I miss mobs that ran for help. I hated EQ1 kobolds but damn do I miss them. Get the bugger down a bit and he starts to run, you'd better finish him or he's bringing the whole clan to kick your ass.
Was it hard? yes
Was it frustrating? sometimes
Was it rewarding and a little more realistic? To me, yes.
I miss the brutality of old school mobs. The modern AI is as far as I'm concern the root cause of pure CC classes going out of style. Who needs them under today's condition? The chaotic and brutal style of the AI enviroment used to justify a pure CC class. I loved classes like that. Today you'll find CC mostly spread out among most or all of the classes. DPS is usually the answer to everything.
It's a duller game world. The biggest irony of it all: You solo your way to endgame in moden MMORPGs.
I miss the brutality of old school mobs. The modern AI is as far as I'm concern the root cause of pure CC classes going out of style. Who needs them under today's condition? The chaotic and brutal style of the AI enviroment used to justify a pure CC class. I loved classes like that. Today you'll find CC mostly spread out among most or all of the classes. DPS is usually the answer to everything.
It's a duller game world. The biggest irony of it all: You solo your way to endgame in moden MMORPGs.
I could not agree more. In old EQ if the Shaman didn't stick his Slow it usually ended in a wipe on most boss mobs. Debuffs mattered in old school EQ. Not so much now. Hell most games now days limits the debuffs you can put on a mob. EQ2 limits silences, stuns etc. Bosses are immune to them.
There is no true challenge or risk/reward factor in games anymore. EQ, there were places that people were SCARED to even go near! Therefore the people that dared venture came back with promising rewards .. some that many have never even seen before. In most mmos now everyone has seen every possible item out there. It's pretty dumb. Then mobs teleport away, run back and ignore everyone else .. it's so fake.
No challenge at all -- the entire reason behind this challenge was for the massive satisfaction of having idols, accomplishing something that is rarely accomplished, and being unique! With smart AI comes smart strategies as well ... quad kiting ? Kiting in general? Perhaps charming a mob making it fight another ? WHERE is all the creativity in games?! And how about the super dramatic teleport spells with the big clash of thunder and purple stuff flying everywhere ... hell you are opening a rift in time and space, it should be crazy dramatic!
With brainless games like WoW, there is no true risk/reward factor. Everyone has the same items. At highest levels, EVERYONE has the SAME armor, SAME weapons .... And when you are lower level, you can't see any high levels fighting near you because it's too safe everywhere. Having the high lvls and low lvls in the same area .... it's fun to break in between to just watch an epic fight and see how a high lvl plays and you go "Wow! I can't wait to be like him in the future....". It makes you have a few heroes as well ... sometimes a higher level will come and buff you; maybe help you on a few kills and give you some advice.
Mixing high lvls with low lvls with a risk factor ("Dont go near the ice giants!!!") makes the game EXCITIGN! Thrilling!!! And makes some places taboo which creates excitement
--------------------------- Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP) Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek (Now @ Prexus)
The nostalgic part of me agrees 100%. I remember how "hard core" EQ was in its day, especially with the severe death penalties. You really cared back then about being careful and not dying. I remember having to wait around for 4 hours once while another guild helped us get back into PoF after a total raid wipeout.
The business side of me disagrees 100%. What you're asking for is a hard core MMO, and that only appeals to a small subset of the masses. Before the masses had options, they were forced to play hard core regardless of whether they liked it or not. But now with so many options out there, most players seem to prefer the less harsh MMO's that are abundantly available.
What's interesting is going back to EQ, having played newer MMO's. After a day or three, the nostalgia wears off, and I find myself uninstalling it (or DAoC for that matter, which for the record was my favorite MMO of all time). Maybe its my tastes that have changed...
It's funny though because things like "hardcore" are all relative. I remember in the heyday of EQ, it was regarded as a "carebear" kind of MMO and compared to big MMO preceding it (UO), it was. EQ didn't have open-PvP, and you couldn't lose any of your stuff if you died provided you made it to your corpse (which usually wasn't that difficult).
