What "made" EQs endgame feel epic?

[sox7d]

P99's wtf raid scene aside, how come

this:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101227005633/lastworldeq/images/7/71/Kerafyrm.jpg

feels so much more real and epic than this:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery2/crystallos-raid-kerafyrm.jpg

It may be purely nostalgia bias, but there's just something so sterile about the second one despite much better visuals.

I was walking through ST on an emu server this morning and just took in the atmosphere that such emptiness, exclusivity and scale provided.

Maybe games now days are trying so hard to make every single zone feel wondrous that it negates from the capstone zones? Perhaps a game needs to have banality in early levels for contrast to obtain that feeling.

However, on the emu server, ST was the same zone, but they had since added in many more trash mobs and some quest NPCs which were probably for some sort of story/adventure. It really showed how less can be more when it comes to atmosphere. The giant empty corridors were now heavily guarded. The long tedious spiral staircase had sets of three wraiths on every landing a la world of warcraft instance pulls. I kind of wonder if the original developers of velious considered placing more mobs in that zone and what their rationale was exactly for keeping it desolate.

Maybe I just haven't given them a shot, but I haven't seen anything similar in an MMO in a long time and wonder if there's even a market for another EQ-style game amongst people who never played. My guess is that anything unappealing at low levels will just tank and the only reason EQ got the opportunity to pull it off was their first-mover advantage. But perhaps not, EQ gave freedom, openness, fear and wonder, which are prevalent aspects shared in Minecraft and M&B... maybe there is hope for an MMO like that.

These are just my early morning ramblings. Thanks for reading "EQ nostalgia wow-sux circlejerk soapbox #834202."

IB4 "When did THIS become more attractive than THIS" image macro

[Lesson]

What made endgame feel epic for me, was that I never reached it. I think my highest too was like 28, and I played from velious to legends of ykesha

[Daldaen]

Kerafyrm, both events, were pretty epic for different reasons.

The first because it was unique and wasn't really killable. To kill him required bugs, several expansions and tons of people.

The second was because of the reason why many of the later EQ raids were. They took a decent amount of problem solving and it started to put a much bigger influence on individual performance. Teamwork was still important but they highlighted your weakest links and let you know who was able to manage in complex events and who weren't.

Most end-game raids from OMM onwards were like this. OMM, Performer, Mayong, Vishimtar, Ayonae Ro, Lethar, Beltron, All of Solteris, All of Underfoot in its first few versions (especially TFC), Pillars of Alra, Fumerack, Triunity... Those were all some fantastic events. I probably forgot a few good ones in there too.

Especially some of those being figured out before any guide was out there and when very few if any guilds had beaten them, made them epic.

Mayong in DemiPlane stays as boss-status being one of the best events of all time. So unique with the battle sequence, use of bane clickies, the endurance aspect of the event, handling death touch emotes, handling massive waves of adds. It was baller as shit.

[Kevris]

I think the early developers were creating a place where ancient dragons lived.

I think the later developers were creating an encounter for an MMO.

/shrug

[Grizzled]

Nothing is more epic, than the first time you experience it.

the concept of raiding was an experience in of itself, until you got used to it. then it became a grind just like everything else.

[joran]

I thought all the raids were epic ... even though they typically consisted of my wizzard getting resisted on all my casts and then killed in an aoe hit ... then getting rezzed .... I dont think I ever got a raid drop or any xp from a raid ever .... but at the time it still felt awesome (of coarse I was in a small guild and all that)

[Ele]

The over produced models and textures in later expansions ruined the immersion. The limited use of light sources and inclusion of night-blindness helped produce a much larger and ominous world.

[Erydan Ouragan]

Maybe games now days are trying so hard to make every single zone feel wondrous that it negates from the capstone zones? Perhaps a game needs to have banality in early levels for contrast to obtain that feeling.


Basically, this.

By making everything amazing, all the time, it becomes normal and ordinary. By making everything have their own instances sure eliminates a lot of the social problems related to competition but it also kills exclusivity.

Inaccessibility plays a role, too. When you first enter Sleeper's Tomb, or Vex Thal, it feels epic because you read about the zones, the mobs, the loot and then you finally get in with your friends after a long time grinding and camping for the key. You know that you have access to a part of the game that is restricted to most people.

[sox7d]

Inaccessibility plays a role, too. When you first enter Sleeper's Tomb, or Vex Thal, it feels epic because you read about the zones, the mobs, the loot and then you finally get in with your friends after a long time grinding and camping for the key. You know that you have access to a part of the game that is restricted to most people.

Blah, that was just the word I was looking for. Well put.

