Why did Everquest Players hate WoW? Ft.

[@johnhaddenham3189]

I still hate the linear leveling in most newer MMOs. I don't like being railroaded into where to go and what to do next. I have to say the reason I still play EQ is because of the camp type leveling. I like being able to sit back and watch my screen, contribute to the group, but still be able to chat with my group. Most MMOs now are just races through the same dungeons over and over and over.

[@grungivaldigurnisson5115]

Agreed. The theme park leveling is ok once but it gets old fast when leveling multiple toons.

[@zedorian6547]

I do find the camp style of leveling to be more enjoyable also, though my problem is that I tend to get into games late + I have an unreasonable hatred of meta so Im almost always forced to play solo which kinda ruins my experience with a lot of these games.

[@seanwilliams7655]

Part of the reason that people in the early days of WoW had such a good community experience is because so many of the early players came from older MMOs like EQ. As time went on, and WoW got bigger, those players became a smaller and smaller minority. The success of WoW started to attract a lot of. I started WoW in early TBC, and even by the end of TBC, the cracks were starting to show in the community. By the end of Wrath, the community was in full on collapse. Even when I was playing Classic, all people would say is "your guild is your community". They would act like it was always that way, but that's not true at all. Modern players simply don't care about forming communities the same way. Probably because we're all adults now with way less free time than we had 20 years ago.

[@cooliod00d]

I think FF14 is one of the few games now that manages to combine the more modern approach of MMO's with building a Social Community. The game provides you with a lot of different tools to foster a community, but being part of a community is not required to achieve most of the endgame stuff. Personally I still prefer the classic Everquest/WoW Classic approach, but FF14 has created a good middleground for me, so I keep coming back to it. But, hopefully, Everquest 3 will go back to the roots. Really kinda hyped for it, even if it still takes about 5 years to come out.

[@Ulthrinifyed]

At core i'm a EQ player where my girlfriend is a WoW player. From the beginning the argument was that WoW was a easy game to level in vs. leveling in EQ. About 7 years ago i tried WoW for the first time and managed to level a shaman to level 40 in less than 3 days. When she tried EQ she lasted 1½ day and made it to level 14 with my backseat guiding. Soloing in EQ requires knowledge and experience with the mechanics as it's build around group play where WoW is way more user friendly. I love the WoW lore (apart from the last part) and had fun playing on the classic servers. But EQ will always (along with UO) be closest to my heart as WoW could never give me 19 hours of 3 man camping Hierophant's Cloak in Old Sebilis telling stupid jokes and laugh at the guild on teamspeak, or back to back Fear/Sky/Hate guild raiding for 3 days straight cause we could and had no life :). At the end you can't really compare the 2 games, as they at the core is 2 different games with each their own starting point. One as a pioneer in online gaming where the other had it's lore and fame from the RTS world.

[@Redbeardflynn]

EQ made me appreciate accomplishing difficult things together with people. I think WoW made me appreciate less flashy things like latency and animations as well as finally enjoying PvP after nightmares in UO. Thank you for sharing your stories and perspective! I think I had a similar long camp trying to get a lammy in Seb but I don't think I ever got it... And you've got a great point on the lore: WoW's lore was mostly pre-written for the first few expansions from the very successful RTS games. I played *so* much Warcraft 3

[@mroptimism]

Yep! I was a kid when I first played Everquest. I made a Wood Elf and I fell off of Kelethin and couldn't find my body. I gave up looking and made a new character. Good times!

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

lol

[@scubanc73]

Yep, been there done that. My first character was an Erudite... I died and it was night and I couldn't ever find my body. I gave up, created a Wood Elf ranger and fell to my death too. Looking back at it like it was yesterday... good times.

[@corbin_4738]

Let's not forget the RTS Warcraft games gave the WoW MMO massive hype. Not to mention, EQ developers left EQ to help develop WoW in the beginning.

[@aclevertrevor6450]

I recently started playing EQ on a TLP and it’s been interesting. I grew up playing WoW, started when I was in 6th grade in 2006 . I loved it because I played Warcraft 3 and fell in love with the lore and the universe. The idea that there are factions and the contested areas were dangerous was awesome. Classic and BC WoW has my heart. That being said I’ve enjoyed EQ so far!

[@michaelmorrison5280]

My older brother, who was an avid EQ player, could never get into WoW. In his words "It's too easy".

[@walterw1979]

Exactly. I always said it was the kiddy version of EQ. Way to easy. EQ was brutal and challenging. WOW was to easy and made it to boring to even get passed the free month.

[@nigralurker]

I felt that every MMO that challenged Everquest between 99-04 got contempt from its audience. I remember this was the case with FFXI a few years before WoW came out.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

I had a similar experience. I was a strong believer that an MMO should design itself to last 30 years not 3. Take itself seriously as a community

[@blake33x]

EQ Devs have said that they had no idea a game could be like that at the time. Paraphrased 'you made a game, then you made another a few years later'. That's how it was back then

[@AlyxiSistahTweaky25]

For me, the reason it took me years to try WoW was that it siphoned off so many of the players I played with. It was not a mass exodus, where we may have been able to coordinate and meet each other in the new game. It was a process that took a couple months, and killed my desire to keep playing any MMO. At the time, I was splitting my time between EQ (3 accounts), SWG (2) and Horizons (1). At about $80/month, and fewer and fewer friends (those extra accounts were once that I had taken over from friends that had stopped playing), it just became pointless. So I blamed WoW. Then I tried it a few years later; it was way easier than EQ (at the time), and I even reconnected with a couple old gaming friends. That lasted about a year, and I got bored with it. No hate, just meh.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Pretty similar to my experience. The only difference is I kind of got siphoned away from EQ in 2004...but not to WoW, to EQ2, and I saw a decline in population there gradually to WoW as well and even back to EQ. I was playing SWG pretty heavily at the time, too.

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

looked outdated? are you blind or smt :D wow got super popular because... it was technically the most advanced videogame created to date... wow could be the best mmo of all time (probably still is for most?) , if they wouldnt dumb it down so much all the time, they should instead maybe create seperate retail clients one for hardcore mmo gamers and one for casuals.. with different mechanics etc, where the f is open world pvp... facepalm , atleast vanilla and bc had like pvp , i had fun killing those camping rogues, who bullied low level people , people sometimes even paid me tip :D the game was way more social.. i remember roleplaying beggar in stormwind, the only time ive ever tried roleplaying in videogames , asking coin from Knights on mounts (at the time, having a mount signified status and when u had epic gear) , u actually had to earn shit in the game.. not handed to you... in later wow , LFG and LFR .. some random Pug "raid" , was so easy.. its like free loot , u did that a while and u were epic-geared... last time i tried wow was in Cata , 1month.. and didnt continue.... what ruined wow is LFG finder, flying mounts... people used to find groups and socially interact, check their friendslist if someone they know is online to tank/heal for them etc.. and gathered at a summoning stone etc.... more fun i actually enjoyed how long it took to get from 0-60 in classic wow.. nowdays u can just powerlevel so fast or even straikght up pay for max level character... idiotic since i havent played wow for years, i would probably even enjoy it probably, since its changed a lot , ive lately looked into everquest, EU server doesnt seem to be having any people in start areas... etc.. i have troubles saving my ui addon preset , havent figured out wtf is wrong with it... if i have to rearrange UI 30min before every session.... it will annoy the fck out of me... will try playing that lizard race shadowknight or smt, frog is fun, but doesnt seem it will visually change that much if u get gear?

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

dunno i dont mind the graphics in eq , i think they are made a bit better nowdays anyways ? enviorementt just feels a bit too wide and empty... holding your weapon at all times is the most annoying thing tbh , no seethed weps?

[@rykenu]

Similar to my experience. I was turned off by the Wow graphics which were more cartoony, but obviously have aged much better, but still I was attached to the more realistic art style of EQ despite it looking more outdated. Also, EQ didn't hold your hands from the onset like WoW did. When I played WoW it become boring rather quickly for myself. Just felt task oriented in comparison. In EQ, it had a much more sandbox feel. I started with an Iksar (lizard race) Shadowknight and they were hated by all other races. Could easily be considered one of the most difficult races to play. My RL friend started a human SK in Qeynos (complete opposite side of the map) and gave me a lot of crap and told me we probably wouldn't be able to play together. Well, challenge accepted - i had to sneak past multiple high level zones in Kunark where I could be one shotted (imagine giants, sarnaks, skeletons), SNEAK and board onto the dark elk boat without them seeing me, which sailed through Timorous Deep, hiding on board until landing into Antontica, jumping off before reaching the dock. Once there, I asked for help from multiple strangers for SOW (run faster) and invisibility, avoiding griffins, human guards, sand giants, you name it. After many deaths and probably a dozen or more hours later, I eventually did make it to Qeynos where I met up with my friend, and we leveled up killing gnolls while simultaneously building up my faction with humans. It was quite the adventure, and something I couldn't replicate in WoW as much as I tried. My brothers played WoW, one maxed out a hunter and the other maxed out a mage. The PVP looked incredibly fun, and something I had wished EQ could replicate. I tried EQ PVP servers, but they weren't the same. My brothers eventually quit WoW after getting prestige ranks in PVP.

