EQ Never

Gaige

Gaige

Legal Ephebophile
1,912
116
Domino was a EQ2 player SOE hired to be the crafting dev. Kind of crazy to me she is a producer now, especially since she quit SOE once.
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
6,890
521
I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, but EQ2 players should be sterilized to protect the future of humanity.
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
6,890
521
Flipmode_sl said:
EQ2 was fun in the beginning. Was a pretty game for its time, claymation models aside.
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I played in the beginning. It was never worse. The senior devs bitched about having to adhere to EverQuest in any way, then shat the bed consistently until Faydwer when they began to pay homage to EverQuest. Kunark actually approached decent. Very little from EQ2's launch hasn't been dramatically altered for the better.

Of all the things I despised when EQ2 launched, having over a dozen zones for each capital city was #1 on my list. They just started fixing that a year or two ago. Loading screens are a huge buzzkill. Seamless for the win.

I'm interested in a better designed Norrath. EQ2 was a chance at that. EQNext is certainly a pivot, but it's another chance.
 
Flipmode

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,097
321
Agraza_sl said:
I played in the beginning. It was never worse. The senior devs bitched about having to adhere to EverQuest in any way, then shat the bed consistently until Faydwer when they began to pay homage to EverQuest. Kunark actually approached decent. Very little from EQ2's launch hasn't been dramatically altered for the better.

Of all the things I despised when EQ2 launched, having over a dozen zones for each capital city was #1 on my list. They just started fixing that a year or two ago. Loading screens are a huge buzzkill. Seamless for the win.

I'm interested in a better designed Norrath. EQ2 was a chance at that. EQNext is certainly a pivot, but it's another chance.
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EQ2s death penalty was much better in the beginning. Not as harsh as EQ but not as meaningless as WoW either.

Group exp debt was also a plus and the community was a little tighter because of it. Bads got the boot if they were asses. Rep mattered more than it does now.

The world was more dangerous as most mobs were elites and not the solo shit it's infested with now. People may like to solo and they still could but it was class dependent. Like it should be. Later expansions gutted the core game and made it like WoW. That was a bad thing and the population shows this to be true. It peaked in DOF/KOS and has been in free fall ever since. They managed to not attract more players and piss off the core that they had. Just like SOE is good at doing.

I agree with you on loading. Seamless is better but the engine was crap. Processors didn't get faster like SOE banked on. They went multicore and well the engine is still crap.

Class balance was fucked but classes had roles at least. CC was actually useful on raids. Buffs were stupid. Fuck casting breeze on an entire raid every 15 minutes. Plus regen aggro was stupid for a long time. Buff stacking issues etc. DOF tried to address balance but that was the point they killed CC and put encs as a low tier buffbot/DPS. My coercer and illy could do nice dps in the right setup though.

All this is of course just my opinion. The class balance dev was Lyndro at the time and he was a big idiot. Wouldn't listen at all. But again, par for the course at SOE.
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
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Why should soloing be class dependent? Harsh death penalties make players too risk-averse. Most groups sat in safe high traffic areas because the trade-off was bad. The best dungeon in the game, Solusek's Eye, was virtually uninhabited while Permafrost was crowded because it was much easier in every respect. The population peaked right before the masses realized WoW was a superior game, big surprise. Later expansions "gutted the core game"...yet Faydwer, Kunark, and Velious are well liked.
 
D

Dumar_sl

shitlord
3,712
4
That video is an example of why social media sucks. I don't need or want a dev in a cocktail dress explaining to me her and SOE's design philosophy. I don't care about their design philosophy, even if it's good (which it isn't). I need her locked in a room with mountain dew cases and a few neckbeards that actually know real MMO/RPG game design, not casual social microtransactional revenue incubators passing-as-games design.

They need to focus on making a real fucking game, not tweeting their inane bullshit about how great their game will be, when likely it'll be the opposite.
 
Flipmode

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,097
321
Agraza_sl said:
Why should soloing be class dependent? Harsh death penalties make players too risk-averse. Most groups sat in safe high traffic areas because the trade-off was bad. The best dungeon in the game, Solusek's Eye, was virtually uninhabited while Permafrost was crowded because it was much easier in every respect. The population peaked right before the masses realized WoW was a superior game, big surprise. Later expansions "gutted the core game"...yet Faydwer, Kunark, and Velious are well liked.
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Class balance? Shouldn't be able to heal, dps, and tank well on one class. There have to be trade offs. And there were. Idk what server you were on but we lived in Solusek's eye. Risk vs reward. The exact opposite of the WoW mentality. I know that's hard to grasp but it made the game more worthwhile, IMO.