[curtischoy]

I think the early developers were creating a place where ancient dragons lived.

I think the later developers were creating an encounter for an MMO.

/shrug

This.

[azeth]

Consider also the majority of us were teenagers when we first experienced EQ content. We were younger, as was using the internet as a gaming platform.

A lot of the reasons cited above I believe are contributive to the larger reasons which is -

Almost everything about EQ was new at the time

If you want to claim Ultima Online did MMORPGS first, go ahead. But it didn't remotely come close to the scale of EQ.

[myriverse]

Never really thought the endgame was epic.

/shrug

[Orruar]

Responding to OP.

You just got accustomed to it. People who found EQ later and started raiding for the first time in later expansions had the same feeling as you do about the first stuff you raided. The truth is, if you take out the nostalgia factor, early EQ raids were quite simple and not all that interesting. They were only difficult because people had never had to organize large scale groups of people in an MMO before, and internet sucked back then.

[sox7d]

Responding to OP.

You just got accustomed to it. People who found EQ later and started raiding for the first time in later expansions had the same feeling as you do about the first stuff you raided. The truth is, if you take out the nostalgia factor, early EQ raids were quite simple and not all that interesting. They were only difficult because people had never had to organize large scale groups of people in an MMO before, and internet sucked back then.

Not talking about the encounters but the zone atmospheres and how legendary they seemed. Maybe for powergamers that grinded to 60 asap and made raiding their main objective (which I have nothing against), they just seem mundane, but I think when a lot of people were playing on live, or maybe just speaking for myself, but despite playing very often, getting to max level took a year or longer. And that was a year(+) of hearing legends and rumors about zones with limited screenshots that could only be accessed by far less than 1% of the player base. That coupled with the design decisions of, as someone stated exceptionally, designing for a tomb for dragons rather than an MMORPG encounter.

[Orruar]

Not talking about the encounters but the zone atmospheres and how legendary they seemed. Maybe for powergamers that grinded to 60 asap and made raiding their main objective (which I have nothing against), they just seem mundane, but I think when a lot of people were playing on live, or maybe just speaking for myself, but despite playing very often, getting to max level took a year or longer. And that was a year(+) of hearing legends and rumors about zones with limited screenshots that could only be accessed by far less than 1% of the player base. That coupled with the design decisions of, as someone stated exceptionally, designing for a tomb for dragons rather than an MMORPG encounter.

And people who started playing in DoDh and took months/years to get to level 65 + aa probably felt the same about all the stories they heard about Demiplane and other high end zones. It's just nostalgia for the experience. The early expansions had nothing terribly special about them except that the game was newer and so there weren't as many vets around.

[Basenji]

I've done a few MMOs at this point. Early release is always the hay-day. Inflation is inevitable. People crack the math. Strategies are developed. Secrets are unlocked and quests are solved. But in the beginning, it's a frontier. And everything is fun and new.

I had a guildmate describe Everquest as "friends and danger." Your character is weak. Your enemies are strong. Your path is unclear. Your consequences are dire. And if it weren't for your companions, you probably wouldn't succeed. EQ certainly provided that opportunity until inflation took it away.

Unfortunately, that game design has a serious flaw. Hell is other people. By making you rely on them for everything from leveling to banking, you create frustration, drama, and angst. Imagine trying to setup dominoes with strangers off the street. It still worked in EQ because there weren't any alternatives, so we stuck with it long enough to figure it out and make friends with the people. There's just not much market for a game like that anymore, and even if there were then there's no effective way to monetize it. That's why nothing new duplicates the experience, even though it could be done fairly effectively.

[sox7d]

Unfortunately, that game design has a serious flaw. Hell is other people. By making you rely on them for everything from leveling to banking, you create frustration, drama, and angst. Imagine trying to setup dominoes with strangers off the street. It still worked in EQ because there weren't any alternatives, so we stuck with it long enough to figure it out and make friends with the people. There's just not much market for a game like that anymore, and even if there were then there's no effective way to monetize it. That's why nothing new duplicates the experience, even though it could be done fairly effectively.

And yet here we are.

I don't think that's completely right to say. League of Legends forces players to cooperate and depend on each other and is immensely popular. Yes, teammates bitch at each other constantly, but I attribute that to the difficulty level of PvP being just above the player half the time.

[joedirt87]

I didn't start raiding until PoP, but I was blown away by it. I thought it was so cool entering the different planes of the gods and killing them, also the lore and events of each encounter. Nothing really matched that for me. Maybe its just nostalgia or being my first raid content, but GoD or OoW raids didnt come close. Also the only thing in WoW that came close was Ulduar. As good as WoW was when it launched Molten Core didnt really hook me like the Planar raids did.

