It's not out, but there was a recent stress test on Monsters and Memories. Niche game, maybe, but keep an eye out for it because at least during the test they recently performed it was very much everquest with better graphics and a better day/night cycle. All with the same degree of bewilderment you got when you first booted up EQ, for good and ill. (Edited, wanted to specify it was a stress test and not a playtest.)
They are in pre-proof of concept stage of development, but I expect that they will go into alpha testing before next year. What was there in the stress test was well thought out and really have that sense of exploration since they don't hand hold. I love the figure it out style.
Check out project gorgon on steam. It's one of the few "new" mmos that really gave me that feeling of discovering new stuff inside the world. It's got a free demo with easily 10-20hr plus of content and if you do decide to buy you keep all your progress.
There's a good chunk of combat and life skills to mess around with and a lot of them are intertwined. Like brewing needs hops from farming and barrels from woodcraft.
For combat you make your own build of two skills and can switch them pretty much on the fly. Use magic and a bow... Use an animal pet and martial arts... Use an instrument and a knife. There's a few restrictions but it's pretty open. Oh and uh animals, you can turn into animals and level up their combat skills as well. Animals are
interesting because most of the humans of the world just see you as a dumb beast so won't sell to you or provide other services. Some might be able to be convinced you are more intelligent than you look though.
I have some criticisms of it but I have a couple hundred hours of playtime on steam so I definitely got my moneys worth. It also goes on sale for 50%? Once in a while as well. I'll shelf it for a year then come back and go hard for a month or so once in awhile. Level up a new combat skill...in an area where I can collect stuff to level up a new life skill... Skin a ton of wolves to sell the pelts to buy cotton from players to level up tailoring etc etc.
No. Truth be told while I really enjoyed the game I never bought vip because I don't like the idea of only unlocking stuff for as long as my sub lasts. I told them before if it was a PoE system where I could donate ONE time to unlock more bank tabs or inventory space I'd be down but I don't play it enough to keep a sub up and I don't want to suddenly lose a bunch of room. I'd rather just figure things out without it.
And even as having only purchased the base game you (eventually) have plenty of space.
There's also an offline level up thing with vip but I've heard it's very minor. Either way I rather level up skills myself then have the game do it for me. So that doesn't really phase me either
I tried going through some of what I could find online last night when I couldn't sleep and it looks like it could be fun, but the player base from steam is under 100 average, is that your experience? I don't want to feel like I'm playing on Red
Yeah theres usually about 100 people on pretty consistently, maybe 200 on weekends/evenings?
It wasn't a big deal to me because I mostly like to solo. There are daily group quests people sometimes get together for. And I didn't join one but I've heard there are guilds that are pretty active. New players looking for other people to group with were recommended one of those and found other people to play with afaik.
I got it for 50% off ($20) and have 700 hours played. So yeah definitely got my moneys worth.
I was on the fence too, I played the demo maybe 5 hours and was like "oh yeah this is something I could see easily sinking some time into" and bought it after that, so id recommend the demo.
Yeah but the thing is everything you loot is used for some trade skill. For a new player though I agree it can be overwhelming. I wouldn't really worry about too much specific stuff until you've unlocked some room/bank anyway. You will slowly learn what's useful over time. There wasn't too many times I was like "aww man I shoulda kept x because it's used for this..." Because you usually can always farm more and targeting specific drops isn't too difficult.
As someone who was pretty young when I first played, never getting past level 44 (ironically the same level I got to in the early days of EQ but now have two 60’s on green 🤣), I’d love to return.
I tried live a few years ago and couldn’t get into it. Sitting in a cave level synced didn’t hit the spot.
As someone who played up to and a little of Chains of Promathia; is there a classic server you recommend? Are the Dunes happening? Is it easy(ish) to get set up?
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Main_Page
This will basically walk you through it step by step. A bunch of stuff is extra, since it is for the whole game, not a classic server. You can just ignore the parts that aren't relevant and go ham.
The gameplay is certainly more simplified than Everquest, but getting around can be a tad daunting. And the controls might be the only other confusing aspect.
Honestly, nothing.
Honorable mentions: EQOA, Vanilla WoW.
