Everquest 1 is still the best MMO out there!

I know there are alot of haters out there, but to this day after 7 years there is still no other game that has kept my attention so long.

The raiding aspect of this game continues to excel. No longer are the days where you stick a MT in a corner with 4 or 5 clerics on a complete heal chain. The entire raid must be focused. There are emotes that must be followed, people hailed, all kinds of crazy stuff now. To anyone thinking of coming back, there is no time better than now. The latest expansion "The Serpents Spine" has a new race with a starting city and zones from level 1 to 75.

I know I probably sound like a fan boy and maybe I am. Any thoughts?

I lost you at the first abbreviation.

Everquest 1 was amazing in its infancy. The world was massive yet everyone crowded into zones such as the EC or Oasis. I loved how everyone hid on a giant pillar in the ocean to avoid being rocked by sand giants. Then the word would eventually spread that the next great place to go was that damn aviak tower and everyone would take the days walk over to the qeynos side of norrath (because the PoK didnt exist and wizards/druids were not high enough to group port). I just really enjoyed that sense of community exploration. It could be back with the new expansion. I just feel it wouldnt be the same due to the lack of new players and the already high level players going off and discovering the new continent without the newer guys.

Yea, mudflation really killed the game, ever expanding world, and community in all, the game just imploded.

imploded being a bad word to use really, the game experienced some die off when WoW was introduced but the game is still going really strong and for so long, not to mention one of the most memorable games ever made and with out a name behind it to give it any running start (such as WoW).

I still play it from time to time, its really easy to get by on gear from PoP were it was still fairly fresh. Just so many memories with that game, it really kicked off a new era of gaming that was struggling.

You guys think Vanguard may have the same aspects? It is being developed by the EQ1 creator correct?

the best mmorpg is generally the first one x person ever played

Furystrike said:

Everquest 1 was amazing in its infancy. The world was massive yet everyone crowded into zones such as the EC or Oasis. I loved how everyone hid on a giant pillar in the ocean to avoid being rocked by sand giants. Then the word would eventually spread that the next great place to go was that damn aviak tower and everyone would take the days walk over to the qeynos side of norrath (because the PoK didnt exist and wizards/druids were not high enough to group port). I just really enjoyed that sense of community exploration. It could be back with the new expansion. I just feel it wouldnt be the same due to the lack of new players and the already high level players going off and discovering the new continent without the newer guys.

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Yep I agree. EQ back in 1999-2000 was totally awesome. Though the zones did get crowded at times, there was a sense of community that i've yet to experience in any other MMO out there today. I don't care how many subscribers WoW gets, but as long as 99% of the content can be soloed, there is no reason for people to group, and thus no reason for socializing and roleplaying. That was (and still is) one of EQ's main strengths.

Still, I felt EQ got worse and worse with each new expansion. Too much land spread people out, powerful items made everything that came before it obsolete, most zones were empty, the game became too easy. Oh well, I guess i'll always have my memories...

Totally Agree. Went to hell after PoP imo. Added far too much ease to the world. Wizards and Druids died.

The Community is what made EQ, and like the above poster said, I have yet to feel that in any game. You couldn't get anything done in EQ without the help of someone, It forced you into meeting new people and getting into crap with them.

WoW was its downfall, It was easier so dragged in alot of new players.. EQ tried there damdest to turn it into that easy game but it just didn't happen, Should have been left the way it was and just bulked up. There was no real need to continue adding levels, People were quite content at 50, Then at 60..that would have done.

Martyr said:

the best mmorpg is generally the first one x person ever played

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True, but it seems that each new MMORPG that comes out these days is worse than the one that came before it. Back when the genre first started, the games were difficult, and social interaction wasn't just an added bonus, it was mandatory.

Now what do we get? Instanced dungeons, instanced PvP (or even worse, complete lack of PvP), soloable content, death penalties that mean nothing, easy-to-acquire items, ease of travel, etc. Basically the entire POINT of playing these games has been thrown out the window, and instead we get level grinding and raiding, and rules that are meant to "save" players from each other - oh what fun! Where does the actual 'roleplaying' part of RPG come in? Beats me.

MrFace said:

You guys think Vanguard may have the same aspects? It is being developed by the EQ1 creator correct?

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Brad McQuaid who made 90% of Velious is doing the game, but can he come in and re-create EQ? I don't think he can. The game is going in a different way then EQ did and I think Brad will do a good job with it.

