Bottom line, barring some shocking turn of events and a developer actually making a virtual world they care about again as opposed to a quick cash in theme park, the experiences we had in the original EQ can never be replicated. The midi music to kelethin is still hauntingly magical to this day. Unfortunately, even if such a game did come along, in these days of data mining and mods that blow through quest text, and quest based MMOs, I don't think the MMO community would be able to let the magic happen anymore.

Originally posted by sebbonx

EQ was considered hardcore.....

That view only occurs here, on MMORPG.com. The posers here want to feel good about how great they were supposedly as players. They puff their chests and thump them, all EQ was is the ability to sit and grind at a mind numbing pace. Heck I three boxed easily from sheer boredom at this slow boring grind fest.

EQ have death penalties, that at least are "hardcore" compared to many newer MMOs.

Anyways, as I see it: Games are not hardcore, players are.

And hardcore is not a good thing, the people I know that are hardcore players turns down dates because they are RAIDing and say no to partys because of guildmeetings.

A game can be either thing depending on how you play it.

Classic EQ was 'hardcore' to today's generation because;

• It had a meaningful death penality. This gave deep lows and exultant highs, whereas most mmorpgers today are too used to the biege meh middle ground. LotR, AoC, and yes WoW, are great examples of this.
• It required time investment and social networking. It was a co-op game that reputation mattered in. Friends and allies were essential to get on. This required skills a lot of modern mmorpgers don't have because the virtual knitting simulators they play today are all solo EZ mode quest grinders. EQ wasnt instant gratification, and noone was gauranteed to be a 'success'.
• It was made by nerds, for nerds. This was before the MMO boom and the people that played it were, I think it's fair to say, the geekiest of the geek gamers, and thats fine. we were comfortable with this. This let EQ make demands of us that other newer hipper mmo arcaders could never make of their customer base now (unless you play Darkfall ;) )

You either never played EQ1 before 2002 or have a very bad memory, because levels 1 - 20 were neither easy nor boring.

Originally posted by Loke666 

EQ have death penalties, that at least are "hardcore" compared to many newer MMOs.

Anyways, as I see it: Games are not hardcore, players are.

And hardcore is not a good thing, the people I know that are hardcore players turns down dates because they are RAIDing and say no to partys because of guildmeetings.

A game can be either thing depending on how you play it.

HAHA!! That seems about right.