Everquest Next announcement coming 2 August in Vegas

[xantub]

EQ1 was too harsh on death penalty:
- Loss of EXP (and we're talking losing hours of progress)
- Related to above, you could lose a level if you died recently after leveling up
- Related to above, if you were in a zone that had a level restriction and you lost a level on death, you couldn't go back to get your items unless someone resurrected you
- Loss of equipment: When you died, your equipment remained in your 'corpse', so you were naked until you recovered your corpse, which considering you died it probably meant the area you died was dangerous, and if it was deadly with your full equipment, imagine trying to get it while naked (that's why many had a second 'backup' set of equipment in the bank for corpse retrievals).
- There was no 'pointer' to your corpse: There was a '/loc' command that told you the coordinates, so after you died you could enter it to make corpse retrieval easier, but there were two problems... dying was a rage-quit inducing moment, so if you didn't have the mind control to do it before you rage-quit, you were in for a tough retrieval. The other problem is when you died because of a disconnection... if you were running and got disconnected, your character would keep running for 30 seconds or so (waiting for you to reconnect), so you basically had to pray that when you could reconnect, your zombie character hadn't run into lava or some nasty area and died, because you would have no idea where the corpse ended.

That's one aspect of EQ1 I didn't like. I'm all for punishing death, but that was too much.

 

[Gibsons]

Downtime... there used to be a lot of that. I don't remember just how long but it might have been as long as minutes sometimes to get back mana and health. There was a reason mages were sought for free food and water to help with that (I think they had to be done one at a time?)

I played a mage. The demand for food & water was very very low. Sometimes after a wipe, and the odd person who forgot to get some. Just slightly higher than the demand for those crappy weapon summons at low levels (virtually non-existant). The demand for mages was pretty low as well, mostly due to pathing issues and pet agro.

Mod rods changed that - I spent entire raid events doing little besides chaining mod rods. The CoH, moving an entire guild to a raid spot, then getting all the late people in.

Downtime got a little better at higher levels, especially if you had a chanter or bard around. But it came back at raids as you waited for pulls and such.

Veeshan's peak - I'd forgotten about that! I think we were getting ready to do it, then the next expansion came out and we were gone. I remember looking at the loot and thinking it was the only caster gear in Kunark that was worthwhile.

 

[ewdotson]

I played a mage. The demand for food & water was very very low. Sometimes after a wipe, and the odd person who forgot to get some. Just slightly higher than the demand for those crappy weapon summons at low levels (virtually non-existant). The demand for mages was pretty low as well, mostly due to pathing issues and pet agro.

Yeah, food and water functioned differently in EQ than it did in a game like WoW. As I recall, it wasn't a matter of one being able to eat and drink to recover your health and mana as it was having to eat and drink periodically in order to not get hungry and have your baseline regeneration destroyed.

Now, enchanter's clarity was a horse of an entirely different color. That *did* make a huge difference in mana regeneration, and was one of the things that made enchanters so darned popular.

 

[Craig234]

I played a mage. The demand for food & water was very very low. Sometimes after a wipe, and the odd person who forgot to get some. Just slightly higher than the demand for those crappy weapon summons at low levels (virtually non-existant). The demand for mages was pretty low as well, mostly due to pathing issues and pet agro.

Mod rods changed that - I spent entire raid events doing little besides chaining mod rods. The CoH, moving an entire guild to a raid spot, then getting all the late people in.

Downtime got a little better at higher levels, especially if you had a chanter or bard around. But it came back at raids as you waited for pulls and such.

Veeshan's peak - I'd forgotten about that! I think we were getting ready to do it, then the next expansion came out and we were gone. I remember looking at the loot and thinking it was the only caster gear in Kunark that was worthwhile.

There was a period when mage summoned food and water was pretty popular. It wasn't hard to sell stacks.

But you're right, about how mages were discriminated against - rightly or wrongly - and that led to attempts to make them more in demand, with mod rod and call of the hero.

The weapon and armor summons were almost never used - I mentioned them as something the game offered, in how it tried to approach the issue of corpse recovery.

Mages were the nemises (nemesis plural) of enchanters, 'pet broke aggro' drove many enchanters over the edge, screaming. A cruel mage could destroy an enchanter.

