This guy has bats in the belfry. The only thing he can reflect on was his experience in the old EQ? Needless to say this guy is really clueless when it comes to old games.
I.e. crafting, AC1 and SWG had some of the best crafting in MMO's. Like I said clueless. EQ imo was just a poor example of the old games, there were far far better ones. Then he gets on the corp structure in Eve? Come on, sure there are bad corps out there, but there are many good ones.
Come on MMORPG, how about some better article writers, who at least have some experience in this matter. This guy can't even support his own arguments effectively.
Veteran of Asheron's Call here, and I'm curious... Just what in the hell was so great about AC's "crafting"? If you mean buying comps off of vendors and slapping them together to make some flaming arrowheads is awesome, then sure, I guess...
But IMO, AC had NO crafting to speak of. The Salvage/Tinker system was neat, but that still wasn't crafting, not even close...
That being said, I believe the OP is spot-on in his assessment of old MMO crafting. Good crafting systems were quite few and far between. Hell, even some more recent MMOs have had terrible crafting systems. DAoC's crafting system was crap when it first launched.
True mages don't die. They strategically miscalculate.
Old school crafting like uo and swg are so far ahead of current mmorpgs its sad. Crafting in those games wasn't a sidenote, it carried the same weight if not more than combat. Hell swg even had bio engineers, a class that could buff other crafting classes' abilities. Crafting,economy,and exploring all used to have equal footing with combat in an mmorpg. That's not the case in most games today and that's definitely not a step in the right direction IMHO.
Well said.
I agree and maybe someday we will see a MMO come out that taps into this and developer's remember to push the social aspect more and not just killing mobs or running dungeons.
I have high hopes that CCP's vampire(Whitewolf) MMO World of Darkness will not have these limitations and problems.
One werewolf interior decorator and crafter of fine funeral urns coming up!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
If older game design was so much better than current, then why aren't older games still thriving? Why are newer games that try to catch the older game feel with updated graphics (Vanguard/Darkfall) barely surviving? If there were enough old school gamers out there who would play a newer version of those games, then I am surprised no companies have jumped on that market. I just don't think there are enough gamers out there to support a major investment into a game that feels like games from almost ten years ago. Change can be difficult to deal with, but it is also inevitable.
Most of those older games are still going, that in and of itself is a testament to their greatness. In a world where yesterday is old news games like UO and EQ still being updated is proof they were and still are great.
I played UO for the first 6 years it was out. No other MMO since has kept me going for more then a year without needing to cancel my subscription so the Devs could add enough content to keep me interested.
Incredibly biased article that has little to no objectivity.
Also, it almost looks like the guy is comparing only WoW to all old MMORPGs. There are a lot of new, interesting MMORPGs out there. Many of which have more subscriptions than EQ or UO ever had. They have different playstyles and mechanics and offer a multitude of options.
Just because you're in a guild of 500 in WoW that has little to no communication, it does not mean there aren't also excellent guilds that do things together often including raiding, helping each other out, etc. I think EQ2 had one of the best guild systems ever and what, you just ignore it completely?
I don't have the patience to keep listing things, but this was terrible.
More players than EQ or UO ever had? What kind of shitty argument is that. There's a shitload more gamers now then there were back then, it's a growing industry... it's kind of normal they have more subscribers.
You're just being butthurt. He is actually giving new MMO's a rather good score, higher than they deserve.
More players does not equal better game. But the multitude of titles out right now with similar subscription numbers as the original games shows that yes, there is a market for the newer MMORPGs. And it's thriving.
But this article doesn't address any of the issues properly. The poster makes it quite clear that they have played a very limited number of MMORPGs extensively. With such limited experience in the various "new games" that are out, I find his observations in an overall sense laughable at best.
What vast experience do you need with what seems like 90% of the NEW MMOS being WoW clones? In most cases now if you played one you have seemingly played 40 others just like it.
The MMO market right now is flooded and saturated with a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Lets take the F2P MMOs and group almost all of them together. They are so similar that I have found myself trying to remember if the game I am trying now(RoM) has the named wolf or was that Gates of Andaron or Earth Something or other. Way too many games right now are pathetically unoriginal and BORING. I am so tired of the Fed-Ex Quest System(take this here and deliver a letter to the guy 8 feet away from me) or the Kill X number of Y and bring me their anuses or whatever other body part is needed to make your next piece of armor.
Speaking of subscription numbers where are you getting yours? Almost no company reveals their numbers since most are privately owned. Sure WoW touts theirs but as the king of the mountain financially that is to be expected. The rest of these companies all try and hide their numbers, usually that is a sign of the numbers not being as good as hoped since you rarely feel the need to hide success. Case in point, DDO they never discussed money or subs until they went F2P and the numbers went up so much they felt the need to tell everyone about it. Until then they were silent because their numbers were obviously not brag worthy.
Wow these are getting worse and worse. Crafting was a HUGE part of older MMOs. I remember making major money in crafting in Ultima. In fact, I had so much fun playing the economy that at one point, that's all I did was craft and gather, and I could even level some skills from it! How about Ragnarok Online? The merchant class were the only ones in the game capable of crafting let alone selling their wares with any real competitivenes. In fact, in order to compete in Ragnarok Online you had to either be a Merchant or know one, because they were the only ones that could get your gear to the point it needed to be just to survive. The game has become much more casual maaaany years later, but it wasn't always so.
