Being more focused on quests on less on grinding really doesn't make a game "Easy Mode". Hardest thing about Everquest? Keeping yourself awake grinding at one camp for 3 hours for a half a level. Granted I played EQ for 6 years, so I have no room to complain, but give me a break. WoW is succesful because of its ease to pick up and play. Especially for casuals. It's system requirements are lowe, so just about everyone can play as well. There is plenty of "tough" content there for you if you want to be in the 1% of the playerbase who platys for 18 hours a day. If that is what you are complaining about, then there is a goal for you. Go kill Ilidan.
tough / challenging content shouldnt' have to equal ONLY 10 to 25 man groups (which is what Wow's challenging parts are) which are the only thing that make those encounters really hard; Getting people to work together. Atleast in EQ1 just traveling in a group of 2 or three people you had to have some idea how to play the game to survive against certain mob types. I'm not denying it was a grind fest but I'd rather progress slowly and enjoy everything a game has then speed to the end for shitty gear raids. MMO's shouldn't be about getting to end game it should be about the game and the world...but WoW made it all about endgame.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Being more focused on quests on less on grinding really doesn't make a game "Easy Mode". Hardest thing about Everquest? Keeping yourself awake grinding at one camp for 3 hours for a half a level. Granted I played EQ for 6 years, so I have no room to complain, but give me a break. WoW is succesful because of its ease to pick up and play. Especially for casuals. It's system requirements are lowe, so just about everyone can play as well. There is plenty of "tough" content there for you if you want to be in the 1% of the playerbase who platys for 18 hours a day. If that is what you are complaining about, then there is a goal for you. Go kill Ilidan.
tough / challenging content shouldnt' have to equal ONLY 10 to 25 man groups (which is what Wow's challenging parts are) which are the only thing that make those encounters really hard; Getting people to work together. Atleast in EQ1 just traveling in a group of 2 or three people you had to have some idea how to play the game to survive against certain mob types. I'm not denying it was a grind fest but I'd rather progress slowly and enjoy everything a game has then speed to the end for shitty gear raids. MMO's shouldn't be about getting to end game it should be about the game and the world...but WoW made it all about endgame.
It wasn't about the endgame for me. It was about the journey. Mobs weren't always very tuff, but you could find challenges in the world if you looked for them going from 1-60. For instance you could try to solo an group escortt quest. You could try to solo a group quest mob. Grouping was challenging in many places. BRD you had to exectue your poly/banish, your healer had to heal, and your tank had to tank. Perhaps a bit more simple then in EQ, but more difficult in some ways as there are a lot more skills available to use in combat. I think the only reason you don't enjoy WoW is because you play a lot and rush through the game so there is only raiding left for you. Why not just stop playing after you go form 1-60 and find another game?
The people who want to be the numero uno super elite "I ruled this game since beta" brigade have too much competition. It put's their noses out of joint.
So WoW is too easy. Any game that many other people are as successful as them in is too easy. It must be too easy right? It couldn't be that so many other people are equally as good at video gaems as them could it, right?
It reminds me of those people who cry "cheat" everytime they die in CounterStrike.
I myself am not into a game that mixes subscription fee's with time sinks. I think it is very poor practise and cynical behaviour on the part of the developer. If I find myself with nothing left to do but timesinks I move on immediately. I'm not paying top dollar for boring content. How dumb do I look?
I spent half my time with WoW level capped. I didn't bother with the raiding or rep grinding. I was happy with the level of difficulty, the variation in zone levels and mob levels etc make it pretty easy to chose how hard you want your game to be.
I think this is very wrong. Star Wars is far more popular then WoW and it never drew that many people. WoW is the least time intensive MMO available and people value their time. I think it's as simple as that. People also value fun and WoW is fun until endgame for many people. My boss plays WoW and he hardly ever groups and he is just reaching level 60 after over a year of play. If you are casual the game last a longer period of time, but it's still fun for those who play a lot. They just go through it faster.
