RPG Progress Report

[BogusMeatFactory]

Playing more Everquest and not much progress was made, as I made a critical error. I entered the city of Grobb with my Ogre Shaman, not realizing that I have pissed of their local Shadowknight guild and was quickly murdered. I could not retrieve the body until I employed the help of a troll to drag my body to safety so I could recover my gear and money.

On my way back to my home town, I came across two ogres who were screaming for help and people were ignoring them. They were being attacked by a large group of lizard men and they had no weapons or armor, probably searching for their corpses. They were lost in the wilderness and I don't blame them. The jungles are really hard to navigate and it is incredibly easy to lose your way. What is funny is that, where they wanted to go was, "The bridge," which is an enormous bridge that is right outside the city gates and they were all the way in the opposite direction.

I helped them out and they were thankful. Poor guys. Why they were going over the bridge is beyond me as the area there is for levels above 20 and when I looked at them, they were a lower level than I.

Back to the grind!

[Exhuminator]

I'm impressed that EverQuest is still online and a thing people play. I thought World of Warcraft had murdered it years ago.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I'm impressed that EverQuest is still online and a thing people play. I thought World of Warcraft had murdered it years ago.

It is most definitely alive. What is considered mainstream Everquest is an absolute mess. It is Free to Play, has nothing of the original game in it at all and is a clusterfuck of modern and archaic game mechanics.

Project 1999 is a legal private server that reverts the game to the original 1999 version and unveiling expansions up to a certain timeline without compromising the original game.

It has so many rough edges and archaic trappings, but those trappings are endearing and refreshing. In a world of MMOs where everything is placed for player convenience, the original Everquest required exploration, note taking and hard work to achieve anything.

Are you a rogue in a law-abiding city? Find the guild by exploring secret passages beneath a bar and avoiding traps to get to where you are going? Are you an evil race that needs to pass through a friendly city? Find underground catacombs or use invisibility spells to pass through the city streets unnoticed.

You have to wait for ships to come and cross oceans, you have to approach NPCs in public chat and ask questions to learn about quests, which you have to write down, as there is no quest journal.

The game itself is much slower paces, but encourages exploration and the game mechanics are built around that slower pace. Nostalgia takes a part in this, but the game does have a charm that will never be replicated in a modern era of MMOs, let alone games. It was in the wild west era and it shows. Lots of bold mechanics and game design, regardless of if it was practical or not.

[Exhuminator]

It was in the wild west era and it shows. Lots of bold mechanics and game design, regardless of if it was practical or not.

Yeah don't get me wrong; I wasn't insinuating that WoW was better than EverQuest. Not by a mile.

[BogusMeatFactory]

It was in the wild west era and it shows. Lots of bold mechanics and game design, regardless of if it was practical or not.

Yeah don't get me wrong; I wasn't insinuating that WoW was better than EverQuest. Not by a mile.

Oh I completely understand! World of Warcraft popularized the genre even more so than Everquest did and shot it into the stratosphere. The problem is that they were able to refine the game to a point where it really diluted the game experience. It is tough for me to play an MMO in general, because I have always felt that the world wasn't engaging and that the experience was one that I could get from other games that were neither on-line, nor required me to pay extra fees.

Everquest was different in that department. They created a world worth inhabiting, even though players never played the game that way. They just hang out in one city and leave the rest seeming desolate. You either live in Freeport, or you live in a ghost town with a few players passing by from time to time.

That is the biggest drawback to the genre. The majority of players define how the game should be played. If you play differently, or have a different view, your experience tends to be diminished, due to lack of support from the larger player base.

[Exhuminator]

Well I'm glad you're enjoying EverQuest at least.

I've never been able to get into MMORPGs for a few reasons. These are the general reasons:

I like for RPGs to have a clear beginning and end. This format allows for stronger narrative with plot arcs and twists and such. Because MMORPGs are ongoing, their ability to tell an engaging dramatic story is limited compared to an offline linear RPG.

I'm a goal oriented gamer and to beat a game feels like an achieved goal. I don't know of any MMORPGs that you can beat and see credits. I know a lot of MMORPGs have daily quests and such, but those sort of busy work objectives feel shallow to me. I'd rather be doing quests in an RPG that actually moves the plot along.

One reason I like to play video games is to escape from society, and therefore mingling with actual real life people in a video game isn't appealing to my misanthropic ass.

MMORPGs adhere to a very transparent Skinner box format which encourages constant grinding. I'm not a fan of grinding that much, the repetitiveness just kills it for me.

Because of their designs that encourage and reward time sinking, MMORPGs typically reward stats more than skill. (Also MMORPGs that allow you to buy your way to victory... just terrible.)

