Haha, what a thread. Shame I wasn't here from the beginning, between the OP and balt there's so many holes here it would have been fun to make them fall through them ^^
...And that's saying something considering this is the "intarweb".
Every point and response has been pure, utter crap that only hurt his opinion overall. He claims other things to be cheap, other people to be clueless, and yet he has shown himself to be the most ill-informed or hateful speaker on the topic at hand. Could you believe he actually responded to someone admiring Warcraft's lore (consisting of many books, trilogies, timelines, four games with expansions, a board game, a card game and an upcoming movie) by simply shrugging it off and stating "<lawlz... quest tah kill 500 mobs... Epic story!". I'd quite honestly expect more of an intelligent response from a nephew's pet rock.
Then he goes on about how "simple" content is to be created; it's obvious that such a person knows such simply by watching youtube and comparing their favorite game like a complete fanboy to one that his more rich and vibrant in color with superior detail in an entirely different graphics engine. For surely, the reason MMOs don't come out with the content to keep people interested is because they are lazy, not because it involves complicated proceedures, staff, time, system analysis, RAM, bandwidth, power and all that other good stuff. Yes, they all want to fail because it's clearly easy to make content.
Honestly, this is exactly the type of fan I would want for one of my games; I'd set out a flat plain of lands, proclaim it is 10x bigger than the most popular game, and cash in on the idiots that actually believe this is a good thing. That mass produced it better than slow, steady, and well made. Maybe I'd create a random generator that would set doodads for me so that it looks like I actually tried. Yeah. That's what I'd do.
Keep on using your precious EQ, which by the way has turned into a Theme Park over time (although it wasn't at start), as ammunition to tell others while they're clueless and have no idea of things are supposed to be. WoW is a game where the main point is, ultimately, get the next tier of gear -- but to say that it is boring or that they don't try to provide content that will keep people entertain is what's really juvenile in thought. You, sir... are the clueless one.
Respond with intelligence, or don't waste peoples' time with your useless, frivolous and misinformed thoughts.
I don't want to waste anymore of my time analyzing and tearing apart the arguments of a misinformed person who won't give others educated responses -- I get enough of that as a Social Sciences: History major.
QQ Ginkeq, stop trolling forums spamming the SAME TOPIC OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Do we really need to start reporting you for this or can a mod go ahead and get involved?
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf
ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card
so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or
any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store.
i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say
its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer
while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
Originally posted by Ginkeq Some people say that WoWs PVE system provides better content, because it is intsanced and they can have scripts etc. within the instance. However, EQ had scripted events too, all of the Planar zones and even some old world zones had player triggered events during raids. After looking back at EQ's raid content vs WoWs raid content, I've realized how cheap and easy it is to make instances. Look at how small a WoW zone is compared to an EQ zone: That one EQ zone is larger and has more content than 10-20 WoW raid instances combined. Anyone who claims that WoW content has more depth is clueless. And that's just one zone. I'd imagine that a few EQ raid zones are larger than all of WoWs cheap instances combined. These instances let them provide cheap PVE content in zones that are plain and lack any depth. The boss generally just happens to be sitting around, near the entrance. They've given up on even providing a zone or environment for most of their raid content. And a lot of their instances simply are missing any regular NPCs that players usually have to clear. WoW's been reduced to cheap instances with bosses sitting alone in empty zones that lack any depth. It's not even close to what EQ's PVE zones were.
Translation: "Hello, i am a troll and i want to stir some shit up on this forum!"
Anyway. I wonder where the OP gets the notion from that bigger=better. Bigger instances mean that you see the same scenery over and over again, the same monsters over and over. I also don't get why grind=fun. Grind is not fun, and despite WoW having it's fair share, EQ1 is probably the king of the grind - Even over the original Lineage 2.
But i guess arguing is pointless, he already made up his mind and put corks in his ears, or he's just delightfully feasting on all the qq in this thread.
I do wonder when he's going to present his first proper argument.
A prospos: That instance in the vid looks more like the original Wolfenstein than anything else. Woo. At least Blizzard made some effort with their instances. Even Molten Core looks better than that piece of.... Whatever you want to call it.
