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What was different about EQ1?
I came in with the WoW crowd, so I never got to play EQ1.
I here a lot of people wishing that they could have it back, but what was so special about it?
How was if different from WoW or EQ2?
I'm just kind of interested in what it was like in the game.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Comments
Well quite a bit actually...
The main thing was leveling and deathpenalty were both much harsher than WoW's. It took a few months for the first 50 on my server, and you could lose a level if you died shortly after gaining it.
EQ was also the king of content. Think the way wow works at end game with 5 - 10 end game instances... but all through your leveling with tons of new dungeons added every 6 - 12 months. I mean...we are talking 50+ dungeons...
Dungeons werent instanced, they were actual dungeon crawls. I.E. in Cazic back when it was a level 30 dungeon, there might be 20 different groups in there, and due to the size, and the way the mechanics worked, you would hardly ever know the others were there.
Basically EQ had downtime. There was no water, no kill mob sit wait 30 seconds and kill another. Also... soloing was...rather difficult to many classes, so grouping was almost a necesity. For better or worse this drove people together. In a good group there were mana spells that could regen mana faster than solo, and with more people fighting, you didnt have to chain nuke.
The dungeon crawls would go a whole lot like this. Enter dungeon. Move down a bit and clear the entrance. Once entrance cleared move to your "Camp" spot. Usually a room or hallway. If you can get to the spot and hold it, eventually you might move deeper. Over several hours and a few levels depending on the group you might get close to the bottom.
Some dungeons had a 10 level range... so you could litterally live in one for 10+ levels, and never see it all.
Then of course there were AA abilities. Alternate Advancement. Basically think of it as 2 exp bars. Once you hit a certain level you could set a percentage split, or do all of one. (so like 10% to AA 90% to Exp).
Once an AA leveled, you were able to pick a skill more or less. This might mean 3% faster mana regen, 5% faster run speed... something like that for the first teir. Once you passed that, they got stronger and stronger. Ending up with super abilities that could be used once an hour to torch a boss, or strengthen your raid. There were people with thousands of AA's... it was like a never ending character advancement.
Anyways... those are some of the things that made EQ different. Some were great ideas that I wish we would see again, and some Im glad have gone the way of the dodo.
I will explain one thing at a time.
Corpse Run
When you died, you appeared naked at your "home", that is wherever you binded yourself, pretty much like binding the stone in WOW (but you coudlnt TP). That meant that you had to have a spare gear in your bank, because you had to go back where you died and get near your corpse and retrieve all your items. This was perverse, because you had to go where you died, and face the enemies that killed you, and with worse equipment.
What this meant is that you were always very carefull where you went, specially in dungeons. If you died in a dungeon... good luck finding a group to help you get your corpse back. Imaigine in WOW gathering a group to go in a dungeon to help you get your corpse, even in a guild, that was hard.
Also, elite guilds that explored new dungeons, if they had a wipe out, the task of going back to get the bodies could take days until other guilds where strong enough to fight the enemies.
Also, you had no mini map, and no arrows to guide you to where your body was. You had to remember. And there was no map. Sadly, we could use a command to know the coords, you just typed it when you were about to die and this was immersion breaking but hard not to do it.
Another help was from Necromancers that could detect where the body was.
You could spend, easily, hours retrieving your body in a bad place, dying several times, and losing experience at every death. It was very frustating, but very rewarding when you got your items back finally. I will never forget the sight of my ogre body in the middle of the swamps, after hours of searching.
Also Wow brought this whole posting up videos of how you beat a boss or owning in PVP. Back in the EQ days all the guilds kept how they did things a secret to eachother because the dungeons wern't instanced so you were in competition more. It would have been seen as cheating to read guides of how to do things or sharing information like poeple do in WoW.
Funny how things change.
I never liked EQ personally though because I tried it when released and thought the combat was crap. I wasn't used to that type of combat in games as I played FPS and stuff like that. I still hate it today though and if theres one thing WoW does better than anyother mmorpg is the feel of the combat.
I think it had to do with the game yes but i also think that for some of us it's about not being able to go back home again.
For many of us EQ was our first online game, it was new, it was exciting and it took us away from our pen-and-paper cardboard cutout dungeons and into this virtual world of swords and sorcery with other like-minded individuals.
At the time, that was something.
I have no doubt that 18-20 years from now people will be talking about how grand WoW was and how these new <insert future MMO here> games are nothing compaired to WoW, or how their ruining the industry and so on.
sometimes you just can't go back home.
a long time ago in an MMO far far away.......
