On-Line Gaming Addiction - EverQuest vs. Others

[der_kluge]

And FWIW, I quit EQ several years ago. I had a cleric on the test server, and I only left when they P-wiped, restored, and I-wiped the server. I left because I had no desire to play a naked 35th level cleric.

I still miss the game to this day, and that was probably a good 4 years ago now.

 

[Torm]

Unless someone else knows something they can bring to my attention, EQ is the only MMORPG that arguably has been the RW cause of death for a player - he went all "Better Than Life" in the game and failed to sleep or eat for too long.

I DO know, personally, someone whose marriage failed due to Ultima Online, but you can't really blame the game - if it hadn't been that, it'd have been something else. He wasn't responsible enough for marriage.

I don't do MMORPGs, period. I have a family and friends and real people to RP with on weekends. A couple of message boards are good enough for online interaction, maybe the occasional online CIV III or M:TG game.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Piratecat? City of Heroes? Haven't seen him much since he started playing that

 

[Hijinks]

you just can't leave and say, "goodbye!" because you might be camping the bedroom in lower guk, and people just can't walk out on their own, and you certainly cant camp there for the night

Sadly, those that still play don't remember what it was like in the beginning, because a lot of them just started playing within the past 2 years. Therefore they don't know the old way of depending on a group, and having them depend on you. Nowadays, people join groups then dump them half an hour later with no word, no "bye," nothing. Or they abandon groups in the middle of corpse runs because they're not getting exp/loot/cyber/whatever. Or they ninjaloot the dragon corpse that everyone just spent 3 hours killing. The quality of players has gone enormously down, and that was one reason I quit playing; a player ditched my group in the middle of a corpse run, and my guild's leader defended him. Pff. No. There was an old code that the old players stuck by, and there was honor in that code, as silly as it sounds. You had to be there and be in it to understand. Most of today's players weren't there.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Out of the US-based MMORPG's WOW is the leader now. However, Lineage 1 & 2 still beat WoW out of the water. I believe that EQ is now 5 or 6 down the list with a decreasing fanbase.

As to the addiction, it's all about your guild. A good guild makes EQ playable. WIthout one, it's tough to keep up to say the least. WoW removes this somewhat as you can easily solo to 60. You may not get the uber gear, but you can still have fun and be able to see some of the high-level content without a group or only grouping occasionally.

Kane

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Lineage I in Korea has a very different pricing model than WoW -- it's not really fair to compare the numbers. WoW just hit 2 million subscribers, which makes it the unquestioned king of the North American MMORPGs, as big as many of them combined.

I played EQ1 for about three years, starting in the Velious era through the first few days of GoD but then stepped down for the WoW alpha. Ultimately, many of the things that made the game addicting also drive people away from it, now that there are compelling other choices available. EQ1 requires a real sense of codependency with your character to succeed, and it's just gone further in that direction. It punishes players for striking out on their own or for exploring new areas without an army at their backs. (Not that either stopped me, but it sure did slow my advancement.) In contrast, City of Heroes, WoW and EQ2 all let players log on for 20 minutes and get something done, provide at least a semblance of structure instead of "here, go explore this world and find a quest or something, maybe." They also provide a great deal of small group and solo content (some games more than others).

EQ1's model hit its peak during the Planes of Power expansion, but a game designed around a guild being able to field 72 people each night for a single raid falls apart when those guilds can't bring those numbers to the table with any regularity any more.

EQ1 was a mix of good design and better timing. It was lightning in a bottle and I wouldn't recommend anyone starting with it toda.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I agree with you Whizbang, I was just stating what I've read based on total active subscriptions (which does inflate the numbers a bit, especially in EQ where there are a LOT of diehards that run 2 and sometimes 3 accounts).

EQ lost all appeal for me right about Velious, but I stuck with it through Omens of War. By then, WoW was just about due and I jumped and never looked back. I played CoH for a few months, but it lost all it's luster pretty quick. Don't get me wrong, it's slick, but after the first 20 missions or so it can get rather tedious.

Really, if there is any game that has a chance of pulling me away from WoW it'll be D&D Online, but Turbine better do one helluva good job on it.

Kane