Will 1999 ever happen again?

[GSZ]

1999 happens all the time! I was just there a bit over 16 years ago!

[myriverse]

Won't be another 1999 until someone reinvents the Jesus. And then 1999 years later.

[Pope Hat]

Pantheon, rise of the fallen.

[JurisDictum]

Originally Posted by Pope Hat [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pantheon, rise of the fallen.

I have hopes for this one myself. Modern MMOs are mostly lameass action RPGs that get boring to grown adults. While Pantheon will likely to be different than EQ in many ways -- at least their talking about reeling back the whole "rush through the dungeon AoE with 4 stangers" style of play.

[heartbrand]

WoW is a harder game than EQ in just about every single way other than "leveling" which isn't meant to be anything other than a way to watch the story and learn your class. All of those server firsts you talk about in WoW are the result of people who beta tested for months and played 16 hours a day doing the same fights sometimes in excess of 300 attempts. There's a lot of things you can say about WoW, but to claim it's raiding, particularly mythic raiding, is "ez" is lol worthy.

[AzzarTheGod]

Originally Posted by heartbrand [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

WoW is a harder game than EQ in just about every single way other than "leveling" which isn't meant to be anything other than a way to watch the story and learn your class. All of those server firsts you talk about in WoW are the result of people who beta tested for months and played 16 hours a day doing the same fights sometimes in excess of 300 attempts. There's a lot of things you can say about WoW, but to claim it's raiding, particularly mythic raiding, is "ez" is lol worthy.

A man after my own heart. Spoken like a gentleman-- get him a drink.

[Grivyn]

The only mmo currently being developed that could recapture the 1999 feel for me aside from a fresh P99 would be Crowfall.

[JurisDictum]

I wish games would be more like old EQ and make the entire game based on Grouping and Raiding. But there is a huge push to make most the game (content-wise) solo. This is partly because WoW has created these monsters.

WoW planned for a pattern like this:

Phase 1) You level solo to 60, grouping here and there optionally (it was actually never worth the time during Vanilla until you got to Sunken Temple or so). This allows you to learn your class, the story, and get hooked.

Phase 2) You group and start being more social and making friends around your playtime. This is the first step of keeping you around long enough to get raids looking appealing

Phase 3) You join a guild and raid. It becomes a kind of social organization that keeps you playing for years.

Over the years though, Blizzard kept giving into people that liked phase 1, and thought the other 2 were stupid because they were gods gift to gaming and didn't need to put up with any sucky person dragging them down.

Maybe their original model worked for building community. No regional instances allowed a community to grow even in the presence of so much instanced content. Grouping was more difficult and -- in fact -- it is routine for wow to nerf group content after the expansion has been out a few months to let the bads do it. Almost no one used "leveling specs" that were separate from their "group spec," so your solo experience mattered a little more. Raids used to take 40 people -- later deemed much too high.

Now any potential for community building is dashed. WoW is a single player game with a public chat (Orgrimmar or its equivalent) where people join little micro-gatherings of people like you would in FPS. You aren't even sharing a world with others, let alone interacting with them.

Edit: My point: Every. Game. Since. WoW. Seems to try to replicate their model. They also replicate the biggest weakness of WoW. They are selling people on a game (solo leveling) that is very different at the endgame (raiding with 25+ people). They basically attract a fanbase that is going to hate their end game and demand it be more like the leveling phase.