How do you feel about modern concepts like guns and Ninjas in EverQuest Next?

I guess I'll put my input here...

I really enjoy the concept of guns being put into here. For more of a fantasy realm like Norrath, we could have like muskets or even revolvers in the game. Though Ninjas however, I think the concept of ninjas wouldn't really fit into Norrath as they have a slightly different look in terms of culture. Having a sort of Japanese culture like ninjas pasted into a western-driven lore and atmosphere just doesn't seem to fit the puzzle. It would be, however, be interesting to have developers create their own unique Norrath-ian twist of modern concepts.

Ninjas aren't a modern concept, don't have a problem with them, not a fan of guns and technology in fantasy games though.

Somehow. It's been beaten to death a dozen times, so whatever. I'm tired of it, so mostly kept out.

Yep, thats why the dev's direction/attitude about EQN is such a turn off for people true to this franchise's roots.

Just adding one last thing - I knew I had seen them somewhere.

There a heavy gnomish cannon you can build as a house item (looks just like a cannon) and if I'm not mistaken there are rows of cannons defending the Stonebrunt Highlands.

So guns (cannons) are already in Norrath.

There are ways to update and attract games while keeping true to the roots. Whether it is gameplay (Metroid Prime), setting (Zelda series), or even how story is told (Castlevania series). All the games I mentioned were attacked when they went to introduce new elements, especially Metroid. I remember everyone swearing off the franchise thinking it would be just another mindless shooter...and in fact the first person element added SO much to the game.

So far i've seen them try to listen to the community. But just like a friend asking for advice, they might not always go the way we suggest. Yeah I might be a bit pissed if one of my girlfriends asked me some advice and then did the opposite, but I also trust she knows what she is doing. This will be a F2P game, it isn't like you will have to buy into the game at any point if you don't like it.

That and the simple math that there were only about 100k people or so who ever played Everquest pre-PoP (ie: it's "roots"). Most of those people may not even be gaming anymore, or if they are, it's on a much smaller schedule (now that they've got kids and all) or have moved on to other things.

I think the devs are more concerned with keeping true to the best of Everquest and EQ 2 as they exist now, while adding the "new" of Next (holy grails) to make a great game.

Not worried about the money aspect. I'd give them hundreds of dollars if helped to steer EQN away from the "genre-dumbificating" trends that started with WoW.

Yeah, and like Metroid, EQN's new mechanics/pillars will add a lot to the game.

What worries me is how their statements/questions suggest reversal from the core things which made EQ1 great.

From what I've read on these forums (and others in the past), those "core things" people remember from a very, very early version of Everquest were changed long ago - and the game continued to thrive and even gain subscribers right up till WoW launched, and it's still holding its own pretty well.

Look at the "core things" in Everquest 2 right now as well.

I don't think they're reversing from the things early Everquest had, so much as sticking with the improvements that have been proven to work over the last ten years or so in both Everquest and EQ 2.

Why change a winning formula if you don't have to? So long as they don't interfere with the 'holy grails' that Next promises to have, there's no reason to change the mechanics that Everquest and EQ 2 have now.

The core thing about EQ classic (1999-2003) was forced grouping and interaction.

Now it'll possibly be automated. And this is done for people who want content consumption without needing to speak to anyone. To me, that screams like WoW design patterns. So yeah, that's proven to work at pleasing the single player crowd. With the added side effect of turning 95% of the game landmass into a dumbed down treadmill that can be quickly consumed single-player.

I'm so tired of seeing this BS argument. Of course the population numbers were smaller. MMO gaming and online gaming as a whole were a fraction of what they are today.

Yeah, people age and some move on from gaming. Us "old school" MMO gamers definitely do not comprise the bulk of the gaming population. But just because the genre has changed and become drastically wussified and less fun, that doesn't mean people have.

People who haven't ever played a quality MMO, those that know nothing other than the garbage that has been released in the past decade (and worse as it got newer), they obviously have nothing else to compare today's MMOs to. They might have actually had fun with WoW, or Rift, or SWToR or whatever other sub par game they played, but again, they don't have anything else to really base their opinion on. I guarantee that some section of today's gamers, those that would claim they enjoy games like WoW, would prefer a more difficult "old school" game if a quality one was made today so they could see what they were missing. The market for these types of games isn't just us old school folk as you and many others would like to believe.

An enormous problem with these forums is that they're plagued with opinions from people who have zero EQ1 experience.

So yeah, all they know is WoW and whatever clones followed it.

