It'll be nostalgia galore, I plan to play EQ next to whatever other MMO I'll be playing at the time
As for other upcoming MMO's, I expect only GW2 and SWTOR to have large worlds, up to several times larger than WoW, in any case vast enough to satisfy the explorer in me.
TERA, don't know, need more info about it to determine how large its world will be.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It might be but I could not convince any of my old EQ buddies to do this. I am very sad. Without them it will not be the same. I need their presence to dull the awful graphics but I am of two minds now .I need my friends otherwise this experience will be very different.
It might be but I could not convince any of my old EQ buddies to do this. I am very sad. Without them it will not be the same. I need their presence to dull the awful graphics but I am of two minds now .I need my friends otherwise this experience will be very different.
I`m in the same boat - the people I played EQ with 11 years ago aren`t interested for one reason or another. I figure it`s a good opportunity to make new friends though, cause if there`s one thing EQ does right, it sure brings people together.
It might be but I could not convince any of my old EQ buddies to do this. I am very sad. Without them it will not be the same. I need their presence to dull the awful graphics but I am of two minds now .I need my friends otherwise this experience will be very different.
My friends are either playing games I don't want to play now, or busy not playing any games at all. So g/f and I will be doing this regardless of what our online buddies want to do. Not going to pass up this chance to start over and have a blast from the past in EQ. I mean how long have we all been waiting for this exact server ruleset? Who knows when the next one will be.
Newer games may be the buzz of the town and yes they have a lot of hype going for it. But look back in the past few years, new games come & go. They're always exciting for a few months then you're back to searching for the next big thing. The true success comes in longevity imo and so far nothing beats EQ's 12 years of existence. It's the only original classic that still have 14 well populated servers and getting updated & expanded on each year.
Besides, new server, new start, new opportunity to make some new friends
I was never an EQ player, but I forwarded the info regarding the progression server to a bunch of my other gaming friends that played for 3-4 years. They thought it was cool but the problem is that every one of those guys, except 1, is now married with at least 1 child and no time to go and experience this.
In general, I think this is a good idea, providing an evolving world where everyone starts out equal, but I don't see it working in a retroactive way like this. Asheron's Call, as I understand it, was really good at periodically evolving the game world to forward a storyline. I think if this is done up front, with new server instances rolling out to start the story all over again, that could work out better. E.g. Server 1 starts on stage A. When server 1 progresses to stage B, server 2 is launched at stage A. When server 1 proceeds to stage C, server 2 shortly thereafter proceeds to stage B and server 3 launches at stage A, etc... You would have the option of entering the gameworld at any stage, but could effective start at the "beginning".
If EQnext is a heavy cash shop baby, then I won't be playing it either.
I loved EQ, heck I would play the old graphics, and resub, if they went back to the beginning and then developed new expansions and wiped the old expansions out, basically a relaunch with new content, that mirrored earlier expansions style, not the LDoN type instanced crud.
i dont get why people are so quick to say "if its full of cash shops im not playing" have you ever played f2p mmo with cash shops? i mean a good one ..if its a good all around game i deff have zero problems paying for anykind of cash shops and what if there is no monthly fee? or maybe a very small monthly fee? people are just soo quick to judge nowa days and never give anything a chance before it even gets started ..if its a good mmo ..i'll play / pay ..plain and simple
I played EQ the first day it came out and I fell in love with the game. I would play it for 30-40 hours w/o sleep on the weekends. Since then i'm alittle bit older and can't play for more then a few hours at the most now adays. If it goes back to the real way it was when i first played, i don't think i can hang anymore. Just looking for a group for hours will be a waste. I made a enchater just to get in groups fast because of it.
To answer a few questions and then to sum up what one can expect from the new progression server. In 2001 the idea of a progression server had just started percolating. Most of what I recall was on the EQ Druid Boards, although the notion had spread throughout the EQ community. A lot of the discussions were dismissed as most thought SOE would shoot the idea down and at first the progression idea was mostly a phantom notion dreamed up by Old School Players looking to address the direction the game was going in.
After a lot of discussion and petitioning, SOE realized that they may benefit by compromising with the community and thus the Progression server was created in 2006. I don't recall the exact phrasing or outline, but as best as I can recall SOE had the largest spike in subscription base since the original release. Perhaps a little Googling will give you a clearer picture, however for the sake of time I'm just going off memory.
