Actually, the reason I for one finally quit and left for good was that after playing for 5 years, the graphics engine and gen sys requirements had been increased to the point where even staring down at the ground most of the time wouldn't let me play acceptably well. Couldn't play GoD zones at all. Min clipping, 640x480x16bpp, all frills off, etc. "Monster? What monsACK!" Still be at it if I coulda kept playinmg without a new rig being required. In comparison, other older games (albeit and granted, SP offline ones) I'm still playing ala D2, Wiz8, MW3, etc.
I get games that are after a continuing source of revenue need to stay looking current, but at some point game designers need to ask themselves whether they're making games simply to make a buck, or to make an awesome product. Much more to a game's appeal than the eye-candy. Remember Wizardry 1-6? Wireframe graphics kiddies. For those of you who stare cluelessly at floppy disks lemme tell ya you missed the golden age of pc gaming.
Your pc can beat up my pc. Next time you think you're stuck with a crappy system try: p2-400 440BX mb; 8MB Matrox G200 AGP1x; 10GB WD hd; SB PCI128 soundcard
Im not for sure if someone already said this but Im sure they did. Your crapping Idea that "Everquests fall is because of the harsh loot and experience penalty" is completely false. People who quit Everquest because they lost theyre gear either suck, are little babies or are little kids. I will tell you why Everquest is dying. For one Its old. They made an Everquest 2 which was completely idiotic (considering theyre trying to make part one like part two anyways), and although it sucks, it took a good 40-50% of the players, I noticed it right when the game came out a good chunk of players were gone. 3. World of Warcraft is new, has better graphics, and nowdays it seems like graphics is all that matters to people in a game nowdays. Experience loss and gear loss is one of the many features that makes (or made) Everquest better than all those crapping MMORPGs. I have no clue about the whole raids idea, when I started Everquest back in 2000, I was but a newb and knew nothing of raids, by the time I got into raids it was when Everquest started going down hill. Didnt want the exp penalty? Simple answer, dont die. World of Warcraft is for people with bad morals and little kids who cant take a little punishement for death, end of story.
Anofalye hates raiding. If someone who raids is even 0.01% better or more effective in a group than someone who doesn't raid, Anofalye will not be happy.
I've had many long conversations with Anofalye. He is at least consistant in his opinion and willing to defend it. I totally disagree with it, but that is my opinion vs his. I respect him.
Well; Neschria resumes my point of view correctly except for the hating part. I love grouping, I hate anything that come in the way of grouping no matter what it is. Yesterday I did raid, and I did enjoys it...in CoV. If soloing come into the way of grouping, I guess soloers would say I am hating solo, which in fact is false...I love grouping, unquestionnably.
For your example, putting Anofalye at anywhere not the maxed level is unaccurate; I will be at the max level quite fast (if I play) even if it is not my goal per say. I might be nice, I might hide it the best I can, but I am an achiever...totally. I don't care if raiders get something or nothing, as long as they are equal or lesser to groupers when it come to grouping. And there are no compromises to be made here, raiders can't be better at grouping then groupers themselves. If you enjoy raiding, then you will raid regardless of the impact of raiding on groups.
I am currently playing CoV and I am coming on this website when I am at work (aka unable to play CoV while working). I even raid and enjoys raiding in CoV, but that would be another topic in itself, yet it would start with the premise that nothing get the upper hand vs grouping; which is a must IMO, not PvP, not tradeskills, not soloing, not even raiding. The grouping system in CoV rules supreme; other gameplays are encouraged, but never at the expanse of grouping.
The optimal path to grouping uberness, it has to be throught grouping. No compromises can be made on this point; foreign gameplays are...foreigns; aka under no right to impact grouping negatively, under no cicumstances. I have no problems if other gameplays are similarly developped inside their expertise (best soloers been soloers, best raiders been raiders)...or if they are shafted by grouping. But grouping will rule supreme in groups, that is not open for debate, arguing, or considerations.
PS: On a side note, I wonder what happen to my toon...she was parked and binded in North Freeport years ago...I just read NF is no more...void? Nothingness?
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
The game sucks because it is a grindfest. Every other mmorpg that came afterwards is just another lame cookie cutter of EQ with a few tweaks.
Persistent worlds are the only true MMORPG experience, with no stupid limitations. None of this "leveling" garbage. Games should be based on skill, not level just like UO pretrammel was.
Hopefully one day all of you will wake up but the sad reality is that UO pretrammel was so long ago that most people today never got to experience what a real MMORPG is supposed to be like.
1 the game got too big period when it was velious sixzed i started to see how hard it was to find groups and pop made it worse.
2 pop was worst thing ever for eq for its immersiveness im ho
you should have a barter system in every home town and spells should been kept in home towns as well as crafting
the barter system shoyuld have beenn racial as well if you want elven made gear go to kelethin so on and so forth.
the other problem with eq was they moved away from lore imho last great expansion for grouping was ldon
i have thought long and hard about last one and i must say that the single biggest thing to kill eq was there lack of advertising and the fact they made eq2 witch folks mistook for a replacement of eq1
now all that said i also have a idea how to revitilize the whole game ,
give it a new engine keep everything the exact same update the zones keeping them the exact same but with updated .
keep the original feel alive then only release to velious and then pick up new direction from there just instead of adding zones change content make wars make battles make wars give new quests also if possible keep npc the exact same as they are now dont take away music either just update eyecandy but keep zones exactly same in feel
i guess what im saying is qeynos was a small town in eq1 eq2 it became this massive place that always looks empty
stop feeling we need 50miles of emptyness and start making things change in smaller zone game.
