Ah heck, let's talk about EQ1

[Hellinar]

Well, shit. As an old D&D grognard, I could see that Everquest wasn't about role playing and adventure. It was about dinging and gratzing. The only mechanics that existed were ones that made combat and advancement happen. Tradeskills were anemic and "the world" consisted of polygons and reputation tracking.

In the D&D I remember, leveling up was a background activity that provided a bit of structure, not the point of the game. If EQ had wanted to replicate that, they would have severely capped how quickly you could level, and made it a background activity.

But that would have meant aiming at the casual player market. People who would log on a couple of times a week to play it as an adventure game. Once you allow people to level 60 hours a week, you have to put in all the grind and timesinks that drive the casual player away.

One day we might see an adventure based MMORPG. But not from the current crop of designers, who all come from a background of playing 40 hours a week. Maybe from some TV people, who are comfortable with the concept of people being entertained by their product just a few hours a week?

[Merusk]

There's already several 'adventure' games out there like that.  They get ignored because they're free-to-play flash games like DragonFable, however.

[Venkman]

In the D&D I remember...

Every single adventure was handcrafted for the specific characters you brought to them... and then dynamically managed by a person. No MMO, hell no RPG, is ever going to do that for you. This genre has roots in D&D, but more on the stats side and what devs played when they were younger, than in any real sense of homage. Heck, even DDO isn't the authentic D&D of which you speak.

And nobody's driving the casual players away from WoW. It's because those players don't give a shit what the endy-end-enderson gamers are doing. WoW compartmentalized a lot of things, including the rewards. Your average player still kicking around through the early-BC stuff doesn't give a shit about what drops from wherever the FoH-like folks are. Many times they don't even know about it. This is what a lot of people miss, because it was missed in EQ1 too. Unless you're part of a raiding guild or one about ready for most of its members to hit the cap, the endgame means dickall to you, as do the sycophants complaining about it on the oboards.

[Tebonas]

Indeed! I did that endgame raid thing once in Everquest. Since then I do the parts that are fun for me (levelling to the level cap, questing and doing group content) and go before I get frustrated and hate the game that entertained me for longer than most single player games.

[HaemishM]

All you guys who were playing EQ instead of UO (yes even the ganky pre-Tram game) are cockmunchers responsible for ruining the genre.  That is all.

 

You're welcome, bitchtits.

[veredus]

And nobody's driving the casual players away from WoW. It's because those players don't give a shit what the endy-end-enderson gamers are doing. WoW compartmentalized a lot of things, including the rewards. Your average player still kicking around through the early-BC stuff doesn't give a shit about what drops from wherever the FoH-like folks are. Many times they don't even know about it. This is what a lot of people miss, because it was missed in EQ1 too. Unless you're part of a raiding guild or one about ready for most of its members to hit the cap, the endgame means dickall to you, as do the sycophants complaining about it on the oboards.

This is a great point. I played EQ from before Kunark up until Gates of Discord and I played it a lot. In all that time I went on like one naggy raid and that is it, no other raiding. Maybe that's why I don't have all the angst against EQ and think it was a great game that I don't have the time for anymore.

[Krakrok]

Raiding broke the achievers against the rocks of insanity. 

[Triforcer]

We still haven't answered the most important question:  why do beggars love pumas?

[Salamok]

Non-instanced dungeons + cockblocking a-holes + trains + corpse runs definately upped the stress levels into a realm that WoW can't even dream about but after playing wow for a few years I have decided that something of value and substance was lost during the elimination of these things. 

Also I am quite surprised that WoW hasn't implemented an EQIM type of feature that works on mobile phones and shit.  I was pretty much over ICQ and stuff before EQ was even released but the ability to chat in guild chat while not in the game was pretty cool.

[Simond]

EQ did two things that still haven't been surpassed by anyone else - their whole chat system (including the EQ2 stuff which is pretty much the same system ported across) and their LFG interface.

[stray]

Refresh my memory (actually, I have almost zero memories of EQ ). Personally, I never found it easier to LFG than in City of Heroes.

[Fordel]

All you guys who were playing EQ instead of UO (yes even the ganky pre-Tram game) are cockmunchers responsible for ruining the genre.  That is all.
 

Also WoW Blood Elves rule. Anyone who played EQ is an old nerd like Gary Gygax. He's dead. AC is for Armor Class, there's no game called Asheron's Call. AO stands for Adults Only. UO must be Marvel Universe Online without a Spiderman license?

MUD! Yeah, mud wrestling is oldschool, from when they used to drink beer and get stoned.

AC is also for Auto Cannon!


I got nothing. 

[Mrbloodworth]

EQ did two things that still haven't been surpassed by anyone else - their whole chat system (including the EQ2 stuff which is pretty much the same system ported across) and their LFG interface.

LOTRO.

[Ubvman]

I am not sure if you can say that EQ1's chat and lfg systems are notably superior or better than the norm for MMOGs released after 2000. IIRC, EQ1's chat system (with /rs /1 etc.) came in after several expansions (PoP?) and the expanded lfg system much later. The point is, I think they either copied the chat and lfg stuff from someone else (AC? DAoC?) or if they did pioneer it - it has been so copied by everyone else, it has become the norm for other MMOs. 

As for the playability of EQ1, I agree 100% with a short 'to the point' re-review posted in F13 a few months ago:
EverQuest: A Retrospective Look At Why I’m So Great And This Game Sucks.
STOP HAVING FUN THE WRONG WAY.

Come on! Everquest IS the game that defined gathering 12 gopher nuts  with a drop rate of 1/1000 as "fun".* Its just having fun the wrong way!

EQ1 was like bad sex. Its like heavy BDSM sex with heavy weights attached to your genitals and the occasional goatse dildo painfully rammed up your butt. Some bits of the sex was great ~ they DID get some of it right, and SOME people can't think of having sex any other way as the present playerbase still exists. People got used to it as did the industry, BUT the moment someone took all the bits that worked, removed all the sadistic rubbish and packaged it into a polished game, the stampede to the door was deafening (I was there when GoD was released and WoW & EQ2 opened several months later - the Quellious server pop was literally halved)

I have a pet theory that SOE actually did intend to retire EQ1 and migrate people into EQ2 - "Norrath without the sadism" when GoD (the most disastrous expansion ever produced) was released. The plan I theorize was to turn the pain knob all the way to 11 by releasing a completely F-ed expansion and have people move into the shiny new multi-million $$$ investment EQ2. Of course the plan went awry for SOE when people preferred to give their money to Blizzard.

*I stole that line from some blog comment - one of you guys probably coined it.

[Dtrain]

I don't know man, while I agree with you on principal, that review seemed a little over the top harsh (which I think was the point.) To take it seriously is a little bit like wanting to kick grandpa down the stairs.

[Venkman]

...but after playing wow for a few years I have decided that something of value and substance was lost during the elimination of these things...

Apparently it didn't lose enough or you wouldn't have put in a few years 

Most people couldn't goddamned wait to jump ship from EQ1 to a better game, those that remained that is. It just all the way the hell until WoW to get there.

Now we're back to that in-between-EQ1-and-WoW-like period where the genre splinters between various smaller gatherings around games that focus on smaller parts of a total experience. Until Blizzard finally gets around to housing, real crafting and the "real" PvP the small contingent is looking for. Or until someone out WoW's WoW.

[Sir T]

I have a pet theory that SOE actually did intend to retire EQ1 and migrate people into EQ2 - "Norrath without the sadism" when GoD (the most disastrous expansion ever produced) was released.

*reads wiki article*

They actually named a place "The Abysmal Sea" 

 

[SuperPopTart]

I dunno I still play EQ 1, and I take breaks every now and again but ultimately I enjoy it. Why? Here's why.

1. I *enjoy* the grind which doesn't exist really anymore after sitting through the annoyance-that-is-WOW-and-all-it's-repeatable-content. I like quests but every damn thing is a quest and that to me is overkill. Sometimes a woman just wants to go out there and massively kill everything in sight. -Everything-

2. Very few people scream and cry anymore. They no longer expect perfection or decency out of SOE, they knowingly and willingly accept mediocrity and bathe happily in it's blood.

3. The Exp/Death issue. There are so many ways to gain experience including an AA that allows you to double the amount of EXP you get for a small period of time, who cares now? You can level from 1 - 70 in like two days if you spent 18 hours at your keyboard.

4. Senses of humour. Sorry guys, but in no other game to date with the exception of Camelot have I found a more funny, loose bunch of morons this side of the nuthouse. People who are now playing EQ are basically not the new subscriber. They are the old player that either has the AA's and has the experience and maybe took a long break, have seen the raid side of things and are now just there to enjoy themselves. Yes, there are massive raids still happening, but hey.. you don't *need* to raid unless you want those high end nifty items people still talk about and meh - there's enough now to keep people mildly amused.

5. It's easily playable. It's basically idiot proof but you have to know how to play your class. Well..you had to know how to play your class. Now.. that's kind of a joke I think so scratch that.

But mostly, it's about the enjoyment. The bullshit that seemed to exist a few years back when the players were so damned serious seems to cease to exist. Where I am, on Maelin, it's full of my ex idiot Karana people and even they are laid back. I can log in, and just enjoy my game experience and I'll get to the levels when I get there. In the meantime I can actually enjoy the groups and see the new worlds and just.. chill out. Oh, and it's pretty, lately.

I don't ever remember enjoying EQ1 as much as I have in the last few months of playing it again, in part because I know what to expect:

The "grind" which basically doesn't exist anymore.
Not the greatest gameplay in the world.
Ineffective and unsupported customer support, I.E. the.. "Customer Wha?"
A pretty world with a storyline that's been kind of consistent and not really all that repetitive.
The ability to kind of fashion my character and my playing style to a very laid back atmosphere and not have to worry about what items and loot I am/am not getting.



On a side note:

Being a druid and having everything summon is vile.
Being a druid and having everything quad for 1200-1600 is vile.
Stabbing a rhino in the ass with my dagger is fun.

[Venkman]

You could say that for just about any MMO nowadays, which is a good thing in my opinion, something truly indicative of the genre.

Us ADHD folks are always interested in chasing the next big shiny, particularly when they talk about something different. But, at least in the West, the vast majority of players don't really work that way. They find a game they and their friends love, and stay there until collective boredom. On a personal note, most of the people I've played MMOs with went from EQ1 to DAoC to WoW and that was it.

It also really helps a game when it is no longer under the collective spotlight. It's not that nobody cares about EQ1 anymore. It's more that it's not the big sheriff in town that requires constant challengers. WoW took that mantle. And while WoW is a fine game, it's never ever going to be as good as the millions of screaming sycophants want it to be. And someday some new game will become that and the WoW veterans will be hanging out in chat channels while they grind quests happily chatting with other veterans who couldn't care any less about the rest of the genre.

In my opinion, games get better when they're no longer #1. This is because they've shed the players who aren't happy. They only have left those who like what is, people who don't have unrealistic expectations for what should be.

[Numtini]

EQ did two things that still haven't been surpassed by anyone else - their whole chat system (including the EQ2 stuff which is pretty much the same system ported across) and their LFG interface.

LOTRO.

--r, b
EQ's LFG system was to flag you as LFG. That was it. Maybe they added one later, but when I played it was /lfg and /who all lfg (or given travel times /who lfg since anyone in another zone was going to take decades to get to you anyway). Most groups formed by people shouting in ooc or shout. If they grafted a system on it was after my day. (DAOC was the first game I played that had any sort of lfg system and the more they evolved it, the less people seemed to use it.)

LOTRO's system is to flag you as lfg and put up one and their new innovation is to flag one and only one quest you want to take. The LFG channel is limited to one zone. Utterly useless. When I have been active, almost every group i've gotten has been from the player channel glff (global looking for fellowship) even though only a fraction of the players even know about it. I've gotten some groups from the normal lff channel and I have gotten exactly 0 from the lff system.

Two of the weakest systems I've come across in any game.

COX has the best system I've seen and everyone seems to use it--very easy combination of function and simplicity. EQ2's simply having a channel for every ten levels is equally efficient.

[Phred]

EQ did two things that still haven't been surpassed by anyone else - their whole chat system (including the EQ2 stuff which is pretty much the same system ported across) and their LFG interface.

LOTRO.

Shouldnt this be in green? Does lotro's lfg even work across zones yet?

Numtini: Ya they added a lfg system just before pop iirc. It was great. It had filters, let you list quests or areas and even let you use your ignore list to block who could see you were lfg. It also let you see into what groups were already formed and looking for someone.

CoX was a good system though quite basic compared to what they eventually came up with in EQ1. God, I wish WoW had copied that instead of inovating their own retarded system.

As to the chat system, the things I missed from the EQ1 system were the convenience tools they added over the years, like /tt(tell target) and /rt(Target reply). As a cleric, sending tells to targets and targeting people who sent me tells were just so convenient it's easy to miss them when they aren't there.

[Merusk]

--r, b
EQ's LFG system was to flag you as LFG. That was it. Maybe they added one later, but when I played it was /lfg and /who all lfg (or given travel times /who lfg since anyone in another zone was going to take decades to get to you anyway). Most groups formed by people shouting in ooc or shout. If they grafted a system on it was after my day. (DAOC was the first game I played that had any sort of lfg system and the more they evolved it, the less people seemed to use it.)<snip>

COX has the best system I've seen and everyone seems to use it--very easy combination of function and simplicity. EQ2's simply having a channel for every ten levels is equally efficient.

You must've quit EQ before Luclin (or was it PoP..), then.  EQ expanded on the LFG tag to produce something akin to the CoX system, but with comments you could add to yourself. ("looking to do xyz." "won't heal" "only looking for attunement to <whatever>"   IIRC it allowed the same filtering by class/ level/ zone as CoX as well.   As you say, it was a very simple to understand system. 

Fuck, WoW HAD a similar system in beta, but then ripped it out for just the flag.  Then they removed the flag.  Their current system, while technically better, is crap because you can only flag and search by all-too-specific filters, ( <xyz> dungeon, <abc> quest - and that quest has to be in your log... so you can't offer to help with other's quests unless you hang in that area.)  You can't just throw up a flag to say "I'll do whatever, I'm just looking to hang with folks for a bit."

[Mrbloodworth]

EQ did two things that still haven't been surpassed by anyone else - their whole chat system (including the EQ2 stuff which is pretty much the same system ported across) and their LFG interface.

LOTRO.

LOTRO's system is to flag you as lfg and put up one and their new innovation is to flag one and only one quest you want to take. The LFG channel is limited to one zone. Utterly useless. When I have been active, almost every group i've gotten has been from the player channel glff (global looking for fellowship) even though only a fraction of the players even know about it. I've gotten some groups from the normal lff channel and I have gotten exactly 0 from the lff system.

Have you used it since the update to it, and the quest tracker and quest window?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm not so sure a flat system like EQ's lfg would work in the modern area of games. In EQ LFG usually meant "looking for grinding" if you wanted a dungeon you were already in that dungeon, though this would not work with a game like wow because you couldn't '/who molten core' to see who was waiting in line to camp the next maggy spawn.

Let's say I'm j.random priest looking for a specific dungeon, just flagging lfg is going to get me nonstop spam from people looking for a thousand different thing, heck often i get spam just standing still as a healer.

My brain's a little fried right now and while I agree wows current lfg system is bland at best, I'm just not sure a simple lfg tag and search can work in any modern instanced mmo as well as it did in eq

[Venkman]

It wants to be what EQ1s current system is: a flag plus a bunch of options and a customizable text field, to be searchable with filters game wide.

Anything less is something done in haste and at the expense of prioritization.

[Numtini]

Have you used it since the update to it, and the quest tracker and quest window?

I really didn't see much difference, but I played for only a few days after the last patch (largely because I was tired of not being able to find groups).

Honestly, I'm pretty convinced that a global chat channel is the best option. Most of my WOW instance groups came from spamming the LFG channel or seeing someone asking. I downloaded one of the mods that joins you to it automagically.

[climbjtree]

I'd actually like to play some EQ. I really, really enjoyed that game but I never raided.

Here's a question for some of you that still play: Can you find groups at lower levels or would I have to solo to 60?

[Trippy]

You must've quit EQ before Luclin (or was it PoP..), then.  EQ expanded on the LFG tag to produce something akin to the CoX system, but with comments you could add to yourself. ("looking to do xyz." "won't heal" "only looking for attunement to <whatever>"   IIRC it allowed the same filtering by class/ level/ zone as CoX as well.   As you say, it was a very simple to understand system. 

You can add comments in CoX as well.

[SuperPopTart]

I'd actually like to play some EQ. I really, really enjoyed that game but I never raided.

Here's a question for some of you that still play: Can you find groups at lower levels or would I have to solo to 60?

Honestly, not a lot of groups at lower levels but you are always fighting BY people. Which, if you just want the socializing.. there's always a comedy somewhere. And, although there aren't a lot of groups.. there are a lot of helpful people. More so now than ever. It's very odd.

But if it's grouping you are looking for, yeah, you won't be a cheeky monkey.

[Merusk]

You must've quit EQ before Luclin (or was it PoP..), then.  EQ expanded on the LFG tag to produce something akin to the CoX system, but with comments you could add to yourself. ("looking to do xyz." "won't heal" "only looking for attunement to <whatever>"   IIRC it allowed the same filtering by class/ level/ zone as CoX as well.   As you say, it was a very simple to understand system. 

You can add comments in CoX as well.

I didn't remember that at all.  Ok then, EQ and Cox have the same system.. or near about.   Either way all games since have pretty much failed on this, and it's really irritating.

[Numtini]

One thing I really liked that i only remember from DAOC was being able to flag a group as looking for more. EQ2 might do this, but nobody uses it. But that let the searching go two way. I don't know how many times I have gotten a tell in COX asking who the group leader was and if there were any spaces. Be a lot easier to have an apply to group button or something.

[SuperPopTart]

There is also a Looking For Guild System now. You plug in your level, your AA's and so forth, and it provides you with a list of guilds.

Unfortunately, SOE dropped the ball and forgot to add a place for people to list who to contact.. (it's nowhere I've ever seen)

But they get some small clapping for providing it.

[Trippy]

One thing I really liked that i only remember from DAOC was being able to flag a group as looking for more. EQ2 might do this, but nobody uses it. But that let the searching go two way. I don't know how many times I have gotten a tell in COX asking who the group leader was and if there were any spaces. Be a lot easier to have an apply to group button or something.

PlanetSide takes this one step further. Not only can you see what squads are LFM a squad leader can set his/her squad as "auto-join" and people can invite themselves into it -- no need to even bug the squad leader. Of course PS is an MMOFPS so you don't typically have the group composition issues as you do in MMORPGs.

[Trippy]

You must've quit EQ before Luclin (or was it PoP..), then.  EQ expanded on the LFG tag to produce something akin to the CoX system, but with comments you could add to yourself. ("looking to do xyz." "won't heal" "only looking for attunement to <whatever>"   IIRC it allowed the same filtering by class/ level/ zone as CoX as well.   As you say, it was a very simple to understand system. 

You can add comments in CoX as well.

I didn't remember that at all.  Ok then, EQ and Cox have the same system.. or near about.   Either way all games since have pretty much failed on this, and it's really irritating.

[Numtini]

There is also a Looking For Guild System now. You plug in your level, your AA's and so forth, and it provides you with a list of guilds.uild .

The LF Guild system in EQ2 is pretty borked. They list by guild level, which means at the top of the list of guilds are lots of raiding guilds that aren't actually accepting members at all or who are looking for an 80th pet/wis/rez/buff mystic with 140AAs and fully geared who can raid at some god insane time of day. The little guilds taking newbies get listed way down or more likely not at all. Which is kind of backwards since if you're a serious raider you're probably going to know all the guilds and what they want and the newbies are the ones most likely to use the built in system.