Quote:
Originally Posted by Jibartik
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OK im just using one example but I feel the difference in everquest play is vastly more complicated than wow's, am I wrong? Tell me why.
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Depends on what example you want to cherry-pick. Counterpoint: Stereotypical EQ high-elf cleric bored housewife gets carried to greatness in groups and raids while merely sitting there clicking heal once in awhile. Next to no game knowledge required, much less any drive or individual initiative. Doesn't even have to know what half her own spellbook does, far be it from knowing anyone else's. At the mechanic level either game can be as tough or as easy as the player in question wants it to be. EQ I think has a higher ceiling because Sony tended to let players run with unexpected tactics while Blizzard habitually squashes out anything that wasn't done "its way." The floor of both games is quite low, but I'll argue EQ's floor is lower--it's easier to carry deadweight in EQ (and more of it) than it is in WoW.
Tuning: also a mixed bag, with the caveat that difficulty in Warcraft was mostly patched out once the bads started crying and gobbling that they couldn't win. The main difference here was that WoW's lack of penalty for failure meant bad players in that game never developed the timidity or risk aversion that's so often seen in EQ. Nobody was ever afraid to try to raid Onyxia for fear of losing their corpses akin to what could happen in a failed Fearplane break-in! However, death penalty is not precisely the same as raw difficulty, and Warcraft did not (originally, at least) want for difficulty: pick-up groups could and did routinely fail, leading to the screaming and whining that I mentioned earlier. The wife and I can duo most "group" content on P1999; we most certainly could not duo the top Warcraft instances. Mauradon was the top one that we could solo or duo almost entirely.
Both games have their difficulty and their easy sections, but EQ becomes much more memorable because of the way EQ hits the player like a hammer when he makes a mistake. Take that away--as in your case of the Enchanter who dies 500 times because he has a rezbot Cleric parked and doesn't care--and it becomes largely a wash between the two games.
**I do not mention PvP because I'm an elitist who regards ALL roleplaying game PvP as inherently easymode bunnyhill stuff for newbies. It's beneath my dignity.
Danth