This is the type of gaming I miss..

In my continuing effort to provide you all the happiness you deserve, let me suggest Vanguard then. Oldskool feel, with newer, modern, quality of life elements. Did I mention it's f2p now?

I find this demotivational to be relevant to this thread.

http://verydemotivational.files.word...misfortune.jpg


50% of my EQ time felt like being the guy standing in on the sidewalk.

haha...that reminded me of the last time I grouped in EQ. Tanking/pulling as a paladin in The Dreadlands. I'd bring the lone mob back to the group consisting of an enchanter, a wizard and some others I don't recall (probably a cleric). The enchanter would occasional cast buffs, but usually just sat there, while the wizard would sit there and do his nova when the mob hp was at 1/4. It was my last group, and I remember it vividly, because I realized I was doing all the freaking work...running around pulling, holding agro, bashing...I realized this was the way it was with pretty much every group I had experienced.

From then on, I just solo'd.

But the point is that, to a lot of people, those quality of life elements bar a game from being "old school." Old school games didn't have quality of life, they just had soul sucking "features" that were fun when compared to no other alternatives.

Well .. isn't that interesting.. Isn't it you that started calling others out because YOU don't like their play style or gaming.. YOU arguing to me about my likes and dislikes about PvE play style is like arguing to a PvP fan that only PvE is real gaming and PvP sucks....... THEY can both co exist if the devs allow it.. Get the point yet?

There is a difference, between arguing opinion vs opinion, and disagreeing with someone's opinion and resorting to insults. I may disagree with your (and those who share your opinion) but I didn't resort to insults. I was responding to a post that said the way I like to game makes my brain smaller; so yeah, I was insulted.

I never said anyone was wrong. I never said anyone was stupid for liking one or the other. Calling someone out on their opinion is not the same as calling them stupid for their opinion.

You started this discussion on an open public forum, don't be shocked when people disagree with you.

And as I pointed out in my original response, and subsequent ones. Your apparent preferred style of gaming is freely available whenever you chose to avail yourself of it. If you chose to ignore the quest lines, you may do so. There are mobs. Go grind them. Find some friends who wish to do the same and hit a heroic area. Plenty of world bosses out there for you to have open world raids against if that's what you want.

Get my point yet?

Not to say this is the right way to answer his post, but that's what I miss about EQ: a real sense of community. The need to have a good rep on your server, because it was the key to being successfull... helping others so you would get help when you need it. Yes EQ1 sucked in many ways, too much time wasted on many things... but it did have a community and made people get together to achieve stuff. The community was at the server level, not just your 8 man run ether. No other game came close, except DAOC in a very different way as it was RVR.


Now it's all about 'I can do it all myself!' everyone is a superhero... "oh you killed this lvl 1 Bandit byt spamming a skill three times, you are a true Hero!'
Your story.. is not your story, its a predefined path from which you can not escape longer than a couple of lines in the dialog.
The game is so easy from level 1 to 50 it's only funny the first time, then less so afterwards just like most single player games. 90% of the current gameplay in TOR is single player... and does not justify a monthly fee.

Bring back the community, the cooperation, the challenge and the adventure.

Instancing and removing death penaltys killed the MMO genre.

Someone give this man a Hero cookie

I get what you are saying. And I'll grant you the game is easy to solo. But I disagree on the lack of community.

First off, even in the Hay-day of Everquest, the only community you had was one the players made for themselves. The game or devs did nothing to encourage or discourage it. Just being a player in EQ did not guarantee you access to the community. If you were introverted and didn't talk or socialize, you could still progress in the game by playing the right class, and no one would ever know you existed. I had a druid who's sole purpose was for me to solo when I was feeling anti-social. Got to 55. Never grouped. I also had a bard, who was 65, and grouped all the time. You had to activally participate in the community to even notice it was there. Using outside game resources. There were no 'Official' EQ forums, not at first anyway. You had to go to other, fan crated, sites to participate, or belong to the right channels (once they added channels) to be a part of this 'grand Community'. And even then, most servers, and I'll be yours was no different, were basically the same few dozen people. Organizing, chatting, putting the alliances together. Few dozen. Maybe even as high as 50 people on a high pop server. They were the ones organizing everything. Everyone else went along for the ride. Sure maybe there were a couple hundred people total in your alliance, but most of those people came and went unnoticed. Every server had a core group of community leaders that held everything together.

Players. Not Devs. Not game mechanics. Players.

Flash forward to now. SWTOR, WoW, maybe the next great one, ESO or something. They all have (or will have) great communities. But you have to know to look. You have to go out and participate. Being on the server doesn't guarantee you access. Most of them are using unofficial resources to organize and stay in touch. Fan sites, facebook pages, twitter, in-game chat channels. Just like old times.

Players. Not Devs. Not game mechanics. Players.

Players drive the community, and if the community sucks, it's not on the devs. It's on the players. If you don't think your server has a community, go out and look. Get involved and build one worth having. Keep your blackball lists if you think those make such community builders (they don't). Make a chat channel for guild alliances and flash point LFGs. Make sure other people know about it. You'll find the community is there.

Regarding 'Your story is a predefined path from which you can not escape longer than a couple of lines in the dialog.". How is any other video game any different? Either you're a grain of sand in a sand box, and the only impact you have on the game is the impact on the community (see above), and not the game itself. Or there is plot that you can follow, and while it feels immersive to you while you are in it, you know it's not unique to you, because everyone else is doing the game thing. At least the later offers you the illusion of impacting the game (See the end of any Class's story line). big sand box games offer you no chance to impact the game world. Just the community. (Which again, is on the players, not the devs.)

Video games are lines of code executed by machines. You're never goign to get a personal story unless you have a personal coder. At which point, go grab a case of beer, a few bags of chips, some dice, and some pencils and paper and invite some friends over for DnD night, because that's what you are really looking for. Skip the video games.