EQ Never

Yeah.... kind of hard to believe that because I was one (and I do mean one) that kept going back to EQII. Primarily due to the same reason I did the same in EQI, I had a lot of friends that played and that's were my time was invested. However, each time I went back, I noticed fewer and fewer players. I popped in one time just to play around with my housing and my guild was completely gone and no one had paid the status charges to keep the doors open. I hate it so much that EQII went from a game that people really need to give a second chance to a complete disaster. EQ2 had a very lackluster release and then Scott and company did a great job making a real game out of it, and then it went straight to the toilet.

Honestly, it's one of my biggest, progressing MMO disappointments.

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

I don't think that's the problem. The concern is more with statements like this:


"New MMO's have spiked and tanked, mostly in my opinion, because we haven't seen a lot of variation in theme. So EQ and EQII keep winning those battles, because people go away and they try and a new game and when they get through that content too fast they find out that the feature depth isn't there... they come back." Yep, you keep telling yourself that. /CharlieSheenWinningMeme

I mean how are we supposed to take them seriously when they couldn't lay off the marketing bullshit even just for a simple two minute soft-ball interview?

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Except he's actually being truthful there. I, and many others on this board, have returned to EQ/EQII numerous times over the years for the same reasons he said. We try the new hotness, but get bored/nostalgic and return at some point.

Regarding the player housing/crafter types, before EQII came out they were trying to implement a crafting 'class' that would adventure alongside everyone else, but be able to provide for the group in different ways. I wonder if they're trying to revisit that in EQNext.

It's funny, we bitch about way too much information in games these days, and how EQ kept mystery alive, blah, blah, blah.


Now I see some of those same people saying there's not enough infoz. You aren't really going to lose interest, no matter how dramatic you rant, and they have absolutely NOTHING to gain from releasing information. Nor should they. I see this as a good sign.

I don't want to be able to measure quantities in the game. I don't want to be able to parse or log numbers.

Jait_sl said:

It's funny, we bitch about way too much information in games these days, and how EQ kept mystery alive, blah, blah, blah.


Now I see some of those same people saying there's not enough infoz. You aren't really going to lose interest, no matter how dramatic you rant, and they have absolutely NOTHING to gain from releasing information. Nor should they. I see this as a good sign.

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Right now, they are not publishing information because they are saving it for their live event. It's marketing. On the other side of the coin, TESO is hiding everything and not showing much because they are in a panic most likely.

Dumar_sl said:

I don't want to be able to measure quantities in the game. I don't want to be able to parse or log numbers.

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Admit it, you still want that +5 Vorpal Blade. I'm cool with numbers, but less keen on class based 'boxes'. I'd prefer to have classes with a lot more customizing and with an eye on dynamic growth, a la SWG, but done in a less tedious manner.

I think a lot of what SOE are doing is hype, but part of me wonders if they haven't even been able to fix combat ability bloat in EQ II this far in, should anyone buy into it regarding their next gen sandbox game that by all accounts has been rebooted several times?

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

I don't think that's the problem. The concern is more with statements like this:

"We know what we're doing."

"SoE is Second to none."

"New MMO's have spiked and tanked, mostly in my opinion, because we haven't seen a lot of variation in theme. So EQ and EQII keep winning those battles, because people go away and they try and a new game and when they get through that content too fast they find out that the feature depth isn't there... they come back." Yep, you keep telling yourself that. /CharlieSheenWinningMeme

I mean how are we supposed to take them seriously when they couldn't lay off the marketing bullshit even just for a simple two minute soft-ball interview?

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It's a little shill, but the guy is trying to sell a product and he damn sure isn't going to say "SoE is second to some." The same thing applies to his returning to EQ and EQ2 logic. The obvious answer is that people either aren't leaving or are returning to WoW in most cases. However, all reasonably successful MMOs take a small dip at new MMO launch until the established fanbase returns because they get bored as fuck repeating what they've already done in their current MMO of choice.

Overall I like what's being said but saying and doing are two different things. And is it good change or bad change? I guess just about any change at this point is wanted because the whole genre has stagnated into one giant blend of bullshit.

A player needs to have near perfect information when regarding their own abilities and tools. They should know exactly how effective a particular weapon or move is, or what special qualities their tools possess.

However, the players should have to figure out on their own, when is it best to use a move or ability; what attacks to use against particular enemies, and what attacks to look out for from enemies. Hand holding a player through the discovery phase kills interest fast.

Also, for large enemies, I kinda dislike massive health pools. Things get a bit more interesting when you have weak points to target that open the enemy up for killing or disabling attacks. But I also really dislike scripted fights, they are good for one victory, and then become extremely tedious after that.

