The Glade 4.0

That's funny. I consider the simplistic (or absent) faction systems that I generally have found in modern MMOs to be a negative. I liked having complex relationships between the different factions, especially when they weren't outright good/evil political oppositions, or declared "right" and "wrong" by the quality of quest support or the like.

_________________
"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

I'd like to see a more complex faction sysem, ans especially one that avoids "farming" faction regularly. Maybe something where faction tends to fall back towards neutral over time if you don't maintain it, but with limits to how much love or hate you lose. It'd have to be based on time online, not time you were logged out, and I'd really like to see a lot moe effect per kill, with it maybe tied to the presence of witnesses. I also wouldn't mind seeing some sort of "point of no return" with factions. One thing I REALLY hated in Velious (actually the only thing I ahted in Velious) was people working up one faction to raid one set of mobs then farming the **** out of the other one to do the other set of raids. It was really absurd that enough wanton slaughter of one side meant your wanton slaughter of the other was forgiven.

Another thing that would be cool is tying the effect of witnesses to their own faction. If I see Roophus kill a Freeport guard and I'm only "suspicious" faction to them, that might result in only a very minor change to his faction since they don't believe me, especially if his faction is better than mine. On the other hand if he's suspicious and I'm a Major General in Freeport's army, that should give him a big hit.

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

I thought EQ1 did a nice job with Faction. It added a lot to the game.

And to clarify my disdain for Luclin. Much of the expansion was indeed a huge improvement, mainly the new graphics engine, and like I said in a previous post, my dislike of the direction with the alien world and alien beings didn't really become pronounced until some time later, when I reflected back and realized that for me, the storyline moving in that direction was just distasteful.

But to be clear, I took much advantage of those zones... the Grey, and Mons, etc...

I guess to state my specific regret more clearly, is that they didn't continue to expand in the direction of traditional high-fantasy (i.e MORE DRAGONS!!)....

In retrospect, I think they'd have been better served to raise the level cap just 5 levels at Kunark and then go 5 more levels every other or every third expansion, and do LDoN and then that Dragon expansion after Velious, and then move into Luclin and PoP. There were some good expansion concepts later on that really should have been earlier.

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

Based on my history with the EQ series, I have high hopes for a re-envisioned version of the original. I feel like EQ has the potential to bring me everything I want in an MMO. Here's why I feel that, for a few reasons anyway:

1) They popularized all of this. That's not to discredit Ultima Online or any predecessors, but EQ got this ball rolling that WoW engulfed. Since they started it, and I know I liked a lot of what they did, I know they have my interests in mind.

2) Unlike WoW, they don't need to appeal to the masses. They don't need to make the game so ridiculously accessible and simple to the point of annoyance. By being a niche MMO, granted it's a pretty huge niche when compared with some other MMO's, they can give the community exactly what they desire.

3) Even though they got off track, they still have the traditional D&D thing going for them. WoW is all over the map, in its own little world of hypocrisy in regards to storyline. At least I know EQ's re-envisioned story is likely to get more on track. After all, that's probably part of the reason they feel such a desire to redo EQ1 rather than go onto EQ3.

4) Nostalgia, which ties in with the story, is unmatchable by any other MMO. That's not to say the nostalgia for new players of WoW will feel the same way. I'm simply saying that the nostalgia of replaying the original EQ all over, through a different perspective, will be fun. The places in EQ feel like a distant world I'm very familiar with. The zones aren't just zones, but places I've been before.

5) They've already stated they want to get their old community back. I feel they need to bring the best MMO to the market to do that. If they're really serious about getting their community back, they'll make a fantastic game.

Now, here are a few reasons I'm worried:

1) WoW sets the tone for MMO's. They took what EQ did wrong and made it into the standard. They didn't incorporate everything EQ did, but they definitely took over the industry. My worry is that they'll conform to everything WoW has done, in an effort to influence new players to join.

