Vanguard Saga of Heroes was EQ3 Few showed up to play it. It had a pretty severe death penalty and corpse dragging and open instances and so on.
Everything in your post couldn't have been more wrong and far from the truth..
I beta Tested Vanguard from phase 2 until launch.. The game had a cult following of well over 500k of players on the forums alone.. Most of the true mmorpg veterans who were huge fans of eq like myself, hoped and believed Vanguard would be the next true EQ...
I, along with most of the true hardcore MMORPG fans did not want to see an easy WoW clone game where the immature, illiterate, whinny, fps battlenet kids would ruin the game.. I love a harsh death penalty, corpse runs, difficult dungeons that actually make you think where your group needs to use tactics and strategy to be successful.. Vanguard had all that and more.. I also loved the original item equip system set up by Sigil. U could literally wear a level 50 sword at lever 30, but it would cost you a huge penalty percentage.. But you could still do it,, just like in the original EQ..
Now, many many many people followed Vanguard. It was supposed to be the next great legendary adult EQ type of MMORPG.. But,,,, SOE screwed things up, "as always" and forced Brad Mcquaid to release the game at least 3-6 months to soon... When the game released, the performance was bad, there were problems with mobs warping, glitches and bugs all throughout the game.. Some quests weren't working right, and it was a mess..
Now, As a tester of Vanguard, I will tell anyone who wishes to listen that in December of 2006, improvements to the framerate were just being tuned and tweaked. The testers went from an average of 5-15 fps to 25-30 fps.. The enxt thing we were supposed to work on was pvp implementation before it was announced in late December that Vanguard would be released a month later in late January.. Every tester was shocked and it showed on the beta boards.. We all did NOT want the game to be released at it's current state.. We just had a fps upgrade, was about to work on pvp implementation system, we knew about the mob warping problem, quest bugs, and classes were still being redone.. The game was still at least 3-6 months away from a adequate launch..
So, Sigil had no choice but to release the game 70% finished because SOE forced them to release the game just so they could make a little money now instead of waiting another 3-6 months to let Sigil fix and test what still needed to be tested..
SOE didn't care. They literally told Brad to release the game now because they weren't going to fund them anymore.. So Brad had no choice.. Then they worked like chickens with their heads cut off trying to fix EVERYTHING and come up with class revamps within a couple months.. But it was just to much work. Eventually at least half the playerbase quit after the second month, and half of the people remaining quit after SOE took over and screwed up the item equip system along with everything else in the game us vets liked.. Once Sigil was either fired or quit, SOE handed the game to a small DEV team and after like a year later most of the problems were fixed, but the game was changed and molded to what SOE wanted... Which is a game I wasn't interested to play..
It's a shame too because Vanguard could have been a legendary great MMO for adults who are true fans of Fantasy games, and readers of fantasy novels who enjoy a compelling story within their MMO.. A lot of mmo gamers today are illiterate stupid fans of fps games where all they care about is wtfpwning face, lol. They could care less about the story cause to them thats lame.. Well, what they don't realize is fantasy mmorpg's are based on stories and games like D&D.. These type of gamers don't belong in our games.. This is why gamers like the fella above I quoted will never be able to handle a true hardcore fantasy MMORPG because the game would be to difficult for him...
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
EQ2 failed because it sucked. I tried it shortly after release and couldn't progress at a point because all of the content required groups. Well I couldn't find a group to progress with so I quit the game. that's the problem with a REQUIRED leveling system, if you can't find a group, you'll just leave.
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
EQ2 failed because it sucked. I tried it shortly after release and couldn't progress at a point because all of the content required groups. Well I couldn't find a group to progress with so I quit the game. that's the problem with a REQUIRED leveling system, if you can't find a group, you'll just leave.
This post is fail because you suck at real mmorpg's.. Please go back to mindless fps style of games where you can be a one player god..
Games like EQ, EQ2, DAOC, etc are fantasy MMORPG's that take after pen and paper fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons.. These games were very successful in their own right. They brought to life what many of us true fans of fantasy MMORPG's loved in our PnP games in a living breathing virtual world..
The object of the game wasn't for people to solo from level 1 to max level. It was to bring people together in a virtual fantasy world to fight the evil plagueing the world... Notice how I said, "bringing people together" These games were meant to be a social group based dungeon delving game where your successful adventures will bring you fame and fortune..