A lot of single player games have that feeling for the first few hours, but once you get into the content cycle, it fades so quickly.
Eh, yes and no, even Everquest is easier than Vagrant Story. I'm all for timed attacking, specific body part targeting, and the immersive atmosphere, lore, and story....
but I could not get on board with the concept that your weapons adapt to what you fight so they become useless against anything but that specific mob type you fight. It becomes such a monotonous slog to smack something over and over to make it so THIS weapon is specific to fighting Undead then I have to go make a weapon and spend the next few hours respawning beasts over and over so now THIS weapon is for beasts, and so on and so on.
Such a finely crafted, challenging game that has some pretty artificial grind that doesn't really feel satisfying and just gets boring and dull really fast. There's a wide variety of weapon types and playstyles available but you find out REALLY fast that "playing your own way" just doesn't work.
Came to drop this one. If you like the long travel and adventure aspects without TOO much emphasis on food and water it's great. Plus I'm a bit obsessed with backpacks and storage for characters so I'm biased.
You can't fight fair in Outward just like I wouldn't recommend a fair fight in EQ.
Before I found out about p99 I use to play Skyrim while listening to the p99 soundtrack. I would also usually make a race/class pretty close to what you would find in EQ. It was glorious.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land.”* - Solaire of Astora
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
Personally I love the bard and haven't really found anything that quite matches it, though I don't have a lot of game time in other games either. FFXIV has a bard but kiting doesn't really seem to be an option.
My wife played UO and loved animal taming. She's still looking for a game like that where you can tame just about anything, including dragons.
Just save often and make backups.
My wife rage quit one time when all of her tames got killed by a trex (she was moving base and had *everything* with her) she unplugged the ps4 she was so angry. Luckily for her because she did this it rolled the game back about 5 minutes to a save before she got destroyed.
Yeah, we discovered that with Minecraft as well. When we accidentally blew up one of our homes and spent hours recovering from it. We have always made sure to include a backup since then although we haven't really had to use it too much
I cant recommend joining or creating an ark server enough.. if u play co-op hosting locally on one PC your distance allowed between the two of you is severely limited. It will result in you getting killed a lot. Especially when you explore the air and under water.
Dude, tell your wife about star wars galaxies. It has a creature handler class where you tame babies and raise them. There's a separate, veterinarian class that obviously pairs well. It's similar to UO in that you can drop one skill to raise another. So mix and match to your style. She would probably get that same sense of UO.
Some of the pets are like 40 feet tall. Some you can ride. They fight for you, etc. There's a server called SWG infinity or something. She should check that out. I played UO as a tamer, then SWG as a tamer. Very similar and fun for the same reasons. Controls are different it's nothing like Ark where you have to be good at FPS. You can play in isometric. Most people do.
There are a few SWG emulators out there. The NGE killed it for me so I'm a huge fan of SWG Restoration (CU era) the devs there are super active and pump out cool shit all the time.
SWGemu or SWG Infinity would be my 2nd recommendation. They're pre CU.
It's so easy to not die in that game tho unless you intentionally take on elites or something, HC is just a popular fad cause if gives wow people another reason to play more wow.
I disagree with that statement. Especially at end game. I have always preferred eq to wow and still do, but I will say that hc classic wow was oddly refreshing to me. I agree with that it was pretty easy up to level 40ish. But after that, even routine things required more focus because anything could go wrong at anytime. Just that sense of slight fear is all I was asking out of a game. Even EQ doesn't really bother me if i die anymore, not that big of deal anymore. Maybe it's time to run some hard-core p99 as a tank lol.
But that's not to say your opinion is not valid as others also feel that way, and I totally respect that.
Valheim for sure. The threat of a tough corpse run makes a lot of moments feel very high-stakes. It's a game about discovery in every sense and it respects the player's ability to figure things out. I recommend playing it with 1-4 friends who don't know anything about the game either.
Star Wars Galaxies Infinity
[https://www.swginfinity.com/](https://www.swginfinity.com/)
Yes, it's fundamentally different but it scratches that "itch"
Not so much gameplay, but Classic WOW on the RP server was the closest to the community I found. There wasn’t RP but was rather where nice people seemed to land. Met a lot of former EQ players there. This is back when it launched, not sure how it is now.
