Never played an old MMO. I'm curious about the history of it

Everquest had an interesting and established universe too with the origin of the races, the gods they were aligned to and who you could kill in the game with raid parties, the alliances between the races, and the fact that some good races had evil alignment factions hidden within cities that allied with evil races.

The problem was that all of this interesting stuff was intentionly made obscure/hidden where you had to dig for this information or it was just briefly touched upon. It's also the fact that it was great ideas that only served for fluff reasons and had no purpose whatsoever except for RP.

And honestly it makes me kind of sad that we might never see this kind of world building ever again because everything has to be streamlined and made obvious for the new-age gamers. The feels of making a Necromancer Human of Qeynos who is a follower of Bertoxxulous who has to hide from the city guards and Paladin church defenders because you could get attacked at any time for being evil aligned, and in order to find your guildmaster you had to enter into the sewers where there is a whole cult of Bertoxxulous followers.

Attached: NPC-Xeture_Demiagar.jpg (500x500, 424.42K)

>Everquest had an interesting and established universe too
He is talking about the fact that WoW already had multiple games worth of lore to work with whereas EQ had to garner interest on its own

WoW was the sequel of Warcraft 3. Once WoW had done raping all of its character (wotlk ending), people lost interest in that game as well.

one of the biggest redpills about WoW that no one wants to accept, is that Vanilla was the most normalfag friendly the game has ever been, thats why it was so successful

All blizzards games follow the same "pick a genre and 'streamline' it" formula, that is how they still exist today.

Everquest and Ultima Online both mastered immersive online roleplaying with nerds. A number of great MMOs followed suit, such as Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes/Villains, Anarchy Online...

WoW, however, saw that a certain aspect of the new genre can be abused for profit (skinner's box). Thus here we are today, where everything is about getting that next new shiny pixel, microtransactions, and soulless online soloplay.

>If a 50yo woman couldn't start the game and understand it
Flashbacks to all the Milfs who played during BC and kept sending my chad-friend pictures of their titties because they'd been starved of socialization for so long before WoW

WoW just took the groundwork EQ laid out and made it casual-friendly. Plus, Blizzard already had a massive fanbase to springboard their MMO into success.

EQ was very popular and successful given that Verant didn't have the luxuries Blizzard had.

You're supposed to group, you noob.

>Some classes work well solo, groups, and raids
>Some classes only work as one of the three
>Some classes are mediocre/bad at all 3
>Worst classes have XP penalties on top of being bad in general
Not to mention certain situations and gotcha traps for new players like putting groups of aggressive mobs inside houses indistinguishable for all the other ones around it that will run out and kill you if you get too close. Shit like that is what makes EQ a chore to play. It's admittedly way less of a game and more of an RP/social experience to its credit.

Lack of balance is what gives early games their soul.

THIS.
The universe was built properly, not just Cool story + big map + generic fantasy races = game. No, that shit was planned from big bang to launch date and they stayed true to it for the most part, up until after the Planes of Power expansion.

Hidden content was the nature of the game. I'll never forget the first time we started the game and had to figure out how to use our spells. Just that was a mystery for most players.

The game didn't hold your hand. Shit like you said, evil races and classes in good cities were a thing, but boy did you have to do things a lot harder than the others. but in return you got access to massive powers of evil later in the game. Forcing people to learn shit, or at least take some responsibility for the experience they are going to be sharing with other people is a good thing that we have missed. Now it's all handed to you, there's no mystery in it, and everyone thinks they know everything. Being "good" simply means not screwing up and having good gear.

There is nothing redeemable about modern MMOs.

Damn, this kind of person is why quest markers in Skyrim exist.

Imagine trading a unique and fulfilling experience for bumper lanes and smashing your head against the keyboard.

Ah yes if you don't like starter zones being riddled with mobs hidden behind doors and corners that will assault for 3000 damage if your character doesn't meet some certain personality check then you want the game to completely play itself. There is no in between.

Attached: walrus btfo.webm (1280x720, 2.92M)

That's what made it a great game, not a chore.
Hidden information is king in EQ, not having everything handed to you.
And yes, there was some decision-making to be done in choosing a class. You can't just take a class and play it however you want and be successful. This was a good thing because it kept the game consistent, and not watered down with people doing their own shit without giving a fuck about other people. In games like WoW, you just go quest master allllll the way up, maybe pick up some dungeons here and there for some loot you're gonna swap out in 3 levels anyway.
Rewards in Everquest were far more fulfilling. So much, in fact, that it didn't need to reply on Skinner box behavior. They went out of their way to ensure that the game was not a series of instantly-gratifying experiences, making them all the more sweet.

Holy shit LOL. I can't imagine being this terrible at video games.

>There is no in between.
Ironic coming from someone who embellishes "3000 damage" and boils down all combat to getting ambushed from a mob behind a door. If only there were a way to understand the context of the world around you, I don't know, text, words, art. Hell, maybe even a built-in tool bound to a key that gives some sort of indication of the character thinks about an NPC.

Clearly, coddled zoomers never stood a chance.

>Walk past hut in starter zone that looks the same as any other that usually have friendly npcs and vendors inside
>Get swarmed by angry mob of necromancers that one shot you
T-thanks... context clues...

Attached: file.png (441x537, 401.26K)

There are far more bullshit encounters than the heretic camp that was patched out in march 2000. Take Bugglegupp in Steamfont Mountains who would wander just up to the newbie zone kobold camp and 2 shot anyone who wasn't paying attention to their surroundings.

Zoomers can't handle shit like this in 2020.

Having a big ass troll wander around in plain view isn't nearly comparable to what is essentially a gotcha trap for anyone non-evil aligned character.

Three words for you:
>Lowest
>Common
>Denominator

Yeah, that's why it was removed in march 2000.