Would love to see many systems/functions of EQ brought to life in a new modern world. Things already mentioned here like having many races with varying benefits/weaknesses, racial starting cities, non-linear zones/areas with plenty of hunting options, faction system, limited fast travel, more dependency on grouping for dungeons and such, unique loot on bosses, not random gear scaled by level for everything. Less focus on mass quest hubs with cookie cutter kill X, delivery, etc and more complex and unique questing that also involve groups and/or larger, EPICs (nuff said) and much much more. Put that in a modern engine with a good combat system and you will bring back the magic...
Can you build permanent, in-game structures in the world?
If you can, the game is a sandbox. If you cannot, it may have some sandbox features but it really is not a sandbox. To date, the only Western AAA MMO to qualify as a sandbox based on that definition is SWG. EVE is one, but that is not a western game.
So Age of Wushu is not a sandbox, even though you can level you skills in any order you want. Original Everquest is not a sandbox, even though there were permanent game decisions made on your sever (Sleeper awaken). You can build a house in Wildstar, and configure it any way you want....but it is not in an open world zone, so that game is not a sandbox.
In a sandbox game, you build things then tear some things down the re build some other things. SWG and that is pretty much it.
That's a really narrow definition of a sandbox. I mean if WoW turned around tomorrow and let people build guild halls or even a personal house, would WoW suddenly be considered a sandbox?
In the original Everquest (well even in RoK and Velious), you were one single player versus the world, and the world was unforgiving. You HAD to have friends, even those smelly necromancers couldnt do everything themselves.
That's what built the community and it was fantastic. Decisions made on a server mattered to all the community. Internet was just starting so you couldn't look up all the informations, you had to have dedicated players go around and look for clues as to what to do next.
A players' reputation meant the world, ninjas were blackmailed, trained and thrashed, dirty kind of justice but it worked somehow.
You can now alt+tab and see the maps of where you're going, what you're looking for. You don't have to ask questions to know what your skills do, google does it better than any guildmates. You don't need to explore every location in the game to find something new, if there is something interesting in that crypt, somebody already documented it in details.
Heck there wasnt even any form of ventrilo back then, you had to type the whole strategy to lead your raids, my fingers remember quite well those days.
We won't ever see anything like it again. Technology has evolved past the conditions required to have that experience again.
Originally posted by ElboneYou HAD to have friends, even those smelly necromancers couldnt do everything themselves.
Damn it we did not smell ... where did that come from .. after all these years it still is around. Just because we played with dead things didn't mean we smelled UGH
People who never got to experience EverQuest at or near release, and up through the first few expansions, just won't get it. They'll never understand what true community is. What a real sandbox PVE game can be. What an awesome overall experience the game was.
Plenty of games have communities. EVE, LotRO, DDO, all have notable communities and EQ isn't anything so special that can't be seen in other MMOs.
People are going to pull the "oh its just nostalgia" cards, and accuse me/us of rose colored glasses, but they would be heinously wrong to do so.
People constant talk bout how "back in my day" things were better, or more harsh or hardcore or whatever.
I almost feel like us original EQ vets are the equivalent of astronauts trying to explain to people the feeling of walking on the moon, or being in space, etc. You can put it into words but it just doesn't encompass the entirety of it.
In other words, the "elitest" group. Get over yourself.
No, im not trying to suggest that the game was perfect. What i am trying to suggest is the core principles that we have moved further and further away are what were perfect. Overly harsh death penalties? yea, that was bad. Losing XP and having to spend 2 hours or more getting it back was lame. Possibility of permanently losing your corpse and thus everything you had acquired? yes, stupid.
You know, you sound like that grandpa that went on bout how society has degraded and always would say hoe many miles he had to walk to school with each telling the distance increased.
Multiple starting areas and cities for each race? Good
That isn't a self inclusive EQ feature... numerous MMOs have this.
Heavily, HEAVILY incentivized grouping? Good
This is a good and bad thing. Gamers and the profits are more towards the casuals who don't want to have to group of spend hours doing group stuff and no way should all the rewards like in the grouping content. Again sounds like the elitest heirarchy.
Not "resetting" the game loot wise every expansion? Good
Games... PROGRESS and older content gets dated and obsolete cause otherwise why do the new content if you already have as good quality gear already. Not making all the gear feasable through out the whole expansion sure and not the constant 3-6 month regrind for gear that WoW did where every major patch made the prior gear all obsolete.
