Alex Afrasiabi, who was the lead designer in WoW early days was a character named 'Furor' on the Veeshan server, and was the guild leader of the top guild in the early days (Fires of Heaven). He was quite the controversial chacter before he left.
Some of the reasons I love EQ 1. Every race isn’t created equal. Sure games like WoW, different races have different racials, making certain races more attractive, but in EQ, a Gnome Warrior is simply worse than say an Ogre Warrior, outside of max level raid gear, where stats get nullified. 2. I love that dungeons actually feel like dungeons. You wander into lower guk, and you’re stuck. Sure, casters can gate, but melee classes have to work their way out. They have to either find someone to give them IVU/Invis, help them lull out, fight out etc. EverQuest dungeons really felt dangerous, and dying in there meant making your way back to your corpse naked. It’s such an exciting and dangerous feeling 3. I love that a group doesn’t have a designated end. It’s not entering an instance, fighting til the end, then breaking up. You join a group, you sit in a spot and socialize while you kill things, possibly for hours on end. It’s an amazing way to develop friendships in game. 4. As you mentioned, epic quests are so cool. Gear in general is cool, because it’s HARD to get. It takes literal years to hit BiS. It was basically impossible during live EQ’s expansion duration. Raiders on p1999 have been working on their gear for years and most still aren’t full BIS. 5. The class identity and importance is crazy. There aren’t talents or builds that can make a single character a healer, a tank or DPS. Every class in EQ is unique in some way, and every class excels in some parts of the game, while being lackluster in others. Clerics are amazing healers and groups/raids love them, but terrible soloers. Warriors the best raid tank but struggle with threat in groups. Versus say a Paladin being an amazing group tank, but a pretty bad raid tank. Enchanters are such a unique class among MMO’s. No other game has made a class like that and has it function with so much importance. The concept of crowd control was so unique in the genre. Class identity in EQ was just so unique and cool. 6. The world is HUGE. There aren’t flight masters, there aren’t quick ways to move around. You either find a porter (refer to number 5) or you hop on a boat and hoof it. Along the way you’re going to encounter many things that can possibly kill you. Sure with experience, we’ve learned how to pretty safely navigate through zones, but back in the day, that danger was real. The fact that sand giants wander around a newbie area in oasis is just one example. The world constantly keeps you on your toes. 6. Reaching max level is an ACHIEVEMENT. Making an alt is always fun, but people’s identity, especially in the early years, were tied to the character they spent months and months leveling. This is all obviously about servers like p1999 and classic EQ. Most of these things changed in the later years, but those are what made classic great for me.
I quit 21 years ago and recently gave p99 a go to level a necro to max which is something i always wanted to do back in the day but never got around to. It is sad in a way that I can honestly say that I did not forget a single thing. Whether it is negativing across the world, camps, drops, spawns, items, item abbreviations, effects, quests, xping, money makers, and everything in between. After two decades still didn't need a map or a wiki outside of research recipes for a class I never played.
I enjoy your channel quite a bit, Dessius. I found it by chance but it is nice to see someone your age appreciate a game of old. EQ has forever made it's mark on me with difficulty and sense of accomplishment that the other MMO just can't compete. Keep up the good work and I hope to group sometime on Quarm!
I started playing Project 1999 back when Bertoxxulos released his plague upon the world and we were all quarantined. It's been like a comfortable home I can always come back to and will find new ways to enjoy it. When I started I had no ambitions beyond maybe doing a few camps and getting to the low 50's. Now I'm one of the few ShadowKnights on P99 Blue to have tanked the dragons of Temple of Veeshan and lived. This is why my in-game bio reads: Believe in your dreams. Your stupid, stupid dreams.
I’m fairly certain I’ll be playing EQ until I die. You’re right that the world feels so alive. The fact that it’s so dangerous and something as simple as traveling from Odin to Steamfont as a low level is a huge achievement separates it from all other games.
Awesome video. I’ve seen quite a few videos about why EQ was/is so great and I loved your take on it; very fresh and original reasons and more importantly, good examples of those reasons 👏👍
13:55 - Going to different zones just for one quest is something I miss in more modern MMOs. It makes the quest feel more like.. well, a quest.. Rather than just "here's your 'quest' to go about 30 yards that way, kill 8 of these mobs and then come back to me."
plus the length of the quests. Get these items, combine in some box, give to some npc on some continent that will take an hour to get to. Then that npc tells you to get another item of some high level boss that rarely drops, then when you get that you bring it to your guild master, who then tells you some other item is needed and off you go to get that item, which you might need to combine in another box, and on and on. And of course don't forget, you could screw up the combine sometimes and suddenly your precious item is gone...
Nice trip down memory lane. I started pre-Kunark and played for years. I stopped about 15 years ago after over 3000 played hours. The game was a major factor in the breakdown of my marriage. I enjoyed it too much.
You mention dungeon delving mysterious and lower guk. You're also in a dungeon within a dungeon. Theres an uncaptured sense of depth in areas that made EQ great as well.
@@dessius My first inkling that I might have a problem was when, after levelling an alt all night in the Desert of Ro, I went outside at sunrise to grab breakfast at a nearby diner. But before crossing the street, I automatically looked both ways to check for Sand Giants first.
Awesome video! Next TLP that comes out I'm going to dual box a paladin and a ranger. I leveled up every single class at least three times. Undead invisibility, and sneak on the Ranger, other Ranger pulling abilities. I'm looking forward to it
I played EverQuest a long time ago before the Iksar got added. Iksar necro main from then on. The way I describe the difference between EverQuest and any other MMO is in the stories you tell. In world of Warcraft your stories are going to be I got the drop or I got the crit. In EverQuest the story would be about the time when things went bad in Kern's Tower and the massacre that occurred when no one listened to me screaming train to zone.
EQ was immersive in a way that no other game has ever come close to. Every EQ vet has a story attached to every zone in such detail because it was something you lived. Death had consequences. You strategized constantly because one bad move will cost you hours of your life each time. No Leroy Jenkins BS that crap got you gkicked after the first offense. "You had to be there" was an understatement. One of my wildest stories from EQ was something my own brother and RL friends who were raiding with me didn't believe because I could never verify that it actually happened. It was our first guild foray into Hate after its first revamp. We cleared a safe spot for raid wipes after our successful break in and began to carve a path to maestro. Well the MoBs of Hate are on a faction, hate denizens or residents or something. Most people don't know why when almost everyone starts at "cannot get worse" with the faction. It has to do with monsters assisting each other. If you attack a monster in a group of monsters but they arn't factioned, then you will only agro the ones you are close enough to physically pull and only if they are in line of sight. When on a faction they will "call" for assistance and the radius is extended as well as removing line of sight requirement because other mobs can "hear" them. So in an alleyway on the first floor of hate we learned that lesson well, emptying two houses when we engaged a lone zombie. We were handling it though until a Hatecleric from the 2nd story in one of the houses called for mob assist when a pally offtank ran up to try and bash her heals. And there were several mobs on the second floor within the clerics assist radius. Being on the opposite side of the map where the stairs going up were, we managed to pull half the second floor and all of the first floor in what quickly we realized was going to be our first wipe of the night. I had charmed an undead as a last ditch CC effort but then quickly ran to our safe spot to FD and hopefully find a cleric to rez. So if you charm a caster and it is in the middle of casting when you invis yourself, charm breaks instantly and mob stops his cast without finishing. Unbeknownst to me though, this same rule does not apply when you FD. Charm DOES break immediately but NOT the spell. There were effectively two big mob groups after everyone was dead as they split to finish off people who panicked. MoB Group A and group B I'll call them. The moment I FD'd my pet was in the middle of casting a PBAoE in group A. He hit every monster in group A with it forcing all hate residents to turn hostile. He took a beating on the opening round of attacks but survived, calling for faction assistance. Group B was close enough to "hear" and all of group B came barreling around the corner bum rushing Group A. What ensued shortly after I cannot accurately describe because English does not have the words within its lexicon to do so. There was a maelstrom of text in the combat window. A frenzy of Innuruuk champion ramps, further extending their hatelist with each cleaving Rampage. Innuruuk clerics CH chaining the magic immune Ashenbone Drakes and broodmasters after an onslaught of harm touches as they were quickly zerged from low health agro, Enraging and wiping out droves of the weaker first floor mobs in the process. There were mobs fearing mobs and mobs charming mobs. It was a Cluster F* of the highest degree. It did not take long before every mob was hostile to every mob. It was a Plane of Hate civil war 80 strong. A cannibalizing blender to any target on their list. Contrary to what one might think, the strongest went down first. Providing higher dps drew them the most agro I always theorized. When the dust settled a low level warrior mob and a high level cleric is all that remained. They had somehow managed to not indecently attack each other and thus were the shared victors. They pathed back and I got up, still processing what I just witnessed, when the first naked port group arrived. And there I was. Alone. With over 3/4ths of the raid zone killed entirely after the last human player died. They panned around and then circled me in what i can only describe as a "you got some splaining to do" formation.
