EverQuest Next, p99, and on

[t0lkien]

An article I just finished on the demise of EQN which draws upon p99:

"There is a literal army of gamers waiting for that exact game; a significant niche market gravy train that has been waiting patiently (and increasing in spending power) for almost two decades to throw solid money at whomever would step up and do the job. Fan art has been painstakingly produced showing the potential of the idea. A large sub-culture of gamers continues to play EverQuest in its original form on the Project1999 emulation server, holding to the hope that sometime, somewhere, someone is going to get it right again."

The Lesson Behind The Fall of EverQuest Next (http://haogamers.com/blog/2016/04/19/the-lesson-behind-the-fall-of-everquest-next/)

[jcr4990]

Pretty good read. Agree with most of that 100%

"holding to the hope that sometime, somewhere, someone is going to get it right again."

Hits a little close to home eh fellow Elfsim99 pals?

[NovaSeven]

Sup Ken

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

I'm basicallt waiting for everquest 3: large print edition

[t0lkien]

Sup Ken

Yo! I have no idea who you are, but hail mysterious stranger who has me at an advantage.

[NovaSeven]

Yo! I have no idea who you are, but hail mysterious stranger who has me at an advantage.
I just like saying sup to people.

[Thugnuts]

All the modern MMO games I've played have been shit. They look great in screenshots, but you get into the game and it's sterile as hell, boring, hand-holdy, and hampered by unwieldy mechanics and ideas that sounded great in the press release, but were never practical or even needed.

The problem here is that they keep trying to make one-size-fits-all games that appeal to every possible playstyle, gender, political affiliation, and sexual orientation you could come up with. In trying to please everyone, they fall short of pleasing anyone and the game fails.

It's 2016. We should have MMORPGS so amazing that I want to transplant my fucking brain right into the computer so that I never have to stop playing.

Instead I'm still playing some cokehead's elf fantasy from the late 1990's.

[Daywolf]

Pretty good read. Agree with most of that 100%

"holding to the hope that sometime, somewhere, someone is going to get it right again."

Hits a little close to home eh fellow Elfsim99 pals?

[The end is past]


http://i.imgur.com/agVWA5M.gif

[Tann]

my wallet anxiously awaits EQ3's cash shops, each of my characters will have his or her own cosmetic pet and all the transmogrified skins from classic EQ that they add in. Those old kunark clickie armour skins will probably be about 1.99 to 5.99 each.

for a "premium" monthly fee they'll let you link your old account to the new one, perks of this will be a title like "of Xegony" or "from the Nameless", a separate merc like pet that loots for you (requires hourly gold upkeep), a set of epic quality gear you'll never use, and of course a mount so you can get to the end game asap.

and of course the other bonuses for pre-order-early-access-day-1-dlc-day-2-dlc-head-start-premium-access-platinum-level-account

[Sancta]

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/

Brad Mcquaid's EQ 1.5

[Thulack]

The issue is MMORPG's arent the "thing" anymore. MOBA's, FPS's are more popular and are more geared to the younger twitchy/ADHD generation. You will never get another MMORPG that will be the size of EQ or WoW during it peak.Even though i only played EQ for 13 years as i got older putting in the time to do it was not worth it. And companies are in this business to make money.

[One Tin Soldier]

An article I just finished on the demise of EQN which draws upon p99:

"There is a literal army of gamers waiting for that exact game; a significant niche market gravy train that has been waiting patiently (and increasing in spending power) for almost two decades to throw solid money at whomever would step up and do the job. Fan art has been painstakingly produced showing the potential of the idea. A large sub-culture of gamers continues to play EverQuest in its original form on the Project1999 emulation server, holding to the hope that sometime, somewhere, someone is going to get it right again."

The Lesson Behind The Fall of EverQuest Next (http://haogamers.com/blog/2016/04/19/the-lesson-behind-the-fall-of-everquest-next/)

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to refer to p99 players as an "army". There are enough to keep one server filled. A server they get to play on for free.

I don't know how well a real EQ remake would actually do. I have serious doubts if it would be financially successful.

[Swish]

Pantheon is the best (and only?) hope for a new hardcore mmorpg... if that fails, we're stuck here forever.

