Farming Plane of War (Plane of Dark Souls) and the Convorteum anniversary missions reminded me of how much I love many of EQs older zones and content styles. It would be so cool to see many EQ zones made relevant again. We've seen things like this many times, especially with Velious content. I don't even need a purple fear crystal / discord / time machine story as an excuse to go back. Using CotF HAs as an example - these scale dynamically for a variety of group levels, but what if they also scaled when additional content was released? If new expansions were able to increase the difficulty of HAs up to level 105 (NPCs spawn with level x, and hit for x) it would make a lot of content last longer. LDoN was able to cover levels ~20-65 with around 5 basic zone models, using just the average level of a group to tune the zone. Sure, LDoNs don't get exceedingly complex, and they certainly don't have the same feel as brand new content does, but the LDoN style system was a great way to spend time (progression charm aug, currency, leaderboards). How awesome would it be to do level 100+ grinding in old zones like Velketor's Labyrinth and Kodtaz, or some of the newer ones (MMM, Vergalid Mines, Sanctus Somnium come to mind). EQ has many beautifully done (and some frustratingly challenging) zone layouts, some of which even veteran players have hardly touched. I don't know how difficult it would be to accomplish any of this - I'm sure EQ's development team is spread thin and it may be more work than we realize to retune old content to modern levels (or literally make more things in EQ forward compatible). Everyone loves zone revamps (except for that one legit level 50 trying to do his epic 1.0, every year) and I think things like this would be amazing if they had more longevity, perhaps without being too disruptive. Even seeing something small, like an old zone or two with current level missions would be awesome. So much work went into EQ's zones, and most of them are left tragically undisturbed.
Haha, Plane of Dark Souls, that's a funny name for it. All that it needs is your screen to go black when you die and all you see is
This is why I think we need to find a way to encourge playing in these older zones. I think the only true solution would be to give players the option once they reach level 100 ... to go back to level 1.. and go through a series of quest lines and achievments that require them to play in certain zones and level with certain equipment on. This would get players back into those old zones and maybe give all these board level 100's something to do. Maybe set up a debuff that keeps them from getting buffs for powerleveling so that only buffs that are their level and maybe 5 above can stay on them. Set up achievments that must be done with no merc's or require a group...etc Then when that player gets back to level 100.. they finish the line of achievments and get some major rewards.. maybe gear/special aa's etc something that makes it worthwhile.. Just imagine seeing all these raiders trying to do old Raids again.. but having to do them with old equipment and no mercs etc..
Yep, then we can make a GINA overlay like this for death: I could have literally gone outside and killed 10 trees in the time it took my EverQuest character to do so (okay, maybe not big trees, but I could have done some damage. Cars > Rulnavian Woodcutter).
No thanks, I'd rather not have my character deleted. You suggestion is basically for max level alts to be sacrificed for some benefit. Except they might have to be played as shrouds? As for doing old raids with old gear, http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=4889 shroud missions that are one of the most unpopular things in EQ, except when the rewards are insanely good. That's also the whole point of raiding on the progression servers. And they burn through old raids as fast they can key for them. All without mercs!
This is why I play Everquest, to advance my character so I can go back to level 1 again. Do you have any idea how much work the developers would have to put in to this pie in the sky solution of yours?
The ability to "ascend" back to level 1 is a concept as old as MUDs themselves. Indeed, the idea of a cyclical leveling path instead of one increasingly weighted towards the end occured to people long before EQ. I wholeheartedly support that kind of system being available for EQ, but I agree it'd probably be difficult to cram into the modern architecture. The key trait of this kind of system is that by completing the leveling chain again you get some sort of permanent benefit. TOR implemented a similar system based around leveling and playing different characters instead of your main, that might be something EQ would have an easier time with. An AA, for instance, that is shared amongst all characters in an account and gets more powerful with each different class to hit level "x" on that single account. This expands the range of "stuff to do" beyond simply working on a single character, and incentivizes going down the leveling route with an alt to ultimately benefit your main. As for extending HAs beyond level 100, the scalability of this kind of content was cited as one of the primary benefits of making HAs in the first place. The whole point is that they can be somewhat easily adapted to different level ranges both past and future.
