Really enjoyed VG... however my whole guild packed up and left for AoC (great idea!...) when things got stale, just couldn't bring myself to go back after AoC fell in a heap.

If they could boost the Australia community I would go back to my Monk and Dread Knight in a second!

Cool, I only beta tested DAoC and never played retail. Will be interesting to check it out. Is there anything like that for the original Asheron's Call by chance that someone is aware of?

Ragnarok Online is as close as it gets.

It's more pvp centric, though. Completely different view, class system, etc. too.

But as far as high-end PVE goes, it's close to EQ in difficulty.

I'm not sure if this is a joke or not. group mechanics in RO? comparable to eq? lol?

im surprised nobody suggested ffxi. im pretty sad ffxiv is so terrible

I know this wouldn't ever happen due to the fact Blizzard has WOW, but I had always hoped that they would turn Diablo into a true online world that would support 1500-2000 people. The game has a big enough fan base, and Blizzard is known to wait to put out games till they are polished. Which is something I always find anoying, putting out a game and basically using the first few months and peoples time/money to test fix their game for them, instead of doing a beta the correct way.

But since Blizzard has WOW already taking the reins for them, I dont see them putting time into another game like this for a long time and if they do its just going to be another WOW copy and be pvp/instance game.

Also I think the niche of people like us that want a game that punishes people for being dumb/making mistakes/fear of the unknown due to penalty is much smaller now. This is truely the thing that seperates EQ from any other game I have ever played. I remember never wanting to go to hate as a melee back in 2000 because I couldnt ever get out on my own, if whatever reason I needed/wanted to get off, I felt if I went up there I had to stay 6 hours or I was a worthless sob haha. My guess is that the majority of us played EQ when we were 13-22. That age group of kids now is so used to instant gradification that the player base would be tiny compared to what we had around 99. And now all those people that played 10 years ago don't have the time they did then and so most would be unable to come back to a great game like eq99.

Sadly I dont feel I will ever play a game that gave such great experiences as EQ, I hope to eat my words someday. Sorry I went off on my own tangent, but to answer the OP, never played a game as good as Everquest pre-luclin.

P.S: I didn't have a spell check on the pos notebook I was using at work and had to type fast, sorry for typos!

Holmes 50 Nerco
Gretzky 50 Ranger

Pretty much since the marriage of the gaming world and the cinematic world, no one cares about content, game-play, features, etc. Its just about what looks the flashiest and sucks the most these days apparently.

EVE online is a fantastic game, but it's definitely only for the hardest core hardcores

No joke, graphics completely ruined video games. Back in the day games actually had to be clever and engaging to sell at all, because they weren't much fun to look at. Nowadays its way too easy to just get a graphics design team to slap a spiffy looking world over a thoughtless and shoddy game design, and most folks cant tell the difference. So Call of Duty goes platinum again.

I think what's disappointed me the most in this generation of video games is the decline of the soundtrack. Outside of Bethesda games there's just not a lot of important video game music anymore. Someone please give Nobuo Uematsu a job

EXACTLY!!! In FFXI most classes could not solo at all, there was named/PH's camping, also had a moderate to high difficulty (depending on class). Was an all-around good game......

and yes ff14 is an abortion of a game that is never to be spoken of again :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2NC...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNZmz...eature=related

This game is chock full of great music and the graphics are great to boot.