Who wants the old school to come back?

SirAoS

Who would like to see some of the old school MMO features come back to MMOs today? Does anyone even care?

I mean features like Ultima Online offered. I think nowadays MMOs are to instaned and not enough World play. Does anyone know, miss, or want to see a MMO make a livley world where you are free to do w/e and create your own story?

How does everyone else feel about MMOs today and how the used to be? Are you happy with how they are or would you like to see them good ol' features come back to life?

Khalathwyr

If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).

So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).

So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.

And those people will be right. There is a reason why old schools is OLD.

If you want some game with "featuers" like long down-time and take-a-number and camp for hours ... don't get your hopes up. They won't be back.

AutemOx

Take a number and camp?  Why not just spawn more baddies faster if there are more players in the immediate area?

Khalathwyr

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).

So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.

And those people will be right. There is a reason why old schools is OLD.

If you want some game with "featuers" like long down-time and take-a-number and camp for hours ... don't get your hopes up. They won't be back.

Oh, and then OP you have posts like this that assume they know what features you're talking about and cherry pick the negative ones and try to use them as "arguing points". They must have their way rule with an iron fist and anyone else be damned. There is noone elese's way but their way and everyone else needs to hush.

Murashu

I'd love to see a game with graphics on par with Aion, a crafting/harvesting system like original SWG, faction system like DAoC, Non-instanced dungeons for group and raid encounters like EQ1, player housing/cities like SWG, a death penalty that would make the game seem like more than a game of quake with die, respawn, die, a questing system like EQ where a quest actually meant something and didnt just feel like errand boy tasks. It would also allow you to group at lvl 1 and run dungeons that are just as enjoyable as the end game dungeons. Raids wouldn't be reserved for only the max level players, they would be available to different range of players throughout the game. They would also be designed to support more than 10/25 players and actually be challenging again. Whether its class based or skill based does not matter to me as long as one character cannot master every role. I dont want to see anymore Paladins DPSing, tanking and healing well.

 

I'm not looking to go back to playing in 800x600 resolution, 8bit colors, no /tells, or spending 2 minutes meditating between fights by staring at my spell book, but it would be very nice to see some of the old popular game features built into a quality game.

Khalathwyr

Originally posted by wormywyrm

Take a number and camp?  Why not just spawn more baddies faster if there are more players in the immediate area?

Which is my point. Those who argue against it convieninetly read past the part when we say take the concepts/features in the older games and refine them. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with fixes for the flaws and still maintain the overall concept. If you are a rocket scientist wormy, well...oops!

Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Murashu

I'd love to see a game with graphics on par with Aion, a crafting/harvesting system like original SWG, faction system like DAoC, Non-instanced dungeons for group and raid encounters like EQ1, player housing/cities like SWG, a death penalty that would make the game seem like more than a game of quake with die, respawn, die, a questing system like EQ where a quest actually meant something and didnt just feel like errand boy tasks. It would also allow you to group at lvl 1 and run dungeons that are just as enjoyable as the end game dungeons. Raids wouldn't be reserved for only the max level players, they would be available to different range of players throughout the game. They would also be designed to support more than 10/25 players and actually be challenging again. Whether its class based or skill based does not matter to me as long as one character cannot master every role. I dont want to see anymore Paladins DPSing, tanking and healing well.

 

I'm not looking to go back to playing in 800x600 resolution, 8bit colors, no /tells, or spending 2 minutes meditating between fights by staring at my spell book, but it would be very nice to see some of the old popular game features built into a quality game.

This...is the point.

nariusseldon

Originally posted by wormywyrm

Take a number and camp?  Why not just spawn more baddies faster if there are more players in the immediate area?

Don't ask me. Ask the developer of EQ.

pierth

Originally posted by Murashu

I'd love to see a game with graphics on par with Aion, a crafting/harvesting system like original SWG, faction system like DAoC, Non-instanced dungeons for group and raid encounters like EQ1, player housing/cities like SWG, a death penalty that would make the game seem like more than a game of quake with die, respawn, die, a questing system like EQ where a quest actually meant something and didnt just feel like errand boy tasks. It would also allow you to group at lvl 1 and run dungeons that are just as enjoyable as the end game dungeons. Raids wouldn't be reserved for only the max level players, they would be available to different range of players throughout the game. They would also be designed to support more than 10/25 players and actually be challenging again. Whether its class based or skill based does not matter to me as long as one character cannot master every role. I dont want to see anymore Paladins DPSing, tanking and healing well.

