EQ 10 years old today

[Redgiant]

And I'm sure a lot of you were there too.

I look at AoC, WAR, and all the other fancy, complicated ... failures. It was so much simpler then and what an impact it had.

Everquest was the first time I really felt like I was in a 3D world. M59 just didn't do it for me. I remember the first time I looked up at the teleport spires, Kelethin in the trees, a sand giant, "Train to Zone!!", falling off Kelethion and died, getting an aggro beeline from Kizdean Gix or that goddamn elephant Cracktusk, etc.

It isn't the same now (and unfortunately no EQClassic server would ever really recapture what it was back then), but Happy Anniversary anyhow to make it this far.

Edit: Nostalgia sometimes belongs on the front page 
http://everquest.station.sony.com/eq10th/
http://www.massively.com/photos/eq-10th-anniversary/

[schild]

EQ was more complicated than quantum physics. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[Redgiant]

EQ was more complicated than quantum physics. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I meant in a relative way. It was just easier to have fun since the entire genre was new to everyone in 3D. Progress and evolving are inevitable, the leaps in 10 years are just so large in many ways, and yet in other ways the pure fun has become more elusive - probably due to the gamers themselves becomgin more used to things, younger demo, etc.

This video has some interesting popup info, such as "There are over 3,000 items in EQ zones somewhere that no one has ever found."

[Hawkbit]

I wasn't into massive online gaming at EQ's launch, but it hooked me about three years after launch.  Hard to believe it's been that long. 

[Trippy]

It's a good thing I wasn't in school when EQ was released otherwise I wouldn't have graduated.

[Venkman]

It's a good thing I wasn't in school when EQ was released otherwise I wouldn't have graduated.

This. A lot. 

EQ was a very complicated MMO. It created a lot of the UI conventions, so was trying to be stable, playable, AND train up players on how to play both socially and mechanically, all while having no real parallel. AC1 was as different from EQ as EQ was from UO as from AC1.

Nowadays you can expect hotkeys, !, ?, task list management, mail boxes, bank boxes, probably an auction house or at least an established trade channel, 3D graphics and probably some form of mass transit. EQ1 had none of these. Heck, it was easier to get around UOs world, and that game predated EQ1.

It was only "easier" for the same reason "WoW" is easier: at any given time you can expect the vast majority of players in the genre to have played it. So you at least had a common frame of reference.

I miss the new-ness of it, and most notably the feeling of safety I got whenever I heard the Felwithe approach music. Oh, and asking for a teleport from Felwithe to Kelethin  Shit was new then. Nowadays I just look around for the sameness first and then try and eke out whatever is different second.

[Ossigor]

It's a good thing I wasn't in school when EQ was released otherwise I wouldn't have graduated.

Sadly I was in high school at the time. I remember more facts/memories/people from UO and EQ than I do my junior and high school. Staying up till 4am doing corpse runs in fear then going to school at 7am... Winner.

[Trippy]

Hail fellow catasses!

[Xurtan]

Wait, you mean you got three hours of sleep? Lucky bastard.  

Just one more bubble.. just one more bubble.. just one more bubble..

[Nebu]

I remember playing EQ 10 years ago and feeling two things:

1) Awe while looking up at the gates of Felwithe with my high elf paladin.  Ok, I was in awe when I wasn't dying to my trainer and the PoD because I accidentally autoattacked them instead of hailing them.

2) Thinking that MUDs would never be the same after this.  This made me sad after all the days I had spent in MUDs. 

Now that I think of it, there was a third:  Feeling that I was getting to be too old to be playing computer games.  That was 10 years ago... fuck!

[Triforcer]

Even though its mechanics wouldn't be acceptable today, its pretty hard to deny the sense of wonder we all had first logging in.  I can still remember seeing the dwarf city from the outside for the first time, leaving Felwithe for the first time, and the fun of running around West Karana.  The swamp outside the troll starting city was vast and unexplored, the sand giants and rarely spawning mummies would instagib you, and when you killed Lockjaw at the Oasis docks it felt good. 

UO was revolutionary in its own right, but in terms of 3D visual splendor and finally capturing that feeling of stepping into a world of magic, something us geeks have wanted to do for so long- EQ was the first to nail it.   

