Some days I can’t help but miss some of the little things in past games I’ve played. Truly, the little things are what you remember in the end, not the phat loot piece #305830 you received.
Long ago, in a galaxy far far..err wrong content. Back when DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) was new, I hailed it as my final escape from Everquest (how wrong I was). The game itself wasn’t that bad, and it followed the general EQ way of things (which in the end was its Achille’s Heel, imo). PvP was very well done, however, I didn’t maintain interest in the overall game long enough to fully explore it.
The best part of DAoC were the zone-wide death messages. When anyone died in the same area you were in, you were greeted with “Soandso was slain by …..!”. I found it particularly amusing when the same boss killed the same group over and over and over again. Or when Noob_152 was killed by the same level 3 wolf and you wondered how they would ever survive and make it in the game (They’d just remake as a healer, since almost everything is forgiven when you’re the least-played, most-needed class). Whenever I noticed some douche I hated being repeatedly killed, I’d be compelled to just watch for more death spam. Often times my group would notice I stopped paying attention for prolonged periods of time. They would then decide to train me for making their lives difficult, and, my death spam was then broadcast much to the joy of others. Bastards.
Everquest had a similar feature, (it was later removed) zone-wide summon messages. Select higher level mobs had the ability to summon anyone on their hate list who was out of melee range. The shrooms in Sebilis (King especially) were some of the best bringers of hilarity. Once the spam ended, (You could easily get over 30 messages before a wipe) /yells of King camp now open! or /yell Good luck getting your corpses back without gear, douche bags! would follow. It was like Warcraft’s Barrens chat, but, instead of wanting to spoon your eyes out with a fork, you’d laugh your ass off.
Blizzard, you’ve followed the Everquest mold so closely in many regards. Why not take another step forward and add in the zone wide death messages? Think of all the fun times!
