Things Older EQ Did Better

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Shakara, Jan 28, 2023.

  1. Shakara Augur

    To be fair traveling to my group was never really the issue. The issue has always been just finding people who want to group. I don't think i have ever been turned down or turned down a person because they were too far away. Now if there is a choice i take the closer guy but i feel this is really blown out of proportion.
  2. Triconx Augur

    Meanwhile people on TLPs beg for GL/Gh/fellowships in classic. Seems even nostalgia chasers hate time sinks of running to places.
    Skuz, Waring_McMarrin and Yinla like this.
  3. Cicelee Augur

    I will bite...

    1. Gear was something special. When you saw that warrior in all.blue Cobalt armor. Or that mage with epic 1.0. Not many players had that type of gear, so everyone looked different. Nowadays, everyone has the same gear and it gets switched out yearly.

    2. Stats mattered. You valued your numbers, you made gear choices. Nowadays none of it matters- you can loot whatever and do whatever.

    3. Resists mattered. You had blue diamond resist gear. You had to make decisions about your resists. Nowadays everyone is max resist, mob damage spells are irresistible, none of it matters.

    4. Groups were far more commonplace. I grouped with so many different people. Nowadays you box or group with guild members.

    5. Back then you did not have spoiler sites. You relied on in game communication and learned things. Nowadays you get maps and quest strats from 3rd party internet sites, beta gives you all the raid strats, there is not a sense of learning.

    6. You reputation mattered. Servers had blacklists. Nowadays you can easily transfer servers, change your name, get to max level on another toon very quickly.

    7. The game mattered. Quests mattered. You did things because you wanted to, not because there is a checkmark to get for a 1% increase that you feel you have to do and get.
  4. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Yes, finding people to group with can be challenging when they need to travel a good distance to join you and possibly do part of a dungeon crawl as well. It is less likely for people to want to join when they have to spend a chunk of travel time and risk the group breaking up when they get there or before.
    Rijacki likes this.
  5. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    I remember 3rd party sites with quest walk throughs and maps from the early stages of the game. Also beta still involves a lot of learning just happens before the content is live.
    Rijacki, Tatanka, Yinla and 2 others like this.
  6. KushallaFV Playing EverQuest

    I even have the Prima strategy guides for Original and Kunark. Definitely, available if you looked online for information like you said.
  7. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Yea but thats only because he had fast travel. If the tank took a half hour to get to the group then by that time the healer had to leave, the group would break up.
  8. Juzam_Djinn Elder

    1. No, just no. Taking an age to get some place is not fun, it's tedious. You aren't "rewarded" by interacting with other people because you couldn't get to a zone quickly on your own.

    2. And old EQ was dull af. For years multiple classes just hit auto attack and got to hit maybe one or two other buttons and that was it. God forbid people run out of mana or your wipe and get to sit for an eternity doing jack. Jesus, could you imagine if OOC regen hadn't been added to the game? I assume they would have had to have made Meditate scale better than it does, but ooooooof.


    No, it wasn't, zones were big and devoid of content.

    What exactly do you think the Spires were?

    1. Yeah, no crap raiders had better gear than everyone else. Everyone looking different isn't a good thing if you can't rely on them to be able to do content.

    2. Did they? I'd love to see someone crunch numbers to see what stats do and how much it actually affects anything. I'm talking more about Agi and Dex, since it's a lot more clear what Int, Wis, and Sta do for you. I'll take being able to loot and instantly use stuff over what it was like back in the day where one upgrade meant you needed several others due to focus effects not being standardized. God I remember someone on here arguing that standardizing them was a bad idea back when it happened, absolute goofy take.

    3. I'd never want to go back to having to swap for resist gear. That only lasted till like Luclin at best, and even by then a lot of AEs could still have huge resist mods or be unresistable.

    4. So were people.

    5. By the time I started, a little bit before Velious came out, Alla's was already a thing. So were printable maps.
    Cadira and Rijacki like this.
  9. Shakara Augur

    Which is why I am a supporter of things like Fellowship campfires. I am not arguing for the removal of fast travel option just they be more limited. Too much fast travel cramps design space.
  10. minimind The Village Idiot

    EQ doesn't list missions or quests anywhere in the game. You have to seek out the NPCs and then there's a record of quests that you've started. All the lists exist outside the game. If you want immersive open world experience, don't go to the spoiler sites.

