Quote Originally Posted by Chakramaster View Post
Oh no I remember it with my first real MMO Rising Force Online (RFOnline). Heck you had to level each individual stat as you progressed. Starting from lower level mobs. So to use a higher level shield as a tank class. You needed your shield/defense level at a certain level. So often times you'd be in high level areas seeing someone holding onto all the mobs for a monster others want to farm. If you tried killing one of those in that area. That person might go near you and let the entire mob hitting them AoE you dead in an instant. xD
Ugh, that sounds bloody awful.

What also made Everquest horrendous was the severe EXP loss you suffered for dying, and it could even make you lose levels. Hours (days even) worth of grinding could be lost from something stupid that wasn't your fault or was just a freak accident. When you died, you had to go to the location where you died with nothing equipped at all (unless you had backup equipment in your character's bank), which mean you could easily be killed again and lose even more EXP. Then, if you managed to get to your corpse, you had to loot each individual item you had in your inventory and had equipped. All one at a time. Given the fact this is the spot where you died, it could still be a very dangerous area, which meant that while you were looting your corpse, you could get attacked and killed again. And in Everquest, they didn't give you any indication as to where your corpse was on the map, so if you got lost and died, good luck trying to get to your corpse again. You would probably need help. And if you didn't get to your corpse in time, absolutely everything you had on you would be gone.

On top of ALL THAT, where you respawned upon death depended on where your binding location was. If you died on the other side of the world and didn't get someone to bind you to a new location (only certain caster classes could do this), you could have to cross over multiple continents to get to even just the zone where you died. So instead of enjoying the game, you could spend hours just making the long trip back to where you died in hopes that you could reclaim all your lost stuff.

I think I only played up to level 19 and I decided to quit. As far as MMOs go, that's a pretty early resignation, but I just couldn't stand it any longer and I knew the game was only going to get harder and more stressful. Never had any regrets about that either.