Originally posted by Helleri I don't regret not playing MMORPG's that didn't have the staying power to still be around. And, as for those pre-WoW's which are still around. I can play them anytime.
I'm thinking this is the gold standard of mmorpgs.
That said, to answer the OP: UO. Right at the cutting-edge, player-driven stories and inventiveness of experimenting.
I marked AC only thing on the list I hadn't tried besides UO and I had no interest then have none now. With that being said I wish I had tried AC But at the time i was locked in the theroes of my evercrack addiction.
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Originally posted by Helleri I don't regret not playing MMORPG's that didn't have the staying power to still be around. And, as for those pre-WoW's which are still around. I can play them anytime.
Well in all fairness, the titles that are still active (which is most btw) are really shells of their former selves, so you can't really experience them when they were at their height, both in terms of players and functionality, as most were ruined one way or another by their developers with poor design decisions to not stick with their core player base.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think the one I wanted to be part of most was DAOC - came in way after its heyday had passed. Perhaps FFXI during the [GM] Dave years.
I was really glad to be part of the SWG launch, left shortly before CU (and am thankful I did). That game, and the community, were simply amazing during that time. So many stories! And many IRL friends. Just a few months ago, met up with some of the people I played with and we had drinks and caught up.
Don't get me wrong, the game had its issues. But it was the last major-publisher sandbox aside from EVE, which just isn't the same beast.
Do people not remember all the PLENTITUDE of issues with SWG? Seriously? How downright buggy awful it was? No one? NGE was the best thing that could have ever happened to it as it spurred the masses into an ANTI-NGE storm. It was a reinvigoration.
I also remember UO and by today's standards people would be pissed. Open a chest in the woods? Dead. Open a chest in a harpy infested dungeon? Dead. Collecting mats to cast spells? People would be in an uproar.
EQ1... the boat trips were SOOOOOOOOOO long. TRAIIIIIINNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See, I remember lots of stuff about my many (unfortunately, as I'm getting older and realizing just how old I've become) games... I also remember how terrible or bad they were at the time. But that's with a perspective of TODAY. Does anyone remember how much time they spent getting some of the more badass items in EQ1? I spent HOURS and HOURS camping for a bow... to have the mob spawn and someone jump in and steal it... then sit through 10 garbage spawns waiting for it to pop again. Where the hell did I have that time? Exactly. I couldn't have worked and done that.
Let's not look through the rear-view mirror...
Yes in indeed, all of the older titles had "some" mechanics that were aggravating to be sure, but overall the entire package was quiet entertaining, you don't toss out the entire game over a few issues.
As for the time issue, being "older", I was working and had a family with 3 younger children when first starting MMORPG's, so I had to adapt my playing schedule right from the start, and I found plenty of time to play those older titles.
Did I do everything in them, such as a 18 hour spawn camp, no, of course not, (well, only once, 14 hours I think) but all in all I enjoyed the content my schedule permitted.
When vanilla WOW first came out I was raiding 5 nights a week, 4-6 hours a night, but I had to give it up for good because my RL wouldn't support it.
You make allowances, and never having a time in my life when I could devote lots of time to gaming, I found a way to enjoy them, both then and now.
But hey, not that far from retirement, then I'll finally get a chance to spend more time playing.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I played them all so there's no regrets about that... there are a few I regret having wasted my time on though in that list.
Lineage 1 was a pure waste of time I didn't play long, so was FFXI.
But EQ1 and DAoC come close second as utterly boring and I played them way too long, a mistake I wouldn't repeat nowadays. I regret having wasted months playing those instead of playing the excellent UO or AC1.
Yeah, Lineage 1 was an aggravating title to play, spent about 6 months on it until I moved on to DAOC.
Have to disagree with you there, I really enjoyed DAOC, played over 2.5 yrs, and currently am playing for the past 5 months on a freeshard that is set back to circa 2003 rule sets.
Had some terrific fights over the weekend on my new Skald and set a personal record of 54 kills and 37 deathblows for one session.
But since I did decide to play DAOC back in the day, I missed out on AC1, which my neighbor was always telling me was the better MMORPG to play then, and I've always wondered what I might have missed had I taken his advice.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think that is exactly what made me despise DAoC (and EQ1 too). I went back to AC1 with no regrets, and it was (in my opinion of course) the better game.
DAoC was terribly lacking content at release too, dungeons not itemized, class quests stopping before level 30, and leveling must have been the most boring I've experienced in a game along with EQ1. The end game got old pretty fast too, with basically one single possible activity.
As I said, my only regret is that I have stuck with those two games (DAoC and EQ) so long, trying to give them a chance despite the boring gameplay, instead of going back to UO or AC1. I no longer do that nowadays.
