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The future of MMORPGs
Ryntis
Member Posts: 13
I was an EQ addict for a long time. I hate to admit it, but EQ was a beautifully designed game. This is why it has the most subscribers of any MMORPG. Id like to play a new variant of MMORPG but no companies seem to be brave enough to try to compete against Verant. All the MMORPGs coming out, or that are out, are trying to seek people that dont like EQ instead of trying to take EQ players.
Everquest is built on the backbone of players helping players. People feel closer to their friends in EQ than other games because EQ forces players to go out of their way to help other players. They do this through helping retrieve corpses, helping camp items in hard-to-camp areas and by going to raids to help out guild mates or friends.
The people that don't like EQ, dislike it because of the raids, corpse retrieval and hard-to-camp areas 
and games like AC2 and SWG were created to pick up those people.
So why do you think that no company has made a hard to level, group intensive, time intensive raid-a-thon to compete with EQ? Ive been waiting for "that MMORPG" to come out, and it doesnt seem like any company wants to take steps in that direction, even though its been proven that that specific game is what the -majority- of MMORPG players want.
Now to try to answer the flamers before they get a chance to post:
I know there are alot of people that dont feel this way, Im referring to the people that are currently playing EQ and want another game like it because of boredom, or players like me who want a "new EQ" but dont want to go back to the old one.
Reading about EQ2, it seems as if they are going to make it to pick up the people that arent already playing EQ1.. thus making EQ1 for the hardcore gamer and EQ2 for the casual gamer (i could be wrong)
Comments
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As some things can be right and useless, can't some things be wrong and priceless? -Viktor Suikoden I
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As some things can be right and useless, can't some things be wrong and priceless? -Viktor Suikoden I
i meant camps like FBSS in EQ (back in the day when it wasnt over-camped) i made most of my friends helping them get their items and them helping me get my items. It just seems to me that games like SWG are going in the wrong direction... the reason EQ is so popular is because it forces you to make friends. I know alot of people out there dont like it.. but the thousands of players of eq are there because of their friends there. Playing AO now, its not as close-knit as eq was.
I believe that alot of the things that people complain about in eq.. are what makes the game so popular.
Twinking is a good example. people complain about it, but its the reason why alot of the people there havent gotten bored and quit.
I think if someone made an MMORPG that didnt get rid of the bad things in eq.. but made them more fun, or more rewarding, then that MMORPG would become as popular as EQ or better
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As some things can be right and useless, can't some things be wrong and priceless? -Viktor Suikoden I
lol.. eq had a pvp system like that on rallos at release, being able to loot EVERYTHING made it so people stopped playing as much on that server.. Rallos server was then made so you could loot all coin and 1 item (not hand held items, not no-drop items) this made it bad to die in pvp, but not having your last 4 months taken away from you in one kill.. which worked perfectly..
rallos finally started forming into groups.. pvp, anti-pvp and neutral.. which i thought was funny cause pvp would kill anyone, anti-pvp were meaner than pvp guilds but only towards known pvpers and members of pvp guilds.. and neutrals just tried to stay alive
i actually thought rallos was very interesting
lol Z.. as i said before.. i know alot of people dont like EQ.. thats fine, im wondering why noone is trying to make a game to get people that DID like EQ.. I loved EQ and would love to see a game like it hit the market.. its less an MMO-RPG- and more of a MMO-team-strategy-game-
im not intested in actual roleplay.. ill do that with dice and character sheets.. when i play a video game, i want to kill things with other people. And I want to raid again, but I played out EQ and i need another "raid game" like eq.. but nothing else out there even tries to compete
horizons once was lining itself to compete with EQ.
Lots has changed in horizons but the developers promise to keep the teamwork/teamspirit in it which is where EQ power lies.
Problem is many games nowadays DO listen to players and the most vocal are anti-EQ ones.So basically people make anti-EQ games and this same people then so oh it sucks badly.
Take SWG for instance people who never played it in beta called it EQ in space which it was not.
Kunark made EQ what it is today.
the reason noone makes 'that mmorpg' is because that mmo would suck!, noone wants to play that kind of game anymore, you of course posing the exception, but 'raid-a-thons' get boring after 1-2 times of going and making it hard to level is just another thing that you feel you must do and can add stress to the gaming experience, i think that 'the future mmorpg' will be horizions. anway ...my 2 cents dont hate me;)
-moo
-The Patriarch-
______________
DAOC - Jerek 50 rr5 Igraine Inf *retired*
DAOC- Guide 50 rr5 Igraine Cler *retired*
Guild Wars 20 W/Mo Jerek *retired*
RF Online- Scyros 36 Accretia Ranger *retired*
R.Y.L Prodigy 89 Assasin *retired/banned*
Well they do have nearly half a million subscribers( yes i know i know some have 2 ,3 or 4 accounts like any other mmrpg) so i guess some love that element of raid and considering how people actually drool and beg like children to get into top raid guilds many must love it.
So when saying everyone but him hates those long raids you are making a statement you can't possibly back for sure.
Everyone has what they look into a game for .
I myself can not imagine devoting looong hours to killing one mob and think if i try it now i will get fustrated but you know what i used to do it and so did many of the 4 million that at one time or the other played EQ and we did like it.
Fact that i think it was a complete waste of time now and so boring would not make me yell everyone hates this kind of game now because i know it simply not true.
I myself am waiting for horizons and EQ2 .
EQ2 promises to be less time consuming and that fits my time.
Hopefully if EQ2 becomes less time consuming my old guild can reform there but consdering when we started we were students and now all working it better be less time consuming.
Having said that seems a lot of students replaced us in those long ass raids hehe.
I have often wondered the same thing Ryntis. EQ is by far the most popular mmorpg in the U.S. and I also would like another game similar to it. One of the things that has irritated me about many new mmorpgs is that they all want to correct the problems EQ had (and some have done it quite well), but they all also ignore all the things that EQ did right, which has limited their own value and popularity.
It would be neat to see one of these companies not only fix what EQ did wrong, but capture alot of the good things EQ did right. Maybe thats what EQ2 will be? Who knows. I have high hopes for both Horizons and EQ2 to be similar to EQ but with some neat new ideas to make it fresh and exciting.
Hoodwink - Half Elf Ranger
Quote:"The Insect Keeper General, sitting astride his giant hovering aphid, surveyed the battlefield which reeked with the stench of decay and resonated with the low drone of the tattered and dying mutant swarms as their legs kicked forlornly at the sky before turning to his master and saying, 'My Lord, your flies are undone.'"
Hoodwink
Horizons is a long way from being ready. Most people will play the dragon class for the first few months because it is "leet".
I think a game like Face of Mankind with its no leveling but all about teamwork and your faction will be the game of the future. Lots of leveling mills but very few games where having a tier system of missions from the Leader of the corp stating what he wants accomplished during the week down to commanders making this possible with a ton of sub missions.
Nice economy system and a police force to take care of looters. A message will not come up saying that you cannot but you had better be quick because the LED will be after you soon enough.
I am missing a lot of stuff but if you check out their website faceofmankind.com and see what it is all about. Did I mention FPS mixed in with RPG? Also they are accepting beta applications still.
Good luck in finding "the game". I know we all have been and will continue to search for it.
I'm sure about one thing... that pointless leveling is not the future of MMORPG's.
Players need other ways of developing their ccharacters or soon everyone will get bored of online games.
Maybe Face of Mankind is the right way then?
mm, I'm willing to try everything once. That game was recommended by..erhm.. (looks at the bottle of porto).. someone on this site, but as I cant play it yet I cant say. O yeah I remember, it was on the front page with screenshots and shit. Looks nice.
It's weird, I like both fantasy and scifi, but only enjoy scifi online and fantasy on paper. I play AD&D on paper, maybe because what I imagine in my mind is never what I see in online roleplaying (or single player) games. And perhaps with scifi its the other way around: I can imagine cool lasers, spaceships, corporate and government plots and all that, but scifi is high-tech and a high-tech computer can *show* it to me and make it more real. Of course, growing up with Asimov's writing helps, there, as well
I agree about the levelling.. it's bloody boring. At Neocron beta after 3 months I finally stepped back from the keyboard, and thought: wait a sec.. I'm playing a researcher here, and what am I doing: I'm staying in 1 place all of time, trying to make as many objects x to raise stat Y to reach level Z.. but to do WHAT when I reach it? More of the same? Well actually, the drive was to finally be able to drive a vehicle, which was waaay cool, but in reality, if I had been a paying customer, it would have meant the developers had kept me online, doing something I didn't like for a long time, and having me pay for it, just to finally be able to do something I did like in the game... what a WASTE!