Now, I played EQ before SOE turned the game into a full time job and played and beta Tested EQ2.. I don't believe EQ2 failed since it still has a loyal following of around 300-400 thousand people... But there were some problems with the game before launch and at launch which never really shook the cobwebs out even now 4 years later.. There were to many classes which were pretty much similar and not enough class diversity. Also, most of the armor and weapons looked exactly the same for each weapon/armor type which many people felt was to bland and dull.. I'll admit at first the game was very difficult with so many grouped mobs all stacked up together to closely which forced you to group in open areas, but within a couple months SOE did fix that..
I was one of many who followed EQ 2 years before it was released, I beta tested the game, and even played it at launch from november to January before leaving the game for WoW.. WoW was more fun and a lot easier and was pretty addicting at first.. But eventually within 7 months of playing WoW, ithe only thing left to do was raiding MC.. The game was toooooooooo easy so I went back to EQ2, along with quite a bit of the people that left EQ2 originally for WoW months before..
Even though WoW has 12 million subscriptions compared to EQ2's 300-400 thousand, it doesn't mean the game failed.. WoW is just soooo much easier which appeals to a larger base of people men, women, and of course children! I guarantee there are more kids ages 8-17 playing WoW than there are adults ages 21-45 playing.. What does that tell you?? The game is a children's game for the most part excluding the 24 man raid bosses..
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Originally posted by uquipu I predict: EQ1's community won't happen. The Internet in the 90's was mostly occupied by early adopter types, eg nerds. Today's Internet community is very diverse. If the new EQ is any fun at all, there will be kids in /general talking about [anal] strike. EQ2 has a much worse community than WoW's these days. They allowed anyone to join 1-9 level chat. Arseholes abound. EQ3 will mirror EQ2, minor death penalty, many instances. Easily soloable. Hopefully they will fix the horrid models that EQ2 has. Hopefully they will reduce the lag somehow. EQ1 is gone.
EQ's community (or players of that era) was far more tolerant, accepting and adaptable. In a way back then people were content to play the game and utilize the tools (design) that was given to them. If you played a Warrior then you adapted to the Warriors strength and weaknesses. People 'learned' their characters and how to use their characters in practical and constructive ways that contributed as well as balance out a group. EQ's community was very diverse. You had many different web sites dedicated to the various classes, trade skills, questing and game strategy.
It wasn't uncommon to find a Barbarian Shaman fighting in Crush Bone only for them to die and discover he/she was bound in Halas. Players realized that poor judgment or poor planning had consequences. Sure the game felt laborious at times, but this was what we perceived as immersion. The death penalty was harsh, because taking risk or exceeding ones capabilities would also have consequences, this was part of the learning experience.
Today the whole concept is different, the ideology is different. Players want instant gratification (instant results), cafeteria style modularized characters (my warrior should have X,Y,Z like a -insert other character-). There is this conspiracy type mind set about 'balance'. Not to mention the ideological debates over Casual, Hard Core, Role Play, Soloer and whether the game should be Sandbox, No Levels, Skill Base, the generalizations go on and on.
Yes, I realize that Old EQ required a lot of time and a lot of dedication. Back then we didn't really have anything else to compare it to. Just looking through this thread you see so many different ideas, attitudes, concepts, suggestions, opinions and not surprisingly 'ultimatums'. I really feel for game designers who are reading these types of threads. Its also disappointing to see this mind set that WoW is somehow the measure off all MMO games.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
EQ's community (or players of that era) was far more tolerant, accepting and adaptable. In a way back then people were content to play the game and utilize the tools (design) that was given to them. If you played a Warrior then you adapted to the Warriors strength and weaknesses. People 'learned' their characters and how to use their characters in practical and constructive ways that contributed as well as balance out a group. EQ's community was very diverse. You had many different web sites dedicated to the various classes, trade skills, questing and game strategy.
It wasn't uncommon to find a Barbarian Shaman fighting in Crush Bone only for them to die and discover he/she was bound in Halas. Players realized that poor judgment or poor planning had consequences. Sure the game felt laborious at times, but this was what we perceived as immersion. The death penalty was harsh, because taking risk or exceeding ones capabilities would also have consequences, this was part of the learning experience.
Today the whole concept is different, the ideology is different. Players want instant gratification (instant results), cafeteria style modularized characters (my warrior should have X,Y,Z like a -insert other character-). There is this conspiracy type mind set about 'balance'. Not to mention the ideological debates over Casual, Hard Core, Role Play, Soloer and whether the game should be Sandbox, No Levels, Skill Base, the generalizations go on and on.