Is star wars as popular in game playing aged and game players ??? NO.
"All MMOs are time sinks and have time sinks its what keeps players in paying."
Its not the time sink that = easymode.
That being said end game WoW's raiding isd the lamest end game ever people just don't know becuase they never played anything else, that or they like pain.
" It couldn't be that so many other people are equally as good at video gaems as them could it, right?
It reminds me of those people who cry "cheat" everytime they die in CounterStrike."
No it could not because WE people who have played WoW and other MMOs say its too easy. (by compairison)
Your statement is all backwards IF this was the case we would be claiming " the game is too easy , i kill everyone and they all suck." AND I DID MAKE THAT VERY STATEMENT IN THIS THREAD. See if its easy and we are other mmo players and feel its easy then we should dominate , thus resulting in the thought wow this game is easy. Your argument says wow this game is easy because everyone beats us up... that not logical at all.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
As I pointed out the key is being able to jump into a game, accomplish something, and jump out whenever you want. If you are grouping a lot it's very difficult to do this. If you are raiding a lot it is near impossible to do this. Obviously as pointed out in WoW raiding is like this, but from 1-60 you are free to do what you want most of the time without worry of feeling a need to stay on for more time then you should really be spending. I feel this is something that is important to a lot of people.
Of course there is no doubt soloing or quests have a place in mmorpgs. But, I do think perceptions of grouping are guided too much around WoW and EQ. Both were time-intensive to start a group and do a group. But, you look at other examples of games, D& D Online and Guild Wars and are they the same? There is a future in mmorpgs where grouping can be a casual activity. A kind of example is Dota.
Is star wars as popular in game playing aged and game players ??? NO.
Star Wars has always had a good game market. Lucas Arts has made games for years. Regardless the Warcraft games were a niche market and not very well known. They succeeded because the game is appealing to a lot people due to being able to play it casually from level 1 to level 60. Reputation had nothing to do with it
As I pointed out the key is being able to jump into a game, accomplish something, and jump out whenever you want. If you are grouping a lot it's very difficult to do this. If you are raiding a lot it is near impossible to do this. Obviously as pointed out in WoW raiding is like this, but from 1-60 you are free to do what you want most of the time without worry of feeling a need to stay on for more time then you should really be spending. I feel this is something that is important to a lot of people.
Of course there is no doubt soloing or quests have a place in mmorpgs. But, I do think perceptions of grouping are guided too much around WoW and EQ. Both were time-intensive to start a group and do a group. But, you look at other examples of games, D& D Online and Guild Wars and are they the same? There is a future in mmorpgs where grouping can be a casual activity. A kind of example is Dota.
The five man intances in WoW weren't very time intensive at all generally and I enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunatly you don't make many friends this way usually which is why a lot these people are complaining. A lot of people seem to want to make and take friends out of the game. What I say to this is it's better to meet people in real life as you wont be sitting in front of a computer all day talking to these people. You will be able to go out and do things which is a lot healthier and you can just enjoy the small moments when you do group here and there.
The five man intances in WoW weren't very time intensive at all generally
Don't forget time looking for group, getting there and if you got a pickup group.. I exaggerate a little but I think you may underestimate the time you are in instances. Of course, if you're thinking of somewhere like the stockade..
OK, I will admit I am a little bit of a masochist when it comes to my MMO's. I loved the days in Everquest when I did solo. I loved playing my druid a lot and soloing with him. I remember going to places like Unrest and all the trains there, and it was fun.
You had to learn how to pull. Multiple mobs crossed with in the same paths of others that you had to make sure you were far enough away from the mobs to avoid adds. Trying to break in a camp was a lot of work. Type, at times you had to go through 2 or 3 rounds of fights before the camp wasn't a complete death trap. Running mobs were a bitch, especially when snare wore off then resisted. Most of the times when I group it was completely PUG's. And it was fun when you did have to med. and you were actually able to talk to your party members.
