Throwback Thursday! #1 MMORPG Origins.

Nyxxa

Due to the majority in favor of the idea of Throwback Thrusday (by a poll done on Reddit last week), I decided to go ahead and start it up!

For this Throwback Thursday lets start at the beginning!

What got you into the MMORPG genre? What game did you start with? And what about an MMORPG did you like?

With the experience you now have in MMORPGs, what do you hope, or are excited, to see in Ashes of Creation? And what should Ashes of Creation be careful of in the future?

Link to Reddit version: https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/ida0fr/throwback_thursday_1_mmorpg_origins/

Nyxxa

I started with Shayia as my first MMORPG, but I was first exposed to the genre by my father who played WoW since vanilla. So I often saw WoW as I grew up, starting at the age of 6. And maybe you could say my original game was actually WoW as I was given a few minutes as kid and made a human hunter on my fathers WoW account, but it was not enough time for me to give it that much credit.

The one and main reason I love MMORPGs, and why I have stayed with the genre even with the up and downs over the years, is the social aspect of it. Ever since I played Shayia (which was after vanilla WoW), I haven't been able to find social interaction on the same level I enjoyed early on in Shayia. I heard many stories of Vanilla WoW and how it did have that aspect, but sadly I had missed it. I was too young when it came out for me to access it, I didn't finally get access to WoW until Cata, and you will know by that time the world had completely changed, queuing for groups was added, and more. The only social bits I could find was Guilds (more so when there was Guild Levels to achieve) and Roleplaying (my best RP experiences was within RP guilds).

I hope to find this social aspect in Ashes of Creation and finally get to truly enjoy it. I hope to make memories like other did in vanilla WoW, that first real game that pulls you in and forces interaction between players in a way that causes you to make friends and enemies.

As issues I have seen in the past and I want to make aware to Ashes of Creation, I would never put ques in for anything (especially Dungeons and Raid), always have reasons to do things with your guild like levels or buffs that take effort and not just instant access, keep your map/world as is not too much world change (like Cataclysm in WoW) and always have added content relevant all over the world or populations will shift to far to one area and go empty in others, adding new areas might be okay but would need similar progression content added all over the in-game world.

halbarz

I started in Lineage 2 but didn't really think it was for me, in the beginning. I returned later and played until lord of the rings online came out. That game had me hooked from the first day. It made me realize what I liked in an MMO, it was the combination of a challenge, the community, and the immersion. Lotro did a really good job with this, even though that them going F2P was a good choice population-wise it did effect for me the quality of the game, things just didn't feel the same.

Over the last 20 years I have played WoW (think everyone did), Gw1, Gw2, Archeage, Swtor (regretting it until this day), Warhammer online, Eso, and black desert. There is one thing that almost all these games have common for me. Gw2 I have to say is the game I enjoyed the most after lotro, especially because it had some form of the community going on in WvW. All other MMOs failed for me because they are not immersive anymore, encourage anti-social behavior, and frankly are not challenging enough.

Why Ashes of creation? Well, I got one word for you: COMMUNITY, this is key and it is obvious that the game features are focused around this. I hope to meet nice people again going on wild adventures, or just by meeting them randomly in a tavern or make new friends on the battlefield These are all things I used to experience but that MMO's today just didn't offer anymore (in my opinion)

Besides the community, Ashes is bringing back challenge. Now people believe challenge means killing a raid boss that after doing it 5-10 times is just Zzzz. the concept of challenging players has been lost in MMO's for years.

Yes, Bosses are important and should be challenging but we are not playing a dungeon crawler game (WoW is pretty much that these days) challenge is so much more: Complicated quests and crafting, leading pvp raids, outsmarting your enemy and motivating your raid so you can beat them even when heavily outnumbered. or making choices that will impact yourself, your guild or even the server. these are the challenges I have been waiting for, I am bored of just logging into a game, queue for a dungeon or do Friday night guild raids and log off.

Maybe my hopes are high (to high) but Ashes seem to be everything I thought an MMO should be!

I apologize for my poor English.

Atama

I played MUDs starting in (I think) 1996. In October 1999 I started playing my first MMO, EverQuest. I’ve played dozens of them over the past 20+ years.

I played CRPGs before MUDs (like Pool of Radiance, Quest for Glory, Final Fantasy), and grew up playing tabletop RPGs as well.

I also played the first 3D MMORPG (it came out a year before Ultima Online), Meridian 59, but the game was already pretty old at that point. I didn’t play it when it first launched in 1996, I think it was almost 10 years old when I played and it was showing its age.

PlagueMonk

I was a Mac person 100% through and through but got TIRED of all the 'good' games only being available for the PC (Diablo I & II being the exceptions and I played those to death). A friend then showed me DAoC and I was like, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......I went out and got a PC just to play DAoC and never looked back. I played DAoC from mid-Shrouded Isles to sometime before the Minotaur expansion. Hell I might be one of the few but I even LIKED ToA (for the most part).