THere were 2 on the lsit that I never got to try in their heyday:
1) Asheron's Call-I was so into EQ1 in its prime that I never got to try this...SOunded like a great game but by the time I was done with EQ I moved to WOW, then I tried several othe after that......AC just never seemed to offer a good trial to even give it a shot....THe graphics looked so outdated that I didnt want to pay tosee so I just didnt play it.
2. SWG-I was never really blowaway by the movies or anything so this didnt appeal much to me.....I was more of a fantasy person than sci-fi but I did play Anarchy for several years because it offered a f2p plan....I did eventually try SWG several years after NCU (about a year before it went out of business) and it jsut didnt strike me as a very good game though I didnt see it when it was more of a sandbox.....The crafting didnt blow me away lik so many here have said it would......It seemed kinda dumb to me but to each their own.
Of course, Ultima Online. It would have been amazing, especially back in those days.
Secondly, SWG. In fact, I started playing the trial about a week before they announcement that the game was going to be closed. I was going to sub, too.
UO was my very first MMO....I played it about 2 months after it released....It was really wierd seeing so many people in Brittain......THen you quickly understood why so many were in Brittain....Once you left the gates of the city there were several powerful players waiting to kill any noob tht stepeed foot outside.....I realize that some people think that is the greatest gameplay ever and loved every second of that game, but for me I had zero interest in playing like that......It took me 3 years before Iever tried a MMO again (EQ) and I made damn sure that it had no PVP whatsoever after my initial UO disaster.
Originally posted by Helleri I don't regret not playing MMORPG's that didn't have the staying power to still be around. And, as for those pre-WoW's which are still around. I can play them anytime.
I feel like this is a deliberate troll post.
MMOs change, that's part of what makes them special. It's also what kills most of them.
The ones that are still around are not anywhere as good as they used to be, which is why people don't play them anymore.
Of the ones that are gone, many of them didn't shut down because they were bad. Some shut down because licenses expired, or marketing buried them, ect.
WoW is living proof that quality is not always related to how popular something is.
There's a reason people don't play UO, or EQ1, or DAoC anymore, and its not because they're old, it's because the classic best versions of those games aren't around.
My regret is that i did not miss EQ. I spent too much time on it. In retrospect, not only i wasted my time, it wasn't that much fun either.
Right, you have said on several occasions that you played EQ for a year or more; so now you'd have us believe that in all that time, you were not having "fun"? lol. Sorry, no one plays a game for that long without deriving some sort of entertainment out of it.
Mr. Seldon, you had fun with your time in EQ whether you want to admit to us or yourself.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I remember back in the days all those games were critisized so much it was hard to even force myself to try them. But somehow they became magically awesome few years later, because barely anyone is playing them now or even can't anymore so you can say anything you want about them and there are few vocal people that can verify...
It's funny how sometimes I read some laments about old game, and the way people describe it almost makes me want to try that game again, but then I remind myself how those games actually were and I wonder where all the praise suddenly came from.
I remember back in the days all those games were critisized so much it was hard to even force myself to try them. But somehow they became magically awesome few years later, because barely anyone is playing them now or even can't anymore so you can say anything you want about them and there are few vocal people that can verify...
It's funny how sometimes I read some laments about old game, and the way people describe it almost makes me want to try that game again, but then I remind myself how those games actually were and I wonder where all the praise suddenly came from.
Well that was true for me. When I first heard about UO, I wasn't onboard with the idea of gaming with others, and Computer Gaming World slammed it hard, giving it their "Coaster of the Year Award".
This went on for title after title, they universally slammed (or ignored) one MMORPG after another, I recall them being very lukewarm on DAOC, hating SWG and no love for many others. They didn't finally warm up to MMO's until City of Heroes came along when they finally found one they could get behind and give a positive rating to.
Fortunately, I finally took a leap of faith, thanks to a free trial disk of Lineage 1 that I picked up at the store counter while buying my latest single player title. Loaded it up and set my gaming path from over 12 years ago until present.
Unlike you, I found the early games to have their fun, heck I'd go give Lineage 1 another go if I knew how to speak Korean. (don't laugh, I 've considered doing so, mostly for the new titles that come out of there a year or 3 ahead of the west)
As I said, I've returned to a 2003 version of DAOC and am having more fun than I've had in about 3 years, well, EVE time not withstanding.
But back on topic, I think I'm really leaning towards AC1, that's probably the one I should have tried to fit in, but my "there can be only one" MMO philosophy (due to RL time constraints) didn't make that possible.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
My regret is that i did not miss EQ. I spent too much time on it. In retrospect, not only i wasted my time, it wasn't that much fun either.
