That's right, I said it. EQ hurt the genre in a large way. If EQ didn't exist, those players would have played UO, and instead of the huge array of grindy ass level based pieces of garbage we have today, we would instead have virtual worlds. Worlds in which the players decide what to do with their time in game, as well as their characters. A world where death matters, and where items don't come from hours raiding shitty AI bosses in dungeons, but rather the hands and design of the players.

EQ is the reason we have shit like WoW, LOTR, and the newest disgust, Aion. You follow the A to B painted pathway the game gives you, you kill repetitive mobs over, and over, and over. Then the fun begins right? Yeah, you get to grind for gear! Then what you ask? Well then the dev releases an expansion, and you get MORE gear! Isn't that a great game formula?

Honest to god, go back in time and delete EQ. We sure sure as hell have less copies of a shitty game for 10 years. On the positive side, however, we would have real massively multiplayer worlds, not single player RPGs with a few other people playing the same single player RPG. This forum is filled with dismay for the genre. You know what? Kick out every EQ clone and you are left with some damn good games. Interesting, isnt it?

*mod edit for exessive language, please read our  ROC  *

EQ started the raiding nonsense.

Originally posted by Netzoko

That's right, I said it. EQ hurt the genre in a large way. If EQ didn't exist, those players would have played UO, and instead of the huge array of grindy ass level based pieces of garbage we have today, we would instead have virtual worlds. Worlds in which the players decide what to do with their time in game, as well as their characters. A world where death matters, and where items don't come from hours raiding shitty AI bosses in dungeons, but rather the hands and design of the players.

EQ is the reason we have shit like WoW, LOTR, and the newest disgust, Aion. You follow the A to B painted pathway the game gives you, you kill repetitive mobs over, and over, and over. Then the fun begins right? Yeah, you get to grind for gear! Then what you ask? Well then the dev releases an expansion, and you get MORE gear! Isn't that a great game formula?

Honest to god, go back in time and delete EQ. We sure sure as hell have less shitty copies of a shitty game for 10 god damn years. On the positive side, however, we would have real massively multiplayer worlds, not single player RPGs with a few other people playing the same single player RPG. This forum is filled with dismay for the genre. You know what? Kick out every EQ clone and you are left with some damn good games. Interesting, isnt it?

If there was no EQ there would be RPGs that can be taken as ideas of project such as final fantasy so it was ought to happen.

Plus not everyone likes forced pvp and never will.

Whine some more it might help...

I very much doubt so, things would be diferent (maybe) and perhaps more elements of RTS or sidescrollers would be around to relieve us of the grind (i would blame WOW instead of EQ for that) but games would very likely have evolved more around themepark lines than sandbox concepts... That ship pretty much sailed with the evolution of console and arcade games. Not evrything themepark is bad or anathema, the style evolved precisely out of story driven games. This is just flamebait.

Everyone wanted an EQ but it didn't turn out the way most people imagined.  In early UO days people were saying "Man, I wish this was in 3d." so it would have happened eventually.  What EQ did wrong was create the carebear.

EQ was good and bad.

EQ GOOD:

Lore, Classes, Strategic pulling / CC gameplay, Open world (although zoning), good casual community in the early days

EQ BAD:

Excessive grinding, run by SoE, timesinks, bad eliteness community later on

Aion just managed to take everything BAD from EQ and  nothing of the good. Aion is nothing like EQ. Aion  Excessive grinding, timesinks and elite community

WoW took all the good things from EQ but didn't get the good community or strategic gameplay, although that has gotten better a bit.

Originally posted by Sauronas

Everyone wanted an EQ but it didn't turn out the way most people imagined.  In early UO days people were saying "Man, I wish this was in 3d." so it would have happened eventually.  What EQ did wrong was create the carebear.

EQ carebear? lol,you obviously never played EQ. If running hours to get your corpse and often no way to get your items back is carebear...ok then.

Originally posted by bastii

EQ was good and bad.

EQ GOOD:

Lore, Classes, Strategic pulling / CC gameplay, Open world (although zoning), good casual community in the early days

EQ BAD:

Excessive grinding, run by SoE, timesinks, bad eliteness community later on

 

 

Aion just managed to take everything BAD from EQ and  nothing of the good. Aion is nothing like EQ. Excessive grinding, timesinks and elite community

 

 

WoW too all the good things from EQ but didn't get the good community or strategic gameplay, although that has gotten better a bit.

 

 

You clearly know nothing about Aion.

Aion pays a lot more attention to lore than Everquest did and the grind in Everquest dwarfs that of Aion. There is no elitist community in Aion, just because they argue against your misunderstanding of what Aion is doesn't mean they are elitist.

Originally posted by bastii

 

EQ GOOD:

Lore, Classes, Strategic pulling / CC gameplay, Open world (although zoning), good casual community in the early days

 

Classes are considered a bad thing by alot of people, and the pulling mechanism you mention is the reason PvE is such a boring and skilless activity.

Also, UO was the totally seamless (no zones, no loading screens)

Originally posted by Netzoko

 

 and the pulling mechanism you mention is the reason PvE is such a boring and skilless activity.

Pulling is boring? The reason people played bards and monks in EQ was because pulling was so much fun, it actually took strategy to pull something in EQ.

If you pulled an add in EQ it would often mean a wipe, if you pulled a train you would have lost hours trying to clear back to the corpses. There was risk in pulling.