 

[Craig234]

Now, enchanter's clarity was a horse of an entirely different color. That *did* make a huge difference in mana regeneration, and was one of the things that made enchanters so darned popular.

Clarity nicknamed 'crack'. There was no shame in begging enchanters for it. It made enchanters prima donnas a lot of the time.

 

[ewdotson]

Clarity nicknamed 'crack'. There was no shame in begging enchanters for it. It made enchanters prima donnas a lot of the time.

I'd say people had no shame in begging enchanters for it, but yeah. That and SoW from the druids and shaman.

 

[Malladine]

I played a mage. The demand for food & water was very very low. Sometimes after a wipe, and the odd person who forgot to get some. Just slightly higher than the demand for those crappy weapon summons at low levels (virtually non-existant). The demand for mages was pretty low as well, mostly due to pathing issues and pet agro.

Enchanters for Clarity and Shaman for SoW, lol

Hi, my name is Matt and I am a SoW addict.

edit oops should have refreshed, others made it there first

 

[Gibsons]

There was a period when mage summoned food and water was pretty popular. It wasn't hard to sell stacks.

But you're right, about how mages were discriminated against - rightly or wrongly - and that led to attempts to make them more in demand, with mod rod and call of the hero.

The weapon and armor summons were almost never used - I mentioned them as something the game offered, in how it tried to approach the issue of corpse recovery.

Mages were the nemises (nemesis plural) of enchanters, 'pet broke aggro' drove many enchanters over the edge, screaming. A cruel mage could destroy an enchanter.

Can't say I ever experienced a serious demand for summoned food.

Agree with the rest though.

It was weird how class balance shifted from time to time. Especially when Kunark came out. Casters got shafted in general, there wasn't much caster loot and some spells didn't drop, ever, until maybe a year into it.

Rogues were ok in vanilla, then were uber in kunark, probably the highest dps class at the time.

Necros were freaking gods in vanilla. Pets almost as good as mages, FD, mana regen, tons of necro and necro/sk only items, most mobs had low resistance to disease and poison etc. Kunark tuned them down a bit.

Rangers went from really versatile light tanks to near useless. They couldn't tank anymore, couldn't compete in dps, their spells just weren't good enough to matter.

I suffered through the enchanter problem you mentioned. Enchanters scream "no pets" and that meant no pets. People like mez and clarity crack a lot more than some extra dps. Boom you're not a mage anymore, you're a gimped wiz, and wiz's kinda sucked in kunark to begin with. Although, the damage shields were nice.

 

[MeldarthX]

EQ1 was too harsh on death penalty:
- Loss of EXP (and we're talking losing hours of progress)
- Related to above, you could lose a level if you died recently after leveling up
- Related to above, if you were in a zone that had a level restriction and you lost a level on death, you couldn't go back to get your items unless someone resurrected you
- Loss of equipment: When you died, your equipment remained in your 'corpse', so you were naked until you recovered your corpse, which considering you died it probably meant the area you died was dangerous, and if it was deadly with your full equipment, imagine trying to get it while naked (that's why many had a second 'backup' set of equipment in the bank for corpse retrievals).
- There was no 'pointer' to your corpse: There was a '/loc' command that told you the coordinates, so after you died you could enter it to make corpse retrieval easier, but there were two problems... dying was a rage-quit inducing moment, so if you didn't have the mind control to do it before you rage-quit, you were in for a tough retrieval. The other problem is when you died because of a disconnection... if you were running and got disconnected, your character would keep running for 30 seconds or so (waiting for you to reconnect), so you basically had to pray that when you could reconnect, your zombie character hadn't run into lava or some nasty area and died, because you would have no idea where the corpse ended.

That's one aspect of EQ1 I didn't like. I'm all for punishing death, but that was too much.

That was one of the things I loved..........you know what was funny I was known for leaving bodies everywhere as I was leveling trying things I had no business on my paladin. That is how I learned to tank so well on my paladin. I used to get tells; hey I found one of your bodies......my answer normal was......Only 1??

It made the game dangerous; made you actually stop and think outside the box to kill something; because you really didn't want to do a corpse run say in the middle of fear....... or hate oh did them many times lol...I do think the market though sadly has moved on.

