Live modern EQ1 would dominate wow...
 

If it was way less grindy. Had a catchup mechanic. And older content could be more easily solo exploreded.

if EQ came out today, it would be considered indie trash.

So you want WoW, brilliant thinking there.

Edit: No but to address your post, it wouldn't work. It would be a different game and would fall in line with the inspirations of WoW. It is hard to escape the gravity of its black hole.

The level designers in EQ are still the best. Basically what makes or breaks an MMO are those textured rocks and little beds and campfires in the goblins homes.

Only because EverQuest was the first big 3d mmo. You can't account for EQ being first 3d popular mmo if it came out today.

You'd also see UO being an a bigger influence. Because the eq team and wow team admitted they took several nods from UO.

UO was the first big mainstream mmo.

Before that you had aol neverwinter nights.

Meridian 59 as well.

But I would point out that thinking "would dominate wow" would only lead to being some hand-me-down version of it. It has made itself into the most convenient that gameplay is judged by it (Op).

I judge games by EQ, all fall short. They can't "Get the spices right"



My point takes place when you consider that computer games took a back seat to multiplatforming, WoW might be the last 'Big' Windows game. You couldn't find that on a console.

With Windows 11 sporting Android Apps it doesn't paint a good looking future. "Don't you all have Desktops?"

I highly doubt it, especially with modern gamers. EQ was great largely due to the mystique the game had, stuff like youtube and wiki would absolutely destroy that effect.

Name one modern 3d mmorpg that has visual paperdoll gear on the characters and monsters (weapons). How big is the item database, 25,000+? Best MMO ever hands down, none are in the same ballpark.

What are you talking about lol.

Im pretty sure you can start with a character boosted to like level 85, buy XP potions, get double XP aas and a ton of other tools like defiant gear to get you "good enough" until high level group content.

This. I boxed 2 chars from level 1 to 115ish on live

If you want to pay $15/mo (insane for a game this old), it unlocks the highest tier of merc. If you wanted to box 2 chars, you could literally sit afk and the highest tier of tank merc with the healer merc alone would completely chew through old content without the healer merc’s mana even dropping. Even trains aren’t a problem because the highest tier of mercs don’t run (the lower tiers do run from too many adds)

Then there’s the defiant gear. We’re talking about like +10-15 per stat for every single stat on like a level 20 piece of gear. Your stats are crazy with it, the only downside is the weapon ratios were crap if I remember right. It becomes completely obsolete eventually and is the sign of a new player if you are still wearing it past a certain level however. Oh and defiant gear has a chance to drop from any mob in the game and is sold for dirt cheap on the bazaar

Then there’s all the things you can buy from the shop. Exp pots, clarity pots, super fast mounts. Luckily no insane gear, just transmogs

But basically the entire beginning expansions to the game were completely trivialized by mercs and defiant gear. I don’t remember ever being in danger of dying on my box duo until long after I had replaced all my defiant gear and moved into current expansion content

The only real grind on live is AA’s. I believe I had about 12,000 on each char which was all the remotely useful stuff maxed. Live did require a lot more micro with all the additional abilities and cooldowns you unlock with AA’s though

Once you got to current expansion content it became difficult. After house of Thule I believe is when mob health started taking humongous jumps to where if you didn’t have competitive group gear you could be fighting trash mobs for 20 minutes trying to chew through their health. And mobs zipped around at lightning speeds and did 5,000-10,000 damage quads so if a blue got into melee range of my casters for even a split second at level 115, my rune/shield was gone and I was dead in less time than I could hit the harmshield button