Play War Thunder now for free with my link, and get a massive bonus pack including vehicles, boosters and more: playwt.link/idyl A birthday present from me to you: a 47 minute ramble of a video about why updated versions of old MMOs are good. I hope you enjoy it and agree with every single thing I said! I love you.... Say it back.
Playing a warrior in season of discovery is really boring. Sure maybe they dont need much more damage but at least give them something fun (current runes does not change gameplay at all)
Played this video in the background while I was doing an open heart surgery on a patient. Unfortunately he passed away, but I really enjoyed the video!
Extra insight: Many OSRS players never played RS1/RS2, so they are not trying to get back to how things were when they started. This implies the problem is much deeper and speaks to a fundamental break in modern game design. If an old, polygonic game like OSRS can bring in new players in their millions, something is clearly wrong with the gaming landscape. Nobody knows how to make great games anymore. OSRS is a great game, there's no doubt about it. Not the best game, but compared to most games since 2013, it's god-tier.
So true.i never knew about any RS before until last year. I found out about it from Josh, since then its my go to grinder when the servers are down, or i play it on longer trips on my phone. Just love it. Same goes with classic wow. I never really played retail for more than a week, but since ive played bc demo when i was a kid, this has always been one of my favorite mmoRPGs until this day.
@@Domaister420 You might also enjoy Skyrim, Hogwarts Legacy, Warcraft 3, Minecraft, GTA Vice City, Crash Bandicoot 1-3, LEGO Batman series (though most of the LEGO movie tie-in games are great), and/or the Fallout series and Assassin's Creed series (early games). Just some great single-player games, focused on great game design and gameplay. Some more MMO than others, some more grindy and long-term than others. You might also like Ultimate Alliance 1 if you like Spider-Man and generic superhero/action RPG type things. Sadly, you won't be grinding for 500 hours or anything crazy, but you'll have a great time for at least 20 hours for 100% completion. Controls are not ideal on the older games, but the actual gameplay and design is far better than modern games, despite the limitations back then. :) Sadly, I cannot suggest many MMOs to you, as OSRS really is the best one in general. WoW Classic also seems good. You will likely see more of a trend to older MMOs and remakes of this sort moving forward. The data also shows that nobody is playing new MMOs -- yet OSRS has like 45 million players. It's truly massive.
I think the best reason I can describe for why I'm loving the Season of Discovery is that it lets me play WoW the way I did when I was younger. Because the phases have reduced level caps I'm not rushing to hit max level. Instead I'm playing the game the same way I did when I first got it; logging in, running around, and experiencing the world without caring if this is the most efficient way to hit level cap.
most people are doing spellcleaves/meleecleaves mindlessly farming SM to reach lvl 40, aka max level. Nothing is really changed. GS is required, XP is required to join raids, non meta classes have a hard time finding raid spots. The community is the driving factor, this will never change.
@@Gonzo13ethI started right before Sunwell. Wrath came out and I think my highest character was a 58 paladin that I used to financially support a bunch of 19/29 twinks. By the end of Wrath I had 4 80s all geared in pvp and ICC gear
@@Tokena14 All you need to do is find a guild with like-minded people. I never counted my gs throughout sod or cared what our guild group has for raids. You blame the community but it sounds like you never tried to find one for yourself. Don't play mmos as a random, especially old school ones. It was bad experience in the past as well
Old MMOs simulate that feeling of success and progression through hardship and struggle, the driving force that makes humanity what it is today. New MMOs are sterile safe bus rides where everyone gets the same adventure perfectly curated by the developers. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the latter, but man, I would trade all of this new garbage in a heartbeat to experience RuneScape back in 2004 for the first time again.
@@IcycritsThat's because you chase after nostalgia. As you admitted right here even 'non curated perfectly safe non garbage' old school is incapable of doing it for you. The problem isn't the game, be it new or old, the problem is your dream that is unachievable. You want to relive feelings that were tied to both who you are and what you experianced in past. So by all logic even 'old school' MMO's are garbage because it also failed to provide you with what you seek.
Absolute Facts!! I just want to experience an MMO like Archeage again. The way that farming in open pvp zones was required to attain good gear was the definition of hardship and struggle.
Having recently gotten really into WoW SoD, it was ENTIRELY the push into communities, from helping someone do a hard rune quest, to getting groups together to do content. The lack of LFG and the 'stickiness' of tasks is important. If you could instantly whisk yourself away from the current task, you quit and the first sign of friction. But when it takes 30 minutes of flying + walking to get into the dungeon, a single wipe, or even multiple wipes, won't scare off your group. People come together in hardship and that's what MMO's were missing, a reason to connect.
"SOD is dead to me. The leveling journey is boring, to be honest. I've leveled two characters to the 50s. I'm done with it. The end game? Oh man, these sweaty wannabes are so cringe with parse checking and having egos in an easy game. It takes forever just to join a group to do the content. I do not care to join a guild so I can stick to a consistent raid schedule. I'd rather do stuff in real life than make time for raiding. I just want to queue up and get in a group in a couple of minutes. I want a low entry barrier to get started and work my way up. In retail, I just climb at a steady pace with consistent rewards in mythic dungeons instead of getting PRE-BIS, TOP PARSE, COMP LOCKED just to do any challenging content, man. By the way, I am a sweaty gamer. I've played Tekken, League of Legends, and Starcraft 2 at a top 1-3% level. SOD for me is not a skill issue, it's a time issue just to do any challenging content when cringe lords gatekeep you, treating their raids like a NASA space mission. Why are we treating BFD and Gnomeregan like it's high-level mythic raiding or key pushing? The design elements of having raid lockouts instead of having loot lockouts like retail do greatly contribute to the gatekeeping. Yes, yes, wannabe sweats are going to yell at me to just make a group. I did before, and it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work when I just want to interact with the game, not getting competent people together. The SOD game design just isn't for me. I want more challenging mythic-like dungeon content. Hopefully, delves do that. Imagine some Mage Tower-style difficulty with 2-4 other people; that's my thing. I don't treat WoW like an esport; I just pivot to doing engaging combat. The reason why I love games like Monster Hunter and Grandblue Relink with RPG elements. I also closed my game when we spent 40 mins to get a group together for SM library only to be wiping on trash mobs, I could have leveled up so much faster on AOE farming with my mage. Yea classic isn't for me.
I got kicked from a group in classic for not getting to the instance fast enough. I got invited as the last person when everyone was already at the instance. I needed time to run to the bank. It was a disappointing experience to me.
Here's a list of the things that WoW ruined from vanilla-to-retail: - The most important thing they changed was the feeling of being in a world. Adding random dungeon finder, several difficulties to dungeons and sharding completely destroyed that - In the same vein as the above, Cataclysm put the world into a state of chaos. The longer the world stays in that state, the less it feels like a world to you because over time, the world should naturally return to some sort of stability or status quo. - adding too much complexity to standard gameplay. Having to think too much about rotations and procs and timers in regular non top-end play. It takes you out of the immersive world and makes you focus more on the gamey part of the game - Achievements, and general UI elements that are intertwined with your interaction with the world. Again, it takes you out of the immersive world and breaks the 4th wall. What's worse is that it links with the world itself, conditioning you to ignore the world and focus on the UI elements - Addons. In particular Weakauras. It links in with the point above. In the beginning, the addons that were used were less obstructive of immersion, but addons always aim to make the gameplay easier, more simple and less immersive. This isn't a comprehensive list. But I believe these are the most impactful reasons why WoW classic/vanilla is a better MMORPG than retail.
I met a guy in Cambridge who works at Jagex. They caught me off guard as I spoke about old school and they said "old school can go die in a fire" - I didnt want to push this as it was surprising to hear, but it was super interesting. They work on R3. Showed me that maybe internally there is a lot of division between the two teams. Must be hard when a lot of people prefer the other version. I wonder if Blizzard has the same internal conflict.
I don’t remember how I first found your channel, but my god you’ve become one of my favorite RUclips creators. Sincerely hope the algorithm finds you and boosts your channel. Your videos are top tier.
Idyl, you're damn fun to watch. Thanks for making the videos you do. I appreciate not only your game commentary, but your social commentary as well; I too hope we see a return to form someday. Ideally before my beard gets anymore grey in it.
I Think having both the tier system and the old school talent system is the way to go and part of the reason SOD works so well cause thats basicly what runes do.
