EQ Never

Convo_sl said:

I'm just curious what are people limits in regards to cash shops?

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Cosmetic items: mounts (replacement for same-speed mount in game), cosmetic gear, pets (non-combat), housing items.

Shared bank slots.
Additional bag slots.
Additonal character slots per account.

XP Pots - after first 3 years or so and the pop curve is at the high-end. If EQN is succesful that maybe more than 3 years.

But as stated, I'd just like to pay $15/mth for my gold membership get all the above non-cosmetic items + 5 LON packs/month.

bayr_sl said:

Personally if EQN is about rushing to max level to get into "end game" then it has already failed for me

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It wouldnt auto-fail for me, but I'm very much hoping that way of playing is more or less pointless and just has you backtracking all the shit you skipped. Ideally, as said 10 pages ago, no levels at all.


Re items:

To be fair I can only think of GW1 or EVE (yet again) that doesnt turn into this. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting or havent played. EQ1 was that way from Velious onwards too, +gooder was the majority of change sprinkled with some clickies and focus items once they made those (in PoP? or was it Luclin).

EVE too different in to compare really but GW1 maxed your stats/items very quickly and the incentive to adventure in PVE was obtaining different skills. Getting some of them was even challenging before the expansion where you could have an army of hero npcs.

Having a ton of skill variety would work well to get people to seach out the ones they prefer. Would be a balance problem maybe, and certainly needs a limited action hotbar system. Maybe even make choice of weapon relevant beyond dps or delay. Like daggers, swords and maces play differently and you can permanently advance into better ability with any of them. That's a nice horizontal progression right there because you obivously cant use 5 different weapons at once. GW2 also does something similar but (unfortunately?) only has 5 skills per weapon and gives you all of them within 15 minutes.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Having a ton of skill variety would work well to get people to seach out the ones they prefer. Would be a balance problem maybe, and certainly needs a limited action hotbar system. Maybe even make choice of weapon relevant beyond dps or delay. Like daggers, swords and maces play differently and you can permanently advance into better ability with any of them. That's a nice horizontal progression right there because you obivously cant use 5 different weapons at once. GW2 also does something similar but (unfortunately?) only has 5 skills per weapon and gives you all of them within 15 minutes.

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as with, well, a fair number of things really, GW2 had the right idea, they just fell somewhat short on the execution. The idea of weapon-specific abilities is a good one, and is one I particularly like, thematically, for weapon-dependent classes (warriors, rogues, etc). However, rather than just giving you five weapon-based skills, and that's it, it would've been more interesting to give the player five skill slots, and let them acquire a bank of different skills for each weapon, from which you could choose five. Maybe let the player get the first five skills for each weapon essentially for free (as GW2 now does), and then send you off to do class-related tasks to learn new skills for that weapon.

I dunno if you guys have seen this video yet or not. Apparently though its some leaked EQN character models. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Pretty sure the video is obsolete. It showed up probably 2 or 3 years ago now and since then they made a WoW clone and then decided they didn't want another WoW clone so scrapped it and started another new version.

Back to xp potions and stuff (hey everyone else had a go) I dont like the idea of them because these kinds of games are competitive, most people want to be the uber high level guy strutting through town with his flashy magic gear and all the noobs go WOOOA! You get to experience the lore before anyone else, you get to be a trailblazer learning game mechanics first, being the first to experience the high level dungeons and stuff. As soon as you start having things like xp potions, it just becomes an arms race with peoples wallets vs wallets. Yeah the guy who has no job and plays all day every day is always going to be the high level guy first, but he will also be the one to never go a second without an XP boost potion, so everyone is basically forced to do the same or fall totally behind.

I liked grouping with high level people, knowing they had paid their dues. We might all be level 50 something now and heading down to Sebilis but they all grew up dealing with Crushbone trains, getting ganked by Dorn, random SG or spec attacks in oasis, etc. They persevered and slogged through the 20s and persevered even more to get through the 30s and then 40s. The level was like a badge of honour and other players knew what you had been through to get to that point.

That kind of mutual respect people had started to fade a year or two later, because ebayers started to show up, who were complete noobs with a level 50 character and barely even knew how to walk it around let alone use all the spells properly. And then there guild twinks who got power levelled 50 levels in a week or two, and pretty soon the level thing lost its shine. But while a game still has its integrity, level mattered a lot. The idea of people skipping through it using potions just cheapens that right from the get go.

I'm surprised to not see more of you stand against it. To me it goes completely against everything EQ stood for. The grind was a total pain, just the first 20 levels could take weeks. And from there it got even steeper. And the high levels were more fun because the dungeons got more interesting, so did the loot, and you had a far bigger selection of spells to play around with. But that was your reward for putting in all the hard work to reach that point. That's what EQ was all about, it was about giving you a hard time, but if you step up to the challenge then you eventually get rewarded, and being so long and so hard made the reward all the more sweet when you finally got there.

Pretty amazing what a couple of tweets will do for speculation. Say what you will about soe and smed but from a pure speculation building stand point they certainly hit their mark without even giving any information.

#we-are-sheep

I really don't get how people are ok with things like cash shop XP pots. It'd be one thing if games were designed *without* using them, and then the XP pot was simply pure bonus. The problem is that in most modern F2P games, the XP curve is specifically designed around an XP boost being active 24/7. Meaning that you start in penalty mode to begin with and the XP pot simply brings you up to baseline.

Honestly, F2P models need to be way, way more generous on subscriber options. If someone subscribes for 14.99 a month, they should get just about every F2P perk/boost/whatever imaginable included in that monthly cost. Deciding to make it so that certain key features are microtransaction-only is nothing but pure greed.

