General Discussion

I agree with the OP as well. Although trammel didnt kill it, it did hurt it. AOS expansion finished it off though when they changed it Diablo. Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough. They could have just made some trammel servers with a swtich or something and left a few pvp servers. I think most people would have liked this approach better than what it present.

Another thing is each and every game that has come out after EQ with the exception of a handful of games have all had the same formula. Pick a class, kill 10, 20, 1000000 rats etc..... then go on big group raids to get shiney stuff. And while I dont enjoy this type of gameplay it seems a lot more people do considering the sheer amount of players in WOW and games like it.

I miss old UO, I have played on some free servers since its demise but it just dont capture the magic it once did. The truth is, it is very dated. They could come out with a new UO type of game that has its ruleset etc.... But I wouldnt hold my breath considering the success of EQ, WOW And all the WOW Clones.

Originally posted by Nickwtf

On September 25th, 1997, Ultima Online was released, giving birth to the modern age of MMORPGs.  Anyone lucky enough to be sitting at their computer that day with a copy of UO in their hands got to experience one of the most interesting days in video game history.  There were glitches, crashes, bugs, exploits, and unbearable lag in the path of anyone who dared log in to Origin's servers.  But behind all the problems was a bold new game, filled with fresh ideas and a scope that no prior game could compare with.  The world of Britannia was open to any who wanted to face its challenges.  You could explore, craft, hunt, socialize, and die.  With the success of Ultima Online, the future of the genre certainly looked bright.  This was only the beginning.  With time the genra would grow and mature, and soon there would be games that blew Ultima Online away, leaving it to only be remembered as the game that sparked the genra alive. Right?

Well, Maybe Not.  I'm sitting here almost 11 years later looking at the account management page for Age of Conan.  It's been out barely two weeks, and I'm about to cancel my subscription and head back to the world of Britannia.  Not on an official server, but one that emulates the feel of the game as it was back in 1998.  From the time I first entered Ultima Online up to the time I'm writing this, I have spent hours and hours playing every single MMORPG I could manage to provide time for.  I've explored the worlds of Everquest, Asheron's Call 1 and 2, Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy, Eve and Shadowbane.  I was there for the rise of Warcraft, the scams of Dark and Light, the patches that destroyed Star Wars: Galaxies, and the bot farming of Lineage II.  I've seen it all.  My list of cancelled subscriptions could stretch for miles.  So why have I gone full circle back to the game I began with.  What happened?

The problem as I see it began on March 16th, 1999, with the release of Everquest.  Now don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Everquest.  It was a good game for its time, but it was also the biggest factor in the destruction of the genre.  Everquest provided players with a much less open-ended experience than that of Ultima.  The game's mechanics were less complex, the choices a player could make were more restricted, and the gameplay was more structured.  All this would have been fine except for the fact that Everquest made a lot more money than Ultima.  They were both a commercial success, but Everquest was an absolute jackpot for the producers.  Now any company looking to fund a new MMORPG had to face a depressing fact:  The production companies were a lot more likely to provide money for an Everquest style game than an Ultima one.

So the years rolled on, and many new MMORPGs began to hit the market.  I purchased game after game eagerly anticipating the successor to Ultima; a game that would take Ultima's core principals and extend them to create an even greater immersive experience.  Asheron's Call showed some promiss with a seamless 3D world and an open ended PvP server called Darktide.  Siege warfare and harsh PvP were anticipated from Shadowbane.  Star Wars: Galaxies offered an open style economic system, and a skill structure similar to Ultima.  There was hope in the air, but that hope would quickly transform into despair.

In April 2000, Ultima Online, in an attempt to inscrease subscription numbers, begins a series of steps to make Ultima a lot more like Everquest.  The world is also doubled in size, but not by new content.  Instead they jusy create a second instance of the existing land.  PvP is ruined.  A year later, Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online are released.  Camelot is almost an exact replica of Everquest, except that it adds an extremely static and close-ended team PvP system.  It becomes a huge commercial success anyways.  Anarchy offers a fresh new Sci-fi theme into the genre, but I sensed trouble on my first trip to the instanced dungeons.  This was touted as a feature.  It seemed to me to be a cheap way for the developers to create less content and stretch that to more players.

Soon enough, Everquest clones were being released every few months.  Asheron's Call II, Final Fantasy XI, Everquest II, Lineage II, City of Heroes.  There was no room left in the market for another game just like Everquest right?  I thought so, and just when I was convinced of it, World of Warcraft came out,  proving me to be as nieve as they come.  I played Warcraft day and night and watched the list of servers grow beyond belief.  This game was hugely popular, but at its core, it still remained just a highly polished copy of Everquest.  Sure it looked different, but the gameplay was largely the same.  I couldn't understand why anyone thought it was so good.

So what's wrong with all these games?  Well nothing if you like them.  But if you are like me and yearn for open- ended MMORPGs, then none of these new games will really do it for you.  What happened to having a challenge?  Games should actually penalize death.  Death!...  Death should be bad.  There is no need for zones and instancing.  Ultima and Asheron's call, two of the first MMOs, had seamless worlds.  Why is the technology for it absent today?  Crafting should be as much a part of the game as hunting.  You should be able to loot players that you kill, and have them loot you.  A MMORPG should offer a feeling of being immersed, which means being part of a living, breathing world.  Today's MMOs feel more like single player games than they do their predecessors.  How about a skill based system for once and does every single game need to have classes and levels?

