Lament for the Lost Internet of the 1990s

January the 20th, anno Domini 2020

…using our integrated AIM clients, a throwback to a more innocent day before Google had integrated everything, back when using the internet was a challenge, reserved for those select nerds with the wherewithal to master it…

Anonymous, “Sing to me, O Muse, seductively sibilant strains, inspiring my spirit“, 10.8.2009

One of the reasons I wrote about EverQuest this past year was the fact that I miss the Internet of the 1990s. There are plenty of sites out there that try to summarize that time period, describing bland facts about how people used Netscape Navigator over dial-up modems, chatted with AOL Instant Messenger, or chronicling hallmark events (such as Al Gore’s High Performance Computing Act). None of them really capture the essence of the internet, though – how it felt to be part of that early masterpiece of computing technology.

The first thing to note, I suppose, is that the early Internet (and its precursor networks, ARPANet, FIDONet, etc.) were not for the masses. Computing itself was a niche hobby pursued by those with both the intellect and disposable income to invest in it. Computers – even supposedly “mass-market” models such as those released by Commodore in the 1980s – were elite instruments. Not only did they cost more than most high-end stereos and televisions, they were difficult to use. Even computer games were often abstruse affairs, with lengthy puzzle games or RPGs that made full use of the keyboard as an interface for typing commands or using numerous shortcuts. Those with a bent towards more pedestrian electronic gaming were fully served with those put out by Atari or Nintendo; for the others who wanted to do more than just run, jump, and shoot, computers held the key.

The internet, therefore, was only accessible in its early days by those intelligent or driven enough to master its gateway technology. Content on the internet reflected the interests of its user base. While there were jokes and silly pictures (dancing baby gif, anyone?), the general content tended to look more like that collected by a serious librarian than by the village idiot. Yahoo! ruled the online world of content discovery, along with its fellows Altavista and AOL. It provided quick links to high-brow subjects such as Architecture, Literature, College education, Software, Politics, and Law.

The Yahoo Website in 1996

Although there is a link for “Humor”, it includes priceless items of incalculable mirth such as (note: links removed; looks like spam infected Archive.org):

  • Crate Research & Application Project – utilize crates! More uses than you could possibly imagine – and they are your friends.
  • Zits – Dedicated to those pesky little friends of ours, Zits. After causing generations of anxiety in teens and adults, it’s time for a little fun at their expense.
  • HAND! – Have A Nice Day! – A monthly publication of clean jokes & quotes.
  • Antics: An Ant Thology – anteractive cartoons containing ants.
  • News of the Weird – Bizarre Insurance Claims & Lawsuits from the people who know insurance.
  • Mimes – page devoted to those silent performing artists, the mimes.

It’s the sort of rollicking barrel of laughs Wally Cleaver would have popped open in glorious shades of black and white. There are no cat videos, no poop or fart jokes, no interviews with urban dunces auto-tuned into catchy songs. It’s the kind of humor you’d find at a convention for nerds sporting thick glasses and pocket protectors.

And…you know what? The Internet was a better place for it. While Google may have automated content aggregation and sort-ranking, it has also fostered the dumbing-down of the internet. When “link popularity” is king, you get content that the average person finds interesting – and, let’s face it, the average person is of very average intelligence. If you type in “Vietnam War”, they’re not interested in a page filled with ten-cent SAT words that astutely discusses the war’s causes, social protest and dissent, and the difficulties that veterans faced trying to re-integrate into American life. They want a two-minute YouTube video that spoon-feeds them the basic gist while showing old-fashioned newsreels of men in fatigues boarding and taking off in an old Huey helicopter. They’ll consider their knowledge on the topic complete enough and move on with their shallow lives.

The other thing I miss about the Internet of old is the simplicity of it all. There were no pop-up ads, tracking cookies, or content personalization. When you browsed the web, you were more or less anonymous unless you chose to tip your hand. Now, your every click and scroll tracked – and the end result is that websites are even slower to load and use today than they were 20+ years ago. You can’t even visit a site to get a recipe without them throwing up a pop-up to sign up for their email newsletter and then automatically playing some video illustrating obscure food preparation techniques. Websites are filled with endless bloat, and the web is less usable because of it.

