Vanguard

[Murgos]

Who remembers early, early EQ?  When the death penalty increased with level and that by mid 20's you lost an ENTIRE LEVEL worth of exp on a single death?  Yeah, that was fun.  I think I recall that got patched into submission by the third month of retail.

I remember people going from level 22 to level 19 in an afternoon.  Don't forget it probably took three weeks to get from level 19 to level 22 in the first place.

[Alkiera]

Who remembers early, early EQ?  When the death penalty increased with level and that by mid 20's you lost an ENTIRE LEVEL worth of exp on a single death?  Yeah, that was fun.  I think I recall that got patched into submission by the third month of retail.

I remember people going from level 22 to level 19 in an afternoon.  Don't forget it probably took three weeks to get from level 19 to level 22 in the first place.

I didn't start until after that, the game had been out a few months before I got into it.  I do remember Rubicite and the Box of Abu'Kar(100% weight reduction container), but only as those thing were being discussed, I was far too low level.  I hit 30 right around the time Kunark was released.

Alkiera

[Murgos]

Remeber when J-Boots dropped from one random spawn mob in that little tiny room in Najena?  Every 20 minutes there was a chance she would pop.  I spent something like 20 hours in that little room once without luck.  I think the whole time I was there she dropped the J-Boots twice.

Yeah, that was fun.  I don't think I logged in for a month after that.

[Sky]

I got fucked out of jboots by guild assholes so many times I can't even recall. Constested rare item drops is fucking retarded. Took me years to get them, and that was solo. I quit a couple months later.

[Soukyan]

I got fucked out of jboots by guild assholes so many times I can't even recall. Constested rare item drops is fucking retarded. Took me years to get them, and that was solo. I quit a couple months later.

Was totally worth it, wasn't it? ;)

I know the feeling. I was screwed out of items time and again by ubercamping, no-lifes in my guild (there were not that many, but man did they get the gear) because they were the ones that were on every raid and every event. I kinda stopped giving a shit after a while and took hand-me-downs instead. Ended up fairly well pimped out thanks to that tactic. In any case, the early days were definitely rough. I started from release day and I still have no idea why I stayed as long as I did. I think I was just a huge Diku whore at the time and was in sheer awe at the graphics and the concept. Add to that the fact that I was a sucker for ridiculous challenges having come from a MUD that was just as bitchy and unforgiving.

[Moaner]

Who remembers early, early EQ?  When the death penalty increased with level and that by mid 20's you lost an ENTIRE LEVEL worth of exp on a single death?  Yeah, that was fun.  I think I recall that got patched into submission by the third month of retail.

Although the death penalty was horrid, I don't remember ever losing an entire level.  I've played since release too.  Maybe I just blocked that out...

What I do remember though is the stupid bug that caused you to lose half a level upon death at levels 31, 36, 41, and 46.  What made this suck SO bad was that 30, 35, 40, and 45 were total hell levels.  Hell levels = twice the amount of experience needed to advance when compared to normal levels.  So if you died at say level 46, it knocked you back to 1/2 through 45 which was seriously a good 12 - 20 hours of grinding.  They patched that shit out sometime during Velious I believe.

[SuperPopTart]

Who remembers early, early EQ?  When the death penalty increased with level and that by mid 20's you lost an ENTIRE LEVEL worth of exp on a single death?  Yeah, that was fun.  I think I recall that got patched into submission by the third month of retail.

I remember people going from level 22 to level 19 in an afternoon.  Don't forget it probably took three weeks to get from level 19 to level 22 in the first place.

I remember very vividly dying in a bind death loop 32 times. I went from 20 to I think it was something like 14/15 because I bound myself in the Undead Barkeep room. And I am not sure if any of you remember hell levels. It went like this:

Take a hell level that was rumoured to be 20th for example was really 19, 20 and 21, then from 23-24 it was fine, then 25 a nightmare, 26-28 fine, 29-30 a nightmare.. so on and so forth.

[Kenrick]

How did this become a reminisce-over-EQ thread?

Oh wait, that's what it started as.

Carry on.

[Mesozoic]

From Vanguard -> punitive, early EQ rules?  Yeah, not a real long way.

[Soukyan]

How did this become a reminisce-over-EQ thread?

Oh wait, that's what it started as.

Carry on.

And who doesn't like a good nostalgic thread every now and then. If you don't, then you aren't human. ;)

But seriously, early EQ was some good times. From falling to your death from the platforms of Kelethin to hitting A for autoattack when trying to hail a guard or NPC, deluded though we may have been, we were all there suffering and laughing about it... together.

[Alkiera]

How did this become a reminisce-over-EQ thread?

Oh wait, that's what it started as.

Carry on.

And who doesn't like a good nostalgic thread every now and then. If you don't, then you aren't human. ;)

But seriously, early EQ was some good times. From falling to your death from the platforms of Kelethin to hitting A for autoattack when trying to hail a guard or NPC, deluded though we may have been, we were all there suffering and laughing about it... together.

One of my friends finally convinced his GF to pick up the game, she creates her first character, a woodelf rogue.  The first thing she sees is 'An orc hatchetman' who promptly knocks her off of Kelethin, she dies, and her corpse decays before she can find it, with her newbie note on it.  It took her to level 25 or so before she could get some of the newbie quests from her guildmaster due to her faction being too low(the faction adjustment with rogues was hard to get, she should have gotten it from the note turn-in.)  She got up to where she needed to be by turning in rusty daggers and a few copper to get them sharpened by the rogue guy, which gained you a bit of faction and a slightly higher damage newb weapon.  Hundreds of rusty daggers later...

Alkiera

[Phred]

Who remembers early, early EQ?  When the death penalty increased with level and that by mid 20's you lost an ENTIRE LEVEL worth of exp on a single death?  Yeah, that was fun.  I think I recall that got patched into submission by the third month of retail.

Although the death penalty was horrid, I don't remember ever losing an entire level.  I've played since release too.  Maybe I just blocked that out...

Nope. I think we have a bit of an exageration for effect here. I played at release and due to unemployment and latent catassery I was 35 or so when they lowered the experience penatly and ever as a half-elf bard (huge exp penalty, close to a troll warrior) I only remember losing a bit over a bubble on deaths. I was lucky enough to be so far ahead of the leveling curve I remember a friend wanted jboots and we walked into najena and camped them with no other people in there except for L20's experiencing. I also remember being in a group that found the first rubicite on our server. Back then no one told where things were so we were pretty excited about finding where it dropped. I was lucky enough to have most of the pieces and be gone before the madness happened in there, was already exploring lower guk by then, again alone other than a group camping the bedroom.

The biggest flaw in early EQ, IMO, was it was designed for the front runners and far too successful to sustain the fun of being alone  exploring the dungeons. By alone of course I mean with a single group. Later on as more people hit the levels to use the dungeons it turned into a line at the local butcher shop; take a number and wait your turn, but I have fond memories of the early times before the crowds arrived.

[SuperPopTart]

At level 20, if you were within a full yellow bubble of experience and died, you lost your level.

[Hellinar]

Seeing as its much the same gang, I fear Vanguard might inherit the broken quest syndrome so common in early EQ. A tough death penalty can add to the challenge. But when you die three times getting the quest object to its destination, then the NPC swallows it with just a "Thankyou", tough penalties become really annoying. Not to mention the vets laughing it newbies that tried to quest in EverQuest without first checking an external website to see if the quest was broken.

I don't know how hard it would be to insert a bit of QA code to check that quests are completing at the expected rate. But the idea of checking that your production servers are working as intended always seemed foreign to Verant. Will Sigil be any different?

[Sky]

But that's not an entire level of experience, in that you weren't knocked back to bubble 1 of level 19.

I, too, through fortunate (?) circumstance was on the leading edge of my server, and had good beta knowledge. That was really the best, I already knew a bunch of cool people from the beta and we could camp in zones without a gazillion fucktards wandering around training things and spamming the zone with ooc crap. It was always our group and a "rival" group, and that was it.

Alkiera...that's a sad story. What kind of person goes through all that shit rather than reroll her newbie?

[Alkiera]

But that's not an entire level of experience, in that you weren't knocked back to bubble 1 of level 19.

I, too, through fortunate (?) circumstance was on the leading edge of my server, and had good beta knowledge. That was really the best, I already knew a bunch of cool people from the beta and we could camp in zones without a gazillion fucktards wandering around training things and spamming the zone with ooc crap. It was always our group and a "rival" group, and that was it.

Alkiera...that's a sad story. What kind of person goes through all that shit rather than reroll her newbie?

I have no idea why she didn't just restart at the time it happened.  I think part of it was she didn't realize all the effects it had until she'd gotten to pretty decent level. She may have also been worried about deleting the character and being able to get the same name again.  I know I had issues with that from time to time, but that was usually with really lame names like 'Rejectme'.(had a human necro named that once... decided to reroll him in the other human city, and it failed.  I believe he was my holy fish killer in Qeynos for awhile.)

Alkiera

[HaemishM]

That was quick!

e) Who can forget losing a level due to the death penalty?  Fun fun fun!

Reason I quit EQ the second time (well, one of many, but a primary). Gaining exp was so slow in level 54 that I was basically starting to move in reverse and I didn't feel like playing as level 53 without a couple critical spells.

After level 20, I don't think I ever gained a level that wasn't immediately followed by a death that subsequently lost me the recently-gained level.

[Merusk]

That was quick!

e) Who can forget losing a level due to the death penalty?  Fun fun fun!

Reason I quit EQ the second time (well, one of many, but a primary). Gaining exp was so slow in level 54 that I was basically starting to move in reverse and I didn't feel like playing as level 53 without a couple critical spells.

After level 20, I don't think I ever gained a level that wasn't immediately followed by a death that subsequently lost me the recently-gained level.

My favorites were the multiple ping-pongs.  The ones where your level made what you were killing Green, but the next blue mob was still enough to kick your ass.   I think I was 56-57 about 5 different times.  I know I did the same somewhere around 54-55.

[Sky]

That's one reason I quit at 54. Levelling took forever and you were so much weaker than when you were a newbler. Always seemed kinda stupid.

[Rasix]

After level 20, I don't think I ever gained a level that wasn't immediately followed by a death that subsequently lost me the recently-gained level.

My first character was a druid.  I hit the level where I got some of my first good ports (I think it was 19 or 24).  So, I excitedly ran all the way back from the Oasis of Marr to Riverrun (that was the halfing town, right?) to train up.  I get to my trainer, my finger slips and I hadn't re-bound my autoattack from 'a'.  Dead.  Much swearing and throwing of nearby objects commenced as my trainer tore through me like a wet paper bag.  Ran back to the Oasis since it was the only nearby place where I could get exp, re-dinged, then came back. 

/aneurism

[Murgos]

...you were so much weaker than when you were a newbler. Always seemed kinda stupid.

BINGO.  Thats a huge problem for me with a lot (all?) of these games, it seems like you actually decrease in effectiveness the higher you go.

[Nyght]

BINGO.  Thats a huge problem for me with a lot (all?) of these games, it seems like you actually decrease in effectiveness the higher you go.

Thats only because you are, of coarse. I see someone didn't get into Raph's Levels Suck blog much.

On reflection now, I can see why I rarely rose above lowbie level in any of the dikus and a lot of the others a well. Bottom levels are faster and more fun. The higher you go, the more suck that keeps getting ladled on.

[Merusk]

...you were so much weaker than when you were a newbler. Always seemed kinda stupid.

BINGO.  Thats a huge problem for me with a lot (all?) of these games, it seems like you actually decrease in effectiveness the higher you go.

WoW was very good about this.  A Level 60 will be as effective against a level 60 mob as they were at level 1 against a level 1 mob.  Levels are actual ways of telling your power vs the environment, unlike previous Dikus where the environment was on a completely different scale. This is great because it elminates the problem that always ran through my head, "well if I'm level xyz, why's the mob that's 20 levels lower than me kicking my ass?"  Fucking broken system.

[Trippy]

BINGO.  Thats a huge problem for me with a lot (all?) of these games, it seems like you actually decrease in effectiveness the higher you go.

Thats only because you are, of coarse. I see someone didn't get into Raph's Levels Suck blog much.

On reflection now, I can see why I rarely rose above lowbie level in any of the dikus and a lot of the others a well. Bottom levels are faster and more fun. The higher you go, the more suck that keeps getting ladled on.

If by "effectiveness" you mean what mobs you can kill at your level that's more a function of "solo friendliness" than what level you are. For games that have levels but are solo friendly such as CoH or WoW you do not feel that decrease in effectiveness like you did in a game like EQ where for most classes once you got out of your teens you had to group to advance at all. "Grindiness" is a separate issue. There's nothing inherent about levels or a skill-based system that makes one system more grindy than the other.

[Hartsman]

BINGO.  Thats a huge problem for me with a lot (all?) of these games, it seems like you actually decrease in effectiveness the higher you go.

Thats only because you are, of coarse. I see someone didn't get into Raph's Levels Suck blog much.

On reflection now, I can see why I rarely rose above lowbie level in any of the dikus and a lot of the others a well. Bottom levels are faster and more fun. The higher you go, the more suck that keeps getting ladled on.

If by "effectiveness" you mean what mobs you can kill at your level that's more a function of "solo friendliness" than what level you are. For games that have levels but are solo friendly such as CoH or WoW you do not feel that decrease in effectiveness like you did in a game like EQ where for most classes once you got out of your teens you had to group to advance at all. "Grindiness" is a separate issue. There's nothing inherent about levels or a skill-based system that makes one system more grindy than the other.

(nods)

I pointed this out in a reply to that blog entry, but I'll say it here too.

Most current gen games that have implemented a creature tiering system have evolved past this 0th and 1st gen artifact.  EQ2, WoW, CoH, etc. 

For us, at least, the solo-strength NPCs stay right around the same.  The group-strength NPCs do scale higher proportionally to the solo NPCs, but not disproportionately to a group of people. 

- Scott