Hardcore

[Nokio]

http://gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20100816

[FatMagic]

LOL so true :)

[UrsusMajor]

6hrs hahaha!

One of the most unhardcore things about WoW raiding is if you wipe it takes you what, 5 minutes to get back and everyone rebuffed?

[hedbonker]

That's great!

So - Wonder how sleeper will get handled here once Velious goes live...

[Reiker]

I was reading about the new WoW expansion. Apparently the devs think the raiding game has been too hard and want to make all the Cataclysm raids (3-6 or however many mobs in the instance) completable in under an hour or two.

Should just turn all the raid mobs into chests imo.

[Itchybottom]

People keep bashing WoW (I'm not a big fan either), but I'd like to see all of the haters make their own guild in WoW from scratch and succeed at a technical raid encounter like Kel'Thuzad or C'Thun at the original gear/content level. The hardest thing in EQ Velious is probably Avatar of War (Vulak isn't that bad, and Kerafyrm has no loot table.) Which can be compared to basically Golemagg in difficulty.

[Overcast]

People keep bashing WoW (I'm not a big fan either), but I'd like to see all of the haters make their own guild in WoW from scratch and succeed at a technical raid encounter like Kel'Thuzad or C'Thun at the original gear/content level. The hardest thing in EQ Velious is probably Avatar of War (Vulak isn't that bad, and Kerafyrm has no loot table.) Which can be compared to basically Golemagg in difficulty.

But it's just a question of talking enough people with a high enough gear score into your guild so you can just steamroll it all while mages tank because they start spamming spells to make sure the DPS meter's high enough to keep them in the guild, right?

Not bashing - but WoW's all about DPS, Gear Score, blah - it's a game of numbers. Even PvP - arena ratings... etc..

Get to level 80 in 3 weeks then spend 3 years getting gear. Wasn't for me... :)

Sadly... I liked a lot of the lore, mechanics in some ways, the world itself was fine, the classes too. But I never, ever had a desire to play the level 80 numbers game. I wasn't even interested in getting to 80 so much. It's not that I couldn't by any means, my son took over my 56 Pally and took a DK to 80. I eventually leveled a Rogue up to 62 or something, but just couldn't keep an interest in it for some reason, even though I did like the PVP to a point.

[Itchybottom]

Not bashing - but WoW's all about DPS, Gear Score, blah - it's a game of numbers. Even PvP - arena ratings... etc..

That's any MMO though. Everything in EverQuest (and World of Warcraft) is simply get better gear, tank, and spank. Fail? Get more numbers. That's just the way these games are designed. It wasn't until PoP that EverQuest became a pain in the ass raid-wise.

[Lucrio40]

Its almost apples to oranges to compare the two. Every fight in EQ was a gear check since complex scripting was not even considered in the SoV world. Hell, think about Molten Core encounters. Almost all the tricks we see in that instance had already been done 2 years earlier in Planes of Power.

By the time AQ had came out, we were already looking at OoW, DoN, and I think even DoDH encounters. Did you ever do Overlord Mata Muram? Vishimtar the Fallen? Dreadspire?

Can you really compare content that was released by Verant (this was the last expansion with the Verant name) in 2000 with content released by Blizzard in early 2006?

[Overcast]

That's any MMO though. Everything in EverQuest (and World of Warcraft) is simply get better gear, tank, and spank. Fail? Get more numbers. That's just the way these games are designed. It wasn't until PoP that EverQuest became a pain in the ass raid-wise.

You're right... I guess maybe it's more the WoW community that has such a 'focus' on it more than anything, whereas EQLive - not so much..

After PoP it did become more like that though.

EQ was best when it didn't give you half the numbers. That made it a lot more interesting. There's too much focus on 'this number does this and that' - in general.

There should be questions like: which is better, STA or AGI? With both being viable. The 'cookie-cutterness' of many games just drives me mad.

[Lagaidh]

I've played and raided both games. There's just no question that EQ was more hardcore through Velious. Even if you break down the complexity for each game with pretty UML diagrams of the encounters and their solutions... EQ was chock full of new MMO players.

