EQ Never

Going on EQ not being mainstream...

Here are my hopes for it regarding their success, and not game play expectations.

#1 - 500k-700k static subs of people dying for a spiritual successor to EQ much in the same way the new XCOM was a successor to the original game of old. I think that's a fair middle ground and what they are likely to do if they're gearing this right.
#2 - 3 expansions (this is where your sub rise should come from and hopefully they don't slant the game towards the Timmy-type bitchings of game play elements / dumb down difficulty)

Here's my expectations game play wise
#1 - slower rise to max level with heavy internal beta testing of any unfinished while players hit the treadmills.
#2 - combat not based on complex ability rotations. Pretty much everyone here has proved they can do this at the highest levels and god is it stale.
#3 - SEPARATE PvP server based on PvE values and then abilities removed from PvP use or healing/damage numbers scaled to adjust. No separate PvP earned gear AT ALL, ESPECIALLY with resilience/pvp power stats. PvP based on level range.
#4 - Epic quests for each class.
#5 - AA's that you can work on at lvl 10, max level, or in between. This is good for the PvP crowd too as it encourages "low lvl pvp brackets" where people can dedicate their time to certain level ranges. This was really popular EQ2 and I proudly yet shamefully admit at the same time to maxxing the AA's out of a lvl 40 wizard. If PvP is broken or sucks at max level, the pvp crowd finds its way there.
#6 - xp loss on death (hinted @ oh so strongly)
#7 - no factions but there will be religion / good / evil races

Gotta say but this was one of the worst discussions I've seen on here. EQ had a bit of competition from other mmo's, I tried UO before it and a year or two later there was stuff like Diablo, DAOC, AC, AO, and various other stuff which I tried but always went straight back to EQ.

But the reason why it's a terrible discussion is because there were countless none-MMO's which were really good at the time. Games like Tribes were really taking off and it was just one of the best years for gaming - quake 3, system shock 2, planescape torment, unreal tournament, the longest journey, homeworld, tiberian sun!, gta 2, baldurs gate!, HoMM 3, alpha centauri, etc.. all in that year. Prior to 1999, these are the kinds of games I played and that was it. So the fact that EQ took me away from all that, says something about EQ.

Bellringer_sl said:

Some loot could be shared. But some loot would kill flavor. Golden efreeti boots have to drop off the efreeti lord djarn, otherwise it feels pretty lame.

Click to expand...

I would like to see loot tables grow based on death... in other words a penalty for dying to an encounter can be the monster gets your items or an item or something.. i mean that is the way this is supposed to work anyway... you find loot in dungeons mostly from other adventurers that died there... that would be cool as hell.

mkopec_sl said:

I know most of us here have been advocating for non- instanced dungeons, but one thing that really was shitty back in EQ was how all the good items in the game were all camped 24/7. And Im afraid that this is what we will get with non-instanced if they go that route.

Click to expand...

It'll be a thousand times worse because everything will be camped by people striving to make RL money through it commercially. Back in EQ most sales in the early time before the proliferation of RMT/item selling companies at least were from some guy that camped it himself for some beer money. Add limited supply to a new game now and I bet there is RMT company at every valuable spawn 24/7. Wether you get any shot at items outside of AH/Visa depends on how well you can compete with that (PVP is two-edged here too, obviously).

Great contribution. No wonder everyone thinks your a pathetic loser.

On the subject of instancing vs no instancing. Surely they could have a feature that spawns x amount of mobs when y amount of players are in the zone. To stop people from just chaining everything have a script to trigger some kind of pack buff when one player has 4 or more mobs on them. Also people within the same group/guild can't have more then 3 on them each either to stop guilds from owning zones. The more people in the zone the less XP given. This will give people incentive to goto different zones/move around a bit for the best XP gains. Grouping will still yield the most XP but won't break the game and you have no instances.. Thoughts?

The thing is back then there was no industry based around 3rd party sales. It was individuals selling stuff they camped or their characters, at worst their dropable raid loot or raidgeared chars. Then people started to realize theres money to be had and now, a decade later, you have a whole industry valued in the millions or more based around it, and 3rd party sales spam in any game with map or global chat within a week of launch. I didnt encounter problems back in EQ either but given the same model as say kunark loot, mostly dropable and limited supply, you'd have professional farmers on every spawn that's worth a damn. Count on it. The easy way out from a dev studio point of view? "NO DROP" on everything. I wouldnt like it but that's how it is and I dont see it going away.

Also adding to my system. The more people in the area the less chance of good loot dropping. Everything scales with the amount of people within a zone. So the people that move and communicate/be part of a social group have a better chance of receiving good loot.