Some lead and some follow I prefer to stand beside!
They never should have institued the bazaar or the easy travel. Before these things people actually interacted with each other and we had an actual community. They could have stopped with Kunark and just added dungeons after that and we would have been content but no they had to cater to the so called "casual" gamer who wants to be able to solo and instant travel and auction houses because they dont have time to deal with other players.
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.
The game sucks because it is a grindfest. Every other mmorpg that came afterwards is just another lame cookie cutter of EQ with a few tweaks. Persistent worlds are the only true MMORPG experience, with no stupid limitations. None of this "leveling" garbage. Games should be based on skill, not level just like UO pretrammel was. Hopefully one day all of you will wake up but the sad reality is that UO pretrammel was so long ago that most people today never got to experience what a real MMORPG is supposed to be like.
Hey bro I played UO in 1998 (I think it was 1998). That gameplay was atrocious. The lag was unimaginable. Walking down the street took an hour. Shuffle shuffle...stop....wait....shuffle shuffle...stop...wait. I'm sure this is for bandwidth problems. So, I decided to gather friends a year later and give UO another try since they had an expansion, The second age.
Prior to heading to the store for the UO expansion, I thought I'd check out its reviews on Gamespot. Guess what? The news was dominated by a game called Everquest which had huge ratings. I was like hmm, I remember picking up that box but didn't buy it. All these folks say it's great so maybe I'll give it a try. Five minutes after installing EQ, I was in gaming utopia. What an amazing experience. UO wasn't even in the same league. I had the same internet connection but for some silly reason EQ was actually playable compared to the slide-show experience that UO was.
Moving right along, EQ died because people stopped playing it. My first turn-off with EQ was the increasing player greed. Greed before need (on my server) was becoming popular mid-Kunark. A lot of the cooler players left. But today my problem with the game is that there are a billion zones and people are too spread out. Everyone zergs to the end game so the 1 to 50 game is nonexistent. Old zones that I like are revamped into uselesness (cazic thull, split paw, etc).
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
The game sucks because it is a grindfest. Every other mmorpg that came afterwards is just another lame cookie cutter of EQ with a few tweaks. Persistent worlds are the only true MMORPG experience, with no stupid limitations. None of this "leveling" garbage. Games should be based on skill, not level just like UO pretrammel was. Hopefully one day all of you will wake up but the sad reality is that UO pretrammel was so long ago that most people today never got to experience what a real MMORPG is supposed to be like.
Hey bro I played UO in 1998 (I think it was 1998). That gameplay was atrocious. The lag was unimaginable. Walking down the street took an hour. Shuffle shuffle...stop....wait....shuffle shuffle...stop...wait. I'm sure this is for bandwidth problems. So, I decided to gather friends a year later and give UO another try since they had an expansion, The second age.
Prior to heading to the store for the UO expansion, I thought I'd check out its reviews on Gamespot. Guess what? The news was dominated by a game called Everquest which had huge ratings. I was like hmm, I remember picking up that box but didn't buy it. All these folks say it's great so maybe I'll give it a try. Five minutes after installing EQ, I was in gaming utopia. What an amazing experience. UO wasn't even in the same league. I had the same internet connection but for some silly reason EQ was actually playable compared to the slide-show experience that UO was.
Moving right along, EQ died because people stopped playing it. My first turn-off with EQ was the increasing player greed. Greed before need (on my server) was becoming popular mid-Kunark. A lot of the cooler players left. But today my problem with the game is that there are a billion zones and people are too spread out. Everyone zergs to the end game so the 1 to 50 game is nonexistent. Old zones that I like are revamped into uselesness (cazic thull, split paw, etc).
Spot on i think if you play EQ you should be max level now because thats the only way you will receive a EQ experiance now. Or max level i should say. AA's is all that matters now so they should just do that.
LOL good idea. Just have everyone start off at level 80 or whatever max level is. The "leveling" experience in EQ can then be limited to the AAs. I'm dead serious, the lower levels are a ghost town.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Again.... the simple reason people quit playing Everquest was due to the release of World of Warcraft and EQ2. Most of you commenting probably quit playing way before the release of those two games - I played through December 2004 (when WoW and EQ2 were released) and still visit many times a year. As of December 2004, you could still zone into POK and who up more than 100 players in that zone alone. The lag was still crazy and it took you an hour to get from the soulbinder to the main bank. The eventual trickle down started in 2005 as more people headed over to WoW (a game I grew to despise and left) and EQ2 because of the updated graphics and playstyles., and simply for something new after 5 years after playing the only available option until then (sorry I heard great things about UO but didn't like it).
Greed had nothing to do with it, but I do agree on one point that losing your experience after battling long hard hours to gain it did hasten some people's departure for less drastic punishment. However, in just about every game's boards, you still see people stating that by lessening the impact of death penalties in the next generation games, developers were selling out and making the game too easy. ... guess they didn't back up their own words with actions as they all took off - guess they weren't as dedicated as they claimed to be
Again.... the simple reason people quit playing Everquest was due to the release of World of Warcraft and EQ2. Most of you commenting probably quit playing way before the release of those two games - I played through December 2004 (when WoW and EQ2 were released) and still visit many times a year. As of December 2004, you could still zone into POK and who up more than 100 players in that zone alone. The lag was still crazy and it took you an hour to get from the soulbinder to the main bank. The eventual trickle down started in 2005 as more people headed over to WoW (a game I grew to despise and left) and EQ2 because of the updated graphics and playstyles., and simply for something new after 5 years after playing the only available option until then (sorry I heard great things about UO but didn't like it). Greed had nothing to do with it, but I do agree on one point that losing your experience after battling long hard hours to gain it did hasten some people's departure for less drastic punishment. However, in just about every game's boards, you still see people stating that by lessening the impact of death penalties in the next generation games, developers were selling out and making the game too easy. ... guess they didn't back up their own words with actions as they all took off - guess they weren't as dedicated as they claimed to be
I certainly agre with the last few sentences. People ask for something and complain when they get it. Modern day MMO mechanics: no death penalty, auto journal tracks everything for you, and leveling is easier. The masses demanded these and eventually got them. And then the game was too easy (no death penalty). And the community degraded (since community initially sprung up to help each other with quests!) . And everyone was hitting max level in record time, and then getting bored or, at best, not knowing how to play their class.
Yes we humans think we know what we want but complain when we get it, just like a toddler. But, I never asked for those things.
Lag in POK with 100 people? Ok if 100+ people are at the bank for a mass buff then framerate can get choppy. But that's merely an inconvenience and you are surely grossly exaggerating when you say it took an hour to go anywhere in pok. When I spoke of UO, I was being literal not exaggerating.
Happy MMO'ng
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I would add to that by stating that wow players that are 70 still go back and play lowbie levels over again. In fact many people race to 70 and restart all the time on new servers. With EQ, this was hardly the case. Sure, everyone had alts, but they were all fairly low level, around 35. The question really became: why bother with leveling an alt (lest it be for Tping, plvling, farming, etc) for fun when you can just pop up your uber character?
Too many expansions coming out too fast squashed the econonmy but they also created a an anxiety to level. All of my friends hit the servers daily to keep up with the latest challeneges. Casual gamers could not keep up with the new content and lowbie zones became vacant of groups and players.
I think that Sony did this to please the high level players who were always whining for a challenge. To a degree Blizzard does this too, it appeases the demands of intensely dedicated players (which I think are the minority).
Casual gamers are ultimately just an uninsuable risk. They might play and comeback but they will probably be inconsistant-- so why please them?
I've seen the petitions for old school progression servers and things like that. I think that progression servers are a good idea but in order to give everyone the opportunity to really play the game (not rush through it) Sony would need to limit the expansion progressions to maybe once every six months - year/two. This would really give folks the opportunity to savor the game.
Plus the UI could really use some improvements.
The wow UI is fantastic. The dying system is great, the quest log is great, the map system is great, travelling between zones is so easy. I think that Sony could implement these changes for a fairly cheap price. Sure it may not bring the hordes back, but it would be a nice courteosy.
Of course the raiding would be minimized to the Planes and Naggy/Vox again so there would be less of it. But also, Sony could give players an incentive to start over. Say that perhaps having a certain number of alts can unlock a new buying system: purchase a tavern and an npc. Its a UO concept but it might work -- just a thought.
In short I think it really was the expansions, the shity UI, uberguilds, raiding, etc that killed the game. The new content and monsters always looked cool though. Vex'thall was some scary shit.
welp, i know why eq is the way it is . 1 the game got too big period when it was velious sixzed i started to see how hard it was to find groups and pop made it worse. 2 pop was worst thing ever for eq for its immersiveness im ho you should have a barter system in every home town and spells should been kept in home towns as well as crafting the barter system shoyuld have beenn racial as well if you want elven made gear go to kelethin so on and so forth. the other problem with eq was they moved away from lore imho last great expansion for grouping was ldon i have thought long and hard about last one and i must say that the single biggest thing to kill eq was there lack of advertising and the fact they made eq2 witch folks mistook for a replacement of eq1 now all that said i also have a idea how to revitilize the whole game , give it a new engine keep everything the exact same update the zones keeping them the exact same but with updated . keep the original feel alive then only release to velious and then pick up new direction from there just instead of adding zones change content make wars make battles make wars give new quests also if possible keep npc the exact same as they are now dont take away music either just update eyecandy but keep zones exactly same in feel i guess what im saying is qeynos was a small town in eq1 eq2 it became this massive place that always looks empty stop feeling we need 50miles of emptyness and start making things change in smaller zone game.
You hit it right on the head. Everquest was indeed a world in which interact with other players was a must! (esp. back in the beginning whe nthere was no map) I seriously couldn't believe their approach with PoP - WTH is the point of the wizard ports IF NOT to make gathering spots etc? By making a centre hub it KILLED the game. With all those zones that were created - atleast 60% would never be visted again by most of the playerbase b/c of PoP.
Btw EQ 2 was a failure in my eyes - mostly b/c the number '2' - if they would have maybe said it was NOT any kind of sequel and the playstyle would be completely different gearing toward casual gamers most of the EQ players would have stayed with 1 insteead of going to EQ 2 and then quiting it within 6 months disppointed of the game.
