EQ Never

i did the VG beta and up until just about a month or so before the game was released, it was so fucking bad i hardly ever played (and neither did anyone else). it was seriously an unplayable piece of crap. although the game at release was still an "almost" unplayable piece of crap, considering where it started, it actually was a pretty huge accomplishment. unfortunately, i don't think anything was going to be able to fix the hitching problems (for all i know they may still exist).

etchazz_sl said:

i did the VG beta and up until just about a month or so before the game was released, it was so fucking bad i hardly ever played (and neither did anyone else). it was seriously an unplayable piece of crap. although the game at release was still an "almost" unplayable piece of crap, considering where it started, it actually was a pretty huge accomplishment. unfortunately, i don't think anything was going to be able to fix the hitching problems (for all i know they may still exist).

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The hitching was annoying, and there was tons of bugs, but I never thought it was unplayable. I would still be playing it today if the servers were not ghost towns. Hard to enjoy an MMO if your one of (what seems like) 12 people on the whole server. It's still a good game, just needs lot of dev love, which Sony will never give it.

Zeus_sl said:

It's still a good game, just needs lot of dev love, which Sony will never give it.

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No amount of dev love is going to bring it back. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a better game, but look at the population history of every MMO that's out there. Once it takes a precipitous drop, it never comes roaring back to the extent that it would need to in order to have even a semi-healthy population. It's simply too late for VG.

Zeus_sl said:

Haha, fair enough however the decision to "WOWify" Vanguard was not met with open arms. There was a considerable amount of anger, at least on my side as a beta player and reading the forums. The players that were there, were there for "the vision", the difficulty, the uniqueness etc...When it started to get watered down it made many people leave. Yes however, I realize it was a factor of other issues as well like the hitching etc...but I was referring in this case specifically to whoever decided to make the game easier at the last minute after telling us this was going to be more in line with original EQ then WOW.

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What is true in the rest of life is true in MMORPGs,actions speak louder than words. The changes that provided direction and activity to players DRASTICALLY increased all metrics when it came to player participation in every way, despite all of the forum chatter. The nice thing about data is that you sift it and draw some very accurate inferences. I am aware this is a bitpost hoc ergo propter hocbut I am confident that those changes were overwhelmingly positive.

They didn't change the fundamental structure of the game which was to be huge, uninstanced, and provide lots of EQ-like content (sprawly dungeons, grinding camps, etc).

It may be hard to hear this, but you are completely wrong. YOU may have not liked the improvements, but you were in the vast minority.

As for the hitching, that is actually primarily server side and can never completely go away. Vanguard was constructed on a relational database, and what happens when you cross chunk lines is that the game server governing the chunk you are coming from has to pack up all of the tables related to the character and pass that data to the game server controlling the chunk you are moving into. I use server a bit loosely here, as the chunks may or may not be on the same physical or virtual server, so the messaging has to treat packaging as if it weren't.

No matter what you do packing, sending, and unpacking all of those tables will take some time. The only way to fix it would be to literally rewrite most of the game which obviously isn't going to happen.

Now-a-days no sane developer uses a relational database for a game.

I think hitching is talking less about crossing chunk lines and more about running past an open door in Khal and freezing for 5 seconds while it compiles shaders for all the various pottery in the room you are passing.

etchazz_sl said:

i did the VG beta and up until just about a month or so before the game was released, it was so fucking bad i hardly ever played (and neither did anyone else). it was seriously an unplayable piece of crap. although the game at release was still an "almost" unplayable piece of crap, considering where it started, it actually was a pretty huge accomplishment. unfortunately, i don't think anything was going to be able to fix the hitching problems (for all i know they may still exist).

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The thing I miss most from the VG beta was the forums. It didn't matter what the discussion was or what you were pointing out. Once you got labeled as a 'faggot WoW fanboy' it was over. Pointed out a bug at one point that let you level from 3 to 20 in about 10 minutes and had a couple people go off about how they shouldn't fix every bug like that because they don't want to play a game on rails like in WoW and etc...

My favorite was the thread about how they wanted mounts to be more then 'just a buff with a graphic' and how your mount should wait for you by dungeon entrances, you should have to feed it, etc... I pointed out that armor and weapons were just buffs with graphics, why aren't they demanding that you should have to take your armor off to piss and so forth. Got a lot of shit for that one.

Worst offender goes to the "How long should a fight against a normal mob last?" poll where there wasn't even an option for anything under 2 minutes.

The Rift alpha forums came pretty close to being that bad. I made a post about how inventory was such a pain in the ass to manage and my typical complaints about mana and experience points. Basically it was a list of about 15 things I hated about WoW and wanted them to not fucking carbon copy like they were in the process of doing so. Draegan may remember it. The response by the unwashed masses? "Go back to WoW if you don't like it!"

It's just so surreal at times.

Since I'm on a nostalgic kick, you know what I miss? I miss the fucking websites from '99 and '00. Here's a post by Abashi (You remember him right?) back in 2000 telling casual players to stop fucking whining about how long it takes to form groups.

http://web.archive.org/web/200010181...p?Article=2142

I remember that. I also remember me suggesting that you should be able to mount a house any level as long as you could buy one. I won that argument

I started out gamely trying to read this entire thread, but after 20 pages with people mostly just being either nostalgic or trying to screw with each other, I've given up and will just ask:

Is there anything new about this title since December when the thread was started and they linked the article with Smed? The one where he talks about scrapping the game and restarting and kind of implies it's going to be a sandbox and break away from the current MMO mold?

It would be pretty cool to have a major studio working on a sandbox with the EQ world. For nostalgia's sake at least; in this thread someone posted a map of the EQ zones. Man, that got me remembering my Barbarian's first trip to Freeport. Those damn griffons.. I was scared shitless by the time I got to High Hold Pass...

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

Since I'm on a nostalgic kick, you know what I miss? I miss the fucking websites from '99 and '00. Here's a post by Abashi (You remember him right?) back in 2000 telling casual players to stop fucking whining about how long it takes to form groups.

http://web.archive.org/web/200010181...p?Article=2142

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I have to say, if player X plays 6-8 hours a day, and player Y plays 2-3 hours a day, then player X DOES deserve the rewards that come with that time investment. I've been both a casual player, and then later joined the top raiding guild on the server, and I can say, I worked my ass off to get in, then stay in the raiding guild. Yes, I said work, but it was both psychologically and gear rewarding. I don't believe for a minute when I'm playing all day, then raiding all night, that a player should be able to log in for a couple hours and get the same rewards that I do.
I know the discussion was regarding the time it takes to get a group, but I'm not sure I believe this either. I must have had 50 people on my friends list. If your willing to do the work, befriend clerics and chantys and play your class at a high level, forming groups shouldn't be all that difficult. And remember, I was a wizard. I spend plenty of time soloing and porting while waiting for groups. You just fill your time with other things, faction grinding, porting, working on quests, crafting(ring war quest), talking to friends.....there's plenty to do if you absolutely cannot find a group.

Draegan_sl said:

I remember that. I also remember me suggesting that you should be able to mount a house any level as long as you could buy one. I won that argument

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But that just encourages people to buy their Platinum from filthy farmers!

YOU'LL RUIN THE GAME

Zeus_sl said:

I have to say, if player X plays 6-8 hours a day, and player Y plays 2-3 hours a day, then player X DOES deserve the rewards that come with that time investment. I've been both a casual player, and then later joined the top raiding guild on the server, and I can say, I worked my ass off to get in, then stay in the raiding guild. Yes, I said work, but it was both psychologically and gear rewarding. I don't believe for a minute when I'm playing all day, then raiding all night, that a player should be able to log in for a couple hours and get the same rewards that I do.
I know the discussion was regarding the time it takes to get a group, but I'm not sure I believe this either. I must have had 50 people on my friends list. If your willing to do the work, befriend clerics and chantys and play your class at a high level, forming groups shouldn't be all that difficult. And remember, I was a wizard. I spend plenty of time soloing and porting while waiting for groups. You just fill your time with other things, faction grinding, porting, working on quests, crafting(ring war quest), talking to friends.....there's plenty to do if you absolutely cannot find a group.

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You sorta miss the point the guy is getting at. If the barrier to getting a group is 10-30 minutes across the board (travel time/finding people/whatever) then if you are unable to log in for more than 1-2 hours at a time, you are spending an abnormally high amount of time getting a group for how long you are online. Where as the guy who is on 10 hours a day has an abnormal advantage in that his getting a group time is a much smaller portion of his online time comparatively.

I don't necessarily agree with the stance, but simply having gameplay that requires reasonable advancement to take 10-30 minutes minimum to get into no matter how long you are online is a bit of a put off. It has nothing to do with the rewards, just the barrier to actually being able to access the standard progression method of the game. Lots of people had lots of people on their friend lists, but there was only so many camps available during certain hours of the day. As one of the better known puller/tank guys on the server, I had invites constantly. But it still took time to get to places to get into those groups, and the concept of taking 10-30 minutes just to get -to- a place isn't far off the reality. The complaint is valid, and if a game requires you to spend 30 minutes before you are able to actually play the game, it isn't going to do well in today's market. Again, I don't necessarily agree with the stance, but it is 100% valid.

