With WoW Classic in the news so much lately, I’ve been thinking back to 2004 when the original World of Warcraft launched. We’ve spent what feels like the last 15 years talking about the aftermath of WoW and its impact on the genre, but even in 2004, it had a direct impact on multiple MMOs – including and especially EverQuest II, which launched just a few weeks before it. I’ve always thought that colossally unfair since EverQuest II was (I’ll say it) the more interesting and complex MMORPG at the time, with more features and intricacies but less polish and accessibility. But that didn’t count for much when Blizzard hit go.
It’s not the only game that’s suffered mightily because of some other major launch. I always thought Asheron’s Call never got its due because it launched just half a year after EverQuest. I was never able to talk my guildies from EQ to AC en masse, so my experiences there were side ventures with a few friends at a time at best as EverQuest ate up most of our game time. And yet I had far more fun in AC.
Did you ever skip any great MMOs to play something more popular?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
