Originally Posted by Tnair
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the single biggest difference for me was the linear game design.
in original EQ you are dumped in a city to start. you have a note with a name. theres no maps. if youre a dark elf or wood elf you are already in a place people famously need assistance to navigate. the wood elf can just die immediately by walking ten steps the wrong direction. you can attack any npc, including your own guildmaster by accident while just trying to type. if you even find your guild, they may have some text giving you a very very basic task or two, five newbie critter parts or whatever. where are the critters? where are you even? you dont know. you wander around lost and possibly dying a few times. you slowly learn your surroundings. you finally find enough of newbie critter to return the parts to your guild, they give you a piece of literal garbage, like a 1 ac cloak or something. after at minimum an hour of this you are level 2. you have no other leads from your guild after you get your 1 ac cloak. after several more hours you are level 4 or 5 and you have no choice but to go further out into the darkness.... inevitably dying or fleeing in a panic repeatedly as you learn how to travel anywhere and try to find places to safely kill things and/or profit.
WoW dumps you two steps from a Giant Exclamation Point man, who begins a chain (later a network) of essentially unbroken quest guidance for the entire game. you cant accidentally walk off an edge nearby and die. theres a map with clear markers. the newbie critters are standing on your foot when you spawn, theres a lot of them, and they have almost no chance to kill you. you have an automatic quest log that mostly, combined with your automatic map, functions as just an arrow saying "go this way, stop here, collect 10 item you find there". compared with eq, gear upgrades rain from the sky, and are likewise made obsolete quickly while leveling (almost immediately below level 20). the dungeons are not places to explore; they are puzzles with correct answers. there is no talking in dungeon groups except to explain a puzzle solution ("next boss has shield, go to room edges when shield up"), blame someone for solving the puzzle wrong, or loot distribution. because of the "theres just one right way and all deviations are just less optimal" design, other people are very likely to be telling you exactly what you should be doing in any fight AND what gear to wear.. theres no flexibility about whats considered acceptable. some people are simply fine with you being substandard, and (mostly) others arent.
EQ was designed to explore, in some cases, was literally designed to be unbeatable, and even today theres a lot of roads to take.
WoW was designed to be beaten, and theres just the one, beaten, path.
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