Understand what a themepark MMO is...

Manakar · August 2013

It seems like everyone is making up their own definition of what a themepark MMO is.. So I want to break it down.. A themepark MMO is like going to a themepark.. You pick up a map of the park and it shows you the different areas and activities, waterpark here, roller coasters here, food area here...etc etc You then plan out eachactivity. With themepark MMOs its the samething you look on the map/radar And it points out the points of interests and tells you where to go.. You then do all the quests in that quest area (riding those rides). You then move to the next quest are and do those quests for that area... On and on.. Til you reach lvl cap where you do instances where you have to do one and get the gear form it to do the next instance..

That is a themepark MMO. Where you are always on the move going form quest/instance area to the next.. EQ was not a themepark MMo,.. There were no quest hubs or a bunch of quest NPCs.. There was no maps showing where to go and what todo next. In each area there was content for a range of levels.. I don't know how many times Giants 1 hit me and killed me in oasis of marr.. Some areas had it set up where the deeper you go the harder it gets and turned into raid content... All in the same zone.. There were many places you could lvl and gain Xp and. No storyline pushed from area to area.. You made your own stories. EQ was more open ended than most modern MMOs today..

Tygranir · August 2013

ok

evilastro · August 2013

EQ was a theme park and the raids were its roller coasters.

grifj · August 2013

A theme park is one that takes you on "rails" down the path the designers have chosen for you.

WOW and SWTOR are games that were on rails (the latter more than the former). You pretty much followed the quests that were given to you and then moved on the next hub of quest givers. There was no, oh, let's just go to random dungeon here and do this if you wanted to move quickly through content.

EQ1 was most definitely not a theme park MMO. It also was not a sandbox.

Loktofeit · August 2013

Kiyoris · August 2013

EQ was an open world grindfest kind of.

orionblack · August 2013

All I know is that I will never ever play another theme park MMO again!! SWTOR left such a bad taste, only way to get rid of it is with a shot gun!!!

Makes me miss UO so much..=(

evilastro · August 2013

EQ had branched levelling paths, but it was linear. At a certain level you were always in one of a few zones. The end goal was then max level with tiered content. You were still on rails, but the larger world and lack of quest hubs gave the illusion of freedom.

Phelcher · August 2013

Originally posted by Manakar
It seems like everyone is making up their own definition of what a themepark MMO is.. So I want to break it down.. A themepark MMO is like going to a themepark.. You pick up a map of the park and it shows you the different areas and activities, waterpark here, roller coasters here, food area here...etc etc You then plan out eachactivity. With themepark MMOs its the samething you look on the map/radar And it points out the points of interests and tells you where to go.. You then do all the quests in that quest area (riding those rides). You then move to the next quest are and do those quests for that area... On and on.. Til you reach lvl cap where you do instances where you have to do one and get the gear form it to do the next instance..

That is a themepark MMO. Where you are always on the move going form quest/instance area to the next.. EQ was not a themepark MMo,.. There were no quest hubs or a bunch of quest NPCs.. There was no maps showing where to go and what todo next. In each area there was content for a range of levels.. I don't know how many times Giants 1 hit me and killed me in oasis of marr.. Some areas had it set up where the deeper you go the harder it gets and turned into raid content... All in the same zone.. There were many places you could lvl and gain Xp and. No storyline pushed from area to area.. You made your own stories. EQ was more open ended than most modern MMOs today..

OP is correct..

EQ used zones because that was the technology at the time, but the game is/was not linear, or themepark. It was quite open game until plain of power, etc.

Manakar · August 2013

Originally posted by evilastro
EQ had branched levelling paths, but it was linear. At a certain level you were always in one of a few zones. The end goal was then max level with tiered content. You were still on rails, but the larger world and lack of quest hubs gave the illusion of freedom.

Yes please take a look at these zones and understand that a lot of zones had a wide range of lvl content..it was no where near being branched lvling paths...

[url]http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zlvlchart.html[/url]

Stiler · August 2013

Originally posted by grifj
A theme park is one that takes you on "rails" down the path the designers have chosen for you.

WOW and SWTOR are games that were on rails (the latter more than the former). You pretty much followed the quests that were given to you and then moved on the next hub of quest givers. There was no, oh, let's just go to random dungeon here and do this if you wanted to move quickly through content.

EQ1 was most definitely not a theme park MMO. It also was not a sandbox.

EQ is what STARTED the entire "THemepark" mmo, so I don't know what you're talking about.

The area's were designed for specific levels and you were led through it.

IT was nothing like UO's world (Sandbox).

koboldfodder · August 2013

EQ at release had newbie zones for EACH race. Basically level 1-15 or so. There were also a few level 15-25 zones as well, like South Karana, Lesser Fay, Dagnors Cauldron....or dungeons like Blackburrow or Befallen or Crushbone. Around level 30 or a bit sooner you had a few different dungeons you could go to like Castle MistMoore, Sol A, Upper Guk bottom area. The 40 and up crowd had Sol B or Lower Guk, plus various camps like Spectres or some Giants.

Plus all the other spots people grinded out levels like Halfling Guards or those Barbs in South Karana fisherman village, or Freeport guards.

There were plenty of different places you could go for each and every level. That is not themepark. Once the expansions started to come out, there were even more places.

