Considering the amount of single replies around here and the trash pay to everything games we have seen the genre become it's not just you.
I'm playing Everquest and City of Heroes and sprinkle in a few others but they are all either 20 plus years old or EMU's.
How do you survive without lootboxes, NFTs, and a store?
Honestly it's an absolute breath of fresh air playing on P99, City of Heroes Homecoming, any EMU or a WoW private server.
I play on live EQ as well and I hate the dreaded krono. People use it as currency because the cap on plat for items in the bazaar is 2 mil. They sell any high end item for krono which is bought for real cash. Not to mention the cash shop itself. You can't go out and collect cool mounts, pets, and more than half of any cool ornament armor for the hero's forge, (which you have to buy on every character), is all locked behind the cash shop. People also farm items for krono as well. I started playing on Aradune and quit when we couldn't get certain drops because they were farmed 24/7 by krono farmers. They also sell loot rights for krono.
That's the whole industry now. It's not Pay 2 Win it's Pay 2 Everything. I don't even need to list games they all do it and some are a lot worse than EQ.
I don't even mind paying a subscription, it's not about the money it's the fact that you are no longer playing the game you are just PAYING it. Want a new cool mount? You don't do a quest or get a drop from a dungeon you put in your credit card number. Want new cool armor. Credit card. Want an xp boost, race swap, leveled up character, loot boxes, everything is in the cash shop and they drive players to it.
I have no interest in playing modern video games because it's not actually about playing the game it's about paying it.
The crypto/blockchain/NFT crap is even worse.
Then there is mobile and you might as well call that PAY 2 PAY.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
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I play on live EQ as well and I hate the dreaded krono. People use it as currency because the cap on plat for items in the bazaar is 2 mil. They sell any high end item for krono which is bought for real cash. Not to mention the cash shop itself. You can't go out and collect cool mounts, pets, and more than half of any cool ornament armor for the hero's forge, (which you have to buy on every character), is all locked behind the cash shop. People also farm items for krono as well. I started playing on Aradune and quit when we couldn't get certain drops because they were farmed 24/7 by krono farmers. They also sell loot rights for krono.
That's the whole industry now. It's not Pay 2 Win it's Pay 2 Everything. I don't even need to list games they all do it and some are a lot worse than EQ.
I don't even mind paying a subscription, it's not about the money it's the fact that you are no longer playing the game you are just PAYING it. Want a new cool mount? You don't do a quest or get a drop from a dungeon you put in your credit card number. Want new cool armor. Credit card. Want an xp boost, race swap, leveled up character, loot boxes, everything is in the cash shop and they drive players to it.
I have no interest in playing modern video games because it's not actually about playing the game it's about paying it.
The crypto/blockchain/NFT crap is even worse.
Then there is mobile and you might as well call that PAY 2 PAY.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/I remember playing legend of aria, there are people trying but people keep leaving. So don't go well.
Probably the same goes for almost every mmorpg. Almost every quit so unless you have an enourmous amount of players initially game end up dead.