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New EQ Ruleset Server (Era Server)
Era Statica
What is an Era Server? A server that keeps each expansion true to its time. This is a ruleset that only allows that era's abilities, levels, equipment and spells to be available while in that era.
Server Mechanics:
1. A characters level will be reduced to that era's max level while you are in that era. Example: A level 70 warrior entering Kunark era will be reduced to a level 60 warrior while in Kunark.
2. No spells or abilities can be used if they were not available in your current era. Example: Level 61+ spells could not be used in Kunark as well as any AA's or other abilities not granted during this era.
3. Any item equipped that is from a later era then the one you occupy will add no value to your character, or will be significantly reduced.
The goal of this server is to allow those that want to progress not ruin the previous expansions inhabitants. This ruleset allows you to experience each era as they were intended no matter the evolution of the server. This in theory should appease the classical fanatics aswell as the progression based power gamers. This is not an idea intended to address singular opinions you may have about one feature of the game; ie: PoK books, raiding focused expansions.
This is an ongoing idea that needs tweaking, and I encourage all of you to participate with constructive feedback. This comes as an entirely new idea that will inherently have its own problems. Keep in mind that your idea's must fullfill two requirements in order for this to come to fruition.
1. Enrich the environment to attain a maximum player base for the server. We must think in terms of profit for SOE or else nothing will happen. How can we attract and hold the largest player base possible with the least amount of work for SOE.
2. Think OUTSIDE THE BOX!
EDIT:
A possibility is to define Era's as a group of expansions. For example Original EQ, Kunark and Velious would be one era, often dubbed the "classical" era. Luclin and PoP would be another Era, the grouping of Era's is open to discussion.
Comments
I very much like that Idea. Make the game play much more challenging and give great play.
A difference for those that are tired of the grind.
Not intending to be rude but this idea seems pretty pointless to me.
All this does is put caps on items, spells, levels, and AAs depending on where you are in the world. Does it disable PoK teleportors for any expansion before PoK existed? Does it disallow the trading of pre-Luclin items in the bazzaar? Can Isakar only use Kunark and later areas? Can the cat people (can't remember what they were called now) only use SoL and later areas? Are the F-ing frog race still there? Does the game look like it did back in 99 (call me a sentimental fool but I miss the old fashioned look).
Does this unbloat the size of the world? No?
And, most important to me although it may not have much to do with the "classic" server discussion, is it still going to be a F-ing raiding game? Because I'll burn in hell before I ever set foot in another raid (come to think of it Hell is probably a place where people are eternally forced to sit through mind numbing raids). The EQ I really and truly miss may have only existed in my mind but it was the EQ I loved before I even knew what raiding was.
Just isolating progression to the respective expansions doesn't address the real issues. The real issues are all the ways they F-ed up the game. Progression would have happened anyway.
The idea is to fix major game mechanic problems with EQ not the varrying opinions on specific features.
This is not a "classic" server, but the hope is that it will allow an environment that the classic people will flourish in. It will give them the opportunity to play in the classic world they know and love while not being effected by later expansions. It will also allow them the option of selecting what "classic" is to them.
Does this unbloat the world? Yes, it lets you cut off however much you want, just play in the Eras you like with the people that enjoy those Eras. No future era then the one you occupy can have any effect on it. It also allows you to choose the expansions you like from any Era while simotaneously keeping them difficult. If you love killing dragons in Western Wastes but also love a difficult fear break in, you will be able to do both with the same character, but neither will ever become trivial.
If you hate the raiding based game of post Velious, then stay in your pre velious eras with like people. No one from future expansions can have any effect on you from their enhanced characters from progression.
People will still be faced with the choice to join a raiding guild and put up with all the crap which that entails and all the hours of misery and BS..or..be left standing around with their thumbs up their arses and nothing to do. Why in the name of God would any sane person want to go back to that?
And for people who long for the classic era this isn't going to change anything. The PoK teleporters will still but functional. The bazzaar will still be there. The only thing that will change is the addition of the pain in the butt swapping of equipment every time you go to a different expansion area.
But that's just my opinion. Maybe some people would like the idea. It doesn't tempt me to return in the slightest but that's just me. When they start EQ over as a non-raiding game let me know. Untill then I have no interest in any screwy gimmicks they might do to try to coax people back.
Let me asses what you are saying and see if I am on the right track. It is your opinion that raiding is boring, that EQ needs more solo and 6 man content that generates raid quality items. This may be true for you, but it is impossible to change this, it is fundamental to how EQ was created. News flash, raiding was an integral part from its inception, you needed more then 1 group to do any of the end game content even in the original expansion! Changing the game to be more soloable is entirely what EQ is NOT. I would suggest an entirely different game for you because you are not the person EQ was ever marketing towards. This change you would like is something that would take a massive amount of effort and money. It is absolutley unrealistic to make content changes to this effect, what you are asking for is either new content or a total revamp of how characters scale with the environment. I would suggest playing any of the new era games that cater to softies like you, because you lost what made EQ unique, it is group based! I like that characters cant solo well, I like that you have to use more then one group to take down major events. It makes the community better, and thats what keeps you playing. Its the people not the content, the goal is to create a space that helps people interact in the best possible environment.