Wow i miss EQ. I'm much older than you, and i remember not only having to sit, but i'm pretty sure you had to have the spell book open too to regen? My memory is a little fuzzy :) I do remember the "Brownies" though... they were dangerous. The FBSS from Guk, and then camping that mask from Guk too that could turn you into a dark elf i think? Or was it a skeleton? I stopped after Velious, another fantastic expansion i might add. Would love to go back, but unsure how or where to get started.
Things I loved about EQ (only played until after RoK). The VERISIMILITUDE. I loved waiting for the boat. Riding the boat. It may have slowed things down but it felt alive. Like Buying spells etc. The way the game was designed so that classes needed one another to get resurrected, teleportation etc. I actually liked that quest givers didnt have question marks and exclamation points. After that though, WoW did just about everything better. It gave all classes something to look forward too. It had decent VERISIMILITUDE. It made solo play moderately possible in general. Which yeah is a multiplayer game but there were lots of times I would just want to solo and in many games you just cant. Everquest is certainly my second favorite MMORPG
Instead of saying that WoW did everything better, I'd say it made everything more convenient. A lot of those conveniences tended to feel great in the short term but ended up ruining the overall experience. I think I became good friends with probably more than 30 people in Everquest, my first guild felt like a family, but I only became good friends with 1 person in WoW. The social interactions were soooo different between the 2 games.
@@Seanidor I feel like it became that way for sure. At first it had a good vibe but as things went along WoW felt more and more like game and less like an interactive world.
Great video Dess! I really miss games that are designed to make you actually look forward to meeting new people instead of dreading it. This game was/is such a gem.
I’ve returned to classic EQ (blue) and I only had a lvl 26 ench. Now I’m lvl 50. And I would say for ME the thing that has really wowed me and made me take pause is just how exceptional the community is. Everyone is super kind, super helpful and really goes above and beyond to meet you where you are. I believe it’s because unlike most games these days with a majority teenager aged community, eq has a majority 35+ community. Maturity is a huge factor, and it shows here. I haven’t raided, but this is the least toxic online community I’ve ever experienced.
My only suggestions would be to use footage without a modified UI since I feel like this video is kinda dedicated to potential new players who might be confused by their UI not looking the same as yours when they boot it up. Also probably would add the disclaimer that this is specifically the p99 version for the same reason. That being said, very nice and enjoyable video. I like that you mentioned a lot of other games that you compare it to
I come back to EQ every winter - Just something I've done since I've stopped playing it all year long. Just started back up today. But I now have 3 screens one a wide curved 52" perfect for running numerous applications at once.
We've got an amazing official TLP that dropped this year and everyone is ignoring it. Tormax is as close to classic everquest as I have seen in a TLP. Part of what makes it so great is all of the people that you don't actually want to deal with all went and played on Teek. So what were left with is pretty down to earth people who are looking for the classic experience. If any of you EQ lovers aren't already playing on a server somewhere I strongly urge you to join The Heroic Few who make their home on Tormax.
Enjoyed your video 😊 I’m a bit newer to EverQuest and I agree it definitely puts you in another world I absolutely love it and the people I’ve encountered so far
The reason it feels like a real world,the game wasn't built as an MMO game,it was built as a chat board WITH a game added on You had to chat with people,so much down time forced it. New MMOs are just go do this,repeat
@dessius the social component is what made everquest feel like a real virtual world. Nearly every game since has missed the boat on this secret sauce.
I remember a Saturday afternoon at Lake Rathe with a group. There was some platform you could dive off of, just outside the zone to Arena. We spent literal hours laughing our asses off taking dives off that platform while we waited for mobs to spawn up there 😆😆
New MMOs are built in the knowledge that MMO players are an aging base with jobs and responsibilities, and no longer have the time to turn one entire game into their hobby and social hub. EverQuest will always be there for those who still want it that way, but there's no reason or need to have it that way beyond niche personal preference anymore. Certainly beats having the option simply gone forever though.
EQ Always felt more alive community wise, You had to form bonds and friendships in order to survive. Even for classes like magician and necromancer that can solo a lot of content. I remember going to sister Isles to get spells for my magician. And it was such an awesome experience.
I played shadowknight and always such a thrill to get that ding for a new-spells level. Running back to Neriak, often via the wiz portal or WC druid portal. Or just running depending on where I was at. The whole journey of it was so immersive and exciting. You might have to leave your group for an hour just to run and get your spells and typicall nobody cared, everyone understood the excitement. Now of course if you planned ahead you had your spells with you a lot of the time. But not always
You had to carry food and water in your pack. I loved that!! I have a Lvl 65 Beastlord pimped out with the Claws of the savage spirit epic weapon. Might have to go back to it.
A dozen MMOs have crossed my keyboard since 1999. EQ, WoW, AOC, Aion...more and more. No game--repeat--*no game* have I played that filled me with such fear as EQ. Moving through Lower Guk to join a group, watching my invis spell wearing off, knowing if the frogs see me, I am dead and the group cannot come to my help. Corpse run would be a nightmare! *OH THANK GOD THEY DIDN'T SEE ME!* The absolute terror of crossing Kithicor Forest at night. I still have PTSD. And making it back to my home city (Qeynos), and the *profound* feeling of relief. I made it. I'm safe. Why do devs not understand this is what we want? Sure, do a quest at level 5 and get a full epic set. Be one of 10,000 others with your flaming sword and armor of levitation. ...or... Plead with a raid to allow you to tag along. All you want is the NO DROP guts from the end boss dragon for your bard's epic weapon. You'll play your heart out. You won't ask for anything else. Please, please, please!
To expand upon how intricate and robust the economy is, simply because it's almost 100% player driven, I played on p99 for a while years back. After accumulating some wealth from my main level 50 wizard, one of my easiest ways to earn more pp was running a casino in the EC tunnel. You need some capital up front to be able to do this. I was actually able even to create a guild with the casino tag so people searching for credible casinos could see that guild name and know they were legit. By using the in-game /roll system I was able to generate a pretty astounding amount of wealth through this casino where honestly became more fun running that than it did actually playing my character. I eventually sold that character, I think they're still active today actually, and now while I don't play I do miss running the casino more than I do actually playing the game. I did do much more than just the casino, I would do daily giveaways upwards of 50k sometimes even more. I would do all sorts of scavenger hunts, races, anything I could think of to give away plat to people who would have a hard time getting it. It was the most fun I ever had in the game, as someone who started on March 16th 1999 originally.