What those people claim to want is a virtual reality that they fully immerse themselves into for 18 hours a day every day and not some sort of accessible casual puss-fest played while standing in line at Starbucks.

Because there is no in between.

Just remember, when you encounter one of those people, you are dealing with this:



They don't want to play a game. They want to LIVE in it.

Kreugen_sl said:

What those people claim to want is a virtual reality that they fully immerse themselves into for 18 hours a day every day and not some sort of accessible casual puss-fest played while standing in line at Starbucks.

Because there is no in between.

Just remember, when you encounter one of those people, you are dealing with this:

They don't want to play a game. They want to LIVE in it.

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Or when you are playing a game, more specifically, an MMO, you do want to LIVE in it. That's the point of playing a game or watching a movie. You want an escape. You want to immerse yourself in the land of Norrath in this case. We used to make jokes about open cans of spaghettiO's and empty cans of Mountain Dew laying around. That how everyone played back in the day. I also find it ironic that your insulting about 50% of the people on the site because the majority of them were 8 hour a day players at the time. And they were not loser fat white guys laying around. Most of my guild were professionals. Accountants, lawyers and software designers. So your pic doesn't reflect reality.

Zeus_sl said:

Or when you are playing a game, more specifically, an MMO, you do want to LIVE in it. That's the point of playing a game or watching a movie. You want an escape. You want to immerse yourself in the land of Norrath in this case. We used to make jokes about open cans of spaghettiO's and empty cans of Mountain Dew laying around. That how everyone played back in the day. I also find it ironic that your insulting about 50% of the people on the site because the majority of them were 8 hour a day players at the time. And they were not loser fat white guys laying around. Most of my guild were professionals. Accountants, lawyers and software designers. So your pic doesn't reflect reality.

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I was one of those 5-10 hour a day kids back in EQ. I can't pull that off all the time anymore (work, family, etc.), but if you give me a good game, I can still pull a 10 hour day on a weekend, and I don't mind putting my time in to earn stuff. I agree with the sentiment of some people in this thread that when you have to actually work at an achievement you appreciate it more.

One thing about that post above (the guy Abashi responded to) is interesting. Devs nowadays equate 5 2 hour blocks of time to a single 10 hour block. That surely wasn't the case in the old days. If you have to spend 2 hours forming a group and clearing a path to the spawn point of some named monster in order to farm something (FBSS anyone?) and then you gotta log off to take your kid to swim practice, you aren't gonna have as much chance of getting a rare spawn/drop as the guy who spends 2 hours getting to the spawn point and then farming for 8 more hours. Man you had to work for shit back then - put in time, socialize with people, etc. Was it fair to the guy who only had 2 hours? No, but should everything in life be fair?

I just hope they truly do away with xp bars. Why should I get fireball of ?berness 3 just because I killed enough gnolls? Make all skill advancement based on specific achievement. I should have to go to the tower of elven spellery to learn that spell, and only after making them want to teach me somehow. If they made all skills in the game only attainable by filling certain quested/adventured requirements, there wouldn't be a need for bear ass collecting quests or grind camps.

The same should be the case for any tradeskill. Want to be able to build castles? Better go find a job as an apprentice carpenter, who is prefably another PC. This could be mutually beneficial. Crafting with him increases his production speed, and
he rewards you with gold until you organically gain enough knowledge to move on by yourself to the next level of skill. Player interdependence blah blah.

I'd like to see character creation be only racially and cosmetically driven. Picking a class is so 1999. Everyone should start with the same basic skills. you spawn in your starting city, which should also be a critical hub of activity for more advanced players. You can explore and see what there is to do without fear of death. Maybe pick up the beginnings of a tradeskill from a PC. Maybe decide to play the market and live the merchant's life. Whatever. When I want to leave my starting city, someone should confront me with a choice of what I want to arm myself with through some mechanic... The city watch or a university or something. After this initial training, along the way you meet individuals willing to trade their knowledge for your services, and you can accept or decline. For the sake of balance, these decisions will direct you down certain general paths dictated by faction. You chose a bow, so one quest npc you encounter will teach you how to make and utilize one type of armour (banded, leather, or chain) one will teach you how to either slow enemies movement or attack speed down etc. Your choices will impact what NPCs offer you further down the road.

Non combat related skills (or what I call SOCIAL skills) should be available to anyone, provided they fulfill the in game requirements. These requirements should be extremely high, which would promote interaction between players. Bind affinity spells, resurrection spells, travel spells; it should take massive time investments to get multiple numbers of these abilities. Having to ask people for buffs, summons, teleports, rezes and other buffs was a key part of how I met people in early EQ.