EQ Never

supertouch_sl said:

Off-topic, but how did you hear about EQ?

A high school classmate who was also a member of my UO guild somehow found out about it before it hit beta and we ended up "signing up" on our guild web site for certain race/class combos, some of which weren't even available. I remember being really excited because I couldn't visualize a 3d MMO.

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Played The Realm before EQ. Someone mentioned the game in general chat or something and I looked it up. Was blown away and got a full time job that summer to buy a computer that had a 3dfx card. Started in Sept 99.

3dfx... hell yeah. I remember saving all my money for babysitting my sister over the summer to buy a Voodoo 3 2000. Still one of the best cards I ever bought. I wasn't able to play EQ1 (13, parents wouldn't let me spend $15/month on their credit card), but I had a friend that played. We talked a bit when he first started, and then I never saw the kid again. He assimilated straight into the game and never came back.

Jais_sl said:

Was in Best Buy with my Mother, and knew I was walking out with some game. In a rush I picked EQ not knowing shit about online gaming or even the format. I remade my same character like 4x times before I realized what servers were. Before I knew it I was a lvl 19 Warrior in Crushbone with 0 taunt skill.

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HAHA that was pretty much me when I first got eq. My best friend was moving to florida and we had done muds and heard about eq which sounded like a mud but with actual graphics so we figured what the hell we would give it a try. Bought it went home and played the hell out of it. Logged back on and could not find my character did this like 4 times before we realized what the heck the server listing was for.

velk_sl said:

Two of my friends are twins, and they played the same character/account in EQ for years ( could only afford 1 computer/sub ). I have no idea how they managed to do that without going completely crazy.

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i have an identical twin brother, but we never shared the same character/account. i played a wizard and he was a cleric. he joined the marines right after college so he never got to play that much, so i wound up leveling up his cleric so i could have a cleric alt whenever i wanted. worked out pretty well.

bixxby_sl said:

Played The Realm before EQ. Someone mentioned the game in general chat or something and I looked it up. Was blown away and got a full time job that summer to buy a computer that had a 3dfx card. Started in Sept 99.

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The Realm was bad ass.

Grim1_sl said:

Being able to see everything kills the mystery. Being stuck in one corner for eight hours is a bit much, but that doesn't mean that every player should beentitledto see and do everything in a game. And especially not on cruise control.

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The 'entitled to see content' argument is a fun one because where do you draw the line and for whom? I'm pretty sure most developers want you to see everything and as an enthusiast I want people to see it all too. During PoP in EQ I got sick of so many people not getting to enjoy the same shit we formed an open raiding organization. After every raid I would get dozens if not hundreds of tells thanking me and our team because otherwise they never would have gotten to see Bertox or Mith Marr. They were stuck in their little corner of BoT or whatever and could never leave. I agree on principal that you should always have something to work for but it's frustrating to play a game you -can't- finish because of some arbitrary constraint outside of your control. Even if I have 10 minutes a day I can eventually see all of Skyrim or Darksiders or whatever. In an MMO?

As Kreugen said, fuck having to play on a schedule.

Anyways...

Now hear me out on this one but how is Auchenai Crypts (that shitty map above) any different then being stuck doing Frenzy camp in Lguk? I mean let's be honest during their heydaynobodycrawled all of Lguk. If you broke LGuk up into the camps we did it would look as shitty as the WoW map does. I don't want to get into an instancing/non-instancing debate so I'll just end by saying that while I appreciate the complexity of early EQ dungeons, they were never really utilized to their full potential for a variety of reasons.

Almost ironically once they did get around to instancing zones in EverQuest so you could crawl they ended up turning into little shit 3 chambers with bosses and a hallway connecting them anyways.

Zehn, I see your point, but I also know there were a lot of players who would pride themselves in knowing their way around Blackburrow perfectly. I was in awe when a friend took me into BB and managed to find every nook and crannie without a problem. I had a hard time learning BB(did not come there much in the beginning), but I was an expert myself in the Qeynos Aquaducts. I just happened to like that zone a lot, so I finally learned my way around. That was a good feeling. I go there from time to time and can still walk straight to where Cuburt spawns, or where you enter the SK guild area.

