Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[Galelor]

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

Eh too many people here seem to think time consuming = challenging.

Mindlessly killing hours of trash in Vex Thal isn't challenging. Nor is running across 20 zones that are all green cons to you.

Generally speaking I like games that challenge me, not ones that I zone in with a max force and 1 shot every single raid mob. Raid events that make me think outside the box, on tanking, healing, positioning, CC, etc.

And Classic - Velious raiding isn't that at all, its stack on resist gear and corner tank. Luclin introduced more interesting events, where you needed bane weapons or there is a sequence of killing you need to do to unlock the boss and whatnot.

Planes and Gates both expanded on that and made raids actually challenging which I liked. But I may be alone in that :/.

I agree that the raids ingenuity and diversity was WAY better after Velious. I raided through a lot of the EQ content and we all know that keying/trash clearing is no fun, but this introduced much more exciting raid content.

That said, the group game and non-purist game suffered greatly because GoD was over-tuned. That is where I remember seeing the largest exodus from the game.

[garyogburn]

Anyone who thinks Luclin was the downfall of EQ is just flat out wrong. AAs were a godsend, Vex Thal was an awesome reward for raiders, and beastlords were an awesome class. Killing Emp was an accomplishment not many games can duplicate today, and nothing pre luclin had that kind of engagement.

Gates of Discord was when it hit the wall. It was all downhill after that.

[Zuranthium]

It started going downhill after 1999. There was a huge influx of new players in the beginning of 2000, as a result of getting Everquest as a holiday present, and most of them looked at the game as something that needed to be rushed through and "beaten" to be enjoyed. With information about the game accumulated on the internet and being able to twink themselves easier as a result of existing players having items to give away, these players made the game environment less immersive.

Kunark was brilliantly designed in terms of zone construction and creatures and lore, it was a great addition to the game in terms of continuing to broaden Norrath, but it created huge problems in terms of class balance, grinding, and twinking. It took forever to level up once you got into the 50's, further reinforcing the new mentality that you need to grind grind grind, and many players were finding themselves frustrated at how their class was becoming less and less exciting to play (and undesirable for groups), despite needing to put more and more time into it. On the twinking side, new items in Kunark were destroying the lower-level game with players able to rush through content far more easily and quickly than they should have been able to. In combination with new zones that offered more plentiful hunting grounds, most of the old world zones started dying.

Velious was also another wonderfully designed addition to the game, in zone design and creatures and lore, but it continued to build upon the problems created by Kunark. Combat encounters became more and more repetitive (monsters had such ridiculously high HP and resists) and the necessity of having a few select classes in order to even experience the content became a larger problem. The immersive quality of the game continued to drop, with so many zones being completely abandoned (or very nearly) and twinking/powerleveling continuing to rise.

Luclin was terribly designed. Totally wrong for the feeling of Norrath and it further pushed the game into a grind grind grind mentality and continued to destroy the feeling of a living, breathing World, with the way that it allowed you to almost completely ignore all the game content from Original EQ/Kunark/Velious.

Planes of Power obliterated any sense of living, breathing World. Instant travel to almost everywhere and one single, sterile zone that everyone flocks to. Hated the design of the planes I saw too. So terrible.

Lost Dungeons of Norrath deconstructed even basic player interaction in the game, with instanced zones where you just get together with your party and never see anyone else.

In order for the spirit of EVERQUEST to truly survive, for an MMORPG to truly live up to its namesake, the content needs to be constantly changing. Players shouldn't be able to go online and read what they need to do in order to complete a quest. The game should force each individual character to go to different places in order to obtain something and the way NPCs fight and interact should be changing semi-frequently. Going into the same dungeon should be a different experience every month. The combat system should certainly be far more advanced than it was in Everquest and there should be far more customization involved with individual characters, not just physically (there needs to be a set power cap on items in the game and players should choose their equipment based upon look rather than NEEDING any specific item in the game for their character to be competitive) but also in terms of viable ways of engaging in combat with every class and using different class combinations to form a party.

[ArumTP]

Guildwars 2?^

[Littlestgnome]

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

Eh too many people here seem to think time consuming = challenging.

Mindlessly killing hours of trash in Vex Thal isn't challenging. Nor is running across 20 zones that are all green cons to you.

People tend to blame the "newbies" for all of EQ's poor and/or short-sighted decisions but this is one I firmly place on the heads of the hard core and long-time EQ gamer. They were the ones who'd rode the boat and crossed the zones a hundred times before and were demanding easier travel. They especially wanted such things for their re-rolls so they could get to their preferred levelling zones quicker.

