EverQuest: A Retrospective Look At Why I’m So Great And This Game Sucks

[lesion]

I agree with lamaros on the pointless point, but I'm a fan of any posts over no posts unless they're abject shit (man that sounds haughty). I had hoped that the title would convey the level of seriousness and relevance found within.

[Jain Zar]

Gemstone 3 is not better.  So Everquest does beat ONE game.

Well, it's not better than Gemstone4...which is the same exact game as Gemstone3....sort of....

God, a GS4 review could be funny at this point. I think I might be the longest-tenured player of that game on f13. 

Did it too require a 3-4 sentence macro string in order to fire an arrow from a bow?

Shit, even Ultima 1 in 1981 didn't require that many commands to shoot one.

[Yegolev]

BTW lesion the reason your graphics look like ass is that you didn't enable the Luclin character models (not that it helps much).

Uhm, no. His lizard avatar is rendered with Luclin models.

I thought the same thing but since I stopped playing about the time I got tired of moon cats, I wasn't entirely sure.  Now that I think about it, it's pretty obvious they are not screens of the original models.  Also: Luclin models don't make Tox suck any less.

[Hutch]

Hmm, if I'm giving the impression I'm mostly concerned with having a go at we are lesion then I apologise. I am more expressing confusion at the point of this article being a frontpage review, rather that a topic discussion starter in MMO general or something.

Insert <this site has a front page?> joke here.

Seriously though, did you miss out on your chance to bitch about the frontpaging of the Vanguard review?

[Margalis]

We're not just talking about playing and evaluating though, we're talking about writing a review.

Which is pretty accurately defined as "playing and evaluating."

Reviews do require some sort of research, especially when they're reviews of games that has some signigifance historically.

No, no they don't. You play the game, then you write about how good it was. That's what a review is. It isn't a hisorical treatise on EQ. You play the game, you form an opinion, you write it up. That's the process of reviewing.

[Ratman_tf]

I await the surely-to-come review of Star Wars Galaxies with bated breath.

[schild]

Seriously though, did you miss out on your chance to bitch about the frontpaging of the Vanguard review?

Most game writers wish they could say so much with a single tiny screenshot and photoshop.

[Strazos]

Gemstone 3 is not better.  So Everquest does beat ONE game.

Well, it's not better than Gemstone4...which is the same exact game as Gemstone3....sort of....

God, a GS4 review could be funny at this point. I think I might be the longest-tenured player of that game on f13. 

Did it too require a 3-4 sentence macro string in order to fire an arrow from a bow?

Shit, even Ultima 1 in 1981 didn't require that many commands to shoot one.

Nope, no more nocking. As long as you had the arrow in your offhand (for a normal bow at least, not crossbow), FIRE worked just fine. My rogue could snipe from the shadows with a bow, so it was fairly neat.

[raydeen]

You always fondly remember your first. EQ popped my MMO cherry. I had dabbled with other MMO's (M59, Legends of Kesmai (sp?) and a few others, but EQ was the one that grabbed me. I still have a paid sub and go back in from time to time, but damn it's painful. I pretty much left about 2 years ago for WoW and CoH and now find myself so far behind it's not funny (56 Beastlord). The only areas that have any activity are the tutorial and whatever is the high end playground right now. Everything in between? Ghost town. I'd play EQ again if they did two things:

1.) Reduce downtiime. It's gotta be doable. Bring it up to or close to WoW speed.
2.) Make green and blue mobs GREEN AND BLUE MOBS! If I con something and it says I'm better than it, it shouldn't eat my face in 3 seconds. Even when I have my Snoopy dog attacking it.

Ok, 3 things:  3.) Make it so my warder/pet/whatever can grab and hold aggro. EQ had the nasty habit of putting the aggro right back on the player if they got too close no matter how much damage the pet had done or was doing.

These 3 things would make the game fun and playable again. It ain't hard Sony. Learn from the masters at Blizzard.

Oh yeah, 4.) Make it so the damn MOBs don't chase me ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ZONE! Actually it is kinda funny to see newer players come in and discover that the werewolf in West Karana ain't givin' up and they're pretty much screwed.  Me, I don't care. I got teh SoWz. Even underground, teh SoWz, I haz dem.

