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Critical features of EQ that aren't in other games
I'm trying to list things that just aren't in other games. I know some of my list probably have similar things in other games, and that some of the features in my list aren't liked by the masses.
List your own or criticize my list.
1. Low level challenge
2. meditate - looking at the book/sitting down
3. Death penalty 1 - XP loss
4. Death penalty 2 - gear loss
5. Quests are received by talking, not glowing icons
6. Open world dungeons, not instanced
7. complete heal (HP multiplier/chain heals)
8. Feign Death - To split mobs/pull
9. Feign Death - to stop aggro
10. Runners at near death/fear aggro, mob group attack (train to zone)
11. Wizard/Druid Teleport
12. SoW
13. Mez/charm, and breaking mez/charm
14. BIG Quests
15. grinding mobs instead of quest hub
16. kiting classes
17. Fear as suicide technique
18. Trains
19. Intentional Trains
20. Ruthless AI (I summon thee!) Death
Asdar
Comments
Sort of interesting how masochistic so many of those appear to be.
Please sir may I have another.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
I'm so confused.
Why does NO ONE mention the huge elephant in the room? Combat length!
EQ combat is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than all other games (ffxi possible exception).
its a huge factor for me, so I'm baffled why it isn't ever mentioned.
All those others though, they could still exist if you used your imagination and self-imposed them. I know, I know, rp in a rpg, unheard of.
Seriously?
Keep in mind some of these (the 4:3's) are 8 years old. The newer zones are even better.
I'm not sure how many of the list I like. Some I do for sure, some I think might be bad for the game.
I've been playing again on an emulated server and it's been great. I was surprised how many people were on and playing.
Asdar
You forgot Priest of Discord.
Nr 1 thing i am missing in all MMOs that came after EQ: The possibility to die (without trying hard).
No current game offers the freedom to die because i suck. If i die it is for fast travel (duh!), i am afk or in pvp. Mobs are no danger, dungeons are no danger...
Nr 2 thing i am missing: A reason to group up.
Currently it is far superior to just solo quest grind your way up, ignoring any social interaction because it slows you down. EQ had meaninfull and REWARDING grouping from level 1 to max. It was always preferable to group, but you could solo to pass the time (depending on class).
I really really hate the idea of soloing being so close or even superior to grouping. If you like that, go play a freaking solo game.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Because SOE decided to use Disney graphics for EQ next for some strange reason.
+1
i loved the long combats of EQ. I wish more games had the slow eq style combat.
I find the EQ models to look extremely creepy and weird. I'm not saying the new ones look good, but they look way better than the old ones.
There's just something off about EQ/EQ2/Vanguard character models. That plastic miss proportioned look irritates me.
Still doesn't make it right. There ARE some that do want challenges, do not want their hands held, do not mind paying a sub to keep more pariah out than FTP games. It would have to be a niche game, with the chance that todays lazy gamer would grow on it.
They should look creepy and weird after all, this is not Earth, this is another world completely, and Ill take that "plastic" look as you call it over toontown any day of the week.
I'm thinking about going back as well. The freedom of choice is amazing, the loot tables and the rare spawn mobs are fantastic. I love just researching which areas are the best to hunt in for unique loot drops. The gfx were ok for me a two to three yeaers ago but I think it may be more of a challenge to stomach now.
Downsides are that most of the newer expansion mobs will destroy you solo and the number of hunting areas aren't as numerous in the later zones.
Some notes..
It should be mentioned, half the features describe eq in the past. You can not find most of these things in eq live, although there are alternatives (which this site does not allow naming), and in the past official progression servers.
Also those features does not represent "all that was good", they are just how the game worked.. To understand why eq is (was) the greatest game in history (opinion), you need to dig deeper - Eq is still despite its many flaws, by far the best mmorpg I have played, and it a serious mystery why no other game has picked up all the good ideas, improved them and fixed the flaws.
Anyways, I dont think AA xp was mentioned, which I think is a genious feature that all other mmorpgs completely missed. Being able to keep progressing your character at max level through xp and not just gear, adds a whole new dimension to the game, and is a serious reason people keep playing eq for years.
