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blatman posted:what was the leveling process like in EQOA? It was very similar to what you’d expect from an Everquest game in general but broadly more forgiving and with a slightly different cadence, since everything was theoretically built around people using controllers for abilities and zoning not really being a thing, as most of the world was contiguous. So unsurprisingly the main mechanism was camping, but levels were quicker than on PC and death was a lot more forgiving, so people could afford to be cavalier in ways had you couldn’t EQ. I think group sizes were also slightly smaller with five or six people? Either way the basic dynamics were the same. Classes were pretty much the same as EQ but with streamlined spells and abilities, in that stuff was cheaper to learn, less complicated to acquire, and generally a little different. I played a Shaman and they were still offhealers, buffer/debuffer, super valued for SOW after level 27, wolf/bear form, wolf/bear pets, it was a really fun class that was a bit less restricted than the PC equivalent but also lacked some of the more sophisticated mana tools like cannibalize. I played a Shaman on P1999 and on EQMac back in the day and EQOA’s version of the class was like a pastiche of everything EQ had done or considered up to that point. Importantly even though it came out a bit later, it was still pre-WoW enough for the classes that don’t fit into the holy trinity modern model like Enchanter were still built around their unique utility and backup DPS functions. I remember spending a lot of time camping at Castle Lightwolf - I think - a big mountain castle that’s also a major camp in EQ. Ditto with places in Antonica. EQOA was a lot more solo friendly though, leveling alone was viable for most classes all the way up to like level 40, and it was positively encouraged with smaller quests that kind of presaged what WoW would do, but grinding was still the main mechanism, solo or in a camp/dungeon. It was also pretty clearly signposted and had a more straightforward material progression ladder in that every class had a series of armor sets that would help guide you towards the right leveling areas and ensure you’d have access to a decent gear baseline. There was better stuff ofc but the class armor quest lines were well tuned to be just complex enough to encourage cooperation but not outrageously long or punishing. It also did a great job, imo, of making the world traversible from all the starting cities despite having almost as intricate a faction and good/evil system as EQ. The fast travel system was a precursor to WoW’s flight paths where you had to get a “carriage route” by visiting a place and, subsequently, you could fast travel along the network one stop at a time to connected places. It had the effect of encouraging exploration but making it easy to return to particularly relevant camps or dungeons. They were also one of the few loading screens as the world was otherwise without zone lines outside of continent transitions The most important thing though I think is the way the combat incentives and punishments worked. Unlike EQ you couldn’t level down or lose your equipment. A lost corpse only meant incurring EXP debt and a resurrection only meant not incurring EXP debt. If a player died and wasn’t resurrected, they’d be given a little overlay on their EXP bar equivalent to a certain percentage of the level. Any EXP earned after that is docked by like 50% until the “debt” is paid off, and you go back to leveling like usual. Death and wipes were still hella punishing when you’re deep in a dungeon, but a wipe didn’t mean leveling down out of EXP range or losing all your poo poo, so it wasn’t catastrophic. Obviously this had a major impact on the basic dynamics at play and so things could be a bit more casual, especially combined with the faster - but still preposterously long by today’s standards leveling speed - pace, it seemed to cultivate its own niche of people who wanted to play EQ but didn’t have a PC/didn’t have the time/(like me) were 12 years old I have really fond memories of EQOA that I think aren’t entirely nostalgia. Objectively remembering the systems in the context of the genre today only reinforces my opinion that it was characterized by a bunch of design decisions that could have been a new standard and should at least have merited a long life and a PC port but it was forgotten in the wake of WoW and the small population of people into Everquest that also had an online capable PS2 with a keyboard willing to pay a monthly fee when most PS2 games were free to play online. It did last like ten years, though, and M&M seems explicitly inspired by it .