    That's still the case.

    Recent super-strong group items... that even the raiders use.

    ToV: Rallos Zek Earring
    TBL: Chase earring, boots, gloves, and there's another one...
    NoS: Cloak of the Selenelion

    I gripe a bit about modern EQ group missions. They seem like training sessions for the raid events more often than not and the whole "dungeon crawl" concept has been lost.
  11. Shakara Augur

    Think you are confusing combat pacing with combat engagement. Yes modern EQ has much more interesting combat. You have dozens of abilities at your disposal with much more interesting playstyles however modern EQ had a HUGE problem with how quickly combat is processed and how interactive it is. The game is becoming un-balanceable because of it. EQ would need some serious animation/processing updates in order to keep the combat pacing as it currently is without it causing issues.
  12. Shakara Augur

    Just because you don't know who to talk to doesn't make it nonlinear. The point of every expansion is to learn about the story and beat the end game boss. Old EQ it was you are an adventure and there was no direction no predetermined goal for you. The games wasn't designed for you to take any particular path or make any particular choice.
    This is actually a good example of what I am talking about. These items are just stat sticks that dont come from raiding. When I say iconic I mean things like Demi-Lich Skull Cap, Circlet of Shadows, Epics, Skyrion Cudgel of the Ancients. Items that were transformative to your class.
  13. Shakara Augur

    I actually don't think that exists nearly as much as you are making it sound. For one everyone knows groups are the easiest to get on TLPs where fast travel is the most limited so its not like having limited fast travel is killing the group scene. In fact the hardest part about grouping on a TLP is finding a camp. Often the time you spend finding camp is longer than it takes to get the group together. Now on live the hardest part about finding a group is finding anyone to actually be online. However on live you also have mercs so if your tank leaves or your healer leaves your group is not just gonna fall apart. you just pop a merc till the rep gets there. So this hypothetical people keep talking about just doesn't actually seem to exist in practice.
  14. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    I liked travel taking a while in classic EQ because locations meant something. You had to make a decision on where you were going to be exping for a while (faydwer, east/west antonica, etc.) and that determined what groups you were going to get. I can understand why people like being able to group with their friends anywhere in the game, so I won't argue that.
    Annastasya likes this.
  15. Zarkdon Augur

    Long travel times are like corpse runs. A relic of an old outdated game design. If you want to spend hours waiting for boats you can always play on project 1999.
    Zunnoab and Yinla like this.
  16. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    And fellowship fires only work for a small number of people at once. It is great if you want to travel to a group that you have established ties with and are in the small number of people in the fellowship. However this does nothing to help if you are wanting to group up with new people. Having to spend time traveling and limiting fast travel to small well established groups of people makes it much harder to interact with new people.

    This is something that WoW has done much better and members of a group can summon someone regardless of being a member of a fellowship or guild.
    Svann2 likes this.
  17. Shakara Augur

    New people on live? Lol. but on a more serious note that is true and that is an example of well designed fast travel but I see no need for things like the PoK or guild hall portal to be a thing.
  18. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    It doesn't have to be someone new to the game to be new to a group of players. No matter how you look at it people play EQ to go kill monsters and complete quests. They are not playing it so they can spend time traveling through the same zones over and over again, sitting and waiting for a boat/portal, or any other form a travel that is just a time sink.
    Zunnoab likes this.
  19. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Not sure when you started EQ. August 2000 for me.

    Casters Realm, EQ Atlas, ZAM, Druid's Grove, Steel Warrior, Monkly Business, The Shammy one (something crucible), etc.

    My early learning in EQ was almost exclusively from online "spoiler" sites.
  20. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Zam goes back to May 11, 2000, EQatlas to May 8, 1999 - On Wayback Machine.. They would have been up a little while before being archived. Fansites pretty much immediately popped up for EQ and were a source of information for all of us.
    Rijacki, Silvena, Celephane and 2 others like this.