Why would zones or better yet,how can you judge the zones when the game does the same thing all the time.....linear questing.Nobody cares about the zone all the players do is vee line their eyes on the yellow marker,they don't even care about the npc either.Geesh ,remove the npc and nothing changes,that yellow marker is still there and all you need to play Wow.
World???WHY would you need a world to instance into some dungeon? In reality Wow could operate as a lobby game,sit in a lobby and just click yellow markers and instances then warp right to another boxed map to complete the quest or to complete the instance dungeon.
I wish i wasn't so lazy,i could spark up the Unreal engine and show you in a nutshell what Wow is doing and it is not doing very much.I will however acknowledge that those quests are "sometimes" pretty decent "not often" but sometimes and in some cases better than other games.However i sum it up like this,you have 3000 quests,does 25 really good ones make up for killing me softly with 2975 really boring crappy ones?Not from where i am standing and that is basically why i can't stand linear questing,as well it NEVER brings out the best combat,you have to hit the instances to get that as questing combat is like close your eyes easy mode.
Point being,why argue over what zone is better when it really does not matter the way Wow is designed.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The dungeons in EQ were a mess, but it a good way. You had to remember your way around them or you'd get lost as F and likely could die, even if you were level 50. I much prefer them over the linear dungeons of today where you just walk forward and maybe down a couple side paths and maybe a few more halls and then you're at the end.
EQ's dungeon design was awesome! Instances also killed modern MMOs for me. I like running into people and helping them or asking for help, you never know who you will meet. It made adventuring in an MMO actually feel like an adventure. That feeling is long gone from current MMOs.
People say blah blah this would never hold true today, blah blah you'd hate to play a game like EQ today. Graphics this, boring that, exp lost and corpse runs are the worst ideas for an MMO, blah blah. Maybe to YOU it sounds awful, that is fine. People have different expectations out of gaming and may not have fun in EQ, but at least to me and many of us in this thread, it still holds true today. Hell, I've even played P99 on and off for about 2-3 years and love every bit of it. Eventually I take a break for other games, but honestly P99 has the same feel and it's enjoyable, so no rose tinted glasses needed. It's living proof that it's enjoyable still to this day, shite graphics and all.
I don't really play MMOs anymore. They were may favorite genre until WoW came out and basically everything since then has been garbage to me. I want a challenge. I want a living world with different starting areas for different races and no instances. I want a good selection of unique classes and races, not just a few. I don't want ? ! above people's head and my hand to be held questing. I want a social/group aspect without the stupid auto dungeon group finder crap. No instances. Son of a b.... Someday, maybe. Pantheon? eh, maybe. Or maybe MMOs are just done for folks like us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last game that gave me that good feeling like DAOC and EQ was............. Vanguard! Yes, I said it.
Vanguard was supposed to be the spiritual successor to EQ, especially when Brad McQuaid was heading it......It just never quite made it.....In the end it pretty much ended up a theme park like EQ2.
So many newer mmorpgs fail to offer even close to what vanilla Everquest had on so many levels.
Let's just list the classes and races:
monk
rogue
warrior
cleric
druid
shaman
enchanter
wizard
magician
necromancer
bard
paladin
ranger
shadowknight
barbarian
dwarf
halfling
high elf
wood elf
dark elf
ogre
troll
erudite
gnome
half elf
human
So many mmorpgs hardly even make it past this part with 4-5 classes/races, it's pathetic, at least get in the ballpark of EQ.
Then you have weather, day/night cycle, and stuff like actual 3d water you can swim in (looking at you ESO and FF14) plus non-combat utility spells and abilities.
Then you have the dungeons...
Even the group size was six, more than pretty much anything other than City of Heroes with a group size of eight.
Maybe it's just me but man comparing these new modern mmorpgs to a 17 year old EQ I really feel like they shouldn't just be putting Everquest to shame in the graphics department but everything else as well. Thing is most mmorpgs don't even come close to the features EQ had back in 1999.
I guess just to round this up, anyone else do this comparison and find a vast majority of the modern mmorpgs very lacking compared to vanilla EQ?
No, because you are ignoring a lot of issues in Vanilla EQ, and your post lacks any decent explanation for a lot of things.
1. Newer Games get around this by having a more flexible class system. An Affliction Warlock in WoW doesn't play the same as Destruction or Demo (especially in Legion), for example. It's like 2.5 classes in one. Druids have 4 different Roles, for example.
EQ2 has 28[+] classes. Why aren't you playing that?
2. Races diversity was there to cater to role players. There are hardly any left in this genre anymore... That isn't a huge incentive to design all of those character models and put in all that expensive work to make sure the gear appearance, etc. is proper on them. This costs money - lots of it. Artists aren't cheap, either.
EQ2 has tons of races. Why aren't you playing that?
