Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Drapdis said:

I think you lost the plot here if you think WoW didn’t have a lot of content out of the gate. Do I need to remind you the budget and number of employees at blizzard? What are you saying?

people need to think of this mmorpg as a Eq emu server mod and not as a full fledged mmorpg. The expectations are insane here. It’s not redefining anything and it’s not going to be a game you play for a decade. It cannot be that. It’s a highly customized eq emu server that you need to pay a subscription for. To some that sub will be worth it since the small dev team has more control over things than a normal eq emu server and it can add features beyond the eq system/engine constraints.

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You're kind of proving the concern without realizing it. Nobody is saying, "Why isn't this competing with Blizzard's 2004 headcount and budget?" That's a strawman. The issue isn't that it's not WoW-scale. The issue is that it's charging like a modern live service while being framed as "basically a premium EQ emu."

If the pitch is, "Lower your expectations, this isn't a full-fledged MMORPG, it's a highly customized EQ server with a sub fee," then cool, but that still has implications. You don't get to simultaneously say: "This is a niche dad-game passion project. 5k subs will sustain it. It's not meant to redefine anything. It's not going to be a decade-long game!". And then also expect people not to question the business model, longevity, or design philosophy. Because once you introduce a recurring subscription, you're not in hobby-server territory anymore. You're in service product territory. And service products are judged on sustainability, cadence, and value - not "Hey, EQ charged a sub fee! And this is basically EQ!".

Also, the "it's just an EQ emu mod" framing cuts both ways. If that's the standard, then expectations should be lower - including around monetization, polish, and design stubbornness. But what we're seeing instead is hardcore defense of 1999 friction mechanics as if they're sacred design pillars that must be preserved at all costs. You can't sell something as a paid, evolving MMO experience and then retreat to "it's basically a boutique emu server" when criticism comes up.

And let's not rewrite history about content either. WoW had a massive budget, yes. But it also had clear progression lanes, raid targets, dungeons, battlegrounds, professions, PvP systems, and a content pipeline from day one. It wasn't just "log in and dad-vibe." It had structure. If MnM wants to be a smaller, curated experience? That's fine. Truly. Not every MMO needs to be a 10-year live-service monster.

But then own that. Own the scale. Own the limitations. Own the reality that it's a boutique product with boutique longevity. What people are pushing back on isn't that it's small. It's that it's small while simultaneously trying to present itself as big - massive world scale, sprawling zones, tons of classes, tons of races, old-school friction and nostalgia that will magically stretch limited content into something deeper than it actually is, etc. If it were a tight, curated, deliberately scoped experience, people would judge it as such. The tension comes from trying to be both - a small-team indie passion project and a spiritually massive old-school MMO epic.

Kirun said:

old-school friction and nostalgia that will magically stretch limited content into something deeper than it actually is, etc.

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Gotta be careful about 'stretching' content via availability of content too. If the end-goal (full BIS, a complete set of X, etc) is too far out, and a player feels they can't expect to ever achieve it, they may feel compelled to give up the pursuit earlier than they otherwise would have.

I was going to reply but Kirun nailed it. Well done, sir.

Hekotat said:

I think most people are holding out for EA, myself included. I dont want to burnout before then. This game will do fine.

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I agree. Of my team of 6 only three wanted to play this weekend. Not because they’re not excited about the game, but because there’s no sense investing more time into these characters knowing that we’ll be rerolling for beta/early access anyhow.

We did about three hours in Fallen Pass killing skeletons last night, exp was flying. We’ve had our monk pulling in the past, but he wasn’t playing last night so the bard in the group volunteered. Guy kept the exp flowing the whole time, and controlled the pulls like a boss. If he brought back 2 things, one would come into camp already charmed. If he brought back three, he mezzed the third. When he brought a fourth once he used his charmed pet to tank the fourth while we killed the first thing. Was pretty impressive. We had a necro pumping mana into the cleric and occasionally me (wizard) - this kept the gravy train rolling along smooth as silk.

Was a lot of fun and we are really excited about beta/EA.

I played for maybe an hour or two a few cycles ago and thought it was a bit laggy and punishing. But I will definitely give the game a look once it goes live. Digging in for ever 4-hour long playtest just isn't interesting to me.