By the time WoW came out, there were guild and raid veterans who learned the content faster.

Hell, for the sake of argument, say WoW has technically more difficult content encounters. It's going to seem easier to a pile of veterans playing a new game.

My 2cp.

[Enderenter]

People keep bashing WoW (I'm not a big fan either), but I'd like to see all of the haters make their own guild in WoW from scratch and succeed at a technical raid encounter like Kel'Thuzad or C'Thun at the original gear/content level. The hardest thing in EQ Velious is probably Avatar of War (Vulak isn't that bad, and Kerafyrm has no loot table.) Which can be compared to basically Golemagg in difficulty.

I think many people's primary issue with WoW (and certainly my own) was the lack of innovation. Blizzard has had this problem for many years now. They don't innovate, they just copy from other games and use their brand name to sell a lot of copies.

I played WoW pre-expansion (quit before Burning Crusade) and hit level 60, raided MC and Onyxia (sp) for 2 weeks in my guild then quit out of boredom. WoW offered nothing in terms of PvE innovation.

[Overcast]

Hell, for the sake of argument, say WoW has technically more difficult content encounters. It's going to seem easier to a pile of veterans playing a new game.

My 2cp.

Sort of.
There's one big core difference.

No matter WHERE you wipe in WoW - the only thing you ever risk at all is a repair bill. Ever. You wipe in the hardest instance even if it's brand new and you've never been there... you just hit a soul rezzer at the very worst. But really, it's just a matter of running back to the instance. Even in the new XPAC - this will not change.

That - to me - is where the big separation is. In the 'risk' factor of the two games. Any class in WoW can 'gate' and get their corpse back without any issues.

Right now on P99 and even moreso in Kukark - there's no soul rezzers. You must go back in and get your corpse or find someone who can summon, and that's not too cheap..

Other than classic EQ - is there *any* MMO on the market that offers a TRUE risk because of a bad decision? Not really.

[Messianic]

I'll dissent and argue that WoW created more viable play styles through talent trees and specs than any previous mmo, hands down. It was even to the point where there really wasn't a "single PvP spec" for most classes - if you've ever tried to take an Arathi Basin flag from a defensive spec warrior, you know what I mean. The different specs actually created very different playstyles and classes.

In EQ, a rogue is a rogue, a warrior is a warrior, a wizard is a wizard, and so on. In WoW, one of the first things I immediately determined when facing someone in PvP was their spec. That told me everything about the tools they had available, weaknesses, strengths, etc. In some cases it meant I needed to avoid that person altogether because their spec was so well-suited against my class/spec, but if they were a different spec, I would wipe the floor with them. See Shadow spec Priests in Vanilla.

WoW did go down the mudflation route, where entire swaths of the game in terms of gear become irrelevant....but I think Blizz has been pretty intelligent for the most part, despite major blunders.


WoW still had better solo PvP play (at least in BC and before) than any other game I have ever played, and was the most involving game in that respect, of all time. Going like 50-0 in Alterac Valley as a Hunter, or 33-3 as a rogue in Arathi Basin were some of the best gaming times i've ever experienced, especially because my gear was garbage.

I enjoyed PvE on EQ far more, however, and thoroughly enjoy the relative difficulty of EQ. Plus the fact that p1999 is free =)

[Messianic]

I think many people's primary issue with WoW (and certainly my own) was the lack of innovation. Blizzard has had this problem for many years now. They don't innovate, they just copy from other games and use their brand name to sell a lot of copies.

I played WoW pre-expansion (quit before Burning Crusade) and hit level 60, raided MC and Onyxia (sp) for 2 weeks in my guild then quit out of boredom. WoW offered nothing in terms of PvE innovation.

Good post. I agree in almost all counts - but I really enjoyed how they blended spells/skills across their games.

The only PvE innovations WoW offered was 1) everyone could solo very effectively if they had half a brain, yet grouping was still better exp and required a small degree of skill, and 2) they managed to create a lot of fun and unique 10-20 man experiences prior to WoTLK. They saw the 40-man raid thing get boring very fast in vanilla, so they innovated.