WoW was its downfall, It was easier so dragged in alot of new players.. EQ tried there damdest to turn it into that easy game but it just didn't happen, Should have been left the way it was and just bulked up. There was no real need to continue adding levels, People were quite content at 50, Then at 60..that would have done.

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I disagree, the game nearly doubled in population with Kunark, obviously people wanted more, personally I liked it.

Still, I felt EQ got worse and worse with each new expansion. Too much land spread people out, powerful items made everything that came before it obsolete, most zones were empty, the game became too easy. Oh well, I guess i'll always have my memories...

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Such is the case with everything, you'll see it with burning crusade almost instantly, I remember back when kunark came out, the Ranger sword on Innoruuk 9/19 (no stats) off of a god kill, and in kunark, a simple drop in sebilis (some mob solo'able by a 55 necro) 9/19 (6sta/20hp), instantaneous FU to rangers heh.

Now what do we get? Instanced dungeons, instanced PvP (or even worse, complete lack of PvP), soloable content, death penalties that mean nothing, easy-to-acquire items, ease of travel, etc. Basically the entire POINT of playing these games has been thrown out the window, and instead we get level grinding and raiding, and rules that are meant to "save" players from each other - oh what fun! Where does the actual 'roleplaying' part of RPG come in? Beats me.

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the pussies of the online RPG world finally won

I agree with the above poster mentioning the problems that PoP caused. Travel was too easy, and although the bazaar as a concept was good I would have preferred it if you could have put your character in a trader mode wherever you wanted (or in any city). I missed the days when everyone was at the tunnel trading. I liked the idea of instances as not everyone has three hours to burn every night. Eh...it was fun while it lasted. How many have gone back to EQ1?

I gotta admit though, I love instanced dungeons. Instanced raiding (a la Time) was a huge step up too.

I remember the original EQ days of being in one of the two guilds that could drop the 2 dragons and fear and hate. I also remember what happened as more and more of the population caught up in levels. It was never a matter to me of "oh, well I must prevent those other people from doing this content" it was more a matter of "oh great, we've got 5 guilds on the server doing this stuff, i'm bored now because the mobs were killed by a Euro guild at off hours this week, and an asian guild got them the week before."

For single group stuff, I personally love dungeon crawling. I had a pretty static group for quite a while in EQ, and we did a ton of stuff. But, we also tended to play at late hours, so we had a lot of stuff to ourselves. Early on it was cool when there weren't a lot of 50s, but later when more people hit the cap, it got kinda bad. Primetime play sucked. Tons of groups, dungeons that were entirely clear. Ick.
Being able to go through a fully populated dungeon and figure your way through it the first couple of times is a great time.

I'd go so far as to say that instancing was one of the best ideas that anyone had for improving gameplay.

EDIT: To touch on one of the ideas posted above. The idea that new games are only about grinding and raiding, something that the early EQ wasn't about. I wholeheartedly disagree. Games are what you make of them. I gained levels quickly in EQ because I had a pretty solid group of people I'd met and had similar play hours to. It was still grinding to a certain extent at some points, but more importantly, it was exploring and getting a whole lot of xp in the process because people were having fun doing new things. You can still have that in new games. The gameworlds are still pretty large. You don't have to go all out to level, that's something that is entirely up to the player.

Raiding is only seen as "The Point of the Game" by those who don't wish to view the journey as the fun. To be fair, it is a pervasive attitude among many people, but if you've done the hardcore raiding (anyone else remember multi-day plane of sky runs right after it came out, or right after kunark came out?) and you've seen a lot of what's there, you can still make the decision to take your time and smell the roses in any other game you play.

EDIT 2: Hehe, one other thing. EQ wasn't a hard game, even in its infancy. It was time consuming to be sure, but it was never actually hard. The only thing any of these games really requires is the ability to pay attention.

I played it for a little bit, and I liked the classes it offered (started a druid when it came out.. and then later a beastmaster) but the leveling was sooo slowww... I couldn't stand it

edit: I think I reached level 10

Im with the OP i spen so many days of my college life playing EQ when it first came out and through the next 5 years i think i burned myself out on MMORPGS period.

Nothing since has kept my attention as long. Ive tried all the major MMORPGS since and would play them for a month or two before interest was lost. I dont know if it was just that EQ1 offered something so new back then, or if I just am completely burnt out on the whole MMORPG thing now.

