What would it take for the EQ franchise to reach the top of the MMO market again?
EverQuest is celebrating its tenth anniversary this week and although they're still going strong, Dalmarus can't help wondering if we'll ever see an EverQuest III. Could it be done? Even more importantly, *should* it be done? In this week's edition of Forever Fantasy, Dalmarus attempts to rein in his cranky old geezer dreams about "the good old days" while discussing what should be critical if a third rendition of EverQuest were ever made.
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It may sound like a crazy gimmick, but losing track of time and getting caught in the middle of Kithicor when the sun fell was no laughing matter. On those rare instances you were extremely lucky, you could scurry your way out of there like a rat abandoning a sinking ship to survive another day. Most of the time though, you're greatest hope was to just make it close to the zone line before dying so you wouldn't have to wait until morning to go in and get your corpse.
One of the few things I thought SOE got wrong with the launch version of EQ2 was the zone access quests. A few made sense, but it seemed like everything had a damn lock on it that had me wondering why we couldn't simply break down the doors with all the magic we were throwing around.
The harsher death penalty, on the other hand, I loved. While not quite as harsh as EQ, some of my favorite memories in the first few weeks after launch all revolve around figuring out how the heck to get my necro's soul shards back - there weren't any tiny black coffins to be found anywhere!
Zarvonn's Tower was this giant, looming death trap in the Commonlands, but the real fun started once I hit Nektulos and somehow made my way up towards the Lavastorm gate. I'm pretty sure I lost a good half dozen shards in a single day up there. What's nutty is that I had a total blast in the process.
At any rate, I'm trying to remember the exact interview (I think it was with the MTV game-blog-beast-thing) sometime last year with Smed where a question was asked re: the possible continuation of the EQ franchise. His response was something along the lines of SOE already has plans to do so, but it's still far too early to say anything more than that at this point.
I'd love to see an EQ3, but preferably one set in a non-shattered Norrath. EQ2 is an awesome game, but after calling old Norrath home for so many years, everything about the newer landscape still feels wrong to me. The Shattering was a cool idea, but it did tend to alienate or upset a lot of old school EQ players who couldn't understand what the heck Befallen was doing in Antonica, and what Fallen Gate (aka Neriak) was doing in the Commonlands.
Luclin would have to remain intact as well, complete with zones like The Grey where you'd get less XP for killing things, or even Greig's End with it's nutty music of doomy doom...
... but I'll stop there or else I'll be up half the night creating a giant wish list for what I'd love to see in a new EQ MMO.
Great read Dal!! I personally would love to see a third installment. I think there is a lot to be learned from changes they have made over the years to EQ2 as well as things other developers have done with their titles that could be implemented to make a truly great fantasy MMO.
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"That is strength, boy! That is power! What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!"
Im always amused by people who love to be severely punished for failing at something. Its like masochism for nerds. lol
"What? I just have to sit here for 10 minutes until this debuff goes away? Lame! I want to have to go retrieve my corpse naked! I want to have to worry about all my belonging getting looted! I want to have to raid the zone just to survive getting my body back! On top of that, I want a stiff monetary loss for repairing my armour... several copper? No! I has to be several hundred silver or it fails! AND I want the debuff that makes me weaker and slower while I go get my corpse... thats a death penalty! Oh... and I shouldnt be able to talk either... except in grunts. I am undead right?"
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Originally Posted by JenSweet
I get so excited I have typo's
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Coyote: “You currently have [114 Tom Cats] in storage. Also, your house smells like loneliness and pee. Have a nice day. Beeeeep.”
I'm always amused by people who love to be severely punished for failing at something. Its like masochism for nerds. lol
"What? I just have to sit here for 10 minutes until this debuff goes away? Lame! I want to have to go retrieve my corpse naked! I want to have to worry about all my belonging getting looted! I want to have to raid the zone just to survive getting my body back! On top of that, I want a stiff monetary loss for repairing my armor... several copper? No! I has to be several hundred silver or it fails! AND I want the debuff that makes me weaker and slower while I go get my corpse... that's a death penalty! Oh... and I shouldn't be able to talk either... except in grunts. I am undead right?"
I'm with Kg, you people are insane.