Rare items actually being *gasp* rare? Good
So rare that it takes one years to farm like some epic items in DDO? A decent investment of farming sure, but a 2-3% chance that one has to run 100+ times and even then might not get it? Yeah that won't fly with most gamers.
Handcrafted boss drops that don't follow some ridiculous "pool of stats that get distributed based on item level"? Good. VERY good.
An item level system helps with assigning the power of an item. And many MMOs really don't follow a bland across the board distribution of stats.
Clearly defined class roles? Good
Ummm bout every MMO has this, number of roles is a different question be the vast majority follow the role system.
A deep, intricate faction system, and it could be altered through hard work!?!!!?! Good
No bullshit 2 faction "good vs evil" system that splits the game population in half for no good reason? Excellent
No MMO follows this. Every faction MMO has an idealology that it follows and is not a simple "good vs evil"
Long leveling times that took the emphasis off of reaching some fictional "end game" and allowed you to enjoy the myriad other aspects of an MMO like exploration, dungeons that werent at max level, etc etc? Good
I could keep going but alas, like every other this post will fall on deaf ears. But, at least it made me feel better for the short time i took typing it out.
OP sounds like the elitest groups who blame the changing demographics of gamers in MMO as a degregation of MMOs and I would guess might be part of the small minority that treat MMOs as a 2nd job.
People who never got to experience EverQuest at or near release, and up through the first few expansions, just won't get it. They'll never understand what true community is. What a real sandbox PVE game can be. What an awesome overall experience the game was.
People are going to pull the "oh its just nostalgia" cards, and accuse me/us of rose colored glasses, but they would be heinously wrong to do so.
I almost feel like us original EQ vets are the equivalent of astronauts trying to explain to people the feeling of walking on the moon, or being in space, etc. You can put it into words but it just doesn't encompass the entirety of it.
No, im not trying to suggest that the game was perfect. What i am trying to suggest is the core principles that we have moved further and further away are what were perfect. Overly harsh death penalties? yea, that was bad. Losing XP and having to spend 2 hours or more getting it back was lame. Possibility of permanently losing your corpse and thus everything you had acquired? yes, stupid.
Multiple starting areas and cities for each race? Good
Heavily, HEAVILY incentivized grouping? Good
Not "resetting" the game loot wise every expansion? Good
Rare items actually being *gasp* rare? Good
Handcrafted boss drops that don't follow some ridiculous "pool of stats that get distributed based on item level"? Good. VERY good.
Clearly defined class roles? Good
A deep, intricate faction system, and it could be altered through hard work!?!!!?! Good
No bullshit 2 faction "good vs evil" system that splits the game population in half for no good reason? Excellent
Long leveling times that took the emphasis off of reaching some fictional "end game" and allowed you to enjoy the myriad other aspects of an MMO like exploration, dungeons that werent at max level, etc etc? Good
I could keep going but alas, like every other this post will fall on deaf ears. But, at least it made me feel better for the short time i took typing it out.
Man, get over yourself.
Ever hear of MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons)? My first foray into MMO gaming - 1995. 200 or so people logging in to a PK MUD (Player-killing) free-for-all, no holds barred, brutal slug-fest that included exp loss, item destruction and full looting upon death, in colorful ASCII (text) fonts. Everyone knew everyone and despite the rampant PvP that took place everywhere, it was a sort of controlled chaos you learned to play with/around that created a stronger sense of community there than in any graphic-based MMO I've ever played since.
Do you hear me touting how awesome we were as players or a community? No. Do you hear me say how I wish every game could be like those? No.
Things change, people change, progress happens; deal with it.
Interdependency builds a community. Without it you have nothing but a fully interactive chatroom that only serves as a breeding ground for all manner of filth from the darkest corners of the internet. Not much of a community in an MMO where you can do everything on your own or with a little clique of like minded scabs.
You must offer incentive and clear reprisals to get said filth to fall in line. If suddenly they relied on the community to make their set of armor and everything else of obvious need, they would either quit the game, or at least begin acting like human beings. Such a game would do little to attract this element anyways. Gritty realism would garner attention from gritty realists. Leaving the after birth to buy overpriced fluff in some cash shop driven sand box.
Everquest really has little to do with it as a whole, this is something that applies to all online gaming.
Second, having played Everquest up through Velious, I can say it is nostalgia. What people remember is their first MMO or first 3D MMO and all the experiences they had with it, including the specific people they played with during that time. None of that will ever come back, no matter what shape or form any other MMO comes in. If they really wanted to get the EQ experience back, they can go play on a Project 1999 server and relive the old EQ all over again.... but they aren't.
