If You Had Been in Charge of EQ since...Follow

What I would have done with the game (which others will hate some/all the ideas of):

I pick since right now, even though there are a lot of things they put in the game (shrouds, monster missions) that I don't like at all. Snailish in charge of EQ development as of this moment would cause:

1. retro patches that move lore/play along in specific periods. I would do this with an eye to future progression servers (zones that don't exist in that form make a more compelling case to go play progression), and future expacs.
some examples:
-LoY patch that makes charm slot drops in LoY really good (but not as good as serpent seeker's) without the silly gimmicks. Connects the Inny lore in Nadox better to Plane of hate (adds another tier to Hate with Luggalds and such in it). More gunthak/dulak Npc in coastal zones with LoY era top-end for the level drops.
-LDoN patched into oldschool dungeons that combine the maps into a huge layout for each entrance, including the raid mobs and drops in the latter stages. Current format of Ldon's removed OR congregated into the wayfarer's hall in Nedaria's Landing as the hub for all "storytelling" based instances (so all monster missions as well. I find the static nonresponse "I am waiting for someone" npc you can't attack in the world very immersion breaking).
-OoW patched to have far more discordant enemies infiltrating portions of Norrath
-Dragons of Norrath sees Vox and Naggy mysteriously set free, by a loyal servant that takes on the chains of their cursed prisons (and loot table needed for quests)
-CoTF patched to give Iksars, Trolls and Erudites of Cazic Thule more classes based on there continued service/faith through that deity's rough road.

2. No new continents. A few 1-85 levelling chains identified and enchanced in the game, rest of world is 85+, including areas tradionally much lower. There are tons of places to extend (or finish...).

3. Extension of signficant past quests into current lore (they've occasionally done this, doesn't have to be such a big gap or step like they did with Coldain shawl though).

4. Looming threats arrive and permanently change the world.
examples:
-hate portal in Kithicor fully opens, Kithicor is overrun, commonlands is encroached, Rivervale is overrun. Pickclaw goblins save the being-slaughtered halflings and hold the wall. Halfling refugees make it to Crescent Reach and Qeynos via the gorge and Karanas. New class/deity options possible... revamped Kithicor is a much larger zone with the ruins of rivervale as a part of it. It connects directly to plane of Hate, this also allows for another extension onto Hate. Goblins added as a PC race.
-Priests of Discord Betray Norrath, their mission all along was to corrupt the faithful away for Norrathian Gods. They succeed in Felwithe. High Elf society splits along those of faith and those "believing in self"... I could write 20 paragraphs on what I would do with this... end result is Felwithe as an end game raid zone.
-Froglok and Giants "ancient alliance" finally does something (saves Qeynos from the invading discordlings)... Frogloks tire of living in tents and move to Qeynos. Quellious added as deity choice as their society has come to grips with their place in norrath and the Hate some of their kind serve (despite that otherwise being contrary to froglok lore). Evil froglok classes can no longer be created.
-Greenbloods drive the dwarves from Kaladim (another long story)... Dwarf removed as a creatable player race... eventually Thurgadin Dwarves are the playable dwarves in the game, with a different class mix than we currently see.
-crushbone orc shamans hear the "gods that have fallen silent". Emperor Crush believes, D'vinn is executed as an example... long story... orcs are mustered from all over Norrath for a Crusade, blessed by the gods, that will remake Taelesia (can't spell it) and give it real names.

5. Past revamps and special offerings are made permanent (hardcore level of Guk is the level of Guk, Mistmoore is revamped back... but GFAY gets a massive slate of new npc that have the faction people farmed mistmoore for. They can be invised rogues that only attack when attacked. Builds the threat for storyline in GFaY, and breaks nothing). Yes this breaks newbie levelling chains... see #6

6. Consolidation of newbie levelling chains. Crescent Reach is the template (city has nearly everything, connects to zones taking you to 75). Keep Cr or not... but develop Cabilis, Freeport, Neriak, Qeynos, Kelethin in the same fashion (there's a few others I'd like to keep, but it's too much programming... Neriak and Freeport overlap enough. Most of the other cities I would impact by events:
examples:
-Fall of Odus expansion remakes Paineel as a quest hub city for level 100+. Rest of Odus zones revamped to work with this (including attached LoY and TBS). The Hole becomes a scary, scary place once again.
-Gnome civil war erupts and ends in boom
-Fist of Seru expansion sees Luclin overrun by a Seru axis of evil that uses the spires to breach Norrath. Vah Shir no longer a playable race.

To make Kelethin support 1-85 (or even 125) you would keep Gfay 1-20 (remember we've added mistmoore mobs that don't aggro all over the south of the zone), Lower Fay redone as 20-40 with new entrances off it for Mistmoore related zones such as a port city, farms and "Grand Castle of Tserrina". The revamped butcherblock with the ruins of Kaladim connected, Dagnor's cauldron, Kedge (once again as a true end-game raid) etc. fill out the zone slate in tight brackets.