 

I'm not looking to go back to playing in 800x600 resolution, 8bit colors, no /tells, or spending 2 minutes meditating between fights by staring at my spell book, but it would be very nice to see some of the old popular game features built into a quality game with todays standard of quality.

I agree with the above. 

 

To the OP, I think you'll find several here that would agree with you.  Personally I think that while the camp-a-thons, downtime, server scheduling for un-instanced raid content, etc are certainly offputting to some I would absolutely be willing to accept these features in order to assure having a better quality community.  I can accept that if I don't put in time for some of the grindier activities then that means I won't see all of the top content and I'm cool with that as well- it leaves things to strive for and makes accomplishments feel more gratifying.

uquipu

Old school can come back.

As long as I and 99.99999% of the MMO population don't have to play it.

laokoko

I think one of the problem is UO never really have huge population.  And it dies really fast after it reach it's peak.

And you can't deny EQ, Wow is a huge factor why UO, SWG dies.

There are a bunch of loyal follower of the UO/SWG model.  But you need to have enough so developer will invest huge budget in it.

For example, I love turn based MMO, there are a bunch of people like me.  But the people like turn based MMO isn't big enough so there's very few turn based MMO on the market.

Anyway, Tera is said to be a sandbox game.  Hopefully it's something different from wow.  I'm getting sick of the wow style MMO.

Murashu

Originally posted by uquipu

Old school can come back.

As long as I and 99.99999% of the MMO population don't have to play it.

 Since no one is forced to play any game, you and your made up number are safe.

grafh

really? bring back old school? are u kidding me? everything new school works so well after WoW! if you want old school go play daoc or EQ! (sarcasim off)

in all honesty i myself would love to see some features brought back from many games over the years before new school. lets just consider wow the starting point for new school.

1) player driven cities: shadowbane did this very well. not only could you build your city, but you also had control over what items were made by the shops. during pvp you had to defend your city. if your city was tore down or destroyed, you could simply rebuild it in a week or 2. after a patch though it took much longer to rebuild cities, which made recovery after being destroyed almost impossible. stupid patch.

2) massive variety with character custimization: shadowbane had several different builds for each race/class. by using different weapons or adjusting your stat points or using certain runes, you could truly make your character unique. i mean you could have 100 people all irekie/assasin, and they would all be different. not like in WoW where there is only a max of like 4 or 5 builds to choose from (that were deemed effective in raiding and pvp)

3) ease of lvling: in shadowbane you could take a charcter to max lvl in a matter of a few days. the point was to let people experiment with the builds they like without taking months to hit max lvl. so you could try thief with every race it was allowed, in order to see witch race works best for you

4) epic quest and missions: FFXI was the last game i see do something like this. full cutscenes with a real story to back it up.

5) roleplaying: i feel its been fading away slowly lately.

6)  randomly generized instances: Fantasy Star Online. lol. i loved how the dungeons changed everytime u entered. i mean it would still have the same bosses and what not, but the layout would be different. so you couldnt make a map of the dungeon.

7)  classes: the game has to start off with at least 8, but prefarbly 10 classes right out the door.

8) World events: gm hosted events. one a month or so, the gm's host events that involve the players. i.e The lich king has decided to attack Stormwind. help stop the threat to save the city. for winning you recieve a boon, for losing you recieve some penalty.

9) day/weather effected mobs: in ffxi depending on weather and/or the time of day, mobs would be weaker or stronger.

10) a little bit harsher death penaly. it seems lke dieng is no problem these days. i would like death to have a bigger effect. like in ffxi. dieng in that game is no fun at all..

this is what i would like to see brought back.

Cinduat

I think for the most part MMOs are fine now days, while the past few releases have been pretty bad. AoC managed to turn itself around, Darkfall seems to be shaping up, DDO sported a good F2P model and EVE will soon have out-of-ship support. I also see many interesting upcoming releases as well. MMOs like: APB, FFXIV, HoT, EoN, SW:TOR, WoD, WH40k MMO and SW all look good. And a few interesting F2Ps, which also seem to be advancing, albeit(sp?) much slower.

uquipu

You can still play EQ, UO, and all the other old games.

Very few people play these.

SirAoS

Originally posted by uquipu

You can still play EQ, UO, and all the other old games.

Very few people play these.

 Very few people play them because they're outdated. I didn't post this thread to complain about the games nowadays. I posted it to see if people felt the way i do, and to see how they feel about MMOs nowadays. I don't have a huge problem with the way they're made nowadays, i would just like to see some features brought back to life, like, an active world, world bosses. Just things that bring everyone out and keep the world feeling active. I mean, in WoW for example. Whats the point of them having the world they do besides the questing. Other than that it's dead now. No point for it. Everything is Instanced. I would like to go out and see people everywhere fighting for territory or a world boss come along that actually drops an artifact and people branch together to kill it than roll on the loot. I don't know, just things i would love in a MMO nowadays, but thats my thoughts..