I play on live and I'm at the very end game getting Augs and changing things up here and there to find out what's best collecting hard to get clicks and things for those small boosts I love it
It can be hard to convey the death penalty and related game mechanics that made Everquest such a unique game. I mean first of all, pretty much every mob in Everquest was like a boss in any other RPG. At least starting around level 20 or so it's like that. Now imagine having to fight 2 bosses at once. Now imagine 3 or more, with the possibility of a whole train of more all on top of you and your group. NOW try to imagine that when you die, all your things are left at the spot of your corpse. All your gear, all the weapons you had. And you have no other choice but to go back and collect all your things from that spot. Also imagine it took you 3 hours of a dungeon crawl with a full group of others just to get to that place where you all died, AND none of you has any of your gear to get back to that spot. Yes, some classes could help with the corpse retrieval, and in most situations you could get that needed help. But you still do need help, and it still could take another 2-3 hours doing nothing but corpse retrieval. I can't imagine any other game asking players to spend 2-3 hours or more on corpse retrieval. Instead they make it easy in different ways. For me that was one of the biggest difference in Everquest. The difficulty of that alone just made you learn your class inside and out, as well as know other classes too. If you had a reputation in Everquest as being someone that didn't know your spells, didn't know what your role is, you were gonna have trouble finding groups. Everquest demanded that you play your class well. Clerics sometimes had to time their full heal just right (10 second casting time, wasn't it?). Chanters had to be on constant watch doing mob control. Tanks had to keep taunt and aggro up. There's just so much that you had to know to play the game well with others. And when you all did do well? When you had your group or your raid pull off something that resulted in the reward you were after? And just seconds away from your whole group getting wiped? There was no greater feeling in any game.
EQ was a lot of fun years ago. On P99 once you hit 50+ it will require at least five hours of grinding to see any exp bar progress. Not feasible in 2024 (soon 2025).
Back in the day on Quellious there was a full time EC tunnel trader named Tigerstyle... always wondered how much plat that guy had... By the start of Vanilla PoP I was up to 4.5 million...
I actually was one of the lucky ones that was in beta 4 and could play the game over a month before it was released 😊❤️. I still have my beta discs, hard to believe it's been 25 and a half years and the Live version has still around 100K paying subscribers, I took a 19 year break, stopped at Omens of War (lvl 70 Shaman and Magician, decked out in raid gear, took me a lot of playing to get there). I am playing on Live servers, FV and I still love the game, lol I was in a lvl125 zone called Laurions Inn with a friend (I have top Raid gear), we had 3 lvl123 mobs close to us, but we where invisible. I was somewhat away, but I was eager to kill some mobs and so I "summoned" my mount (my friend as well), invis was off and I was dead before I even knew what happened at the time 😂. EQ still punishes you so hard even much more at the higher lvls in live, after 80 Mercs isn't as good as a player and the mobs will kill you so fast, even with a Merc (which is a nice way to solo if you don't have any friends and guild mates on to play with). You can always play without a Merc, it's harder, but not at all impossible, but at higher lvls you need to be even more careful and alert. I have also started to play on Project Quarm, but I have had some serious things in my family and I am sick as a dog as I am writing this (Just a lvl 8 Cleric). I love both playing on Quarm and Live, I get the best of both EQ worlds, literally. When I just started on live, I joined a guild (my first, still have great friends there), the GL handed me 300K plat and said you need this to buy spells (also got plat on Quarm for spells as well 😅 👍 ❤️), it's so typical of the Everquest community, of course there are bad eggs. But it's not nearly as many, as in other MMOS, like WoW etc, I kinda liked WoW, played to lvl45 or so I believe but it didn't stick as EQ was for me, and I took a 19 year break from Mmorpg's. Life with education, work, more education and wife and kids took up a lot of time my time, and I went back to playing pen and paper rpg (which I still do to this day), but now I am back and I 100% Agree with you on all points, EQ is the best MMO made, and it was and is still emulated, just not in the MMO genre, but I would say most rpg games after 99. So great to see that you enjoy the game play, which is Eq's strongest point (all the combined reasons you mentioned), I would love to see EQ with Unreal 5.X engine. I believe with the better gfx, it will only make EQ even better, because it has such a strong gameplay, it's just the icing on the cake for me at least ❤️👍.
My beef is that there are these moments where the game really slows down when you can't get a group and really can't solo much. You just get jammed up enough to log off for a long time
I played EQ from 1998 - 2001, but eventually stopped playing and shifted to WoW. No other game will ever will duplicate the feeling I had when playing this game. I miss it sometimes, but feel the game (and mostly the people) have moved on from when I left.
Great reasons! Diversity is certainly a big one and other games being "homogenized" is how I describe it too. EQ balance is really just imbalance and at a time when people rarely groaned about being underpowered. As for difficulty. It has never been difficult. Initially it was VERY punishing with XP loss (1 death = 2-3 hours of lost XPing) and corpse runs. But really the only "difficulty" aspect was that you had to go slow and be prepared. You can very easily never die if you're smart and careful. What is even better? All the "Ding 6!", "Ding 14!", "Woo! Grats" you see in even your video here. EQ has the most rewarding leveling curves of any MMO ever.
heres a block of text from my head 5 I think the lack of quests can be a good thing if a game has quests you go to the place and do the quest. Hand it in no, other reason to go or go back If theres no quest and some random castle with weird monsters, to me thats a mystery that needs solving its a large world that you can do whatever in as opposed to "go into these maps to do these specific things". 4 i wouldn't call classic eq hard i would call it tedious. Things just take a long time : getting xp, traveling, corpse runs, quests (because most of them have you travel to opposite ends of the world to get things for them) thats all by design to elongate the playtime. The hardest thing about an Epic is finding people or a guild to help you do it. its an old game the combats pretty basic if you die its probably due to something unfortunate resists/adds/trains/other things out of your control etc all that costs you is more time to get your body and xp. some enemies and raid mobs have some extra stuff do do i'm sure but its not like you have modern boss mechanics to get you sweaty. 3 i like player driven economy over auction houses. ESO had my favorite setup where guilds bided weekly on a location for their auctioneer npc to be placed and there where 100s spread across the world you had to travel to them to see what the people in that guild had put on for sale or use a search site, since it was so spread out it made it difficult for a single person to control any one item and no real set prices for anything made it easier to get into. The negative is that Monopolies suck every game with a trading system has them. 2 people talk about optimizing leveling go to these zones, do these things, get these items, get powerleveled, twinked. I watched a duo on youtube not long ago they didnt actually play the game they just traveled via druid around the world explored places and talked trash for 2 hours you don't NEED to do anything in this game and thats the best thing about it. 1 the social side? most people are nice, chill, generous and happy to help out l but it needs to be said there are some personalities out there that you will wish you didnt meet
For me, EverQuest will never be what it once was. Where leveling could take you years, people still traded in the tunnels, you had to loot your own corpse and get druids to port you. Epics were the best in slot, and you'd rarely see one, but when you did it really meant something. Now lvling up is so fast it doesn't mean anything. Epics are almost completely useless, the tunnels are empty, and those days are over. No matter how much I'd love to experience that again, I can't. Epic weapons should always be the best they should have continued them. They should have forced players to trade in the tunnels still, that was a huge part of the game. They should have never made lvling up so easy. It used to take weeks to hit a lvl. 60 took years. I honestly think they should remake Eq classic. Same exact game with updated graphics. Same everything, same quests, same mobs, same maps, same dungeons, and same grind it used to be. I would love to experience the heart of eq all over again in an updated engine. Give us a game that could take years to get to the max level. Because when you do that, like Eq once did, every level you achieve made you feel like you accomplished something great. Now you can buy a lvl 80, you can buy Kronos and sell them for plat, there is no challenge in Eq.
Honestly all the things you have said about Everquest are real and evident on Ultima Online more so than EQ. Ultima was the first mmorpg I ever played and I always go back to it after extended breaks. UO was also before EQ and there has never been a game that even comes close to it.
I still can’t decide if I prefer EverQuest or Final Fantasy XI. Both games are fantastic and both offer a wonder feeling of adventure that modern mmos just do not do.
