EQ velious question

[dwightyo39]

When Velious was released, was the player base ok with the level cap remaining at 60? I didn't play EQ until Velious had been around a few months so I don't recall. I was too busy fighting orcs in the Commonlands back then, lol.

It seems most expansions involve an increased level cap. EQ leveling was rather painful so I could envision players being ok with the expansion being 100% about max level content.

[Gatsbybutters]

When Velious was released, was the player base ok with the level cap remaining at 60? I didn't play EQ until Velious had been around a few months so I don't recall. I was too busy fighting orcs in the Commonlands back then, lol.

It seems most expansions involve an increased level cap. EQ leveling was rather painful so I could envision players being ok with the expansion being 100% about max level content.

Yes, because Everquest had quality content, actual progression, and a great community. Verant was THE shit, blizzard is still stealing their ideas and then watering down/ruining them in some way.

[dwightyo39]

I eventually joined a serious (not cutting edge though) guild. It was neat having so much content to progress through. You had high end Kunark, then entry velious raids, and eventually Temple of Veeshan, Kael, skyshrine, Plane of Growth, and sleepers tomb. Even ToV had its own progression with different wings.

There was a lot of raid content in Velious, but it was actually beneficial to do kunark raids to gear up for it.

- - - Updated - - -

Before I joined a more serious guild, the hard core faction of my previous guild would kill dragons in western wastes (not the harder ones that dropped ST keys). Even that was decent content. WW is probably the most hard core outdoor zone I've experienced in a MMO. It would be like a zone in Tera full of old school BAMs that would ago from almost as far away as you could see them.

[Chirri]

EQ didn't care about Lore to nearly the extent the WoW community does. Any excuse to band together and conquer the world was enough. The story behind stuff was generally interesting enough, but no one was deeply invested in any of the NPC's tales. Certain names have importance based on how hard camping a loot drop was, or how often they'd spam chat (I miss Fippy), etc.

EQ was a different time with different expectations, but WoW's built up these expectations over multiple expansions. They can stop at any point, but 100 levels is a pretty big hurdle at this point, no matter what else they decide to do.

Wasn't Verant already out, by Velious, though? Or was the PoP? They'd been SOE for quite a while by the time I stopped playing, and to this day the mere mention of SOE gets me cranky.

[Gatsbybutters]

EQ didn't care about Lore to nearly the extent the WoW community does. Any excuse to band together and conquer the world was enough. The story behind stuff was generally interesting enough, but no one was deeply invested in any of the NPC's tales. Certain names have importance based on how hard camping a loot drop was, or how often they'd spam chat (I miss Fippy), etc.

EQ was a different time with different expectations, but WoW's built up these expectations over multiple expansions. They can stop at any point, but 100 levels is a pretty big hurdle at this point, no matter what else they decide to do.

Wasn't Verant already out, by Velious, though? Or was the PoP? They'd been SOE for quite a while by the time I stopped playing, and to this day the mere mention of SOE gets me cranky.

Most of Verant moved on in 2002, PoP time-ish. I liked the lore a lot more in EQ then WoW honestly. The gods, the fall, the "truce" between races, at least it makes sense (fantasy wise). In WoW you have everything trying to destroy the planet and these idiots are still fighting each other, working together only at the last second and then going back to fighting.
I saw fippy earlier today on a lowbie run. He says "BBBBAAAARRRRKKKK!"

[Keile]

Yes, because Everquest had quality content, actual progression, and a great community. Verant was THE shit, blizzard is still stealing their ideas and then watering down/ruining them in some way.

Quality content and "progression" consisted of:

-Camping a mob for 3 days straight in shifts, and praying it wasn't kill stolen.
-Raids that were not instanced, so you had to risk things like other guilds training whole rooms on your group so that they could steal your particular mob. (Had a group do that to our raid while we were trying to get a Priest his epic weapon.....they trained all the damn Fire Giants in the place on us and stole the kill).
-Grinding. More grinding. Yet more grinding.
-"WTS CB BELTS BY PoD LIFT! 1 PLAT!"
-Buying gear for your character, since most of it wasn't actually level restricted, and there was no such thing as "soul bound". Nothing like getting a level 1 Warrior fully twinked out in some of their best plate in the game right of the bat (I actually had this happen to me....I made a Dwarf warrior and someone gave me his older, but still high end, gear. I shall never forget that guy).
-MORE GRINDING!
-"WTB Rogue to drag my corpse to me....paying 20plat!" (and praying they didn't loot your stuff after you gave them permission. Though this was changed later on).
-On that note, you also were praying you were able to get to your corpse within 7 days of your death after dying in the middle of a raid dungeon. If not....oh well bye bye gear!
-Oh and de-leveling if you died too much.
-Level 35. Seriously.....if you know EQ...you know what level 35 means.

EQ was very flawed....as much so, if not more than WoW is. People just wear their Nostalgia Glasses when they look at it now.