Major problems that are adressed by this ruleset include, the economy, characters becomeing so powerful they can destroy content that feeds 10x the people below them, powerleveling, twinking.
Another possible rule could be 4.) You can only enter an Era in which you have progressed to. This would fix the Bazaar and Teleporters for those that would wish not to use it. Just dont progress to that Era.
If I put parsley on your plate, you dont have to eat it. But in this scenario the parsley wont be infecting all your other food either.
For me, any server that can make it to PoP is dead for me.
Not even slightly interested.
I can live with Luclin (but would rather not).
But PoP is out of the question.
Not at all interested in ANY kind of progression server.
Just launch the Server with what it is going to have forever, a 'Classic' server to Velious or Luclin.
Nothing beyond that.
Like SoE cares if my one puny subscription comes back.
I agree a classic server should be created ending at Velious. This makes so much sense for SOE, it would give a place for new people to EQ to join a server to level from 1-60 in an environment rich with people who enjoy helping newbies. On top of it all, the cost to do this has to be next to nothing.
My anti-raiding hobby horse is my favorite one to ride. But before I bore you with any more of that let me explain to you why I said this whole idea seems pointless to me.
What this idea boils down to is this: Nothing really changes but if people want to not use later expansions they can simply stay out of those expansions.
Well hell, people can already do that. People can limit themselves to the old world only. Can limit themselves to old world equipment. Can refuse to use PoK. But that just don't cut it. I could go into a lengthy explanation of why it doesn't satisfy most people but do I really have to? Telling people to try to ignore things they don't like just doesn't work. That's just the way it is.
Ok, now back to raiding. Here's the thing; when EQ started out none of us had ever even heard of raiding. Sure, Naggy and Vox were there from the beginning (as twelve person encounters as I recall, before they adjusted it) but that had very little impact on most of us for a long time. Remember how slowly most people leveled back then? Or were you even around at that time?
For the first year (and more for a lot of people) EQ was almost entirely about 6 person groups and some soloing for the classes that could. Yeah, ok, raiding existed. But most of us didn't get a taste of that for a long time and the game WAS about grouping with 6 or fewer people.
And that was the time period in which EQs popularity exploded. That was the golden era. That was when people were telling their friends to get this game because it's so much fun. And the golden era didn't just end abrubtly because as new people joined the game in the second or third year, for them it was still primarily about small groups and soloing untill they leveled up and the fun ran out.
It was later on that the fun went out of it. As people leveled up and hit the brick wall of raid or quit. As friendly guilds disolved to be absorbed by raiding guilds with their bickering and oppressive nature. As the game transformed from entertainment to a dreaded chore. When people found themselves playing secret alts just to avoid being roped into yet another miserable session of raid farming.
People hung around long after they should have quit because they remembered the good ol' days. They hoped that somehow it would all turn around. But it never did so people started dropping out and when other games came along they jumped ship to those hoping to recapture the fun that had died out of EQ.
You say that EQ was always a raiding game. Well it was and it wasn't. Raiding was always there in one form or another but none of us knew about it at first and most of us didn't experience it for a long time. EQ was just plain good fun at first. Later it was a miserable chore. And beyond the dictates of all common sense the people at SOE decided to continue down the "chore" path as they cranked out expansions and eventually people just gave up on it. Except for the people with subservient masochistic mindsets who enjoy being pushed around and tortured.
To somewhat retouch on what Neanderthal was saying, and it was well put, EQ was originally designed as a 'Role Play Game'. The game was group centric and classes did have the ability to solo, however this was in the early levels so players could learn, adapt and get acquainted with their character(s).
Another aspect that is seldom mentioned in EQ is Hell Levels, any old school player will recall enduring what seemed like an eternity to level, Hell Levels occurred in increments every five levels, example level 30, 35, 40 and so on. Basically you were having to get twice the experience in each of these Hell Levels.
Hell Levels guaranteed there wasn't going to be any rush to max leveling that you see now in MMO's. EQ lost its savor once people lost their purpose in the game and that was to develop their character. Once you hit max level you either started a new character or participated in Plane raids (and thus raiding was born and the era of the soloer).
Sadly the good'ol days are long gone, I did return to play on the Combine but it wasn't long before it felt like a 'been there done that' scenario.
