EQN - My Thoughts

mbrodie

i'm so sick of this whole "you are the hero" deal, it's so overplayed and never works out well, you cant be the center of the universe in an mmo, there is 347382798432 players doing the exact same quests getting the exact same rewards and at the end of the day even with the rally system there is going to be that main story everyone will follow choices may be different but it's all going to lead to the same place....

these games arent being developed as group play games, they are all coming out as single player games in an online persistent world and it just aint cutting it. some of the best times and stories you get out of EQ1 was from farming mob camps in groups with friends talking crap with each other for hours on end and just having a ball it's all getting taken away.

i feel like a better step would be to do away with the majority of quests to begin with and no auction house either, it puts a lot more emphesis on the importance of crafting... as it is now, majority of crafting is wasted due to having quest upgrades that are better and a lot of group play is lost in this core game mechanic....

quests - great for single player games, but bad for group games and thats what i want an MMO to be an MMO, for the emphasis to be put on groups and players not a single player game emphasising that you're the biggest baddest hero in the world

flight paths and instant travel - again great for single player games, helps you get around a lot quicker but horrible for group / socially oriented games.. you wanna travel with your companions heading into unknown territory with unknown dangers lurking around every corner knowing your other team members have your back.

all these games are targeting themselves at massive single player experiences with group play optional and usually pointed to you at end game, we need to get rid of these apparent QoL features like group finders n such and bring back some of the old core MMO mechancis.

to be honest if they had of shown EQ1 with a new coat of paint and core mechanics elaborated on eg - world destruction, multiclassing etc... that would have been phenomenal but as it is it seems to be heading towards being a single player online game ANOTHER single player online game in a sea of  games that have already tried and failed at doing so.

Not to mention the slew of problems that can arise from how ambitious they're being...

AI - yeah sounds great, but even the most simplest of quests in MMOs these days bug out making them uncompletable without throwing roaming packs into the equation and the unlimited amount of variables that need to be taken into account when allowing your AI to be freeroaming and affecting the world in a way which sounds like it generates quests based off random mob movement.

Destruction - even here, as great of a feature this sounds like, you're 3/4 the way into killing a massive elemental with a group of friends, you been going at it for a good 10min let's say it's some ultra rare and then he blows a hole in the world swallowing your whole group and dumping you a level down, now producing line of sight issues and then leashing back to his spawn point.. resetting his HP and leaving your group thinking wtf...

 player made content - the fact of the matter is, 90% of people arent talented enough to create player made content... if they were talented enough to be doing so with the small exception they would be working on the game to begin with or any other number of games being developed, minecraft is great and flexible and detailed but at the end of the day people still end up making blocks, instead of spending all this money allowing people to develop content... spend the money on talented people who are artistic enough to do the work and make it amazing.

there is a lot of great ideas and if they come together and work it would be great, but i still think they're taking too much away from the group aspect of the MMO and i think they need to take a step back and look at fundamentally what an MMO is meant to be about... it's not about a single player game with online / group elements it should be centralised around a group experience, creating stories and times with friends, crafting being useful because you dont just level it to max it out ignoring the low level gear you can craft on the way because quest rewards are better...

my mind isnt blown i feel kind of disappointed but i hope it turns out to be a good game regardless.

 

thats just my 2 cents, i'll probably still end up playing it for a few months at least, but i just think that maybe a step back in the "old direction" was the exact new direction the MMO industry needed