[TheStinkyTuna]

A good read, agreed with the vast majority of it. I've been waiting to drop money on an MMO that reaches EQ standards; but so far, aside from free trials and a month or two of subscription here and there, no game has really locked me in the way EQ still can.

No-risk and minimal punishment in current MMOs make me feel like I really didn't earn anything, and I'm just mindlessly playing through. Gone are the days when a player or group needed to really consider their next move, be quick and concise to pull off the mob kill or quest, or else everything will fall apart horribly. That created real bonds and teamwork of which you can't find anymore.

You don't even need to talk with or group with other players to reach end-game in MMOs anymore, hell you can even pay extra to SKIP RIGHT TO THE END, pay for some more awesome gear, then get bored and maintain your account just so you can tell people you have a fully geared Deathknight or some bullshit.

Definitely looking forward to was Pantheon will be offering.

[zanderklocke]

I liked reading your other articles you have posted on that site. Thanks for sharing.

[Llurendt]

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/

Brad Mcquaid's EQ 1.5

I'm just watching, waiting and hoping. He screwed up big on his last project, though it looks as if he took it to heart and hired on actual businesspeople to help handle that side of things and keep him in line. We'll see what happens!

[t0lkien]

I liked reading your other articles you have posted on that site. Thanks for sharing.

Hey man, thanks very much. And thanks for reading.

[t0lkien]

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to refer to p99 players as an "army". There are enough to keep one server filled. A server they get to play on for free.

I don't know how well a real EQ remake would actually do. I have serious doubts if it would be financially successful.

Yes true if the players on P99 were the only group waiting on such a game. They are a tight core group, and proof of the viability, but are only a very small fraction of the niche demographic I'm referring to. I would guess there are millions at least. I think the first game to hit the right balance will be a " surprise " success so emphatic the rest of the industry will start pumping out clones. As usual.

[applesauce25r624]

Pantheon is the best (and only?) hope for a new hardcore mmorpg... if that fails, we're stuck here forever.

?? Shards Online

[Laugher]

Just give me an mmo version of fftactics or ff1 where I only have to do stuff like every 10 mins to level my char.

My favorite part about EQ was that it was no more effort/attention-consuming than D&D. I bought FFXIV hoping that it would be derivative of the single player gameplay, not a button-masher. I was very wrong.

[maskedmelon]

Just give me an mmo version of fftactics or ff1 where I only have to do stuff like every 10 mins to level my char.

My favorite part about EQ was that it was no more effort/attention-consuming than D&D. I bought FFXIV hoping that it would be derivative of the single player gameplay, not a button-masher. I was very wrong.

+1

The slow pace of EQ is what makes it appeal so strongly to me. Every new mmo is exhausting.

[One Tin Soldier]

Yes true if the players on P99 were the only group waiting on such a game. They are a tight core group, and proof of the viability, but are only a very small fraction of the niche demographic I'm referring to. I would guess there are millions at least. I think the first game to hit the right balance will be a " surprise " success so emphatic the rest of the industry will start pumping out clones. As usual.

Let me play devils' advocate here. Who exactly are the "niche demographic" you're referring to? You guess there are millions of them at least, so who are they?

Also, what exactly is the "right balance" for a game? Perhaps more important, would all those millions in your niche demographic agree on the same parameters for a game to be balanced right?

For example, do all those millions of people you suppose are out there yearning for an old timey game agree that melee classes should be unable to bind themselves as it was in good old EQ?

Do they all agree that medding to full should take as long as it did in EQ?

Do they all agree that the death penalty should be just as harsh as in classic EQ?

If they don't all agree about all of these things then what do you do? What do you change and what do you keep the same? If you change anything people will scream that it's not old school enough anymore. If you don't change anything will you really get enough people to play it? Really?

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that your niche demographic is surely not uniform. They also are not new to MMORPGs. People know what they like and what they don't like and can be pretty stubborn about it. I don't think a perfect game could be made because we don't all agree on what "perfection" is.

