What would it take for a new mmo to recapture the feeling of eq?

[Roth]

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

I think there's something to be said, perhaps an argument to be made about the role MMO immersion plays in the amount of time the average MMO player spends in game.

Most gamers I talk to outside of our secluded P99 world don't really want anything to do with an online gaming community. In fact, the sole reason a lot of people turn to video games is because they want an escape from social situations, not to be subsumed into them while they're trying to level up or acquire gear.

But on the main point here - that community defines the feeling of EQ - you're absolutely correct. I just tend to think that that's another problem as to why the game is so incredibly immersive and demands that you spend as much time playing it as you would spend in any other endeavor in your life. And at the end of the day, I don't think we'll ever see anything more than a small audience tucked away in the corner of the internet willing to broadcast a substantial amount of interest in it.

Or I dunno, maybe I'm wrong.

I disagree on the time point mainly because when I'm busiest irl this game has been what I've enjoyed the most to fill in the gaps. A lot of other games don't feel immersive but demand time, demand you be the best or strongest. Eq is just an experience I really find it fun to play even casually. My main problem is I actually tend to get burned out on eq; I can't play it for months without getting tired of it. In a way eq is bad for dev profitability because it kinda scares people away but it's really so fun to play and immersive.

[Trojanman]

A lot of great points here, I like threads like this.

I think most of you are right, no other game will capture what EQ did when it came out for several reasons. Another of which is that it came out at a time where online games were typically 16 players or the beefier counterstrike games could get up to 32? Here comes EQ with a truly massive amount of people that can interact together. This was before social media and before anything online offered that much direct user to user interaction...

I think the next big "EQ type" experience (if by this we mean revolutionary MMO), would have to include 2 things that are attainable in the very near future: VR and player effected environments (roguelike might be the wrong term?)

When EQ came out it wasnt graphically impressive, but it was about on par with other games of the time. Like I mentioned above it was the amount of people that can be immersed in the world at one time that was the draw. Today this is commonplace so it would need some new element of engagement to draw that massive immersive feeling. The obvious one here would be VR. Integrating this is a no-brainer moving forward but the first to do it well could pave the way for the next wave of MMOs.

The second would be an ever changing world where massive battles or player decisions could change the course of the server's physical landscape. This was the one thing I was excited about with EQ next and although ambitious, if done well could end all for me. I am not talking about a minecraft mmo where people could build dick statues all over the world. a system where to a limited degree destruction to structures could occur and mobs could relocate according to the environments conditions. Named mobs could not be "camped" because once they die... they cannot exist there any longer and would have to spawn at another place/time on that server. I could go on...

[Tsalarioth]

I don't think it's just the massive time investment thing- this game is still pretty fantastic for someone with only casual desires. A big part of EQ's draw and the reason I think people take much longer to tire of it is that it seems to be one of the only MMOs out there that does not immediately make the player feel like a hero of its world on your individual path to glory. You start out and a fire beetle or a snake can kick your ass if you don't watch yourself. Even as you progress in levels you are never really safe- it might take a while, but give some green con long enough and they will eventually kill you if you go AFK. There's also the lore factor mentioned above- how many huts and houses exist in this game with no NPCs inside and no real purpose other than to flesh out the world? Especially in the classic era, how many quests are there that give little reward or are completely irrelevant to every class but 1? Where else is faction so intertwined/complicated and so relevant even in high levels? Norrath is a world that doesn't care about you. You have to make it care about you if you want something. It will keep going whether you're there or not.

[Grivyn]

1: No instancing - nothing kills a community like instancing.
2: No leashing - knowing a mob will chase you until either you or it die gave a sense of trepidation to making that 50/50 pull.
3: No hand holding/spoon feeding, discovering an obscure item then figuring out what to do with it was part of EQ questing. Personally I hated seeing a bright yellow "!" mark above NPC's then the progression to getting more XP from questing than out fighting on top of that.
4: In general the higher you get the more you grouped be it for that rare spawn/rare drop camp or just plain XP'ing which in turn feed back into that thing called community
5: Respawning naked, nothing made death more challenging than the naked corpse run. It also forged reputations of those that would take the time to help out and those that ignored pleas for help. Once again leading into that fable community thingy.

[Othniel626]

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

1: No instancing - nothing kills a community like instancing.
2: No leashing - knowing a mob will chase you until either you or it die gave a sense of trepidation to making that 50/50 pull.
3: No hand holding/spoon feeding, discovering an obscure item then figuring out what to do with it was part of EQ questing. Personally I hated seeing a bright yellow "!" mark above NPC's then the progression to getting more XP from questing than out fighting on top of that.
4: In general the higher you get the more you grouped be it for that rare spawn/rare drop camp or just plain XP'ing which in turn feed back into that thing called community
5: Respawning naked, nothing made death more challenging than the naked corpse run. It also forged reputations of those that would take the time to help out and those that ignored pleas for help. Once again leading into that fable community thingy.

Without delving into too much of the philosophical/abstract side of it, these things are what make EQ different than most of the other MMOs I've played, especially the tether/respawning naked aspect.

It adds a ton more challenge to people doing at least those two things. Played on an emulator WoW server for a couple of years (never got the live experience), and the tether thing made the game a joke. Oh crap, I pulled 3 dogs, lemme just run 40 feet away, they'll forget everything.

Not to mention all the hand-holding that occurs throughout the entire game in most MMO's. The !'s and ?'s above NPC's heads kinda kill the immersion and mostly lead to me skipping entire conversations because I knew it would just tell me what to do and send me to the right person on the map afterwards.

Lastly, as much as EQ has it's grindy parts for levels, it's got close to 10 different places (less at some levels) where I can go to get exp. It doesn't boil down to running heroics on a list of 4 different dungeons for your level that you can insta-teleport to if you queue into Group Finder.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

gm's

[iruinedyourday]

It would take whatever a Goldilocks Planet needs, to have life on it.

[Tann]

a time machine

Majority of the current mmo fan base wants quick sensational content. Mobas are a great example of this, you get geared and max level in under an hour. Quick rinse and repeat content for the masses to enjoy.

[Clark]

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

a time machine

Majority of the current mmo fan base wants quick sensational content. Mobas are a great example of this, you get geared and max level in under an hour. Quick rinse and repeat content for the masses to enjoy.

Ya agreed. It's such a same that this "everyone can have the best items, and everyone can be the best" attitude has screwed up current MMO's. Heck I still love P99 to death, but after 2012 we've even had some of that stuff infused into our near perfection P99. PNP for red, mandated rotations for blue, Class C and Class R for blue, no training on red, no kill stealing on red, MQs for epics; all for the most part unclassic things. Thank goodness the server is still going strong, but some things shouldn't have been tweaked the way they were.

[nothsa]

I think having a hard game, where there are items that are overpowered and really make a real difference to game play. Haste clickers, res sticks, dot clickers, slow proc, sow boots, mana reg items etc. These all feel like real charater progression. few items in other mmos change your power level compared to other mmos