I would take any extrapolation from the playtest dropoffs with a grain of salt.

wtf? I can’t think of an mmo that has a more narrow scope than this one. Where do you even come up with this stuff? The whole selling point of this game is the old school feel, including sprawling zones / dungeons and a large game world. Exactly like eq. That is precisely the scope.

Someone else said it best this game will cannibalize the eq emu player base and create its own niche. I suspect it will last a few years before it dies off or enters some low pop steady state that it will churn along at with the diehards. Some of you seem to perceive this outcome as another example of a failed mmo. I see it as a fun time for 1-2 years. I’m not even sure how you would define success ,but given how intentionally small the inputs have been money/employee wise , it isn’t likely going the way of ashes.

And I also didn’t play this stress test, despite obviously the fact I’m gonna play release, for the same reasons as others. You put 2000 hours into an alpha, with around 500 at max lvl, in a game that hasn’t released over half its content yet, you’re just not going to be inclined to roll up again on another char that will be deleted. Same goes for others I know , even tho all of us played prior stress tests. I suspect we all feel like we’re just waiting for the game to release at this point

Pasteton said:

wtf? I can’t think of an mmo that has a more narrow scope than this one. Where do you even come up with this stuff? The whole selling point of this game is the old school feel, including sprawling zones / dungeons and a large game world. Exactly like eq. That is precisely the scope.

Someone else said it best this game will cannibalize the eq emu player base and create its own niche. I suspect it will last a few years before it dies off or enters some low pop steady state that it will churn along at with the diehards. Some of you seem to perceive this outcome as another example of a failed mmo. I see it as a fun time for 1-2 years. I’m not even sure how you would define success ,but given how intentionally small the inputs have been money/employee wise , it isn’t likely going the way of ashes.

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No one is saying it's going the way of Ashes. But when you start slapping monthly fees onto an EQ Emu server, then player expectations in 2026 change. People will not be content with sitting around while a single guild of 100 people monopolize the limited content that a "small scoped" indie-dev team can produce.

Deruvian said:

I played for maybe an hour or two a few cycles ago and thought it was a bit laggy and punishing. But I will definitely give the game a look once it goes live. Digging in for ever 4-hour long playtest just isn't interesting to me.

I would take any extrapolation from the playtest dropoffs with a grain of salt.

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This test is open for 3 days, not 4 hours.

Quaid said:

It's always been about gearing time, rather than 'content consumption'.

WoW did this shit really really badly early on and got stuck with it. Everything in BWL was an upgrade over everything in Molten Core, and I think I got 3 pieces of Tier 2 in a single BWL clear one time. Set bonuses made previous tier gear obsolescence even worse. Shit was absurd.

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Not doubting you but mathematically BWL would drop 1-2 tier pieces per boss x 8 bosses = 8-16 drops per raid, in a 40 man raid that is 0.2-0.4 tier drops per raid per person. 3 in 1 run would be a pretty solid outlier not surprised you remember it 20 years later lol

Pasteton said:

this game will cannibalize the eq emu player base

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We'll see about that.

Kithani said:

Not doubting you but mathematically BWL would drop 1-2 tier pieces per boss x 8 bosses = 8-16 drops per raid, in a 40 man raid that is 0.2-0.4 tier drops per raid per person. 3 in 1 run would be a pretty solid outlier not surprised you remember it 20 years later lol

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Which is what drove the player base to demand smaller raids. There is a reason WoW eventually went to the 25/10 raid dynamic.

Kithani said:

Not doubting you but mathematically BWL would drop 1-2 tier pieces per boss x 8 bosses = 8-16 drops per raid, in a 40 man raid that is 0.2-0.4 tier drops per raid per person. 3 in 1 run would be a pretty solid outlier not surprised you remember it 20 years later lol

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Ya I was also pretty intense about spending DKP efficiently back then. May have been lucky drops and my behaviour that caused that outcome.

I don’t doubt their lack of content , or gating of their content thru the slow progression/lack of instancing, will burn out people over time. you aren’t going to recreate eq in 2026 with how much the mmo landscape has changed . But you only need a few hangers ons for the game to persist in some small form, after everyone else has labeled it a failure. While I suspect this game will do better than a lot of the claims here, all I am saying is the various fail states that are being suggested are not even that disappointing as most of us who love it , enjoy it for what it is and are not expecting the second coming of Christ to keep us busy for the next 20 years.

