So what's there to do in Velious anyway?

[Clark]

I love Velious, but Luclin was the best.

[Swish]

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

I love Velious, but Luclin was the best.

(+) New playable race
(+) New playable class
(+) Some decent raid content
(+) New places to level
(+) Easier to travel around for non-porter classes.

(-) The bazaar kills the EC atmosphere.

...I'd take it if it was being offered.

[Yuda]

Great post t0lkien.

Is it possible for anything to appeal to the mass market without being mediocre, not necessarily relating to games, but that's what I had in mind.

[t0lkien]

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

Great post t0lkien.

Is it possible for anything to appeal to the mass market without being mediocre, not necessarily relating to games, but that's what I had in mind.

You know, this is a very good question, and I've thought about it *a lot*.

My answer is ... quality will almost always make it to mass market, but you can never create quality if mass market is your primary goal. That impetus short circuits the ethic that is required to produce quality. My one huge example (not surprisingly) is Lord of the Rings - the books now, not the movies; don't get me started. The music industry is also full of examples (see the fantastic documentary Searching for Sugarman for one). Tolkien wrote that trilogy over 30+ years as a work of love drawing upon his immensely deep, professor-level knowledge of linguistics and history and mythology acquired over a lifetime of study and interest. It was published by its original publisher under the belief it was going to lose money, but they published anyway because they believed it was a work of genius. You could hardly get a clearer contrast to the attitude of games publishers today. And look at what LoTR has done. We are here on this board discussing EQ only because of Tolkien's seminal work. RPG's would not exist without it.

I would also say that classic EQ similarly was a work of integrity and passion, and Luclin and beyond was the brute child of publisher greed. The reason that the MMO industry exists at all is directly due to classic EverQuest. Vanilla WoW was a carbon copy of EverQuest and some of Ultima Online, but polished and executed beautifully to make it accessible. I always said the absolute best thing Blizzard did for MMOs was WoW's original UI design. It was inspired, and took the impenetrable mess that was the EQ UI (including all the console command madness) around the start of Velious and made the game and its mechanics immediately intuitive for absolute beginners. That is (was) Blizzard's talent. The art style was also inspired in that it played to the strengths of both their engine and one of the biggest technical challenges of the genre (low poly, HD textures), but that's a bigger discussion.

So all that to say, yes it can. But as soon as anything hits mass market it has also already inevitably been turned into the creative equivalent of a slutty crack whore. For visual reference see any Michael Bay (or Peter Jackson and that awful script destroying wife of his) movie.

For genuinely creative, artistic people, I would say the motivation for success always has a negative effect upon their work. This would be a very long post if I went into any examples, but they are all over the music, movie, art, and book publishing industries. There is a reason patrons existed around the time of the Renaissance, and that the world is still in awe of the art that period of history produced.

In the specific instance of the games industry, I will say this: money currently runs the industry; it didn't start off that way. When money runs anything, it destroys it. Games need to get back to the place where inspired people who love what they are making can get into the position to make what they love again because they love it. That cannot happen while self-important, incompetent, unethical, fiscally brutal mercenary dicks in suits call all the shots. It's changing, but the change will be slow and uneven, and full of missteps and outright mistakes (for reference see anything F2P the sole purpose of which is to make money).

[Pyrion]

Easy travel kills EQ atmospherer as well.

[Swish]

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

Easy travel kills EQ atmospherer as well.

If everyone was using the boats I'd agree... but the few times I have sat at any dock for a boat recently I'm usually the only one there, unless it's in Oasis.

The server has dozens of porters on at any given time, not hard to find one. People are shortcutting anyway so not sure what problem there'd be in using the Nexus to travel around for those who can't afford druid/wizard ports.

[t0lkien]

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

If everyone was using the boats I'd agree... but the few times I have sat at any dock for a boat recently I'm usually the only one there, unless it's in Oasis.

The server has dozens of porters on at any given time, not hard to find one. People are shortcutting anyway so not sure what problem there'd be in using the Nexus to travel around for those who can't afford druid/wizard ports.

Core class abilities being taken away from them and given to the open world reduces both the class, the community, the economy, and the ultimately the whole game. The same thing happened with mounts, and with so many other things post Luclin.

