Where did EQ Live go wrong?

[Barrier]

Every server had the guy that was THE tunnel seller. We had one and when Bazaar hit, he quit, I think. That was pretty sad because everyone knew him.

Envino's post was a very good post. My previous post was a quick off the cuff response. I loved Pop even though it was hard as hell. Was the flagging idiotic? Sure at times. The screwed up projections that you had to hail and sometimes they were bugged and if you hailed them more than once you stole a flag chance from someone else. That sucked. I hated that, because you always had someone hailing them over and over and many times it was a backflagger from another guild. And they never stayed up for a very long time, either.

I hated instances. Yeah, they stopped all the ya ya-ing that we even have now on this server - When a warrior in one of the raid guilds declared Trak is FFA, the sever blew up. RnF went ballistic after that but it was funny and fun (for the ones not involved, maybe the ones involved didn't like it).

One thing my casual raid guild did was raid one expansion behind. Sure it was not as hard in anyway to be raiding stuff designed for characters 5 levels lower, but you didn't all have to be geared real high. I stayed for the friends. I didn't have a problem with AAs at first. You could have 200 or so and you had all the AAs you needed and you didn't need all the TS stuff and other weird AAs. But then it became a huge timesink to get all the AAs. Expansion after expansion. I didn't mind the time sink to level, but the added time sink to get the AAs wore me out. I was in a guild with a warrior who maxed his AAs and levels almost it seemed two weeks after the expansion was out. He did that for however many expansions all the way to Omens, I think, and then he finally quit. Kandraax on Lanys. He was one of the top warriors across all servers - for AAs. He always had all AAs and the total amount banked as well.

Anyway, AAs ruined it for me eventually.

[necrosaurio]

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

Anyway, AAs ruined it for me eventually.

You wouldn't believe how much of a grind AAs are now. Before, AAs were an extra, now you need lots of AAs to simply be able to function at your level.

Some classes have 8000+ AAs.

I tried PLing chars in Live. It took about three times longer (or more) to get 750AAs than to get my SK to level 73. As a tank you NEED the AAs to be able to last more than 1 hit.

Itemisation also went completely wrong. All items now give more or less the same +stats per tier. There no longer is a need of choosing between different items depending on the main stat, just get a higher tier and everything will be better. Don't even bother looking for armor from a previous expansion, it will be rubbish.

For me, another annoyance are augments. You can barely function without having an augment on each slot, which means adding 20 more items . Of course, there are melee augments and caster augments... and that's it. Everybody looks for the same things.

Finally, level limited spells such as charm and mezz are horrible unless you keep up to date. Back when there were 50 levels, you would get a spell that lasted for 10, 15 or even 20 levels. Now, unless you have the first spell from the new expansion, you can't even function in the lowest tier because everything is higher level, which prevents you from grouping unless you have friends to take you along.

[Huggz]

Is that a gram of cocaine and your horrible teeth? Tell me that isn't you... oh lord.

[xarzzardorn]

seriously though it was Uqua + WoW

[Arclanz]

Nice post rez. One thing killed EQ. Alienating their players either by mudflating their gear faster than they can replace it; or by continually changing the game mechanics so the EQ of today differs from EQ last year. We are now on version 18 of Everquest, yet they still call it Everquest. Rediculous. The game is retardedly different. SOE could not have screwed this up more. Wisely managed, EQ would have millions of subscribers today.

[Houdiny]

Most of the consensus I get from players in game say PoP killed it for them. I found PoP to be one of the better expansions. Gave people a reason to EXP while max level. The raiding was great. I loved the encounters. And the progression, nothing felt better than your guild entering the PoTime for the first time. The accomplishment, the rewards to come. Was a great feeling.

There are a lot of things SoE has done to EQ I didn't approve of. But in the end I kept on playing it. I think I quit after the Seeds of Destruction expansion finally. Went a long way with it. Had a lot of fun. To me it was more about the relationships built playing the game. I was in one solid guild for many many years. And I didn't want to leave the game simply because of them. I think the people that were in great guilds (not just successful) found ways to enjoy the game even in it's later stages.

But alas one day I woke up, most of the original crew was gone. Seen pieces of gear with over 1k hp/mana on them and said...this is getting out of hand lol

[fadetree]

I liked PoP ok. Hated stuff after that.

Insane gear inflation, blurring the lines between classes, removal of travel, huge amounts of AA's needed to do anything, the ridiculous defiant gear dropping like rain all contributed to me quitting live. But the final straw was the Mercs...I just couldn't believe they did that. It's just a fundamental violation of what EQ was all about.

I suppose they figured that since they weren't getting many new subscribers, they might as well trash the low game and focus all on the raiders, butchering the low game so that any fool could get to max level in no time. Of course, once there, they have to grind eleventy billion AA's.

[Raavak]

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

I liked PoP ok. Hated stuff after that.

EQ had started to go wrong by PoP, but really, after you've gone to their planes and killed all the gods, and quad-god Quarm, everything else seemed kind of pointless. Storyline-wise it started hurting.

[SirAlvarex]

For me it was a combination of PoP books making the world seem smaller, and just plain better games coming out at the time. I loved DAoC pre-expansions. SWG was tons of fun pre-NGE. Everquest 2 was also awesome for a few expansions (then kicked up again after Kunark was released).

Then I kind of out-grew the whole experience with college. Now I play EQ because it's the ultimate carrot on the stick game. It's hard to earn stuff, so when I do end up getting some planar gear/that epic drop, I feel awesome.

Oh, and the sandbox nature of everything is killable, and we're all given a set of tools and can use them how we wish. Hell, in some games the idea of "fear kiting" or "snare kiting" is considered exploits. Here it's just a great way to XP.

So I don't think EQ went "wrong" for me until PoP. And even then, it was only "more wrong" than the other options at the time. I never played after PoP, so I don't know how terrible it really got.

[webrunner5]

I think the twinking thing is way over the top on a group setting. Solo I think it does help a lot. But in a group I don't think it makes a tinkers damn. Ever notice if you are solo in a zone you can kill a mob about as fast as a 3 person group can at the same levels?

I have never asked what gear a person has here or on live for a invite. Most people on here pretty much suck for gear. Big deal. Who doesn't want nice gear, but group wise I think it is pretty much a waste.