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hivemind

Guest
TBC > Vanilla

TBC was almost perfect. Literally the only negative aspect were the flying mounts.
 

Saark

Arcane
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Joined
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2,205
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
And yet we had spots like the Arena Master in Nagrand, Elemental Plateu or the rep farming spots in shadowmoon where you consistently had small and large skirmishes pretty much every time of the day. Forced World PvP (Wintergrasp) and not having to leave the main hub for pretty much anything was the nail in the coffin, flying mounts were just the first step.

Edit: Didn't help that they basically killed competitive arena by the time WotLK hit the live-realms too by simply ignoring any feedback, revisiting the ELO system a billion times when it was as good as it would ever gonna get right from the start, therefore essentially killing any kind of structured PvP (though admittedly world PvP was structured by the community). They tried to "force" world PvP on us with TBC already and it completely failed in most zones except for Nagrand, and Halaa wasn't a complete bust for one simple reason: It was close enough for all those non-engineer people sitting in 10minute arena queues to go over there and bust some moves while the cool folk farmed elemental air-clouds while ganking PvE scrubs on the plateau. Good times.
 
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Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,443
Eh, I never understood praising WoW as some great game based on its mechanics. I thought that City of Heroes was for more interesting (and had way better combat).

Yeah well no, WoW was better.

Personally, i have a different theory about why MMOs are shit. WoW set the bar very high, then Blizzard systematically went on to dump down their own game and pull it in the wrong direction. When other companies started to copy WoW, they didn't try to recreate the same formula used in the vanilla experience, but actually tried to copy all the streamlining Blizzard was adding with their expansions, which is the part about WoW that nobody likes. What everybody loved was the vanilla experience, despite all the rough edges and the obviously unfinished content.

yea the rough edges are what made vanilla so great. The game was developed by big fucking nerds who wanted a better Everquest.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
When the developers clamp down on creative solutions with things like enrage timers, mob leashes, 'correct' rotations, immunity to all utility and crowd control, etc. that's what happens.

It's just not possible to have 40+ differentiated roles in a raid. WoW would have been better off with a blog post stating that not all talent options are valid for raiding and not all talent options are competitive for pvp.

The real irony with them caving into complaints and making retribution paladins a viable raid spec is that they've never caved to the bigger ask, making everyone viable in 1v1 pvp. An odd place to draw a line in the sand for principles.

You could just roll a new character just for PvP or grind for the gold for the respect if you wanted to change style. It was not the end of the world either way.
I don't even know what you are trying to say. My point was about how class homogenization hurt the game.
 
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
795
When the developers clamp down on creative solutions with things like enrage timers, mob leashes, 'correct' rotations, immunity to all utility and crowd control, etc. that's what happens.

It's just not possible to have 40+ differentiated roles in a raid. WoW would have been better off with a blog post stating that not all talent options are valid for raiding and not all talent options are competitive for pvp.

The real irony with them caving into complaints and making retribution paladins a viable raid spec is that they've never caved to the bigger ask, making everyone viable in 1v1 pvp. An odd place to draw a line in the sand for principles.

You could just roll a new character just for PvP or grind for the gold for the respect if you wanted to change style. It was not the end of the world either way.
I don't even know what you are trying to say. My point was about how class homogenization hurt the game.
I agree about class homogenization being bad. It also can apply to anything, like items. I saw it a lot in Everquest, over the years. I think it primarily has to do with mudflation and keeping costs low. For example, it's easier to design and implement code when the classes are similar and spreadsheet-like. When the classes can be very diffferent, it's more expensive and time consuming to add new content and fix bugs. Insofar as mudflation goes, this really pertains to the lower and mid levels, but not the highest levels. Mudflation generally means the lower and mid levels are increasingly a droolworthy sideshow. Your class may be able to do some fancy tricks, but there's less and less reason to use them unless you're high level.

That and I think aging MMO's lose their way. Funding is cut and it becomes s***.

I've already said it, but I don't think the genre is dead. It may be dead for some of you. We're all different and seeking different things in MMO's. The result is it's hard for us to agree whether it's dead.

If anybody liked Ultima ONline or Everquest you should watch the video below. Wurm ONline is admittedy more like ULtima Online than Everquest, but some if its mechanics are similar to old EQ--like no GPS and it has corpse runs. Wurm Online is why I came to this thread. It DESTROYED--savagely--Everquest and Ultima ONline. For many years I glorified those MMO's. I thought the "genre" was dead. Then I discovered Wurm Online and finally played in 2012.

