Would you play an MMORPG in the spirit of classic EQ?

[myriverse]

Originally Posted by iruinedyourday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I mean come on, EQ's got BARDS! that takes balls, to make a game and put bards in it... even a franchise as big as lord of the rings knew that they couldnt put Tom Bambadil in it.. EQ would be like, Tom? that mo fo's gona be a class all his own!

He really wasn't a Bard though. He defied everything. Frankly, it was even a mistake for Tolkien to include him in his story.

As for the topic:
I've got no problem with most of these. I never needed any maps. I navigate 99% with landmarks, even in "large, occasionally barren landscapes." The sticking point is instancing-- I do think it's necessary for any commercial game.

[Octave]

Project Gorgon is an MMO free to play (and no cash shop or any idea that there will be; it's in alpha) right now that takes a bunch of cues from Everquest as well as Asheron's Call and UO.

In a nutshell:

• No shitty tutorial
• No themeparks or npcs with questionmarks over their head.
• Group content from the start that's not instanced.
• Diablo-like random loot system where an upgrade is meaningful and not just a 1% stat increase.
• A sort of FFXI multiclass system: pick any two combat skill bars at a time.
• That stuff that makes it a world: vendors resell player loot, jumping in water puts out fires, drop items on the ground and they actually stay there.
• Crafting is actually useful.
• Dungeon Puzzles - because I guess some people like puzzles.
• Some other stuff that's just weird: progammable golem pets with if-then conditionals, using a shovel to bury corpses, calligraphy, cow form with cow armor and abilities.

The only thing missing is a painful death to non-bosses (bosses give curses that suck when you die to them. You must kill them to lift the curse).

Closest thing to old world EQ I've found.

Download here:

http://projectgorgon.com/game/play-now

[sox7d]

Originally Posted by iruinedyourday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I play EQ cus its the closest thing to playing d&d on my own that there is.. the art reminds me of the old books I used to read, all crappy, the gameplay is hard to figure out, the world is just big enough to seem huge but not big enough that nearly every corner of it is relevent.. just reminds me of old D&D so.. if there was an mmo that gave me those feels I would be into it!

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believe it or not guys, those ARNT screenshots from EQ! :P

I mean come on, EQ's got BARDS! that takes balls, to make a game and put bards in it... even a franchise as big as lord of the rings knew that they couldnt put Tom Bambadil in it.. EQ would be like, Tom? that mo fo's gona be a class all his own!

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love it.

MFW reading this post on my phone last night.

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Also, bards may have been more derived from Vainamoinnen, the legendary finnish music wizard. #ensiferum ...Which is probably where Tom Bombadil came from, anyways.

[cbozeman]

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

New world but same characteristics such as:
-No maps
-No random stat loot
-No "kill 10 <monster>" quests
-Non-linear dungeons
-Difficult soloability
-No instancing
-Tradeskills mostly a commercial decision
-Large, occasionally barren landscape.

I don't really feel strongly about things other than old-school MMORPGs. I'm done with college, wondering if I should dedicate myself to what I'm most passionate about, but want to check how marketable it is to this community first. Minecraft comes to mind with a lot of the "immersive" aspects of EQ, I'm curious if another EQ could be successful, too.

Okay, so it depends on where you would decide to take this.

No maps? That won't fly today, not even with most old school hardcore players. What I'd recommend is making Mapmaking a tradeskill. Once someone has completely explored a zone, they can craft a map of that zone and sell it to players. Once players scribe the map into their atlas (have some real fun with this, make the atlas a quested consumable item that unlocks a minimap and the ability to add more maps), they can then see a large view of the map, and a minimap appears in their interface.

I don't really care for the "Do something X amount of times" quests either, so I wouldn't be sad to see them go.

Non-linear dungeons are a great idea, and I've always loved them. Explore where you want, when you want.

Difficult, but not impossible to solo, that's the key.

