MMORPG vs RPG?

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naranja

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I think RPG was getting very good in 90s with games like Might & Magic 5/6/etc. But then EQ made big leap ahead and became better than all RPG. Now RPG come back with Witcher 3 and Skyrim and things that are big and pretty. But really not much under the hood? How can one enjoy a Witcher with 4 spells when 20 years ago I had a Necromancer with 50 interesting spells? And they had to be used together in correct combinations and with skill to work. Quad kiting, fear kiting, root rotting, and other methods were all interesting. And you had to learn different methods for solo, grouping, duos, solo indoors, etc.

But everyone loves Skyrim where you just shoot fire out your hand until enemies are toasted? WTF? EQ had factions that change based on what you do and you can influence. Wandering enemies that roam and might fight you based on your faction. Classes had different gameplay and feel and were planned to have good abilities and spells but balanced to not be too easy. Enemies would flee sometimes when injured, they hit people who sit, they attack healers or someone with too big nukes. EQ at classic had about 1000 spells! Skyrim has about 10% of that :( EQ had lava areas, deserts, forests, plains, swamps, many dungeons, hundreds of enemy types, etc.. Skyrim has either grass or snow. Most dungeons are copy pasted and very small and simple, no traps or hidden rooms or anything, and most enemies are draugr or wolves...

But one sells 22 million+ and one is forgotten. How can people enjoy a sandbox world when there is not much to do and discover? I lose all interest fast. I never lost interest in EQ because there was so much to discover.

Also MMO was still advancing. Vanguard had many new ideas that are good. Skyrim has no ideas and less things than even Oblivion and Morrowind. So MMOs were developing and growing, RPGs have been dying. But now it seems like MMOs have died.
 
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Chris

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Yeah if you only play Skyrim/Witcher and Everquest/Vanguard you'd think that.

Have you played Path of Exile and Final Fantasy 14?
 
N

naranja

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Kaines said:
You used the word "balanced" when discussing EQ classes. I don't think you understood the game at all.
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I understand it very well! In modern games bad balance means slaughtering enemies that are stuck and rocks and spells that broken etc. EQ was not like that. Nobody could solo easily, and even in groups it was a challenge. So when someone achieved getting an item from a dungeon it was a legit accomplishment. The game had an integrity because the devs patched things constantly. Balancing all classes to be equal is not real balance.
MusicForFish said:
You do realize who you're responding to, right?
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Nope!=)
 
Kaines

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naranja said:
I understand it very well! In modern games bad balance means slaughtering enemies that are stuck and rocks and spells that broken etc. EQ was not like that. Nobody could solo easily, and even in groups it was a challenge. So when someone achieved getting an item from a dungeon it was a legit accomplishment. The game had an integrity because the devs patched things constantly. Balancing all classes to be equal is not real balance.

Nope!=)
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But shit wasn't even balanced within itself. Complete Heal completely broke the game right out of the box in terms of "Effective HP" of a tank. Especially when the CH chain was a standard practice. To say EQ was "balanced" is to completely view everything about it through rose colored glasses. EQ was fun because it WASN'T balanced in any sense of the word. It so badly broken that it actually made some things fun. The difficulty had absolutely NOTHING to do with the integrity of the game. The game was incredibly easy once the mechanics were understood.
 
Pyros

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Rose tinted glasses to the max.

EQ classes had "hundreds" of spells because a lot of them were just the same spell with higher rank/power. A lot were just boring as shit like "this is a dot, this is also a dot, but a different element, oh this is a dot too, but another element again, this dot has snare on it btw so it's a different one". Not really arguing Skyrim had the most riveting amount of spells and what not, but the comparison is biased as fuck. Like many other comparisons. Skyrim "doesn't have much to explore"? Yeah that sounds like a very valid complaint for sure. Oh but it only has mountains and grass, while EQ had so many different environements so obviously it's better or something. Witcher only has 4 spells btw so the combat was a lot more interesting in EQ, besides the fact that EQ is glorified turn based while Witcher is action combat, so they're hardly comparable. Witcher combat being not one of its strong points to begin with, while EQ combat was basically 90% of the game since there was really not much else to do besides kill stuff and level up and kill stuff to get items.

