What Made EQ Great? Tell your stories to a filthy casual
- Thread starter Adebisi
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Pasteton
Blackwing Lair Raider
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- 1,716
That's what I used to think. But honestly it'd be nice to hear from someone who's actually in the industry and can back up something like this. i think khaza-kzad maybe? I know the tools nowaways are far better than what they used to be, but honestly - go back and watch that eq alpha video. Yes they had less tools to work with back then, but seriously, taking 10 brown rectangles and making that into a bed (see bed in video), as opposed to making an ultra high res bed (realistic or cartoony) with style, different colors, lots of small details - it just seems, from a holistic sense, to require a lot more work and design, even with modern tools.
I left! I'm eeking out a meagre existance and working on my own crappy games by myself now. I was around back in 99 though, and you couldn't push much more than what EQ was doing. Bits of it are sloppily done for sure, but some of the art really shows that minimalist talent you needed back then.
Speaking of it, this thread is awesome for seeing what people can do with few polygons and low res textures:http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124337
To add a bit more, the detail thing is tricksy. Lots of smaller games recently have been going back to pixel art to try to not only get cheaper on the detail, but to invoke that imagination factor where your mind fills in the details. Cognitive boxing or whatever it is, but I've been trying the same for 3D, but I am really terrible at texturing. I've been experimenting with cell shading and outlining and such with limited success.
But yea the big teams are mostly artists. If you just stop and look at a game city like liberty city in GTA, it is staggering how much variety there is. As a programmer you think "how can they stream this!?", and as an artist you think "some guy spent two weeks on that little building corner and there are thousands of them"
Speaking of it, this thread is awesome for seeing what people can do with few polygons and low res textures:http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124337
To add a bit more, the detail thing is tricksy. Lots of smaller games recently have been going back to pixel art to try to not only get cheaper on the detail, but to invoke that imagination factor where your mind fills in the details. Cognitive boxing or whatever it is, but I've been trying the same for 3D, but I am really terrible at texturing. I've been experimenting with cell shading and outlining and such with limited success.
But yea the big teams are mostly artists. If you just stop and look at a game city like liberty city in GTA, it is staggering how much variety there is. As a programmer you think "how can they stream this!?", and as an artist you think "some guy spent two weeks on that little building corner and there are thousands of them"
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,306
- -2,237
nah, Cracked Staffs sold for about a plat, at least since early 2000. they sold for a lot more than the rest of the rusty/splintered/worn tier, for some reason. finding a cracked staff at level 1 meant you were going to have an easy first few levels.
Borzak
Bronze Baron of the Realm
- 24,656
- 32,023
Traveling from Qeynos to Freeport to buy a combine sword so I could kill magical creatures like a wisp. Then heading over and collecting fire beetle eyes and mino axes and selling them in the tunnel to rangers and melee characters who hadn't been over there yet.
How many people got blinded by the mud people in the Gorge and thought something was wrong with their computer? You can't pull off shit like that nowdays.
How many people got blinded by the mud people in the Gorge and thought something was wrong with their computer? You can't pull off shit like that nowdays.
Not only were cracked staves 1pp+, but some rusty weapons and all cloth armor pieces from level 1 decaying skeletons vendored for 2g.
Level 8 spells cost over 4pp each after all, so a plat wasn't that much. Level 8 wisps could drop greater lightstones that vendoered for 4pp and could be turned in for 9-10pp at a quest mob if you made the trek. (quest was added several months after launch though) I think it was a design flaw to make plat a unit of currency level ones can reach, really. They ended up with players with 5 digits of plat (or more) even before the first expac; people ended up having to do exchanges at banks because it weighed so much; and everybody just destroyed their copper and silver coins, and eventually gold at higher levels.