As for storyline, really? The endgame is much more refined (read: actually exists now) because people do eventually need something to do once their character is basically complete. The other option is to go the Eve route, and never have an actual endame/level cap. The problem with this is you alienate a huge amount of the community because it's almost impossible to compete with people who've been playing longer than you. You'll basically never catch up, and forever live in the shadows of people who probably wanna kill you and take all your stuff just cuz they had a bad day at work. I agree that most F2P games skip all the stuff leading up to endgame, but I have NOT had that problem with the P2P games I've played. LoTRO, City of Heroes (especially CoX, great trip the whole way through), Aion (not that great a game, but the storyline and cinematics were very well done), etc., etc., etc....they all had significant depth up to level cap. And you know what happened? The community bitched that it took too long to get there, and a bunch of exp boosts got added to make the trip easier. Don't blame the game, blame the community.
I was pretty much with you on the first battle between old and new, the second one made me question you, and by this third one you've lost me (any many others it seems) completely.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
In a way you make it sound as though you like crafting so much that it would be a game unto itself ... Farmville?
I feel that crafting should be easy to perform and early crafting should be inexpensive. I do not like to run around finding ten thousand flowers or whatever to level up, plus the time spent in actual crafting. Also, crafting should be completely spelled out in a game. How can people know where parts A, B, and C are if they do not have a clue?
Also, crafted items SHOULD be among the best items in the game, otherwise, why make people kill thousands of mobs, to get drops, then skin or salvage, rinse and repeat, thousands of times to get at the top or your craft?
Most people do not seem to appreciate how much time someone spends crafting. They need rewared in some manner, so, do not try to give them 85 gold when something cost 750 gold to make. And, don't expect them to stop what they are doing and make you a full set of armor, a shield, and sword, spellcraft it [or whatever the name is in different games], and use alchemy skill to polish it off.
I do not look at crafting as fun, I look at it as a necessary evil of games. At the same time, game creators should reward crafters with outstanding gear.
Now, if someone loves Farmville, buys an MMO, and only wants to craft, I see nothing wrong with that. However, sooner or later he or she might pull his or her head out of the ground and see what the game really has to offer [hopefully].
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5 SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
In a way you make it sound as though you like crafting so much that it would be a game unto itself ... Farmville?
I feel that crafting should be easy to perform and early crafting should be inexpensive. I do not like to run around finding ten thousand flowers or whatever to level up, plus the time spent in actual crafting. Also, crafting should be completely spelled out in a game. How can people know where parts A, B, and C are if they do not have a clue?
Also, crafted items SHOULD be among the best items in the game, otherwise, why make people kill thousands of mobs, to get drops, then skin or salvage, rinse and repeat, thousands of times to get at the top or your craft?
Most people do not seem to appreciate how much time someone spends crafting. They need rewared in some manner, so, do not try to give them 85 gold when something cost 750 gold to make. And, don't expect them to stop what they are doing and make you a full set of armor, a shield, and sword, spellcraft it [or whatever the name is in different games], and use alchemy skill to polish it off.
I do not look at crafting as fun, I look at it as a necessary evil of games. At the same time, game creators should reward crafters with outstanding gear.
Now, if someone loves Farmville, buys an MMO, and only wants to craft, I see nothing wrong with that. However, sooner or later he or she might pull his or her head out of the ground and see what the game really has to offer [hopefully].
What does Farmville have to do with crafting? Sorry but I think you totally missed the boat with this one.
More players does not equal better game. But the multitude of titles out right now with similar subscription numbers as the original games shows that yes, there is a market for the newer MMORPGs. And it's thriving.
But this article doesn't address any of the issues properly. The poster makes it quite clear that they have played a very limited number of MMORPGs extensively. With such limited experience in the various "new games" that are out, I find his observations in an overall sense laughable at best.
What vast experience do you need with what seems like 90% of the NEW MMOS being WoW clones? In most cases now if you played one you have seemingly played 40 others just like it.
The MMO market right now is flooded and saturated with a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Lets take the F2P MMOs and group almost all of them together. They are so similar that I have found myself trying to remember if the game I am trying now(RoM) has the named wolf or was that Gates of Andaron or Earth Something or other. Way too many games right now are pathetically unoriginal and BORING. I am so tired of the Fed-Ex Quest System(take this here and deliver a letter to the guy 8 feet away from me) or the Kill X number of Y and bring me their anuses or whatever other body part is needed to make your next piece of armor.
Fed-Ex quests happened in EQ and DAoC as well. No difference there. And certainly a lot of people found EQ boring at times.
Speaking of subscription numbers where are you getting yours? Almost no company reveals their numbers since most are privately owned. Sure WoW touts theirs but as the king of the mountain financially that is to be expected. The rest of these companies all try and hide their numbers, usually that is a sign of the numbers not being as good as hoped since you rarely feel the need to hide success. Case in point, DDO they never discussed money or subs until they went F2P and the numbers went up so much they felt the need to tell everyone about it. Until then they were silent because their numbers were obviously not brag worthy.
On 29 July 2002, Sony announced that there were "...over 430,000..."
Stuff in red is opinion that I disagree with.
I know a lot of new games that are either at those numbers or above them. And those are peak numbers for the older games.
