Ask any MMOG player about EverQuest, and you'll get one of three responses: either they loved it, they hated it, or they didn't play it (and don't want to). Nobody thinks that it was just a mediocre game, and a lot of people look back fondly on their time there, warts and all. There were a lot of warts. When I was chatting with Scott Hartsman at this year's IMGDC, he explained to me
that EverQuest was rife with any number of "pain points" which later games were able to identify, fix, and build upon to make their own game better. Taking most of what was good about EverQuest and cutting most of what was bad was one of the things that helped World of Warcraft dethrone the game and take its seat as the number one MMORPG on the market.
However, not everyone agrees with all
of the "improvements" that Blizzard made to the genre when they created WoW. The arguments over what should and shouldn't be left out of a great MMORPG continue to this day, and there's no quick and easy guide to what's MMOG gold. Plenty of companies are learning the hard way that cloning World of Warcraft isn't a winning strategy. It's a great game, but that doesn't mean it's the only way to play.
My question for you all today is this: What if instead of EverQuest 2, Sony had given us EverQuest 2.0? EverQuest 2 was a spiritual successor at best to the original game (Vanguard is much closer to an actual sequel). If SOE had remade the DikuMUD-inspired world of Norrath, set in the same time period, with an updated graphics engine and the pain points fixed differently than WoW chose to do, what might it have looked like? More importantly, is it something you'd want to play?
The problem with proposing something like this, even as a thought experiment, is that everyone liked or hated different things about EverQuest. We all had our favorite zones, favorite classes, and aspects of the game we thought were brilliant or moronic. Since I won't be able to please everyone no matter what I suggest, I'm just going to toss out
my personal ideas for what should have been fixed and left alone and let the rest of you hash it out in comments. EverQuest had any number of pain points, but one man's pain point is another man's feature. That said, there were a few aspects of the game that I think would absolutely need to be tweaked.
The first thing I think that EverQuest 2.0 would benefit from would be a totally new graphics and physics engine. Instead of going for a plastic pseudo-realistic look like EverQuest 2 uses, I think a stylized and fluid system like Warhammer seems to have would be interesting. I don't need my gnolls to look like real gnolls, but I do need them to look cool. I also need my running and jumping to look and feel "right" (although maintaining the first-person viewpoint would also be critical). The movement thing is something I think both Age of Conan and World of Warcraft do very well; EverQuest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online, not so much. Putting the world of EverQuest in an updated environment where movement was easier and more natural would go a long way towards making the game more fun, just by itself.
The death penalty would absolutely have to be addressed. The harsh death penalties of EverQuest are legendary, and they're
what keep many players away. Of course, EverQuest wouldn't be EverQuest without them. How would you fix them without breaking them? Here's what I would do: First, EverQuest is hard enough with a full set of gear on. Getting to your corpse naked is pretty nigh impossible without help, in many cases. I would keep the experience penalty and returning to your bind point, but I would let the players
keep their gear on death. If they wanted their XP back, they could fight back down and recover their corpse (and have it automatically reimbursed, which fixes the problem of having to stand next to your corpse shouting for a high-level cleric). This would also maintain the sense of fear I discussed in yesterday's article. You're still looking at a serious setback if you die -- a lengthy run, and a requirement to
WOW Gold was released in 2000 and is part of the WOW Hits series.