Howdy folks
I guess one thing that always stood out for me in EQ as well as Vanguard, was that there were areas that were not often explored. Not much traffic, but yet when you went there, the feeling of awe was..well...awesome.
I still remember my first time delving completely to the bottom of Runny Eye or going completely through Mistmoore, both very rarely visited areas in EQ. Your heart was thumping, praying you didn't die, but it was just so cool and it brought you back for more!
In Vanguard, I still remember taking my bard around and I found this cave, it was in Thestra. There were these really weird gnolls or orcs there. The place didn't show up on the map, but I remember these pieces dropping off of them that were obviously part of a quest. No one knew about it! Then there was this time we were grouping in the marches on Thestra, towards the south. We were killing these fungus type guys for a quest. We kept going into the cave, deeper and deeper each time. Eventually we ended up in what appeared to be a sunken Elven castle of some sort. I completely geeked out.
No other MMO to date has impressed me like this. They talk about adventure, but in reality they just lead you by the nose along the garden path. Heck, even RPG's are doing it now, yes I'm looking at you Final Fantasy 13 " A Quest On Rails!".
I know you guys only have so much to work with, but it would be awesome to recapture that sense of being one of the few to check out that little corner of the world. I know it's not something just felt on my first MMO, because it happened again on Vanguard.
I know, you're probably already doing this, just wanted to say that there are people out there who appreciate the effort, it makes a WORLD of difference.
I am right with you on this. I also enjoyed in EQ finding NPCs to kill that weren't ones most people (or anyone) normally killed. When EQ had no expansions and everyone and their grandma was either camping ButcherBlock dwarves or one of the other very few places a person could solo to get up to 50 I got sick of waiting in line for camps, so I invaded enemy cities and other areas seeing which NPCs I could kill for XP and lewtz.
I also loved finding islands and underwater areas plus areas behind hidden walls that most people didn't know about at the time . When the game was young I even found a dinosaur of all things in EQ to hunt which was on some island and dropped a rare gem for me. I enjoyed exploring on my necro most (feign death) and secondly on my druid (could solo well as well, and could port all over) .
Aw man, ever been to Paineel? One of THE coolest and least explored cities in that game to DATE! I remember making a Troll SK and working on faction in the warrens (another awesome zone that was never truly appreciated) so I could get into Paineel. By far THE coolest city in any MMO in my personal opinion.
Jason said:
I am right with you on this. I also enjoyed in EQ finding NPCs to kill that weren't ones most people (or anyone) normally killed. When EQ had no expansions and everyone and their grandma was either camping ButcherBlock dwarves or one of the other very few places a person could solo to get up to 50 I got sick of waiting in line for camps, so I invaded enemy cities and other areas seeing which NPCs I could kill for XP and lewtz.
I also loved finding islands and underwater areas plus areas behind hidden walls that most people didn't know about at the time . When the game was young I even found a dinosaur of all things in EQ to hunt which was on some island and dropped a rare gem for me. I enjoyed exploring on my necro most (feign death) and secondly on my druid (could solo well as well, and could port all over) .
Yes please... hidden walls and places... everything attempted to be killed.
I absolutely adore the usage of hidden walls and secret switches, I even like it when they are so well hidden that players tend not to even find them. That's when you add a book on a table that hints towards a location of great secrecy and let the players do the detective work. Also a tactic that was used in EQ was paintings on the wall that looked like scribble scratch but actually showed the location of a hidden wall.
having a dungeon 1st floor that has a well in it... that you can actually jump down to get to the basement (and likely your death).
The hidden wall in Solusek temple that had the efreeti guy in there, and one step better was when you 'Hail' him =/ or being an impatient person who made sure to "hail" an npc by spamming the button twice in a row =/ Faction hit x2
FAKE FLOORS ARE AWESOME. So many dungeons had trap floors that truly made the exploring experience - exploring.
Or Kaesora in kunark? Not often went into, usually just for the epic quests, but definetly interesting the first time thru... "Where do we go? The only option is an empty elevator shaft? wtf, oh well, GERONIMO!!!"
Sounds need to play a key part in it as well, how many areas made you stop and listen due to not wanting to stumble into something. You hear a giant on the otherside of a door in Kael, or you hear mobs inside a house in plane of hate.
We need the old style game where when you die, it sucks, so you are truly cautious and afraid to die. But a group game so you share that experience with others. Nothing cooler than your first time exploring a dungeon known for being unforgiving.
Lokkan said:
having a dungeon 1st floor that has a well in it... that you can actually jump down to get to the basement (and likely your death).
The hidden wall in Solusek temple that had the efreeti guy in there, and one step better was when you 'Hail' him =/ or being an impatient person who made sure to "hail" an npc by spamming the button twice in a row =/ Faction hit x2
FAKE FLOORS ARE AWESOME. So many dungeons had trap floors that truly made the exploring experience - exploring.
Or Kaesora in kunark? Not often went into, usually just for the epic quests, but definetly interesting the first time thru... "Where do we go? The only option is an empty elevator shaft? wtf, oh well, GERONIMO!!!"
Sounds need to play a key part in it as well, how many areas made you stop and listen due to not wanting to stumble into something. You hear a giant on the otherside of a door in Kael, or you hear mobs inside a house in plane of hate.
We need the old style game where when you die, it sucks, so you are truly cautious and afraid to die. But a group game so you share that experience with others. Nothing cooler than your first time exploring a dungeon known for being unforgiving.
This is what I'm talking about, trap floors were truly immersive and made you think your way through a dungeon rather than brute force it. Locked doors with keys were also part of this in Howling Stones. While it was less traveled, it had some of the best drops outside of Sebilis, had it not been for every mob in the zone having Harm Touch, it would have been far more used. Sounds like a rock falling down a long shaft that play when you approach a pitfall that is covered by a rug on the floor... just FANTASTIC. Dungeons in Everquest were unequaled by any game since, in fact so much so that there isn't even anything close.
I never got to later game dungeons in VG, but Lord Sang's Tomb was one of the few I played through that even resembled an EQ dungeon, and it still didn't even do them justice. I think down the road when 3D graphics became easier and developers could have a dungeon easily sprawl through multiple floors, they forgot about the essence of what made dungeons fun... traps pitfalls and locked doors barring passage.
Legend of Grimrock did a great job with this area, would love to see some of that dungeon design brought into an MMORPG again.
Catharsis, I mean, Charasis was also a good one. I had just gotten the Call of the Hero Spell and a chanter friend of ours wanted to go in and get something, it meant heading to all areas. (Now mind you I was all for camping out in a reasonably safe spot in a dungeon if it was taking a while, to come back to so long as everyone was on at the same time- heh). and you needed the key drop from one to get to the other. And I fell in a trap hole. Panicking, I coth'd the Troll SK first and thankfully the elemental fell with me, instead of pathing to me (...). Troll SK landed and took 3 steps to look around, got aggro and FD'd' with 3 mobs. I was just out of range SK saying "hold pet!" and in mid-coth of Cleric the chanter screams "Coth me now!" got chanter next and in mid coth of druid while the cleric was saying "why, why, why". After we ...dealt... with the situation and all agreed this was not a good place to stay although I felt it was worth working through to the proper ladder to get back up, didn't look so bad now. I felt very sheepish when they all asked why I cothed them when I could have just stayed there and invised back. Well I really didn't know my way around that well and I liked following them and to be honest... I was scared. I felt it was a very judicious use of the Coth spell although later learned it was better used in a utility way. And besides, there were undead, and undead can see through invis.