3. You're ignoring the absolutely glaring class imbalances that existed in EQ. For years Mages were relegated to dropping Modulation Rods on the ground. Necromancers were borderline worthless in parties and it wasn't worth having more than 1 in a raid as they didn't stack. There were huge imbalanced vis-a-vis Warriors vs. Knight Classes in tanking proficiency. Clerics dominated healing to an extent not seen in any MMORPG that followed EQ - largely because of the issues that created IN EQ.
EQ2 has better class balance...
4. EQ's dungeons had to be big because nothing was instance and EQ was a Grind Game. Grind for XP. Grind for Platinum. Grind for gear, etc.
EQ's dungeons had to accommodate groups that didn't "crawl" dungeons. They camped spots in dungeons and pulled MOBs from the vicinity of that spot for XP or Gear Grinding.
EQ2 has large contested dungeons and overland zones... Why aren't you playing that?
More modern Western MMORPGs are designed so that players can crawl through a dungeon and go about their business, because they aren't designed to be XP grinds, and the gear grind isn't the same as it was in EQ.
People who like the EQ model can go play an Asian grinder MMORPG like Lineage II. You'll get to camp a spot in a large dungeon in that game and take forever to gain a level, just like EQ back in the day!
EQ was good for its time, especially vs. the competition back then, but it isn't great compared to games today. What you're talking about, simply doesn't matter to the vast majority of people these days.
To be frank, EQ2 is a proper sequel to EQ. It's a proper sequel made for a more modern market. The game shares many of the elements you're talking about in the OP. It has tons of content. Tons of quests, and tons of cosmetic/collection things for players who like that. Housing you can decorate yourself. Guild Halls you can decorate yourself. Solo, Group and Raid instanced content. Open/Contested Dungeons and Overload Zones. A class to suit almost any play style, and a race to suite almost any aesthetic preference. The crafting system is still one of the best in the MMORPG genre, IMO.
People are too hung up on their nostalgia for EQ, largely biased and foggy nostalgia. They have great memories, but they don't remember the problems that game had.
EQ1 did have a load of systems and features, many that other games don't have. But, there were some serious problems with many of those systems. Here's just some of the rogue-specific skills that were somewhat underwhelming.
Locked doors. Befallen was horrid with locked doors. But it was about the only place that rogues could improve their pick lock skill.
Poison. A crafting skill that was useless. Pretty much still true today.
Pick Pockets. A great way to steal 1 cp from an NPC, only risking a massive beat-down from almost any NPC. In combat, the rewards were a little more, but the rogue had to stop attacking to attempt the pick pocket. Pointless button mashing.
Backstab. A rogue-defining skill that they didn't get until level 10 or 16 or so. It was an absolute pain to improve the skill level, as it wouldn't work unless you were physically behind the opponent. So, no backstab skill for rogues attempting to solo in the early game. This skill evolved into just another 'additional DPS' button when SOE 'improved' this ability to work without regard to the relative positions.
Then there were general skill issues. Begging, a way for anyone to enjoy the beat-down risk. Possibly the worst fishing system imaginable (It became moderately better with the addition of zone-specific fish and improvements to baking). The unbalanced drinking system -- 1 drink to oblivion and warped graphics, but minutes (real time) to sober up. Faction systems where one transgression meant a massive loss of faction with a specific group, but correcting that required insane 'give a bottle of milk' to a specific guard.
Coupled with broken spells (whirl-to-you-hurl still doesn't do the graphics correctly) and quest NPCs on monthly spawn timers (Yiz Pon, anyone?) and heavy-handed game modifications (the great necro-nerfing of 99 -- fixing the overpowered DoT system that had unbalanced the game population by July 99, with all the tact of a flatulent elephant in crowded room), the very early days of Everquest 1 gave players a host of new systems, many of which were utterly forgettable.
The Rogue was a pretty bad class in EQ. It had a sound basis though. In those days Rogues/Thieves were expected to be reliant on groups for combat. They were a utility class to pick locks, disarm traps, steal, etc. I don't think the EQ devs ever figured out a way to fully implement most thief like tasks without forcing people to bring a Rogue along. They did have one thing that everyone wanted. They could were the best at pulling corpses out of dungeons with stealth. Invisibility was unreliable. If you got a Rogue to high level most people respected that a lot more than say a Necromancer or Druid (which I played).
Some of the bugs and overpowered abilities are part of what made the game fun. Soling was not supposed to be done past a certain level in EQ, but finding overpowered abilities or ability combinations allowed it to be possible.
Some of the bugs were actually quite amusing like people falling off boats into the water when zoning.
No one respected a Necro because they were terrible in parties and raise in original EQ. Rogues were better DPS than Necros. Necros didn't really become good until Planes of Power or shortly before. Mages had tons of issues as well back then. A lot of classes were a mess. People tended to just avoid those that were, which is why some classes were played a lot more than others. Necros were not a high population class in EQ, and while they could solo well, that didn't even compare to the type of XP a group could get in the Nagafen or Vox dungeons (or Sebilis/KC/Chardok in Kunark)
Necros were better than rogues at getting corpses out of dungeons. All they had to do was zone in with you and summon your corpse. It wasn't hard. No invis needed. Just one spell cast and a reagent.
