I bought a new EQ account, including all 13 expansions

[Frybread]

Art is not a number of polygons.

Beauty is not bump-mapping.

SOE completely re-did Norrath in 2006 or something. Freeport is now a giant, lifeless castle.





The commonlands are a blob. Every guard house, hut, enemy camp is now a model that screams "3DSMAX!!!!"

This isn't just nostalgia, Norrath had character because the team working on it was excited. They were making the first 3D MMO when people said it couldn't be done.

Now all of that is being thrown out, and being redone by poorly paid industry artists for the sake of new.

Everquest was a game that aspired to be a world.
It now aspires to be a mediocre modern MMORPG.


http://www.project1999.org/

[Thelemonsong]

That is a horrible screenshot to see.

EQ is something in our hearts. EQ was my puberty!

I still believe one day most games will revert back to character over style

[Frybread]

I'm still in shock that they just tore out all the old zones, animations, textures, all of it.

Not to replace it with something new and interesting, like WoW with a lava-fire world, but to replace it with "updated" graphics. And by updated, I mean 2006 "HD HARDCORE GAMING" style - dark textures, dark graphics, bleak atmosphere, RPG gears of war. As if you can slap more polygons and a current trend on something and suddenly it's better.

Blizzard is about to destroy Azeroth in an awesome earthquake.

SOE destroyed Norrath with graphic artists.

[Thelemonsong]

It's amazingly stupid. Nostalgia is just about the only thing the game has going for it, and they managed to remove that too.

People at SOE with jobs who have no idea what to do with them, none of them having played EQ or probably any game before 2000.

[Crying Eyes]

my god what have they done? i always consider getting a new account whenever i see an ad for it but now ...it isnt even there anymore. its gone.

[Chairman Kaga]

god dammit i hate the world

[Wackymarv]

I assume thats mega max settings? pretty ugly.. post more of these deformities

[danm]

They just made the rest of the world match thier stupid stick-butt "improved" troll graphic...

like tea-party politics, it's not suprising... just kinda sad.

[nonest]

</3

[Beastro]

The disease that was Luclin has long become acute.

I'm still in shock that they just tore out all the old zones, animations, textures, all of it.

Saddest thing of all is almost everything in the latest expansion is just npc models or structures that have existed since Beta.

I wish they'd get the old crew back together and just remake EQ, only this time really flesh it out and make sure none of the later shit with Discord and other crap works its way back in.

[Chairman Kaga]

Yeah. In my opinion EQ was still EQ until GoD came out... after that it just felt foreign. I understand lots of people view Luclin in that light but for me it was definitely Discord.

[Frybread]

I would be fine playing EQ live if they didn't destroy the old zones.

Imagine you want to play Super Mario Bros only to find that the graphics have been re-done by Gears of War artists.

[Snozberry]

that sounds pretty awesome actually

[Gusy]

(Side question: I typed the below before I really understood what you were saying. Can you explain specifically what is wrong with the new Freeport if you exclude nostalgia from the equation? I came in in PoK, and never spent much time in Freeport. I grew up in Rivervale. I guess I don't understand "This isn't just nostalgia, Norrath had character because the team working on it was excited." Can you give more detail?)




I could go either way. Games are nostalgic, and games are their mechanics, their rule sets.

I play a lot of old games when I can. Take MUD1, the Adam of MMOs, still playable, obviously with a next-to-null population:

http://www.british-legends.com/

Split it into mechanics + interface. By interface, I mean a combination of the UI and how the world is visually represented.

The interface is as old as it gets. It is a massively multiplayer, text-based MUD. Someone who played MUD1 when it was active would be unimpressed by a 3D representation of it, I'm sure. For similar reasons, someone like me, new to this very old game, is happy to be able to experience it just like it was.

As outdated as the interface is, the mechanics, or the ruleset, is probably better, by this community's standards, than WoW. It is fairly close to Discord. It has full communication, It has deleveling and permadeath. It has full item loot. This is one of the oldest MMOs in existence and it is a fairly fun game. It would be more fun if it were populated since the best parts of it are group-oriented.

You can separate these two aspects of this game. You could change the interface without changing the mechanics. This would alienate a big part of the audience, but would probably also endear a new audience.

If you took the best days of EQ, split it into interface and mechanics, and made a new game with the ruleset plus a modern engine, you might have a dream game. So taking an old game and applying a new interface, a new look, isn't all bad. What would be ideal, and probably very difficult, is if they could maintain both. Some games have tried that. I see the model updates in EQ as a failure because they are middle-ground. They don't look "fantastic" and yet they aren't nostalgic. They don't really please either audience.

[Frybread]

(Side question: I typed the below before I really understood what you were saying. Can you explain specifically what is wrong with the new Freeport if you exclude nostalgia from the equation? I came in in PoK, and never spent much time in Freeport. I grew up in Rivervale. I guess I don't understand "This isn't just nostalgia, Norrath had character because the team working on it was excited." Can you give more detail?)

Every artist works within the confines of available technology, whether they are making sprites for Super Mario Bros. in the 80's or painting on cave walls. Deciding that a game's graphics need updating is like saying, "Da Vinci used tempera based paints, so The Last Supper looks like outdated crap. Let's get some hack off the street to re-do it with modern oil-based paints."

The old EQ artists weren't DaVinci, but the new guys are definitely hacks.

The current Freeport is ugly because it's brown brown brown, like every other hardcore game released in '06. It's also sparse, doesn't fit the world around it (a giant, gothic castle as a dusty port town?) and it has a very clean, fresh out of 3DSMax look. Walk around it, or any of Norrath, it's horrific.

