Why Modern MMO's Suck - Josh Strife Hayes Reacts 

It's very smart of Josh to react to Josh's content. This way Josh's content will get views, and Josh's reaction will also get views, it's an absolute win for both channels.

Its a historic moment, Josh went from reviewing to reacting, bet he could turn 1 minute trailer to 2 hours like MatPat

If Josh did 'raids' of dead MMOs where 50+ people gathered to all start and explore the games at the same time, I'd join.

Man, this reminds me of watching a sprout in FFXIV in early ARR recently. They were trying to figure out fishing and accidentally unequipped all their gear so they ended up screaming: "Ah, I'm naked, why am I naked!?!" It was amazing and I'm sure they'll remember the experience too lol.

Josh is a certified reactor now

Josh becoming a react andy and shamelessly profiting of the hard work of the original creator is heartbreaking. I will buy a third monitor and watch your content from there!

That morrowind map thing is real. There's a book in the game called "Rare Artifacts of Tamriel". After I found the book, I put up the map on the wall and then proceeded to mark every location where I had found an artifact. I checked the list I pulled from the book, and I tried to figure out all the information from rumors and quests that might pertain to the artifact. It was maddening work, but I remember it all so fondly.

I was pleasantly surprised you touched on something I realised almost a decade ago now. It was a major paradigm shift for me and over time has become a bit of a saying of mine, that being "you can only truly experience something once." After the first time, it's not as special since that experience is already a part of you, your memory, and your history. You can do it over and over again to gain mastery over something, gain profit or reminisce to help resolidify a memory that has become patchy and/or full of holes over time however, the core lessons, concepts, information, and any other rewards have already been gained from the first time expierence. There's no reason to experience it again if there's no personal gain or motivation to do so. Our brain just says its no longer fulfilling to do so and would be a waste of time.

HE TOLD US HE WOULD DO IT AND HE ACTUALLY DID IT. We didn't deserve it, yet here we are. Best reaction streamer out there.

mans sounds more put together reacting live than he does in the original vid despite it being scripted. He's improved so much in three years lol

I have nostalgia for the authentic, organic community interactions. Now a day's they ALL feel like business exchanges.

josh turns a 20 minute video into a near 2 hours reaction I cannot complain, I love him

"When you were playing, and you think 'maybe I should open the wiki'" That was the part that cut. I do inefficient things all the time in MMOs, and I think lots of people do. But the part we all do is look at or think about the wiki. Even if we decide not to do the efficient thing, we look at it and think about it.

I'm 100% committed to the belief that roleplayers will be the only people who genuinely enjoys MMOs and frankly the last few people who knows how to actually play an MMO. I rarely hear of roleplayers telling their friends to play "efficiently" and when clearing a dungeon that requires heavy mechanics, everyone is patient and just having fun. RPers are heavily community-focused and their shared interest in RP gives everyone a sense of connection outside of just grinding and raiding. But no one will ever cater to their tastes so MMOs will never improve.

10:57 That's exactly what happened to me when I started playing FFXIV. Played it for a few days and barely reached lvl 20 or something like that, and already felt the urge to go back to the starter city to help newcomers and welcome them. Felt kinda like roleplay even. The kind community helped a lot too.

This reminds me how I, as a kid, would write down Minecraft recipes and basically make a softcover book for them. Taking a4 paper, folding it in half and staple it together. I let my brother use it whenever he wanted to play and he was so proud when he found something I hadn't and got to write a page.

Your New World example a little over half way through was perfect. I hopped on day one, joined a guild and started recruiting as many people as possible to max out that guild. Started a sister guild , maxed that out then as a mega guild we conquered the first 2 zones, and it was awesome. For the first time ever in my 15 year MMO history, I was part a a community and even a leader of it. I would log on and people in general chat would welcome me and ask me to play with them. Unfortunately, it was New World so that experience only lasted about 2 weeks before everyone got bored and stopped playing, including myself.

We did a dungeon in ESO with 3 real life friends. and we didn't check any guide, we just went trough it and every time we were stuck, one of us said "i think it's this way" and we continued the exploration. It was simply awesome. But I know it's not the same for everybody and a lot of people would say it was inefficient, but we don't care, we had a lot of fun doing it that way.

There are so many quotes in this video that really helped me. I think I've realized I've been holding onto the past a lot in life recently due to certain trauma, but Josh's way of speaking and how profoundly brilliant he is, has helped me see past that. I can't say I'll have a whole new life by tomorrow, but I think this has gotten me working towards a better future. Thank you Josh.

I love the description of significance of items being important because of the journey. Reminds me of my first MMO I played, SWTOR, and getting my real lightsaber for the first time, having a training stick for several missions and then going on a big mission to forge my own lightsaber was such a highlight of the game.

