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Why we play Everquest.
First let me say Everquest was not my first MMO. I originally played Asherons Call. But the difference, EQ to this day is still the game I judge all other MMOs by.
That said, I will now explain why I play EQ. First and foremost, the challenge! Eq has the most dynamic quests system ever created. It uses all elements of gameplay when doing them. This includes time. Which can be fairly devastating if you miss your opportunity. As often you will have to start a quest over or a series of quests over to reach that same point again at a future date. Unlike some of the more current MMOS which have quests like"Go kill(X) 10 times and collect obsidian sash's.Reward=(item) or Item+cash. Which is the norm with many of our current mmos. Everquest quests go something like this.
EXAMPLE:
Step I: Jaled Dar`s shade may be found at +1590, -120. The simple way to get into Jaled Dar's lair is to have a rogue with a 210+ skill in lockpicking to open the door. If simplicity isn't your thing, or you just want the key for yourself, you can obtain it one of two ways: Either a quest offered by Zlandicar or a quest offered by Neb.
Once you've found your way into the lair:
You say, 'Hail, Jaled Dar`s shade'
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'Mortal! You MUST aid me. I will have my revenge, and my rest!'
You say, 'How can I aid you?'
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'You must wake The Sleeper. He is our salvation, he will restore a new golden age to Norrath. It was a terrible mistake to subdue him, jealousy and envy led us to do it. I see all of this clearly now.'
You say, 'Who is The Sleeper?'
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'Kerafyrm, the best of us, what we should be. We imprisoned him in a timeless slumber aeons ago. I know how to release him, but I am no longer of the flesh, so I cannot do it myself. But you can accomplish this task!'
You say, 'What task?'
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'When the tomb was closed and the entry sealed, many dragons participated in the ceremony. They invested portions of their essence into the seal. The seal is part of them now. With the right talismans, I can show you how to make a key that will allow one to pass, as if they were of the First Brood. If you do not wish to do this for the good of all, perhaps you will be willing to do it for material riches. Priceless treasures are stored in the tomb, yours for the taking, once you are inside and have released The Sleeper.'
You say, 'What talismans?'
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'Sontalak, Lendiniara, Klandicar, Yelinak, and Zlandicar are all that are left alive of those who were involved in the sealing of the tomb. Each has a talisman. Bring me any one of these items, or a large enough piece from one of the talismans from a dead first brood, and I shall unlock its power, which will allow you entry into the tomb.'
You'll need to give him either a talisman from any of the five dragons of the first brood mentioned or a Shard of Hsagra's Talisman, which is dropped uncommonly from top giants (King Tormax, Derakor the Vindicator, The Statue of Rallos Zek, Velketor the Sorcerer).
Jaled Dar`s shade says 'Very well done. Here is how you unlock the entry. Seek out a great dragon statue in the Eastern Wastes, and use this key there. Not very different from how you entered my old domain, Veeshan's Peak, now, is it? Haha, yes, I know many things, even dead.'
This is just one step for the quest Awakening the Sleeper. There are 6 other subquests within this one quest.
In the end you will have a raid group on two different continents broken into groups doing seperate tasks at the same time(remember the timing thing). All having to do each thing in sequence. One mistake means having to do the entire subquests or quests all over again.
As the events take place. It effects whichever continent they happen upon. In this case, lots of fire giants attack the dwarf cities in velous. If you are just playing EQ and are in that city for supplies, you are literally effected by this. As youll zone in and go OMG WOW.. As some firegiant stands right next to you ready to rip your head off.
All this just prior to the sleeper being woken. When the sleeper is awoke, you have a very high level dragon raiding Norrath litterally. Attacking cities ect til the guild that awoke him hunts him down and hopefully kills him.
When this is done and overwith the players involved will have a true sense of accomplishment! The items earned along the way are truly felt earned!
While other MMOS try to accomplish that same feeling. None of them, I mean none accomplish the feeling of"I earned this" more so than EQ.
This also applies to just regular quests which have multi-faceted steps involved. You get that feeling of accomplishment when its done. No other MMO can offer that. This is one of the reason I play EQ.
In the world of Norrath, the brutality, the uniqueness and complexity of this game goes unrivaled. Even by what is considered the best of MMOs currently. Why I no longer play games like WOW, Rift or SWTOR.
Going from a noobie to a lowbie in EQ is a wonderful feeling. That wonderful feeling that other games imitate are often short lived. Its like you are hungry, so you order chinese food! The food is awesome, but then 30 minutes later you are hungry again.
The need of fulfillment that EQ offers is unbound. As everything you do in this game is purposeful. Why drink a goblet half full when you can take the entire bottle. The difference between a MMO player and a EQ player.
