Actually reason WoW made such a splash was because the market was so niche before and wow changed that Honestly pre WoW ,mmorpg took time and i mean time.So you could love challenges ,you could be social ,you could have all the elements to enjoy mmorpg but if you did not have time you are unable to do much really. Wow came and made it possible to do this and even vanilla WoW was still a bit niche that you could not explore all there is to see if you did not plough many hours a day in it Indeed WoW did hit the peak when you could do all that with limited time and hardcore could raid at higher difficulty and get better loot which was fair I do not want to go back to the days of EQ1 which meant waiting ages to get a group and then clearing trash for hours to get to a named and if you wipe sit on the computer for hours still .Then hear rumours of some amazing zone you could raid but wait only top 2 guilds with zillions of playtime can go there so tough.
See the last post on that link. I'd say 65% is pretty awesome.
Remember you had only 3 western AAA MMORPGs on the market back then... Ultima Online, Asheron's Call and Everquest. And only one which was both in real 3D and with the traditional "elf/orc/dwarf" Tolkien/DnD setting, and that was Everquest. If you wanted to play a MMORPG, you had little choice. Nothing special with those numbers compared to today.
For perspective what I posted was from the year 2000. So you're reading how players felt then. Let's bear all this mind 16 years later. While I will be playing Pantheon probably from day one I am not so excited about the other things this type of game creates either.
If Pantheon replicates the "you can not do anything efficient without a group" model of early EQ, I will simply not play it at all. I refuse to sit in some safe place over half of my already short gaming time waiting for a group. And if they do that, I predict a very niche and small player base for that game.
Which would be ideal. There are ALREADY tons of modern era games for you to enjoy. Absolutely nothing wrong with a few old school, group based games for other folks.
I just hope it launches relatively bug free and feature complete because those have been the Achilles heels of most small team games. I have my own suspicions that it won't and thus I haven't purchased it yet but ideally it delivers on its promises.
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Actually reason WoW made such a splash was because the market was so niche before and wow changed that Honestly pre WoW ,mmorpg took time and i mean time.<snip>
You are confusing WoW with DAoC. It took longer to level in WoW!
Leveling was actually much slower early on. Faster than EQ or DAoC, but it started slower and was harder in general. No surprise, it had much better player retention back when it took months rather than weeks to see and do everything.
Actually reason WoW made such a splash was because the market was so niche before and wow changed that Honestly pre WoW ,mmorpg took time and i mean time.<snip>
You are confusing WoW with DAoC. It took longer to level in WoW!
When did it ever take long to level in WoW? Took me less than 1week to hit level cap (60 at the time).
I never said it was slow. My point was that it was slower than DAoC.
Edit: it probably depended on a players "familiarity" with "leveling" in mmos though.
For perspective what I posted was from the year 2000. So you're reading how players felt then. Let's bear all this mind 16 years later. While I will be playing Pantheon probably from day one I am not so excited about the other things this type of game creates either.
If Pantheon replicates the "you can not do anything efficient without a group" model of early EQ, I will simply not play it at all.
Good, you can keep game hopping the shinnies, no need to have every new game designed just to your liking. I'm sure many will be glad to not see you there also.
I do not want to go back to the days of EQ1 which meant waiting ages to get a group and then clearing trash for hours to get to a named and if you wipe sit on the computer for hours still.
Sounds like you're doing it wrong. Getting groups was easy if you were able to organize. If you sit shouting all day in town, then you're doing it wrong. You need to get connected with people. Make the groups yourself. Utilize the forums. Create a friends list. Have dates and playtimes with groups.
In lineage 2: I had a friends list of around 80 people, and I formed the best exp groups (4-5 people, but 9 were welcome) at ease everyday. We all had the times worked out, sharing all profits equally, and watching out for eachother.
If you can't do a little social organization, then maybe online rpg games are not what you are looking for.
Getting groups was not easy at all unless you knew a tank and cleric than of course it was easy. Also if you needed a dungeon for a drop you had to camp it and therefore be placed on a waiting list for a spot to open up. I think you're completely misleading folk by trying to suggest it was easy to get groups in Everquest. I found it hard and I had friends when they were not on playing a wizard meant I could go solo or wait until a spot opened out. Organizing a group to go into a dungeon first question they ask is if you have a tank or cleric. Of course if were playing one of those classes it was easier, makes me think your are just trying to sugar coat things or trying to simply portray a very different reality from what most Everquest players experienced.
