If you don't mind sharing it with us, what is your most heart breaking gaming experience? Was there a final epic hand in that was eaten and you were left with nothing? Was it when a certain game was shut down for good and left you numb inside? Did the guild you loved for years finally disband? Share ;)
It would definitely be EQ post velious. I felt like the game began changing drastically, and not for the better. Even though I may like some of the additions over the years (I continued to follow it for a while), it seemed to lose its original identity.
I look at vanilla-velious and see a sort of continuity both in lore and design; after that, much of the sandbox feel deteriorated to me. The world felt generic to me, almost as if the "new" EQ became someone's interpretation of the previous formula rather than the genuine article. It was like realism, or simulating a world became less important while making a more popular, more "fun" game became the focus. Other than a few of the very obvious changes that we're familiar with (fast travel, recommended levels on items), I find it hard to put into words what turned me off specifically. Nevertheless, my opinion is shared by many who played the game from launch.
Kilsin said:VG :(
The Planes of Power expansion in EQ1, where enchanters got a huge nerf to mezz and charm and necromancers had fear nerfed almost to the point of removed from the game. Every class got whacked with the PoP nerf bat, but those were the two I played, and it ruined the game for me at the time.
Equal level of disappointment, different game - the melee weapon nerf in pre-TBC WoW that attempted to "balance" each weapon type to a mid-range DPS standard. Overnight arcanite reapers and Barman Shankers (still coolest rogue weapon EVAR) were pointless, and a lot of people had spent a lot of time and effort getting their alpha strike melee beatsticks, and saw them hammered by the nerf bat.
Pretty much every disillusionment, disappointment, ragequit moment in all MMOs comes down to logging in one day to find the developers have curb stomped my t00n into uselessness in an effort to "balance" the game. One day your character is fun, the next day it sucks. That has been the primary reason for every time I ever quit a game where I had not beaten all the content yet.
There have been a lot of these for me but probably the worst was the final expansion of my favorite (ffxi). At that point the game was already a shell of what it once was but it still had some heart. Then Seekers of adoulin (expansion name) rolled out and they completely ripped away any enjoyment that was left in the game from it for me. It adopted many practices its younger brother was using in its own reboot (which in turn had been redesigned to model itself after WoW) that completely ran counter to the reasons I was playing the game. That had been the last bit of ground I had left to stand on and pretty much ever since I haven't managed to find an mmo that I enjoy (though I have been playing a classic xi server and having fun which is not unlike project 1999 for everquest but its not in as finished a state).
I sincerely hope that pantheon could be a new home for me or at the least be an mmo that can be fun.
Edit:
Dullahan said:
It would definitely be EQ post velious. I felt like the game began changing drastically, and not for the better. Even though I may like some of the additions over the years (I continued to follow it for a while), it seemed to lose its original identity.
I look at vanilla-velious and see a sort of continuity both in lore and design; after that, much of the sandbox feel deteriorated to me. The world felt generic to me, almost as if the "new" EQ became someone's interpretation of the previous formula rather than the genuine article. It was like realism, or simulating a world became less important while making a more popular, more "fun" game became the focus. Other than a few of the very obvious changes that we're familiar with (fast travel, recommended levels on items), I find it hard to put into words what turned me off specifically. Nevertheless, my opinion is shared by many who played the game from launch.
Just wanted to say that this is exactly the kind of thing that happened to ffxi where it just kindof derailed at one point (abyssea expansions) eventually resulting in a very different game that also devalued its sense of worldly realism.
Jason said:
If you don't mind sharing it with us, what is your most heart breaking gaming experience? Was there a final epic hand in that was eaten and you were left with nothing? Was it when a certain game was shut down for good and left you numb inside? Did the guild you loved for years finally disband? Share ;)
VG was at the release but over time it got awesome. Broke my heart when they shut it down. Mostly because they showed the content they could of released after that was decided. That content if released 2 yrs earlier would of been a game changer.
Most disappointing was Warhammer. The thing with mass charging everyones credit card was the downfall of the game in which it never recovered.
During the start of Vanguard I was playing with a guild of real life friends having a blast during the first few months a lot of them left due to all the bugs and issues with the game, VG guild broke up, they all said they would come back when it was fixed but never did. While i'm still in contact with them we have never all settled on one game since VG and we all play individual games now.
Vanguard would be it for me as well...
However, it wasn't the actual closing of the game that really got me, but more the slow, oh so painful process of having to watch it die bit by bit. It was loving an amazing world, an amazing game, and realizing that no one cared anymore. That hurt.
I would have to say Vanguard. I loved the game and it just didn't love me back. I helped create the best guild I've ever been a part of just to watch it die slowly because of lack of publisher support for the game. Lots of blood, sweat and tears lost in game with Vanguard.
Best friends I've every had came from EQ1, EQ2, VG, and Rift. But best community I ever was a part of was in EQ1 and VG. I would say VG was better mostly because players learned how to organize prior to games being released.
The single worse moment - Had just got Raster of Guk to spawn for monk Epic. This was back in the day when you couldn't really take out Brother Zeph with out a decent force (3 groups usually) and during dial up time. Well my Dad decided he needed to make a call and didn't bother to ask me if I was connected through the modem. Needless to say he D/C'ed me made his 10 minute call ( I think to check if his prescription was in?) when i finally got back online I was just in time to see another monk with 3 guildies get the final hit on Raster and loot his corpse :(
EDIT: Oh, and it took me another 2-3 weeks of camping 304 hours a night to get him to spawn again for me.
Playing both EQ2 and EQoA for the first time was pretty heartbreaking. I wanted EQ in both cases and neither was even close sans lore. For EQoA I actually purchased a PS2 + network adapter specifically to play it and was super unimpressed. EQ2 I had been pumped about forever and expectations were high that it would be the most amazing thing ever. Total disappointment. WoW felt so much more EQ than EQ2 did at launch.
VG was more of a longer term sadness as you explored more and more of the game and saw the direction things had been going but never fleshed out. So much potential in that game.
I still want to play a new EQ. Hasn't happened yet.