Everquest is hard and easy at the same time. Mechanically, the amount inputs you need to make, and decisions per minute of combat is drastically lower than any more modern MMO outside of a few classes. The difficulty of the game is that its slow, and it punishes you like hell for messing up or being too near someone else messing up. The beauty of that dynamic though is it creates this shared world feeling where the players are given the tools to mitigate the pitfalls of the game, but never all of them completely on their own. The world forces you to work with other people to really experience the good aspects of its class and player interactions, and ultimately, for the most part, it makes that experience feel rewarding whether its helping someone else, or finally completing that epic quest. If you enjoy leveling, and chatting with people, its an amazing game to chill out to with some music and maybe a little longbottom leaf. But.... there's always a but, it has a hilarious amount of jank and the end game content is a poop show. Most raid encounters have simple tactics, and it's just a number game really, not a quality one. You aren't looking for the best people to fill your raid, or even good people, but anyone that has a pulse and won't actively sabotage you is more than good enough for most roles. And if you are looking to get bis, get in line, its going to be years and years of raiding in the same guild. I would never suggest anyone play on p99 to do it for the end game content unless they really are in it for the long haul. Quarm is the best place to go if you don't mind the playing with custom rules and content, but even that will be a journey, but much more manageable.
sorry for the expansions i have played, I never really felt like EQ was not very hard the mobs are just over powered compared to other games. I mean at least not on a technical level, I feel like nothing in EQ is as hard as like a mythic raid in WOW or high-level M+ dungeons in WOW
Everquest is the best MMO game ever. But imagine if the Japanese made it. . . They did. It's called Final Fantasy XI. The team who made it, played EQ for a year, took notes, and brought lots of ideas from EQ to FFXI. Waiting realtime for the airship. Waiting real-time on the ride. Requiring you to play in a group. All classes in FFXI gets a class specific weapon at level 40. You have to go on a quest to get it. This was also inspired in EQ. And believe me when say, FFXI was the best MMO ever, because EQ was the best game ever. 75 cap era, though. You would have to play on a private server to get an authentic experience of ffxi. Nice video. I stole EQ from Walmart back in '00 and installed it at school and played it. Ruins of Kunark❤
@@dessius it has a great private server scene that gives the classic level 75 cap experience, FFXI horizon server still has 2k to 3k active players primetime. It really is a JRPG take on everquest, even the gear stats and menus looks similar. It's also wild that the games only came out 3 years apart because FFXI looks way better especially for a 20 year old game.
EQ used to be a great game. Why I quit: I played for 24 years and had lifetime account. But the Bots got too bad, so I petitioned . 12-36 player Bots camped all the popular spots and preventing our huge raid. When I submitted a complaint they banned my lifetime account (not the bots). That's crazy... so chargedback $780 and quit. For other players who are fed up with the bots and the horrible GM rule enforcement, make sure to chargeback as much as you can ASAP because you can only go back so far... but be aware its a one way trip (whatever company owns Everquest won't let you back without paying). Reply
The biggest problem with EQ is class balancing. Warriors can't hold Agro, Rangers are almost useless, Wizards are the worst caster class and the most OP class in the game is the Bard. A lot of the quests require hours or even days of camping for an item drop and unequal experience zones which cause over crowding in some areas while others are dead. These were issues that were never truly addressed and the game lost a lot of players within a few expansions. There's a lot of nostalgia in EQ, but it has been surpassed in terms of playability and fun.
It’s going to be hard to recreate the original eq feel. As modern games have adopted easy game play. Most players can’t handle even a little toughness. Hence WOW.
This is true. I got my mmo feet wet through Final Fantasy XIV and its been really hard getting off of those qol features the game has. Still is a hard challenge for me.
It's interesting, a game like Elden Ring has what I would call a little toughness to it. The difficulty is different, going back over and over to some area or defeat some boss. It isn't like EQ. I always wonder what if From Software tried to make a game like Everquest. I think that could be amazing
EverQuest was a time sink, why did regeneration have to be so slow when out of combat? Spending days camping quest items... EverQuest has a special place in my heart, but it wasted way to much of my time.
it was meant to be a social game that you played with others. the downtime was intentional so you didn’t feel rushed and could spend time talking to your group mates.
... lol. Just... just lol. Im sorry, I cant even watch this video. Anyone who tries to claim with any form of seriousness that a game that requires 150+ buttons on a "UI" and 329842039487203948723408923057234897053928475 "AA"s to compete on busted servers that barely function and with a team that hasnt had an original idea since 2014.. yeah.. you need to sit down and be quiet.
I've played EQ a lot over the years, especially over the last 4 years in particular. Wow is a better MMO. Sorry. EQ suffers from a horrible UI lack of class balance and too many botters/PLer's, no originality just the same shit recycled every year.
5 Reasons why its not : 1. Eq is not hard, its tedious with a pinch of kick in the nuts. 2. LFG waiting simulator. 3. There is so little going on, you need addons + different UI to keep stuff interesting (Mouse view,Dps meter-Maps-Numbers on bars-Xp/hour, ect...) 4. Weakest endgame content of any MMO. Raids and so on are just awfull. 5. I could go after weak graphics, or after their publisher ( Sony OE 😂, DayBreak🤢 ), but the game is sooo good, you have to stop within 4 expensions, because it become way too good. Not to say... its kinda weird to claim the best MMO on an EMU server. Project Quality of life changed the game so much, That white High elf chik about to be a Hard Black Erudite.
Naw. 1. Yeah it is. There's some pretty annoying and complex group content / raid content. 2. Nobody uses LFG anymore, clearly you havent played in ages. You group with guildies. 3. Nope. still use base UI you dont need anything else. 4. Naw disagree. Wow had some of the most boring stupid raids. 5. lol. ok. this one doesn't event make sense. Def kind of stupid to be using Emulators as the metric for why its good. agree there.
The Quarm community is really lackluster at best. The grouping into the 50s is really not there. Emulated EverQuest servers are the same cliques of friends. Same EverQuest day different EverQuest server.
I watched an interview where the devs of WoW were asked 'what was the best game ever?' and they said Everquest. And I agree with them.
Alex Afrasiabi, who was the lead designer in WoW early days was a character named 'Furor' on the Veeshan server, and was the guild leader of the top guild in the early days (Fires of Heaven). He was quite the controversial chacter before he left.
What was the controversity about? :)
Yea it "was", then Wow Came out.
@stus2159 lol. Wow is casual trash
@@honorabledodger Mythic raids and pvp says different but alright. The hardest thing about everquest is dealing with the horrible UI.
Some of the reasons I love EQ
1. Every race isn’t created equal. Sure games like WoW, different races have different racials, making certain races more attractive, but in EQ, a Gnome Warrior is simply worse than say an Ogre Warrior, outside of max level raid gear, where stats get nullified.
2. I love that dungeons actually feel like dungeons. You wander into lower guk, and you’re stuck. Sure, casters can gate, but melee classes have to work their way out. They have to either find someone to give them IVU/Invis, help them lull out, fight out etc. EverQuest dungeons really felt dangerous, and dying in there meant making your way back to your corpse naked. It’s such an exciting and dangerous feeling
3. I love that a group doesn’t have a designated end. It’s not entering an instance, fighting til the end, then breaking up. You join a group, you sit in a spot and socialize while you kill things, possibly for hours on end. It’s an amazing way to develop friendships in game.
4. As you mentioned, epic quests are so cool. Gear in general is cool, because it’s HARD to get. It takes literal years to hit BiS. It was basically impossible during live EQ’s expansion duration. Raiders on p1999 have been working on their gear for years and most still aren’t full BIS.
5. The class identity and importance is crazy. There aren’t talents or builds that can make a single character a healer, a tank or DPS. Every class in EQ is unique in some way, and every class excels in some parts of the game, while being lackluster in others. Clerics are amazing healers and groups/raids love them, but terrible soloers. Warriors the best raid tank but struggle with threat in groups. Versus say a Paladin being an amazing group tank, but a pretty bad raid tank. Enchanters are such a unique class among MMO’s. No other game has made a class like that and has it function with so much importance. The concept of crowd control was so unique in the genre. Class identity in EQ was just so unique and cool.
