nostalgia-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means
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The Soapbox: MMO 'nostalgia' isn't nostalgia
Here's the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition of the word nostalgia. nos·tal·gia noun \nä-ˈstal-jə, nə- also nȯ-, nō-; nə-ˈstäl-\ : pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again 1 : the state of being homesick : homesickness 2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia And here's where I tell you that nostalgia is the most misused, overused, and overly simplistic word in modern MMO discourse.
Some Assembly Required: The newer-is-better fallacy
There's this idea that old-school MMO players don't know what they want. I've an inkling that the folks espousing this idea have little experience with the old-school games they purport to be evolving beyond. This doesn't stop them from claiming that old-schoolers are in love with a time period instead of a game, though, which in turn intimates that old-schoolers' minds are too muddled to know exactly what they do and do not prefer. Regardless of how you feel about old vs. new, sandbox vs. themepark, or world vs. game, it's easy to see that conflating someone's personal preference with nostalgia results in a perspective that's of limited usefulness at best.