I don't know, I miss the good old days too and I play on project 99 off and on but I'm not sure if I would pay to play a EQ remake. In fact, I know I wouldn't. While I loved some things about EQ there are other things I hate about it. Playing for free here off and on when I feel like is one thing but I'm quite certain I wouldn't be willing to pay for a new game which is basically classic EQ redone.

[Kevris]

The issue is MMORPG's arent the "thing" anymore. MOBA's, FPS's are more popular and are more geared to the younger twitchy/ADHD generation. You will never get another MMORPG that will be the size of EQ or WoW during it peak.Even though i only played EQ for 13 years as i got older putting in the time to do it was not worth it. And companies are in this business to make money.

Kind of true, but keep hope.

Look at say, Elite: Dangerous. There's a genre that everyone thought was dead. Crowd-funding comes along, Braben presents a vision of something, people who are interested in that thing directly make it happen.

If someone comes along with a business model that can sustain an old-school game like EQ, it will succeed.

It's worked for Space Sims, why can't it work for proper MMO's?

[Llurendt]

?? Shards Online

Your comment is the first time I've ever heard of it... I'll look into it. :D

[Kalex716]

Kind of true, but keep hope.

Look at say, Elite: Dangerous. There's a genre that everyone thought was dead. Crowd-funding comes along, Braben presents a vision of something, people who are interested in that thing directly make it happen.

If someone comes along with a business model that can sustain an old-school game like EQ, it will succeed.

It's worked for Space Sims, why can't it work for proper MMO's?

The business model to sustain is the hard part.

Now a days, without some slightly aggressive monetization angles, you can't provide a game/service that lets its power users play for sometimes more than 200+ hours for only 15 dollars a month and end up being anything more than niche.

Back in the old days, it worked, because plenty of 15 buck a month casual users didn't have options. Most people that played EQ classic, sucked at it (didn't have the time) and were only content with not getting everything out of the game that they wished they could cause they had nothing else to play.

[Zheta]

Just give me an mmo version of fftactics or ff1 where I only have to do stuff like every 10 mins to level my char.

My favorite part about EQ was that it was no more effort/attention-consuming than D&D. I bought FFXIV hoping that it would be derivative of the single player gameplay, not a button-masher. I was very wrong.

Shame you(most people, really) never played FFXI(not 15) in its prime.

Actually, FFXI was kind've EQ 1.5. Had all the oldschool grind and socializing, party play, lack of hand-holding, etc. with some really neat features and great graphics.

[jcr4990]

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to refer to p99 players as an "army". There are enough to keep one server filled. A server they get to play on for free.

I don't know how well a real EQ remake would actually do. I have serious doubts if it would be financially successful.Like T0lkien said it's not only the active P99 players that have been waiting for an oldschool slower paced less hand-holdy MMO to come out. That's just a small portion of the people out there that have been wanting a game like that for years. I mean hell look at Nostalrius (RIP) there was like 10,000 active players if you count pve and pvp servers every single night playing Vanilla WoW. Granted Vanilla WoW is a bit more hand holding and faster paced than EQ is but it's much less than current modern MMO's are. If you need further proof look at the success of the Dark Souls series. There is ABSOLUTELY a market out there. Just nobody has really gone after it and provided a decent product for that crowd in many many years.

[jolanar]

+1

The slow pace of EQ is what makes it appeal so strongly to me. Every new mmo is exhausting.

OMG I'm not alone in this. I can't stand the modern MMO idea that you have to dodge abilities usually indicated by a red circle on the ground. I don't want to have to dodge shit, I'm playing an RPG not Street Fighter.

[Swish]

?? Shards Online

Historically, if it has "Online" as part of the title...it's going to be bad :(

[Calthaer]

There is ABSOLUTELY a market out there. Just nobody has really gone after it and provided a decent product for that crowd in many many years.

A lot of this gets back to the business model of massively multiplayer games. People don't just buy the game once - they keep paying, month-after-month, for these games. It's not unreasonable for people to expect that, if they keep paying money, there should be new stuff to do with every installment of their payment.

