DAOC is still going. Mainly in private servers, though the official servers are also online but just empty. Ive been playing on a seasonal version called Eden for a couple of years now that has a healthy population.
to the OP, no. wow kinda derailed the eq style MMO and turned it into basically a single player exp where you log on, queue up for a task/quest/raid and then your there, you dont know anyone but who cares cause everybody gets loot! EQ is not built that way and other "MMOs" dont rely on the mmo part anymore.
If you define a game like EQ as: Difficult to make even basic leveling progress solo for most Highly group synergistic, both in terms of buffs and tank/heal/dps trinity Low micro skill cap, where movement and actions per per minute is fairly low Immense amounts of statflation each year No, EQ is pretty unique. Which I think is craaaazy. There is a huge market for games that don't hand-hold, but for whatever reason the MMO scene has walked away from requiring groups for most content.
This does seem crazy to me as well. We live in an age where gaming is complete saturated in every genre and sub genre...except the original style MMO??? There is money being left on the table here.
In my opinion, it’s a combination of “plugged-in” fatigue, excessive time requirements, and MMOs generally are very mediocre games. For group based gaming to really work, it requires people to build a lifestyle around the game. It requires constant attention to maintain relationships in the community and form new ones. It’s just so much time commitment for games that are at best mediocre.
Just play FFXIV. It's free through the award winning expansions Heavensward and Stormblood. It's got all the good and none of the bad.
Same, but this is not in a good way. Just because its unique doesn't mean its good. Ultima Online is unique, is it good? EQ is closer to UO than it is to WoW, but I'm assuming your want a bit more EQ but a bit more modern. So I would suggest go play World of Warcraft if you looking for boxes checked like this,
Considering WOW came out more years after EQ than EQ came after UO, and online gaming changed a lot between EQ's launch and WOW's launch. EQ2 came out in the same month as WOW.
Monsters & Memories can possibly have a small success but they seem to have already stepped into the detail trap just like Pantheon. The game looks simple but is very complicated in all it's code and 3D design details. It is a niche (cult) game tho and the PC models and many textures are so bad. Maybe they are just alpha placeholders, but at the current state the game does look unappealingly noobish. 19-25 years old 3D RPGs like Dungeon Lords, Ultima IX and Might and Magic VI+VII are sadly more appealing than M&Ms. The worst thing is that it is cloning EQ with all it's zones like Freeport, Desert of Ro, Greater Faydark with Kelethin, and reinterpretating them. It has not much own creative and innovative ideas and feels dead and silly. https://monstersandmemories.com/updates/update-39-january-2024
Enshrouded is already one of 2024´s best selling games. Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of 2024's most anticipated games. BG3 was 2023's best selling game. Elden ring was 2022's best selling game. All challenging open-world offline single-player RPG. People just became tired of MMO. MMO have too much peer-pressure, scheduled raiding, discord, language barriers, etc. MMO also involve subscriptions, microtransactions, etc. MMO also get shut down. People just want the sense-of-adventure of MMO without all the MMO baggage. The moment developers started making massive budget open-world single-player games, games that offered epic adventures without all the MMO baggage, gamers abandoned MMO. People are goin on epic RPG adventures more than ever. They just no longer need MMO for that. That annoying Everquest raid leader who rules with an iron fist while shouting over his beers on a friday night, has absolutely no chance against cheerful AI personas that greet you with a smile each time you play BG3. The progress in AI technology and the resulting in-game companions that will increasingly be indistinguishable from human players, is only going to solidify this. BG3
EQ doesn't rely on the mmo part anymore either, boxing has replaced it. They just decided to monetize a solo playstyle and dumb the game down to enable that monetization, not design toward player trends.
The problem was always that 2/3 of the classes can solo well, while the remaining third will struggle on that. Choosing the wrong class does lead to boxing or starting over with another class. The devs failed in balancing that issue with mercs.
City of Heroes: Homecoming is very similar in that every class is incredibly unique and most players group up to take advantage of class synergies. NCSoft just recently issued a license to this private server to allow them to operate legitimately, so there's no risk in checking it out. I find the Controller archetype in CoH especially like EQ, because they can mez, charm, and root enemies. Few games besides EQ and CoH have deep crowd control classes that aren't just one CC skill randomly thrown into a larger class.
Well, the slog between ARR and HW is pretty bad. It's so long and boring. I actually ended up buying a skip because I was tired of doing all of the quests between the two. Once you get into HW though the game becomes freaking amazing.
Naw, they recently updated the MSQ. They took out alot of the stuff between ARR and HW. Its much shorter and quicker to go through without all that boring fillter.
It was either that or stop playing the game. I am glad I did what I did because the game got so good! This was back before they trimmed down the amount stuff, which I hear is still too long.
Raiding 100% relys on the mmo part. you dont queue up for raids in eq, you join a guild go through a app process and raid with your guildies for loot. and not everyone likes to box, i have a fellowship with 5 other friends in it and we avoid boxing as much as we can, so the MMO part is very much still a thing in EQ.
