EQ Never

zzeris_sl said:

Great post. Might as well archive for the next time this topic comes up. Being wrong never changes how often it does. I still enjoy how many interdependence people play P99 where 3 boxing, etc. is actively endorsed. What dependence does that actually push? Do their other voices make good friends?

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I guess the argument would be it proves a game is designed around class inter-dependency because even people who are antisocial and want to play solo know they need other classes and resort to playing those classes themselves. But the question is whether a few people playing outside the bounds of the game design justify changing the entire game design to making that outlier the standard. Especially when players will complain about the few making the effort to do something the many either can't or aren't willing to do themselves, especially if the few are rewarding from it. The over-reaction give-every-player-everything theory of game design dictates you then change the game design so all players can achieve what the few are able to.

If the few are multi-boxing because class inter-dependency is needed, then give more people more spells so they don't have to wait on certain classes to do certain things. If the few are getting sweet loot via raids, then make raids easier, or have easier versions, or have other means for the players to get a piece of that pie. If the few are reaping the rewards of soloing and not having to share loot/exp, then make it so everyone can solo.

Everyone knows the arguments for and against give-everyone-everything game design, so no need to bother. And this is just the arguments I see, not sure I even believe them.

Fight_sl said:

But bro, we have to go back to Norrath.

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Sad thing is...I'm getting the itch again. I am never going to completely kick the EQ monkey.

I must have missed where modern games have CC. Sheep spell? One at a time? Loremaster flash of light? Again one mob. Undead only 5 mobs that lasts a whole 10 seconds? Same thing for sorcerer/sage. That's not really crowd control that's one thing control.

And inter class dependency is so watered down in modern games it may as well not even be there. A shaman or enchanter in an eq group is a massive massive boost.

Also, grouping in a modern mcMmo is NOT the best way to advance. For pure xp per hour during combat it might have a slight edge, but they never consider the overhead. Kill kill kill, then you hear "BRB gonna have a smoke", or "baby crying brb".

In EQ even with the smokers and the moms, grouping is better.

Try doing veteran dungeons in TESO without a Templar healer and a Dragon Knight tank with level appropriate gear.

Tell me how it goes.

zzeris_sl said:

Much like the regurgitated feels data from Etchazz that is never right but always repeated...this isn't quite right. First, remind me of the value of Rangers? Maybe tell me how good Wizards were compared to mages? Pallies? Druids in larger groups. Necros in raids past the first couple? This is just one problem with a poorly made game that wasn't ever fixed properly. That's why healing, tanking, dps were given to all classes to a point in WoW. No one wants to be the shit stain in the raid. No one wants to waste 50 levels as a Ranger...just to find out you were getting even more worthless. We don't play to be special in just one small aspect in a game.

You mention stupid habits. What exactly was camping? Is that not the origin of WoWs rep grinds? Did you raid in EQ? Talk about not thinking unless you were part of the core healing, tanking, control group. It was very simple programming. EQ had bi-yearly expansions just to keep you in the loop. Not to fix shit, just to keep you playing. Their leveling grind wasn't because they wanted something special. It's because the game was never finished on time. They built artificial bottlenecks all over the place...because they were shitty programmers.

I love the talk about community and grouping with EQ. Then I look at grouping and conversations in the P99 and EQ threads. Chock full of people boxing. "I 3-box but I really wish another EQ came out where I could group with others for meaningful experiences"...yeah. Uh huh. "I've camped the same spot for days but I'm all about that grouping." BDO has lots of options. Superior options to EQ. Just because nostalgia is hitting all the right spots doesn't make BDO any less of a game.

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I said that all classes have value, not all classes are equal. Rangers kite, can be temporary tanks if needed in a pinch. Wizards have some dps, and can port. Each class has a purpose. The problem in wow is that they have a measuring stick(combat parsers) that everyone is comparing each class to alot more than they did with EQ. By design classes in eq werent made equally in this way. Its almost as if they were making something new, and had no standard to create classes by aside from dungeons and dragons or something like that. It was a unique result.

