Oh man I loved that game so much. I had so many fantastic hours adventuring in UO. I'm still in touch with some of the people from my guild. This is a great article, even if you didn't play the...
Oh man I loved that game so much. I had so many fantastic hours adventuring in UO. I'm still in touch with some of the people from my guild.
This is a great article, even if you didn't play the game. The politics of MMOs haven't really changed since the days of UO, and there was a lot of stumbling around in terms of government and management back then.
Although I'm afraid that I have no choice but to hold @cfabbro personally responsible for any hours I lose playing the fan-hosted servers I didn't know existed until today... :)
Ditto. I eventually left UO for Everquest, but I sorely missed the building, community, and emergent aspects which EQ lacked... which is why I was so damn excited for Landmark/Everquest Next,...
Ditto. I eventually left UO for Everquest, but I sorely missed the building, community, and emergent aspects which EQ lacked... which is why I was so damn excited for Landmark/Everquest Next, since it was supposed to be basically a combination of the two games. But then that got cancelled. :(
hold @cfabbro personally responsible for any hours I lose
Interesting read. I never played Ultima but I've read all about it. I may play it just to have an idea of a living and meaningful community. As you may know, I played a lot of MUDs in the last few...
Interesting read. I never played Ultima but I've read all about it. I may play it just to have an idea of a living and meaningful community. As you may know, I played a lot of MUDs in the last few months. Community is still very relevant in those games. But the time and effort involved can be overwhelming.
I am now playing World of Warcraft Classic. Modern MMORPGs lack a sense of community. People collaborate on goals out of necessity, but socialization is shallow and utilitarian, and the RP part of the acronym is largely lost. I've been trying to find meaningful roleplay in WoW, but even in RP servers it's a shot in the dark. The only alternative is joining an RP guild and participating in coordinated events. The vertical nature of the game makes those interactions difficult even in those guilds. Everyone's rushing for the best gear. Why would a level 80 "waste" their time in lower zones to chat with my level 4 Paladin?
Roleplay is a fragile thing. It must be incentivized both mechanically and through intensive moderation. Merely adding "RP" to a server type is not enough. OOC must be actively discouraged, and roleplay continually fostered.
I dream of an MMORPG built entirely around roleplay.
EDIT: I did find a lot of roleplayers in Goldshire (Wow Retail - Moonguard server). But it seems exclusively erotic roleplay. Not my thing. I'll keep looking (or maybe I'll give up and just take the game for what it is...).
Since there was no blueprint for how to do MMOs when Ultima Online came out, they just threw in any idea they could come up with, which resulted in glorious chaos. I played UO for a while as a...
Since there was no blueprint for how to do MMOs when Ultima Online came out, they just threw in any idea they could come up with, which resulted in glorious chaos. I played UO for a while as a carpenter and blacksmith. There was this fan-run server with an entire city built from player houses. You could rent a merchant to sell your goods, there was an entire economy going on. It was fantastic. And I feel like I barely scratched the surface of all the places you could go and things you could do. My biggest adventure was delving into some of the deeper levels of a mine to get to the more precious ores. Good times. Most modern MMOs feel so sterile in comparison.
I think you just described why it is that I don't care about MMOs anymore. Most of them today are focused on giving you pretty things to look at, game mechanics that are largely built around...
I think you just described why it is that I don't care about MMOs anymore. Most of them today are focused on giving you pretty things to look at, game mechanics that are largely built around addiction rather than engagement or expression, and socializing. And those are things that I either care little of or really dislike.
On the other hand, games like Ulima Online present the player with a world where it feels you can actually live in them. Even Runescape (as it was early on - can't speak for the newer iterations) had this to a limited extent; You couldn't change the environment, sure, but you could at least leave items behind and they would stay there until someone picked them up. More critically, these games had stories and quests that you could absolutely spend your time on, but they were completely optional; there were plenty of other ways to play, from self-guided exploration to leveling up tertiary skills which would then open up membership to skills. In Runescape I spent a lot of time leveling up my character in cooking, mining, and crafting, and I found those to be far more interesting at the time than training up combat to do the big high-concept quests the game had to offer.
