Can anyone tell me stories about what MMO's were like before WoW?

WoW was my first MMO and anyone who came from Everquest said wow the casual MMO. What kind of things made everquest that hardcore?

You had to type 'Hello' in Everquest to talk to NPCs.
Ultima Online had non-instanced housing, So you picked a actually location in the game world and your house would be there permanently. There was also a jail where you had to actually wait.
Stuff like that that made it more of a "Online World" Than a arcade-y action game.

everquest let you play as a giant mouse, a frog, and a gay tiger.

To be honest you could rephrase the question as "What were MMOs like before Wrath of the Lich King?"

WoW went against Everquest in all the "right" ways. Eating wasn't mandatory. Leveling was simplified and expedited from one zone to the next. Quests were dumbed down to the point of starting and finishing them within earshot of the quest giver. There was also a journal in WoW that constantly reminded you of what stage you were on in any given quest, whereas in Everquest you were told one time what you had to do and then left to your own devices. God forbid you forgot, or didn't pay attention, because back in those days there was no such thing as quest guides or wikipedias for games or addons to tell you exactly where to go.

That being said, Everquest was never hardcore, it was just autistic. Everquest was the first theme park MMO. The real hardcore MMOs were Ultima, SWG and EVE.

Everything was confined to the ground like a MoBA or RTS, none of this jumping or platforming shit ya hear? I remember playing Eternal Lands because I was too poor for Ultima. I wonder if that game still exists.

Too poor for Everquest*.

The dumbing down was inevitable to appeal to a bigger audience, and look at where we are now the MMORPG has been decimated. There is little distinction between autistic and hardcore when it comes to gaming.

Death means something because you lose your stuff, instead of a loading screen.
Gold is an item like any other, so you better store them in the bank or risk losing them.
PvP is predatory where going to the pvp zone is a game of cat and mouse.
No quest markers and journals, you better pay attention when that npc tells you to do stuff.
Shit graphics.
Also, they cover up your password in chat, check this out ***********

Ultima online was rad as fuck.
Used to chop trees for people to clear space for their buildings.
Man I got rich doing that.

Deadman mode of Runescape is the last bastion of Hardcore MMO action.

more timesink more progression gates more need to group and socialize, less QoL hand-holding. these can be negative or positive, the fact is, it made comradery and tight community bonds. people whine about WoW raid attunements, but that used to be the whole game in MMORPG, needing to come together and work on progression for every little step.

basically they used to cater to people who actually wanted an MMORPG and not kids that are there because its popular and want the accessibility of something more like Diablo.

on the other hand its not all bad, you can't maintain that forever. eventually you won't have enough new players to make a harsh progression gate at level 10. there are not enough level 10s, 5 years down the line. the path to modern WoW is somewhat self-fulfilling, which is why i find the announcement of Classic so bizarre.

"dont change ANYTHING" thats great for your nostalgia boner. the fact is so much changed and was added to the game because people were doing it with add-ons anyway. its a false elitism. the quest tracking used to be complete fucking garbage, everyone used an add-on, so blizz improved the quest UI. nothing about the vanilla system was better, people are being stupid as fuck over what was already a dumbed down MMORPG.

dumbing down needlessly bloated or poorly desinged stuff is actually a good thing.
Take starcraft for example in the second game you could actually play the game withouth 200 apm just because the most montonous task of just keeping your base running were partially automated.

>Quests were dumbed down to the point of starting and finishing them within earshot of the quest giver.

Someone didn't play vanilla.

>There is weight, you can only carry a limited amount of stuff
>You can be killed almost anywhere, bank / house are the exception
>Casting runes is skill based, you have to predict where they will move when they have Boots of Haste + a speed spell
>Dying means you lose your backpack and all its contents + exp / if you're hunted you lose everything
>You could be fucking killed in Rookgaard (mob traps + roping)
>yfw when a white skull player appears while you're hunting dragons, literal cold sweat
>There are quests to this day that haven't been completed (it came in '97) I believe it's possible to attain it

Modern MMO's could learn a few things from this.

I personally liked that Morrowind had 20 different items just for Alchemy and Skyrim just has the Alchemy Lab were you put all ingredients. Even though it might be more simple to just have one it feels like the world is more expansive and there are more things to do if you have many. It's just artificially adding more tasks and clicks in-between you and the end Potion, but that's all video games are. Artificial tasks to get a dopamine hit in the brain.

>You could be fucking killed in Rookgaard (mob traps + roping)
Wasn't Rookgaard added after WoW?

whatever happened to that lvl 999 door

Taken from Wiki
" Rookgaard, created in December 1999, is where players learn to play Tibia. Once a character has reached level 8 it can leave Rookgaard, through the Island of Destiny, for the mainland."

yeah, simplicity for simplicity's sake is usually shit too.
gotta find the middleground. Sadly it's hard to find, many players nowadays are used to positive affirmation every minute.

Huh, could have sworn it was a new addition when I was playing. It's all one big blur though and I was obviously wrong.

I miss old mabinogi

I'd rather most MMOs didn't have mechanics that drove people into homicidal rage.

>none of them have been added to p99 yet

Such a waste. They suck up all the interest for everquest pservers so I'll never get to see one with enhanced graphics/animations and the extra races.
I miss my frog.

kings honor, friend