2) I worry the community will never match what it was. I fear they'll spread their own player-base so thin by having three different MMOs that it'll fail to really establish itself as THE mmo to play. If people are still playing EQ1, it's hard to believe they'll influence them if they haven't already done that with EQ2. I can see the same thing happening to EQ2 players who have characters established.

3) Lastly, I worry they will release the game but screw up major components, essentially failing completely. MMO's are very complex games. Screwing up even one component can drive away the fans. For example, what if everything is freaking amazing, yet they have a terrible PVP system. That'd be unacceptable due to the fact that WoW has set the standard. This leads back to point 1.

_________________

I would think not appealing to the masses would be a detriment to them, actually. Keep in mind as well, they already got burned on that aspect with EQ2 vs WoW, and I doubt they are going to make that same mistake. And accessibility is a good thing. When I played EQ1 I didn't have a job and few responsibilities, allowing me to play pretty much non-stop. Now, that's not the case, so I can't play a strictly hardcore time sink MMO like the original EQ1. Not saying go all out, hand-holding, here's your loot/levels, but don't make it like EQ1 was.



Yeah, this will be neat to see.



I hope so. While I think many people simply gloss over EQ2 unfairly, I have a feeling bringing back the original will go a long way in people's minds.



I can almost guarantee you this will happen in some shape or form. Like I said above, they've been burned once, and I doubt they will want to be again.



This is one big reason I couldn't get into another MMO -- I was already established in EQ2. That said, if people start getting wind that EQ1 is coming back in a new way, they may take a departure from their comfort zone to check it out.



People are, sadly, blinded by WoW. But yeah I agree with your above point. SoE at this point has two chances left with the MMO community -- the first being how the Velious expansion turns out for EQ2 (several are already saying this upcoming expansion will make or break EQ2); second being EQ Next. If they drop the ball on those, they may as well pack it up. The modern MMO market is (unfortunately) very unforgiving. Stupid WoW . . .

I think they're going to ahve to compete with WoW at least on some level just to make the venture actually happen financially. There are aspects of WoW that are good too, such as the general proportion of number of abilities per class compared to EQ2 where you almost have more than you can use, or EQ1 where you had not nearly enough. WoW does a great many things right. Accessibility is a good thing; in the case of WoW it's not accessibilityitself that's the issue; it's the abrupt halt at max level with no more gains to make outside of gear, which is exacerbated by the speed you get to 80 at. I'd like to see that race toned down, but I also think they need to avoid some of the struggling you had to go through to get anywhere in EQ1.

This feeds back to the gear thing; I don't want them to go all the way back. In EQ1 you had slow levelling, combined with appallingly bad gear until you got to level 20 at which point you could expect to start seeing gear that was merely inadequate, which was especially bad if you played melee. Kunark largely fixed that; it had the gear that should have been in at launch. I'd like to see a slower pace of advancement, but not glacial, and I'd like to see adequate amounts of gear, not the dearth of early EQ1 or the flood of WoW and EQ2.

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

Gameplay wise, this is the only thing wrong with World of Warcraft. If they had some sort of advancement that didn't require getting better gear, mechanically, it would be the greated MMO of all time. But, once you hit max level in WoW, you basically sit around finger **** your ******* until raid time to hopefully get a piece of loot of gigantic loot tables, only to find out druid loot dropped and you only have one druid and he is feral, not balance. Then you're back to finger **** your ******* waiting until next week when the raids reset.

How the **** WoW has lasted this long with this kind of design is beyond me. What is even more beyond me is why the **** did I play it for 5 years when raiding bored me to tears.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I'd say that speaks to a larger issue in WoW, and that's the fact that spec is so overwhelming. The problem is that while every class can be DPS, only 4 of them can be tanks, and 4 can be healers, and of those, 2 can be both tanks AND healers as well as DPS and one of the tanking classes sucks (or at least is perceived as sucking; don't want to go off on a tangent about the merits of DK tanks).