Also alot of people play this game just to socialize. I have friends who do 6 month tours in afghanistan, and a way I keep in touch with them is to play eq with them and other friends that we share since getting on social media can be difficult there. Some people like to roleplay within the world of norrath. Its not always about killing the dragon for some. I mean some people like to just fucking craft ( which imo is retarded). Some people want to sit in the commonlands tunnel and call people turkeys.

Honestly who is anyone to say exactly how someone should play? This is why most mmos suck or fall flat on their faces. EQ was (atleast when I played) considered a game full of options. The journey for some can be more important than the destination.

Camping isnt the worst thing in an mmo. Its just an option for how to play. I agree that EQ revolved around the idea of camps way too much, but given how archaic eq is I am guessing that the tech just wasnt there for better AI or a more immersive world that gave players who didnt want to camp something equivalent. Leveling in games is great for casual play. Camping is great for people who want to play for 3+ hours at a time. You need a world that supports multiple styles to satisfy all timeframes. I agreee with you about the programmers gating content, and unfortunately its common practice for them to do what they do ( they also do it in eq2) and its bullshit. But at the least it was satisfying to overcome that challenge and get your first win with others who wanted to beat that content/mob. So though it was a dumb way to slow player progression, beating its odds was somewhat satisfying to players.

I think BDO is a very well made game, and some of the gameplay is genuinely satisfying. I just dont personally enjoy how little each class works together, and I honestly think questing is terrible in that game. I'll be damned if its not another flavor of the month game. You can laugh at people who hold eq or the holy trinity + support idea with people who only crafted as a joke, but its something that people here talk about consistently. Its something that I bring up to old friends who used to play casually and they talk fondly about the experience. They have done that for BDO a fraction of the time. If you think the game is better. Lets see if its being talked about in 3-4 years. I honestly doubt that it will be. and honestly, fuck that stupid black shitmonster its the worst idea in a game I have seen in a long time.

Boxing is just a byproduct of people being too addicted to this game. It happens in any mmo where it is possible to do so. Some people also play games to avoid socializing, but want to have a way to display value to others. So they play the mmo and also play as their own friends. Its fucked up and sad, but its the truth. Think about when the game launched, and people were "dual wielding" multiple accounts? They had to buy another PC to run the game. It took a high level of addiction, aspergers, and poor rationalization to make a decision like that.

TBH everyone should understand that there is no right way to make an MMO. Everyone is feeling different about what they do, and want to do in an mmo. Some people have massive in game goals. Some people want a medium to socialize and play. Some people want to pretend to be a gnome. EQ did all of these things at the time, and manages to do them in a unique way that is hard to find elsewhere at the time. Alot of people have come back to eq more than once. Do you think the same will be happening in BDO? Remember when they said that about archeage? What about Age of Conan? Warhammer? The list of forgotten games goes on.

Kharza-kzad_sl said:

I must have missed where modern games have CC. Sheep spell? One at a time? Loremaster flash of light? Again one mob. Undead only 5 mobs that lasts a whole 10 seconds? Same thing for sorcerer/sage. That's not really crowd control that's one thing control.

And inter class dependency is so watered down in modern games it may as well not even be there. A shaman or enchanter in an eq group is a massive massive boost.

Also, grouping in a modern mcMmo is NOT the best way to advance. For pure xp per hour during combat it might have a slight edge, but they never consider the overhead. Kill kill kill, then you hear "BRB gonna have a smoke", or "baby crying brb".

In EQ even with the smokers and the moms, grouping is better.

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exactly. The problem is that eq is marijuana at its most casual, and heroin at its most hardcore. modern mmos are now just cocaine.

There isn't going to be 20 minute respawns and combat with random open world trash is not going to be measured in minutes any more. God forbid you have to wait through 15 seconds of cooldown for your big hitter, that's literally the limit of "Squirrel!" attention spans for casuals these days.

Ukerric_sl said:

No. Camps were an answer to two very specific EQ features: contested spawn areas and hard risk penalties.

