Most of the ideas I have are pretty much taken from EQ1, as a lot of other people's are. But I think that EQ did a lot of things right to make an "immersive" MMO where you felt like you were in a dangerous world.
- Make the world DANGEROUS! MMO's nowadays have me feeling like I could run through a zone bashing 4 mobs at once that are 2 lvls higher than me. In EQ it was scary to go somewhere by yourself unless you were pretty high lvl or had SOW.
- A word on Maps; I remember have a folder of printed out maps when I played EQ1, which was incredibly frustrating. But it was very satisfying to find your way through a new zone and then slowly learn the zone just by running through it. Maybe have ingame maps but with NO "you are here" arrows. That way I would have to say "hmmm, I think I'm on this road so I should keep going straight." or "Did I pass the lake on my right yet?"
- Penalties for Dying. Dying and knowing youre actually gonna lose exp/time/a camp makes fighting A LOT more fun and interesting. In other MMO's I didnt have any sense of danger so when I died I just shrugged and tried again. Dying in an MMO should mean something. It should frustrate, it should hinder you for some reason. Not just turn into a ghost or respawn back in a safe area with all your gear.
- Class separation! I want a warrior (or whatever tank class) to be good at taking hits, holding aggro, and keeping themselves between some big bad monster and that little squishy guy. THAT'S IT. I dont wanna see a tank healing itself/doing crazy dps/soloing any mob out there. Same with other classes! Healers should rock the house and healing and buffs and being holy....
- Talent trees. I dont wanna see a healing class with a tree where they can specialize in damage dealing instead of healing.....be a offensive caster if that's what you want.
- Skill involved in gameplay! OMG right?! EQ might not have had AA's (in the beginning) or talent trees or awesome gear (again, in the beginning) But MAN you knew who the talented people were on the server and who the crappy peeps were.
- Gear. Don't give us armor with str and agi and dex on it at lvl 2 pleeeeaaaase. Make me FEEL like I'm a crappy lvl 2! I should NOT have some magical sword of fire or robe of amazing stats when Ive done 3 quests in my whole toon's life. Make getting the first piece of gear with stats actually rewarding. Make it a serious Milestone. As some other people have said; gear should have personal meaning. If you get asked where you got an item, you should remember. In other MMO's I couldnt name you a single piece of armor. In EQ you KNEW what you had. Probably because there wasnt a million different breastplates for lvl 20's.
- Grouping. Please bring back grouping! I dont just mean when someone needs a big mob down or a tough quest completed. I mean to progress you need to ATLEAST pair up with another adventurer. Don't make this a single player MMO. I WANT to need other people. You should feel like the world is dangerous and someone needs to be there to have your back. Walking into a dungeon (my level) by myself and clearing most of it alone might satisfy the intant gratification crowd but where is the adventure in that? And CAMPS!!!!! PLEASE!!!!
- Travel. To me, travel is VERY important. Please dont give us a way to get to another continent in under 2 minutes. I don't want to be able to warp to my group instantly anytime I want. I want to feel like I'm actually traveling through a world instead of skipping across it like a stone. Give the players that sense of adventure and accomplishment when they just ran through some wicked crazy zones to get to a zone where they plan on hunting.
- Make it a wide open world. EQ1 did this so well with their wide open zones. Make me wander around. I dont like going into a zone where everything is condensed and every part is filled with some mob or building or something. Nektulos Forest was creepy. At night you couldnt see crap. I wanna see stuff like that.
- Zones for certain levels. Please give us more than 1 zone for lvl 10 -20 and so on. I want choices of where to go. I dont wanna feel forced into certain areas. I like being able to wander with a couple buddies and try out different hunting grounds.
- DANGER DANGER DANGER. I know I said this already, but if you watched the videos of the EQN panels the first guy in the audience said it the best. EQ1's original slogan was "YOU'RE IN OUR WORLD NOW!" I want that to be true again! Give us back the griffon in EC! Put a couple wandering groups of bandits or orcs in a zone just to go around causing mayhem! Make me have to shout for a high lvl to come break a camp for me and my buddies! TRAINS!!! I dont wanna attack a mob and be able to think "well if it starts winning, i'll just run 50ft and it will turn around and forget about me." Ever fell off the boat in OOT? Yeah give me that stuff.
- I don't wanna see gnomes being warriors.
- Non-instanced raids. Race in VT anyone?
- I want to adventure, not grind out quests because i feel like need to high lvl to enjoy myself.
- Keep people coming back to Capitals. Don't replace them with Guild Halls, PoK, or anything else. It's so sad to see empty Capitals.
- Named mobs!
- Crazy hard zones that rewarded you for coming in! (Guk, Sebilis, KC!!)
- Make it us vs the world, not "F you, I'm soloing."
- Give us time to chat. Killing things is fun but chilling at a camp, pulling mobs and chatting is such a great way to relax.
- I want to feel like I actually did something when I lvl. I dont wanna feel like I'm wasting time racing to the higher lvls. I wanna say "Yeah, I'm lvl 34 and I earned that!"
- Starting stats that matter. (atleast during the low lvls)
- Epic quests are aweeesoooommeee!!! Give us those! And make the EPIC!!
- I wanna see some one's gear and say "wooooaaa he/she must be a bamf."
- Boats! (for continent to continent) Yeah, some people dont like em but they add immersion!
Alright, that's all for now. And feel free to reply to my ideas. Theyre all my opinion and I know people have different ones!!
The problem with a hardcore game is that it will not get the subscription numbers SOE want/need, that's why they make more and more casual targeted games. BTW sounds like Mortal Online is a game for you.
I want a game where group is strongly encouraged and rewarded, perhaps even unfairly so. Sure, put some content in that people can solo when time challenged, but make the best stuff only for those who group.
Also,grouping doesn't mean never ending raiding, give us back the day of good camp grinding where people can easily just jump in and out of so that pugging with strangers becomes rewarding and fun again.
^^^ That's all I'd want. I might also add some dark, dangerous and large shared dungeons. EQ had some of the most fascinating and fun dungeons up through Kunark that I've ever seen - partly because they were extremely dangerous to explore alone even after out-leveling them and partly because they were simply maze-like and rife with hidden secrets. I don't mind instancing used to some extent, such as raiding or choice encounters, but not everywhere. I want an area where people can congregate to form groups that's not an LFG channel.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
Just to chip in my 2 cents worth - I want an EQ that is back to being exciting and dangerous. I want to see penalities for messing up, and I dont mean debuffs. I want to die in a dungeon, and have to get my mates to log in in order to help me get back there to retrieve all my stuff!
I want that sense of adventure thats missing from MMOs these days, that feeling of immersion, where your so into a quest or dungeon that you forget what time it is, whilst your heart is racing.
And I want it to be complex and adult. I want it to be hard to master - where I have to think about what stuff im wearing and what options I have. I want to feel I have earned my gear, and I want to feel proud of the mount I have as its taken me months to complete the exciting quest to gain it.
I want PVP that doesnt rely on class, but relies on the players skill. A pvp that I can learn and get better at, that I know when I have been ganked its down to me just not being good enough - not because I play a healer and he's a ranger! And I want that fear of losing that 10 plat I stupidly forgot to bank before going out.
