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Dreaded Death Debate
asdar
Member UncommonPosts: 662
I really like EQ's harsh death penalty. To me it came in two parts negative and two recovery parts:
1. loss of XP was huge at High levels, to me that's as it should be.
1a. rez stick - 90% recovery, or just high level healer rez
2. loss of gear unless you can recover it
2a. coffin out corpse, which seemed expensive, but got your gear back.
Maybe it was because I was a cleric. It sure got me into some hairy messes, I still have some nightmares after my first open Fear Raid.
Asdar
Comments
"Negaholics are people who become addicted to negativity and self-doubt, they find fault in most things and never seem to be satisfied."
^MMORPG.com
/shout Fell off Boat while zoning! Any Necro on to Locate Corpse?!!
/shout Help! I bound myself in the middle of the camp when it was clear of Giants,..they respawned and now I am in a death loop!
/need druid to port me to DL! paying gold and Breeze, pls !
EQ1 death system was awesome because if you were smart you rarely died so you were punished harshly if you did. The reason EQ2 original debt system didn't work is because you spammed deaths left and right without rhyme or reason. There was no accounting for it.
In conclusion: if you make a harsh death penalty, make it a rare occurrence when skilled play is involved. Not random
i doubt the penalty will be as harsh as EQ1
on the progression servers, SOE allowed players to vote if they wanted the "classic" EQ death experience
the majority did not want it
EQ2 fan sites
The majority ruins everything!
I think to make it easier they could make coffins at low level so you could always get your gear back, but I hope they do have some kind of penalty.
I don't understand how people in new MMO's can be so worried about getting just the right class and gear and then play all reckless wandering through areas without half the caution we'd have used in EQ.
Asdar
If they make this game like EQ1, it will fail. They need to stay away from death penalties and make sure it isnt EQ1 slow travel. They need a fast travel function. People in MMOs nowadays want to make sure they get something from their game time. Hence WoW providing that new raid function where if you get screwed over too many times not getting good rolls, you can improve your roll or whatever or a drop so you semi get rewarded even if youre doing Raids and getting screwed constantly.
People don t want to feel like they played and didn't get any character progression or progress. Going against that grain would doom EQN whether you're wearing your nostalgia glasses or not. And this is coming from what I'd consider myself a "hardcore" gamer.
So they need to make EQ next like every other game since EQ?
I'm not saying go back to crappy graphics, but if they dumb the game down to the instant grat, no pain games of today it'll fail as well.
SWG was a good sandbox game with thousands of fanatical followers wearing princess Leah outfits at launch and it failed. It's not a panacea to make EQ Next a sandbox game.
The old EQ had something special that was lost about Luclin. If we make this game just like wow, which is almost exactly what you're saying then it will fail. It can't be just a function of updating graphics and copying WoW.
I'm certainly not saying the Death penalty or fast travel are the key, but I think they might be a big part of it. I think EQ had a harshness to it that fostered teamwork and socialization in the general population, that's lacking in WoW. It's the death penalty and slow travel and harsh dungeons at level 4 and wandering mobs that aren't fair and a bunch of other difficult things together that did make it more challenging and better than current games.
Asdar
There was a reason, people would use XP debt from deaths as a way to lock their characters to a certain level. 220% XP debt would last a while. That's how it was done until they added the ability to stop all xp gain.
Killing dragons is my shit
Killing dragons is my shit
EQN will never fail lol, are you delusional? EQ has been running for nearly 14 years and EQ2 has been running for nearly ten years. You really think that a mmo with the EQ machine behind it no matter if it has a steep death penalty or slow travel will fail, utter rubbish you are talking.
Smed has already said there might be servers that are more akin to classic EQ rules, you won't have to play on that server.
I'll be on one of those, and so will my friends. We're all from that time since the release of EQ1.
If people don't want a challenge in their lives or get that awesome feeling when you are rewarded for taking a great risk or, if they want to be hand held through out their gaming experience, then fine. Let them have all that boring crap.
Personally, I need some thrill and excitement in my life when I play games.
The problem is it seems 95% of MMO players do not like teamwork or socialisation, so more and more games are catering to the "solo MMO crowd". I have been playing pre-CU/NGE SWG lately on one of the emulators and you would expect an old classic like that to be full of the same people who loved it back in 2003-4. People who wanted to group up to hunt rancors and hang out in the cantina chatting.
Sadly it's full of achievement hungry power gamers who want to farm 24/7 by themselves. Times have changed.
Btw, SavageHorizon?
Where did you find the info about Smed saying that there might be servers with the classic EQ rules?
I just searched his twitter where he usually mention stuff like this, but I couldn't find anything related to that. I may have searched to quickly and missed it, so, if you got the link it's easier than me going through his twitter again.
