The troubles with modern MMO's...

[Byrjun]

Originally Posted by Xer0 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Im going to have to disagree with the itemization; There are very few uniquely modeled items in EQ and those are usually very specifically geared to a particular class, or only usable by a select few.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Somehow, EverQuest made items more recognizable than any other MMO even with extremely limited resources.

How many armor sets can you recognize with just one plate texture? Crafted, Indicolite, Cobalt, Singing Steel, Lambent, Totemic, Jaundiced Bone, Ethereal Mist, Rubicite, Valorium, Mrylokar's, Woven Shadow, Ro, Cleric Sol Ro, Thorny Vine, Blood Ember, and a few dozen more. And that's not counting all the highly recognizable single pieces like Mithril. You can usually even figure stuff out if it's undyed. Leather pants on a priest class are probably Gatorscale, plain chain chest is usually a fungi depending on class and the rest of their gear, etc.

I often compare EQ to DAoC since it came out a couple years after EQ, and marks the point where a lot of things started going wrong with MMOs (even though I still love DAoC).

DAoC had some really beautiful armor textures for the era (2001):

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But could you recognize what any of that stuff was? Nope. Only if it was class specific:

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That guy's a Warrior. The problem with this class specific "epic" armor was even though it looked amazing, it was inferior to high end crafted sets, which you needed if you wanted to max your stats for pvp. And the crafted sets all had the "generic" textures like the ones above. Plus you could dye anything any color.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

I disagree with your disagreement.

Somehow, EverQuest made items more recognizable than any other MMO even with extremely limited resources.

How many armor sets can you recognize with just one plate texture? Crafted, Indicolite, Cobalt, Singing Steel, Lambent, Totemic, Jaundiced Bone, Ethereal Mist, Rubicite, Valorium, Mrylokar's, Woven Shadow, Ro, Cleric Sol Ro, Thorny Vine, Blood Ember, and a few dozen more. And that's not counting all the highly recognizable single pieces like Mithril. You can usually even figure stuff out if it's undyed. Leather pants on a priest class are probably Gatorscale, plain chain chest is usually a fungi depending on class and the rest of their gear, etc.

Except all of these used EXACTLY the same texture only in different color. Warriors Crafted and Warriors Indicolite use exactly the same texture only in different color. Bronze and Fine Steel was also exactly same texture. Until Velious special textures, there were only 3 sets of textures per race. The only reason these sets were recognizable is because there were so few of them. If you saw a Light Blue Plate - you new that only 1 set in game is a plate of this color. But this situation only lasted until more sets started to appear, and armor coloring.

WoW by contrast had dozens of different of textures right of the start, which is now up to a hundred. WoW does use different approach - the texture looks the same for all races, rather than race specific like in EQ, but at the same time total number of textures far greater.

Same goes for famous weapons - they were only famous when there were too few of them. No one will needs/wants SSOY when Velious is out (I doubt anyone uses it now in the proper level range). After 2-3 expansions there is going to be so many unique items around you won't ever remember them all.

And as far as WoW "random" green items go - they are basically WoW version of bronze and fine steel you had in EQ, which during early days some people still used all way up to the dragon raids. During WoW early days there too were famous items (Sulfuros anyone?), but 3 expansions down the road they were forgotten cause they became obsolete, just like EQ epics will get first matched with Velious and then obsolete with Luclin. Its natural. The game HAS TO progress. If there is no progression it will die.

[Lagaidh]

Originally Posted by Xer0 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

probably get flamed to hell for this, but WoW, in it's early years, did a LOT of things right.

Nah. No flaming I bet.

It was painfully clear to genre fans, and any programmer paying attention that a large chunk of the original feature set in WoW was a direct result of player complaints in EverQuest. Lower down time, the ability to accomplish something worthwhile in a moderate play session, easier interface for player crafting and piles of more nits.

I remember responding to that positively when I got to play one of the beta rounds (was it 2004?), however, I found the game to easy...