And I dont want "zones". I want a real world, where the boundaries are the deep ocean, not a zone line where people can run to. And I want guards who will know I am a dirty murderer and chase me out of town until I have done good deeds to get back in their good books!
I know its a lot to ask for - but its nothing that we didnt do 10 years ago.
Edit - One thing I really dont want, but I know is impossible - is websites full of all the quest solutions. I want the quests to have real interesting clues as to where to go and what to do, ones that I can work out with my knowledge of the land so far. Not, as in EQ2, "Find bob in Nek". Things that get people thinking, maybe even quests where you have to work with others - where maybe you have to find a player who has completed quest X in order to help you complete quest Y.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Nonsense, look at EVE. EVE is about as hardcore a game as it gets, yet folks flock to it.
EQNext need only be polished and run well on mediocre computer systems in order to gain the crowd. And if it's a little hardcore, that's a plus, because many WOW players are bored and feeling unchallenged.
Just to quickly point out, Eve is not a conventional MMORPG that the old school players are used to. Meaning you put Eve side by side with EQ, AC1, or DAOC, you know Eve doesn't play anything like those old school games. So when using Eve as an example, you are actually cheating in a way. Now if you were to use Darkfall as an example, that's more like it. But unfortunately Darkfall does not have that "folks flock to it" part, so I guess that's why you didn't use that
Anyways, Eve is a success story, yes. But it doesn't play like a conventional MMORPG, it's nothing compared to what we call "old school" MMO. While it can be hardcore, many old school players are not going to flock to Eve just because it is hardcore. It's a different style of game that caters to a different audience.
Now find us some hardcore MMO's today, besides Eve, that people actually flock to. You won't find any. You could say EQ1, because it has a decent population still. But even EQ1 is by no means "hardcore" these days. The poster you responded to has a point. SOE isn't going to create anything that hinders their subscription numbers. SOE knows their money and you can bet if EQ Next is going to be a cross between EQ1 and WoW, that it'll be 70% WoW, 30% EQ1.
There are ways to add danger to the world without making the game tedious or hardcore to a point that drives people away. It'll be a tricky task, because there are games that have tried to go one up on WoW and claim to be a tad more hardcore than WoW , but they've sorta failed pretty hard. Warhammer Online is the one I'm thinking of, a game that went a tad hardcore, but never successfully attracted either the WoW audience or the more hardcore audience (DAOC folks).
No in game mapping system would be epic again. Also, make cities a place were people have to go to do things again. Buy spells, trade, play mini games, etc.
To start, I'd like to say that EQ was (and has always been) the most fun I have ever had playing a MMORPG. So much so, I still feel nostalgic about it even to this day. The process of leveling up was long and grueling (especially going from 59 to 60) but it was always done with good company. Another poster said it best by bringing up the point about "killing things is fun but socializing over mob pulls was even better". In fact, I'd even say that that is twice as good since we're getting experience AND socializing. That's something that just doesn't happen much anymore with the newer games, where the emphasis to make soloing rewarding and "having fun by killing mobs" has really killed the social aspects of a MMORPG. Having raided in WoW, sometimes I wondered do I really sincerely know (or care) for any of these people that I am raiding with? The answer is foggy but I know for sure that I absolutely did know AND care for my guildies while I was playing EQ.
Another thing that I loved about EQ was the immersive atmostphere. For example, West Commonlands is harmless enough ... until you get marauded by orc patrols or pummeled by the hill giant. It was always fun to always be on your toes in a newbie zone because EQ had a way of putting something in there that'd destroy you if you even so much as look at it the wrong way. It was also a blast to have to run through zones that you have no business being in to get to the next hunting ground. Simply put, being in a dangerous world like EQ was fun like that. Who can forget the first time they saw a hill giant charging uphill in Kunark or crossing the dragon bone bridge in Velious? The world was HUGE and while not all of it had any sort of significance to the overall story of the world, it was fun to simply travel and see the sights, not knowing what you might run into or who you might stumble upon. Speaking of which, how about factions? The fact that you allied with one faction (say, giants in velious) meant that you're forever scorned by other opposing factions and will be attacked on sight. You better watch where you're going because you wouldn't want to stumble into a hostile area!
Perhaps the most memorable thing about EQ was the raids and all that it entailed. They truly felt epic because of the huge environments and the difficulty of the bosses. I don't like how recent MMORPGs decided to scale down the size of their raids where you are limited to a maximum party size and can make three or four pulls and you're staring at the next boss. Bosses in EQ were mean (and in some cases, huge) and it was always a rush to try to pull them properly and survive the encounter. BUT before you even get them you had to crawl through the dungeon and fight what felt like the entire zone! Necropolis and Zelendicar, anyone? How about the Temple of Veeshan? It was great to crawl through these huge dungeons with all of your guildies.
Granted, I am not in support of how EQ bosses ended up being bland and the usual "tactical adjustment" is to simply add another body into the mix or raids taking hours (or weeks) to do ... and running the risk of being hijacked because there weren't any instances. I know games now try to get rid of the in-between boss pulls by having mini-challenge groups but it's not nearly as immersive whenever you can make three pulls and kill a boss. To that, I'd say that raids in EQ should have a long(er) crawl through a dungeon to get to the boss. The crawl would be tactically challenging and objectives based. Have people split up to accomplish objectives.
For example, I am imagining a remake of the beginning of the Temple of Veeshan raid where the raid group will immediately be engaged by waves upon waves of drakes and wurms upon zone in. The mob waves will start off small and pitiful but will grow stronger and more often as time tick by, eventually overwhelming the group and will not despawn until the following week when the zone resets or you accomplish the object to stop them. The objective in this case would be that the raid group needs send some people to seal the doors on the entry points that the defenders are pouring out from, and the doors are controlled in a secret room. Obviously, it is guarded and sitting in a location that can only be reached via a secret entrance (that you may have learned about from the giants who had sent you to wipe out the dragons for them ... which would be a quest line that you may get after earning their trust). However, you cannot simply send all of your raid group in after the secret control room because the defenders need to be kept at bay (or else they'll simply amass at the entrance and get out of control, making access to the door you ultimately need to get through impossible).
Raid encounters like this can go a long way to making trash pulls interesting and engaging, while keeping immersion levels high. However, eventually this can get boring too so these mobs will actually have a slim (but existent) chance to drop good items. Remember primal velium weapons? Those dropped off of trash in Sleeper's Tomb ... so too should the trash pulls in raids.
However, to combat the whole notion that "EQ raid mobs were boring because to beat them you simply add more people", I think that raids should be designed from a minimum standard and then scale up. What I mean is that raids should not have a cap on how many people you can bring. For example, a raid may be designed to be handled by a balanced group of 10 players but you can bring as many people as you want. However, if you bring more than 10, the game will scale the difficulty of the mobs with each additional player. So what this will do is it will allow raiding parties to bring as many people as they want but it's up to the raiding party to bring a balanced group (because it'll do you no good to bring 70 DPS people to a raid balanced for 10 players if you only have 2 healers to try to heal everybody and the mobs are 70x times as difficult to kill).
In the end, I think EQ Next is an AWESOME idea and I am very much looking forward to seeing more news about it!
