EQ Never

Fuck people. Its not ALL or nothing. I'll gladly take some sand box elements over developers ramming a finger in each nostril and dragging me step by step.

I wouldn't call EQ a themepark nor would i define as a sandbox. Both of those descriptions don't fit. It didn't have rails (at first), and you could not alter the world except for killing the sleeper. Not sure what I would call it though.

It's a sandpark.

EQ was far more sandbox than themepark.

No, you couldn't alter the world, but things were just more free.

Emergent gameplay fuckers.


Honestly, instead of themeparks/sandbox, which I couldn't give a fuck less about, lets talk about gameplay.

WoW, EQ2, most modern MMOs, are what I like to call Zero Sum games. Everything is calculated with a carefully balanced equation that has no unsolved X.

In EQ, there were plenty of unsolved X factors. Combining those factors led to fun and inventive gameplay. THATS what we need more of.

Big W Powah!_sl said:

EQ was far more sandbox than themepark.

No, you couldn't alter the world, but things were just more free.

Emergent gameplay fuckers.


Honestly, instead of themeparks/sandbox, which I couldn't give a fuck less about, lets talk about gameplay.

WoW, EQ2, most modern MMOs, are what I like to call Zero Sum games. Everything is calculated with a carefully balanced equation that has no unsolved X.

In EQ, there were plenty of unsolved X factors. Combining those factors led to fun and inventive gameplay. THATS what we need more of.

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Yes man~!

A big problem is the massive over production of mmo's where everything has to be so balanced and perfect. That's a reason why EQ was one of a kind. Instant clickies like manastone were rad and when the devs realized how OP they were it was too late. The way they fixed things back then was great also. They didn't pull everyone from in game, they stopped the drop and let people keep their old ones.

I remember always looking for pathing exploits for fear kitting and could eventually lvl 0-50 with ease running mobs into walls. That is what made it fun. Doing something no other person had done or was smart enough to figure out yet and get it nerfed.

There were many ways you could play eq that it was not meant to be played (earthshaker, fear kite, bard kite, mezzing PC's and throwing off a cliff at a marriage in fron of a gm so maybe it was an unintentional sandbox with hidden rails.

Watch out or I will diddle your themebox.

Big W Powah!_sl said:

EQ was far more sandbox than themepark.

No, you couldn't alter the world, but things were just more free.

Emergent gameplay fuckers.


Honestly, instead of themeparks/sandbox, which I couldn't give a fuck less about, lets talk about gameplay.

WoW, EQ2, most modern MMOs, are what I like to call Zero Sum games. Everything is calculated with a carefully balanced equation that has no unsolved X.

In EQ, there were plenty of unsolved X factors. Combining those factors led to fun and inventive gameplay. THATS what we need more of.

Click to expand...

I can agree with this. Regardless of whatever bracket it falls in, I've never had as much fun with an MMO since the early days of EQ. I especially hate the ridiculous notion that you can have a perfect combative balance for PVE and PVP in a unified system. I'm OK with imbalance, it adds to the fun. I can understand not wanting a complete shitfest of a class, but if Class A can destroy Class D with the flick of a wand than Class D better avoid that fucking wizard.

I feel like EQ was "in between." It wasn't a pure sandbox, but there was a LOT more freedom in that it didn't feel on rails. Most of my time playing early EQ was at the mid levels doing PVP, crafting, dungeons and exploring. I didn't feel any pressure to really hit the level cap, because most of the stuff I could realistically get I could play the barter game and buy with enough effort (which in turn made those mid levels much more rewarding to play). Now, games are designed around fast-tracking to the cap. They're very much so more on rails. Things like Bind on Pickup, strict level caps, crafting caps, and so on definitely discourage lingering at the mid-game and just doing your own thing.

Eq wasn't a total sandbox, but I feel like there wasn't a huge amount of pressure to follow the beaten path. Everyone I played EQ with's fondest memories were of exploring the world, meeting people that we saw day after day, becoming part of the community, etc. You had the driven people who had to hit the cap asap, but even they tended to stop and go back to older dungeons and farm shit for alts or help out buddies. That's kind of gone now.

