Epic - Version 2...why not?

[caldibus]

Remember questing for your epic weapon? i had done it on 3 characters. A shadow knight, a shaman (in 6 days with a group of 12), and a monk.

I absolutely loved doing these. They all included getting groups of my friends (because i was in a small, but different guild/server) each time. They did take awhile and even if i had something better statisticly, i really felt a sense of accomplishment. These were very successful too. They looked badass and back in kunark seeing one of these was mindblowing. Statisticly they were pretty good for the time too and even throughout velious and for some luclin.

The thing is when you do a very long quest and get a weapon (armor is just one piece of many, and isn't very significan't feeling) that was for many, the very best they could get. After waiting many months and then getting this weapon that would serve as something that would not only make you feel very powerful, but would serve as a symbol of pride was a great thing.

Why don't they bring epic quests like this back, they freaking rule.

[Shinrai]

They won't bring them back because;

1) The idea of an ultimate weapon is a negative from the point of view of character differentiation.

2) The idea of an ultimate weapon doesn't fit in a game designed around progression. That's why the current epics are generally laughable items and require hunting in archaic zones.

3) Why restrict a long and painful quest to just one class? If it's a sword why not widen the player base who can do the quest to include all sword users in the game.

They were a cute concept, but ultimately a bad idea.

[wubao]

I wouldn't even go so far as to ask for epic version 2.0.

Where are the fun quests, period?

Luclin quests were primarily key related. Did you all have fun with them?

Planes of Power quests? There's what two? An earring and the secret of the planes?

Ykesha quests? Heh. Nevermind.

Lost Dungeons of Norrath was decidedly anti-quest, unless you count the one where you upgraded the weight reduction bag.

The problem, imo, isn't that they gave up on epic quests. It's that they gave up on quests altogether after Velious.

Impromptu poll: Not including keying, or flagging quests ...
What the last quest you finished that you enjoyed?
What was the last quest you finished that you were proud of?

[Worfless]

What the last quest you finished that you enjoyed?
What was the last quest you finished that you were proud of?

to answer the first, finishing the ranger epics about a year ago (screw you, he was an alt =) )
and to answer the second, 9th ring war

[ganthornx]

sad to say the funnest quest ive done recently was right after ykesha came out me and a friend made level 1 frogs and decided to play them (at least for a while) without twinking so we did the nooby armor quests, which is better gear then i remember having til like level 30 in original eq, and it was cool running around collecting items and getting armor pieces. Even if i could hit the bazaar and get better items it was cool to do the little quests as i leveled up. I think if we were to be starting out now people would enjoy these alot.

[doharg]

2) The idea of an ultimate weapon doesn't fit in a game designed around progression. That's why the current epics are generally laughable items and require hunting in archaic zones.

And EQ is famous for quick inflation; Would people really want to go through that hassle again knowing that they would be able to buy an equal or better weapon for dirt cheap in the near future?=p

[Dexz]

Goal oriented gaming, that was the thinking behind epic quest. If they never put out an expansion past Velious those weapons would still be in high demand. The problem was they never invisioned the life of EQ and took into account it would be impossible to make a weapon that would still be THE BEST three expansions later. Although they could still make the weapons upgradable via another quest that would put them on par with Elemental weapons. That would bring back some of the appeal and make players feel better about the time spent working on the first quest.

They are nothing but a trophy of wasted time now.

[Leonardoh_7th]

They may have been short sighted, but I think it was just in NAMING them epic weapons. If they were just "cool looking quest weapons" they could have had the exact same things and had no problem keeping up.

Kunark comes out, and while it is out there are not tons and tons of people with epics as they are the pinnacle quests, they are to quests what Veeshan's Peak is to raids and Karnors is to the xp grind.

Velious comes out and has all kinds of quests, the shawls, the rings, etc... so for an "epic 2.0", require your epic 1.0 and allow three different quests, for each faction, which gives you an ultimate weapon for the current expansion that is comparable to the ultimate raid dropped weapon, but still better.

Luclin comes out and now it's all about the snakes. Allow the farming of SSRA bane weapons, but also allow a mini-epic 3.0, which, through additional questing, will allow you to imbue your current epic 2.0 with SSRA bane and a power boost. Heck, don't even change the graphics here other than making the particle effects a metalic green.

With the planes of power, allow a side quest which lets you quest for three epic "3.0's" that are three weapons that came from a single meteorite. Each of them is slightly better than your SSRA bane'd epic 2.0, but if you beat Quarm, instead of whatshername just banishing you back in time and all is as it was, make the meteorite slightly resist the time effect and have them bond to make one very uber ultimate weapon for the expansion that then makes the next clearing of time just that little bit easier.

But, time is still the pinnacle of raiding with LoY... so, start a new epic line... an epic breastplate, or heck, an epic backpack that holds 30 items, just tie in the lore to what you have done before and keep it's "power" relative to the ultimate power of raiding.

The main failings IMO EQ had was that lore did not continue or reference itself, and neither did quests. Wouldn't it have been cool to have Brell's realm in PoP and IF you had an 8th coldain shawl, you could have a special audience with him and earn a 9th or 10th shawl? Or an eleventh ring? Wouldn't you have loved to have felt that your epic was worth pursuing even after three or four expansions, because it was necessary to quest for the first weapon to allow you to quest for the second, third, fourth, etc, rather than it just being made obsolete by yardtrash drops?

[Dexz]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^6
what he said

[GaliemVaelant]

I'm sorry, but I disagree entirely that they were a bad idea, Shinrai. In their day, they had many positive aspects. The one thing I will give you is that the idea of an ultimate weapon does negate character advancement, but when it comes down to it, there's still always a couple "ultimate weapons" per class each advancement. The same goes for every slot.