SirAoS

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).

So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.

 *haha* thnx for the advice Khalathwyr. Actually i've been coming to this site for years, but not to often, seeing through out the years i've been very active into the MMOs i was playing. Nowadays though i've finally got burned out, so i am currently not playing anything at the moment, but am waiting to see if FFXIV is going to bring me back again. So yeah, here i am now. After all this time ,i made an account on here and now just want to discuss MMOs and kinda see whats going on with them seeing i will always have a place in my heart for it.

ScalperOne

Raises hand. I want another UO. Heck i would also love an oldskool sp Ultima.

pojung

Originally posted by JthX

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

If your sign up date is true and you haven't been here until just recently there are many people on this site who would like to see some of the older features/mechanics from the "old games" get an update and make a comeback. Topics like this get started all the time here. Be warned there are a few very vocal people who will most likely jump in this thread and basically tell you those traits will never be in a game again, that you need to "get over it", and take other very, very thinly veiled shots at you for even suggesting it. They basically love the current crop and don't there to be any other choice of gameplay is what I've come to believe. Oh, they'll try to tell you about "numbers" and "what makes a success and what is "niche" and what is not" but they have no more hard factual data than anyone else (including us that say there is a market).

So, just ignore them and keep on being vocal about an appreciation for that type of play. Afterall, according to the aformentioned people only me and like 10 other people on this board were the only ones who liked those games, flaws and all. If you are truly new to the site, well, one less straw in their theory, lol.

 *haha* thnx for the advice Khalathwyr. Actually i've been coming to this site for years, but not to often, seeing through out the years i've been very active into the MMOs i was playing. Nowadays though i've finally got burned out, so i am currently not playing anything at the moment, but am waiting to see if FFXIV is going to bring me back again. So yeah, here i am now. After all this time ,i made an account on here and now just want to discuss MMOs and kinda see whats going on with them seeing i will always have a place in my heart for it.

Welcome to the club! I've noticed an increasing amount of MMORPG'ers who have been experiencing burnout with the genre- moreso than any other point that I've stopped to look around.

Funny you mention FFXIV. That, along with GW2 (don't know if you're into it), 40k and other titles being revealed at E3 are legitimitely looking to be deliverers rather than hypebusts.

Shastra

Old school is old school, i have learned to adapt with time because change is way of life. i love the new casual style MMORPGS, i am not 14 any more don't have luxury of time to spend on MMOS that i once had.

Sovrath

I'd like to see more of the large open worlds come back and even have "some" travel.

It becomes apparent how much we miss when there is no need to travel any part of the world.

Scot

The fallacy about new MMO’s is that as they are newer they must be better designed. We can all remember reasons why we disliked old MMO’s, this is about realising that every new element of MMO design is not necessarily the best option. Some examples and the reasoning behind them:

We need a death penalty that is harsher than a tiny debuff but more easy mode than corpse looting. So here I don’t advocate a return to old school, more a rebalancing.

We need all the old RP tools back like races having their own language which others could slowly learn by being around them when they used it. Allowing people to own and run their own shops and so on. Here I want what we had before and have lost with nothing to replace it.

Finally we need to learn the lessons of the past, 3 way RvR works better than 2 way and so on. Retroing certain elements of MMO design and innovation in current design are the way forward.

AutemOx

I think things are going to head back to 'old school'.  Things really just got off track as developers are so keen to tap into 'casual gamers' and blizzard did so well by sacrificing player options to get more polish and lower learning curve.

I think that firstly, it was the casual gamers negative response to SWG that drove developers to question a lot of the old school progress.  SWG was confusing and buggy, but had features and options up to wazoo.  I loved it, but I think a lot of developers saw it as a 'lesson' that simple is better.

Then came blizzard to hit that home with their simplistic game that made a fortune.

And now the mmo industry is still recovering and from that push towards simplicity/user friendly/casual/polished, and we are going to start seeing more risk and some more throwbacks to what made mmos great...  Choices, building of virtual community, immersion, excitement, etc.

aleos

I think old school has to come back that ol "its not the devs fault its the investors" line isnt going to work forever because someone is eventually going to stand up and say "Listen this doesnt work."

mhoward48

I would love to have a lot of the aspects the older games had. I am looking at the boards over at Rift:Planes of Telara now, hoping it will have some of the old school fun. Has beautiful updated graphics. We will see.