Yes, I realize that Old EQ required a lot of time and a lot of dedication. Back then we didn't really have anything else to compare it to. Just looking through this thread you see so many different ideas, attitudes, concepts, suggestions, opinions and not surprisingly 'ultimatums'. I really feel for game designers who are reading these types of threads. Its also disappointing to see this mind set that WoW is somehow the measure off all MMO games.
I couldn't have said it better myself... Very good post.. /bows
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Originally posted by midmagic Originally posted by skeaser Originally posted by Banquetto Originally posted by drbaltazar little hostory!back then there was a race for the fastest processor.it stopped not long after eq2 lunch!and has been at that speed ever since eq2 team had banked on the fact the processor would be a 5 or 8 gigahearts later then game would have run smooth at max setting.processor almost gained no speed p4 maxed at 3.4 gigaheartz and you dont have many processor fastor then that
lol Just.. lol.
What the good Dr is saying is pretty much true. SoE expected processors to double in speed and handle the game, they didn't expect GPUs to grow and processors expand cores and bus speeds but not processing power. However, everyone else in the know seemed to understand that that the CPU speed wall was coming no matter what the PR engines of Intel and AMD were telling us. My favorite part is how GPUs started doing many of their fancy CPU graphics shortly after release.
To me this felt like a gamble on SOE's part to predict what the newer technology was moving towards. I'm sure chip designers were making a hard sell to SOE and SOE put their confidence into the chip designers who may have had good intentions, but the feasibility just wasn't there.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Lag killed EQ2. Lag made them instance more. Lag cut down on the number of textures and models they could use. Lag had a huge impact on game play.
EQ2 had a number of design flaws as well. The tutorial and early hand-holding, for example. I remember a quest that told you where the hidden sewers were in Qeynos. I guess once everyone did the quest, the sewers were not hidden anymore.
Thing is, in EQ1, the Qeynos sewers were not made known; the players had to stumble upon them. This made the game more mysterious and interesting, and caused the players to wonder what else was hidden in the cities and zones. And whenever you discovered something that other players may not have noticed (i.e, hidden sewers, caves, false walls, etc...), it was kind of cool and kind of special.
EQ's 48 flavors of classes that were really only 12 or so true classes was a mistake, IMO. And the overly flashy, spamming, whack-a-mole combat system was just too gamey. I'm sorry, but it just does not make sense for a level 8 warrior to set off a group heal by spamming some random abilities and triggering the Heroic Opportunity wheel. Very gamey; might as well be playing jacks as far as immersion goes.
Two metropolitan starting cities was a mistake and seemed designed purely for the dev's convenience. Original EQ1 gave the players racial starting areas and a "world" to go out and explore in. EQ2 gave players a linear string of major zones, with Qeynos at one end and Freeport at the other. How dull. A line is not a world. (And to think WAR repeated the same mistake. (When will the dev's get it?)
I expect more from EQ3 (Everquest Next) and assume they will not make the mistakes of the past. My big hope in 2010/2011 is Everquest Next, but FF XIV will be a solid fallback or stopgap game in the meantime.
Originally posted by oakthornn Games like EQ, EQ2, DAOC, etc are fantasy MMORPG's that take after pen and paper fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons.. These games were very successful in their own right. They brought to life what many of us true fans of fantasy MMORPG's loved in our PnP games in a living breathing virtual world.. The object of the game wasn't for people to solo from level 1 to max level. It was to bring people together in a virtual fantasy world to fight the evil plagueing the world... Notice how I said, "bringing people together" These games were meant to be a social group based dungeon delving game where your successful adventures will bring you fame and fortune..
To date, no MMO has reproduced this. Even the older games that were more of a "world" were still massive level grinders at the heart of their game play.
PnP never felt like a grind...ever. You never had game sessions that consisted of performing some mindless, repetitive task for hours on end. A good GM would punish the mindless players and reward the creative ones. Theres no room for creativity in MMOs. If you're doing some thing in a creative way, it's called an exploit or griefing or creating an ovr powered spec that will soon be nerfed.
MMOs have always just suckled at the teet of PnP games.
Originally posted by oakthornn Games like EQ, EQ2, DAOC, etc are fantasy MMORPG's that take after pen and paper fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons.. These games were very successful in their own right. They brought to life what many of us true fans of fantasy MMORPG's loved in our PnP games in a living breathing virtual world.. The object of the game wasn't for people to solo from level 1 to max level. It was to bring people together in a virtual fantasy world to fight the evil plagueing the world... Notice how I said, "bringing people together" These games were meant to be a social group based dungeon delving game where your successful adventures will bring you fame and fortune..