Agreed. I’m playing paladin, and it’s great having access to things like sheath of light, crusader strike and divine storm regardless of spec. It felt way worse in wrath when those abilities were buried in another tree.
I personally loved the MoP style tier talents. People forget that the old talents didn't just get removed and go away..... they got baked into the class baseline. All those boring passive bonuses were just given to your class/spec as you leveled. It was great. And with each tier having its own theme, and usually atleast 2/3 were good choices, you had some flexibility and each talent felt useful or impactful. The vanilla trees kinda sucked with the boring +1% passive per talent point, and the newer multi-branch talent system like in DF kinda suck imo because your class lost alot of its core basic abilities, forcing you to take certain talents or go down certain paths just to pick up basic stuff like dispels, interrupts, cc, stuns, aoe or whatever that u may have had baseline as new abilities while leveling. I think that sucks.... it makes sense to talent for an improved cleanse, but not for just the basic cleanse..... or interrupt, or CC, or defensive/offensive Cd, or whatever. I imagine the newer multibranch trees can be intimidiating and confusing for newer noob players too. The tier talents like in MOP or WOD were great cause it was simple and your class/spec got alot of important core basic abilities or passives baseline just thru leveling and training. SoD system is kinda cool..... its alot like the glyph system mixed with enchants, so now you got special runes for all your armor slots that will add a new ability or passive that can really change how your class plays. It is a good idea, a work in progress but still pretty cool.... and they try to balance it so that you still have to pick the rune that works best for your spec, such as more tank based runes instead of dps or healing. But u still have the option to mix it up and take a variety of runes from different specs if u wanna go full hybrid or pick the runes that synergize well with each other for certain abilities or roles like caster melee healer ect.
my issue with modern mmo's is the hyper fixation on end game and the loot treadmill, having an endgame is important, but damn is it like most games see 90% of their game as a chore you have to get through to get to the real game. whereas older games treated the entire leveling experience as the game.
Just a heads up about the comment on the drop in player/subscription count on RuneScape 3 after Necromancy's release (mentioned at 28:20) - just a month after Necromancy released, the team at JaGex released an incredibly greedy MTX cash-grab called Hero Pass, which was a seasonal pass exclusive cosmetic rewards that was almost impossible to complete without forking over a lot of real-life money. Despite how loved Necromancy was, the insane cash-grab released just a month later was enough to make a sizeable amount of players renounce the game and its direction.
It might not be an MMO, but using BG3 music when you talked about the phenomenon being more than nostalgia at 28:42 is super fitting, and leads perfectly into your final point. There's a huge group of players out there who love games that the industry declared dead and moved on from for no real reason, and they'll throw money and enthusiasm at anything that genuinely tries to fill that gap.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: millions of people are having their glory days in modern MMOs *right now* while us old, jaded veterans are in comment sections like this one circle jerking about how much they all “suck” compared to the old stuff
@@buzzinggz556 channel is removing my replies but I believe this because I have eyes, and I see people give their experiences in this genre. Its based on actual words from actual people. But sure, the idea that someone else can’t possibly be having fun because you aren't is pretty funny
@@buzzinggz556 I never questioned nor cared about what you’re playing. But that’s cute that you’re having fun with your ancient game. Other people are enjoying other games. Which is all I said. Guess that’s hard for you to believe?
@@buzzinggz556 oh nooo, do I really? Is that why I’m name calling like you are? Which is a perfect showcase of your level of maturity by the way. Lol. Oh wait, no, I’m just calmly addressing your nonsensical spazzing as you crumble beneath the weight of your own cringe. You stopped to comment on *my* comment from a whole ass day ago and *I’m* hurt. Ok buddy 😂
As someone who loves Runescape as a whole, rs3 still has some challenging aspects to it and you can even make it more challenging for yourself. Try completing all the quests and miniquests, try getting the staff of armadyl, or even try getting the completionist cape. Plus it's really cool seeing the new content that gets made. Which a lot of it does reference and have easter eggs of OSRS. Plus the newest skill, Necromancy, was a class you could select in Runescape Classic. So they're also bringing back content and making it more modern. Idk if a lot of people know this, but MIX can be turned off in your settings and you never have to see that garbage in your life. The only downside is that bonds are becoming crazy expensive, so it is becoming harder to avoid some of the other microtransactions. I love OSRS, but to me it just seems like people love it more for nostalgia. I play OSRS, I love it but I wish more people would just appreciate rs3 a little more. I'm gonna say it as well, EoC wasn't that bad.
Great video, I understand that the Cataclysm classic bashing is a bit of memeing but I also get that people don't consider it ''classic'' but saying it's bad and nobody wants it is still a bit harsh because plenty of people ( obviously less than vanilla through wrath) are still excited for it, myself included. Alot of people didn't like what WoW turned in to after Wrath and that's fine, but for other people the point where they started disliking the direction for WoW was at a later point. I Am personally extremely happy that we have come to a point with WoW where we are getting both re-releases of the old expansions ( my personal cut off point is after MoP) aswell as Season of Discovery that can hopefully turn in to a proper classic+ at some point. Hopefully some banger MMOs comes out in the future, and hopefully the ones we already play regardless of what version of it, keeps improving.
I mean, it's because they're perfectly aware that we want "games as they were" except, we get these "Classic" and "Remaster" versions that also include a store, a battle pass/season system of some kind, dailies, etc. They've proven over the course of 10 years that they absolutely can manufacture nostalgia and still eat their cake, while we think they're "doing us a solid" for going back to what we think is their roots.
@@Jombozeus A good portion of this video is quite literally a timeline of events leading to the creation of WoW Classic, followed by all of the things that I just mentioned being introduced and how that affected the core integrity of the game and the fan reception. I wrote this comment unironically at the 20 second mark of having started the video, and rode the same rail system as what the video discussed, because the modernization of what we KNEW as the gaming industry is incredibly concerning to me. This is a take on the industry and how it operates versus what fans perceive. "people paying some money to play a fun game" is a gross, gross over simplification of what we're talking about here. I haven't played an MMO in over 4 years dude. They've all been exactly the same vapid game-loops since 2012.
@@dylanherron3963 if you don't play MMOs anymore then just move on lol. It's a dying genre because there's nothing else to innovate and doesn't appeal to today's gamers. Shit dies and new things replace it. Save your stress for something else more important in life.
@@Jombozeus Buddy, this isn't how interacting with people works. You missed the entire mark of what I was saying in the first place, and have nothing to add to it, followed by little quips. You're REALLY stuck on this MMO shit. WoW is the example used in this video. You can apply literally everything he said to the entire AAA gaming industry. I kinda thought by basically saying "I don't play MMO's, they're vapid games that are repetitive" that you would understand that... I fucking don't care about MMOs. I literally JUST SAID I HAVEN'T PLAYED THEM IN YEARS. How do you chime back "telling me to move on from MMO's" and that my stress is better placed elsewhere? No fucking shit dude. I don't play MMO's. This goes way past MMOs. Christ dude, the PS5 is about to enter end of production life. What the fuck did Sony fans get in the last 4 years? Remakes and Remasters of games made between 2004-2016 (and even 2018 in one case, why in the fuck Spider-Man got remastered 2.5 years later is still the biggest mind-blow to this day) And some of them even had.... add-on cosmetics, a pass system, new ways to spend money that were not in the originals. The game industry as a whole is in a very strange state, where we have to look to smaller and smaller studios for better games, because AAA studios are releasing constant turds and shareholder investments run the show since 2014. WTF you expected to accomplish by coming here, I don't know. You didn't watch the fucking video.
The only version of wow I enjoy is Vanilla and currently SoD, but if im being totally honest the most casual-fun expansion I ever played in wow is Mists of Pandaria, and all my favourite raids are from Legion.
Mists was peak Warcraft IMO. It was when the game felt like it was still expanding on everything they had before it and we hadn't had a contraction yet. Plus the atmosphere, raids, lore. All top notch IMO
4:01 Bro, thats not a Lambo, its a Mopar vehicle, hence the name of the server. That particular one is an early 70's Dodge Charger Daytona, like the one Richard petty drove in NASCAR. How dare you call it a Lambo? lol
Interesting that you discuss the success of Old School Runescape without mentioning the most impactful reason why it was so successful, the POLLING system. Giving the community a say (and veto power essentially) in how servers (and the game in general) develop. Kind of import as the failure of many WOW Expansions and additions, and of other MMO's, is primarily because the Devs didn't listen to their communities. An oversight or a choice? Color me curious.
@@JimMilton-ej6zi I don't like to cast aspersions, but yeah, I kinda got the same vibe. A lot of influencers just jump on hot topics without putting in much effort in an attempt to get some views. I'm not saying this dude did that, but I defs feel he missed the whole point on this one.
the problem that i see games like wow and rs3 face is that they will introduce really short therm solutions to bring back old players, such as fomo stuff and mayjor buffs and reworks, and new mechanics. but that really sucks long therm, rs3 is in a state right now where there are so many stat boosters that most players don't even try to have all of them equipped, you only need some of them to be able to max really fast (or so i've heard) compare that to osrs where there really aren't a lot of xp boosters at all, it's mostly only the skilling outfits. adding more and more mechanics also makes it really hard for new and returning players to join the game. the more stuff they have to learn the more likely they are to be overwealmed, it can also lead to a lot of dead content which isn't fun. in osrs even bad minigames are usually populated. having fomo stuff also just really sucks if you can't play the game constantly. seing something you wanted from a temporary event just slip by you is a really frustrating, quit moment the best thing about good mmos is being able to take a break and come back later, knowing that the game won't have gone anywhere. in osrs you can go from playing 6 hours a day, to 0 for 2 years and then pick up where you left off and your gear will still be relevant.
28:30 that's just flat out wrong to point to that as hype dying down. Jagex introduced hero pass, which was an insanely predatory battlepass to replace both daily challenges and yak tracks, which caused players to quit en masse. It's pretty well agreed upon that jagex was preparing for the sale that went through at the start of 2024 by following up their most popular content update in years with aggressive monetization to try and boost their income numbers, and the player base did not take well to all of the praise for necromancy immediately being undone
Modern MMOs really do tend to focus too hard on streamlining the entire experience whether it be in the leveling/zone progression, character building through skills/stats/equipment, etc. There's so little actual choice involved outside of aesthetics for the most part and everything before the level cap/endgame tends to feel superfluous.
I always really enjoyed playing the game, so much so that I had a Runescape account that existed for years and had several low levels, but man I loved walking around the map, killing a cow, dropping a bronze knife from a goblin, doing the quests. In fact, it felt like I was on a real adventure, my cousins and my uncle, who had been playing to reach the maximum level for some time, thought it was funny how I played. If an MMORGP brought this back, with updated graphics, current mechanics and good stories, it wouldn't There's a lot that can go wrong, it doesn't need to start huge and epic, just do the basics well.
I see alot of content creators saying they dont want cata, but my brother and all his friends (who all played tbc or vanilla to start) are super excited for cata, and especially its pvp scene
I miss leveling and questing in a zone as an experience, not just a chore to get to 70. After hard work, and lots of fun, Id get rewarded with that awesome blue item. My character would grow stronger, and It was just the best feeling. People had to help each others and communities were strong. Now, it's all gone. I still play retails, but I do miss that feeling of progression and fellowship.
damn Idyl, this video was really good to edge to! Ironically, the MMOs of today, that I used to play to simulate TTRPGs, have forced me BACK into TTRPGs. RIP SWG. You were/are my favorite.
Honestly, as someone who never played WoW, the idea of a Classic or dedicated Classic+ that isn't treated like a temporary game mode is appealing for a reason you didn't mention - I want a starting point that doesn't make me feel like I'm hopelessly behind everyone else. I missed Classic's launch, and thought SoD was going to be another limited time gimmick like Season of Mastery was so I didn't pay any attention to it.
Damnit Idyl, you had me edged the whole fucking time while I was doing Fremmy rooftops. You know, I think that if there were a team that would take a stab at an MMO I feel like it should be something like the Palworld developers. They have a ton of passion to just make something fun. The CEO even said that he lacked a creative vision but just wanted to make a game that people would enjoy. Seeing the success of that game, I am glad that he succeeded in that. If only that would happen for an MMO. . . That's basically how RuneScape started.
Out of all the different WoWs, looking most forward to Cata Classic. Classic is a chance to experience the content as "current" for people that missed it the first time round.
28:38 I think it's still partially nostalgia, but it's the nostalgia of seeing a game grow organically from that original/older point again. You've already acknowledged that just re-releasing the same content again doesn't really work but releasing new content that starts off being a (different) natural extension of the original game you can get that same kind of experience again.
For a lot of shit that Cataclysm did wrong, it was actually extremely good in the beginning of the expansion. They did a good job of making each of the 5 new levels feel really impactful, as well as dungeons being actually challenging again, something Wrath of the Lich King was desperately trying to dissolve away. I can't tell you how many times I got a group to run a dungeon and people were baffled at the idea of needing to CC a mob so that I (the tank) didn't die in
I appreciate this context, Id been contemplating playing wow classic for a while (after your review of the modern wow ) because of it being in the lich king era; I probably should start before cataclysm comes in
I fully agree with your assessment of the changes to talents in MoP. But the story and gameplay made it one of my favorite expansions. Also I switched my main from Druid to Monk, because I loved the play style and fantasy of being a Pandaran Monk.
Started playing Ragnarok online again in 2024 and loving it, feels so much more chill then all these mmos focusing on hard endgame content. Ive played RuneScape for 21 years have a maxed account and inferno completed and im starting to feelburn out and that there's no point anymore because even osrs feels like its losing its charm and soul and they keep adding more shit that makes you frustrated and stressed out. Chill gameplay is where its at where you just login and play with no worries about unlocking bis everything.
nostalrius was actually insane; during peak hours there would be 10k concurrent users on a single server. definitely the most alive world vanilla experience i've ever seen
What's interesting about MoP is even w/ the talent changes, it is still one of the best expansions of the game. And many people today love the way their classes played in MoP.
Something I've noticed from Idyl is his dedication to his videos. Doing some way back machine videos for MMORPGs. However I must point out, wow was not the first to do classic servers. I distinctly remember my older brother begging me to join him for legacy servers of EverQuest. Now to be fair to Idyl, EQ is and will always be a dumpster fire of an MMO compared to WOW. but if nothing else, I'd love to see Idyl do an in depth look into EQ if he can stomach it.
36:41 I disagree. Many people agree that class balance (or class fun) during MoP was the greatest. You had to pick 6 out of 18 talents yes, but most, if not all were relevant. What do you do when you have the "freedom" of classic or DF talent trees? You still pick the most viable build for whatever game content you are doing. There's no variance. You always want that Shadow Dance, Bladestorm or 5/5 damage increase talent. Period.
While I can see why some people want to level really long and really hard ... I would not put that levelling IS the Role Playing. Good case was when you play through several games same character, and past first game they need to find excuse how to get you to level 1 so low and behold the RPG meme cliche of "So you died and then magic happened so you are resurrected again at level 1" ... Hello Gothic's and Mass Effects in particular guilty of this. Customization is big thing for role playing, and when you have customization of builds you just want to get it over to max level so you can craft your build. In this case the long tedious levelling is becoming a bother rather then journey. What you also skipped in levelling thing, is the 'dead zones' issue of many MMO's. Zones that were bound to level, but because MMO's like these love to slowly die out, so do the zones as everyone who stuck around outlevelled them. This is why I liked ESO massive game changer which literally was about ditching levelled zones and just making mobs level scale to players. I would have no reason to be on Alik'r desert anymore, if they kept the old system, as by all means Alik'r would be like for 40 levels while max is 50. You also mentioned hardcore andies injecting their hardcore against .. role players. Yeaaaah that is big can of worms to go into. And it further makes whole 'levelling and being hard is defining role playing' mute. I think you owe them bit more then meme sadness, you literally made video praising how bunch of hardcores decided to ruin entire game for rp communities whose servers were there for. And it's WoW so no doubt there was an utterly dead server perfectly fine to migrate and make hardcore only. Then we get to the playerbase and .. honestly go back, look at FFXIV when it gained more traction and many people joined. One of very first things to show up on offer was DEMANDED by said many players level boost. (That being said I can totally get them, I played XIV for two days and I swear to gods every quest was mute cutsceney fetch quest) People in MMO's want to use the 'multiplayer' aspect and be around people, and as is case with MMO fanbase they usually are already capped on end game zones. Which makes the long tedious levelling journey just even more tedious but more over - lonely. And feeling lonely in a multiplayer game is a death sentence. You also skipped on topic of New World it's economy, early on it was completely botched due to levelling system itself.