EQ when it started anyway before sony expansioned it to oblivion, was the first 3d iteration of what D&D players had done for years with pen paper and imagination. The current crop of games caters to the instant gratification A.D.H.D crowd who want everything fast and easy. EQ was not like that at all. To solo in EQ was to take the hard road. EQ was based around the interdependence of classes and groups. It actually spawned a "COMMUNITY" , a concept this generation of MMO players is unfamiliar with.
Travel was long and dangerous and best done with friends. Death had a sting to it that forced players to think before they acted and consider the consequences which could be dire. EQ understood its role and function as an online community as opposed to a single player RPG where you ocasionally see other people. It had its own player based economy, before the bazaar anyway, That required players to actually interact with each other in order to buy and sell their loot or wares thus adding another dimension of authenticity to the "living world" atmosphere they were trying to create.
I realize that those days are gone now and the bulk of the people who make up this particular subculture now have acclimated themselves to the generic and sterile environments of games like WOW so we are not likely ever again to see the kind of game experience that EQ classic once offered and I think our lives are somewhat diminished as a result of it.
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
regarding EQ corpse runs
-- often you didnt have to fight back
EQ was a grouping game where you may have stayed in the same group for hours on end
(not just for a short quest)
there were classes like Rogues and Monks who could drag corpses back to the dungeon entrance
also had bards/necro who could track corpses if you died in an outdoor zone
your corpse could be "player-dragged" to you
EQ was also a game where your character reputation mattered much more
many people only had 1 character
EQ2 fan sites
Part of the charm of EQ cannot be resurrected. It's the same as UO. some of the features were harsh, and they made players rely on one another, which created a real community. That's what people miss, but nobody will play games like this now that there are alternatives like WoW.
Imagine you are running around in the forest and need to log off for real life reasons. You come back in a day or two, and head off towards town. But your compass doesn't work, and you are turned around.
You come around a tree and bang, you are aggroed by some badass monster that kills you with one shot. You spawn somewhere far away naked. The stuff on your corpse has taken months of hard grinding with other players to earn. Without that stuff, you're toast. You won't be able to do hardly anything, and it would take months of grinding to get it back. You don't know where your body is, and even if you find it, you have zero chance of standing up to the Mob taht killed you, and it's probably still lurking around.
Without help, you're screwed. No running around solo, chatting on channels, but never needing anyone to actually play the game with you like WoW. HUGE difference.
Someone takes time out of their gameplay to find your body, and help you get it back, you appreciate it, and you remember it. I grouped with you for 5 minutes in WoW so we could get finish some quest, who cares? I just say kthxbye, and run off to play solo some more.
I piss you off in WoW who cares? I don't need you, I can solo. Do that in EQ, and you are screwed. Imagine the situation above, and everyone thinks you are a jerk, and no one will help you because of that. You ask for help on the main channel, and several people say don't bother this guy is jerk. Good luck after that.
Talking to some jaded EQ vets you'd think they only thing that made EQ great were corpse runs and massive XP loss on death. I fail to see how that made the game great. In fact, I saw it as a huge hinderance to gameplay and exploration. That's what led so many people into doing the boring, yet safe, Kunark run to 60.
IMO, the greatest part of EQ was the interdependence of the classes. Unfortunately, that was also one of its greatest failures. Allow me to explain.
Interdependence led to the "Holy Trinity" Cleric, enchanter, warrior. Groups suffered if they didn't have all of these classes, and other classes were shunned. A huge negative was the cleric. If you didn't have a cleric at endgame you weren't playing. A game that forces the least played, and most boring class, to be in every single group led many people to sit around lfg for hours.
On the flip, it was great to have to seek out other classes to fulfill a need. This led to many different tactics. Kiting, root crowd control(ghetto mez), etc. To cut down on travel times people would seek out certain classes, and pay them for ports. This type of interdependence led to a sense of community, interaction, and friendships. In the games we see today people are not bonding like they did in the pre-WoW day of EQ.
I understand that games have to enable solo content. I'm all for it. There is not enough rewards for grouping in today's current games. They all focus on leveling up as fast as you can to start raiding. Why even have levels if that's the goal? Just give everyone a max leveled toon, so they can play the real game. Oh, well.
I hate these solo grindfest games. I can't solo for 3 or 4 months just so I can start playing the real game.
because part of any game is the penalty that comes with failing. If i died in mario for Original NES i didn't start in the same spot i had to start the WHOLE level over no matter if i died at the beginning or a few steps before the flag.
its what we call challenge ... without the challenge the game isn't fun.
then again I think I am a different type of gamer ...when you ask most people whats the best game they played they will give you answers like "final fantasy 7 ... it had such a great story". for Me i would give you a list of games that were challenging to me that pushed me to my limits on hand eye coordination and other "skills".
to me most MMOs are like playing console games with cheat codes ... like bragging you beat grand theft auto with some invincibility code. to me you didn't beat it you got to see the ending but you didn't beat the game. Hell if i wanted to be told a story i would go to my nearest library and pick up a good book by someone who has 10 times the creative writing ability than some game developer.
