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Is EQ just nostalgia, or was it really that good?
rockin_ufo
Member UncommonPosts: 378
NOTE: This is not a hardcore versus casual thread.
When people bring up new ways MMOs should grasp an audience, especially recently with EQNext, a lot of people will jump up and down with their hand raised and when asked to give an answer..bring back the feel of Everquest. The first 3D MMO ever made..yet never been expanded on it's original formula outside of maybe Vanguard. So that brings me to my question..was EQ just nostalgia or was it really that good of an MMO? Possibly a combination? Are the mechanics/gamestyle just too outdated for modern gamers? I'm curious!
My personal opinion, [mod edit] I've realized while some things are indeed dated: I've seeing stuff that I don't ever see in any MMO, even 15 years later. Some modernization on small things are needed (command prompts for everything, really?), but all in all the game is still a solid experience even in it's skeleton. I don't see myself dropping it down anytime soon.
So yeah, discuss!
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light
It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience.
'cause everyone thinks they're right,
And nobody thinks that there just might
Be more than one road to our final destination--
Comments
Not all who wander are lost...
EQ Vanilla/Kunark/Velious endgame is mostly nostalgia. Once AAs came around though the EQ endgame was awesome, and LDoN remains the best instanced system ever because of the random element involved
What isn't nostalgia though is the long, meaningful leveling process in a fantastic world with fantastic cities, zones, and dungeons.
Edit: the #1 thing about EQ that made it shine so brightly and no game since has come *remotely* close is the group mechanics.
The group mechanics were absolutely amazing.
I think when I mention wanting things to be like EQ, it is because back then they did not know how to do "easy". Things were far tougher, to fight, to find, to earn, to level. Sure it got frustrating at times, but it has always been experience that something worth it, is worth fighting for. Nostalgia perhaps on a small scale, but for me it is about having a NEED for a community, for others to help you along the way. Not holding your hand, but giving you a hand up to take down a greater cause other than a sense of self entitlement.
I have read recently in a forum here (not sure which anymore, been some time) but someone had hoped they could solo dungeons in one of the new titles coming out, and it upset me. To think that THIS is the route we are headed. I fear the market is being run by the quick fingered rather than the quick thinkers.(Take it as you like). Besides the desire to be the first in everything like many now a days play their games, the use of things like internet searches have simply just made us lazy and undesired to actually be social to and with others in a realm that has made its name sake on being "multi-player".
I can tell you one thing for sure.
EQ had a world better than any other until more recent expansions. Take Kelethin for example. Each and every door in Kelethin could be opened and walked into. Nowadays, any newer game will build a city and you may be able to open 3 or 4 doors. Most of the time the doors are already open. The cities in newer games are decorated with buildings that are actually just building hallways. The world in newer games is more decoration and not actual world. It's more than just nostalgia for me because of this.
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light
It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience.
'cause everyone thinks they're right,
And nobody thinks that there just might
Be more than one road to our final destination--
The best way to design an MMO is to aim for a modest amount of players. trying to please everyone means you please no one.
Also, 150k isnt far off average if you throw WoW and GW2 out of the picture.
Exactly.. the only MMO to even capture a huge amount of players will, and always will be, is WoW (for reasons unknown to me). Too many MMOs go all Pokemon and "Gotta catch 'em all" on consumers, got hit that bottom line yo. But when you go back and look at the most successful MMOs that is quite the opposite direction;
Everquest was made by one guy with a vision, he wanted to make a game he enjoyed and shared it with others with the same passion. Didn't like it? That's OK, it's just a game afterall. Guild Wars 1; same deal. Made by three experienced developers in their basement, but they made it as a game they enjoyed. Asheron Call 1; made by a dude in his garage and has some of the worst Netcode in exsistence, but again..made by a guy with a passion. Now look at their sequels, you see the same passion? Sure they tried to sell their passion, but you could tell by the dev speak what was going to happen.
I don't want to turn this into an Indie > Business. But businesses should take a page from the book of making a game for the player rather then the bottom line. That's what I feel what people want when they want to experience EQ again.
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light
It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience.
'cause everyone thinks they're right,
And nobody thinks that there just might
Be more than one road to our final destination--
I think it was the game that introduced a huge number of mmo players to online gaming so yeah, you always remember your first.
I think the vast amount of 'stuff' you could do in EQ was just immense. You got attached to your character. I remember a girl telling me all about her elf one day before I ever played MMO's - she was so animated and excited.
Years later, I tried playing EQ after EQ2 came out. I logged in, created a character, ran out of the starting area, fell in a pool of water, couldn't swim, died, logged off and deleted the game. Not sure what I missed.
No bitchers.
Mostly nostalgia. EQ was a really great game for its time, and it did a lot of things right that still haven't been adapted as well (or at all) in modern MMOs. Still, EQ just has so much about it that's just dated and hard for reasonable people to justify. I hope anyone who is looking forward to EQ Next that is a reasonable person is hoping that EQ Next is more than just a EQ in a new skin. There are some mechanics that should be in the new EQ for sure, but there are a lot of modern MMO conventions that need to be in the new EQ also as well as improvements to both old conventions and new ones.
[mod edit]
I left EQ once I believe the GoD expansion came out. There is no original EQ for me , I didn't quit it nor DAOC because I got tired of the original versions. I left because either expansions or major rule changes changed the game I originally loved.
It may be nostalgia for some , but don't paint everyone with that , as there is no choice for those of us who do want the original style EQ and DAOC and so on.
Many of us didn't leave because we got tired of the game , it was because they changed the game to no longer be close to what it was.
Todays EQ cant even be considered remotely like the original EQ.
So the interesting thing I notice is as great as EQ is, it didn't take a million+ dollars to make. Yet with even all that money today no developer has created anything as massive or as immersive. But they want to call their game an MMORPG.
Stop the lying.
Buffs
Travel spells before we insisted a MMO must have mounts
No instances and uncapped zones and raids
Unparalleled faction system
True risk vs reward
True specialized classes like the Enchanter. The extinct pure crowd controller
Rewarding exploration (no searching for a guy with an exclamation mark before going on your little adventure)
Encouraged and forced socialization
The trinity in it's purest form for better or worse
And many things more, completely or partially killed off for the "better" of all ...in quotation of course.
I played EQ for 4 years. The longest I've played any MMORPG and also the only game since I could truly call addictive as crack. Been chasing that high ever since. Only WoW came close which had me playing for two years but no where near the withdrawals I felt back then when I was away too long. I remember being at parties rather wanting to be at home playing. I have a pretty good memory of how it was like playing back then and there's no nostalgia about it
Why can't it be both? Everquest was good for its time. Of course that doesn't mean specific features from Everquest still aren't good concepts I would like to see brought back.
Some examples would be non-instanced dungeons, unmarked quests, first person view, extremely dark nights, long travel times with class specific ports, long duration buffs, crowd control role, and requirements to eat and drink. However, the core concepts of what Everquest was (sit at a camp for 12 hours to grind through a bubble of exp) is not something I am even remotely interested in.
[mod edit]
And sure, for some people it's more than nostalgia, but I think for a lot of people (particularly the people who expect EQ:Next to basically be a reskinned EQ or complain that modern MMOs aren't more like EQ) it is in fact nostalgia. They could go back and play the game they loved so much, but I think for a lot of people if they did they would realize the many improvements and innovations of modern MMOs that make them more fun.
The number one thing I hope it takes from EQ1 is that character progression (leveling process or skill process depending on what the game uses) shouldnt end in 4 days /played like *every* mmorpg released since LOTRO. It should take the average semi-serious player over a year to hit max level if there are levels, and there should be AAs to go along with it.
"The game begins at endgame" is the way to make a poor MMORPG.
Yeah, I definitely agree. I made a list of features in another post EQ (and other old school MMOs) did that I enjoy and haven't seen ported to modern MMOs. Modern MMOs did kill off a lot of great features that EQ had, some maybe due to complexity, harshness, and just being too difficult to implement in a modern MMO, but those limitations are over now and it's possible to bring that stuff without it potentially hurting a casual experience. Still, there are so many features EQ had that back then were ahead of it's time are just downright bad in my opinion and the core of the game is just slow and boring IMO when you compare it to modern MMOs. I think people tend to get very deep seated in nostalgia and ignore innovations and improvements over the years.
99% of the time, it's nostalgia. Take this from a 36 year old who's been playing games since 1985. EQ and games like that bring back some fond memories, but to revisit them, you realize your brain embelished quite a bit.
New features come out, new engines are developed and new mechanics are introduced over the years that are developed for a reason - to make the gaming experience better. Even if you don't like a lot of them, chances are, you've become used to seeing them and comfortable with them.
Go back to a game like EQ that doesn't have any of that and suddenly you'll realize why those things were introduced in the first place!
Case in point - ever go back and play an old FPS that didn't have "WASD" mapped by default?
I played that game in 1999, jumped on right before they opened up the plane of air. This was wayyyy back in the day, even before Kedge had any mobs inside. I started on one of the Zek severs, which was team based PvP, so that added a lot.
If you did not play the game at or around that specific time (I will say pre or post Kunark, maybe up to Velious) then you missed out on THE greatest gaming experience you could ever had. Anyone who says it was mostly nostalgia did not play....period.
The game basically worked. The graphics were strictly 1999 stuff, but it was 1999 so it did not really matter. The animations or original EQ are still better than the Luclin upgraded animations (which shows you how BAD those animations were).
What made EQ great was not really the game, though the game WAS great. It was the community. This was the first, and still the best in-game community. You could not solo the game. You had to join groups, your character took forever to level and you better believe you got a reputation, especially on the PvP servers. There was no auction house. You sat in GFay or Eastern Commons and were trying to wheel and deal your way to phat loot. Those zones usually had a couple hundred people in them during prime time and whenever you hear people say "I want to the zones to feel alive" this is what they are talking about.