Quest gear out of CR (or other newb chains retained) would be made >defiant for the given bracket.

Edited, Nov 14th 2013 5:46pm by snailish

1. New engine/code/whatever (I don't know how game programming works but I really want these issues solved)

I would have the whole game recoded, and change the engine to make it more friendly to newer programmers, because a lot of things have been lost to lazy updates and fixes, for example:

The spells Tree Form and Minor Illusion don't turn you into the closest tree/object to your character, the spell Flare and gnomish fireworks no longer shoot a projectile without a target. (I know these spells are considered useless, but back in the day you could do a lot of silly/cool things with them)

Important quest text was forever lost when they removed the ability to give npc's any type of item, example:

The slaves in Crushbone no longer tell you what key they require, and it's a mystery how the Screaming Mace quest got discovered.

2. Another thing that I would change is the models and art style, because seriously EQ 1 and 2 haven't aged well, especialy EQ2 which looks like ugly poser stock models. The Luclin character animations are also way inferior compared to the original EQ animations. Luclin animations are incredibly stiff and some don't have propper looping. They also removed race specific animations like dwarf tumbling and iksar swimming.

3. Make pure melee classes more fun

This is something that prevented me from playing a warrior or rogue, there is so little to do, untill you get fancy AAs all you can do is auto attack, kick, and taunt/backstab. One thing I liked about WoW was how much fun it was to play a warrior, you had all these different skills with multiple functions that made you feel like you were actualy doing something, that went away later on when they dumbed down the game to hell, but it was really fun while it lasted.

And that's about all I can think of for now

Maybe have them make a friendlier questing system, but I kinda have a soft spot for the "actualy talk with an npc" thing, since I pretty much learned english through it

Edited, Nov 14th 2013 6:32pm by Wizorb

Edited, Nov 14th 2013 6:42pm by Wizorb

Amen Fronglo your the VP of ops and Wiz is the CEO.... great ideas

Make Frogloks the only playable race..... ( I may be the only one, but love the jump-casting thing )

1. Already mentioned, would enhance the reward system for quests, be it gear or exp. There are some cool quests in the game ( always loved the Deepsea breastplate thing in Erudin ) but quests rewards never matched the work you put into it. The EQ world is SOOOOOO huge, and so many cool, diverse NPC's, would love to have a reason to interact with them.
Doesn't have to be game breakin rewards, just either better exp, better plat, etc... Maybe even just give you a cool "skin" that you can put over your current armor or weapon...which leads me to...

2. Allow for people to change the look of their weapon ( or armor, I am just a weapon *****... ). If you have a favorite weapon look, but it stats just don't cut it at higher levels, allow for the "re-skinning" of the new weapon with the look you want...


That's all I got right now while at work, with the only computer I can use...

EQ2 did it better with their item appearance thing. (Than hero's forge as are only option in EQ) --with the weird aspect (last time I used it) that I could temporarly own an item, apply the look of the item and then get rid of it while keeping it. Maybe this changed?

WoW (I know...) did it best (of what I have played) with transmogrification, as it basically works exactly as you say. While providing a reasonable plat sink you aren't forced to do *

*but WoW didn't do the armor dye thing, and gear in WoW is basically all no trade or attunable, with special designs related to dungeons, tiers and eras. You want the gnarly black gear for your monk in WoW you better hope someone still has pre-revamp never worn defias leather in the bank.

For EQ to do WoW's system they would need to remove dye. Pre LoY itemization you have lots of cool looking stuff with horrible stats, some of which is the only time a colour was used for that plate bracer. To transmogrify in WoW you need that exact plate bracer. So basically they made a "fashion market" for hunting all their old content by intentionally not reusing the old models people loved. To translate: to look like a velious monk in red you would have to find the drops in velious that happened to be red armor.

I would of made it where if claimed an item such as a veteran reward; you had 60 days to try it on a toon, if you did not like it on that particular toon or change your mind you could remove and place on another.

There would be mercenaries but all one thing no Journeyman or Apprentice; everyone starts off with tier 1, tier 2 would be solo quest, tier 3 would be group and last tier would be tier 4 which required raid orb.

I would allow one mercenary in a group period no three mercenaries and 3 toons allowed, would be one mercenary and 5 toons at the same time that way people were more inclined to group instead of people power leveling, using mercenaries 99% of the time. Mercenaries would be half as powerful as they are now, would sit, med in out of combat situations, and gear for them would be quests starting from level 1 to 100.

