Was Qeynos really one of the first cities designed?

[Jimjam]

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

I kinda wonder if the intent was to make Qeynos "just" a starter area. But there are a lot of broken quests there like that warrior sword (forgot the name) and a few others. Plus, isn't it odd that two of the arguably best in slot items (SBS and FB earing) are in QH and require almost no effort to get other than waiting? The mobs are very low level and makes it seem like they threw it in there last minute.

Even if you factor everfrost, there is nothing there except for Perma which is a pretty high level zone and there is a gap between that and BB.

Rumour is the game was initially intended to have 20 levels, but on realising player appetite for xp it got changed to 50, which is why some of the earliest designed bits seem to be disproportionately low level. Idk if there is any truth to that though.

[Ooloo]

EQ was a pretty new thing, they were trying to one-up ultima online which is a fundamentally different game than EQ in basically every way, other than being fantasy based and multiplayer. So you do find a big hodgepodge of ideas in vanilla EQ. Like magic weapons. Seems like an interesting idea, but it didn't take long for basically every weapon worth having in the entire game to be magic by default, so it might as well not even be a mechanic in the first place.

They probably didn't consider any particular area finished or unfinished at launch, it was more like "okay I think we can ship this, let's see what happens".

[BigPlays]

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

EQ was a pretty new thing, they were trying to one-up ultima online which is a fundamentally different game than EQ in basically every way, other than being fantasy based and multiplayer. So you do find a big hodgepodge of ideas in vanilla EQ. Like magic weapons. Seems like an interesting idea, but it didn't take long for basically every weapon worth having in the entire game to be magic by default, so it might as well not even be a mechanic in the first place.

They probably didn't consider any particular area finished or unfinished at launch, it was more like "okay I think we can ship this, let's see what happens".

back then I do not think they had open beta tests which would explain a lot not having customer feedback. Decisions like nerfing the guise and removing something like the Rubicate armor never made sense to me...especially since the only piece of Ruby worth anything was the BP.

[Ooloo]

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

back then I do not think they had open beta tests which would explain a lot not having customer feedback. Decisions like nerfing the guise and removing something like the Rubicate armor never made sense to me...especially since the only piece of Ruby worth anything was the BP.

They did have a beta for the game prior to launch, but yeah they didn't really player test any of the individual ongoing patches. Those decisions were probably made by a small handful of people at verant\sony.

[PabloEdvardo]

qeynos was what they developed as proof of concept for investors

once they got funded, they had to meet shipping deadlines, and you can see how the rest of the game (basically from then on) was rushed

I strongly believe it's a great example of why Pantheon will never be successful. While EQ has lots of failed ideas and unfinished work, it was the investor pressure to ship that ultimately got us the game. Given infinite time, devs will never ship (e.g. Star Citizen).

[Videri]

Suppose Qeynos was the first city they designed, and thereafter they got better and better at it.

They did put extra effort into Qeynos questlines. Some of them fork, some of them intersect, etc, and I don’t think any other towns/regions can boast the same.

So maybe they went into too much detail on Qeynos quests, and everywhere else in the pre-Kunark world didn’t get so much attention; but the adventure zones were more and more in-depth. With Guk as the pinnacle.

[AgKnight]

And no one even talk of qeynos aquaducts... It's one of my favorite low level dungeon...

[Ekco]

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

back then I do not think they had open beta tests which would explain a lot not having customer feedback.

they had a couple beta phases and Brad would hold like townhall meetings on a IRC server answering questions n shit. the logs still exist.

[Zwieback]

the logs confirming u a RMTer also still exist.

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

they had a couple beta phases and Brad would hold like townhall meetings on a IRC server answering questions n shit. the logs still exist.

[murrpau]

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

qeynos was what they developed as proof of concept for investors

once they got funded, they had to meet shipping deadlines, and you can see how the rest of the game (basically from then on) was rushed

That makes sense. Doesn't give it much argument of being the best-designed city though.

When they made Doom, they made the first level last. That's because by then they learned everything and got good at design and that's why it hit so differently from stuff that was out at the time (like compared to Wolfenstein).

I think they kind-of did the same with Qeynos. After going out and building some other stuff (SFG shows up in Alpha footage too) they came back and redid big chunks of Qeynos. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]