Just exploring all the different zones, that was fun... Kunark actually looked different from Faydwer (sp?). Crushbone wasn't like the Commonlands (blanking on some of the zone names from some of the early expansions).
I'm not going to say it wasn't without it's grief. Having corpse runs at the bottom of a dungeon was always an adventure. Camping one spawn for several hours just for a quest component and not having it drop (this made me quit EQ my first time and delete my level 30 something toon).
What made the game hard wasn't the time sinks, or the camping, it was some of the strategy. At least to me, in WoW, you basically have the same strategy from one dungeon to the next, maybe just change your gear and it's good. In EQ, even in the same dungeon, you would have to fight differently. Spells didn't stack so you had to learn which ones to use most effectively.
OK, I will admit I am a little bit of a masochist when it comes to my MMO's. I loved the days in Everquest when I did solo. I loved playing my druid a lot and soloing with him. I remember going to places like Unrest and all the trains there, and it was fun.
You had to learn how to pull. Multiple mobs crossed with in the same paths of others that you had to make sure you were far enough away from the mobs to avoid adds. Trying to break in a camp was a lot of work. Type, at times you had to go through 2 or 3 rounds of fights before the camp wasn't a complete death trap. Running mobs were a bitch, especially when snare wore off then resisted. Most of the times when I group it was completely PUG's. And it was fun when you did have to med. and you were actually able to talk to your party members.
Just exploring all the different zones, that was fun... Kunark actually looked different from Faydwer (sp?). Crushbone wasn't like the Commonlands (blanking on some of the zone names from some of the early expansions).
I'm not going to say it wasn't without it's grief. Having corpse runs at the bottom of a dungeon was always an adventure. Camping one spawn for several hours just for a quest component and not having it drop (this made me quit EQ my first time and delete my level 30 something toon).
What made the game hard wasn't the time sinks, or the camping, it was some of the strategy. At least to me, in WoW, you basically have the same strategy from one dungeon to the next, maybe just change your gear and it's good. In EQ, even in the same dungeon, you would have to fight differently. Spells didn't stack so you had to learn which ones to use most effectively.
EQ was fun at times.
The dungeons were more unique and dangerous then the ones you see in games these days. They also had content in many different areas including water, earth, lava, and sky. There were a lot of keys and it was never easy to get them. The epic quests were very difficult. I never did complete any of them.
Kiting/breaking camps was a lot of fun. Unfortunately that is a mechanic the developers didn't foresee or want in the game which is probably why you don't see much of it in new games unless it's very controlled. Game developers don't want you to think outside of the box. At least in Warcraft you can think outside the box a little with the vast array of skills. I think people who play warriors and rogues appreciate the changes WoW brought about. In EQ it was very boring to play those classes. All you had was auto attack, kick, backstab, bash, taunt.
The time sinks are my biggest grief with the game looking back. I spent way too many hours camping mobs and grinding for experience. It was a large waste of time and was unhealthy just sitting there hour after hour. I once spent 48 hours straight waiting in line to get an item that was only available temporarily. That wiped me out for a week.
Buffs/Defbuffs were too powerful in the game. Combat was based around things like slow and haste because they were so powerful. This made mobs go to levels of ridiculous power compared to the players.
Meditating when the game first came out wasn't fun at all. You sat there looking at your book and you couldn't see anything else. A lot of times you would be dead or you group mates would die while you were staring at the book because you didn't know what was happening.
EQ sure did have some neat things, but it was just too time intensive.
Paragraphs:p ^^. You are right about the melee classes in WoW being a lot better than those in EQ. Could never understand the appeal of playing a warrior in EQ.
