Couldn't really get into EQ back when I first played
 

I really couldn't get into the archaic 3d graphics. At the time my love was Diablo and the occasional MUD. I played TES2 daggerfall but that was a love hate relationship. I always thought everquest would have been better with 2d sprites like in TES2. Now after seeing what happened to the MMO genre I wished for the classic to come back to it's glory. Now I finally found p99! What a great game. I've been showing my wife but she seems indifferent about it. I'm worried that the content will get stale. I hear that there is endless possibilities for gameplay but I don't know if that is just the long drawn out grind talking. Either way I'm hooked. I tried the live servers and OMG its soooo boring and easy. I felt like I was playing Wow. The population is dead and the gameplay is so autopilot faceroll.

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There is an awful lot to do in EQ. It is very much a sandbox game, and you can choose your own adventure in that regard. There are dozens of dungeons to explore and gain items from. The character classes are all very unique and have their own niche playstyle, so leveling up and gearing numerous characters to experience the different classes is a common way to deepen the game. Some people enjoy leveling up their tradeskills. Some like to speculate or actively trade in the EC economy. Some like to raid competitively. Some like to raid casually. Some people enjoy the game as more of a chatroom or social club. Some like to port people around or rez for money. Some like to challenge themselves by soloing or duoing the toughest monsters they can. Some like to farm plat. Some like to run around and do obscure quests. Some like to hang out in low level areas and buff new players.

There is no single right way to play EQ. And the only wrong way to play is the way where you don't get any fun or enjoyment.

Very good post. This is exactly what I've been looking for in an mmo. I was hoping a more updated version of this playstyle would eventually come around but sadly it seems vanilla wow is the closest other thing that was ever produced. After that everything seems to be watering down the mmo genre.

QFT

I wouldn't exactly call EQ a sandbox game, but it is far from linear. In a lot of ways it is a weird game that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think that's why most of us are here. Almost everything about the game leads you to social interaction - its content is arbitrary and esoteric, it's wildly unbalanced in many ways, and it's very unforgiving.

I'd agree that EQ's gameplay, because of its arbitrariness, does allow for an unknowable number of ways to do things and a huge array of playstyles. The extremes are much more extreme than all of its successors - it's possible to be very, very bad at the game as well as prodigiously good. Unfortunately, this same arbitrariness also allows for some pretty stupid things like corner tanking boss mobs, bags full of one-off clickable items, and insanely long camps.

But with the drudging work comes, I think, much more than your average reward. Nothing else quite matches the adrenaline rush of just barely surviving an unlucky pull in Howling Stones, or the first time your guild slays a dragon with only a few left standing at the end. Nothing really does quite match the satisfaction of leading a successful group to the depths of some absurdly remote zone, truly challenging yourself and your teammates in the process.

You can also study the monuments of the world, delve deep into Fire Beetle lore, and question the existence of Bixies.

The removal of this is 100% of the problem with MMOs now. It makes it feel like a real world. Not everything in life has a purpose and not everything is going to be profitable. Sometimes you spend years in college for a degree the is practically worthless. You cant portal or teleport across the globe and visit everywhere in an instant. It takes time and planning. You dont call your friends and suddenly appear at the club bar or wherever your destination is. Life is arbitrary. As mmos "progressed" they started removing the arbitrary nature of it bit by bit for convenience. It gets to the point where why even level at all? Start everyone with epics and call it a game. Heres a better idea, put in an action game and forget RPG all together. WoW took a big hit from this. Now nobody quests. Everything is done from LFG in town. As populated as it is you wouldnt know it from walking around questing. In fact there is no reason to. Instant dungeons give you way more than the quests.
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EQ was always pretty much on rails, I thought. It was just that the playerbase hadn't learned to expect that yet, and did their own thing of their own volition, regardless of game design.

In the beginning levels I've been able to switch leveling from the nektulos forest to the desert of ro and the commons in between. Then manged to get a port to the field of bones where I met some nice people who hooked me up with a robe and a portal back. I can switch back and forth between those places. I'm only level 8! And there are still places within those zones that I need to come back to. There may be rails but they seem to do a lot of zig zagging back and fourth and are very wide.

Not to mention the fun I had sneaking through the tunnels to get to freeport where I tried hiding from the Paladins who killed my evil little blue butt. Oh and the Iksar. Is there any good way to get in good standing with them? I want to be prepared to do the necromancer skull cap quests there but everything is KOS