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What things were a detriment in the original
IakXastur
Member UncommonPosts: 49
I started playing EQ right after Kunark went live. Played through velious and luclin. Then I kept taking breaks from the game, coming back once a year or so. So, at least in my limited opinion here are some things that made the original too frustrating:
1.)Mandatory researchable spells. Getting your skill level up was a pain in the, you know what. And then trying to get the drops to be able to research that specific spells could be nearly impossible. By the time you got the spells for that set of levels, you were up to the next tier, unless you were in a guild that had a high level toon doing research for the guild.
2.)Not a complete negative, and fun in its own right, but the lack of in game map. It was fun when you first got into Lesser Faydark, when you were trying to get to butcherblock. But when your character ran into the Nightblight Sisters, with all your hard won gear, your night was over. Though on the flip side, when you were level 5, just doing foot races with other newbies in "high" level areas, was a blast.
3.)Plane of Knowledge. Great place to get together, but the instant it opened, with the ability to go wherever you wanted, took a lot of the immersion of the world away. A warrior could be on Odus one minute, and the moons the next. Luclin at least made you have to wait long periods of times, or felt like it, to get the port.
4.)Excessive death penalty. I have no real problems with an ACTUAL penalty to dieing, but when you were in the hell levels, and things weren't clicking for you, even for a minute or two, hours of work was lost at least once, that's not even counting going for a nekkid corpse run with mobs that were already difficult for you. It was easy to lose a level in no time.
5.)Unfortunately corpse runs. I appreciate the penalty of dieing, same as the above one, but to lose all items on your body, and have a significant chance of losing them permanently was frustrating beyond belief. Though admittedly Necros could summon your corpse, so it made the lose, not so bad. If you could find a willing necro, and the money to pay them. It was a good way for them to make money.
Everything below is going to be more recent changes that hurt the game
6.)Defiant armor. The sense of pride of getting a decent piece of armor when you were level 20 was lost. Now your armor at level 20 is better than some beginning end-gamers used to have. I know it was put in there to make the game more accessible to people just getting started out. But the thrill of new equipment was completely lost.
7.)Too fast of leveling. I came back last year again, when EQ became F2P. Couldn't really remember the game, so I rolled a new toon. In less than 3 days I was up to level 60 or so. My skills were abysmal, and I didn't really know the mechanics of the class. I loved, how originally, classes started out slow, adding skills/abilities a bit at a time, letting you slowly master the class. Finally when I got up to 85-90's, when I could finally find a group, consistently, I was a weak group member, and some of the people I grouped with, including tanks and healers, had no idea how to play their intended roll. As a ranger, I was able to out tank a warrior, which should have never happened. Sorry, ranting here
8.)Small feeling zones. When there were only 3 or 4 spots that groups could camp, which is only 18 to 24 people, not counting mercs, finding rewarding exp groups was miserable. Early zones, at least to me, had tons more camps, some more contested than others, but, GENERALLY, zones could handle more groups than the current set of zones.
9.)Mercs, I loved the addition of mercs for a soloer, which I enjoy doing when I only have an hour or so, but allowing multiple of them to be group members, to the exclusion or human players, really hurts the player base as a whole. There are times, like 3am on a Tuesday night, when you can't find a player to fill a role, but when there are only 3 people in the group, all with mercs out, the game loses its appeal.
10.)Forgettable expansions. Admittedly, I have missed some expansions due to losing interest in the game. Some of the expansions that have come out, are nearly empty, excluding a few classes that find 1 or 2 zones "profitable". Take DoDH, PoR, and DoN. Other than HS, I have never been to any of those zones. While other expansions, I still enjoy, Velious, PoP (to a limited extent), SoF. Rushing out expansions too quickly hurts the game. Content becomes trivial quickly. Miss half of a year, and you miss whole areas of the game. If EQ is around in a few more years, VoA, could become one of those expansions, I played through it, but I never really felt that expansion. I can't comment on the most recent expansion as I've lost interest in the game again.
So what things do you think has hurt the game, either in the beginning, or things that have changed and hurt the feel/game play of the game?
