1) Once again, you are ignoring what I said. EQ2 was released on a highly competitive year for MMO's. SWG, FFXI and EQ1 already had strong player-base in those days. Ultimately, WoW and EQ2 was released on the same month. It was pretty obvious 2 were going to be the major competitors in the market. Then, WoW just blew away EQ2 and became the giant monster it is today by having a better marketing campaign and a better development team, but I digress, this is not the issue. 2) Concentrating on CPU support enabled EQ2 to work on much wider variety hardware and bought SOE much needed time against their competitor, they weren't able to use that time but that was an entirely different story. Once game started to show the signs that its getting behind, SOE started spending less and less on EQ2. 3) Crysis example doesn't apply since its not an MMORPG, it doesn't have to be designed for years to come. It has been meant as Single-Player benchmark enthusiast game since the development started. 4) Problems with biggest systems of the time (8800 as you call it) happened 2 years after the release, by that time I'm assuming SOE didn't allowed engine modifications. Which is, as I've said million times earlier, was stupid choice. As I said; 5) Was it a smart choice to make the game CPU dependent at the start? Yes Was it a smart choice not to support and expand it afterlaunch? Hell no.
On the WoW being CPU dependent... Well, this is common knowledge. Just google it and you'll have tons of "source" about it.
1) EQ2 had just as much marketing and soe intentionally cut development short to beat blizzard to market. That was their choice, not something forced on them. Wow blew EQ2 away, because it was a better game and EQ2 hemmoraged players to the point they were forced to merge servers. Wow marketing didn't force that, people left EQ2, because it wasn't good and the competition was far better. Recall the ad campaign of "EQ2, no waiting lines" shortly after release, when people would rather wait in line for hours to play wow than play EQ2 with no wait times.
2) EQ2 has been soes biggest focus for many years. Putting the graphics on the CPU was a cheap shortcut that made the game run aweful no matter what system was used. It was a completely opposing design to cut out the GPU and at the same time aim for graphics years ahead of technology. How stupid is it to create ultra high level graphics and not use
3) The crysis example isn't perfect, but it got the meaning across. The point was that crysis had cutting edge graphics for its time, just like eq2 did. Would you call it smart if the crysis engine intentionally didn't utilize graphics cards? I don't think anyone could make that a compelling argument and neither is the EQ2 choice.
4) You have me there that it wasn't the 8800 series. It was the 6000 series and I think the 6800 card that had massive issues? I don't recall the specific top of the line card at the time, but I do recall that people with those cards had performance issues over those who didn't use them.
5) How was it a smart move to ignore the gpu. That is the part the goes unanswered and the part that gets ignored is that the game WOULD run better if they had included GPUs.
Did ignoring the GPU make the game run worse at release, yes. Not smart
Did ignoring the GPU help the future of the game, no. Not smart
Did ignoring the GPU provide any benefit other than some speculated potential benefit that no one even knows if it would have happened? No.
Somehow people are concluding that the game would run better if everything was crammed onto the cpu. It didn't and it doesn't. Cramming the graphics onto the cpu was an attempt to get more marketshare, which did not work. That is not smart, regardless of what might have happened with cpus.
The end result is that soe designed a graphically intensive game and intentionally coded the game to not take advantage of the one resource specifically designed to increase performance of graphically intense games. To me that is a clear display of a choice that is pants on head retarded.
In defense of SOE at the time they DID make the right call becuase if you recall when they set about making the game we where at the height of the gigahertz wars i think if we had a crystal ball back then no one could really see the c-change that came about a couple of years later..i mean back in what? 2002 who would have thought we'd have still been using 2 gig processors as the standard (ok with multiple cores),i think most of us would have assumed we'd be well into double figures gigahertz wise by now.
They flipped the coin and it came down the wrong side for them one of those things i suppose as for DX 11 cant see it making a jot of difference to the game becuase as you say the games will have to be coded for it from the ground up.
I don't think they made the right call at all. The is a very good reason PCs were designed to use video cards and designing a game to ignore that resource is rather stupid. Every other game on the market was going to benefit from CPU & GPU and I fail to see how ignoring that can be called the right decision.
Early on the EQ2 devs said they used the processor to run the graphics so that people with low end video cards could play the game on low settings. That is sort of a cheap shortcut to get the low end market.
Instead of designing a graphic mode to compensate people with low end video cards soe ignored the basic designs of PCs and hedged the games performance on future technology.
