Meditation made EQ great
 

Soloing was a lot less common back in the day. Meditation used to require starting at your spell book (until level 35); and I think this encouraged casters to group. It also got people to talk; staring at the spell book = boring. Removing that aspect of EQ caused people to socialize and group less.

As a Wizard I solo for better exp than in groups. But I would rather group and always look for a group. It's an MMO. You want to interact if you play. Or at least you should.

Staring at the spell book in no way has any bearing on waiting for full mana to solo as a solo class though. I watch TV, chat with guild mates or friends, look up stuff on the wiki. Do little things around the house waiting for full mana. So I'm not even looking at the screen, ipso facto I could care less whether there is a big book on my screen or not.

There are much more inherent reasons why people solo and don't group as opposed to this one I think. Twinking, lack of knowledgeable players etc.

Until you get into a higher level group pulling and killing is pretty tedious. Lack of sufficient mobs, lack of dps, whatever the case may be grouping at lower levels is tough. I have sat in MM and Highkeep groups and gotten 20% exp in an hour and a half at lvl 28, when I could have solo'd for 40-50% in that time. Once you get passed 34-35 it begins to pick up. It will make a difference later on in levels I assume.

wasn't removed, they are unable to mimic the original UI due to the titanium client. Also because UI is on your PC so anyone could change it.

not in highkeep with me! XP BE ROLLIN!

Might be possible to do something like.. if spellbook open, and player < 35, make the screen have blind effects (black), with the spellbook on top of it. Rogean had mentioned it might be possible. I do not think it will be possible to replicate the 'Meditate' button as it once was.

In August 2000, they removed the necessity of clicking the 'meditate' button while spellbook was open, and also removed the /meditate command. Meditating still required the spellbook to be open, prior to level 35.

Pre-35 spellbook meditating was removed altogether in 2002.

I remember my days as a young wizad on Tallon Zek and having to stare at that book. Always at maximum paranoia levels. I really wish the PvP server here had a different rule set =/

I remember being jumped while meditating in frontier mountains on sullon zek. Really scary on a pvp server to have that book!

Of course the old client didn't really like being minimized, either. That also helped encourage socialization during downtime. On P1999, if someone walks past me when I'm meditating and says "Hi," odds are as good as not that I won't even notice because I'm reading wikipedia or something.

Danth

This probably has more to due with the lack of socializing in the game as much as anything. With old computer systems it was a chore just to minimize and you were lucky if it maximized back without crashing lol the other main reason for the difference in socialization is ventrilo or teamspeak. Other voice clients that allow people in a group to talk to each other without typing.

Today's mmo's have also ruined gaming in a sense that people prefer to solo, prefer to be loaners, and prefer not to count on anyone to get them exp. The questing system, the linear progression of most games has changed the way everyone plays. Me I like to socialize. I love to chat. I like yacking peoples ears off. It's fun to impart knowledge and also at the same time take it in. Not everyone is this way.

I liked that GU comic where the caster was medding and the cyclops was tapping him on the shoulder.