Cool, you think the old school was so much better. I don't. I think that people tend to have overly fond memories of those games. I played them. I've gone back and played them since. They are not the excellent experiences I remembered them to be.
What the article needed was a LOT less bias. Taking a realistic approach to most of these subjects instead of taking a nostalgic one would have been nice. The author shows a lack of perspective in my opinion.
Old style crafting often meant more to the economy, but I agree new crafting is more varied. The problem is that people just level it to max and forget about it now as most MMO economies don’t require more than a very occasional use.
Guilds became more like a rant shop once the console crowd started playing MMO’s. Also with so many titles now people move around, searching for the ‘best’ MMO. That El Dorado does not exist, but it makes for a very mobile player base.
Originally posted by swing848 I will comment on crafting first. In a way you make it sound as though you like crafting so much that it would be a game unto itself ... Farmville? I feel that crafting should be easy to perform and early crafting should be inexpensive. I do not like to run around finding ten thousand flowers or whatever to level up, plus the time spent in actual crafting. Also, crafting should be completely spelled out in a game. How can people know where parts A, B, and C are if they do not have a clue? Also, crafted items SHOULD be among the best items in the game, otherwise, why make people kill thousands of mobs, to get drops, then skin or salvage, rinse and repeat, thousands of times to get at the top or your craft? Most people do not seem to appreciate how much time someone spends crafting. They need rewared in some manner, so, do not try to give them 85 gold when something cost 750 gold to make. And, don't expect them to stop what they are doing and make you a full set of armor, a shield, and sword, spellcraft it [or whatever the name is in different games], and use alchemy skill to polish it off. I do not look at crafting as fun, I look at it as a necessary evil of games. At the same time, game creators should reward crafters with outstanding gear. Now, if someone loves Farmville, buys an MMO, and only wants to craft, I see nothing wrong with that. However, sooner or later he or she might pull his or her head out of the ground and see what the game really has to offer [hopefully].
This is a good example of the state of mmorpgs today. Completely lost its roots. We dont play mmorpgs anymore, we play action games online. Somehow we have duped ourselves into thinking they are mmorpgs. They are not. Its just a bunch of other genres that you can play online with a bunch of other people.
An mmorpg is supposed to be a virtual world. I think that concept gets missed by too many developers these days.
1) Poor player communites (immature, aggreassive, hostile, griefing, hard to please):
2) Less grindy
3) Instanced dungeons
4) Nto much camping
5) Player priority is to pwn by any means neccessary, at anyones expense.
6) Guilds one step sort of organized crime - for example:
Tthere are guilds in Age of Conan that will not let you loot until you are in the guild for a longer amount of time and force you to yield items to other guildies who have been in longer, and guilds that take over zones ganking lowbies and locking out non-guildies.
Aimbot guilds in APB (RIP).
7) Trade chat used by infantile a$$hats that make your IQ go down with every word you read.
That made lol
Agree with the rest, crafting now is a side game not a play choice.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi: We were decieved by a lie; we all were. It appears that SOE is behind everything, including the NGE! After the death of CU, the NGE became their new apprentice."
Usually I enjoy reading MMORPG.com articles, since they offer a very good, and decently professional view; however this series can only be described as childish and amateurish. The opinions are 90% biased, based on only the personal feeling of the author. It isn't an article, it's just a lame "rant" about how old MMOs were so awesome (judging by the score), and new MMOs are lame/boring/non-consumer oriented. If anyone wants to measure the extent to which features have evolved, one needs only analyse statistics (e.g. crafting wise, number of recipes and relevance of crafted items in-game). "The feel" and "general impressions" are based on current trends and players' desires, and can't possibly be judged over a 20 year period.
As everyone already suggested, this article writer needs to be silenced//given a sick leave, since he just ruins the good name that MMORPG.com has made over the years. If someone new came and read this, they would laugh and never enter the site again, which would be a shame. Best stick to just a few good articles and all the other great stuff you guys post.
I think they should be rated (or not rated.) according to their times.
Back then: Old gaming community = it's about being in (RP) character
Present: Majority of the new gamers = it's about pwning, theorycrafts, min-max, e-sports, e-thuggery, lore-is-out-scores-are-in mindset
Let's just say the majority of the internet (gaming) community now are way more aggressive and less "classy" knowing their web anonymity will not really affect their real-life reputations.
We can't blame the developers for making the next gen games a little less RPish. They watch the market and plan their projects according to the demand of the consumers. It's a business move.
I think the biggest thing with new MMOs is that they see crafting too much as just a way to kill time and maybe get an upgrade or two. Tradeskills really should be the bread and butter of the economy in a game. It prevents farmers from overrunning it for the most part, and it gives players a way to make money without it being based around luck.
I really miss the days of EQC where you would walk into Freeport and there would be people in the taverns RPing and looking to form parties to adventure. In the market you would find people bartering goods and haggling for items and selling things they made. It gave life to the cities and it made the game much more immersive. Now in games you just teleport around to where you need to go or use things like flightpaths, there's no adventuring. No one RPs anymore it seems, even on RP servers there are very few who do so, and they are hardcore, it used to be that everyone would do it a little bit and it was very cool. Also, now people just walk up to an auction house and buy and sell things which turns into a room with 50 people in it boringly staring at NPCs rather than having conversations and selling things.