[Trippy]

Oh yeah, 4.) Make it so the damn MOBs don't chase me ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ZONE! Actually it is kinda funny to see newer players come in and discover that the werewolf in West Karana ain't givin' up and they're pretty much screwed.  Me, I don't care. I got teh SoWz. Even underground, teh SoWz, I haz dem.

They do give up, but you have to be running faster than them (or at least they did back when I played). That's why there's "SOW PLZ".

[SnakeCharmer]

Whoa. 
Hey. 
It's another Schildclone review.  But without Portal references.
Cool.

[schild]

Schildclone? Neg. This is tradmark lesion. Go read his posts. Hilarity abound.

[Margalis]

Here is the review that some people were looking for:

Well, I played EQ1 for 20 hours so far and it still sucks. But clearly I'm just not to the awesome part yet. I'll keep at it and write back in six months!

[Falconeer]

The article is amusing.
It doesn't actually say anything about Everquest and it's clearly from someone who could see some ancient petroglyph and can only come up with: "what's the big deal? My son can draw better than that".

Amusing, though.

For the records, I submit a Vanguard review for f13 in january. It never made it to the frontpage because of broken English and because it sucked, filled with false hopes and silly childish enthusiasm. But as far as I know, and according to Yathzee's Portal review too, negative articles are way more funny and popular than positive ones, no matter what they are about or if they make any sense. Enter we are lesion and his everquest "review".



EDIT: petroglyph, not petrogliph

[Ironwood]

I await the surely-to-come review of Star Wars Galaxies with bated breath.

I wrote one and submitted it to Schild, but it was just the word 'Marrow' written 1500 times.

[Trippy]

The twitch is a lie.

[Soukyan]

Nice job, lesion. Quite funny.

[bhodi]

We have a frontpage? (for Hutch)

Also, good review. I was entertained, which I know was your goal when you wrote that. For me. For me, specifically, to be entertained.

Oh, and to piss off Lamaros.

[Hoax]

Honestly the fact that it pissed off Lameros makes it that much better.  Good show.

[Simond]

BTW lesion the reason your graphics look like ass is that you didn't enable the Luclin character models (not that it helps much).

Uhm, no. His lizard avatar is rendered with Luclin models.

The Luclin models sucked anyway.

[Margalis]

EDIT: petroglyph, not petrogliph

Petroglyphs may be interesting historically but nobody can seriously argue they are good by today's standards.

He's reviewing playing EQ as a new player today. That's the context of the review.

[schild]

I await the surely-to-come review of Star Wars Galaxies with bated breath.

I wrote one and submitted it to Schild, but it was just the word 'Marrow' written 1500 times.

Liar! I would've frontpaged that.

Too late now.

[Khaldun]

Eidos paid for this review, I just know it.

[Phildo]

Eidos paid for this review, I just know it.

...In a society turned upside down, gamers return to Everquest in droves when they realize that it is actually the funnest game ever, breaking subscription records previously set by World of Warcraft and leading to a unified world MMOGovernment?

Heh.

[Slyfeind]

That didn't seem so much a review to me. I read it more like a state-of-the-industry, how far we've come, kinda thing.

That said, I resubbed to EQ1 about a month ago, and I'm loving it again. I dunno why. I just want more worlds to explore I guess. And the whooping cranes and cuckoo forest sounds soothe me.

[Oban]

That didn't seem so much a review to me. I read it more like a state-of-the-industry, how far we've come, kinda thing.

That said, I resubbed to EQ1 about a month ago, and I'm loving it again. I dunno why. I just want more worlds to explore I guess. And the whooping cranes and cuckoo forest sounds soothe me.

Some people are in to whips, chains and other forms of physical pain that can be self inflicted.  There is no need to feel bad about enjoying Everquest Slyfeind.

[murdoc]

Honestly the fact that it pissed off Lameros makes it that much better.  Good show.

Yup, it was an entertaining read, but Lame made it all that much better.

[Falconeer]

EDIT: petroglyph, not petrogliph

Petroglyphs may be interesting historically but nobody can seriously argue they are good by today's standards.