I think some of you or me are getting the OP message wrong. For me he's meaning that today's dungeons are small and no longer have that discovery feeling because it's almost like you have a red carpet that leads you to the bosses which is somehow true in most dungeons. There are dungeons in wow that are big but there are a lot of them that aren't so big too. So if what I got from the OP is what he meant I agree a bit on that and for those that keep on saying EQ graphics suck or that the dungeon is empty and such the video meant to show you how big of a dungeon that place was not the amount of mobs/bosses inside it.
Exactly, it's gonna be 2010 soon, and MMORPGs are providing these cheap and small instances still. EQ is from the 90s, and the zones were better designed and required more thought and effort than the zones that companies like Blizzard are producing.
Why can't Blizzard just make massive, well designed zones with lots of content?
It's not about graphics, it's about thought. There is no thought that goes into making zones like Ulduar.
I'm not bashin WoW because it is popular, there is just no challenge in it anymore. It used to be half-decent before Blizzard sold out to dumb players.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store. i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
So what your saying is ppl that never ever played any MMORPG before, some even never played any PC games at all boyght wow because one day then went to the mall and saw a copy of World of Warcraft? I very much doubt that is the case, im more inclined to believe they had a good start alot of ppl joined and asked their friends to play, that plus the good PR and recruit a friend offers and trials just made it easier for ppl to try it out and realize they could play it, most of the ppl I know that play WoW would never play any other MMO, most of the players in WoW are not old school, elitist , I know all the maths sort of players but exactly the oposite ppl that would have never played any other MMO to start with, ppl that play it casually, ppl that want instant gratification and to be able to just play how they want as soon as they get home.
Blizzard just made it easier for those ppl to enjoy a whole range of PVE content, without having to be an "elitist jerk", go and do Icecrown Citadel without having to spend 30h a week raiding, yes some will find it a dumb down or whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day your not taking a PhD its a game those ppl are having fun let them be, they already have alot of un-dumbed down tasks at work every day.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store. i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
So what your saying is ppl that never ever played any MMORPG before, some even never played any PC games at all boyght wow because one day then went to the mall and saw a copy of World of Warcraft? I very much doubt that is the case, im more inclined to believe they had a good start alot of ppl joined and asked their friends to play, that plus the good PR and recruit a friend offers and trials just made it easier for ppl to try it out and realize they could play it, most of the ppl I know that play WoW would never play any other MMO, most of the players in WoW are not old school, elitist , I know all the maths sort of players but exactly the oposite ppl that would have never played any other MMO to start with, ppl that play it casually, ppl that want instant gratification and to be able to just play how they want as soon as they get home.
Blizzard just made it easier for those ppl to enjoy a whole range of PVE content, without having to be an "elitist jerk", go and do Icecrown Citadel without having to spend 30h a week raiding, yes some will find it a dumb down or whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day your not taking a PhD its a game those ppl are having fun let them be, they already have alot of un-dumbed down tasks at work every day.
what you said and i ear there were big spaming of tv ad ,since i got rid of tv more then 7 years ago .i dont know if the tv ad thing is true tho.
[quote]Originally posted by lisubab When we hit level 10s the feeling of novelty fades and irritation sets it. As a shaman I have to look at my spellbook, meditating after every pull. We are fighting along a coastline for crocodiles, b/c that is the only stupid mob that does not run away when down to 20% hp, no hunter or druid, no snaring and Ogres cannot be either. At level 20s we sit outside a dungeon for hours looking for a camp, and luckily healers like shaman (no priest class from Ogres) have better chances. And so on. EQ shows its color fast as a huge grind, the day I hit level 30. Every 5 levels from level 34 onwards, is a hell level, taking twice the time to get level thru. We still play it back then, b/c it WAS the pioneer game, and given the kind of hardware we have, we cannot expect more. Once SWG launches, once CoH launches, and once WoW launches, EQ is no longer worth playing even if its free. It has served its role in history. Like most old models, they are replaced. We respect EQ, we once find long days and weeks of pleasure sitting there till our hips complain. Not any more, we do not need to sit in front of the monitor for 48 hours b/c a guildie priest need his epic weapon quest done. In WoW we set up a raid thru calendar feature, log on just before the raid starts and summon everybody. 10 minutes later we start playing. PLAYING. That is the game of my choice now, a game I play to enjoy, with every tool and feature optimised to let me focus on playing. I do not look down on EQ, it was the one in its days. It is no longer 1997, it is now 2009 almost 2010.[/b][/quote]
No need to say more, this guy/girl/undefined as the right idea.