The only people who like the expansions you listed are those that pine for WoW. Most of the core players from day 1 hated that shit. Fiercely. Read EQFlames and enjoy the laughs. Watch the devs being ran off after taking offense to being called to the carpet.

Again EQ2 population peaked during KOS. Well after WoW was out and the leader. After those expansions you mention, the bleeding started. That point isn't even debatable. So what do you do with a game that's dying and built on class interdependence? Make it easy and make sure everyone can do everything since you're bleeding subs.
 
Agraza

Agraza

Registered Hutt
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521
If they were pining for WoW they'd be playing WoW. You're pulling the same "no true scotsman" purity test nonsense as Dumar with this vague real/core gamer tripe. It's not a binary decision. These are very complex games, and plenty of people in EQ2 are "real" gamers (how is one disqualified?) and prefer Kunark to DoF. There have also been a lot of games released between now and then to bleed people off into the ever diversifying complexity of the MMO medium. You're choosing the causes for these effects to suit your argument. Cart before horse.

 
Flipmode

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,097
321
Agraza_sl said:
If they were pining for WoW they'd be playing WoW. You're pulling the same "no true scotsman" purity test nonsense as Dumar with this vague real/core gamer tripe. It's not a binary decision. These are very complex games, and plenty of people in EQ2 are "real" gamers (how is one disqualified?) and prefer Kunark to DoF. There have also been a lot of games released between now and then to bleed people off into the ever diversifying complexity of the MMO medium. You're choosing the causes for these effects to suit your argument. Cart before horse.

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I don't see how it's putting the cart before the horse. It's cause and effect. They change things that most players didn't want fixed, players leave because of the changes. It's pretty simple. Like blizzard, SOE has their fanboys who would eat any shit they shovel and ask for more. They are real players too. They just weren't who the core of EQ2 was tailored to in the beginning. SOE decided to change their core game to tailor to the other crowd that WoW caters to hoping for bigger success. We see how that turned out. Again, cause and effect.

But this is the EQ Next thread so we can discuss this further in the EQ2 thread if you like. I don't wanna shit this one up.
 
Miele

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
Flipmode_sl said:
I don't see how it's putting the cart before the horse. It's cause and effect. They change things that most players didn't want fixed, players leave because of the changes. It's pretty simple. Like blizzard, SOE has their fanboys who would eat any shit they shovel and ask for more. They are real players too. They just weren't who the core of EQ2 was tailored to in the beginning. SOE decided to change their core game to tailor to the other crowd that WoW caters to hoping for bigger success. We see how that turned out. Again, cause and effect.

But this is the EQ Next thread so we can discuss this further in the EQ2 thread if you like. I don't wanna shit this one up.
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EQ, EQ2, EQN all come from the same people, so discussing aspects of one or another in my opinion is pertinent and relevant in this thread.
EQ2 was an awesome game for me at release: despite the obvious bugs it allowed for dungeon explorations (fuckton of them already in the first twenty levels), social grouping, meaning you'd team up for let's say armor quests in the teens and stay grouped a couple hours to complete them over several zones and good role design. The flaws are there to see, I won't hide them: bloated hotbars, too many classes (well, they were actually 12 duplicated for flavour with minor differences), etc. etc.

Up to and including Faydwer, EQ2 was my favourite game for several reasons: the first I had *meaningful* stuff to do at level cap even without raiding, I had very beatiful and challenging dungeons (arguably the best in the genre for design and complexity), early on crafting interdependance which I loved, housing was well done and interesting enough to spend a few hours on it, guild experience, heritage quests, epic quests and so on and so forth.

I played a conjurer (and later on a fury) and I remember fondly the time spent in groups of all sizes doing quests all over Nektulos forest, Thundering Steppes etc. and that was already before level 30. EQ2 levelling wasn't that fast at launch, so most players had plenty of time to enjoy everything offered, then came mentoring and it was a blast even for alts.

Unfortunately what started in Faydwer, became the norm in Kunark: overland littered with solo mobs.
 
