What Made EQ Great? Tell your stories to a filthy casual
- Thread starter Adebisi
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Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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- 2,445
Yeah iirc there is a nostalgia thread somewhere, I think it has aradune in the title too.
- breaking into the plane of fear
- death was usually its own adventure
- close-knit community
- each server was governed by its own little political system
- that "interdependence" people like to talk about
- death was usually its own adventure
- close-knit community
- each server was governed by its own little political system
- that "interdependence" people like to talk about
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 47,615
- 102,656
Classic EQ is like high school. Everyone has those nostalgic memories they see through rose colored glasses.
I think what really stands out as "good" from classic EQ is the player interaction and competition for for loot.
I think what really stands out as "good" from classic EQ is the player interaction and competition for for loot.
Definitely the player interaction. The game was slow paced enough that there was plenty of time to bullshit with people without slowing down the pace of the group/raid. The spawn competition in the raid scene was also quite a rush, provided you were on the winning side. Nothing was sweeter then killing a raid boss on top of the corpse pile of your "competition". While none of the raid bosses were overly difficult from a mechanics perspective compared to the raid game in todays MMO, not having all the encounters 100% spoiled prior to going in and making the first pull made things a lot more interesting. Making that first, lets see wtf this guy does pull and getting our shit completely pushed in and having that evolve into a way to produce a toy bearing corpse over the course of several pulls was amazing. Also, for me, the ability for several classes, when played well, to absolutely shine with the ridiculous shit you can pull off.
My most memorable moment was probably bringing Venril Sathir to the zone in. Was quite amusing watching people zone into him going apeshit. Or killing my guild with a mispull. Or intentionally killing my guild with a "mispull". Or drowning people who put me on autofollow pre all the waterbreathing hats. God I was a dick.
My most memorable moment was probably bringing Venril Sathir to the zone in. Was quite amusing watching people zone into him going apeshit. Or killing my guild with a mispull. Or intentionally killing my guild with a "mispull". Or drowning people who put me on autofollow pre all the waterbreathing hats. God I was a dick.
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I think the single most important thing that made EQ great was that it all took a lot of time. There were few ( I played a wizard on Morell Thule,Fury's edge, etc) instant abilities and powers. This had the effect of giving folks time to chat and thus become friends/enemies. In no other mmo I've played has there been such time, everything's gone to instant gratification and fights that are over in 4-10 seconds as opposed to taking a minute to finally slay that GD orc pawn.
Racing to targets also had some effect on peoples lust to be online. Beating the enemy to a dragon that only spawns once a week was thrilling in a dickish kind of way and on the internet many folks like being anon dicks. I personally got to the point where I got sick of it. Killing the Plane of Earth jerks so that no one else could come into time (for 2 months) was a huge asshat move and I wouldn't do it again but..
Lots of things though, from snakes that kick, to ridiculous quests that no one in the universe could figure out to the inability to alt tab and look stuff up like maps/quests (folder o printed maps anyone?).
I do think that being given the time to get to know folks was completely critical.
Racing to targets also had some effect on peoples lust to be online. Beating the enemy to a dragon that only spawns once a week was thrilling in a dickish kind of way and on the internet many folks like being anon dicks. I personally got to the point where I got sick of it. Killing the Plane of Earth jerks so that no one else could come into time (for 2 months) was a huge asshat move and I wouldn't do it again but..
Lots of things though, from snakes that kick, to ridiculous quests that no one in the universe could figure out to the inability to alt tab and look stuff up like maps/quests (folder o printed maps anyone?).
I do think that being given the time to get to know folks was completely critical.
How many of these threads do we really need. I knew this forum was like Uncle Rico when it comes to EQ but god damn.
Dying at the bottom of Befallen, spending about 10 hours getting my corpse. Nothing else compares.
friends that were actually friends and not just a means to an end, loot that made you want to stay on for endless hours just to try and get it, dungeons that felt truly epic, the fact that even doing things at very low levels felt like a great adventure (just going to kelethin from felwithe for the first time, or your first trip to freeport, or from freeport to qeynos, etc...), a world that never felt safe, the thrill of getting a server first, racing other guilds to spawns, first time zoning into the plane of fear, or the plane of hate, hoping your invis wouldn't wear off mid run, the first time you saw nagafen, those times you managed to zone with 1 hit point left, and about a thousand other things.