Maximum alternate ability points would be 5000 for each class which once you hit the 2500 mark would slow down to half that way you actually had to grind and earn them.

Turn off the alternate ability points earned sound can be very loud and annoying.

Quests, Missions would have a 24 hour lockout cool down timer.

Eliminate corpse summoner that was part fun of the game have others assist you or come up with strategy to retrieve corpse.

Instances would evolve as you level that way say if you did a monster mission, ldon, they would scale up on average of group level.

Shrouds would scale up to max level as it rises, kind of dumb being level 100 and maximum shroud form is 70.

The tricky part is revamping or redoing old content on the one hand it does getting tiring, annoying and aggravating: trying to go to plane of fire to level up and seems to be a level 100 ranger as an example coming in swarming the entire zone using head shot for massive kills.

Head shot, decap would both have a chance to proc but not against every single mob every single time.

Mobs, long as toons would not fight through closed doors or walls, mobs whenever trying to escape would not run through walls or doors, fix the pathing problems.

Would make it where if someone purchased a shared experience potion and someone left them,would only work long as they are grouped together that way not screwed out of it. Would adjust price on 50% one as well because it is to high or if current price because shared I is 500 station cash, shared II is 1000 and shared III is 4500 which is ridiculous if that high make it last 8 hours instead of 4 then.

I could go one but these are just enough.

Edited, Nov 15th 2013 3:43pm by cjguy

For me, speaking as someone who has jumped around various other MMOs for 3 - 4 years, I would say that original EQ had a good deal right right from the start and has since messed them up.

I seem to be in a minority (which is fine) but I absolutely detest questing for exp. Sure, we all (myself included) sat around back in the day and whined that there were no quests in Everquest and how awesome it would be if there were, but since then I've played many games that are quest driven for leveling and I greatly GREATLY prefer the group/grind of EQ. Get a group, pick a spot, go set up, and have a good night. No running around trying to communicate quests with a party. If I see another repetitive kill quest I'm going to puke. If you're with friends, try keeping everyone on the same page with kill quests and even gather/travel quests. Since they're all meant to be soloed, people just run off helter skelter making it a leadership nightmare. Someone always end up waiting and repeating something. Feel free to disagree with me, but Everquest and FFXI had it right.

Also (on a side note) the channel system is a joke. Again, I remember whining back in the day how neat it would be if we could switch servers at will and keep us all one big family, but trust me, servers are insanely better than channels. Just one example was Ragnarok 2. The market (a single bazaar for all 15 channels) was completely flooded so that nothing at all was worth money. All tradeskill items were worthless, all rare drops were worthless, and everything else too. All hardcore players, the casual players, the pvpers, the jerks were all in one big cauldron driving eachother crazy. At least in EQ you never ran into the Elite players because they all stayed in their elite zones at their elite times. There was no need to cooperate with anyone in Ragnarok. If someone was in your camp you just changed channels. It was a mess. I sooooo miss the server system of EQ.

Anyways, sorry about the angry rant. I greatly miss EQ. If my friends and guild were still there I'd be back in a second. Sorry again.

Since now:

Next expansion introduces new playable race(like TSS did), with new low level zones and content, maybe attached to Faydwer or Odus since they're both so damned tiny.

Update and fix classic content quests so that they:

A. Appear in Quest Journal
B. Work
C. Can actually be done.

Fix character creation so that one can set their home city to something other than CR, based on race, like it used to be, because, maybe I wanna play old content, but because my home city is CR, half the NPCs in the old cities aren't especially friendly, and one can't get the quests half the damn time. Leave CR as the default, but at least offer a choice.

Next set of hotzones is old world zones that don't have the gigantic flaws that zones like Warsliks Wood(too big, not enough mobs for the levels for which it is a hotzone) and Frontier Moutnains(Do I need to point out the frustration of playing in a zone where you're messed up by continual adds in this level range?) do, and introduce a hotzone for 15-20, and make it the Warrens for the first run.

Make the ornamentation drops either more rare, or sellable to vendors. Seriously annoys me because I like to hit loot all until my inventory is getting full, and these serve no purpose with me as I'm not interested in them, I have no need of selling stuff in Bazaar on 3 of the servers I play on(I have over 200k on Stromm and Cazic, over 100k on Drinal, I'm good for now), and frankly, I think that's it's up there with the neighbourhood and house thing for pointless silliness.

Make it easier to remove the silly voice bar which likes to be in the way.

Maps. add maps. It's silly that people have to download them from a 3rd party, and it always has been.

Fix the find option in cities. When I hit find, I want the path, not just a place on the map, especially annoying in places with multiple floors like CR when you don't know the place well yet.

Add music to the zones that are painfully quiet.

All I can think of for now.

