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Is EQ really dead?
Mastermartz
Member Posts: 255
in Everquest
Is this game actually empty? What servers are good to go on if it is?
Comments
For new players, it is a wasteland.
For those who have high-level characters, it is still good.
When you go to the starting areas now, 99% of the characters there are twinked alts of veteran players.
You may get help, you may not. But, they will soon leave you in the dust.
EQ1 is a lonely town for new players.
WoW is much more friendly and accessible.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAmbryZealot/
Everquest is far from dead, and noone stays low level in the new Everquest for long. It's quite easy to get to a level where you can group with, and join the higher level guilds. And there are constantly groups of newbs, and new alt characters leveling up in all the newbie areas.
Vectinn
I useto play EQ1, and I've heard of many of the latest changes. Had this been old EQ and there were nothing but vet players, yes it would be very very ruff, but since a lot has changed I'd recommend going to it, at least to see what the game is like. To apriciate it's history and what it's done for the market.
EQ1 was my first MMORPG, I was the biggest newbie, when I look back at myself I'm imbarissed as to how dumb I really was. Back then though, MMO's were more about the player having to litteraly figure things out or work with the community on figuring it out rather than having snazy titorials to explain everything. Both has it's up's and downs, but I do often miss some of the old times I had on EQ1.
Long story short, it's got a great deal of content and worth checking out if you're looking at it.
I'm sorry about my spelling, I've overslept far more than I should have, my brains in this twisted state of half-living and I'm not catching onto my typoes like I should be
Top Ten Most Misused Words/Phrases in MMO Industry...
This was my first mmo too, and i've always thought it was the best, i haven't played another mmo that i've liked better.
Totally untrue. The progressoin servers (Combine and Sleeper) have only been open since June 28th, and they are literally crowded with low levels and newbs. There are no transfers allowed to those servers and, thus, twinking is almost non-existent at this point.
Edit: Just for kicks I logged on some toons to see what was happening. Here at 10:30 p.m. MST on a weekday there were 39 people in GFay, 19 in N Ro, and even 12 in East Karana.
The spirit of EQ is dead and can't be recaptured just by starting on a new server anymore.
The progression servers have proved it's all about powergaming and blazing thru content and ignoring the journey and community now. The gamers who are flocking to these servers are mostly veteran powergamers who have fragile egos they need to soothe by attempting to be the first to accomplish something in a video game because their real lives offer no such possibilities.
Competing against others is fine, but the speed at which these progression servers are moving and blazing thru content is ridiculous. There is no community developing whatsoever, only the preestablished guilds that have moved in exist and they are all about themselves only.
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
Jorev, you seem pretty bitter and disappointed about the way things have gone with the progression servers. And you're more or less right. I mean, I disagree that there aren't any people but powergamers on the servers, since I know I am not there for that, and I know other people who aren't too. Many of whom feel just the way you do, in fact. But it is moving very fast, and a lot of people feel cheated because they aren't getting to be a part of it.
Unfortunately, the servers were almost designed to entice the powergamers. I think it would have been better to NOT have players unlock the content, but to have the content unlocked on a fixed schedule, regardless of what players are doing. I don't think that would prevent powergamers from coming anyway, but it sure wouldn't be quite as enticing as knowing that your guild's name is going to be on the timeline on the website if you are the ones to do it FIRST.
I don't think "classic servers" would bring back the original spirit of EQ either. It's not the game. It's the players.
FWIW, I've been disappointed myself in the utter lack of /ooc chatter on The Sleeper. Are people too busy to chat or what? Or do they have their heads down, working hard and taking it all so seriously that they don't want to be distracted by random chat? It's creepy, in any case, to be in a zone with a couple of dozen people and not a single /ooc in 2 hours.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I guess I just haven't had the problems you two see. Certainly you can never recapture all the original spirit, nor can you forget a lot of what you know, so it isn't exactly like the original experience. But it's about as much like it as you could get, and there seem to be a heck of a lot of people enjoying it.
Personally, I am not competing with anyone for anything. I am just enjoying the game very casually. Most of the people I know or meet in the game are doing precisely that. Let the small number of uber guild powergamers race to open things .... who cares.
Seems to me the community is pretty good. I constantly run across friendly and helpful people. And OOC never seems to be quiet wherever I am.
I need to come hang out with you then! I've been a couple of places, just newbie zones, and it was dead quiet. So odd! Maybe it is me scaring people.
It's no big deal to me either way about the progression servers, since I am mostly playing on my home server. I like the new EQ better than the old EQ, even though my account will be 7 years old in September. To each their own. I am in a Euro guild, though, so all the guild stuff is over in the evenings (EST) so I go play on The Sleeper while I wait to start a new character when the new expansion comes out. Darm those SOE people! They just had to appeal to my one weakness-- new races or classes.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Blasting through the game and ignoring content is the norm on EQ. I don't say thats the way it should be, just that it is the norm. The game it kinda set up that way if you think about it. How many times have you set at a rare/ ultra rare spawn site and waiting for literally days for you mob to pop? How many times have you set in the planes or any other high level zone to grind out exp that you MAY get 1 tick per kill. This has conditioned me (grinding) to get exp as fast as possible. At higher levels the content is known, the quests have been obtained, and they are working the same areas over and over to get AA's/ lvls. When they get tired of the gring, they start a new toon and they have all the lore/ content and try to fly through to catch up with friends. This is what happened to me.
After I finally retired, I found that I missed the lore and community more than grinding out lvl's / AA's for my toon. It's a natual conditioned response that is triggered automatically after developing a high lvl toon. This is what makes EQ very ruff for new players trying to learn what everyone else knows by heart, frontwards and backwards.