Being more focused on quests on less on grinding really doesn't make a game "Easy Mode". Hardest thing about Everquest? Keeping yourself awake grinding at one camp for 3 hours for a half a level. Granted I played EQ for 6 years, so I have no room to complain, but give me a break. WoW is succesful because of its ease to pick up and play. Especially for casuals. It's system requirements are lowe, so just about everyone can play as well. There is plenty of "tough" content there for you if you want to be in the 1% of the playerbase who platys for 18 hours a day. If that is what you are complaining about, then there is a goal for you. Go kill Ilidan.
So true, I really don't understand what made 1st gen MMOs, especially EQ1, "challenging." It was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. Hours long mob camping, death penalties that would often require an hour or more just to get back to where you were. If you died in an awkward spot you needed to call a ranger to track down your corpse and everything. Once I lagged, fell into the ocean and died of fatigue and my corpse was right at the bottom of the ocean. Took me two hours just to get my corpse back. The absolute worse thing was when some other person was trying to run away from a bunch of mobs, happened to run in your direction and get you killed as well. Of course, you suffered the exp penalty for being in the way. When I experienced the same thing in Vanguard, that was one of the reasons I quit I couldn't believe they put that crap back in.
Levelling was also ultra slow back then it took me 8 months to get to level 17 on my rogue, even with alot of grouping. It would take a player 2 years to get to max level if you were hardcore. Anyway, I'm just an average gamer and found nothing hard about EQ1 you just did copious amounts of grinding and waiting and enduring an over the top death system. All you needed was alot of time and basic skill and you would succeed. I loved the lore and the detail in the game world and EQ1's classes (they did it the best imo) but the tedium was just too much I reckon.
I guess why people are resenting WoW is because it lacked the depth EQ1 or Ultima Online had, which is true. But WoW brings you into the fun straight away and get rids of alot of the tedium of older MMOs. Most gorgeous level design and atmosphere, really polished and easy to dive into and enjoy. (OK end-game is an entirely different story. ) I quit because the game lacked depth for me and hated the end-game raiding, but it was a blast when I played.
Originally posted by IakXastur What made the game hard wasn't the time sinks, or the camping, it was some of the strategy. At least to me, in WoW, you basically have the same strategy from one dungeon to the next, maybe just change your gear and it's good. In EQ, even in the same dungeon, you would have to fight differently. Spells didn't stack so you had to learn which ones to use most effectively.
It really seems that people say WOW is easy mode because they have no idea how WOW actually plays. What exactly would differ between one dungeon in EQ and the next that doesn't in WOW? If you say something vague and high-level enough, it can apply to every dungeon, but the same is true in EQ. I don't know exactly what you mean by a strategy here, but it seems that you're saying that approach Van Cleef (in deadmines) the same way you would Murmur in Shadow Labrynth, which is just silly.
INstanced zones is why WoW made it easy mode. In eq1 guilds could block other guild progression. And even if they didnt want to block encounters wernt so easy like in WoW where in 4 months every half ass guild could finish the zone.
7 months of having to Kill a CONTEsTED mob to key your guild to progress. Having to complete a full zone in 1 day or another guild would finish it for you. Get your head out of your ass.
WoW was made for children, Paid for by childrens parents,And will die in the hands of children.
Originally posted by ThePastor 7 months of having to Kill a CONTEsTED mob to key your guild to progress. Having to complete a full zone in 1 day or another guild would finish it for you.
So, like I've noted, huge blocks of time, often uninterrupted time, nothing about actual gameplay difficulty. Yes, it's hard to find the time, or to endure the boredom of sitting and waiting, or to take a full day for the full zone clear, but that's not really what most people refer to when they talk about a difficult game. And it's certainly nothing to brag about.
WoW was made for children,
EQ was made for children and people who are physically adult but still children mentally. Spending hours at a time in a video game but just watching a spot for a spawn, or having to take whole days to do something is the kind of thing that kids have the time for, not adults with real world obligations.
7 months of having to Kill a CONTEsTED mob to key your guild to progress. Having to complete a full zone in 1 day or another guild would finish it for you.