The first server did have an over population problem so a second server was created. There were two major raiding guilds with a close third that was vying to see how quickly they could unlock the various challenges. The expansion(s) was still time based. The issues started about the third week when players were finding ways to either obtain gear or were able to craft items that didn't exist in the original game. For example people were making Qeynos Afternoon Tea and Misty Thicket Picnic Baskets, both of which had stats better than any gear that would drop in the planes.
There was a lot of excitement when the server went live and it was really amazing to see people gathering in the EC tunnel for sales, interaction and general community building. Seeing 400 people in Grater Faydark and watching the zone crash was just amazing, not to mention how impossible it was to kill any MOB as people were actually camping Bat and Wasp spawns. I ended up buying Quest Items by Vendor Diving just to level, along with doing the Mail Quest and those quest that didn't require hunting MOBs.
Personally I started loosing interest after about 6 weeks. Fortunately our guild was there during the opening so we always had people to group with, trade with and craft with. I believe the last of my guild mates stop logging in after about three months. We had a lot of fun. I'm not sure if I'll be coming back, even as an Old School original Beta Tester. If I want to play in the traditional style as it was when the game was released there are ways to do that, although we can't mention it by name here in the forums.
I wish you guys all the best, populate the hell out of the sever and show SOE that the community still thrives and they should always beware of who pays the bills!
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
If EQnext is a heavy cash shop baby, then I won't be playing it either.
I loved EQ, heck I would play the old graphics, and resub, if they went back to the beginning and then developed new expansions and wiped the old expansions out, basically a relaunch with new content, that mirrored earlier expansions style, not the LDoN type instanced crud.
i dont get why people are so quick to say "if its full of cash shops im not playing" have you ever played f2p mmo with cash shops? i mean a good one ..if its a good all around game i deff have zero problems paying for anykind of cash shops and what if there is no monthly fee? or maybe a very small monthly fee? people are just soo quick to judge nowa days and never give anything a chance before it even gets started ..if its a good mmo ..i'll play / pay ..plain and simple
All pay to achieve (and that means any content, including 'fluff') cash shops are anti gaming.
I'm eagerly looking forward to resubbing for Fippy Darkpaw, but I have no illusions that it's going to shake the foundations of the MMO genre. People don't even bat an eye at a game that fails to break half a million subscribers. The buzz for this server is not that big; it's not popping up as major news on MMO sites, and nobody that I know personally had heard about it until I told them.
Even if the server gets so full that they have to open a second and third server, that's not even a blip on the radar compared to the numbers that games are "supposed to" pull in at release. And I don't think there's any doubt that the big draw is the EverQuest name. MMO veterans want to experience Norrath for nostalgia's sake, and MMO newbs want to find out about the granddaddy that they never got to play. If some game company were to pull a Trion and release a highly-polished EQ clone with all the hardcore features like corpse runs and no maps, neither of those two groups would be interested in it.
I'm eagerly looking forward to resubbing for Fippy Darkpaw, but I have no illusions that it's going to shake the foundations of the MMO genre. People don't even bat an eye at a game that fails to break half a million subscribers. The buzz for this server is not that big; it's not popping up as major news on MMO sites, and nobody that I know personally had heard about it until I told them.
Even if the server gets so full that they have to open a second and third server, that's not even a blip on the radar compared to the numbers that games are "supposed to" pull in at release. And I don't think there's any doubt that the big draw is the EverQuest name. MMO veterans want to experience Norrath for nostalgia's sake, and MMO newbs want to find out about the granddaddy that they never got to play. If some game company were to pull a Trion and release a highly-polished EQ clone with all the hardcore features like corpse runs and no maps, neither of those two groups would be interested in it.
I agree. I plan on playing for awhile once the new server is released, but I don't expect any "revolutions" of sorts to happen. I say that because it's already obvious that there's a niche market for the older, more in-depth style of game. You can see it with indie developed games like Fallen Earth, Dark Fall, EVE, Wurm Online, and even others popping up on the horizon. You can also look at older games that still play very much like they did in their old days (Ultima Online, Asheron's call, etc).
