EverQuest: A Retrospective Look At Why I’m So Great And This Game Sucks

[Ratman_tf]

The differentiating factor between the two camps is whether or not you've the nostalgia to understand WTF EverQuest even was when, back in 1999 when the Romans used it to grind their loot, it was the best thing 3v4r.  (Except if you hated it, in which case you were probably playing Ultima Online or Asheron's Call which was used for the same purpose by the Franks and Gauls, respectively.)

I stuck with UO until DAOC came out. I knew Everquest was a steamer when I saw my roommates playing it.

[geldonyetich2]

Ah, but you played DAOC, so there must have been something you liked about it.   

[Soln]

there was a contest?

[Ratman_tf]

Ah, but you played DAOC, so there must have been something you liked about it.   

RvR.

[WindupAtheist]

On one hand, I should be sympathetic to EQ people.  I am, after all, the guy who still plays UO.

On the other hand, fuck EQ people.  Anyone still playing EQ when there's such a thing as WoW is sick in the head.  Give me a UO style game that is as much improved as WoW is over EQ, and I'll drop UO in a heartbeat.

[Slyfeind]

For me, the difference between WOW and EQ is the rush to max your character. In WOW, I felt like I was grabbed by the throat and kicked in the ass and dragged down the road until my character was maxed, and there could be NO STOPPING IT!!! In EQ, I just don't feel that. A few days ago, I was sitting in the Qeynos tavern waiting for that horrible once-a-day spawn for a quest that had nothing to do with me, and I just watched the NPCs do their repetitive little interactions, and I started to feel drowsy and complacent, and still I waited. I never saw the damn spawn, but I didn't feel rushed towards it. The game let me take my own damn time with it.

There's a push for games to be CONSTANT FUN! That's understandable, but CONSTANT FUN doesn't necessarily mean all action, all the time. I don't want to get psyched up for a good game; I want to relax with a good game. I can't kick back and relax in WOW. Tabula Rasa and Hellgate are the same way. If I want to relax, I have to log off, and that's an exit point for me.

[Samwise]

I have no words.

[Hoax]

I get what he's saying, I don't get the EQ1 love but I felt similarly in FFXI at times, WoW is very much OMGgoGOgo & when you get down to it just doesn't feel like much of a worldy place.  However, there is nothing that says slow painful punishment grinds need to go hand in hand with fleshed out virtual worlds.  AO is a decent example (dunno about after they raised the cap to L7,000) of a more worldy game that didn't have a super-awful grind.  Of course it also had zero minigames and didn't work for shit at release.  Also I tried to play it in 2007 and the UI was so fucking ugly I almost puked on my kb.

[Samwise]

Couldn't you get the same effect in WoW by just not doing quests?  I don't see how cockblock = world.

[geldonyetich2]

It's hard to describe, but without sufficient "worldly" aspect to appreciate, there's little incentive to sit around and relax in it.

The trouble is that "worldly" is also fairly subjective.  I've seen people claim that WoW was the mostly worldly MMORPG ever, which floors me because it looks like the whole thing was conceived by Fischer Price to me.

[Samwise]

It's hard to describe, but without sufficient "worldly" aspect to appreciate, there's little incentive to sit around and relax in it.

Not true.  He just described how his incentive to sit around was that his stupid quest wouldn't spawn.  If his quest had spawned he'd presumably have done the quest rather than sitting around "appreciating" the world.

What this tells me is that it doesn't matter if the game is worldy or not; the important thing (if you're a goddamned masochist, that is) is to have lots of cockblocks in the game so you have nothing to do but stare at NPC animations for an hour.

[geldonyetich2]

It's not that he specifically enjoyed sitting around just to wait for a quest to spawn.  It's that he wouldn't have been able to enjoy being forced to sit around unless the world were sufficiently worldly.

[Samwise]

What you said made no sense.  If you "enjoy" being "forced" to sit around, either you're not really enjoying it or you're not really being forced.  You can't have both.

[geldonyetich2]

Well, I'm going to butcher it further through the lost art of the analogy.

If you're at the DMV to renew your license and forced to wait 3 hours then the system has already failed.  However, if the interior of the DMV office has a widescreen TV playing your favorite demo reels of cosplaying midget porn, the fact that you're being forced to wait and irrational amount of time is undermined by the entertainment factor.

[geldonyetich2]

and irrational

an irrational

I'm really quite meticulous about keeping my messages readable, but forget to hit the preview button and I'm screwed.  To this day, I'm not sure why irrational fear of my editing my messages a dozen times, strictly because I like to improve it's readability, justifies taking it away form me.

[Samwise]

The argument being made in the context of EQ is (to use your analogy) like saying that because people wait in 3-hour lines at the DMV, it logically follows that the DMV is a fun place to be.

Do you spend your free time at the DMV?  If not, your analogy fails utterly.

What you're arguing is that there is a hypothetical version of EQ (like your DMV with the midget porn) in which the cockblock might be partially mitigated by having something mildly entertaining to do while you're being cockblocked.  Somehow this hypothetical version of EQ that's a bit less sucky than the actual one is being used as proof that the actual EQ is a really fun game, and that it's because of the cockblocks, not in spite of them.  Does that about cover it?

[geldonyetich2]

I don't really bother to continue discussions with people who can't be bothered to read the entirety of my first sentence.

[Slyfeind]

I think that may be it. I was sufficiently entertained by the NPCs, so that I could appreciate the forced downtime...and technically it's not forced, because I didn't have to do the quest. I chose to wait for that specific spawn. I don't think that's enough incentive for other players though, and I don't know if other players even want that. 8mil+ people seem to like being led through the content. If I did the same thing in WOW, I would be sitting in a tavern while NPCs had exclamation points above their heads, which screams to me "THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO NOW."

There is an exception though; 40-man raids. Every 40-man I've been in, there's been at least one mom watching over her baby, and there was this weird moment where I imagined a husband and wife in the middle of Molten Core who had no choice but to take their child with them, and the whole guild was protecting the baby from the monsters. Anyway, everybody has to face that once in a while if they raid; bathroom breaks, cat jumps on the keyboard, whatever. Downtime lets us appreciate the world and the social ties and all that crap, but I'm sure there's a line separating it from cockblocking.

[geldonyetich2]

Oh sure, justify yourself in edits, now I know how it feels.  Curse my snippy reply reflexes. 

I'll take one more run at it, then.

Cockblocks are bad, nobody is saying they're good, however, they are more tolerable if you enjoy the atmosphere.

[Samwise]

I don't really bother to continue discussions with people who can't be bothered to read the entirety of my first sentence.

Are you kidding?  That was the only part of your post I agreed with.

Well, I'm going to butcher it further through the lost art of the analogy.

I only wish it had stayed lost.  

[geldonyetich2]

I'm bad at this today.  I should take a break from posting for awhile.

What I meant to say is the second sentence, particularly the bolded part.

If you're at the DMV to renew your license and forced to wait 3 hours then the system has already failed

Meant the point out that nobody's saying cockblocks are good.  I emphasize this later when I say:

the fact that you're being forced to wait [an] irrational amount of time is undermined by the entertainment factor.

[Samwise]

Cockblocks are bad, nobody is saying they're good...

Really?

I was sufficiently entertained by the NPCs, so that I could appreciate the forced downtime...and technically it's not forced, because I didn't have to do the quest. I chose to wait for that specific spawn.

This is masochism, plain and simple.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[geldonyetich2]

I was sufficiently entertained by the NPCs, so that I could appreciate the forced downtime...and technically it's not forced, because I didn't have to do the quest. I chose to wait for that specific spawn.

This is masochism, plain and simple.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's there, right there, that the misunderstanding has taken place.

You've read that to mean: "Slyfiend loves cockblocks"
What he was trying to write was: "Slyfiend does not like cockblocks, however, they were more tolerable because [worldly aspects ect]"

This is clarified further in that message he posted about 15 minutes ago that we buried.

WoW, for many of us, lacks as much of this insulating "worldly" substance and that, combined with its rapid fire quest structure, fires the player through it like a lubricated slippy slide.  While nobody likes chafing on cheap plastic, it's tolerable if you like where you are.

[Samwise]

The anecdote given as proof that EQ has this "worldiness" was a story about an hour-long cockblock.  Whether or not the intent was to say that cockblock = world, that's what was presented.

Now, perhaps the thing that makes EQ "worldy" is these NPC animations that were mentioned briefly in the context of that cockblock.  I haven't seen these animations, so perhaps they are awesome.  YouTube vid plz?  Then we can have someone post a vid of some NPC animations from WoW and we can compare.  My suspicion is that they aren't all that different, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

[geldonyetich2]

These days, I tend to realize that "what's being presented" is a difference between "what was written" and "my interpretation of what was written", so I wouldn't go assuming that he presented anything in particular.  For example, pouring over the original message further reveals he was talking about an all-day cockblock that never materialized and not an hour-long one.  Further, the overall push of his post, from start to finish, really wasn't specifically about that so much as the tendency of WoW to rush you along so quickly you can't really savor the experience much.

In conclusion, forums still suck for conveying even the simplest of rational points.  But I've written a crappy Blog entry on that already.

[Murgos]

In conclusion, forums still suck for conveying even the simplest of rational points.

Just because you suck at something doesn't mean it's bad.  I find it hard to believe you don't understand why they took your edit post ability from you.  This whole page of the thread is basically you trying to justify a losing position with minor edits to your original premise rather than just going, "Yeah, saying a cockblock could be justifiable and fun just because it's not the worst cockblock it could possibly have been was probably a bad idea."  Even better you finish off not by admitting you're being a fool but by blaming the medium.

Seriously, write a note to yourself to come back and read this page of the thread in about 10 days.

[Slyfeind]

Now, perhaps the thing that makes EQ "worldy" is these NPC animations that were mentioned briefly in the context of that cockblock.  I haven't seen these animations, so perhaps they are awesome.  YouTube vid plz?  Then we can have someone post a vid of some NPC animations from WoW and we can compare.  My suspicion is that they aren't all that different, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

There's not much to it; people go up and down stairs, and in and out of the tavern. There's the thieves' guild racketeering going on, and the bar maid is being romantic with a merchant from Highpass...then she turns around and acts like she's in league with the merchants of Qeynos, trying to drive her "lover" out of town. A tailor enters, has a drink, then leaves. Then an erudite vomits in a nearby pond. Then they do this all over again. This kinda stuff happens in WOW and DAOC all the time, too; little Billy stealing his sister's doll in Stormwind, the marriage in Tir na Nog, etc etc.

I spent about two hours in that tavern; in case anyone's wondering, it's for The Eye of Stormhammer, and I play a druid, so it was completely pointless to bother with that quest anyway. So maybe it's because I was doing something pointless to begin with, that I thought the NPCs chatting among themselves was so damn enthralling.

[geldonyetich2]

In conclusion, forums still suck for conveying even the simplest of rational points.

This whole page of the thread is basically you trying to justify a losing position with minor edits to your original premise rather than just going, "Yeah, saying a cockblock could be justifiable and fun just because it's not the worst cockblock it could possibly have been was probably a bad idea."

I rest my case.

[WindupAtheist]

I rest my case as well.  You EQ people are fucking sick. 

[cmlancas]

Hm. The only cockblock (and necessary one) should be the installation process.

That being said, EQ had too many installation processes.   

[Samwise]

In conclusion, forums I still suck for at conveying even the simplest of rational points.

FIFY.   

[geldonyetich2]

I've had a fun regression today to my v1.0 ways, but the main focus of my upgrade has been in realizing that trying to clarify a point 50 times to somebody who is convinced I'm arguing with them is pointless.

 

[lesion]

You deserve a goddamn award, geldon. Bravo.

[Signe]

Geldon's avatard and Hello Kitty are in sync.  I can't stop looking.

[WindupAtheist]

Not quite.  If you stare long enough, they go out of sync briefly.  Then they appear to go back into sync, but in the opposite direction.  I think it's hypnotizing me to kill.