EQ1 if they just updated their clients - started to do constant updates (like the old days) and adverstived it (instead of leaving it to die and try to market just EQ 2) It would help EQ1 alot - then again if they didn't make POP and gear toward casual gamers (as the game started out for hard-core gamers) its going to be a stuipd move 9 times out of ten to completely change the pace and play style of any MMO. It would be like LOTRO three years down the line all fo a sudden came out with a new expansion that changed the ENTIRE game pace and style to hard core gamers - like with major experience loss, no maps, hell levels, corpses. Everyone who plays the game NOW B/C of the style and the way they created LOTRO would leave - its exactly what EQ did - they did a nosedive and decided it was better (when it in reality started EQ on its downward spirial)
I also agree COMPLETELY about your idea (as I also mentioned the exact idea a year ago to a few of my friends and again on the EQ offical forums. First start marketing that 'classic' feel to EQ1 was comming at 'so and so' date. Relaunch the classic 'feel' of the game (and reset the character's database as it would be dumb to keep the characters.) with just the orginal EQ game (just update the graphics and animations as well as add some features like no 'loading times for zones (and Deaths! rawr! lol) then just like they did with the first expansion release that in a year, and then SOV 6 months thereafter and then from that point on start onto a new path - continue with the 'hard'-core' style of zones and maybe add in a few new idea's (I like your idea on 'race' style weapons etc....only avaliable at that city - for crafting purposes) I would even be ok without maps, and being forced to use sense heading and be forced to know the locs etc.
The reason EQ is not more popular is the focus on endgame, both by players and by SOE. When all that the existing players care about is raiding to the exclusion of all other content, it's extremely difficult to add new players to the subscriber base.
SOE has actually done their part to turn this around -- there is now plenty to see and do at all levels, and getting to raid-level gameplay no longer has to feel like a grind unless you choose to play it that way. But that's the problem. The PLAYERS are still focused on raiding, and people seldom bother to level up alts. When they do, they PL and get to endgame as fast as possible.
Take CoH on the other hand. There is very little to do at max level, so your best option is to roll a new character and try something new. For this reason, there are always plenty of players in all the zones on the hero side, veterans playing side-by-side with fresh new players. The problem is, CoH doesn't have nearly as much content as EQ, so it all has a bit of a re-run feel to it after a few alts.
EQ is (finally) a great game set in a huge, brilliantly crafted world. Too bad most people only take advantage of 10 percent of it.
The reason EQ is not more popular is the focus on endgame, both by players and by SOE. When all that the existing players care about is raiding to the exclusion of all other content, it's extremely difficult to add new players to the subscriber base. SOE has actually done their part to turn this around -- there is now plenty to see and do at all levels, and getting to raid-level gameplay no longer has to feel like a grind unless you choose to play it that way. But that's the problem. The PLAYERS are still focused on raiding, and people seldom bother to level up alts. When they do, they PL and get to endgame as fast as possible. Take CoH on the other hand. There is very little to do at max level, so your best option is to roll a new character and try something new. For this reason, there are always plenty of players in all the zones on the hero side, veterans playing side-by-side with fresh new players. The problem is, CoH doesn't have nearly as much content as EQ, so it all has a bit of a re-run feel to it after a few alts. EQ is (finally) a great game set in a huge, brilliantly crafted world. Too bad most people only take advantage of 10 percent of it.
I think you are exactly right. The focus on raiding killed everything. It killed the group-cooperative gameplay and undermined the community-guilds.
The whole concept of playing together went from having fun and achieving rewards to "gearing-up to gear-up to raid more to gear-up to raid more to gear-up more to raid more." People enjoyed obtaining gear upgrades that would 1) help them with soloing, 2) improve grouping, and 3) distinguish their character from others.
However, I am not sure anyone was happy with the concept of gearing-up to gear-up more to raid to gear-up more to raid more.
----- WoW and fast food = commercial successes. I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
The game lost its charm after Vellious. Once the Bazaar and porting everywhere became so easy, it no longer felt like you were in a world.
For players like me, who were once at the maximum level... when they started expanding the max level and adding new tiers of raid encounters the game boiled down to one thing.
Repetitive, monotonous raiding just to get geared up for the next level of repetitive, monotonous raiding.
That was not really what the game was about with SoV.
In hindsight, I think the severe death penalty, the corpse retrieval, the travel, all contributed heavilty to making the game immersive.
WoW has gone down the exact same path, with even less content and options.
The next big thing in MMORPGs is going to be a company that discovers how to NOT have a stagnant end-game and does NOT ruin the feeling of the world.
I enjoyed playing Everquest for over 3 years and still have fond memories of the game.
I disagree with most of the comments that the expansions led to the fall of the game. It was the content and improvements in those expansions that kept me playing the game. Remember waiting 30 minutes for the boat in Butcherblock and then spending 20 minutes on the boat? Great fun the first trip, and extremely boring every trip thereafter. Remember staring at a blank screen when meditating? I liked the quicker travel times, that I could keep leveling my toon (L70 and more than 900 AA's when I left), that I could sell stuff in the bazaar while asleep and instead spend my free time adventuring.
The trigger that prompted me to leave the game was mainly that the population dropped so much when WoW and EQ2 went live. A game designed with a grouping and raiding focus was not viable when the world was like a ghost town. I did try Evequest again for a few months when the servers merged.