Companies seem to solve this in a few different ways:

"Mudflation": Make lots of new content that is just an order of magnitude higher (but effectively the same) as old content.
Grinding: Take a little butter of content and spread it thin over a lot of bread simply by making you experience the same content over and over for a long time before you can hit the next piece.
Player-versus-Player: In this model, other players are the content. EVE Online seems to have executed on this one pretty well.
Expansion Packs: Make people pay a premium, additional fee for new content and a monthly fee just for access.


What it seems like nobody has done really well in an MMO is create a system for compelling and dynamically generated PvE content. Some single- or multi-player games have done this really well - e.g., the "random map" generators in things like Terraria, which manages to create a compelling-but-slightly-different world with each new event, and each world takes like 10-20 hours to complete. Dynamic content in a MMO might look like:

A living economy that automatically creates "money sinks" to prevent inflation, and carefully manages supply and demand for items, money, etc.
NPCs and NPC factions that have goals and aims and pursue them in various ways.
A robust crafting system where the items that can be created are not fixed, but not entirely random, either. Minecraft's enchantment system does something a little like this.
A game that intelligently takes into account the "metagame." E.g. - if too many people are playing magic-users, then more magic-resistant enemies start showing up. Don't constantly, manually tweak the classes to balance them - create rules so that the classes balance themselves (e.g., all "trainers" for Rangers now offer skill X that is designed to help correct trend Y shown in the play-data).


In short, the game should balance itself. "Zones," in this world, that are empty become gradually filled with harder (and wealthier) enemies until players show up to plunder it. Those enemies might not be the same every time - maybe new and different types of mobs would move in from adjacent areas (say, for example, that the orcs of Everfrost Peaks moved in and booted the gnolls out of Blackburrow). There should be advantages to keeping zones clear, and it should be hard to do so - enemy armies perhaps generate to swarm particular areas at certain times. Maybe creatures can gather resources and "farm" players the way players farm creatures - strategically preying upon weaker players to gain strength. "Good" NPCs should perhaps auto-write their own stories and interactions with players (like this chatbot (http://www.fastcompany.com/3059112/most-creative-people/i-spent-a-week-talking-to-a-millennial-chatbot-character-on-facebook), but dynamically written).

There is no practical way for any team of people to keep generating enough content for a player-base sizable enough to support them. Even with really great content scripting and generation tools. Make the system make its own content, give it the power to change the game, and give options to manually tweak as necessary. Take the principles of agile development and apply them to a living game world. Get routine feedback from players: randomly ask them "Did you have fun in the last hour / last night? How much (scale 1-5)?" and then correlate that with an event log to see what events occurred to create that fun. Create customer personas so that you can see what % of the player-base enjoys social functions, what % enjoy loot, what % enjoy high difficulty, what % enjoy crafting, what % are casual vs. "hard-core." In short: use the last 15-25 years of data analytics to the advantage of the developers so that they can know what to add or subtract to the world to maximize revenue while creating maximum value for the players.

No one out there seems like they're even thinking along these lines. MMOs are all intent on creating something like a theme park - the boring kind where you go with you drive hours to get to with your kids on a long, hot summer day and you stand in line on a concrete floor sticky with spilled soda and popcorn and condiments just to enjoy a one-minute ride. The kind of theme park with big, expensive roller coasters that are difficult to build and install. No one wants to pay for that any more. The digital world is learning to adapt through rapid change and analytics; subscription games that can't keep pace are going to be left in the dust.

Create an experience that is worth that fee, and people will pay it.

[Kalex716]

Excellent post Calthaer! While the idea of emergent content isn't new in games, and is often a high priority at the design philosophy level, execution of those ideas has been extremely lacking in game dev at the feature level.

Your specific ideas are great, but at the same time extremely difficult to execute on. Telemetry and anayltics have come a long way to inform monetization and marketing models, and often helps inform development decisions... But I've never heard of a project leveraging it dynamically threw the product to drive content hands off, like you've outlined.

The first studio that comes out with content that revolutionary, will definitely find success.