Did this design choice make the game run well at release? No.
Did this design choice make the game run well long term? No.
I just don't see anything that makes this look like a good decision. Honestly it looks rather stupid to bet the health of an mmo on future technology resolving current issues.
Its very easy to sit back years on and say yeah they got it wrong of course they did..but back then the graphics we're seeing today where nothing but a pipe dream.
I started the game at around LU 11 and given i was coming from SWG the game was a breath of fresh air on my (moderate pc at the time) it ran ok,nothing spectacular but it did the job SOE made many no countless mistakes with EQ2 the countless changes in the very core game itself being far more damaging than wether or not it can run on an old pc or not,thats been the games downfall for my money at least.
But i'll say it again when they sat around the table back in 2000ish and talked about how to base the game they made the right call go with the CPU not the GPU becuase at the time the cards just werent there to support its over ambitious graphics but i suppose given the gigahertz wars they thought they could get away with throwing it all at the CPU.
The devs are not oracles..they cant see into the future..niether can i and i'm damn sure you cant either becuase if we could i'd be sitting on an island somewhere after winning millions on the lottery and Daffodil you'd be my neighbour
Like i say they got it wrong and you're right the game should in no way shape or form have been released when they did,it needed another year dev time simply they got it wrong (that word again) but lets be fair getting it wrong is what SOE does best
for memory i heard a rumour that it was going to be heavily focussed on consoles. I could be wrong but its what i remember from a few months back.
As for another EQ...meh, maybe i might like this one more than the others (i got into EQ2 well after release unfortunatelly and at the time it was ageing quite a bit)
I suspect you are right about EQnext being console based. Sony is in the middle of a furious console war that they are losing. Part of that has to due with the ps3 not really having a killed game to draw players in.
Seeing the soe is part of sce now, I doubt they care as much about the pc market as they do supporting the ps3 market. Soe has been invovled in the playstation for a while now so I bet they have a new directive and the pc market is a secondary concern. Perhaps that is why they are trying to revive the planetside title, because in theory it would make a great console game and really appeal to console gamers.
I would put good money on the next game being PS3 lead tbh it makes no sense whatsoever for it not to be really..but then again its sony we're talking about.
Originally posted by fozzie22 Its very easy to sit back years on and say yeah they got it wrong of course they did..but back then the graphics we're seeing today where nothing but a pipe dream.
I started the game at around LU 11 and given i was coming from SWG the game was a breath of fresh air on my (moderate pc at the time) it ran ok,nothing spectacular but it did the job SOE made many no countless mistakes with EQ2 the countless changes in the very core game itself being far more damaging than wether or not it can run on an old pc or not,thats been the games downfall for my money at least.
But i'll say it again when they sat around the table back in 2000ish and talked about how to base the game they made the right call go with the CPU not the GPU becuase at the time the cards just werent there to support its over ambitious graphics but i suppose given the gigahertz wars they thought they could get away with throwing it all at the CPU.
The devs are not oracles..they cant see into the future..niether can i and i'm damn sure you cant either becuase if we could i'd be sitting on an island somewhere after winning millions on the lottery and Daffodil you'd be my neighbour
Like i say they got it wrong and you're right the game should in no way shape or form have been released when they did,it needed another year dev time simply they got it wrong (that word again) but lets be fair getting it wrong is what SOE does best
I'm not looking back with 20/20 hindsight. I was there on day 1 of eq2 release and it was obvious the game had issues, so I'm speaking from experience. I may not have understood the reasons at the time, but I saw the effects. Like you said it sort of did the job, but nothing that delivered a good experience.
I doubt soe sat around a table in 2000 and speculated that future cpus would somehow be big enough to handle all of the games processing needs, but didn't recongnize future (and current) graphics cards would follow the same lines. I don't think they needed to be oracles, but it doesn't take rocket science to understand that designing cutting edge graphics and targeting the game at players with low end systems is unrealistic.
It would be like designing a game run off a maximum of 256mb of ram so that really low systems could play the game with huge harddrive swapfiles, with the hope of hard drives getting faster in the future to resolve the issue.
If the solution to cutting edge graphics was to run everything on the cpu, then that is what every other gaming company would have been doing. We would all be running crysis like graphics on $300 emachines, but obviously graphic cards play a major role in any game that wants high end graphics and that is exactly what eq2 was doing.
It was an all around stupid choice by soe.