[@zedorian6547]

@@Microphunktv-jb3kj I have the same problem when the game wont let you draw your weapon unless you are in combat. Like, I get it, but I like having my sword out when I'm roaming. I'm glad that WoW allowed you to do both.

[@Catashe123]

While I have nothing against WoW.. Judging EQ vs WoW is like comparing Going to work vs going to daycare.. WoW basically took everything EQ was and made it so you can do it on autopilot..

[@AaronWells-c6e]

I started playing EQ in 2000, I was hooked as a kid. It was challenging and the skill ceiling seemed endless (bard pulling/kiting). This mmorpg gave such a good rewarding feeling that I didn't know I was missing in console games. It felt great to get over skill hurdles and become recognized in your community. Reputation was a real thing in everquest. When WoW launched I was on board with the rest of the eq community. It seemed too easy and graphics did seem like they were for little kids. And of course like most EQ players at the time I judged a game I never played. Fast forward a bunch of years, wow made more of a name for itself, and this was around EQs TBS and TSS expansions where I just started loosing interest with the diving population and the introduction to mercinaries. So I decided to give WoW a try. And I loved it. I advanced to the higher levels of playing like raiding and pvp that I hadn't given a try before and loved it. In the last 20 years I play both games back and forth still enjoying the older content. I still haven't found a way to enjoy the current live version of both. Back in 2005 all I could see were the difference between the games, now in 2023 the only thing I can see is how every other game in the world is different than these two, and I struggle to enjoy anything but wow and eq. Also this is the first youtube video I've ever made a comment on, I've been thinking a lot about this topic recently and i figured id add something to see if others agree, as I continue the search for a modern game that satisfies the itch that only wow and eq can scratch.

[@avaedana4763]

I played Everquest from Vanilla until PoP, and then also played WoW from Vanilla until Cata and then off and on. I currently play a HC WoW Classic challenge but also played P99 EQ casually and raiding. When WoW first released/was announced as the competitor of EQ I was sad. WoW was and still is an easier version of EQ even without the guided hand of quest objectives. It was and still is, in my opinion, a shallowed imitation of a greater game (Everquest). I don't inherently hate WoW, but I realize its just an offbrand copy of the original with minor tweaks. Its like comparing Lego blocks to Mega Blocks or some other "block" rip off. They both can be entertaining and function in the same general sense. My initial reaction was indifference at WoW's announcement and release. My brother dropped EQ (the person who got young me into Everquest) asap for WoW to play a hunter. I noticed the player base dwindle and it made me sad a bit. Though, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for Everquest either. Everquest kept creating new areas to explore and venture outward too, rather than expanding within Norrath. Whenever you had a friend or just any new player somehow stomach their way partway through the game...they were navigating an empty world. The "party" was off velious or the jungles of Kunark. Hell, they might even be on the moon and yet they were left stranded fighting wolves and snakes in a barren desert. This killed player attraction, and the fatal blow came with WoW that players retention slowly dwindled as frustrations collectively mounted in the playerbase over unaddressed issues. That being said, my favorite memories in Everquest were me and my father (I was a kid, you know), and a group of other strangers delving into dungeons together laughing and joking. The excitement of seeing a rare spawn pop up. The feeling of mystery and uncertainty when traversing zones you're not familiar with. The powerful moments of mundane-ness juxtaposed against quick and sometimes chaotic fighting. The forged comradery of strangers, and the heroes that roamed the land helping anyone in need. The community made Everquest memorable to me. WoW, on the other hand...never really had the same appeal. It felt goofy, simplified, and removed. When before I felt like I was a person walking around a bustling city, and engaging in conversations with friendly faces around me, in WoW it felt like I was a car on a freeway. Going fast to destination raiding. There were conversations in chats, groups, and areas and what not, but they were meaningless banter mostly. The dungeons and raids were interesting in how they were scripted and instanced, but it also removed the beautiful chaos of a living world. It felt like plastic Everquest. Did I hate WoW? No, I really didn't. If there was anyone to hate it would be SoE for not working to compete with what they had. It felt more like they were following on the backfoot from WoW when they realized their own mistakes, but not realizing what caused those mistakes in the first place.

[@Procopius100]

I never really played any other game then WoW in the same genre, going from 2005 to present, what appealed to me in WoW was that i could sit alone and quest around and explore, sure it was fun with friends to do dungeons, but WoW seems build for sitting and turning off your brain, turning on a good audio book and just quest away on a new class. EQ scared me off before i even tried it based almost entirely on the fact that it was more aimed towards doing stuff with other people, atleast that is what my girlfriend told me, i am not good at games, i dont need to sit and be annoyed because of difficulity level, i play to unwind, not to wind up.

[@Redbeardflynn]

That's fair and a very valid playstyle. I think the MMO that finds a way to balance both social + difficulty as well as the ability to unwind and relax by yourself is going to be very succesful.

[@MysticMike]

I got EQ in 2001 and played it a ton. I was a Final Fantasy fan and when Final Fantasy XI online came out in Oct 2003 I switch in a heart beat. Love that game. When wow was coming out in 2004 there was some in the game and guild either staying, mixed or moved to WoW. Luckily, not as many left and I really didn't switch. Played FF11 all the way until FF14 came out and I still play FF14 to this day.

[@cizmar1972]

I started out with SOE MMOs (SWG,EQ, Vanguard) and the biggest thing I saw in chat when Wow released is that it was too cartoony and too easy. Also it did not have a housing system and crafting was shallow, especially compared to SWG.

[@dupre7416]

Vanguard is still my favorite MMO of all time. I've never played EQ though. I tried EQ2 but it didn't feel right.

[@cizmar1972]

@@dupre7416 I liked it a lot. SWG is still my favorite.

[@tyrecies]

@@dupre7416 If they could have just figured out the bugs, Vanguard would still be. Vanguard was definitely a better game. You could solo a lot, but grouping had synergies between classes that made grouping more advantages. I miss Vanguard

[@Redbeardflynn]

Raph Koster mentioned this in-depth: the lack of character customization and housing in WoW and how it was kind of the end of all that painstaking work they'd put into SWG.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

​@@dupre7416never met somebody with your path of experience. Vanguard definitely got a lot of things right. In my opinion it would have survived if players had a better sense of dependability. Yeah there was graphic card issues, but the back-and-forth class balancing due to some sort of developer dispute on how big numbers should get, did a lot to make people feel like their class at any moment could be horrible to play. I think if the deaths took a deep breath and just finished the mini Quest that were scattered across the world, that would have helped. The insane expansion plans behind the scenes.... was absolutely insane. They were trying to make the world five times larger and they couldn't even finish releasing all the zones and what they had..

[@vanman2099]

From 99-2004/5 I averaged over 8 hours of play time a day in EQ (not an exaggeration) when WoW came out, I was in the closed beta test. When I saw the title of this video, I had never heard of EQ players hating WoW players before. There are no doubt people who played more Everquest than I did but when WoW came out all my EQ friends eventually ported to WoW and none of us ever hated WoW in any fashion, if anything we felt superior to all the "nubs" playing WoW because of our experiences in Everquest. In some aspects we'd laugh at how easy some of the things were in WoW compared to EQ but for the most part most of us enjoyed the transition because we no longer had to box to accomplish anything and could login and go. We'd even skip entire quest hubs and do either dungeon exp grinds or I had a semi popular guide I wrote for solo grinding areas that would lag behind the most efficient quest route like (Joanna) but would be comparable to a regular player doing quests unguided by third party add-ons or leveling guides. I appreciate you bringing to my attention that there were EQ people that hated WoW but I'm guessing some never really gave it a chance and others for the most part just didn't like the population siphon from EQ.