Verant/SOE curbed soloing down easily by implementing the summon mechanic in areas where they did not want people soloing. That way people weren't soloing hard mobs for amazing XP, when they weren't intended to do so.
Coupled with broken spells (whirl-to-you-hurl still doesn't do the graphics correctly) and quest NPCs on monthly spawn timers (Yiz Pon, anyone?) and heavy-handed game modifications (the great necro-nerfing of 99 -- fixing the overpowered DoT system that had unbalanced the game population by July 99, with all the tact of a flatulent elephant in crowded room), the very early days of Everquest 1 gave players a host of new systems, many of which were utterly forgettable.
I'm pretty sure the great Necro Nerf had to do with pets. The Necro pets did too much base damage and dual wielded, so they toned it down. But, there was another issue, where you could give it find steel or shiny daggers (specific name evades me) to lower their delay as well. Necro pets at release, by themselves, out-DPSed most melee DPS classes in the game back then. Mage pets were broken and not dual wielding properly (or equipping weapons given to them) for about a year or more after release.
The reason why it was called the Great Necro Nerf, was because with that huge pet nerf, the class basically plummeted. That's how weak its DPS was without the overpowered pet.
The issue had nothing to do with DoTs, except of rate fact that it clearly demonstrated how terrible they were. Necro DoTs were terrible at release, and to be frank the class was pretty terrible up until around the Planes of Power timeframe when SoE expanded their DoT lines and gave them faster, higher DPS DoTs and they started stacking more DoTs onto MOBs.
Also, prior to PoP, Necros did not stack. They overwrote each other DoTs, etc. Their DPS was terrible for the first 2-3 expansions. The class didn't really come into its own until Planes of Power. In Original EQ, they were terrible.
So while you could solo easily to level 50, there wasn't really many groups who'd care about you anyways.
Necros came into their own in PoP and Lost Dungeons of Norrath, when they gained the fast Poison DoTs and the Curses that they could stack with their Disease/Pyrocuror/Funeral Pyre/etc. Funeral Pyre line didn't exist until Shadows of Luclin.
Guilds often used one Necro to do terrible DPS and switch clerics and other casters in the raid.
Mages had tons of issues as well, and were often tasked with dropping untold amounts of modulation rods on the ground for people in the raid, because mechanics were often not in their favor, either.
Both "Summoner" classes got HUGE upgrades in Planes of Power and the expansions following it.
The dungeons in EQ were a mess, but it a good way. You had to remember your way around them or you'd get lost as F and likely could die, even if you were level 50. I much prefer them over the linear dungeons of today where you just walk forward and maybe down a couple side paths and maybe a few more halls and then you're at the end.
EQ's dungeon design was awesome! Instances also killed modern MMOs for me. I like running into people and helping them or asking for help, you never know who you will meet. It made adventuring in an MMO actually feel like an adventure. That feeling is long gone from current MMOs.
People say blah blah this would never hold true today, blah blah you'd hate to play a game like EQ today. Graphics this, boring that, exp lost and corpse runs are the worst ideas for an MMO, blah blah. Maybe to YOU it sounds awful, that is fine. People have different expectations out of gaming and may not have fun in EQ, but at least to me and many of us in this thread, it still holds true today. Hell, I've even played P99 on and off for about 2-3 years and love every bit of it. Eventually I take a break for other games, but honestly P99 has the same feel and it's enjoyable, so no rose tinted glasses needed. It's living proof that it's enjoyable still to this day, shite graphics and all.
I don't really play MMOs anymore. They were may favorite genre until WoW came out and basically everything since then has been garbage to me. I want a challenge. I want a living world with different starting areas for different races and no instances. I want a good selection of unique classes and races, not just a few. I don't want ? ! above people's head and my hand to be held questing. I want a social/group aspect without the stupid auto dungeon group finder crap. No instances. Son of a b.... Someday, maybe. Pantheon? eh, maybe. Or maybe MMOs are just done for folks like us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So many people complain about instances, but went to play WoW - which has nothing but instances and no really usable contested content with meaningful things to do or gear to farm from - over EQ2, which was basically EQ with the Q and better graphics, even though the engine was/is terrible.
Last game that gave me that good feeling like DAOC and EQ was............. Vanguard! Yes, I said it.
Vanguard was supposed to be the spiritual successor to EQ, especially when Brad McQuaid was heading it......It just never quite made it.....In the end it pretty much ended up a theme park like EQ2.
For me, I loved the amount of races and classes to choose from..... I miss that in games. Each class and race was magical to me and told a separate story. I loved the separate starting areas as well. That reminds me of EQ.
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So many people complain about instances, but went to play WoW - which has nothing but instances and no really usable contested content with meaningful things to do or gear to farm from - over EQ2, which was basically EQ with the Q and better graphics, even though the engine was/is terrible.
