My college age kids played new WoW and hated it, then played Classic WoW when it launched and loved it. That wasnt nostalgia, they had never played vanilla WoW.
[--snip--]
Absolutely. That's not to say nostalgia doesn't exist, but writing off people's opinions of older iterations of a game as purely nostalgia is simply wrong. Classic WoW is a different game than modern, retail WoW. They do share some elements, but are entirely different experiences to play. Naturally, some will prefer one over the other.
I and others have said before that we are the games we eat, if you have never experienced anything other than MMORPG's of "the modern game" style, you are going to think that's all there is. Particularly as all gaming genres have and are still journeying to a more unified approach, but none so more than MMOs. You can still see big differences in FPS, take R6S and BF, but MMOs must rely on old games like EVE and Planetside to show there are alternatives. How many youngsters would have even heard of those two?
Implying there were worthwhile mmorpgs 2004 and prior. It's debatable. Nostalgia is a hell of a dopamine hit.
Playing with dozens of others online in an RPG style game was really novel for me in 2001. Once that wore off the appeal started to tarnish for me. I like playing with friends. I don't need an mmo for that.
How many people played MMORPGs prior to 2004? Less than a million in the west? The MMORPG genre now has or has had since 2004, 10's of millions of players. So, it's not farfetched to believe that 10% or so of the total MMORPG population preferred the games made prior to 2004. I'm one of those that started prior to 2004 and liked those games better and here's why.
I started with DAOC in 2001 and played it for 3 years without a break, so that's the game I'll reference. In DAoC, you had 18 races spread across 3 warring factions. You had 47 classes and each of those classes had multiple specs. Name me one game that has that post 2004? The sheer amount of variety lends itself well to MMORPGs where developer made content is finite and you can extend the years you play by rerolling a completely different race/class/faction/class combination.
Next, when you entered the world, it was easy to find groups to level with, as that was the most efficient way of leveling. Every class had its strengths and weaknesses, so grouping covered the gaps. The synergy and process of pulling, cc, focusing and AoEing was fun gameplay. Groups ran like a well-oiled machine. In modern MMORPG's people complain how players don't know how to play their classes in group content. That wasn't a problem back then because that's all you did for months while you were leveling up. Every player had an in-depth knowledge of how their class played and how other classes played, because they played with these combination of classes for hundreds of hours before even reaching end game.
RvR is an evergreen content feature that is easy to learn but hard to master and they dynamic between the three realms was ever changing. This promoted realm pride and the banding together of players in guilds, because only guilds could claim a tower or keep (castle). The process of buying siege and systematically dismantling the other factions by destroying their towers and castles provided hours of fun every day.
Can you name one game that offers everything I just described? ESO and GW2 has tried but fell short in class variety and the leveling process.
I'm not coming here to claim that there weren't any good MMORPG's published post 2004, because there were. They just weren't aimed at the same audience that grandfathered this genre. I personally grew to like the gameplay in WoW, although I no longer like what WoW has become. I enjoyed Wildstar, Warhammer, and FF14. I found certain aspects of TSW, TESO, and GW2 fun as well. But none of those games had the magic that the older MMORPGs had because they were built from the ground up to limit options, to be soloable, and to be exhausted quickly.
A game being soloable has been a contentious debate since WoW came out. I'm almost purely a solo player now due to being a father, husband, and career professional now. Back then I was in my early 20's. But I can't deny that the forced grouping fostered a more pleasant and close community, and the community is the glue that keeps people wanting to log in and continue their adventure. I retch when I come in contact with the modern MMORPG community. They're mostly selfish, elitist, discriminatory at worst, or disengaged, anti-social, cliquish, and silent at best. There are diamonds in the rough for sure, in FF14 and GW2 especially, but in general it's as I described.
I wonder how much technology and cost has to do with fewer good MMO's being made?
My first MMO was DAOC in 2001, it took 18 months for 25 devs to create it at the cost of $2.5 million. Today those kind of numbers would be a smallish indie project. ESO by contrast cost an estimated $200 million to develop.
And ESO is much simpler in classes and abilities than DAOC.
SWTOR and New World also estimated at $200 million. Making an MMO in recent times is apparently far more expensive and time consuming than it used to be.
Maybe our requirement of high-quality motion-capture and fancy graphics has impacted how many good games get made?
I wonder how much technology and cost has to do with fewer good MMO's being made?
My first MMO was DAOC in 2001, it took 18 months for 25 devs to create it at the cost of $2.5 million. Today those kind of numbers would be a smallish indie project. ESO by contrast cost an estimated $200 million to develop.
And ESO is much simpler in classes and abilities than DAOC.
SWTOR and New World also estimated at $200 million. Making an MMO in recent times is apparently far more expensive and time consuming than it used to be.
Maybe our requirement of high-quality motion-capture and fancy graphics has impacted how many good games get made?
