Why didn't EverQuest remain as popular as other old MMO's?

[Wakanda]

I just googled most popular MMOs to see if I could find a new MMO to play until M&M comes out. Was scrolling through this list (https://mmo-population.com/) and was kind of blown away at how many people are playing Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes etc. (Obviously Runescape goes without saying.)

I tried all of these games when they were new, and none of them came close to EverQuest when all of the games were new products on the market. Even in 2026 I have more fun playing on P99 than I do playing WoW most of the time.

I'm just genuinely baffled by how so many older MMOs were able to gain such a huge following, yet the same games struggled to even compete with EQ back in the day?

It also cracks me up when I meet a younger person and they just assume that since I played EverQuest that I must have really loved Runescape since it came out in 2001... like no, man. Runescape was the EverQuest that you bought off of wish.com.

My theory is that the direction EQ went with the millions of different expansions that came out doesn't really appeal to veterans of the game, or younger / newer players. And P99 it just too difficult to install for the average normie. Game itself is possibly too difficult to play if you aren't familiar with it? IDEK.

[Belambic]

People got used to WoW easyraiding and didn't want to actually learn to play a game.

[Ekco]

even before WoW, i remember a bunch of people at the local Magic the gathering shop (rip Games Galore) jumped ship to Anarchy Online and it was pretty hard to argue it wasn't cool at the time

and Asheron's Call, whatever the timeline was i remember people pretty quickly looking for greener pastures that weren't/prior/also the nonsense that was WoW

[kjs86z2]

Asheron's Call was the best MMO, period.

[Reiwa]

There was also a concerted effort by many of the uberguilds to migrate to WoW.

[Defo]

even before WoW, i remember a bunch of people at the local Magic the gathering shop (rip Games Galore) jumped ship to Anarchy Online and it was pretty hard to argue it wasn't cool at the time

and Asheron's Call, whatever the timeline was i remember people pretty quickly looking for greener pastures that weren't/prior/also the nonsense that was WoW

I was one of those that jumped ship to AO. It's still alive, and still a good game. Also has a great monk class.

But yeah, WoW roflstomped EQ2. Lots of players left EQ1 for either EQ2 or WoW.

[BradZax]

Also back then we didn't have "i only play 1 game" gamers, and moving on from a game after a couple years was normal too.

EQ turned me into an i only play 1 game gamer.

[Ekco]

I was one of those that jumped ship to AO. It's still alive, and still a good game. Also has a great monk class.


played Agent, Monks looked so badass in Temple of the Three Winds, was cool camping that giant robot and seeing monks in their robes get that breastplate, AO was indeed cool

never got further than that first big dungeon really, i remember leveling out of it and the next one kinda blew, and grinding missions was kinda meh as well


camping a named for literal computer RAM sticks there was dope af also lol

[Eagish]

We jumped ship to DAoC when it came out and it was pretty awesome. Three different realms of characters and races to choose from, three different paths per class with mix and match options, quest rewards that were actually worthwhile, epic quests that were achievable with little to no bottlenecks, etc.

CoH was also awesome and one of the reasons it caught on so well was that it worked almost perfectly from the get go. Also flight and teleportation. I suspect it continues to have a dedicated player base because of both its simplicity of play and its ultimately customizable fashion quest. It got a little 'looty' after several years, but it's still pretty low key on that front.

Of course, I also play a fair bit of LotRO and that looks like it has pretty low numbers these days.

EQ really led the way, but even by 2004 it was graphically deficient and fugly compared to the competition. And as already implied, EQ (isn't exactly challenging) is far more punishing of player mistakes. When it was the only real game in town, people dealt with that and many left for more rewarding games when the opportunities opened up.

[red_demonman]

World of Warcraft killed it. That's really it. No reason to go back after the majority of the player base moved to WoW.

[Ekco]

the masses were wrong though, WoW was bullshit, why i moved to and played Eve Online for a decade

the worst iteration of the genre won, because people are terrible,

e5LdPf2J_hs

we are without a doubt in the worst timeline for mmorpgs its basically "ya, you know all the cool parts of ttrpgs, lets emulate the dice rolling and loot but fuck the character progression and other cool shit that makes DnD fun" the roleplaying

[Duik]

Spoke to a workmate who played WoW 6 months from the start. He said he only liked the 1st couple years, he further added early WoW is brutal.
When i told him about nekkid corpse runs and rotting gear/corpses his face went all contorted. Although his description of death was interesting. Cant drag corpses.
What a baby game.