I miss the days when someone would put up a page about topics like butterfly collecting not because they aspired to become some rich and famous entomologist, but merely to express their enthusiasm and educate their fellow savants about a favorite hobby. It’s sad to me that so few sites today dive deep into a subject matter, but flit across the surface and wallow in the shallows like an infant that cannot swim. Being on the internet today makes you feel a little dirty, a little unwashed, like you’ve just stepped down into the gutter and spashed about in septic sewage. In the 1990s, it felt more like you’d entered into a secret clubhouse where all the smart, cool kids were having an incredible amount of witty, erudite fun. Not completely – there was pornography and other sordid content, for sure (usually on sites with black backgrounds) – but there was a whole lot more signal compared to the noise. We’ll never get back to these days – it’s too late, and I almost fear that we’ll forget that those days ever existed. I wanted to leave this brief lament in my own small and forsaken corner of the Internet to commemorate that time – to remember it and celebrate it for the golden era which we only now in retrospect can see that we had.

AX Unplugged and the Dubious Value of Conventions

December the 8th, anno Domini 2019

This picture of a cat game is the only one I took at PAX Unplugged this year

I’ve been radio silent on this blog for a while, largely due to the busy-ness of real life. Work has been fairly intense, there has been an inordinate amount of yard work, and my wife has had mono, leaving me with a lot to do and few hours to do it. Gaming has been something I’ve done in the few spare minutes I’m able to eke it out. Lately, I’ve been making my way through Icewind Dale 2 and doing a bi-weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. More on those later, perhaps.

Right now, I suppose I’ll talk a bit about PAX Unplugged. I’ve gone for the past two years to this board game convention in Philadelphia, and this year was my third time. It’s not a solo venture – there’s a good friend who has gone with me each year. This year, though, neither one of us were terribly enthusiastic about it. We both bought three-day passes, and today is the third day – and we simply skipped it.

The first year was exciting: we’d never been to a convention of this sort before. The designers of one of our favorite games were all there promoting their newest game, and we got to go out to dinner with them. At that point, the event was large, and yet small enough to feel a little cozy – you could typically find things to do without too much trouble or competition. The exception was the board game library, which had a very long checkout line – this allowed you to borrow a game with your badge for a while (unlimited time, I think, although they probably charged you if you kept it).

The second year, the crowds were much more dense. Finding things to do – especially on Saturday, the busiest day – was a little more difficult. We did get to play our favorite card game with the designer that year, and that was the highlight. Other than that, we kind of found a place to play games and hung out with some friends. There was also the introduction of the dreaded security line. While ostensibly about having the security guards check people for weapons and contraband, I suspect that some union decided that they deserved a cut of the action. This resulted in an enormous line of people waiting out in the cold every morning to enter the Philadelphia Convention Center.

This year, the crowd was even more gargantuan – if someone told me that PAX Unplugged had 30,000 unique badge holders across the three days, I wouldn’t bat an eye. Events were difficult to get into, requiring wait times of an hour or more. We did have fun doing a few unique things, like a demo of the Apocalypse World RPG, but on the whole we sat down and played board games with friends.

That in itself is the kicker, because playing board games with friends is something I can do at home. Playing board games at home gives me access to food both inexpensive and good, it doesn’t require me to drive long distances, there are no exorbitant fees for parking, and above all it doesn’t require a $30 per day entrance fee. The only cost is a bit of time and effort calling people and comparing calendars to organize a get-together.

Next year, my friend and I are going to skip the convention unless there is an event of superlative value that we consider worth it. Our favorite card game is the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, but Paizo doesn’t run any convention events for it at PAX Unplugged. We would buy a one-day pass for that…but we’re not buying a one-day pass to paw through a disorganized (but large) library of games and sit down at long, crowded tables with friends to play board games. It’s just not worth it; I can think of a lot better uses for $60 that won’t involve long lines, sweaty body odor, surly union workers, and pounding cold pavement as you navigate parking garages whose stairwells smell like urine.

reat Games: Final Fantasy X

August the 9th, anno Domini 2019

I recently completed Final Fantasy X for the PlayStation 2. They’ve released a recent “re-mastered” edition for the PC, and I suppose I could have forked out the cash for it, but I wanted to play the original, since I already had it and since I had tried to play it years ago. Twelve years ago, in fact – around 2007.

