General Discussion

Originally posted by dcoleman07

I thought of an analogy to compare it to, lets say your really craving a turkey sandwich.  If you hunt and prepare the turkey yourself, your gonna appreciate the hell out of that sandwich...

But back to EQ; yeah I loved EQ at first.  A big part of it was because it was my first mmorpg.  And partly it was what someone else said, we were all new to it.  A bunch of newbies all thrown in together trying out this new thing.  And yes, the community was very good in the early days of EQ.

I was soooo addicted to that game.  And then I reached high levels and got a taste of raiding.  Um...wait a minute...this ain't fun.  Looked around, um, surely there's something else for us?  Surely this isn't what it was all leading up to?  Uh...there isn't anything else?  You mean I either endure this mind numbing boredom and schedule my life around this crap or my character will stall out and die a slow death?

Well...geez, that sucks.  The game was so much fun untill this point.

And that was the beginning of the end of EQ for me.  I hung around far longer than I should have because I thought that surely the developers would come to their senses.  But instead it just kept getting worse.  So eventually I gave up waiting and quit. 

EQ was the best, I agree. I loved raiding in that game, at least until I got sick of it :)

You needed skillz to play well...and it was a genuinely open game. Loot was tradeable, you could buff newbs, death had a price, you had to trade in person (a good thing) ...though mana regened too slow; I would never put up with that now.

Wow was like EQ Lite....much easier and less frustrating for the kiddies.

Originally posted by dcoleman07

Like many others who will read this post, EQ was my first mmo, and the only mmo that I can honestly say took my breath away and captivated my attention fully.  I started playing Pre Kunark, and continued playing through the Legend of Ykeshka, spending countless hours exploring, crafting, feeling genuine excitement at going to do somthing like slaying a dragon or a god that I hadn't even seen before but only heard of.  When the population fell off drastically as new games were being introduced into the genre, I left EQ like many others to see what else was out there.  I tried a multitude of games, including AO, DAoC, CoH, SWG, WoW, ect and so forth... like many others I was also let down.  Sure some of these games seemed to have new and better features than EQ, and they did, and sure they kept my attention, maybe for a little while, but there was never that same feeling like the first time you took that shuttle from Butcherblock Mountains to Kunark.  And that got me thinking, what the hell is it about EQ that provided that feeling?

I pondered this question for awhile, and I have come to acknowledge a stark reality of why EQ was what it was.  That which makes EQ archaic and very difficult compared to this new "User Friendly" mmo genre is that which makes it great.  Its the Time Sinks and all the old pains in the ass about EQ ( such as say a very difficult corpse retreival) and the fact that NPCs dont have a damn target over there head , you have to actually interact with them to learn about a quest. 

I thought of an analogy to compare it to, lets say your really craving a turkey sandwich.  If you hunt and prepare the turkey yourself, your gonna appreciate the hell out of that sandwich, because you busted your ass for it and it means somthing to you.  ( Thats EQ )  

Or you could just go to the store and buy some pre packaged lunchmeat that doesnt taste as good (Everything Else out there to date)

thats my theory, if anyone has thoughts on it i'd love to hear it.

haters, if your bored, feel free.

EQ was junk compared to Asheron's Call

A turkey sandwich is nothing more than....a turkey sandwich.  Whether you've killed the turkey or not.  You don't appreciate it more as a sandwich.  You just know that you had to put in more effort.  But that doesn't change the taste.  It still tastes like turkey.

As others have said before, the "first kiss" you have of an MMO often sticks with you the longest.  The player glamorises it as the best as it was a unique situation that they had never experienced before.  Your first girlfriend may have worn a mouthfull of metal when you set eyes on her, but you'll look back on those days and smile to yourself with a warm feeling in your heart.

For me, that "first kiss" of an MMO was AO and SWG (pre-NGE).  For others its DAOC.  For other friends of mine its WoW.  Though AO isn't as polished and user friendly as the likes of todays MMO's, it still has a special place in my heart and experiences.

