EQ Never

LachiusTZ_sl said:

I miss static spawn camps . . . quest hubs can fuck off imo.

Minecraft + EQ = Orgasm and unemployment claims~

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I probably should take a look minecraft (never played it). From my understanding combining the essence of that game with EQ lore gives you an MMO more like UO or EVE and very different from EQ1. Everyone waiting for the remade EQ1 with the only change being a new engine will be dissapointed.

Minecraft is way way too open for any MMO. You should try it. It's hard to imagine a synthesis between the two as they stand. They would need to simplify the MC elements a LOT.

They would basically have to completely hack off the teraforming aspect and just leave in the acquisition and crafting angles. Otherwise you end up with penises. Penises everywhere. As far as the eye can see.

Realistically, the "sandbox" portion of EQ:N will most likely relate more to factions and who controls what vs. actually changing the physical landscape. There will probably be something that modifies the environment, but it will be in a totally vanilla and reversible fashion.

Dandai_sl said:

I played EQ almost nonstop from April 1999 to March 2004. While I'm extremely nostalgic and long for how EQ made me feel back then, I'm also realistic. I know that what made EQ special to me was the time invested and the effect that that time had on my perception of the value of everything in the game. I no longer have that amount of time to devote to an MMO (or any other leisurely activity, for that matter), so realistically I know thatnothingI play will recreate the emotions and experience I had playing vanilla/RoK/SoV EQ. It's downright depressing to accept that reality, but perhaps when I'm older (and retired) I'll be able to have that EQ experience again.

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This is a good post and sums up my thoughts on why finding that "EQ Experience" again is impossible. And I'll also add that it wasn't just the fact I had so much playtime myself, it was the fact that 40+ other guys and gals in my guild were also able to play such a ridiculous amount.

Dandai_sl said:

I played EQ almost nonstop from April 1999 to March 2004. While I'm extremely nostalgic and long for how EQ made me feel back then, I'm also realistic. I know that what made EQ special to me was the time invested and the effect that that time had on my perception of the value of everything in the game. I no longer have that amount of time to devote to an MMO (or any other leisurely activity, for that matter), so realistically I know thatnothingI play will recreate the emotions and experience I had playing vanilla/RoK/SoV EQ. It's downright depressing to accept that reality, but perhaps when I'm older (and retired) I'll be able to have that EQ experience again.

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Same for me, plus an added dimension was that it was all so new. I had never played an rpg of any sort before, never played Dungeons and Dragons, etc. My online computer gaming experience was shooting rocket launchers at other people's avatars. That was glorious but EQ trumped it.

So the cherry popping aspect gives a lot of extra flavor to the memories. And unfortunately, that feeling only happens once in life.

To get a similar feeling again would require a totally new experience, with a game so revolutionary that it was as different from EQ as EQ is from Quake.

Grim1_sl said:

Same for me, plus an added dimension was that it was all so new. I had never played an rpg of any sort before, never played Dungeons and Dragons, etc. My online computer gaming experience was shooting rocket launchers at other people's avatars. That was glorious but EQ trumped it.

So the cherry popping aspect gives a lot of extra flavor to the memories. And unfortunately, that feeling only happens once in life.

To get a similar feeling again would require a totally new experience, with a game so revolutionary that it was as different from EQ as EQ is from Quake.

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i disagree. i think (and i'm just speaking for myself) what made EQ truly memorable was how big the world was and how scary it was to explore it (yes, i'm talking about a death penalty). if you gave me another game that was as big as EQ, had meaningful loot and giant dungeons to explore and took me longer than a week to reach max level and explore every inch of the game, i'd be in heaven. no, i don't have 12 hours straight to play anymore either, but i do have a solid 5 or 6 i could devote to playing a MMO almost any given night if i could only find one that was worth my time.

zzeris_sl said:

I miss old EQ for the most part but it isn't coming back. I don't think any devs have the right answers but that's what happens when EQ was my first MMO that I played a lot of(some UO). Nostalgia for a game with way too many flaws for today's world. At this point, I would just love for some familiarity, to not get to endgame in less than 60 days, and for more meaningful quests. This game had a lot of great ideas and I'm not sure Sony has the talent to make EQN right.