6. The world is HUGE. There aren’t flight masters, there aren’t quick ways to move around. You either find a porter (refer to number 5) or you hop on a boat and hoof it. Along the way you’re going to encounter many things that can possibly kill you. Sure with experience, we’ve learned how to pretty safely navigate through zones, but back in the day, that danger was real. The fact that sand giants wander around a newbie area in oasis is just one example. The world constantly keeps you on your toes.
6. Reaching max level is an ACHIEVEMENT. Making an alt is always fun, but people’s identity, especially in the early years, were tied to the character they spent months and months leveling.
This is all obviously about servers like p1999 and classic EQ. Most of these things changed in the later years, but those are what made classic great for me.
I quit 21 years ago and recently gave p99 a go to level a necro to max which is something i always wanted to do back in the day but never got around to. It is sad in a way that I can honestly say that I did not forget a single thing. Whether it is negativing across the world, camps, drops, spawns, items, item abbreviations, effects, quests, xping, money makers, and everything in between. After two decades still didn't need a map or a wiki outside of research recipes for a class I never played.
I enjoy your channel quite a bit, Dessius. I found it by chance but it is nice to see someone your age appreciate a game of old. EQ has forever made it's mark on me with difficulty and sense of accomplishment that the other MMO just can't compete. Keep up the good work and I hope to group sometime on Quarm!
@@David_Joker thank you!
Well said, I agree. Well, you would find me on mischief.
I started playing Project 1999 back when Bertoxxulos released his plague upon the world and we were all quarantined. It's been like a comfortable home I can always come back to and will find new ways to enjoy it. When I started I had no ambitions beyond maybe doing a few camps and getting to the low 50's. Now I'm one of the few ShadowKnights on P99 Blue to have tanked the dragons of Temple of Veeshan and lived. This is why my in-game bio reads: Believe in your dreams. Your stupid, stupid dreams.
I’m fairly certain I’ll be playing EQ until I die. You’re right that the world feels so alive. The fact that it’s so dangerous and something as simple as traveling from Odin to Steamfont as a low level is a huge achievement separates it from all other games.
EQ IS and Always Will be the BEST!!!
Awesome video. I’ve seen quite a few videos about why EQ was/is so great and I loved your take on it; very fresh and original reasons and more importantly, good examples of those reasons 👏👍
thank you!
13:55 - Going to different zones just for one quest is something I miss in more modern MMOs. It makes the quest feel more like.. well, a quest.. Rather than just "here's your 'quest' to go about 30 yards that way, kill 8 of these mobs and then come back to me."
exactly, it's way less formulaic. it encourages organic adventures.
plus the length of the quests. Get these items, combine in some box, give to some npc on some continent that will take an hour to get to. Then that npc tells you to get another item of some high level boss that rarely drops, then when you get that you bring it to your guild master, who then tells you some other item is needed and off you go to get that item, which you might need to combine in another box, and on and on. And of course don't forget, you could screw up the combine sometimes and suddenly your precious item is gone...
Nice trip down memory lane. I started pre-Kunark and played for years. I stopped about 15 years ago after over 3000 played hours. The game was a major factor in the breakdown of my marriage. I enjoyed it too much.
You mention dungeon delving mysterious and lower guk. You're also in a dungeon within a dungeon. Theres an uncaptured sense of depth in areas that made EQ great as well.
Hello, my name is Anton, and I have been clean and sober from EverQuest twenty years, six months, five days.
@@antondovydaitis2261 😂
@@dessius My first inkling that I might have a problem was when, after levelling an alt all night in the Desert of Ro, I went outside at sunrise to grab breakfast at a nearby diner.
But before crossing the street, I automatically looked both ways to check for Sand Giants first.
Evercrack
😂😂😂
Great video. I wholeheartedly agree. More people need to experience this game.
for real!
Awesome video! Next TLP that comes out I'm going to dual box a paladin and a ranger. I leveled up every single class at least three times. Undead invisibility, and sneak on the Ranger, other Ranger pulling abilities. I'm looking forward to it
sounds like a fun combo!
I played EverQuest a long time ago before the Iksar got added. Iksar necro main from then on.
The way I describe the difference between EverQuest and any other MMO is in the stories you tell.
In world of Warcraft your stories are going to be I got the drop or I got the crit.
In EverQuest the story would be about the time when things went bad in Kern's Tower and the massacre that occurred when no one listened to me screaming train to zone.
@@rnick3665 I agree 100%
EQ was immersive in a way that no other game has ever come close to. Every EQ vet has a story attached to every zone in such detail because it was something you lived. Death had consequences. You strategized constantly because one bad move will cost you hours of your life each time. No Leroy Jenkins BS that crap got you gkicked after the first offense. "You had to be there" was an understatement. One of my wildest stories from EQ was something my own brother and RL friends who were raiding with me didn't believe because I could never verify that it actually happened. It was our first guild foray into Hate after its first revamp. We cleared a safe spot for raid wipes after our successful break in and began to carve a path to maestro. Well the MoBs of Hate are on a faction, hate denizens or residents or something. Most people don't know why when almost everyone starts at "cannot get worse" with the faction. It has to do with monsters assisting each other. If you attack a monster in a group of monsters but they arn't factioned, then you will only agro the ones you are close enough to physically pull and only if they are in line of sight. When on a faction they will "call" for assistance and the radius is extended as well as removing line of sight requirement because other mobs can "hear" them. So in an alleyway on the first floor of hate we learned that lesson well, emptying two houses when we engaged a lone zombie. We were handling it though until a Hatecleric from the 2nd story in one of the houses called for mob assist when a pally offtank ran up to try and bash her heals. And there were several mobs on the second floor within the clerics assist radius. Being on the opposite side of the map where the stairs going up were, we managed to pull half the second floor and all of the first floor in what quickly we realized was going to be our first wipe of the night. I had charmed an undead as a last ditch CC effort but then quickly ran to our safe spot to FD and hopefully find a cleric to rez. So if you charm a caster and it is in the middle of casting when you invis yourself, charm breaks instantly and mob stops his cast without finishing. Unbeknownst to me though, this same rule does not apply when you FD. Charm DOES break immediately but NOT the spell. There were effectively two big mob groups after everyone was dead as they split to finish off people who panicked. MoB Group A and group B I'll call them. The moment I FD'd my pet was in the middle of casting a PBAoE in group A. He hit every monster in group A with it forcing all hate residents to turn hostile. He took a beating on the opening round of attacks but survived, calling for faction assistance. Group B was close enough to "hear" and all of group B came barreling around the corner bum rushing Group A. What ensued shortly after I cannot accurately describe because English does not have the words within its lexicon to do so. There was a maelstrom of text in the combat window. A frenzy of Innuruuk champion ramps, further extending their hatelist with each cleaving Rampage. Innuruuk clerics CH chaining the magic immune Ashenbone Drakes and broodmasters after an onslaught of harm touches as they were quickly zerged from low health agro, Enraging and wiping out droves of the weaker first floor mobs in the process. There were mobs fearing mobs and mobs charming mobs. It was a Cluster F* of the highest degree. It did not take long before every mob was hostile to every mob. It was a Plane of Hate civil war 80 strong. A cannibalizing blender to any target on their list. Contrary to what one might think, the strongest went down first. Providing higher dps drew them the most agro I always theorized. When the dust settled a low level warrior mob and a high level cleric is all that remained. They had somehow managed to not indecently attack each other and thus were the shared victors. They pathed back and I got up, still processing what I just witnessed, when the first naked port group arrived. And there I was. Alone. With over 3/4ths of the raid zone killed entirely after the last human player died. They panned around and then circled me in what i can only describe as a "you got some splaining to do" formation.
Wow i miss EQ. I'm much older than you, and i remember not only having to sit, but i'm pretty sure you had to have the spell book open too to regen? My memory is a little fuzzy :) I do remember the "Brownies" though... they were dangerous. The FBSS from Guk, and then camping that mask from Guk too that could turn you into a dark elf i think? Or was it a skeleton? I stopped after Velious, another fantastic expansion i might add.
Would love to go back, but unsure how or where to get started.
Check out Project Quarm!