[BradZax]

the masses were wrong though, WoW was bullshit, why i moved to and played Eve Online for a decade

the worst iteration of the genre won, because people are terrible

Standard masses behavior.

[Wakanda]

World of Warcraft killed it. That's really it. No reason to go back after the majority of the player base moved to WoW.

Not to be rude, but that wasn't really the question I was asking. I know why EQ died. What I don't understand is how MMOs that were less popular and games that I considered inferior at the time, are somehow more popular than EQ is 25 years later.

I also don't share the sentiment that Anarchy Online was better than EQ. I remember my parents getting mad that I made them buy it and let me use their credit card to play it, but within a week I was already back on EQ :p had friends leave for Asheron's Call and DAoC and also come back very swiftly.

[Wakanda]

Spoke to a workmate who played WoW 6 months from the start. He said he only liked the 1st couple years, he further added early WoW is brutal.
When i told him about nekkid corpse runs and rotting gear/corpses his face went all contorted. Although his description of death was interesting. Cant drag corpses.
What a baby game.I've been playing WoW off and on since 2004. I'm not asking why WoW is more popular than EQ, I'm asking why other non-EQ old school MMO's seem to have a larger and more active player-base than EQ does? I could understand if they were more popular than EQ when all of the games were new, but they weren't. It's like these other games aged better or something?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I've been playing WoW off and on since 2004. I'm not asking why WoW is more popular than EQ, I'm asking why other non-EQ old school MMO's seem to have a larger and more active player-base than EQ does? I could understand if they were more popular than EQ when all of the games were new, but they weren't. It's like these other games aged better or something?

I want to say the issue with Live Everquest in 2026 is that Live has always been chasing WoW. But WoW is just better at being WoW. So you get the worst of both worlds, where you lose the classic feel of Everquest, while being a worse WoW.

I haven't played Runescape in 2026, but I heard that it is more true to the original game.

So perhaps Everquest is just the farthest from it's roots. That's why people play P99 instead.

[Danth]

I've been playing WoW off and on since 2004. I'm not asking why WoW is more popular than EQ, I'm asking why other non-EQ old school MMO's seem to have a larger and more active player-base than EQ does? I could understand if they were more popular than EQ when all of the games were new, but they weren't. It's like these other games aged better or something?

What you see makes sense to me. EQ has a lot of descendants and derivatives, including World of Warcraft itself and consequently including that game's many clones. If a player sort of liked EQ but wanted a little different, there are a great many options. Most of the other old games you mentioned had vastly fewer copycats, or none at all, so folks who wanted one of those general styles of games were more likely to stick with the originals out of necessity.

[Swish]

This doesn't belong in Norrath...as fun and innocent as it is...

https://zam.zamimg.com/images/1/1/11c4169b176689b27148abc049a6213c.jpg

[branamil]

The quality of life issues drove everyone away except the masochistic and autistic.

Other games are very easy to put down and pick up whenever you want. People have shit to do and don't want to lose 10 hours of XP grinding because of a network glitch making them die.

[BradZax]

The classic look of everquest quickly devolved with each expansion too.

to swish's point. I felt kunark looked like that.

Ive learned to like it through p99 but kunark was ugly to me and weird. And mistmoore and qeynos was cool, and interesting.

[red_demonman]

Not to be rude, but that wasn't really the question I was asking. I know why EQ died. What I don't understand is how MMOs that were less popular and games that I considered inferior at the time, are somehow more popular than EQ is 25 years later.

I also don't share the sentiment that Anarchy Online was better than EQ. I remember my parents getting mad that I made them buy it and let me use their credit card to play it, but within a week I was already back on EQ :p had friends leave for Asheron's Call and DAoC and also come back very swiftly.

Now that I understand your question better, one thing I suggest is that the barrier to entry to Live EQ is still pretty high. I tried loading up Live EQ last year sometime and the amount of bullshit that popped up on my UI right away was astonishing. The help tips are archaic and its really hard to understand everything even as a returning player. I can't speak to all of the games on that list but I know some of them (such as SWG) are way easier to pick (back) up.

[Ciderpress]

People do still play live UO, which boggles my mind cause it got just as mudflated and unrecognizable as EQ did. There is a UO equivalent emu server of p99 called uosecondage, which is time locked to vanilla UO and the first expansion, but it's a complete ghost town sadly.

