1. Rewards - Either from quests "the few there were" or the long time you put in to get your amulet of necrosis just so you could right click and turn into a skeleton. ^_^ which was awsome btw.
2. Gameplay - Yes, the game play was very simple. Sit on my mount cast spells. However, It wasn't button mashing.
3. Difficulty - The time it took to reach End Game Level was a long and hard road. For me this road consisted of Grouping and Solo gameplay. As a druid I could Quad Kite. And, There has been no other game to recreate what Quad Kiting mobs was like in EQ.
4. Community - EQ community was like no other. There are no words to describe the community base of EQ. Just know my fellow EQ veterns I wish we had a game to play.
To sum up an answer for your question. There will be no other game like EQ once was.
Why don't we play EQ now? The Community has left. What was once the blood that filled the viens of EQ is just about dried up.
That and the game with gear and the expansions that are out now have just well...been stupid ideas.
Part of the reason is it was truly a revolutionary game, while most games are evolutionary. What it brought was never seen before. This is why some games are so near and dear to our hearts. For example. my fav shooter of all time is Goldeneye on N64, but it isnt nearly as full of features as the newest shooters. But at the time, its gameplay was incredible.
One can only play a game for so long. For me I wish I could play FFXI again but after 4 years I need a new challenge. I am willing to bet that some of the old EQ players fall into this as well.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore) Now Playing: N/A Worst MMO: FFXIV Favorite MMO: FFXI
Originally posted by pencilrick1. Substantial consequences for failure. (i.e., corpse retrieval, experience loss for dying) 2. Rewards were hard-earned. 3. Combat pace allowed for time to type (and talk) during and in-between fights. 4. Hidden surprises in zones (i.e., hidden quests, hidden caves, sewer tunnels, etc...) added mystery to game. 5. Wonderful and simple musical tunes for background. 6. Freedom to wander in world without being compelled or forced to follow some quest line or sit as a captive audience through some trite cutscene drama. 7. Myriad of things to do (farm for material, gold, craft, gain experience, explore). 8. Exploration was unaided by radar map and therefore seemed more immersive. 9. First person view gave feeling you were looking through your character's eyes. 10. Encumbrance (gear had weight and you could only carry so much) felt realistic. 11. Day/Night cycles were frequent enough to add atmosphere to game world. 12. Boat travel gave world a sense of scale and geography. 13. Well-designed zones. 14. City factions that could be raised or lowered due to character interaction with the environment. 15. Beautiful (but incomplete) map was your informal guide to decide where you wanted to go and what you wanted to explore. 16. Soloing difficult and risky, but possible. Groups were needed to better ensure surival, so "needing" others certainly built community. 17. No instances (initially). Dungeons were public dungeons. 18. TRAINS (i.e. aggroing monsters could peel off and attack others) kept players on their toes and added some humor and drama to gameplay. 19. Good zone-wide chat system. 20. Basic design was a "world", not a "themepark", and gameplay was open-ended rather than "herded." While EQ is long in the tooth, the above elements are timeless in my opinion and could be well-adapted to future MMO's. Hoping FF XIV gets it right if no Everquest 3 comes out.
This outline illustrates my perception of the game as well. The community was great and visiting the various Fan Sites really gave you a substantive feeling about the game. EQ had character, depth and meaningful lore. I've yet to play an MMO that had this level of Hook and or Appeal.
Sure other MMO's are fun, but they seem to lack that sense of risk vs reward. EQ had its share of hardships and people easily perceived immersion elements as 'time sinks'. The term Grind seems to be becoming the standard term for any game feature that takes more than 2 minutes to accomplish.
I'm looking forward to Everquest Next and can only hope that SOE considers its past experience and where newer MMO's didn't quite get it right.
The Old Timers Guild Laid back, not so serious, no drama. All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
It was ground breaking pretty much at the time. Meridian 59 and UO lost a lot of subs when It came out. The MMO genre was very new and exciting.
It was actually a world. There was no instancing. Yes there was zones, but that was the technology available at the time. You got what you put in to it. Nothing was handed to you. There was a death penalty and you had to go get yer stuff when you took a dirt nap.
Before the Kunark expansion was def. it's hay day so to speak. I had a blasty blast. I played a necro. I would do all kinds of stupid stuff that was funny as hell to me at least.
Keep in mind, there was no zone that didn't have a punishing factor that you needed to keep on your toes for.
Ummm.. Skeleton shows up at night in front of main gate Qeynos. Lays out noob after noob.
Noob finishes MG Qeynos and goes out to qeynos hills. Said noob decides that killing animals is the way to go for leveling up there and after killing about 10, Holly Windstalker goes nutso and 1 shot's the noob.
Good times.
Then there was my favorite as a necro... Which was taking the boat to Oracle island and if I was lucky there was a great white shark in the water. (Keep in mind, these things made jaws look like a stuffed animal.) I'd send my pet out, then call it back on the boat, park it on the spot, and run like hell because BLAMO shark out of water on the boat almost the size of the boat laying waste to anybody on it. lol.
High level paladins with Sow would go down to the bottom room in Guk. When they got there they popped their invis and pulled the entire lower zone to the top where all the afkers were, and as soon as they zoned.. ruh roh.
My favorite one was getting my friends together standing at the unrest zone line invisible while said paladin went running in pulling the entire house out then zoning.
People would try to get away from the train and get through the zone, jumping, screaming in shout 'ZONE DOWN ZONE DOWN'. lol I was in tears. I'm surprised we only did that once.
On the up and up... People got their gear by putting in time with rare spawns. I believe the quickest timer was on 15min. If someone was there or a party, people asked to have the person(s) send em a tell when they were done so they could take it over. None of this spoiled kiddy shit of just taking peoples kills. IF on the off chance a cheeky bastard showed up, You called your wizzy friend with ice comet and issue solved. There was a lil respect involved.
It absolutely drives me nuts when some stupid knucklehead comes running up and kills the monster right next to the one I'm killing and there's 14000 of them 50ft away. I will never understand the concept of that.
Now that I think about it, I kinda miss those days. Only game I never cared that it didn't have pvp on my server.
