I never said vanilla WoW and live have the same dungeon mechanics or numbers. I don't know from where did you get that. It was a bit more challenging? I guess. Good players nowadays will *NOT* have any problems with this kind of mechanics. Sorry but CC at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single pulls, patrol mobs, whatever is not a challenge in a dungeon. Wildstar veteran dungeons was more challenging than vanilla WoW dungeons and still was pretty clearable for decent players.
I don't know anyone who I consider good at MMOs that would have problems with WoW vanilla dungeons.
I never said that people would have problems playing Vanilla WoW Dungeons. I just said that it was more challenging (big difference) and fun than Live WoW, so no "propblem" here, don't make up stuff to suit your agenda.
The point is that WoW Vanilla and Live WoW have different mechanics, you also admited it yourself without me even mentioning it by saying "Sorry but CC at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, patrol mobs, whatever is not a challenge in a dungeon."...yes it is compared to today standards. Some people like the above Mechanics as opposed to DPS annihilation in modern WoW, so it is not Red Tinted Glasses as you can see, just people liking different things.
And by the way, CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, patrol mobs, it's way more challenging than just DPS down groups of 20 Mobs which requires no skills, it just requires good gear (that's also the reason why MMORPGs have become gear centric). I don't know how can you even argue with that.
I never said that people would have problems playing Vanilla WoW Dungeons. I just said that it was more challenging (big difference) and fun than Live WoW, so no "propblem" here, don't make up stuff to suit your agenda.
The point is that WoW Vanilla and Live WoW have different mechanics, you also admited it yourself without me even mentioning it by saying "Sorry but CC at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, patrol mobs, whatever is not a challenge in a dungeon."...yes it is compared to today standards. Some people like the above Mechanics as opposed to DPS annihilation in modern WoW, so it is not Red Tinted Glasses as you can see, just people liking different things.
And by the way, CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, patrol mobs, it's way more challenging than just DPS down groups of 20 Mobs which requires no skills, it just requires good gear (that's also the reason why MMORPGs have become gear centric). I don't know how can you even argue with that.
I mean, I also like the old kind of dungeons, but I don't think they can be considered much more challenging, just different. The thing is that the challenge shifts from slow (Maybe strategical, but I don't see much strategy in it tbh) pulls to a more speedrun kind of dungeon.
The challenge nowadays is to put as much DPS as possible, execute your rotation to perfection, some people don't like that and I get it, but what most people fail to understand is that most people speedrunning current WoW dungeons ALSO COULD play old dungeons without any problems. Some people here like to fantasize that you need to be a professional player to play around these kind of mechanics, but no, it's not that hard, UNLESS the developers make the content so hard that only 1% of playerbase can clear it and frankly, if they do that, I bet that most people begging for hard content in MMO forums would be unable to clear it.
Wildstar showed me the truth about people asking for "hard" content. They want a VERY SPECIFIC level of difficulty, where THEY can clear it and feel above the "casual scrubs" but at the same time, the moment they can't clear, it's considered "overtuned" and they will give excuses and be the first to quit. No wonder that no developer will fall to that trap again. Pantheon perhaps.
Do you tried Mythic raids or Savage raids? They are challenging. Yes, they are scripted, but what is not scripted? Even in old-school games?
I've never understood the desire of some players to reduce MMOs to the mathematical formulas upon which they are made. Perhaps it's just the computer geek in them, and they are free to do so if they choose, but for me it's just another way of destroying immersion. Don't tell me anything that reminds me it's just a make believe world.
One of the first things that popped up and it was already happening in the early days of EQ was DPS. I never failed to find someone who had to calculate the DPS of our group. Don't tell me how much damage per second we are generating. Either we can kill a mob or we can't. If we can, great...if not, don't attack it.
Yeah, I kind of understand people wanting to know their DPS (I use a DPS parser myself, but I never say numbers in public, unless someone requests it). But I understand you, I also think that when they start going too deep in math formulas it breaks the immersion. I hate add-ons like "DeadlyBossMods" that predict boss attacks, etc... but sadly it's the way things are now, it existed before, but this way of thinking is way more mainstream now.
I did my own build in Tree of Savior when the game launched and I loved doing it, but after just a month there was already a few meta builds posted on forums, stat weights, everything, kinda lame tbh, but it's impossible to avoid it completely.
I mean, I also like the old kind of dungeons, but I don't think they can be considered much more challenging, just different.
Thank you very much, that's all you had to say...it's different.
My original reply to you was regarding your "Rose Tinted Glasses" comment. You are trying to shift the discussion over whether the Old Schools MMOs were more challenging than modern ones. Although an interesting subject that's not why I replied to you in the first place.
My point is that Old School MMOs had completely different mechanics from today MMOs, they are not just different in our imagination but they are objectively two different type of games. So because they are different, there are people who prefer one type of game over the other. By saying that people only think they like one type of game just because they wear Rose Tinted Glasses it's patronizing for people who actually prefer the Old School Mechanics over the New Mechanics.
This is not about "You like Vanilla WoW because it was your first love", that's not it. First of all WoW wasn't my first MMORPG. I started with EQ in 2001. Then while still playing EQ I tried UO, SWG, DAOC, AO, AC playing them on and off for the next 3 years. In 2004 I left EQ for EQ2 and WoW which were my main MMOs for the next 4 years. So WoW definetely wasn't my first MMO, yet I think it was the best together with EQ.
Oh I forgot, I also like new MMORPGs, I loved AoC, Darkfall, Archeage, Guild Wars 2, and my current favorite ones are ESO and BDO. As you can see I have a very broad taste in MMOs I am not narrow minded. Yet EQ and Vanilla WoW are technically the best MMORPGs I ever played and I would like to play again those games but with modern standards...I don't wear Rose Tinted Glasses.
PS: You keep bringing on Wildstar as a proof of Old Mechanics not working today. Search my old comments regarding Wildstar where I explain why that game bombed (I predicted it during Beta) and the reason is not because Raids were too hard, it's much more complicated than that.
I mean, I also like the old kind of dungeons, but I don't think they can be considered much more challenging, just different.
Thank you very much, that's all you had to say...it's different.
My original reply to you was regarding your "Rose Tinted Glasses" comment.
My point is that Old School MMOs had completely different mechanics from today MMOs, they are not just different in our imagination but they are objectively two different type of games.
PS: You keep bringing on Wildstar as a proof of Old Mechanics not working today. Search my old comments regarding Wildstar where I explain why that game bombed (I predicted it during Beta) and the reason is not because Raids were too hard, it's much more complicated than that.
Well, you might think it's mainly/only different, but there is a lot of people in this forum that think old content is **much more challenging** or am I lying? I probably can find posts in this same thread saying that and even more on similar threads. I had to point out that this line of thinking is very debatable, specially when you consider the differences in information available and general player mindset from that time.
Well, maybe not rose tinted glasses in this case, but it can also be naivety, thinking that the old mechanics will bring the same gameplay or overall feeling and I already said why it will not. I'm not saying this to you specifically, but in general.
My point about Wildstar is not necessarily about old mechanics, but about overall difficult content, people think that they are better than they really are. It's very risky for developers to commit and deliver difficult content outside (or even inside) of raids for the reasons I already stated in my previous post. I know everything that was flawed about Wildstar, but I don't believe bugs or unbalance are enough to warrant the mass quit, all the problems of Wildstar were mostly used as an escape goat because no one wanted to admit they were not good enough to clear the raids, let alone veteran dungeons.
