Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Erronius

Erronius

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Kuro_sl said:
Some Bards went to Oasis to fight Sand Giants at level 5...
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GO GO GOOD TEAM

I would never have imagined that Fansy was at least a decade ahead of his time. While I want a game where I can infuriate and troll other factions, Fansy was trolling an entire server into submission (at least twice) way back then.

Khane_sl said:
They also invented the worst fucking thing that ever happened to games. Daily quests.
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...and eventually, EQ1 ended up with Daily Tasks.

Khane_sl said:
In EQ there was no limit to how often or how fast you could do something.
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Errr...spawn timers? EQ1 ended up becoming ultra-limiting. Ultra,ULTRAlimiting. In fact one could probably argue that a large part of WOW's design philosophy was aimed at removing EQ's (late game) limitations and allowing everyone access to the same content. I mean, I know people pine for the 'old' EQ days (pre-Kunark at times? I can't even keep track) but a lot of WOW players do the same thing for vanilla WOW, and both games morphed into something much different than what they started out as.


Overall we end up comparing individual features and making arguments like "MMO #1 > MMO #2". I've done that myself. But we would probably be better served taking a few steps further back and recognizing that it's been a gradual evolution of a genre that spans almost every MMO to a greater or lesser degree. People will blame WOW for the widespread use of instancing, for example, while ignoring that EQ1 was one of the ones that started that trend in response to game/player design issues and Blizzard largely benefited from EQ's experience. But when you take individual MMOs out of the equation, it's just an industry responding to the challenges that the players themselves pose. I mean, FFS, EQ2 was in development around the same time WOW was, both embraced instancing and and EQ2 even came out slightly earlier...but I don't often hear people bitch about EQ2 and instancing, as an example.
 
Khane

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Erronius_sl said:
GO GO GOOD TEAM

I would never have imagined that Fansy was at least a decade ahead of his time. While I want a game where I can infuriate and troll other factions, Fansy was trolling an entire server into submission (at least twice) way back then.



...and eventually, EQ1 ended up with Daily Tasks.



Errr...spawn timers? EQ1 ended up becoming ultra-limiting. Ultra,ULTRAlimiting. In fact one could probably argue that a large part of WOW's design philosophy was aimed at removing EQ's (late game) limitations and allowing everyone access to the same content. I mean, I know people pine for the 'old' EQ days (pre-Kunark at times? I can't even keep track) but a lot of WOW players do the same thing for vanilla WOW, and both games morphed into something much different than what they started out as.


Overall we end up comparing individual features and making arguments like "MMO #1 > MMO #2". I've done that myself. But we would probably be better served taking a few steps further back and recognizing that it's been a gradual evolution of a genre that spans almost every MMO to a greater or lesser degree. People will blame WOW for the widespread use of instancing, for example, while ignoring that EQ1 was one of the ones that started that trend in response to game/player design issues and Blizzard largely benefited from EQ's experience. But when you take individual MMOs out of the equation, it's just an industry responding to the challenges that the players themselves pose. I mean, FFS, EQ2 was in development around the same time WOW was, both embraced instancing and and EQ2 even came out slightly earlier...but I don't often hear people bitch about EQ2 and instancing, as an example.
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You kind of said exactly what I said.
 
Khane

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I was referring to the evolution of the genre remarks and WoW taking things people didn't like about EQ and changing them. For better or worse. If you're going to argue EQ's non instanced content was limiting that's not too far fetched I guess but it was limited by other players, not the game itself.

I'm not an EQ apologist by any means, I don't want to go back to the dark ages of gaming. I was just pointing out that I don't think EQ and WoW were nearly as similar as Ut was projecting.
 
Dullahan

Dullahan

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Utnayan_sl said:
Really? Because while you could travel all over the world, you are completely lying when you say options were scattered all over the world. Zones were level locked. And were also out-levelable. You aren't going to Rathe Mountains to join a group at level 4. You are either killing spiders and snakes in East Commons/Qeynos starting areas, or maybe getting a derv camp in North Ro. You aren't going to Oasis at level 6 to fight level 14 crocs, level 32 specs, or the occasional Sand Giant. You aren't going into the Velious expansion at level 20, and you sure as hell weren't joining a Seb group at level 30.

Come on. Get off it. You are dealing with EQ veterans here...
blah blah blah
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Obviously most of the first 5-10 levels were around town, but most zones had mixed content for a variety of levels. At level 10-20 you could literally level in about 30 different zones. That continued till level cap with the highest levels having slightly fewer zones.

Comparing that aspect to WoW just makes one look like they smoked too many drugs while playing or are may be suffering the early onset of alzheimer's.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Khane_sl said:
I was referring to the evolution of the genre remarks and WoW taking things people didn't like about EQ and changing them. For better or worse. If you're going to argue EQ's non instanced content was limiting that's not too far fetched I guess but it was limited by other players, not the game itself.

I'm not an EQ apologist by any means, I don't want to go back to the dark ages of gaming. I was just pointing out that I don't think EQ and WoW were nearly as similar as Ut was projecting.
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You'll have to take that in the context it was supposed to be taken in, and that was regarding open world freedom and leveling process. In EQ you went from level ranged zone to level ranged zone, and were in that area until you out-leveled it. In WoW, you did the same thing until you were done with the quests and progressed to the next area. The only difference is in EQ you are killing mobs over and over. In WoW you are doing quests. I agree that being able to give lower level characters awesome powerful weapons was fun and one thing that was taken away with WoW. But you also have to remember it was only left in that way because of the long leveling process for any EQ character to get to max level. With that said it didn't matter much anyway because my level 1 warrior with a Ykesha and full Rubicite wasn't going to go off into permafrost and start killing Icegiants. It just meant I could kill mobs more my level, quicker. Or my group would kill mobs quicker. But that didn't help speed up the leveling process much because if I was in a group with a twinked character, in populated camps (And I forgot the exact number so I will throw out an estimate) trash XP mobs, placeholders, and named, were on 7-15 minute rotations and if you started peeling trash away from other groups they would get pissed, so there was some etiquette to have followed.

I only mentioned that because while it may have been different than WoW, it didn't mean much in the long haul. In Vanilla through Planes of Power you were not going to be killing anything 10+ levels above you even when decked out. Even with max'd 1h skills, the level difference was too great.

Now yeah, you could also buff with higher level spells, again, to reduce downtime because leveling took so long (As well as downtime to regen) I am preaching to the choir here obviously, but my response was to the "Hey you could do so many open worldy things in EQ you couldn't" and aside from a few differences as you mentioned, the progression system geared to the world itself was the same, just mechanically skinned differently.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Dullahan_sl said:
At level 10-20 you could literally level in about 30 different zones.
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Ok did you actually play Vanilla EQ? Or are you talking after about 10 expansions and you started up in 2009. And if you hadn't played at all and are looking at a zone level chart on Allakhazam, I am going to start hysterically laughing as you try to point out all the level 1-20's that went to Rathe Mountains to start kicking some ass in 1999.
 
E

etchazz

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Dullahan_sl said:
Obviously most of the first 5-10 levels were around town, but most zones had mixed content for a variety of levels. At level 10-20 you could literally level in about 30 different zones. That continued till level cap with the highest levels having slightly fewer zones.

Comparing that aspect to WoW just makes one look like they smoked too many drugs while playing or are may be suffering the early onset of alzheimer's.
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Exactly. Also, there was absolutely no way to level up in WoW unless you did the quests. Zero. You literally HAD TO go from quest hub to quest hub in order to level up. I would rather exp grind like in EQ than do an insanely amount of boring ass "take this to this person" quest chain that was WoW. And like Khane said, there were other artificial barriers that Blizzard put up that were just fucking lame, like BOP. The fact that most of the loot in EQ was tradable made for an awesome player driven economy.
 
Dullahan

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Cinge_sl said:
.....
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toxx forest
erud's crossing
kerra isle
qeynos catacombs
blackburrow
qeynos hills
west karana
surefall glade
north karana
south karana
highpass
lake rathe
runnyeye
nektulos forest
west common
east common
lavastorm
najena
upper guk
cazic thule
rathe mountains
butcherblock
unrest
steamfont
crushbone

All of those areas havesomecontent for people 10-20.

Could have gone further if we are going to count Kunark.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Dullahan_sl said:
toxx forest
erud's crossing
kerra isle
qeynos catacombs
blackburrow
qeynos hills
west karana
surefall glade
north karana
south karana
highpass
lake rathe
runnyeye
nektulos forest
west common
east common
lavastorm
najena
upper guk
cazic thule
rathe mountains
butcherblock
unrest
steamfont
crushbone

All of those areas havesomecontent for people 10-20.

Could have gone further if we are going to count Kunark.
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Now I want you to mention the zones that had actual people in them so you could group, because you aren't soloing in 80% of that. You can start after the Journeyman's boot quest piece was changed from Najena to AC in OOT/Sro (Meaning, no one ever went to Najena after that) Then take into account that 99% of us didn't solo unless we were waiting for a group. Let's be realistic here. You are looking at a piece of paper, I am talking about how it actually played out in 1999. You can have 30 zones where you can technically play. When only 5 of them are where the people are at, you have 5 when it is a group centric game. You would have a point had EQ been designed around a solo progression system. It wasn't.

Quiet everyone, I am trying to see if he can figure out this one for himself. The main teaching point is can this person distinguish between designer stupidity/marketing debate / the way it actually played out debate. Like Asia on a meth bender, only time will tell.
 
Cinge

Cinge

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etchazz_sl said:
Exactly. Also, there was absolutely no way to level up in WoW unless you did the quests. Zero. You literally HAD TO go from quest hub to quest hub in order to level up. I would rather exp grind like in EQ than do an insanely amount of boring ass "take this to this person" quest chain that was WoW. And like Khane said, there were other artificial barriers that Blizzard put up that were just fucking lame, like BOP. The fact that most of the loot in EQ was tradable made for an awesome player driven economy.
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Maybe now, but Iirc classic WoW grinding > questing in terms of exp. Maybe even farther then classic. Its funny that "take this to x" is boring but sitting in one spot killing the same mobs for hours is not boring.. I think both of those are boring, one just masks it better then the other.