There was nothing *so great* about Everquest as a whole. The game had certain elements that some people really liked, (and some people really hated), which have disappeared since WoW. The people who liked those elements miss those elements. The people who hated those elements think it's just nostalgia.
Nothing was so great about Everquest. People wear rose-colored glasses, and it was the first game for a lot of folks. In reality, it was a grind-fest that took everything that was great about the virtual world aspects of these games and dumbed them down into a stats-driven treadmill that WoW and every other theme park game ever made has copied. You didn't miss a thing by not playing EQ, as large bits of it are still around today in just about every game on the market.
The grinding was phenomenal. But the game was beyond that. And yes we miss a lot by not playing EQ, obviously you didn't play it.
About the colored glasses. Give me an MMO with EQ features and you will see it's not that case. It's like your first gf was Nicole Kidman and people say "bah, it's first kiss, she wasn't so great" and you go ape saying "FFS she was Nicole Kidman!"
Everquest was an MMORPG that was around before people began overanalyzing videogames and turned the genre into a steaming pile of feces. It was cutting edge, and people couldn't really quite explain what made it so attractive. Later, people decided that big battles, pretty graphics, and a lot of people getting together killing big badguys is what makes the genre fun. Now, we're stuck with WoW and other bland theme park rides.
Essentially, we took Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and decided that lots of jokes and big explosions were what made the movie as good as it was, so we took what we learned and made the movie Armageddon with Bruce Willis.
Everquest was a world rather than a theme-park. The game thrived due to it's playerbase having control. There was no Auction House, rather people used a main City or a tunnel in a close by zone for trading. There was no "gather 6 pelts" or "gather 4 snake fingers" type quests. And unless you picked a certain few classes soloing was very difficult after the lower levels. This promoted group play and social interaction, and gave people a choice as to what they wanted to do in the game. What made Everquest so special for most of us was that it gave us the option to do what we wanted to in the game and didn't force us one direction or the other. It promoted Social play and that is the benefit of playing an MMORPG over a single player game, whether some people like to agree or not. By the time you reached max level ( it took me over a year for my first toon, which sounds long, but the game was so fun and immersive you didn't even notice ) you had made hundreds of friends and usually found a decent guild of people or one you strived to join. End game guilds took on new players and gave them the benefit of the doubt, rather than just checking their gear and dismissing them. The guilds had high confidence that if you attained maximum level in a game like this, you had a good knowledge of how to play and interact with other people and how to control your class in a co-op setting. Everquest will never be re-created again. It's not economically sound. The mass market of MMORPG players now days ( brought in by WoW ) are not interested in an Immersive world but are instead interested in a single player game with other people around them so that they can flex their Epeen and feel special. They do not enjoy a game like Everquest because they do not want to be immersed into a game world and/or social environment. This does not promote investors to re-create a game like Everquest because that's just not where the money is. If something like Everquest ever came along again, it would only have a fraction of what WoW has in terms of subscribers sadly to say. It's an unfortunate devolution and it can't be fixed now.
This - You said it perfect. My mmo, if I ever break in. its for old school, EQ, Doac, Vanguard and EQ crowd. We need an mmo for our niche crowd. Players like us, don't want to be in a mainstream game.
Hand me my cane sonny, and gather around and I'll tell ya about the good ole days of Everquest.
Back in them days things were different. We didnt have no instances where hundreds of groups could be fighting the same mob at the same time.. Noo.. No it wasnt like that back then. Back in my day we had only one mob on the ENTIRE server that everyone wanted to kill and ya had to wait in line for hours on end to get to that mob, and by George we waited. When we finaly got the call that a spot opened up in a group we had to walk to that mob.. Uphill mindya.. thats right both ways uphill.. and then we would sit there for hours on end fighting in one spot for hours and hours untill something good would drop.. But damnit we liked it.. We got to spend quality time with our peers..Not like todays games sonny. where you get what you want right away and then off ya go. Never minden to get to know your peers really. Hell most the time ya seem like in todays games your peers are more of a burden to slow ya down than anyway else. I dont understand why people are still even getting on these gosh darn multiplayer games when they want everything handed to them solo. Heck ya might as well just start the game off at max level. Cause no ones gots patience these days.
LOL seriously though
you had to be there. EQ it wasnt just about getting loot. It was about spending quality time yes even grinding if you want to call it that sitting down in some dungeon kill mobs for hours while hanging out with friends.
There are so many things EQ did. That alot of newer games leave out.. that helped make the game world more immersive. Like others have said. It was a good game.. it took alot of time. I would like to see something more along the lines of it in a modern game. Vanguard brought some of the feeling back. Aion is too actually. When playing Aion I get a since of old school design philosaphy behind some of it.
You could get pickup groups even at low levels--remember Crushsbone, Estate of Unrest? I left when I couldn't get a group, even as a high-level Cleric...
I think one of the underlooked values of EQ was just how much it fostered roleplaying. I always thought roleplaying was a bit naff at the time but I later appreciated those who did it as they really did go into it. I think with latter expansions like Luclin and PoP Everquest destroyed the factor of it's environment which maybe nurtured roleplaying. I think the fact it neglected that subaudience, affected all as a whole as quite subtlety that was a large appeal for many people- it's early strength of it's fantasy depiction and environments.
There's no doubt it had bad points though, which WoW fanbois like Josher are always keen to point out in these threads.
You could get pickup groups even at low levels--remember Crushsbone, Estate of Unrest? I left when I couldn't get a group, even as a high-level Cleric...
I would say that this is the key point in my opinion. You could find groups to join so easily. So easy. Despite what some people will say most classes could solo if they wanted to, some better than others of course. But grouping was generally safer and faster experience so there were groups going everywhere all the time. There were always groups looking for more people or people forming new groups. So you could log in, ask yourself where you wanted to go today, go there, and very quickly get into a group and have fun. That's the thing I miss more than anything else.
These games today in which it's all solo all the time seem pointless to me. Trying some of the later games I have seriously wondered why I had to be online to play them. Oh sure, it's all much more convenient when everything is designed for solo play but in my mind it seems to defeat the purpose of playing online when the other players are nothing more than landscape decoration as far as your own gaming experience is concerned.
