SOE Live

[Essedge]

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

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That kind of speak should be bannable. I'm not even joking.

That game is old as hell now, in the early 2000's they were playing grunge on classic rock stations.. just sayin

[Malice_Mizer]

Yeah, WoW didn't used to be purely random queing for dungeons and 100% linear, hold-your-hand content.

Almost 10 years old :{

[stormlord]

Well I've got the chance to log into live and try it. I'll still play a bit, but...

I think it just feels watered down and I respond negatively to that. By watered down, I mean that you level up with a mercenary doing most of the work. There're not many groups. People complain about the smallest things. It's too easy. Defiant gear erases the feeling of progression and discovery in the world. Some of this comes from mudflation and some comes from the shift away from old mechanics to wow-like mechanics.

I'll start by explaining mudflation then I'll end the post with a comment about wow-like mechanics.

Mudflation is a real simple concept, but I guess if someone has never been introduced to it, they won't know what I mean. I'll try to keep my definition simple. Mudflation is similar to the rich vs poor divide. It's what happens when the rich get richer and the poor can't rise up. In MMO's, the rich are like high levels that keep gaining more levels and power. The poor are like new players that enter into the game. The increasing amounts of levels and powers have grown so much since the beginning of the game that new players have to spend increasing amounts of time to reach maximum power.

Get that? Maybe?

Basically, it's a mathematical thing. If a game is adding X amount of power/levels via expansions then it's adding X amount of grind/progression (content). So with each new expansion it takes longer to reach maximum power. You can actually calculate how long it will take a player to reach maximum power at any point in the life of the game, as long as you know how much the game will grow in the future.

Like this:
Year 1: A player can reach max level/power in 8 months (average playtime estimates).
Year 2: A player can reach max level/power in 11 months.
Year 3: A player can reach max level/power in 13 months.
Year 4: A player can reach max level/power in 16 months.

SO, if you started at year 1 then it would require 16 months to maintain max power/level at year 4. This is true only if you stop playing once you've reached max. Now, for a player that STARTS in year 4, it'll not only require 16 months to reach max, but it will require more since the game will grow during the time that they're playing. On Year 5, the game might require 18 months to reach cap, for example. This means that for a player that doesn't play consistently, they'll very likely never reach maximum power/level. It also means that for a person that starts on year 1, they only need to play 8 months to reach maximum power/level and after that they only need to play a couple months with each new expansion to reach maximum level/power.

The problem is that new players want a chance to reach maximum power and want to be able to play with the veterans. This is especially true with older games that're top-heavy because there're not many new players entering the game. New players don't like to play alone. SO the response is to mudflate the game.

By mudflating the game, you can maintain a set amount of time to reach maximum level or power in the game. So a new player entering the game when it has just launched will require as much time to reach maximum level/power as a new player that enters the game in its fifth year.

There're lots of ways do to this. One way would be to kill off the veterans. This would be like adding perma-death to the game once a player reaches a certain power or level. It's not a popular method. A more practical way is just to give new players a leg up. Give them faster experience and better items than the veterans had at that point in their lives. This will allow the new players to catch up.

But how does muflation water down the game, as I stated previously???? Well, it primarily does this to the new players or the players that're not quite veterans. Basically, with all hte increased experience and ubber items and hand holding what happens is that the experience becomes somewhat like racing down a beautiful scenic road at 550 mph. It's hard to appreciate the scenery and grow attached to it when you're moving so fast. It inevitably feels watered down and even too easy. It's like you're disconnected from the world. To make matters worse, you're probably playing in OLDER content that has bad graphics AND you're playing mostly alone, unless the game you're playing has a matchmaking service. FAct of the matter is, most old games will not have a lot of new players, so when you play these games, you have to plan on soloing a lot.

Lastly, SOE has shifted from its 1999-2003 focus. It has watered down the game intentionally to compete with games like WoW. Increasingly, new mmo's are also supporting the console video gamers. Obviously, casual players are a far larger customer base than the hardcores will ever be. So this inevitably leads to gameplay that feels too easy or too soft. For somebody like me that likes to feel I'm living on the edge in a tough brutal uncaring world, this easing of the standards and expectations on me is highly undesired. But I guess if I play a more mainstream game like EQ, I should not be surprised when they try to appeal to casuals.

[stormlord]

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

Yeah, WoW didn't used to be purely random queing for dungeons and 100% linear, hold-your-hand content.

Almost 10 years old :{

In its first year, it was remarkably like EQ. No corpse runs and whatnot, but still similar. It even had home-cities, just like EQ. I read the people who worked on WoW were raiders in EQ a few years prior.

[SamwiseRed]

wow was awesome in vanilla. well the world pvp anyway.

[stormlord]

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

Any idea if they're going to announce a new time-locked progression server for original EQ at SOElive?

Fippy & Vulak (especially) are fading fast, from what I hear.

Don't think so. They'll probably merge those.

I think that anything without the mercenaries and the tutorial and the defiant gear is so different that it's worht having a server for that, even if the experience rate is high and other changes remain. Without the (overpowered) mercenaries, you really have to learn your class quick. The pressure is higher. Without the defiant gear, the rewards in the older world have more value. You can't just go anywhere and get raid-level gear (defiant gear), you instead have to know where the names are and where the quests are. And starting in your homecity is a lot different than starting in the tutorial. Granted, the homecities are old and the graphics are bad, but some of the quests in them could be updated, at least. Overall, it gives the game more character.

Fippy and Vulak (not f2p) interest me, but EQ Mac also interests me. For one, EQ Mac is capped at POP. Fippy and Vulak are almost at POR and TSS and will not stop the progression until they're normal.

The problem with EQMac is that many windows users won't try it and it's a buggy codebase, dating back to 2003. EQMac would be more popular if the codebase was newer and it was windows-friendly. To give you an idea of how old EQ Mac is, IT HAS NO IN-GAME MAPS. See what I mean, now?

To be honest, if EQ Mac was more windows-friendly, I'd be playing it on it now. I've read that windows users can somehow get it to work, but I think it's too much to ask of a normal user. What makes it worse is that the good things in EQ Mac are spoiled by all these things. It makes my heart break in two.

Here's some discussion about EQ Mac vs Fippy:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/foru...192629144&h=50

[Malice_Mizer]

Yeah, I played on Fippy when it first launched and got a full set of newbie Bard armor (Tranquilsong), and had that full set for eternity.

Not sure why they kept those quests in for classic. Armor looked awesome and it was neat having full +stat plate at lvl 5 on a new server, but it definitely detracted from the experience of having incomplete sets and pieces of crap armor well into end-game like classic EQ.

[Lyra]

I know nothing about EQ Next and I really don't want to, but these videos are quite entertaining:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EverQuestNext/videos

I don't think I will ever look at Firiona Vie the same again...

[porigromus]

Originally Posted by webrunner5 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well I play live off and on myself. I just pretty much make new alts. I never bought the latest Expansion. They have made the high end of the game so damn hard it is crazy. But I guess they really had no other way to go. If they didn't keep raising how high levels wise you could go, making new zones with the new expansions, and coming up with new gear how were they suppose to keep harldly anyone staying the same?

The same will happen here. After Velious is out for 2 years or so what then? You can only make so many alts, and draw in so many new people. P1999 will be like Red at some point in time. On life support. But something new always comes along to replace pretty much everything and everybody. Such is life.

Myth! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] EQMac is an example of how a static came can go on for a long long time.

[Nirgon]

@ You can only make so many alts comments:

You realize how long it takes a normal human being on a freshly rolled server to get lvl 60?