HELL F YEAH! I want to FEEL LIKE A NEWBIE AGAIN! A game that will SLAP ME IN THE FACE! In EverQuest you were lost, clueless, scared, exploring (not looking at pointers, quest journals and your gps radar map, but REALLY EXPLORING, socializing, making friends, achieving hard goals and feeling good about it!) F now thats what MMORPG 's should be about.
Theres a difference between challenging and frustrated due to lousy game mechanics or unintutive game design. Something challenging due to frustration does not make a good combination.
EQ was and continues to be an amazing game. Perhaps it lost some luster over the years, but there's simply no larger in-game world. Although it softened through the years (mercs, level-based flagging, etc) it remains a terrific experience if you can get past the steep learning curve for new players.
I will say, however, that EQ was the first to fracture its playerbase between the haves and have nots. You either raided or you didn't, with time being the greatest difference between the two. Those with it had the gear and progression required to raid, those without it faded away over time.
It's a trend firmly established in EQ's modern contemporaries where time spent = gear/progression > skill. IMO Everquest is still far more difficult than WoW, but that difficulty is still based in the endurance of its players rather than individual ability.
the masochistic bits of EQ almost had me quitting a few times- so I don't remember that with any pleasure. I think what it had was a good world, distinct and rationed(?) items, dungeons, a desirable level up in terms of spells you got, varied areas, not-quest spammed to death, little nerdy details which aided immersiveness- such as underwater breathing or weight management, or tracking and firebeetle eyes. Trading was compelling as well as it had the feel of a market person selling his wares.
True, it's melee classes were dull, some zones were absolutely terrible, exp loss sucked (the populace agreed with their lapping up of cleric rezzies), quests could be too cryptic, it was too time-consuming, PvP and it's resist system was crap, things like mounts lacked any sort of amazy feel to them and the game turned cookie-cutter and dull after Luclin. With the following expansion PoP forcing players into a raiding game and completely detrimenting the grouping game- a core appeal of the game imo.
But I defend some stuff like camping, other than the Raster one which to be fair camping for rare items is still in something like WoW- with players redoing instances over and over to get select purple items. Also, group-grinding was fun. In WoW it is just the same as soloing with what the term refers to that from Warcraft3 is 'creeping' - (which is what it boils down to). Group-grinding was more-or-less group-creeping.
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
You missed my favorite, the mace/tanker type.. Took a long while to kill someone, but your victory was all the sweeter as maces would absolutley destroy your opponents armor
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
In any case, UO started a long time ago. Shouldn't be so difficult to make a game with a much greater variety of viable skills, in a system balanced well enough that magery isn't so dominant that most variations just involve a different type of mage.
Too many skill based games can be reduced to ranged combat, melee combat, and crafting. I'd like to see someone attempt to make the diversity of a class based system work in a skill based one. Balance skills against eachother, make them stat and equipment dependent, to encourage specialization. use of secondary and tertiary skills as weaker but still viable support skills. (e.g. a healing specialist could do big battle changing heals, while a warrior specialist would only be able to use healing in a lesser downtime reducing capacity, ala the paladin, due to skill limitations)
whatever. just progress the genre by building something new on what's already been done, rather than deciding which formula to make a clone of.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
In any case, UO started a long time ago. Shouldn't be so difficult to make a game with a much greater variety of viable skills, in a system balanced well enough that magery isn't so dominant that most variations just involve a different type of mage.
Between the one post I replied to and this one.. I would get the feeling you never played UO and are typing stuff out based on something you read.
At the time that UO was different (before they added all the uber loot type crap)...
The best pvp builds were mostly melee... you know when deadly poison came in. There was no real advantage to being a mage... /cast para (I open a magic trap pouch and smash you in the head again..) you cast para I open the next magic trapped pouch...
I used magery for recall and gate for the most part. Tho with people who didn't know or were to lazy to carry pouches (back then) yes para combined with explosion ebolt.. para explosion ebolt.. blah blah
For PvE most any build (non magery) with bard skills was going to be better than a mage build. In fact my favorite farm build back then was a Tamer/Bard...
I mean it also depends on what period of UO you are talking about... the first couple months after release... the next 1.5 years... or even later than that. At release Tank/Mage was common... 3 months later not so much.
