Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
MMORPG Wars - A New Hope
ArchivedUser
Guest
Hi all.
I've been a gamer all my life. In all honesty, probably too much of one. I sometimes wander if my passion for gaming has stopped me fulfilling more in my life but heck, the gaming has been gooood!
Anyhow, I'm far older than I'd care to admit but if I told you my first gaming machine was an Atari Video Computer System from the 1980's, you would be getting a good idea of my age.
My first MMORPG was Asheron's Call 2. Widely dismissed by the original Asheron's Call but as my first, I loved it. I moved onto Everquest far just a little while but loved the feel of that even more, before succumbing to Everquest 2 when released.
In all these games, I was never the most social of person and would often logon to see how far I could get solo but each of these games had such a community that there always seemed friendly groups available for to you to join up with. I don't remember any of these groups being unkind or unfriendly and very often to fail a particular quest would lead to much mirth before we would get together to try again.
The games also seemed much tougher too, I remember in EQ whether as part of a group or solo being in Blackburrow Den carefully picking our way through only for the dreaded "TRAIN!!!!" to be yelled by someone as some poor soul was being pursued to the exit by a long line of Gnolls who would turn on anyone in their vacinity (at least the way I remember it). Of course death meant more too with the loss of XP and trying to get your stuff back from your corpse.
Even EQ2 started off very similar but again it was never an issue to find a friendly patient group. I was never the best player but grouping was an enjoyable experience.
Then I went to World of Warcraft. At the time it was no more than a collection of good idea's from other MMORPG's but put together so well in what felt like such an open world. I really did enjoy vanilla WoW it took me a long while to get to level 60 and I never used any website to help me on my way and the map never gave you an indication of where you quest lay. You needed to read the Quest message to find out. Barren's Chat was an entity all of it's own too!
What WoW did do well was give enough solo content while still giving enough reason to group up with other players. Elite quests etc.
This felt like a breath of fresh air but lead to almost death of the MMORPG genre, at least, as we knew it. Blizzard realised quickly what content made the most of money and gradually changed their game so you hardly had reason to group anymore unless you got wrapped up in the gear war. This was never my thing, I enjoyed mmo's for their worlds not to have the biggest oversized sword with the best stats. They tried to make grouping more enticing by making multiple role classes (yawn) and queues for PUG's but these were often souless quick runs through instances were hardly anybody spoke and if they did it would be something like "You lot are so rubbish, I'm out of here" and that is the polite version.
It was so successful just about every mmo after it "cookie cuttered" it. Before we knew it the MMORPG games had become the arcade version of their originals.
Everquest Next had some interesting idea's but never materialised.
For me there are two interesting titles in development. Pantheon: Rise of the fallen which looks very similar to Everquest gameplay, maybe just a little too much like Everquest, I'm not sure if that will work in the modern day. I'd like to see it work but I'm not sure.
The other being Ashes of Creation, of course. Which seems to have some new really interesting idea's and a game looking to try, at least, to move the genre forward. I like the sound of it so far where you actions can impact the world around you. I'm hoping whatever class and path you choose is your choice and not easily altered. A long way too go yet but so far I'm liking the sound of it.
OMG! I've gone on far too much...apologies if you made it this far.
TL;DR
Old gamer.
Older MMORPG's (AC2, EQ, early EQ2, vanilla WoW) YAY!
Newer MMORPG's (later WoW and Wow clones) Booo!
Ashes of Creation... the new hope?
I've been a gamer all my life. In all honesty, probably too much of one. I sometimes wander if my passion for gaming has stopped me fulfilling more in my life but heck, the gaming has been gooood!
Anyhow, I'm far older than I'd care to admit but if I told you my first gaming machine was an Atari Video Computer System from the 1980's, you would be getting a good idea of my age.
My first MMORPG was Asheron's Call 2. Widely dismissed by the original Asheron's Call but as my first, I loved it. I moved onto Everquest far just a little while but loved the feel of that even more, before succumbing to Everquest 2 when released.
In all these games, I was never the most social of person and would often logon to see how far I could get solo but each of these games had such a community that there always seemed friendly groups available for to you to join up with. I don't remember any of these groups being unkind or unfriendly and very often to fail a particular quest would lead to much mirth before we would get together to try again.