Even notorious campers that hardly moved probably learned the dungeon layout after a while. Devs may have wanted to see more true crawling, but a complex dungeon still offers a lot more then the simplified layouts we see today, imo.

Also, getting your Goblin faction up high enough so that you can order a beer in the Goblin bar at the bottom of Runnyeye is just awesome. Little twists like that are fun. Off course EQ is not the only game that had cool dungeons. But it certainly is getting simpler these days.

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

Now hear me out on this one but how is Auchenai Crypts (that shitty map above) any different then being stuck doing Frenzy camp in Lguk? I mean let's be honest during their heydaynobodycrawled all of Lguk. If you broke LGuk up into the camps we did it would look as shitty as the WoW map does. I don't want to get into an instancing/non-instancing debate so I'll just end by saying that while I appreciate the complexity of early EQ dungeons, they were never really utilized to their full potential for a variety of reasons.

.

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I think its the same reason why being around naked people for a while quickly becomes blas?.

Its our minds filling in the blanks that makes things interesting... why is staring at a corner in PoH more exciting than an instance where you can see everything? Fuck if I know.. Brains are weird.

Grim1_sl said:

Being able to see everything kills the mystery. Being stuck in one corner for eight hours is a bit much, but that doesn't mean that every player should beentitledto see and do everything in a game. And especially not on cruise control.

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If you wanted to see the game so badly, roll up a monk or SK and pull. Or just be a puller and scouter as a shaman like I used to do. I crawled dungeons in EQ. I was also the 2nd person to get ragebringer on E marr. Of course I did not have a huge raid group to get the part from hate, so I zoned in solo to an unbroken hate and snuck my way there and stole the book off Inny's nightstand. To this day after over a decade I still remember the feeling of sneaking past see invis mobs through the mechanics of the game. (distract)
)

Treesong_sl said:

Zehn, I see your point, but I also know there were a lot of players who would pride themselves in knowing their way around Blackburrow perfectly. I was in awe when a friend took me into BB and managed to find every nook and crannie without a problem. I had a hard time learning BB(did not come there much in the beginning), but I was an expert myself in the Qeynos Aquaducts. I just happened to like that zone a lot, so I finally learned my way around. That was a good feeling. I go there from time to time and can still walk straight to where Cuburt spawns, or where you enter the SK guild area.

Even notorious campers that hardly moved probably learned the dungeon layout after a while. Devs may have wanted to see more true crawling, but a complex dungeon still offers a lot more then the simplified layouts we see today, imo.

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Vanguard managed to make me both camp and crawl from the get go simply by offering quest objectives for the last boss and the deeper mobs. After those were done we went back to killing spawns til the next dungeons so it was a good compromise. Really a good set up.

A game in which you can log on for 10 minutes a day and experience all the content isn't built for longevity. It's dishonest to even claim the average gamer operates like that.

on the OT: how did you start?

I was a BBS LoTRD player- then I got into The Realm (I agree, it was badass!) and a friend at school learned of EQ and told the core of nerds that we where- he got the strat guide before release and we read up on everything we could - he got the book taken at school (a religious school mind you) and once they got to the necromancer page off to the office we all where summoned... to explain that we are not of some cult and IT WAS A GAME OMG...

anywho - I knew I was going to be a SK from day one, was- and still am. One of my brothers friends at church was in beta and we talked- eventually some of the "cool kids" at school started playing eq - at the highest point there where about 14 of us playing EQ at school throughout many grade levels.

Everyone did something different- it was interesting... three or four of us where just players- mid tier guilds etc, one somehow got himself into Circle of Eternity but was never max level nor raided he was a socialite so he talked his way in- another was part of a FoH splinter guild that the -iaes started Dark Fury (Bashiae etc etc) another was a tradeskill person and a brother pair where dupers/sploiters etc and made about 18k USD$ in plat off of ebay in late vel or early luclin. And another was a dude that played a female wood elf and cybered people for fun etc.