EverQuest 1 let virtually all races be warriors, excluding high elves and erudites. I don't see why that should change, even if there are race/class restrictions. Ogre monk? Probably not. Gnome warrior. YES. It's traditional. What race of people, big or small, wouldn't take up arms to defend themselves? The existence of warriors in virtually every race makes sense... And the two who don't have warriors have paladins. Erudites have shadow knights as well.
Actually, I really liked the unlimited class/race combinations of EQ2. It's like real life-- anyone can TRY anything, and sometimes, against all odds, you don't suck as much as you should. What can I say? I really enjoyed my troll warlock.
Also, most raids in EQ1 have been instanced for quite a while, and they only allow a certain number of people in (36, 48, 54, whatever), so it has not been true for a long time that you can just keep throwing more and more people at a boss. I doubt open raiding across the board will be coming back, even if there are a few open zone boss fights.
Main thing I want in EQ Next. The Bard, with the possibility to be more of jack of all trade. Being able to "write his own song" simillar to Vanguard song but even more better. As well as Selo, charm, mez and bah, everything EQ1 and vanguard bard wee able to do EQ2 bard were lacking in pretty much everything.
Secondary would be Necromancer... I want the necromancer to be a real strong force. bringing legion of undead with him as he corrupt the soul and steal the life force of a poor one.The possibility to have more then 1 pet following you, with a simillar mix of DaoC bone dancer or AoC necro. having a simillar of point mechanic so that you can summon weaker pet or stronger pet and such.
Beastlord, simillar to the necro, I'd liek the possibility to have more the one pet. Surviving ability , drug, poison, trap and metamorphose into animalgaining some property from the animal he changed into.
That's pretty much for a quick class write up lol. For what should really be in game, immersion, gameplay, freedom and lore and story. I fear SOE has no clue on how to do that which is why I have low hope for EQN but amybe they'll make it, let hope so.
A lot of the exitement in EQ1 for me was the fact that death could be charging around the corner at any second and if you saw a train go by you better change your plans quickly to avoid the smackdown you know was comming back down the hall.
I don't want to be decked out in uber armor and weapons after 2 hours of play.
I want classes to actually have some useful role in a group, so you have to know how to play your class.
I want you to have to group, or make soloing painfully slow, with no exceptions for certain classes.
Death should hurt
No auction hall
Significant money sinks to avoid mudflation
NO MORE QUEST GIVERS WITH "!" ON THEIR HEAD AND CLEARLY MARKED ON A MINI-MAP
Stick with "traditional" fantasy MOB's. I don't want to see space aliens all of a sudden.
Basically, give me a sandbox, some lore I have to work to discover, some quests I have to work to discover. Don't hold my hand, make combat difficult, and death painful.
Classic EQ was one of a kind. It feels good a lot of the things mentioned are the same things I've thought about. Looking over the list, I had some thoughts about all the "features" in EQ that have not been around so much. Keep in mind a lot of these things happened due to technical and design limitations(which is probably why the word "frustration" comes up a lot).
Green text is what I'd enjoy. Red text is what I don't agree with.
Maps - If you wanted to know your way around without dying, it would be EQAtlas, a printer, and Sense Heading(and sometimes it didn't help). It's nice to have a map that shows player position in the current generation games, but it's not a required feature by any means. I like the idea of an in-game map with no player position. This will be frustrating, of course, but could it calm the rush to endgame?
Dying Penalty - Naked corpse runs and experience loss. Again, frustrating (especially at higher levels), but it keeps you on your toes. Many would argue this is the wrong way to design a game(punishing a person for playing poorly vs. rewarding for playing well).
Class separation / Talent Trees - I agree with this, but not to the extent I understand described by Liss. Of course a warrior should not be able to heal, a priest should not be able to take hits, etc, but it would make sense for some classes to have more than one role(within reason, of course). What about when a warrior uses a sword and shield to take damage, but switches to dual wield or a two-hander when he wants to hurt something?
Gear - I remember when I was a level 20 dwarf warrior. I had my Dwarven Ringmail Tunic with some special stats, but that was soon replaced by the higher AC rating of a set of small bronze armor. No strength, agility, dexterity. Just an armor class rating. I was proud of it. It didn't matter there were no special stats on it, it was good armor for where I was in the game. Armor with stats was pretty rare when the game first came out(of course, websites would soon share the information and word would get out), but it wasn't strange or humiliating to have the same piece of armor for 10 or more levels. Compare this to any current generation MMO, where the first quest reward gives you your favorite stat boost. What would the effect on the game be if armor with stats was rare and didn't always drop from a named creature? Not to mention the lack of level requirements kept players going back to content from an older expansion to get armor that was still worth something. (Of course, I wasn't bothered by twinks as much as some.)
Travel - I was going to mention this with the maps, but my opinion is a little different. This is a tough one for me. I like the long travel time and exploring, but after the 10th time, it will be super frustrating. Time sinks are bad if you aren't getting anything done, and a sense of adventure and accomplishment will only last so long. Maybe if there is some sort of advancement you get for running through the same area over and over again? Maybe if druids and wizards get some low-level teleport spells earlier? Maybe runspeed buffs are more common or make you run faster than 30% to 50%? Maybe you won't need to run back and forth often? There are a lot of ways to screw this up, a lot of ways to make it work, and a lot of ways to break other things in the process.
Zone levels - This is a strange one. Many games have zones that only last a few levels. Newbie zone, from levels 1-10, next from 10-20, etc. Zones in classic EQ could be labeled from 1-20, or 5-30 with no issues. It was nice having a high level wander by and buff you or save your life in a tough fight. As much as it helped the community, though, I wonder how much damage it did to other zones that were farther out and harder to get to. Probably a lot of zones that didn't get a lot of attention due to this.
Any class / any race - I like seeing class/race restrictions. It was cool that only humans and iksar could be monks.
Instancing - This is another tough one. I'd figure it depends on how the world is designed to deal with overpopulation and underpopulation, but I can't pretend to know much. Is the frustration of getting a super rare named creature stolen worth the benefits? There are times for instancing and there are times it becomes excessive. I'm playing this one safe with no opinion.
City/capital population - I think it's important to keep cities populated by players, and this one seems easy enough. Keep important services only available in capital cities. Banks, tradeskills, certain merchants, class trainers, auction/bazaar system, etc.
Starting stats - I agree with this. Certain races/class combinations should have advantages. Maybe instead of a single +5, +10, +15 strength bonus, give a +5%, +10%, +15% bonus? Probably not so extreme, but it will make it matter a little more in the higher levels. Also, don't forget utility-racials, like night vision and such.
Zones - I like to think it's super possible to have the distinct zones with seamless zone lines. Nothing comes to mind that would make somebody design it any other way.
Binding / teleporting / class specific utilities - Going to a caster to get bind, going to a wizard or druid for a teleport, going to a shaman or druid or ranger for SoW, bard for an escort, etc. All this, I think, can help build community. (As long as there is /anon. )
Trains / aggro range - Many people have mentioned this. I enjoyed having to run all the way to the zone boundaries to escape the attention of a creature(or several). I can only think it was a design limitation that made this, but I'd like to see it make a comeback. If a creature is going to stop chasing you, make sure it's reasonable. A zombie won't just stop chasing you because you ran too far. A guard, however, might need to stay at his post to keep watch, and can't be bothered to chase you quite as far. There's some flexibility here. Also training other players can be satisfying, as mean as it is.