Those are the main reasons, but there are others as well. I know there are exceptions to some of these rules on a case by case basis. But I don't know of any MMORPG that has none of the flaws I listed above. Don't misunderstand me though, I totally understand why so many people love MMORPGs and why they remain a popular genre. If you love to level and raid and socialize with online acquaintances it's probably pure bliss.

[Ack]

My problem with WoW was that most folks playing it were terrified of the PvP portion. Relatively few people that play it actually actively participate in PvP compared to raiding, even though it was a necessary component of the game.

The most fun I ever had in that game was forming a two-man gank squad with a buddy of mine and going out to hunt player characters in the world. We'd use terrain to sneak up on them, sometimes appear in the distance to drive them in certain directions, or hide behind trees and such to catch them by surprise. Most folks were terrified and would freak out and try to run when they spotted one of us. That's when the other would get them. A lot of folks would just give up at that point.

Unfortunately the rest of WoW just wasn't as interesting. I like MMOs that let me just wander and explore(there are a few but unfortunately not many), and WoW's approach always felt rigid and forced. It's a shame that so many other MMOs have since decided to adopt its style of locked in zones and enforced player barriers.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Well I'm glad you're enjoying EverQuest at least.

I've never been able to get into MMORPGs for a few reasons. These are the general reasons:

I like for RPGs to have a clear beginning and end. This format allows for stronger narrative with plot arcs and twists and such. Because MMORPGs are ongoing, their ability to tell an engaging dramatic story is limited compared to an offline linear RPG.

I'm a goal oriented gamer and to beat a game feels like an achieved goal. I don't know of any MMORPGs that you can beat and see credits. I know a lot of MMORPGs have daily quests and such, but those sort of busy work objectives feel shallow to me. I'd rather be doing quests in an RPG that actually moves the plot along.

One reason I like to play video games is to escape from society, and therefore mingling with actual real life people in a video game isn't appealing to my misanthropic ass.

MMORPGs adhere to a very transparent Skinner box format which encourages constant grinding. I'm not a fan of grinding that much, the repetitiveness just kills it for me.

Because of their designs that encourage and reward time sinking, MMORPGs typically reward stats more than skill. (Also MMORPGs that allow you to buy your way to victory... just terrible.)

Those are the main reasons, but there are others as well. I know there are exceptions to some of these rules on a case by case basis. But I don't know of any MMORPG that has none of the flaws I listed above. Don't misunderstand me though, I totally understand why so many people love MMORPGs and why they remain a popular genre. If you love to level and raid and socialize with online acquaintances it's probably pure bliss.

Oh, no misunderstanding at all! I totally understand where you are coming from in terms of your perspective of what games are for you and how MMOs do not fit into that. I always like to view MMOs in a different light than those who popularized them. For them, it is all about raids and teamwork and PvP, which are now becoming sole features for games like Evolve and all of the MOBAs. For me, it is something completely different.

For me, MMOs are a very proactive game. I play the game for the worldbuilding and the nuances. There have to be details in the game that appeal to me and draw me in. I also love going out of my comfort zone and engaging other people. MMOs are supposed to bring people together to play, but they compartmentalize people socially into tiny cliques that never interact with people outside of their tiny group.

I go out of my way and engage people though. I treat characters like I treat human beings. I say hello, be super friendly and when they stop, stare at me and then run off, I like to always make wacky statements on their character. I make experiences for others and I derive pleasure from that.

I don't just grind. I make up stories and tales about them. I dramatize them into epic tales of grandeur.

For instance, I play an Ogre Shaman. They are cursed with stupidity (magical curse that is) and they live in a jungle full of lizard men and frog-people and a bunch of gnarly stuff. The newbie zone has you killing the basic stuff, snakes, bats and the various entry level lizard and frog-people tadpoles. At one point in hunting, I ended up being surrounded by froglok tadpoles. They attack by licking you.

So in my head, my character was out just stomping on bugs and stuff and all of a sudden he feels something sticky hit him in the back of the leg. It is a little squishy froglok. He steps on it and it goes splat..and he feels another sticky slap and another and another. Before he knows it he has a whole swarm of squishy froggies attacking him and he just keeps stomping and stomping and stomping.

Sure, in reality, I was just grinding and a couple of enemies aggroed to me, but now I have a story to tell. I turn it into Ogre speak and I make sure that when I start a casual conversation with a player in town, I tell them the tale. they smile, I smile, we all go on our merry way.

It's the little things that make me happy.


@Ack

I agree. Almost every MMO has taking the them park approach. This was popularized by WoW and morphed other MMOs like Star Wars Galaxies into a horrible experience. Now, every MMO takes that approach. Zone A is for levels 1-5, Zone B is for levels 5-10 etc.

Another reason why I enjoy classic everquest is because the newbie zones for everyone are almost always all encompassing. The Feerot, the starting hunting grounds for the Ogres is for levels 1-60... seriously. The entrance to a huge raid is there, plus enemy camps and mini-dungeons are there for a wide array of levels. They are sequestered off to a certain portion of the zone, which is Across the Bridge, which you should just know from playing you never do unless you are strong.