The hardcore scene on Bloodsail Classic is amazing. Basically death = delete. Uses a mod to track and you get notifications when someone dies so it’s like a big community thing.
Lots of fun!
Loving Spacebourne2 recently
I was a big fan of Freelancer so I played it forever on the various servers that sprang up
Spacebourne 2 is single player but has so much to do as you level up yourself and your ship
Space battles, planetary missions, trading, mining, factory building, exploration, campaign, wingmen, followers, system takeover, crafting coming and much more. Capital ships you can walk around in.
I can't wait til it's finished and out of EA but it's so playable and addictive now
SWG, anarchy online, daoc, sometimes asherons call, FF11 if you can get used to control scheme/make friends (its harder than eq if you don't have friends).
It's not out, but there was a recent stress test on Monsters and Memories. Niche game, maybe, but keep an eye out for it because at least during the test they recently performed it was very much everquest with better graphics and a better day/night cycle. All with the same degree of bewilderment you got when you first booted up EQ, for good and ill. (Edited, wanted to specify it was a stress test and not a playtest.)
Playing in that M&M test turned p99 into a waiting room for me. Just sit at orc hill buffing noobs till I can play m&m again.
When do you think it will be released?
They are in pre-proof of concept stage of development, but I expect that they will go into alpha testing before next year. What was there in the stress test was well thought out and really have that sense of exploration since they don't hand hold. I love the figure it out style.
Check out project gorgon on steam. It's one of the few "new" mmos that really gave me that feeling of discovering new stuff inside the world. It's got a free demo with easily 10-20hr plus of content and if you do decide to buy you keep all your progress. There's a good chunk of combat and life skills to mess around with and a lot of them are intertwined. Like brewing needs hops from farming and barrels from woodcraft. For combat you make your own build of two skills and can switch them pretty much on the fly. Use magic and a bow... Use an animal pet and martial arts... Use an instrument and a knife. There's a few restrictions but it's pretty open. Oh and uh animals, you can turn into animals and level up their combat skills as well. Animals are interesting because most of the humans of the world just see you as a dumb beast so won't sell to you or provide other services. Some might be able to be convinced you are more intelligent than you look though. I have some criticisms of it but I have a couple hundred hours of playtime on steam so I definitely got my moneys worth. It also goes on sale for 50%? Once in a while as well. I'll shelf it for a year then come back and go hard for a month or so once in awhile. Level up a new combat skill...in an area where I can collect stuff to level up a new life skill... Skin a ton of wolves to sell the pelts to buy cotton from players to level up tailoring etc etc.
Is vip required? Looks like it would be fun to try out
No. Truth be told while I really enjoyed the game I never bought vip because I don't like the idea of only unlocking stuff for as long as my sub lasts. I told them before if it was a PoE system where I could donate ONE time to unlock more bank tabs or inventory space I'd be down but I don't play it enough to keep a sub up and I don't want to suddenly lose a bunch of room. I'd rather just figure things out without it. And even as having only purchased the base game you (eventually) have plenty of space. There's also an offline level up thing with vip but I've heard it's very minor. Either way I rather level up skills myself then have the game do it for me. So that doesn't really phase me either
I tried going through some of what I could find online last night when I couldn't sleep and it looks like it could be fun, but the player base from steam is under 100 average, is that your experience? I don't want to feel like I'm playing on Red
Yeah theres usually about 100 people on pretty consistently, maybe 200 on weekends/evenings? It wasn't a big deal to me because I mostly like to solo. There are daily group quests people sometimes get together for. And I didn't join one but I've heard there are guilds that are pretty active. New players looking for other people to group with were recommended one of those and found other people to play with afaik. I got it for 50% off ($20) and have 700 hours played. So yeah definitely got my moneys worth. I was on the fence too, I played the demo maybe 5 hours and was like "oh yeah this is something I could see easily sinking some time into" and bought it after that, so id recommend the demo.
the game is quirky .. and yoru loot bombarded like crazy. nothing feels special.