And items with an asterisk indicate that they either spawned with your character at creation (food, water, tattered note) or was the result of turning in that note. You could buy the robe that you got for free from turning in that note to your class' guildmaster. They seem to have added it to that +1 mana robe you can buy though as well for whatever reason. (perhaps they copy and pasted the newbie robe item data or something)
/tell wizzie friend bring me lots of malachite
no dumbass 50 stacks is a lot not 2
o and bind at bank before you come
give me the damn rocks and watch this shit
o and loot everything in sight
pet bug had like 40 pets and we got 8 levels fast
plus a crapton of coins and various items
doing random COH rescues when people fell through the world and couldn't get out
o and i met some hot chick while playing EQ and she is still around 13 years later P)
no dumbass 50 stacks is a lot not 2
o and bind at bank before you come
give me the damn rocks and watch this shit
o and loot everything in sight
pet bug had like 40 pets and we got 8 levels fast
plus a crapton of coins and various items
doing random COH rescues when people fell through the world and couldn't get out
o and i met some hot chick while playing EQ and she is still around 13 years later P)
Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,574
- 5,383
That is the kind of shit I can respect.
On the other hand, you fucks who scammed people or used SEQ deserve nut cancer.
The drama. Nothing like a missent cybering line in guildchat.
The feeling of accomplishment. Sitting at the bottom of Chardok with a dual boxed Cleric for over 9 hours, camping the Herbalist for the Green Shard (after farming skeletons for bone chips for hours, spending hours in the Bazaar to trade for Iksar meat, spending hours to find a shaman who'd make me a stack of potions and then feeding Mozo with chips till he bursted). Greenmist wasn't even good but I was the only one who had it on my server. Running the same raid a bazillion times for BiS gear isn't the same.
The cameraderie. A high level monk in my guild stumbled over a Code of Zan Fi while camping King in SolB. He promptly told me to get my mid 30s monk ass to Guk because he wanted to camp Raster with me to multiquest for the robe. He spent several hours down there punching minotaurs to paste while I was just FDed on the ground.
The freedom of choice and the absolute dickery that resulted from it. As someone mentioned, you could simply punch the guards in your hometown and they'd wreck your shit. I remember camping around Kelethin with a few friends, a Druid, a Cleric and an Enchanter. So we charmed an Orc Cent, brought him up to one of the bigger platforms and gave him haste, SoW, Cleric buffs and thorns. Then we all invised and watched the Cent slaughter the newbies that passed through. The whole ooc chat was laughing their asses off at the pissed off newbies. Some time later, a lvl 20ish High Elf Paladin waltzes up to finally end the terrible reign of the Blue Lightning. God, I wish I could have seen the look on his face as the green con Cent thrashed him.
The feeling of accomplishment. Sitting at the bottom of Chardok with a dual boxed Cleric for over 9 hours, camping the Herbalist for the Green Shard (after farming skeletons for bone chips for hours, spending hours in the Bazaar to trade for Iksar meat, spending hours to find a shaman who'd make me a stack of potions and then feeding Mozo with chips till he bursted). Greenmist wasn't even good but I was the only one who had it on my server. Running the same raid a bazillion times for BiS gear isn't the same.
The cameraderie. A high level monk in my guild stumbled over a Code of Zan Fi while camping King in SolB. He promptly told me to get my mid 30s monk ass to Guk because he wanted to camp Raster with me to multiquest for the robe. He spent several hours down there punching minotaurs to paste while I was just FDed on the ground.
The freedom of choice and the absolute dickery that resulted from it. As someone mentioned, you could simply punch the guards in your hometown and they'd wreck your shit. I remember camping around Kelethin with a few friends, a Druid, a Cleric and an Enchanter. So we charmed an Orc Cent, brought him up to one of the bigger platforms and gave him haste, SoW, Cleric buffs and thorns. Then we all invised and watched the Cent slaughter the newbies that passed through. The whole ooc chat was laughing their asses off at the pissed off newbies. Some time later, a lvl 20ish High Elf Paladin waltzes up to finally end the terrible reign of the Blue Lightning. God, I wish I could have seen the look on his face as the green con Cent thrashed him.
