A different sort of development mentality

[Ikonoclastia]

Today I went out and bought a brand new pc, a year ago my motherboard blew up and due to a lack of decent online games I didnt feel it necessary to get a new pc as I have a laptop for non-game related computing. Last week I started playing EQ1, a 12 year old, horrid graphics (by todays standards) game via project1999.

It strikes me as strange that such an old game would attract the approximately 400 to 900 I see online every day, strange that of all the offerings available online with their cutting edge graphics, instances, ease of play, fast leveling and microtransactions an old game like eq1 would be the trigger to make me go out and buy a 1k+ pc for gaming.

I think its pretty unlikely Im that out of the ordinary which makes me ask the following questions - why are developers not picking up on the elements of eq1 that made eq as addictive to some players (like me) as a high quality gram of coke? Why are developers so obsessed with the wow model. While its easy to see the attraction of 11 million casual players, its a lot harder to develop a game to poach some of those players from wow than it is to attract players who are not as easily pleased with content that wow offers anf who are looking around for something more challenging.

So why are there no EQ1 type games out there?

[Ikonoclastia]

As an after thought some of the elements which I find irristable in EQ 1:

1 - difficulty of leveling
2 - corpse runs
3 - unpredictability of spawns
4 - social aspects and conflict of non-instanced mobs and dungeons
5 - complexity of quests / spawns
6 - uniqueness of class abilities
7 - trains
8 - Sleeper
9 - long spawn mobs
10. Exp loss

Many other things in eq that cant really be quantified, I was always facinated by the way eq was put together, you could see a lot of thought had been put into it and it felt immersive whereas wow always felt very scripted, the mobs just put in randomly as something to kill to get quickly to the next level or for lootz.

[bman8810]

For me it was always the freedom I felt when exploring... Which, now that I think about it, is pretty funny considering there are set zone lines and what not. There was always a danger to it though that would actually set my heart thumping. I very rarely ever got that feeling in WoW except when we were battling for server firsts.

[falkun]

You answered your own question:
approximately 400 to 900 I see online every day

see the attraction of 11 million casual players

Would you rather earn $10/mo off 900, or $0.05/mo off 1 million? Even that's a difference of $41000/mo. Regardless of the 900 realizing the other product is utter gaming garbage, the developer still makes more money catering to the masses. But when you do it as a hobby, its no longer about the money.

[Tokai Saikutsu]

You answered your own question. Companies "seen" WoW's success and tried to copy it. Not sure what they claim in numbers now, but even at 11 mil players x $15 usd a month is your answer. Greed not gaming. Dont forget, Warcraft had a big following long before WoW was even made. To me it seems, most of those other clones tried and failed due to this. Some were just flat out garbage.


I believe Everquest topped out at around 1 mil players at its peak. EQ and its players also "grew up" together as bigger, badder PC's and tech came along at a very very fast rate. Everquest did have a following of sort before it was made, it is called Dungeons & Dragons and text based muds ( 80's - 90's )that the players made themselves. Also do not forget, not eveyone had pc's even into 2002 - 04 ish.

Why dont companies pick up on elements of what made EQ great? Its very different world in 10 years, and way different gamers, most alot younger. Most gamers are also male. Lets face it, newer games have nice gfx and some real hot female toons to look at, not square faced, triangled ass EQ avatars. lol

If you tell me what made EQ great for you, it will most likely be all the things you hated at the time. Camping for hours if not days for a drop and losing the roll, camping the same mobs for hours just for a level, so you can camp different mobs for another level .....
Working for days, if not months for that 1 uber drop that is about to be junk in next months x pac.
Waking up at 3 am for a naggy raid ( gotz to beat guild name here to da lewtz!.
Getting killed on way to a group ( and forgetting to hit /loc ) crap!!! Then spending the rest of your night looking for a nec to get it for you and tossing him all your plat.
And so on and so on ....

This type of game isnt well liked anymore. Mostly we all got older, families get in the way of our fun : P Jobs and Just plain no time for it. Even EQ seen this and made the game WAY easier than they use to be. Its almost a joke now. Do you really think kids today could deal with the original EQ? i doubt it.

In my opinion, there are only 2 games left out there in the MMO world, EQ and EVE, all the others left are either wow clones, or straight up garbage, wallet sucking waste of times. Although Earth & Beyond was nice middle ground game killed by ea. Here's hoping Everquest Next rocks like this did! ( holding very little hope tbh )

It still comes down to making money, like everything in life, sadly.