And um Tank Mage was popular with the pvp gank fest mindset not as a whole... just like many fotm over powered classes are only popular with a certain crowd. You are saying that variety happens because you force classes onto people rather than giving them choice. If people choose to limit the variety of choices given to them... that is most certainly a difference aspect than having NO choice at all... I also never found a combat build that didn't work well in pvp/pve in UO... I also found it enjoyable to use the less common templates. When I made my first bard people laughed and said it would suck in pvp... then suddenly its fotm (no not because of me but...)
Originally posted by Antarious Between the one post I replied to and this one.. I would get the feeling you never played UO and are typing stuff out based on something you read.
I started playing MMOs when UO was released. I played it until I got into EQ's closed beta. The reason it seems like I'm misrepresenting UO is because I'm not just referring to UO specifically. I'm really referring to a number of different skill based games I've played, from UO to AC to EVE to Fallen Earth. Too often, I feel they lack a feeling of diversity between characters - but I will say UO suffered less from that problem than most, but that doesn't mean there wasn't room for improvement and innovation.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Back then I didnt like MMORPG's. EQ is a good example of why I didnt like them. It has all the ingredients that some oldschool MMOplayers think should be in a good MMO, which I think shouldnt be in any computergame.
'Challenge' in the form of EQ's repetition and timesinks melt my brain. Old school MMO's werent gamers games. Its as if the developers unlearned everything that makes a great computergame and then made EQ. No thinking or twitching reactions required..just vegetate in a MMO.
Try to look past the nostalgia and see whats really there.
Back then I didnt like MMORPG's. EQ is a good example of why I didnt like them. It has all the ingredients that some oldschool MMOplayers think should be in a good MMO, which I think shouldnt be in any computergame. 'Challenge' in the form of EQ's repetition and timesinks melt my brain. Old school MMO's werent gamers games. Its as if the developers unlearned everything that makes a great computergame and then made EQ. No thinking or twitching reactions required..just vegetate in a MMO. Try to look past the nostalgia and see whats really there.
EQ didn't have twitch combat. People who wanted twitch combat would't have liked it and that's fair enough. (Although kiting was pretty twitchy, it wasn't the main form of combat).
However, there was lots of thinking involved unless you were only ever in groups who played it ultra-safe.
Originally posted by Markn12 Ive been enjoying EQ from day 1 and 10 years later im still playing every day for 3-4 hrs a day. The original was by far the best MMORPG ive ever played and i pretty much beta'ed or played them all at one point. Through all the changes eq still has its upside even though its been dumbed down to easy mode and leveling to 70 takes 12 hrs total now it still is one hell of a game despite it being 10 years old. I always wondered will WOW ever last this long as I see EQ going for atleast 4-5 more years. Do any of us think wow will last 15 years ? god i hope not. The only reason EQ is still alive today is SOE was releasing 2 expansions a year for 4 years straight it was basically a new game every year. The old EQ is dead infact not many people even visit zones 4 expansions old anymore so its all about the new expansions if they stop making them EQ will die.
Very cool to see someone who's still playing since day one.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Actually EQ was the worst thing to hit the MMO genre. It introduced the restrictive class level nightmare.
It was easy mode for the masses. They did not have to think about developing their character, it was all done through the class structure for them.
You really need to get a better perspective of the genre.
So much better to be limited to 1-3 templates instead, right? UO and AC both had a pathetically limited number of viable choices when it all came down to it. Better to have 8 working classes than 50 skills, all of which only a handfull were actually usefull. Class systems allow MORE choices and more balance, which is why those systems prevailed. Being able to choose any skill but be gimped compared to the next guy doesn't make for balanced play. Good systems get emulated. Broken ones do not. Skill systems work great in single player games. Theres no doubt about it. But they're horrible in MMOs. They look great on paper but never pan out in practice.
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Are you both kidding me? Did either of you ever play UO? Here is a list of some of the templates I had that I can remember: dex monkey (sword and board), dex monkey (spear/archer), dex monkey (mace and board), lock picker/stealther, treasure hunter, fisherman archer, master crafter, bard/mage, bard/tamer, bard/archer, straight mage, tamer/mage, dex monkey (axer), treasure hunter, nox builds. To name a few.
One of these days a game may come out that puts together the unforgiving and open PvE world experience that was Everquest, with some refinements involving quests, dungeons and raids, and tradeskilling... and combine it with the PvP elements and experience that comprised DAoC - including at least 3, if not 4, individual factions for players to chose from. With built in incentives for faction choice on character creation adjusted by realm balance to keep servers with mostly even faction population matchups.