Angelwatch
Trakanon Raider
- 3,053
- 133
Agreed 100 fucking percent. I refused to do mine until they made Ragefire a triggered spawn. Luckily my guild was awesome and valued me as a player and not a walking rez stick so it wasn't a big issue. Besides we had a bunch of clerics that actually did the camp.
I loved EQ to death but EQ and unemployment were not a good mix. I played WAY more than I should since I had all the time in the world. Luckily I got my life back on track but the game was way too fucking addicting.
My best memories were breaking into North Temple of Veeshan for the first time. If you could kill that first dragon, the rest was a cake walk. My guild was like #3 or #4 on the server so competition was fierce for spawns. But once we broke into NToV we had the place on lockdown for a couple of months until everyone had everything they wanted from the place. And despite the shit that went into the Cleric Epic, it was a great feeling to finally get mine even if I got it the "cheap" way (and by cheap I mean that I didn't have to try and keep myself awake at the computer for 3 days straight waiting for Ragefire to spawn).
Ultimately it was the social aspects of EQ that made the game a hit. You were forced to group to do almost everything and there was tons of downtime so you got to know everyone really well. And those things will never be able to be recreated in a future MMO because people wouldn't stand for the crap we put up with to get our daily fix.
Must get more Necklace of Superiority... I farmed the heck out of that thing before people realized where to get it and they move the drop location.
Zoning when almost dead from a DOT and getting cured? A couple dungeons had slimes with whicked DOTs for a wizard
Running through Kithicor for first time and getting raped by something and not knowing wtf happened. And then someone happens along to help you get your corpse and says "Oh, I see you met him."
My first ever EQ character was a halfling druid. I had somehow made it too Innothule Swamp and died and had no clue how to make it back. It felt like I had lost a member of my family because I had spent what seemed like ages doing a quest that gave me a cap. I think it had 3 charges for a port back to Rivervale. I deleted the character and started on a necro on a new server.Many good times playing the necro. I spent soooo many hours inside of Chardok killing named and selling Monk epic mq's for exorbitant amounts of plat. Pet pulling the king and queen to raids that would wipe on trash. Miss my beads and circlet. ;-) Tons of things in that game which made it feel so unique and new. Probably never get that feeling back from any game ever again.
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Yeah my little brother (like 11 at the time) got fucked that way too. He had a Barb warrior he made and slowly got him to like Lv10 or some shit, we all know how long that took back in the day, might of been a week or two. Anyway one day he got attacked by one of them named skellies that roamed Everfrost peaks. So he tried to run away but not paying attention where he was running to. Needless to say, his corpse got lost somewhere in the white hills of Everfrost. Man we looked for that corpse for hours but could not find it and he started crying. All that work. He did not play that game for a few weeks after, but then he made another char.
The worst was traveling across the continent because of your buddies trying a new dungeon or whatever, and forgetting to bind. then dying and ending up way the fuck back where you stated from, like in Qeynos or some shit. Man, that must of happened to me a half dozen times through the years.
The worst was traveling across the continent because of your buddies trying a new dungeon or whatever, and forgetting to bind. then dying and ending up way the fuck back where you stated from, like in Qeynos or some shit. Man, that must of happened to me a half dozen times through the years.
Xarpolis
Life's a Dream
- 14,117
- 15,618
Monks had a quest glove item that was either very late Vanilla, or the beginning of Kunark. When it was first introduced, it had an instant-click Complete Heal spell. The issue is that it wasn't charged. You had unlimited instant click CH.
2-3 monks on my server completed the quest by telling one another of the rewards, and went on a free run at all raid targets. They were unbeatable. That bug was pretty neat.
2-3 monks on my server completed the quest by telling one another of the rewards, and went on a free run at all raid targets. They were unbeatable. That bug was pretty neat.