Is that a joke?

Keys to Heroic dungeons.

Removal of flag requirements for raid progression.

Countless PvP/Arena changes that drastically altered the PvE side of the game.

Uhm, do you want a full list, or will a summary do?

- Lowering requirements for Heroic keys to Honored instead of revered.
- Nerfing Magtheridon and Gruul into simplistic encounters (yeah, the original state needed a nerf, but not to the level they got)
- Removing attunements to SSC/Tk
- Removing attunement from BT.
- All around T5/6 boss nerfs in 2.4

And now they continue in Ulduar -- it was supposed to be hard. For some people who didn't have the skill and/or gear, it might have been "too hard" -- but now it's getting too easy, and it's only been what, three weeks?

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

How about just raid sizes in general? From 40 to 25. Then 10-man versions in WotLK?

(And people STILL whine about raid sizes.)

Honestly, the multiple raid sizes are a boon, imo.

If the only difference is tuning and loot tables, then by all means, provide me five man versions!

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

It's gameplay was stale? Then why did you play it for four plus years? Raid content was somewhat inaccessible to casuals, but certainly not completely.

EverQuest's big success was the community formed on each server and throughout the game. People payed attention to what other people and guilds were doing. Everyone knew when a guild passed some major milestone because you actually cared. In WoW no one has to care what other guilds and people are doing because it's not like they'll kill a mob and it won't be up for a week so you can work on it, you can just go get your own instance.

There will never be another EverQuest. The masses won't stand for things being difficult. This new generation of gamers wants everything on easy mode. They might as well just play X-Box live for all the community that exists in the newer MMORPGs and as long as everything continues on easy mode that won't change. I don't think a game that had the leveling curve that EQ had at the beginning would survive very long, which is a shame because it really did force grouping and getting to know the other people on your server. Even EQ these days has been dumbed down for the newer generation of gamers and that is largely WoWs fault. No one can get away with creating a difficult MMORPG now because Blizzard handed everyone a game that is so individualized and easy that no one would put up with it. It's a shame really that Blizzard failed to realize that what makes these type of games truly great is the friendships and enemies you gather as you maintain some type of actual reputation, much like real life.

The only reward you have for playing these games these days is the loot you get. EverQuest could space out expansions a little bit because it was difficult for people to get all of the best loot and the loot that you did get you had to put real effort into getting and it felt like a reward. With WoW being the lootfest it is and with the ease people are getting the best gear in each expansion, they need to be producing expansions as fast or faster than EQ did and they have failed miserably at doing that.

As far as the new server idea? Yeah, lame. I would have been more willing to come back to a three or six month per expansion server with steeper leveling curves than they currently have. No instances, a real community, and some fun times. I might have done that.

- Epics outside of raids - badge loot.

There is no need at all for a new server, regardless of what it was. I highly doubt most players who are still playing would even bother to create a new character on that one and lose their PL ability with their mains for their alts. As easy as the game is with vet rewards/xp potions/hot zones/mercs/defiant armor/etc etc... it still takes some time doing it all on your own- especially once you get to 50+. My solo monk in top of the line group gear at 73/300 could get nearly 5 AA per lesson burn in a hot zone w/o a merc. With, it drops to around 3 AA per lesson. W/O lesson or xp potions it drops to around 3 AA per hour. Not really the quickest of pace, but definitely much better than in years past.

Without altering game code that much, it is relatively difficult to give a 10 year anniversary reward for everyone that players want. If you really want a server type of reward with a positive impact, then allow all active players/accounts one free server transfer w/gear. Give them 30 days to decide if they want to go, and where. Maybe people may flock to one particular server and build a community there? Maybe guilds can fill in the holes they are missing via cross server recruitment instead of within their own server? Maybe that shuts down a couple servers and merges those players into other servers to help build up the community?

Or maybe it is time to just reduce server usage to build up server population. I dunno. But I guess I just think regardless of whatever result the players voted on (50/51, progression, etc) that it still wouldn't be used and would fail quickly- just like the other two older progression servers did.

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Just give us another no-rules PvP server, RAWR.

Bingo!!

Also, Xan you said it better than I could in 8 posts. Very well put..

