Hardcore

[Anaiyah]

Vanilla wow through bwl>aq>naxx was FAR and away harder than anything eq has ever had technically. Anyone who argues did not play both games at the bleeding edge high end.

Eq raids were maybe more annoying at times, and if you include GoD bugs and cockblocks I suppose you have some ammo for argument, but if you are talking about pure coordination and guildwide skills, EQ never did anything approaching those original 40 man raids in wow.

[Reiker]

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

That's any MMO though. Everything in EverQuest (and World of Warcraft) is simply get better gear, tank, and spank. Fail? Get more numbers. That's just the way these games are designed. It wasn't until PoP that EverQuest became a pain in the ass raid-wise.

I'd pay good money to send a group of 60+ WoW players back in time against the Avatar of War and see how long it takes for them to master defensive tank switching and CH chain juggling. Not to mention fights like Seru and Emp Ssra. While pre-PoP EQ raids aren't gimmicky like WoW, they more than make up for it in sheer brutality.

People exaggerate about how easy WoW is. But when you look at it in proper perspective you'll see why. I never played vanilla WoW which as I understand was when the game was hardest and at its most "EQ-like," however I was in a casual raid guild in TBC. We weren't even in the Black Citadel (or whatever the Illidan raid instance was called) before the Sunwell patch (I quit before the pre WOTLK patch that made the raids easier). But throw this same guild into PoP-era EQ and they'd have trouble breaking into ntov, 2 expansions behind.

[Malrubius]

Bleah, WoW *is* too easy, it really is. I'll cut-and-paste an earlier post...

The game was just too freaking easy, starting at level 1.

I am totally serious that I spent the first 20 minutes in the game trying to figure out how to turn off what I thought were tutorial question marks above the NPC's heads.

And for those who only list raid mobs and other high-end encounters as what is difficult about WoW - you just made my point even clearer.

Sure, most gaming companies could make an easy, WoW-like, game, and then add a boss mob (or 100 boss mobs) at the end-game with a gazillion hitpoints, 10 heads, and an attitude. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an easy game.

[Messianic]

You're completely accurate...WoW was difficult and a lot of fun (particularly on PvP servers) during Vanilla. Most of the best gear was only available to raiding guilds who could handle high-end content, so they griefed everyone, and there were some classes (Rogues) who could own everyone without any effort.

But for all of that, WoW was a pushover compared to EQ. Dying in WoW means losing time in the future because of recoup time. Dying in EQ means losing time in the past and more time in the future than even WoW costs...

It's why I stopped visiting the WoW forums - only to hear people whine and complain, and to see easymode gear given out after WoTLK...It wasn't fun anymore except for the occasional PvP, but everyone outgeared me and had nearly 2x my hp, so it was futile at that point unless I wanted to do pickup 5-10 mans all day, and i simply wasn't up for that.

[Wrot]

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

I'd pay good money to send a group of 60+ WoW players back in time against the Avatar of War and see how long it takes for them to master defensive tank switching and CH chain juggling.

Granted you say you never played in Vanilla, so not flaming, and I admit that I don't know what tanking AoW was like (I was a dps class). But you have no idea what tanking Vaelestraz was like. The succession of tanks had to have their abilities exactly planned out so that each one was in their proper place on the threat meter, and this was before threat meters existed (KLH was fucking garbage). One sunder too many and it was fucked up. Healers were not able to spam their shit either due to how touchy threat was on this fight, and how fucked up mana consumption was back then (I was a healer).


Corpse runs do not make an encounter hardcore. Corpse runs have absolutely nothing to do with the difficulty of an encounter. CRs give you only the time you spend on them as misery, and the moment you kill a boss for the first time as enjoyment that you don't have a cr. Sorry but I raid for the enjoyment of the encounter itself. Why do you give credit to EQ for a difficult corpse run when any other mechanic, if repeated for every single boss, you would shit on?