Stiler · August 2013

Originally posted by koboldfodder
EQ at release had newbie zones for EACH race. Basically level 1-15 or so. There were also a few level 15-25 zones as well, like South Karana, Lesser Fay, Dagnors Cauldron....or dungeons like Blackburrow or Befallen or Crushbone. Around level 30 or a bit sooner you had a few different dungeons you could go to like Castle MistMoore, Sol A, Upper Guk bottom area. The 40 and up crowd had Sol B or Lower Guk, plus various camps like Spectres or some Giants.

Plus all the other spots people grinded out levels like Halfling Guards or those Barbs in South Karana fisherman village, or Freeport guards.

There were plenty of different places you could go for each and every level. That is not themepark. Once the expansions started to come out, there were even more places.

Plenty of Themepark mmo's do this, WoW has multiple zones for the same levels, same goes for Guild Wars 2.

That doesn't make it not a themepark.

SomeOldBloke · August 2013

If a game has levels and level specific zones it cannot be a true sandbox game, this does not necessarily make it a themepark. Sandbox means no levels, no classes... you can go anywhere and do anything.

Icewhite · August 2013

Originally posted by Stiler
Originally posted by grifj
A theme park is one that takes you on "rails" down the path the designers have chosen for you.

WOW and SWTOR are games that were on rails (the latter more than the former). You pretty much followed the quests that were given to you and then moved on the next hub of quest givers. There was no, oh, let's just go to random dungeon here and do this if you wanted to move quickly through content.

EQ1 was most definitely not a theme park MMO. It also was not a sandbox.

EQ is what STARTED the entire "THemepark" mmo, so I don't know what you're talking about.

The area's were designed for specific levels and you were led through it.

IT was nothing like UO's world (Sandbox).

Since nearly all of the terms we use today were retroactively coined (after the fact); EQ was neither and/or both.

But hey, if the sandbox guys can argue over what is and isn't a "true" sandbox, guess the themepark guys can, too. But it's pretty pointless equivocating. Founders aren't defined by genres; they invent the genres.

TheHavok · August 2013

Yes, the quest driven leveling found in MMOs after EQ was a major improvement - we get it!!!!!

Manakar · August 2013

Originally posted by TheHavok
Yes, the quest driven leveling found in MMOs after EQ was a major improvement - we get it!!!!!

No that's what makes modern MMOs suck!

Trudge34 · August 2013

So, how did you get led around to each zone stiler? Would love to hear this. Must have missed that portion of it when I played back in 2000.

Stiler · August 2013

Originally posted by Trudge34
So, how did you get led around to each zone stiler? Would love to hear this. Must have missed that portion of it when I played back in 2000.

What do you mean how? The zones in EQ, just like most any other themepark mmo, are built for specific level ranges.

You go there, you did the quests you could, then you moved on to higher level zones.

Trudge34 · August 2013

Yeah but you said they led you there. Don't dodge that part of the question. How did they lead you there?

MMOExposed · August 2013

Originally posted by Icewhite
Originally posted by Stiler
Originally posted by grifj
A theme park is one that takes you on "rails" down the path the designers have chosen for you.

WOW and SWTOR are games that were on rails (the latter more than the former). You pretty much followed the quests that were given to you and then moved on the next hub of quest givers. There was no, oh, let's just go to random dungeon here and do this if you wanted to move quickly through content.

EQ1 was most definitely not a theme park MMO. It also was not a sandbox.

EQ is what STARTED the entire "THemepark" mmo, so I don't know what you're talking about.

The area's were designed for specific levels and you were led through it.

IT was nothing like UO's world (Sandbox).

Since nearly all of the terms we use today were retroactively coined (after the fact); EQ was neither and/or both.

But hey, if the sandbox guys can argue over what is and isn't a "true" sandbox, guess the themepark guys can, too. But it's pretty pointless equivocating. Founders aren't defined by genres; they invent the genres.

Using that argument, UO isn't a sandbox nor is SWG a sandbox/Sandpark because the term didnt exist back then.

MMOExposed · August 2013

Originally posted by Trudge34
Yeah but you said they led you there. Don't dodge that part of the question. How did they lead you there?

I can't tell if serious. No joke. Hard to tell.

Trudge34 · August 2013

No joke. Want to actually answer it?

asdar · August 2013

EQ wasn't a sandbox, but it certainly wasn't theme park. You might find some low level trash mobs outside the starting city, but take one step in the wrong direction and you were in way over your head, and we didn't have any idea if the way we were going was the wrong direction.

There were no flashing lights pointing out the next quest, I didn't do any quests on my first character except to go to my trainer at level 1. There was certainly nothing that pointed out where the 2nd zone was.

Tyvolus · August 2013

Originally posted by evilastro
EQ was a theme park and the raids were its roller coasters.

no it wasn't. I played EQ in 1999 when it released, and there was no hand holding whatsoever, no real raiding back in the day either. sorry, but you're full of it.

Trudge34 · August 2013

Originally posted by Tyvolus

Originally posted by evilastro
EQ was a theme park and the raids were its roller coasters.

no it wasn't. I played EQ in 1999 when it released, and there was no hand holding whatsoever, no real raiding back in the day either. sorry, but you're full of it.

Um, All of the above Regis, final answer.

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