And yeah, in the newer games the NPCs are constantly telling you what a great hero you are. But can you guess how much that means to me? It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. A pre-canned response that they give to everyone has no meaning. I'll tell you that the tiniest little pat on the back from another player I'm grouped with means more to me than all the NPCs in all the gaming worlds who tell me that I'm the greatest hero who ever lived.
EQ was so much more of a puplic playground than most later games. It wasn't just that you grouped more it was also the fact that everyone had to share the same space (no instances) and that the things other people did could affect you and vice-versa. Everyone in a zone was sharing the same playground. Often people helped each other (even though they weren't grouped) and sometimes people caused problems for each other. There was good and bad both, nice guys and jerks, all thrown into the mix together and it made it a much more social and interesting atmosphere.
The game was far from perfect and it had some things that I truly learned to despise but the ubiquitous grouping and highly social atmosphere of the first two or three years made it vastly more fun than any mmorpg I've tried since.
Everquest was a world rather than a theme-park. The game thrived due to it's playerbase having control. There was no Auction House, rather people used a main City or a tunnel in a close by zone for trading. There was no "gather 6 pelts" or "gather 4 snake fingers" type quests. And unless you picked a certain few classes soloing was very difficult after the lower levels. This promoted group play and social interaction, and gave people a choice as to what they wanted to do in the game. What made Everquest so special for most of us was that it gave us the option to do what we wanted to in the game and didn't force us one direction or the other. It promoted Social play and that is the benefit of playing an MMORPG over a single player game, whether some people like to agree or not. By the time you reached max level ( it took me over a year for my first toon, which sounds long, but the game was so fun and immersive you didn't even notice ) you had made hundreds of friends and usually found a decent guild of people or one you strived to join. End game guilds took on new players and gave them the benefit of the doubt, rather than just checking their gear and dismissing them. The guilds had high confidence that if you attained maximum level in a game like this, you had a good knowledge of how to play and interact with other people and how to control your class in a co-op setting. Everquest will never be re-created again. It's not economically sound. The mass market of MMORPG players now days ( brought in by WoW ) are not interested in an Immersive world but are instead interested in a single player game with other people around them so that they can flex their Epeen and feel special. They do not enjoy a game like Everquest because they do not want to be immersed into a game world and/or social environment. This does not promote investors to re-create a game like Everquest because that's just not where the money is. If something like Everquest ever came along again, it would only have a fraction of what WoW has in terms of subscribers sadly to say. It's an unfortunate devolution and it can't be fixed now.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Contrary to one of the confused posts above me not only was Everquest in fact a theme park, it was the first graphical theme park MMO and it was the first 3D one. All of that combined made it big. UO was not a theme park, and AC which came out shortly after EQ was a 3D sandbox. So there's the correction on that.
It was truly just because of what it was when it was. UO was great because of what it was when it was, same with AC. They're all still good today because of what they represent and how things were approached back then. They all also offered something different which is a long since gone tradition. To have 3 major MMOs all out at the same time that were all different was an amazing time in MMOs. Now every MMO releases and tries to be exactly like something else but slightly newer.
EQ was my least favorite of the big 3 and I think it was because of it's theme park style. I picked it up since I was playing UO at the time and though a 3D world would be really neat. Fortunatly AC came out soon after and I never touched EQ again.
I also never liked the zones, having played UO which was a seamless world and then AC which was a seamless world with portals into dungeons, the whole zone idea of having to load in a new area each time you crossed a boundary was just lame to me. That style still bothers me today, I don't want to accidently back up and have to go through a loading screen.
But despite my uninterest in EQ I do fully understand why it is considered as great as it is. But if you made an EQ today it would not be so interesting because a 3D theme park is nothing new.
Everquest was a world rather than a theme-park. The game thrived due to it's playerbase having control. There was no Auction House, rather people used a main City or a tunnel in a close by zone for trading. There was no "gather 6 pelts" or "gather 4 snake fingers" type quests. And unless you picked a certain few classes soloing was very difficult after the lower levels. This promoted group play and social interaction, and gave people a choice as to what they wanted to do in the game. What made Everquest so special for most of us was that it gave us the option to do what we wanted to in the game and didn't force us one direction or the other. It promoted Social play and that is the benefit of playing an MMORPG over a single player game, whether some people like to agree or not. By the time you reached max level ( it took me over a year for my first toon, which sounds long, but the game was so fun and immersive you didn't even notice ) you had made hundreds of friends and usually found a decent guild of people or one you strived to join. End game guilds took on new players and gave them the benefit of the doubt, rather than just checking their gear and dismissing them. The guilds had high confidence that if you attained maximum level in a game like this, you had a good knowledge of how to play and interact with other people and how to control your class in a co-op setting. Everquest will never be re-created again. It's not economically sound. The mass market of MMORPG players now days ( brought in by WoW ) are not interested in an Immersive world but are instead interested in a single player game with other people around them so that they can flex their Epeen and feel special. They do not enjoy a game like Everquest because they do not want to be immersed into a game world and/or social environment. This does not promote investors to re-create a game like Everquest because that's just not where the money is. If something like Everquest ever came along again, it would only have a fraction of what WoW has in terms of subscribers sadly to say. It's an unfortunate devolution and it can't be fixed now.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Ok, you didn't like the game. That is your opinion. Those inefficient and annoying things you are talking about in EQ? Well they are part of the game and for some people made it so great. Different strokes for different folks. Thanks for your opinion.
