The Rampant Coyote has a new article were he replays the orginal EverQuest, and gives his thoughts from then and now. If you're interested the links are here and here.
More information.
EverQuest - Retrospective @ Rampant Games
- Thread starter Couchpotato
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TimtheTaxMan
Watchdog
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This was the first and last MMO I ever played. I sunk so many hours into it. When you had a good group the game was amazing, but there were valid complaints about all of the excessive downtime and balance issues. I know they eventually fixed a lot of them (I'm not sure for the better) but I quit shortly after the velious expansion anyway.
I just can't find the time or patience to grind in MMOs any more.
I just can't find the time or patience to grind in MMOs any more.
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The first great MMO, and the last great MMO as well. The only thing that was missing was PvP, but I guess that would have given it a whole different vibe and might have ruined it. I remember Jagged Alliance 2 came out in the summer of 1999, a few weeks after Aradune announced in game the first level 50. Several months before anyone hit 50, amazing. Anyway, I have a lot of really great memories of EQ. The only online game I ever played where most the players were adults, and seemed to be mostly normal types. I had over 120 *days* played when I walked away from it some time after velious. I doubt I put in that many hours, on any other MMO.
Back again to North Ro, just outside of Freeport. In the earliest days of EverQuest, there was a Sand Giant who roamed freely through that desert. He was unstoppable. At that time, few players were high enough level to defeat him, so he was simply a hazard.
That's what I though until my level 16 necro friend teamed up with a few other necros in the zone and life-tapped his sorry ass to death
Back again to North Ro, just outside of Freeport. In the earliest days of EverQuest, there was a Sand Giant who roamed freely through that desert. He was unstoppable. At that time, few players were high enough level to defeat him, so he was simply a hazard.
That's what I though until my level 16 necro friend teamed up with a few other necros in the zone and life-tapped his sorry ass to death
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Carnifex
SasqWatch
I started playing EQ during P3 in late '98, and from the first moment, I was hooked. There's been nothing before, during, or after that has come close to the sheer glory of this mmo. Everything being contested, which means if your guild sat on the top it was your civic duty to make progression as miserable as possible for everyone else!! I play EQ 2 these days, but I keep a few toons in EQ 1 just to log on every so often and remind myself of true greatness.
The world will never again see the like.
The world will never again see the like.
i've tried to go back to the various free servers. The interface is terrible, the mechanics are terrible, and I didnt have any fun at all. MMO's are much richer these days for a reason. Yes, its always awesome to take a trip back to memory lane, but it taught me a lesson too that those (very good) memories needs to stay just that, memories.
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Carnifex
SasqWatch
I find the UI's much easier to use than most of the current ones coming out. Both EQ 1 and 2 got that part very right, easy to read and use. Games today could take a lesson how to make it both useable and logical.
TimtheTaxMan
Watchdog
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lol I remember when the eq interface took up 3/4 of the screen and your little class icons would spin on the side panel. That was also back in the days when you had to stare at your spell book to meditate.
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The first time I had the blind spell cast on me, I thought my monitor had broke.
I kind of like the spell book thing. Little things like those had a bit of a danger element.
Drithius
Magic & Loss
Ah, but that's what they turned into… Starting with the Darkhollow expansion I believe. Everything from loot to spells was just a rehash of prior content +2%. Prior to that, there was still some imagination left in the game…
I don't know how it is these days, but the EQ of olde had some of the best character skill progression mechanics I've ever encountered in an MMO. Few things beat that tactile feel of improving your character by getting skill point increases for actually using the respective skills… certainly better than getting some pre-ordained skill to button mash at X level. That's what created the initial addiction… to be supplanted by raid obligations with your friends when you reached max level.
Plus, combat was difficult then; you couldn't charge into the fray without support and expect to live… Ah, the days of required grouping and social mechanics… never to be had again to appease the soloer.
Did Coyote mention where he played? I was on the Rathe from 2001 to… 2006? or so.
…I had over 500
Guild leader had over 600, but a lot of that was afk in Plane of Knowledge haha. I was in Brotherhood of the Spider for most of my tenure. Some of the most wasteful, yet gratifying years in my life.
