It was a Tuesday night when a friend basicaly begged me via email to come out of a 4 month retirement from EQ to go help him with a step in his epic. I had been playing Anarchy Online heavily for the month prior, and although I would have much rather been playing AO that night, I decided, sure why not.
I entered EQ at 5:30, after having downloaded the expected patch. But that's not really a big deal, I doubt any online game will ever not be patched. Tribes 1 set the standard years ago by being the first online game to get regular patches to fix minor bugs and enhance game play, a trend I'm very glad to have seen come to fruition.
The group I had met up with spent about an hour just trying to find where we were going. The zone was cramped, small, trees every 5 feet from me, I couldn't see more than a few hundred feet ahead of me. It began. I struggled to remember how to target monsters. I couldn't remember how to look at spells or items. I became upset when the items or spells didn't show what they did. I had no clue as to how much mana that bar represented. I had no clue how much healing a spell would do.
I was rapidly reminded just how much memorization EQ requires. You had to memorize the zone. You had to memorize yourself. You had to memorize where you were going. It was... rediculous.
I was also rapidly reminded how much it required you to be supported by others. We had to wait for a guide, there was no overhead map that I could simply upload to my NCU processer and grab (with the mouse) and move at will to find where I was going. We had to wait for someone who could 'sow' us. We had to wait for someone to guide us. We had to wait.
It was not all bad. One member of the group remembered me from over a real time year ago. How I had saved her in Sol B, prior to the expansions. Soloing at the zone line, rezing, helping, I had spent so much time there. To this day I could still probalby draw a map of the spawn points and pathing, there and the front of Kaesora. Tactics and strategies of playing 'lets use the monster pathing to our advantage'. She reminded me there were those who still loved, appriciated, and missed, me.
I never forgot that the social aspects kept me coming back to EQ for so long. It's something I do miss. But something I'm sure will come in time with AO.
Finally we made it to the dungeon where my friends last epic piece lay. We reformed groups, and I was again reminded by a few around me, and via tell, I was missed.
We fought in, we fought around, we fought above and below.
I sat after combat, waiting... waiting... waiting. Rapidly reminded of the drastic difference between AO and EQ. In EQ I wait 15-20 minutes to refill my mana. In AO I wait about 30 seconds, hit a kit, do that 2 - 4 times (I have a lot of nano), and I've gone from 0 nano to 100% nano and am good to go. The basic difference rapidly and easily represented.
3 frelling hours later, we kill the creature he needed. 40+ people there, a great battle to fight our way in and kill 1 thing. Very different than AO. At this point I was happy for my friend, but boored beyond imagination. I wondered how I ever stood EQ. I found myself remembering how incredibly slow EQ moved. How, you can get up mid combat, go change your cloths, and come back, and they would still be fighting the same monster.
We hung around for another 2+ hours trying to get back, whereupon we found a nasty critter who would AE for half our lives. Boom, boom, dead.
But wait, this isn't AO where you respawn at your save point, wait 5 minutes for resurection to clear, and wait a meer 30 seconds for your items to respawn from the booth. No no, this is EQ. You must wait to go back and get to your body, you must wait for a resurection, you must wait for your resurection to clear. Wait wait wait.
Summary / Solution / Truth
Granted, EQ will always have a fond place in my memory. The first 'massivly multiplayer' online roleplaying game. The 'one that started it all'. But, will I buy that expansion? Will I play EQ 2? Most definatily not, and quite possibly not.
At the end of the evening, several old friends and others had said they missed me, and while I missed them, the game itself simply isn't me. It hadn't been for a long time.
EQ is a forced time sink. EQ has some nice items you have to spend a lot of time and effort getting. It's dependable, reliable, but only if your willing to put in the time, and emotional / physical confrontation with others to get it.
AO is the total opposite. It's all about choice. Do you want to group, or do you want to solo? Do you want to be social, or do you want to hang out mostly alone? Do you want to do more offensive damage as your 'class' or do you want to be more non-combat oriented? (I have yet to see 2 characters of the same 'class' built the same way in AO.) Do you want to spend time picking and choosing missions to find x item, or do you just want to get whatever?
That evening I had spent about 5 hours in EQ. I burnt personal resources so that a friend and a few others could get stuff for their epics. In contrast last night I spent about 4 hours in AO. I gained 2 levels, sold about 5 items, and bought a new program (spell). Granted, I'm not max level in AO, like I am in EQ. But it was my choice. I chose to group for a few hours and gain those 2 levels. I chose to do missions to earn the credits for that program. I chose to spend 1 hour crusing around shops hoping for the random spawn of the nano-clusters I need for the implants I make. The time sink was my choice.
Simple fact: AO is about choice, EQ is about 'if you want it, you better be ready to play by our rules'.
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but after 1 month of AO, always gaining something when I have left (it's impossible not to the way you can 'save' your character), having the choice to build skills and ablities how I choose when I level, I'm just so sick of EQ's forced competitve nature and slow forced time sink attitude, I doubt I'll ever go back. Social interaction, top notch, but I have a life, I don't want to be forced by the game to spend more time than I choose to spend. I want to spend the time I choose by my choice, not by the games choice.
(PS- That picture is less than a week old, and 90% of my equipment has changed for the better.)
EQ is removed from my harddrive, the memories have not been. The character of Darkpact will fade off the server hard drive, much as the memories will fade from my mind. I will be the only mind to inhabit the body. But for my lack of choice, and force to be required to do or be x, I doubt I will ever return to the world of Norrath.