EQClassic.org

[Des1017]

They are trying to put it together, I think it's somewhat successful so far.

[Nebuchadnazzar]

That's awesome! I used to play an Iksar warrior way way back. Seems like it'll be free too!

[Goateh]

I never played EQ, but weren't the expansions a good thing?

[Niku-Sama]

man i rember playing this on the crappiest hardware, it was crappy even by the standards then.

lets see i belive it was a:
Pentium 166 w/mmx
64 megs of SIMM
VooDoo3 3000
33.6k modem
and a 20 gig hard drive

oh yea it was a bitchin gaming rig, home of my barbarian warrior with the leg chopper

[erasmus372]

Bah, I never played EQ1 and after looking at their screenshots I have no desire to ever do so. These guys should be working on a DAoC true classic server!

[doublejack]

I was a huge EQ addict back in the day, but I won't bite on this. Part of why EQ was so addicting was the newness of it all. The feeling of exploring, reaching new places, new levels, new gear you'd never seen or heard of. Getting spells and skills for the first time. Experimenting to see what tactics and equipment were best to use. That's what made EQ great and there's no way to recapture these things. Once you see behind the curtain, that's it - the mystery and allure are gone.

That only leaves the bad. Naked corpse runs across many zones, sometimes dying several times along the way. Begging for buffs or ports or binds. Staring at a spellbook "meditating" while the rest of your group is fighting. LFG for hours in popular experience zones. Mob / drop camping, sometimes for days on end. Grinding xp in the same zone over and over through slow levels. Factioning off giants for no exp just to get decent armor. And on and on and on.

The expansions like Shadows of Luclin did ruin the game in some ways, but the reality is it was far from perfect to begin with. One could argue that any time spent playing an MMO is wasted time, but EQ in it's original form was the king of eating your time and not letting you accomplishing anything in-game. There were way too many massive timesinks. I would never go back to that.

[shadin]

I liked EQ in the Original/Kunark/Velious days. I'm not much into MMOs anymore but for free I'll give it a whirl.

[Mortis03]

That only leaves the bad. Naked corpse runs across many zones, sometimes dying several times along the way. Begging for buffs or ports or binds. Staring at a spellbook "meditating" while the rest of your group is fighting. LFG for hours in popular experience zones. Mob / drop camping, sometimes for days on end. Grinding xp in the same zone over and over through slow levels. Factioning off giants for no exp just to get decent armor. And on and on and on.



Doesn't that describe most MMO's though? hehe Just have to change the loot/mob names :beer:

[doublejack]

Doesn't that describe most MMO's though? hehe Just have to change the loot/mob names :beer:

Yes, it does. MMO's are timesinks, put in the time and eventually your toon will be a god. There's really not much in the way of challenge or skill to play an MMO. Just takes time. That's why I don't play them anymore.

However, original EQ was bar-none the worst timesink in the history of MMO's. Starting with the Luclin expansion several changes were made to the game that helped rectify the problem. Mudflation & trivializing of old content also came about because every new expansion meant better equipments, spells, character powers, etc. So there were downsides. But I would never want to go back to the way EQ was before things like:

1. just sitting counting as meditation and regains manna
2. soulbinders in the cities so melee characters don't have to beg for one
3. The stones in the plane of knowledge used to transport to the major cities. Travel majorly sucked before this implementation.
4. Graveyards. It's bad enough to have to run back to your corpse... but retrieving it from a dangerous area once you get there is even worse.

And there are more. People can bad mouth Sony's handling of the game Verant created, but they at least tried to implement ways of cutting down on completely wasted time in-game.

People who want to play original EQ are IMO just gluttons for punishment :beer:

[Anjow]

I was a huge EQ addict back in the day, but I won't bite on this. Part of why EQ was so addicting was the newness of it all. The feeling of exploring, reaching new places, new levels, new gear you'd never seen or heard of. Getting spells and skills for the first time. Experimenting to see what tactics and equipment were best to use. That's what made EQ great and there's no way to recapture these things. Once you see behind the curtain, that's it - the mystery and allure are gone.

Spot on there. It's the same for any MMORPG - the fun is in the feeling lost and new. I felt this on WoW, I was fascinated by the sheer size of it, but when I was level 70 I was bored. I had been everywhere, I'd done almost everything, there was no more mystery and there was far too much calculation. It was too much down to numbers by that point.

[Alien1099]

I was a huge EQ addict back in the day, but I won't bite on this. Part of why EQ was so addicting was the newness of it all. The feeling of exploring, reaching new places, new levels, new gear you'd never seen or heard of. Getting spells and skills for the first time. Experimenting to see what tactics and equipment were best to use. That's what made EQ great and there's no way to recapture these things. Once you see behind the curtain, that's it - the mystery and allure are gone.

That only leaves the bad. Naked corpse runs across many zones, sometimes dying several times along the way. Begging for buffs or ports or binds. Staring at a spellbook "meditating" while the rest of your group is fighting. LFG for hours in popular experience zones. Mob / drop camping, sometimes for days on end. Grinding xp in the same zone over and over through slow levels. Factioning off giants for no exp just to get decent armor. And on and on and on.

The expansions like Shadows of Luclin did ruin the game in some ways, but the reality is it was far from perfect to begin with. One could argue that any time spent playing an MMO is wasted time, but EQ in it's original form was the king of eating your time and not letting you accomplishing anything in-game. There were way too many massive timesinks. I would never go back to that.

I agree almost 100%! I was a huge EQ addict too. Some of the gameplay advancements post Velious were a welcome addition, but I hated the direction that the game went. I quit shortly after the Planes of Power expansion had been completed. I guess it's no surprise that EQClassic includes the first two expansions because they were very good (besides faction grinding for armor). Kunark was a huge well thought out expansion. Velious was slightly inferior but still a worthy EQ expansion. All of the expansions after that sucked balls. In the end though it is just a massive timesink.

[shadin]

I agree almost 100%! I was a huge EQ addict too. Some of the gameplay advancements post Velious were a welcome addition, but I hated the direction that the game went. I quit shortly after the Planes of Power expansion had been completed. I guess it's no surprise that EQClassic includes the first two expansions because they were very good (besides faction grinding for armor). Kunark was a huge well thought out expansion. Velious was slightly inferior but still a worthy EQ expansion. All of the expansions after that sucked balls. In the end though it is just a massive timesink.

Yeah, I loved the story in Kunark. It was laid out well and there was tons of backstory to discover in the different zones and dungeons. Velious was well-done too, storywise, though not quite the same caliber. After that the expansions were total BS, no story just a bunch of high-end raiding and adding stupid crap to the world.

[doublejack]

I did enjoy Kunark more than any other expansion. It massively increased the world size, added 10 levels, epics, etc. It had some of my all time favorite zones too like City of Mist, KC, Seb and Kurn's Tower (hey, what can I say... paladin at heart ;)).

But I hated begging for ports and being limited on travel / bind locations because I was a hybrid. PoK stones + run3 owned.

[Hardin]

Was Everquest 2 ever any good? Why was it never as popular as EQ1?

[Niku-Sama]

it was alright, it took a freakin super computer to run it and how they did the class system was wacked. like every one interbred over the how ever many years it is between the 2 games

[Nebuchadnazzar]

Was Everquest 2 ever any good? Why was it never as popular as EQ1?

The leveling system was excruciatingly slow and they had the newbie areas right beside mid level areas in the same zone. There was almost no adventuring, it was hard to find a decent group, and it was way to hard to solo.

WOW is what EQ2 should have been!