"Why would Blizzard waste money on buying an IP from a competitor when it has 3 Larger and better Lore-wise IP's and now creating a new 4th IP for their new MMO.It seems a waste of money on their part.If ever Sony drops the EQ IP i bet someone else will pick it up but it wont be Blizzard."
This isn't about Blizzard buying EQ, it's about them making a game that took dedication like EQ. I don't want to play EQ again, I like my memories of it and I could not possibly go back without all my friends.
As another poster stated, I know I am somewhat hardcore of a gamer, but that is only of recent. In World of Warcraft, I was a hardcore gamer, but in EverQuest I was not, although I played it much much more. In World of Warcraft I had to log on two nights a week and kill all the current raid content to be considered Hardcore, in EQ you HAD to raid 4 nights a week to be a weaker raiding guild and 6 to 7 to be top notch.
Oh, and people keep naming guilds that bring back a lot of memories... I forgot Triton... Afterlife... they were both bigger names than Legacy of Steel, I only remember Legacy of Steel because of Tigole.
Sorry but I'm going to say this. Fires of Heaven are one of the influences for changing the game for the worse. A raiding-focused game that came with PoP completely ruined Everquest for me, therefore I really doubt any former guildmember of that would be able to recreate the original EQ in any way of form since their only one appreciation would be towards raiding and wouldn't be any part of what the OP mentions.
A long time ago, a friend told me of a game called EverQuest....
Yes, I played it too, and for a few years it was fun, but that was then and this is now. We all know Sony screwed the pooch - nothing new there - but the game is too dated now for me to now to rekindle my interest in it. I didn't even bother reviving my account temporarily during that last promotion they ran.
I skimmed your post, I'm afraid, as I had no intentions of wading through all that.
Good thread. I recently downloaded EQ and planned on playing it for a couple months with the 10 year aniversary going on. I was hoping to bump into old friends and even old enemys. Boy was I wrong !
First,I had mixed feelings being it was the first time since 2004 that EQ was installed on my PC(Well 4 PCs ago tbh). My first thought was "I wonder how much this game has improved since the last time I played" because when I left I was really disappointed with the way SOE transformed this franchise". Well I log in an low and behold the game has gone from bad to worse. There is a station store now that allows you to buy in game items with real cash that you can then use in game. I was like WTF is up with that. Thats something you expect to see in a F2P mmo, not EQ for heavens sake. I played for a couple hours and then realized that the game I once played, even the one I hated at the end was so much different than the EQ of today. I uninstalled and told myself never again will I play SOE garbage.
Jeff Kaplan lead a major EQ guild. HE was not the original leader of that guild. Rob Pardo was the original leader. He gave Jeff Kaplan leadership after he got too busy with stuff at Blizzard. Later Jeff Kaplan got a job as a producer and then lead producer on WoW.
Rob Pardo is the person who started with the main vision behind WoW. Jeff Kaplan was merely the executor of that vision. Both of these guys were hardcore raiers in EQ. There is a reason the top content of WoW was made to be 40 man raids.
The thing you have to realize is that the word "casual" is used from a very particular point of view in regards to WoW and unfortunately that POV bleeds over into every other game. Casual itself means nothing really. But from the hardcore raiders POV it means a large group of "normal" people who want things "easy" and quick.
From a distant functional perspective, which is something Pardo is pretty good at, this works OK. Unfortunately it misses a whole host of other things people want. Many of these things are the sort of stuff that appear in games like UO or SWG or to some extent EQ. Many of them are about atmosphere rather than power. Things like housing or a wide expansive world or whatever.
Most power gamers don't care so much about such things. I tend to power game and I really care not a bit about housing. I also hate raiding and the "hardcore" BS mentality of many of those sorts of guilds. But something like power or character effectiveness or how long a dungeon takes. These are easy to quantitfy to some degree. Stuff like housing etc they are highly vaiable as to how people feel about them.
The problem is this stupid basically bigoted idea about "casual". Some people play "casually" but are very hardcore about immersion. Yet to a hardcore raider you aren't hardcore unless you have 50000 DKP.
Rob Pardo was smart enough to realize that from a finctional stand point very few people will tolerate certain types of onerous things, such as long travel times to places you are forced by the game to go to often. This sort of stuff just pisses off most people. Its pointless, its a waste of time, and you are offered no other choice. As opposed to EvE where you are offered a choice. You can stay in your region of space if you like, you need never be forced to go to Orgimmar.
WoW's biggest selling point is that they pared out of EQ alot of these types of things. Pardo did this because he thinks that is what "casual" people want. Then 40 man raids were meant to satisfy the harcore, the old EQ people who it "tough". But that is bullshit. Only a small portion of people liked EQ because it was "tough" (which it wasn't it was really easy compared to many MUDs). Some people liked the aspects of EQ that are associated with being "tough" but often for other reasoins such as immersion or just the thrill of it. There is this false dichotomy of lazy "casuals" and hard working/tough "hardcores". But the fact is that half of the things meant for those lazy casuals are equally liked by the "hardcore" loot grinders. And many of the non-loot grinders of EQ played in a way that WoW devs would have classified as "casual", especailly many RPers.
The greatest irony of WoiW is that its success is based on being more "mainstream" but done by some of the most catass of EQ hardcores. The irony of this is terribly evident in this OP because what the OP probably liked most EQ is stuff these hardcore people who played EQ for years simply do not understand those aspects or how they were utilized all that well. One of the saddest parts of EQ is that many of the people who consider themselves "hardcore" are very poorly understood by other players who also consider themselves "hardcore" or having high standards or whatever. When it comes to EQ you get like 10 different groups of people all using the same word and meaning something quite different. You see stuff like they made it "too easy" yet some people mean travel times and other people mean loot and still others mean bosses getting nerfed. But as long as they all want something "hard" they are all hardcore.
The fact is there are definitely people who want it to take 2 hours to walk between cities yet think that no dungeon should take longer than 1 hour to complete. So what are these people? Hardcores or Casuals? By the WoW/Pardo definition they would be casuals with strange tastes since they don't want to be catass 3 hours long 40 man raiders. In EQ they would probably be part of the hardcore immersion crowd or something.
WoW had a popular revolt due to the 40 man raid content. So what was their conclusion? We need to pacify the "casuals". Because if you hate boring ass long ass dungeons forced to be a face in the crowd 40 man raids you must be a lazy effing casual. The thing is that while this leads them to a nnumber of false conclusions it is still somewhat correct in that a lot of people did want smaller numbers of people and bitable chunks of content. But it also causes them to dismiss many things they think are "hardcore" but something which "lazy" casuals will spend immense amounts of time for. As somewhat of a power gamers which does not care about looks I am often astounded by the amount of time otherwise "casual" people will put into something that is a look they like or a look that is exclusive.
