EQ Memories

[cabby]

Being an old Everquest player (5 yrs) I will say this, no matter what incarnation/expansion of WoW you want to play it's still way too easy. This is why Blizzard has managed the subscription base it has. When I first picked up WoW to try I stopped playing after a few days because there was no real level of difficulty in the game, and there still isn't. Blizzard hands you everything. You die? Oh, that's ok, just spend maybe 5% of the money you've earned during your play session and repair your gear. In EQ if you die you lose experience and can lose a level if you die right after having gained a level. If you lose a level from dieing then you also lose access to any spells for that level you just lost. Your running low on mana in WoW? That's easy, just hang out for about 20 seconds and you'll have more than enough. In EQ you have to sit to regain mana and it takes about 1.5 min to get it all back. If you were a cleric in EQ you're life was doubly hard when in a group or raid because not only did you generate hate from healing people, but then you'd have to sit there to get back mana for more healing spells and guess what, sitting generates hate too because the monsters think that you're just that cocky that you can sit there in front of them. Priest in WoW has 2 or 3 good spells to use that are 3sec or lower cast time to keep a tank alive, in EQ the cleric has one and that's a 10sec cast time. Some raid mobs could decimate a tank in under 10sec without blinking an eye. Don't know what to do in WoW? That's easy, just look around the world for someone that has a shiny yellow ! above their heads, even tho you sit there and wonder why they'd have something over their heads and who put it there (in a RP sense). Didn't know what to do in EQ, run around and hail/talk to everyone, pay attention to what they say, and then try to hold a conversation with them trying to figure out what key words need to be said so that you can get a quest. Want to make your life even easier than it already is in WoW? That's easy, just search for an addon to do everything in the game for you. Want to make your life easier in EQ, tough sh**, suck it up and learn how to play your class and expect it to be a fight for you life to level, especially if you try it solo after level 40. To sum it up, WoW has, and always will, done nothing but make the game easy to cater to as many people as possible while EQ has always been a game that makes you think about what you're doing first, then beats the crap out of you anyway while still providing a great gaming experience if you're willing to learn the game and class.

[ctkdjane1]

Hehe Cabby yes, I myself was an old eq player. Although they have made it "easier" then it was when we use to play. But still, your right WoW hands everything to you while other games esp the ones that have a good end game. A lot of the times when I get bored of WoW I go to DDO or EQ.

Although I found that Dark age of Camolet was more boring then WoW. Also Cabby I was a wizard the worst class too solo on lol.

[cabby]

My alt-a-holism started in EQ so I played most of the classes. Wizard was a down right pain unless you were really good with quad-kiting, and even then it wasn't easy. The one thing I really missed from old EQ days was trading buffs and porting classes actually being useful. They did make it a bit easier for most people and they also killed off a lot of the old zones with the expansions making it better to go elsewhere for leveling, but I really missed praying to find a druid for SoW for that long run thru WK. Hell, it was still a long run as a bard with a half decent drum.

[Werderx]