[lamaros]

I never played EQ, but I was playying MUDs at the time and kept hearing a lot about it through players who went over. I dunno why, but nothing I heard in that way ever tempted me to try it.

I guess it did kill many MUDs in the end, though.

[Sky]

Thank god for EQ1. Or I would've been a catass.

I was putting in major time in UO, roleplaying and shh maybe a little pking in roleplaying clothing....Then EQ came out, got into the beta and made some friends. Hit retail and we knew all the good spots, was in one of two dominant proto-guilds on the server...and we both hit Cazic and rubicite at the same time. Politics, backstabbing, kill-stealing, ninja-looting. Completely broke my 'hardcore' ways, sold off my account.

Went back with Kunark, but never gave a shit about the 'right' way to play mmo, and formed most of my still-held beliefs about the genre.

Some definite great moments, soloing nameds in Guk was probably my favorite. Or hanging out with my rl buddy with our necro/wizard team and his little groupie/girlfriend/whatever Drood who followed us around all the time. Met some nice people who mostly turned into assholes over video game loot. Grow the fuck up.

So....yeah. EQ2 is so much better than the old days.

[Soln]

"There are over 3,000 items in EQ zones somewhere that no one has ever found."

No doubt.  10 years of shitty database design.   

[Trippy]

More like fucked up loot tables, which has been an EQ-tradition since the beginning. I quit EQ for a while after launch cause the runes needed for my Magician to craft new spells just weren't dropping. Came back later when Kunark was released.

[Xurtan]

More like fucked up loot tables, which has been an EQ-tradition since the beginning. I quit EQ for a while after launch cause the runes needed for my Magician to craft new spells just weren't dropping. Came back later when Kunark was released.

Those loot tables were fun, weren't they? Ah Phinny, how I loved you.

[damijin]

I started EQ several months before Kunark. Until then, I was a MUD players. Predominantly sci-fi MUDs. One day on Mudconnect.com I was looking at their small list of "graphical MUDs" and I came across a screenshot of EQ. My eyes lit up. The deep RPG world of a text MUD in 3d!? Holy shit! I thought it was probably really tiny and shitty but I wanted to give it a shot anyhow.

What a great game in it's time. Well, maybe not a great game, but a great world. Such a sense of realness. This was a full fledged fantasy WORLD crafted for escape from the real one. It was amazing. My first character was a barbarian, but I rerolled to a Dwarf warrior before leaving town. With the dwarf, I walked up to a guard and pressed 'a' and quickly found myself out in Butcher Block mountains after respawning. I ran around and killed things for a couple hours, and I was hooked for the next couple years.

Best memory: Discord Server, the temporary hardcore PvP server with death that loses all your gear and drops you to level 1. Not many people were used to taking the OoT boat by this point in EQ because most folks teleported, but on discord, no one was high enough to do that, so traffic on the Butcherblock to Freeport and vice versa routes was pretty heavy. As it turns out, magic casting classes have a good advantage at low level PvP so there was a good deal of them, but because of how the boat was coded way back in 1998, magic cannot be cast on the boat. Physical skills, however, can.

I rolled a dwarf rogue named LongJohnSilvers and proceeded to roleplay a pirate on the boat, hiding in the hull, then running up on deck and fucking up any mages on board. Most of them were forced to jump overboard and sit in the ocean until the next boat came by. YARRRR!

[Redgiant]

Felwithe was the first music I heard. Man, Jay Barbeau made some really great tunes for EQ. Pretty much everything you heard and remember from the game was created by him.

I'd rest between two of the Kelethin lifts eating a snack, in a good position to watch my early favorite Stupid Player Tricks: people falling like clockwork about once every minute from Kelethin and splatting, and people hitting getting nailed by the PoD for pressing 'A' without being in chat mode.

It was a PvE game with the fear of a PvP game in a lot of ways; travel time was literally like cross-country times, dying hurt and you really tried to avoid it no matter where you went, and there were some crazy trains the likes of which I haven't seen since.

Crushbone, Runneye, Blackburrow were the early ones. CB you could usually avoid or run out in time, but friggin' Blackburrow could get so dense with mobs you thoguht you were looking at a puppy with 40 arms and legs.  The best trains there were when someone would run around screaming and trying to escape the masses up top, only to fall into the pit.