Auction house / bazaar - I remember going to the tunnel to sell any cool items I had or to see what others were selling. My first magic items probably came from trades. This also allowed you to haggle with the seller or buyer. An automated system sure is convenient, though. They both have their benefits, but in the end I think most people would prefer at least some form (even if limited) of an automated bazaar/broker/auction system.
Bag space / weight - Personally, I think having bag space is an outdated system. I thought it was kind of clever, though, how weight was used as a gameplay element(making you run slower when you were carrying heavier loot or a pant-load of copper coins, or the mechanics for the monk class).
Polish / System requirements - Not much to say here. I, personally, am okay with getting new hardware for a game, but I know a lot of people are not and I'm all right with playing a game that is made with lower hardware requirements. As far as polish, any designer will try their hardest for this, so I don't need to argue for it to happen.
Hotbars - Something I haven't seen mentioned at all, so I might be the only one in this. Even though I'm sure it was a limitation at the time, I like the limitation of only 8 spell slots. Current generation games all have unlimited hotbars to fill up the screen and have every ability handy. I remember having to sit and swap spells when I wanted to buff and swap back when I was going back to combat. I remember having to think ahead about what spells I needed, etc. Of course, I don't mean to apply this only to casters. The same limitation could be applied to every class. Not sure how well it would work out, but I've seen the other way and it's kind of boring, now.
Camera - I'd also like to mention the 1st person camera vs 3rd person camera argument. All the games I've played recently, zooming into 1st person view on the camera really makes the game a lot more fun. Some might argue it really isn't that big a deal, but having to keep watching your back is a very fun way to stay on your toes. I know that's unreasonable for a lot of people. However, how would a limited 3rd person camera be received? You can zoom out, but not too far. I'm not trying to beg or reason with anybody, just tossing a "what if?"
Time to mention features from some other games:
Class distinction - Of course, this was included in EQ in a way (casters and hybrids had mana, melee can tank, monks had kicks and weight restrictions, bards were bards), but other games have done a good job on this, too. Many WoW classes have their own ability resource (mana, soulstones, rage, energy). As short a time I spent playing the game, Vanguard did a great job on this, as well.
Achievements - Many games have achievements players can go after for fun. I like the achievement/lore book in WAR(probably showed up somewhere else, but that was the first place I saw it organized in such a way). Original EQ granted a surname at level 20 and a new class title every other level past 50, EQ2 gave each class a fluff spell to wear at level 50.
Crafting - I'm not hoping for much, here. My favorite crafting system is easily the original SWG system, but that won't happen with this type of game. It'd be nice, though.
Character appearance - EQ2 has appearance slots(an alternate armor slot that you could wear for visual display only) and there is a pretty large voice for it to get added into WoW. Original EQ had armor dye. Both features (appearance slots and armor dye) were something I was pretty thrilled about and I used them as soon as I could, but I would like to see a game go some time without requiring that kind of customization. Maybe see how the designers do with creating armor visuals and see how it goes together?
Bag space - Mentioned earlier, I recall SWG did not have limited bag space, and it was pretty handy and didn't feel out-of-character at all.
Actually, I really liked the unlimited class/race combinations of EQ2. It's like real life-- anyone can TRY anything, and sometimes, against all odds, you don't suck as much as you should. What can I say? I really enjoyed my troll warlock.
Actually that's not like real life, not at all. For starters, all humans are the same species, regardless of skin color. Species in a fantasy game are not subject to that same rule at all. Saying a troll has as much chance to cast complex spells as an elf would be like saying a dog has much chance to drive a car as a human, or that a snail has as much chance to beat a cheetah in a race.
But even if we were to ignore that fact, what EQ2 allowed might be like an idealized form of real life, where even the poorest boy can eventually grow up to become a corporate billionaire, but it doesn't reflect the actual real world where those situations never happen.
Where you're born, what your circumstances are when you grow up, and ultimately the culture that you grow up in, defines you and what you can do with your life. The poor, although free to attend the biggest colleges, rarely, if ever, earn the money necessary to do so. That means if your father was a plumber, chances are you'll be a plumber, rather than a nuclear scientist, simply because that's the environment you grew up in. If you grow up in an area ripe with crime, chances are much higher you too will become a criminal. You won't have access to nuclear physics books, televisions with the Discovery Channel to interest you in nuclear physics, or friends with an interest in pursuing science, so you'll never have that opportunity, much like a Troll would simply never have the opportunity to study at some grand university in a fictional world.
Chalk it up to a hundred different factors ranging from racism to poverty to cultural stigma - regardless, the most realistic approach is to limit class/skill development based on race simply as a reflection of the environment a character has grown up in.
I didn't even buy EQ2 when it was first released and one of the two main reasons was the freedom for people to make characters of any class and race combination. But in my case, it wasn't even the realism that mattered to me - it was simply the flavor that it adds to the game's own lore. When any character can be any race, then we're basically saying "There's no racism in this world, no real cultural differences between a dark elf or a wood elf, and no difference in poverty between a rich human and a forest troll. In this world, everyone is the same blank slate." Which is a horrible way to begin building a rich tapestry of story and lore.
I want a character that's deeply flawed because it makes it all the more fun to fall into the role and all the more fun to embrace that world's fiction.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
Like I said, even the poor can TRY to get into Harvard, and some do get in and get their education paid for, so it's not like everyone always sucks and fails, even if MOST do. And it's not like the races on Norrath don't mingle. A lot. I thought the odd combinations were fun in EQ2, but I never felt restricted by the class/race combinations in EQ1, because there were so many interesting classes and (at least at first) the races were different from one another in ways that mattered (like starting factions-- being KOS everywhere made being an iksar or a troll interesting and different).
I think they could have done a better job of differentiating the races otherwise in EQ2-- in EQ1, erudites and gnomes could always be clerics, but most people choose NOT to be handicapped right out of the gate by relatively low WIS that you could see right there in character creation, keeping the numbers of those clerics low (though there were a few). If EQ showed the numbers and let people make choices about where to put their points, I don't think you'd see as many weird combinations.
And I will admit that there's something infinitely irritating about a Dark Elf or Iksar paladin. I mean, that does go against the cultural grain, doesn't it? As someone who played dark elf SKs for years and years, I just want to smack all dark elf paladins across the knuckles with a ruler... So, maybe I agree with you. There's some value in having some kind of loyalty to the lore, and having the multitude of racial starting cities was a GOOD thing, as long as there was population to support that.
I will stand by gnome warriors, in any case, since that's EQ tradition from EQ1, and ever race has a right to defend itself, even it that means stabbing someone in the shins with a paring knife. I just don't want to see it go down the road of other games, with too few interesting classes and no interesting twists anywhere.
The highest level characters I ever had in EQ2 were all level 25ish-- a wood elf warden (druid), a half-elf assassin (rogue), and a ratonga inquisitor (cleric)-- and that's from trying the game three different times. It had much bigger problems than unlimited race/class combinations. It was a game I could play for less than a month at a time, no matter how much I wanted to like it., which makes me feel like it would be really easy for SOE to screw this up... And I rather expect EQNext to be just dreadful.