While I quite like RPGs I can't stand waiting around to repeatedly attack spawning monsters. I played EQ for a bit and I loved it for a few months then I realised how excruciatingly dull the genre is.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Ah memories and then some.
I started playing Ultima Online the true grandfather of the MMORPs today.
That game was truely fun.
It wasn't about levels back in those days.
No it was about rep and skill points.

You could make your avitar anything all you had to do was work on what direction you wanted your skill points to go..

After that I played EQ for a few years.
I remember not wanting to quit UO and played EQ for a free month.
I got sucked into it from 98-01 but after 2001 I just lost all interest in the game it got really boring.

I remember how much fun it was to run around in the lands and have to learn how to navigate where you were going. You had to learn how to get from point a to point b.
You could wait on the 15 min timer gates around the 4 major cities or you could pester a Druid/Wizard for a port.

Then came PoP and it all went down hill there.
Yes I agree the instanced dungeons did make it easier to form a group *hint the LFG tool was kick ass* (Wonders why no other MMORP hasn't taken note of a LFG tool yet*

But I miss being able to walk around a run into people.
I quit back in 2001 then tried to come back for a few months in 2003
Half if not 80% of the zones were always empty.
I would travel around to some of the first and second expansion zones and the orginal ones too only to find that no one not even lowbies pre-teens hunt there any longer

Crushbone was almost always dead would find a few there from time to time.
Does anyone still hunt ole Nadox?
I always picked on the locks around Butcherblock Moutains for fun
Last time I logged in this year High Hold Keep still had some players there messing around.

Though Katta Castellum was always my favorite place to just mess around.
Some fun side quests there

Who remembers the tale about the sleeping death dragon from way back in the day when a guild awoke it and it deathtouched a lot of players?

Ignore

yeah EQ for me is that cherished "first MMO" To be sure I had played on muds going back some years but I was just totally blown away by how rich the EQ experience was (at first). Like most I slogged my way up to a raiding guild but eventually quit as it was far more work than fun. Kinda sucks trying to grind and raid in PoP when your best gear is one or two pieces from nToV because your guild officers are greedy and play favorites (no dkp system)

when they came out with the progressive servers this past summer I gave it another shot. It was, sadly, still a better game than EQ2, and despite losing just about a months time waiting for Iksar to become available I rose near the top - fools were still exping in LoIO when SoNH gave you like double exp and rare drops cause it was a hotzone. But of course they bungled it. The expansions were opening far too quick - catering to the top 1% when just about everyone else wanted more time to enjoy what was already there. I managed to get into a great guild but of course right afterwards a few key people quit and the whole thing fell apart (happened to me in eq2 too)

I started playing EQ on April 1, 1999 and still play it to this day. My wife plays a level 75 rogue and my brother plays a 75 beastlord and a 75 Wizard. I myself have 3 account. Ya, it gets expensive but its fun as shit even after 8 years. I have tried EQ2, Star Wars Galaxies, and WoW (this game a tons of retards) and none of them could hold my attention like EQ1.
Also, all MMOs willnew begin to suffer from "mudflation" after the second expansion release when people that are relatively new (2-3 year players) begin to realize that the game never changes and it will always be the same thing and never really change much. Thats my 2 cents on it.

herryoyo said:

I gotta admit though, I love instanced dungeons. Instanced raiding (a la Time) was a huge step up too.

I remember the original EQ days of being in one of the two guilds that could drop the 2 dragons and fear and hate. I also remember what happened as more and more of the population caught up in levels. It was never a matter to me of "oh, well I must prevent those other people from doing this content" it was more a matter of "oh great, we've got 5 guilds on the server doing this stuff, i'm bored now because the mobs were killed by a Euro guild at off hours this week, and an asian guild got them the week before."

For single group stuff, I personally love dungeon crawling. I had a pretty static group for quite a while in EQ, and we did a ton of stuff. But, we also tended to play at late hours, so we had a lot of stuff to ourselves. Early on it was cool when there weren't a lot of 50s, but later when more people hit the cap, it got kinda bad. Primetime play sucked. Tons of groups, dungeons that were entirely clear. Ick.
Being able to go through a fully populated dungeon and figure your way through it the first couple of times is a great time.

I'd go so far as to say that instancing was one of the best ideas that anyone had for improving gameplay.

EDIT: To touch on one of the ideas posted above. The idea that new games are only about grinding and raiding, something that the early EQ wasn't about. I wholeheartedly disagree. Games are what you make of them. I gained levels quickly in EQ because I had a pretty solid group of people I'd met and had similar play hours to. It was still grinding to a certain extent at some points, but more importantly, it was exploring and getting a whole lot of xp in the process because people were having fun doing new things. You can still have that in new games. The gameworlds are still pretty large. You don't have to go all out to level, that's something that is entirely up to the player.

