The banner image is from an old EverQuest lore quest. I mentioned before that EverQuest had stories, but the game wouldn’t just come out and tell them to you. You had to find the specific quests and follow them through. This one is from the “Plight of the Undead” quest, a quest so obscure that the only mention of it that I could find on the internet is from a blog post I made about it eleven years ago on Google Plus.
Google’s AI view told me, when I did the search for it, that I was mistaken, this was in fact a Neverwinter Foundry quest based on Befallen. Dude. That was me.
Anyway was just looking for an EQL picture I hadn’t already used in a post, couldn’t find one, need to take more, but I had this one in my back pocket. Enjoy. You will never see this anywhere else. (Though presumably the quest still exists in present-day EverQuest).
But hey. We’re talking about the expected lifespan of a game that launched less than a month ago.
And where are we in that month? Well, I’m 46 on my main combo and just about 30 on my secondary (DE WAR/DRU/BER). Just cleaned out the newly revamped Mistmoore Castle with that one. I could be 50, but Kanad restarted with a combo he preferred, so I’m waiting for him to get to 46 so we can do the Planes together. Especially good since group XP has been fixed.
Most everyone else got to 50, cleared out the planes of Fear and Hate several times, did the Sky quests, and are starting new combos. According to stuff I’ve read, some people are on their third already.
If the game is so easy that people have completed it multiple times in three weeks, you’ve got a problem.
The original, classic EverQuest was punishingly hard. Experience was slow to come and quick to lose. Death was a catastrophe. And memorable — you remembered each one. They started filing off the edges in EverQuest, and today the live game has barely any penalty at all. You can summon your corpse to the guild hall and use an AA to get a 100% XP rez, once a day.
EverQuest Legends just has no penalty at all, aside from having to rebuff and head back in. It might cost you some time. It makes zerging in to a crowded space, killing what you can, dying and running back in to give it another shot, a legitimate strategy.
Mistmoore Castle released today, as I mentioned. It’s an excellent place to go once Crushbone and Befallen stop giving great experience, and the place is just as creepy and train-filled as ever. I’ll definitely stop by next time I need to get through the upper 20s; it’s better xp than the Temple of Cazic-Thule, a dungeon in that same level range.
But Mistmoore Castle won’t keep me. The lure of unlocking new races and primary classes won’t, either. I unlocked Dark Elf because it was easy. I unlocked Gnome because I will need tinkering for the Warrior epic. I didn’t unlock Halfling because it requires killing 2000 wolves and doing a few days solid of foraging. Why would I do that? Yes, they want to sell me race unlock tokens, but I don’t really see the need. I have Enchanter as part of my main combo. I can illusion myself as any player race and quite a few nonhuman races.
Half the players I see are running around with glowing swords, multiples, and riding fast horses. This is three weeks in.
An entirely new zone, Rujarkian Hills, I believe, is coming, and Kunark is coming toward the end of the year. Now Kunark dungeons are amazing, and I am totally there for them. But people will be 60 and have their class epics for their primary in a couple of days, then the epics for all their other combos soon after that.
The only possible way to slow people down is to require people to at least have to raid with other people. Maybe. Maybe that would just be so opposite to the EQL promise of being able to solo everything that it can’t happen.
We’re all excited to experience EverQuest again, at our own pace and without having to depend upon anyone. But how long can that last? And is EQL attracting many people who didn’t play it back in the day?
I dunno. I’m sure the folks at Game Jawn have given this a lot of thought. But this time next year, who’s going to still be here? Sure, there’s hundreds of different class combos, but once you’ve got that screenshot of you soloing Trakanon, what more is there? We don’t even have a place to go to show off our glowy weapons.
(I have no glowy weapons yet).
Wasn’t Rujarkian Hills one of the zones on the original Legends server? The one you had to pay $35 a month to play on?
From the moment I read about EQL, it sounded to me like it ought to be a single-player, offline game. A lot of EQ players have always wanted one of those. It could have been a solo game with optional co-op that you’d play on a hosted server. They could have sold it at $30 a pop and then sold all the expansions at $15. I think that would have worked.
Having a game where the entire USP is that you can solo it all and solo it easily and quickly, and then setting it up with a monthly subscription model seems crazy. I’m not entirely sure how well it work as B2P with no sub, either, although I think that would be better.
What might happen is that the game will effectively become B2P with paid expansions, in that most people will unsub until an expansion releases, resub for a month, which will be more than enough time to finish it, then unsub again. That would bring it round to pretty much the same model as I was imagining in the first place, except you’d need an internet connection.
I hope it lasts long enough for me to have a go, at least. I was thinking of trying it in November. Or maybe I’ll wait until they go F2P. A,most everyone does in the end.
Wasn’t Rujarkian Hills one of the zones on the original Legends server? The one you had to pay $35 a month to play on?
From the moment I read about EQL, it sounded to me like it ought to be a single-player, offline game. A lot of EQ players have always wanted one of those. It could have been a solo game with optional co-op that you’d play on a hosted server. They could have sold it at $30 a pop and then sold all the expansions at $15. I think that would have worked.
Having a game where the entire USP is that you can solo it all and solo it easily and quickly, and then setting it up with a monthly subscription model seems crazy. I’m not entirely sure how well it work as B2P with no sub, either, although I think that would be better.
What might happen is that the game will effectively become B2P with paid expansions, in that most people will unsub until an expansion releases, resub for a month, which will be more than enough time to finish it, then unsub again. That would bring it round to pretty much the same model as I was imagining in the first place, except you’d need an internet connection.
I hope it lasts long enough for me to have a go, at least. I was thinking of trying it in November. Or maybe I’ll wait until they go F2P. Almost everyone does in the end.
(This might be a duplicate comment. Commenting is playing up again.)
View it as just another EQ special server. Better than that, one that brought in money up front and has its own subscription. This isn’t going away any time soon. It will run on its own for at least a year… maybe two… and then there will either be a new one featuring updates or Kunark or something else.
They could, potentially, pick and choose various expansions. How about a Planes of Power dedicated version?
It won’t be this popular as-is forever, but there is a lot of Norrath left to farm.
Yeah, I definitely think that’s how it’s going to end up. I play GW2 this way, just play again when something new happens, put it down at other times.
You can stop the no lifers there gonna play 24/7 than wine they are bored. Most of these basement dwellers on there 3rd combo have already done this before back in the day or on another eq server. There are many like me that are taking my sweet time leveling and enjoying my time. However I do agree that this could and should be buy to play offline game or with a hosted multiplayer option. Does not need to be sub based
Outstanding article Tipa! You’ve identified the cardinal flaw of EQ Legends: there are no consequences for failure. If death has no sting, than victory is not as sweet. I penned an article on loss aversion in MMORPGs in 2016 and the death penalty was the prime example.
More EQ veterans need to speak out about the lack of coherence of EQL’s design. The only thing “EverQuest” about Legends is the scenery.
I’m glad I found your new website. 🙂
Hi!
Yeah, and they have really deemphasized grouping, of which I am not a fan.
I drop in on your blog now and then 🙂 I stopped blogging for a few years and lost my domain. I was lucky I had a recent backup so I could import it to a new blog.