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please knock Mom! posted:heard someone today spent 40 hours and didnt get it lol Ive heard people are already asking six figures for elder beads on green smh
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Jul 12, 2021 21:38
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I was offered 250k plat and said no
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Jul 13, 2021 00:13
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Not related to anything but I just found out Verant gave high elf paladins who worshipped Tunare a really sick sword in Velious (I stopped playing during Kunark). The poor erudites only got a shield... Did any other bad race/class combos get a sort of consolation prize?
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Jul 13, 2021 13:29
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The only thing similar to Nature's Defender in Velious-era EQ is Greenmist for IKS SK, but that's not a bad race/class combo. As far as deity-specific gear, some of the deity symbols are pretty nice clickies, especially the Innoruuk one that has a snare on it and is CLR usable. Imbued Fire Platinum rings for Solusek Ro worshipping wizards are pretty dope as well as long as you've got STR from something else or a good set of WR bags. Honestly, one of the closest things I can think of in terms of item-apologia is from long before Velious: the Burning Rapier and the entire Rogue Redemption quest (Oct '99) was a kind of apology to rogues since they were a garbage class with few items and broken mechanics at release. This trend continued until they became OP in Kunark culminating with their epic quest being both easy and awesome.
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Jul 13, 2021 13:57
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aparmenideanmonad posted:Honestly, one of the closest things I can think of in terms of item-apologia is from long before Velious: the Burning Rapier and the entire Rogue Redemption quest (Oct '99) was a kind of apology to rogues since they were a garbage class with few items and broken mechanics at release. This trend continued until they became OP in Kunark culminating with their epic quest being both easy and awesome. This stuff has always been fascinating to me because it's like Verant didn't do any testing. Most of us didn't know what classes were poo poo or good back in the early days especially those of us who just played and didn't go to forums and poo poo but they had all the data and I presume it would've been clear rogues were garbo and that warriors wouldn't be the best at their job until you got to raiding.
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Jul 14, 2021 13:31
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Groovelord Neato posted:This stuff has always been fascinating to me because it's like Verant didn't do any testing. Most of us didn't know what classes were poo poo or good back in the early days especially those of us who just played and didn't go to forums and poo poo but they had all the data and I presume it would've been clear rogues were garbo and that warriors wouldn't be the best at their job until you got to raiding. EQ was a lovely development experience. The, unfortunately all too common story for game devs, of working all night, sleeping in the office, etc. And that was after they cut out so much of it (originally, Velious and Kunark were supposed to be included at launch, don't know how early they cut those). And it's not like they got a break once it launched. It was much more possible than they thought it would be, so server issues, etc. And with a ~6 month expansion cycle, they had to get right back to getting content out too. When you burn people out like that, you're kind of lucky the software doesn't just make your computer explode.
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Jul 14, 2021 14:22
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I do remember reading the history of EQ and how insane actually building the zones was. Each item dropped in at 0,0,0 or something and they had to manually move it little by little using arrow keys or something ridiculous. I'm surprised after hearing about the Burning Rapier (nobody I knew played rogues) they didn't give warriors some mid-level weapon that procced some damage spell easily so they could be the top tanks before you got into raiding. Can't imagine rolling the most boring class and then not being able to do your job until max level. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 14:26
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Groovelord Neato posted:I do remember reading the history of EQ and how insane actually building the zonse was. Each item dropped in at 0,0,0 or something and they had to manually move it little by little using arrow keys or something ridiculous. Yeah it was pretty bad for warriors before people figured out aggro a bit at higher levels. The whole - let the warrior fight the mob for 10-15s to build aggro before fighting - was a real thing. I mained a wizard and had rogue and bard alts to 50 before Kunark, so I was pretty familiar with dealing with bad aggro warriors. Lots of people had the vague idea that procs were helpful, but there were a lot of people using poo poo like a tentacle whip and a PGT that did garbo damage and didn't help much on the aggro front either. Playing with someone who had at least one Yak was a such a quality of life increase in groups in your 30s-40s, but it really was a poo poo life pre-level-37 for most warriors. On P99, people knew to use stuff like obsidian shards and how to manipulate aggro with root and distancing, but warriors are still trash compared to any other melee class for aggro generation in that era. And as far as rogues getting special treatment, there was a dev who was really tapped into the rogue community over on the Safehouse (Kendrick), and he made it his mission to fix and do cool stuff for rogues. I guess there wasn't the equivalent over at Steel Warriors or maybe they were content with warriors having a solid end-game role.