[Calthaer]

Didn't say it would be easy, but I think it will have to be done for "massively" to succeed. One reason for the rise of the indie PC game scene in the last five years is the fact that the small studios are innovating to compete, while big studios are not - they're iterating (e.g., Madden 27 or whatever). "Massively" has historically focused on the technical challenge of connecting everyone at once, but that has been done and is old hat. Now they need to give people reasons to connect, and to keep connecting. More than just nostalgia - it has to not only be good at the start, but also show improvement over time. Blizzard is the last man standing, I believe, because they have a history of embracing change in their games for balance and fun, but even they are not changing fast enough.

Additionally, I think we have also seen "Small Multiplayer Online Games" replace "Massively" MOGs in terms of market demand in this space. Minecraft - where people can run their own server, just with their friends. Terraria has the same. In a way, Project 1999 and EQEmu is embracing that trend - lots of other little servers in that list with not a lot of people in them; have to wonder if some are run by a group of friends. Microsoft is the only one monetizing this fully with Minecraft Worlds, but I could see this changing.

Near-term I can foresee more products that create provincial experiences - tantamount to a Dungeons & Dragons "campaign" with a player-group, where the computer / system is the DM. "You and your small group of friends have your own world now" rather than "You (and everyone else) are in our world now." Mitigates the reasons not to do massive (trolls and other anti-social behavior, competition for resources, etc.) while maximizes the benefits (playing with friends).

[Llurendt]

Calthaer, you described a bunch of the same mechanics that I've been thinking about for making my 'ultimate' game. I've been thinking along those same lines for virtually every project I've worked on, game-related or not. Many projects ought to be modular, self-monitoring, and ultimately, self-regulating.

I'm a long way off from being able to actually accomplish something like this, but you certainly described some of how the features work better than I've been able to, so if you don't mind, I'll be copying your post into my design docs and using your ideas to help polish mine. :D

[applesauce25r624]

Historically, if it has "Online" as part of the title...it's going to be bad :(

even UO?

tell me where the bad pk touched you ;[

[Swish]

Actually hadn't thought of it, slightly before I had internets. Everything but UO :p

[jcr4990]

Historically, if it has "Online" as part of the title...it's going to be bad :(

Nope

http://i.imgur.com/ZlqzgS2.jpg

[Furniture]

article is garbage

the author says about EQnext -"It was to be a resurrection of the golden days of slow burn gameplay, meaningful community, deep and expansive world making, and genuine long-term challenge."

EQNext was never going to be any of those things and only an idiot thought otherwise

[Swish]

Nope

http://i.imgur.com/ZlqzgS2.jpg

Never heard of it, and neither had you before you googled it.

[Llurendt]

article is garbage

the author says about EQnext -"It was to be a resurrection of the golden days of slow burn gameplay, meaningful community, deep and expansive world making, and genuine long-term challenge."

EQNext was never going to be any of those things and only an idiot thought otherwise

Nice Ad Hominem there. You really ought to be constructive with your comments rather than just trash-talking.

[jolanar]

Nice Ad Hominem there. You really ought to be constructive with your comments rather than just trash-talking.

He is right though, EQ Next was never even advertised to be any of those things.

[Laugher]

lol I remember Motor City Online, well, I remember reading about it the first time I left live EQ. Would have never remembered the name, just remember thinking a car MMO was a little odd given that I didn't know a single person interested in both cars and MMOs.

[Llurendt]

He is right though, EQ Next was never even advertised to be any of those things.

I don't disagree, I simply pointed out that Ad Hominem attacks are undesirable.

[Arclyte]

I don't disagree, I simply pointed out that Ad Hominem attacks are undesirable.

shut up pussy

[Nathanian]

Nope

http://i.imgur.com/ZlqzgS2.jpg

Dang this takes me back lol, I actually played this for a couple months during my Everquest retail days.

Very underrated game IMO, fully customize your car, like changing out headers, pistons, block, etc to get a few more HP/Torque. Paid for parts/upgrades with money earned from races, pretty much Money = EXP.

My starting car was an early 60's Ranchero and all I did was build it up for drag racing.

You could drag for money or pink slips against other players. I quit when I lost my pride and joy in a race.

RIP Fast And Furious Simulator 2002

[Llurendt]

shut up pussy

Very immature.