Also, about this statement...



I do not disagree but I believe in the beginning it wasn't so bad. Then as more people caught on, more people were heard. This expedited the process and before we knew it, MMO's were changed. Just as many have already confirmed, WoW has done this and many others have as well. I think this is were EQ's value increased and any game that touted challenging gameplay did as well. I think this also helped market PvP games and what Brad tried to pull off with Vanguard. People though WAR and AoC would provide a challenge. No more easy mode level grinding and item drops... you were challenge by these opposing forces, skilled in years of game playing. However, they suffered the same fate. Everyone whines and wants to be all powerful in terms of the individual. Every aspect of the game must be rewarding as the other, every progression perfectly tuned to the next level of mobs and encounters, etc. People don't even try, the EQ poll proves it. They just wanted to skip over the first 5 hours (which is watered down enough) so they can have happy fun-time with their alts.

Anyway, to conclude and step off my soap box, I think what all of this really stems from is to celebrate a 10th Anniversary I believe the former players of EQ felt they should be considered along with the content over the previous 10 years. Regardless if I am a subscriber or not, I paid SoE off and on (more on than off) for over 7 years. I believe that those people should have been a part of that poll and not forced to reactivate. Secondly, how do you celebrate 10 years by skipping over the first 2-3 years worth of content? Foundational content. It all seems just off... fair of not, it is more of an injustice to its players and the game. EQ, no matter were it ranks in the past or present, deserved better than a 50/51 server.

Sorry, i was asking Kuwen if he disagreed.

I really really really really miss competing for raid mobs with other guilds.

Me too.

There is zero community in WoW at the server level. If they could add global instance queuing for pugs, it would actually be a good thing, because the only things servers do at the moment is limit your player base. Just think, a Lanys reunion Naxx or Ulduar raid on off nights.

That's the biggest thing to me. There's no community. You basically ARE your Armory page and nothing more now.

Well, I admit I'm biased. I liked the fact that in early EQ community was both necessary and encouraged. I was kind of hoping that the new server would be a 'classic' server the way the progression servers weren't, with the old rulesets (no shared banks, no multiple channels, no guild pages, corpselooting by others, corpse losing, etc). The harshness of the original ruleset was what made the game a challenge and I was hoping that by reintroducing that kind of challenge to newer gamers they would feel compelled to prove themselves in a way today's games (including today's EQ) don't allow. That, in turn, might convince developers that there is a market for truly challenging and harsh games and maybe lead to someone developing one...

/sigh

There is no way any developer would develop a game for a niche market when it's so much easier to develop a carebear type game and appeal to the masses. In the end it's not about the quality of the game and community for these people, it's about the cash flow coming in.

heh, just about every MMO that's not WoW right now is technically for a "niche market" -- that niche is "people who don't play wow"

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

ffxi is for fans of anime who like grinding all day every day

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Awesome. Two of the suckiest things in life, grinding and anime. What game do I play if I like to be raped in jail?

i love the animes wootaru

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Prison Break the Game - The Assplay Chronicles

An actual blue post from today.

lolBlizzard.

WoW gamers wouldn't know "soul crushingly difficult" if it were in a dictionary, and the page it was on then managed to crawl up their ass and die there.

Try completely unlocking a relic or mythic weapon in FFXI. Then you'll know soul crushingly difficult.

Yeah, only in WoW is "Kill the boss that drops the item" considered "soul-crushingly difficult".

What's soul crushing is killing a boss every reset and him never dropping the item.

go go extra large naxx25 loot tables!

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

My guild was killing KJ in SWP for months before the nerf. I got my damn legendary bow 2 weeks before WoTLK came out (. Least it made lvling to 80 alot easier ).

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Because it was the only MMORPG worth playing on the market, and I enjoy the MMORPG brand of gameplay(even if the nuances of the gameplay - such as mechanics, combat, progression, fun factor, etc suck overall - it still has elements such as social interactivity, raiding, dungeon-crawling, etc). Not to mention I really enjoyed the people I played with.

