Progression locked zones, once you beat a zone content you get access to the next higher tier zone.
For me its a key to know a zone very well and can explore almost all in the zone. If you have access to all zones from start, many people will just rush trough them. If i know i need to stay some time in a zone with many different tasks in each corner to progress into next zone gives me the feeling to explore really all stuff. Something like Planes of Power or Gates of Discord, the old EQ days.
Hard question as many things are simply nostagia . But the streams pointed out how much i miss EQ's Sounds like *DING* .
Not being able to do it all craft it all , otherwise no reason to group or have friends . ( to many games everyone is the wonder boy/gal everyone can do it all ).
A big large world to explore .
But most of all NO hand holding or trails leading you to next area next npc next whatever .
Being able to play outiside of the "meta" and still be viable. In recent MMOs I find myself intentionally avoiding builds/items that some random person online says is the "best in slot" or "highest DPS" build... and I could often out-perform other people with non-meta builds/equipment but would still get people complaining about "if you aren't this race/class combo you're wrong" or if you don't have this ability in your "rotation" then you're doing it wrong. e.g. The play like everyone else or you are wrong mentality. I miss being able to have an online identity that was a bit unique.
But I guess some of that can stem from the player community.
Kilsin said:What is the one thing you miss the most from older games that you wish newer games brought back? #PRF #communitymatters
In all honesty, I miss the world that was Asheron's Call 1 the most...Dereth. The world was amazing. EQ1's world was cool--no argument there--but it didn't grab me in quite the way that AC1 did.
I miss the struggle and challenge. Reward did not come easy. I will not miss the hand-holding.
Learning different languages.
Epic quests were incredibly involving and well, Epic in the truest sense.
It actually felt like an acheivement to level, or get somewhere, or finished a quest, obtain faction standing,etc. ad nauseum.
I'm with Nephele on this one. You ask a tricky question Kilsin, but it's the experience as a WHOLE is what I miss, I'm sure today many games would have 1 or 2 aspects that I like, but I won't enjoy the game for that 1 thing that I miss unless I get a similar "EQ" experience as a whole. But I'll say that majority of the games after EQ, my goal was to reach max level ASAP to actually start the game...because end-game is where it begins for most games which makes leveling up more than once somewhat irritating or unnecessary. For EQ, I spent most of my time leveling up new characters and enjoyed the game every part of the way, which was a complete opposite from most MMORPGs out there.
So here it is, in no particular order.
1) Leveling up multiple characters and still enjoy the game every time with new places to explore and new items to find.
2) Twinking, I loved grabbing gear with my high lvl char to play a twink, super fun and not limited like most games today.
3) Using a druid(I think?) and not sure what other classes to find a rare monster outdoors, so exciting.
4) Using the traditional bazaar type way to sell items, finding good deals all the time unlike the auction house today, having 500 of the same item and they sell for pennies.
5) REAL dungeon crawling rather than instancing, honestly it felt like I wasn't really playing an MMORPG at that point.
6) Death penalties, as much as I hate to admit how many times I died in EQ losing my efforts and sometimes my levels, it made it feel that much more intense and fun to actually have penalties for dying, most games today, I'll die just to reach another location quicker.
7) Unique and useful/fun classes all around, I love it when every class is fun in their own way and every classes brings something to the table.
8) Racial traits, racial abilities, and racial stats, sometimes you want to be evil, sometimes good, sometimes you don't care how you look and just want the best stats for your race, being able to swim faster, or being able to see better in the dark, it just adds that much more to the gameplay as a whole.
9) Non-linear path, I'm honestly so tired of going quest hub to quest hub for the fastest leveling route, sometimes I just want to grind with my friends, visit a creepy dungeon, or do a meaningful quest where I get a reward I would keep forever or at least a long time. In today's games, I'm so use to dumping gear every half a level now, the gear and quests feel so pointless.
10) Smaller groups with skilled players where it makes a difference like having an accidental train of 10+ mobs where the situation seemed hopeless only to find everything under control, the enchanter is CCing like a beast, the tank is able to grab all aggro, the druid is kiting 2 mobs and keeping them away from the healer, the healer is efficient and aware, the DPS knows not to break CC and focus target. All this from just a regular leveling party, I don't think I've ever had that type of experience even fighting epic raid bosses in other MMORPGs.
11) Difficult but fun crafting, it wasn't easy to find a master crafter to make something you want, it made me really want to level up my crafting and actually have it be useful because not everyone has mastered it and owns every recipe.
12) Sense Heading, no hand-holding maps that show your exact location, and more, but I'll just stop this wall of text now before it gets out of hand....
