Curios: Would you buy a "Graphic Update Pack"?

So instead of new content with new monsters and new zones to explore, you would rather they waste time upgrading the graphics in a zone no one goes to anymore. Am I missing something?

I would like to see updates in the 3D engine processing pixel effects depth properly.

I do have a 3D monitor with active shutter glasses. All *objects* and *subjects* (means static and moving things and (N)PC's) are rendered correctly in 3D. Looks quite right and good.
BUT any spell effects, zone effects (like torch fires) and glowing effects on weapons look like they're drawn on the monitor surface - they completely lack the depth information.
If all effects are on and max and I have 3D on, it's like I have to look through a curtain of spell effects to see what's behind .

Which is why you shouldn't have any hopes it will be any good at all. Vanguard is a prime example. After being so excited for that and it being.. well... to put it nicely poorly thought out, poorly balanced and with a game engine that couldn't have felt less optimized... I just don't think he has the discipline to make a quality release.

OnTopic: I'm with the folks that would PAY to see Freeport/etc go back to the way they were. (BTW EQ is already a DirectX 9 engine.) I just don't think they have the staff or time to do something like this right (update the models/graphics in a meaningful way without changing the feel/layout/aesthetics of the zones/characters).

That said, improving the player animations/skeletons might be within their reach?

I enjoyed Vanguard more than I ever did this game. Also, there was certainly enough people who enjoyed it as well - there is an project in the works.

What would you say they "got right" that EQ got wrong?

No, you're not. Most developers would rather work on new projects than try to maintain old ones. And the band-aids (defiant gear, mercenaries, Crescent Reach) along with the constant level cap increases pretty well guaranteed that 80% of the zones would sit empty. There's little justification for putting millions of dollars into content that no players have any reason to experience.

Updating the player models would make the old NPC models look even worse by comparison. It's already pretty jarring.

And this may not be related to much but there is a lot more to any game engine than just its rendering engine. The technical director (Jchan?) must be constantly busy improving custom tools just to keep the ship afloat. I would imagine that it's slow and frustrating to work with and the team must spend a good deal of time upgrading the framework to support features that most players will notice.

It's about game play. You can make the best looking game in the world, but if it sucks to play, people will be gone in a week. Any title that depends on monthly subscriptions needs to worry about stickiness. That is they need players hooked and continuing to play and pay. Spending time on eye candy at the expense of engaging players and addicting them does not add to long term health.

This is an ancient game. It's not going to attract new players in any significant quantity. Their best hope is to keep it afloat on a minimal budget and treat it as a cash cow. That means releasing new content to keep people hooked. Milking the TLP concept for hopefully low investment (now that they have the infrastructure in place) sucking in of former customers.

As for attracting new players, that has to be done through the use of the franchise and leveraging it for new titles that have the modern bells and whistles and potentially different game play that caters to the younger generation.

Here is a graphic of curios. I got it for free of the intarweb ...

wow lighteningrod you are such a wise person

i know i am feeding a troll but:

did it occur to you i might not be a native Speaker ?

You are missing a massive revenue stream, its one of the reasons why this game has dwindled down to just "returning players' and veteran players, and the population keeps dwindling every year - this is a core aspect of the game that attracts players. Most of you will never accept that philosophy, even though that model has been prove by current games, but the revenue stream of selling fluff in marketplace from bringing up the graphics up to par is huge. I'll give you an example of a current game that is doing extremely well since they went to f2p model and realize solely on selling costumes, mounts, potions, pets etc in the marketplace - Elder Scrolls Online.

Daybreak isn't bringing in any new players. The average age of a EQ player is probably between 30-40, thats not a huge revenue stream since the younger crowd of today is attracted to other things besides just "game play". If you want to bring in revenue you have to attract players between ages 15-25, which is a huge chunk of the population worldwide playing games in general. Clearly the niche route hasn't worked by just looking at server population, along with blunders of throwing 60+ million dollars into other game projects that failed.

Black Desert and ESO bring in quite a huge haul of $$$, because the model is far better even though the gameplay isn't anywhere close to comparable to EQ1's.

And those 2 games alone have only been around for 2 years. So imagine EQ with the "game play" it has and an updated graphics/environment engine, offering both aspects, while the other games I mentioned only offer one aspect.

More revenue (if it isn't squandered on other game projects), would equate to more developers being hired, more infrastructure, improvement of other aspects of the game, more game content.


But most of the people posting in this thread, as well as Daybreak are too thick headed to realize that, because you don't want to welcome a change to a game that is much needed to help bring the financial power to help improve other aspects of the game.

You have to spend money to make money, and if you spend money on this aspect of the game, it has monstrous amount of revenue stream, because you would grow the population base (gamers ages 15-25), its already been proven by current games in the genre.

Heh, another game by Brad McQuaid? Didn't people learn their lesson from Vanguard? Oh and I see that this game is being developed in Unity, that is a definite mark of quality! At least with the savings of having to not having to buy rights to a robust game engine they will be able to afford Brad's alleged opiate addiction.

