Why did some EQ players dislike WoW?

[Ion Blaze]

Why did some EverQuest players dislike WoW when it came out? What were the reasons they gave? How did WoW affect EQ’s playerbase? Just trying to understand for academic purposes. Please keep this mature.

[red_demonman]

It was direct competition at the time and so a lot of players did not want to see the EQ community bleed out to WoW. On top of that, it kind of took the attention off EQ and shifted it to WoW as the main MMO at the time.

This is around the same time that Sony & Nintendo had big "fanboys" and a lot of the fanboy culture was also seen in the MMO area. It definitely did lower the EQ playerbase to some degree as players left for greener pastures, at least on the server I was on.

[Chortles Snortles]

https://i.imgur.com/OH7CA.png

[unsunghero]

1. Because it’s pve content was on rails

2. Because it’s pve content outside of raids was far too easy

3. Because the lack of significant consequences for dying removed a lot of excitement and sense of danger, especially in dungeons

Those are probably the big 3, if I had to pick. That being said, I liked EQ but loved WoW, but mostly WoW for the pvp

[unsunghero]

Oh shit this is Ion! Like your vids man, keep up the good work

[Reiwa]

2. Because it’s pve content outside of raids was far too easy

uncrushable in blues :rolleyes:

[Crawdad]

Why did some EverQuest players dislike WoW when it came out? What were the reasons they gave?

One of the big deal breakers I heard a lot back in 03-04 for WoW was graphics and storyline. Some people didn't care for the 'silly' or 'cartoony' look of WoW or the massive amount of topical humor in the game/world. EQ may not have been great looking but it made people feel like they were grounded in a fantasy setting. WoW is basically how can we jam as many pop culture reference in as game content/world building.

[loramin]

Why did some EverQuest players dislike WoW when it came out

Honestly, most didn't. WoW was extremely popular among EQ players.

How did WoW affect EQ’s playerbase?

It decimated it.

SOE had stopped publishing population numbers by that point (very likely because they knew how embarrassing they would be), but ... let me put it this way. WoW came out in November 2004, and just a few months later 18 servers closed (https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-64038).

So WoW destoryed EQ's population, but to be fair it wasn't all WoW's fault: SOE shot themselves in the foot with the EQ 2 release also.

[teai]

Everquest and WoW duking it out while little AC was chugging along unknown to the masses ;w;



https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LcU7EHAPJ4Q/WJGikQ0QB3I/AAAAAAAA5cc/uQsKZ039vlYnRAG0c04TOO3IL__N5NCFACLcB/s1600/pcgamerasheronscallend.jpg

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Just trying to understand for academic purposes. Please keep this mature.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Austria#/media/File:Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpg/800px-Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpg

Emperor Ferdinand the First wuffered from hydrowephaly, which is water on the brain, which Freddie Mercury was suspected to have had and that is what really killed him (that and no common sense, nothing left to believe in).



He is famous for a few things, but one of them is, during the 1848 Revolution he asked his trusted advisor / drool mopper Prince Metternich, why people were marching on his Palace, and Metternich replied dryly, "they are overthrowing the government," to which the unfortunate Ferdinand replied, "Ja, aber durfen's denn des?"


So that's academic. As to requesting maturity, I would ask the mods, if that is possible?

[Twil]

1. Because it’s pve content was on rails

2. Because it’s pve content outside of raids was far too easy

3. Because the lack of significant consequences for dying removed a lot of excitement and sense of danger, especially in dungeons

Those are probably the big 3, if I had to pick. That being said, I liked EQ but loved WoW, but mostly WoW for the pvp

This was my experience. I remember being bugged by how easy it was to figure out quests. Felt like I was being spoon fed. It felt like a watered down version of EQ to me. I didn't play it for long, but my brother was into it and played for a while. To each their own I guess.

[Tunabros]

Wow was the game ever

[Basanos]

Wow was the game ever

[Jibartik]

Wow didn't feel as personal as EQ felt to me. I felt like iw as playing a game, while EQ was like a virtual real life where Id be scared, and lost, and confused, just like IRL.

[Bardp1999]

Imagine if they made a version of P99 that penalized the neckbeards and rewarded the warm bodies, that was WoW vs EQ and why WoW has made 10+ billion dollars and EQ a 10th or 20th of that.

[Chortles Snortles]

https://i.imgur.com/CHOz4jw.jpg

[Bardp1999]

How was the commute to work today, you'll make Hep Desk Tech II in no time if you keep putting in the work

[Tyrenell]

Furor and Tigole played a big part in it too, these were 2 of the most vocal and followed EQ Players and near the end of PoP they were both shitting all over EQ begging for WoW to launch so they and their guilds could move over to it. It made a lot of people either have a disdain feeling towards WoW or also hate EQ and wait for the new game.

[Ghost of Starman]

So WoW destoryed EQ's population, but to be fair it wasn't all WoW's fault: SOE shot themselves in the foot with the EQ 2 release also.

