MMO CHAT: I'll probably buy and play that game even though it looks like dogshit

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > MMO CHAT: I'll probably buy and play that game even though it looks like dogshit

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Frog Act: Feb 10, 2012

I made a really long post a couple years ago about eqoa that I periodically want to dig up because it had a lot of mechanics that were considered oversimplified and casual then but are perfect now

Ed: wow from 2018 lol

Frog Act posted:

EQOA was really good because it was like an EQ lite that I found extremely graphically pleasing on account of its use of bright primary colors (presumably to accomodate the slowness of the PS2). It had a lot of stuff that was just taken directly out of EQ classic, like the general zone of Norrath, the classes, the cities, and many of the abilities, but the gameplay was fundamentally different. It was made to be played with a controller so you had a tight rotation of spells that functioned like the regular spellbook, but both physical and caster classes had a nice array of them. Every class had a unique and useful role like in regular EQ and they were mirror versions slightly tweaked - like Shaman had better debuffs and a set of very cool pets (bears and wolves instead of just one wolf) and they had both SoW and a spirit wolf travel form.

The world was also, imo, better than PC EQ. It looked better and felt more like WoW than the high fantasy of EQPC but was still consistent with the overall aesthetic of Norrath. The racial home cities were loving great and there were always players in them. The zones were big and had really unique color palettes that were consistently bright and cheery. Best of all, it had a dope fast travel system that imo was a good compromise for the period and basically presaged wow's flight paths - a coach system where most settlements had a coach but you had to walk there to get the route first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgDdxVP5U3k

^Here's a nice tour of all the home cities and I honestly still find it really compelling

The combat was clunky compared to modern stuff ofc but the group dynamics were great, everyone had a role and the overall difficulty was balanced somewhere between FFXI and WoW. For instance, dying wasn't a huge disaster and you didn't have to go on corpse runs, you just revived back at what was basically a bind point in any settlement (no player binding iirc but the map was thickly settled with NPC hubs that served as gathering points for groups, there was a version of Highpass Hold and settlements outside Qeynos, etc, and they all had bind points). Plus, instead of losing exp on death, you gained an exp debt, which overwrote a percentage of your current exp requirement with a little green bar over the usual yellow that represented the debt to pay off. Then it filled before your regular exp until it was full and you went back to wherever you were before that in the level. It was typically a 10% penalty.

It had leveled loot, unlike EQPC, and (iirc, again, its been over a decade) there were varying tiers of it, like in WoW and later MMOs. I think this system was awesome insofar as it mitigated twinking considerably compared to EQPC. There was useable vendor equipment and drops but principally your best loot would come from class quests, sorta like in EQPC, only there were a lot of them and every class did several at different level intervals. At level 15 you might get a weapon, then at 25 you might get pants/gloves/boots/helmet followed by a chest at 30, then the whole thing over again once or twice until you have the top notch stuff for you class. Each quest required participation from other classes too I think. There might even have been crafting because I definitely remember relying on some random people in Freeport to supply me with items I needed for my class armor.

More important than anything though, it had that sense of a broad, living world that EQ games in that era tried so hard to manifest. Boat rides, mysterious cities, secrets, extremely detailed and lovingly put together cities, etc etc. I played when I was maybe 11 or 12 and only got to level 35 as a Shaman and again as a Monk (they were my hands down favorite monk class in any game - they had a sort of Eastern flavor, obviously, but it was well articulated as an intersection of like Qeynosian virtue and foreign martial arts, and all the abilities you got felt very substantial - kick for instance acted like a regular hotbar ability with a recharge and it was buffed like hell for monks, very cool) so I didn't experience the supermajority of the content the game had to offer. I'd honestly pay full price and a sub fee for a mobile version of EQOA or something that let me go explore Neriak and Ak'Anon and especially all the Barbarian areas with a full population again.

This post got way too long so please someone read it, EQOA was so good. To get a sense of the world, maybe just click around in this video, with some scrubs running halfway across the bottom of one of the continents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY-GlyoSya0

ed: I haven't finished this video yet but it also seems to be a pretty good explanation of what made EQOA so great as essentially a simplified version of the extremely complicated PNP-inspired MMOs of the late 90s early aughts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFyzwxUbpoE

# ? Jun 28, 2023 22:11

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# ? May 25, 2024 06:02

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

So many memories in those videos.

# ? Jun 28, 2023 22:31

Ranzear: Jul 25, 2013

kedo posted:

At risk of again asking the same question I've asked a half dozen times in this thread (but this time a little bit differently)... What currently available MMOs feature the most difficulty everywhere in the game (not just in grouped/endgame/mythic/heroic content)? Extra credit if it's semi-modern (ie. no older than WoW).

I'm having a hard time thinking of a game that fits that description that's still running with a decent player base.