Killua said:6) Death penalties, as much as I hate to admit how many times I died in EQ losing my efforts and sometimes my levels, it made it feel that much more intense and fun to actually have penalties for dying, most games today, I'll die just to reach another location quicker.
As much as i hate to admit it, this did provide a sense of accomplishment.
But I remember in FFXI, the penalties where 15% xp loss on Death, 5% xp loss on group member death, and you could delevel a max of 3 levels. Given that when i played FFXI after level 60 it could take 2 weeks of 20hr grinds a day to go up one level a 15% loss could mean more than a days worth of xp loss and it hurts. A resurection however reduced xp loss. However when you reach max you feel very accomplished to have struggled through it.
Though this did create a very elitist grouping mentality, you had to be the best main class, dps and support were interchangable but Tanks and Healers had to be the best, or you would not invite them to group. Causing people to wait in town for upwards of 4-6 hours just to get a solid group together for xp grinds or progression of some sort as no one wanted the xp loss.
As a Paladin meat shield in FFXI I always took the hit for the team so I am fully aware of what the xp loss means, it was our job to shield the group without fail... to the last possible hit ( for honor ).
I would not have a problem here but if penalties are implemented they should be done within reason to keep the game more open to the less hardcore.
The sence of risk is one of the greatest motivators and immersion, especially in the event someone was able to also loot your corpse, hehe! Risk vs Reward!
You guys hit home on quite a few of the things I would have mentioned. Something you havent mentioned yet, from EQ1 is:
The absolute dedication to minute details and mystery. By this I mean stuff like... You're traveling through this dark forest. You routinely get ganked by wandering npc's that appear out of nowhere. Then one time while traveling through you see a village of them. From afar you can see they have a vendor.... What? a vendor? wth... I wonder what he has to sell, if anything. Which leads to an unofficial quest of figuring out how to gain faction with these creatures. So you scour the land in the search for a +Hellish_mob_faction sign. OR you randomly find that if you use a rare drop potion that gives you a certain obscure illusion you can gain just enough faction to become not KOS which gives you access to a "deliver mail" or "gather such_and_such" to gain small amounts of faction each time. After so many turn-ins you finally are able to get to see whats on that merchant. And something it's a bust. maybe there is nothing on it. Except maybe it's now by far the closest merchant to a popular dungeon that you can now shop at.
Stuff like that was all over EQ. I loved those puzzles and riddles. Content that isn't discovered until far after the "end game" mobs are on lockdown and in farm mode. And yet there is still content to explore. Knowing there is stuff like this out there in the world was what created such mystery for so long.
Maybe some of you recall the false write-up for teh fiery avenger quest on one of the spoiler sites(not Alla's, one of the other ones that wasn't quite as good) before the FA was put in to the game. It had you collect a bunch of stuff that dropped around the world that didnt have a previouly known use for, then turn it in to a random unnamed wandering madman in Southern desert of Ro. If you got the "correct" madman *wink wink* you could continue on, if you guessed wrong you had to start over and try again. It was a completely false write-up from someone's imagination, but having a bunch of random stuff around the world kept people guessing.
Good question Kilsin.
Iksar said:I miss classes with strong identity that can't do it all. Races with real differences in stats/skills. And above all I miss challenge.
Oh that is so true... Every class in most modern games feels like exactly the same thing just with different visuals.
About challenges... Some modern games actually still have it, but of course it doesn't feel same in otherwise "wowkiller" atmosphere. Getting 1 feature right doesn't make your game good :(
I miss the danger, excitement, and immersiveness that starting areas in EQ were. The starting areas were such an important atmosphere that set the stage for that excitement and the nervousness that encompassed every play session and propelled me forward for a couple years to come as I continued to level and play. The wandering orc pawns or fairies that wandered around Kelethin were one cut above the skeletons. Always looking over your shoulder making sure you had a safe run back to the guards should things go awry. Seeing a skelwton with a weapon and drooling to take it on for the loot but wary about how much risk it was going to be. I remember the feeling outside Kaladim as well. Commons outside Freeport, Fields outside Qeynos, Innothule swamp, that dead bard skelly danger lurking outside Halas.
There was such an immersive quality when entering the game - from go ahead and adventure, go and whack something, beware of danger from any direction at any time, all the way to run for your life - I just haven't really experienced it again.
Perhaps it isn't possible to recapture those early years given experience through the ages. But it is what I miss the most.
Alot of things I think, seeing as it has been a while for me, but the big two are below.
1) Exploration... actual exploration, not insta-travel point to point. A large and diverse world that one can easily get lost in, and one that also has its risks (and rewards) to explore.
2) Community... meeting new people through grouping and shared experience. I remember back in EQ days, some of the same people I met grouping as a young Elven Druid in Crushbone, I was still friends with 40 levels later... and I'm not a quick leveler so that's actually saying something.
I miss a game where people had etiquette and manners. Where actions had consequences. Where a few "uber" guilds could not ruin the game for everyone else. Every time that "other" game puts up a progression server, the uber guilds wreck it very quickly for everyone else when they can. I don't understand that sort of sadism, but there it is.
hackerssuck said:I miss a game where people had etiquette and manners. Where actions had consequences. Where a few "uber" guilds could not ruin the game for everyone else. Every time that "other" game puts up a progression server, the uber guilds wreck it very quickly for everyone else when they can. I don't understand that sort of sadism, but there it is.
I think it will be interesting to see if this kind of thing can be prevented, as the MMO genre is much mroe mature now and people will look to form elite guilds and band together with old players. Given that mechanics remain familliar and people have a destination or goal, and everyone knows how to get there now, I am not sure it can be avoided.
However, if this game takes long enough and forces stronger group play, it may be possible to hinder these things from happening quicker or having an impact so soon.
hackerssuck said:I miss a game where people had etiquette and manners. Where actions had consequences. Where a few "uber" guilds could not ruin the game for everyone else. Every time that "other" game puts up a progression server, the uber guilds wreck it very quickly for everyone else when they can. I don't understand that sort of sadism, but there it is.
Uberguilds ruined EQ1 too. Fires of Heaven, Souls of the Shadow, Afterlife, and a whole host of other first wave uberguilds monopolized entire zones during the classic -> kunark -> velious cycle. And we knew we were doing it. Kind of weird to see Jeff Kaplan (aka Tigole of Fires of Heaven) making youtube videos complaining about Overwatch players being toxic. He was the most toxic player I have ever interacted with.
Good luck pulling all the useful information out of this thread.
A lot of very good opinions, often carefully worded.
But, inevitably, a lot of them conflict. As in some people giving strong support to an open world where you can go anywhere, and others saying what they miss most is a locked progression where you cannot go places until you have rather thoroughly spent time in different places. And both positions actually seem to ...make sense.
Similarly, the entirely obvious way of reducing the impact of powerful guilds on the experience of other people is to reduce the amount of competition. They cannot wreck the experience of fighting a boss if the boss is in an instance and they cannot get in. It is harder for them to wreck the experience of fighting a boss or progressing a quest line if necessary mobs respawn much faster than in EQ. Or in multiple places. Or if anyone that tags the mob or does serious damage to it gets credit. Or if there are long cooldowns to go back to the place where the boss or mobs are so no guild member can grief other people there very often. They cannot use trains to interfere with people they do not like if trained mobs do not aggro innocents in their path.
Yet there are valid arguments against each and every one of these solutions. Often raised in these forums.
Not only do forum posters disagree with eachother we often disagree with ourselves in the sense that we want a certain thing to be prevented or discouraged but find the most effective ways of doing so as bad or worse as the initial problem.
Draslin said:hackerssuck said:I miss a game where people had etiquette and manners. Where actions had consequences. Where a few "uber" guilds could not ruin the game for everyone else. Every time that "other" game puts up a progression server, the uber guilds wreck it very quickly for everyone else when they can. I don't understand that sort of sadism, but there it is.
Uberguilds ruined EQ1 too. Fires of Heaven, Souls of the Shadow, Afterlife, and a whole host of other first wave uberguilds monopolized entire zones during the classic -> kunark -> velious cycle. And we knew we were doing it. Kind of weird to see Jeff Kaplan (aka Tigole of Fires of Heaven) making youtube videos complaining about Overwatch players being toxic. He was the most toxic player I have ever interacted with.
I was actually referring to EQ1, lol, and yeah I remember those guilds. A few nice folks in Afterlife helped my druid some with his epic, but mainly just elitist pricks. It's funny that the toxic people get older, and then whine about toxic people. Irony. Sowing what you reap, I guess.
Shea said:Hard question as many things are simply nostagia . But the streams pointed out how much i miss EQ's Sounds like *DING* .
I have that DING as my text notification on my phone lol.
I miss adventure and being in awe of zones and locations as I step foot in them. I also love mystery and riddles. Hoping you guys make us lots of stuff that makes us think!
What I miss the most by far is isolated realms/servers. I understand the 'need' for server linking and dungeon queueing and the like to 'speed thinsg up' however in my experience that has only served to make things worse from a community stand point. Early MMORPG's lacking the technology to do so created issues with weak population sizes on servers, but I found that as the only drawback on an individual server basis. Personally before all the linking became so veryu popular, players actually had value and had incentive to actually not be complete asshats. Getting blacklisted by guilds or even the entire server seriously sent a message that their conduct was not tolerated, reputation had to be cultivated and respect earned and kept up with... I know many cry 'ELITIST!' at my words, however once players stoip taking pride in themselves or think they can take out their frustrations on others and treat every encounter like a one-night-stand the community degrades and falls into ruin. Others have said time and time again they want a greater Risk Vs. Reward, what greater risk is there than your own actions and the consiquences that follow?