A ton of people did go to play WoW. I played it only because my friends were into it, but i personally hated almost every minute of it EQ2 was eh, just OK. It didn't have the same feel as the original EQ. The engine was(is) indeed downright awful.
So many people complain about instances, but went to play WoW - which has nothing but instances and no really usable contested content with meaningful things to do or gear to farm from - over EQ2, which was basically EQ with the Q and better graphics, even though the engine was/is terrible.
A ton of people did go to play WoW. I played it only because my friends were into it, but i personally hated almost every minute of it EQ2 was eh, just OK. It didn't have the same feel as the original EQ. The engine was(is) indeed downright awful.
EQ2 was basically WoW with +5 difficulty, 10x the content, 10x the things to do in game, 10x the customization, better graphics (if you had the beastly rig to run it), etc. If it couldn't appeal to EQ's player base, then EQN was doomed to fail.
No game is going to have the same feel of the Original EQ. It's not something the majority of players these days are looking for, so I don't fault developers and Publishers for not going that route. The Feel of EQ had as much do to about the literal timeframe of playing the game, the actual people playing the game with you, and the experiences you had playing the game. It has nothing to do with Instances and Raids, or taking 1 hour to go from Neriak to Butcherblock Mountains.
A lot of the "gameplay" in EQ was horrible even back then. The game was magical because it was many people's introduction to MMORPGs/Virtual Worlds and because of the interactions with other people in the game back then.
For example, the mechanic of having to loot your corpse in EQ was horrible, IMO. Especially if you died in a place where you could not reach it - your corpse could rot and all your items would get deleted.
One time I fell down the well in Befallen and I spent about 4 hours asking the zone if they could help me get my corpse. A Necromancer named Nomadl was passing through and offered to summon my corpse if I got the coffin from a vendor. I was a newbie and didn't have that much, so he bought it himself and summoned my corpse.
The mechanic was horrible, but the fact that someone was nice enough to do that made a sort of lifelong impression on me, and it's why I tend to be helpful to newbies in games even to this day. This has nothing to do with EQ as a game itself, but with the interaction I had with the other person in that game, which really sort of affected me in a positive way.
Back then, some of the experiences you had in EQ felt almost as real as real-life events because the concept of virtual worlds was so new to us. MMORPGs are commodity these days. Many of us have been playing them so long that most things are fairly familiar. Things were completely different back then. No "new game" can bring this back... the same way no new festival can bring back the original feel of Woodstock 1969...
That's not going to happen in any new game. Not Pantheon, not BDO, now EQ2 or WoW. Nothing. Not the way it did back then. You cannot replicate the "feel" of EQ and many people are finding out that with all of the games that tried to "out-WoW" WoW. Yes, the game can play very similar, but that magic is gone.
You only get one shot at it.
This is something that MMORPG players (especially the "old-timers") do not want to accept, and it's a persistent driving force in their decisions to dislike or reject newer games.
Everyone is entitled to play what they want, and decide what is fun for them... However, the idea that something needs to give them that "original EQ feel" to hit the right spot is a pipe dream. This will not happen. Its not possible. A game can give you EQ gameplay with upgraded graphics, but it will not be EQ because EQ was about more than the game itself; and that's not something that can be delivered by a software developer.
EQ peaked at 450k subs in 2004. There are not enough EQ players left in the world to really deliver that experience at the scale people expect from MMORPGs these days. You are going to have an EQ-lite game filled with EQ2/WoW/GW/etc. generation players anyways, which completely changes the feel of the game itself.
Edit: Oh forgot to mention Everquest had a deity system as well!
Not only a deity system, but a reputation system that included races, classes, religion and even social, political and occupational strata. Every decision you made had a consequence with those peoples, making the world feel just a little more alive.
Folks raved about EQ next and its plans with storybricks, but based on their description, it sounded nearly identical to the function of EQ's original faction system. They just intended to tie in more scripted events, which honestly could have just as easily existed in EQ.
oh, and PS. Pantheon plans to have all of those things... and way more
I don't recall Necromancers ever being weak or less played. Rogues, Warriors, and Clerics were the ones hard to find and they were the best group classes. Any class that could solo like Druid, Necromancer, Shaman, and Mage were usually pretty easy to find. Soloing actually fit the Necromancer pretty well as per their description no one really liked them much. They were shunned by society. They had all the utility spells to survive solo. DoTs, fear, and lifetap worked great for solo, but not so good for grouping. Mages had a variety of pets that even in Vanilla were quite good. I remember them being wanted over Wizards in many cases in groups because they had the pet, could nuke almost as well, and could summon food/drink. The water pet was great against poison monsters as it was immune. The pets healed much faster than players and their damage increased every few levels unlike the players. I believe there were more people who were playing classes that could solo by a large margin in comparison to ones that could just group.
1. Newer Games get around this by having a more flexible class system. An Affliction Warlock in WoW doesn't play the same as Destruction or Demo (especially in Legion), for example. It's like 2.5 classes in one. Druids have 4 different Roles, for example.