Just because you want people to think Everquest was all butterflies and sunshine does not excuse you trying to deliberately downplay how hard getting groups were at higher levels when the dungeons were fully camped.
It was so bad on Bertoxxulous the crowd our whole guild moved to Seventh Hammer. Vicious fighting between guilds for camp spots and dragon spawns lead to such a horrid experience makes me think back to those times with no love at all.
I love Everquest it is one of the best games I ever played but I will not ever agree that getting groups was easy.
You can always tell the people who are socially challenged by their claims of "tedium" or "waiting around" in old MMOs.
I never waited around. Ever. I had huge friends lists, guilds and when that failed, I had solo contingencies (which were plentiful in EQ).
Like the real world, things do not always go according to plan in a proper virtual world. It's up to the player to connect, plan and adapt.
Whether that is a good or a bad thing will always be a matter of opinion, so carrying on about how old and poor that design is couldn't be a bigger waste of time. That includes claims of "nostalgia" or how such "will never work again."
This is reality. And you will notice Cheyane didn't need to use any assumptions to express it. You most of the times spent more time getting a group together and then waiting and camping than playing in EQ. Fact.
So you then go and made your own assumptions...
I think you need to change the YOU (emphasis mine) to an I to avoid making assumptions on how everyone else, including me... played the game. I personally spent almost zero time getting a group together as I was actually part of a group that plays together even today. Some of us actually miss those days. Lucky for you, you still have WOW which you have enjoyed daily since 2004 (and even run 2 accounts daily!). Keep on enjoying it! But, some others actually miss the pre-wow days.
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Ah, those nice science fiction stories... don't you love them?
Problem is, reality strongly contradicts your little fairy tales. Like once you have your nice little group of super friends (cool story, bro), you still have to wait in line for access to the non instanced content. And depending on the spawn rate, this could last days and even weeks. And don't even get me started if you then happen to wipe...
But yeah, there was no waiting in EQ. Whatever floats your boat. Nice rose colored glasses you wear.
That's why you have contingencies. MMORPGs were never meant to be the video game equivalent of Burger King and Jimmy John's.
It's all a matter of perspective. Your perspective clearly is, "I want this now. I paid money, I deserve this." My perspective is, "I have this, this, this and this to do in this area. I can't do the first one, so I'll do the others while talking to the people at the other spots."
As such, I never sat on my hands, but also never learned to appreciate fast food mmos.
Ah, those nice science fiction stories... don't you love them?
Problem is, reality strongly contradicts your little fairy tales. Like once you have your nice little group of super friends (cool story, bro), you still have to wait in line for access to the non instanced content. And depending on the spawn rate, this could last days and even weeks. And don't even get me started if you then happen to wipe...
But yeah, there was no waiting in EQ. Whatever floats your boat. Nice rose colored glasses you wear.
Your fallacy is in assuming that all people disliked that. The indisputable FACT is that there is a segment of players that loved the group based content. You can argue the size of that segment but that in no way shape or form invalidates their preference.
Just like I couldn't comprehend how someone could login to WoW daily for 12 years. Because I personally would rather have my hair pulled from my head 1 strand at a time, I can acknowledge that you have different tastes and for some reason (I don't need to know why) have made that your home.
AWESOME! Since you have a home you love so much... enjoy it and let others find games with the type of mechanics they like!
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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playing a wizard meant I could go solo or wait until a spot opened out.
Yeah, wizards were one of the least popular additions to any group. People who played, say, cleric or enchanter back in the day probably had no idea what it was like for people playing the less popular classes.
I myself had a paladin main and I remember too well what it was like trying to get a group at times. Especially during that time period when all hybrids were stigmatized by the "hybrid penalty" issue. If anyone needs their memories refreshed; all hybrid classes had a experience penalty and at a some point (I don't remember the date exactly) word got out that this penalty was shared by anyone they were grouped with.
Paladins were already at the bottom of the barrel of group desirability because they couldn't tank as well as warriors and their heals and buffs were almost worthless when every group had at least one other class who could do it better. At that time the general population had not yet become aware of the Pally/SK advantage in holding agro so that didn't help.