When I was playing FFXIV ARR and because I was healing I would watch videos on Youtube to make sure I avoided all the attacks I needed so that I could heal properly. It was ok when a DPS would not know what to do in the pugs I joined but because I was responsible for the lives of everyone in the group I refused for my own reasons to make mistakes. I watched some videos up to ten times to study them. I played the best I could and I generally was complimented at the end of almost every dungeon. I will admit it made me very happy but the only reason I could do that was because of the videos. I was perhaps motivated by pride too.
When I was playing Everquest I never watched any videos to help me and I read a few boards but the plethora of information that is now available and available with so much accessibility that you can now just search on your phone never existed back then. We had to listen to guild leaders who sometimes droned on more worried about how they appeared and full of themselves then about actually condensing the information and not wasting our time. Yes we wasted a lot of time in preparation and while you can argue that it helped bring our guild closer many of us resented the structure and how we were forced to listen to them talk and give instructions. I followed them and we cleared rooms after rooms often spending upwards 10 hours in one sitting.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests and no one will be able to argue that people used the internet with as much frequency and ease for solutions as we do now. Anyone who says otherwise is deliberately dissembling.
I am quite certain had we the access we now have a lot of that time would be saved. As I age I realise how precious time is and I am no longer inclined to waste them listening to these pompous self important leaders who make up their own rules. I often think about the awful guild politics we were forced to support to belong to powerful guilds because dungeons were so packed back then. I can honestly say I am not willing to go to any lengths to secure a spot any more in one of those guilds as it leaves me with a bad taste when I think of it.
I do hope that any game that is sporting open world dungeons do make enough of them to avoid the overcrowding issue.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests
Completely agree with your post, very coherent and true, but this part specially, THIS IS SO TRUE. Some guilds or even certain small groups could do things so much easier because they had acess to certain information, while the masses did not, because of that the general playerbase thought and some still think that certain things were alien or extremely hard, when that was not really true. One of the difference nowdays is that people are way more open to exchange information and post guides. It's extremely rare to be able to keep a secret that would give a huge advantage.
Certain guilds had extremely well writen, illustrated guides gated behind a guild forum which needed applications that would ask even for your underwear color. I was confident in my skill and still felt pressured staying in certain guilds, awful.
Well, you might think it's mainly/only different, but there is a lot of people in this forum that think old content is **much more challenging** or am I lying? I probably can find posts in this same thread saying that and even more on similar threads. I had to point out that this line of thinking is very debatable, specially when you consider the differences in information available and general player mindset from that time.
I don't know if MMOs were "much more" or just "more" challenging, but certainly weren't as autopilot as they are today. Old School MMOs required alertness, good coordination, and excellent knowledge of your Class in order to choose the right skill at the right time. I don't see how having the Best Gear and copy/pasting the best Skill Rotation can be as challenging as CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, and patrol mobs. I would like you to explain to me how wearing the best Gear and Copy/Pasting the best Skill Rotation is any challenge at all? Which part is the challenging bit?
I mean does repeating the same Dungeon for 100 times with 100% rate of success to acquire the Best Gear is considered a challenge? And what about Copy/Pasting the Best Rotation from WOWHEAD, is that also a challenge? And what about Macroing the above Rotation, that's a challenge as well?
No matter how good you were playing Vanilla WoW, you would wipe at least once from Trash Mobs, and that if you were good, you just needed one person getting distracted for few seconds to cause havock. For most of today players wiping from Trash Mobs would be unacceptable and they would hate that concept, which is fine as Old School MMOs are a niche. But there are some players that like this type of games even if they are a minority, and you all have to accept that these people are not just nostalgic, they just like something different.
I don't know if MMOs were "much more" or just "more" challenging, but certainly weren't as autopilot as they are today. Old School MMOs required alertness, good coordination, and excellent knowledge of your Class in order to choose the right skill at the right time. I don't see how having the Best Gear and copy/pasting the best Skill Rotation can be as challenging as CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single
pulls, and patrol mobs. I would like you to explain to me how wearing the best Gear and Copy/Pasting the best Skill Rotation is any challenge at all? Which part is the challenging bit?
I mean does repeating the same Dungeon for 100 times with 100% rate of success to acquire the Best Gear is considered a challenge? And what about Copy/Pasting the Best Rotation from WOWHEAD, is that also a challenge? And what about Macroing the above Rotation, that's a challenge as well?
No matter how good you were playing Vanilla WoW, you would wipe at least once from Trash Mobs, and that if you were good, you just needed one person getting distracted for few seconds to cause havock. For most of today players wiping from Trash Mobs would be unacceptable and they would hate that concept, which is fine as Old School MMOs are a niche. But there are some players that like this type of games even if they are a minority, and you all have to accept that these people are not just nostalgic, they just like something different.
You are right that the clear rates for dungeons are close to 100%. (>99.9%), but like I said, the challenge for dungeons shifted from slow to speedruns, if you want to be considered good you will have to execute your rotation well while executing mechanics, else you might be considered an hindrance to your group, even if you can clear the dungeon. Not going to say that this is good or bad, but you definitely should pay attention to be a decent player.
Anyway, dungeons are designed to be casual-friendly. To be cleared by pretty much anyone, that's not exactly a bad thing, because you will grind them to gear your character, almost no one wants to wipe over and over with PUGs in dungeons to get geared for the real challenging content (Mythic Raids, Savage raids). You can see this in Wildstar, the community grew more and more bitter because of the wipes and not being able to get the silver attunement.
Copy pasting a rotation and macroing is a bit of a hyperbole. Some rotations like in FFXIV are more complex, they have procs, some are more reactive and not as strict like an 1-2-3 rotation. They can be very taxing, macro'ing them is definitely sub-optimal. Doing them well while executing Savage Raids mechanics is not as easy as you may think. I can see why some people would not find this fun, but saying it's easy is a stretch. The clear rates for savage raids are <4%, Mythic+ is probably around that aswell. Mana management, cooldown management, positioning, tank swaps, map and party awareness are real in this kind of content.
I don't have anything against people who likes old content, like I said, I also enjoyed them and still have good memories about them and definitely it was different in some aspects, but I don't like some fallacies are brought up constantly in this kind of discussion.
Essentially you* might not enjoy RAID content (blablabla dancefloor, blablabla scripted) and that's fine but they are definitely challenging for at least 98% of the playerbase, including skilled players. Saying that everything is faceroll is completely untrue.
Its just my opinion, but back when i played EQ1 there werent a lot of choices in mmo's, today the mmo market is very diluted But..................................
MMO's were on PC only and PC gaming seemed to be an older crowd. I didnt run across alot of younger/teens when playing. Access to PC's didnt seem as easy as it is today, and internet was a lot different, i started on dial up playing EQ. Nowadays any parent could just as easily buy their kid a PC just as easy as a console.
So imo the mmo genre became diluted and the community became more immature with the ease of access for pc gaming.
EQ1 vanilla was completely on autilopilot for experienced players.
Take a group of veteran P99 players today and ask them how often they die to trash mobs.... yep never, unless its lag related.
The reason why so many had a challenging time in EQ1 is because they didnt know wtf they were doing.
Experienced group play in EQ1 is 100% routine and safe.
Just like any MMO
I think you are getting too old and start forgetting stuff. Sure experienced players had fewer problems than the average players, but they were never on autopilot. That's because even if you knew what to do, it would take one player distraction to get the whole group wiped. When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus. So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
In today MMOs 1 or 2 people in the group could go AFK any time and people would hardly notice as usually Dundgeons can be done by 3 players. In Older MMOs the whole group had to be on the ball the whole time if they wanted to complete Dungeons and Raids with minimal loss.
