If they let You make the "ruleset" what would you do?Follow

Legends server had a lot more in-game GM-run events. It was darn pricey, I think $30 or $50 a month, IIRC. I doubt that would fly today even if each player had a GM following them 24/7 around offering milk and cookies!

I like trivial loot code. It helps reduce the perma-camping of some of the great Old World mobs.

I like a no-boxing server, because EQ has always tried to encourage social play and boxing has virtually destroyed that, beyond raiding.

They should really run a Discord event again, with tight controls against hacking. For something like this, where any player has to restart from level 1 if killed, I'd suggest ANY hacking whatsoever bans your account from the Discord event. This would be REALLY a fun event if it could be kept honest. BIG IF, though.

Ideas that would require code changes:

Randomize spawn rates of mobs. It's too exact currently. Sure, there's a randomness to when a NAMED spawns, but the PHer still spawns by a clock rigid enough to work for a railroad schedule. They could build in a +/100% to spawn rate, working off a bell-shaped curve.

I like the zone-wide "rares" they've instituted but they're too rare. Add more of that, even if some of the items are only "moderate." Every zone and every mob, no matter how low level, should have a chance at dropping something special.

I've also suggested before allowing low level toons to obtain a really nice no-drop item, with a higher minimum level to equip, which they can transfer as a heirloom to their higher-level main. This would encourage 105's and other high-levels to make low-level alts. It would be nice if those items could only drop if the mob was killed by a "real" group (not boxed) although I don't know if that's possible to code.

The problem with trivial loot code is that they invariably goof up on some drops, making some quests impossible to complete (or now requiring alts to farm tradeskill stuff for example). One of the things I absolutely do not like is the idea that a quest can only be completed in a given level range due to drop restrictions (or any sort of restriction for that matter). In principle, I agree with the direction you're going, but I just don't think it would have the desired effect, even if they made no mistakes with drop coding. I don't think that folks would respond to this by creating alts and then traveling through the content collecting the drops themselves rather than farming them with their mains. I think it would just result in greater PLing past the levels where TLC is an issue, and then equipping said alts with stuff that the mains can still farm.

I'd much much prefer high level folks farming for stuff 30+ levels below them to equip alts than them farming stuff 10 levels below them. The latter actually disrupts the game a lot more IMO (well, more people in the game at least). And frankly, I don't think many are doing that anyway. There's so much cheap tradeable stuff (defiant) that you can adequately equip any alt to whatever degree you want until they hit a high enough level that TLC wouldn't matter anyway.

I guess if the focus of said server was to force everyone to level up every character "naturally", you could maybe work some global rules in there to do this. But I just don't see more than a small number of players actually being attracted to that for any length of time. I think people *say* they want this, until they actually go to play on a server with such rules for a while, then they get frustrated/bored and return to their normal server. Everyone wants to level/gear up naturally, until they actually have to do it. Then they want the levels to come faster, and the gear to come easier. Which somewhat defeats the purpose.


You've brought up the whole "rare high level drops in low level zones" bit before, and I'm still confused what problem this solves. Is the idea that this would reward players for playing low level alts because their higher level mains could get some gear? I get that, kinda. But I think that would just introduce new forms of farming. Maybe that's a good thing (it would get them out of the higher level zones I suppose), but to me that kinda breaks the "feel" of the game. Not terribly realistic from a world point of view for the best way to get gear for your high level character being to play a low level character and kill low level stuff. Might work from a technical standpoint, but I'm not sure I like it.

I must have missed this server "Mayong server which was the level 51 with 50 AA headstart server".. When was that out? that's the kind of server i can get into, bypass all the trivial junk and get right into the meat. Now granted yeah there is a nostalgic feeling when grinding up to your goals and I have only done a handful of times as you see by my sig. but I have more toons not listed as well that I have grinded up into the 50's(etc etc)from scratch as I am sure most everyone else has. But if they came out with that kind of server say starting in the Kunark era or Velious i am on board 2 gold accounts they would get.

I guess I'm approaching this from a "does this make sense if this were a real world" angle. Why would that orc pawn have an uber level 100+ item on it? Doing that basically breaks the fourth wall, so to speak. While I agree that its a shame so much of the game world goes unused now, I think that's less of a problem than having drop rules that make sense only if we completely abandon the idea of this being a simulation of a "real" world. Sadly, I suspect this is one of those "you can't go back" situations. Players today expect faster advancement. If higher levels exist, they will push to obtain them. The game world of yesterday worked because that was the only way to advance. It was slow, so we took the time to smell the roses along the way.

