So what's there to do in Velious anyway?

[Halius]

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

EQMAC

I was thinking the exact same thing when I read that post.

[Treefall]

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

EQMAC

Seriously people.

If you want cats and PoP there is an OFFICIAL, FREE SERVER.

Protip, you can run EQMac on your PC. That, or buy a capable Mac for like $100.

[Nalir]

This server's core philosophy is to recreate and preserve the EQ classic experience.

I agree!

Already level 4 here, so I have the right to speak...

Was it fun when Velious had arrived to spend a whole evening trying to get on the boat and wait 30 minutes for it? No. Was it fun to arrive there on a pvp server, slip past the enemies and get killed by some random druid? No. Was it fun to end the evening, and the next evening trying to get my corpse back, getting corpse camped forcing me to log off again? No. But did those aspects drag me to this server, even on blue? Yes.

Partly the bad things about Everquest classic is why we come to this server I guess. The rough and unforgiving parts about the game created a community which just was amazing.

I spent about two weeks trying to learn how to solo in Plane of Growth, lost two levels, simply because I was curious, and because in theory I could solo the mob which dropped a warrior breastplate for a guildy from Da Bashin' Iggles. Still took a half a week to get it for him when I finally understood how to succeed there. And what did my friends do for me? Skip sleep if needed if they could help me with an important item/quest/etc.

I disagree with people advocating making it easier for players by implementing things that seem fine, make it more fun and easier, but isn't that the Sony mindset?

Let's recover from death with all spells still memorized? With all gear still on? Let's allow maps since people who wants maps can still use a second screen?

The reason I play here is because this IS classic EQ, and that draws me to it. And probably many others. I don't look forward to making things easier and more comfortable, Sony tried that and turned it into a boring game worse than any other MMO out there.

*edit* I played Everquest live for a few months and even paid for it. Got a cleric up to max level within a month, tried to play a bard but all good things about them got changed, like not being able to start to start charm before charm wore off, to protect people from wasting mana, but they were bloody overpowered pullers. Monks were an urban legend, haven't seen a single one. Every player had all stats maxed, even a warrior had CHA maxed.

Pong is more fun than Everquest live atm. Or any mass market MMO. */edit*

[Thulack]

The thing with EQMAC is that it is already done. I mean there is nothing "new" that will be added. One of the nice things about here is that there is something to look forward to which is velious. I'm sure people would be much more likely not to start playing here if velious was out and completely done with rather then where it is now.

[Dirtnap]

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

The thing with EQMAC is that it is already done. I mean there is nothing "new" that will be added. One of the nice things about here is that there is something to look forward to which is velious. I'm sure people would be much more likely not to start playing here if velious was out and completely done with rather then where it is now.

Truth. I'll even go as far to say some people never bothered to jump in because its already so far into Kunark. Many people wanted CLASSIC no expansions, and if they came too late they missed it here.

[heartbrand]

EQMac sucks for a lot of reasons

[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).

[lawll]

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

EQMAC

EQMAC is also a boxing heaven, you have about 100-250 people on at a time and almost every does a 2-3 box so do the math. Well unless like the whole boxing and playing alone thing that is.

[Messianic]

EQMAC = tiny community.

That's why I would actually like this server to recreate Luclin. It won't happen, I know, but I still would prefer it. I'll go on record and say releasing Luclin in the distant future after Velious is long completed won't harm p99's numbers at all.

[fadetree]

I agree. I'd like to see luclin.