Josh out here transforming his own content, more than xqc transforms others. Crazy times.

The conversation about things that take a long time to do (around 35 minutes) is a direct reflection of the financial stress and pressure that we all face. No one feels like they have enough time to grind, or do side content, because we're all so rushed and under so much pressure all the time

Folding Ideas has made also a video about WoW especially, how the available information helps players to optimize the fun out of the game. Going on about raid-tools and so on. I would love to see you two discuss this topic together

I had my wake-up moment from Starcraft 2 years ago. I remember doing skirmish missions and trying to farm the AI for exp points, and realized that I fundamentally started playing the game differently to "progress," instead of just enjoying an RTS like I normally do. Now I just play older games like Command and Conquer, and Age of Empires, and play for fun. I can play 500 games of Command and Conquer, and not get any progress for it. After the 500th game, I have nothing new to show for it than I did before I started my first game. But the important thing is that I play games for fun now.

Information as a premium: I had this back in DDO. There is this one infamous dungeon called the Pit. It is long and confusing and not really worth the XP you get from it. But one guy had learned it quite well and though me to run it through as well. We got so efficient in it that we could run a group through it in like 5-10 minutes when usually it was over 30 minutes making it actually really good XP per minute dungeon. Also it had the added bonus it had a chance to spawn a rare mob that could drop one of the best weapons for Slime killing (Slimes break your weapons so having good anti-slime weapon was nice). It was so much fun to show of the knowledge of just that one dungeon.

thank you for recognising the plight of us Aussie mmo gamers, I feel seen

I do actually play MMORPG with people, and i have a lot of fun chatting on Discord and doing raids, playing multiple different games together and streaming our gameplay to those who just want to watch. I have played many games on and off with my closest friends, and I have played in guilds with discord, raidcall, etc, and though I find it hard to socialize sometimes, I know for a fact that playing together is better. I love that GW2 allows me to participate in multiple guilds, so I mostly socialize with the my small, cozy guild of casual old people, but I have the large guilds there at arms length anytime

In Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, Journey before Destination is a major idea in the books and I greatly agree with it. Things suck if you are just given them, they are worthless.

In GW2, I've have come across this situation many times: complete a hard task, get the reward, but the reward itself is worthless and the only reason I worked so hard to get it is because that item is part of collection that I need to complete to get an item that is very much worth the effort put into getting it (ie. legendary trinkets, gear, etc.). I call them stepping stone items, and I don't feel accomplished when I get them.

These long react videos are really nice for playing in the background while working on model terrain/trains. Keep em coming

This is the first time I've seen this man pop into my feed, and I immediately started resonating with the message. I started thinking about a year back, when some friends and I picked up DDO and had a lot of fun making our way through the various quests, enjoying the slightly janky control and the interesting character build options. Working our way forward with a bunch of quests geared towards either finding special equipment we really want, or building favor with a faction that will unlock something new that we'd love to use later. There was always something interesting to do next, and we'd play several times a week together (by some magic, our schedules aligned, which is usually the opposite of what happens with anything related to D&D). The point that MMORPGs need to balance the MMO and the RPG, and add value through the "massive multiplayer" part, is especially compelling.

1:27:42 Instead of a toolbelt, you have tool gnomes that you can talk to and get your tools from. I think that's alright since they pretty much just are a local storage unit that can help save an extra trip to the bank in case you forgot something farming related. When it comes to inventory itself, Runescape oldschool already has so much extra inventory it's crazy. Compare it to classic Runescape where you had 30 inventory slots but no special inventory slots for gear. Runescape oldschool also added extra inventory items like the fish barrel, the coal bag, the gem bag, the seed box, the herb pouch, the rune pouches (the biggest one can hold a whopping 60 rune essence), the special bolt storage unit. You could even argue that in some cases, tablets give extra inventory in terms of being able to shrink down the amount of runes needed for a spell into a stackable consumable (since 1 type of tablet only uses 1 inventory slot).

This video of Josh reacting off the cuff was so much better than the scripted original. That's got to be a point of pride to have grown that much over three years at your craft. Well done!

That rivalry story made me much happier than I thought it could. Also, in regards to the phenomenology that Josh talks about, it reminds me of a quote that I like very much from G.K. Chesterton. "Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel." And in regards to things being handmade being worth more (a very relevant topic with the advent of AI), Mae West said "Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly."

Regarding rarity, I would add that the moment you make a rare item plain and simply unobtainable, it loses all it's value, because as you removed the object, you removed the challenge. This means it becomes not something that is perceived as a great achievement, but as a question of "Ok, you were there at the moment it was available" because people can't experience the challenge anymore.

