The Glade 4.0

Yeah, I think that the level cap thing is a problem with modern MMOs. Perfect balance IMO is making it to where you can log in for a couple hours only if needed, and still feel like you have accomplished something, but not make it to where you can power to max in like a week. By doing that, you've essentially just cheated yourself out of the content.

Just for giggles, since I have a month of station pass, I created an Ogre SK last night in EQ2.

Without much effort, I was level 10 in about 2 hours. I never even came close to dying once, and I barely know what any of my spells/skills are, other than when they are 'up', I click them, and the mob usually dies in short order.

I was never challenged at all to have to put any thought into any of the encounters, and honestly, I did not develop any affinity at all for the character.

I basically played whack-a-mole for 2 hours and got 10 levels out of it.

Regardless of the MMO, almost all of them are like that these days Midgen. Of course there are a few exceptions, but for the most part they're all easy mode. As it stands, they might as well start you at level 80, because it's so easy to get there. I don't even understand the point of leveling anymore in current MMO's. If the entire point is end game raids/pvp/daily quests, and the leveling part is just a small hurdle they place in front of you, why not start us at the end game? I wish it were opposite, but it's not.

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You generally won't get much challenge at those levels in EQ2 anymore, specially with an overpowered class like SK.

SKs have several tap essence spells/abilities (i.e. drain life and power from mob and transfer to you) that make soloing pretty easy.

They've made it very casual-friendly lately, and therein also lies in what I have come to conclude it one of the game's biggest stumbling blocks.

See, games like WoW were designed from the get-go with both casual and raid play in mind. Thus, your gameplay experience will be pretty fluid throughout, yet still presented challenges along the way.

EQ2, on the other hand, was using the old EQ1 model of group-based, more challenging content from level 1 and up. When it finally became clear to SoE that the money was in the casual market, they started re-coding and dumbing down gameplay to try to draw in more casuals. Since the game was not built from the ground up to support that kind of style, the changes felt tacked on and sloppy. So instead of having a game where you could solo, yet still feel like your life was in danger, you had a situation where you could stride in to just about any encounter, press some buttons, live, loot stuff, and get several levels for just a few hours' work.

Again, for casuals, it's great. But those who want something a bit more, it will most likely leave them feeling a bit empty.

Now, of course that changes as you level up higher, but for a good while at the lowbie levels, it's very much a breeze.

I got to 32 or very close to that point in one month of casual play.

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Raell Kromwell

Definitely going to keep an eye on this.

I must say, some great insights in this thread on the entire history of the 2 games.

Frankly, EQ2 has been a disappointment. Not in terms of gameplay, but in terms of its ability to draw in players. That, in fact, is a large part of why I play WoW as well; there are a lot more other players. I can log in, get a group, and do something and not spend all my time LFG, which I pretty much have to anymore in EQ2 unless I luck out and log in when people in my guild need me.. and I'm in a big guild for over 2 years now, so I'm not some newbie they don't know.

I really think that it would be great to bring back some of the intensity of the community of EQ1. A lot of the fun of the game was outside the game - the message boards, the discussions, even the flamewars. Tribunal had its own flameboard. That was driven by the community in the game. Your reputation mattered; your ability to manage other people and knowing how to act mattered. It wasn't like WoW where you're basically anonymous outside your guild, or EQ2 where players are in such demand that even if you suck and act like an *** you can still get into a decent guild and raid if you really want to.

I wouldn't mind seeing back more non-instanced group content, including some of the longer spawn-times.. not the 24-hour-plus named spawn that drops one item for one guy to do his quest, but more of a hybrid of the old and new.. say it spawns every 8 hours but your whole group gets the quest drop for whoever needs it; things like that. I think a robust solo experience is needed for people to be able to have something to do if they log on at odd times or hours, but it I agree with the sentiment that there's almost too much questing in WoW and EQ2.

Other things I'd like to see are a very strong AA system - one like EQ has right now where you have hundreds or thousands of points to get to max it out, but without any of them being critical to a given class like Archery Mastery/Endless Quiver was. I think the talents = levels and no character development at max level besides gear is one of WoW's weakest points. EQ2 allows AA, but the cap is too low, and to compensate, the gain is too slow as you get close to it.

I'd also like to see a return to the time when there was real raiding and endgame phasing-in and play well before max level. EQ2 and WoW have this, but not strongly; it mainly is leftover raids from earlier caps that people go back and do when they're at the new cap just to get an achievement. I'd like to see things like the Kael raids we did as a developing guild where you only had to be level 50, or EToV where we'd take people at level 55.

I'm hopeful. I'm running out of interest in my MMOs, but I do like MMOs more than any other type of game. When EQ1 came out it was something I'd wished for my whole childhood, or at least since we first got a computer. If they can bring back some of the old play, with new innovations like maps, mounts, AA and other things that weren't in the game, and avoid the corpse runs and de-levelling. it will be a winner in my book.

