When did EQ mounts come along?

[Andervin]

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

Here's how I made this work for my magician.

Step 1. Use old character models.
Step 2. Use Amulet of Necropotence for (luclin) skeleton model.
Step 3. For instant stop, remove Illusion: Skeleton. It would put you in old model and dismiss horse.

Very clever.

[Tehwoot]

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

I really liked mounts, and the idea of them, at the time they were released.

However, looking back I think they were a horrible thing to implement in EverQuest.

The mounts gave a perma-med, fast-movement stance. It changed the game dramatically in my viewpoint, at least in terms of leveling and small groups.

They were immediately no longer a luxury but rather a requirement.

In my mind they were a small part of destroying the vastness of the world and class uniqueness. Equalizing travel was a first and easy step for SOE to make without facing too much resistance.

As changes go, however, they snowball. The fast travel of Luclin wasn't fast enough so even faster travel was added. The mount speeds of Luclin, outside of knights, weren't fast enough so even faster mounts were added. Then it was easy to step into (and it started in Luclin) no other class has this, let's give it to this.

I digress, but I feel like the implementation of mounts, and Luclin in general, really started a major shift in the core gameplay of EverQuest for the negative. If you look at the monster EQLive is today it all stems off of the changes started with Luclin. Kunark and Velious very much kept EQ true...Luclin, PoP, etc - not so much.

Just my 2 cents.

So looking back...I hate EQ mounts. With a passion. Would I be okay if only one class had them as a unique ability (say both knights), yes...everyone - no.

this

[Weekapaug]

They weren't immediately a requirement. They were so expensive until the LoY ones not everyone could get them. Not that the drogmor were cheap. That was post POP. And you couldn't use them indoors. Still can't.

Now they pretty much give them away, though.

I'm not a fan because I don't like the movement and camera view, but the constant medding without sit aggo is too good to pass on and makes boxing infinately smoother. Not sure I've ever used one for travel, even my SK with the selos speed AA mount.

[Lagaidh]

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

Here's how I made this work for my magician.

Step 1. Use old character models.
Step 2. Use Amulet of Necropotence for (luclin) skeleton model.
Step 3. For instant stop, remove Illusion: Skeleton. It would put you in old model and dismiss horse.

When I finally DID land an AoN, I turned those luclin models right the fuck back off for male dwarves for sure! I also liked being an undead paladin =)

[fadetree]

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

I really liked mounts, and the idea of them, at the time they were released.

However, looking back I think they were a horrible thing to implement in EverQuest.

The mounts gave a perma-med, fast-movement stance. It changed the game dramatically in my viewpoint, at least in terms of leveling and small groups.

They were immediately no longer a luxury but rather a requirement.

In my mind they were a small part of destroying the vastness of the world and class uniqueness. Equalizing travel was a first and easy step for SOE to make without facing too much resistance.

As changes go, however, they snowball. The fast travel of Luclin wasn't fast enough so even faster travel was added. The mount speeds of Luclin, outside of knights, weren't fast enough so even faster mounts were added. Then it was easy to step into (and it started in Luclin) no other class has this, let's give it to this.

I digress, but I feel like the implementation of mounts, and Luclin in general, really started a major shift in the core gameplay of EverQuest for the negative. If you look at the monster EQLive is today it all stems off of the changes started with Luclin. Kunark and Velious very much kept EQ true...Luclin, PoP, etc - not so much.

Just my 2 cents.

So looking back...I hate EQ mounts. With a passion. Would I be okay if only one class had them as a unique ability (say both knights), yes...everyone - no.

Yes, this exactly. It's why I say that people usually misunderstand how game design works. The heart of a game, any game, is what you *can't* do, not what you can do. Making things 'better', 'fixing' things, ( i.e. removing things you can't do ) very rarely, if ever improves the game.

[bomaroast]

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

I digress, but I feel like the implementation of mounts, and Luclin in general, really started a major shift in the core gameplay of EverQuest for the negative. If you look at the monster EQLive is today it all stems off of the changes started with Luclin. Kunark and Velious very much kept EQ true...Luclin, PoP, etc - not so much.

The game had to be pushed forward or it would have turned into a troll's haven much like p99. Perhaps the changes introduced in luclin weren't the best, but they were still pretty dang fun. Raiding in PoP and OoW was a lot of fun and worth changes to the game.

[fadetree]

Troll's haven?

The door is that way, dude.

[Weekapaug]

The thing that's often lost in these discussions here is while everything did inflate and a lot of things got trivialized, other things got harder and more interesting, too.

So while you could suddenly click a book to get someplace, instead of running, finding ports or taking a boat or some combo for an hour, you took that book to kill mobs that were a lot more difficult than what was in classic. Exp mobs that not just summon, but enrage, rampage, flurry, and throw AoEs. Faction work needed that was meaningful. Raid mobs on a silver platter that required no trash clearing that did require every single person in a raid not just doing their job, but not a single person fucking up, too. Mobs that required every melee to change weapon types at certain points. Mobs that would spawn adds that would likely wipe the raid if one person did the wrong thing. List goes on and on. Yes, some things got easier, but others got harder and more complex. Not to mention gearing up a toon for that. Focuses, effects, augs. It took a few expansions for it to develop, but I think AA is an amazing and very fun aspect of the game and has been since it did.

Over 5, 10, 15 years a game has to progress and that's, understandably, going to turn a lot of people off. But progress it must. The original dev team went to great pains to not inflate the game while continuing to keep it in check, but I think Velious was the peak for that. Whatever expansion came after was going to have to go in some new direction and we would all be here bitching about that instead of Luclin. Or we would be talking about that great game EverQuest that died in its fourth or fifth expansion because it went completely stale and everybody moved on because it simply didn't engage enough players to warrant serious development anymore and 300 people kept playing.....Pretty much what happened to DAoC. Even WoW, the bohemouth it is, has been reworked from the ground up with about every expansion as I understand it (i don't play). Because games must progress or they die.

Don't get me wrong, I love the classic era. I played WAY too much EQ from the first few weeks in 99 thru TSS...Like 8 years....And the classic era is my favorite because that's where it all started, but with a few notable exceptions (like GoD) I loved all of it. Because for everything that got easier, there was a new challenge. It just changed, is all, because it had to.

I recently went back to live for the first time in years. Games still fun.

[Droog007]

For a brief time on live, you could have old models ON and still use the mount clicky. It put a buff on you and you gained standing med, but the horse didn't appear and there was no runspeed change.

THAT was awesome. Everything else about mounts in EQ is / was / forever shall be ri-goddam-diculous.

I did some /feedbacks at the time suggesting that they put in an AA for standing med... in retrospect, it doesn't have the same needed plat sink, but they could have made it depend on some other expensive object...

[HawkMasterson1999]

The Emp horse is still my most prized possession on live. Gave up my position at the top of my guilds DKP charts for it.