The more I learn about Smed the more I realize hes not a game lover, he's a paycheck lover. Maybe at one time he loved games, but the last 10 years or so it seems his entire visionT is based on what will make the most amount of money, and every goal is based on that. I may be wrong, but it sure doesn't seem like I am.
EQ Never
- Thread starter Convo
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Malakriss
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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If it's not Everquest, don't use the name. If it's not good enough to stand on its own then a) why are you making a shitty game anyways and b) don't ruin your brand further.
I fault the whole company if they can't figure out in the first week which initial decisions are guaranteed to disappoint one or more blocks of their potential userbase.
I fault the whole company if they can't figure out in the first week which initial decisions are guaranteed to disappoint one or more blocks of their potential userbase.
100% wrong. Smed is an insanely intense gamer. He's always admitted he wasn't a huge MMO player, but a gamer he most definitely is..
News flash! Companies are in business to make money. They're not philanthropic organizations.
If companies are in business to make money, someone should let Daybreak know because they've been doing it all wrong.
Flipmode
EQOA Refugee
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And here I always thought if you make a good game, you'd be swimming in piles of money. Someone should tell daybreak to make good games instead of this mediocre crap they pump out and then try to nickel and dime us through micro transactions. It's retarded.
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yea i don't know why they went with 8 or 16 bit pixel stuff, 1 pixel would have been fine right
a semblance of a quality product would be nice, along that money making goal which never seems to lack
Tell that to Looking Glass Studios, Pandemic, and other companies who made BRILLIANT games, and no longer exist as a company. Making a great game is not the only requirement.
Erronius
Macho Ma'am
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It's fucking 2016 and people are still WARBLEGARBLING over"game too cartoony, will not play"? We've long since ceased to be a major factor in the MMO market. No developer worth a shit is going to make an EQ1 just to appease the handful of EQ1 grognards that are still defending that hill.
The only person who focuses on us as a userbase to design games around anymore is Brad, and that's either scary, endearing, or both.
The only person who focuses on us as a userbase to design games around anymore is Brad, and that's either scary, endearing, or both.
Urlithani
Vyemm Raider
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That is also a problem. As a big gamer he couldn't adhere to the vision (tm) required by a CEO to keep the ship steering in the right direction. He let the hype affect his gamer side.
No one here is harping for EQ1 style graphics. The graphics don't have to look like disney cartoons on acid, either. There's a happy median. I personally prefer more realistic graphics, and shoulder pads that don't look like the character is wearing Howl's Moving Castle.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Yeah, I really wish more games were like the more realistic looking EQ 1 before the luclin revamp. Not cartoony shit like WoW/etc!
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EQ1 was heavily stylized, and the Soga models that most people used to replace the shit-tastic ones in EQ2 were also heavily stylized. Different overall art style compared to games like WoW or TOR, but to say one is cartoony and the other isn't is just being silly
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EQ1 was heavily stylized, and the Soga models that most people used to replace the shit-tastic ones in EQ2 were also heavily stylized. Different overall art style compared to games like WoW or TOR, but to say one is cartoony and the other isn't is just being silly
Are you fucking retarded? Are you seriously comparing the graphics from the original EQ and the graphics in EQN and saying that they're both similar in being "cartoony?"Yeah, I really wish more games were like the more realistic looking EQ 1 before the luclin revamp. Not cartoony shit like WoW/etc!
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EQ1 was heavily stylized, and the Soga models that most people used to replace the shit-tastic ones in EQ2 were also heavily stylized. Different overall art style compared to games like WoW or TOR, but to say one is cartoony and the other isn't is just being silly
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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EQ had all kinds of absolutely cartoonish things in it. Blue dwarves who look straight out of Ralph Bakshi animated movie; the Animated Hand; Like, all of Ak'Anon. Had they the tech when the game first came out, I wouldn't doubt it looking a lot closer to modern stylized games than any weird ass "realistic" look that the mmo-hipsters seem to think Everquest embodied. I will say that the specific choices of having massive shoulderpads in many post-WoW games is definitely a stylistic thing that has been adopted by way too many games, but it's never been enough for me to shit on the art style.
Having their weird ass outlier races like Kerans and whatever else look goofy in EQ:N is basically what they did with EQ1's ogres/trolls/gnomes. This is literally them just doing more of the same.