[jilena]

I think there are still quite a few gamers out there who want something new that's more like something classic. P1999 is just a small subset. You also have a lot of players from Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, hell even Vanilla WoW who all feel like something is missing from more modern games. People are already capitalizing on that with the crowdfunding excitement. Just look at Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, Pantheon, Crowfall, etc. You could even count the ridiculousness of Star Citizen as a result of people who want a modern take on a classic experience.

Will they get it? Not entirely. Nostalgia tends to paint all of these older games in a much better light than they deserve. Even if any of them manage to create a similar experience I think something will still be lacking just based on how the players have aged and experienced more of life. That said I think they could still make some pretty great games.

The things I think are missing from modern games are pretty simple really:

- The vast majority of content should not be easy to complete alone. You have to talk to other people. You want people to keep playing your game after they have every upgrade they can possibly grab? Make it a requirement for them to make friends. They will feel obligated to maintain those friendships and log back in.

- There should be no requirement for direct balance between classes. Some classes may be awesome at soloing, some may be awesome in groups, some may have very niche roles that they perform exceptionally well. You want to capture all playstyles you have to do this. Making every class "different but equal" or making every character capable of doing every thing makes every character boring.

- Loot should be unique and/or interesting. Loot should never have any sort of planned equality of stat distribution. I want to have a chance to pick up some item at level 10 that is still awesome when I am 50. Tiered item upgrades are fucking boring. (see WoW or EQLive) I want to luck out on an FBSS roll and have my character get a significant boost. Spending an hour running through a dungeon for a 25% chance at a 1% upgrade is boring.

- Pace. The game needs to have a pace that is conducive to conversation. If your whole group will die because you decided to spend 15 seconds typing a sentence into group chat the game is too fast paced. I want actions to take a bit of consideration and have a significant impact. I don't want to have to have lightning reflexes to play well. If I am playing an MMO I plan to be playing for at least a couple of hours. I don't want my hands to be tired from pressing an endless cycle of the same 5 buttons every 4 seconds. I want to be able to relax and talk to my groupmates.

- No cash item shop even for cosmetic items. You want to look amazing, earn it in the game. You want to level faster? Play better. You don't like your character name? Reroll. You picked the wrong stats? Reroll or balance it out with gear.

That's it. All of this about slow leveling, painful death, etc while I think can have an impact I don't think it has nearly as much of one as people think. To me all the "harsh lifestyle" of EQ can be avoided by any combination of a.) having a lot of time, b.) not being bad, or c.) having a friend with a cleric. If you can circumvent all of the punishment the game inflicts doesn't it sorta lose meaning?

Anyway, too much typing but my original point is just that I think there is an audience for this type of game. It's not a OMG WE JUST TOPPED WoW'S NUMBERS audience but I think there is definitely enough of one to make a profitable game. The problem is that it can't be a really shit tier game.

I don't want to see another Shadowbane. Shadowbane was super fun even being a completely shit tier game. Yet it failed (mostly for being a shit tier game imo) and everyone is like SEE THE ONLY WAY TO DO THE PVP IS BORING RVR LIKE THE DAOC. I see the same thing happening here. Someone releases a terrible game that has a long grind and painful death, claims it is the ultimate classic experience, fails miserably cuz their game is like Rubies of Eventide or some shit, and then everyone is like SEE NO ONE WANTS TO PLAY A CLASSIC GAME. Please don't do that Brad McQuaid.

: /

[jcr4990]

Never heard of it, and neither had you before you googled it.

I played that game full time for almost a year before shitty fucking EA shut it down. Was really underrated as hell I loved that game. Nice try though!

Dang this takes me back lol, I actually played this for a couple months during my Everquest retail days.

Very underrated game IMO, fully customize your car, like changing out headers, pistons, block, etc to get a few more HP/Torque. Paid for parts/upgrades with money earned from races, pretty much Money = EXP.

My starting car was an early 60's Ranchero and all I did was build it up for drag racing.

You could drag for money or pink slips against other players. I quit when I lost my pride and joy in a race.

RIP Fast And Furious Simulator 2002

Tell me about it dude. I miss that game all the time and there's nothing else out there anything like it. I've yet to find a racing game with 1/4 the amount of customization options that MCO had. I was pretty young at the time and didn't know a ton about cars but I thoroughly enjoyed drag racing in that game. Had a 66 Shelby Cobra that was sooo decked out and sick looking lol.