The idea that these classic games are only played because of nostalgia is false. I think it's likely a factor for a lot of people, but a good number of people I play SoD with, myself included, hadn't played vanilla, or in some cases, WoW at all. It's genuinely a really solid experience.
This video got me thinking there is a strange triangle in the MMO space. The Classic Servers, the long standing games, and the new MMOs. I'd love to see a deeper examination on the mentality of new MMOs that don't have a classic vs long standing and classic ones. I have tried to look into completely new MMOs and they just...idk they don't have that spark? They feel like they've been built on the MMO expansion philosophy where the game doesn't start until the end.
To the point about leveling: every speedup and removal of obstacles in leveling also makes the experience less interesting. If you want to make leveling interesting you need to keep in mind what the player is thinking about while clearing an area and for that there needs to be a concern for them to solve usually, especially for externally motivated players. It could be efficiency, money, other quests or goals, other people, gear and so on, for every piece you remove from the leveling you basicly remove one part of the game that they player needs to solve. If you aren't struggling for cash then such rewards will be meaningless, if you arent undergeared for some parts of the journey then rewards will mean basicly nothing etc. Modern MMOs by all accounts remove these obstacles, and also make solving them a moot point, hence why challenge runs are popular, because they introduce things to be solved by the player instead of coming pre-solved by the devs. Ill also put on the tiniest tin foil hat and say this is by design. By making leveling boring it makes selling the solution easier, by making money something you dont need to get into before max level then you can sell the solution to the player that has never gotten into making any. I do feel for devs on this one, because if you had to actually work for levels in any capacity in games like WoW, it would probably kill some of their current playerbase because they have been playing a game where you do not have to solve anything until endgame where the puzzle is now so complicated you need simulations and discord servers full of theorycrafters in order to figure out whats next.
Damn Idyl this was good to edge to. I still feel nostalgia holds true in a lot of mmo's. I will never forget Elwynn Forrest in 2007 in wow. Nothing has hit or stuck like that sense. Sod is popular because it mixes nostalgia with new abikities. I just don't know where classic goes when Sod is over.
For context, Hardcore is still thriving quite well, many guilds on Defias Pillagers including raiding guilds, auction house is thriving, and its still an all around good time!
What makes Runescape so magical is that it's an ultimate sandbox. You truly get to define your goals, journey, limitations and priorities. Once you reach the end game, however you define "endgame", you have LOADS of different activities that are reasonably efficient and offer many different kinds of experiences, from the obstacle course of the Hallowed Sephulchre, to doing raids both solo and in groups, to the roguelike Gauntlet. I think the places where Runescape dips is those tasks where you feel like you are forced into a quite dull, laborious grinding method with no alternatives. Probably one reason people dislike agility and runecrafting are because they just involve going to the most efficient form of the thing and doing the thing for 100 hours, but most skills have decent variety and the variety increases with new updates, and at least you always have 200 other worthwhile things you could go do instead to freshen things up. Now those snowflake ironmen who just grind the same thing for literal months of their lives nonstop... those are a special breed of human... *cough* Verf *cough* Limpwurt *cough*
Geez, what maroons, thinking Cata Classic is a good idea. I was about to say the only saving grace would be if they kept more of a pre-Cataclysm type character advancement system, but no, effing up the geography of the whole world is also bad. I don't mind the addition of the new zones, but they messed everything else up. Long term, I don't mind them adding all the zones of subsequent expansions, but they need to find a way to do that without messing up the original portions of the game. Still have no idea how to access season of discovery.
Fact is, the core of the mmo is solid, its the extra systems and complications from later expansions that become a problem. Id love to see a new class, but in classic not in an expansion for example. If you make the right changes to the core without altering the core, you have yourself something fresh yet nostalgic.
Only getting to choose 1 talent every 15 levels in MoP was brutal. Plus there were very few reasons to ever change them. Still one of my favorite expansions, though 😂
The reason why the "Same company that destroyed the game will destroy it again" Is flawed, is because adding to the game is not the same as changing it. Even The Burning Crusade already had changing the essence of WoW. All updates were related to raids, which created the meme "The game only begins at endgame". The fact that there were only 10 levels before max level incentivized rushing to max level to do the raids(maybe they could have made it harder to acquire new levels after 60 to counter balance this, but they did not.). The quests were worse and dungeons were fewer, which incentivized people to grind the dungeons to get faster to the raids. In short, the fact that it was not as hard to level up as it was in vanilla made it less of an achievement, so if you were not focusing in raiding you were out of luck to play with other people.
With the removal of talent trees also came the removal of the classic spell book system. Before, you could use spells and abilities from all three specializations spell books. After, you only got the spells from the specialization you chose, with some general class abilities. Before you would be a Druid who specializes in Restoration and would have access to all the Druid forms and all the abilities minus talented abilities. After, you’re just a restoration Druid, nothing more.
Not quite, you had bunch of extra spells you never used and boring ass talents like +1% hit chance. Like they reintroduced older spells for all warriors on retail and you just don't use them because why would you (I.e slam as protection warrior). As s frost mage I want to cast frostbolt and not firebolt. This is the few things I agreed blizz changed
![Gucci Mane & Sexyy Red - You Don't Love Me [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/j7IBqyFKT4c/mqdefault.jpg)
Play War Thunder now for free with my link, and get a massive bonus pack including vehicles, boosters and more: playwt.link/idyl
A birthday present from me to you: a 47 minute ramble of a video about why updated versions of old MMOs are good. I hope you enjoy it and agree with every single thing I said! I love you.... Say it back.
Playing a warrior in season of discovery is really boring.
Sure maybe they dont need much more damage but at least give them something fun (current runes does not change gameplay at all)
Will do, boss
no
damn Idyl, this video was really good to edge to!
Not me thinking 'damn, that's an odd thing to comment' and then getting to the end of the video 🤣
Pin this man’s comment.
He said i should, but im not gonna write that.
JO crystal charged
Lolll
Played this video in the background while I was doing an open heart surgery on a patient. Unfortunately he passed away, but I really enjoyed the video!
I would say skill issues...for the patient
i hate how hard i laughed at this
@@tandee7nah i love it. Amazing joke
@@lucavalente6620low constitution..
Extra insight: Many OSRS players never played RS1/RS2, so they are not trying to get back to how things were when they started. This implies the problem is much deeper and speaks to a fundamental break in modern game design. If an old, polygonic game like OSRS can bring in new players in their millions, something is clearly wrong with the gaming landscape. Nobody knows how to make great games anymore. OSRS is a great game, there's no doubt about it. Not the best game, but compared to most games since 2013, it's god-tier.
So true.i never knew about any RS before until last year. I found out about it from Josh, since then its my go to grinder when the servers are down, or i play it on longer trips on my phone. Just love it.
Same goes with classic wow. I never really played retail for more than a week, but since ive played bc demo when i was a kid, this has always been one of my favorite mmoRPGs until this day.
@@Domaister420 You might also enjoy Skyrim, Hogwarts Legacy, Warcraft 3, Minecraft, GTA Vice City, Crash Bandicoot 1-3, LEGO Batman series (though most of the LEGO movie tie-in games are great), and/or the Fallout series and Assassin's Creed series (early games). Just some great single-player games, focused on great game design and gameplay. Some more MMO than others, some more grindy and long-term than others. You might also like Ultimate Alliance 1 if you like Spider-Man and generic superhero/action RPG type things. Sadly, you won't be grinding for 500 hours or anything crazy, but you'll have a great time for at least 20 hours for 100% completion. Controls are not ideal on the older games, but the actual gameplay and design is far better than modern games, despite the limitations back then. :)
Sadly, I cannot suggest many MMOs to you, as OSRS really is the best one in general. WoW Classic also seems good.
You will likely see more of a trend to older MMOs and remakes of this sort moving forward. The data also shows that nobody is playing new MMOs -- yet OSRS has like 45 million players. It's truly massive.
I think the best reason I can describe for why I'm loving the Season of Discovery is that it lets me play WoW the way I did when I was younger. Because the phases have reduced level caps I'm not rushing to hit max level. Instead I'm playing the game the same way I did when I first got it; logging in, running around, and experiencing the world without caring if this is the most efficient way to hit level cap.