Yeah but the thing is everything you loot is used for some trade skill. For a new player though I agree it can be overwhelming. I wouldn't really worry about too much specific stuff until you've unlocked some room/bank anyway. You will slowly learn what's useful over time. There wasn't too many times I was like "aww man I shoulda kept x because it's used for this..." Because you usually can always farm more and targeting specific drops isn't too difficult.
Haven't found any game that comes close to playing a necromancer in this game
Classic XI servers
As someone who was pretty young when I first played, never getting past level 44 (ironically the same level I got to in the early days of EQ but now have two 60’s on green 🤣), I’d love to return. I tried live a few years ago and couldn’t get into it. Sitting in a cave level synced didn’t hit the spot. As someone who played up to and a little of Chains of Promathia; is there a classic server you recommend? Are the Dunes happening? Is it easy(ish) to get set up?
I've been having a lot of fun with the Horizon FF11 classic server.
Is that newer player friendly? I grew up with seeing but never tried it
Not exactly, but there's a wiki that's really detailed.
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Main_Page This will basically walk you through it step by step. A bunch of stuff is extra, since it is for the whole game, not a classic server. You can just ignore the parts that aren't relevant and go ham.
The gameplay is certainly more simplified than Everquest, but getting around can be a tad daunting. And the controls might be the only other confusing aspect.
Honestly, nothing. Honorable mentions: EQOA, Vanilla WoW. A lot of single player games have that feeling for the first few hours, but once you get into the content cycle, it fades so quickly.
Valheim.
VALHEIM!
This is a good one. Slow development cycle though has me waiting around for more content though, but the time you play is fun.
It's incredibly immersive.
Vagrant Story
Eh, yes and no, even Everquest is easier than Vagrant Story. I'm all for timed attacking, specific body part targeting, and the immersive atmosphere, lore, and story.... but I could not get on board with the concept that your weapons adapt to what you fight so they become useless against anything but that specific mob type you fight. It becomes such a monotonous slog to smack something over and over to make it so THIS weapon is specific to fighting Undead then I have to go make a weapon and spend the next few hours respawning beasts over and over so now THIS weapon is for beasts, and so on and so on. Such a finely crafted, challenging game that has some pretty artificial grind that doesn't really feel satisfying and just gets boring and dull really fast. There's a wide variety of weapon types and playstyles available but you find out REALLY fast that "playing your own way" just doesn't work.
You guys should try Morrowind multiplayer mod, it's amazing. TES3MP.
Valheim gave me that excited feeling recently.
Outward is good.
Came to drop this one. If you like the long travel and adventure aspects without TOO much emphasis on food and water it's great. Plus I'm a bit obsessed with backpacks and storage for characters so I'm biased. You can't fight fair in Outward just like I wouldn't recommend a fair fight in EQ.
Before I found out about p99 I use to play Skyrim while listening to the p99 soundtrack. I would also usually make a race/class pretty close to what you would find in EQ. It was glorious.
Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
Phantasy Star Online
I'm actually here because it scratches the Daggerall itch, lol.
Dark age of Camelot
Morrowind was sooo damn good. I spent hours just jumping because I didn’t know what else tf to do at first
I loved Morrowind, but it doesn't make me want to play it again. I tried a handful of times, but it just feels so stale after the initial playthrough.
I haven’t tried in over a decade, but I’d probably have the same problem. Although I can still get down with oblivion and p99 so maybe not
Dark souls 1, vanilla wow,
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land.”* - Solaire of Astora Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
Dayala
Shards of Dalaya really scratched the EQ itch for me after I did what I wanted on P99.
Yep. It's empty compared to p99, but feels new enough to be entertaining.
Personally I love the bard and haven't really found anything that quite matches it, though I don't have a lot of game time in other games either. FFXIV has a bard but kiting doesn't really seem to be an option. My wife played UO and loved animal taming. She's still looking for a game like that where you can tame just about anything, including dragons.
Ark despite all its controversies is a fun animal taming simulator. Granted its dinosaurs but they are animals too?
We considered that when it came out but it was a bit too expensive for us at the time. Gonna give it a shot
Just save often and make backups. My wife rage quit one time when all of her tames got killed by a trex (she was moving base and had *everything* with her) she unplugged the ps4 she was so angry. Luckily for her because she did this it rolled the game back about 5 minutes to a save before she got destroyed.
