>I know this is a long post, my friends, but it's probably my very last post
>to this group, so I appologize. I apologize in advance for the language,
if
>you are sensitive, stop now.
>
>There is no death in EverQuest, except psychologically. And I'm dying, I
>think.
>I have loved this list like no other board've known in some years. It is
>highly intellectual, why I bother you with this damned heavy luggage.
>
>Bored. I'm bored. Thinking of quiting because of it. Boredom, I imagine,
>would be probably the worst reason a designer would fear someone would give
>up on their massive online game like this. Boredom, really, is almost the
>worst of an insult. Someone is angry, that's better. They feel something,
>they're emotional about it, a love-turned-to-hate kind of thing, acceptable
>and expected. But boredom? Boredom, apathy, that's a lack of everything
>good. That would be scarry, at least if I were a developer, and that's
what
>I am: not a developer but bored.
>
>Ah well, but boredom has it's good sides. It's a slower kind of emotion,
>lets you think. When you're bored, you're less apt to just quit outright,
>and instead ponder why, in fact, you ARE bored. So I've thought on it, and
>it's off-topic but I couldn't give a rat's ass but I'm posting it here
>because this is the only discussion area I've found where maybe someone
>could say something, anything, though I somehow doubt it would help.
EQ is a game with limited shelf life in it's current state. Everyone says,
"How can you say that, this is a MMORPG!" I say it because this is the most
limited and dull MMORPG or MUD I have ever played. The AI is horrid and
unless you are on a PvP server combat is nothing but a dingy camp fest.
Yup, what fun is going to a dungeon and sitting in a corner for a couple
hours? Please, in my PnP RPGs never once as a PC did I ever sit in one
place, (Well, cept the time we found an Ogre princess, but the DM was high
during that game so nothing was normal.)
>* It runs deep, I think. There is no wandering. Everyone stays put.
>Camping is a problem, everyone says, and we have all these solutions
>suggested and implemented. But, mmmm, none will work! Camping is central
>to EverQuest! Everyone camps! Everywhere! Been to Unrest? How else do
>you survive there but "camp the wall?" These people aren't camping for
>items, but just to play. Folks camp every dungeon, every outdoor zone.
>I've been to West Karanas and watched folks pulling lions to the wall. And
>it's the same everywhere else. Was suggested by a friend, since I so
>loathed camping, to play the south Karanas. I am currently "camped" there
>now, because that's all anyone does in such an outdoor zone as well!
Brad loves this story and insists that because of this we must have static
stuff. Now if the story actually unfolded and you go past the first chapter
it would be nice, since things would change. Thing's aren't changing and
show no sign of ever changing. Why was Diablo a massive classic? Even
though the AI wasn't hot, nor was the story that great, the dungeon always
changed and you never knew what you were going to get. Why do I compare EQ
to Diablo instead of another RPG? There is no comparison of EQ to another
RPG, it blows EQ away. Why not compare a CRPG to EQ? Because they are so
different they are in different geners. The closest type of game to EQ are
PnP RPGs and it can't compare to them. :(
>I remember Brad McQuaid discussing this, and saying it's the path of least
>resistance. How he and his buddies would group up, and move through
>permafrost together, eventually reaching some deep section, then heading
>back to quit for the evening. This is an ideal, I wish I could be in THAT
>group, because I have NEVER ever ever ever been in a group like that. GOD
>YES I wish that was how Everquest REALLY worked the WAY he said!!! Seeing
>such a dungeon, I think he's bullshitting because it seems impossible!
>
>I've been in Everfrost, and it gets insanely more difficult the deeper you
>go. Like waves. If I'm in a level 20 average group in Everfrost, we will
>find things easy at first, then we'll find a few MOBs that are a good
fight,
>as we go on we Find some hard ones, then we are immedietly overwhelmed and
>dead. If our group is around level 30 in level, well, then maybe we have a
>chance: Yet we'd still get no experience for the early part, still get
>overwhelmed by wall bugs.
He says alot, if I remember correctly in the post where he says he went to
EF, he had also said the character he actually takes on the servers to play
was in the low to mid teens, how he could go very far into EF at all is a
mystery to me? That is unless he took a level 50 ranger weilding a the
firey avenger.
>So folks camp. They find the area where things give them experience, sit
>there for a few hours, and let one person bring the nasties to them. And
>the warriors are always healing, and the mages are always meditating
anyway.
