I just want the game to be more than get group, smack mob, hearth; rinse repeat. A problem mentioned a few posts/pages back that resonates with me most, is the lack of challenge is the biggest problem in the game.. I'm also someone who believes that not everyone should have access to every piece of content just because.. but that there should be content for every kind of person.
I think where we continue to disagree is that you're viewing universal recall primarily through the lens of how it could be "optimized", while I'm viewing it through the lens of what problem it's trying to solve.
Because yes, if you give players a tool, they will use it. That's true of
literally every mechanic in every MMO ever made. Players will optimize travel, XP, loot, crafting, grouping, raiding, etc. The fact that a mechanic can be used outside its original "intent" isn't really an argument against the mechanic itself. And honestly, I think this is where old-school MMO design sometimes gets trapped. It starts treating player convenience as inherently suspect because players might "optimize" around it. But players optimize around
everything.
The question isn't whether the optimization exists. It's whether the resulting gameplay is better. For example, you mention wanting deeper dungeon expeditions to feel like a commitment. I actually agree with that. The problem is that commitment only feels meaningful if the content itself justifies it. This is something I've been saying for months regarding these "EQ-inspired" projects. Developers keep focusing on preserving the commitment while often overlooking whether the underlying gameplay is compelling enough to support it.
In 1999, spending six hours in a dungeon felt incredible because online worlds themselves were revolutionary. In 2026, if you're asking players to organize tomorrow night's session around logging back into the same dungeon corridor, the gameplay had better be absolutely exceptional. And that's where I think the genre has changed. Hell, that's where video games entirely have changed. These systems are no longer "novel" anymore, so you need an amazing gameplay loop to keep players engaged.
The future of MMOs isn't going to be built around convincing players to schedule their lives around virtual geography. It's going to be built around creating gameplay loops so compelling that players want to spend more time there. That's a huge distinction. The same thing applies to the economy argument. I'm actually in favor of more meaningful crafting, consumables, logistics, and preparation. I think modern MMOs often stripped too much of that away. But I don't think every "quality-of-life" feature needs to be held hostage to the crafting economy. A crafting economy should exist because interacting with it is enjoyable and valuable, not because players are forced into it to solve problems
intentionally created by the game design - it's akin to a lot of P2W games now where the devs intentionally create a problem so that they can sell you the solution.
And honestly, I think your post accidentally highlights the biggest issue facing "old school" games like this. You mention gate items, religion choices, escape ropes, potions, wagons, outposts, camping systems, travel tools, consumables, etc. At some point, we're designing twelve different solutions to avoid giving players a simple baseline capability. That is your giant red flag that we're protecting a philosophy rather than solving a problem. This is the same issue games like Ashes of Creation and so many more keep running into. Systems on top of systems, on top of systems, just to avoid adding baseline functionalities.
The thing I keep coming back to is this - I don't think the long-term future of MMORPGs is "how do we make people commit HARDER!?". I think it's "how do we create worlds people genuinely want to spend time in?"
Because hardcore raid culture, poopsocking, batphones, mandatory marathon sessions, and extreme time commitments are already increasingly niche. The audience that built EverQuest is now middle-aged. Most of them aren't looking for a second job anymore. The MMOs that survive are going to be the ones that preserve immersion, social interaction, exploration, and meaningful progression while respecting the reality that players have lives. Not because players are "weaker" than they were in 1999. But because game design has had twenty-five years to learn the difference between meaningful commitment and unnecessary friction.