Today's games are over designed.  Everything is laid out for you from level one so you are never in a situation too hard or too easy.  You are guided on a path where you are faced with no challenge and constant repition.  I want to be scared in a dungeon.  I want the fear of being Pkd, and I want the exhilaration of success when I finally make it through these challenges.  I'm sick of the expected, and this is why I find myself on the Age of Conan account management page today, cancelling my subscription.

Age of Conan is a terrible game.  It is the most banal experience I've had in years.  It will outsell almost every other current MMORPG and turn the developers into millionaires.  It offers no interesting ideas of its own and simply repeats the same old crap we've seen for years.  I don't blame the developers though, because this is apparently what people want.  This is what people buy and love to play.  I didn't understand it years ago and I certainly don't understand it today.  The MMORPG market, despite a few brave souls like Eve, is devoid of interesting ideas.  The open-ended MMO is dead.  It died a long time ago.  The genre is in a sad state and will continue to be so until some developer is brave enough to try something new.  Until then, I'll be hiding out in Britannia, circa 1998.  Sorry for the rant.

I agree with every sentence of the op.

thanks for sharing.

AoC is not the cause of de-evolution of mmorpg. WoW is. AoC is like WoW but at least trys to re-evolve it somewhat. its bringing back in FFA pvp, criminal system, and player looting, mounted combat. all things from UO, so AoC is alot more like UO than WoW. this thread should be called from UO to WoW.

Originally posted by 7Fold

 Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.

Sorry I disagree and I played  at launch. still have my  8 yr old account just not active.

It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.

The devide was the thing that kept UO alive and yes it is still alive I know people who still play under the same tag I ran under with them. They have just had to expand to other severs to find the action is all.Now they just run 2 or three servers and move to wherever the action is. Not to mention look on a big server and there is still more people than there are in games like AO/DaoC/most freebee's /L2. and I'm sure I could think of more.

Personally I think it is a combination of fault and let me explain why.

developers see people screeming for more content and they try to keep up. While doing so people are bored and hanging around ala Wow style waiting for more "content" to run through. 

  /\

That is why games suck now!! no more complicated then that Period.

Now that being said here is where I agree that games have devolved like OP said and what can be done.

Ala UO style and I don't mean everything I'm sure it would work in all pve aspects as well as pvp. But the devs need to get of the podium and start making interaction with the world not  be a damn story book teller and sit in mommas rocking chair and spoon feed up the entertainment. That is the major change imo.

Make a world that is interesting and has  "it all"  and let US the players create the stories. Now this applies in both pve and pvp in the sense that yes the noobie care bear can sit over there in his nice little safe zone and never come mess with my big bad nasty fangs.  Or  he can change his mind after playing for 2 yrs and say the hell with it im going to try it.

now that also means that STIFF penalties need to involved he needs to be scared to come mess with my fangs if he thinks he will loose and the lose will cost him he will wait  until hes rdy. (even though 99%of they time they never can be "rdy") But even then all that encompassed into the proper frame can and would work and everyone would be happy im sure we have just not seen it yet.  I'm not one but care bears do have a place in MMO's as well as pvp'er and they should make it so in some way they support each other.

If a world like this is created with content and interaction and I'm sure a ton more that my mind is thinking of but I to hungry to write that would be a decent game I think. You need to own property you need to have things in the world that make it real.(books like someone said in UO) ) I ogged into uo to help a bud with something not to long ago and found a book created and a story written and left on a bookshelf in a tavern out in the middle of nowhere that was dated 2006 as an entry. THAT is emersion.  And even though most pvp'ers would say that could care less about those things the pve'ers do and both combined make a world . not one or the other. If one or the other was ok everyone would be happy right now and we would be playing that  game instead of coming here to talk about the devolution of games.

My 50 bucks worth!

Originally posted by Sophist

Originally posted by 7Fold

 Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.

It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.

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My 50 bucks worth!

http://www.mercenaries.ws/Subscriptions-mod.gif (see original at www.mmogchart.com). UO:R == Trammel.

Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.

EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever at around 220k. One might ask if Trammel really WAS a good solution. One might even ask what they were trying to solve. Why fix a problem that is not there?

/signed

This was a petition for someone to make an mmo that develops the original concept of UO right? Instead of what we have today which is a brown sea of clones, and a few daring exceptions (<3 EVE).

At least the horizon has some interesting things to bring... too early to tell but Earthrise, Mortal Online and my favourite; Darkfall Online (shut up haters, the day will come!) are all looking back to the original days of UO for inspiration. My hope is that at least one of them succeeds in creating an experience like original UO.

Developers today want to create an experience that doesn't scare anyone off, and if they could financially motivate to send someone along with each game copy that holds your hand while you play, they would do it.

To the future, and what it brings!

Originally posted by Rasputin

Originally posted by Sophist

Originally posted by 7Fold

 Trammel did hurt UO, I think they know that to. By adding exactly double the land space is going to alienate people enough.

It helped a lot more then it hurt the population was already in a sharp decline and that was the original reason for Tram. If they had never added tram trust me UO would have only made it a few years like most today.

...

...

 

My 50 bucks worth!

 

http://www.mercenaries.ws/Subscriptions-mod.gif (see original at www.mmogchart.com). UO:R == Trammel.

Can you point to ANYWHERE on the graph pre-trammel, that saw a decline? Your 50 bucks are worthless. Think a while for yourself instead of parrotting defensive dev propaganda defending their decisions.

EQ happened to UO, not any phantom "population decline". UO devs were envious of EQ's success, and analyzed that Trammel would be the answer. When Trammel hit, UO had 180k subscribers, 6 months later UO topped off forever a