Everquest was a world rather than a theme-park. The game thrived due to it's playerbase having control. There was no Auction House, rather people used a main City or a tunnel in a close by zone for trading. There was no "gather 6 pelts" or "gather 4 snake fingers" type quests. And unless you picked a certain few classes soloing was very difficult after the lower levels. This promoted group play and social interaction, and gave people a choice as to what they wanted to do in the game. What made Everquest so special for most of us was that it gave us the option to do what we wanted to in the game and didn't force us one direction or the other. It promoted Social play and that is the benefit of playing an MMORPG over a single player game, whether some people like to agree or not. By the time you reached max level ( it took me over a year for my first toon, which sounds long, but the game was so fun and immersive you didn't even notice ) you had made hundreds of friends and usually found a decent guild of people or one you strived to join. End game guilds took on new players and gave them the benefit of the doubt, rather than just checking their gear and dismissing them. The guilds had high confidence that if you attained maximum level in a game like this, you had a good knowledge of how to play and interact with other people and how to control your class in a co-op setting. Everquest will never be re-created again. It's not economically sound. The mass market of MMORPG players now days ( brought in by WoW ) are not interested in an Immersive world but are instead interested in a single player game with other people around them so that they can flex their Epeen and feel special. They do not enjoy a game like Everquest because they do not want to be immersed into a game world and/or social environment. This does not promote investors to re-create a game like Everquest because that's just not where the money is. If something like Everquest ever came along again, it would only have a fraction of what WoW has in terms of subscribers sadly to say. It's an unfortunate devolution and it can't be fixed now.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Ok, you didn't like the game. That is your opinion. Those inefficient and annoying things you are talking about in EQ? Well they are part of the game and for some people made it so great. Different strokes for different folks. Thanks for your opinion.
The point is how a LACK of features make a game great?
In WOW:
If you want to stand at DALARAN and trying to sell something at the street corner, you CAN.
if you don't like quest grinding and wants to go back to single mob grinding like in EQ, you CAN.
If you want to level slowly, just go kill mob that gives little xp or no xp, and you CAN.
The only thing you CANNOT do is to force other people to suffer the same lack of features. If that is wat give you kicks, I guess you can't find it in newer MMOs. But you can do all the stuff you do in EQ.
The point is how a LACK of features make a game great? In WOW: If you want to stand at DALARAN and trying to sell something at the street corner, you CAN. if you don't like quest grinding and wants to go back to single mob grinding like in EQ, you CAN. If you want to level slowly, just go kill mob that gives little xp or no xp, and you CAN. The only thing you CANNOT do is to force other people to suffer the same lack of features. If that is wat give you kicks, I guess you can't find it in newer MMOs. But you can do all the stuff you do in EQ.
Thats the amusing thing about these conversations. People complain how can't do this or that in newer MMOs, but you CAN play newer MMOs like EQ. Maybe dungeons take the place of spawn camping, but you're NEVER forced to solo and ignore everyone. Thats whats so funny. They claim they're FORCED to do quests and solo. No you're not. They say the death penalty is gone. NO its not. Drop some gold or some gear every time you die. Instant death penalty. You can create downtime very easily also. You can ignore convenient travel and run every place. You can find great like minded people to play with. If you can't its YOU. You can play newer MMOs like older MMOs. The difference is YOU have to ignore all those convenience features. Its not hard. You can still grind. You can still have a harsh death penalty. Just DO IT and stop bitching. It might take a little creativity and imagination, but isn't THAT part of what allowed you to enjoy those older MMOs in the first place? The reason they don't do it is because you can't turn back the clock. Once you've seen the strings you know how bad the puppet show was. You can't go back to the old ways and these people can't accept that they weren't so great.
Contrary to one of the confused posts above me not only was Everquest in fact a theme park, it was the first graphical theme park MMO and it was the first 3D one.
Yeah, even though I have very fond memories of early EQ I have to agree with this. I think people say it wasn't a themepark partly because of the newby wonder of their first mmorpg but also for some other reasons. In part it might have something to do with the slower leveling which caused people to do a lot more exploring of content as they went up through the levels. With later games the leveling up phase is mostly just a blurred rush to the "endgame". Maybe it's also partly because of the way high and low level mobs were mixed into the same zones in lots of places.
But mostly I suspect that it's because it wasn't a guided experience. You weren't told were to go and what to do. You had to figure things out for yourself. You had to actually explore...uh, well maybe you didn't have to but lacking instructions from NPCs most people did. In the basic layout of the world it may not have been fundamently different from later themepark games but it felt more open and free because when you logged in you had to decide what you wanted to do as opposed to later games in which you check your quest log to see what you're supposed to do.
But yes, I agree with you that EQ was a linear themepark game. The sad thing is that it looks sort sandboxy compared to the themepark games that followed it. I myself couldn't understand why I sometimes saw people posting about EQ as if it were sandboxy...untill I tried WoW and some of the other later generation themepark games. Then I started to understand.
1. Timing, first true 3D MMO, it wow'ed gamers, kick started the genre, and opened up the possibilities (including the development of WoW). It was something new.
2. Everything else, including community bonding, player interactions, awesome lore back when deity made a difference, dungeon crawling, content depth including AA's, tons of class choices, various starting racial cities, and large scale raids. Plus you got to pick sides and kill dragons and gods, what's there not to like?
The game wasn't perfect, still isn't perfect right now. But the game was very popular between 1999-2005. To deny that fact is to deny WoW is the #1 game on the market from 2005-present. It was a mixture of everything that worked for EQ1, even the original creators of the game didn't think EQ1 would last this long. They actually thought the game was to last for a couple of years only.
Right now the game is still going, still kicking with an expansion a year. Problem right now isn't about the content, or classes, or design. The problems facing EQ1 today is mostly cosmetic, the outdated character models need to be upgraded. Also the legacy engine issues where most games go for the non-zoning design, but that isn't exactly something they can change once a game is built with zoning in mind. Overall though, EQ is still EQ, one of the last remaining old school game with a decent population and dev support still. Part of its success has been their dev's ability to evolve the game with the genre. Leveling is no longer a crawl, death penalties aren't as harsh, and there are more than enough quests for those of you preferring quest-on-a-rail system.
1. Timing, first true 3D MMO, it wow'ed gamers, kick started the genre, and opened up the possibilities (including the development of WoW). It was something new. 2. Everything else, including community bonding, player interactions, awesome lore back when deity made a difference, dungeon crawling, content depth including AA's, tons of class choices, various starting racial cities, and large scale raids. Plus you got to pick sides and kill dragons and gods, what's there not to like?