I came from UO but left it behind when EQ launched, but I still have a soft spot for that game. It was incredible for those two years pre-EQ.

[Botten]

I was so psyched for Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted or Horizons: Empire of Istaria

Bought the game and found out it was an unfinished mess.

But and unfinished mess far worse than most other MMOs

It painted such exciting potential.

https://pcmedia.ign.com/media/previews/image/horizonslineup.jpg

[Ekco]

>People do still play live UO

its's been like a decade+ for me, i never even played legit UO just shards and starting fresh on a UO shard sounds way cooler than any of this other bullshit on the mmorpg horizon

[Evia]

These forums dont support my theory very much, ive gotta be honest lol.
But I always felt like people who really like EQ have above average IQ.
Modern MMOs really cater more to your average vanilla joe. Which is why theyre more successful.

[BradZax]

Does anyone see a similarity between their own lives, and their success in norrath?

Ive noticed that my time in norrath mirrors my IRL life quite a bit.

Im a middle class eq player and my success and failures IRL seem to be the same success and failures I have in norrath.

I feel like this is a crazy idea, because most guild leaders seem like they are absolutely retarded IRL, but then again so do world leaders.

IMO eq is just IRL simulator, and most people suck and gave up on life long ago, so they give up on EQ too.

[Cecily]

Now that I understand your question better, one thing I suggest is that the barrier to entry to Live EQ is still pretty high. I tried loading up Live EQ last year sometime and the amount of bullshit that popped up on my UI right away was astonishing. The help tips are archaic and its really hard to understand everything even as a returning player. I can't speak to all of the games on that list but I know some of them (such as SWG) are way easier to pick (back) up.
Yeah I think this is a big one. Figuring out EQ is not intuitive and pretty much requires out of game research and or interaction with other players or overhearing them pontificate on something you don't know by chance. I really wanted to play it as a kid, but my energy and desire to jump through those hoops is near non-existant these days.

Monsters and Memories feels so much like EQ in this regard, unintuitive, and I have no intention of building up another extensive, useless knowledge base just to see if I like the game or not.

[jolanar]

EQ Live actually stayed pretty good up until each expansion became literal copy paste jobs which became really noticeable about 8 to 10 years ago.

If the money made by EQ was actually reinvested into EQ I think it could still be very popular. Similar to how WoW is constantly reinvesting into it's new player experience even 20 years later.

[Jimjam]

Wow and EQ competed for the same niche. Only the best fit for the niche survives.

EVE, SWG and COH fill different niches so don’t get killed off by wow like eq. That is why those persist in larger numbers than say quarm/p99.

Also, 30 years is a long time to be playing one static game.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

These forums dont support my theory very much, ive gotta be honest lol.
But I always felt like people who really like EQ have above average IQ.
Modern MMOs really cater more to your average vanilla joe. Which is why theyre more successful.

I think it is more generational.

Not as many people had PC's at home in 1999 as people did in 2004. Especially PC's with a decent internet connection. Anyone with a PC and internet at home in 1999 had already grown up in a world where PC games were esoteric, and there wasn't a large scale internet that had information about everything. So Everquest wasn't out of place compared to other games. That generation of gamers was used to figuring things out themselves.

I'd wager that more kids (and even adults) got their first home PC's that could play games with internet closer to 2004. So it was much more likely for a new PC gamer to start with WoW, rather than Everquest. This is especially true due to the success of Warcraft 3. A lot more gamers were primed for the next Warcraft game. Blizzard was probably the best PC game company during that era with Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. Every internet cafe had those games.

[Ennewi]

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[DeathsSilkyMist]

Great commercial lol. I remember when those were on TV all the time.

[Ekco]

in this house we buy computers from a trustworthy cow not a stoner kid.

76oZYh9u-eg

[Knuckle]

I just googled most popular MMOs to see if I could find a new MMO to play until M&M comes out. Was scrolling through this list (https://mmo-population.com/) and was kind of blown away at how many people are playing Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes etc. (Obviously Runescape goes without saying.)

I tried all of these games when they were new, and none of them came close to EverQuest when all of the games were new products on the market. Even in 2026 I have more fun playing on P99 than I do playing WoW most of the time.

I'm just genuinely baffled by how so many older MMOs were able to gain such a huge following, yet the same games struggled to even compete with EQ back in the day?