[t0lkien]

article is garbage

the author says about EQnext -"It was to be a resurrection of the golden days of slow burn gameplay, meaningful community, deep and expansive world making, and genuine long-term challenge."

EQNext was never going to be any of those things and only an idiot thought otherwise

Not sure why so angry, but ok. The point however is not quite right. When it was originally mooted as a concept, the implication was exactly that. Then it morphed fast into something else. It was such a quick turnaround I actually felt bait and switched at the time.

You can Google to see the timeline of it all. Most of the initial discussion/impression was on forums however. The very first hyperlink in the article goes to Wikipedia whose description of the game intimates the same thing.

[Smurn]

I've always thought that an offline single player game like Baldur's Gate but with EQ mechanics and lore would be a nice starting platform for an successor to the pocket mobile EQ games. Expanding that to an online game where a player, perhaps in an MMO, controlled an entire raid of players (say 54 characters) while controlling time in the encounters would be challenging and entertaining. Freezing time repeatedly to set certain functions or conditions for the encounter and then letting those progress sounds appealing, at least to me. I have a romantic notion about that.

[Zuranthium]

In short, the game should balance itself. "Zones," in this world, that are empty become gradually filled with harder (and wealthier) enemies until players show up to plunder it. Those enemies might not be the same every time - maybe new and different types of mobs would move in from adjacent areas (say, for example, that the orcs of Everfrost Peaks moved in and booted the gnolls out of Blackburrow). There should be advantages to keeping zones clear, and it should be hard to do so - enemy armies perhaps generate to swarm particular areas at certain times. Maybe creatures can gather resources and "farm" players the way players farm creatures - strategically preying upon weaker players to gain strength.

Yep this is exactly what needs to happen. Especially with regards to many quests, especially epic quests, in a game like Everquest. Make everyone have to go down a different path to complete many of the quests, with dynamic group content that is set to spawn specifically for the character who invokes it in the given zone via their own unique quest.

[Nuggie]

He is right though, EQ Next was never even advertised to be any of those things.

Didn't they say that if you mined too deep you would happen upon second tier monsters that destroy your shit until a raid comes along to clear them out? Or that goblinoids would grow stronger in certain areas due to lack of people contesting them? Or was I imagining all that?

[Zuranthium]

EQ Next was definitely advertised to be all of those things, with the exception of "slow burn gameplay".

How many people here remember the original development of Horizons: Empire of Istaria back in 2000? That game was set to be way, way ahead of its time and implement many unique features and dynamic content.

Does anyone have screenshots saved from that game's original graphics vehicle and promotional materials? I was on the Horizons website all the time back then, but I never saved any of it and David Allen (the creator) wasn't able to either, since the company and game was stolen away from him. Would love to see that stuff again. It was breathtaking. This article talks a bit about the races that were planned with a nice large-scale chart of them: http://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/10/horizons-empires-of-istaria . I also found a some images on the internet archive from the official website - https://web.archive.org/web/20010127134900/http://www.artifact-entertainment.com/horizons/media.shtml

[myriverse]

It's 2016. We should have MMORPGS so amazing that I want to transplant my fucking brain right into the computer so that I never have to stop playing.
The opposite, imo. It's 2016, and having learned the lessons of the first decade of the 21st century, I want an MMORPG to which I don't have to devote as much time and thought. And that's a big reason why I'm on P99.

[roadmixer]

The opposite, imo. It's 2016, and having learned the lessons of the first decade of the 21st century, I want an MMORPG to which I don't have to devote as much time and thought. And that's a big reason why I'm on P99.

And thus we see the conflict. Some want to spend insane amounts of time on a game, and some do not or can't.

No game can meet everyone's needs anymore and only was played so much before because there was no choice.

[Tankdan]

Niche market is giving it too much credit.

EQN's live streams generated like 50 viewers.

[Calthaer]

And thus we see the conflict. Some want to spend insane amounts of time on a game, and some do not or can't.

