From Alpha, Beta accounts i finally get to say goodbye to the community. Not many of us left, and if so, it is off and on returning players. 23 accounts later, all family owned. A ton of original CD boxes from the day it was sold in the stores to Digital downloads. 1000s of dollars and Persona's dummed the game down too much for me to play anymore. It was a blast, peace out folks. Keep kicking snakes. Cheers!!
Much more then that, EQnerfs and the direction they are going is pretty weak. You would have to play in my shoes from day 1. Us old players mostly gave up around POP. I didn't. TLPs was the only thing that kept me playing, even if it was against Krono farmers. Best explanation i can give without ruining the goodbye msg to whomever is left playing from Alpha/Beta. 26 years was a long time to stay in 1 game.
They are watering down the originality and the immersion and are also problematic for the roleplay factor. For long time players it is weird to play multiple characters under one name. The personas we have to use in RL are already to much. Person = mask of the actor; a fiction.
I think whats being watered down is the concept of what “dumbed down” even refers to. Apparently now it just means something you dont like? How is a slight deviation/optional change to alts dumbing anything down? Leveling a persona to end level is much more challenging and time consuming than an alt. Also, some “dumbing down” from OG eq are actually often a “quality of life” change. Whether that be consolidation of abilities/stats/removing functions(like corpse recoveries), sometimes those modern changes may bother an old timer- i get it..but they have kept this game going by keeping jt updated. Anyways, personas are not making much of an impact on other players. You can have an alt that has the same exact ability to do anything a persona can, and they have kept some basic restrictions on how it can be used to limit some potential issues that would have had an actual impact of the general game(like where you fan swap at..). I started in march of 2000, not as much of an old timer as the OP. Im sure there is much more to this than personas.
Been here since early 2000 and still have no idea what you're on about. EQ is still the least respectful-of-your-time MMO, and you're not going to find anything less "dumbed down", given that literally everyone else has now realized that account-wide features and making the game actually accessible for anyone even resembling a new or returning payer are, in fact, good things for retention.
The slogan for this game should be: "Everquest - at least its not everything else out there" If someone would make an actual D&D based hack and slash that was not dumbed down and beatable in 20 hours or less, people would drop this game fast. The basic mechanics of this game are just more enjoyable (for an MMORPG) than other stuff out there. WoW was originally that, and half the people left for that game and it had millions of subs. Everything else out there tries too hard to have its "own identity" that they lose sight of the game itself in favor of branding.
Many of us have played since day 1, beta, etc. We all have different views of the game. I wish you luck in finding something else to care about as deeply as players do this game
Actually, i did, but it was because of TLP binding on epic spawns that i thought was a part of it. I had no idea you only can switch in Cities. I am evaluating it now. We already have enough Bot accounts, why i got ticked off.
IMHO, players who announce their departure and don't return to their thread are actually gone from the game. Those who announce a departure and then reply to comments generally (not always) end up coming back or don't even leave in the first place.
So personas killed the game for you? I admit I've scaled down my play time and I'm not sure I will purchase another expansion, but for me personas would not be a reason to quit.
I bet there's quite a few people who quit EQ, at least temporarily, after trying to level personas and get burnt out on it.
If I were to guess, and it's always risky to do so, the OP has had other issues with the game that have been building for awhile and personas (which I don't care for either) are just the final complaint to use to explain a desire to quit. Will you be back? Maybe, lots of players do come back. Will you quit and ride off into the sunset? Maybe. In any case, hedge your bet and don't delete stuff. You can always change your mind and come back. And if you do really quit; Have a great life. There are other ways to fill time.
