I'm a little different from you, MayCaesar, but I'm still an example of the modern gamer who discovered the older ones late and yet went back to them. Up until mid-2009, I held graphics in high importance, and would not play older 3D games with low polygon counts and poor texturing. But after getting tired of playing Oblivion and Fallout 3, a friend finally managed to convince me to try Morrowind. I had been highly resistant to it because it was so ugly, but after playing it a little, I saw the merits in its greater complexity and deeper gameplay over its successor, and this opened me up to playing more older games.
Then I played Dragon Age: Origins, which was the door that led to the earlier games that inspired it, such as Baldur's Gate and the NWN games. The difference with me is that I find the more artistic, more colourful, and less repetitive 2D graphics of Baldur's Gate to be superior to its early 3D successors. Modern 3D games likely have an edge over them now, but it depends on how willing they are to have assets that are unique to particular areas, rather than common assets that are reused everywhere.
I don't think we are that different at all, we just have different tastes. I totally agree with you that some 2D or old 3D games look better than some modern games: they may look outdated and have poor graphics technologically, but it is not just graphics that matters, it is also visual style, it is the gameplay, many other things. In Baldur's Gate, everything to me seemed poor, I just didn't find it either beautiful or interesting to play. But, say, Evil Islands, a game released in 1999 if I am correct, I find to be incredible: graphics has a certain "vibe" to it, the gameplay is unusual and fun, the story is great... Hell, I must stay that to this day Doom 2: Hell on Earth remains my favorite RTS game of all time, and, with high resolution mods, it looks more pleasant to my eyes than all those modern battlefields and calls of duty.
I do not mind playing old games now. I played Neverwinter Nights 1 the first time in 2013, and Neverwinter Nights 2 - in 2014. I played through entire Starcraft 1 campaign the first time in 2011, if I am correct. One of the games I am planning to play in the nearest future is Warcraft 1: I played Warcraft 2 a lot, but I've never got to play the first game, and horrendous graphics by modern standards doesn't stop me at all.
However, with some games, it is very hard to get into them now if you didn't play them upon release. I know HoMM 2 was a big hit at the time - but, since my familiarity with the series started with HoMM 3, any attempts to play HoMM 2 have always failed, and I always went back to HoMM 3 after a short time. Could I play, say, Dune 2 these days and enjoy it, had I not played it back in 1992, when it looks like this?
I don't know if I could, and I definitely do not expect other people to be able to either.
I tried to use nwn 2 to get my girlfriend into rpgs (her rig is old, this was the most it could handle) It didn't go well. She lost interest after a few evenings, because she felt the pacing was too slow and the controls too cumbersome. She also tried to brute force most battles (with a druid of all things) because reading up on tons of spells and setting up her spell book before each dungeon was not something she enjoyed.
Things that are second nature to use may be too convoluted for newcomers to get into. And there are more streamlined alternatives available nowadays. I can see why most developers these days try to avoid any comparisons with 'spread sheet simulator: The game'
Well put. And while I do not really like this modern approach of simplification and streamlining, I understand why it is taking place, and I understand how hard it might be for people used to this to play older games.
