Making eq start over again.Follow

A friend and I were tossing the idea around of some changes to eq we would make if we could buy it and start t over again just for fun.

1) Bug fixes no game, or program is perfect but mobs attacking or running through doors or walls has never made any sense.

2) Update the graphics not a lot but enough to see some differences.

3) Get rid of guild porter some of the fun was learning the different zones and how to get there, sure wizard and druid could port you but not everywhere.

4) Get rid of corpse summoner that was part of the fun how to keep from dying when you did asking others for help or come up with a strategy on which to retrieve your corpse.

5) Combine Journeyman and Apprentice mercs: Everyone starts off with tier 1, solo for tier 2, group for tier 3 and raid for tier 4.

6) One merc for either solo or one for each group of two, three, four or five, that way people cannot box three toons and have three mercs just one then maybe more people might be inclined to group.

7) Lesson the price on 50% exp potion it should be double the price of 25% not triple or four times the price.

8) Add voice chat and allow people to put there picture show others can see who they were speaking to have more personal connection, no adult pictures would have to be an approved g rated picture.

9) Have Gm events: have prizes at least randomly every month: have some incentive for people to participate.

10) No gear sorry Rangers that you can use until you meet the requirements if it requires level 90 then make it so.

11) Make station cash trade-able if we can trade kronos should be able to trade station cash if people are willing to trade or buy it why not.

These are just some fun ideas we tossed around we know will never happen but oh well.


Edited, May 8th 2014 12:15am by creativedude

Here's your challenge with all of that...

Limited Developer time.

There are only a handful of developers left working on Everquest. SOE's priorities have moved on a long time ago. Few, if any, of your proposed changes would result in new players coming to the game. New players/subscriptions is what pays for developers.

1.) All games have bugs. (limited developer time)

2.) Any graphics upgrade would be a monumental project with monumental costs. The graphics you see in Everquest are already pushing the graphics engine past its maximum capabilities. (which causes the bugs you speak of).

3.) You're right.. "some" of the fun of exploring is finding new places.... "none" of the fun is running back there for the 537th time.

4.) Can't even remember the last time I used a corpse summoner. Getting back to a corpse is very easy now, and with xp flowing as freely as it does I've logged out and just not rezzed corpses because it wasn't worth the time to run back to my body.

5.) I agree they should simplify mercs .. but.... limited developer time.

6.) This would just result in more people leaving the game. You can't force grouping on people that don't want to group.. they just leave.

7.) Yeah this doesn't make much sense.

8.) There is voice chat. No one uses it. The Everquest network couldn't handle the bandwidth needed for pictures without a huge upgrade to their system.

9.) Not many GMs left (limited resources)... but there are Guide events going on frequently where you can get a stack of milk and cookies or an illusion potion.

10.) Meh.. this is limited to just a few items and doesn't really "break" anything.

11.) Agreed.

If it were just double the cost no one would ever buy the 25% potion. The 50% potion would grant the same numerical increase in experience as buying two 25% potions, but in half the time. It has to cost 3 or 4 times as much to offset that.

It took WoW years to get most of their older content upgraded to make flight viable. Last time I played (so this might have finally been adjusted) there was still an entire expac you can't free explore with your flying mount.

WoW's issue was they didn't design the world to be seen from above (so there were dead spots in the terrain that looked complete on the world map, tops of buildings not finished, etc.). This is a game with a massive paying playerbase and huge Dev team...


EQ... I honestly can't see it ever happening.


As a person who has played both, and prefers EQ I actually would rather there were no mounts. Someone sitting on a roboboar while we fight orcs breaks the immersiveness to me. Sure I've done it, but given a choice of a mountless server I would be there.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I had thought about going to the next step and contacting soe directly, or via live chat, just to get an opinion of where the dev team (or more realistically, the person I'm in chat with) stands on the issue of flying mounts and gnomish flying devices being 'flight enabled.'

I suppose you have a point though - and one that occurred to me too, regarding how hard it would be to implement and code. Of course, there are already a fair number of zones that don't even allow mounts, but actually coding this in might not be possible without a new engine. I guess I'd just like to get SOE's opinion on this. At this point, I think the age of the game is a lot more telling; if it hasn't been implemented by now, I can't really see them putting time into it (i.e. the window of opportunity for major changes like this has probably come and gone).

On the other hand, all I'm thinking about is 'flagging' flying mounts so that they no longer lose altitude, and can gain it by panning the view up slightly. The endurance drain would be similar to if you were trying to jump every few seconds. So in a sense, this isn't technically 'outside' the game engine. I just don't know. But like I said, it's fun to think about.

Edited, May 10th 2014 10:08am by zirumkin

Thanks for the reply snailish.

I was envisioning only the gnomish flying devices being capable of a hover (the dirigible, the jet-pack, and the whirligig flyer), but I highly doubt that SOE would go to any such trouble to code in that extra detail.

