I sometimes have the conversation with my roommate (who started playing), and another buddy about the game.
I'm always speaking of it positively, but after talking about hour long corpse retrievals, or spending 30 minutes to find your way out of a city zone (assuming no maps), and some of the other things that I tend to speak of with awe and respect, I always get the response from people that don't play that rings something like "that sounds miserable why would you want to do that?"
And I acknowledge - To each his own, but I think EQ genuinely makes you work your ass off for what you have. Being a new character doesn't give you the feeling of having 100 buttons to push (especially melee classes), you have to spend some time being horrible before you can be good. I think once you get there you have that much appreciation for what you have, which turns into appreciation for others, because we're all in the same boat.
My roommate, who never had played EQ prior finds himself getting excited about silly stuff. I think two I'm remember most are "WOOO, I found the forest! (Nektulos, after wandering around trying to get out for half an hour)". and a "WOOOO, I just soloed and even and a blue and lived with 3% health." He had been running back and forth to his corpse, and that struggle made him appreciate finally whooping some ass.
So I guess in short (except for not at all), EQ is better to me because of the challenge. I feel like this challenge feeds into the closeness of the community. It attracts a generally more patient, more tolerant, more appreciative sort of crowd.
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