Yeah, it sucked pretty bad. The only way I could get in a group during that time was to start my own and even that often didn't work. I can clearly remember giving up and camping out because I just couldn't get anything going.
People who deny that there were any problems with EQ are either lying, remembering wrongly, or they were just incredibly lucky back in the day.
But even so, I personally could live with the issues around the grouping part of EQ. It was the raiding part that ruined it all for me.
AWESOME! Since you have a home you love so much... enjoy it and let others find games with the type of mechanics they like!
Which is exactly what I'm doing! You will notice that we are not on the Pantheon forums, but in the Pub. So I can still argument about how bad some aspects of those old games were. I never ever said that Pantheon should be done for me... I'm just doubting the success of the game if they go the full old school EQ1 route which required you to give up your real life and be ready to jump into the game at your guild's camp spot any time of the day and night if you wanted to do anything remotely close to dungeons and raids. Players know better nowadays, and also have the choice. The era of games being like a second job is over. People who can't adapt will not have any game to play.
Actually no. What you have been doing is trying to make it sound like posters were lying about not enjoying the old school games. This can be demonstrated by the use of phrases such as:
Science fiction stories
Fairy tales
Cool story, bro
Nice rose colored glasses you wear
And that was just one single post. Chill out, relax, enjoy WoW and acknowledge that different people like different things. As long as people aren't campaigning to bring these mechanics to WOW you shouldn't really care.
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I look at it like a teen getting their first car....Your parents can give you the 10+k to buy the car OR you can go earn it by getting a job......Sure option B is more tedious but you appreciate it alot more....Older MMOs were the same way......Yes you had to work at them and it took time, no question about that, but when you got that nice item you felt like you actually worked for it.....In WoW I was being handed a new shiny every 5 minutes for basically nothing
AWESOME! Since you have a home you love so much... enjoy it and let others find games with the type of mechanics they like!
Which is exactly what I'm doing! You will notice that we are not on the Pantheon forums, but in the Pub. So I can still argument about how bad some aspects of those old games were. I never ever said that Pantheon should be done for me... I'm just doubting the success of the game if they go the full old school EQ1 route which required you to give up your real life and be ready to jump into the game at your guild's camp spot any time of the day and night if you wanted to do anything remotely close to dungeons and raids. Players know better nowadays, and also have the choice. The era of games being like a second job is over. People who can't adapt will not have any game to play.
Actually no. What you have been doing is trying to make it sound like posters were lying about not enjoying the old school games. This can be demonstrated by the use of phrases such as:
Science fiction stories
Fairy tales
Cool story, bro
Nice rose colored glasses you wear
And that was just one single post. Chill out, relax, enjoy WoW and acknowledge that different people like different things. As long as people aren't campaigning to bring these mechanics to WOW you shouldn't really care.
Aaaah yes sorry, we are in the Pub, and I'm disputing the veracity of what you are saying. I'm actually not believing you at all, to be honest. And I'm not the only one. Many of us have played EQ but left our rose colored glasses in some trashcan long time ago.
Apology accepted!
You just need to understand that volume of people who dislike something does not invalidate the tastes of those who differ. Some of us have been lucky enough to have formed gaming bonds from the earliest days of gaming that persist today. Some of my personal fondest memories relate to these guys staying up an extra 3-4 hours to do a corpse run for me. If we didn't share such trials we might not still be gaming together decades later. Some of these guys I have never met but I trust them with account details and credit cards, etc... I know their wives... kids...
Maybe your experience was different and thus you never forged those same bonds. If so I can understand why you personally would prefer today's games.
If you get the same relationships from WoW then more power to you! We did the WoW thing as well and grew our guild to 100 or so active members. Just one of those still game with us today though.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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Players know better nowadays, and also have the choice. The era of games being like a second job is over. People who can't adapt will not have any game to play.
More self centered nonsense from captain J... The fact you've grown up and no longer have the time to play as much as you like doesn't mean everyone is in the same boat. As always there are players with a lot of time on their hands and others with less. Trends don't change because you do.
I have my own experiences on Bertox to draw from and some of it were ugly. I accidentally got into the largest guild but there was rivalry between the guilds and while we used a calender the smaller guilds had to rely on the charity of the bigger guilds to allow them a spot in the Plane Raids. Anyone honest enough will admit this and in our case we had an egotistical leader who would only entertain these smaller guilds if they contacted him in real life. Kind of like grovelling in real life for a spot.