A teacher once gave my class an advice one time, they said "if you really love someone, you waste time with them. Because when you are able to waste your time with someone, it must mean you really love them, otherwise you'd be with someone else."

I really like you bringing up players optimizing the fun out of something and its something I've been more aware of myself doing as I got older. I feel like mentioning one of my favorite memories of a mmo. I wasn't a avid PvP player in runescape, but I liked safe combat like the dual arena or player owned hose fights, and also watched alot of WWE at the time. I found a clan of players that basically had matches with the clan every week or so, they would pair us up with players at similar levels and have matches for everyone to watch. Since I didnt PvP much I lost, but the group inspired me to get better, to learn and train my skills and get better gear. I went out on a journey, I leveled up made money through whatever means I found. I got gear and hit like 80 strength which seemed impossible at that time and age, I came back and won a match in the combat arena and felt like my effort had been rewarded. I wish I could talk to the creator of that group and the people I met then to say what a transformative experience that was for me to accomplish something on my own in a MMO like that.

I used to run around World of Warcraft collecting noncombat pets (later battle pets). My friends were all having a miserable time bashing their heads against the latest raid, and I was just soloing ancient content for pets. I also remember frantically running around the world, desperately trying to get the Explorer title at the last minute before Cataclysm dropped and introduced flying mounts to the original areas. Good times.

I rarely watch very long videos (1 hour+) but this one was VERY informative and very well put together, combined with my love for mmorpgs as a whole turned out to be a very enjoyable watch. Keep up the good work

36:40 - Good point. In this context, I can also interchange "Novelty" with exploration. For example planet scanning in Mass Effect 2. The first time I did it, it was epic. I was overwhelmed with excitement and curiousity, especially when I heard the plannet scanner pick up an anomaly. I was eager to go down and explore what's happening. But once you go through it all, on a 2nd playtrough, the exploration/novelty is no longer there. You already know what's there. So the novelty is awesome, but obviously it has no replay value.

This is a good way to react to content, react to your own. Love it when creators do that.

I was playing Manic Mechanic with my young nephews recently and got a tad bit frustrated that they weren't "playing properly" and contributing to the main goal, until I realized they were just playing their own game within the game. They were coming up with their own imagined roles and actually "playing" with the game like it was a toy. I was too focused on doing what the game wanted when they were using the game as a tool/toy to play how they wanted.

A word about not being efficient in MMOs: I've been playing WoW Clssic again with the release of Hardcore servers. Every person I've ever randomly teamed up with for a task uses an add-on that tracks quest objectives and adds quest locations to your map and such. And I know they're using it because it automatically posts in party chat when someone completes a quest objective. And this genuinely baffles me because some of the most fun I have in Classic is wandering into an area I know nothing about and discovering what is there. It adds so much adventure to the game which would otherwise be mindless fetch quests.

regarding achieving the thing through a process: I crochet (and add a bit of knitting. I also sew clothes). and even if that sweater I just made is really basic and the only cool thing about it is the color the yarn already came in, knowing I made every single stitch and now I'm wearing this unique thing made to fit me feels more rewarding than my job (where the ultimate fixes for problems are up to developers and the solutions are often in the customer fixing something out of my control) ever could. that said, I get that games need experiences like that, but I am still stupidly excited to get proper LFG in classic wow because not everything needs to be a thing with a bunch of inconvenient time consuming steps. especially considering the rewards you get for the dungeon are acquired through clearing the dungeon. the flight to utgarde pinnacle is a pure timesink. games need both. some things are just unnecessary, others should not be made more convenient (though I could use a hotfix to speed up Vezax hardmode, it doesn't feel like an achievement 5 months in)

I'm at the part where you talk about not giving a new player everything in the beginning, and that is absolutely right. I never thought I'd enjoy playing an ironman, but it has been such a great time. The progression and the feeling of getting items of my own, on my own, bears so much weight and it makes it much more rewarding

On the tedium vs reward thing, I personally feel the more tedious the journey, the more fun the game play must be along the journey and the reward needs to be guaranteed. But if the reward is going to be a slot machine (like a drop from a boss) then less tedium the better because pulling the lever because the tedium and it has be fun to farm it.