WoW is succesful because it's good at what it set out to do. Provide an entry-level MMO experience, a polished and smooth experience for everyone, a game that tries to get you into the action and keep you there, whereas EQ1 tries to keep you out of it most of the time with looooooooooooong grinds and a lot of content 99% of the players will never see.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store. i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
The rich lore: "Go kill 5 bear" type quests x 5000. Yeah, WoW has a lot of lore. Why doesn't their lore explain why every PVE zone is instanced too? Cheap game
You cleverly left out quests that have you investigate and foil the plans of a group of dwarves to blow up a dam, a world-trekking quest to restore Link's sword, etc. For every 10 quests where you kill 10 of whatever there are one or two quests where, considering you bother reading themof course, will have you thinking 'wow that was really cool".
WoW main storyline is pretty bad. Story was one of their strongholds during the RTS series, now it has been left in the background.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store. i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
---------
Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
---------
Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
My most sincere salute to you, for a solid writing.
Adding some personal feelings on your excellent writing
(1) Gear in WoW is not just a linear process. Gear in WoW is part of the minimax toolset for alternate character builds. Blindly chasing item level is generally less effective. Some gear are simply useless for some classes, say expertise in mail armor for Hunters vs Enh Shamans.
(2) The color of the text (purple for epic) hides a lot of variety. The kind of epic obtained from heroic dungeon grinds are called welfare epic for a reason, they are vastly inferior for most character builds, when compared to some BiS epic gear.
(3) Collecting 2 EoF a day from daily random dungeons will give you a piece of gear in 30 days (lesser T10 gear costly 60 badges) or 45 days (those lesser T10 costing 90 badges). You can calculate how long it takes to gear up by this route alone. You can get 5 more per week with weekly raid, that still won't give you a full suite in 3 months. Not all slots are available this way.
(4) The better Tier 10 gear needs token, only 25ICC last boss in each wing give 2 per run.
(5) Epic gear is now assessible to all, but the higher tier epic are still harder to obtain. On the other hand, it is not necessary to chase after every piece of highest tier. An effective gearing plan with BiS is far better than blinding chasing gear from the latest dungeons.
For those blind haters who says Blizz is handing out all the epic gear to everybody, they simply do not know what gear is and how they are obtained.
As for everquest, their gearing process is highly linear, their character development model very simple. The only element in EQ gear that really shines in terms of design is fatigue. Swing a heavy sword, and you go fatigue much faster.
Have you tried replacing some of the hate in your life with love?
Some people will accept bad MMORPGs and play them because there is nothing else out there. Others won't play any at all.
I'm not gonna accept a crappy MMORPG with poorly designed PVE content, like WoW. Maybe if you guys were more vocal about PVE content WoW would have made their game remotely challenging and less cheap.
Now it's all about providing as much trivial content as possible.
Sure, there are a lot of small instances in WoW, with NPCs that no one really remembers. Why do they have to provide so many cheaply designed instances & PVE content? Because all of their content is trivial. They have to provide a lot of trivial content.
Contrast that to EQ, where the zones were larger and more challenging. They didn't have 500 zones, but the zones they did have weren't trivial.
You can either provide a lot of cheap, meaningless, and trivial content like WoW. This provides everyone with the same gear, makes everything doable for everyone.
OR you can provide a few challenging zones with depth, that not everyone is capable of doing. This allows players to have different gear, because not everyone is capable of doing the same PVE content in the game.
You know, the funny thing is, developers like people to see what they make. go figure.
I'm Bob Dole and I approve this message.
lol, not but really. EQ2 had some MASSIVE raid instances that would take like 12 hours to complete and you couldn't 'save' to them. Who the hell wants to spend 12 hours in one instance?
WoW has done things right and, believe it or not, actually is the ONLY developer that has listened to players. We asked to have raids that could be scaled up in difficulty, they did that. So if you want to see the 'normal' (fairly easy) raids just to go through them, then everybody can do that. If you want a challenge as a guild, you can have that too.