Yet by using the original Pardo vision of WoW that whole idea gets thrown out the window. Because if you do not follow their pattern of behavior that they did in EQ then you are not hardcore. Yet many people in EQ had tons and tons of hours played doing what many people would call trivial and done in smaller chunks.
The problem with WoW as it currently stands is that people are not learning the right lessions. WoW should hopefully have shown that stupid and pointles onerous things will be roundly rejected by a large number of people. Pardo was smart enough to throw that legacy of MUDs out the window, which is saying alot because that Orthodoxy was followed to a zombie like degree. But many people go on to follow that mistake that WoW makes which is to disqualify other things that were considered "hardcore" and lumping all casualls into this idea that they will reject anything that takes time or is anyway not simplistic. They basically think most of their players are lazy simpletons. With a small poprtion of hardcore elites.
This is in fact quite wrong. A large majority of people hate to have their time wasted. That does not mean they are lazy. A large number of people may not have 3 hours chunks of free time. A large number of people may hate pointless or pointlessly extended grinds because it starts feel like a waste of their time. Not because they are lazy. Many people who hate a pointlessly extended obviously a treadmill grind may love long and immersive travel times. Other people always feel travel times are a waste of their time. This has nothing to do with casualness or being hardcore. But by the WoW way of thinking it does.
And so we are currently left with this idea that any game that wants a large audience has to take these things out because "causuals" are the big group and they are all lazy and won't take anything that is onerous or whatever. This is just wrong. I hate long travel times in a game like WoW because they are stupid and pointless. I am fine with them in EvE because they make sense and there are options that allow me to not have to do them. I don't hate travel times in EQ/WoW type games because I am a lazy casual. I hate them because they get in the way of the over-arching point of the game and therefore trigger my "waste of time" response.
But because of this WoW instituted false dichotomy of casual versus hardcore and this idea that the "casuals" won't tolerate this sort of feature because they are casual and therefore lazy has essentially made a whole host of feature persona non grata. Now it is true that many of those features are thing you need to create a game to play well with. Any game that does not have a "permanenet neighborhood" idea in it like EvE does should seriously consider whether long travel times are a good idea. Any static content game that forces you to go to certain places repeatedly, such as WoW, simply cannot have to onerous of travel times.
But by the WoW created way of thinking the value of this feature is about how lazy casuals are not about whether it fits in the game well. Pardo was smart enough to realize this was pissing off a lot of people, but the "why" behind was not "it doesn't fit in the overall design of the game well and therefore wastes people's time" instead it was "Well they are lazy wusses and since I want their money and its not the big of a deal lets just change it a bit".
Functionally the result was the same but other analysis is very far off. The fact of the matter is that people were pissed for a completely valid reason. If you have deisgned your game so that I need to run dungeon X 50 times in a row then what is the point of making me travel for 10 minutes to get there everytime? Immersion? I've seen this same place a bajillion times I AFK run there. Can't be immersion. But drawing the conclusion that therefore all long travel times are bad is simply wrong. Which is what happened because they assumed the anger over stuff like that was from laziness. Not because they were trampling all over the idea of immersion to begin with by having you do exactly the same thing over and over in exactly the same place.
WoW kept some things like a large seamless world because they still follow the whole MUD idea of "we inflict these painful things on you for your own good". But this whole idea of thinking the large player base is stupid and lazy has essentially rotted most of the new games that have come out in the last 2-3 years. Sadly this is partially because the designers of these rarely understand the effect of many of their features, they just throw cool stuff until it sticks.
Most people agree that Planes of Power was the worst expansion and the one that alienated most original EQ players as it signaled the focus from SOE to turn EQ into a raiding only game. Raiding sucks.
I never really gave EQ a good shot. I played EQ 2 for about a month a long time ago and decided from that experience not to try EQ1. I was about to pick up EQ but almost that same week I read the post about the Item mall and it was a total deal braker for me. The game can be perfect or can be bad I wont support RMT companies running an mmorpg. I may try EQ once the cash shop gets taken out or if ever private servers pop up. Im sure its a fine game, and it was probably a better game back in the day.
Otherwise STFU, you are boring me to tears already. sheesh
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Now that it is shown that you are talking chit, you are just gonna mouse up and run eh? That dweeb tag is really seeming appropriate.
Next time stick to Uncle Owen talk, and what style panties you like to wear under your dress. When you wanna go accusing all the old guilds in EQ of cheating, you better come with more than he said /she said BS if you wanna be taken seriously.
The poster a few up was talking about the various ideas of "hardcore" in EQ. I never considered running thru Qeynos area to be "tough". Boring but not tough. When I think of hardcore and EQ, it is for things like keying up for PoP and Vex Thal. Just over the top requirements, and raids that made ya clean house to get what ya wanted. Stuff like that is where I get my idea of "hardcore"...not if I had to ride a boat or not.
The only hard core about boat rides was if you happened to fall off, and drown. Then you risked losing your gear. That is hard core.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Otherwise STFU, you are boring me to tears already. sheesh
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Otherwise STFU, you are boring me to tears already. sheesh
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Unless I mixed the name up, showEQ lets a person know what mobs are up in zone. As I indicated, I never used them myself. There is another that lets you free roam EQ in your own personal instance outside of game. I for get its name as EQ isnt discussed much anymore on FoH, and I havent played in a few yrs. When you take as much pain meds as I do, you see how well you keep every detail over years worth of time K.
I did use stuff like maps though, and custom UIs.
YOu still are trying to ride semantics, when the fact of the matter is you claimed these top end guilds were cheating to take out high level encounters,,,when in fact they could at any time be monitored by head GMs and Devs. Which totally negates your claim of how they were doing it. But here you are, still trying to save face.
I didnt call FoH cheats. You did. They put their time in on raiding. I brought up something I figured you would run your mouth about for sure, which is trivial in the scheme of things(Furor losing his first char).
Stuff like trying to pass off no drop loot to alts a lot of folks tried besides Furor. Fearing a mob into wall to kill or being on an unreachable ledge : they are all exploits as well...but lot of folks used them also. Didnt have to be in a guild for that.
You made the claim FoH was nothing...so chit or get off the pot. I am flat out saying you got nothing on them. HAd they been cheating reguarly, the other guilds would of called them on it. Wanting the server firsts for themselves.
The fact of the matter is that it appears to chap your puddy that these guilds were getting the recognition back then. So you treid to sling some BS to tarnish an image. Problem being is that those of us that were around back then, and following the expansion progession know better.
The only time there was cheating by a guild, that I know of, was by one guild(forget name). Used an XYZ exploit to kill mob IIRC. WAs server first kill, and was disallowed. The one or two cheating server firsts, by this guild, got them all a perma ban, and their guild name removed. And you want us to believe it went on all the time....suuuuuuuure it did.
