Sony unveils Everquest 1 reboot MMO

[Seritaph]

Vanguard. I was so hopeful, and it almost worked. I thought to myself, THIS is what EQ 2 should have been. And then the floor fell out. Yeah, it's still a game, and it's not terrible. But it comes nowhere near its potential.

[Crover_CT99]

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

His big mistake was biting off more than he could chew. He admitted this in not-so-many words. "Let's make an EVEN BIGGER WORLD!!!" OMGdz! But as is painfully evident in the new Freeport...bigger means emptier. Vanguard never found the time to add content / npcs / storyline to the vast majority of the landscape.

Bigger is not always better.

Do you mean in terms of release or to this day? What I've found coming back to VG now is that a majority (not all) of the game is populated and itemized. Some areas are itemized but need a second pass. Some areas need an epic quest or two to draw people to the area. But honestly, my brother and I have been overwhelmed with content so much that we often leave a level range with 1-2 dungeons we never touched (great replay value for other characters).

Part of the problem, which extends to the old ezmode argument, is that a majority of players do not seem to have any desire to try to find those great hidden areas with good content/rewards that just aren't very well known. We constantly have to link soulbound, above-average boss drops we are getting in some pseudo-obscure dungeon to convince people to venture out from the 'urt -> hunter's league -> celestine ward -> swamp armor' treadmill everyone does 1-50 like a religion.

This is a dead horse and I'm preaching to the choir, but I it gets frustrating knowing the popular opinion is that VG lacks content. It really doesn't.

[Tunarian]

Originally Posted by Crover_CT99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Do you mean in terms of release or to this day? What I've found coming back to VG now is that a majority (not all) of the game is populated and itemized. Some areas are itemized but need a second pass. Some areas need an epic quest or two to draw people to the area. But honestly, my brother and I have been overwhelmed with content so much that we often leave a level range with 1-2 dungeons we never touched (great replay value for other characters).

Part of the problem, which extends to the old ezmode argument, is that a majority of players do not seem to have any desire to try to find those great hidden areas with good content/rewards that just aren't very well known. We constantly have to link soulbound, above-average boss drops we are getting in some pseudo-obscure dungeon to convince people to venture out from the 'urt -> hunter's league -> celestine ward -> swamp armor' treadmill everyone does 1-50 like a religion.

This is a dead horse and I'm preaching to the choir, but I it gets frustrating knowing the popular opinion is that VG lacks content. It really doesn't.

I've heard this from so many people, and I have said the same thing to so many people including yourself. I won't go back to VG because I'm afraid of it being shut down. I'm playing P99 a bit, and I'm playing WoW a lot because it's consistent. If they released VG with a new marketing strategy they would probably grab more players and I would probably be one of them.

[mimixownzall]

Instances? No thanks.

Instances are for lazy developers.

Instances ruined MMOs.

[eqdruid76]

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

Instances? No thanks.

Instances are for lazy developers.

Instances ruined MMOs.

False.

Instances brought in hundreds of thousands of casual players, which sustain MMOs long after the hardcore players jump ship for the next FOTM.

Hardcore players demanding rushed, incomplete content and mechanics are the ones who ruin MMOs.

[RKromwell]

I like doing dungeon crawls...I also like clearing them and not having the creatures spawn again twenty minutes later. That is what I liked about LDoN so much. Made me feel like I did something.

[Tiggles]

Instances are a necessary evil now. Thought instances that require flagging for raids would be awesome.

I do hope they do not instance dungeons and only raid content

[fugazi]

The key to non-instanced dungeons is to make them frikking huge and require you to wrestle yourself through them. Think Sebilis, the Sarnak city and those kind of EQ dungeons but bigger and with more content. Oh, and never ever implement (flying) mounts. Just introduce waypoints at inns and such and give a few classes phat teleportation spells that will make them desirable in groups.

[corradojeff]

One of the biggest resons we will never have the "Classic EQ felling" again is because in 1999 there really wasnt another option.

When you first logged in to EQ all you had was *a tattered note to go on. NOTHING ELSE. you had to figure it out for yourself. This is a difficult thing to do and to try and duplicate this today is impossible because of all the other options that are our there. Most people (and therefore most of the profit) will opt for a game that is a bit easier and that choice is a credit card payment away...

I think for the next MMO to be success full it will have to cater more to the casual player. If the new dungoens were instanced but required a flagging that would be great but I think it would cater better to the aforementioned player if that flag could be obtained in several small steps (ie: Logging in for 1-2 hours to obtain an item or kill a specific NPC and logging off) and then the final step to be a bit of a hard one (ie: Something that takes a group or two and 3-4 hours to kill). After that you would be flagged for this instance that your guild could get together for and accomplish in 4-5 hours.

This type of play would cater to a casual player a bit more. They wouldnt need to log on for hours and hours on end to experience content and it would still feel like you have worked for your end goal.

My 2 pennies...

[Tiggles]

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

One of the biggest resons we will never have the "Classic EQ felling" again is because in 1999 there really wasnt another option.

When you first logged in to EQ all you had was *a tattered note to go on. NOTHING ELSE. you had to figure it out for yourself. This is a difficult thing to do and to try and duplicate this today is impossible because of all the other options that are our there. Most people (and therefore most of the profit) will opt for a game that is a bit easier and that choice is a credit card payment away...

I think for the next MMO to be success full it will have to cater more to the casual player. If the new dungoens were instanced but required a flagging that would be great but I think it would cater better to the aforementioned player if that flag could be obtained in several small steps (ie: Logging in for 1-2 hours to obtain an item or kill a specific NPC and logging off) and then the final step to be a bit of a hard one (ie: Something that takes a group or two and 3-4 hours to kill). After that you would be flagged for this instance that your guild could get together for and accomplish in 4-5 hours.

This type of play would cater to a casual player a bit more. They wouldnt need to log on for hours and hours on end to experience content and it would still feel like you have worked for your end goal.

My 2 pennies...

I really liked the whole PoP Style of flagging

Casuals had a large portion of the zones to level in. Casual raiding guilds had those zones plus another section of zones to level in with the knowledge that people in these tier 2 zones had slight raid experience and knew what they where doing.

Then you had the elemental planes that mostly consisted of guild groups and soloers who can taken the time to raid full time.

Pop had tons of content for the entire spectrum and it was EQ's best Vision expac.


Also, I'm for the 75% Flag share thing to allow people to quickly flag newer guild members/public raids as well.


If NewEQ has that plus city sized non instanced zones like Seb, Chardok, Guk etc (the main draw of EQ for me) the game will hold my attention.