Another thing I think made EQ stand out was that zone levels and rare mobs were just really random. In games like wow, you have the 1-5 garden, the 5-10 area, the 10-20 zone, then a bunch of 30-40, 40-50 50-55, etc zones. EQ was just kind of all over the place. you had 50s in the same zone murdering guards as 30s killing goblins, you had 40s in zones with low 20s. Places like guk that ranged from 15 to 50, and so on. A wide level range, giving you some risk vs reward and incentive to really get out and explore, no matter what your level. I feel like moden MMOs is more like a straight ride. You ain't going back to older zones for any reason except obscure achievement hunts. Rare spawns dropping unique loot and mixed level zones seem like a thing of the past, and I think thats what made EQ feel more "sandboxy." Everyone was just spread all over the world, doing whatever the fuck, and low and high level players were in the same zones a lot, even if it was just a high level running to karnors through LOIO and dreadlands, it just felt more like a open ended world, and I didn't have any rails telling me where I needed to go. There were hotspots, yeah, but there were dozens of underused and interesting zones that rewarded exploration and just added to the scope for me.

I also feel like EQ just kind of rolled with things. I was always finding crazy new fun shit to do, like swarm kiting, faction warring, using dozens of interesting and unintended mechanics creatively. I feel like any time that happens in games now it gets instantly crushed, whereas EQ just kind of ignored it or even embraced it over time.

Finally, I think EQ felt a lot more sandboxy on the zeks as well, since a huge portion of the population was just fucking around and pvping ("half my fun is ruining yours") and not following any scripted goal. It was like a bully's playground, and it was fantastic for what it was. Like for awhile, de-leveling didn't reduce your skill caps, so you could run around using a tantors at level 20 (damage cap lifted) with the skill caps of a level 50. To some people that sounds like a horrible, broken mess, but to those of us who played there, all of those little quirks and odditys were just...fun. I feel like thats the kind of stuff missing from a lot of game's now. They're too sterile and just not fun.

Dude, Eq is nearly a direct rip of the diku mud sojourn which I played in the early to mid 90s. It also might be a shock to you that brad played this game extensively as well. Now if you convince me that diku is a sandbox I'll admit that I'm wrong.

Most people have no idea what they mean when they say sandbox without completely ignoring games that have released since EQ/UO when they reference those games. It is pretty sad, honestly. And no, EQ is not a sandbox. WoW technically has just as many sandbox elements as EQ did. EQ had one: faction maleability. WoW has one: Character maleability. EQ had zero character maleability, WoW has near zero faction maleability. Neither games are sandboxes.

Yay, Tad of the color-coded bad ideas is back!

Can someone please tell me what a "sandbox" mmo is?

I have just searched google for an answer and It looks like everyone and their mom has a different interpertation of what that term means. I think the confusion is that no one knows what the heck "sandbox" means for a MMO.

Can Smed maybe tell the world what he thinks it means?

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Helleri/...define-SandBox

According to most definitions online, EQ would be at least part Sandbox.

Tol_sl said:

Finally, I think EQ felt a lot more sandboxy on the zeks as well, since a huge portion of the population was just fucking around and pvping ("half my fun is ruining yours") and not following any scripted goal. It was like a bully's playground, and it was fantastic for what it was. Like for awhile, de-leveling didn't reduce your skill caps, so you could run around using a tantors at level 20 (damage cap lifted) with the skill caps of a level 50. To some people that sounds like a horrible, broken mess, but to those of us who played there, all of those little quirks and odditys were just...fun. I feel like thats the kind of stuff missing from a lot of game's now. They're too sterile and just not fun.

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Endgame raiding was like this on some servers. On my server every mob target was FFA for most of the time my guild was playing. Which meant we were constantly griefing and being griefed by the other top guilds. It was glorious and the best time I have ever had in an mmo. The drama was intense, the flame boards hilarious and the tears filled an ocean. The GM's came in and forced a rotation on us for a short time during Velious, but it didn't last. Most of of WANTED the drama. The PvE mobs were just the reward we all fought over, we didn't care that they were easy and bland.

This is a huge reason why I hate instancing and no other mmo has been as fun for me as classic EQ.

So although EQ wasn't a sandbox in the strictest sense, it did have emergent gameplay elements that the players created. There are other areas where players made the gameplay in classic EQ, it wasn't just the endgame griefing PvP (GvG), but that was the part I enjoyed most.

Furious_sl said:

Can someone please tell me what a "sandbox" mmo is?

I have just searched google for an answer and It looks like everyone and their mom has a different interpertation of what that term means. I think the confusion is that no one know what the heck "sandbox" means for a MMO.