BTW, the jump-the-shark moment for me in EQ1 was Gates of Discord... sorry, space aliens just don't cut it for me. The increasing emphasis on the Void in EQ2 is hurting it in the same way, IMO.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Luclin introduced aliens in 2001. This was (in hindsight) the beginning of the long slow decline of the game for me. It just didn't fit in with my idea of a high fantasy, elves and orcs and goblins game.

GoD came out in 2004, and by that time I had pretty much lost any passion I had for the game.

I don't really begrudge SoE for introducing something new and breaking the high fantasy mold. I just think they went a little too overboard with the character models looking a little too obviously alien.

DE, I'm right there with you. I'm hopeful of those same things.

Another thing I'd love to go back to again: Specific drops from specific creatures. No more of this loot table crap where any mob can drop one of 500 things. Still have a table, but it's just a little overboard with the way it is now in WoW for example. By having specific items dropping from specific world creatures, it also opens up the world to the community. For example in WoW, all of the good items are dropped in instances/raids, with the exception of random world purple drops that are rare and random. Remember getting an XP group with hopes of getting the FBSS, or the Fungi Tunic? There are few rare world mobs in WoW, and the ones that there are don't drop specific purple items that people camp out for. I miss that. Then again, I miss the groups the most. I remember being so excited when I managed to get into the group for the Frenzied Ghoul to hopefully get the FBSS. I understand why it's not that way in WoW, as the entire 1-80 level range goes by pretty fast. It wouldn't even be worth camping for anything when you're going to blow by the level in an hour. The most amazing thing about it is how there's SO many people playing the game, yet almost zero community when it comes to grouping outside of instances. I suppose that's has a lot more to do with game design than anything else.

Gear just feels so random these days, outside of instance specific bosses. I like going to random XP zones around my level range, hoping to find an XP group that's camping the premier spawn in the zone. It seemed like every zone had at least 1 or 2 spawns that groups would always have camped. There were often a dozen or more standing around the zone entrance waiting for groups. Getting into the group to camp the Frenzied Ghoul (I forget the room name) was like hitting the jackpot. You were sure to get great XP, plus the chance to get a nice prize worth a lot of money. I don't miss all of the extreme 24 hour camping spawns, but the group camping encounters were actually quite fun. Placeholders sucked, but they were also a nice thing. They made it so that whenever you did see the Frenzied Ghoul spawn, you were excited like a kid on Christmas morning.

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I wasn't all that crazy about Luclin, other than the introduction of AA, and the newer models, but it didn't go quite over the line with the alien-ness of GoD or OoW. Really, when GoD came out, I had been riding pretty high from PoP (which I actually enjoyed greatly) and LDoN which was probably my favorite expansion of all. Then it all came sort of crashing down into the drudgery of GoD which was not just whole-hog wierdness, but also was designed for level 70 characters but without an actual cap incease which ended up getting put off until OoW. Practically everywhere was a deathtrap in those expansions.

As to the loot and camping, I'd like to see that too; smaller, more consistent loot tables for a mob would be nice with more consistent quality between the items from any mob. I'd like to see that plus getting more away from "levelled" items, or at least have them stay relevant longer.

I don't want to go quite back to the early days of EQ1 where ONLY rare-spawn named mobs dropped anything worthwhile, you could only buy utter crap from vendors, and that at exorbitant prices, and you were stuck in *** gear until well into the level range unless you played a ton, had skilled friends or were very clever at making money, and where tradeskills were highly limited in making worthwhile things. It would still be nice to see decent gear a lot earlier than EQ1 gave you anything in its early days, but I don't think there should be quite the profusion of it that you see in WoW or EQ2 where green, then blue, and ultimately purple items become vendor trash. I'd rather see less soul-bound stuff and less gear overall dropping, but have it more easily traded.

I'd also like to see actual cash be the sole medium of exchange with NPCs rather than points, tokens, badges, seals, emblems, marks, shards, and whatever else any given game had, maybe with prices and access varying with reputation.

I'm pretty much right there with you on the gear, Roophus. I don't want all the gear that's remotely worth having confined on mobs where you have to wait 8 hours to get a group, but I also don't want tons of easily-had but mediocre gear that you get with the expectation of replacing it as soon as you can raid. Really, I'd like to see raiding pushed down in terms of its importance to play. Not that there shouldn't be raids, but the increment of gear reward for doing it should be minor over and above what you get for high-end single-group stuff.. a raid mob should drop items for more people, like maybe 7-10 items, that are comparable or slightly better than the average for the hardest group encounters, maybe with very rare super-good items for mainhand slots or the equivalent. Hardcore raiders need to be told early on that they aren't going to control either the actual raid mobs in the game, or the direction of content; it's there for everyone, and if they want to be hardcore.. well they can expect to have more of the good gear, but not BETTER good gear, and that if someone else can get something better from tradeskilling or grouping.. well, don't make the game into your major life accomplishment and you won't find it so upsetting.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's far too much emphasis on raiding at the moment for my tastes, and I don't mind raiding. It boils down to raid or PVP, or if you really want you can do daily monotonous quests to earn badges to trade towards gear. It all revolves around gear. I have no idea how an AA system isn't in WoW yet, other than Blizz wouldn't be able to control it quite like they do with micromanaging the talent trees to absolute balance.

