Bimonthly Patches?

Benito really shouldn't be holding EQ1 up as a paragon of operational efficiency, worthy of being copied. After all, EQ1 is the game where the developers hosed the boat travel system so bad, and then could make no headway fixing it, that they just gave up and stuck teleport vendors on the docks to provide travel.

EQ1 devs also made one of the most idiotic graphic design decisions I've ever seen, when they "revamped" the Iksar swimming animation. The Iksar used to swim like crocs/gators, undulating through the water swishing their tails from side to side for propulsion. That got changed to a stupid looking arm-splashing crawl animation, which reminded me of a kid thrashing about the first time he got in water deep enough that his feet wouldn't touch; pitifully poor decision that change was.

I do need to add a disclaimer here: I have not logged in to EQ1 in over 10 years, so it is possible that the boat issue may have been fixed, or that the Iksar once again swim like Iksar should. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

 

In fact the boat issue was fixed years ago - I just cannot remember the expansion they got fixed with.

 

My Iksars in EQ2 swim like gators... or snakes.

 

If I was going to return to the franchise, it would be EQ, not EQ2 (unless a major miracle happens).

It comes with it's own pile of issues and mistakes, but if you can get past the massive cluster**** the UI* setup has become (at least last time I logged in), I think it's the better game overall. And if some speculation is correct, it has more (noticeably more) players than EQ2.



*I would add the cobbled together, tacked on, WTF does this window even DO UI to the list of idiotic decisions

 

When 'all access' was first rolled out, I downloaded EQ1 and tried it out (I'd never played it before). I couldn't even figure out how to accomplish the first quest (giving an item to a NPC). A friend of mine that had played EQ1 later told me I was supposed to pull the item out of my inventory and 'drop it' over the NPC. I played text based games when those WERE the only video games and I'd have never, ever figured out how to turn in that first eq1 quest w/o being told.
That was the first and last time I tried EQ1.

 

The amount of people who died accidentally attacking NPCs when trying to hail them back in the day is all anyone should need to know about how much EQ is not perfect.

They were still trying to figure stuff out then so some things can be forgiven in games like EQ, AC, SWG, DAoC, SB, RoE, or even CoH. But, EQ2 is contemporary with WoW. They launched something like 15 days apart. Would anyone say WoW gets a pass because it's old and clunky? I highly doubt it. So why does EQ2 often get one when it's made by a company with previous MMO experience and released along side WoW?

EQ is what dragged me away from online text based games. It helped me get over my divorce, connected me with more people to game and RP with, and I still to this day believe it is one of the better MMOs out there for several reasons. I've never hidden that I prefer it in almost every way to EQ2 even as archaic as some of it is. None of these games are perfect, but some come by their flaws honestly and others are just the result of people screwing up. I still have to fight the urge sometimes to reinstall EQ even with all of its peculiarities and DBG running it. I seldom even think of EQ2 any more unless prompted to.

 

I played EQ1 until EQ2 came out and enjoyed every minute of it and wasn't even sure I'd like EQ2. But now that I've played EQ2 and other games I could not go back to EQ1. I'm not playing EQ2 either now but my life has moved past what's required to really get fully into EQ1.

 

Ooh does that mean I could log in and take a boat ride through OOT again?

 

I had to have a character (the same one actually) retrieved by a Guide two times. Once when I fell through the bottom of the boat on the way to FV and got stranded in the ocean. That was a fun time.

The second was due to a terrain glitch that I think existed since before release where you fall through the geometry. Now this had happened to me before, and there was a trick to get out - Find the nearest body of water, walk out into the deep part of it, then pop to the surface and swim to shore. However, when I fell through the ground in Maiden's Eye, I guess the only body of water I could get to there wasn't deep enough, so I was stuck there for a week until a Guide got around to answering my petition and fetched me.

 

That killed me.

 

Just a bit of test scandal from years ago. For some reason, this and griffongate (hahahaha Gage banned for a week! ) are fixed firmly in my mind.

https://www.engadget.com/2007/12/16/soe-caught-red-handed-eq2-player-dev-relationship-breached-et/

It's nice that all patches will be put on test before hitting live, shame there's really no one there to test MOST of them though.

Surely they will implement /testcopy ... won't they ....

 

I always found the best trick for glitches like that was being a druid and keeping enough mana in the bar for an evac

 

EDIT: Main problem for that particular character is being a monk. I don't think my druid ever got stuck anywhere.