Adventure and life is missing from new MMOs, and there is nothing in production I have seen that has tried to bring that back. Vanguard was the only one to try and SOE buggered that up so I personally feel the days of "MMORPG" games are gone. We are just playing massively multiplayer lobbies for instances and auction houses.
And that brings me to another thing (This will be the last I promise). On the side of adventuring it used to be that you would gather a group of adventurers and go out in search of something or to a place you knew to fight and get loot. There were no instances and depending on what you played (I played EQC on Rallos Zek, a PvP server) you may even encounter PKers and hostile groups, or you may just find a group that has beat you to something. This drove people to EXPLORE
You had to explore and find new places else you can't fight half the time. Those days are gone and now boring ass "Instances" have taken over where you do the same thing half a million times and try for gear that drops of the same guy with X chance and you just keep doing that.
I really just wish that some developer would pick up a bunch of EQC, UO, and DOAC veterans, not as programmers, but just as testers and consultants and make a modern game with those old features.
But maybe that is just my mindset.
EDIT:
One last thing. The biggest example of how ruined new MMOs are is what I see in World of Warcraft currently. People sit around spamming in trade chat looking for pug raids. They advertise a GEAR SCORE. Yes, a gear SCORE. It's no longer are you a good player or do you have a good guild, it's how good an addon says your gear is because people want the easiest trip though the boss fights. There's no challenge because everyone is exactly what they need to be and when they look for members they judge people and turn them down because of gear scores. It's rediculous.
for me i agree on old games i played just my opion i loved how old SWG = star was galaxies on line i loved the old crafting in that when i got in to it my self cuz it was way ahead of its time at least to me from making your own homes to furnature , painting , weps i mean the sky was the limit making cash was easy now end days its a joke when getting leathers or any stuff from animals didnt have to worry lvl of skining ypou kill it and get the stuff : )
I wanted to jump in and add my 2 coppers worth as well.. I agree with the guild observation.. Guilds of old in my experience were more mature and helpful. As us old gamers remember many of the "epic" quest mobs were random spawns.. You never really knew when they would pop up and being in a guild really helped.. I remember being in a group inside KC (EQ1) doing the live tower, when our ranger/druid boss VS spawned and I immedicately sent out a guild request to take him down.. Is this an easy task? Not by any means, and should epic targets be be easy? Hell NO.. In anycase, in the middle of the afternoon we organized a few guild groups together, along with a few pug spots, and POOF.. the boss took a dirt nap.. Same type of events happen all over Norath, such as the cleric epic in Skyfire (which I have to say was just INSANE) I'm still on the fence with that particular epic target.. It was good and bad..
Guilds were also a great way of grouping up.. Old games in general were more group focused.. I can't begin to count how many times fellow guildies would log on, and wish everyone well and ask if there was any groups or action going on.. There was only a few times, that someone didn't get an immediate invite to group.. (because groups were full).. Raiding guilds were awesome back then.. There was no ID system.. There was no artificial 10/25 man raid limits for example.. Raiding was truely social from my experience.. If the raid started at 7pm and you were 30 minutes late.. oh well.. No biggie.. You still were invited and plugged into a group and have some fun.. Same went with people that arrived early but had to leave early as well (probably because of time zone differences).. No biggie.. The raid didn't start or end because of a few people.. Raiding in old mmos was more "inclusive" then exclusive..
However, Adam I have to disagree with the crafting, which it looks like many have.. Actually I have to say this area is a tie, because I"ve played some new games like EQ2 and Eve that have great crafting.. Is SWG new or old? lol Older games had some great crafting as well.. Then you have new games like WoW that is "click and snooze" crafting.. When a person can max crafting in a matter of hours, that should tell you right there that crafting is a joke.. For me.. SWG had the best crafting economy.. It only had one major issue from my experience..
How can someone be comparing old and new mmorpg's, if they havn't played enough old mmo's to even understand about the crafting between them? IMO this whole entire article, from part 1 to 4, is complete bull pie.
Originally posted by swing848 I will comment on crafting first. In a way you make it sound as though you like crafting so much that it would be a game unto itself ... Farmville? I feel that crafting should be easy to perform and early crafting should be inexpensive. I do not like to run around finding ten thousand flowers or whatever to level up, plus the time spent in actual crafting. Also, crafting should be completely spelled out in a game. How can people know where parts A, B, and C are if they do not have a clue? Also, crafted items SHOULD be among the best items in the game, otherwise, why make people kill thousands of mobs, to get drops, then skin or salvage, rinse and repeat, thousands of times to get at the top or your craft? Most people do not seem to appreciate how much time someone spends crafting. They need rewared in some manner, so, do not try to give them 85 gold when something cost 750 gold to make. And, don't expect them to stop what they are doing and make you a full set of armor, a shield, and sword, spellcraft it [or whatever the name is in different games], and use alchemy skill to polish it off. I do not look at crafting as fun, I look at it as a necessary evil of games. At the same time, game creators should reward crafters with outstanding gear. Now, if someone loves Farmville, buys an MMO, and only wants to craft, I see nothing wrong with that. However, sooner or later he or she might pull his or her head out of the ground and see what the game really has to offer [hopefully].
What does Farmville have to do with crafting? Sorry but I think you totally missed the boat with this one.
Farmville = investing lots of weeks and months in tinkering, which is what crafting is.
