EQ Never

Draegan_sl said:

There are those that are complaining that there is no community left, and want to go back to the days reputation mattered. This is one way to do this outside of creating a game that is so niche, that only the same like-minded people play.

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Yeah, I miss the EQ days when rep mattered. It took care of so many things. Made getting groups easy and kept most of the idiots from going full retard. In EQ, community was mostly a function of the small size of the player base on the servers, the incredible amount of time it took to level and the need for most classes to group to get anything done.

I also think that the general mmo playerbase was a little more intelligent and mature back then. Just because not everyone had access to the type of gear and skill sets necessary to be able to play EQ right after it released. A huge part of WoW's success is because of it's ease of entry.

It's harder now to recreate the EQ classic type of community. The mmo audience is much larger and more anonymous, especially with mega server tech. And the gypsy style of gaming where everyone jumps to a new mmo every couple of months makes lasting relationships in a game almost impossible. That's not a good or bad thing, it's just the natural evolution of online gaming.

Joining a big guild that spans multiple games and has been around a while is probably the closest you can get to the old reputation model of community in today's mmo landscape.

As for voice / type chat, imo they effect the style of community but not so much the quality.

I don't know about more intelligent and mature. The majority of people I knew back then were kids or stoners.

Heheh, true. I'll put it another way, the mmo playerbase now seems to be younger and even more stoned.

But I do think that in general gamers were a bit different back then than they are now because of the skill sets needed just to keep a gaming rig operating and being able to afford it. Everyone can afford a decent rig now and by and large they are easy to maintain and operate. WoW did an awesome job of making their game work on just about anything, and they forced other mmo devs to attempt to do the same, even if many of them failed (Vanguard etc).

I generally don't like voice chat for anything outside of organized pvp/raids because I want to listen to music or watch TV most of the time when I'm casually playing an MMO. A lot of vent chats get really cliquey and end up full of dumb inside jokes half the time anyway. I can think of countless times I left vent because 2-3 annoying sperglords would be making annoying and shitty reddit meme jokes for hours on end. Fuck that, I want to listen to some music while I slay E-orcs unless it's something where I have to make snap decisions and verbalize quickly and concisely what I'm doing, while I'm doing it.

You're just getting older.

Draegan_sl said:

There are those that are complaining that there is no community left, and want to go back to the days reputation mattered. This is one way to do this outside of creating a game that is so niche, that only the same like-minded people play.

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I think the point being missed ( maybe ) is i would like reputation to be based on "in world" activities and not how someone speaks on a voice channel.. Let the interaction with the world and players and inherent connection points in the game determine reputation ( e.g. that guy rips people off on sales, that guy trains ppl, that guy sucks at tanking etc )... That said, your idea ( and someone mentioned DayZ ) that if you can integrate voice capability into the game itself that could add a unique and new way to gain/lose rep because how you handle your in voice interaction would potentially be key to gameplay... i think that idea rocks but voice alone as a channel replacing chat to me is not great, other than raid commands and such.

Draegan_sl said:

You're just getting older.

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True, but do you dismiss the idea that in general mmo gamers now are different as a whole than they were then (EQ classic, UO)? And for the reasons I stated?

Guilds and people were more interconnected in EQ. It made for a stronger community. People were not only required to group together to level, but guilds were required to interact in raiding situations. People in guilds knew each other for what the other guilds had or did not have. Guild hierarchy was strong and people were recruited out of others guilds based on gearing and keying. Sometimes it lead to people screwing over their current guild, sometimes it was time for them to move up. Sometimes they stayed and maintained huge strong trust and bonds with their guildmates.

Games do not require this now. You're getting older sure, but thats not all it.

It's called elements of risk (losing xp or your corpse) make things exciting.

I will admit the group I run with has become picky and insular over the years. Small raid sizes help that too, but we embrace older folks who may not be as skilled but fit socially. We've only ever invited under 21's if it was immediate family. And we've always ended up kicking them too. Maybe that's why vc works so well for us. We've been together nearly 15+ years in the longest tenure and 5 in the shortest.

I do miss raiding semi hardcore and berating the fuck out of some 22 year old kid. We made one cry on either Thorim or Mimiron hard modes.

Draegan_sl said:

You're just getting older.

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I didn't like that shit when I was 19 and voice chat started becoming A Thing People Did. Who wants to go home after a long day of dealing with dickheads and assholes all day and play some games while listening to dickheads and assholes all night?

Grim1_sl said:

True, but do you dismiss the idea that in general mmo gamers now are different as a whole than they were then (EQ classic, UO)? And for the reasons I stated?

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I don't think you can compare the two. To me, it's like you're asking me to compare the populations of Scranton,PA to New York City. MMO gamers are different as a whole because it's much broader collection of gamers or pseudo gamers.

So are the populations different? Of course they are. But that's because there are billions more people connected to the internet now looking for entertainment.

Bellringer_sl said:

Guilds and people were more interconnected in EQ. It made for a stronger community. People were not only required to group together to level, but guilds were required to interact in raiding situations. People in guilds knew each other for what the other guilds had or did not have. Guild hierarchy was strong and people were recruited out of others guilds based on gearing and keying. Sometimes it lead to people screwing over their current guild, sometimes it was time for them to move up. Sometimes they stayed and maintained huge strong trust and bonds with their guildmates.

Games do not require this now. You're getting older sure, but thats not all it.

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There was massive interconnectivity (new word?) in Guild Wars 2, but the game didn't have legs so it fell apart.

bixxby_sl said:

I didn't like that shit when I was 19 and voice chat started becoming A Thing People Did. Who wants to go home after a long day of dealing with dickheads and assholes all day and play some games while listening to dickheads and assholes all night?

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I simply don't play games with dickheads and assholes. I find groups of people I do like hanging out with. If there are too many assholes, I leave. Being world first in shit doesn't entertain me as much as playing a fun game with a group of good people.

MMO's are built for the masses now, which really sucks for players like most of us, who really enjoyed those EQ days of old which are very well described above in all the posts about EQ. EQN just needs to be rougher and tougher then the MMO's now and it will weed out the crappy WOW players who think you should hit top level and gear in a weeks time. The only issue with this is that EQN will fail if it does that because that is not what the "majority" of the new MMO community wants.
I'd kill for a game of the same caliber, difficulty, risk vs reward, guild interaction, guild fighting and racing, end game, player stealing, corpse running, visual equipment seeing, vastness and exploration that EQ was.. If it happens, that'll be awesome, but i'm based in reality here and companies need players and money to stay afloat.. so sadly, i don't think EQN will have it, although i really hope it does.

Voice chat works fine, when two or three people are talking.

Beyond that, its three people blabbing and 20+ people who gave up on ever getting a word in. I don't even bother wearing my headset anymore. Plus, its 10 degrees warmer in my computer room than the rest of the house so I have a fan on all the time and fuck you I'm not turning it off.

Voice chat is easily misheard, or missed entirely because you took a piss or saw something shiny. Text chat is always there for you to read. I'd say I comprehend maybe 2/3rds of what is said in voice chat. The rest may as well be the sound of two cows fucking.

Volume varies, mic quality varies, background noise etc. You've got mumblers, and mouth breathers - like that fucking guy that ends every phrase by BLOWING INTO THE MIC - and so much useless chatter that before long I completely tune out the sound of it.

Voice chat also makes it impossible to listen to something else, because a lot of MMOs are just dull enough that you need other entertainment to keep you entertained while you entertain.

And for fucks sake, you have the people who tell these long ass stories and the only way to say anything is to yell HEY SHUT UP A SECOND.