Gates of Discord was an absolute disaster, and it was timed horribly for SOE since it came out a few months before WoW launched; they had tuned the expansion for players at level 70 but then didn't actually increase the level cap in a mind-bogglingly dumb maneuver, it was like releasing the Velious raid zones while leaving the level cap at 50, I was in a top 2 guild on my server and grinding that expansion was like slamming your head against a wall, I and over half my guild were pushed over the edge and quit within the first few weeks, just in time for the WoW launch.


https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/EverQuest:_Gates_of_Discord

[mycoolrausch]

My friend and I had pretty similar taste in video games, but I had only dipped my toes in live EQ whereas he went full in and was in a hardcore raid guild by the time WoW was coming around.

When WoW came out I thought it was the answer to all our mmorpg prayers, but he wasn't impressed and barely touched it. I did get the feeling though that it was mostly because he had already put 10,000 hours into progress questing, and doing it again from scratch wasn't appealing, rather than any particular shortcomings of the game or superiority of everquest.

It's hard to say Vanilla WoW as it existed 2004-2007 wasn't an outright superior experience to 99% of everquest though. To me its only on replayability where it falls short. Once you've mastered the mechanics of WoW and the content, there's less depth and less variety compared to EQ. Its shorter, more condensed, and more on rails. But I don't think any of that was really a factor when you and everybody else was starting fresh and blind. It's hard to overstate its impact and how it was experienced compared to the competition.

[WokeCat]

Honestly, most didn't. WoW was extremely popular among EQ players.



It decimated it.

SOE had stopped publishing population numbers by that point (very likely because they knew how embarrassing they would be), but ... let me put it this way. WoW came out in November 2004, and just a few months later 18 servers closed (https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-64038).

So WoW destoryed EQ's population, but to be fair it wasn't all WoW's fault: SOE shot themselves in the foot with the EQ 2 release also.
From my memory, I remember everyone on the forums really looking forward to EQ 2 and a lot of my friends quitting EQ in the months leading up to EQ 2 Launch.

I actually played WOW and EQ 2 at the same time, and I can honestly say that I preferred EQ 2 way more. The problem is, most of my friends didn't own computers that could even run EQ 2, and since WoW was so casual friendly, most of my friends were hooked on the game, so I found myself having to play WoW more just to play with them, even though I thought it was an inferior game at the time.

Like in EQ 2 it just felt like there was way more stuff to do, and that it had a lot more depth, the crafting system was really well done and I owned a mansion in the game, I did unique things like faction changes, farmed weird titles. WoW just felt really.... limited.

A lot of people don't remember this, but WOW Classic is not true the original state of the game. I remember hitting max level in WoW fairly early on and not having anything to do. The game felt really unfinished.

I've still been playing WoW off and on for 15+ years now, so I don't completely hate it, I just feel like it's a really dumbed down version of EQ. Whenever WoW Classic Launched and I played it and P99 back to back, I realized how much the two games had in common at one point. Something I didn't really think too much about in 2004 when the game launched.

[goblinmob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Austria#/media/File:Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpg/800px-Kaiser_Ferdinand_I.jpg

Emperor Ferdinand the First wuffered from hydrowephaly, which is water on the brain, which Freddie Mercury was suspected to have had and that is what really killed him (that and no common sense, nothing left to believe in).



He is famous for a few things, but one of them is, during the 1848 Revolution he asked his trusted advisor / drool mopper Prince Metternich, why people were marching on his Palace, and Metternich replied dryly, "they are overthrowing the government," to which the unfortunate Ferdinand replied, "Ja, aber durfen's denn des?"


So that's academic. As to requesting maturity, I would ask the mods, if that is possible?

Lol!

[unsunghero]

I remember hitting max level in WoW fairly early on and not having anything to do. The game felt really unfinished.


Now I forget, was the endgame of vanilla WoW blackrock mtn (LBRS, UBRS) or was molden core in the original launch?

Just checked and yea MC and Onyxia were in at launch. So that’s a decent end game, far more than many other more modern MMO’s launch with

The problem with MC was it was too large, requiring raiders to have to commit 3-6 hours on average depending on wipes of their time each run. And all the ridiculous amounts of trash pulls become incredibly boring once a guild had the raid on farm status

WoW raids had mechanics that EQ raids to my knowledge simply couldn’t match, though, in terms of complexity. But I wasn’t ever into raiding in EQ so I’m definitely not an authority on their raids

[Mblake1981]

The problem is, most of my friends didn't own computers that could even run EQ 2, and since WoW was so casual friendly

Took out a bank loan for my EQ computer. WoW was for pawnshop laptop players. I would never have taken a loan out for WoW. It was developed before Windows Vista, so it has that going for it at least.

iKJntpati20

[Patrece]

If you have to ask them lol

[Garnaak]

I never played WoW.

I was mid 50's KC grinding Monk working on Whistling Fist robe when PoP came out. That is when my group of friends split up in-game. The hard cores joined raiding guilds and hit 65, leaving us more casual players to fend for ourselves. There was a group of 6-7 of us IRL that all started playing together originally.

So, PoP caused our real life group to fracture ingame and with WoW around the corner, it was just going to be another fracture on top of what we already experienced.