Every zone is like that. There is a little something for everyone, but you just need to explore to find that out. A lot of players have refined the game and streamline it and it drives me nuts that they do that. I had a player ask me why I was hunting in the newbie grounds in the Feerot and I said, because I have an Ogre character. They buffed me a bunch, gave me invisibility and said, "Go to freeport. It's quicker to level that way."

That's not what I wanted though. I wanted to play the game the way it was intended and just experience in the way I wanted to. I don't want to rush through things. When people tell you, "Oh it is only fun when you are max level and raiding," then you are playing the wrong game! You should learn to enjoy the lower levels just as much.

grumble grumble... I'm gonna get off this soapbox!

[Ack]

See, Bogus, that's exactly why I enjoyed Asheron's Call back when it first came out in 1999 or so. It did not use zones, all players on a server were thrown into one big world that they could wander at will. Typically weaker enemies were found near major roads and starter towns, but the further away from "civilization" you got, the tougher enemies became. Zoning was used for dungeons which had to be accessed via portals, but that was all, and often times you could wander into an area that few players knew about and encounter previously unexplored dungeons.

There was also a story in Asheron's Call, and it was in part based upon player actions in the previous month. If the players killed a big boss in a raid, that boss was often removed at the end of the month, but new bosses might appear. There were seasons too, so in the Winter snow would fall, and in the Spring flowers would bloom and many animals would appear with their offspring.

And then there was the PvP server, which was intensely clannish, full of roaming bands of bandit players stalking whoever they could find. Certain towns were often controlled by a single clan, while many were deserted of all players out of fear. That server always had a third of the players, but it was also always intense just to make it out of the training area, because many clans made money off of killing new players and looting their corpses for cash.

I had a joke once, where I put together the proper clothes and equipment to look like a particular enemy in the game, a catlike humanoid known as a Drudge. I declared myself a superhero, Drudgeman, who was born to improve relations between the human and drudge populations. I typically ran around one of the starting towns, Holtburg, shouting about the need for humans and drudge to get along. People apparently remembered me years later in the game. But more importantly, I logged on once several years after I quit playing and ran into Holtburg. Do you know what I found there?

A giant statue of a drudge.

I like to think that statue was put there for me.

[BogusMeatFactory]

See, Bogus, that's exactly why I enjoyed Asheron's Call back when it first came out in 1999 or so. It did not use zones, all players on a server were thrown into one big world that they could wander at will. Typically weaker enemies were found near major roads and starter towns, but the further away from "civilization" you got, the tougher enemies became. Zoning was used for dungeons which had to be accessed via portals, but that was all, and often times you could wander into an area that few players knew about and encounter previously unexplored dungeons.

There was also a story in Asheron's Call, and it was in part based upon player actions in the previous month. If the players killed a big boss in a raid, that boss was often removed at the end of the month, but new bosses might appear. There were seasons too, so in the Winter snow would fall, and in the Spring flowers would bloom and many animals would appear with their offspring.

And then there was the PvP server, which was intensely clannish, full of roaming bands of bandit players stalking whoever they could find. Certain towns were often controlled by a single clan, while many were deserted of all players out of fear. That server always had a third of the players, but it was also always intense just to make it out of the training area, because many clans made money off of killing new players and looting their corpses for cash.

I had a joke once, where I put together the proper clothes and equipment to look like a particular enemy in the game, a catlike humanoid known as a Drudge. I declared myself a superhero, Drudgeman, who was born to improve relations between the human and drudge populations. I typically ran around one of the starting towns, Holtburg, shouting about the need for humans and drudge to get along. People apparently remembered me years later in the game. But more importantly, I logged on once several years after I quit playing and ran into Holtburg. Do you know what I found there?

A giant statue of a drudge.

I like to think that statue was put there for me.

I love it! I played Asheron's Call back in the day as well, but, just like with Everquest in 1999, I was too young too really dedicated time and effort into the game. In Everquest, I seriously would play for a couple hours and then make a new character and play fora few hours and on and on and on. I never passed level 5.

I mean, Asheron's Call and Ultima Online were the real cowboys with pure chaos that was memorable and magical. PvP and the freedom to do what you wanted really made the MMO a sandbox experience that blew people's mind.

Before Everquest, I played a great MMO called Underlight, which was a player-run game. No NPCs, besides enemies and leveling and learning new skills was completely player run. You had player, Teachers, with halos that would give you customized missions and tasks foryou to accomplish to move up. Guilds were established houses with political stances and conflict. It was a wild game and an even wilder west. The game had permadeath, but there were consequences for killing someone. You needed a special skill to do so and people would put you on trial...shit was crazy!