Nostalgic look back at the magic of Everquest (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

I just thought I'd link an article from Rock, Paper, Shotgun (part of their gaming made me series.

It captures a [very] small part of the EQ magic that I still think about every now and again, 10+ years later.

I missed out on that one. We played Baldur's Gate, Hidden & Dangerous and other LAN games as those at that time. Two of the lead designers for WoW also came as players from that game, and I understand they copied a lot of concepts from it. How much did Everquest innovate in contrast to older muds and UO?

Originally Posted by hishadow
I missed out on that one. We played Baldur's Gate, Hidden & Dangerous and other LAN games as those at that time. Two of the lead designers for WoW also came as players from that game, and I understand they copied a lot of concepts from it. How much did Everquest innovate in contrast to older muds and UO?

Can't really compare with muds. In text games you can do pretty much anything you want, but in a 3d graphical game like Everquest, it restricts the possibilities a lot. But having said that, what EQ1 did no other MMO has done.
They recently started a new 'locked-time progression' server which means, starts as close as possible to how EQ1 started, and expansions are added after 2 months each. I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed it the first time.
You can see the love and detail they had with EQ1. When newer games gloat on the fact that they have 'dozens' of spells and skills, EQ1 had *hundreds* (well, at least more than 1 hundred). Spells that you don't see in normal MMOs, like levitate, resistance to specific elements, darkness, charm person, poison, disease, lower resistances, invulnerabilities, feign death, teleports, more buffs than you can imagine, illusions, and on and on and on.

EQ1 was my first MMO and I have very fond memories of the first 3 years especially. Not sure if I could play it again but I have to agree with the above poster that all the variety was one of the main perks. Sometimes I really miss my Druid, Otter Wetwhiskers.

After having played UO, I couldn't accept EQ as anything but a major step downwards.