I truly loved the EQ pre-SOL for the immersive, open world with a wealth of content - without invisible walls or feeling like I was on rails. I want the challenge once more, brutal, uncompromising death penalties; zones / dungeons that scared the beejesus out of one (basement in Unrest); and I would like every single piece of EQ, every single attribute point to be earned.
- remove the 'Holy Trinity' (let us decide how to play) - improve mob AI i.e. improved mob patrols, passive aggressive mobs that cower and run to find 'friends', mobs that have a wider range of tactics and ability [bosses / named], mobs that react to their environment and other mobs e.g. I would love to see the Griffon in EC swoop down and pick up a screaming Orcling, yada yada yada - remove camping a spot for a spawn / eq i.e. introduce dynamic spawns, because there was absolutely nothing hard about camping a spawn for days on end - add a sprinkling of instances i.e. Ragefire as a contested spawn was not a bright idea; however, I still would like trains - add a wide range of mounts, but make them hard to achieve i.e. either in terms of plat and/or through quests - increased importance of faction / religion - not just spending days mindlessly killing goblins in WW - add game-lore to quests, npc dialogues / reactions - actions have consequences in terms of choices players make either through quests, interaction with npcs, factions, religion, et al. A bit more flexibility over player alignment i.e. player actions should be a major force in driving alignment - reduced itemization i.e. each expansion pack became more Monty Hall in terms of ramping up item stats, effectively rendering previous EQ - and zones - as 'junk' - please NO cash shops!
Sadly, I don't expect to be playing EverQuest Next because I have low expectations of the game turning out to be anything other than EQ NGE.
*sigh*
Cheers!
"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 really liked the selling in EC but i doubt alot of ppl will like that because it takes away from there farming/grinding/stalking if they have to stand there to sell items. I did also like bazaar because you still had to go see a character that was selling the item so it at least Felt like you were dealing with a person and not just a Search window.
Pre-velious style gearing. Meaning, that gear means very little and there is not very much of it. Can't stand how virtually all MMOs have turned into equipment grinders.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Anything that involves a sandbox feel, and possibly a skill based system, would be nice.
Failing that, large open seamless worlds, interesting and original "classes", truly live feeling AI, especially the wildlife (ie no static spawns for anything except 'humanoid' camps and the like, and a ryzom like AI), etc, etc
Comments
The problem with a hardcore game is that it will not get the subscription numbers SOE want/need, that's why they make more and more casual targeted games. BTW sounds like Mortal Online is a game for you.
^^^ That's all I'd want. I might also add some dark, dangerous and large shared dungeons. EQ had some of the most fascinating and fun dungeons up through Kunark that I've ever seen - partly because they were extremely dangerous to explore alone even after out-leveling them and partly because they were simply maze-like and rife with hidden secrets. I don't mind instancing used to some extent, such as raiding or choice encounters, but not everywhere. I want an area where people can congregate to form groups that's not an LFG channel.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
I want EQ1 redux.
Keep all the mechanics and systems only a new world, story, UI, controls and graphics.
This is pretty much how I feel as well.
I wouldn't mind the same old story and the same zones as long as there is a new UI, controls, and graphics.
Just to chip in my 2 cents worth - I want an EQ that is back to being exciting and dangerous. I want to see penalities for messing up, and I dont mean debuffs. I want to die in a dungeon, and have to get my mates to log in in order to help me get back there to retrieve all my stuff!
I want that sense of adventure thats missing from MMOs these days, that feeling of immersion, where your so into a quest or dungeon that you forget what time it is, whilst your heart is racing.
And I want it to be complex and adult. I want it to be hard to master - where I have to think about what stuff im wearing and what options I have. I want to feel I have earned my gear, and I want to feel proud of the mount I have as its taken me months to complete the exciting quest to gain it.
I want PVP that doesnt rely on class, but relies on the players skill. A pvp that I can learn and get better at, that I know when I have been ganked its down to me just not being good enough - not because I play a healer and he's a ranger! And I want that fear of losing that 10 plat I stupidly forgot to bank before going out.
And I dont want "zones". I want a real world, where the boundaries are the deep ocean, not a zone line where people can run to. And I want guards who will know I am a dirty murderer and chase me out of town until I have done good deeds to get back in their good books!
I know its a lot to ask for - but its nothing that we didnt do 10 years ago.
Edit - One thing I really dont want, but I know is impossible - is websites full of all the quest solutions. I want the quests to have real interesting clues as to where to go and what to do, ones that I can work out with my knowledge of the land so far. Not, as in EQ2, "Find bob in Nek". Things that get people thinking, maybe even quests where you have to work with others - where maybe you have to find a player who has completed quest X in order to help you complete quest Y.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Just to quickly point out, Eve is not a conventional MMORPG that the old school players are used to. Meaning you put Eve side by side with EQ, AC1, or DAOC, you know Eve doesn't play anything like those old school games. So when using Eve as an example, you are actually cheating in a way. Now if you were to use Darkfall as an example, that's more like it. But unfortunately Darkfall does not have that "folks flock to it" part, so I guess that's why you didn't use that
Anyways, Eve is a success story, yes. But it doesn't play like a conventional MMORPG, it's nothing compared to what we call "old school" MMO. While it can be hardcore, many old school players are not going to flock to Eve just because it is hardcore. It's a different style of game that caters to a different audience.
Now find us some hardcore MMO's today, besides Eve, that people actually flock to. You won't find any. You could say EQ1, because it has a decent population still. But even EQ1 is by no means "hardcore" these days. The poster you responded to has a point. SOE isn't going to create anything that hinders their subscription numbers. SOE knows their money and you can bet if EQ Next is going to be a cross between EQ1 and WoW, that it'll be 70% WoW, 30% EQ1.
There are ways to add danger to the world without making the game tedious or hardcore to a point that drives people away. It'll be a tricky task, because there are games that have tried to go one up on WoW and claim to be a tad more hardcore than WoW , but they've sorta failed pretty hard. Warhammer Online is the one I'm thinking of, a game that went a tad hardcore, but never successfully attracted either the WoW audience or the more hardcore audience (DAOC folks).
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
No in game mapping system would be epic again. Also, make cities a place were people have to go to do things again. Buy spells, trade, play mini games, etc.
To start, I'd like to say that EQ was (and has always been) the most fun I have ever had playing a MMORPG. So much so, I still feel nostalgic about it even to this day. The process of leveling up was long and grueling (especially going from 59 to 60) but it was always done with good company. Another poster said it best by bringing up the point about "killing things is fun but socializing over mob pulls was even better". In fact, I'd even say that that is twice as good since we're getting experience AND socializing. That's something that just doesn't happen much anymore with the newer games, where the emphasis to make soloing rewarding and "having fun by killing mobs" has really killed the social aspects of a MMORPG. Having raided in WoW, sometimes I wondered do I really sincerely know (or care) for any of these people that I am raiding with? The answer is foggy but I know for sure that I absolutely did know AND care for my guildies while I was playing EQ.
Another thing that I loved about EQ was the immersive atmostphere. For example, West Commonlands is harmless enough ... until you get marauded by orc patrols or pummeled by the hill giant. It was always fun to always be on your toes in a newbie zone because EQ had a way of putting something in there that'd destroy you if you even so much as look at it the wrong way. It was also a blast to have to run through zones that you have no business being in to get to the next hunting ground. Simply put, being in a dangerous world like EQ was fun like that. Who can forget the first time they saw a hill giant charging uphill in Kunark or crossing the dragon bone bridge in Velious? The world was HUGE and while not all of it had any sort of significance to the overall story of the world, it was fun to simply travel and see the sights, not knowing what you might run into or who you might stumble upon. Speaking of which, how about factions? The fact that you allied with one faction (say, giants in velious) meant that you're forever scorned by other opposing factions and will be attacked on sight. You better watch where you're going because you wouldn't want to stumble into a hostile area!
Perhaps the most memorable thing about EQ was the raids and all that it entailed. They truly felt epic because of the huge environments and the difficulty of the bosses. I don't like how recent MMORPGs decided to scale down the size of their raids where you are limited to a maximum party size and can make three or four pulls and you're staring at the next boss. Bosses in EQ were mean (and in some cases, huge) and it was always a rush to try to pull them properly and survive the encounter. BUT before you even get them you had to crawl through the dungeon and fight what felt like the entire zone! Necropolis and Zelendicar, anyone? How about the Temple of Veeshan? It was great to crawl through these huge dungeons with all of your guildies.
Granted, I am not in support of how EQ bosses ended up being bland and the usual "tactical adjustment" is to simply add another body into the mix or raids taking hours (or weeks) to do ... and running the risk of being hijacked because there weren't any instances. I know games now try to get rid of the in-between boss pulls by having mini-challenge groups but it's not nearly as immersive whenever you can make three pulls and kill a boss. To that, I'd say that raids in EQ should have a long(er) crawl through a dungeon to get to the boss. The crawl would be tactically challenging and objectives based. Have people split up to accomplish objectives.
For example, I am imagining a remake of the beginning of the Temple of Veeshan raid where the raid group will immediately be engaged by waves upon waves of drakes and wurms upon zone in. The mob waves will start off small and pitiful but will grow stronger and more often as time tick by, eventually overwhelming the group and will not despawn until the following week when the zone resets or you accomplish the object to stop them. The objective in this case would be that the raid group needs send some people to seal the doors on the entry points that the defenders are pouring out from, and the doors are controlled in a secret room. Obviously, it is guarded and sitting in a location that can only be reached via a secret entrance (that you may have learned about from the giants who had sent you to wipe out the dragons for them ... which would be a quest line that you may get after earning their trust). However, you cannot simply send all of your raid group in after the secret control room because the defenders need to be kept at bay (or else they'll simply amass at the entrance and get out of control, making access to the door you ultimately need to get through impossible).
Raid encounters like this can go a long way to making trash pulls interesting and engaging, while keeping immersion levels high. However, eventually this can get boring too so these mobs will actually have a slim (but existent) chance to drop good items. Remember primal velium weapons? Those dropped off of trash in Sleeper's Tomb ... so too should the trash pulls in raids.
However, to combat the whole notion that "EQ raid mobs were boring because to beat them you simply add more people", I think that raids should be designed from a minimum standard and then scale up. What I mean is that raids should not have a cap on how many people you can bring. For example, a raid may be designed to be handled by a balanced group of 10 players but you can bring as many people as you want. However, if you bring more than 10, the game will scale the difficulty of the mobs with each additional player. So what this will do is it will allow raiding parties to bring as many people as they want but it's up to the raiding party to bring a balanced group (because it'll do you no good to bring 70 DPS people to a raid balanced for 10 players if you only have 2 healers to try to heal everybody and the mobs are 70x times as difficult to kill).
In the end, I think EQ Next is an AWESOME idea and I am very much looking forward to seeing more news about it!
EverQuest 1 let virtually all races be warriors, excluding high elves and erudites. I don't see why that should change, even if there are race/class restrictions. Ogre monk? Probably not. Gnome warrior. YES. It's traditional.
What race of people, big or small, wouldn't take up arms to defend themselves? The existence of warriors in virtually every race makes sense... And the two who don't have warriors have paladins. Erudites have shadow knights as well.
Actually, I really liked the unlimited class/race combinations of EQ2. It's like real life-- anyone can TRY anything, and sometimes, against all odds, you don't suck as much as you should. What can I say? I really enjoyed my troll warlock.
Also, most raids in EQ1 have been instanced for quite a while, and they only allow a certain number of people in (36, 48, 54, whatever), so it has not been true for a long time that you can just keep throwing more and more people at a boss. I doubt open raiding across the board will be coming back, even if there are a few open zone boss fights.
Main thing I want in EQ Next. The Bard, with the possibility to be more of jack of all trade. Being able to "write his own song" simillar to Vanguard song but even more better. As well as Selo, charm, mez and bah, everything EQ1 and vanguard bard wee able to do
EQ2 bard were lacking in pretty much everything.
Secondary would be Necromancer... I want the necromancer to be a real strong force. bringing legion of undead with him as he corrupt the soul and steal the life force of a poor one.The possibility to have more then 1 pet following you, with a simillar mix of DaoC bone dancer or AoC necro. having a simillar of point mechanic so that you can summon weaker pet or stronger pet and such.
Beastlord, simillar to the necro, I'd liek the possibility to have more the one pet. Surviving ability , drug, poison, trap and metamorphose into animalgaining some property from the animal he changed into.
That's pretty much for a quick class write up lol. For what should really be in game, immersion, gameplay, freedom and lore and story. I fear SOE has no clue on how to do that which is why I have low hope for EQN but amybe they'll make it, let hope so.
I want trains back.
A lot of the exitement in EQ1 for me was the fact that death could be charging around the corner at any second and if you saw a train go by you better change your plans quickly to avoid the smackdown you know was comming back down the hall.
I don't want to be decked out in uber armor and weapons after 2 hours of play.
I want classes to actually have some useful role in a group, so you have to know how to play your class.
I want you to have to group, or make soloing painfully slow, with no exceptions for certain classes.
Death should hurt
No auction hall
Significant money sinks to avoid mudflation
NO MORE QUEST GIVERS WITH "!" ON THEIR HEAD AND CLEARLY MARKED ON A MINI-MAP
Stick with "traditional" fantasy MOB's. I don't want to see space aliens all of a sudden.
Basically, give me a sandbox, some lore I have to work to discover, some quests I have to work to discover. Don't hold my hand, make combat difficult, and death painful.
Classic EQ was one of a kind. It feels good a lot of the things mentioned are the same things I've thought about. Looking over the list, I had some thoughts about all the "features" in EQ that have not been around so much. Keep in mind a lot of these things happened due to technical and design limitations(which is probably why the word "frustration" comes up a lot).
Green text is what I'd enjoy. Red text is what I don't agree with.
Maps - If you wanted to know your way around without dying, it would be EQAtlas, a printer, and Sense Heading(and sometimes it didn't help). It's nice to have a map that shows player position in the current generation games, but it's not a required feature by any means. I like the idea of an in-game map with no player position. This will be frustrating, of course, but could it calm the rush to endgame?
