Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EverQuest

filfre.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 166 posts

Re: EverQuest

#71

Post by thaumasiotes »

dmbche wrote: post #30
thegrim33 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error. You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in game. In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the knowledge of how to get across certain…

You should look at Noita!

Noita is the last thing that comment suggests he wants. Most of Noita's content can only be learned by consulting the wiki, which I assume is an intentional legacy of the designers' love of Nethack. And the world is the same every time.

Re: EverQuest

#72

Post by don_neufeld »

I was there.

My first pay stub had Verant on it, I joined shortly before the SOE transition.

One thing maybe not well known outside of the company was that the MMO subscription revenue enabled a hotbed of experimentation. There was an MMO RTS which never shipped, and several other takes on “can we make genre X an MMO?” that I can’t remember. And then SWG, obviously.

EQ2 had all kinds of interesting people on it as a result - Ken Perlin did the lip sync work (driving facial animations from dialog), Brian Hook worked on the rendered for a while. I’m sure there were others.

Then there’s all the things we didn’t do. I read the complete Harry Potter series specifically because we were in talks with JK Rowling to do a HP MMO, but negotiations failed.

Crazy times.

[addendum] Several of the people in the article are no longer with us (Brad McQuaid, and Kelly Flock at least)

The office park that SOE was located in on Terman Court was also demolished years ago. I remember standing at the door to my office on my last day, looking out the window at the eucalyptus trees and thinking I was never going to see the place again.

I was right.

Re: EverQuest

#73

Post by jdwithit »

nzeid wrote: post #58

Hehe, a little upsetting that I only see one former UO player in these comments right now. I loved the anarchy and never stopped missing it through FFXI, WoW, and other MMO's. There was a rivalry between EQ and UO and no one I knew including myself had the time to play both.

I was a freshman in high school when UO came out. I distinctly remember getting accepted into the beta test and frantically checking the mailbox every day until the CD finally showed up. I had played Gemstone III (a text MUD on AOL) and Sierra's The Realm so I wasn't totally new to the concept, but the vision and scale of UO had my excited out of my mind.

I did have fun with it but ultimately I think I was too young and innocent to appreciate the game. Every time I felt like I was getting my feet under me, someone would murder me and steal all my shit. I think at one point I even got my own house... until someone murdered me and stole the key, leaving me penniless. It was a very griefer friendly game, and if you weren't one of the griefers, look out.

Eventually I got involved in the UO emulation scene and became the maintainer of a popular emulator for a year or two, and ran a private server with some Canadian tech bro (not that we had that term in the 90s) who had a bunch of money and hardware to spare. That was some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming.

Re: EverQuest

#74

Post by peripitea »

EverQuest was my first real brush with agency. I was still a teenager but I loved researching strategies and game mechanics to figure out how my guild and I could play more effectively, and it paid off. We were never world first, but we got closer than we should have for the small server we were on. The feeling that the work I was doing was contributing to the success of an entire organization of people, and that this group of adults was happy to defer to me as long as my work ethic and ideas were good, was so much more powerful and motivating than anything I'd experienced in school. I don't think I felt that empowered again for another ~decade, well into my "real" career.

Re: EverQuest

#76

Post by herodoturtle »

don_neufeld wrote: post #72

I was there. My first pay stub had Verant on it, I joined shortly before the SOE transition. One thing maybe not well known outside of the company was that the MMO subscription revenue enabled a hotbed of experimentation. There was an MMO RTS which never shipped, and several other takes on “can we make genre X an MMO?” that I can’t remember. And then SWG, obviously. EQ2 had all kinds of interesting people on it as a…

Comments like this is why I love HN. Thanks for sharing. And RIP to your former colleagues.

Re: EverQuest

#77

Post by michaelbarton »

blueblimp wrote: post #26
mike1o1 wrote: post #2

I absolutely loved EverQuest and it’s still probably holds some of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost impossible to recreate. Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not something I would wa…

The inter-city travel was my favorite part of EverQuest. (The rest of the game, I didn't find too interesting.) The level of challenge was about right: if you looked at maps and planned your route, you could generally get to where you wanted to go, but it was hazardous. I wonder if there's a game that focuses on that sort of travel experience.

Perhaps death stranding and its sequel might be the closest?

Re: EverQuest

#78

Post by duskwuff »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #71
dmbche wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at Noita!

Noita is the last thing that comment suggests he wants. Most of Noita's content can only be learned by consulting the wiki, which I assume is an intentional legacy of the designers' love of Nethack. And the world is the same every time.

> And the world is the same every time.

The overall layout (e.g. the progression of zones) and some set pieces are fixed, but the details are randomized.

Fun fact: the overall layout is configured by a PNG file, with the color of each pixel controlling which "biome" is used.

Re: EverQuest

#79

Post by don_neufeld »

herodoturtle wrote: post #76
don_neufeld wrote: post #72

I was there. My first pay stub had Verant on it, I joined shortly before the SOE transition. One thing maybe not well known outside of the company was that the MMO subscription revenue enabled a hotbed of experimentation. There was an MMO RTS which never shipped, and several other takes on “can we make genre X an MMO?” that I can’t remember. And then SWG, obviously. EQ2 had all kinds of interesting people on it as a…

Comments like this is why I love HN. Thanks for sharing. And RIP to your former colleagues.

Thanks, but trust me - they were no saints.

Kelly Flock threw the project I was leading under the bus with Sony Pictures on his way out the door when they fired him. I barely saved it.

Brad McQuaid, as CEO of Sigil famously didn’t even show up for the meeting where the whole Vanguard team was told the company had failed and they had no jobs, and no severance.

The games industry definitely has its heroes, but they ain’t it.

Re: EverQuest

#80

Post by whatwhaaaaat »

CSMastermind wrote: post #53
jghn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hated EQ for me the reason was it was not UO nor was it even trying to recreate the vibrancy & real world that UO's designers had gone for. *BUT* I also recognized that EQ represented a game that was much more aligned to what a normal gamer would want, one could already see that path being forged in UO as time went on. And then of course WoW came along and perfected the art. I still lament how UO played out. It qui…

UO had such a huge influence on me. It was amazing.

Both of these games are still going. Atlantic has a huge player base. It’s not the cutthroat game it once was but it’s still very much exciting. You can still die and all your shit poof. Housing on Atlantic is still in demand and hard to get if that gives an idea how healthy it is.

Eq has of course had some major server merges but your old account will still be on both UO and EQ.

To me UO is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of trash games except for a stand out few. Seeing my old wood elf ranger with swift wind and lupine dagger still glowing was magical. Almost as magical as re-exploring kelethin.

Post reply on HN