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Nov 5, 2023 23:33
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knox posted:Friends I made playing SOCOM1 on PS2 when I was really young, were the first to hit lvl 50 on EQOA (server Castle Lightwolf but I am pretty positive they were first across all the servers); Remedy the cleric & forget the rogue's name. I believe they quit not too long after that as there wasn't that much content at the time, but EQOA being my first MMO I've always looked back on it super fondly. Lol, I also got into via SOCOM1, which was revelatory to my young mind and opened up worlds of possibilities re: online gaming, since my family had a Mac at the time. Iirc eventually EQOA had a good amount of content and was supported for a long time even after it’s only expansion came out I asked the M&M devs on Reddit if they had any particular nostalgia for EQOA informing their design choices and one of the developers worked at SOE at the time and was tangentially involved in EQOA, and while they said it wasn’t an explicit thing a lot of their decisions have kind of intersected with where it ended up, since they’re trying to amalgamate the best parts of that era and it was uniquely good for pre-WoW MMOs
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Nov 10, 2023 00:00
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Oh man I also got one of those Frontier beta disks. The beta was right at the beginning of summer and I was in like sixth grade, the whole thing felt like a quantum leap in graphics and mechanics though I’m sure in retrospect it was a fairly typical MMO expansion. I was so into it at the time my friends snuck into my house and flipped the breakers (really pissing off my parents) to get me to come back outside
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Nov 10, 2023 15:25
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I think things like forced group grinding, hostile worlds, a sense of exploration and distinct factions, etc can be achieved a with less punishing permutation of those things. Like less crippling EXP loss or maybe not losing equipment/inventory, scribing and memming is retained but spells are made a little cheaper and more accessible, etc
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Nov 14, 2023 02:01
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unless the Dune MMO combines the best parts of DAOC and SWG it's gonna be a big poopy butt
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Nov 15, 2023 19:47
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I said come in! posted:Its a Funcom game, so yeah it will be poop. Can’t wait for a reskinned Age of Conan or Conan Unchained - whichever was the once-good now-bad MMO and the always-bad survival base building game - with janky sandworms and annoying mechanics. I’m gonna buy it and get real mad
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Nov 16, 2023 00:29
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I’m so desperate for monsters and memories to come out man I just resubbed to FFXI, logged in, was completely befuddled and alienated, and realized I just want to play a social game like that but not necessarily that or project 1999 as I have a job
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Jan 19, 2024 22:59
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Topical for all the housing discussion, Monsters and Memories came out with a big surprise and announced they've already implemented a form of housing and are going to be moving forward with it. I wonder how it will ultimately manifest itself, given the game's overall commitment to zoning but no instancing. https://monstersandmemories.com/updates/update-39-january-2024
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Feb 7, 2024 23:00
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I do have the feeling that M&M devs are underestimating the number of people who are starved for any kind of traditional MMO experience. For every person interested in the stress tests there are at least 10 waiting for a proper release. I anticipate housing plots getting snapped up by mega sweats pretty quickly
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Feb 9, 2024 19:13
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Yeah the MMO dragon I've been chasing since I was 13 is EQOA, the EQ game that seems to inspire M&M the most, and I reckon there are a good number of people who feel the same way since there just aren't any games even remotely analogous to it around anymore
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Feb 9, 2024 22:21
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I can’t categorically dislike non-instanced housing because of my many fond memories of SWG and Shadowbane in their prime. Obviously it didn’t take long for them to acquire that sort of ghostly museum to player accomplishments past vibe which I personally love, but for a couple years you could pop into cities in games like that and find players actively engaging in interesting emergent gameplay at all hours. That’s something you can’t get with static walled off neighborhoods
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Feb 18, 2024 19:49
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This looks so loving good. If they ever manage to reconstitute the NPCs, skills, and quests i imagine it’ll accumulate a decently devoted playerbase because it’s so unique compared to other MMO options. I’d definitely play it again forever
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Mar 11, 2024 23:36