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Jul 14, 2021 14:50
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I would love to read a behind the scenes book about the original EQ development. There were always rumors of stuff that was in beta but removed and the entire experience hit at the right time for endless speculation of lore and story stuff, in addition to just not having any idea how bad some of the mechanics actually were. Today, I feel like within a week or two everything would be on a wiki page. Is there a YouTube channel or anything that explores that kind of thing? I have deep nostalgia that I'll probably have my entire life for early EQ, might as well indulge it occasionally.
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Jul 14, 2021 15:12
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Groovelord Neato posted:I do remember reading the history of EQ and how insane actually building the zonse was. Each item dropped in at 0,0,0 or something and they had to manually move it little by little using arrow keys or something ridiculous. And I thought making zones in openzone was bad I think making any kind of content for everquest is hellish by default
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Jul 14, 2021 15:20
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A Strange Aeon posted:I would love to read a behind the scenes book about the original EQ development. man that would be rad as hell. would buy in a heartbeat
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Jul 14, 2021 15:27
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A Strange Aeon posted:I would love to read a behind the scenes book about the original EQ development. There were always rumors of stuff that was in beta but removed and the entire experience hit at the right time for endless speculation of lore and story stuff, in addition to just not having any idea how bad some of the mechanics actually were. Today, I feel like within a week or two everything would be on a wiki page. If you haven't seen EverCracked!, it's probably worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHnDSr-b02Q
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Jul 14, 2021 15:40
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Here's the long article about the history of EverQuest - it's where I found out about how they built the zones: https://www.shacknews.com/article/110494/better-together-stories-of-everquest?page=2#detail-view There's probably stuff in there about why some of the classes were hosed and I forgot it.
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Jul 14, 2021 16:01
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A Strange Aeon posted:There were always rumors of stuff that was in beta but removed Yeah, esp being a lot of our first experience with a virtual world, the idea of exploration and mystery, plus not being jaded old fucks yet, really fed a lot into that fun stuff too. Some of the main ones were The Kraken (there's some NPC dialogue that still references it, but it was actually a shark called Megalodon, that got removed due to buggy issues). Mayong Mistmore used to be in his castle - also removed due to buggy issues. That one is especially not a surprise, because aggro in that place was always a cluster gently caress that they could never fix. Of course everyone knows about Brad's vanity sword Fiery Avenger, and that sword was really public, so everyone thinking there was a way to get it in game for the longest time fed into the "mysteries". For Vanilla there was quite a bit of "obviously links to things that didn't get finished / removed" as well, but I can't remember very many specifics at the moment. Like I think some of the planes had their in-world portals there (but weren't usable yet, like later on The Hole's entrance to Mischief that didn't start working for a long time), there's some stuff in Neriak pretty sure. I'm sure there's countless other things that all fall under "ran out of time" or "we changed our minds and didn't get everything of the old idea cleaned out", etc. Then you pile on lots of actual bugged quests (either made unfinishable or extremely rare ways to finish it), very rare spawns, rare drops, and it all just fed into that. It was a fun time! WoW has a fun amount of stuff like that too, esp the Vanilla game (and usually the same reasons - ran out of time, changed direction).
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Jul 14, 2021 16:29
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I remember the kraken and megalodon rumors - people even posted doctored screenshots of "a kraken" and an entry on Allakhazam. The idea of some massive shark mob out in the Ocean of Tears was the coolest thing and I really wanted it to be real like cryptids in the real world.
Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 16:33
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The whole of the Qeynos area just feels like ideas on top of ideas that were later abandoned and left unfinished. I know Qeynos and qeynos hills were the first zones done and it feels like they had these really grand ideas all the way up until just after high pass where things started to get a bit more polished and reasonable. Stuff like the qeynos underground, the corrupt guards, the in game bulletin boards, etc felt like really ambitious things and remnants of other, failed ideas of what EQ could have been. It's my favorite part of the game for that reason, though it's also a little sad because of what it could have been. There's just so many little story hooks, scripted moments, cool setpieces, etc that you would see and immediately assume would be part of something much bigger but never were. Edit: the erudite island and its ocean zone is another good example though to a lesser extent since it did get some attention around velious edit 2: i really wish we'd get a game like EQ again. For as much as it hated the player there was a touch to its world design and setting that i haven't seen since. Vanguard got close at times but had its own issues. I really love the idea of "you're just a dude in the world. you're not the hero. go down the wrong alley in neriak or into a rough pub in freeport and you might get stabbed." plus all the fun faction and lore stuff Sankis fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 16:51
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAyxdS1SSoo He has also done some other pretty solid dives into some of the obscure stuff but only from a player perspective no inside dirt.
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Jul 14, 2021 17:33
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I've been reading the shacknews thing, that's scratching an itch for sure and EQ Mysteries sounds right up my alley. I just remember being a dumb kid interpreting the decorations of a zone and looking for clues that there was a clockwork dragon hidden somewhere in the gnome city, let alone the actual mysteries like the loving fire pots which are so weird and the Oracle and the weird sphinxes... And then when they changed zones, like Splitpaw for the first time, and that weird scripted execution of the old gnoll clan leader by the new one that's like a lingering clue of the past. And the holy fish god just swimming in the fountain and the transforming princess fish and just so much of the stuff was obscure and strange. Everyone has said it better but I still feel the pull of those mysteries, I can't think it was 100% intentional, but somehow the combination of their intent and unfinished or removed content combined to make these things exert a power over me still.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:44
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Gildiss posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAyxdS1SSoo Every time someone links Michael's Shenanigans, a newbie druid dings a level. His EQ mystery-related videos are all excellent.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:46
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Sankis posted:The whole of the Qeynos area just feels like ideas on top of ideas that were later abandoned and left unfinished. I know Qeynos and qeynos hills were the first zones done and it feels like they had these really grand ideas all the way up until just after high pass where things started to get a bit more polished and reasonable. I noticed that when leveling new characters in qeynos after years of leveling up elsewhere, it feels like there are a TON of newbie quests and content to help you level and get money in qeynos, compared to next to nothing in freeport, kelethin, etc. Gnoll fangs, bandit sashes, putrid hides, all more accessible and more rewarding than similar orc belts/shoulderpads/etc It's less polished but also my favored zone to level up in bar none, but it's been a while since I've tried ogre/troll/iksar
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Jul 14, 2021 19:35
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Sankis posted:edit 2: i really wish we'd get a game like EQ again. For as much as it hated the player there was a touch to its world design and setting that i haven't seen since. Vanguard got close at times but had its own issues. I really love the idea of "you're just a dude in the world. you're not the hero. go down the wrong alley in neriak or into a rough pub in freeport and you might get stabbed." plus all the fun faction and lore stuff I was working and going to school full time when Vanguard dropped so I barely got to play (though from what I did the UI and stuff were a bit too WoW for my tastes) but my brother told me about a time he and a friend found some out of the way zone that had the semi-finished feel with some dungeon seemingly nobody knew about and they camped there for hours. Said it was the only time an MMO since had captured that EQ feeling and he's a nutjob who's been addicted to several MMOs.
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Jul 16, 2021 14:00
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Groovelord Neato posted:I was working and going to school full time when Vanguard dropped so I barely got to play (though from what I did the UI and stuff were a bit too WoW for my tastes) but my brother told me about a time he and a friend found some out of the way zone that had the semi-finished feel with some dungeon seemingly nobody knew about and they camped there for hours. Said it was the only time an MMO since had captured that EQ feeling and he's a nutjob who's been addicted to several MMOs. I loved that part of EQ. I remember my buddy and I leveling in Nurga (I think) and it being utterly empty, especially being on Sullon Zek. I also loved loved loved Dragon Necropolis. It was an adventure to get there with nobody ever out there, the zone was empty, and it really added to the weird creepy factor.
