Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EverQuest

filfre.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 166 posts

Re: EverQuest

#111

Post by Cthulhu_ »

blueblimp wrote: post #26
mike1o1 wrote: post #2

I absolutely loved EverQuest and it’s still probably holds some of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost impossible to recreate. Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not something I would wa…

The inter-city travel was my favorite part of EverQuest. (The rest of the game, I didn't find too interesting.) The level of challenge was about right: if you looked at maps and planned your route, you could generally get to where you wanted to go, but it was hazardous. I wonder if there's a game that focuses on that sort of travel experience.

As another commenter pointed out, Death Stranding focuses on the travel experience, where you have to plan your route according to how much 'effort' and risk you want to take.

Back when there was Morrowind, which didn't have map markers and whose in-game map had to slowly be uncovered. You get a description and that's it. The game did come with a paper map, which was stuck to my wall for years and frequently consulted.

A modern one would be Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2; when you turn on hardcore mode (which was only added after release, but the game was designed with it in mind), you don't get your position on the map, compass, or map markers; every quest involving a location has the NPCs give you a description (and at least in normal mode, your character making a remark when you've reached a landmark). It's not so much about planning your route though.

Re: EverQuest

#112

Post by Cthulhu_ »

djtango wrote: post #93
reactordev wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first memory of EverQuest was leaving the tutorial quest, running along a road at night, and being eaten by a lion. I had no idea what I was doing but I was hooked on figuring out.

Based on my experiences playing FFXIV, there's an entire generation of gamers now that get completely despirited by experiences like that and give up on the first sign of a wipe, even though these days there's no penalty for even dying...

IX is probably the most accessible "traditional" MMO there is, but it's still very intimidating because it throws a lot of information and a complex UI at you right away. If you've never played an MMO before, it's a lot.

Re: EverQuest

#113

Post by tmountain »

I was an EQ “junkie” as a teenager and played it pretty obsessively for a few years. It was a potent drug. I had an friend at the university, and she discovered the game, and stopped going to class. Basically, sacrificing her university education because of an mmo addiction.

Re: EverQuest

#114

Post by Ancapistani »

lordnacho wrote: post #18

Everquest was my first warning about game addiction. Every teenage kid by the year 2000 had spent too much time in front of a game, of course. But not like this. I was sitting with a friend of mine at a computer café. This was more prevalent at the time, since a capable computer with all the modern games on it was still somewhat pricey. So my friend starts taking to our side guy, who is playing EQ. Nice fellow. "Hey…

There was a time in my life where I would have said that EverQuest caused me to fail out of college and lose a full scholarship.

~25 years later, I no longer believe that to be the case. Undiagnosed ADHD and depression caused those issues; EverQuest was merely the drug that I used to escape the pain at the time.

Re: EverQuest

#115

Post by aprilthird2021 »

dcminter wrote: post #48
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be anything, but it resonates with people for a very good reason. Many people feel the negatives of technology and social media and miss the time before it. I know how sentiment will skew here, and I know it's easy to take for granted the advantages of having a fully capable pocket computer. But I also understand what we have given up for it.

A similar example I've seen is a photo of a British railway carriage full of commuters staring glumly at their phones. It makes me laugh because we all just used to stare glumly at our newspapers! It's not like we were discussing philosophy or something...

Sure, again, there is a reason these things resonate with people. They aren't mad that people aren't communicating with each other. They are reflecting on their own smartphone consumption and feeling that it had substantial negative effects. Something virtually no people feel about newspapers

Re: EverQuest

#117

Post by 0points »

* IMPORTANT *

Daybreak is currently suing [1] successful everquest emu server The Heroes Journey, who lately has become more popular than Daybreak's own TLP servers by offering a new and unique form of EverQuest [2].

From the operators of the server:

    "Good afternoon, Heroes!
    Many folks have become aware that Daybreak has filed suit
    against two of our Founders.
    
    Please know that, while we cannot comment on any specifics,
    we want you all to know that we are doing everything in our
    power to see this through to a positive outcome for our
    community and all involved parties. We have excellent
    counsel, the benefit of the facts on our side, and an abiding
    faith that reasonable people will see us as fans and not
    foes."
1: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/06/20/court-rejects-sealing-a...

2: https://heroesjourneyemu.com/faq/

Re: EverQuest

#118

Post by 0points »

Bluecobra wrote: post #99
thegrim33 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error. You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in game. In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the knowledge of how to get across certain…

There was a cheat program that kinda did this called ShowEQ. It analysed the EverQuest network traffic and was able to draw a map of the zone, and showed called the NPCs and players. The best part was that it even showed what loot was on each enemy. The barrier to entry was a bit high. It required a hub, and a second PC running Linux. Eventually it became a cat and mouse game with SOE changing the network traffic/add…

"More recently" (since 2003 or so), we use myseq which can run all on your windows desktop.

It now works by reading spawn data from the running everquest application, instead of looking at network traffic.

I still use it sometimes, but

a) modern macroquest has built in spawn tracker

b) server don't send loot data to clients so we cannot sneak preview it anyway

Re: EverQuest

#119

Post by krageon »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #115
dcminter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar example I've seen is a photo of a British railway carriage full of commuters staring glumly at their phones. It makes me laugh because we all just used to stare glumly at our newspapers! It's not like we were discussing philosophy or something...

Sure, again, there is a reason these things resonate with people. They aren't mad that people aren't communicating with each other. They are reflecting on their own smartphone consumption and feeling that it had substantial negative effects. Something virtually no people feel about newspapers

Every generation that had that big new thing had an enormous group claiming it was terrible and would destroy everything. Smartphones are worse because corporations are allowed to be more evil while receiving more praise (and in that axis everything is worse). Don't scapegoat the platform here. If all we had was newspapers today they'd fuck you in very similar ways. Some executive would make sure of it.

Re: EverQuest

#120

Post by p3rls »

thegrim33 wrote: post #22
mike1o1 wrote: post #2

I absolutely loved EverQuest and it’s still probably holds some of my fondest gaming memories. My favorite feeling about it is that it felt like a real world first, gameplay second. It had a real sense of danger and wonder that I think will be almost impossible to recreate. Going from Qeynos to Freeport, or crossing the ocean on a boat felt absolutely epic and dangerous. It was wonderful, but not something I would wa…

It was also at the perfect moment in time where you couldn't just pull up the game's wiki on a second monitor and have fully detailed maps and quest details on hand. You actually had to learn things for yourself by exploration and trial and error. You had to learn things from other people by talking to them in game. In my mind back then, I was in awe of people that even had the knowledge of how to get across certain…

I was a janitor over at mrfixitonline, gamefaqs, casterrealms-- there definitely were guides up for these things if you knew where to look. I know, because I was making some of them. Maybe not at release, but within a few months... and by 2000, 2001, definitely we had everything covered.
Post reply on HN