Yes EQ is dead, I loved the game but alas its over, after many wonderful years, tis ovah I believe and run its course.
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10 million people play WoW but I have yet to find one who admits liking it?!"
"Aion has the grind of EQ, the PvP of DAoC, and the smooth playability of WoW."
EQ will be officially dead, Sept. 14th, 2006 at approximately 2:32 PM EST.
/sarcasm off
"The spirit of EQ is dead and can't be recaptured just by starting on a new server anymore."
Sorta.. kinda .. depends .To some the spirit of EQ is macro questing , multi comping,plat farming an saleing so to them the spirit of eq still exists but not worth near as much.To some raiding for bleeding edge gear is the spirit of EQ an to them the game is strong.. untill they relize the gear an raids will not stop..an it becomes work more than fun.
EQ will never die in the sence that their will be no servers ( at least for years an years ) their probly will always be at least one server up to fit the cable company mmorpg plan SOE has going .As in subscribe for one larger monthly fee to play many difrent online games.
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
Players are using ventrilo now. Ventrilo is a requirement to join some guilds, not always written however.
Writting is left for a few old players, such as you or me. Personnally I will stick to writting until it is included within the game, mostly because I don't want to bother to install stuff. Lazy lazy me.
Back then, when nobody can talk without writting, ooc was far more used. This is happening in all games, it isn't bad in itself...unless you doesn't use ventrilo. Myself I am waiting to use it, but I do it knowing that I get "left out" on many things going on in the game, because peoples are talking, not writing anymore.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Is there some vent server where all those unguilded lowbies are talking? Or are they maybe chattering in the General channels that I have turned off? I had just about forgotten about the latter.
I use Ventrilo in my guild on Xegony, or at least I listen to it... My husband runs it on the laptop on the other side of the room. I listen to music while I play, and I am insanely shy about speaking aloud to people, so Vent isn't very practical for me.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Yes, there is a "worldchat" channel (at least one) in the game. I can't remember what they are called, but they are turned on as default. I think the 'general' one is something lilke "Newbie" or something like that. When I was on last night, it was non-stop streaming with conversation. It did remind me of the "old days". In fact, I turned it off because it was actually becoming distracting.
Just a little story, if you (or anyone reading) is easily bored, please skip.
I played EQ from March 99 (when the game went live) until late 2003. I left to go to DAOC. Played it for about a year, took a break (in which I tried FFonline and didn't even last two weeks of the free 1 month trial period) then took a break until WoW and EQ2 came out. Played both of those for over a year, then dropped them for DDO. I just cancelled DDO last week and in a fit of nostalgia, loaded up EQ.
I consider myself a "veteran" of EQ1. I was in "hard-core" raiding guilds that were among the top of the server I was on. I played 7 days a week, 8+ hours a day. You know, one of those addicts you read about from time to time.
One of the first things I noticed when returning to my old server... after going through the pretty-neato Tutorial (something we didn't have back in the "olden days") the newbie areas are, for the most part, deserted. This is both good, and bad, as you don't have to 'fight' for a spot at your favorite camp like you might have had to in the old days, but then again, getting a group really sucks. I quickly made my way to the Plane of Knowledge, and was relieved to see LOTS of people running around there. So, I cheered: I wasn't the only person subscribed to the game.
The next thing I noticed was that almost all of those people were 50th level or higher. Hmm, that wouldn't help my 12 level Druid much now, would it?
So I asked around and discovered that like the poster above said, there are certain areas that the newer characters "gravitate" towards to exp.
So I headed to Kurn's in Field of Bone, and instantly got a group.
I leveled up there so fast my head spun, and for a moment I thought I was playing WoW again! Soon, I found my way to Paludal, where again I found it very easy to find a group, and began 'grinding' there.
While there, some people in a group I was in had a discussion about the "Progression Servers", and it got me interested. So I went and did some reading and thought, "Wow, that sounds neat!" So, I created a character a few nights ago on Sleeper.
The first thing I noticed was that the newbie area was PACKED with people. This brought a smile to my face: seeing the ads for people buying/selling patchwork armor, Mino axes, orc scalps, orc belts/shoulders, people looking for more for CB, etc, filled my mind with fond memories. I quickly got cracking on my brand new bard (same class/race combo I created back in March of 99) and even got a group.
There was no shortage of trains to the guards, and corpses lying about the land - just like in the old days. I even helped a few souls find their corpses for them.
The chat channel for newbies or newplayers (or whatever it's called) was filled with all manner of discussion, from folks mourning the loss of Steve Irwin, to folks comparing EQ to WOW, to folks talking about crafting, asking for advice, etc. In essence, to me the place felt VERY "alive".
How long will this fit of nostalgia last for me? I don't know. A week. A month. A year. I've been beta-testing Vanguard and I have high hopes for it (though my machine cries in pain when I play it). All I DO know is, the Progression server has been a BLAST for me so far.
For the record: I do not consider myself a "powergamer" any longer. I have some interest in raiding (though not to the degree I did before). I purposely chose Sleeper because it was "farther behind" the server progression than Combine - I am hoping for something a little slower paced. Maybe it's just my old-age setting in.
Anyway, that's just my view of the current situation. Now, to find myself a guild.....
Tal
There is only 1 guild on sleeper. If your not in that guild your just random_noob05.
We knows of whom I speak.
And yes, I know what your comment is referring to, and even then - there are several other guilds that have a different opinion than you. It doesn't take a lot of "skillz" to see that.
Tal
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh