The MMO Golden Age:
Justin Olivetti from Massively asks whether people who missed the early (golden?) days of MMOs regret it. A few people have commented that early MMOs were much rougher than the games of today (shocking I know), but that misses the entire point of what made something like UO or EQ1 special: almost everyone who signed up was an MMO newbie, and the whole “learn the game” phase was much, much longer and more gradual than it is today.
If you have ever been part of an MMO launch, you know the early days feeling of everyone being excited, everyone exploring and just playing the game as intended (rather than min/maxing their 4th alt up to ‘the real game’). In UO and EQ1, this lasted for months rather than a week, and even after a veteran core was established, new players joining up still brought a stronger sense of ‘new guy’ than what happens today. That is why IMO it was indeed a golden age, and one that will never be reproduced again. When SW:TOR is released, the odds of that game being someone’s first MMO are slim, and it’s almost a guarantee that come release, we will have more than one website with a complete ‘walkthrough’ for the game, a complete breakdown on how best to min/max every class, and with every little easter egg revealed. None of that existed back in 97/98, and the sense of discovery and ‘newness’ was incredible.
The death of Xfire:
Now that Xfire has been bought out, and by shady characters at that, one of PC gamings oldest and more interesting tools is, IMO, on its way out. As someone who jumped on the Xfire bandwagon early, it’s a tool I’ve enjoyed using over the years, and although it’s been a while since I’ve had it on my desktop, I still check the website to see what games are getting played and how things are trending. Things like this happen all the time in the industry, but it’s always a sad day when it’s one of ‘you’ products.
Solid Evidence League of Legends is Awesome:
After two straight wins, which took a little over an hour to accomplish, Aria objected to us logging off for the night, still up for another game. Being the one to initiate a stoppage might be a first.
Further evidence: The day the new Amumu skin is released (Emumu, lulz), I without hesitation buy it with zero regret. Dude has a black teeshirt with a purple sad face on the back, I mean come on! I still consider a $10 MMO pony ridiculous, which says nothing about the $25 shortbus pony.
Final piece of evidence: Even with the release and purchase of SC2 by many Inq members, LoL still dominates our gaming time, and people log off SC2 to come play a few group LoL games during prime time.
If you are interesting in giving League of Legends a try, feel free to do it through this link. I’m Syncaine, send a friend request, and if just a few thousand people sign up using my link, I’ll have Riot create a MMO blogger-themed hero for the game. I think his name will be Blog-o-sphere, with abilities like Rant (Wall of Text crit attacks), EG Review (factually incorrect life drain), Link Spam (attention whore group heal), and finally, his ult, Friday Blog War (sucks in everyone to one area and unleashes massive Wall of Text attacks followed by a Link Spam assault). It could happen…
Late fail Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris’s rap sheet actually rhymes.
Hardcore Casual 
That is why IMO it was indeed a golden age, and one that will never be reproduced again.
Not in the current incarnation of how we see MMOs. That said, I think if there was a very significant evolutionary leap then we could see it breathe some of this excitement back into the genre.
How big a leap? Big. Big enough that we likely even end up calling it something else entirely (from MUD to MMO to ?).
If I was a betting man, I would place my money on Mobile phone technology. Particularly in the form of the slate devices and GPS which can detect directional movement (and actual location). Think paintball meets MMO meets real life.
That is a good point, as technically people who played MUDS should have been ‘vets’ of the genre, yet UO was so different in so many ways they too were mostly noobs.
That said, the internet being as accessible and ‘feature-rich’ as it is today does change things a bit. Back in 97 we simply did not have the extensive coverage and awareness of everything that we do today.
Agreed. That’s why I’m leaning more towards the next evolutionary leap being driven by hardware innovation.
Take the iPad. Right now it’s little more than a glorified iPhone. For the price, you are better off with a laptop.
But with a little vision, you can easily imagine that within 4-5 years such devices (entirely mobile) will dominate how most people interact with the internet.
So it’s not much of a stretch past that to see it as a gaming platform. With the motion feedback, a camera attached to one end (like an iPhone) and GPS.. the gaming ideas are endless.
I will never forgive AOL for preventing me from playing Everquest. :(
LOL!
I never could get into Leagues Of Legend personally. I’ve been a long-time DOTA players (until my WC3 CD broke…) and I’ve tried LoL but, it felt like it didn’t have the somewhat “darker” and more “group-based” gameplay that me fall in love with DOTA.
So far, Heroes Of Newerth has been closer to the whole DOTA experience that I had been looking for.
You might want to try LoL again, because I find it to be more group-based than DoTA. In DoTA a monster carry (and there are many) can single-handedly win the game, and not as many 5v5 battles break out where the winner is not who has necessarily farmed the most, but which team coordinates best.
I mean they are similar, but I think LoL overall plays a bit more back and forth, and rewards team play over stuff like denying and item builds.
I’ve never played HoN, but from what I’ve heard from people who have played both, it sounds like HoN is DoTA 1.5, while LoL is DotA 2.0 (so I guess it comes down to whether you are looking for a more evolved DoTA-style game, or something that just upgrades what DoTA itself is).
> So far, Heroes Of Newerth has been closer to the whole DOTA experience that I had been looking for.
As in a copy of the gameplay with improved graphics and renamed heroes?
No Chuck?
Oh ish… fixing now!
You’re still getting back into the swing of things, understandable. :P
3D vision with shutter glasses and Wii controler like input devices combined with photo-realistic holograms could be the next-gen step of MMORPG’s. This would be introduced first in FPS tho.
There is really nothing like the early days of EQ1.
Thanks for the headsup on Xfire there [leading me to discover Raptr as a replacement for Xfire] . Seems Raptr is even better in terms of integration with gaming services [Xbox/PSN/Steam/All Messengers] , can even import entire Xfire history into raptr and off you go.