Am I asking too much? Dunno... 's only been close to 10 years since BOTH EQ and DAoC were launched, and we've seen a hell of a lot of miserable failures in fantasy MMORPG games, excluding that themepark solo fest that holds your hand tight called World of Warcraft.
It''s interesting when all the EQer get nostalgic they always focus in on the masochistic parts of the game as the fun. Like you can't have fun without a kick in the nuts!?! To bad EQ was little more then a glorified single player rpg force fit into a multi player platform. Talk about shoving a square peg into a round whole. UO was hands down more in depth then EQ ever was. UO was fun to play even with the hardcore features it had not because of them.
I can remember good times just being with the guilds or friends just as easily as i can remember by (in)glorious deaths. It was fun.
But claiming it was a single player RPG forced into a multiplayer game is just ignorant. It was a diku MUD base. Thats multiplayer from the very start. What you say about UO is true about EQ, it was fun by itself, the hardcore features weren't needed, but it helped it along.
Here is why the original EQ has not been topped for over 10 years.. You couldn't do hardly anything solo - You had to mostly rely on others - Almost every aspect of the game encouraged players to work together. The game was difficult and unforgiving - Quests and zones were difficult and unforgiving, so people got satisfaction by remembering where and what killed them before and avoiding them, then later camping them - People got satisfaction by completing hard quests - People remembered their experiences as generally awesome because they were on the edge of their seat from all of the dangers and unforgiving deaths. Players regard each other highly because of the camaraderie associated with sharing dangerous and dramatic experiences with others. No maps and very little guides made groups genuinely explore. No quest logs, map markers and compass markers. You want to know which way you are facing you had to either have a compass, have a sense heading spell, have good sense heading skill, or drop a sword and see which way it points =D Players almost certainly get lost, or have trouble finding their corpses at some point, along with the fact that leveling was a slow process, you come to know the land like the back of your hand. Who can draw a detailed map of burning steppes from memory? Even though you may have spent alot of time there or traveled through it numerous times? you cannot truly get lost in wow, and even if you did purposely you wouldn't lose anything, and so there is no real reason to learn it unless you happen to spend enough time there. The main ingredient was teamwork and social interaction. Everything from getting a bind, port, buffs, revive, corpse summon, and most quests all required interaction with other players. Before the bazaar there was much player interaction with player commerce. Every expansion that SoE added after they lost the vision gave players the power to do that which they used to rely on others, unti now, where the only people who play EQ are the ones who use bots and multiple accounts simultaniously, and guess what? It's dead. I believe EQ was built on the simple vision of player interaction. All the MMOs out there today, including modern EQ seems to avoid this like the plague, calculating that the majority of the market likes to solo. I say the entirety of the market will solo if the option is given to them, just because it is easier. That doesn't make a legend of a game like classic EQ was.
I havent read the rest of this thread, but yes, agree with everything you say here.
While easy (I hate the term 'casual' to mean easy... they are not the same thing), solo, and PvP play definitely should be catered for, preferbly in games dedicated to them so that those devs can do those play styles full justice, the games I remember being great for me were the ones that wernt any of them. EQ especially.
Classic EQ didnt try to be everything to everybody. It was what it was, take it or leave it. People came to the game because it was what they were looking for, we were all there for the same type of play experience and that gave us a shared feeling of being part of something bigger. You can't say that now... modern games act like $5 hookers, desperate to provide you with whatever you think you want in order to squeeze you for money.
Modern mmorpgs are just driven by their shareholders to provide for eveyone in an effort to maximise their playerbase and revenue, game design by a commitee of accountants, but the classic games just didnt seem to have this philosophy. In the early days it felt like the devs only expected these games to be niche and were happy with that as long as a fair profit was turned. Noone expected EQ to ever be the massive (for those days) success it was, but they still made it.
