For starters, I played Everquest for over four years and loved the game. I then started playing World of Warcraft and abandoned Everquest. Both games have their virtues and their limitations. Everquest has MUCH more content (and that was with ONLY eight of the now 14 expansions). The reason so many players abandoned Everquest, in my opinion, was the severe experience losses for dying and having to actually LOOT your corpse to recover your items when you died in a dungeon. Not to mention all the failed combines when you were leveling tradeskills. Everquest is a far superior MMORPG to WoW in my opinion, but World of Warcraft is so much easier on the nerves that returning to Everquest is very tough after playing World of Warcraft. As a sidenote, after getting five toons to 70 in World of Warcraft, I have now stopped playing that game as well. Blizzard made a pretty lame attempt at an expansion with The Burning Crusade if you ask me. I think SOE and Blizzard should join forces and create a MMORPG that combines the best aspects of both games into a ultimate MMORPG. Also, if there are any people out there that are trying to decide between Everquest and Everquest II - Everquest is by FAR the better choice of the two .....
All,
I have good news! EQ isn't broken! I just had a fine evening of grouping with a number of people. I didn't have to box (althought I would have if I wanted to), I didn't have to hack (don't know how anyway - I must not be part of the "70%"), I didn't see any hackers, I didn't have to turn on "LFG," I didn't play with anyone I know from "RL." Just a good night of EQing.
I didn't have to hack (don't know how anyway - I must not be part of the "70%"), I didn't see any hackers
You do not need to know how to hack to cheat in EQ 1. Cheating is immensely rampant. I do not know if it is because the game is so old so people were able to develop over time many and varied cheats, hacks, etc.
If I were not able to observe for myself, over a period of several months, the number of cheaters --let's call them cheaters, because they are using hacks, third party programs, etc.-- I would not have believed it. If you do not believe me, I totally do not blame you at all.
----- WoW and fast food = commercial successes. I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
I believe EQ started its downward spiral when raiding became the main focus of the game. IMO, it has very little to do with harsh xp penalties.
Once getting a group together started taking in excess of 1.5 hrs the game quickly started dying. In EQ you can't really do anything that is not combat oriented. Having the non-raid mobs balanced toward raid gear was a huge mistake, and one they still continue.
Yes, EQ pre-PoP was the best game I've ever played. However, the game today flat out sucks, because if you're not raid equipped you can't even enjoy most of the "new" content.
Bingo!!! winner winner, chicken dinner!
Raiding games, which also happen to be item based games, will never touch my computer again. For a variety of reasons:
1) raiding takes too much consecutive time. People cant play games for very long that require several hour commitments per night. Even if you love the game, a time will come when you too will have to grow up and get a job or take care of a kid or something that forbids the type of straight through time commitment raiding requires. People can still play a lot as they age but it has to be spread out. Consecutive long hours at the computer become all but impossible.
2) the item cycle. Items being the focus of raids also makes them the focus of the game. Ill give you an example of why this alienates players: Player A plays WoW for 2 years and manages to get the very best equipment avaialable. Then real life progresses and he and his wife have a kid, or he graduates college or whatever. He has to take a few months off. In just that short amount of time away from theg ame a expansion comes out , or a patch and his equipment is completely outdated. All the time he commited to the game is forfiet. PLayers who have been playing for 2 months have better equipment and are more useful to a raid than he is, despite having played fore 2 years religiously. This happens routinely. I hear it all the time.
3)Fan sites spoilers. I admit ive used many fan sites in my day. But lets face it. How easyis it to find a strategy to kill a certain boss rather then figure it out for yourself. Maybe 1 % of bosskills were actual accomplishments. The rest were carbon copies that players who couldnt figure out found on websites.
4) Lastly, and most importantly, raids just are not fun. I could forward you to the NY times article about how 85ish% of players said raiding was not fun. I could argue that spending hours upon hours geting ready, or kiling meniel mobs in otw to the encounter just isnt fun. But do I have to?
Sooooo, you think expansions are bad? Uhm, you realize MMOs are about continuous storylines and new explorable areas? An MMO that doesn't produce an expansion or offer free updates will never suceed, evah!!
Sure, EQ has too many expansions... for how long it's been out. However, this is only overwhelming if you didn't play from the beginning. MMO's work in such a way that, if you didn't play them from within the first or second expansion, you were likely to play a ghost town type of game. MMOs are highly dependant on retention and after the second or third expansion, they have pretty much locked in their games population cap.
I think it would be possible to add new content via updates or expansions to a MMORPG without gutting, unbalancing, and/or ditching the old game. EQ may be beyond any innovation like that, but I don't think you're going to have a lot of longevity in a game that never gets an expansion of any sort.
While I agree that it gets harder the farther out you get from release, I think that TSS was an opportunity for new players to come in and not be left to fend for themselves all alone in newbie/lowbie zones. I don't think that potential was as well promoted as it could have been in advertising that expansion. I know some people want to return to the old days and lament the consolidation of low level zones by funnelling everyone through the tutorial and Crescent Reach. It does bring the low level game into the present and get the few low level people into the same zones, wearing "current" newbie gear. There are reasons why high level people might come to CR (for tradeskilling or armor quests) so newbies/alts still get to rub elbows with people they might otherwise never see until they finish leveling. Overall, it is a good thing, and it would have been a good point to bring new people in, I think.
It does seem strange, considering the history of Norrath, that high elf paladins and troll shadowknights now mingle peacefully in the halls of Crescent Reach. And at a gut level, I'll always be from Neriak and the Freeport that only exists in memory now.
I was really surprised to find out that at lot of the people I played EQ with most recently had only come to the game in 2004 or 2005. That seemed really late in the game already to me. On a few occasions, I saw some /ooc questions in PoK that were clearly from people who had only played WoW prior to landing in EQ. I am sure populations are on the decline, but I was amazed then at how many people were new or relatively new.
... This is where I draw the line: __________________.
4) Lastly, and most importantly, raids just are not fun. I could forward you to the NY times article about how 85ish% of players said raiding was not fun. I could argue that spending hours upon hours geting ready, or kiling meniel mobs in otw to the encounter just isnt fun. But do I have to?
That's your opinion. I actually find raiding to be alot of fun. I enjoy going into a new zone and figuring out how to kill those mobs that few if any have killed before I like the race with the other guilds in the top tier of raiding to see who breaks what event before who.
I especially like the process where an encounter starts at omfg this is imposible, to ok we made a little progress to almost there to VICTORY to farm status to "do you remember when this was hard?"
