Quote:
Originally Posted by Zuranthium
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Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.
The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.
Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.
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You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests and how "grinding mobs" as the main way to advance/level up in the game isnt great, and should include alternatives. Quests would have been excellent here, similar to how wow did it.
But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"
That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.
Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.
Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" or "accessibility" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.
Changing it to allure new players didnt work, and only alienated its core fan base and ruined the original game. After all, let us not forget why p99 exists in the first place.