When did Everquest start to really decline in quality of experience?

[Mblake81]

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

I was thinking, I figured it out.

When they made an expansion.

Now hear me out!

This game is great, we just played through 10 years of kunark, without a broken economy. It proved to me it's one of the most well designed games in history.

So here's when EQ started to go down hill, when they released an expansion, 1 year after launch, setting up the precident, that they would continue to release expansions, every 1 year thereafter.

That is what killed everquest, the fast grind of expansion after expansion, to keep new players coming in, and ignoring the things that old players loved: The content they were already playing.

It's why there is a drastic difference in look between original world monsters like Hill Giants and the Velious giants. Pumping out expansion every year.

I would like to do a cohesive visual overhaul using the same art style but with a custom engine, specific to a game like this (with mobs agro through walls etc.). No way would i use Unreal.

EQ deserves its own engine.

[bradsamma]

OoW was the last good expansion.

[Malik_Gynax]

For me it was when dungeons changed from this:
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To this:

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Everquest was a WORLD. Going into a dungeon was terrifying. You could get lost anywhere. It never cared if you were receiving a "fair challenge." You were entering a dangerous dungeon!

If you died, you may never find your body again. At some point it stopped being a world and turned into a playground where you go from room to room boss to boss.

One of the coolest things about the early dungeons was 3D level design. It took a lot of skill to craft such cool places. Later expansions just went fully 2D and boring. It's a shame.

[Tunabros]

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

For me it was when dungeons changed from this:
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To this:

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Everquest was a WORLD. Going into a dungeon was terrifying. You could get lost anywhere. It never cared if you were receiving a "fair challenge." You were entering a dangerous dungeon!

If you died, you may never find your body again. At some point it stopped being a world and turned into a playground where you go from room to room boss to boss.

One of the coolest things about the early dungeons was 3D level design. It took a lot of skill to craft such cool places. Later expansions just went fully 2D and boring. It's a shame.

this man spitting facts

[imperiouskitten]

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

this man spitting facts

tru stuff. i still can't navigate guk live side. STILL scary

[SantagarBrax]

I believe portions of Luclin began the nosedive, hence the exit of Brad and over 50 other personnel a week before it launched. On Xegony, we didn't care for the port stones and bazaar, and most players decided to stick with the old character models over the Luclin "upgrade".

However, the "Real Decline" started when they began releasing expansions closer and closer together with minimal content and not allowing the player base time to fully explore and immerse themselves within the expansions. The writing was on the wall, so to speak. The first being Legacy of Ykesha, then except for the Augments, LDoN was a terrible expansion. The Lore was sacrificed as well after PoP and GoD was so damn bugged for so long no one was able to appreciate it or thought of it in a positive light until OoW era after they fixed GoD, but by then it was too late.

OoW was the last expansion I played through and thought it was a good one. I quit playing shortly before the Prophecies of Ro as it was clear that SoE was following in the path of old school Atari: Quantity over Quality. This was a recipe for disaster in that players found little to no worthy content being released, repetition for the sake of it, instancing and further disengagement throughout the EQ worlds, and a lack of appreciation from the company towards their player base, let alone understanding the magic which made the game great from the get go.

Everything became dumbed down, dull, and repetitive.

EQ2 was something new and fun until it began dumbing down the game to follow the WoW model and they suffered mightily from it.

[Mistle]

What are live mobs up to in hp? Past a billion yet? How much does a typical rogue backstab for?

[bomaroast]

Omens of War (OoW) was the last good expansion. Epics 2.0 and a raid-progression that wasn't completely fudged the way Planes of Power was. It was like a victory lap. Things went downhill quickly afterwards. What comes to my mind is the expansion with all the dragons shortly after OoW. That's what killed it for me.

[Mblake81]

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

For me it was when dungeons changed from this:
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To this:

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Everquest was a WORLD. Going into a dungeon was terrifying. You could get lost anywhere. It never cared if you were receiving a "fair challenge." You were entering a dangerous dungeon!

If you died, you may never find your body again. At some point it stopped being a world and turned into a playground where you go from room to room boss to boss.

One of the coolest things about the early dungeons was 3D level design. It took a lot of skill to craft such cool places. Later expansions just went fully 2D and boring. It's a shame.

+REP

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by Mblake81 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's why there is a drastic difference in look between original world monsters like Hill Giants and the Velious giants. Pumping out expansion every year.

I would like to do a cohesive visual overhaul using the same art style but with a custom engine, specific to a game like this (with mobs agro through walls etc.). No way would i use Unreal.

EQ deserves its own engine.

Someone is making one in unity, but I wonder about the authenticity of those quirks I agree.