Damn I feel that. I didn't even make it to 58 before BC launched lmao
most people are doing spellcleaves/meleecleaves mindlessly farming SM to reach lvl 40, aka max level. Nothing is really changed. GS is required, XP is required to join raids, non meta classes have a hard time finding raid spots. The community is the driving factor, this will never change.
@@Gonzo13ethI started right before Sunwell. Wrath came out and I think my highest character was a 58 paladin that I used to financially support a bunch of 19/29 twinks. By the end of Wrath I had 4 80s all geared in pvp and ICC gear
@@Tokena14 All you need to do is find a guild with like-minded people. I never counted my gs throughout sod or cared what our guild group has for raids. You blame the community but it sounds like you never tried to find one for yourself. Don't play mmos as a random, especially old school ones. It was bad experience in the past as well
@@tazbom2470 I am in a guild, this doesnt change any of what I said.
Old MMOs simulate that feeling of success and progression through hardship and struggle, the driving force that makes humanity what it is today. New MMOs are sterile safe bus rides where everyone gets the same adventure perfectly curated by the developers. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the latter, but man, I would trade all of this new garbage in a heartbeat to experience RuneScape back in 2004 for the first time again.
Old School Runescape exists man
@@robodude5124where
@@robodude5124 Yeah I play it. But it'll never be the same as the first time.
@@IcycritsThat's because you chase after nostalgia. As you admitted right here even 'non curated perfectly safe non garbage' old school is incapable of doing it for you. The problem isn't the game, be it new or old, the problem is your dream that is unachievable. You want to relive feelings that were tied to both who you are and what you experianced in past. So by all logic even 'old school' MMO's are garbage because it also failed to provide you with what you seek.
Absolute Facts!! I just want to experience an MMO like Archeage again. The way that farming in open pvp zones was required to attain good gear was the definition of hardship and struggle.
Having recently gotten really into WoW SoD, it was ENTIRELY the push into communities, from helping someone do a hard rune quest, to getting groups together to do content. The lack of LFG and the 'stickiness' of tasks is important. If you could instantly whisk yourself away from the current task, you quit and the first sign of friction. But when it takes 30 minutes of flying + walking to get into the dungeon, a single wipe, or even multiple wipes, won't scare off your group. People come together in hardship and that's what MMO's were missing, a reason to connect.
No they still dip after one wipe and find a new group. Lmao.
And most people still min max and totally toxic. People never change
"SOD is dead to me. The leveling journey is boring, to be honest. I've leveled two characters to the 50s. I'm done with it. The end game? Oh man, these sweaty wannabes are so cringe with parse checking and having egos in an easy game. It takes forever just to join a group to do the content. I do not care to join a guild so I can stick to a consistent raid schedule. I'd rather do stuff in real life than make time for raiding. I just want to queue up and get in a group in a couple of minutes. I want a low entry barrier to get started and work my way up. In retail, I just climb at a steady pace with consistent rewards in mythic dungeons instead of getting PRE-BIS, TOP PARSE, COMP LOCKED just to do any challenging content, man. By the way, I am a sweaty gamer. I've played Tekken, League of Legends, and Starcraft 2 at a top 1-3% level. SOD for me is not a skill issue, it's a time issue just to do any challenging content when cringe lords gatekeep you, treating their raids like a NASA space mission. Why are we treating BFD and Gnomeregan like it's high-level mythic raiding or key pushing? The design elements of having raid lockouts instead of having loot lockouts like retail do greatly contribute to the gatekeeping. Yes, yes, wannabe sweats are going to yell at me to just make a group. I did before, and it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work when I just want to interact with the game, not getting competent people together. The SOD game design just isn't for me. I want more challenging mythic-like dungeon content. Hopefully, delves do that. Imagine some Mage Tower-style difficulty with 2-4 other people; that's my thing. I don't treat WoW like an esport; I just pivot to doing engaging combat. The reason why I love games like Monster Hunter and Grandblue Relink with RPG elements.
I also closed my game when we spent 40 mins to get a group together for SM library only to be wiping on trash mobs, I could have leveled up so much faster on AOE farming with my mage. Yea classic isn't for me.
I got kicked from a group in classic for not getting to the instance fast enough. I got invited as the last person when everyone was already at the instance. I needed time to run to the bank. It was a disappointing experience to me.
@@alihordaMin maxing and rushing through content is what ruins these games
Stopped after WotLK on official servers. Really enjoyed listening to this like a podcast; while grinding on Turtle WoW classic server.
Yeah, I played 2005-2010 as highschool and college student. I'm glad I got out before grad school and Cataclysm.
Here's a list of the things that WoW ruined from vanilla-to-retail:
- The most important thing they changed was the feeling of being in a world. Adding random dungeon finder, several difficulties to dungeons and sharding completely destroyed that
- In the same vein as the above, Cataclysm put the world into a state of chaos. The longer the world stays in that state, the less it feels like a world to you because over time, the world should naturally return to some sort of stability or status quo.
- adding too much complexity to standard gameplay. Having to think too much about rotations and procs and timers in regular non top-end play. It takes you out of the immersive world and makes you focus more on the gamey part of the game
- Achievements, and general UI elements that are intertwined with your interaction with the world. Again, it takes you out of the immersive world and breaks the 4th wall. What's worse is that it links with the world itself, conditioning you to ignore the world and focus on the UI elements
- Addons. In particular Weakauras. It links in with the point above. In the beginning, the addons that were used were less obstructive of immersion, but addons always aim to make the gameplay easier, more simple and less immersive.
This isn't a comprehensive list. But I believe these are the most impactful reasons why WoW classic/vanilla is a better MMORPG than retail.
I met a guy in Cambridge who works at Jagex. They caught me off guard as I spoke about old school and they said "old school can go die in a fire" - I didnt want to push this as it was surprising to hear, but it was super interesting. They work on R3. Showed me that maybe internally there is a lot of division between the two teams. Must be hard when a lot of people prefer the other version. I wonder if Blizzard has the same internal conflict.
12:09 As a Jonathan I was taken by surprise and felt very called out
Dont listen to Idyl, we love you Jonathan
they did us dirty
I don’t remember how I first found your channel, but my god you’ve become one of my favorite RUclips creators.
Sincerely hope the algorithm finds you and boosts your channel. Your videos are top tier.
Damn Idyl, this was really good to edge to.
Will you ever check out Guild Wars 2?
Rift was so good. I wish that it was in the hands of a company who loves it.
we need justice for the guild wars series
"moparscape" had a "lamborghini" on its login screen??? it's literally in the name, "mopar".
Yeah, that's what I said to myself when I watched that part of the video lol.
Mopar or no car. Unless you can get a Lamborghini, of course. It’s not that hard to understand
But why? I think that was his point.
Idyl, you're damn fun to watch. Thanks for making the videos you do. I appreciate not only your game commentary, but your social commentary as well; I too hope we see a return to form someday. Ideally before my beard gets anymore grey in it.
You forgot to mention that Burning Crusade Classic added microtransactions first
Name Change service?
@@dannyp9210And realm transfer service (which was overpriced even then) which released in Vanilla
@@dannyp9210 mounts, level boosts
@@dannyp9210nah dude levelboost to 58 which made botting even easier
@@Freshmaker420Ah, yeah that was Classic TBC (horrible), but I was thinking of the original.
Damn Idyl, this was really good to edge to!
I Think having both the tier system and the old school talent system is the way to go and part of the reason SOD works so well cause thats basicly what runes do.
Agreed. I’m playing paladin, and it’s great having access to things like sheath of light, crusader strike and divine storm regardless of spec. It felt way worse in wrath when those abilities were buried in another tree.
I personally loved the MoP style tier talents. People forget that the old talents didn't just get removed and go away..... they got baked into the class baseline. All those boring passive bonuses were just given to your class/spec as you leveled. It was great. And with each tier having its own theme, and usually atleast 2/3 were good choices, you had some flexibility and each talent felt useful or impactful. The vanilla trees kinda sucked with the boring +1% passive per talent point, and the newer multi-branch talent system like in DF kinda suck imo because your class lost alot of its core basic abilities, forcing you to take certain talents or go down certain paths just to pick up basic stuff like dispels, interrupts, cc, stuns, aoe or whatever that u may have had baseline as new abilities while leveling. I think that sucks.... it makes sense to talent for an improved cleanse, but not for just the basic cleanse..... or interrupt, or CC, or defensive/offensive Cd, or whatever.