The game wasn't perfect, still isn't perfect right now. But the game was very popular between 1999-2005. To deny that fact is to deny WoW is the #1 game on the market from 2005-present. It was a mixture of everything that worked for EQ1, even the original creators of the game didn't think EQ1 would last this long. They actually thought the game was to last for a couple of years only.
Right now the game is still going, still kicking with an expansion a year. Problem right now isn't about the content, or classes, or design. The problems facing EQ1 today is mostly cosmetic, the outdated character models need to be upgraded. Also the legacy engine issues where most games go for the non-zoning design, but that isn't exactly something they can change once a game is built with zoning in mind. Overall though, EQ is still EQ, one of the last remaining old school game with a decent population and dev support still. Part of its success has been their dev's ability to evolve the game with the genre. Leveling is no longer a crawl, death penalties aren't as harsh, and there are more than enough quests for those of you preferring quest-on-a-rail system.
I would give you (1). It is certainly the first and popular then. Even i played for like a year with all its flaws. But it has serious flaws and everyone knows. Camping has become a huge huge problem. Like i said before, modern MMOs like WOW has surpassed it in spades. There is no reason to turn back the clock.
Contrary to one of the confused posts above me not only was Everquest in fact a theme park, it was the first graphical theme park MMO and it was the first 3D one.
But yes, I agree with you that EQ was a linear themepark game. The sad thing is that it looks sort sandboxy compared to the themepark games that followed it. I myself couldn't understand why I sometimes saw people posting about EQ as if it were sandboxy...untill I tried WoW and some of the other later generation themepark games. Then I started to understand.
Mostly when people call a MMO themepark because they lead you from zone to zone, with a quest-on-a-rail system where you finish up quests from one town, it leads you to the next. EQ1 wasn't like this, you were not lead on a rail from one town to another. Often times you actually go all over the world looking for a good camp spot for your level, and there usually were many different zones to level in.
So while EQ1 may not be totally "sandbox", it is certain more sandbox than most MMO's released after it. To say that EQ1 was a linear themepark game is a tad unfaire imo. And I'm not calling either good or bad, I think they simply cater to different crowds. I myself dislike questing, I'd rather move from place to place on my own rather than worrying about what quest I have and where I should go to complete that quest. But that's a personal preference.
Originally posted by nariusseldon I would give you (1). It is certainly the first and popular then. Even i played for like a year with all its flaws. But it has serious flaws and everyone knows. Camping has become a huge huge problem. Like i said before, modern MMOs like WOW has surpassed it in spades. There is no reason to turn back the clock.
Well the part when I said the game evolved, camping isn't as big of a problem as before now. The game does have instances, lots of it actually. All raids are pretty much instanced now, so guilds don't have to contest for them. I've camped for rare items and gotten every single one of them without having to camp 12 hours like the good 'ol days, so that's definitely improved on. Like I said the game wasn't perfect, but imagine building something new and having to test it. You have to go through a lot of trials and errors.
The point is how a LACK of features make a game great? In WOW: If you want to stand at DALARAN and trying to sell something at the street corner, you CAN. if you don't like quest grinding and wants to go back to single mob grinding like in EQ, you CAN. If you want to level slowly, just go kill mob that gives little xp or no xp, and you CAN. The only thing you CANNOT do is to force other people to suffer the same lack of features. If that is wat give you kicks, I guess you can't find it in newer MMOs. But you can do all the stuff you do in EQ.
Thats the amusing thing about these conversations. People complain how can't do this or that in newer MMOs, but you CAN play newer MMOs like EQ. Maybe dungeons take the place of spawn camping, but you're NEVER forced to solo and ignore everyone. Thats whats so funny. They claim they're FORCED to do quests and solo. No you're not. They say the death penalty is gone. NO its not. Drop some gold or some gear every time you die. Instant death penalty. You can create downtime very easily also. You can ignore convenient travel and run every place. You can find great like minded people to play with. If you can't its YOU. You can play newer MMOs like older MMOs. The difference is YOU have to ignore all those convenience features. Its not hard. You can still grind. You can still have a harsh death penalty. Just DO IT and stop bitching. It might take a little creativity and imagination, but isn't THAT part of what allowed you to enjoy those older MMOs in the first place? The reason they don't do it is because you can't turn back the clock. Once you've seen the strings you know how bad the puppet show was. You can't go back to the old ways and these people can't accept that they weren't so great.
People who don't get the statements are missing the point. When you play an MMO you want to be on even ground as everyone else. So when there are faster and easier ways to do things you are essentially forced to do so to keep up with the crowd.
What people want is an MMO without certain things because then everyone is on an even ground in a game world that those people would prefer. It really is a silly statement to always tell people not to use features that are there because the biggest part of an MMO is the social aspect, so you use and do what other people do.
For instance I am one of the people who wants harsher death penalties. I'm not going to force them on myself in a game that doesn't have them. I'm not going to go run a quest with a group and die and be like "Sorry guys you go and do it again I have to self inflict a penalty now." But I would be more inclined to buy a game that had harsher death penalties. It is not because I like to suffer but because I like to feel the danger and excitement of trying something difficult.
So no it is a weak and unfounded arguement to tell people to just make up their own rules in a game and ignore features.
Comments
What made EQ so Great.
1. Rewards - Either from quests "the few there were" or the long time you put in to get your amulet of necrosis just so you could right click and turn into a skeleton. ^_^ which was awsome btw.
2. Gameplay - Yes, the game play was very simple. Sit on my mount cast spells. However, It wasn't button mashing.
3. Difficulty - The time it took to reach End Game Level was a long and hard road. For me this road consisted of Grouping and Solo gameplay. As a druid I could Quad Kite. And, There has been no other game to recreate what Quad Kiting mobs was like in EQ.
4. Community - EQ community was like no other. There are no words to describe the community base of EQ. Just know my fellow EQ veterns I wish we had a game to play.
To sum up an answer for your question. There will be no other game like EQ once was.
Why don't we play EQ now? The Community has left. What was once the blood that filled the viens of EQ is just about dried up.
That and the game with gear and the expansions that are out now have just well...been stupid ideas.
Kick to the Face.