If you make a game easier, you make it less rewarding. You can't have one without the other. In the end you are really talking about different games - which is fine. But they are different games. And there are hundreds of those games already. Why do you want another one?

P.S. Getting ported by another player, or gathering the resources together to buy/make a potion to port empowers the systems that allow it. Clicking on a port stone does nothing except circumnavigate the game systems already there. It's counter-intuitive and damaging to value of the things in place already. If you want instant porting, level up a porting class, or the tradeskill that makes the potions, or acquire one of items that allows porting on a cooldown. Bam, you just played the game.

[myriverse]

Originally Posted by t0lkien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Core class abilities being taken away from them and given to the open world reduces both the class, the community, the economy, and the ultimately the whole game. The same thing happened with mounts, and with so many other things post Luclin.

Everyone having easy access to ports enhanced the community feel of the game by making it easier for people to interact. Sure, teleporting is a core class ability, but it's not a very important one. Even before the easy access to ports, I seldom ever asked anyone for a port. In raid situations, ports tended to be provided. Otherwise, I took the boat or walked. So, it wasn't really hurting a single thing at all.

Originally Posted by t0lkien [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you make a game easier, you make it less rewarding. You can't have one without the other. In the end you are really talking about different games - which is fine. But they are different games. And there are hundreds of those games already. Why do you want another one?

True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

[t0lkien]

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

True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

But this is clearly not true. It's all linked together. By making teleportation trivial you made the world smaller, reduced the value of two classes, reduced the value of a tradeskill and the items that needed to be farmed to supply it, reduced the value of the carefully designed and limited port items (the OT Hammer for example). This directly affects player interaction, the economy, the feel of the entire world. If this wasn't true you wouldn't be for them - it made your gameplay easier. Transport is not a timesink. The time it takes forms a baseline for the value of the things that reduce that time. All sorts of gameplay feed off that.

Class "balance" in EQ is not just about combat power. It's about utility, and situational usefulness. Casters tend to be lower on the direct power scale, but are high on the usefulness scale. What one class lacks, another provides. That's the point of class design. Which choice you make depends upon the experience you want. When you dilute those differences you dilute the gameplay and the fun, and the depth of the overall game. Asymmetrical gameplay is difficult to get right, but it creates enormous synchronicity and emergence.

As I said, what you are asking for is a different game - and that's fine (and is what EQ Live became). But there are already hundreds of games like that. Why are you in classic EQ if that's what you want? You are arguing for things that work powerfully against the experience that classic EQ creates. Don't you think that's a bit ironic? Maybe you don't want what you think you do - which is what I think is true of so many gamers in general. They argue for all these changes, and then when they get them they complain that the game is no longer much fun.

Actually, that's pretty much a life lesson right there.

[TarukShmaruk]

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

Everyone having easy access to ports enhanced the community feel of the game by making it easier for people to interact. Sure, teleporting is a core class ability, but it's not a very important one. Even before the easy access to ports, I seldom ever asked anyone for a port. In raid situations, ports tended to be provided. Otherwise, I took the boat or walked. So, it wasn't really hurting a single thing at all.


True, but teleports do not qualify as affecting game difficulty.

What teleports did was take a horrible, needless, disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. Good freaking riddance. And this was even more true as the world had become more than twice as big as originally planned.

I feel like you're incapable of understanding the concept of making things too easy and the detriment it has on the game.

I can extrapolate your argument to anything. Let's make leveling take 1/2 the time "what the new leveling rates did was take a horrible, needless, and disgusting timesink and throw it in the trash. good freaking riddance. and this was even more true as the level cap had become more than twice the original level cap"

Yeah, PoK books were convenient. We all used them. It still ruined the game. In many ways just like flying mounts did a lot of damage to WoW's world, or how the LFG queue killed the sense of server community (despite being a popular feature).

Now I don't think anyone would argue that an EQ warrior was a bit of a shitty experience - no real abilities, no utility, etc. Obviously a modern re-imagining of EQ1 would have to bring some quality of life improvements while still maintaining the original core concepts - and this would probably include some kind of faster travel options (non -sow running was stupid slow) and probably giving every class a hearthstone type ability.