I have now played a total of 8 MMO's, including EQ. While I played EQ for over 3 years, I have not played a single MMO for more 6 months since that time.
I tire of any game after a time.
Each player that left may have had a different trigger for leaving EQ.
Was the real underlying reason for the decline in population numbers that players just wanted to try something new?
Yea after years of on and off with EQ, I don't have a clue where this 70% of people were hackers comes from. As others said and the prevailing point in my mind,...why would you? The advantages are so small.
Daoc, now theres a game where you needed a good radar hack, back 3 and 5 years ago.
The decline of EQ is from burnout. If anyone argues Raiding, grouping could be just as argued. If there was no raiding, after 6,7,8 years of grouping? yea I'd still be LOVING the game. /sarcasm However, I too no longer play.
Not enough advertising never set with me. Almost every active MMO player today has heard of EQ. They have either played it or do not want to play it. It's pretty simple.
Is the question why did EQ fall or why didn't EQ get anywhere near WoW's success?
EQ went strong from 1999 to somewhere around mid-2004.
They shut down half the servers in the first quarter of '05 so they must have decided that a very large portion of the playerbase was never coming back. That happened a few months after WoW launched...
Either way a five year run for a videogame is pretty good. I know Counterstrike has hung in there for a long time as well but I can't think of very many games that are still played 5 years after they came out.
I think overall Everquest was a breakthrough for gaming but it was also like the first car or telephone. The first cars didn't have air conditioning or CD players built in and probably weren't very comfortable to travel in. In the case of EQ, instead of evolving the game SOE decided to stick with the original formula and ride it out as long as they could.
The reason people stopped interacting with each other is because they chose to do so.
Bingo.
People want to solo and be self-sufficient. WoW was the first MMO to let you do that while in EQ only a few select classes could solo. That really limited the game's appeal and I don't think that ever occurred to Brad McQuack.
Comments
wrong topic
Actually, the reason I for one finally quit and left for good was that after playing for 5 years, the graphics engine and gen sys requirements had been increased to the point where even staring down at the ground most of the time wouldn't let me play acceptably well. Couldn't play GoD zones at all. Min clipping, 640x480x16bpp, all frills off, etc. "Monster? What monsACK!"
Still be at it if I coulda kept playinmg without a new rig being required. In comparison, other older games (albeit and granted, SP offline ones) I'm still playing ala D2, Wiz8, MW3, etc.
I get games that are after a continuing source of revenue need to stay looking current, but at some point game designers need to ask themselves whether they're making games simply to make a buck, or to make an awesome product. Much more to a game's appeal than the eye-candy. Remember Wizardry 1-6? Wireframe graphics kiddies. For those of you who stare cluelessly at floppy disks lemme tell ya you missed the golden age of pc gaming.
Your pc can beat up my pc.
Next time you think you're stuck with a crappy system try:
p2-400 440BX mb; 8MB Matrox G200 AGP1x; 10GB WD hd; SB PCI128 soundcard
Im not for sure if someone already said this but Im sure they did. Your crapping Idea that "Everquests fall is because of the harsh loot and experience penalty" is completely false. People who quit Everquest because they lost theyre gear either suck, are little babies or are little kids. I will tell you why Everquest is dying. For one Its old. They made an Everquest 2 which was completely idiotic (considering theyre trying to make part one like part two anyways), and although it sucks, it took a good 40-50% of the players, I noticed it right when the game came out a good chunk of players were gone. 3. World of Warcraft is new, has better graphics, and nowdays it seems like graphics is all that matters to people in a game nowdays. Experience loss and gear loss is one of the many features that makes (or made) Everquest better than all those crapping MMORPGs. I have no clue about the whole raids idea, when I started Everquest back in 2000, I was but a newb and knew nothing of raids, by the time I got into raids it was when Everquest started going down hill. Didnt want the exp penalty? Simple answer, dont die. World of Warcraft is for people with bad morals and little kids who cant take a little punishement for death, end of story.
I've had many long conversations with Anofalye. He is at least consistant in his opinion and willing to defend it. I totally disagree with it, but that is my opinion vs his. I respect him.Well; Neschria resumes my point of view correctly except for the hating part. I love grouping, I hate anything that come in the way of grouping no matter what it is. Yesterday I did raid, and I did enjoys it...in CoV. If soloing come into the way of grouping, I guess soloers would say I am hating solo, which in fact is false...I love grouping, unquestionnably.
For your example, putting Anofalye at anywhere not the maxed level is unaccurate; I will be at the max level quite fast (if I play) even if it is not my goal per say. I might be nice, I might hide it the best I can, but I am an achiever...totally. I don't care if raiders get something or nothing, as long as they are equal or lesser to groupers when it come to grouping. And there are no compromises to be made here, raiders can't be better at grouping then groupers themselves. If you enjoy raiding, then you will raid regardless of the impact of raiding on groups.
I am currently playing CoV and I am coming on this website when I am at work (aka unable to play CoV while working). I even raid and enjoys raiding in CoV, but that would be another topic in itself, yet it would start with the premise that nothing get the upper hand vs grouping; which is a must IMO, not PvP, not tradeskills, not soloing, not even raiding. The grouping system in CoV rules supreme; other gameplays are encouraged, but never at the expanse of grouping.