But nowadays in the era of extremely mild death penalties and easily escapable MOBs...EQ is hardcore. And I think this is what a lot of old-school gamers are afraid of. Will later games shift even further from what "hardcore" is regarded as now so that we look back at WoW and say how "hardcore" that game was? It's getting kind of ridiculous.
I remember in the heyday of EQ, it was regarded as a "carebear" kind of MMO and compared to big MMO preceding it (UO), it was. EQ didn't have open-PvP, and you couldn't lose any of your stuff if you died provided you made it to your corpse (which usually wasn't that difficult).
You are wrong. I played on Rallos Zek (PvP) before they made it carebear. For a good 8 years, it was not anything close to carebear. When you died from another player in WORLD pvp (you can kill anywhere at any place at any time within +4/-4 levels of you. You didn't know if they were higher or lower level; just "in range" to you [super genius]). When you died, you lost all your money on you and 1 item of their choice that is droppable unless it is in a backpack or a weapon. However, you could even reverse that -- if you were to blind someone before they die and have a monk or rogue disarm them, you could kill them while disarmed and you can loot their weapon. It was VERY hardcore. If you attacked someone in front of the guards, the guards wont help just EVERYONE like the cliche mmo, the faction system was superior to any other mmo . You can find ways to raise your faction with someone so the guards will defend you and not them. It's all about who you know, even NPCs.
--------------------------- Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP) Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek (Now @ Prexus)
The nostalgic part of me agrees 100%. I remember how "hard core" EQ was in its day, especially with the severe death penalties. You really cared back then about being careful and not dying. I remember having to wait around for 4 hours once while another guild helped us get back into PoF after a total raid wipeout.
The business side of me disagrees 100%. What you're asking for is a hard core MMO, and that only appeals to a small subset of the masses. Before the masses had options, they were forced to play hard core regardless of whether they liked it or not. But now with so many options out there, most players seem to prefer the less harsh MMO's that are abundantly available.
What's interesting is going back to EQ, having played newer MMO's. After a day or three, the nostalgia wears off, and I find myself uninstalling it (or DAoC for that matter, which for the record was my favorite MMO of all time). Maybe its my tastes that have changed...
It's funny though because things like "hardcore" are all relative. I remember in the heyday of EQ, it was regarded as a "carebear" kind of MMO and compared to big MMO preceding it (UO), it was. EQ didn't have open-PvP, and you couldn't lose any of your stuff if you died provided you made it to your corpse (which usually wasn't that difficult).
But nowadays in the era of extremely mild death penalties and easily escapable MOBs...EQ is hardcore. And I think this is what a lot of old-school gamers are afraid of. Will later games shift even further from what "hardcore" is regarded as now so that we look back at WoW and say how "hardcore" that game was? It's getting kind of ridiculous.
I absolutely agree with all of that.
Me too, couldn't have said it better myself....and ditto on the DAoC thing too. I am actually still subbed, but I can't seem to get online to play but every once in a while.
@ Xblade - the above poster wasn't necessarily saying EQ was carebear, just that a lot of peeps (mostly hardcore UO players I'm sure), regarded it as such. And they did, btw, and a lot of EQ players agreed with them......and we couldn't have cared less. They had their fun, and we had ours. Ofc, every game, then and now looked pretty carebear when held against UO......
I agree as well, more realistic mobs make for a more interesting gameplay. I mean if I go into a town and kill someone in broad daylight, I expect an alarm to go off, the guards to come and then more and more higher level guards to come if you kill the low level ones. Ergo don't kill people in towns unless you are a high level assasin that can hide, be undetectable or you the fastest runner with the highest magic protection.
The nostalgic part of me agrees 100%. I remember how "hard core" EQ was in its day, especially with the severe death penalties. You really cared back then about being careful and not dying. I remember having to wait around for 4 hours once while another guild helped us get back into PoF after a total raid wipeout.
The business side of me disagrees 100%. What you're asking for is a hard core MMO, and that only appeals to a small subset of the masses. Before the masses had options, they were forced to play hard core regardless of whether they liked it or not. But now with so many options out there, most players seem to prefer the less harsh MMO's that are abundantly available.