To date, no MMO has reproduced this. Even the older games that were more of a "world" were still massive level grinders at the heart of their game play.
PnP never felt like a grind...ever. You never had game sessions that consisted of performing some mindless, repetitive task for hours on end. A good GM would punish the mindless players and reward the creative ones. Theres no room for creativity in MMOs. If you're doing some thing in a creative way, it's called an exploit or griefing or creating an ovr powered spec that will soon be nerfed.
MMOs have always just suckled at the teet of PnP games.
Dungeons and Dragons paper n pencil was 75% story, and 25% combat, or something close to that.
One battle would take forever, because it was turn based, and you had to roll dice and calculate everything. Plus everyone was talking in between rolling dice.
What you do in a computer game, single player or MMORPG, is done in 1/10th the time of rolling dice in a paper and pencil game.
It took half an hour just to have a fight with a couple of orcs and kill them. In a compter game, it takes 30 seconds.
So with D&D you got not only a story, but an INTERACTIVE story (NPC's played by the DM reacted to your actions) AND you spent MOST of your time on the Story, which led up to a big battle .
An MMORPG, you scroll through the NPC dialog becuase it's not interactive, the NPC doesnt' give a shit what you do or dont' do it says the same thing no matter what, and the battle is repetitive becuase instead of killing 2 orcs, you kill 2 thousand.
Would be interesting to see a comparison of the number of Monsters you kill in Dungeons and Dragons paper n pencil, compared to the number of MObs you kill in an MMORPG to get to max level.
EQ2 was just naff. Little in common with EQ, naff art style, silly bars with the heroic opportunities, starting on an island was crap, the items were forgettable. I'd almost also say EQ2 was just far too serious a mmorpg.
SOE isnt as bad as the vocal minority would like us to believe.
In this case I believe it is the vocal majority. The original Everquest was revolutionary to gaming and I give SOE big props for that. They just haven't released anything worth playing since then. I'm hoping they realize this and start over from scratch to produce another hit.
Dont want to rant and rave about my EQ memories, never played EQ2 so i dont know what that game had to offer, i still find myself holding onto EQ moments and going back to EQ. I just hope SOE doesnt turn EQ3 (Everquest Next) into a simple dumbed down MMO. Im looking forward to this game and hope they re imagine Norrath to give me the same wonder and excitement as EQ1 did back in 99' early 2000
EQ2 never had a chance. anything SoE touches turns to Crap. take EverQuest when Verent was running it the game was worth spending days at a time playing ,SoE came in and after some time it dried up. Vanguard outside of Sigal aka Verent releasing it way way to early ( money issues ) they sold it to SoE, and again the games idea went down the tubes. so Take Everquest away from SoE and place it in the hand of people who want to make a real game not a money,dumb down, hand out keys& flags , and free gear minds of people like SoE and maybe WoW would have a run for there money. BTW i hate WoW and up till late month was a EQ- EQ2 player. fact is WoW is a cartoon the graphic are no beter then anything EQ has out but they do have bighter colors.
Even with all the SOE hostility I would wager EQ3 would see a ton of preorders. Even those that bitch about the company are captivated by the world of Norrath.
Even with all the SOE hostility I would wager EQ3 would see a ton of preorders. Even those that bitch about the company are captivated by the world of Norrath.
I think you are right. And the thing about WOW is....WOW...is...old.... Many, many, many players are waiting for a new quality game to come along.
I mean if SOE was sooo bad then why is Infinity Ward tapping them to make their new MMO? Infinity could have picked anyone to make their online game but they chose SOE, in particuliar EQ2's lead designer. SOE isnt as bad as the vocal minority would like us to believe.
Who would that be?
to answer you here is a link to the rumor but you will see soon that it is more than a rumor
So true. People like to rag on SOE but they publish games that hundreds of thousands of gamers pay to play. EQ3 will be a big hit for preorders and just like EQ1 and EQ2 today, hundreds of thousands will pay to play it. The REAL vocal majority are the ones who pay for the subs NOT silly people on forums who spew negativity.
The real vocal majority have moved away from SOE games because they do not like what Smed is feeding them. If you want to talk about the majority, which are the paying customers, just compare the golden says of EQ1 when it had 450k+ subscribers. Ever since SOE changed its focus from EQ1 to EQ2, they've been on a constant downhill slide subscribers wise. Paying subscribers voiced loudly when they did not embrace EQ2, as EQ2 never came anywhere close to 450k players.