In other words, the proof already exists that there are obviously players who enjoy the older style, but the proof also shows that gamers like ourselves, who enjoy a more complex and less forgiving experience, are unfortunately in the minority.
All of that said, I'm at a point to where the only type of developer I ever have any hope for are the lesser known, indie developers - at least when it comes to this genre. From what I've seen, developers like that are the only hope we have for a more challenging and immersive experience. It's nice that SOE is going through the trouble to put out another progression server, as they're the only mainstream company that I know of that's ever done something like this, but I doubt very seriously that they'd ever consider developing a new game in the old style, regardless on how well this server does. I don't believe the niche market is big enough for them to bother, and that most likely goes for any other mainstream developer.
Is a rehash of the genre's past a hope for its future? I bloody well hope not. We're looking to go forward, not backwards!
We've been going backwards gor a good 6 years now. The only innovation in that time has been public quests, which wasn't even that big of an innovation to begin with, as other games had a similar system.
Modern games have dozens fewer features than old games. Moving backwards is the only way to go forward with MMOs, because everything we have no is a poor pitiful husk of the old games.
The buyers of games today are the those who grew up with console games, and they are already set on their preferred style.
They do not want challange, they want to easy accessible entertainment that they can zap in and out of. They want story driven games with them as the center of focus. They want action like their console games gave them. Gaming companies just gives them what they want because thats where the most money is.
I will be playing Fippy, but I am pretty sure it will not be the big fat hope for mmo's, considering your definition of hope. If Fippy doesn't ruin his own land and players stick around, some companies might see that there is a market niche for players who want a game with more challange and freedom.. well a rpg game to sum it up.
Eq is nowhere near perfect, but comparing it with any other mmorpg I tried, it is still far better than anything out there - Thats why I am going Fippy even though other games are technically ahead.
I really don't like the idea of votes for unlocks. Level 20s with no idea just how crowded Lguk and SolB are voting for 6 months longer... Oh God the horror.
And why do I have this sneaking suspicion that this server isn't going to be progressing past Velious?
That is actually something that interest us here. We are curious if people really DO want that "Classic" server that is stuck at Velious, or if they will finally get bored enough to unlock Luclin.
This should put to rest any doubts that EQ1 dev team is using this TLP server as a test. Ngreth said himself they're interested in seeing if people really do want that classic server stuck at velious, or if people will vote to open luclin.
So there you have it. Showing up will make your voice heard, one way or the other. They are definitely watching the result of these server votes on Fippy. Would that have any effect on Everquest Next that's in development? Who knows, maybe yes maybe no.
I really enjoyed Luclin it was POP that ruined the game for me. I can't wait until Thursday to see what the dev team has to say about the rule set for this server. It will be the deciding factor on if I come back or not. I really am enjoying Rift and might decide to play that game if I don't like what I hear on the rule set.
I personally liked Luclin expansion. Vah Shir was a cool race, beastlords are fun, and some of the zones I spent so much time in like Umbral plains. I think part of the reasons people started to turn sour with expansions was due to how quickly SOE pushed them out. Two expansions a year was harsh and everybody always felt like they had to rush to get through an expansion.
I enjoyed the Luclin Xpac. It was all the xpacs afterwards which IMHO made the game take a downward spiral with the focus solely on raiding.
Back to the OP question. I feel if Flippy does well and there is a need to open more servers, it may have an effect on the development of EQ next. Lets face it if we take WoW out of the equation which western based P2P MMO has hit a million subs six months after release. I may have my figures wrong but I'm sure when LOTRO was at it's peak it was around the 300k to 400k mark. When Vanguard was released it was reported around 200k box sales even with the bad press due to the state it was in from Beta.
I feel if a game company can cross aspects from EQ and EQ 2 and some features from VG and include dynamic content but keeping the feel of EQ, the challenging gameplay, the importance of community but take out some of the tedium, i.e. 12 hour spawn camping they could easily IMO match and progress past most of the recently released western MMO's.
This should put to rest any doubts that EQ1 dev team is using this TLP server as a test. Ngreth said himself they're interested in seeing if people really do want that classic server stuck at velious, or if people will vote to open luclin.