No game can meet everyone's needs anymore and only was played so much before because there was no choice.

Gamers have grown up. What was once the province largely of younger people has become more broad. The Boomers still aren't into video games, but Gen-X and older are - and they don't have the time. For middle-aged gamers, it's quality over quantity. Give me a memorable, unique, dynamic, story-driven experience that I can consume in a session with a defined, set, schedule-able limit. EQ is and was terrible with that (e.g., "poopsocking" - the requirement that undefined, limitless time is required to consumer certain content).

I definitely recall Horizons: Empires of Istaria. Played the beta, even. David Allen was definitely a visionary but I seem to recall he didn't really have the project management skills required to pull this whole thing off. It was huge and ambitious and some features probably should have never been discussed and kept on the back-burner for later (e.g., playable dragons). It did seem to want to have many of the features of dynamic content, though - IIRC, a bunch of undead taking over the world, ruining monuments and infrastructure, players having to combine their crafting and resource-gathering skills to restore them.

[Zuranthium]

And thus we see the conflict. Some want to spend insane amounts of time on a game, and some do not or can't.

No game can meet everyone's needs anymore.

It's entirely possible for a single game to cater to both casual and heavy-playtime, offer various different styles of playing, and even support many forms of PvP, some of which can become popular e-sports.

I'm not sure how someone can say "I want an MMORPG where I don't have to devote as much time and thought. And that's a big reason why I'm on P99." -- The time requirement in this game is very high as compared to others. Perhaps this person means they like this game for being able to solo camp things that are on long respawns, thus they minimize the game and go do other things. Well, okay, but that's hardly playing the game if that's all you're going to do. You could do that regardless even if the game allowed for faster paced gameplay.

There's a big difference in talking about "casual vs. hardcore" than talking about "fast-food vs. enriching, immersive" gameplay. You can have a game that isn't fast-food junk while still catering part of it to casual gamers. For example, you could easily reduce downtime in EQ while still requiring the best group setups in order to beat the most difficult content and be the most efficient. That way anyone who logs on for an hour can feel they are doing something meaningful while they are on, in comparison to just "looking for healer". Random groups could form and be at least semi-effective with whatever they pick up.

Additionally, you can set the game world up better so that a wide level range of content is always within a reasonable walk. You don't need a stupid method like some portal hub and portals all over the place either, just have more interconnected zones (including interconnected dungeons that connect to above-ground zones) and place a wider range of content in the outdoor zones. You can also put a hard cap on how quickly people can level, such that nobody is rushing and instead enjoying the game experience. Those who want to play a lot can work on multiple characters or do various other things with their time, including PvP. If you set a game world up so that PvP is even required to unlock certain content and/or provides PvE rewards, then you will draw more people into that area of the game.

I definitely recall Horizons: Empires of Istaria. Played the beta, even. David Allen was definitely a visionary but I seem to recall he didn't really have the project management skills required to pull this whole thing off.

Well the beta, and the eventual game, was nothing like it was supposed to be. The downfall of the game had much less to do with David Allen's project management and mostly to do with how investors and other people in the company literally stole the company and the project from him - http://webz.us/hz/htm/wrh.htm

[Calthaer]

Well the beta, and the eventual game, was nothing like it was supposed to be. The downfall of the game had much less to do with David Allen's project management and mostly to do with how investors and other people in the company literally stole the company and the project from him - http://webz.us/hz/htm/wrh.htm
I have read that story, long ago, and unfortunately it confirms the idea that David Allen did not have the management skills to see his vision to completion. As the article admits: "If David had known a bit more about business he would have never been in this situation – lesson learned." David readily admits that he made mistakes in that narrative - the first and most critical one being how he kept on Mr. Jones after he'd lied about his salary.

Forming a team (of co-workers, of investors) is the first and most critical step in leading it, and it's unfortunate for all of us that David didn't do well in that step of making Horizons. This doesn't at all excuse the unethical behavior of those working with him - but the real problem was that they were ever working with him at all. I really wish we were here today playing the game that he had in his head rather than dreaming about what it could have been. His website makes it sound like he did things much better with his "QoL" company - makes me want to take a look at Alganon.