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Literally all I want is Original EQ with better graphics.
sludgebeard
Member RarePosts: 788
The original EQ was just such a classic Roleplaying Game. When you look at how MMO's are built now adays, most just dont have that classic Roleplaying feel to them. They try to throw everything at the player too fast, and force-feed this idea that the player is a hero from the very start of the game.
In Classic EQ, a rat could kill you at level 1, you would miss swings, your spells would fizzle, your mana would fluctuate randomly like your magic was reluctant to work properly; you were a mess in other words.
You didnt start off killing a badass monster, you started off as all real hero's do, with merely a will and no way in sight but what random path you walked down.
You would talk to NPC's, read and listen to what they said carefully, and then you would talk back to them. It wasnt much, but if you chose to, you could roleplay your character to the NPC's, they felt alive and they always had something inspiring or intriguing to point out to you.
There wasnt a clear cut level above each enemies head, you would simply "Consider" the enemy, and the game would give you an estimate of what would happen in the fight, almost like a second consciousness in the game saying things like "Well you could try to kill it, but its defiently a gamble". It wasnt a cut and dry system, it wasnt reduced to hard numbers, it was a choice, one that you made not always knowing the complications of your actions, this was a REAL choice.
Then you would finally get proficient at what you were doing, you would start to hit the target more, you magic would grow stronger and more controlled. You'd get a pet maybe, and try to attack a small gnoll camp on your own. You would take a couple of them, and feel a sense of accomplishment when you almost had the fight in your favor, and then it would happen...
A Skeleton would come out of nowhere, just randomly wadering the zone to happen upon you in the midst of the hardest fight of your in game life, and in one strike he would take you down, proving to you that you were not that powerful, not yet, you were going to need help.
In a flash of black you would die and be without all your spells, knowledge, and gear. You would run back to your corpse, gather up all your belongings, relearn your spells, and take some time to learn from your mistakes, or maybe not, but eventually with enough time you would.
You might get a friend to help you next time, or maybe just a stranger, maybe by luck a passerby would buff you with some helpful enchantments, you didnt know, but you knew when you saw another player they were going through or - had gone through - alot of the same experiances of loss and challenge, and that alone made it part of the experiance. Other players werent constantly competing with you, they had enough competition in the world to worry about, and you were just another player in this universe's immense struggle.
This is what EQ was about, and all I want is that same game but with better graphics. A game rich with exploration, conflict, choices, and a sense of danger and philosophy. A game that is more than a show of numbers and who has the better gear, but an authentically immersive experiance.
Comments
Agreed to a certain extent...
I think the philosophy that EQ brought could be summed up in these 4 things.
1. Community - Even though community was brought together by forced grouping. Also included your characters server reputation.
2. Challenge - Sense of danger, must know your class and be knowledgable
3. Variety - There was a lot of different variety in EQ. You could level in so many different areas, the amount if spells/skills you can obtain per class.
4. Immersive- Even with the bad graphics at the time the game was still pretty immersive. With first person camera view and some of the little things that was cleverly done to bring the life zones. Like Kithacor Woods at night. Also the ambient music was beyond amazing. That helped a lot too.
I would agree with the philosophy of gameplay that EQ brought to us. Those 4 I listed would be captured in that philosophy. I still think a more interesting combat mechanics that would be more adaptive to an intelligent AI. Having seamless world would also help a lot also with more or less the art direction of realism. EQN I thought was going to bring us that but they're not. They actually apologized for the force grouping gameplay. There are some new innovations I am absolutely thrilled about with EQN but was dissapointed with the route EQN took, graphically, combat mechanics and class design.
You should read some of my threads. You'd like the mmo design I have in mind.
Honestly I think alot of people would like to see an upgraded version of vanilla EQ.
