Gearing up in games is pretty much identical after some point: You have a set of gear, and when you see an item, you check wether it is an upgrade for you, and eventually replace the old item.
But lets look at the start of the game (at least as it was/is in EQ). You start basically "naked", with only a shirt and sword (or whatever weapon is used by your class). Now how should the newbie go about getting a first set of gear?
- Guild master quests: I think these were available for all classes. They didn't award a full set of armor, only a shirt and maybe another item. These were however barely any better than your starter shirt, so basically worthless.
- Newbie armor quests: These weren't available originally, but got added later. They are actually "crafting" quests, in that you have to assemble stuff and combine it in some container. They award a basic set of armor and a weapon (no jewelry though), iirc with a few stat enhancers, but the weapon you get is magical (which is quite useful if you remember that some mobs even in early game require magical weapons to be hit).
- Crafted: Depending on how much the game nudged you towards it, you could craft yourself a basic armor set. I remember how my barb warrior learned tailoring to make some very simple leather armor. But I only knew about that because there was a tailoring merchant right at the zone in from Halas, who sold the tailoring kit and basic instructions.
- Common drops by NPCs: My memory is foggy, but I think there were very few armor drops in most starter zones. You got a fair amount of weapons tho (cracked staffs, rusty swords etc), which gave you the money to go to...
- Merchants: There were merchants which sold basic cloth, leather and plate armor (and weapons). I think leather came in two qualities, one cheap and equivalent to the basic crafted stuff, the other a bit better and more expensive. So you could buy the basic stuff first and then save for the upgrades. Plate armor had only one quality on the vendor, but it was so expensive that I wondered how/why anyone would ever buy that.
I think that's it for what you could do as a newbie in EQ. Now how do you like each of these methods?
The guild master quests were pretty bad IMO. The shirt you got was worse than the basic merchant bought stuff, and in most cases didn't even show on your character. At least that quest led you to your class trainer..
About the newbie armor quests: I think they are not bad, since they lead you around quite a bit, and introduce you to crafting as well. On the other hand, I think newbie armor must be strictly non magic (except for the weapon maybe).
While I remember fondly of crafting that armor for my barb warrior, I think crafting is not something that should be required in this way for a newbie.
So, my preference would be the last way: Fight mobs to get money, then buy your first basic set of armor. It was great to get a cracked staff in EQ (almost 1 plat! ;). So this method is one I'd like to see in Pantheon too.
One thing I really liked about EQ - and it was a lesson you learned early - was that your gear was NOT going to turn over on a constant basis. Across the span of my EQ career, I recall always targeting a single slot - with that "targeting" being something that I expected to take a while. So I'd look at my gear and think "Hmm, the worst piece I have is my bracers" - and then I'd ask around, go look on zam, etc... for ranger bracers I had a shot at getting. And I would work toward that.
I think the early lessons in gear in EQ - for example, having nothing in many slots at level 20 or whatever - were good lessons that helped set the pace of the game. It set the tone of not having things handed to you. It also caused what I think is a very positive community effect - I guess you could call it emergent play of a sort - where when people got a little higher level, they would return to low level areas and gift some gear, etc...
I think I'd prefer that over getting handed a full set of noob gear - because giving out that full set early sets a different expectation in the player. It sets an expectation of always having current gear in every slot. Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, I think in the old school, EQ player base that might send off alarms where folks worry about the "Gear falling from the sky" syndrome that exists in games today... AND - if you are handed low level gear - well, that community impact might be lost as well. Not as much need for a higher level player come back and help you out if the game is already helping you out.
Wandidar's post was 100% spot on and I also tried upgrading a slot at a time in EQ. I will also add by not having great questable/droppable gear early in EQ it allowed tradeskills to be very meaningful - Selling Banded armor 2 pp per AC! (I got rich haha). I remember not replacing some of my banded armor until around 40ish on my warrior at launch.
Sarim, great topic.
I think you outlined why EQ was so great, because there was so many ways (paths & avenues) to outfit your character. I don't think anyone should be limited to any one path.
Myself, I dislike "armor quest sets" that give complete armor sets. A piece of armor, sure... but a set? To me, a suite of armor (set) is made for you, by another.. so lore-istically, a Crafter should be the best avenue for Players who wants a clean looking & matching set of armor.