That's wild that DAOC only cost that much and had so little development time before release. I've gone back to DAOC in recent years to see how it stood the test of time, and I think most would agree that it hasn't. That is because character movement and combat animations are very floaty and clunky.
So yes, I think modern MMORPG's have raised the bar on how engaging and fluid movement and combat should be and I bet that cost more money. Outside of that, developing thousands of quests is probably a lot more costly than populating landscape with spawn camps and expecting your playerbase to grind them. I also think the spectacle that dungeons and raids have become is more expensive than the open world dungeons and raids were before. Add to that the improved visuals and server infrastructure to enable more players on a single server without the rubber banding and lag that old MMORPGs had also probably contributes to the price.
I'm also wagering that salaries are much higher, technology is more expensive, as is marketing and the other costs of running a business. I also think companies are wasteful with their spending and aren't hiring primarily gamers to develop their games, so that results in a subpar game in comparison to what you'd expect for the $200m budgets.
That's wild that DAOC only cost that much and had so little development time before release. I've gone back to DAOC in recent years to see how it stood the test of time, and I think most would agree that it hasn't. That is because character movement and combat animations are very floaty and clunky.
So yes, I think modern MMORPG's have raised the bar on how engaging and fluid movement and combat should be and I bet that cost more money. Outside of that, developing thousands of quests is probably a lot more costly than populating landscape with spawn camps and expecting your playerbase to grind them. I also think the spectacle that dungeons and raids have become is more expensive than the open world dungeons and raids were before. Add to that the improved visuals and server infrastructure to enable more players on a single server without the rubber banding and lag that old MMORPGs had also probably contributes to the price.
I'm also wagering that salaries are much higher, technology is more expensive, as is marketing and the other costs of running a business. I also think companies are wasteful with their spending and aren't hiring primarily gamers to develop their games, so that results in a subpar game in comparison to what you'd expect for the $200m budgets.
Also, I understand some of DAOC's costs were helped by them having a MUD that they based some of DAOC code on. And that code had obviously been tested by a lot of play. The whole idea of three factions and so on was a proven concept, but in a MUD.
That's wild that DAOC only cost that much and had so little development time before release. I've gone back to DAOC in recent years to see how it stood the test of time, and I think most would agree that it hasn't. That is because character movement and combat animations are very floaty and clunky.
So yes, I think modern MMORPG's have raised the bar on how engaging and fluid movement and combat should be and I bet that cost more money. Outside of that, developing thousands of quests is probably a lot more costly than populating landscape with spawn camps and expecting your playerbase to grind them. I also think the spectacle that dungeons and raids have become is more expensive than the open world dungeons and raids were before. Add to that the improved visuals and server infrastructure to enable more players on a single server without the rubber banding and lag that old MMORPGs had also probably contributes to the price.
I'm also wagering that salaries are much higher, technology is more expensive, as is marketing and the other costs of running a business. I also think companies are wasteful with their spending and aren't hiring primarily gamers to develop their games, so that results in a subpar game in comparison to what you'd expect for the $200m budgets.
Also, I understand some of DAOC's costs were helped by them having a MUD that they based some of DAOC code on. And that code had obviously been tested by a lot of play. The whole idea of three factions and so on was a proven concept, but in a MUD.
I'd be interested to hear from TESO PvP players about its 3 faction RvR system. I've read little on it and it was primarily complaining. I didn't enjoy the combat system, the level synced world, and how easy the open world was. Therefore, I never reached the levels required to actually compete in their RvR system. On paper, it seems like an evolution of what DAoC had.
That's wild that DAOC only cost that much and had so little development time before release. I've gone back to DAOC in recent years to see how it stood the test of time, and I think most would agree that it hasn't. That is because character movement and combat animations are very floaty and clunky.
So yes, I think modern MMORPG's have raised the bar on how engaging and fluid movement and combat should be and I bet that cost more money. Outside of that, developing thousands of quests is probably a lot more costly than populating landscape with spawn camps and expecting your playerbase to grind them. I also think the spectacle that dungeons and raids have become is more expensive than the open world dungeons and raids were before. Add to that the improved visuals and server infrastructure to enable more players on a single server without the rubber banding and lag that old MMORPGs had also probably contributes to the price.
I'm also wagering that salaries are much higher, technology is more expensive, as is marketing and the other costs of running a business. I also think companies are wasteful with their spending and aren't hiring primarily gamers to develop their games, so that results in a subpar game in comparison to what you'd expect for the $200m budgets.
Also, I understand some of DAOC's costs were helped by them having a MUD that they based some of DAOC code on. And that code had obviously been tested by a lot of play. The whole idea of three factions and so on was a proven concept, but in a MUD.