My latest blog entry was pretty much about this issue tbh;
Back then I didnt like MMORPG's. EQ is a good example of why I didnt like them. It has all the ingredients that some oldschool MMOplayers think should be in a good MMO, which I think shouldnt be in any computergame. 'Challenge' in the form of EQ's repetition and timesinks melt my brain. Old school MMO's werent gamers games. Its as if the developers unlearned everything that makes a great computergame and then made EQ. No thinking or twitching reactions required..just vegetate in a MMO. Try to look past the nostalgia and see whats really there.
i dont know about eq1 but i can say i love eq2 full of lore ,im just starting and havent decided on a specific class but i love the game,after having played wow 3 years eq2 is a nice change but then thats just me
I agree with the original post whole heartedly. One of these days a game may come out that puts together the unforgiving and open PvE world experience that was Everquest, with some refinements involving quests, dungeons and raids, and tradeskilling... and combine it with the PvP elements and experience that comprised DAoC - including at least 3, if not 4, individual factions for players to chose from. With built in incentives for faction choice on character creation adjusted by realm balance to keep servers with mostly even faction population matchups.
Am I asking too much? Dunno... 's only been close to 10 years since BOTH EQ and DAoC were launched, and we've seen a hell of a lot of miserable failures in fantasy MMORPG games, excluding that themepark solo fest that holds your hand tight called World of Warcraft.
mm!put like that its scary !but couldnt a game like wow add another kind of server ,like hard pvp or hard rp
in those server no add-on,compass,coord ,etc everybody would be happy ?you would get the silly easy mode and we would get the eq1 style hard mode lot are craving,true blizzard or any company would have to monitor the cheat but in my view only with a way like that can everybody truelly be happy
UO did have tank mages. When tank mages were in vogue, though, it was pretty useless to play one, as magic and potions where the ultimate damage dealing and wearing plate armor basically put a bullseye on your head. Back then it was better to wear leather armor as it give good resistences to several magic types. They changed that though. Then armor was mostly just for looks until long after.
I had a lot of fun in EQ. Even though it seems like I was playing it over a decade ago, I still remember the layout of every map on the first continent. Everyone remembers there first day they got their j-boots, and all healers remember the day they got their manastones. The game started to suffer the same problems WoW suffers from from Kunark on, though. Kinda weird. UO was the funnest actual ROLE play game, and the funnest small scale PvP game, EQ the best PvE(debtably WoW now), and daoC had the best largscale PvP. Kind of funny how all the best stuff came out right after the other UO--> EQ--> DaoC.
I support most of the arguments for old school MMOs and agree that things are too easy by far much of the time these days.
Still, I cannot imagine wanting to have no in game maps at all. I remember in FFXI there were zones where I didn't have a map and it could become rather annoying. In the real world it is relatively easy to walk through a forest and take care to remember key points so you can find your way back, but in an MMO it's difficult to get the same sence of space and really easy to get lost.
I do relate to the feeling you get from knowing a zone well, but still find maps a welcome addition.
Hmm, all that said I used to love the yuhtunga Forest in FFXI where the map was next to useless, there was something cool about the first couple of times you arrived and you had to get a guide to take you to the levelling point. Then, at a later point when you knew your way back you could find yourself taking people home (particularly if you had invisibility), and bringing new people out.
That was a great zone, but I'd have got bored if every zone had the potential for me to get lost.
I support most of the arguments for old school MMOs and agree that things are too easy by far much of the time these days. Still, I cannot imagine wanting to have no in game maps at all. I remember in FFXI there were zones where I didn't have a map and it could become rather annoying. In the real world it is relatively easy to walk through a forest and take care to remember key points so you can find your way back, but in an MMO it's difficult to get the same sence of space and really easy to get lost. I do relate to the feeling you get from knowing a zone well, but still find maps a welcome addition. Hmm, all that said I used to love the yuhtunga Forest in FFXI where the map was next to useless, there was something cool about the first couple of times you arrived and you had to get a guide to take you to the levelling point. Then, at a later point when you knew your way back you could find yourself taking people home (particularly if you had invisibility), and bringing new people out. That was a great zone, but I'd have got bored if every zone had the potential for me to get lost.
ok maybe map but not on us more like we get in real life (before cellphone lol)
nobody carried a map sometime if your a big city you ll see a big sing of the city map but when you walk say outside the city you didnt carry a map ,if you got lost you asked direction .
yes easy place become hard without map but thats the idea lol
the way techno is right now they could leave it to player
like if you take -0 server ,theres no map ,no compass(craftable),no add-on,no coord.
and on another server you could have all the frazzle like wow or even better fre-realm
You kidding me I loved having no maps, it made playing fun I was the gps for my guild in eq so I remember lots of nights of having to go you need to turn right ahead. I don't Fin care that there is a dragon on that door, turn right $^$#$. It made life fun, and yes EQ will always be one of the best mmo's ever. I'd play it now if my ex roommate had not stripped my characters for one of his alts then forgot all the gear was mine and sold it. I refuse to start over when I have three naked lvl 70's
Comments
Current Gen MMO players just can't handle being challenged every step of the way.
and QFT +)
lansid its probably true eq ha problem at start but it must have turned or it wouldnt be liked like it was
Theres a difference between challenging and frustrated due to lousy game mechanics or unintutive game design. Something challenging due to frustration does not make a good combination.