You bit about making mistakes, and adding to the journey is so real for me. It wasn't in an MMO, but it was in Zelda 2. There is a late game dungeon that is basically all locked doors. I knew you could get by them with the 'Fairy' spell but i had no idea i was supposed to find the hidden village and get the skeleton key. So i painstakingly made my way through it with the spell only to find out later when i needed a spell you get from the same village to beat the mini boss in the final dungeon. There's a sense of pride knowing i beat a dungeon in the wrong way and i wouldn't trade that for anything

20:45, I used to do this with a game on Roblox (Fantastic Frontier). So nostalgic…

Your point on information is a good one. Whenever I play an MMORPG and it has deterministic crafting, I gravitate towards it because of the fun of finding out how to maximize what you get out of crafting, and subsequent selling of what you've made and figuring out what is efficient to make and I usually do so only with the tools provided in game. The fun isn't in immediately being efficient, it is in finding out how to be efficient.

One of my favorite memories of WoW was the Rhok'delar quest for hunters. It was a challenge just to find the tree you needed to talk to. Then you had to track down 4 demons and solo each of them. Each demon was a puzzle. You needed to find the right abilities and utilize all the core abilities of hunters. Kiting, shooting, trapping, burst dps. You needed to learn all the skills to conquer them, but when you finally did the reward wasn't just an amazing weapon, but a badge of pride.

The delivery from 1:02:53 1:03:43 is superb. Your theatre background is really coming through.

Lucid Nightmare was peak world of warcraft for me. That final step is a memory I'll keep forever and that mount is the one I'm proudest of and it didn't take a time gated 1% drop for it to be rare

Convenience only becomes a problem when it goes beyond repetitive busy-work, I believe. Running to the *same* dungeon 50 times is not fun, but getting there the first time is. This is even more exaggerated if the journey lacks quests (because you've completed them) or challenge (because you're too high level).

Going on the idea of items actually being those of myth, I feel like there needs to be a distinction made between being difficult to obtain and being tedious to obtain. One tests your actual skill and knowledge as a player, the other just tests how much of your sanity are you willing to put down the drain. A good example of the latter are the infinite potions in Black Desert Online. Those are not difficult to obtain as the enemies that drop the pieces for it are fairly mid-game, but they are tedious. More often than not, you are stuck in one of three grind spots for upwards of 20 IRL weeks running the same mobs for just one piece of the crafting materials.

My favorite memory is doing the green fire warlock challenge in WoW when it was new. I was house sitting for some family friends and brought my PC over. I remember just sitting there for hours until I got it. Was such a great feeling.

the lack of convenience is alot of the reward, the fire and inferno capes in osrs is a great example, its a status symbol and you can go out in the world and see people that havent achieved what you have and it creates a sense of pride not just in the stats of an item, but the prestige aswell

For me personally. I love the solo experience. Give me that EVERYTIME. I love ff14. They added bots to dungeons and i want to say i didnt notice a difference but i did. The bots were better than players. They didnt die needlessly, explained what to do as it was happening. None of my time was wasted. The story was amazing. I felt like the anime chosen one. I felt more connected to the npcs than 99% of people i have played mmos with and ive played since vanilla wow. As i got older i dont have time to waste as i work 8-10hr days. I have to do shit for myself as an adult. I have to wake up for work ontime. Life is the mmo i never wanted to play and im forced too. Full of grind, needless social interaction, stupid ineffective systems i MUST use daily. So i like my solo adventure with other ppl being there when its convenient, QoL and convenience that lets me get to the good bits. I work a job, i dont want to work another i pay for.

Man, the idea of leaving a mark or becoming a known entity in a virtual world is something that really resonates with me. Even things as small as leaving a book in an in-world library that other players can read (shout-out to Project Gorgon) just feels ... Magical.

I remember times just hang out in MMO not really doing anything and just chatting a few people do something silly or stupid. Decide go on a raid, get wiped and not care. It was the social part that matter more. Same reason for having LAN Party, going local comic book shop or game store to play, or going to bar and such with friends. Doing things most efficiently make best character or strongest for me sucks all fun out of any games not just MMOs. I like to build characters based on story I have of them in my head.

1:05:50 Yes, this is exactly what I am feeling too, and I am honestly starting to have this same problem with MMOs even nowadays, not feeling any connection. I used to stream whatever solo or multiplayer game I played on Twitch and it has been hard to pick up any game without it as I miss having chat interactions or people watching which I realize now that has much value to me. And that started to happen with games none else of my friends played.

I found your content in 2021. My grandpa had just passed away, and we were preparing for the funeral. In person, I tend to be reserved and keep to myself. And of course in that situation, I was an emotional mess, just hiding in spare rooms of my grandpa's house. I found your content then, and binging it helped get me through that sad time. Just wanted to say thank you.

I spent almost 3 hours last night trying the jump puzzle in Kugane in FFXIV refusing to look up a guide because I wanted to do it for myself. So much more satisfying not being efficient and just having fun.