Raiding is only seen as "The Point of the Game" by those who don't wish to view the journey as the fun. To be fair, it is a pervasive attitude among many people, but if you've done the hardcore raiding (anyone else remember multi-day plane of sky runs right after it came out, or right after kunark came out?) and you've seen a lot of what's there, you can still make the decision to take your time and smell the roses in any other game you play.

EDIT 2: Hehe, one other thing. EQ wasn't a hard game, even in its infancy. It was time consuming to be sure, but it was never actually hard. The only thing any of these games really requires is the ability to pay attention.

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I suppose the reasons that I hate ideas like instancing and raiding is because they completely ruin PvP and roleplaying. I played on the PvP-teams server on EQ for about 2 years, and it was easily the best time i've ever had in a video game. EQ on a "blue" (non pvp) server bored me after 4 months, but the PvP server was like a whole new game. Teams now tried to control territory and zones. Land actually had meaning, and a purpose. If you didn't bother to control the higher level dungons, then the other team would get to them, and gain the benefits of them - faster leveling and more importantly, the items found within. Entire wars of 100+ players would break out in zone control, trying to keep the other teams from gaining those precious, limited resources.

PvP also introduced something that I couldn't really find on the non-pvp servers - roleplaying. I found that at LEAST 50% of the population was actively roleplaying, and most didn't even realize it. The world was just THAT engaging. There were suddenly server politics that didn't exist anywhere else. Players made names and reputations for themselves based on their actions. And i'm not talking about everyone running around spouting 'thees' and 'thous'. Players were actively taking part in their role, and how it related to the world around them. And it was like nothing i've played before. It was a truly great experience.

Instancing however, throws all of that completely out the window. There is nothing to control anymore when the game can spawn 50 identical copies of the same dungeon. Land looses all meaning. Rare items suddenly aren't so rare anymore. Roleplaying is tossed out the window, as everyone is in their own private little world, safe from the dangers outside the instance. I'm not saying instancing is pointless, as it does help to alleviate overcrowding. But I would much rather have worlds without it, as the game then feels more real.

It also breaks PvP in another way. In EQ pvp, there were no "safe" zones or areas. If someone attacked you, you had better be ready to defend yourself, because you couldn't just run into a town and suddenly you were immune to PvP just because you crossed some imaginary line. But with instanced dungeons/areas, you can just run into one, and the game will spawn a copy of the dungeon just for you. Anyone else who follows you in will appear in a different, separate copy of the dungeon just for them. In other words, they've just escaped from you because the game is spawning multiple copies of the same place, and its cheesy as hell.

Raiding on the other hand, I just found totally boring. I have to admit, I found the occasional Vox or Naggy raid quite thrilling, because the battle was won or lost (usually lost) in all of 1 minute. However once Kunark, and especially Velious came around, raids now lasted hours and hours of tedious clearing, wiping, etc. If you were an important class like a cleric or a shaman, or worse, the main tank or puller, forget about even getting out of your chair to go to the bathroom because then everyone would be waiting on you. Raiding might introduce some tactics that can't be found anywhere else, but overall you might spend 5-6 hours, just to get 2-3 powerful items. Its like having a 2nd job, but without the pay.

i played the eq beta, got bored killing kobolds, and thought to myself how much of a flop it was going to be. but then, i also thought the same thing about britney spears music.

Liekomg said:

Raiding on the other hand, I just found totally boring. I have to admit, I found the occasional Vox or Naggy raid quite thrilling, because the battle was won or lost (usually lost) in all of 1 minute. However once Kunark, and especially Velious came around, raids now lasted hours and hours of tedious clearing, wiping, etc. If you were an important class like a cleric or a shaman, or worse, the main tank or puller, forget about even getting out of your chair to go to the bathroom because then everyone would be waiting on you. Raiding might introduce some tactics that can't be found anywhere else, but overall you might spend 5-6 hours, just to get 2-3 powerful items. Its like having a 2nd job, but without the pay.

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I didn't find anything tedious or a grind about those expantions what so ever, EQ pre expantion was more of a grind going through FEAR, HATE and AIR then anything those two expantions had to offer. Of course the VP key was a chore to get, and the Epic's took time too, but were massively fun in the long run with the special fights, tracking mobs down, and enjoying the unique awards you got along the way.

i played the eq beta, got bored killing kobolds, and thought to myself how much of a flop it was going to be. but then, i also thought the same thing about britney spears music.

