A new way to play...Follow

Very interesting.

I like the way it isn't just "play it the old way" period. The idea of "unlocking" features by achieving simple quantifiable goals is a good one.

I don't understand your goals though. Alcohol tolerance always seemd a completely irrelevant thing so I doubt I would include that in my profile. Similarly you emphasize tradeskills heavily which suits some classes and not others. Most use INT/WIS for skillup with the exception of Smithing (STR) and Fletching (DEX). Being say a monk trying to do baking is pretty fruitless. (Unless of course you are baking fruit pies)

Similarly Begging has no use I am aware of except as a melee taunt.

As I understand it one of the big advantages of Abysmal Sea is that you can skill any tradeskill to 54 for free. Limiting yourself to not going there until you can't take advantage of this seems a little masochistic.

There is also the matter of our strange economy. Without bazaar access making any cash is much, much harder. How much harder depends on what race you choose. As a Vah Shir the mobs drop virtually no cash and the quests yield very little either. As a Froglok you not only get given 5gp on startup but those skellies in the swamp are dropping rusty weapons, gold and shields worth nearly a plat.

It is a good idea and the targets could be configured to suit the starting race. It would probably be much more fun if a whole group of you agreed to this and worked it together.

I understand that your objectives were configured to suit you. That is part of the benefit of this idea.

I don't think alcohol tolerance affects the duration of the intoxication DoT. The whole group seems to recover together.

The poor old monk (a friend of mine) got through 3 stacks of Batwing Crunchie components for a single skill rise. At that rate it isn't worth doing.

And by the way they nerfed the rat tails

Other types of objective could be specific mob kills or equipment gains. Eg not unlocking magus until you have killed Kizdean Gix.

Or measure by faction gain. Making being ally to some faction a condition.

I'm thinking hard on this one. If I come up with a set of rules that suit me I'll post it.

Punny, berry punny

The "drunk" traps don't leave an icon and are unaffected by Aria of Innocence (and presumably any other remove curse type effects).

Y'know? I think a group of about 10 of us should come up with a solid set of 'rules', choose a server (FV could work, or wait until the next 'new' server), and make a guild dedicated to those rules. I'd definitely be up for it. :)

-SK

Send me a message, Devilwind.

Unfortunately, I'm still pretty new to this forum thing...I just learned how to do smileys.

How do I message someone on this?

Good question. Or we can just leave it in the thread. But yeah, we should get 10 of us together, come up with a solid ruleset (probably not as heavily tradeskill dependant?) and then choose a server to start on. Although, given that we'd all be choosing different race/class combos, we should probably go to PoK immediately just for guild creation.

ACK!! Life, even virtual life, is hard enough already! I actually played when we didn't have the things that make things easier like spires and PoK stones. I was a Ranger and took a boat everywhere. I also had a few Druid friends, but I didn't want to be one of those people who took advantage of people who most likely wanted to actually play than serve others. (This was far enough back that their weren't that many porters out there and the few their were charged a lot for the service (40pp meant a lot more then than it does now))

I think it's a cool idea for people who want a good feel for the original game though, and it certainly adds challenge. The trade-skill levels are WAY high though. I think for unlocking the nexus if they are all say 50, that's more than fair and each next step should be say 25 points more in each. Trade-skills are VERY expensive the higher you go and working them all even to 50 is a lot for someone lvl 25 untwinked without bazaar access.

I certainly think it's a cool idea, and these days even starting on a brand new server where people can't transfer, you still wouldn't get the real feel for how it was in the beginning because all the expansions added too many things to make life easier. Also, no more book open to med, N Freeport for buying and selling, hell levels, hybrid exp penalties, death exp loss was halved, so it's hard to make it like the beginning, but your ideas would be cool towards re-enacting the old days. hehe

I honestly like your idea, just think a little tweaking is needed here and there. I certainly wouldn't do it myself because I went through the rough times and am enjoying the changes compared to 40 minute boat rides (and their was only ONE boat back then so if you just missed it, it was a 39 minute wait and 40 minute ride ). So for me it's like been-there, done-that and taking a step backwards. I do hear a lot of people wishing they played back in the old days. They then added "when doing things meant something". I'm not sure doing anything then really meant so much more, it was just harder. People certainly tended to know their classes though! You never really heard about people who didn't know how to play their class because usually they wouldn't get to the higher lvls. Ahh, how you're making me remember......

Well, bed time for me, gratz on an interesting idea. Certainly adds to the boards compared to seeing so much of the same things coming and going and returning some more.

Edited, Sun Mar 21 14:17:40 2004 by KerikDaven

I've got a novel idea! If the game has become completely boring to you, no challenge left, tired of the grind, here's what you can do:

1. Log out of the game

2. Turn off the computer

3. Hop in the car(or on the bike, or the bus, train, whatever works for you)

4. Head to the beach, park, river, local art gallery, zoo, or <insert local point of interest here>

5. Enjoy your day, get some fresh air, have a bit of fun

6. Repeat steps 1-5 whenever everquest gets boring to you

Just an idea

I can see that Devil, in the old days leveling took long enough that each class had things to look forward to as they leveled. It wasn't uncommon for a person to take a week or more to gain a full level, I know as a Ranger, I was stuck in level 30 for about a MONTH and that wasn't too uncommon. Hell-Levels could kick a lot of people's butts, but Hybrids with the exp penalty were hit especially hard. Worse was the fact that the level AFTER a Hell Level you lost DOUBLE the experience of a normal death.

Those were rough days indeed. As I said though, people REALLY learned to play their classes in those days. You really never heard people complaining that people didn't know how to play their classes in the old days because if they didn't know what they were doing, they wouldn't make the higher levels to begin with!!

