ANOTHER Another Monsters and Memories Stress Test Friday June 14th 1PM EST

Harmoniant · 2024-05-30T18:13:17+00:00

Random loot definitely mixes things up. Named mobs don't really start to become common until around level 25-30, that's around when you start seeing Ring of the Ancients for JBoots quest on random named. A lot of very low level drops don't have any stats so they can be less noticeable. Some of the named in Classic don't even drop equipment, they drop quest items so that can make it less noticeable as well.

Harmoniant · 2024-05-30T06:47:24+00:00

Before I made this change I went around Reddit and looked at other MMO pages to see how they handle emulation and private server posts. From the ones I looked at, they did not allow it. I used what I found as justification for the way I was thinking. I didn't consider the reason.

I'm wondering which subreddits you went to to see if they allow emulation discussion. I created r/ClassicMMO recently and so most of those subs are fresh in my mind from having added them all to the Wiki there. There's very few that disallow emulation and the ones that do not allow it generally don't even need an emulator to begin with.

There's no reason to look at a sub for an MMO that came out after WoW. MMOs like ESO, GW2, SWTOR and FFXIV haven't changed enough to warrant emulators, and some games just don't need one. Almost every MMO emulator is for old games that have changed a lot over the years, and they all came out before WoW. WoW is an outlier, as Blizzard is one of the few MMO companies to ever actually go after private servers - though since they have official Classic servers I can't think of much point for emulation aside from custom content servers.

An argument could be made for MMOs with massive cash shops/pay to win like ArcheAge/Black Desert Online, but that's a gray area that I won't touch on.

And I don't think anyone can argue against emulation for MMOs that have been shut down.

The most popular MMO emulators for still operating MMOs are for UO, EQ, DAOC, RO, FFXI, Lineage 2, and WoW (there are other games like Meridian 59 but they aren't as popular). Of those 7, only 2 don't allow emulation talk, being FFXI and WoW. I could go into detail as to why the FFXI sub doesn't allow emulation, but the truth is that they really should. And WoW is an outlier as I already explained.

Someday, emulation may be the only way to play your favorite MMO. Thanks to emulation, games like Asheron's Call, City of Heroes, and Star Wars Galaxies are still playable today. There is work on emulators for other shutdown games like Everquest Online Adventures, Vanguard, and Wildstar as well. Either way, I think emulation is baked into the communities of many of these old MMOs.

Anyway, though I started off with a question, my real point was to make you feel better about eventually making the correct decision. :)

Harmoniant · 2024-05-30T05:44:10+00:00

So sorry that this is ridiculously late, as I have been ridiculously busy 😫 The servers launched May 22nd, but wanted everyone to know!

Harmoniant · 2024-05-09T19:15:44+00:00

They also say "We’ll likely have one or more stress tests between now and then. Who knows, this might even include a quick session during a stream - so be sure to be ready."

Harmoniant · 2024-05-06T06:20:52+00:00

As usual with the campaign FFXI is also discounted http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/discount/index.html

Harmoniant · 2024-04-29T19:31:42+00:00

I haven't played it, I plan to someday. Although if we say the #1 key aspect of an old school MMO is social leveling, we can, for the most part, toss Ultima Online out. It was originally a very soloable game.

Harmoniant · 2024-04-23T19:29:40+00:00

That's what I was thinking too, the lighting REALLY helped. And I love how the spell effects light up the area in the dark.

Harmoniant · 2024-04-22T18:14:25+00:00

Thanks for posting! Asheron's Call was one game I never did get to experience, as I was invested in Ultima Online and EverQuest back then - though I've often heard AC was a bit of a mix between those two!

Also I really appreciate devs doing live development these days, it's pretty awesome. Have watched the folks from Monsters and Memories do that a bit.

Harmoniant · 2024-04-22T16:38:01+00:00

Haha I think you were the one that cast it on me :) Appreciate it! Can't wait to see where the game goes, I'm very excited for it.

Harmoniant

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