09-26-2003, 12:53 AM
Having never tried an MMO before, I tentatively (on a whim, at that) bought Planetside. I plunked down on my computer, fired it up, and about 2+ hours later, I was online and playing it. It's prone to crashing a lot, and was a pain to RE-install (1st installation went smoothly, but I ran out of HD space for the updates, hence what led to all the problems - including, to date, _6_ BSoDs on Windows 2000, when I had NEVER had one before), but thus far it's seemed quite fun.
The other day, I was in the store and saw a good deal on Everquest - Evolution. Basically it had ALL the expansion packs to date, except the latest one. For $30, I thought I'd give it a whirl, since I'd only be paying a little bit more to gain access to all SOE's games, instead of just Planetside. Installed it (with some minor hassle, but nothing worth noting), got it running (with a bit more hassle, but I think that was more out of sheer confusion - a point worth noting, for later), and logged in.
Boy, what a MESS. The interface is quite possibly one of THE WORST I have ever seen. The in-game help is utterly USELESS (seems to be a SOE trademark, along with buggy, crash-prone games - not good), and most players I was able to find were too new to offer any help. I finally found someone who was willing to teach me a bit (sorta), but by that point I was going to quit - for good. The interface is just that bad. I ended up relenting, for awhile, and spent the next hour or so running around with this guy, but I barely learned anything - except that my gripes with the interface do NOT get better with time.
Let me ask all of you a question - if you played an FPS, and the only way you could look around in the game with the mouse was by holding down the right mouse button, how would that affect your gameplay? How would that affect your willingness to play? Your enjoyment of the game? That's exactly what EverQuest forces you to do. In order to look around, I either revert to the old 1980's style of keyboard movement, or endure the excruciating madness of having to hold down the RMB just to do something as simple as look around. SOE, in all their infinite wisdom, thought to further add on to this by allowing you to run by holding the LMB, as well, thereby only needing the mouse to move around. What they failed to realize is that this is probably the WORST setup you can have - having to keep constant pressure on one, or worse both, mouse buttons while still moving the mouse around to navigate leads to aches in the wrist and hand I cannot even begin to fathom. And the rest of the interface does NOT get better from there. It takes up huge amounts of your view, it's cumbersome, it's totally ANTI-intuitive, and basically just sucks all around. I cannot begin to understand how ANYONE, let alone legions of seemingly intelligent people (I've met plenty of EQer's in my day, and they were all quite bright - even those I attended class with at Clark), can sit there for days at a time, non-stop, playing this game with such a horrible UI - both graphical and otherwise. It just boggles my mind.
Is there ANYONE here who has played EverQuest, or who still does? How in God's name did / do you do it? And would you mind taking the time to share with me, so that I just may walk away from this WITHOUT having wasted my (limited) money on a piece of electrical feces?
The other day, I was in the store and saw a good deal on Everquest - Evolution. Basically it had ALL the expansion packs to date, except the latest one. For $30, I thought I'd give it a whirl, since I'd only be paying a little bit more to gain access to all SOE's games, instead of just Planetside. Installed it (with some minor hassle, but nothing worth noting), got it running (with a bit more hassle, but I think that was more out of sheer confusion - a point worth noting, for later), and logged in.
Boy, what a MESS. The interface is quite possibly one of THE WORST I have ever seen. The in-game help is utterly USELESS (seems to be a SOE trademark, along with buggy, crash-prone games - not good), and most players I was able to find were too new to offer any help. I finally found someone who was willing to teach me a bit (sorta), but by that point I was going to quit - for good. The interface is just that bad. I ended up relenting, for awhile, and spent the next hour or so running around with this guy, but I barely learned anything - except that my gripes with the interface do NOT get better with time.
Let me ask all of you a question - if you played an FPS, and the only way you could look around in the game with the mouse was by holding down the right mouse button, how would that affect your gameplay? How would that affect your willingness to play? Your enjoyment of the game? That's exactly what EverQuest forces you to do. In order to look around, I either revert to the old 1980's style of keyboard movement, or endure the excruciating madness of having to hold down the RMB just to do something as simple as look around. SOE, in all their infinite wisdom, thought to further add on to this by allowing you to run by holding the LMB, as well, thereby only needing the mouse to move around. What they failed to realize is that this is probably the WORST setup you can have - having to keep constant pressure on one, or worse both, mouse buttons while still moving the mouse around to navigate leads to aches in the wrist and hand I cannot even begin to fathom. And the rest of the interface does NOT get better from there. It takes up huge amounts of your view, it's cumbersome, it's totally ANTI-intuitive, and basically just sucks all around. I cannot begin to understand how ANYONE, let alone legions of seemingly intelligent people (I've met plenty of EQer's in my day, and they were all quite bright - even those I attended class with at Clark), can sit there for days at a time, non-stop, playing this game with such a horrible UI - both graphical and otherwise. It just boggles my mind.
Is there ANYONE here who has played EverQuest, or who still does? How in God's name did / do you do it? And would you mind taking the time to share with me, so that I just may walk away from this WITHOUT having wasted my (limited) money on a piece of electrical feces?
Roland *The Gunslinger*