Instanced dungeons (with very simple ways of resetting spawns) made farming easymode, though...

[Enderenter]

I'll dissent and argue that WoW created more viable play styles through talent trees and specs than any previous mmo, hands down. It was even to the point where there really wasn't a "single PvP spec" for most classes - if you've ever tried to take an Arathi Basin flag from a defensive spec warrior, you know what I mean. The different specs actually created very different playstyles and classes.


That's true. However, because Blizzard is so awful at balancing that at various points after class talent tree remakes one specific tree was far and away better than the others. This may not have happened at every class remake but it happened more often than not. Cookie-cutter minimaxxed builds were commonplace in WoW. And your argument really only holds water for PvP anyways - and no one in here will argue that EQ was ever about PvP. (even the EQ PvP servers were more about griefing than PvP)


Instanced dungeons (with very simple ways of resetting spawns) made farming easymode, though...

True, in my comments about lack of innovation I forgot about instances. I think instances were the one major innovation that WoW added, and actually one of the worst things about the game vs. EQ's model. It's definitely true that both games (and every MMO I have seen/played) are to some extent about acquiring gear. The difference is that in WoW everyone could acquire the non-raid gear very, very easily - and in EQ it was much more difficult. (also because in WoW almost everything was no-trade upon equipping or looting the item)

[Messianic]

Good clarifications.

Instancing was a downside of WoW, although it was probably a boon for its customer service/GM sector.

Having to battle for drops and make sure you're up earlier or there before the other guy made it a serious challenge...It does create evercamp situations for excessively good loot or loot that has an effect/stats that are uncompared with others, i.e. FBSS, the only worn haste item that doesn't require you to kill some insanely strong mob in a raid situation (save the Mith 2hander, but that doesn't allow you to use a diff weapon with the worn haste). That's why frenzy was/is incessantly camped until Kunark and Velious, and even then some...

If it was WoW, everyone and their mom would have one, even though the item would be no drop...

[Reiker]

That's any MMO though. Everything in EverQuest (and World of Warcraft) is simply get better gear, tank, and spank. Fail? Get more numbers. That's just the way these games are designed. It wasn't until PoP that EverQuest became a pain in the ass raid-wise.
I'd pay good money to send a group of 60+ WoW players back in time against the Avatar of War and see how long it takes for them to master defensive tank switching and CH chain juggling. Not to mention fights like Seru and Emp Ssra. While pre-PoP EQ raids aren't gimmicky like WoW, they more than make up for it in sheer brutality.

People exaggerate about how easy WoW is. But when you look at it in proper perspective you'll see why. I never played vanilla WoW which as I understand was when the game was hardest and at its most "EQ-like," however I was in a casual raid guild in TBC. We weren't even in the Black Citadel (or whatever the Illidan raid instance was called) before the Sunwell patch (I quit before the pre WOTLK patch that made the raids easier). But throw this same guild into PoP-era EQ and they'd have trouble breaking into ntov, 2 expansions behind.

[Malrubius]

Bleah, WoW *is* too easy, it really is. I'll cut-and-paste an earlier post...

The game was just too freaking easy, starting at level 1.

I am totally serious that I spent the first 20 minutes in the game trying to figure out how to turn off what I thought were tutorial question marks above the NPC's heads.

And for those who only list raid mobs and other high-end encounters as what is difficult about WoW - you just made my point even clearer.

Sure, most gaming companies could make an easy, WoW-like, game, and then add a boss mob (or 100 boss mobs) at the end-game with a gazillion hitpoints, 10 heads, and an attitude. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an easy game.

[Messianic]

You're completely accurate...WoW was difficult and a lot of fun (particularly on PvP servers) during Vanilla. Most of the best gear was only available to raiding guilds who could handle high-end content, so they griefed everyone, and there were some classes (Rogues) who could own everyone without any effort.