[@matthewolson2386]

As Ion said, EQ will always have a special place for me. As with both games I was in a guild, but had more fun with EQ, probably because I was more established. I played EQ for a long time before I started going between games and both were different enough and kinda of the same so I had to flip a coin many times deciding which one to play. I think the biggest advantage WoW had at the time is that you could turn your brain off and solo, I also think the biggest disadvantage WoW had was the go go go move your ass mentality in dungeons and raids. I have gone back to EQ so many times cause I miss it, but once WoW started going down in BFA, SLs, then the lawsuit, I had enough and wont go back eventhough DF looks great. I think both will keep a solid base for as long as they are online, but I dont play either anymore. Many more games out there.

[@blenrythblenryth3949]

So I played Everquest and WoW (live/retail). So Everquest was a game that was "hard". It was very difficult to find groups (at least on my server). In fact my experience in EQ was soloing almost the entire time which as a Wizard is super hard. It wasn't until I reached max lvl I was able to finally group and do raids which was definately far more enjoyable. But there was no nostalgia for it or anything (at the time anyways). It just happened to be one of the few MMOs When WoW came out that was a game where I had played growing up and was super exciting to play classes and see inside buildings from a 3D view that before you could only see from a top down view. There was a ton of lore going into it. In addition it was a lot easier. I was finally able to get groups, soloing was so much less painful and no more death exp losses. Quests and stuff were far easier to find and do as well which was a huge plus. You also went from having a bunch of gear with very little stats to a game where you got gear with stats almost right away. I also tried Everquest 2 (very briefly) but quickly gave up on it. While it was graphically better I didn't want to get into a third mmo. I had hoped that there would be an option to move toons from everquest 1 to everquest 2 so you didnt lose everything but unfortunately there wasn't. This being said I recently started back up on project 1999 eq. Its fun and I have been able to find a lot more groups here ironically then I ever did back in 2000. Theres also things I like about it that I find funny wow never implemented. For example the ability to see what weapons a mob will drop. Instead of killing a mob with a sword, looting it and no sword you can see it has a sword and loot the sword. Plus a ton of fun spells. WoW has a habbit of removing spells and abilities each xpac.

[@Dolgorath]

This was a very interesting video because I was there at the time and even before and lived it. You pretty much covered all the reasons in this video but I think the simple answer was players felt threatened that their preferred game would lose population and decline. I never was really into Everquest, but I was an active Ultima Online player back then on the Atlantic shard. Around 2000-2002 on the official UO forum [ Which no longer exists or is archived anywhere ] A lot of UO players hated Everquest and were always commenting on how inferior EQ was to UO because you did not have player housing or could even physically interact with or modify the world. When WoW launched they moved on to hating WoW and ignored EQ. The reason was the same for both, they felt threatened by the new game causing their game to decline. Ultima Online initially lost a lot of players to Everquest because UO used to be only non-consensual PVP and many people did not like the forced PVP. By the time UO had resolved that issue by adding Trammel, it was too late as EQ had stolen a lot of players, which caused resentment. When SWG launched a lot of guild members went to play SWG but I did not have a computer to handle it so I resented SWG for making my UO experience worse. Then came World of Warcraft, which took A LOT of players from UO. Since UO is heavily community focused, if you do not have a lot of players the game is not as good because then you just have an empty world, and while not empty, the overall Atlantic Roleplay Community largely started to declined as people started jumping ship to WoW. >.> Fast forward 20+ years and both games are still around but UO is basically a shell of what it once was, and WoW is still thriving. I still love both but to be honest I would love a classic UO experience. But since UO needs a large player base to populate the world, no amount of recreation of even making a "classic server" will ever be the same. Since WoW has come out, many games have come and gone, and nothing has been a real threat to it. I am sure if a game ever game out that could challenge WoW, you would see the same fear and resentment pop up again because no one wants to see their preferred game decline.

[@Chrisxantixemox]

I don't recall EQ players hating WoW. I recall a bunch of them digging it and jumping ship so they didn't have to deal with endless flagging and back flagging alts. People wanted mounts. They wanted the fast travel system that was the gryphons. They wanted to be able to level even if they didn't have friends online who were also the same level as them -- or be able to catch up to those friends on their own. They wanted more linear dungeons that felt more like a DnD dungeon, and not just a indoor zone with trains of mobs. They didn't want to do lose 2+ hours of grinding because they died on a hell level.

[@scubanc73]

EverQuest will always hold a special place in my heart. I got sent to night shift where I worked at the time near the end of the PoP expansion. I loved raiding so I officially retired my character then. I did play EQ2 for quite some time and eventually raided there and tried WoW a number of times but could NEVER get into the game. I don''t know if it was the graphics or what, I just didn't like the game. I even played it again when Classic WoW came out and got my first character to 50 and it still seemed like a job I despised and had to go to. Maybe I knew deep down inside WoW basically killed the EQ franchise I loved. To this date, I've yet to find and MMORPG like EQ... was just a different era back then.

[@silverpantsblue.1780]

I played EQ from 99-08, I remember how excited I was when WoW was announced. I thought it would so fricken cool to walk around in the RTS world. Its no competition, I enjoyed my time in EQ far more than anything I did in WoW, but it was still a pretty enjoyable game and I still play.

[@dupre7416]

I don't know @IonBlaze1 but if they are on your show then they are probably good folk. I've got this on my calendar and I'm looking forward to your insights on this thorny issue.

[@Tetsu9701]

I didn't play EQ, I played EQOA, which led me to my true love FFXI. I left XI because a buddy of mine was hyping me up so much about WoW. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in vanilla WoW. I do regret not going back to XI as that game was more "rewarding", but as a 15 year old kid, I was so happy to be able to progress or level in WoW compared to the slow leveling in XI. in WoW I did dungeon runs all the way to mac and was usually the group maker simply from my experience in XI where that was just natural. You group up and run camp, or in WoW's case, run dungeons. I remember running Scarlet Monastery dozens upon dozens of times and loving it. Discovering new dungeons was my favorite thing in WoW. It was similar to finding new camps in zones in XI.

[@fathammy]

The main thing was the lack of social and *needing* to know how to play your class, being careful etc. It was convenient but it also wasnt a world that you lived in or feared. A lot of my memories of EQ was staying out 'hunting" from day to dawn in the night cycle and just sitting by the fire or tunnels in places like the commonlands and north ro and feeling like we were out there because of the weird lighting and how *any* light made the place less dangerous. We had to pull to light etc and were scared shitless of dying in a way that WoW never created. The gap between EQ Vets and WoW kiddies was massive in terms of player skill and being able to use the mechanics. I still don't really feel the need to go back to WoW but the world / lore of EQ continues to make me nostalgic in a way that WoW doesn't and why I'm considering checking out EQ2 for the first time soon. That's how I ended up here :)

[@nathans1787]

As 2004 wore on, the members of my EQ guild (Faerie Fire on Firiona Vie) began discussing our plans for the future. None of us planned on giving WoW a try-instead, we debated whether to stay in EQ or try EQ2. Most of us elected for the latter, but quickly found the game… lacking. After a few months, we gave up on it completely, and soon after lost touch with one another. Had EQ2 not come along, I think we’d have stuck with EQ for a lot longer.

[@thomasfaverty6788]

I was playing Final Fantasy XI when WoW came out. I was a console player so WoW was inaccessible to me, but it didn't look very good to me. FFXI had incredible graphics for an MMO and had central story lines with cutscenes and epic boss battles starting as low as level 15. It was also incredibly difficult, requiring communication between party members to properly execute strategies and the games iconic skillchains and magic bursts. Solo play on FFXI was limited to only a certain number of jobs in terms of xp grinding but team play was absolutely required on the more important story missions and the memorable job artifact armor quests. I still love FFXI, but retail is in a bad state (terrible rubber banding, nearly unplayable lag, a trust system that removes cooperative play) If you do try FFXI I recommend a private server such as Horizon to experience a true FFXI experience.

[@errollleggo447]

Trading on Wow was like a dream. The auction house was the best implementation of any trading mechanic. Their UI was just easier to use. That being said, I made friends and still prefer EQ.

