A while back, there was a thread on the MMORPG subreddit arguing that “minmaxing an information abundance has ruined MMORPGs” and posited that devs had “stopped fighting it.” After the thread spiraled out of control, the mods probably wisely deleted it, though some of the conversation was intact. In a nutshell, the thread harkened back to a supposed golden age of mystery in MMOs when no one knew anything and everything was a fresh discovery.
Of course, if you were around in the early days of MMOs, you know that the premise is simply wrong from the start. Even Ultima Online had a massive online information database with bloggers, guides, and forums in 1997. EverQuest players printed out maps from the very much live and online websites with every scrap of info available about the game. Asheron’s Call’s entire spell reagent system was spoiled almost immediately because of the wealth of online resources made available. A dude from my own EQ server had World of Warcraft’s Thottbot online before the game even launched. And on and on and on. Those glory days of no-info didn’t exist, and I have to agree with the commenters that those folks who believe it happened that way are really just saying they didn’t know (and they could approach modern MMOs the same way if they wanted to!).
There are so many things people believe are true about MMOs but just… aren’t. Tell me some of them today: What are some demonstrably wrong things about old MMOs people insist are or were true anyway?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