Having their weird ass outlier races like Kerans and whatever else look goofy in EQ:N is basically what they did with EQ1's ogres/trolls/gnomes. This is literally them just doing more of the same.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
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The Luclin animations were horrible with the new models. I always fond the old models enduring though I didn't despise the new models.
You know what really played to EQ's advantage was the fact there was very limited options in terms of the gaming experience they were offering not to mention people invested a lot of time and established relationships with groups and guilds. I remember games like AC, DAoC, etc. attempting to make their dents into EQ but it was difficult for people to cut the ties and leave behind all they have gained.
I always wondered what it would have been like if one of the other games would have came out first. EQ's success was a lot of timing and luck. Sometimes everything just align in your favor.
You know what really played to EQ's advantage was the fact there was very limited options in terms of the gaming experience they were offering not to mention people invested a lot of time and established relationships with groups and guilds. I remember games like AC, DAoC, etc. attempting to make their dents into EQ but it was difficult for people to cut the ties and leave behind all they have gained.
I always wondered what it would have been like if one of the other games would have came out first. EQ's success was a lot of timing and luck. Sometimes everything just align in your favor.
I question that too, but I'm playing Shards of Dalaya now and with no guild or existing groups I'm really enjoying it. Nostalgia is definitely a factor but there's something about the gameplay that is addicting. Competitive spawns with no instancing, placeholders/rare spawns, rare/powerful loot drops, minimal questing, and a very open feeling world that is manageable on foot all add to it imo. It makes me wonder if EQ actually had more going on than just being first to the 3D MMO gamespace.
Newer MMOs feel like chore lists to me, with very shallow/directed leveling experiences. Everyone do the same quest lines, with the same incremental/replaceable loot until you hit max level. Yaay.
Newer MMOs feel like chore lists to me, with very shallow/directed leveling experiences. Everyone do the same quest lines, with the same incremental/replaceable loot until you hit max level. Yaay.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
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There's no doubt your feelings are very much the same to what others experience hence why we are not seeing games celebrate long anniversaries anymore. That and the fact the playerbase has shifted in a different direction. The majority of your WoW players probably desire something much different than you and I. Not just WoW players but console gamers who have found their way into PC experiences due to console releases or just coming to the MMO scene late.
If you are ok with 500k - 1 mil subs long term you can make the game you are speaking of without much loss. However, if you want 10-12 million, it will never be accepted. Companies are also wanting large returns too quickly. There's no passion in the product or patience for the bottom line. Most of your successful companies start from near nothing and claw their way to the top. Large publishers such as EA are way passed that phase in their company.
I very much hope that addicting gameplay you have described finds a way back to the market as I would happily pay a box copy and a monthly sub. Can I play 8 hours? No. Can I hardcore raid anymore? No. That doesn't have to be the norm. All those pressures were player driven but happens when you add a layer of competitiveness but those players also have to understand how to enjoy a game. Get to level 100 with all max gear, stats, etc. in a week after release is not the designers fault. We were just lucky I guess that EQ facilitated those players with limited number of dungeons, spawns, waiting lists, experience loss, spawn timers, raid spawn timers, travel, lost corpses, etc.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Careful, you might summon the mmo-hipster crowd to tell you that the timing and technology of the time had -nothing- to do with Everquest! And that 90% of the population bounced when WoW came out because SoE had destroyed the game, not because it was in any way plausibly better.
Joking aside, yeah, it 100% had the benefit of being the first big 3d mmo game to the market, and the very nature of the genre being new to the size of the audience gave it a lot of longevity. DAoC was more PVP based, and people were anti-"anime faggotry" when it came to FFXI. EQ really was the only western PVE centric game with any market share for a couple of years there. Those first mmo-virgin groups/guilds had the same attraction that any first-time experience does, and it helped to keep people subbing/playing beyond just pure enjoyment of the game.
As to Laerazi's points; people like different games, and you clearly like the slower paced "camp" aspect of EQ with minimal loot drops in the game. That's totally fine. But in the early days, even if that type of game wasn't your cup of tea, you had little/no options in the mmorpg space that were populated enough to be considered a viable alternative. It wasn't until WoW came out that a populated "different" game came out that wasn't PVP centric (stfu if you think WoW was PVP centric) for people who weren't super attached to that slower/reduced content game to have a real alternative.
Yeah, for some people (and, like mentioned, nostalgia) EQ really had something special beyond the gameplay for them. But it 100% benefited from being effectively alone in the mmorpg space for a couple of years.