> unless you're really into just having fun - which the game mostly does not encourage
This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.
And thus I return to single-player games, which I certainly do not mind. There is a seemingly never-ending stream of creative ideas coming out of that space.
This is the opposite of my experience playing multiplayer Minecraft. There are no goals here, other than ones you set yourself. You simply log in, hang out with people, and mess around. Here are some things I've done that were the highlights of my time on this one particular server (semi-vanilla PvE):
I helped a fellow player build an iron farm when he didn't know how.
Helped another player try to debug his auto-brewer setup.
Built a vending machine so new players can get cheap food. Got a full set of diamond armor as payment one time.
Exchanged Christmas gifts.
Helped a new player find a place to live. Upon arrival, we stood at the top of a cliff and admired the view. Then, he noticed a lone chicken and immediately named him "Colin". When the night came the chicken got out, and we both went leaping down the mountain after him. We lost half of our gear, but Colin was safe and sound in the end.
Had a pool party. A player was living in the extreme hills biome. Upon visiting him, I remarked that it'd be fun to jump off the cliff and try to make it into a tiny pool of water. So that's exactly what we did. Invited other people, and spent about two hours climbing up the mountain, then jumping off.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like this all the time, but if you find a good server with good players, it can be a really fun experience.
Reminds me of my experiences playing Ace of Spades before it got bought out. One time we just randomly had a ceasefire on the server. An embassy was built half green and half blue, halfway between the two sides. We built a night club and bar in the basement and everything was strangely peaceful. Unbeknown to us, one rogue player dug all around the embassy until there was just one block holding it all up at which point he collapsed the whole thing leaving a gaping hole. Within moments the fighting started up again and that strange magical moment was gone.
An experience like that is one you can't script and it is richer as a result.
Reminds me of a blog post/article I read long ago about how a group of players sorta discoverd rocket jumping in quake and decided to try and use it to get up this massive unaccessible ledge just for the fun of it. Spontaneous unexpected events like this are turkey something special in gaming, I suppose exactly because they're not designed for. I'd agree that mindcraft is fairly good for these type of unplanned happenings. I suppose you could consider it a culture thing.
This exact reason is why EverQuest grabbed me so much harder than any other MMO since. Another huge reason is the danger factor. In WoW, there is effectively no punishment at all if you die, so there's no fear of exploring new places. In EQ, there are (or at least were) steep penalties if you die in the wrong place. Ignoring the fact that you lose XP that could amount to hours of lost progress, you may compound your woes with continued deaths trying to get the loot that remained with your corpse. The fear-factor had me addicted, and made accomplishments that much more rewarding.
What you said and real nighttime in EQ. I remember being alone, a low level, lost in Karana as night was approaching. I knew if I died that I might not know where my corpse was for the corpse run, so I had real fear, and was real cautious.
And the final element missing to instil real fear? True PvP, where anyone might decide to betray you and kill you while you're resting to recover hitpoints or manna or whatever.
It's only when loss is possible that you can truly gain. It's only when betrayal is possible that you can truly trust. It's only when your character can completely fail that you can truly enjoy success.
Each of those are opposite sides of the same coin. A game like Wow (which I found it very addictive, compulsive even, and did "enjoy" it to some extent) is ultimately totally empty, because there is no way to gain, to trust, to win.
Put that stuff back in, and you get a game like Eve.
The only PvPing I did was on the RvR server over near Freeport, either as a human or dark elf. That was a blast, since there was no instanced battlefields.
Maybe one day a MMO will bring back that magic. Alas, nostalgia wasn't enough to overcome the shortcomings of original EQ with Project99 in 2015.
Well, as I mentioned, from what I hear, Eve has that. It may not have orcs and elves. On the other hand it has big fracking spaceships with huge lasers...
PvP makes things interesting, for sure. I suck a PvP, but I'd never play on a non-PvP server because it adds that spice of the unexpected. If you want to farm mobs, you have to stay viable in PvP, just in case.
Ah, the thrill of sneaking into Lower Guk as a Lvl 19 Bard, only armed with a flute, hoping that a group would camp the Froglok Assassin and they would allow you to loot a Mask of Deception drop.
Totally different genre, but this is one of the things that's great in CS:GO - you level up, but it's not from improving your avatar, it's from improving your own skill level - learning tactics, improving aim etc. Much more engaging than games that reward you for how many hours you sink in. (They do have elements of that in CS but they are entirely cosmetic).
In the end this is why I decided to quit WoW (~2007). I realised that I was not actually gaining anything from it, since the game requires such little skill to play (even in PvP and end game instances). Not to mention the massive time sink. With CS:GO you can play matches which are both smaller time commitments and more challenging.
> and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.
It's funny. I played a korean grinding MMO which was heavily based around this. But it was also fairly buggy and some of its mechanics poorly designed. The most fun we had was whenever new content was introduced.
Figuring out how things worked and then abusing it.
Once you were near the soft cap - there was no practical exp limit, level requirements just started to increase super-exponentially at some point - you just looked for other things to do. Trying to take on bosses that were considered too hard by coordinating more players than intended by the game system or abusing their AI, using the near-invulnerability one had in lower-level dungeons to lure hundreds of monsters around you, find breaks in the invisible walls to leave the map etc.
I think the sandbox aspects of even the least sandbox-y MMOs make the most fun. Non-intervention by the devs (either by policy or by inability) also helps to provide some feeling of freedom, you just do whatever you want instead of being railroaded into some sort of "intended playstyle".
This is the exact reason why, no matter how many times I tried over the years to play this game with friends, I could never stay attached for longer than a few hours. There seems to be less and less emphasis put on enjoying the experience of exploration and being in a space in modern online games, and more emphasis on rote activities for the sake of progress.
And thus I return to single-player games, which I certainly do not mind. There is a seemingly never-ending stream of creative ideas coming out of that space.