If you're going to have a lack of instancing, then you'll need a huge amount of content to keep everyone happy.

I think tradeskills should enhance a game and be a desirable gameplay choice, not an afterthought. Although EQ's tradeskill system was rather robust if you think about it, especially for 1999.

[Erydan Ouragan]

Originally Posted by Octave [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Project Gorgon is an MMO free to play (and no cash shop or any idea that there will be; it's in alpha) right now that takes a bunch of cues from Everquest as well as Asheron's Call and UO.

In a nutshell:

• No shitty tutorial
• No themeparks or npcs with questionmarks over their head.
• Group content from the start that's not instanced.
• Diablo-like random loot system where an upgrade is meaningful and not just a 1% stat increase.
• A sort of FFXI multiclass system: pick any two combat skill bars at a time.
• That stuff that makes it a world: vendors resell player loot, jumping in water puts out fires, drop items on the ground and they actually stay there.
• Crafting is actually useful.
• Dungeon Puzzles - because I guess some people like puzzles.
• Some other stuff that's just weird: progammable golem pets with if-then conditionals, using a shovel to bury corpses, calligraphy, cow form with cow armor and abilities.

The only thing missing is a painful death to non-bosses (bosses give curses that suck when you die to them. You must kill them to lift the curse).

Closest thing to old world EQ I've found.

Download here:

http://projectgorgon.com/game/play-now

Welp, this is it. Goodbye p99!

[Lisset]

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-No maps

I actually like maps, though the Rift model is the best, imho and I think EQ did it similarly when they introduced their "own" version of maps later on. What I mean is that I like maps but they should be revealed through a cartography skill or ability inherent in every character. In other words, you don't see what you haven't explored yourself.

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-No random stat loot

I like random stat loot. Some of it ends up being useful and is a pleasant reward when something drops that you need. It's better than nothing but "generic vendor trash" and "ERMAGERD named loot!"

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-No "kill 10 <monster>" quests

I don't get this. Everyone wants to decry "no kill ___ monster" quests but they're essential in games. Even "bounty" quests are "kill this monster, then that monster" quests. The problem is when there is nothing ELSE but those. The biggest alternative to these types of quests is the RP story quests that almost nobody reads anyway.

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Non-linear dungeons

This. Completely this. Sebilis is a perfect example. If you want to kill the head boss, you obviously take a more-or-less linear path but 99% of the cases, you go in there to kill things. For some stupid reason, almost all modern mmo's think that a dungeon is ONLY for crawling. There needs to be both.

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Difficult soloability

Yes and no. I think EQ did it best (obviously) though it could be improved. Soloing is possible with many classes (some better than others), but grouping should ALWAYS be better than soloing. By the same token, every class needs to have something significant to contribute to every type of encounter, even while the encounter is going on. For instance, chanters are extraordinarily useful in all groups and leading up to the raid target. But once people are buffed, there's often very little we can do. In Sky, we tash (except for a couple targets where charmed pets are useful), at Trakanon, we really don't do much unless we have a charmed pet which isn't always possible in the rush to get FTE. This is the case with most dragons because our offensive spells are usless really and our debuffs are meaningless (unless we don't have a shaman).

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-No instancing

I disagree. Instancing is useful, IMHO for xp dungeon crawls. They should be procedural so as not to be stale and the loot shouldn't be the best. And they shouldn't completely replace "camp-style" dungeons at all. But IMHO, Instanced raids should be few and far between, but they have their place too. Sky is actually a great example of a raid that would work better instanced.

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Tradeskills mostly a commercial decision

I think trades need to be useful, period. Whether it's to sell something to someone else (via necessary items or fashion) or useful to the person with the tradeskill, it should have something that's genuinely useful in the game. Brewing didn't become really useful until Velious and baking was never anything more than slightly useful.

Ultimately, I think the key to an effective tradeskill system is have each skill produce some kind of needed consumables.

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Large, occasionally barren landscape.