You made a point that was so spot on. All the content created on games really limits the discovery and creativity people have in the games. I remember buying the guide book for my games because if you got stuck and did not have the book, you had no way of progressing. and the books were written well enough to not directly give the answer at times. I miss playing through a game like elden ring without a meta build or exploits or fear that I am missing out on something. I miss playing games blind and trying things out to see what is good and bad. Now creators find out what is good, with hundreds of hours of gameplay, and tell us what is good, tell us the tier list, tell us the meta. I miss finding that out myself.

Hey Josh, thanks for the video the other day where you were talking how we got to a point of just passively consuming and enjoying it more than to actually engage in something. So you made me think and instead of just cosuming this video now on main screen i'm weaving the slingshot that Lindybeige did. Thanks Josh

22 minute video turned into a 1 hour 49 minute video is a certified Asmongold classic, provided by Josh this time around, love it.

Look at Josh reacting to, commenting on, and adding so much value to a video he made himself. Fancy that.

Thank you for the life advice Josh, I know you were talking about games but I need to put more effort into my friendships if I want to form strong bonds with my friends, and I havent been keeping up

13:31 I ended up getting the lucid nightmare about a year ago. I can only say one word: phenomenal. I can say the same thing about the Jenafur pet. Ever since I got that cat, I can never think of another pet I would want more in my life than that one for my in-game journey. ❤

The nostalgia I feel for PSO2 base game is unreal, I had a small group of people that used text chat emotes and symbol art to communicate with one another. We played for hundreds of hours all the way through the game as it released it's 8+ years of content from the JP version to the US version in the span of a year. The large urgent quests and concerts that happen in game as people gather up and talk before they start was something I've never seen in any other game and it was magical. This sadly ended once NGS came out and many of the players faded away from the game and groups disbanded to other games due to how bad it was compared to base game with the lack of good story or the slowed down lackluster combat, it had lost it's charm that the base game had and with no new concerts apart from one added into NGS we've had nothing to look forward to or gather around for. The base game had so many concerts and urgent quests coming out that it even had a schedule for every week listing what to expect every hour and people could plan around it and meet up for the content and talk for awhile before a concert started then urgent quest with a large epic boss battle would start 30 minutes later as you'd see 100+ people in each instance of almost every block that was in the stands of the concert move over to the prep area to talk about things and setup for the boss battle. I don't think a single MMO will ever live up to that feeling and I've been chasing it ever sense in other games.

while playing EverQuest around the year 2000 I remember camping a spot in a dungeon with a group for 36 hours to make it past what was called a hell level. Meaning that the experience to get from level 49 to 50 was so high it took a ridiculous amount of hours, grinding just to get through it, we rotated different members out of the group but I stayed there the whole 36. I was about dead when the group was over.

36:01, First day on WoW, a Gnome Miner, Engineer, Warlock. I was smelting Copper into Bars when an Orb9Eye looking thing) floated in front of me. It said "I challenge you!" I kind of freaked out, but followed the Orb out of the Blacksmith's Forge and saw a Human Warlock with a giant Blue mist looking thing. I pointed at it and said "What is that?" The Warlock laughed and dismissed his Voidwalker. 1. I was lvl 3, didn't even have an Imp. 2. Never seen the Voidwalker 3. The Orb spell, never saw that before either. Can't forget the encounter though :)

I love everything here except the whole "I want to do a dungeon without knowing what the dungeon is about, so I dont read anything about it online, but then expect the people in the dungeon to tell me what the dungeon is about" thing. I do a lot of blind prog with friends and alone. But I dont expect people to handhold me through it. I get into the dungeon I dont know anything about and will wing it. If people wanna explain stuff, cool. If not, also cool. But I think the expectation that they should go out of their way to explain the dungeon to me because I want to go in blind is p weird.

I made a name for myself in WoW for a long time by knowing stuff. I was the go to in my guild for years because I could explain every tiny aspect of the game from raid strats to item drop locations to gathering loops and respawn timers. Was fantastic.

TERA was my first MMO and it means so much to me. I even have a tattoo of it lmao This video made me feel so emotional. I miss that time! Until the end I was so proud of my Death Charger. So many Nexuses. So many teaming up 2 hours before the start of the Nexus, so many chilling with people and getting a single hit while FPS dropped to 6. Dying for hours in Argon Corpus but doing it all over again because it's fun! And finally getting all the kills and getting that +9 weapon and having everyone on the server congratulate you because it was impressive! And then being able to 4-man Nexus and people didn't trust me because "warriors can't tank" and I'll just kite tank the adds without any heals and never felt so proud. We would leave Nexus 20 minutes after everyone else, but who cares? I wasn't there to be the best, I was there to have fun, and I still got better because of it. I would do anything to experience that again. This video hurts. lmao

A ton of what you said isn't exclusive to just MMOs, but all games in general. I think a big thing is also the knowledge of how to do things 'efficiently'. That'll suck the fun out of any game, but that's the whole landscape in nearly every game. The 'meta' is what kills fun by just completely destroying imagination and experimentation.