Actually they don't. I've heard this argument before from WoW fanbois, the reality is the old games have the same systems that added variety to the classes. In DAOC for each class you typically had 3 different ways to spec them which made them play very differently. So by using your logic WoW had what, 6 or 7 classes at release with 18 to 24 variations.. while games like DAOC had 24 classes at release with 72 different variations. Today a game like DAOC has 40+ classes with over 120 different variations... see the difference?
Wow was the beginning of the over simplification of MMORPGs.. it's why a lot of the old school players hate WoW and why it is seen as the game that destroyed what people loved about MMORPGs.
I also find it hilarious that people refer to Vanilla WoW has being the more interesting or difficult at release.. I don't quite get that. I played WoW at release and got my Warrior to level 38... and I didn't die 1 single time. It was the only time in my life playing a MMORPG that I fell asleep from boredom tanking a dungeon with the group I was running with at the time. It was actually kind of funny because they were yelling at my over vent because I stopped tanking. lol No one in the group died btw.
WoW at release was a very simple game, very easy to play.. you had to force yourself to do something really stupid to die in it. With that said it brought a lot of new gamers to MMORPGs and those games found it challenging which I guess was a great experience for them. For those of us looking for something more, looking for the next challenge we basically got screwed for well over a decade now.
The WoW talent system was fairly good, but in the end it boiled down to the same class arch types. It's even worse now. You have to choose an a specific role like tank, melee DPS, Ranged DPS, or healer. One can argue this actually takes away from the class. A Druid in EQ had a large array of abilities to use and could play DPS or healer without the need to respec. Many classes were multi faceted and had a large array of abilities available. Some were fairly one dimensional. One might ask what is the point of allowing a class to specialize in different roles through talents. That can in some instances take away from the uniqueness of the class.
Soloing actually fit the Necromancer pretty well as per their description no one really liked them much. They were shunned by society.
Until you needed a corpse summon, then they became best friends....and after that they started soloing again.
Necro often just shunned the community too though, it was a 2 way street. I remember often trying to invite my necro friend, he just preferred soloing, he got good XP and groups didn't really interest him.
Some started grouping more after lvl 58, when they got mind wrack, but many still preferred soloing.
Basically mages and necros solo'd all the time. Druids only sporadically, druids were super happy in groups, .. necro like...grouped against their will lols.
Flyte27 I believe there were more people who were playing classes that could solo by a large margin in comparison to ones that could just group.
Chanties could solo very well, it's just that few people understood how to do it without dying. Everyone thought you needed a group to play a chanty, I solod on my chanty all the time.
Rogues and Warriors couldn't solo worth a damn, that is true.
The only way a war would solo was if: -they were super OP for the content -they had an earthshaker
Soloing actually fit the Necromancer pretty well as per their description no one really liked them much. They were shunned by society.
Until you needed a corpse summon, then they became best friends....and after that they started soloing again.
Necro often just shunned the community too though, it was a 2 way street. I remember often trying to invite my necro friend, he just preferred soloing, he got good XP and groups didn't really interest him.
Some started grouping more after lvl 58, when they got mind wrack, but many still preferred soloing.
Basically mages and necros solo'd all the time. Druids only sporadically, druids were super happy in groups, .. necro like...grouped against their will lols.
Druid was kind of a weird class, but I loved their ability to travel around quickly and safely. They were the worst healer out of Cleric, Shaman, and Druid. Their nukes weren't nearly the strongest. Their DoTs were a fair amount weaker then the Necromancer and Shaman. They had a nice package of different abilities though. They were especially good for power leveling other players with their damage shields and heal over time spells. Soloing could get a bit dull since the Stringing Swarm spells killed things a bit slowly. Still they had the harmony spell for pulling things out of groups, snare, spirit of the wolf, and tracking. Combined with healing and nukes gave them a lot of ways to solo in outdoor environments. Necromancers had a larger array of abilities and more powerful ones to kill quicker. Necromancer was the first class I got to max level in EQ. I don't think I ever got to level 60 in EQ with a Druid. Probably around level 50ish. I also had a Bard that was 59 I believe. Necromancer was a lot of fun to play as if you like to solo.
So many newer mmorpgs fail to offer even close to what vanilla Everquest had on so many levels.
Let's just list the classes and races:
monk
rogue
warrior
cleric
druid
shaman
enchanter
wizard
magician
necromancer
bard
paladin
ranger
shadowknight
barbarian
dwarf
halfling
high elf
wood elf
dark elf
ogre
troll
erudite
gnome
half elf
human
So many mmorpgs hardly even make it past this part with 4-5 classes/races, it's pathetic, at least get in the ballpark of EQ.
Then you have weather, day/night cycle, and stuff like actual 3d water you can swim in (looking at you ESO and FF14) plus non-combat utility spells and abilities.
Then you have the dungeons...
Even the group size was six, more than pretty much anything other than City of Heroes with a group size of eight.