Heallun

Heallun

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,100
1,073
Miele_sl said:
EQ, EQ2, EQN all come from the same people, so discussing aspects of one or another in my opinion is pertinent and relevant in this thread.
EQ2 was an awesome game for me at release: despite the obvious bugs it allowed for dungeon explorations (fuckton of them already in the first twenty levels), social grouping, meaning you'd team up for let's say armor quests in the teens and stay grouped a couple hours to complete them over several zones and good role design. The flaws are there to see, I won't hide them: bloated hotbars, too many classes (well, they were actually 12 duplicated for flavour with minor differences), etc. etc.

Up to and including Faydwer, EQ2 was my favourite game for several reasons: the first I had *meaningful* stuff to do at level cap even without raiding, I had very beatiful and challenging dungeons (arguably the best in the genre for design and complexity), early on crafting interdependance which I loved, housing was well done and interesting enough to spend a few hours on it, guild experience, heritage quests, epic quests and so on and so forth.

I played a conjurer (and later on a fury) and I remember fondly the time spent in groups of all sizes doing quests all over Nektulos forest, Thundering Steppes etc. and that was already before level 30. EQ2 levelling wasn't that fast at launch, so most players had plenty of time to enjoy everything offered, then came mentoring and it was a blast even for alts.

Unfortunately what started in Faydwer, became the norm in Kunark: overland littered with solo mobs.
Click to expand...
So much this! EQ2 wasn't a bad game at launch really. I wasn't a huge fan of having a quest log in general, but I can't seem to find a game for that period
tongue.png
 
shabushabu

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,410
186
Agraza_sl said:
I played in the beginning. It was never worse. The senior devs bitched about having to adhere to EverQuest in any way, then shat the bed consistently until Faydwer when they began to pay homage to EverQuest. Kunark actually approached decent. Very little from EQ2's launch hasn't been dramatically altered for the better.

Of all the things I despised when EQ2 launched, having over a dozen zones for each capital city was #1 on my list. They just started fixing that a year or two ago. Loading screens are a huge buzzkill. Seamless for the win.

I'm interested in a better designed Norrath. EQ2 was a chance at that. EQNext is certainly a pivot, but it's another chance.
Click to expand...
I have been playing lately and it's OK but mercs + aa really made the game so easy it's pretty boring. I am soloing w/merc heroic mobs 8 levels above me. The stat change they made was lame as shit and really dumbed the game down and so much. My only hope is doing old school raids solo or with a couple friends.
 
sakkath

sakkath

Trakanon Raider
1,856
1,148
Miele_sl said:
EQ, EQ2, EQN all come from the same people, so discussing aspects of one or another in my opinion is pertinent and relevant in this thread.
EQ2 was an awesome game for me at release: despite the obvious bugs it allowed for dungeon explorations (fuckton of them already in the first twenty levels), social grouping, meaning you'd team up for let's say armor quests in the teens and stay grouped a couple hours to complete them over several zones and good role design. The flaws are there to see, I won't hide them: bloated hotbars, too many classes (well, they were actually 12 duplicated for flavour with minor differences), etc. etc.

Up to and including Faydwer, EQ2 was my favourite game for several reasons: the first I had *meaningful* stuff to do at level cap even without raiding, I had very beatiful and challenging dungeons (arguably the best in the genre for design and complexity), early on crafting interdependance which I loved, housing was well done and interesting enough to spend a few hours on it, guild experience, heritage quests, epic quests and so on and so forth.

I played a conjurer (and later on a fury) and I remember fondly the time spent in groups of all sizes doing quests all over Nektulos forest, Thundering Steppes etc. and that was already before level 30. EQ2 levelling wasn't that fast at launch, so most players had plenty of time to enjoy everything offered, then came mentoring and it was a blast even for alts.

Unfortunately what started in Faydwer, became the norm in Kunark: overland littered with solo mobs.
Click to expand...
I agree with pretty much the whole sentiment of your post. Crafting interdependence was good. Shared XP debt was good. Most content being group content was good. I liked all of the gating (access quests), heritage quests.. All of these things served to build and foster a community. Forced grouping and forced reliance on other players is good. People who want to solo to the level cap should really play skyrim imo.

But the overland littered with solo mobs started way before faydwer. They nerfed almost all of the overland zones before DoF even came out. I remember fondly how dangerous it was moving around in Nektulos with the flying piranahs, and the owlbears hiding behind every tree.. Wandering Zek and being deathly afraid of those random orc patrols coming out of nowhere.. They removed the danger from all of the outside zones and turned them into the boring solo areas they are now.
 
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