Why was EverQuest so hard?

Based-aerie-peak · September 7, 2019, 5:41pm

I see people say all the time that vanilla WoW was a cakewalk compared to EQ. Why is this? What was so hard about EverQuest?

Lyri-westfall · September 7, 2019, 5:42pm

Because death caused you to lose XP. And other players could loot your corpse. lol

Shlendra-bloodsail-buccaneers · September 7, 2019, 5:42pm

and
corpse runs.

Halftrack-stalagg · September 7, 2019, 5:46pm

Also some quests required you to farm an item that dropped from one mob that had a respawn timer of 12+ hours and only one player could loot it.

Literally some kids were committing suicide over this back in the day.

Azula-grobbulus · September 7, 2019, 5:47pm

EQ wasn’t hard compared to FFXI.

Grimnir-fairbanks · September 7, 2019, 5:47pm

Also you better have paid attention to where you died, or you might never find your body.

Evawyn-sargeras · September 7, 2019, 5:47pm

I was playing Sims Online the first time I hear about Everquest (dont judge it was fun).
It was called Evercrack and I thought to myself, well that’s certainly something I need to stay away from!
So I went to play WoW instead /sigh.

Plopss-smolderweb · September 7, 2019, 5:47pm

Your gear stayed on your corpse in EQ, which meant you had to try to get it back with NO gear

If you were dead at the bottom of a dungeon, good luck with that. If you couldn’t get your corpse back in a few days, the body would poof and there went all your gear. People would cancel travel plans because they died in EQ and couldn’t get their body before they had to leave

Also, only 2 classes in the game could solo to max lev (slowly and painfully), everyone else HAD to group past a certain point. The mobs became basically unkillable solo

Tuskamus-area-52 · September 7, 2019, 5:49pm

I actually played the project 1999 version of EQ in the weeks leading up to Classic release to pass the time. I literally died to the first mob I pulled. Little level 1 snake. I could not have found any easier enemy in the entire game… and it killed me.

For a broader answer to your question, it is much harder in EQ to solo and it requires a LOT more experience to level. It is insanely grindy. When you die, you get sent back to what is basically your hearth location and you have to run back to your corpse to get all your loot back. You aren’t a ghost doing this btw, you are just you… naked with no armor or weapons… and you are very vulnerable.

You also lose experience when you die. You can lose levels.

It’s pretty brutal. Still fun though in a sick sort of way.

anon86073527 · September 7, 2019, 5:50pm

LOL that’s messed up !!! the negative XP factor def could scare me into paying attention to everything around me

Eilis-kelthuzad · September 7, 2019, 5:50pm

Being forced to group to do anything is what killed it for me.

I don’t mind grouping for dungeons/raids and the occasional hard quest. I don’t mind grouping with others working on the same quests to make it easier.

But I didn’t like being forced to group to do anything past a certain level.

Edit: I did think the slowing down your run speed the fuller your bags got was pretty funny though

anon86073527 · September 7, 2019, 5:51pm

uh…it’s a MMORPG…there’s zelda on N64 if you like to play solo ?

Thamior-kirtonos · September 7, 2019, 5:52pm

No in game map, no compass, lose do when you die, no way to tell what lvl a mob is a lvl 30 mob could be in a newbie zone so your constantly “/con” everything, and no set path you have to /hail NPCs for quests and then interact in say chat using key phrases to actually get the quest, did I mention no quest log? Get a note pad and pen or pencil ready! Lol Vanilla was the casual answer at the time to EQ

Woopee-mankrik · September 7, 2019, 5:52pm

Reading comprehension, Magickjakk. Reading comprehension.

Paeldryth-hyjal · September 7, 2019, 5:53pm

Unlike Vanilla, EQ had extremely punishing deaths.

The gameplay wasn’t necessarily hard, but oh boy did it kick you in the balls if you died.

Thamior-kirtonos · September 7, 2019, 5:53pm

Oh and no instanced content plus corpse runs when you die if you can’t recover your corpse in a week (which happens) kiss all your hard earned gear goodbye.

Eilis-kelthuzad · September 7, 2019, 5:53pm

Yes, but does that mean that you have to group to do anything in the game?

Sometimes you just want to do your own thing for a bit. It wasn’t always possible in that game.

Karckus-turalyon · September 7, 2019, 5:53pm

Lol, well, yeah. If nobody you knew was on, then yeah, you were better off just going to play a different game, like Zelda.

Plopss-smolderweb · September 7, 2019, 5:53pm

Pvp in EQ was unfortunately completely busted however. Some classes like bard couldn’t kill anyone but were completely unkillable (could out-run everything). And if a character stacked magic resist they could become untouchable to spell casters lol

Tuskamus-area-52 · September 7, 2019, 5:54pm

I feel like this is a troll. Everyone plays solo in MMORPG’s at some point, often the majority of the time.