But how would you define "hardcore" and what is it that really differentiates the dumbed down from the 'smarted up' games?
Ok I'll give you an example with EQ. When EQ first came out if you died you lost experience and could actually lose a level too. Certain level groups like 30 to 34 you had to gain twice as much experience (this was when the cap level was 50. I also believe from 48-52 you had another level group that took twice as much experience. Those of us who started out with EQ had to go through these grueling but prestigous levels to make it to 50. Newcomers a couple of years later got to stream through them because the level cap was raised to 60 and then only a couple of levels between 50-60 were like that, once the level cap went to 75 they even removed that.
Another thing they did was stop letting you lose a level if you lost too much experience and thus you could never lose more experience than zero of a certain level. This also after many of us spent years going through the "fear" of losing a level or many levels if you got caught in a bad spot and continued to die over and over (this usually happened in PVP spawn point camping).
Then finally the straw that broke the camels back they created a sort of a graveyard where your body went if you died. No longer was the "FEAR" there of losing ALL YOUR STUFF if you died in a really hard area and there weren't others there to help you get it out within 7 days. FEAR was one of the most fun parts of EQ. It made you play well and not like some idiot. It also made others play well (that really wanted to grief) or they wouldn't get help getting their body or stuff back. It was really a nice community for PVE back then. PVP well that's another story but usually those that got spawn point camped were azzzholes and deserved to get deleveled back to level 1. heheee
Finally SOE decided to create POP short for PLANES OF POWER which had teleporters to just about every main place in EQ. Well this place killed players who made income by porting people around the world as druids and wizards (two classes that got teleports to the main places around the world). People stopped wanting rides by 90%. I used to get 2-5 plat per ride and got lots of tips too just porting players around the world. With POP they got better teleports closer to cities than the Druid or Wizards got. So, people stopped using us for travel except to a few choice places where POP didn't port you to. POP was mainly to port to city areas but had a few ports to outlying adventure areas.
So this is the difference in what was "hardcore" play and turned it into a romper room carebear game. I quit about this time and started to play Star Wars Galaxies and you've heard what they did to it later on as well. I tried also DAOC but just couldn't get into that world or the graphics. Then EQ2 but my puter and graphics card weren't up to the power required to play it. I've since gone back and am playing the freeplay EQ2 game but it's just not as fun as EQ used to be. So, Guild Wars which has no monthly fee is the one I play most now. It's not that great, has no loot to adventure for after you get a max weapon, armor piece and offhand piece and is really another romper room carebear game now.
Too many of these games are carebear now and not enough FEAR to get players to play WELL and to play NICELY. When you have nothing to fear by the community or the game you can just become an azzz as so many have in most of these mmo worlds now. I will admit though EQ had one of the best moderated game worlds as they allowed players to become guides and monitors but eventually the riffraff got into that world and people were getting banned who hadn't really done anything bad.
X3:Universe of games rules them all!! Xtra coming soon X3:REBIRTH 4th qtr 2011 YAY!
