Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO
- Thread starter Flobee
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send a tell to my alt, I mean this one wood elf druid I know named Synthia Silkthroat.
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You could not be more wrong. There must be multiple levels of interdependence to foster community and bonds. Corpse runs are a chore before getting back to real gameplay? Some of my BEST memories were the harrowing corpse runs, with kind souls wiling to risk their own corpses all pitching in to help get so and so's corpse from the bottom of befallen or upper guk.
Vanguard failed because they took too many ingredients out of the EQ soup. Mostly due to caving into "busy dads".
That nourishing EQ soup CAN be made again, you just can't have dumbfuks thinking they can alter Grandaddy Brad's Vision.
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I heard all these exact same lines during the buildup for Vanguard. Lets try not to cave this time and see how it goes for a change?
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So long as they NEVER EVER allowed sever transfers to the "real" servers , like EQ did with that legends server bullshit.
If all the "busy dads" want a server where they can all solo in silence and daily their way to 60 and best in slot everything, let them have it. Of course it will be dead within 2 weeks when they are all max level, BiS, and still have not sent a single tell to another human.
Actually, let them have mercs too, then they can just let their mercenary level them while they make diner and mow the grass.
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It would be, for a time. Then die a early death like we see on every single EQ progression server that does the fast xp and raid drops from random trash model.
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Kithani
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Bro you can say you didn’t like Vanguard but it isn’t even up for debate that it failed because it released with a complete garbage engine that wouldn’t even play well on a $3k machine at release
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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This "EQ soup" you keep worshiping? It's not soup. It's moldy leftovers from 1999 that you keep reheating and convincing yourself is gourmet. Every time someone tries to serve it again, it flops. Why? Because the market already proved it doesn't want that flavor anymore. Corpse runs weren't magical, they were punishment disguised as "community building." The only reason you remember them fondly is because the game forced you into depending on others just to claw back what you'd already earned. You're suffering from Stockholm syndrome and dressing it up as nostalgia.
And let's stop pretending Vanguard failed because of "busy dads." It failed because EQ-style design was already DOA. Every single attempt to revive it since has either bombed completely or been propped up by a few hundred nostalgia diehards that haven't grown up and can't let go. "Brad’s Vision" isn’t some form of gospel, it should be a fuckin' eulogy.
The real problem is shut-ins like yourself don’t want interdependence, you want the game to force people to need you. You're mistaking coercion for community. If the only way to make players talk to each other is to bury them in downtime, XP loss, and corpse retrieval chores, then the "community" you're chasing is just a side effect of bad mechanics wasting people's time. That isn't social design, it's a hostage situation where the ransom is hours of your life.
Name me one modern MMO built on EQ-style punishment mechanics that's succeeded outside of a tiny nostalgia bubble. You can't. Because players today don't need to be punished into bonding. They need systems that reward cooperation without shackling them to 25-year-old design mistakes.
It's also interesting to me how the loudest voices begging for a return to EQ mechanics are always the exact players who were dead weight back then. The ones AFK half the night, falling asleep in raids, never farming mats, never showing up on corpse runs, and only rolling the easiest or least useful classes. Meanwhile, the players who actually carried have all long since moved on to better games.
The "bring back EQ" crowd were never the backbone of the game. They were the ones getting dragged along, mistaking pity invites and guild charity for actual skill. They weren't good, they were just carried through the whole experience. And now they want everyone to suffer through the same outdated, tedious bullshit just so they can pretend they mattered the first time around.
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The tech issues at launch were tragic, but under them was the start of a great game. They just needed to build up the already half-built systems. Instead they took a axe to them and just deleted whole systems.
I myself have not played a MMO in years.... but I would LIKE to play one that was like EQ, and if all you GD "busy dads" fuck this up for me..... I swear!
There is a endless train of games for Busy Dads, do NOT POLLUTE the last great hope of a true hardcore EQ clone.
