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EverQuest: Return to Everquest
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
RETURN TO EVERQUEST!" It sounds like and epic movie but it's really just MMORPG.com writer Phil James on a hunt to find an MMO home and going back to familiar territory. Phil has fond memories of Everquest from years ago and he jumps back in to see if it still captivates. Check it out and then let us know what you're thinking in the comments.
You never forget your first love. I first came to mmos with the arrival of Star Wars Galaxies. I was living with a huge Star Wars fan at the time (huge meaning a dedicated fan that is, not morbidly obese) and he couldn’t get his wallet out fast enough to buy Galaxies on its release. Being a video game junkie I gave it a go, but wasn’t hooked. Sorry, but my geek credentials don’t extend to being a fan of the holy trilogy – I’m ignoring episodes 1 – 3. However, I did get my first taste of mmos and a pattern was formed in my mind; I had discovered where my tastes lay. Not long after SOE released a fantasy mmo (much more my cup of tea) and upon trying Everquest II I was hooked, my preference had blossomed into full blown love.
Read more Phil James' Return to Everquest.
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Comments
Always good to hear this. I miss the days when I could just grab a few random people and wander around hunting, or meet a group in a dungeon and fight to the bottom. Social days seem to be dead in MMOs. The last time I grouped with random people for the hell of it was Vanguard beta.
I started playing Fippy but I became busy with work and I was afraid I missed the party again with EQ, good to hear its still going, were there a lot of level 1s around? My druid needs to level up!
honestly everyone loves Everquest. But most people returning to Everquest have left again. It's just outdated. Same for the other mmorpgs- Asheron's Call is god ugly. DAoC isn't much better either- and that did look good when it came out.
Well DAoC is a different story. Most people left DAoC because expansions/patches changed and killed the game in a number of dramatic ways.
EQ on the other hand just got too top heavy. PvE games struggle to get beyond the "treadmill" aspect because there's little to do beyond grind gear once you hit level cap. Fippy is doing amazingly well because it brings all the players back to a time when things were harsh, and social. People miss that social aspect in MMOs. The community there was great when I was playing, and I didn't notice many leaving.
DAoC though, if ever a classic server came out for that people would go there, and I imagine people would stay. The PvP in that game is still top notch and creates far more content and helps balance the game than any singular PvE title. There was talks of a classic server and it got almost a hundred thousand people posting about it on the forums, but it got canned because WAR failed so hard.
I went back and am enjoying it. I'm tired of being a graphics snob. My kids play 8-bit games and love them. What other 3D MMO can you have 11 years of content in? When it comes down to it, I want content and variety and that overrides the need for Crysis style graphics.
I have been debating coming back to this game, it was my first ever mmo, and it still holds a spot in my heart and always will.
Halfing druids = amazing hah;
I'm just scared to go back, haha, scared itll be as dead as it was before i left, well i was playing on a PvP server, so ..those were the most dead anyways lol.
PS - All mammals have nipples.
Get over it already.
whats funny is most of the old mmo's have a defining moment that killed the game per say. i came from ultima then asherons call and eq1 as well as many others. but they all have had the same story one event or sequence of events has had an armageddon effect on most of the old ones.
for ac it was ac2, for eq1 it was ykersa expansion, for daoc it was frontier, uo was the new version, swg was the nge everyone gets to be a jedi.
the difference now is most of these companies have learned from their mistakes and remember the stuff that failed. and for me you can give any old mmo the polish of aion,wow or any of the big mmo's but the fact that most of the old games betrayed their fans is enough for me to never look back:(
The beginning of the end for EQ has been debated for years. Some say Luclin and others say PoP. I actually thought Ykesha had a lesser effect than those two.
PoP was where I hit a big wall. The progression locks kept me from getting to the best experience areas for AA experience (mainly Plane of Fire). So even though my brother and I ran pet groups in Bastion of Thunder courtyard (on Ayonae Ro server), we eeked out a mere AA per hour (not terrible, but nothing compared to PoF). I still miss running them with my brother on his mage and me on my beastlord. I ended up switching to a berserker and managed to level him into the upper 70's, but was so far behind in AA's that I gave up.