I like VGs swamps of remuug and wardship of the sleeping moon you got full sets but you had to complette quests and still had to make the armor even apw was that way.
I also think if you are killing a dragon and he has killed thousands of knights or whatever he will have full sets in his treasure trove.
I honestly don't think I want to be handed a full set of newbie gear. It was more immersive for me to go ..say kill the giant wasps for the quest pieces it dropped to make the newbie gear.
Long process, you built the set piece by piece, over time. And it was a nice set that would last several levels.
Setups like that involve the player and have them actively pursuing the construction of each piece. I think that was the best way. Of course your very first pieces prior to that set, would pretty much be no stat rags.
Personally I liked the armor started quests. If a person was green to the game. it taught them about it. Where to go, what to kill, and how to make certain things. Now speaking from a caster point of view, ( cleric/wizzie) they were both good quests. Similar in some aspect as far as ingredients went but the kits were different. It also gave the player an opportunity to see how the character feels and if they like it or not. I have changed a many toons in the first 5-10 levels working the armor quests because I did not like the feel of the toon.
I remember being around level 20 in EQ and still being mostly naked on my first character I had to do stuff like collect stacks of bone chips for necros to buy and such just to get the very basic stuff. It wasn't til I was high level and could do camps for myself and collect stuff for my alts plus farm plat from giants and such and selling MQs such as Jboots. It was sad I had to "make it"on one character before my other ones were set. I would like at least very basic stuff available early on. Not necessarily in complete sets but a quested piece here, a dropped piece there , etc.
I do not want armor dropping off of stuff that shouldn't be dropping armor such as a snake dropping a sword or a helm *unless* that snake was so huge it ate an orc or two. In that case having several pieces of in tact low level armor wouldn't be so far fetched. The ideal balance for me would be more armor quests than EQ but less than VG had. VG even in the 20s you had both the Hunter's League and URT stuff you could quest whole sets of plus armor drops all over the place and blue stuff for sale cheap on the market. I don't want it to be as easy as VG, but I don't want to be level 20 and naked either like I was at EQ's launch.
That's why I reminded of the merchants :)
Cloth and leather armor classes had it quite good in EQ with merchants offering basic affordable armor. At least you could get the required money in a very reasonable time frame. Plate armor classes were bad off however, because there was no cheap basic armor available for them. If I remember correctly, basic cloth armor went for a few gold per piece. Tattered leather armor for the same, standard leather armor for a few plat (but still affordable). Standard plate armor went for much more (30p+ for the cheapest pieces?). If Pantheon uses merchants as a way for newbies to outfit themselves, they should offer basic affordable armor for every class.
I enjoyed the gear gathering of Everquest. As a Barbarian Warrior if a piece of leather armor dropped from a gnoll I was excited. I used that leather set for 10 + levels until I started getting pieces of bronze armor. It was exciting anytime you found or farmed a new piece of gear because you know you'd use that piece for a long time. I don't like burning through armor in the modern MMOs and upgrading my entire set each day or two as a burn through a quest hub. I'd like to get attached and appreciate what I have and be excited for a new drop rather than just expect to be handed everything.
Wandidar said:
Frodo Baggins never had a full set of gear. He had a mihril shirt and an epic dagger (which for him, was a sword) :)
Frodo was a twink and noob...he was always pulling agro from the fighters (the cave troll in Moria)
Once again...just like with travel, how epic/grand do you want the game to feel?
Personally, the old EQ1 model (pre-PoK armor quests even) still works for me. Gear comes in a few flavors:
1) normal mob drops, like rusty this, tarnished that, patchwork something else, etc. Tradeskills could pep it up a little, but that would be the more common drop.
2) tradeskilled items of various quality, but nothing better than what drops off named/unique/boss mobs.
3) quest items, which scale in coolness directly with how hard the quest is.
4) unique drops off unique mobs. I got in that line to get my Golden Efreeti Boots back in the day, and waited like 3 weeks for my shot to just camp Djarn's room for a chance to whack him. Same for a lot of my NEC and ENC gear.
5) faction grinds, but on par with getting max ally with Queen DiZok or Kael Drakkel...you start off scowling and need to take that grind all the way.
6) Raid mob/quests, like the 10th Coldain ring, 8th shawl, or any of the original 1.0 epics in EQ1.