What's interesting is going back to EQ, having played newer MMO's. After a day or three, the nostalgia wears off, and I find myself uninstalling it (or DAoC for that matter, which for the record was my favorite MMO of all time). Maybe its my tastes that have changed...
It's funny though because things like "hardcore" are all relative. I remember in the heyday of EQ, it was regarded as a "carebear" kind of MMO and compared to big MMO preceding it (UO), it was. EQ didn't have open-PvP, and you couldn't lose any of your stuff if you died provided you made it to your corpse (which usually wasn't that difficult).
But nowadays in the era of extremely mild death penalties and easily escapable MOBs...EQ is hardcore. And I think this is what a lot of old-school gamers are afraid of. Will later games shift even further from what "hardcore" is regarded as now so that we look back at WoW and say how "hardcore" that game was? It's getting kind of ridiculous.
I absolutely agree with all of that.
Me too, couldn't have said it better myself....and ditto on the DAoC thing too. I am actually still subbed, but I can't seem to get online to play but every once in a while.
@ Xblade - the above poster wasn't necessarily saying EQ was carebear, just that a lot of peeps (mostly hardcore UO players I'm sure), regarded it as such. And they did, btw, and a lot of EQ players agreed with them......and we couldn't have cared less. They had their fun, and we had ours. Ofc, every game, then and now looked pretty carebear when held against UO......
I can't speak for EQ, but if you've gone back to DAOC you weren't playing the same game that was great so many years ago, so it's understandable that you quickly left. Your tastes didn't change that much, but DAOC most certainly did.
Speaking of DAOC, because it was a group centric game, npc's back in the day (more so than now) would very frequently BAF, which was their big trick to make solo play very challenging. But they still were stupid, you could kill npc's outside of aggro range, (but certainly within eyesight/earshot) and not draw anyone's wrath, and I sort of wish someone would create a MMO that did employ that sort of mechanic.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Disclaimer: I didn't read most of the 7 pages before me, and I suck at spelling
Well getting back to the OP, I agree 100%, I never played UO or EQ, my first MMO was FFXI, and I remember how pissed off I would get when some goblin would agro from 100ft away (or so it seemed) and I would have to haul ass back to the zone to get away. Or If I did die I would lose 12% of my XP, and have to go back to my "HP" which was normaly a 20 minute walk away.
So I wouldn't say I have rose colored glasses, I remember how frusterating it was....but at the same time I remember reaching that new level, or getting that new peice of gear felt sooo good. And getting to a new "zone" was awesome. Just to expeirence somthing new. In the AAA titles that we have now (and i've played a fair amount of them) there just isn't that rewarding feeling. In WOW there is nothing cool about reaching a "new zone"....its dull and boring.
{Now speaking of smart AI, let me tell you about the sweet mobs that FFXI had, well first off they had open world dungions...which was cool in itself, but anyways, in FFXI the mobs has diffrent "sences" like sight, sound, smell..and so on. And it was really cool, because your trying to get through this zone and you would cast "sneak" on yourself, or "sneak" on your whole group, and it didn't make it 100% that you would get past the mob, but it greatly increased the chance that you could. Which also added a huge use for casters and people of the cloth. Because they wern't just CC, and DP. They actually were really helpfull just getting to the zone.}
Anyways I could go on for probably hours about that game, and I would go back if there were more people playing it. I did go back for a few months...but so few people were still playing that I just couldn't find a good group.
Anyways...I had hoped that FFXIV would bring back the good o'l days...but instead they dragged there fan base out into a square, poured gas on them and lit them on fire....sad really.
What is so intelligent about chasing a player until that player zoned? Its not intelligent to chase someone for miles. At some point one should realize "I can't catch him, and I'm out of my territory." Hell, even wild animals give up on prey.
Bosses magically summoning someone? How is that intelligent? That was just anti-kiting code. At one point, any mob over 51 could summon, but the kiters eventually changed SOE's mind(its still present in older zones).
If you pulled one mob into 6 players would it be smart for that guy to come running to his slaughter?
I will say that games today don't allow half the tactics that EQ did back when it was great. Like kiting and the various ways of pulling.
Convenience sneaked into all games since then, and developers started trying to fix stupidities and things that upset players.
