Interview with the original EverQuest team
 

Wow. Good read.

"6 months. Please let it run 6 months."

here we are 12 years later.

This is btw is the source of all the inherited EQ flaws - when they made the game they never expected an average player to pass level 30, and did expected that game will die out in 6 months. That how we ended up with just 3 raid targets for entire game world...

Awesome indeed, glad I was there and here. They don't mention the downsides, all the hurdles and challenges we (them and us) faced, so some of their comments are half-truths to outright lies, fyi. But it was a learning experience for sure. Ah the memories live on...

I can't believe they thought it was cool that they fucked over their players bad enough to cause mass protests.

The monk nerf was warranted though.

A ranger protest I could understand, but they began addressing that in Luclin.

So true:


"But the amazing thing to me -- and I've been making games for 22 years -- is that this is the one and only game that I've ever seen that actually resembles the design doc. And it was still to this day a pretty amazing feat to me."

What amazes me is that some of these guys still don't get it - even though they created it. Corpse runs, death penalities, having to camp rewarding mobs - being ABLE to camp rewarding mobs... these are GOOD things, even though some aspect of them could be deemed bad. When you pull out all the trials, tribulations and dangers you are left with something flat and meaningless - which means there is little drive to play.

How do you know if that's true or not? You haven't read the design doc.