Helldiver
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 228
- 3
-Persistent community. Friends I make now days in MMOs last for just a few weeks and then I don't hear from them ever again. I'll group up, and never hear from those strangers ever.
-Do to how difficult some places were, and how much it sucked to die at higher levels, your personal reputation mattered a lot. Is he good? Is she a drama queen? Isn't he the dude that trains a lot? All those things would be discussed in group before someone would be invited.
-In the end game you could tell the difference between a good player versus a bad player, it was like night and day. I remember my first time teaming up with some of the members of Paradigm (I was on Sol Ro). And how I had practically made up my mind that if I wasn't grouped with one their tanks, it wasn't even worth it to play that day. Or this one time one of their bards (we were doing AOE power leveling for AA grinding) cleared all of sebellis. I just couldn't comprehend it, I saw these people as demi-gods.
-The power of an enchanter and how rare and in demand they were. It was just too much power if you ask me.
Now days? Oh, random idiot #29310 has joined our group, yay... Lets get this done so I can get my token, PEZ, and loot.
The thing is now days you can be a dick and it doesn't matter since tomorrow you log in and have a whole new stable of fresh meat to play with. Back then you were a dick and eventually you had no one to group with. Reputation mattered, possibly because of the small population EQ had, specially when divided into servers and level tiers.
-Do to how difficult some places were, and how much it sucked to die at higher levels, your personal reputation mattered a lot. Is he good? Is she a drama queen? Isn't he the dude that trains a lot? All those things would be discussed in group before someone would be invited.
-In the end game you could tell the difference between a good player versus a bad player, it was like night and day. I remember my first time teaming up with some of the members of Paradigm (I was on Sol Ro). And how I had practically made up my mind that if I wasn't grouped with one their tanks, it wasn't even worth it to play that day. Or this one time one of their bards (we were doing AOE power leveling for AA grinding) cleared all of sebellis. I just couldn't comprehend it, I saw these people as demi-gods.
-The power of an enchanter and how rare and in demand they were. It was just too much power if you ask me.
Now days? Oh, random idiot #29310 has joined our group, yay... Lets get this done so I can get my token, PEZ, and loot.
The thing is now days you can be a dick and it doesn't matter since tomorrow you log in and have a whole new stable of fresh meat to play with. Back then you were a dick and eventually you had no one to group with. Reputation mattered, possibly because of the small population EQ had, specially when divided into servers and level tiers.
Grumpus
Molten Core Raider
- 1,927
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I remember when the damage you did mattered. Watching the swings go by when you were new and finally hitting the damage cap.
My first real character was a Halfling warrior named Pudcrud. Some Barbarian warrior came through Rivervale once and held "The Newbie Games" he had the noobs in the zone run tasks for him around Rivervale and gave out prizes. I won the first event and got this.
The last event we had was a round robin noob duel tournament and I slaughtered everyone hitting 19's.
Watching my combat log waiting for 19's was exciting as fuck.
My first real character was a Halfling warrior named Pudcrud. Some Barbarian warrior came through Rivervale once and held "The Newbie Games" he had the noobs in the zone run tasks for him around Rivervale and gave out prizes. I won the first event and got this.
The last event we had was a round robin noob duel tournament and I slaughtered everyone hitting 19's.
Watching my combat log waiting for 19's was exciting as fuck.
Rod-138
Trakanon Raider
- 1,229
- 985
Every server had their top end guilds and on Veeshan we had Fires of Heaven and Celestial Tomb when I started. I started the game with a few RL friends but they faded away by about lvl 25 or so, so I came up from scratch, knowing nothing and making my group/friends from experiences. I guess what made it special was seeing those guys in the fancy guilds walking around like fancy pants and my group of buds saying to ourselves, we want to be like them, but somehow beat them at the game. So - we set on to try and get the best possible dungeon loot from strange camps, crazy rip offs in NFP, and plat trades with the FoH / CT guys to where our little 10-15 man group was as decked out as the guilds.
We never really matched them, but it was the drive to try and play the game our way that was cool. We wanted to do it small man style and it worked in a sense. They were the villain, but we ended up friends with a lot of the guys and once they burnt out on raiding they'd sometimes join our ragtag dungeon crawley gang.
