|
Smutne, ale prawdziwe zreszta najlepiej to opisuje ten post z mojego forum.
Well, I have been playing Everquest for 3 years now. Like I use to say, I was there when then best weapon in the game was ... the Executionner's axe (have a look at it, many of you sure have never seen/heard about it, or maybe did you destroy it when you looted it .... ) I have seen things going. I have to say something. This is really the 1st time I am thinking Eq is dying. I'll explain how I see things in Everquest:
- PoP was made to allow casual players to level up pretty fast. I have got a warrior 60 and a Mage 65 with 51 AAs now (and I didn't play these 3 last months ...). Trust me, getting to level 60 with my warrior was definitively something hard. It took me 1 week and a half of fully playing time to get from 59 to 60. Haa Sebilis ... was full then (with last pacth to improve xp in last zones was something great..) With my Mage, and PoP it took me 3 days. That way they artificially kept alive Everquest by showing casual players that they could be high level / catch back ubber people with more ease, while they kept ubber guilds from moving really far with really hard content + hard flags to let them feel like they were still far (and alone) ahead others. (and no, I am not playing 8 hous a day ... sometimes I have had like 2 months with no playing at all).
- When I started Eq, it was 50% roleplaying, 30% Xping, and 20% Equipment.
- Now it is more like 60% Xping, and 40% Equipment.
You could tell me "If you want roleplaying, you can still have it, it's just that you aren't doing it anymore" or something like "It's because the 'new-to-the-world effect' disappeared". I'll answer you: "no, roleplaying really disappeared". I'll do few statements:
- faction .... nobody cares anymore, because they know that they can get all they want with Bazaar / Plane of Knowledge. When I started, I could spend days studying my faction and quests in order to try to be friends with humans of freeport as a troll ... Also long ago there was more the Evil Vs Good races background. Nowadays, we don't look at the race, but only at the class and lvl. You look for a cleric, whatever race it is, you don't care.
- the population of players that don't have yet a level 55+ character is now really small. So the gap between Uber players and the normal player has been greatly reduced. (the power between a level 65 character with 50 AA+ and a ubber equiped level 65 character wit same amount of AA isn't as important as a level 60 with 0 AAs and a ubber equipped level 60 with no AAs at the time AAs weren't existing).
-Old zones, Old quests: They (developpers) have chosen to create new expansions with new (and harder) zones rather than enhancing the already existing features. That is a choice, but I wish they had done something like this: improving the drops from old dungeons, and make the drop rate function of your level, to avoid the "farming" bad effect. WHat happened with LoY? It was only people farming there after a while. Because for Xp, PoP was the way. Quests... they use to write: Everquest with its 6357877578 quests (new people think: "wow! amazing!"), but how much are still worth it? Few are definitvely worth it for the fun, but some broken quests make you feel like not questing anymore sometimes (when you don't have the final trade, and the NPC won't give you back the item ... and it took you 4 days to gather all the composents ... you know what I mean).
At low levels you add so much zones to wander in, feeling so great when you survived a train or something, because you were alone discovering the place ... swimming into deep oceans. That was great! But at higher level, you can't even move without a whole guild, and clearing your path (taking hours of hard fights), so at the end you don't really spend time staring at the blue sky, or the beautiful places... Now you can't do such thing because ... you need keys or flags to discover new places, you can't stay alone with being jumped / summoned as soon as you appear / move ... You can't tell anymore legends about you surviving in a deep dungeon, fleeing for huge frogloks trains to you friends ... Now all you can tell is: "my guild did this and this, oh and we are stuck at tier-3" ...
Tier-1, Tier-2 .... 3 seconds heal rotations, Dps, damage mitigation, "must have at least 100 in resists ..." DO you really think it is roleplaying? No, it is maybe tactics, but definitively not roleplaying.
"Melady, Sir, Thank you kindly ... " Those words were so common at the beginning. Now you just have "OMFG! Look what XXXX dropped!" "What the Hell!? Why did we wipe?" . I spend many hours buffing and helping low levels ... how many now tell me "stop ksing" when I just put a damage shield on them ? I remember when I was young (in the game, not IRL) we would only think at higher levels as people that wanted to help you.
Ok, now the fact that ubber guilds are falling ... is something everybody is agreeing on. (and for the guilds that get bigger from merging with ex-ubber guilds/members, they will fall for the same reason soon).
You are saying: "fine, they can leave, that's much more for me". Something you obviously forget, is that for lots of people, tales are what make them moving on, and playing till they reach this goal. When I started, it was tales about Dragons, the toughest creatures. Now a level 51 monk can solo them. It's ok, because we hear about Gods that are being defeated, the new tales replaced the previous ones. But what's next? What's after gods? I think people feel like they finished the game (for those who did these encounters, and trust me, there are more than what you think).
Now I am waiting for Everquest's death, and see a renewal. I hope that when the head (big part) of Everquest will have left (for many people, 3 years is a long time, and sometimes, you don't have the time anymore to invest in Everquest, because you start working / having a strong relationship and why not babies etc etc ... ), there will be a renewal of roleplaying. That should be like this, since the people that are most likely to keep playing are:
-people that never ever had a character higher than 51.
-people that play love trade skills / take their time
But here is what I am wondering ... How many people will remain (including me)?.
I won't try Everquest II, because I won't be part of the -massive- reset SoE is planning to do. What will they offer in EqII they aren't in Eq I? Eq II will just be a reset of EqI, people will have to build their characters all over again, for having at the end, a history quite similar.
I am waiting for this renewal, I will surely stay in Eq, and to those that are planning to stay with me, and like me, are waiting to see again some roleplaying reborn, I'll be there waiting with 30 tons of beers for a big party.
I will end with a special note to the attention of the developpers: I want more moves, I want to see wars between cities, like trolls trying to get back their city! I want to see changes WAY MORE often! Like or camps being moved every week, getting closer/being pushed away.
Something I've always dreamt of: seeing the slaves of Crushbone digging a hole and finally discovering a new dungeon (after 2 years crushing and digging ... nothing has changed). Would be way more fun to introduce new dungeons.
|
