I was in Toxxulia, I got a little turned around because I didn't know the whole zone that well, and of course I got attacked by something that I didn't stand a chance against. When I respawned I had no idea where my corpse was, and I didn't want to loose the stuff I'd spent a few hours obtaining. So I asked around and someone told me Necromancers could locate corpses. So I checked around and found a kind soul who agreed to help. He was able to lead me to my corpse and I recovered everything. I put him on my friends list and our paths would cross many times for the next two years. That relationship would have never been made if not for three things that seem to have fallen out of vogue in modern MMORPGs:
1) The ability to get lost.
2) The need to recover my corpse.
3) The ability of one class to do something useful that other players need.
I understand why people like mini-maps, and dislike corpse runs, and don't like depending on other players to do things, but because modern games have decided that convenience is all-important, two crucial things have been lost: the need to work with other players, and the feeling that you are needed by other players.
My first day in EQ I was an Erudite mage...I was killing in Tox and found a belt pack! it had four inventory slots!! Omg that was huge and I was on a high, but then I was ambushed by some high level Erudite Npc from Paineel who killed me quick. I respawn and had no idea where my corpse was, I looked and looked and never did find it and I was on such a low. Now 16 years later that is one of my fondest memories from the early days of EQ, just that it was such a roller coaster of emotions that I was hooked
Sevens said:
My first day in EQ I was an Erudite mage...I was killing in Tox and found a belt pack! it had four inventory slots!! Omg that was huge and I was on a high, but then I was ambushed by some high level Erudite Npc from Paineel who killed me quick. I respawn and had no idea where my corpse was, I looked and looked and never did find it and I was on such a low. Now 16 years later that is one of my fondest memories from the early days of EQ, just that it was such a roller coaster of emotions that I was hooked
I can relate as something similar happened to me in Halas and getting killed by those dang Vengeful Soloist in those snowy mountains!
Kayd said:
I was in Toxxulia, I got a little turned around because I didn't know the whole zone that well, and of course I got attacked by something that I didn't stand a chance against. When I respawned I had no idea where my corpse was, and I didn't want to loose the stuff I'd spent a few hours obtaining. So I asked around and someone told me Necromancers could locate corpses. So I checked around and found a kind soul who agreed to help. He was able to lead me to my corpse and I recovered everything. I put him on my friends list and our paths would cross many times for the next two years. That relationship would have never been made if not for three things that seem to have fallen out of vogue in modern MMORPGs:
1) The ability to get lost.
2) The need to recover my corpse.
3) The ability of one class to do something useful that other players need.
I understand why people like mini-maps, and dislike corpse runs, and don't like depending on other players to do things, but because modern games have decided that convenience is all-important, two crucial things have been lost: the need to work with other players, and the feeling that you are needed by other players.
Good story and you hit a nail right on the head.
Way back when I was a mid level SK running through the swamp, I got a tell from an Ogre that had lost his corpse. I did a quick /who and saw he was 1st level, so I informed him worry not you have not lost any XP. He sent back a tell that he had been given many gifts from a bud and they were all on his rotting corpse, and he really wanted to find them.
Only one Zone over I popped in, located and dragged him his corpse. He handed me a Diamondine Earing for my troubles. Like you we ran into each other from time to time. It is these kinds of memories I hope Pantheon can bring back, the kinds of game play that no game now has to offer. And I still remember that gift from 2000 in 2015.
Me too! Those Heretics were so - awful. Imagine me trying to figure this out and seeing an abandoned heretic pet. I always reclaimed my elemental from then on just in case I abandoned it while zoning and someone would come by and prosletize(sp?) to it, making it an abandoned, heretic, pet. Abandoned was bad enough, but then to add a dogma, I mean really (insert Big Lebowski quote here). Rungupp was too hard. I thought I was doing something wrong I didn't realize I was blinded and when I figured it out all at level 4, I memorized movements thinking if I ran to the river and dived in ( form the sound) I might be able to escape to try again. No such luck. So I went to Qeynos to try to find someone that wore metal to help. I did- after a few tries it worked out, He didn't know he was getting blinded either, so there were some unfortunate deaths. but I mean at 5 and running around in a city in just a camisole and higher level players stuffing your mouths with interesting food and pushing money in your pockets as you ran by was ok, but hard to be polite as we were running back to try again. Even waiting for the boat had us on pins and needles until we got our clothes.