If you had quantified your claim, and gone for the period after all the guilds were locked out of PoP then I might be more inclined to believe ya. I am sure a lot of stuff went on when all these guilds got tired of the incomplete expansions, and left for WoW. Before then though, EQ was only game in town for PvE. No way they would of risked their guilds.
And as far as is it impressive or not : These guilds used to keep raids of 70 folks in check without voice chat. Not once a week....but like 6 nights a week for many hrs. They also had to keep morale high after SOE had thrown in the latest block to keep them from finishing an expansion etc. Their dedication, and the guild members/leaders as well impresses me as a former raider.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The top EQ guildes I knew were, Novae, Fama Volet (they got caught cheating), Afterlife, Fires of Heaven, Triton, Leviathan, and Township Rebellion and Quo Vadis and something Vortex, thats all I remember heh
The top EQ guildes I knew were, Novae, Fama Volet (they got caught cheating), Afterlife, Fires of Heaven, Triton, Leviathan, and Township Rebellion and Quo Vadis and something Vortex, thats all I remember heh
TR was spoon fed on Legends server. I dont put them up there with Al, FoH, LoS, and Triton.
But that is just me.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I wish every day they would open a classic EQ server because I am bored with no MMO, but i've tried them all and nothing can replicate the experience. I just can't enjoy EQ as it is now.
If you mean that you can't enjoy EverQuest 2, I certainly understand. Note that the classic EverQuest servers are still there. I took a trip down memory lane with my original 1999 character about a year ago.
EverQuest 1 would bore you to tears if you went back today. That's because there's nobody there. EverQuest was the amazing experience that it was because it was essentially the only MMO in town. The servers were packed, and the grind was difficult. That meant that the game community was more stable than it is today; a player stayed in level 20 for quite a while, and got used to seeing other level 20s grinding the same content day after day.
I played quite a bit and only got my one character to level 45. That's a grindy game.
He is talking about EQ Classic, which ceased to exist in 2002 with the PoP expansion.
QFT. Casual doesn't mean stupid, lazy or bored. It means you only have so much time to dedicate to a game or so much interest in its core mechanics which doesn't automatically make you a bad player per se. You could log a few hours per day or per week and still be good at your class, enjoy the lore, go to dungeons or do some raiding. The modern definition of casual play and how developers percieve is ruining the current crop of MMOs. For example, I really believe that WAR was ruined because Mythic tried to dumb it down for crowd they thought they understood. I think the casual vs hardcore debate is pointless and draws too much attention from developers.
Otherwise STFU, you are boring me to tears already. sheesh
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Unless I mixed the name up, showEQ lets a person know what mobs are up in zone.
I was a member of LoS back in the day and I can say with certainty that there was no cheating/hacking etc going on during my time there. We worked for our kills. I remember 12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight in PoEB just to learn a single encounter. I remember setting my alarm to get up at 4am so that I would be online with other guildmates in time for a certain spawn. I remember repeatedly doing an encounter time after time after time and then when we called it for the night we would stay up for another hour or two and talk about what worked and what didn't. What we could improve on etc.There were folks who would literally stay on and raid till an hour before they had to be at work. As a previous poster stated those were the days when Allakhazams etc had no info and we learned as we went. We were at many times literally months ahead in content and we did have GM's show up constantly during raids to watch. Whether it was to ensure we were not exploiting or to ensure the encounter was tuned right I cannot say. If we were cheating/hacking then why would we literally spend 40-60+ hours a month on a zone? Why then would we spend months and months keying and flagging? Why did we not get banned or have the guild dissolved by the GM's?
A prime example was Trakanon. The entire zone and many times even the server would crash when he was engaged (You were on the Nameless server so should be able to attest to this fact). There were dev's and GM's watching almost each and every attempt for a month straight before they were able to solve the problem on their end and it is a well known fact that most of the "uberguilds" had GM's peeking in on them randomly during raids over the years. I cannot speak for any of the other guilds mentioned but LoS never got "in trouble" while I was a member. We did well because, for the overwhlming majority of us, pushing the edge of content and getting the "phat loots" was what drove us.We lived and breathed EQ,it was more than a passtime it was a passion bordering on addiction. When we weren't ingame talking about an encounter we were replying to 20 page long threads on our forums bouncing ideas around. When we found something that worked we would build off that and piece together a strat that would eventually net us a kill.
There of course were always rumblings of illicit doings from other guilds on the server. It has happened and will always happen in every MMO when one guild is leading the server by leaps and bounds. The best way to climb the ladder so to speak is to pull down those above you. I left EQ a few months after GoD came out (I think it was GoD, the expansion after PoP, sorry been a long long time and memory is hazy) but up until that point I saw no evidence of exploiting or cheating.
I was a member of LoS back in the day and I can say with certainty that there was no cheating/hacking etc going on during my time there. We worked for our kills. I remember 12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight in PoEB just to learn a single encounter. I remember setting my alarm to get up at 4am so that I would be online with other guildmates in time for a certain spawn. I remember repeatedly doing an encounter time after time after time and then when we called it for the night we would stay up for another hour or two and talk about what worked and what didn't. What we could improve on etc.There were folks who would literally stay on and raid till an hour before they had to be at work. As a previous poster stated those were the days when Allakhazams etc had no info and we learned as we went. We were at many times literally months ahead in content and we did have GM's show up constantly during raids to watch. Whether it was to ensure we were not exploiting or to ensure the encounter was tuned right I cannot say. If we were cheating/hacking then why would we literally spend 40-60+ hours a month on a zone? Why then would we spend months and months keying and flagging? Why did we not get banned or have the guild dissolved by the GM's? A prime example was Trakanon. The entire zone and many times even the server would crash when he was engaged (You were on the Nameless server so should be able to attest to this fact). There were dev's and GM's watching almost each and every attempt for a month straight before they were able to solve the problem on their end and it is a well known fact that most of the "uberguilds" had GM's peeking in on them randomly during raids over the years. I cannot speak for any of the other guilds mentioned but LoS never got "in trouble" while I was a member. We did well because, for the overwhlming majority of us, pushing the edge of content and getting the "phat loots" was what drove us.We lived and breathed EQ,it was more than a passtime it was a passion bordering on addiction. When we weren't ingame talking about an encounter we were replying to 20 page long threads on our forums bouncing ideas around. When we found something that worked we would build off that and piece together a strat that would eventually net us a kill. There of course were always rumblings of illicit doings from other guilds on the server. It has happened and will always happen in every MMO when one guild is leading the server by leaps and bounds. The best way to climb the ladder so to speak is to pull down those above you. I left EQ a few months after GoD came out (I think it was GoD, the expansion after PoP, sorry been a long long time and memory is hazy) but up until that point I saw no evidence of exploiting or cheating.
