First MMO Nostalgia
When I was watching the full Pax Panel on Youtube Steven brought a good point that I really haven't thought about. The point he brought up was how you always think of your first MMO and how you always try to compare the nostalgia you get from that and long for all future MMO’s to give you that same feeling.
My first MMO was FFXI and I always believed the nostalgia I got from this game was from how hard the game was and the sense of accomplishment I got from this game and this is partially true because playing other MMO's never gave me that same sense of accomplishment that FFXI did. Fast forward to now and trying to go back to FFXI just does not have that shine it did all those years ago
After thinking about it now I was always logging into FFXI because it was such a unique community and I enjoyed the teamwork of leveling parties.
Fast forward to now, with all the different MMO's that I have hopped through I just have not been able to get a connection to community and dread having to work with PUG's.
After finding this Kickstarter and reading more AOC I really feel like I have found the Nostalgia again and the community is really awesome.
What are your thoughts on first MMO nostalgia?
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Even nowadays, a few dozen MMOs after, no other game was able to recreate that feeling.
Of course, during those years a good percentage of students flanked their University Enterance Exams because of that, but hey life is short. At least they got chance to play the MMOs at the best time when it's crowded the most and MMOs were the hot topic in daily conversations, creating guilds with classmates, arrenging parties. It was fun. I feel like I missed the climax moment of it, but I had a lot of fun too later.
This community has already stolen my heart and I can't wait to play with you all
A trip to the comic book store let me eavesdrop on a conversation about City of Heroes a trip out to Best Buy later I started a marathon session on what I consider my first MMO.
So, realistically speaking, while you might have a really good time with a new MMO, it's not often possible to get that feeling back, except if the game is groundbreakingly different from everything you've ever experienced before.
Let's see how well Intrepid can do that.
My first real experience was after that with world of wacraft. Those moments will last with me forever.
The danger everywhere. Grouping with friends just to survive. Feeling affraid wherever you go, knowing you might die from someones hand, adrenaline.
Extremely fun battles that occurred naturally, many of which turned into mass PvP fights when there were more people around.
Friendships that grew up, created randomly at first just by helping someone out against attacks, and then developing on.
Hard content, open world mobs that were actually a challenge and didn't just die in 3 hits. Having to pay attention to your surroundings at all times.
Would chose such game every time over some safe casual farmville.
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*and this is why I want Ashes to not punish equal level fights. Not because "I want" to be a ganker or griefer. But because I want to feel being in danger. I want this atmosphere or dangerous world, where I might die at every corner, and need to care about what I do.
I do not want to feel that very little people will attack me, because I know most will not want to go red and break their gear. This just kills this feeling of danger in a huge huge degree.
*and no just flagging purple and playing purple does not give the same feeling. It's because most of other people will be green, and have no reason to attack you to not get flagged themselves.
But when everyone is flagged by default (or when attacks do not punish people) then when you meet other people in the wilds, you have worry, because they might strike just as preventive measure. Because the one that strikes first has more chance to survive vs someone that is not ready.
Most of fights on PvP server happened because people did just that, striken preventively to kill enemy to remove chance of them being attacked and dieing. And playing like that, this is real danger in the world. This is the feeling I would love to have again in a MMO.
(Ofc. every time I argue for this, people by default call me ganker and griefer. Because what other reason could I have to want this? I must be ganker and griefer and troll for sure.)
Also quests exist in series and arcs, and as players reach the end (whether it be cliff-hanger or a satisfying conclusion it causes a buzz and lots of excitement in the playerbase.
Users can also see all quests listed in the quest member, with all requirements for those quests displayed, so it makes a shopping list of goals for the player to accomplish.
Great game.
Double post - can I delete this?
I don't like loose ends
Vanilla WoW, for me. Technically Ultima Online was my first game (I still have the little cloth map from the box) but I was on 14.4k dialup and the game just wasn’t playable. I do remember chopping down a tree, but that was about all I ever managed.
Vanilla WoW was all about the world and the community. The world held real danger. I remember hearing a howl in Silverpine forest and seeing the notification that a Son of Arugal was nearby. I remember learning to fear that sound, kind of like the sound of someone going hostile while playing Hardcore in Diablo 2. I remember pushing through into zones of a much higher level, dodging monsters that would slaughter me, to get to my friends in another zone (shortcuts! HA!).
My best memories of Vanilla WoW are all due to the huge world, the danger inherent in that world, the mystery and the community. It is funny to say so now, given the state of the community in that game, but in Vanilla and early TBC, the community in WoW was amazing.
It is possible to regain some of that feeling. It isn’t just all nostalgia for the first game. My first month in Warhammer Online evoked the same feeling. The game was munted in a million ways, but the RvR combat was the most fun I have had in any pvp in any MMO I have ever played. Those first tier zones were brilliant and classes at those levels were balanced so beautifully. I had surrounded myself with a bunch of really cool people pre-launch and it was great fun adventuring in a world that I had known since my childhood.
Unfortunately the game was very poorly designed, atrociously optimised and I only lasted a few months, but I was able to recapture those feelings from early WoW. This is why I am so enthusiastic about Ashes.
I have been burnt by the hype train before, and never shall be again, but right now, Intrepid are saying all the right things, their design philosophy and their design principles are all exactly what I have been waiting for, to once again recreate that community feel, the mystery of an unknown world. If they can deliver…
This vid is a little old, but sums this thread up pretty well: MMOs Suck Now by Fevir.