PS: By the way don't confuse Mob Grinding with Dungeon Crawling, they are two different thing. For Mob Grinding I agree that was pretty much autopilot, it even had a name "Chain Pulling", but actual Dungeon Crawling and Raiding was a totally different matter.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests and no one will be able to argue that people used the internet with as much frequency and ease for solutions as we do now. Anyone who says otherwise is deliberately dissembling.
I am quite certain had we the access we now have a lot of that time would be saved. As I age I realise how precious time is and I am no longer inclined to waste them listening to these pompous self important leaders who make up their own rules. I often think about the awful guild politics we were forced to support to belong to powerful guilds because dungeons were so packed back then. I can honestly say I am not willing to go to any lengths to secure a spot any more in one of those guilds as it leaves me with a bad taste when I think of it.
I do hope that any game that is sporting open world dungeons do make enough of them to avoid the overcrowding issue.
You brought up something I feel strongly about. Everquest was always an exclusive game. To do well in EQ you had to have the time investment to grind long hours for exp and camp long hours for named drops. To raid bosses, you had to not only be in a guild, but be in a hardcore raid guild. Otherwise you could spend weeks before getting a shot at a raid boss, longer if you are looking to obtain a piece of raid gear or drop.
A lot of the players didn't like Planes of Power expansion because of the progression nature of it. Meaning you could be c'blocked by other raid guilds from advancing further if you couldn't get that one raid boss you needed. There's a reason why people called EQ players "elitists" back in the days. This is because hardcore raid guilds acted like elitists ingame and on the forums. Sadly I was a part of that, back then I didn't know better.
Games released after 2004 started moving towards a more inclusive culture, which is a big reason why more people started playing MMORPG's. Fast internet became more accessible to all, more people started to have access to information online, and instances opened content up to everybody not just the top 2%. For most people the genre got better because games are no longer exclusive.
The decline in EQ started when people realized they didn't have to play MMO's the EQ way. I would say the problem started when more and more content started to get locked behind contested raid progression. This actually started in Velious, and progressively got worse. I take that back, the problem started in Kunark when they introduced class epics which you needed to be a part of a raid guild in order to finish.
I myself was never able to finish my druid epic because I was c'blocked by raid requirement. So I did end up joining a raid guild, but the guild wasn't able to compete for boss kills against server's top 2 elite guilds. People sort of gave Kunark a pass though because it did increase level cap by 10 and had tons of group content, so there was plenty to play for outside of raiding.
This would explain why EQ had such retention problems. SOE's press releases in 2004 stated EQ grew on average 250k new subscribers each year from 1999-2004. So the growth part didn't slow down, it's the retention that was the issue. People played the game, got through solo/group content, and once content started to get locked behind contested raids, they left for other games. Rinse & repeat from expansion to expansion, as I remember leaving EQ and going back to it multiple times when new expansions came out.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus. So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
I had a completely different experience. Because of the very slow combat it was quite easy to succeed in EQ Dungeons whilst just "shooting the shit" with friends or even read a book.
The combat was deliberately designed to allow casual conversation to take place during combat.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests and no one will be able to argue that people used the internet with as much frequency and ease for solutions as we do now. Anyone who says otherwise is deliberately dissembling.
I am quite certain had we the access we now have a lot of that time would be saved. As I age I realise how precious time is and I am no longer inclined to waste them listening to these pompous self important leaders who make up their own rules. I often think about the awful guild politics we were forced to support to belong to powerful guilds because dungeons were so packed back then. I can honestly say I am not willing to go to any lengths to secure a spot any more in one of those guilds as it leaves me with a bad taste when I think of it.
I do hope that any game that is sporting open world dungeons do make enough of them to avoid the overcrowding issue.
You brought up something I feel strongly about. Everquest was always an exclusive game. To do well in EQ you had to have the time investment to grind long hours for exp and camp long hours for named drops. To raid bosses, you had to not only be in a guild, but be in a hardcore raid guild. Otherwise you could spend weeks before getting a shot at a raid boss, longer if you are looking to obtain a piece of raid gear or drop.
A lot of the players didn't like Planes of Power expansion because of the progression nature of it. Meaning you could be c'blocked by other raid guilds from advancing further if you couldn't get that one raid boss you needed. There's a reason why people called EQ players "elitists" back in the days. This is because hardcore raid guilds acted like elitists ingame and on the forums. Sadly I was a part of that, back then I didn't know better.
Games released after 2004 started moving towards a more inclusive culture, which is a big reason why more people started playing MMORPG's. Fast internet became more accessible to all, more people started to have access to information online, and instances opened content up to everybody not just the top 2%. For most people the genre got better because games are no longer exclusive.
The decline in EQ started when people realized they didn't have to play MMO's the EQ way. I would say the problem started when more and more content started to get locked behind contested raid progression. This actually started in Velious, and progressively got worse. I take that back, the problem started in Kunark when they introduced class epics which you needed to be a part of a raid guild in order to finish.
I myself was never able to finish my druid epic because I was c'blocked by raid requirement. So I did end up joining a raid guild, but the guild wasn't able to compete for boss kills against server's top 2 elite guilds. People sort of gave Kunark a pass though because it did increase level cap by 10 and had tons of group content, so there was plenty to play for outside of raiding.
This would explain why EQ had such retention problems. SOE's press releases in 2004 stated EQ grew on average 250k new subscribers each year from 1999-2004. So the growth part didn't slow down, it's the retention that was the issue. People played the game, got through solo/group content, and once content started to get locked behind contested raids, they left for other games. Rinse & repeat from expansion to expansion, as I remember leaving EQ and going back to it multiple times when new expansions came out.
I like this explanation of why some people left EQ1. But I don't know any way to measure that 'some people' to get some kind of estimation of the percentages. My gut feel is that this happened to some, but not a majority of those that left. Maybe 5% of the total population of EQ? Maybe? (And a quick counter to people leaving because of progression blocking would have been instances, but at the time of PoP, EQ1 was several expansions away from embracing instances. The other quick and dirty fix could have been reducing the spawn timers to almost nothing).
One of the issues I've yet to see addressed with Pantheon's development is 'why people quit EQ1' and how the development team is hoping to avoid those reasons. Maybe this discussion is going on behind their forum pay wall, maybe not. But some of the features of how Pantheon is going to address player retention should be evident sometime before launch. (It may be too early to see these types of decisions through the videos).
Will VR include instances in order to avoid this phenomena of progression blocking? Will instances drive away the fervent supporters? Will the required flagging be Boss 1 OR Boss 2 OR Boss 3 (or a similar progression scheme) as opposed to EQ1's Boss 1 AND Boss 2 AND Boss 3 logic? The OR sequencing opens up multiple ways of progressing to the same goal at the risk of congesting the higher level content. But implementing an OR sequence can also make some content (Boss 2 and Boss 3) unused if one is perceived to be an easier path. Unused content effectively drives up the cost of development.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I am an original eq player from 1999 and OP does not speak for me. I am opposed to the purist and p1999 idea that nothing post Velious was good; for me post Velious was where EQ really evolved and where I enjoyed the game the most, not that I didn't up till then and Velious was a great expansion, it is just that so many of the great inventions and improvements came after that I feel it is a sad mentality to ignore those.
I can however completely agree that all new mmorpgs has much to learn from the greatest mmorpg ever made (and all fail to acknowledge), only a few of the newer crowdfunded projects shows a little promise, but we have still to see the actual result of that (intentions does not always translate to final product).