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That was not my experience. About 2 years ago they opened a 'classic' server which tried to set things as how they were in 1999. I LOVED IT! for a few months I remembered what it was to play Everquest. First day I took my puny little wizard up a few levels. Second day I teamed up with some people outside the Gnome city and actually *gasp* talked to them! (just for comparison, in my whole 2 months of Guild Wars 2, I think I talked to like … 0 people). Specially during the so-often-maligned downtimes… while we waited for spawns, while we looked for certain mobs for certain quests (some of them needed rat whiskers, I needed rat livers, someone else needed snake skins, etc.) while we traveled for 10 minutes to reach some area, we grouped and chatted and in general just had fun that day, and the next, and the next, and for the next 2 months or so. That's what Everquest was about.
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Never played it.
I did play many MMOs, but can't say any of them was very different than the others. Except DDO. And because of that, I moved away from the genre sticking to MOBA only.
Was EQ different? Based on what I'm reading here, I'd say no.
Honestly I'd love to see a retrospective of the whole genre instead of one game, as 99% of titles were same sh*t, new wrapping.
I did play many MMOs, but can't say any of them was very different than the others. Except DDO. And because of that, I moved away from the genre sticking to MOBA only.
Was EQ different? Based on what I'm reading here, I'd say no.
Honestly I'd love to see a retrospective of the whole genre instead of one game, as 99% of titles were same sh*t, new wrapping.
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Drithius
Magic & Loss
Why oh why do you insist on posting derogatory comments about stuff you haven't any experience of, Joxer?
Yes, it was different: it required grouping and thus socialization; favored enjoying the journey over the destination (yes, that's vague); and was started in a time where answers to game encounters weren't a 10-second Google search away. For starters.
Online games have gained convenience since EQ but they have also lost a lot that I'm not sure can be recaptured in this age of A.D.H.D. & soloing.
Carnifex
SasqWatch
If you never played EQ, you have no idea of what you speak. I've played plenty of other mmo's, and none of them came close to the glory that was EQ 1. Nowadays all I hear is people saying to look stuff up online, but back in EQ 1 you actually had to LEARN things. I really miss those days, when being grouped for a few hours you could really learn a thing or two during that time.
Basically, it was released when the people playing MMOs just wanted a PnP/Mud experience and wiki were not invented yet (nor was data mining).
I'm not sure about the "journey" things, but I do know that one of SOE goal with EQNext is to make it close to impossible to Wikify the game content pass gameplay rules (hence using Storybrick AI for content and procedurally regenerating the world map every X days). How much they will succeed at this is another story.
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Hm, I never actually noticed that, but now as you nailed it down ...
"Wikifying games" ... This is an interesting concept I have never heard of before, but actually contributed to it in the past (although only to a tiny degree, by adding entries to the Drakensang & DDO Wikis).
"Wikifying" is meta-game, so to say. And I sense that it has an tremendous impact on playing games nowadays. My sense says that its impact is far deeper than most people realize ... Because "wikifying" changes the whole point of immersion, of how a game is experienced ...
"Wikifying" is a step away from "immersion" and a step towards "play a game by the book", so to say ...
D
DArtagnan
Guest
Played it for about a week or two, then quit when I realised the effort required to accomplish anything.
Funny thing, though - as I had that reaction to all MMOs, including WoW.
But once I started playing WoW with the GF (at the time) - I quickly became engrossed and ultimately addicted. I guess it mattered a lot that it was a shared experience.
WoW was basically EQ in terms of the core paradigm - so I expect I'd have had the same experience if I'd played EQ with a partner. Though I think it was much less suited for non-hardcore gamers.
Checking out EQ after WoW, it really smacks of one long punishing grind - but that was the approach back then.
Funny thing, though - as I had that reaction to all MMOs, including WoW.
But once I started playing WoW with the GF (at the time) - I quickly became engrossed and ultimately addicted. I guess it mattered a lot that it was a shared experience.
WoW was basically EQ in terms of the core paradigm - so I expect I'd have had the same experience if I'd played EQ with a partner. Though I think it was much less suited for non-hardcore gamers.
Checking out EQ after WoW, it really smacks of one long punishing grind - but that was the approach back then.