I could go on and on about this. Havent even discussed the classes of Eq or the areas. The game is a masterpiece of masterpieces even in this day.
I play because its the only game that exists on the market today that fulfills every part I want in a gaming experience!
You want more information, you can spend many days alone just visiting this site:http://everquest.allakhazam.com/
That site only covers a part of what is Everquest! Not even IN-GAME!
To the other EQ players that frequent this forum. Tell us why you play. Why there is no other satisfaction! To those who have never tried EQ. I recommend trying it! Make sure to level up to at least level 20. Just to get your feet wet! And even then its only one foot!
Enjoy! xpowderx
Comments
Hope you brought your flame suit.
But yeah, EQ is great. I left after 9 years straight when sony screwed me. Had a kid get my credit card info from their soe site and was using it to pay for some pirate game dont remember the name, on a monthly basis. They refused to acknowledge the info was stolen off their website and would not put my money back, so i left after 9 years.........what a shame.
LOL, Flame ON I say. Because in the end. I know im Right and everyone else who disagrees is wrong :-D
EQ was my all-time favorite MMO. But...
Sony went and FUBAR'd it. Its sadly only a shell of the awesome experience it once was.
Don't get me wrong, though. Happy for you that you're enjoying it.
What a great post, I left EQ about 7 years ago, but your absolutely right, i compare every game to EQ, there is no game out there that comes close to the challenge EQ had brought. You felt satisfaction when you level, an accomplishment when you level!!!, No such feeling comes from today's games, I think WoW changed that for the worse.....WoW created the new gamers, which i call the "pepsi generation gamers", they want everything handed to them on a silver plater, and complain about EVERYTHING....this new generation will kill MMO's in my opinion...if they had a chance, they would let you wipe there A@@ after taking a Shi$ too....
Sony adjusted to make the game more casual instead of hard core if you havent noticed casual games get more subscribers its as simple as that.
Then you agree with me.
eq was GREAT when it was hard mode..now they revamped it to play like easy mode just to try to keep up with the theamparks...i LOVE eq community guilds and lore...its a shame they went easy mode on everyone but hey you can still play classic server i guess "flippy" ..i rly hope eq next does not fall in line anything like a theampark mmo..but im sure it will + i hear its gonna be f2p ...long live eq!
What a great post! EQ was my first, I really miss it when im searching for new MMO's to try. your description about questing is so right! it was great, I remember how it used to be. The community was also tops..grouping was encouraged and fun..
I wonder what EQN will be like..
I downloaded the F2P version of EQ2 today /sigh haha much to be desired.
--Gaymer Extraordinaire--
Fippy and Vulac are not really classic: no good old-fashioned corpse runs. But the XP is turned down pretty far, so it's much harder to progress at low levels even if you know where to go and what to do.
EQ is what started me playing MMOs and I judge every game to that standard. No game in the last 8yrs have even been close to what I want in an MMO. No other game immerses you like EQ did and the community when I played was top of the line.
I hope EQ Next is more like Vanilla EQ but it probably won't be.
Casual gameplay makes money for Developers not good games for players. I wish developers would go back to making good MMOs not worried about large sums of cash. Making an MMO is like being an artist, you have to make a good piece of art before you get the money you deserve.
And EQ has been around for 14yrs with 17 expansions. You will never see any modern MMO even come close to that. Who is really making the money?
Your card was *not* stolen off SoE's website. The card numbers that were stolen were from a european database from 2007. It was a small list and being that it was 2007 most of the cards were expired at the time of the hack. Im guessing since you live in the US you were not part of that database.
The max level content is still far more challenging than what youll see in other games. They had no choice but to nerf the early stuff, the game is too old not to.
EQ was the best mmo i evar played. The community was awesome, the immersion was awesone, the playstyle was awesome. It had so much to offer and was really hard and rewarding. It forced you to group in order to kill regular mobs. You could solo mobs but it was slow going and not as fun. I loved being in a full group chain pulling mobs...the combat felt like real action was going on. I started playing in 1999 and played for years. New mmos lack the excitement and mystery that eq had. I hope EQN will be like EQ1.
Everquest is by far best MMO out there even today.
i really hope EQ Next will be more like EQ1 then EQ2. in best of all things take the best from both worlds. And put in some new Technological featuers and SoE will have me hooked for another 13 years
No Signature
EQ was my first serious MMO. I only played UO for about 6 to 8 months when EQ came out. All of my friends jumped over to EQ. I didn't know what to think of it at first. But, it grew on me after a few days of playing.
More than any other game since, I was happy for a long time with exploring. This lead to many of my characters getting into a lot of trouble since you could go any where at any level.
The boat rides where long, but scenic. (This was all before Kunark.) Or just jumping off the boat before it's destination to get a closer look at a group of islands.