I'm sorry but Everquest WAS a sandbox. Everyone today thinks that sandbox somehow means that its a skill based system (which oddly enough EQ actually was a skill based systems, your level wasnt used in any algorithms for damage, hit rate, etc, only for skill caps, and helping you con a mob). Themepark came with WOW. Themeparks = quest hubs and relatively linear game play.
Themepark means you go to a hub, "ride the rides" and then you're directed to the next hub or "ride".
At best the argument you could make is EQ was a hybrid themepark sandbox, but even thats stretching.
Sandbox means a dynamic world that players get to actively mold or change. Themeparks aren't simply quest hubs and linear gameplay. Themeparks are static worlds with predesigned rides. Quest hubs and linear gameplay are simply the specific themepark features of WoW. Everquest may be primitive and bare bones, but it is still a themepark with a static world, predesigned rides (camps and raid bosses) and not much else.
Then by that definition not even the elder scrolls games are sandbox's. Certainly no MMO would qualify, unless you try to argue that keep swapping is "molding and changing" the world.
Edit: I'll concede on EVE and SWG.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
People who never got to experience EverQuest at or near release, and up through the first few expansions, just won't get it. They'll never understand what true community is. What a real sandbox PVE game can be. What an awesome overall experience the game was.
People are going to pull the "oh its just nostalgia" cards, and accuse me/us of rose colored glasses, but they would be heinously wrong to do so.
I almost feel like us original EQ vets are the equivalent of astronauts trying to explain to people the feeling of walking on the moon, or being in space, etc. You can put it into words but it just doesn't encompass the entirety of it.
No, im not trying to suggest that the game was perfect. What i am trying to suggest is the core principles that we have moved further and further away are what were perfect. Overly harsh death penalties? yea, that was bad. Losing XP and having to spend 2 hours or more getting it back was lame. Possibility of permanently losing your corpse and thus everything you had acquired? yes, stupid.
Multiple starting areas and cities for each race? Good
Heavily, HEAVILY incentivized grouping? Good
Not "resetting" the game loot wise every expansion? Good
Rare items actually being *gasp* rare? Good
Handcrafted boss drops that don't follow some ridiculous "pool of stats that get distributed based on item level"? Good. VERY good.
Clearly defined class roles? Good
A deep, intricate faction system, and it could be altered through hard work!?!!!?! Good
No bullshit 2 faction "good vs evil" system that splits the game population in half for no good reason? Excellent
Long leveling times that took the emphasis off of reaching some fictional "end game" and allowed you to enjoy the myriad other aspects of an MMO like exploration, dungeons that werent at max level, etc etc? Good
I could keep going but alas, like every other this post will fall on deaf ears. But, at least it made me feel better for the short time i took typing it out.
I agree, fact is i don't care if they don't get it, EQ has a vast following and the game will succeed without the people who don't get it.
Little things like learning of races languages, being able to drop items on the ground, so many things that modern mmo just don't have.
Take us home to Norrath Smed, this time give us a true successor.
Originally posted by Zen_Blade Would love to see many systems/functions of EQ brought to life in a new modern world. Things already mentioned here like having many races with varying benefits/weaknesses, racial starting cities, non-linear zones/areas with plenty of hunting options, faction system, limited fast travel, more dependency on grouping for dungeons and such, unique loot on bosses, not random gear scaled by level for everything. Less focus on mass quest hubs with cookie cutter kill X, delivery, etc and more complex and unique questing that also involve groups and/or larger, EPICs (nuff said) and much much more. Put that in a modern engine with a good combat system and you will bring back the magic...
To be fare Vanguard has nearly everything you are talking about, for me it was more of a successor to EQ than EQ2 is.
You can go out and explore, you can skip the quest hubs and rely on grinding mobs, you can discover rare spawns, secret quests, and create your own fun. You choose not to.
The games haven't changed, you have. Yes features have been added to make it more accommodating for people who just want to jump in and quest a bit, but you don't have to choose to use these features. You don't have to go online and look at the most time efficient leveling tactics, or where to obtain the best gear to twink out your toon, or how to duo that difficult world boss.
You say you're tired of hand holding, well then let go of their damn hand and take the time to actually look around. Your tunnel vision is seriously blinding you from the fact that the experience you are looking for is available in plenty of MMOs if you actually choose to have it.
And yes I played Everquest when it first came out.
