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Thought I'd try classic Everquest for the first time.
I think I played Everquest once when it came out and then forgot about it because of Counter Strike. So my next entry into the MMO world wouldn't be until 2003 with the big three of that year. Ever since then I've been hooked on the genre but after WoW there has been nowhere else to go. Been nearly five years since a release of an MMO that I liked and I've tried everything since then. I came across one of them sites you aren't allowed to mention and decided to give classic Everquest a try. The thing is I only played like a day of the original and I was 14 at the time, so I didn't give it much of a chance. I think I got stuck in water somewhere and couldn't swim out so I quit.
So I logged in not knowing what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised! Get past the horrible UI and graphics and the really really poor combat/animations and there is this sense of mystery about the game that I find intriguing. No other MMO since SWG and EVE has given me that sense of being lost in a world, the sense that it is even a world. Normally now you're given a map showing you everything and it is impossible to be lost. Infact they now show you every location before the game is released so you know where you are before the game is released! However I logged into Everquest classic and I'm lost and the world has this magical feeling about it. I WANT to explore and I feel like I can see places noone else has before lol. There is something really amazing about not having any maps or quest icons or waypoints.
I headed off into a green looking zone with trees and you can't see where the horizon goes. Obviously that is because of the graphical limitations but it works really well in exploration because it adds that sense of mystery about what is around every corner. I say green zone as well because I have no clue where I am. Right now I'm drawing my own basic maps so I know where to go and there is so much user input that makes the game so great. Like I said before, every MMO today treats you like a 5 year old in school learning the alphabet.
What didn't click with me about playing the official Everquest was, as they've done the graphical updates it has made the zones look really generic. It is like playing an N64 game that has been made for a newer engine like Goldeneye Source. It doesn't look any better, just looks worse because you expect more from a newer engine. So you get this weird mix of newer shaders and effects with these barebone rooms. However with the original Engine it just has a sense of magic to it and looks right in place, nothing looks generic or odd. So I really love exploring around the classic Everquest because the graphics have a charm to it that the updates to the official Everquest has ruined.
I'm obviously not going to play the game for long because the combat is so horrible and it is so old that the content really isn't upto par with games of today. However my first time really playing Everquest and it has given me a feeling that no newer MMO has. With that sense of exploration, the sense of fear because you can lose all your stuff and the mystery of what will the next zone be like. It just cements to me that it isn't that times have changed and I look back in nostalgia. But infact games of old offered the real world feeling instead of just a game that MMOs feel like today.
If they made this classic Everquest for the iphone, I would so be there! It sounds weird to why I'm not going to carry on with the PC version for much longer, but I would play an iphone version. It's just your expectations for each platform is different and having the novelty of a proper 3D MMO on the iphone and being able to carry it around with you makes up for it!
I can really see what people loved about Everquest, it has a nice charm about it. I just wish a new MMO would come out today that does what UO, EQ, SWG and EVE did. Instead of trying to aim for the masses and the lowest common denominator.
I was having a chat with my old friends and they made a good point. MMOs get ruined when they become popular because the developers try to keep everyone playing and so they try to please EVERYONE. The problem with this is they don't think about the game world and try to give everyone to everyone. For example giving Shaman and Paladin to each race in WoW and then opening the classes up to more races. Giving fast travel around the world killing the worlds population just to please people who are lazy. Making it easy for everyone to get all the gear, this means everyone can get it now but it isn't special anymore. Even TEF in SWG or making Jedi easier and easier to get, ruining the game more and more. Then doing the NGE and CU to try and draw in new subs instead of thinking about the game world. So over time they try to add more and more things to please each and everyone, not thinking about the game and ruining the balance of the world. My greatest example of this is the fast travel in SWG so instead of having these timers you have to wait for shuttles or long travel times across the world. Instead you can instant travel anywhere and it makes the world feel smaller and less special. It makes the cities barren and kills the social aspect of chatting at Starports.
Oh well.
Comments
it was meant to be that way !back then!today most wow player would find it too hard to play!
To OP, I don't think popularity ruins MMO's it's Capitolism that ruins MMO's. Its unfortunate but its the truth. You can't make money from a MMO just appealing to one side of the crowd. And MMO's are about making money to developers and publishers. Look at Vanguard, Capitolism ruined the creation of the game before SoE purchased it, then it ruined the game because it forced it to launch. If they werent worried about making money Vanguard would of been released later that year and probly be sucessful right now aswell.
I agree with the OP. Part of what gave EQ the magical feeling was first person view. I noticed the OP mentioned seeing the "horizon" and wondering what was beyond it. First person view does that; makes you sink into your character more.
fe has the feel of eq exploration mystery if you havnt tryed it
I tried it to as part of the station pass package I got a few months ago for P.O.T.B.S and EQ2. Just did not work for me, though I can fully apreciate what an awsome experiance it must have been back in the day. One of my major gameing regrets is that I was not there playing it in it's heyday. Hope you have fun in your time playing.
