EverQuest Hoaxes

[Meiva]

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

its not really that hard to find sources about how Verant was a Sony brand

Source?

I apologize if I am being ignorant... This is sincerely what this thread is not about...

Any others have an EQ hoax to share?

[t0lkien]

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

There's my favorite hoax / false rumor / whatever right there. I find it mind-boggling that there are still people insisting that Verant was somehow not actually an extension of SOE from the day it was spun out until the day it was reeled back in. The same people created stupid shit like hybrid experience penalties, classic Warriors inferior to Rangers in pretty much every way, Kunark Rangers inferior to every other class in pretty much every way, Velious era Monks as simultaneously best xp group tank and 2nd best melee DPS and best puller, Velious era Warriors inferior to other classes at every role they could fill except raid MT, the abomination that was Luclin, ...

Seriously, get a grip. Verant was every bit as terribad as they were brilliant. Verant was the SOE EQ team all along. Your idols don't have only feet of clay, they are clay thru and thru just like the rest of humanity. Your uncritical worship of their imaginary greatness doesn't just border on mindless.

I've read so much conflicting stuff (interviews, not player opinion) on this, and I'm still confused, so I can't blame others for being so. All I know is that as a player it was clear there was a shift between Velious and Luclin and beyond, and that was around the time Brad left SOE and Verant was absorbed.

SOE is a strange company. My feeling is the corporate stuff gets in the way all the time, whereas with EverQuest/Verant it didn't for a while. It was, in the beginning, just a few no-name geeks making what they loved and wanted to play without any over-arching corporate/fiscal plan. It was visionary, and creative, and given the freedom to be that even if it meant failure. As a gamer, and as a developer, that is what I dearly want the industry to get back to.

BTW the things you point out as being bad design decisions I wouldn't necessarily agree with totally. There is an obsession with "balance" in design now that is homogenizing all the asymmetry, synchronicity, and fun out games. "Balanced" isn't necessarily best, or even good... IMO.

P.S. Some (apparent) information here: http://www.graffe.com/forums/archive.../t-20484.html?

[pharmakos]

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

Source?

I apologize if I am being ignorant... This is sincerely what this thread is not about...

Any others have an EQ hoax to share?

like i said, its really not hard to find sources on this, but i'll google it for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verant_Interactive redirects to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Online_Entertainment

"Sony Online Entertainment's history can be seen as starting with Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA), an internal game development studio of Sony that formed around 1995. In 1996, John Smedley was put in charge of SISA's development of an online role-playing video game that would evolve into the MMORPG EverQuest. Smedley hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the single-player RPG Warwizard.

In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.

Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.

EverQuest launched with modest expectations from Sony on March 16, 1999 under its Verant Interactive brand and quickly became successful. Numbers continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reported subscription numbers close to 450,000. In March 2000, Verant released EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, the first in a long list of expansions for EverQuest."

more detailed history as told by Aradune himself: http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/top...d#.UdUGYzs3v3M

[fuark]

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

BTW the things you point out as being bad design decisions I wouldn't necessarily agree with totally. There is an obsession with "balance" in design now that is homogenizing all the asymmetry, synchronicity, and fun out games. "Balanced" isn't necessarily best, or even good... IMO.

Just wanted to quote this because I think it's COMPLETELY true, often overlooked, and understood by few. A lot of games are made better by the lack of total balance. Across the board vanilla balance is something that I find most great games are lacking.

Everquest (classic)... not balanced.
Dark Age of Camelot (classic/SI)... not balanced.
Warhammer Fantasy (the tabletop game, pre 8th edition)... not balanced.

They are also the best games I have ever played, and the non-vanilla feel has a lot to do with that.

[Dalron]

In the very beginning when not much was known about anything, it was rumored on Luclin server that if you clicked your tradeskill recipe book open and kept it open while doing your tradeskill it would increase the chance of skilling up and/or making a successful combine. This was back when if you had the wrong ingredients for the recipe in your container you would lose them upon combining - which makes perfect sense, if you use the wrong ingredients to bake a loaf of bread you don't get your cup of flour back, you have to use new ingredients for your next attempt! It also made using containers like large sewing kits instead of bags very risky since if you accidently hit combine instead of close you lost everything in it. I think when they changed this to not losing your ingredients to make the game easier, because of player complaints, it was the first change on the way to these hand-held monty haul mmo's we have today.

Dalron - Healer of the 24th Circle of Light

[pharmakos]

just realized i didn't even need to look up sources, almost forgot that...

Qeynos spelled backwards reads "Sony EQ"

[Freakish]

I'm sure everyone had their own South Ro AC explanation.
You had to kill the ghoul in the tower while the sun was at a right angle on the day a blushing lass has her first bleed.

[pasi]

If I remember correctly from the days of Luclin-PoP on EQemu, Plane of War was a really big desert field with a wall that separated two fields. The terrain was like that in the pit of Plane of Tactics with random garbage everywhere.

[Circu]

Yes, Plane of War was actually just the Rallos Zek event, in its own plane. I forgot the reason it was scrapped, possibly due to time (since they were always horribly behind schedule making PoP.) There have actually been leaked screenshots of PoWar. But in the end they just scrapped it and put the Rallos event in the arena of PoTactics

[Jeffari]

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

Ugh... This isn't true?.. Rolled a druid for some fun this past week and I haven't killed any bears/wolves for fear of this.

I am far more gullible than I had thought...

I think this whole "can't kill bears because it will ruin some ranger/Druid/animal faction" originated from new players who were druids and rangers starting near Surefall Glade, I seem to recall that killing the bears and other animals (are their others besides bears there?) in sfg would indeed lower faction with residents of Surefall. Perhaps the rumor started here. Ah who knows.