EQ was and continues to be an amazing game. Perhaps it lost some luster over the years, but there's simply no larger in-game world. Although it softened through the years (mercs, level-based flagging, etc) it remains a terrific experience if you can get past the steep learning curve for new players.
I will say, however, that EQ was the first to fracture its playerbase between the haves and have nots. You either raided or you didn't, with time being the greatest difference between the two. Those with it had the gear and progression required to raid, those without it faded away over time.
It's a trend firmly established in EQ's modern contemporaries where time spent = gear/progression > skill. IMO Everquest is still far more difficult than WoW, but that difficulty is still based in the endurance of its players rather than individual ability.
This thought process regarding MMOs never fails to make me laugh, and I've been playing them since '95....
the masochistic bits of EQ almost had me quitting a few times- so I don't remember that with any pleasure. I think what it had was a good world, distinct and rationed(?) items, dungeons, a desirable level up in terms of spells you got, varied areas, not-quest spammed to death, little nerdy details which aided immersiveness- such as underwater breathing or weight management, or tracking and firebeetle eyes. Trading was compelling as well as it had the feel of a market person selling his wares.
True, it's melee classes were dull, some zones were absolutely terrible, exp loss sucked (the populace agreed with their lapping up of cleric rezzies), quests could be too cryptic, it was too time-consuming, PvP and it's resist system was crap, things like mounts lacked any sort of amazy feel to them and the game turned cookie-cutter and dull after Luclin. With the following expansion PoP forcing players into a raiding game and completely detrimenting the grouping game- a core appeal of the game imo.
But I defend some stuff like camping, other than the Raster one which to be fair camping for rare items is still in something like WoW- with players redoing instances over and over to get select purple items. Also, group-grinding was fun. In WoW it is just the same as soloing with what the term refers to that from Warcraft3 is 'creeping' - (which is what it boils down to). Group-grinding was more-or-less group-creeping.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
You missed my favorite, the mace/tanker type.. Took a long while to kill someone, but your victory was all the sweeter as maces would absolutley destroy your opponents armor
Imagine that happening in todays MMOs..
ZOMG mah epix!!111!!!
/grin
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
In any case, UO started a long time ago. Shouldn't be so difficult to make a game with a much greater variety of viable skills, in a system balanced well enough that magery isn't so dominant that most variations just involve a different type of mage.
Too many skill based games can be reduced to ranged combat, melee combat, and crafting. I'd like to see someone attempt to make the diversity of a class based system work in a skill based one. Balance skills against eachother, make them stat and equipment dependent, to encourage specialization. use of secondary and tertiary skills as weaker but still viable support skills. (e.g. a healing specialist could do big battle changing heals, while a warrior specialist would only be able to use healing in a lesser downtime reducing capacity, ala the paladin, due to skill limitations)
whatever. just progress the genre by building something new on what's already been done, rather than deciding which formula to make a clone of.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Hmm really? I seem to remember having a nox mage, thief mage, disarm thief, tank mage, fencer dexer, lumber jack dexer, archer mage, a trade skill mule, bomber mage, scribe mage, bard tamer mage. The list goes on. Lots of skills were complimented by other skills. You never had to follow a template of anything if you wanted to just hang out and pve. I mean it could be different now but I haven't played ever since EA took over, which was like 8 years ago or so.
However it is your opinion that EQ classes are better, I'm just sayin that one can very successful in pvp/pve with a variety of different "tamplates" if you knew how to play.
In any case, UO started a long time ago. Shouldn't be so difficult to make a game with a much greater variety of viable skills, in a system balanced well enough that magery isn't so dominant that most variations just involve a different type of mage.
Between the one post I replied to and this one.. I would get the feeling you never played UO and are typing stuff out based on something you read.
