EQ Never

My first system for EQ circa 1999-2000 was a Gateway Pentium 2 300-Mhz processor with a Diamond Monster Voodoo 2. During Kunark I upgraded the card to a 3dfx Voodoo 3.

Utnayan_sl said:

You could have fooled me, because 10 million people are playing a safe and calculated MMORPG right now as we speak, and when they weren't calcuated, they were unsafe and inaccessible. And we saw about a 430k cap in the genre.

Not that I agree with it one way or another. I think there is a place for both.

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There are millions of Bieber fans, doesn't make his music good. Well, not to me at least.


It's funny because I think the majority of people have low standards and bad taste. Same applies to MMORPGs I guess.

Itzena_sl said:

The Beatles sold millions of records too. Doesn't mean the music is bad....

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Which I believe is the point.

Selling millions of copies, doesn't mean the quality of said product is good.

supertouch_sl said:

i used earthlink dial-up briefly and i experienced the worst packet loss. the game worked fine on aol lol

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I had a Voodoo 2 but couldn't connect to EQ for months due to ISP problems. Almost lost hope playing the game.

Beiber sells lots of music for the same reason WoW is popular....It's not about being "good", it's about offending/scaring the least number of people possible, and making your product accessible as possible to the widest range of people. There is a reason why Mcdonalds dwarfs the entire fine dining industry--and it's not because they offer superior cuisine, right? Or lets put it another way. If you make the perfect steak and charge 15$ for it (Cheap for a steak)...And I make average hamburgers for 2$, I will undoubtedly sell more and make far more money,all other things being equal. Why? Because my market is FAR bigger. I can sell to kids, poor people, people in a hurry and people with undeveloped pallets--none of these markets are accessible to you.

That is WoW...WoW is EXTREMELY accessible. It might not do anything the best, but it doesn't alienate any demographic--and in the end, people are consumers. We will consume anything...all it has to do is not piss us off. We generally don't even need to like it (Think of how many things people buy and never use)...All the product has to do is have a lure, have some small value and most of all, MOST importantly, not alienate any portion of the market. This is the key to Mcdonalds success. No one LIKES mcdonalds (No adult anyway)...You don't go in there are say "god damn, I'm glad I ate that". You eat it because it's all around a rational choice, it tastes "okay", it's cheap, it's fast--it takes the least of us and offers what we think we need (Especially since we don't do really well abstracting long term down sides, like health risks.)

WoW didn't build a better game. They built a game less people dislike. And it's a difficult position to argue with, because that's how you make money. Hopefully though, as more clones saturate this broad market--people will start exploiting the niche ones (Which is why you have steak houses despite Mcdonalds existing). We really just need development tools to become cheaper and capital in the field to become more liquid (That's an overall market problem though.).

Lithose_sl said:

Beiber sells lots of music for the same reason WoW is popular....It's not about being "good", it's about offending/scaring the least number of people possible, and making your product accessible as possible to the widest range of people.

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and I completely agree with you.

Fact is the majority of people want to be served something that some of us find "lacking". Most people prefer simple things because generally people lack any sort of sophistication. How many people would enjoy the poetry of Baudelaire? or Beethoven sonatas? very few. But I bet you those who enjoy such a thing are having a hell of a time. It's a hell of an experience enjoying such things which again the majority of people find too "boring" or too "scary" like you said.

Which is why we always call it a "niche" market.


Planning something to be compatible with the lowest common denominator is a genius "business" call. No one would disagree with this. But I, in the other hand, prefer something designed and planned for ME.

I think that's fair.

OR, conversely, it could be that for some ungodly reason, when everyone else played EQ, enjoyed it, and looked for the genre to advance, others stagnated and decided that EQ was the golden age and that they should just stay in that little corner forever.

I think it was Muligan that said what I think most people want from EQ Next: We don't really want something like EQ, but we want what EQ was. And for a lot of us, that will never happen, because it's 15 years later and everyone has moved on.

Liking EQ/games that appeal like EQ did doesn't make you sophisticated. You're not delving the depths of some plunder that the rest of us are just too stupid to appreciate.

I keep reading all of those posts, and updates, and the petitions that keep asking for everything that made EQ what it was, but I cannot imagine them going back to that. It won't sell, and christ, it shouldn't. It was revolutionary because it go in while the getting was good.

This is like some hipster level shit of MMOs. I'm flabbergasted.

The little info thats out there says EQN is a different game anyway, just set in the same background lore. Everyone talking about how they want old EQ are just using this thread because it has E and Q in the title. Most of the thread is still interesting (imo) but not in the "i want this game made that's like old eq" way but more from a theoretical MMO desgin point of view.

