EQ didn't take skill so much as it took dedication, at least for the majority of the content until "end game". It took the dedication of learning your role, and it took the dedication of devoting hours to the game, but it never really rquired skill until you played things like raids, and even then it wasn't so much skill as it was taking the time to learn the raid and your role in it.
I enjoyed (and sometimes still enjoy) EQ, but it was not a game of skill. Then again I'm perfectly fine with MMO's not being about skill. EQ had depth to it and it very heavily catered to the auto-didactic, which most games have gotten away from. Some of that was unintentional though, don't kid yourselves into thinking EQ required more dedication because of developer intentions, it had more to do with game limitations at the time.
That sounds like a skill to me..
As soon Learning is involved it's a skill no mather what.
Learning to ride a bike. meens i have skills in riding a bike!
if no learning involved it's a reflex. which is not a skill since it's built in.
EQ didn't take skill so much as it took dedication, at least for the majority of the content until "end game". It took the dedication of learning your role, and it took the dedication of devoting hours to the game, but it never really rquired skill until you played things like raids, and even then it wasn't so much skill as it was taking the time to learn the raid and your role in it.
I enjoyed (and sometimes still enjoy) EQ, but it was not a game of skill. Then again I'm perfectly fine with MMO's not being about skill. EQ had depth to it and it very heavily catered to the auto-didactic, which most games have gotten away from. Some of that was unintentional though, don't kid yourselves into thinking EQ required more dedication because of developer intentions, it had more to do with game limitations at the time.
I would agree with this...it's almost a verbatim explanation of my opinion on MMORPG and 'Skill'. Any reasonably competent human that is capable of reading can play almost any MMORPG and do well. The defining factor for success isn't skill, it's dedication.
EQ didn't take skill so much as it took dedication, at least for the majority of the content until "end game". It took the dedication of learning your role, and it took the dedication of devoting hours to the game, but it never really rquired skill until you played things like raids, and even then it wasn't so much skill as it was taking the time to learn the raid and your role in it.
I enjoyed (and sometimes still enjoy) EQ, but it was not a game of skill. Then again I'm perfectly fine with MMO's not being about skill. EQ had depth to it and it very heavily catered to the auto-didactic, which most games have gotten away from. Some of that was unintentional though, don't kid yourselves into thinking EQ required more dedication because of developer intentions, it had more to do with game limitations at the time.
That sounds like a skill to me..
As soon Learning is involved it's a skill no mather what.
Learning to ride a bike. meens i have skills in riding a bike!
if no learning involved it's a reflex. which is not a skill since it's built in.
So if I learn about Mongol history I have a skill? Learning what let's say SoW was and why people were spaming for it in towns is not a skill. Learning to avoid certain roads at night in a video game is not a skill. These are all things that accompany a hobby. Even learning when to use SoW or Lesser Evacuate or other in game abilities is not a skill, it is knowledge yes, but that doesn't mean all knowledge translates to skillful activities.
EQ required zero skill to play. What it did require was a superhuman amount of patience due to the tedious, frustrating gameplay. I constantly hear people wax nostalgic about what a great game EQ was, but if a developer released a game with those exact features today, they'd be laughed out of the industry.
I give Sony's 989 studios a pass on it, though, because at the time, there were no examples of a player-friendly mmorpg out there to emulate. Instead, all you had was a game that made you want to punch yourself in the face every time you played it.
I put EQ in the same category as SWG. Terrible games with a few good ideas that everyone and their grandmother claims they played and claims they missed. This is the MMO gamer version of "When I was your age, I used to walk to school barefoot 8 miles uphill each way...in the snow." Just because your experience sucked, Grandpa, it doesn't mean I shouldn't take a bus to school.
actually sony came after. the original company of eq1 was called Verant. and you bet it required skills beside lots of patience. try doing a raid or a dungeon in old eq1 with a crappy mediocre tank or cleric, it was impossible. this is why good players who knew how to play their classes well were highly wanted. an enchanter who did a crappy job and diden't know how to play his class would have gotten your group dead. good luck getting your corpses back .
Hmmm, I thought the game was developed by Sony 989 studio? If not, I stand corrected. As far as the fact you can't do a dungeon with a crappy tank or healer...how is that different from any other MMO today? You can't do that in WoW, either. Even in the themepark MMOs people still need to know how to do their jobs. The only difference is, in today's games you don't have to bang your face against the keyboard out of frustration because you can't get back to your corpse.