Edit: accidentally a word

Edited, Nov 15th 2013 11:35pm by Driftwood

Driftwood, that's weird. The FIND command DOES give you a path., Unless "mysterious forces prevent you..." (translation: we're too lazy to give you complex paths) in which case you just get the red X. You NEVER see a path?

Plus you get CRESCENT REACH as your home zone only because when you make a new toon you don't click (or UN-click) the button for your starting zone/home city. I do agree they should make it MUCH more obvious that this button's default position is "ON" since it's hard to tell. I think they did this back when they introduced CR because they WANTED new players to start there.

Same happens with the TUTORIAL, default is to start in it. Personally I detest that but I've been playing a long time and don't need tutoring. It's much more "classic" to start out the classic way: in your original home city where you spawn near your class trainers and you find a guard, attack him, get killed and then you respawn "outside" your noobie hunting zone! DOING IT OLD SCHOOL!!

A lot of players shut off the music. Clearly, you play to your own tune, Driftwood...

Edited, Nov 16th 2013 8:22am by Sippin

silver accounts are forced to create Crescent Reach home city characters presently.

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Sippin's idea on rare loots:

Warhammer (RiP) had a system for their public quests (early on in the game... they changed so much after I got out) in which a person repeating a public quest had an increasingly higher percentage of winning the best item on the loot table. Basically persistence trumped bad luck. In the low level public quests... I don't think I ever did one more than 4x without getting the item (keeping in mind that game was itemized like WoW where you replaced all your gear every 3 levels via quests).

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I don't like mulitple currency systems. I don't think a currency from instances should be transferable either (despite having taken advantage of that often). However, the wayfarer's brotherhood, by their lore... was the perfect place to put rare old drops that are permafarmed. You want an Amulet of Necropotence? notrade version is 2000 points from the Miragul adventure merchant. You need slime blood of Cazic Thule for epic and some person has had fear wiped for 3 months... go to the adventure merchant.

At the same time, all the useless stuff on merchants (including the currency ones) should be removed. Home city merchants are also terrible. Neriak blacksmiths make nothing good... how do they repel the Leatherfeet attackers with such crummy armor and weapons?

I get the find paths, what I hate is when, for example, I can get a find path from the grove in CR to a vendor on the second floor, but get the red x, for a different vendor, who is also on the second floor, across from the one I can get the find path to.

I've never noticed a checkbox for home city, but I also haven't made a new toon since going gold, so that's just 'cause I couldn't see it. I'll also point out that it's silly to have that for Gold only.

I like the music because I've always enjoyed the game music to an extent. I'll play my own sometimes, but honestly, the only track I wish I could turn off individually is the battle music.

I tend to put most of my new toons through at least a part of the tutorial for the skull charm, especially when I'm starting on a server that I don't have any toons on yet. Just gives me a leg up, and having it at default prevent new players from accidentally not hitting it and then spamming general or newplayers asking how to get back to the tutorial just to be told that they can camp, then re-enter the game in tutorial by checking that box.

This is somewhat of a staple of MMORPGs though and is hard to work around. The alternative to this is to link sets of mobs into a single "camp", so that agroing one agros the others unless you use some kind of magic to obfuscate what you're doing. Some games do this, but they also have just as much silliness to them in that this now means that mobs that aren't linked don't react at all. CoH used to do this in mission zones all the time. You'd see 6 mobs in a hallway. Well, it's actually two sets of 3. If you run up and attack, they'll all agro because both sets of mobs see you. But tagging one mob pulls just the two other guys linked to him. So despite the fact that these guys are all part of the same evil organization, and are working together and presumably are assigned guard duty right in site of each other, half of them will ignore the fact that the guy standing right next to him just got blasted by someone in a cape.

Some games have made attempts to intermix the two methods, but that doesn't always work and can create balance issues. Doubly so if you do allow for random spawn locations. Suddenly, you can get super spawns with arbitrarily large numbers of mobs all standing too close together to break up and players will complain that the content is "broken".

In a truly real world, of course, all mobs of the same type in a given area would be linked, and distance wouldn't matter. But that sort of realism doesn't make for great play. Imagine if you go and whack that orc wandering down the road. In a real world, his buddies back at the orc village would notice that he didn't return from whatever he was doing, and go looking for him. And when they find his dead body lying on the side of the road, stripped of all valuables, they would presumably go back to the village, gather up a large well armed hunting party, and then track the people who killed their buddy and take revenge on them. Hordes of orcs should be busting into your camp that night and kill your entire group. If the world were real.

In a PnP game, a gamemaster can manage those sorts of realistic details and make them "work" within a given scenario being played out. Once you have an automated computer controlled world though, you have to set rules that "work". And whether we like it or not, the rules that work the best tend to be limited agro ranges and "camps" of mobs. It's not perfect, but it's playable.