I personally got a little bored of WoW so I don't play it anymore. I don't play any mmo's these days to be honest. Maybe if a game had the polish of WoW, but with more interesting pvp features and options and a better graphics engine option I would start again.
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store. i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
---------
Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
One of the most well written and informative posts I have read on these forums. Perfectly illustrates why WoW is so many things to so many people, though I am not one of them at the moment lol.
Some people say that WoWs PVE system provides better content, because it is intsanced and they can have scripts etc. within the instance. However, EQ had scripted events too, all of the Planar zones and even some old world zones had player triggered events during raids. After looking back at EQ's raid content vs WoWs raid content, I've realized how cheap and easy it is to make instances. Look at how small a WoW zone is compared to an EQ zone: That one EQ zone is larger and has more content than 10-20 WoW raid instances combined. Anyone who claims that WoW content has more depth is clueless. And that's just one zone. I'd imagine that a few EQ raid zones are larger than all of WoWs cheap instances combined. These instances let them provide cheap PVE content in zones that are plain and lack any depth. The boss generally just happens to be sitting around, near the entrance. They've given up on even providing a zone or environment for most of their raid content. And a lot of their instances simply are missing any regular NPCs that players usually have to clear. WoW's been reduced to cheap instances with bosses sitting alone in empty zones that lack any depth. It's not even close to what EQ's PVE zones were.
Translation: Grrrrr! I Hate WoW! Grrrrr! You all should too!!! Grrrr!!!! You all fail as human beings if you don't!!!! Grrrrr!!!! EZMode Epics!!!! Grrrr!!!! Grrrrrr!!!! Grrrrr!!! Grrrrr!!!!
The best summary EVER. Precise, all-inclusive, thorough even. I applaud your reading comprehension. Now, if only you had posted that before he posted his initial post, it would have saved me tons of time and all the eye-rolling I was compelled to do.
Next time this guy posts....I expect you to show up as the first response with a concise summary so none of us have to read through all that drivel again. Thank you.
a WoW hate thread.. yippee. Here's ulduar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6-NRJ4Kzrw (part 1 of 2) its takes 100 times more effort and time to make this than the the instance shown in that EQ video. Now let this pointless thread die.
This video only shows a teeny tiny part of Ulduar. It doesn't even BEGIN to show the size of it. It's also not in very high resolution, so it doesn't even remotely look like it actually looks, but....I get your point.
Let's everyone cheer for the mighty EQ fan. In answer to the original post WoW's instances have way more thought put into them than EQ instances, end of story...
I see this post as nothing more than the op saying he feels EQ > Wow. Personally, I found Wow at least somewhat enjoyable (for a while). I played EQ for two days and couldn't bring myself to play the other 5 free trial days. It took forever to get anywhere. That is what a huge world gets you, massive timesinks.
Comments
Haha, what a thread. Shame I wasn't here from the beginning, between the OP and balt there's so many holes here it would have been fun to make them fall through them ^^
Maybe the next thread ^^
I've never seen a more clueless forum poster.
...And that's saying something considering this is the "intarweb".
Every point and response has been pure, utter crap that only hurt his opinion overall. He claims other things to be cheap, other people to be clueless, and yet he has shown himself to be the most ill-informed or hateful speaker on the topic at hand. Could you believe he actually responded to someone admiring Warcraft's lore (consisting of many books, trilogies, timelines, four games with expansions, a board game, a card game and an upcoming movie) by simply shrugging it off and stating "<lawlz... quest tah kill 500 mobs... Epic story!". I'd quite honestly expect more of an intelligent response from a nephew's pet rock.
Then he goes on about how "simple" content is to be created; it's obvious that such a person knows such simply by watching youtube and comparing their favorite game like a complete fanboy to one that his more rich and vibrant in color with superior detail in an entirely different graphics engine. For surely, the reason MMOs don't come out with the content to keep people interested is because they are lazy, not because it involves complicated proceedures, staff, time, system analysis, RAM, bandwidth, power and all that other good stuff. Yes, they all want to fail because it's clearly easy to make content.
Honestly, this is exactly the type of fan I would want for one of my games; I'd set out a flat plain of lands, proclaim it is 10x bigger than the most popular game, and cash in on the idiots that actually believe this is a good thing. That mass produced it better than slow, steady, and well made. Maybe I'd create a random generator that would set doodads for me so that it looks like I actually tried. Yeah. That's what I'd do.
