EQ Never

Dude. That's Autoattad not qwerty.

Gecko_sl said:

I think splitting should be a fundamental part of the mechanism of an MMO, just like Crowd Control used to be. A lot of WOW people keep talking about the 'trinity' of healing, tanking, and DPS. Back in EQ days, DPS was a given, and CC was what one needed in dungeons. Monks gave one another option with splitting and were vital for raids. I like the idea of more individualized classes with roles. I don't mind some overlap, such as the SK/Monk FD one, but really the more classes that can do something, the less meaning those classes tend to have in my opinion.

I really hope EQN isn't taking the WOW vision of everyone being able to do everything.

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The problem with splitting is that it is extremely powerful and very binary.

Braen_sl said:

Weren't Hell Levels just screwed up ways of calculating EXP at those levels, not really some true design intention?

That the higher experience required at those levels was "supposed" to be spread out among the levels at that range.

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Yeah. Not sure if that was fixed pre or post Kunark, but it was gone quickly I think. A bug that required you to level multiple times the required exp for the level, while the level after it went much faster. Was also a problem due to dyings exp penalty being % based, and you could lose hours of progress even with a rez. Think the first level was 34ish? Hell levels were talked about for ages though. The worst thing about the hell levels were not the actual bug itself, only the early players experienced that. The worst thing was that every time leveling seemed to slow down in EQ, people often said it was a hell level, well after the actual bug was gone. This left a legacy of almost thinking it was a natural feature to slow people down, this rumor spread to WoW. I remember people talking about hell levels there too.

What that led to has been a knee-jerk go to phrase every time an increase in death penalty is mentioned in MMO discussions. People can mention dozens of different mechanics that might be implemented to increase the death penalty and all the reasonings behind why they would want such a thing. Well thought out and reasonable arguments. However, responses are not replying to just why those individual mechanics, or at least one of them, would be good/bad to implement. But rather they go right to "Oh so you want harsher death penalties? Hell levels again? Because those were such a good idea! It just inflates time! MMOs should be fun!."

Hell levels have ruined many a discussion on death penalties as they were not a good idea, did inflate time spent at random levels, and they were not fun. Problem is that vast majority who mention them never experienced them, they just know the idea behind it, and associate that with a discussion of the death penalty. Talk of them were rampant in the early Vanguard threads on FoH. Fairly sure Brad responded to them at one point too because they were brought up nearly every damn time people started to stear the discussion towards wanting some old EQ mechanics back that seemed lost in WoW which was the go to natural competitor to compare it to at the time. And still is now years later with EQ:N, so WoW is a beast of a game. Certainly understandable why developers copy mechanics from that compared to any other mmo.

I don't care what kind of wrapping paper you put it in, phasing is bullshit. I'm playing a game like this because I want to interact with people, not interact with the pre-determined people that I'm most likely to enjoy interacting with due to some "compatibility algorithm". If a dungeon is crowded, let people fight over it. You get emergent gameplay from removing barriers, not adding them.

If everyone who isn't leet peet gets booted to the lamer dungeon with bad loot and bad ZEM, then maybe they'll band together and murder the leet guys out of the good dungeon. That's called interaction, and that's what makes these games great. Adding rubber bumpers to everything so the world doesn't have so many people in it is a step backwards in terms of a social experience.

This is, of course, on my imagined PvP server, so PvE guys please don't jump all over my shit.

I beleive hell lvls got their place. I experienced them first hand with my necro when you had to pay other players to group with you because they had such an awsome reputation of being dead weights. I soloed days in and out of lvl 54 and when i heard that lvl 55 ding, it was worth something. Anything that makes leveling a challenge has its place. Death needs to mean something.

Nobody_sl said:

That's called interaction, and that's what makes these games great. Adding rubber bumpers to everything so the world doesn't have so many people in it is a step backwards in terms of a social experience.

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great point

zzeris_sl said:

Sure, open world dungeons are good if done right but if crafted weapons are really top notch...then maybe this game can be about the GAME instead of the GEAR. Lancelot wasn't the top KotRT because of his Vorpal Sword of Dragon Slaying +8. It was because he was a badass. I'd love this game to be more about skill and less about gear.

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I get your point... But Lancelot did wield a sword given to him by the Lady of the Lake. Fantasy is just as much about legendary artifacts as it is about the people who wield them. The key is making them rare and important.

You mean Arthur... and technically he got it from the stone first.

Let's get rid of sharding too while we're at it. Only one server is permitted. Now instead of 70 people in LGuk it'll be 700.

There has to be an element of pragmatism. How much quality content can their team produce on the budget they have? If the demand for the game is X and the amount of content they can produce is Z, you have to figure out how much of that X can be satisfied by Z without duplication (instances/shards/phases). They don't have the money to eschew these technologies unless they lower the bar for quality to the ground.

Braen_sl said:

You mean Arthur... and technically he got it from the stone first.

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Nah man, the lady gave Lancelot a sword too, though the sword didn't have a name like Excalibur did

Every 5th level was a hell level. I think they started at 24. I don't really remember. I do remember that they were still there in kunark -- 54 and 59 were brutal. Past that, dunno. They probably didn't get rid of them until the WoW exodus was in full swing.

It was an intended feature not a bug. Probably to bottleneck people at content as a practical thing, but those hell levels were a prevalent feature in a lot of muds too so there was an aesthetic reason to have them as well.

Caeden_sl said:

Dude. That's Autoattad not qwerty.

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Itzena alt.

Am not sure how i feel about a ground finder to. Being grouped randomly by people from other servers didnt help the social aspect. One could argue the artificial split in half of the server population, alliance/horde, forced this tool into the game.

Erronius_sl said:

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^

Rombo_sl said:

I beleive hell lvls got their place. I experienced them first hand with my necro when you had to pay other players to group with you because they had such an awsome reputation of being dead weights. I soloed days in and out of lvl 54 and when i heard that lvl 55 ding, it was worth something. Anything that makes leveling a challenge has its place. Death needs to mean something.

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IIRC back when hell levels were in place they added corpse summoning to Necros to make them more group desirable, and they made all that cash back standing outside dungeons waiting for the unlucky train victims