Lets see if I can name them all... we where on veeshan so its always fun to throw names out

Xadion
Kaltion
Marrji
Drakhon
Coltrain
Sdrolion
Celerando
Leianna
Thagin
Kenvain
Hiddenclaws

we met in guild and then IRL - Kysran and Tajj

Kysran is now married to Hiddenclaws

and there are more but I cant remember lol its crazy.


oh the days



On topic!

The lore change is a shock, removing some key gods etc- but I as many do look forward to seeing what exactly they do with things.

Stoybricks has always seemed quite interesting to me- the biggest complicated if/then yes/no string command ever! but still trying to get it simple and natural.

xadion_sl said:

a brother pair where dupers/sploiters etc and made about 18k USD$ in plat off of ebay in late vel or early luclin.

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My little brother bought his first car from duping and RMT from The Realm, and duping jade maces when Kunark first launched.

Big Flex_sl said:

My little brother bought his first car from duping and RMT from The Realm, and duping jade maces when Kunark first launched.

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The realm was filthy with dupes once you started getting higher level and having nothing better to do messing with the mechanics... but what a fun game

I just robbed houses.

xadion_sl said:

The realm was filthy with dupes once you started getting higher level and having nothing better to do messing with the mechanics... but what a fun game

I just robbed houses.

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PVP, House Robbing, and Pickpocketing, which led me to doing the same thing in UO.



I actually logged into The Realm a few weeks ago for shits and giggles, it was sad, maybe 75-100 people online.

Yeah, that little company that bought it should put that shit on the ipad or something, seems perfect for the format.

If I won the lotto I'd buy that shit, make it f2p, and make it tablet/phone operable. If you can play EQ1 on a droid, Realm would work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrAr9S--rsk

EQ is just being remote desktoped to the phone- it would be awesome to actually port The Realm over- who owns it now? its been sold and traded hands like 10 times. the interface is all mouse driven- it would smoothly transfer to a tablet... I am sure the company that owns it MUST have thought about it?

Im stuck at work with no one to cover for me for so that I can use the washroom for an hr and a half, someone give me something to read about this game that will really tighten my sphincter so that I dont shit my pants

Zehn - Vhex_sl said:

The 'entitled to see content' argument is a fun one because where do you draw the line and for whom? I'm pretty sure most developers want you to see everything and as an enthusiast I want people to see it all too. During PoP in EQ I got sick of so many people not getting to enjoy the same shit we formed an open raiding organization. After every raid I would get dozens if not hundreds of tells thanking me and our team because otherwise they never would have gotten to see Bertox or Mith Marr. They were stuck in their little corner of BoT or whatever and could never leave. I agree on principal that you should always have something to work for but it's frustrating to play a game you -can't- finish because of some arbitrary constraint outside of your control. Even if I have 10 minutes a day I can eventually see all of Skyrim or Darksiders or whatever. In an MMO?

As Kreugen said, fuck having to play on a schedule.

Anyways...

Now hear me out on this one but how is Auchenai Crypts (that shitty map above) any different then being stuck doing Frenzy camp in Lguk? I mean let's be honest during their heydaynobodycrawled all of Lguk. If you broke LGuk up into the camps we did it would look as shitty as the WoW map does. I don't want to get into an instancing/non-instancing debate so I'll just end by saying that while I appreciate the complexity of early EQ dungeons, they were never really utilized to their full potential for a variety of reasons.

Almost ironically once they did get around to instancing zones in EverQuest so you could crawl they ended up turning into little shit 3 chambers with bosses and a hallway connecting them anyways.

Click to expand...

I think the "entitled to see" argument can be mostly solved with making lore entirely open to everyone. Raids, and the like, should be entirely lore neutral. I mean even think about it. The ones that care most bout lore, are the casuals, or RP's NOT the hard core raiders.
WoW's design of the "zone leads up to the raid" is nice and all, but it really creates this problem. As well as expansions and advertising revolving around these lore characters, that are stuck behind raid walls.

Remove that, and it just becomes and issue of "do I have enough to keep me busy?" And smaller gaps in relative power of course.