Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Pasteton

Pasteton

Vyemm Raider
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There’s a fuckton of lore in this game. I can’t tell yet if it’s just random gibberish or there’s actually a sublime connecting thread because it’s purposely kept mysterious. Like I had to at one point use ChatGPT to decode a vignerion(unsure spelling) cipher I found as an ultra rare note drop off a named, and the cipher word itself was actually a huge clue into who was behind the nefarious activities that were happening. Don’t want to spoil it as it’s actually a cool story to put together and requires you to talk to random ass npcs across the world to piece together the situation.
 
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Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Server is down, see you all on the 1st. I got screens but this forum keeps saying they are too large.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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Watched some dance parties and massive trains last night, was cool. I don't often get sold on new games this hard but I fell in love with the charm and could see this being a good game.

Anyone looking for a home on launch feel free to message Noodle on Trem
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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Looks like EA is gonna start off around 8000-12000 subs for month 1. Great stuff, about where several folks were predicting.

They'll be able to pay off the starting expenses the owners fronted within the first couple months and then start paying people modestly.

Happy for them.

My initial reaction is that EA interest didn't really extend beyond the size of the old school EQ/EMU population that was present in beta. It's looking like it's about the same size. Hopefully there's positive word of mouth and press and it grows a bit for them, and then retention is nice and strong. Based on these numbers and resources generated by them I wouldn't expect some massive uptick in production speed, so this is gonna have to hold for years.

But ya there's like 3000-5000 really dedicated players of this game that I suspect they'll hold for many many months to provide a decent financial cushion.
 
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Hatorade

Hatorade

A nice asshole.
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Kirun said:
I don't think anyone is arguing that Shawn hasn't talked about his vision. The problem is that "I've explained my vision on streams" and "the game has a clearly articulated design philosophy that extends beyond nostalgia" aren't the same thing.

A lot of what you're describing is essentially a list of characteristics associated with old-school MMOs: slow progression, dangerous death, lots of leveling content, limited raiding, exploration, keys, rare gear, etc. That's a vision in the loosest sense of the word. What I'm questioning is whether those things actually constitute a coherent design philosophy for a modern MMO, or whether they're largely an attempt to recreate the feeling of playing EQ 25 years ago. And that's an important distinction.

EQ wasn't some brilliantly designed game that everyone eventually figured out was the pinnacle of MMO design - which is exactly why WoW ate its lunch when it released. It was an incredibly important game that arrived at a very specific point in technological and cultural history. The internet was still in its infancy, online gaming was relatively novel, persistent virtual worlds were new, and there simply wasn't an established template for what an MMO was supposed to be. That context mattered enormously. But that doesn't make EQ at its core an inherently good game.

The things people remember fondly about EQ weren't necessarily good design. They were novel and unfamiliar. They were things we'd never experienced before. Spending an hour traveling somewhere felt like an adventure because the entire concept of a persistent online world was an adventure. Having almost no information available about the game made discovering something incredibly mundane feel like uncovering a secret. Waiting around for a group wasn't necessarily "meaningful social gameplay" - sometimes it was just waiting around because the technology, design, and conventions of the genre hadn't evolved yet.

EQ caught fire because it was the right product at the right time. That doesn't mean it wasn't influential or enjoyable, but influence and good design aren't the same thing - and this is where I think a lot of the old-school MMO crowd gets stuck in the mud.

You can't simply take the characteristics people remember from 1999, reproduce them in 2026, and assume you'll recreate the circumstances that made people love them in the first place. We're not the same players anymore. The genre isn't the same. The internet isn't the same. We've spent 25+ years playing MMOs and other games and have developed expectations about combat, progression, accessibility, encounter design, class mechanics, UI, information, and player agency.

You can absolutely make a modern MMO with slow progression. You can make death matter. You can emphasize exploration and leveling instead of treating leveling as a 40-hour tutorial for the "real" game. Those aren't inherently bad ideas. But the whole, "EQ did it, therefore it must be good" isn't a design philosophy. And that's ultimately my concern with MnM. I don't see enough evidence that they're taking the lessons of old-school MMOs and applying them to a modern game (or in most cases - they're taking the WRONG lessons such as the vision issues). I see a lot of effort being put into recreating the conditions of old-school MMOs and trusting nostalgia to bridge the gap. That's a dangerous bet.

The irony is that a lot of the people who say "you just don't understand the vision" are themselves arguing almost entirely from nostalgia. "It was like this in EQ." "That's how old MMOs worked." "Shawn has said he wants it to feel like this." Okay - but why? What does that mechanic accomplish? What player behavior does it encourage? What problem does it solve? What does it add to the game that couldn't be accomplished in a less tedious way? Those are the questions that actually matter. And those are the questions and debates nobody seems willing to have. It's all just, "DON'T YOU REMEMER EQ....MAN?!?!".