1) They had meaning back in the day. Seeing someone with one made you respect them at least a little. Being impressed when you see someone holding an epic (at least the first couple times) is like masturbating; everyone did it, but most won't admit it.

2) Getting your hands on one was gratifying and provided a sense of accomplishment then that was a bit different than it is now. It wasn't just "OMGz I just got a uber weapon!!1!!!1", it was "Wow, my guild really busted their asses to help me get this. They did all this for me"

-You see, it helped build teams in that way. The idea that your guild came together like that just for you (even if it was really to better equip folks for raids) made you more loyal to them.

3) While we're on guild management, I should mention that epics were (and still are sometimes) used as a way to motivate guild members. In other words, "If you never show up to person X's epic raid, you won't get your's". It worked. They helped to further form guilds into teams, and still do. Maybe they don't in the big guilds like FoH, but make an alt to join a smaller guild. You'll see what I mean.

4) When you held an epic, folks stopped calling you a "n00b" every time they wanted to train you or steal your camp. While this isn't a biggie for most, for some it was huge. Again, many folks felt/feel this way, very few admit it.

5) Sense of accomplishment - If done in your late 40's, you can still get the same experience. Back when they were introduced, you couldn't have your level 65 buddies knock out 90% of it, and MQ all the hard parts for you. Very few epic pieces could be MQ'd, and there were no level 65 buddies. You fought hard fights, and to win them was a show of skill.

6) Not *ALL* epics are outdated and laughable still. The druid epic, for example, is still a very good weapon. Many druids weild them on my server right up into the Plane of Time. Cleric epics are still a must for any guild. Certain ones are useless now, but not all.

7) Particle effects. Granted, this means jack today, but back then to have a particle weapon was very nice. Of course, back then how your character looked actually meant something. Newbies looked like newbies, and badasses looked like badasses. Nowadays, you can dye newbie quest armor to make yourself look like rambo with a sword at level 5. I hate that this part of the game has gone to hell, but I still like dyes /shrug

8) From a content perspective, epic quests served as a nice timesink. Sure, you can make 2 quests which work for all classes, but if each class has their own long ass quest, guilds will be working on them longer. Content that takes longer to consume = content that is more valuable, if it is done in a creative, balanced, non bullshit or cockblock way.

Of course, this is all IMHO. As with everything, I'm sure that for every one person who agrees, and would say so, there are 20 who disagree, and WILL say so lol.

What was posted above by Leonardoh_7th
as an outline of how epics could have upgraded throug the expansions would have been (and still possibly could be) absolutely positively awesome. In a way, it would even serve to bring back the old EQ feel a little.

[zalgyr]

for both questions, the magician epic.
that should say something about how i feel about questing as it stands today.

The "holy shit, soandso has suchandsuch epic" effect was amazing. When i did the turnin, i got dozens and dozens of tells from people i had never met congratulating me. where is that sort of thing now? the awe, the respect at completing - the payoff for personal dedication and the support from friends, server community, and especially your guild. people who you'd never met coming to help you and that you would help. In that sense, I guess what made the epic unique was what a total and complete pain in the ass they it was to do - especially when they first came out. And especially the mage epic...yes, i'm biased.

It cuts both ways. i am against another epic such as the magician one, where the gap between the power of an epic mage and a nonepic mage was unbrigeably huge. and now, of course, it's useless and i haven't memmed the spell since a month or so after PoP release.

Neither should a class be tied to it absolutely, such as bards were until recently (and only freed in time, really).

Instead, if another epic was to be introduced, it needs to be a compliment to an existing ability, a handy toy.

And for the love of god, don't let the components depend on the end game, like the Quarm example. One of the beautiful things about the epics was that a good midrange guild could do them, given the effort.

[Oakman]

What the last quest you finished that you enjoyed?
-Katta Loyalist Shield, multiquested it with a paladin
What was the last quest you finished that you were proud of?
-Shaman epic

[Star8urst]

Quest like epic, dain ring, shawls, seru earring etc make the game a lot more fun. They give you goals with a nice sence of progression and reward at the end. SoE did miss out on making the epic upgradeble with each expansion, I think that would have been a unique feature not found in any other MMORPG. WoW has similar quests (call life quests) and I hope they are implemented better.

When I played EQ I enjoyed getting my epic a lot, even tho I already had a NToV weapon that was better. It took me almost a year to finish my epic because I was not in a raiding guild until lucin came out. Then I started on the Dain rings and when I got the 10th ring I was extatic for a long time. Greenmist was another huge challange because of the faction work, but I was realy happy when I got Greenmist. Unfortunately I quit before I got the Seru earring (I have Seru's head and the second or third earring, was realy close).

I think epic or life quests are a lot of fun. If WoW has a life quest what starts at level one based on your newbie weapon or armor and builds on it throughout your development and is included in the extensions, that would be just great.

[DalamartheDark]

It's been said that WoW has an epic quest per class....they call it a "Life Quest" though.

Hopefully it's like what Leonardoh said, and it's progressive throughout the game. Of course here and there you may find a weapon/armor/whatever thats better than your life quest item., But for the most part it upgrades along with you by questing.

DAOC already has a "life quest system" in. I think thats what most people want for wow...it's basically an item you get at level 5, then every 5 levels thereafter it unlocks a new quest to upgrade it...you boost said item until finally at your last level, you do your final quest and it's considered an "epic" item.

That way every 5 levels there's some new quest to do rather than just treadmilling up to the highest level then working on the quest from step 1.

[Zehn - Vhex]

I personally prefer quests that only take 3 to 4 people tops. As fun as it is getting 24~40 people together to take something out, I feel uncomfortable asking so many people to waste their time helping me out.