Thanks Sithos for confirming what I said...although I think Furors old logs are still available on main FoH site for everyone to read. Some of that stuff was pretty good.
{mod edit} ,I have been dealing with in this thread, is insistant that there was mega-cheating going on.
{mod edit}....no I have never used any form of hacks/cheats in game. I used to keep up reading on all the chit though, as I am on disability with all the time in the world as of 02. My register day on FoH is like March 03, but was following for about a yr longer than that since all the EQ stuff interested me. I only visit a couple times a week now...instead of daily . I used to not only surf there a lot, but AL, the Mith Marr brds, several other guild brds, Alla, couple other server brds, and EQtraders that I can think of. Luved EQ....still do just health is worse.
{mod edit}
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I was a member of LoS back in the day and I can say with certainty that there was no cheating/hacking etc going on during my time there. There of course were always rumblings of illicit doings from other guilds on the server. It has happened and will always happen in every MMO when one guild is leading the server by leaps and bounds.
1. The fact, whether true or not, that you were a member of LoS, probably the worst of the hackers as far as I am concerned, reduces your credibility to be fair and honest regarding the Guild's past unethical, irresponsible, and wrong conduct.
2. I do not know how many LoS members have been "banned" for hacking, cheating, use of third party programs, and so forth. Banning is a significant penalty and generally results after a repeated number of suspensions. You are trying to prove a negative, which is the same as saying:
Because I was never arrested, I did not commit the crime.
=
Because I was never suspended or banned, I never cheated in Everquest.
Aside: I know people who have used EQ cheats, hacks, and various programs and have never been "caught." To suggest that "uberguilds," LoS in particular, never used them is remarkably absurd and dishonest.
3. Worse. Just because you were not aware, or did not use, third-party programs, cheats, hacks, and so forth does not mean that your Guild did not. Even worse, it does not mean that your guild members did not. It still astonishes me, to this day, how many people are in the dark about the widespread cheating in Everquest.
4. "When one guild [here, this so-called ex-LoS member is referring to his former Guild, LoS] is leading the server by leaps and bounds." Everquest was not a race to the raid finish line, Sir, or Madame. I played on the Nameless. Unlike the one person Moaky, most "regular" players were not following your "progress with raiding." In fact, I could not give a shit, and I do not give a shit this day. I do, however, care about cheating. Plainly, LoS was, to my knowledge, not only a cheater guild, but I believe the biggest cheat in EVERQUEST HISTORY based on my PERSONAL experiences on the server. EVEN WORSE, when I was a major off-line seller of EQ items, and also a major buyer, YOUR members were some of my best customers. I REALLY learned about cheating from an LoS member who purchasted a tranquil staff from me, for like 15 bucks. If I remember correctly, he offered to share with me compiled "macroquest" as a means of payment.
LoS, instead of being these "passionate" MMORPG players as you described them, were in fact nothing more or less than people that played all the time but had the advantage of cheats, third party programs, hacks, exploits, and other means to obtain undue advantages in the game. To suggest othewrise is remarkably absurd and dishonest.
Thanks Sithos for confirming what I said...although I think Furors old logs are still available on main FoH site for everyone to read. Some of that stuff was pretty good. {mod edit} ,I have been dealing with in this thread, is insistant that there was mega-cheating going on. {mod edit}....no I have never used any form of hacks/cheats in game. I used to keep up reading on all the chit though, as I am on disability with all the time in the world as of 02. My register day on FoH is like March 03, but was following for about a yr longer than that since all the EQ stuff interested me. I only visit a couple times a week now...instead of daily . I used to not only surf there a lot, but AL, the Mith Marr brds, several other guild brds, Alla, couple other server brds, and EQtraders that I can think of. Luved EQ....still do just health is worse. {mod edit}
You do not even know what ShowEQ is, and you have conceded that these self-described "uberguilds" (this is, literally, what they call themselves) --missuse of the word uber, as an aside-- have been (1) banned and have used (2) third party programs, although you do not know what that third party program is or how it operates.
If anyone tries to tell me with a straight-face that this "uberguilds" were not cheaters, that person is a flat-out liar or remarkably ignorant.
In your case, it is ignorance. Massive ignorance.
Edit
ShowEQ is a tool. It is not, as you said, something about seeing mobs up. Yes. It can be used for that purpose, and I have seen it used for that purpose.
You can use some of these programs, such as ShowEQ, for nearly any purpose you want from transferring no-drop items --as you said, apparently a leader of one of your guilds was banned for this-- to warping to programs that operate a bot like a character.
I have seen these programs do some remarkable things, and those so-called "uberguilds" not only had them, but they used them extensively in some creative ways. These programs are still used today.
Edit 2
And if SOE did not ban or suspend many of these self-described "uber" players or guilds or whatever hell they think they are, then shame on SOE for making that unethical judgment and wrong-headed (to say the least) decision.
Look at the summit in which these people were invited to in changing the very essence of Everquest. Most people were not members of, and did not want to become members of, self-described "uber" guilds. The EQ playing-community was FORCED by Everquest, upon reaching a certain level, to join these guilds to experience "end-game content." Most people quit, INCLUDING the "raiders."
I suspect, and HOPE, that SOE must regret letting the ubers influence content as much as destroying SWG
It controlled both of the best MMORPGs ever created, and
Ruined both of them in opposite ways (one, trying to appeal to casuals and the other trying to satisfy "ubers" players/guilds)
And these same "raid guilds" were the ones to turn on Everquest. If I did not laugh, I would cry. Literally, the patients took-control of the hospital, and they found they were worse off in control than before. Everquest was then abandoned by raid guild, community guild, soloers, and so forth. A somewhat watershed moment on what not to do.
Your post is very good, that is about exactly how i feel about MMOs, when one started to play with UO & EQ1, new MMOs just look void & shallow. However, i don't think i could spend 6h a day now playing like i did for EQ1, while it was my best gaming experience, it wasn't a game, it was a job... being a raiding officer takes a huge amount of time (no instancing there, have to compete with other guilds to go to the boss).
To react about ur last post :
To me, the best guild remained Conquest who were the first to arrive to Sleeper and got banned by SOE cuz the dragon wasn't ready (just a giant human) and they accused em of cheating.
2nd would be Fires of Heaven, huge skilled guild !
Mine was Dark Horizon, not so bad either, good bunch of folks.
You're a Hardcore Survivor!
You not only survived the zombie apocalypse, but did it with style! Your mastery of zombie knowledge, survival tactics, and weaponry is nearly unmatched. Congratulations, for you are hardcore!
Originally posted by haibane To me, the best guild remained Conquest who were the first to arrive to Sleeper and got banned by SOE cuz the dragon wasn't ready (just a giant human) and they accused em of cheating.
