So what's there to do in Velious anyway?

[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.