When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus. So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
I had a completely different experience. Because of the very slow combat it was quite easy to succeed in EQ Dungeons whilst just "shooting the shit" with friends or even read a book.
The combat was deliberately designed to allow casual conversation to take place during combat.
And this text chat, not voice.
I covered that part. There were two ways to do Dungeons.
One was to choose a spot and Chain Pull mobs for XP, this was a rather Casual game play and indeed wasn't too hard nor was too demanding and definetly you could put your pizza in the oven (and then eat it) while the rest of the group was fighting, all it was needed was the Puller, that was the guy doing all the hard job for the rest of the group.
Another way to do Dungeons was the way you are actually supposed to do Dungeons, which means Boss hunting. If you were serious about actually grinding Bosses, the relax approach didn't quite cut it, as you had to get through tons of Trash Mobs at speed, which required everyone to be fully focused. This was especially true for Raids since dungeons were usually overcrowded and often Trash Mobs were already cleared out by some other group.
When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus. So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
I had a completely different experience. Because of the very slow combat it was quite easy to succeed in EQ Dungeons whilst just "shooting the shit" with friends or even read a book.
The combat was deliberately designed to allow casual conversation to take place during combat.
And this text chat, not voice.
I wouldn't say it was very slow, but it had an "/autoattack element". You're right the whole game was designed with text chat in mind. For text chat to work, some sort of automatic element has to be present for it o be seamless. A tense fight isn't exactly the right time for a casual conversation, but it did happen. If you were in a small redundant camp away from wanderers, it does get boring and you chat to stay occupied. The issue is things would sometimes happen, usually involving other players. that'd cause you to almost die. Sometimes someone goes afk and it cause trouble. If you're in a dungeon it's more dangerous, especially if you're not sure where the safe spots are. Keep in mind most groups weren't perfect, so sometimes there'd be holes. Someone might die, pull wrong or similar. Even I, being a longtime veteran of EQ, I died on Pr9oject 1999 all the time, even on my own soloing.
Overall, what makes old Everquest gameplay different for me are hte risks. Corpse runs combined with the death penalty (AND PvP someimes) made it a very risky experience at times. That's why I played it for so many years and it's what I look for in other MMO's. To some amount, the slow periods were welcome, as I sometimes needed ninja afk's.
It has to hurt sometimes. That's the key. The other element for me is hand holding. I hate it. But I don't think EQ caused that. I blame that on early games. That' what I grew up on and I don't see myself changing. So I hate GPS maps and quest markers and all that hand holding jazz.
My latest MMO love is Wurm Online. It has things in common with Eerquest and Ultima Online. It mostly proved to me that nostalgia, if it exists to this extent, is blind. It's not connected to a specific game, but a style or set of mechanics. If it's game specific, I wouldn't have felt Wurm Online was the best MMO I ever played. It was the most immersive thing ever. It has corpse runs btw. It has no GPS map or radar. I played on PvP servers where almost everything can be looted. I've lost many things to raiding and decay. I've lived what I preach. I don't just say I dislike hand holding, it's part of my gamign lifestyle.
EQ1 vanilla was completely on autilopilot for experienced players.
Take a group of veteran P99 players today and ask them how often they die to trash mobs.... yep never, unless its lag related.
The reason why so many had a challenging time in EQ1 is because they didnt know wtf they were doing.
Experienced group play in EQ1 is 100% routine and safe.
Just like any MMO
I think you are getting too old and start forgetting stuff. Sure experienced players had fewer problems than the average players, but they were never on autopilot. That's because even if you knew what to do, it would take one player distraction to get the whole group wiped. When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus. So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
In today MMOs 1 or 2 people in the group could go AFK any time and people would hardly notice as usually Dundgeons can be done by 3 players. In Older MMOs the whole group had to be on the ball the whole time if they wanted to complete Dungeons and Raids with minimal loss.
PS: By the way don't confuse Mob Grinding with Dungeon Crawling, they are two different thing. For Mob Grinding I agree that was pretty much autopilot, it even had a name "Chain Pulling", but actual Dungeon Crawling and Raiding was a totally different matter.
Even just grinding mobs, unless you were sitting in a spot outside clear of roamers, there was plenty of variables involved in combat to keep things interesting. In a dungeon you always had to contend with roamers, runners, adds, mobs on offset timers, as well as threat and resource management. No amount of experience made it completely static or predictable.
Regardless, it wasn't mechanical complexity that made MMORPGs good. The formula is actually quite simple. In essence, it's making it hard enough that you actually have to rely on other people. Not just in combat, but in various aspects of the game. Trading, travelling, exploring, and yes, slaying monsters.
Trying to push the limits on personal player skill is what tanked games like Wildstar.
Seems like quite a bit of misinformation here from people who sound like they never actually played old Everquest. First off EQatlas was huge before Kunark even released. It gave you maps and locations of monsters loot and yes you could alt tab to websites just as you do today. So no, information wasnt restricted, it was available readily if you knew how to use Yahoo or Altvista.
Secondly, the game was flat out harder and Vanilla WoW was flat out harder than todays MMOs. There is zero arguing this point. WoW started out with strategy needed and then in WoTLK destroyed that concept for the current WoW concept of "Pull and aoe everything down" it was brainless and anyone could do it. So we saw more people clearing dungeons because!!!! Yes, it was easier, no argument at all. Once Cataclysm came around Ghostcrawler wanted to make dungeons harder... Thats right, like old WoW, because the dungeons had become objectively easier from a dev POV. He wanted to change that. Look up "WoW, Dungeons are Hard!" in a google search and you will find the info you need. So what happened? Well, the community complained that the dungeons were too hard and how this wasn't Vanilla anymore. Well, why did they complain that dungeons were too hard if they weren't too hard? Hmmm. Could it be that they were actually harder!! Like honestly, how are you comparing modern MMO design to old school MMO design and pretending it wasn't harder when every statistic in the book will show otherwise.
Oh and btw, the sentiment of "No one knew what they were doing so it was PERCEIVED difficulty" completely falls off a cliff as Cata was far into the WoW cycle and everyone knew what was going on. The game was just objectively more difficulty and thus forums exploded and dungeons were nerfed BECAUSE they were actually harder. So you can end that argument or explain in detail how aoeing things with no thought is more difficult than managing threat, mana, cc'ing (strategic cc'ing, you want to CC the healer or the hex mob for example) strategic pulling (which required knowing the dungeon) adds, pats, etc vs nothing matters, pull everything. Honestly, if anyone can make that argument ill give you an award.
Thirdly, Everquest was indeed very simple in combat mechanics. So is Dark Souls actually. Yet, why are these games considered hard? Well because combat mechanics are only one aspect of a game. No access to maps, no instant refilling of HP/Mana, having an actual death penalty and the mobs actually fighting back almost as soon as you fight the game instead of 100+ hours in are some major things i can think of. You can have as complex of combat as you want, but if the mobs fall over and have no chance of killing you it really doesn't matter, its just white noise to keep you occupied as the game unfolds in front of you and essentially beats itself. This isn't really gaming, its more akin to watching a movie while pressing buttons.
Had to clear that up as many people are incredibly wrong about past games.