Comments
I read your post which was quite long. I disagree with most of it many of the items on your list I actually liked. So I have culled it down (with some rephrasing). Even these are somewhat subjective.
There were many things in Everquest that have since been modified and/or become unfashionable but most of them I actually prefer the way they were. Like the lack of an in game map and having a skill that provided a sense of direction (that compass that kept swinging or even pointing the wrong way until you acquired sufficient skill).
The same for having to skill up in the arcane arts and to learn several levels of mastery for each spell etc.
Didn't really mean to make my initial post as long as I did, but late at night, and can't sleep, because my mind is working too fast. The ones you listed are the main things I don't like. Research could be a pain, but you could also get really lucky on getting the right items. As I said, maps weren't one of the big detriments to me, but it made the game slightly more friendly when they added it. And with how crappy the map system is, for a lot of dungeons...
The death penalty was slightly to stringent for me. Having both massive xp loss, and a corpse run was painful in some of the isolated zones, when you couldn't bind yourself to a close area. I'm all for a decent xp loss system for a game, makes mistakes a learning experience, instead of, "Oh well, I died. Let me try killing X mob again." And as for point number 10, I was at 9 and wanted a number 10. Sue me, I can be OCD at times
I do want a "hard" game again. But as I'm not in college, and have wonky hours for my job, I don't want the game to be too hard. I want to enjoy. I want to have to actually learn how to play it. and have my mistakes be somewhat costly. I would say a 5% exp loss, depending on leveling speed to be a reasonable amount lost. Provided you can make it back in like 2 or 3 hours. Any more than that, and it's easy for me, and a lot of others to get fed up.
Now that I think about it. number 10 is revised.
10.)Long respawn times on mobs. A one week respawn on a mob that you need for your quest, even if it's only for one class, becomes a bottle neck, and a complete frustration, when there are 200 other people waiting for the mob. I would say, and anyone can disagree with me, but a max of 6 hours or so for a respawn is reasonable. Still a long period of time, and for 200 people needing that mob, it would still take 50 days for all of them to get what they need from the mob, and not nearly a whole year. And that disregards all people that will end up needing that mob at a later period.
>>but a max of 6 hours or so for a respawn is reasonable. Still a long period of time, and for 200 people needing that mob, it would still take 50 days for all of them to get what they need from the mob, and not nearly a whole year.<<
Not gonna happen. Any game, at this point in time, which is going to put in non-instanced mobs you need to camp to kill, for any actual quest, much less demanding a 6 hour respawn, will go out-of-business faster than you can say "but it's hardcore!"
I know that the moment I'll encounter such mob will be the moment I'll uninstall the game.
Whether any of this will be relevant at all, who knows.
Really the only thing from EQ classic that I didn't like was melee not having bind affinity/gate.
The game was so much more enjoyable with those 2 abilities, I didn't play melee much because of it.
Some of these I agree with, some I don't. My observations:
1) Mandatory spell research. This wasn't too bad. The biggest problem was collecting the components -- most things sold to a vendor simply didn't show on its inventory. Too many of the rare components were simply lost through the vendor system.
2) Lack of an in-game map. This actually helped the early game, as it encouraged exploration and immersion.
3) Plane of Knowledge. This expansion moved the game from a small group / individual game to a guild / raid game. While I wasn't overly fond of the immediate travel options, it was a realistic compromise.
4) Excessive death penalty. Again, I think this made the early game more immediate. Death was to be feared, as the penalty was harsh. Some MMOs have gone too far the other way, making death zergs possible.
5) Corpse runs. Loads of fun, and an opportunity to meet people. The only real complaint about corpse runs was the ability for others to loot corpses. Fortunately, that was quickly fixed. (long before Kunark).
6) Defiant armor. Designed as a mechanism to allow new players to 'catch up' to established players. All this did, IMO, was to trivialize the lower level game.
7) Fast leveling. Similar to #6, this has trivialized the low-level game. I've seen multiple clerics on Vox (started with F2P) where they have 'accidentally' specialized in Evocation. How many of them will have taken the time to reset their specialization, I don't know.