Yep, that video is old. and you say it looks cool? idk. I am not a big fan of shoulder width being 4-5x waist.



Edit: The video also reminded me of NPC weapons. I would love to see NPCs not carrying weapons if they are not going to drop weapons/using the weapon they are going to drop. That was always a rad thing about EQ. The mob would spawn with the weapon and you would be excited as hell before the mob even died.

That video is at least encouraging in so far as the animations are concerned.

I'm opposed to almost anything that is in a cash shop. Even cosmetic items bug me. I'd rather pay $20/month to be on a server with none of that mess than $0 with it.

Is cosmetic shit and XP pots (in an older game) a dealbreaker? No, but most games that go F2P suck anyway and I'm already out or on the way.

XP potions for lvls? What about XP pots for AA gains. Maybe I missed the sewing circle on this.
Seen more gain with AA than lvls. Besides, they can continue to sell XP pots for AA gains once most players hit max lvls which generally can be fairly fast with Hotzones and Double/Triple XP weekends/holidays.

If they want to have XP pots in the game, it should be a Cash shop component for Shm to add to their potion to be sold. Much like faction, skills and other items. With that, they could allow ppl to add that component into other craftable items for other limited bonuses in faction, harvesting and skill gains. This could go in the realm with tinkering charges (Buffs).
*Sense Heading gained 3 points (+2 from Amulet of Starcharting)


Hell, last time I played EQ less than 2 years ago, I would grind lvls fast till AA unlocked for my toon and then maxed all available AA's before continuing on to the next lvl or so, rinse/repeat each lvl or few lvls grinding out all AA's each time. I was becoming a monster with all the AA's I was unlocking. Lvls were just a hurdle to unlock the next AA wave.

Havent seen anyone talk about the EQ2 cash shop for armor, weapons and crafting supplies. The XP pots are nothing compared to the cash shop crafting supplies purchasables. XP pots are like having a few friends that group up for 18hrs everyday that you can join up with at any time doing AOE grinding.

But the crafting thing on the cash shop killed the Auction House for those who farmed for extra items and wanted to sell them.
-Too high in price and ppl just paid the $1 to get 10+ crate of the rare stuff!
-You are not at max lvl? Buy the crates for the armor/weapons or the crafting rare items to make or have made the best lvl armor/weapons.

Sure complain about XP pots but the crafting crates hurt more to my playing style and other crafters! Someone lvling fast doesnt really hunt anyone, just ticks some ppl off like its a cheat of some kind. Find it funny that XP pot complaint is close enough to the old school twinking debate.

Think this was mentioned before but would be funny if there are no lvls in EQN. Only AA, faction and skills.

Bellringer_sl said:

Yep, that video is old. and you say it looks cool? idk. I am not a big fan of shoulder width being 4-5x waist.

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Not old. Reposted from earlier in thread. I thought everyone had already compared these to the old videos and noted the similiarities.

That video is at least a year old.

Lack of reading comprehension.

Uploaded on Jun 13, 2013

This is from 2011.

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EQs and eq2s art direction hit its real low point in luclin and stayed shit til prolly like 2006, since then it really hasnt been terrible. I realize almost no one here played but alot of the art in like dodh and beyond was pretty damn good.

kudos_sl said:

AoW wouldn't show the Blade of Carnage but if he was slashing you knew he had it on his loot table.

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Yep. Shit like that is awesome. Have you seen what EQ has done to weapon models? blade of carnage looks like shit compared to what it used to. very sad days.

I wish they could find someone who can do art like Keith Parkinson did, like a student of his or something. The art style of Vanguard is probably my favourite looking MMO. It's like a real life watercolour or something. If you could have that style of art but with a really good engine, I'd be so happy.

Randin_sl said:

as with, well, a fair number of things really, GW2 had the right idea, they just fell somewhat short on the execution. The idea of weapon-specific abilities is a good one, and is one I particularly like, thematically, for weapon-dependent classes (warriors, rogues, etc). However, rather than just giving you five weapon-based skills, and that's it, it would've been more interesting to give the player five skill slots, and let them acquire a bank of different skills for each weapon, from which you could choose five. Maybe let the player get the first five skills for each weapon essentially for free (as GW2 now does), and then send you off to do class-related tasks to learn new skills for that weapon.

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Not sure how many here actually played GW1 but skill choices were one of the high points of that game, if you liked to experiment. Sure there was the usual cookie cutter meta going on but you could do fun shit off the beaten path too. GW2 totally dropped that in favor of a small, "balanced" skill pool per class. A step backwards imo. Your idea for weapon skills sounds spot on. as a way to expand on it.


By the way, for all those asking for a sub-only. Is optional sub just as good in your eyes, i.e. you have your always-on +50% again while subbed but some people that want to play it for free dont have that boost? Or is that as evil as xp pots? (I'm sure if it has xp boosts it will at least have the sub option, as PS2 has it).

Imo, cosmetics in the cash shop are only fine if you have enough choices through regular play to begin with AND the ongoing updates to the game continue to introduce as many free new looks as the cash shop does (Gw2 fails at the latter, most new skins are cash shop based).

I would be fine with a gold subscription that is the baseline for xp and pots that are purchaseable as one time time deals for non gold subscribers. So the baseline xp rate cannot be exceeded by using a potion therefore you could not be a gold sub and use pots to gain an advantage by going over the 100 percent xp rate. That's about the only way I could tolerate it to be honest.