So, like I've noted, huge blocks of time, often uninterrupted time, nothing about actual gameplay difficulty. Yes, it's hard to find the time, or to endure the boredom of sitting and waiting, or to take a full day for the full zone clear, but that's not really what most people refer to when they talk about a difficult game. And it's certainly nothing to brag about.
WoW was made for children,
EQ was made for children and people who are physically adult but still children mentally. Spending hours at a time in a video game but just watching a spot for a spawn, or having to take whole days to do something is the kind of thing that kids have the time for, not adults with real world obligations.
I think you need to play EQ to find out why things were harder. As noted it was a group game first so the mobs were a lot tuffer to bring down. I guess the elite mobs could somewhat be compared to the normal mobs in EQ. The dungeons in EQ were a lot trickier. Many times they were dark, long, and windy with ambushes and traps setup all over the place. You could fall through a invisible whole in the floor to a pit full of mobs. Many times the tunnels were very narrow. It was easy to agro a lot of mobs at once which meant death.
I agree that the large time consumption wasn't a good thing. I had pleanty of time, but it was never a healthy thing for me to be spending that much time playing a game. Even for a teenager it's not that healthy.
Find a better game to compare wow to (it shouldn't be hard to do).
Listening to eq players brag about wow's "leetness" is like listening to a virgin brag about how good his sex life is.
Play a real game then talk.
Neither EQ1 or WOW were bad games they just were made for diffrent audiences.
I'd like to see the strategy aspect and class knowledge requirements that earlier MMO's employed return. Then combined that with the elimination of timesinks the current crop has done away with.
The first title to combine those elements effectively should do quite well.
Warcraft was a turn based (basically) cartoon fantasy game with guns and wizards and all sorts of mixed up shit. And then they made Starcraft which was a pretty good RTS with some nice rendered movies. But you know I still liked playing Age of Empires better.
So then they decide, we gotta make a MMO and they of course copy what SOE did with EQ1 and make it like that. And they use their cartoony look to tie into the cartoony look of Warcraft and since they know how to make slick rendered videos basically made a stable client with loads of polish.
And then some kids in Asia dropped their Playstation controller for a minute and checked it out and thought, oh look the dwarf has a gun, fucking sweet, and then played it a bit more and then played PVP like some FPS console game.
And that is how most gamers are, console kids who's mom let them stay up late and their playing WoW on their mom's PC with the 1GHZ AMD Duron and more shit loaded in the toolbar then you shake a stick at.
And they hack and shit cus they watched the matrix and thought it was cool.
That is WoW.
Then there is the longtime PC RPG gamers....WoW is preschools "my first MMO".
Find a better game to compare wow to (it shouldn't be hard to do).
Listening to eq players brag about wow's "leetness" is like listening to a virgin brag about how good his sex life is.
Play a real game then talk.
What game would this be? DAOC.
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Find a better game to compare wow to (it shouldn't be hard to do).
Listening to eq players brag about wow's "leetness" is like listening to a virgin brag about how good his sex life is.
Play a real game then talk.
What game would this be?DAOC.
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
In EQ the classes were balenced around PvE so PvP was unbalenced to an extreme level. Casters had a huge advantage.
In WoW raid equipment does make a huge differnce, but I played from beta and early in the game before anyone had even started doing Strat/Scholo/BRD/etc. and it took a lot of timing to win a battle when you PvPed. I thought they did a good job with having differnt abilities to counter another classes abilities. Every class had a way to beat another class with the correct timming and usage of skills.
I never played DAOC so I don't know how much larger a variety of skills there were in that game. It seems like there are a lot of classes and many of them are hybrids.
Find a better game to compare wow to (it shouldn't be hard to do).
Listening to eq players brag about wow's "leetness" is like listening to a virgin brag about how good his sex life is.
Play a real game then talk.
What game would this be?DAOC.
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
In regards to PVP or RVR you would be correct, DAOC was head and shoulders above EQI. To be honest PVP in EQ always felt like an afterthought.