Could also check out the Tormax TLP server, we're currently in Velious and its more or less just one big family server.
yeah you had to be looking at your spell book while meditating! I forgot about that mechanic, I think they took it away during Kunark period?
Things I loved about EQ (only played until after RoK). The VERISIMILITUDE. I loved waiting for the boat. Riding the boat. It may have slowed things down but it felt alive. Like Buying spells etc. The way the game was designed so that classes needed one another to get resurrected, teleportation etc. I actually liked that quest givers didnt have question marks and exclamation points.
After that though, WoW did just about everything better. It gave all classes something to look forward too. It had decent VERISIMILITUDE. It made solo play moderately possible in general. Which yeah is a multiplayer game but there were lots of times I would just want to solo and in many games you just cant.
Everquest is certainly my second favorite MMORPG
Instead of saying that WoW did everything better, I'd say it made everything more convenient. A lot of those conveniences tended to feel great in the short term but ended up ruining the overall experience. I think I became good friends with probably more than 30 people in Everquest, my first guild felt like a family, but I only became good friends with 1 person in WoW. The social interactions were soooo different between the 2 games.
@@Seanidor I feel like it became that way for sure. At first it had a good vibe but as things went along WoW felt more and more like game and less like an interactive world.
Great video Dess! I really miss games that are designed to make you actually look forward to meeting new people instead of dreading it. This game was/is such a gem.
I’ve returned to classic EQ (blue) and I only had a lvl 26 ench. Now I’m lvl 50. And I would say for ME the thing that has really wowed me and made me take pause is just how exceptional the community is. Everyone is super kind, super helpful and really goes above and beyond to meet you where you are. I believe it’s because unlike most games these days with a majority teenager aged community, eq has a majority 35+ community. Maturity is a huge factor, and it shows here. I haven’t raided, but this is the least toxic online community I’ve ever experienced.
My only suggestions would be to use footage without a modified UI since I feel like this video is kinda dedicated to potential new players who might be confused by their UI not looking the same as yours when they boot it up. Also probably would add the disclaimer that this is specifically the p99 version for the same reason.
That being said, very nice and enjoyable video. I like that you mentioned a lot of other games that you compare it to
Thank you for this, it was very interesting!
Great video. You are correct on all your points. Those are the things that make EQ great and forces us to continually return to Norrath.
I come back to EQ every winter - Just something I've done since I've stopped playing it all year long.
Just started back up today. But I now have 3 screens one a wide curved 52" perfect for running numerous applications at once.
sounds like a nice yearly tradition :)
We've got an amazing official TLP that dropped this year and everyone is ignoring it. Tormax is as close to classic everquest as I have seen in a TLP. Part of what makes it so great is all of the people that you don't actually want to deal with all went and played on Teek. So what were left with is pretty down to earth people who are looking for the classic experience. If any of you EQ lovers aren't already playing on a server somewhere I strongly urge you to join The Heroic Few who make their home on Tormax.
Enjoyed your video 😊 I’m a bit newer to EverQuest and I agree it definitely puts you in another world I absolutely love it and the people I’ve encountered so far
The reason it feels like a real world,the game wasn't built as an MMO game,it was built as a chat board WITH a game added on
You had to chat with people,so much down time forced it.
New MMOs are just go do this,repeat
exactly!
@dessius the social component is what made everquest feel like a real virtual world. Nearly every game since has missed the boat on this secret sauce.
I remember a Saturday afternoon at Lake Rathe with a group. There was some platform you could dive off of, just outside the zone to Arena. We spent literal hours laughing our asses off taking dives off that platform while we waited for mobs to spawn up there 😆😆
New MMOs are built in the knowledge that MMO players are an aging base with jobs and responsibilities, and no longer have the time to turn one entire game into their hobby and social hub. EverQuest will always be there for those who still want it that way, but there's no reason or need to have it that way beyond niche personal preference anymore.
Certainly beats having the option simply gone forever though.
EQ Always felt more alive community wise, You had to form bonds and friendships in order to survive. Even for classes like magician and necromancer that can solo a lot of content. I remember going to sister Isles to get spells for my magician. And it was such an awesome experience.
@@1984nightrider well said!
I played shadowknight and always such a thrill to get that ding for a new-spells level. Running back to Neriak, often via the wiz portal or WC druid portal. Or just running depending on where I was at. The whole journey of it was so immersive and exciting. You might have to leave your group for an hour just to run and get your spells and typicall nobody cared, everyone understood the excitement. Now of course if you planned ahead you had your spells with you a lot of the time. But not always
You had to carry food and water in your pack. I loved that!! I have a Lvl 65 Beastlord pimped out with the Claws of the savage spirit epic weapon. Might have to go back to it.
I remember doin the Beastlord epic, when I was done I thought to myself, did I just score weed and papers for those cats?
What is that environmental texture at 7:40? I love the way the walls and everything looks
its a texture pack called EQ Basic! check it out, its awesome
My extended break was 20 years...
haha but you're back now!
The robe of oracle.. I remember getting that drop then selling it for like 100 plat, lol!! Man those were the says!
A dozen MMOs have crossed my keyboard since 1999. EQ, WoW, AOC, Aion...more and more. No game--repeat--*no game* have I played that filled me with such fear as EQ. Moving through Lower Guk to join a group, watching my invis spell wearing off, knowing if the frogs see me, I am dead and the group cannot come to my help. Corpse run would be a nightmare! *OH THANK GOD THEY DIDN'T SEE ME!*
The absolute terror of crossing Kithicor Forest at night. I still have PTSD.
And making it back to my home city (Qeynos), and the *profound* feeling of relief. I made it. I'm safe.
Why do devs not understand this is what we want? Sure, do a quest at level 5 and get a full epic set. Be one of 10,000 others with your flaming sword and armor of levitation.
...or...
Plead with a raid to allow you to tag along. All you want is the NO DROP guts from the end boss dragon for your bard's epic weapon. You'll play your heart out. You won't ask for anything else. Please, please, please!
We love this game so much I bought a server and running emu
i been reliving old times on the emulated takp server quarm,, it's great
To expand upon how intricate and robust the economy is, simply because it's almost 100% player driven, I played on p99 for a while years back. After accumulating some wealth from my main level 50 wizard, one of my easiest ways to earn more pp was running a casino in the EC tunnel. You need some capital up front to be able to do this. I was actually able even to create a guild with the casino tag so people searching for credible casinos could see that guild name and know they were legit. By using the in-game /roll system I was able to generate a pretty astounding amount of wealth through this casino where honestly became more fun running that than it did actually playing my character. I eventually sold that character, I think they're still active today actually, and now while I don't play I do miss running the casino more than I do actually playing the game. I did do much more than just the casino, I would do daily giveaways upwards of 50k sometimes even more. I would do all sorts of scavenger hunts, races, anything I could think of to give away plat to people who would have a hard time getting it. It was the most fun I ever had in the game, as someone who started on March 16th 1999 originally.
Easily THE best game ever created.
I play on live and I'm at the very end game getting Augs and changing things up here and there to find out what's best collecting hard to get clicks and things for those small boosts I love it
I miss those old particles so much. I wish they could be enabled on live. Same with the classic skeleton model for necro pets.
It can be hard to convey the death penalty and related game mechanics that made Everquest such a unique game. I mean first of all, pretty much every mob in Everquest was like a boss in any other RPG. At least starting around level 20 or so it's like that. Now imagine having to fight 2 bosses at once. Now imagine 3 or more, with the possibility of a whole train of more all on top of you and your group. NOW try to imagine that when you die, all your things are left at the spot of your corpse. All your gear, all the weapons you had. And you have no other choice but to go back and collect all your things from that spot. Also imagine it took you 3 hours of a dungeon crawl with a full group of others just to get to that place where you all died, AND none of you has any of your gear to get back to that spot. Yes, some classes could help with the corpse retrieval, and in most situations you could get that needed help. But you still do need help, and it still could take another 2-3 hours doing nothing but corpse retrieval. I can't imagine any other game asking players to spend 2-3 hours or more on corpse retrieval. Instead they make it easy in different ways. For me that was one of the biggest difference in Everquest. The difficulty of that alone just made you learn your class inside and out, as well as know other classes too. If you had a reputation in Everquest as being someone that didn't know your spells, didn't know what your role is, you were gonna have trouble finding groups. Everquest demanded that you play your class well. Clerics sometimes had to time their full heal just right (10 second casting time, wasn't it?). Chanters had to be on constant watch doing mob control. Tanks had to keep taunt and aggro up. There's just so much that you had to know to play the game well with others. And when you all did do well? When you had your group or your raid pull off something that resulted in the reward you were after? And just seconds away from your whole group getting wiped? There was no greater feeling in any game.