The only reason you camped in EQ is because if your group moved away, there was a good chance that:

1) The place you would go to would have no mobs
2) If you decided to go back, someone else would be killing "your" mobs

Additionally

3) If you knew when and where every mob would respawn, you didn't take risks that they would spawn on your ass and cause a wipe.

Once those problems went away in modern design, camping stopped in MMOs (except for static world rare spawns which are basically problem #2 above).

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I remember the main reason ppl i stayed at certain camps were mainly to grind better than avg exp/aa, second to key/unlocks. Rare groups of ppl like myself would just grind for mats or other odd and end things for gear or just helping guildies or crafting/Bazaar/NPC shopping.

It would never fail, you get in a group or was in one for hours....someone leaves with no replacement or replacement sucks....group disbanded or fake disbands and reforms somewhere else and continues.

The other thing, which I dont miss, some jackass in the group talking everyone into moving to some place halfway around the world to a better exp grind camp. Majority of the time its crap, all die or they continue to try to move the group to a better spot because the spot we ended up moving to sucked for exp/aa. rinse/repeat. In the meantime, wasting time. It has worked out from time to time but often it didnt. Always dreaded the Jackhole member that would do that, specially when you know the spot ya'll are at is the best or close enough.

Still better than other options.
Queue for group run, random dungeon. Get ran over and left behind as 1 or 2 players race to the end to complete and re-queue. All the while, playing disco fighting and watching the same scripted event over and over. Just felt like rails to me.

Dr Neir_sl said:

Still better than other options.
Queue for group run, random dungeon. Get ran over and left behind as 1 or 2 players race to the end to complete and re-queue. All the while, playing disco fighting and watching the same scripted event over and over. Just felt like rails to me.

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It is kind of funny how perceptions change. I remember when I was playing EQ and Wow came along, I thought instances were the cats ass because I did not have to deal with the camp bullshit like one aoe group farming the entire upper level of seb at once. Instances like BRD were still challenging and sprawling enough that they did not break the risk vs reward model that we had seen in a lot of non-instanced content of EQ. It was only after iterations of shitty wow clones and wows own post TBC simplification happened, that instances changed from being a great way to make sure more than one group could experience a piece of content, to a mechanism aimed at making sure every little timmy with a pulse got his shiny loot asap.

Point being, I think instances can be a good thing -- it has been the McMMO shift to the 'everyone gets a trophy mentality' that has been far worse on the industry. This creation of an MMO idiocracy has caused developers to turn every instance into a 15 minute hallway with a loot boss every 8 steps.

That said, given the choice between a loot hall and camps, I will take camps 10 times out of 10, but honestly there is probably a happy medium to be found in there closer to vanilla wow that would make for a better play experience all around.

Camps only work if there's enough variety of rewards to go around, otherwise it's one giant funnel into the top 10% of areas and the other 90% of the world is underutilized. Whether it's better exp, tradeable weapons/armor, crafting mats, gems, effect/clicky items, better bags, augments, faction/reputation, quest items, keys/zone unlocks, etc there does need to be some incentive to go to other places.

"Better xp" has been regressed though, there's usually more limited variation on enemies types encountered in the world and the type of classes you would bring are largely irrelevant except for their dps number.

Malakriss_sl said:

Camps only work if there's enough variety of rewards to go around, otherwise it's one giant funnel into the top 10% of areas and the other 90% of the world is underutilized. Whether it's better exp, tradeable weapons/armor, crafting mats, gems, effect/clicky items, better bags, augments, faction/reputation, quest items, keys/zone unlocks, etc there does need to be some incentive to go to other places.

"Better xp" has been regressed though, there's usually more limited variation on enemies types encountered in the world and the type of classes you would bring are largely irrelevant except for their dps number.

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This is an easy fix, though. Just make every dungeon/area in every level group equal in experience and loot. The problem with EQ was there were only a handful of spots that had good loot, so obviously everyone migrated to those few areas (Guk, Sol in Vanilla EQ, Seb, KC in ROK, etc?) which caused all the camping issues. I'd still rather deal with camping than running instances from beginning to end ad nauseam, however.

OK, next question: How do you make everything equal without making it the same?