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
NM
I agree completely. Make a server that ends with velious and I would be back in a heartbeat. That was when the game was still decent. The population bought and traded face to face instead of that laggy bazaar. Druids and wizards were still able to make a living porting people around. Ahh the good old days.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I have to agree with this poster but I would change it to any server that has Luclin and up is dead to me. I want to play a classic server .. not the crapped up mess EQ is today. I do not want to be grouped with Beastmasters, Bezerkers, Frogs, and Cats. I do not want a Bazaar in my game nor do I want to see the Books in each zone. I don't care to have instances in my game, I care for a game that builds community not isolation.
If I wanted all this garbage I would go play WoW where they have all this garbage designed in already .. not a 9 year old game that frankenstein's it in. Why turn a good game in it's own to an ugly old version of WoW with game mechanics that don't fit that type of game? That should illegal.
Give me old EQ to when it was really EQ.
Haha that last statement is exactly what I thought of people who drank a little too much of the EQ kool aid. The offline community was full of people who treated raiding as a status symbol when in truth they were being bullied, plain and simple.
I thought the concept and execution of grouping in EQ was carried out almost flawlessly but at the same time I thought most classes were too weak on their own.
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Haha that last statement is exactly what I thought of people who drank a little too much of the EQ kool aid. The offline community was full of people who treated raiding as a status symbol when in truth they were being bullied, plain and simple.
I thought the concept and execution of grouping in EQ was carried out almost flawlessly but at the same time I thought most classes were too weak on their own.
I liked that classes were mostly weak on their own, it formed a great community of players. I played both WoW and EQ and EQ by far had a better gaming audience and that is what MMORPGs are about. If I wanted to play a single player game, I would do so offline.
WoW takes too little time to reach the finish line and it encourages anti social behaviour because there is no consequences to being a jerk. In EQ you couldn't find groups if you were a jerk. It would be hard to do in WoW considering most you run into fit this category. I personally feel WoW has taken MMORPGs backwards in advancement. They turned MMORPGs into shallow games rather than living worlds. Same thing happened with all single player games in the past and now is making it's way to MMORPGs.
Look at how stupid and easy single player games are now, when they use to be great in the past. Turn base rpgs are gone in place of mindless diablo type games .... oh wait never thought about this but Blizzard has had it's hand in ruining both markets .
Enough rambling what killed EQ was time and Sony ruining the game with expansion after expansion ruining the original vision and ruining the game with so many mistakes starting at luclin. That is what killed EQ. EQ was a wonderful game and no not every game has to look like the shallow instant gratification that WoW is to be successful.
I like the general idea.
One big problem though: Equipement.
High Level Equipement (or even newer expansion equipment) can easily throw the existing expansions balance out of whack. EQ is a VERY item-centric game for a reason. Take for example some of the POP items. I have seen weapons with more total stat points on them than was the maximum achievable stat set on the basic EQ Set. Thus a character (even level nerfed) could have more STR than the best equiped characters of the basic set . Allowing said expansion twinked character to easily out power the capabilities of characters who do not hunt the upper teir planes. The result is Guild-Hardcore-XXX>ALL goes to PoP earns tons of L33T gear, then turns around and goes back to old norrath and with a small group of 6 heavily equiped players kicks the crap out of Vox, Naggy, etc (I know for certain 6 Wizards could do it with mana burn, etc).
Semantics of class VS mob aside... the fact that EQ is so item-centric could not simply be ignored. Somehow (I dont know how) equipment would have to be reduced with level, AA, etc.
Not to mention classes, and races that did not exsist in earlier expansions. EG: Kerran Beserkers, Froglock Beast Masters, Iksar (period) etc. These new class/race combonations could also potentially unbalance in-situ expansion content.
As I said, I like the general idea, but like you said. It needs some tweaking.
FINBAR
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I like where this poster is headed. The one thing I hated most about EQ was how every new expansion antiquated another expansions entire raiding ladder. I missed out on so much raid content because of this. Back before there was even an expansion, I used to dream about how fun it would be to eventually be raiding a dragon and doing the planes, but then I took about a year or two off, and then nobody would do any planar runs unless it was for an epic piece, because the planar gear was crap compared to the new stuff.
It would be sweet if you could somehow even the field as far as older raid zones were concerned, so you might be able to actually use all the content generated instead of just the last 4 expansions in a 14 expansion game.
Great idea. Does need tweaking though, and some shinies to get people to do old raid zones again. Maybe some kind of a badge system like WoW, which you can turn in badges to get gear. 1 badge per boss no matter what era it's from, or maybe more badges from older content while newer content drops the new expansion gear.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
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As an idea it sounds nice, but I doubt I would play in this world. The first time I set foot in Runnyeye to once again obtain a Blackened Iron Longsword, I know I would think back to the time I first obtained that weapon, the friends that were around me at that time, and subsequently get depressed.
I miss the danger and excitement that was EQ1 pre-luclin, I miss the feeling of not knowing what was beyond the horizon, but I doubt I could play again in that EQ1 world.
I need new worlds to excite me, to paraphrase Star Trek, "to seek out new worlds and civilizations..."