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Apparently the RuneScape creator is working on a new MMO. It has a steam page now and it looks like complete garbage. Totally generic, has a vibe somewhere between “AI generated” and “game in a cop show”. The trailer emphasizes the presence of magic, blacksmithing, woodcutting, and extraordinarily forgettable combat in knock-off ultima land. I genuinely can’t believe something so stupid and lazy is attracting interest but apparently it is. I’m sure the exciting and well manifested three class system of Cryoknight, Hammermage, and Guardian will innovate in spectacular ways
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Mar 13, 2024 15:43
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the MMORPG subreddit is insanely stoked for it. I don't think there's any genre community that sucks down slop as enthusiastically as MMO players starved for a decent game https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/1be6y6s/runescape_creator_andrew_cower_unveils_new_mmo/
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Mar 14, 2024 17:48
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Yeah it’s a singular failing of the game industry. You’d think at least a subgenre like MMOFPS games would be limping along but somehow there are only two of them and one is more than 20 years old (WW2O). That’s why I feel confident Monsters and Memories is gonna make loving bank and succeed past their wildest expectations - it’s a competent, attractive, functional product and literally the only one out there if you don’t like FFXIV and aren’t still playing EQ
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Mar 14, 2024 18:51
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I just wish joining a loving discord wasn’t a prerequisite for beta testing games. Back in the day Sony sent me a beta disk for frontiers and all I did was fill out a form
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Apr 1, 2024 19:20
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Rift had an incredible endgame, leading a raiding guild in 2010-11 or so was easily the best MMO experience I’ve ever had. It wasn’t terribly unique but it was the zenith of the tab target genre. Fantastic classes too, stuff like Chloromancer and the Bard classes really added a lot to the trinity by integrating different types of support and healing into big groups
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Apr 9, 2024 17:47
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Anyone try reign of guilds? The developers are in the Steam community making fun of people’s negative posts by looking through their list of games and calling out “anime game” players as outside their target audience which is such stupid PR I’m curious how the game actually works in practice
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Apr 11, 2024 16:07
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Jack B Nimble posted:When monsters and memories comes out I really think I might just sub, and stay subbed, regardless of how much I actually play, because it's like we're just going to have to use the patronage model to will a traditional MMO into existence. I'd have to find out they're all scamming us or vile racists for me not to just end in "look, just keep working away on what is essentially a historical recreation of what a MMO used to be". Same. That’s the only game on the horizon that seems likely to really feel like a proper MMO without all the stuff that makes modern games so miserable. I don’t even care if they launch in a threadbare EA, I just want to subscribe and slowly level a shaman over the course of years instead of the breakneck rush to the end pace that characterizes everything now, and the devs seem to genuinely understand how important the journey to cap was in EQOA and other similar titles
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Apr 19, 2024 18:16
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Yeah I just gave the alpha a very quick try as an Ogre Shaman. It looks and feels good. I enjoyed scribing and memorizing my first two spells, which I didn’t get until I handed the relevant class guild leader a note. The city feels very layered and deep but is fairly intuitive to navigate - really reminds me of, like above, EQOA’s Halas mixed with Oggok, dug into a icy hill but full of warm, comfy rooms and spacious Ogre feast halls. I’m just sad that neither Evercraft nor Monsters and Memories have a Barbarian race, Barbarian/Generic Tall Northman Race shaman is my favorite class in these
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Apr 21, 2024 00:34
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Oh dope I totally missed that, must just be monsters and memories. Either way I was mostly ignoring Evercraft for Monsters and Memories but after tooling around a tiny bit it’s definitely on my radar. Seems like they’ve got a robust and efficient system for building areas and implementing systems and thus might actually release in a sane time frame. Very curious to find out if the class structure honors the older system and Shaman focuses on offheals and powerful buffs/debuffs, Enchanters have weird utility and abilities that don’t quite fit into the modern trinity, etc. I’m assuming it does and interested to see how they make that feel both good and modern, which they seem to have done well with the starting experience
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Apr 21, 2024 05:41
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