Why didn't EverQuest remain as popular as other old MMO's?

[Zuranthium]

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era and is in the top 70 current MMO's on that link, without even accounting for all the EMU servers, which would put it into the top 50 at least.

That said, there are definitely huge roadblocks to EQ being super popular, in the forms it has existed to date. The live version of the game is garbage and the classic version of the game has many underdeveloped aspects that weren't built upon as they should have been.

Originally Posted by Evia [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Making EQ more "accessable" is what got us modern eq, or the live servers. People suggesting casual friendly changes to EQ dont seem to realize that it destroys the magic of EQ.

Half of what makes EQ so great is the warts, the timesinks, the grind, the CR's, the struggle. The harshness of the world also makes "victory" so much sweeter.

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

[Duik]

I knew i could not devote 10hrs to a single raid week after week so i was never getting an epic or any BIS pieces.
That being said i was happy to roleplay and tradeskill (mostly useless) food/drinks or armor or spells.
A lvl 50 druid in foremans tunic and gatorscale legs is still lvl 50.
Making travel easy wrecked the world. Made it smaller.

Ya get out what you put in.

[Wakanda]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The premise of this thread doesn't make sense. EQ has remained more popular than most other games of its era

okay so let me word it like this

EverQuest was dramatically more popular than Runescape and Ultima Online in the year 2001. Why are they dramatically more popular now?

This is not a meme either BTW. I'm a 41 year old who plays WoW with a ton of 20 year olds. They all know what Ultima Online and Runescape are. But whenever I mention EverQuest, everyone is like what the hell is EverQuest? Think it was kind of telling when Asmongold raged out over Alex Afrasiabi and how he wasn't a gamer and had no clue what people wanted from an MMO... bro.. you have no idea.

[Evia]

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Timesinks/grind and a harsh play environment are very different things.

The tedious gameplay of needing to endlessly camp for items, which generally involves sitting in one spot while nothing interesting happens at all, just killing a braindead NPC or two when the timers come up, over and over and over, is not a good thing in Everquest. Similarly, that being the best way to gain levels in the game is also bad.

Making certain things more accessible is also separate from having an exciting, challenging game world. The new player experience of the game could definitely be improved, as could the quests, tradeskills, itemization in the game, etc.

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests and how "grinding mobs" as the main way to advance/level up in the game isnt great, and should include alternatives. Quests would have been excellent here, similar to how wow did it.

But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" or "accessibility" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Changing it to allure new players didnt work, and only alienated its core fan base and ruined the original game. After all, let us not forget why p99 exists in the first place.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Evia [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You make good points, especially with how EQ could improve on tradeskills and quests.
But I have to respectfully disagree that camping items or rare spawns where "nothing happens at all" needs to be fixed, or changed. Camping rare items is one of the most memorable and fun aspect of EQ. Its one of the major changes that modern mmos, such as wow, did that lost that "magic" feeling I was talking about. Camping mobs made the world feel like a "world within a world" and not just "rpg video game #233"

That feeling when you get the rare mob, or even better, when you get the rare drop...is an incredible experience. Sure, its tedious to get to that point...but thats kinda what makes it awesome. Every player knows what you likely went through to get it, and that gives it more "value" to the players.

Players quickly begin to learn about iconic items like SSOYs, fungi tunics, fbss, ect. And they dont forget it. It gives the game more lore and depth and LIFE in the "virtual world" as opposed to systems like wow where you get random green item #144, or random blue item #626. Its not until the very end game that you find "iconic" items...and even then id argue nothing in wow, or modern mmos, will ever match the prestige of items like the fungi tunic.

Anyway, I bring all this up to try and explain why i really do think the "bad" parts of EQ are part of the magic. Changing it to benefit "irl time" makes sense on paper, but has a negative impact on the way the game feels.

Indeed. Rare items are exciting because they are rare. It is thrilling to get Vulak loot, because only a few of each item on Vulak's table drops per year.

10 years of Velious and maybe 15 Vulak Axe drops per year = 150 Vuak Axes total on the server. That is a good incentive.

As you say, this is why most modern MMO's feel hollow. With instancing, everybody can get the same top tier raid loot in a fraction of the time. It isn't special.

In this day and age, people are always on their phones anyway. Now is the best time to be playing a game that you can leave up camping a mob while watching Netflix or whatever.