It WAS fun, especially in the early days - but primarily because it was the first game to somewhat correctly integrate all of the elements that are *now* essential to any modern MMORPG, not because of any particularly interesting gameplay mechanics. I think of it more as a bareboned skeleton: all of the basic, functioning parts - with no added flavor.

Another quality post, Venen.

I'm still having fun with it, Venen!

I'd still argue that the mechanics are still every bit as good, just less fluff and filling than WoW. Not to mention very different. I'm currently 2-boxing a Cleric/Enchanter duo and it's totally, extremely different than anything I did in WoW. It's crazy. =)

Social interactivity = Guk trains?

No, no, Leo. The social interactivity was "SOW PLS 4 CR!!1!".

Guk trains were quite fun though, although I'd still rate my personal favs as zoning into KC and seeing Venril Sathir (think that was Givin's train?); Ralanan training Trakanon (purposely) to us.. at Seb entrance; and watching Evesong kite every dragon in Western Wastes around while we zoned into ToV, while some asshat would invariably decide to AFK in WW at the zone-in to ToV.

Fun times!

While trains sucked, the idea that there were other people there and that unpredictable things could happen is really quite an appealing idea.

I logged onto WoW to do some tanking at my wife's request the other night, and the instances just seemed so boring. Mobs all laid out in nice, neat clusters. One long, linear path from beginning to end. Entirely predictable experience from start to finish. No other people, no chance meetings, no nothing.

I understand that this is done so that Blizzard can attempt to create engaging, scripted encounters that are tightly tuned, but...well, that's all well and good, but there's other aspects of an MMO that are interesting, too.

I dunno. For all their shortcomings, I find myself really enjoying EQ dungeons all over again. I died to Froglok Noble in LGuk the other night and was totally lost at the time, and found myself actually worried and irritated and realized that I hadn't felt anything in WoW (other than boredom and frustration) for so long that I'd forgotten the idea of emotional investment.

KC and Guk were awesome. I'll add Velks to the list just for sheer pleasure watching someone slide slowly... slowly.. ever so slowly... off the edge of a ramp and crater to their deaths. Velks was one of my favorite dungeons in that game ever. Getting up to the top with the kobolds felt really challenging the first few times I did it.

Leo and I used to pull Trak to zone with the Eye trick. Good times indeed!

Lol, Tali. The good old eye of zomm pulling. Not sure if you quit before Fading Memories AA came out for Bards, but you'd have loved that. Insta-invis and de-aggro. Great for pulling.

Shame you and Leo were on that other team, though :p
Imagine the crazy shit we could have gotten up to together with Eli and Ral.

It sucked when they broke Eye of Zomm pulling. At least it would still drop through the walls so you could see what was up.

FM was the most ridiculous AA ever heh. I used it on numerous pulls to great effect. To be fair tho, Leo and I didn't hold a candle to Cagen and Listero on the pull splits. That was quite possibly the best pulling team ever assembled (with all due respect to Nalgene). They were just stupid amounts of good.

Erzhan.

For all you Guk fans, they are releasing a revamp to it later on this month with the mobs being lvl 70-80 like over in Blackborough and Cazic Thule. New loot tables and all the fun stuff that goes along with it.

Fun times indeed...

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Heh, I definitely had some interesting times 2boxing my beastlord/cleric. Unfortunately, clear up to the GoD expansion and beyond, the only fun I could actually have in the game was by multi-boxing because the combat was so slowwwww. And believe me, I played a number of different classes and experienced the same thing, with bard being a possible exception.

Anyway, I'm glad you're having fun with it even if it's not my cup of tea. I'm just thankful you didn't think I was insulting your mother when I said it was boring and old =D

I will say the trains were incredibly funny to watch, and I do miss that about EQ.

Indeed the communities seem lesser, but I think a lot of people have simply found bad servers with too many of the young battle.net kiddies. People who have either never really given WoW a fair shake, or have played on isolated crappy servers I don't think have quite as much room to declare that EQ was the godsend of all community development. The one thing it had going for it is that it forced people to rely on others. It was also a smaller, niche game and easier for community to take root - not that EQ itself had much to do with that besides appealing to a smaller audience.

