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What was "classic EQ" and how was it "ruined"...
Publish6246
Member Posts: 346
I played EQ back in 2000 i think it was and it was my first mmorpg ever but i logged on and thought the whole auto attack thing was weird, never seen it before and didn't like it. Didn't like the animations and all the numbers and thought it was really really boring and ugly. All i remember was running around some field with rats and some other monsters hitting them until i leveled up and i had no clue what to do. Before this game however i've only played my Playstation and Counter Strike/Half Life etc etc. wasn't used to mmorpgs. So 3 years later i tried them again with Planetside and SWG and EVE Online, i really liked all 3 until 2 of them were ruined and EVE became far tooo populated for me, just was lag city. I havn't gotten into any mmorpgs since the date my sig says because theres just nothing good out...
I come onto these forums and see people saying "i want classic EQ" and i see it quite alot too, mainly on the Vanguard forums lol. So i'm just asking what was it? lol cause all them years back i was in my early teens and didn't care for it.
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SWG - PrePub9 Jedi mastered all professions - June 26th 2003 > Nov 15th 2005
EVE Online - 24 million SP - May 6th 2003 > Early 2005
PlanetSide - BR20 CR5 - May 23rd 2003 > Sept 2003
Comments
not sure you can really understand if you didn't enjoy EQ nor play it very far. Especially as Everquest now or later on will likely give you the same impression because it really isn't your thing(you sound like twitch type gaming is more your thing). But I guess how people are reminising about classic EQ because there was a strong element of traditional fantasy, the game could be pretty harsh, dungeons in classic EQ were a lot better, and there was a strong element of trading(in EC tunnel or Gfay). That probably wouldn't sound very interesting to you, but to EQ fans it was significant.
To me Classic EQ was back in the time when there was no expansions, every zone had people the community was good, trading isnt like WoW (gold farmers/hackers). Life was good, everywhere you go it was fun. There were plenty of things you can do whether it was trading or leveling or just chatting with people or crafting. The game had meaning to it (compared to what it is now) because theres just so much items and weapons out there that the best stuff was in the new zones or expansions making older zones obselete. They could basically delete the old zones and starting cities and it wouldnt effect the game so much because most of the zones from release is emptied out. I used to spend 3-4 hours in greater faydark just trading, and when i was level 30 something I already owned the FBSS and mithril greaves and arms. It was fun times, you didnt have to be a hardcore raider, to me back then there was no such thing as hard core raiding yet until kunark+ expansions came out (because it took 8+ hours for monsters to respawn in PoH and PoF meaning that guilds had to share those zones, if i could remember right there was a website that Guild Leaders agreed to sign up on a weekly basis to kill Cazic Thule and Innoruk. Vox and Naggy was pretty much the same.
Now, this is just my opinion and if you check around, you see that I'm not really a supporter of the "back to classic EQ", so you might not want to put much into what I say, here...
First, nobody has yet defined what "classic" is, in relation to EQ1.
For many players this means EQ pre-expansion (any expansion) for others, it means EQ up to a specific expansion. Which expansion would depend apon whom you talk to.
Personally, I feel that the "classic" EQ was an emotional moment in a players gaming life, a moment that is unlikely to ever be repeated. A moment that, for some, lasted for years. This was the uniqueness, the flavor, the concept, the population, the vastness that was EQ.
Everquest wasn't the first MMO. But in it's heyday (1999-2001 ish) it had more polish, more depth, more lore than most other games out there, all in one place at one time, available for thousands of players, at the same time, world wide, to share and experience.
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
When EQ came out it was technically so advanced...there had never been a game that could match it's overall presentation and multiplayer gameplay, ever. UO and other early MMOs had some of the same features but none of them had the graphics and liveliness to really pull you in and immerse you in the world.
The problem was the dev team and SOE didn't keep pushing the envelope. After Kunark they started pumping out expansions and while they did add some features and smoothed a few things over, they were afraid to mess with the formula. Unfortunately the formula alienated everyone but the hardcore players who religeously played 4,5,6,7 hours a night.
