Why all the Emulated EQ servers if EQ is free to play?

EDIT: Nevermind, this entire discussion is idotic. EVERQUEST WAS PERFECT BLAH BLAH

I guess I also can't fathom how people have played one map of counterstrike for 15 years either. There has to be some kind of brain dysfunction involved to enjoy that much fucking repetition.

I played on Prog server for one reason only: For the content I hadn't seen before. I didn't make it through the shit I'd already done.

Care level for camping guk or doing NTOV raids again: -infinity. I was already bored of it the first time, why the hell would I want to do it again?

Elidroth, people play on "classic" style EMUs because they are fucked in the head.

kudos_sl said:

People play dust2 constantly because it's the most balanced map thus shows who has the most skill. It's the min/max of Counter-strike.

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And playing the exact same game on the exact same map for years is fucking mental.

My take is that at a certain point in every MMO's life the game splits between those who want to move forward and those who view the game as essentially being complete at that point in time.

EQ clearly has passed that point, my guess is WoW is also pass that point as well even though I haven't played it sense WoTLK.

Im clearly in the EQ must move forward camp. But I understand why people that want classic EQ don't want to be on the same server as my level 100, 100k unbuffed hp, 100k dps character. Because me being there devalues the content they consider as being better then modern EQ.

Is it even possible for p99 to go beyond velious? I think the rolling server is a great idea but would it only ever be up to velious?

I'm in the minority but I think some of the later expansions were really good. The reason I love Sony progression servers is partly because they can hit some of the expansions I like.

For an emu, I'd be happy with up to planes of power and repeat. Planes should have been the end of everquest imo. Great final expansion.

Punko_sl said:

I find it funny that closing down a server due to "not being able to offer support" is somehow seen as a superior service towards players then "just keeping the server up as is".

Prolly just me.

Lack of documentation and tools? Bad practices, somewhat similar to what happened to the PoM zone files?

SoE will keep SoEing

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You missed the important part. Not being able to monetize it, thus making it a charity.

Punko_sl said:

I was under the impression that EQmac required a payed subscription. I see this was removed later, doubt that was done because customers requested so.

Basically, they could just have left it "as it was". The whole "charging for a server without offering support" really is nonsense.

I never saw the fabled EQ1 support when we got another bugged instance, or when people didn't get flags from raids, or ..

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Up until about 2 years ago it did. Then all was fine for awhile until the server started going WILD when whatever we (royal we, as I had quit awhile before this point) called ourselves at that point started doing PoP. We got petitioned, they got petitioned, and since there was no money made from the server it became a money pit for Sony. Why use paid employees on a free project?

Elidroth_sl said:

I may regret posting this, but in a nutshell, this is the reality of why the EQMac server had to go away.

There was no way to support it easily. Todd Schmidt (Hobart) spent crazy amounts of his own time trying to make things work. Some did, a lot more didn't. The branched code base for EQMac was COMPLETELY different than EQ PC in so many ways.

There was also no way to monetize it reasonably. Whether you like it or not, SOE is a business, not a gaming charity, and that business needs to make money to survive. As soon as you start asking people to pay you money for the game, you MUST support it. Problem is, there were No GM tools, No Customer Support Tools, No DB access, and really no pipeline to patch it even. Hell, there wasn't even really a game client to speak of. It was a hack from an old EQ PC bundle that people fabricated together (which was AWESOME BTW, but nuts!

)

I can't tell you why all that wasn't in place, because I have no idea. The entirety of that server was before my time at SOE. I just know to put it in place would have taken a huge amount of coder support, billing support, customer service staff, etc. You can't just stand up a server and tell people on it they're shit out of luck if they have a problem.

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I don't even know where to begin to tell you what I feel about this.

If it's not a charity, and you're not using it... Why in god's name did management decide to retain ownership of the code if they aren't doing anything with it? There's literally no reason to do this outside of wanting to profit off of it in the future. You could've easily went the EQNext route with everything - allow people to host their own EQMac servers and let people modify the pre-existing content.

No database access? Horseshit. Hobart was able to modify scripts, spawns, and code - spawns sounds like DB access to me, even if it's MS Access, you get the older version it's running on and use it.

No monetized game? Put $15/mo and a reasonable way for PC users to play on it and I have already done the math earlier in this thread. It's a viable market.

There was a game client; Hobart used a Windows client and had stated to me several times that he used it. Ask him yourself.

CSR tools I could understand; That seems like the only problem that SOE had. But really, is it that hard to ban someone's station ID for misbehaving in EQMac's codebase?

Also, why didn't SOE crowdsource the development of the EQMac code? Obviously it's not 'the same as EQLive' from what you are telling me, what in god's name is stopping us from having some decent coders besides Hobart have a go at it? You do realize that by closing the server and locking up the code like SWG, MxO, or soon-to-be Vanguard, that SOE is ruining history for everyone? That is the primary reason a lot of people do not play EQ1 - they have been betrayed by SOE in the past, what is stopping them from 'sunsetting' EQ1 somewhere down the road?

That is a fear in a lot of people's minds and it's why a lot of people turn to emulators like SWGEmu. Not the sole reason, but a reason.

"Why in god's name did management decide to retain ownership of the code if they aren't doing anything with it?"

Cause release of the code would be admitting to the failure of proper handling their own property. Mega corps never admit they mishandled something, unless pressed against the wall