8) Small-zones. Some mid-game zones (DSH in particular) were great zones with some great quests, but the Farm was simply too small. Result, most of the zone was unused and there was all sorts of bad behavior on display at the farm camp.
9) Mercenaries. Worst idea ever. When the game population started dwindling, mercenaries could replace missing people. This simply made it easier to solo, which further decreased the group game, with the result that pick-up groups are almost non-existent in the current game.
10) Forgettable expansions. After the PoP expansion, the game became more focused on the most current expansion. In the current game, few if any people visit entire expansions, such as The Buried Sea. This wouldn't be so bad, except that newer expansions expect characters to have the latest and greatest gear from the previous expansions to function. This is especially true for tanking classes. The Defiant armor above made this gear gap less noticeable, but after level 70 the expansion difficulty increases so much that the defiant armor doesn't quite work.
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My overall impression is that there was a lot more right, or at least livable, in the early days of Everquest (pre-PoP), and more of the newer features have created problems with the game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Agree. I wouldn't put up with that either.
I'd say Mob Camping is the single thing I hate most in MMO's.
I like the limited loads and zoning of modern mmo's. I also like new mob ai, and anti-train ai that makes them run back into "place" after oh so far. Trains were an issue in EQ, though GM's were very active and would punish players for doing it usually. The zoning and loads sucked in EQ, but were needed to lose mobs on your tail.
I have mixed feeling about modern auction houses. I used to love wheelin and dealin at EC cave, but the fact that it keeps spam out of chat is nice. Course, I'd almost rather see anything in chat than bored trolls. They're also convenient, but I also like the idea of player organized auctions. It was detrimental to chat in a single zone I guess?
PVP servers were crazy brutal, but I thought they were awesome. DAoC was more competitive.
I'll be honest, it's hard to come up with other complaints about the game.
Most people didn't leave EQ because they just couldn't stand it anymore. They just moved on to other games expecting them to be even better. 10 years ago I figured I'd be running around on a replica planet with some 1000 skill system, player constructed cities and government...like full on sandbox of our dreams type stuff. I think the focus was really graphics the last decade, and now that things are approaching full on photo realism, gameplay is going to catch up
P.S.
I loved reading this thread.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
Part of what I loved about healing in EQ was the Complete heal, but after everyone started doing heal chains it became the only spell, and so I'll put down the complete heal as a detriment to the game.
I didn't even remember researchable spells until I read your post. I'm neutral on that and most of the others. I'll only list the ones I disagree with you on.
The map thing, well I disagree. I loved not having a map that showed everything. What I really want is a map tool so that you can draw your own maps. Just something like Paint or etch a sketch that you could bring up and draw your own maps.
The death penalty to me is part of what made the game, and the long levels. About a quarter of my complaints about new games is that death means nothing. The first time I die in most games now is because I go afk in hostile areas because who cares if you die when there's no penalty at all. It just takes so much away from the game. I didn't mind or hate the corpse runs, and wouldn't mind that changing, but still it's something that makes it more real.
Asdar
Not a lot really.. EQ pretty much hit the nail on the head, some of their concepts simply needed refining. I am going off the word 'original' as in before Sony took over and bazaar/PoK etc etc came into play. Some of the things I think should go are..
Um, it was always Sony - 989 Studios, Red Eye, Verant... All part of Sony. SOE was the re-branded Online Division (formally Verant and its kin).
It was the same devs, the same people in charge, just a new name.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
True, it was technically always owned by sony, but the devs were not always the same. By 2002 several left and coincidentally the game turned to meh around that time.
Edit - What I meant by sony taking over was what I assume to be bigwigs shoving their ideas down the original devs throats, leading to the massive left turn EQ took in 2002, as is often the case with MMOs.
I never played the original Everquest, just Everquest 2.
The things that killed it, I feel, were:
1) Disabling level locking - the time where the game had the most active and best pvp was when you could level lock. It wasn't for everyone, but it was something that a lot of people loved. I remember how much fun locking at 39 and running in Enchanted Lands.