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I mean part of the problem is why are developers so into GIGANTIC 50000000000 SQUARE MILE ZONES. Alot of Vanguard I remember was just empty and felt like a hiking simulator. What's the point of making a gigantic world if there's nothing in it? Just keep to a reasonable zone size.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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It was absolutely fucking obnoxious, and i didn’t even start playing until there were flying mounts if i remember correctly. But it took a bit for me to afford one
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Nobody will admit this, but Ironforge and Ogrimmar were absolutely abuzz with social activity pre-tbc. People chilling outside the bank chatting, pickup raid formation, duels outside, inter-faction raids on each others cities etc etc. It was more active than anything i can remember in EQ aside from EC tunnel auction spam. The game didn’t need tedium to facilitate that at all. Every class could gate, travel was fun, there was an auction house, death penalties were minimal, and players still connected easily and meaningfully.
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Siliconemelons
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Classic WOW killed EQ because it was enough like EQ to draw /almost everyone/ from EQ... then TBC
I was on Thunderlord PVP in Classic WOW - it was very fun, raids were still raid-like. I quit when BC came out- I announced I was to my guild - people where like "why?!" I could see how things were going, and I was right, to this day TBC is my least favorite "thing" about wow
Antonica -> Kunark -> Velious felt like outwardly expansion of "the world" - the jump to Luclin did not, it felt (and looked) alien and non-connected... PoP the same...
WOW -> TBC was like jumping to Luclin/POP - it was just so different from the world they built... let alone /all/ the massive changes in how things worked.
I returned in Wrath as a DK, it felt more connected than TBC... I have gone back and played through a lot of old wow content now that you can OP solo stuff- but I never have a desire to return to TBC.. what one was the new one that was there? Dreanor? it was gay to.
But Quaid is correct in this, classic WOW was very EQ or even MORE EQ in some ways - but imo they killed all that in TBC
Animosity
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Flying mounts really killed all exploration and world immersion.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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This is exactly it. Vanilla WoW had more authentic social energy in Ironforge and Orgrimmar than EQ ever did outside of tunnel spam and none of it came from punishing mechanics. People weren't bonding over corpse runs or hours-long debuffs. They were hanging out, dueling, raiding, and actually choosing to connect. The cities felt like living spaces, not waiting rooms for suffering.
The irony is, the people insisting "tedium = community" completely miss what made early WoW thrive. It wasn't some Stockholm syndrome over getting your corpse dragged out of Guk, it was accessible systems that still put people in the same spaces. Death penalties were light, travel was fun, there was an auction house, and every class had tools to move around. That foundation created way more genuine interaction than "please cure my rabies debuff.”
Now, WoW did screw it up later. Dungeon Finder, cross-realm everything, the whole assembly line approach, that's when the social fabric unraveled. As expansions rolled out, conveniences started to over-sanitize that social friction. Suddenly you weren't building connections in the city or your server anymore, you were just plowing through anonymous content with strangers you'd never see again.
But the lesson isn’t "go back to EQ-level punishment." It’s that you need intentional, visible social spaces without the pointless misery. EQ vets clinging to corpse runs as the heart of community are mistaking pain for magic. The only reason EQ veterans romanticize corpse runs and other tedious bullshit is because it's the only damn thing memorable about the downtime between falling asleep at your keyboard.
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Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Exactly.
That's why I say if this game basically got rid of all the pointless shit, but kept the grindy levels and non-instanced content, they'd probably have a winner.
As long as they continue to cling to tedium like corpse runs, ridiculous travel times, and removing qol a quarter of a decade of trial and error have produced, they're going to fail.
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Hadden
Trakanon Raider
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I played Vanilla WoW and rarely found a need to socialize with other players - Barrens chat was probably the only time I talked in a global channel and even then it felt hit or miss. I definitely grouped with other players, but it was rare to not be racing through content and then ungrouping.
People say the EQers have rose colored glasses, but I don't remember WoW having a great sense of community as a non-raider. I felt more sense of community in the short play session I did playing MnM than my whole time playing WoW and not just because I cured someone's rabies. I had hour long conversations with random strangers that WoW never facilitated in it's design. You can't be having a full conversation and running a dungeon at the same time in WoW but you can in between / during combat in EQ style games. Sure you can sit in a WoW city and chat but not while you're actually playing the game.
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