I would prefer seeing large enemies that present the player several options for taking them down. Most of these options will require a specialized approach. So anyone focused on killing large beasts is going to be a specialist; instead of right now where everyone is a monster hunter. This might require using pole arms and spears, bows and javelins, nets, traps, and possible siege equipment. Each type of large beast will emphasize different techniques depending on their behavior and defenses.

A giant is pretty strong, but manage to trip him up and he goes down hard. You could attack his ankles and knees, or get him to charge into a snare. Dragons can fly, breathe fire and are covered in scales. You need to get them to land somehow, using a cable net launched from a ballista might get one to crash, but if you are out in the open and miss, be prepared to get toasted. You could also track them to their lair, but getting close to a cornered dragon is going to be hard. You can try aiming for an eye with arrows or javelins, but that is going to require some heroic level aiming. You could scrape some scales off it's belly and puncture a lung with a lance, let it bleed out.

Whatever the case is, the fight becomes more like a puzzle than a simple numbers game. The monster's hp is not important, bypassing it's defenses and striking a critical blow is. However, expecting a rogue to jump in and backstab a dragon with his 3 inch poisoned blade is not going to end well, for the rogue. So a game like this would have to have a lot more than just monster hunting, something hardly any fantasy mmo has presented so far.

Guzrog_sl said:

I'm sure its archived somewhere but as I recall Scott said they really did look long and hard and want to do this but at the end of the day they didn't because it could alienate their (at the time) loyal subscribers. EQ2 already ended up pretty niche so I can understand not wanting the piss off the odd ducks that liked 10 different ways to kick for 3 damage (channeled.)

I was a huge fan of the game myself until I got to about 35 on any given class. I do not think its a matter of "couldn't fix" though. I could also be incredibly wrong.

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Agreed.

For me, combat reached it's height around level 10 in EQII. You had enough abilities to feel useful, but not so many that you couldn't watch the combat and react to what was going on (i.e. that mob is beginning to cast a spell. I'll bash to try and interrupt).

Shadow of the Colossus had some great large creature slaying. Finding the points to stab, hanging on to the creature, charging up for a large stab.. This active real time combat would be great, but how does it tie in to an mmo? We can't ALL climb around on big stuff as a group, that'd be silly..

I feel EQNext would benefit from intricate group content, almost co-op, as opposed to the raid game. Why not create engaging, rewarding, risky encounters that can be tackled solo or in a small group with the same flare as the raid game? Is it really just the waiting around and the headaches of 20+ people bouncing off the walls that makes the raid game what it is?

Guzrog_sl said:

I'm sure its archived somewhere but as I recallScott said they really did look long and hard and want to do this but at the end of the day they didn't because it could alienate their (at the time) loyal subscribers.EQ2 already ended up pretty niche so I can understand not wanting the piss off the odd ducks that liked 10 different ways to kick for 3 damage (channeled.)

I was a huge fan of the game myself until I got to about 35 on any given class. I do not think its a matter of "couldn't fix" though. I could also be incredibly wrong.

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I wanted to be a fan of the game but just couldn't with the issues of bloat. I'd love some simple statistics on how many people who are MMO players and tried EQ2 had a favorable impression on their combat system and abilities. I've yet to talk to anyone who actually liked it.

Maybe Hartsman chose not to fix it due to his upcoming Trion gig. He certainly made sure Rift's combat was nothing like EQ2s.

1 button macros is definitely a far cry from EQ2's 148 minimum hotkey setup. Both are fucking shit though

Gecko_sl said:

I've yet to talk to anyone who actually liked it.

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Here you go.

That thread made me sterile. Thanks Ixian.

Hinadurus_sl said:

Shadow of the Colossus had some great large creature slaying. Finding the points to stab, hanging on to the creature, charging up for a large stab.. This active real time combat would be great, but how does it tie in to an mmo? We can't ALL climb around on big stuff as a group, that'd be silly..

I feel EQNext would benefit from intricate group content, almost co-op, as opposed to the raid game. Why not create engaging, rewarding, risky encounters that can be tackled solo or in a small group with the same flare as the raid game? Is it really just the waiting around and the headaches of 20+ people bouncing off the walls that makes the raid game what it is?

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call me crazy, but i actually really enjoyed raiding in EQ, even when we had 100+ on some of the raids. trying to kill the avatar of war, dain, yelinak, clearing fear, etc...those were some of the most fun i had playing. i personally hate the thought of raid caps. if you have 20 man, 30 man, or 40 man max limits on raids, then most of your guild logs in with nothing to do but wait for an invite. how much fun is that? for me, i don't think there should ever be raid limits. if one guild can do an encounter with 20 people, great. if it takes another guild 100 people, fine; it just means there's a much smaller chance of you getting any loot out of it. the only thing i would do in a game is instead of having raid limits, i would increase the difficulty depending on how many people were doing the encounter, and also have maybe more rare items drop at a higher percentage depending on how few people you can successfully do the encounter with.