I'd be interested to hear from TESO PvP players about its 3 faction RvR system. I've read little on it and it was primarily complaining. I didn't enjoy the combat system, the level synced world, and how easy the open world was. Therefore, I never reached the levels required to actually compete in their RvR system. On paper, it seems like an evolution of what DAoC had.
RvR in TESO was a cheap version of DAOC really, there was no huge arena in DAOC. You had contested realm zones, which when secured gave the faction a bonus. Set apart from the PvP were core zones for each faction. It is not only the best RvR I have seen it was the best PvP, it kept PvE separate and had a strategic yet fluid PvP combat that was second to none.
That's a whole lot of new posts for a thread that died more than 14 years ago.
While a bunch of people here have been whining that there's nothing to play, I've been happily playing Uncharted Waters Origin for the last 15 months since launch. It is very different from most MMORPGs, but that's kind of the point: it's not a knock-off of a bunch of other games that you've already played until you were sick of them.
If a worthwhile title with a new vision does ever emerge, the loud minority that didn't read the box will bitch on the discord until the title is altered beyond recognition, and then they'll quit.
Maybe our requirement of high-quality motion-capture and fancy graphics has impacted how many good games get made?
there is no such requirement.
Minecraft.
A game with a tiny footprint, has 10X the features of any modern MMORPG, has more gameplay depth than most games, and for that they've been punished with millions in sales.
But don't let that stop you from going on and on in your promo video about your next generation graphics....
Lots of new indie MMOs have radical designs. I could add more to my post there if someone sincerely feels adventurous (One Hour One life, Prosperous Universe, Screeps, among others), but I think that people do not want different, merely familiar with a twist.
Outside of indie, gameplay in MMORPG's was a lot more diverse back in the day. Indie is prepared to take risk that few studios will do.
Of course WoW trashed all these figures. However for the pioneer of 3d MMORPGs it was not a bad figure at all and one Sony never even imagined when they okayed Smedley's little Project.
Outside of indie, gameplay in MMORPG's was a lot more diverse back in the day. Indie is prepared to take risk that few studios will do.
Were studios and MMO populations back then larger than the more well-known indies though?
Albion is considered an indie but has MAUs that count hundreds of thousands. Foxhole at its peak has concurrencies of 5k-11k. BDO has done things differently and for a long time was one of the big 5s, even now it has arguably larger populations than most old MMOs. E:D has been very popular and was considered larger than your average niche indie for many years up to their Odyssey blunder.
I started playing MMOs in 2011 so I may be missing something but I have seen lots of posters saying here that MMOs before WoW were much smaller (both in dev and population size). If that's true I would say that for studios of that size nothing changed in terms of experimentation.
Does the size of the population matter beyond a certain point? Though that point would likely not be the same for any of us. I would say BDO has done some things differently, I am not saying this is a golden rule without exceptions, but BDO is not as different from WoW as WoW is from EQ or DAOC. It's well known that one template came to rule them all after WoW came out.
Generally indie has highlighted how much studios titles are becoming more and more by the numbers. They are a breath of fresh air but I say that with a note of caution as I have found them far harder to judge when it comes to "do I want to buy".
Albion is considered an indie but has MAUs that count hundreds of thousands.
Albion is Free, comparing Free subs to games that have a monthly sub & have a base came cost to play?
Plus I dont even believe those MAU numbers. They can be mostly bots, the company has admitted as much.
The parent company said they were suffering from massive amount of bots said the main reason their company had low revenue was due solely to Albion Online drop in revenue.
Then add that in todays world there is such a large user base, when before early 2000 there was only a few people with access to MMO's.
When Albion Online was B2P and charged a sub to play, it had 450 users.
So the real comparison is Albion had 450 paying users compared to 300k-700k paying users that other popular indie games had.
We had one launch just a couple of years ago...Should have been epic....A company with more resources than probably all of these companies combined and we got a game that very few liked: New World....It just shows that money doesnt necessarily fix the problem.
Albion is considered an indie but has MAUs that count hundreds of thousands.
Albion is Free, comparing Free subs to games that have a monthly sub & have a base came cost to play?
Plus I dont even believe those MAU numbers. They can be mostly bots, the company has admitted as much.
The parent company said they were suffering from massive amount of bots said the main reason their company had low revenue was due solely to Albion Online drop in revenue.
Then add that in todays world there is such a large user base, when before early 2000 there was only a few people with access to MMO's.
When Albion Online was B2P and charged a sub to play, it had 450 users.
So the real comparison is Albion had 450 paying users compared to 300k-700k paying users that other popular indie games had.
I think albion online is marginal successful just because I saw adds on youtube. That being said, there is no sure way to know without concrete number.
I think sites post they have like 300k daily active user a while ago. I dont' know how real or fake the number is.
Comments
I started with DAOC in 2001 and played it for 3 years without a break, so that's the game I'll reference. In DAoC, you had 18 races spread across 3 warring factions. You had 47 classes and each of those classes had multiple specs. Name me one game that has that post 2004? The sheer amount of variety lends itself well to MMORPGs where developer made content is finite and you can extend the years you play by rerolling a completely different race/class/faction/class combination.
