I really wish the people who obviously dont play the game stop making assumption about it.  EQ is thriving and have a nice community, more tight knit than some of the newer MMOs.  No other MMO compares to the amount of content you can traverse through.  I love the idea of 100 levels to reach and that it will take time.   Though not as long as you might think.  You can level 1-70 fairly quickly. AAs allow for excellent customization, and allow you flexibility to move EXP into your level or AA.  A system I still dont understand why it hasn't been re-introduced.

 They have introduced nuances from newer MMOs (glowing trails, EXP deficit death penalty, etc).  Housing to hold all of your loot.  Crafting where you can take on as many tradeskills as you want (not limited to 2 or 1 like other games). They also have Mercenaries so you can solo much of the content, but to be honest not really necessary considering how easy it to speak with people, group or join a guild.   Since the F2P launch there are tons of people at the low level (especially on my server VOX).    I get asked to group everyday. I will say the crowd is older.  My guild is mostly users 40+ in age, which brings a certain maturity to the chat. It has its downsides but compared to whats out today its very easy for me to overlook.

Those looking for a complex game, huge world, and real groups to play with I would highly recommnd trying EQ... especially since its F2P.  Like it?  Sub like I did.  Not for kids or the feint of heart.

I look forward to rain of fear.  And its called rain because shards of evil actually fall out of the sky... you know, like rain :-)

Originally posted by sirphobos

 

Now, if they could develop an MMO with some of the best features of EQ while removing some of the tedium like massive recovery time between fights, naked corpse runs, fighting with other guilds over seven day raid spawns, etc, then they might have something.

 

All that you mention is removed.  There is no massive recovery.  You can have a healing merc to heal you as you play as well.  There are no corpse runs.  When you die you go back to where you bound your soul and EXP loss.  Cant speak of the raiding as I haven't reach that far.  But havent heard my guild (who raid fairly often) talk about seven day raid spawns.

The graphics are obviously dated, as well as the UI ... but I'm fond of both as well as the complexity of it all.

Originally posted by MMORPGtester

This game helped get it all started. Without this one most of the systems used today would never have been.

health001 spoken like a true moron. This game is the logest lived, why kill it? And don't say because its dated, no other game comes near the complexity of this one. "world size"

This game isn't the "longest" lived. But it was a good attempt bro and EQ was never all that complex. It was just really grindy. There is a difference.

Originally posted by sirphobos

It will definitely sell more than 5k copies.  There are still about 15 servers running.  My guess would be there are somewhere around 50-60k paying subscribers.  Still not a lot, but enough to develop content with a small budget.

I highly doubt there are that many players in everquest these days,  even counting boxes.  Obviously populations on each server is different but that's saying roughly 4k players per server.  I haven't played every server but the ones I did play recently are DEAD.  They would be better if they merged some of those servers.  Should also have people start at level 80 because level 1-90 will be played solo in  zones void of other players.  It's definitely not the great game it used to be.

Originally posted by Kezzadrix

Originally posted by sirphobos

It will definitely sell more than 5k copies.  There are still about 15 servers running.  My guess would be there are somewhere around 50-60k paying subscribers.  Still not a lot, but enough to develop content with a small budget.

I highly doubt there are that many players in everquest these days,  even counting boxes.  Obviously populations on each server is different but that's saying roughly 4k players per server.  I haven't played every server but the ones I did play recently are DEAD.  They would be better if they merged some of those servers.  Should also have people start at level 80 because level 1-90 will be played solo in  zones void of other players.  It's definitely not the great game it used to be.

I just took a count on two servers, from 1-94 and subtracted the bazaar people.

Both had over 300 non max level people (max level people you cant count since most classes have more people than the /who lists).  So were looking at at least 600+ people on both servers, and I didnt pick Maelin, Cazic, Stromm, Vox, or the progression servers sine AFAIK they are the higher pop servers.  I obviously also dint pick Zek or Trak, two servers that are dead.