I imagine the newer multibranch trees can be intimidiating and confusing for newer noob players too. The tier talents like in MOP or WOD were great cause it was simple and your class/spec got alot of important core basic abilities or passives baseline just thru leveling and training.
SoD system is kinda cool..... its alot like the glyph system mixed with enchants, so now you got special runes for all your armor slots that will add a new ability or passive that can really change how your class plays. It is a good idea, a work in progress but still pretty cool.... and they try to balance it so that you still have to pick the rune that works best for your spec, such as more tank based runes instead of dps or healing. But u still have the option to mix it up and take a variety of runes from different specs if u wanna go full hybrid or pick the runes that synergize well with each other for certain abilities or roles like caster melee healer ect.
Came for Idyl's rants, stayed for the Patreon jam, we need a full length version ASAP please!
Enjoyed the content. First time seeing your channel. Hard to find long format youtubers these days. Appreciate the in-depth discussion.
my issue with modern mmo's is the hyper fixation on end game and the loot treadmill, having an endgame is important, but damn is it like most games see 90% of their game as a chore you have to get through to get to the real game. whereas older games treated the entire leveling experience as the game.
Just a heads up about the comment on the drop in player/subscription count on RuneScape 3 after Necromancy's release (mentioned at 28:20) - just a month after Necromancy released, the team at JaGex released an incredibly greedy MTX cash-grab called Hero Pass, which was a seasonal pass exclusive cosmetic rewards that was almost impossible to complete without forking over a lot of real-life money. Despite how loved Necromancy was, the insane cash-grab released just a month later was enough to make a sizeable amount of players renounce the game and its direction.
There's nothing in that mug Idyl
Air
You mean props are used in videos???? mind blown
It might not be an MMO, but using BG3 music when you talked about the phenomenon being more than nostalgia at 28:42 is super fitting, and leads perfectly into your final point. There's a huge group of players out there who love games that the industry declared dead and moved on from for no real reason, and they'll throw money and enthusiasm at anything that genuinely tries to fill that gap.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: millions of people are having their glory days in modern MMOs *right now* while us old, jaded veterans are in comment sections like this one circle jerking about how much they all “suck” compared to the old stuff
@@buzzinggz556 Oh yeah it’s *such* a wild idea that there are people having fun because you aren’t 😂🤣🥹😭 what a cuh-razy idea! 🤡
@@buzzinggz556 oh yeah imagine someone having fun because you aren’t 😆😂🤣🥹😭 what a cuh-razy idea! 🤡
@@buzzinggz556 channel is removing my replies but I believe this because I have eyes, and I see people give their experiences in this genre. Its based on actual words from actual people. But sure, the idea that someone else can’t possibly be having fun because you aren't is pretty funny
@@buzzinggz556 I never questioned nor cared about what you’re playing. But that’s cute that you’re having fun with your ancient game. Other people are enjoying other games. Which is all I said. Guess that’s hard for you to believe?
@@buzzinggz556 oh nooo, do I really? Is that why I’m name calling like you are? Which is a perfect showcase of your level of maturity by the way. Lol. Oh wait, no, I’m just calmly addressing your nonsensical spazzing as you crumble beneath the weight of your own cringe. You stopped to comment on *my* comment from a whole ass day ago and *I’m* hurt. Ok buddy 😂
As someone who loves Runescape as a whole, rs3 still has some challenging aspects to it and you can even make it more challenging for yourself. Try completing all the quests and miniquests, try getting the staff of armadyl, or even try getting the completionist cape. Plus it's really cool seeing the new content that gets made. Which a lot of it does reference and have easter eggs of OSRS. Plus the newest skill, Necromancy, was a class you could select in Runescape Classic. So they're also bringing back content and making it more modern. Idk if a lot of people know this, but MIX can be turned off in your settings and you never have to see that garbage in your life. The only downside is that bonds are becoming crazy expensive, so it is becoming harder to avoid some of the other microtransactions. I love OSRS, but to me it just seems like people love it more for nostalgia. I play OSRS, I love it but I wish more people would just appreciate rs3 a little more. I'm gonna say it as well, EoC wasn't that bad.
damn idyl, this was REALLY good to edge to!! see you next week
6:07 totally got me when you said that the wow community was understanding shutting down that private server
I’ve played Season of Discovery. It’s fine. I’d certainly come back and play again sometime.
Great video, I understand that the Cataclysm classic bashing is a bit of memeing but I also get that people don't consider it ''classic'' but saying it's bad and nobody wants it is still a bit harsh because plenty of people ( obviously less than vanilla through wrath) are still excited for it, myself included. Alot of people didn't like what WoW turned in to after Wrath and that's fine, but for other people the point where they started disliking the direction for WoW was at a later point.
I Am personally extremely happy that we have come to a point with WoW where we are getting both re-releases of the old expansions ( my personal cut off point is after MoP) aswell as Season of Discovery that can hopefully turn in to a proper classic+ at some point.
Hopefully some banger MMOs comes out in the future, and hopefully the ones we already play regardless of what version of it, keeps improving.
Watching an Idyl video is like watching a guy with multi-personality disorder talk to himself for half an hour. It’s great.
OMG the song at the end is brilliant 😂😂😂😂
We need 10h version!
I first found you via your Agility Shortcuts are Bullshit video and, well, I'm still here! Your videos are fun man, keep up the great work.
I mean, it's because they're perfectly aware that we want "games as they were" except, we get these "Classic" and "Remaster" versions that also include a store, a battle pass/season system of some kind, dailies, etc. They've proven over the course of 10 years that they absolutely can manufacture nostalgia and still eat their cake, while we think they're "doing us a solid" for going back to what we think is their roots.
This is an incredibly pessimistic take for "people paying some money to play a fun video game."
MMO crowd literally gets off to doomerism.
@@Jombozeus A good portion of this video is quite literally a timeline of events leading to the creation of WoW Classic, followed by all of the things that I just mentioned being introduced and how that affected the core integrity of the game and the fan reception. I wrote this comment unironically at the 20 second mark of having started the video, and rode the same rail system as what the video discussed, because the modernization of what we KNEW as the gaming industry is incredibly concerning to me. This is a take on the industry and how it operates versus what fans perceive. "people paying some money to play a fun game" is a gross, gross over simplification of what we're talking about here.
I haven't played an MMO in over 4 years dude. They've all been exactly the same vapid game-loops since 2012.
@@dylanherron3963 if you don't play MMOs anymore then just move on lol. It's a dying genre because there's nothing else to innovate and doesn't appeal to today's gamers. Shit dies and new things replace it. Save your stress for something else more important in life.
@@Jombozeus Buddy, this isn't how interacting with people works. You missed the entire mark of what I was saying in the first place, and have nothing to add to it, followed by little quips. You're REALLY stuck on this MMO shit. WoW is the example used in this video. You can apply literally everything he said to the entire AAA gaming industry. I kinda thought by basically saying "I don't play MMO's, they're vapid games that are repetitive" that you would understand that... I fucking don't care about MMOs. I literally JUST SAID I HAVEN'T PLAYED THEM IN YEARS. How do you chime back "telling me to move on from MMO's" and that my stress is better placed elsewhere? No fucking shit dude. I don't play MMO's.
This goes way past MMOs. Christ dude, the PS5 is about to enter end of production life. What the fuck did Sony fans get in the last 4 years? Remakes and Remasters of games made between 2004-2016 (and even 2018 in one case, why in the fuck Spider-Man got remastered 2.5 years later is still the biggest mind-blow to this day) And some of them even had.... add-on cosmetics, a pass system, new ways to spend money that were not in the originals. The game industry as a whole is in a very strange state, where we have to look to smaller and smaller studios for better games, because AAA studios are releasing constant turds and shareholder investments run the show since 2014.
WTF you expected to accomplish by coming here, I don't know. You didn't watch the fucking video.
@@Jombozeustake your own advice 😂
The only version of wow I enjoy is Vanilla and currently SoD, but if im being totally honest the most casual-fun expansion I ever played in wow is Mists of Pandaria, and all my favourite raids are from Legion.
Mists was peak Warcraft IMO. It was when the game felt like it was still expanding on everything they had before it and we hadn't had a contraction yet. Plus the atmosphere, raids, lore. All top notch IMO
@4:00...thats not a lambo..its a plymouth(mopar) from 1969
15:30 I think it's great that they're re releasing them because it allows us who missed out on them to experience them as they were back then
yea, the lamborghini on the log in screen for mopar scape should have raced at daytona.
4:01 Bro, thats not a Lambo, its a Mopar vehicle, hence the name of the server. That particular one is an early 70's Dodge Charger Daytona, like the one Richard petty drove in NASCAR. How dare you call it a Lambo? lol
This would have been really good to edge to if i didnt "fire away" half way though already 😢.
Damn Idyl, this was really good to edge to, the dance at the end blew my mind.
Interesting that you discuss the success of Old School Runescape without mentioning the most impactful reason why it was so successful, the POLLING system. Giving the community a say (and veto power essentially) in how servers (and the game in general) develop. Kind of import as the failure of many WOW Expansions and additions, and of other MMO's, is primarily because the Devs didn't listen to their communities. An oversight or a choice? Color me curious.
The guys video is just poorly researched in general, it feels like he asked chatgpt to write him a script and just went with it.
@@JimMilton-ej6zi I don't like to cast aspersions, but yeah, I kinda got the same vibe. A lot of influencers just jump on hot topics without putting in much effort in an attempt to get some views. I'm not saying this dude did that, but I defs feel he missed the whole point on this one.
the problem that i see games like wow and rs3 face is that they will introduce really short therm solutions to bring back old players, such as fomo stuff and mayjor buffs and reworks, and new mechanics. but that really sucks long therm, rs3 is in a state right now where there are so many stat boosters that most players don't even try to have all of them equipped, you only need some of them to be able to max really fast (or so i've heard) compare that to osrs where there really aren't a lot of xp boosters at all, it's mostly only the skilling outfits.
adding more and more mechanics also makes it really hard for new and returning players to join the game. the more stuff they have to learn the more likely they are to be overwealmed, it can also lead to a lot of dead content which isn't fun. in osrs even bad minigames are usually populated. having fomo stuff also just really sucks if you can't play the game constantly. seing something you wanted from a temporary event just slip by you is a really frustrating, quit moment
the best thing about good mmos is being able to take a break and come back later, knowing that the game won't have gone anywhere. in osrs you can go from playing 6 hours a day, to 0 for 2 years and then pick up where you left off and your gear will still be relevant.
In my case my scythe went from the 550m I bought it for over 2 years ago to the over 1b it is now 😅
28:30 that's just flat out wrong to point to that as hype dying down. Jagex introduced hero pass, which was an insanely predatory battlepass to replace both daily challenges and yak tracks, which caused players to quit en masse.
It's pretty well agreed upon that jagex was preparing for the sale that went through at the start of 2024 by following up their most popular content update in years with aggressive monetization to try and boost their income numbers, and the player base did not take well to all of the praise for necromancy immediately being undone
Modern MMOs really do tend to focus too hard on streamlining the entire experience whether it be in the leveling/zone progression, character building through skills/stats/equipment, etc.
There's so little actual choice involved outside of aesthetics for the most part and everything before the level cap/endgame tends to feel superfluous.
I always really enjoyed playing the game, so much so that I had a Runescape account that existed for years and had several low levels, but man I loved walking around the map, killing a cow, dropping a bronze knife from a goblin, doing the quests. In fact, it felt like I was on a real adventure, my cousins and my uncle, who had been playing to reach the maximum level for some time, thought it was funny how I played. If an MMORGP brought this back, with updated graphics, current mechanics and good stories, it wouldn't There's a lot that can go wrong, it doesn't need to start huge and epic, just do the basics well.
Damn Idyl, this was really good to edge to.
I see alot of content creators saying they dont want cata, but my brother and all his friends (who all played tbc or vanilla to start) are super excited for cata, and especially its pvp scene
That was me at Blizzcon asking for legacy servers, that happened prior to Nostalrius shut down.
us, the mmorpg community, are okay with you being the self-appointed king of our cherished genre.
Really should of stopped at Wrath of the Lich King.
Damn idyl this was really good to edge to
That “lamborghini” on the Moparscape loading screen is actually Dodge Daytona made by Mopar. Mopar is a performance division of Dodge.
the customer is always right actually fits perfectly for wow classic because the full phrase is "The customer is always right in matters of taste."
I miss leveling and questing in a zone as an experience, not just a chore to get to 70. After hard work, and lots of fun, Id get rewarded with that awesome blue item. My character would grow stronger, and It was just the best feeling. People had to help each others and communities were strong. Now, it's all gone. I still play retails, but I do miss that feeling of progression and fellowship.
damn Idyl, this video was really good to edge to!
Ironically, the MMOs of today, that I used to play to simulate TTRPGs, have forced me BACK into TTRPGs.
RIP SWG. You were/are my favorite.
Honestly, as someone who never played WoW, the idea of a Classic or dedicated Classic+ that isn't treated like a temporary game mode is appealing for a reason you didn't mention - I want a starting point that doesn't make me feel like I'm hopelessly behind everyone else. I missed Classic's launch, and thought SoD was going to be another limited time gimmick like Season of Mastery was so I didn't pay any attention to it.
Extremely well put together ! Subbed
Damnit Idyl, you had me edged the whole fucking time while I was doing Fremmy rooftops.
You know, I think that if there were a team that would take a stab at an MMO I feel like it should be something like the Palworld developers.
They have a ton of passion to just make something fun. The CEO even said that he lacked a creative vision but just wanted to make a game that people would enjoy. Seeing the success of that game, I am glad that he succeeded in that.
If only that would happen for an MMO. . .
That's basically how RuneScape started.
Out of all the different WoWs, looking most forward to Cata Classic.
Classic is a chance to experience the content as "current" for people that missed it the first time round.
7:25 nearly split my drink in laughter bro! this is why I love this channel
28:38 I think it's still partially nostalgia, but it's the nostalgia of seeing a game grow organically from that original/older point again. You've already acknowledged that just re-releasing the same content again doesn't really work but releasing new content that starts off being a (different) natural extension of the original game you can get that same kind of experience again.
For a lot of shit that Cataclysm did wrong, it was actually extremely good in the beginning of the expansion. They did a good job of making each of the 5 new levels feel really impactful, as well as dungeons being actually challenging again, something Wrath of the Lich King was desperately trying to dissolve away. I can't tell you how many times I got a group to run a dungeon and people were baffled at the idea of needing to CC a mob so that I (the tank) didn't die in
I was playing on Nostalrius when it was shut down and had a blast there. Vanilla WoW is something special for sure.
God damn that mug is beautiful and i'm not talking about the cup :p
I appreciate this context, Id been contemplating playing wow classic for a while (after your review of the modern wow ) because of it being in the lich king era; I probably should start before cataclysm comes in
"Damn Idyl, this was really good to edge to."
~ Idyl, putting words in your mouth for free.
I feel you on these points, still.
I fully agree with your assessment of the changes to talents in MoP. But the story and gameplay made it one of my favorite expansions. Also I switched my main from Druid to Monk, because I loved the play style and fantasy of being a Pandaran Monk.
Started playing Ragnarok online again in 2024 and loving it, feels so much more chill then all these mmos focusing on hard endgame content. Ive played RuneScape for 21 years have a maxed account and inferno completed and im starting to feelburn out and that there's no point anymore because even osrs feels like its losing its charm and soul and they keep adding more shit that makes you frustrated and stressed out. Chill gameplay is where its at where you just login and play with no worries about unlocking bis everything.
nostalrius was actually insane; during peak hours there would be 10k concurrent users on a single server. definitely the most alive world vanilla experience i've ever seen
3:02 i started at cataclysm and i love this expansion :(
I started with tbc, and cata is the best
I agree, cata is one of my favourite xpacs and I started in wrath.
Started in mid BC and loved Cata but I get why people didn't like it
@@jaydeus i do understand them as well, but i was a pvp only player back then and loooooooved tol barad and spend all day in bgs
A lot of people like cata, I think it’s kind of outside looking in opinion that people didn’t like cata. WoD was the real killer
What's interesting about MoP is even w/ the talent changes, it is still one of the best expansions of the game. And many people today love the way their classes played in MoP.
Great video Bald J1mmy
Something I've noticed from Idyl is his dedication to his videos. Doing some way back machine videos for MMORPGs. However I must point out, wow was not the first to do classic servers. I distinctly remember my older brother begging me to join him for legacy servers of EverQuest. Now to be fair to Idyl, EQ is and will always be a dumpster fire of an MMO compared to WOW. but if nothing else, I'd love to see Idyl do an in depth look into EQ if he can stomach it.
