First i wanted to say its AWESOME to see brad back.. and i hope it helps things move to the better Second a quick story about dealing with brad early on.. I was lucky enough to be in the first wave of closed beta testers ( i think it was 400 people at first) and still have kept the cd to this day (pure black with Everquest across it).. Anyway.. at the time the frenzy for getting into the game was insane as alot of you know and i got the letter saying i was in beta but we had to wait like 3 weeks for the cd/key to show up. As the time neared i would email asking if it has shipped and why isn't it here and all that childish impatient stuff that people do. And to his credit Brad answered personally every single email i sent, was never rude and very professional, and eventually sent me a link and my key in email (which i kept cutting and pasting wrong, had a space stuck on the end of the key. yeah. im special) And of course the cd/key showed up the next day anyway I was lucky enough to have gotten an ISDN line for when i played UO.. so the download was nice.. Anyway.. just wanted to share what a nice guy brad is/was. And i wish i could go back and apologize for nagging him so much.. not realizing the stress/pressure they were under. but thats life P.S. i still think vanguard was a better game.. but thats just me P.P.S. forum wouldn't let me post under my normal name for some reason.. thus the "new user" tag..
Welcome back. I started playing in 2000 just after Kunark came out. While I've taken a hiatus here and there due to RL stuff coming up, something about this game always draws me back. It will be fun to see the direction EQ goes next.
I started a char on friends account during summer of 1999 (last part of beta) he and I didnt realize it was beta, his step dad had gotten into beta and we got to take turns playing, I was soo pissed off at him when he told me my shield that a nice level 35 gave to me running through NQeynos was gone. I havent stopped playing since. Seen alot of change some good some bad, I enjoy in the casual sense that I can just summon corpse if there is a problem, but it would be neat ot have a zone that was coded so when you died you had a 50min buff or something that reduced your hp ect by 50% or something until the timer ran off or you got back to corpse for res. make it so they cant be summoned out of that zone.
Wow, I remember seeing you in game on one of the older servers, that's no longer around of course... But hey, welcome back to you!!
Hey Brad I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you did in the past. EQ has entertained us for a long time and we are all grateful. That being said the past is the past and I hope your best work still lies ahead.
This is a very interesting point of view, and I sort of agree. EQ is certainly a clash of classic and modern MMO elements but in the end I contribute its longevity to its ability to adapt over time. EQ is, and has been for almost a decade, "making it up as it goes" when it comes to the implementation of new content and mechanics. Some of it is based off of tradition, some of it is adopting successful ideas from other games in the genre, and even now some of it is truly innovative. I don't think EQ 2013 is much like EQ 1999 (or even EQ 2001) mechanically. EQ 1999 is an ancient game, clunky and full of charm, a tentative vision realized in a market that didn't really know what an MMO was or could be. "You're In Our World Now" fits classic EQ perfectly, it was an untamed world to explore, full of new challenges and mysteries laid out by its creators. EQ 2013 is a more modern MMO with the weight of history, molded by the contributions of hundreds of developers and the opinions and desires of its longterm fanbase. Modern EQ is no longer about players finding their way through a world created by developers, but more about the playerbase itself. Developers continue to produce and maintain content, but they have become custodians, caretakers, of a tradition and playerbase that stretches back far longer than most games.One could easily have grown up playing on this game and achieved the necessary work/educational experience to work on it from the other side. Indeed, many modern EQ developers started out as players. The game now exists not merely as an avenue wherein developers transfer entertainment to players, but a dynamic relationship where both sides work to maintain this legacy of adventure and fun. Modern EQ is no longer wild and untamed, it is the posterchild for a mature MMO wherein the playerbase has become, to a large degree, experts and maintainers of their own experience. When a developer comes to work on modern EQ, they're going to grow the experience in their own way, but it has taken on a life of its own, it isn't just the players that are in EverQuests' world, but everyone that contributes to this project. In some ways, modern EQ is more immutable. The mark of so much development over time has made the game somewhat clunky and more difficult to adapt. However, these layers of development are where EQ gets its true charm. Little bits of older content that remain relevant create adventures that last forever. Little bugs and oddities that arise in the friction between mechanics create new and completely unintended dynamics for players. Some of these end as "exploit/bug fixes", some of them go on to become legitimate and unique mechanics. FD pulling and many of the methods of kiting were not "features" laid out for players, but things that were discovered, honed, and accepted into the game. In comparison, most modern MMOs are sterile, unsurprising, no matter how interesting the experience is it is playing out exactly as intended. I've often heard the difference being described as a "theme park" versus a "sand box". EQ's success, its complexity, is not in its loyal fanbase, nor its hardworking development team, but in what happens at the point where the two meet. That is the magic of EQ. Forgive my gushing, but you are in a unique position to understand where this game began and what it has become. I want you to understand why, after thirteen years, I'm here instead of elsewhere. It isn't that I haven't tried two dozen other MMOs in the past decade, it is that this is still the best.