It was all done for our (the players) sake, but in the process it made us fat and lazy. As these fixes started to get more and more technical, the developers lost track of the nature of mmorpgs, and thus is the history of todays mmorpgs.
Having an orc run back and kill other players in its path might not be the best seen from a convenience point of view, but it added something to the game that could be argued would be better to have than fixing it. Some fixes have worked well, and some not as well, but it is all our (the players) fault, we asked for convenience and ease and we got it.
Sometimes, you think you know what is best, but you miss the bigger picture and it actually gets worse.
So be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.
I've still yet to see anyone explain what this supposedly great AI from EQ was. I played classic EQ back in the day, and also earlier this year on the progression server. Most mobs in EQ don't have any abilities. The only thing they can do is auto-attack, and they do it on the player who they have the most hate for. End of story. The ones that have a ranged attack or spells are in the minority. From the level 1 orc pawns and fire beetles up through the highest non-boss mobs of vanilla, it was exactly the same dumb basic AI with few variations. Does it aggro or not, does it link or not, does it proc an effect like root or poison, does it run at low health or not—aside from those minor variations, all of the non-ranged mobs are exactly the same (with different hit points and damage) and fight in the same way. If the person with the most hate is in range, attack him. If not, move towards him. Repeat until dead.
I've still yet to see anyone explain what this supposedly great AI from EQ was. I played classic EQ back in the day, and also earlier this year on the progression server. Most mobs in EQ don't have any abilities. The only thing they can do is auto-attack, and they do it on the player who they have the most hate for. End of story. The ones that have a ranged attack or spells are in the minority. From the level 1 orc pawns and fire beetles up through the highest non-boss mobs of vanilla, it was exactly the same dumb basic AI with few variations. Does it aggro or not, does it link or not, does it proc an effect like root or poison, does it run at low health or not—aside from those minor variations, all of the non-ranged mobs are exactly the same (with different hit points and damage) and fight in the same way. If the person with the most hate is in range, attack him. If not, move towards him. Repeat until dead.
EQ didn't have great AI...
MOBs in EQ were extremely simple. They pretty much just attacked whichever player had the most aggro in their aggro radius.
However, MOBs in EQ were definietly less forgiving than MOBs in WoW, which lead to a more difficult experience. As the OP and everyone else has stated, MOBs in EQ will chase you to the end of the zone, and there is no concept of a MOB "locking" onto one player to prevent trains.
The OP is confusing this with AI. It's not that MOBs in EQ had better AI, they just didn't have the "safeguards" (short chase-distance, not aggroing on random players) that modern MMORPGs program into their MOBs to make the game easier.
Personally, I miss the old EQ days a bit, it was more challenging. But then again, it could also be a huge pain. I don't know how many times I got killed because some jackass jumped out of the freaking tower in Crushbone and trained Dvinn across the zone.
I think modern MMORPGs could stand to have their MOBs be a bit more difficult, but they shouldn't go to EQ levels where it just got ridiculous with trains.
I've still yet to see anyone explain what this supposedly great AI from EQ was. I played classic EQ back in the day, and also earlier this year on the progression server. Most mobs in EQ don't have any abilities. The only thing they can do is auto-attack, and they do it on the player who they have the most hate for. End of story. The ones that have a ranged attack or spells are in the minority. From the level 1 orc pawns and fire beetles up through the highest non-boss mobs of vanilla, it was exactly the same dumb basic AI with few variations. Does it aggro or not, does it link or not, does it proc an effect like root or poison, does it run at low health or not—aside from those minor variations, all of the non-ranged mobs are exactly the same (with different hit points and damage) and fight in the same way. If the person with the most hate is in range, attack him. If not, move towards him. Repeat until dead.
It may not be a smarter AI but the mobs did things and were a lot harder than todays mobs in game. The whole chase you to zone line was just an example. Mobs in EQ were not typically linked like todays mobs, mobs in EQ ran depending on the level fighting them (lower level later than higher level) and they typically ran for help. Mobs didn't just walk past people back to it's spawn location.