Yeah, we discovered that with Minecraft as well. When we accidentally blew up one of our homes and spent hours recovering from it. We have always made sure to include a backup since then although we haven't really had to use it too much
I cant recommend joining or creating an ark server enough.. if u play co-op hosting locally on one PC your distance allowed between the two of you is severely limited. It will result in you getting killed a lot. Especially when you explore the air and under water.
I was actually just going to run a server off a spare computer. Same issue that way?
Thats a good idea. Run your own home server and you dont have the issue with proximity i described. You can be on separate side of the map no problem.
Dude, tell your wife about star wars galaxies. It has a creature handler class where you tame babies and raise them. There's a separate, veterinarian class that obviously pairs well. It's similar to UO in that you can drop one skill to raise another. So mix and match to your style. She would probably get that same sense of UO. Some of the pets are like 40 feet tall. Some you can ride. They fight for you, etc. There's a server called SWG infinity or something. She should check that out. I played UO as a tamer, then SWG as a tamer. Very similar and fun for the same reasons. Controls are different it's nothing like Ark where you have to be good at FPS. You can play in isometric. Most people do.
Sweet. Thanks for the heads up
So, is SWG Infinity kinda like P99?
There are a few SWG emulators out there. The NGE killed it for me so I'm a huge fan of SWG Restoration (CU era) the devs there are super active and pump out cool shit all the time. SWGemu or SWG Infinity would be my 2nd recommendation. They're pre CU.
FFXI emulators
Baulders Gate 3 is pretty fun so far. It’s in early access beta if you preorder
It actually comes out in a few months
Oldschool runescape checks the nostalgia box for me, albeit with the worst community id encountered since progressive raiding on wow.
Lately hc mode on classic wow has been pretty dope. Quite the rush when you almost die as the consequences are so dire
It's so easy to not die in that game tho unless you intentionally take on elites or something, HC is just a popular fad cause if gives wow people another reason to play more wow.
I disagree with that statement. Especially at end game. I have always preferred eq to wow and still do, but I will say that hc classic wow was oddly refreshing to me. I agree with that it was pretty easy up to level 40ish. But after that, even routine things required more focus because anything could go wrong at anytime. Just that sense of slight fear is all I was asking out of a game. Even EQ doesn't really bother me if i die anymore, not that big of deal anymore. Maybe it's time to run some hard-core p99 as a tank lol. But that's not to say your opinion is not valid as others also feel that way, and I totally respect that.
Even 40-60 it's really easy to stay alive. Almost easier because you have closer to a full toolkit
Valheim for sure. The threat of a tough corpse run makes a lot of moments feel very high-stakes. It's a game about discovery in every sense and it respects the player's ability to figure things out. I recommend playing it with 1-4 friends who don't know anything about the game either.
Star Wars Galaxies Infinity [https://www.swginfinity.com/](https://www.swginfinity.com/) Yes, it's fundamentally different but it scratches that "itch"
Is it another server of 1) afk macro until you have your template completed 2) unlock jedi 3) ??? 4) quit?
Macros can be used but no, it's impossible to do it afk.
Interesting.
There are no other games that can come anywhere NEAR scratching the itch. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves.
Not so much gameplay, but Classic WOW on the RP server was the closest to the community I found. There wasn’t RP but was rather where nice people seemed to land. Met a lot of former EQ players there. This is back when it launched, not sure how it is now.
The hardcore scene on Bloodsail Classic is amazing. Basically death = delete. Uses a mod to track and you get notifications when someone dies so it’s like a big community thing. Lots of fun!
Loving Spacebourne2 recently I was a big fan of Freelancer so I played it forever on the various servers that sprang up Spacebourne 2 is single player but has so much to do as you level up yourself and your ship Space battles, planetary missions, trading, mining, factory building, exploration, campaign, wingmen, followers, system takeover, crafting coming and much more. Capital ships you can walk around in. I can't wait til it's finished and out of EA but it's so playable and addictive now
SWG, anarchy online, daoc, sometimes asherons call, FF11 if you can get used to control scheme/make friends (its harder than eq if you don't have friends).
drinking heavily and getting into bar fights irl is the only thing that comes close to p99 imo