Yeah its hard to implement but it has more benefits then the current system that just copy pastes more levels and AA's over and over. I love how other games did it and think it would be a great challenging progression. Those who would rather delete their character.... have never seen the befits that arise from a system like this. Its well worth the effort.. and makes characters amazing.
I will never think a system that erases most of your character progression in a game based on character progression is amazing :\ To each their own.
Typically you dont loose anything... you keep your achievments gear etc.. you have to bank your gear till you reach level to use again but your AA's all that would be kept... you would keep skills etc... no erasing of anything but level.. the debuff would reduce stats to the level equivalent you should be.. and as you reach the level for certain AA's etc those whould unlock back to you. This is how some games do it,. No character wipe.. that would be bad....
So basically you would be shrouded down, in a sense? Considering *no one* uses those for their actual purpose ( playing as a low level with other low levels )..using the rogue shroud to SoS through stuff, etc doesn't count... I can't say this idea would really take off within EQ. People have shown time and time again they don't particular want to play a low level toon when they have a high level option available. Not saying its a bad idea in general, I have seen it work in other games.
I'm curious. What are these other wonderful games and why aren't you already playing them instead of trying to turn EQ into another one of them?
I'm not interested in shrouding or going back to level 1. If anyone wants to do that, those options are already available. I'm more interested in continued relevance of current content (i.e. HAs now, that will still be playable in the next expansion and so on). As well as "modernizing" some of the old content we no longer do - the zones and NPCs are all there, but if we could systematically tune them up via HAs, missions, or some other function it would be amazing for the game - and if nothing else, create more current content that lasts longer (hence forward compatability). edit: nm, there are some posts in this thread that I couldn't see to follow the conversation
These types of arguments ultimately boil down to, "But incentivizing doing content will have the side-effect of making shortcuts more valuable, therefore interesting and desirable content is bad for the game!" It is like saying that EQ shouldn't have an economy because it incentivizes people to farm money, or it shouldn't have tough encounters because it incentivizes people to hack. Yes, keeping the game interesting and rewarding will make PLing and buying heroic upgrades more prolific because *those are signs of a healthy game*. Level-based progression in EQ is largely meaningless anyways, which is precisely why this wouldn't be a big deal. All of EQ's meaningful progression is done outside the scope of simple levels.
Level based progression in EQ is not just about the levels. Its has a domino effect. Anything that improves your toon is progression in my eyes. That Staff of Forbidden Rites I spent time getting? Sorry, you lose that progression, too..because it has a required level. I just don't see a point in *forcing* people to shroud down or more or less reroll to progress their toon...just so they can shroud down and reroll again. Totally ignoring the aspect that raiders would not be able to adequately participate. If you like alts and leveling up again..that is great. Don't force that play style on others to attain special "buffs".
Only if you consider time to level as the time you spent getting that equipment, which it almost certainly is not. The temporary inability to use some of your earned assets is not the same as taking them away permanently. That is like saying that your "progression" in earning a levitation clicky is permanently stripped by going into a lev-free area. Raiders would certainly be able to participate by ensuring they maintain a leveled character to raid with. If they're too casual to do what it takes, they can deal with having to make a choice of what to pursue at a given time. Nobody would be "forced" to use an additional progression option any more than people are "forced" to get new AAs/levels/spells, or "forced" to do tradeskills when they're incentivized by things like shawls. Proper incentivization to utilize content is a good thing, not a bad one.
So, to participate in the cyclical leveling path to get these permanent rewards..you can't use your raid main? You can only do this on an alt if you raid? Gotcha. Same answer. No thanks.
So what you're saying is I wouldn't be able to raid recent content? No thanks if I want to play a leve 1 char I will just roll another alt, of which I have enough at various levels at different points along the Heros Journey.