Pray for Premium Subscription servers. This will be where all of the true EQ-heads and real fans of the genre will gravitate to if it becomes reality. F2P will be a mixed bag that consists of more trolls and foreigners than anything else. It's the sole reason I've never been a proponent of F2P games. Trolls like to troll, but they are less likely to want to spend $15 a month just to troll. If EQNext gives us the possibility of some servers that only cater to a subscription based crowd, we can avoid a lot of the mess.
Comments
That's a really narrow definition of a sandbox. I mean if WoW turned around tomorrow and let people build guild halls or even a personal house, would WoW suddenly be considered a sandbox?
In the original Everquest (well even in RoK and Velious), you were one single player versus the world, and the world was unforgiving. You HAD to have friends, even those smelly necromancers couldnt do everything themselves.
That's what built the community and it was fantastic. Decisions made on a server mattered to all the community. Internet was just starting so you couldn't look up all the informations, you had to have dedicated players go around and look for clues as to what to do next.
A players' reputation meant the world, ninjas were blackmailed, trained and thrashed, dirty kind of justice but it worked somehow.
You can now alt+tab and see the maps of where you're going, what you're looking for. You don't have to ask questions to know what your skills do, google does it better than any guildmates. You don't need to explore every location in the game to find something new, if there is something interesting in that crypt, somebody already documented it in details.
Heck there wasnt even any form of ventrilo back then, you had to type the whole strategy to lead your raids, my fingers remember quite well those days.
We won't ever see anything like it again. Technology has evolved past the conditions required to have that experience again.
Damn it we did not smell ... where did that come from .. after all these years it still is around. Just because we played with dead things didn't mean we smelled UGH
yes i was a necromancer in eq
OP sounds like the elitest groups who blame the changing demographics of gamers in MMO as a degregation of MMOs and I would guess might be part of the small minority that treat MMOs as a 2nd job.
Man, get over yourself.
Ever hear of MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons)? My first foray into MMO gaming - 1995. 200 or so people logging in to a PK MUD (Player-killing) free-for-all, no holds barred, brutal slug-fest that included exp loss, item destruction and full looting upon death, in colorful ASCII (text) fonts. Everyone knew everyone and despite the rampant PvP that took place everywhere, it was a sort of controlled chaos you learned to play with/around that created a stronger sense of community there than in any graphic-based MMO I've ever played since.
Do you hear me touting how awesome we were as players or a community? No. Do you hear me say how I wish every game could be like those? No.
Things change, people change, progress happens; deal with it.
Interdependency builds a community. Without it you have nothing but a fully interactive chatroom that only serves as a breeding ground for all manner of filth from the darkest corners of the internet. Not much of a community in an MMO where you can do everything on your own or with a little clique of like minded scabs.
You must offer incentive and clear reprisals to get said filth to fall in line. If suddenly they relied on the community to make their set of armor and everything else of obvious need, they would either quit the game, or at least begin acting like human beings. Such a game would do little to attract this element anyways. Gritty realism would garner attention from gritty realists. Leaving the after birth to buy overpriced fluff in some cash shop driven sand box.
Everquest really has little to do with it as a whole, this is something that applies to all online gaming.
Then by that definition not even the elder scrolls games are sandbox's. Certainly no MMO would qualify, unless you try to argue that keep swapping is "molding and changing" the world.
Edit: I'll concede on EVE and SWG.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I agree, fact is i don't care if they don't get it, EQ has a vast following and the game will succeed without the people who don't get it.
Little things like learning of races languages, being able to drop items on the ground, so many things that modern mmo just don't have.
Take us home to Norrath Smed, this time give us a true successor.
To be fare Vanguard has nearly everything you are talking about, for me it was more of a successor to EQ than EQ2 is.
Can't wait for EQN.
You can go out and explore, you can skip the quest hubs and rely on grinding mobs, you can discover rare spawns, secret quests, and create your own fun. You choose not to.
The games haven't changed, you have. Yes features have been added to make it more accommodating for people who just want to jump in and quest a bit, but you don't have to choose to use these features. You don't have to go online and look at the most time efficient leveling tactics, or where to obtain the best gear to twink out your toon, or how to duo that difficult world boss.
You say you're tired of hand holding, well then let go of their damn hand and take the time to actually look around. Your tunnel vision is seriously blinding you from the fact that the experience you are looking for is available in plenty of MMOs if you actually choose to have it.
And yes I played Everquest when it first came out.