What exactly is the 'final product' going to entail? - Page 2

HellzKnight · #16 03-18-2002, 11:10 PM

As well known alot of things fist generated from HackersQuest...and they have slacked off alot..then again they had alot of things done to help others start off from...and nomatter how much flaming or bs I hear the programmers extractors..providers...webdesigners..of this site have made me proud...and probably alot of other people happy also...I have sat and tinkered with many things for instance I know of 4 epics missing in the emu...and a monk is basically a waste of time till his skills come into play...and a rogue can't backstab or sneak or hide...but get off these people's back they are kicking themselves and working because as much as we wanna see this work they do to...no one takes into something without a purpose...but as with all things "starting off from the end....and finishing in the beginning"...which basically means..you start with nothing but gutz and pride...and you end with astonishment just to yourself...because most things take so much time..that when it finally comes out..the hype is gone...but some make it to the deadline...EQ was a good game but it's time to be free has come...now lets help as much as we can and provide as a whole like we should and kick some verant arse hehe WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

Eq Emulators Forever muahaha

Demonicon DarkReaver lvl100 Monkish GM

Windcatcher · #17 03-19-2002, 03:05 AM

Flecko...why should having some server operators create custom content scare you? There will always be servers that try to emulate the live servers in content. But...doesn't hashing the same stuff over and over again get stale? I'm so burned out on Norrath content that it makes me sick. As in ready to throw up at the mere thought of entering it again. VI's "Norrath" is merely an imitation of some far more rich examples of the genre. And it's a pretty thin one at that.

When I consider the fantasy genre in general, I can think of far more immersive worlds, with more memorable characters:

- Tolkien's Middle-Earth, of course!

- Donaldson's The Land, from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

- Brooks' land of Shannara

- Feist's Midkemia in the Riftwar Saga

- Jordan's world in the Wheel of Time series

- Ansalon in the Dragonlance saga

And this is just to name a few that merely scratch the surface. Norrath is a collection of the most vivid stereotypes from the fantasy genre, but there is a lot more to fantasy than that. That's why I play AD&D, and why I'll be leaving for NWN once it comes out--both give me the opportunity to create and explore my own worlds, and just as importantly, if not more so, find dimensions to fantasy that break the traditional mold of humans, elves, dwarves, ad nauseam. Granted, the systems I mentioned contain these elements, but we are free to add to or change them as we see fit. It's also why I read and why I attempt to write--to broaden my view.

madgamer2000 · #18 03-20-2002, 03:48 PM

The emu is incredable and has come a very very long way. Eq emus in general have come a long way. The first incarnation of HQ ethernalquest was cool, but melee seemed like it would be impossible, much less real spells and content creation. All i can say its grats to all the programers.

As far as content i think that some people will make their own stuff, but not to worry. There will be plenty of servers that are exact EQ clones that will be fun to play on as well. Like Flecko said, i know so many of the EQ zones like the back of my hand it would be hard to give all of them up.

ibleet · #19 03-21-2002, 09:14 AM

I don't think there is a "final product", that's why they call it EverQuest.

h37lion · #20 03-21-2002, 12:54 PM

Well, I can say in pure confidence that DoTs do work (I tested out a level 29 druid dot lastnight.. and it worked) in the elmer release.

In my oppinion, the final product isn't important unless you plan on adding something to it. I believe this project is one that derives from the input of it's users.. so the quicker more people submit bugs and ideas the farther along eqemu will come. I mean, just look at what Drwade's database additions did for the emu.. things like this will turn eqemu into a fully functioning "verant-like" server, with all features we paid 10/month for.. and maybe some features that weren't in the original eq.

I still cannot believe I can locally, while offline, play eq on my own fully controllable server.. whether or not the spawns aggro on me, quests can be completed or anything.. I just relish the fact that I can play eq for free, and learn a bit of what goes on in the server-end part of it all.

just my oppinion, probably fully irrelevant to the thread =]

ZeroDegrez · #21 03-22-2002, 05:55 PM

There can never be a final product as long as Verant continues the patches.

h37lion · #22 03-23-2002, 03:49 PM

Well said.

cbreaker · #23 03-24-2002, 12:40 AM

Looking back at this post, page 1 and page 2 could be completely different topics =)

About EQ problems..

Boy, there's a lot about EQ that could be better, but alas, the changes WOULD require a complete re-think about how the game works.

Take something like monster AI for an example. I feel that the reason you have these incredibly strong monsters is that the AI, well, sucks. It's very simple.

The AI in EQ is basically "Attack the character that is doing the most damage" There are slight variances inserted into this, like healing. This seems very basic, more like "You healed an aggro'd character, so I'm considering that heal like you were nuking me" and distance "Even though you did more damage on me, this other person did a bunch too and he's closer"

Unfortunately that's about it. Sure, it's a little bit more complicated than that, not much. So, to compensate, they make the mobs hit VERY hard, and have ridiculous amounts of hit points. Hundreds of thousands on some occations. Of course, you can kill these mobs relatively easy with a well-oiled group of people, because the AI on the monsters is predictable and easily overcome.

So let's say they want to chance this. They make the monsters smart. Well, the higher the level the smarter. They go for the casters and healers first (once they figure out which ones they are). They command other monsters (if they are leader monsters) to block your escape paths. They run away and get help. Change the fighting tactics in mid-fight. Actually tryig to escape in a no-win situation before they are almost dead. Things like that.

Of course, now we have monsters that cannot be killed. They would have to make them less powerful. But now the wizzards' nukes are too strong. Chanters would mezz to easily. Warriors could take their damage forever. Etc etc.