EQ2 was tedious at best. That doesn't make it a game of skill. Just makes it a poorly designed game. And that's coming from a person who doesn't believe that MMOs should be walks in the park. I like challenges. But if I'm going to pay money to play a game, I damn sure don't want to waste a majority of my finite playing time on corpse runs.
Wahhhh...I hate progress...back in my day...uphills both ways...no shoes in winter...etc, etc. Not trying to flame but that's what these posts always sound like to me.
Maybe it did take skill, I don't know...maybe PATIENCE is the better word...I never could keep playing it for very long, because it took forever to do anything. I'm sure it was great for its time, and a part of me wishes I had gotten to experience it back the way it was.
But then another part of me is thankful games are different now, and it's possible to have a life and still succeed in your favorite games.
P.S. I'm not saying you don't have a life, just making a general statement, I'm sure you're cool and all
Tell you what.....after playing almost 12 years of different MMO's and now all the BS regarding MicroTransactions and Real Money Stores/Auctions...I can honestly tell you that the best MMO ever made is also the MMO I hated the most...EQ....the ORIGINAL EQ.
Here is why....despite its grinding of passive MOBs, lack of story, ancient graphics and animations, and a hundred other things, EQ was still the best MMO because not of what it did have, but what it DID NOT have.
No stupid F2P stores or Real Money stores...you want the gear you EARN it.
No Grinding for TOKENS, you either get the drop or you didnt...PERIOD.
The game took SKILL, class knowledge, and the ability of players to get along and cooperate...it was not solo friendly.
NO PANDAS....
No GEARSCORE
No stupid Group or Raid finders...you organized them the old fashion way.
HARDCORE DEATH......my oh my....even Age of Conan's "Deathwish" server which is hardcore PvP cannot hold a candle to EQs dreaded CORPSE RUN!
ALL of your STUFF..on your corpse....you had better find it...MUHAHAHA, and dodge the mobs with only what is in your hands!
Yeah I hated it....it got boring fast...but the players made EQ...unfortunately as the quality of MMO players declined to its present day a$$hat, WoW kiddie, L33t level, a game such as EQ that mandates player cooperation cannot survive at the head of the pack.
Still....it was a game for REAL players....HARDCORE players and with no hand holding ....and required SKILL across the board including Social Skills for without a group your Dungeom or Raid would be FAIL.
Remember the Auction House? It was great in its simplicity and its player generated economy.
How I miss the game I hated so much.....which compared to the way MMO's are these days such as Age of Conan with its banging rocks in Bori grindfest and WoW with its grind for token fest, and their PvP and PvE armor flavors of the month...I say BAH!
Someone at Sony Verant release a hardcore game with great gameplay and graphics, that somehow screens the a$$hats and WoW kiddies out from playing.
Nowo that would be a game...RANT OVER....
RANT induced by Age of Conan....another ruined MMO by mindless game directors and a$$hat players as well as flawed game design.
You should probably look up the definitions of skill and inconvience. You have them confused.
To the OP: Amen brother. Those times when MMORPGs took skill, dedication and time is over though. Taken over by Pay to Win games which requires minimal effort on the players part beside queing for the next big instance and opening their wallets.
If anything the decadence of the MMORPG genre shows that capitalism is a failure. It does not improve anything, it only generates more money for the corps.
It's odd how many things he lists as "skill" that are really just time sinks.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It's odd how many things he lists as "skill" that are really just time sinks.
This
Patience is a skill... lol. I think any MMO out there requires a level of skill so the whole argument is moot. EQ had a huge learning curve, and WoW didn't. This drove more people to play WoW, and attracted a horrible community.
I love EQ, even today, and it has evolved into a different beast than those that remember the good ole days. Gaming is changing and while I agree with the OP, the MMO community will never revist these horrid "time sinks" and poor design. Really what people miss are the FORCED interaction with people. These "time sinks" required you to interact with other players and its why it made the game great.
I think the next era of MMOs (after the current WoW clone era) will be a devolper that forces interaction with other players and building relationships, but doesn't have the poor design in EQ of yester year.
I think the next era of MMOs (after the current WoW clone era) will be a devolper that forces interaction with other players and building relationships, but doesn't have the poor design in EQ of yester year.
Yeah. Everquest sort of reminds me of like... say, a concentration camp.
Some people really miss the close relationships and lifelong friendships they made with their fellow prisoners.
... then some people, somehow, get confused and think they miss the concentration camp.
I think the next era of MMOs (after the current WoW clone era) will be a devolper that forces interaction with other players and building relationships, but doesn't have the poor design in EQ of yester year.