So there you have it. Showing up will make your voice heard, one way or the other. They are definitely watching the result of these server votes on Fippy. Would that have any effect on Everquest Next that's in development? Who knows, maybe yes maybe no.
I agree, in that I'm sure they ARE using this as a test, and more than likely it has to do with EQ next. I'm starting to think EQ next is going to be a modernizattion and relaunch of EQ1, with a new gfx engine, and a great many 'bad features' of EQ removed, and newer features included from the get go. SoE has even said that it's going back to it's EQ roots, rather than looking at EQ2.
If there truely is a demand for not progressing past Velious, then it's something as a developer i'd look at about those 3 expansions that worked in a way that no MMO has come up with to date, and something about post Velious that did not sit well with the rest of the populous. Call me skeptical about that, but after people get bored, wake the sleeper, are sitting at max level etc, i'm positive it will be unlocked to luclin.
Even so, Luclin overall was NOT a bad expansion feature wise. The EQ AA system still is the best way to progress a character outside of raiding/gear, especially for those of max level of ANY MMO to date. It encouraged those even at max level to continually improve their character by grouping. The problem with Luclin was the massive unneeded time sink for Emp/VT keys, and the billion HP splitting mobs in VT that were just flat out stupid.
PoP fixed some of that, but the Teiring system for the entire expansion was a horrid design call. Had SoE kept the raiding system and zones the same, but added more than just 4 zones for non flagged people to experience in it would have been FAR more successful. In essence it should have been a much bigger expansion, with not just high end raiding in mind. It could have had both, and been amazing.
EQ 'died' for me at the release of GoD, and the nail in the coffin was OoW. GoD completely broke EQ on the technical side, and SoE had the audacity to announce yet another expansion when they hadn't even fixed the issues created by the last one. Myself, and all my guildmates (after getting wiped a few times from warping mobs during raiding that night), saw that announcement broadcast. We all quit that same night, and never looked back.
I almost am sure that SoE purposely tried to kill EQ in order to force players to go EQ2. EQ2 in it's own right, was an absolute failure during launch and by all counts was a flop. So people migrated to something polished, not broken, and not requring teiring for exp. That game eventually became the Behemoth of WoW.
Even so, a webcast with a ton of people listening, absolutely no SoE advertisement (sans the new trial period emails), is an encouraging thought. It's a sad state of mmo affairs when i'm more excited about an 11 year old game having a progression type server than I am about ANY upcoming releases.
I'm semi-reluctant to suggest this but I can't help feel it may be the case.
Is Fippy Darkpaw server a big, fat hope for MMOs?
By that I mean a hope for us that are sick of the direction this genre is taking to lame, linear, simplistic and solo MMOs, of which Rift is the latest and poorest. For years a lot of us have been calling out for something new and invigorating. Vanguard promised it but things never panned out, but many of us rode that bandwagon for months, or years. I also think it was the first major source of being player burn that people speak of so frequently.
SOE seem to be seeing something here. They actually really seem to be doing their damnest to make this server an expereince that the community have been calling out for and they put the server up date back two weeks to give them a headstart on Rift. I can only think that that is planned and that they hope they may be able to snag people on the fence.
Okay further broad generalisation now. If this server really takes off, and I mean fills up fast and keeps people entertained for a long time, then does that spell out a message to the devs that are making games now? Does it say 'we exist'? Does it prove once and for all that there are a lot of people wanting something...better?
What does this server's hype tell SOE about the project that is EQNext?
soe isnt doing this to try to save the genre you psycho they are doing it because the last handful of progression servers they made to try to save the dying playerbase failed after raiding guilds powered through to current gameplay in a month or less.
have fun in dead eq1 land for a month or two.
ill be happy in rift, thanks
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
Comments
It'll be nostalgia galore, I plan to play EQ next to whatever other MMO I'll be playing at the time
As for other upcoming MMO's, I expect only GW2 and SWTOR to have large worlds, up to several times larger than WoW, in any case vast enough to satisfy the explorer in me.
TERA, don't know, need more info about it to determine how large its world will be.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It might be but I could not convince any of my old EQ buddies to do this. I am very sad. Without them it will not be the same. I need their presence to dull the awful graphics but I am of two minds now .I need my friends otherwise this experience will be very different.
I`m in the same boat - the people I played EQ with 11 years ago aren`t interested for one reason or another. I figure it`s a good opportunity to make new friends though, cause if there`s one thing EQ does right, it sure brings people together.
My friends are either playing games I don't want to play now, or busy not playing any games at all. So g/f and I will be doing this regardless of what our online buddies want to do. Not going to pass up this chance to start over and have a blast from the past in EQ. I mean how long have we all been waiting for this exact server ruleset? Who knows when the next one will be.
Newer games may be the buzz of the town and yes they have a lot of hype going for it. But look back in the past few years, new games come & go. They're always exciting for a few months then you're back to searching for the next big thing. The true success comes in longevity imo and so far nothing beats EQ's 12 years of existence. It's the only original classic that still have 14 well populated servers and getting updated & expanded on each year.
Besides, new server, new start, new opportunity to make some new friends
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I was never an EQ player, but I forwarded the info regarding the progression server to a bunch of my other gaming friends that played for 3-4 years. They thought it was cool but the problem is that every one of those guys, except 1, is now married with at least 1 child and no time to go and experience this.
In general, I think this is a good idea, providing an evolving world where everyone starts out equal, but I don't see it working in a retroactive way like this. Asheron's Call, as I understand it, was really good at periodically evolving the game world to forward a storyline. I think if this is done up front, with new server instances rolling out to start the story all over again, that could work out better. E.g. Server 1 starts on stage A. When server 1 progresses to stage B, server 2 is launched at stage A. When server 1 proceeds to stage C, server 2 shortly thereafter proceeds to stage B and server 3 launches at stage A, etc... You would have the option of entering the gameworld at any stage, but could effective start at the "beginning".
i dont get why people are so quick to say "if its full of cash shops im not playing" have you ever played f2p mmo with cash shops? i mean a good one ..if its a good all around game i deff have zero problems paying for anykind of cash shops and what if there is no monthly fee? or maybe a very small monthly fee? people are just soo quick to judge nowa days and never give anything a chance before it even gets started ..if its a good mmo ..i'll play / pay ..plain and simple
I played EQ the first day it came out and I fell in love with the game. I would play it for 30-40 hours w/o sleep on the weekends. Since then i'm alittle bit older and can't play for more then a few hours at the most now adays. If it goes back to the real way it was when i first played, i don't think i can hang anymore. Just looking for a group for hours will be a waste. I made a enchater just to get in groups fast because of it.
To answer a few questions and then to sum up what one can expect from the new progression server. In 2001 the idea of a progression server had just started percolating. Most of what I recall was on the EQ Druid Boards, although the notion had spread throughout the EQ community. A lot of the discussions were dismissed as most thought SOE would shoot the idea down and at first the progression idea was mostly a phantom notion dreamed up by Old School Players looking to address the direction the game was going in.
After a lot of discussion and petitioning, SOE realized that they may benefit by compromising with the community and thus the Progression server was created in 2006. I don't recall the exact phrasing or outline, but as best as I can recall SOE had the largest spike in subscription base since the original release. Perhaps a little Googling will give you a clearer picture, however for the sake of time I'm just going off memory.
The first server did have an over population problem so a second server was created. There were two major raiding guilds with a close third that was vying to see how quickly they could unlock the various challenges. The expansion(s) was still time based. The issues started about the third week when players were finding ways to either obtain gear or were able to craft items that didn't exist in the original game. For example people were making Qeynos Afternoon Tea and Misty Thicket Picnic Baskets, both of which had stats better than any gear that would drop in the planes.
There was a lot of excitement when the server went live and it was really amazing to see people gathering in the EC tunnel for sales, interaction and general community building. Seeing 400 people in Grater Faydark and watching the zone crash was just amazing, not to mention how impossible it was to kill any MOB as people were actually camping Bat and Wasp spawns. I ended up buying Quest Items by Vendor Diving just to level, along with doing the Mail Quest and those quest that didn't require hunting MOBs.
Personally I started loosing interest after about 6 weeks. Fortunately our guild was there during the opening so we always had people to group with, trade with and craft with. I believe the last of my guild mates stop logging in after about three months. We had a lot of fun. I'm not sure if I'll be coming back, even as an Old School original Beta Tester. If I want to play in the traditional style as it was when the game was released there are ways to do that, although we can't mention it by name here in the forums.
I wish you guys all the best, populate the hell out of the sever and show SOE that the community still thrives and they should always beware of who pays the bills!
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
Is a rehash of the genre's past a hope for its future? I bloody well hope not. We're looking to go forward, not backwards!
Always read the small print.
All pay to achieve (and that means any content, including 'fluff') cash shops are anti gaming.
I'm eagerly looking forward to resubbing for Fippy Darkpaw, but I have no illusions that it's going to shake the foundations of the MMO genre. People don't even bat an eye at a game that fails to break half a million subscribers. The buzz for this server is not that big; it's not popping up as major news on MMO sites, and nobody that I know personally had heard about it until I told them.
Even if the server gets so full that they have to open a second and third server, that's not even a blip on the radar compared to the numbers that games are "supposed to" pull in at release. And I don't think there's any doubt that the big draw is the EverQuest name. MMO veterans want to experience Norrath for nostalgia's sake, and MMO newbs want to find out about the granddaddy that they never got to play. If some game company were to pull a Trion and release a highly-polished EQ clone with all the hardcore features like corpse runs and no maps, neither of those two groups would be interested in it.
I agree. I plan on playing for awhile once the new server is released, but I don't expect any "revolutions" of sorts to happen. I say that because it's already obvious that there's a niche market for the older, more in-depth style of game. You can see it with indie developed games like Fallen Earth, Dark Fall, EVE, Wurm Online, and even others popping up on the horizon. You can also look at older games that still play very much like they did in their old days (Ultima Online, Asheron's call, etc).
In other words, the proof already exists that there are obviously players who enjoy the older style, but the proof also shows that gamers like ourselves, who enjoy a more complex and less forgiving experience, are unfortunately in the minority.
All of that said, I'm at a point to where the only type of developer I ever have any hope for are the lesser known, indie developers - at least when it comes to this genre. From what I've seen, developers like that are the only hope we have for a more challenging and immersive experience. It's nice that SOE is going through the trouble to put out another progression server, as they're the only mainstream company that I know of that's ever done something like this, but I doubt very seriously that they'd ever consider developing a new game in the old style, regardless on how well this server does. I don't believe the niche market is big enough for them to bother, and that most likely goes for any other mainstream developer.
We've been going backwards gor a good 6 years now. The only innovation in that time has been public quests, which wasn't even that big of an innovation to begin with, as other games had a similar system.
Modern games have dozens fewer features than old games. Moving backwards is the only way to go forward with MMOs, because everything we have no is a poor pitiful husk of the old games.
The buyers of games today are the those who grew up with console games, and they are already set on their preferred style.
They do not want challange, they want to easy accessible entertainment that they can zap in and out of. They want story driven games with them as the center of focus. They want action like their console games gave them. Gaming companies just gives them what they want because thats where the most money is.
I will be playing Fippy, but I am pretty sure it will not be the big fat hope for mmo's, considering your definition of hope. If Fippy doesn't ruin his own land and players stick around, some companies might see that there is a market niche for players who want a game with more challange and freedom.. well a rpg game to sum it up.
Eq is nowhere near perfect, but comparing it with any other mmorpg I tried, it is still far better than anything out there - Thats why I am going Fippy even though other games are technically ahead.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Found an interesting response from Ngreth today, he's EQ's lead crafting dev.
Dev-Ngreth wrote:
This should put to rest any doubts that EQ1 dev team is using this TLP server as a test. Ngreth said himself they're interested in seeing if people really do want that classic server stuck at velious, or if people will vote to open luclin.
So there you have it. Showing up will make your voice heard, one way or the other. They are definitely watching the result of these server votes on Fippy. Would that have any effect on Everquest Next that's in development? Who knows, maybe yes maybe no.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
time will tell but I think there will be a HUGE demand for Luclin
without Luclin
- no mounts
- no AA
- no Beastlords
I personally disliked the Luclin adventure content -- but i love the beastlord class and AA
EQ2 fan sites
I really enjoyed Luclin it was POP that ruined the game for me. I can't wait until Thursday to see what the dev team has to say about the rule set for this server. It will be the deciding factor on if I come back or not. I really am enjoying Rift and might decide to play that game if I don't like what I hear on the rule set.
