Why EQ1 was better then WoW - Fear.

[kate]

It would be interesting to see what would happen if WoW opened up a "hard mode" server.

Make it so that when you die you lose XP (even if you're at the cap) and can go back down a level. Make equipment 2x as durable, but not possible to repair, so when it's gone, it's gone and you have to replace it.

Make it so that when you die, you spawn at your hearth location and have to run back, naked and vulnerable to aggro, to your corpse, wherever it is (even if it's waaaaay inside a dungeon). And if you die again, well, there goes a bunch more xp and you have to run back anyway. After 30 minutes? An hour? Your corpse decays and your stuff can be looted, but after 2 hours even that decays.

Add elites back into the overall world, remove their ability to be leashed back (so they can be kited across the world to slaughter people).

I wonder how many people would play on that server as their primary.

[Tonuss]

Add elites back into the overall world, remove their ability to be leashed back (so they can be kited across the world to slaughter people).

One of the most disappointing things about the Cataclysm expansion is watching Blizzard finish neutering elite outdoor mobs. In vanilla WOW you made sure to avoid an elite mob if you saw one wandering the game world. In tBC you might solo one or two of them if you had gained 2 or 3 levels. in WotLK you could solo most of them once you were 80. Now, you solo them for quests as you are leveling. It's sad, really. Elites are no longer elite.

I was going through my EQ screen shots last night, and I saw one where my druid, having dinged level 35 just before, had soloed and killed Grimfeather. That was payback for all of those times that the bastard had slaughtered me as I was fighting mobs in a level 20 zone. That was EQ in a nutshell-- lots of danger and lots of risk which provided lots of excitement and lots of frustration. Few things could get your heart racing like running through (level 10-15) Nektulos forest on your level 22 character, knowing that if you weren't out of there when night fell, you'd be swarmed by an army of level 30-35 undead badasses just waiting to get their claws on you. When you got out alive you felt like the most awesome person on the planet. When you got whomped you knew you were going to spend the next XX minutes waiting for daytime to arrive.

And another thing that I wish WOW would take from EQ is the wide zone borders. Sure, lots of EQ zones would have one tiny entrance and exit. But some of them (the Karanas, for example) had a full open border and you didn't have to run over to the northeast corner in order to go to the next zone. Are there *any* zones in WOW that are like that? I don't think that there are, most zones are enclosed by mountains, or water, or space, and you have to go to a specific location to get to the next zone. This has changed somewhat with the ability to fly, but overall it really feels artificial.

[Toned]

It would be interesting to see what would happen if WoW opened up a "hard mode" server.

Make it so that when you die you lose XP (even if you're at the cap) and can go back down a level. Make equipment 2x as durable, but not possible to repair, so when it's gone, it's gone and you have to replace it.

Make it so that when you die, you spawn at your hearth location and have to run back, naked and vulnerable to aggro, to your corpse, wherever it is (even if it's waaaaay inside a dungeon). And if you die again, well, there goes a bunch more xp and you have to run back anyway. After 30 minutes? An hour? Your corpse decays and your stuff can be looted, but after 2 hours even that decays.

Add elites back into the overall world, remove their ability to be leashed back (so they can be kited across the world to slaughter people).

I wonder how many people would play on that server as their primary.

Add bards to the game and I'll be all over that. Training Sand Giants in the oasis part 2 here I come!

[thefunk]

i had a look at the eq site as i'm demotivated at the moment and they are launching a phased server which will roll out expansions every 3 months. I'd like WoW to do that to a certain effect, I'd probably play more with BC or even vanilla.

[jinkobi]

It would be interesting to see what would happen if WoW opened up a "hard mode" server.

Make it so that when you die you lose XP (even if you're at the cap) and can go back down a level. Make equipment 2x as durable, but not possible to repair, so when it's gone, it's gone and you have to replace it.

Make it so that when you die, you spawn at your hearth location and have to run back, naked and vulnerable to aggro, to your corpse, wherever it is (even if it's waaaaay inside a dungeon). And if you die again, well, there goes a bunch more xp and you have to run back anyway. After 30 minutes? An hour? Your corpse decays and your stuff can be looted, but after 2 hours even that decays.

Add elites back into the overall world, remove their ability to be leashed back (so they can be kited across the world to slaughter people).

I wonder how many people would play on that server as their primary.

I bet it would turn into the most overcrowded server in WOW history. We've all struck on something here which I'd kind of forgot myself. That games with a real fear factor aren't made anymore and lots of us old time gamers would love to experience that again.

[HTeam]

EQ punished players with time out of their life if they did poorly. Or if their connection dropped. Or if EQ's connection dropped (which is did frequently). Hey, you just lost 6 hours worth of XP and have a corpse run to *somewhere* because they couldn't keep up their line.

Have a fight, use up your mana bar and get ready to meditate for 10 minutes. Enjoy. Oh, and originally you'd have to look at your spellbook that entire time, unable to see the world around you.

Everything was based upon punishing the player for attempting anything remotely adventurous. Go out on a limb and if you're successful you receive nearly no benefit of playing it ultra safe, camping near the zone line and fighting stuff several levels below you. Adventure this does not make.

If you want real fear, play Eve Online. EQ offered nothing but fear of poor game design.

[Souca]

i had a look at the eq site as i'm demotivated at the moment and they are launching a phased server which will roll out expansions every 3 months. I'd like WoW to do that to a certain effect, I'd probably play more with BC or even vanilla.

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/ne...le.vm?id=52147

It starts in March. Was hoping they had already done it and I would have rolled a char there. Hell, we could all roll a char there and talk about how much fun those corpse runs are!

- Souca -

P.S. I could talk about what makes a game great all day. Never played EQ, so I'm mostly listening and dreaming up my own perfect little game as I read the posts.

[Souca]

If you want real fear, play Eve Online.

"I'm sure there is no one on the other side of this gate, I should be safe."


- Souca -

[Ualaa]

Chant kiting was fun.

You would twist a few songs.
An AoE chant, to piss the mobs off.
A fast run, probably with drums equipped to be faster.
Aggro a very large pack of mobs.

Then charm one of the mobs, so it is your ally.
The pack of twenty level 85's (wow context) are your DPS.
They quickly almost kill your pet.
You break the charm.
And continue to kite.

Which is run faster than the mobs.
And do AoE chant damage.
Which can now quickly kill the almost dead mob that was briefly your ally.
A mob which is tough enough that a full party might need to DPS it for 90 seconds to kill it.

But you've gone and charmed another of the mobs.
And keep it charmed for 6 seconds, so the other 85 elites hit it to 5% life or so.
In those 6 seconds... instead of grouping with 5 other players and spending 80 seconds to do the same dps.

Continue the process.
But your chant (AoE damage, pretty pathetic actually)...
Can kill the mostly dead mob in 30 seconds.
So you drop a mob every 30 seconds or so.... by yourself.
Three times as quickly as a full party can drop the mob.
But you have thirty or forty mobs tagged at once.

I miss my bard too.

[katsurahama]

Did anyone else ever have the boat despawn on them and drop you in the middle of nowhere?