Living Legacy: What it does and what it doesn't

Well, add your name to the list of people trying to write EQ's epitaph. EQ is not a bad game, people left because they had seen and done it all, because they were bored with a game they had been playing too long. In, say, five more years, will you be writing the same about WoW?

It's tempting and easy to rewrite history, to go and say that EQ was always a bad game and that it took WoW to show people what a good game looked like so they could finally see EQ's flaws... but really. People are playing EQ, still. I and some friends have started a new EQ guild -- we all were ex-EQ players who moved on to other games -- and it turns out that EQ is, in fact, every bit as fun or MORE fun that EQ2 or WoW or, according to a few people in the guild, AoC. Why? Because we are a social people and EQ is a social game.

There is a magic in EQ called "community". It is a community based off mutual need because we all need other people to play. Newer game developers are scared of community and do all they can to eliminate it.

MMOs were always meant to be social, community based games. Don't follow Loral's lead and let ennui blind you to one of the genre's best and most enduring games.

No I think the article is probably pretty accurate, I haven't wandered back to EQ for this promotion, although the e-mail from SOE did pique my interest. It's not that EQ was always a bad game, during its prime it was an addictive, excellent game, that did a lot of new things and pushed the genre forward, that was 9/10 years ago now, things have moved on.

It's the same thing about WoW, I think WoW, and don't get me wrong I still seriously enjoy this game, but it's more the people now, is a good game, but in 5/6 years when "The Next Big Thing" comes along and has been firmly established we will all look back at Blizzard's game and say, "how didn't they think of x feature, y feature made the game terrible".

I also happen to agree with the article the current crop of MMOs put too much store in levelling as a time sink, someone needs to take a punt and make a game that doesn't require it, I know someone will shout Eve, but I mean an accessible one, when the tutorial takes a couple of hours to dig through and you still don't know wtf is going on the game is never going to pull in the kind of figures that a wow-beater will need, but its system is a good one to look at, something that makes new characters useful, but not as versatile as older ones, would be great. Then maybe we would get a content-centric mmo, rather than grind-fest, which seems to be the only mmos at the moment are going (yes repeating quest after quest is still a grind).

I dunno why everyone keeps saying about MMOs that they require leveling. RAIDING usually requires leveling, but just playing the game does not. There's lots of social stuff to do. Crafting doesn't require leveling (well, in WoW it does... weird...) Putting on player events like the recent Festival of Unity in EQ2 doesn't require leveling. In my EQ guild, we have frozen leveling at level 52, and trust me, we are keeping busy. Keeping low level ensures new people are always welcome, nothing is rushed past, everyone moves together. (Well, you can't turn off xp in WoW).

I read about AoC's "250 hours to max level!" announcement with disgust. MMOs were never meant to be single player games, with an end point. The notion that the levels from 1 to (n-1) are just barriers keeping you from the real game that exists at level (n) is an unfortunate one, and is part of why Loral in the OP is so very wrong. He isn't talking about what improvements to EQ he would like to see, he is trying to think of what he would need to be lured back to EQ, a game he really doesn't want to play anymore. And so he concludes that because he has moved on -- to D&D 4e -- that it is time for everyone else to move on as well, because the people who enjoy EQ are having fun the WRONG WAY.

When I quit EQ the first time, it was because I was really and thoroughly tired of the game. I figured nothing could ever bring me back to EQ. A couple of years later, I'm back, I brought a lot of friends with me, and I no longer buy into the poison mindset that leveling to level (n) and raiding is the optimal way to play EQ or ANY MMO.

Blow me. EQ is still the best game on the market. There is only mandatory grouping if you don't know how to properly play your class. Most of the people who whine about how "un-fun" the game is are just too damn stupid to play it properly. Good thing for them there are games like WoW and AoC which require no thought at all.