Not sure how Vanguard even ends up being discussed, it had some interesting parts but it was an unfinished piece of shit with lots of terrible systems all the way until it closed.

As for the whole 22millions bla bla bla, I guess that's discounting the fact that Skyrim sold on consoles too and sold many years later, when the market was many times bigger, and didn't require a sub to play or an online connection in a time when online was really still just starting to spread. And then that somehow these 22million players were all wrong and that the game was actually not very good at all.

Fucking dumbass thread.
 
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Vanessa

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N naranja Your name seems so familiar. Were you here before?

After I quit EQ, l had a difficult time getting back into console gaming or really gaming at all. It felt like EQ was a pinnacle of gaming back then, and everything else just paled. A console was what the plebes and 'sadly ignorant' played, and everything after EQ was so amazingly boring to me. The odd faux yet very real "social" aspect of the game was unmatchable, but then again, EQ to me was also where I fell in love with a guildmate and she ended up being the "I was fucking a married woman states away while her husband, her and I played EQ together in the same guild" 100% true story and to this day (unless she had some guilt-ridden confession to him years later), he never knew.

Ya, mmorpg all the way, and EQ was the first 3d true mmorpg. Absolutely legendary in the scheme of things.
 
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McCheese

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I discovered so much sitting in a corner staring at my spellbook 90% of the time. A++ gameplay bring back pls.
 
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Pharone

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I literally did not read through the wall of text, so my response is probably not on the mark lol. That being said, I am responding to the thread title of MMORPG vs RPG.

Here a number of years back, I discovered GOG.com... Good Ole Games. It's a service like Steam except it deals mostly with older games. The cool thing is that it packages them with built in emulation, so they run with on your modern OS with out having to fiddle with too much, but I am getting off topic...

The point is, I have bought quite a few old (really old) games on GoG that I did not play through back in the day (or didn't finish), and have had a lot of fun with them. It's amazing how fun some of these older RPGs can be even though the graphics are insanely outdated and there is some serious lacking in quality of life compared to modern RPGs.

As for MMORPGs, I haven't been that impressed with many of them over the years. EverQuest was my second (Ultima Online was technically my first for all of 1 week), so I pretty much based ever MMORPG experience against it from 2000 onward. That probably lead me to not like most of them just based on the fact that they were not EverQuest with a different theme I'm sure.

Some stand outs I liked in the MMORPG genre are:
  • EverQuest
  • Starwars The Old Republic
  • Final Fantasy XIV
Honorable mentions go out to:
  • EverQuest 2 - Not at release. It sucked at release, and it got decent MANY years after initial release
  • World of Warcraft - Original only. I did not like any of the expansions
  • Path of Exile - I have trouble thinking of this game as a MMORPG honestly... it feels more like an Action RPG that you just happen to play online
  • New World - This is a really fun game for about one month
I could be forgetting one or two that I liked, but for the most part, out of the hundreds of MMORPGs I have tried over the past two decades, I can count the ones I liked and remembered liking on one hand.

The MMORPG genre just hasn't had a high success rate in my opinion.
 
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Cybsled

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Not sure why the original post is comparing live service games with single player games. Apples/oranges, if only in support unless you count a modding community churning out content like for Skyrim
 
mkopec

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Youre not going to recreate those experiences because EQ was a group game and Skyrim and the like are single player. So the design philosophy of the two are totally separate. If youre looking for more of the EQ like experience in single player games with the spells and skills available to you, check out the Pathfinder games. There is literally like 300+ hours in both games of content for you and you can choose your party and how you build them, they have mods etc pretty challenging too if you want it to be.

Honorable mention to others like it...
Pillars of Eternity I, II
Divinity II

I also thought Skyrim was excellent, some of the best mod support where you could change entire game. Also fallout games were good, namely New Vegas and 4 I thought were huge in scope and plenty to do and explore. And yes NV even had factions.
 
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N

naranja

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Vanessa said:
N naranja Your name seems so familiar. Were you here before?