I don't think it is that Everquest is harder, just less forgiving and takes more dedication. That is what I miss really because in these types of games you have a sense of a real world and exploration, you just don't get that in newer games. Also the communities were alot tighter and more friendly, people on servers would all know eachother and we saw this with SWG too.
World of Warcraft has done alot of things better like... UI, Lore, World design, quests, combat, PVP etc etc.
The problem is World of Warcraft and newer mmorpgs developed into these dumbed down casual games which feel like games rather than world. I miss the feeling of being in a seamless world without all these features to take you out, you know immersion breakers. I hate our hands being held, lack of death penalties which makes the game boring. I also miss customization and choice that a game like SWG threw out there. Now they've all gone down the route where you're all the same.
I have this feeling that if Eq was re-realeasd today with state of the art graphics and a better u.i. It would blow people's socks off and I have the same feeling about SWG as well.
I agree, but it'd have to have the world changed up a bit, so folks felt like they were covering new ground. EQ3 is coming. Let's hope they are listening to the boards and not catering to the Free Realms crowd.
It's awesome to read this(So thanks for sharing) as I always wondered if that magical wonder was just some made up nostalgia I had from one of my first MMO's. Now its more clear as to why I also felt that way about it. The first person really is a big thing, as annoying as it was at times, when you suddenly get whacked from behind it really scares the shit out of you and you instinctually just take off before even seeing whats hitting you. In 3rd person you are just like...oh its a rat behind me...I see it.
But the other thing that stands out is the mapless navigation. I remember starting so many ogre characters as they were my fave, and I got to know the feerrot so well just by the look of each tree, each bend in the path...constantly gathering landmarks for my mental cartographer as to not get lost again by that temple with the lizards on it...
It really felt like a world, instead of some flashy UI driven stat organizing treadmill.
The only game I was truly excited to find a rusty axe in...
UO,AC1&2,EQ1&2,DAOC,SB,SWG,FFXI, Horizons,EvE,E&B,AO,WoW,VG, Lineage,GW,TR,LotR,AoC,CoH,DDO a myriad of FtP...and still looking...
Very nice read, and I totally agree. Yes EQ graphics are dated, but you understand the feel of it. If you played it back in 2000 with the same mind set you have now, you would have been hooked. Now, I'm just waiting for someone to take a gamble and do an MMO like EQ now. Personally, I don't think it will happen, but if it did, it would definitally get my Sub. I really hope I'm wrong and EQ3 is an updated version of Everquest 1.
Oh man I agree, there is NOTHING like EQ. Nothing even comes close. The depth, the sounds, the raids. I went back to my old friend when the last exp came out, and it was a nice trip down memory lane, but it's not the same without the old guild. EQ isn't ment to be a single person game, even with a computer partner. I hope that EQ3 is the biggest knock-off of classic eq that there ever was, but with 2010 graphical standards.
Rumor mill stirring about SoE recycling vanguargs engine for the project, any truth? Anyone heard anything?
On topic, yes, definetly give EQ a shot, don't go in expecting Wow or something, just apritiate her for what she is, think of her like a classic corvette, they're faster rods on the road now, but back in the day she owned them all. Laugh a little when a snake kicks you. Give a Drood, yes I know it's misspelled, a tip to port you even if it's easer to take a book somewhere.
Learn some good Ranja jokes, because EQ is still the greatest.
If you want to try REAL classic EQ look into www.project1999.org. This is the best server since 1999.
It's an MMO its spose to EVOVLE, I don't understand these classic EQ threads. Yeah EQ Classic was awesome, but today its not. Let it go people and as for Project1999 it was fun right until about the time i loged in.
I will not go so far as to demonise Capitalism for the gaming industry. People are people and they drive what the gaming industry does. Making money is what businesses are about, the problem is they don't balance that desire for money with a quality product. Being successful is doable by multiple standards, not just monitarily.
EQ was a great game in it's day and when diving in the nostalga pool it is really easy to get swept up with the "good ol days". There were several stages when the gaming industry started to go a bit down a dangerous road in my honest opinion. Old school EQ folks remember the heart pounding fear of trying to go through Kithkor at night to meet up with a friend in Freeport / Qeynos, things changed. When Verant was reorganized as SoE they started dumbing some things down that took the difficulty out of the game. In retrospec I miss some of the rough / challenging aspects that original EQ offered but it is what has feed this machine that drives modern MMOs. That is what started a bit of the entitlement we see, the dieing and getting everything on your body when you res up, the insta teleport to a location, the interchangeable auction houses. I understand that it is hard to imagine game life without some of these but starting down this road began to expections of being given everything, leading to entitlement, leading to developers catering to that way of thought, leading to fluff MMOs devoid of substance, and coming full circle to money being a driving force instead of working to produce something to be seen as a goal for others to achieve. Being lucrative and producing a quality at the same time lately almost seems out of style, just my thoughts on this.