I don't think a game full of people playing lower level alts solely so they can farm gear for their high level mains is better than just having mostly empty low level zones. How is that realistic, or "thriving"? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the game return to that same feel and pace, but again, I just don't think you can go back to that anymore. Players wont put up with that kind of time sink. They'll move on to another game that allows them to advance more quickly. I happen to agree that the journey should be the point, and that racing to the end game ultimately leaves you kinda empty, but you and I are outnumbered like 1000 to 1 on this unfortunately.

It's hidden in his lair nearby on the remains of a previous victim. Geez. It's like you never read the intro chapter to the DMG treasure type tables or something.



Treasure that can only be obtained by weaker adventurers who can't use them, purely so they can be handed to other characters on the same account (however that's defined in EQ, although I suppose that boat already sailed with heirloom items anyway). I don't disagree with what you're trying to accomplish here, but the very fact that the best incentive you can think of to get people to play lower level characters in old zones is by dangling powerful items they can transfer to their higher level characters innately acknowledges that the primary focus of most players is on high level play. They would not be playing to enjoy and appreciate those old zones and have fun playing in the lower levels, but so they have another route to gear up their existing high level characters.

I'd prefer to try to find some way to get players to want to play those lower level characters, in those lower level zones, for their own merits. But I'm admittedly at a loss as to how to actually do that. As I mentioned earlier, the player base has largely moved on with regard to this. The one idea I can think of is to create more story arcs that follow level progression. A game I really really liked (but unfortunately closed down) was City of Heroes, and they did this really really well. I enjoyed playing new characters, trying out new builds, and working through the story lines. Each story arc typically crossed about a 5 level range (and you couldn't get them once you leveled past them). As you went through them, your contacts would point you to knew contacts who would give you new missions and story arcs. As the game expanded, they actually added new ones at all levels, which meant lots of different story "paths" to follow.

I played a half dozen characters up to the top level range, and while I definitely repeated some arcs (cause they were fun, and frankly worked differently based on your build), I managed to do different arcs in various level ranges with each one as well. IMO, that worked. It was fun. If EQ could develop something like this, I think it would bring back interest in actually playing low level characters through those levels, and not just grind/pl them up to the highest/newest content.

You know, if we're dreaming about changes they could make. This kind of thing would require a significant amount of dev time to accomplish though, and I'm not sure they can afford it. But it would be awesome.



Why make it about loot at all? As you say, what makes those progression quests fun is the story that unfolds as you do it. I do the same thing btw. Put in stuff like that (and more of it) at all levels, and people might just start playing more characters, at all levels, for the actual fun of playing those characters through the content.



I said that players would move to other games if we attempted to force players to play like we did back in the day. We spent huge amounts of time and effort on gains that are miniscule by today's standards. And those standards exist entirely because game designers figured out that players enjoy getting cool stuff for their characters, and not grinding for hours to gain a half a bubble of exp, a tiny bit of cash, and not much else. EQ worked as it was because at the time there were no other games really competing with it. Once there were, those games offered faster pace advancement and cool frills and whatnot. EQ had to adapt to survive. Which is why they've cranked up the level rate and added powerful global drops to all levels. All of that is to compete with other games.

If you tried to turn back the clock to 1999, players would leave. Sorry if my response was confusing, but I wasn't talking about your drop idea with that comment, but with the whole "back in the day, we played this way, and we liked it!". We liked it because it was new and fun. But, as I said, I don't think you can go back to that time. Just having a 3d game world to adventure in isn't new and unique anymore. Modern MMORPGs have to offer more to their players. Sad, but there you have it.



I'm just trying to be a bit realistic, is all. Any ideas for improvements have to take into account that player expectations of games like EQ have changed since EQ first arrived on the scene. Back then, the only comparable game was UO, which was a 3/4 angle 2d game (and was still wildly popular until EQ arrived). It had several years to be the first and only game of its kind. It was groundbreaking, and we played it because it was groundbreaking. But it's not anymore.

I just think that EQ already struggles competitively with the "find new/better/faster ways to reward players for playing" angle. They've been adding faster advancement and more cool things for some time, and while it has slowed down its decline, it has not stopped it. So I'm questioning any solution that is still basically chasing the same rabbit (different ways for players to get "leet gear" for their increasingly powerful toons). Maybe the answer is to actually make playing those old zones fun?

I actually prefer the much simpler idea of "Level 125 Dwarf in newzone #56 wants a nodrop item from Crushbone, then he will give you a really nice shiny thing".

The dev team used to do this alot. Just look at the epic 1.0 and how many drops were from pre-kunark zones.