Oh, and to address nostalgia. Its bullshit. Sure im nostalgic about Everquest. Im nostalgic about riding my bike as a kid. I didn't magically stop enjoying riding my bike as I got older because I could ride a motorcycle which took out the "leg work". There are particular reasons why I enjoy riding a bike that will never change my mind. Likewise there are specific reasons why I liked Old School mechanics and its exactly why I was excited for Demon Souls when it was coming out. I knew it was a game I would enjoy, and even though TONS of people on forums were flaming the game as being "stuck in the past" as it released, the legacy that came after showed that casuals and nostalgia retards really have no idea what they are talking about. Good old school game concepts presented in the right way work amazingly well. Eve Online is testament to this.
To go even further with this idea, how many WoW clones have released and BOMBED at this point? 100? 1000? How many games held onto old school concepts have their been? Vanguard, Eve Online and in some way, FFXIV? Can anyone name any others cause im drawing a blank. So weve had 3 hardcore MMO ideas and 2 of the 3 are still going strong with a P2P model? Oh right, Wildstar as well, which REALLY didn't feel that hardcore. I played it and hated that I had spent 30 hours in the game SOLOING in this "hardcore" MMO. Not only that but the combat system of "lines everywhere" was fucking terrible. It felt like modern WoW, except shittier, with 3 or 4 dungeons that were difficult, but overall felt like shit to run because of the combat system which felt like it was made for soloing and not group play, but hell, ill throw Wildstar out there just to make whoever feel better. So half the hardcore MMOs since EQ released have flourished, vs probably 99+% of Casual MMOs which have failed terribly. Thats not really a great stat considering how limited hardcore MMOs have been.
Please send me responses I would love to continue this further
Thirdly, Everquest was indeed very simple in combat mechanics. So is Dark Souls actually. Yet, why are these games considered hard? Well because combat mechanics are only one aspect of a game. No access to maps, no instant refilling of HP/Mana, having an actual death penalty and the mobs actually fighting back almost as soon as you fight the game instead of 100+ hours in are some major things i can think of. You can have as complex of combat as you want, but if the mobs fall over and have no chance of killing you it really doesn't matter, its just white noise to keep you occupied as the game unfolds in front of you and essentially beats itself. This isn't really gaming, its more akin to watching a movie while pressing buttons.
You know, when I first started playing EQ, I thought it would be better to make the combat system more complex. But once I got used to it, I realized simpler is better. For one thing, unlike single-player games, MMOs talk back and forth between client and server, slowing real-time combat significantly. And as you mentioned, combat is only one aspect of a much larger world, so if you make the world dynamic enough, you don't need combat to be that intense.
That's another thing about EQ2 that I had forgotten. They had that chain combat system where if you landed your special attacks In a certain order, it would do major damage to a mob. It sounded cool at the time, but I remember now how I was constantly looking down at my keys to make sure I hit them in the right order and missing the combat as it was going on. I think I like it better when you put your character on auto-pilot (or semi-auto-pilot, it's nice to have a few combat options) and can actually watch the fight taking place.
Secondly, the game was flat out harder and Vanilla WoW was flat out harder than todays MMOs. There is zero arguing this point. WoW started out with strategy needed and then in WoTLK destroyed that concept for the current WoW concept of "Pull and aoe everything down" it was brainless and anyone could do it.
Yep people seems to forget this part but I remember it quite vividly.
I was on a break from WoW. When I came back a few months later I was getting ready for my first Dungeon, when I noticed the first strange thing. I was the Healer and I started getting messages from other players in my group telling me that my gear wasn't good enough. My Healer wasn't my main but I had decent gear, I never had any problem Healing in that Dungeon, I've done it hundreds of times before, no one ever complained or told me my gear wasn't good enough.
Anyway as soon as we started playing I understood why they were worried my gear wasn't good enough. The Tank started chain pulling 1 to 3 Groups of mobs at a time with very little rest, sometimes I had to heal 15 mobs damage at the same time which to me was crazy, I thought that was weird but I just dismissed it as the Tank being a Noob.
Unfortunately the more I played the new WoW the more I understood that was actually the norm. No more CC, no more splitting mobs, no more rest between groups, now it was all about Gear and how fast you could DPS down mobs. That was the day WoW became a game centered around Gear and not around Player Skills.
That's when I started disliking WoW and when (real) MMORPGs died, in my opinion.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests
Completely agree with your post, very coherent and true, but this part specially, THIS IS SO TRUE. Some guilds or even certain small groups could do things so much easier because they had acess to certain information, while the masses did not, because of that the general playerbase thought and some still think that certain things were alien or extremely hard, when that was not really true. One of the difference nowdays is that people are way more open to exchange information and post guides. It's extremely rare to be able to keep a secret that would give a huge advantage.
Certain guilds had extremely well writen, illustrated guides gated behind a guild forum which needed applications that would ask even for your underwear color. I was confident in my skill and still felt pressured staying in certain guilds, awful.
Interesting. When EQ first came out information was out there, but it was harder to find and I liked it that way. One of the things I like to do is figure out the mechanics of new dungeons and such. However in newer MMOs this is only tolerated in the first week after the content is released. After that if you want a PUG you 'need' to have every move down perfect. If that requires studying YouTube, then that is what the group expects you to have done.
That generally is the end of my grouping for that content (PUGs anyway - I usually can talk friends into a relaxed run).
Another thing that annoys me is daily areas or enticements to run the same content 100 times. This started with LDON (if I remember correctly). To get the 'good' gear you needed an absurd number of successful completions to 'buy' the gear. I'm sorry - after doing the same mission 20 times I am ready to log off - perhaps permanently.
Interesting. When EQ first came out information was out there, but it was harder to find and I liked it that way. One of the things I like to do is figure out the mechanics of new dungeons and such. However in newer MMOs this is only tolerated in the first week after the content is released. After that if you want a PUG you 'need' to have every move down perfect. If that requires studying YouTube, then that is what the group expects you to have done.
The requirement for a player to know the content and how to execute perfectly in a PUG essentially reduces the entire population in that game to a handful of players. These first players are able to experiment and come up with that sequence that beats the content, while everyone else merely follows their established path. It's bad enough (to me) that the developers build content with a single solution, but having the players enforce that 'One Way' mentality is depressing. Give me some flexibility and variety in the game, not an optimized solution.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The decline of EQ was insta-porting and the central hub called the Plane of Knowledge. Emptied out the Commonlands and other low level zones REAL FAST. Turned them into ghost towns.
The decline of the overall genre was too much handholding that, in some games, went all the way to level cap.
The reverse of the decline will be a hardcore PVE (not PVP) game that does away with those two points of contention.
I would argue the decline started the expansion before with Shadows of Luclin, but I largely agree with you. Planes of Power aimed to eliminate travel time in the world to its detriment. I used this analogy before, but I felt more like I was in a rat maze with Planes of Power than in an online world. Planes of Power pretty much eliminated the exploration aspect of EQ. You would enter a zone, fight some mobs and get your reward (like a piece of cheese in a maze). Then you would move on to the next zone and try to earn another piece of cheese.
Much more enjoyable to create a vast world that you can travel from one end to another to give you the feeling that you are visiting exotic new lands.
Whenever this "no player left behind" act started tbh. I do understand that for a lot of people with sub games, the main reason they would not sub is because they felt they would never catch up. However, there are plenty of ways of fixing that vs just handing people "free" stuff so they can "just right in and play with others." This honestly forced people to be less social as a result (to me at least) because they didn't have to get up to a certain point where they could join guilds that would dedicate time to helping players. Instead, we have the "me, myself and I" generation that thinks mmorpgs should start and stop when they log in/off. That's just not realistic to me. Its a massive multiplayer online role playing game, so yes you (generalized) should conform to a degree in order to tackle the hardest content in the game and the hardest content in the game should only have that difficult, not 21039210392 difficult that cater to everyone. That's the whole point of various content, not various modes. It used to be you only had those types that could only do normal dungeons, those that could do heroics, those that could raid, so on and so forth so that people could have something that they could exclusively work towards. With things this way as well, it did not require consistent updates because it took a while for everyone to get to about the same level which is usually when an update is needed. Quality over quantity seems to be a foreign concept to many gamers and devs/publishers these days.
