mmo: non-automated trade systems between players, because I personally enjoyed having to buy and sell stuff the hard way quite a bit. It rewarded me for effort with wealth, or lack of effort with time to do other stuff in the game. I like this kind of trade off; let the poor give their time and the rich give their resources.
everything else: storylines, even big story based giants like final fantasy seem to have lost in depth storylines these days. I love it when a game's story can actually make me feel what the characters are feeling, even if it is hard to implement that sort of thing and still have good gameplay.
The art of pulling.
The feeling of exploration in a world that felt vast and epic. The virtual worlds of modern MMO’s “feel” small to me by comparison.
Challenging group content and the comradery formed by defeating (or sometimes being defeated by) said content. If I want to slaughter hordes of NPC’s and feel like a god I’ll play Diablo.
Specialized classes. I don’t like the homogenization where everyone can do everything.
Rare loot actually being kind of rare. Is it really “epic” when everyone and their six alts have it too?
- A sense of character progresion that doesn't feel hollow or lacking options
- A traditional castles/elves etc MMORPG
- Raids ... how I miss them
- Named camping, checking them off my list
- Exploring hard to find/unknown and mysterious dungeons
- Harvesting for rares, XP and selling the goodies when my bag is full
- Being able to log in day after day without needing to know "what am I going to do?" because there was always something whether it be crafting, LFG, questlines or simply browsing the vendors
- An odd thing to miss - but the FONT of character/mob names lol. EQ2 had my personal favorite to date
BeaverBiscuit said:mmo: non-automated trade systems between players, because I personally enjoyed having to buy and sell stuff the hard way quite a bit. It rewarded me for effort with wealth, or lack of effort with time to do other stuff in the game. I like this kind of trade off; let the poor give their time and the rich give their resources.
THIS.
Not only because it can be fun for many, and foster player interactions and the building of friendships, but because automation can be very harmful to a game's development.
In the last game I was in, I lost all interest in crafting when I reached the point where I could craft items that would be useful to other mid-level players and found myself relentlessly driven out of the marketplace when I tried to sell them. The tools to accomplish this were highly developed, 3rd party programs and plugins. Plugins that let players automate the entire posting/selling in the auction house, to the point where one player could easily maintain thousands of different items for sale at one time. Stand alone programs for continuously monitoring their own sales, as well as market prices in general, all in real time without even being logged into the game.
This let a few high level players/crafters to have way too much control over the markets. It allowed them to drive out most competition for mid level and higher crafted items and valuable loot drops. Allowed them to keep prices for good gear beyond the reach of most new players and only available to high level players for twinking new chars.
Allowed a few players to have a great time playing 'Virtual Wall Street' but at the cost of greatly reducing the usefulness of the auction house for many low to mid level players as a way to sell good loot, buy better gear, and finance the growth of a crafter by selling the products of crafting.
I'd love to see a designated 'bazaar' area in each town. A large area, perhaps divided into simple stalls, where players can set up shop and offer items for sale directly from a character's backpack.
I don't remember if an official 'auction house' is already designed in and therefore inevitable. If there is, then please consider making the cost to use it high enough to give new players a real economic motive to buy and sell directly to each other in the bazaar, at least until middle levels when they get wealthy enough to pay for the convenience of the automation.
I read it earlier in this thread and agree that a strong Guild system would be great. I remember when i would log into EQ there would always be someone on to chat/group with and it was so muich fun! A guild rewards system wouldnt be bad either ... editable Guild Halls anyone :-)
what i miss is true, deadly and deep dungeons non instancied allowing many different groups to go there at the same time "TRRRAAAINNNN from D2, take cover !!!!" (and no i didnt enjoy train mobs on others groups, never did that on purpose :p , dungeons with multiples layers (like sebilis, guk etc in eq1).
i also miss raids with 40 to 60 people like in eq1 again.
i miss a huge & varied world where dangers for a solo guy are almost everywhere.
i miss starting cities for each race.
i miss everquest, for me Pantheon should be what Everquest 2 has never been able to be, a spiritual son of EQ 1 but enhanced in all departments, bring us the hardcore mmorpg back in our avid mmorpg players's hands, pretty please :D
Hyperium said: Being able to tell in game when the developers enjoyed and had fun making the game.