Keep on using your precious EQ, which by the way has turned into a Theme Park over time (although it wasn't at start), as ammunition to tell others while they're clueless and have no idea of things are supposed to be. WoW is a game where the main point is, ultimately, get the next tier of gear -- but to say that it is boring or that they don't try to provide content that will keep people entertain is what's really juvenile in thought. You, sir... are the clueless one.
Respond with intelligence, or don't waste peoples' time with your useless, frivolous and misinformed thoughts.
I don't want to waste anymore of my time analyzing and tearing apart the arguments of a misinformed person who won't give others educated responses -- I get enough of that as a Social Sciences: History major.
QQ Ginkeq, stop trolling forums spamming the SAME TOPIC OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Do we really need to start reporting you for this or can a mod go ahead and get involved?
"World of Warcraft is the perfect implementation of this genre." - Hilmar Petursson. CEO of CCP.
this thread is fucking gold
it doesnt mather what wow do!yes they gained the market moslty because its the only one of the bunch named here that is avail on th shelf
ebgame got copy of everquest yes!the problem its so dated that its useless.ebgame dont have the new content nada none,same with time card
so player pick what is avail in the store ,that is it .its no magical receipe .a game like eq1 or 2 that are on th shelf of walmart or
any other chain will still pull in big number of player .what kills it, is its avail online only status.even prepaid credit card now in us reguire id,so most just skip those and buy what is avail in chain store.
i know some think its silly not to buy online but the fact of the mather is we wont buy more online game just because you say
its safe ,people like going to the mall and getting out with a bag.its like a ritual.it will be way better for a game like eq1 or wichever game could be huge to find a way to make them avail in store ,and right now lot of game hope for online buyer
while blizzard is in every major store selling like candy since its one of the very limited mmo game that is avail in store.
Translation: "Hello, i am a troll and i want to stir some shit up on this forum!"
Anyway. I wonder where the OP gets the notion from that bigger=better. Bigger instances mean that you see the same scenery over and over again, the same monsters over and over. I also don't get why grind=fun. Grind is not fun, and despite WoW having it's fair share, EQ1 is probably the king of the grind - Even over the original Lineage 2.
But i guess arguing is pointless, he already made up his mind and put corks in his ears, or he's just delightfully feasting on all the qq in this thread.
I do wonder when he's going to present his first proper argument.
A prospos: That instance in the vid looks more like the original Wolfenstein than anything else. Woo. At least Blizzard made some effort with their instances. Even Molten Core looks better than that piece of.... Whatever you want to call it.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Exactly, it's gonna be 2010 soon, and MMORPGs are providing these cheap and small instances still. EQ is from the 90s, and the zones were better designed and required more thought and effort than the zones that companies like Blizzard are producing.
Why can't Blizzard just make massive, well designed zones with lots of content?
It's not about graphics, it's about thought. There is no thought that goes into making zones like Ulduar.
I'm not bashin WoW because it is popular, there is just no challenge in it anymore. It used to be half-decent before Blizzard sold out to dumb players.
There you go calling wow players dumb....
So what your saying is ppl that never ever played any MMORPG before, some even never played any PC games at all boyght wow because one day then went to the mall and saw a copy of World of Warcraft? I very much doubt that is the case, im more inclined to believe they had a good start alot of ppl joined and asked their friends to play, that plus the good PR and recruit a friend offers and trials just made it easier for ppl to try it out and realize they could play it, most of the ppl I know that play WoW would never play any other MMO, most of the players in WoW are not old school, elitist , I know all the maths sort of players but exactly the oposite ppl that would have never played any other MMO to start with, ppl that play it casually, ppl that want instant gratification and to be able to just play how they want as soon as they get home.
Blizzard just made it easier for those ppl to enjoy a whole range of PVE content, without having to be an "elitist jerk", go and do Icecrown Citadel without having to spend 30h a week raiding, yes some will find it a dumb down or whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day your not taking a PhD its a game those ppl are having fun let them be, they already have alot of un-dumbed down tasks at work every day.