Maybe it's just me but man comparing these new modern mmorpgs to a 17 year old EQ I really feel like they shouldn't just be putting Everquest to shame in the graphics department but everything else as well. Thing is most mmorpgs don't even come close to the features EQ had back in 1999.
I guess just to round this up, anyone else do this comparison and find a vast majority of the modern mmorpgs very lacking compared to vanilla EQ?
I would say Dark Age of Camelot was the closest to EQ in game aspects, except they had 48 class and 19 race selections.
Druid was kind of a weird class, but I loved their ability to travel around quickly and safely. They were the worst healer out of Cleric, Shaman, and Druid. Their nukes weren't nearly the strongest. Their DoTs were a fair amount weaker then the Necromancer and Shaman. They had a nice package of different abilities though. They were especially good for power leveling other players with their damage shields and heal over time spells. Soloing could get a bit dull since the Stringing Swarm spells killed things a bit slowly. Still they had the harmony spell for pulling things out of groups, snare, spirit of the wolf, and tracking. Combined with healing and nukes gave them a lot of ways to solo in outdoor environments. Necromancers had a larger array of abilities and more powerful ones to kill quicker. Necromancer was the first class I got to max level in EQ. I don't think I ever got to level 60 in EQ with a Druid. Probably around level 50ish. I also had a Bard that was 59 I believe. Necromancer was a lot of fun to play as if you like to solo.
I had a druid, it was a nice class, kinda relaxing. I would quad kite a lot, it was ok XP. Druids didn't heal well, it was extremely taxing on mana. They got better healing spells later on though, like several expansions in, they revamped healing, CH became irrelevant, and druids started healing on-par with shamans (they had better fast heals, shamans better heal-over-time).
I was always affraid early on if I got invited as a main healer 1) because I knew some idiot in the group would say "a silly druid" couldn't keep a tank alive 2) the fact that idiot was sometimes right when we had a weak tank and I was OOM every 5 minutes
I had a druid, it was a nice class, kinda relaxing. I would quad kite a lot, it was ok XP. Druids didn't heal well, it was extremely taxing on mana. They got better healing spells later on though, like several expansions in, they revamped healing, CH became irrelevant, and druids started healing on-par with shamans (they had better fast heals, shamans better heal-over-time).
I was always affraid early on if I got invited as a main healer 1) because I knew some idiot in the group would say "a silly druid" couldn't keep a tank alive 2) the fact that idiot was sometimes right when we had a weak tank and I was OOM every 5 minutes
I think I had stopped playing at the point where Druids got better healing. I always felt every class had a place in the game even in Vanilla. The EQ Druid will always be one of my favorites. Perhaps it's because Druids were always nice in the game. You would often see them in low level areas helping random strangers level up quickly. I think I just like the concept of the class though. They were like a recluse that wandered alone in the woods in my eyes and were at one with nature. They were not opposed to helping lost travelers in danger though. Being able to stop the rain was kind of a nice touch.
Comments
World???WHY would you need a world to instance into some dungeon?
In reality Wow could operate as a lobby game,sit in a lobby and just click yellow markers and instances then warp right to another boxed map to complete the quest or to complete the instance dungeon.
I wish i wasn't so lazy,i could spark up the Unreal engine and show you in a nutshell what Wow is doing and it is not doing very much.I will however acknowledge that those quests are "sometimes" pretty decent "not often" but sometimes and in some cases better than other games.However i sum it up like this,you have 3000 quests,does 25 really good ones make up for killing me softly with 2975 really boring crappy ones?Not from where i am standing and that is basically why i can't stand linear questing,as well it NEVER brings out the best combat,you have to hit the instances to get that as questing combat is like close your eyes easy mode.
Point being,why argue over what zone is better when it really does not matter the way Wow is designed.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EQ's dungeon design was awesome! Instances also killed modern MMOs for me. I like running into people and helping them or asking for help, you never know who you will meet. It made adventuring in an MMO actually feel like an adventure. That feeling is long gone from current MMOs.
People say blah blah this would never hold true today, blah blah you'd hate to play a game like EQ today. Graphics this, boring that, exp lost and corpse runs are the worst ideas for an MMO, blah blah. Maybe to YOU it sounds awful, that is fine. People have different expectations out of gaming and may not have fun in EQ, but at least to me and many of us in this thread, it still holds true today. Hell, I've even played P99 on and off for about 2-3 years and love every bit of it. Eventually I take a break for other games, but honestly P99 has the same feel and it's enjoyable, so no rose tinted glasses needed. It's living proof that it's enjoyable still to this day, shite graphics and all.
I don't really play MMOs anymore. They were may favorite genre until WoW came out and basically everything since then has been garbage to me. I want a challenge. I want a living world with different starting areas for different races and no instances. I want a good selection of unique classes and races, not just a few. I don't want ? ! above people's head and my hand to be held questing. I want a social/group aspect without the stupid auto dungeon group finder crap. No instances. Son of a b.... Someday, maybe. Pantheon? eh, maybe. Or maybe MMOs are just done for folks like us. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
hehehe.... Just give my Chanter back the ability to charm idiots that wanted to duel me...... So I can send them to the guards...