XP pen?? with 90% res was like 6-8% exp loss at max. That was like 7-10 mobs.......with cleric's rez it was down to like 3%......dieing really wasn't that bad.....corpse runs were always interesting......and yes I was one of the mad men to use mag summon stuff

 

[Markbnj]

One that was a lot more punishing that now in MMO's was exp loss. I don't remember the exact examples but I think you could lose from maybe a half hour to a couple hours' worth of experience if you got killed, without a good res (and I think more than a rare 50% was only added later), and you could lose levels you had obtained.

In EQ1 you could de-level. I remember finding that out the hard way when I got killed and couldn't re-equip half my stuff. But in two years of playing that only happened once.

 

[akugami]

Any enchanter worth his salt had an air of confidence, and more importantly, had a good reputation. Nothing made my night more than keeping a PUG alive. Sebilis zone out was a particularly dangerous spot early on. Not a problem. Best night I had, we were trained almost all night. We'd have 3 or 4 mobs, and another 8 would come in, we had almost no deaths and were just cleaning house even if the group was depleted mana and health wise at the end of a train. Of course, I played my enchanter about 6-12 hours a day back then.


As for de-levelling, make sure you build an exp buffer before you adventure in new areas after getting a new level. Can get annoying but it's not a deal-breaker for me. That certainly was a negative IMHO.

Current EQ1 has pretty much went the other way as far as the risk of death is concerned. I believe most of the death penalties were required. Can they be annoying? Of course. But the funny thing is that as frustrating as a corpse run could be, it brought the player community together and forced players to actually learn how to utilize their characters. There were nights that my enchanter regressed from exp loss and time spent recovering corpses and I didn't mind because it was a learning experience. With how EQ1 is now, the ability to summon your corpse negates the risk of loss that gave you such a high when adventuring in early EQ1. I don't like it.

Naked corpse run in your early 60's in Sebilis was interesting. I pulled my corpse out as well as my group's corpses naked as an enchanter on a few occasions. A combination of invis, mez, memblur, and camping allowed me to go relatively deep into Sebilis to recover corpses.

 

[Malladine]

Honestly I think it comes down to time. Before I had a full time job, kids, marriage etc, I was able to play as much as I wanted so 2 hours of messing around was no big deal at all and could actually end up being fun. But now i don't have enough time to risk messing around for 2 hours, corpse run or whatever, in the hope that it ends up being enjoyable. And people today who have all the time in the world are, no offense, more used to things being easier than we were back then.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

There was a period when mage summoned food and water was pretty popular. It wasn't hard to sell stacks.

Relevant info is lacking, but from what has been said (and based on what recent games have done), the game will probably shoot for allowing everyone to do everything. Many games allow classes to do everything such as combat and heal themselves, but I think it's getting worse, everyone will be able to teleport (if teleporting exists, that is), everyone will be able to craft everything, etc etc.

In other words, taking the "role playing" out of RPG. You don't choose a role, you can do anything.

I understand how frustrating it was to not be able to get a group because you were warrior number 250, or for your group not to be able to do anything because you couldn't get a cleric/slower/mezzer, but I'm not sure going in completely the opposite direction is the answer.

 

[Malladine]

Relevant info is lacking, but from what has been said (and based on what recent games have done), the game will probably shoot for allowing everyone to do everything. Many games allow classes to do everything such as combat and heal themselves, but I think it's getting worse, everyone will be able to teleport (if teleporting exists, that is), everyone will be able to craft everything, etc etc.

In other words, taking the "role playing" out of RPG. You don't choose a role, you can do anything.

I understand how frustrating it was to not be able to get a group because you were warrior number 250, or for your group not to be able to do anything because you couldn't get a cleric/slower/mezzer, but I'm not sure going in completely the opposite direction is the answer.

Me either, another reason to "opt out".

 

[xantub]

I actually prefer strict class games like EQ1, especially with slow/very slow leveling systems. That way you get to identify a role with a person/character. Characters built reputation and it was important. Also for my roleplaying mind, a character is a class. A wizard can't just don heavy armor and now become a tank, you either dedicate your life to studying ancient books or you dedicate your life to learning how to swing a sword and shield while wearing 100 pounds of armor.