Well UO's addition of the trammel realm and adapting the care bear ruleset to the map/zones of every expansion was the downfall for me and not introducing proper pvp servers; as opposed to just one very brutal and hardcore server that catered to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum.
EQ 2 seemed great when it first game out but after awhile I felt it was a pretty bad game and it started getting dumbed down rapidly... for WoW I feel the height was Lich King... after that it just kept becoming more casual, more trivial, more tedious.
I fell this was the end of challenging and deeper thought MMO's and the social aspect of them.
Comments
I just said that it was more challenging (big difference) and fun than Live WoW, so no "propblem" here, don't make up stuff to suit your agenda.
The point is that WoW Vanilla and Live WoW have different mechanics, you also admited it yourself without me even mentioning it by saying "Sorry but CC at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single pulls, patrol mobs, whatever is not a challenge in a dungeon."...yes it is compared to today standards.
Some people like the above Mechanics as opposed to DPS annihilation in modern WoW, so it is not Red Tinted Glasses as you can see, just people liking different things.
And by the way, CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single pulls, patrol mobs, it's way more challenging than just DPS down groups of 20 Mobs which requires no skills, it just requires good gear (that's also the reason why MMORPGs have become gear centric).
I don't know how can you even argue with that.
The challenge nowadays is to put as much DPS as possible, execute your rotation to perfection, some people don't like that and I get it, but what most people fail to understand is that most people speedrunning current WoW dungeons ALSO COULD play old dungeons without any problems. Some people here like to fantasize that you need to be a professional player to play around these kind of mechanics, but no, it's not that hard, UNLESS the developers make the content so hard that only 1% of playerbase can clear it and frankly, if they do that, I bet that most people begging for hard content in MMO forums would be unable to clear it.
Wildstar showed me the truth about people asking for "hard" content. They want a VERY SPECIFIC level of difficulty, where THEY can clear it and feel above the "casual scrubs" but at the same time, the moment they can't clear, it's considered "overtuned" and they will give excuses and be the first to quit. No wonder that no developer will fall to that trap again. Pantheon perhaps.
Do you tried Mythic raids or Savage raids? They are challenging. Yes, they are scripted, but what is not scripted? Even in old-school games?
Yeah, I kind of understand people wanting to know their DPS (I use a DPS parser myself, but I never say numbers in public, unless someone requests it). But I understand you, I also think that when they start going too deep in math formulas it breaks the immersion. I hate add-ons like "DeadlyBossMods" that predict boss attacks, etc... but sadly it's the way things are now, it existed before, but this way of thinking is way more mainstream now.
I did my own build in Tree of Savior when the game launched and I loved doing it, but after just a month there was already a few meta builds posted on forums, stat weights, everything, kinda lame tbh, but it's impossible to avoid it completely.
My original reply to you was regarding your "Rose Tinted Glasses" comment.
You are trying to shift the discussion over whether the Old Schools MMOs were more challenging than modern ones.
Although an interesting subject that's not why I replied to you in the first place.
My point is that Old School MMOs had completely different mechanics from today MMOs, they are not just different in our imagination but they are objectively two different type of games.
So because they are different, there are people who prefer one type of game over the other.
By saying that people only think they like one type of game just because they wear Rose Tinted Glasses it's patronizing for people who actually prefer the Old School Mechanics over the New Mechanics.
This is not about "You like Vanilla WoW because it was your first love", that's not it.
First of all WoW wasn't my first MMORPG.
I started with EQ in 2001.
Then while still playing EQ I tried UO, SWG, DAOC, AO, AC playing them on and off for the next 3 years.
In 2004 I left EQ for EQ2 and WoW which were my main MMOs for the next 4 years.
So WoW definetely wasn't my first MMO, yet I think it was the best together with EQ.
Oh I forgot, I also like new MMORPGs, I loved AoC, Darkfall, Archeage, Guild Wars 2, and my current favorite ones are ESO and BDO.
As you can see I have a very broad taste in MMOs I am not narrow minded.
Yet EQ and Vanilla WoW are technically the best MMORPGs I ever played and I would like to play again those games but with modern standards...I don't wear Rose Tinted Glasses.
PS: You keep bringing on Wildstar as a proof of Old Mechanics not working today.
Search my old comments regarding Wildstar where I explain why that game bombed (I predicted it during Beta) and the reason is not because Raids were too hard, it's much more complicated than that.
Well, maybe not rose tinted glasses in this case, but it can also be naivety, thinking that the old mechanics will bring the same gameplay or overall feeling and I already said why it will not. I'm not saying this to you specifically, but in general.
My point about Wildstar is not necessarily about old mechanics, but about overall difficult content, people think that they are better than they really are. It's very risky for developers to commit and deliver difficult content outside (or even inside) of raids for the reasons I already stated in my previous post. I know everything that was flawed about Wildstar, but I don't believe bugs or unbalance are enough to warrant the mass quit, all the problems of Wildstar were mostly used as an escape goat because no one wanted to admit they were not good enough to clear the raids, let alone veteran dungeons.
When I was playing Everquest I never watched any videos to help me and I read a few boards but the plethora of information that is now available and available with so much accessibility that you can now just search on your phone never existed back then. We had to listen to guild leaders who sometimes droned on more worried about how they appeared and full of themselves then about actually condensing the information and not wasting our time. Yes we wasted a lot of time in preparation and while you can argue that it helped bring our guild closer many of us resented the structure and how we were forced to listen to them talk and give instructions. I followed them and we cleared rooms after rooms often spending upwards 10 hours in one sitting.
While there were some sites that might expose a strategy many guilds kept the secrets of the success close to their chests and no one will be able to argue that people used the internet with as much frequency and ease for solutions as we do now. Anyone who says otherwise is deliberately dissembling.
I am quite certain had we the access we now have a lot of that time would be saved. As I age I realise how precious time is and I am no longer inclined to waste them listening to these pompous self important leaders who make up their own rules. I often think about the awful guild politics we were forced to support to belong to powerful guilds because dungeons were so packed back then. I can honestly say I am not willing to go to any lengths to secure a spot any more in one of those guilds as it leaves me with a bad taste when I think of it.
I do hope that any game that is sporting open world dungeons do make enough of them to avoid the overcrowding issue.
Certain guilds had extremely well writen, illustrated guides gated behind a guild forum which needed applications that would ask even for your underwear color. I was confident in my skill and still felt pressured staying in certain guilds, awful.
Old School MMOs required alertness, good coordination, and excellent knowledge of your Class in order to choose the right skill at the right time.
I don't see how having the Best Gear and copy/pasting the best Skill Rotation can be as challenging as CCing at the correct time, mana management, tank swap, single pulls, and patrol mobs.
I would like you to explain to me how wearing the best Gear and Copy/Pasting the best Skill Rotation is any challenge at all? Which part is the challenging bit?
I mean does repeating the same Dungeon for 100 times with 100% rate of success to acquire the Best Gear is considered a challenge?
And what about Copy/Pasting the Best Rotation from WOWHEAD, is that also a challenge?
And what about Macroing the above Rotation, that's a challenge as well?