>So the game -requires- camping in this respect. We aren't choosing the
>"path of least resistance" because I, for one, do not know what the hell
>McQuaid is talking about. I'd love to see him and his group play. Either
>your group can Handle the best of a dungeon, in which case they get no
>experience as they battle their way through it to the end, or they camp the
>area where they get it.
I would love to see Brad's group play as well. But I would guess they have
their own private server too.
>Back to Unrest. A while back I was O so bored "camping the wall" as it
>were, and someone suggested we hit the Magi Room and camp that. I was
>actually Happy to be moving in a group, finally. We might not have been
>moving for long, but at least we were on the move. Most of the group were
>in the room and settled, but one fellow was lost. I went out and found
him.
>No songs or spells, nothing fancy, we were just walking back up the stairs.
>At the edge of the stairs everything in the basement and attic attacked me
>at once. I had time to read the message, "HITS YOU" before death came
>lurking. Do NOT move about through dungeons, stay in one place and camp
it.
>The bugs, not to mention class requirements, warrant it.
It would be a nasty trap in my game for me to do something like this, but
then if I pulled this crap I wouldn't be a DM. Not to mention in a CRPG if
something like this happened I would take the game back to the store as a
buggy peice of junk. Shame I didn't do that with this.
>If McQuaid would like bands of adventurers to be heroically moving about
and
>adventuring, rather than sitting around like white trash in a JellyStone
>Park, why is it like this? O, fighters need time to sit and heal, and
mages
>need time to replenish mana. The game encourages camping by all it's
>downtime.
From what I heard back in phase 2 monsters hit for about the same as a PC
warrior. People went _into_ dungeons and had fun. No one complaned, then
suddenly Verrant made every mob hit for massive ammounts of damage and
viola! Camping made easy!
>I say it's perfectly ridiculous, actually. Especially warriors
>complaining!! "I broke my leg and it actually takes me 3 whole minutes to
>regenerate the wound! This is not fair!" Bah! It is all perfectly
>ridiculous. I had a friend in traction 10 months for an accident.
>
>:My solution: No natural regeration of wounds, for anyone. This is not
how
>wounds work, afterall. A warrior is wounded, make no natural regeneration
>but increase effect of bandages. They want healing, find a freaking
cleric.
I think the whole problem is that you don't regenerate fast enough, as a
bard, people must think I am nuts, but I honestly think somehting in game
should allow people to regain HPs at a rate where they are able to go into a
dungeon without camping. At this time it is impossible, even though a
fighter can be healed when a caster meds in the middle of a dungeon he is
toaste. Allow potions of healing at a reasonable cost that are worth it! I
would pay a plat for a potion of healing and 5 plat for a potion of greater
healing, and 10 plat for a potion of complete healing. At those prices no
one would be able to just buy so many that a cleric isn't needed, they would
for emergencys and to aid in dungeon diving.
>No regeneration of mana either. I know there's no real-world counter-part,
>which others would point out THIS IS A GAME anyway in the last argument,
but
>we're talking logic. Mana, where does it come from? The physics of mana?
>Where is this pure energy coming from? Apparently Norrath does have
>gravity, and follows Einstein, so we must assume Energy cannot be just
>created out of thin air. It needs a source.... The soul I always assumed,
>but that can only supply so much. So I say any mana user must find a
source
>of their mana and cast a spell, a place where they take their mana from.
>That UFO in Qeynos would be a good place. But at higher levels, I say
>better places to find where one can channel mana from. When one needs more
>mana, they must teleport there, at least in spirit, through a complex
spell.
>Enough with everyone sitting on their duffs. Burn mana in a battle, run
and
>hope you're not chased to find a private spot to channel spirit spell to
>regain all your lost mana. I want the game to require people to be on THE
>MOVE and not encourage them to sit around like they're lazy.
My potion idea works on mana too, but make mana potions cheaper, this would
make it so casters would need less time spent staring at their spell books
and more time having fun. Heck, tone down all spells if you want, so the
damage per time stays the same, but make it FUN! Staying in the fight
instead of staring at a spell book is much more enjoyable.
>* AI lacking. In a massively multiplayer game it should be better,
>especially one that is so Player vs. Environment based. This is AI that
>was seen in Doom, if that. The wonder of AI that some folks are impressed
>by how it acts, when it's actions are not that complex. MUST be improved.
>When I fight this AI, it makes me bored.
Exactly, I think I will move to a race war server when I get to your
posisition, or start up a DE on rallos that hates anybody.