Everything was new and exciting and I don't really remember that from Lineage II. Although I did enjoy the game when I played it, most of my nostalgic memories come from WoW Vanilla. I loved learning to PvP and doing Raids, some things I never really did in Lineage II. L2 were really just my first steps that got me into MMO's.
I hear that. My fondest memories are from vanilla wow too. That CP grind for High Warlord baby.
MMOs are all about the friendships made imo.
- tug
http://cohortgaming.com
The feeling I used to get when I played that game has always haunted my MMO expectations since then. Honestly it is likely the most difficult one I have ever played. I mean dang you can level down if you die. Begging that one WHM in your LS to come raise you so you can get it back instead of having to pug it back.
Changing my class on a whim was amazing as well. I freaking loved leveling many jobs and trying new combos out. I loved the crafting difficulty and the fishing too. I weirdly liked the hella dangerous boat rides as well. I was always killed by krakens lol
But most important to me was the team work that you needed to be successful. OMG I freaking miss weapon chains and magic bursts. It was nice when that Soboro finally dropped for me and turned my SAM/DNC into a god. I still would have murdered someone for that K. Club though lol.
What made me leave the game was the level expansions. I understand games need to evolve and change to stay interesting, but that single decision by square caused all previous gear to become irrelevant. All that work to clear Nyzul Tower and earn those armor pieces, all those countless hours farming NM and BCNM... it broke my heart.
I just hope AoC treats me better.
But you needed other people. And, especially at first, getting an alt wasn't quite feasible, as levelling took forever. The game was hard, pull a mob too many, or miss a patrol, and you'd had your hands full. So you naturally group with people.
A friendship through adversity thing. Something which kind of got lost along the way. I can't even remember the last time I needed to group up with someone to have an at least okay time questing. Even TBC was easy, because normal quests were so easy to solo, incentive for grouping wasn't there.
Everquest 1 (my first MMO), FFXI (much like you), Horizons/Istaria, and Eve Online.
The strange duckling in the room is FFXIV, where I've been with it since the start of 1.0 to it close-- then its resurrection to 2.0.. and then our on and off relationship starts; because in an odd way, while I do love what they did with 2.0-- I find myself missing some of the aspects of 1.0.
My problem with MMOs today is the fact they are so easy; Or perhaps I've been at this for so long... Its hard to catch me off guard. But, I do enjoy video games that don't do the thinking for me. I enjoy being lost and wandering for hours in the world. Creating new paths or finding new things. I don't like my hand being held; so I tend to hate tutorials. Or at least tutorials who are trying to tell you how to /do/ things.
I want to fail dangit! I want to learn on my own! Because in having to learn on my own, I get a greater sense of achievement and thus feel more thrilled by the adventure.
Sadly, I feel such feelings are not shared by younger audiences today and so, everything is done on a silver platter and cookie cutters-- and it just-- becomes mundane. Even standard single player games are no better, which is why even there-- I've fallen out of chasing the "games", and save my money for those games that manage to somehow stand out against the sea.
Here is hoping to AoC, cause I have determined-- should it fail-- I am probably done with the MMORPG market.
The problem is hard. Games have tried, things like no dungeon finder. Which I still find essential. SWTOR at first didn't have it. They knew it does not help with the longevity of the game.
But because of player backlash, they eventually went back on that decision, which was a shame. In my eyes.
Games like WoW get away with it, because they introduced these features at the peak of its popularity. The impact of it resonated throughout the next expansion, Cataclysm in this case. Blizzard had been making dungeons, of various difficulty before, and people accepted it being hard, you were encouraged to do it with friends. But, they had introduced dungeon finders, which lowered the quality of groups, the groups had no dynamics. The players were essentially strangers with eachother, and thus they couldn't tackle the dungeon content. Where as, the same group probably couldn't the dungeons from previous expansions either. And what happened next, is they cut their own wrist, and started to bleed subscribers. They lowered the difficulty of dungeons, they nerfed it to the ground. Which caused players whom did guild runs, to steamroll the content, because they were used to playing with eachother. They were probably on voice coms.
If you log on now, for twenty minutes, you can easily do a dungeon, and have no real challenge. They have attempted to address this issue with the mythic keystones. Which, are a lovely idea. But you've done the dungeons so often at that point, you can do them with your eyes closed, they're not that special. And you don't feel satisfied any longer.
And the same is true for PvE outside of instances, often times other players are an annoyance rather than a welcome sight. It slows your levelling down, after all. I swear, if Blizzard did a test, and made a team of bots, + 1 players, bots that had decent programming, not many players would even realise they had been playing with bots. The only real way when you interact with players, is when you join a guild and tackle the content that PuG's can't. Mythic raids etc.
If you try talking with people you see whilst questing, most just ignore you. The community building aspect slowly got killed off in favour of convenience.
Convenience is what players are used to now, and many MMO's that have come out in recent years, launched with many of these convenience designs, and they wonder why they cannot maintain a playerbase.
Some MMO devs have realised this and have tried to return to the days where the convenient designs were not there. And players have to put in effort now, things are hard, and they moan, and keep moaning. And they have to cave in. Because the generation we used to be (age wise) doesn't know any better. There are a few exceptions, I'm sure. But generally speaking. They want instant gratification, and I fear they are a larger part of the playerbase (post launch) then we think.
I can't stand it now and have just sworn off it, for so many reasons, a lot touched on by @Ariatras.
Vanilla and TBC WoW was so good, so much fun, such a cool community.