Right, you have said on several occasions that you played EQ for a year or more; so now you'd have us believe that in all that time, you were not having "fun"? lol. Sorry, no one plays a game for that long without deriving some sort of entertainment out of it.
Mr. Seldon, you had fun with your time in EQ whether you want to admit to us or yourself.
"it wasn't that much fun" does not equate "no fun at all". Plus, i can always regret it is not fun enough.
My regret is that i did not miss EQ. I spent too much time on it. In retrospect, not only i wasted my time, it wasn't that much fun either.
Right, you have said on several occasions that you played EQ for a year or more; so now you'd have us believe that in all that time, you were not having "fun"? lol. Sorry, no one plays a game for that long without deriving some sort of entertainment out of it.
Mr. Seldon, you had fun with your time in EQ whether you want to admit to us or yourself.
"it wasn't that much fun" does not equate "no fun at all". Plus, i can always regret it is not fun enough.
"It wasn't that much fun" doesn't equate to something that anyone would consider as being "fun" in any universe. So you played a damn game for over a year that you didn't find to be much fun? Right, lol. Makes total sense. Who are you kidding here?
Come on, you can do it, take the leap, it's not that hard, just admit it: you had fun in EQ!
None of us will judge you
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I don't regret not playing any of them. But then I did have a co-worker at the time who told me to never start playing EQ or I'd lose all my spare time.
I would have liked to experience SWG for it's player housing, harvesting, crafting, and player dependent mechanics in its prime but I would not trade it for the time I spent in Neocron at the time. All the others except for maybe UO (Still can't stand the perspective and graphics, especially hate Ultima 7.) to me weren't worth playing even in their heyday.
I feel sorry for anybody who never got to play AC1 in its prime. but then again they are the lucky ones they arnt stuck looking for another MMO as great as AC1 like alot of us.....
Comments
I'm thinking this is the gold standard of mmorpgs.
That said, to answer the OP: UO. Right at the cutting-edge, player-driven stories and inventiveness of experimenting.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I marked AC only thing on the list I hadn't tried besides UO and I had no interest then have none now. With that being said I wish I had tried AC But at the time i was locked in the theroes of my evercrack addiction.
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Well in all fairness, the titles that are still active (which is most btw) are really shells of their former selves, so you can't really experience them when they were at their height, both in terms of players and functionality, as most were ruined one way or another by their developers with poor design decisions to not stick with their core player base.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think the one I wanted to be part of most was DAOC - came in way after its heyday had passed. Perhaps FFXI during the [GM] Dave years.
I was really glad to be part of the SWG launch, left shortly before CU (and am thankful I did). That game, and the community, were simply amazing during that time. So many stories! And many IRL friends. Just a few months ago, met up with some of the people I played with and we had drinks and caught up.
Don't get me wrong, the game had its issues. But it was the last major-publisher sandbox aside from EVE, which just isn't the same beast.
Yes in indeed, all of the older titles had "some" mechanics that were aggravating to be sure, but overall the entire package was quiet entertaining, you don't toss out the entire game over a few issues.
As for the time issue, being "older", I was working and had a family with 3 younger children when first starting MMORPG's, so I had to adapt my playing schedule right from the start, and I found plenty of time to play those older titles.
Did I do everything in them, such as a 18 hour spawn camp, no, of course not, (well, only once, 14 hours I think) but all in all I enjoyed the content my schedule permitted.
When vanilla WOW first came out I was raiding 5 nights a week, 4-6 hours a night, but I had to give it up for good because my RL wouldn't support it.
You make allowances, and never having a time in my life when I could devote lots of time to gaming, I found a way to enjoy them, both then and now.
But hey, not that far from retirement, then I'll finally get a chance to spend more time playing.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yeah, Lineage 1 was an aggravating title to play, spent about 6 months on it until I moved on to DAOC.
Have to disagree with you there, I really enjoyed DAOC, played over 2.5 yrs, and currently am playing for the past 5 months on a freeshard that is set back to circa 2003 rule sets.
Had some terrific fights over the weekend on my new Skald and set a personal record of 54 kills and 37 deathblows for one session.
But since I did decide to play DAOC back in the day, I missed out on AC1, which my neighbor was always telling me was the better MMORPG to play then, and I've always wondered what I might have missed had I taken his advice.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think that is exactly what made me despise DAoC (and EQ1 too). I went back to AC1 with no regrets, and it was (in my opinion of course) the better game.
DAoC was terribly lacking content at release too, dungeons not itemized, class quests stopping before level 30, and leveling must have been the most boring I've experienced in a game along with EQ1. The end game got old pretty fast too, with basically one single possible activity.
As I said, my only regret is that I have stuck with those two games (DAoC and EQ) so long, trying to give them a chance despite the boring gameplay, instead of going back to UO or AC1. I no longer do that nowadays.
