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

[Swish]

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen ... its your best hope.

[iruinedyourday]

To be honest, Day-Z I think inflamed my EQ itch.. it was the last game I played before I jacked into this and never did anything IRL ever again.

So, there is something there.. that game is shit.. but there is something it is scratching the surface of, that could be as awesome as EQ1999

[stormlord]

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

To be honest, Day-Z I think inflamed my EQ itch.. it was the last game I played before I jacked into this and never did anything IRL ever again.

So, there is something there.. that game is shit.. but there is something it is scratching the surface of, that could be as awesome as EQ1999

Wurm ONline did it for me. I leanred it was the immersion. It was the lack of convenience features. It was consequences.

Mortal Online and Xsyon and survival games generally do the same thing.

Harsh survival games in particular because it's about not dying. Somehow that's different. A lot of games are about winning because you don't really lose in them. Losing is just a small slap on the wrist.

EQ was more than that ofc. It had a lot of downtime. It had a lot of chatting. It had a lot of lore in the world. The dungeons were all unique and hand crafted. I can't faithfully compare a sandbox MMO like Mortal Online to EQ because there're many differences. However, my principal argument is it was the lack of convenience features and the death penalty which immersed us in it. With too many convenience features games lose their bite. Somehow they become less real to us. It's harder to immerse in them because of this. And it's this way I think that Wurm Online and survival games pull me into them.

But as I get more powerful (or protected) in Wurm Online, I get pulled into it less and less. As the consequences reduce it becomes more distant. It's only when I keep the pressure on and keep the risks high that the immersion can stick.

And it was the danger/dying which made us group up in the first place. We joined groups to compensate our weaknesses, not just to gain experience faster. One of the reasons they didn't dramatically increase experience when you joined a group is because most classes were made to compliment each other. In this way, experience would go up faster because as a group players were more effective. A healer could keep the group healed and do rezzes. A rogue would focus on dps, watching aggro. A monk could could tank better than a rogue and dps better than a warrior and feign death. A warrior would keep the monster attacking him/her. Anybody flanking or standing behing the monster would hit more often. Casters could root or snare or debuff.

So in review my feeling is the more a game requires your attention AND raises the negative consequences for failing/dying, the higher the immersion. That's what made EQ special. Everything else is too random and beside the point.

But games requiring full attention and having negative consequences for failing/dying are very hard to play for people who have jobs and family and/or RL demands. People who play games tend to not want frustration because htey get plenty of that from RL. They want a game which is more relaxing; less demanding.

[Ravager]

No MMO can do it, because EQ already did it. Any mmo who tried to do a classic formula would fail out of the gates because everyone who pays for a sub is ADD now and wouldn't play it. This community thrives because everyone who wants it is here and yet half the people here still want cats on the moon. The only people doing anything close to old school gaming is the Exile crew and as good at is it is, I don't see it being sustainable with their current model, something is gonna give.

[Lopretni]

this is just my perspective as someone who has dicked around in a lot of MMOs but usually don't poopsock to exhaust every ounce of content the minute it comes out

making the entire game a challenge from 1 to max level. MMOs nowadays have two issues with this leveling vs max level problem. firstly they tend to put forth all their resources and effort into developing endgame content, especially as far as expansions go, so unless you already have rushed to max level the game is usually really fucking boring. which is the other problem, early level stuff is always so fucking easy and mind numbingly dull. yet they still want to make you feel like you've accomplished something, so it's grossly padded out to take forever.

EQ corrects this by having challenging dungeons that you can begin adventuring in fairly early on once you've gotten your feet wet and your class has its basic kit. the game is challenging but rewarding from level 1 until you're taking on dragons (if you're in the "right" guilds anyway but that's another topic)

drop the Diablo loot system. EQ has neat items because it's just 2 categories - mundane items, and magic items. it's not just a race to get your purple epix and because items aren't restricted as hard as WoW you'll find a single item has a lot of value not only for many classes but also across a much greater lifespan than WoW where you're chucking items in and out of your inventory every few levels.

stop with bloated stats. there is not a single fucking reason players should be able to reach a million health, that's fucking retarded. keep the ceiling low and this plays back into items having more value over time.

stop automating everything. the whole fucking point of joining an MMO, an online game, is to INTERACT WITH OTHER PLAYERS. when MMOs automate and instance everything it completely removes the social aspect which creates stories. EQ was so cool because veterans have crazy stories. just like D&D in that regard, for non-players it's just fun to sit around and listen to the crazy shit people encounter. not so much when everything is automated, pre-scripted and completely boxed in the way it is in every MMO now.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

stop automating everything. the whole fucking point of joining an MMO, an online game, is to INTERACT WITH OTHER PLAYERS. when MMOs automate and instance everything it completely removes the social aspect which creates stories. EQ was so cool because veterans have crazy stories. just like D&D in that regard, for non-players it's just fun to sit around and listen to the crazy shit people encounter. not so much when everything is automated, pre-scripted and completely boxed in the way it is in every MMO now.

This is because modern MMO targeting solo players - and I would say 99% of players are soloers either cause they prefer it this way or simply don't have time for prolonged play times that grouping requires (such as myself atm).

Of course games like WoW try to provided content for both kinds of player (hence group instances/raids) but in a huge world of soloers where your kind (groupers) only makes up 1% OR LESS - you do feel terribly lost.

For game type like EQ1 its better to have a game with maybe 10k population where everyone is at least open to grouping style mindset, rather than to have a game with 10 million players with 10k grouper horribly diluted within.

[Portasaurus]

Bring back EC Tunnel casinos!!!!

[Lopretni]

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

This is because modern MMO targeting solo players - and I would say 99% of players are soloers either cause they prefer it this way or simply don't have time for prolonged play times that grouping requires (such as myself atm).

i think EQ already solved this though, there are classes which are very social and group reliant and classes that can solo very well and arguably more efficiently than if they were in a group. what WoW has tried to do has just made MMOs multiplayer games, not Massive in any sense of the word.

[Kika Maslyaka]

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

i think EQ already solved this though, there are classes which are very social and group reliant and classes that can solo very well and arguably more efficiently than if they were in a group. what WoW has tried to do has just made MMOs multiplayer games, not Massive in any sense of the word.

Well, I have to say this doesn't really work very well.
EQ PvE enviroment is tuned to a group difficulty, so you can't solo these mobs like you can in WoW/EQ2 without being either - a very powerful class inherently (which will be also powerful in a group) or having very specific set of class skills/spells

Some classes which were intended to be solo-friendly - such as ranger, paly, sk - are in fact not so great both solo and in group, and hit with horrendous XP penalty. While classes that shine at soloing - druid, necro, - also great in groups.
While it should have been there are other way around - 0% xp penalty for hybrids and 40% penalty for druid/necro.
The only hybrid that is actually powerful soloer that deserves 40% penalty - is bard.

IMHO - this problems doesn't really have a good solution.

[Lopretni]

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

[snip]

IMHO - this problems doesn't really have a good solution.

well i think it's a problem that may not need a solution, even if the way the devs intended it didn't pan out there's still an equilibrium and sense of normalcy. i think the "solution" is to make all classes homogenized and boring and make all the enemies super weak which isn't very fun. if it ain't broke don't fix it. not to say you couldn't make improvements, IIRC Velious eliminates the exp penalties doesn't it? so i guess that's a step in the right direction.