I had no idea this was going on and why when I tried to join groups lead by any smaller guild they used to be a little rude until someone took me aside and explained. Kind of shocked me and I am very ashamed to admit this but I enjoyed what our guild could do and was afraid to leave it even though I did not like what they were doing to others . We had a lot of guild firsts and I did not want to lose that and so I stayed in spite of knowing how he treated guilds he did not like.
There was another guild who was fighting for top dog and things became bad at one point where they would actively try to prevent each other from doing dragons and so on and the GMs were called in a lot. After some horrible spat and real life fight our guild leader left and things became a little better but in the end after we reformed and such we left the server.
I felt very bad for those smaller guilds who had to rely on the charity of these larger guilds to even do content they should have been able to do like Fear and Hate. However whenever we could those of us in our guild tried to help me included when some smaller guild formed up and got overwhelmed and had corpses in Fear we would get enough people to go help them. I always helped port people to Hate as a wizard and I never ever denied people when they asked for help. I would like to think I was popular and a decent person.
You cannot deny that things are worse now as far as the internet and anonymity on it which allows for more people to be even meaner. People were not so conscious I think in 1999 how much you can get away with as they are now. I am just wondering how much worse Everquest would have been like in today's topography.
I am not condemning Everquest I am just relating my own experiences in the game and in spite of everything Everquest is and will be very dear to me.
Old MMOs sucked. The genre never progressed to the point that it was even half decent before being swallowed by WoW and it has nothing to do with this 'easy' BS. WoW wasn't easy when it came out, some of you have bad memories.
The problem is dev studios not having good ideas and a solid spine to come out with truly massive games. It was just too hard for them, so most of them gave up.
And yes, hard to swallow, but when you don't have a life, spending hours every day in a game certainly sounds like a good time, even when the game is mediocre and what you are really doing is substituting RL accomplishments for virtual items.
For other people, not so much. When I started playing MMOs I was in college. I'm not at all against games taking effort and time investment though. But I would like a way of paying extra to speed it up, that's for sure.
The sooner the genre dies, the sooner we get something new and fresh. We haven't had anything new and fresh in a while.
No big companies will invest in a AAA MMORPG if the market dies. You will continue to see small indie developers attempting to continue to push this niche genre forward. The big hype is all around survival based games like ARK, Conan Exile, H1Z1, etc.
For perspective what I posted was from the year 2000. So you're reading how players felt then. Let's bear all this mind 16 years later. While I will be playing Pantheon probably from day one I am not so excited about the other things this type of game creates either.
If Pantheon replicates the "you can not do anything efficient without a group" model of early EQ, I will simply not play it at all. I refuse to sit in some safe place over half of my already short gaming time waiting for a group. And if they do that, I predict a very niche and small player base for that game.
I wouldn't either. There are other ways to get interdependcy without forced group combat. Though i do believe some areas should require it or a very specialized character.
I had a great time in EQ but never understood the metagame at the time. I think I got to level 42 or something after playing off and on for 2 years. I of course never saw the end game, wasn't really good at UO before that either. It all sortof "clicked" for me later in DAoC and in WoW where instead of running around exploring the world for exploration's sake, I took the time to invest in relationships and saw the end game content at both games and really enjoyed it.
EQ was just so big and overwhelming, I had so much fun just smelling the roses at the time that it never occurred to me that there was this entire 'end game' to do, and for that I guess I am blessed as I never experienced any drama until later games.
Regarding grouping, I played a druid primarily and never had trouble getting a group until later on, mostly because all the friends I made outleveled me for the most part but they did help me. I remember folks I leveled with early on that were max level later on would still hang out with me and occasionally we'd do a dungeon or something. I remember when I quit it was because I couldn't find things to do and didn't enjoy soloing. I absolutely loved leveling up near Qeynos / Blackburrow and Kelethin / Crushbone and have a lot of great memories making ad hoc groups in the low level dungeons.
Very insightful post. Maybe your old guild leader is one of the very vocal pantheon advocates who can't wait to lord it over others again. When I hear some of the things these vocal advocates say, and how they say them, it reminds me of those people like your guild leader.