When I got back into things since that time, it has always been the emu scene. Did finally play WoW classic emu a couple years ago, just to see what fuss was about. It did seem easy mode after EQ, though it did have cleaner graphics.

[magnetaress]

It was too easy at first and the community was full of scrubs.

It's a better game then EQ now. The populous idiots still mill about however.

[magnetaress]

Everquest and WoW duking it out while little AC was chugging along unknown to the masses ;w;



https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LcU7EHAPJ4Q/WJGikQ0QB3I/AAAAAAAA5cc/uQsKZ039vlYnRAG0c04TOO3IL__N5NCFACLcB/s1600/pcgamerasheronscallend.jpg

Baler? Mblake? That you?

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

EQ1 basically died mid 2000's.


Fan Faires are dominated by eq2 players, guilds, and content. In Atlanta in 2006 fan faire, there was one table that held the eq1 players during the main dinner.



The key to understand WoW is that it was both new and comfort food. Everyone had played Warcraft. Wow's success was nearly automatic.



People loyal to the eq brand moved to eq2. I can' remember anyone missing eq1 after they moved on. It was not yet this "thing" that people are still attached to even though it is long since over. I cannot figure such people out. Let it go!



Anyone who is still posting about original everquest in 2022 is insane.

[PlsNoBan]

EQ1 basically died mid 2000's.


Fan Faires are dominated by eq2 players, guilds, and content. In Atlanta in 2006 fan faire, there was one table that held the eq1 players during the main dinner.



The key to understand WoW is that it was both new and comfort food. Everyone had played Warcraft. Wow's success was nearly automatic.



People loyal to the eq brand moved to eq2. I can' remember anyone missing eq1 after they moved on. It was not yet this "thing" that people are still attached to even though it is long since over. I cannot figure such people out. Let it go!



Anyone who is still posting about original everquest in 2022 is insane.

Is this a troll post that went over my head? You have a join date of 2012 and 1310 posts. You posted 30+ times in 2022. Are you calling yourself insane? I'm very confused here

[Basanos]

If posting about old games makes one insane, those speedrunner folks must be gibbering maniacs

Actually... wait...

[Reiwa]

If posting about old games makes one insane, those speedrunner folks must be gibbering maniacs

Actually... wait...

@Castle the forum poster not the guild

[Arvan]

Wow was made by eq players who saw the opportunity to make the game easier and more streamlined and then make bank off teenaged kids and stay at home sons / parents

[Mblake1981]

Anyone who is still posting about original everquest in 2022 is insane.

Nah, I reject that. People still talk about Thief: The Dark Project. Is it insane rejecting The Cloud and mobile-style gaming as standard? if you say yes then you probably sit when you pee, enjoy She-Hulk and drive an EV.

https://i.imgur.com/rnF2Oyy.jpg

[unsunghero]

If I had to list other things that I personally like, and am assuming others do as well, about EQ over WoW, I'd also have to go with

1. Less cartoony graphics. I don't mind the oversized shoulderpads, at least they're not 40k big. But I can understand how people might prefer more realistic EQ graphics

2. Fucking enchanters, man. And bards I guess. There's really no WoW class remotely like it. Warlocks were WoW's necromancers, most of the rest of the classes had a WoW equivalent. Sure SK's, wizards, and monks didn't but those still had a WoW archtype fairly close to them. But enchanters and bards were a completely unique kind of archtype, and I think the reason WoW didn't continue them was they saw them as too hard to balance, I'm guessing

3. This goes along with PVE being too easy but I think there could be a decent amount of pushback to making all WoW classes able to solo to 60 easily. And I think there was this element in EQ of making classes that normally are not known to be great solo'ers great via twinking. Twinking when I was playing WoW wasn't really a thing because you simply didn't need to. You could take any class to 60 in green quality gear grinding mobs, you didn't even need to do dungeons or quests. The only WoW version of twinking was low level BG's, where it got pretty serious. But everyone knows WoW's pvp was light years better, so...

[Duik]

Child like characters (imho) and 3rd person perspective like a strategy game.

[Jimjam]

Didn’t really dislike it as I didn’t really play it. I was still enthused with Everquest, rnjoying what I was doing and hoping to do in Norrath.

I didn’t like how pushy people were dissing eq and repoing wow to try make me switch. Just let me enjoy what I enjoy without being a negger.

[eqravenprince]

Never felt immersed in WoW. Game felt like it was on rails.

[eqravenprince]

EQ1 started dying with release of Luclin around the same time Dark Age of Camelot came out. Luclin sucked and finally had another ok MMO to go to.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

you probably sit when you pee


I was given an order by my squad leader and I followed it.



If you have a problem with that, I would tell you to take it up with my CO except he was the guy I couldn't get to in time.


Maybe that's funny to you. It isn't to me.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

On a serious note, and this is not inventive on my part, I think the basic framework has to be, the period in question was a different time. To me, it made total sense that WoW exploded. Big diff b/w what computer and internet people had 1999 v 2003. EQ2, the natural choice at that end time frame for eq-loyal players, required a killer computer. WoW did not.


