Originally posted by Nightbringe1

Originally posted by Dafong

I suppose EQ never made this list or two reasons.

 

1, No desire to put the same company on the list twice.

2, There was never a single large event in EQ that generated anger, it was absolutely every single thing the company did.

 

EQ is just slowly evolving in directions that not all of its players want to go. It has never pulled any real crash and burn stunts like SWG.

Hmmm...must not have paid the same Sony Online that I did back when EQ first came out.  We called it Never Quest because most of the quests were broken, meaning you would spend 60 hours questing a quest item to have it not be on the mob after killing it, or have it destroyed because you didn't have room in your inventory, or you repeat the words in [brackets] to the NPC but he just stares at you.  Same guys who did a 6 month subscription but who's online subscription service never seemed to work when you wanted to cancel.  It took me 3 months, server was always "down" and I didn't get my next automatic 6 month subscription back, Sony refused to pay me.  Servers were constantly crashing for the first year (if not longer).  You would log back in and not know where your body was a majority of the time.  Getting into the game of course was a privilege though.  The wait was usually 15 minutes to several hours.  Luckily, usually someone was crashing out so you could get in.  :)

Having said that, it was a trailblazer, and it was still EverCrack, so I don't really believe it belongs on the list.  Of course I have a sour taste for any Sony online game still.

People who keep posting about the graphics based on a short, low resolution clip, really aren't providing any useful information.  Also, maybe if some of the gaming companies would spend more time on gameplay, as Firesky seems to have done, games would not fail so much.  Graphics are not everything (I'm dating myself saying that), but no one can judge the in-game graphics off of these low res clips.  I've seen plenty of screen shots that look fairly nice.  I've played plenty of intensely awesome graphical games that were boring as heck too.

If you read the entire story, it really sounds more like involved puzzles within the environment of play, not what I would typically call a mini-game, but I guess technically it still is.  I don't think he means games where you just pull up a window and start playing but more like a game where once you've killed a villain in a particular scenario, you need to disarm a bomb from destroying the city above...that kind of mini game. 

At least that's what I'm hoping he means, because that would make the game tons more interesting and challenging.  To each their own of course, but I'm rather tired of the hack and slash and level in games.  I grew up on Beyond Zork, a text game that took 5 years of my childhood to finish with intense puzzles, using my mind to visualize the environment, and deep thinking.  I still to this day have not found a game I would be willing to play that long.  But like I said, to each their own. 

With this strategy, I believe they will be opening up interest in the game to a lot more people (perhaps dare I say the older ones who are really more interested in a thought-provoking challenge).  And by this I have dated myself and am proud to be an oldie who still plays games.  :)  I don't think they can go wrong with this approach since it doesn't seem like the puzzles will be required for those who don't want to do them.  Having said that, I still enjoy some grinding, so I would like to see a balance of maybe 70% grind, 30% mini-games, and that might even be conservative on the grinding.