Next, when you entered the world, it was easy to find groups to level with, as that was the most efficient way of leveling. Every class had its strengths and weaknesses, so grouping covered the gaps. The synergy and process of pulling, cc, focusing and AoEing was fun gameplay. Groups ran like a well-oiled machine. In modern MMORPG's people complain how players don't know how to play their classes in group content. That wasn't a problem back then because that's all you did for months while you were leveling up. Every player had an in-depth knowledge of how their class played and how other classes played, because they played with these combination of classes for hundreds of hours before even reaching end game.
RvR is an evergreen content feature that is easy to learn but hard to master and they dynamic between the three realms was ever changing. This promoted realm pride and the banding together of players in guilds, because only guilds could claim a tower or keep (castle). The process of buying siege and systematically dismantling the other factions by destroying their towers and castles provided hours of fun every day.
Can you name one game that offers everything I just described? ESO and GW2 has tried but fell short in class variety and the leveling process.
I'm not coming here to claim that there weren't any good MMORPG's published post 2004, because there were. They just weren't aimed at the same audience that grandfathered this genre. I personally grew to like the gameplay in WoW, although I no longer like what WoW has become. I enjoyed Wildstar, Warhammer, and FF14. I found certain aspects of TSW, TESO, and GW2 fun as well. But none of those games had the magic that the older MMORPGs had because they were built from the ground up to limit options, to be soloable, and to be exhausted quickly.
A game being soloable has been a contentious debate since WoW came out. I'm almost purely a solo player now due to being a father, husband, and career professional now. Back then I was in my early 20's. But I can't deny that the forced grouping fostered a more pleasant and close community, and the community is the glue that keeps people wanting to log in and continue their adventure. I retch when I come in contact with the modern MMORPG community. They're mostly selfish, elitist, discriminatory at worst, or disengaged, anti-social, cliquish, and silent at best. There are diamonds in the rough for sure, in FF14 and GW2 especially, but in general it's as I described.
My first MMO was DAOC in 2001, it took 18 months for 25 devs to create it at the cost of $2.5 million. Today those kind of numbers would be a smallish indie project. ESO by contrast cost an estimated $200 million to develop.
And ESO is much simpler in classes and abilities than DAOC.
SWTOR and New World also estimated at $200 million. Making an MMO in recent times is apparently far more expensive and time consuming than it used to be.
Maybe our requirement of high-quality motion-capture and fancy graphics has impacted how many good games get made?
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
So yes, I think modern MMORPG's have raised the bar on how engaging and fluid movement and combat should be and I bet that cost more money. Outside of that, developing thousands of quests is probably a lot more costly than populating landscape with spawn camps and expecting your playerbase to grind them. I also think the spectacle that dungeons and raids have become is more expensive than the open world dungeons and raids were before. Add to that the improved visuals and server infrastructure to enable more players on a single server without the rubber banding and lag that old MMORPGs had also probably contributes to the price.
I'm also wagering that salaries are much higher, technology is more expensive, as is marketing and the other costs of running a business. I also think companies are wasteful with their spending and aren't hiring primarily gamers to develop their games, so that results in a subpar game in comparison to what you'd expect for the $200m budgets.
While a bunch of people here have been whining that there's nothing to play, I've been happily playing Uncharted Waters Origin for the last 15 months since launch. It is very different from most MMORPGs, but that's kind of the point: it's not a knock-off of a bunch of other games that you've already played until you were sick of them.
Minecraft.
Go ahead, ask me how I know.
But don't let that stop you from going on and on in your promo video about your next generation graphics....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest#:~:text=EverQuest was the most pre,60,000 subscribers by April 1999.
Of course WoW trashed all these figures. However for the pioneer of 3d MMORPGs it was not a bad figure at all and one Sony never even imagined when they okayed Smedley's little Project.
Generally indie has highlighted how much studios titles are becoming more and more by the numbers. They are a breath of fresh air but I say that with a note of caution as I have found them far harder to judge when it comes to "do I want to buy".
Albion is Free, comparing Free subs to games that have a monthly sub & have a base came cost to play?
Plus I dont even believe those MAU numbers. They can be mostly bots, the company has admitted as much.
The parent company said they were suffering from massive amount of bots said the main reason their company had low revenue was due solely to Albion Online drop in revenue.
Then add that in todays world there is such a large user base, when before early 2000 there was only a few people with access to MMO's.
When Albion Online was B2P and charged a sub to play, it had 450 users.
So the real comparison is Albion had 450 paying users compared to 300k-700k paying users that other popular indie games had.
World of Warcraft.
I think sites post they have like 300k daily active user a while ago. I dont' know how real or fake the number is.