Why EQ1 was better then WoW - Fear.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I was thinking the other day and comparing WoW to EQ1.

If you look at any spicific feature of wow its just done better then EQ. Better pvp, better raids (I guess), faster low level leveling, better art (although I still don't like the cartoon look vs. the real world look of EQ - cows for characters .... ), just almost every single feature done better. Yet with all WoW has going for it, it just dosn't seem as immursive although its just as much fun to play overall as EQ.

Now sure a lot of that will be that EQ was my first real MMO as it was to most people and your first experience is hard to duplicate.

But what WoW just plain lacks is Fear. In EQ mobs in zones that you would normally be expected to level in at your level will just slaughter you, even going in with 6 or 12 boxed toons requires that everyone have every avalible buff (sometimes I spend 10-20 minutes before the first pull, in WoW its just slap on a few major buffs and everyone is gtg). Pulling was an art in that if you pulled 3 or 4 mobs you were dead and splitting was yet another art. You always set up a safe spot to pull to, wandering around killing groups of mobs just was not done. Ya there was aoe groups but the smallest error and its a wipe.

And when you die you had to run back to your corpse (at least before graveyards), naked or with reduced equipment, and could be attacked along the way at least by see invisible mobs if you were invisible. Breaking into the Plane of Fear ment that if you failed as a group you had to wait for a high level guild to come by and save you.

The world in EQ looks forboding, lots of dark colors and used areas, unlike the bright cartoon colors of WoW. I remember entering zones and watching the screen intently for any mob that might pop up suddenly and wipe me out, and hours could be lost.

And of course on a pvp server multiply all that by 5.

Naturally wow made a decision to make death easy and the world colorfull to attact more casual players and of course they were right as far as getting up subscriptions, but there has been a real loss of immersion without any real fear in the game.

Adding to the fear is that characters seem way smaller in EQ, although WoW has areas that are incredible, nothing seems to compare for example with the Citidel of Anguish which blew me away when I first saw it, just a foboding evil place. Mobs just seemed way bigger (as I remember) in EQ compared to the player, and areas just seem a lot larger. Or maybe not raiding I havn't seem the largest mobs in wow.

[Ualaa]

Warcraft caters to the 99.9% instead of the 0.1% like Everquest.
It is a rather sound business model.

There were a ton of things I loved about Everquest.
And for me, the reason to leave EQ was how obvious the GM's made it that they didn't give a shit about the player base.
Early in the game, you could talk to the GM's or Guides, get to know them, chat, etc; they were fun people who loved what they did.
Later towards the end of the game, the GM's acted as if they were underpaid and hated their jobs, which translated into poor support; that was after the Ultima guides won a court case where their services rendered constituted a job and were owed back pay -- and Sony went and removed most of the guides from the game, revoked their abilities in many cases and went with fewer GM's who probably became swamped...

But the bottom line for us both is simple.
What game are we playing currently?

[Lyonheart]

I still have never found a game that gave me that feeling of immersion that EQ1 did, it was a true adventure. And yes, I'm pretty sure that strong since of danger is a big part of it. As you adventured through the world, you could end up dieing at any given time, and depending on where you were "bound" ,that could end up costing you mucho time and lost exp.

Other things like exploration, you could travel the world for hours,there were no mounts, and ports were hard to come by. Also epic loot felt EPIC. Rare items were very hard to get and when you had one, you felt bad ass. If you saw someone with an epic piece on, you were filled with envy and awe ( rubicate anyone? )

Going back to that is next to imposable now, WoW spoiled us with ease of gaming. fast exp, no real penalty for death ( durability loss? lol ) And anyone can get "epic" loot with very little effort. But some how its still fun. Slow exp, slow travel, die and you pay, all things of the past 8(

[katsurahama]

I played EQ1 and I agree it was immersive. But like Ualaa said it was made for 0.1% of people. I never got to max level. I had a bunch of toons in the 20s and 30s. I read somewhere it was designed to take 2000 hours of purposeful play to get to max level. That's the same as a full time job for one year. That's insane. I do remember that feeling of constant fear though because dying was such a pain.

