(Inspiration for the pic, courtesy of The Ancient Gaming Noob. Click image to make your own)
Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Wont you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
- Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel
Normally, I don't start off an edition of Ask Massively with song lyrics, and if I did, the likelihood of my choosing Simon and Garfunkel is approximately the same as the likelihood of Clinton winning the White House this year. George Clinton, that is. However, this week's column is all about time. The perspective that time brings. The lessons that time teaches. But most of all, the changes that time wreaks on our ideas of what is desirable in a game. So, before I start warbling the words to Bridge Over Troubled Water or start thinking that 70's Folk Music is a severely underrated genre, let's take a look at our question this week.
Hey there,
I'm sure you guys have heard about the Living Legacy promotion that Sony is running for Everquest and Everquest 2. Do you think it's a good idea on Sony's part? I understand that it's good to get old/new players "in the door", so to speak, but what about all the folks who have stuck with the game for the past 4 years? Aren't they risking the alienation of their remaining fan base by giving so much away in order to (re)attract players?
-Kaludrama Derlas, Uber Mage of Druzzil Ro
I have to admit that Sony, a company that has made its fair share of PR blunders in the past, has come up with a master stroke here. Many current MMO players got their start in Everquest, and giving those people a chance to stroll down memory lane, free of charge, is an opportunity that many of us won't pass up. However, the question remains, "Will this make a difference to the game in the long run?"The short answer to Kal's question is "No. In the long run, this will have very little effect on the overall number of subscribers to EQ and EQ2" The vast majority of folks who take the time to download the 1.3 GB patcher and reinstall the game will spend a few days chatting up old friends and looking around to see what's changed in their old stomping grounds, but the phrase "You can't go home again" is a cliche for a reason. What struck me upon logging on to my Cleric for the first time in nearly 4 years was how much the state of the art in MMO gaming has changed. EQ's interface felt downright primitive compared to some of the recent releases that I've played. The familiarity of moving using W-A-S-D and looking around my character in a 3rd person perspective was nowhere to be found. Memorizing spells? Are you kidding me? And what do you mean "You are out of food and drink"?
It was a rather big shock to think about all of the things in MMOs that I take for granted these days. Sure, it only took me a few minutes to get used to the interface, and remapping my movement keys was no big deal, but it didn't take long for me to be reminded why I chose to leave Norrath for Azeroth in the first place. World of Warcraft was shiny and new, and took so much of the tedium out of the routine tasks that players faced in Everquest. In many ways, EQ players were looking for something, anything, different than what they had been playing for 5 years up until that point. World of Warcraft certainly delivered on that promise, but there are lessons to be learned from that experience which can be applied to today's MMO marketplace.
First, a history lesson...
(note: the words that are "bleeped" out here were done by me and not the original author of these comments)
The Plane of Time
2003-05-09 18:50:26 - <Name deleted only to be dramatically revealed in a few more paragraphs>
You have 14 Days. If after that time the Plane is not properly tuned, I am deleting my characters, and cancelling all of my accounts. The rest of my guild will follow suit, as will several other guilds and people that play Everquest.
To be brief, I did not work my a** off, jumping through your idiotic hoops with my friends and guildmates, so I could go to a zone where only groups of 18 could enjoy the content. EVEN if past these initial moronic events I can finally get my entire guild in to raid with me, F*** YOU GUYS. Seriously, F*** YOU.
I cannot believe this... right now I'm just so p***** off. I am sitting here in the Plane of Time, and 3/4 of my guild is just sitting around while a group of 18 is repeatedly trying to beat one of the mini ring encounters. Don't you people have ANY F****** DECENCY? SMEDLEY WHY DON'T YOU STOP COUNTING YOUR MONEY AND START ISSUING ORDERS?
The tragic irony of creating the ultimate c***block encounter in the form of the Rathe which requires 80 people to defeat and then to limit encounters in the Plane of Time to 18.
14 Days.... after that this site will change from the most popular EQ fan site on the internet to the most popular World of Warcraft fan site on the internet. I'm done playing ball with you useless f*****s... it's my turn.
You might be wondering what is so special about this particular rant since you can find 100 rants just like it on WoW's Forums, or Age of Conan''s Forums, or pretty much anywhere else on the web.
