"Eve Wyrwal"*
Fortunately that's why this blog exists, and this post will briefly cover a few of the more commonly contested features of past and present MMOs. I am right, everyone who disagrees is wrong. It really is that simple.
On the subject of EverQuest
If you took the golden age of EQ and launched it now, how long would it last? Naturally the fanboys and hardcore purists would have you believe it would still be the revolutionary gaming experience it was "back in the day". Fuck off, would it. The truth is the majority of players only ever put up with the more shitty and ill-conceived mechanics because there was literally no alternative at the time. Let's not forget EQ was the first 3D MMO, or at least the first to have any significant impact (before someone comes up with a predictable "uh, actually
Anyone who's ever enjoyed playing MMOs will have rose-tinted memories of their personal defining MMO experience. But don't make the mistake of thinking what worked in that case will automatically work now. A lot has changed since EQ. WoW has happened, and has given a lot of people a taste for gaming that is polished and efficient and doesn't force them to waste time with the tedium. You might not like that, and you might feel that they're somehow debasing your beloved genre and that the only solution is to return to the boring, laborious shit that came out before anyone bothered to give any thought to what was fun. You're no better than a WoW player, just because you played EQ. They're both just about pressing some buttons and watching an XP bar increment. Grow the fuck up, you worthless, self-agrandising cunt.
On the Subject of Fast Travel
Oh yes, the ever-popular "OMG fast travel is so carebear". I read one thread where some moron suggested that actually he would be happy if it took an hour to travel to a group, as long as there was interesting stuff to do on the way, like being attacked by bandits or whatever. What about the people who are sitting on their thumbs waiting for you to get there, you absolute fucking dick? Is it fun for them, sitting there doing nothing? Jesus fucking christ. That is such a telling post, as it illustrates the utterly "me! me! me!" attitude these people have to MMOs. Fuck what's best for the game, as long as it works in a way that gives me the opportunity to demonstrate how knowledgeable and experienced I am, because I played EQ so naturally someone of my calibre would want mechanic X to operate the same way in this game, never mind if it's actually fun or not. And if you don't like it, you must not be a very good player.
Which brings the subject back around to difficulty, which I have already treated in dedicated post. Because spending an hour traveling to a group is not difficult. It's not more "difficult" to press the forward key for an hour than it is to press "take me to location X". It's simply more time-consuming.
Which isn't to say I'm a fan of teleporting in MMOs, but the game really needs to have it's content designed in a way that minimises the necessity to zoom to the opposite site of the world at the touch of a button. Vanguard is piss-poor in this respect. The unbelievably tiresome unicorn & shadowhound mount quests are notorious for requiring you to take the longest possible journeys, backwards and forwards across the game world, just to get to yet another region where you have to grind ever-increasing numbers of the local fauna. If you're going to come up with bullshit like that, you better believe there ought to be teleporters.
On the Subject of Spawn Camping
You've got to be fucking joking. Now and again some fucking retard will lament the decline of epic spawn camps, and how much fun they were because of the social aspects of sitting around doing nothing for hours on end. Let's not forget that spawn camping is the result of a fundamentally flawed game mechanic, namely creature respawning. The concept of killing a creature, only for it to magically reappear some time in the future is ludicrous enough, but to suggest that it's actually a positive thing which should be encouraged and in fact made as long-winded as possible is abhorrent. Hey, what shall we do this evening? I know, let's go and park our characters at some boss spawn, and then do nothing. Great! And that's even before you introduce the issue of kill-stealing, because it's not like you're the only group that needs whatever piece of shit quest item or weapon or armour might, but also might not, drop. But forget instancing, because, you know, original EQ didn't have that so it's A Bad Thing.
The Field Marshal's Final Thoughts
"Hardcore" MMO purists are like the fucking Amish, stuck in the past and stubbornly refusing to accept any of the real progress that has been made since EQ. If only they'd fuck off into a little community of their own where they can be culled by the occasional psycho gunman and stop polluting the rest of the world with their shitty, worthless opinions.
* AKA "Ewa Wyrwal", or "Iga" if you're searching for MET-Art sets. Enough said.
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