And for whoever hasn't seen this, consider this article written by one of WoW's design leads. Basically admitting they made tons of money, at the expense of ruining the genre by making it super easy and accessible:

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/7540/Mark-Kern-Have-MMOs-Become-Too-Easy.html

Not even zero EQ1 experience, but zero UO experience too. I know the vast majority of current gen MMO gamers haven't played UO, and it's really a shame. UO had it's shortcomings, no one will ever dispute that. But for it's time, it's legendary.

I single out UO more than EQ1 for one simple reason: The mantra that I've heard from day 1 regarding EQN was "sandbox". That one simple word is honestly the ONLY reason it captured my interest as much as it has. UO is still the ONLY major US based (I haven't played obscure Asian MMOs) MMO title to truly be a sandbox. I loved EQ1 as much as anyone, but it was only kind of sandboxy, and compared to UO it wasn't really a sandbox at all.

Why is this important? Well, because people hear the word sandbox, but unless they've played UO they really don't know what that means. They hear about players creating content for others, but it's a bit of a foreign concept. They might think of open pvp, or they might think about players literally creating content (via the EQNLandmark tools), but this is just a tiny fraction of it. I can't even begin to describe the quantity of "player created content" that spawned in UO just by having a great set of core elements to the game. I'll explain a few, and people will understand my words, but unless they were there they will never truly understand unless an innovative game comes along to recreate those same elements.

For example:

Crafting wasn't just mindless crafting. Smiths would literally stand around the forge of major cities working on their craft for days, weeks, and months on end. Smiths would need ingots, a resource miners could make by smelting ore, so they would regularly advertise their buy prices while at the forge. Miners would come in from the countryside just to see what prices were being offered, and if they liked the prices, they'd make a verbal agreement with the smith to go mine ingots and return with them at the desired price. It was amazing social interaction, content created by one player for another. Beyond that, the whole smithing area created a nice little community. Adventurers would need to get their gear repaired, and as hard as it would be to believe to MMO gamers these days, in order to repair gear, the smith needed to actually have it in their possession. Yes, that meant that if you wanted your uber sword of uberness repaired, you needed to actually hand it over to the smith and pray that they weren't going to steal it from you. We're likely never to see this sort of thing in a game ever again, but it made reputation actually MATTER. Us smiths would vouch for each other so that the adventurer could know that we were honest. And eventually, if you were a good and honest smith, you'd have a regular set of clients that came by to get their armor repaired on an almost daily basis because they trusted you. And of course, you'd make a little coin from their generosity on the side. I STILL, to this day, remember the names of several of the other smiths that stood next to me for weeks on end while we crafted. I bet you can't even remember the names of any other hard core crafters from these terrible new MMOs, and if you can, you probably hated them because they were just your competition. Eventually, it wasn't even just about crafting. It was about the social element of the game and interacting with those other players that made the game rewarding. Imagine spending 2 months (or even MUCH longer) standing around a forge. It might sound dreadfully boring if you didn't know anything other than WoW, but I assure you it was time very well spent. MMOs these days don't manage to hold my attention for 2 months in their entirety, and UO managed to hold my attention for years upon years, a good portion of which was spent doing nothing but sitting around a forge in a city. Think about that.

Or player auctions. These days, that means putting up an item for sale on an auction house. Back in UO, that meant that a player or guild owned a nice house, decorated it accordingly by placing rows of chairs and an auction area, and advertising that they were having a weekly auction. You'd get players from around the world congregating in one area to hold an ACTUAL in person auction. It was amazing. What takes 2 seconds now, simply placing a bid on an item on an AH, was an entire evening worth of experiences at an auction like this. And lets take it a step further! People would work their butts off for an entire week either crafting or adventuring to have a quality item to put up for sale at one of these auctions. It was weekly content created by players for other players. That's not all though. Guards were needed at these auctions too. Remember, UO was open PvP (at least early on in the game). What might have started as a friendly night at the local auction could have ended in an epic night of battles and debauchery. And when I say guards, I don't mean NPCs. Those running the auctions would hire guards or enlist their friends to be guards for the people attending the auction. I remember "working" as a guard for auctions where I was paid a % of the auction proceeds just for protecting people from PKs. This is content that was created by others for others. And think about it, all of this was done without any "systems" or "features" for auctions. All that was necessary was a non-instanced world, housing included, and the ability to communicate with each other. That's it!

I could go on and on with this stuff.... "bag ball", player run vendor malls, house looting, house decay and the awesome craziness that ensued with it, tinker traps and the nearly infinite uses for them (seriously, you could be a thief, take a trapped tinker box, wander into an area with NPC mobs to kill, set the chest down as though it was "loot" and when a poor adventurer would come by to loot the chest, they would blow up and you could loot them. It was glorious), and all the various awesome "professions" you could have are just some of it. THAT is content created by players for others. It all stems from social interaction, you know, the entire point of playing a MMorpg.

