Poll of the Day > Exploring a town in an old, dead MMO is always an eerie, depressing feeling

(+) Yeah! (+)

You know the place had tens or even hundreds of players running around at any given time 15+ years ago. Seeing all the NPCs walking around and NPC shops with no players just gives such a feeling of dread knowing all of this. An online ghost town

https://youtu.be/p9LWzr-_ibI

I went to Marketplace at the Grove in San Diego just before it shut down and was demolished. It was the Christmas season but the mall was completely empty. There were only a couple stores still open and absolutely nobody to be seen inside the mall. It was really eerie hearing your own footsteps echoing down the corridors.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/3/AAQwHjAADsKb.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/4/AAQwHjAADsKc.jpg

What game?

Ogurisama posted...

https://youtu.be/p9LWzr-_ibI

I've been following Nexpo for years now, and yeah I've seen this. Was really interesting.
He also covered a game called "No players online" which covers this exact phenomena I'm talking about too. It's something I wanna try for sure.

captpackrat posted...

I went to Marketplace at the Grove in San Diego just before it shut down and was demolished. It was the Christmas season but the mall was completely empty. There were only a couple stores still open and absolutely nobody to be seen inside the mall. It was really eerie hearing your own footsteps echoing down the corridors.

That would have been an eerie experience. Too bad it was demolished. It would be cool to explore a ghost mall.

Revelation34 posted...

What game?

Everquest II.
Was supposed to be the next big MMO in 2004, and it was, but then WoW came out 2 weeks later.
It was apparently still amazing in its early years though. Now maybe 5 people in the whole world play it.

Ferarri619 posted...

I've been following Nexpo for years now, and yeah I've seen this. Was really interesting.
He also covered a game called "No players online" which covers this exact phenomena I'm talking about too. It's something I wanna try for sure.

Might have to check out that one, his videos are always really good

Ferarri619 posted...

Everquest

https://massivelyop.com/2021/04/03/the-game-archaeologist-the-ballad-of-fansy-everquests-famous-bard/

For anyone that has never heard the ballad of Fansy the Bard, the good aligned level 5 bard on the 90% evil, high level server.

I think standard empty MP maps are really creepy, MMOs will atleast have NPCs and enemies to kill, MP maps have nothing but empty corridors and rooms.

This video is pretty cool, some people are leaning into the creepiness of Empty maps and actually adding subtle horror things in them.

https://youtu.be/7S7Vea3A5nw

was watching something about that backrooms creepypasta a couple days ago and it just made me think of all the old multiplayer maps and dead online games that i'd wandered around in in the past. valve games were really good for creepy feeling.

Nade_Duck posted...

was watching something about that backrooms creepypasta a couple days ago and it just made me think of all the old multiplayer maps and dead online games that i'd wandered around in in the past. valve games were really good for creepy feeling.

I really liked the concept of the backrooms untill idiots got ahold of it and started adding monsters and shit to the lore, it's totally ruins the psychology and eeriness that comes from isolation and a sense of familiarity and just makes it another "haha watch out for scary monsters."

Anyway that's my totally random rant for the day.

yeah, that's about where i started losing interest. the idea of a weird glitch beast was kind of neat at first until they went stupid with it. everything has to get michael bayed, no clue what subtlety is anymore.

anyway i really liked those counter strike/TF2 maps that were just giant rooms. so many weird little nooks to find. wolfenstein ET was really good for those kinds of maps as well. really good combination of surreal and creepy.

Qeynos's residential area is that way in EQ2. I was there day 1 beta and day 1 launch with the baby dragon pet. It's a different game now. It was once quite a thing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/5/9/AAfGAbAADsRP.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/6/0/AAfGAbAADsRQ.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/6/1/AAfGAbAADsRR.jpg

Freeport got changed for the better. Taking away monster island and the boat at the start of a new character was a mistake. At least give an option. The only problem was in 2004, most couldn't handle the good graphics settings. I had a very nice PC I built so I could play it on max, but most of my guild from eq1 played on potato settings.

Remember this?
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/6/5/AAfGAbAADsRV.jpg

I played on the Antonia Bayle server last. The server we started on wasn't picked by me but my guild Valoran. I think it was Luclin or something. Or maybe Lucan D`Lere? That was a lifetime ago. Maybe it was Mistmoore. We came from EQ1 Karana iirc.