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
1. Newer Games get around this by having a more flexible class system. An Affliction Warlock in WoW doesn't play the same as Destruction or Demo (especially in Legion), for example. It's like 2.5 classes in one. Druids have 4 different Roles, for example.
EQ2 has 28[+] classes. Why aren't you playing that?
2. Races diversity was there to cater to role players. There are hardly any left in this genre anymore... That isn't a huge incentive to design all of those character models and put in all that expensive work to make sure the gear appearance, etc. is proper on them. This costs money - lots of it. Artists aren't cheap, either.
EQ2 has tons of races. Why aren't you playing that?
3. You're ignoring the absolutely glaring class imbalances that existed in EQ. For years Mages were relegated to dropping Modulation Rods on the ground. Necromancers were borderline worthless in parties and it wasn't worth having more than 1 in a raid as they didn't stack. There were huge imbalanced vis-a-vis Warriors vs. Knight Classes in tanking proficiency. Clerics dominated healing to an extent not seen in any MMORPG that followed EQ - largely because of the issues that created IN EQ.
EQ2 has better class balance...
4. EQ's dungeons had to be big because nothing was instance and EQ was a Grind Game. Grind for XP. Grind for Platinum. Grind for gear, etc.
EQ's dungeons had to accommodate groups that didn't "crawl" dungeons. They camped spots in dungeons and pulled MOBs from the vicinity of that spot for XP or Gear Grinding.
EQ2 has large contested dungeons and overland zones... Why aren't you playing that?
More modern Western MMORPGs are designed so that players can crawl through a dungeon and go about their business, because they aren't designed to be XP grinds, and the gear grind isn't the same as it was in EQ.
People who like the EQ model can go play an Asian grinder MMORPG like Lineage II. You'll get to camp a spot in a large dungeon in that game and take forever to gain a level, just like EQ back in the day!
EQ was good for its time, especially vs. the competition back then, but it isn't great compared to games today. What you're talking about, simply doesn't matter to the vast majority of people these days.
To be frank, EQ2 is a proper sequel to EQ. It's a proper sequel made for a more modern market. The game shares many of the elements you're talking about in the OP. It has tons of content. Tons of quests, and tons of cosmetic/collection things for players who like that. Housing you can decorate yourself. Guild Halls you can decorate yourself. Solo, Group and Raid instanced content. Open/Contested Dungeons and Overload Zones. A class to suit almost any play style, and a race to suite almost any aesthetic preference. The crafting system is still one of the best in the MMORPG genre, IMO.
People are too hung up on their nostalgia for EQ, largely biased and foggy nostalgia. They have great memories, but they don't remember the problems that game had.
No one respected a Necro because they were terrible in parties and raise in original EQ. Rogues were better DPS than Necros. Necros didn't really become good until Planes of Power or shortly before. Mages had tons of issues as well back then. A lot of classes were a mess. People tended to just avoid those that were, which is why some classes were played a lot more than others. Necros were not a high population class in EQ, and while they could solo well, that didn't even compare to the type of XP a group could get in the Nagafen or Vox dungeons (or Sebilis/KC/Chardok in Kunark)
Necros were better than rogues at getting corpses out of dungeons. All they had to do was zone in with you and summon your corpse. It wasn't hard. No invis needed. Just one spell cast and a reagent.
Verant/SOE curbed soloing down easily by implementing the summon mechanic in areas where they did not want people soloing. That way people weren't soloing hard mobs for amazing XP, when they weren't intended to do so.
I'm pretty sure the great Necro Nerf had to do with pets. The Necro pets did too much base damage and dual wielded, so they toned it down. But, there was another issue, where you could give it find steel or shiny daggers (specific name evades me) to lower their delay as well. Necro pets at release, by themselves, out-DPSed most melee DPS classes in the game back then. Mage pets were broken and not dual wielding properly (or equipping weapons given to them) for about a year or more after release.
The reason why it was called the Great Necro Nerf, was because with that huge pet nerf, the class basically plummeted. That's how weak its DPS was without the overpowered pet.
Also, prior to PoP, Necros did not stack. They overwrote each other DoTs, etc. Their DPS was terrible for the first 2-3 expansions. The class didn't really come into its own until Planes of Power. In Original EQ, they were terrible.
So while you could solo easily to level 50, there wasn't really many groups who'd care about you anyways.
Necros came into their own in PoP and Lost Dungeons of Norrath, when they gained the fast Poison DoTs and the Curses that they could stack with their Disease/Pyrocuror/Funeral Pyre/etc. Funeral Pyre line didn't exist until Shadows of Luclin.
Guilds often used one Necro to do terrible DPS and switch clerics and other casters in the raid.
Mages had tons of issues as well, and were often tasked with dropping untold amounts of modulation rods on the ground for people in the raid, because mechanics were often not in their favor, either.
