Expansions or Reboot?

[Tork]

Wrong again:

/ʃɪt/

[Zarniwooop]

I think it would be great to have this server stop at Velious and stay there. People would come and go and I assume the population would fall over time, but what I love most about this server, is that its a living snapshot of the greatest time I've ever had in my life playing a game and ever will. I like to think that 8 years from now it will still be here and I can come back and play EQ as it was when I loved it. Its so hard to find this in live EQ anymore.

A second server (years from now) that went up through pop and stopped, but was HEAVILY modified (as one of the server mods said earlier) to take out a lot of the things many people hated would be awesome. I personally loved Luclin (largely because of ssra temple raids and the fact that it and the end of velious were my first raiding experiences) and Planes of Power was hugely enjoyable (for me).

For the record however, EQ was still growing all the way up through mid-2004. I don't remember the exact date of the beginning of the decline, but I assume its roughly when people ran into GoD and WoW released. So, no, EQ didn't go into decline at all during Luclin and PoP. This is all beside the point however.

I think that in general, whichever expansion was your 4th or 5th is when the game started to decline for you. I started just before Luclin in 2001 so for me, the one that started to break my back was Gates of Discord. People that started at release, hated Luclin or Pop (or both).

The one unforgivable thing PoP did was make the world smaller. If we could keep planes of power without portal stones, I'd be pretty happy.

Anyways, like people said, this is YEARS away. Kunark is still probably half a year away! That gives me time to roll up another alt! Its already been stated this one almost certainly won't be wiped so no worries.

[warrioman]

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

I'm one of the apparent minority that liked something about pretty much all of the expansions (Legacy of Ykesha is the one I had the least use for). What finally drove me to quit EQ after 9 years was first the fact that so many of my friends had left that it was getting hard to regularly find people to group with (far too many people were boxing/running mercs and weren't looking to group much) and second the fact that Sony was introducing a micropayment system where you could buy items/advantages in-game with real world money. Yeah, the store had crappy items initially, but I strongly believe that no one should ever gain any advantage or bonus (be it better gear or extra experience, etc.) simply because they opened their wallet more than the next player.

If the consensus once Velious is open is to stop, that's fine. If the P99 admins and community decides to continue after Velious (either following the original Luclin+ progression or modifying it to remove the parts that many people dislike, like easy travel through PoK) I'd be fine with that as well. But that's really an issue for down the road, after Velious is out for a while and people had had the chance to explore the zones, do the quests, etc.

It's actually ironic that players in the US believe that the whole micro-payment idea is wrong. Video games are played for fun/satisfaction. If having a certain item/more plat makes the game more fun to a player then why is it wrong that they get those items by paying real money for it. It's like paying for content. If you think about it, it's actually strange that US player are in support of an equal-pay system (subscription-based). "Earning" gear/plat could be seen as work - don't people work in real life too? Why can't goods and services in the real world be traded for goods and services in a game world. It's free trade, straight up.

[ShivanAngel]

I kind of agree with the micro transaction thing...

I make XX an hour.

I could spend 15 hours farming the item, or spend less than one hour at work and just buy it.

However, A lot of the enjoyment i get out of the game is camping items and farming some named mobs.

Where do you draw the line... Im sure some people wouldnt be to happy if they spent hours upon hours of raiding to get their gear, and someone was able to get it in 5 minutes just by giving the company a CC number.

Im not one of those people that gets annoyed by people that have the same gear as me, regardless of how they get it. However there are LOTS of people that for some reason, rage when people have the same/equivilant gear as them that didnt put in the same amount of time. Apparently earning that gear by spending hours in one zone means something to them.

Funny thing is you could make the armor neon pink, be called I suck at the game and buy it with RM vambraces, and people would still rage about it.

[Zarniwooop]

Micro-transactions are a divisive issue.

For people that want to play casually, or pay to skip certain game elements they deem to be not a challenge but just work, its a great thing. For those that feel that it completely removes any sense of epic accomplishment to be able to buy your way through the game, its !@#%.

I enjoy micro-transactions in DDO, because I only play that one day a week tops with old friends and have no time or inclination to really get into the game. Any other game I'm really into, micro transactions either cause me to lose interest or quit outright.

[mgellan]

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

Just an idea - let's have the Devs create their own expansion pass Velious. Thats the answer IMHO. Everyone that played EQ in the classic days wishes that EQ live would have never went off in left field with 18 expansions and all of the problems. The new expansion would have that classic feel and lore we all love. It don't have to be a big expansion, just creative and fun for everyone. Think about the rumors we all heard back in the day- fishing out armor in OOT that fell from the plane of sky? Lochness Monster Boss in Lake Rath? It would gain a lot of interest in the community figuring out things that are unsolved. Lets create the classic expansion we never got.

YES! Absolutely this! They have what, 22 post-Velious expansions worth of zones, graphics, mobs etc etc? If you are bored and waiting for Kunark then spend some time productively then start looking at Live zones and figuring out how to piece them together info additional zones for an Everquest expansion done right. I'm sure the Devs would consider proposals for same, either as a direction for P99 or a post-P99 server. Discuss.

Regards,
Mg

[Zarniwooop]

The above post will never, ever happen.

This is a classic server.

I'd personally be okay with them going up through luclin or even pop if it was modified to remove the ports, but custom content is out pretty much.

[Doeboy]

i think after velious when the content is drained and they allow boxing and the population is 100 they should allow ogre bards.