As far programming the actual flight mechanic, think of how characters behave in water. *If* it is possible to flag flying mounts to behave (in effect) as if they are in water as far as movement direction, then they would effectively 'swim' through the atmosphere. And instead of drawing upon your air/oxygen meter, it would pull off of your endurance meter (just more slowly). The programmers would have to 'trick' flying mounts into thinking that, for them, an atmosphere is no different than swimming (but actual water causes the mount to disappear like always). That's what I meant by my last paragraph when I implied that programming changes might not be that tough, but then again, I'm no programmer.

And I'm wondering if the whole 'loses endurance' thing is a good idea. Might not enhance the 'fun factor.'

Interesting subject - I want to do a live chat with SOE on this. : )

Well time to response I appreciate everyone's input. The idea is what would happen if they started eq all over again, yes there would be problems but the point is to start over update the graphics and fix as many bugs as possible. I know the graphics have been pushed far as possible but when I started in 2003 mobs were already going through walls in field of bone and other zones so the issue of that has been around for quite awhile. I know they cannot force people to group, I understand the time, frustration of getting a healer or tank just to have them go afk, be bad but I believe people depend on mercs way to much and missing the opportunity to team with others. Again 50% potion should be double not 3 or 4 times the amount no one would buy the 25% I disagree no one or very few are buying the 50% because of the cost I would rather buy 3 or 4 25% and kill. I would like a voice chat feature I remember when people would use team speak, using a third part voice chat along with a third part map system has never made any sense to me. I still say if Krono is able to be a trade item so should Loyalty points, station cash matter fact Krono should be $14.99 not $17.99. The point is if they made eq a newer updated game not eq 2 vangaurd keep it similar to what it is now just slightly better graphics, bug fixes No it should not require an Intel I7 core processor but a game that will run on a Pentium 4 them days are over at-least make it ,more modern take advantage of a dual core or quad core system.

I agree implementing true flying is something the devs aren't likely ever do because of the work involved and the unanticipated problems, which would be legion. But what's interesting is that at times in my long EQ career I've played around with trying to get up as high as possible in most of the Old World zones, using lev, climbing, geometry, etc., etc and it's surprising sometimes how high you can get.

For example, you can float up so high in Dreadlands that everything literally vanishes and when you descend Karnors starts to appear as practically a pinprick. Also even a small "ancient" zone like Crushbone, making creative use of all forms of elevation u can get to the top of the highest structure in the zone and be looking WAY down on the Emperor's tower. The point is that the graphic design of at least these zones ALLOWS for observation of the zone from what would essentially be a flying perspective. It's just that climbing/leving is not the same as flying and inevitably problems would probably arise if toons were really allowed to fly.

What I could see is trying to implement it in some zones and see how it goes. They already flag some zones not to permit levitation effects so they surely could do that with flight.

Edited, May 13th 2014 10:14am by Sippin

Holy crap i remeber those cat rooms....I wonder if i have any screen shots saved.....will have to check when i get home

One of the older zone (VP?) had a room you could get teleported to. Everyone called it the cat room cause of the look. I've never been there, and no one has talked about it much for many years.

Yther Ore.

The room is called the cat room, I believe, because it has images of cats on the wall. I seem to remember it was like a holding cell for misbehaving players needing to be paddled and lectured to by officialdom. But, yes, it has been a long time.

I'm guessing this is a plan to run EQ and pour money into it with no expectation of turning a profit (or even attracting an audience larger than a middle school assembly).

Listen, if bug fixes drove revenue, more developers would do them. But bug fixes aren't sexy, they aren't marketable, they aren't content. 90% of MMO players don't even read patch notes so how would anyone know if bugs were fixed? The example you cite is not a bug, it's intended. Early in EQ's life, it was common for people to use walls to exploit mobs. So the devs gave mobs immunity to collision detection (or something) which allowed them to attack through an obstruction, if they couldn't find a path to the player. This was before the summon mechanic was farmed out to every mob over 50. There was a perch spot on the ramparts in West Freeport that allowed a person to kill guards down below without any risk whatsoever. There was a similar glitchy spot at the guard tower in West Karana near the Barbarian village. These were reasons some mobs could attack through geometry. If they couldn't find a path around the obstruction, they could fight (or sometimes, walk or warp) through the obstruction.

Graphic update would not be worthwhile because all it would produce is tears. No one's going to agree on whether the update is an improvement or not so you're better off creating a new game (which won't come with the baggage of original EQ) which would allow you to replace the decrepit graphics engine EQ runs on and start with an entirely new codebase (instead of EQ's infamous spaghetti code). A minor graphics update would be like changing the sheets and towels ("soft goods" in industry parlance) of a rundown grand hotel. Awesome, now you have better lookin' sheets and towels but that doesn't make you competition for either the W or St Regis across the street. It would be nice to see some things updated graphically in EQ but this is already happening! With every expansion, they push the envelope a little bit more. The problem is, you can't expect eye-popping visuals from a game this old. The team does what they can with what they have.

Fast travel is a must in the genre now. A world as big as EQ with no fast travel would have almost zero "casual gamers" (which is the lion's share of the market). For most people nowadays, taking an entire play session to get from one place to another would not be tolerated. Whether you know it or not, fast travel was one of the first concessions to the "casual gamer" that SOE made. The non-casuals liked it but it wasn't must have because they had access to a wizard or druid (either a guildie or a friend or a box). Anyone remember the dungeon requirement on Kunark evacs? To get to Sebilis, you had to port to Dreadlands, run to/zone into Karnors and then evac to EJ. Again, I lived those times (and as a druid) but I don't think I could go back. It's just like in real life. After streaming content on demand, could you really go back to watching whatever some suit in New York or LA feels like putting on? I wouldn't be against this but then again, I don't fall into the 'casual gamer' subtype.

Yes, part of the game in its early years was avoiding death as much as you could. However, that also led to people not taking anything even vaguely resembling a risk. Fighting reds? HELLZ NO! The best you could expect people to do is fight evens (and ONLY one at a time, a double pull of white cons was cause for evac). As the penalty for death eroded, so did people's aversion to risk, which allowed them to take risks that led to greater rewards.

I like this idea. I've always felt that there should've been a tier of merc above Journeyman that would require a long quest (ala Coldain ring/shawl but requiring raid drops/loot NOT tradeskills) but that would grant access to an exceptionally good merc.

#6 would never work. You can't force people to play the way YOU want them to play and then expect to make money. You want to force people to group? Lock accounts to IP addresses. Thus, if your home IP has an account assigned to it, you cannot create another (furthermore, you cannot play from another IP since the obvious workaround is to sign up for an account from a public IP or a friend/relative's IP that doesn't play games). That's pretty much the only way to restrict the creation of "box" accounts. You can't lock it to credit card because in this day and age, a single person can have thirty plus "credit cards" (Green Dot, Bluebird by American Express, RUSH card, and every other reloadable prepaid debit card), all with different billing addresses (so you can't stop it that way). People who prefer to box rather than deal with the idiosyncrasies of others would still be able to do so.

#7, bad for business (gbaji explained why)

#8 is, no offense, idealist nonsense. You have voice chat ingame right now. It sucks, which is why most people continue to use TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble. Adding pictures isn't going to make it better. You say no adult pictures? Who's going to monitor it to weed out those kinds of images? Who's going to approve the g rated picture you cite?

#9 is, quite simply, a case of not understanding the psychology of the MMO player. As far as GM events go, they're a binary proposition. Either the reward is must have (Prime Healer's Bulwark, unique title, etc) or funny named cookies/milk (and thus, useless). There are guide events held at least once a week and the participation in them is often minimal (at least on FV and CT). So you hire more CS staff (actual GMs, not simply volunteer guides) for a feature that has to be scaled back to avoid the need to come up with eleventy billion unique rewards?


A lot of this seems like the wishlist of someone who hasn't played these games for very long or who hasn't played very many of them. I truly envy you that. I've been behind the curtain a few times so my naivete has been burned away. These aren't recreational outlets anymore, they're businesses. There are people with mortgages and car notes and tuition bills riding on the ongoing success of what we used to ***** around with behind our parents' backs (Quantum Link *cough*). So even the most idealistic designer soon finds that the business side takes precedence and stuff you think should be prioritized, is pushed to the left in favor of something that marketing can get behind.

In short, to quote DJ Quik, if it don't make dollars, it don't make sense. That's the reality of the MMO genre nowadays. That's why you've seen so many WoW clones (which was itself an EQ clone, it was just polished so brightly that it was hard to see the connection) but not just WoW. CoH with the sidekicking mechanic (that no one outside of Cryptic seems capable of duplicating effectively), WAR with public quests, DAoC with three faction balanced PvP, AC with the fellowship mechanic (which people still haven't been able to effectively duplicate without turning it into a massive ponzi scheme), and of course, Anarchy Online with its widespread use of instancing as the primary content delivery method. The EQ Live team is mainly looking for low hanging fruit. Nothing particularly resource intensive (read: not requiring lots of code work or time), because they flat out don't have the resources. But you couldn't make EQ of 1999 today because it would flop like 'Ishtar' and 'Waterworld'. You'd have a playerbase so small that it would make 'A Tale in the Desert' and 'Istaria' look like WoW. You wouldn't have 'churn', you'd have 'flush'. I'd definitely like to play an EQ locked at Velious level since I've played EQMac where it was locked at PoP level. But I know it wouldn't fly for most people beyond the first week or so of play.

Serendipitously, yesterday I went to translocate my group from PoK to Tainted West Karana and I forgot my cleric had not yet purchased the expansion pack. (Woot! Now I can buy it for 10% off as an All-Access customer! Oorah) Well, of course, he didn't port. Usually in such cases the toon ends up in the succor safe spot for the zone. But this time my cleric ended up WAAAAAAAAAAAAY up in the sky above PoK, way higher than the top of the Library. Fortunately he had Flight of Eagles buff (never leave home without it) so I just floated him back to earth. Without a lev buff he might have died on the fall, despite his 10k buffed HPs.

I need to try this again with another toon that lacks the xpac to see if it's par for the course or a one-time bug...

Edited, May 15th 2014 10:54am by Sippin