They made a few PVP servers but they never had the balls to create a server that was more ideal for "casual"players(ie. regular people). Who knows where EQ would be now if they hadn't been so afraid to take some chances and tried to make a more player-friendly game.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
"Classic EQ" was brutal!! You definitely did not want to die in Classic EQ because it could take the rest of the day to find and retrieve your corpse (google "has anybody here seen my corpse" to hear the premiere song dedicated to EQ's corpse run). Travel could take hours and raids definitely took hours, if not days. As a guide, one of the most common petitions was a request to log out a groupmate who had fallen asleep at his/her keyboard while waiting for a raid to commence or continue.
Solo? What's that!? Some classes could do it, like the Necromancer, but others really struggled if they could solo at all. In general, it was always best to group.
Trains! The Trains! OMG, who remembers the trains?? A player could aggro an entire dungeon and bring them all the way up through the dungeon. The bad part was, the mobs could and would stop and aggro anyone else they met on the way up. So when someone yelled "TRAIN" there was a rush to the door! And, because something like an ogre could effectively block an entire passageway...the horror...the horror!
Two words...Fippy Darkpaw.
Two more words...Zarchoomi and Cornflunk
These are just a few of the mobs that you couldn't wait to get big enough to take revenge on! They were always a little higher and stronger than most other mobs in the zone but they roamed and killed anyone they passed along the way.
It's the memories you came away with from Classic EQ that makes you want to return to those days. I haven't played EQ in years, but I can still recall Zarchoomi and Cornflunk!! I struggle to recall the names of NPCs from games I'm playing now, but I remember many from those Classic EQ days.
EQ wasnt owned by SOE till Kunark which also wasnt made by them. SOE first solo expansion was SoV.
As far as Classic EQ goes i think that ship has sailed after their progressive server debacle, so yea like the other poster said goto www.shardsofdalaya.com for a better version of origional EQ. Still crapy by todays standards but hey if you loved classic, you'll like that server.
You know, Shazzel, I get tired of this;
In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment'. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.
Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.
EverQuest was released on March 16, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost. It was developed by Verant Interactive (which had recently parted from 989 Studios) and published by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). SOE currently runs and distributes EverQuest.
It's prolly one of my buttons <lol>
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Having thought long and hard about this I think that EQ was ruined when certain game mechanics were changed. Originally the game was fairly balanced, there were quests but they didn't overwhelm you. You mainly had to group and gear was simple.
When the game lost it's luster was around the time the gold farmers and expansions ruined the economy. The biggest help to this was a global bizaar system which made selling about being lower priced then anyone else. Additionally the game focused more on raids and less on group dungeon crawls. At times they tried to balance this out, but in turn broke something else.
The forum trolls and whiners wanted instant travel, easier fights and so on. But all the downtime, all the challenges made the group game stronger.
IMHO Original, Kunark and Velious are the "classic era". Luclin removed most need for ports and overland travel. Planes of Power completely removed it. In turn PoP became trade skill mecca. All need for the starter cities gone and lack of new players caused those zones to dry up.
In the end, EQ became too much raid, too much top heavy, too much high end gear flooding a instant access market of buyers and created a bloated gold farmed ghost of the original.
The game is for the most part dead.
QFT.
It was the economy/gear running out of control that ruined the game for all the non-raiding and casual players.
EQ Patches
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
In short, what made up "Classic EQ" is a combination of everything they've tried to "fix" in games these days.
Some Examples:
- The game is tough. Dungeons are non-forgiving, the death penalty is high (you lose experience, even de-level), and progression is slow. Reaching a high level is actually hard to do and takes a lot of time.