As for items prior to end cap, I'd really like to see less level requirements and soulbound stuff as well. Twinking didn't necessarily make you into a God, so I don't see what the big deal is about it. It was actually a lot of fun. That's not to say they couldn't put some limits on it. It's not like they have much emphasis on the leveling these days anyway. Why is it so imperative that we eliminate twinking? I just don't like how quickly you have to change gear these days. Go up 3 levels, throw out your blues, settle with a green. What happened to all of those famous weapons/gear that everyone on the planet knew about. The FBSS, Cloak of Flames, RBB, SSOY, etc. Tell me this, if WoW were to have a WoW 2, what "heritage" items would be in the game? I honestly don't know. There aren't really any memorable items from level 1-79, since you change gear constantly. It's so gear dependent, you change gear rapidly, thus never really bonding with your rare items like you did in the old EQ. It took me weeks of sitting in the EC tunnel to finally trade up in order to get the SSOY and FBSS. I used those items for a long time.

Back with the old EQ, there was a huge emphasis on buying items. I'm not saying I want all items to be store-bought. I do want to be able to earn decent/above average gear by just playing the game. However, I'd really like to see the auction house/bazaar turn into more fun by going back to having non-soulbound items, with more status/prestige. It really drove the community in a lot of ways, in regards to trading.

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East Commons tunnel was a huge component of the early community in Everquest (at least that was the barter zone on Bertox and later Terris).

Of course, at that point in the game, there weren't any No Drop items in the game (wasn't even Lore tags to start, nor the "required level" tags), so anything found could be sold to others, which of course spawned the whole "Need/Greed" arguments.

Even after No Drop was introduced, it was heavily restricted to the hardest areas only, such as PoFear and PoHate.

Ladas, I totally forgot about you being on Bert.

This could be interesting. Hrm, another game I'll have to follow.

Yeah, started there, but left with Dark Brethren when Terris opened. We changed names to Clan Ta Veren (same guild) during Velious and are still around, though we went from Terris to Prexus with a merger, and now to Rathe with a merger.

Heh, I was on Prexus for a time. Was in Unity. One of my good friends played Trextal in CTV.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I'm probably the only one who really LIKED Luclin :\

I even put Crimmy through the Vah Shir citizenship quests

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I enjoyed Luclin as well. The zones were very fun and unique. As most would agree with, the AA system was one of the better additions made to the game. Sure, it introduced a side of the EQ story that made it less believable, but it was still fun.

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Trextal was a pretty good bard, if I recall the class properly, and I'm 99% sure we exchanged some tells or did some group stuff on Prexus when you still played.

Yeh. It would have been around the time when I was back playing before TSS, (that caused me to quit again) and after Unity had played with OMM for a bit. I remember bats. And spiders. I think Mistmoore was involved too. Its hazy.

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Holy shitsnacks!

There were NO DROP items from the start, but they were rare. The Obsidian Bladed Flamberge comes to mind. I played on Rallos Zek the first year, and that NO DROP stuff was sought after even if it sucked because it couldn't be looted off your corpse. They eventually changed it to no looting of primary or offhand items (and containers were always no loot) so melees couldn't get screwed but not before I took a Mino Axe off someone that attacked me!

I miss the EC tunnel trading; we had that and GFay both as trade zones.

I'd like to see a lot of what Roophus talks about in terms of gear; a nice balance of getting your own and buying or trading for it.

I think a lot of the newer innovations in handling loot, especially the concept of soulbound/NO DROP after equipping has its place but its overused, and its overused because there's too much gear and there has to be a gear sink. I'm really hoping for a nice blend of old and new. I don't want to go back to endless loot debates in guild, and complicated loot policies, but I would like to see items actually be significant.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I was on Veeshan, and while there was some trading in the EC tunnel, the majority of our server trading happened in North Freeport.. with the evils hiding out in the tunnels..

You're not the only one. The Luclin models were a God-send. Seeing the old models is vomit-inducing at this point.

Anyway, I think that (besides the sheer time sink in almost everything involved in EQ1), my biggest gripe was how there we so few "safe" areas. Like the Midgen's comment about having to hide in tunnels, just to trade. If I want to go AFK, but not log out, there were scant few places.

There were lots of fairly safe places. Just not necessarily in every zone, and not necessarily universally safe for every player. I didn't have a problem with that, actually.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Well, faction played into it, too I suppose.

Like hanging around druid rings, if you were KoS to Tunare. Just way too much micro-managing of everything in order to play non-harassed. Accessibility/playability is one big pluses of modern MMOs.