Been a minute since I was last on, but FFXI continues to have a rabbit that will 100% reasonably and fairly wreck your poo poo at any level. I guess the highest meanest hardest one is some instakill silliness but it's literally a Monty Python reference. Most content is at least approachable solo, or has a difficulty selector to get it closer to such, but it really hasn't let anything slide in decades, just maybe released some very op gear in the last few years that is more like a serious endgame grind than some lucky drop.

Lots of the progression stuff is trivial now, but age on age of MMOs has taught us that progression should be trivial. FFXI still manages to throw some challenge around, especially with the semi-monthly rotating instances.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 00:59

Eimi: Nov 23, 2013; I will never ~~log off~~shut up.

I'm the kind of masochist who wants 75 cap FFXI again. Though I'm also shocked XI is still a separate sub and not rolling in with XIV's yet.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 03:41

Vermain: Sep 5, 2006

Eimi posted:

I'm the kind of masochist who wants 75 cap FFXI again. Though I'm also shocked XI is still a separate sub and not rolling in with XIV's yet.

There's been some hints they're moving towards it behind the scenes, although I wouldn't be surprised if momentum on it stalled since Yoshida's been tangled up with XVI for a while. He's one of the big internal boosters for FFXI as an ongoing product, and rolling it into the FFXIV sub would be a good way of opening up the old game again for people who're curious about its gameplay or story.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 03:54

Third World Reagan: May 19, 2008; Imagine four 'mechs waiting in a queue. Time works the same way.

I miss eq2 pvp. They keep making time locked event servers but they keep screwing them up. Servers die off fast, and then I go, lets go play pve. And boy is that horrible.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 04:07

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

Does anyone remember ROSE Online

# ? Jun 29, 2023 04:44

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

Fajita Queen posted:

Does anyone remember ROSE Online

I remember fighting bean monsters.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 04:49

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Eimi posted:

I'm the kind of masochist who wants 75 cap FFXI again. Though I'm also shocked XI is still a separate sub and not rolling in with XIV's yet.

There were rumors / leaks of this happening, but nothing ever materialized. It came out at the same time as an offline version, which was canceled.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 06:13

Mustang: Jun 18, 2006; “We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”

EQ2 through Kunark is still probably my all time favorite MMO experience, so much group content. Miss the open world dungeons and forming a group and just hanging out killing bosses for loot and AAs, or doing heritage quests and the like.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 06:30

kirbysuperstar: Nov 11, 2012; Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.

on EQOA:
Last month:

quote:

The PRH team has been discussing a tentative plan to release a pre-alpha server later this year.
...
I had been working on a format to write EQOA quests for years, but in 2020 I made a complex Excel workbook that guides a writer through all the steps of writing a quest. It walks them through all 1-20 starter city quests (there are 75 race class combos, 10 starter quests each = 750 total starter quests). This workbook compiles each 10 quest set into 1 giant spreadsheet. There weren't any programmers at the time ready to interface on quests (Hagley and PRH existed, but weren't ready yet) so I had to do a lot of guesswork as to what a programmer would need. Anyway, I've written about 270 quests using this tool. I've had to pause to work on general dialogue and other things, but looking forward to getting back to the writing.
...
Fast forward to this year, @TargetAcquired has worked on code to get quests going in PRH. I believe he got Freeport Magician lvl 1-15 quests done. He was reading the spreadsheets and writing the code on the spot. All this worked well but was really time-consuming. There are many micro steps to make a quest. I wanted to see if I could help and asked to look at the Lua code where the quests were written. I'm not a programmer, but an avid Excel enthusiast and had the theory that I could get Excel to read the previously written spreadsheets and write the Lua code automatically. So the last several months that is exactly what I've been working on. The new Excel workbook (I call it the Converter) is almost done. We are pretty much just stomping out some bugs at this point, and have successfully written and tested the code for several quests.
What does this mean? This means that
A) We will be able to convert the already written 270 quests into code in short order
B) all future written quests can be added to the server quickly
Most importantly, this frees up the programmers from doing a 1000 hours of grunt programming, to get the quests in.
An adjacent topic here is that in order for the quests to work, the "support content" has to be in place. Quest NPC's, Mobs, merchants, items, store lists, mob drops, etc all have to be set up. In a lot of cases, this work is already done, but there are some missing details here and there regarding support content that still need fleshing out. So even if the quest data is there, some of those support details might be missing at first.

from the 13/06

quote:

So i'm still working out some kinks, but a couple things done lately.

