EQ as it should have been?

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by JerseyFresh609 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

While I would like to make a poll for this, not sure I can. Anyway I'm wondering how people feel about the server. You should fall into one of the following categories:

1. Classic - I want everything as close to classic as possible. Remove item links, etc.

2. As is - I'm happy with the way things are and trust those running the server to decide what's what.

3. Classic+ - As close to classic as possible but including things that improve the overall experience without affecting the game play: like item links, UI mods, Luclin Models, High res textures, etc..

4. As it should have been - Add/Remove things based on the best overall play experience even if these things affect game play (Though not in a MAJOR way), such as everything mentioned in 3 in addition to: removing xp penalties, adding chat channels, un-nerfing pet xp penalties, etc..


I personally fall in to the 4th category. I feel like things like pets stealing xp because it's "classic" even though it was reverted back on live because it was a bad decision is silly. XP penalties do nothing but make it harder on people and discourage people from playing or grouping with certain class/race combos. Chat Channels are just useful, they may cause EC to slow down but it's still player to player trades/haggling it's not like the bazaar that completely kills that. Anyway that's just my 2 cents, how do you all feel?

Also to those of you in charge, keep up the good work! I love this server and though I don't agree with all your decisions, I do appreciate that you all take your free time to help others enjoy themselves, for free. I've enjoyed the past couple months here and hope to enjoy many more.

I prefer 4, myself. The problem is that not everyone agrees about what is best for the server. It depends on how many people you want playing, really.

For example, I don't care for the luclin models. However, if they could make it so that if I select the old model for my race then that's what other players will see, or if I select the luclin model for my race then that's what other players will see, then I'd gladly accept that compromise. The reason I feel this way is because the old models and the luclin models have a completely different character. I respect social choices in games so I do not want to take that away from others. I believe in maintaining trust. If the luclin models and the old models were not so different, I probably wouldn't feel this way. Just to give an example, the old ogres are fat and almost comical. The new ones are muscled and serious. Another example are the gnomes. The old models for gnomes look older and weak(ish). The new models look younger and stronger. All of this is ignoring the fact that the faces look different. Another are the humans. The old models for humans look almost average in size and build. But the luclin models for humans look like wrestlers or heavy weight boxers. Lastly, I'd like to point out something many people have missed. The old models use textures for the face and there're no polygons for the mouth or the nose or the eyes. This means that the old face textures have a -wide- range of different eye and mouth and nose proportions. The luclin models, on the other hand, use polygons for the mouth and nose and eyes and this never changes for any particular race selection. So this means that no matter which face you pick, the placement of the mouth and nose and eyes will always remain the same.

Thing is, people -can- make their own version of project1999, but you have to work at it. Personally, I wouldn't care so much about recreating 1999-2001. I'd simply take the projectEQ database and carve it into what I think a MMORPG should be. But I think a lot of people would disagree with me.

I'd probably not use eqemulator for my hypothetical game. I'd go to an open source option in order to ensure legality and not ever have to worry about being shutdown by Sony.

An example of an open source MMORPG-like project is Crossfire. There're others.

I never in my life would do an EQ emulator. Too afraid of legality issues and too lazy.

[Raavak]

If it wasn't for EQ in its various forms distracting me I would have completed my plans for world domination by now. Curse you EQ!

[ArumTP]

-4

From my perspective. Some cleric spells were added later on, lucilin era. The current no exp rez gets like 25% added to it, then they added a new no exp rez like level 20ish. This helps the game along, less long corpse runs at low levels.

I also would like to see the mounts added back into the game. It would take some of this massive amount of plat that seems to be floating around in the game.

Both of these put back in would improve the game here. Anything that makes a relatively large world "smaller", in a server with a small population, helps.

I am also anti pet exp, as it just hoses mages, and only them. Just by virtue of them being a mage puts them at a handicap.

Hybrid exp penalty I am also against. It was taken out of live with good reason.