I do think you are right that another year of development time would have created a much better eq2 game in almost every respect and we would be in a bit different of a market right now.
I would expect to see a big selection of races, classes, and jobs. Being able to customize your character is paramount to any good MMO. A monthly subscription is nice because it keeps kids out and eliminates problems that cash shops create. PVP should definately be an option, as long as the opponent can accept or decline the duel. An auction house is a must and drop rate needs to be a little higher than EQ2. Upon death you should not lose xp like in other games i've played. Oh and one more big thing..........Only a pet class should have a pet! EQ2 did a nice job making sure classes were balanced and that only the pet classes were able to summon pets.
The game engine was built on a single core cpu from Intel which was a protoype,we all know how fast thing's changed with the cpu and gpu's we use now but still soe stuck with a prototype cpu for Everquest II so it will always run like crap for the average computer.
Its been a while since SOE has provided any additional information. I hope they aren't going to wait till next Fan Fair to give people an update.
Yeah would be good if SOE gave us more info. I know the general opinion is console based for Everquest Next but I'm still hoping we will have a new Eq3 type world for the pc. Been a few years out and I'm kinda wanting to get back into the EQ way of things again but In a fresh new world.
I'm a loyal long term EQ2 player now with 4 years account in good standing or so with interruption for 1,5 years once and the idea to have EQ3 at the same time concerns me as makes me curious.
Concern that this means less player for EQ2 and thus less development on the game plus EQ3 will most likely need more hardware, more bandwith in terms of hosting and thus be more expensive to run than EQ2 while EQ1 and EQ2 are still run. Servermerges for EQ2 than most likely. And my PC isn't even running EQ2 on highest settings yet as it eats so much performance than in groups or some places.
Curiosity for maybe some things to happen I miss in EQ2: the diplomacy system of Vanguard, seamless world (that would be SO awesome for EQ2 which is so rich in details and than ... you hit the loading screen), a more strategical/player skill based crafting system as in Vanguard. Basically I would love to see a merge of Vanguards systems and sometimes awesome creative quest lines with EQ2 quest amount, customization options and density of the world in terms of mobs, npc, dungeons and the EQ2 guild halls combined with the ultra-flexibility of the UO housing system and the EQ2 amount of housing items - all that in a seamless world which is as casual friendly as EQ2 has become while keeping the Raid content of Vanguard for the hardcore player.
And I have strong doubts anyone could deliver this. But man would I be happy!!!
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ... Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2 Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
Any new Everquest game better be able to compete at this level in respect of graphics, animation, interactivity, environmental effects, scale and more. I had long hoped SOE would have worked hard on upping the ante with EQ2 but instead they just kept pumping out expansion after expansion after expansion with little in the way of innovation or advancement of the game or genre.
Wow - so much negativity when this is great news ... A new EQ game? Count me in ... sure, SOE could mess it up, but - they could also hit a home run ... Also - I doubt this game would keep the title EQ: Next ... seems lame and uncreative ...
Instead of moaning and whining about EQ2, for fun, I'm going to put some of the elements/ideas from EQ1 & 2 I'd like to see incorporated ... Feel free to add/remove elements you'd like to see removed.
1. Lore - Keep the EQ lore intact ...Races, dieties, rivalries, etc ... keep that "EQ" feel to it, don't change too much here ...
2. Death Penalty - GONE ... Yes - it adds challenge, but -- in todays MMO world, that just won't hold up, it will be so frustrating and scare off a newbie to that kind of a game ...
3. First Person view - give them the option to play 3rd person, but -- First Person seems to put the player in the body of thier character and adds more diversion, atleast IMO ...make this the default !
4. Regarding PvP - Longer fights ... I remember fights on Tallon Zek lasting 10 minutes with kiting, counter attacks, hiding, shadow steps, etc .. they seemed very intricate and about skill/gameplan ... in EQ2 along with most PvP games nowadays, nukes and tihngs do so much damage your foe is dead in 20 seconds, tops ..
5. Danger - what I maen by this is give more obstacles for people to overcome when exping ... KEEP trains ... how about random attacks by mobs? A herd of Mammoths in Everfrost go berzerk and attack your group ... an undead army attacks Qeynos ... keep and add more challenges to the game ... mobs that will call for help is also fun ...