But for all of that, WoW was a pushover compared to EQ. Dying in WoW means losing time in the future because of recoup time. Dying in EQ means losing time in the past and more time in the future than even WoW costs...

It's why I stopped visiting the WoW forums - only to hear people whine and complain, and to see easymode gear given out after WoTLK...It wasn't fun anymore except for the occasional PvP, but everyone outgeared me and had nearly 2x my hp, so it was futile at that point unless I wanted to do pickup 5-10 mans all day, and i simply wasn't up for that.

[Qaedain]

Every time people would complain in WoW about how long raids were taking (OMFG FOUR HOURS), I would be reminded of my old PoS raids and then I would be ready to settle in for another go at WoW's endless supply of comparatively easy content.

[Anaiyah]

Vanilla wow through bwl>aq>naxx was FAR and away harder than anything eq has ever had technically. Anyone who argues did not play both games at the bleeding edge high end.

Eq raids were maybe more annoying at times, and if you include GoD bugs and cockblocks I suppose you have some ammo for argument, but if you are talking about pure coordination and guildwide skills, EQ never did anything approaching those original 40 man raids in wow.

[Overcast]

Vanilla wow through bwl>aq>naxx was FAR and away harder than anything eq has ever had technically. Anyone who argues did not play both games at the bleeding edge high end.



See - I could never see it that way. Maybe the fight was difficult - but at what risk? A repair bill - any other risk?

No guild was going to come in behind your wipe and take the boss. No long involved corpse retrievals, just rez, repair, try again. Even if you never repaired the gear, the odds of losing the gear due to damage... zero.

Odds of losing your corpse. Zero.
Odds of losing the target to another guild. Zero.

[Wrot]

I'd pay good money to send a group of 60+ WoW players back in time against the Avatar of War and see how long it takes for them to master defensive tank switching and CH chain juggling.

Granted you say you never played in Vanilla, so not flaming, and I admit that I don't know what tanking AoW was like (I was a dps class). But you have no idea what tanking Vaelestraz was like. The succession of tanks had to have their abilities exactly planned out so that each one was in their proper place on the threat meter, and this was before threat meters existed (KLH was fucking garbage). One sunder too many and it was fucked up. Healers were not able to spam their shit either due to how touchy threat was on this fight, and how fucked up mana consumption was back then (I was a healer).


Corpse runs do not make an encounter hardcore. Corpse runs have absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty of an encounter. CRs give you only the time you spend on them as misery, and the moment you kill a boss for the first time as enjoyment that you don't have a cr. Sorry but I raid for the enjoyment of the encounter itself. Why do you give credit to EQ for a difficult corpse run when any other mechanic, if repeated for every single boss, you would shit on?

I think some EQ players will grasp at straws to shit on WoW because they are still pissed that it killed their game. "I tanked a heroic on my paladin, it was too easy." "I had to disable graphic interface options, fuck this." You people who weren't good enough to be on the cutting edge are the ones who the easy content was tailor made for, so why complain?

[Overcast]

Corpse runs do not make an encounter hardcore. Corpse runs have absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty of an encounter. CRs give you only the time you spend on them as misery, and the moment you kill a boss for the first time as enjoyment that you don't have a cr. Sorry but I raid for the enjoyment of the encounter itself. Why do you give credit to EQ for a difficult corpse run when any other mechanic, if repeated for every single boss, you would shit on?

100% wrong - in my humble opinion.
The 'risk' of a lengthy corpse run made it must more imperative to do it right.

It's not the corpse run - it's the risk factor involved in the overall encounter, you can't just go charging into Chardok with 10 people, you WILL regret it.

In WoW - what would stop you from just charging into any zone at all? You have nothing to loose.

[Anaiyah]

See - I could never see it that way. Maybe the fight was difficult - but at what risk? A repair bill - any other risk?

No guild was going to come in behind your wipe and take the boss. No long involved corpse retrievals, just rez, repair, try again.


I played eq from 99-2009 and never lost a corpse or risked much more than needing a rez. Sure you have the dynamics of getting to your corpse, but if this discussion is about HARDCORE raid guilds, I dont see the argument.