"We're recreating old-school MMO design" isn't enough to make a successful MMO in 2026. The market is littered with games that successfully recreated pieces of older MMOs and still failed to build a compelling long-term experience. You can't spend the entire development process trying to make 40-year-old players feel 16 again and then be surprised when the nostalgia wears off. At some point the game has to stand on its own.

And ironically, the fact that they're apparently doing a good job with Shawn's stated vision makes the stuff they aren't talking about even more important. Slow progression, danger, exploration, limited raiding, etc. are all broad philosophical choices. But combat, class design, encounter design, progression systems, economy, and the moment-to-moment gameplay are what players actually spend thousands of hours interacting with. Not 400 x 400 mile zones and how long it takes to level from 39-40. EQ had fucking massive zones too. How many hours did you spend in West Karana? Or Everfrost? You didn't. You frustratingly passed through them on the way to the stuff that actually mattered.
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So see you on the 1st?
 
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Daidraco

Daidraco

<Gold Donor>
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Quaid said:
My initial reaction is that EA interest didn't really extend beyond the size of the old school EQ/EMU population that was present in beta. It's looking like it's about the same size. Hopefully there's positive word of mouth and press and it grows a bit for them, and then retention is nice and strong. Based on these numbers and resources generated by them I wouldn't expect some massive uptick in production speed, so this is gonna have to hold for years.

But ya there's like 3000-5000 really dedicated players of this game that I suspect they'll hold for many many months to provide a decent financial cushion.
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Game is almost completely boxxed into the millennial / boomer crowd that played EQ. Streamers and Youtubers are more often than not, 40+.

Everything a lot of people have mentioned here already came up in conversation with someone I brought into the game thats in his 20's that never even heard of EQ. Asked where the map key is - which shawn said there will eventually be a map. But seriously, go ahead and do that already for the starting towns at the very least. I dont care if its roughed in with just a hole to shit in, put the basic fucking map in already for noobie towns.

Which the next set of questions were just basic mechanical questions about the user interface. How to get spells, how to mem spells, how to put them on your hot bar - not that hot bar, the other hot bar, etc. etc. I imagine its even harder for people that are new to games as a whole (like a family member that wants to play games with you), because how do you tell someone over the phone, because they dont know how to message you in-game, what a fucking hotbar is without sounding like a long winded old guy, or a short tempered dickhead.

In my mind - if I was Shawn and I wanted to truly have an influx of new players to replace the old burnt out players, protecting the longevity of the game - then I would go to a nerd store/convention and setup a bunch of laptops and record exactly what people do in game and outside of the game. Steer the audience towards gamers that arent 40+ years old and make sure to separate them from players that obviously know what theyre doing. If two 16 year old kids figured out how to do something together, thats great - but take note of what it was, and make sure you recorded the conversation.

Then take all of that data back and really, really, hammer in some basic noobie tips / popups. Its one thing to get completely overwhelmed with popups at the beginning of a game and I wouldnt want that. But to see what a young player does, organically, and then copy that train of thought into the games noobie tutorial would go a long ways. Have a question mark at the top right, next to the "X" for every window pane. etc.

But most importantly, have the ability to turn all this noobie shit off for my own sanity. :trump:
 
Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Araxen said:
EA? No. By the time 1.0 gets here I would say yes just because there will be a ton more content.
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There's already a lot to do. I played for 6 months or more and never hit max level on any toon. I did take almost every class to 15 or 20 though.

I'm sure the DE grind will drag that out.
 
A

Amycus

Lord Nagafen Raider
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123
Was sad to see beta end, though I am pumped for EA of course.

I had a ton of fun during my months in beta. I didn’t take a toon to 60(deliberately) but had a 50 and several around 30 or so.

Funnily enough I’m planning on starting as a class I never played in beta until a couple weeks ago.

Game really scratches an itch for me. 90% of the groups I was in(all pugs) were fun for me. Some were folks trying to push the limit which was fun, and others were more chill and social, but productive enough.

It’s been the most fun I’ve had in an mmo in years. Honestly probably since the old minivan dad raids with Noodle in WoW. I’m super pumped!
 
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Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Kharzette said:
Made a few characters on Trem. Diggin the twin braids on the elf maidens, were those always there?
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They've been updating hairstyles, animations, etc for awhile now. Pretty impressive how much they've done in the last few months.
 
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