500k in 1999-2002 or whenever it was is actually an incredible accomplishment. We're talking about an entirely different generation of gamer, and back before WoW PC Gaming was seen almost entirely as a nerd-fest. Toss in the number of people around the world that began to be able to both gain access to broadband, and access to better PCs, and it's downright surprising that they got that many back then.

Gaming in general used to be a particularly small industry even back in the early 90's. The constant upgrades to graphics, sound, technology, and genre-bending continues to add appeal to people who would have never imagined picking up a pixelized Super Mario Bros.

Respect to Tali for the apology.

do you realize that we have been talking A LOT more about EQ than WOW over the past two-three weeks (this thread has been a lot more active...)

We talk about what is worth talking about. Those still plugging away at WoW will perhaps talk about it a bunch again in a year when Blizzard starts considering adding another expansion.

Yeah, it even encouraged my dumb ass to resub. I spent yesterday getting my ui set up and purchasing gear for my warrior in the bazaar and will most likely activate my cleric today after work.

I figure in the worst case, I'll have a ready-made group of my two toons (doubt I will reactivate my other accounts yet) and their two mercs. If getting groups that are willing to take the time for me to relearn the game is too difficult, I'll reactivate a third account and have a group of six including that char's merc.

With all the xp potions, and vet AAs, I doubt leveling from 80 to 85 will take long at all.

Well, there isn't much to talk about when it comes to WoW.

Uldar will be hot for a while, then nothing more than a 1 day clear and people will stop logging in except for that one day a week. Then they will add in another single zone that will take its place.

The cycle will repeat itself for another 1 and a half to two years.

WoW is soo stale, its not worth talking about anymore And patch 3.1 won't change anything too. I'm looking towards BioWare to have a great replacement to WoW with their take on Star Wars (a replacement FOR ME XSKY, not as the MMO King!). I just hope its as story driven as they are saying. If so, it will be a great game indeed.

It was actually the 3rd pig roast

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Maybe, just MAYBE, "Heroic Ulduar" (Doing everything hardmoded!) will be interesting and not be pugged in a week.

wow doesnt churn out enough content imo. eq had awesome expansions that had a huge learning curve every 6 to 12 months. with blizz perfecting a technology like they have with scripting and interaction and difficulty you figure theyd focus on adding simply more zones and instances with an expansion without a level cap upgrade and reworking a bunch of shit. they really need to implement aas too, so players have another tangible reason to play.

What guilds are still playing? I need to find some people to play with!

PS: Thanks for the apology Ele, long time coming but worth it.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

I honestly think a big part of the problem was that they chose to use a Pre-TBC zone as their first and only raid zone.

TBC, for example, had a lot of interesting content and it was enough to keep all but the most hardcore players striving for something. Karazhan was practically a big collection of different and interesting fights. (before it became a badge farm, that's all most people remember.)

I'm hoping - really hoping - that future raid instances will better showcase what Blizzard is capable of.

Part of the issue is that 25-man Naxx churns out too much loot. People get done with it too quickly. It's hard to want to go back with new folks when you have people doing stupid shit like pulling a niche of KT trash with chain lightning.

It's not just that...it's also that you can pretty much hit 80 and start equipping best-in-slot items right away. Some classes are worse than others about it.

With so much hard-mode stuff (Even though I'm not necessarily a fan of hard-mode stuff.) perhaps it won't be so pathetically easy to gear a character out right away.

I think I'd go back to Vanguard before going back to EQ. One thing I don't miss is hitting autoattack, then proceeding to press 2 buttons every 30 seconds =p

I dunno Sarissa, at least the chain lightning KT pulls make things interesting for the 5 seconds it takes a raid to aoe the shit down. Phase 1 is just such a borefest. I would have liked to see it in the original Naxxramas, I'm guessing there was more action.

Yeah, last time I did Naxx 25 we just did the 18 abom achievement just because sitting around and waiting for KT to come out was too damn boring.

Sure wasn't. Just as boring. Only you didn't have an achievement to pull stuff and you probably wiped since it was more difficult.