Yeah. Everquest sort of reminds me of like... say, a concentration camp.
Some people really miss the close relationships and lifelong friendships they made with their fellow prisoners.
... then some people, somehow, get confused and think they miss the concentration camp.
I remember it as a game of time to get gear, not skill lol... you could type while in combat it took so little skill. Infact SOE wanted to WoW up EQs combat years ago and people hated the fact that they had to move while in combat and couldn't type lol.
That said I wish MMOs were as harsh as old EQ (Pre Luclin and PoP)
it does require skill if your a wizard or some sort of strong dps, If you pull the guy away from main tank you mess up the raid. so it requires skill of knowing what spells to use at the right time to finish up the raids and plaining what to do. Also to play your toon good it does require skill because you have to know what skills to use and what not. So yes it does require skill i played the game since it came out in beta to say games dont require skill then what are you learning while playing O_O. it may seem like a simple game but its not you have to know your class well if your grouping soloing and what skill your have and how to manage them.......
it was a breahing harsh world so people worked together in order to survivve. If Soe didn't mess up this game maybe I'd still play it. Best community ever, knowledgable people and pure fun.
Log in do a camp search and ask some random people if you join them, have a nice time slaying some mobs together and do TEXT chat.
Get the aggro from a warrior well...you die play safely next time.
no stupid badge gear one of the worst ideas this genre has ever come up with. If your gear drops it drops if not, than not, period.
Rewarding adventure/exploration no matter what you did at maxlevel you got xp for AA points progressing everytime you logged on, despite raiding I loved it so much, great system.
custom stats
best PvE I've ever seen in a game:
- forgot your debuff? wipe ->next try play more patient
- mezz broke/resisted? wipe
- train deep in the dungeon? wipe
This game actually thaught people how become better in order to survive and rewarded those of us, who worked together.
I'd pay 25 $ a month for Everquest Preluclin with only updated graphics and NOT made by $oe.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
There was some skill required in EQ, its Clear to me None of you played a Iksar/shaman out side of Kunark (pre PoP) or in a high end raid/grp setting.
If ya dont call what it took for me to be the shaman i was SKILL then i cant find the right word, Been all up in the dictionary cant find any better word than SKILL to discribe my play style and what was needed to play that class/race combo.
those of you that want to say difrent its ok to be Wrong, You wont die for being wrong
Raids required Skill
Cleric required Skill
Monk was very skillfull
Bard = Must have skill or die
Enchanter was a skill class
I can keep going as you can tell I know what im talking about (im not sure anyone else here does) After 10 years of playing EQ and retireing my Iksar shaman at 85 i learned a bit of MMO Skill's along the way thats right *SKILLS* Those Skills alow me to plug into any MMO and roll through it no questions asked Any class any style any game all because EQ was harder and more skill was required to play the rest of these girly MMos like AION (what im playing now) and the biggest sissy game of all WoW LMAO i got 40 levels in 1 day solo HAHAHA
Every MMO out there is EAsy mode Exept for 2 that i know of (there may be others) Original EverQuest and Vanguard and Vanguard was still pretty easy but raid were very Skill'ed
I apoligize if i offend anyone it just seems some people dont know what Skill in an MMO really is and therefore didnt come off like you know what your talking about
I cower in the presence of your awesomeness...
It's a proven historical fact that beer saved humankind.
To all of you that say EQ doesn't take skill I bet not one of you could make it to lvl 60 on a certain server I will not mention the name of right now. Good lord, the children complained about the original WoW untill they made it mind numbingly boring to play and it was casual to begin with.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with so many of the other responses here. EQ wasn't about skill, it was just a skill bar button masher with hellacious amounts of downtime and unbelievably slow pacing even by the standards in its day. The whole EQ experience may have been 100% made by the community, which is great for players who are into people, but all I remember is god awful gameplay mechanics.
In a way, it defined the concept of the asian grinder before people even had a first-hand concept of what an asian grinder was.
To quote an earlier response: "tedium is not a measure of skill."
Even though i am in the school of people that loved EQ... It had its good and bad moments thats for sure.
I think in alot of ways EQ did require alot more deterimination and patience... Things were not handed over to the players on the silver platter. When you achieved something in the game you actually felt like you did some awesome.
Yes it was definately a skill oriented game, and a gear oriented game.
