I get what y'all are saying. I've been a part of many-a-MMO (my favorite was City of Heroes back when City of Heroes and City of Villains were separate games/subscriptions - so we were very loyal to our sides (and were totally in-character whether we were RP'ing or not)... I was a Villain). And I certainly know what it's like when communities are at their best.

However, I'm in a very small minority here, as I have never *fully* fit into any MMO community. As almost all of them had people pushing me to level up more, check out this place, join this and that event, participate in this and that and this and that, constantly bug me when my builds were "all wrong"... when I just wanted to take in the world and its activities at my own (slow) pace.
MMOs have the beauty of large exploration and customization, but when every place is already "discovered" (people talking about places already in the starting areas), when everyone's pushing you to go faster (or leaving you behind outright because you wouldn't 'step it up'), when people are dead-set on specific builds and skills, when people are harassed for time and item-uses, and quest after quest after quest is filled with people pointing where to go rather than taking the time to take things in... that sense of exploration is rather dulled out - not to mention that customization becomes redundant when there's only a few "right ways" to customize.

Again, I'm in the minority. Even amongst my friends (who both would have absolutely loved the game at its prime). But the fact that this game is still playable even after all the changes - the fact that it's still enjoyable even after everything's been removed and/or corrupted. Not just for me (who's always been kind of a loner in MMORPGs), but for my friends who would have fit into the old game: It speaks a lot for the game itself as a standalone product.
It seems to me that most of the sadness over the game comes from the loss of the community, and hand-in-hand: the changes to the game.

However, as a group new to the game and in a small server (zero community, essentially), and also completely unaware of the trading system (there's nothing to trade or barter or buy from others when we never run into anyone)... and still enjoying it?
That's a mark of a solidly-made game.

Compare this with other MMO games such as Angels Online, Dragomon Hunter, World of Warcraft, and etc... Where if there's no community, there's no fun in the dull game in itself. Or where the changes are so apparent and distracting even if someone never experienced the vanilla version.
Wonderland Online is solid for that.

Solely my opinion: But I think all games should be able to stand on their own. A multiplayer game filled with only bots or standard CPU, for instance, should still be exciting. A platformer game without competing for speed-runs should still be fun. And, in turn, an MMORPG's world should still be interesting, intriguing, worth exploring, and satisfying even if you take out the "Massive".
After all, genres were made by games that were great and just happened to have unique features on them (Rogue-like, for example), not the other way around ("Games make the genres, genres don't make the games").
Again, it's my opinion. But it's that opinion that makes me enjoy this game so much.

Certainly not disagreeing with any vets.
But I do hope vets see that they should be proud of the game for more than just its community.
But if the community is all this game can be weighed by in one's standards... then it truly is sad at how empty and changed this all is.

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EDIT: Additionally, the only communities I've ever really been chest-deep close to were online forums. And certainly that after things have changed, they're never quite the same and it's a tad distressing.
However, as someone who has "returned" more than once to forums that have been "dead and dying" for over 10 years... I can say that while things aren't the same, and one can't look at them with fresh eyes after all the changes, what made the forums still worth going to was what we (the small, small few that remained) made of it.
Gone may the godly days be when clans formed, when the sites had myspace-esque profile pages, when it had functioning online radios, when they had a working trading post, and etc... but the conversations and the silly fun made within a well-made standard forum is what kept it fun and satisfying to return to.

Same goes for MMOs, I believe. Wonderland Online has a lot going for it.
I've tried out over 30 other MMORPGs in the past few weeks... and COULD NOT, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, get into them even if I was new to them. This one is solid. And that's why we enjoy it.

Congratulations to the game itself. And I hope maybe one day new life will be breathed into it (it'd be sad to see it go - as I'll be stuck with the other irritatingly-unplayable low-spec MMORPGs).

(Back to trying to farm Clay out of these Godforsaken snails...)

Last edited Wed, 22 Jun 2016, 7:45pm by AiRorel

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