We never really matched them, but it was the drive to try and play the game our way that was cool. We wanted to do it small man style and it worked in a sense. They were the villain, but we ended up friends with a lot of the guys and once they burnt out on raiding they'd sometimes join our ragtag dungeon crawley gang.
OneofOne
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 6,976
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Logging in and getting /tells from people saying they got a slot open/about to open if I want it.
All these other games, making friends and having real living communities seems so difficult because the games almost work against that happening. I'm *still* friends with people I met in '01 or '02 from EQ. Can't say that about a single other game.
All these other games, making friends and having real living communities seems so difficult because the games almost work against that happening. I'm *still* friends with people I met in '01 or '02 from EQ. Can't say that about a single other game.
Many of my favorite memories of EQ are really simple stuff. Watching it rain and listening to the thunder as a newbie; watching the high level mobs roam islands while on a boat; people getting excited to buy sharpening stones off of other players in Qeynos since the nearest vendor for it was in high pass; being one of the first erudites in faydwer and killing orcs with my elf friends; running around plane of fear naked with SoW on just to explore the zone (and mapping it; I loved making maps).
On like day 2 I was in blackburrow on my wizard. I couldn't solo very well, and I wasn't getting groups, so I was getting most of my exp at the time just nuking mobs people trained to the zone in as everybody just sort of ganged up and tried to kill the mess. Well while I was waiting for more trains, I was goofing off with this new spell I got-- eye of zomm. I would try to explore the zone with it by casting one and dropping it down the pit. I of course quickly discovered that mobs would kill it. It took a few trains before I realized my exp going up was my fault. I swear I didn't make any intentional trains after I figured it out. (ok, not many)
On like day 2 I was in blackburrow on my wizard. I couldn't solo very well, and I wasn't getting groups, so I was getting most of my exp at the time just nuking mobs people trained to the zone in as everybody just sort of ganged up and tried to kill the mess. Well while I was waiting for more trains, I was goofing off with this new spell I got-- eye of zomm. I would try to explore the zone with it by casting one and dropping it down the pit. I of course quickly discovered that mobs would kill it. It took a few trains before I realized my exp going up was my fault. I swear I didn't make any intentional trains after I figured it out. (ok, not many)
Definitely the community. We once had a guy in the guild get his house flattened by a hurricane. Did an in-guild collection and actually got a decent amount of money sent to him. I never met any of these people, but the friendships you build actually felt genuine.
iannis
Musty Nester
- 31,351
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Shared misery. I remember kiting the fish-dragon around that Kunark ocean zone for like 2 hours while the guild woke up and assembled to come kill it for me. 2 hours of refreshing snare and running in circles. 2 hellish hours. A couple of guides popped up while I was doing it and were all like "lul, good luck".
And then I just trained the damn thing straight into the island we picked for the fight. It was hillarious. I remember /gu ASSLING PRIME COMING IN HOT and watching everyone on the beach just scatter. I killed so many of them doing that. And it was hillarious.
2 necro's and 3 wizzies just burned the thing down. As it was busily eating my guild.
Karana was a blood god. She demanded sacrifice.
And then I just trained the damn thing straight into the island we picked for the fight. It was hillarious. I remember /gu ASSLING PRIME COMING IN HOT and watching everyone on the beach just scatter. I killed so many of them doing that. And it was hillarious.
2 necro's and 3 wizzies just burned the thing down. As it was busily eating my guild.
Karana was a blood god. She demanded sacrifice.
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Level 38, Temple of Cazic Thule in the Feerrot. Having multiple level 50 mages camping the Crusaders because they were looking for gear for their twinks. SKs were not a great class to level during classic if you weren't a twink of some kind. Having to outpull/outtank/outdps players 12 levels higher than me, regularly, in order to gain upgrades that actually mattered to me as a player. And I won, most the time, minus getting a second Darkforge Bracer. I had a Hero Bracer that was waaaay better in that slot. Felt like such a fucking badass because I had earned that shit solo (entirely) before I started looking at Planar gear and higher end equipment.
Fuck mages. Fuck them forever! =D
Fuck mages. Fuck them forever! =D