If you grouped with a skillful healer you would know it. If you grouped with a great puller/tank (that was me hehe) people would commment about it. Same with Crowd contro. DPS.. well unfortunately DPS is DPS, Now DPS that knows how to manage their aggro thats something.
Skill could be offset by having better gear.. IE a tank with better weapons would draw more aggro innately... had better mitigation with better armor. More hitpoints etc.
However I will say EQ was definately alot more hardcore than alot of the garbage games that are being fed to the MMO community these days.
The more you played the more you learned your class and were able to use that class to help the group. People could pick out which players 'knew' their class.
Example: I, playing as a bard, was in Karnors castle with a group. And we were pretty deep in and down. It got a little hectic with too many mobs at one point. I used my charm to charm the extra mob and a couple people in my group were like "Who is doing that?" and "Wow! you really know what you are doing!".
-Only the people that played in the beggining are going to understand the pace of combat and the fact that it took more than just pressing a charm song. It took making sure that my charm didnt resist through obtaining my wind instrument, swapping my instruments out, targeting the proper mob, charming, and sending the pet into the mob we were all focusing on.
Times have changed. Rarely do MMO's even put in bard instruments anymore(which is sad) and mobs are dead in 10 seconds anyway, tanks are AOE tanks and groups get pissed if you are CC'ing mobs. Where in early eq it became almost neccasary for people to do this. Individual fights took longer, the pull had to happen flawlessly, everything was communicated with the group and most of the time you were impressed with what your groupmember did for the party.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with so many of the other responses here. EQ wasn't about skill, it was just a skill bar button masher with hellacious amounts of downtime and unbelievably slow pacing even by the standards in its day. The whole EQ experience may have been 100% made by the community, which is great for players who are into people, but all I remember is god awful gameplay mechanics.
In a way, it defined the concept of the asian grinder before people even had a first-hand concept of what an asian grinder was.
To quote an earlier response: "tedium is not a measure of skill."
So true
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
I still play ole EQ after going to soo many MMOs. I really do think it will be the last MMO I play. Its slowly heading to the grave and has a couple more years left in it. They have had to adapt it to the current market of MMO players and is much much more casual now than it ever has been. The group game, is more like the solo game. The raids are still quite epic (54 players) and even with dated graphics it still has a big draw for me.
Your point I think is a bit off though. EQ is very much a RMT, Microtransaction game on top of a subscription model. The difference between EQ is its not in your face, because your paying a subscription. With the huge wave of F2P MMOs now, I think you remember EQ before these things were introduced. Sadly, most if not all MMOs have adopted RMT and microtransactions. It takes me back to my original statement, that EQ 1 will be the last MMO I play. I know they will never convert the original to a F2P model (it would work because of its age) and I can't stand all these things.
On the up side, I have started playing Console games again after 15 years. Xbox 360 isn't bad and has a great social interface. I believe MMOs are all starting to fizzle out. WoW subscriptions are probably declining, and all these F2P crap MMOs put up a bad name for the MMORPG community. The last great hope is SWTOR, but I don't see it being as big as a success as everything thinks. Most of its concepts are essentially polished old gameplay. I'm tired of that crap, and the MMOs of old are dead or dying. RIP...
have fun on your xbox. Its just a dumbed down PC with a joystick.
The market for console development is far more lucerative than the dwindling pc market.
Have fun with driver conflicts, aging hardware (always gotta upgrade$$$), random freezing, driver updates (which can create more problems), installing new software (which can create more problems with your game)........have fun wondering what problem will occur whenever you click the game icon......have fun with pc headaches. I'll be playing my ps3.
I remember it as a game of time to get gear, not skill lol... you could type while in combat it took so little skill. Infact SOE wanted to WoW up EQs combat years ago and people hated the fact that they had to move while in combat and couldn't type lol.
That said I wish MMOs were as harsh as old EQ (Pre Luclin and PoP)
What are you talking about? In newer mmos you can run out of trouble after a few seconds, eq the mobs pathed all over the damn place and would chase you across the entire zone.
Comments
That sounds like a skill to me..
As soon Learning is involved it's a skill no mather what.
Learning to ride a bike. meens i have skills in riding a bike!
if no learning involved it's a reflex. which is not a skill since it's built in.
No Signature
Exactly.
So if I learn about Mongol history I have a skill? Learning what let's say SoW was and why people were spaming for it in towns is not a skill. Learning to avoid certain roads at night in a video game is not a skill. These are all things that accompany a hobby. Even learning when to use SoW or Lesser Evacuate or other in game abilities is not a skill, it is knowledge yes, but that doesn't mean all knowledge translates to skillful activities.