I don't know if AA experience has greatly increased, but in my opinion they did not do enough to help those that were far behind while creating content was based on having a large number of AA to survive and succeed. Having triple or more AA experience up to a marginally high number of AA, then double up to the next level, and then regular exp afterwards would help. I'm not sure on current AA counts, but they were quite high the last time I played.
I have just started to play everquest again, i really love the fact that here you need to use a weapon to get skill with it for example, not like in wow where the weapons skills are maxed always, no ! over npc's heads is also a nice thing.
Bad thing for me is the fact that the game is huge and with my highest char a 67 mage i don't know where the hell to go for progress, there are just to many paths to take, when i started playing eq back in 2001 there was only kunark and velious so the progress path was still fairly easy, now i don't know what expansion to start fighting in, doubt there is much point in working on my velious faction for instance
Graphics might be dated and the ui is far from nice, but with a custom ui, that can take a lot of work to get it to look like intended the game is still a lot of fun, still seem to be a fair amount of people playing but most are max level but i don't mind solo play, i even prefer it since i like to change my char a lot, i have 10 on my primary server and 10 more on a secondary
Maybe i should start grinding the Vex'Thal key just for the fun of it
And i have fond memories of groups in The overthere or dreadlands for instance, grinding, medding chatting and having fun, in wow people can be in group for 15 - 20 minutes and not a beep, having med breakes in eq sure helped the social aspect.
Im not sure I want to go back to a game I loved, I do think that there are somethings that you should just put in your past, enjoy the memories and move on. Also for me a lot about an MMO is the people you play/played with so with those guys and girls moved on to other things it wouldnt be the same.
Well Guys, EQ is the only game I play, even though I only have 2 chars above lvl 80 I still chug alone inspite of guilds that seem to disolve (while I'm still in them). Lots of fun for me, my kids got me into it and my son-in-law even worked for EQ back in the Luclin-POP expansions days. My new guild is still getting to know me But still a friendly game when you like to kill things or wait for a rez..
Errandf is a lvl 86 Enchanter on the "Xegony/Druzzill Ro-Xev/Combined"server
The fact its still a subscription based game kind of kills it for me, I dont mind paying subscriptions but not for a game released in 1999,,
I'd opt for the EQemu on the classic99 server. Free and a good amount of people on there
I derive my strength from passion. Do you feel that? That is what seperates you and I, Jedi!
They still have to pay to keep the servers up, and they are still making expansions I think. Would you rather have a cash shop, and finally drive away all the people that still enjoy the game for it's purity? Besides if you pay 29 a month you get to play all the SOE games (sure most are crap, but that's not the point)
Comparatively speaking, it's tough to say that EQ hasn't aged well compared to other games released around the same time such as Ultima Online and Asheron's Call, but at the same time, it's relatively easy to se that the proverbial goose left the proverbial henhouse years ago in everything from speed of leveling to bredth of content. Sure, EQ still gets frequent updates (more than you can say for many new games), but the content of each expansion is relatively minimal and almost entirely catered to EQ's core of hardcore raiders. As a personal preference, I really don't like what they've done with EQ's graphics engine. Seems like they've hit a plateau with what they can do graphically, and pretty much every new zone I've seen out of the game arguably since the Dragons of Norrath looks generic and utterly devoid of soul.
Very well put. I'm a long time EQ player back in the day. This is something I wrote back in December of 2008 which I think is appropriate. I returned to EQ back then as well to see if I could recapture the magic. Here's when I discovered:
...This past summer, I went back to my first love, EQ, when they offered free game play for veterans. I probably logged in 3 or 4 times total, then had absolutely no desire to return. The best way I can describe it is going back to the area that you grew up in after many years of being away. Everything looks different…smaller and less magical somehow. Nothing is how you really remembered it in your mind, the fond memories are a bit diluted, and the woods you played in is now stripped bare with condos in its place. Some of the basic structures are there, but the fantasy is gone.
This was my personal experience anyway. I have a ton of great memories from EQ, but the same feelings just could not be recaptured as much as I wanted them too.
Have you played in any of the House of Thule zones?House of Thule lower floor zone just past the doors in hall with sevrial quest givers look up.The mural is highly detailed few even see it.The libery zone tho i hate hunting in it because of mob placemnt is rather well done grafic wise.