Yet SOE continued to pull resources away from EQ1 to dump money into EQ2, buy out Vanguard, make Free Realms, etc.. SOE's market shares fell dramatically ever since their switch of direction. Now, if we are to judge soley on the vocal majority, the paying subscribers have spoken loudly and they do not work towards SOE's favor.
People want a true EQ1 upgrade, not EQ2. But with Smed in charge, you can bet we'll see another EQ2 with tons more RMT loaded into the game from the start. Think EQ3 will be a success? Current SOE track records do not say EQ3 will be a success, and it pains me to say that because I loved the Everquest franchise during its first 5 years.
So true. People like to rag on SOE but they publish games that hundreds of thousands of gamers pay to play. EQ3 will be a big hit for preorders and just like EQ1 and EQ2 today, hundreds of thousands will pay to play it. The REAL vocal majority are the ones who pay for the subs NOT silly people on forums who spew negativity.
The real vocal majority have moved away from SOE games because they do not like what Smed is feeding them. If you want to talk about the majority, which are the paying customers, just compare the golden says of EQ1 when it had 450k+ subscribers. Ever since SOE changed its focus from EQ1 to EQ2, they've been on a constant downhill slide subscribers wise. Paying subscribers voiced loudly when they did not embrace EQ2, as EQ2 never came anywhere close to 450k players.
Yet SOE continued to pull resources away from EQ1 to dump money into EQ2, buy out Vanguard, make Free Realms, etc.. SOE's market shares fell dramatically ever since their switch of direction. Now, if we are to judge soley on the vocal majority, the paying subscribers have spoken loudly and they do not work towards SOE's favor.
People want a true EQ1 upgrade, not EQ2. But with Smed in charge, you can bet we'll see another EQ2 with tons more RMT loaded into the game from the start. Think EQ3 will be a success? Current SOE track records do not say EQ3 will be a success, and it pains me to say that because I loved the Everquest franchise during its first 5 years.
Sorry your wrong. EQ2 has a hundreds of thousands of paying players. Try again.
I doubt SOE has hundreds of thousands of subscribers combined from all their games, but if you have a link to show EQ2 with 100k's please feel free to share it.
Also, I think you misunderstand the article where infinity ward is hiring soe devs. Soe the company is filled with all forms of failure. That doesn't mean there all of the employees are talentless.
If I were a dev and the two companies offered me a job, it wouldn't be a difficult choice to make. Who would want to risk being assigned to planetside, vanguard or some other mmo corpse.
Comments
Everything in your post couldn't have been more wrong and far from the truth..
I beta Tested Vanguard from phase 2 until launch.. The game had a cult following of well over 500k of players on the forums alone.. Most of the true mmorpg veterans who were huge fans of eq like myself, hoped and believed Vanguard would be the next true EQ...
I, along with most of the true hardcore MMORPG fans did not want to see an easy WoW clone game where the immature, illiterate, whinny, fps battlenet kids would ruin the game.. I love a harsh death penalty, corpse runs, difficult dungeons that actually make you think where your group needs to use tactics and strategy to be successful.. Vanguard had all that and more.. I also loved the original item equip system set up by Sigil. U could literally wear a level 50 sword at lever 30, but it would cost you a huge penalty percentage.. But you could still do it,, just like in the original EQ..
Now, many many many people followed Vanguard. It was supposed to be the next great legendary adult EQ type of MMORPG.. But,,,, SOE screwed things up, "as always" and forced Brad Mcquaid to release the game at least 3-6 months to soon... When the game released, the performance was bad, there were problems with mobs warping, glitches and bugs all throughout the game.. Some quests weren't working right, and it was a mess..
Now, As a tester of Vanguard, I will tell anyone who wishes to listen that in December of 2006, improvements to the framerate were just being tuned and tweaked. The testers went from an average of 5-15 fps to 25-30 fps.. The enxt thing we were supposed to work on was pvp implementation before it was announced in late December that Vanguard would be released a month later in late January.. Every tester was shocked and it showed on the beta boards.. We all did NOT want the game to be released at it's current state.. We just had a fps upgrade, was about to work on pvp implementation system, we knew about the mob warping problem, quest bugs, and classes were still being redone.. The game was still at least 3-6 months away from a adequate launch..
So, Sigil had no choice but to release the game 70% finished because SOE forced them to release the game just so they could make a little money now instead of waiting another 3-6 months to let Sigil fix and test what still needed to be tested..