However, vanilla EQ also had some issues. The lack of ability to solo AT ALL unless you were one of a handful of classes was a bit much. Also a Death Penalty where you could lose a day or more of progression with just a tad bad luck was over the top. Don't get me wrong, the penalty should be harsh enough you absolutely DID NOT WANT TO DIE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE but you could accomplish that with a few hours of lost XP, not days worth of lost XP. Also, I think there should have been skills/spells awarded at every level rather than every 4 levels especially with such an extensive grind. Finally the grind itself needed to be toned down just a bit, probably by about half. I mean 2-3 years of hard play to reach max level honestly was a bit much. A year though seems just about right, especially with the AA system that offered a basically never ended progression even after you reached max level. Also group play with downtime is a requirement, though I don't think we need 3-5 mins between pulls.
Design and offers that game and I will be a proud subscriber within 30 seconds of it being playable.
I completely agree about the Death-Penalty. I done think you should lose a level from Death, or even a days worth of play, but I think 10% of your exp or a fixed number is fair.
This is one of those things where it sounds hypocritical for me to say I want "Exactly Vanilla EQ" with better graphics. But no game is perfect and I think its well documented enough that losing a level or a days worth of EXP for a single death is poor design.
Still if 95% of what made Vanilla EQ is there, with better graphics, I will consider that a glorious victory for MMO's.
I wonder how much it would cost...if crowd funding it would be feasible? In my opinion it doesnt even have to be SOTA graphics either...AoC...or Rifts type art would just be fine
Reading the post above me..I disagree with Death Penelty or any sort of deleveling..but a harsh xp Debt like CoH or EQ2 i could get behind.
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
No matter what game type you will never have this type of experience again. A lot of the magic of EQ1 was that only people who really wanted to play it did. You couldn't play EQ on your moms computer, or do anything of significance without broadband internet. Only real RPG nerds played EQ from 1999-2003. Now most MMO's run on anything built in the last 10 years enabling people with names like Chad and Brock to play while they wait for the next CoD or Halo to come out.
The gameplay in EQ was awful. You stared at numbers on a screen for 10 hours a day in the same spot. It was the chat box that kept people playing and no one will ever chat in games again aside from troll general chats. Your best bet is to find friends you enjoy spending time with and only play with them. I've found that almost any game is fun if you've got 3-6 friends to play with consistently. If you miss EQ I suggest playing it, as its still one of the best MMO's available.
EQ 1 was a chat room that you get to kill stuff in back when chat rooms were still in. I heavily played EQ 1 in 99 and 2000, this was my JR and SR year in high school. This was also the same time that AOL chat room were huge to pick up chicks. I went on EQ to be a nerd and chat about nerd things while killing things. I went on AOL to pick up chicks.
People don't use chats rooms anymore, its all just facebook and twiter. The Social world has changed and EQ1 would just not work how it was.
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There aren't anywhere near enough players that would want this, of those that say they do most of those don't actually want the reality of what they are asking for.
New MMO titles have made almost all of us casualised, if we had an EQ type experience most of us would quit in days.
FF11 used to be EQ with better graphics, now it's much closer to WoW.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Awwe, my name is Chad and I was and still am a huge fan of EQ. Played constantly from Kunark through LDoN, even played on Fippy for about 4 months. Now I'm just sad after reading your post...
I never really thought of it like this before but I think there is some truth in what you are saying here.
Couldn't agree more. I've played a few MMO's over the years now, and I've enjoyed them for what they are, but I'm starting to feel like nothing will compare to the things that made EQ great.
I've even found myself back to playing it. After my daughter was born, the free option of it has been a blessing, and the gameplay/ui made it easy to play with one hand, while I held her in the other. Saved me from having many boring nap times.
People have complained about not having time to play a game like EQ anymore, and while my general gaming time has shrunk, I don't feel like I'm wasting it in a game that encourages more than just a race to end game, either.
I've noticed over the last several years that I'm not as social in other games, as well, and sure that's partly my fault, but when no one really has to group up to survive in the world (not just dungeons/raids), why would I bother when nothing's stopping other non-group-dependent players from being giant pricks? And I think we've all seen this in action.
I'm sure nostalgia plays a small part - like moving me beyond the outdated graphics - but I honestly believe I prefer a lot of the things EQ was/is: dependency on others; specialized, vastly differing classes; slower gameplay; an emphasis on exploration; strong community; etc.