 

[Craig234]

I actually prefer strict class games like EQ1, especially with slow/very slow leveling systems. That way you get to identify a role with a person/character. Characters built reputation and it was important. Also for my roleplaying mind, a character is a class. A wizard can't just don heavy armor and now become a tank, you either dedicate your life to studying ancient books or you dedicate your life to learning how to swing a sword and shield while wearing 100 pounds of armor.

You would not like what Rift has done. Any class can have any role of the holy trinity, DPS tank or heal.

 

[Craig234]

Relevant info is lacking, but from what has been said (and based on what recent games have done), the game will probably shoot for allowing everyone to do everything. Many games allow classes to do everything such as combat and heal themselves, but I think it's getting worse, everyone will be able to teleport (if teleporting exists, that is), everyone will be able to craft everything, etc etc.

In other words, taking the "role playing" out of RPG. You don't choose a role, you can do anything.

I understand how frustrating it was to not be able to get a group because you were warrior number 250, or for your group not to be able to do anything because you couldn't get a cleric/slower/mezzer, but I'm not sure going in completely the opposite direction is the answer.

As I said to the previous poster, you would not like what Rift has done. The only thing that really distinguishes classes are the specific details of the roles they do - Warrior DPS picks are slightly different than other class DPS for example. The rest becomes clearly interchangeable. One stat per class. One armor type per class. Roleplaying is basically purely fiction made up about a char, and has nothing to do with class. Races are also irrelevant except for cosmetics and unimportant racial skills.

Even the initial design of a two faction game - IIRC, I'm not sure they could chat, they couldn't guild together - ended where faction is unimportant except for story.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I didn't really watch the videos (prefer to read gaming news) but I'm getting impression not much useful info about EQN (EQN, not Landmark) came out at SOE live. That about right?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I didn't really watch the videos (prefer to read gaming news) but I'm getting impression not much useful info about EQN (EQN, not Landmark) came out at SOE live. That about right?

I skimmed the video they did show off a bunch of game play videos from the 4 classes. I wasn't overly impressed, it was very japanimation type combat.

 

[brandonb]

It's amazing what little information about EQN has come out over the last year. It seems they are struggling with it.

Even with Landmark. That came into existence (with a closed beta) last December? Nearly a year later and they've done exactly this:

1) Added water.
2) Added glass materials.
3) Combat being added "soon".

Really?

 

[toughtrasher]

Watched the video and not that impressed

 

[xantub]

Worst thing is, I remember when they announced the game. Me as most old EQ gamers were thrilled in expectation to see an MMO that went back to the roots (or so we thought).

At the start of the presentation, they showed a video of how a lot of people loved and remembered EQ1, some of their stories, etc. And then "See how so many people loved Everquest? Well, get ready because we're about to show you ... "Not Everquest!". Then they started showing the joke of EQNext, and when the camera showed the audience, there were some nervous claps here and there. "Remember how EQ was so immersive that you could get lost in a dungeon without a torch? Well... never mind that, see how you can double jump like in a Nintendo game! whee!".

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Worst thing is, I remember when they announced the game. Me as most old EQ gamers were thrilled in expectation to see an MMO that went back to the roots (or so we thought).

At the start of the presentation, they showed a video of how a lot of people loved and remembered EQ1, some of their stories, etc. And then "See how so many people loved Everquest? Well, get ready because we're about to show you ... "Not Everquest!". Then they started showing the joke of EQNext, and when the camera showed the audience, there were some nervous claps here and there. "Remember how EQ was so immersive that you could get lost in a dungeon without a torch? Well... never mind that, see how you can double jump like in a Nintendo game! whee!".

It's possible that the game will end up something great, but courting EQ fans then saying "Not Everquest!"? Totally ridiculous.

Gaming companies want to have their cake and eat it too; that is, they want the fans of previous games to remain loyal even as they change the sequels completely in an effort to bring in everyone with a wallet.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Still might be decent, people like planet side 2.
Why is it so hard to make an MMO that has
A big enough world to get lost in
Being able to play causally but still be able to contribute to a hard core group
Some PvP
Challenging and rewarding
Risks
Being able to do something besides grind quests
No big ! Or ?'s over npc heads
Reasonable monthly cost or cash shop

 

[Sattern]

I think the new Everquest will have many old school functions to cater to the previous generation of gamers and lack innovative technologies that make games stick as well as grow.