At the time that UO was different (before they added all the uber loot type crap)...
The best pvp builds were mostly melee... you know when deadly poison came in. There was no real advantage to being a mage... /cast para (I open a magic trap pouch and smash you in the head again..) you cast para I open the next magic trapped pouch...
I used magery for recall and gate for the most part. Tho with people who didn't know or were to lazy to carry pouches (back then) yes para combined with explosion ebolt.. para explosion ebolt.. blah blah
For PvE most any build (non magery) with bard skills was going to be better than a mage build. In fact my favorite farm build back then was a Tamer/Bard...
I mean it also depends on what period of UO you are talking about... the first couple months after release... the next 1.5 years... or even later than that. At release Tank/Mage was common... 3 months later not so much.
And um Tank Mage was popular with the pvp gank fest mindset not as a whole... just like many fotm over powered classes are only popular with a certain crowd. You are saying that variety happens because you force classes onto people rather than giving them choice. If people choose to limit the variety of choices given to them... that is most certainly a difference aspect than having NO choice at all... I also never found a combat build that didn't work well in pvp/pve in UO... I also found it enjoyable to use the less common templates. When I made my first bard people laughed and said it would suck in pvp... then suddenly its fotm (no not because of me but...)
I started playing MMOs when UO was released. I played it until I got into EQ's closed beta. The reason it seems like I'm misrepresenting UO is because I'm not just referring to UO specifically. I'm really referring to a number of different skill based games I've played, from UO to AC to EVE to Fallen Earth. Too often, I feel they lack a feeling of diversity between characters - but I will say UO suffered less from that problem than most, but that doesn't mean there wasn't room for improvement and innovation.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Back then I didnt like MMORPG's. EQ is a good example of why I didnt like them. It has all the ingredients that some oldschool MMOplayers think should be in a good MMO, which I think shouldnt be in any computergame.
'Challenge' in the form of EQ's repetition and timesinks melt my brain. Old school MMO's werent gamers games. Its as if the developers unlearned everything that makes a great computergame and then made EQ. No thinking or twitching reactions required..just vegetate in a MMO.
Try to look past the nostalgia and see whats really there.
EQ didn't have twitch combat. People who wanted twitch combat would't have liked it and that's fair enough. (Although kiting was pretty twitchy, it wasn't the main form of combat).
However, there was lots of thinking involved unless you were only ever in groups who played it ultra-safe.
Very cool to see someone who's still playing since day one.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
So much better to be limited to 1-3 templates instead, right? UO and AC both had a pathetically limited number of viable choices when it all came down to it. Better to have 8 working classes than 50 skills, all of which only a handfull were actually usefull. Class systems allow MORE choices and more balance, which is why those systems prevailed. Being able to choose any skill but be gimped compared to the next guy doesn't make for balanced play. Good systems get emulated. Broken ones do not. Skill systems work great in single player games. Theres no doubt about it. But they're horrible in MMOs. They look great on paper but never pan out in practice.
UO is horrible in terms of progression design. Everyone is a tank mage .. a lot LESS variety than EQ. EQ classes are much better.
Are you both kidding me? Did either of you ever play UO? Here is a list of some of the templates I had that I can remember: dex monkey (sword and board), dex monkey (spear/archer), dex monkey (mace and board), lock picker/stealther, treasure hunter, fisherman archer, master crafter, bard/mage, bard/tamer, bard/archer, straight mage, tamer/mage, dex monkey (axer), treasure hunter, nox builds. To name a few.
I agree with the original post whole heartedly.
One of these days a game may come out that puts together the unforgiving and open PvE world experience that was Everquest, with some refinements involving quests, dungeons and raids, and tradeskilling... and combine it with the PvP elements and experience that comprised DAoC - including at least 3, if not 4, individual factions for players to chose from. With built in incentives for faction choice on character creation adjusted by realm balance to keep servers with mostly even faction population matchups.
Am I asking too much? Dunno... 's only been close to 10 years since BOTH EQ and DAoC were launched, and we've seen a hell of a lot of miserable failures in fantasy MMORPG games, excluding that themepark solo fest that holds your hand tight called World of Warcraft.
I can remember good times just being with the guilds or friends just as easily as i can remember by (in)glorious deaths. It was fun.