[@shannonmcstormy5021]

I was playing EQ2 when WoW came out. When playing EQ2, you couldn't buy enough computer hardware to run the game on max graphic's settings. We had Dual-graphics SLR machines with stupid amounts of RAM, the most powerful processors available. We also had a HUGE Internet pipe, usually reserved for small businesses. Even with all this, EQ2 still suffered from lag and other problems. Additionally, the game wasn't something a non-gamer could pick up and play - it was difficult and complicated. (Which to be clear, I personally loved. I loved that the game was difficult, that you had to "get good" to play a given class/role well, I loved that the world wasn't spoon-fed, and so on.) Then WoW changed everything..... First, you could play WoW on any decent computer. This meant that the price for entry into playing WoW was just buying the game and a subscription. This was HUGE. And the graphics were compelling, colorful, interesting, with lots of variability across the expansive world. Second, It had simplified game play, while adroitly dealing with old standby problems in MMORPGs: Kill Stealing, Trains, a lot of the ways players griefed others, these were all gone with WoW. Additionally, you could craft things that were actually beneficial to you at your current level. You could get a mount without re-mortgaging your house. You could solo and if you wanted to avoid combat, you could pick herbs or mine while exploring this new world. (My mom loved this.) In short.....players could now invite their partners, kids, friends, and even parents to play - everyone was welcome. And they would likely have a good experience. Suddenly families were playing together, friend circles, people that didn't normally play video games. The hidden, unspoken benefits were that instead of ignoring the kids, ignoring what you were supposed to do, instead it was "Quality Family Time." Now, you could play guilt-free and you looked like a good guy spending time with family. - - > This cannot be understated in how important this difference was. In Summary: WoW could run (and run well) on any decent PC + The ease of getting newbies into the game (friends and family) + superior newbie game-experience = WoW taking the world by storm..... .

[@Nukizuka]

I just have the curious question. If wow was built by everquest fans literally in a everyquest quest guild raiding together. That kinda means everquest and its fans killed it.

[@dougs8196]

I feel like for most people your first MMO is always your favorite. At least the first one you wasted half your life on. As an EQ player I just didn't feel like moving on when WoW came out. I played the WoW open Beta, I was like its okay but didn't move over. Stopped playing official EQ in like 2005 or 2006. Though I played on EQemu over the years. Good times. Regardless in 2023 these style MMOs will never explode again. All games are basically online these days, there's no novelty there, and the time sink will be avoided due to all the other options outside the hardcore gamer.

[@lifewater]

For me and my EverQuest guild, WoW was super well received and seen as what EQ should have been working towards. I guess it’s not the same everywhere else

[@astockalypse7500]

I hated it for years, but eventually my friends wore me down. They are such different games in so many ways. There is room for both games and all MMO's really. Great video Redbeardflynn!

[@SanguineUltima]

As a person who played classic adjacent EQ in the early 2000s (started at Luclin, just before PoP dropped) I really despised WoW when it came out. I've always felt like once things become more mainstream, they tend to be dumbed down, simplified and stream lined for the unwashed masses. This was definitely the case with WoW. Once I finally tried it (Classic era in early 2020) I actually found it to be a lot of fun. I still think EQ is overall a better game, a better world, and has a better community, especially on P99 blue where I play.

[@jamib7970]

I’ll be interested to watch this. I didn’t hate WoW originally. I went to it after the EQ servers had been down for over a week with no word on what was going on or idea when they would be back up. So I took a WoW coaster (CD) from Best Buy and tried it out. The graphics were 😮 and the game worked! Problems with quests, mobs, or glitches were fixed instead of just throwing another expansion over the problems. Stayed there until Panda and jumped that burning ship. Currently nine years into living in Eorzea. There are things I do still miss about EQ to this day (the faction system, having to actually travel the world to get somewhere, zone flips like Kithikor at night) but thinking about downtimes, broken quests, inability to do many things in the game unless you had a large guild, I can’t see going back.

[@joelbarker421]

I have played EQ since 2000 , I tried WoW but felt like I was forcing myself to play and lost interest fairly quickly. still play EQ but I really miss the old days of the game. the interaction with other players just isn't there like it was. 90% of my groups are with the same people and I find that I seldom even talk to a new person. I have always felt that EQ really hurt themselves with EQ 2 why break up the server populations like that!

[@ChaosSlayerZX]

Want to post my take 1. EQ1 by 2004 was building a list of problems. With me, and most of the people who played the game. We loved it, but we were growing increasingly frustrated. By 2004, lack of solo gaming was getting to many people, group content issues were temp addressed with LDON, but it was getting repetitive. For 55+ people who did not wanted to raid - it was either keep doing LDONs over or over or sit in BoT for hours hopping for tiny chance of Patterns to drop. When GoD was released - it was so insanely botched - everyone expect top guilds hated it. By the time OoW was out to fix things- it was too late. The fact that HALF of EQ1 population left to EQ2/WoW showed how much people were fed up. 2. I did hated WoW to begin with, even though I loved WC3 - yes cartoonish graphics was a turn off, and on top of that one of my best friends was leaving EQ for WoW. That REALLY pissed me off. When EQ2 was released - my other good friend - left to join that! Our guild who JUST broken into Vex Thal that summer and started farming- disappeared within a week - half of the people went to WoW, or EQ2. This was literally my end point - I hated EVRYTHING at this point. I would be at least another yea, until i finally decided to try EQ2. Unfortunately it did not worked out for me in the long run. Once EQ2 started making these huge changes to gameplay it was no longer any fun. Looking back - WoW was actually pretty fun for first few expansions. Things started going downhill after WOTLK. 3. Sandboxing was never a very important thing for me. Quests as they appeared in EQ2 and WoW felt cool at first, but later started feeling as a chore. I was ok with hub areas, but more as a points - I can bind and sell here. I was NEVER a fan of idea that - OMG you died in South Karana and were bound in Qeynos? - cool, enjoy your 20-30 min recovery run. So local resurrection point, and vendor hubs were great. But for quests I would have less of these endless - kill 10 wolves quests, and more have long evolved quests with meaningful rewards, rather - update your gear every 10 min quests. 4. Graphic wise - I never liked EQ2 models - never mind that EQ2 run like crap even on best PCs at the time, models ALWAYS looked ugly to me. I did loved how the environments looked and how detailed they were. I LOVED how Antonika looked and felt - sub areas, rivers, bridges, caves - everything. To this day I prefer eq1 Luclin models the best. AT same time - WoW environment was great looking as well. 5. SOlO thing - I strongly believe that MMO should have all 3 : solo, group and raid content, and people should be free to choose and move between each as they please. Both early EQ2 and WoW captured that very well, but sadly degraded over time to , cross servers, raidfinders, giving all classes aoe abilities, removing need for CC - dungeon crawl slowly turned into face roll . PS My today ideal MMO lies somewhere in between EQ1-EQ2 and WoW, borrowing things from all 3. .

[@mptness4389]

One thing I wish they had kept in EQ2 was the class & specialization class quests. Like becoming a proper Rogue at level 10 then moving to Assassin with the quest at 20.

[@Abjurist]

One of my biggest gripes for sure. I missed access quests and sub-combines too, but I've been told that makes me a psychopath.

[@ehrgeiz5649]

Almost all my guild members of After Life (Guild) on mithaniel Marr Left for Wow and most people on the server talked about how much better it was.

[@errollleggo447]

Wasn't After Life like one of the number 1 guilds in the game? Iirc.

[@ehrgeiz5649]

@@errollleggo447 It was one of the top on MM I know that.

[@t0neg0d]

The only thing that bothered me was potentially losing so many players it would become impossible to progress in EQ. We had just lost a bunch of players to the star wars mmo soon after Kunark was released. Annnnnd it wasn't long after they had to do the first server consolidation.

[@sneakyrune]

To me I still think UO is one of the most social MMO’s. It’s not entirely through its gameplay loop, but in its ability to foster a virtual world. Me and other UO player would often hang out in houses or in inns and bank just chatting. You’d eventually rely so heavily on people through these interactions to be able to help you in a time of need.

[@fadedtimes]

After playing EQ and Final Fantasy 11 for years. Where leveling was done by groups and pull -> camps, and you could lose XP, WOW was a culture shock. Leveling was easier, no xp penalties, and didn't require groups. I didn't start playing WOW until the end of Vanilla, after watching a video about Naxx. I realized I really missed end game raiding, so I finally left EQ and FF11 behind.

[@dezmodium]

So I was an EQ player in like 02-03. I don't think I ever made it to max level but I loved the game. Right at the beginning of 03 I moved to a very rural area and did not have access to internet. Our phone connection couldn't even handle 56k. So I didn't play MMOs until I moved away in 06. By that time WoW had already dealt a major blow to EQ and all my friends played WoW. So it's strange. I didn't get to live in the moment as an EQ player seeing it doe to WoW and by the time I came back everyone I knew had already jumped ship from EQ. I think the overwhelming thing I got from them was a disappointment that EQ2 had failed. But at the time everyone was so satisfied The Burning Crusade that nobody really was too salty.