SOE didn't care. They literally told Brad to release the game now because they weren't going to fund them anymore.. So Brad had no choice.. Then they worked like chickens with their heads cut off trying to fix EVERYTHING and come up with class revamps within a couple months.. But it was just to much work. Eventually at least half the playerbase quit after the second month, and half of the people remaining quit after SOE took over and screwed up the item equip system along with everything else in the game us vets liked.. Once Sigil was either fired or quit, SOE handed the game to a small DEV team and after like a year later most of the problems were fixed, but the game was changed and molded to what SOE wanted... Which is a game I wasn't interested to play..
It's a shame too because Vanguard could have been a legendary great MMO for adults who are true fans of Fantasy games, and readers of fantasy novels who enjoy a compelling story within their MMO.. A lot of mmo gamers today are illiterate stupid fans of fps games where all they care about is wtfpwning face, lol. They could care less about the story cause to them thats lame.. Well, what they don't realize is fantasy mmorpg's are based on stories and games like D&D.. These type of gamers don't belong in our games.. This is why gamers like the fella above I quoted will never be able to handle a true hardcore fantasy MMORPG because the game would be to difficult for him...
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
EQ2 failed because it sucked. I tried it shortly after release and couldn't progress at a point because all of the content required groups. Well I couldn't find a group to progress with so I quit the game. that's the problem with a REQUIRED leveling system, if you can't find a group, you'll just leave.
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
This post is fail because you suck at real mmorpg's.. Please go back to mindless fps style of games where you can be a one player god..
Games like EQ, EQ2, DAOC, etc are fantasy MMORPG's that take after pen and paper fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons.. These games were very successful in their own right. They brought to life what many of us true fans of fantasy MMORPG's loved in our PnP games in a living breathing virtual world..
The object of the game wasn't for people to solo from level 1 to max level. It was to bring people together in a virtual fantasy world to fight the evil plagueing the world... Notice how I said, "bringing people together" These games were meant to be a social group based dungeon delving game where your successful adventures will bring you fame and fortune..
Now, I played EQ before SOE turned the game into a full time job and played and beta Tested EQ2.. I don't believe EQ2 failed since it still has a loyal following of around 300-400 thousand people... But there were some problems with the game before launch and at launch which never really shook the cobwebs out even now 4 years later.. There were to many classes which were pretty much similar and not enough class diversity. Also, most of the armor and weapons looked exactly the same for each weapon/armor type which many people felt was to bland and dull.. I'll admit at first the game was very difficult with so many grouped mobs all stacked up together to closely which forced you to group in open areas, but within a couple months SOE did fix that..
I was one of many who followed EQ 2 years before it was released, I beta tested the game, and even played it at launch from november to January before leaving the game for WoW.. WoW was more fun and a lot easier and was pretty addicting at first.. But eventually within 7 months of playing WoW, ithe only thing left to do was raiding MC.. The game was toooooooooo easy so I went back to EQ2, along with quite a bit of the people that left EQ2 originally for WoW months before..
Even though WoW has 12 million subscriptions compared to EQ2's 300-400 thousand, it doesn't mean the game failed.. WoW is just soooo much easier which appeals to a larger base of people men, women, and of course children! I guarantee there are more kids ages 8-17 playing WoW than there are adults ages 21-45 playing.. What does that tell you?? The game is a children's game for the most part excluding the 24 man raid bosses..
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
EQ's community (or players of that era) was far more tolerant, accepting and adaptable. In a way back then people were content to play the game and utilize the tools (design) that was given to them. If you played a Warrior then you adapted to the Warriors strength and weaknesses. People 'learned' their characters and how to use their characters in practical and constructive ways that contributed as well as balance out a group. EQ's community was very diverse. You had many different web sites dedicated to the various classes, trade skills, questing and game strategy.
It wasn't uncommon to find a Barbarian Shaman fighting in Crush Bone only for them to die and discover he/she was bound in Halas. Players realized that poor judgment or poor planning had consequences. Sure the game felt laborious at times, but this was what we perceived as immersion. The death penalty was harsh, because taking risk or exceeding ones capabilities would also have consequences, this was part of the learning experience.
Today the whole concept is different, the ideology is different. Players want instant gratification (instant results), cafeteria style modularized characters (my warrior should have X,Y,Z like a -insert other character-). There is this conspiracy type mind set about 'balance'. Not to mention the ideological debates over Casual, Hard Core, Role Play, Soloer and whether the game should be Sandbox, No Levels, Skill Base, the generalizations go on and on.