I will make one concession, crafting is much more boring than Farmville, except to those that like to do nothing but set, staring at a computer screen for hours on end, trying, and trying, to get a crafting number to increase.
And, joy, after I max this craft I get to start on another, and another, and another ...
Expensive x tedium x tedious x10 = leveling up crafting
Fun, right?
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5 SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
Usually I enjoy reading MMORPG.com articles, since they offer a very good, and decently professional view; however this series can only be described as childish and amateurish. The opinions are 90% biased, based on only the personal feeling of the author. It isn't an article, it's just a lame "rant" about how old MMOs were so awesome (judging by the score), and new MMOs are lame/boring/non-consumer oriented. If anyone wants to measure the extent to which features have evolved, one needs only analyse statistics (e.g. crafting wise, number of recipes and relevance of crafted items in-game). "The feel" and "general impressions" are based on current trends and players' desires, and can't possibly be judged over a 20 year period.
As everyone already suggested, this article writer needs to be silenced//given a sick leave, since he just ruins the good name that MMORPG.com has made over the years. If someone new came and read this, they would laugh and never enter the site again, which would be a shame. Best stick to just a few good articles and all the other great stuff you guys post.
I'm with this guy 100%, also I would like to point out that it appears like you aren't necessarity comparing new games vs old as much as you are comparing EQ to WoW. There might be dabble of other games in there but not a lot. So I will say this I started my MMO career with DAoC and now I'm looking forward to FFXIV with a huge variety in between. I never liked WoW to be honest and didnt play it a whole lot, but I think your ratings of the games are insanely overly majorly biased (I need more adjective). Almost to the point that you refuse to say anything good about new games. You forget that MMOs are more popular now then ever, you forget that advancements in content, graphics, and storylines has greatly increased. Not to mention game mechanics, controls, interfaces are a lot more enjoyable then they used to be. You forget that in most games you can jump on and actually accomplish something without needing 8 hours to play (sue me but i think that's a good thing). I will admit that I feel their is too much soloing in newer games and you should have incentives for grouping not have it the other way around.
With that being said though I agree with pretty much everything you say about community, and the rampantness of rediculous shouts that just clog up chat logs.
Originally posted by nlnforever Crafters are the most important forces in older MMORPG. In EVE-online, the game even cannot move on without crafters because most of items are crafted. Even in Lineage II, crafters are money-making machine which every player should have one.
During the early years crafting in DAoC was very important, in part because of the absolutely junk drops. In it's current state Dark Age of Camelot does not need crafting, it is helpful but not absolutely necessary and many gear drops are much better than what a crafter can make, unfortunately.
In DAoC today Alchemy is probably THE single craft that would be missed most because of the many different kind of pots crafted, from under water breathing potion to health potion and everything in between.
Through the leveling process [including champion levels and master levels], and gear drops, underwater breathing can be picked up, even as a cast for an entire group to benefit, and better gear have protective abilities.
However, even today, after all of these years, players both craft and purchase potions.
Molvik is a level 35 through 39 battlegrounds [PvP - for as many as want to pile onto the map]. For those that love Molvik crafted gear is very important. At that level Mythic has locked out many of the high level items, actually you can use the gear, you just do not get any magic benefits, making it worthless to lower and mid level players.
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5 SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
I'm down with this article, however, like some others, I have to give some other insight on crafting in current MMO's v. Older MMO's.
The great thing in Older MMO's was, everything was a choice, you were never forced to do any one thing, it felt open, thus in my opinion, created the great communities we all enjoyed and remember. Now a days, it seems you must craft in order to enjoy later on adventures, or aquire some nice gear, (ie AION and the Fenris stuff....gggggrrrrrrrr), and nice gear in these newer MMO's means, needed gear to compete in end game or end game pvp. Which by the way is the ultimate goal, is it not? I'm all for smellin the roses on the way up, but at the end of the day, you have to have a goal, and I'm sure the majority of people playing is to reach and enjoy end game play.
So now the everyone is a crafter, it really waters it down in my opinion. I personally liked it when I knew a handful of people that did armors, or weapons, or fletching or cooking or whatever. I knew where to find these people, we were on a first name basis, and thus it created relationships in game that lead to community. Now we just search an Auction House, Market Explorer, or whatever other means there is to search for items, buy them and we're done.
With all that said, I do agree that crafting in the day was a chore, and today's crafting systems are very nice and streamlined, and honestly feel more rewarding.......but again, I do not like that everyone is a crafter, or has to be a crafter in order to enjoy the game. Bring back the MMO that enabled the player to do what they wanted. Linear is not MMO, and thus no MMO should ever be linear.
Vack FF XIV - the single worse game to cross my hard drive, ever.
Comments
Veteran of Asheron's Call here, and I'm curious... Just what in the hell was so great about AC's "crafting"? If you mean buying comps off of vendors and slapping them together to make some flaming arrowheads is awesome, then sure, I guess...
But IMO, AC had NO crafting to speak of. The Salvage/Tinker system was neat, but that still wasn't crafting, not even close...
That being said, I believe the OP is spot-on in his assessment of old MMO crafting. Good crafting systems were quite few and far between. Hell, even some more recent MMOs have had terrible crafting systems. DAoC's crafting system was crap when it first launched.
True mages don't die. They strategically miscalculate.
