On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 David.Lynam@... wrote:

>
> john writes:
> >Most people don't realize it, but a lot of the enjoyment of
> >the game is the anticipation just before you loot something -
> >will it or won't it have a nice item? I once modified the
> >source of an RPG so I could start off with the best stuff.
> >It made the game really boring - the item drops didn't matter
> >because I already had the best stuff, so all that was left was
> >endlessly killing monsters for experience.
>
> I think though that if less emphasis were placed on gathering items and
> accumulating wealth in EQ, more emphasis would be put on the social aspect
> of it. I hate to use UO as an example but in this case it serves as a
> beautiful example. It just had something EQ missed. When you died you

I don't think EQ has enough infrastructure to survive on a
purely social aspect. There are no player-owned structures,
there are no player-owned merchants, there are no item sinks,
and there are very few money sinks (trade skills, steel armor)
most of which (trade skills) were an afterthought coded in
just before the game went Final. In short, there really isn't
much you can *do* in EQ which doesn't revolve around killing
monsters to gain items and experience. You can't really make
your mark on the world.

The PvP and Racewar servers definitely have more
possibilities, but on the normal servers, socializing is not
much different from an IRC chat room.

In that respect, UO is ahead of EQ. I think EQ only strived
to make massively multiplayer online hack and slash FRPG. UO
strived to make an online virtual world. In the discussions
Brad McQuaid and Raph Koster have had, it's pretty obvious EQ
didn't have as high a goal as UO. Brad still refuses to admit
that long-term money and item sinks are necessary in a
persistent online game, to keep player ability inflation (and
thus monster difficulty deflation) in check.

--
John H. Kim
kim@...