Both "Summoner" classes got HUGE upgrades in Planes of Power and the expansions following it.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
No game is going to have the same feel of the Original EQ. It's not something the majority of players these days are looking for, so I don't fault developers and Publishers for not going that route. The Feel of EQ had as much do to about the literal timeframe of playing the game, the actual people playing the game with you, and the experiences you had playing the game. It has nothing to do with Instances and Raids, or taking 1 hour to go from Neriak to Butcherblock Mountains.
A lot of the "gameplay" in EQ was horrible even back then. The game was magical because it was many people's introduction to MMORPGs/Virtual Worlds and because of the interactions with other people in the game back then.
For example, the mechanic of having to loot your corpse in EQ was horrible, IMO. Especially if you died in a place where you could not reach it - your corpse could rot and all your items would get deleted.
One time I fell down the well in Befallen and I spent about 4 hours asking the zone if they could help me get my corpse. A Necromancer named Nomadl was passing through and offered to summon my corpse if I got the coffin from a vendor. I was a newbie and didn't have that much, so he bought it himself and summoned my corpse.
The mechanic was horrible, but the fact that someone was nice enough to do that made a sort of lifelong impression on me, and it's why I tend to be helpful to newbies in games even to this day. This has nothing to do with EQ as a game itself, but with the interaction I had with the other person in that game, which really sort of affected me in a positive way.
Back then, some of the experiences you had in EQ felt almost as real as real-life events because the concept of virtual worlds was so new to us. MMORPGs are commodity these days. Many of us have been playing them so long that most things are fairly familiar. Things were completely different back then. No "new game" can bring this back... the same way no new festival can bring back the original feel of Woodstock 1969...
That's not going to happen in any new game. Not Pantheon, not BDO, now EQ2 or WoW. Nothing. Not the way it did back then. You cannot replicate the "feel" of EQ and many people are finding out that with all of the games that tried to "out-WoW" WoW. Yes, the game can play very similar, but that magic is gone.
You only get one shot at it.
This is something that MMORPG players (especially the "old-timers") do not want to accept, and it's a persistent driving force in their decisions to dislike or reject newer games.
Everyone is entitled to play what they want, and decide what is fun for them... However, the idea that something needs to give them that "original EQ feel" to hit the right spot is a pipe dream. This will not happen. Its not possible. A game can give you EQ gameplay with upgraded graphics, but it will not be EQ because EQ was about more than the game itself; and that's not something that can be delivered by a software developer.
EQ peaked at 450k subs in 2004. There are not enough EQ players left in the world to really deliver that experience at the scale people expect from MMORPGs these days. You are going to have an EQ-lite game filled with EQ2/WoW/GW/etc. generation players anyways, which completely changes the feel of the game itself.
Folks raved about EQ next and its plans with storybricks, but based on their description, it sounded nearly identical to the function of EQ's original faction system. They just intended to tie in more scripted events, which honestly could have just as easily existed in EQ.
oh, and PS. Pantheon plans to have all of those things... and way more
Actually they don't. I've heard this argument before from WoW fanbois, the reality is the old games have the same systems that added variety to the classes. In DAOC for each class you typically had 3 different ways to spec them which made them play very differently. So by using your logic WoW had what, 6 or 7 classes at release with 18 to 24 variations.. while games like DAOC had 24 classes at release with 72 different variations. Today a game like DAOC has 40+ classes with over 120 different variations... see the difference?
Wow was the beginning of the over simplification of MMORPGs.. it's why a lot of the old school players hate WoW and why it is seen as the game that destroyed what people loved about MMORPGs.
I also find it hilarious that people refer to Vanilla WoW has being the more interesting or difficult at release.. I don't quite get that. I played WoW at release and got my Warrior to level 38... and I didn't die 1 single time. It was the only time in my life playing a MMORPG that I fell asleep from boredom tanking a dungeon with the group I was running with at the time. It was actually kind of funny because they were yelling at my over vent because I stopped tanking. lol No one in the group died btw.
WoW at release was a very simple game, very easy to play.. you had to force yourself to do something really stupid to die in it. With that said it brought a lot of new gamers to MMORPGs and those games found it challenging which I guess was a great experience for them. For those of us looking for something more, looking for the next challenge we basically got screwed for well over a decade now.
Necro often just shunned the community too though, it was a 2 way street. I remember often trying to invite my necro friend, he just preferred soloing, he got good XP and groups didn't really interest him.
Some started grouping more after lvl 58, when they got mind wrack, but many still preferred soloing.
Basically mages and necros solo'd all the time. Druids only sporadically, druids were super happy in groups, .. necro like...grouped against their will lols.
Rogues and Warriors couldn't solo worth a damn, that is true.
The only way a war would solo was if:
-they were super OP for the content
-they had an earthshaker
I was always affraid early on if I got invited as a main healer
1) because I knew some idiot in the group would say "a silly druid" couldn't keep a tank alive
2) the fact that idiot was sometimes right when we had a weak tank and I was OOM every 5 minutes