END OF LINE_
~V
lol you seem very unhappy. So it was not great for you...but how about you let other people experience it for themselves.
I played EQ from Beta on.. then did a dirt dive and quit for almost 4yrs. Now - am going back to see what toons I have left and play EQ once more for ole' times sake.
Don't remember a dam thing about how to play again, so that should be fun in itself Lol!
Cata won't be out for many a month.. so this will take up my time. And - if I fall back in love with EQ - guess I will be playing both of them
"Huntress"
It was harder... just a few examples:
Mobs chased you right to the zone line, and early on most people did not have run speed enhancements. Untimely aggro frequently meant death.
Mobs aggro'd each other, causing trains all the time. A good train could wipe out a large portion of dungeon goers.
You had to actually pull carefully. You had to have strategies for healing and crowd control. This was EVERYWHERE in the game, not just on "raids".
Death hurt.
Equipment wasn't easy to come buy. I remember fishing for hours to get enough money to buy leather armor. I remember the first time I was able to buy banded armor from a crafter...
Everquest was just harder, period. You actually had to play, you had to know your character and you had to know how to group depending on what classes you had in your group.
MMO's today are easier, absolutely no question about that.
The problem I have with many MMOs is they evolve away from a virtual world and more into a game. So they tend to ruin the world and make them into a bloated mess of content where everyone gets too spread out and then they try to fix it by letting you warp anywhere.
Yeah i can agree with that. I feel EQ has become to bloated. There is to many zones right now in the game and there really only needs to be a few zones. They just need to Revamp zones. The only new zones that need to be created in my eyes is Raid zones.
The community and player interaction was the essence of EQ. It was less about the combat or the item rewards and more about making friends and helping them. That essence is gone. Its gone from the new generation of MMO games and it's gone from the old games that once thrived on it. It only takes 10 miniutes in any MMORPG to figure out that the "good old days" are gone. Players run right by you or through you, ignore you if you try to talk to them, and scurry from place to place with no regard for what is around them. Here's to hoping the next generation aren't such greedy ego-maniacs.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Yes they need to evolve I agree, but that does not mean they need to turn into a complete mess like WOW. Wow was a great game until they decided to cater to the casual gamers masses. You see, most MMO makers today don't care about if you play or not they simply care if you pay that montly subscription. Blizzard has realized this and jumped at the chance to compromise their game in the race to obtain the most money from subscribers. Because of this success other MMO's are following suit.
Wow began this change with the addition of the PVP BG's. With this came balance issues as Raid gear was better than PVP gear in PVP and spells mainly used for PVE were too powerful in PVP creating balance issues. An end game guild could come into a BG and own it. The same goes for the Arena. So then Blizzard had to make a decision; how to they balance PVP with PVE. Their answer was to balance based off of PVP which hurt a lot of PVE players. They then made PVP armor easy to get and almost as powerful as the best PVE gear which was a slap to the face of every PVE end game player in WOW.
Then to top all that BS off, they made end game raiding so easy that any scrub guild could see and do the content. This is when I quit playing WOW. WOTLK came out and my guild cleared every single end game raid in two weeks after leveling up. To compensate for easy end game, they made it were you get awards for doing them with 10 people, jumping up and down on one leg, doing it in under 10m etc. I don't know about you but my enjoyment out of end game raiding was killing the boss. Once killed the first time you had them on pharm status as you prepair for the next big boss.
Anyway, EVOLVE - Yes, Neuter for the sake of cash - No.
I'm awaiting a new MMO without the hand holding with a great challenging end game. I hope one comes soon.
Thank you for posting project1999 I will be playing that like mad. I quit WoW when my guild finished Vanilla which was about 3 weeks before BC went live and have not played a MMO since for more than a month. EQ was the only and is the only game besides planetside that I have subbed to and actually thought it was money well spent.
Aaaaaah, how I miss thee EQ.
A Ranger walks into a bar - LOADING, PLEASE WAIT . . .
I think no. Vanguard's engine is flawed in the basics. The game design was great but the coding was awful. Better to start over than try to reuse it.
The first week playing EQ I was a half elf ranger, tunare. I was messing around in the Karanas even though I was to low to be there. I am resting in the middle of a zone that is so big it is almost stupid. I get attacked by something I can't see (gogo first person). I turn around and see a bandit, con him and I get that wonderful red message informing me that I am about to die. I figure I may as well try and fight becuase I can't run away. I keep looking around to see if there is a guard or someone that can help and see fricken lion coming at me. I think great, add insult to injury. Then to my surprise the lion attacks the bandit and pulls him off me. I step back and watch for a second and then turned and ran for the zone.
And that is why Everquest will always be my favorite MMO. While all the other MMOs I have played(and I have played a lot) are technically better, none of them provide anything even close to this. My other issue is none of them seem to want to take EQs music style. I find the all the noises mixed in with music to add to the experience.
So now I get to wait until another game comes around that can give me something like that back. Sure traveling sucked but a run from Queynos to Freeport back then was epic.