Why did some EQ players dislike WoW?

Too cartoonish for me.

EQ has the better elves, classic and Luclin models. I play Blood Elf in WoW, but the butterfly eye brows and crazy ears make me think of the Monarch from Venture Bros.

Hate us cos they ain't us.

I tried WoW when it launched. It had some neat features but the world was empty. No groups going, very little interaction with other players and I did not like the questing system or the unrewarding gameplay. I felt like I was just flipping the pages of a picture book. As well, the character models were very unappealing. Be it EQ original models OR Luclin models, both were vastly more pleasing and fit my interest in high fantasy. The WoW universe felt empty, the lore a wash and empty. And in thinking why, I can’t give an answer. But it felt like WoWs content was just an order on someone’s desk, make 3 quests, etc. More than anything though is the lack of group activity, effort.

Edit - I also tried it again about 3-4 years ago upon insistence of friends and I found the exact same thing. I uninstalled after 2 days.

I took 6 years off EQ while my childens was small. Before coming back to EQ, I tried WoW. After I maxed everything out in 1 month, I realized how little WoW had to offer. The raiding back then was weak, the community was worse than the worst TLP here for toxicity. Everything was spoon fed with very little challenges. Everyone gets to max level with max gear with very little effort. Seemed like a childrens' game made for children. Didn't like it. Wouldn't repeat. Wouldn't recommend.
Conq

this was happening regularly in EQ long before WOW, at least on Povar and Xev.

umm yeah, in all MMOs right after Who Framed Roger Rabbit. in 1988.....

Looking it up Toontown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toontown_Online was released between EQ and WoW.

Becasue just like EQ 2 nothing compares to EQ 1!

It may sound like a small difference, but one of the things I love the most about EQ is pulling. Using the different class tools, understanding the mechanics of social aggro, it's like a game within a game. When I played WoW on release, I made a hunter because I figured with traps and feign death that they would be the pulling class. Spent a while trying to learn how to split mobs before understanding this key difference. Back to EQ for pulling!

Point being, the term and it's use in gaming long predated WoW, was often used in Everquest among others, and had nothing to do with WoW.


i used the term before WoW was a thing even. I also used "toon" in EQ long before I ever played WoW (WoD-Legion era)

Not a WoW thing, just a thing itself.

Wow for me, felt more like an arcade game. EQ was way more immersive and felt like a real world.

Never heard of it. Doubt it had any influence on EQ or WOW players. Term was around before then.

I heard people calling their characters "Toons" as far back as The Realm Online circa 1996-1998. Granted in that game the characters do look significantly like cartoons.

They are mad that it's a better game and so they throw out random excuses on why they hate it.

It's absolutely a better game, but it's nowhere near as good a "world" as EQ has been.

The sad thing is seeing EQ become more like a game & less like a world over time.

Saying one is a better game than the other is like saying Blackjack is a better game than Video Poker. You may like one better for some personal reason and the very thing that you like is the thing that someone else can't stand.

Well put.

Honestly it's just a different game, WOW doesn't suck, it's different.
Wow has some features that everquest sorely needs at this point like cross server instancing.

WoW was absolutely amazing in classic and first two expacs. They were story lines and and characters I had followed in the Warcraft series. WC3 was an absolute monster of a game. The fall off happened when they had to create 'new' story lines.

It actually pretty close to EQ in that regard. Kunark was a great 'lore' expac. Even velious is solid. PoP jumped the shark lol

I somewhat agree. You could go the opposite and say that PoP was "the big finish" but after killing all the God's, they suddenly had to come up with new storylines and villians. --- Kind of like a tv show ..like Supernatural. They killed every bad guy and the bad guy's boss, but still had a bazillion viewers, so they had to start coming up with new stuff and at some point, jumped the shark.

(Not hating on EQ though. Just that the original story line was a combination of Dragon's and the God's) and Kunark, Velious and PoP handled that. (Not sure where Luclin would fit in on the point i'm trying to make)