I remember when you died in EQ, you lost everything and it took two hour to get back to your body so you could beg someone to go down into the dungeon and drag your corpse back to you. If you were lucky that would happen, if not they would hide your body and yell, "Easter egg hunt!" Or remember when you had to wait 24 to 48 hrs for quest mobs to spawn and pray to God that you hit it first? How about having two mobs being too much for you and chasing you all the way across the zone or high lvls training massive groups on you while you were fighting? But now we have whole thread about a broken MOB for a couple of days or how phasing doesn't work because your friend and you did not click the same option when the wall of red appeared. I just shake my head at this foolishness.

On that note...what past MMO craziness can you remember that would have the players of today howling?

Vitae Penalty

You are free to delete everything when you die. That you don't do this says you don't want such a system.

On a side note, I do recall in Everquest when a couple players paid me to guide them to where they had died, which was at the bottom of a deep pit. They promptly jumped in the pit again to get their bodies, and died.

shouting to zone class/level and lfg for hours sometimes before youeven starting earning experience on a "hell level". then dying and losing all that experience or sometimes deleveling. good ole EQ taught me alot about how to play these games.

no AH just folks sitting in the tunnel spamming trades/asking for price checks

Hahaha too funny! I remember paying people to buff me in the Arwic mines, so I could make the jump down into the subway on Asheron's Call.

Exp loss on death, coupled with all gear staying on your corpse AND in a PvP environment where anyone could kill anyone at any moment anywhere. That was my first taste of MMOs with EQ all those years ago. Oh, and 'customer support' that wasn't in the least bit supportive and could actually be vindictive.

exp loss on death, big fan

Everything that possibly happened in Ultima Online.

1. There was a time when the polymorph spell didn't criminal flag you (make it so that you can be attacked by anyone) so, we had a buddy that was a mage that would wait until peak hours and then polymorph into an orc and change his text to red. He would then mimic a mobs movement by stepping two steps slowly, then stopping and saying something stupid, repeat. He would do this all the way up to the bank where all of the players gathered. We would be waiting at the bank. We would go into "attack mode" and scream "ORC! KILL IT!" and then run up but neither of us would attack him. Other people at the bank would attack our orc buddy (an illegal act- as you are not attacking a criminal flagged player) which would criminal flag THEM. We would then yell "GUARDS!" which would summon guards that would insta kill everyone that had attacked our friend. We would then loot their corpses and throw everything into our bank (which was conveniently right next to us.)

2. I remember a guy that sat outside the main road of the main city with eight (yes, 8!) dragons that he had tamed. He named them all "a" and then cast invisibility on all of them. He would wait for you to run by and then say "a kill" and click you...

3. I remember looting a rival guild's ENTIRE tower by stealthing into it. We changed the locks and drug EVERYTHING they owned to the bank and gave it all away.

You know... stuff like that.

OP, take a look at Shroud of the Avatar. They are doing some great things to create a more old school game.

I loved EQ, but I don't think I want to do corpse runs any more. I just don't have the time for it now.

Trying absolute virtue in FFXI before they patched him. That was crazy.

In some ways I'm glad archaic systems are gone. It feels like the genre is heading towards the other extreme though. Instead of incredibly punishing mechanics, it's as if every mistake a player can make (even by design) that may cause a slight inconvenience gets somebody up in arms about how the game is designed poorly because it causes them to frowny face.

I remember when cell phones charge by the minute as there wasn't really any plans back then.

I remember when internet access gave you x number of minutes a month and you paid out the nose if you went over. You can thank AOL for going to a flat $20 all you cna eat fee.

I remember back when people had to use a telephone purely for talking.

I remember you use to have to write a letter with pen and paper and then stick a stamp on it (you had to lick it, none of that self adhesive junk), walk it to the mailbox and then wait days to get a reply

Which one of my old school, back then it was really hard items are you going back to? None ? OMG you people are so spoiled today!

Getting on a list in order to join a full group lol. "Hey man its been 2 hours, can I get a list check again?"