Mobs used what you gave them as well. If you could sneak up on one and give it a sword and it was a melee mob it would equip and actually use the sword and no longer melee. If you killed it you could get your sword back.
Little things like if you were friendly with the Druids in EQ but killed an animal in front of them they would attack you to defend the animal. Little things like that made EQ special.
However, we need to extend this from just the AI. EQ did so many things right. In the money grab for the casual player MMO's as we knew them have changed in a bad way. There is no immersion in todays MMO's they are nothing more than a GAME. EQ had serious immersion. Your toon was an extension of you in game. If you died it sucked balls, corpse runs were not fun at all, wipes on bosses could easly end your night, you could not just walk into a new zone and expect to live. Epic quests were just that EPIC. I remember how proud I was to this day when I completed my Totemic Set on my Shaman. Someone getting their epic weapon was a server wide cheer. When I got my spear I thought I would fall over.
I have played WOW from day one. I have cleared every dungeon. The last time I felt anything close to the way I felt in EQ was when I got my last item of Dragonstalker on my Hunter and got my Dragon Gun (forget the name) from BWL. Sense then WOW has been a joke with the exception of SWP.
Currently there is no MMO that gives you even remotely the immersion that EQ gave. Instances kill it, every class being able to solo kills it, the lack of grouping kills it, mobs you simply chew through kills it, PVP in a PVE game kills it, Auction Houses kills it, easy travel kills it and the list goes on and on.
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I miss the brutality of old school mobs. The modern AI is as far as I'm concern the root cause of pure CC classes going out of style. Who needs them under today's condition? The chaotic and brutal style of the AI enviroment used to justify a pure CC class. I loved classes like that. Today you'll find CC mostly spread out among most or all of the classes. DPS is usually the answer to everything.
It's a duller game world. The biggest irony of it all: You solo your way to endgame in moden MMORPGs.
I could not agree more. In old EQ if the Shaman didn't stick his Slow it usually ended in a wipe on most boss mobs. Debuffs mattered in old school EQ. Not so much now. Hell most games now days limits the debuffs you can put on a mob. EQ2 limits silences, stuns etc. Bosses are immune to them.
ABSOLUTELY!
There is no true challenge or risk/reward factor in games anymore. EQ, there were places that people were SCARED to even go near! Therefore the people that dared venture came back with promising rewards .. some that many have never even seen before. In most mmos now everyone has seen every possible item out there. It's pretty dumb. Then mobs teleport away, run back and ignore everyone else .. it's so fake.
No challenge at all -- the entire reason behind this challenge was for the massive satisfaction of having idols, accomplishing something that is rarely accomplished, and being unique! With smart AI comes smart strategies as well ... quad kiting ? Kiting in general? Perhaps charming a mob making it fight another ? WHERE is all the creativity in games?! And how about the super dramatic teleport spells with the big clash of thunder and purple stuff flying everywhere ... hell you are opening a rift in time and space, it should be crazy dramatic!
With brainless games like WoW, there is no true risk/reward factor. Everyone has the same items. At highest levels, EVERYONE has the SAME armor, SAME weapons .... And when you are lower level, you can't see any high levels fighting near you because it's too safe everywhere. Having the high lvls and low lvls in the same area .... it's fun to break in between to just watch an epic fight and see how a high lvl plays and you go "Wow! I can't wait to be like him in the future....". It makes you have a few heroes as well ... sometimes a higher level will come and buff you; maybe help you on a few kills and give you some advice.
Mixing high lvls with low lvls with a risk factor ("Dont go near the ice giants!!!") makes the game EXCITIGN! Thrilling!!! And makes some places taboo which creates excitement
---------------------------
Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP)
Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek
(Now @ Prexus)
I absolutely agree with all of that.
You are wrong. I played on Rallos Zek (PvP) before they made it carebear. For a good 8 years, it was not anything close to carebear. When you died from another player in WORLD pvp (you can kill anywhere at any place at any time within +4/-4 levels of you. You didn't know if they were higher or lower level; just "in range" to you [super genius]). When you died, you lost all your money on you and 1 item of their choice that is droppable unless it is in a backpack or a weapon. However, you could even reverse that -- if you were to blind someone before they die and have a monk or rogue disarm them, you could kill them while disarmed and you can loot their weapon. It was VERY hardcore. If you attacked someone in front of the guards, the guards wont help just EVERYONE like the cliche mmo, the faction system was superior to any other mmo . You can find ways to raise your faction with someone so the guards will defend you and not them. It's all about who you know, even NPCs.