36:41 I disagree. Many people agree that class balance (or class fun) during MoP was the greatest. You had to pick 6 out of 18 talents yes, but most, if not all were relevant. What do you do when you have the "freedom" of classic or DF talent trees? You still pick the most viable build for whatever game content you are doing. There's no variance. You always want that Shadow Dance, Bladestorm or 5/5 damage increase talent. Period.
as a path of exile player i find it hillarious when u talk about the deep and complex talent tree found in wow :P
While I can see why some people want to level really long and really hard ... I would not put that levelling IS the Role Playing. Good case was when you play through several games same character, and past first game they need to find excuse how to get you to level 1 so low and behold the RPG meme cliche of "So you died and then magic happened so you are resurrected again at level 1" ... Hello Gothic's and Mass Effects in particular guilty of this.
Customization is big thing for role playing, and when you have customization of builds you just want to get it over to max level so you can craft your build. In this case the long tedious levelling is becoming a bother rather then journey. What you also skipped in levelling thing, is the 'dead zones' issue of many MMO's. Zones that were bound to level, but because MMO's like these love to slowly die out, so do the zones as everyone who stuck around outlevelled them. This is why I liked ESO massive game changer which literally was about ditching levelled zones and just making mobs level scale to players. I would have no reason to be on Alik'r desert anymore, if they kept the old system, as by all means Alik'r would be like for 40 levels while max is 50.
You also mentioned hardcore andies injecting their hardcore against .. role players. Yeaaaah that is big can of worms to go into. And it further makes whole 'levelling and being hard is defining role playing' mute. I think you owe them bit more then meme sadness, you literally made video praising how bunch of hardcores decided to ruin entire game for rp communities whose servers were there for. And it's WoW so no doubt there was an utterly dead server perfectly fine to migrate and make hardcore only.
Then we get to the playerbase and .. honestly go back, look at FFXIV when it gained more traction and many people joined. One of very first things to show up on offer was DEMANDED by said many players level boost. (That being said I can totally get them, I played XIV for two days and I swear to gods every quest was mute cutsceney fetch quest) People in MMO's want to use the 'multiplayer' aspect and be around people, and as is case with MMO fanbase they usually are already capped on end game zones. Which makes the long tedious levelling journey just even more tedious but more over - lonely. And feeling lonely in a multiplayer game is a death sentence.
You also skipped on topic of New World it's economy, early on it was completely botched due to levelling system itself.
Idyl is unironically one of the highest quality youtubers around. Never change, king.
The idea that these classic games are only played because of nostalgia is false. I think it's likely a factor for a lot of people, but a good number of people I play SoD with, myself included, hadn't played vanilla, or in some cases, WoW at all. It's genuinely a really solid experience.
This video got me thinking there is a strange triangle in the MMO space. The Classic Servers, the long standing games, and the new MMOs. I'd love to see a deeper examination on the mentality of new MMOs that don't have a classic vs long standing and classic ones. I have tried to look into completely new MMOs and they just...idk they don't have that spark? They feel like they've been built on the MMO expansion philosophy where the game doesn't start until the end.
Screw all of you Cataclysm haters. That's the EXP I played the most and I want to play it again... Hell, even Mists... Stop there tho.
oh mannn never expected to hear some Blackmill in this video, thank you for reminding me of that amazing artist. Awesome video btw
To the point about leveling: every speedup and removal of obstacles in leveling also makes the experience less interesting. If you want to make leveling interesting you need to keep in mind what the player is thinking about while clearing an area and for that there needs to be a concern for them to solve usually, especially for externally motivated players. It could be efficiency, money, other quests or goals, other people, gear and so on, for every piece you remove from the leveling you basicly remove one part of the game that they player needs to solve. If you aren't struggling for cash then such rewards will be meaningless, if you arent undergeared for some parts of the journey then rewards will mean basicly nothing etc. Modern MMOs by all accounts remove these obstacles, and also make solving them a moot point, hence why challenge runs are popular, because they introduce things to be solved by the player instead of coming pre-solved by the devs.
Ill also put on the tiniest tin foil hat and say this is by design. By making leveling boring it makes selling the solution easier, by making money something you dont need to get into before max level then you can sell the solution to the player that has never gotten into making any. I do feel for devs on this one, because if you had to actually work for levels in any capacity in games like WoW, it would probably kill some of their current playerbase because they have been playing a game where you do not have to solve anything until endgame where the puzzle is now so complicated you need simulations and discord servers full of theorycrafters in order to figure out whats next.
Damn Idyl this was good to edge to. I still feel nostalgia holds true in a lot of mmo's. I will never forget Elwynn Forrest in 2007 in wow. Nothing has hit or stuck like that sense. Sod is popular because it mixes nostalgia with new abikities. I just don't know where classic goes when Sod is over.
For context, Hardcore is still thriving quite well, many guilds on Defias Pillagers including raiding guilds, auction house is thriving, and its still an all around good time!
What makes Runescape so magical is that it's an ultimate sandbox. You truly get to define your goals, journey, limitations and priorities. Once you reach the end game, however you define "endgame", you have LOADS of different activities that are reasonably efficient and offer many different kinds of experiences, from the obstacle course of the Hallowed Sephulchre, to doing raids both solo and in groups, to the roguelike Gauntlet. I think the places where Runescape dips is those tasks where you feel like you are forced into a quite dull, laborious grinding method with no alternatives. Probably one reason people dislike agility and runecrafting are because they just involve going to the most efficient form of the thing and doing the thing for 100 hours, but most skills have decent variety and the variety increases with new updates, and at least you always have 200 other worthwhile things you could go do instead to freshen things up.
Now those snowflake ironmen who just grind the same thing for literal months of their lives nonstop... those are a special breed of human... *cough* Verf *cough* Limpwurt *cough*
Geez, what maroons, thinking Cata Classic is a good idea. I was about to say the only saving grace would be if they kept more of a pre-Cataclysm type character advancement system, but no, effing up the geography of the whole world is also bad. I don't mind the addition of the new zones, but they messed everything else up. Long term, I don't mind them adding all the zones of subsequent expansions, but they need to find a way to do that without messing up the original portions of the game.
Still have no idea how to access season of discovery.
Fact is, the core of the mmo is solid, its the extra systems and complications from later expansions that become a problem. Id love to see a new class, but in classic not in an expansion for example. If you make the right changes to the core without altering the core, you have yourself something fresh yet nostalgic.
FFXIV is almost a modern MMO that just blows it all out of the water time and time again.
I found when edging my yard I can't hear your videos. Sorry I need to edge without you
Only getting to choose 1 talent every 15 levels in MoP was brutal. Plus there were very few reasons to ever change them.
Still one of my favorite expansions, though 😂
We can all yapp but retail has really huge playerbase atm compared to classic atm and its doing fine in raiding stage which is nice
damn Idyl, this video was really good to edge to
Not the dodge Daytona lambo mix up 😭
Good video! I feel like Lich King was the beginning of WoWs downfall. The introduction of Dungeon Finder played a big part in WoW losing its identity.
The reason why the "Same company that destroyed the game will destroy it again" Is flawed, is because adding to the game is not the same as changing it. Even The Burning Crusade already had changing the essence of WoW. All updates were related to raids, which created the meme "The game only begins at endgame". The fact that there were only 10 levels before max level incentivized rushing to max level to do the raids(maybe they could have made it harder to acquire new levels after 60 to counter balance this, but they did not.). The quests were worse and dungeons were fewer, which incentivized people to grind the dungeons to get faster to the raids. In short, the fact that it was not as hard to level up as it was in vanilla made it less of an achievement, so if you were not focusing in raiding you were out of luck to play with other people.
Its not about the endgame. I'm a prime example of that. I'm f2p locked in OSRS and going for completionist.
With the removal of talent trees also came the removal of the classic spell book system. Before, you could use spells and abilities from all three specializations spell books. After, you only got the spells from the specialization you chose, with some general class abilities.
Before you would be a Druid who specializes in Restoration and would have access to all the Druid forms and all the abilities minus talented abilities.
After, you’re just a restoration Druid, nothing more.
Not quite, you had bunch of extra spells you never used and boring ass talents like +1% hit chance. Like they reintroduced older spells for all warriors on retail and you just don't use them because why would you (I.e slam as protection warrior). As s frost mage I want to cast frostbolt and not firebolt. This is the few things I agreed blizz changed