Blizzard did not steal their ideas, they improved on most of them. The biggest improvements Blizzard added was the Mob tagging system and Instanced Dungeons (first game to actually do both. Previous MMOs based it on whichever person or group did the most damage)

[Cattleya]

The biggest improvements Blizzard added was the Mob tagging system and Instanced Dungeons (first game to actually do both. Previous MMOs based it on whichever person or group did the most damage)

I'd argue that the old tagging system (first hit gets credit) and "whoever does most damage gets credit" are equally bad. Thankfully MMOs in general have moved to a shared tagging system these days.

[Ornerybear]

Even if you werent at lvl cap EQ was amazing. i've never played a game with just so much content at any level. I had probably 300ish days played on my main (wood elf ranger on terris-thule) and i only ever got to lvl cap in i think PoP and don't ever remember being bored and i started at launch of velious.

[dwightyo39]

Yeah.

EQ seemed like a lot of fun when you were on top. I raided with <Hate> on Sullon Zek, and when you're in control of pretty much every relevant thing on a server, it's pretty cool. But for everyone else it was just a shitshow.

One example: We had a list of telephone numbers in the guild. Officers were to call people on that list if they got wind of other guilds attempting relevant progression bosses. Who was on that list? Every member of the guild with a Bard or Monk (or Rogue, for Vex Thal) that could be on-call at most all hours of the day, so that they could log on and train the living shit out of any other guilds' boss attempts.

Yeah. That's a ton of fun if you're in the guild doing that. It's not much fun for anyone else, it's just shit.

As for the other stuff...yeah, camp Raster and Targin and Chardok Pipe and then tell me all about how it was all about "progression" and how fun and involving it was. :|

That's some shitty behavior there. Why train other guilds like that? Fortunately on Vazaelle training wasn't all that common in raids. The community there was actually pretty decent.

This did not apply to Derakor the vindicate and avatar of war though. Not sure why that was such a shit show, lol.

[Gatsbybutters]

Lol so top EQ complaints are grinding in an mmo and people being mean on a pvp server.
I loved corpse and exp loss. At least something actually happened when you died.
Uggghh the game that's supposed to be hard is hard /wrists. Now we play mmos with helmets and knee pads on while being guided from a to b. Fun stuff.
And lol@ WoW not stealing EQ's ideas and watering them down, considering most of the dev team of wow were former EQ1 players who cried because it was too hard for them.
The ITS NOSTALGIA is always funny too since i'm still playing EQ1 and having a good time with good people.

[apples]

EQs end game was, and still is, utter and complete crap.

youve got to have some major fkn rose colored goggles on to think otherwise.

as well, if you have a guide, all the magical wonder that was EQ instantly disappears and youre able to level from 1-60 in about 40 hours of played. -source p99 blue

i wonder why

[ro9ue]

EQs end game was, and still is, utter and complete crap.

youve got to have some major fkn rose colored goggles on to think otherwise.

as well, if you have a guide, all the magical wonder that was EQ instantly disappears and youre able to level from 1-60 in about 40 hours of played. -source p99 blue

i wonder why

Most people never reached max level in EQ.

[Kontinuum]

Furor's rant... good stuff

The Plane of Time
2003-05-09 18:50:26 - Furor Planedefiler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have 14 Days. If after that time the Plane is not properly tuned, I am deleting my characters, and cancelling all of my accounts. The rest of my guild will follow suit, as will several other guilds and people that play Everquest.

To be brief, I did not work my ass off, jumping through your idiotic hoops with my friends and guildmates, so I could go to a zone where only groups of 18 could enjoy the content. EVEN if past these initial moronic events I can finally get my entire guild in to raid with me, FUCK YOU GUYS. Seriously, FUCK YOU.

I cannot believe this... right now I'm just so pissed off. I am sitting here in the Plane of Time, and 3/4 of my guild is just sitting around while a group of 18 is repeatedly trying to beat one of the mini ring encounters. Don't you people have ANY FUCKING DECENCY? SMEDLEY WHY DON'T YOU STOP COUNTING YOUR MONEY AND START ISSUING ORDERS?

The tragic irony of creating the ultimate cockblock encounter in the form of the Rathe which requires 80 people to defeat and then to limit encounters in the Plane of Time to 18.

14 Days.... after that this site will change from the most popular EQ fan site on the internet to the most popular World of Warcraft fan site on the internet. I'm done playing ball with you useless fuckers... it's my turn.

[Tech614]

I loved my time in EQ but it had nothing to do with the difficulty of the gameplay. The gameplay was terrible, as is most MMO gameplay even to this day. The difficulty was non existent past gear checks and having enough of x class/people.

The reason I loved it? The organization required to do well in the game. WoW requires organization in the way of good communication in arena, and good strategy on boss fights but that is very remote compared to organizing an large group of people to keep everything your guild needs on lock down on that server.

Wouldn't have anywhere near the time to dedicate to EQ now as I did back then, but I look back fond on those college days. There is no nostalgia glasses for the gameplay- it was complete shit but the human organization aspect of the game has yet to be matched by anything else to this day in gaming.