I believe there's a terribly fine balance between a sense of accomplishment and raw frustration that MMOs have to try and reach. The trend has been to less frustration, and players like P99ers miss the sense of accomplishment. Classic EQ (imo) erred a tad on the side of frustration, but it was a slight enough dose that one tries again and the eventual triumph is all the sweeter.

Neat shit to remember for sure.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

Nah. No flaming I bet.

It was painfully clear to genre fans, and any programmer paying attention that a large chunk of the original feature set in WoW was a direct result of player complaints in EverQuest. Lower down time, the ability to accomplish something worthwhile in a moderate play session, easier interface for player crafting and piles of more nits.

A dozen of WoW early devs played EQ, so yeah a lot of early WoW was borrowed from late EQ. Specially looking back at what they changed over the years, they use to have lots of little things that today clearly indicate early EQ influence - its of those - you must have this little reagent to cast this low lev spell, even though the reagents is so trivial to acquire you really don't need other than to piss player off when during his 3456789th time using the spell he forgot to restock. It wasn't as much as challenging, but rather tedious.

For example having a soul shard to cast Voidwalker was retarded, cause at some point every warlock had a soulshard bag which had 24 shards in it, and even if you had none, getting a soulshard was so easy from any green mob- it was hardly a needed requirement. So they removed it which was smart.

On other hand, I miss the need to quest for the Voidwalker and other pets - I felt it was the integral part of leveling up as warlock - it felt as accomplishment.

Over the years WoW had moved away from many EQ-like features, and set up their own trend. Not all of it was good, but their recent changes to Talent system are definitely good move, and it should see more improvement with the next expansion.

Some parts of the game did got a lot easier than they should be. I feel that overall the difficulty of the solo progression is fine, if only you wouldn't be getting this much XP for the quests. For example your newbie zone runs lev 1-10 - by the time you complete all the quests - you are lev 12. The next zone runs 11-20, but you finish it already being lev 24 - so when you enter next tier - you are facing mobs that are already green, which greatly reduces the challenge and therefore enjoyment of progression. I know that Blizz keeps lowering XP curve to help newcomers level up and catch up faster, but kills all the things they done before.
I would feel really comfortable if XP was cut in half so mobs always sit just a bit above me in level. Group instancing also got a lot easier - you hardly ever need full group to do level appropriate instances - At lev 20 I can solo the Chasm and most of Deadmines with most classes (easily with Hunter or Paladin, and more challenging but doable with warlock or shaman). At most it only takes 3 chars to do most group content of appropriate level, as long as it includes tank and a healer. I really wish that group content was harder, and raids would be at least at 2-4 groups.

But oh well.
I have been working on my own server for a while (more of planning that actually coding) with a goal to be somewhere between classical EQ ideals and modern WoW realities. Hopefully something will come out of it one day.

[Daywolf]

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

I know this is a TL;DR for a lot of folks, and I apologize. I think we all secretly hope that the next great game developer will read our comments and take them to heart, but sometimes its worth venting for the sake of venting.

Actually I was scanning for the actual reason, I would say that those are but only results.

For your likes, I don't think graphics really matter, but maybe you are unaware of the use of graphics style in modern mmo's which is linked to the actual reason.

Here is what's been going on, psychologists told publishers/investors how to make a compulsive game that makes LOTS of money and the publishers tell the devs how to make the game.

Where does that LOTS of money come from if every freakin modern mmo is now f2p? Well from a very narrow few, targeted ages 18-25 years old (no less for legal reasons... but their money is welcomed too), that are categorized as gullible to the point of not being able to control their bank accounts.

To attract the 18-25yo crowd to find the "whale" (they call them whales) amongst them, they typically design the art style of the game to be "cartoony".

Once they get them in, it becomes a balance of a "skill game" vs a "cash game". Usually starting out as a skill game, where you are not very compelled to spend cash yet. But once the whale is hooked, they start spending $1000's into the cash game to continue progressing at an enjoyable rate or access special things to make them feel good for the moment, and even to take them away again if not maintained with their cash flow (a classic trap).