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This thread brought to you by a tremendous dickhead!

Yeah, but you could watch TV while you raided-- and didn't have that damn voice chat buzzing in your ears, either.

Naxx-40 was almost as boring as AQ-40. So many people quit over it.

I don't think EQ has enough "action" for me. WAR, has too much going and it's pretty much encapsulates what i've been preaching in PvP for the past few years.

If I were to ever resub, I would have to go EQMac. PoP was the last bit of fun I had. I honestly, loved the Planes. I would give anything if Luclin didn't exist. I felt like PoP and Kunark were the only expansion that had their true place in the game. Everything else you could have taken the 5% of content that was actually good from each expansion and place it in the old world instead of spreading the world out so badly.

I agree on Luclin.. but wtf, seriously, no Velious? Cmon Muligan =)

No meant Velious as well. Sorry, was unclear. Velious had some really great stuff. NToV and other raiding, plus Velks and faction grinding. I loved it.

I meant to skip Luclin and keep the big 3 (Classic, Kunark, Velious) and add PoP. That is where EQ should have just stopped and added content within...

For those who think warriors and such just hit attack and take a nap, pure melee's have a lot of disciplines now in EQ, and stamina got turned into their mana which is now endurance.

Nah warriors aren't the only class that can take a nap in EQ. There are what, maybe 5 different abilities that require timing in the entire game? That factor is downright laughable in every respect compared to WoW.

a 10 yr old combat system tends to become laughable, but I don't really enjoy the spam clicking WoW has to offer either.

Yep, EQ2 is similar too. Spam your abilities, wait for them to refresh, and rinse/repeat.
I quite enjoyed most things about EQ2, but the combat was absolutely horrific. Mobs ran at light speed to you once aggroed; combat became a matter of "whack-a-mole"; etc. Zzzzz...

EQ1 has an old combat system, sure, but it still has certain mechanics that still put it above most other games.
Being able to teleport, levitate, snare, root, fear, mez, charm, DD, DoT, run at light speed, etc. opened up a wealth of various combat strategies that simply don't exist in a lot of modern MMOs.

I agree with this, and I agree EQ2 is a spam-ability-fest, but I would highly disagree with any notion that WoW is just spamming, especially when it comes to higher-end encounters and rotations. Many abilities are quite situational, whereas in EQ2 you may as well have been able to faceroll your keyboard over about 40 different DPS abilities that all did almost the same thing.

There are a number of things that appeal to me about EQ, but the combat system was probably near dead last. The one thing I will give it props for it was the crowd control system and the necessity of clever CC and pulling. I'm not sure if I would place pulling technique under "combat", but CC probably. But DPSing, healing, or tanking? Tanking was tolerable to a degree, but mostly all borefests.

If WoW is whackamole, then EQ1 was Whack1or2molesthenafk.

I'm not sure who's more vomit inducing - you or Cicely.

Warlocks/Mages can teleport, Priests can levitate (Shamans can walk on water), most classes have a snare (they simply don't last ~2 minutes), Druids can root, many can fear, various forms of crowd control are similar to 'mez', Priests/Warlocks can charm, everyone has DDs and DoTs and Rogues/Druids have sprint.

Again this isn't a post to try and prove that 'omg, EQ sux', just that people still continue to look back on it with rose-colored glasses.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

They can, but compared to EQ crowd control is practically useless.

Right now it is, yes.

I doubt that will be the case in Ulduar.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Those comparisons aren't even remotely the same.

Priests can levitate, but you won't be levitating between two hills nuking the hapless warrior who ran down into the valley between them. Nor can you really fool mobs with it, either.

Most classes have snares, but again, it's a very limited application. You (generally) will not find kiting to be a highly effective strategy the way it could be in EQ.

Fear, eh, I suppose it's somewhat comparable.

Crowd Control in WoW is sort of a joke. And when it's not a joke, it feels very..artificial. Sure, that mage can sheep one mob out of that 4-pull. But rarely - if ever - will you see a crowd-handing situation the way you saw in EQ. It's all very pre-packaged, pre-planned and only being able to CC one thing at a time is boring anyway.

