A while back, I was reading a thread on Reddit when a player managed to sum up nearly three decades of the push-pull of old vs. new MMO design in a few quick sentences. These things leap out at me. It happened to be about Pantheon, but that’s not why I clipped it to think about later.
I don’t mean to put words in Halfwise2’s mouth, but my takeaway from his clever observation is that merely going back to old-school design and repeating it is never going to work well for MMORPGs, as we’ve witnessed for so many years. All of the problems that originated in the early MMOs were “solved” by necessity in the ways he describes along the way, and it’s valid not to like the way they were solved. But… those problems still exist in old MMOs and in throwback MMOs, and they still need solving. You can’t just pretend them away.
As an example that will probably not be as provocative as the ones you’re about to propose: I really hate bound items. I understand why developers came up with the idea; it keeps down gear gluts, forces people to keep grinding, reduces alt twinking, makes RMT harder. But each of those is also a problem generated by other parts of the game that I also don’t like; I’d rather see a rich sandbox with less importance on gear drops to begin with, and I will forever see bound items as a hasty bandage for an MMO’s self-inflicted wound.
What’s a classic MMO problem you wish the genre had solved a different way?
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!