However... when talking about how you're actions effected battle in a PVE setting EQI surpassed DAOC easily.
I'd have to disagree that EQ was ever easy.... Eventually most people who gather in the safest areas and grind at nausium solo or in groups.
I agree Everquest is far from easy. It took me almost 8 months of daily 3-4 hours of playing to finally get to max level.
Are you guys defining 'difficult' as 'time consuming'? Because talking about how people grind for long stretches of time doesn't indicate at all that the game is hard, just that it takes an excessive amount of time.
I agree; forcing players to 'grind' for xp/loot doesn't make the game difficult, it just means those players who play more will be a higher level.
Requiring a well-balanced, well-equipped, and well-organized party to accomplish specific objectives? That's difficulty. Letting anyone sit down, play, and level up to max level in a few months? That's making the game accessible - which, by the way, helps to sell your game .
Comments
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
It wasn't about the endgame for me. It was about the journey. Mobs weren't always very tuff, but you could find challenges in the world if you looked for them going from 1-60. For instance you could try to solo an group escortt quest. You could try to solo a group quest mob. Grouping was challenging in many places. BRD you had to exectue your poly/banish, your healer had to heal, and your tank had to tank. Perhaps a bit more simple then in EQ, but more difficult in some ways as there are a lot more skills available to use in combat. I think the only reason you don't enjoy WoW is because you play a lot and rush through the game so there is only raiding left for you. Why not just stop playing after you go form 1-60 and find another game?
There are millions of players in WoW.
The people who want to be the numero uno super elite "I ruled this game since beta" brigade have too much competition. It put's their noses out of joint.
So WoW is too easy. Any game that many other people are as successful as them in is too easy. It must be too easy right? It couldn't be that so many other people are equally as good at video gaems as them could it, right?
It reminds me of those people who cry "cheat" everytime they die in CounterStrike.
I myself am not into a game that mixes subscription fee's with time sinks. I think it is very poor practise and cynical behaviour on the part of the developer. If I find myself with nothing left to do but timesinks I move on immediately. I'm not paying top dollar for boring content. How dumb do I look?
I spent half my time with WoW level capped. I didn't bother with the raiding or rep grinding. I was happy with the level of difficulty, the variation in zone levels and mob levels etc make it pretty easy to chose how hard you want your game to be.
"All MMOs are time sinks and have time sinks its what keeps players in paying."
Its not the time sink that = easymode.
That being said end game WoW's raiding isd the lamest end game ever people just don't know becuase they never played anything else, that or they like pain.
" It couldn't be that so many other people are equally as good at video gaems as them could it, right?
It reminds me of those people who cry "cheat" everytime they die in CounterStrike."
No it could not because WE people who have played WoW and other MMOs say its too easy. (by compairison)
Your statement is all backwards IF this was the case we would be claiming " the game is too easy , i kill everyone and they all suck." AND I DID MAKE THAT VERY STATEMENT IN THIS THREAD. See if its easy and we are other mmo players and feel its easy then we should dominate , thus resulting in the thought wow this game is easy. Your argument says wow this game is easy because everyone beats us up... that not logical at all.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
The five man intances in WoW weren't very time intensive at all generally and I enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunatly you don't make many friends this way usually which is why a lot these people are complaining. A lot of people seem to want to make and take friends out of the game. What I say to this is it's better to meet people in real life as you wont be sitting in front of a computer all day talking to these people. You will be able to go out and do things which is a lot healthier and you can just enjoy the small moments when you do group here and there.
You had to learn how to pull. Multiple mobs crossed with in the same paths of others that you had to make sure you were far enough away from the mobs to avoid adds. Trying to break in a camp was a lot of work. Type, at times you had to go through 2 or 3 rounds of fights before the camp wasn't a complete death trap. Running mobs were a bitch, especially when snare wore off then resisted. Most of the times when I group it was completely PUG's. And it was fun when you did have to med. and you were actually able to talk to your party members.
