Why didn't EverQuest remain as popular as other old MMO's?

[Zuranthium]

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era and is in the top 70 current MMO's on that link, without even accounting for all the EMU servers, which would put it into the top 50 at least.

That said, there are definitely huge roadblocks to EQ being super popular, in the forms it has existed to date. The live version of the game is garbage and the classic version of the game has many underdeveloped aspects that weren't built upon as they should have been.

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

Making EQ more "accessable" is what got us modern eq, or the live servers. People suggesting casual friendly changes to EQ dont seem to realize that it destroys the magic of EQ.

Half of what makes EQ so great is the warts, the timesinks, the grind, the CR's, the struggle. The harshness of the world also makes "victory" so much sweeter.

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

[Wakanda]

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

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era

okay so let me word it like this

EverQuest was dramatically more popular than Runescape and Ultima Online in the year 2001. Why are they dramatically more popular now?

This is not a meme either BTW. I'm a 41 year old who plays WoW with a ton of 20 year olds. They all know what Ultima Online and Runescape are. But whenever I mention EverQuest, everyone is like what the hell is EverQuest? Think it was kind of telling when Asmongold raged out over Alex Afrasiabi and how he wasn't a gamer and had no clue what people wanted from an MMO... bro.. you have no idea.

[Evia]

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

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests and how "grinding mobs" as the main way to advance/level up in the game isnt great, and should include alternatives. Quests would have been excellent here, similar to how wow did it.

But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" or "accessibility" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Changing it to allure new players didnt work, and only alienated its core fan base and ruined the original game. After all, let us not forget why p99 exists in the first place.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests.
But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Indeed. Rare items are exciting because they are rare. It is thrilling to get Vulak loot, because only a few of each item on Vulak's table drops per year.

10 years of Velious and maybe 15 Vulak Axe drops per year = 150 Vuak Axes total on the server. That is a good incentive.

As you say, this is why most modern MMO's feel hollow. With instancing, everybody can get the same top tier raid loot in a fraction of the time. It isn't special.

In this day and age, people are always on their phones anyway. Now is the best time to be playing a game that you can leave up camping a mob while watching Netflix or whatever.

[Zuranthium]

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

I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626.

You're still talking about different things.

A game can have rare items, but doing nothing except sitting in one spot and killing a braindead NPC a few times every hour, until the item you want finally drops, is not good gameplay at all.

People should have to continually move through a dungeon or a given game area, either that or MOB's should constantly be wandering into the area you're sitting in, with unpredictable patterns.

Look at the excruciating Pained Soul camp for example. There's an entire maze-like ruins filled with undead, but instead of needing to move through it and/or pull the undead out into the jungle, you just sit in the outer part in one spot for an average of 12+ hours, killing 1 single NPC. In an ideally designed version of EQ, that entire area would be used: all of the undead would be able to spawn Pained Soul, and the placeholder itself would keep changing, so you'd need to actually move around the whole area, not just camp one small section. And of course because of the volume of MOBs there and the pathing that should exist, it would promote grouping in order to "camp" the area safely.

[Wakanda]

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

You're still talking about different things.

A game can have rare items, but doing nothing except sitting in one spot and killing a braindead NPC a few times every hour, until the item you want finally drops, is not good gameplay at all.

This is inaccurate for what true classic EQ is like. A lot of what you're describing is a by-product of P99 servers being really old, and the PNP.

On early P99 Green some of the most exciting and gut wrenching moments I've ever had was actually camping HBC, FBSS, TBB, SSoY, Mith 2 Hander, GEBs, SMR etc. Not only was the content extremely difficult and risky, but also the spawns and items being rare just added suspense to the scenario. Especially when you have vultures around plotting on your demise. I remember one time when FBSS was still selling for 20K, me and a random Enchanter (both mid to low 40s) realized Frenzied Ghoul was up, and we agree to try and duo it.

As we are setting up outside of the room groups start to pile up behind us, and we realize we're running out of time. So we end up having a botched pull, and almost wipe instantly, but get things under control. Then I realize that the Frenzied Ghoul does in fact have the FBSS because of how much damage he's doing. I'm frantically spamming heal to try and keep the pet alive, and we are both OOM and almost dead when the frog finally goes down.

Have a million moments like this from early P99. GEBs, Mith 2 Hander and even Dhamp have even more intense at times. In 2026 however, yes, a lot of level 60s are AFK watching youtube and occasionally tabbing in every 30 minutes to clear trivial content for a chance at loot. This is not what EQ was ever designed for.

