a new server would be terrible

[Nostalgiabait]

This is all making me feel fortunate I got to play during the Golden Age of MMOs - after the implementation of 3D graphical interfaces, but before every last detail of everything was spoiled on the Internet in beta.

It was just you and whatever friends you could make during your adventure, trying to figure out a world of mystery and wonder.

I'd be baffled as to how to reproduce that experience today.

[Ennewi]

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

"Toxic" in everquest just means a thing happened and I don't like it.

Officially, for EQ, it's considered as inappropriate behavior/being in violation of the Rules of Conduct.

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

I'm not sure what version of everquest people remember where all the raid guilds totally got along and were full of fine upstanding gentlemen. It never existed.

There are archived forum threads where multiple classic guilds openly rotated planar zones and only the occasional disagreement/misunderstanding took place which was quickly resolved by leadership. While not a PVE utopia, it existed.

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

The only example of behavior in an mmo where I think "toxic" is actually the right word for it was vanilla UO, where people would grief with the sole intent of driving you off the server for good. You just can't really do stuff like that in EQ.

Phaezed-Reality, Greengrocer, Sinful Desires, <Holocaust>, whatshisface who DDOSed the server for weeks/months.

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[caveslug]

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

This is all making me feel fortunate I got to play during the Golden Age of MMOs - after the implementation of 3D graphical interfaces, but before every last detail of everything was spoiled on the Internet in beta.

It was just you and whatever friends you could make during your adventure, trying to figure out a world of mystery and wonder.

I'd be baffled as to how to reproduce that experience today.

All the stuff was still spoiled in beta, it's just far fewer people playing back then.
Not to mention in a lot of cases, you had closed beta's. With NDA's in place about the information, so you really had to dig to find the info on social groups.

[cd288]

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

All the stuff was still spoiled in beta, it's just far fewer people playing back then.
Not to mention in a lot of cases, you had closed beta's. With NDA's in place about the information, so you really had to dig to find the info on social groups.

All seems like an exaggeration.

There was so much shit that wasn't known in beta. Like tons of stuff, especially around mechanics etc. The stuff that was discovered during beta changed in some cases at launch as well. The stuff that was discovered and didn't change wasn't extremely widely known because the internet resources just weren't out there as much upon launch.

[caveslug]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

All seems like an exaggeration.

There was so much shit that wasn't known in beta. Like tons of stuff, especially around mechanics etc. The stuff that was discovered during beta changed in some cases at launch as well. The stuff that was discovered and didn't change wasn't extremely widely known because the internet resources just weren't out there as much upon launch.

With a smaller player base, and harder to find the spoiler. Doesn't take away that spoilers could be found if you cared or looked for them, even in closed beta's with nda's. Or the fact content is spoiled the day of release, for anyone coming to the game after.

Having a small handful of people in a 20+ year old game, rushing items and money.
Doesn't take away that the same thing happens 5-10-15-20 years later, by more people in expansions or other games with larger player base.

People have rose tinted glasses, if you think this didn't happen before.

[cd288]

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

With a smaller player base, and harder to find the spoiler. Doesn't take away that spoilers could be found if you cared or looked for them, even in closed beta's with nda's. Or the fact content is spoiled the day of release, for anyone coming to the game after.

Having a small handful of people in a 20+ year old game, rushing items and money.
Doesn't take away that the same thing happens 5-10-15-20 years later, by more people in expansions or other games with larger player base.

People have rose tinted glasses, if you think this didn't happen before.

Think you missed the overall point. The point wasn't that there were a very small number of players who knew some drops or leveling locations (although they didn't know all of them obviously). The point is that like 95%+ of the players (even a ton that participated in beta because a lot didn't progress hugely far during the beta) didn't know very much at all, and the internet resources weren't really there, so the game was basically a fresh launch with very minimal knowledge for everyone and therefore it was an enjoyable experience.

Who cares that random person A knew about JBoots or manastones for example. At launch in 1999 the world was new, unknown, and mostly unexplored even for a lot of people who played in the Beta.