Long time lurker since 2001, but I kind of get the feel that the devs for EQN just lurked the old FoH boards, these, and a few others, and tried to incorporate some of the more outlandish game design ideas floating around. Ideas undoubtedly cooked up in some drug induced haze, because I'm just not buying this all.
I think they are trying to fill a niche, and are just rolling with new "innovative" ideas that their old eq4ever fans came up. *I'm one of those guys. Best days of my live was as a 13 year old kid playing EQ for the first time." After being an avid DnD and MUD kid. And I have a family, high stakes poker player, taken down some big buy in tournaments, and 50k+ USD pots, but when I'm reminiscing, it's not on those, it's on EVERQUEST, DnD, etc.
I have a huge problem with horizontal progression, and I think it's viability is zero for a serious mmo, for serious gamers. I'm not just talking about the amount of time you have to spend, I'm talking about the game world having repercussions, intrigue, danger, wonder. No handouts and little guardian spirit popping up telling you where to go, how to get there, and what to do when you get there. F that i'm not playing little pony island adventures. Let me be immersed.
There's a quote, forget who, but he said, when answering a question about why American's were interested in Japanese culture. "It's different enough to be mysterious, and similar enough to be familiar." And I think it's a great quote to carry over to the MMO world.
You see DND had it right. Fantasy world, but real people we can relate to, real risk and reward in the parameters of the game, socialization *this is a big one, because we're tribal/social creatures*, advancement and tribe like progression in an uncertain and dangerous world. It has a lot of similarities with the real world, but it let you be someone you can't, and explore what a life like that might be like. It was fun
So to me Everquest was successful because it copied those parameters successfully. Yes it was a carrot on a stick, but life is a beeping carrot on a stick too. The only difference is your perception.
So to me they're going in all the wrong directions for all the wrong reasons, and the industry has as a whole. The move from grouping to solo. Instancing... I mean... god forbid you and your group run into another crew and GASP, clear a hard area together before going deeper. Linear progression of dungeons. Enter A, exit B. No risk. No corpse recovery. No sense of danger. No sense of exploration. No society or community with cross realming, name changing, easy leveling.
Too much gear, and being able to color it bright purple and stick a pink pony with four horns on it, and the gear being steam lined to set + or - stats with little derivative. Long gone is the sense of wonder looking at Timmy the Ranger in all planes gear and two of those ranger swords, being level 20 at the time. It's a WOW moment, look what awaits me. Now Timmy has a Cinderella bra strapped BP he dyed hot pink and purple leather trousers with gold trimming. YAAAWWWWNNNN. Getting a magic item every quest and every other monster kind of defeats the purpose of it being... magic. EQ and DND had it right with uniqueness. Long gone is getting the rare item an accomplishment and badger of honor. Long gone are the shining metallic robes and glowing black stones, the efreeti boots and ruby BP's.
I'm not saying to create a game that is just updated graphics EQ2.0. What I'm saying is that the next successful MMO will have a lot of these aspects in some form or another. Think back to all the failures recently. They failed because they forgot what made DND, MUDs, MMO's great. They instead, focused on the conceptual aspects of unique idea x, y, z, but didn't bother to build their basic gaming foundation. They built their world around, random idea x that gamer's say is the new wave/concept of the future, but they forgot to build a game that supports a community and a sense of realism and risk/reward.
I might say it would be awesome to just teleport anywhere in the world, and conceptually it sounds great, but in the process of doing so I'd lose a sense of the unknown, the travel, the immersion. I relate this a lot to the wave and direction the "future" mmo's have taken. It sounds great. This instant teleportation gratification, and you may even think it's what you want, but then can't escape that feeling that something's "missing."
I'm disappointed in the direction they've taken EQ2. True MMO's are gone, and so to most of the people that remember what made it all great. It's history and beginnings in DnD, Muds, etc. The sense of a tribal team in a fantasy world of danger and excitement, exploring, and maybe even finding a badass sword and coming together to take down the nefarious dragon in the catacombs of solusek guarded by a tribe of fire giants.
It's not even a carrot and stick game anymore. It's a cake game, and you can eat as much as you want, depending on how much time you have to sit there and stuff your gluttonous face.
Here comes EQN, with all these great cake designs all of you wanted. No grind, no levels, destructible world, etc. Lets see if you like eating your cake too...