[@pdj672]

So, as a raid leader in EQ I watched as over half the guild quit to play WoW. About two weeks later roughly a third of those people came back and stated that they had beaten WoW. Slowly over the course of a about a year those that came back left again and servers began to merge as populations were just being decimated. I never played WoW and never really held a grudge against it until EQ started to emulate what WoW was doing.

[@eddie5525]

To me, Everquest was a "safe-space", it was cozy & comfy, and my friends there became family. WoW was just a "space" bent on letting EVERYONE in. WoW was far more susceptible to real world sins/vices, such as greed, avarice, wrath, betrayal.. plain old drama. In Everquest, if you were immature.. you were bound to have a hard time. I liked that. I have no problem with a game simply "not being for everyone" WoW made other MMOs chase after it... it changed the genre forever, it became the standard, and it's fanbase also became the target audience. It drew a line in the sand and some of us felt abandoned.. after sacrificing so much time & effort to "earn" our space in Everquest.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Well said.

[@seanwilliams7655]

As someone who has only played WoW, and dabbled in FF14, I can see where you're coming from with this. WoW became so successful that everybody tried to recreate it. But the more I think about it, the more I start to wonder if MMOs were supposed to stay a niche genre.

[@solahara960]

I wasn't playing Everquest an neither ever played it, but i had a similar experience, but with Guild Wars (1). I too were devastated to see that with Wow being a thing, we would never have a Warcraft IV. Furthermore, back then i considered Guild wars to be so much prettier and the story (voice acted and full of cinematics) to be far better than reading wall of texts, plus i hated the subscription model as i couldn't afford it at that time. I joined Wow during TBC (On private servers first) and while i kept my preferance about those things, the gameplay of Wow hooked me. And as a fan of Warcraft 2-3, the univers and it's lore kept me playing and following the game even through breaks. I'm still playing it (on Official servers) and play GW2 on the side, but i very much remember how i was viceral about Wow when it came out.

[@Singleballtheory]

If you were playing EQ at the time, you were most likely either uninterested in abandoning the characters you'd spent 1000s of hours building, or you were (like me) very keen about moving onto EQ2. That's how I always saw it at least. I too loved the RTS Warcraft games and was even keeping tabs on WoW's progression leading up to it's release, but I genuinely felt EQ2 was going to be my one and only MMO home for the next several years.

[@chadweirick]

I was an EQ player but I also liked WoW. EQ just didn’t keep up and tried to compromise on the hardcore nature that was part of its charm.

[@dymlos]

Watch out! The La Croix people are coming after you! 😂 Great vid as always bud! 💕

[@paenumbra]

I soloed eq1 for a decade. Corpserun becomes your second nature in no time.

[@JoeyZero]

Jumping in a bit late to lend my input on what I thought of WoW, having been into EQ for years prior: I saw my friends playing Classic and stubbornly stuck with EQ because I viewed it as a more conventional, adult experience. I did definitely describe WoW’s graphics as more “cartooney”, and still feel that way but I can appreciate it as a stylistic choice (where, back in the day, I thought it was a lack of effort to innovate graphically). The lore seemed so much less developed - EQ had a rich history in the world, while WoW lore seemed much more focused on key characters and their interactions with each other and the world, and that was tremendous for me. These days I objectively spend more time in WoW and have spent a lot more time in WoW cumulatively. If EQ got a modern interpretation though, I would give it an earnest shot for sure. I’ll probably never stop wanting that, but the death of EQ Next I think was the nail in the coffin of any hope I had for further development of that franchise lol

[@JoeyZero]

I think initially I was definitely a bit sore over losing a large part of our player base (invaluable for approaching most of the content in EQ) to WoW, but also I think that it’d be a bit too weighty to refer to those feelings, even back then, as fear or hatred for WoW. In retrospect, I *do* feel like WoW having such a gargantuan market share in a niche like MMORPGs has set the genre back by a decade or so. I feel like other game makers in the space might have been able to be bolder or try more innovative game design if they’d had the funding - I feel like EQ’s aggressive approach microtransactions has been a stain on the new player experience for sure, and I would posit that those in-your-face “pay for more AA’s” or “pay to revive now” ads in EQ/EQ2 are the direct result of WoW’s success where the alternative might be the outright end of the game, yknow? Edit: Okay I wrote this before seeing the "How Warcraft Killed MMOs" video so like... heading over to watch that now but I'm guessing that last statement doesn't hit too far from home LOL

[@Strugglin]

Yeah i remember logging into eq the day wow came out and my server was a ghost town..

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Love this video. It is a very interesting point about real time strategy. My girlie real-time strategy life was total Annihilation and a little-known game called battlecruiser 3000. Very different forms of real-time strategy and both could be very successful today in a MMO format. I believe Star Trek online have some similar features to that of battlecruiser 3000.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Hm, I never heard of either of those. I was really big into RTS when I was younger. From Age of Empires to WC2 and WC3 right up until the first few sets of Total War games.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

@@Redbeardflynn total Annihilation is award winning and a really cool backstory. Even can see a poster of it in a movie called smart house. Guy built the fondation of the game in a coffee rush in 1 night. Have you heard of Supreme Commander? Those are on stream. They are the successor games.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

@@Redbeardflynn Battlecruiser 3000 you could control ship guns, control fighters, control mining ships, land the battle cruiser on planet surfaces... maybe. You had crew you ordered around including Marines. Go to space stations, buy random things like magazines for your crew, but also ammo. And it was all 3d graphics, no mud. It used key board combos. So you had to experiment to learn how to get access to functionality, because no book was given.... because 90s. Also a phone number costing like $3 a minute

[@agent_chartreuse]

I played EQ prior to the launch of WoW; when WoW did launch, I bought it, I even enjoyed playing it for a while but I got to max level in the course of a week and kinda lost interest, so I went to EQ2 and never looked back. So, I guess "too easy" had a hand in turning me off to the game, but honestly, I think the real reason was just that EQ and its lore was more interesting and familiar to me. I didn't hate WoW, it just wasn't for me in the end.

[@kevinmills7067]

I started playing EQ at the age of 24 in 1999 and I loved it. Too much. It started impacting my job because I would call out sick to play while camping items like JBoots. I ended up leaving EQ after playing it very hardcore for about 6 months just because I needed to go touch grass. It was years before I returned to MMOs. Nine years, to be exact. In 2008 my cousin talked me into trying out WOW because it wasn't as addictive as EQ according to him. Of course, that was a lie. But I really liked the instanced dungeons. To me, this was arguably the single best change between EQ and WOW. I am now playing Project 1999 with that same cousin. I am no where near as hardcore now as I was when I was 24. We actually only play on average a couple nights a week (we are both almost 50 years old now). I did play Classic WoW for a couple years, also. I got burned out on Ulduar and my cousin talked me into playing some P99 with him. It's fun duoing our Monk/Shaman together. I do miss those instanced dungeons, though.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Ion Blaze is a He, not a they. Yes people have misused the word, people also say irregardless, Which functionally is less confusing than the effort to delete plurality. Reformation of social constructs, is not a mission statement of minor improvements... Words that indicate time and plural form, arguably especially in English, has been able to successfully communicate complex systems. Facilitating the rising technological development after the 16th century.

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

Yes I jumped on that, imagine somebody making a passive comment about liking movies with hijacking planes shortly after 9/11. Current events matter. Communism is a virus within collective consciousness. Human beings need a lot of infrastructure in order to be a really good people. Evil intentions claim that such infrastructure is in the way. Total awareness of evil intentions is not required to qualify.

[@ChrisLeonard0]

Heard about WoW from an EQ guildy. I bought the game not long after it came out. Played a Nelf Rogue to 30. Then raid night in EQ happened. Had a similar situation when EQ2 came out. I remember the Pizza Hut delivery driver being blown away I ordered my pizza online, which was a feature of EQ2. Overall my guild was really negative to WoWs release. Only one or two of 100 and change people were going to play it.