I to have several stories about corpse dragging that are similar. Many times I helped people find corpses and maintained friendship over the years. Of course being a cleric that more or less lived in game made me somewhat popular lol. When I first started playing the game a mage I met,helped me and was very kind with finding gnome gems and my corpse a few times. When I left the game I gave that person a account of toons maxed out of plat from over the years. We are still friends.For this reason I fully support corpse dragging and the need to find your body upon death or lose exp.
Just keep your eyes peeled for infinite death exp loops (get someone to kill you a few hundred times your corpse gives exp every time you pick one up......but only can take away so much exp because you will not lose a level...now pick up a few hundred tombs ...)
Even in a raid setting corpse dragging can be fun... 3 clerics and I would train down the depths of the raid zone...when the cleric 1st died with all the mobs , the next cleric would pick up the train and that clerics corpse and keep running with every mob on them until they died or dropped aggro. Then the next cleric would pick up aggro and the other clerics and then train the whole way down while dragging those that died until we reached the safe spot. Then res the clerics or a summoner and then we would summon the whole raid one at a time to us.
"My first time ... " stories concerning EQ, there are so many that come to mind with those first words. I also fought rungupp, I thought my videocard died, and then wasn't entirely sure it was a "blind" effect until it happened again.
I started as a necro, back when dot's were not displaying any information... That minor annoyance wasn't what changed it for me though, seeing a mage pet run around had me rerolling by level 6. First time exploring Erudin the first time, going to the docks; I remember jumping into the water thinking "I wonder if they put anything in the water, would be kinda cool, but I HATE sharks" and then yelling out loud since a shark sat right in the bay there and was instantly in front of me. Add in the fear of death and not knowing if/how to get a corpse back and you have a recipe for many great and similarly SHARED memories with others.
I remember using auto run in kunark when I was new there. Around firiona vie I think it was, grabbing a drink real quick and then coming back to the computer to see my 1st person scrolling by from falling down some canyon terrain, instantly dying, and then quitting the game for a week out of embarassment/frustration >.>
One of the first times running thru the hidden entrance to plane of fear - completely unaware of gamma settings and lacking a light source, I got stuck on a wall edge for a few minutes thinking "I should have emerged into the portal area by now..." and my nerves driving me paranoid/insane with hearing constant spectre noises nearby until I ran right into them and died.
The truly best memories in EQ came from being the hero of sorts. Helping others beyond what they expect. Being a monk later on, I talked more than one person into /consenting their corpse for the first time, explaining what it does and if they should do it in the future to a stranger.
These kind of stories are why I still believe a death penalty must carry more weight than just a loss of experience. After considering most of the different alternatives, I think a system where all non-equipped items remain on your corpse is the best compromise. Not so punishing you are left defenseless, but pressing enough that a player must spend time retrieving their corpse and the opportunity for players to help one another exists.
I also don't think summoning ones remains to a graveyard or temple should be an option. At the very least, if something like this exists, it should only be allowed after time has passed (maybe 2 to 4 hours). Not saying there should be a way to permanently lose your items, but that players should need to work together in Pantheon to overcome such obstacles. Its really the point of the game and the thing that gave us so many fond memories of Everquest.
LOL - my first really, really bad version of this story involves Oobnopterbevny Biddilets - a level 40 gnome necro in West Karana. I was hunting for the goblin messenger to start the quest for the Short Sword of Morin... I had been medding (and thus looking at my book) - and saw yells across the zone. I thought it was some idiot role playing.