2) Battlegrounds - I really felt that Battle Grounds killed open world pvp, which in turn helped killed group pvp / working as a team. When all you have to do is queue up constantly and never leave a guild hall in order to get all the gear you'd like etc. You never get to see pvp groups anymore.
3) Ridiculous run speeds / mount speeds - Snares in this game were 75% or less. So basically, for 2plat you could buy a 140% run speed, but because when you engage, you lose all your run speed, if you snare someone who is on a mount, you go down to 0% (or close to it), and the other person is still running at 70% at least. So basically they ruined snares and people can just rip around super fast all the time.
4) Mercenaries - Everquest was always a game about grouping, about having to work together to achieve a goal. Granted, I think Mercenaries were brought in to help with low population and the need for classes that not many people played (enchanters, and bards). But regardless, people could just duo or trio a zone with a mercenary, and thus grouping was not needed.
5) Quick travel - I've always liked the idea of seeing the game, traveling, this also enforced grouping because you never wanted to travel solo for the fear of being ganked (unless you were a bad ass). But some of the best combat and most fun was waiting for the next spire portal to activate, and the battles that would happen there. Of course there were gankers at some, but that's just what pvp was all about. It was a blast for sure, and so many good memories from running through and running into random questers to battle.
Killing dragons is my shit
1. Liked research spells. Early on if it was too much hassle, you could skip it. By the later levels, didn't really have many spells going, so not a big deal trying to research 1 spell.
2. Never had a problem with lack of maps. Actually most people downloaded them, and we could always add our own points of interest. Not sure if that option was there from the start. Later Soe released maps, but I still often liked the downloaded ones, hehe.
3.PoK, ya I know a lot of people hated it, some loved it. I actually loved PoK. Still needed gates, and there was still some running times with all the books there, but maybe a few less would have worked out.
4. Ok, I never thought the death penalty was excessive, even in hell levels. A person could get a rez easily, usually 90%, often the 98% rez, so the loss of exp was minimal. Even when I died out in the middle of nowhere, I offered to pay for a rez and got one.
5. I liked corpse runs, lol. Some of my fondest memories were trying to get my corpse before invis wore off, hehe. I could do without them though, wasn't a deal breaker either way. Currently no corpse runs in EQ and it is fine. Also, could always get it summoned if you were really screwed. I do remember one time wiped in Fear I think, and everything respawned, damn that was brutal, but once I recovered my corpse, it felt great.
6. Defiant armor would have sucked if it was early in the game's life, but since they added it later while the game was very top heavy, I see nothing wrong with it. That kind of leads into #7 in why they put it there.
7. The too fast leveling was to get people through the early levels to meet up with all the other players, especially since people had thousands of AAs to get. Again, would have sucked if leveling was this fast early on in the game. if you think about how many levels there are and the AAs you need, the leveling really isn't that fast. Unfortunately newer MMOs seem to level even faster than the low levels of EQ these days.
8. Don't really know how the higher current zones are. Haven't noticed that small feeling though.
9. Mercs go back to 6-7 I think, in helping the lower pop of lower levels, level faster. Aren't they kind of useless end game? Always thought they were. Probably should have made their usefulness dwindle around 60, or where they would definitely not be able to handle group content. Otherwise like them for the help in trying to reach higher levels with the rest of the people. Oh, also, don't people need to be a gold member to use mercs. I logged on the other day under silver and it said I couldn't use mercs. Been thinking of starting up again. Don't really need mercs, can just use a fungi tunic, lol.
10. Didn't have a problem with most of the expansion, some were better than others. I agree some didn't offer and much as I liked, but then they offered tons for other players. Overall, I liked the amount of quality content SoE was able to dish out.
After going over what I just wrote, I guess I kind of disagree with you on almost everything lol. Some parts I partially agree, but then again, it wasn't a big deal to me. Like the recent changes, I understand why they did them and it works for the most part imo.
Agree for the most part with all points.