Some might call it remembering the game through rose colored glasses but I had some of the best times playing DAoC and am still trying to re-capture many of those feelings even today. Many MMOs I have played since have had a lot of the things that made DAoC so good but I have yet to re-capture that 'gaming heroin high' of DAoC.

Don't get me wrong though, I do still remember the less than great times as well, like playing a non-desired race/class (initially Troll Thane) and spending long periods of time calling out LFG and falling on deaf ears, slow soloing because I again played a not so great class at the time, etc. So things in DAoC weren't always great but you can't have those highs without some lows.

And befitting the theme of this thread, to pass the time I have recently rejoined the fight in WAR. Some people managed to get all the pieces together and working. Its been dubbed RoR (Return of Reckoning). It's being ran on a free private server (that's open to anyone) I'm having a lot of fun and would recommend it to anyone.

As for AoC, it ticks off many of the boxes I am looking for in an MMO I will stick with. In fact it promises so much I worry it will be able to deliver on all fronts. And while I would like it to encompass what DAoC had, I have no illusions that it will. It will be a different game so it's time I got myself hooked on a new gaming drug.

Atama

No, DAoC was a great game. I remember thinking at the time that it fixed a lot of things that felt wrong in EQ. I think if anything it doesn’t get the credit it deserves.

CaptnChuck

I started off with Dragon fable, a 2d rpg game. Played it with my cousins back in 2011.

nidriks

I started back in early 2003 or 2002. I honestly forget which it was, but PC Zone in the UK ran with a copy of Everquest on the front cover. Myself and a friend gave it a go. I stayed for years, he lasted a day.

Id only gotten into PC gaming a year or so before when a friend had introduced me to Football Manager. I bought a PC to play that and ended up getting hooked on MMOs.

I've tried so many MMOs that I have lost count. I miss the EQ days so much and really want a game that makes me feel the same. Only SWG and EQ2 have realky had anything like the community feeling EQ had.

I just hope this game doesn't do a Vanguard. Not followed a game this closely since that experience.

I believe!

Nizzikef

My first true MMO was Everquest. I played it for about 3 months just after the Shadows of Luclin expansion was released. I just couldn't like the game for some reason and quit.

The first real experience in making online friends and joining a guild and doing MMO things would have to be Shadowbane. I made a lot more connections with other players in SB than EQ and it felt like a lived in game to me. The way the city building worked and how alliances were formed, the politics/drama (oh man game forums were so different back in the day) Unfortunately the guys who created the game sold it to Ubisoft and in true Ubisoft fashion ran it straight into the ground. One of the original creative directors J Todd Coleman is now currently working on Crowfall, which many consider a spiritual successor to Shadowbane.

I heard about Lineage II from a friend in Shadowbane who said "Hey! there's this new game that's coming out, whoever reaches level 40 first gets an Alienware PC!" Me being like 14 at the time was like "much want" and the rest is history. I played L2 on Bartz from Prelude to C5, after which I moved to private servers. L2 lost all flavor for me when CT1 hit. I did revisit when it went F2P, but what they did to it was just so awful. I mostly came back to prevent my character from being deleted but sadly wouldn't have cared after seeing what it became. Now L2 is just a sad shell of its former self. And no, I didn't win the Alienware PC, lol.

The drama and politics were off the charts in L2, whole clan wars started because someone's alt ganked so and so. L2's community-run forum boards, L2Blah/L2Guru was a place where you could get away from NCsoft's lame moderated forums and talk real shit. (thanks for letting us cuss based Steven)

I played L2 off and on for 14 years. Half retail, half private servers with the odd MMO in between. Too many to remember, but I'll list the big ones. Warhammer Online 7 months, Aion 2 years really liked it before it got hyper P2W, Wildstar 1 month hated it, Tera 3-4 months, don't remember my time in that game that well other than seeing **** everywhere was getting cringe.... Archage - however long until it became widely known you could dupe all the mats for top tier end game crafts, much disappoint.. I literally couldn't being my self to manage my crops/house or progress further in the game, this is after I purchased their $250 pack.

Currently playing WoW Classic, my first experience with the game. I mainly wanted to try it out to see what all the fuss was about since it released when I was deep into L2. Sadly they chose to release all the easier versions of raids/content so I won't truly know how it was back in the day... My servers war effort completes tonight, so we finally get to raid AQ woot.

I have a $250 pack for the aforementioned Crowfall and a $250 pack for Ashes of Creation. How desperate I've become for an MMO to spend $500 on packs for games that haven't even released yet XD..

Eagerly awaiting Crowfall and AoC!!