The tiny group (compared to today's numbers) who played UO and EQ1 had a strong background in slower gaming experiences, especially PnP sessions. So they largely accepted the "grindy" aspects and slow progression of those early games. They were basically a niche market.
I am not really buying this. I was a PnP RPG player before I got into MMORPGs and as such I always hated the "grind". PnP simply does not have it and any GM who just kept doing the same random encounter over and over would be replaced after the second session.
The grinding was accepted as a 'necessary evil' because it was presumed that the devs did not have the technical know how and the resources to implement something better. Once that idea became discredited, many players will not tolerate too much grind in their games and simply move on once a game becomes too grindy.
Asheron's Call had it right when it came to the whole ramping up thing. Levels themselves were mostly there to deliver skill points, be an immediate goal, and to provide an overall guide as to what your overall power should/could be.
Aside from that, your overall level had little bearing on what you could or couldn't do (there were a few level gated dungeons, but very few and far between). It was very common to be significantly lower level than the mobs you were fighting. You could go ranging into the land and be gone for weeks and see only a handful of people or go into one of the many dungeons packed with mobs and players. There were quests scattered all over, but not required to level. Not to mention the loot system was utterly amazing with randomized loot.
Turbine had so many things right with Asheron's Call, it's too bad they didn't have the foresight to keep building on it. Now they are a mediocre developer who build games based on the IP of others.
Having the challenging content at the "end" sitting there waiting to give the phat lewts is the biggest problem with mmos. Create a journey that's worth having and add in a near endless leveling system (with challenging content scattered throughout the game), and maybe we'll see some progress.
It's simple - stop making themepark mmo's that consist of boring quest grind up to level cap and then transition into literally series of minigames called "endgame". Oh and spend more resources on developing technology to stop/prevent bots from overtaking your game.
How about making for example a sandbox without level cap on anything, where player can freely "upgrade" his character up to infinity (of course gaining a 20-21 level is exponentially easier than gaining a 400-401 level, same for skills/crafts/whatever), with few meaningful QUESTS (kill/bring/click xxx things is NOT a quest), handful of tasks (that is a kill/bring/click xxx things), deep skill system (something like leveling skills from elder scrolls series, gems from path of exile and talent trees mashed up together), deep crafting system (selecting item and then pressing "craft" is NOT a deep crafting system), raid-like encounters that require xx level and scale players down when they outlevel them (but still being much higher level than required yields a little more advantage than being exactly at the required level), monsters with individual drop tables that actually feel different and unique (dragon and a demon both dropping random reskinned grey shit while sometimes using 1 "special" skill do NOT feel different and unique), monsters with no levels (a dragon is about this strong, does this much damage and has got this much health, grants this much experience no matter if he is defeated by character of level 1 or 100000), meaningful housing (if you can afford to buy/pay rent AND there is a place in a game world, you can feel somewhat special and better than some random casual peasant that can't afford/didn't claim one of LIMITED spots in time), possible group finder but not crossrealm, partial loot pvp but not too extreme (something like you can be killed once per day with a chance to drop something from your inventory, further pvp deaths just piss you off, player who killed you is marked as bandit and can be freely killed by other players, you have to care about your reputation amongst other players on the server), mass scale pvp (something like conquering guild's castles/buildings in open world), no instanced pvp, and overall feel that you actually take part in virtual WORLD instead of playing random lobby game ?
Comments
Is this a MMORPG troll account to generate traffic?
Its obviously a troll post.
I am not really buying this. I was a PnP RPG player before I got into MMORPGs and as such I always hated the "grind". PnP simply does not have it and any GM who just kept doing the same random encounter over and over would be replaced after the second session.
The grinding was accepted as a 'necessary evil' because it was presumed that the devs did not have the technical know how and the resources to implement something better. Once that idea became discredited, many players will not tolerate too much grind in their games and simply move on once a game becomes too grindy.
I don't think the poor AAA developer can effort enough money to create slow level "quest hubs" without using "daily"
and IMO , daily is suck.
Well , they suck in they own game ready.
It just matter of time before they jump the MMO ship to another ship.
I don't think it's that simple. It's the right step.
Asheron's Call had it right when it came to the whole ramping up thing. Levels themselves were mostly there to deliver skill points, be an immediate goal, and to provide an overall guide as to what your overall power should/could be.
Aside from that, your overall level had little bearing on what you could or couldn't do (there were a few level gated dungeons, but very few and far between). It was very common to be significantly lower level than the mobs you were fighting. You could go ranging into the land and be gone for weeks and see only a handful of people or go into one of the many dungeons packed with mobs and players. There were quests scattered all over, but not required to level. Not to mention the loot system was utterly amazing with randomized loot.
Turbine had so many things right with Asheron's Call, it's too bad they didn't have the foresight to keep building on it. Now they are a mediocre developer who build games based on the IP of others.
Having the challenging content at the "end" sitting there waiting to give the phat lewts is the biggest problem with mmos. Create a journey that's worth having and add in a near endless leveling system (with challenging content scattered throughout the game), and maybe we'll see some progress.
It's simple - stop making themepark mmo's that consist of boring quest grind up to level cap and then transition into literally series of minigames called "endgame". Oh and spend more resources on developing technology to stop/prevent bots from overtaking your game.
How about making for example a sandbox without level cap on anything, where player can freely "upgrade" his character up to infinity (of course gaining a 20-21 level is exponentially easier than gaining a 400-401 level, same for skills/crafts/whatever), with few meaningful QUESTS (kill/bring/click xxx things is NOT a quest), handful of tasks (that is a kill/bring/click xxx things), deep skill system (something like leveling skills from elder scrolls series, gems from path of exile and talent trees mashed up together), deep crafting system (selecting item and then pressing "craft" is NOT a deep crafting system), raid-like encounters that require xx level and scale players down when they outlevel them (but still being much higher level than required yields a little more advantage than being exactly at the required level), monsters with individual drop tables that actually feel different and unique (dragon and a demon both dropping random reskinned grey shit while sometimes using 1 "special" skill do NOT feel different and unique), monsters with no levels (a dragon is about this strong, does this much damage and has got this much health, grants this much experience no matter if he is defeated by character of level 1 or 100000), meaningful housing (if you can afford to buy/pay rent AND there is a place in a game world, you can feel somewhat special and better than some random casual peasant that can't afford/didn't claim one of LIMITED spots in time), possible group finder but not crossrealm, partial loot pvp but not too extreme (something like you can be killed once per day with a chance to drop something from your inventory, further pvp deaths just piss you off, player who killed you is marked as bandit and can be freely killed by other players, you have to care about your reputation amongst other players on the server), mass scale pvp (something like conquering guild's castles/buildings in open world), no instanced pvp, and overall feel that you actually take part in virtual WORLD instead of playing random lobby game ?