And millions had played the rts warcraft for millions of hours already.


In a sense I am not sure there is a story here. The actual sequence and tempo of events + technological progress predicts original eq dropping like a fly pretty much exactly when it did. No content could save it. No design decision totally explains it.


RL killed the eq star.

[Chortles Snortles]

https://i.imgur.com/71T8BuG.jpg

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

It certainly is not that simple Chortles.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Why did some EverQuest players dislike WoW when it came out? What were the reasons they gave? How did WoW affect EQ’s playerbase? Just trying to understand for academic purposes. Please keep this mature.


So get on topic or go home. I would remind Chortles, this is a mature thread. This was cleared by r/theconferenceroom

[Raj]

Gates of Discord was an absolute disaster, and it was timed horribly for SOE since it came out a few months before WoW launched; they had tuned the expansion for players at level 70 but then didn't actually increase the level cap in a mind-bogglingly dumb maneuver, it was like releasing the Velious raid zones while leaving the level cap at 50, I was in a top 2 guild on my server and grinding that expansion was like slamming your head against a wall, I and over half my guild were pushed over the edge and quit within the first few weeks, just in time for the WoW launch.


https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/EverQuest:_Gates_of_Discord

Sounds Like your tanks needed more Time gear and more defensive AAs. Gates forced your most important players to be decked out in good loot and lots of AAs. :cool:

[Jibartik]

Everquest came out when nerds were into fantasy

wow came out and invited all the worst people in the unvierse to like fantasy

now fantasy is ruined

the end.

[Chortles Snortles]

like you
(lol)

[Jibartik]

https://i.imgur.com/Zw4xblU.png

[Chortles Snortles]

https://i.imgur.com/VT8jtBm.jpg

[Valakut]

i dont think any eq players ever disliked wow. when wow came out you had to buy physical boxes with cd-rom/dvd-rom with actual cd key. you couldn't even find a copy for a while because it was so popular. so some may have had angst from not being able to participate.

on the other hand the eq players i know went to eq2 but that shit was harder than a korean mmo at launch. so you had a fragmented eq player base between eq, eq2, and wow. and there was no raiding in wow though at this point. they eventually nerfed difficulty on eq2. and eq was like 600 aa's minimum to app to a high end guild. and then wow got UBRS the first 10 man instanced roughly a year after launch.

so in the end you had hardcore raiders on eq, instanced casual fun hour on wow, and eq lore nerds on eq2. each game had it's own demographic.

[NegaStoat]

I played through the launch of original EQ through to Luclin. It had its charm in PvE which mainly came down to the sense of competition between guilds for targets. Dark Age of Camelot drew me away in a hurry because its promise of PvP between realms seemed pretty tight. For a while it was. I would claim that it was City of Heroes that drew away a BIG stake of the PvE player base of both Everquest & Dark Age of Camelot when it offered a lengthy Beta test. Don't kid yourselves - CoH broke some stupidly massive ground for the PvE MMO scene for its time.

World of Warcraft did have some cartoony graphics and it also had spoon fed leveling on the rails. From what I recall at the time, those were the two key elements that drove people away from it. Well, the ones that were seeking something else that felt more challenging. But I don't know. On both the EQ and WoW based forum boards I didn't really see a fair number of posts from upset players that said something along the lines of "I'm heading back to EQ, this is dumb."

[Jibartik]

https://i.imgur.com/33Jshic.png

[Trexller]

https://i.imgur.com/33Jshic.png

God Damn It

[Ghost of Starman]

World of Warcraft did have some cartoony graphics and it also had spoon fed leveling on the rails. From what I recall at the time, those were the two key elements that drove people away from it. Well, the ones that were seeking something else that felt more challenging. But I don't know. On both the EQ and WoW based forum boards I didn't really see a fair number of posts from upset players that said something along the lines of "I'm heading back to EQ, this is dumb."

If anyone was driven away from WoW during classic is was an extreme minority, vanilla WoW was an excellent evolution of the MMO genre for the vast majority of players.

It got rid of some of the most tedious elements of EQ (like extremely painful CRs and the almost complete inability of some classes to solo) which the majority of people didn't enjoy, while improving raid and dungeon boss mechanics, instancing them so you got to actually experience all the content, made it so you actually moved through a zone instead of camping in one spot for hours, etc.

the classic WoW servers would have been a blast except for the horrible, horrible player base and Blizzard refusing to change things. Level 60 mages shouldn't have been able to run people through low level zones for XP, world buffs should not have been a raiding requirement, and the worst of the worst was the whole community was overrun by an extreme min-max mentality to where you would only bring specific classes to raids to steamroll them as fast as possible. The game was the same, but the player base sure wasn't,

[Chortles Snortles]

https://i.imgur.com/nBScaki.jpg

[magnetaress]

i dont think any eq players ever disliked wow. when wow came out you had to buy physical boxes with cd-rom/dvd-rom with actual cd key. you couldn't even find a copy for a while because it was so popular. so some may have had angst from not being able to participate.

on the other hand the eq players i know went to eq2 but that shit was harder than a korean mmo at launch. so you had a fragmented eq player base between eq, eq2, and wow. and there was no raiding in wow though at this point. they eventually nerfed difficulty on eq2. and eq was like 600 aa's minimum to app to a high end guild. and then wow got UBRS the first 10 man instanced roughly a year after launch.

so in the end you had hardcore raiders on eq, instanced casual fun hour on wow, and eq lore nerds on eq2. each game had it's own demographic.

