Why all the Emulated EQ servers if EQ is free to play?

Siddar_sl said:

Heroic's have level scaling in them like LDoN so level 85 group gets a instance with mobs scaled to level 85. Then you have mission objective variance where mission has six random objective points and each of those points have four separate potential objective choices for that point along with a few fixxed objective points that are always the same. The above goals of randomizing mission to increase replayability and most importantly level scaling to allow non high level players the ability to use newest expansions content are not something I think so will walk away from.

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This is too much bullshit. That's not why EQ was good and it never will make EQ good again. Cut the fucking fat from this bloated piece of shit.

Heroic's have level scaling in them like LDoN

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Nobody liked that fucking expansion - yet you are telling me that it's a good thing they are using ideas from it? No. Just stop.

Looking back at what killed EQ, it was PoKnowledge. That zone should have never existed in the way it does. There is no reason why a zone made so long ago is STILL the main hub for the game. What the fuck happened to sitting in various cities across the world? Now everyone sits in one hub with everything so nobody needs to travel. Great for the feel of the game I'm sure. The Bazaar? I don't even need to go on a rant about that pile of shit zone and how it ruined immersion and community.

LDoN was a shit expansion in a long list of shit expansions when it comes to EQ. Let's be honest it was the start of the end for classic EQ. It introduced instancing, it introduced vendor loot via shitty currency obtained through instancing, and it destroyed guilds AND players competing for spawns which is one of the only things that made EQ intense.

Where did I say LDoN destroyed guilds? I said it destroyed any intensity left in the game from guilds competing. Whether you enjoyed it or not you must admit that racing guilds for content WAS part of the end game in EQ. It WAS part of the game. Taking that out changes the fundamentals of the end game. Having to camp rare spawns in open zones against other players created scarcity with the good loot. Only one guy or one group was going to get that. You didn't have groups and groups of people all running the same crap over and over for their shot at it. Otherwise you get a WoW style game where everyone has the same shit and nobody cares what anyone is wearing. That's not good for building a community. People want to be awed by someone else in the game. Aradune and his stupid flaming sword are proof enough of that.

Making a new city every expansion is an enormous waste of time. One hub = players can find one another. It's the same reason why from the very beginning people wound up just gathering in Freeport or that stupid tunnel.

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No. I didn't say make a new city every expansion. I said they shouldn't have deviated from the original home cities to begin with. Big difference.

Kudos, I don't know when you ever played EQ last that you think instancing in Everquest has one fucking thing to do with camping for loot. Because the overwhelming majority of loot and experience still comes from camping rares in open zones.

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Really? How many rare open zone mobs did you camp in Dragons of Norrath? Or Depths of Darkhallow? Fuck, I think that last one even had rare drops from rare mobs IN an instance. Missions blow and so does modern EQ.

So much so that instances are mostly things that are just done one time for progression requirements and then never touched again by the majority of the population.

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How is this a good use of dev time or content?

Here's why people started to hate EQ after instancing: The game was harder.

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This is a lie. The expansions are being beat the same day they're released at this point. Last time I raided heavily was during SoF and SoD and they weren't any harder than the shit back in SoL or PoP.

Augs. I'm glad I can camp augs in an open world zone. How about some fucking gear people actually want instead of shit they have to camp in order to mix/max? You're grasping at straws here Kreugen.

Nevermind, now I can just camp defiant and be on my way. Pardon my ignorance.

Dragons of Norrath wasn't even a full priced expansion, ffs.

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You know what was a full priced expansion?

403 Forbidden

double post

We could talk about gear in open world zones all day and go back and forth.

Kreugen_sl said:

That was just for raid geared characters that typically don't give a shit about loot outside of raids.

For alts I camped entire sets of gear in outdoor zones. The items off of vendors were shit compared to drops. Every expansion had several zones worth camping for group loot if you weren't raid geared. You might even sometimes run into other people in them on Vulak.

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This is great and all but we are deviating from the original question... Why would someone rather play on an emu than EQLive? The answer is the game has changed too much from its original version. It caters to the WoW crowd and instead of grabbing any of those players it's lost more because of it. The answer to fix EQ is simple - go back to what made EQ great.

Kreugen_sl said:

Do you want to spend 15,000 hours leveling to cap, camping every goddamn thing along the way?

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In a game that forces grouping with players instead of boxing by myself? Yeah, I do.

edit: and now I'm being -tuconets because of this discussion. You're welcome Elidroth. I am but a martyr for you.

Kreugen_sl said:

Modern EQ doesn't even come remotely close to "catering to the WoW crowd." Not even close. People who think that are deluded beyond all reason.

If EQ was catering to the WoW crowd, then the world would all be easy for any class to solo and the raids would be the hardest part of the game. Instead, EQ makes the world the hardest part of the game and raiding the easiest.

When they stopped using various timesinks and cockblocks to raiding progress all of the content was beaten the day it was released.

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Oh? I'm pretty sure it's more the same than it is different.

Have you used a mercenary at all?

The only reason that content was beaten the same day after the cockblocks were gone was everyone already camped the fuck out of everything. They don't do that anymore before they beat current content. Let's use PoEarthb as an example. Rathe Council was beat after they fixed it because everyone was already geared out the ass for it. If you showed up day 1 for that fight and it was ready to go you wouldn't have beaten it that day.

Kreugen_sl said:

What does a mercenary do for a rogue? Can I solo any non-instanced zone I please as a rogue wearing quest gear?

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It depends on your level but if you are 1-70 a tank merc will kill everything for you. Want to disagree with that?

Kreugen_sl said:

Who gives a fuck about 1-70? Cap was 85 when mercs were introduced. Could you farm Korrifax as a rogue with a merc?

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The majority of the people in this thread think the content pre-70 was the highlight of EQ. So I'd say quite a few.

You seem to think this discussion is about modern EQ. It's not. It's about why people rather play a classic EQ emu instead of current EQLive.

Siddar_sl said:

LDoN was actually the peak population wise for EQ.

Level scaling content deals with the fact that all new content is targeted at max level players. Level scaling allows new content for non max level players as well as max level players at the same time. That is something that simply can not be done in a static zone unless you want to divide zone up into level ranges and we have just gone over the fact that all new content is built for max level players. So whether you like instanced content are it not going away. In fact it will increase just like new plane of war mission scales down to level 65 when CoTF heroics only scale down to 85.

Randomizing mission objectives is a much less important then the level scaling but it does in fact make doing the same mission repeatedly less of a grind.

The above may well offend the EQ classic crowd but were talking about level 100 EQ live here and most people agree once you hit GoD expansion EQ and Classic no longer mean the same thing.

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I don't care what they do in current EQ. That entire description is why EQ is shit. This thread is why would someone rather play an EQ emu that's stuck in the past over current EQLive. If you want a good reason it's because of the shit you are posting above.

I DO want to divide zones up based on level ranges. Level scaling is fucking dumb and gives one less reason to look forward to leveling up. The carrot on a stick is a powerful thing in the MMO world.

Kreugen_sl said:

What does pre-70 content have to do with mercs? The game was level 85 when mercs were introduced. Mercs did not suddenly allow you to go around soloing the entire game. EQ is not trying to be WoW.

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Ok, you're a level 85 whatever and you grab a merc. Now you're MOLOing (yep it's a thing now because it's so prevalent it even got it's own name). Congrats, you killed grouping still. People MOLO past 85 too. The point was that at 1-70 as a rogue you could sit and do nothing and your tank merc will kill everything. Can a rogue MOLO 85+? Probably not but who the fuck is leveling a rogue these days anyways? Unless you have a group of friends you're not doing shit as a rogue. Which shows the game is broken now.

The only way you're leveling a rogue up is if you bring him to 70 and either add him to your box group or PL him with a higher level.