https://www.pcgamer.com/breaking-th...of-everquest-the-mmo-that-changed-everything/
25 years old, it's still the best game! Hard to describe. TLDR is imagine Skyrim but far better, far deeper, far more advanced, multiplayer, and they did it 25 years ago.
First person view, very immersive RPG, amazing locations, loot, progression, mobs, and magic. Lots of not so great ideas too, and very grindy and time consuming. But the intent was to force people to play together. Group size is 6 people and if you have the right classes, there is very little downtime. Getting a group of 6 good people was not bad when the game was new. It got harder as time went on though.
The game was designed for 6 people working together well, so when you explore the world by yourself, it is super dangerous. Enemies can kill you in seconds because they are tuned for 6. Sometimes you can find weaker enemies that can be killed solo but only some classes could solo.
My first time playing, I mostly saw people running around dying. There was even a Yell button on the hotkeys which made your character yell for help from anyone nearby. People would be running around clicking that. Even in the areas where players first start, there would be high level enemies that wander through and can kill you in 1 hit. Again things like this are questionable choices, so later MMOs did away with anything dangerous and starting areas became, "newbie grounds". But EQ was not like that, it taught you to watch where you are going and watch your back. Also most enemies follow routes and routines so if you can watch an area for a while, you learn all the comings and goings. EQ rewarded people who played smart and if you died it punished you really hard.. It was more harsh than I ever would imagine making a game, but I learned so much from it. It's incredibly addictive too, because the game wipes the floor with you sometimes but there were lessons to learn from it. Eventually you rarely die because you know what's what, but it can take a long time to get good at the game because it is so complex and deep.
If you teamed up with people, the game became far easier. Warriors, Paladins, Shadowknights, they can tank enemies easily but can't do much damage. So combine someone like that with a healer and a damage dealer and you start slaughtering enemies. Bards, Mages, Enchanters, all had ways to help the group regenerate mana. So getting a full group of 6 people made you exponentially stronger than goofing around by yourself. It was also a lot of fun being with 5 other real people, talking shit.
At this point you go on adventures. There are so many amazing dungeons and places to hunt and unique enemies, loots, etc. The guy they hired todo magic they assumed would make 100 spells or so and that would be fine. But he got really into it, and spells having many different effects and different targets. And spells that reflect damage etc. In the end he had about 1000 spells in the database, and spells that put enemies to sleep in an area became the speciality of a new class called the Enchanter. The end result is the game and classes were really interesting to play and people figured out new ways to play the game that the designers never expected. The game grew to accommodate most of these things, emergent gameplay.
I think EQ would have been great anyway, but the spells and magic was really what hooked me the most. It's not like Skyrim or something where you have about 10 spells to choose from and only really use 2 most of the time. In EQ you had 100+ spells in a book, some were higher level versions of the same thing, but many unique spells and a lot of variety. And there were some other classes that had other unique spells.
The melee classes in the game were not that interesting in terms of combat, but building the class and learning how to play was a lot of fun. But for me the attraction was all about these spell caster classes, they were amazing to play. They are so physically weak that you can die in literally 2 seconds if an enemy hits you, and the game is made so that you are REALLY supposed to avoid dying at any cost. But you have a spell that can snare them so you can just run ahead of them and cast spells before they reach you. You can also cast Root which holds them in place, but it would cancel the snare. So once the Root ended the enemy would charge at you at full speed. Also Root had a random duration... could hold that enemy still for a whole minute, or it could last 1 second, and anything in between. It also had a chance to break if you cast a spell that did direct damage. Also the enemies have a chance to resist the spell in the first place. And if an enemy is hitting you, then they can interrupt your casting. Everyone dies like that, trying to Root the mob that is eating your face. But you also have that snare, and a teleport back to town, and invis, charm enemies to fight for you, put them to sleep, make them run away in fear, etc.etc. Lots of spells, but you have to make it land before the thing hits you and beats you up. Which is easier said than done. The enemies were very sneaky and plentiful. And it's not like action RPGs where you run around grabbing enemies to gank. Even 1 could kill you, and they roamed in large numbers and some a lot higher level that were impossible. You had to watch where you were going and watch your back! But as you learned the game you could master it, but it was so tough and deep it was a long fascinating road to master it. And the rewards were amazing long term, the sense of progression was off the charts compared to other RPGs.
