Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Maybe he DOESN'T want you to do something. Maybe you want him to do something, and you're talking him in to it. Or maybe he's ambivalent about anybody doing anything, and you just squeeze a tip out of him through innocent conversation. Maybe he's just that kind of wizardy guy who LIKES to play 20 questions, to test and see if you're worthy of the quest.
But no, you're right. It was such a major step of evolution in gameplay when the text became superfluous.
That is boring. People want to hack-n-slash & fight bosses, NOT guessing words in a database.
And THAT is why when I see people say "WoW brought mass-market appeal to the MMO industry!", my response is "don't do me any more favors, please".
Agree with Uccisore.
"I want to be able to hack N' slash, but I don't want to have to use my brain and think a little bit too. I just want you to show me where to go to get my shiney lootz I can show off!"
Sickening to say the least. These types of mentalities (displayed above) are why developer's don't bother to take the next step in MMO evolution. The sheep are currently happy apparently, so why bother? Having simply hack n' slash is for console games.
What is so wrong with having several flavors within one game? Riddles, puzzles, etc, etc.? Curious for a GOOD answer. Believe it or not, there are elements from the first MMO's, if done right and polished up a bit, would be great to have in current MMO's to freshen up the staleness of them. They have borrowed before...now they just need to borrow different elements.
Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Maybe he DOESN'T want you to do something. Maybe you want him to do something, and you're talking him in to it. Or maybe he's ambivalent about anybody doing anything, and you just squeeze a tip out of him through innocent conversation. Maybe he's just that kind of wizardy guy who LIKES to play 20 questions, to test and see if you're worthy of the quest.
But no, you're right. It was such a major step of evolution in gameplay when the text became superfluous.
That is boring. People want to hack-n-slash & fight bosses, NOT guessing words in a database.
And THAT is why when I see people say "WoW brought mass-market appeal to the MMO industry!", my response is "don't do me any more favors, please".
Agree with Uccisore.
"I want to be able to hack N' slash, but I don't want to have to use my brain and think a little bit too. I just want you to show me where to go to get my shiney lootz I can show off!"
Sickening to say the least. These types of mentalities (displayed above) are why developer's don't bother to take the next step in MMO evolution. The sheep are currently happy apparently, so why bother? Having simply hack n' slash is for console games.
What is so wrong with having several flavors within one game? Riddles, puzzles, etc, etc.? Curious for a GOOD answer. Believe it or not, there are elements from the first MMO's, if done right and polished up a bit, would be great to have in current MMO's to freshen up the staleness of them. They have borrowed before...now they just need to borrow different elements.
Sad to say, any effort to make real puzzles or clever riddles will be solved on day 1, spread around the net and trivialized. So, all that effort to make something clever is canceled out in days. I don't blame developers for being a little gun shy. The interweb wasn't such a big deal in EQ's hayday as it is now. What you thought was clever back then is just tedious now when its plastered all over 101 FAQ sites. When a 1000 people on the server are blowing right by you solving these riddles in seconds because they can just look it up, it kind of makes all your effort pretty pointless.
When you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go except up.
BAH !,i thought perhaps there was something i have missed,because i cannot think of one thing WOW introduced to MMOPRG's.Heck i cannot even think of anything they have done as positive,i am still thinking hard...nope can't see anything.Well SIZE,i guess the game is big and we all love a large world to play around in,so i give them that,it's not new though,there is a few games that have large worlds.Too bad so much of that world is instances,anyone that knows me,knows what i think of instances,they are like 1/10 on a skilled implementation process for delivering content to a game.Any low budget developer can create instances,i can do it myself without a team.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wow has always had both kinds of quests; simple and not so simple. One thing I noticed with Wotlk - you almost always have to read the quest text to figure out exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Many of the TBC quests were not like that. But there are many quest lines in many places that are not obvious and can be hard to do (unless you're being run) and require reading and thinking if you aren't using Thottbot or QuestHelper.
I'm not saying that I'm a fan of Wow's questing - I'd like to see far more world-changing quests (and not just large-scale or phasing ones) but saying that Wow doesn't have better quests than the original EQ is fairly ridiculous.
Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
Yeah..if you were incapable of thinking , exploring, or were impatient as all hell. Still better than quests that GPS everything for you with dots and take all of the exploring fun out of it.
Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
I don't doubt a lot of people did this. That said, I certainly didn't and neither did the people I played with...