That year was probably the most difficult year of my life. I sank into a deep depression after what was at the time a severe disappointment (a girl that got away), and for a period of several months I didn’t want to do anything. No games, books, movies…I’d come home and just sit down on the couch. At the time I didn’t know a whole lot about mental health, so I didn’t realize quite how bad things were, oddly enough. Video games are a lifelong hobby of mine, though – if I have no desire to play them at all, there’s probably something wrong.

One of the games I was playing at the time was Final Fantasy X. I don’t think I had gotten too far – the Mi’hen Highroad, I believe. Once I started to become depressed, I put it down and then avoided it for years. Anything that reminded me of that time was a bad memory.

In recent years, my mental health has gotten a lot better. I’m able to reframe how I think about things, see the positive aspects of most situations. Playing Final Fantasy X therefore has been a step on my journey to mental health. I’m happy I was able to pick it up and enjoy it – gradually replacing any bad memories with good ones from the present time, and enjoy the game for what it is – and actually finish it this time.

I’m glad I did. It was a good game – even better than Final Fantasy VII, one of the few other Final Fantasy games I’ve completed (along with the first one, III, and IV). The plot was decent, albeit a bit linear – you don’t have a lot of real choices (I would have picked Lulu over Yuna, personally, but hey). The game now has a completed status on my Backloggery. If you also use that site to track your games, feel free to add me to your MultiTap!

verQuest: Alternate History

August the 1st, anno Domini 2019

Over the past five or six posts, I’ve taken a retrospective look at EverQuest, and how the various parts of the game have changed since its launch. Today, I’d like to post a final portion of that retrospective and look at some “what-if” ideas: things that EverQuest (and most MMOs) could have done differently.

Massively Multiplayer Online games like EverQuest have two great challenges: gaining new subscribers and retaining old subscribers. These games are, after all, a business – one predicated on incentivizing players to hand over cash in exchange for entertainment. The EverQuest of today has largely abandoned the idea of gaining new subscribers, and is trafficking almost entirely on nostalgia – counting on old subscribers to return to the game and give it a try again.

Over the years, we’ve tried to get new players and now that’s not our focus. Our focus is to get people back who’ve played already. 

Holly Longdale, “How EverQuest survives in the era of Fortnite and Apex Legends“

The strategy for most MMOs when it comes to player retention is “new content” – an expansion on the game with new options, levels, areas, items, enemies / challenges, and so forth. In the early days of EverQuest, this involved having players purchase a new $30 game box that would grant access to this new content. Today, the fee is largely included with the subscription – getting that routine payment in an era when most of these games are free to play (with some limitation).

Of course, this never-ending stream of periodic power-bumps comes with a cost. New players in 1999 had to climb a 50-rung ladder to the top; now that ladder has 110 rungs (or more). The new items in any expansion are almost always more powerful than old items, leading to “power creep” that makes old content worthless (we discussed this briefly when noticing that EverQuest now grants newbie armor that far surpasses the tattered clothing of old). In addition, you usually have new areas – and, inevitably, the migration from old locations to new ones. EverQuest’s zones of yesteryear are ghost towns today as players have migrated to newer content.

For better or worse, the die has been cast for EverQuest and SOE / Daybreak have made their decisions. There may have been other solutions to the problems of player retention and acquisition than the route they took. Today we’ll look at a few ideas I had while I was looking at the appeal of the early game (and contrasting that with how that appeal has been diluted or destroyed with the subsequent changes to the game).