After I quit EQ, l had a difficult time getting back into console gaming or really gaming at all. It felt like EQ was a pinnacle of gaming back then, and everything else just paled. A console was what the plebes and 'sadly ignorant' played, and everything after EQ was so amazingly boring to me. The odd faux yet very real "social" aspect of the game was unmatchable, but then again, EQ to me was also where I fell in love with a guildmate and she ended up being the "I was fucking a married woman states away while her husband, her and I played EQ together in the same guild" 100% true story and to this day (unless she had some guilt-ridden confession to him years later), he never knew.

Ya, mmorpg all the way, and EQ was the first 3d true mmorpg. Absolutely legendary in the scheme of things.
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I don't think I have been before. My name means orange in spanish so it might be that :D I feel the same as you about EQ! It was a pinnacle. The community was amazing, your story is great. My friend found love in the game too but it didn't last sadly. Other players were small business owners and accountants and stuff. Gaming was so different back then. And yeah the game itself seemed far ahead of all other games. I love the classic RPGs like Baldurs Gates and Icewinds and stuff, but they seem quaint compared to EQ. I like other MMOs but for me none of them have come close to early EQ. I loved Rift and Vanguard too.
 
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N

naranja

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Cybsled said:
Not sure why the original post is comparing live service games with single player games. Apples/oranges, if only in support unless you count a modding community churning out content like for Skyrim
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I don't think it matters because the price is not much different. I'm more concerned with how I spend the next 100+ hours or whatever. EQ was mind blowing, I would have paid more if I had to. I liked a few classic RPGs but they are so far behind now. The big MMOs of today are so huge, so much content after years.
 
N

naranja

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Kaines said:
But shit wasn't even balanced within itself. Complete Heal completely broke the game right out of the box in terms of "Effective HP" of a tank. Especially when the CH chain was a standard practice. To say EQ was "balanced" is to completely view everything about it through rose colored glasses. EQ was fun because it WASN'T balanced in any sense of the word. It so badly broken that it actually made some things fun. The difficulty had absolutely NOTHING to do with the integrity of the game. The game was incredibly easy once the mechanics were understood.
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I loved CH chains, the game was full of emergent gameplay like that. They balanced around it or nerfed stuff if it needed. It was really good. The balance is that they always kept the game challenging. Even when you learned the game and it got easier, it was still hard to do things at your level. At level 50 everyone felt strong but then Kunark kicked everyone's ass. Taking down good nameds and raid mobs was always an accomplishment. They jumped on any plat dupes and things too, the game had integrity that made things feel worthwhile and meaningful.

No buyable cosmetic stuff too. Damn. We had it all!
 
mkopec

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So why not just play EQ then? Like every year they have a new prog server coming online. They have the old school servers with like 35 expansions, plus the myriad of emulated servers that range from anything thats classic to custom with curated custom content.

You also have the vanguard emulated server thats running in alpha state. And maybe Pantheon that will release this century? Go and donate to that cause if you want more games like this.
 
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Kaines

Kaines

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naranja said:
I loved CH chains
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This is as far as i needed to read. I played a cleric from Kunark to GoD. I can tell you for absolute certainty that if the most fun you had in the game was staring at the floor hitting a single macro button for 10-20 minutes then you need a new hobby.
 
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Lambourne

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I think the term "RPG" has become very diluted in recent years. Old AD&D based games were all class based, where each character had a distinct niche, and could have their own personality that fit that niche. The only way to translate this to a single player computer game was to have the player control a party of characters.

I think the Witcher and Skyrim are closer to what used to be called Adventure games, where the gameplay centers around exploring the world and solving a main quest. It has RPG elements but it's not really locking the player down in the limits of a class like old RPGs did.

EQ definitely tried to do it like the RPGs of old, but with each player only having one class to control obviously. I think that's what some people liked about CH chains, it was at least uniquely defining to the class fantasy of playing a cleric: your character was there to heal and no one could do it as well, and the chain nature of it made it a team effort. I don't think it resulted in interesting gameplay but that's true for most classes in early EQ during raids. Rogues just stand there and press backstab every few seconds. WoW advanced the genre here with more active gameplay for all classes during raids.
 
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