Bad things I remember are:
- It was a pain in the ass to travel. If you missed the boat, too damn bad. And it took a long time to get to the destination. Traveling without the SoW buff was even worse (which you had to beg for).
- You had to beg a certain class for a bind, (like a hearthstone) which could only be done in a few areas.
- You were forced to group to accomplish anything near your level.
- You had to grind the same spot for an eternity. Remember the ogre mound near the tree city?
- You'd try to find a safe spot to heal/drink/afk and someone would bring a train of mobs to you and die right in front of you. Then you got to die, too.
- Getting your corpse and all your gear back was a nightmare. My highest toon was a rogue for this very reason.
- High level toons and epic gear were truly epic because of the time investment required to get those items. I read about people staying awake for actual days with their guild just to tag epic mobs on super long random respawn timers.
- Once you got to the 30s, you had to be in a serious guild to advance any further.
- When I quit people were setting up bots for binds, SoW and other buffs.

Good things I remember are:
- It was immersive. People were generally very friendly and helpful - unless they were sick of being asked for binds/SoW buffs. People paid a lot more attention to what they were doing because of the penalties for making mistakes. For me, the bad outweighed the good once I realized it was a hassle to level no matter what class you chose. I finally figured out it wasn't going to get better.

As for the graphics, look for Everquest One screen shots on google images. The graphics look silly now. WoW stays current because it never tried to look "real." And how real does a fantasy game need to look, really? Its not a racing simulator.

[valkry]

You should have played wow when it first came out. It was a lot different then compared to now.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

You should have played wow when it first came out. It was a lot different then compared to now.

Yeah, they actually had elites outside of instances that required a group. :P

[valkry]

Yeah, they actually had elites outside of instances that required a group. :P

Yup, weren't as many GYs so runnig back took ages. Mounts were hard to get the epic version of so travel was slow. Epics were for raiders only or MASSIVE quest chains. Even the normal 60 dungeons were hard (scholo, 45 baron run). 2-3 mobs were a problem for most classes. Rogues in their cool looking t2 helms were ganking everywhere (mostly stv though).

And beause wow was the first mmo i ever played, it was just sooo epic lvling up for the first time, and not using guides or wowhead to tell me where to go or what to do. I was a complete noob, didn't know about rotations, propper chants/buffs for raids, addons, etc.

Oh, and anyone remember this... "anyone see the defias messenger?"

[katsurahama]

I started wow less than 6 months after launch. It was never as bad as eq. Thing i dont miss from then are

Few graveyards
No questing addons or guides
It took foreeeever to get to 60 the first time.
The 100% mount was 1000g, which was a fortune.
Walking until level 40
You could wait five or six HOURS for av to pop
Gold was so valuable, mages sold conjured water

These are all minor compared to eq's issues

[MiRai]

You should have played wow when it first came out. It was a lot different then compared to now.

Yeah, they actually had elites outside of instances that required a group. :P

Yup, weren't as many GYs so runnig back took ages. Mounts were hard to get the epic version of so travel was slow. Epics were for raiders only or MASSIVE quest chains. Even the normal 60 dungeons were hard (scholo, 45 baron run). 2-3 mobs were a problem for most classes. Rogues in their cool looking t2 helms were ganking everywhere (mostly stv though).

And beause wow was the first mmo i ever played, it was just sooo epic lvling up for the first time, and not using guides or wowhead to tell me where to go or what to do. I was a complete noob, didn't know about rotations, propper chants/buffs for raids, addons, etc.

Oh, and anyone remember this... "anyone see the defias messenger?"

Oh, how I sure do miss the good ol' days. I think about Vanilla WoW all the time, when I didn't know any better. I had
much more fun back then. I didn't take a single screen shot back in the day, and I think the reason was that I didn't want
to screw around converting TGA files.

[Kromtor]

Original EQ was hardcore and unforgiving. You would die and you wouldn't like it. You'd lose experience and have to do a corpse run to get your stuff back. One of the biggest parts to me was how you had to rest for long periods of time in between fights - I liked this. Every action you took in a fight to minimize your downtime after the fight was incredibly important in terms of your overall leveling speed. It wasn't just a bunch of mindless zombies running from waypoint to waypoint on their minimap to do quests whereby your leveling speed is determined by your running speed rather than by your equipment and skill.

Also, when you got a new spell you really felt the upgrade not homogenized level based increments of power like the current WoW model. Currency was vitally important to real items - not just the obvious extra minor upgrade gold sinks like enchantments. Don't confuse the fact that WoW has a lot of auction activity with the awesomeness that is an MMO with a true player economy. It's apples and oranges. You counted every piece of gold in EQ like it was your precious. EQ took a nose dive fast when they added portals and artificial centralized locations like the bazaar. EC tunnels had a player created authenticity that will probably never be seen again in a major MMO.

Leveling 1 to 50 in original EQ was the best grind to date.