 
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Severian Silk

Guest
I watched some player made video where a woman was talking about the merits of the mmo she was subscribed to and the whole time she was talking she was taking a slow boat ride around a lake or ocean. Can't remember the name of the game. I remember it's 90% player driven stuff, so not a story game.

[edit]

Fuck, I should really read the entire thread before posting a reply. :|
 

Blaine

Cis-Het Oppressor
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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Winterlight Seize your urge to play a proper MMO by the throat and throttle it until it stops breathing.

With the exception of maybe EVE Online (which I'm four years out of date on; also, it's 13 years old) and some private servers for UO, SWG, etc., the MMORPG genre is a graveyard with a few zombies left wandering around. Blizzard ceased to publicize WoW's subscriber numbers a long while back because they'd been steadily declining for years.

The zombies will stick around for a good long time, but it turns out that no other MMO killed WoW. Instead, dotas killed MMOs, or more properly they replaced MMOs as the retarded time-wasters of choice.

Dota 2's active player count hovers around 13m per month, which is easily more than double WoW's current subscriber count... whereas LoL boasts 43m per month. Between them they probably have 3-4x as many active players as all of the world's MMOs and text MUDs (including MMO-like action games such as Warframe), combined.

I really do think MMOs have run their course. Not to mention, there's exponentially more F2P/P2W/item shop bullshit and related faggotry in the mix with each passing year. Your best bet is likely to look for a private UO server/shard/whatever.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,824
What should I play if I want a huge, good, well populated and real (non story) MMO? Does such a thing even exists these days other than WoW - Is WoW even good nowadays? Should just go back to it because it's probably the last of its kind?
Black desert, eve and ddo (tho ddo has population problems).
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,109
Winterlight Seize your urge to play a proper MMO by the throat and throttle it until it stops breathing.

With the exception of maybe EVE Online (which I'm four years out of date on; also, it's 13 years old) and some private servers for UO, SWG, etc., the MMORPG genre is a graveyard with a few zombies left wandering around. Blizzard ceased to publicize WoW's subscriber numbers a long while back because they'd been steadily declining for years.

The zombies will stick around for a good long time, but it turns out that no other MMO killed WoW. Instead, dotas killed MMOs, or more properly they replaced MMOs as the retarded time-wasters of choice.

Dota 2's active player count hovers around 13m per month, which is easily more than double WoW's current subscriber count... whereas LoL boasts 43m per month. Between them they probably have 3-4x as many active players as all of the world's MMOs and text MUDs (including MMO-like action games such as Warframe), combined.

I really do think MMOs have run their course. Not to mention, there's exponentially more F2P/P2W/item shop bullshit and related faggotry in the mix with each passing year. Your best bet is likely to look for a private UO server/shard/whatever.

Although you are correct in your description of the current situation, I would disagree with your conclusion. I think MMOs are a legit genre with huge potential, and scratch a very different itch from MOBAs (I say this as someone who has played both extensively). The problem is similar to most problems with gaming right now, in that, being a young industry, gaming is full of companies chasing the latest, biggest fad. MOBAs are hot now, MMOs are not, so EVERYONE must chase MOBAs. Ultimately, I believe things will settle down, and companies will dedicate more resources to different areas and niches, even if they are not the hottest thing. And MMOs will make a comeback.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Lord British will never do it again, Shroud of the Avatar is the MMO equivalent of Down syndrome.

Is it really? I'd imagine he'd just create a super badass UO, but I heard it has IAP? Fucking decline.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,109
It's so simple too, in some ways. Why create a ton of hand-made content that runs out so fast, when all you need to do is a create a set of working rules and let the players create their own content by simply playing. But for whatever reason, big companies just don't see it yet.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Then we had the surge of the story MMOs (which I'd say it's more of a sub-genre)

What is this exactly? I'm not familiar with the term. Aren't all MMOs like this? I mean EQ and UO had overarching "stories" didn't they?
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,109
Why create a ton of hand-made content that runs out so fast, when all you need to do is a create a set of working rules and let the players create their own content by simply playing

How would that even work?

Very simply. You create an open world with some basic interactions (e.g. crafting, harvesting resources, trade, fighting, dialogue, guilds/nations), then let players populate it and use those interactions to create dynamic complexity. Just from those things alone, you can already have economic, military, social and political gameplay in the spirit of UO and Eve Online.

The hard part is making the basic gameplay interesting (unlike Eve) and putting in rules that keep the whole thing from devolving into some kind of a mindless deathmatch atmosphere, which would drive away most normal players, while at the same time preserving freedom.
 

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