Everquest Mysteries

EQ had a story right from classic, the issue was that all the story development was done in the form of GM events, so if you missed them you had no idea wtf was going on or why you did things. At the end of each major "plot event" a player usually received an "artifact" (only one existed per server).

Classic:
[Blood Kithicor - Shield of Hatred]
The Pickclaw Goblins under Highkeep discovered a vein of ore that was actually Fulligan Soulstones of Innoruuk. They sold some of this to a Dark Elf who then informed Neriak proper. The result was the Dark Elves marching on Highkeep, fighting with the good races led by Firiona Vie in Kithicor Forest. During this battle Lanys (the chosen of Innoruuk) was nearly slain so Laarthik (her teacher) used the Soulstone to open a portal to Plane of Hate from which Innoruuk descended. He slew everyone who couldn't flee, made the dead rise in Kithicor and took Lanys back to Plane of Hate with him. From this point onward players could access Plane of Hate via a Wizard and these stones. [Artifact: Shield of Bloody Hatred]

[Relic of Brell Serilis - Butcherblock Hammer]
Al'Kabor discovers the existence of Phinigel Autropos while attempting to unravel the secrets of interplanar travel and the mechanisms behind the functions of the Wizard Spires. The last remaining Knight of Kedge tells Al'Kabor where the "Hammer of Dagnor Butcherblock" is kept which triggers the "Relic of Brell Serilis" GM event. Here a bunch of adventurers try to reclaim the hammer of Brell Serilis, supposedly Phinigel rebukes them at some point and in the end they acquire the hammer from some Dark Elves who stole it during the entire adventure. Also, Kedge Keep is open.

[Rending the Veil - Crystal Claw of Veeshan]
Al'Kabor discovers that Lady Vox has an item capable of "rending the veil" which prevents mortals from traversing the planes. Adventurers slay Lady Vox, acquire the Crystal Claw of Veeshan and planar travel becomes possible. This specifically unlocked Plane of Sky for players as well.

[The Hole]
I forget most of what happened here

[The Plague in the Karanas - Prime Healers Bulwark]
Cult of Bertoxxulous spread a plague in the Karanas, a bunch of players stopped them.

With Kunark there was a more direct plot line, specifically agents of Venril Sathir had kidnapped Firiona Vie and players were searching for her. Somehow during this process she ended up in Veeshan's Peak which provides the impetus for players to gain access and clear the place out, thus rescuing her.

Alright, I had to bail on this write up earlier due to time constraints. But here is a quick tl;dr of EQ plot.

The whole story up to Planes of Power more or less follows the famous Wizard Al'Kabor and his attempts to uncover the origin and full functionality of the Wizard Spires. In Classic this results in the rending of the veil separating mortals from the planes, in the process we meet Phinigel, Vox, discover Soulstones (Hate Travel) and use the Crystal Claw of Veeshan to officially rend the Veil.

During this process the High Elves had gone to Kunark a few times unsuccessfully. In their most recent attempt Firiona Vie was captured by agents of Venril Sathir so they send a full fledged force to establish a permanent foothold on Kunark and invite adventurers to help search for her as well. During this process Al'Kabor finds his way to Kunark and of course sets to studying the spires in the Dreadlands while adventurers busy themselves killing Venril Sathir and later invading Veeshan's Peak to rescue Firiona Vie.

By the time Firiona Vie is saved, Al'Kabor has discovered that in order to activate the spires in the Dreadlands he needs "Ice of Velious" and as such begins attempting to access Velious.

Adventurers follow suit once again and get entangled in the political quarrels of the Velious factions until eventually the Shade of Jaled Dar tricks them into waking the Sleeper partly in revenge for them defiling his old home of VP (and presumably slaying his daughter Phara Dar). The lore indicates that Kerafyrm slays Yelinak and then the children of the original Warders become the "Crusaders" who are destined to put Kerafyrm back to sleep.

With his new materials Al'Kabor can activate the spires in the Dreadlands and discovers Luclin and the Combine/Akheva/Katta/Vah Shir. Players once again follow and get entangled in local affairs until they ultimately slay the Emperor of the Shissar gaining access to Vex Thal and killing Aten Ha Ra, the evil shadow of Akelha'Ra.

Shortly after this the PoK books appear around Norrath giving adventurers access to the Plane of Knowledge, a place secretly dedicated to the worship of Zebuxoruk. Their god (or ungod) has been imprisoned in the Plane of Time and now they seek the aid of Norraths adventurers to free him. Why this happened is a mystery. It might because with the death of Emperor Ssraeshza the last of the "Plane Defiling" cultures was gone (minus the players themselves). It might be that once Al Kabor pierced the veil surrounding Luclin the inhabitants of PoK were finally able to "see" the players. It could just be that having defeated AHR the players had proven themselves powerful enough that they might finally be helpful.

After this the players of course slay the pantheon, free Zeb and then Druzzil resets the timeline. This is the whole golden era of EQ.

Itlan said:

I'd say the majority of casual gamers, which make up a lot more of a demographic than hardcore gamers based on shit like EQ, WoW, SC, League, DOTA, etc.

Thing is, if you're part of a top tier guild or you're in Masters league in SC for example, you have no idea what is going outside of your little bubble. There's retards running around everywhere asking if Hunters should stack Intellect or Stamina.

