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You remember when spells felt like magic?
You know, I miss EQ for some small things like spells. There was a time(pre-raiding) when spell-casting felt like magic, the sound-effects, the spell-effects, the longer casting times all felt like spells were magic. Something like WoW is a completely different experience. An array of instant spells, Blizzard style abilities and the same feeling just isn't there. Anyone know what I mean?
*By the way, the reason I pinpoint pre-raiding, is that with raiding it was routine to cast every single buff on you- so much so that the awe was lost with each of the individual buffs and just seemed to be replaced by buffs as mere functions without much more meaning than that.
Comments
"It is in your nature to do one thing correctly; Before me, you rightfully tremble. But, fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe." ~Francis Dolarhyde
I understand your analogy, over use bringing the awe factor down, but...
# Everquest (March 1999)
# The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000)
# The Scars of Velious (December 2000)
Pre-raiding? Since Vox and Naggy were the first raid targets, which would be... Kunark or Velious expansions...
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
I know the feeling. Even in settings where magic is supposed to be rare, highly dangerous, or whatever, for the casters it seems not like a big deal, and the animations arent any more exciting than what any melee skill does. I like it when magic still looked and felt like magic, and i loved things like the actual saying out loud of the Words of Power in UO. On RP Shards you could over time learn what the words meant and react to a mage uttering them accordingly. (Like starting to run when you hear stuff like Vas Corp Por)
Spells, even the most powerful ones (hour cooldown stuff) dont even feel like anything special anymore, and most of the time theyre just one rather short outburst that just kills something.
I wouldnt say that instant spells are necessarily bad (though they should be rather rare), but maybe they ought to be presented in a better way, or maybe get something like a verbal component or better character animation.
Today most casters seem like Rangers that use mana instead of arrows and get a bit more crowd control into the mix. I really dont like being a ranger that simply does elemental damage and has huge downtimes when the mana's gone. I'd rather have really long casting times but when the spell hits its gonna count. No arrow or sword can strike as hard as an undeflectable explosion right in your face that came out of nowhere, or energy spontaneously striking you.
I feel like most of the "penalty" casters had was reduced because too many people couldnt stand things like long downtime, long casting time, next to no melee survivability, etc., but to balance things out most of the advantages (supreme rule in ranged combat and huge damage) also had to be toned down so in the end its just some sort of ranged combat. Naturally since its nothing so great in game terms anymore, the animations and feel had to follow suit.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
nomadian, I know exactly what you mean. The spell effects (in 1999) was one of the things that absolutely HOOKED me this game. When you casted a lvl 1 healing spell...you saw pretty blue sparkles everywhere. When you were level 50 casting a healing spell, the sparkles were wider and spread out everywhere. It was a asthetic representation of how powerful you were, and a very important one to the game.
Showing off, that's what the game seemed to be about. Showing off your weapons, armor, and spell casting effects. A level 50 spirit of the wolf looked MUCH different than a lvl 9 spirt of wolf. A level 9 version had a few purple "bubbles" that went around your hand to your face. A lvl 50 version had purple "bubbles" that went 10 feet above your head. It was pretty cool, but now those days of feeling any kind of accomplishment are dead and gone.
Hey all!
I'm right here with all of you when you say the "spells felt like magic". I love everquest1 (I don't play anymore because it changed so much). I will always find everquest 1 to be the best game to ever have been created.
I miss that feeling just like all of you. I miss it a lot! It never quite goes away...
What do you guys think of this idea? Companies keep trying to make new games and pumping them out and they're ALL THE SAME. They're all just like wow and they are not even 1/100th of the game eq 1 was.
What if they did this: Round up 100 people like us who played everquest back in around 1999-2001. Listen to all 100 of us talk about all the things we loved from the game (spells, items, mobs, leveling, community, cities, races, classes.,, etc i could go on forever
). Have some sort of conference where we all go over how much we loved EQ and why. If a gaming company listens to us 100 people who loved eq talk about what we loved about it and then records it all and basically makes a new game that is what everquest was in 1999-2000 they would have a hit! IM SO SICK OF THIS WOW bullshit games. I just tried out LOTRO and it's (surprise surprise) exactly what WoW is. I feel no drive to level, talk to the community, quest, or get a good inventory. I immediately feel bored from it. It's so sad. I come to every new game looking for even 1/100th the feeling I got from EQ and i can't find it anywhere.
RECREATE EQ!! Lol, an encore of it or something. If they listened to the 100 of us say what we loved about eq and made a newgame (not the same as EQ) but a game that basically is EQ in the form of another game I"D PLAY IT ! Lol. Just make a new game with different cities and races and classes but basically modeled exactly around what eq WAS in 2000 and they'd have a great game.
I miss it
. It seems like nothing else will measure up.
And nothhing is more annoying and patronizing than having someone tell me "you only liked eq so much because it was the first game of this type". THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!
Oops double post.
Why?
Simple; WoW is the most successful MMORPG ever created with over 8 million subscribers and companies seem to think by copying most of the elements of WoW that they too will have a successful subscription base.
INNOVATION is what we want, not the same type of game being pumped out year in and year out.
I'll agree, somewhat. I'm with you when you say it won't happen. Unfortunately, even though I want old EQ back, it probably won't happen. Yes WoW has been extremely successful, and that's why everyone just wants to copycat it.
The only thing I'll disagree with you on is the innovation part. I feel like the "give us something innovative" thing holds up to some degree, in theory, but not so much in practice. The reason is say that is this: I'd be 100 percent satisfied and extactic over the idea of just playing that same old simple game EQ was all day long till I die (LOL). I don't need anything new. I just want what EQ was. I don't want this same old reoccuring BS of WoW games over and over again, but I don't necessarilly need some new housing bs, or boat system to sweep me off my feet. I need that simple rpg game that came out in 1999 with shitty graphics, that I surprisingly enough still loved. All these new games spend 100000 hours perfecthing their graphics when EQ, with its shitty original graphics, immersed me and everyone else (no questions asked) more than anything in my life.
Haha, If I ever knew what all you were talking about anymore, I would explode, if I could write a short story about my first 20 minute experience with Everquest 1 it would be like this:
~Born into Freeport, a helpless, poor, human necromancer named Duren. Its dark, nothing but a little note, a dagger and a dirty robe. I see many powerful players dashing by me with glowing weapons, casting fizzling spells, helping to light my path, I come across and ogre selling many goods, walking outside learning the basics of dark spellcasting I invoke the Lifetap spell apoun a Deathfist Pawn -- He is too powerful for me! I thought my life was going to end -- right when it began! At the last moment, Guard Jascen came to my rescue.~
I miss it alot, but we'd have a better chance of making our own underground game from scratch. The best thing was, playing with others, but as of right now, I would rather be playing Everquest classic, by myself, no one else, than play WoW... Sad huh? WoW is a successful game because its - Big, Action Packed, Online, Fast Paced, and has PVP. Everquest had alot of that, plus the most unique feeling ever, that does not exist in any other game to date. The only other game that gave me a unique feeling that could compare, was Ultima Online the original. It was just as good as Everquests mood, but completely different....