And that is why I have no intention of playing Pantheon. Because I'm afraid that is exactly what is happening. The people who dominated EQ miss their glory days and here comes Brad to bring the glory back for them. The problem is that the type of endgame they want will only appeal to a tiny, tiny number of people and the rest just won't put up with it these days like they did back when.
I should be in their target demographic because I actually want the type of game they are making, warts and all, except for what the endgame is going to be. Knowing what the endgame will be like kills any motivation I have to play the game at all even though I would probably love the pre-endgame part.
So, essentially, what they are doing is looking at a niche demographic and then picking out a niche from within that niche, and THAT is the tiny, tiny demographic they are building a game to appeal to.
Comments
Honestly pre WoW ,mmorpg took time and i mean time.So you could love challenges ,you could be social ,you could have all the elements to enjoy mmorpg but if you did not have time you are unable to do much really.
Wow came and made it possible to do this and even vanilla WoW was still a bit niche that you could not explore all there is to see if you did not plough many hours a day in it
Indeed WoW did hit the peak when you could do all that with limited time and hardcore could raid at higher difficulty and get better loot which was fair
I do not want to go back to the days of EQ1 which meant waiting ages to get a group and then clearing trash for hours to get to a named and if you wipe sit on the computer for hours still .Then hear rumours of some amazing zone you could raid but wait only top 2 guilds with zillions of playtime can go there so tough.
I just hope it launches relatively bug free and feature complete because those have been the Achilles heels of most small team games. I have my own suspicions that it won't and thus I haven't purchased it yet but ideally it delivers on its promises.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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Edit: it probably depended on a players "familiarity" with "leveling" in mmos though.
Just because you want people to think Everquest was all butterflies and sunshine does not excuse you trying to deliberately downplay how hard getting groups were at higher levels when the dungeons were fully camped.
It was so bad on Bertoxxulous the crowd our whole guild moved to Seventh Hammer. Vicious fighting between guilds for camp spots and dragon spawns lead to such a horrid experience makes me think back to those times with no love at all.
I love Everquest it is one of the best games I ever played but I will not ever agree that getting groups was easy.
I never waited around. Ever. I had huge friends lists, guilds and when that failed, I had solo contingencies (which were plentiful in EQ).
Like the real world, things do not always go according to plan in a proper virtual world. It's up to the player to connect, plan and adapt.
Whether that is a good or a bad thing will always be a matter of opinion, so carrying on about how old and poor that design is couldn't be a bigger waste of time. That includes claims of "nostalgia" or how such "will never work again."
I think you need to change the YOU (emphasis mine) to an I to avoid making assumptions on how everyone else, including me... played the game. I personally spent almost zero time getting a group together as I was actually part of a group that plays together even today. Some of us actually miss those days. Lucky for you, you still have WOW which you have enjoyed daily since 2004 (and even run 2 accounts daily!). Keep on enjoying it! But, some others actually miss the pre-wow days.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
It's all a matter of perspective. Your perspective clearly is, "I want this now. I paid money, I deserve this." My perspective is, "I have this, this, this and this to do in this area. I can't do the first one, so I'll do the others while talking to the people at the other spots."
As such, I never sat on my hands, but also never learned to appreciate fast food mmos.
Just like I couldn't comprehend how someone could login to WoW daily for 12 years. Because I personally would rather have my hair pulled from my head 1 strand at a time, I can acknowledge that you have different tastes and for some reason (I don't need to know why) have made that your home.
AWESOME! Since you have a home you love so much... enjoy it and let others find games with the type of mechanics they like!
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Yeah, wizards were one of the least popular additions to any group. People who played, say, cleric or enchanter back in the day probably had no idea what it was like for people playing the less popular classes.
I myself had a paladin main and I remember too well what it was like trying to get a group at times. Especially during that time period when all hybrids were stigmatized by the "hybrid penalty" issue. If anyone needs their memories refreshed; all hybrid classes had a experience penalty and at a some point (I don't remember the date exactly) word got out that this penalty was shared by anyone they were grouped with.
Paladins were already at the bottom of the barrel of group desirability because they couldn't tank as well as warriors and their heals and buffs were almost worthless when every group had at least one other class who could do it better. At that time the general population had not yet become aware of the Pally/SK advantage in holding agro so that didn't help.
Yeah, it sucked pretty bad. The only way I could get in a group during that time was to start my own and even that often didn't work. I can clearly remember giving up and camping out because I just couldn't get anything going.