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I think a pure 'sandbox' is basically something like minecraft. A game with no objective except what you want to do to fuck around. I don't think that will ever apply to MMOs and thats why I wall-o-texted why I felt EQ felt more like a sandbox than wow to me, in MMO terms, but that I acknowledge it's not really a sandbox in the way a lot of people use it.

EvE is considered a sandbox mmo by most people, even though it doesn't have world building tools. But that is mainly because of the focus on PvP.

Convo_sl said:

Some people just hate all things EQ. They will never say it tho;-). They rather ball wash wow successors like wildstar..just saying...

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And here comes Convo with a comment that has nothing to do with the conversation. Congrats for being dumb.

EQ was a pretty great game and - I would say you have to consider the game in the context of the time. In 1999, most people were hand-drawing maps of the Karana's in order to survive, and explore. Which, I guess if you are completely unaware of the game's rails, would make it 'feel' like a sandbox game since your character had limitless possibilities.

Angry Amadeus_sl said:

EQ was a pretty great game and - I would say you have to consider the game in the context of the time. In 1999, most people were hand-drawing maps of the Karana's in order to survive, and explore. Which, I guess if you are completely unaware of the game's rails, would make it 'feel' like a sandbox game since your character had limitless possibilities.

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That's all people are looking for Amadeus. Several divergent paths without rails put in place by the developer. FFXI had a similar setup but the community through the power of japanese powergaming determined that only one level path / classes / spec mattered and enough of the community was on board that those divergent paths in FFXI became one path unless you wanted to play alone or with a dedicated group.

Fawe_sl said:

Until another game comes out that resembles original EQ then you'll never know what we're talking about. You can't just play EQ of today or read a wiki.

When EQ was released the designers were pretty dumb about a lot of stuff. They put a bunch of random stuff in a box, loosely knit together with some basic lore and said "ok guys, go have fun". The players were left to play it as they saw best and eventually things developed that the designers never had imagined at first. Raiding being one of them.

Same can be said for a sandbox... a pile of dirt is put in a box and kiddies do with it what they will.

Stop being so literal You keep stressing that players are confined to how SOE designed the game when in actuality the designers never intended for most of what happened with their game. They embraced some aspects and started bastardizing others over the years.

In a way it was the players that determined how the future of EQ turned out. The game was molded around the players playing habits. It wasn't a game that focused on a certain playstyle like almost every MMO of today.

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Creating mobs that have tens of thousands of HPs, can kill most non-plate in 3-4 combat rounds, totally never meant to create raiding, right? Get fucking real; and no fucking shit the players determined the future of EQ. That's what consumers do. The developer of a game sees a trend, has to make a choice: keep it, change it, scrap it. If the consumer doesn't like the decision, they leave. Company sees masses leaving, changes things, tries again. Rinse and repeat.

And it doesn't matter that you could do 1581948129031823912831283 things in EQ. It revolved around one singular feature: killing NPCs. Whats that? I can wear anything on my level 1? How'd you get the gear? Some random guy? He killed something. Your main? You killed stuff. On the ground? SOMEONE KILLED SOMETHING. Getting married? Hey, let me petition a GM so they can change surnames (hello, game company violating the sandbox), or preside over the wedding. Want a ring? Someone killed something to pay for the ring, or the mats, to level the skill, etc. PVP arena fights? Level ones, GO! What's that? You're not level one? You killed something.

The game WAS on rails, but as described before, they weren't 'HEY, GO TO WESTERN KARANA AND TALK TO THIS GUY.' who then goes 'HEY, WELCOME TO WESTERN KARANA. KILL FIVE BANDITS, COLLECT THEIR ASSHOLES, AND BRING THEM TO NORTH KARANA KAY?'. You didn't run out into NK at level one and start to kill gryphons. You followed the rails, which determined what you COULD do. The argument is there, again, that you can do almost anything on a level one, but hey, someone had to level to let you do that. We all didn't just log in at level one and sudden are able to zone into Fear and get loot. What's that about items? No restrictions? I wish my Cleric was able to wield a 2H Sword so I could be a Paladin who didn't suck!

But you are right in one regard: There were a lot of things that the Dev's never intended or expected that stuck around. There were also a far greater number of things that went away that were never intended, like level ones in Fear.

People played EQ like it was a sandbox cause we were all huge newbs, but the game really wasn't a sandbox. People played wow in the same way where they came off the rails and didnt quest or went back and did quests for items they missed, just not really the crowd that posts here because by then we all saw the rails and realized that fucking around at low levels was just a waste of time.

EQ didnt hold your hand as much as WoW which is prolly the only major difference.