[Deleted]

Quality content and "progression" consisted of:

-Camping a mob for 3 days straight in shifts, and praying it wasn't kill stolen.
-Raids that were not instanced, so you had to risk things like other guilds training whole rooms on your group so that they could steal your particular mob. (Had a group do that to our raid while we were trying to get a Priest his epic weapon.....they trained all the damn Fire Giants in the place on us and stole the kill).
-Grinding. More grinding. Yet more grinding.
-"WTS CB BELTS BY PoD LIFT! 1 PLAT!"
-Buying gear for your character, since most of it wasn't actually level restricted, and there was no such thing as "soul bound". Nothing like getting a level 1 Warrior fully twinked out in some of their best plate in the game right of the bat (I actually had this happen to me....I made a Dwarf warrior and someone gave me his older, but still high end, gear. I shall never forget that guy).
-MORE GRINDING!
-"WTB Rogue to drag my corpse to me....paying 20plat!" (and praying they didn't loot your stuff after you gave them permission. Though this was changed later on).
-On that note, you also were praying you were able to get to your corpse within 7 days of your death after dying in the middle of a raid dungeon. If not....oh well bye bye gear!
-Oh and de-leveling if you died too much.
-Level 35. Seriously.....if you know EQ...you know what level 35 means.

EQ was very flawed....as much so, if not more than WoW is. People just wear their Nostalgia Glasses when they look at it now.

Blizzard did not steal their ideas, they improved on most of them. The biggest improvements Blizzard added was the Mob tagging system and Instanced Dungeons (first game to actually do both. Previous MMOs based it on whichever person or group did the most damage)

This pretty much. EQ was a very hardcore and punishing game that WoW improved upon in almost every way.

Though you forgot the constant "Train to zone!!" shouts meaning that a parade of enemies was about to trample you if you didn't find a safe place fast. Also, people would do this on purpose to kill everyone in the zone from time to time, sand giants being the worst culprits.

[jearle]

Furor's rant... good stuff

The Plane of Time
2003-05-09 18:50:26 - Furor Planedefiler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have 14 Days. If after that time the Plane is not properly tuned, I am deleting my characters, and cancelling all of my accounts. The rest of my guild will follow suit, as will several other guilds and people that play Everquest.

To be brief, I did not work my ass off, jumping through your idiotic hoops with my friends and guildmates, so I could go to a zone where only groups of 18 could enjoy the content. EVEN if past these initial moronic events I can finally get my entire guild in to raid with me, FUCK YOU GUYS. Seriously, FUCK YOU.

I cannot believe this... right now I'm just so pissed off. I am sitting here in the Plane of Time, and 3/4 of my guild is just sitting around while a group of 18 is repeatedly trying to beat one of the mini ring encounters. Don't you people have ANY FUCKING DECENCY? SMEDLEY WHY DON'T YOU STOP COUNTING YOUR MONEY AND START ISSUING ORDERS?

The tragic irony of creating the ultimate cockblock encounter in the form of the Rathe which requires 80 people to defeat and then to limit encounters in the Plane of Time to 18.

14 Days.... after that this site will change from the most popular EQ fan site on the internet to the most popular World of Warcraft fan site on the internet. I'm done playing ball with you useless fuckers... it's my turn.

I remember reading this at the time, was first time I ever heard of world of warcraft.

- - - Updated - - -

On a separate note, I tried to go back and play EQ on the project 99 server (which is a pretty cool idea) and i just couldn't do it. There is no multi boxing on the p99 server and i forgot how incredibly slow the game is to play when only controlling 1 toon.

[Anon56]

Nobody cared about level cap back then. And velious was huge for the time.

What EQ managed to do that WoW never did was keeping a multi-xpac progression. Kunark raids and epic quests were still relevant when velious hit. High end raid zones were harder than the low end raid zones from the next xpac.

But when you look back, harder is maybe not the right word. EQ raids were more time consuming than hard mechanic wise, it was a "tank and spank and hide behind this pillar" mechanic. It's Molten Core and Onyxia again and again until PoP elemental planes.

Furor's rant... good stuff

Seriously, guys like him and Tygole should have been fired from blizzard once they did their job, bring EQ players to WoW. They played EQ when the only difficulty related to raids was logistic and being able to log 24/24. They were useful idiots and should've been discarded once their job was done.

Try pulling some shit like that and get hired nowadays http://www.legacyofsteel.net/Archives/Post/2001-08-03

That's some shitty behavior there. Why train other guilds like that? Fortunately on Vazaelle training wasn't all that common in raids. The community there was actually pretty decent.

It's because you played at pleb level and you did kunark raids that were on rotation for epics (most servers did this) but Velious was already out and high end guilds moved on. High end EQ was a cesspool.


And for everyone, EQ raiding wasn't difficult, it was time consuming. Still a good game for its time though