- You are forced to group with people to accomplish anything significant. These days people want games where they can solo everything. EQ forces people to group. In doing so, it more or less forces more mature behavior. If you have a bad repuation or you act like an idiot, you won't get into many groups, you won't get into many good guilds, and you won't get far. EQ forces you to watch your reputation and actually interact with the community. As result of all this, the community as a whole is close and more aware, I would say. This is something you don't find too much of lately. People aren't concerned with players outside their guilds or immediate line of sight.
- Little things like not forcing people to use fantasy-like names insead of 'leet-speak' names or special characters. You can't name your toon "Awesome_Killer99" - Your name has to look like a name. Again, this is something a lot of games don't impliment, and I think it really discourages some people. If I am trying out a new game and I log into leet-speak names, I stop playing - plain and simple. It's just one more thing that takes away from the fantasy setting.
Basically, all the things modern games have 'improved' on are what made EQ classic, IMO.
P.S. one thing I absolutely love about EQ that no other game has is the AA system. When I say that, I mean the fact thaat you can grind almost endless AA after reaching max level, instead of just spreading them around in different ways. Once you reach max level, it's stil going to take you longer than it took to level to reach max AA, which makes a huge difference in itself. Lots of games have AA-type points that you can distribute, but they are very limited and usually everyone has the same amount. There is no way to grind out more.
EQ classic was pre-raids. Even for a new player who joins now, he will experience the classic first, the pre-raid, before been utterly crush by this lame ending...as raiding won't strike a new player instantly.
The raids ruin it, slowly, and certainly, just like a poison; like a disease. See, an athlete can still perform and even do records after he get the disease, but his declines is started nonetheless.
Back then, when there was no raiding, players where happy playing. Every little item was considered extremely high, and as I said, raiding ruins it all. Raiding remove the interest to play the game while making sure players who experience it won't come back.
The first "masters" of EQ angered the devs (how dare someone find Brad's baby not interesting anymore? Must do anything to compensate) when they quit by lack of content and so they turn toward some leech who never earn anything on their own and please them with a raiding system, forever dooming the game. The first highbee, the first players who learn the trick and the game, they didn't raid, nor join it. Most left once bored, other left after sticking with the game to see the devs turn the game wrong and put raiding.
Raiding ruins it all. They did add the hell-levels to stop the hemoragy, they did quite many things, but in the end, they stick with the worst possible solution, raiding. LDoN was genious, AAs are genious. But see, they stick with...raiding.
PS: JohnHost analysis is interesting, and possibly better then mine on many aspect. But raiding is the critical flaw he don't underline enough, which result from the Kunark (a little pre-Kunark, yet not in the original game)...As for me, I was a noob back then...but I did see the real hardcore...and the raiding crushing-leeche, players who where lacking skill, up to the point even me was outmatching them...yet, the hardcores, the real, the nice, the peoples who left EQ by lack of content...these where sweet and nice players. These players built the community and what the game was...not the evil crushing-leeches known as the raiders, player who instead of building a community would awaken the Sleepers. Community-builders would never even consider awakening it...as it is anathema to community...but that event happen way deep in time...where the real hardcore, the community builders, where soooo few remains...and only the evil impending doom of the raiding.
PPS: Raiding crushing despair take time to affect the game fully for many reasons. First, it impacts where never experience and unknown; and nice players are always willing to give a new thing a chance. Giving it a chance is what blind the devs about it nasty effects in the long run, as peoples give it a chance rather then quit...which was better then the other results they saw in their short-sight vision. They didn't understand that players been happy is more important then players remaining a few more months and never coming back to that poor experience.
PPPS: The raiding-ill formed children...how they react when you developp the game further by adding new levels? This alone proves my point. Any real player having fun would be happy to have MORE levels and content. To feel exhausted and unhappy about having more is definitely wrong, and this is linked with raiding.
PPPPS: Someone who don't enjoy learning and progressing is someone that is regressing/dying. Raiding remove that joy of progress and developpment, peoples want to sit on it rather then advances deeper, and deeper, and deeper....this is extremely wrong. Someone happy to sit on something is as good as dead in the long run. Yet, they base their long term plan...on these dead players.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Anyways as mentioned earlier, I consider everything after velious to be complete trash (with the exception of LDoN).