LOL Cabby! Thanks for the blast from the past! That was awesome. I forgot all about CH (complete heal) chains where it took 3 or 4 Clerics to keep one tank up in a 72 person raid. Ahhhhh good times. I don’t mean to derail the thread, but i want to jump in on this right quick. I also played EQ for 4 to 5 years. My main toon was a Cleric. I loved the challenge that the class brought. Tanking was also fun, because you had to know how to generate hate (ahhh haven't heard that term in a long time) and have good weapons for it. There was no threat transfers to help you out... people just had to know how to manage their threat (*cough* NECROMANCERS... bastards). Healing in raids consisted of you tab targeting mobs and looking at who they were targeting, and then making a quick decision if you needed to /assist and heal or not. Which reminds me of the ever so exciting event of breaking into the Plane of Fear! WHICH btw i still have my Amulet of Necropotence sitting on my cleric! Ahhh those were the times. I was just like you when i moved from EQ to WoW. I had a huge culture shock in that there was no challenge and the community that made up WoW was 180 degrees different from that of EQ. I couldn't fathom a game where you could solo your way to end level. EQ had a more mature and family oriented community, where WoW was/is full of selfish, I'll only help if there is something in it for me, "I'm bored, entertain me", childish, etc, individuals. I remember spending hours upon hours not doing much of anything in EQ other than chatting it up with GOOD and PRODUCTIVE conversations in /ooc or /gu. Also, (most) everyone had respect and courtesy in that game. I fondly remember camp checks to see what named mobs were being camped. One of the things that urged people to be friendly and kind, is that the game required you to play nice with others to get anything done. Aaaand there was always “Training” those that did not play nice. *grin* Corpse retrievals in EQ were not a joke like they are in WoW.
Unfortunately, the things that made EQ awesome, also made it suck. Because the game was so community dependant, it took a minimum of 4 hours to get anything done in that game. As I got older and graduated College, i had to leave the game due to not having enough time to play. There is a lot i missed about EQ, and even went back to try it again... however, while they have made quite a bit of improvements to the game that allow you to hop on for a little while, and then hop off... it still took way too long to grind out the levels.. and by this time i am extremely far behind the content.


To address ctkdjane1's comment about the hardest class to solo... i would have to say hands down, it was the rogue. To do any damage you had to be behind the mob, and EQ had no way for a rogue to stun the mob and allow for you to get behind it. Pets didn't pull agro if you were within melee range (not that rogues got a pet) so that wasn't an option... you pretty much had to have a tank that could hold threat off of you, and a healer that could keep the tank alive. My rogue sucked a lot to level due to all of the downtime waiting around for a group/trying to form one.

Again, thanks for the flash backs.. good times!
And sorry for the wall of text. hehe

[cabby]

Hehe, my mains (yes 2) were a cleric and a BL, but my very first was a chanter. There's nothing in WoW to compare to knowing how to CC well and having a whole group praise you up and down for keeping them alive even if you mezzed yourself in the process of controlling everything. I was one of those that wouldn't hesitate to jump into the middle of 4 or 5 mobs and AE mezz us all, and keep doing it until the tank was able to whittle away a couple. Of course gaining all that agro at once would sometime mean my untimely demise, but as long as the rest of the group survived I didn't mind the XP loss. Ahh the memories.

If you want to have some old school EQ there are some private servers that are playing by the old rules. I believe that there's one called Project1999 that currently only has up to Velious running and is planning on releasing expansion stuff slowly.

[ctkdjane1]

@Wererx Ah I never played a rogue, I did have a friend who played one and she told me alot of the horror stories about one. Although, the classes I played were a Half-elf Druid and a human wizard. I also had a barbarin shaman I played here and there.

As for the maturely level yes, in EQ a good reput was an important element in EQ if you earned a bad reput you had two choices the easiest was to delete and start over or the harder one was too try to repair the damage. Alot of the people in WoW won't be able to handle EQ well maybe now but when we played.

I think what made WoW "liked" most was it is too easy. Too be fair WoW is a beginner game, or a starter game into the MMORPG's. Cause in EQ if you got a lvl 85 or is it now 90 I don't know. It felt better cause you earned it. Also I do agree with what you said the people there were more mature and family like.

Here is something sad, most of the 30 petitions I did in EQ maybe more were in regards to in game errors. maybe 1 had to do with a player. In WoW for campasion. I had to report (I lost track) about if you do not count the report spam button maybe 200 or 300 hundred 99.99 percent had to do with reporting another player.

Now for compassion with Lore, of the two games, I have to be honest I know more about the lore of WoW then I do about EQ. In EQ there was lore but I honestly didn't care about it. In WoW I just wanted to know more about the world and the history.