Unrest, oh God, the damn trains from the house! Just hug the wall when you saw it coming best you could. If you saw a hag coming, you knew it was a deep one.

Mistmoore from the castle was also pretty damn impressive. If you got any of the castle vamps to come, chances were you also pulled about 20 other metal-clad guards and some gargs. The graveyard or the far side of the front pool area was about the only safe bet, if the mobs there were cleared.

Paw wasn't too bad unless you went in deep, and then it was so full of doors, narrow walkways over pits and such that you usually didn't make it far when you did pull a big train unless your group(s) were strong enoguh to stand and take it on.

Lower Guk. Train Palace. "TRAIN TO DEAD SIDE!!" If you were anywhere near the bedroom or the hallway leading to it, you tried to get the hell into the water, that side hall near the zoneline (and hope its first few static spawns were cleared) or zone and hope that some idiot didn't also have an Upper Guk train waiting for you. If they did you almost never survived the loading ping pong trying to avoid trains on both sides. I died more than a few times there, often ending up laying in that fire urn for some reason. A really impressive train would have the Hand, ArchMagi or Frenzied and the Lord of some of his guards all in one. If you stopped to look behind you, it would be all over.

SolB. Lava Duct Crawlers and kobolds. Get lost in there, run into one, then run from it and run into 2-3 more, trains were self-making in that maze if you got nervous and ran. I'd always look for that damn guillotine thing as the reference point when I got lost.


Edit: I know some people don't like this sort of hard-edged PvE, but I miss it.

[raydeen]

I played from Launch +3 days up until a few weeks ago. The thing that struck me (and still does) is how fecking big the world 'seems'. I think it has to do with the 1st person perspective they used. It tends to be deceiving as to the actual world size. I know there are still places in the old world I've never seen or experienced but hopefully through EQEmu, I'll get to see them at some point. I almost cried when I fired that thing up and saw the old Freeport for the first time in years. It was like coming home again.

[Shatter]

There is no way I would dedicate the time I used to in EQ1 today.  Its easier today then it was that long ago but its still largely a time sink game.  I actually opened my account about 2 months ago and played my enchanter a bit but couldnt break back into the game. 

[Sutro]

I might have to buy that book. Sounds neat.

[raydeen]

God, now that's a TRAIN! I'd love to see the expression on the typical WoW player's face if they looked over their shoulder and saw that the entire zone was bearing down on them and there was no way they were making it to the guards in time!  EQ mobs never gave up and never surrendered. And I swear that one bastard Iksar monk out near Karnor's Castle always knew when my druid was medding and would sneak up behind me and beat the shit out of me.

[eldaec]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKj36GJj_i8

Nobody should be reading this thread without that playing in the background.

TRAIN!

I wonder if new-to-MMOGs WoW players ever get the feeling of danger EQ was able to generate despite being pve only.

Really, once you understood it, this is no different to some console button masher with quicktime events (though it seems more satisfying to have them triggered by other idiots in zone), or any other sequence where something as to be avoided rather than killed. Somehow this type of risk seems to have become unacceptable in pve mmogs.



But don't get me wrong, corpse runs can suck my balls.

[WindupAtheist]

If a WoW player got that "sense of danger" they'd call the game crap and quit. Rightfully so.

[Shrike]

I played EQ from release to about 4 years in (GoD expansion, which was an unspeakable mess). I was one of the eeeevvvilllle dark elves, a shadowknight. I still have a soft spot for Neriak. The soothing darkness of the forest and our feckless guards wandering around all over. I also still have a virulent burning hatred for asslings (halflings) to this day, mostly from the experiences in our forest and, later, from the sort of players that gravitated to assling druids.

I pulled the plug when the dev team seemed to be going backwards around the time GoD was released. What a disaster. Abashi's post on the shape of SKs at that point just made it easy to cancel (fucker never did have a clue) and I"ve never been back. No desire to, either. What was ironic was the sister console game of EQOA had SKs going in a totally different--and much better-- direction. I simply couldn't believe the shit they were doing in EQ at the same time. Left hand? The right hand never knew it was there.