Xkhanx-

They did that last year too. Guk and Blackburrow were both revamped with mob levels and loot. My monk has a full leather armor setup from Blackburrow as a result. Maybe they are making it better than last year's revamp, but if it is the same quality loot... /shrug. Not bad for the 70-80 crowd that is for sure.

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I have flip flopped and returned to EQ. Huge nostalgic overload, but very fun. Still needs TAB based targeting, but so many of the changes are for the better in terms of casual viability.

Tab targeting... I thought I used to do that. Don't you just have to set it in the keybindings?

F7 or F8 should do the trick.

You know I think I knew that in the past.

I believe it's:

F8 - closest NPC

F7 - closest PC

Someday I'll read help files. It just felt weird to look at the help file for a game I used to know like the back of my hand. It's slowly coming back to me though.

You still have to edit the eqclient.ini to set up any decent options.

Top tier Rangers serverwide have been able to hit 60K HP Intin.

Fuck Guk. I reupped to EQ recently and have been leveling in those revamped zones Bovi. Unrest is a blast. I think I have every piece of new gear from the revamped zones my Bst could use.

Fun is watching fucking morons think they can AoE in the house while you sit in a safe spot and see them train the zone every 5 minutes or ask for a corpse to be drug. I am serious when I say that with the invention of mercs and that sort of thing a lot of people got lazy and cocky as they leveled toward the cap. The Unrest revamp has made my god damn day watching these idiots rape themselves with basement trains.

Edit: Neither Guk, not CT or BB were as bad on these trains by the way as Unrest has been. I sat there one day and watched a mage trio team bite it repeatedly because they would gather 4 or 5 and try aoeing inside the house only to pull everything down on their head. This happened every 5 minutes or so. Just about long enough for res effects to wear off. After about 20 minutes they started asking in ooc what they were doing wrong. More than a few people replied "Quit aoeing you fucking idiots." I wasn't one of them. Having gotten back recently I don't have a right to be arrogant, but damn it was funny.

2nd Edit: And Cicely, the loot from Guk and BB is the same. The loot from Unrest and CT is better.There is a crazy belt off of trash in Unrest (Yeah, I have one) that's 450ish HP/Mana/End, I forget the AC number, tons of stats, 39% haste, and a click effect that adds 200-300HP for 36 Min (46 for me). It's better than the Darkened Flowing Black Silk Sash from Frenzied in the new Guk. Avatar of Fear dropped a Similar belt while CT was revamped, with a clicky that adds AC and Resists. The BB/Guk stuff is 300-350ish Hps maxed stats. The stuff from CT and Unrest is 400-450. So far since returning and starting to level I lived in those zones to regear my Bst. He has a full set of the turn in loot, earrings, rings, ranged, shoulders, etc all from mostly Unrest/CT. I think I have one piece from either Guk or BB.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

Yeah, I know they have Trax. I'm unfortunately still only level 73 and haven't really gotten to get into the Unrest revamp. Probably won't since it will be gone on the 25th. Blah!

Yeah BB and Guk loot are the same as far as stats; however, I believe they put silk/plate in Guk and chain/leather in BB. That was the point I tried to make...

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unrest a max lvl zone now?

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Only until the 25th, but yeah. Before then it was Blackburrow and Cazic Thule. Right now it's Lower Guk and Unrest.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

You could be in Unrest at 73. I was in CT around then and it was the same level as Unrest is now. Just have to find people that aren't retarded. Wayseeker's bard Songseeker and his crew drug me through a lot of places I probably shouldn't have been by now though. Not sure if you remember him or not Intin. I did see you up in the bazaar as a trader though.

By the time Unrest had hit though I think from CT alone I was level 76 or 77.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

Hmmm. Well I will have to try over this weekend. i figure with the double exp there will be a few more groups than usual. I've still got some friends in game as well that would probably be willing to drag me around a bit.

You stick to 7th hammer or did you swing over to Stromm during that Fallen Legacy plunge?

We're both on 7th Hammer. I wasn't even playing during the server merge, so Uluth got stuck there. Don't know about Intin.

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There is no such thing as right or wrong; only pleasure and pain.

Wife and I are goofing around on Stromm atm. Might come back to Seventh for shits tho.