Part of the reason is it was truly a revolutionary game, while most games are evolutionary. What it brought was never seen before. This is why some games are so near and dear to our hearts. For example. my fav shooter of all time is Goldeneye on N64, but it isnt nearly as full of features as the newest shooters. But at the time, its gameplay was incredible.
Then my question is why not go back and play?
One can only play a game for so long. For me I wish I could play FFXI again but after 4 years I need a new challenge. I am willing to bet that some of the old EQ players fall into this as well.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
This outline illustrates my perception of the game as well. The community was great and visiting the various Fan Sites really gave you a substantive feeling about the game. EQ had character, depth and meaningful lore. I've yet to play an MMO that had this level of Hook and or Appeal.
Sure other MMO's are fun, but they seem to lack that sense of risk vs reward. EQ had its share of hardships and people easily perceived immersion elements as 'time sinks'. The term Grind seems to be becoming the standard term for any game feature that takes more than 2 minutes to accomplish.
I'm looking forward to
Everquest Next
and can only hope that SOE considers its past experience and where newer MMO's didn't quite get it right.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
It was ground breaking pretty much at the time. Meridian 59 and UO lost a lot of subs when It came out. The MMO genre was very new and exciting.
It was actually a world. There was no instancing. Yes there was zones, but that was the technology available at the time. You got what you put in to it. Nothing was handed to you. There was a death penalty and you had to go get yer stuff when you took a dirt nap.
Before the Kunark expansion was def. it's hay day so to speak. I had a blasty blast. I played a necro. I would do all kinds of stupid stuff that was funny as hell to me at least.
Keep in mind, there was no zone that didn't have a punishing factor that you needed to keep on your toes for.
Ummm.. Skeleton shows up at night in front of main gate Qeynos. Lays out noob after noob.
Noob finishes MG Qeynos and goes out to qeynos hills. Said noob decides that killing animals is the way to go for leveling up there and after killing about 10, Holly Windstalker goes nutso and 1 shot's the noob.
Good times.
Then there was my favorite as a necro... Which was taking the boat to Oracle island and if I was lucky there was a great white shark in the water. (Keep in mind, these things made jaws look like a stuffed animal.) I'd send my pet out, then call it back on the boat, park it on the spot, and run like hell because BLAMO shark out of water on the boat almost the size of the boat laying waste to anybody on it. lol.
High level paladins with Sow would go down to the bottom room in Guk. When they got there they popped their invis and pulled the entire lower zone to the top where all the afkers were, and as soon as they zoned.. ruh roh.
My favorite one was getting my friends together standing at the unrest zone line invisible while said paladin went running in pulling the entire house out then zoning.
People would try to get away from the train and get through the zone, jumping, screaming in shout 'ZONE DOWN ZONE DOWN'. lol I was in tears. I'm surprised we only did that once.
On the up and up... People got their gear by putting in time with rare spawns. I believe the quickest timer was on 15min. If someone was there or a party, people asked to have the person(s) send em a tell when they were done so they could take it over. None of this spoiled kiddy shit of just taking peoples kills. IF on the off chance a cheeky bastard showed up, You called your wizzy friend with ice comet and issue solved. There was a lil respect involved.
It absolutely drives me nuts when some stupid knucklehead comes running up and kills the monster right next to the one I'm killing and there's 14000 of them 50ft away. I will never understand the concept of that.
Now that I think about it, I kinda miss those days. Only game I never cared that it didn't have pvp on my server.
There was nothing *so great* about Everquest as a whole. The game had certain elements that some people really liked, (and some people really hated), which have disappeared since WoW. The people who liked those elements miss those elements. The people who hated those elements think it's just nostalgia.
The grinding was phenomenal. But the game was beyond that. And yes we miss a lot by not playing EQ, obviously you didn't play it.
About the colored glasses. Give me an MMO with EQ features and you will see it's not that case. It's like your first gf was Nicole Kidman and people say "bah, it's first kiss, she wasn't so great" and you go ape saying "FFS she was Nicole Kidman!"
Everquest was an MMORPG that was around before people began overanalyzing videogames and turned the genre into a steaming pile of feces. It was cutting edge, and people couldn't really quite explain what made it so attractive. Later, people decided that big battles, pretty graphics, and a lot of people getting together killing big badguys is what makes the genre fun. Now, we're stuck with WoW and other bland theme park rides.
Essentially, we took Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and decided that lots of jokes and big explosions were what made the movie as good as it was, so we took what we learned and made the movie Armageddon with Bruce Willis.
This - You said it perfect. My mmo, if I ever break in. its for old school, EQ, Doac, Vanguard and EQ crowd. We need an mmo for our niche crowd. Players like us, don't want to be in a mainstream game.
Hand me my cane sonny, and gather around and I'll tell ya about the good ole days of Everquest.
Back in them days things were different. We didnt have no instances where hundreds of groups could be fighting the same mob at the same time.. Noo.. No it wasnt like that back then. Back in my day we had only one mob on the ENTIRE server that everyone wanted to kill and ya had to wait in line for hours on end to get to that mob, and by George we waited. When we finaly got the call that a spot opened up in a group we had to walk to that mob.. Uphill mindya.. thats right both ways uphill.. and then we would sit there for hours on end fighting in one spot for hours and hours untill something good would drop.. But damnit we liked it.. We got to spend quality time with our peers..Not like todays games sonny. where you get what you want right away and then off ya go. Never minden to get to know your peers really. Hell most the time ya seem like in todays games your peers are more of a burden to slow ya down than anyway else. I dont understand why people are still even getting on these gosh darn multiplayer games when they want everything handed to them solo. Heck ya might as well just start the game off at max level. Cause no ones gots patience these days.
LOL seriously though
you had to be there. EQ it wasnt just about getting loot. It was about spending quality time yes even grinding if you want to call it that sitting down in some dungeon kill mobs for hours while hanging out with friends.
There are so many things EQ did. That alot of newer games leave out.. that helped make the game world more immersive. Like others have said. It was a good game.. it took alot of time. I would like to see something more along the lines of it in a modern game. Vanguard brought some of the feeling back. Aion is too actually. When playing Aion I get a since of old school design philosaphy behind some of it.