---------------------------
Former EQ1 Rallos Zek (PvP)
Ascendant Chronei Immortal of Rallos Zek
(Now @ Prexus)
Yeah the User Interface is really smart, I guess.
Me too, couldn't have said it better myself....and ditto on the DAoC thing too. I am actually still subbed, but I can't seem to get online to play but every once in a while.
@ Xblade - the above poster wasn't necessarily saying EQ was carebear, just that a lot of peeps (mostly hardcore UO players I'm sure), regarded it as such. And they did, btw, and a lot of EQ players agreed with them......and we couldn't have cared less. They had their fun, and we had ours. Ofc, every game, then and now looked pretty carebear when held against UO......
I agree as well, more realistic mobs make for a more interesting gameplay. I mean if I go into a town and kill someone in broad daylight, I expect an alarm to go off, the guards to come and then more and more higher level guards to come if you kill the low level ones. Ergo don't kill people in towns unless you are a high level assasin that can hide, be undetectable or you the fastest runner with the highest magic protection.
I can't speak for EQ, but if you've gone back to DAOC you weren't playing the same game that was great so many years ago, so it's understandable that you quickly left. Your tastes didn't change that much, but DAOC most certainly did.
Speaking of DAOC, because it was a group centric game, npc's back in the day (more so than now) would very frequently BAF, which was their big trick to make solo play very challenging. But they still were stupid, you could kill npc's outside of aggro range, (but certainly within eyesight/earshot) and not draw anyone's wrath, and I sort of wish someone would create a MMO that did employ that sort of mechanic.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Disclaimer: I didn't read most of the 7 pages before me, and I suck at spelling
Well getting back to the OP, I agree 100%, I never played UO or EQ, my first MMO was FFXI, and I remember how pissed off I would get when some goblin would agro from 100ft away (or so it seemed) and I would have to haul ass back to the zone to get away. Or If I did die I would lose 12% of my XP, and have to go back to my "HP" which was normaly a 20 minute walk away.
So I wouldn't say I have rose colored glasses, I remember how frusterating it was....but at the same time I remember reaching that new level, or getting that new peice of gear felt sooo good. And getting to a new "zone" was awesome. Just to expeirence somthing new. In the AAA titles that we have now (and i've played a fair amount of them) there just isn't that rewarding feeling. In WOW there is nothing cool about reaching a "new zone"....its dull and boring.
{Now speaking of smart AI, let me tell you about the sweet mobs that FFXI had, well first off they had open world dungions...which was cool in itself, but anyways, in FFXI the mobs has diffrent "sences" like sight, sound, smell..and so on. And it was really cool, because your trying to get through this zone and you would cast "sneak" on yourself, or "sneak" on your whole group, and it didn't make it 100% that you would get past the mob, but it greatly increased the chance that you could. Which also added a huge use for casters and people of the cloth. Because they wern't just CC, and DP. They actually were really helpfull just getting to the zone.}
Anyways I could go on for probably hours about that game, and I would go back if there were more people playing it. I did go back for a few months...but so few people were still playing that I just couldn't find a good group.
Anyways...I had hoped that FFXIV would bring back the good o'l days...but instead they dragged there fan base out into a square, poured gas on them and lit them on fire....sad really.
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What is so intelligent about chasing a player until that player zoned? Its not intelligent to chase someone for miles. At some point one should realize "I can't catch him, and I'm out of my territory." Hell, even wild animals give up on prey.
Bosses magically summoning someone? How is that intelligent? That was just anti-kiting code. At one point, any mob over 51 could summon, but the kiters eventually changed SOE's mind(its still present in older zones).
If you pulled one mob into 6 players would it be smart for that guy to come running to his slaughter?
I will say that games today don't allow half the tactics that EQ did back when it was great. Like kiting and the various ways of pulling.
