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00:00:00 – 01:05:21
Josh Dri Hayes spends 100 hours exploring the 25-year-old MMORPG EverQuest to assess whether it has aged well. He covers various servers, noting their complexity and the game's fragmented player base. Key points include a steep learning curve, complex old-school mechanics, and a necessity for constant social interaction that modern communication platforms have affected. Hayes describes the gameplay's slow pace, cumbersome interface, and significant reliance on community help for navigation and progression.
Throughout his experience, he highlights elements like questing, combat, spell management, and trade skills, illustrating the game's depth but also its outdated and sometimes frustrating design. Interaction with other players, including helpful advice from community members, provides some relief from the often isolated solo play. However, the game's "pay for advantage" model and the extensive time investment needed for meaningful progress are points of contention.
Hayes engages with multiple aspects of EverQuest, including its progression servers, exploring various maps, and tackling both solo and group gameplay, but ultimately finds the older mechanics and lack of in-game social systems to be a barrier for new players. While EverQuest’s sense of progression and historical significance are appreciated, it struggles to balance modern expectations with its classic MMO roots, making it challenging to fully enjoy without nostalgia.
00:00:00
In this part of the video, Josh Dri Hayes decides to spend 100 hours playing the 25-year-old MMORPG, EverQuest, to see if the game gets better with time, as fans claim. He details his experience with the game, highlighting the different servers (live, role-playing, time-locked progression, and Project 99), and explains the complexities and fragmented player base. He starts the game on a live server, creating a character (a Drakkin Shadow Knight), and navigates through the initial stages, including the tutorial zone. Josh describes his interactions, game mechanics, and the challenges of adjusting to EverQuest’s older systems. He points out the game’s steep learning curve, the importance of the “find” function for navigation, and gameplay elements like questing and combat.
00:10:00
In this part of the video, the speaker discusses the interface and mechanics of the game EverQuest, emphasizing the game’s complexity and old-school design choices. Players are tasked with finding small, obscure items like mushroom-sized mushrooms without obvious highlights. Managing numerous windows is crucial for gameplay, as the game lacks a minimalist UI, resulting in important details often displayed in many small, resizable windows.
Players receive beneficial effects and buffs, but the game doesn’t provide numerical specifics on these benefits, leaving much to guesswork. Spell management involves many steps: learning new spells from scrolls, adding them to spell books, and managing spell gem bars and hotbars for casting.
Combat is slow and turn-based, with essential information displayed in text rather than through animations or on-screen numbers. The game’s mechanics require players to “consider” enemies to gauge their level and difficulty. Skills are improved through use; for instance, frequent use of a particular weapon or spell increases proficiency.
The video also touches on the social aspects of EverQuest. Downtime between fights is meant for social interaction, as players might need to sit and recover health or mana slowly. Modern communication platforms have shifted this social aspect away from the game, making solo play feel isolated, especially since most players on live servers are at the end game.
The speaker compares the experience of playing EverQuest today to listening to Elvis Presley without the historical context, highlighting that while foundational and groundbreaking at the time, the experience without nostalgia may not hold the same excitement or impact.
00:20:00
In this part of the video, the speaker discusses the experience of playing EverQuest today compared to its initial release, emphasizing how it feels less novel and exciting now. They provide a tactical note about how enemy mobs won’t stop chasing you across the whole map, but guard NPCs can kill them quickly. The speaker begins their grind with a “kill 20” quest and explains the alternative advancement window, which becomes useful at level 51.
When hitting level five, players receive in-game mail about the origin skill, a free recall to Crescent Reach usable every 20 minutes. They mention hiring mercenaries, which are free up to level 15, introducing their hired healer. The video touches on the game’s mechanics, like aggro and enemy models’ graphics.
As they progress, they chat with another player, Ghoul Hopper, and encounter the penalty of experience loss on death. The tutorial feels lengthy, but they eventually enjoy small achievements. They discover item comparison features and learn the game gradually with necessary adjustments.
Reaching level 10, they venture to the Plane of Knowledge, using in-game navigation systems. The EverQuest world interconnects areas like Crescent Reach and the Moors, enhancing the immersive experience with a day-night cycle influencing mob spawns. They highlight the importance of player-made maps and third-party apps like the Bray wall map pack for navigation. The speaker continues their questlines, remarking on the game’s complexity and the tools available to aid in traversing and mastering EverQuest’s expansive world.