Most of the people I met in EverQuest while leveling and the various guilds I joined... great people, but once I hit max and joined a raiding guild, I never saw those or heard from those people again unless I randomly came across them in a major hub or they asked me to come help them on some shitty "family" raid. And inspecting them revealed everything you needed to know. We're a small minority but we find it normal because we frequent this nerdy ass forum where everyone is a min/maxer. Ffs, I became good at SC because people like Tenks would whoop my ass continuously until I improved.

Ever see someone who's not a gamer play something like Dark Souls? Pretty sure my friend still hasn't beaten Bloodborne.

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this happened to a lot of my guildies and myself included to some degree. you get in a high end raiding guild and you log in go to raid places then on the rare occasion the raid ends reasonably early, maybe you and some guildies run over to do a certain quest or just solo a little bit. you never see whats outside your guild and if you do then it looks like everyone else is a complete moron. and maybe they are or maybe you are just super fucking jaded because you are used to playing with people who raid the hardest hitters/nukers all day and night and have the absolutely best gear in the game to handle it.

i played EQ for 5 years and of those 5 years, i spent 4 years as a member of a high end raiding guild. i had seen it all, done it all and when i hung out in EC tunnel or at a wizard port waiting with the masses of regular players for the portal to activate i would get crowdd and spammed inspection because of the phat l00t i was pimping. inevitably i would get sent tells askingh for cash or buffs. i would put the /AFK tag on and hope they went away. it got so that when a raid was over i would just gate to bind point and log on one of my lesser geared twinks with /anon status so they couldnt tell that i was in the big guild, but after a while even my twinks had better gear than 90% of the server. i tried grouping with regular players on those twinks, but the groups i got in could see i was kitted out like crazy and would always look to me to save them every fucking time. i didnt mind taking the hits, i certainly did that enough on my shaman during raids, but it allowed these regular players to basically fuck off and not play their roles because i was powerleveling them. thats not to say there werent regular players who went above and beyond in their roles and i would ask them nonchalantly if they were in a guild and if they were happy there and maybe they would like to join a better guild and have more fun. i was a big recruiter when i found a good pick. but those times were few and far between.

when EQ started there was some level of dedication in the first players, because the game was targeted at dedicated gamers and RPers so we got a hardier bunch, plus it was kind of expensive with not too many people owning an EQ capable PC and a proper connection. the tech caught up in the 2000s, but for a time if you were in EQ you more or less had some money to play and had a PC background. i had my first PC by 92 or 93 and was already playing online games for 5 years before EQ went live so it was just the next logical step for me. the kiddies were still fucking with the consoles and internet was still silly expensive and not many would pay to look at shitty web sites. plus, the EQ learning curve was on HARD mode so it kept most people away from it.

Sean used to bitch all the time on IRC that games were too fucking easy and he only played EQ for the skill. he was right. before i had internet i was playing fucking hard Sierra games, goddamned Phantasmagoria took a giant shit on me for winning that game because it took so long to do it after dying many times and didnt get all the easter eggs. when i won Conquest of Camelot i swear the game said something like, you won, i guess, but your score sucks, you suck, kill yourself now!

TJT said:

Agreed. Too many Theme Park MMOs thanks to WoW and its spawn. Let's have a sandboxy game with lots of background to make our own stories in.

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Yeah, no one has come out with a Sandbox game since yesterday...

WoW did so many things right, but when they tried to make you the center of the adventure, the hero that was changing the story and landscape of the game... they lost me. I cannot suspend disbelief to the point that I know that lil Timmy the Priest and Margret the Mage also just did the exact same bullshit 5 minutes after me.

Timelines get all fuckered up when you take this approach and it kills the immersion that you are in a continuous game world.

WoW tried to make you the main protagonist in a fantasy world with 10 million other people promised the same thing. EQ just said, "You are in our world now."

TJT said:

What game are you talking about? I am just meaning something where you are just a dude, an adventurer in a dangerous world. Not the Hero Of the Universe like Fight is talking about. Not WoW's style in that everything is just so sterilized. I am just so tired of that.

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Ark or literally any of the 4 billion sandbox games that have come out in the past two years. Make your own story is like the newest fad.

They are kinda shitty for the most part.

I like rimworld. Not because it's particularly special, but the systems are deep enough to not be trivial and boring while they're not so deep as to be byzantine and incomprehensible.

But it's basically an advanced form of that old C-64 game where you had a little dude in his house. And you could type "go toilet" and he'd go to the bathroom or you could type "watch television" and he'd go to the den and turn on the TV. More of a motion machine than a game. Like watching an aquarium but slightly more interactive.

As far as MMO's go, EQ really did do it right. Provide a setting. Your character isn't anything special. He's just your character. Trying to merge single player "you are the hero" stories with the MMO setting blanded it up terribly. They were trying to make it more engaging, but it has the opposite effect.

You're just a dude. You do what you do. It's a mmo. If you want to be the hero you've got to convince other people that you're the hero.

I always enjoyed the thought of 72 people poking something in the leg for a few minutes to kill it.

Itlan said:

What's the overarching story for earth? Can someone tell me? Does it involve plastic?

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Yes