Just exploring all the different zones, that was fun... Kunark actually looked different from Faydwer (sp?). Crushbone wasn't like the Commonlands (blanking on some of the zone names from some of the early expansions).
I'm not going to say it wasn't without it's grief. Having corpse runs at the bottom of a dungeon was always an adventure. Camping one spawn for several hours just for a quest component and not having it drop (this made me quit EQ my first time and delete my level 30 something toon).
What made the game hard wasn't the time sinks, or the camping, it was some of the strategy. At least to me, in WoW, you basically have the same strategy from one dungeon to the next, maybe just change your gear and it's good. In EQ, even in the same dungeon, you would have to fight differently. Spells didn't stack so you had to learn which ones to use most effectively.
Paragraphs:p ^^. You are right about the melee classes in WoW being a lot better than those in EQ. Could never understand the appeal of playing a warrior in EQ.
So true, I really don't understand what made 1st gen MMOs, especially EQ1, "challenging." It was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. Hours long mob camping, death penalties that would often require an hour or more just to get back to where you were. If you died in an awkward spot you needed to call a ranger to track down your corpse and everything. Once I lagged, fell into the ocean and died of fatigue and my corpse was right at the bottom of the ocean. Took me two hours just to get my corpse back. The absolute worse thing was when some other person was trying to run away from a bunch of mobs, happened to run in your direction and get you killed as well. Of course, you suffered the exp penalty for being in the way. When I experienced the same thing in Vanguard, that was one of the reasons I quit I couldn't believe they put that crap back in.
Levelling was also ultra slow back then it took me 8 months to get to level 17 on my rogue, even with alot of grouping. It would take a player 2 years to get to max level if you were hardcore. Anyway, I'm just an average gamer and found nothing hard about EQ1 you just did copious amounts of grinding and waiting and enduring an over the top death system. All you needed was alot of time and basic skill and you would succeed. I loved the lore and the detail in the game world and EQ1's classes (they did it the best imo) but the tedium was just too much I reckon.
I guess why people are resenting WoW is because it lacked the depth EQ1 or Ultima Online had, which is true. But WoW brings you into the fun straight away and get rids of alot of the tedium of older MMOs. Most gorgeous level design and atmosphere, really polished and easy to dive into and enjoy. (OK end-game is an entirely different story.
) I quit because the game lacked depth for me and hated the end-game raiding, but it was a blast when I played.
It really seems that people say WOW is easy mode because they have no idea how WOW actually plays. What exactly would differ between one dungeon in EQ and the next that doesn't in WOW? If you say something vague and high-level enough, it can apply to every dungeon, but the same is true in EQ. I don't know exactly what you mean by a strategy here, but it seems that you're saying that approach Van Cleef (in deadmines) the same way you would Murmur in Shadow Labrynth, which is just silly.
7 months of having to Kill a CONTEsTED mob to key your guild to progress. Having to complete a full zone in 1 day or another guild would finish it for you. Get your head out of your ass.
WoW was made for children, Paid for by childrens parents,And will die in the hands of children.
So, like I've noted, huge blocks of time, often uninterrupted time, nothing about actual gameplay difficulty. Yes, it's hard to find the time, or to endure the boredom of sitting and waiting, or to take a full day for the full zone clear, but that's not really what most people refer to when they talk about a difficult game. And it's certainly nothing to brag about.
EQ was made for children and people who are physically adult but still children mentally. Spending hours at a time in a video game but just watching a spot for a spawn, or having to take whole days to do something is the kind of thing that kids have the time for, not adults with real world obligations.
Find a better game to compare wow to (it shouldn't be hard to do).
Listening to eq players brag about wow's "leetness" is like listening to a virgin brag about how good his sex life is.
Play a real game then talk.