I agree with brostyn about 95%.
Aside from being first, EQ had a lot of things that today's game lack, especially WOW. But there were also some downsides - it was not a game for the masses.
In EQ, being in a guild actually meant something. And it was REALLY hard to get into one of the better raiding guilds. The downside was that if you were not in a good guild, you simply did not raid. There was almost no such thing as pickup groups for raids - for one thing, you had to be "flagged" for a lot of the zones, with several pre-quests and/or lower zones. And many of those required a full raid group, which only guilds could provide.
The upside is that friendships made in those guilds tended to be much longer lasting, often for years and many endured even moving onto other games.
EQ servers were also much smaller back then, and the world was much smaller than it is now, so almost everyone knew everyone - reputation mattered.
IMO, more recent games have moved too far away from the grouping aspects, and in many games anymore class hardly matters, or matters only for raids on boss mobs. Every class can solo to max level, and often do. But after 10 years+ of playing mmo's, I think that most recent ones have made solo far too easy.
It took me 5+ years to get tired of AC1 and EQ1. It has taken me less than 5 months to get bored and burned out on WOW, and LOTRO took me about 3 months.
Nostalgia. That's pretty much it. EQ1 was the first MMO for the older players and you tend to remember the first because the experience is so unique and new.
No matter what people say, the newer MMOs have removed a lot of the annoying factors that were in EQ1.
And in a few years, when another great MMO is launched, former WoW players (where WoW was their first MMO) will complain how bad this new game is compared to WoW.
Nostalgia and your first MMO tends to give players rose-colored glasses.
That is true, but they also took out a lot of the good things.
All the early games had tons of annoyances, but many of the new games seem to have gotten rid of teh good parts also.
About two weeks ago when playing WOW, I found myself suiciding just because I was too lazy to run out of the dungeon. I think that pretty much says it for lack of challenge.
I used to suicide travel the world at the under 20 levels in WOW
theres no experience penalty - so death doesnt matter
EQ2 fan sites
As a few people here have said, it really isn't so much about EQ itself, it's more a nostalgia thing, and not being able to "go back home".
For many people, EQ was their first experience in a 3d, virtual world, that was populated w/ other people who were all interested in the same thing.
Stepping into Norrath for the first time way back when, was literally like stepping into a whole new world. A world that held seemingly endless possibilities for exploration, conquest, and socialization. It was like the realization of a dream, the same dream people had been trying to capture huddled around the kitchen table playing D&D, except w/ EQ you didn't have to use your imagination to see the world, it was all right there in vivid 3d. It was new, and it was amazing. The feeling of almost limitless potential was palpable, it was a world where you could finally BE that wizard, warrior, thief, or bard that you had always dreamed of being. You could hunt down and defeat monsters, people, and even gods, you could explore the huge world where dark dungeons were hidden away in the dark corners of the world and find valuable treasure within. And the world did seem huge, if you wanted to get from one place to another, you almost always had too hoof it, which lent a real feeling of size, and danger to the world.
It really wasn't the game itself, as many people have found trying to go back to it. It was that it was the first game of it's kind, and people remember that feeling of awe and wonder and they miss it. The sad part is, that feeling can not be recaptured, and that is why many people have soured on the MMO genre. They aren't really looking for a new game, they are looking to recapture that sense of wonder that they had when they first stepped into their first virtual world, and when they don't get that feeling, they get frustrated. It is true, you really can't go back home.
That is true, but they also took out a lot of the good things.
All the early games had tons of annoyances, but many of the new games seem to have gotten rid of teh good parts also.
About two weeks ago when playing WOW, I found myself suiciding just because I was too lazy to run out of the dungeon. I think that pretty much says it for lack of challenge.
I understand the need of some players wanting a bit more challenge. I used to be like that too. And if I had more time, I wouldn't mind it either. But time has passed and I just don't have the time to grind out like the older MMOs.
I would like to see more sandbox games though. Even with limited time, I enjoy building my character the way I want it and not having to follow some template or talent trees.
Because they made EQ have content. They want to revert it to the old days so it mimicks a Korean Grinder but worse. Nothing like mob training for 2 weeks to gain a level.
Nostalgia? First kiss?
Give me a modern MMO with same features as EQ had, and we can talk about that. Right now, EQ classic is the only fantasy 3d MMORPG worth this name.