I loved having to think about how to finish a quest. If I couldn't immediately finish one, it wasn't a bit deal. Despite the name of EverQuest, quests were really a side activity that could be a lot of fun and could have great rewards, but they were not the focus of the game. If you ask me, that's what made the quests special. They were optional and required you to use your brain.
The NPCs didn't have a "hey! look over here!" question mark or any such ridiculousness floating above their head (I absolutely cannot stand that nonsense). If you wanted to find a quest, you had to ask around and interact with NPCs. You had to ask them questions based on what they said and it encouraged you to pay attention!I No "x marks the spot" mini-map crap was going to do the thinking for you. I sincerely submit that it was a far better system than any new game has come up with. Yes, occasionally you had to search for the right word to use and ask the same question a few different ways. It wasn't perfect. But it was the best I've seen.
Originally posted by select20 If WoW never came out, would there be as many MMO's out today as there are? Yeah alot of them suck, but WoW has also caused competition to sky rocket. WoW, whether its my opinion or not, is the best MMO out there. People complain about WoW ruining things, but if you look back to you favortie MMO, mine being EQ1, those developers haven't done anything that comes close to WoW. So who do you blame? WoW or the developers that once delievered that no longer can?
I thought WoW was a 'fun' game, EQ was a substantive in depth game that kept me intrigued. What WoW brought to the MMO world was awareness and attention to MMO's.
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
Originally posted by Torik Originally posted by heremypet In EQ you had to first of all be talking to a nondescript NPC and even then all you may get it a [topic[, and even then you had to read what he said before you saw it, then after asking about the topic, you had to figure out the keywords just get info on the quest, which was usually pretty general like, "a rogue in southern mountains of rathe, which damn, meant you actually had to use your eyes more than to simply line up a yellow arrow to the top of your compass. And that's just to find the rogue, maybe you have to hail him, maybe you have to kill him, maybe you have to say something in particular.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
EQ Quest evoked thought and problem solving.
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
I honestly can't believe some of you are masochistic enough to be nostalgic about this garbage. Playing guess-the-word with an npc, and exploring badly-rendered smeared area #243 (with tree) really gets you guys misty-eyed.
Katsma is Lithuanian for 'he who drinks used douche fluid'.
"let's" just not talk about WoW anymore, you wouldn't like me when we talk about WoW ( it turns me into a troll lol) =P "rawwwrgh"
Anyways that aside, I really don't understand it's popularity. I bought it when it was first released and also purchased a 1 year subscription.. but guess what I only used 1 month of it. After a month I was already bored, sick of the community, and litterally felt I wasted my money lol. Though I still do occasionally play it on FREE servers, so I guess it's not all bad. Just far from being worth paying monthly for.
and yes that's right, you don't have to pay2play for it's sub-par entertainment. There are plenty of free servers out there located all around the globe. I'd recommend RageCraft/Bloodlust for NA users, last I checked it was the best as far as community/ping is concerned ;D
I don't doubt a lot of people did this. That said, I certainly didn't and neither did the people I played with...
I loved having to think about how to finish a quest. If I couldn't immediately finish one, it wasn't a bit deal. Despite the name of EverQuest, quests were really a side activity that could be a lot of fun and could have great rewards, but they were not the focus of the game. If you ask me, that's what made the quests special. They were optional and required you to use your brain.
The NPCs didn't have a "hey! look over here!" question mark or any such ridiculousness floating above their head (I absolutely cannot stand that nonsense). If you wanted to find a quest, you had to ask around and interact with NPCs. You had to ask them questions based on what they said and it encouraged you to pay attention!I No "x marks the spot" mini-map crap was going to do the thinking for you. I sincerely submit that it was a far better system than any new game has come up with. Yes, occasionally you had to search for the right word to use and ask the same question a few different ways. It wasn't perfect. But it was the best I've seen.
I think you're confusing WAR with WOW. The only X marks the spot is the help in locating the actual NPC that has something useful. If you think it took brains to randomly talk to every NPC in the game, you seriously had no life. That crap should've died in the 16-bit era=)
Unless you're using a MOD, WOW doesn't tell you exactly what to do. It never did. By the way ignore all the simple stuff and only add up all the epic quests, they still outnumber whatever EQ had by a huge margin. The little tasks like "fetch 10 hoofs" are not the only thing WOW had. There were plenty of quest lines that spanned many levels, taking you all around the world, with great story and lore. But only those who actually played would know=) By the way, every quest in WOW is optional as well, besides maybe the class specific ones;)
You'd be hard pressed to find enoug people to fill a room that enjoy punching in random words to start/finish a quest when you can just look it up in 30 secs.