It is interesting how you used the word "accused" of cheating and banned for it.
I detect a total ignorance, whether willful or not, on the part of some of you about the nature and extent of how these self-described "uber" guilds used third party programs, exploits, cheats, hacks, and so forth to illegitimately achieve their ends.
On the contrary, in spite of whatyou might see, or have heard, these were not "skilled" people. Addicts? Sure. They will say their addiction was a dediction, but no one buys that but themselves. The simple reality and truth is that these "ubers" were really cheats, and I know because I was there; and I have been able to observe, and use, many of their ... "tools" that you either do not know about or prefer to believe never existed.
They were cheats, and nothing will change that fact.
The biggest, or most amusing cheat, is when these people zone into areas that are closed-off.
If anything, SOE should have been more aggressive about handling cheats, but it was not.
Edit: I mean, so many of you have this false image of "ubers" that it astonishes me. I nearly feel sorry for you for being so much in the dark about the truth of them in addition to this unfair if not pathetic worship. heck, I even wish you did have an opportunity to participate in the guilds and observe, and use, their various methods to obtain unfair advantages. I am sorry you were excluded, but you should be grateful you still have your integrity.
I could care less if you continue to worship these old-cheats, but do not take it personally if it looks pathetic to many of us who really know what these "ubers" were about - cheating their way to victory.
When you know about the extent and nature of the cheating, trust me, these "victories" are not very impressive.
And no, it was not skill. And no, addiction is not, and never will be, "dedication."
Comments
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
"Why would Blizzard waste money on buying an IP from a competitor when it has 3 Larger and better Lore-wise IP's and now creating a new 4th IP for their new MMO.It seems a waste of money on their part.If ever Sony drops the EQ IP i bet someone else will pick it up but it wont be Blizzard."
This isn't about Blizzard buying EQ, it's about them making a game that took dedication like EQ. I don't want to play EQ again, I like my memories of it and I could not possibly go back without all my friends.
As another poster stated, I know I am somewhat hardcore of a gamer, but that is only of recent. In World of Warcraft, I was a hardcore gamer, but in EverQuest I was not, although I played it much much more. In World of Warcraft I had to log on two nights a week and kill all the current raid content to be considered Hardcore, in EQ you HAD to raid 4 nights a week to be a weaker raiding guild and 6 to 7 to be top notch.
Oh, and people keep naming guilds that bring back a lot of memories... I forgot Triton... Afterlife... they were both bigger names than Legacy of Steel, I only remember Legacy of Steel because of Tigole.
Sorry but I'm going to say this. Fires of Heaven are one of the influences for changing the game for the worse. A raiding-focused game that came with PoP completely ruined Everquest for me, therefore I really doubt any former guildmember of that would be able to recreate the original EQ in any way of form since their only one appreciation would be towards raiding and wouldn't be any part of what the OP mentions.
Yes, I played it too, and for a few years it was fun, but that was then and this is now. We all know Sony screwed the pooch - nothing new there - but the game is too dated now for me to now to rekindle my interest in it. I didn't even bother reviving my account temporarily during that last promotion they ran.
I skimmed your post, I'm afraid, as I had no intentions of wading through all that.
Good thread. I recently downloaded EQ and planned on playing it for a couple months with the 10 year aniversary going on. I was hoping to bump into old friends and even old enemys. Boy was I wrong !
First,I had mixed feelings being it was the first time since 2004 that EQ was installed on my PC(Well 4 PCs ago tbh). My first thought was "I wonder how much this game has improved since the last time I played" because when I left I was really disappointed with the way SOE transformed this franchise". Well I log in an low and behold the game has gone from bad to worse. There is a station store now that allows you to buy in game items with real cash that you can then use in game. I was like WTF is up with that. Thats something you expect to see in a F2P mmo, not EQ for heavens sake. I played for a couple hours and then realized that the game I once played, even the one I hated at the end was so much different than the EQ of today. I uninstalled and told myself never again will I play SOE garbage.
Jeff Kaplan lead a major EQ guild. HE was not the original leader of that guild. Rob Pardo was the original leader. He gave Jeff Kaplan leadership after he got too busy with stuff at Blizzard. Later Jeff Kaplan got a job as a producer and then lead producer on WoW.
Rob Pardo is the person who started with the main vision behind WoW. Jeff Kaplan was merely the executor of that vision. Both of these guys were hardcore raiers in EQ. There is a reason the top content of WoW was made to be 40 man raids.
The thing you have to realize is that the word "casual" is used from a very particular point of view in regards to WoW and unfortunately that POV bleeds over into every other game. Casual itself means nothing really. But from the hardcore raiders POV it means a large group of "normal" people who want things "easy" and quick.
From a distant functional perspective, which is something Pardo is pretty good at, this works OK. Unfortunately it misses a whole host of other things people want. Many of these things are the sort of stuff that appear in games like UO or SWG or to some extent EQ. Many of them are about atmosphere rather than power. Things like housing or a wide expansive world or whatever.
Most power gamers don't care so much about such things. I tend to power game and I really care not a bit about housing. I also hate raiding and the "hardcore" BS mentality of many of those sorts of guilds. But something like power or character effectiveness or how long a dungeon takes. These are easy to quantitfy to some degree. Stuff like housing etc they are highly vaiable as to how people feel about them.
The problem is this stupid basically bigoted idea about "casual". Some people play "casually" but are very hardcore about immersion. Yet to a hardcore raider you aren't hardcore unless you have 50000 DKP.
Rob Pardo was smart enough to realize that from a finctional stand point very few people will tolerate certain types of onerous things, such as long travel times to places you are forced by the game to go to often. This sort of stuff just pisses off most people. Its pointless, its a waste of time, and you are offered no other choice. As opposed to EvE where you are offered a choice. You can stay in your region of space if you like, you need never be forced to go to Orgimmar.
WoW's biggest selling point is that they pared out of EQ alot of these types of things. Pardo did this because he thinks that is what "casual" people want. Then 40 man raids were meant to satisfy the harcore, the old EQ people who it "tough". But that is bullshit. Only a small portion of people liked EQ because it was "tough" (which it wasn't it was really easy compared to many MUDs). Some people liked the aspects of EQ that are associated with being "tough" but often for other reasoins such as immersion or just the thrill of it. There is this false dichotomy of lazy "casuals" and hard working/tough "hardcores". But the fact is that half of the things meant for those lazy casuals are equally liked by the "hardcore" loot grinders. And many of the non-loot grinders of EQ played in a way that WoW devs would have classified as "casual", especailly many RPers.