The game really allowed you to shine too if you were better than most. The game was accommodating though, the game would suggest easy classes vs hard etc. There were older people playing the game, business owners, stay at home moms and stuff. They tended to like say a Monk or Cleric and stick with their friends/guild. Most people seemed like late teens or 20 somethings, and they could get more hardcore.
Some examples. Necromancer was known for being good at soloing, and some people could go to some big outdoor area with big enemies roaming around. The Necro casts a big damage over time (like a poison or disease) on an enemy, then casts a snare to make it move slowly, then casts Fear to make it run away in fear. But with the snare it runs away in fear slowly, and the Necro follows it casting more spells to kill it and the Necro pet kicks its ass literally as the enemy slowly runs away dying. You could make progress doing this but it was boring and repetitive and not great progress compared to going to better places. But better means harder in this game, and usually you need more people for that. But a good Necro (only maybe 10% of all Necros could do stuff like this), go to a dungeon alone and find some enemies that were strong and gave good experience / gear / money if you killed them. Usually they would be killed by groups but a Necro could if good enough. One option is using the Charm spell to make an enemy fight for you, but Necro could only do it on undead, and it was a random duration... So one second you have a pet that is 10x better than your real pet and can kick another enemy's ass for you. But a second later the spell could break and it turns on you and kills you in seconds. So you had to Charm something, then make it fight something else quickly. If charm broke fast you now had 2 enemies to kill you super fast. In that case you could cast a spell called Feign Death that made it look like you died and enemies leave you alone. But this is risky and doesn't always work and can take ages for the enemies to stop sniffing your corpse and leave. But if your charm holds, you have it fight another enemy, then you can get some distance for when the charm breaks. You can also snare or Root the enemy so if/when charms breaks you only have to deal with your former pet. If all goes well, your pet kills the other one for you and then you can let the charm end and kill your former pet who is now injured. 2 for 1. But very hard and dangerous. But that was what EQ was all about, they called it Risk vs Reward. The rewards were huge for doing the risky hard stuff, or you could take it easy and still progress through the game, but slowly and not as well. There were other ways to fight solo, other tactics, but you had to do whatever worked best.
I really loved soloing, but I think grouping was the most fun.
Actual TV trailer
History of the game (don't be put off by his hair)
25 years old, it's still the best game! Hard to describe. TLDR is imagine Skyrim but far better, far deeper, far more advanced, multiplayer, and they did it 25 years ago.
First person view, very immersive RPG, amazing locations, loot, progression, mobs, and magic. Lots of not so great ideas too, and very grindy and time consuming. But the intent was to force people to play together. Group size is 6 people and if you have the right classes, there is very little downtime. Getting a group of 6 good people was not bad when the game was new. It got harder as time went on though.
The game was designed for 6 people working together well, so when you explore the world by yourself, it is super dangerous. Enemies can kill you in seconds because they are tuned for 6. Sometimes you can find weaker enemies that can be killed solo but only some classes could solo.
My first time playing, I mostly saw people running around dying. There was even a Yell button on the hotkeys which made your character yell for help from anyone nearby. People would be running around clicking that. Even in the areas where players first start, there would be high level enemies that wander through and can kill you in 1 hit. Again things like this are questionable choices, so later MMOs did away with anything dangerous and starting areas became, "newbie grounds". But EQ was not like that, it taught you to watch where you are going and watch your back. Also most enemies follow routes and routines so if you can watch an area for a while, you learn all the comings and goings. EQ rewarded people who played smart and if you died it punished you really hard.. It was more harsh than I ever would imagine making a game, but I learned so much from it. It's incredibly addictive too, because the game wipes the floor with you sometimes but there were lessons to learn from it. Eventually you rarely die because you know what's what, but it can take a long time to get good at the game because it is so complex and deep.
If you teamed up with people, the game became far easier. Warriors, Paladins, Shadowknights, they can tank enemies easily but can't do much damage. So combine someone like that with a healer and a damage dealer and you start slaughtering enemies. Bards, Mages, Enchanters, all had ways to help the group regenerate mana. So getting a full group of 6 people made you exponentially stronger than goofing around by yourself. It was also a lot of fun being with 5 other real people, talking shit.
