Soulbinders?

[falkun]

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

let me re-quote:


I never proposed any changes - I really don't have to, SOE knew it was right thing to do and they did it. The point was to demonstrate that it was a right thing to do.

Why does it have to be a right and wrong discussion? Why can't it be a design choice that other developers decided not to follow so they could garner more casual subscribers?

You are saying that adding non-interactive ports, binds, etc. to EQ (and all subsequent MMOs) is obviously a good thing because everyone since has done it that way. I am saying that adding non-interactive ports, binds, etc. to EQ (and all subsequent MMOs) is obviously a bad thing because it aided in decreasing interaction between players in a genre that is built around interaction.

Saying "It must be right because everyone since has done it" is like saying that "inventing machine helplines must be good for the business because everyone has them now". I'm sorry, it may lower operating costs, but I fucking hate talking to a god-damn machine because they can never answer my questions as accurately or as quickly as talking to a human being for half the time.

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

discussing potential outcome of dropping a nuke on a city, is not the same thing as actually wanting to drop the nuke. Its all that is - discussion and speculation. The hang up is, that die hard fans seem to take anything as a direct threat the precious "classic standards", which will surely fall, if they don't all rush to its defense.

I will acquiesce your point that you don't want to change P99. However, you are still trying to argue that classic EQ class imbalances are game-design flaws that were changed later. I refuse to see them as flaws. I see them as game-rules that advance the specific purpose of the genre this game belongs to.

[Malrubius]

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

let me re-quote:


I never proposed any changes - I really don't have to, SOE knew it was right thing to do and they did it. The point was to demonstrate that it was a right thing to do.

Then why are you here? SOE knew a lot of other things were the right thing to do too. You should go check them all out. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[stormlord]

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

Any discussion of "haves" vs "have-nots" comes down to the fact that you know what your class can and cannot do at character creation. You don't arbitrarily pick a class with your eyes closed, you pick them because you think it'd be fun to play.

If being able to cast Gate and Bind Affinity are that important, play any one of the SEVEN classes that can cast it. For those keeping track at home, that's fully half of the available classes. If you don't want to play a caster, then accept that you can't and enjoy your class in spite of its supposes "limitations".

Classic Everquest was NEVER about balance or fairness. I could list about a hundred different ways in which Classic EQ isn't fair or balanced. Classic Everquest was, at heart, a role-playing game. It came from the same mindset as Dungeons and Dragons. That being said, it wouldn't make sense for a Warrior, say, to be able to cast a spell to bind his soul to a certain location. You have to decide whether the character you want to play is able to cast spells, or is evil, or can pick pocket. Homogenization doesn't make for a fun game. You have to decide what limitations and what powers your character has because nobody is forcing you to play one class or another, or to play the game at all.

The reason Classic EQ lost its feel was precisely because the developers started trying to make things fair and balanced. Everyone being able to port to the Nexus if they waited at a Scion was an example. PoK and how all the guards are neutral is another.

tl;dr: Classic EQ is and hopefully always will be about living with your choices and weighing your pros against your cons. It's up to you to decide where your characters' priorities lie.

Whether or not the rest of your points are correct or not, EQ lost its feel because: a) it got old with increasing baggage concerns b) SOE invested in EQ2, free realms, and now EQnext - they gave up on eq and settled with milking the remaining players b) other mmorpgs kept coming out and pulling potential new players in their direction, away from eq. SOE has a bad habit of abandoning games or impulsively changing them.

EQ declined and a lot of these changes were the response. Pok books were not added because the designers had a change of heart. They added pok books because the world was getting too big and too spread out and because there were less and less players to port you. Players took LONGER to travel from point A to point B. So they added the pok books. It's not rocket science. It's actually very simple. EQ suffered far more severely from lack of funding, lack of advertising and lack of interest from SOE than it ever did from a change of heart.

These kinds of arguments i've seen before. It's like people who say the game got easier. Umm, not really. It has got easier in the lower levels, but that's because new players are almost always alone and there're increasing amounts of levels/aa's to get. So the pace is more rapid. Duh. At the high levels, the game is still hard and bitchy. People need to upgrade their BS detector or something or play if they haven't.

I last played live in feb 2010. So don't tell me I don't know the game. I was lvl 85. Had some low lvl non-twinked alts too that I leveled to 38-51. I never boxed on live. So I got a good review of Eq1 up till last year.

I know classic EQ too. I started in march 1999. I made another ranger in late 2001.

EQ is a dying game. That's probably the biggest reason we see the changes we see. When you look at industry, it's all about money and then talent. With a game like this, no one is wanting to invest in it. It's too old. Even I would invest in a newer game. For the truth of the matter, witness the power (or lack thereof) of old age.

I had to live through all these years. I had to feel the pain. I was angry (in a misguided way) at a lot of things I see others here being angry about. I suspect it's just growing pains. Maybe one day we'll all understand and be on the same page. Or maybe we'll all for eternity be on separate pages, always arguing and fighting to agree on something. We live in a big, changing world. It's not a surprise that this happens. So it goes...