Maps: Would love for them to bring some depth to it in EQN. Nowadays you either start with a map of everything or every 5 ft you unlock 5 miles of area instantly. At the same time, having no map is pretty hard for many and everyone will eventually print out or download something anyway.
Would like it to be semi realistic. Sure I can stand on a mountain and see for miles, but I can't make out any details. Should make it so that you only pick up details when you are within a few yards of an area. So you actually have to travel and explore to keep track of everything. Also would like to get away from the constant map window. Make it a overlay hud type thing that a lot of single player games have where you are actually "pulling out a map" then putting it away. So there is a sense of immersion where you look at the world around you, not the little dots on a map.
Folks aren't trying hard enough here...
* NO QUESTS - seriously, you were lucky if you turned in one quest every five levels. And even finding an appropriate level one, (let alone solving it), required a spoiler site.
The absence of quests meant that everyone would always grind on the nearest option and completely ignore more exotic locations like SplitPaw, Howling Stones, Charasis, pre-Vox Permafrost.
Furthermore, the absence of quests meant the logical behavior was....
* CAMPING - if one Ykesha was good, why not get 3 more and sell them? Why do a dungeon crawl when you can just break to a room and sit there forever like real heroes? A simple, repeatable, highly rewarding quest to kill each boss in the dungeon would have allowed groups to take turns instead of hogging a site or completely giving up for the night. Such obvious solutions to this problem but SOE couldn't get it right until the next generation.
* UNLIMITED TWINKING - since there were no level restrictions on gear and no binding of items, the "economy" consisted entirely of vets twinking out their alts with hand-me-downs. Since you could acquire gear in 5 minutes on your main that your alt couldn't dream of earning, nobody took any risks with their alts, ie never went into any dungeons and instead just powerlevelled in LOIO. Sony spent millions designing Nurga, Droga, Kaesora, Dalnir, City of Mist, and Kurn's Tower but good luck ever finding a group going there.
Banded armor anyone? ....anyone?
* POINTLING MELEE GIMPING - The classes were "reasonably" balanced in groups, but pure meleers always had to endure collateral griefing from the devs. Can't bind affinity? Dumb. Can't kill a light blue solo untwinked? Dumb. Even if you manage to kill something solo you have to wait 10 minutes to heal up? Swell.
Rangers. Maybe it was the people who played them, maybe it was the class, but I could do without Rangers.
Wasn't a big fan of eurdites either. Giant foreheads are not cool, nor was that giant nub swallowing pit by their main city.
Currently level my 48 Warrior and these things suck:
No snare or gate for warriors, well I guess melee in general.
No maps sucks. It is simply annoying. I like the idea of it, of making my own map, etc, but the fact of the matter is that I am able to alt tab so this places the lack of a map into the realm of annoyance rather than feature. This feature is still in game for many zones. I do not know if it is my level or if they are flagged as dungeons but blackburrow and the mountains outside burning woods and plane of mischief do not have a map...so I have to stop alt tab look it up and there you go, not hard, but annoying.
Chat spam when hailing for a quest and then having to type your answer, like we're playing a MUD...
2.) In game maps break immersion. I loved having a printed map in my hand and trying to figure out where to go. In order for a world to feel real, you have to be able to get lost. If you always know exactly where you are, it is not a real "explorable" world IMO.
3.) I agree 100%. I stopped playing a few months after PoK. The world was ruined by god-mode travel at that point.
5.) I am in favor of corpse runs. There has to be something players don't like about dying, and it has to be harsh. If not corpse runs, then something else. This adds a sense of accomplishment when obstacles are overcome. Harsh death penalties also add fear. Fear is a key element of immersion. Also, I love that you brought up how Necro's were in demand. We need to bring back class/skill abilities that are deeply valued within the player community. It is important we need each and that you feel needed.
Minecraft scatters your stuff everywhere for anyone to find, it can even burn up in fire. This may be TOO harsh, but Minecraft has an EQ1 feeling to me.
7.) Too fast leveling is indeed lame. One of the many reasons GW2 became boring very fast.
Never forget that immersion is the lifeblood of MMORPG's.