I dont think anyone actually did bards like eq.. i know eq2 has bards but if you tried both I am sure you will agree eq2 bards are not anything like eq bards.
Unsure about this, but did any other game do a true faction system? Where the character faction status goes up and down with actions, and this has an effect on accessibility of cities, quests, traders, prices etc.
Hmm and in connection with faction, how about Illusion magic? Walking through dangerous territory disguised as a frindly race, where you otherwise would be KOS due to race and/or faction. And that some npc see through illusion, the same as some see through sneak or invisibility.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Some I have seen on other games, but I guess not exactly how everquest did them (BTW, I know this is the everquest forum, I got to this thread from the forum overview..
). Others I have no idea what they are about (specially 2, 12, 17, 20)
3. XP Loss on death: IIRC Runes of Magic had something like that when I played few years ago, you couldn't be de-leveled but if you died you'd lose some of the XP you had gained towards the next level.
5. Receive quests by talking: Age of Conan had something like this, people had the quest icons on top of their heads but you had to talk to them to ask what was wrong and get the quest, and depending on what you've said they wouldn't give it to you (you could talk to them again to get it later, though).
6. Open world dungeons, not instanced: Guild Wars 2 has several open world dungeons (mini-dungeons they're called there), usually you need to complete a nearby event or series of events to open the entrance. Age of Conan also had something like that on shipping, they called it public dungeons... but in practice didn't work too well, all bosses were permanently camped and your only chance at fighting them was to be there when someone in one of the camping groups left and manage to get in.
8. Feign Death - To split mobs/pull
9. Feign Death - to stop aggro: at least back when I played WoW it was a popular skill of hunters. Actually it was common practice if you had a hunter in your group to have the hunter pull and then feign dead once the tank had attacked and gotten some aggro, and other times the hunter would get agro from one or more mobs and kite them using pets and traps while the rest of the party killed other mobs, then feign death for the tank to get them.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Is this a joke? If not then let me be the first to tell you that all these features are in all other MMO's already. Not sure what you are smoking but I would stop.
10, 18, 19: /yell "TRAIN TO ZZZZZONNE"
21. /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse /corpse
22. /yell "Anyone seen my corpse?"
It can mostly be summed up as EQ having meaningfull consequences associated with the players choices.
Because of this, the social aspect of the game has depth that none of the newer mmo's have. - Since you havent a fully instanced world, the players are also required to aquire social skills in order to be successfull within the game.
Mmos without accountability and meaningfull consequences, have no meaningfull choices left in the players hand. It all becomes superficial and it usually shows in the low retention rates or the conversion to f2p moneytraps, because shallow games dont hold the necessary to pull to justify continual subscriptions.
I think game dev's have gotten it into their heads, that gamers do not want to suffer any negative consequences at all, for any choices made in the game. Thats why noone has death penalties, or deathloops, or massive raids, or any real reliance on social abilities. But those who have played EQ, and who have run scared and shaking through kithicor at night, or maidenseye (only to get deathtouched at the zoneline) remember and can appreciate how much actual risk will also boost the level of satisfaction for a job well done. - I think the game dev's are wrong, I think casual gamers can exist in a game like EQ, I dont think they need to be put on a themepark ride in order to enjoy the genre. - But what can we do.
A lot of the above options are in other games in different iterations. However I don't think most games really have been able to pull off what EQ did. Wow was the closest and it really changed the genre to the state that we see today with the "lobby" style mmo.
I think EQ's main success was the player interaction. To do anything in that game you needed more than 1 person. That's not to say that a solo person couldn't do things but if they wanted to truly progress through the game quickly then you needed more than one person. This is what made the social interactions so important and really allowed the community to police itself most of the time. Someone was being a douche, well they stopped getting groups. The person then gets worse and people start training him and basically are able to stop him from progressing "quickly".