One werewolf interior decorator and crafter of fine funeral urns coming up!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Most of those older games are still going, that in and of itself is a testament to their greatness. In a world where yesterday is old news games like UO and EQ still being updated is proof they were and still are great.
I played UO for the first 6 years it was out. No other MMO since has kept me going for more then a year without needing to cancel my subscription so the Devs could add enough content to keep me interested.
What vast experience do you need with what seems like 90% of the NEW MMOS being WoW clones? In most cases now if you played one you have seemingly played 40 others just like it.
The MMO market right now is flooded and saturated with a bunch of cheap knockoffs. Lets take the F2P MMOs and group almost all of them together. They are so similar that I have found myself trying to remember if the game I am trying now(RoM) has the named wolf or was that Gates of Andaron or Earth Something or other. Way too many games right now are pathetically unoriginal and BORING. I am so tired of the Fed-Ex Quest System(take this here and deliver a letter to the guy 8 feet away from me) or the Kill X number of Y and bring me their anuses or whatever other body part is needed to make your next piece of armor.
Speaking of subscription numbers where are you getting yours? Almost no company reveals their numbers since most are privately owned. Sure WoW touts theirs but as the king of the mountain financially that is to be expected. The rest of these companies all try and hide their numbers, usually that is a sign of the numbers not being as good as hoped since you rarely feel the need to hide success. Case in point, DDO they never discussed money or subs until they went F2P and the numbers went up so much they felt the need to tell everyone about it. Until then they were silent because their numbers were obviously not brag worthy.
Wow these are getting worse and worse. Crafting was a HUGE part of older MMOs. I remember making major money in crafting in Ultima. In fact, I had so much fun playing the economy that at one point, that's all I did was craft and gather, and I could even level some skills from it! How about Ragnarok Online? The merchant class were the only ones in the game capable of crafting let alone selling their wares with any real competitivenes. In fact, in order to compete in Ragnarok Online you had to either be a Merchant or know one, because they were the only ones that could get your gear to the point it needed to be just to survive. The game has become much more casual maaaany years later, but it wasn't always so.
As for storyline, really? The endgame is much more refined (read: actually exists now) because people do eventually need something to do once their character is basically complete. The other option is to go the Eve route, and never have an actual endame/level cap. The problem with this is you alienate a huge amount of the community because it's almost impossible to compete with people who've been playing longer than you. You'll basically never catch up, and forever live in the shadows of people who probably wanna kill you and take all your stuff just cuz they had a bad day at work. I agree that most F2P games skip all the stuff leading up to endgame, but I have NOT had that problem with the P2P games I've played. LoTRO, City of Heroes (especially CoX, great trip the whole way through), Aion (not that great a game, but the storyline and cinematics were very well done), etc., etc., etc....they all had significant depth up to level cap. And you know what happened? The community bitched that it took too long to get there, and a bunch of exp boosts got added to make the trip easier. Don't blame the game, blame the community.
I was pretty much with you on the first battle between old and new, the second one made me question you, and by this third one you've lost me (any many others it seems) completely.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I will comment on crafting first.
In a way you make it sound as though you like crafting so much that it would be a game unto itself ... Farmville?
I feel that crafting should be easy to perform and early crafting should be inexpensive. I do not like to run around finding ten thousand flowers or whatever to level up, plus the time spent in actual crafting. Also, crafting should be completely spelled out in a game. How can people know where parts A, B, and C are if they do not have a clue?
Also, crafted items SHOULD be among the best items in the game, otherwise, why make people kill thousands of mobs, to get drops, then skin or salvage, rinse and repeat, thousands of times to get at the top or your craft?
Most people do not seem to appreciate how much time someone spends crafting. They need rewared in some manner, so, do not try to give them 85 gold when something cost 750 gold to make. And, don't expect them to stop what they are doing and make you a full set of armor, a shield, and sword, spellcraft it [or whatever the name is in different games], and use alchemy skill to polish it off.
I do not look at crafting as fun, I look at it as a necessary evil of games. At the same time, game creators should reward crafters with outstanding gear.
Now, if someone loves Farmville, buys an MMO, and only wants to craft, I see nothing wrong with that. However, sooner or later he or she might pull his or her head out of the ground and see what the game really has to offer [hopefully].
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
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What does Farmville have to do with crafting? Sorry but I think you totally missed the boat with this one.
Stuff in red is opinion that I disagree with.
I know a lot of new games that are either at those numbers or above them. And those are peak numbers for the older games.
Cool, you think the old school was so much better. I don't. I think that people tend to have overly fond memories of those games. I played them. I've gone back and played them since. They are not the excellent experiences I remembered them to be.
What the article needed was a LOT less bias. Taking a realistic approach to most of these subjects instead of taking a nostalgic one would have been nice. The author shows a lack of perspective in my opinion.
Old style crafting often meant more to the economy, but I agree new crafting is more varied. The problem is that people just level it to max and forget about it now as most MMO economies don’t require more than a very occasional use.
Guilds became more like a rant shop once the console crowd started playing MMO’s. Also with so many titles now people move around, searching for the ‘best’ MMO. That El Dorado does not exist, but it makes for a very mobile player base.
This is a good example of the state of mmorpgs today. Completely lost its roots. We dont play mmorpgs anymore, we play action games online. Somehow we have duped ourselves into thinking they are mmorpgs. They are not. Its just a bunch of other genres that you can play online with a bunch of other people.