So taking an old game and applying a new interface, a new look, isn't all bad.

Of course it's not bad, you just need a reason to paint over a classic beyond, "we have new paints!"

[Frybread]

The Beatles recorded with primitive 4-tracks, way before autotune, let's re-do the white album.

[Üßøçñääðüæñãôþ]

The Beatles recorded with primitive 4-tracks, way before autotune, let's re-do the white album.

I think they did.

[BrianWins]

/mourn.. i hate them for ruining the game the way I hate zek for ruining pvp and for RZ for ruining FOH. RZ trash go home.

[BrianWins]

We had to adapt the shitty RZ watered down rule set and the game was dead shortly after for all real flowers.

[Gusy]

Walk around it, or any of Norrath, it's horrific.

I nabbed the Titanium last month and started an EQEmu server on my PC so I could just run around and remember how much I enjoyed that game. I sort-of worked backwards, meaning I haven't really run through all the oldest zones yet, but everything I did see (Kunark, Velious and after, plus Rivervale and a few other zones around EK) looked pretty much like I had left it.

Do I have to be on live to see this, or is it just that I didn't check out the major pre-Kunark cities?

[kerri]

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!



Also, I would play eq night if I had the time, but I don't. =(

[Beastro]

I understand lots of people view Luclin in that light but for me it was definitely Discord.

Luclin was the sun setting on EQ but the framework for that expack fitted into the rest of what EQ was.

The surviving remnant of the Combine Empire, the remains and survivors of the Holes creation, even as much as they bungled it, there was something of a good story being the Vex Thal folks.

Planes of Power too stuck with the foundations of EQ but made the mistake of having the players take Norraths Pantheon, what greater achievement could you have than that?

I quit during PoP but form what I gathered the Old EQ of adventure and discovery died and what replaced it was a grand epic of the forces of Discord which had destroyed countless worlds now invading Norrath.

I think they know they bungled doing that and the last two expacks which solely involve old fashioned aspects of EQ (introducing well known gods and opening up planes we've known about for years) but it's too late and too poorly made.

Do I have to be on live to see this, or is it just that I didn't check out the major pre-Kunark cities?

Several years back they began to compress the old world. Freeport and the Commonlands for instance were merged together, there is no West Commonlands or North Freeport.

When they did this they did the logical thing and just gave those zones a facelift in line with the graphics they'd introduced with Luclin.

From what I gather, most of the old world has had this facelift.

I think Kunark has gone untouched by I don't know, some following expacks have delved into Kunark like the Seeds of Destruction one so some zones like Field of Bone might have been given the face lift that their expack instance likeness has.

Pretty much, I think the only expack that has gone untouched is Velious from my times browsing Allakhazam.

All the fiddling was done after Titanium was released.

Even if it was during before, the emu community has clearly shown they don't want that a part of post-Live EQ experience.

[Dayse]

You'll only see the new nektulous/lavastorm on some servers in emu i think, the grafix update was eq live

[kure]

/mourn.. i hate them for ruining the game the way I hate zek for ruining pvp and for RZ for ruining FOH. RZ trash go home.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. First you post on my facebook wall, now you post on the FoH forums... Its like I'm falling into complete heterosexual love with you all over again...

Chris

[Gusy]

Neuts owned Velious (SZ). I don't love winter, but there was no better place we could own, and it was all your fault for camping all that elf shit. We got Rivervale, Runeyeye, that kissing eyeball canyon, and EC. Then we got the best kissing expansion in EQ. Yes, flip you Kunark.

[kure]

Neuts owned Velious (SZ). I don't love winter, but there was no better place we could own, and it was all your fault for camping all that elf shit. We got Rivervale, Runeyeye, that kissing eyeball canyon, and EC. Then we got the best kissing expansion in EQ. Yes, flip you Kunark.

Aside from FoH, I give great credit for the neuts on SZ. Marith or w/e his name was, was an epic character, the likes of which I doubt I will ever get to witness again. Pyratte Pete was one of my all time favorite PKs in the Luclin/early PoP days. He is what inspired my pink ranger. As you all know, I got to play good and evil, but never neut. I hated the evil team, but loved the good team (minus Chadlek). I miss those rancar, fastinyoh, heykid, pkexpress, pensi days so much!

Chris

[Chairman Kaga]

lie found, there are 16 expansions!

[Zorantiz]

RZ>SZ

[Üßøçñääðüæñãôþ]

RZ>P1999

[Gusy]

Marith or w/e his name was

Marathe. I had to look it up myself a few weeks ago because I couldn't spell it.

I found it first here:

http://www.hateguild.net/forum/viewt...hp?f=1&t=15301

I'm not an old EQer, but a shout out to Zorcher, unlisted. He seemed like the unofficial ambassador of neuts when I started because he constantly helped others, and constantly spouted off anti-Hate tirades as if SZ was the real world, and Hate was actually a force that needed to be stopped. I think he was Hawaiian. His terrible grammar put into rants made Gnomie look like Mark Twain. He was the first person to ever PL us (in Runnyeye). He taught me to appreciate the "history" within MMOs. He wasn't role-playing. He was my first Everquest hero.

I miss those rancar, fastinyoh, heykid, pkexpress, pensi days so much!

Those people didn't die in 2004, though, you know? Half of them still play video games every so often. (One, for example: )

http://www.notacult.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12042

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/user/Fastinyoh#p/u/3/dBGt0FyfXfQ"]YouTube - Fastinyoh's Channel[/ame]

Anar, are you documented?