[@rtwatkins79]

having played both, I definitely have more love for EQ then I do WoW. Not to say that WoW wasn't a good game or that I didn't enjoy it... but: in WoW, any location went as follows - character walks into the town, ignores all NPCs unless they have a large yellow ! above their head, grabs all of them, goes out and kills/collects said items to turn the ! into ? and eventually leaves said town to never visit again. Everquest felt more alive... there were always quests, regardless of what level you were (especially in the Kunark & Velious era), that would always take you back to cities & towns, even the starting ones. You walked into a new place and you never knew what you could find... IF you could even find it (perhaps your faction wasn't high enough) and ya, EQ now has lost a lot of that with the additions they've added to make it more WoW like.... but that was actually one of the big appeals for me. HELL the player trade tunnel in Commons was awesome! EQ players INVENTED the markets before the developers.. I actually hate going into the old zones in live EQ and see them practically empty :/ and ya, I totally agree with the class assessment between WoW & EQ. I got so tired of playing a mage in WoW and constantly getting nerfed due to class balancing... I didn't want to be a tank with less HP... a glass cannon that's all glass & no cannon. PvP on an open-world PvE centric game is always going to be a mess, and frankly ruins the reason to have classes. There were actual NEEDS for different classes in EQ.... Ports, Buffs, Binding, Finding your Corpse if you lost it, Resurrections.... all kinds of things that made class identity meaningful and player interaction a necessity.... MMOs like WoW and later just, didn't.... for streamline sake or whatever... just makes them feel less. Pretty, but less fulfilling

[@EditorSebas]

I didn't really care about WoW when it launched since I had spent so much time in EQ1, I also felt the same about EQ2, I but feel like I was more annoyed with EQ2 since I just thought "why don't they update the game like they did with Luclin?". I did eventually got to try WoW after all of my friends stopped playing EQ1 and another group of friends dragged me over there. I enjoyed WoW until WoTLK, because that expansion just made everything way too "accessible", I felt like I didn't need to think when tanking since I got a bunch of abilities that would AOE and generate aggro. Classic and BC still had some moments where crowd control in groups was a thing, but now it's all AOEs all over. They also introduced the group finder tool which was nice, but it ended up automating player interactions so much that people just didn't talk anymore, I would join groups where we'd go into a dungeon and finish it, or people would just disconnect if it was going bad. It just started feeling very robotic and sad, I quit the game a few weeks after Cataclysm even though I bought the expansion. I ended rediscovering EQ when Sony got hacked and I got a mail saying that I could play all of the SOE titles for 45 days free of subscription, So I just jumped back in and tried out all of the new stuff that they added while I was gone and had a blast. I also reunited with a friend who I met in game, we hadn't talked in like 10 years, but he saw a post I made in allakhazam around that time and reached out to me, and now we play on and off on live, p99, or try out other mmos.

[@wheatpuff]

WoW brought an unprecedented level of "QoL" changes to the genre and visually directed players through most of the content. If youcame from another game, it was easy mode. It was exactly like a theme park ride, being taken along on a track. Almost every mmo after the success of WoW has been the same. I think the early mmo's had a greater sense mystery, purpose and danger. The worlds were chaos. Players were required to invent tactics and take risks. The genre traded that for an experience that is friendlier and tightly controlled.

[@rykenu]

I was turned off by the Wow graphics which were more cartoony, but obviously have aged much better, but still I was attached to the more realistic art style of EQ despite it looking more outdated. Also, EQ didn't hold your hands from the onset like WoW did. When I played WoW it become boring rather quickly for myself. It felt task oriented in comparison, streamlined (on rails), with little fear of death, the stakes and risks were low, it just didn't have that epic feel, despite the stories from the quests attempting to make it seem so. In EQ, it had a much more sandbox feel like you mentioned. I started with an Iksar (lizard race) Shadowknight and they were hated by all other races. Could easily be considered one of the most difficult races to play. My RL friend started a human SK in Qeynos (complete opposite side of the map) and gave me a lot of crap for choosing that race and told me we probably wouldn't be able to play together. Well, challenge accepted - i had to sneak past multiple high level zones in Kunark, where I could be one shotted (imagine sneaking/running away from giants, sarnaks, skeletons), SNEAK on board a dark elk vessel without them spotting me, which sailed through Timorous Deep, hiding on board until landing into Antontica, jumping off before reaching the dock so the guards didn't kill me. Once there, I asked for help from multiple strangers for SOW (run faster) and invisibility, avoiding griffins, human guards, sand giants, you name it, making a long trek north. After many deaths and probably a dozen or more hours later, I eventually did make it to Qeynos where I met up with my friend, and we leveled up killing gnolls while simultaneously building up my faction with humans. It was quite the adventure, and something I couldn't replicate in WoW as much as I tried. It made me think and problem solve on the spot, hypothesize, test, experiment, be decisive, communicate with others, and experience high and low emotions - it was simply an epic experience. I felt like i was really in a fantasy movie. My brothers played WoW, one maxed out a hunter and the other maxed out a mage. The PVP looked incredibly fun, and something I had wished EQ could replicate. I tried EQ PVP servers, but they weren't the same. My brothers eventually quit WoW after getting prestige ranks in PVP. WoW did excel in smoothness of gameplay and UI. You can solo, but I always thought if I'm going to play an MMORPG why would I want to solo the whole way through, when there are plenty of single player games developed with that experience in mind. In EQ ou had to rely on your fellow group members and a corpse run if one person f'd up. Stakes were high, but when you had a solid group the rewards were so damn worth it.

[@williamrussell83]

If it wasn't for picking up a copy of WoW and beginning my addiction to it, I would've never given EQ a chance, which I still play as well. The mmorpg genre was new to me, and after playing WoW, I wanted to find other titles.

[@gamhuin]

I played EQ from beta to Lost Dungeons. I play most non-pvp mmorpg's. I played WoW when it launched and unlike EQ, I did keep going back over the years, where I did not to EQ (although I still return to EQ2 for expansions). WoW was a good game. It was fun, but a very different kind of game. MUCH less social, or you had the option to be, where in EQ, you are either social or you had a very small, limited experience. And I still know and have friends from EQ to this day. Aside from RL friends I knew beforehand, I don't really know anyone I ever met in WoW. So - both are excellent, but very different kinds of games.

[@SomeCanine]

I played EQ and WoW both over a RL year each. I left EQ for WoW at some point because Gates of Discord was very broken. I don't remember exactly when I quit but I was off and on again a few times until I finally moved onto WoW. WoW is a much different game. It is a highly polished corporate user experience that handholds a lot more. This handholding and user-friendliness makes people anti-social. If you're an anti-social person this can be either a good or a bad thing. If you are an anti-social person like I am, you can become even more anti-social by grinding quests and loot to sell. For all of EQ's faults, it encourages social behavior at every turn.

[@Redbeardflynn]

Well said.

[@grifter0]

WoW was so new but also had a very known lore to use. EQ was fading & making up lore for expansions. i think the main reason wow was so popular was because warcraft had 3 games in its history, and warcraft 3 was a really good rts that spawned many other games itself. EQ still has better raid loot making you feel much more powerful. WoW has the best PvP, Mage is so much fun in both games.

[@ryanchaney6226]

This wasn't really my experience. Most of my friends were looking forward to WoW coming out. I didn't even know what it was, but they talked me into giving it a try, and I never really looked back after that. But I was pretty much done with Everquest by the time wow came out. I had alot of fun in Everquest, met alot of friends, some I still talk to today, it was my first mmo. But I was ready for something different. I remember when my coworker told me about everquest, I was 15 years old, and I was like, I can tell you right now, ain't no way Im gonna play a game that I have to buy, and then pay for monthly. Now it's about 25 years later...and I'm still paying montly for mmo's lol...I couldn't have been more wrong about that lol.

[@Redbeardflynn]

I'm pretty sure I was the same way "What do you mean, pay monthly? No way I'm gonna do that." Now I make I pay monthly AND make MMO content!

[@ryanchaney6226]

@@Redbeardflynn I mean back then I was only 16 years old and it was my first mmo. I didn't understand the concept of paying subscription fee's. In all my prior experience I just bought the game and that was that.

[@marzix427]

Pre-watching the video. < I hated WoW for taking players away from my guild more than WoW at least.> I was more excited about trying EQ2 than i was playing WoW. That being said, ive never played EQ2 and I have probably 800 days or more played on WoW and only about 300 on EQ. Been enjoying time on Oakwynd server though, got tired of Dragonflight (i just want regular flying) WoW was social until dungeon finding during the patch right before Icecrown and then LFR in Dragon Souls during the Cata expansion was the tilting point to toxicity. In my guild, still had some grouping, but there were still small cliques in the guild of people who had their 5 man groups and most of my friends i had made from pre-wrath were all gone. The biggest difference between EQ and WoW: i came back in dragonflight after taking most of bfa and SL off and nobody really talked to me in my guild or interacted much with me even though i had been in the guild since early Cata. I came back to retail EQ after not having played for like 8 years and had a friend from my old, old guild back in PoP say hi to me and 2 guildies say welcome back and ask how i was. I also made new friends soloing on my much lower level monk from the max crowd.