Dynamic mob spawns now work. This is most notable for camps like the Nasehirs where they spawn different types of mobs(cleric, wizard, lookout, etc) from one kill to the next. This feature hasn't made it to all the mobs across Norrath yet as it takes some manual data compilation and will be a slow rollout starting with the starting cities and branching out from there.
Dynamic loot tables now work, but working through a bug or two. One time when kill a spider it might drop some spider leg tips, another time some damaged spider fur. This was implemented partially to help the next bullet point but just also future functionality. Same deal as the previous bullet, slow rollout that will bleed outwards from the starting city over time.
Implemented a lot of Alutra's recent work. He's been at it like a madman. Decent level of confidence that Freeport Magician, Bard, Warrior, Enchanter, Rogue, and Cleric(could be missing one or so) quests now work to level 20 pending the loot tables above getting implemented.

believe it

# ? Jun 29, 2023 06:36

kedo: Nov 27, 2007

Fajita Queen posted:

Does anyone remember ROSE Online

ROSE online was super fun. I seem to recall certain classes having buffs that were super OP and that high level characters could stack them on newbies to make them unkillable gods of the starter zones.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 14:10

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

i forgot about rose online until it was mentioned so i googled it and apparently it's still running lol

# ? Jun 29, 2023 14:22

kedo: Nov 27, 2007

Man I might have to revisit ROSE. I had a lot of fun with that game back in the day. It's chill af.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 14:31

Frog Act: Feb 10, 2012

kirbysuperstar posted:

on EQOA:
Last month:

from the 13/06

believe it

Hell yeah I thought the revival project had totally lost steam and died a couple years ago, I had been keeping a close eye on it. The second they have a playable server up I am going to start a Barbarian Shaman and then never play another MMO again

# ? Jun 29, 2023 15:02

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

i didn't play rose but i did play flyff. terrible, awful game i met some chill people on. i bet they never got the promised more complex aerial combat system Coming Soon(tm) that was like the entire selling point. the incredibly stiff animation for throwing big yoyo weapons is ingrained into my psyche.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 15:19

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

i tried out all of these games but never stuck for more than 30-50 levels lol

always went back to RO to make another dumbass build that broke the game in some way

# ? Jun 29, 2023 15:20

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Frog Act posted:

Hell yeah I thought the revival project had totally lost steam and died a couple years ago, I had been keeping a close eye on it. The second they have a playable server up I am going to start a Barbarian Shaman and then never play another MMO again

You and me both. I hope its easy to connect to servers and play with the PS2 emulator. People can get the current private servers working on an actual PS2, but the PS2 is painfully outdated at this point, things like load times and connection speed are really bad, but weren't really an issue for a console in 2001.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 16:36

kedo: Nov 27, 2007

I'd love to play it, but last time I looked at the site they wanted you to have a physical copy of the disk and a physical PS2 to get the BIOS loaded onto your computer which seems like a pretty massive barrier for entry. Hopefully they can figure out a way to make it less obnoxious.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 16:41

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

you can just download those things from the internets, they can't know where you actually got them

# ? Jun 29, 2023 16:42

kedo: Nov 27, 2007

Yes, but

# ? Jun 29, 2023 17:13

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

They are just saying that as a

every single person, themselves included, knows what they are really saying is "download this game from archieve.org, along with the PS2 bios, and the PS2 emulator, these things are easily findable, message someone in private, because otherwise Sony will go after us maybe."

When the time comes I could do a write up on how to set this all up if you need the help.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 17:27

Frog Act: Feb 10, 2012

I said come in! posted:

They are just saying that as a every single person, themselves included, knows what they are really saying is "download this game from archieve.org, along with the PS2 bios, and the PS2 emulator, these things are easily findable, message someone in private, because otherwise Sony will go after us maybe."

When the time comes I could do a write up on how to set this all up if you need the help.

Please do, my general technical incompetence has made emulation a major chore for me in the past (I can make it work but it drives me nuts) and something that old and bespoke is probably gonna be even more complicated, but the second there�s a playable server I want to be there

# ? Jun 29, 2023 17:31

Jazerus: May 24, 2011

Catgirl Al Capone posted:

i didn't play rose but i did play flyff. terrible, awful game i met some chill people on. i bet they never got the promised more complex aerial combat system Coming Soon(tm) that was like the entire selling point. the incredibly stiff animation for throwing big yoyo weapons is ingrained into my psyche.

i played flyff for half an hour and then decided playing with my buddies was not worth this

# ? Jun 29, 2023 17:34

Ranzear: Jul 25, 2013

Truga posted:

i forgot about rose online until it was mentioned so i googled it and apparently it's still running lol

Nah it's super dead, there's just plenty of private servers. I forget if it was leaked or whatever.

kedo posted:

ROSE online was super fun. I seem to recall certain classes having buffs that were super OP and that high level characters could stack them on newbies to make them unkillable gods of the starter zones.

The trick was to tool around for those buffs and then rush over to the hundred people camping the merman boss and get just a single hit to land. Go from like level 9 to level 29 instantly. Could chill there getting chip exp off him, spawning every 5 minutes or so, up to about 35-40.