Another thing EQ did quite well was allowing players to become truly powerful. What I mean by that is in most games these days I don't see players being able to do the same things they could do in EQ. For example, if we look at the Bard as someone stated farther up, a bard was a CC class like in most games. They could mez and they could charm. Talk about an awesome charm too. Other games had this, like DAoC and EQ2. There are others I'm sure but just for example, in those games you could charm a lvl or 2 below your lvl, nice and easy. Although you couldn't charm named mobs or anything like that. In EQ, a bard could charm just about anything. If you were brave you could go and charm something a lvl or two "above" your lvl and have a truly dangerous pet. Although when that charm broke, you have a truly dangerous pet..... ... ON YOUR ASS!! However, allowing players to really control extremely dangerous monsters is just one way that they made you feel like your character was truly powerful. Not to mention, again in the instance of a bard, once you had a extremely powerful pet, you could do all sorts of things with it. For instance, power leveling was huge in the game, cause the devs gave you the tools with the classes and allowed you to actually find ways to lvl easier. Kite an entire zone and kill it all, what other games allowed this? None that I know of......
As stated above, EQ Live is completely different from the old version of EQ. However, like the OP stated, there are other EQ options these days, which can be quite enjoyable, although watch out, if you mention them here you get a 24-hour ban minimum. I've played one of the options other than EQ Live and I got my cleric up to the 40's-50's before I put it down cause I just couldn't make raid times in the guild I was in. However if your looking for groups and being able to actually group like it was back in the day then they are the best option for you. There is something to be said to logging into a game and actually finding a group rather then jumping in a que or just soloing everything. A lot more satisfaction to be sure although it is quite harder too.
In the end, the power classes had and the focus on social interaction are the things that set EQ apart. Gone are the days of trains, dangerous pets, social interaction for the most part. Everything else is either some form of que or a completely solo adventure just for you. These days everything is for the masses and attempting to unseat wow as the most popular MMO ever. There is more indie projects and developers of games these days, so there is always a possibility of a game coming back to these systems but as expressed above, they will probably be a niche experience.
Agree.
a fight in EQ feels like you are in a fight with a skilled combatant. other games feel like i'm fighting a 7 year old.
Wish a developer would take the risk of making an EQ style game again.
I miss the danger of EQ. the feeling of adventure. the sense of freedom.
Excellent!
What game has all this other than EQ...I'm signing up.
I agree. This is what I hate about all the modern games. Heck I complained of this shortening of combat time way back with DAOC.
Combat length is important. It sets a complete different mood.
Of course class uniqueness. Racial differences that made a real difference until mid levels (back in the day) both in game play and starting experience. Racial differences that made real differences with Armor -- even the same piece of armor. Items that were unlocked and could be traded / used to twink.
These are all things I loved.
Yea the game is truly great. If I could find a group of folks to play with on a regular basis or even better, 5 other people to level a premade group up together, I would still be playing on the server I was on to this day. If it wasn't for not being able to be online for raids I wouldn't have stopped a couple months ago.
As for the graphics, I still feel like the player models are still better than most games out today. Sure, most games today have good looking models and armor but in EQ each race felt completely different. You could be a ogre, that ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE A OGRE.. Big, ugly and really captured the ogre feel. I still feel like the Troll skin is the best troll I have seen in any other game. I mean the evil races looked evil and ugly but still had benefits. They had decrements too, like for instance, if you were an ogre, than you better run around with a shaman so that he could cast shrink on you and you could go to the cool dungeons. That's another aspect, I mean EQ made a lot of things matter, like size. If you played a ogre, you had better either be a shaman, run around with a shaman, or buy shrink pots cause otherwise you would be too big to get to certain places. How many other games did character size make a difference?
I realize that a lot of these options other players consider "inconveniences" but they really added to the RP aspect of the game, which is great. If todays gaming generation could try and put some things into perspective, I bet you could have a EQ-style game become quite popular. Will it ever happen? Probably not. Why? cause people still always go for the path of least resistance. However, if a dev team, took EQ, made a game around those systems, while incorporating SOME of the ways they were improved over time by wow and games of the like, we could have a truly huge and dangerous world, filled with powerful players and powerful monsters, geared for social interaction and teamwork. Time will tell.
Although since EQ Live is still around, there is something to be said about the longevity and player retention of a game like that..
P.S. The first paragraph is a offer if anyone is interested, lol