Level 125 crafted armor is banded metal + drop from level 125 zone. That's another way. I think alot of the time since... Luclin? they have been way too much time making all new stuff in the new content to obsolete everything old. Just in Luclin alone the Twilight sea armor quests (stupidly tedious) are obsolete by drops in the same expansion from group content... but I guess that's another story.

It's not as hard as you're making it out to be. Today's players are reward driven. The problem is, starting new characters is a daunting task for many because of the steep uphill climb to being "useful" (gear, a billion AA, etc). Also, an even bigger problem is, remedying the situation would require manhours and code time (cost) and the benefit at the end isn't really quantifiable. You can't sell this to the suits saying, "If we do this, we'll increase our subscriber base by 40%" because you just don't know. If you revamp a bunch of zones to make them more attractive to adventure in, that would help. I remember when NOBODY would set foot in Velketor's Labyrinth because of the spiders and their poison and the unsure pathing (sliding into packs of spiders = hello bind point!). The same could be said for Chardok (only useful for Royals raids) and Acrylia Caverns. But then John Capozzi got his hands on these zones. When he was done, Velks was THE place to grind to 60. Chardok was packed with people looking for the various "random" loot drops (best in slot weapons for several classes) and a super rare mask for BRD/ROG. Acrylia was less popular.....except for the ring events (Ring of Fire, Khati Sha the Twisted), mainly because he left the company before completing it. This isn't neurosurgery, it's been done successfully before! People gravitated to these zones because the rewards were excellent (for their time). Lute of the Howler didn't drop in Velks before the revamp. All it takes is creativity (which seems lacking in this dev team but maybe they're shackled or leashed).

Remember the "Kunark Express"? Why not create another, similar sequence? Add more zones and you spread people out, in case crowding becomes an issue. There are so many zones pre-60 that absolutely SUCK that the devs would have WAY too many to choose from. Most of Luclin blows like a sperm whale by today's standards. People didn't XP in Marus Seru when it was new, why would they do so now?



Not exactly true. Granted, that may have been past your time.



Honestly, they could come out with a new LDON expansion which is basically LDON without scripts (which is the reason LDoN couldn't infinitely scale up) that starts at whatever level LDoN stopped at (70/75?) and most people would be happy. Heck, clone the LDoN raids and update the scripts to modern standards, maybe change some monster models, and voila! New expansion, little muss or fuss.

How about monster missions? The perfect activity that people of widely varying levels could participate in together. Inclusive activities drive socialization. Socialization drives "stickiness". And stickiness drives subscriber growth. Duh? Have these people not played early EQ? Datamine your progression servers, dammit!

You used ":banghead:" - it's ":deadhorse:" - inside the [ ]

Edit: missing quote

Edited, Sep 16th 2015 7:41am by Felicite

I'd go for a no-box, time-locked, era-locked server ending in Luclin for a 6 month stint. That's a lot of content, yeah?

Daybreak could fix basic zone issues - like making scarlet desert something more than a "train to zone" thoroughfare. Stuff like that.

Try navigating it in very lame period gear/spells on a Paladin, I kited stuff, that's for sure ;P

Mutants did a lot of the quests in SD since we were a self-locked guild tied to Luclin - we had lots of issues getting groups across that zone - so we cheated and used fellowship campfires and simply "badged" guildies to camps.

Boy, were we in the same Scarlet? I always found simple invis kept you entirely safe when crossing the Desert as long as you avoided any undead mobs, and MAYBE nameds but that is never hard to do.

Our retro guild operated on the honor system, some of us would "cheat" if it meant saving time rallying the troops to camp locations, but stuck to the rules when it came to armor/weapons/spells/pots.

Ugh. I'd forgotten about the lunar mutant group thingie you guys did. I can't imagine trying to actually gear up a tank class using just Luclin content. I'm trying to think, but I'm reasonably sure that the only piece of armor I ever used from Luclin on my paladin was a BP I got off some mob in UP (I think?). And that only because that was the one gap slot that I'd managed to never be able to get in planar raids, Kunark Raids, and Velious raids (when I got that drop, I literally had a complete set of Skyshrine gear except the chest piece, which had replaced my nearly complete set of planar armor, also absent chest piece, so I was still wearing my BP of Ro). My guild was like "Wait? What are you wearing on your chest? Um... You take this. Seriously. Right now...".

The Twilight Sea gear was a joke for mid level gear. There were bit pieces you could pick up in other random locations around the expansion, but basically unless you were into VT, you weren't getting anything that could be considered an actual upgrade for any even casually raid geared characters (well, except for that one BP apparently). And competition for VT was so tight, that no one remotely casual bothered. We dabbled with the idea of getting people keyed for it, and just decided to stick to Velious stuff instead.