There were a few more of these bosses that gave a minimum exp for participation but they were much less camped (and died in longer than a few seconds) that whole system got nerfed long before the end.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 20:53

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

they should bring back Maple Story 2.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 20:58

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

Ranzear posted:

Nah it's super dead, there's just plenty of private servers. I forget if it was leaked or whatever.

https://www.roseonlinegame.com/ :confused:

dev on steam forums even posted they're coming back to steam eventually lol

# ? Jun 29, 2023 21:05

Stalins Moustache: Dec 31, 2012; ~~**I'm Italian!**~~

Catgirl Al Capone posted:

i didn't play rose but i did play flyff. terrible, awful game i met some chill people on. i bet they never got the promised more complex aerial combat system Coming Soon(tm) that was like the entire selling point. the incredibly stiff animation for throwing big yoyo weapons is ingrained into my psyche.

i remember flyff was as big as something called fiesta online that i only played for like 30 minutes or something.
Wasn't flyff part of a goon e/n thread many many years back where the dad lead his entire family into severe debt for purchasing stuff in the in-game store? Or was that some other game?

# ? Jun 29, 2023 23:06

Flavahbeast: Jul 21, 2001

that was flyff

# ? Jun 30, 2023 02:08

Ibblebibble: Nov 12, 2013

Ibram Gaunt posted:

they should bring back Maple Story 2.

MS2 was so bad, man. Didn't feel anything like MS1 and the change in gameplay was somehow even more jarring than GW1 > GW2. I didn't really like the final gameplay either, which the GW gameplay change had going for it IMO. Didn't even have any nostalgia triggers for me, and like 50% of my childhood MMO play was MS (the other 50% was Runescape).

# ? Jun 30, 2023 03:48

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

Ibblebibble posted:

MS2 was so bad, man. Didn't feel anything like MS1 and the change in gameplay was somehow even more jarring than GW1 > GW2. I didn't really like the final gameplay either, which the GW gameplay change had going for it IMO. Didn't even have any nostalgia triggers for me, and like 50% of my childhood MMO play was MS (the other 50% was Runescape).

Yeah that's all true - but you could customize your own outfits and draw words on them.

# ? Jun 30, 2023 03:53

Chev: Jul 19, 2010; Switchblade Switcharoo

kedo posted:

Yes, but

Getting a PS2 bios is one of the most non-effort things these days, no worries to have.

# ? Jun 30, 2023 06:21

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

in addition to everything that they explicitly did wrong MS2 and Ragnarok 2 had to deal with the fact that their original games had years of updates and they were trying to convince players to move out of games that had way more choices and complexity for them.

# ? Jun 30, 2023 12:25

Ranzear: Jul 25, 2013

Truga posted:

https://www.roseonlinegame.com/
dev on steam forums even posted they're coming back to steam eventually lol

https://www.roseonlinegame.com/news/14-early-access-release-time

Was shut down in February 2019 and revived just in December. Neat.

# ? Jun 30, 2023 19:58

gwrtheyrn: Oct 21, 2010; AYYYE DEEEEE DUBBALYOO DA-NYAAAAAH!

Flavahbeast posted:

that was flyff

people talking about BJs in flyff will never not make me giggle.

Other than the fact that apparently they killed bow jesters or something

# ? Jun 30, 2023 23:57

Fajita Queen: Jun 21, 2012

Ranzear posted:

https://www.roseonlinegame.com/news/14-early-access-release-time

Was shut down in February 2019 and revived just in December. Neat.

Woah that's cool

I've played on the aruarose private server a few times and that's based on a wildly different, much older version of the game, so I'm gonna have to see what the new one is like because I have no self restraint

# ? Jul 1, 2023 01:01

Ranzear: Jul 25, 2013

I played some private server at some point and hit level 70 in like an hour or two. Was neat to experience more of the game but I missed the vendor arbitrage that made me big bucks in the original.

# ? Jul 1, 2023 06:33

Shredder: Sep 14, 2000

I wish anarchy online would get a reboot or something, the gameplay was whatever but the setting and vibe was a gem in a sea of orcs and elves

# ? Jul 1, 2023 14:02

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

i just suddenly remembered flyff actually had pvp and it was extremely imbalanced. jesters would run around invisible clocking everyone in the back with a sack of money for their entire health pool. typical rogue poo poo

# ? Jul 1, 2023 14:11

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# ? May 25, 2024 06:02

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Shredder posted:

I wish anarchy online would get a reboot or something, the gameplay was whatever but the setting and vibe was a gem in a sea of orcs and elves

Yep, ive talked about wanting this a lot in this thread. AO in 2023 is super confusing and janky to play. But the game world is great.

# ? Jul 1, 2023 16:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > MMO CHAT: I'll probably buy and play that game even though it looks like dogshit

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