Planes of Power: The peak of EQ (or is it?)

Well now that I've logged into these forums I find it hard not to keep watching the discussions, I never realized how much I enjoyed talking about this game. Am I wrong to recall a memory that some folks were participating in beta testing in the GoD era?

Sure there were EQ players that played in WoWs beta and you had a couple (by couple I mean 2, that I can actually verify...pretty sure there is a third that worked on story also) big names players that went to work for Blizzard. Guild leader of Legacy of Steel and a guild leader from Fires of Heaven. Ironic given that people like to always throw around the WoW is a kiddie game blah blah blah...yet hardcore world first raid leaders left EQ to work for Blizzard and design content.

Really EQs population never “fell off a cliff” or was instantly killed by WoW, but something did change that was noticeable even several years before WoW. From classic through Velious you had a rapid growth of players from 0 to 400k. You could see the population growing quickly, new servers being added, etc. From Luclin through OoW the subscriber count only rose to about 450k. So while the overall population was still growing, the population seemed more stagnated, on some servers population may have even declined.

EverQuest went stagnant not mainly because of WoW, but do to the ever increasing curve of new players catching up. You factor in the lost of players due to life, and ever decreasing intake of new players because of lvl/aa/gear curve (and people to play with at low lvls) and you eventually drop out.

The saving graces to bring in fresh players or to attract old ones were a little late. Mercs for lower lvls, faster xp, tiered group gear etc, probably 8 expansions to late.

I’m not even sure why people credit EQ with the first game to have instances. There was a game called The Realm that was around for a few years before EQ that had about 2,000 active player count on line at any given time that had both group and solo instances. Now mind you it was a simple game with simple instances and you had to queue to get into the popular ones but at least the consent was there years before EQ did it.

The Realm actually had several features that EQ didn’t have at launch that EQ eventually adopted, Instances, Chat channels and a login queue to name a few. Most of my guild in The Realm beta tested EQ and we all came over to EQ on launch, we often complained at that time about the lack of chat channels and instances but those features weren’t enough to have us go back

Anarchy Online (by Funcom I think) had instances before EQ did too. You'd get missions from a computer terminal then go to the mission entrance (pretty much the same as what EQ did with LDON)

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but your entire post seems me like a long winded "Haha nerd. Git gud" type of meme post.


In regards to the TLP's. If it wasn't for the nostalgia seekers, the TLP's probably wouldn't even exist.

So I was looking at the spreadsheet the prior chart was based on vs the press releases also linked and I don't see that data anywhere in there. For instance, in the spreadsheet on the Subs Sheet tab, it has EQ listed with 550k subs on Sept of 04 but that number does not appear in any of the press releases. The press releases only mention 750k Station subscriptions - nothing EQ specific - unless I am missing it. In fact, it looks like that number was pulled from an estimate in a book, https://books.google.com/books?id=ek-L3QqtwoYC&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q&f=false (found in a Wikipedia reference), of which I cannot find the basis of their estimation either.

Not really sure how you come to that conclusion. The post is about how MMO gaming and the internet has changed and even if EQ was new today with the exact same mechanics as 99, the entire experience would be differnt.

Nothing about “git gud”, but we can’t recreate experiences from 20 years ago.

That may be true. Ok. I guess this is a good analogy that a few of you guys may get. Vintage car people want and prefer the authentic experience of the cars. Is there better technology today? Sure. And we can also put today's technology into these vintage cars as well? Of course. But there is something to be said about owning and driving the authentic vintage experience. Or at least as close to it as possible. That is the reason the TLP's came about.

That actually cements, rather than refutes, WOW as the "kiddie pool" game. Much of the feedback that was provided by those very guild leaders (example: Instanced dungeons) was only more recently incorporated into EQ (a few years ago) where it was designed into WOW from go - as was the ability to solo level from 1-max level on any class - another example feedback provided in EQ and shot down by this game's staff only to have it incorporated into WOW on first launch. Part of the reason it became the kiddie game is due to incorporating that very feedback the EQ staff left out due to wanting to enforce some level of social interaction.

And began, the clone wars, did.

