1. Barriers erected between the player and the reward are everything and not make work. A basketball hoop 3 feet off the ground on a 10 foot x 12 foot court != fun. Neither is a crowd of people, a ball, a field, and no rules. 2. Classes are never balanced. Don't like high DPS bad tanking? Reroll. 3. How very wrong you are. There was unfocused sandbox play and leave those players in the dust directed play. Look around for 50^ of the population milling about in pre-Kunark content? You don't see them. EQ players understood - kill a pile of blue mobs, get better as a result. move to the next stage. The only limiting factor was effective use of time vs. challenges in the game that were gatekeepers to the next stage in the game. 4. The original vision of WoW was "we can do that too". They even poached people from EQ. There probably EQ players that want to make samdbox effort and get results as if they achieved something worth achieving. No doubt they play multiple characters, resent group, raid, and social network reliance on others. There very probably will be a no task, no levels, no experience meter, run your own mini army, kill dwagons left and right /cough "game" where pintas drop uber loot like raid falling from the sky. I just don't expect a game that panders to the least common denominator to last 10-15 years.
I take it you didn't go to PoTime or acquire an epic. Uber. I don't believe Orc1 "made" EQ. I think PoHate. PoFear, Vox and Naggy did. For sure raids were one of EQ's features WoW assiduously copied.
Epics weren't "the beginning" that you were referencing. RoK introduced some worth while quests which were still very much optional. I did my epic on two of my level 60s in RoK. Also did a few key quests (some more than once before they made keys soul bound). I didn't have to do any of those quests though. I determined on my own that the reward was worth it.
You are an unequaled master of hyperbole. EQ's old quest system (especially epics) was not today's mundane task and meaningless achievements system.
What's more fun? Killing a few hundred mobs because your quest window told you to.. or Killing a few hundred mobs because your Allakhazam epic guide told you to.
Agree. Quests have remained much the same. What has changed is the importance of doing them. Although TDS has proven they can be taken to a much more tedious level with hailing and foraging. The new task system allows for "updates". You can now have a quest step that requires you kill 20 of something or loot 8 of something that you never have to hand in. Old quests accomplished the kill x of something by requiring you gain faction. Previously you'd always have to hand in or combine those 8 items. Whereas today, there are inconsistencies in that some quest scripts are simply loot and clean out your bags later and others are loot and turn in/combine. For the most part, I think the quest window is an improvement. It's the actual quests that tend to suck. What I don't like is the inability to pre-loot lots of things. You used to be able to loot an item, see that it was quest related, then try to figure out what quest it was for and whether or not you wanted to do it. Now there really is no discovery of quests by coming across some random loot (at least not without deleting that item and then trying to get one again after requesting the quest). I know there were a couple quests I did long ago as a result of randomly looting a rare quest item which I decided was then worth my time to complete the quest. I probably would never have done the quest without having first getting the rare drop while doing something else.
Bring me 4 wolf pelts. I shall reward you for the return of four bone chips Or perhaps you are here to [return skunk glands] You are right, they certainly weren't mundane Rusty sword 8 Silver Pieces and the rewards!! Woot! This is EverQuest after all. Fred says they are meaningless. Bob says they mean too much People can always skip the quests if they don't want the reward they provide.
1- you seem to imply that playing a tank in this game is something challenging or somehow above that of a dps. I raided as a paladin for five years. It is not a difficult job to tank and hold aggro in eq. I'm sure a warrior or knight with a 2h could easily molo most non instanced tasks, as could many other classes. Berserker and rogue no. I don't get beaten by difficult mechanics, I just get beaten by maths. Sure I could hit max level and very slowly molo content by decap kiting, but that's a really boring method of play. Fact of the matter is solo tasks should be moloable by any class. Group instances should require a group effort. IMO many would find the experience more interesting if only group instances were needed for progression as merc and partisan quests are beyond dull. I would honestly prefer one super tough raid zone per expansion with some flag requirements from involved group missions with the rest of the group game being dungeon centric or open area for an easier time. 2- a berserker is a warrior who specialises in offence when his temper is riled. In his core state he is an expert with 2h weapons who wears the second highest type of armor in the game. I think with this setup us and rogues should mitigate better at least well enough to molo garbage kill quests in entry and mid tier zones. We make a ton of sacrifices for a short duration burn that does not even count for much in today's long battles. From a logical stance what point is there in playing a berserker when we have limited options and nothing to show for it other than a short burn and a woeful sustained parse. 3- what in the hell are you talking about? Newbie quests were optional. Collect 4 bone chips etc. I just saved them and sold them in the tunnel to get better stuff. Directed play is garbage. What is this Orc 1 nonsense? I killed fox and Nagy and guess what? I hunted where I wanted when I wanted. I would meet other players and as the group got bigger we would move somewhere more interesting. Perhaps I start in oasis and then the group moves to upper guk and I come out with an rbf instead of oasis vendor loot. I played how I wanted. I required nor wanted kill this x 10 quests. I did my ro armor quests and made one of my longest standing EQ friends along the way. That armor quest involved traveling the world finding help and in turn helping my friends. Those quests involved exploration. The point is I had the option to quest dungeon or trade. I enjoyed that more than handheld copy paste quests. I would love to see that kind of content again. 4- what challenges do you speak of? Only challenge eq1 has had in a long time was powar prenerf raid. Eqs only real remaining raid guild beat it no one else did? Open raids required quick mobilisation and the ability to perform under pressure. I Enjoy a great raid script but please do not try and convince us that you are tackling real challenges. Try a challenge mode raid in wow and compare it to your so called challenges. To be honest I think open raids would hurt the game. Tough raids I support boring progression bang head against brick wall tasks I do not. 5- blizzard had a bad expansion listened to their customers and brought out wod. Most friends who I have who played wow from the start are hailing it as the best fun since burning crusade, which for them was the apex of the game. Again you equate sandbox to no progression in a completely nonsensical manner. I have already pointed out how in a sandbox I played and progressed quite happily as did everyone else. Some of course progressed faster than other but that's just the way of any system. If SoE wish to redeem eq it needs more devs, it needs to sort out balance in a massive overhaul not just drips and drabs. It needs to make content more stimulating. Remove the running around kill tally quests and put in some weak mobs for people to hunt at their leisure. Add dungeons with badass names for groups to fight and earn treasure. Add real quests that give rewards that have some staying power and give the player a sense of pride and affinity with. If you think SoEs approach to eq at the moment is working and gaining more players than it is losing you are quite frankly delusional or just towing the company line for some unbeknownst reason.
