EverQuest

I hated EQ for me the reason was it was not UO nor was it even trying to recreate the vibrancy & real world that UO's designers had gone for. *BUT* I also recognized that EQ represented a game that was much more aligned to what a normal gamer would want, one could already see that path being forged in UO as time went on. And then of course WoW came along and perfected the art.

I still lament how UO played out. It quickly became apparent that most players binned into one of two categories, and neither category really fit in with the original UO vision. And of course, one of those two categories drove away the customers in the second category. The rest is history.

UO had such a huge influence on me. It was amazing.

Both of these games are still going. Atlantic has a huge player base. It’s not the cutthroat game it once was but it’s still very much exciting. You can still die and all your shit poof. Housing on Atlantic is still in demand and hard to get if that gives an idea how healthy it is.

Eq has of course had some major server merges but your old account will still be on both UO and EQ.

To me UO is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of trash games except for a stand out few. Seeing my old wood elf ranger with swift wind and lupine dagger still glowing was magical. Almost as magical as re-exploring kelethin.

It's legitimately insane that perhaps the best MMO, or at least the one which came closer to fulfill the MMO's promise of a shared, persistent, virtual world, was also the first. How come in three decades of technological and creative development did nobody do it better?

Because the real world isn't "fun" and video games became more commercially successful when they realised that theme parks are more accessible than simulations.

Gaming was more ambitious and experimental then. The FFXI documentary [0] made me reflect on how much games have changed since. FFXI was heavily inspired by EQ so more credit to EQ but games today are so much more bland and engineered by design. That's how they achieve universal appeal and commercial success - by engineering its engagement. Reminds me of how packaged foods are engineered to be the most addictive by empirically finding the bliss point [1]. In games it will essentially be dopamine per minute and now mainstream games will never do something as crazy as crafting experiences as random and lumpy as real life. Instead every engagement is crafted to never be too frustrating and to give just enough rewards to keep the gamer on that hamster wheel, with the next engagement never being too far away.

Original Soulsborne games felt fresh because FromSoftware put friction and obscurity back in the spotlight.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MUAJ-cJbOFY

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)