Let’s recap a little bit, though. We’ve discussed how EverQuest has two pillars: player interaction and the high fantasy theme. The high difficulty of combat in the original game, and the fact that combat was the only real game in town, forced players to interact. They’ve watered this down a lot over the years, providing NPCs-for-hire to replace other players and making the game a lot easier in general. The fantasy world at launch had evocative areas with distinct moods and designs; later zones (or zone re-designs) lacked such distinctive flavor, I’d argue. There are now also so many different areas that the player-base has been spread over a lot more real estate, leading to the potential for infrequent player interactions. The crafting and questing systems, which could have done much to enhance the feeling of the fantasy world and increase the potential for player co-dependency, feels haphazard and patchwork.

So, what could have gone differently? A couple ideas:

Don’t create new zones; revamp existing zones. It’s instructive that, even on Project 1999, there are zones with almost no one in them – dead ends where players rarely venture. The EverQuest team could have spent their time and attention on these bare patches – adding interest and utility. Take Ak’Anon, for example. The gnome starting city is in an out-of-the-way location, and offers little besides a bit of flavor. The same is true of Halas and Erudin. What if the gnomes had dug a tunnel to connect the city (where players can bind) to Dagnor’s Cauldron, significantly reducing the travel time from a player’s bind point to the popular dungeon of Unrest? What if that river connecting Halas to Rivervale were real?

In addition, they could have made the content of existing zones more dynamic. What if zones that had no significant player activity over time became filled with greater and more dangerous foes, with more and more lucrative treasure? What if dungeons became the foes’ “staging points” for zone-wide invasions that, if left unchecked, would result in raid-level events happening? At some point, players would simply band together and farm content in different zones, adding a lot of variety and interest to the game as certain areas became “overfished” and others teemed with mobs and loot.

Provide a game mechanic to enhance player socialization during “down-time”, and enhance the value of cities. Despite taverns littering the game, there was never any real reason for a player to go into one. What if spending time in a tavern added a temporary buff to players that increased with time, reaching a certain maximum and wearing off after a few hours of adventure? What if a performing bard or imbibing player-crafted brews or food enhanced that effect? What if the effect were increased with the number of players present? What if player transactions gained bonus gold if they were conducted within a city (rather than the tunnel in East Commons)? What if players could vote on temporary, weekly bonuses to certain types of crafting, buffs, or transactions if they were bound to a particular city? These are just a few ideas; there’s so much untapped potential here that it’s almost criminal they never did anything with it.

Don’t raise the level cap; encourage players to retire characters and give them a benefit for doing so. What if your level 50 character could, if retired, provide a guild-wide bonus or boon for an entire year? What if guildless characters could retire to a particular lifestyle in a particular city, enhancing the buffs or skills of those living in a city? What if players could bequeath “boons” to their other or newer characters that increased as more characters were retired – new and different skills…and maybe even the ability to play new class / race combinations, or have unique titles. Some limits or enhancements to this would be required, of course, to encourage players to spread out to less populated cities, but this would have done wonders to renew players’ interest in the game, provide more players in each level band, and make content less of a “wall” for new players.

Those are a few alternatives they could have considered. Maybe some day we’ll see an MMO do everything EverQuest did right at the start and then improve upon it. The fact that MMOs fall into decline and stagnation means that the developers aren’t really improving the game…the current techniques of designing an MMO are dated at this point, and I would argue that the entire genre has fallen into decay. I hope it revives at some point.

With that, I’m through with writing about EverQuest for a long while. Probably should have wrapped this up sooner – I haven’t played the game in a few months, and have moved on to other things. I’d also like to write about some non-game topics for this blog. Writing takes practice and discipline; I should have moved on once Project 1999 no longer interested me.

verQuest: Questing and Crafting Your Way to Riches

June the 15th, anno Domini 2019

The complete removal of preparation, challenge, and thinking from MMO quests has turned them from exciting and fulfilling journeys to boring content gauntlets players are funneled through for the sake of progression, no better than the grind they replaced.

Ethan Macfie, “How MMO Quests Get It All Wrong“

I don’t believe Ultima Online had quests at launch, making EverQuest the first massively multiplayer game to introduce them. Even so, there were precious few “quests” in EQ on opening day. The first one I discovered was the “mail” quest line: a NPC (non-player character) in Kelethin told me to deliver some mail to the dwarven city of Kaladim a short distance away. It was my first step into the broader world, and introduced me to the joy that can be found in exploring a massive game world filled with other players.

