Old Schooler's generally feel that their way was better. Much like Grandpa insists that a 57 Chevy was the best car ever made.
It's my thought that they are just different.
Eve would definitely be an old school game and really it might be the only game to carve out a successful niche in the market along side WOW. It really only has 1 treadmill, money, and you use this for all other activities including buying a ship. Because of this, it has a true sandbox type feel, with corporations taking over parts of the galaxy and economic corporations raging war on the market.
I don't know why Darkfall failed. Generally, by what I read on their forums, it was not a very friendly environment (downright toxic). It certainly had many Old School elements including corpse looting.
Generally, because Old School games were based on adventuring, their adventuring content was often very challenging. And because the more rewarding content was group based, they were generally more cooperative.
I remember playing Neverwinter Nights, where we would all dump our loot in a chest and someone with high Appraise would sell it at top dollar and divy it up. I don't believe anyone ever stole money in 5 years of gaming. Why? Because the next day they would find themselves isolated and have no one to adventure with. Also, most of the people who stuck it out there were much more mature than your WOW player.
To be honest, I despise the WOW layout of areas (talking outside). Stick 100 mele or throwing creatures into an area, with some different colours and levels, call it content. On the other hand, some of their instanced content is fantastic, so I will give them credit where it is due.
All these people making games could learn a few things about designing ares from Sir Elric, who designed Melnibone Server in Neverwinter Nights. Perhaps my favorite area in any game is the Sandmen area on Melnibone server in the game Neverwinter Nights. The guy who made this server was not your typical gamer, he was an actual programmer who went on to work on some of the professional made modules for NWN2.
Basically, its quite a large area taking in 2 screens. There are some basic mele units, Sandmen, who would take your well equipped fighter to half health solo. So draw 2 of them and your in trouble. The Sandmen Elite are tougher still and you can not knock them down. They will take you to near death. And the Sandmen Champ is not soloable, he is worse than the elite and will disarm you. Most of these units are grouped in pairs and kind of move around like they are patrolling. Some are static guarding key points but not that far from any of the roamers. They all have damage resistance and only take serious damage on a critical hit. Most of all their area looks like an area they are living and guarding as part of a military operation.
The Sandmen would be bad enough but they also have a rather nasty Archer unit that if undealt with will kill you in a few rounds. Throw in a few Mage units that basically try and debuff you, confuse you, then spam an AOE death cloud on you called horrid wilting. Both the Archers and Mages tend to roam around and drop on you when you least want them to. Oh yeah the mages have the feat Epic Evade which allows them to evade your first attack every time.... sweet!
Keeping these fellows company is a huge Land Shark, which will knock you down, some Bebliths, which strip your armour off, and Beetles each with their own immobilising ability. Most of these are tucked into corners, but the shark has been known to travel around.
So when you go into this area it is quite a challenge. You have to react to the roamers and you have to know who to pick up when and how to help your team the best in each situation.
And this is what I feel old schoolers want. An area that is a puzzle in itself. Too often we just youtube the latest boss in a dungeon and none of the MMO areas offer any challenge.
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