>:I want to see a wandering band of orcs that act as a team. A leader, a
>cleric, and grunts. Grunts will break off when even less than half wounded
>to let others take the brunt, grunts will protect cleric, team will fall
>apart when leader dies. I want to see ALL MOBs not be so damn still. You
>get in a Duel and everyone moves, and tactics begin to come into play.
MOBs
>use no tactics, they stand still and things get very boring. One MOB is
>like any other, just higher level and maybe with different spells.
Would be nice, but won't ever happen in EQ, the AI seems to be a simple
script. I made better scripts in BG for petes sakes. Sure it isn't the
same thing, but if some 19 year old is able to make desent scripts in BG
come one, you could do better Verrant!
>* Tradeskills are lacking. I have a feeling, given a year, this may work
>out.
I sure won't wait that long. I'll play till I get bored as you are, then
either go to PvP servers or quit.
>* Death. There is no death. I want to die. I cannot die. Who were the
>generation before this, the immortal generation? Totally ignored by the
>story of the game.
If you died and lost a character wouldn't you be pissed? Face it, to many
bugs to even think of permanant death.
>* The story is too static. One of Brad McQuaid's problems with adding
>monsters that offer random cool items was that it wouldn't work in the
>story. I can understand this point perfectly, yet people would always be
>camping anyway because that's all they ever do. But back to the story.
>
>The story, is, rather interesting. But this is not the story for a
>massively online roleplaying game. This is the story for a single player
>game! Let's take, for example, the story of Crushbone.
>
>One can jump an orc courier a bit ways off from Crush. Eventually one
works
>their way to Crushbone, finding many interesting things going on, an
>alliance with dark elves for instance. One fights their way through there,
>and eventually finds a one ambassador Dvinn! Ah HAH! And slay him.
>
>Problem. That courier is always delivering notes, ambassador Dvinn will
>always be undergoing negotiations. Kill him? No matter.
>
>It is like a moment locked in time, it never changes. No matter what
anyone
>does, the NPCs will always be locked in that moment, regardless what level
>the real folk have gotten to. The "plot" is unchanging. Join a massively
>online rolplaying game with an ongoing plot! There is no ongoing plot.
>Everything is the same. It always has been, always will. McQuaid wants
>people to appreciate where items come from plotwise, when they buy them or
>find them. Yet I'm afraid those subtlties are lost when it's always that
>same NPC in that same place, and they never change.
>
>:An ever evolving NPC plot, entirely dependent on PC action! How does the
>plot unfold? Almost like voting. The most PCs to do the most quests one
>way determine how a plot unfolds!
>
>Why is there a "Rescue the Princess" quest where the princess can never
>actually be rescued? Because she can't! She has to be around for the next
>guy to resuce her!! The story sucks, folks. It wants to be a single
player
>game, the story!!! This is not a plot for a massive role playing game,
it's
>a scizophrenic single user plot.
Exactly, the very reason I quit questing, no impact on the world in any way.
As soon as I did a quest the NPC would even give me the very same quest
again! Why bother if there is no impact! Heck, why does question become so
rewarding in RPGs? Because they have an impact on the world.
>* Fix the damned NPC parser. Using Scott Adams Parser in 1999!!!! Infocom
>got it better in 1985!!!
He he he, funny but true in a sad way. :)
>* To really encourage roleplaying and a community allow people access to an
>in-game print press. Where they can make their own newspapers or books.
>Allow people to own a deck of cards so they can play kings court and
gamble.
>Make a Roulette Wheel when a PC spins it everyone can watch the text as it
>clicks along.
Before I thought this would be meaningless, then I remember playing chess in
UO and how much fun that was, or other things along that nature. I was part
of a guild that would write many books and leave them around. Not stupid or
junky stuff, we would write actual stories and things like that. Me and
three other people wrote a small series called "The Travels of Dentharous".
Who knows if anyone saw them, but it was still fun. I loved looking at
books others had left, while many were junk that immature people had
written, there were many that were fun to read.
>NAMELY
>
>GIVE folks options besides combat!!! I ask this, because the way combat
>works in EverQuest bores the living crap out of me. If it weren't for the
>way groups worked, "heroes" sitting around in some safe corner while
squires
>hauled the monsters one at a time for them.... BAH!
>
>In Everquest, there's no option but combat, everything else sucks, and if
>you don't like the way combat works, well then you're fucked.
>
>Roop
>
This is EQs biggest problem. While I cannot speak for anyone else, I will
prolly quit when D2 comes out, if it's as good as D1. I mean, the combat
will be FAR better, and the loot and dungeons never grow old. It is always
new every time.
-Sprite