Any guild worth a damn in EQ was quick to recover from anything, and had members that knew the game inside and out. What is the risk? Running longer through zones, losing xp at max level, I never lost anything of value in EQ except time. If you played WoW when these zones were new, you lost comparable amounts of time learning these intricate encounters with your guild.

[Malrubius]

Vanilla wow through bwl>aq>naxx was FAR and away harder than anything eq has ever had technically. Anyone who argues did not play both games at the bleeding edge high end.

Eq raids were maybe more annoying at times, and if you include GoD bugs and cockblocks I suppose you have some ammo for argument, but if you are talking about pure coordination and guildwide skills, EQ never did anything approaching those original 40 man raids in wow.

Again, you make my point perfectly. WoW was a trivially easy game with some high-end content thrown in at the end-game that had pumped up stats. Does not make it a hard or challenging game by a long shot.

[Anaiyah]

Again, you make my point perfectly. WoW was a trivially easy game with some high-end content thrown in at the end-game that had pumped up stats. Does not make it a hard or challenging game by a long shot.

It makes the high end hardcore content (the subject of this thread so far) extremely difficult. It made guilds that could defeat encounters matter just like it did in EQ.

[Wrot]

... high-end content thrown in at the end-game that had pumped up stats. Does not make it a hard or challenging game by a long shot.

I just don't believe you got anywhere at all in WoW. To say the raid content there has only ever taken stats to suceed at is just plain wrong. A hundred encounters over, wrong. Your points seem to be shot down and nothing you say about the either game holds much water.

[Overcast]

Well, it's subjective really. There's no right or wrong viewpoint. It's a game after all. It's like saying Soccer is better than Football or harder. It depends on your view.

It's just that WoW has zero risk. You will never loose your corpse, you will never have problems getting your gear back, you will never get a boss mob stolen from another guild because you wiped or whatever. You'll never fail on a trade-skill (profession) combine either.

Hardcore raiding or no, I like the 'risk' involved in Classic EQ.

Sure after a guild knows the area it becomes trivial. Which really - with P99 is always going to be the case. But I could never 'get into' WoW like I did EQ.

I never raided in WoW, because it never held my interest long enough for me to bother getting to that point. Don't get me wrong - I did enjoy the game. It just never 'grabbed' me like EQ did. I think the reason EQ did - is because of the risk factors. Small, perhaps - but they were there. Dunno, maybe it's hard to explain why I still prefer P99 to WoW. It wasn't entirely the WoW community that chased me off, although that was a large part of it, to be honest.

Thus why I'm not commenting on the difficulty of raids, only that no matter *how* difficult the raid is - your risk in WoW (and almost all other MMO's now) is still... Zero.

[Messianic]

Again, you make my point perfectly. WoW was a trivially easy game with some high-end content thrown in at the end-game that had pumped up stats. Does not make it a hard or challenging game by a long shot.

I think Vaelestrasz and most of BWL shuts down your argument completely. The penalty for losing an encounter does not make it hard. The complexity and difficulty of succeeding at the encounter does - using that measurement, it does seem that WoW had some very difficult encounters, moreso than EQ in some cases.

All-around, I think anyone would accept that EQ was a harder game - but WoW has moments and encounters that are definitively harder.

[Anaiyah]

I think Vaelestrasz and most of BWL shuts down your argument completely. The penalty for losing an encounter does not make it hard. The complexity and difficulty of succeeding at the encounter does - using that measurement, it does seem that WoW had some very difficult encounters, moreso than EQ in some cases.

All-around, I think anyone would accept that EQ was a harder game - but WoW has moments and encounters that are definitively harder.

God vael was fun on my rogue, and dragonfang blade dropped first kill and I got the server first on Dark Iron...hells ya those were the days. Unlimited mana/rage/energy ftmfw.

As hard as BWL was though AQ40 blew it away.

[HippoNipple]

I see people arguing for both WoW and EQ as being hardest and they are both harder in different ways.

Everquest is hard from level 1 to cap, WoW is really easy from level 1 to cap, no one will argue with that point.