EQ was a lot of fun years ago. On P99 once you hit 50+ it will require at least five hours of grinding to see any exp bar progress. Not feasible in 2024 (soon 2025).
Back in the day on Quellious there was a full time EC tunnel trader named Tigerstyle... always wondered how much plat that guy had... By the start of Vanilla PoP I was up to 4.5 million...
How do I get that UI you have. Especially the one with the cool ground pixels. Let me know please.
Organic organic diversity organic in and of itself it is diverse
Another banger man love it
@@Icedale666 appreciate it!
how is the light glowing through the tress like that???? never had eq1 look that good!
just an editing filter! i wish it would look like that in game haha
I actually was one of the lucky ones that was in beta 4 and could play the game over a month before it was released 😊❤️.
I still have my beta discs, hard to believe it's been 25 and a half years and the Live version has still around 100K paying subscribers, I took a 19 year break, stopped at Omens of War (lvl 70 Shaman and Magician, decked out in raid gear, took me a lot of playing to get there).
I am playing on Live servers, FV and I still love the game, lol I was in a lvl125 zone called Laurions Inn with a friend (I have top Raid gear), we had 3 lvl123 mobs close to us, but we where invisible.
I was somewhat away, but I was eager to kill some mobs and so I "summoned" my mount (my friend as well), invis was off and I was dead before I even knew what happened at the time 😂.
EQ still punishes you so hard even much more at the higher lvls in live, after 80 Mercs isn't as good as a player and the mobs will kill you so fast, even with a Merc (which is a nice way to solo if you don't have any friends and guild mates on to play with). You can always play without a Merc, it's harder, but not at all impossible, but at higher lvls you need to be even more careful and alert.
I have also started to play on Project Quarm, but I have had some serious things in my family and I am sick as a dog as I am writing this (Just a lvl 8 Cleric).
I love both playing on Quarm and Live, I get the best of both EQ worlds, literally.
When I just started on live, I joined a guild (my first, still have great friends there), the GL handed me 300K plat and said you need this to buy spells (also got plat on Quarm for spells as well 😅 👍 ❤️), it's so typical of the Everquest community, of course there are bad eggs.
But it's not nearly as many, as in other MMOS, like WoW etc, I kinda liked WoW, played to lvl45 or so I believe but it didn't stick as EQ was for me, and I took a 19 year break from Mmorpg's.
Life with education, work, more education and wife and kids took up a lot of time my time, and I went back to playing pen and paper rpg (which I still do to this day), but now I am back and I 100% Agree with you on all points, EQ is the best MMO made, and it was and is still emulated, just not in the MMO genre, but I would say most rpg games after 99.
So great to see that you enjoy the game play, which is Eq's strongest point (all the combined reasons you mentioned), I would love to see EQ with Unreal 5.X engine.
I believe with the better gfx, it will only make EQ even better, because it has such a strong gameplay, it's just the icing on the cake for me at least ❤️👍.
@@bengtmller9666 thanks for sharing! That’s awesome you still have the beta discs
Same❤
My beef is that there are these moments where the game really slows down when you can't get a group and really can't solo much. You just get jammed up enough to log off for a long time
I really like this UI, would it work on the new private server Hero's Journey?
unfortunately I don't think so. The UI (NilipussUI) requires the zeal plugin that is exclusive to quarm.
I played EQ from 1998 - 2001, but eventually stopped playing and shifted to WoW. No other game will ever will duplicate the feeling I had when playing this game. I miss it sometimes, but feel the game (and mostly the people) have moved on from when I left.
the world was slightly dangerous,, and it was no hand holding gen x style
Great reasons! Diversity is certainly a big one and other games being "homogenized" is how I describe it too. EQ balance is really just imbalance and at a time when people rarely groaned about being underpowered.
As for difficulty. It has never been difficult. Initially it was VERY punishing with XP loss (1 death = 2-3 hours of lost XPing) and corpse runs. But really the only "difficulty" aspect was that you had to go slow and be prepared. You can very easily never die if you're smart and careful. What is even better? All the "Ding 6!", "Ding 14!", "Woo! Grats" you see in even your video here. EQ has the most rewarding leveling curves of any MMO ever.
heres a block of text from my head 5 I think the lack of quests can be a good thing if a game has quests you go to the place and do the quest. Hand it in no, other reason to go or go back If theres no quest and some random castle with weird monsters, to me thats a mystery that needs solving its a large world that you can do whatever in as opposed to "go into these maps to do these specific things". 4 i wouldn't call classic eq hard i would call it tedious. Things just take a long time : getting xp, traveling, corpse runs, quests (because most of them have you travel to opposite ends of the world to get things for them) thats all by design to elongate the playtime. The hardest thing about an Epic is finding people or a guild to help you do it. its an old game the combats pretty basic if you die its probably due to something unfortunate resists/adds/trains/other things out of your control etc all that costs you is more time to get your body and xp. some enemies and raid mobs have some extra stuff do do i'm sure but its not like you have modern boss mechanics to get you sweaty. 3 i like player driven economy over auction houses. ESO had my favorite setup where guilds bided weekly on a location for their auctioneer npc to be placed and there where 100s spread across the world you had to travel to them to see what the people in that guild had put on for sale or use a search site, since it was so spread out it made it difficult for a single person to control any one item and no real set prices for anything made it easier to get into. The negative is that Monopolies suck every game with a trading system has them. 2 people talk about optimizing leveling go to these zones, do these things, get these items, get powerleveled, twinked. I watched a duo on youtube not long ago they didnt actually play the game they just traveled via druid around the world explored places and talked trash for 2 hours you don't NEED to do anything in this game and thats the best thing about it. 1 the social side? most people are nice, chill, generous and happy to help out l but it needs to be said there are some personalities out there that you will wish you didnt meet
@@tornixdm2431 Well said! the ESO bidding system sounds interesting.
Me 2 been playing since 99 on and off more on then off. Favorite game ever was 12 when I got into it I still play
No question EQ is the GOAT❤
For me, EverQuest will never be what it once was. Where leveling could take you years, people still traded in the tunnels, you had to loot your own corpse and get druids to port you. Epics were the best in slot, and you'd rarely see one, but when you did it really meant something. Now lvling up is so fast it doesn't mean anything. Epics are almost completely useless, the tunnels are empty, and those days are over. No matter how much I'd love to experience that again, I can't. Epic weapons should always be the best they should have continued them. They should have forced players to trade in the tunnels still, that was a huge part of the game. They should have never made lvling up so easy. It used to take weeks to hit a lvl. 60 took years. I honestly think they should remake Eq classic. Same exact game with updated graphics. Same everything, same quests, same mobs, same maps, same dungeons, and same grind it used to be. I would love to experience the heart of eq all over again in an updated engine. Give us a game that could take years to get to the max level. Because when you do that, like Eq once did, every level you achieve made you feel like you accomplished something great. Now you can buy a lvl 80, you can buy Kronos and sell them for plat, there is no challenge in Eq.
Try a tlp, its not like classic, but its way better than live.
EQ p99 and vanilla wow are peak mmo
Eqoaf was greatest gaming experience ever... so wish was on Console again😢
Are you referring to live EQ servers or classic servers like p99?
Honestly all the things you have said about Everquest are real and evident on Ultima Online more so than EQ. Ultima was the first mmorpg I ever played and I always go back to it after extended breaks. UO was also before EQ and there has never been a game that even comes close to it.