I'll admit to no UO experience. But what you describe sounds awesome. That kind of spirit is mostly unknown in what came after EQ. I guess it just wouldn't be profitable nowadays, eh?

Here's a simple analogy:

This forum asks people for input on a redesign of X, but most people don't even know what's good about original X.

Disturbing? Absolutely.

I think it absolutely could be and would be, it just needs to be done right. But you could say that about any game, right?

I think if a major publisher made a fun QUALITY game with true sandbox core game elements, it would be an absolute hit. Now more than ever, there are a LOT of jaded, bored MMO gamers with no true home. The responses on these EQ forums are absolutely an indication of that.

It is precedence for Everquest 2. Totally different game.

I hope you're right man, I hope you're right.

The thing is, I see the same argument the 'old school' crowd is making that WoW players themselves have made. When vanilla WoW first came out, it took several days to just get to level 20. MONTHS to get to 60 (if you played like a reasonable person, most people have a life). With every expansion the game got easier, solo play got easier, and eventually things like cross server dungeons got implemented. See, you apparently never played vanilla. You don't know how (inserert every EQ1 old school complaint of difference between vanilla and current EQ1).

I don't particulary like wow for many reasons, but the difference is I actually have played it off and on over the years and seen how it has changed. You apparently have not. So if I can't comment on Everquest because I never played EQ1 from the start, then I would say you can't reference WoW unless you have played it from it's first iteration and every expansion afterwords.

Frankly, the old school crowd has nostalgia glasses so glued on that I wonder if they really know what they are arguing anymore. Hardcore just for hardcore isn't fun. Difficulty just for the sake of difficulty is not fun. All elements of a game need to have meaning and context. Solo content has it's place and time, so does group. But the same people who want players to communicate more seem set on NOT making the game more player driven.

Cut for brevity:

As amazing as some of that stuff is, there are more then a couple reasons why that wouldn't work today. Chief among them is that as mmos became more popular so too did griefing. Same reason you had to be hired as a guard, just now there are even more of them running around. The other reason is cost. You seem to think it's all about greed for money. That isn't the entire truth. Some of it is simply trying to recoup losses, and appealing to more people is the most simplistic way to recoup costs. Just like how i'm 'evil' since I work in the evil healthcare world, when I still need money to eat and pay rent like everyone else.

The biggest problem I see on these forums isn't that people never played EQ1, sorry but that is what a reboot is all about. The problem is I see nostalgia when I can guarantee you that not every night did you enjoy everything. Yes, maybe half or even most nights. But you most likely had nights where you were ready to quit and never return. Every mmo, every game, every fan goes through this. Some quit, some don't.

End of the day, nothing about the game's design is going to be black and white. I just don't see the guns as a black and white issue. You do, fine. I had a fight with my sister over another topic where she saw something as a black and white issue, and I didn't because I could see possibilities she wasn't willing to consider. Telsa saw it for story, Mouser as progression, myself as simply an element that might have something to offer to the game overall.

Like it or not, there is precidance for technological ideas in Everquest. It happened, and even the developers said it happened. So as long as the lore is there to explain it, i'm ok with it. This doesn't make me a gun nut, or against fantasy. I've just read enough, and have seen enough crazy ideas, that I don't find it disturbing. Nor would I find it immersion breaking. Because gaming to me is not only social, but my way to de-stress from real life mystery, pain, and suffering.

I could care less about your EQ1 experiences and UO. Unless it has something to actually improve gameplay, by suggesting examples of mechanics and not just 'happy moments', then nostalgia should remain in the past. This is a reboot, which means there is no harm is asking. The only harm comes from when they say if/how they plan to actually put them in.

Hold on here, you're comparing vanilla wow to EQ as though they're even remotely similar, then ragging on a dude for "clearly not having played vanilla WoW" when you youself clearly haven't played EQ1? Lol. Hypocrite much?

Here you go: I played vanilla WoW AND EQ. And comparing the two is completely and totally laughable. Vanilla WoW was easy mode. Each passing expansion made it even more easy mode, but it was easy mode from day one. Once WotLK dropped, the game was officially unplayable it was so easy. EQ in it's current state is a bit of a joke, but it took a good 10 or 12 years for it to get there. There was a decade of pretty solid gaming there, especially the early years through Velious.

Several days to get level 20..... hahaha.... heaven forbid.