End Game - From here is where opinions will differ. If you think WoW is harder you are talking about the mechanics, communication and team work that go into the actual fight. Yes it is harder than EQ in this aspect but if in WoW you had to deal with the risks/downside to losing a fight in EQ you would never get these skills down because you can't repeat the fights as quickly or as often.

Everquest has different aspects of the game, some created by the community themselves (guild competition for territory) that make it hard besides the mechanics of a certain fight. Every fight in WoW is like getting to the next level where you have your specific strategy that you have to be able to execute correctly. If you fail you just pick up where you left off. Everquest you have to be a little more innovative and there usually isn't this feeling like you conquered one fight and are moving onto the next level, it is one large level.

I think WoW can get more complicated inside the individual fights but Everquest definitely gets the adrenaline going more so then WoW because every small victory is just a relief that it wasn't in fact a failure. Successfully completing a full raid in EQ is rarer, even if not as technical inside the individual fights.

[Anaiyah]

I see people arguing for both WoW and EQ as being hardest and they are both harder in different ways.

Everquest is hard from level 1 to cap, WoW is really easy from level 1 to cap, no one will argue with that point.

End Game - From here is where opinions will differ. If you think WoW is harder you are talking about the mechanics, communication and team work that go into the actual fight. Yes it is harder than EQ in this aspect but if in WoW you had to deal with the risks/downside to losing a fight in EQ you would never get these skills down because you can't repeat the fights as quickly or as often.

Everquest has different aspects of the game, some created by the community themselves (guild competition for territory) that make it hard besides the mechanics of a certain fight. Every fight in WoW is like getting to the next level where you have your specific strategy that you have to be able to execute correctly. If you fail you just pick up where you left off. Everquest you have to be a little more innovative and there usually isn't this feeling like you conquered one fight and are moving onto the next level, it is one large level.

I think WoW can get more complicated inside the individual fights but Everquest definitely gets the adrenaline going more so then WoW because every small victory is just a relief that it wasn't in fact a failure. Successfully completing a full raid in EQ is rarer, even if not as technical inside the individual fights.

This man speaks the truth!

[Malrubius]

Well depending on your definition of "hard", you can certainly make the argument that WoW *raiding* is hard. But until you get rid of...

-no real drawback to dying
-insta-travel almost as bad as pok (but not AS bad I'll grant you)
-essentially free uber gear for all
-floating ?'s and !'s above mobs' heads of all things
-maps with a floating gps dot
-instances (look Mom, no trains)
etc. etc. etc.

...then it's still an easy game.

EDIT -> Hippo said it better than I could. Level 1 to 200 (or whatever the max is in wow this month), WoW is far easier.

[Reiker]

Bleah, WoW *is* too easy, it really is. I'll cut-and-paste an earlier post...



Sure, most gaming companies could make an easy, WoW-like, game, and then add a boss mob (or 100 boss mobs) at the end-game with a gazillion hitpoints, 10 heads, and an attitude. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an easy game.

I think my least favorite aspect of WoW is the gear reset every expansion. What's the point of raiding Expansion X when the first quests from Expansion Y will have better green gear than the top raid purples you had? That's one thing that EQ did very well... when an expansion like GoD came out, only the bleeding edge guilds will actually be progressing through it, and then you have multiple raid guilds still trying to kill aow and progressing through ntov, ssra, vt, pop, etc. Of course, this also has its disadvantages (middle tier players are much less likely to purchase GoD, or SoE has to implement game breaking bonuses like PoK that benefit everyone) but I still definitely prefer it over this "game reset" WoW expansion bs.

The completely boring and useless level 1-Max quest grind would probably be my #2 gripe.

In a few years the max level will be like 125 and you'll be able to grind 20+ levels an hour. The game's "bloating" at an astounding rate, so Blizzard can sell more boxes.

[Overcast]

This man speaks the truth!

Indeed, well said. Better articulated than I did. I was trying to do that without coming across as 'bashing' WoW. I do like many parts of the game.