Dying Penalty - Naked corpse runs and experience loss. Again, frustrating (especially at higher levels), but it keeps you on your toes. Many would argue this is the wrong way to design a game(punishing a person for playing poorly vs. rewarding for playing well).
Class separation / Talent Trees - I agree with this, but not to the extent I understand described by Liss. Of course a warrior should not be able to heal, a priest should not be able to take hits, etc, but it would make sense for some classes to have more than one role(within reason, of course). What about when a warrior uses a sword and shield to take damage, but switches to dual wield or a two-hander when he wants to hurt something?
Gear - I remember when I was a level 20 dwarf warrior. I had my Dwarven Ringmail Tunic with some special stats, but that was soon replaced by the higher AC rating of a set of small bronze armor. No strength, agility, dexterity. Just an armor class rating. I was proud of it. It didn't matter there were no special stats on it, it was good armor for where I was in the game. Armor with stats was pretty rare when the game first came out(of course, websites would soon share the information and word would get out), but it wasn't strange or humiliating to have the same piece of armor for 10 or more levels. Compare this to any current generation MMO, where the first quest reward gives you your favorite stat boost. What would the effect on the game be if armor with stats was rare and didn't always drop from a named creature? Not to mention the lack of level requirements kept players going back to content from an older expansion to get armor that was still worth something. (Of course, I wasn't bothered by twinks as much as some.)
Travel - I was going to mention this with the maps, but my opinion is a little different. This is a tough one for me. I like the long travel time and exploring, but after the 10th time, it will be super frustrating. Time sinks are bad if you aren't getting anything done, and a sense of adventure and accomplishment will only last so long. Maybe if there is some sort of advancement you get for running through the same area over and over again? Maybe if druids and wizards get some low-level teleport spells earlier? Maybe runspeed buffs are more common or make you run faster than 30% to 50%? Maybe you won't need to run back and forth often? There are a lot of ways to screw this up, a lot of ways to make it work, and a lot of ways to break other things in the process.
Zone levels - This is a strange one. Many games have zones that only last a few levels. Newbie zone, from levels 1-10, next from 10-20, etc. Zones in classic EQ could be labeled from 1-20, or 5-30 with no issues. It was nice having a high level wander by and buff you or save your life in a tough fight. As much as it helped the community, though, I wonder how much damage it did to other zones that were farther out and harder to get to. Probably a lot of zones that didn't get a lot of attention due to this.
Any class / any race - I like seeing class/race restrictions. It was cool that only humans and iksar could be monks.
Instancing - This is another tough one. I'd figure it depends on how the world is designed to deal with overpopulation and underpopulation, but I can't pretend to know much. Is the frustration of getting a super rare named creature stolen worth the benefits? There are times for instancing and there are times it becomes excessive. I'm playing this one safe with no opinion.
City/capital population - I think it's important to keep cities populated by players, and this one seems easy enough. Keep important services only available in capital cities. Banks, tradeskills, certain merchants, class trainers, auction/bazaar system, etc.
Starting stats - I agree with this. Certain races/class combinations should have advantages. Maybe instead of a single +5, +10, +15 strength bonus, give a +5%, +10%, +15% bonus? Probably not so extreme, but it will make it matter a little more in the higher levels. Also, don't forget utility-racials, like night vision and such.
Zones - I like to think it's super possible to have the distinct zones with seamless zone lines. Nothing comes to mind that would make somebody design it any other way.
Binding / teleporting / class specific utilities - Going to a caster to get bind, going to a wizard or druid for a teleport, going to a shaman or druid or ranger for SoW, bard for an escort, etc. All this, I think, can help build community. (As long as there is /anon.
Trains / aggro range - Many people have mentioned this. I enjoyed having to run all the way to the zone boundaries to escape the attention of a creature(or several). I can only think it was a design limitation that made this, but I'd like to see it make a comeback. If a creature is going to stop chasing you, make sure it's reasonable. A zombie won't just stop chasing you because you ran too far. A guard, however, might need to stay at his post to keep watch, and can't be bothered to chase you quite as far. There's some flexibility here. Also training other players can be satisfying, as mean as it is.
Auction house / bazaar - I remember going to the tunnel to sell any cool items I had or to see what others were selling. My first magic items probably came from trades. This also allowed you to haggle with the seller or buyer. An automated system sure is convenient, though. They both have their benefits, but in the end I think most people would prefer at least some form (even if limited) of an automated bazaar/broker/auction system.
Bag space / weight - Personally, I think having bag space is an outdated system. I thought it was kind of clever, though, how weight was used as a gameplay element(making you run slower when you were carrying heavier loot or a pant-load of copper coins, or the mechanics for the monk class).
Polish / System requirements - Not much to say here. I, personally, am okay with getting new hardware for a game, but I know a lot of people are not and I'm all right with playing a game that is made with lower hardware requirements. As far as polish, any designer will try their hardest for this, so I don't need to argue for it to happen.
Hotbars - Something I haven't seen mentioned at all, so I might be the only one in this. Even though I'm sure it was a limitation at the time, I like the limitation of only 8 spell slots. Current generation games all have unlimited hotbars to fill up the screen and have every ability handy. I remember having to sit and swap spells when I wanted to buff and swap back when I was going back to combat. I remember having to think ahead about what spells I needed, etc. Of course, I don't mean to apply this only to casters. The same limitation could be applied to every class. Not sure how well it would work out, but I've seen the other way and it's kind of boring, now.
Camera - I'd also like to mention the 1st person camera vs 3rd person camera argument. All the games I've played recently, zooming into 1st person view on the camera really makes the game a lot more fun. Some might argue it really isn't that big a deal, but having to keep watching your back is a very fun way to stay on your toes. I know that's unreasonable for a lot of people. However, how would a limited 3rd person camera be received? You can zoom out, but not too far. I'm not trying to beg or reason with anybody, just tossing a "what if?"
Time to mention features from some other games:
Class distinction - Of course, this was included in EQ in a way (casters and hybrids had mana, melee can tank, monks had kicks and weight restrictions, bards were bards), but other games have done a good job on this, too. Many WoW classes have their own ability resource (mana, soulstones, rage, energy). As short a time I spent playing the game, Vanguard did a great job on this, as well.
Achievements - Many games have achievements players can go after for fun. I like the achievement/lore book in WAR(probably showed up somewhere else, but that was the first place I saw it organized in such a way). Original EQ granted a surname at level 20 and a new class title every other level past 50, EQ2 gave each class a fluff spell to wear at level 50.
Crafting - I'm not hoping for much, here. My favorite crafting system is easily the original SWG system, but that won't happen with this type of game. It'd be nice, though.
Character appearance - EQ2 has appearance slots(an alternate armor slot that you could wear for visual display only) and there is a pretty large voice for it to get added into WoW. Original EQ had armor dye. Both features (appearance slots and armor dye) were something I was pretty thrilled about and I used them as soon as I could, but I would like to see a game go some time without requiring that kind of customization. Maybe see how the designers do with creating armor visuals and see how it goes together?
Bag space - Mentioned earlier, I recall SWG did not have limited bag space, and it was pretty handy and didn't feel out-of-character at all.
Actually that's not like real life, not at all. For starters, all humans are the same species, regardless of skin color. Species in a fantasy game are not subject to that same rule at all. Saying a troll has as much chance to cast complex spells as an elf would be like saying a dog has much chance to drive a car as a human, or that a snail has as much chance to beat a cheetah in a race.