It also cracks me up when I meet a younger person and they just assume that since I played EverQuest that I must have really loved Runescape since it came out in 2001... like no, man. Runescape was the EverQuest that you bought off of wish.com.

My theory is that the direction EQ went with the millions of different expansions that came out doesn't really appeal to veterans of the game, or younger / newer players. And P99 it just too difficult to install for the average normie. Game itself is possibly too difficult to play if you aren't familiar with it? IDEK.

Everquest just never blew up the way WOW did which means the nostalgia fanbase is inherintly smaller. Runescape I can only surmise, is still popular because it was initially free, and must have garnered a massive fanbase in the early 2000s and road that wave.

We have enough places to gather with a decent population but it would have been cool if EQ would have had a resurgence but it's never been an easy game to get into for new players.

[Knuckle]

I wonder if a lot of EQs suffering is also to the private server barrier to entry. You can spin up any of the top private WOW contenders with a few mindless clicks here and there.

[Knuckle]

Also make no mistake - a ton of EQ players left for WoW. And almost all of us were hyped for WoW.

[Swish]

Runescape I can only surmise, is still popular because it was initially free, and must have garnered a massive fanbase in the early 2000s and road that wave.

They had an attempt at trying to push in game ads for free players last year and quickly backtracked after the negative reaction from the whole community.

I'm still surprised live EQ doesn't have NPCs chatting to each other about Daybreak cash specials, such a missed opportunity.

[Reiwa]

Also make no mistake - a ton of EQ players left for WoW. And almost all of us were hyped for WoW.

Some naturally and some were induced to it.

That kind of buzz will cost you $7,000 dollars these days.

[BradZax]

Everquest is like Might & Magic and Wow is like Final Fantasy 6.

Like, the themes are just more niche. And the graphics in everquset, let's not pretend they are not dog water.

I love them. You love them. We get it. But for christ sakes can we all just admit we're FREAKS.

[Jimjam]

The graphics may be dogwater but the art, especially before Luclin, was amazing. It really nailed a vibe of little expertly hand painted dnd figurines. For me at least.

[Evia]

Some naturally and some were induced to it.

That kind of buzz will cost you $7,000 dollars these days.


LOL ;)

[BradZax]

The graphics may be dogwater but the art, especially before Luclin, was amazing. It really nailed a vibe of little expertly hand painted dnd figurines. For me at least.

Yean me and you get it. But THEY dont. :cool:

[Danth]

My theory is that the direction EQ went with the millions of different expansions that came out doesn't really appeal to veterans of the game, or younger / newer players. And P99 it just too difficult to install for the average normie. Game itself is possibly too difficult to play if you aren't familiar with it? IDEK.

All of these are also valid contributing factors, by the way. Part of P99's appeal to me is the fixed era. Every commercial MMO-RPG I ever liked eventually morphed into something I disliked due to the gradual patch creep. P99's installation is definitely on the technical side for a generation of players who can't even seem to run their own executables anymore and need a launcher to do everything for them. And EQ, while of only medium overall difficulty, is notoriously frontloaded in its difficulty and newbie-unfriendly. EQ also doesn't have a strong IP to help retain diehard fans like Star Wars or Final Fantasy or D&D or Lord of the Rings or Warcraft or even Ultima have. It didn't have competent management willing to address mistakes and change course like Runescape has. EQ has a lot going against it. I suppose in some sense we're fortunate P99, with its faults, exists at all. There are other games that I liked which are simply gone now, too niche to have even built enough of an audience to get emulators completed.

[Jimjam]

I found scribing and memming spells, moving stuff to hot bars, even finding where the abilities, combat abilities and social hotbuttons were in the actions window to be a nightmarewhen I got started. Like hotbuttons vs hotkeys and throwing in macros was so confusing.

It didn’t help that the ROK manual was full of out dated information/ misinformation.

Thankfully i found some of the zonewide broadcast channels and managed to ooc for help or I’da got nowhere.

So if that is confusing, I dread to think what a new player in 2026 faces.

[Eagish]

I think it is more generational.

Not as many people had PC's at home in 1999 as people did in 2004. Especially PC's with a decent internet connection. Anyone with a PC and internet at home in 1999 had already grown up in a world where PC games were esoteric, and there wasn't a large scale internet that had information about everything. So Everquest wasn't out of place compared to other games. That generation of gamers was used to figuring things out themselves.