00:30:00
In this segment of the video, the speaker explores the intricacies of the game EverQuest, explaining how multiple commands can be bound to a single key, which adds complexity to the game. They recount their experiences killing enemies, managing inventory, and navigating quests, highlighting the need for more storage space and the game’s detailed mechanics such as water physics affecting spell casting. The speaker also discovers the game’s trade skill system through a laborious process of making oatmeal, reflecting on its unintuitive design.
They describe interactions within the game, such as the randomness of shared player experiences, the challenges of underleveled quests, and the frustration of finding quest items. They tackle complex quests, learning about the game’s banking system, weapon acquisition, and trading dynamics. The speaker emphasizes how EverQuest’s community and cooperation were vital, referencing multiboxing and the game’s slow solo progression.
Additionally, they delve into various quests, including mundane tasks and extensive storyline quests like the Serpent Seekers charm of lore, which integrates well with the game’s maps and narrative. Encountering logistical issues with rare enemy spawns, they persist through grinding and completing tasks, ultimately progressing through levels.
00:40:00
In this segment of the video, the presenter reflects on the game “EverQuest,” highlighting its sense of progression despite its slow pace compared to modern games. They appreciate the quest density in Crescent Reach and share tactics for boss fights, such as triggering dialogues to start combat early. They transition to exploring the next map, The Moors, encountering different creatures and learning about dungeons, but face limitations due to the necessity for group play. The presenter discusses the game’s extensive content from its numerous expansions and the challenges of starting fresh in such a vast game world, including membership details and the costs related to it.
They express concerns about EverQuest’s “pay for an advantage” model through Daybreak’s all-access pass and additional perks. They discuss buying in-game items and the implications on the game’s economy, comparing it to other games where similar systems exist. Moving forward, they explore various zones, including The Overthere and the Plane of Knowledge, while battling through quests and encountering powerful enemies. They mention a critical point in solo play progression and the intricacies of managing spells, which lack clear stacking information.
The presenter comments on the overall gameplay experience, noting that while EverQuest mixes elements of classic and modern MMOs, it may not fully satisfy fans of either style. The segment ends with the presenter continuing to grind through levels, utilizing community guides to navigate the game more effectively while voicing frustrations about the significant time investment required for meaningful progress.
00:50:00
In this segment of the video, the speaker discusses their experience with EverQuest Live, highlighting the game’s contradicting design that hampers enjoyment. They note the difficult balance between the tedious grind necessary to reach the endgame and the expectation to slowly immerse oneself in the game. Specific quests and gameplay moments are described, such as defeating challenging enemies, waiting for specific event times, and equipping new gear. The speaker finds the game’s journey to be overly stretched out and padded with repetitive content, leading to frustration and disengagement.
They then transition to trying a progression server, pointing out differences in the early gameplay experience without modern tutorials. The speaker recounts creating a new character and encountering difficulties due to the game’s complex, less user-friendly design compared to modern MMOs. Despite some enjoyable gameplay elements, they highlight challenges such as slow mana regeneration, difficulty in solo play, and a lack of directions or quests for new players. The speaker concludes that while EverQuest offers depth and freedom, it fails to properly introduce these elements, making it hard for new players to appreciate.
01:00:00
In this part of the video, the player reaches level 18 in EverQuest after 6 hours and discusses the necessity of prior knowledge to progress efficiently. They note the community’s conversations in general chat and receive helpful gameplay advice, including casting Shield of Flame on mercenaries and pets, which proves effective. A player named beatboxer provides additional advice and sends Platinum for equipment. The player reviews the EverQuest community’s smaller, spread-out nature compared to other MMOs and mentions the functionality of the auction house.
The player struggles to progress alone, hits a challenging “soft wall,” and then collaborates with another player named Red. Together, they tackle various in-game activities, benefiting from each other’s assistance, which improves their gameplay experience significantly. However, when Red is not available to play later, the player feels the grind and loneliness of the game again, highlighting the reliance on external communication tools like Discord for social interaction.
The segment concludes with reflections on EverQuest’s challenges in retaining new players due to its outdated mechanics and lack of in-game social systems compared to modern MMOs. The player acknowledges EverQuest’s historical significance but notes its difficulty in providing a sustained enjoyable experience without a community. They suggest appreciating EverQuest for its foundational impact on the genre but managing expectations regarding a modern MMO experience.