My computer is better than yours.
My regret is that i did not miss EQ. I spent too much time on it. In retrospect, not only i wasted my time, it wasn't that much fun either.
THere were 2 on the lsit that I never got to try in their heyday:
1) Asheron's Call-I was so into EQ1 in its prime that I never got to try this...SOunded like a great game but by the time I was done with EQ I moved to WOW, then I tried several othe after that......AC just never seemed to offer a good trial to even give it a shot....THe graphics looked so outdated that I didnt want to pay tosee so I just didnt play it.
2. SWG-I was never really blowaway by the movies or anything so this didnt appeal much to me.....I was more of a fantasy person than sci-fi but I did play Anarchy for several years because it offered a f2p plan....I did eventually try SWG several years after NCU (about a year before it went out of business) and it jsut didnt strike me as a very good game though I didnt see it when it was more of a sandbox.....The crafting didnt blow me away lik so many here have said it would......It seemed kinda dumb to me but to each their own.
UO was my very first MMO....I played it about 2 months after it released....It was really wierd seeing so many people in Brittain......THen you quickly understood why so many were in Brittain....Once you left the gates of the city there were several powerful players waiting to kill any noob tht stepeed foot outside.....I realize that some people think that is the greatest gameplay ever and loved every second of that game, but for me I had zero interest in playing like that......It took me 3 years before Iever tried a MMO again (EQ) and I made damn sure that it had no PVP whatsoever after my initial UO disaster.
I feel like this is a deliberate troll post.
MMOs change, that's part of what makes them special. It's also what kills most of them.
The ones that are still around are not anywhere as good as they used to be, which is why people don't play them anymore.
Of the ones that are gone, many of them didn't shut down because they were bad. Some shut down because licenses expired, or marketing buried them, ect.
WoW is living proof that quality is not always related to how popular something is.
There's a reason people don't play UO, or EQ1, or DAoC anymore, and its not because they're old, it's because the classic best versions of those games aren't around.
Quality is subjective.
And yes ... EQ was popular once, and it has poor quality in game design, to me, of course.
Right, you have said on several occasions that you played EQ for a year or more; so now you'd have us believe that in all that time, you were not having "fun"? lol. Sorry, no one plays a game for that long without deriving some sort of entertainment out of it.
Mr. Seldon, you had fun with your time in EQ whether you want to admit to us or yourself.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I remember back in the days all those games were critisized so much it was hard to even force myself to try them. But somehow they became magically awesome few years later, because barely anyone is playing them now or even can't anymore so you can say anything you want about them and there are few vocal people that can verify...
It's funny how sometimes I read some laments about old game, and the way people describe it almost makes me want to try that game again, but then I remind myself how those games actually were and I wonder where all the praise suddenly came from.
Well that was true for me. When I first heard about UO, I wasn't onboard with the idea of gaming with others, and Computer Gaming World slammed it hard, giving it their "Coaster of the Year Award".
This went on for title after title, they universally slammed (or ignored) one MMORPG after another, I recall them being very lukewarm on DAOC, hating SWG and no love for many others. They didn't finally warm up to MMO's until City of Heroes came along when they finally found one they could get behind and give a positive rating to.
Fortunately, I finally took a leap of faith, thanks to a free trial disk of Lineage 1 that I picked up at the store counter while buying my latest single player title. Loaded it up and set my gaming path from over 12 years ago until present.
Unlike you, I found the early games to have their fun, heck I'd go give Lineage 1 another go if I knew how to speak Korean. (don't laugh, I 've considered doing so, mostly for the new titles that come out of there a year or 3 ahead of the west)
As I said, I've returned to a 2003 version of DAOC and am having more fun than I've had in about 3 years, well, EVE time not withstanding.
But back on topic, I think I'm really leaning towards AC1, that's probably the one I should have tried to fit in, but my "there can be only one" MMO philosophy (due to RL time constraints) didn't make that possible.
But UO and SWG would also have been good choices.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"it wasn't that much fun" does not equate "no fun at all". Plus, i can always regret it is not fun enough.
"It wasn't that much fun" doesn't equate to something that anyone would consider as being "fun" in any universe. So you played a damn game for over a year that you didn't find to be much fun? Right, lol. Makes total sense. Who are you kidding here?
Come on, you can do it, take the leap, it's not that hard, just admit it: you had fun in EQ!
None of us will judge you
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
yeh, silly uh?
Wish i could play more SP games instead.
At least i won't make that mistake again.
I feel sorry for anybody who never got to play AC1 in its prime. but then again they are the lucky ones they arnt stuck looking for another MMO as great as AC1 like alot of us.....