There’s at least a years worth of fun for just about any boomer gamer from eq in this game, that is my contention and the hill I’ll die on. doesn’t sound impressive but sadly is a better state than 90% of the slop that’s come out in recent decades

Pasteton said:

I don’t doubt their lack of content , or gating of their content thru the slow progression/lack of instancing, will burn out people over time. you aren’t going to recreate eq in 2026 with how much the mmo landscape has changed . But you only need a few hangers ons for the game to persist in some small form, after everyone else has labeled it a failure. While I suspect this game will do better than a lot of the claims here, all I am saying is the various fail states that are being suggested are not even that disappointing as most of us who love it , enjoy it for what it is and are not expecting the second coming of Christ to keep us busy for the next 20 years.

There’s at least a years worth of fun for just about any boomer gamer from eq in this game, that is my contention and the hill I’ll die on. doesn’t sound impressive but sadly is a better state than 90% of the slop that’s come out in recent decades

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I actually respect the honesty in this take more than most of the "this will quietly sustain 10k forever" optimism. But it also kind of proves the larger point.

If the expectation is: it won't recreate EQ in 2026, content will burn people out, it'll shrink to a handful of hangers-ons and that's fine because we got a year of fun…then why is this an MMORPG at all? If the real pitch is "a chill dad-vibe experience with your EQ buddies for 12 months," why scope it as a population-dependent, contested-content, no-instancing MMO that structurally requires density to function? Why not just build a tight co-op, open-world RPG for 4-6 players with persistent servers, curated content, and no pretense of a living world that needs warm bodies across level ranges?

Because the moment you say "MMORPG," you're implicitly promising: a sustainable population ecosystem, social layers beyond your immediate friend group, content pacing that supports long-term engagement, and a world that feels alive, not hollowed out. If the real design target is "a nostalgic hangout that lasts a year," then the MMO framing starts to look less like an "artistic vision" and more like scope creep fueled by sentiment.

And that's the tension people keep circling around. You can absolutely say, "I'll get a year of fun out of this and that's enough." Cool. That's valid. But once you build a massively multiplayer framework with contested content, progression gates, and social dependency, you're no longer designing for "a year of fun with the boys." You're designing for systemic longevity. And if longevity isn't actually the goal, then the structure itself becomes the overreach.

That's the question nobody wants to answer: If this is just a cozy dad nostalgia project with a natural 1-2 year lifespan… why does it need the full MMORPG scaffolding at all?

Lets all go play Vanguard while waiting for this to release.

So remember a while back I said if you don't provide players with reasonable in-game tools they will look to third party solutions, and then you lose all control of those tools?

Ya.

It’s definitely something enjoyable as a stand alone ‘group rpg’ or whatever you’re trying to pigeonhole it as. I’m looking forward to the ‘scaffolding’ of an mmorpg on release, like chasing for contested, stuff like that increases enjoyment for me, I don’t have to win to enjoy that aspect of a game, I played eq for years losing out on races sometimes , not everyone just whines and quits when they can’t access all content. I’m simply acknowledging that the player base and mmo genre has changed enough that this mindset may not be prevalent enough to keep a game in existence for longer than a year or two. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have it at all, i for one am looking forward to the time when shits being discovered and figured out and beaten for the first time etc. I’m not under the illusion that element will last forever and I don’t need it to. The mmo aspect doesn’t count as 1) a failure or 2) something they should never have done, if it ends up winding down like this. Anyone who thinks they’ll be playing *any* game for 5-10 years these days is delusional. But there will be some nostalgia autists that will do that too.

The minimap thing is honestly a waste, people constantly referring to a map will end up wasting *more* time than people who learn landmarks and can read. Esp night harbor, shit is laid out for you pretty clearly. Like I said before, people have already made incredible detailed maps of places like Telekir, it’s not as helpful as you might think, because of the verticality , the winding and forking and overlapping its dizzying to look at those maps and a lot easier to recognize points of interest to navigate by (which is honestly a fun aspect of the game for exploration)

Really pins down how good the point of interest and world design is in this game that you can navigate pretty well without a map just because of how the zones are designed. Game like ffxiv or black desert looks much more attractive but the landscape is so banal and random generated feeling that it’s much easier to get lost in those games without a map