Then I got feared - chased - and killed.
Absolutely NO idea where my corpse was. It was terrifying.
Wandidar said:
LOL - my first really, really bad version of this story involves Oobnopterbevny Biddilets - a level 40 gnome necro in West Karana. I was hunting for the goblin messenger to start the quest for the Short Sword of Morin... I had been medding (and thus looking at my book) - and saw yells across the zone. I thought it was some idiot role playing.
Then I got feared - chased - and killed.
Absolutely NO idea where my corpse was. It was terrifying.
Lol. Last night I logged into Project 1999 and someone was taking in ooc about being charmed by an evil eye and "going on a little adventure." I had to reply that a long time ago I used to fight them and got charmed a number of times. Since you are no longer in charge of your character it is an excellent way to wind up with a completely lost corpse :)
Somebody que up Electric Funstuff.
http://www.electricfunstuff.com/songdown/EFS_Has_Anybody_Here_Seen_My_Corpse_(original).mp3
Well using this as an example and not only the corpse recovery topic, the same was true for trade skills.
As I generally trade skilled my characters in different trades as high as possible, I often spent a bit of time in EC because low/mid level people were often looking for armor and jewelry that other high level crafters never did.
So I then contacted them and proposed to do banded, silk or electrum rings on order.
More often than not I finished then on their friend list and many adventures followed later.
I didn't do that for money - at 1 PP/AC or sometimes less for full banded it just made a negligible profit - I did it because that's what an MMO is about.
If there had been a Bazaar, all this crafting/helping activity wouldn't have taken place. A Bazaar would surely make trading more efficient but it would totally destroy all the parallel activities that were ultimately leading to more friends, more social interaction and more adventures.
EQ with its differentiated classes and no automated processes (like trading, travelling etc) has definitely designed every detail with the maximisation of social interaction in mind. I couldn't quote another MMO which would do that even half so well.
CelevinMoongleam said:
So you never died from biting off more than you could chew?
Oh all the time, but I usually knew where I was when the fight started. I was just referring to "lost" corpses.
Corpse Loss
I’m one of those gamers that cut their teeth in Everquest. Over the years I still thought about the game very often and mostly with fond and warm feelings. I compared all others to my first mmo love. In my opinion, I do see some rose-colored glasses on the whole “corpse run” issue. I learned the phrase “emo nerd rage quit” in EQ, often related to corpse recovery (and the associated exp loss). I don’t know where VR will land on this issue, and it is one thread I am following with a little anxiety. I DO think that harsher death penalties are important, but a lost corpse with lost gear is not harsh... it’s punitive. I never personally lost a corpse, and I assisted many who made that desperate plea in shout that pretty much translated to “IMMABOUT TO LOSE IT!”
I am very optimistic that VR is sensitive to this and will find the right balance between discouraging Leroy Jenkins and encouraging thoughtful and well-planned exploration/experimentation. One possible solve I had for this was making it an impossibility for a corpse to be irrevocably lost (with all its gear). I think that if a corpse lays unrecovered for 24 hours from time of death, that it gets moved (insert lore here) to a nearby “graveyard” where you could retrieve it. At this point, no rez would be possible (so no experience recovery).
At most a player would lose, 24 hours of playtime and an experience recovery resurrection. To me, this is still plenty of incentive to call for help and try to get assistance to get back in there and recover your corpse, but at the same time it will prevent a loss so catastrophic that players will be “done”. Plus there’s the added bonus of not having to sit on Roenick’s rotting corpse for five days while you farm a lucrative camp.