I liked that you could try your hand at all of the crafting. You weren't limited to just a few. And you didn't have to "unlearn" a skill to pick another.
Corpse runs were scary, exciting and frustrating. Until I found out about the /loc command, I had no idea exactly where my corpse was. I had no idea if my body was being guarded by nasty mobs. This, ofcourse, lead me to grouping quickly.
And even now, one of my best guild experiences came from this game. An old guild called, Random Acts, was truly random. But, very fun. I could almost write a book on just the games that guild would create for it's members.
I was going thru college classes at the time, so I couldn't devote hours at a time to a single session. But, I didn't care. I never felt rushed to get to the next level.
My only real major gripe I had with the game at the time I quit: Camping. I can remember so many times just moving on. As the game became more and more popular, it became so much more difficult to finish certain quests that demanded a particular mob's death.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
EQ was my first real MMO as well. Started playing in 2000 as a Barb warrior, then I ended up making an Iksar SK, even now I think that was my best move. For 6 years that SK was the only toon I had and for 6 years I waited for one quest to get finished so I could hand in the items and get that mythical sword of GreenMist.
Can't tell you how many times I wanted to just trash those items thinking they weren't going to finish that quest, but Im so glad I never did. And because of that I was the first on my server not only to get that weapon but also the first to have a bane weapon for the Sithar (sp) for the Luclin expansion.
Getting "epic" weapons in games now is pathetic in my eyes, there is no work that goes into getting them, to me that is what really made EQ different from any game since. Epics now aren't Epic, they arent special. In EQ if someone has their epic you know they worked long and hard on their own and with the help of their guild to get them, and even now, not everyone has their Epic's.
I Sometimes go back to EQ, I still enjoy it but they have made it alot easier then it was. Even with being easier now tho its still 10 times harder then anything else other then maybe Vanguard.
the sense of accomplishment.
so important in the MMO but no game has ever done it as well as EQ (with the *possible* exception of eve.)
finishing your particle weapon was such a big deal, the whole server would /t you grats.
I miss EQ....
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I know on my server, even people not in the same guild were helping clerics camp that freaking dragon. We had contact lists of people that could log into their account if they couldnt so they could get the drop, then we would move on to the next Cleric in the line and do the same for them. This went on for YEARS, what other game does that happen in??
The game itself created the community that grew in it, other games seem to think the community with create itself, it wont, there needs to be a reason for that type of community to start, and when you can solo to max lvl in a couple weeks, there is no need for that community.
Damn, this almost makes me want to re-open my EQ account. The sense of community, and the meaningful steps that propelled you each day to immerse yourself into the game were definitely something that kept me playing for a while.
I moved on to other games, but I have fond memories of EQ, mainly BECAUSE of the community.
I have to agree with the majority of the posters here. I consider myself a hardcore player with the schedule of a casual. My goals are to accomplish what I can within the time that I can play- that means it's going to take me a lot longer than players that have more time to play, it also means that if I don't have time to group I have to work on solo activities like crafting or selling my wares- and that's all okay by me. It's ok to be casual in MMOs, but where it goes horribly awry is when casual players expect to get as much out of a MMORPG as players that dedicate more time (and larger chunks of it)- for players that want a level playing field like that regardless of time and effort expended, this was never intended to be the genre for you.
It's sickening to me that so many gamers have the "I want it all and I want it now" attitude as well as those people that support them saying that every player has a right to all content- that's just BS- you get what you give. I play a version of EQ1 currently because I can't stand what they've done to EQ live and there are no other MMOs out there (that I've encountered) that have communities as strong as what I've encountered in EQ1. Perhaps if there would be other games out there with the inconveniences (to weed out those that have no patience) and the strong dependence on other players (to weed out the everything-is-about-me players) then I could see trying it out, but as of yet I haven't found anything like that.
Well, that EQ is dead now, more than this, the whole genre it is, what we have now in the MMO market are just online games when the idea behind the genre was to have persistent worlds, to be honest i dont know who fucked up.
The answer to that my friend is Investors. With the EQ model you made money, with the WoW model you make billions. To bad for those foolish investors the WoW model has only really work for a single game, and all others have failed horribly to copy it exactly.
I blame Blizzard for alot of things, but in this case I cant lay all the blame on them, but they are also a big part of the problem.
Great post Op! I also, after many years have not found anything to replace EQ.
Fortunately next month EQ is going free to play and I will have the opportunity to replay the game I fell in love with.
EQ also has a thing called the Progression Servers for those who wish to experience what the game was like Orginally enabling the community to unlock the expansion contents.
All great stuff and can't wait to return.
fact is good or bad that sort of hardcore gameplay is no longer profitable.
However, the progression servers Fippy and Vulak are not open to the free players.