Comments
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Maybe he DOESN'T want you to do something. Maybe you want him to do something, and you're talking him in to it. Or maybe he's ambivalent about anybody doing anything, and you just squeeze a tip out of him through innocent conversation. Maybe he's just that kind of wizardy guy who LIKES to play 20 questions, to test and see if you're worthy of the quest.
But no, you're right. It was such a major step of evolution in gameplay when the text became superfluous.
That is boring. People want to hack-n-slash & fight bosses, NOT guessing words in a database.
And THAT is why when I see people say "WoW brought mass-market appeal to the MMO industry!", my response is "don't do me any more favors, please".
Agree with Uccisore.
"I want to be able to hack N' slash, but I don't want to have to use my brain and think a little bit too. I just want you to show me where to go to get my shiney lootz I can show off!"
Sickening to say the least. These types of mentalities (displayed above) are why developer's don't bother to take the next step in MMO evolution. The sheep are currently happy apparently, so why bother? Having simply hack n' slash is for console games.
What is so wrong with having several flavors within one game? Riddles, puzzles, etc, etc.? Curious for a GOOD answer. Believe it or not, there are elements from the first MMO's, if done right and polished up a bit, would be great to have in current MMO's to freshen up the staleness of them. They have borrowed before...now they just need to borrow different elements.
Produces a**clowns like you.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Maybe he DOESN'T want you to do something. Maybe you want him to do something, and you're talking him in to it. Or maybe he's ambivalent about anybody doing anything, and you just squeeze a tip out of him through innocent conversation. Maybe he's just that kind of wizardy guy who LIKES to play 20 questions, to test and see if you're worthy of the quest.
But no, you're right. It was such a major step of evolution in gameplay when the text became superfluous.
That is boring. People want to hack-n-slash & fight bosses, NOT guessing words in a database.
And THAT is why when I see people say "WoW brought mass-market appeal to the MMO industry!", my response is "don't do me any more favors, please".
Agree with Uccisore.
"I want to be able to hack N' slash, but I don't want to have to use my brain and think a little bit too. I just want you to show me where to go to get my shiney lootz I can show off!"
Sickening to say the least. These types of mentalities (displayed above) are why developer's don't bother to take the next step in MMO evolution. The sheep are currently happy apparently, so why bother? Having simply hack n' slash is for console games.
What is so wrong with having several flavors within one game? Riddles, puzzles, etc, etc.? Curious for a GOOD answer. Believe it or not, there are elements from the first MMO's, if done right and polished up a bit, would be great to have in current MMO's to freshen up the staleness of them. They have borrowed before...now they just need to borrow different elements.
Sad to say, any effort to make real puzzles or clever riddles will be solved on day 1, spread around the net and trivialized. So, all that effort to make something clever is canceled out in days. I don't blame developers for being a little gun shy. The interweb wasn't such a big deal in EQ's hayday as it is now. What you thought was clever back then is just tedious now when its plastered all over 101 FAQ sites. When a 1000 people on the server are blowing right by you solving these riddles in seconds because they can just look it up, it kind of makes all your effort pretty pointless.
BAH !,i thought perhaps there was something i have missed,because i cannot think of one thing WOW introduced to MMOPRG's.Heck i cannot even think of anything they have done as positive,i am still thinking hard...nope can't see anything.Well SIZE,i guess the game is big and we all love a large world to play around in,so i give them that,it's not new though,there is a few games that have large worlds.Too bad so much of that world is instances,anyone that knows me,knows what i think of instances,they are like 1/10 on a skilled implementation process for delivering content to a game.Any low budget developer can create instances,i can do it myself without a team.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wow has always had both kinds of quests; simple and not so simple. One thing I noticed with Wotlk - you almost always have to read the quest text to figure out exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Many of the TBC quests were not like that. But there are many quest lines in many places that are not obvious and can be hard to do (unless you're being run) and require reading and thinking if you aren't using Thottbot or QuestHelper.
I'm not saying that I'm a fan of Wow's questing - I'd like to see far more world-changing quests (and not just large-scale or phasing ones) but saying that Wow doesn't have better quests than the original EQ is fairly ridiculous.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
Yeah..if you were incapable of thinking , exploring, or were impatient as all hell. Still better than quests that GPS everything for you with dots and take all of the exploring fun out of it.
That sound like a fairly poorly designed quest to me (unless it is meant to be one of those 'obscure mysteries' quests). If an NPC wants you do do something, he better give me all the info he has without me having to play 20 questions.