I enjoy the comraderie the ribbing and chatter in /chat's I like the satisfaction of getting some new shinny I enjoy knowing that others feel the same when they get their new item they've been coveting.
Just because you don't find something fun doesn't mean others don't find something fun. I don't personally find watching football or other sports to be fun yet millions of other people do.
This sort of game is always going to be about character development which means it's going to be about getting gear since anyone can get the levels/AA/skills the gear is the only thing that ends up being unique to your character and I've never seen two characters with exactly the same gear (similar sometimes sure) but not exactly the same.
And you know what if were for raiding and the best gear really did come from grouping . It would be the same people with the best gear because it all comes down to time management raiders make more efficient use of their time than non-raiders they have figured out that when they pool their resources and work together they can accomplish things that the non-raiders simply can not.
As far as how many people enjoy raiding I direct you to http://www.lavanet.no/progress/index.php?expansion=TBS there are 13 guilds that regularly manage to feild at least 54 people per night thats 702+ right there just in the top 13 guilds. You drop down to http://www.lavanet.no/progress/index.php?expansion=Ashengate you have another 20 guilds at some point in progression in TSS that's 1080 more people so that's over 1700 people raiding EQ right now just at the high end and that doesn't include all the we raid 2-3 nights a week people or the family guilds who raid a bit.
So no you don't have too argue that you don't find raiding to be fun but I think you are picking a loosing fight in you want to assert that it just isn't fun there are too many people who disagree.
Just to put this post in context I should say that as I type this I've only read the first two post of this thread.
So what killed EQ?
I can only speak for myself but for me the thing that killed it was the focus on raiding. I mean the game had other flaws but honest to god I'd probably still be playing it today if they hadn't gotten so fixated on the raiding crap.
For starters, I played Everquest for over four years and loved the game. I then started playing World of Warcraft and abandoned Everquest. Both games have their virtues and their limitations. Everquest has MUCH more content (and that was with ONLY eight of the now 14 expansions). The reason so many players abandoned Everquest, in my opinion, was the severe experience losses for dying and having to actually LOOT your corpse to recover your items when you died in a dungeon. Not to mention all the failed combines when you were leveling tradeskills. Everquest is a far superior MMORPG to WoW in my opinion, but World of Warcraft is so much easier on the nerves that returning to Everquest is very tough after playing World of Warcraft. As a sidenote, after getting five toons to 70 in World of Warcraft, I have now stopped playing that game as well. Blizzard made a pretty lame attempt at an expansion with The Burning Crusade if you ask me. I think SOE and Blizzard should join forces and create a MMORPG that combines the best aspects of both games into a ultimate MMORPG. Also, if there are any people out there that are trying to decide between Everquest and Everquest II - Everquest is by FAR the better choice of the two .....
im so sad that you didn't play Ultima Online. you would've loved it. Atleast the old school one ^^
I was one of the first players to play EQ. It was amazing. To this day, with all of the spells, zones, HUGE number of AA skills fabulous variety of emotes, and other options, it has more content than any MMO game today, in my opinion. Thus, why is EQ only 5% of the population of WOW?
Answers:
1. People HATE, for the most part, large death penalties. Wow did this right by simply having a durability reduction,which requires money to fix armor. WOW even has spirit rezzers (alhtough these rezzers do come at the cost of rez sickness for 10 minutes and increased durability loss). This is liveable. In EQ, y ou need either a corpse run and MUST find a priest for a rez or pay exhorbitant fees to the NPC rezzers. IF EQ made this one change, it would attract a lot more players.
2. People HATE time sinks. With EQ, you have a lot of runing between and in zones. You have corpse runs. You have meditating for mana regen. All of this wastes time. WOW has eliminated a lot of this in many ways. First, it is fairly easy to get mounts,which speed travel through zones immensely. Second, WOW has a number of griffins for travel throughout the world, Moreover, the zones aren't that huge, unlike that of Everquest, so that access to these griffins doesn't take that long.
Meditating does not take sitting around too in WOW. Players regen mana out of combat fairly quickly,. There are also lots of cheap potions and scrolls to buy to help this too.
3. WOW has easier leveling. I will admit, I stopped playing EQ in 2004; thus, my comment here may be a bit off. However, EQ had very slow leveling compared to WOW. This does such folks into the game. People are much more in need of a casual friendly game. This has caused WOW to pick up a number of adults with jobs and families. EQ's time commitments really isn't family or job friendly; at least, this was that way several years ago. With Hot zones, I don't know how much things have improved.
4. WOW doesn't have much overcamping. In EQ, I had to wait around a long time for specific mobs. This isn't a problem in WOW.
5. WOW does PVP better than almost anyone. It has rewards that are unmatched if you participate in battle grounds or take over cities. Many folks like this option. Personally, I can't stand PVP,but I do see the need for some people.
6. Quests are Eesy to do in WOW. Each quest is relatively simple. In addition there are fan sites, (www.thottbot.com) that give the exact location for each quests.Try finding this information in EQ or EQ2.
7. Although I am not a graphics nut, Wow has some of the best graphics around. EQ certainly doesn't match it nor does EQ2 ( although EQ2 is better)
8. EQ should have NEVER instituted EQ2 or at least should have given it a different name. They are vastly dissimilar games that draw from each others player base.
9. Players are tired of foced interdependence of classes. EQ REQUIRES several types of classes for groups to succeed. In fact, you can't get a rez with out a priest. EQ2 does this much better,but there is still a class dependence. Soloing is not as friendly as WOW.
I forgot to add something to my post noted just above this.
With the EQ player base aging and the lack of new players coming into the game, this provides a catch 22 for those new or midlevel players: they have a hard time geting a group. For a group oriented game, this could be a kiss of death. Having a vibrant server with lots of new people coming into the game is essential for success. This is particularly true for a group oriented game,which is why EQ should become more casual player/solo friendly.
Bottom line: EQ was the next and best step after Ultima Online. They adopted a lot of what UO did ( severe death penalty) but improved on the game play and content. Sadly, times have changed and so has the player base. If EQ wants to stay around and indeed thrive, it MUST become much more casual player friendly. This means:
1. reducing the experience death penalty
2. Allow for faster leveling at pre level 65
3. Allow for more solo and shorter quests
4. provide more stat items that solo players can achieve
5. Provide better way for mana regen instead of meditating
6. Provide many more ways to transport players through zones and for interzone travel other than just using mages for teleport
7., Eliminate quests that rely on one named mob unless there is fast respawn
Sooooo, you think expansions are bad? Uhm, you realize MMOs are about continuous storylines and new explorable areas? An MMO that doesn't produce an expansion or offer free updates will never suceed, evah!!
Sure, EQ has too many expansions... for how long it's been out. However, this is only overwhelming if you didn't play from the beginning. MMO's work in such a way that, if you didn't play them from within the first or second expansion, you were likely to play a ghost town type of game. MMOs are highly dependant on retention and after the second or third expansion, they have pretty much locked in their games population cap.
MMOs have continuos storylines? Really? Whatever happened to Firona Vie after Venril Sathir kidnappped her?
Also, anyone who uses the word "evah", probably doesn't know dirt from gold, imo.
hmmm.... Well, there was the bit about the king of Felwithe finding out that Firiona Vie wasn't really his daughter, IIRC, and she was recently battling it out with Lanys T'Vyl in Nektulos in the backstory of Depths of Darkhollow.
I really hated the whole story arc from LDoN through OoW... it seemed to go way off on a weird tangent... But I think they are trying to get back to basics with recent turns in the story...
I really don't care, though. I am more interested in my character's personal journey than the official storyline, and I hate games that force me to participate in their preprogrammed nonsense.
... This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I agree with the downfall starting when raiding became the main focus. EQ already requires a "massive" amount of your time to get anywhere and stay closer to the masses in level and equipment. So when you add the time required to stayed flagged and participate in raiding, you really need to not have a job and play literally whenever you are not sleeping. A lot of the raiding guilds have certain requirements that in order to be a member, you have to play that much to meet those requirements.
You almost have to make several characters on seperate accounts to avoid the 1.5 hours of waiting for a group. If you have a cleric, you can't just go where you want and kill what you want. In order to get better items and decent exp you have to sit and wait...and wait. Even though that is one class that can get a group easier, it still can take awhile. If you have 3 hours set aside to play, wait 1.5 hours for a group, spend a half hour getting there, then 10 minutes re-buffing the group (after they waited for you to arrive and their buffs had faded) you are left with a whopping 50 minutes to actually get something accomplished. AND, then for the last 15 to 20 minutes of that 50 left, you need to be looking through LFG for your replacement.
So, at least if you have three accounts - you can spend 30 to 40 minutes running them all to a zone, buff and get playing. That way you have close to 2.5 hours of hunting.
It would be nice if you could get some "rewards" and exp without the need to pay for so many accounts, but I have found on limited play time it seems to work well with the end result being less wasted time. So in my opinion, you have to pay more to play more.
Of course, due to that being the way I had more fun, I quit playing. Way too much money to spend when there are games you can enjoy with only one account, such as CoV and CoH. With those you can add several types of skills where you can fight, heal, transport and even do some crowd control, all on one toon. Then you can choose to play alone when you want and group when you want. But you are not desperate to always group - it's choice. Sony takes away that freedom.
I played Everquest for a very long time and feel that its the exact oposite of what you're saying. I don't think people quit because of experience loss or corpse runs at all. I think the opopsite that people actually quit because it got easier. Easier with travel especially. Everyone who played Everquest knows it lost most of its good population when PoP came out. I personally stopped having fun when PoP came out. I can't tell you how many funny crazy stories I have from EQ when I was just going on a corpse run, that was a big part of the game and even though it was a pain a lot of the time I loved it.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
People quit Everquest because of the forced-raiding. you had to join a guild to do stuff to get more gear to do more stuff and you had to do this 3 times plus a week. It got very boring and predictable.
It lost its mystery, its community, its soul to raid to become "uber."
Everquest is not dead, despite what people may believe. Granted, it is not going strong, as some of the posters have said. Everquest will maintain its 400k player base, or whatever it is, until Sony gets tired of keeping the game alive. As long as people continue to pay, this probably won't happen for sometime.
Everquest died for me long ago. In all honesty, it was when my old guild (Blood of the Phoenix - Torvonnilous Server) broke up. I began to slowly lose my interest in the game. Raids help me maintain my subscription, because it offered me some sort of diversion from work/school. It also kind of helped when I joined a guild that had a bunch of former guildies was in. My enjoyment began to increase, but not much.
Around this point I began to notice a trend. More levels and AA = bigger grind = more time spent in game. Raids began to take longer = more time spent in game. All in all, I wasted a better part of my early 20s playing EQ (off and on). I transferred servers, and sold my account (stupidly I might add), and left EQ for various other games. I eventually returned, under a 2nd account I had, and began playing another Wizard with some RL friends. The enjoyment returned, briefly. Then the nuisance of "the grin" set in. The nuisance of "long raids". I began to realize around this point, the true reason I continued to play EQ...my friends (either RL or in-game).
I have since then quit EQ, again x12 or something like that. I had my stint in WoW (level 70 Druid...until the nerf), and I am currently playing DDO (again...for how long? Probably until I do every quest). I am still looking for "that game", that will give me the enjoyment and awe EQ gave me when I 1st starting playing. I've tried virtually every major game in the US market (and some not so major). All of them have their pros and cons. World of Warcraft has its simplicity, Dark Ages of Camelot has its RvR PvP, Shadowbane (RIP) had is character creation, and so on. All games have something worthwhile for them, but it all comes down to which one is more unique than its predecesor. Unfortunately, everything is a clone of something. After EQ, everything was a EQ clone. After WoW, everything is a WoW clone. What will be the next big clone? Vanguard? Perhaps Lord of the Rings, or Warhammer.
The next big game has yet to come out. Bioware is working on something, and Warhammer is still in testing. Until something groundbreaking, and new, comes out...I'll probably continue to float between games...as usual.
Raq, former Wizard of Torvonnilous
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
I do miss EQ, I miss not wanting to die....pulling goblins in HH basement...I miss iksar being hated by everyone....the little things..(although i dont miss corpse runs)....I played eq for along time and loved it..but i got bored and aggraveted with it in the end..I agree that the ease of transport through norrath after awhile was a negative..I also agree that the raiding (huge amount of time involved) was a negative...The same thing happened to me in eq2..got to 70 Sk and i needed to spend hours raiding to get the gear i wanted. now ....I understand that is part of the style of the current MMO's but I have a job and a children...I almost never had 3 hours to kill...
So i agree, I wish they could make some sort of reward for the casual player (I am a little more than casual but not as hardcore as others).
I too am waitng for the next big thing...The game that redefines online games. I am also coming to the conclusion that I am sick of fantasy genre..(although I am looking forward to AoC).
This is my opinion and I am only 1 person who plays EQ
Answering alot of taxguy's comments;
1) the extremely large death penalty in EQ is a "Penalty vs Reward" challenge. Attempting to train players that death is bad and counter entuitive - while good players are rewarded with higher exp (or actually not rewarded, just not penalized). This was an attempt to make a video game challenging and not a "Monty Hall" game or "Pac Man" game.
2) I have to agree, people hate time sinks and EQ is full of them. You have to credit Brad McQuad with that - but the idea was sound, from his point of view. The concept is pay to play on a monthly basis - thus time sinks keep you from advancing quickly, thus you must pay to play some more. Then it's just up to the devs to make the rewards great enough to keep you coming back - despite the time sinks.
(Note: I believe out of combat mana regeneration is now a max of 3 minutes, in EQ, and you can also buy potions).
3) Leveling...
4) With the introduction of instanced content, you don't actually see much camping or cockblocking in EQ. Not anymore.
5) PvP - I don't do it, have no idea how it compares
6) Whether a quest is easy or tough is going to be subjective, player specific - but to answer you challenge - AllakHzam's is still an excellent site for reseaching quests, spells, gear and mobs.
7) Graphics - I've had this out with the forum community <lol> I agree the "old world" zones have dated graphics. However the rest of the game and EQ2 have graphics equal to those of any other game. (Just my opinion).
8) Yeah, I agree and so does SoE - They have stated naming EQ2 was a mistake.
9) I disagree - sorta. I don't think players are tired of interdependence of classes, I believe they are just (myself included) socially limited and challenged by this requirement - which I think was a very valid game strat!
And yes, MMO's have a continuous story line. It may not make much since to you and me, but the dev's thinks so - this is true for just about any MMO.
---------------------------------------- My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Odenathus, the key to EQ's downfall was related to my posts noted above. It wasn't one thing. As some have noted, folks are aging. They also have changed needs. No longer is it as easy to put in hours each night and maintain a job and family. This is why many players want a casual friendly game.
This thesis is supported by the huge success fo WOW,which is one of the most casual friendly games around. WOW has some advantages over EQ from a casual player point of view.
1. No death penealty. Well, this is partially correct. There is no experience death penalty. You do lose some durabilty in items which costs money to fix. But, unlike EQ, you don't lose exp.
2. WOW has a tremendous travel system that enables tolks to travel to most zones from most other zones. No one needs to run from zone to zone or run to a central spot such as planes of power to get to other zones.
3. No required corpse recovery. All corpses and players end up at nearest cemetary. However, if they do recover their corpse or get rezzed, the durabilty hit is 50% of what it would be otherwise.
4. Quest givers have little feathers above them so you know that you are eligible for quests. You don't have to talk or type out conversations with NPCs. All we do is click on the NPC and click on the response.
5. Even large raids on boss mobs take half the time that it would take in EQ.
6. Crafting is much faster
7. Leveling, especially at pre level 60, is quite fast compared to EQ. This allows the newer players to catch up. In fact, there is even a rest bonus where you get fast leveling if you haven't played for a bit. EQ has special "hot" zones for faster leveling but these tend to get overcamped.
8. There is Little camping of important quest mobs in WOW. These mobs spawn fairly quickly.
9. Both good and evil faction don't mix well together. You can have a human good pally taking to an evil warlock. In fact, you can't even send a tell or OOC to another faction player. In EQ Troll SK hob nob with human pallies.
10.Doing quests is MUCH easier with WOW. Go to their fansite. www.thottbot.com If you go to the quest s and type in the name, they give you the exact location of each quest and what has to be done. EQ sites aren't as organized or thorough about this,which makes it much harder to do.
11.WOW maps have locatiions that you can get on the map so you always know where you are. In EQ you have to constantly type /loc.
12. There is MUCH less required interaction with players. Thus, you don't need other players to rise in levels as much as with EQ. True, you get bonuses for grouping,but this is more of a carrot approach. EQ is generally a grouping game especially at post level 60.
13.EQ graphics are a bit dated compared to WOW ,but I frankly don't care about this anyway.
14. WOW has a much better PVP system. In fact, once you hit the top levels, the game changes to PVP much more. This isn't true for EQ. Let me note that I HATE PVP,which is why I left WOW once hiting level 70,but it does attract a lot more players who might want to participate in it. Also, PVP on most servers is optional. If you do participate, the player gets special rewards. This isn't true with EQ. Also participation can be shut off any time.
Bottom line: EQ needs to be more casual player friendly.
Odenathus, the key to EQ's downfall was related to my posts noted above. It wasn't one thing. As some have noted, folks are aging. They also have changed needs. No longer is it as easy to put in hours each night and maintain a job and family. This is why many players want a casual friendly game. This thesis is supported by the huge success fo WOW,which is one of the most casual friendly games around. WOW has some advantages over EQ from a casual player point of view.
1. No death penealty. Well, this is partially correct. There is no experience death penalty. You do lose some durabilty in items which costs money to fix. But, unlike EQ, you don't lose exp. Private server has this: you only lose 10% each death but will not lose a level. 2. WOW has a tremendous travel system that enables tolks to travel to most zones from most other zones. No one needs to run from zone to zone or run to a central spot such as planes of power to get to other zones. Private server has porter classes and a much better PoK system. 3. No required corpse recovery. All corpses and players end up at nearest cemetary. However, if they do recover their corpse or get rezzed, the durabilty hit is 50% of what it would be otherwise. In private system, you do not drop your gear. You never lose durability, which I think is great - losing durability is stupid. 4. Quest givers have little feathers above them so you know that you are eligible for quests. You don't have to talk or type out conversations with NPCs. All we do is click on the NPC and click on the response. Many quests on the private server. Small tasks, elaborate but small quests for gear, and huge quests that start at level one but keep going and going and going to max level. 5. Even large raids on boss mobs take half the time that it would take in EQ. Raid guilds and public organized raids for those not in raid guilds. 6. Crafting is much faster Many crafters on the private server, but I do not know much more than this; you can still buy crafted bags, a lot of crafter jewelry, etc. You still got all the professions to craft, all the trades. 7. Leveling, especially at pre level 60, is quite fast compared to EQ. This allows the newer players to catch up. In fact, there is even a rest bonus where you get fast leveling if you haven't played for a bit. EQ has special "hot" zones for faster leveling but these tend to get overcamped. Leveling is faster, much faster on private server. You also get exp bonuses on the private server with each additional group member so it is really fast then. Grouping is encouraged. easy to find groups, most 2 box but not all the time. 8. There is Little camping of important quest mobs in WOW. These mobs spawn fairly quickly. Still item camping in the private server as with the Live server. 9. Both good and evil faction don't mix well together. You can have a human good pally taking to an evil warlock. In fact, you can't even send a tell or OOC to another faction player. In EQ Troll SK hob nob with human pallies. There are three factions on the private server. It adds bonuses, depending on the path. 10.Doing quests is MUCH easier with WOW. Go to their fansite. www.thottbot.com If you go to the quest s and type in the name, they give you the exact location of each quest and what has to be done. EQ sites aren't as organized or thorough about this,which makes it much harder to do. Much, much easier on the private server. It is still EQ classic, though. 11.WOW maps have locatiions that you can get on the map so you always know where you are. In EQ you have to constantly type /loc. Private server has a map, and when you get sense heading to 201 or so, you get an arrow on the map. 12. There is MUCH less required interaction with players. Thus, you don't need other players to rise in levels as much as with EQ. True, you get bonuses for grouping,but this is more of a carrot approach. EQ is generally a grouping game especially at post level 60. Bonuses for interaction and grouping on private server. EQ private server allows you basically duo all the way to max level, if you want to, easily. However, most group because it is fun, easier, and exp bonuses. 13.EQ graphics are a bit dated compared to WOW ,but I frankly don't care about this anyway. Sure, they are dated. But private server retains the classic graphics, and thank GAWD for that! 14. WOW has a much better PVP system. In fact, once you hit the top levels, the game changes to PVP much more. This isn't true for EQ. Let me note that I HATE PVP,which is why I left WOW once hiting level 70,but it does attract a lot more players who might want to participate in it. Also, PVP on most servers is optional. If you do participate, the player gets special rewards. This isn't true with EQ. Also participation can be shut off any time. Sure does. On the private server, there is a ton of PvP, though. You will run into PvPers frequently on the private server. Bottom line: EQ needs to be more casual player friendly. Yes. It needs more casual player friendly gameplay, and the private server does that!
Originally posted by taxguy Odenathus, the key to EQ's downfall was related to my posts noted above. It wasn't one thing. As some have noted, folks are aging. They also have changed needs. No longer is it as easy to put in hours each night and maintain a job and family. This is why many players want a casual friendly game.
This thesis is supported by the huge success fo WOW,which is one of the most casual friendly games around. WOW has some advantages over EQ from a casual player point of view.
Yes. I agree. The Casual player market is huge and WoW is cashing in on this. I've played WoW. It's a great game. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to any of my friends, specially anyone who has never played an MMO before.
However, it's not for me. I enjoy a game that has a bit more challenge to it. Something where I have to work a bit harder for my reward. I find the challenge of EQ1 to be ... more enjoyable, long term, than I do the challenge that is WoW.
Consider a Paper & Pencil game (AD&D, the first addition, the one with the hard back books), where you had two types of games. You had the one nighters and the campaigns. WoW is the one nighter. EQ is the campaign.
/shrug Newark DESK, Druzzil Ro
---------------------------------------- My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Originally posted by Anofalye But for a MMORPG, it is LIVE, evolving...once you are addicted, you should be for life unless something wrong happen in that game...
I'm sorry, but I very much doubt even 5% of a playerbase for any mmorpg is going to be a lifer (maybe quick games like solitare, that you can pick up and drop like nothing). No matter how good it is, the interface, graphics and general gameplay will get old... and you'll always have the newer games calling you. You just typically spend a lot of time playing an mmo, so burn out's are all but certian.
I beg to differ there. I still play a MuD, Gemstone 4, and have been for the last 15 years. Why? Well let me put it to you this way, sure theres new bands coming out with new music, but when its all said and done, Id rather have some Led Zepplin over Justin Timberlake. When you rock so hard that you achieve a near legendary status years after your prime, thats something to be proud of because youll always have fans (Beatles anyone?)
Yeah thats right EQ is pretty much to the MMO world what the Beatles were to rock and roll.
And you know if a small text based game compnay can stick around for almost 20 years with its little following, eq will DEFINATELY be able to do the same.
Comments
I have good news! EQ isn't broken! I just had a fine evening of grouping with a number of people. I didn't have to box (althought I would have if I wanted to), I didn't have to hack (don't know how anyway - I must not be part of the "70%"), I didn't see any hackers, I didn't have to turn on "LFG," I didn't play with anyone I know from "RL." Just a good night of EQing.
Proudly Reporting from Norrath
Harbro
You do not need to know how to hack to cheat in EQ 1. Cheating is immensely rampant. I do not know if it is because the game is so old so people were able to develop over time many and varied cheats, hacks, etc.
If I were not able to observe for myself, over a period of several months, the number of cheaters --let's call them cheaters, because they are using hacks, third party programs, etc.-- I would not have believed it. If you do not believe me, I totally do not blame you at all.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
Bingo!!! winner winner, chicken dinner!
Raiding games, which also happen to be item based games, will never touch my computer again. For a variety of reasons:
1) raiding takes too much consecutive time. People cant play games for very long that require several hour commitments per night. Even if you love the game, a time will come when you too will have to grow up and get a job or take care of a kid or something that forbids the type of straight through time commitment raiding requires. People can still play a lot as they age but it has to be spread out. Consecutive long hours at the computer become all but impossible.
2) the item cycle. Items being the focus of raids also makes them the focus of the game. Ill give you an example of why this alienates players: Player A plays WoW for 2 years and manages to get the very best equipment avaialable. Then real life progresses and he and his wife have a kid, or he graduates college or whatever. He has to take a few months off. In just that short amount of time away from theg ame a expansion comes out , or a patch and his equipment is completely outdated. All the time he commited to the game is forfiet. PLayers who have been playing for 2 months have better equipment and are more useful to a raid than he is, despite having played fore 2 years religiously. This happens routinely. I hear it all the time.
3)Fan sites spoilers. I admit ive used many fan sites in my day. But lets face it. How easyis it to find a strategy to kill a certain boss rather then figure it out for yourself. Maybe 1 % of bosskills were actual accomplishments. The rest were carbon copies that players who couldnt figure out found on websites.
4) Lastly, and most importantly, raids just are not fun. I could forward you to the NY times article about how 85ish% of players said raiding was not fun. I could argue that spending hours upon hours geting ready, or kiling meniel mobs in otw to the encounter just isnt fun. But do I have to?
I think it would be possible to add new content via updates or expansions to a MMORPG without gutting, unbalancing, and/or ditching the old game. EQ may be beyond any innovation like that, but I don't think you're going to have a lot of longevity in a game that never gets an expansion of any sort.
While I agree that it gets harder the farther out you get from release, I think that TSS was an opportunity for new players to come in and not be left to fend for themselves all alone in newbie/lowbie zones. I don't think that potential was as well promoted as it could have been in advertising that expansion. I know some people want to return to the old days and lament the consolidation of low level zones by funnelling everyone through the tutorial and Crescent Reach. It does bring the low level game into the present and get the few low level people into the same zones, wearing "current" newbie gear. There are reasons why high level people might come to CR (for tradeskilling or armor quests) so newbies/alts still get to rub elbows with people they might otherwise never see until they finish leveling. Overall, it is a good thing, and it would have been a good point to bring new people in, I think.
It does seem strange, considering the history of Norrath, that high elf paladins and troll shadowknights now mingle peacefully in the halls of Crescent Reach. And at a gut level, I'll always be from Neriak and the Freeport that only exists in memory now.
I was really surprised to find out that at lot of the people I played EQ with most recently had only come to the game in 2004 or 2005. That seemed really late in the game already to me. On a few occasions, I saw some /ooc questions in PoK that were clearly from people who had only played WoW prior to landing in EQ. I am sure populations are on the decline, but I was amazed then at how many people were new or relatively new.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I especially like the process where an encounter starts at omfg this is imposible, to ok we made a little progress to almost there to VICTORY to farm status to "do you remember when this was hard?"
I enjoy the comraderie the ribbing and chatter in /chat's I like the satisfaction of getting some new shinny I enjoy knowing that others feel the same when they get their new item they've been coveting.
Just because you don't find something fun doesn't mean others don't find something fun. I don't personally find watching football or other sports to be fun yet millions of other people do.
This sort of game is always going to be about character development which means it's going to be about getting gear since anyone can get the levels/AA/skills the gear is the only thing that ends up being unique to your character and I've never seen two characters with exactly the same gear (similar sometimes sure) but not exactly the same.
And you know what if were for raiding and the best gear really did come from grouping . It would be the same people with the best gear because it all comes down to time management raiders make more efficient use of their time than non-raiders they have figured out that when they pool their resources and work together they can accomplish things that the non-raiders simply can not.
As far as how many people enjoy raiding I direct you to http://www.lavanet.no/progress/index.php?expansion=TBS there are 13 guilds that regularly manage to feild at least 54 people per night thats 702+ right there just in the top 13 guilds. You drop down to http://www.lavanet.no/progress/index.php?expansion=Ashengate you have another 20 guilds at some point in progression in TSS that's 1080 more people so that's over 1700 people raiding EQ right now just at the high end and that doesn't include all the we raid 2-3 nights a week people or the family guilds who raid a bit.
So no you don't have too argue that you don't find raiding to be fun but I think you are picking a loosing fight in you want to assert that it just isn't fun there are too many people who disagree.
Just to put this post in context I should say that as I type this I've only read the first two post of this thread.
So what killed EQ?
I can only speak for myself but for me the thing that killed it was the focus on raiding. I mean the game had other flaws but honest to god I'd probably still be playing it today if they hadn't gotten so fixated on the raiding crap.
im so sad that you didn't play Ultima Online. you would've loved it. Atleast the old school one ^^
I can only speak from my experience.
I was one of the first players to play EQ. It was amazing. To this day, with all of the spells, zones, HUGE number of AA skills fabulous variety of emotes, and other options, it has more content than any MMO game today, in my opinion. Thus, why is EQ only 5% of the population of WOW?
Answers:
1. People HATE, for the most part, large death penalties. Wow did this right by simply having a durability reduction,which requires money to fix armor. WOW even has spirit rezzers (alhtough these rezzers do come at the cost of rez sickness for 10 minutes and increased durability loss). This is liveable. In EQ, y ou need either a corpse run and MUST find a priest for a rez or pay exhorbitant fees to the NPC rezzers. IF EQ made this one change, it would attract a lot more players.
2. People HATE time sinks. With EQ, you have a lot of runing between and in zones. You have corpse runs. You have meditating for mana regen. All of this wastes time. WOW has eliminated a lot of this in many ways. First, it is fairly easy to get mounts,which speed travel through zones immensely. Second, WOW has a number of griffins for travel throughout the world, Moreover, the zones aren't that huge, unlike that of Everquest, so that access to these griffins doesn't take that long.
Meditating does not take sitting around too in WOW. Players regen mana out of combat fairly quickly,. There are also lots of cheap potions and scrolls to buy to help this too.
3. WOW has easier leveling. I will admit, I stopped playing EQ in 2004; thus, my comment here may be a bit off. However, EQ had very slow leveling compared to WOW. This does such folks into the game. People are much more in need of a casual friendly game. This has caused WOW to pick up a number of adults with jobs and families. EQ's time commitments really isn't family or job friendly; at least, this was that way several years ago. With Hot zones, I don't know how much things have improved.
4. WOW doesn't have much overcamping. In EQ, I had to wait around a long time for specific mobs. This isn't a problem in WOW.
5. WOW does PVP better than almost anyone. It has rewards that are unmatched if you participate in battle grounds or take over cities. Many folks like this option. Personally, I can't stand PVP,but I do see the need for some people.
6. Quests are Eesy to do in WOW. Each quest is relatively simple. In addition there are fan sites, (www.thottbot.com) that give the exact location for each quests.Try finding this information in EQ or EQ2.
7. Although I am not a graphics nut, Wow has some of the best graphics around. EQ certainly doesn't match it nor does EQ2 ( although EQ2 is better)
8. EQ should have NEVER instituted EQ2 or at least should have given it a different name. They are vastly dissimilar games that draw from each others player base.
9. Players are tired of foced interdependence of classes. EQ REQUIRES several types of classes for groups to succeed. In fact, you can't get a rez with out a priest. EQ2 does this much better,but there is still a class dependence. Soloing is not as friendly as WOW.
I forgot to add something to my post noted just above this.
With the EQ player base aging and the lack of new players coming into the game, this provides a catch 22 for those new or midlevel players: they have a hard time geting a group. For a group oriented game, this could be a kiss of death. Having a vibrant server with lots of new people coming into the game is essential for success. This is particularly true for a group oriented game,which is why EQ should become more casual player/solo friendly.
Bottom line: EQ was the next and best step after Ultima Online. They adopted a lot of what UO did ( severe death penalty) but improved on the game play and content. Sadly, times have changed and so has the player base. If EQ wants to stay around and indeed thrive, it MUST become much more casual player friendly. This means:
1. reducing the experience death penalty
2. Allow for faster leveling at pre level 65
3. Allow for more solo and shorter quests
4. provide more stat items that solo players can achieve
5. Provide better way for mana regen instead of meditating
6. Provide many more ways to transport players through zones and for interzone travel other than just using mages for teleport
7., Eliminate quests that rely on one named mob unless there is fast respawn
8. reduce interdependence a bit on classes.
MMOs have continuos storylines? Really? Whatever happened to Firona Vie after Venril Sathir kidnappped her?Also, anyone who uses the word "evah", probably doesn't know dirt from gold, imo.
hmmm.... Well, there was the bit about the king of Felwithe finding out that Firiona Vie wasn't really his daughter, IIRC, and she was recently battling it out with Lanys T'Vyl in Nektulos in the backstory of Depths of Darkhollow.
I really hated the whole story arc from LDoN through OoW... it seemed to go way off on a weird tangent... But I think they are trying to get back to basics with recent turns in the story...
I really don't care, though. I am more interested in my character's personal journey than the official storyline, and I hate games that force me to participate in their preprogrammed nonsense.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I agree with the downfall starting when raiding became the main focus. EQ already requires a "massive" amount of your time to get anywhere and stay closer to the masses in level and equipment. So when you add the time required to stayed flagged and participate in raiding, you really need to not have a job and play literally whenever you are not sleeping. A lot of the raiding guilds have certain requirements that in order to be a member, you have to play that much to meet those requirements.
You almost have to make several characters on seperate accounts to avoid the 1.5 hours of waiting for a group. If you have a cleric, you can't just go where you want and kill what you want. In order to get better items and decent exp you have to sit and wait...and wait. Even though that is one class that can get a group easier, it still can take awhile. If you have 3 hours set aside to play, wait 1.5 hours for a group, spend a half hour getting there, then 10 minutes re-buffing the group (after they waited for you to arrive and their buffs had faded) you are left with a whopping 50 minutes to actually get something accomplished. AND, then for the last 15 to 20 minutes of that 50 left, you need to be looking through LFG for your replacement.
So, at least if you have three accounts - you can spend 30 to 40 minutes running them all to a zone, buff and get playing. That way you have close to 2.5 hours of hunting.
It would be nice if you could get some "rewards" and exp without the need to pay for so many accounts, but I have found on limited play time it seems to work well with the end result being less wasted time. So in my opinion, you have to pay more to play more.
Of course, due to that being the way I had more fun, I quit playing. Way too much money to spend when there are games you can enjoy with only one account, such as CoV and CoH. With those you can add several types of skills where you can fight, heal, transport and even do some crowd control, all on one toon. Then you can choose to play alone when you want and group when you want. But you are not desperate to always group - it's choice. Sony takes away that freedom.
I played Everquest for a very long time and feel that its the exact oposite of what you're saying. I don't think people quit because of experience loss or corpse runs at all. I think the opopsite that people actually quit because it got easier. Easier with travel especially. Everyone who played Everquest knows it lost most of its good population when PoP came out. I personally stopped having fun when PoP came out. I can't tell you how many funny crazy stories I have from EQ when I was just going on a corpse run, that was a big part of the game and even though it was a pain a lot of the time I loved it.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
People quit Everquest because of the forced-raiding. you had to join a guild to do stuff to get more gear to do more stuff and you had to do this 3 times plus a week. It got very boring and predictable.
It lost its mystery, its community, its soul to raid to become "uber."
Boycott EA Games. RIP Sim City.
Everquest is not dead, despite what people may believe. Granted, it is not going strong, as some of the posters have said. Everquest will maintain its 400k player base, or whatever it is, until Sony gets tired of keeping the game alive. As long as people continue to pay, this probably won't happen for sometime.
Everquest died for me long ago. In all honesty, it was when my old guild (Blood of the Phoenix - Torvonnilous Server) broke up. I began to slowly lose my interest in the game. Raids help me maintain my subscription, because it offered me some sort of diversion from work/school. It also kind of helped when I joined a guild that had a bunch of former guildies was in. My enjoyment began to increase, but not much.
Around this point I began to notice a trend. More levels and AA = bigger grind = more time spent in game. Raids began to take longer = more time spent in game. All in all, I wasted a better part of my early 20s playing EQ (off and on). I transferred servers, and sold my account (stupidly I might add), and left EQ for various other games. I eventually returned, under a 2nd account I had, and began playing another Wizard with some RL friends. The enjoyment returned, briefly. Then the nuisance of "the grin" set in. The nuisance of "long raids". I began to realize around this point, the true reason I continued to play EQ...my friends (either RL or in-game).
I have since then quit EQ, again x12 or something like that. I had my stint in WoW (level 70 Druid...until the nerf), and I am currently playing DDO (again...for how long? Probably until I do every quest). I am still looking for "that game", that will give me the enjoyment and awe EQ gave me when I 1st starting playing. I've tried virtually every major game in the US market (and some not so major). All of them have their pros and cons. World of Warcraft has its simplicity, Dark Ages of Camelot has its RvR PvP, Shadowbane (RIP) had is character creation, and so on. All games have something worthwhile for them, but it all comes down to which one is more unique than its predecesor. Unfortunately, everything is a clone of something. After EQ, everything was a EQ clone. After WoW, everything is a WoW clone. What will be the next big clone? Vanguard? Perhaps Lord of the Rings, or Warhammer.
The next big game has yet to come out. Bioware is working on something, and Warhammer is still in testing. Until something groundbreaking, and new, comes out...I'll probably continue to float between games...as usual.
Raq, former Wizard of Torvonnilous
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
lets start a rivetting new topic:
Reason for the fall of Atari Combat and Pong
/discuss
/snicker
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I do miss EQ, I miss not wanting to die....pulling goblins in HH basement...I miss iksar being hated by everyone....the little things..(although i dont miss corpse runs)....I played eq for along time and loved it..but i got bored and aggraveted with it in the end..I agree that the ease of transport through norrath after awhile was a negative..I also agree that the raiding (huge amount of time involved) was a negative...The same thing happened to me in eq2..got to 70 Sk and i needed to spend hours raiding to get the gear i wanted. now ....I understand that is part of the style of the current MMO's but I have a job and a children...I almost never had 3 hours to kill...
So i agree, I wish they could make some sort of reward for the casual player (I am a little more than casual but not as hardcore as others).
I too am waitng for the next big thing...The game that redefines online games. I am also coming to the conclusion that I am sick of fantasy genre..(although I am looking forward to AoC).
Roortagh
This is my opinion and I am only 1 person who plays EQ
Answering alot of taxguy's comments;
1) the extremely large death penalty in EQ is a "Penalty vs Reward" challenge. Attempting to train players that death is bad and counter entuitive - while good players are rewarded with higher exp (or actually not rewarded, just not penalized). This was an attempt to make a video game challenging and not a "Monty Hall" game or "Pac Man" game.
2) I have to agree, people hate time sinks and EQ is full of them. You have to credit Brad McQuad with that - but the idea was sound, from his point of view. The concept is pay to play on a monthly basis - thus time sinks keep you from advancing quickly, thus you must pay to play some more. Then it's just up to the devs to make the rewards great enough to keep you coming back - despite the time sinks.
(Note: I believe out of combat mana regeneration is now a max of 3 minutes, in EQ, and you can also buy potions).
3) Leveling...
4) With the introduction of instanced content, you don't actually see much camping or cockblocking in EQ. Not anymore.
5) PvP - I don't do it, have no idea how it compares
6) Whether a quest is easy or tough is going to be subjective, player specific - but to answer you challenge - AllakHzam's is still an excellent site for reseaching quests, spells, gear and mobs.
7) Graphics - I've had this out with the forum community <lol> I agree the "old world" zones have dated graphics. However the rest of the game and EQ2 have graphics equal to those of any other game. (Just my opinion).
8) Yeah, I agree and so does SoE - They have stated naming EQ2 was a mistake.
9) I disagree - sorta. I don't think players are tired of interdependence of classes, I believe they are just (myself included) socially limited and challenged by this requirement - which I think was a very valid game strat!
And yes, MMO's have a continuous story line. It may not make much since to you and me, but the dev's thinks so - this is true for just about any MMO.
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
EQ 1 is a good example of how not to make a game.
Boycott EA Games. RIP Sim City.
The reason why EQ fallen is because most $ony fanbois dissect after they found out how crap $ony made EQ2?.
That tell you easily that $ony CANT make PC game's!.
Odenathus, the key to EQ's downfall was related to my posts noted above. It wasn't one thing. As some have noted, folks are aging. They also have changed needs. No longer is it as easy to put in hours each night and maintain a job and family. This is why many players want a casual friendly game.
This thesis is supported by the huge success fo WOW,which is one of the most casual friendly games around. WOW has some advantages over EQ from a casual player point of view.
1. No death penealty. Well, this is partially correct. There is no experience death penalty. You do lose some durabilty in items which costs money to fix. But, unlike EQ, you don't lose exp.
2. WOW has a tremendous travel system that enables tolks to travel to most zones from most other zones. No one needs to run from zone to zone or run to a central spot such as planes of power to get to other zones.
3. No required corpse recovery. All corpses and players end up at nearest cemetary. However, if they do recover their corpse or get rezzed, the durabilty hit is 50% of what it would be otherwise.
4. Quest givers have little feathers above them so you know that you are eligible for quests. You don't have to talk or type out conversations with NPCs. All we do is click on the NPC and click on the response.
5. Even large raids on boss mobs take half the time that it would take in EQ.
6. Crafting is much faster
7. Leveling, especially at pre level 60, is quite fast compared to EQ. This allows the newer players to catch up. In fact, there is even a rest bonus where you get fast leveling if you haven't played for a bit. EQ has special "hot" zones for faster leveling but these tend to get overcamped.
8. There is Little camping of important quest mobs in WOW. These mobs spawn fairly quickly.
9. Both good and evil faction don't mix well together. You can have a human good pally taking to an evil warlock. In fact, you can't even send a tell or OOC to another faction player. In EQ Troll SK hob nob with human pallies.
10.Doing quests is MUCH easier with WOW. Go to their fansite. www.thottbot.com If you go to the quest s and type in the name, they give you the exact location of each quest and what has to be done. EQ sites aren't as organized or thorough about this,which makes it much harder to do.
11.WOW maps have locatiions that you can get on the map so you always know where you are. In EQ you have to constantly type /loc.
12. There is MUCH less required interaction with players. Thus, you don't need other players to rise in levels as much as with EQ. True, you get bonuses for grouping,but this is more of a carrot approach. EQ is generally a grouping game especially at post level 60.
13.EQ graphics are a bit dated compared to WOW ,but I frankly don't care about this anyway.
14. WOW has a much better PVP system. In fact, once you hit the top levels, the game changes to PVP much more. This isn't true for EQ. Let me note that I HATE PVP,which is why I left WOW once hiting level 70,but it does attract a lot more players who might want to participate in it. Also, PVP on most servers is optional. If you do participate, the player gets special rewards. This isn't true with EQ. Also participation can be shut off any time.
Bottom line: EQ needs to be more casual player friendly.
Boycott EA Games. RIP Sim City.
Charsles, what is the private server that you are talking about?
However, it's not for me. I enjoy a game that has a bit more challenge to it. Something where I have to work a bit harder for my reward. I find the challenge of EQ1 to be ... more enjoyable, long term, than I do the challenge that is WoW.
Consider a Paper & Pencil game (AD&D, the first addition, the one with the hard back books), where you had two types of games. You had the one nighters and the campaigns. WoW is the one nighter. EQ is the campaign.
/shrug
Newark
DESK, Druzzil Ro
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
I'm sorry, but I very much doubt even 5% of a playerbase for any mmorpg is going to be a lifer (maybe quick games like solitare, that you can pick up and drop like nothing). No matter how good it is, the interface, graphics and general gameplay will get old... and you'll always have the newer games calling you. You just typically spend a lot of time playing an mmo, so burn out's are all but certian.
I beg to differ there. I still play a MuD, Gemstone 4, and have been for the last 15 years. Why? Well let me put it to you this way, sure theres new bands coming out with new music, but when its all said and done, Id rather have some Led Zepplin over Justin Timberlake. When you rock so hard that you achieve a near legendary status years after your prime, thats something to be proud of because youll always have fans (Beatles anyone?)
Yeah thats right EQ is pretty much to the MMO world what the Beatles were to rock and roll.
And you know if a small text based game compnay can stick around for almost 20 years with its little following, eq will DEFINATELY be able to do the same.