Here is the secret. Every single MMO to come after was designed around the premise of what your character could NOT do. This is what sank EQ2, by the way. Everquest was designed around what your character COULD do. For example. The monk class could feign death. People figured out how to use that to pull and separate mobs. If you were good (and I was good) you could take your level 32 monk and go into Sol A (lesser dungeon) and park your monkly behind behind the bar and split/pull/solo those mobs there AND sneak behind the goblin merchant to sell that loot. Yes, it was dangerous. One wrong move and you were RUNNING to the zone (and you would get hit with spells to break your FD and sometimes you would get caught in that horrible auto-spin...../ugh).
The point is people figured out how to do great things with their characters. Necros figured out they were solo gods if played right, enchanters even more so. Druids would kite things around the above world zones.....and warriors would complain..lol. Rangers were gimped and stayed gimped until they added archery AAs, unlimited quiver and all that stuff.
Really, it was the community. You had actual friends that you probably still have today. To get to the end level, you had to have friends. You needed them, and they needed you. The idea of a lobby based game did not even exist at the time. You would spend HOURS retrieving corpses on a failed dungeon run....and believe it or not, those were some of the best times you could have in the game.
See, people now thing corpse runs are a problem. But what they do not understand, what they cannot possibly understand, is that those corpse runs provided an actual foundation which you would build in-game relations with other players. Yes, it could be frustrating...but there was NEVER a time in my long EQ career (and it sometimes seemed like a career) where if you really needed help, someone would not come from zones away to help you. Try getting that kind of help in any MMO today. You can't, because they are designed for solo convenience.
Here are some following things only EQ vets will chuckle about.
-When you were in Castle Mistmoore, and you were level 25 and you started to see plate wearing, dark-elf NPCs.....you went "gulp". The first time you heard "D'Vinn to ZONEqiseqs." You had no idea what it meant.....but every time after that you knew exactly what it meant.
-God help you if you took a left when you should have taken a right when you went the wrong way through Runnyeye to reach the Gorge....god have mercy on you.
-Hey, there is an underwater dungeon called Kedge Keep....let's check it out." 7 minutes later after that damned fishe pierced you to death "Is there any MAGI in the zone who can summon underwater stones.
-"Boat is stuck....can I get a bard to locate corpse pleaseeeee?!?"
-"OMG OMG OMG Frenzy is up....huryyy.." Just as you pulled a bunch of other mobs.
-Two steps from the GFay/LFay zone in on a PVP server. "Your feet adhere to the ground" Then you see it....three gnomes, one of the a necro and probably two wizards....this is where the hatred of Gnomes in every online MMO came from. This single incident, multiplied 100 times, every single night in GFay on those PVP servers.
-Looking at that level bar on your Ranger at level 38.....come on, one more orange until SOW.
-And, of course, running from GFay all the way to Qeynos. Fighting no mobs, running from everything that even came close to you. Summoning up every ounce of courage you had to travel the walls of Kithicor (if you were there after the dreaded change) figuring out the damned maze in Highpass.....seeing the long ramp down and the VAST Karana zones on autorun....finally making it to Qeynos and thinking you accomplished something truly mighty at level 9 (and you DID)
People who never played EQ scoff at those type of experiences. They will tell you "no thanks, that does not sound like fun at all"....but it really WAS fun. Those were some of the best times you ever had in an online game, just admit it.
There's more to it than that and a very narrow way at looking at things. Your improvements and innovations as you mention them is a relative term. Be specific. I don't like we have practically eliminated buffs, their importance and beneficial nature in a game with very slow progression however I do applaud the streamlined nature of UIs and maps. I don't like nearly all themeparks comes with instanced dungeons but I like talent trees making me able to play a class in several ways
So not it isn't just nostalgia for me at least. I can't go back to archaic UIs and horrible graphics but I want nearly everything back we have lost in the name of progression
I dont think the core of the game was slow and boring at all. For instance i dont think camping a set of spawns is inherently a bad mechanic. However, the static nature of the camps was bad. You could cycle through the spawns with ease once the camp was broken. It would be cool if they made the spawns much more unpredictable and every once in a while the gnolls or w/e would organize and try to take back their spot.
Those camps with the super long spawn timers? They work too (but not for epic weapon quests, stuff like eyepatch of plunder Im talking). WoW has a few of these (Time lost proto drake rivals any camp EQ ever had).
One of the forgotten charms of EQ is the dangerous mobs in low level zones Hill Giants, griffons...these things were so memorable. And again, WoW showed this mechanic works (Fel reavers, the abomination in Duskwood) but stupidly WoW used it rarely.
Hw about having to use invis to get to the zone you wanted to go to and the nervousness of if it would wear off? Things like this need to be considered to bring back if it fits the game.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
What? I almost completely solo'ed on my Enchanter of all things. The Druids, Wizards, Magicians, Necromancers, and Shamans had it far easier than I ever did. Bards, Rangers, Paladins and Shadow Knights also solo'ed. The only classes that couldn't solo were the Warrior and Cleric and the Cleric could if you found a spot with nothing but undead.
With the exception of sense heading, i think everything you listed is a good feature. I would just change the necro summon corpse ability to not require the coffins.
I bet some people will argue once AA's came out that the game lost its original tone. I enjoyed the AA's myself, but all the keying for members to just enter a plane or zone to raid in was a bit too much.
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!