I also remember EQ1 being the hold out game on these "must be hard core" fronts, while EQ2 incorporated much of that feedback the EQ1 staff would not incorporate (again, instanced raids, a perfect example here). Over the 5 year period of time between 1999 - 2004 many of the old guard self proclaimed hard core raiders no longer had the time to sock boss after boss in EQ1, and flocked to the instanced raid zones, auction halls, and plethora of other convenience mechanisms of the newer games, where everyone could have BiS gear well before the next expansion launch on their mains and all of their PvP twinks.

And part of the reason alot of these brand new games use pixel art and isometric graphics, even in 2019.

We can come pretty darn close by degree.

If by a view years ago you mean instanced dungeons/raids that started in LDON released 2003 and continued building on that system of GoD, OoW, DoN, DoDH, etc.

HA’s May be the newer form of instancing content, but EQ started down that route before WoWs release.

I guess when you say "full progression" that you did the Old Bloodfields and Korafax tasks, too? I just can't make myself do the last tier.

I only did Murdunk's once but it was stupid easy compared to what I remember back when SoD was current.

I didn't yet but I don't expect any problems. Those are more about pulling and cc than dps.

EQII launch date: November 8, 2004

I vaguely remember doing Meeting Ajourned back in the day and it was rough. It's probably much easier to do with 3+3 mercs than it would be to 5+1 or 6 box.

This topic has been dead for a while, while resonating with my feelings for many years that had passed.
The Plane of Time music theme used to be my favorite "meditation" theme I could just sit and talk to friends online.
The reason I brought the music topic is that EQ1 was all about the mood. In fact PoP transition into WoW era can be described by the change of (online) generations. The reason EQ1 resonates in my heart is people I used to play with. While I come from what later became hardcore Novae guild, I could never forget people I had used to play with: Major lecturer from one of the top military academies in the States whom we "spilled blood" with during our EQ "teenage" levels. Grouping every day, spending more time chatting than playing, then again, people getting married in EQ and so on.
It wasn't the EQ vs WoW or EQ2 or Vanguard or ... it was the generation change. I come from text MUD and UO times, but having said that even IRC chats used to be senseful discussions up until 2002+, when the Internet had started to become the mainstream. That's what had killed EQ and the rest. The romance had gone, time started to speed up. Sailing from Kaladim to Freeport became a waste of time rather than the "Woosh woosh experience " immersion. Immersion as the OP speaker mentioned became less important than a quick "dungeon run"
It became like a quick j..rk off vs proper s..x that came as substitute in our lives. While "we had to obey to that".. At the same time would we want 20 minutes run to a dungeon for the dungeon run nowadays...? rhetoric questions we are asking here.. the life has just changed..

My expansion ranking
Best:
1)Underfoot - great raids, lots of group content, cool looking weapons and zones
2)ROF - lots of group and raid content, cool looking weapons, "epic" class weapon reward from prog
3)DoDH - instanced dungeons with decent XP, cool looking zones and raid mechanics
4)OOW - memorable raids, epic 1.5 and 2.0. -1 for hanvar HP locked fight
5)EoK - nicely done remakes of memorable zones, some fun raids, chase loot, fast respawn camps
6)PoP - Memorable raids, pofire best non-instanced group xp zone
7)SoD - lots of group content, great instanced group XP zone (mech guardian) fun raid. hard mode concept is cool, but 2x tower/week is rough. -1 for Synarcana HP locked fight
8)HOT - fun group prog, good aesthetics and the grounds xp zone -1 for push/pull mechanics in raids.
9)Kunark - cool looking zones with a lot of variety, epic 1.0. Poor raids and itemization though
10)LoY - no max level appropriate raids or group content, but lots of great quality of life features came from this expansion - Health of target's target, etc.

Worst:
DoN - loot mostly worse than Anguish, start of solo task system (please just do group tasks). Feels long when released separately from OOW. Faction and progression system required finding people at same stage/faction of prog sometimes.
PoR - loot wasn't much of an upgrade over DoDH, some annoying raid mechanics
LDON - great concept (instanced dungeons), but terrible XP rate and mediocre rewards.
TDS - group progression is tedious having to hail npc's 12 times per character (ugh solo tasks)
Classic, Kunark, Velious are all somewhat tedious to revisit on a TLP due to very limited XP options for top level ranges, but they can't be viewed too harshly due to nostalgia and hindsight.