I tried EQ2, but the magic wasn't there. Of course, this was at release. The game was a nightmare then. I've tried twice since then, but always come back to WoW. Just too much time in WoW and too diffcult to relearn and catch up in EQ2.

[raydeen]

I rolled up a DE Necro on the Zek PvP server a week or so ago and remembered why DEs are so nasty and evil. You try navigating that fucking city as a newb.

[eldaec]

If a WoW player got that "sense of danger" they'd call the game crap and quit. Rightfully so.

Personally I never felt EQ's avoidable deaths to trains and similar were a problem.

The idiotic consequences of death were another matter.

[Nebu]

If a WoW player got that "sense of danger" they'd call the game crap and quit. Rightfully so.

I liked the risk of EQ.  Where I think the game fell down was that it lacked a wide range of risk/reward.  All dungeon crawls were high risk regardless of reward. 

If a game today had a dungeon where you could risk losing all of your stuff in order to have access to some pretty nice gear, I'd be willing to risk it with a good group.  The excitment of knowing you could lose it all kept you on top of your game.  The only bad thing is that this would strongly discourage pugs.  I'd never risk it all unless I knew who I was going in there with and knew that they had a solid internet connection.

Some of my best memories in EQ were helping people with corpse recoveries.  Now that I have a life, it may not be as much fun anymore.

[WayAbvPar]

My first memories of EQ-

Wow- it is 3d!

Wow- is it ever DARK at night!

Wow- look at that guy casting a spell at night! (coming from UO, this was truly wondrous)

Fuck, it is really dark and I can't find my way back to town.

Fuck, a lion just killed me, and now i can't find my way back to my corpse.

Fuck this, I am rerolling a character with infravision.


Other (later) memories-

Breezing people @ Oasis docks for tips
Running from Sand Giants and banshees
Seeing the Butcherblock chess board for the first time
Seeing Kelethin for the first time
Watching my buddy lead a giant train from Orc hill back to the lift @ Kelethin (god I was laughing hard)
Physically jumping and yelping when running through the forest and having a giant spider spawn/appear right in front of me
Crushbone trains
Getting murdered by the guards outside at the dock in Kunark and having to get a GM to move my body to somewhere recoverable
Saving my party's ass time and again with 1337 mez skilz

[sam, an eggplant]

My first memories of EQ are magical too. It truly was a different type of game. Sure all mechanics were diku to the core but the 3d world felt alive. Eventually I burned out a bit after Kunark released, and sold my characters for over five thousand dollars. Abashi was my quit trigger too. I hated that fucking guy.

[Merusk]

Abashi or Absor?  Shrike references Absor at a time that Abashi (he's the sock puppet.) had moved on and Absor was in his place.  Hard to keep track of all the "A" names, I know.  Abashi, Absor, Aradune...

Halflings were the origin of my burning hatred for gnomes.  Fuck gnomes.

My memories are of sitting in places for long periods of time, waiting on mana to regen.. or mobs to respawn... or mana to regen.. or a group spot to open.  Lots of waiting.  Lots and lots and lots of waiting.

Yeah. No nostalgia here.

[JWIV]

I had a lot of fun when I was playing with some local friends and we'd go dungeon romping and the like.  But god there was so much bullshit - room lists in HHK, the oh shit I have no light and can't see so let me crank the contrast on my monitor all the way so I don't run into a mob and die.   The numerous failed attempts of trying to make the run from Freeport to Qeynos.   

I really really enjoyed the stupid game, but god was there a lot wrong with it.

[sam, an eggplant]

Abashi or Absor?

Not hard for me. It was definitely Abashi. Worst community manager ever. I think I would have done a better job.

[Triforcer]

Rallos Zek, back in the pre-mid-2000 era, was good times.  Me and my younger brother each created level five naked high elf wizards.  Since pvp on Rallos was -4 levels, we could kill level 1s.  We probably spent nine months or so where 90% of our MMO time was just spent killing level 1s and 2s outside the gates of Felwithe (my brother's character in particular was fairly notorious).  Then, Mr. No-fun Mcquaid limited Rallos pvp to level 10 and above.  

[Venkman]

I could look but I imagine someone knows: wasn't there some poll for a new server done recently? What was the outcome? Is there a new server coming and if so is there any special ruleset attached or is it just a blank slate with no transfers?