Raising the lvl cap past 50+ is what ruined EQ

[a_desert_madman_01]

Since we're on the broad subject of MMO successes and flops, I do feel like EverQuest had an overall better community than modern day games because there was more accountability. If you were of unsavory character, your actions were held against you. You weren't able to transfer/name change your way out of being a dick. When those options came about, there was a distinct decline in individual character and general trustworthiness. There was no more accountability. The solid close-knit community fractured.

It's 1:30 am and I'm parched. Forgive my ramblings if they're incoherent and/or off-topic.

[runlvlzero]

Personal bias is all that matters. Also tastes and ideals change with time and experience as well. Things that failed in the past may work in the future for unforseen reasons.

EQ is not particularly hard compared to the personal bias mentioned in Danths post. Or other games like...

Roguelikes.

At some point the EQ devs had enough personal bias to create EQ ;p and they made it well. For those of us who have seen the whole game though there is not much to do. CR's increasingly become a case of some external failure or issue rather then our own exploration or fun gameplay. I never die unless its a server issue, pathing, or some bug, or other players (and even then I still manage to avoid most of the known buggy stuff). Abstracting the immersive parts of the game even further. Levels are not relevant in regards to this stuff, except as a measure of time invested dealing with it all.

If EQ were some how procedural, or user content could be easily created by a large community. I would be more interested in it. Even modded EQ etc... the levels would cease to matter again. Like the first few times around. Yeah none of that is a "new idea". Yet it hasn't been tried for a game like this.

And accountability is important. It required teamwork to accomplish great things. Therefore your reputation mattered. Soloing was not the norm. No big studio who needs to bring in a million $ a year can afford to cater to the 1% though.

I would like to bring up that I never played Ultima Online, later on because I played EQ first, and the original Ultima games before that. I also had been playing a lot of MUDs and roguelikes. When I researched Ultima Online it looked cool, but only slightly more deep then Asherons Call 1. There are better roguelikes to play and I do not like "crafting" things as a main focus of gameplay. I did not feel like *levels in an online clone of the Ultima series would be worth it. No matter who they got to play Iolo or Lord British that week. Or what the paper dolls looked like.

[t0lkien]

Originally Posted by a_desert_madman_01 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Since we're on the broad subject of MMO successes and flops, I do feel like EverQuest had an overall better community than modern day games because there was more accountability. If you were of unsavory character, your actions were held against you. You weren't able to transfer/name change your way out of being a dick. When those options came about, there was a distinct decline in individual character and general trustworthiness. There was no more accountability. The solid close-knit community fractured.

It's 1:30 am and I'm parched. Forgive my ramblings if they're incoherent and/or off-topic.

No, I totally agree! The community meta-game of EQ was a huge part of its success and longevity as a game, and I don't think anyone really understood that before it happened - it just grew out of the player base naturally. Designers have since tried to "design" community, and it just doesn't work like that. These things must be held loosely IMO. Build it, let players play.

The depth of EQ's community though revolves around real accountability. I'm a big fan of it.

[Danth]

T0lkien: If you feel the discussion is merely going 'round and 'round, you're right--and that's the very point of it. This sort of discussion cannot have a real resolution. Conversation serves its own end. Difference of opinion is both expected and welcome since internet forums would seem pretty dull if everyone thought the same. Probably my largest outlier on a forum such as this was that I like Everquest but don't love it; it was simply one game of many I played. As such I don't treat it with the sort of reverence understandably displayed by some other folks.

You may disagree with my calling Everquest a fairly easy game, but note that its primary source of difficulty was in the time and effort required whilst requiring no great skill mechanically. I concur with that basic assessment. EQ was probably the most time-intensive game I had ever personally played when I first tried it out (my own gaming history dates back to Pong and Atari VCS...I'm no spring chicken anymore). I never considered EQ a particularly hard game, certainly not in the mechanical sense. Instead EQ demanded large chunks of solid time. From a certain point of view that could be considered difficulty of a different sort.

The wife and I have been together for a long time and treat gaming as a shared hobby. I went to her for an outside opinion. When asked about the matter of difficulty, the wife rates EQ as easier than Counterstrike (a shooter she was fairly good at during that period) and ridiculously easier than any of the mmo-flightsims.* While borderline heresay on a forum of EQ enthusiasts, she considers Warcraft (Burning Crusade era) a tougher game than classic-era EQ due to the newer game's faster pace and tighter tuning but feels it became much easier than EQ in later expansions.

----------------------------

I rate EQ's classic community as about normal for an online game of its era, and very much superior to the standard nowdays due to changes in the character of the internet.

Danth

*The wife, to her great credit, bravely tried online flightsimming circa 1998. She rapidly determined that it was a genre unsuited to someone with essentially no sense of direction.

[Borador]

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

Probably my largest outlier on a forum such as this was that I like Everquest but don't love it; it was simply one game of many I played. As such I don't treat it with the sort of reverence understandably displayed by some other folks.

You may disagree with my calling Everquest a fairly easy game, but note that its primary source of difficulty was in the time and effort required whilst requiring no great skill mechanically. I concur with that basic assessment. EQ was probably the most time-intensive game I had ever personally played when I first tried it out (my own gaming history dates back to Pong and Atari VCS...I'm no spring chicken anymore). I never considered EQ a particularly hard game, certainly not in the mechanical sense. Instead EQ demanded large chunks of solid time. From a certain point of view that could be considered difficulty of a different sort.