Convenience sneaked into all games since then, and developers started trying to fix stupidities and things that upset players.
It was all done for our (the players) sake, but in the process it made us fat and lazy. As these fixes started to get more and more technical, the developers lost track of the nature of mmorpgs, and thus is the history of todays mmorpgs.
Having an orc run back and kill other players in its path might not be the best seen from a convenience point of view, but it added something to the game that could be argued would be better to have than fixing it. Some fixes have worked well, and some not as well, but it is all our (the players) fault, we asked for convenience and ease and we got it.
Sometimes, you think you know what is best, but you miss the bigger picture and it actually gets worse.
So be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.
ps. OP means AI not UI.. typo ?
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I've still yet to see anyone explain what this supposedly great AI from EQ was. I played classic EQ back in the day, and also earlier this year on the progression server. Most mobs in EQ don't have any abilities. The only thing they can do is auto-attack, and they do it on the player who they have the most hate for. End of story. The ones that have a ranged attack or spells are in the minority. From the level 1 orc pawns and fire beetles up through the highest non-boss mobs of vanilla, it was exactly the same dumb basic AI with few variations. Does it aggro or not, does it link or not, does it proc an effect like root or poison, does it run at low health or not—aside from those minor variations, all of the non-ranged mobs are exactly the same (with different hit points and damage) and fight in the same way. If the person with the most hate is in range, attack him. If not, move towards him. Repeat until dead.
EQ didn't have great AI...
MOBs in EQ were extremely simple. They pretty much just attacked whichever player had the most aggro in their aggro radius.
However, MOBs in EQ were definietly less forgiving than MOBs in WoW, which lead to a more difficult experience. As the OP and everyone else has stated, MOBs in EQ will chase you to the end of the zone, and there is no concept of a MOB "locking" onto one player to prevent trains.
The OP is confusing this with AI. It's not that MOBs in EQ had better AI, they just didn't have the "safeguards" (short chase-distance, not aggroing on random players) that modern MMORPGs program into their MOBs to make the game easier.
Personally, I miss the old EQ days a bit, it was more challenging. But then again, it could also be a huge pain. I don't know how many times I got killed because some jackass jumped out of the freaking tower in Crushbone and trained Dvinn across the zone.
I think modern MMORPGs could stand to have their MOBs be a bit more difficult, but they shouldn't go to EQ levels where it just got ridiculous with trains.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
It may not be a smarter AI but the mobs did things and were a lot harder than todays mobs in game. The whole chase you to zone line was just an example. Mobs in EQ were not typically linked like todays mobs, mobs in EQ ran depending on the level fighting them (lower level later than higher level) and they typically ran for help. Mobs didn't just walk past people back to it's spawn location.
Mobs used what you gave them as well. If you could sneak up on one and give it a sword and it was a melee mob it would equip and actually use the sword and no longer melee. If you killed it you could get your sword back.
Little things like if you were friendly with the Druids in EQ but killed an animal in front of them they would attack you to defend the animal. Little things like that made EQ special.
However, we need to extend this from just the AI. EQ did so many things right. In the money grab for the casual player MMO's as we knew them have changed in a bad way. There is no immersion in todays MMO's they are nothing more than a GAME. EQ had serious immersion. Your toon was an extension of you in game. If you died it sucked balls, corpse runs were not fun at all, wipes on bosses could easly end your night, you could not just walk into a new zone and expect to live. Epic quests were just that EPIC. I remember how proud I was to this day when I completed my Totemic Set on my Shaman. Someone getting their epic weapon was a server wide cheer. When I got my spear I thought I would fall over.
I have played WOW from day one. I have cleared every dungeon. The last time I felt anything close to the way I felt in EQ was when I got my last item of Dragonstalker on my Hunter and got my Dragon Gun (forget the name) from BWL. Sense then WOW has been a joke with the exception of SWP.
Currently there is no MMO that gives you even remotely the immersion that EQ gave. Instances kill it, every class being able to solo kills it, the lack of grouping kills it, mobs you simply chew through kills it, PVP in a PVE game kills it, Auction Houses kills it, easy travel kills it and the list goes on and on.