While listening to Rush yesterday a caller went into an interesting story about his RushIsRight character on Everquest. Granted it had elements of political overtones, but I was amazed that Rush felt the call was compelling enough to let the guy describe the MMORPG experience of Everquest.

RushIsRight: Transcript

Very nice! Imagine if someone had done this with the original launch.

Thanks Nadia, much appreciated!

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Originally posted by Goldknyght
Blah screw competition WE NEED INFORMATION!!!

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At least some conduced features if not some ambiguous screen shots, but then people may have been just as disappointed with that.

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Originally posted by Aarinak
Yeah Smedley knows he is walking on egg shells. Honestly, if EQ3 is a bust, he is done.

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No Pressure, heh.

Great post Labryinth! As an 'Old School EQ' player who also had friends who played AC (Asheron's Cal) two of the first MMORPG's, with maybe UO people thrown in, were the trend setters for the MMORPG's we have today. Its important to keep in mind that at the time we didn't have a lot of games from which to base "Easy Play" mode. Essentially, we didn't have anything from which to base that frame of reference. We had boats for continent travel and simply running or SOW (Spirit of The Wolf) to help us speed up the process of running. After a while Druids and Wizards were able to port which opened up the perspective that there was a way to speed things up as far as travel. Since EQ was so group oriented, getting around was important because a good many of us had to group. That made travel a huge part of the game.

Soloing at the time wasn't a typical option unless you were just getting started and even then people would prefer to group even at level 1. Skipping a bit ahead it wasn't till about Kunark that I started to see more of the Easy Mode suggestions and petitions. As best I can recall one of the changes I remembered distinctly during Kunark was disabling Tradeskill Stations or Kits from combining items that weren't intended for a specific recipe(s). What was happening was people were using sewing kits or other crafted containers to store items and were accidentally combining them. Once this happened all your items would be destroyed if what was in the station or kit was not part of a recipe.

Once that inch was given it was going to be a continuing process of players looking for an easier mode of play. My memories concerning WoW centered around the quarrel that Fires of Heaven was having with the SOE Dev's. I don't care to comment on the specifics as I don't know the specific details, I just know a lot of attention and tension was stirring as FOH being one of the larger influential guilds in EQ was really totting WoW for its game design, as well as Blizzards reputation.

During that time I had just gotten into EQII Beta. My thoughts were EQII is coming and I essentially abandoned anything EQ (original game) related to make a clean fresh start in EQII. EQII was basically a retooled EQ with all the things that players in EQ disliked. With EQII there would no longer be Kiting, the possibility of Trains, Kill Stealing, Loot issues and a few other little mechanics that aren't coming to mind at the moment. Nonetheless EQII felt way to micro managed (Beta and Live). Having played a Druid in EQ one of the things that stood out for me was Battle Movement. I couldn't stand this mechanic, not to mention EQII just felt clunky. Character movement just didn't have a very fluid flow to it. The graphics were amazing and crafting was a lot of fun, but it was way to micro managed at the time. I like a lot of the changes that have been made to EQII, but the battle movement and clunky mechanics made it hard for me to play for any length of time.

When I did come around to playing WoW (2005), it felt a lot like EQ. I had played Blizzard games in the past so I had a good impression of their development capability. The impression I got from WoW was it was a well thought out game. It payed a good bit of attention to subtle detail, which I like a lot, it gave the game a lot of character. The graphics weren't an issue as I'm more about what makes a game fun than what makes a game look good.

Real life changes started cropping up shortly after I started playing WoW so I only played it for a about three months before I stopped playing all together. Right now I am looking forward to Everquest Next.

This article is probably one of the best write ups that covers a good many of your questions concerning EQ: Reflections on the Upcoming EverQuest http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=3924#567c5

You can just use the Digital Download now instead of dusty off your old dics.

Digital Download Patcherhttp://launch.soe.com/everquest/

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Originally posted by bezado

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Originally posted by Lidane
Short answer: EQ still makes money. SWG doesn't.
Longer answer: EQ still makes money and has a loyal player base. SWG doesn't make money, is facing the threat of SWTOR on the horizon, and there's no point of keeping SWG around anymore.