I think I left this comment on the original video or similar... but the devaluation of something through convenience is something I felt first hand in one of the games I played. In Mabinogi, nowadays you can become a Paladin within a few hours of starting (or days), and it's somewhat expected of you to get it as part of your standard playkit. I was playing back when it had came out, and the quests to do were so close to impossible... I had one friend who was a Paladin, and I was in Awe every time they transformed. They became a gleaming white, unstoppable force... today, paladins are on every street, just transforming for a little extra exp.

I went to watch fireworks the other day and everything went wrong. We got drenched in rain just before the fireworks, etc. And it was the most fun I've had in a long time. And I was thinking about how I definitely had a lot more fun and made a lot more memories than all the people who watched from their hotel rooms.

Is that SAO series on Patreon/would you ever post it there or is it lost to time forever?

I used to play Elsword when I was in middle school in like 2010, I played it all the way to high school but then I stopped once I got into university. When I was playing, there were a lot of players, there were at least 15-20 players at any area. When I queued for a dungeon, majority of the time I can get a full 4-people party from the beginner dungeon all the way to end game, on a rare occasion, I got a 3 members party. I made a lot of friends through the game, English isn't my first language so they were pretty much my English teachers. At times when we were bored with grinding, we just stayed in one spot and chat for like 20 hours. Sometimes some of us went to the beginners areas and channels to help new players, that was how I met them. They helped me in my early days and I started to hang out with them without thinking out it. I myself did exactly what they did for me and help new players and introduced them to our group. We had a lot of fun back then, none of us was aiming the strongest player in the game, we didn't care about getting the rarest item, but if someone wanted an item or a title, we always went out of our way to help them. Even after they got what they wanted, they still hanged with us, we play pvp from times to times but it was never competitive, it was just to have fun. But now in 2023, I installed and play the game again, but it feels empty, there's barely anyone. The friends I made are no longer playing the game, the game was the only way for us to stay connected so none of use might never meet each other again.

The last part about how older MMO‘s force people to bond and play together because there wasn’t another MMO around that you could just go and jump ship is pretty true. When I played EverQuest at that time there was literally nothing else maybe if I wanted to I could play the Ultima online, but even though I tried to play that game, it was not the same experience as EverQuest I just couldn’t get into it so I was stuck I had to make the best of it.

Old Josh Strife: "I usually stream 5 times a week" Current Josh: "That's a lie" I love when creators roast themseleves like this. rofl

I agree that convenience is not always a good thing. I used to play on a Minecraft server called Wynncraft back in 2012 when I was 8. The way to get to point a from b was much harder, because there wasn’t a track quest system. You had to use the in game coordinates to get to the written coordinates. You had to look for a specific town using the in game map instead of using the official online map that tracks your location. I remember that it took me weeks to get to level 30, to get to the 3rd major town of Almuj. Nowadays, I can start a new character, rush through the tracked quests, and make it to Almuj in about 4 hours of gameplay. When heading to a mid game city of Llevigarr, the scale of it was amazing. There wasn’t much in that area at the time, so the stuff that was there was so much more special. Nowadays, it’s just another stop along your adventure. You track your quest there then leave once you’re done. There’s no reason to explore there anymore. No sense of discovery.

There was a lot of fun discussion in this commentary. All I will add is that I had a wonderful time playing WoW classic for the winter season I did. It was a blast to go back and run through that game again, without disgusting lag, and with a relatively high population. Then Blizzard decided WOTLK was coming out, and everyone got a giant EXP gain buff and they instantaneously killed the entire purpose of Classic. I just had a great time questing in game, just like I did when I was a wee whipper snapper. I played a different class than I mastered previously. I joined a guild and chatted while playing. It was hard to get into instances at a lower level because of the focus on grinding to max level first, admittedly, but I had a great time just playing the game, questing, clearing entire zones of all (or at least most, because ALL quests is probably impossible) content, and then moving on when I was good and content with it. This video is kind of funny though, as I just watched Josh's Warframe video where he had declared "if you have to put 100 hours into a game before it gets good, it can't really be that good, right?" And yet the last half hour of this video is, effectively, "you have to put time into things." Not really saying he's wrong, as at face value yeah, Warframe could trim a TON of fat from its "introduction." Or... could it?