People who deny that there were any problems with EQ are either lying, remembering wrongly, or they were just incredibly lucky back in the day.
But even so, I personally could live with the issues around the grouping part of EQ. It was the raiding part that ruined it all for me.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You just need to understand that volume of people who dislike something does not invalidate the tastes of those who differ. Some of us have been lucky enough to have formed gaming bonds from the earliest days of gaming that persist today. Some of my personal fondest memories relate to these guys staying up an extra 3-4 hours to do a corpse run for me. If we didn't share such trials we might not still be gaming together decades later. Some of these guys I have never met but I trust them with account details and credit cards, etc... I know their wives... kids...
Maybe your experience was different and thus you never forged those same bonds. If so I can understand why you personally would prefer today's games.
If you get the same relationships from WoW then more power to you! We did the WoW thing as well and grew our guild to 100 or so active members. Just one of those still game with us today though.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The fact you've grown up and no longer have the time to play as much as you like doesn't mean everyone is in the same boat.
As always there are players with a lot of time on their hands and others with less. Trends don't change because you do.
I had no idea this was going on and why when I tried to join groups lead by any smaller guild they used to be a little rude until someone took me aside and explained. Kind of shocked me and I am very ashamed to admit this but I enjoyed what our guild could do and was afraid to leave it even though I did not like what they were doing to others . We had a lot of guild firsts and I did not want to lose that and so I stayed in spite of knowing how he treated guilds he did not like.
There was another guild who was fighting for top dog and things became bad at one point where they would actively try to prevent each other from doing dragons and so on and the GMs were called in a lot. After some horrible spat and real life fight our guild leader left and things became a little better but in the end after we reformed and such we left the server.
I felt very bad for those smaller guilds who had to rely on the charity of these larger guilds to even do content they should have been able to do like Fear and Hate. However whenever we could those of us in our guild tried to help me included when some smaller guild formed up and got overwhelmed and had corpses in Fear we would get enough people to go help them. I always helped port people to Hate as a wizard and I never ever denied people when they asked for help. I would like to think I was popular and a decent person.
You cannot deny that things are worse now as far as the internet and anonymity on it which allows for more people to be even meaner. People were not so conscious I think in 1999 how much you can get away with as they are now. I am just wondering how much worse Everquest would have been like in today's topography.
I am not condemning Everquest I am just relating my own experiences in the game and in spite of everything Everquest is and will be very dear to me.
The problem is dev studios not having good ideas and a solid spine to come out with truly massive games. It was just too hard for them, so most of them gave up.
And yes, hard to swallow, but when you don't have a life, spending hours every day in a game certainly sounds like a good time, even when the game is mediocre and what you are really doing is substituting RL accomplishments for virtual items.
For other people, not so much. When I started playing MMOs I was in college. I'm not at all against games taking effort and time investment though. But I would like a way of paying extra to speed it up, that's for sure.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
EQ was just so big and overwhelming, I had so much fun just smelling the roses at the time that it never occurred to me that there was this entire 'end game' to do, and for that I guess I am blessed as I never experienced any drama until later games.
Regarding grouping, I played a druid primarily and never had trouble getting a group until later on, mostly because all the friends I made outleveled me for the most part but they did help me. I remember folks I leveled with early on that were max level later on would still hang out with me and occasionally we'd do a dungeon or something. I remember when I quit it was because I couldn't find things to do and didn't enjoy soloing. I absolutely loved leveling up near Qeynos / Blackburrow and Kelethin / Crushbone and have a lot of great memories making ad hoc groups in the low level dungeons.
And that is why I have no intention of playing Pantheon. Because I'm afraid that is exactly what is happening. The people who dominated EQ miss their glory days and here comes Brad to bring the glory back for them. The problem is that the type of endgame they want will only appeal to a tiny, tiny number of people and the rest just won't put up with it these days like they did back when.
I should be in their target demographic because I actually want the type of game they are making, warts and all, except for what the endgame is going to be. Knowing what the endgame will be like kills any motivation I have to play the game at all even though I would probably love the pre-endgame part.
So, essentially, what they are doing is looking at a niche demographic and then picking out a niche from within that niche, and THAT is the tiny, tiny demographic they are building a game to appeal to.