I have been an adament opponet to 'Liability', its a term greatly tarnished by lawyers, lawmakers and the like that just serve to protect stupid people that would normally be culled by natural selection. I understand full well that games aree designed to be entertainment and should be available to all, however I don't agree with equal opportunity gaming, some games require an immense amount of time investment yet time and time again become 'more accessable' to other potential players literally spitting in those player faces and admonishing their own investment.
So in a nut shell, what I miss the most is the exclusive factor of the MMORPG genere that has been cast aside for inclusiveness, a game open to everyone equally is fine, a game that rewards differnt levels of personal investment equally is not.
Hello everyone and seasons greeting. What I missed most when I started playing MMORPG was the exploring and grouping. The travels from starting town to unknown lands that would takes hours to get to. The list of quest you wanted to finish before getting new ones and the rewards from it. The random items you get from mobs (npc, animals, monsters, etc) that you can use when starting out. As some folks mentioned, a lot of things. But mostly and mainly, the exploration and traveling in a group, being in a group traveling and exploring new lands, new realms. As one of many countless quotes, its not the destination but the journey...or something like that. Happy Holidays everyone.
I'd be hard pressed to name just one. So I'll name a series of ones. :p
* Community and Interdependence.
* A little downtime to socialize (One of the things that made EQ fun was the socialization. Newer games are very fast paced with little downtime, so you chat while on the move. A little downtime is good for a break between the grinding and it also gives those mana and HP regeneration buffs a use. Who needs those if there is virtually a full regen when out of combat a few seconds?)
* Not knowing what's right around the corner. Random mob spawns, random named pathing, sudden zone changes (Kithicor).
* Class Identity (unique classes that don't all feel like generic versions of each other)
* Useful class roles: Some games these days the tank is the healer and the rest of the group is filled with DPS
* Harder Enemies: In earlier EQ you tried to limit pulls to one or two and that was with a crowd control class. In more recent games a lot of the time it's just pull the group and AoE them all.
* Classic MMORPG combat rather than twitch-based combat systems (Think EQ combat vs ESO)
* Rare items that are actually rare rather than rare being a grade or color.
* Epic quests that are meaningful rather than simply meant to lead from one hub to the next.
* Unique areas for a little experience grinding (EQ's Crushbone, Blackburrow, Permafron, ect.)
* The Sting of Death: You don't need an draconian penalty for death but there should be a sting for failure. There is little sting beyond gear damage these days, if that.
* A Fun and Detailed Crafting System: I've said time and time again I love a good crafting system. I despise the click-it-and-forget-it systems that sometimes are even hands-off (SWTOR) so often implimented these days. Vanguard, EQII, and Star Wars Galaxy all had good systems in their own right and I hope to see another good one with Pantheon.
That's a few. I have a lot of things that I miss. I couldn't honestly limit it to one. To me it's like a connected number of things that make the magic work in a good and fun MMORPG.
Draslin said:hackerssuck said:I miss a game where people had etiquette and manners. Where actions had consequences. Where a few "uber" guilds could not ruin the game for everyone else. Every time that "other" game puts up a progression server, the uber guilds wreck it very quickly for everyone else when they can. I don't understand that sort of sadism, but there it is.
Uberguilds ruined EQ1 too. Fires of Heaven, Souls of the Shadow, Afterlife, and a whole host of other first wave uberguilds monopolized entire zones during the classic -> kunark -> velious cycle. And we knew we were doing it. Kind of weird to see Jeff Kaplan (aka Tigole of Fires of Heaven) making youtube videos complaining about Overwatch players being toxic. He was the most toxic player I have ever interacted with.
Yeah I won't miss being locked out of all the epic mobs and rare named. Those guilds did ruin it for many of us. Part of that was not enough content to go around or a lock out timer. I had to wait for a couple of expansions to complete my epic as the top gulds just locked everything down. It sucked.
Honestly the thing I miss most in my MMO lifetime was grouping. Knowing the people I group with and feeling like I had a community. In everquest I could group with people regularly and get to know them. I understand that perhaps this is a bit rose tinting because I had time to be on every night and stuff. But I just miss logging in and being all "Hey Mark! Hey Steph! Let's go to Guk!" We'd go. Get groupmates, make friends, discuss our days and characters. All that goodness.
I miss being able to interact with others while having a goal. I love WoW don't get me wrong but I blitz through things and players may as well be NPC's.