Yes, I realize that Old EQ required a lot of time and a lot of dedication. Back then we didn't really have anything else to compare it to. Just looking through this thread you see so many different ideas, attitudes, concepts, suggestions, opinions and not surprisingly 'ultimatums'. I really feel for game designers who are reading these types of threads. Its also disappointing to see this mind set that WoW is somehow the measure off all MMO games.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
I couldn't have said it better myself... Very good post.. /bows
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Just.. lol.
What the good Dr is saying is pretty much true. SoE expected processors to double in speed and handle the game, they didn't expect GPUs to grow and processors expand cores and bus speeds but not processing power.
However, everyone else in the know seemed to understand that that the CPU speed wall was coming no matter what the PR engines of Intel and AMD were telling us.
My favorite part is how GPUs started doing many of their fancy CPU graphics shortly after release.
To me this felt like a gamble on SOE's part to predict what the newer technology was moving towards. I'm sure chip designers were making a hard sell to SOE and SOE put their confidence into the chip designers who may have had good intentions, but the feasibility just wasn't there.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Lag killed EQ2.
Lag made them instance more.
Lag cut down on the number of textures and models they could use.
Lag had a huge impact on game play.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
EQ2 had a number of design flaws as well. The tutorial and early hand-holding, for example. I remember a quest that told you where the hidden sewers were in Qeynos. I guess once everyone did the quest, the sewers were not hidden anymore.
Thing is, in EQ1, the Qeynos sewers were not made known; the players had to stumble upon them. This made the game more mysterious and interesting, and caused the players to wonder what else was hidden in the cities and zones. And whenever you discovered something that other players may not have noticed (i.e, hidden sewers, caves, false walls, etc...), it was kind of cool and kind of special.
EQ's 48 flavors of classes that were really only 12 or so true classes was a mistake, IMO. And the overly flashy, spamming, whack-a-mole combat system was just too gamey. I'm sorry, but it just does not make sense for a level 8 warrior to set off a group heal by spamming some random abilities and triggering the Heroic Opportunity wheel. Very gamey; might as well be playing jacks as far as immersion goes.
Two metropolitan starting cities was a mistake and seemed designed purely for the dev's convenience. Original EQ1 gave the players racial starting areas and a "world" to go out and explore in. EQ2 gave players a linear string of major zones, with Qeynos at one end and Freeport at the other. How dull. A line is not a world. (And to think WAR repeated the same mistake. (When will the dev's get it?)
I expect more from EQ3 (Everquest Next) and assume they will not make the mistakes of the past. My big hope in 2010/2011 is Everquest Next, but FF XIV will be a solid fallback or stopgap game in the meantime.
To date, no MMO has reproduced this. Even the older games that were more of a "world" were still massive level grinders at the heart of their game play.
PnP never felt like a grind...ever. You never had game sessions that consisted of performing some mindless, repetitive task for hours on end. A good GM would punish the mindless players and reward the creative ones. Theres no room for creativity in MMOs. If you're doing some thing in a creative way, it's called an exploit or griefing or creating an ovr powered spec that will soon be nerfed.
MMOs have always just suckled at the teet of PnP games.
To date, no MMO has reproduced this. Even the older games that were more of a "world" were still massive level grinders at the heart of their game play.
PnP never felt like a grind...ever. You never had game sessions that consisted of performing some mindless, repetitive task for hours on end. A good GM would punish the mindless players and reward the creative ones. Theres no room for creativity in MMOs. If you're doing some thing in a creative way, it's called an exploit or griefing or creating an ovr powered spec that will soon be nerfed.
MMOs have always just suckled at the teet of PnP games.
Dungeons and Dragons paper n pencil was 75% story, and 25% combat, or something close to that.
One battle would take forever, because it was turn based, and you had to roll dice and calculate everything. Plus everyone was talking in between rolling dice.
What you do in a computer game, single player or MMORPG, is done in 1/10th the time of rolling dice in a paper and pencil game.
It took half an hour just to have a fight with a couple of orcs and kill them. In a compter game, it takes 30 seconds.
So with D&D you got not only a story, but an INTERACTIVE story (NPC's played by the DM reacted to your actions) AND you spent MOST of your time on the Story, which led up to a big battle .
An MMORPG, you scroll through the NPC dialog becuase it's not interactive, the NPC doesnt' give a shit what you do or dont' do it says the same thing no matter what, and the battle is repetitive becuase instead of killing 2 orcs, you kill 2 thousand.
Would be interesting to see a comparison of the number of Monsters you kill in Dungeons and Dragons paper n pencil, compared to the number of MObs you kill in an MMORPG to get to max level.