Therefore, "the one" will never be the same "one" for everybody.  Its based on one's own perspective.

this thread is obsessed with turkeys.

After reading all this stuff about turkey sandwiches, I'm kind of hungry now...

i agree with the OP about EQ being the great mmo.  However, i think that in addition to the analogue and his reasoning, EQ gave the user a feel of a WORLD.

in EQ you could go to a wide range of zones, each of which had a distinct enviroment. One knew that in N. Ro you were in a desert, and in the Karanas you were in a giant plain. Even Qeynos Hills had its own distinct flavor.

What made the game totally immersive for me was the cooking and loot. If you were hunting bears you got bear meat and bear pelts. If you hunted gnolls you got their crappy weapons and gnoll pelts, or fur. Each thing you encountered could be used for something and there were rarely crappy little items that were useless, like in wow you have bear tooths that sell for a small amount but don't really tie into the overall game other than a spot taken up in your bag. I also like that EQ had weight and eating requirements. It adds SO much to the immersion factor when your character is hungry or thirsty. It also makes sense that you have a weight reistriction. MONEY is heavy!!! so if you are carrying 30k in copper you aren't going to be moving very much, if at all. This makes sense. How can someone in wow carry 100k in gold and not be burdened by the load?

MMOs of today have focused on quests and gear. EQ was more about immersion and a game world. When i played and occasionally play EQ now, i love that it is a more fleshed out world than any other game out there. I feel like my character is actually a part of something real. I play wow and am bored by the litany of ! ! ! ! ! ? ? ? ? ! ! ! !? ?.

Originally posted by steuss

i agree with the OP about EQ being the great mmo.  However, i think that in addition to the analogue and his reasoning, EQ gave the user a feel of a WORLD.

in EQ you could go to a wide range of zones, each of which had a distinct enviroment. One knew that in N. Ro you were in a desert, and in the Karanas you were in a giant plain. Even Qeynos Hills had its own distinct flavor.

 

What made the game totally immersive for me was the cooking and loot. If you were hunting bears you got bear meat and bear pelts. If you hunted gnolls you got their crappy weapons and gnoll pelts, or fur. Each thing you encountered could be used for something and there were rarely crappy little items that were useless, like in wow you have bear tooths that sell for a small amount but don't really tie into the overall game other than a spot taken up in your bag. I also like that EQ had weight and eating requirements. It adds SO much to the immersion factor when your character is hungry or thirsty. It also makes sense that you have a weight reistriction. MONEY is heavy!!! so if you are carrying 30k in copper you aren't going to be moving very much, if at all. This makes sense. How can someone in wow carry 100k in gold and not be burdened by the load?

 

MMOs of today have focused on quests and gear. EQ was more about immersion and a game world. When i played and occasionally play EQ now, i love that it is a more fleshed out world than any other game out there. I feel like my character is actually a part of something real. I play wow and am bored by the litany of ! ! ! ! ! ? ? ? ? ! ! ! !? ?.

Interesting points.  Seems like a lot MMO's now want to cut out the "fluff".  However, if you have enough of these little features it really adds to the depth and immersion of a game world.  Details, details, details...

EQ1 was good because it was basically the FIRST.. not because it was so great

alright, only reason I went with the turkey analogy was because a friend of mine had just finished talking to me about hunting wild turkeys.

my point was, you had to put a tremendous amount of effort into your EQ character, and experience things like corpse retreivals that were so impossible you had to actually socialize and find a necromancer to summon it for you. You appreciate dieing in these games a lot less when the only penalty is a little exp loss and right clicking to get your stuff back.   Because of this, you felt more connected to your EQ character and less apt to let somthing happen to it and you were more connected with a great community because everyone had to help everybody out ( and were more than happy to do so ).

the more you put into it the more you get out of it, and EQ demanded a lot of time and effort