Is that a map in the upper right? Or some kind of cool logging program family tree like for people! It looks like a splodgy mess with these bad eyes lol.
It’s a custom map zoomed right out, so you’re looking at an entire city zone, all levels, all labels, with all major NPC names.
I could not function with that much UI happening on my screen, good lord!
I remember the fun of creating custom UI buttons that would make your character say and/or emote things prior to an action. Nothing like that had existed previously, and people were very creative with it. Any class that could pull mobs needed to program hotkeys to warn of incoming, multiples, etc… So cool.
I also loved that you could find creative ways to make platinum too. As a Barbarian Shaman I earned hundreds of plat hanging out in East/West Commons casting SoW for tips and watching the trade spam for good deals. Buy low sell high. On my Dark Elf SK I got my reputation up in Oggok early on so I could sell stuff to the vendors there for decent prices, then I would creep over to Cazic Thule and camp out in the entry hallway just over the zone line and shout “Buying FS!”. Higher level characters doing Cazic would then come unload all their Fine Steel weapons loot on me for around 1 plat per piece, and I would slowly crawl my encumbered self back to Oggok and sell it all for a 50%-100% profit. I made so much money that way in my early 20’s that I didn’t need to worry about plat for months afterward.
There will never be another experience like Everquest though. MMORPGs were in their infancy, and everything about EQ was so new, so unknown, so adventure-filled. Just travelling across a zone could be a night to remember. Groups of people gathered and did amazing things everywhere you looked, and because of the downtime involved in things like spellbooks, corpse runs, spawn camps, etc. you socialized so much more. It was a shared social experience like nothing before it and nothing after. Perhaps if they finally perfect a true virtual reality MMORPG some day it might hold the same wonder and magic, but nothing on a screen will ever recapture what I felt with Everquest.
Another fun thing I did with my neco was use the commands to speak through my pet and really fuck with the newbies in Commonlands. I’d park him and they’d come running up and try and hit him and I’d make the pet say something like “Hey! Stop hitting me! OW!” then there was the time a friend gave a beggar 2plat … in coppper … juuuuust outside reach of the bank in Iksar land.
I think second for me in game immersion is Morrowind. I modded the hell out of that and had fun building a little house somewhere.
Sorry, this is now the Everquest thread. Stop posting off topic. :-P
Asheron’s Call general chat frequently had lots of self-congratulation on how it was better than EQ.
As did Dark Age of Camelot. Even on the RP server, IIRC.
There are quite a few that have grabbed me over the years and caused me to lose track of entire weekends. Just a few highlights
MOO2: this was my first 4x game. The game style grabbed me right away and started a lifetime of love for the genre. I first played the game while staying the night at a friend’s house. He introduced me to the game as a “look at this cool thing I got for Christmas” thing. Before going to bed, he said “why don’t you give it a try?” Started playing and didn’t stop until he woke up in the morning and pointed out that I hadn’t slept yet.
Civilization 2: my MOO2 introduction caused me to buy both it and Civ 2 for my own computer at home. Civ 2 grabbed me in the same way that MOO2 did, and itself caused many a lost weekend
Everquest: This game almost ruined my life and then, later, sent my life down a wonderful path. At first it didn’t click for me and I put it aside. Then a couple of works at work were talking about it an encouraged me to try it out again. We grouped together as a Warrior, Enchanter and Cleric (me) trio. Grouping is what caused the obsession to kick in, hard. I got involved in a guild that had people on 24/7 and became a pretty in-demand healer. I’d come home from work, start playing, and wouldn’t stop until I went to sleep. Some nights, I’d forget to sleep and stumble in to work the next day. Some of the really bad lost nights, I’d be playing and not notice the time until someone from work would call to ask me where I was. Eventually it got to the point where I was put on a Performance Improvement Plan at work and was close to getting fired. The PIN woke me up and I was able to moderate my playing. I changed to a more relaxed guild that only raided on the weekends and put myself on a strict 3 hour a night gameplay restriction. In the new guild I started grouping with a set of people on a regular basis that were playing in that same general 3-hour nightly block. We became good friends and one day decided to meet in person. Things clicked in person with one of those group members, which turned in to some follow-up travel, eventually a 10-day get-away together and finally her moving to Omaha to live together. We’ve now been married for a little over 15 years.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Or, as my wife calls it “that space game again?”. This is my current “most played” game on Steam. I have to be careful with it, or a weekend melts away and I end up adding another 20 hours to the “played” counter.
There are a lot of other games that I’ve enjoyed, but didn’t quite cause me to lose track of time consistently. Horizon: Zero Dawn caused 4 hours to disappear in what felt like 20 minutes, but not sure if that’s going to rise to the ranks that the ones above have.
Everquest holds lots of wonderful memories for me too, but I gave up in the level 30’s. I wish I had played until end game now since no games have been the same since. World of Warcraft was good until they introduced cross server dungeons. Sure it fixed low pop servers and long waits, but it totally destroyed any kind of server community that was still left. Vanguard in the beta days was good too, I’d log in and do stuff with the same people.
In today’s world of organised guilds, monetisation of virtual items and short term carrot on a stick reward systems I wonder if any future MMO can come close to the magic of Everquest?
As others have mentioned Everquest forced you to work with others. You met people who were camping the same area you did and after working with a few others for the same loot, learning the same mobs, you realized who could actually learn, who was fun to hang out with and who wasn’t. It seems most the big games now are about quick runs and PVP, not community. And even though as an adult I can’t really commit to 5-6 hours a day working my way into some dungeon, it doesn’t seem like the younger group is interested in that at all either.
So you were a light player?
I worked and went to school at the same time. I was the one that said, I can’t just skip class guys, I have to go to work or I will be fired.
So you weren’t committed to the team, is what you’re saying.
Haha. You could say that which is why I never joined my sister’s raiding guild so much as hung out with them. I knew I couldn’t commit to one of those giant raids often.
I had friends in my guild who lost spouses/jobs over EQ. I worked full time and still played at least 8 hours a day on weekdays and these people were on even more than I was. Never understood it, especially the people with young kids. I loved EQ, but I really have no urge to ever be like that over a game again.
Yeah it destroyed some grades, jobs and relationships, on the other hand, a know a number of people who met their spouses and significant others in that game. They still game together, and a couple of them are the reason I keep nagging devs for pause options in MP games. If the kids need something even just during a 2 hour stint, we stop either briefly or the night. Those kids who keep getting up at night! ;-).
I think MMO’s should be a seperate immersive field since it is a social platform in the sense.
For MMO: Phantasy Star Online & Universe
I loose track of time so easily in that game between just doing missions and tradeing rare loot, or just chatting with other players.
runner ups: Vindictus, borderlands
Younger years:
Monster Rancher 2, MTV Music Maker, Disgaea
all seem like a timewarp you think 5 minutes go by and its an hour and definetly pulled all nighters with each of them with real life obligations to eventually leave too.
These days:
No Mans Sky- I literally put in 40 hours in 3 days when it launched. now excited with all the new updates to loose myself again. such a new experience that no other game has come close to.
still trying to find a new mmo to get lost in
Lot of games I’ve just flat out loved over the years. The Gold Box games. The Wing Commander series. Civilization. Various Star Wars games from Dark Forces (?) to X-Wing/Tie Fighter to KOTOR. Elder Scrolls. Baldur’s Gate. On and on and on.
But as much as I loved those games, I never continually lost time to them. Oh, maybe the first night I installed and played it, but never continually lost hours where I had no idea what time it was. Except for one game.
The original X-Com.
Started with ‘just one more day to research something’, then ‘have to get through this battle’ to ‘end of the month and new funding is almost here’ and on and on. There were many a sleep-starved day at work the following day, and probably a few sick days in there as well. And Terror From The Deep came close, but nothing ever sucked hours of my life away w/o me noticing like the original. I actually doubt it could happen again.
^^This. No contest in my case either. There is no second place, but rather a band of games I cannot properly rank without feeling I’m being unfair-- among those are the original Thief, HOMM2 and Ultima: Underworld.
I didn’t expect it, but Albion Online has the old EQ/UO/AC/DAoC magic. I’d give it a try, if you aren’t worried about that magic becoming a problem.