The greatest irony of WoiW is that its success is based on being more "mainstream" but done by some of the most catass of EQ hardcores. The irony of this is terribly evident in this OP because what the OP probably liked most EQ is stuff these hardcore people who played EQ for years simply do not understand those aspects or how they were utilized all that well. One of the saddest parts of EQ is that many of the people who consider themselves "hardcore" are very poorly understood by other players who also consider themselves "hardcore" or having high standards or whatever. When it comes to EQ you get like 10 different groups of people all using the same word and meaning something quite different. You see stuff like they made it "too easy" yet some people mean travel times and other people mean loot and still others mean bosses getting nerfed. But as long as they all want something "hard" they are all hardcore.
The fact is there are definitely people who want it to take 2 hours to walk between cities yet think that no dungeon should take longer than 1 hour to complete. So what are these people? Hardcores or Casuals? By the WoW/Pardo definition they would be casuals with strange tastes since they don't want to be catass 3 hours long 40 man raiders. In EQ they would probably be part of the hardcore immersion crowd or something.
WoW had a popular revolt due to the 40 man raid content. So what was their conclusion? We need to pacify the "casuals". Because if you hate boring ass long ass dungeons forced to be a face in the crowd 40 man raids you must be a lazy effing casual. The thing is that while this leads them to a nnumber of false conclusions it is still somewhat correct in that a lot of people did want smaller numbers of people and bitable chunks of content. But it also causes them to dismiss many things they think are "hardcore" but something which "lazy" casuals will spend immense amounts of time for. As somewhat of a power gamers which does not care about looks I am often astounded by the amount of time otherwise "casual" people will put into something that is a look they like or a look that is exclusive.
Yet by using the original Pardo vision of WoW that whole idea gets thrown out the window. Because if you do not follow their pattern of behavior that they did in EQ then you are not hardcore. Yet many people in EQ had tons and tons of hours played doing what many people would call trivial and done in smaller chunks.
The problem with WoW as it currently stands is that people are not learning the right lessions. WoW should hopefully have shown that stupid and pointles onerous things will be roundly rejected by a large number of people. Pardo was smart enough to throw that legacy of MUDs out the window, which is saying alot because that Orthodoxy was followed to a zombie like degree. But many people go on to follow that mistake that WoW makes which is to disqualify other things that were considered "hardcore" and lumping all casualls into this idea that they will reject anything that takes time or is anyway not simplistic. They basically think most of their players are lazy simpletons. With a small poprtion of hardcore elites.
This is in fact quite wrong. A large majority of people hate to have their time wasted. That does not mean they are lazy. A large number of people may not have 3 hours chunks of free time. A large number of people may hate pointless or pointlessly extended grinds because it starts feel like a waste of their time. Not because they are lazy. Many people who hate a pointlessly extended obviously a treadmill grind may love long and immersive travel times. Other people always feel travel times are a waste of their time. This has nothing to do with casualness or being hardcore. But by the WoW way of thinking it does.
And so we are currently left with this idea that any game that wants a large audience has to take these things out because "causuals" are the big group and they are all lazy and won't take anything that is onerous or whatever. This is just wrong. I hate long travel times in a game like WoW because they are stupid and pointless. I am fine with them in EvE because they make sense and there are options that allow me to not have to do them. I don't hate travel times in EQ/WoW type games because I am a lazy casual. I hate them because they get in the way of the over-arching point of the game and therefore trigger my "waste of time" response.
But because of this WoW instituted false dichotomy of casual versus hardcore and this idea that the "casuals" won't tolerate this sort of feature because they are casual and therefore lazy has essentially made a whole host of feature persona non grata. Now it is true that many of those features are thing you need to create a game to play well with. Any game that does not have a "permanenet neighborhood" idea in it like EvE does should seriously consider whether long travel times are a good idea. Any static content game that forces you to go to certain places repeatedly, such as WoW, simply cannot have to onerous of travel times.
But by the WoW created way of thinking the value of this feature is about how lazy casuals are not about whether it fits in the game well. Pardo was smart enough to realize this was pissing off a lot of people, but the "why" behind was not "it doesn't fit in the overall design of the game well and therefore wastes people's time" instead it was "Well they are lazy wusses and since I want their money and its not the big of a deal lets just change it a bit".
Functionally the result was the same but other analysis is very far off. The fact of the matter is that people were pissed for a completely valid reason. If you have deisgned your game so that I need to run dungeon X 50 times in a row then what is the point of making me travel for 10 minutes to get there everytime? Immersion? I've seen this same place a bajillion times I AFK run there. Can't be immersion. But drawing the conclusion that therefore all long travel times are bad is simply wrong. Which is what happened because they assumed the anger over stuff like that was from laziness. Not because they were trampling all over the idea of immersion to begin with by having you do exactly the same thing over and over in exactly the same place.
WoW kept some things like a large seamless world because they still follow the whole MUD idea of "we inflict these painful things on you for your own good". But this whole idea of thinking the large player base is stupid and lazy has essentially rotted most of the new games that have come out in the last 2-3 years. Sadly this is partially because the designers of these rarely understand the effect of many of their features, they just throw cool stuff until it sticks.
Most people agree that Planes of Power was the worst expansion and the one that alienated most original EQ players as it signaled the focus from SOE to turn EQ into a raiding only game. Raiding sucks.
I never really gave EQ a good shot. I played EQ 2 for about a month a long time ago and decided from that experience not to try EQ1. I was about to pick up EQ but almost that same week I read the post about the Item mall and it was a total deal braker for me. The game can be perfect or can be bad I wont support RMT companies running an mmorpg. I may try EQ once the cash shop gets taken out or if ever private servers pop up. Im sure its a fine game, and it was probably a better game back in the day.
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Now that it is shown that you are talking chit, you are just gonna mouse up and run eh? That dweeb tag is really seeming appropriate.
Next time stick to Uncle Owen talk, and what style panties you like to wear under your dress. When you wanna go accusing all the old guilds in EQ of cheating, you better come with more than he said /she said BS if you wanna be taken seriously.
The poster a few up was talking about the various ideas of "hardcore" in EQ. I never considered running thru Qeynos area to be "tough". Boring but not tough. When I think of hardcore and EQ, it is for things like keying up for PoP and Vex Thal. Just over the top requirements, and raids that made ya clean house to get what ya wanted. Stuff like that is where I get my idea of "hardcore"...not if I had to ride a boat or not.
The only hard core about boat rides was if you happened to fall off, and drown. Then you risked losing your gear. That is hard core.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Unless I mixed the name up, showEQ lets a person know what mobs are up in zone. As I indicated, I never used them myself. There is another that lets you free roam EQ in your own personal instance outside of game. I for get its name as EQ isnt discussed much anymore on FoH, and I havent played in a few yrs. When you take as much pain meds as I do, you see how well you keep every detail over years worth of time K.
I did use stuff like maps though, and custom UIs.