My favorite thing to do in Everquest (which they "fixed" after a bit) was to transform myself into the entrance of the town and then run away from people trying to enter. This was due to being able to transformed into a random near by object, such as the town gate, and if you rooted yourself all root effects where removed once the root spell ended, so you could move while transformed. That and chasing people through zones transformed into beds or other furniture...

EQ was an odd game really. Buggy as all get out.

I remember all that, and bartering for bones so I could cast Find Corpse, or summon a skele. And chasing Aviaks for days on end trying to get through a Hell Level. Being scared witless as I explored because, well, death was scary and you could lose days even weeks of play if you ran into a streak of bad luck (I bound myself in the same room as that stupid woman who dropped JBoots, and died repeatedly while AFK .. and never got the JBoots even though I camped there for 36 hours straight). Running from trains... being responsible for trains... accidentally killing a same-faction NPC and tipping me over the edge so all my own kind hated me.

Mining in Ultima Online, with more ore than I can carry so I had to click and drag it across the floor to the smelting thingy outside, then panicking when Dread Lords appeared through gates trailing Dragons and Hell Hounds and god knows what. And a year later, as a Glorious Lord, kicking their asses and laughing at their OooOOoOO, even though we all has mastered Spirit Speak. Roleplaying in the taverns and playing with fire walls, accidentally getting flagged as criminal then running like crazy as everyone in range chases you for a little bit of notoriety credit. Sods.

Glory days, and my absolute fondest memories of gaming out of 32 years.

But I'm so glad I don't have to relive some of them now. I don't think my heart could take it

I wouldn't say no to games being scary again though. There are some impressive MMOs, but to prove a point, EQ and it's shabby gfx engine did more to my nerves than any DX11 game has managed.

Oh, man. Memories.

Trading SOW for Crack!

The Scamp scowls at you, ready to attack -- what would you like your tombstone to say?

In many ways, ESO is a throwback to the first generation of MMO's. It's just got the rough edges sanded down. XP loss for Death? Meh. Corpse retrieval? Meh. Corpse Looting in PvP? Meh. We are well rid of those bad ideas.

But it still has great PvP....PvP with a purpose. Non-linear questing, so you can pick your own path. Non-instanced end-game raiding (like the Planes in EQ...) There's a lot of potential here.

Aha! I'm sorry, but that may have been me. Small world

Blackburrow Locomotives... bleh. Hated em.

Added on top of XP Loss, but then the XP gain also being halved until you dug your way out of it. That would get really ugly. Thank god EQ fixed it later.

A wandering normally friendly mob wandering into a battle, you tag it with an AoE making it unfriendly, as well as taking a faction hit making ALL NPC's/Mobs of their faction kill on sight toward you.

oh man. mining in the newb mine N of Brit...

I remember me and my buddy mining a bajillion stones of iron ore and then you'd put it into a trade window with your buddy and then run back to the forge in Brit at which point, you would cancel the trade and the ore would go back into yoru inventory, but, it was too much for you to carry, so, it would drop at your feet and you'd quickly d click it and smelt it.

and then they patched it so that the trade window cancelled if you moved more than three steps away, so, you'd throw it into a trade window and then run along side each other all the way back to town...

being able to attack a same faction npc. oh man the worst mistake you could probably makeat any level is hitting the "a" button thinking you were chatting with someone and realizing too late you hit that high level npc.

I also loved when eating food in UO helped your health regen, but, there was no "you feel full" stopper, so, you'd eat like 2,000 chickens and then go fight balrons in Hythloth and watch your health rubber band all the way from empty to full as you smacked them with a halberd...

I decided to become a traitor in EQ and spent a few days doing all the quest until I finally had to just kill the last boss. Until that was done...I was stuck no one would have we and i could do no quest. BUT...it seemed the last MOB would only spawn once a day and me and like five other people sat for days trying to click it first and then laughing as I finally got and then felt sorry for everyone else because we became friends in those long hours. We all started a guild together.

haha- Catskills?

Don't want to break it for ya but i do write letter with pen and paper adn...yeah.

Ah well i remember my first steps in anarchy online and how i loved it. If i would ever put down the rose colored glasses im sure i would hate it but thats not gonna happen.

Oh well, falling through the floor, falling out of my yalm, falling halfway through the floor and beeing stuck in it. Damn it, melancholy.