6. PvP - it must be there ... I'd like to see the PvP follow the lore, for the most part ... much like the team PvP servers, where races are on teams ... this way, when you are PvP'ing you're doing it for your "team" or your "race" and it feels like you accomplish something and are following lore ... also -- add achievements/stat boosts for PvP and titles ... It gives the person more to strive for end-game ...this would be on a seperate server, I'd have a few PvE only servers, but -- put a bit more focus on the PvP content ...
7. Raids - Eh ... I'd say keep a few raids here and there for the extreme gamers, but - don't make it a necessity to raid to get the best items ... I don't mind grinding, but - come on, raiding is tedious to me and atleast on the grind I'm exploring Norrath ...
8. Exp - don't make it Aion hard to level, but - lets make it feel like we've accompished something by achieving max level ...
9. Seemless world - that was my #1 love with EverQuest was exploring ..> I like the idea of getting rid of maps except the maps in-game where you have to purchase or view them in the bigger cities ... it makes you have to go out and explore as opposed to just pressing "M" and following the directions ... the maps in-game would be pretty generic and still force you to EXPLORE ... The worlds cannot be linear, must be seemless, wide-open lands ...
Any other additions/subtractions you'd like to see? I don't see how if they stick to some of the basics while making some small adjustments this couldn't be a great game ... I dn't care if it's on PC or XBOX360/PS3 ... a MMO can be played anywhere ...
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1) EQ2 had just as much marketing and soe intentionally cut development short to beat blizzard to market. That was their choice, not something forced on them. Wow blew EQ2 away, because it was a better game and EQ2 hemmoraged players to the point they were forced to merge servers. Wow marketing didn't force that, people left EQ2, because it wasn't good and the competition was far better. Recall the ad campaign of "EQ2, no waiting lines" shortly after release, when people would rather wait in line for hours to play wow than play EQ2 with no wait times.
2) EQ2 has been soes biggest focus for many years. Putting the graphics on the CPU was a cheap shortcut that made the game run aweful no matter what system was used. It was a completely opposing design to cut out the GPU and at the same time aim for graphics years ahead of technology. How stupid is it to create ultra high level graphics and not use
3) The crysis example isn't perfect, but it got the meaning across. The point was that crysis had cutting edge graphics for its time, just like eq2 did. Would you call it smart if the crysis engine intentionally didn't utilize graphics cards? I don't think anyone could make that a compelling argument and neither is the EQ2 choice.
4) You have me there that it wasn't the 8800 series. It was the 6000 series and I think the 6800 card that had massive issues? I don't recall the specific top of the line card at the time, but I do recall that people with those cards had performance issues over those who didn't use them.
5) How was it a smart move to ignore the gpu. That is the part the goes unanswered and the part that gets ignored is that the game WOULD run better if they had included GPUs.
Did ignoring the GPU make the game run worse at release, yes. Not smart
Did ignoring the GPU help the future of the game, no. Not smart
Did ignoring the GPU provide any benefit other than some speculated potential benefit that no one even knows if it would have happened? No.
Somehow people are concluding that the game would run better if everything was crammed onto the cpu. It didn't and it doesn't. Cramming the graphics onto the cpu was an attempt to get more marketshare, which did not work. That is not smart, regardless of what might have happened with cpus.
The end result is that soe designed a graphically intensive game and intentionally coded the game to not take advantage of the one resource specifically designed to increase performance of graphically intense games. To me that is a clear display of a choice that is pants on head retarded.
"as well as the dedicated legions of fans who made the EverQuest franchise timeless. I hope we'll see you there."
I'm not holding my breath, but if you want to see me there, your gonna have to stop copying WoW for one.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
I don't think they made the right call at all. The is a very good reason PCs were designed to use video cards and designing a game to ignore that resource is rather stupid. Every other game on the market was going to benefit from CPU & GPU and I fail to see how ignoring that can be called the right decision.
Early on the EQ2 devs said they used the processor to run the graphics so that people with low end video cards could play the game on low settings. That is sort of a cheap shortcut to get the low end market.
Instead of designing a graphic mode to compensate people with low end video cards soe ignored the basic designs of PCs and hedged the games performance on future technology.
Did this design choice make the game run well at release? No.
Did this design choice make the game run well long term? No.
I just don't see anything that makes this look like a good decision. Honestly it looks rather stupid to bet the health of an mmo on future technology resolving current issues.
Its very easy to sit back years on and say yeah they got it wrong of course they did..but back then the graphics we're seeing today where nothing but a pipe dream.