That means that, of 10 classes, 4 have 1 role, 4 have 2 rolls and 2 have 3 rolls, but one of those rolls is shared by ALL TEN classes. What this in turn means is that some classes need loot appropriate to their armor type and weapon selection for 3 different roles, some for 2, and some for only one. This means some classes need far mre loot drops than others, especially when you consider dual-spec, since for the classes with more than 1 role they can have 2 totally different PvE specs with different roles, while with one spec there's not a lot of point in different gear for PvE DPS, and if that offspec is PvP you're going to just buy PvP gear for it.

Of course, if you had 18 classes with 1 viable roll each instead of 10 you'd have the same thing going on, it just would be class-specific not spec-specific. This, however, goes back to why I'd like to see more drops per raid, but with less of a gap between raid gear and high end group gear - doing a raid once a week with 1 or 2 drops which each have a 1-in-18 or so chance of pertaining to your class really does suck. It also is a little jarring to me that a huge dagon's treasure consists of like 50 gold pieces tops, and 1 or 2 magic items. WTF kind of hoard is that? That goes back to wanting cash loot to be able to buy good gear (and I'd like to see that in the form of vendors that had a few items; like 10-12 at any time across a range of prices, and would change an item over when one was bought); if a raid is going to be a weekly event, you should get something out of it every week, even if its cash and EXP. If it's not an item, you should get a good chunk of change.

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

I agree with you DE. I'd really like to get away from spec-based raid loots. The fact that classes can transform back and forth to different specs kind of ruins it for me to begin with. I want developed characters to be highly unique, not highly chameleon-like. Isn't that the point of character development?

I'd love to see cash loot a LOT higher than it currently is. It'd reward those people for coming out to help on the raid. Unfortunately, as it stands right now in WoW, it wouldn't even really matter; gold has always been practically pointless in WoW outside of repairs, tradeskills, and a few other things.

_________________

To me, WoW was just too "fast paced". From leveling, to each individual combat.

Non-named mobs died within a combat round, usually.

Compare that to EQ, where I can spend 5-15 minutes on one mob solo.

The reaction time requirements are slower, which makes it more forgiving to older computers/connections- you simply couldn't do top end Feral DPS with anything short of a great computer and no lag.

I also don't like the hugely quest driven nature of the new games, or how "awesome" of loot you get so young. Maybe a few pieces to whet the appetite, but by and large I liked the EQ system of loot coming in slowly, at least until higher levels.

WoW is in many ways so popular because it's imo more reminiscent of the "twitch" based FPS games that are popular.

EQ, on the other hand, and even EQ2 are slower, more paced games that require planning more than unbelievably fast button mashing.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I don't mind different specs in and of themselves; it's more the degree of change that bothers me combined with the fact that 2 classes do all roles, but 4 classes do only 1, and that role they share with everyone. That affects a lot of game dynamics, including loot, the availability of healers and tanks, etc. I like it from the standpoint that with many classes, you can level one toon and try out 2 or 3 roles, or you can have a spec for PVP.



That's the thing, it doesn't need to be. They really don't need emblems or badges and all that jazz; they could just sell all this stuff for large amounts of gold instead of just making it a medium of exchange for players. Then you also wouldn't need cash sinks like repairs to keep inflation under control.

EQ2 started going down the alternate currency road, and it sucks. Void shards were bad enough but at least they made sense in that they were an actual component in making gear through tradeskills. The marks in the new expansion just make me wonder why cash isn't good enough for the damn Erudites.

Part of the reason I'd like to see a shift to vendors for loot plus weaker but more plentiful raid gear is to head off the guild drama of EQ1. There were just too many people with poor interpersonal and leadership skills who just could not understand why other people weren't totally fine with raiding endlessly and getting practically nothing.