I’m anxious to see where they land!! Death penalty and the progeny system are the two elements that give me the most anxiety in how they’ll be handled
Ah the EQ days. Many a lost corpse story but i was a bard so hard to not find your corpse. I also got to help a ton of people find theirs though and it was always rewarding. I can't think of a single time I did it that anyone was ungrateful or a dick to me even after I'd gotten them their body back. Always remember logging in to have newer guildies asking to find them or run them through a tough zone to grab it for them (For those not familiar EQ bards were the fastest thing in the game). I have always loved it when I can help out in MMOs. Levelling and fighting stuff and epic drops are always great but getting your in game friends those things always felt just as good or better then getting them yourself. It seems Pantheon community is shaping up to be a lot like that and I'm grateful to have found it. Thanks all for being awesome :)
The two biggest hits:
EQ - friendly Bard slaps run buff on me (I don't recall which - but it was FAST) and I began my trek across one of the Velious areas. In a snow storm. In short order all I could see was snow blowing in my face. But I couldn't control where i was going? I was turning but nothing moved. I stopped. Nothing happened. I just couldnt see due to snow etc. And then the dreaded LOADING, PLEASE WAIT. Apparently, what had happened is that I had launched myself off of a VERY high cliff. And it took a long time to fall. I never knew I was even falling but the Bard said he never laughed so hard in his life...
EQ II - One does not simply go all the way down to talk to Nagafin in "Talk as a Dragon". Naturally, once my business with him was done, I just HAD to hit him. I recorded it. He hit me for exactly 8,000,000,000 (Eight BILLION) points of damage. This was in vanilla EQ2.
I lost track of my corpse once, but it was just because I got turned around in the early zones when I first started. It took me part of the day of running around, exploring, asking some people, etc... until I eventually found it. Due to that, I took a bit more care to pay attention to land marks and various other indicators while I was traveling so I could remember how to get anywhere.
It did however make exploring more exciting, especially in confusing zones. This, as the OP pointed out is yet again a subtle feature of play which provides truly staying experiences in play. Remove all these subtle elements because they are "tedious" and the result is a game that has no real lasting memory to which EQ did (I can remember numerous things in EQ, yet I can recall very little as I played WoW in terms of this).
Kayd said:I was in Toxxulia, I got a little turned around because I didn't know the whole zone that well, and of course I got attacked by something that I didn't stand a chance against. When I respawned I had no idea where my corpse was, and I didn't want to loose the stuff I'd spent a few hours obtaining. So I asked around and someone told me Necromancers could locate corpses. So I checked around and found a kind soul who agreed to help. He was able to lead me to my corpse and I recovered everything. I put him on my friends list and our paths would cross many times for the next two years. That relationship would have never been made if not for three things that seem to have fallen out of vogue in modern MMORPGs:
1) The ability to get lost.
2) The need to recover my corpse.
3) The ability of one class to do something useful that other players need.
I understand why people like mini-maps, and dislike corpse runs, and don't like depending on other players to do things, but because modern games have decided that convenience is all-important, two crucial things have been lost: the need to work with other players, and the feeling that you are needed by other players.
Well said.
I don't mean to condsecend to anyone, but this is something that too many people just don't get. Just because there is a perceived negative doesn't mean there isn't the potential for a much greater net positive. People who want to remove every last negative are throwing the baby out with the bath water and are really missing out on some awesome experiences.
I agree with the OP on point three without reservation. Classes should be different from each other and be able to do things that will help other players.
On point one I am married to one of the muiltverse's leading experts at getting lost. Someone who can camp 20 feet from Freeport, log on to go into the city and two hours later wonder how the character got into BB. While I agree that maps shouldn't give too much detail at all and that they certainly shouldn't show NPCs and enemies I think there should be a minimap at least showing where on the world you are. I don't view information along the lines of you are in the Commonlands south of Freeport as being too much of a spoiler.
On point two I agree with one reservation. There should be an alternative to the corpse run. But it should be a painful alternative. We *should* have a strong incentive to do the run. But sometimes a corpse run just isn't feasible. You have to log off or your party is logging off and you cannot get help. And the corpse is in a far from popular area and it might take days or even weeks to get the help you need to do a run when you log back on. Better to let the player actually play the game when a corpse run cannot be done - if the player is willing to pay a significant penalty for that option.