Oh wow, this video is sooooo nostalgic for me.. Those janky mmo websites, not being able to afford any sub-based mmo, trying out some cursed and sometimes hidden gem mmos, mmos with zero population, sitting around a campfire talking about life with online friends/strangers.. Thank you for this nostalgic gem of a video, and for reminding me I wasn't alone in all that!
omg I just nearly spit out my food. I clicked on this video to see what kind of games you bring up, expecting to quickly brush past it and return to gaming. You turned my 30 second peek at your video into 30 minutes of every last fragment of focus I have left to spare being spared, followed by a deep silent reflection on the topics at hand long enough for my tv to turn off from inactivity. I turned my tv on while taking a bite of my soggy cereal, my eyes resting in the view count's location on the screen to read 175 views. This challenged my mouth muscles ability to contain themselves long enough to hide away the food as my body demanded me to laugh at the absurdity that the most attention I have given to anything this month, maybe this year, is to a video that has by some ill fate hasn't even broken through the algorithm.
It really breaks my heart that gaming, more specifically the early MMO scene, just won't see the wild innovation and social fun like they were.. The way my heart aches for games like MapleStory, Mabinogi, S4 League, Ragnarok Online, RF Online, etc etc and how they just won't see the light of day again.. I wish it was just nostalgia, I wish so much that the pain was just rose tinted glasses. But it's just not the same anymore and I feel like I've lost something that defined such a huge part of my life. Appreciate the blast from the past though, fantastic video on the subject.
I've started my MMO journey with Ultima Online, but never went really deep with it, because I found it cumbersome and obtuse. In 2001 I played some International Ragnarok Online, and even though the grind was excessive, I did enjoy my time. Played on European servers a few years later, with my then girlfriend, got quite a bit farther in the grind, but ultimately stopped playing. A few years later, around 2008, being in an emotional hole due to some matters outside of my control, I picked up RO again on a private server, and even though these days the population is pathetic, I still log on from time to time, because I've become attached to my character. Never touched WoW or most other MMOs because, like you mentioned, they are missing that sense of community. I've never had another MMO that quite felt like RO. Even games that were there to "take that crown" like Tree of Savior fell flat on it's face. While I am prolific in PvP on that private server, I think there is nothing better than sitting around that proverbial campfire with a bunch of friends and talking about things, that only a "graphical chat" like an MMO can get you.
I think about these old mmos so often. I was going to chime in with some, but you touched on almost every single one (even Audition and Fusionfall!!). Quick shout to Combat Arms being my online shooter experience because we couldn't afford xbox live. Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Monster & Me Online were also big for me that I didn't see in the footage. Side note, Mabinogi is getting upgraded to Unreal Engine 5. No word on if it'll come to the west, though.
I have never gone near MMOs, they scare me and internet was never up to scratch, but its really cool to hear your journey through them. Won't lie though, traviling through a map on a hover board does sound pretty sick!
Well this takes me back. Hunting down a good F2P game to play back in the 2000s was an unforgettable experience all it's own, especially because of how the world of online gaming was still fairly new. It was worse with MMOs for me because I got to play World of Warcraft at a friends house and got hooked immediately. Sadly, no F2P MMO I found could even compare to the quality of WoW. Being a kid, with no income, and using a computer that could either run these games at a decent frame or barely run them at all, I had to settle on any game that my dinosaur PC could actually run. It seems like yesterday I was playing games like Rumble Fighter, Grand Chase, Flyff, Dance, Rakion, Wizard 101 and Maple Story. Up to this day, no MMO has been able to keep my attention outside of Wow and FF14. While I"m happy to have a pretty beastly PC nowadays, it was fun trying out a bunch of F2P games back in the day, finding one that was actually entertaining and forming a group of friends that you'd meet up with every night. The World of online gaming just feels so...isolated these days.