I started the game at around LU 11 and given i was coming from SWG the game was a breath of fresh air on my (moderate pc at the time) it ran ok,nothing spectacular but it did the job SOE made many no countless mistakes with EQ2 the countless changes in the very core game itself being far more damaging than wether or not it can run on an old pc or not,thats been the games downfall for my money at least.
But i'll say it again when they sat around the table back in 2000ish and talked about how to base the game they made the right call go with the CPU not the GPU becuase at the time the cards just werent there to support its over ambitious graphics but i suppose given the gigahertz wars they thought they could get away with throwing it all at the CPU.
The devs are not oracles..they cant see into the future..niether can i and i'm damn sure you cant either becuase if we could i'd be sitting on an island somewhere after winning millions on the lottery and Daffodil you'd be my neighbour
Like i say they got it wrong and you're right the game should in no way shape or form have been released when they did,it needed another year dev time simply they got it wrong (that word again) but lets be fair getting it wrong is what SOE does best
I suspect you are right about EQnext being console based. Sony is in the middle of a furious console war that they are losing. Part of that has to due with the ps3 not really having a killed game to draw players in.
Seeing the soe is part of sce now, I doubt they care as much about the pc market as they do supporting the ps3 market. Soe has been invovled in the playstation for a while now so I bet they have a new directive and the pc market is a secondary concern. Perhaps that is why they are trying to revive the planetside title, because in theory it would make a great console game and really appeal to console gamers.
I would put good money on the next game being PS3 lead tbh it makes no sense whatsoever for it not to be really..but then again its sony we're talking about.
I'm not looking back with 20/20 hindsight. I was there on day 1 of eq2 release and it was obvious the game had issues, so I'm speaking from experience. I may not have understood the reasons at the time, but I saw the effects. Like you said it sort of did the job, but nothing that delivered a good experience.
I doubt soe sat around a table in 2000 and speculated that future cpus would somehow be big enough to handle all of the games processing needs, but didn't recongnize future (and current) graphics cards would follow the same lines. I don't think they needed to be oracles, but it doesn't take rocket science to understand that designing cutting edge graphics and targeting the game at players with low end systems is unrealistic.
It would be like designing a game run off a maximum of 256mb of ram so that really low systems could play the game with huge harddrive swapfiles, with the hope of hard drives getting faster in the future to resolve the issue.
If the solution to cutting edge graphics was to run everything on the cpu, then that is what every other gaming company would have been doing. We would all be running crysis like graphics on $300 emachines, but obviously graphic cards play a major role in any game that wants high end graphics and that is exactly what eq2 was doing.
It was an all around stupid choice by soe.
I do think you are right that another year of development time would have created a much better eq2 game in almost every respect and we would be in a bit different of a market right now.
I'm already holding a wilting Vanguard in my hand (like a limp dork) going.. you have it right here, but you don't wanna put a penny into it..
Forget what you know about mmo's
Underneath it all is the same mechanics.
Sony online makes some great mmo's
Only they are delusioned by there own percieved greatness..
Noone can tell them what to do, no mater how hard they try
You are left paying for a What could have been, instead of a "what is"
Whatever it is will most likely be rushed, incomplete, and have three major expansions in it's first year.
I would expect to see a big selection of races, classes, and jobs. Being able to customize your character is paramount to any good MMO. A monthly subscription is nice because it keeps kids out and eliminates problems that cash shops create. PVP should definately be an option, as long as the opponent can accept or decline the duel. An auction house is a must and drop rate needs to be a little higher than EQ2. Upon death you should not lose xp like in other games i've played. Oh and one more big thing..........Only a pet class should have a pet! EQ2 did a nice job making sure classes were balanced and that only the pet classes were able to summon pets.
The game engine was built on a single core cpu from Intel which was a protoype,we all know how fast thing's changed with the cpu and gpu's we use now but still soe stuck with a prototype cpu for Everquest II so it will always run like crap for the average computer.
Its been a while since SOE has provided any additional information. I hope they aren't going to wait till next Fan Fair to give people an update.
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Yeah would be good if SOE gave us more info. I know the general opinion is console based for Everquest Next but I'm still hoping we will have a new Eq3 type world for the pc. Been a few years out and I'm kinda wanting to get back into the EQ way of things again but In a fresh new world.
o.O
EQ 'Next' ? Really, no kidding? Wew.