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Al'kabor may be a good fit for you.

etchazz_sl said:

i disagree. i think (and i'm just speaking for myself) what made EQ truly memorable was how big the world was and how scary it was to explore it (yes, i'm talking about a death penalty). if you gave me another game that was as big as EQ, had meaningful loot and giant dungeons to explore and took me longer than a week to reach max level and explore every inch of the game, i'd be in heaven. no, i don't have 12 hours straight to play anymore either, but i do have a solid 5 or 6 i could devote to playing a MMO almost any given night if i could only find one that was worth my time.

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THIS! A sense of adventure only comes up if you are able to risk something or to loose something. Death Penalty plays a huge part in it. Todays mmos have no consequences for failure thus you have nothing to loose in game wise, that is why everything gets boring so fast. I always enjoyed the prepartion to a journey into a dangerous area as much as the journey itself. Ultima Online Felucca days had the same effect on me, so has EvE online.

the thing with eq is they were never afraid to have high level zones next to lowbie zones. Wow fricken holds your hand, you gotta go half a continent away from the newb area to find anything you can't run away from, and if you do die you pop into a graveyard, sometimes closer to your destination. I remember taking the boat to the outpost as a ranger and immediately being someplace I could die even if I did everything right. to make matters worse I was bound who knows where, but I sure as hell didn't want to find out by ending up back there. I lost all my shit at like level 4 by somehow ending up in qeynos sewers, and again at like 7 by wandering out into north karana. it sucked, but it taught me to con shit and stick to the edges of the zone and not run out into the middle of nowhere. And i started printing out maps. Theres never been a game that punished the stupid and the crazy like EQ, but it made the game real. Wanna kill guards in freeport? go ahead, but don't be surprised when you become KOS. Wanna have your druid walk into neriak? you can, if ya kill the right mobs and enough of them. The faction system was brilliant, and it meant you could walk into any city if you put the effort into it. And your friends can play any class, and still group/chat etc with ya. That part of wow sucked.

etchazz_sl said:

i disagree. i think (and i'm just speaking for myself) what made EQ truly memorable was how big the world was and how scary it was to explore it (yes, i'm talking about a death penalty). if you gave me another game that was as big as EQ, had meaningful loot and giant dungeons to explore and took me longer than a week to reach max level and explore every inch of the game, i'd be in heaven. no, i don't have 12 hours straight to play anymore either, but i do have a solid 5 or 6 i could devote to playing a MMO almost any given night if i could only find one that was worth my time.

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Yep, I would love a game like that too, and the mmo space could really use another one (modern EQ has eliminated most of the danger). But it would never match classic EQ's experience for me because of it being my first mmorpg. First girlfriend/mmorpg and all that.

This one?

Some of me favs from his old day.

More and first I Heard of FOH.

zzeris_sl said:

I miss old EQ for the most part but it isn't coming back. I don't think any devs have the right answers but that's what happens when EQ was my first MMO that I played a lot of(some UO). Nostalgia for a game with way too many flaws for today's world. At this point, I would just love for some familiarity, to not get to endgame in less than 60 days, and for more meaningful quests. This game had a lot of great ideas and I'm not sure Sony has the talent to make EQN right.

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This right here. We know many of the things we loved in the old days are not comming back. People would just not do some of the things we did. So lets focus on some old gameplay elements that we could have and how they fail today.
Like the above poster i would like slow leveling. I would like a system where it took 3 to 6 months to level to cap. Is this done today? Which games today focus on this and are they boring. How can we keep casual people involved and playing if the grind is slow?

The reason i like this and so do others is the slow gameplay helps form a community. If the game keeps people around the same level and the SAME AREA it creates a sense of family/community.