But claiming it was a single player RPG forced into a multiplayer game is just ignorant. It was a diku MUD base. Thats multiplayer from the very start. What you say about UO is true about EQ, it was fun by itself, the hardcore features weren't needed, but it helped it along.
These days its all follow the arrows.
I havent read the rest of this thread, but yes, agree with everything you say here.
While easy (I hate the term 'casual' to mean easy... they are not the same thing), solo, and PvP play definitely should be catered for, preferbly in games dedicated to them so that those devs can do those play styles full justice, the games I remember being great for me were the ones that wernt any of them. EQ especially.
Classic EQ didnt try to be everything to everybody. It was what it was, take it or leave it. People came to the game because it was what they were looking for, we were all there for the same type of play experience and that gave us a shared feeling of being part of something bigger. You can't say that now... modern games act like $5 hookers, desperate to provide you with whatever you think you want in order to squeeze you for money.
Modern mmorpgs are just driven by their shareholders to provide for eveyone in an effort to maximise their playerbase and revenue, game design by a commitee of accountants, but the classic games just didnt seem to have this philosophy. In the early days it felt like the devs only expected these games to be niche and were happy with that as long as a fair profit was turned. Noone expected EQ to ever be the massive (for those days) success it was, but they still made it.
My latest blog entry was pretty much about this issue tbh;
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/vesavius
i dont know about eq1 but i can say i love eq2 full of lore ,im just starting and havent decided on a specific class but i love the game,after having played wow 3 years eq2 is a nice change but then thats just me
mm!put like that its scary !but couldnt a game like wow add another kind of server ,like hard pvp or hard rp
in those server no add-on,compass,coord ,etc everybody would be happy ?you would get the silly easy mode and we would get the eq1 style hard mode lot are craving,true blizzard or any company would have to monitor the cheat but in my view only with a way like that can everybody truelly be happy
UO did have tank mages. When tank mages were in vogue, though, it was pretty useless to play one, as magic and potions where the ultimate damage dealing and wearing plate armor basically put a bullseye on your head. Back then it was better to wear leather armor as it give good resistences to several magic types. They changed that though. Then armor was mostly just for looks until long after.
I had a lot of fun in EQ. Even though it seems like I was playing it over a decade ago, I still remember the layout of every map on the first continent. Everyone remembers there first day they got their j-boots, and all healers remember the day they got their manastones. The game started to suffer the same problems WoW suffers from from Kunark on, though. Kinda weird. UO was the funnest actual ROLE play game, and the funnest small scale PvP game, EQ the best PvE(debtably WoW now), and daoC had the best largscale PvP. Kind of funny how all the best stuff came out right after the other UO--> EQ--> DaoC.
I support most of the arguments for old school MMOs and agree that things are too easy by far much of the time these days.
Still, I cannot imagine wanting to have no in game maps at all. I remember in FFXI there were zones where I didn't have a map and it could become rather annoying. In the real world it is relatively easy to walk through a forest and take care to remember key points so you can find your way back, but in an MMO it's difficult to get the same sence of space and really easy to get lost.
I do relate to the feeling you get from knowing a zone well, but still find maps a welcome addition.
Hmm, all that said I used to love the yuhtunga Forest in FFXI where the map was next to useless, there was something cool about the first couple of times you arrived and you had to get a guide to take you to the levelling point. Then, at a later point when you knew your way back you could find yourself taking people home (particularly if you had invisibility), and bringing new people out.
That was a great zone, but I'd have got bored if every zone had the potential for me to get lost.
ok maybe map but not on us more like we get in real life (before cellphone lol)
nobody carried a map sometime if your a big city you ll see a big sing of the city map but when you walk say outside the city you didnt carry a map ,if you got lost you asked direction .
yes easy place become hard without map but thats the idea lol
the way techno is right now they could leave it to player
like if you take -0 server ,theres no map ,no compass(craftable),no add-on,no coord.
and on another server you could have all the frazzle like wow or even better fre-realm
You kidding me I loved having no maps, it made playing fun I was the gps for my guild in eq so I remember lots of nights of having to go you need to turn right ahead. I don't Fin care that there is a dragon on that door, turn right $^$#$. It made life fun, and yes EQ will always be one of the best mmo's ever. I'd play it now if my ex roommate had not stripped my characters for one of his alts then forgot all the gear was mine and sold it. I refuse to start over when I have three naked lvl 70's