And the reason I bring up the PNP at all is because I do remember in 1999 being a kid in Lower Guk and it wasn't just a zone where you sat AFK hoping for a rare item. It was an actual leveling zone with lots of big pulls. We were all there primarily to gain experience, and if we did manage to get a rare item, that was just a bonus.

This was how the game was played. And this is still how the game is played on fresh TLPs. It's one of the main reasons I think the PnP kind of makes the P99 experience less classic than TLPs. On a fresh TLP it's still the norm to sit in Supp or Frenzied room, or near AM and pull mobs from everywhere, often competing with the other groups around you for who can pull/kill mobs the fastest. To me that is what classic Guk was like (the same thing applies for Sol B and every other zone really).

I actually remember Guk and Sebilis as being kind of a safe zones to adventure in because there was so many groups killing everything that even if you got into trouble you just had to run around a corner and a group would rescue you.

What I noticed happened on P99 Green, however, even before Kunark dropped was that you did have a lot of zones like Guk be effectively rendered AFK camp zones, rendering them kind of useless for groups who were trying to level.

But no, that's not how the game was designed at all, nor is it in line with most of our classic experiences. I've never sat AFK camping a Tranquil Staff in KC, but god damn have I gotten excited when I was grinding exp there and randomly saw one drop. That's how the game was designed to be played.

Edit: I remember getting a Seblisian Berserker Cloak when I was a kid. None of us in our group even knew it existed until it dropped. Because again back then you were basically just playing the game to gain experience and hoping that maybe your group would get lucky and a super rare item would appear.

[Duik]

I knew i could not devote 10hrs to a single raid week after week so i was never getting an epic or any BIS pieces.
That being said i was happy to roleplay and tradeskill (mostly useless) food/drinks or armor or spells.
A lvl 50 druid in foremans tunic and gatorscale legs is still lvl 50.
Making travel easy wrecked the world. Made it smaller.

Ya get out what you put in.

[BradZax]

because there is no leveling in velious for new players and the game targeted hard core addicts and freaks and loser raid players by velious and the game was cooked and shit.

[Wakanda]

All I read is about how EverQuest sucks, but nothing about why other MMOs grew in popularity even when they couldn't compete with EQ in it's prime time.

It would be similar if WoW fell off hard, and 20 years from now everyone was playing Rift, WildStar or SWToR and had no clue what WoW was.

That's how it feels.

And I'm not hating on y'all either. Why should people who never played Runescape or UO or other old school MMOs that are way more popular than EQ be able to explain why. They obviously have no clue either. But it is interesting to ponder about.

[Evia]

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

All I read is about how EverQuest sucks, but nothing about why other MMOs grew in popularity even when they couldn't compete with EQ in it's prime time.

It would be similar if WoW fell off hard, and 20 years from now everyone was playing Rift, WildStar or SWToR and had no clue what WoW was.

That's how it feels.

And I'm not hating on y'all either. Why should people who never played Runescape or UO or other old school MMOs that are way more popular than EQ be able to explain why. They obviously have no clue either. But it is interesting to ponder about.

It is all relevent tho on why EQ never got as popular as those games. All the stuff WE love about EQ, regular joes DO NOT. Throw in the ancient graphics, the aging UI, and a gameplay loop that requires you grind mobs over and over like its a 2nd job, and it makes total sense why most players who didnt start out playing EQ are not interested in the game. Hence, why it never got as popular as other mmorpgs.

EQ really is not new player friendly. To me, and many others, that part is really awesome. I love how EQ doesnt hold your hand at all. To a new player they cant understand how anyone wants to play a game with "bad" graphics, no guidance, harsh penalties, and insanely slow progress.

Wow succeeded because the dev team basically took what EQ was, and removed all of the aspects that would turn new players away. No more harsh penalties for mistakes, no more feeling lost and not knowing what to do, no more grinding mobs only to progress, no more slow leveling, ect.

Another thing worth thinking about is that when EQ first launched, just seeing other real players simultaniously online in a persistant game world was absolutely revolutionary! Chatting with other real players was a humungous draw and one of the coolest parts of the game and the whole experience.

Now though, in the modern age, that isnt cool or exciting anymore. In fact, most people in EQ are very anti social these days. Losing that part of the excitement most certainly made EQ far less appealing to most players. New and old.