Any good MMORPG? - Page 24

Nice to see some other EQ fans. More importantly, people that are willing to invest a lot of time into a game. What made EQ awesome for me is that it actually took a long time to progress. I've tried a ton of games since EQ (we left when EQ2 launched) but nothing compared. Admittedly, I didnt play WoW so I cant say much about it. The first time I tried it was about 2 years ago but I went by myself and solo'd my way to about 60 (I wanted to try a DK). Leveling was just too easy and the early content wasnt very engaging. The lack of knowing anyone that was actually playing it didnt help.

So much truth in that post. One point I would disagree on, however, was that the player base ran EQ into the ground - but my disagreement is only on a technicality. I think what drove it into the ground was SOE caving to the player base (which, I understand, is pretty much what you said). I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the player base does *not* know what's best for it. They (we) want everything we can get and we want it now. That's the death knell for a MMORPG. It's like the social media craze. Short-sighted game developers are thinking, "Gosh, people are all over Facebook and Twitter, so we really need to incorporate it into our game." That couldn't be farther from the truth (IMO). Design the game. Make it fun and interesting. Then stick to your guns. I couldn't give a crap what someone wants to post on Facebook about their gaming prowess.

i guess people havent heard about FFXI Pandemonium Warden : http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-xi-boss-causes-vomiting-takes-18-hours-to-beat-99391.phtml

... i still got a set to pop it , who wants some Hachiryu haramaki , i have already my haidates !! , [/please][help me out!]

hahaha well, part of what makes EQ great is this type of discussions. everyone has their own view and everyone is right personally I feel Verant/SoE ran itself into the ground w/o much help from the playerbase. in part, i can forgive them for doing so because they were in fact "defining" a genre and EVERYTHING they were doing was "new". prior to EQ, there was no "MMO" per se, ultima was as much a graphical MUD as meridian59. they were multi player, but as far as being considered "massively multiplayer"... not so much. the linage of the modern day MMO can be directly traced back to EQ, but beyond EQ, the line gets gray since EQ was the 1st to use true 1st person 3D view as opposed to a top down 3rd person view. the mechanics and the terms we are so familiar with in modern day MMO lingo such as aggro, DPS, DKP, pulling, CC, etc... all traces directly back to EQ. prior to EQ, some of the technique may have been in use, but you'd have to explain it to other people. it wasn't a commonly known "standard" lingo.

what made EQ fail is the lack of understanding as to the amount of emotional investment (as well as monetary investment) behind a "game". for the raiders, it's literally like a 2nd job. i know I've personally spent 40+ hours a week on EQ back in my raiding days and just by the sheer bulk of time that is invested, they needed to treat the nerf bat with much more care then they did. not to mention the MASSIVE amount of unfixed bugs that was involved prior to forcing you to spend additional $ for expansions.... some serious game breaking bugs that totally renders a class useless in some aspects were never addressed. as long as people weren't gaining too much loot/exp through exploits, then the bug was not really worth addressing... some nerf bat swings simply hits too far and took years before it was dialed back even though everyone knew it was destroying a class. then there are the constant nerfs that never seem to stop. I think necros were nerfed in EVERY single patch for like the 1st 10 expansions and after that it was like every other patch no matter how patient someone is, eventually all this add up and they finally give up and say, "you are in YOUR world now". i'm going to WoW instead

EQ failed to properly address player needs in to many different levels that most players who have EVER played EQ wondered if the dev's have ever played their own game their own lack of understanding of their own game costed them the genre they helped define. if they understood or even had a much more solid understand of "The Vision(TM)" and communicated that in much more solid terms with the players, then i'm sure the hardcore raiders wouldn't have cast that mass exodus spell in prime raid years.... now that EQ has lost critical mass, they no longer have the ability to compete even with the single niche advantage (raid content) they have over all other MMO's. it's just dying slowly and become an example of how NOT to make an MMO. even tho it could have retained its dominance had they been less greedy and paid more attention to what the players are saying (not the whiners but people who are actually affected by imbalances and bugs)

so, i suppose what i feel is that EQ failed due to their arrogance and their failure to communicate (and stick with) the very basic foundations of what the game was based on when it succeeded. class abilities are so diluted now that practically every class has the ability to do something that was once exclusive to some other class back when the game was fun... the game is simply "not fun" anymore...

True, to some extent. Personally, I felt far too many players spent way too much time looking at their own class relative to other classes, rather than simply based on how well they enjoyed playing it. That's the main reason I feel PvP is the bane of the MMORPG. You couldn't swing a dead orc without hitting someone that was whining about some perceived imbalance or something not being fair. If people would just stick to playing and enjoying their own class - presumably the class they chose, because they found it the most interesting - it would have solved a *lot* of problems.

Couldn't agree more. The biggest thing I felt EQ did better than *any* other MMORPG was the fact that every class was designed around its own unique concept and had its own identity. I was a hopeless alt-aholic, because I found nearly every class to be a very different experience. I can't tell you how disappointed I was, when I heard that EQ II classes were going to be based on an archetype system (tank/healer/rogue/mage). The notion, of course, was that hopefully it would prevent situations where players (believed they) couldn't defeat certain content without enough of one particular class. It seemed so obvious to me that the appropriate solution to that problem was to ensure that the game was good enough that there would be plenty of people playing, rather than diluting class designs and restructuring content.

That's just me, though. I've been gaming for nigh on 30-years, now (evidenced by my use of the term "nigh on"), and I do recognize the likelihood that I may be turning into the gaming community's version of the grumpy old dude who sits on his porch yelling at the kids to stay off his lawn. That would explain why I often feel the MMORPG genre is just going to hell in a handbasket. :insertgrumpyolddudeemoticonhere:

Jeebus, every time Everquest gets brought up more of the old guard march out of the woodwoorks.

It's a shame the EQ1 F2P model is so greedy, but I guess everyone who was paying a subscription when it began would've flipped every table in the house if SOE gave away too much after they had been paying monthly for a decade or better.

Guild Wars 2 is on sale for $48.00 at Greenmangaming.com with coupon code: GMG20-P4DLK-FKYRS
It works until Friday.

GW2 is worth purchasing, since it has no sub.

Played it like a lunatic after it was released, but quit as I didn't really like "endgame" PVE. I don't think they handled the whole "lack of trinity" well.

But anyway - still log in from time to time for some random PvP.