Knowledgee by itself is just information but it takes skill to know when to use the knowledge you gathered.
Hmmm, I thought the game was developed by Sony 989 studio? If not, I stand corrected. As far as the fact you can't do a dungeon with a crappy tank or healer...how is that different from any other MMO today? You can't do that in WoW, either. Even in the themepark MMOs people still need to know how to do their jobs. The only difference is, in today's games you don't have to bang your face against the keyboard out of frustration because you can't get back to your corpse.
EQ2 was tedious at best. That doesn't make it a game of skill. Just makes it a poorly designed game. And that's coming from a person who doesn't believe that MMOs should be walks in the park. I like challenges. But if I'm going to pay money to play a game, I damn sure don't want to waste a majority of my finite playing time on corpse runs.
Wahhhh...I hate progress...back in my day...uphills both ways...no shoes in winter...etc, etc. Not trying to flame but that's what these posts always sound like to me.
Maybe it did take skill, I don't know...maybe PATIENCE is the better word...I never could keep playing it for very long, because it took forever to do anything. I'm sure it was great for its time, and a part of me wishes I had gotten to experience it back the way it was.
But then another part of me is thankful games are different now, and it's possible to have a life and still succeed in your favorite games.
P.S. I'm not saying you don't have a life, just making a general statement, I'm sure you're cool and all
You should probably look up the definitions of skill and inconvience. You have them confused.
To the OP: Amen brother. Those times when MMORPGs took skill, dedication and time is over though. Taken over by Pay to Win games which requires minimal effort on the players part beside queing for the next big instance and opening their wallets.
If anything the decadence of the MMORPG genre shows that capitalism is a failure. It does not improve anything, it only generates more money for the corps.
My gaming blog
Yeah, I was gonna say this.
I didn't even think about it as a good or bad thing at the time. "Dude, I'll pay you X for your account?" "WHAT? Okay, done deal."
If EQ started anything, it was that.
// EDIT
Also it should be noted the "expansion pack" turn around for EQ made the argument for micro transactions feesible.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
It's odd how many things he lists as "skill" that are really just time sinks.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
This
Patience is a skill... lol. I think any MMO out there requires a level of skill so the whole argument is moot. EQ had a huge learning curve, and WoW didn't. This drove more people to play WoW, and attracted a horrible community.
I love EQ, even today, and it has evolved into a different beast than those that remember the good ole days. Gaming is changing and while I agree with the OP, the MMO community will never revist these horrid "time sinks" and poor design. Really what people miss are the FORCED interaction with people. These "time sinks" required you to interact with other players and its why it made the game great.
I think the next era of MMOs (after the current WoW clone era) will be a devolper that forces interaction with other players and building relationships, but doesn't have the poor design in EQ of yester year.
Yeah. Everquest sort of reminds me of like... say, a concentration camp.
Some people really miss the close relationships and lifelong friendships they made with their fellow prisoners.
... then some people, somehow, get confused and think they miss the concentration camp.
Apologies to those who liked Everquest.
Im still a prisoner and I have to say..
This is the bestest prison Ive ever stayed in.
it does require skill if your a wizard or some sort of strong dps, If you pull the guy away from main tank you mess up the raid. so it requires skill of knowing what spells to use at the right time to finish up the raids and plaining what to do. Also to play your toon good it does require skill because you have to know what skills to use and what not. So yes it does require skill i played the game since it came out in beta to say games dont require skill then what are you learning while playing O_O. it may seem like a simple game but its not you have to know your class well if your grouping soloing and what skill your have and how to manage them.......
.....
it was a breahing harsh world so people worked together in order to survivve. If Soe didn't mess up this game maybe I'd still play it. Best community ever, knowledgable people and pure fun.
Log in do a camp search and ask some random people if you join them, have a nice time slaying some mobs together and do TEXT chat.
Get the aggro from a warrior well...you die play safely next time.
no stupid badge gear one of the worst ideas this genre has ever come up with. If your gear drops it drops if not, than not, period.
Rewarding adventure/exploration no matter what you did at maxlevel you got xp for AA points progressing everytime you logged on, despite raiding I loved it so much, great system.
custom stats
best PvE I've ever seen in a game:
- forgot your debuff? wipe ->next try play more patient
- mezz broke/resisted? wipe
- train deep in the dungeon? wipe
This game actually thaught people how become better in order to survive and rewarded those of us, who worked together.