So, like I've noted, huge blocks of time, often uninterrupted time, nothing about actual gameplay difficulty. Yes, it's hard to find the time, or to endure the boredom of sitting and waiting, or to take a full day for the full zone clear, but that's not really what most people refer to when they talk about a difficult game. And it's certainly nothing to brag about.
EQ was made for children and people who are physically adult but still children mentally. Spending hours at a time in a video game but just watching a spot for a spawn, or having to take whole days to do something is the kind of thing that kids have the time for, not adults with real world obligations.
I think you need to play EQ to find out why things were harder. As noted it was a group game first so the mobs were a lot tuffer to bring down. I guess the elite mobs could somewhat be compared to the normal mobs in EQ. The dungeons in EQ were a lot trickier. Many times they were dark, long, and windy with ambushes and traps setup all over the place. You could fall through a invisible whole in the floor to a pit full of mobs. Many times the tunnels were very narrow. It was easy to agro a lot of mobs at once which meant death.
I agree that the large time consumption wasn't a good thing. I had pleanty of time, but it was never a healthy thing for me to be spending that much time playing a game. Even for a teenager it's not that healthy.
Neither EQ1 or WOW were bad games they just were made for diffrent audiences.
I'd like to see the strategy aspect and class knowledge requirements that earlier MMO's employed return. Then combined that with the elimination of timesinks the current crop has done away with.
The first title to combine those elements effectively should do quite well.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
So then they decide, we gotta make a MMO and they of course copy what SOE did with EQ1 and make it like that. And they use their cartoony look to tie into the cartoony look of Warcraft and since they know how to make slick rendered videos basically made a stable client with loads of polish.
And then some kids in Asia dropped their Playstation controller for a minute and checked it out and thought, oh look the dwarf has a gun, fucking sweet, and then played it a bit more and then played PVP like some FPS console game.
And that is how most gamers are, console kids who's mom let them stay up late and their playing WoW on their mom's PC with the 1GHZ AMD Duron and more shit loaded in the toolbar then you shake a stick at.
And they hack and shit cus they watched the matrix and thought it was cool.
That is WoW.
Then there is the longtime PC RPG gamers....WoW is preschools "my first MMO".
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
In EQ the classes were balenced around PvE so PvP was unbalenced to an extreme level. Casters had a huge advantage.
In WoW raid equipment does make a huge differnce, but I played from beta and early in the game before anyone had even started doing Strat/Scholo/BRD/etc. and it took a lot of timing to win a battle when you PvPed. I thought they did a good job with having differnt abilities to counter another classes abilities. Every class had a way to beat another class with the correct timming and usage of skills.
I never played DAOC so I don't know how much larger a variety of skills there were in that game. It seems like there are a lot of classes and many of them are hybrids.
"It [EQ] was only time-consuming to the max, that's it. "
Go back and play more EQ takes more skill more thought,,, still if you look at daoc it takes even more, more so when you look at what skill does for you best place to example this is in PVP.
Ask the question what do i have to do ... how much to my actions / timing/ choices affect the outcome of the battle. NO game beats DAOC in this aspect, you can totally own or be owned just based on the target you pick or your other actions during a fight. People who have played many mmos (IE wow) do not understand this much , because, personaly choice has little effect of fighting outcomes... as equip has a larger impact then player skill.
In regards to PVP or RVR you would be correct, DAOC was head and shoulders above EQI. To be honest PVP in EQ always felt like an afterthought.
However... when talking about how you're actions effected battle in a PVE setting EQI surpassed DAOC easily.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
Are you guys defining 'difficult' as 'time consuming'? Because talking about how people grind for long stretches of time doesn't indicate at all that the game is hard, just that it takes an excessive amount of time.
I agree; forcing players to 'grind' for xp/loot doesn't make the game difficult, it just means those players who play more will be a higher level.
Requiring a well-balanced, well-equipped, and well-organized party to accomplish specific objectives? That's difficulty. Letting anyone sit down, play, and level up to max level in a few months? That's making the game accessible - which, by the way, helps to sell your game
.