I've never played World of Warcraft

[WarpathEQ]

Also never played WoW but as I recall it the timing of events was really the main draw. While EQ wasn't the first it was by far the largest MMO of its time with a relatively massive player base dedicating countless hours of their life over several years.

Then in quick succession you had both EQ2 and WoW dropping in November of 2004. At that point given the massive multiplayer component and its importance in this style of gameplay players were left with a choice...

1) Stick to existing EQ but take a huge step back due to server attrition and lose a bunch of people you enjoy playing with. There was largely an expectation that all dev work would migrate to EQ2 and that EQ would be left to die.
2) Start fresh on EQ2 which didn't really seem to have anything new or exciting to draw players into it was basically viewed as a new expansion except you lose your characters and gear.
3) Try WoW which was a completely different scratch built MMO, it was built off the beloved warcraft franchise which most people that were into EQ enjoyed, and its more cartoonish look had even more mass appeal to less hardcore gamers or casuals.

Sitting on the sidelines looking at your options WoW was a clear winner as it just had more mass appeal for a larger player base and from there the rest followed. I choose the uncommon option 4 of walking away from MMOs altogether for 20 years

[azeth]

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

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.

What a post

[Iron Chob]

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

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.

Yep, for sure.

EQ was and remains an MMORPG, aspects of which you have described in your post.

WoW dropped the RPG and is just an MMO - something which pretty much every other developer has adopted, to the detriment of the market imo.

[Trexller]

JoshStrifeHayes said it best in a recent video

The novelty of playing online with friends, is no longer enough to drive an MMO game.

ppl don't give a shit about interacting with others online anymore, because online interaction is like 80% of everyone's life

social media destroyed social media

[Swish]

The best times on WoW were definitely with people met in the game who you got friendly with.

In the absence of that the game got progressively less fun.

Emulated EQ is the same.

[Toxigen]

Everyone shitting on WoW here has never raided at a high level. I'm talking bleeding edge progression raiding.

That's where the real fun is. Getting to max level is just an introduction to your class.

[magnetaress]

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

Everyone shitting on WoW here has never raided at a high level. I'm talking bleeding edge progression raiding.

That's where the real fun is. Getting to max level is just an introduction to your class.

Even most wow players havent done that. That is the main problem with wow.

Dunno how to organize ppl to get gud butt it takes a lot of effort and wows EZ mode seems to make ppl just not do it.

[Ciderpress]

I do not doubt that high end raiding in wow is harder than EQ in measurable ways, in terms of mechanics and opportunities for things to go wrong, but for whatever reason many people broadly perceive the game as being too hand-holdy and predictable.

EQ was criticized on release for being too much of a theme park compared to ultima online, but classic EQ1 is a massive sandbox by modern standards.

I liked EQ2 well enough for a while cause I like everquest, but I had zero trouble totally bailing on my lvl 50 when the first expansion came out and going back to eq1. Make of that what you will!

[Tnair]

everquest is the only mmo to appear in my dreams

[Toxigen]

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

I do not doubt that high end raiding in wow is harder than EQ in measurable ways, in terms of mechanics and opportunities for things to go wrong, but for whatever reason many people broadly perceive the game as being too hand-holdy and predictable.

EQ was criticized on release for being too much of a theme park compared to ultima online, but classic EQ1 is a massive sandbox by modern standards.

I liked EQ2 well enough for a while cause I like everquest, but I had zero trouble totally bailing on my lvl 50 when the first expansion came out and going back to eq1. Make of that what you will!

They're just two entirely different beasts.

I liked them both for what they were...but for Chob to say top end raiders would never make it in EQ yet EQ players could raid top end WoW is just completely backwards. Raided for 5+ years on P99 and killed every boss in WoW in top end progression guilds from Day 1 Vanilla through end of WotLK...the only "difficult" thing about P99 is the insane amount of man hours to compete.

Its hard to imagine how some P99ers even tie their shoes in the morning.