DMK_sl said:

On the subject of instancing vs no instancing. Surely they could have a feature that spawns x amount of mobs when y amount of players are in the zone. To stop people from just chaining everything have a script to trigger some kind of pack buff when one player has 4 or more mobs on them. Also people within the same group/guild can't have more then 3 on them each either to stop guilds from owning zones. The more people in the zone the less XP given. This will give people incentive to goto different zones/move around a bit for the best XP gains. Grouping will still yield the most XP but won't break the game and you have no instances.. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

If a studio wants to put alot effort into something like this it could work. Especially if they go with a simpler, less scripted encounter design for most of the dungeons. As a stupid example, in addition to whatever content you design for your new game, have a bunch of interns redo all dungeons you have copyrights on from earlier games and put them in your game too, just like that. Also make mobs give more xp the longer they havent been killed, like in GW2 (maybe more loot too but I'd really like a game that goes back to xp mattering via AA or the like). Add tons of small dungeons all over, like the crypts under the duskwood graveyard, various mini-dungeons in GW2 and so on. Have all of this have an interesting niche drop for some builds/classes to lure people there but nothing too good or "required" that every player on the server will line up for (no jboot camp).

Mr Creed_sl said:

If a studio wants to put alot effort into something like this it could work. Especially if they go with a simpler, less scripted encounter design for most of the dungeons. As a stupid example, in addition to whatever content you design for your new game, have a bunch of interns redo all dungeons you have copyrights on from earlier games and put them in your game too, just like that. Also make mobs give more xp the longer they havent been killed, like in GW2 (maybe more loot too but I'd really like a game that goes back to xp mattering via AA or the like). Add tons of small dungeons all over, like the crypts under the duskwood graveyard, various mini-dungeons in GW2 and so on. Have all of this have an interesting niche drop for some builds/classes to lure people there but nothing too good or "required" that every player on the server will line up for (no jboot camp).

Click to expand...

Definitely sounds good. I think that instead of certain mobs dropping certain things have a loot table that spans over the level of the monster instead of that particular monster. For example
All level 60 monsters drop the green loot table
All level 65 monsters blue
all level 70 monsters purple
etc etc.

So no particular mob is being camped rather there are zones FULL of level 70 monsters etc etc. Once again spreads everyone out stops camping and makes people just run around enjoy the world more. Mobs seen as 'easier' will soon lose their value as everyone will flock to that zone to kill them decreasing the chance of good loot and gaining less XP.

I've thought about this sytem for quiet some time and I really think it is the best solution for instancing. You can still have scripted fights and keep the quality you just need a good enough system that keeps tight track of each zone.

mkopec_sl said:

Well thats the problem with having everything droppable, tradeable and non instanced that Im afraid will just not work in todays game. Like you guys mentioned, not only will the players camp this shit 24/7, you now have an entire industry surrounding the RMT market and im afraid that this is why we cannot have nice things anymore. Shit, this is even spilling into the emulated EQ servers now, people camping shit and either selling plat or selling the items for RL money on those servers.

Unless they come up with a new way to deal with this, Im afraid were stuck with no-drop and or instancing.

Click to expand...

Did you just read what I wrote? I just explained a whole system that stops camping. Stops guilds from just owning zones. Promotes community and keeps content viable instead of particular zones.

I read it. It seems like a decent launch point to reduce the plethora of bottlenecks in a persistent world.

mkopec_sl said:

Well thats the problem with having everything droppable, tradeable and non instanced that Im afraid will just not work in todays game. Like you guys mentioned, not only will the players camp this shit 24/7, you now have an entire industry surrounding the RMT market and im afraid that this is why we cannot have nice things anymore. Shit, this is even spilling into the emulated EQ servers now, people camping shit and either selling plat or selling the items for RL money on those servers.

Unless they come up with a new way to deal with this, Im afraid were stuck with no-drop and or instancing.

Click to expand...

Reminder: Both Yantis and IGE started in Everquest.

I honestly think it's a solution to a lot of problems. Surely they would have thought of something like it before. I wonder why they haven't tried it.

Probably because it sounds really bland. People like uniqueness.

Please explain to me what is bland about it? It has no aesthetic effect what so ever. Every encounter could be however the devs wanted it to be.. I fail to even see how you could make the connection between bland and a system that works under the hood and no one sees...Raid bosses in today's MMO's all drop a certain tier loot but they drop specific loot specific to themselves instead of just dropping random loot from the loot tier as whole. if anything it's more exciting due to more variety of items that can drop at any given time. Instead of constantly knowing what is going to drop and when.

DMK_sl said:

Great contribution. No wonder everyone thinks your a pathetic loser.

On the subject of instancing vs no instancing. Surely they could have a feature that spawns x amount of mobs when y amount of players are in the zone. To stop people from just chaining everything have a script to trigger some kind of pack buff when one player has 4 or more mobs on them. Also people within the same group/guild can't have more then 3 on them each either to stop guilds from owning zones. The more people in the zone the less XP given. This will give people incentive to goto different zones/move around a bit for the best XP gains. Grouping will still yield the most XP but won't break the game and you have no instances.. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

The problem goes back to not having enough places to go. EQ already limited xp based on the number of players in a zone just because the exp was split more ways. But you just had Lower Guk and Sol B to choose from so you were forced to deal with it.

If you make more dungeons with comparable loot, you'll solve the overcrowding problem. But then you'll get hardcore Eq fans complaining that dungeons and loot are meaningless if you can go somewhere else and get something similar.