At this point you go on adventures. There are so many amazing dungeons and places to hunt and unique enemies, loots, etc. The guy they hired todo magic they assumed would make 100 spells or so and that would be fine. But he got really into it, and spells having many different effects and different targets. And spells that reflect damage etc. In the end he had about 1000 spells in the database, and spells that put enemies to sleep in an area became the speciality of a new class called the Enchanter. The end result is the game and classes were really interesting to play and people figured out new ways to play the game that the designers never expected. The game grew to accommodate most of these things, emergent gameplay.
I think EQ would have been great anyway, but the spells and magic was really what hooked me the most. It's not like Skyrim or something where you have about 10 spells to choose from and only really use 2 most of the time. In EQ you had 100+ spells in a book, some were higher level versions of the same thing, but many unique spells and a lot of variety. And there were some other classes that had other unique spells.
The melee classes in the game were not that interesting in terms of combat, but building the class and learning how to play was a lot of fun. But for me the attraction was all about these spell caster classes, they were amazing to play. They are so physically weak that you can die in literally 2 seconds if an enemy hits you, and the game is made so that you are REALLY supposed to avoid dying at any cost. But you have a spell that can snare them so you can just run ahead of them and cast spells before they reach you. You can also cast Root which holds them in place, but it would cancel the snare. So once the Root ended the enemy would charge at you at full speed. Also Root had a random duration... could hold that enemy still for a whole minute, or it could last 1 second, and anything in between. It also had a chance to break if you cast a spell that did direct damage. Also the enemies have a chance to resist the spell in the first place. And if an enemy is hitting you, then they can interrupt your casting. Everyone dies like that, trying to Root the mob that is eating your face. But you also have that snare, and a teleport back to town, and invis, charm enemies to fight for you, put them to sleep, make them run away in fear, etc.etc. Lots of spells, but you have to make it land before the thing hits you and beats you up. Which is easier said than done. The enemies were very sneaky and plentiful. And it's not like action RPGs where you run around grabbing enemies to gank. Even 1 could kill you, and they roamed in large numbers and some a lot higher level that were impossible. You had to watch where you were going and watch your back! But as you learned the game you could master it, but it was so tough and deep it was a long fascinating road to master it. And the rewards were amazing long term, the sense of progression was off the charts compared to other RPGs.
The game really allowed you to shine too if you were better than most. The game was accommodating though, the game would suggest easy classes vs hard etc. There were older people playing the game, business owners, stay at home moms and stuff. They tended to like say a Monk or Cleric and stick with their friends/guild. Most people seemed like late teens or 20 somethings, and they could get more hardcore.
Some examples. Necromancer was known for being good at soloing, and some people could go to some big outdoor area with big enemies roaming around. The Necro casts a big damage over time (like a poison or disease) on an enemy, then casts a snare to make it move slowly, then casts Fear to make it run away in fear. But with the snare it runs away in fear slowly, and the Necro follows it casting more spells to kill it and the Necro pet kicks its ass literally as the enemy slowly runs away dying. You could make progress doing this but it was boring and repetitive and not great progress compared to going to better places. But better means harder in this game, and usually you need more people for that. But a good Necro (only maybe 10% of all Necros could do stuff like this), go to a dungeon alone and find some enemies that were strong and gave good experience / gear / money if you killed them. Usually they would be killed by groups but a Necro could if good enough. One option is using the Charm spell to make an enemy fight for you, but Necro could only do it on undead, and it was a random duration... So one second you have a pet that is 10x better than your real pet and can kick another enemy's ass for you. But a second later the spell could break and it turns on you and kills you in seconds. So you had to Charm something, then make it fight something else quickly. If charm broke fast you now had 2 enemies to kill you super fast. In that case you could cast a spell called Feign Death that made it look like you died and enemies leave you alone. But this is risky and doesn't always work and can take ages for the enemies to stop sniffing your corpse and leave. But if your charm holds, you have it fight another enemy, then you can get some distance for when the charm breaks. You can also snare or Root the enemy so if/when charms breaks you only have to deal with your former pet. If all goes well, your pet kills the other one for you and then you can let the charm end and kill your former pet who is now injured. 2 for 1. But very hard and dangerous. But that was what EQ was all about, they called it Risk vs Reward. The rewards were huge for doing the risky hard stuff, or you could take it easy and still progress through the game, but slowly and not as well. There were other ways to fight solo, other tactics, but you had to do whatever worked best.
I really loved soloing, but I think grouping was the most fun.
Actual TV trailer
History of the game (don't be put off by his hair)
Last edited: