Quests and its basis

[Breakbeat]

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Good_old_days

All I can say is that modifying a current game or creating a new game in 2022 that is similar in design to games that came out twenty, thirty years ago, wouldn't appeal to enough players to be profitable. We aren't at all the same gamers that drove the industry in 1999. Time has moved on, and relevant gamers (13-25?) today simply want different things, namely, faster gratification and solo play.

Watching the times change is simply part of life and getting older. I could sit here all day and pine for the funk to come back to hip-hop (funk-sample-laden hip-hop went out of style two decades ago) but it just isn't. At least, not any time soon. 'Kids these days' just don't want the same things, and it's the 'kids' that video game (and music) businesses care about, for the most part.

It's alright to be nostalgic, either via thoughts, or tangible enjoyment of the past; reasonable people do it all the time. IMVHO it's simply futile to push for MMOs to return to decades-old styles, the same as it would be futile to advocate for GTA VI to be a top-down 2D action game, even though those are its roots, and many people (including myself) have very fond memories of playing that original GTA until the sun came up.

[localman]

Well, but basically these MMORPGS of today are no longer RPGs in the true sense of the word.

They have long since become, and are, a genre all their own. Namely, a kind of last level instance sports game around a number competition and item exchange.

RPGs are, however, in addition to a built-in adventure as a story, so to speak, always interested in the journey and not in reaching the end of the game.
Ok, in such a game, there is of course also after reaching the maximum level further content, but which basically also ties where the development of the character to the maximum level ends, with the actual character development via the skills and its expansion and specialization.
And here you have to prove a good hand.
Of course, this is not necessarily the goal, but you are always present in the endgame, no matter what level you are. The game, as an RPG, doesn't feel like you want to get through and finish because then the sports part kicks in, but the path is always felt to be totally present and you're always exactly right at every moment.

And this is where proper RPGs differ from these new-age "RPGs," or rather new-age endgame games with shallow RPG touches.

But this requires a completely different approach to the games. You don't build a game for the endgame from the beginning and bring in singleplayer to that extent and automatically prevent group play everywhere and all the time with this way of playing.
The professions are the item providers, the classes are real roles and have real differences that complement each other in a very slowed down and hard world.
How else can you build a good MMORPG if you don't have the basics for it?

And it's clear that a healer has to struggle a lot in solo play, whereas a servant class has it easier. In the end, however, group play is always more worthwhile and the healer will constantly find groups very easily, because he is a guarantee for much safer play and simply offers more opportunities to explore the world much deeper, where one fails solo.

There is then also only little instanced, but dungeons are open, the group play takes place steadily everywhere. There will be many small groups of 1-3 players who fight their way through the world to advance into a crypt, for example, because they need something down there for their class quests to develop.
The talents are also always divided again, in order to result so with the same class, nevertheless differences.
It's not about DPS, it's about Coop. Each class has its significant advantages and disadvantages.
Classes like Supporter and CCler are again with it and very valuable.

[localman]

However, all of this assumes a rock solid heavy world. You live the zones and the world, so to speak, and are really connected to your character because you don't just walk over everything.

The monsters are on par with the player and the fights last longer than they do currently. The mobs also get different good AI's missed and are from clumsy and stupid, to "use many talents" interrupt, run away and get help etc. all represented.
Wolves hunt in packs and are only feasible for solo players if you are 8 levels above say... and then they give but less EP....

Levlen takes a long time, but there are very nice long class quests, with a lot of story and well crafted stories well conveyed. The talent trees are more complex, because as I said, talents can still be developed in itself and you have to decide.
In addition, there is also the specialization in the classes with reaching the maximum level then in 2 new final classes. And again, the path continues in terms of real development and without these sports arenas that we call instances.
This all takes place on a completely different level, because it's exactly these things like end-game isis, solo play and itemization that destroys the RPG in its foundations, or better said it doesn't take place and therefore converts these games to these sports games.

The MMORPG genre is actually built completely differently from the ground up. And that would work great, if it would be approached properly and the genre would develop there.

There is so much bonding power in it and it promotes in this dependency system with co-op principle and not competition, extremely the friendships and thus ultimately also the guilds.
This has worked 1000% better before WoW and was lifted with the competition and solo play principle within a few months to a year completely out of the seams and has caused serious damage in the community.

[localman]

Of course, you can no longer clumsily bring a pure mobgrind today. At least not obviously, because it still has to serve as a basis, of course. It is just hidden much more skillfully and with a better adventure feeling and rewarding and motivating game experience and no longer seems like a stupid grind.
In addition, the development is also constantly coupled to it and the world, as it is typical in an RPG, is only given a kind of reward in the form of a quest, including a good story behind it, when you explore and reach certain passages.

In addition, so many things are feasible today that could be implemented much worse back then.

There are a massive amount of players who would love this kind of MMORPG, and even more players who have been waiting for this kind of MMORPG for ages and don't like the current endgame and solo games at all.

It's high time to bring back a real MMORPG. Proper in the sense of how it actually means the genre.
As I said, today's modern MMORPGs are not really MMORPGs according to the genre.
Even the many aRPGs tend extremely in this end-game tunnel around bosses and items.... D3 has also ruined itself, among other things, and D4 will meet the same fate, if you think to forget the actual RPG game and build an endgame game.
D1 and D2 were successful for a reason... They were still real games, without an endgame and that's why they were so good.

Endgame eats up RPG and its content and solo quest games massively prevent all the typical elements that make MMORPGs MMORPGs in the first place...