Instances destroyed EQ

[Demetrium]

Instances are terrible in every game. All instances are to me is just a quick and dirty solution to a lack of content that kills immersion. The more you add crap like instances the less you feel like you're playing a game and the more you feel like you're playing a template.

There's lots of other "convenience" things like this that WoW has and it just ruins the game for anyone except the most shallow of people. Mailboxes are convenient sure, but it trivializes travel and completely takes away from the epic feel of the world. As someone who's played a lot of games (at the highest tiers), I've absolutely come to the conclusion that there does have to be pain/work in a game for you to truly enjoy the other aspects.

[Thulack]

Instancing didnt kill eq but it didnt help it. It was the people that killed EQ.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

isn't that about the time VI sold to Sony?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

a common misconception.

SONY owned VI since the day one, and original VI TEAM was in charge of development as late as PoP, and then was RENAMED into SOE

So if you want to blame anyone for things past Velious- blame Verant themselves [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As far as instancing goes- it worked half decently for LDON, but completely killed competitive raiding. Yes, pre-Luclin raiding in EQ actually sucked, but purely due to low number of actual raid targets. With Luclin/PoP this number doubled, the solution to raiding overcrowding was to add more different raid targets, not made them instanced.

[SwordNboard]

EQ = world immersion. All other MMOs = self-immersion.

[beentheredonethat]

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

tz died when GoD came out, yes, but at the same time WoW came out and didn't wanna fight through another expansion. Ldon was a nice addition and had instance grouping, plus added other abilities which made it better pvp/groups. Don't think instances killed tz, think eq just had it's time up at that point, at least on tallon zek

for me it went downhill around velious. some parts of it were fun, but it trivialized the classic world so much it killed the game for me. everything later seemed just like lazy way for SOE to get money out of players for patched content.

[Daldaen]

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

Instances killed EQ yes.

WoW instances. They took the good parts of EQ, the dungeons, and made them fun for everyone, not the top 5% of the player base who could lock everyone else out.

Wat?

[Acillatem]

The immersion factor is what EQ had over it's competitors. Sitting there waiting 30 minutes for the god damn boat. Sure it sucked. But you felt like you were a part of the world and that was the allure that was Classic EQ. It did an A+ job of making you feel like a part of Norrath. Exploring. Making new friends. All that was the foundation for what made EQ a success.

As the expansions kicked out, they chipped away at that a little bit at a time. The first time I believe I felt the immersion factor slipping away was Luclin. Nexus portals, automated bazaar, Safe Zones (I too played on TZ) etc. While more "convenient", it made the game feel more "computerized" and less "human". Each expansion after that added 1 or 2 things that added convenience, yet removed immersion.

Next came PoK. Then instanced dungeons etc. It just all started to chip away at the heart and soul of EQ until it was a shell of it's former self.

There wasn't 1 singular thing that "destroyed" EQ. It was a series of small changes that overall simply turned EQ into a different game altogether IMO.

[mitic]

pop books and instances ruined eq

funny tho, everyone pissed here about 2 guild taking all the dragons on p99 but then noone wants instnced anyways! haha

[Aenor]

It sucks that Vanguard flopped because that may be one of the last attempts at a non instanced world.

[bakkily]

to both clutter and sword, i agree with both of your posts, back when i was younger, i was big into console games, never the computer really, but then when eq came out, had a friend down the street that played, a

nd my paps being a old adnd player, he bought the game and tried it out, and soon we were hooked on everquest, though being about 11-13, was only allowed to play for 1-2 hours on saturday, sometimes a hour friday night and a hour saturday, well partly due to him having his play time

then i feel my 2nd favorite mmo after eq is vanguard, we got into a early area of beta, and continued to its launch, and played from launch for about 8 months, the game was great, but even with a awesome launch, it would've done a hell of alot better then it did now, but at the time in 2007, due to all the other mmos making everything so dumbed down and simple, i could see it getting the numbers, but not a million, or millions like wow, because lets face it, most commercials, and to me, most shows, are stupid as shit, and for some reason people love this stupid as shit shows, because its dumbed down to stupid people, i mean wow at first wasnt easy easy, but as close to classic eq, it was much easier, and as time went on they sure made it even way more easier

future mmo i look forward to, though not even sure how in the hell i can look forward to it where nothings been shown of the mmo, but 38 stuidios is coming out with a great rpg for the console thats going to open the world of their visioned mmo that will be out later

ldon was one of my favorite expansions, either that or velious, but with soe seeing how they can easily poop out expansion after expansion, and making everything instanced really turned the game to shit, but then wow came out with instances, theirs was'nt that bad, but the problem is this

after 2004, every other mmo that saw how big wow became, saw the direction change of how mmos were created, and followed the big picture, i havnt played rift, but ive heard its basically like wow but with better screenshots, and a half ass of fantasy, even in aoc,

though the games high graphics didnt allow a whole lot of people to buy the game, but after 3 months of launch of that game, dungeons were dead, i played that for about 8 months as well or so after launch, and I thought it was a great game, i grew up reading the conan books, and loved the adventure in it

(thats what these games are like, a immersive world i am in, though theres plenty to do in rl, but sometimes things just suck and we want to plug into something else, and Id say mmos are a hell of alot healthier then other ways to be entertained),

but just remember to plug back into the real world, but to the point, its 3 am in the morning and cant sleep, so i found my self checking the forums, the direction of mmo's are going a terrible direction, though im glad that many are working hard to steer it back in the Correct Direction, its like when movies came out, im a big fan of black n' white movies, and most of the ones in 50s/60s were great, then afterwards, yea theres still great movies, but most suck

like this last year, im a avid person to visit the theatre's every other weekend with friends, but all year every movie i saw i felt it was like throwing 10 bucks into the trash or burning it until i saw rise of the planet of the apes, great movie, and thats how a few game companies are trying to do, make the classic dnd rpg feel