Pretty standard list really, but everything can be made to take longer, more work, etc. In WoW, maxing a faction takes repeating the same 6-8 tasks for the same faction quest giver like 20 days in a row, and all but guarantees an entire set of gear about 85% of what the current max raid tier is. Yeah, when I said the faction stuff in point #5, people who didn't play EQ1 need to understand what that means. Max ally with Queen DiZok meant getting killing about 1-1.5k goblins in Droga/Nurga and turning in salts/skins, which was roughly 48 hours of pure goblin grinding, and that let you get a quest for a bracelet that had a clickie effect of a 25 point dmg shield, which got added to your raid clickies so you could counter debuffs without losing anything important. At 4 hours of grinding per day, you needed two weeks to get one item that sat in your inventory to give a disposable click effect. That's what I mean by faction grinding for gear. You drop 50 hours into getting a single item that can be very useful, but only in very specific circumstances.
And on unique mobs, that means in EQ1 terms, where the unique has a spawn point, but only a 10% chance to pop at that spawn point every 18-24 minutes, and then some random % chance to actually drop the item you want. Just now doing the SK epic 1.5 in EQ1, and yeah, farming spawn points is still the thing and it still feels great when you get "your drop." I actually did a fist pump yesterday, no joke, because after clearing the placeholders like a dozen times each in the Plane of Hate, the Mistress of Malevolence was kind enough to pop and actually drop my Essence of Hate. First time I fist pumped something in an MMO since I can't even remember when, and for old EQ players...I know right...only 4 hours, that's like awesome luck for EQ1. :D
Point being, if the game is designed to feel epic, then gear, like anything else, should feel epic too. Conjuring up a full suit of banded armor at the early levels should feel like an accomplishment in and of itself, but someone walking around with a Helm of Coolness of the L33t Sword of Badassery should be an actual, legit "ooh ahh" kinda thing that makes you send them a /tell and ask to join their guild just to have a chance to see the zone where junk like that even drops.
@Niien - I mostly agree with you, but as far as NO DROP/Bind on Pickup, I couldn't disagree more. I am OK with a system similar to WoW for accounts, where you can trade stuff between characters to some limited degree (one of the few great things WoW did was the heirloom system for an account), and EQ1 already has a shared bank for moving items between characters on the same account. Beyond that...nothing above green, maybe the occasional blue item should ever be tradeable between accounts.
Here's the reason - it encourages playing the Bazaar/Auction House instead of the game, which flies directly in the face of the kind of immersion Pantheon is allegedly going for.
The only way anyone should ever see a piece of gear within 80% of the top tier is to see it on the corpse of the bad guy who dropped it in the super dangerous zone that few ever set foot in. I once again refer to Velious (the perfect raid, gear and faction grind xpac in the history of MMOs), and consider an item like Sal`Varae's Robe of Darkness off of Vulak'Aerr. At the time, that might have been the greatest caster robe in the game. Let us look at what looting that robe would have taken back in the day:
- kill Vulak'Aerr, which requires...
- killing every named dragon in NToV (itself a task of maybe 6 hours for a good guild that has experience), which requires...
- getting past Aaryanar, which requires...
- a few months of guild farming the two wings of lesser ToV to get the gear necessary to beat Aary, which requires...
- a few months of guild farming either giant of dragon faction to get enough well geared people to beat Sontalak and even enter ToV, which requires...
- a few months farming all the necessary tank, healer and DPS drops, like 10th rings, 8th shawls, and other items just to be able to beat the bosses that enable real Velious farming, which requires...
- the 3-6 months it took to equip a bunch of your guild in epics to be able to deal with Velious mob HP and DPS.
(off the cuff estimates, btw, please don't anyone argue how fast your guild did it as I am simple illustrating proper "grindy" for gear acquisition)
That's the kind of dedication it took to see that robe. Make that robe tradeable, and now the person wearing it might indeed be a super MMO badass, or they could be someone who paid $50 on PlayerAuctions for the plat to buy it. Making anything past random green/blue gear sellable is just wrong. If someone is wearing an ooh ahh piece of gear and you want it, then you should have to buckle your chin strap and put your grind on...for months, then when you are in the town square and strutting your stuff, everyone knows you walk the walk. You cheapen and trivialize gear when it becomes sellable.