I think some EQ players will grasp at straws to shit on WoW because they are still pissed that it killed their game. "I tanked a heroic on my paladin, it was too easy." "I had to disable graphic interface options, fuck this." You people who weren't good enough to be on the cutting edge are the ones who the easy content was tailor made for, so why complain?

[Lucrio40]

Its almost apples to oranges to compare the two. Every fight in EQ was a gear check since complex scripting was not even considered in the SoV world. Hell, think about Molten Core encounters. Almost all the tricks we see in that instance had already been done 2 years earlier in Planes of Power.

By the time AQ had came out, we were already looking at OoW, DoN, and I think even DoDH encounters. Did you ever do Overlord Mata Muram? Vishimtar the Fallen? Dreadspire?

Can you really compare content that was released by Verant (this was the last expansion with the Verant name) in 2000 with content released by Blizzard in early 2006?

[Enderenter]

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

People keep bashing WoW (I'm not a big fan either), but I'd like to see all of the haters make their own guild in WoW from scratch and succeed at a technical raid encounter like Kel'Thuzad or C'Thun at the original gear/content level. The hardest thing in EQ Velious is probably Avatar of War (Vulak isn't that bad, and Kerafyrm has no loot table.) Which can be compared to basically Golemagg in difficulty.

I think many people's primary issue with WoW (and certainly my own) was the lack of innovation. Blizzard has had this problem for many years now. They don't innovate, they just copy from other games and use their brand name to sell a lot of copies.

I played WoW pre-expansion (quit before Burning Crusade) and hit level 60, raided MC and Onyxia (sp) for 2 weeks in my guild then quit out of boredom. WoW offered nothing in terms of PvE innovation.

[Messianic]

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

I think many people's primary issue with WoW (and certainly my own) was the lack of innovation. Blizzard has had this problem for many years now. They don't innovate, they just copy from other games and use their brand name to sell a lot of copies.

I played WoW pre-expansion (quit before Burning Crusade) and hit level 60, raided MC and Onyxia (sp) for 2 weeks in my guild then quit out of boredom. WoW offered nothing in terms of PvE innovation.

Good post. I agree in almost all counts - but I really enjoyed how they blended spells/skills across their games.

The only PvE innovations WoW offered was 1) everyone could solo very effectively if they had half a brain, yet grouping was still better exp and required a small degree of skill, and 2) they managed to create a lot of fun and unique 10-20 man experiences prior to WoTLK. They saw the 40-man raid thing get boring very fast in vanilla, so they innovated.

Instanced dungeons (with very simple ways of resetting spawns) made farming easymode, though...

[Lagaidh]

I've played and raided both games. There's just no question that EQ was more hardcore through Velious. Even if you break down the complexity for each game with pretty UML diagrams of the encounters and their solutions... EQ was chock full of new MMO players.

By the time WoW came out, there were guild and raid veterans who learned the content faster.

Hell, for the sake of argument, say WoW has technically more difficult content encounters. It's going to seem easier to a pile of veterans playing a new game.

My 2cp.

[Overcast]

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

Hell, for the sake of argument, say WoW has technically more difficult content encounters. It's going to seem easier to a pile of veterans playing a new game.

My 2cp.

Sort of.
There's one big core difference.

No matter WHERE you wipe in WoW - the only thing you ever risk at all is a repair bill. Ever. You wipe in the hardest instance even if it's brand new and you've never been there... you just hit a soul rezzer at the very worst. But really, it's just a matter of running back to the instance. Even in the new XPAC - this will not change.

That - to me - is where the big separation is. In the 'risk' factor of the two games. Any class in WoW can 'gate' and get their corpse back without any issues.

Right now on P99 and even moreso in Kukark - there's no soul rezzers. You must go back in and get your corpse or find someone who can summon, and that's not too cheap..

Other than classic EQ - is there *any* MMO on the market that offers a TRUE risk because of a bad decision? Not really.