An mmorpg is supposed to be a virtual world. I think that concept gets missed by too many developers these days.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi: We were decieved by a lie; we all were. It appears that SOE is behind everything, including the NGE! After the death of CU, the NGE became their new apprentice."
Usually I enjoy reading MMORPG.com articles, since they offer a very good, and decently professional view; however this series can only be described as childish and amateurish. The opinions are 90% biased, based on only the personal feeling of the author. It isn't an article, it's just a lame "rant" about how old MMOs were so awesome (judging by the score), and new MMOs are lame/boring/non-consumer oriented. If anyone wants to measure the extent to which features have evolved, one needs only analyse statistics (e.g. crafting wise, number of recipes and relevance of crafted items in-game). "The feel" and "general impressions" are based on current trends and players' desires, and can't possibly be judged over a 20 year period.
As everyone already suggested, this article writer needs to be silenced//given a sick leave, since he just ruins the good name that MMORPG.com has made over the years. If someone new came and read this, they would laugh and never enter the site again, which would be a shame. Best stick to just a few good articles and all the other great stuff you guys post.
I think they should be rated (or not rated.) according to their times.
Back then: Old gaming community = it's about being in (RP) character
Present: Majority of the new gamers = it's about pwning, theorycrafts, min-max, e-sports, e-thuggery, lore-is-out-scores-are-in mindset
Let's just say the majority of the internet (gaming) community now are way more aggressive and less "classy" knowing their web anonymity will not really affect their real-life reputations.
We can't blame the developers for making the next gen games a little less RPish. They watch the market and plan their projects according to the demand of the consumers. It's a business move.
I think the biggest thing with new MMOs is that they see crafting too much as just a way to kill time and maybe get an upgrade or two. Tradeskills really should be the bread and butter of the economy in a game. It prevents farmers from overrunning it for the most part, and it gives players a way to make money without it being based around luck.
I really miss the days of EQC where you would walk into Freeport and there would be people in the taverns RPing and looking to form parties to adventure. In the market you would find people bartering goods and haggling for items and selling things they made. It gave life to the cities and it made the game much more immersive. Now in games you just teleport around to where you need to go or use things like flightpaths, there's no adventuring. No one RPs anymore it seems, even on RP servers there are very few who do so, and they are hardcore, it used to be that everyone would do it a little bit and it was very cool. Also, now people just walk up to an auction house and buy and sell things which turns into a room with 50 people in it boringly staring at NPCs rather than having conversations and selling things.
Adventure and life is missing from new MMOs, and there is nothing in production I have seen that has tried to bring that back. Vanguard was the only one to try and SOE buggered that up so I personally feel the days of "MMORPG" games are gone. We are just playing massively multiplayer lobbies for instances and auction houses.
And that brings me to another thing (This will be the last I promise). On the side of adventuring it used to be that you would gather a group of adventurers and go out in search of something or to a place you knew to fight and get loot. There were no instances and depending on what you played (I played EQC on Rallos Zek, a PvP server) you may even encounter PKers and hostile groups, or you may just find a group that has beat you to something. This drove people to EXPLORE
You had to explore and find new places else you can't fight half the time. Those days are gone and now boring ass "Instances" have taken over where you do the same thing half a million times and try for gear that drops of the same guy with X chance and you just keep doing that.
I really just wish that some developer would pick up a bunch of EQC, UO, and DOAC veterans, not as programmers, but just as testers and consultants and make a modern game with those old features.
But maybe that is just my mindset.
EDIT:
One last thing. The biggest example of how ruined new MMOs are is what I see in World of Warcraft currently. People sit around spamming in trade chat looking for pug raids. They advertise a GEAR SCORE. Yes, a gear SCORE. It's no longer are you a good player or do you have a good guild, it's how good an addon says your gear is because people want the easiest trip though the boss fights. There's no challenge because everyone is exactly what they need to be and when they look for members they judge people and turn them down because of gear scores. It's rediculous.
for me i agree on old games i played just my opion i loved how old SWG = star was galaxies on line i loved the old crafting in that when i got in to it my self cuz it was way ahead of its time at least to me from making your own homes to furnature , painting , weps i mean the sky was the limit making cash was easy now end days its a joke when getting leathers or any stuff from animals didnt have to worry lvl of skining ypou kill it and get the stuff : )
One of the best articles I have read! Fully agree with the OP! I'll be interested in what is said in part 4!
Not bad Adam..
I wanted to jump in and add my 2 coppers worth as well.. I agree with the guild observation.. Guilds of old in my experience were more mature and helpful. As us old gamers remember many of the "epic" quest mobs were random spawns.. You never really knew when they would pop up and being in a guild really helped.. I remember being in a group inside KC (EQ1) doing the live tower, when our ranger/druid boss VS spawned and I immedicately sent out a guild request to take him down.. Is this an easy task? Not by any means, and should epic targets be be easy? Hell NO.. In anycase, in the middle of the afternoon we organized a few guild groups together, along with a few pug spots, and POOF.. the boss took a dirt nap.. Same type of events happen all over Norath, such as the cleric epic in Skyfire (which I have to say was just INSANE) I'm still on the fence with that particular epic target.. It was good and bad..