P.S. Is it just me, or do you all laugh at the people who claim to be Hardcore gamers on thier x box's now?

[Ikonoclastia]

I get what u guys are saying but where are the small companies who would be happy to get a couple of thousand loyal subs. Thats how eve inline started out, when I started playing 2000 was a good count, it was niche hardcore and survived where others yried to model wow n died. EvE caved eventually to microtran and the casual gamer. I was Infinity Ziona in EvE, u play EvE Tokai?

[Extunarian]

4 - social aspects and conflict of non-instanced mobs and dungeons
6 - uniqueness of class abilities


These plus any other facet of the game that promoted player interaction/competition. I play to have fun with other people here more so than for loot/xp.

[l3wdandcr3wd]

I just started playing P99 and the only game I feel that is similar to this is Anarchy online. I used to play it constantly and my friends would make fun of me for playing some old free to play MMO. My brother ended up buying me a year subscription as a gift, and I had the most fun playing that game. We could play for hours on end. I only just recently started with P99, but I can really see where AO got its inspiration. They still have the froob program and I still have a froob account for when I get the itch to play. It kills me to see games like WoW and ToR being the front-runners of the MMO genre, but as long as I have AO, and probably P99 judging by how much I already like it, I'll be content with the current MMO environment.

[Tokai Saikutsu]

I get what u guys are saying but where are the small companies who would be happy to get a couple of thousand loyal subs. Thats how eve inline started out, when I started playing 2000 was a good count, it was niche hardcore and survived where others yried to model wow n died. EvE caved eventually to microtran and the casual gamer. I was Infinity Ziona in EvE, u play EvE Tokai?


I played from Alpha stages up until about 2 years ago. Too many cheating devs not to mention players. With nothing being done about it, why continue.

Also, Eve wasnt around in 2000 :) I was doing the Alpha in 02 iirc then in beta's. Time in gaming has become a blur to me .....

CCP is THE Only company thats breaking new ground on a constant basis, Have to give them props for their insight. With dustoff on the horizon, it will just own.

I was pritty much all over the map cept for down south, hated the south. Yes, i ran with A BoB corp in the early days, then retired to the armpit of Eve, geminate / pureblind area. Think i have a MoM and small mining force logged off in pureblind atm lol. *Coughs* should sell the accounts and wait for the bitching when they get insta popped.....

EDIT* should have added, Lord of the Rings is actually well made also, but as i forget about it all the time, just means its still lacking. Sitting on 3 lifetime accounts to it also ......

[Ikonoclastia]

I played from Alpha stages up until about 2 years ago. Too many cheating devs not to mention players. With nothing being done about it, why continue.

Also, Eve wasnt around in 2000 :) I was doing the Alpha in 02 iirc then in beta's. Time in gaming has become a blur to me .....

CCP is THE Only company thats breaking new ground on a constant basis, Have to give them props for their insight. With dustoff on the horizon, it will just own.

I was pritty much all over the map cept for down south, hated the south. Yes, i ran with A BoB corp in the early days, then retired to the armpit of Eve, geminate / pureblind area. Think i have a MoM and small mining force logged off in pureblind atm lol. *Coughs* should sell the accounts and wait for the bitching when they get insta popped.....

EDIT* should have added, Lord of the Rings is actually well made also, but as i forget about it all the time, just means its still lacking. Sitting on 3 lifetime accounts to it also ......
No lol, I meant I started playing EvE when the population was maxxin around 2000 players, that was around 2003. Pretty much kept to myself as a pirate war deccer ore thief although I founded Privateers.

Social aspects are really priceless in games imo, EQ felt great because you really needed others to succeed and the xp was slow enough I still remember my good friends from eq 10 years later. EvE was totally different, people I interacted with hated me but I remember them fondly because it was such genuine hate. I hardly remember anyone from wow. . .

[Diggles]

I remember people from WoW in my raiding guild. That's it. If I raided with you, chilled out in Vent with you while we slayed the dragon/lich king/undead dragon, and we interacted, I know you. If I met you in a battleground and you said "thx for heals lets do another match" i have no idea who you are

[Tokai Saikutsu]

No lol, I meant I started playing EvE when the population was maxxin around 2000 players, that was around 2003. Pretty much kept to myself as a pirate war deccer ore thief although I founded Privateers.

