Faeran's Blog

I keep hearing terms like Frustrating and Time Sinks to describe the game EverQuest, and I guess to some this might be true. When I played however, those terms were never used in conversation, and therefore I never related one with the other.

Maybe I am a different kind of player, or maybe I am looking through rose colored glasses, or maybe I am more accepting than others? I do not know the answer. I just know that Norrath was a place of adventure, camaraderie, and most of all, purpose. There was always a purpose to log into the world. Whether it was to raid, go on quests, explore the unknown, crawl through a dungeon, or gain xp, you always found a reason to get onto your computer and enter the world of Norrath.

Now there are 2 things I'd like to bring up. First would be that all the things that I listed above you can pretty much do in any other game these days, so why did Norrath feel so much like a world and games these days don't?

Second, I'd like to point out that I never got seriously into D&D or any form of table top gaming. I also never played marathon sessions of EverQuest. In fact I play Vanguard just as much as I ever played EverQuest back in the day.

Now EverQuest is old and dated. A lot of its concepts are old and dated. This is why developers have been trying to take out the old and dated annoyances from EverQuest and create a brand new game. The problem with that is, developers can't seem to figure out where the annoyances stop and the essence begins.

Until they figure it out, maybe I will just go and put back on my rose colored glasses. At least it makes me feel happy, and isn't that what it's all about?

Why is the death penalty such a hot topic whenever a new MMORPG announcement surfaces to the public? What is it about dying that fascinates people to the point of threatening to not play a game unless it has the version they deem reasonable? It is one of the many topics that I feel I may be on the losing end of the fight. Why do I say this? Because games these days seem to leave out many elements of the death penalty that gave them some depth. Unfortunately many people don't even realize they are gone, because they have never had the opportunity to experience the depth that is involved in the systems that many of us have been a part of. What are these elements? I will tell you some!

There is something to be said about a group of people running back to their death site together. Working towards a common goal of returning to their prized possessions as well as a little revenge on the side. The feeling you get when you make it back to your corpses and slaughter the culprit that put down your group, is sometimes unmatched to the original goal to why your group was there in the first place!

People will commonly bring up that they don't want to lose xp when they die, because it would take up too much of their time and is unnecessary. Unfortunately without it, games lose more than just a death penalty element, it loses what I like to call the Danger Factor. This Danger Factor is virtually eliminated when a games death penalty does not involve any loss of xp whatsoever. For example, I see a dragon in game, I think "that's pretty cool" I decide "what the hey" and start attacking it. I die, and don't lose much but a bit of coin for the repairs. With some xp loss, I would look at the dragon and be awe inspired. I know that if I get too close, he would attack and kill me. I remember that moment and vow that one day I will return to take him down.

This also leads directly into my next point. Because when death has some form of xp penalty, you quickly learn the ins and outs of how to stay out of sight from a mob. It becomes more of a strategy, and you learn to do it well because you have to.

Here's a common misconception from people that haven't played a game with a death penalty that includes xp loss. Let's say you lose 100 xp when you die (this is just a made up number!). You don't just lose the 100 xp, run back to your corpse, try to kill the mob again, die and lose another 100 xp, you actually have options with what to do when you die to earn that xp back. Usually to earn xp back it involves participating with the community. For example in EverQuest the most common method of earning your xp back was to ask for assistance from a Cleric, who could "rez" 96% of your xp back to you with one of their spells. Taking this away, takes away interacting with the community that you are a part of.

Now in all of this, I am not saying that newer games today should look at Everquest and adopt their death penalty system. What I am saying is to use it as a guideline. Realize that what it did was bring people together, and isn't that what MMORPG games are all about? Without community what do we have? We have nothing but a shallow single player experience. Maybe, before I lose this debate, I should just go and play some Oblivion...