So what your saying is ppl that never ever played any MMORPG before, some even never played any PC games at all boyght wow because one day then went to the mall and saw a copy of World of Warcraft? I very much doubt that is the case, im more inclined to believe they had a good start alot of ppl joined and asked their friends to play, that plus the good PR and recruit a friend offers and trials just made it easier for ppl to try it out and realize they could play it, most of the ppl I know that play WoW would never play any other MMO, most of the players in WoW are not old school, elitist , I know all the maths sort of players but exactly the oposite ppl that would have never played any other MMO to start with, ppl that play it casually, ppl that want instant gratification and to be able to just play how they want as soon as they get home.
Blizzard just made it easier for those ppl to enjoy a whole range of PVE content, without having to be an "elitist jerk", go and do Icecrown Citadel without having to spend 30h a week raiding, yes some will find it a dumb down or whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day your not taking a PhD its a game those ppl are having fun let them be, they already have alot of un-dumbed down tasks at work every day.
what you said and i ear there were big spaming of tv ad ,since i got rid of tv more then 7 years ago .i dont know if the tv ad thing is true tho.
[quote]Originally posted by lisubab
When we hit level 10s the feeling of novelty fades and irritation sets it. As a shaman I have to look at my spellbook, meditating after every pull. We are fighting along a coastline for crocodiles, b/c that is the only stupid mob that does not run away when down to 20% hp, no hunter or druid, no snaring and Ogres cannot be either. At level 20s we sit outside a dungeon for hours looking for a camp, and luckily healers like shaman (no priest class from Ogres) have better chances. And so on. EQ shows its color fast as a huge grind, the day I hit level 30. Every 5 levels from level 34 onwards, is a hell level, taking twice the time to get level thru.
We still play it back then, b/c it WAS the pioneer game, and given the kind of hardware we have, we cannot expect more.
Once SWG launches, once CoH launches, and once WoW launches, EQ is no longer worth playing even if its free. It has served its role in history. Like most old models, they are replaced. We respect EQ, we once find long days and weeks of pleasure sitting there till our hips complain. Not any more, we do not need to sit in front of the monitor for 48 hours b/c a guildie priest need his epic weapon quest done. In WoW we set up a raid thru calendar feature, log on just before the raid starts and summon everybody. 10 minutes later we start playing. PLAYING.
That is the game of my choice now, a game I play to enjoy, with every tool and feature optimised to let me focus on playing. I do not look down on EQ, it was the one in its days. It is no longer 1997, it is now 2009 almost 2010.[/b][/quote]
No need to say more, this guy/girl/undefined as the right idea.
WoW is succesful because it's good at what it set out to do. Provide an entry-level MMO experience, a polished and smooth experience for everyone, a game that tries to get you into the action and keep you there, whereas EQ1 tries to keep you out of it most of the time with looooooooooooong grinds and a lot of content 99% of the players will never see.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
The rich lore: "Go kill 5 bear" type quests x 5000. Yeah, WoW has a lot of lore. Why doesn't their lore explain why every PVE zone is instanced too? Cheap game
You cleverly left out quests that have you investigate and foil the plans of a group of dwarves to blow up a dam, a world-trekking quest to restore Link's sword, etc. For every 10 quests where you kill 10 of whatever there are one or two quests where, considering you bother reading them of course, will have you thinking 'wow that was really cool".
WoW main storyline is pretty bad. Story was one of their strongholds during the RTS series, now it has been left in the background.
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
---------
Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
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Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
My most sincere salute to you, for a solid writing.
Adding some personal feelings on your excellent writing
(1) Gear in WoW is not just a linear process. Gear in WoW is part of the minimax toolset for alternate character builds. Blindly chasing item level is generally less effective. Some gear are simply useless for some classes, say expertise in mail armor for Hunters vs Enh Shamans.
(2) The color of the text (purple for epic) hides a lot of variety. The kind of epic obtained from heroic dungeon grinds are called welfare epic for a reason, they are vastly inferior for most character builds, when compared to some BiS epic gear.
(3) Collecting 2 EoF a day from daily random dungeons will give you a piece of gear in 30 days (lesser T10 gear costly 60 badges) or 45 days (those lesser T10 costing 90 badges). You can calculate how long it takes to gear up by this route alone. You can get 5 more per week with weekly raid, that still won't give you a full suite in 3 months. Not all slots are available this way.
(4) The better Tier 10 gear needs token, only 25ICC last boss in each wing give 2 per run.
(5) Epic gear is now assessible to all, but the higher tier epic are still harder to obtain. On the other hand, it is not necessary to chase after every piece of highest tier. An effective gearing plan with BiS is far better than blinding chasing gear from the latest dungeons.
For those blind haters who says Blizz is handing out all the epic gear to everybody, they simply do not know what gear is and how they are obtained.
As for everquest, their gearing process is highly linear, their character development model very simple. The only element in EQ gear that really shines in terms of design is fatigue. Swing a heavy sword, and you go fatigue much faster.
Some people will accept bad MMORPGs and play them because there is nothing else out there. Others won't play any at all.
I'm not gonna accept a crappy MMORPG with poorly designed PVE content, like WoW. Maybe if you guys were more vocal about PVE content WoW would have made their game remotely challenging and less cheap.
Now it's all about providing as much trivial content as possible.
Sure, there are a lot of small instances in WoW, with NPCs that no one really remembers. Why do they have to provide so many cheaply designed instances & PVE content? Because all of their content is trivial. They have to provide a lot of trivial content.
Contrast that to EQ, where the zones were larger and more challenging. They didn't have 500 zones, but the zones they did have weren't trivial.
You can either provide a lot of cheap, meaningless, and trivial content like WoW. This provides everyone with the same gear, makes everything doable for everyone.
OR you can provide a few challenging zones with depth, that not everyone is capable of doing. This allows players to have different gear, because not everyone is capable of doing the same PVE content in the game.
You know, the funny thing is, developers like people to see what they make. go figure.
I'm Bob Dole and I approve this message.
lol, not but really. EQ2 had some MASSIVE raid instances that would take like 12 hours to complete and you couldn't 'save' to them. Who the hell wants to spend 12 hours in one instance?
WoW has done things right and, believe it or not, actually is the ONLY developer that has listened to players. We asked to have raids that could be scaled up in difficulty, they did that. So if you want to see the 'normal' (fairly easy) raids just to go through them, then everybody can do that. If you want a challenge as a guild, you can have that too.
I personally got a little bored of WoW so I don't play it anymore. I don't play any mmo's these days to be honest. Maybe if a game had the polish of WoW, but with more interesting pvp features and options and a better graphics engine option I would start again.
How many times are you going to try to peddle this misinformation as if it has any foundation in reality?
EBGames doesn't carry EQ or EQ2, because it doesn't sell. Retailers do not reorder products that they have had to discount to the trash bin. What is so hard about that for you to understand? Why would ebgames reorder a game that doesn't sell?
There was a time when retailers stocked the everquest games. They stood right next to the warcraft boxes, right next to every other mmo they carried. Why do you think companies stopped putting those games on the shelf? Do you honestly think SOE doesn't want to sell more games and get more subscribers? Do you think EBGames doesn't want carry a game lots of people will buy?
Do you really need to fabricate excuses like this to justify why a game doesn't do well?
I agree with Daff, retailers only sell things that sell. They need high turn over to make their money as their is high competition in this market, so shelf space comes at a premium, each square foot must make a certain amount of money.
In the UK you can see this with a company called GAME - Their shelves for certain consoles expand and contract depending on whats selling, currenty PC game shelf space is getting smaller and smaller, PS2 is decreaing, Wii is increasing and Xbox 360 is increasing and PS3 is stable.
So if you have a premium of space and hundreds of games that you could potentially sell, then you only fill with games that will sell, at top price.
Now going back to EQ - there is 1 box thats about 4/5 years old sitting in the £5 section of this game store, why? Because SONY are not launching boxes for it for one! Second its an old old game.
Now I'm a WOW and EVE player, I also have played most games under the sun (including EQ and EQ2), and I now played wow for about 4/5 years...so I have seem MC raids, BWL raids, all the way to ICC raids, so can tell you my experience :P
1) Original raids - Challenging, hard to organise 40 man raids (200+ member guilds), wipes took 30 mins to recover from (food, pots (every wipe), individual buffs, making sure everyone was ready), trash were hard and challenging and naxx was hard to get to...it involved grinding rep - which was hard while grinding money for your food, pots, etc. To be a top raider you had to work 24/7 for your stuff
2) TBC - This brought in some ideas such as flasks, raid wide buffs, heroics, 25 man raids and the gradual removal of entrance bars from instances over time (Black temple pre instances SSC etc) which allowed some of the less well skilled or guilds that did not have the time to constantly grind instances to see the starts of instances - These bosses were far far far harder than some of the original raid bosses (Kale, illy, the fishy lady....), then sunwell plateau....not enough time really for that, but again, very hard instance before the pre WOTLK patch....
Pre WOTLK patch made EVERYTHING super easy....its my only really break from wow when I got very very peed off how everything was super easy to tank (Druid tank) and everything fell down for no real reason..
3) WOTLK - This brought, achievements (bah!), 10 man raids, HARD modes. The first instance nax was just way way way too easy, even on hard modes, then ulduar was a little bit harder, with the end boss being rather challenging, but this is where the HARD modes really really started kicking in.
I thought this was stupid at first, why nerf yourself to just get an achievement etc etc, in uldaur there was a reason, to get to the ultimate end boss....This allowed the real hard core (I won't say decent as I know many casual players that have a far better understanding of their class and raiding than many 'hardcore' players, and far far more decent human beings) a real challenge.
As for welfare epics....what that has done is basically allowed people with less time to play the game to actually be able to get something and see places.
The new epics bought by badges, if you are just doing the dailies, thats 1 piece of gear every 30 days....yeah, I'll let the kiddies have that if they want
So in summary:
1) Over time wow instances have gotten easier - but you can make them harder for better rewards
2) Over time wow has catered more towards the player with less time (I won't say casual as thats unfair as above) and allowed them to possibly see parts of the game they never would.
3) Raid and guild control has gotten easier, this again allows people to be able to see the whole game they pay for as well as the people in the 'top' guilds, they will not be able to get the top
4) Wow tries to be there for everyone, and does moderately well, hence their success - they ruined pvp for me but then I'm alliance and alliance pvp is dire anyway because its just full of mongos.
5) Wow compared to EQ - sorry, wow copied EQ who copied MUDS, who copied text based games who copied page turning books...They all added something extra and dropped things that weren't worth it for _their_ particular audience! The OP is not the audience that WoW is tailored for.
Though typing this I know the OP Will never accept that WoW does what EQ did but better for playabilty, but that is the case.
For complex gaming I personally Play EVE, for pvp I played WAR (until I got peed off with the end game breaking all the time), for crafting I have played vanguard, fallen earth, lotro, and many others (back to eve again).
I hope the OP finds something enjoyable for him one day and stops putting down a game that is basically a good game that millions play and is part of the social structure of the western world much like EQ was in its day.
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Troll insult mode now:
Does anyone else think the OP was one of these people that got evercracked and lost his business, job, wife etc and is now bitter about his precious game being less popular than it was?
One of the most well written and informative posts I have read on these forums. Perfectly illustrates why WoW is so many things to so many people, though I am not one of them at the moment lol.
No signature, I don't have a pen
Translation: Grrrrr! I Hate WoW! Grrrrr! You all should too!!! Grrrr!!!! You all fail as human beings if you don't!!!! Grrrrr!!!! EZMode Epics!!!! Grrrr!!!! Grrrrrr!!!! Grrrrr!!! Grrrrr!!!!
The best summary EVER. Precise, all-inclusive, thorough even. I applaud your reading comprehension. Now, if only you had posted that before he posted his initial post, it would have saved me tons of time and all the eye-rolling I was compelled to do.
Next time this guy posts....I expect you to show up as the first response with a concise summary so none of us have to read through all that drivel again. Thank you.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
This video only shows a teeny tiny part of Ulduar. It doesn't even BEGIN to show the size of it. It's also not in very high resolution, so it doesn't even remotely look like it actually looks, but....I get your point.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Let's everyone cheer for the mighty EQ fan. In answer to the original post WoW's instances have way more thought put into them than EQ instances, end of story...
I see this post as nothing more than the op saying he feels EQ > Wow. Personally, I found Wow at least somewhat enjoyable (for a while). I played EQ for two days and couldn't bring myself to play the other 5 free trial days. It took forever to get anywhere. That is what a huge world gets you, massive timesinks.