YOu still are trying to ride semantics, when the fact of the matter is you claimed these top end guilds were cheating to take out high level encounters,,,when in fact they could at any time be monitored by head GMs and Devs. Which totally negates your claim of how they were doing it. But here you are, still trying to save face.
I didnt call FoH cheats. You did. They put their time in on raiding. I brought up something I figured you would run your mouth about for sure, which is trivial in the scheme of things(Furor losing his first char).
Stuff like trying to pass off no drop loot to alts a lot of folks tried besides Furor. Fearing a mob into wall to kill or being on an unreachable ledge : they are all exploits as well...but lot of folks used them also. Didnt have to be in a guild for that.
You made the claim FoH was nothing...so chit or get off the pot. I am flat out saying you got nothing on them. HAd they been cheating reguarly, the other guilds would of called them on it. Wanting the server firsts for themselves.
The fact of the matter is that it appears to chap your puddy that these guilds were getting the recognition back then. So you treid to sling some BS to tarnish an image. Problem being is that those of us that were around back then, and following the expansion progession know better.
The only time there was cheating by a guild, that I know of, was by one guild(forget name). Used an XYZ exploit to kill mob IIRC. WAs server first kill, and was disallowed. The one or two cheating server firsts, by this guild, got them all a perma ban, and their guild name removed. And you want us to believe it went on all the time....suuuuuuuure it did.
If you had quantified your claim, and gone for the period after all the guilds were locked out of PoP then I might be more inclined to believe ya. I am sure a lot of stuff went on when all these guilds got tired of the incomplete expansions, and left for WoW. Before then though, EQ was only game in town for PvE. No way they would of risked their guilds.
And as far as is it impressive or not : These guilds used to keep raids of 70 folks in check without voice chat. Not once a week....but like 6 nights a week for many hrs. They also had to keep morale high after SOE had thrown in the latest block to keep them from finishing an expansion etc. Their dedication, and the guild members/leaders as well impresses me as a former raider.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
The top EQ guildes I knew were, Novae, Fama Volet (they got caught cheating), Afterlife, Fires of Heaven, Triton, Leviathan, and Township Rebellion and Quo Vadis and something Vortex, thats all I remember heh
TR was spoon fed on Legends server. I dont put them up there with Al, FoH, LoS, and Triton.
But that is just me.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
If you mean that you can't enjoy EverQuest 2, I certainly understand. Note that the classic EverQuest servers are still there. I took a trip down memory lane with my original 1999 character about a year ago.
EverQuest 1 would bore you to tears if you went back today. That's because there's nobody there. EverQuest was the amazing experience that it was because it was essentially the only MMO in town. The servers were packed, and the grind was difficult. That meant that the game community was more stable than it is today; a player stayed in level 20 for quite a while, and got used to seeing other level 20s grinding the same content day after day.
I played quite a bit and only got my one character to level 45. That's a grindy game.
He is talking about EQ Classic, which ceased to exist in 2002 with the PoP expansion.
I don't post here that often, but I just want to tell you that your post is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read on these forums.
Kudos to you sir.
QFT. Casual doesn't mean stupid, lazy or bored. It means you only have so much time to dedicate to a game or so much interest in its core mechanics which doesn't automatically make you a bad player per se. You could log a few hours per day or per week and still be good at your class, enjoy the lore, go to dungeons or do some raiding. The modern definition of casual play and how developers percieve is ruining the current crop of MMOs. For example, I really believe that WAR was ruined because Mythic tried to dumb it down for crowd they thought they understood. I think the casual vs hardcore debate is pointless and draws too much attention from developers.
Thank you for proving my point much (much) stronger than I possibly could.
This is read "Declareddreamer was talking out his arse, and got called on it".
Sir, or madame, you do not even know what ShowEQ is.
It was not, though, at that point I realized you had no idea what you were talking about.
It was when you simultaneously said (1) BS then (2) FoH was a cheat and (3) decribed how you were "impressed" by these cheats. Essentially, without knowing it (and probably unintentionally), you agreed with me AND concede the point I made. Thanks.
Unless I mixed the name up, showEQ lets a person know what mobs are up in zone.
Have you ever used, or seen ShowEQ, used?
I was a member of LoS back in the day and I can say with certainty that there was no cheating/hacking etc going on during my time there. We worked for our kills. I remember 12+ hours a day for 3-4 days straight in PoEB just to learn a single encounter. I remember setting my alarm to get up at 4am so that I would be online with other guildmates in time for a certain spawn. I remember repeatedly doing an encounter time after time after time and then when we called it for the night we would stay up for another hour or two and talk about what worked and what didn't. What we could improve on etc.There were folks who would literally stay on and raid till an hour before they had to be at work. As a previous poster stated those were the days when Allakhazams etc had no info and we learned as we went. We were at many times literally months ahead in content and we did have GM's show up constantly during raids to watch. Whether it was to ensure we were not exploiting or to ensure the encounter was tuned right I cannot say. If we were cheating/hacking then why would we literally spend 40-60+ hours a month on a zone? Why then would we spend months and months keying and flagging? Why did we not get banned or have the guild dissolved by the GM's?
A prime example was Trakanon. The entire zone and many times even the server would crash when he was engaged (You were on the Nameless server so should be able to attest to this fact). There were dev's and GM's watching almost each and every attempt for a month straight before they were able to solve the problem on their end and it is a well known fact that most of the "uberguilds" had GM's peeking in on them randomly during raids over the years. I cannot speak for any of the other guilds mentioned but LoS never got "in trouble" while I was a member. We did well because, for the overwhlming majority of us, pushing the edge of content and getting the "phat loots" was what drove us.We lived and breathed EQ,it was more than a passtime it was a passion bordering on addiction. When we weren't ingame talking about an encounter we were replying to 20 page long threads on our forums bouncing ideas around. When we found something that worked we would build off that and piece together a strat that would eventually net us a kill.
There of course were always rumblings of illicit doings from other guilds on the server. It has happened and will always happen in every MMO when one guild is leading the server by leaps and bounds. The best way to climb the ladder so to speak is to pull down those above you. I left EQ a few months after GoD came out (I think it was GoD, the expansion after PoP, sorry been a long long time and memory is hazy) but up until that point I saw no evidence of exploiting or cheating.
Thanks Sithos for confirming what I said...although I think Furors old logs are still available on main FoH site for everyone to read. Some of that stuff was pretty good.
{mod edit} ,I have been dealing with in this thread, is insistant that there was mega-cheating going on.
{mod edit}....no I have never used any form of hacks/cheats in game. I used to keep up reading on all the chit though, as I am on disability with all the time in the world as of 02. My register day on FoH is like March 03, but was following for about a yr longer than that since all the EQ stuff interested me. I only visit a couple times a week now...instead of daily . I used to not only surf there a lot, but AL, the Mith Marr brds, several other guild brds, Alla, couple other server brds, and EQtraders that I can think of. Luved EQ....still do just health is worse.