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Correct, plus EQ is easily maintained and very good profit margins for the amount of time they need to keep it running.

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And in addition to what you two guys are saying, its a game that people more often return to. We saw that with the first Progression Server and more returns with Fippy. EQ has a great fan base and SOE can count on a steady stream of dedicated subscribers.

Most likely we'll have to wait till Fan Faire. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing some news.

Yep, it went live on Monday. I didn't get to play till this Saturday though.

What's happened since the release of WoW? For some its been the measure of all other gaming. What will be the WoW buster? The WoW community. The irony is that while those who support WoW and would like to see elements of it in other games are the first ones to point out how the other game(s) is a WoW clone.

Since we have the free 45 days to play I downloaded EQII again to see how it would run on my new Rig. The game looks great and it runs wonderfully, but I just don't like the clunky feel of the character movement and I've never, ever, liked the Combat Movement Speed.

Spinners?

This is one of those rare instances where a WoW Fan has inadvertently recognized that there were games that weren't WoW clones simply because there is something sucky-er when it comes to visuals than substance.

It has been a lot of fun and I'm still enjoying it. Thus far it appears SOE has learned a great deal from the last progression release. Lets hope it stays consistent.

The experience may be slower than live, but it doesn't appear to be as slow or slower than the original game. I would imagine if it were slower people would genuinely be discouraged, which would most likely effect the population of players.

My issues seemed related to my LogiTech peripherals. I can't use my Wireless 930's while playing as it will cause the keyboard to lose control seemly at random. Yesterday I was having a similar issue, however I'm no longer using the 930's, just my Wave and G5 Mouse (LogiTech).

I've removed/added the drivers and it still seems to happen intermittently. Yesterday, I also did s system clean up so I'm not sure if along the way of cleaning things up something got out of whack. I also loaded some newer visions of .NET Framework and updated DirectX (reloaded a version in case I didn't have the latest).

I'll have to mess around a little bit more and see what I can come up with. I ended up doing a restore, but it seems the issue is still cropping up.

Its a very nice gesture.

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Originally posted by Reizla

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Originally posted by agnostic4eve

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Originally posted by Joshua69

what the crap is a time locked progression server?

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Time locked progression is since Everquest has so many expansions and a lot of newer players find catching up to the current content to be a very daunting and overwhelming task. Time locked means that they start out on the very first Everquest that was released and when that content is beaten, the next expansion will open after the vote to do so.
Plus a lot of the older players find the apeal of starting out completely fresh to be a very attractive idea. The server will be absolutely flooded and will be great.
Last time they did this they had so many players they had to open a second server. But those servers were not time locked like this one.
This server will be active for several years with the time frame they are on. 90 days grace period + voting from the server population.

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I just found out SOE screwed up my account and am now completely Free2Play (as long as it'll last I guess).
Since I found EQ1 too verwhelming to start with last year, I quited it. Now with Free2Play (as long as it lasts) I might give the progression server a try ;-)
One small question. I can just install EQ1 from the launcher and then logon to the progression server, right?

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Basically yes. As long as you have a SOE account.

Effect, Qeynos is one of the original cities that as of yet has not been revamped. Freeport has been revamped however. One of the adjustments that was curious to me was the agro as well. Also, I don't recall undead running when they had low health (A Skeleton still fights to the death). As far as questing, its the genuine EQ style we all enjoyed. For new people getting adjusted to the [text] in brackets can be a little confusing and some quest you simply had to experiment with.

Its been great revisiting some these often over-looked if not completely ignored quest. Its also neat to see people do the various class armor quest, the original ones such as Lambent, Totemic and Crafted, as examples. Faction is another unique element to EQ. One of the things I enjoyed in the original game was raising my faction in various cities so that I could do certain quest. That's something I'll be doing this time too. Merchant Farming is another unique element to EQ. I've not found any other game where you can find discarded goodies that other players had no clue for their use.

I would encourage you guys to stop by Zam's (Old Allakhazam's). http://everquest.allakhazam.com/