All in all, there is simply no denying that developers have been FAR more restrictive with their content than EQ was. In fact, I'm sure most developers would be happy with their combat being Final Fantasy style, where you can't "cheat" your way through with terrain, movement, clever use of mechanics, etc. Just you vs. mob, fight!

Sure, EQ's style resulted in a lot of insane things (Hi Bard swarm kiting.) but it was all very interesting. I remember there were always threads on boards from people asking for help on strategies and such. (How do you swarm kite? How do you solo the gargoyles in PoN? Etc etc.) And I just don't see a lot of that in WoW. It revolves more around how to best stack stats and gear and theorycrafting the numbers of it all.

I never understood why people thought enchanters were so hard to play. More boring than hard.

Not quite sure what it is about EQ. I've played a considerable amount of MMOs, but for some reason I go back to EQ and always have the most fun.

The only thing I can think of is the community..something that feels nonexistant in most other games. I'm sure there is more to it than that, but to me I think it's what draws me back each time. Friends I have made, and new friends I make there.

I felt the same way about UO, but then I realized it was the time and the place and the people. I went back sometime a couple years ago and it just wasn't the same.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I'm hoping me =) Some of Cicely's posts actually have some merit to them. My theory is that they're usually one paragraph too long and you lack the patience and/or comprehension to read them. 95 percent of the time, objections come without intelligent response, and I think that's about all the info we need.

If it's any comfort, the feeling is mutual with most of your posts. Most of the time, particularly when you manage to make post consisting or more than one line in a political discussion, I get the same feeling I get when I read a 10-year-old's epic essay.

Bov - Couldn't agree more on the diverse abilities that EQ had to offer when it came to crowd control(I think that encompasses fears, snares, etc as well). I think the question for me is, when you get down to the nitty gritty combat, which is better?

Come raid time, most classes in EQ could very easily afk. CC is really the one saving grace EQ had to offer with its combat system. When it came to actually killing a target down, it was button mashing. Rotation? Timing? Interrupts? Defensive abilities? Laying off? What's that?

I think part of the problem is that EQ had almost nothing but tank and spank encounters. You didn't need to lay off a target because there was a huge wave of adds coming, or a big AOE you needed to avoid(for the most part), or because you got thrown into the belly of a huge eyebeast called Cthun. Encounters are what makes combat in WoW great, and with the exception of Molten Core, almost every boss has something that makes the encounter more than tank and spank.

The challenge in EQ was almost purely timesink and numbers games. "Does your tank have enough HP" or "does your healer have enough mana" are questions that aren't asked nearly to the degree in WoW as they were in EQ.

Anyway... I just think people should be cautious when becoming a Cicely. EQ was a good game, but to go back and play it now is just nostalgia talking and of the same ilk as people clamoring for Vanilla WoW servers.

I'll agree that old EQ content was simplistic compared to WoW, but again lets be fair and remember how old it was. Things also improved a little as expansions went on.



I couldn't disagree more here. Sure, EZNaxx has let people be a little lazy with it, but for the most part WoW is a huge numbers game. Much more than EQ.

You talk about, "Does your tank have enough HP?" in EQ, but in WoW it's, "Does the tank have enough HP? What's his EH? Is he defense capped? How's his avoidance, is he just going to mana sponge the healer? And how's the healer's spell power? Does he have the MP5/Spirit/Whatever to last through the encounter? Is the Rogue hit capped? Using the optimal speed off-hand for poison application? Got enough crit/haste to put out DPS so we don't hit the enrage timer?" and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm glad that Blizzard has been making DPS rotations more complex though, that's a big improvement IMO.

So yeah, I don't know how you can say that those questions aren't asked nearly as much in WoW. The only reason it might seem like that right now is that the content was made so damn easy that you can hit 80 and do Naxx 25 right away, but the numbers and questions are still there.