It would be a cascade effect and impossible to do without starting with a fresh server, adjusted quests, new items, new spells, so much changed. All this because they made the monsters smarter. Imagine the dynamics of of it all. EQ keeps it simple, because it started small and it's gotten huge huge based off the original way of thinking.

So maybe we'll see more dynamics in the future of MMORPG's, but not with EQ. The problems with rare drops and dumb monsters that hit too hard will remain, because they have to remain.

EQEmu is emulating Everquest, and the core principals are not being changed. The AI will attempt to mirror EQLive, and thus have the same pitfalls.

All this aside, I do like EQ. Yea, there's a lot I dislike, but you know, it's still fun. I can see how one could easily to fall into the "uber" trap though; all you want is the best loot, and all you see is WORK (over fun) to get them.

And there is a point when you can get to "the end" of what you can do in EQ. Fortunately they release expansions and new things to do, so you can explore these new places when they become available. This is fun! And it's all we have for now.

I'll keep playing and having fun, sometimes pissing off the uber minions of EQ until some GM boots me off.

-CB

ps. I really like EQEmu. =)
ps. I hate the word "uber" with a passion.

cbreaker · #24 03-24-2002, 12:47 AM

Ohh yea. Maybe this thread isn't going anywhere, but it IS fun to discuss things like this. Some of us have played EQ for many hundreds of days (playtime!), and have very insightful thoughts about it. None of us here can change EQ, but we CAN talk about it and enjoy the conversation.

This forum is probably one of the best places I've found to talk about EQLive, actually. You have people that know a ton about EW, and you don't get any "You just say that because you can't get into UberGuild XYZ or raid ToV in your sleep hanging upside down from a tree" - or people that absolutely LOVE EverQuest and will not accept the fact that there are flaws in their game.

-cb

h37lion · #25 03-24-2002, 10:26 AM

I agree.. it is quite entertaining to think of what eqemu and eqlive can become.

Although, with eqlive I am completely bias on the subject.. I've basically given up any chance that I may ever pay 10/month for all the up/downtime verant offers... or the banning of my accounts for finding little 'quirks' that allowed me abilities that I shouldn't have (nevermind the fact that their programming expertise is what allowed for 'bugs')...
.. so I am very 'religiously' bonded with eqemu. It is allowing me to play eq once again, and fully enjoy it without being commited to paying each month (isn't paying $60 per each new copy of the game itself payment enough??)

On another thread, someone mentioned about Verant making eq single-player-able, due to their profits going down, or whatever..

To me, this is a brilliant Idea.. Mainly because that's what eqemu offers. Funnily enough, I see the developers of eqemu accomplishing this far before Verant.. So in my mind, I set my horizon on seeing eqemu doing this before EqLive. If you could log into eq and play while being offline, and still have npcs.. and 'smart npcs' which would nearly 'simulate' actual players..
.. then wouldn't eq be nearly 'renewed'? I think it would.

Right now the way eqemu is, it's momentus.. completely. Better interaction with npcs/smart npcs/mobs would make everything much better... and I'm sure people as a collective are going to work toward this effort. Hopefully, eventually one day we can load up our servers, log into them.. and have that same feeling of logging in to a 'world' full of people.. and 'live' amongst that world, just as we all have done at one time or another on Verant's servers.

In my honest oppinion, I believe the best Idea at this point would be for the developers to have an eq server on gotfrags that was geared toward development, instead of playtime.. where there was an oper for each zone.. and as a collective, everyone could work on npc/quest scripting... work on enemy ai (because I agree about Verant's Idea of enemy ai leaving much to be desired)
Instead of a few people working on all zones and trying to do everything in Norrath. Then, as new addons and updates came out, you could login to this server to literally experience the new changes, and submit oppinions, etc.. to me, this would be a development effort of a grand scale.. and would inspire me to definitely do everything I could to contribute, because I truelly appreciate eqemu, and what it's allowed me to do so far.

The only 'problem' I experience with eqemu when I'm playing on it, is the latency.. which I feel has a lot to do with the constant loading of info from the database.. but I'm fully confident this is being worked on (judging by status updates, etc).. but what happens is that I go to attack a mob, and it takes a minute or so before anything happens.. spells are delayed, etc.. but it's definitely dealable, and still fun.

I am looking so forward to what the EqEmu developers come up with along with all the other inspired developers that volunteer efforts to make eqemu a great alternative to EqLive.

Just seeing what has been done so far proves to me what can be done in the future, and I'm more excited about that than even ever seeing Verant do another thing with EqLive.
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Kron TheHorrible - ServerOp
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**Shin Noir** · #26 04-24-2002, 09:15 AM

Nice thing about random, you actually set your loot randomness and what not within your own servers. I am a fan of randomness, but I am not a fan of the AC. 150+ hours camping him, not one drop. Because of EQ's integral design, you need randomness to increase difficulty. However, it doesn't need to be seemingly impossible!
Actually, right now I have an idea formulating for my server. What is it? Well it isn't original or anything, basically old EQ on speed. People always say that old EQ would have been cooler if some issues were resolved. I hear that all the time, and I agree. My plans are to make quests relatively easy, and the results well worth while.. My emulation will hopefully capture a lot of what original EQ does, but speed up the process a hundred times faster. Example, level 60 will probably only take you 2 to 5 days playing time. Quests will have randomness involved, but by no means 150+ hours. I'd say 5 hours max, and that's like your epic. With the quests included, I want you to be able to play on my server for a week and pretty much do it all for your class\level. Then you just make a new character, or go around and help newbies or whatever you want like a trophy walking around.

Well enough blabber, i'm just saying that randomness is good if it's not obserd.