Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[kazroth]

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

And there it is. It is about money, and it really needs to be about money. I'm not sure what the operating costs are for this P99 server, but I'm sure it's significant. I can't imagine the costs of developing, publishing, marketing the game, and then maintaining the ongoing server to run the game.

When people (like me) complain that SoE made decisions based solely on money, we can't really take issue with that while remaining fair. If the development of EverQuest wasn't about making money, it would've never been created, or if it had been, it would've been on such a small scale that I certainly would never have heard of it. It was the prospect of profits that made the game accessible to most of us.

Yep, as I was saying on a D3 forum; unfortunately, a lot of recent trends in the gaming market just don't match up to most of our (our being players of a 13 yo game) desires. Good post.

[azeth]

The sole-killer of EQ was itemization. All arguements can be boiled down to this.

To be honest, the only expansion hat didn't suffer from poor itemization after Velious, was surprisingly Luclin. (given I quit the moment my guild killed Quarm, like within 25 minutes of it)

Luclin, however, introduced us to the first hints of pussification - The Nexus and Bazaar.


edit:

In hindsight, we ignore the fact that Kunark class armor was outdated the minute Velious opened. Somehow, early EverQuest didn't suffer. Whereas when PoP opened we really began to question the direction of the game.

I remember clearly thinking the first time I saw Plane of Fire loot, "So I've raided enough to have geared myself out in VT and Ssra gear, in addition to having spent a hundred or more hours gathering key pieces... for what?"

[Messianic]

Azeth - you play at all anymore?

I still remember making my first 500-1k cleaning up the HK bodies you made :P

[azeth]

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

Azeth - you play at all anymore?

I still remember making my first 500-1k cleaning up the HK bodies you made :P

I don't at all my friend, I don't even have it installed any mas.

Battlefield + Civ V occupy some of my free time lately, I don't know what happened to my gamer personality.

Gone with my youth I suppose.

[Danyelle]

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

The sole-killer of EQ was itemization. All arguements can be boiled down to this.

To be honest, the only expansion hat didn't suffer from poor itemization after Velious, was surprisingly Luclin. (given I quit the moment my guild killed Quarm, like within 25 minutes of it)

Luclin, however, introduced us to the first hints of pussification - The Nexus and Bazaar.


edit:

In hindsight, we ignore the fact that Kunark class armor was outdated the minute Velious opened. Somehow, early EverQuest didn't suffer. Whereas when PoP opened we really began to question the direction of the game.

I remember clearly thinking the first time I saw Plane of Fire loot, "So I've raided enough to have geared myself out in VT and Ssra gear, in addition to having spent a hundred or more hours gathering key pieces... for what?"

I gotta agree with this

Basically anything I could say or any argument I could make has already been made (and in fact I may have already posted earlier in this thread and forgot lol) so basically let me boil this down as best I can.

Flames aside, most people that assume Luclin killed EQ are either jumping the gun, or mad about the graphics change. Plain and simple. The ONLY difference (again...graphics aside) that Luclin introduced was AAs, Bazaar, and Nexus. Now I get a lot of crap for liking Luclin so let me lay out my reasonings in detail and maybe, just maybe, people can understand my thoughts on the matter.

The Bazaar I didn't like, I liked the convenience however it killed several aspects of trade in EQ. A good example would be you could no longer barter prices down on someone. It also became a little harder to buy low and sell high, which is one of the primary methods of dosh attainment in EQ. The Nexus I wasn't bothered by. Why? Because there was one spire per continent (which, with the sole exception of Faydwer and Odus, required you to make a long and/or dangerous trip to reach) and then it also wasn't instantaneous. There was quite a long delay between arriving and getting ported, unless you got lucky on arrival time (which the same could be said for boats...). AAs didn't bother me either. In fact having something to shoot for besides the level cap, not to mention the debates over which ones to get and when to get them or what level to start grinding them, added a bit more substance to EQ imo. Long story short, the only thing I didn't like about Luclin was the Bazaar. That's it. And, in my heart, Luclin is still Classic. This is of course an opinion but whatever I'm entitled to state it as much as I am to have it.

For me Planes of Power was the actual start of EQ's decline. A decline that finally hit rock bottom with Gates of Discord. Every once in awhile a good expansion still shows up (I for one actually liked Seeds of Destruction, and The Buried Sea brought back boats..despite the fact that it doesn't really matter because lolPoK but still..) but ultimately the "magic" as earlier referenced could not be recaptured by GoD...it was gone. It was still very much a good game...but it was not the same. By any means. They began to stop putting new things in that benefited the game, and instead put things in that casualized the game (*COUGH*corpse summoners*COUGH*) until eventually there was no challenge. It became a WoW-clone grind fest.

That's my 2 cents

[aerah]

I really think Velious was the shining example of what an expansion should have been. When Velious was released, I was a rogue and barely of level to get a group at the Ry'Gorr fort in the East Wastes. I spent equal time in Velious and old-world and Kunark dungeons leveling the rest of the way to 60. Velious also re-defined the raid scene, while still strengthening the idea of the community. I spent countless hours farming class armor at the ToV exit (Kael faction represent) and had a fun time doing it. Keys for the content were simple-enough, kill a dragon - turn in an item. Done. The Coldain ring was probably one of the best events I've ever done in EQ, just because it was the first time something like that was implemented. It also got the whole zone involved.

My beef with Luclin wasn't the bazaar (EC did the same thing, bazaar just made it easier and you didn't have to sift through posts on your server board to find things), or cats (who cares, if someone wants to be a cat that's their own problem), or the nexus (Velious introduced quest hubs where lighties and darkies congregated) ... it was the artificial time sinks that really felt like they were time sinks. For some reason, farming armor didn't bother me. Farming ore for shissar bane weapons? That blew. Farming whatever for seru bane weapons, even worse. The VT key was a terrible, terrible waste of time as well. In addition to all that, if I wasn't doing things to help people get keyed, I was soloing (with a second cleric account logged in healing me) in whatever zone had the little mushrooms and fungus beasts to AAs. With that, the sense of community was diminishing quickly. So while the raid content was fun enough (even though VT was just a huge zone to exploit aggro radii), and I did love my lunar fungus tunic, I didn't like the lack of innovation in the Luclin expansion.

With the sense of community gone, the final straw in my (and a lot of my friends'/guildies') EQ existence was PoP. The idea of back flagging, combined with progression choke points that could be blocked by one person effectively ended progression and we all ended up quitting or cutting our play before the 5:1 rule was implemented. As a pretty hard core raiding guild, I imagine that it should have been viewed as one of the best expansions - but the flagging system was a hurdle that no one really wanted to deal with anymore. Lacking the sense of community, having the raid arena taken EQ offered no more magic.

[envino]

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

In hindsight, we ignore the fact that Kunark class armor was outdated the minute Velious opened. Somehow, early EverQuest didn't suffer. Whereas when PoP opened we really began to question the direction of the game.

I remember clearly thinking the first time I saw Plane of Fire loot, "So I've raided enough to have geared myself out in VT and Ssra gear, in addition to having spent a hundred or more hours gathering key pieces... for what?"

Yes. You can do this once in awhile, every couple of years maybe, but every 6 months? Im perfectly happy for this thing to end at Velious and then just chill. Wow has this problem right now, the second you get all geared up and happy it starts all over....its like running a marathon where they move the finish line just as you reach it every time. But, there is nothing much else to do but get gear, unless you enjoy killing 10 rats over and over.