[@salaufer]

EverQuest player here -- I hated DAoC because it made all of my friends leave, but I actually loved WoW from the start! WoW felt fast-paced and skill-based in a way that EQ never was. I still love EQ -- I've gone back and played Project 1999 more than I'd care to admit, and leveled up some characters in WoW for the first time in years a little while back. They're just different games, with their only real commonality being that druid is the best class

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

My one and only negativity issue with World of Warcraft is the body dysphoria it induces. It goes away while playing but it comes back every time I go to login

[@guindell3119]

I am a long time EQ player -- my wife and I played EverQuest from the time we were dating, until now (switching back and forth between EQ1 and 2). We tried Guild Wars 2 when that first came out and really enjoyed it until they nerfed everything. I remember when WoW came out and my guild was worried it would kill EQ. I played Warcraft 1-3 and really loved those games. I didn't want to give WoW a shot because I wanted EverQuest to "win" as it were. I didn't try WoW until 2021 or so with my wife. We thought it was 'okay'. I still think it's "okay". I have played a ton of MMORPGs over the years while playing EQ, just to see if something will take me away from that game. So far nothing has, and WoW was less impactful than other MMOs to me. TL;DR -- 2004, Wow was gonna be super successful and kill EQ and i didn't want to try it. 2023 -- it's meh, EQ is still my favorite. Long live Norrath!

[@Caliban_80]

Didn't hate WoW, I just thought (and still think) it was ugly. EQ2 is much easier on the eyes so that's where I went.

[@kurtnicholas9884]

and when then make an origins server that has a better xp gain than slow as snails i'll go back to EQ2 again, I really want a TLE server to actually make it to Velious tbh, Velious was so good of an expansion that it was overlooked.

[@eyeopening618]

I was happy to play both, but the migration of my family (who were the reason I played MMOs to begin with) over to WoW made me make the switch for good. I love WoW and still play classic Era to this day but I've thought about going back to EQ quite a bit lately. I just don't know how or if there are enough people playing to make it worth it. After all, MMOs are meant to be played with people and not solo. I remember I had lvl 28 Shadow Knight back then and that was as far as I made it. I was a young kid. I wonder how I would fair these days.

[@Unchainedfury]

Thank you for the video. "Did Everquest players hate warcraft?" No, not at all. We weren't intimidated in the slightest and there was no reason to hate the game. Everquest was a Juggernaught. The cartoony graphics, contrary to Ion's statement of "better graphics of WoW", was one of the major initial turn off's for Classic EQ players...and yes, it was made for kids that had no understanding of the MUD era of gaming and table top D&D, pre graphics, thus had no comprehension of: difficulty and imagination = rewarding. The teenage and younger generation of EQ players at the time constantly make this misconception because they were too young to understand it. When Live EQ players mention WoW being "made for kids", it was because it was easy, not challenging, and thus not rewarding. It didn't fulfill the imagination and appeared to be a system of button mashing, similar to EQ2's 45 abilities/7 hot bar monstrosity. EQ original players heard about the quest markers and quest hubs to level and knew it was too linear (controlling), thus less open world and innovative. Human interaction was stifled from this principle. Original EQ'ers loved the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do and it didn't matter that it took an hour to get anywhere to do so, as long as you did it with friends. (Ion gets this right) The unforeseen and unimaginable interactions within the world of Everquest were unprecedented and unparalleled. That was part of the magic, that inconceivable human interaction. WoW held no magic for EQ'ers and it was an obvious non-starter for us. It's just another Diablo. "EQ had two bad and over tuned expansions in a row which sent some people looking at the shiny new toy on the market" - EQ had x3 "bad" expansions in LoY, LDoN, then GoD for the raider. It had x5 bad expansions in a row if you were a casual player outside of raiding - SoL, PoP, LoY, LDoN, GoD. Overall, limiting human interaction within EQ was the problem, from both perspectives and killed the game. Sony went the way of Atarii and many others: Quantity over Quality. It had nothing to do with any "shiny new toy", simply being tired of let down by SoE, expansion after expansion, by removing interaction in all facets. No longer did players interact with other guilds (instancing), other players (LFG tool), the walls of the world collapsed in upon itself from killing the sense of exploration and adventure. Nothing was more paramount to this concept than the implementation of Paludal Caverns, in Luclin. Players didn't level 1-20 anywhere else and this compromised all lowbie/mid's from there on out. No one leveled in any of the previous expansions' lower level areas so they never went out exploring and adventuring around the middle tier areas..it was a terrible idea. It concentrated the player base, just like the bazaar did, just like port scions/stones, instancing, LFG tool, etc,.. If I could make one generalized statement regarding the downfall and failure of Everquest Live, it would be this: Limiting interaction within an MMO is a terrible idea as it removes the unimaginable human connection that we all cherish and love. Cheers

[@cybergun01]

I didn't necessarily hate Wow, but i hated seeing what it did to EQ.. sort of the death knell. But in many ways, up to that point, EQ had already started to do it to itself. When it started moving away from factions and traditional fantasy with expansions like PoP and Luclin.. where in the Plane of Knowledge good and evil races came together.. just killing immersion. Then also with Luclin, going to the moon..? Just never fit the traditional experience that made EQ great (from my perspective). Everquest had it's best years from classic to Kunark, then finally with Velious. If they had stuck to the original motif and refined things a bit.. it probably could've held it's own still in a lot of ways.

[@blackyvertigo]

given the game hasn't been at even 100k simultaneous subs for nearly two decades i would have to say that not many everquest players 'hated' wow.

[@boredfangerrude]

1-Soloing doesn't make a game less social for people who want to socialize. 2-Forced down time is unnecessary for people to have time to talk. 3-Group finder DOES NOT take away from needing to communicate! These myths need to die if MMOs are to move forward.

[@housechillin8386]

they need an everquest movie with avatar graphics

[@googleifyouseekayu]

I wasn't interested in WoW cuz of the cartoon look and I went with eq2 also. But eq2 was harsh after lvl 20 . The chores in eq2 ultimately made me quit. N lack of groups to get into. You could not solo for XP in n eq2 at launch. I didn't try wow till cata. N after getting to max level. Got bored as being alliance we never won the pvp stuff n it's basically do chores for dailies.

[@Redbeardflynn]

I remember EQ2 at launch being much more similar to EQ...except, you couldn't split pulls most of the time due to the linking mechanics and the "heroic" mobs versus solo mobs. I remember they back-tracked off that fairly soon after launch and added in a lot more solo mobs but yeah it was right around 20 like you're saying. I remember noticing it most in Nektulos Forest.

[@googleifyouseekayu]

@@Redbeardflynn me thundering steppes.

[@ClassNCool]

Original WoW players were EQ players and probably some of the best WoW players since they were already vets in the 3D MMORPG genre thanks to EverQuest.

[@vsanthos]

I played EQ up until I got to play the WoW beta. I was excited because a lot of my old UO friends were going to play wow, but playing it ruined EQ for me at the time.

[@packatk7431]

Played EQ live from 1999 to 2004 and play P99 now since 2019 and never played and never will play World of Warcraft. I was a WoW hater (mainly because of the graphics). The EQ / WoW competition felt a lot like the Playstation / Xbox competition in my opinion.

[@zakisslackin995]

So I've never played EQ, but I did play a lot of FFXI during its level 75 Era (from what I heard FFXI was heavily influenced by EQ), but when WoW released, I remember my Linkshell (guild) freaking out thay you could hit level cap by just solo questing. Some even thought it was a flat-out lie!

[@kurtnicholas9884]

The Trolls there where so many toxic people in WoW probably cause it was the biggest. I had to turn off local chats to not get utterly pissed off. So much toxicity.

[@darrenbuttery3527]

I started playing Everquest back in 2000 and played consistently through 2006 give or take. I never played EQ2 or WoW or Star Wars Galaxy. Why? Because people in my guild or pickup groups talked crap about all those games. People left and came back to EQ saying how they kind of sucked and Everquest was still the best game out there. I took them all at their word and never tried any other game, including WoW. In retrospect, I'm sorry I didn't try it for myself. Their opinions were going to be biased if they came back and my experience might have been different.

[@aaronmiller4871]

Sir, did you get to play in the pre alpha of pantheon last month?!

[@michaelkpate]

I tried the UO beta once but was deathly afraid of getting addicted so avoided every MMORPG until December of 2008 when I finally broke down and tried WoW. As I feared, instant addiction. Eventually it faded and I finally gave up on the game in 2019. A few months later I tried FFXIV and that has been my MMO ever since. Ive even gone back to WoW a couple of times for a month or so but never feel a need to stay. Still havent tried EQ.

[@Ravege98]

Yes, I hated WoW. I was too attached to EQ and seeing it fall apart, in my view, was soul crushing. Watching so many people leave EQ was like being a passenger on the Titanic believing it won’t sink while watching those on the lifeboats, knowing deep down those leaving the ship were right. And Gates of Discord didn’t help, grumble grumble…

[@evolgenius1150]

I'd venture it's the same reason that Classic Players prefer classic and hardcore over Retail/Live. Also the same reason why Elder Scrolls fans prefer Morrowind to Skyrim. Each iteration seeks to be more and more simple, less crunchy, and seeks to get players to max level with goodies and abilities showered on them like crazy. Some people like that constant dopanine drip and flashing lighyts and all that in your face, some people want that slow burn and enjoy a numbers crunchier game, and really feeling a sense of ownership when they get the drop they were after which did not come cheap. WoW when it first came out was a notch more accessible and less crunchy than EQ...

[@Xexen7]

Why don't they end subscriptions or lower them.. the biggest problem we face today is low population you would think more people would join in on the fun if the sub was either lower or non existent

[@jiriblahus-e4i]

Why did Everquest Players hate WoW? ...becuse in WoW you dont need do ever(y)quest? :)

[@elwood_eq7550]

I think a lot of why EQ players might have hated WoW is also do to the fact so many WoW players played it as their first MMO and was under the misconception that WoW was the 1st (or Pioneer) of MMOs. The idea that ok hey WoW might be better overall, but give some cred to EQ for being the MMO that really started the genre in a mass appeal sort of way. EQ was the "Grand Daddy" and much of what WoW did they barrowed from EQ...which is fine, but give EQ the credit for having some of the ideas first. Most of the millions of WoW players disrespected EQ out of ignorance and that rubbed many EQ players the wrong way, for sure. I suspect it's the older EQ player base that might have felt this way. The ones that started EQ in their 20's or 30's. I know, as a mature person (aka old fart) it grinds my gears when a young person acts like they "know something" and tries to explain something to me when I know they are either wrong, or telling me something I learned decades ago and assume I don't know because they just discovered it...and then feels a need to argue with me. Dern Millennials anyway....not you though, you're cool. heh

[@Redbeardflynn]

The interesting thing here is I see that happen when I make videos and don't mention Meridian 59! For me my first mmo was Ultima Online but my first MMO that really *felt* like an MMO was EQ. It's not limited to just older EQ players, though! I remember getting frustrated even at some friends who played WoW as their first MMO, I forced them to play UO with me years later! Hah and thanks for the vote of confidence as a millennial!

[@sthrall77]

For me wow all the wow players i interacted with acted like wow was the first and only mmorpg and that existed. They acted like wow was the first to do everything when wow really did pull a lot of what EQ had at wow’s launch. Also I think nostalgia gets the better of people when you look back at stuff. Wow at the release was brutally slow. There was little risk, reward. Wow had a lot of potential but that initial release wasn’t much to get excited about. But it quickly changed and expanded and with clever marketing grew into a juggernaut.

[@Forsaken66666]

I play retail wow and I have a lot to say about current wow in comparison to classic wow. The removal of master looter and DKP from wow was the biggest and most impactful change between classic and current retail. This also came with a drastic improvement in the amount of loot dropped from raids as well. In classic wow I might expect to join a raiding guild and spend all of my DKP on 1 single tier 2 helmet. In current retail just by playing a few mythic dungeons and LFR (no guild req., totally solo matchmaking easy raid) I have managed to gear almost 10 alts in full tier 2. Why is Blaze playing classic? Retail is so much better. Dragonriding? C'mon... Played original Everquest as a chanter for years until I sold my character after getting my epic (which was fun) then got bored around Everquest 2's launch and decided to make a new character in wow instead of Everquest 2 to try something new. Quit wow to try FFXIV, GW2, ESO, Star Wars and Lost Ark before finally returning to wow in Dragonflight. Endwalker was particularly awesome at its peak (winter launch when servers were so crowded they had to turn off sales). Very excited about the new Augmenter class being added which sounds a lot like an enchanter. It has a legendary weapon that buffs teammates instead of itself. I'm really hoping for a support caster like an enchanter to finally come to wow. Interesting to see them break their holy trinity like this. Equally shocking was when they recently allowed horde and alliance to be in the same guilds and groups, sort of removing faction from the game. Now I am constantly seeing horde in dungeon and raid content in my party. Diablo IV is the wow killer.

[@paltrax]

wow was my first back in 06 i think, but i cheated on it pretty fast. i went on a trial bender for a while after that, but i returned after a while, cause it was still fun and some of my real life friends were still playing too. but i never felt wow was the best, even when i was playing i thought man, i wish you could buy a house like lotro or EQ2, or man i wish combat was as cool, as AOC. i even tried classic, after having told myself i wasn't going to bother. as i feel going back isn't the answer. i got like a week of fun then i walked away.

[@Redbeardflynn]

I think one of the biggest issues that WoW brought forth was dumping the sort of "non-combat" gameplay of MMOs that came before it like SWG. Everquest didn't have housing either but SWG and EQ2 had fantastic and detailed housing systems and great character customization. WoW did a lot of good, but in the ensuing decade where everyone was rushing to be the next wow, the lack of housing or non-combat activities is one of the things that really waned. I think ESO, GW2 and FFXIV have kind of brought it back a little bit.

[@paltrax]

@@Redbeardflynn yea i know it really is one of those legacy features. wierdly i really like to live in that game if all i can really do is rush to the finish i just get stressed out and move on.

[@corbin_4738]

For me, as soon as I learned WoW was easy, I knew it was the death of community. To this day, despite being a WoW player now, I still believe that. EQ had a strong community because people needed one another. You're not going to go solo all these creatures. When you die, it isn't easy to get your corpse back, and people understood this. Not to mention there were actual penalties for death which made people fight harder to avoid dying. Now, why do people need one another? No penalties for death. No corpse retrievals. No need for other people (you can get near the same gear score doing open world stuff solo without having to raid). You could play WoW from beginning to end and technically never need to group or need anyone's help. It's a joke. And flying. Flying was a huge mistake. People constantly yell "make the old zones relevant/ the old zones are dead" ...why should they revamp old zones when players just going to fly over everything? They're dead because you can outright ignore them now. Flying has taken the wonder out of the world of WoW immensely. But that is my take. By making their game soloable, WoW essentially killed community. I would like to clarify that I have played from at least TBC, maybe even Classic (been so long). I never needed help. The only people I definitely grouped with was my family and that was because we all came from EQ. Otherwise, in open world, I used the EQ kiting (or reverse kiting) and never had any hard time killing anything

[@williampalmer8052]

The first MMO I played was Ultima Online, then Anarchy Online. After that, I tried just about every game that came out, but stuck mostly with the SOE stable. I tried WoW a couple of years after it came out, but the two things that turned me off to it were the low-res art design, which was painful to look at, and the excess of puns and pop culture references that just came across as lame and corny. I very recently gave it another try and found the revamped art to be much better done and easier on the eye, but I was disappointed that it only took a few days to get to max level, and that I had experienced very little of the world along the way. The gameplay itself is fun and engaging enough, but I haven't had much motivation to return to it. To me it is still the quintessential Amusement Park game, with lots of little self-contained rides you can go on but no cohesion to any of it. The lore is expansive, but much of it is very derivative, and it's all just too shallow to really get invested in. It is very well constructed though, and I can definitely understand why so many people enjoy it.

[@TheBudkai]

WoW lost it's sense of adventure, it became too "single player" and linear. EverQuest TLP servers still retain the sandbox adventure feeling, I still play those.

[@kurtnicholas9884]

I play Ascension WoW, cause its free. But there is some stuff that drives me nuts coming from years of playing EQ2. Mounts go away and you have to stand still to summon. The holding of right mouse button on almost every mmo there is to free move the camera makes you click in WoW (which is freaking stupid). The one thing that WoW gets right is the Dungeon Finder which could have been great in eq2, but it didn't have the player base to support it cause WoW basically killed the mmorpg genre with mediocrity. And past Vanilla EQ2 and DoF, the raids then started to ramp up harder than any WoW raid has ever done. Prime example of the complexity raids could get just look up videos of Rohen Theer 4 rune raid.