With all of the EXP nerfs, max EXP nerfs, cut and past items, lather-rinse-repeat expacs, catering to boxers and raiders, and monetization six different ways, does anyone actually recommend Everquest to new players? Back in the day, I used to recommend Everquest to friends, family, co-workers, and students. Over time, I stopped recommending the game because it had become a shell of what it once was. Now, I actually tell people that Everquest is not worth the time for new players, and it is a dead man walking. I understand that this board has some of the most dedicated players of Everquest, so there is a bias toward accepting this game's faults, the poor management, and dismal way players are treated. I am barely hanging on, but there is no way I would recommend this torture to new players when there are so many better alternatives for them. Everquest was once the best game to play on the market; now gamers most haven't even heard of it if they are under 40 years old, and there is really no need to show them. It is sad. What a waste of a franchise.
What do you mean by back in the day? Do you mean 20+ years ago when the game was relatively new? I am sure most people would agree that it becomes harder to to recommend a game the older it gets especially at 25+ years.
Unless you have some particular nostalgia for EQ I can't imagine why someone would want to get into it for the first time at this point, and strongly doubt they would enjoy trying to do so with how unfriendly the game is to new players. They can choose to basically play a tedious solo slog to cap and hit a massive wall around level 60 or heroic a character and have absolutely no idea what to do next. Neither are particularly good options when the market has so much else on offer.
Old School Runescape is a very old game that still has a great following and is on many top 10 MMORPG lists year after year. Everquest is rarely on any list or is mentioned in passing.
My daughter is 22 (she's been alive less time than I've been playing lol) and plays now and again. She sometimes gets the itch to play, subs for two months and then leaves it for another 9. Obviously she started EQ as a kid, for me to actually recommend it though... There'd need to be a lot of improvements for new-player mechanics (whilst leaving the old game well alone for old farts like me!), maybe something like Gloomingdeep, but much more in-depth that makes you 110 when you complete it or something - a system that properly gets you into the basics of the game at least and only becomes optional for alts on an account to zap straight to 110 or whatever. And fix the UI. That I *still* have elements moving around the screen just because my monitor went to sleep is freakin' daft in 2024.
Darkpaw should be increasing experience at lower levels rather than killing it. There is a lot of game out there to play, but the way Everquest is monetized and set up at higher levels, the game just cannot get my recommendation for new players. Also, players no longer trust the dev staff or game owners going forward, and that is a very large problem for the future of Everquest.
Totally agree on that - I sub x2, never get past level 80 or so and am very happy to be in 'old' EQ. I just presume that getting a bunch of newbies into even TSS would be hard work - at least there's less spread-out community up at the higher levels, even though I personally find the lower ones much more enjoyable.
Graphically the game is an embarrassment. However what the game has going for it is complexity. Current games race to simplify things. Lets look at ffxiv the market leader. 24 action limit on all classes, so that xbox/playstation controllers will work. Simplify and reduce all abilities and complexity to make the game more "approachable". WoW has been doing that for a decade. Destroying the soul of the game to make it easier and simpler. Thats where EQ sticks out. The AA system is crazy - so many abilities. Tracking buffs, item clicks, how do classes interact. Theres soo much depth to this game. If there was a better game that had all this depth - I think eq would be in trouble. However its niche isn't in that much danger.
That may end up happening with Everquest - or something similar. Why are players drawn to Runescape and not Everquest? Why is it so much more fun to play for new players? What mistakes are the devs making with Everquest? What progress are the Runescape devs making? The Everquest devs nerf, block, cap, and crap all over new players, and we wonder why the player base is shrinking. But hey, you can spend a couple grand to meet them if you'd like.
Pretty much everyone I run into in game started sometime between Classic and PoP. I'd be curious if there are any forum members here who have been playing 1 year+ and started after, say... 2007, through the game's official marketing (I.E. without a friend/coworker/family member/other existing player getting them into it)
The issues isn't that they are fixing broken things that are present in the game. I wouldn't consider Everquest and Runescape similar games outside of being an MMO.
When I wear my EQ 20th anniversary shirt I've had several gen z age say "hey is that like old school RuneScape?"
I recommend EQ all the time. I play EQ for my guild which is my team. Something EQ does that other games do not do as well is push Co-Op on a larger scale. Many other games have solo favorable content and group making tools make the game easy to get going but it also breaks a lot of the socialization in the MMO. Many games are like this where you grab a match made small group and never see the people again. The problem EQ has with recruitment is that there is not a great path from the bottom to the top where most of the guilds are. It is also hard to get a great guild without committing to raiding.
EQ along with probably DDO only works if the people you persuade to try the game all come in as a group and level as a group. EQ sucks solo, always has, its just even worse now.
and heroic level 85 and 100 , gears are weak , could get a good boost there. and high level buffs could land on level 50 + .