But even if we were to ignore that fact, what EQ2 allowed might be like an idealized form of real life, where even the poorest boy can eventually grow up to become a corporate billionaire, but it doesn't reflect the actual real world where those situations never happen.
Where you're born, what your circumstances are when you grow up, and ultimately the culture that you grow up in, defines you and what you can do with your life. The poor, although free to attend the biggest colleges, rarely, if ever, earn the money necessary to do so. That means if your father was a plumber, chances are you'll be a plumber, rather than a nuclear scientist, simply because that's the environment you grew up in. If you grow up in an area ripe with crime, chances are much higher you too will become a criminal. You won't have access to nuclear physics books, televisions with the Discovery Channel to interest you in nuclear physics, or friends with an interest in pursuing science, so you'll never have that opportunity, much like a Troll would simply never have the opportunity to study at some grand university in a fictional world.
Chalk it up to a hundred different factors ranging from racism to poverty to cultural stigma - regardless, the most realistic approach is to limit class/skill development based on race simply as a reflection of the environment a character has grown up in.
I didn't even buy EQ2 when it was first released and one of the two main reasons was the freedom for people to make characters of any class and race combination. But in my case, it wasn't even the realism that mattered to me - it was simply the flavor that it adds to the game's own lore. When any character can be any race, then we're basically saying "There's no racism in this world, no real cultural differences between a dark elf or a wood elf, and no difference in poverty between a rich human and a forest troll. In this world, everyone is the same blank slate." Which is a horrible way to begin building a rich tapestry of story and lore.
I want a character that's deeply flawed because it makes it all the more fun to fall into the role and all the more fun to embrace that world's fiction.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
Like I said, even the poor can TRY to get into Harvard, and some do get in and get their education paid for, so it's not like everyone always sucks and fails, even if MOST do. And it's not like the races on Norrath don't mingle. A lot. I thought the odd combinations were fun in EQ2, but I never felt restricted by the class/race combinations in EQ1, because there were so many interesting classes and (at least at first) the races were different from one another in ways that mattered (like starting factions-- being KOS everywhere made being an iksar or a troll interesting and different).
I think they could have done a better job of differentiating the races otherwise in EQ2-- in EQ1, erudites and gnomes could always be clerics, but most people choose NOT to be handicapped right out of the gate by relatively low WIS that you could see right there in character creation, keeping the numbers of those clerics low (though there were a few). If EQ showed the numbers and let people make choices about where to put their points, I don't think you'd see as many weird combinations.
And I will admit that there's something infinitely irritating about a Dark Elf or Iksar paladin. I mean, that does go against the cultural grain, doesn't it? As someone who played dark elf SKs for years and years, I just want to smack all dark elf paladins across the knuckles with a ruler... So, maybe I agree with you. There's some value in having some kind of loyalty to the lore, and having the multitude of racial starting cities was a GOOD thing, as long as there was population to support that.
I will stand by gnome warriors, in any case, since that's EQ tradition from EQ1, and ever race has a right to defend itself, even it that means stabbing someone in the shins with a paring knife. I just don't want to see it go down the road of other games, with too few interesting classes and no interesting twists anywhere.
The highest level characters I ever had in EQ2 were all level 25ish-- a wood elf warden (druid), a half-elf assassin (rogue), and a ratonga inquisitor (cleric)-- and that's from trying the game three different times. It had much bigger problems than unlimited race/class combinations. It was a game I could play for less than a month at a time, no matter how much I wanted to like it., which makes me feel like it would be really easy for SOE to screw this up... And I rather expect EQNext to be just dreadful.
You will be getting freerealms with a cash shop.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I dont want a game where you can pull the whole room and aoe them down.
give me danger! give me crowd control back, make the mobs tougher.
my favorite class in any mmo was the eq1 enchanter, I want that back!
enchanters and bards in eq2 are horrible... just buff bots
people who spoke of wide open zones with camps I agree with, it creates a commiunity in the game...
something that the more recent mmo's seem to lack.. encourage interacting with other players.
Viva la revolucion!
Now if only we could make them do what we want...
/sigh
What Liss and Skeaser said.
I truly loved the EQ pre-SOL for the immersive, open world with a wealth of content - without invisible walls or feeling like I was on rails. I want the challenge once more, brutal, uncompromising death penalties; zones / dungeons that scared the beejesus out of one (basement in Unrest); and I would like every single piece of EQ, every single attribute point to be earned.
- remove the 'Holy Trinity' (let us decide how to play)
- improve mob AI i.e. improved mob patrols, passive aggressive mobs that cower and run to find 'friends', mobs that have a wider range of tactics and ability [bosses / named], mobs that react to their environment and other mobs e.g. I would love to see the Griffon in EC swoop down and pick up a screaming Orcling, yada yada yada
- remove camping a spot for a spawn / eq i.e. introduce dynamic spawns, because there was absolutely nothing hard about camping a spawn for days on end
- add a sprinkling of instances i.e. Ragefire as a contested spawn was not a bright idea; however, I still would like trains
- add a wide range of mounts, but make them hard to achieve i.e. either in terms of plat and/or through quests
- increased importance of faction / religion - not just spending days mindlessly killing goblins in WW
- add game-lore to quests, npc dialogues / reactions
- actions have consequences in terms of choices players make either through quests, interaction with npcs, factions, religion, et al. A bit more flexibility over player alignment i.e. player actions should be a major force in driving alignment
- reduced itemization i.e. each expansion pack became more Monty Hall in terms of ramping up item stats, effectively rendering previous EQ - and zones - as 'junk'
- please NO cash shops!
Sadly, I don't expect to be playing EverQuest Next because I have low expectations of the game turning out to be anything other than EQ NGE.
*sigh*
Cheers!
"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 want it to be graphically spectacular as eq2 was when it was first released but I want the engine to actually be good.
I want that sense of exploring a big world, like in EQ1
I basically want EQ1 pre-sol, with little bits of new elements of todays mmo's
A game identical to Vanguard but without all of the early release bugs, i.e. original EQ.
East Carolina University, Computer Science BS, 2011
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Current game: DAOC
Games played and quit: L2, PlanetSide, RF Online, GuildWars, SWG, COH/COV, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW, WW2 Online, FFXI, Auto-Assault, EVE Online, ShadowBane, RYL, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Myst Online, POTBS, EQ2, Warhammer Online, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Allods, Darkfall.
Waiting on: Earthrise
Names: Citio, Goldie, Sportacus
i really liked the selling in EC but i doubt alot of ppl will like that because it takes away from there farming/grinding/stalking if they have to stand there to sell items. I did also like bazaar because you still had to go see a character that was selling the item so it at least Felt like you were dealing with a person and not just a Search window.
Pre-velious style gearing. Meaning, that gear means very little and there is not very much of it. Can't stand how virtually all MMOs have turned into equipment grinders.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Anything that involves a sandbox feel, and possibly a skill based system, would be nice.
Failing that, large open seamless worlds, interesting and original "classes", truly live feeling AI, especially the wildlife (ie no static spawns for anything except 'humanoid' camps and the like, and a ryzom like AI), etc, etc