Favorite Zone ever?

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Komido

Ah. So thats the reason that all the TBC instances are designed like LDON instances and are as boring as shit.

Blizzard should hire me to do their instance design. Here is a rough concept of a zone I call "Corridor Chaos".

=[]=[]=[]=[ ]

The ceilings will be a 100 feet high and the zone will be filled with trash mobs just standing around waiting to be pulled (There sure as fuck isn't any other apparent reason why are just standing around.). Obviously every other open room will contain a boss with a large loot pool, but only drop one piece of loot per kill. That will give the customer a reason to keep returning and enjoying the zone several times until their desired item drops.

When do I get paid?

Seriously though. My favorite zones tend to be designed like castles or manors. Zones that have rooms that are meaningful. Karahzan, Shadowfang Keep, Mistmoore, Unrest, BRD, Scholomance and the likes are my favorite types. I really hope blizzard intends to bring these designs back for WOTLK. I don't think I could stand to run through more uninspired tunnels for another expansion.

Actually, a lot of zone designers in other game genres have that problem too, it's called "room tunnel room" syndrome. If you've done any level design you'll know it is very easy to fall into that mode. Not only because it makes it easier to railroad players the way they are supposed to go, but just because it is much easier to design 3D geometry that way.

Planning out really organic feeling 3D level where layout makes sense, rooms are memorable and have a clear purpose, and isn't just a room/tunnel/room is much harder. You'll notice that most interesting architecture in real life does it that way too. The most interesting architecture usually: has interesting atriums with a blurred division between spaces, avoids symmetry, and avoids right angles. It's the kind of architecture where you always think "cool, I wonder what is around that corner?".

Anyway, the WoW level design is still vastly better than other MMO's. Their indoor lighting is outstanding, and makes the WoW dungeons look better than games with much more advanced graphic engines (lighting is 80% of graphics imho). There's always room for improvement though.

[ChewieTobbacca]

Not sure of a favorite but I know for a fact nowhere on the list is plane of air! Fuck DT'ing birds

Almost all the Velious indoor zones rocked... Velks, TOFS, Thurgb, Kael, Skyshrine, DN, ST, and TOV were all top notch (still best expansion in an mmo ive ever played). Kunark's oldseb, karnor, and chardok were $ as well (VP and Charasis too). Old EQ's soldungb, pofear, pohate, lguk, and cazic were all $ as well.

Oh and Crushbone for nostalgia, but fuck Dvinn.

[TOOL]

Originally Posted by Cuppycake

Man, all this LDoN hate! I thought it was a spectacular idea and design with slightly poor implementation in terms of variety.

If you think about it though, it was a huge leap in the direction of casual MMO experiences. Never before had an MMO provided you with quick fixes of microentertainment. EQ *especially* was the master of requiring hours upon hours of dedicated playtime in order to accomplish anything. This was the first time in an MMO that I could get some friends together and run a dungeon that would only take a half hour or less. There was always random loot that someone could either use or sell. There was lots of money to be earned. There was the scaling dungeons which was something truly unique to EQ. It didn't matter if you were level 40 or level 65, you could do an LDoN dungeon. It gave content that crossed all the level boundaries. You could even customize your experience with easy or "hard" dungeons for increased difficulty and more lucrative rewards. You earned points that you could use to spend things (mmm..how meta).

Regardless if the dungeons were 'stale' and carbon copies, LDoN was a huge advancement in MMOs. Perhaps not the advancement that a lot of you hardcore raider type welcome, but none the less huge. I'm interested in seeing if a game without instanced dungeons could fare well after LDoN raised the bar.

I completely agree with you about the spectacular idea that was poorly implemented. EQ hadn't had any really good dungeons added since Velious. There were a couple dungeonish zones in Luclin and LoY that weren't too bad, but there was clearly a demand for some new dungeons for the masses that were farming AAs at lvl 65.

The only huge advancement that I remember from Lost Diablo of Norrath is that the devs finally realized how low of standards they could get away with and still take a few million dollars of revenue from the loyally addicted playerbase.

Varying the mob levels was new, but it was more restrictive than it was enabling. You weren't allowed to be in the same group as your lower level friends/twinks, and if you had a variety of levels in your group there was a really good chance that you'd need to use math to figure out whether you wanted to pick Normal, Nightmare or Hell difficulty. But remember what I said a couple sentences ago about the demand existing for new dungeons that were designed for lvl 65 people looking for fun places to grind AAs? Yeah, the variable level system really wasn't what LDoN needed.

I think the LDoN hate is well deserved. It stands out to me as the absolute worst EQ expansion ever, and yes, I do mean that it was worse than GoD and LoY. Lots of people used it because it was new, and nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. The quality of the content was just sub par though.

They did pretty good with some of the rewards for the long grinds at least. The 40hp augs and the Anger augs held their usability value for a long time before anything better was added. I hear the old raid instances drop a few + damage and AC augs that people still single group at lvl 80 too.

The dungeons themselves were pure shit though, and that was supposed to be the main point of the expansion. Dungeons, not variable lvl mob gimmicks and "Adventure Points" that was just a shallow euphemism for "non-tradeable and tightly rationed Platinum pieces," not gem sockets and jewels and runes to put into them. Dungeons.

[Rorek]

EQ - Cazic Thule

WoW - Nagrand

EQ2 - Cazic Thule

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by Kevincheese

Quick fixes of microentertainment?

What the fuck are you smoking Cuppy?

That shit REQUIRED the time it took to put together a group, travel there, do an hours worth of killing, for next to NO reward. In the most boring ass zones in the game.

Heh, I never had any problem putting together a group. Perhaps because I had a guild who was pretty into running LDoN's regularly. I don't know...to each his/her own I guess - but everyone I played with was really into LDoN.

I don't think anything ruined EQ other than time, new shinies, and friends moving elsewhere. But I'm probably alone in that regard because I didn't start playing the game until just before PoP. I remember getting good upgrades from LDoN, but I wasn't a hardcore raider at that time anymore. *shrug*

[Desx]

Lamest thread ever?

[woot!]

old Castle Mistmoore and Neriak (EQ1)
ShadowFangKeep (Wow)

[Grave]

Originally Posted by Desx

Lamest thread ever?

Now that you've showed up.

[ismaris]

Originally Posted by Desx

Lamest thread ever?

You're a fucking retard. This thread is awesome.

[Seventh]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

Crushbone-EQ-Nostalgia
Fear Plane-EQ-Hilariousness in TWC back in the day.

Agreed on both counts. I still talk to friends today that I met in Crushbone, and helped CR in POF all those years ago.

[m A n i a]

EQ - Lake Rathe
WoW - Mount Hyjal
FFXI - La Theine Plateau

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Anyway, the WoW level design is still vastly better than other MMO's. Their indoor lighting is outstanding, and makes the WoW dungeons look better than games with much more advanced graphic engines (lighting is 80% of graphics imho). There's always room for improvement though.

Well, yeah they excel in those detail types of things, but it doesn't help that much if the map is as terribly bland as the level 70 five man instances are.

[tartar]

I would have to say my favorite zone is Ak'anon from EQ. I have a soft spot for gnomes and their clockworks. A lot of nostalgia with all of the time I spent in there with my first character, first with trying to figure out all of the broken quests and then camping the mechanics forever. I still visit just for fun nowadays.

[Slide]

Originally Posted by TOOL

I completely agree with you about the spectacular idea that was poorly implemented. EQ hadn't had any really good dungeons added since Velious. There were a couple dungeonish zones in Luclin and LoY that weren't too bad, but there was clearly a demand for some new dungeons for the masses that were farming AAs at lvl 65.

The only huge advancement that I remember from Lost Diablo of Norrath is that the devs finally realized how low of standards they could get away with and still take a few million dollars of revenue from the loyally addicted playerbase.

Varying the mob levels was new, but it was more restrictive than it was enabling. You weren't allowed to be in the same group as your lower level friends/twinks, and if you had a variety of levels in your group there was a really good chance that you'd need to use math to figure out whether you wanted to pick Normal, Nightmare or Hell difficulty. But remember what I said a couple sentences ago about the demand existing for new dungeons that were designed for lvl 65 people looking for fun places to grind AAs? Yeah, the variable level system really wasn't what LDoN needed.

I think the LDoN hate is well deserved. It stands out to me as the absolute worst EQ expansion ever, and yes, I do mean that it was worse than GoD and LoY. Lots of people used it because it was new, and nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. The quality of the content was just sub par though.

They did pretty good with some of the rewards for the long grinds at least. The 40hp augs and the Anger augs held their usability value for a long time before anything better was added. I hear the old raid instances drop a few + damage and AC augs that people still single group at lvl 80 too.

The dungeons themselves were pure shit though, and that was supposed to be the main point of the expansion. Dungeons, not variable lvl mob gimmicks and "Adventure Points" that was just a shallow euphemism for "non-tradeable and tightly rationed Platinum pieces," not gem sockets and jewels and runes to put into them. Dungeons.

It was actually my favorite EQ expansion, i'd putzed around since the game came out playing random chars and not getting anywhere. Midway through Luclin I got back into the game and levelled a char up to go raiding. By the time LDON came out there were a bunch of us secondclass class guys in secondclass guilds playing in the off hours that settled into a regular group. The team was basically elemental flagged, but not really elemental geared and the 5 of us - Ranger [tank, dps], Druid [healer, dps], Bard [me, puller, cc], Necro [dps, cc, rez], Beastlord [slower, dps] had a great time running heroics. We had a lot of fun.

[Xabantik]

EQ:
Thurgadin, Loio, LGuk, PoF, steamfont, kiticor forest, cazic, south karana,
butcherblock (to see the sky after gfay grinding as an wood elf,fucking amazing!)
what was the zone between loio and overthere? with the forest giant castle in it?, dreadland ridge,
eq was fucking full of awesome zones

WoW:
UBRS, Scarlet Monastery, STV,Ashenvale, blackfatom ...,
blades edge, im a huge conan fan... and blade edge was for me the kind of zone of brutal nonfriendly enviroment conan adventures in ^^