When I say “quest”, of course, I mean “tasks.” The “quests” in massively multiplayer games are often droll, tedious affairs (as Mr. Macfie points out in the quote above); there isn’t really a lot of variety to the types of quests players are asked to do. The worlds of MMOs are akin to amusement parks where all the staff are effete beggars too inept or too lazy to do their own dirty work – but somehow have an endless supply of goodies to hand out to players who can run errands for them.

And, make no mistake, it’s those goodies that players are after. The famously offensive “dickwolves” comic by Penny Arcade was originally intended to poke fun at the lifelessness of MMO worlds, where quests about an weighty topic like slavery lose all pathos among a base of greedy players performing rote actions for pixelated rewards. Those rewards, by the way, were pretty scant at EverQuest’s launch. Few quests were considered worthwhile, as the experience, gold, and items you were given in return for jumping through hoops were nowhere near as desirable as the rewards to be gained from mindlessly camping for hours on end in the spot where a rare monster was known to spawn.

Crafting, likewise, was no method for getting rich – or getting anywhere, really. While you could farm some of the items required for crafting from monsters, gaining skill in a craft typically involved purchasing items from the townsfolk and then combining them into a resultant item that those same townspeople would buy for little more than the cost of materials (not including failures). Other players often didn’t want crafted items, either – the armor you could craft was weak, the weapons lackluster, the magic jewelry only so-so. To be sure, a few items like large tailored backpacks were desirable, but not sufficiently so to make it a worthwhile endeavor for most.

All of this leaves me wondering why the original producers felt like they needed to include either questing or crafting in the game at all. Perhaps the two systems were meant to be fully fleshed-out after the game launched – and, indeed, both have been substantially built upon in the years since. The rewards for crafting were somewhat improved, and numerous quest “chains” were added to the game.

Both crafting and questing, however, feel like clunky and haphazard assortments of clutter thrown together rather than any attempt to present to the player a cogent and compelling reason for their game time. You can craft armor in EverQuest, but it’s pointless – the armor you can get from a starter quest these days will be light years better than anything you could make yourself. Quests, likewise, have rewards that range from miserly to mediocre. You’re still far better off simply farming the items and money that drop from monsters than you are trying to piece together the disparate components needed to get a tailoring kit or towns-person to spit out an item.

It’s a shame, really, because both of these systems could do wonders to support one of the two “pillars” of the game: classic high fantasy. You could be performing meaningful work for a living, breathing set of non-player characters that depend on you for their existence; instead you’re gathering pixels to hand in to a set of cardboard cut-outs acting like the employee taking tickets and handing out stuffed animals at the county fair. You could be crafting legendary items that your peers use to perform epic feats of bravery; instead, you’re clicking on a bunch of pixels so that you can gain the skill necessary to click on a bunch of other, fancier pixels later.

Most of this is due to the static nature of the game world. I’ve used the illustration of an amusement park more than once in this article because I think it’s an apt one. Amusement parks (or county fairs, or what have you) present a stock assortment of standardized fun. There’s a set of stations (or rides, or booths, etc.) that present the same or similar experience to each and every person that comes. Different people at a fair like this don’t change the experience – the rides aren’t really experienced differently based on who’s present. It’s homogenized, static, and bland.

It could be more – it was probably meant to be more. The PVP servers present at EverQuest’s launch were clearly an attempt to have players be their own content – to foment wars between factions in the game. It wasn’t done too well in EverQuest; subsequent games such as Age of Camelot did a better job of this. EVE Online clearly does well in setting up a sandbox and having player-versus-player conflict create the dynamic content of the game.

But EverQuest remains, to a large degree, a tired, dilapidated amusement park with tattered tents and creaky rides. The animatronic staff still hand out their worn tickets and prizes as they stand at counters thick with flaking layers of paint pasted on over the years. Most of the areas are dead and deserted; it’s not a living world, it’s a dead one.

Next time we’ll explore some ideas for how this might have been different. The current state of affairs is definitely a result of designer responses to the changing state of the game world and player base – but there were alternatives available.