Koinoo

Screw walking, I've always swam through the lava rivers to get through Lavastorm. I even leveled my swimming to max back in the day in those lava rivers, maxing out ministration skill on my defiler at the same time while keeping myself alive through the biting flames. I'm that hardcore.

Seriously though, play EQ1 if you want a less casual game. I played and raided "hardcore" there for years and there is not a MMORG on the market (original Vanguard included) that is more difficult to get into and reach the pinnacle of. If anything, the changes will help EQ2 out, since more players might be willing to play and stick around. EQ2 is and always will be the more casual version of it's brother, and that's honestly the way it should be. That's even including the plethora of changes that have been made over in EQ1 to make it more friendly to new players.

I like challenge as much as anyone, but do people really care that swimming skill ups were made faster? There's a lot of "little things" that were changed, but the ones you mentioned aren't hurting the hardcore aspect of the game in any way, shape or form.

Diknak

lol at the OP's examples of dumbing down. He didn't mention the removal of spirit shards. He didn't mention the xp changes at lower levels. He didn't mention the soul consumption change when raid mobs are above 45%.

He mentioned a T5 zone that never got used when T5 was the max and epics that no one killed anymore because it was pointless to kill them.

Look at the two old world T5 zones: EF and LS. Which did you use to level up your toons back in the day? EF was MUCH more popular because you weren't restricted by travel as much and there were tons of quests. Compare all zones with restrictive map structure and it is easy to see that people prefer overland zones to be open.

TS vs Nek (original) - TS is open and was more popular
Zek vs EL - EL is open and more popular
EF vs LS - EF is open and more popular

Deson

Maybe my server was different but TS was more popular than Nek because it wasn't as deadly, not because it was more open. As soon as they fixed the aggro fish and took mobs off the path, Nek beat TS easy. Only way TS competed was L&L mobs.

Zek vs. EL EL won because it actually had stuff to do and Runnyeye was nearby.

EF vs LS? They were equal pains in the ass to get around and LS tended to win because of the porter....if everyone had it. CT easily beat both of them though.

I hate annoying GFay-like maps but your examples seemed off to me.

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Panthera

Feerott

Flaming Homo

Whoa. While the initial development costs are relatively high because you are not yet generating any revenue with the product, the costs to sustain these games is actually very low. I pay my clerical staff more than SOE pays the current EQ2 devs.

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Gaige

Vanguard was terrible and had no end game. Hardcores didn't kill it, the team launched an abortion.

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Gaige

You realize EQ2 paid for itself in the first year right? The "ongoing" costs are hardly anything and EQ2 prints money, not to mention LoN and station cash.

EQ2 is basically helping pay for DCO, The Agency and Everquest Next.

Like WoW, they make more fucking money on WoW than they know what to do with.

The only MMOs that have high costs are terrible ones that never recouped their development cost, once the game has paid for itself maintaining it costs next to nothing.

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Pink Poodle

I swear, VG's development history is so fucking hilarious. Brad and his drugs. For real.

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Sulan

What he said.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Diogenes
Vanguard is the very best example how hardcores killed a game.

Vanguard was terrible and had no end game. Hardcores didn't kill it, the team launched an abortion.

As someone who was in VG beta from beta 1 to the end, the game was killed by mismanagement and an unclear vision of what the game was supposed to be. Initially it was intended to be much like EQ1 in style and difficulty. Then, around the end of Beta 2, beginning of Beta 3, they invited a whole slew of bitchy, whiny WoW and EQ2 players who whined and complained until they essentially remade the entire game into the broken, carebeared mess it launched as. Vanguard went from having a more hardcore vision to being killed, if by anything, being carebeared to death at the last minute because Sigil's managers sucked.

Anyone who thinks hardcore players killed Vanguard is a fucking moron speaking out of their ass about a subject they know nothing about. It's amazing how many people have something to say about VG who've obviously never even tried it. There is nothing hardcore about Vanguard.

pizer

u mad

there will never be a successful hardcore only mmo because there isn't a playerbase for it anymore.

the only reason eq1 succeeded was because it was new and gathered a massive population.