You could get pickup groups even at low levels--remember Crushsbone, Estate of Unrest? I left when I couldn't get a group, even as a high-level Cleric...
I think one of the underlooked values of EQ was just how much it fostered roleplaying. I always thought roleplaying was a bit naff at the time but I later appreciated those who did it as they really did go into it. I think with latter expansions like Luclin and PoP Everquest destroyed the factor of it's environment which maybe nurtured roleplaying. I think the fact it neglected that subaudience, affected all as a whole as quite subtlety that was a large appeal for many people- it's early strength of it's fantasy depiction and environments.
There's no doubt it had bad points though, which WoW fanbois like Josher are always keen to point out in these threads.
I would say that this is the key point in my opinion. You could find groups to join so easily. So easy. Despite what some people will say most classes could solo if they wanted to, some better than others of course. But grouping was generally safer and faster experience so there were groups going everywhere all the time. There were always groups looking for more people or people forming new groups. So you could log in, ask yourself where you wanted to go today, go there, and very quickly get into a group and have fun. That's the thing I miss more than anything else.
These games today in which it's all solo all the time seem pointless to me. Trying some of the later games I have seriously wondered why I had to be online to play them. Oh sure, it's all much more convenient when everything is designed for solo play but in my mind it seems to defeat the purpose of playing online when the other players are nothing more than landscape decoration as far as your own gaming experience is concerned.
And yeah, in the newer games the NPCs are constantly telling you what a great hero you are. But can you guess how much that means to me? It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. A pre-canned response that they give to everyone has no meaning. I'll tell you that the tiniest little pat on the back from another player I'm grouped with means more to me than all the NPCs in all the gaming worlds who tell me that I'm the greatest hero who ever lived.
EQ was so much more of a puplic playground than most later games. It wasn't just that you grouped more it was also the fact that everyone had to share the same space (no instances) and that the things other people did could affect you and vice-versa. Everyone in a zone was sharing the same playground. Often people helped each other (even though they weren't grouped) and sometimes people caused problems for each other. There was good and bad both, nice guys and jerks, all thrown into the mix together and it made it a much more social and interesting atmosphere.
The game was far from perfect and it had some things that I truly learned to despise but the ubiquitous grouping and highly social atmosphere of the first two or three years made it vastly more fun than any mmorpg I've tried since.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Contrary to one of the confused posts above me not only was Everquest in fact a theme park, it was the first graphical theme park MMO and it was the first 3D one. All of that combined made it big. UO was not a theme park, and AC which came out shortly after EQ was a 3D sandbox. So there's the correction on that.
It was truly just because of what it was when it was. UO was great because of what it was when it was, same with AC. They're all still good today because of what they represent and how things were approached back then. They all also offered something different which is a long since gone tradition. To have 3 major MMOs all out at the same time that were all different was an amazing time in MMOs. Now every MMO releases and tries to be exactly like something else but slightly newer.
EQ was my least favorite of the big 3 and I think it was because of it's theme park style. I picked it up since I was playing UO at the time and though a 3D world would be really neat. Fortunatly AC came out soon after and I never touched EQ again.
I also never liked the zones, having played UO which was a seamless world and then AC which was a seamless world with portals into dungeons, the whole zone idea of having to load in a new area each time you crossed a boundary was just lame to me. That style still bothers me today, I don't want to accidently back up and have to go through a loading screen.
But despite my uninterest in EQ I do fully understand why it is considered as great as it is. But if you made an EQ today it would not be so interesting because a 3D theme park is nothing new.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Ok, you didn't like the game. That is your opinion. Those inefficient and annoying things you are talking about in EQ? Well they are part of the game and for some people made it so great. Different strokes for different folks. Thanks for your opinion.
I LOL at this post and this is NOT the EQ i remembered (and I played starting from beta).
1) It is just a diku MUD with graphics. You have as much control as WOW. It is hack-n-slash and no more than that.
2) No AH -> inefficient. Yeah, I remember that tunnel. AH is much much better. How can one argue a lack of feature is a good thing?
3) It is kill n mob to level. The difference is that you only kill the most efficent mob (remember grinding at that temple killing lizard men, anyone?) and quest grinding send you to all over the world. Quest grinding >>>> single mob grinding in terms of variety and fun factor. Once again, funny to see people complaining about a FEATURE. If you want, you can always go back to mob grinding in new quest-based games. The mobs are there, you know.
4) It is too long to level up and too little content. You spend weeks kiling the SAME mob to level. Thank GOD i don't have to do that again.
EQ would not be recreated again is because it is less fun than the newer MMOs .. particularly WOW.
Ok, you didn't like the game. That is your opinion. Those inefficient and annoying things you are talking about in EQ? Well they are part of the game and for some people made it so great. Different strokes for different folks. Thanks for your opinion.
The point is how a LACK of features make a game great?
In WOW:
If you want to stand at DALARAN and trying to sell something at the street corner, you CAN.
if you don't like quest grinding and wants to go back to single mob grinding like in EQ, you CAN.
If you want to level slowly, just go kill mob that gives little xp or no xp, and you CAN.
The only thing you CANNOT do is to force other people to suffer the same lack of features. If that is wat give you kicks, I guess you can't find it in newer MMOs. But you can do all the stuff you do in EQ.
Thats the amusing thing about these conversations. People complain how can't do this or that in newer MMOs, but you CAN play newer MMOs like EQ. Maybe dungeons take the place of spawn camping, but you're NEVER forced to solo and ignore everyone. Thats whats so funny. They claim they're FORCED to do quests and solo. No you're not. They say the death penalty is gone. NO its not. Drop some gold or some gear every time you die. Instant death penalty. You can create downtime very easily also. You can ignore convenient travel and run every place. You can find great like minded people to play with. If you can't its YOU. You can play newer MMOs like older MMOs. The difference is YOU have to ignore all those convenience features. Its not hard. You can still grind. You can still have a harsh death penalty. Just DO IT and stop bitching. It might take a little creativity and imagination, but isn't THAT part of what allowed you to enjoy those older MMOs in the first place? The reason they don't do it is because you can't turn back the clock. Once you've seen the strings you know how bad the puppet show was. You can't go back to the old ways and these people can't accept that they weren't so great.
