Death of a Game - Everquest franchise

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Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I remember getting my SK epic on Rallos Zek, was great and epic. Huge sense of accomplishment.

Having to kill Cazic Thule for the SK epic was intense. I still remember the first time seeing the SK epic. Thought it was so f'ing cool. My desire for that damn weapon pretty much set me on the course to join the best guild on my server since they were the only ones capable of killing Cazic at that time.

They eventually moved that piece off Cazic. Still think the SK epic is one of the best quests ever done in any game. I hate questing generally, but loved every minute of that one.
 
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Ravishing

Uninspiring Title
<Bronze Donator>
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I remember Epic Quests burning me the fuck out as a raid leader of the top guild on the server. Spending 12+ hours hopping across Norrath to knock out parts of everyone's epic. Hopping from Cabilis to The Hole to High Hold etc etc etc.. back before they made them easier with triggered spawns.

Thing with Epics which is relateable to a previous conversation... it was one of those things they added to the game that most people felt entitled to and was seen as a "Progress" item.

I guess overall it was good for the game, as everyone seems to have their "epic quest story" to reminisce about.
 

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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6,812
Lol. Wish the guild on my server had helped like that. Unless you were one of the core classes whose epic was considered important to advance the guild, you were pretty much left to your own devices. SK epic was low priority for us. But I had fun getting my friends together for most of the hard parts. And since fear and Cazic were part of the guild's farm rotation that part usually rotted (2 sk's in the guild).
 
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Vinjin

Lord Nagafen Raider
344
299
Cleric rezz sticks were the top priority for any guild over any other epic in the game by a country mile.

Warriors were probably right behind them with the Jagged Blade of War. Once Velious came though and guilds farmed SoDs which were uber taunt weapons, a lot less so.
 

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,083
307
The days of people mostly helping people out are pretty much gone. These days, I can picture a guild holding the server on lockdown. And charging plat or krono to “allow” you access. That’s just fucking extortion.
 
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Ravishing

Uninspiring Title
<Bronze Donator>
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Lol. Wish the guild on my server had helped like that. Unless you were one of the core classes whose epic was considered important to advance the guild, you were pretty much left to your own devices. SK epic was low priority for us. But I had fun getting my friends together for most of the hard parts. And since fear and Cazic were part of the guild's farm rotation that part usually rotted (2 sk's in the guild).

These are the good memories of the game I have tbh. Yea, the shit burned me out, but running around knocking out content with a couple groups of people was good times. I couldn't ever do it again though (time commitments).

Nowadays everything is on rails, you just accomplish everything eventually anyways. They put the Quest in a big box off to the side and guide you through every step. Eventually you collect your shiny new reward. hooray!
 

Flobee

Vyemm Raider
2,578
2,971
I think that if a game could find a way to encourage the community to interact solely, or at least mostly, in game rather than through other mediums it would go a long way towards encouraging reputation to matter.

Combine that with a meaningfully long growth curve for the characters and some level of forced cooperation and you've indirectly incentivised people to be nicer to one another. I think it would be tricky to engineer something like that with the current way we deliver games though. Maybe with VR we can see a resurgence of this sort of behavior.

Seems like a goal worth aiming towards at least
 
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Regime

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
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The days of people mostly helping people out are pretty much gone. These days, I can picture a guild holding the server on lockdown. And charging plat or krono to “allow” you access. That’s just fucking extortion.


LOL not going to lie we used to do this on Rallos Zek. We’d wait at the Freeport marker in West Karana and collect a toll.
 
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Locnar

<Bronze Donator>
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Cleric rezz sticks were the top priority for any guild over any other epic in the game by a country mile.

Warriors were probably right behind them with the Jagged Blade of War. Once Velious came though and guilds farmed SoDs which were uber taunt weapons, a lot less so.

on red99 (yeah I know) the server first epic was...wait for it.... Paladin.
 

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
LOL not going to lie we used to do this on Rallos Zek. We’d wait at the Freeport marker in West Karana and collect a toll.
acceptable behavior on a PvP server. I'd be disappointed in the Nancy careb ears if someone did not say your gp or your hp.
 

Locnar

<Bronze Donator>
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If only they'd release a TLP pvp server. Would need to stop in Luclin though. The PoK books to me ruined the scope of the game and made for WAY TOO many avenues of escape. Ruined the regionalism of the game, which fostered regional communities.
 
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Flobee

Vyemm Raider
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My only issue with a pvp server at this point is that the people that are good at EQ pvp are REALLY good at it. Caster's are relatively simple to play, but melee takes a fair amount of practice. Jousting alone is a skill, add in large group fights with levitation. Forget about it man. Normal EQ players are just too far behind the curve. Same kind of reason that a Quake style game is hard to do these days.

Maybe im just a pvp turd though
 

Locnar

<Bronze Donator>
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My only issue with a pvp server at this point is that the people that are good at EQ pvp are REALLY good at it. Caster's are relatively simple to play, but melee takes a fair amount of practice. Jousting alone is a skill, add in large group fights with levitation. Forget about it man. Normal EQ players are just too far behind the curve. Same kind of reason that a Quake style game is hard to do these days.

Maybe im just a pvp turd though

To me one of the biggest things that happened that skewed pvp was when the client stopped forced 1st person perspective. It made playing a melee FAR easier than it use to be. Try playing a troll sk at the games launch, forced first person perspective in a land filled with no-resists and plenty of magic users sniping you from your blind sides (troll SK was my launch toon, could not get anymore hardcore I tell you, the amount of times random NPCs waxxed my evil ass in the countryside before I even see them, sending me back to Grobb..). It kept things balanced between melee and caster. When you have a large field of vision and see all your opponents at once around you, you can play it like quake which is NOT classic..

"my" pvp server would use the old client , forced first person. That would neutralize a lot of the melee twitch fest we see in modern eq pvp. Would make pvp slower, more methodical, more tactical.

EQ pvp in first person view is just a whole other game.

Actually they use the first person only client still on the Alkabor project, which I suppose will one day go public and then a pvp server could be made with it. THAT will be good. They are very accurate and classic over there, right up there with p99 just farther along in the era (currently luclin but will stop at PoP). Its a serious server and that client base would make a true classic pvp server experience (minus PoP, but blah).
 
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pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
<Bronze Donator>
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Actually they use the first person only client still on the Alkabor project,

false. there's no mouse scroll to 3rd person, but F9 still switches view like modern EQ clients. i was just playing there in 3rd person an hour ago.
 

Locnar

<Bronze Donator>
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false. there's no mouse scroll to 3rd person, but F9 still switches view like modern EQ clients. i was just playing there in 3rd person an hour ago.

F9 switched to other camera angle views in 1999 too. I'm talking about the mouse scroll wheel and ability to pan around smoothly that did not exist in 1999 or on alkabor. Those F9 camera angle switches would be useless in pvp as your camera would be fixed as you ran around.
 

pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
<Bronze Donator>
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F9 switched to other camera angle views in 1999 too. I'm talking about the mouse scroll wheel and ability to pan around smoothly that did not exist in 1999 or on alkabor. Those F9 camera angle switches would be useless in pvp as your camera would be fixed as you ran around.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, it's definitely much, much more difficult using F9 in PVP. I'm sure if you work at it enough tho you can learn to use em.