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Originally Posted by kjs86z
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Character customization was simply put: you could pick any skills from the list to either "train" or "specialize" in, which cost you "skill credits" depending on how strong / useful they were (You had X number of skill credits ar char creation and would gain more as you gained levels).
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Yeah I know about the Asheron's Call system, and I like having more options to build characters, but it seemed liked people couldn't do many interesting things. The spellcasting was just basic damage, healing, buff, debuff. So not only was the actual gameplay less interesting, but so were character identities, despite having more customization options. All of the individual casters in EQ seem to have more flavor and be able to do something "super cool" that Asheron's Call just didn't offer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kjs86z
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Mage spells and archer arrows could be dodged, the spell casting system allowed for certain animations to make your casts faster or harder to predict. The depth to PvP was insane. The strongest guilds battled over the best loot / xp dungeons constantly to allow their farming guild mates further into the dungeon more time to hunt uninterrupted for a chance to score super strong loot. Guilds tried hard to keep their newest / best spots hidden (there was no /who features at all), but would eventually leak out and create a new place to battle over.
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Personally I don't like having to dodge everything. I like most magic (and regular attacks) to just happen directly on the target. Having some bolt type spells is fine, but I don't want casters to just be archer variants.
It does sound like there are some interesting facets for PvP, I wouldn't be surprised if that setup was overall designed better for PvP than EQ was, but there's still the lack of other interesting mechanics at work. Where are the Mesmer type abilities, the complex heal/protection roles, movement control, tracking?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kjs86z
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I would say the only things EQ did better was (obviously) the idea of a "raid" scene and single group grinding just being more social and co-dependent.
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Hmm, the actual content in EQ seems far more engaging though. I've watched people play and looked at many videos, and the AC content just looks dull. The dungeons seem to be nothing compared to EQ's, even the outdoor content looks very sparse and less scary, and the game world of AC as a whole mostly just looks like West Karana was copy+pasted everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kjs86z
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The XP system allowed a vassal / patron relationship where your vassals who swore fealty to you would "pass up" some of their XP to you as their patron. It was an incentive to bring newer players under your wing and help them along. Eventually guilds figured out a way to maximize the system and formed XP chains, allowing the big boys at the top to spend their time defending the popular XP / loot spots from enemy guilds trying to come in and take it over for themselves.
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Why do max level players need XP though? I don't care for this system, lower level characters should just be playing with each other. I would prefer a reincarnation system where max level people can reset themselves to level 1 in order to gain titles or something (people
love having titles), which keeps the low/mid level content constantly filled with players.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kjs86z
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I just can't get back into the emulator stuff...so I decided to pay homage to a big title from that 99-04 era when I played AC and try EQ for the first time on P99 and I haven't been disappointed.
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It's nice to hear you've been able to get that much out of p99. It's a far distance away from how EQ actually played in the early years, you can probably imagine some of the things that made the game better than what you've been able to experience here.