As for quests in the old world, I really enjoyed some of them. Epic 1's were for the most part a massive individual effort for something really special. Old world armor tasks involved travel and exploring some of the areas you would have otherwise perhaps avoided. Places like ct you practically had to drag people to that zone if doing dark forge. Quests were optional and normally for something special. Kill 10 for mercenary provides me no incentive to log on as the task is boring and the reward is equally if not more boring. Not only that they are mandatory.
Sure they are never in perfect balance but in the state it is in now it is beyond disgrace. There should be no flat out disadvantaged bad play options and currently there are. The modern state of balance from such a long standing game smells to be like either a total lack of attention due to low staff numbers and also a complete lack of comprehension. I imagine it is a bit of both. I could be wrong but I would bench my bets non of the devs raid on a lv 105 berserker or on most classes. Wow devs actually play and if something goes out of whack they will do their best to fix it. Many not immediately but a lot faster than things get fixed around here.
Like you would even listen. We have begged you for a direct connection from the GL to the bazaar and you can't even bother to do that. Let me guess. The next expansion will raise level caps again because it's a great way to force raiders to buy it. That means all new armor because the focus effects are invalidated. And you have to give us five more levels of the same spells we've gotten since level 71 only with a new name. And after you get done reinventing the wheel again for the 10th time, you'll spend a month on the zones and raids. Am I right? Because, you know, you've been doing it since 2008.
Hehe, Different people care about different things. I haven't bought or sold anything in the bazaar in almost two years. I'm very disappointed by the relative gear stagnation for the last few years though.
this expac is so bored poor raid content like 7 raid total kinda lame already done expac toke me a week finish all just need some few achi and few hunter what left for rest of the years play alt lol
Linear tasks and achievements kinda were the downfall, like somebody said none of the older players loved Eq for being taken on a strict path. Of course they are needed if there are no dungeons etc. anymore, no places you can choose to go freely and take an adventure with friends. It's all lazy and that's the main reason why i feel it's not worth the price anymore, you all know that 7 zones could be fine if they would be like Chardok, Mistmoore etc. Even only 7 raids could be fine, if they were like OMM. It's how it is all done that bores people, i have a small hope the devs will some day realize they should go back to the roots but i won't count on it.
You make it sound like being a good dps is a trivial matter. Maybe on some classes that don't move often and can just multi-bind at max 2 keys, but I assure you it's not trivial as melee. As a rogue I'm almost *constantly* holding down a mouse button for strafe style movement to keep behind the mob. I even have audio triggers on strikethrough to make it more obvious in all the spam when I've failed to find the mobs back (happens more often than you'd think on raids; *cough* bard pets). The difficultly in a rogue isn't knowing what key to press when, but more a physical one - reacting to the game and adapting continually. Yes I only have one role, but it takes up all my time. However this is largely irrelevant. You also said "Don't like high DPS bad tanking? Reroll". I half agree with you - I created the rogue knowing he had dependency issues. However why does this only apply to rogue and berserker and not to most other classes? Both of us being in chain too - the 2nd highest tier of armour in theory. Monk make very good moloers with their superior tanking and self heals. Hybrids clearly outtank us too and yet still have decent sustained dps. Casters, hah well they tank better than I do, despite not actually needing to! Indeed I'd argue some even outtank you Battleaxe for specific definitions of tank. I duoed several nameds in Combine Dredge with an enchanter. I had my cleric merc up, but he switched to caster dps merc because 2 healer mercs vs T3 nameds is clearly a massive overkill. lol. All the trash is trivial for his to solo. Mages come with their own tanks too, so high dps, high tank. Wiz/nec have clearly aren't tanks, but still can take a bigger beating due to some small runes. Mainly they get along by picking and choosing their fights; which can be snared and/or rooted. So basically it's rogue/ber that are at the extreme end of the dps/tank tradeoff. Now note that Norathorr didn't say he wanted to be a better tank. Specifically he said that he wanted that quite severe penalty to actually COUNT for something. Yet it doesn't. Casters own the dps game now, both in group and raiding. Hence balance is totally out of whack. It always has been, but it's also always lead to players drifting away in annoyance and that's clearly not a good thing.