[WhatIsAJuggalo]

4.

im not playing this because i have a hardon for playing something in the exact state it was 13 years ago. im playing this because i liked the core flow of gameplay and the world 13 years ago. anything that can be done within reason to improve or build upon that certain flow is fine, so long as it does not detract or alter the overall feel. stuff that was just an oversight of game design can be fixed without ruining the 'rough' feel of the world. IE, halflings, a naturally awesome race, getting an experience bonus when it was clearly meant for humans.

[FoxxHound]

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[Ikonoclastia]

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

-4

From my perspective. Some cleric spells were added later on, lucilin era. The current no exp rez gets like 25% added to it, then they added a new no exp rez like level 20ish. This helps the game along, less long corpse runs at low levels.

I also would like to see the mounts added back into the game. It would take some of this massive amount of plat that seems to be floating around in the game.

Both of these put back in would improve the game here. Anything that makes a relatively large world "smaller", in a server with a small population, helps.

I am also anti pet exp, as it just hoses mages, and only them. Just by virtue of them being a mage puts them at a handicap.

Hybrid exp penalty I am also against. It was taken out of live with good reason.

Yeah I kind of disagree. I think those small changes, to make things a little easier, the world smaller, experience a little faster ruined EQ.

[stormlord]

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

-4

From my perspective. Some cleric spells were added later on, lucilin era. The current no exp rez gets like 25% added to it, then they added a new no exp rez like level 20ish. This helps the game along, less long corpse runs at low levels.

I also would like to see the mounts added back into the game. It would take some of this massive amount of plat that seems to be floating around in the game.

Both of these put back in would improve the game here. Anything that makes a relatively large world "smaller", in a server with a small population, helps.

I am also anti pet exp, as it just hoses mages, and only them. Just by virtue of them being a mage puts them at a handicap.

Hybrid exp penalty I am also against. It was taken out of live with good reason.

Everybody always focuses on the obvious like corpse runs and slow experience and nerfs and hybrid penalties. This is the elementary sh** that the noob might point out when they login for the first time.

Where things get interesting is when you start digging beneath the surface. The problem isn't downtime, so much. That's far too shallow of an explanation. It assumes that if you remove the downtime then everything is fixed, no doubt about it. But the thing it misses is HOW the downtime is removed!

The problem was that EQ didn't offer us choices. The few choices that it did offer us it locked away behind a mountain of obstacles. Corpse runs, by themselves, aren't evil. What's evil is not giving anybody any other choices unless they have a level 29+ cleric in the group or can find a 29+ cleric or a 57+ paladin nearby. I think that adding low level rezzes was a good idea. But not because it reduced downtime. The reason I like it is because it gave players an option. I would have liked it even more if they had found a way to make us make different choices. It shouldn't have been as simple as just "Hey, I got a rez spell!" It would have been even more brilliant if they had found a way to reward people who actually did a corpse run in certain circumstances. Or perhaps there might be wandering non-player clerics in zones. Or maybe if you die in certain places you do not lose experience. Or maybe there're certain abilities that some players have that can cancel experience loss due to death. The list could go on and on. The point about all this is that by giving players choices you make the game more interesting. If you only focus on the downtime then you miss this point altogether.

Choices and strategy are what make games fun, to me. Downtime is a separate issue. Yes, downtime can indicate that a game lacks choices. But downtime can also indicate choices you made that were bad ones. For example, if I run face first into the boss monster without any caution or any preparation and then get cut down and killed and lose time because I have to run back, I should not then complain that the downtime I experience because of my own choices should be removed. Another example is if I spend money on an item for my house and barely even look at it before giving the non-player my money. Then when I get home and install the item I find out it won't install! Not only that, but it turns out that it's not even a house accessory, it's a weapon! I bought the wrong item! Now what????? Should I complain and tell developers that this downtime is unacceptable? Do you see what I'm saying? Along with choices comes consequences. Now, this doesn't mean that I can't get a refund for the item I mistakenly bought (maybe could get refund from the same merchant), nor does it mean that bad choices cannot be worked around (ex: feign death so boss monster doesn't kill you), but one has to understand that making a wrong choice cannot be equal to making a right choice.