I would say what is most important was the content. In EQ it was NEVER about rushing to the end, because there was just as much content at level 30 as there was a level 60 65 70 75 80. The quests werent you recite something to me, i hit accept and the tracer goes up, they were literally stories where you had to interact with the NPC, and even though they hinted at what you should say sometimes it was pretty hard (I admitidly cheated on several occasisions using Allakhazam ^_^). There was so much to see, so much to do, so many people to meet. I was a shaman, a class literally who's only purpose was to buff and to debuff. I woudl keep everyone at max strength dext agility haste and all that jazz and then reduce the enemys attributes/attack speed. If we were doing really well MAYBE put in few damage spells. You don't see that today anymore because everyone wants to be the hero, support roles (and I dont mean healers) in this way are gone in todays games. When I gave the monk rogue and beastlord 70% haste, that was my 70% damage. And when I slowed the attack speed of the mob to 25%, I felt like I just tanked 75% of this mobs damage. I could literally double the partys damage output and half its damage intaking. If that isn't heroic what is!? Just because im not spamming fireball doesn't mean Im not making a difference!!!
Anyway Everquest was more social, more difficult (and I mean that in these that you had to be more cautious and feel accomplished when you got an item or level). I remeber I didn't get any items with attributes on them till about level 30, and even then it was because of some careing guild memebers. Hope the new server coming out this year is worth while.
Unlike WoW, EQ had an alternative leveling system which you could continue to level to improve your skills after you reached the level cap. EQ was pve oriented and usually required players to team up to achieve objectives, so co-operative play was the norm. There was no equivalent to the horrible Barrens chat in WoW.
WoW was dead after you reached the level cap. If you were not into pvp, nothing to do but grind for gear. WoW will never have an equivalent leveling system as this would upset toon balance in pvp.
EQ was my first MMO which I played for 3 years. It was also one of the first successful MMO's. There are many MMO's to chose from now, so I think the days of playing the same MMO for years is over.
I did enjoy WoW and I leveled several toons to the level cap which was 50 when I played.
Necromancers, and later Shadowknights, could summon corpses.
As an EQ Vet myself, I believe the emphasis on a corpse run was to impart on the player that dying had consequences (Risk vs Reward). Those 'consequences' you've identified as as a hinderance is just a matter of perspective and could be debated ad nauseam. When you died in EQ it hurt, that pain of course is going to be different depending on the type of personality the player had. I would agree there were occasions that would test even the coolest heads, but it certainly had a lasting effect. The angriest I ever got in EQ was having just turned 19 and was excited about my ports, I ran into MM, got some adds on the ramp, went to zone and an Erudite was zoning in, I ran into her when collision was still in the game and I died. I was hot ash livid for having lost my level and ports.
I'm playing War now and dying is laughable in retrospective to EQ.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Oh the fond memories of losing an entire level and an eight hour corpse run in the Plane of Fear before the PoP expansion.
Good times!
I'm playing War now and dying is laughable in retrospective to EQ.
If dying had severe penalties as was in EQ, I really doubt you would get more enjoyment out of WAR. I'm not saying you would get less, I'm saying you would not enjoy the game more.
Some jaded EQ vets make it sound like they run out to die in the middle of a dungeon, so they can do through hell to get their corpse back. Having been in that situation plenty of times in my EQ days all it does is enforce a negative attitude about the game.
Today's games are missing a lot of the magic EQ had. Over the top death penalities isn't one of them.
Please don't assume that I think their should be no penalty for death. I'm saying that hour long corpse runs (or more in some cases) were far, far more than was needed.
See this might have been fun to some people. But I think a lot of people like me didnt enjoy the corpse run. And in the end I have no desire to play another game like that. I came from UO, when there was really not even a reason to run back to your body because it had probably already been looted clean. And I found this more refreshing than the EQ corpse run. The difference being UO was not an itemized game whereas EQ like the rest was.
I think one of the reasons for WoW's success was getting ready of some of these tedious activities that a few felt were fun, like hell levels, an loosing a level when dieing. I dont think this was as popular as a few think it was.
Now after saying that, I did love EQ's dungeons, and I think it had the best dungeons in any game period, even UO or WOW.
I'm playing War now and dying is laughable in retrospective to EQ.
If dying had severe penalties as was in EQ, I really doubt you would get more enjoyment out of WAR. I'm not saying you would get less, I'm saying you would not enjoy the game more.
Some jaded EQ vets make it sound like they run out to die in the middle of a dungeon, so they can do through hell to get their corpse back. Having been in that situation plenty of times in my EQ days all it does is enforce a negative attitude about the game.
Today's games are missing a lot of the magic EQ had. Over the top death penalities isn't one of them.
Please don't assume that I think their should be no penalty for death. I'm saying that hour long corpse runs (or more in some cases) were far, far more than was needed.
Wish I would have read this post before commenting. I agree.