Guilds were also a great way of grouping up.. Old games in general were more group focused.. I can't begin to count how many times fellow guildies would log on, and wish everyone well and ask if there was any groups or action going on.. There was only a few times, that someone didn't get an immediate invite to group.. (because groups were full).. Raiding guilds were awesome back then.. There was no ID system.. There was no artificial 10/25 man raid limits for example.. Raiding was truely social from my experience.. If the raid started at 7pm and you were 30 minutes late.. oh well.. No biggie.. You still were invited and plugged into a group and have some fun.. Same went with people that arrived early but had to leave early as well (probably because of time zone differences).. No biggie.. The raid didn't start or end because of a few people.. Raiding in old mmos was more "inclusive" then exclusive..
However, Adam I have to disagree with the crafting, which it looks like many have.. Actually I have to say this area is a tie, because I"ve played some new games like EQ2 and Eve that have great crafting.. Is SWG new or old? lol Older games had some great crafting as well.. Then you have new games like WoW that is "click and snooze" crafting.. When a person can max crafting in a matter of hours, that should tell you right there that crafting is a joke.. For me.. SWG had the best crafting economy.. It only had one major issue from my experience..
How can someone be comparing old and new mmorpg's, if they havn't played enough old mmo's to even understand about the crafting between them? IMO this whole entire article, from part 1 to 4, is complete bull pie.
Moar lame trolling from Adam... great...
IZI MODO?! Ha-ha-ha!
Farmville = investing lots of weeks and months in tinkering, which is what crafting is.
I will make one concession, crafting is much more boring than Farmville, except to those that like to do nothing but set, staring at a computer screen for hours on end, trying, and trying, to get a crafting number to increase.
And, joy, after I max this craft I get to start on another, and another, and another ...
Expensive x tedium x tedious x10 = leveling up crafting
Fun, right?
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
I'm with this guy 100%, also I would like to point out that it appears like you aren't necessarity comparing new games vs old as much as you are comparing EQ to WoW. There might be dabble of other games in there but not a lot. So I will say this I started my MMO career with DAoC and now I'm looking forward to FFXIV with a huge variety in between. I never liked WoW to be honest and didnt play it a whole lot, but I think your ratings of the games are insanely overly majorly biased (I need more adjective). Almost to the point that you refuse to say anything good about new games. You forget that MMOs are more popular now then ever, you forget that advancements in content, graphics, and storylines has greatly increased. Not to mention game mechanics, controls, interfaces are a lot more enjoyable then they used to be. You forget that in most games you can jump on and actually accomplish something without needing 8 hours to play (sue me but i think that's a good thing). I will admit that I feel their is too much soloing in newer games and you should have incentives for grouping not have it the other way around.
With that being said though I agree with pretty much everything you say about community, and the rampantness of rediculous shouts that just clog up chat logs.
Let me guess-- it's going to be a tie
On the net, no one knows that I'm a dog.
During the early years crafting in DAoC was very important, in part because of the absolutely junk drops. In it's current state Dark Age of Camelot does not need crafting, it is helpful but not absolutely necessary and many gear drops are much better than what a crafter can make, unfortunately.
In DAoC today Alchemy is probably THE single craft that would be missed most because of the many different kind of pots crafted, from under water breathing potion to health potion and everything in between.
Through the leveling process [including champion levels and master levels], and gear drops, underwater breathing can be picked up, even as a cast for an entire group to benefit, and better gear have protective abilities.
However, even today, after all of these years, players both craft and purchase potions.
Molvik is a level 35 through 39 battlegrounds [PvP - for as many as want to pile onto the map]. For those that love Molvik crafted gear is very important. At that level Mythic has locked out many of the high level items, actually you can use the gear, you just do not get any magic benefits, making it worthless to lower and mid level players.
Intel Core i7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte Z270X-UD5
SSD x2, 4TB WD Black HHD, 32GB RAM, MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning LE video card
I'm now conviced, with the crafting slam on old school mmos, that this guy is just trolling.
I'm down with this article, however, like some others, I have to give some other insight on crafting in current MMO's v. Older MMO's.
The great thing in Older MMO's was, everything was a choice, you were never forced to do any one thing, it felt open, thus in my opinion, created the great communities we all enjoyed and remember. Now a days, it seems you must craft in order to enjoy later on adventures, or aquire some nice gear, (ie AION and the Fenris stuff....gggggrrrrrrrr), and nice gear in these newer MMO's means, needed gear to compete in end game or end game pvp. Which by the way is the ultimate goal, is it not? I'm all for smellin the roses on the way up, but at the end of the day, you have to have a goal, and I'm sure the majority of people playing is to reach and enjoy end game play.
So now the everyone is a crafter, it really waters it down in my opinion. I personally liked it when I knew a handful of people that did armors, or weapons, or fletching or cooking or whatever. I knew where to find these people, we were on a first name basis, and thus it created relationships in game that lead to community. Now we just search an Auction House, Market Explorer, or whatever other means there is to search for items, buy them and we're done.
With all that said, I do agree that crafting in the day was a chore, and today's crafting systems are very nice and streamlined, and honestly feel more rewarding.......but again, I do not like that everyone is a crafter, or has to be a crafter in order to enjoy the game. Bring back the MMO that enabled the player to do what they wanted. Linear is not MMO, and thus no MMO should ever be linear.
Vack
FF XIV - the single worse game to cross my hard drive, ever.