you might on occasion see someone's cybering message accidentally in group/raid chat. or perhaps having someone hit on/flirt with a female character not realizing it might be a dude in real life.

From the days of diablo 1...if you wanted to play the warrior or mage you had to be a male charcter. if you wanted to be the rogue you had to be a female character.

What you're describing, for me at least, is what I like to refer to as pseudo nostalgia; a fake sense of longing for something that wasn't all that great to begin with. These are the sort of stories that are funny now and even somewhat romantic, but at the time you were shouting at your screen, swearing at your cat and booting your computer tower. It sort of reminds me of a camping story my friends often mention; where we laugh and talk about how we almost died of hypothermia up in the Scottish highlands; it's funny now and a great story, but it sure as hell wasn't funny at the time.

Remember Goldeneye? Great game, so much fun. Some of my best childhood memories playing that game. Go back and play it now; it absolutely svcks by modern standards. Sure, games might have become more forgiving over time, but for good reason too.

Ah, no Chesapeake -- must've been a copy-cat killer.

I dunno, man- I played UO for nine years... and it was fun- even at the time it was all happening. I loved each of my characters that I had- cancelling my accounts was tantamount to committing murder in a way I have not ever felt since.

I love how people look back at something with nostalgia and then claim that it was the best and that todays mechanics and rules are crap. See you people in 15 years.

I don't like to be punished and frustrated while playing a game I paid for. It's not challenging to me it's just a pain in the ___.

I loved the old school MMO's. Biggest reason I can't wait for them to get Pantheon out the door. People always try to say it's nostalgia when people say they want an MMO like that, but after playing EQ on the Project 1999 servers I have to say it's not nostalgia and I love that game play.

Having an entire 100 man dragon raid on alb in DAoC /appeal the dragon not respawning and then it and about 200 adds all insta spawning right in the middle of us. It didnt end well.

That was EQ2.

I also did this. I made a Dwarf that I defected into a SK. It was a really cool idea for a quest line to change factions. I think they changed it later on. I logged in about a year ago and my Dwarf character was gone.

In all honesty EQ2 was such a let down after the sheer awesome that was EQ1.

well the initial crafting system in DAOC still is my favorite simply because you could make money and raise your crafting skill at the same time up to a point. after doing that twice i never wanted for anything that i could buy in game. pretty hard to top that.

No MMO players other than EVE players should even dare call their games difficult. Why I remember when such a word meant something. Genuinely reserved for something that tested the limits of your skill. Not your patience. Anyone can sink their time into an MMO. No matter how "difficult". It's all a grind fest to just get the best stuff and go around "proving your skill" by killing anyone who simply didn't insert the time to get the best gear.

It all sounds like a scam to me. Sounded like one then and it still does now twenty years later.

I disagree in many ways, though, when it comes to MMO's (and RPG'S in general.). You used to have more systems, more freedoms, more customization, etc..

It seems like most developers these days are too afraid to take maby risks, and implement the kind of sandboxes of old.

You can't really decide where to go in this game - you are forced to follow quest lines. You can't really choose your stats, because of soft caps. You can't build a house, or dye your clothes, or transmog your armor....The list goes on and on....

Oh the memories...

When you had to connect to internet with modem and telnet to the game and type everything you wanted to do including movement (n,e,s,w,ne,se,sw,nw) and all you saw on your screen was rolling text describing the environment you are in and the objects that were there and what directions you could take.

Back in EQ when mod rods didn't have a lvl limit on them we ust to pass them out to noobies around west freeport and tell them they were buff sticks. Was awesome to see 20 people drop dead almost at once lol or train pulling Plain of Innovation to the zone in then thunder shaking 80 mobs, you would get so much lag just from the xp spam in chat it would almost crash you. We ust to love AE pulling Old Seb, was also another source of incredible and fast xp and it was almost another crash from all the xp spam in chat.. or going to crystal caverns and training the whole zone to the zone in then AEing them down, ust to be so many awesome ways of getting xp back in the day, now your pretty much stuck going from quest hub to quest hub

I think you may be unfairly diluting it a little bit

A lot of the nostalgia comes from the experiences - these are the things, for a lot of us, that defined what we expect from games, particularly MMORPGS. The fear of death, the seriousness of all your undertakings. Modern MMO's have lost this, or rather, they've missed it because they're aping a formula that proved you can make more money by making your game less punishing. Not to say WoW didn't have it's moments, but they weren't on the same scale, and at the end of the day it was a game crafted to appeal, rather than something that felt more like a grand experiment.

I played UO and EQ last year during Xmas for old time's sake, and they're different games now. But the feeling is still there, even though both have been chopped into little pieces to make them easier to play (I got a Mage from 1 to 50 in 2 days in EQ...shameful).

Anyway, sometimes memory paints a happier picture, but we're a funny species, some of us like to have the crap scared out of us

People always call it nostalgia and that's one of the silliest things. Go look at project 1999 for EQ where you have at least 1000 people online on an emulated server most of the day. There's a lot of people interested in Pantheon that started playing there after it was announced and they all feel the same way wondering why people insist it's nostalgia and not that there's actually people that enjoy that style of gameplay.

I agree and something the devs said but was never implemented, there was supposed to be a zone type setting (not up on all the technical) but eq1 and eq2 characters were supposed to be able to meet up and group and stuff but of course it never happened. But really by the time eq2 came out wow had its teeth into everything and was turning mmo's into carebear play land, eq2 really didnt have a chance of anything great like eq1.

Its quite simple.

More handholding = less freedom

Old games didn't have much handholding which ment players were up to all sorts of shenanigans.

You were outthere in the world and you had to find your own way, no 3000 page wiki's, no AH's, no buildcraft sites.

New games have everything polished to make everything as comfortable as possible not to hurt anyone's feelings.

If EVE is not the ultimate test for patience i dont know what is.

Oh wait just 3 more weeks and i have another 2% on my weapon traking btw. Gonna show ya pal.

EVE is crazy in that.

Oh 236 days till i can fly that ship half arsed.

35 days later, screw that ship, let's make a new plan.

Oh 321 days till i can fly that ship half arsed.

Well that was how it went for me anyway most of the time

I agree but i am afraid its going to be changed and softened up a lot. I can already see it from the beta forums and what changes have been made.

Well there are no rules to it, of course; they were only my personal opinions. I'm not saying that people don't like those type of games anymore, I'm saying they're much more of a niché market than they used to be. Most of us have moved on to, dare I say, greener pastures. The reason a lot of developers don't take these risks anymore, is for that very reason; it's a risk, and one their benefactors won't often let them take.

It's sad in some ways, but at the same time; for people who want games how they used to be, there's nothing stopping them from going back and playing those games. For people who want modern games, well, you know..

I still go back and play Machiavelli Prince of Thieves on emulators every now and then and its still awesome

XP debt on death worked well in DDO with its instances - made every one play much more as a team. I can see it being much less fun in full worlds

Oh I can fully admit that it's a niche market lol. I don't mean this in a bad way, but over the years gamers have gotten more and more babied lol. It's appealing to more and more people and as such developers need to make games so those that don't do the greatest at games are still able to enjoy and beat them.

Yeah people can go back and play on the Project 1999 servers and let people play a game 15 years old in its glory. As I've said before me and others are really looking forward to Pantheon to get a modern MMO though with old school design around it.