(not trying to jump the thread) The first mmorpg game I went to and this is in order as much as I remember as I started in 2000 Xmas. EQ, for about five years mostly none stop. I tried Daoc paid for 3 months of it played two weeks before I got bored of it. I tried Ashen Call um, people complain about bugs in Wow or DDO. Um...after SWG came out I played EQ and SWG here and there. Then in 2005 I went to WoW. I tried a couple other games, along the way, such as Free to play ones that were more or less junk. RF online which is now a Free to play game, most of the online games were sony made, like SWG, EQ EQ2 and Vanguard. I also played DDO when it was pay to play. I went back to EQ about once every year maybe for a month. But I keep going back to WoW.

Now I mostly play Wow and DDO. My son has express interest in going back to EQ as I had him try it back in 2009. He plays mostly WoW, DDO, EQ2 extended.

Sorry to disrail a bit but I figured this was revenlant to the thread.

[dulak]

The first MMO I played was EQ. Started right after the Kunark expansion was released. My very first toon was an Iksar SK whom later ended up with Greenmist and was uber bad ass. Since then, gaming has pretty much ruined a good majority of my life due to it becoming an addiction but I have learned to balance it out and am doing better. Anyhow, I've begun losing interest in WoW once again. I have permanently lost interest in EQ and have sold both my accounts to a friend who has taken very good care of them. I am now playing WoW long enough each day to do my daily inscription and JC daily. Other than that, I'm playing Eve Online. That game is...Intense to say the least. Below is a pic I found a while back detailing the learning curve and I have to agree.

Still a great game though and has many upsides that other games do not.

[cabby]

I think it was Kunark and then Velious that came out. I actually started playing a couple months before Luclin came out. First ever was the Erudite enchanter. Was always a challenge, but I had my friend that got me into the game on the phone constantly helping me to learn the game and was always grouping with me. We'd spend almost 4hrs every night in game and on the phone at the same time. I got myself a hands free phone with a spare battery that I'd have to swap out at some time during the night. As you guys say, the community differences between EQ and WoW are like night and day. I blame WoW for the habit I currently have of not paying attention to the chat window. Can only stand so much stupid Chuck Norris or Ass jokes, would never have that kind of crap in EQ.

After I left EQ I did pretty much the same rounds of games as others. EQ2, RoE, V:SoH, CoH/CoV, Eve, CO, SWG, DDO, DR, etc. Right now I'm actually playing more of the new DCUO than anything else along with some minor web browser strategy stuff. I didn't leave because of the community leaving to come to WoW, I actually left because I was a casual gamer and got tired of SOE releasing new expansions every 6 months that were always geared toward the hardcore raiders.

Like I said in the other post, there are private servers out there that are a lot more traditional in their game play if you wanted to play and not have to pay SOE or worry about having to get caught up on expansions. Sometimes I'll hit one of them up just for old times sake.

Speaking of old times sake, here's a great blast from the past for you all. Clan of the Waist Down Fist FTW!!!!!!!!!

http://www.wtfcomics.com/archive.html?376_1

[dulak]

No!!!!! Gnome Monks can't exist!!!!

[cabby]

Guess what my very first toon was in EQ2 beta and live?

[dulak]

A full fledged member of the Waist Down Fist!

[cabby]

Hey, give that man a CoF!!

[Werderx]

It looks like EQ2 is Free To Play now.
http://everquest2.com/free_to_play/index

After looking at their pricing matrix, it looks like you get extremely minimal game play as a free account, but if you pay them a 1 time fee of 10 dollars, they unlock enough features to at least have the oportunity to enjoy the game... and as expected, to get the full experience and be able to hit lvl cap of 90, you need to pay them $200 a year.
http://everquest2.com/_themes/defaul...shipMatrix.jpg

I might download the free version to have a look around in the game.

[dulak]

It blows trust me. I had a free account. Severely limited. Not worth it imo.

[cabby]

Yeah, SOE didn't really do a good job of switching EQ2 over from p2p to f2p. If you really want to try it out I'd recommend spending the $15/month for a month or two. Now the races are still limited, but there are really no major racial advantages.