It's completely obvious to me that games, like most entertainment 'products' suffer greatly as soon as 'business' becomes the priority.
Why, why, WHY, big businesses can't work out that there *is* money to be made in producing non-pulp, niche products is beyond me.
It is heartening for many reasons to see how much passion VR has for Pantheon!
"What do you miss the most?"
I cannot nail it down to once thing so... everything listed below is what I miss (in no particular order):
* When someone's actions (bad or good) built consiquences, or friendships. (Reputation matters)
* Faction. Being revered (Max Ally), or hated (KOS) by various factions in the game.... based on your decisions on how you choose to play the game.
* The "magic" of MMOs. Ya, I may be looking back on it with rose colored glasses, but there is no denying, the early days of MMOs was pure magic for me.
* Forging lasting friendships. There are many people whome I have never met in real life that I consider good friends to this day because of MMOs.
* The thrill of spending a bunch of time trying to get a specific item, and finally getting it. This to the point of of having to try across many days. Frustrating? Yea. But man, that feeling when you finally get it.
* Playing a game where I feel like the game is not handing everything to me on a silver platter.
* Zones. Most every "popular" MMO today has open/seamless worlds. I missed zones. They define areas. When someone sends you a tell saying they are at a particular spot in zone x, you knew exactly where that spot was.
* No floaty "go here" and "do that" quest markers. The hand-holding in today's MMOs makes me sick.
* No in-game maps. When in an unfamilar zone, I usually end up "driving by map". Ya, it's lazy.
Edit (Forgot to add): Zones like EQ's Kithicor Forest. Located right next to a starting city, it was not too bad during the day, but became a VERY scary place at night.
* Having a guild 'family'. People who you regularly meet online and hang out with and value you.
*Questing and grinding mobs together
*Overcoming challenges such as dungeon and raids
*Fishing and chilling out with the guildies, especially when more than one of you are fishing together
*Seeing gear on someone and going, 'one day I'm going to have that'
*The thrill of selling stuff for a profit in game
*Exploring new areas, especially with amazing music
*Dying and laughing about the absurdity of it
*Being known by other regular players in the community and bumping into them from time to time
* Interesting quests!
Newness and it's something we can never get back.
I remember the first time I was blinded by a mob in EQ and my first thought "Damn my screen is faulty!" I never knew any better.
But the thing we can get back and plenty of people have said it. Community!
At times I would log into EQ to just sit and chat in PoK. Spend a Friday night with a few beers and just chat with other players. Till the few beers turned into many and off we would go to die in hilarious ways.
Good times 8)
What I miss most is...
Crowd Control. PvE in most games no longer require it and it makes dungeon crawling just boring. Run in -> grab a bunch of mobs -> aoe -> win -> leave group without saying one word -> repeat.
I miss having to take a second to mark enemies and coordinate which person cc's what mob and what target needs to be burned. Then having an aoe accidentally break a cc and all hell breaks lose, really got the blood pumping.
Edit - Also... NO flying mounts. Nothing is worse then running through an area and not seeing one person because they are floating a million feet in the air. So much interaction from seeing people on the roads running to whereever they are going to. Or meeting someone at the docks and chatting it up while waiting for the boat to arrive. Those days were fun.
People around.
Like older players breezing past you in a dungeon and stopping along the way or finding corpses and rezzing/buffing them.
Older players at he entrance of a newbie dungeon rebuffing and drinking and telling stories while the newbies zone out naked from a train and waiting a bit for the train to clear to go back and drag their corpses.
A tight group or groups stopping your accidental train so you don't kill any of the other players zoning in or running out or camping near by.
Going into a higher level dungeon and yelling camp check and getting lots of replies :)
Going into a hard area that is packed- so much so that its safe and shouting LFG and getting a spot fairly quickly with people switching spots if they needed something- so safe you could actually walk to the other spot and see the surroundings and get the lay of the land or dungeon.
Dieing and while on your way back running naked getting a random message that a rez was incoming, or a tell from someone saying they found your corpse and do you want it dragged or something, or getting a random run speed buff from someone you never saw and shouting "thank you!".
Haggling with sellers in a nice way, so long as you were not way out of the range a deal could usually be made, often benefitting you a bit more like bonus potions or maybe another item that was still an upgrade but not as fancy, and not whining or being ofended if you can't afford it.