You're so completely clueless I don't know whether to be angry or take pity. NO ONE wants hardcore for the sake of hardcore. No one wants difficulty just for the sake of difficulty. Intelligent people with well thought out arguments have already given MANY reasons why difficulty is a good thing, you've just been too lazy to read them or chosen to ignore them.

I'll drop a link here though, just so you have a clue though. I've already shared my in depth thoughts on why certain elements of a game are vastly improved by having harsh penalties or actual difficulties. Lets hear your arguments on why everything should be a cakewalk instead.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eve...ted-content-yea-or-nay.33/page-352#post-54845

And we want players to communicate more but we're not making the game player driven? What? That literally means nothing. What does "player driven" mean, and why exactly are we not wanting it? It's a statement that makes zero sense at all. We want players to communicate more because that's the entire point of playing a multiplayer online game. Social interaction, it's a good thing.

PvP isn't griefing, it was part of the game. It was part of what made the game unpredictable and fun. But you are exactly what's wrong with MMO gaming these days. You and the companies making your carebear games are so concerned about others "ruining your gaming experience" that you have no concern for having a fun game in the first place. But whatever, have fun grinding the same boring dungeon 50 times for your next tier of loot, because clearly that's more important than someone messing with you a bit!

What the heck are you even talking about? Where have I said anything close to this? Quit putting words in my mouth.

And you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, just as we are ours. We're just sick of people bringing up "lore" or "precedent" or whatever else crappy explanation they try to use. We just don't want guns. It's literally been said 100+ times now. There doesn't need to be any reason given, any further explanation, or any in depth argument. We just don't want them. It's one of those agree to disagree situations. And in my personal case, I won't play a high fantasy MMO with guns. Plain and simple.

Hundreds of people HAVE given examples of mechanics, features, settings, core elements, difficulty levels and everything else that they want. You've clearly just chosen to ignore them or not take the time to read through the various threads. That's your problem.

If "nostalgia" is all you got out of my post about my experiences in UO, there's really not going to be much for further discussions with you. My point wasn't to be nostalgic, my point was to show what TRUE sandbox content can be because most people, yourself included, have not experienced it and don't understand it.

My point is, I see so many misconceptions on wow is to mmos because of what it is TODAY. But just like your arguments, a lot of stuff is different today then it was at launch.

Oh, and yeah I have played EQ1. Never thought much of it then, and switched to Anarchy online after having a jackhole follow me around insulting me and then a mod join in to boot. All in all it was an expensive investment for only a couple of days worth of play, but you know what they say about first impressions. The same impressions 'fans' of EQ1 are giving anyone who is coming to these forums.

The 'hardcore' gamers are confusing 'difficulty' with 'convenience'. The way they respond to things like contested content and fast travel are proof of that. Taking a more middle ground would be better, but considering how many seem to think that just putting guns in would be 'easy mode' in this thread alone makes me worry about the general intelligence of humanity.

As for your comments on pvp, maybe you should do a quick profile search to see the posts I made in the 'specialized server' thread. Calling me a carebare? Oh yes, especially with me wishing to have RP, PvP, and PvE all in the same ruleset. I don't consider anything but player driven content to be the pinnicle of a long term game, but I guess you can't be bothered to understand someone before you insult them directly.

The old school crowd are convinced you can't have the RP, the PvE, and PvP hardcore groups in the same server. They wish to specialize and split up the playerbase. Therefore, YES, the old school group claims they want more player interaction yet at the same time argue against it.

*Sighs* I wasn't putting words in your mouth, just stating why your nostalgic dream won't become reality again. Stop taking things so personally. You claimed Blizzard admitted to making the game super easy just for the cash, I disagreed or more accurately tempered the point to include that it wasn't ONLY about the cash.

Fine. Don't try new foods, or smell new plants, see new sights, or basically experience anything outside your comfort zone. If this was a Pay to play or a Buy in to play game I would understand the kicking and screaming. But it's a F2P game, meaning it won't kill you to load it up and give it a try. So in that light...the arguments that 'if it has X I just won't touch it' come off rather...childish on the part of supposedly mature adult gamers.

You apparently stuck around after the inclusion of 'clockwork' technology. Who knows, maybe your 'high standards' can survive guns being included. IF they are included.

I have 'ignored' them the same way 'fans' have for anyone new offering any 'new' ideas or 'borrowed' ideas from other games they thought might work. When people say 'you never played EQ1 so you don't have any say' or words to the effect, you are not doing the franchise any favors. Gives me flashbacks to that EQ1 jerk and mod.