First of all, the author of this particular rant was rather well known in the EQ community. Many end-game guilds followed his lead and his opinion was rather influential considering the relatively small size of the player population in EQ as compared to World of Warcraft. Secondly, the author made good on his promise/threat and generated a significant amount of hype for World of Warcraft before it was released. Most importantly, WoW delivered on it's promise. The gameplay was a radical departure from Everquest both in terms of mechanics and in the time investment required to enjoy it's content. So much so that many "old school" players accuse WoW of being "an MMO on training wheels".
Compare and contrast the rant above with these comments from Xi, a member of the recently "defunct" Death and Taxes.
The End. Sounds strange doesn't it? The ship went down faster than the Titanic, but the rats were bailing out before the iceberg was ever even in sight. I'd love to be able to sit here and tell you this was a result of the casualization of the game, of feeding us easy encounters for mediocre rewards, while at the same time undercutting these meager accomplishments and upgrades with welfare epics obtainable by anyone who has a large quantity of time, regardless of their skill or lack thereof. Let's be honest the theme of TBC is sacrificing everything that was good about raiding on the altar of accessibility. Sunwell is an unmitigated success, but let's be honest here, it's taken us 18months to get back to a Naxx level of difficulty and encounter design and we got a meager 6 bosses, that's pretty pathetic.
A lot of you might think Death and Taxes died this week, but for those of us who have been here for a long time we know that isn't true. Death and Taxes died a long time ago. We still killed bosses every week, but the spirit was long gone. The swagger you all came to know and love from us had evaporated. Some of us still carried it, and the guild, but the new people never quite got it. In the end Death and Taxes turned into any other guild, a job for the mercenaries who came here. They logged in at 7, picked up their epics, and logged off until the next raid, and that was never what we were about. We were about having fun, and being irreverent, and being honest with ourselves and each other.
It would seem that the pendulum has swung from Everquest's end-game content which was described as a "c***block" and required too many players and too much effort to be rewarding to World of Warcraft where end game guilds are frustrated because the content consists of "easy encounters for mediocre rewards" and because "the theme of TBC is sacrificing everything that was good about raiding on the altar of accessibility".
So what do players want in a game?
Hib over at LagORama sums it up pretty well in this article. Every game is going to have their fair share of disgruntled players who write long-winded rants about the state of the game that they happen to be playing this month. (Why are you looking at me that way? Stop it!) Each one of these rants means the same thing "I want to have more fun than I'm having with your game." Furor and Xi are saying the same thing for different reasons. What makes Furor's rant so interesting (aside from the fact that he was hired by Blizzard not long after this rant) is that for one of the first times in MMO history, he had other options. Until WoW came along and expanded the community, there really weren't many options for MMOs outside of Everquest compared to the vast variety of games in the marketplace today. Today, Xi and his cohorts in Death and Taxes have dozens of different games to choose from. Unfortunately for him nearly all of these games appear to be focusing more on "accessibility" than older games like EQ did. The trick for the industry will be to strike an appropriate balance between "accessibility" and "challenge". For more on what constitutes "challenge" in an MMO, you're going to have to wait for a future column. I am not going to be able to give that subject it's due in a paragraph or two.
So what does this mean for Everquest and their Living Legacy program? I would expect to see an influx of "retirees" over the next couple of months and maybe even a fair amount of nostalgia for Everquest in and around the MMORPG community. Even if 5% of the returning old folks decide to reactivate their subscriptions for a few months, it will be a resounding success. A lot of the complaints heard by current EQ players will fall by the wayside and be of little consequence. If Age of Conan or World of Warcraft weren't enough to get these players to leave EQ, then giving a "leg up kit" to returning players won't cause them to leave either.
To sum it all up, MMO gamers want to have fun. There's an earth-shattering observation for you. How games actually manage that task is what separates the champs from the chumps. Sure, game developers want all of their players to have the opportunity to see and appreciate the results of years of labor (otherwise known as 'accessibility'), but if there is insufficient challenge involved with getting to that content, you take away the reward in playing the game in the first place. Taking a walk through Everquest again after 4 years provides a stark contrast to the current state-of-the-art in MMO gaming, reminding us all of where we came from, and providing lessons for where we should be going in the industry. I remember my time in Norrath fondly, but I've been there and done that. I'm looking for something more now. That said, newer games can still learn a lot from Everquest's innovations and I think Everquest has learned a lot of lessons as well.
That does it for Ask Massively this week. If you have a question that you would like for us to answer in electronic print for the world to see, drop us a note either via our tipline or by email at ask AT massively DOT com. I appreciate all of the offers to have us gamble at your online casino, however it is against this website's policy to be gullible enough to fall scams like yours.
Gratz Red Wings!