facts! I totally forgot about even trying to run these games. I take for granted that I can run whatever I want now, but back then having to stand at the zone entrance waiting on someone to load in. -sondi
I’m sad that you couldn’t play Flyff Universe because I honestly had so much fun with it a year back. You could make a whole video about it, but I don’t know how active it is nowadays. The game is honestly way deeper than you would think. Do you know about Giant Hunting? Giants are super strong versions of normal mobs. BIS gear only drops from giants, so you have to go around the world killing them. Some ranged classes can do it without ever getting hit, by slowing the giant, kiting back, teleporting. The same classes can AOE down huge waves of mobs without ever getting hit. It’s really like playing a mage in WoW. And then there were melee classes that would get destroyed in one hit if they didn’t have good gear and buffs. 😢 The funny thing about giant hunting is how competitive it is. Since the servers were so populated, people would literally sit on their brooms for hours, switching between layers and keeping track of the spawn timers. When I went giant hunting, I used a strategy that would get people so mad. I figured out that giant aggro will reset if they kill someone, which allows another player to steal the Giant. So I would just bring a level 20 character with me all the time, wait for an AOE attack, sacrifice them, and steal the Giant. If it failed, I resurrect the character and try again. It took like 10-15 minutes to kill them solo, so I had plenty of time. My favorite was the Giant Wagsaac. He would do a super ultra long range AOE spell. I would spend hours aggroing him, dragging him to people who were out leveling, and getting them one shot by the AOE while I was fine since I was 40 levels higher than them. I never received more angry DMs in my life. And don’t even get me started on the PK system. I must have PK’d around 1500 players before I quit. It would get so bad that people would call their max level friends to babysit them or chase me around flying for three continents. I abused neutral zones like Lodestones or the Arena, where you can’t hit anyone, and lose them by switching layers. There are penalties to PKing, but there’s also a cash shop item you can abuse which forgives all your negative karma. It was so fun. There’s a lot more, like the insane competitiveness over gathering upgrade materials in the economy. How you could kill people for free who were flying over the Saintmorning Arena (farming hate mail). There’s also the fact that you can save money by spending money. I dropped like 300 dollars straight away on XP and stat buffs, so I could farm faster than anyone else and buy the rest of the Cash shop items I needed for gold. Less competition for giants as well. Eventually, the class balance, the grinding, and pay2win wore me out. I felt it was so unfair that other classes could level and do giants so quickly, while I had to spend so much and not even do it half as fast. And you can never have a flying fight against a ranged class as a melee since they’ll just blow you up. I honestly got addicted to it. Like a real addiction, getting cravings and seeing it in my sleep. But I was writing my college thesis so I couldn’t grind too much anymore. Now I’m kinda glad I don’t play it anymore and can focus on real life stuff.
Funny enough my computer broke right after writing that part of the script . When I got a new one and the new footage it worked like a charm. I think I just wanted to get 10mins of gameplay and got all the way to level 19 in one sitting it's truly addicting haha. Idk man something about making this video has that fever for playing an MMO at a high right now. I think the furthest I got ever was level 40ish, I should hop back in see how far I can get
I'm waiting to see more information. Mainly trying to see if this is going to be a PSO2NGS kinda thing or just strictly an engine upgrade . If it's a reboot or even has fresh start servers I'm in there day 1
Oh wow, this video is sooooo nostalgic for me.. Those janky mmo websites, not being able to afford any sub-based mmo, trying out some cursed and sometimes hidden gem mmos, mmos with zero population, sitting around a campfire talking about life with online friends/strangers..
Thank you for this nostalgic gem of a video, and for reminding me I wasn't alone in all that!
This what we do it for! For them folks that typed "welcome!" when you joined a random guild inv
omg I just nearly spit out my food.
I clicked on this video to see what kind of games you bring up, expecting to quickly brush past it and return to gaming. You turned my 30 second peek at your video into 30 minutes of every last fragment of focus I have left to spare being spared, followed by a deep silent reflection on the topics at hand long enough for my tv to turn off from inactivity.
I turned my tv on while taking a bite of my soggy cereal, my eyes resting in the view count's location on the screen to read 175 views.
This challenged my mouth muscles ability to contain themselves long enough to hide away the food as my body demanded me to laugh at the absurdity that the most attention I have given to anything this month, maybe this year, is to a video that has by some ill fate hasn't even broken through the algorithm.
you dont understand how much this means to me. seriously thank you.
-sondi
Great video man! Can't believe how many old mmo's I've played over the years that I've completely forgot about, this was nice trip down memory lane.
even after editing i'm still getting reminded of random ones i forgot like C9 and Age of Wushu
It really breaks my heart that gaming, more specifically the early MMO scene, just won't see the wild innovation and social fun like they were..
The way my heart aches for games like MapleStory, Mabinogi, S4 League, Ragnarok Online, RF Online, etc etc and how they just won't see the light of day again..
I wish it was just nostalgia, I wish so much that the pain was just rose tinted glasses. But it's just not the same anymore and I feel like I've lost something that defined such a huge part of my life.
Appreciate the blast from the past though, fantastic video on the subject.
im glad im not alone~ part of me is hoping that the Mabinogi UE5 upgrade will add some classic or fresh start servers so I can dive back in.
-sondi
I've started my MMO journey with Ultima Online, but never went really deep with it, because I found it cumbersome and obtuse. In 2001 I played some International Ragnarok Online, and even though the grind was excessive, I did enjoy my time. Played on European servers a few years later, with my then girlfriend, got quite a bit farther in the grind, but ultimately stopped playing. A few years later, around 2008, being in an emotional hole due to some matters outside of my control, I picked up RO again on a private server, and even though these days the population is pathetic, I still log on from time to time, because I've become attached to my character. Never touched WoW or most other MMOs because, like you mentioned, they are missing that sense of community. I've never had another MMO that quite felt like RO. Even games that were there to "take that crown" like Tree of Savior fell flat on it's face. While I am prolific in PvP on that private server, I think there is nothing better than sitting around that proverbial campfire with a bunch of friends and talking about things, that only a "graphical chat" like an MMO can get you.
It just hits different. That's why I miss playing them like we used to.
@@BackOfTheRack Indeed.
