server population

[Dannermax]

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

The game was called Everquest. Think about it:

EVER. QUEST.

The point of the game was supposed to be that you are experiencing an alternate World which continuously has something new for you to discover, overcome, or be engaged by; always an adventure to go on. When there is no more adventure left, there is no more Everquest. Sitting around camping for drops or level grind and doing the exact same fights over and over and over is not what the game was supposed to be about.

Everquest has an amazing World. The landscapes and zones and creatures and lots of other little touches are eminently more enthralling for whatever reason than that of any other audiovisual MMORPG to date. Again, though, all of those wonderful qualities cease to have much value when the game itself stops immersing you into that World.

What Everquest needs to have, for the game to adhere to the original vision of what it was supposed to be and for it to continue being the amazing game that people got drawn into during the beginning, is constantly changing content. Players should never know exactly how an area is going to spawn or exactly where many of the items/rewards in the game are going to drop. Obviously some drops need to be static to give each area of the game its own unique draw, but the content itself that you have to fight in order to get those drops should be ever-changing. Players need to have reason to constantly explore the entire game World and they need to be constantly challenged by the encounters.

Without that element, no MMORPG these days will ever be "the classic Everquest experience" or be the game that Everquest should have been. The sad thing is that the people in charge of the companies creating these games are not allowing such a thing to exist. They only want to get in on the WoW model because they believe it to be the easiest/best way to make cash. They are wrong. I'm not sure how many of you followed HORIZONS from early development, but that very well could have been the game which picked up where Everquest failed and allowed "the classic Everquest experience" to be revived and evolve into the next level of dynamic gaming. Unfortunately, the creator behind the game got overthrown by the ignorant producers and thus they ruined the game and we never got to see what it was intended to be.

Guild Wars 2 looks to be another MMORPG that finally tries to bring back what Everquest should be, however I disapprove of the design and mechanics of that game. It just doesn't have the same level of personality, originality, and immersion as Everquest.

So that brings us to p1999. A game with capable developers who have succeeded in corralling the largest population ever for an Everquest emulator. This is not Everquest, though. It can't be, because you've missed out on the SOUL of what Everquest actually was. I wish you guys would realize what made Everquest the game it was and start trying to bring THAT back. You need to have dynamic content or it doesn't work. p1999 could be a relatively huge game with a constant 10k+ population (more servers would need to open obviously) if you stopped with this futile attempt of simply cloning the shell of EQ as it was over a decade ago. Use the Everquest World as it was intended to be used and create a real living, breathing, ever-changing gaming environment. It would be a smash and people who want to relive "the classic Everquest experience", or experience it for the first time, would get far more out of it and continue playing for far longer than what we are currently seeing.

Nice post Zuranthium. I agree with most of what you are saying. But i do feel that i am back in 2001, and to mee it has got a classic feel to it. I know that there arent any GM events, or you feel makes EQ dynamic. To me, im having as much fun, as i did back then. I'd just wish that there were more people online..!