If Pantheon is to be the game this particular niche of MMO gamers is hoping for, expect NO DROP, NO TRADE, Bind on Pickup, whatever, to be the rule, not the exception. It may sound inconvenient, but in that inconvenience is where you'll find the epic, the cool, and the reason to keep logging in.
/rant off. LOL
Sorry, but serious gear/weapons being sellable is an obviously sore point with me, and it is imho the biggest reason why I will never play a loot pinata game like WoW again and will always seek out a game like EQ1.
I believe they have said there will be no auction house / bazaar (someone correct me if I am wrong) - in that case, having stuff being able to be traded after use encourages things like the tunnel in EQ - which was an amazing micro-culture within the broader game culture. People came there to sell, to chat, to trade, to buy.
It was a great alternative if you had stored up enough stuff that you wanted to go sell - or if you only had an hour or so to play and wanted to do something.
Beyond that though - having gear being able to be traded is a community builder in another way. In what was ultimately the SECOND community lesson I learned in EQ. My first came when I heard this massive dinging sound - told the friend who brought me to EQ, and he said "do this. type in /shout DING" - and when I did that, I saw a sea of grats messages...
Anyway - the SECOND lesson I learned in community building in EQ came when I got a tell out of the blue from what turned out to be a higher level ranger... who found me and gave me gear - who - when I asked how I could ever repay him, told me to pay it forward. Which I did. For years.
I think ultimately - if the game is really community oriented, then having the ability to move gear around is yet another way to bind that community together... but - I admit to not really being a student of MMO economies, and so don't know all of the impacts in that regard.
@Wandidar - yes, some stuff like green/blue items that can give new players a head start...fine, make that stuff tradeable, but at every level range (say each 5 level block) there should be some kind of quested, grouped, or raided item that is markedly more superior, and is NO TRADE. You want it, then go get it from the bad guy holding it.
If leveling is slow enough, or each tier of content is sufficiently challenging enough, then while green/blue gear would be nice to have, you'll still go form groups and get hard content done.
Easy gear acquisition kills immersion and turns the entire community into carnival barkers and salesmen.
OH - I'm not saying that nothing should be BoP. My epic swords wouldn't have been special to me at all if I had purchased them.
Rather, I think BoP items should be (generally speaking) some of the rarer things in the game that show you accomplished something or killed something. So, if you have the "Uber sword of major uberly grandeur" - it would signify that you killed the mob that dropped it, completed the quest that yielded it, etc...
On the other hand, if you got the "Sorta common, sorta nice BP of not quite mediocrity" - probably not BoP. You can pass it on, sell it, etc...
Note that I'm not suggesting it is this cut and dry - and that I'm just giving examples to make the point. I absolutely want "special" stuff in the game to try and go get.
On top of agreeing with most of this conversation, I would also like to see a return to gear not having colors or grades. Don't tell me how good something is supposed to be just by looking at the icon, deciding what gear was good for you and sometimes maybe even wearing things that may not have been better than something else you had was part of the right of passage of Everquest. It taught you to learn the mechanics of the game not to just equip the highest color you had. Hmm do I equip this 12/36 dagger or this 7/20 dagger? Well this one is purple and higher level so obviously this one! But in Everquest it wasn't that cut and dry.. the faster weapon could interrupt mobs better but was weak to damage shields. Do the math on the ratios and the faster one appears better, but what about Backstab if you're a rogue, or how haste effects delays?
Return to the times of when people had to make a judgement call and think, not just look at color.
Rallyd said:
On top of agreeing with most of this conversation, I would also like to see a return to gear not having colors or grades. Don't tell me how good something is supposed to be just by looking at the icon, deciding what gear was good for you and sometimes maybe even wearing things that may not have been better than something else you had was part of the right of passage of Everquest.
***Hundred thumbs up!***
I would think they wont but I don't think I have read anyone officially say they wont.
I also agree with the general tone of this thread. Searching out gear was what made EQ a powerhouse in the first couple expansions.
I would Like to add in I personally do not have a problem not giving starting spells also beyond the very basic. I liked that my Mage in EQ only started with a single DD. I had to WORK for my first pet spell. But when I finally had it I was so pumped.
I think the echo from almost everyone in the thread is stating they want to have to work hard for every piece of gear, skill, spell, etc that they attain. They want to be challenged and don't want anyone to hold their hand.
Truly my long lost companions on these forums.... I can't wait to travel beside you all into the unknown. Many good memories await us...