No matter how good you were playing Vanilla WoW, you would wipe at least once from Trash Mobs, and that if you were good, you just needed one person getting distracted for few seconds to cause havock.
For most of today players wiping from Trash Mobs would be unacceptable and they would hate that concept, which is fine as Old School MMOs are a niche.
But there are some players that like this type of games even if they are a minority, and you all have to accept that these people are not just nostalgic, they just like something different.
Anyway, dungeons are designed to be casual-friendly. To be cleared by pretty much anyone, that's not exactly a bad thing, because you will grind them to gear your character, almost no one wants to wipe over and over with PUGs in dungeons to get geared for the real challenging content (Mythic Raids, Savage raids). You can see this in Wildstar, the community grew more and more bitter because of the wipes and not being able to get the silver attunement.
Copy pasting a rotation and macroing is a bit of a hyperbole. Some rotations like in FFXIV are more complex, they have procs, some are more reactive and not as strict like an 1-2-3 rotation. They can be very taxing, macro'ing them is definitely sub-optimal. Doing them well while executing Savage Raids mechanics is not as easy as you may think. I can see why some people would not find this fun, but saying it's easy is a stretch. The clear rates for savage raids are <4%, Mythic+ is probably around that aswell. Mana management, cooldown management, positioning, tank swaps, map and party awareness are real in this kind of content.
I don't have anything against people who likes old content, like I said, I also enjoyed them and still have good memories about them and definitely it was different in some aspects, but I don't like some fallacies are brought up constantly in this kind of discussion.
Essentially you* might not enjoy RAID content (blablabla dancefloor, blablabla scripted) and that's fine but they are definitely challenging for at least 98% of the playerbase, including skilled players. Saying that everything is faceroll is completely untrue.
*general you
MMO's were on PC only and PC gaming seemed to be an older crowd. I didnt run across alot of younger/teens when playing. Access to PC's didnt seem as easy as it is today, and internet was a lot different, i started on dial up playing EQ. Nowadays any parent could just as easily buy their kid a PC just as easy as a console.
So imo the mmo genre became diluted and the community became more immature with the ease of access for pc gaming.
Sure experienced players had fewer problems than the average players, but they were never on autopilot.
That's because even if you knew what to do, it would take one player distraction to get the whole group wiped.
When you played EQ or Vanilla WoW Dungeons or Raids everyone was costantly on their toes, no slacking, no distractions and focus.
So it was possible to just breeze through Dungeons as long as there was no slacking, no distractions and focus from everyone in the group, but you weren't guaranteed everyone was on the same page unless you played with real friends or in Elite Guilds.
In today MMOs 1 or 2 people in the group could go AFK any time and people would hardly notice as usually Dundgeons can be done by 3 players.
In Older MMOs the whole group had to be on the ball the whole time if they wanted to complete Dungeons and Raids with minimal loss.
PS: By the way don't confuse Mob Grinding with Dungeon Crawling, they are two different thing.
For Mob Grinding I agree that was pretty much autopilot, it even had a name "Chain Pulling", but actual Dungeon Crawling and Raiding was a totally different matter.
A lot of the players didn't like Planes of Power expansion because of the progression nature of it. Meaning you could be c'blocked by other raid guilds from advancing further if you couldn't get that one raid boss you needed. There's a reason why people called EQ players "elitists" back in the days. This is because hardcore raid guilds acted like elitists ingame and on the forums. Sadly I was a part of that, back then I didn't know better.
Games released after 2004 started moving towards a more inclusive culture, which is a big reason why more people started playing MMORPG's. Fast internet became more accessible to all, more people started to have access to information online, and instances opened content up to everybody not just the top 2%. For most people the genre got better because games are no longer exclusive.
The decline in EQ started when people realized they didn't have to play MMO's the EQ way. I would say the problem started when more and more content started to get locked behind contested raid progression. This actually started in Velious, and progressively got worse. I take that back, the problem started in Kunark when they introduced class epics which you needed to be a part of a raid guild in order to finish.
I myself was never able to finish my druid epic because I was c'blocked by raid requirement. So I did end up joining a raid guild, but the guild wasn't able to compete for boss kills against server's top 2 elite guilds. People sort of gave Kunark a pass though because it did increase level cap by 10 and had tons of group content, so there was plenty to play for outside of raiding.
This would explain why EQ had such retention problems. SOE's press releases in 2004 stated EQ grew on average 250k new subscribers each year from 1999-2004. So the growth part didn't slow down, it's the retention that was the issue. People played the game, got through solo/group content, and once content started to get locked behind contested raids, they left for other games. Rinse & repeat from expansion to expansion, as I remember leaving EQ and going back to it multiple times when new expansions came out.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
The combat was deliberately designed to allow casual conversation to take place during combat.
And this text chat, not voice.
One of the issues I've yet to see addressed with Pantheon's development is 'why people quit EQ1' and how the development team is hoping to avoid those reasons. Maybe this discussion is going on behind their forum pay wall, maybe not. But some of the features of how Pantheon is going to address player retention should be evident sometime before launch. (It may be too early to see these types of decisions through the videos).
Will VR include instances in order to avoid this phenomena of progression blocking? Will instances drive away the fervent supporters? Will the required flagging be Boss 1 OR Boss 2 OR Boss 3 (or a similar progression scheme) as opposed to EQ1's Boss 1 AND Boss 2 AND Boss 3 logic? The OR sequencing opens up multiple ways of progressing to the same goal at the risk of congesting the higher level content. But implementing an OR sequence can also make some content (Boss 2 and Boss 3) unused if one is perceived to be an easier path. Unused content effectively drives up the cost of development.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I can however completely agree that all new mmorpgs has much to learn from the greatest mmorpg ever made (and all fail to acknowledge), only a few of the newer crowdfunded projects shows a little promise, but we have still to see the actual result of that (intentions does not always translate to final product).
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
There were two ways to do Dungeons.
One was to choose a spot and Chain Pull mobs for XP, this was a rather Casual game play and indeed wasn't too hard nor was too demanding and definetly you could put your pizza in the oven (and then eat it) while the rest of the group was fighting, all it was needed was the Puller, that was the guy doing all the hard job for the rest of the group.
Another way to do Dungeons was the way you are actually supposed to do Dungeons, which means Boss hunting.
If you were serious about actually grinding Bosses, the relax approach didn't quite cut it, as you had to get through tons of Trash Mobs at speed, which required everyone to be fully focused.
This was especially true for Raids since dungeons were usually overcrowded and often Trash Mobs were already cleared out by some other group.
Overall, what makes old Everquest gameplay different for me are hte risks. Corpse runs combined with the death penalty (AND PvP someimes) made it a very risky experience at times. That's why I played it for so many years and it's what I look for in other MMO's. To some amount, the slow periods were welcome, as I sometimes needed ninja afk's.
It has to hurt sometimes. That's the key. The other element for me is hand holding. I hate it. But I don't think EQ caused that. I blame that on early games. That' what I grew up on and I don't see myself changing. So I hate GPS maps and quest markers and all that hand holding jazz.
My latest MMO love is Wurm Online. It has things in common with Eerquest and Ultima Online. It mostly proved to me that nostalgia, if it exists to this extent, is blind. It's not connected to a specific game, but a style or set of mechanics. If it's game specific, I wouldn't have felt Wurm Online was the best MMO I ever played. It was the most immersive thing ever. It has corpse runs btw. It has no GPS map or radar. I played on PvP servers where almost everything can be looted. I've lost many things to raiding and decay. I've lived what I preach. I don't just say I dislike hand holding, it's part of my gamign lifestyle.