There are many-many tricks to do this, such as progression gates, token layers, antes and many other tricks to catch the whale and empty their bank accounts. Some of these tricks they learned from animal experiments, others through studying well known cons from the annals of psychology.

Games stopped being designed purely as the skill-game, fun for the many is not the target at all any longer. The target is the few that spend LOTS of money, the underdeveloped compulsive spenders, those are the people that the games are designed for.

[tanknspank]

Agreed on your dislikes.

On grouping, I do think it should be the preferred mode of the game, though I think some minimal soloing should be possible for all classes. (If we speak in EQ terms, maybe bind would being stronger for mid level melees)

Some other things I'd add to dislikes is:

• Lack of Freedom - EQ gives you the freedom to use the tools you have in all kinds of crazy ways. Want to switch your spells "in combat"? If you can get the mob off your back for a few seconds, you can. Want to start casting something then someone else lands invisibility on you? You can. Want to equip an item from Sebilis on your level 1 alt, you can. Want to start a high level quest at level 1? You (mostly) can.
  
  This freedom of using the tools the game gives you generated so many interesting tactics. Combined with the slower pace, a lot of times it makes it possible to salvage a defeat into a victory. Those are the memorable, exciting fights. Not doing the same dance over and over until everyone gets it right with little chance to recover from mistakes / bad luck.
  
  
• Balance - Dislike balance, what? Yes. Balance is good when it's in the sense of "every class has a reason to be played". Nowadays it's become "every healer must heal equally", "every DPS must DPS equally", "every class must have the same CC/interrupts/debuffs". It kills uniqueness and makes the tools bland.
  
  Does a part of me want my druid to be more group desired? Sure. But I LOVE the fact that it has a different toolset than my cleric or my SK, and the reduced group desirability is made up by flexibility and solo ability.
  
  
• Quests - There's so much I dislike about quests I could write an entire post just on them. Let's set aside the quest hubs / tracks though. On a more basic level I dislike the non-repeatability of quests. I dislike that quest items are just quest items and only drop when you have the quest active. I dislike the volume of them, which in turns make them bland and unmemorable. I dislike the fact that if you're 0.1 level below a set number you can't start a quest even if you're playing with friends who are on it. I dislike the fact that every quest has to give rewards for every class (not always, but a lot of the times you get a choice of cloth/plate/chain).

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

Integrated intelligent voice chat

I disagree with the integrated part. I've never seen an integrated voice comm that is as good as a separate client, or even decent. Personally I'd like to see gaming companies team up with TS / Vent / whatever and link the external voice client into the game. For example make it so you can set a server/room link in your group's properties and make it possible for members to launch/join using a single click from in game. Once joined make it so the game displays members / active speaker in a window from the associated voice client.

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

Graphics

I think a lot of newer MMOs go overboard with graphics. Some abstraction and cartooniness is good. Good, smooth models and some effects are OK, but don't go overboard with detail to the point of making my eyes bleed. In this same category keep the spell effects simple and distinctive. I love how in EQ I can visually see the enchanter mez or the druid snare. In most other MMOs it's all a mess of particles even just from 5 people.

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

Engaging Boss Encounters

To a point, but I think scripting encounters is being overdone. Everything has become a dance that has to be done in specific ways with specific amounts of dps/HP/healing.

[indiscriminate_hater]

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[iruinedyourday]

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

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holly shit that is amazing.

[fahlen]

Its sad that EQ is so far away from what would be remotely considered acceptable to the MMO community these days, that I'm just hoping for a game to even compare to vanilla WoW. Sure, it had a ton of flaws. But so did EQ. A lot of those "flaws" keep us logging in day to day.

[fastboy21]

beware korean mmos...there is something seriously messed up with korean gamers that truly frightens me.