The wife and I have been together for a long time and treat gaming as a shared hobby. I went to her for an outside opinion. When asked about the matter of difficulty, the wife rates EQ as easier than Counterstrike (a shooter she was fairly good at during that period) and ridiculously easier than any of the mmo-flightsims.* While borderline heresay on a forum of EQ enthusiasts, she considers Warcraft (Burning Crusade era) a tougher game than classic-era EQ due to the newer game's faster pace and tighter tuning but feels it became much easier than EQ in later expansions.

----------------------------

I rate EQ's classic community as about normal for an online game of its era, and very much superior to the standard nowdays due to changes in the character of the internet.

Danth

*The wife, to her great credit, bravely tried online flightsimming circa 1998. She rapidly determined that it was a genre unsuited to someone with essentially no sense of direction.

Here is my issue with this... Chess requires zero mechanical skill, while Jenga or let's say Twister, requires a lot. So which is more difficult to play? Its futile to compare an FPS with almost all action to an RPG with very limited action. What makes them difficult are completely different things.

The only truly difficult thing I've found in any MMORPG was getting an entire raid together of non-derpy people. Move away from ae damage, don't pull aggro, don't AFK during a fight, make the simple jump that anyone who can beat stage 1 of Super Mario can make. So immediately when I hear people talk about "difficulty", it makes me think they didn't really understand how to maximize themselves in EQ or any other game. No, this game is not "hard"... But it is very complex. It's Chess not Twister.

It was brought up in this thread, XP in a 6 person group often leads to less gain because they cannot pull enough to utilize all 6 people. A LOT of people don't understand that. Its one of the many nuances of EQ (and other games have them too) that people miss. Then they either complain about how its too hard or how there is no challenge and its a grind. If you are trying to level and someone else is doing it faster you are clearly missing something.

I will say that in regards to the roles available in games, EQ has some easy ones. Stand, CH, sit is easy. But, good luck getting just anyone to split pull.

[runlvlzero]

Hey don't disparage clerics, yeah CH is ez, but they can do other stuff too )

[Bantam 1]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You have to find zones with good ZeM in them and just either solo duo or trio. Full groups are terrible on average for XP. And stay away from Hybrids if you can and get as close to all the same level and it can go fairly fast.

Or just get a hybrid with less xp than you..... wonder why people miss this fact.

[Borador]

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

Hey don't disparage clerics, yeah CH is ez, but they can do other stuff too )

very true. Cleric was my first 50 and I loved to root "mez", pacify, sit aggro kite, tell the group to pull even though I had 5% mana, let the wizard die because I know they shouldn't have been hit in the first place and healing them is a waste.

Personally, I love how you can relax and slowly "grind" out levels in a camp with good item drops. All while having the option of doing something much more difficult with a higher risk/reward.

[Champion_Standing]

EQ is so hard, even keyboard turning housewives can be good at it.

[Champion_Standing]

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

T0lkien: If you feel the discussion is merely going 'round and 'round, you're right--and that's the very point of it. This sort of discussion cannot have a real resolution. Conversation serves its own end. Difference of opinion is both expected and welcome since internet forums would seem pretty dull if everyone thought the same. Probably my largest outlier on a forum such as this was that I like Everquest but don't love it; it was simply one game of many I played. As such I don't treat it with the sort of reverence understandably displayed by some other folks.

You may disagree with my calling Everquest a fairly easy game, but note that its primary source of difficulty was in the time and effort required whilst requiring no great skill mechanically. I concur with that basic assessment. EQ was probably the most time-intensive game I had ever personally played when I first tried it out (my own gaming history dates back to Pong and Atari VCS...I'm no spring chicken anymore). I never considered EQ a particularly hard game, certainly not in the mechanical sense. Instead EQ demanded large chunks of solid time. From a certain point of view that could be considered difficulty of a different sort.

The wife and I have been together for a long time and treat gaming as a shared hobby. I went to her for an outside opinion. When asked about the matter of difficulty, the wife rates EQ as easier than Counterstrike (a shooter she was fairly good at during that period) and ridiculously easier than any of the mmo-flightsims.* While borderline heresay on a forum of EQ enthusiasts, she considers Warcraft (Burning Crusade era) a tougher game than classic-era EQ due to the newer game's faster pace and tighter tuning but feels it became much easier than EQ in later expansions.

----------------------------

I rate EQ's classic community as about normal for an online game of its era, and very much superior to the standard nowdays due to changes in the character of the internet.

Danth

*The wife, to her great credit, bravely tried online flightsimming circa 1998. She rapidly determined that it was a genre unsuited to someone with essentially no sense of direction.

EQ isn't a hard game, it's just a massive timesink.

What I really wanted to touch on though was your comment about the community. I have always felt the same way. People talk a lot about modern MMOs communities being poor compared to EQ, and they tend to blame the games mechanics for that. I really don't think the games themselves have as big of an impact as people tend to believe.

There was sort of a nerd camaraderie that existed online in the late 90's/early 2000's that just doesn't exist anymore today outside of some very small circles. The internet was just different when EQ came out, a lot of gamers had no choice but to be friendly to people online because the hobby was so much less popular than it is now. The chances that you would meet someone at work or school that played MMOs was slim.

No game will ever create the same type of community that we saw on Live. Even here, which is better than most places, isn't all that great. The top end of this server is dominated by people that have the same attitudes as your typical xbox live FPS player or 4chan serial poster.