I only played the original EverQuest (EQ) game, and that's because I bought it for $10 at Best Buy. (Most of the reason I don't play MMORPG's often is not because of the monthly fee; it is because of the ridiculous price of games when they're fresh on the market.) However, I have heard that most of the later expansions don't do much to address the following problems.
- Travel
Firstly, the main method of transportation is walking. Walking. EQ boasts of the largest MMORPG world of them all, and the main transportation is walking. Goodie.
There is also the teleportation system. I forget which class(es?) can do this, but I know at least one of them can teleport themselves and those who are in their group to specific zones using certain spells. "Ah," you may say, "but this is not a drawback!" You may think that. However, when you are not playing one of these characters, and are not friends with one, it is rather difficult to get a teleport without paying out your ass.
As you can imagine, when you're playing as one of these characters, you don't really want to be interrupted from your quest or battle by teleport requests. Some players make money by standing in major virtual cities and advertising their teleport services for a fee. In both cases, it's massively irritating to see the same message across your screen every few minutes or so: either "Can you pleeeease port me to (city name)? I'll pay! Oh how I will pay!", or "TELEPORT TO (list of cities) FOR A 5 PLATINUM DONATION!"
Horses are an addition in one of the trillion expansion packs for EQ. I have not played any of the expansion packs, but I hear that horses are rather expensive, and difficult to acquire. If I find out more, I will update.
EQ, as the biggest online world, has multiple continents. Usually, to get to one of these continents, you need to take a boat. A boat ride in EQ is one of the most boring things you could possibly have to sit through. There's actually nothing on the boat but a deck and a lower room. There's a mast, with which you can't do anything. And there are the other players. Sometimes, if the other players are chatty enough, you can start a conversation. If you are alone, though, you have to just sit there while the boat passes through massive ocean zones. I'd suggest taking up crocheting or something to help pass the time.
UPDATE:*
Apparently, two expansions (Planes of Power and Shadows of Luclin) improve the travel system, placing portals throughout the land. I should have known this; I've seen the portals before when running through various zones. To me, it was frustrating seeing them, knowing they were a quicker method of transport, but not being able to use them.
- Damage and Death
Clerics and other healers (Druids?) are plagued with the same problems I mentioned involving teleportation. Either they're bothered constantly with resurrection, disease-curing, poison-curing, stat-enhancing, and healing requests; or they're standing near battle scenes, screaming about how they'll enhance your strength if you give them money. It's all very commercial.
Dying in EQ is generally a Very Bad Thing. If you have a cleric (or necromancer, I think...) in the area, it's not so bad; you can be resurrected and the like. However, if you are clericless, this is bad news.
After a death (and after level 10*), you are reborn without any of the items or money you had on your character. (If you have little in the bank, this can be a rough situation.) You can retrieve the items and money if you travel to the site of your death. However, your corpse only lasts either 24 in-game hours (I think... /msg me if wrong) or one offline week. This means, if you spend twelve hours looking for your corpse and then log off, you only have 3.5 days until your corpse disappears. And when I say "disappears", I mean it. All your stuff is gone. Usually, the reason you died is because you are not strong enough for the area you were in. And now you have to go back to the area to reclaim any valuable posessions you had, without the benefit of your best items. (Which you were probably wearing at the time -- didn't help you much, did they?)
In addition, when you die (again, after level 10*), you lose experience points. Experience points determine your level. Your level determines what spells you can use and what abilities you have and the level of your stats and such. If you die enough (say, if you die, then go back to get your corpse, then die again, repeat a few times), then you can lose enough experience to lose a level. If you need to be level 9 to cast a certain spell, and your experience loss brings you to level 8, you can no longer cast that spell. Many caster classes have tiered spell levels. for example: at level 3, they are able to cast ten spells; at level 5 they gain six more possible spells; at level 8 they gain five more, etc..** If a spellcaster drops a level, sometimes they are left unable to cast several of the spells they had been using. Much unpleasantness is had by all.
UPDATE:*
On the subject of finding one's corpse, bards and some casters can help you locate your body after you die, and you can give permission to someone else to "drag" your body to the edge of a zone so you have an easier time picking it up. However, you have to be careful who you give this permission to... unsavory characters can do bad evil bad things with your body. And even if you locate a bard/caster who will help you locate your body, it can still be a pain to retrieve if you died in an unpleasant place.
- Camping Rare Spawns
When you kill something in EQ, it will "spawn", or reappear, in a certain area. Player characters spawn where they last "bound their soul". Monsters and NPCs spawn wherever the programmers set them. All creatures that die have a spawn rate -- if you kill a player, they immediately spawn where they are bound; an NPC or monster will spawn within a certain amount of time. They could respawn within a few minutes, or within a few hours, depending on the length of time set. From what I understand, the programmers set only the maximum time it would take for the creature to spawn.
Now, herein lies the problem. Some named monsters have important quest items on them. These named monsters are unique, with unique items -- no other monster on the entire virtual planet has those items. People swarm in droves to kill these monsters.
Let's name one Bob. Let's say a group kills Bob, and a second group is waiting for Bob to spawn so that they can also kill Bob and get the phat lewt that Bob carries. Let's now say that Bob's spawn time is 24 hours. That means that Bob can come back to life in 10 minutes, or 23 hours and 59 minutes, or a half hour, or... any amount of time at all, really.
This is, to put it mildly, a GIANT PAIN IN THE ASS. And if for any reason your party must disband temporarily, there's a chance that Bob may spawn in that time. If you get randomly attacked by something, Bob could spawn and another group could kill him before you get him. And so forth.