What I remember from early live was:
A.) Most people (almost everyone) leveled in rags, and I mean rags, for the first couple expansions. Seeing a twinked enchanter was rare and they didn't stack HP/INT/CHA like we do now on P99. If a pet broke they went through your 300HP pretty quick. Add in any amount of lag and latency and you were done before you knew what happened. It's rare to see anyone leveling in rags now unless it is intentional. One charm break was probably enough to scare off 99% of players from charming.
B.) Groups were trying to fight yellow and red cons constantly so charm would have been less effective and would be practically worthless as some people describe. This is a point I don't see any of you addressing and it was the most common way of leveling in early EQ for whatever reason. Along with people thinking this was the best way to level, you think they had any patience for someone trying to charm in the group?
C.) Power gamers in 1999 are not nearly the same as power gamers in 2021 as far as knowledge of game of how game mechanics worked because the genre itself was still pretty new. Now a new game comes out and people use experiences from previous games to test the mechanics harder and faster.
So, yes, I believe people were 'dumber' when it came to EQ for the first year and it took longer than some of you think for people to figure stuff out, especially if we're talking casuals which was the majority of the player base and what the average person experienced and interacted with.
Wasn't there even a thread about the rumors and stuff people thought back then that was just completely out there but was regurgitated constantly? There's a lot of assumptions here that gamers back then 'would have figured it out' because they see how people figure things out so quickly now, but you forget to realize gamers have spent the last 20+ year perfecting min/max strats and how to test/manipulate mechanics. In 1999 the amount of people capable of doing something like that was very very slim and you think they wanted to share all their secrets with PUG#12321? Secrets were hard kept in early EQ.
IDK about Druid charming because I don't ever remember even experimenting with it in early live. I was just there to SOW, heal, and port my friends. That doesn't mean others with more game knowledge weren't doing it. I still run into enchanters on P99 that somehow make it to 50+ without charming and when asked in groups to charm they either ignore you or say they don't like charming because it's too much of a hassle. Even on P99 where charming is supposedly too easy people still don't want to do it all the time. Add in more fear/uncertainty and not wanting to be the focus of your groups ire for dying/wiping to a charm pet back in 1999/2000, where was the motivation to try with your shitty gear and limited knowledge for 99% of the player base?
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