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Jul 16, 2021 14:13
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Nothing feels better than finally getting that quillmane cape on your warrior
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Jul 16, 2021 14:14
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:I loved that part of EQ. I remember my buddy and I leveling in Nurga (I think) and it being utterly empty, especially being on Sullon Zek. I loved the empty zones like the gorge, where there was always the chance of a rare spawn popping, even if the drops aren't worth too much. I remember some dumb quest my monk did on live on Kerra Island to find some rear end in a top hat named fish to turn in and get a no drop fishing pole weapon, just to get it. I don't know how I managed to do that without tracking, I spent hours on Red with a druid and never saw him spawn. Seconding the Qeynos love, that was always the most evocative place to me, even though I think my very first character was a high elf who ended up falling off of Kelethin. It seems silly to pine for having to wait for a boat and then ride on the boat, but that was huge as well and helped ground the sense of distance and scale of the world. I remember doing the run from Qeynos to Freeport and it felt like an adventure, just getting from one city to another.
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Jul 16, 2021 14:45
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When p99 green started we did multiple continent-spanning quests as a group. Running through the karanas as level 9 halflings, braving the feerrot, that stuff. It loving ruled.
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Jul 16, 2021 18:07
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aparmenideanmonad posted:If you haven't seen EverCracked!, it's probably worth a watch: Wow that host is cringey as gently caress
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Jul 17, 2021 00:06
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How come barbarians were one of the rogue races? That always seemed weird.
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Jul 19, 2021 19:58
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Groovelord Neato posted:How come barbarians were one of the rogue races? That always seemed weird. I got the impression that the D&D-esque origins paint large-race rogues as being less about stealthiness and more like "give me your lunch money"-style brigands and highwaymen.
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Jul 19, 2021 21:04
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cmdrk posted:I got the impression that the D&D-esque origins paint large-race rogues as being less about stealthiness and more like "give me your lunch money"-style brigands and highwaymen. Come to think of it, the bandits are Human or Half Elf, but brigands and highwaymen are all Barbarians, aren't they?
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Jul 19, 2021 21:26
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Meatgrinder posted:Come to think of it, the bandits are Human or Half Elf, but brigands and highwaymen are all Barbarians, aren't they? Yep, believe so. I guess EQ2 also differentiated further by splitting "Rogues" into "good" Swashbucklers (see they're good because they only grift you out of your lunch money instead of punching you in the face!) and "evil" Brigands.
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Jul 19, 2021 21:37
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That's a really good explanation it never occurred to me since in practice rogues sneak around and backstab.
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Jul 19, 2021 22:59
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cmdrk posted:Yep, believe so. I guess EQ2 also differentiated further by splitting "Rogues" into "good" Swashbucklers (see they're good because they only grift you out of your lunch money instead of punching you in the face!) and "evil" Brigands. I picked Brigand because I knew that compared to Assassin, it would be like 1/10th as popular. Saw stats that it was the least picked class in the game, but had some really strong abilities. And the rare ability upgrades were cheap to buy from other players because there was so little demand. Managed to get into the top guild on my server because they literally had zero high level brigands. Sadly most of them quit the game after that first expansion came out and it was unfinished - we killed a couple bosses in one of the dungeons only for them to not even be itemized yet. I guess most of the guild had been pretty unhappy with the state of the game and gave them one last shot hoping the expansion would fix some of the problems. Always felt like the developers were too keen on solving the "problems" with EQ, like kiting, kill-stealing, and split-pulling by putting in the locked encounters. And featuring crap like climbing. Just didnt have the magic of the original.
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Jul 20, 2021 01:39
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What was the deal with EQ2 lorewise? Couldn't you explore the ruins of places from EQ or something like that?
