Around the year 2000, after The Ruins of Kunark expansion was released, I played Everquest for 18 months. I never even reached the level cap in that time, only getting to level 42 with my druid. And I was playing a druid because that was at the time one of the classes that could at least get some xp soloing, by a technique called quad-kiting. But in general, Everquest was brutally hard, you had to be in a group even for killing regular open-world monsters, xp gain was slow, and you got brutally punished when things went wrong; that included xp and level loss, and the possibility to lose all of your gear if you died in a too dangerous spot and couldn't get your corpse back.

Today Everquest Legends releases. It is an officially licensed, authorized commercial product, based on the original Everquest. But it is far, far easier: You get to play initially 2, later 3 character classes in the same character, allowing you to solo as your very own mini-group. There is no more xp loss if you die, no more corpse runs, no more getting thrown back to a bind point several zones away if you die. It is Everquest in easy mode, for people who are at the same time nostalgic, but not willing to play the original, which still exists.

Twenty years ago I might have been interested. Today I'm not playing any MMORPGs anymore, and I'm not tempted by Everquest Legends. Although Everquest is only 5 years older than World of Warcraft, its graphics haven't aged as well. And although I liked soloable World of Warcraft much more than I liked forced grouping in Everquest, I don't think you can "fix" Everquest by making it casual and solo friendly. Those of us who played EQ do remember it *because* it was brutally hard and slow. Somebody who never typed "camp check" in the commonlands zone chat will probably not understand, but Everquest had its own very peculiar culture due to it being so hard. Strangers approached my druid to get a taxi service, because my class was one of the few who had access to limited fast travel. Necromancers were approached for their corpse summoning services. People typed "HG" in zone chat to warn you of the Hill Giant. If you wanted to trade, you had to meet in the East Commonlands tunnel. You would chat with the people you met while waiting for the boat. Everquest was an extremely social game experience, and I don't think Everquest Legends will be.

- posted by Tobold @ 5:18 PM Permanent Link