Was Qeynos really one of the first cities designed?

[murrpau]

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

I always felt that the Qeynos area was rushed through and always seemed unfinished to me. You have Qeynos, and then QH which is just bare bones. Then you have Surefall which seems like it was supposed to be a main town but is more like an outpost.

Now that you mention it, I want to add on to that theory:

It was an alpha/beta area with just enough to create some immersion and scale with some variety in climates.

So maybe humans were from Qeynos, Elves from SFG,
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then Dwarves/Ogres you could argue each comes either from the Qeynos Acqueducts or Everfrost.
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[BigPlays]

Qeynos in of itself was well designed. Lots of detail, the different factions and quests. For example the guard by the clock, one is good one is bad (there is some quest involved there too).

The problem starts when you leave. QH for example had that broken warrior sword quest, does not have much in it aside from BB, and Surefall which seems like it was supposed to be a starting city but was never finished. Then you have WK which is just a barren waste with a spattering of mobs and a couple of guard outposts. Just a huge waste of space. Same with NK...huge zone, nothing going on really, and again, huge waste of space. SK is one of the only zones you can actually level in up to around 40ish? And Paw at the time was a lv 15 zone (I am going with launch zones etc here, not the revamps).

My point being is if you look at FP, you can get to Lavastorm in like under 5 min and level from say 15-50 without ever leaving.

The game was surely rushed but I always wonder why they never bothered to do anything around Qeynos aside from BB and Perma. Plus add in the fact that your closest port is NK while in FP, you have WC/Nro/Nek and Lava.

[magnetaress]

Qeynos is way more chill than FP.

That said Oasis can be p chill when there aren't bards trying to powerlvl in the zone.

Bards are basically everquests #1 problem.

[magnetaress]

Give a player an inch and they take a mile.

[Ooloo]

I wonder if there are any original dev interviews where they go into what was designed when. I always felt like some of the zones in velious were put together from leftovers that weren't used in the original release. Velk's and siren's grotto both have the same kind of really basic blocky architecture and mismatched platform heights that don't quite line up and somewhat shoddy texture work. None of the super-sculpted pathways like you see in kunark zones, even though they didn't come out until after kunark.

Then again, velious was released really fast after kunark considering how much content kunark had, maybe it was rushed as well.

[BigPlays]

I wonder if the game was intended for bards to AoE kite entire zones. Would be nice to sit down the the original devs and get their thoughts on what people are doing.

Like kiting seemed to be something that was unintended in general because they nerfed the DoT damage to 66% while moving. Also I kind of wonder what their intentions were around camping items etc. Did they really think that sitting in one place for 12 hours or so was fun?

[BigPlays]

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

I wonder if there are any original dev interviews where they go into what was designed when. I always felt like some of the zones in velious were put together from leftovers that weren't used in the original release. Velk's and siren's grotto both have the same kind of really basic blocky architecture and mismatched platform heights that don't quite line up and somewhat shoddy texture work. None of the super-sculpted pathways like you see in kunark zones, even though they didn't come out until after kunark.

Then again, velious was released really fast after kunark considering how much content kunark had, maybe it was rushed as well.

My theory was back in those days, devs were pushed to get games out the door. That is why you had so many games that were just unfinished and why Blizzard was more polished because of their "When it is done" mantra.

Nowadays, with early access and crowd funding, devs can keep games in alpha/early access indefinitely because they still have $$ rolling in (see star citizen) and are under no pressure to release a game.

[Jimjam]

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

My point being is if you look at FP, you can get to Lavastorm in like under 5 min and level from say 15-50 without ever leaving.

But maybe the point of qeynos is not to have a single mega dungeon (the lavastorm area) to do 1-50.

Maybe Qeynos is about getting out there and exploring the whole world, ensuring human adventurers are pushing into all areas of Norrath?

Imo its a feature not a bug.

[BigPlays]

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

But maybe the point of qeynos is not to have a single mega dungeon (the lavastorm area) to do 1-50.

Maybe Qeynos is about getting out there and exploring the whole world, ensuring human adventurers are pushing into all areas of Norrath?

Imo its a feature not a bug.

Knowing what you know today, if you were to start a fresh toon, other than nostalgia or preference for say liking Erudites, why would you start say a HE bard in Qeynos instead of FP? Both have end game dungeons but Sol B is way more fleshed out than Perma. Maybe it is not a bug, but I think it was more of the devs didn't know what they didn't know.

Like they never thought a Bard would AOE kite an entire zone or people would kite with DOTs, so it ended up getting nerfed. They did also add the Hole later and revamped kerra. So looking back, I think they did recognize that the Qeynos area was unfinished and added the paw revamp and Hole.

[Raj]

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

Knowing what you know today, if you were to start a fresh toon, other than nostalgia or preference for say liking Erudites, why would you start say a HE bard in Qeynos instead of FP? Both have end game dungeons but Sol B is way more fleshed out than Perma. Maybe it is not a bug, but I think it was more of the devs didn't know what they didn't know.

Like they never thought a Bard would AOE kite an entire zone or people would kite with DOTs, so it ended up getting nerfed. They did also add the Hole later and revamped kerra. So looking back, I think they did recognize that the Qeynos area was unfinished and added the paw revamp and Hole.

I think many of us almost never start real toons - fresh or not - in FP tbh my friend! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The Qeynos area for a newbie is good for alot more reasons than just nostalgia...And when you have to venture out farther than Qeynos to level in much farther away areas, 1 long scenic trip to a new area then getting a bind there really isn't a big deal to most of us as far as I know.... [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]