He's reviewing playing EQ as a new player today. That's the context of the review.

"Historically" is the keyword here and EQ doesn't aim expansions at new players anyway. Playing the new player card in 2007 is the quick way to a cheap joke. That would have been a great forum post, but as a frontpage article? Empty smartassing.
EQ set a milestone in coop videogaming and fixed in stone the rules for what is the today 10million customers beast we all know. Why should you judge that by today standards?

I'll try another metaphore. Would you judge an old basketball player's whole career by mocking his last goofy years spent trying to help his franchise reach the playoffs? Yeah, I guess you do. Yay, great fun! <laughter>

[ahoythematey]

Bad analogies ftw?  People deteriorate with age, technology improves.  Games should, for the most part, do nothing but improve with age.

[Ubvman]

Bad analogies ftw?  People deteriorate with age, technology improves.  Games should, for the most part, do nothing but improve with age.

SOE stopped investing in "improving" the game by the 3rd expansion (Luclin - theres 14 now). Luclin actually UPDATED the player models to look creepy ass like that - and it was a failed update at that since the animations were broken from start and never fixed (whats that you say about improving? how about 7 year old uncompleted "improvement" projects and unfixed bugs?).*

As for the review - I enjoyed it, kinda spot on - the game stopped catering to newbs long ago.

You'll get to actually see this at level 300, in a raid group the size of Zambia.
Newbs will never see it - not unless they plan to invest A YEAR OF PLAYED TIME to reach the level and CAMP (fucking played months of extra mandatory WAITING) for the relevant flags. Either that or E-Bay a char.

Its a raiding game now, all the casuals have been leeched away by WoW.

I quit over a year ago, and even before then I kinda realized -
STOP PLAYING THIS GAME, YOU. STOP HAVING FUN THE WRONG WAY.

PS:
* you want gory details? check out the half-assed retarded stabbing motion whenever someone uses a hammer (broken 2HB animation). Better yet, why does everyone run like having a massive stick shoved up their asses (broken run animation). They actually had "fixes" in for a while but they "fixes" were pulled because they actually looked EVEN WORSE than the broken animations - game testing for teh win!

[Ubvman]

In a nerdy luser sort of way, I have to ask.

Why would an Iksar end up to killing newby trash in Toxxulia?

NOBODY plays in Toxxulia - been like that since 1999. Erudites kill themselves falling off boats rather than play in Toxxulia (before insta POK ports). Toxxulia is a big solid ball of meh... easily the worst newby ground in the entire game. Aye well, if your gonna make a point that newbies are not warned about one of the worst ever zones in the game - it does make sense somehow. Did someone steer you to that zone as a hazing ritual? I dunno, just seems kinda odd that the reviewer found the worst possible newb  zone for newbs in the game.

Iksars have better starting grounds and newb quests in their hometown Cabilis.

[taolurker]

Actually, the Warrens, and add on zone (after expansion 7?) just outside of Tox through Paineel (evil Erudite city) has some of the best drops for low level characters near level 5. On the progressive servers, which doesn't feature the newb tutorial caves and starts characters in only the regular cities, this is a decent place to venture to.

[cmlancas]

The Warrens? The place with the Kobolds? I think that's been in the game much longer than expansion 7. I played there when Velious was out.

[Strazos]

Confirmed, it was between Velious and LDoN somewhere.

I tried using a bard in there....the agro was just silly.

[taolurker]

Actually, I wasn't  sure when it was and was guessing near the 6th or 7th expansion that Warrens was added as a free zone, so because I was still guessing (and it was near 6 am after being up all night) I did include the ? in there.

It still was not released during Velious (expansion 2), and upon going to clear where my memory was fuzzy (and obviously other EQ people) it was actually added between expansions 4 and 5 just prior to expansion #5, Legecy of Ykesha the Froglock expansion.

Stonebrunt Mountains (the other added zone with Warrens) specifically had the Path to Gunthak in it featuring the Froglocks, but even if my fuzzy memory wasn't perfect, neither was any of yours. If it matters any, my guess and recollection was closer than yours cmlancas.