There are more variables, yes, but it's less of a pure numbers game because most encounters are not tank and spank. It doesn't matter how many hit points you have if you hit a void zone on KT. It doesn't matter how much mana your healers have if everyone hits a lava wave and a few void zones on Sarth. It doesn't matter how much dps you have if you cannot avoid charges on Thaddius.

That is a rather large portion of HOW those encounters are balanced: Can you perform "X" outside of your character sheet? EQ's encounters were balanced and tuned specifically around statistics - and some people will remember some of the incredibly LONG encounters where you sat staring at the boss's percentage 1 tick by 1 tick. That's because it was balanced around longevity and stats. "How do we make a mob harder? Give him more hp. Make him hit harder." And later on it became "Give him more funky AOE to heal and cure through". That was about it for EQ until PoP and even until GoD.

A lot of the numbers game really exploded in this expansion though. People are bored, the content is easy and now they have nothing to nitpick except stats. It's gotten to where folks want damn near a resume just to get in a group. It's gotten silly.

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

I was always annoyed with the "every time the dragon farts, all your buffs go away"

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Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Yeah, that gets old fast. Even though I pretty much have all the achievements, it still annoys the crap out of me to hear those people go on and on about wanting you to link them, and give your stats, and explain your spec and blah blah blah.

I finally just joined a guild. I couldn't stand puggies anymore.

Yes, because I make my point quickly, whereas you require 6 paragraphs of inanity. Got it.

Carry on!

Heh, certainly I could cut down here and there, but when it comes to something as subjective as enjoyment of a combat system I think a little detail is in order. I prefer to give some reasons instead of just saying "it sucks".

More interesting anyway, I've taken a few thoughts away with me from the back and forth particularly from what Bovinity has had to say.

Draconi: I remember that well. Looking back, the whole situation was ridiculous. But at the time, I was livid. And it takes a lot to get me that way, even more back then than it does now. In retrospect, some of it was posturing and some of it was unnecessarily defensive because it was my tactics that led to the incident.

Ele: You just made me spit laughing by mentioning Feldarzin. I totally forgot about him. How did we keep him for so long when his name was turned into a synonym for incompetence?

Jeka: I remember lots of conversations about that. It was always an equation of some sort. What role would it serve? At the end of each, you just didn't have enough weight on your side.

Although there were a lot of Visions members I held in high regard, I was really disgusted with what I saw shaping up with Sigil. I blame myself for not actively campaigning against Cad's command of the guild. I was so burnt out; I didn't have that fight left in me and assumed someone else would make the case, but it didn't happen. I assume Ele felt the same way. Watching their officers forums was an exercise in masochism.You said it, brother.

Very artificial? What does that even mean?

We all remember the time when our favorite Enchanter 'controlled' all of AM/Hand/Lord/Disco/Kitchen at once and were wowed by it but you quickly forget how fun things were without an enchanter.

Like I've already said, Verant/Sony didn't do 'restrictive' as you label it because they didn't care. They didn't care that only a select few classes could solo 'well' and the remaining classes were forced to group, they didn't care that the harder camps all but required an Enchanter to manage the volume of adds.

For all the 'open design' you fondly remember about Everquest, you can be confident that there was often someone on the other side of the time who remembered it as the exact opposite.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Meaning that the few times when it's beneficial to CC things, it feels like it was basically planned out that you would do so. Rather than, "Oh shit, train, try to control it." it's usually, "Ok, here's where you sheep the one guy, remember?"



I have no doubt. In fact, given the success of WoW, I'm sure there's 100 people for every one of me that enjoyed the open-design.

I see what you're getting at but I think it's a product of the people and groups you run with. I can appreciate that with the inclusion of raid symbols it enables already careful people to go the next step and plan everything , ie. sheep star, sap moon, fear square, etc. But if you group with a 'stronger' bunch of players, I think it's a more casual approach, pull group A, sheep if you want, oops group B added, now we need to actually CC.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Wow, so many good memories and familiar faces after reading this thread. Being apart of FL was probably the best time I have ever had in any game. The sad part is that it was easily followed by the worst time I ever had in Sigil. It was fun for awhile, but like everyone said it quickly turned into a cesspool of mediocrity.