There is still a lot of easily accessible content u dont need to be uber to do normal raids just find a guild that does them.

[magnetaress]

There is still a lot of easily accessible content u dont need to be uber to do normal raids just find a guild that does them.

conversly mythics up to 10's are pretty easy.

its' just a lot mroe lobbyquest

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I personally didn't like WoW at all. It was due to the game being far too easy in comparison to Everquest.

Sadly Everquest also got really bad because it tried to copy WoW, so I stopped playing Everquest too.

WoW certainly had the superior art style and polish, so there really was no point in playing Everquest when it was just turned into a want-to-be WoW.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Everquest came out when nerds were into fantasy and persistent worlds

wow came out and invited all the worst people in the unvierse to like fantasy and persistent worlds

now fantasy and persistent worlds are ruined

the end.


I added the corrolary part of the equation.



It's debatable, but every time I hear someone say, as if it makes sense, "After all, I have a real life" about game mechanics, a little spool of tape comes out of my robot hole that says, "Does not compute."



In the beginning, you either had the time for this crap or you didn't. No respectable nerd complained about "I drive a Ford Taurus and am respected at the office!" stuff.


I, if the universe needs to know, only needed 3-4 hours sleep for most of my life. Plus, I work best when I multi-task. EQ was a fucking gift.

[radda]

never played wow or eq2

so happy for that.
sorry yall were torn

[Issar]

EQ started to lose me after PoP. I had started getting into games like DAoC and ShadowBane prior to WoW. When WoW came out it was the quality of life improvements from EQ were welcome because I was becoming an adult with responsibilities. As much as I loved gaming EQ required too much time. As much as I loved wow, the pop culture stuff, the rails, the lack of races and classes were all things I didn’t love at the time. Outside of that, I still play retail wow. I can’t be bothered to play retail EQ, after several attempts over years to try. P99 and TAKP are irreplaceable sanctuaries now.

[GardylooGubbins]

I played EQ all the way through LDoN, and started playing WoW when it came out. Here are my memories good and bad:

Good:

1) WoW was definitely the prettier game. I didn't care as much for the cartoony graphics, but I remember the color pallet and the overall aesthetic of the towns being better.

2) Gameplay was super easy to pick up, and skills/spells didn't seem like they'd be crap until you ground them out for dozens of hours.

3) It was much easier to make a "cool" looking character early in the game.

Bad:

1) I could never get fully immersed in the world. This is one of those things that I've never understood, because for all intents and purposes, WoW's world was much more alive and less static than EQ. But there was always something missing. I couldn't get sucked in like in EQ. Maybe it was the quest markers telling me which NPCs were worth talking to. Maybe it was the way I didn't have to figure anything out on my own. I don't know. All I can say is that EQ always felt like a world I was transported to, and WoW felt like a theme park I was playing in.

2) While the class variety seemed good at first, the choice to give every player solo abilities eventually led to me not really caring what I played. Grouping and solo strategies were less important it seemed, and most people seemed content to solo most of the PvE content.

3) There was always a heavy emphasis on PvP. I despise PvP content. In MMOs I want my experience to be more DnD night, and less Halo night. I know this is not the attitude of many players these days, but it was one of the major factors that drove me away from WoW as expansions went on.

4) Very little downtime for mana/health regen means less time chatting with friends in game. Some of my best memories of EQ are the random conversations I'd have with groupmates while waiting for the cleric to regen mana.

[Jibartik]

I cant explain this but when I see someone from across the zone in EQ I know who it is, but in wow I cant make out one person from the next.

[unsunghero]

the classic WoW servers would have been a blast except for the horrible, horrible player base and Blizzard refusing to change things. Level 60 mages shouldn't have been able to run people through low level zones for XP, world buffs should not have been a raiding requirement, and the worst of the worst was the whole community was overrun by an extreme min-max mentality to where you would only bring specific classes to raids to steamroll them as fast as possible. The game was the same, but the player base sure wasn't,

I think this is a phenomenon that will affect any game that was released so long ago. People had been playing classic WoW era on Nostalrius (sp?) and other private servers for a decade before classic launched. So these people became the authority on exactly how to min/max everything, and then put all that information online

No game will ever be able to escape this anymore. It’s just like if they released a new Green, everyone will know exactly where to level and exactly what to farm and everything is now basically a speed run, shaving smaller and smaller amounts of time off in regards to getting what you want in game

That’s why people are nostalgic for vanilla WoW and EQ, because it was in an era where this wasn’t possible. That era is long gone and is never coming back

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

eq2 yer gear needed repairing. Could get pricey. Hope your guild helps ya out!
I loved that design choice. It was so irritating to so many people. But the ease of use juggernaut is relentless.