The optimal path to grouping uberness, it has to be throught grouping. No compromises can be made on this point; foreign gameplays are...foreigns; aka under no right to impact grouping negatively, under no cicumstances. I have no problems if other gameplays are similarly developped inside their expertise (best soloers been soloers, best raiders been raiders)...or if they are shafted by grouping. But grouping will rule supreme in groups, that is not open for debate, arguing, or considerations.
PS: On a side note, I wonder what happen to my toon...she was parked and binded in North Freeport years ago...I just read NF is no more...void? Nothingness?
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
The game sucks because it is a grindfest. Every other mmorpg that came afterwards is just another lame cookie cutter of EQ with a few tweaks.
Persistent worlds are the only true MMORPG experience, with no stupid limitations. None of this "leveling" garbage. Games should be based on skill, not level just like UO pretrammel was.
Hopefully one day all of you will wake up but the sad reality is that UO pretrammel was so long ago that most people today never got to experience what a real MMORPG is supposed to be like.
welp, i know why eq is the way it is .
1 the game got too big period when it was velious sixzed i started to see how hard it was to find groups and pop made it worse.
2 pop was worst thing ever for eq for its immersiveness im ho
you should have a barter system in every home town and spells should been kept in home towns as well as crafting
the barter system shoyuld have beenn racial as well if you want elven made gear go to kelethin so on and so forth.
the other problem with eq was they moved away from lore imho last great expansion for grouping was ldon
i have thought long and hard about last one and i must say that the single biggest thing to kill eq was there lack of advertising and the fact they made eq2 witch folks mistook for a replacement of eq1
now all that said i also have a idea how to revitilize the whole game ,
give it a new engine keep everything the exact same update the zones keeping them the exact same but with updated .
keep the original feel alive then only release to velious and then pick up new direction from there just instead of adding zones change content make wars make battles make wars give new quests also if possible keep npc the exact same as they are now dont take away music either just update eyecandy but keep zones exactly same in feel
i guess what im saying is qeynos was a small town in eq1 eq2 it became this massive place that always looks empty
stop feeling we need 50miles of emptyness and start making things change in smaller zone game.
Some lead and some follow I prefer to stand beside!
The reason is simple.....
They never should have institued the bazaar or the easy travel. Before these things people actually interacted with each other and we had an actual community. They could have stopped with Kunark and just added dungeons after that and we would have been content but no they had to cater to the so called "casual" gamer who wants to be able to solo and instant travel and auction houses because they dont have time to deal with other players.
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.
The reason people stopped interacting with each other is because they chose to do so.
Hey bro I played UO in 1998 (I think it was 1998). That gameplay was atrocious. The lag was unimaginable. Walking down the street took an hour. Shuffle shuffle...stop....wait....shuffle shuffle...stop...wait. I'm sure this is for bandwidth problems. So, I decided to gather friends a year later and give UO another try since they had an expansion, The second age.
Prior to heading to the store for the UO expansion, I thought I'd check out its reviews on Gamespot. Guess what? The news was dominated by a game called Everquest which had huge ratings. I was like hmm, I remember picking up that box but didn't buy it. All these folks say it's great so maybe I'll give it a try. Five minutes after installing EQ, I was in gaming utopia. What an amazing experience. UO wasn't even in the same league. I had the same internet connection but for some silly reason EQ was actually playable compared to the slide-show experience that UO was.
Moving right along, EQ died because people stopped playing it. My first turn-off with EQ was the increasing player greed. Greed before need (on my server) was becoming popular mid-Kunark. A lot of the cooler players left. But today my problem with the game is that there are a billion zones and people are too spread out. Everyone zergs to the end game so the 1 to 50 game is nonexistent. Old zones that I like are revamped into uselesness (cazic thull, split paw, etc).
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Hey bro I played UO in 1998 (I think it was 1998). That gameplay was atrocious. The lag was unimaginable. Walking down the street took an hour. Shuffle shuffle...stop....wait....shuffle shuffle...stop...wait. I'm sure this is for bandwidth problems. So, I decided to gather friends a year later and give UO another try since they had an expansion, The second age.
Prior to heading to the store for the UO expansion, I thought I'd check out its reviews on Gamespot. Guess what? The news was dominated by a game called Everquest which had huge ratings. I was like hmm, I remember picking up that box but didn't buy it. All these folks say it's great so maybe I'll give it a try. Five minutes after installing EQ, I was in gaming utopia. What an amazing experience. UO wasn't even in the same league. I had the same internet connection but for some silly reason EQ was actually playable compared to the slide-show experience that UO was.
Moving right along, EQ died because people stopped playing it. My first turn-off with EQ was the increasing player greed. Greed before need (on my server) was becoming popular mid-Kunark. A lot of the cooler players left. But today my problem with the game is that there are a billion zones and people are too spread out. Everyone zergs to the end game so the 1 to 50 game is nonexistent. Old zones that I like are revamped into uselesness (cazic thull, split paw, etc).
Spot on i think if you play EQ you should be max level now because thats the only way you will receive a EQ experiance now. Or max level i should say. AA's is all that matters now so they should just do that.
LOL good idea. Just have everyone start off at level 80 or whatever max level is. The "leveling" experience in EQ can then be limited to the AAs. I'm dead serious, the lower levels are a ghost town.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Again.... the simple reason people quit playing Everquest was due to the release of World of Warcraft and EQ2. Most of you commenting probably quit playing way before the release of those two games - I played through December 2004 (when WoW and EQ2 were released) and still visit many times a year. As of December 2004, you could still zone into POK and who up more than 100 players in that zone alone. The lag was still crazy and it took you an hour to get from the soulbinder to the main bank. The eventual trickle down started in 2005 as more people headed over to WoW (a game I grew to despise and left) and EQ2 because of the updated graphics and playstyles., and simply for something new after 5 years after playing the only available option until then (sorry I heard great things about UO but didn't like it).
Greed had nothing to do with it, but I do agree on one point that losing your experience after battling long hard hours to gain it did hasten some people's departure for less drastic punishment. However, in just about every game's boards, you still see people stating that by lessening the impact of death penalties in the next generation games, developers were selling out and making the game too easy. ... guess they didn't back up their own words with actions as they all took off - guess they weren't as dedicated as they claimed to be
I certainly agre with the last few sentences. People ask for something and complain when they get it. Modern day MMO mechanics: no death penalty, auto journal tracks everything for you, and leveling is easier. The masses demanded these and eventually got them. And then the game was too easy (no death penalty). And the community degraded (since community initially sprung up to help each other with quests!) . And everyone was hitting max level in record time, and then getting bored or, at best, not knowing how to play their class.
Yes we humans think we know what we want but complain when we get it, just like a toddler. But, I never asked for those things.
Lag in POK with 100 people? Ok if 100+ people are at the bank for a mass buff then framerate can get choppy. But that's merely an inconvenience and you are surely grossly exaggerating when you say it took an hour to go anywhere in pok. When I spoke of UO, I was being literal not exaggerating.
Happy MMO'ng
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
I would add to that by stating that wow players that are 70 still go back and play lowbie levels over again. In fact many people race to 70 and restart all the time on new servers. With EQ, this was hardly the case. Sure, everyone had alts, but they were all fairly low level, around 35. The question really became: why bother with leveling an alt (lest it be for Tping, plvling, farming, etc) for fun when you can just pop up your uber character?
Too many expansions coming out too fast squashed the econonmy but they also created a an anxiety to level. All of my friends hit the servers daily to keep up with the latest challeneges. Casual gamers could not keep up with the new content and lowbie zones became vacant of groups and players.
I think that Sony did this to please the high level players who were always whining for a challenge. To a degree Blizzard does this too, it appeases the demands of intensely dedicated players (which I think are the minority).
Casual gamers are ultimately just an uninsuable risk. They might play and comeback but they will probably be inconsistant-- so why please them?
I've seen the petitions for old school progression servers and things like that. I think that progression servers are a good idea but in order to give everyone the opportunity to really play the game (not rush through it) Sony would need to limit the expansion progressions to maybe once every six months - year/two. This would really give folks the opportunity to savor the game.
Plus the UI could really use some improvements.
The wow UI is fantastic. The dying system is great, the quest log is great, the map system is great, travelling between zones is so easy. I think that Sony could implement these changes for a fairly cheap price. Sure it may not bring the hordes back, but it would be a nice courteosy.
Of course the raiding would be minimized to the Planes and Naggy/Vox again so there would be less of it. But also, Sony could give players an incentive to start over. Say that perhaps having a certain number of alts can unlock a new buying system: purchase a tavern and an npc. Its a UO concept but it might work -- just a thought.
In short I think it really was the expansions, the shity UI, uberguilds, raiding, etc that killed the game. The new content and monsters always looked cool though. Vex'thall was some scary shit.
Dave
One of the longest running MMO's ever, and still going.
Something like 13 million people have at one time or another played EQ.
Yes, I would call that a failure.
Btw EQ 2 was a failure in my eyes - mostly b/c the number '2' - if they would have maybe said it was NOT any kind of sequel and the playstyle would be completely different gearing toward casual gamers most of the EQ players would have stayed with 1 insteead of going to EQ 2 and then quiting it within 6 months disppointed of the game.
EQ1 if they just updated their clients - started to do constant updates (like the old days) and adverstived it (instead of leaving it to die and try to market just EQ 2) It would help EQ1 alot - then again if they didn't make POP and gear toward casual gamers (as the game started out for hard-core gamers) its going to be a stuipd move 9 times out of ten to completely change the pace and play style of any MMO. It would be like LOTRO three years down the line all fo a sudden came out with a new expansion that changed the ENTIRE game pace and style to hard core gamers - like with major experience loss, no maps, hell levels, corpses. Everyone who plays the game NOW B/C of the style and the way they created LOTRO would leave - its exactly what EQ did - they did a nosedive and decided it was better (when it in reality started EQ on its downward spirial)
I also agree COMPLETELY about your idea (as I also mentioned the exact idea a year ago to a few of my friends and again on the EQ offical forums. First start marketing that 'classic' feel to EQ1 was comming at 'so and so' date. Relaunch the classic 'feel' of the game (and reset the character's database as it would be dumb to keep the characters.) with just the orginal EQ game (just update the graphics and animations as well as add some features like no 'loading times for zones (and Deaths! rawr! lol) then just like they did with the first expansion release that in a year, and then SOV 6 months thereafter and then from that point on start onto a new path - continue with the 'hard'-core' style of zones and maybe add in a few new idea's (I like your idea on 'race' style weapons etc....only avaliable at that city - for crafting purposes) I would even be ok without maps, and being forced to use sense heading and be forced to know the locs etc.
The reason EQ is not more popular is the focus on endgame, both by players and by SOE. When all that the existing players care about is raiding to the exclusion of all other content, it's extremely difficult to add new players to the subscriber base.
SOE has actually done their part to turn this around -- there is now plenty to see and do at all levels, and getting to raid-level gameplay no longer has to feel like a grind unless you choose to play it that way. But that's the problem. The PLAYERS are still focused on raiding, and people seldom bother to level up alts. When they do, they PL and get to endgame as fast as possible.
Take CoH on the other hand. There is very little to do at max level, so your best option is to roll a new character and try something new. For this reason, there are always plenty of players in all the zones on the hero side, veterans playing side-by-side with fresh new players. The problem is, CoH doesn't have nearly as much content as EQ, so it all has a bit of a re-run feel to it after a few alts.
EQ is (finally) a great game set in a huge, brilliantly crafted world. Too bad most people only take advantage of 10 percent of it.
The whole concept of playing together went from having fun and achieving rewards to "gearing-up to gear-up to raid more to gear-up to raid more to gear-up more to raid more." People enjoyed obtaining gear upgrades that would 1) help them with soloing, 2) improve grouping, and 3) distinguish their character from others.
However, I am not sure anyone was happy with the concept of gearing-up to gear-up more to raid to gear-up more to raid more.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
I can't speak for everyone but I know why I left.
The game lost its charm after Vellious. Once the Bazaar and porting everywhere became so easy, it no longer felt like you were in a world.
For players like me, who were once at the maximum level... when they started expanding the max level and adding new tiers of raid encounters the game boiled down to one thing.
Repetitive, monotonous raiding just to get geared up for the next level of repetitive, monotonous raiding.
That was not really what the game was about with SoV.
In hindsight, I think the severe death penalty, the corpse retrieval, the travel, all contributed heavilty to making the game immersive.
WoW has gone down the exact same path, with even less content and options.
The next big thing in MMORPGs is going to be a company that discovers how to NOT have a stagnant end-game and does NOT ruin the feeling of the world.
I enjoyed playing Everquest for over 3 years and still have fond memories of the game.
I disagree with most of the comments that the expansions led to the fall of the game. It was the content and improvements in those expansions that kept me playing the game. Remember waiting 30 minutes for the boat in Butcherblock and then spending 20 minutes on the boat? Great fun the first trip, and extremely boring every trip thereafter. Remember staring at a blank screen when meditating? I liked the quicker travel times, that I could keep leveling my toon (L70 and more than 900 AA's when I left), that I could sell stuff in the bazaar while asleep and instead spend my free time adventuring.
The trigger that prompted me to leave the game was mainly that the population dropped so much when WoW and EQ2 went live. A game designed with a grouping and raiding focus was not viable when the world was like a ghost town. I did try Evequest again for a few months when the servers merged.
I have now played a total of 8 MMO's, including EQ. While I played EQ for over 3 years, I have not played a single MMO for more 6 months since that time.
I tire of any game after a time.
Each player that left may have had a different trigger for leaving EQ.
Was the real underlying reason for the decline in population numbers that players just wanted to try something new?
Yea after years of on and off with EQ, I don't have a clue where this 70% of people were hackers comes from. As others said and the prevailing point in my mind,...why would you? The advantages are so small.
Daoc, now theres a game where you needed a good radar hack, back 3 and 5 years ago.
The decline of EQ is from burnout. If anyone argues Raiding, grouping could be just as argued. If there was no raiding, after 6,7,8 years of grouping? yea I'd still be LOVING the game. /sarcasm However, I too no longer play.
Not enough advertising never set with me. Almost every active MMO player today has heard of EQ. They have either played it or do not want to play it. It's pretty simple.
Is the question why did EQ fall or why didn't EQ get anywhere near WoW's success?
EQ went strong from 1999 to somewhere around mid-2004.
They shut down half the servers in the first quarter of '05 so they must have decided that a very large portion of the playerbase was never coming back. That happened a few months after WoW launched...
Either way a five year run for a videogame is pretty good. I know Counterstrike has hung in there for a long time as well but I can't think of very many games that are still played 5 years after they came out.
I think overall Everquest was a breakthrough for gaming but it was also like the first car or telephone. The first cars didn't have air conditioning or CD players built in and probably weren't very comfortable to travel in. In the case of EQ, instead of evolving the game SOE decided to stick with the original formula and ride it out as long as they could.
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Counter-Strike also was redone w/source and at the time was once again "top" of the line graphics. Nothing like that can be said for EQ1.
<< reason for the fall of Everquest >>
Reason 1 : focus on hardcore raiding
Reason 2 : few so called easy/friendly features by today standart
Reason 3 : old graphic engine
Reason 4 : new games comming out each year
I still play Everquest after 7 years because :
1 - content
2 - i know the game
3 - community (friends)
4 - expansions
5 - this game fit my playstyle and fun
Bingo.
People want to solo and be self-sufficient. WoW was the first MMO to let you do that while in EQ only a few select classes could solo. That really limited the game's appeal and I don't think that ever occurred to Brad McQuack.
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