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I got that responce from alot of people back in school when they got the beta, my only real gripe was how horribly the game played on top end gear at the time. You'd be suprised how much of a hard on brad mcquaid has for Djinn's, his "hobby" zone being plane of air was totally modled after what he thought would of been the perfect raid zone using his favorite characters, as far as rewards go the zone was a complete flop but was extremely fun to get to the top.

P.S. Plane of Growth sucks balls

Sullon Zek, the no rules server of EQ was the most fun I ever had on any MMORPG.

I'm glad I never got into EQ, or any MMORPG for that matter. I've tried Anarchy Online (boring), I've tried WoW (boring) and Guild Wars (CORPG) - (also boring). Common theme for me and mmorpgs...

They all carry a shared idea. Which is run here, do this, run there do that, rinse and repaeat.

I guess I'm so used to playing games like Unreal Tournament for so long that I just cant escape the adrenaline rush!!! To each is own. I'm not saying mmorpgs suck or putting them down in any way! I'm just saying they're not for me.

i never played eq, but friends of mine have fond memories of hacking it client-side and doing stuff to make the servers crash constantly.

I completely understand the perspective from a pvp eye. Yeah, having areas that are essentially points of contention for PVP to occur is almost necessary. It makes a whole lot more fun for everyone involved.

To be fair though, I'm not much of one for PVP. I mean, I dig it when it's done correctly, but so few have really done it to my liking. I'm really not keen on class based systems for PVP. I'm especially not keen on them when the core of the game was built for PVE, and then PVP was introduced later, and the devs, very much denying every step of the way, manage to screw up PVE because they're trying to fix some mechanic for PVP. Sony is notorious for that particular bit. They did it quite a few times in EQ1, and they've done it a whole bunch in EQ2.

Personally, if I wanna drop someone, I'll just fire up UT. No, it's not the same thing, but I enjoy it a lot more than running into whatever FOTM group is out there that's brutally overpowered for what they're doing and act all great because they beat you up with greater numbers and improper game balance.

(can you sense the bitterness from DAoC stealth groups in that last paragraph? Damn mercfiltrators! )

For me, the MMO stuff is really about the groups and the people I play with. Yeah, content can get stale, but content is really the smallest reason for playing in my mind.

entire raid

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Those two words are Everquest's evil legacy and Blizzard embraced it with open arms. I feel sorry for the people new to the scene that choose WoW as their first MMORPG and are completely oblivious to all the better MMORPGs out there, whilst farming/grinding in their 40 man clusterf**k in order to get gear, like it's some kind of achievement.

DAOC gave us PvP from a different angle and eschewed raiding for smaller group/solo/duo PvE content. (With a brief slip up with one expansion which has since been rectified)

City of Hereos turned the holy trinity of tank/healer/dps on its head with a novel class system (Cryptic deserve endless praise for their take on healing/debuffing and the Defender archetype) and a skill based system. It also flipped the bird at the gearmongering philosophy and focused on the combat and skill modification instead.

I have much more respect for small unknowns like Mythic, CCP and Cryptic who arrive on the scene with small teams and big ideas and do something different, than for the moneybag companies who churn out polished clones of old games with their big bugets a la Blizzard and SOE.

herryoyo said:

EDIT 2: Hehe, one other thing. EQ wasn't a hard game, even in its infancy. It was time consuming to be sure, but it was never actually hard. The only thing any of these games really requires is the ability to pay attention.

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EQ was hard. I have a level 27 bard that I haven't played since the first 6 months the game came out. I checked the character recently, and saw that the bards BEST armor is a couple pieces of bronze plate. A level 27 bard in mixed leather, chain, and bronze plate? Not even all possible armor slots filled? You would have to work your butt off to make that happen today! I can't recall the weapon and instruments I have, but they are WEAK too. The game back then was a bitch. Constant trains, constant deaths even if you paid attention, it took me MONTHS to get to level 27 with that character, now it would take like 10 days without twinking, and only 3 days with 5k (pocket change) of twink gear, and without the twinking my gear at level 27 would be far better.

Obviously once you really learned the game back then it didn't take that long to level, but back then until you had played for a few months and read the boards a lot it was a really Hard game.

Velious was the pinnacle of the game for me. Once Luclin came out, it wasn't the same. All hail SoV.