Again, the core issue, the core mistake, the error, is people conceptualize a game as something that is or should be designed to co-exist with something called a life.

That is a design assumption I am not willing to make. I think it is the exact opposite of how you develop true elf simulator excellence.

Somebody needs to come to their senses and realize this is what matters now. This is all that matters. Or sure, we all have loved ones, but let's face it, did you sign some kind of contract that says you have to be Mr. I Am Balanced? Why are loved ones an obstacle to you disappearing from all local human contact for days on end?

I deal with old people. Some of them, you get one day out of four, you got a real live wire.

The unrealistic expectations people have about life are like leads weights on the human spirit. People tell me to get with it, but when I ask them what discord channel they are on, they get defensive. "Oh, this upsets my routine! I have to get back to my car!"

Yeah, like that 5 minutes in the Rite Aid parking lot messed up your entire day. I was thinking. Get with it. I am with it, honey!

[SantagarBrax]

EQ was a Juggernaut when WoW released. We knew EQ was a much better game and didn't feel threatened by wow in the slightest. The cartoony graphics alone killed any viable fantasy feel to it and that was the majority of the opinion of the players on Xegony.

Unfortunately, SOE made some fatal mistakes that boosted WoW into the frontrunner spot without putting in the time and killed their own brand at the same time. WoW was a "dumber" game designed for easy access and less commitment.

1. EQ2 - split dev teams and made em go over there.
2. The transition to instancing thus killing off inconceivable interactions within the game (LDON)
3. EQ Marketing was terrible in the U.S. Overseas, they were wonderful, yet you never saw any advertising on TV for EQ, it simply didn't exist.
4. SOE's relentless bullshit keying for every expansion from VP to ST, Luclin, PoP, etc. We were tired of it and needed a break and GoD broke the camels back.
5. SOE's bullshit "we need a new expansion drop!" that went from 18 months with kunark to 4 months with LoY and the trend persisted for money grabbing's sake with the average around 6-9 months thereafter.

SOE fucked up royally in so many ways it's hard to list them all. The one thing we can be sure of is that they lost the player base from their own greediness, rush to drop broken/limited expansions and everyone knew it at the time it was happening. We saw it live and experienced the degradation from the poor choices at the top and we never forgave them.

[Encroaching Death]

I remember playing EQ and Asheron's Call, and then when DAoC dropped it was like a fine ass naked woman walked by me and I got tunnel vision and I completely forgot about EQ and AC.

Then WoW came out. I largely ignored it until I saw my sister's boyfriend playing it and I was like "WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU???"

Then I ate some ass.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

EQ was a Juggernaut when WoW released. We knew EQ was a much better game and didn't feel threatened by wow in the slightest. The cartoony graphics alone killed any viable fantasy feel to it and that was the majority of the opinion of the players on Xegony.

Unfortunately, SOE made some fatal mistakes that boosted WoW into the frontrunner spot without putting in the time and killed their own brand at the same time. WoW was a "dumber" game designed for easy access and less commitment.

1. EQ2 - split dev teams and made em go over there.
2. The transition to instancing thus killing off inconceivable interactions within the game (LDON)
3. EQ Marketing was terrible in the U.S. Overseas, they were wonderful, yet you never saw any advertising on TV for EQ, it simply didn't exist.
4. SOE's relentless bullshit keying for every expansion from VP to ST, Luclin, PoP, etc. We were tired of it and needed a break and GoD broke the camels back.
5. SOE's bullshit "we need a new expansion drop!" that went from 18 months with kunark to 4 months with LoY and the trend persisted for money grabbing's sake with the average around 6-9 months thereafter.

SOE fucked up royally in so many ways it's hard to list them all. The one thing we can be sure of is that they lost the player base from their own greediness, rush to drop broken/limited expansions and everyone knew it at the time it was happening. We saw it live and experienced the degradation from the poor choices at the top and we never forgave them.


But the ease of use issue. Even you note it. Ease of use = a game that can co-exist with a broader range of players' lives.



Both instancing and key reduction are ease of use adjustments. The nerf bat.



I just think one is missing the boat (HAHAH) if you think ease of use / ease of life was as central an idea then as it certainly is today. That is why Jibartik's post earlier is so concise.



He used the word nerds. I'll use the word weirdos. The weirdos liked this fantasy persistent world. WoW introduced a "FPW" that was easier.


And everyone wanted easier. Nerf the fucking hell out of it. Instance your mother. Eliminate the pain of incompetence. The weirdos had lost.

WE ALWAYS LOSE.


Most people here are closeted. They dream of giant nerf bats swinging back and forth making the game ejaculate pure quality of life excellence.


That's a turn off for me.

[SantagarBrax]

True Sadre, yet nothing in life worth having comes easy, otherwise it's not cherished.

[Allishia]

True Sadre, yet nothing in life worth having comes easy, otherwise it's not cherished.

/nod.

[Chortles Snortles]

hell, even WoW lost me at Burning Crusade launch tbf

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

True Sadre, yet nothing in life worth having comes easy, otherwise it's not cherished.