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Jul 20, 2021 02:28
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Lakedaimon posted:I picked Brigand because I knew that compared to Assassin, it would be like 1/10th as popular. Saw stats that it was the least picked class in the game, but had some really strong abilities. And the rare ability upgrades were cheap to buy from other players because there was so little demand. I can't help but shake the feeling that EQ2 would've been a lot better if they had not tried to ride on the EQ franchise and instead made a new IP. I feel like they must've made all of those mechanical changes to keep EQ and EQ2 running concurrently and try to cater to different playerbases. You don't want your bread & butter players from EQ switching over to EQ2 if you're still planning to crank out expacks every 6-9 months. Still waiting on that EQOA emulator..
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Jul 20, 2021 02:37
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Lakedaimon posted:I picked Brigand because I knew that compared to Assassin, it would be like 1/10th as popular. Saw stats that it was the least picked class in the game, but had some really strong abilities. And the rare ability upgrades were cheap to buy from other players because there was so little demand. Also played Brigand at release because I wanted to be an evil halfling. Ruse was hilarious and pretty busted - flop on the ground and watch a huge number pop up. The betrayal quest to switch from Qeynos to Freeport was pretty cool but EQ2 definitely released with too little content. That and they kept trying to "fix" all the emergent gameplay and make everyone do that small amount of content the way they imagined it.
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Jul 20, 2021 05:14
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A Strange Aeon posted:What was the deal with EQ2 lorewise? Couldn't you explore the ruins of places from EQ or something like that? Yeah, like felwithe is now undead infested and stuff. it seemed neat but the zones felt way different when i tried it like a decade ago. I think the plot is the evil freeport militia guy became a lich and fought with the qeynos guy and shattered the world into a bunch of Islands or something i think it's also technically in a different continuity since EQ1 obviously never ended
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Jul 20, 2021 10:39
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I never played EQ2 but if I remember right the storyline branches off from when the Frogluks took Grobb because it stayed that way in EQ2's timeline but in EQ the Trolls eventually took it back. Was a bummer hearing Frogluks were added as playable long after I quit I always prefer monster races but like paladin.
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Jul 20, 2021 13:34
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You’d enjoy shadowknight I think, if troll counts as monster race
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Jul 20, 2021 14:18
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A Strange Aeon posted:What was the deal with EQ2 lorewise? Couldn't you explore the ruins of places from EQ or something like that? If i'm remembering correctly, EQ2 took place like 500 years after EQ. I think they called the timeline from the original game the "Age of Heroes" or something like that. But I never paid too much attention to EQ lore because it always felt kinda schlocky and cringe-inducing to me. I want to say Neriak was also a dungeon in EQ2 rather than a city. Because everyone started in either Qeynos or Freeport. But large chunks of planned content were missing/unfinished at launch. I think Befallen was supposed to be a dungeon on the Qeynos side of the world. And I remember people going to absurd lengths trying to solve a rumored quest that would allegedly unlock the option to play as a Froglok. Turns out the quest had not even been implemented yet, although the devs had been hinting at it, fueling the conspiracy-like speculation. At least at the launch of the game they had some fairly difficult "heritage quests" to get iconic items from the first game. I definitely remember Polished Granite Tomahawk, Guise of the Deceiver, etc. They were considerably more powerful in EQ2. I'm sure I would have continued to appreciate little fan-service like gestures for people nostalgic for EQ, but the game just wasnt that good. But again they seemed determined to stamp out tropes from the first game. For example, at max level player crafted weapons were the go-to option rather than drops. There was a prismatic weapon quest at end-game (almost like a generic epic weapon), but you still spent a lot of time farming rare ores or wood or whatever to make gear. Rogue poisons were actually super useful rather than an afterthought. Ruse was awesome. I remember a lot of random party members had never seen the skill before and would get confused as hell when you would fall down then hit the npc for the biggest damage number they had ever seen. I also really liked how good the Cazic Thule zone looked.
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Jul 20, 2021 17:39
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I wanted to love EQ2 but it was so broken at launch. Wardens and Furys were 2 sub classes and the Warden was significantly more powerful. The other hilariously broken part was heals from most healer classes would naturally generate aggro to the healer, but the reactive heals of the inquisitor/Templar generated aggro to the tank by showing them healing themselves.
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Jul 20, 2021 18:24
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