I don't think it's realistic to expect a whole game graphical update, but I would love to see some improvements to the player models. Nothing terribly drastic so as not to upset people who already like how their characters look, but stuff like higher res skins, a few more polygons, more natural looking animations, eliminating weapons impaling characters when sitting, a few new faces / hairstyles and so on and so forth. Basically bringing the 2001 models up to the current EQ visual standards. If they released the character models to the player base they could probably even get some of that done for free.

Upgrading the graphics engine isn't cheap nor easy. It's easy to TALK about, but it ends there. Many of us lived through the DX8->DX9 journey, which took over a year and still had many issues. EQ2 also did an upgrade and it was also painful, each zone having it's own issues.

It would be massively expensive, far more than would be generated with sales of a graphics update, and they would probably lose more customers than they gain because some people like the older graphics and others don't have computers that could run a new engine.

Hair not clipping through armor
Helms not deleting your hair when equipped
Fix 'crackling' textures

Mounts on old models has been fantastic. Even though I look straight up bugged when standing halfway in my horse's butt, all the running and combat animations are so much better that it's been a big improvement. Game runs way smoother too.

Some of you sound like you believe it would be impossible to to get the younger crowd hooked on everquest because the gameplay is archaic?

What is the reasoning behind this assumption?
The current everquest gameplay is pretty modern as far as i can see, it doesn't differ THAT much from WoW, at least not the newer expansions, it is more quest based, and doesn't require endless grinding anymore...neither does it have forced downtime, the gameplay pace is reasonably fast nowadays.

The only thing i think is holding true new players away is:

1. The grahics: the game just doesn't look that good as a whole, the visual impression when wandering between old and new zones is awful, it looks visually inconsistent, I Think "nostalgia pandering" is a disservice to the overall health of the game, sure it might satisfy some of the old-timers. But at the same time it might look like the devs just "doesn't care"(and i don't think thats true) and that the game game is on "life support", to potential new players. Make it look like a premium title, to attact new players...
2. The game is "top heavy": starting fresh as a noob on a regular server is a lonely adventure. Removing heroic upgrade options(can still be unlocked by have one highlevel char), and import the old newbie quests into the new-questlog-format, together with a graphical update will make it more approachable(the serpent spire expansion worked well in that regard) for newbies. Loot from old mobs should be made relevant again, remove defiant gear and buff item-drops from lowlevel nameds instead, to encourage exploring and dungeon-crawling. this would make low-level zones relevant again. This would only work if we get a sudden wave of new players(or alot of people made alts...).

I think the game can last many additional years, If they can address these two issues. The current core gameplay is still as addicting as ever, I see no reason why it couldn't be made competitive and attract new players again...

A lot of folks are all about hero's forge. Idk. I think animations are the bigger issue - Combat animations can be pretty limiting and most NPC's only have a single attack animation. Beyond that it really comes down to art style where EQ is downright cartoony at times.

Bigger of an issue is that 85-95 is a gigantic black hole of soul crushing grind with no clear leveling path and that's where heroic characters start.

From 95 -105 the progression quests for RoF and TDS push through a big chunk of the experience and you can recruit people to help with these. But a fresh HC has 10 levels to grind before they get there. So they're faced with running off and doing random things for terrible experience while they learn their character vs getting an early start on their eternity of HA grinding.

What would significantly help alleviate this is a level 75-to-max expansion to guide and keep those 30-35 levels of newer players interested. Or (and sadly more likely at this point) could also consider a band-aid: additional tier(s) of level 90/95/100 heroic characters. A 3rd approach might be some re-scaling of experience rewards for older content. Kind of like an un-nerfing plus of the TDS's pre-101 experience nerf.

I consider animations a part of graphics, and i would expect a graphic update to polish animations aswell, (I am tired of seeing bards stab the own face repeatedly ).

And there is a clear levelling path for 85-95, HoT-VoA, those are 2 fine expansions it would be a shame to miss, if you haven't done them before(add in some UF if you feel adventurous)... retuning the xp-gains for those 2(3) expansions a little(so they are inline of the DH HA grind) would be a simple solution to that problem... The only other problem with these 2 expansions is the "gear-power-curve", you are basiscally better off, being an expansion ahead gear-wise, another tuning problem i guess...

I tanked those when they were current. Their omission was on purpose. We seem to agree on the level of difficulty, so I'm curious why you suggest it. HoT was a pretty cool-looking expansion graphically I suppose?

Idk about yours, but my concept of "leveling path" assumes doing the content yourself while getting gear upgrades as you go.

i would totally buy it. still hoping they make the jump to a modern engine like ue4.

I think we agree actually, the gear requirement for doing well, (especially in VoA) is too high imo, and i must admit a didn't do HoT alone, i had a real group with a merc-tank/healer combo and slower+puller. It was fun but it was obviously not tuned for soloing, but we cleared the first 3 tiers in HoT-gear without (too many) wipes.

if you have friends in the correct level range, I would reccommend HoT progression for levelling, and gear up with the loot you find. Slower than grinding HA, but it was worth it... it would probably take you to level 92+(autogrant helps alot there) if you do all the quests.

VoA on the other hand was something i tried to solo with kiting for xp, and only did progression later on when i was high enough to do that solo, so i don't know how it would be as a voa geared group in the correct level range. My impression was the the later tiers would be too hard(without a real tank), for it to be an effective levelling path. Sepulcher is brutal...
Its a beautiful expansion though...