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What made Everquest so good?
Here we go a few random brainstorm ideas:
1) Obviously a world, with night and day and weather patterns.
2) Distinctive classes and races, with each starting area being different.
3) An appealing art style- the old models were so very good.
4) Dungeons, so confusing and windy but great.
5) Items- people always longed for x and y items- everyone knew what a fbss was or a soy, and you knew where they dropped. And that discovery of getting armours with nifty clicky effects.
6) Danger- the trains, the giants, the griffins, the evily placed high levellers in low-level zones.
7) The Dragons.
8) Factions- you could be best friends with a city, or deadly enemies.
9) Grouping- now everyone knows whats what- but there was a time when everyone was still learning.
10) Discovering stuff. The quests weren't always straightforward and could be particuarly cryptic but you could sometimes find a solution to some obscure quest or whatever. (with a crappy reward though)
11) Roleplaying, Everquest could be THE perfect game for roleplayers. (this sort of went downhill with the perhaps watering down of its core fantasy environment)
12) Desirable advancements. You knew when the spell levels were(every 4/5 levels) and you looked forward to those sometimes quite distinctive spells.
13) Depth- you get encumbered carrying too much weight? oh okay. You need enduring breath to stay underwater? You need resists for this fight? Charisma is needed to keep mesmerizations lasting longer?
14) Other people- What would Everquest be without other people? to nab a mana regen buff or a sow of someone, to barter with someone, to setup mini, normal or large groups to take on certain areas, and negotiating with the strengths/weaknesses of the group.
Comments
I agree with almost every point there.
SOE weren't very good at making games imo - they weren't masters of user interface, balance, or even gameplay, but they did manage to conceive a believable fantasy world to lose yourself in. Initially EQ was a very social game, where your relationships with people and your social status were just as important as how uber you were.
People became famous and almost celebrity-like by being knowledgeable about the game, and writing interesting posts on their class message boards. Guilds were the ultimate social ladder, it was just a chat channel, but in some guilds (particularly the ones I was in) some people strived so hard to become officers, some of the biggest dramas I have ever seen in a game was when someone was insanely jealous that another person got promoted to officer.
People went crazy over things like who got their epic first, dozens of pages were written on guild forums about a new trial member. Those recruitment threads were crazy. It was like a nuclear war with words.
As EQ became more goal orientated - I think social interaction became secondary to the experience. Oh sure, you still needed a guild to get anywhere, but people still cared a great deal about their reputations.
And it's this social aspect of the game that really isn't as prevalent in EQ anymore. Perhaps it's because social players are more casual players and have moved on to other games. Obviously WoW isn't anything like the communites we saw in EQ but it does have an energy about it; a buzzing excitement among players like it was back in early EQ.
EQ had the most entertaining guild dramas. That's what I'll remember most about that game. People seething, conspiring, betraying and crying over the personal issues that had nothing to do with the game really, just the people playing it.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
15) TRAVEL - navigating a dangerous world could be more exciting than any combat...especially at the lower levels. I remember making the run from Freeport to Qeynos as a lvl 16 wizard in order to purchase my copy of invisibility (because I was told that was the only place to buy it...ah to be a noob again). It was my first experience running through Kith forrest at night (undead baddies all over), through Highhold (and the guardian orcs) and the Karanas. Died twice in the Karanas, once to ghouls and once to a griffon, then a kindly shaman bestowed me with spirit of the wolf (first time I'd ever had it cast on me) and I finally made it to Qeynos. I was completely lost in the game...immersed...for FOUR HOURS and many years and games later I still remember that run. Luclin and Planes of Power pretty much ruined that aspect of the game. BOAT !!
I could come up with a few things like, it was the first, combat was simple to learn, complex to master (pulling, enchanters, timing of heals vs. aggro).
In the end though, it comes down to one thing and one thing only.
The Death Penalty.
That is it. That is what made the game great. Death HURT A LOT!
It made things extremely tense. It made you find a good team to do anything. Exploring was terrifying. In order to not die, you had to learn good tactics.
The death penalty made you think, and made you care about what you were doing.
Every game since, has had so little penalty for death that nothing seems interesting/tense/exciting. You might as well just read a website about the best place to hunt and then go do it and grind away. You die... who cares.
Playing this game for the first time in 3 years on a trial basis reaffirmed the death aspect. I didn't want to die, and the game really tried to kill me. I trained things around to stay alive. It was a relief when sneaking allowed me to explore areas without fighting everything. Each new spell (I was a bard, so every level) was a massive boost to my abilities, and wasn't overpowered. Grouping didn't just make things faster, it made them 10x faster because you weren't constantly worried about death.
Death brought this game to life and people listened to one another about how to play.
All of these replies are good, and it all boils down to:
FREEDOM
and
CONSEQUENCES
In modern MMO's, you don't have the "Freedom" because you are led by a trail of mindless quests that reward you more experience than if you do not follow them. Worse, in some MMO's there is the infamous "invisible wall" or "door that will not open" until you do the quest. Mostly, the latter stuff is in the early tutorial parts of games.
The "consequences" are a stinging death penalty. Without this, no dungeon or haunted forest is feared and no zone commands player respect.
It was a new breed of game that existed in a time when the internet was still young. The people in charge of the making the game were passionate about making a FUN game and not a monster money machine. Even though they made many many core flaws in the game design it was a time when players could accept this kind of thing as the norm.
Lightning in a bottle is the best way I can describe it.
You need to realize there is time elements involved in gaming.We went through the cheap console gaming,MUDS,DOS / PC gaming.We went from pixels to advanced colouring,advanced modeling,advanced engines that offer tons of capabilities.We went from 2d to 3d gaming,that was a huge step.
Everquest brought us the next advancement,and WOW was the nice recipient of millions of MMO gamers hitting mainstream,thanks to the success of EQ.Now it seems to be about things like HABBA hotel/chatting/you tube/facebook,google and there adsense websites.
EQ was the first to give us a rich environment,with user friendly controls a good interface[improved by the community] and of course a huge game with tons of content.The added bonus was that it had decent graphics for it's time,so you got the whole package.
IMO FFXI brought us the next step,advanced combat,multiple classes with a sub class system.They used an intricate RENKAI system that sometimes needs 3 players to pull off certain moves.They did not alienate a skill base system from a level/class system,they rolled it all into one.
What we are getting now is a stream of developers that have run out of ideas,so they strive to attract the many PVP gamers out there.They try to get the most subs they can by marketing there games as PVP and PVE,IMO it is a concept that will always fail.
So we are left waiting to see what SMART developer will come up with a brilliant new concept or idea.Personally i think we would all drool if a developer could with todays technology ,bring us realism in the form of virtual reality.This would be where players sit at home wearing there virtual helmet/gloves/boots/sword and are surrounded by 3 screens to give the effect of REAL 3d.The problem is that we know this is not happening for quite some time.We have seen the beginning in the Wii gaming console,but as witnessed the games are quite weak.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
While on some level I agree with many things said so far.
I also think it has to do with how many MMO's had the average person played when they played EQ1?
What really was like it when people played it?
My first was Ultima Online.. I didn't like EQ as much.
In perspective to many games on the market now tho I would find EQ superiour.
UO despite its fault was about freedom and choice. EQ had less freedom and choice.. but compared to many modern MMO's it had more.
In fact in almost every aspect it had more.
Then again none of us had perceptions based on years of gameplay as to what we wanted. None of us had heard "but this is for the long term good of the game" hundreds of times. Then watched devs be confused as to why people were leaving.
***
The funny thing is the game on its own probably wasn't that great.
That actually pretty much sums up my views on the current state of the market. My rose colored glasses aren't really that rosey... To me its pretty much fact that games used to be a LOT better than they are now.
I guess those last two comments after the "***" give you an insight into the direction I think most devs have gone.
I've done a bit of research into the sandbox game, and found it to be a holistic ideal, not an actual one. The real sandbox games, such as second life and the sims, aren't really RPGs. The story is 100% up to the player to create. The game simply provides a place to put your furniture, house, family, stuff, whatever.
I see Ultima Online in a similar way. Though it has some story, its mostly about the players.
Now everquest you could play without anyone there. Well over half the content is impossible without them, but the story is there, waiting to be discovered. This and the class system are the limitations the game imposes. But you can attack who you want and befriend who you want. Your role in the story is mutable.
Beyond the challange aspect, which would make lesser games truly enjoyable, this mostly free framework is a goodone. I would not qualify it as a sandbox, but its awfully nice to slay a god one day, and defend it the next.
God i hate these threads, they remind me of what i no longer have.
But since im here.
Meaningful faction
Strong Diety system- though i think it could have done more with it
Atmosphere-Zones were all different, many had unique feels. Nothing was like Everfrost, Burning Woods, Neriak. Some were light, some were dark but they all had something that you remembered about them.
Great Races and Classes
Quests that you actually had to seek out, or didnt.
Too many to name, but i will end with a common one, Death Penalty. It made you not stupid.
This is such an odd thread to find when I was just talking about this topic earlier with a long time friend who used to play EQ with me.
I think the main 2 reasons EQ was such a great game was
1) We actually needed each other.
2) The death penalty
I can remember back in the day, as a young Dark Elf Necromancer, fumbling through the Nektulos forest, the creepy sounds, collecting bone chips so I could summon my pets - how awesome it felt to actually work for what I got.
Nothing was free. Everyone valued the "yard trash" because it meant the world to us lowbies. Standing there on the "log" hoping some awesomely geared out 50 might be feeling generous enough to toss us his scraps on the way to the bank.
I have such fond memories of learning how to create a macro for "drag corpse" - then watching my naked ass avatar run through the woods - corpse attached to my feet.
Not to mention looting myself, rememorizing my spells and praying to Innoruuk i could still use them (Because in those days kids, you not only lost expierience but you could also lose levels).
Not to mention reading area chat that read like this:
I don't care what EQ has become today. EC tunnel was the shit! Getting drunk, tranding goods, begging for SOW, looking for Orc camp groups (both camp 1 & 2), Hiring crafters to make some killer new trinket. Ahhh - those were the days.
I don't know about anyone else, but Shadows of Lucin ruined it for me. It just didn't feel like home any more. I tried to play it. I really did. Gave it many many opportunities. It simply wasn't what I had "grown up" doing in EQ. The nostalgia of the old world could never measure up.
There was nothing more exciting than running along the mountain wall in Frountier Mountains trying to get my little happy ass over to Lake of Ill Omen for a "windmill group". All the Bloodgill Goblins constantly hounding you making you run around like a little schoolgirl. Or fighting in the Lavastorm Mountains.
Logging onto Allakhazam and EQ Atlas - just to be sure I had all my ducks in a row.
So far, this game as been both the yardstick and the ruler for me. While DAoC held my attention for little over 2 years, I also picked up, AO, Neocron, Shadowbane, Planetside, CoH/CoV, WoW - nothing makes me smile like Everquest does. Was it a pain in my ass - absolutely. Was it hard - absolutely! Was it tedious - without a doubt. Was it all worth it - you bet your happy ass it was!
Good post, that pretty much sums it up for me too. In no other game, with the exception of Ultima Online can I look back fondly and tell so many stories about it. I remember a time when a couple friends and I were in Nek forest killing that golem creature near the entrance to Lavastorm.
It was going good for a long while but then something went wrong and my one friend died. So we ran for it. My other friend dropped and I was the last one standing. I made it all the way to a river. Which by then I had attracted the attention of some nastier skeletons also.
Needless to say of all places I died over the river
. When I came back to get my body it had naturally sank to the lowest part of the river. To add more insult to injury, this is when I soon discovered that there was a rather large pirahna swimming there also. So here I am running out over air, having a big pirahna chew on my ass all the way out of the river. Barely made it out. But looking back it was hilarious.
hah.. yea eq brings back a lot of great memories. i think what really made eq for me were the dungeons and need to group with people. countless nights spent in lguk and sol b ... oh man, getting a bad pull with my monk and trying to FD (feign death) to lose aggro but if you had a caster mob you had to keep trying to time your FD in between the end of his current spell and beginning of his next lol. after all these years i think i remember the layout of sol and guk dungeons pretty well.. scary. and dont forget the drag corpse macro used to FIND and PULL your corpse out of the lava of sol b. hah, you couldnt see where it was you just had to smash your macro repeatedly and run along the lava bank and cross your fingers lol.
and of course, one of my fondest memories still has to be karnor's castle, yep good ole KC. KC was so notorious for trains to zone that SOE eventually put in one of the loading screens of the game the following message: "Karnor's Castle, over 2 billion trains served." haha.. how many hand groups did you get but never actually made it to the room? Lol ..
good times.. good times. i wish there was a good mmo nowadays.
--------------------------
Just say NO to questing and crafting !
Questing: be all the errand bitch you can be!
Crafting: your night job that you pay to do.
Questing and crafting, keeping people paying to play massively mulitplayer games solo since Nov 2004.
Whats sad is almost everything in your list that made it so good is gone now......If a new player were to go to EQ today they wouldnt understand why we enjoyed it........ When I started in 2000 there were no tutorials or maps or hot zones or any of the crap that is there now........You were just thrown into a world with no clue what to do, and we loved it......... When I went back for LL last sumemr it almost made me sick to see where the game is now.......Players were just openly bragging how great they were with their35k HP and mana and how uber they were......Clerics were bragging how they could solo almost anywhere with ease......Rangers were bragging about how they could tank raid mobs.....This game just went where it wasnt supposed to go....... Its no shock at all that they are bringing RMT into the game because it isnt the game most of us knew anyway......A real shame.
Running through Kithicor Forest at level 10 right after it turned to night for the first time
it being one of the very few out at the time kthxbye
Mountain Giants that showed their butt cracks.
That is was made EQ great.
Part of what made it great was that every potential "issue" with MMOs hadn't been accounted for. This left the door open for creative ways of dealing with encounters, where now we have games like WoW in which there's 1 way to tackle every script and that script plays out the same every time. You fight the way they want the encounter to play out, no creative cooperation or brain storming.
Kiting, as one example, was completely unintended, but became a huge part of gameplay. These days developers have that kind of thing roped off or controlled completely. In my opinion, there were a lot of "happy accidents" in EQ. Anyone that was around at the start got to bear witness to players inventing new and unexpected ways to handle encounters.
Consequences also played a role. Not just the dangers of taking risks, but your actual reputation mattered. I remember being bound in Freeport after having died with a friend in West Karana very early on. Getting back to where ever my corpse actually was was going to be an adventure. And then I got a tell from a high level player (like, lvl 18 or something crazy) that offered to help as she'd stumbled across my corpse. Consenting at that time gave them full permission to loot your corpse, so you had to trust people and they had to deal with the consequences should they choose to rob you.
She didn't, I gave her permission and we spent at least an hour or more getting my friend and I back to our corpses. She didn't get lame quest xp or a 3rd weapon upgrade that day from it, but we did become good friends. A good time, a good friend and a bit of an adventure. I can't imagine that happening these days with the roped off cheesebag "content" safely spoonfed to us. All of these elements of community really brought the game to life and added a broader spectrum of value to my character, beyond just the gear he wore or skill with which he was played.
The future was wide open, the game could have gone anywhere. It was an exciting time when information was valuable because it surfaced slowly and often through word of mouth until the few websites caught up. Hearing about some weapon so & so got from some place I'd never really been added an element of legend. Sure these days you can ignore the websites overflowing with every detail that completely exposes any gaming world and strips it of its mystery, but as I said, information still gets around.
When looking to the future back in 99, and considering where these games could go, I always imagined these worlds would open up more and allow even more creative participation. Instead we see dumbed down versions of what EQ was, with far more linear paths of progression and involvement. The new crop of MMOs play like MMO emulators rather than MMOs in my experience. Safe, easy and minimal interaction with others. Don't worry, you can't fall off the tracks.
I earned my Bladed Thulian Claws, the hard way. As well as the matching rapier from the Kithicor undead event. It wasn't handed to me after I clicked 9 baskets. I guess that's why in just about every game since, my characters feel completely disposable. I actually put some effort into getting an upgrade in EQ.
Unlike WoW which I unfortunately play with my wife and some friends atm till a new progression server comes. The expansion came out less than a month ago and we've cleared everything 1 groupable (within the first week), everything 10 man and all but 1 encounter in 25 man raids. My character is very well geared, dripping in epics and constantly invited to groups/raids. And it's all disposable to me. It's utter garbage because I didn't even have to blink to get this gear that others drool over. Log in, have a brain cell and follow the giant arrow to your rewards.
Back on topic, there was also a dynamic element to the world and dungeon crawls. In (sorry) WoW, those 9 dungeons in the new expansion play out the same EVERY time we got through them. There are NO surprises. They're completely static experiences. Compared to say, Guk or Chardok, where the involvement of other groups, respawns, roamers and rare spawns all altered the experience every time, and as those elements were out of your personal control, you had to be ready for anything. There often were surprises.
In short, newer games looked at EQ and remade it, simpler, cleaner, safer, easier and proceeded to correct all those imperfections that were actually part of what made EQ great and gave it character.
Oh my gosh High Keep used to be so popular and high level people would stop in, I could never leave the basement because I was an iksar >_</. And it took me until level 30 to understand that shaman were supposed to be healer/slowers. Everyone was so nice to each other, (well not always) because there was so much interdependence. Its fascinating how they can't manage to give us what we want when we are screaming it. If Everquest were to re-release I think it would blow EQ as it is now out of the water. Its just sad playing now. When you run into a level 40 magician with 15000 health and mana. Thats when I decided that I couldn't play anymore. When I think about velk's labyrthinth in Velious and then I see a character powerleveled from 1-75 in a week. It stinks. Hell I remeber when I got my first piece of gear with statistics on it and I was like level 20. Granted it was like 1 dex and 2 strength, but you worked with what you had. I know this post is incohesive but I'm sure everyone in this thread has their own slideshow going on in their heads.
I dont play wow, but they have pvp and pve on a good many servers. I think wow is far from fail in terms of subs and $$$. Again, I dont play wow, but to say pvp/pve is fail is in a word WRONG.
How about the fact that back then there were very few, if any, other 3d MMO's out there to give it competition? Yeah EQ was an good game back in the day, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. But if DAoC had gotten a little more publicity and I had gotten ahold of it, there would've been no comparison (I played DAoC only after EQ2 came out, so obviously by then there were a lot more games and better)
EQ's popularity stems from the fact that it was one of the few 3d MMO's out there, hence, they didn't have much competition. I'd make you a bet that if UO had been made into a 3d MMO, it would've wiped the floor with EQ.
It's fun to look back at past MMO's with rose colored glasses and think about "the good ole days" and I will admit there were some (very few in fact) good things that I liked about EQ (mainly, the quest givers that you had to FIND as opposed to them having a "!" on top making your search easy) but for the most part, EQ was buggy, slow, and grindy as hell! Most the time, you were grouped in ONE particular zone, killing the same type of Mobs over and over and over and over again, until you got high enough to move to the next one.
Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but sometimes a.) I want to be able to Solo in case I can't find a group, and b.) I want to be able to explore many MANY areas of a world, and not have to be stuck on a small zone camping mobs. I used to remember one of the things I'd tell friend in EQ was "I hope to get to high level in order to explore the rest of the world" where as, in other games I'm actually able to explore more of the world as I go through questing etc.
Guys, EQ was an ok game (emphasis on 'OK', there were much better games back then), we get it, but we really have to move forward from such clunky old mechanics that made gaming more of a pain for the player, than fun. Can we take something from it? sure, as I said, the only thing I'd like to see taken from EQ is the "no quest markers for quest NPC's, you just FIND them instead" to make it more immersive. Heck, they can take the "learn languages from all races in game" as well, since that was one of my hobbies in game as well. But the rest? I can live without and I believe most can as well. Especially dieing since dieing was almost ridiculously harsh, especially if you're new.
SOE may have been the big fish in a small pond. But once the pond became larger and more bigger fish started swimming in, we're finally shown how "good" a company they really are.
That's it, this quote explain why EQ (with UO, AC, DAOC and SWG) was so good comparted to the recent shit.
Even EQ2 to a certain extent was a bit like EQ, at least at the beginning.
The new MMOs are just games online, while EQ was a living world were people was the main reason to log.
I liked to build my reputation within the community as much as building my gear set, if not more.
In modern MMO this is totally absent and that's the reason why people who played EQ cannot find a MMORPG to play for more than few months.
That's it, this quote explain why EQ (with UO, AC, DAOC and SWG) was so good comparted to the recent shit.
Even EQ2 to a certain extent was a bit like EQ, at least at the beginning.
The new MMOs are just games online, while EQ was a living world were people was the main reason to log.
I liked to build my reputation within the community as much as building my gear set, if not more.
In modern MMO this is totally absent and that's the reason why people who played EQ cannot find a MMORPG to play for more than few months.
I couldnt agree more.
Eq was the best in many ways, friends in that game were great..
example. like most i had a few great friends in this game but this one time after long hours of work and even longer hours of gaming ,while a few of us waited for others in a not so safe place i .. lol fell asleep at the keyboard. well i awake 3 hours later to see 1 of the people had stayed there to keep me from being killed.. that was just one of many things eq had real friends even tho we never met in RL...