{mod edit}
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
1. The fact, whether true or not, that you were a member of LoS, probably the worst of the hackers as far as I am concerned, reduces your credibility to be fair and honest regarding the Guild's past unethical, irresponsible, and wrong conduct.
2. I do not know how many LoS members have been "banned" for hacking, cheating, use of third party programs, and so forth. Banning is a significant penalty and generally results after a repeated number of suspensions. You are trying to prove a negative, which is the same as saying:
Because I was never arrested, I did not commit the crime.
=
Because I was never suspended or banned, I never cheated in Everquest.
Aside: I know people who have used EQ cheats, hacks, and various programs and have never been "caught." To suggest that "uberguilds," LoS in particular, never used them is remarkably absurd and dishonest.
3. Worse. Just because you were not aware, or did not use, third-party programs, cheats, hacks, and so forth does not mean that your Guild did not. Even worse, it does not mean that your guild members did not. It still astonishes me, to this day, how many people are in the dark about the widespread cheating in Everquest.
4. "When one guild [here, this so-called ex-LoS member is referring to his former Guild, LoS] is leading the server by leaps and bounds." Everquest was not a race to the raid finish line, Sir, or Madame. I played on the Nameless. Unlike the one person Moaky, most "regular" players were not following your "progress with raiding." In fact, I could not give a shit, and I do not give a shit this day. I do, however, care about cheating. Plainly, LoS was, to my knowledge, not only a cheater guild, but I believe the biggest cheat in EVERQUEST HISTORY based on my PERSONAL experiences on the server. EVEN WORSE, when I was a major off-line seller of EQ items, and also a major buyer, YOUR members were some of my best customers. I REALLY learned about cheating from an LoS member who purchasted a tranquil staff from me, for like 15 bucks. If I remember correctly, he offered to share with me compiled "macroquest" as a means of payment.
LoS, instead of being these "passionate" MMORPG players as you described them, were in fact nothing more or less than people that played all the time but had the advantage of cheats, third party programs, hacks, exploits, and other means to obtain undue advantages in the game. To suggest othewrise is remarkably absurd and dishonest.
You do not even know what ShowEQ is, and you have conceded that these self-described "uberguilds" (this is, literally, what they call themselves) --missuse of the word uber, as an aside-- have been (1) banned and have used (2) third party programs, although you do not know what that third party program is or how it operates.
If anyone tries to tell me with a straight-face that this "uberguilds" were not cheaters, that person is a flat-out liar or remarkably ignorant.
In your case, it is ignorance. Massive ignorance.
Edit
ShowEQ is a tool. It is not, as you said, something about seeing mobs up. Yes. It can be used for that purpose, and I have seen it used for that purpose.
You can use some of these programs, such as ShowEQ, for nearly any purpose you want from transferring no-drop items --as you said, apparently a leader of one of your guilds was banned for this-- to warping to programs that operate a bot like a character.
I have seen these programs do some remarkable things, and those so-called "uberguilds" not only had them, but they used them extensively in some creative ways. These programs are still used today.
Edit 2
And if SOE did not ban or suspend many of these self-described "uber" players or guilds or whatever hell they think they are, then shame on SOE for making that unethical judgment and wrong-headed (to say the least) decision.
Look at the summit in which these people were invited to in changing the very essence of Everquest. Most people were not members of, and did not want to become members of, self-described "uber" guilds. The EQ playing-community was FORCED by Everquest, upon reaching a certain level, to join these guilds to experience "end-game content." Most people quit, INCLUDING the "raiders."
I suspect, and HOPE, that SOE must regret letting the ubers influence content as much as destroying SWG
It controlled both of the best MMORPGs ever created, and
Ruined both of them in opposite ways (one, trying to appeal to casuals and the other trying to satisfy "ubers" players/guilds)
And these same "raid guilds" were the ones to turn on Everquest. If I did not laugh, I would cry. Literally, the patients took-control of the hospital, and they found they were worse off in control than before. Everquest was then abandoned by raid guild, community guild, soloers, and so forth. A somewhat watershed moment on what not to do.
wow ? you r full of energy.. that is a epic post here. I don't play EQ, but , still pleased to see such a great MMO comesto 10 !
Your post is very good, that is about exactly how i feel about MMOs, when one started to play with UO & EQ1, new MMOs just look void & shallow. However, i don't think i could spend 6h a day now playing like i did for EQ1, while it was my best gaming experience, it wasn't a game, it was a job... being a raiding officer takes a huge amount of time (no instancing there, have to compete with other guilds to go to the boss).
To react about ur last post :
To me, the best guild remained Conquest who were the first to arrive to Sleeper and got banned by SOE cuz the dragon wasn't ready (just a giant human) and they accused em of cheating.
2nd would be Fires of Heaven, huge skilled guild !
Mine was Dark Horizon, not so bad either, good bunch of folks.
You're a Hardcore Survivor!
You not only survived the zombie apocalypse, but did it with style! Your mastery of zombie knowledge, survival tactics, and weaponry is nearly unmatched. Congratulations, for you are hardcore!
It is interesting how you used the word "accused" of cheating and banned for it.
I detect a total ignorance, whether willful or not, on the part of some of you about the nature and extent of how these self-described "uber" guilds used third party programs, exploits, cheats, hacks, and so forth to illegitimately achieve their ends.
On the contrary, in spite of whatyou might see, or have heard, these were not "skilled" people. Addicts? Sure. They will say their addiction was a dediction, but no one buys that but themselves. The simple reality and truth is that these "ubers" were really cheats, and I know because I was there; and I have been able to observe, and use, many of their ... "tools" that you either do not know about or prefer to believe never existed.
They were cheats, and nothing will change that fact.
The biggest, or most amusing cheat, is when these people zone into areas that are closed-off.
If anything, SOE should have been more aggressive about handling cheats, but it was not.
Edit: I mean, so many of you have this false image of "ubers" that it astonishes me. I nearly feel sorry for you for being so much in the dark about the truth of them in addition to this unfair if not pathetic worship. heck, I even wish you did have an opportunity to participate in the guilds and observe, and use, their various methods to obtain unfair advantages. I am sorry you were excluded, but you should be grateful you still have your integrity.
I could care less if you continue to worship these old-cheats, but do not take it personally if it looks pathetic to many of us who really know what these "ubers" were about - cheating their way to victory.
When you know about the extent and nature of the cheating, trust me, these "victories" are not very impressive.
And no, it was not skill. And no, addiction is not, and never will be, "dedication."
good post even with the nerd fights going on afterwards.