Of course, then I took one further step back and realised all I *really* did all day was sit on a chair in front of a screen, and hit tiny buttons of plastic. Get up and eat, get up and take a dump, and get back at hitting those keys. With *no* result whatsoever.. that's when I got depressed * shot myself and now I'm typing from the afterlife... suicidees are forced to re-enact their last months here... had I known that, I would have partied till I dropped!!
Erhm in short, Ill check out face of mankind. When can I buy it? And will there be a way to play if you *don't* have a creditcard? I hate developer's arrogantly presuming everyone has one. Here in Europe a LOT of people don't.. typically American.
i see all you points, the one plus with a hard to beat xp curve is that when you hit those higher levels, you feel like you've accomplished something. Id still be playing EQ if it wasnt for the fact that all my friends left and i dont feel like playing the same 3 year game over again. Even though it was annoying slowly leveling up in eq.. every level felt like an accomplishment. even though raids took a long time, finishing it out without bad mishaps felt like we did something as a team and succeeded. Im not much into PVP.. so DAOC doesnt seem right to me. I really want to raid again, in a different game. i wanna kill dragons and gods.. but i want to do it with a new set of friends, in a new scenario. EQ is ruined for new players.. When they start a new server you can see it, its so popular because everyone wants to be "that guild" to be "those guys" that you heard about all the time in server chat.
I dont know if any of you eq veterans remember back before kunark came out.. but when something big happened on a server, like naggy or vox or innoruuk or cazic got killed for the first time, theyd post that on server chat, congratulating the guild.
This was somethign that they stopped doing a long time ago.. and i really feel that it added so much to the game. I looked up to "that guild" because of all the prestige they got back then. You say kunark made the game? i say the planes made the game. fear and hate, when they were added in, changed the game completely. they were HARD with all level 50s. naggy and vox were the only raids before that. But that was fine. the only real problems with that was availability.
I dont think it would be hard to design a -system- that would pull people away from eq. The problem lies in the fact that noone is willing to shell out the cash to try to compete with the "microsoft of MMORPG" directly, and are more content with picking up its' scraps.
EQ was a fun ride I must say. Some of the best times in EQ were the 9hr grind sessions with my friends. But with that put aside, EQ was one of the main stepping stones for mmos, the standard of mmos if you may. Now the only reason why there is 400,000 helpless souls playing is simple, to achieve the best. But to get to the best, you have to do the same bloody thing over and over again. And you had to rely on other people, which imo, sucked.
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Grouping with the six same people for hours and hours with meager xp in the end was not my idea of meeting new people. It just got too boring, tell finally, I made duo with a cleric, and I was an enchanter. We made some mad xp all the way up to the PoF. We would have made it further, but they nerfed charm and we quit. It does not appeal to those who like to solo.
That is also the other problem with games, the do constant nerfing all in an effort to balance their game; although very necessary early on, but years later in the game? You would think they would have got it right sooner, but as is not the case. All they see is money bags, and nothing more.
As for EQ II, I see the same fate as with EQ live. It will be fun as hell in the begging (This is where they grab you), then after a few years, it will simply get boring and tedious, and by that time, all the things that made the game fun, will have been nerfed. And the only reason too keep playing now is so you dont lose all that time you spent through the fun times. Then when EQ III comes out, the same again, and again, and again
P.
When you understand why you reject all other gods but your own, you will understand why I reject yours.
Problem EQ has always had is that it has some people that so hate EQ they make it their life's quest to moan about it.
I currently play SWG and when it was in make i was one of those that said don't make it EQ in space.
I was rather hoping for an original idea but ermi failed to realise original ideas were hard to find.
So it seems thought SoE and might be the reason behind them hiring the ex UO developers to help out with this game.
Well suprise suprise the old UO gang had no new ideas and instead gave us UO in space.
SWG became skilled based not levels,placement of houses,emphasis on player run economy/weapons.
All sounds pretty much like UO and then the bad parts of UO-meaniless repeatitive quests,lame monsters,not a single dungeon worth bothering to visit,totally no end game.
I have started to see large collections of people around the catina/bank that sit there for hours pretty much like in UO near the banks.
All I am saying is I agree with original poster that there is a huge EQ phobia but no game seems to want to actually tackle the good points that makes EQ have over 400,000 active accounts .
This might be a reason behind EQ still be ever so popular since no one actually bothers to create games that suits EQ fans so they just sit quietly in EQ and play.