I'd wager that more kids (and even adults) got their first home PC's that could play games with internet closer to 2004. So it was much more likely for a new PC gamer to start with WoW, rather than Everquest. This is especially true due to the success of Warcraft 3. A lot more gamers were primed for the next Warcraft game. Blizzard was probably the best PC game company during that era with Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. Every internet cafe had those games.

In line with this, I started playing EQ in 1999 with a buddy at work, because our work stations had the graphics cards and the business had the internet connection. So we'd finish work, order a pizza, and play EQ for hours.

[BradZax]

This cool documentary on EQ might shed some light on the why.

P_rodCy38dY

[Evia]

^awesome video.
I thought I knew basically everything about EQs OG development, but I learned many things I didnt know.

[Defo]

I remember falling out of EverQuest as I got older and had less time to commit. when i was a Teenager, i had no problem coming home after school and blowing off my homework to grind exp in a HighKeep goblins group.

Think about how many dozens of hours we all spent on corpse runs alone in 2000, back during levelling not even raiding..

By the time Planes of Power came out and people were raiding: I was still level 60 because I couldn't find the time to quad anymore. I basically missed all of Luclin progression when I started working part-time, and only ever got like 12 AA.

WoW has way quicker gear progression, levelling is kind of on rails, and it had neat PvP. it offers something for the hardcores, the casuals, etc..

For a long time, before I discovered P99, WoW was my game that i'd play for 6 months than break for like 6 months on and off again.. for 10 years.. My best friend still plays WoW, he does exclusively world PvP to level and Arenas.. for like 15 years now..

The same type of person still plays EQ and still plays WoW... but WoW enticed a lot more of us folk with increased accessibility compared to EQ.

But you gotta ask -- what other 25+ year old game that isn't named Halo or Counterstrike still has a pretty fervent competitive scene? EQ is up there with outings from P99, TLPs, Quarm, etc.

[Evia]

Making EQ more "accessable" is what got us modern eq, or the live servers. People suggesting casual friendly changes to EQ dont seem to realize that it destroys the magic of EQ.

Half of what makes EQ so great is the warts, the timesinks, the grind, the CR's, the struggle. The harshness of the world also makes "victory" so much sweeter.

They have a game like EQ that removed all of that, its called classic wow. And its ok! Just not near as memorable as early era EQ.

[BradZax]

What i like about p99 no MMO has tried is, not making so many god damn expansions!

We kept the EC tunnel crowded for like 10 years with just kunark.

For some reason the server pop declined after velious, why is that i wonder?

[OriginalContentGuy]

Hot take: EQ was never popular

[Ekco]

counterpoint:
https://www.tvguidemagazine.com/archive/suboffer/cache/2000s/2000/ab527bca22f65d5a62b56c112ad11b0f4975757d.20001209_ c2_620.jpg
getting on tv guide cover is reaching max level collective consciousness zeitgeist at the time

[Defo]

Making EQ more "accessable" is what got us modern eq, or the live servers. People suggesting casual friendly changes to EQ dont seem to realize that it destroys the magic of EQ.

Half of what makes EQ so great is the warts, the timesinks, the grind, the CR's, the struggle. The harshness of the world also makes "victory" so much sweeter.

They have a game like EQ that removed all of that, its called classic wow. And its ok! Just not near as memorable as early era EQ.

I agree, 100% Those things that make EQ inaccessible to casual players or players that can't commit a dozen or more hours per week are what make the game great.

BUT - that also limits the playerbase. Not that it really matters, besides having a hard time convincing non-hardcore gamer friends to try EQ in the year 2026 lol!

[DeathsSilkyMist]

counterpoint:
https://www.tvguidemagazine.com/archive/suboffer/cache/2000s/2000/ab527bca22f65d5a62b56c112ad11b0f4975757d.20001209_ c2_620.jpg
getting on tv guide cover is reaching max level collective consciousness zeitgeist at the time

Hot take: EQ was never popular

I think you are both correct.

A lot of people had heard about Everquest. They saw it on TV guide, in magazine articles, etc.

However, owning a good PC + Graphics Card + Internet Connection was uncommon. I like this anecdote:

In line with this, I started playing EQ in 1999 with a buddy at work, because our work stations had the graphics cards and the business had the internet connection. So we'd finish work, order a pizza, and play EQ for hours.

Everquest also required a credit card for subscription, so it was less accessible to kids.

This means there were ton of hurdles for people to get over in 1999 to play Everquest.