Social aspects are really priceless in games imo, EQ felt great because you really needed others to succeed and the xp was slow enough I still remember my good friends from eq 10 years later. EvE was totally different, people I interacted with hated me but I remember them fondly because it was such genuine hate. I hardly remember anyone from wow. . .

Lol nice, i was helping an alliance against Privateers in a high sec war. Fun times scaring the n00bs when a battle rages at multi gates. :D

[stormlord]

Today I went out and bought a brand new pc, a year ago my motherboard blew up and due to a lack of decent online games I didnt feel it necessary to get a new pc as I have a laptop for non-game related computing. Last week I started playing EQ1, a 12 year old, horrid graphics (by todays standards) game via project1999.

It strikes me as strange that such an old game would attract the approximately 400 to 900 I see online every day, strange that of all the offerings available online with their cutting edge graphics, instances, ease of play, fast leveling and microtransactions an old game like eq1 would be the trigger to make me go out and buy a 1k+ pc for gaming.

I think its pretty unlikely Im that out of the ordinary which makes me ask the following questions - why are developers not picking up on the elements of eq1 that made eq as addictive to some players (like me) as a high quality gram of coke? Why are developers so obsessed with the wow model. While its easy to see the attraction of 11 million casual players, its a lot harder to develop a game to poach some of those players from wow than it is to attract players who are not as easily pleased with content that wow offers anf who are looking around for something more challenging.

So why are there no EQ1 type games out there?
Well, to start with, a lot of things in EQ are just plain outdated, bugged, and/or not favored by most players. So I'm afraid to say that either you have nostalgia or you're part of a minority population.

In modern MMORPGs, there's a lot more hand-holding than in EQ. This is mostly because MMORPGs have become more mainstream. It used to be that it was only the computer geeks who bought computers and then only the extreme nerds would play games of this sort. Back then they would pay on a per-hour basis, so it was quite expensive. If they were smarter then they might play on a local area network. The rest would just play solitaire or something. But it did not remain that way. Costs came down, the internet came into being, people educated themselves and computers started to appear in almost every home. From then on, it wasn't just the nerds and technical-minded that were playing these games. It was the mom and pops, the kids, the over-worked and the people who could barely start up windows without calling a technical support service for help.

Regarding the hand holding, I'll agree with you. I don't like the hand-holding, either. However, modern MMORPGs improve on a -lot- of other things. The user interface, the graphics, voice-overs for NPCs, more interactive environments, more feedback and new features. Bottom line, the weight of these other things increasingly draws people like you and me to them. Innovation will inevitably win.

There're MMORPGs that're more like EQ, they're just not common and none of them are commercial giants.

Here're a few MMORPGs I keep an eye on (not in any particular order):
http://www.dawntide.net/
http://www.fallenearth.com/landing/
http://www.linkrealms.com/
http://www.wurmonline.com/
http://www.eveonline.com/background/
http://www.xsyon.com/features
http://www.atitd.com/
http://www.ryzom.com/en/

This one used to be interesting, not sure if it's now:
http://www.uoherald.com/

I tend to like Sandboxy MMORPGs, btw. Therre're many others out there. Some are asian.

This sums up sandbox MMORPGs fairly well:
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2011/01/played-any-good-new-sandbox-mmorpgs.html

A lot of people confuse things in EQ with How things should be. They don't understand how bugged and ill-thought many of the things in EQ are. These people need to understand that making RPGs is complex. You can never get it right no matter how many times you do it. Additionally, these kinds of things evolve and change in response to trends and technology. For example, many of them blame Sony for adding POK books. They think that Sony added the books because they wanted to make the game easy or something. This is partially incorrect. What happened is that, over the years, EQ added more and more zones. It also became top-heavy. The numbers of new incoming players continued to shrink. All these things combined to make traveling MORE difficult. So when Sony added POK books, they weren't actually making the game easier, they were just balancing it. Now, Sony really did have a mission to steal players from WoW, in many cases, but this example is not necessarily one of them. So, you see, it's easy to mistake a design alteration that's purely technical in nature for something completely different. None of this addresses HOW Sony did things, which may or may not be smart. My only point is to say that players attach spurious meaning to things.