I just hope they embrace phasing a lot. I think WoW is slacking off in this regard, and that Bioware...well...they're gay. It's better than instancing every single thing. I like outdoor content. Last I checked WoW was wasting its potential. In the opening of Cataclysm, when you fully progressed through one of the zones, it was fucking phased to empty, not full of stuff to do. I was like yay, I can...afk in this empty zone. I want it to phase to cool shit, so people have an incentive to go through the story.

Lore is relevant to me. I've frequently invested my thoughts into the lore of the world. This is part of why I do so many quests. Like I did every mercenary, partisan, hero, etc. in the EQ achievement system when I went back, which means I did all the quests in the newer expansions. I got to meet story characters and help them save the world. Phasing helps me see the effects of saving the world. Phasing can help change those characters so I see them victorious, rather than still on the job. Bioware was the right company to embrace the importance of story, but they didn't know how to apply themselves to an MMO setting properly.

And since I know the no-instance fags are abundant here, EQ and EQ2 are fucking full of instances. SOE is on the train already.

LadyVex_sl said:

I keep reading all of those posts, and updates, and the petitions that keep asking for everything that made EQ what it was, but I cannot imagine them going back to that. It won't sell, and christ, it shouldn't.

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There are about 30 or so people in this thread. The same three are the ones who keep asking for a EQ/UO over and over. The vast majority of the rest of us just want something new, fresh, and somewhat different.

There are a lot of very good posts in this thread to chew on that give ideas about how to push the genre forward. I think the issue isn't so much design ideas, but where the tech is today.

Outside of Itz, I think the only universal theme that we all agree on is none of us want another WOW clone.

LadyVex_sl said:

OR, conversely, it could be that for some ungodly reason, when everyone else played EQ, enjoyed it, and looked for the genre to advance, others stagnated and decided that EQ was the golden age and that they should just stay in that little corner forever.

I think it was Muligan that said what I think most people want from EQ Next: We don't really want something like EQ, but we want what EQ was. And for a lot of us, that will never happen, because it's 15 years later and everyone has moved on.

Liking EQ/games that appeal like EQ did doesn't make you sophisticated. You're not delving the depths of some plunder that the rest of us are just too stupid to appreciate.

I keep reading all of those posts, and updates, and the petitions that keep asking for everything that made EQ what it was, but I cannot imagine them going back to that. It won't sell, and christ, it shouldn't. It was revolutionary because it go in while the getting was good.

This is like some hipster level shit of MMOs. I'm flabbergasted.

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and yet this thread is full of people who don't understand that eq was a fundamentally different design, thus provided a completely different experience.

features like death penalties are often considered nothing more than an inconvenience and the people who argue against them aren't able to grasp the point. you can't appreciate something you don't understand. the same goes for an eq-like social fabric. some people just can't fathom that there's a benefit to slowing the game down and actually sticking with people for a while.

but go ahead and keep using words like "hipster" where they don't apply.

Shutup hipster.

Tolan_sl said:

If I prefer EC tunnel over an auction house, not just for the social enrichment of the game but for the economic pacing as well, am I a hipster?

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I agree. I know its an inconvenience for people to spend their actual time selling but I think EQ2 had the best system. I liked purchasing through the AH but I would save some bucks sometimes traveling to people's houses and purchased. I think there should be a fee system. If you sell off your character (live/actively) you get an incentive. Then a house shop is no fee/or reduced fee then AH requires a sellers fee and percentage. I would like to see guild halls have the ability to create Marketplaces and you could raise money to support your guild hall and generate cash for additions. You could also use that money to provide pots, resist gear, etc. for members.

You get that in games with an AH as well. AH and player auctions are not mutually exclusive.

EVE obliterates all other markets. OMG I want, at the very least, buy orders in all these games. i.e. reverse bazaar. EQ1 actually has this these days (barter system), but it's terrible. And the contract system that lets me sell bundled goods is so nice (EVE). So I can sell you a boat, with an NPC crew, and all their gear, and all the boat's gear, etc. in one product. Yay contracts.

Muligan_sl said:

I agree. I know its an inconvenience for people to spend their actual time selling but I think EQ2 had the best system. I liked purchasing through the AH but I would save some bucks sometimes traveling to people's houses and purchased. I think there should be a fee system. If you sell off your character (live/actively) you get an incentive. Then a house shop is no fee/or reduced fee then AH requires a sellers fee and percentage. I would like to see guild halls have the ability to create Marketplaces and you could raise money to support your guild hall and generate cash for additions. You could also use that money to provide pots, resist gear, etc. for members.

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I was just thinking the same thing a few days ago when I was thinking about player interaction. I like incentive to interact with and negotiate/do business with other players. The fee thing is a good idea. I'm not going to sell a Cloak of Flames for 50k plat at a 10% fee in the AH if I can just sell it for 50k to a player without the fee.

I never played EQ2 or Eve so I don't know how their systems work but they sound good.