__________________ Cry havoc and let slip the Star Wars TOR!
I would also like to see a return of death penalties and a larger world to explore as Dalmarus opined. One of the reasons WoW appealed to me more than EQ2 was that it felt bigger with the wide open spaces and non instanced world zones, im not saying it was a larger game world or not, it FELT bigger.
I think what really killed EQ2 for me was the blandness of the classes and the lack of distinction between them. I see this happening more and more with WoW now in their pursuit to "bring the player, not the toon" mantra.
I am all for prime group compositions and I'm also all for awful group compositions of amazing players doing the impossible. For instance doing hard LDoN runs with a beastlord tanking, a paladin for the only CC and so much amazing DPS that healing was irrelevant.
The flipside to homogenizing classes into archetypes is that while you gain a huge amount of interchangeability you lose distinct flavors and those awe inspiring moments of "holy $%@^!" that can only be appreciated by beating content you have no business beating without a <insert class here>.
To summarize my rambling 1) give me back my beastlord! 2) bring back difficult. 3) make the different classes DIFFERENT.
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What separates the "hard core" gamer from the more casual one is not necessarily the amount of time devoted to playing the game, but rather the willingness to tolerate failure and try again.
I would in all seriousness consider donating to a fund to do EQ3 with corrected sequal lore and land masses and no The Shattering B/S which was just a cop out to try and make a completely different game while keeping the EQ title, and then they struggled like hell to turn it around back more into a logical line from EQ1 and made a hash of that somewhat...If they said "If you raise $2 million through private donations we would consider it" I would in all honesty put some serious thought into it, then my wife would beat the crap out of me for having that train of thought, but HEY HO.
Being a KOS Erudite necro, and at lvl 9 trying to get from Erud to Freeport to just get a guild invite, (before POK shagged the game through the guilds having WAY to much say in direction) running through KITH (always in my gaming greatest list) going the wrong way in panic and night and the sheer joy of falling into the halfling zone line, and thinking "HOT DAMN, I got away with that", thats after making through High Hold which was a bitch of a bottle neck area if you were KOS, then you fell over the Kith/Commonlands zone line only to stare right in the face of some Dack Elf, D'vinn wasnt it, that had been trained to zone line, dying and stand in ERUD thinking "BOLLOCKS" i,m now lv 8 not 9 and freakin naked, so the run went hard to dear god....I loved every minute, sometimes it took me a whole day just to meet someone for a guild invite......The joy of just achieving that..Oh and standing outside befallen as a Necro, and charging a fortune for Corpse summons while popping into East Commons to do some buying with the cash, from an AD Hoc player market.
I played all the expansions but Kurnack was the only one I loved as it brought in the Iksar my all time favourite race for lore and sheer nasty, the perfect necro, not like the sad sad EQ2 version, I mean you could arm your pet yourself, I remember the happiness the first time i got my pet to hold 2 weapons, begging for mage summoned weapons, it also had far better fear kiting, true necro stuff.
P.S YES YES I know I got HIGH HOLD in wrong order, i,m 40 i,m lucky to remember to put pants on some days, so be warned....
P.S.S of these memories of EQ1, yes there is an element of the Rose Tinted Full Facial Mask, but I do believe there would be a strong intrest in EQ3 done as a sequal to EQ1 from up to the Kurnack period.
Last edited by kruler; 03-19-2009 at 02:38 PM.
Reason: Amend
I would in all honesty put some serious thought into it, then my wife would beat the crap out of me for having that train of thought, but HEY HO.
LOL.
Otherwise, your post makes me miss the days when faction actually meant something, right down to which race or class you chose to play. This rep grind nonsense to gain a new crafting recipe has got to go I say!
Thanks for the read Dalmarus. I had to post and tell you of one of the greatest MMO experiences I ever had. It happened in Kithicor. I was a level 7 or so ranger out to get my short sword of Morin. I had to go into Kithicor as part of the quest. I was so scared my mouse hand was actually shaking. Now that is immersion! I have never forgotten this, so I strongly agree with you that it would be great to capture that type of feeling again.
EverQuest III - The Return of the King
EQ2 is an awesome game, but after calling old Norrath home for so many years, everything about the newer landscape still feels wrong to me. The Shattering was a cool idea, but it did tend to alienate or upset a lot of old school EQ players who couldn't understand what the heck Befallen was doing in Antonica, and what Fallen Gate (aka Neriak) was doing in the Commonlands. 
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