The problem with that and the glitch where you fall through the terrain, is (at least in my experience) it put you 'out of range'. I ran around with a druid (two of them actually, and a mage) most of the time. It's creeping up on 20 years, so I don't remember all the specifics, but I do remember I had to get a Guide both times.

Now, the time I lag slid into the Hole and died at 3AM cst (why was that 'entrance' even there?!) and thought I was going to lose my corpse and everything on it - I think at the time it was cured silk and a fungi tunic - my druid friend scoured the server for a necro, teleported them around, paid for the coffin plus a fat tip to get me out of it.

Or that time I died in North Ro and my only landmarks were a sand dune and a spider, my druid friend ported our bard friend over to find my corpse. That was the day I decided '**** running. I'll stand and die where I fight. At least then I'll have a sand dune a spider and a freaking ROCK.' Funny thing, that. We won more fights than we lost, I guess everyone else thought that if the monk/tank (me) doesn't call it, things must be fine, fight on. Little did they know it all went down to my terrible direction sense...

 

My SK Meneltel was running to join the guild on a raid somewhere, no idea, I think it was in kunark somewhere and I went LD while on autorun. Took me a few minutes to get online and I was a a grey void. Guildie came to use CoH on me but I was out of range. So I called for a GM. He contacted me, and teleported me to my bind spot and logged off... but I was still in the grey void! So I contacted a GM again and reported it. He contacted me, teleported me to my bind spot and logged off also... but I was still there. So on my next ticket, I reported that twice I was moved by a spell that didn't work, so don't hang up and contact me to make sure I was moved (by now it was 3 hours and my raid was long over). Gm contacted me, moved me by spell but contacted me to report that I hadn't move, and I confirmed it. Took him 3 different attempts but I got moved to PoK and was safe. So all is well that ends well, I guess.

 

I couldn't stand Gage. He made me ashamed to play a monk.

 

and that's why I love you.

 

Seems like a few of the Bubble Gnomes are in, or rapidly approaching, the place a lot of us here were a few years ago.

I'd feel sorry for them, if they hadn't been such twats before.

 

Well, it's not like they weren't warned or anything....

 

Eh, people defend what/who they love for as long as they can. Some folks have been through enough real life ****ery to -

A. Say **** all and burn the **** down
B. Hang on for far too long.

There's not another game like EQ2, not even close. It's very friendly for all types of MMO players. No matter what floats your proverbial boat you could always find something to do, even if your boat changed regularly. Some folks are just genuinely more hopeful than others. I know I am, it's just that BoL hit everyone of my "play styles" below the belt. And I've been in the business long enough to know when I'm being consciously fed a load of bullshit. I don't like the bald face lying, the condescending nature of some of the devs in general, and the willful misdirection.

Not everyone has a "life" outside of gaming. A lot of these folk's entire world is wrapped up in EQ2, and I'm not disparaging that at all, we make friends in different ways. I keep an EQ1 account active because of one guy I met in South Karana in 1999 while he was snare kiting aviaks and I was exploring with my ranger. We talk regularly. We visit each other regularly. When his mother died I was there, when my fiance died in Katrina he was the 1st., and for a long time, the only person who knew. He was the one that drove from Indianapolis to Metarie and waded through **** and snake filled water until I found what was left of her. I'd absolutely burn entire states to the ground for him. And we met in South Karana 20 years ago.

You want to believe that the people, places, and things you love, care about, find comfort in, and shake away your troubles with will always be around. After 15 or 20 years it's easy to believe they will be. You turn a blind eye to things you wouldn't normally. And when you see people, who without a doubt, are destroying those things - especially when they're the ones that maintain them - eventually you will lose that hope. I take no pleasure in anyone losing a part of themselves that has been there for more than a decade.

Que sera, sera, and what not.

YMMV

 

Oh, I know and fully understand. I gave EQ2 a lot more chances than I have other games. And I made excuses or turned a blind eye more than I have for other games.

I don't fault them for having hope things will change, even if it defies all reality. I don't fault them for defending the game even when it goes against their own best interest to do so.

I DO hold them accountable for trying to shut down folks expressing concern for how things were being handled since the sell out, and I DO hold them accountable for maliciously attacking folks that expressed dissatisfaction in the game they've chosen to 'defend'.

I take no pleasure in those people getting smacked in the face with the reality some folks were ostracized for speaking out against a few years back. I just don't feel sorry for them, like I did some of the ones that gave up on the game before and a bit after I did.


EDIT: I met my husband in Horizons, and my best friend in EQ2. So I also understand how MMO's can be a lot more than a way to pass the time for some people.