I think Everquest's popularity largely suffered from releasing too early. It pioneered the genre in a time where not a lot of people could play. Thus, other games could take the ideas and build on them (like WoW). These newer games got the benefit from lessons learned, and a naturally growing base of people with PC's + Graphics Cards + Internet.

[BradZax]

This was still in the tail end of the satanic panic where the computer and video games and the internet were still perceived by many like AI today but on the onset of taking over the entertainment industry at the same time.

Like, getting a TV guide in the mail, that is like as old as black and white tv shows were to 1999 to today.

[OriginalContentGuy]

counterpoint:
getting on tv guide cover is reaching max level collective consciousness zeitgeist at the time
I dunno man. Nice cover of FV though, well it's alright actually.

[Ekco]

UO had like 100,000 at peak in 1998 or so
EQ 200,000 by the year 2000

still niche by any definition of the word but i think people don't give it it's due for the phenomenon it was at the time, Quake 3 sold 319,000 units in 2001 in North America, Everquest having 225,000 active subscribers by early 2000 is insanely successful

from the march 2001 Warrens patch notes
Two years ago this Friday, EverQuest was launched, forever changing the course of online gaming. Today EverQuest boasts nearly 360,000 active subscribers, and a two-year retention rate of 65%. Peak usage tops 89,000 simultaneous users with average peak usage at roughly 87,000.

[Eagish]

I loved the UO vibe and I bought it on release day, but it turned out the server was a long distance call for me and I got priced right out of the game.

[red_demonman]

Hot take: they didn't implement the `/pizza` command soon enough.

[Danth]

I loved the UO vibe and I bought it on release day, but it turned out the server was a long distance call for me and I got priced right out of the game.

I know that feeling. First online multiplayer game I played, in 1994, was 6 bucks an hour plus long distance dialup costs. Suffice it to say I didn't play it much!

[Zuranthium]

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era and is in the top 70 current MMO's on that link, without even accounting for all the EMU servers, which would put it into the top 50 at least.

That said, there are definitely huge roadblocks to EQ being super popular, in the forms it has existed to date. The live version of the game is garbage and the classic version of the game has many underdeveloped aspects that weren't built upon as they should have been.

Making EQ more "accessable" is what got us modern eq, or the live servers. People suggesting casual friendly changes to EQ dont seem to realize that it destroys the magic of EQ.

Half of what makes EQ so great is the warts, the timesinks, the grind, the CR's, the struggle. The harshness of the world also makes "victory" so much sweeter.

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

[Duik]

I knew i could not devote 10hrs to a single raid week after week so i was never getting an epic or any BIS pieces.
That being said i was happy to roleplay and tradeskill (mostly useless) food/drinks or armor or spells.
A lvl 50 druid in foremans tunic and gatorscale legs is still lvl 50.
Making travel easy wrecked the world. Made it smaller.

Ya get out what you put in.

[Wakanda]

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era

okay so let me word it like this

EverQuest was dramatically more popular than Runescape and Ultima Online in the year 2001. Why are they dramatically more popular now?

This is not a meme either BTW. I'm a 41 year old who plays WoW with a ton of 20 year olds. They all know what Ultima Online and Runescape are. But whenever I mention EverQuest, everyone is like what the hell is EverQuest? Think it was kind of telling when Asmongold raged out over Alex Afrasiabi and how he wasn't a gamer and had no clue what people wanted from an MMO... bro.. you have no idea.

[Evia]

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests and how "grinding mobs" as the main way to advance/level up in the game isnt great, and should include alternatives. Quests would have been excellent here, similar to how wow did it.

But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" or "accessibility" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Changing it to allure new players didnt work, and only alienated its core fan base and ruined the original game. After all, let us not forget why p99 exists in the first place.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests.
But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Indeed. Rare items are exciting because they are rare. It is thrilling to get Vulak loot, because only a few of each item on Vulak's table drops per year.

10 years of Velious and maybe 15 Vulak Axe drops per year = 150 Vuak Axes total on the server. That is a good incentive.

As you say, this is why most modern MMO's feel hollow. With instancing, everybody can get the same top tier raid loot in a fraction of the time. It isn't special.

In this day and age, people are always on their phones anyway. Now is the best time to be playing a game that you can leave up camping a mob while watching Netflix or whatever.

[BradZax]

because there is no leveling in velious for new players and the game targeted hard core addicts and freaks and loser raid players by velious and the game was cooked and shit.