So what's there to do in Velious anyway?

[porigromus]

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

ITT, much like every EQ Nostalgia thread on rerolled, is people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult. Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. Travel was always trivial to me in classic, but I was a caster who could bind, apart from the sporadic trip to town to sell all my l33t gearz, I was always in a dungeon or what not, it's not like I was taking 3 hour strolls through the karanas erryday

The reason this this server is so popular, the most popular among all the emulated servers is because it doesn't go to Luclin and beyond. People want this game when it was a cohesive fun fantasy world.

I don't play games just to advance, I play because they are a fantastic world to be a part of and everything feels like the developer put their heart into it. You sound like you may play for different reasons. I had a friend that didn't care anything about what they put in the game as long as he could advance and get better gear.

They could have made an expansion named "Poop King" and all you did was click on a book that ports you to some room where you kill bosses that fling poo at you and if it dropped better loot than what he had, he would be happy.

Basically what EQ became a stupid loot vending machine. The game world didn't matter, the cohesive feel didn't matter, didn't matter if it was a sloppy cobbled together mess with different years of graphics everywhere.

As long as you can teleport in to kill the poop king and he drops a new belt better than yours, there you go.

[nilbog]

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

... people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult.

RL is a timesink which a lot of people have trouble playing. Timesinks can certainly be difficult as time itself is one of the only things you can't purchase.

Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob.

A good aspect of a sandbox environment is that no one made you go to VT. If you want to waste your time, then you go right ahead.

I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play.

This philosophy was what originally separated pre-wow mmorpg players from console gamers.

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

EQ was @ it's peak during PoP, it died because 1) WoW came out and 2) 72 man raids being reduced to 54 man raids 3) GoD raping everyone who wasn't in a cutting edge end game guild with full plane of time gear, aka 95% of their sub base

EQ was at its peak during PoP because cheap computers could be purchased at your local Walmart and broadband internet was available to everyone. There are a lot of people, including myself, which saw it (PoP) as a bellowing swan song for EQ. I played the WoW beta when it was released in 2004. It was fully released in December, shortly after EQ released Omens of War in September. Wow was a better game at release than the last expansions leading up to Omens of War and EQ2 at release.

[Atmas]

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

EQ was at its peak during PoP because cheap computers could be purchased at your local Walmart and broadband internet was available to everyone. There are a lot of people, including myself, which saw it (PoP) as a bellowing swan song for EQ.

I recall when PoP came out walking into a Best Buy and seeing videos of it playing as the display for new computers. This was the time when I felt like broad band was really starting to proliferate to more than just tech-savy house holds and PCs were on the front page of advertisements because Megahurtz were doubling every week.

I personally think PoP was a pinnacle because content was fun, good character progression opportunities, and high fantasy lore. The problem is after you have slain the Gods what else do you do in a fantasy game? GoD was terrible, both content and planning wise.

[TarukShmaruk]

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

I recall when PoP came out walking into a Best Buy and seeing videos of it playing as the display for new computers. This was the time when I felt like broad band was really starting to proliferate to more than just tech-savy house holds and PCs were on the front page of advertisements because Megahurtz were doubling every week.

I personally think PoP was a pinnacle because content was fun, good character progression opportunities, and high fantasy lore. The problem is after you have slain the Gods what else do you do in a fantasy game? GoD was terrible, both content and planning wise.

Thematically it was about as good as me just taking a shit and smearing it on a wall and saying "there's your concept art"

[Atmas]

Edit: judging from other posts I will assume you mean GoD and totally agree.

Everything was bland, ugly, and looked the same. Looked like all architecture was a cut and paste job. Mobs looked like bad sci-fi creatures.

[Gadwen]

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

ITT, much like every EQ Nostalgia thread on rerolled, is people equating timesinks with difficulty. Timesinks aren't difficult. Did you love VT because it had all dem trash mobs you had to spend hours and hours clearing, sure was "difficult" amirite? No, it was fucking awful. I'd much rather spend hours banging my head against the wall on a difficult raid mob as I try to figure out the encounter than do so against trivial trash mobs just to get to the raid mob. I guess it's a matter of preference. I like to play games to actually get to play. Travel was always trivial to me in classic, but I was a caster who could bind, apart from the sporadic trip to town to sell all my l33t gearz, I was always in a dungeon or what not, it's not like I was taking 3 hour strolls through the karanas erryday

You also have to keep in mind that a lot of old EQ players literally grew up in this game. Their social life was everquest, their fun after school was everquest, their best friends were in everquest and for some...their sex life was in everquest.

It's like going back to your little home town and seeing all the changes that have taken place, nobody likes it. But you just have to accept that the changes were made for a reason, are simply unavoidable, and the majority of times it was with the intent of benefiting people...and actually did benefit people.

I played EQ from classic through GoD on and off. Nothing ever "ruined" the game for me, I just got bored of it and went to do something else.

[heartbrand]

Why do people seek teleports to begin with instead of just walking there or taking the boat? Because traveling is boring as fuck after the first time you do it. Yes, it's cool the first time you see the zones and you feel immersed, and then every time after you're like wtf wtb port asap.

[TarukShmaruk]

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

Why do people seek teleports to begin with instead of just walking there or taking the boat? Because traveling is boring as fuck after the first time you do it. Yes, it's cool the first time you see the zones and you feel immersed, and then every time after you're like wtf wtb port asap.

Sure, or sometimes I don't want to wait around for someone who's porting, so I just hop on the boat.

What it does do is make sure that when I go to Kunark I stay in Kunark for a while - especially when I was in my 20s and 30s.

But, let's talk about stuff from Luclin/PoP that was awesome.

Focus effects anyone? These changed the game for leveling a caster, added tons of value to older drops that had focus effects, and were simply awesome.

[heartbrand]

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

Sure, or sometimes I don't want to wait around for someone who's porting, so I just hop on the boat.

What it does do is make sure that when I go to Kunark I stay in Kunark for a while - especially when I was in my 20s and 30s.

But, let's talk about stuff from Luclin/PoP that was awesome.

Focus effects anyone? These changed the game for leveling a caster, added tons of value to older drops that had focus effects, and were simply awesome.

Focus effects were awesome and finally gave meaningful item progression to casters.

[heartbrand]

Everything that made EQ "difficult" was either a timesink or an error/oversight by the dev team who had no clue wtf they were doing combined with the fact the internet was still in it's infancy. The "difficulty" you people are seeking will never ever be recreated. While part of me smiles when I think about how I used to sit on the bridge in South Karana for 2 + hours waiting for my spot in the Treant group to open up, I'm also glad I'll never have to do that again, + not able to ever have the time to do that again.