I'm a loyal long term EQ2 player now with 4 years account in good standing or so with interruption for 1,5 years once and the idea to have EQ3 at the same time concerns me as makes me curious.
Concern that this means less player for EQ2 and thus less development on the game plus EQ3 will most likely need more hardware, more bandwith in terms of hosting and thus be more expensive to run than EQ2 while EQ1 and EQ2 are still run. Servermerges for EQ2 than most likely. And my PC isn't even running EQ2 on highest settings yet as it eats so much performance than in groups or some places.
Curiosity for maybe some things to happen I miss in EQ2: the diplomacy system of Vanguard, seamless world (that would be SO awesome for EQ2 which is so rich in details and than ... you hit the loading screen), a more strategical/player skill based crafting system as in Vanguard. Basically I would love to see a merge of Vanguards systems and sometimes awesome creative quest lines with EQ2 quest amount, customization options and density of the world in terms of mobs, npc, dungeons and the EQ2 guild halls combined with the ultra-flexibility of the UO housing system and the EQ2 amount of housing items - all that in a seamless world which is as casual friendly as EQ2 has become while keeping the Raid content of Vanguard for the hardcore player.
And I have strong doubts anyone could deliver this. But man would I be happy!!!
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
This www.youtube.com/watch
Any new Everquest game better be able to compete at this level in respect of graphics, animation, interactivity, environmental effects, scale and more. I had long hoped SOE would have worked hard on upping the ante with EQ2 but instead they just kept pumping out expansion after expansion after expansion with little in the way of innovation or advancement of the game or genre.
Wow - so much negativity when this is great news ... A new EQ game? Count me in ... sure, SOE could mess it up, but - they could also hit a home run ... Also - I doubt this game would keep the title EQ: Next ... seems lame and uncreative ...
Instead of moaning and whining about EQ2, for fun, I'm going to put some of the elements/ideas from EQ1 & 2 I'd like to see incorporated ... Feel free to add/remove elements you'd like to see removed.
1. Lore - Keep the EQ lore intact ...Races, dieties, rivalries, etc ... keep that "EQ" feel to it, don't change too much here ...
2. Death Penalty - GONE ... Yes - it adds challenge, but -- in todays MMO world, that just won't hold up, it will be so frustrating and scare off a newbie to that kind of a game ...
3. First Person view - give them the option to play 3rd person, but -- First Person seems to put the player in the body of thier character and adds more diversion, atleast IMO ...make this the default !
4. Regarding PvP - Longer fights ... I remember fights on Tallon Zek lasting 10 minutes with kiting, counter attacks, hiding, shadow steps, etc .. they seemed very intricate and about skill/gameplan ... in EQ2 along with most PvP games nowadays, nukes and tihngs do so much damage your foe is dead in 20 seconds, tops ..
5. Danger - what I maen by this is give more obstacles for people to overcome when exping ... KEEP trains ... how about random attacks by mobs? A herd of Mammoths in Everfrost go berzerk and attack your group ... an undead army attacks Qeynos ... keep and add more challenges to the game ... mobs that will call for help is also fun ...
6. PvP - it must be there ... I'd like to see the PvP follow the lore, for the most part ... much like the team PvP servers, where races are on teams ... this way, when you are PvP'ing you're doing it for your "team" or your "race" and it feels like you accomplish something and are following lore ... also -- add achievements/stat boosts for PvP and titles ... It gives the person more to strive for end-game ...this would be on a seperate server, I'd have a few PvE only servers, but -- put a bit more focus on the PvP content ...
7. Raids - Eh ... I'd say keep a few raids here and there for the extreme gamers, but - don't make it a necessity to raid to get the best items ... I don't mind grinding, but - come on, raiding is tedious to me and atleast on the grind I'm exploring Norrath ...
8. Exp - don't make it Aion hard to level, but - lets make it feel like we've accompished something by achieving max level ...
9. Seemless world - that was my #1 love with EverQuest was exploring ..> I like the idea of getting rid of maps except the maps in-game where you have to purchase or view them in the bigger cities ... it makes you have to go out and explore as opposed to just pressing "M" and following the directions ... the maps in-game would be pretty generic and still force you to EXPLORE ... The worlds cannot be linear, must be seemless, wide-open lands ...
Any other additions/subtractions you'd like to see? I don't see how if they stick to some of the basics while making some small adjustments this couldn't be a great game ... I dn't care if it's on PC or XBOX360/PS3 ... a MMO can be played anywhere ...