What "made" EQs endgame feel epic?

[azeth]

Consider also the majority of us were teenagers when we first experienced EQ content. We were younger, as was using the internet as a gaming platform.

A lot of the reasons cited above I believe are contributive to the larger reasons which is -

Almost everything about EQ was new at the time

If you want to claim Ultima Online did MMORPGS first, go ahead. But it didn't remotely come close to the scale of EQ.

[myriverse]

Never really thought the endgame was epic.

/shrug

[Orruar]

Responding to OP.

You just got accustomed to it. People who found EQ later and started raiding for the first time in later expansions had the same feeling as you do about the first stuff you raided. The truth is, if you take out the nostalgia factor, early EQ raids were quite simple and not all that interesting. They were only difficult because people had never had to organize large scale groups of people in an MMO before, and internet sucked back then.

[sox7d]

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

Responding to OP.

You just got accustomed to it. People who found EQ later and started raiding for the first time in later expansions had the same feeling as you do about the first stuff you raided. The truth is, if you take out the nostalgia factor, early EQ raids were quite simple and not all that interesting. They were only difficult because people had never had to organize large scale groups of people in an MMO before, and internet sucked back then.

Not talking about the encounters but the zone atmospheres and how legendary they seemed. Maybe for powergamers that grinded to 60 asap and made raiding their main objective (which I have nothing against), they just seem mundane, but I think when a lot of people were playing on live, or maybe just speaking for myself, but despite playing very often, getting to max level took a year or longer. And that was a year(+) of hearing legends and rumors about zones with limited screenshots that could only be accessed by far less than 1% of the player base. That coupled with the design decisions of, as someone stated exceptionally, designing for a tomb for dragons rather than an MMORPG encounter.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by sox7d [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not talking about the encounters but the zone atmospheres and how legendary they seemed. Maybe for powergamers that grinded to 60 asap and made raiding their main objective (which I have nothing against), they just seem mundane, but I think when a lot of people were playing on live, or maybe just speaking for myself, but despite playing very often, getting to max level took a year or longer. And that was a year(+) of hearing legends and rumors about zones with limited screenshots that could only be accessed by far less than 1% of the player base. That coupled with the design decisions of, as someone stated exceptionally, designing for a tomb for dragons rather than an MMORPG encounter.

And people who started playing in DoDh and took months/years to get to level 65 + aa probably felt the same about all the stories they heard about Demiplane and other high end zones. It's just nostalgia for the experience. The early expansions had nothing terribly special about them except that the game was newer and so there weren't as many vets around.

[Basenji]

I've done a few MMOs at this point. Early release is always the hay-day. Inflation is inevitable. People crack the math. Strategies are developed. Secrets are unlocked and quests are solved. But in the beginning, it's a frontier. And everything is fun and new.

I had a guildmate describe Everquest as "friends and danger." Your character is weak. Your enemies are strong. Your path is unclear. Your consequences are dire. And if it weren't for your companions, you probably wouldn't succeed. EQ certainly provided that opportunity until inflation took it away.

Unfortunately, that game design has a serious flaw. Hell is other people. By making you rely on them for everything from leveling to banking, you create frustration, drama, and angst. Imagine trying to setup dominoes with strangers off the street. It still worked in EQ because there weren't any alternatives, so we stuck with it long enough to figure it out and make friends with the people. There's just not much market for a game like that anymore, and even if there were then there's no effective way to monetize it. That's why nothing new duplicates the experience, even though it could be done fairly effectively.

[sox7d]

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

Unfortunately, that game design has a serious flaw. Hell is other people. By making you rely on them for everything from leveling to banking, you create frustration, drama, and angst. Imagine trying to setup dominoes with strangers off the street. It still worked in EQ because there weren't any alternatives, so we stuck with it long enough to figure it out and make friends with the people. There's just not much market for a game like that anymore, and even if there were then there's no effective way to monetize it. That's why nothing new duplicates the experience, even though it could be done fairly effectively.

And yet here we are.

I don't think that's completely right to say. League of Legends forces players to cooperate and depend on each other and is immensely popular. Yes, teammates bitch at each other constantly, but I attribute that to the difficulty level of PvP being just above the player half the time.

[joedirt87]

I didn't start raiding until PoP, but I was blown away by it. I thought it was so cool entering the different planes of the gods and killing them, also the lore and events of each encounter. Nothing really matched that for me. Maybe its just nostalgia or being my first raid content, but GoD or OoW raids didnt come close. Also the only thing in WoW that came close was Ulduar. As good as WoW was when it launched Molten Core didnt really hook me like the Planar raids did.

[azeth]

PoP was absolutely gangbusters amazing for raiding. With the caveat that it flat out killed conventional EverQuest with PoK.

You can take your classic -> vel any day, I'll take PoP.

[Basenji]

I keep hearing about LoL. I'll have to try it sometime.

What's the consequence for failure in LoL? How much investment have you lost? I was under the impression that it was fairly minor. You haven't have danger without a penalty that hurts. And a penalty that hurts is the source of most of the angst.