I personally liked Luclin expansion. Vah Shir was a cool race, beastlords are fun, and some of the zones I spent so much time in like Umbral plains. I think part of the reasons people started to turn sour with expansions was due to how quickly SOE pushed them out. Two expansions a year was harsh and everybody always felt like they had to rush to get through an expansion.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I enjoyed the Luclin Xpac. It was all the xpacs afterwards which IMHO made the game take a downward spiral with the focus solely on raiding.
Back to the OP question. I feel if Flippy does well and there is a need to open more servers, it may have an effect on the development of EQ next. Lets face it if we take WoW out of the equation which western based P2P MMO has hit a million subs six months after release. I may have my figures wrong but I'm sure when LOTRO was at it's peak it was around the 300k to 400k mark. When Vanguard was released it was reported around 200k box sales even with the bad press due to the state it was in from Beta.
I feel if a game company can cross aspects from EQ and EQ 2 and some features from VG and include dynamic content but keeping the feel of EQ, the challenging gameplay, the importance of community but take out some of the tedium, i.e. 12 hour spawn camping they could easily IMO match and progress past most of the recently released western MMO's.
I did like the Luclin content too, but I never was a fan of the bazaar. It took the real world feel away from the economy.
Now if they could open up Luclin without the Bazaar then that'd be a winner for me.
.
original through Velious for me!
I've always believed in the old adage that you can never go home again.
Well if there's any doubt about the demand & popularity, there were over 4k people that joined in on the livecast at 4pm pst.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I agree, in that I'm sure they ARE using this as a test, and more than likely it has to do with EQ next. I'm starting to think EQ next is going to be a modernizattion and relaunch of EQ1, with a new gfx engine, and a great many 'bad features' of EQ removed, and newer features included from the get go. SoE has even said that it's going back to it's EQ roots, rather than looking at EQ2.
If there truely is a demand for not progressing past Velious, then it's something as a developer i'd look at about those 3 expansions that worked in a way that no MMO has come up with to date, and something about post Velious that did not sit well with the rest of the populous. Call me skeptical about that, but after people get bored, wake the sleeper, are sitting at max level etc, i'm positive it will be unlocked to luclin.
Even so, Luclin overall was NOT a bad expansion feature wise. The EQ AA system still is the best way to progress a character outside of raiding/gear, especially for those of max level of ANY MMO to date. It encouraged those even at max level to continually improve their character by grouping. The problem with Luclin was the massive unneeded time sink for Emp/VT keys, and the billion HP splitting mobs in VT that were just flat out stupid.
PoP fixed some of that, but the Teiring system for the entire expansion was a horrid design call. Had SoE kept the raiding system and zones the same, but added more than just 4 zones for non flagged people to experience in it would have been FAR more successful. In essence it should have been a much bigger expansion, with not just high end raiding in mind. It could have had both, and been amazing.
EQ 'died' for me at the release of GoD, and the nail in the coffin was OoW. GoD completely broke EQ on the technical side, and SoE had the audacity to announce yet another expansion when they hadn't even fixed the issues created by the last one. Myself, and all my guildmates (after getting wiped a few times from warping mobs during raiding that night), saw that announcement broadcast. We all quit that same night, and never looked back.
I almost am sure that SoE purposely tried to kill EQ in order to force players to go EQ2. EQ2 in it's own right, was an absolute failure during launch and by all counts was a flop. So people migrated to something polished, not broken, and not requring teiring for exp. That game eventually became the Behemoth of WoW.
Even so, a webcast with a ton of people listening, absolutely no SoE advertisement (sans the new trial period emails), is an encouraging thought. It's a sad state of mmo affairs when i'm more excited about an 11 year old game having a progression type server than I am about ANY upcoming releases.
soe isnt doing this to try to save the genre you psycho they are doing it because the last handful of progression servers they made to try to save the dying playerbase failed after raiding guilds powered through to current gameplay in a month or less.
have fun in dead eq1 land for a month or two.
ill be happy in rift, thanks
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.