[Dangermouse]

Originally Posted by Sarajo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gaming is a social activity. I know this goes against the stereotype of poopsocking virgins in mom's basement, but all games with more than one player mean you're building bonds of trust by agreeing to a ruleset, building a vast social network, and becoming actual friends. Nowhere was a better environment for this than classic EverQuest. You needed friends to get anything done, and there was going to be downtime at low levels. If you ended up meeting up with the same people over and over in the under-level-10 dungeons, then stuck together through your 30s (the big test), your friendship was unstoppable and enduring. These became the people you'd follow to other MMOs because they were such good players who just "get it", something we don't see in the WoW generation.

The real game of EverQuest is what's going on in between fights. That's the part we most fondly remember. Sure you might remember a wipe or two, or an epic win when your skeleton pet proc'd ykesha when only the necro was left alive and killed the Emperor, but mostly the game was about sitting around getting to know each other and traveling to far off places together in search of fscking adventure that nothing else has ever compared to, or else we wouldn't be back on Project 1999 wondering just what's on the other side of that next hill.

THIS, RIGHT HERE