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

Yup, Nephyr. I miss longer fights as a matter of course. Give me one combat where there's time for swings back and forth and tension to build over whether you've got things under control or not over 40 second fights that are a simple race of HP bars while you glue your eyes to dozens of cooldowns so you can mash buttons in the proper perfectly efficient sequence, and then 20 seconds of downtime, and then on to the next routine "encounter." I liked in EQ that spell application was as much about when to cast as what to cast (and that when wasn't by default "as soon as it's available"). But then, I suppose I'm a weirdo who loved Pirates of the Burning Sea with its 30-45 second cannon reload rates and 15 minute fights where you replaced whack-a-mole with planning and judging your tactical maneuvering.

I definitely liked the EQ system just prior to Kunark, where relatively unimpressive trade loot was valued for low to mid levels. Banded was cool, despite not having any little + signs on it. The whole thing where a level 3 adventurer is getting magical, ability-enhancing gear for delivering a package? Really makes "magical" stuff pretty damn mundane, if you ask me. They give that out to the newspaper delivery kid for a day's work.

I miss having a "less is more" approach to combat abilities, and really kind of liked the tactical considerations involved in picking your 8 readied spells. I think I'd take a slower paced, but reactive and interactive combat system (I really liked the "triggered" abilities that DAoC tried to introduce, but I feel they were implemented somewhat too twitchy to really shine for the masses). I think Vanguard started to think about exploring this more, with reactions, counterspells, and interrupts, but then chickened out in beta without really pursuing it.

For all the flaws in Cryptic's latest endeavors (Champions defines whack-a-mole and homogenization, for instance), both Champions and Star Trek Online have provided a very satisfying return to streamlining the interface and slash and burning the six hotbar setups I always see when I see screenshots of WoW and EQ2...

As far as roles go, I like that there are secondary roles. But they should be secondary. Good enough that if you've got help, you can manage standard encounters without a primary of that role (say, Paladin and Druid can function in lieu of a Cleric or what have you), but requiring you to be on the ball to do so (and maybe a secondary set of gear). I have to admit, it was kind of fun having resist gear, or throwing on a different helm and breastplate to tank, or whatever. And I liked the notion of melees carrying more than one weapon (set) and choosing the applicable one in different circumstances. But I agree, having gross disparities in the versatility of roles between classes, or too much specialization in gear statting (I like the idea of having lots of variety in generalized gear, with maybe slight emphases on strengths (so you can have AC vs. dex debates on Ranger boards, hehehe; though, hopefully, with the overall usefulness a little more balanced than EQ managed at the time) , and then a limited amount of very focussed gear for some generally specific slots (resist jewelry was a fantastic example) that caused you to make sacrifices to achieve the focus on the side) definitely strays from the best, most fun option.

_________________
"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

Do you think their desire to stray away from strictly gold rewards has anything to do with the golf farmers? As it stands, buying gold from them really does little for you in the game of WoW other than for twinking, mounts, etc. There's no gear worth buying that isn't completely outgeared with even casual raiding...or at least that's how it was when I was playing prior to the most recent expansion. If gold alone could buy you great gear, I'm sure Blizzard would flip out with their lack of control over the situation. I see no problem with it, as currency should be what gets you things in an MMO world. I'm not saying it should buy you everything, but it should also be present for more than just repairs and buying low level gear for your alts.

As for what Kaffis brings up, I feel very similar, though I haven't had exposure to Champions, STO, DAoC, or really many other MMO's other than Eve. The length of fights actually made the game more casual to me. Things were slowed down, so I had time to take a drink of water before the fight ended. For as casual and accessible as WoW is, it actually loses some of that by being so fast paced, for me at least. I feel like I'm constantly scurrying around between quests and killing mobs every 10 seconds. It feels like even more of a grind than EQ1 at times, even though the journey is a lot shorter to 80. Again, that gets back to the quest focused gameplay that I dislike. I like quests, but it to be less important to the game than just playing the game with the community. I want quests to enhance the leveling process, not determine the leveling process.

I too miss the 8 readied spells aspect of casting. It made the game a lot of fun.

_________________

From reading these responses I'm surprised that a number of you don't like/play Final Fantasy 11 Online as the group orientation of content is the main difference between FFXI and WoW.

*shrug*

_________________
"Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes."
- George Soros

I have no desire to ever play any Final Fantasy game of any sort.

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

I've seen FF11 in action, and I wouldn't mind it. However, I'd still prefer to play EQ than FF11. You're right though, I would prefer FF11 over WoW.

_________________

FF11 has the worst control and interface of any MMO I have ever played. That's why I don't.

I agree that the abilities/weaponskill menus can be a bit too buried, that's why they offer such a copious amount of flexible macros.

EQ is definitely more medieval, footage reminds me of Oblivion as I last recall it.
To each their own, right?

_________________
"Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes."
- George Soros

I'm not faulting the game for anything other than its interface. The content is great, it had great graphics at the time, plus it was the first MMO to have cutscenes and be pretty story-driven. It gains big marks for that.

The interface is just completely unacceptable to me, even with the macros. It makes the game far too confusing and hard to pick up for a new player.

One more thing that Pirates of the Burning Seas reminded me of in regards to the pace of the fights; the slower recharge times and fewer activated abilities, coupled with the duration of the fights (and even the slower-than-common in modern MMO travel, despite it being "dangerous" in that you're always at risk of a hostile NPC engaging you if you get too near (corner cases like high level travel among the newbie areas aside; point is, no gryphons to fly or whatever)) afforded a lot more room for communication, coordination, and socialization while grouping, too.

_________________
"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

I dont think they were, actually, though it may have been pretty soon after. I distinctly remember some very very funny community complaints when LORE and NO DROP got introduced about how it broke continuity around being unable to drop or trade items.

Used to be able to loot other peoples corpses too to recover their gear for them.

Man, original EQ was *great*. I mean really amazing. It was brutal and horrible and hard but it MADE you interact, and every enemy, and every friend you made was another reason to play. It was by design. Even trying to get a bind or, eventually, a rez.

And yeah, items. They were amazing. They lasted forever. I even loved my first forged banded items, my first combine longsword, my first Electrum plated wakizashi or ebony longswords (TRAIN!), long before the ivy quests got added.

The original EQ design of interdependance between players, and forced competition for scarce resource, was genius.

The removal of those interactions from modern mmorpgs has made them less frustrating, simpler to engage in, easier, more rewarding, and ultimately, bland and uninteresting.

in my opinion ;-p

I loved EQ.

I remember grinding XP for hours in Plane of Tactics with my best friend from EQ. Tulz played a chanter, and Beebz was a druid. We'd sit for hours in that pit and pull mobs and laugh and kill stuff and GET THE PIGGY OMG!!!

Wow doesn't have that kind of relationship building really. Its rare that you're hanging out with someone for more than an hour at a time doing something. Heroics are over in 20 mins, Raids are full of fast twitch button mashing stuff that you rarely have time to talk, there's no grinding of XP as mobs have anti train/follow code so they only chase you for a hundred yards and then path back.

I loved pulling an outdoor zone as a ranger, goin out and getting mobs, bringing em back and beating the snot out of em with my friends. Wow's all about questing and being mobile and whatnot.

I dunno, I do miss EQ sometimes.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Duoing with my enchanter friend for a couple of years is some of the best gaming I've ever had. Levels 62-65 and probably my first 450 AA's came directly from us **** around in PoP, just us two. Great times.

Dangerous dungeon entrances, that's what I miss. Anyone remember Ikkinz group trials or raids? **** yeah. The Ikkinz group trials were some of the hardest and most-rewarding things I ever did with a group in EQ. Such a great feeling of accomplishment finishing one of those missions.

I never really thought about all of those difficulties of the game that way, but I completely see it now. Due to everything being so easy now, I really have little interaction with players in current MMO's. I'm just some anonymous guy doing random quests. Back then, we were forced to work together, even in the open world before the end cap. The entire game required interaction.

_________________