If you could go back in time and get on the EQ dev team

[Ezrick]

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

Surely there are two different answers to this question.

First is what you would do back in 1999 with the knowledge of 2016.

And its pretty obvious. You would make WoW.

Second is what you would do back in 1999 with only the knowledge of 1999. I'm fairly certain you wouldn't choose to use it as a way to punish players, the learning curve would be much, much easier and the level requirements would be smoothed so hell levels don't exist.

The thing is, eliminating hell levels isnt that damn hard. You just dont use a formula. You get someone in the firm to set the numbers, it takes a couple of hours and it stops players leaving en masse at certain points. Its numbskullingly obvious.

Then you would make stats actually matter. I still cant believe that they made this game where stats mean virtually nothing. Not only did they make stats meaningless, but they made an entire class where the rest of the game wants them to waste their time buffing those stats despite much better stuff that class could do.

And then there's camping. Does it seem even remotely reasonable that you should have to spend 14 hours to camp a spawn? Especially when the rest of the game will think that spawn drop is necessary for your class to work (as it was for FBSS). Or camp for 12 days for the Cleric Epic. 12 days. 12 DAYS.

The problem back in 1999 was that McQuaid didn't understand the genre or the bulk of the players. They didn't want punished or to spend a year on a single character. They wanted a fun game and if they got to 50, they could do another class/race combo.

The worst thing EQ did was fail to understand the players, they thought that players when they maxed would leave. (I wont rant about the terrible end game here). But they dont they go make a new char and level that.

In other words /easymode.

To me the appeal of EQ was that it was hard. I never played UO, but our initial group came from a game called The Realm (I believe it's still around www.realmserver.com). There was no endgame and no level cap. Actually levels beyond 75 or so were pretty meaningless, there was nothing to do.

EQ on the other hand was difficult. Heck those first few months were downright brutal until you climbed that steep learning curve. It kept things interesting and once you mastered it there was raiding for the select few that mastered the original game.

Indeed the reason for p99's popularity is that those that could not master EQ the first time around come here to "do it right this time." These people quit in frustration because they couldn't make the grade on live.

On Tarew Marr, at this point on live there were only two guilds (Black Company and Enlightened Dark) that could kill anything bigger than Naggy or Vox. Less than 100 total players. Raiding wasn't an entitlement like WoW, you had to be among the best. Neither guild allowed any characters (even alts) below level 60. Raids were done with tight groups half the size of a P99 raid. The only thing I've played that came close to the original EQ raiding scene was actually EQ2 (raids had a hard cap of 24 players). I actually quit EQ for about 6 months and came back in the PoP era and was appalled. Raids now consisted of zerg rushes of 80 level 50+ with minimal organization and skill while during Luclin we did a server-first kill of Seru with 23 players.

It can't be recaptured. The masses demand that everyone gets a trophy and that every class is valid in every situation. Make my paladin do what warriors do and make my druid heal like a cleric, give my wizard clarity and allow my ranger to tank a dragon. It all seems innocent enough but frankly it would have destroyed the game, or destroyed it sooner. Been on live recently?

While I think you are a bit too focused on hell levels (certainly wasn't that huge an issue on live, but it was annoying) they certainly didn't cause people to leave in droves. Their own lack of skill did that. The lure of fast levels and everyone-gets-to-raid-everything accounted for the popularity of WoW. Turns out people like /easymode.