I'll try to understand, but I have a feeling I have a long road ahead of me.


Thanks.

[Encroaching Death]

hell, even WoW lost me at Burning Crusade launch tbf

TBC was the best Xpac (it was all downhill from there - yes, that includes WotLK)

[magnetaress]

tldr some ppl dont like wow becuz they are bad at it?

[Encroaching Death]

tldr some ppl dont like wow becuz they are bad at it?

I loved WoW.

I remember thinking back then "WTF happened to EQ?? Someone got drunk and redesigned all the character models and zones. It's not even the same game."

I still think that today.

[cd288]

Lich King was peak wow raiding. After that things went downhill

[branamil]

Wow was basically inarguably a better game. Like 90% of people switched. The only holdouts were that it was slightly cartoony and hand-holdy

[magnetaress]

Wow was basically inarguably a better game. Like 90% of people switched. The only holdouts were that it was slightly cartoony and hand-holdy

*parts of wow are better especially when the difficulty is actually tuned up

[SantagarBrax]

Wow was basically inarguably a better game. Like 90% of people switched. The only holdouts were that it was slightly cartoony and hand-holdy

Not true at all when wow dropped. EQ shot themselves in the foot and the overall end effect may have resulted in 90% leaving to wow...but it had nothing to do with wow being a "better game" and that period of time took 2 years to occur.

[Cecily]

I saw all the systems blatantly stolen from EQ and the game was frankly boring. Run tl;dr quests for a week to max level? That's absolute hell to me. I actually enjoy exp grinding, so Lineage II was a way better fit for me. Multiplayer Diablo PK / castle siege game with a grind from hell and 4% exp loss on death, so getting PKed actually hurt.

[Danth]

I saw all the systems blatantly stolen from EQ and the game was frankly boring. Run tl;dr quests for a week to max level? That's absolute hell to me. I actually enjoy exp grinding, so Lineage II was a way better fit for me. Multiplayer Diablo PK / castle siege game with a grind from hell and 4% exp loss on death, so getting PKed actually hurt.

You aren't talking launch because nobody was hitting 60 in a week after Warcraft originally launched. Most folks took about two or three months. Not even the speedrunners were doing it in a week, not until the nerf parade started. It's easy to forget just how different that game was at first from what it decided to turn itself in to.

That brings my to my own gripe with that game. Problem with Warcraft was it started out pretty good then Blizzard began nerfing stuff almost immediately. Eventually it became the MMO that caters to bad players and little kids. I recall not playing for a few months pre-expansion, then going back to Scholomance and wondering where all the mobs went. They took 'em out--too hard. The art style was already stylized to start with, but seemed to get ever-more cartoony over time. By the time the second expansion dropped it was over-nerfed and outright boring trying to play it on top of being increasingly annoying to look at. I let my subscription lapse in early 2009 and haven't seen reason to go back since.

Insofar as I can tell, "WoW Classic" only got the watered-down 1.12 version of the game even in its pre-expansion version. Call it Warcraft-lite. No thanks, I passed.

---------------------------------

Lot of players were already thoroughly sick of Sony by the time Warcraft launched. I quit EQ for keeps in spring 2004, a good six months or more before Warcraft launched.

Danth

[SantagarBrax]

Easy mode, like I said, and we all knew it.

[Ooloo]

Honestly the main reason I didn't like WoW is because I *do* like the actual warcraft RTS franchise of games. WoW felt like they were just slapping that IP onto an incredibly lucrative model (everquest) for easy subs. Which is fine, that's their prerogative, but everquest's entire lore was created specifically to BE an mmo, so it feels much more authentic and has a genuine character.

Plus like most people who play here, I enjoy how brutally unforgiving EQ can be, because it makes your achievements feel significant.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Honestly the main reason I didn't like WoW is because I *do* like the actual warcraft RTS franchise of games. WoW felt like they were just slapping that IP onto an incredibly lucrative model (everquest) for easy subs. Which is fine, that's their prerogative, but everquest's entire lore was created specifically to BE an mmo, so it feels much more authentic and has a genuine character.

Plus like most people who play here, I enjoy how brutally unforgiving EQ can be, because it makes your achievements feel significant.


This gets us back, then, to our chief and central question.Who is the enemy?

WoW was a known franchise with big bucks that could welcome one and all. You can't fight the low-minded. It is folly. EQ, meanwhile, was old already, old graphics, still even clunky. And, in their wisdom, EQ2 was released as the counter. Take that!



Summon the Rohirrim! And remember, when confronting an enemy superior in numbers, always divide your forces into two fun-sized bites than can be attacked piecemeal!

So is EQ2 the enemy? I would argue EQ2 was an act of mercy. EQ2 is the adrenaline injection at the end of Million Dollar Baby. *Some of us* had fun with that momentary rush. So EQ2 is not the enemy. If anything, the dagger had already been plunged into the spirit of the game by other, even more malignant forces.


What demon seed laid waste to Norrath? For it could not be defeated excepted from within. Wow's persistent toddler pen drew the usual suspects, including Failure Planedefiler, who smelt himself a chump payday deep in the asscracks of WoW management. EQ2, for it's part, was for the elite. They fucked not this up.


