Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[Droog007]

I just want to chime in and say that I too think Shadows of Luclin was the beginning of the end. I didn't mind the premise of cats on the moon and much of the content was actually pretty cool. No, what killed it for me was the new models. Bandy-legged dwarves built to sit astride horrific horses... /vomit. I had to put my lovely pot-bellied troll on a strict diet in order to get standing med.

The original EQ designers did some masterful work with very limited polygons.

I wouldn't mind if we got some basic AA's at some point, but I love the idea of stopping at Velious.

[Daliant17447]

What killed the game for me, in order:

1) Luclin Models - (specifically the dwarf model) and the necessity to use the new model if you wanted to use a mount.
2) Bazaar - The death of EC tunnel really took away a great part of what EQ was.
3) Plane of Knowledge portals - One of the great things about EQ was the need to rely on other people to get things done, it forced you to interact with other players in the game and be social. PoK was one of the first "self sufficient" features implemented that took away from the need to interact with other players.
4) Each new expansion (starting with PoP imo) made all previous expansions obsolete and empty - I personally feel like instead of releasing an expansion with all new zones, they should have instead added new raid encounters and dungeons and such to the old zones to bring life back to them.
5) Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Never cared for the instancing or augmenting system
6) Ykesha Armor Dye system - One of the things I loved about EQ was the ability to glance at someone and be able to tell what kind of gear they were wearing and be able to quickly tell who was a noob and who was elite.

[Vicatin]

Originally Posted by Daliant17447 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What killed the game for me, in order:

1) Luclin Models - (specifically the dwarf model) and the necessity to use the new model if you wanted to use a mount.
2) Bazaar - The death of EC tunnel really took away a great part of what EQ was.
3) Plane of Knowledge portals - One of the great things about EQ was the need to rely on other people to get things done, it forced you to interact with other players in the game and be social. PoK was one of the first "self sufficient" features implemented that took away from the need to interact with other players.
5) Each new expansion made all previous expansions obsolete and empty - I personally feel like instead of releasing an expansion with all new zones, they should have instead added new raid encounters and such to the old zones to bring life back to them.
4) Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Never cared for the instancing or augmenting system

Pretty solid list.

I played EQ since release, and quit around LDoN.

Think of it like this. When EQ was built, it was a 1 story house, instead of building infrastructure, they simply built story after story on to this house. At first, it held up, supporting story 2, 3, and maybe even 4, but after awhile building more stories straight up and not building any new infrastructure at the foundation made this little EQ tower topple.

[choklo]

I agree with everything you said Daliant, but I'd like to add one more point. If you took a break or weren't "hard core," it was a b_tch to catch up. The entire back flagging thing was a failure.

[falkun]

Originally Posted by Daliant17447 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

6) Ykesha Armor Dye system - One of the things I loved about EQ was the ability to glance at someone and be able to tell what kind of gear they were wearing and be able to quickly tell who was a noob and who was elite.

This is true, but with only 1 armor texture per race per armor type, you can only do so much blue/green/gold/silver/green plate before it all looks the same. I did like that WoW's armor sets were all unique, but then they started going to the tiered system with different colors and now I think you can even put old graphics on new pieces, so its virtually the same as the dyes. Basically, armor stagnation is an eventuality and there is nothing that can be done about it.

[Lagaidh]

While I don't wholly like the different feel the game took on in Luclin, it still seemed mostly like the game it was supposed to be. I loathed the bazaar. Planes of Power was alright too even though I understand the arguments against transport books. Gates of Discord was a mistake; it came out too early. Omens of War had its moments.

What killed live EQ for me was the constant moving of the goalposts that began to happen with GoD. Expansions were dropping too fast for me personally and I felt like I was constantly playing a game of keeping up instead of tuning out in a fantasy world. It became a second job. Do you have these AAs? What about these augments? Oh and you need this focus effect and that piece of base gear. You didn't do all that? Hm. There may not be a spot for you in the next raid then, Fred over here would be a better offtank for the team.

Fuck that. I know tanking is a gear dependent profession, but before the expansions and different ways to squeeze stats on your character began plopping out of SoE's studios like so many blobs of feces from the back of a rhinocerous, you had a range of options you could employ and be viable. When min/maxing became the only way to contribute to your team I was pretty much through... 2005ish.

[djstaid]

I think Luclin was the beginning of the end. Seems a lot of people on here feel that way as well. I even enjoyed Luclin, but I knew that it was just going to get worse. PoP was really where I stopped enjoying the game as much.

I continued to play here and there until around GoD. I left for a few years and then my buddy brought me back to start fresh. Rolled a new necro and got all the way to 60 something and just completely lost interest.

Just a shame that it took me this long to find P99. That would have been awesome to start this up a few years ago. Such a shame that EQ went the way that it did, but Sony tends to have that effect on games.

[Xadion]

EQ Ended with PoP for me...it was a good place to end and made since with the story/timeline... the story and xpacs just got insanely convoluted after PoP

Luclin hung on because it was a full level xpac much like kunark- PoP ended a lot of people because it was a raid level xpac as was everything that was not half-assed :-P

I liked everything from classic to pop- some dragons and dundgens stuff was fun- but ehh instanceing was fun but not...

[lawll]

EQ went down hill with kunark imo. That's when the mmo market shifted from roleplaying a hero to getting fat loot and cock blocking raid mobs.

[Noselacri]

The game tried to be too mainstream, but it didn't have a mainstream playerbase. WoW did and succeeded with that model, but it didn't suit Everquest. EQ was about the spirit of the game, the world and the community. It's why people tolerated sitting in the same camp for six hours at a time, day after day. It's why people accepted that some levels could take weeks. It's why it was okay that others could interfere with your ability to raid. Then they took away the reason why these things were acceptable, so they had to change those things as well, and in the end the game just wasn't recognizable.

Instances were good because the game needed it at the time, but it would have been better to keep the game like it was back when instances weren't necessary. I think they started to approach this problem even in late Velious, though - raid gear was too far ahead of tradeable gear, but only a tiny percentage of the population had access to it. There wasn't enough content for the whole server, but it was no longer possible for those with access to it to spread the rewards around.

Suddenly there was only one way to be someone: join a serious raid guild. There used to be that, then trading, and finally being good at playing the game, since gear didn't make quite so much of a difference. As the endgame gear started to become vastly superior and available only to the elite, the majority lost their reason to play the game. Instead, SoE tried to make everyone an elite, but it just made everything feel so underwhelming and pointless. By then, the game had lost the integrity that makes people care about it, so most left.