I'd pay 25 $ a month for Everquest Preluclin with only updated graphics and NOT made by $oe.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I miss some things about old EQ
- No faction locks as such. If I worked hard rnough, my high elf could stroll into Neriak and be accepted.
- HUGE world to explore with few instant travel options.
- Boat trips that actually feel like you're going someplace, and you can jump off and explore the islands any time
- CC meant something
- Buffs meant something.
- Pulling was a gosh darn art form (I played a Monk primarily, lemme tell you I was a master at the feign pull)
- Less emphasis on the Trinity model
- You had to work to get quests, actually talk to the NPCs and try different things.
- Pug and Guidl groups with lots of socializing and (gasp!) fun
- Punishing deaths made you think carefully
-The insanity of accidently biting off more than you could chew, getting trained, etc and managing to survive with luck and improvisation.
Now for the bad
- De leveling
- Corpse runs into places you could accidently get into, but good luck getting out
- Disconnecting in the middle of a dugeon and coming back to your party gone and a thousand angry mobs- see above.
- Incredibly slow pacing
- Healers could not level without help
- Buffers (Enchs, Shamen, etc) had a difficult time levelling without help
- Solo play discouraged
- Limited spawn camps for any level range; lots of competition
- Non-instanced raiding meant other guilds could steal from you, train troll you, etc.
- Karnor's/Crushbone trains
- "It's heathens like you that ruined your won lands, A_Large_Rat, you'll not ruin mine!"
I cower in the presence of your awesomeness...
It's a proven historical fact that beer saved humankind.
To all of you that say EQ doesn't take skill I bet not one of you could make it to lvl 60 on a certain server I will not mention the name of right now. Good lord, the children complained about the original WoW untill they made it mind numbingly boring to play and it was casual to begin with.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with so many of the other responses here. EQ wasn't about skill, it was just a skill bar button masher with hellacious amounts of downtime and unbelievably slow pacing even by the standards in its day. The whole EQ experience may have been 100% made by the community, which is great for players who are into people, but all I remember is god awful gameplay mechanics.
In a way, it defined the concept of the asian grinder before people even had a first-hand concept of what an asian grinder was.
To quote an earlier response: "tedium is not a measure of skill."
I am with the OP on alot of this.
Even though i am in the school of people that loved EQ... It had its good and bad moments thats for sure.
I think in alot of ways EQ did require alot more deterimination and patience... Things were not handed over to the players on the silver platter. When you achieved something in the game you actually felt like you did some awesome.
Yes it was definately a skill oriented game, and a gear oriented game.
If you grouped with a skillful healer you would know it. If you grouped with a great puller/tank (that was me hehe) people would commment about it. Same with Crowd contro. DPS.. well unfortunately DPS is DPS, Now DPS that knows how to manage their aggro thats something.
Skill could be offset by having better gear.. IE a tank with better weapons would draw more aggro innately... had better mitigation with better armor. More hitpoints etc.
However I will say EQ was definately alot more hardcore than alot of the garbage games that are being fed to the MMO community these days.
The more you played the more you learned your class and were able to use that class to help the group. People could pick out which players 'knew' their class.
Example: I, playing as a bard, was in Karnors castle with a group. And we were pretty deep in and down. It got a little hectic with too many mobs at one point. I used my charm to charm the extra mob and a couple people in my group were like "Who is doing that?" and "Wow! you really know what you are doing!".
-Only the people that played in the beggining are going to understand the pace of combat and the fact that it took more than just pressing a charm song. It took making sure that my charm didnt resist through obtaining my wind instrument, swapping my instruments out, targeting the proper mob, charming, and sending the pet into the mob we were all focusing on.
Times have changed. Rarely do MMO's even put in bard instruments anymore(which is sad) and mobs are dead in 10 seconds anyway, tanks are AOE tanks and groups get pissed if you are CC'ing mobs. Where in early eq it became almost neccasary for people to do this. Individual fights took longer, the pull had to happen flawlessly, everything was communicated with the group and most of the time you were impressed with what your groupmember did for the party.
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
The market for console development is far more lucerative than the dwindling pc market.
Have fun with driver conflicts, aging hardware (always gotta upgrade$$$), random freezing, driver updates (which can create more problems), installing new software (which can create more problems with your game)........have fun wondering what problem will occur whenever you click the game icon......have fun with pc headaches. I'll be playing my ps3.
What are you talking about? In newer mmos you can run out of trouble after a few seconds, eq the mobs pathed all over the damn place and would chase you across the entire zone.