Yeah, even though I have very fond memories of early EQ I have to agree with this. I think people say it wasn't a themepark partly because of the newby wonder of their first mmorpg but also for some other reasons. In part it might have something to do with the slower leveling which caused people to do a lot more exploring of content as they went up through the levels. With later games the leveling up phase is mostly just a blurred rush to the "endgame". Maybe it's also partly because of the way high and low level mobs were mixed into the same zones in lots of places.
But mostly I suspect that it's because it wasn't a guided experience. You weren't told were to go and what to do. You had to figure things out for yourself. You had to actually explore...uh, well maybe you didn't have to but lacking instructions from NPCs most people did. In the basic layout of the world it may not have been fundamently different from later themepark games but it felt more open and free because when you logged in you had to decide what you wanted to do as opposed to later games in which you check your quest log to see what you're supposed to do.
But yes, I agree with you that EQ was a linear themepark game. The sad thing is that it looks sort sandboxy compared to the themepark games that followed it. I myself couldn't understand why I sometimes saw people posting about EQ as if it were sandboxy...untill I tried WoW and some of the other later generation themepark games. Then I started to understand.
What was so great about Everquest?
1. Timing, first true 3D MMO, it wow'ed gamers, kick started the genre, and opened up the possibilities (including the development of WoW). It was something new.
2. Everything else, including community bonding, player interactions, awesome lore back when deity made a difference, dungeon crawling, content depth including AA's, tons of class choices, various starting racial cities, and large scale raids. Plus you got to pick sides and kill dragons and gods, what's there not to like?
The game wasn't perfect, still isn't perfect right now. But the game was very popular between 1999-2005. To deny that fact is to deny WoW is the #1 game on the market from 2005-present. It was a mixture of everything that worked for EQ1, even the original creators of the game didn't think EQ1 would last this long. They actually thought the game was to last for a couple of years only.
Right now the game is still going, still kicking with an expansion a year. Problem right now isn't about the content, or classes, or design. The problems facing EQ1 today is mostly cosmetic, the outdated character models need to be upgraded. Also the legacy engine issues where most games go for the non-zoning design, but that isn't exactly something they can change once a game is built with zoning in mind. Overall though, EQ is still EQ, one of the last remaining old school game with a decent population and dev support still. Part of its success has been their dev's ability to evolve the game with the genre. Leveling is no longer a crawl, death penalties aren't as harsh, and there are more than enough quests for those of you preferring quest-on-a-rail system.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I would give you (1). It is certainly the first and popular then. Even i played for like a year with all its flaws. But it has serious flaws and everyone knows. Camping has become a huge huge problem. Like i said before, modern MMOs like WOW has surpassed it in spades. There is no reason to turn back the clock.
But yes, I agree with you that EQ was a linear themepark game. The sad thing is that it looks sort sandboxy compared to the themepark games that followed it. I myself couldn't understand why I sometimes saw people posting about EQ as if it were sandboxy...untill I tried WoW and some of the other later generation themepark games. Then I started to understand.
Mostly when people call a MMO themepark because they lead you from zone to zone, with a quest-on-a-rail system where you finish up quests from one town, it leads you to the next. EQ1 wasn't like this, you were not lead on a rail from one town to another. Often times you actually go all over the world looking for a good camp spot for your level, and there usually were many different zones to level in.
So while EQ1 may not be totally "sandbox", it is certain more sandbox than most MMO's released after it. To say that EQ1 was a linear themepark game is a tad unfaire imo. And I'm not calling either good or bad, I think they simply cater to different crowds. I myself dislike questing, I'd rather move from place to place on my own rather than worrying about what quest I have and where I should go to complete that quest. But that's a personal preference.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Well the part when I said the game evolved, camping isn't as big of a problem as before now. The game does have instances, lots of it actually. All raids are pretty much instanced now, so guilds don't have to contest for them. I've camped for rare items and gotten every single one of them without having to camp 12 hours like the good 'ol days, so that's definitely improved on. Like I said the game wasn't perfect, but imagine building something new and having to test it. You have to go through a lot of trials and errors.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Nothing it sucks now and it only had like a year or two of being good before SOE ruined it.
Thats the amusing thing about these conversations. People complain how can't do this or that in newer MMOs, but you CAN play newer MMOs like EQ. Maybe dungeons take the place of spawn camping, but you're NEVER forced to solo and ignore everyone. Thats whats so funny. They claim they're FORCED to do quests and solo. No you're not. They say the death penalty is gone. NO its not. Drop some gold or some gear every time you die. Instant death penalty. You can create downtime very easily also. You can ignore convenient travel and run every place. You can find great like minded people to play with. If you can't its YOU. You can play newer MMOs like older MMOs. The difference is YOU have to ignore all those convenience features. Its not hard. You can still grind. You can still have a harsh death penalty. Just DO IT and stop bitching. It might take a little creativity and imagination, but isn't THAT part of what allowed you to enjoy those older MMOs in the first place? The reason they don't do it is because you can't turn back the clock. Once you've seen the strings you know how bad the puppet show was. You can't go back to the old ways and these people can't accept that they weren't so great.
People who don't get the statements are missing the point. When you play an MMO you want to be on even ground as everyone else. So when there are faster and easier ways to do things you are essentially forced to do so to keep up with the crowd.
What people want is an MMO without certain things because then everyone is on an even ground in a game world that those people would prefer. It really is a silly statement to always tell people not to use features that are there because the biggest part of an MMO is the social aspect, so you use and do what other people do.
For instance I am one of the people who wants harsher death penalties. I'm not going to force them on myself in a game that doesn't have them. I'm not going to go run a quest with a group and die and be like "Sorry guys you go and do it again I have to self inflict a penalty now." But I would be more inclined to buy a game that had harsher death penalties. It is not because I like to suffer but because I like to feel the danger and excitement of trying something difficult.
So no it is a weak and unfounded arguement to tell people to just make up their own rules in a game and ignore features.