I know for a fact alot of those people still playing eq.. are only playing it because they tried some of the "other options" and they all are so not-eq that they couldnt get into them. alot of them are bored of eq.. and would try something new if it came out. i think SoE would make a ton of money if they just took the eq luclin engine, put it in a new world and opened up something like "Everquest, the new campaign" or something stupid like that and would probably make a ton of cash from people like me that dont want to play EQ again from 1-65 but would play those classes/races in something else.. i guess you could call it the D&D effect, i got bored of their gaming world, not their system. I want to play a Human Monk (insert any other class race here) in another world and I think alot of the people in EQ right now would hop on over like sheep to play it
they should release eq online adventures for the pc
Sometimes I feel that leveling killed the Role Playing in Role Playing Game. The story got buried under people boasting about who could kill who. Now I wont say that there cant be RolePlay with levels and PKing. Rather, there cant be without any sort of encouragement.
I think a few new games coming out are moving away from that sort of gameplay. Face of Mankind happens to be one that caught my eye. No levels, no skills, and a solid story...I mean, that's what I was looking for. Some think that it may become boring, but with the combat like it is, and me being an avid First Person Shooter-type gamer, it's something I can easily slip into. Also, with the storyline, I can find something interesting to take my time, rather than spend hours killing Monster A who seems to have some sort of weird teleportation breeding habit. Also, how many times has someone created a char, only to be dissatisfied with one little detail, and either having to live with it, or starting all over again? Or what about making that level whatever mage and deciding..naaah, I dont want to be one? I think the system will work due to it's amount of freedom, but to succeed it's going to need avid roleplayers to help. It's what I perceive as the future of MMORPGs. To gain back the right to use the title Role Playing Game.
Interesting arguments and an extremely interesting discussion. I remember a poster on AyRo made a very sharp insight into the addiction factor of EQ. It was a combination of the 'linear' factor i.e. level, obtain better EQ, level etc, in tandem with an excellent balancing system that made it a sense of accomplishment to either level and/or obtain an item.
EQ introduced concepts such as prestige, status and a certain mercantilist feel to the game, whereby the acquisition of items (and levels) was a reward providing this feeling of 'accomplishment' spurred people on to achieve higher levels and better equipment. It's almost like all those self-improvement books rolled up into a MMOG.
Although my MMOG experience has been limited - just EQ and EVE - I am still astounded at how well Verant balanced the difficulty level of EQ and the reward rate for item drops.
Role-Playing
If I wish to indulge in pure RP then I either:
(1) Play a pencil/paper RP game
or ..
(2) Play a PBEM game (which I currently do - MEPBM to be precise - Middle Earth. It's a team based wargame set in various ages in ME)
MMOG's will never be able to replicate the dynamism of a RP session or the freedom of a hand-moderated PBEM. What I do expect in a MMOG, is a realistic game-world that encourages RP and provides a conducive atmosphere for RP to take place. I fully intend to RP when I play Horizons. Mind you, when I initially did plan to purchase 'Second Life', I was all set to create a character called 'Anna Wintour' (Fashion Editor, no less), and set up a webpage on my site (Uberbitch) where I would hurl vile, bilious insults on the worst dressed players in that MMOG.
I'm just not a people person.
Regards,
Riotgirl
"she's like this cleavagey, slut-bomb walking around going 'oh, check me out. i'm wicked cool. i'm five by five'."
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
I played EQ for about a year and a half and was pretty addicted to the immersive quality of the game. Walking over the dunes in the desert and watching the sunrise captivated me. Once I got into the kill-loot-level treadmill, I began to lose interest quickly. I do enjoy the achievement of adding a new skill or improving my equipment, but I don't want to play a game that focuses so intensely on leveling and acquiring. I'd like to recapture that sense of wonder.
EQ2 may potentially suit my tastes, but Horizons and especially Dark and Light are shaping up to have it beat for my purposes. I'm looking forward to playing some of these next-gen games with their improved graphics and game mechanics that are a departure from EQ. Everyone's tastes are a little different, and with all the MMORPGs coming out, there are more options than ever before.
To answer the question of why someone doesn't step up and challenge EQ, it isn't feasible from a marketing perspective. Studies have shown that 40% to 60% of current EQ players are unwilling to abandon EQ in favor of a new game, primarily due to the time investment they've put into developing their characters. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to persuade a significant number of those players to migrate to a new game.