God, i could listen to Josh for literally hours (and actually had) talking about what makes games click with people, also in this videos theres so much rea life implications in your points that is just makes sense, weirdly enough you became my therapist, thank you Josh

I like the bit about character building and soul-searching in regards to the long walk. After I finished university, I became a teacher, a job I held for 1 and a half years before throwing in the towel. It gave me depression, I had health issues caused by the holy trifecta of stress, caffeine and lack of sleep, I went from not drinking at all to drinking regularly, and my social life took a big hit due to spending most of my evenings marking work and creating lesson plans. It fucking sucked, would never do it again or recommend it to anyone, but it sure as hell built character and gave me a lot of great stories to tell. Although it was the worst period of my life, it also made me a more well-rounded and interesting person today, so I can't say I regret doing it.

52:04 Isn't this balancing act between MMO vs RPG from your description the same as Sandbox vs Thempark? At least it sounds very similar.

Being alone together is called Parallel Play, and it's a love language of several neurodivergent, mostly autistic, people. It's a complicated experience to explain to someone that doesn't see it the way we do, but it is very important to us, it has importance and matters. Same way that we pay more attention to what you're saying when we do not force ourselves to look you in the eyes.

As I'm listening to this m realizing I have a completely disparate experience playing games from josh, and maybe from the MMO community as a whole. Hes talking with great conviction about the value of experiences over what the literal reward you gain for them is in gaming. and while I can acknowledge the theory behind that. I cant think of a single time in any game I ever valued the experience in absence of a reward fitting for the effort spent. I've always felt like the biggest barrier to enjoying a game is how well that game balances its effort vs reward system, the game being enjoyable is a static background value that I will stop playing if it doesn't reach my expectations. But the 'quit momement' in most games I end up dropping is when I put in a lot of effort for a lackluster reward, or sometimes vice versa. The mechanical value as well as the storytelling value are both important, but the experience to get them never is. I've had plenty of challenges in games I've enjoyed, bosses I liked fighting and complicated questions Ive answered, but if I put in a lot of effort only to gain something that doesn't matter, in the context of both the narrative and the gameplay. I will never voluntarily face that challenge again. This was the reason I ultimately quit the MMO I spent the most time with, guild wars 2. because after reaching the level cap on a character, working diligently to explore maps, level up crafting, work through the outdated story quests. and got to the pinnacle of the vanilla experience with 3 expansions ahead of me. I found there was nothing meaningful to do. The gameplay for guild wars 2 was good enough for me to enjoy when it meant I was improving in meaningful ways, but not enjoyable enough for me to challenge myself for no reward. the storytelling quality of the main line quests had fallen off enough that I was no longer narratively invested. and the rewards I was gaining mechanicly had very little value, materials for timegated minor gear upgrades and occasionally cosmetics I didn't feel I had enough freedom of expression to enjoy. For me the important thing isn't that I didn't enjoy the experiences, its just a matter of pure effort. because moving forward with tasks in GW2 was difficult and unrewarding I fell off. I still had fun playing it to a fair degree, even a similar degree to other games I played instead of it. but because I felt like the things I was earning by spending my focus and dedication didn't matter, I couldn't keep playing it. If the game was more convenient, easing up the pace of mild progression, I would have probably continued playing it for a longer time. The experience would be the same or lesser, but demanding less of me for a reward that had some value to me in a way that the countless extensive tasks I had yet to do didnt would have made it something more enjoyable for me. Something I could come back too, something I could ingrain myself in. I thought that was the goal of a MMO. Regardless of if my experience is rare or common I do wonder if it makes it functionally impossible for me to enjoy a MMO. I've been trying to get into one for a long time, thinking that the problems with the existing titans of the industry are what kept me from ever really getting it. but maybe its just a difference in values that drives me to play games in a different way then those games are prepared to supply.

I have several screenshots from some years back, when I, using a single harpoon, dragged a boat into the main city of Archeage, and then continued to harpoon my way up the highest building and just... hung there. In more recent time, in New World, I enjoyed the exploration. Reaching the edge of the world, seeing what's there - seeing what the game did when I left the current world, seeing what the game did when I pushed myself through the ground. Same goes even more years back, in Allods Online. And these are fond memories. There are different ways of enjoying the downtime in an MMO, but they do boil down to the community aspect. Dragging a boat into the capital, a slow, monotonous and glitch-prone task would be silly in a single player game, but doing it in a lively city where players hang around, made it that much more fun. I didn't say much myself, introverted and focused on my stupid task; but receiving that "lol" or /laugh made it so worth it. And the screenshots of the cityscape are kind of cool on their own. Finding the way to the edge of the world is nice, but it's made better if you later can show somewhat what ridiculousness you've found. - Man, I burnt myself out with the daily loop of New World. Even with friends we simply had no way to progress, nothing new to do with the resources and time schedules we had for playing. But watching videos like these, does really make returning to the genre soon an alluring idea. Just, got to find that perfect game. The one that brings all the players together. The one that doesn't X, Y and Z, while perfectly doing A, B and C!