And I know from my friends and my wife (who started MMOs with WoW), the graphics are the biggest hurtle that dissuades them from playing. If those were updated, I think there'd be more interest again.
Game History (the ones that count): Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Planetside 2
The key parts that made MMOs what they were are also the things that the industry has been trying to get rid of for years.
1. Down time, nearly every new mmo now has gotten rid of this aspect of the game you don't sit and wait for your HP / mana /endurance to go back up it used to be you had to sitdown and pray or wait unless you had a certain class (daoc bard etc) who could reduce that down time. However the aspect of down time was getting to know your fellow gamers making friends and aquantences. Nowadays you have games where they removed down time from the games and now 5 seconds after the mob dies your back and ready to fight again its not so much a social experience as a treadmill.
2. Forced grouping like down time only a few classes could "solo" and even then it wasn't through choice, grouping up was always the way to go . Standing in towns and cities shouting "bard lfg" and getting inundated by hundreds of invite requests (although if you did that as a stealthier you were ignored). But still groups made a game more social it made you learn about the other players around you. Modern MMo's have provided such easy ways to form groups like automatic grouping in wow flag as a tank healer dps and your put in a group. and it doesn't matter if you act a douchebag or go afk the chances of ever grouping with those people is so remote the consequences of being antisocial do not apply.
3. Community / guilds, most guilds are closed made up of friends who have played for years but the social glue for mmos is no longer there. You may find 1 or 2 individuals to ralley around but 9 times out of 10 everyone has their own thing to do and go and do it. I remember in dark age of Camelot defending the relics to the early hours of the morning hearing the call to defend while crafting in tir na nog and rallying a ramshackle defence team made up of no lifers like myself. and that sense of success to have repelled them. I don't get that from instanced battlegrounds and grinding pvp events.
I think the key thing that MMO's have lost over the years is a sense of community and belonging, having people know who you are on your actiosn. Raid leader / relic defender.
I think tis something they could bring back but it wouldn't be for everyone but it would make the games more social.
[mod edit]
Look at eq now, I downloaded it, logged in asked if there were still death penaltys, they said the electric chair. I laughed and asked if there were corpse runs, they said no. I uninstalled it right after that. I went into eq 2, skipped all the quests died, and it said respawn instantly where you died, if you pay them money. I don't play that any more ethier now.
[mod edit]
I wonder if that's true.
I bet if a game were to be made with the idea that it was going to get 90k to 250k subscribers, and the budget was set accordingly wit the idea that this would be a polished project that didnt' have cutting edge graphics, I would think there would be enough players.
Heck, I'd be in. I subbed to Vanguard up until the point when they announced they were closing it.
Very disappointed.
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Ahh...1999. I remember going into Babbage's and trying to decide between UO or EQ as my very first MMORPG. Legends of Kunark had just released and I finally was lured by the 3D State of the Art Graphics
I fondly remember late, late nights spending hours upon hours with EQ. Way before KEI, etc when it took at least 15 minutes between battles for my caster to gain back mana to be ready. And back in the day when you spent Sunday afternoon at the EC Tunnel to WTS or WTB
I played EQ for years (/timeplayed was a depressing thing to see), but then finally was lured to the "next" big things like Planet Side, DAOC, WoW...
I think others nailed it when they said EQ was more social because we had to be for grouping, barter, plus we had a ton of down time. But as others have also noted, today we have so many other distractions, be it social media or other games (fire up a quick game of Hearthstone)
I definitely yearn for a greater challenge and something different than today's standard MMORPG experience. For me (today anyway), I've been enjoying Age of Wushu. I actually posted a similar EQ nostalgia theme thread this morning on that forum.
[mod edit please don't discuss emulated games [/mod edit]
But I think many of us (including myself) really can't go back to the graphics of those days.
Well at least modern games are good for a laugh.
I actually like the old EQ graphics. I was walking around the old world and some of the zones had been redone. They looked nothing like the orignal. They didn't just make the graphics better they pretty much didn't resemble the old zone at all. Commonlands appeared to be one zone now and it looked like Bermuda.