I think about these old mmos so often. I was going to chime in with some, but you touched on almost every single one (even Audition and Fusionfall!!). Quick shout to Combat Arms being my online shooter experience because we couldn't afford xbox live. Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Monster & Me Online were also big for me that I didn't see in the footage. Side note, Mabinogi is getting upgraded to Unreal Engine 5. No word on if it'll come to the west, though.
I totally spaced on Combat Arms but included Metal Assault lmao. And now i just remembered puzzle pirates too
I have never gone near MMOs, they scare me and internet was never up to scratch, but its really cool to hear your journey through them. Won't lie though, traviling through a map on a hover board does sound pretty sick!
Well this takes me back. Hunting down a good F2P game to play back in the 2000s was an unforgettable experience all it's own, especially because of how the world of online gaming was still fairly new. It was worse with MMOs for me because I got to play World of Warcraft at a friends house and got hooked immediately. Sadly, no F2P MMO I found could even compare to the quality of WoW. Being a kid, with no income, and using a computer that could either run these games at a decent frame or barely run them at all, I had to settle on any game that my dinosaur PC could actually run. It seems like yesterday I was playing games like Rumble Fighter, Grand Chase, Flyff, Dance, Rakion, Wizard 101 and Maple Story. Up to this day, no MMO has been able to keep my attention outside of Wow and FF14. While I"m happy to have a pretty beastly PC nowadays, it was fun trying out a bunch of F2P games back in the day, finding one that was actually entertaining and forming a group of friends that you'd meet up with every night. The World of online gaming just feels so...isolated these days.
facts! I totally forgot about even trying to run these games. I take for granted that I can run whatever I want now, but back then having to stand at the zone entrance waiting on someone to load in.
-sondi
Damn AQ world had a 3D game
I’m sad that you couldn’t play Flyff Universe because I honestly had so much fun with it a year back. You could make a whole video about it, but I don’t know how active it is nowadays. The game is honestly way deeper than you would think.
Do you know about Giant Hunting? Giants are super strong versions of normal mobs. BIS gear only drops from giants, so you have to go around the world killing them. Some ranged classes can do it without ever getting hit, by slowing the giant, kiting back, teleporting. The same classes can AOE down huge waves of mobs without ever getting hit. It’s really like playing a mage in WoW. And then there were melee classes that would get destroyed in one hit if they didn’t have good gear and buffs. 😢
The funny thing about giant hunting is how competitive it is. Since the servers were so populated, people would literally sit on their brooms for hours, switching between layers and keeping track of the spawn timers.
When I went giant hunting, I used a strategy that would get people so mad. I figured out that giant aggro will reset if they kill someone, which allows another player to steal the Giant. So I would just bring a level 20 character with me all the time, wait for an AOE attack, sacrifice them, and steal the Giant. If it failed, I resurrect the character and try again. It took like 10-15 minutes to kill them solo, so I had plenty of time.
My favorite was the Giant Wagsaac. He would do a super ultra long range AOE spell. I would spend hours aggroing him, dragging him to people who were out leveling, and getting them one shot by the AOE while I was fine since I was 40 levels higher than them. I never received more angry DMs in my life.
And don’t even get me started on the PK system. I must have PK’d around 1500 players before I quit. It would get so bad that people would call their max level friends to babysit them or chase me around flying for three continents. I abused neutral zones like
Lodestones or the Arena, where you can’t hit anyone, and lose them by switching layers. There are penalties to PKing, but there’s also a cash shop item you can abuse which forgives all your negative karma. It was so fun.
There’s a lot more, like the insane competitiveness over gathering upgrade materials in the economy. How you could kill people for free who were flying over the Saintmorning Arena (farming hate mail). There’s also the fact that you can save money by spending money. I dropped like 300 dollars straight away on XP and stat buffs, so I could farm faster than anyone else and buy the rest of the Cash shop items I needed for gold. Less competition for giants as well.
Eventually, the class balance, the grinding, and pay2win wore me out. I felt it was so unfair that other classes could level and do giants so quickly, while I had to spend so much and not even do it half as fast. And you can never have a flying fight against a ranged class as a melee since they’ll just blow you up.
I honestly got addicted to it. Like a real addiction, getting cravings and seeing it in my sleep. But I was writing my college thesis so I couldn’t grind too much anymore. Now I’m kinda glad I don’t play it anymore and can focus on real life stuff.
Funny enough my computer broke right after writing that part of the script . When I got a new one and the new footage it worked like a charm. I think I just wanted to get 10mins of gameplay and got all the way to level 19 in one sitting it's truly addicting haha. Idk man something about making this video has that fever for playing an MMO at a high right now. I think the furthest I got ever was level 40ish, I should hop back in see how far I can get
G4 was the best channel on television imo
prolly a lil biased x)
S4 League.............
Who's dat man
Who's dat man
You're dat man.
hours of survival mode and conquest I want a revival!
-sondi
Hero Online the best.
Im wondering your opinion on mabi's engine update announcement.
I'm waiting to see more information. Mainly trying to see if this is going to be a PSO2NGS kinda thing or just strictly an engine upgrade . If it's a reboot or even has fresh start servers I'm in there day 1