Anyway it doesn't matter, people like yourself only see things through rose tinted glasses and are permanently stuck in 1999.
 
Dullahan

Dullahan

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Utnayan_sl said:
Now I want you to mention the zones that had actual people in them so you could group, because you aren't soloing in 80% of that. You can start after the Journeyman's boot quest piece was changed, taken from Najena, and the stall out on the Ancient Cyclops.
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Oh now were putting solo stipulations on a group based mmo. Sometimes you had to form groups before going somewhere, but you could group all over the place.

I also forgot Befallen.
 
Cinge

Cinge

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Dullahan_sl said:
Oh now were putting solo stipulations on a group based mmo. Sometimes you had to form groups before going somewhere, but you could group all over the place.

I also forgot Befallen.
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Now do a list for CLassic WoW, 10-20, remember you said "Some content", which means questing dungeons, grinding, trash mobs, a camp or two, group grinds etc. I bet you have more. But WoW is the devil to people like yourself.

Remember(bolded):

Dullahan_sl said:
Obviously most of the first 5-10 levels were around town, but most zones had mixed content for a variety of levels. At level 10-20 you could literally level in about 30 different zones. That continued till level cap with the highest levels having slightly fewer zones.

Comparing that aspect to WoW just makes one look like they smoked too many drugs while playing or are may be suffering the early onset of alzheimer's.
Click to expand...
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Dullahan_sl said:
Oh now were putting solo stipulations on a group based mmo. Sometimes you had to form groups before going somewhere, but you could group all over the place.

I also forgot Befallen.
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Please tell how how you could group all over the place when 60% of the zones you just listed were empty wastelands.

I may be getting close folks... Light at the end of the tunnel?

Here. Let me help by crossing out the zones you listed which were dead zones.

toxx forest - Lol really?)
erud's crossing - Dead
kerra isle - Dead
qeynos catacombs - Early newbie area for Qeynos city starters. Quickly left.
blackburrow - Good Grouping Zone
qeynos hills - Dead
west karana - Dead
surefall glade - Dead
north karana - Sporadic. Most hung out at the Aviak Spires, some solo'd the treant camp (One camp 7 minute spawn) for ONE person. A few minotaur solo folks but not many.
south karana - Dead
highpass - Good grouping area depending on faction hits.
lake rathe - 3 Aviak camps. Everything else, dead. Level 10-15? What are you smoking? 18+ minimum.
runnyeye - Dead (Save one camping spot for the Mino Axe)
nektulos forest - Started area for Dark Elves.
west common - Mostly dead - a few sporadic derv camps - Most were in North Ro where the population was
east common - Starting area for newbies after West Freeport
lavastorm - Dead
najena - Dead after the Journeyboot quest change - level 15+ not level 10-20 completely before that.
upper guk - Dead save rare spawns - Level 15-20 - Not level 10-15.
cazic thule - Good grouping Spot - wait a minute. Level 10? When did I miss the memo that level 10-20's were even in this zone.
rathe mountains - Good for HG Kills for money. Two camping spots - the HG and Troll area, the zone to Lake Rathe for Cyclops and Giant Skeletons. Level 10-20? Pass the bong please captain!
butcherblock - Same as East Freeport
unrest - Good Grouping Zone - Level 15+ outside the house, inside you were level 19+ minimum. Level 10-15 Please pass the beer you just chugged so I can inspect it for narcotics.
steamfont - Dead
crushbone - Good Grouping Spot
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Now, lets count how many zones we have left in your list of 30. 5. With 5 others being sporadic, and lots of dead zones.

Now let's compare that to the WoW leveling process and content consumption in the real world on both games.

Also, since you mentioned 10-20, I want you to mention to be whenever you saw anyone level 1-15 fighting the zones you listed.
fighting in which zones listed. This is what happens when you never played the game, or joined after 7 expansions.
 
zzeris

zzeris

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Quaid_sl said:
ITT people mistake sandbox gameplay for emergent gameplay.
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Great post. This gameplay was fantastic but not designed to be fantastic. The EQ players created was far different than the one designed by Verant. WoW was EQ fixed and that did really suck in some ways.

Etchazz- every time you post I really believe you never played a day of WoW. Literally never played and have nothing but secondhand knowledge. Every mob had experience in vanilla just like EQs mobs did. You could sit and grind mobs just like EQ if you wanted to. Also, they had early twinks just like EQ. They were mainly used in early game PVP but they were there.
 
radditsu

radditsu

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Utnayan_sl said:
Please tell how how you could group all over the place when 60% of the zones you just listed were empty wastelands.

I may be getting close folks... Light at the end of the tunnel?
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Sheep who just wanted to go through the same thing over and over. People who took time to level up originally did it all over the place, Except some of the karanas and Gorge of King Xorbb... because fuck that zone.
 
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