I liked EQ and all that but honestly. I would rather see the new EQ be more like Darkfall. No lvls, just skills on what you do. You could sell me more on getting back to Darkfall if you removed the PVP element from it than you will get me back to EQ. Add all the lore and quests from EQ old into Darkfall and remove PVP, I would be hooked!
I prefered SWG and Darkfall style than standard lvling! Even Eve online has merit to skill vs lvls. I enjoyed EQ quests, why? You had to find them. Same with crafting, there were sites dedicated to nothing but quests and crafting. They have got to ramp up the dose if they want to get me to play it. No more just guilds as a name. Guild housing with a reason to keep it and defend it from NPC hordes! Static spots that other guilds can fight for against NPC bands or factions to stay.

Land expanse should be something that can be added over time as guild housing is taken. More lands shouldnt be something added to expansions. New factions and creatures should be instead. This helps is keeping a free flow on land expansion as players use, not waiting for next 8-18 months for next lands to unlock! New factions and creatures will shape the current lands, add in new forts, dungeons and quests.
Can you image a new wagon train entering into the lands building a new fort in your guild area and then starting to either attack you or you help in having it attack another guild close to you. This I would be most interested in being apart of, something i could invest in for the long haul. If I didnt want to have the new faction attacking me, it would request tithe to make them happy and stop attacking or switch it to be something the guild could farm for ore, weapons and quest unlocks.

Devs could spend more time on designing new quests for same areas and story with creating changes in crafting and building designs rather than abandoning old areas for new lands and noone ever ventures to anymore. Guild halls end up being teleport hubs and not true guild hall with any sort of purpose!
Could this fail, sure. Many things fail but the current lvling/land train expansion grind I have hopped off of long ago. I dont like grinding for faction that ends up being junk in a month and needing to get the new shiny or playing catchup in a forever game. Mix SWG, EVE and Darkfall together with the above elements and I would like to see what happens! Could be total shit but its something different, I would embrace the change!

HAHA, that Dragon saying "ding" had me rolling.

Regardless of the content of EQ Next, which seems to be the mainstay of this discussion, one of the most worrisome things to me has absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay:SoE interview at PAX

They seem to be huge fans of both the player workshop, and the dungeon creator from EQ2, which, don't get me wrong, is great in theory. User generated content is a great idea because the resources available for content creation are only as limited as the number of people who are interested in your game. My biggest fear, though, is that this whole user-driven system, combined with the cash shop, will end up flooding the world with gaudy armor, IKEA-looking home furnishings, and shitty, glowing, particle covered mounts. They seem to do a decent job of blocking all the really foul shit from the marketplace, but I guess I would say I might be a little concerned with the vetting process for making shit in game.

Furthermore, all these things that they're excited about are out-of-game activities. Maybe the interview focuses on them because they're locked from discussing in-game things until August, but I can't help but wonder how focused they're going to be on the game itself, as opposed to all their neat meta-features like making items and dungeons. Dave did mention very briefly that with all the different "buckets" of players (as he labeled them) comes implementing systems for all those different types of players to feel rewarded, which does seem to form the idea that there will be in-game incentives for doing things, but the most important thing to me, and I would assume for some of you, would be hopping in the game and getting a chance to play without being distracted by all of these outside influences.

I really hope the days of seeing someone wear something cool, and wondering how you can get it yourself aren't gone. Nowadays, when someone is wearing something neat, 9 times out of 10 the answer is the cash shop. People's appearances in game are a lot more important than some people think. Letting everyone buy sparkly shit, and buy pegasusssesses right out of the gate is a great way to ruin the world instantly. SoE seems to have really refined the cash shop formula with Planetside 2. Nothing gives a huge tactical advantage, most things are cosmetic, and everything fits stylistically within the world (except those faggy-ass flaming skull hood ornaments). Very rarely have I ever felt distracted by the cash shop in PS2. It's there, but it's out of the way. Comparing that with the cash shops in EQ and EQ2, which were retrofitted, you can see they were able to make it work a lot better because they built it from the ground up. I'm hoping they'll be able to perfect the formula even further with EQ Next, otherwise our pristine new adventure, which you folks have been avidly debating over, could quickly become soiled with vanity pets, particle effects, and people riding around on motorcycles. I don't care how good an MMO is. If there's motorcycles in a high-fantasy world, I quit.

Oh, and in regards to the gameplay...I hope it's nothing like anything that anyone here has already described. I want something new.