EQ Never

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

Dandai

Lesco Brandon
<Gold Donor>
5,894
4,443
If the core gameplay (in this case, combat) isn't at least compelling, you're not going to have a successful game. Sure, there are plenty of people who enjoyed EQ in spite of the mediocre combat, but I'll go out on a limb and say the combat is the reason EQ only appealed to a niche crowd.

The thing about MMORPGs is that they're many things to many people. You guys want a game like EQ1 again because nobody's really trying to make that kind of game (with perhaps one or two exceptions, but certainly no triple A efforts). I sympathize, but until one of you wins the lottery, I wouldn't hold my breath that anyone is going to "see the light" on the "huge" market that's being under-served by the absence of a modern EQ1.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
Dunno, I like combat in EQ. It's pretty slow off course, but depending on the situation it does require a bit of planning. Solo vs grouped, outdoors vs dungeons, castermobs versus mobs that immediately close in onn you, which spell selection to use and quit a few strategies that involve crowd control in several ways, both solo and grouped.

The odd ways that aggro can work with groups of mobs spiced this up: proximity aggro, sit-aggro, low health aggro, dps-aggro, heal aggro and also the various ways you could use a variety of spells to "disconnect" mobs in a group from eachother. Pacify, harmony, Mez, Charm, Root, Feign Death, Snare, Memblur (bard and Enc) and such all can be used in ways to break up a crowd. The odd way that aggro could transfer to other mobs made this rather interesting. Knowing which mobs were social and which were not was nice too. Faction plays a role too: just recently I found another example of this. A certain NPC would always assist another NPC (of a totally different faction) standing next to it, but after I had upped my faction to that NPC to warmly, she did not assist anymore(my level was the same so that had nothing to do with it). Discovering that sort of stuff never gets old for me.
smile.png


I also like the variety of spells and especially casting spells always felt "right" for me. I will admit that melee had a lot less going for it when it came to animations and "connecting" with the mob. I guess pure nostalgia makes me forgive them for that.
biggrin.png


I remember at some point I also thought it would be more fun to be able to mow down groups of mobs (diablo-style) rather then having to be so cautious with the average mob in EQ (at least those in the level range that gave xp). But after 15 years and having played pretty much all MMO's that came after EQ, I am still digging EQ's combat.

Though the occasional skill based MMO'where you can really dig into a crowd of mobs stays fun once in a while too. I have to admit though that my son (18) would not loook twice at EQ after I showed him the combat.
smile.png
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
EQ1 combat isn't exactly fun, and not why I play the game. I feel like this harkens back to the time you asked us to tell you why we like emu EQ over present day, and you didn't understand anything about the replies.
The point being the basic pieces of the puzzle at the core of the game need to be entertaining before you worry about all the delusions of grandeur stuff. If the thing you're going to be doing the most in the game isn't fun, you don't have a game..
 

bixxby

Molten Core Raider
2,750
47
The point being the basic pieces of the puzzle at the core of the game need to be entertaining before you worry about all the delusions of grandeur stuff. If the thing you're going to be doing the most in the game isn't fun, you don't have a game..
Yep. Isn't that basically how blizzard built WoW?
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,295
11,674
Blizzard a) made an MMO as a sequel to an existing and well-liked IP and b) built their own engine to handle their own specific needs. SOE squandered their IP for a decade and then decided to go the ghostbusters reboot route, were sold off and finally axed. As to Part B well See: EQN with Voxels and TOR with the HeroEngine, although to Bioware's credit at least their game made it to market.
 

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
Blizzard a) made an MMO as a sequel to an existing and well-liked IP and b) built their own engine to handle their own specific needs. SOE squandered their IP for a decade and then decided to go the ghostbusters reboot route, were sold off and finally axed. As to Part B well See: EQN with Voxels and TOR with the HeroEngine, although to Bioware's credit at least their game made it to market.
Swtor is also making quite a lot of money. Maybe the RoI isn't stellar, but at least the game is still going strong and being profitable. The EQ franchise on the other hand... is probably making peanuts.
 

Loco_sl

shitlord
38
0
EQ combat felt great to me as a damage caster. Melee sucked balls.

Casters were almost entirely focused on mana efficiency, and I loved that. You could hit hard, but you'd sit there recovering forever or run out of mana. It was great making small adjustments and seeing big payoffs in efficiency. The challenge came from optimizing your spells/gear/gameplay/movements/positioning/timing/aggro/etc. Being a glass cannon was immense fun for me, and I think the wizard remains my favorite class in any game.

Melee felt like they got the short end of the stick. Solo sucked or was impossible. Small groups were slow and painful unless you were in endgame gear. Raids were fun or brainless depending on your role.

Healers were great because you basically got spammed with group requests non-stop. Not bad, except for being worthless on your own and having to ask for help if you wanted something. If you had a good guild, it was great but burnout became real. Being necessary for everything had it downsides.
 

Convo

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
8,760
605
Gotta be at least 1 EQN dev lurking that can fill us in on what actually got accomplished on this project,
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,522
7,810
Can you imagine how many hundreds of thousands of man-hours went into EQN since 2009?

What a shame.
 

Tauro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
371
26
You know whats funny? All the talk about EQN cancellation got me to download EQ2 again after 3 years. Graphics engine is still awful but at least PCs are powerful enough today to run it at acceptable performance. Apart from that i really like it. I had a lot of old "station-cash" so i made a lvl90 fury for 3.5k "daybreak-cash". 5 hotbars full of abilities is not funny, but for soloing with a merc you only need 3-4 key spells really (playing an Ogre Fury). Buffs are permanent until cancelled, so no problem there either. Quests are standard kill/fetch but i dont care. Its somehow relaxing for casual play after all the action-combat MMO stuff. There is a LOT of content to play, even if you start at lvl90. 10 hours later i just dinged lvl 91, will take some time to get to max lvl but i dont care. Gotta see it all before daybreak sunsets the EQ franchise...
 

Japanfour_sl

shitlord
91
0
Hmm, apparentlyDave Georgeson saying he would have finished EQ:N. Sorry for the link to MOP, can't access twitter from work.
yeah he planned on starring in willow 2 and to use the funds he made there to bankroll EQN to a complete state with everything you ever wanted.. Its a shame he didnt get to stick around and actualize his vision that nobody ever asked for.

Georgeson and smedley, two out of touch old fucks in an industry they dont belong in doing shit that nobody asked for.
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
"[Georgeson] says he's "very close to signing a contract [he's] been chasing for a year now." ... But he's "right on the cusp of doing some very cool, and very different, new things. More soon."'

Dave joins Pantheon, you heard it here folks.
Let's be honest.. when was the last time someone announced they were going to work on something boring and mundane? No offense to Dave, but meh...
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,379
274
Everyone seems so hung up on Landmark/voxels. For me storybricks was by far the more important innovative feature they announced for EQN. Voxel terrain was a cool idea (looking forward to it in future games) but without storybricks, which died loooong ago, EQN was no longer that interesting for me. I'd like to hear if the storybricks features are in any way feasible, even if that particular team was just trying to put up smoke and mirrors to sell their little company.
 

zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
<Gold Donor>
18,748
72,981
"[Georgeson] says he's "very close to signing a contract [he's] been chasing for a year now." ... But he's "right on the cusp of doing some very cool, and very different, new things. More soon."'

Dave joins Pantheon, you heard it here folks.
Dave starting the real life version of SAO. He promises no one will die and he doesn't have a god complex. Not sure if I believe even with that 27 year success story he touts...