The games also seemed much tougher too, I remember in EQ whether as part of a group or solo being in Blackburrow Den carefully picking our way through only for the dreaded "TRAIN!!!!" to be yelled by someone as some poor soul was being pursued to the exit by a long line of Gnolls who would turn on anyone in their vacinity (at least the way I remember it). Of course death meant more too with the loss of XP and trying to get your stuff back from your corpse.
Even EQ2 started off very similar but again it was never an issue to find a friendly patient group. I was never the best player but grouping was an enjoyable experience.
Then I went to World of Warcraft. At the time it was no more than a collection of good idea's from other MMORPG's but put together so well in what felt like such an open world. I really did enjoy vanilla WoW it took me a long while to get to level 60 and I never used any website to help me on my way and the map never gave you an indication of where you quest lay. You needed to read the Quest message to find out. Barren's Chat was an entity all of it's own too!
What WoW did do well was give enough solo content while still giving enough reason to group up with other players. Elite quests etc.
This felt like a breath of fresh air but lead to almost death of the MMORPG genre, at least, as we knew it. Blizzard realised quickly what content made the most of money and gradually changed their game so you hardly had reason to group anymore unless you got wrapped up in the gear war. This was never my thing, I enjoyed mmo's for their worlds not to have the biggest oversized sword with the best stats. They tried to make grouping more enticing by making multiple role classes (yawn) and queues for PUG's but these were often souless quick runs through instances were hardly anybody spoke and if they did it would be something like "You lot are so rubbish, I'm out of here" and that is the polite version.
It was so successful just about every mmo after it "cookie cuttered" it. Before we knew it the MMORPG games had become the arcade version of their originals.
Everquest Next had some interesting idea's but never materialised.
For me there are two interesting titles in development. Pantheon: Rise of the fallen which looks very similar to Everquest gameplay, maybe just a little too much like Everquest, I'm not sure if that will work in the modern day. I'd like to see it work but I'm not sure.
The other being Ashes of Creation, of course. Which seems to have some new really interesting idea's and a game looking to try, at least, to move the genre forward. I like the sound of it so far where you actions can impact the world around you. I'm hoping whatever class and path you choose is your choice and not easily altered. A long way too go yet but so far I'm liking the sound of it.
OMG! I've gone on far too much...apologies if you made it this far.
TL;DR
Old gamer.
Older MMORPG's (AC2, EQ, early EQ2, vanilla WoW) YAY!
Newer MMORPG's (later WoW and Wow clones) Booo!
Ashes of Creation... the new hope?
0
Comments
Welcome @Dreadlock!
I too am hoping that Ashes will be the new hope. There's a few things to consider:
We are not alone - I've never seen a community come together at such speed and in such a manner considering how far we are away from launch. The community seems generally older, apart from @Ketchup (I actually think I have older Ketchup in my fridge!
) and everyone is drawn by the promises that Intrepid have made, and in general, they've promised something that's quite far far away from the saturated genre that we've come to expect over the last few years.
As I've stated many times, I think Ashes will probably be the last chance saloon for me and if it doesn't work out then so be it. It's simply the best opportunity for a new hope that we have and it's up to us as backers/supporters to make it work and hold Intrepid to account for any deviation from their early goals, and not blindly believe and hope.
If Intrepid pull it off then Steven @ co will have achieved something special in my opinion and will possibly have rescued my favourite genre of gaming from itself.
Let's believe.
I like what you had to say about the open world and I think this is the core of where modern MMO design fails. WoW started as an open world game and slowly shifted to a linear game. Other games try to copy a WoW model which leads to a launch title with no reason to explore 90% of the map once you hit level cap.
@Kratz @Ketchup
If you were to introduce lactobacillus to a ketchup, it would last indefinitely without molding.
I really look forward to chatting with you guys and further down the line, meeting many of you in game.
Anyway, welcome and try not to get bored while waiting
You'll be a valuable asset with all of that experience!
There is now hope when all was lost. But hope is only a start. Welcome to Ashes.