[stormlord]

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

Micro-transactions are a divisive issue.

For people that want to play casually, or pay to skip certain game elements they deem to be not a challenge but just work, its a great thing. For those that feel that it completely removes any sense of epic accomplishment to be able to buy your way through the game, its !@#%.

I enjoy micro-transactions in DDO, because I only play that one day a week tops with old friends and have no time or inclination to really get into the game. Any other game I'm really into, micro transactions either cause me to lose interest or quit outright.

I've been playing DDO too. I was playing Entropia Universe too. The micro-transaction thing gets on my nerves. Why? Because there's no cap. Nothing stops them from overdoing the whole thing. There's no government regulation of it. The companies can just rip you off and run away with your money. Either they need to cap what you can pay per month or the government needs to regulate them to keep things balanced. That's what usually happens with casinos. I support it because the line between a good game with good content and a slot machine is not always clear. Once that line is crossed in the direction of a slot machine it's simply exploitation.

Why is it exploitation to get someone hooked on a slot machine, you say? Or to oversell a product or to have someone pay $1000 for a haircut? Or to exploit people who have poor genetics or self-esteem? It's the difference between an engaging well written book and methamphetamine. While one can get 'addicted' to reading epic books, it's not the same as getting hooked on a substance or simplistic action. A well written book takes you on a journey, requires you to read well and concentrate, encourages you to improve your reading skills, gives good writers a job and spurs creativity. A shot of crack is like throwing your money away. This my opinion, of course. Someone who is out to exploit a consumer doens't care about making a high quality product that inspires. If they could sell dirt at outrageous prices that's what they'll do. If we don't stop them...

Games are always balanced at the edge of the cliff. They're very close to being slot machines. If you start letting companies do whatever they want they'll sure enough find a way to exploit people completely.

Am I naive for thinking games should be creative, inspiring master-pieces? I don't want dirt. No thank you.

Now, assuming games aren't dirt and have high quality elements, there's another issue. Humans have evolved to a certain set of conditions for many thousands of years. In essence, we're addicted to living. Our brain rewards our efforts with shots of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. We get addicted to the reward and attempt to repeat the whole process in our day to day lives. Thankfully, this addiction produces real tangible results that allow our species to reproduce and survive on this planet. Addiction to living is so subtle it happens in the background. I have no doubt that games are already latching onto this natural brain neuro-system and feeding it synthetic information (via the computer monitor/keyboard/mouse/etc). So instead of working and playing in the real world, getting exercise for your body, having children, making the world turn, gamers will be increasingly connected to their computer and living, working and playing on their computers in completely fictitious worlds. This would be exploitation. Probably not everyone is equally susceptible, though. Game companies and gamers are probably mutually involved in this "conspiracy" to sustain the artificial input/feedback loop.

But it's easier to make a crappy ADDICTIVE game than to make a fictitious reality. So I think that we're more likely to see slot machine games than high quality worlds that hijack our evolutionary traits.

***********************

Reboot or expansion? No idea. I don't even care. That's years away. For all I know, I'll be dead.

[Lagaidh]

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

You mean new player models I assume, when you say new graphics? Those were optional, so to each their own eh? I personally liked some of them and disliked others. (New ogre is definitely an improvement, imho).

I agree with you regarding the bazaar and instant travel. Although the Nexus based travel isn't anywhere near as bad as PoK. At least with the nexus you often had to wait 10 minutes for the port up to the nexus, and then wait another 10 minutes for the port back down, and it was only between four main locations so there was still a lot of travel required after using the nexus. Basically it was a way to avoid boats.

As for the lore, I never really paid attention to that. To me it was no different than Kunark or Velious (new continents with strange creatures on them). As far as I am concerned, it might as well have been just another continent.

I fail to see how Vah Shir are any worse than Iksar? I mean really, catlike humanoids or lizardlike humanoids.. both are fairly lame conceptually.

What I don't see are any complaints about the CONTENT of the expansion, or AAs, or horses. I know I personally thought AAs added a lot to the game, and I definitely enjoyed the various zones and raid content that were part of Luclin. Ssra temple was a very well-designed zone, and although Vex Thal was a bit of a grind-fest, it was (once fixed) still a great raid zone.

Personally I'm not that big a fan of mounts, but I know a lot of people liked them.

I know I'm way late to the thread, but you answer your own question to a degree. For me, Luclin started the decline of EQ:

- Bazaar: No more haggling or sale-skill. This was the first feature introduced to the game whose sole purpose was to reduce player interaction for one of the core parts of EQ; namely, the player-driven economy that was such a draw. People forget how proud Verant and then SoE was of the player driven economy. It was a proving point that the game world was truly alive.

- AAs: I see both sides of this coin, but at one time, these ended up like being a Manastone in vanilla EQ. You didn't have a certain AA? Fuck you. You're not raiding with us. Even if AAs could be acquired by anybody, unlike the Manastone, in the early days, many players wasted AAs on crap that was of no benefit. The "maps" of best AAs per class were not made yet. XP is, was and will be precious. It's what we bleed when we die.

For me it was killing a big social aspect of the game (bartering) combined with what would be a specific set of requirements to keep up with the Joneses (AA) that started killing EQ for me.

I personally would hang on through DoN as an active player and sporadically for another two expansions. I swear I would become IRL sad when I'd go through the EC tunnel later on.

Imagine my joy at finding p99.