An t4 zones are trippy .Some very cool areas an mobs.While i agree the character models ( all but the draklin) have fallen behind the zones in house of thule look pretty good.Not one i can think of i dont like the looks of for its seting.Where as Underfoot was coves an tunnels an undeground areas that was much less pretty but well detailed.
One thing on launcher hit option button the lauch button for grafic settings it brings up the old grafic setings window. 1st will show youd grafic card, next which type of models you will/can use. an 3rd has alot of other options not acesable in game. turn off Mp mapping . it seems on newer cards to realy blure out detail an cause problems as well.
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
Good article and some good posts as well. I too have been considering going back to EQ (and EQ2 with the Station Access that I used to have). I've actually kept up with the expansions for both games over the years being the nut that I am about being prepared and a comsumate (compulsive) game collector. But every time that I think I'm ready to start it up, I back off.
I cut my MMO teeth on EQ a month after it launched and it's still my first love. Some of my best and fondest gaming memories are based in the EQ universe. I played with a lot of friends, my oldest son (who got me hooked on it), my brother, and made many new friends there, all of whom are long since gone on to other games as have I. I've a feeling that it just won't measure up because everything and everywhere within the game will bring back a flood of memories. One of these days, I'll probably get up the courage to give it a try again, but I fully expect that I won't stay long unless something unforseen happens like running into some of the old gang. You can return to the area, but you can never really go home.
~ Adder ~
Quick, Silent, Deadly
I just ordered Everquest House of Thule for $20 from Amazon.com
I hope I made the right choice...
I think Rift is to small, and I'm tired of WoW.
AoC ... don't like it's combat/controls
EQ2 is tempting...
LOTRO is to small, but with the expansion out I'm tempted
Here's looking forward to playing in the old EQ sandbox!
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
I played EQ for about a year before DAoC dragged me away, and I cannot say I looked back. Melee in EQ seemed to be reduced to recycling Taunt and Kick and auto-attack. Granted I had plenty of fun, but DAoC with its melee styles made combat just so much more fun.
I agree that the downtime is important for MMOs. That is when you get to know your group members. In DDO the few groups I joined, chat was mostly reduced to which quest we were chasing. No time to waste saying hello to each other. And that seems to be my problem with modern MMOs: There is no downtime to get to know anyone else. Granted EQ overkilled it a bit back then, but fights should be tough with downtime in between to share loot and warstories.
I played EQ for four and a half years, I honestly do not remember when I quit playing now I was on the XEV server before it was consolidated the first time with I believe Druzzil Ro. XEV was the last server that the sleeper was not awake on and before they combined the servers the Gm's held and event, hundreds of people showed up along with lord knows how many Gm's, they woke the sleeper and after hundreds maybe even thousands of deaths they managed to kill it. The Gm's were giving full rezzes and the people were just marching back in to die again. It was truly awesome but also a sad day as shortly after XEV no longer existed. I remember I was in the second largest guild Altera Vita for over 3 years of my time in EQ and honestly the only reason I ever left the game was because my wife literally said you have to quit or I will divorce you (in her defense I was probably playing over 40 hours a week LOL) We have been married now going on 12 years, it was a good decision to leave but I do miss the experience I had and all of my friends. Back then the raids had not cap and I remember clearing the plane of growth with over 80 people to kill Tunare. Its really vauge to me when I stopped playing I want to say 2004 or 2005, all 3 of my characters who were at level cap back then still exist (on seperate accounts LOL) in fact a good friend of mine kept my Paladin who was my main at cap for many years after I left hoping I would return, he has all the passwords and I told him if he was truly my friend he would never let me know them because I would honestly be tempted to go back and roam around even if only for a few days.
Loved EQ. It was social, and by and large, a learning experience with a lot of tips from a lot of people. The only unpleasant crap I ever ran into were from the guilds. Grouping up with random people, spending hours in a group camping was... awesome.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
http://www.project1999.org/
Classic Everquest!!! They allow access to the original game for free via their servers and follow a timeline of expansion releases up to the 2nd (Velious) or 3rd (luclin) only i believe, first expansion Kunark has either just been patched in and playable or is about to be... they keep the server alive through donations.
There was plenty of people in lower levels to group with when I was playing there a few months ago...