Calling pulling in EQ skilles is a joke right???? Did you even play EQ?

You are the first person I have EVER seen call pulling in EQ skilles, it was the definition of skill in EQ for monks and bards.

Either you were a noobcake or you have never played EQ in your life.

Classes and levels actually are a legacy of pnp games like D&D which many early single player RPGs were based on...

UO came out in 1997

EQ came out in 1999

More people like the EQ style if they didnt they would have stayed with or went back to UO. Wheather Eq did it or someone else the genre would not have changed any at all by the lack of EQ.

The problem with sandbox type games with ffa PvP is the PLAYERS.

Originally posted by toddze

UO came out in 1997

EQ came out in 1999

More people like the EQ style if they didnt they would have stayed with or went back to UO. Wheather Eq did it or someone else the genre would not have changed any at all by the lack of EQ.

The problem with sandbox type games with ffa PvP is the PLAYERS.

Yep.

PvP MMO's breed idiocy and immaturity on a grand scale. Look at nearly ANY PvP server on any MMO out there now. Wanna talk about elitests.

Originally posted by Netzoko

Classes are considered a bad thing by alot of people,

UO's gameplay is considered bad by a lot more people, as evidenced by sales of Sandboxes vs. Themeparks.  (which isn't my arguing against the existence of Sandboxes - I enjoy my share of em - just that Themeparks are quite obviously more fun to more people.)

EQ is the only reason I got into the genre, so obviously I disagree.  I hadn't even heard of UO until after I had been playing EQ for about a year.  I'll concede the grind aspect of the game, but I most of the rest of the game was so much fun, I didn't really mind it all that much.

I think you can blame today's problems with MMOs on EQ to this extent.  It directly led to the making of WoW.  WoW pretty much tried to copy EQ while taking all the "tedious" parts out.  But WoW's failure, imo, was not realizing that those were the things that made the game better, not worse (obviously failure in terms of fun, not sales).

simpley lol. An just for those who dont know and think EQ started the RP'ing and lvl/class system, it was not EQ it was DnD(pnP) of course.

Originally posted by toddze

The problem with sandbox type games with ffa PvP is the PLAYERS.

And since games are inevitably going to be played by players, FFA PVP is flawed by design.

But really the problem with FFA PVP is someone gets ganked/murdered (which isn't really PVP.)   Which results in a significantly lower "net fun" than a game where PVP is competitive and fair, and actually about Players fighting Players.

To be blunt, the problem with Ultima Online is that it was controlled by nerds.

personally, the time sinks in eq where what made it fun.  Chat with your group while your healer meds to full, a good wipe was something you talked about for weeks.  No questhelper, no in game maps (atleast for awhile) so using print outs of eqatlast.com or hand drawn ripoffs of the eqatlas maps :P

The community was what made the game, and the community's what's been pissed away in pretty much ALL other mmo's except maybe AO for the most part.  Now it's all race to mob>kill>link your leet epeen replacing gear>race to mob>etc.  There is no community anymore in any MMO  except retards bitching about Twilight, Political wingnuts spewing crap and the ppl going on and on about game X Y or Z that they'd rather be playing..oh, and the guilds who either raid 5 nights a week and kick members for not keeping up in level/flaggings/etc, or the guilds who've mostly been game hopping together for a few years and don't mesh with outsiders....wheeeeeeee.

I'd gladly pay $25 a month for something like what EQ was in it's day, with comparable graphics to today's games (hell, if there was a new graphics overhaul in eq and a new community promoting server for a fresh start (none of this 50/51 crap, a no transfer, everyone starts even server) I'd probably go back in a heartbeat).

Originally posted by Gameloading

To be blunt, the problem with Ultima Online is that it was controlled by nerds.

In a "nerdy" segment of society, this comment makes so much sense.

EQ never led you around to quest hubs by the hand like everything does now days.  Other than my epic quest, I never worked on any quests in EQ.

so basicaly if their were no eq we would be playing uo...

or

if their was no eq people would not have LEFT uo for eq.

UO at the time didnt intrest me at all .but eq did the look of the game an its starting lore was fun.it was tuff to play.corpse runs made you take your time learn the zones .

Their are games out their not following eq formula or wows .an their have been a few class less games released of late.

 If EQ didn't exist, another MMO not called EQ would've filled the gap.  And NO, everyone who played EQ wouldn't have gone to play UO.  WHy?  Because UO had that chance for 2 years to capture those players and didn't.  MOST people preferred EQ.  The VAST, VAST majority of players find sandboxes and dreadful bore.  Thats not opinion.  Its fact.  Sales say so.  The complaints of a few nerds on forums mean nothing.  The ACTION of the players is what matters and their action time and time again say, "Sandboxes are boring!"  "Give us content."    UO had no content.  

While I would certainly agree that EQ influenced the themepark MMO I don't think it's a bad thing.  I played EQ pre-Kunark and thought it was the biggest piece of garbage I ever laid my hands on, however I did like DAOC and WoW.  It had to start somewhere and I would say themepark MMOs are better off today. 

If anything UO had a bad influence on what sandbox MMOs could be.  I loved every minute of UO I played pre-tram and post-tram, but I can also understand why people didn't like it.  UO had a massive brick wall that you had to push through as a new player and that's not an insult to players at all.  There's nothing cool about constantly getting killed by PKs and always losing your gear when you wanted to go adventuring with your friends, when all of you are brand new to the game.