I see it! I see it! I see it! I see the evil! I will te....


[message cuts out]

[Jibartik]

Has anyone mentioned how if you go off the rails in wow, there's nothing but dead NPCs and no loot?

But if you go back on the rails suddenly its a loot machine candy factory?

That I think is the big turn off for me.

[Encroaching Death]

Has anyone mentioned how if you go off the rails in wow, there's nothing but dead NPCs and no loot?

But if you go back on the rails suddenly its a loot machine candy factory?

That I think is the big turn off for me.

Because WoW has been crafted to be a highly manipulated digital Skinner Box.

[Gustoo]

Wow lacks everything that made eq interesting as a game and honed in on what makes it additive and profitable. It’s eq for idiots achievement generator bullshit.

Art style sucks

No talking to “enemy” population is lame

All of the mystery and cool parts of eq are not there.

I guess there was a time you could do some good pvp trolling in the world.

I didn’t even try playing because it had no item loot.

[Cecily]

You aren't talking launch because nobody was hitting 60 in a week after Warcraft originally launched. Most folks took about two or three months. Not even the speedrunners were doing it in a week, not until the nerf parade started. It's easy to forget just how different that game was at first from what it decided to turn itself in to.

That brings my to my own gripe with that game. Problem with Warcraft was it started out pretty good then Blizzard began nerfing stuff almost immediately. Eventually it became the MMO that caters to bad players and little kids. I recall not playing for a few months pre-expansion, then going back to Scholomance and wondering where all the mobs went. They took 'em out--too hard. The art style was already stylized to start with, but seemed to get ever-more cartoony over time. By the time the second expansion dropped it was over-nerfed and outright boring trying to play it on top of being increasingly annoying to look at. I let my subscription lapse in early 2009 and haven't seen reason to go back since.

Insofar as I can tell, "WoW Classic" only got the watered-down 1.12 version of the game even in its pre-expansion version. Call it Warcraft-lite. No thanks, I passed.

---------------------------------

Lot of players were already thoroughly sick of Sony by the time Warcraft launched. I quit EQ for keeps in spring 2004, a good six months or more before Warcraft launched.

Danth
I genuinely don't care what the actual time frame is. You're running fetch quests to max level the whole time. That's pure hell.

[Chortles Snortles]

it was a pretty world shut up

[magnetaress]

I still love wow lots of cool stuff there even if it isn't EQ.

EQ needs dreanei tho )

[Danth]

I genuinely don't care what the actual time frame is. You're running fetch quests to max level the whole time. That's pure hell.

The time frame matters because the situation you're describing wasn't set in stone yet. Folks ran out of quests and had to make their experience the old fashioned way grinding or chaining dungeons.

Danth

[Byrjun]

Imagine if they made a version of P99 that penalized the neckbeards and rewarded the warm bodies, that was WoW vs EQ and why WoW has made 10+ billion dollars and EQ a 10th or 20th of that.

I've seen people say this a lot and I find it interesting. Even with no instancing and such I always felt like raiding in EQ was much more accessible to casual players than WoW was. This is mostly because WoW limited how many players you could take on a raid, while you could bring whoever you wanted in EQ as long as they weren't a hindrance. And while some EQ classes were a bit underpowered, they all still get to raid while you might not even get a raid spot in WoW if you like playing what's considered a bad spec.

I liked the 1-60 leveling experience in WoW, but that part of the game is really short and then the raiding isn't much fun at all for me. But even if you play the game for PvP (which is fun), you still need to raid for gear.

[magnetaress]

wow penalizes warm bodies now and rewards neckbeards they went backwards

[Encroaching Death]

You can basically jump back in and get full BiS gear within a couple of weeks.

It's addictive in the same way that mainlining heroin while eating 3 McDonalds Big Macs is.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

If EQ, and if dialup, and if no WoW, then profit.
If EQ, and if moar baNdwidth, and if WoW, then x, where x = gigs up!

[Tabascopunk]

1. Because it’s pve content was on rails

2. Because it’s pve content outside of raids was far too easy

3. Because the lack of significant consequences for dying removed a lot of excitement and sense of danger, especially in dungeons

Those are probably the big 3, if I had to pick. That being said, I liked EQ but loved WoW, but mostly WoW for the pvp

Gonna necro this post and add to it - idgaf:

4. Because the emphasis WoW has compared to EQ insofar as grouping (you kind of have to in EQ, at least if you want to be efficient) allowed for a lot of biproducts. Being a royal a$$hole, etc.. had zero to little consequence in WoW - a trait that started emerging once Mercs hit the scene on live EQ.

[unsunghero]

Gonna necro this post and add to it - idgaf:

4. Because the emphasis WoW has compared to EQ insofar as grouping (you kind of have to in EQ, at least if you want to be efficient) allowed for a lot of biproducts. Being a royal a$$hole, etc.. had zero to little consequence in WoW - a trait that started emerging once Mercs hit the scene on live EQ.

Yea I am very much a fan of games where reputation follows you and matters