Hybird spells

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

Nowhere in all these answers did anyone agree with you, at best you had people willing to listen to you which in itself is quite a feat seeing how pointless what you had to say is.

well to be fair, I share a vision that eq could use number of improvements [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I too disprove, that cleric is the only mandatory healer for any serious content.
I am NOT saying that all classes need to be blend together, and become universal substitutes, but out of 14 freaken classes, we have 3 who are ALWAYS in demand, while everyone else is 2nd grade a sidekick... some even 3rd grade...
A necro, and mage who only have 10% xp penalty can solo like no tomorrow, while ranger who nearly completely worthless in groups, comes with 40% penalty - hows any of that is a good game design?
yeah, Xp penalties were removed - but freaken 2 years LATER, when Brad finally pulled his head out of his ass.
And these things, and many other, were obvious to players from the start - he just never wanted to admit it that he sucked at class balancing.
How many times during first 2 years I have heard from him "X will NEVER happen cause it contradicts the Vision" and then 6 month later he comes out with feature X like its something he always wanted but someone was stopping him, but now its here and we all should be thanking him for this marvelous innovation.

/shrug

I simply don't care anymore. As much as I treasure my EQ memories of the past, I know now how much BS I was fed over the years by Brad, his Vision, and his bosses at SOE.

Many people believe that EQ was great, but then at some point it got broke (and majority tend to blame it on specific expansion like SoL or PoP or GoD), while in reality it was broken from day 1. You just didn't noticed it in the beginning when EQ was new, and everything was so cool. But the shit piled up over the years, till the point when it went over the top and everyone drawn in it.

EQ was a magnificent fantasy world, but a very poor game engine.

Thankfully, those who are willing to put thought and effort into it, now have the proper tools to fix it.
God bless Emu! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[ojamajoe]

Lots of people seem to have a vision of how to improve Everquest, and the tools are at hand to make it happen! Problem seems to be that people have very different ideas of what should be changed, and even of what constitutes an improvement.

So, here we are on the highest (by far) population EMU server, playing the most rabidly un-"improved" version. And it sure isn't from lack of trying by people releasing custom servers...

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

Lots of people seem to have a vision of how to improve Everquest, and the tools are at hand to make it happen! Problem seems to be that people have very different ideas of what should be changed, and even of what constitutes an improvement.

So, here we are on the highest (by far) population EMU server, playing the most rabidly un-"improved" version. And it sure isn't from lack of trying by people releasing custom servers...

problem with custom servers that their developers hardly trying to achieve such a significant goal as "improving eq" - they want to give everyone some uber loot at level 1, add cool pets, throw in few custom quests and raids, maybe redo some of the zones, and never even touch fundamental class balance issue.

The only custom server who ever put an effort into building the game from the scratch was Shards of Delay. I can't say I like their vision any better than original eq - even they are barely touched original spells (they only added a few things here and there), but at least they genuinely tried. C+ for the effort [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I still believe that future of truly original and spirited MMO is in the hands of private developers, rather than corporate producers, be that soe, blizzard, or anyone else.

[ojamajoe]

While you and I might not regard their efforts as an attempt to "improve" eq, I bet that a lot of the custom server ops do. This is the tricky nature of dealing in subjectives! Part of the problem is the massive amount of work involved... just like creating p99. A custom server dealing with the issues discussed in this thread would be tons more work than trying to recreate old eq; and that was so much work and torture that this is the first successful effort in the many years of EQEMU to do so, despite the clamoring from early on for just such a server.

I regard SOD as more of an attempt to "mix up" eq, rather than improve it. For people that played Classic, SOD (when it was on) probably offered a great deal of the actual experience of Classic by virtue of depriving the player of a great deal of meta-knowledge.

I still believe that future of truly original and spirited MMO is in the hands of private developers, rather than corporate producers, be that soe, blizzard, or anyone else.

This I agree wholeheartedly with. It will take a private dev to not lowest-common-denominator a game, and instead focus on making it kick ass!