People do level too fast these days and a little challenge could be a good thing. Only the better players would even concider doing this. Most people would take the easy way which is exactly why people end up level 51+ without a clue how to properly play their classes. The idea of lower levels MEANING something is an outdated idea, something like this could certainly make people take pride in the little things again though. I'd sooner recommend this be put in as new rules for a special server though. This way you are really playing people who all went through the same thing and things would have greater meaning. Should would be an AWEFUL LOT of trade-skillers though. PoK wouldn't have any beggars in it either, hmm, idea is really starting to grow on me.

I'd assume you exclude city zones. I can't see much point in trying to get a High elf into Neriak 3rd gate (Although I could do it) or the like. They seem slightly obsessive objectives if you take them to extreme. However the idea of visiting zones as a way of unlocking more content is a good one.

However having objectives like jewelcrafting is not suited to all classes. The cost to a warrior is disproportionate compared to an enchanter. He is going to spend 4 or 5 times as much getting the same skill. Either that or he will be forced to divert funds into INT/WIS gear which serves no proper purpose for him.

Another major element of the simplification of the game now is buffing. When a level 1 can have Temperance and HoS their gear becomes irrelevant. How would you handle that? Require people to click off buffs above their level? or have unlock points for these too (like when you can visit PoK)

The other thing that would need careful thought is building interdependence. As initially proposed it is a single person thing. If addressed as a guild it would be nice for people to be able to help each other achieve these objectives rather than have each person bumble through alone.

Not to just present a contrarian view, I am genuinely puzzled by these statements.

I don't doubt the veracity either, I have witnessed similar thinking in some good friends in game.

I simply don't understand it. In spite of however long it is that I have been playing the game, I can honestly say that I am never bored, always have challenges yet to meet or overcome, countles places yet to explore. In fact if I were to become frustrated in any way it would be due to the almost overwhelming number of things yet to accomplish on my "goals list".

I wonder if part of the issue is because some people place unrealistic timeframes around their objectives - but then - many of these people are the ones who also seem to be perpetually starting new characters. Which seems to be at odds with the thought of advancing in the game quickly.

Prior to LDoN, I think that it was a plausable argument for mid level people to talk about "exp grind" burn out, as for the most part the only pick up group your were likely to find would have been an exp grind. Even guild groups were frequently the same. Post LDoN though, there is a great alternative.

At higher levels I don't think the "exp grind" burn out issue has really been valid since PoP. The PoP quests and trials offer a beautiful alternative, not all of them require raids many are actually one group only events. Maybe the jump from SoL, which probably did emphasis exp grind levelling a bit too much, to PoP was a bit too much for a lot of players to get their mind's around at the time. But now, with LDoN training as a background, I can see no reason at why a bunch of people who get together regularly to do LDoN's wouldn't take a change of pace and go do some PoJ trials and quests together, for example.

The OP comes to the conclusion that players need goals and challenges;

"What does this mean - what do people need? Goals and Challenges. And not just long term ones, they also need short term goals, something to fill the void while your working towards your long term goal."

But I would argue that the game is cram packed full with Goals and Challenges. And has been since Kunark onward.

What about the Howling Stones key? Veeshan's Peak Key?

Various Coldain quests from the Velious era, Shawl and Ring etc.

I really do think that between LDoN points (and the leader table if that sort of thing lights your candle) keys, progressive quests (eg Coldain prayer shawl), PoP trials and progressive quests, and it is becoming clear that there are a few of these in Gates as well, thee is a mind boggling array of challenges and objectives.

Perhaps this is part of the problem, people are having trouble identifying and selecting because of the large number?

The cynic in me is inclined to say that perhaps many people avoid or give up on these because the challenge is too much, take the less challenging path of simply exp grinding to a certain level, then realise how hollow it is and begin complaining about how boring it all is. Having conveniently forgotten the challenges they gave up on in the first place. But as I said that is just the cynic speaking and not meant to be a flame of anyone.

To return to an old hobby horse.

There are two basic human attributes that are at work in all of us to one extent or another, and these play a strong part in all human interaction and endeavour.

Ego and competitiveness.

If there is a weakness in the design of EQ, it is in the way it deals with these two issues. Because, up until recently, these were not well addressed by the game design, the player community instituted its own system. First mostly in the form of "equipment bragging" and then more recently in the form of "level bragging".

Guild reputation and raid success is thrown into the mix as well of course, but at its basic individual level, it the player's ego and competitiveness is satisfied via the equipment he/she can show off and their characters level.

Because these have become the yardstick by which the vast majority of players measure their "self esteem", "community standing relative to their peers" and in general their "success" in the game, many aspects of the game have become severely distorted.

I have no doubt that this aspect of the game does lead to the "hollow feeling" when some one grinds as rapidly as possible to 65 in the mistaken belief that this will bring respect admiration and "success". And I can understand some one in this postition wishing they could start over again. I believe that the game's structure needs to be changed slightly to help people avoid this sort of trap.

As I've said in the past, I think the one thing that EQ lacks is a recognition system that recognises a characters achievements in a way that is not linked to equipment and level. The old class specific armor and epics did this to some extent and were headed in the right direction, the LDoN points table and "no drop" merchant equipment is also a good starting point. I think these ides should be developed further.

I believe the one thing that would eliminate that "hollow feeling", "boring exp grinds" and "the desire to relive the past", would be that by developing your character and adventuring successfully you earned visible recognition in some form. Some form of badge of honor, that displays to everyone who sees you.