It was at the 2010 fanfare that Smed said their might be a possibility, i don't think them remaking the concept of EQN would actually effect that comment.
http://www.giantbomb.com/everquest-next-working-title/3030-32284/
Thanks!
3 years ago. I hope they are still sticking to that comment. I however hope they changed their opinion on less classes though. It's EQ, which means you have a large variety of classes to choose from. Please don't change this.
I loved EQ1 a ton. Played it way more than I'd like to admit.
Hated the death system with a bitter passion. Corpse runs, naked, with the chance of losing hard earned gear is just dumb. No other word describes it better.
I could live with losing xp, and as equally dumb as it was de-leveling was almost tolerable. But the naked corpse runs are a deal breaker for me personally.
If anyone implements a system similar in any game, I won't touch it. Not even a free trial.
Then it's a good thing if they have these "hardcore" servers with that ruleset for people like me and my friends.
I'm not to sure that they'll remove 1 thing and make more server with that. It's probably going to be entire EQ1 ruleset or holding your hand servers. Most likely gonna have to pick 1 from those 2 choices.
well considering they have said they have scrapped 2 versions of EQN gameplay already, Id think of 2010 as being abit too old to stick any hopes to, unless it have been repeated within the past year....their first comment at fanfaire were they were looking more toward EQ1 than EQ2, to try create some buzz about the game, now their claim is it will be nothing like either EQ1 or 2.
also why I think EQN should have its own forum, instead of putting it in the EQ1 section, atleast EQN now have alittle bit of, hype speeches, from within the past year, where they promise it will be nothing like EQ/EQ2....though when you know SOE hype, it doesnt have to be as radical, tend to blow up small things as world changing.
Its been a very long time since EQ had the harsh death penalties of older days. And for good reason. Do people remember how long it could take to retrieve your corpse? Recall if you will, dying in some god awful locale right before you head to bed for the night. So rather than lose all your hard earned gear, you sacrifice a good nights sleep so that you can spend hours retrieving your corpse. Particularly if there were no Necros/Clerics available or willing to help.
Add to the stress of running back to your corpse naked and vulnerable all the while knowing that you have to get up at 5am so that you can work for 8 hours in order to support your EQ subscription. Yeah good times good times....
I agree a penalty should be imposed but not by the old school standards. Times have changed, people have changed. No ones got time for this!
It isnt a debate on what is the right and wrong method. Its that Smedley or whoever from SOE admitted pretty much their future of the company is dependant on EQN being successful. So no, they cant target a niche of 20,000 and piss off a niche of 7,000,000 MMO players. You know when our parents would tell us about "the good old days?" you guys are in that phase with EQ1.. It's either move on or live in those times.. A lot of the times you cant bring the past forward, in life and in gaming, and a lot of the time that is a good thing if you can get over that. You can't move forward if you keep looking back.
In theory lets say they make EQN exactly like EQ1, but a modern UI, better graphics, new zones, etc. The game doesnt sell well, sorry. Not enough to "save their business" They need the casual common MMO fan, not just the EQ players. If they lose 1 diehard Everquest fanboy of 10+ years for 2 casual MMO fans, they'll take that trade everytime.
To the guy who quoted my post earlier: I have NO problems with fast travel (Example: Waypoints in WoW, Skyrim) being in Everquest. I have no problem with ground mounts either. You're telling me there was no exploration to Skyrim? I fully appreciated Skyrim's landscape and still loved the fast travel, I'm not trying to run place to place everytime or beg for a summon or bribe with in game currency for a summon/teleport.
Scrapping the game and remaking doesn't effect whether there will be hardcore servers imo, that has no effect on how the game is made. Smed knows that many old EQ vets will want that, that would not of changed with them redoing the game at all.
So three years old or one year old it really is makes no difference.
Come the next fanfare when everything will be revealed i think EQN will get it's own forum but to be honest i think this works well. Many of us are EQ vets so it would make sense to keep it here until more info has been made available to us.
94% of MMO players have never played a teamwork or socialisation MMO so they never know if they dont like it or not because they never tried one before because all they know of is WoW and its clones.
Having servers with different rule sets wouldn't piss off anyone, you chose to play on that server or you don't. If you think EQN is going to be casual i think you underestimate Smed.
Maybe they will do a sandbox WoW, which is what you seem to be saying is what you want, but I hope they keep EQ's feel of harshness.
WoW wasn't a huge change from EQ, same basic classes, same progression type even same style of endgame. I don't like WoW because I find it really boring right up until high level. If they upgraded EQ to modern UI and graphics, and all that goes with that and new geography and zones but kept that harshness with added sandbox features I do think it would sell. There are more harsh games out there now than there have been in a long while. I think it might be the right time to have a game where death wasn't just a few minutes to run to the grave and re-start the instance.
All that said, I'm not a huge fan of corpse runs either, I think there's a better way to deal with that and still keep death a real threat.
Asdar