[Kika Maslyaka]

Yes, its a lot of work.. I have been working on a concept of such a server since 2007 (ever since I found emu), and I have recently started putting my concepts into actual data [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I am hoping to have something to show for in the next 6-9 months [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[DaddyBear]

Do you Like BEAR ?

[Fryhole]

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

You want to *fix* EQ and make it what it should have been? Fine. Why don't you start by removing class-based XP penalties so every class is on the same equal footing (which Sony/Verant later did in Velious after they discovered the huge gap between hybrid and melee classes they had originally designed to warrant such a penalty never manifested itself). And then, IN EVERY CASE, make it more advantageous from an XP perspective to fill up a group with players than it is to XP solo, thus motivating people to... you know... group and work together. Solo classes could *still* solo, but it would be better for them if they added people to the group (i.e. the grouping bonus up to 20% that Sony/Verant later added, in the same patch that removed the class-based penalties, IIRC).

A lot of class balance disparity in the game is because the solo classes (mage, druid, enchanter, necro) can solo XP faster than an entire group can.

100% agree. While the spirit of the server is to maintain classic, I don't see why past mistakes that were recognized and fixed should wait until Velious. Hybrids don't need an XP penalty - grouping should reward more EXP. Adding things outside the scope of what the game did up to and throughout Velious is going to be a hard sell to people who are here knowing that's the last expansion.

[Klyre]

This whole thread has been rather amusing to me. The arguments, statements and ideas stated throughout are just conversation.

I have seen people talk about the spirit of the game. Fallacy from the get go. How no one is listening. Don't see this either, just disagreements about the topic. How the server is or is not recreating the exact same experience. What a joke! You won't experience P99 exactly as the original but you can revisit the world of EQ as it was presented then. Yes people know where everything is, yes there is more people at the top, but the world that you visit is almost the same. Your encounters with other players is new, and you have the opportunity to play a Char you may not have had the chance to play before in its original setting.

What many have failed to see is that P99 has been about the Mechanics. From the original release up until Velious the goal has been to recreate the Mechanics (How things work for those needing a simpler term). Will it be exact. No and I haven't seen a promise that it would be as with any Emu recreation of exactness is near impossible. But the Devs are striving to keep the Mechanics as close to the Original Time line as possible. If you can provide the Devs with proof of when a Mechanic was introduced or deviates from this time line they have been extremely patient and willing to listen.

There have been other threads that have talked about speeding up some of the time line mechanics such as shared banks and while I personally wouldn't mind seeing this I don't see it happening.

So, no matter how good your idea is for changing anything, I can't see any of it happening until this time line is complete. What happens then might then be some opportunity for the Devs to consider the Spirit of the game.

[mala]

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

You are not playing EQ as it was when it started up, not even close, simply by using the exact same in-game numbers on everything.

The original EQ experience is not in the exact coding of how the game was, but the driving IDEA behind the game and the way people played it. The point of classic Everquest was exactly as the title says - to quest endlessly. The focus of the game should be making players explore, making players fear for their lives anywhere they go that isn't specifically a safe zone, and making players discover and invent new things.

I think alot of what your trying to say here is clouded by personal bias comming from the fact that you played the game. The whole goal here is to not to recreate the exact experience you got out of everquest in 1999 (which is impossible, i agree), but to create an experience that follows the original mechanics of the game as closely as the dev's can get it. If you had never played everquest before and someone gave you p99, your experience wouldnt be that different from someone playing on live in 1999. So for the dev's to implement changes that dont follow the original timeline, or mechanics, but very well may "balance the game" (in your eyes), this steers away from the actual goal (remember here, original mechanics, not the overall idea or "spirit" of everquest) to keep things exactly as they were, through the good and the bad.

The small changes you speak of that in themselves make the game "completely un classic" (spell book not being up for med, spell book not taking up the whole screen, maps in starter cities) are at the most UI changes that dont really change the feel of the game, or the mechanics for that matter.

For the lack of a better analogy your entire argument is like going to a civil war re-enactment and saying "we should give the south AK-47's to help balance it, i think thats what Lee's vision was"