No. No. and No. Barren landscape is stupid. It's also known as the Karanas. Barren landscape always becomes something that people bypass because it's BORING. The problem with places like Karana is that there's not enough mobs there. Realism be damned, every place needs something useful to DO and usually that is killing.

I do agree with "large" because a world needs to feel vast.

[Treefall]

Originally Posted by Zeakus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Haha, Brad McQuaid ...Quick someone give him 30 million dollars to create a buggy game that no one will play!

I wish the game luck but he doesn't have the any cred after the debacle of Vanguard. What a disaster that was, although it did have a few players that enjoyed it after they fixed the game years after launch. Although he was apart of the original EQ team, so who knows maybe he can strike it big on this one.

Like many other old school MMO gamers, every MMO launch typically garners a great deal of skepticism after 15 years of shitty MMO launches so don't take it as bashing the game. I'm just glad someone is trying to do something different than copy / paste the WoW gameplay.

I won't deny that Vanguard was a huge letdown.

However, I think the core of the issue for that game, and many other MMOs on release today, is that they are trying to put way too much content in at release to "compete" with seasoned MMOs that have been on the market for years.

It leads to a sub-par, buggy product that launches with 1/2 the expected features and those features that do make it are lackluster because so much development time was spent on features that never made it into the game.

An MMO in the spirit of EQ really only needs the following at release, but done VERY WELL.
-Tank, Healer, CC, melee DPS, ranged DPS (1 or 2)
-3 to 4 races
-Two well-designed major cities, and a few smaller cities to meet various needs
-A meaningful level cap with xp paced out to make sure content stays meaningful for days of playtime, not hours (in terms of leveling)
-Outdoor Zones: just 2 for each leveling bracket, but designed well with clear areas for various levels and group sizes in their respective bracket.
-Dungeons Same as outdoor zones, 2 for each leveling bracket but designed well with clear areas for various levels and group sizes in their respective bracket.

Honestly, have that ready out the door. Raiding at first could easily be strategically spawning mobs among all the zones created for the leveling experience. We don't need amazing, complex raid zones right out of the door, just throw raiding into the world to keep every zone meaningful. Heck, how bad ass would it be for certain raid mobs to spawn in the major cities or out lying cities even, with real consequences occurring when they aren't killed.

Then every year patch in a race and class until you feel content that all bases are covered. Instead of working directly on raid content, every year add in a new leveling zone for each bracket that's well designed, with new raid mobs designed to live among it (expanding where people can level and raid).

Then I feel when all bases are eventually covered, as you started the game with a great core and just added onto that core, then it's time to focus on zones for level cap. Maybe at that point expand levels by 10, then really focus on raids and high level content.

Just my 2 cents.

I feel like too many new MMOs come out trying to have massive leveling experiences, massive numbers of classes, massive numbers of races to choose from, beautiful cities that take a lot of time to design but are deserted because there are 14,000 other cities, etc. etc. Just design a core and add to it people, dang it.

[mycoolrausch]

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Non-linear dungeons

This reminds me that Vanilla WoW had some really cool non linear dungeons. Blackrock depths, dire maul, lower blackrock spire. They were all pretty epic and immersive. When I played a couple expansions later during a free resurrection trial I noticed the new dungeons were literally loot corridors. You start at one end of a hallway and walk forward spamming your abilities till you get to the other end of the same hallway, collect loot.

Anyway, truthfully I'm not super interested in another static content static ability MMO, but I wouldn't be opposed to playing one for shits and giggles if it was the least bit inspired.

[Danth]

I don't have a whole lot of interest in another EQ-style game, albeit for reasons not mentioned in the original post. I only barely play EQ-EMU as it is. EQ-style games are about as much bad as good for me, and I seem to gradually grow less tolerant of the bad as I age.

Danth

[TheBiznessTZ]

Lets all be real here..... everyone here is waiting for eqnext. Oh and my 2 cents i came back to p99 because the game is hard.