History YMMV / Everquest

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Compared to modern-day [=MMORPGs=], a lot of the game mechanics come across as very clunky. In particular, there are few xp giving quests (other than the daily hot zone kill quests) meaning you get most of your xp from just killing random mobs. Also, particularly in the older expansions, most of the raid bosses don't have any creative scripting or other tricks (aside from [=AoE=] spells you have to resist or avoid), and are basically just [[DamageSpongeBoss "attack them until they fall over".]] The game also doesn't delineate between solo and elite mobs (although raid bosses are at least marked as such), and while the game is pretty solo friendly at lower levels, around 70-80 monsters start getting ''much'' more powerful relative to players of the same level, meaning even killing monsters 15 or so levels lower difficult to do without help.

* CompleteMonster: [[EvilSorcerer Miragul]] was an Erudite spellcaster, who wanted to study the art of {{Necromancy}}, which is considered inherently evil, and was thus banned by the mostly good-aligned Erudites. He and his followers still decided to learn Necromancy, sparking a civil war between his followers and the rest of the Erudites. Miragul eventually tired of the war and left, traveling to Everfrost Peaks and created an elaborate underground lair he dubbed Miragul's Menagerie. When he first arrived, the local Barbarians just ignored him, until he started creating an UnrealisticBlackHole that was going to turn everyone in the region into his [[NightOfTheLivingMooks undead slaves]]. The Barbarian Thalger managed to destroy it with the Spear of Fate, but Miragul survived and eventually became a [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]]. In the Menagerie are numerous horrors, such as several people who are [[TakenForGranite turned to stone]] but [[AndIMustScream still conscious]]. While the [=PCs=] can free them, all but one are [[DrivenToMadness completely insane]], and even the sane one is mentally tormented. There's also a monk who has been trapped for ages and can only "escape" by entering a phylactery nearby; a tribe of undead petrified treants who are now evil; and "The Keening Woman", a tormented ghost who came to rescue her husband but died and became undead. Perhaps worst of all, Miragul is apparently working with Terris-Thule, the goddess of nightmares, to become a god.

* EvilIsSexy: The goddess Luclin, [[AmbiguouslyEvil though it's unclear if she's really all that evil]]. Her posture sitting on her throne even looks rather like a BasicInstinctLegsCrossingParody.
** Dark elves count as well, whether male or female they are always very attractive.

** You know those vaguely caricatured statements on how people denigrated the changes that streamlined the game? ''There are people who actually, honestly think that the level of misery the game engendered was good for it.'' This is one of the main reasons why Project 1999 exists.

* NarmCharm: most of the achievements have IncrediblyLamePuns as names, yet it's hard not to love the cheesyness of them.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Compared to modern-day [=MMORPGs=], a lot of the game mechanics come across as very clunky. In particular, there are few xp giving quests (other than the daily hot zone kill quests) meaning you get most of your xp from just killing random mobs. Also, particularly in the older expansions, most of the raid bosses don't have any creative scripting or other tricks (aside from AoE spells you have to resist or avoid), and are basically just [[DamageSpongeBoss "attack them until they fall over".]] The game also doesn't delineate between solo and elite mobs (although raid bosses are at least marked as such), and while the game is pretty solo friendly at lower levels, around 70-80 monsters start getting ''much'' more powerful relative to players of the same level, meaning even killing monsters 15 or so levels lower difficult to do without help.

** Vex Thal was this when it was released. Just to reach the bosses that are the primary goal of the raid, you have to fight through dozens of [[{{Mooks}} trash mobs]] with extremely high HP that drop nothing of value, which [[FakeLongevity serves no purpose other than to pad out how long it takes to complete the raid.]]

* DorkAge: ''Gates Of Discord'' is pretty much universally agreed to be the worst expansion, mainly because it and ''Omens Of War'' (the next expansion, which also increased the LevelCap from 65 to 70) were meant to be one expansion, but got split in two due to lack of manpower, funds etc. As such, not only is ''Gates'' really hard for it's intended level (indeed, the FinalBoss of the expansion wasn't killed until ''after'' ''Omens'' was released and raised the LevelCap), all of the zones look almost the same (with a few exceptions) and there are only about 10 different species of monsters in the zones.

* DifficultySpike: One of the things that's gotten more pronounced in the latter days of the game. Nowadays EQ holds your hand through your newbie days... and then suddenly kicks you in the nuts right around the time you hit level 25. In the old days, the game was happy to kick you in the nuts the second your brand-new character spawned, though, so this is actually a small improvement...
** As the updates go on, the difficulty spike kicks in at a higher level. * DirtyCop: There's an entire faction of corrupt guards in Qeynos. In edition, it's implied there is a major corruption problem among the guards of Freeport, so much that the local paladin guild considers them enemies.