Struggling again with that old Everquest addiction.

I have a confession to make, I am a recovering Evercrack addict. Now I'll admit I didn't log nearly as many hours into it as a lot of people, but I still served my fair share of time exploring the digital world of Norrath. Ever since quitting, though, a void has existed that no game has been able to fill. I mean, other games have given me a temporary fix or false hope but by the end these other worlds just don't feel like the home that was Everquest.

What brought up this topic was that I recently tried the 10 day free trial of Everquest 2, and even though I started with unbridled excitement and anticipation, I left with nothing but dissapointment. It just seemed absent of everything that made Everquest wonderful. Even when I played World of Warcraft, while being a fantasically crafted game in its own right and superior in design, it fell short of what I desired.

One of the oddest things about Everquest is that so many of its faults are actually what I miss most about it. These are the little things like incoming trains, corpse runs, and exhaustingly difficult leveling. None of these things sound like positive aspects I'd want in any game, especially with how advanced MMORPGs are today, but I have so many great memories of seeing trains consisting of 20 monsters following some poor sap as he or she desperately tries to make it to the zone line. (for the uninitiated, trains were when a number of monsters would aggro on one person or party and the only way to get rid of them was either dying, destroying the monsters in the train, or scrambling for the zone line) Todays games barely make you run a 100 meter dash before the creature gets out of breath and decides you are not worth the trouble.

I also remember so many late nights making corpse runs in order to not lose all the equipment I had so painstakingly earned, since corpses had a habit of decaying and dissapearing with all your equipment if not recovered in a time period of I think about 48 hours. Oh, that's another thing, when you died, you actually lost a lot of experience and probably would spend a good amount of time trying to recover your corpse without the comforts of your armor and weapons. It caused you to really consider what you and your group were doing and made you really not want to die, unlike many modern MMORPGs where I don't necessarily want to die, but if I do, oh well. I'll just appear back at the graveyard with basically nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Finally, while I do like quests (although all of them seem to revolve around the idea of fetch this or kill that over and over again) what happened to the classic tradition of camping and farming. I appreciate the game companies acknowledging I have a life outside of this MMORPG, but it just feels too easy to level up. There is hardly any challenge in it anymore. In Everquest, partying was generally the most efficient way to gain experience as well as ensure your safety. Even with a competent party the experience bar moved forward like a turtle overdosed on valium. When you achieved a new level, though, (Especially one where new spells became available to you for purchase) it gave you such a gratifying feeling that you really accomplished something.

I'm not trying to say that Everquest was perfect, in fact it's far from it. Most of the quests that were in the game usually required an FAQ to decipher or were simply broken and not even possible to complete. There are also many games out there which have far more style than Sony could have even imagined at the time with Everquest. Despite these facts, though, the game managed to charm thousands of players (Myself included) into playing for hours on end, and you know what? I loved every minute of it. (Although some of that love might have been a little bit masochistic)

I never played that game but I've heard many people like you that have became addicted. It sounds like a great game. I hope you are doing ok with that addiction right now. Cheator is losing his war to the World of Warcraft addiction. I had lunch with him today and the first thing he said was 'I played WoW all day yesterday'. Every week we get together and I ask him what games has he played over the week, the answer almost always is just WoW.

The closest I ever came to an addiction over one game like that was Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 on the GameCube. It was really the first time I played a game online alone and what a first it was. For 2 months straight while I was at work I could only think about how much I wanted to get home to play. I loved meeting new people, made new friends that I met up with at a certain time on the game every night. Sometimes I would just sit in one of the rooms and just bust out the keyboard and chat away. But going on missions was a blast. It was a sad day when I finally decided to break the cycle and told all my PSO friends this would be the last day for me. And my goodness there were always soo many people online, even at 4am. I guess being it only one of 2 online games on the GameCube, if you were online in a GC game, then this would be it.

So I can sort of relate to the Everquest addiction you are struggling with and hope it doesn't result in missing all the great titles that come out.

Well I've been Everquest free for well over 5 years now so I don't think I'll have to worry about a regression, especially since I'm sure the community has dwindled considerably since then. I might pay for another month of World of Warcraft this summer when I don't have college taking all my time but that is still in question.

As I stated in my Phantasy Star Online: Episode I and II thread, I enjoyed that title quite a bit as well. I am actually playing it right now (trying to find that impossibly rare Heaven Punisher for my sister's ranger). I never was able to play online, but I always invited my friends over to play it, so good memories are easy to come by. One can only imagine how addicted I might become once Phantasy Star Zero is released (similar to Phantasy Star Online with new classes, levels, weapons, armor, techniques, a new dodge feature, and on a portable system )! If you guys don't see me around for a while in November, now you'll know why.

Even though I play these games for a considerable amount of time, I'm sure I'll still be able to keep up with all the great titles (especially the Nintendo ones) that are coming out in the future (there are so many!).

We haven't seen you in a while Lier X Agerate. Did you pick up that extra month of World of Warcraft after school let out like you speculated? If you did I guess I'll get my answer in a month.

Yep, I recently restarted my account temporarily in WoW, but that's not my only reason for not posting in a while (although it didn't help ). It's been a mixture of WoW, catching up on my backlog of games, and the fact that we have dial-up (I just don't surf the net nearly as much). Fortunately, I've satiated my MMO urge for a while and I've also caught up on a lot of games. Now if I could just fix that dial up. Anyways, it's good to be back.

Yeah it sure is good to see you again. Did you play WoW on Independence Day? Cheator told me they had fireworks going off in the game. Feel free to pepper the forum with all your recent game conquests. I'm jealous. I've been working on Phantom Hourglass for over a month now. Getting close to the end but it sure takes me a while to push through a game these days.

Unfortunately, I did not play WoW on Independence Day. I had a family party to go to. (I always enjoy those) Anyways, my subscription to WoW has expired. A little bit ago I also resubscribed to Everquest to try and experience some of that ol' magic I miss so much, but I came away dissapointed. While many of the core mechanics are still there, the game is not the same Everquest I remember. I mean, they don't even have corpse runs anymore. A big part of the game, the community, is also lacking. Newbie areas are basically abandoned except for the occasional avatar being power leveled up to raid worthy level. It is truly sad to see Orc Hill and Crushbone so desolate and devoid of life. The best thing about the old game (well besides there being actual challenge unlike it's current condition) was that you were basically forced into grouping in order to advance. I mean it was almost impossible to solo. This caused people to interact and rely on each other tremendously which caused the community to become that much stronger and active. (It's something that's missing from most of the newer MMO's.)

Although, this recent trip to Norrath left a bitter taste in my mouth, there is hope. There are a loyal band of Everquest fanatics who miss the Pre-Luclin Era before the game started going downhill and have began a project to allow players to experience classic Everquest. I'll be keeping an eye on the project to see if it actually comes to fruition. Gives me something to really look forward to if nothing else.