Dyermaker, you either had an odd experience or maybe you played on a PvP server or something.

Yes, there was occasionally a problem contesting for spawns. But, it was almost always resolved in a civilized way. In WoW, bullies rule. You'll be clearly going up to a quest mob or a mine or something and someone will see you doing that and just try to beat you to it just to fuck with you. At first (in my ignorance coming from EQ) I just stopped and said "hey, wanna group up and both get credit?" or "Want to take turns hitting that mine?" I've since given up on that approach...

Don't get me wrong, WoW isn't terrible. But there is definitely a HUGE lack of comradery when compared to the old days of EQ.

The problem is that there's too much benefit to soloing. Just about everything is soloable. So people don't get good at grouping a lot of times. And bad group experiences due to lack of skill cause people to avoid grouping still. A lot of people wait to do group quests until they're green and soloable. And when people do group it's not so much about banding together to overcome great odds, it's more like just using people to get what they want.

I think the only way to fix this in the current game is to give huge obvious bonuses to grouping at any time (not just to kill a boss or dungeon) and put some group quests in the newbie areas.


Yes, EQ was frustratingly hard at times, but the player interaction was wonderful. And isn't that the whole point of playing an MMO??

I completely understand Robin, I play WoW a lot nowadays, but I still long for the days of EQ. Especially when running into a bunch of pricks on WoW, or trying to play amid the /yells of football game scores, Paris Hilton news, Bruce Lee or something... arg! Occasionally I feel an ache--seriously, a pain of emptyness in my heart--when I think of EQ and the experiences there that I will never have again. I've tried to set up a classic server of my own , but it's damn-near impossible. There are some servers that pop up here and there but I haven't found any that are very good, or they get shut-down by SOE.

Reply