Wow. I stopped playing about a year ago and just stumbled across this. This is exciting enough news that I'm really considering coming back (I started in 2000 with Kunark). My first thought on reading this was: Fleeting Quiver. I wonder how many will get that. Welcome back Brad. Here's hoping you're dusting off your old copy of the Vision (tm).
I'll also throw in my warm fuzzies for you, Brad. I started playing EQ in the spring of '99 on Tunare. I started alone as just something to do, then invited a friend to get the game and play with me. Over the next few months we both fell in love with the game, and started making friends on the server. A few months more, and we were having good times in Sol A (which was a ghost town), pulling everything in the zone to the teddy room by the Sol B zone line. I met some of the best people I've ever known in these days. The two of us bounced around in a couple of guilds, sometimes together, sometimes not. We eventually came together in Celestial Crusade, working with Musk, Drool and others to figure out the FA quest line. I remember how awesome it felt to let the guild know about the Erudite wizard that just beat my in the caves (I was running around the world grabbing pieces for the wizard staff), and that his name was Miragul. 20 minutes later we had an army there, and Musk got his Soul. I believe this started with me saying in guildchat something to the effect of, "Uh....guys? There's this red-con Erudite giving me the stinkeye down in the caves below Everfrost...never mind, I'm dead." Eventually folks moved on (Musk left, came back, and left again), and again we drifted from guild to guild. I wound up settling in with a great group of folks, many of which I am still gaming with to this day in World of Warcraft. I count many of these players as some of my favorite people in the world. Brad, I'd like to take this time to personally thank you and all the staff at Verant/SOE that brought this game to us and helped build this community (including all the folks currently toiling away and bringing new features and content to the existing playerbase), and an additional thanks to the people of Tunare (good and bad) that helped make it such a dynamic place to be. I have never felt that sense of community in a game, either before or since. I've not been back in Norrath for more than a day or two at a time since 2006 or so, but reading this thread and seeing posts by Aradune again have really been tugging at me. I don't know that I can immerse myself into that world again, but at the very least I may have to visit a little more often. Velkkor Planeswalker <retired sux wizard> Visslik Ch'Thar <retired sux lizard> Stormravens/Celestial Crusade/Uprising/Primordium/Eternal Retribution
Thanks for your kind words For me, it's about community too. I want a close group of friends I can trust and rely on. I want to know a larger group of people who I help on occasion or even frequently. I want people in a game world that I don't like, or with whom I compete for resources. All of that is what makes an MMO world more real, immersive, and sticky. The big MMO debate right now is sandbox vs. themepark. Well, I'm spoiled and I want both -- I want a huge sandbox in which one (or more!) themeparks reside. I think you need both to be successful nowadays and certainly to build the type of community and memories we were talking about. Pretty cool to hear about your encounters with Miragul. The Miragul storyline was one of the only chances I had to really put lore into the game way back then (I was just too busy with everything else). I'm honored that EQ devs years later put him in the game, and his menagerie. -Aradune
That's easy, don't create a raid instance if any guild on the server has a lockout for that instance or is currently in that instance. If you can find 50 or so other people that think competition for resources makes the game more fun you can do 4am phone trees or fake being sick to get off work 2 hours early to accumulate resources in the game, competing far more against scarcity than the actual mobs. If you can't find 50 or so other people in the game among thousands that share your vision of fun you must have a really unpopular idea of fun.
This is where sandbox vs. themepark comes into play. Resource competition sucks in a themepark because there is only one Ferris Wheel. In a sandbox, there are as many Ferris Wheels as the players can create/discover (or at least enough to defy dominance by one player entity). EVE is a good example of a sandbox that uses resource competition to drive a lot of dynamic player conflict. However, resources aren't (generally) universally unique, so while there may be high tier desirables (certain crafting materials, mob spawns, or resource nodes), there are many concurrent instances of these desirables. To bring the analogy back into the fantasy realm, resource competition would work if EQ had sandboxed raid events instead of themeparked raid events. "Jim the Dragon" with a set spawn schedule and event script is an example of a themeparked raid event, and one that breaks heavily if you try to implement competition (guild locks it down). However, a very large set of sandbox zones full of mobs that can randomly spawn "an ancient dragon", perhaps with a randomized name, would function well under a competitive ruleset. In short, EQ wasn't (when competition was in vogue) well-built for competitive play, but that doesn't mean the potential isn't there. Competition is a great way to drive dynamic play and lend significance to group/guild action. Modern EQ has opted to retain the themepark raid events and simply remove the competition environment, which pretty much solved the direct competition issue, but it isn't the only viable solution.
So as long as there enough sandboxes and random spawns to prevent a scarcity of resources you can have competition.
I should have been more clear -- my bad. I think some competition for resources is a good thing. I don't think a lot of competition is good, otherwise you can end up with the issues you mentioned. The feeling of competition in your guild vs. another guild can be fun. Who will get all the new expansion items first? Who has figured out how to access a secret area first? That sort of thing. -Brad