People new to the game didn't know any better but were more than willing to go along with the complaints because it allowed them to use the same levelling path the grinders used.

The key to remember is that travel was not simply about "time sink". A level 1 player did not simply think about how long it would take to run from Qeynos to Kelethin. They had to consider the risk of the zones they intended to traverse, how much help they might need to successfully make the journey, and of course the penalty of failure. For those who did make it, completion of the journey usually brought on a great sigh of relief and a certain sense of accomplishment no spire trip (or book click later on) could ever hope to provide.

Luclin inflated the crisis in two ways really. First of course, they added the spires. But second and more important, they gave low entry luclin zones huge exp bonuses. It made it far too enticing for ALL players to gain just enough levels to get into Paludal Caverns where exp flowed like gravy over biscuits. And once there it was generally accepted to go to Netherbain followed frequently by Dawnshrouds.

It was not long before newbies had to follow suit because most of the old world 10-30 zones were now completely barren. If you wanted or needed a group -- and most newbies did at this point -- you were all but resigned to going whereever the masses were. And no matter how whiny people are now about the moon, that's where they were back then. Plus by this point all old world newbie quests were ridiculously outdated compared to what could potentially drop or be quested for in the Luclin zones. Even if you were determined to stay in the old world, you likely did so at the expense of easier gearing and monitary gain.

Removing fast travel certainly wouldn't have cured all these ills. But it did it's part in adding to the issues all the same. The PoK books made it that much more profound. But more to the point, removing the "time sink" of travel removed other key components of early level decision making. Gone was the need to build up before branching out. Gone was the threat of "if I get killed a continent away from my bind point I'm screwed". The fears that were such important aspects of what made Everquest feel like a true adventure were forever compromised and later on removed entirely by the manner in which they implimented fast travel.

[MissingNo]

^^ What this guy said; I like it.

I can give firsthand experience for this. I played classic through PoP. When Luclin came out I went with the leveling path described above because the exp. in fact did flow like gravy over biscuits. I could have chosen not to, but the gravity of the benefits would have given me dissonance if I avoided them.

When PoP came out and the world became smaller, the adventure aspect went away. There weren't any more level 1 gnome races from ak'anon to .. Odun?(erudite city).

One of the reasons that this game was great was the journey (character leveling), and in the time of achieving that you become part of the community through the people you meet. Giving faster exp and less travel time shortens that journey. Sure, there is end-game content, but I spent 95% of my eq life sub-max level.

[Zuranthium]

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

Guildwars 2?^

I very much doubt Guildwars 2 will be like what I describe. A lot of their design choices - ie a plethora of mechanical technology - strays from the classic fantasy feeling to begin with. I don't think that game is going to have any dungeons either (or at least not any that even come close to the brilliance in Everquest). I doubt the World as a whole is going to be as overtly dangerous and mysterious as it was in Everquest. Part of that is because it's going to be too soft in terms of non-PvP character interaction; everyone is on the same side and always works together. They are also going to be breaking the flow of the game with cinematics. They are going in the right direction with the dynamic content and character storylines, but I don't believe it's going to be a wholly immersive experience.

[Davardo]

Cats on the moon! OH my! So bad!

What about kerra?

Not a valid reason.

[Daldaen]

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

--Snip for length--

Yes the fear of travel was a huge part of the game. So was the leveling decisions of build up before branch out. But, this is the thing that pisses me off.

Build up before you branch out. Check out East Commonlands. The number of alts there begging for buffs off high levels. From all races, Iksars, Erudites, Wood elves etc. Races that don't even start remotely close to EC.

So they get a port, bind and SoW in 10 minutes and that fear is lost and they all just congregate to the fast exping of "buff me with all your druid buffs thanx"

It was pretty rare to see a non-barbarian/erudite/half-elf/human in Blackburrow. So too was it pretty rare to see a non-gnome/dwarf/high-elf/wood elf in Crushbone. But it happens all the time in P99 cause people know that if they just get a SoW/Bind/Port from a friendly druid they can go wherever they want and not fear travel at all. And thats what most resort to. Sending people like myself tells for ports, binds, and sows.

Which is fine, until those exact people crusade against Luclin for it ruining the 'fear of travel' lol. Or against PoP for PoP books etc.

As for the go to where people exp argument, that just came natural with... better gear + more zones. If you add more zones, there is no way the existing zones + new zones will hold a population and sustain it unless more people join the game to fill those new zones.

[ArumTP]

Id like to point out that server population dictates where it is viable to hunt. There has always been too many newbie zones in this game. Give everyone a PoP travel book on character creation for all I care. The world needs to be "small" for a small server population.