to keep mobs off the healer. Buffs have to be kept up. Loot rules have to be established by the players. The real interaction with other players + the real difficulty of mobs is what creates the content and it's frequently emergent content because you never know what is going to happen in a camp or a shared dungeon or a raid. So I think it's a bit of an over simplification to just say it's "grinding the same mobs over and over" although there certainly is that.

I will play Pantheon if it ever actually comes out but who knows if/when that will ever happen.

The current model of gameplay is quite literally pulling the same mobs over and over in that there is little to no variation past "ranged" or "melee" and it's become an AOE fest to deal with it.

In EQ the "puller" was very important and the spawns might be the same, but their pathing and locations made for a different pull (and sometimes a disastrous pull). The spawns were also varied in some cases in that you could get a a respawn that was far tougher than what you just killed.

The main difference in mmo's now (past what's been said already) is the strength of the average mob. Current mmo's have gone with this pull 'em all approach where care in pulling is very understated. In EQ... if you pulled them all... you were pretty much doomed as the game revolved around fighting single creatures and using CC on adds (or having a puller good enough to be able to split spawns and/or pull fewer by tactics).

In higher content in EQ... monks with feign death would pull and feign the pull so it could be split up. That's an entire play style lacking in current mmo's.

The thrill I once had of saving half a raid by keeping plane of hate mobs mezzed while meditating for mana to remez while people that were just saved a long run back and an experience loss chanted my name in /zone is something I miss.

That or keeping a monster train in plain of fear mezzed with an enchanter buddy so that most of the zone full of mobs were standing there waiting to be grinded down after another guild foolishly trained them not realizing that the guild I was with had two good enchanters with them. All while trying to keep durations of mezzes and order in mind while I sat to meditate (which was a 100% one shot on a clothy)... it's just something foreign to current mmo's.

I played a mmo for a number of years where I wasn't a tank, I wasn't a healer and didn't put *any* dps abilities on my bar at all. All I did was buff, debuff and cc... and it was the best mmo experience I ever had. Another playstyle eliminated by the current crop of mmos.

That's exactly what I was talking about. The "mobs" weren't the content really. The interaction of the players and the mobs and other players was the content. I don't think EQ was ever considered a sandbox game but it was more or less a sandbox or a foundation that allowed players to interact with it and each other in many times unexpected ways.

All the rules that emerged about camps, training mobs, group etiquette, loot, raids, epic weapons, trading..all of that was created and established by players to the point that it became the norm and almost part of the game design. In fact, what players came up with in EQ became automated in future games like WoW. NBG used to be a player created loot system..in WoW it became a clickable loot window.

Yep. The design was such that the most efficient route was being social. It was basically a necessary thing and players had to create the dynamic and reputation of those players meant something.

Having a guild or a "perma group" was a big thing and was taken much more seriously.

The path of least resistance is the path most trodden. When it's grouping and cooperation.. that's what you get.

It's design and developers that create that... but, wow's runaway success (for a time) made it the model. It certainly doesn't have to be... but it's sort of the way things are until something comes up that's different and successful.

maybe.. when we implement basic income that doesn't require people to have a job to live and thrive and so people have all this time they want to spend on a video game rather then something else and there is enough of these people who want to play at the same time, forming all these perma groups... maybe then we'd get back to the "good old days" for a few niche mmo's so that the rest of us dirty casuals still have something to play and be optionaly social in without having to dedicate large chunks of our lives and what amounts to a work schedule in order to get anywhere.

and honestly, last I checked everquest is still around. so why not just go play it?

MLGProPlayer · June 2019

Excessive grind is what killed the genre. Reducing grind was an attempt to save it.

Gamers today have much higher standards than 15 years ago. Back then, I was happy to just be able to play a large open world RPG with friends. But now that there are great single player open world RPGs being churned out at an industrial rate, MMOs need to be able to compete.

Why would I play some Korean grinder when I can spend my time playing The Witcher 3 or Mass Effect or RDR 2 or any number of other fantastic single player games? Sure they lack the multiplayer element, but they have everything else.

Myrm · June 2019

Corpier wrote: »

Ohtimbar wrote: »

Back in my day we had to shovel snow all day and walk ten miles barefoot over lava if we wanted a fancy costume or a fetching new hat. Now these millennials and gen zeds come along and expect shoes and horseless carriages.

You had shovels and hats in your day? We would have killed for shovels, let alone hats.

Shovels? Hats? Pfft!! In my day we didn’t even have a day. Count yourselves lucky!

Rushinator · June 2019

Oh another, damn those millennials post!

Lets get real here, millennials weren't the ones who provided the funding, designed the game, programmed it, etc. That's all done by the "older" generation to get $$ from those millennials & others.

Companies follow whatever they think will get them more $$. Games succeed or fail based on the strategy they choose & guess what? Games that are more accessible & don't require huge time commitments attract more players & earn more money. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Many people in today's economy are working more jobs and more hours. A dollar doesn't go as far as it used. Many people simply do not have the time to invest 5 hours every night on a game.

People also don't want to spend a hour when they do get the chance to log in on boring/tedious stuff like grinding. Why would they waste their short amount of recreation time & $$ on something not fun & similar to work. They want to have FUN! Do exciting and rewarding stuff that's enjoyable. MMOs especially are the like the bread & butter of modern gaming, meant to be attractive to everyone.

MMOs with their huge production costs are not suppose to be niche & aiming for the small hardcore crowd. Look what happened to Wildstar. Did the hardcore crowd sustain that game?

People want to log in & have a BLAST for the time they are online. Otherwise why come online at all? There are SO MANY games out there that most people aren't gonna bother wasting their time on a game that requires tens of hours for a payoff except for a minority of players (you do you). Our capitalistic economic system set the stage so that only companies that actually attract customers & make a profit succeed. Those that go after niche audiences are at a disadvantage vs those who go for mass appeal.

Companies know what they are doing & are aware if they spit out awesome rewards (relatively speaking) that the reward centers of player's brains are gonna go off & the player is gonna be happy.

Did a dungeon for 20-30min & looted an epic weapon?! NICE!
Did a trial for 2 hours & got a Legendary? AWESOME!
Completed that achievement after a couple days & received a cool mount? FANTASTIC!

People like winning & achieving. Game companies have over time figured out how to use that to their advantage & make mechanics that exploit our natures.

You blame millennials buts its in fact the old generation who just got better at their jobs & figured out better methods to make more $$.

For example, millennials definitely don't like paying for all these DLCs, "season passes," etc but they are stuck with them because companies know most will end up paying if the game is good. This business strategy didn't exist before because of technical difficulties such as their not being an internet or slow download speeds before. But as technology evolved & businesses innovated they came up with these new business models. Before companies would just spit out sequels or at most do expansions. There was none of this spend 1,000 crowns on a dress.