TUN: Un-Ruining the MMO
Why Hacker News recommends it
Commenters call it one of the best, most insightful explanations of sandbox versus theme-park MMO design.
What it is
MrBtongue argues that modern theme-park MMOs lost what made earlier sandbox online games compelling, and that MMOs could be saved by returning to sandbox design.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2016 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec andrepd · 2016-02 · on “'RuneScape' Can't Escape 2007”
Everyone who played MMOs talks with utmost fondness of their unforgettable time in their first MMO. Be it Everquest, Ultima Online, Runescape or WoW, it seems no other genre in video gaming elicits such fondness, or reaches immersion levels so deep as the MMORPG. The immense potential in having a virtual, persistent world inhabited by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, with the virtually inexhaustible possibilities of gameplay that arise from people inhabiting a shared, persistent world, make the MMORPG the king in this department: immersion and fan dedication. Yet it seems that this doesn't happen anymore, that the cosy world of Ultima Online or Runescape 2
Strong rec chii · 2017-09 · on “How Eve Players Pulled Off the Biggest Betrayal in Its History”
> If you find mining asteroids or mission running enjoyable, all the power to you. most new players only find out about this aspect of EVE - running grinding missions for petty coin etc - because they've been conditioned by the stereotype of World of Warcraft (and its myriad of copycats). If you have a few minutes, have a watch of [this video] - it's one of the best videos explaining this concept.
Recommends chii · 2018-12 · on “Ultima Online spent years developing a system that was destroyed by players”
> we're stuck with WoW (and its clones), which was an excellent game in its own right, but it wasn't a true MMO because most companies didn't realize what they were copying when they copied WoW. True MMO - aka, a sandbox game. See this very indepth critique, if you want more about this topic [this video]
Cites shrimp_emoji · 2022-06 · on “What has changed with video games over the last 25 years, and what has not”
> MMOs are kinda dying They should. MMO is an expired genre. It's a relic of the advent of broadband, when playing with tons of other players in a graphical game became possible for the first time. That was novel and amazing, even if it meant deep compromises in gameplay and graphics. Now, though, that's no longer novel, and those compromises don't make sense. And the incentives are awful to boot; a company has to run beefy servers, which means it's pressured to find ways to extract ever more money from the players, leading to stuff like pay-to-win. Although some people think they can be saved, particularly if they're sandboxes instead of theme parks: [this video]