[azeth]

PoP was absolutely gangbusters amazing for raiding. With the caveat that it flat out killed conventional EverQuest with PoK.

You can take your classic -> vel any day, I'll take PoP.

[Basenji]

I keep hearing about LoL. I'll have to try it sometime.

What's the consequence for failure in LoL? How much investment have you lost? I was under the impression that it was fairly minor. You haven't have danger without a penalty that hurts. And a penalty that hurts is the source of most of the angst.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

There are actually potential scientific reasons for this.

Researchers have discovered when something looks too much like the real thing -- like a doll -- people often find it either less "immersive" than a more fake looking doll, or even worse, they actually are repelled by the realistic doll. We don't want the things we play with to look or feel "real." If you think about it, that makes sense and is a good sign!

I find myself feeling this way about eq. At first newer games are impresive visually, or the physics, or the detail, etc.

So why do I find myself noticing when the sun rises in Oasis of Marr over the ocean, casting totally unrealistic shadows and light over the blocky and pixelated sand dunes, and over mobs mobs and players that look like they were rendered on a Kaypro?

Because, the "retro" quality of eq gives my imagination room to fill in the missing parts, which it does, and enjoys it.

So, "freedom" is the answer. Higher quality graphics and all that other kind of stuff does not = an improved gameworld. In fact, such things may even be *harming* mmo's.

Don't fuck with my imagination! Fortunately, classic eq and my imagination get along just fine.

And have you ever seen the sun rise over the dunes in Oasis of Marr? It looks fake, and looks beautiful.

[sox7d]

I keep hearing about LoL. I'll have to try it sometime.

What's the consequence for failure in LoL? How much investment have you lost? I was under the impression that it was fairly minor. You haven't have danger without a penalty that hurts. And a penalty that hurts is the source of most of the angst.

Comparatively to DotA(2), it is minor. However, in a 5v5 competitive game, your success is your team's success. The early game is, for the most part, compartmentalized into 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios for about ~10 minutes. If you get outplayed by your opponent, you are put at a disadvantage by either having to stay back by your tower(safe spot) and give up access "minion" gold or if you are killed by them, they get more gold/experience while you miss out on access to minion gold while waiting to rez/running back to the line of scrimmage. Once early game dissipates, and you've let your opponent get ahead through them killing you or inability to put pressure on them to stop "farming," your teammates won't be happy with having to deal with them for the rest of the game. And that's not to say you won't push them even further ahead if you die by making poor decisions mid-late game.

But that's all beside the point, the most popular game in the world right now requires cooperation with strangers, I don't see why there wouldn't be a niche market for that aspect in an MMO setting once again.

[Skydash]

There are actually potential scientific reasons for this.

Researchers have discovered when something looks too much like the real thing -- like a doll -- people often find it either less "immersive" than a more fake looking doll, or even worse, they actually are repelled by the realistic doll. We don't want the things we play with to look or feel "real." If you think about it, that makes sense and is a good sign!

I find myself feeling this way about eq. At first newer games are impresive visually, or the physics, or the detail, etc.

So why do I find myself noticing when the sun rises in Oasis of Marr over the ocean, casting totally unrealistic shadows and light over the blocky and pixelated sand dunes, and over mobs mobs and players that look like they were rendered on a Kaypro?

Because, the "retro" quality of eq gives my imagination room to fill in the missing parts, which it does, and enjoys it.

So, "freedom" is the answer. Higher quality graphics and all that other kind of stuff does not = an improved gameworld. In fact, such things may even be *harming* mmo's.

Don't fuck with my imagination! Fortunately, classic eq and my imagination get along just fine.

And have you ever seen the sun rise over the dunes in Oasis of Marr? It looks fake, and looks beautiful.

This is dead on.
The original designers of EQ also knew how to make dungeons/landscapes. Look at Upper/Lower Guk design on a map, look at Sebilis, SolA/B... Look at mob placements. These things provide a feeling like they are their own "thing". When everything is just placed in rows, completely straight, large square rooms, our minds get bored so fast; there is no sense of being alive.

EQ is about filling in the gaps with your imagination. Look at Highhold Pass/Keep. Also, without a Map guiding you, you have to pick up on visual cues in game and memorize them. This allows the brain to work more...

It's not just the encounter that is epic feeling. Look at Permafrost/Vox encounter, it feels like that is a dragon's liar, not just a square room with guards. And the later gimmicks they added to encounters to make them "tough" is stupid. Let the players figure out how to beat the encounter any way they see fit, not timing the jump key.