Negative consequences are not themselves bad. A lack of choices, by comparison, IS bad. But negative consequences CAN be too devastating. Corpse runs WERE too devastating in many cases. Like a unrecoverable corpse in Hate or running across a continent and dying and have to run across again or dying in the ocean with no /loc. But to overlook the lack of choice in the game and to only focus on this one thing is to miss the target. If you do this, your answer to corpse runs is just to make it easier and then say to the players, "There, I made it less devastating. Problem solved." But the problem is that this doesn't make the mechanics of death any more or any less interesting. All it does is solve a problem on the surface but it goes no deeper than that. Some people get stuck in this frame of mind and making -interesting- gameplay becomes less of a priority.

[webrunner5]

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

Everybody always focuses on the obvious like corpse runs and slow experience and nerfs and hybrid penalties. This is the elementary sh** that the noob might point out when they login for the first time.

Where things get interesting is when you start digging beneath the surface. The problem isn't downtime, so much. That's far too shallow of an explanation. It assumes that if you remove the downtime then everything is fixed, no doubt about it. But the thing it misses is HOW the downtime is removed!

The problem was that EQ didn't offer us choices. The few choices that it did offer us it locked away behind a mountain of obstacles. Corpse runs, by themselves, aren't evil. What's evil is not giving anybody any other choices unless they have a level 29+ cleric in the group or can find a 29+ cleric or a 57+ paladin nearby. I think that adding low level rezzes was a good idea. But not because it reduced downtime. The reason I like it is because it gave players an option. I would have liked it even more if they had found a way to make us make different choices. It shouldn't have been as simple as just "Hey, I got a rez spell!" It would have been even more brilliant if they had found a way to reward people who actually did a corpse run in certain circumstances. Or perhaps there might be wandering non-player clerics in zones. Or maybe if you die in certain places you do not lose experience. Or maybe there're certain abilities that some players have that can cancel experience loss due to death. The list could go on and on. The point about all this is that by giving players choices you make the game more interesting. If you only focus on the downtime then you miss this point altogether.

Choices and strategy are what make games fun, to me. Downtime is a separate issue. Yes, downtime can indicate that a game lacks choices. But downtime can also indicate choices you made that were bad ones. For example, if I run face first into the boss monster without any caution or any preparation and then get cut down and killed and lose time because I have to run back, I should not then complain that the downtime I experience because of my own choices should be removed. Another example is if I spend money on an item for my house and barely even look at it before giving the non-player my money. Then when I get home and install the item I find out it won't install! Not only that, but it turns out that it's not even a house accessory, it's a weapon! I bought the wrong item! Now what????? Should I complain and tell developers that this downtime is unacceptable? Do you see what I'm saying? Along with choices comes consequences. Now, this doesn't mean that I can't get a refund for the item I mistakenly bought (maybe could get refund from the same merchant), nor does it mean that bad choices cannot be worked around (ex: feign death so boss monster doesn't kill you), but one has to understand that making a wrong choice cannot be equal to making a right choice.

Negative consequences are not themselves bad. A lack of choices, by comparison, IS bad. But negative consequences CAN be too devastating. Corpse runs WERE too devastating in many cases. Like a unrecoverable corpse in Hate or running across a continent and dying and have to run across again or dying in the ocean with no /loc. But to overlook the lack of choice in the game and to only focus on this one thing is to miss the target. If you do this, your answer to corpse runs is just to make it easier and then say to the players, "There, I made it less devastating. Problem solved." But the problem is that this doesn't make the mechanics of death any more or any less interesting. All it does is solve a problem on the surface but it goes no deeper than that. Some people get stuck in this frame of mind and making -interesting- gameplay becomes less of a priority.

Jesus, you have way too much time on your hands.

[Groo]

I'm very grateful for the server. But I keep seeing people referring to a "classic feel," and I can tell that many people's sense of "classic" is different than mine. For me, classic EQ was when the newbie zones and cities were still full of players. The classic experience was about more than just the game settings.

[RevengeofGio]

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

Everyone has a different opinion on what gives the best overall play experience. Everyone who plays here agrees that classic EQ even with it's flaws is still better than most any other MMO that they have played.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean keep the flaws. It doesn't make the game better or "harder" other than being more tedious to certain class choices.