More importantly, most MMOs don't feel like the world they present is actually lived in. They seem more like places that people commute to because they lack details about the mannerisms of the people who supposedly live there. That's one of the core things that I think has made The Elder Scrolls games so appealing to so many people; The story isn't just what people are saying or doing, but it's also shown by investigating the environment and how it's been affected. Searching around and finding containers, plates, silverware and foodstuffs don't act only a collectable you can take to a shopkeeper to make some money; they are artifacts of the lifestyle of the people who were living there before you came along.
Oh man I loved that game so much. I had so many fantastic hours adventuring in UO. I'm still in touch with some of the people from my guild.
This is a great article, even if you didn't play the game. The politics of MMOs haven't really changed since the days of UO, and there was a lot of stumbling around in terms of government and management back then.
Although I'm afraid that I have no choice but to hold @cfabbro personally responsible for any hours I lose playing the fan-hosted servers I didn't know existed until today... :)
Ditto. I eventually left UO for Everquest, but I sorely missed the building, community, and emergent aspects which EQ lacked... which is why I was so damn excited for Landmark/Everquest Next, since it was supposed to be basically a combination of the two games. But then that got cancelled. :(
Sorry, not sorry. ;)
Interesting read. I never played Ultima but I've read all about it. I may play it just to have an idea of a living and meaningful community. As you may know, I played a lot of MUDs in the last few months. Community is still very relevant in those games. But the time and effort involved can be overwhelming.
I am now playing World of Warcraft Classic. Modern MMORPGs lack a sense of community. People collaborate on goals out of necessity, but socialization is shallow and utilitarian, and the RP part of the acronym is largely lost. I've been trying to find meaningful roleplay in WoW, but even in RP servers it's a shot in the dark. The only alternative is joining an RP guild and participating in coordinated events. The vertical nature of the game makes those interactions difficult even in those guilds. Everyone's rushing for the best gear. Why would a level 80 "waste" their time in lower zones to chat with my level 4 Paladin?
Roleplay is a fragile thing. It must be incentivized both mechanically and through intensive moderation. Merely adding "RP" to a server type is not enough. OOC must be actively discouraged, and roleplay continually fostered.
I dream of an MMORPG built entirely around roleplay.
EDIT: I did find a lot of roleplayers in Goldshire (Wow Retail - Moonguard server). But it seems exclusively erotic roleplay. Not my thing. I'll keep looking (or maybe I'll give up and just take the game for what it is...).
Since there was no blueprint for how to do MMOs when Ultima Online came out, they just threw in any idea they could come up with, which resulted in glorious chaos. I played UO for a while as a carpenter and blacksmith. There was this fan-run server with an entire city built from player houses. You could rent a merchant to sell your goods, there was an entire economy going on. It was fantastic. And I feel like I barely scratched the surface of all the places you could go and things you could do. My biggest adventure was delving into some of the deeper levels of a mine to get to the more precious ores. Good times. Most modern MMOs feel so sterile in comparison.
I think you just described why it is that I don't care about MMOs anymore. Most of them today are focused on giving you pretty things to look at, game mechanics that are largely built around addiction rather than engagement or expression, and socializing. And those are things that I either care little of or really dislike.
On the other hand, games like Ulima Online present the player with a world where it feels you can actually live in them. Even Runescape (as it was early on - can't speak for the newer iterations) had this to a limited extent; You couldn't change the environment, sure, but you could at least leave items behind and they would stay there until someone picked them up. More critically, these games had stories and quests that you could absolutely spend your time on, but they were completely optional; there were plenty of other ways to play, from self-guided exploration to leveling up tertiary skills which would then open up membership to skills. In Runescape I spent a lot of time leveling up my character in cooking, mining, and crafting, and I found those to be far more interesting at the time than training up combat to do the big high-concept quests the game had to offer.
More importantly, most MMOs don't feel like the world they present is actually lived in. They seem more like places that people commute to because they lack details about the mannerisms of the people who supposedly live there. That's one of the core things that I think has made The Elder Scrolls games so appealing to so many people; The story isn't just what people are saying or doing, but it's also shown by investigating the environment and how it's been affected. Searching around and finding containers, plates, silverware and foodstuffs don't act only a collectable you can take to a shopkeeper to make some money; they are artifacts of the lifestyle of the people who were living there before you came along.