Let me explain how this wanderous EQ quest system really worked. I actually played EQ and loved it for quite some time. A player approaches an NPC, gets some vague directions for a quest and either looks it up online or asks in /general or guild chat, "Hey, what am I sposed to do next?"
^^ this
EQ QUEST:
"Hi there adventurer, I am in need of some wolf carapace to make my recipe"
/ooc ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE WOLVES ARE????!!!!!
/ooc No, sorry
*Looks up online for 20 minutes, until some random guy on Allakhazam says where he found the wolf carapace*
Go find the zone and then the wolves with /loc and do the quest.
I don't doubt a lot of people did this. That said, I certainly didn't and neither did the people I played with...
I loved having to think about how to finish a quest. If I couldn't immediately finish one, it wasn't a bit deal. Despite the name of EverQuest, quests were really a side activity that could be a lot of fun and could have great rewards, but they were not the focus of the game. If you ask me, that's what made the quests special. They were optional and required you to use your brain.
The NPCs didn't have a "hey! look over here!" question mark or any such ridiculousness floating above their head (I absolutely cannot stand that nonsense). If you wanted to find a quest, you had to ask around and interact with NPCs. You had to ask them questions based on what they said and it encouraged you to pay attention!I No "x marks the spot" mini-map crap was going to do the thinking for you. I sincerely submit that it was a far better system than any new game has come up with. Yes, occasionally you had to search for the right word to use and ask the same question a few different ways. It wasn't perfect. But it was the best I've seen.
I thought WoW was a 'fun' game, EQ was a substantive in depth game that kept me intrigued. What WoW brought to the MMO world was awareness and attention to MMO's.
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
EQ Quest evoked thought and problem solving.
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
I honestly can't believe some of you are masochistic enough to be nostalgic about this garbage. Playing guess-the-word with an npc, and exploring badly-rendered smeared area #243 (with tree) really gets you guys misty-eyed.
Katsma is Lithuanian for 'he who drinks used douche fluid'.
"let's" just not talk about WoW anymore, you wouldn't like me when we talk about WoW ( it turns me into a troll lol) =P "rawwwrgh"
Anyways that aside, I really don't understand it's popularity. I bought it when it was first released and also purchased a 1 year subscription.. but guess what I only used 1 month of it. After a month I was already bored, sick of the community, and litterally felt I wasted my money lol. Though I still do occasionally play it on FREE servers, so I guess it's not all bad. Just far from being worth paying monthly for.
and yes that's right, you don't have to pay2play for it's sub-par entertainment. There are plenty of free servers out there located all around the globe. I'd recommend RageCraft/Bloodlust for NA users, last I checked it was the best as far as community/ping is concerned ;D
I don't doubt a lot of people did this. That said, I certainly didn't and neither did the people I played with...
I loved having to think about how to finish a quest. If I couldn't immediately finish one, it wasn't a bit deal. Despite the name of EverQuest, quests were really a side activity that could be a lot of fun and could have great rewards, but they were not the focus of the game. If you ask me, that's what made the quests special. They were optional and required you to use your brain.
The NPCs didn't have a "hey! look over here!" question mark or any such ridiculousness floating above their head (I absolutely cannot stand that nonsense). If you wanted to find a quest, you had to ask around and interact with NPCs. You had to ask them questions based on what they said and it encouraged you to pay attention!I No "x marks the spot" mini-map crap was going to do the thinking for you. I sincerely submit that it was a far better system than any new game has come up with. Yes, occasionally you had to search for the right word to use and ask the same question a few different ways. It wasn't perfect. But it was the best I've seen.
I think you're confusing WAR with WOW. The only X marks the spot is the help in locating the actual NPC that has something useful. If you think it took brains to randomly talk to every NPC in the game, you seriously had no life. That crap should've died in the 16-bit era=)
Unless you're using a MOD, WOW doesn't tell you exactly what to do. It never did. By the way ignore all the simple stuff and only add up all the epic quests, they still outnumber whatever EQ had by a huge margin. The little tasks like "fetch 10 hoofs" are not the only thing WOW had. There were plenty of quest lines that spanned many levels, taking you all around the world, with great story and lore. But only those who actually played would know=) By the way, every quest in WOW is optional as well, besides maybe the class specific ones;)
You'd be hard pressed to find enoug people to fill a room that enjoy punching in random words to start/finish a quest when you can just look it up in 30 secs.