Quote:
Originally Posted by Maze_EQ
I really want a server where you need to interact with others.
Not a solo wasteland, I have Mass Effect, Witcher, and Horizon for that.
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This is a very poor game for single player, no matter what lipstick you put on the pig.
No single player game ever has ever had something implemented like camping an item. Or camping for experience.
I really don't think that was intended back in 1999, it's just that the game and playerbase evolved into that system. Somehow. And every other game, the successful ones that is, avoid it.
The closest you come to EQ's camping is something like Diablo's random loot. And that is really not the same thing at all.
Try to imagine Baldur's Gate implemented EQ playstyle.
I really don't get what a lot of the servers that come and go are trying to do. Here's how I see it in a nutshell:
1) This is a social game to the core. No one would ever do something so silly as to endlessly camp ... whatever, in the end it's all the same - without interacting with others or having the fruits of your solo camping pay off in some manner when you actually do interact with other people. Whether that is being a star at being in an experience group, or really helping your guild because you have an instaclick Circlet of Shadows and can do some funky things.
Then there is the fact that if you play the game anything like it was on live, you need an army for raid mobs. And don't deceive yourself, no one is going to play for any extended amount of time just killing R'ygorr for armor drops.
They want the loot you get from Temple of Veeshan - whether the server pop runs at 3 or whatever number it would take for enough people to decide to got to ToV at the same time in sufficient number to do the mobs.
And that brings us to trade skills. They suck. They are stupid. We all know that. If you say otherwise, you are being a Devil's Advocate to the point of perversity.
But you need them for some quests. And doing something like the Earring of the Solstice, without a bazaar and lots of other tradeskillers out there for various things means you have to do ALL the trade skills yourself.
Some of them aren't too bad in the beginning. But then you have to farm items forever to level up tailoring. You need foraged items so you can make this so you can level up that other tradeskill you need to level up the one you are trying to level...
All without some noobie farming HQ Bear Pelts or Misty Acorns and putting them in the bazaar for your convenience.
2) Now some servers get around things by making it more soloable. You've seen several different approaches, but the most common are boxing and bots.
I submit to you that the players who really get into their bot armies, using MQ, writing macros, and enjoying it all - is not a big percentage of even the EMU population.
And don't delude yourself. Boxing sucks ass without MQ. Even the ones that like boxing really don't enjoy alt-tabbing or having to fork out a ton of money for separate monitors/computers to box in their fortress of solitude.
Now obviously there are some really, really good reasons to ban MQ from a server. I understand totally.
But I also imagine the number of people who really want to deal with three boxing (like the two Al'Kabor servers) without MQ is fairly small.
Which is interesting. You can think of all sorts of reasons why it is sort of working there. Or maybe there are a lot of people going commando (single) or just two-boxing. Or maybe there really are only 180/3 or so individuals playing that during peak.
No idea, but I am not dealing with that old client to log on and look around.
3) Now this is the point where the catch-22 comes in. If you want EQ to be like it was you need the people. But the people won't come, unless the people are already there.
P1999 made the breakthrough. The Al'Kabors, one of them at least, might.
The other attempts start up, things go for a while, then they become perennial zero-people-logged-in servers.
There are some other attempts out there, that basically turn EQ into a totally different game using the client and graphical assets as the building base.
But they are really different games.
I'd even say Stormhaven is one such. Things like PEQ, THF, EZServer are bot army servers.
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