In 2016, I drove from Arizona to Alaska (9,000 miles) and back, by myself in 3 weeks. So many people said, "why don't you just fly there." They just couldn't seem to understand that it was about everything along the way, not the destination.

14:10 I had an amazing rivalry while playing WoW Cataclysm on a private server. There was another herbalists often going through the same path as I did in Uldum. Unfortunately, he was an alliance player and I was a horde player. On some days we would just wave at eachother and do that weird mounted dance to avoid a fight, on others we would start a fight for each and every plant. Sometimes these would turn into small PvP matches, with the winning player waiting at the corps to get another round. At some point, he or I would ask guild mates for help, so we can get a 1v2 at the corpse. Which in turn led the other player to bring back up. In the end, it often escalated to larger PvP fights for Ramkahen, which back then were anounced in every capital as Ramkahen being under attack, drawing in more players. Absolutely not the most efficient time I had in gaming, but for sure one of the most fun.

The prime example of: you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Would be very funny for you to just do director's commentary on ever JSH video.

40:20 In outdoor activity communities you'll often hear this phenomenon described as 'Type 2 Fun.' 'Type 1 Fun' is something that is fun to do in the moment, whereas 'Type 2 Fun' may not be enjoyable while you're doing it but is more fun retrospectively. I used to hate hiking as a kid when I was dragged along by my dad but as I got older I learned to appreciate the sense of accomplishment and fun that came later. Now it's one of my favorite hobbies. I think any quality activity will have a good mix of Type 1 and Type 2 fun. Without Type 1 Fun it is just hardship for the sake of hardship, but without Type 2 Fun it is just instant gratification with no depth (a scale ranging from Sisyphus to that rat with the dopamine button). I think the modern MMO trend is an overcorrection towards Type 1 experiences in the name of convenience, while forsaking having more chances of generating new and genuine Type 2 experiences.

30:30, I keep thinking of WoW, how the Hunter had to Tame an animal to learn a Skill so they could teach that Skill to their Primary Pet. LOVED that Mechanic! They had to Feed the Pet to keep it Happy, had to carry Ammo for their Weapon. Hunter was called "Easy Mode" but the Hunter had one less Bag Slot(due to the Ammo Pouch most of us used), we had to carry Food for the Pet and Ammo for our Weapon. Had to worry about Aggro for TWO Characters and until Lvl 10 you HAD no Pet, you were "crippled". I would LOVE to play that style Hunter again, it made the Hunter and Pet a TEAM.

I have come back to EQ1 and started boxing several characters so I can experience the game solo, and with a group of my own making. Getting it where I can coordinate the 6 characters into a cohesive force using 3rd party tools and in-game macros is almost a game in itself from my standpoint. However, I also have made friends who don't box and I very much enjoy subbing out a toon or two to group in the old fashioned way. In that way... I really have recaptured the magic... 20 years later.

I feel like New World was a speed run in MMO history. It actually launched with a lot of old style of systems: local trading posts, lots of running, "loot 10 crates" (aka kill ten rats), punishing death penalty (relative to the current market). They quickly reversed on so many of those "friction" areas and the game is infinitely better for it. It is a microcosm of everything you highlighted.

The point at 1:07:00 or so.. Even singleplayer games can be a social experience for me. With BG3's release lately I've been excitedly sharing everything with a group of friends on discord who are also playing it for the first time, and we're having a blast. \\\ The majority of my recent time in FFXIV has just been me sitting around a hub city, usually Ul'Dah and chatting to my friends and the people who also hang around and talk there.

I used to have a notebook for the original baldurd gate. It was vital for me because i didnt understand much english at the time, so id nite down certain bad actions and where to sell certain things for the best prices, what certain spells did, what certain merchants sold etc

I used to sit around for hours in City of Heros under the giant Atlas statue and just chat with people and hang out. Sometimes I'd stand around some of the zones and offer teleport service. Sometimes I'd fly around newbie zones and watch for low-level players. If I happened across any who seemed to be losing a fight, I'd throw heals at them so they could finish their fight or get away without dying.

18:30 I used to play an Everquest spinoff MMORPG called Everquest Online Adventures. It was on the PS2 and Sony has long shut the servers down. I had hand written notes, because the computer was in another room. Many printouts of forum posts and details of quests, and scribbled notes I added to the margins. There's a community of fans trying to revive the game so that anyone can host a server and continue to play the game. Big shoutout to EQOA: Revival!