I agree with the poster who said classic EQ is more about the novelty of the game when it was new and the player base wasn't jaded and there weren't any other real options available.
I personally think that for the most part the changes that have been made to Everquest have been benificial to the game and it's a damned shame that more people don't come look around with an open mind.
There seem to be threeo camps of EQ haters, There are the ones who think things have been too watered down and been made too easy, the ones who think that things are too hard and should be easier, and the bitter jealous types who are upset that they can't get raid gear on their toons for doing basic group level content.
EQ has taken a middle path in regards to difficulty which upsets people on both extreme's of the too hard/not hard enough camps, And the developers have also recognized that one thing that the game really excells at is the raid game and as such have put a lot of energy into maintaining that excelence.
And this idea that the problem with EQ was the over emphasis on raiding compared to the original EQ is just rediculous. EQ had raiding from damned near day 1. Or have people forgotten Naggy/Vox/Hate/Fear? Velious which so many people think of as the golden age of EQ was primarily a raid focused expansion you had multiple raid zones with a huge number of raid events. Kael, ToV, ST, POG POM these were all raid zones. Kurnak had VP as well as the adding PoSky around that time. Luclin was another expansion with tons of raid content.
PoP was however the first expansion that really catered to the raiding portion of the player base but it also provided a nice step up for more casual non-raiders as well as nice easy access to concentrated populations to group with. In addition to the books that so many wizards and druids despised that were a serious boon for the casual players in that they significantly decreased the time people had to spend traveling to places to group meaning that people with limited time could spend more of it actually grouped up and killing mobs.
In those days casual players constantly asked for a way that they could get gear that was a step down in power from raid gear yet still desirable from short discrete blocks of group time even if it took many of such blocks and Sony listened and came out with LDON which was exactly what the game needed and resulted in tons of grouping and people getting some decent gear ups for later.
GoD has a bad reputation because it was a rush job and because so many people quit before it was retuned or just refused to ever go back even after the retune because of the horror stories they had heard. But it turned out to be one of the better expansions and if you talk to people who actually used the content rather than those who wiped once in a mountain trial and never went back you will find that they actually enjoyed the expansion. Further the switch to instanced raids eliminated alot of the muss fuss and drama that was often caused by raid forces moving through populated area's. As well as removing Time Zone as the primary factor in a guilds progression level.
Yes I too remember my first days of EQ fondly but I also remember waiting hours for a boat to go somewhere new to hunt. I remember havnig to wait around for a caster to log in after that boat trip to get a bind. I remember overcrowded zones where single spawns were often considered camps. I remember the hybrid exp penalty that allowed certain classes to blast past me even though I had higher actual playtime.
I remember the dark ages of the ranger that was Kurnak and all the ranger down jokes.
There was good and bad with the original game and IMO there was more bad there just weren't any other options. Over there years however Sony has slowly addressed many of the issues that caused EQ to be the frustrating series of timesinks it was at release. I personally think that for the most part people who clamor for clasic EQ are being fooled by their retrospectroscope.
This is not to say that I think every descision they have made has been a good one nor that it doesn't have flaws still today. But it is a delicate balancing act they have to perform.
They want to make a game that is more than just a quick time killer so some challenge is required at the same time they don't want to make a game that is too dificult and tedious and run off everyone who can't play it like a full time job.
And do to the nature of the game you will always have jerks who like to lord over others when they are ahead and those who are envious bitter about those who have accomplished more. There are Asshats for sure but they are by far the minority at this point since most of the social reprobates have long since moved on.
That being said I wish Sony would advertise the game so we could get an influx of players. and it would be nice if more people would come back and take a look at the game with a fresh eye. (especially if they were in numbers sufficient to actually create a lower level population)
http://www.classiceqpetition.com/petition.php
Sign this petition to bring back classic EQ : ) just bout at the 800 mark