Regardless, it wasn't mechanical complexity that made MMORPGs good. The formula is actually quite simple. In essence, it's making it hard enough that you actually have to rely on other people. Not just in combat, but in various aspects of the game. Trading, travelling, exploring, and yes, slaying monsters.
Trying to push the limits on personal player skill is what tanked games like Wildstar.
Secondly, the game was flat out harder and Vanilla WoW was flat out harder than todays MMOs. There is zero arguing this point. WoW started out with strategy needed and then in WoTLK destroyed that concept for the current WoW concept of "Pull and aoe everything down" it was brainless and anyone could do it. So we saw more people clearing dungeons because!!!! Yes, it was easier, no argument at all. Once Cataclysm came around Ghostcrawler wanted to make dungeons harder... Thats right, like old WoW, because the dungeons had become objectively easier from a dev POV. He wanted to change that. Look up "WoW, Dungeons are Hard!" in a google search and you will find the info you need. So what happened? Well, the community complained that the dungeons were too hard and how this wasn't Vanilla anymore. Well, why did they complain that dungeons were too hard if they weren't too hard? Hmmm. Could it be that they were actually harder!! Like honestly, how are you comparing modern MMO design to old school MMO design and pretending it wasn't harder when every statistic in the book will show otherwise.
Oh and btw, the sentiment of "No one knew what they were doing so it was PERCEIVED difficulty" completely falls off a cliff as Cata was far into the WoW cycle and everyone knew what was going on. The game was just objectively more difficulty and thus forums exploded and dungeons were nerfed BECAUSE they were actually harder. So you can end that argument or explain in detail how aoeing things with no thought is more difficult than managing threat, mana, cc'ing (strategic cc'ing, you want to CC the healer or the hex mob for example) strategic pulling (which required knowing the dungeon) adds, pats, etc vs nothing matters, pull everything. Honestly, if anyone can make that argument ill give you an award.
Thirdly, Everquest was indeed very simple in combat mechanics. So is Dark Souls actually. Yet, why are these games considered hard? Well because combat mechanics are only one aspect of a game. No access to maps, no instant refilling of HP/Mana, having an actual death penalty and the mobs actually fighting back almost as soon as you fight the game instead of 100+ hours in are some major things i can think of. You can have as complex of combat as you want, but if the mobs fall over and have no chance of killing you it really doesn't matter, its just white noise to keep you occupied as the game unfolds in front of you and essentially beats itself. This isn't really gaming, its more akin to watching a movie while pressing buttons.
Had to clear that up as many people are incredibly wrong about past games.
Oh, and to address nostalgia. Its bullshit. Sure im nostalgic about Everquest. Im nostalgic about riding my bike as a kid. I didn't magically stop enjoying riding my bike as I got older because I could ride a motorcycle which took out the "leg work". There are particular reasons why I enjoy riding a bike that will never change my mind. Likewise there are specific reasons why I liked Old School mechanics and its exactly why I was excited for Demon Souls when it was coming out. I knew it was a game I would enjoy, and even though TONS of people on forums were flaming the game as being "stuck in the past" as it released, the legacy that came after showed that casuals and nostalgia retards really have no idea what they are talking about. Good old school game concepts presented in the right way work amazingly well. Eve Online is testament to this.
To go even further with this idea, how many WoW clones have released and BOMBED at this point? 100? 1000? How many games held onto old school concepts have their been? Vanguard, Eve Online and in some way, FFXIV? Can anyone name any others cause im drawing a blank. So weve had 3 hardcore MMO ideas and 2 of the 3 are still going strong with a P2P model? Oh right, Wildstar as well, which REALLY didn't feel that hardcore. I played it and hated that I had spent 30 hours in the game SOLOING in this "hardcore" MMO. Not only that but the combat system of "lines everywhere" was fucking terrible. It felt like modern WoW, except shittier, with 3 or 4 dungeons that were difficult, but overall felt like shit to run because of the combat system which felt like it was made for soloing and not group play, but hell, ill throw Wildstar out there just to make whoever feel better. So half the hardcore MMOs since EQ released have flourished, vs probably 99+% of Casual MMOs which have failed terribly. Thats not really a great stat considering how limited hardcore MMOs have been.
Please send me responses I would love to continue this further
You know, when I first started playing EQ, I thought it would be better to make the combat system more complex. But once I got used to it, I realized simpler is better. For one thing, unlike single-player games, MMOs talk back and forth between client and server, slowing real-time combat significantly. And as you mentioned, combat is only one aspect of a much larger world, so if you make the world dynamic enough, you don't need combat to be that intense.
That's another thing about EQ2 that I had forgotten. They had that chain combat system where if you landed your special attacks In a certain order, it would do major damage to a mob. It sounded cool at the time, but I remember now how I was constantly looking down at my keys to make sure I hit them in the right order and missing the combat as it was going on. I think I like it better when you put your character on auto-pilot (or semi-auto-pilot, it's nice to have a few combat options) and can actually watch the fight taking place.
I was on a break from WoW.
When I came back a few months later I was getting ready for my first Dungeon, when I noticed the first strange thing.
I was the Healer and I started getting messages from other players in my group telling me that my gear wasn't good enough.
My Healer wasn't my main but I had decent gear, I never had any problem Healing in that Dungeon, I've done it hundreds of times before, no one ever complained or told me my gear wasn't good enough.
Anyway as soon as we started playing I understood why they were worried my gear wasn't good enough.
The Tank started chain pulling 1 to 3 Groups of mobs at a time with very little rest, sometimes I had to heal 15 mobs damage at the same time which to me was crazy, I thought that was weird but I just dismissed it as the Tank being a Noob.
Unfortunately the more I played the new WoW the more I understood that was actually the norm.
No more CC, no more splitting mobs, no more rest between groups, now it was all about Gear and how fast you could DPS down mobs.
That was the day WoW became a game centered around Gear and not around Player Skills.
That's when I started disliking WoW and when (real) MMORPGs died, in my opinion.
Interesting. When EQ first came out information was out there, but it was harder to find and I liked it that way. One of the things I like to do is figure out the mechanics of new dungeons and such. However in newer MMOs this is only tolerated in the first week after the content is released. After that if you want a PUG you 'need' to have every move down perfect. If that requires studying YouTube, then that is what the group expects you to have done.
That generally is the end of my grouping for that content (PUGs anyway - I usually can talk friends into a relaxed run).
Another thing that annoys me is daily areas or enticements to run the same content 100 times. This started with LDON (if I remember correctly). To get the 'good' gear you needed an absurd number of successful completions to 'buy' the gear. I'm sorry - after doing the same mission 20 times I am ready to log off - perhaps permanently.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I would argue the decline started the expansion before with Shadows of Luclin, but I largely agree with you. Planes of Power aimed to eliminate travel time in the world to its detriment. I used this analogy before, but I felt more like I was in a rat maze with Planes of Power than in an online world. Planes of Power pretty much eliminated the exploration aspect of EQ. You would enter a zone, fight some mobs and get your reward (like a piece of cheese in a maze). Then you would move on to the next zone and try to earn another piece of cheese.
Much more enjoyable to create a vast world that you can travel from one end to another to give you the feeling that you are visiting exotic new lands.
EQ 2 seemed great when it first game out but after awhile I felt it was a pretty bad game and it started getting dumbed down rapidly... for WoW I feel the height was Lich King... after that it just kept becoming more casual, more trivial, more tedious.
I fell this was the end of challenging and deeper thought MMO's and the social aspect of them.