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EQ2 was just naff. Little in common with EQ, naff art style, silly bars with the heroic opportunities, starting on an island was crap, the items were forgettable. I'd almost also say EQ2 was just far too serious a mmorpg.
In this case I believe it is the vocal majority. The original Everquest was revolutionary to gaming and I give SOE big props for that. They just haven't released anything worth playing since then. I'm hoping they realize this and start over from scratch to produce another hit.
Dont want to rant and rave about my EQ memories, never played EQ2 so i dont know what that game had to offer, i still find myself holding onto EQ moments and going back to EQ. I just hope SOE doesnt turn EQ3 (Everquest Next) into a simple dumbed down MMO. Im looking forward to this game and hope they re imagine Norrath to give me the same wonder and excitement as EQ1 did back in 99' early 2000
EQ2 never had a chance. anything SoE touches turns to Crap. take EverQuest when Verent was running it the game was worth spending days at a time playing ,SoE came in and after some time it dried up. Vanguard outside of Sigal aka Verent releasing it way way to early ( money issues ) they sold it to SoE, and again the games idea went down the tubes. so Take Everquest away from SoE and place it in the hand of people who want to make a real game not a money,dumb down, hand out keys& flags , and free gear minds of people like SoE and maybe WoW would have a run for there money. BTW i hate WoW and up till late month was a EQ- EQ2 player. fact is WoW is a cartoon the graphic are no beter then anything EQ has out but they do have bighter colors.
Even with all the SOE hostility I would wager EQ3 would see a ton of preorders. Even those that bitch about the company are captivated by the world of Norrath.
I think you are right. And the thing about WOW is....WOW...is...old.... Many, many, many players are waiting for a new quality game to come along.
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Who would that be?
to answer you here is a link to the rumor but you will see soon that it is more than a rumor
http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-infinity-ward-developing-an-mmo-159813.phtml
Cool, ty for link.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
I hope SoE officially announces EQ3 this year, by at least FanFaire.
The real vocal majority have moved away from SOE games because they do not like what Smed is feeding them. If you want to talk about the majority, which are the paying customers, just compare the golden says of EQ1 when it had 450k+ subscribers. Ever since SOE changed its focus from EQ1 to EQ2, they've been on a constant downhill slide subscribers wise. Paying subscribers voiced loudly when they did not embrace EQ2, as EQ2 never came anywhere close to 450k players.
Yet SOE continued to pull resources away from EQ1 to dump money into EQ2, buy out Vanguard, make Free Realms, etc.. SOE's market shares fell dramatically ever since their switch of direction. Now, if we are to judge soley on the vocal majority, the paying subscribers have spoken loudly and they do not work towards SOE's favor.
People want a true EQ1 upgrade, not EQ2. But with Smed in charge, you can bet we'll see another EQ2 with tons more RMT loaded into the game from the start. Think EQ3 will be a success? Current SOE track records do not say EQ3 will be a success, and it pains me to say that because I loved the Everquest franchise during its first 5 years.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
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Funniest thing I've read in weeks! It's not 2005 anymore.
The real vocal majority have moved away from SOE games because they do not like what Smed is feeding them. If you want to talk about the majority, which are the paying customers, just compare the golden says of EQ1 when it had 450k+ subscribers. Ever since SOE changed its focus from EQ1 to EQ2, they've been on a constant downhill slide subscribers wise. Paying subscribers voiced loudly when they did not embrace EQ2, as EQ2 never came anywhere close to 450k players.
Yet SOE continued to pull resources away from EQ1 to dump money into EQ2, buy out Vanguard, make Free Realms, etc.. SOE's market shares fell dramatically ever since their switch of direction. Now, if we are to judge soley on the vocal majority, the paying subscribers have spoken loudly and they do not work towards SOE's favor.
People want a true EQ1 upgrade, not EQ2. But with Smed in charge, you can bet we'll see another EQ2 with tons more RMT loaded into the game from the start. Think EQ3 will be a success? Current SOE track records do not say EQ3 will be a success, and it pains me to say that because I loved the Everquest franchise during its first 5 years.
Sorry your wrong. EQ2 has a hundreds of thousands of paying players. Try again.
I doubt SOE has hundreds of thousands of subscribers combined from all their games, but if you have a link to show EQ2 with 100k's please feel free to share it.
Also, I think you misunderstand the article where infinity ward is hiring soe devs. Soe the company is filled with all forms of failure. That doesn't mean there all of the employees are talentless.
If I were a dev and the two companies offered me a job, it wouldn't be a difficult choice to make. Who would want to risk being assigned to planetside, vanguard or some other mmo corpse.