Except nobody plays UO anymore. Sorry it's no comparison, EQ has continued to grow and improve through the years
I still can’t decide if I prefer EverQuest or Final Fantasy XI. Both games are fantastic and both offer a wonder feeling of adventure that modern mmos just do not do.
join project quarm best server ever!
I heard Quarm is pretty sweet.
@@karlolson1871 I tried it out, just basically an LFG waiting room that is heavily policed.
Everquest is hard and easy at the same time. Mechanically, the amount inputs you need to make, and decisions per minute of combat is drastically lower than any more modern MMO outside of a few classes. The difficulty of the game is that its slow, and it punishes you like hell for messing up or being too near someone else messing up. The beauty of that dynamic though is it creates this shared world feeling where the players are given the tools to mitigate the pitfalls of the game, but never all of them completely on their own. The world forces you to work with other people to really experience the good aspects of its class and player interactions, and ultimately, for the most part, it makes that experience feel rewarding whether its helping someone else, or finally completing that epic quest. If you enjoy leveling, and chatting with people, its an amazing game to chill out to with some music and maybe a little longbottom leaf.
But.... there's always a but, it has a hilarious amount of jank and the end game content is a poop show. Most raid encounters have simple tactics, and it's just a number game really, not a quality one. You aren't looking for the best people to fill your raid, or even good people, but anyone that has a pulse and won't actively sabotage you is more than good enough for most roles. And if you are looking to get bis, get in line, its going to be years and years of raiding in the same guild. I would never suggest anyone play on p99 to do it for the end game content unless they really are in it for the long haul. Quarm is the best place to go if you don't mind the playing with custom rules and content, but even that will be a journey, but much more manageable.
@@zaatas beautifully said!
sorry for the expansions i have played, I never really felt like EQ was not very hard the mobs are just over powered compared to other games. I mean at least not on a technical level, I feel like nothing in EQ is as hard as like a mythic raid in WOW or high-level M+ dungeons in WOW
Hey just writing to let you know that I think your audio setting might be a bit low compared to other videos.
@@CharlieJapan thanks for letting me know!
Everquest is the best MMO game ever. But imagine if the Japanese made it. . .
They did.
It's called Final Fantasy XI.
The team who made it, played EQ for a year, took notes, and brought lots of ideas from EQ to FFXI.
Waiting realtime for the airship.
Waiting real-time on the ride.
Requiring you to play in a group.
All classes in FFXI gets a class specific weapon at level 40. You have to go on a quest to get it. This was also inspired in EQ.
And believe me when say, FFXI was the best MMO ever, because EQ was the best game ever.
75 cap era, though.
You would have to play on a private server to get an authentic experience of ffxi.
Nice video.
I stole EQ from Walmart back in '00 and installed it at school and played it.
Ruins of Kunark❤
@@KIL0 I got really into FFXIV a couple years back but saw a bit about FFXI. I’d love to give it a try one of these days
@@dessius it has a great private server scene that gives the classic level 75 cap experience, FFXI horizon server still has 2k to 3k active players primetime.
It really is a JRPG take on everquest, even the gear stats and menus looks similar. It's also wild that the games only came out 3 years apart because FFXI looks way better especially for a 20 year old game.
Its a great game, my favorite as well.
Anything can happen
which server is this?
EQ used to be a great game. Why I quit: I played for 24 years and had lifetime account. But the Bots got too bad, so I petitioned . 12-36 player Bots camped all the popular spots and preventing our huge raid. When I submitted a complaint they banned my lifetime account (not the bots). That's crazy... so chargedback $780 and quit. For other players who are fed up with the bots and the horrible GM rule enforcement, make sure to chargeback as much as you can ASAP because you can only go back so far... but be aware its a one way trip (whatever company owns Everquest won't let you back without paying).
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Why never port over even vanilla graphics to iOS I will never understand
Diversity section. BALANCED, all other games aim for "BALANCED" effing gameplay between classes. Which makes everything suck.
you should try Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, it is exactly the same old crap as EQ but it is kind of new crap, so extra crappy i guess
Best game of all time.....sucks being an adult and having no free time, I pray it's still playable when I retire!!!!
The biggest problem with EQ is class balancing. Warriors can't hold Agro, Rangers are almost useless, Wizards are the worst caster class and the most OP class in the game is the Bard. A lot of the quests require hours or even days of camping for an item drop and unequal experience zones which cause over crowding in some areas while others are dead. These were issues that were never truly addressed and the game lost a lot of players within a few expansions. There's a lot of nostalgia in EQ, but it has been surpassed in terms of playability and fun.
It’s going to be hard to recreate the original eq feel. As modern games have adopted easy game play. Most players can’t handle even a little toughness. Hence WOW.
This is true. I got my mmo feet wet through Final Fantasy XIV and its been really hard getting off of those qol features the game has. Still is a hard challenge for me.
It's interesting, a game like Elden Ring has what I would call a little toughness to it. The difficulty is different, going back over and over to some area or defeat some boss. It isn't like EQ. I always wonder what if From Software tried to make a game like Everquest. I think that could be amazing
EverQuest was a time sink, why did regeneration have to be so slow when out of combat? Spending days camping quest items... EverQuest has a special place in my heart, but it wasted way to much of my time.
it was meant to be a social game that you played with others. the downtime was intentional so you didn’t feel rushed and could spend time talking to your group mates.
there is the dying and losing all your stuff .. that's why i quit EQ .. also the lose days worth of xp for dying and not getting a full rez
... lol. Just... just lol. Im sorry, I cant even watch this video. Anyone who tries to claim with any form of seriousness that a game that requires 150+ buttons on a "UI" and 329842039487203948723408923057234897053928475 "AA"s to compete on busted servers that barely function and with a team that hasnt had an original idea since 2014..
yeah.. you need to sit down and be quiet.
unfortunately, blue server is kinda dead, 300ish players usually, more on the weekends though.
Yeah, green would probably be the best one to start on.
I've played EQ a lot over the years, especially over the last 4 years in particular. Wow is a better MMO. Sorry. EQ suffers from a horrible UI lack of class balance and too many botters/PLer's, no originality just the same shit recycled every year.
No, not even close.
Mind explaining why you think this? The video voice explained why they feel why they do.
lolol this is a bunch of cope
Its cope to have an opinion that differs from the mindless masses? I guess its cope then. Opinion hasn’t changed though.
Baldurs gate 3 is the best
Sure there are 10 reasons its the worst game of all time.
5 Reasons why its not :
1. Eq is not hard, its tedious with a pinch of kick in the nuts.
2. LFG waiting simulator.
3. There is so little going on, you need addons + different UI to keep stuff interesting (Mouse view,Dps meter-Maps-Numbers on bars-Xp/hour, ect...)
4. Weakest endgame content of any MMO. Raids and so on are just awfull.
5. I could go after weak graphics, or after their publisher ( Sony OE 😂, DayBreak🤢 ), but the game is sooo good, you have to stop within 4 expensions, because it become way too good.
Not to say... its kinda weird to claim the best MMO on an EMU server. Project Quality of life changed the game so much, That white High elf chik about to be a Hard Black Erudite.
Naw.
1. Yeah it is. There's some pretty annoying and complex group content / raid content.
2. Nobody uses LFG anymore, clearly you havent played in ages. You group with guildies.
3. Nope. still use base UI you dont need anything else.
4. Naw disagree. Wow had some of the most boring stupid raids.
5. lol. ok. this one doesn't event make sense.
Def kind of stupid to be using Emulators as the metric for why its good. agree there.
if you dont play live then you dont play eq
I would like to get in touch with my old EQ friends, my name was Bendanx on Sullon Zek, then Zek.. anyone how was there gimme a shout.
The Quarm community is really lackluster at best. The grouping into the 50s is really not there. Emulated EverQuest servers are the same cliques of friends. Same EverQuest day different EverQuest server.
I was a op shadow knight.