All Posts by neschria

2004? That was Omens of War era? Well, they are releasing expansion #14 this month, but they've said that they'll only be putting out one new expansion a year in November (for both EQ1 and EQ2), so the pace of change should slow down. They've got a new all-inclusive pack with the new expansion (Secrets of Faydwer) for pre-order in their store for $40 right now. It's a cheaper alternative to purchasing all the expansions separately. The level cap is going up to 80 in SoF, so it isn't really one to skip, if you like being at the top of the game.

Servers merged in 2005. You can find a list of servers here.

EQ is still EQ, though. Whether or not it is worth coming back depends greatly on how much you miss it, whether or not your friends are still playing (or how good you are at making new friends), and how the population is on your home server. There has been a lot of guild shuffling and re-shuffling at the top end of the game on the server I played on (Xegony), with guilds disappearing, merging, absorbing other guilds and generally trading players around, mostly in response to shrinking populations (and the usual politics).

I posted some cropped screenshots here: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/neschria/102007/581_Friday-pics-Levtober-Special , taken just a few weeks ago on my recent return.

I can post some full screenshots later, but I am not sure I have any that show default UI, since I use a full custom UI from eqinterface.com. I might have some with default UI though...I won't know til I go to the other apartment where my desktop is. (Living in two apartments is a bit of a pain. I can't wait til we get the interior stairs restored so it is one house again!)

((EDIT: I can take some new ones when I go up in a bit, too, maybe, if I remember.))

Oh. wait! I've got a couple on photobucket:

Character creation (showing "How To Start In Your Racial Town") :

Character select:

A slightly older SS of my cleric in Wall of Slaughter, scrolled out to a third person view, showing all default UI pieces dragged around to match my personal preferences... including the music player-- I love the in-game MP3 player so very, very much:

I only hide other players in Roumen because it is just packed wall-to-wall with people and their vendorshrooms,  plus the spambots, all talking at once. I tend to lag out a lot there when all I want to do is get to some NPCs and get back out in the field or into a KQ.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

 

Originally posted by dirtyjoe78

Originally posted by sanicek

Never suicide, but sometimes it makes me want to commit murder.

ROFL   /QFT Man is this ever true

 

Heh yeah, never in a million years thought of taking my life... not when there or so many others I have to take first.

Put me down on the roster of the "Not suicide... Homicide!" club.

Originally posted by Lidane

I'm curious about something and this thread is as good a place as any to ask it. Why are people seemingly so obsessed with the early days of EverQuest? I don't understand it.

I played EQ from launch all the way through Ykesha, then I ultimately quit, just because I was tired of the insane grind that the game had. Progress was agonizingly slow, and getting around, at least until the Plane of Knowledge went in, was a monumental pain in the ass. It's the whole reason I ever rolled a Druid at all. At least then, I could heal my hunting partner, and we could get around faster via SOW and my ports.

But I keep seeing people holding up the early expansions of the game as some sort of mystical Shangri-La, and it boggles my mind. Sure, those early expansions had their moments of fun, but there was also a lot of tedium and grinding associated with the early days of EQ as well.

I can't help but wonder if there's not a lot of misplaced nostaliga, where people are willingly overlooking the boring, mind-numbing aspects of EQ from back then and glossing over all of it because they want those "first love" feelings they had for a game back again.

I just don't understand the desire to travel that far back in time. Someone please explain this to me.

I kind of agree with you-- I really prefer the "new EQ" over the good old/bad old days, but it is pretty clear that a lot of people want to go back to the old game, the way it was. I think there's a combination of missing all the places they used to go and sheer disappointment in terms of not being able to find a newer game that has the feel and features they loved so much in EQ1. It's pretty clear that people loved the early days of the Progression server, so it seems they really DID like all those aspects that you and I thought were tedious and awful.

Allegedly, thanks very much for the tip! I started playing last night, and the Shift+Z thing was really, really helpful.

Stromm seems to still be a relatively healthy server, but other than that, I'd say it is probably time to move on. I know that some people I used to play EQ with " back in the day" are playing Vanguard now, and some are playing EQ2 (which has very little in common with EQ1, as far as gameplay, but can be fun as long as you know that when you start).

Corpses can be summoned to guild lobby here (for pp, by NPCs) and there's often 96% rezzes available for free or for donation from clerics in the zone, so I have found the death penalty to be pretty mild these days.

Also, corpses can't really be lost anymore, since they go to a place called Shadowrest when they decay out of the world... but that really shouldn't be necessary, since corpses can be summoned, as mentioned.

As far as running, you can get pretty close to where you want to be in most cases, via Plane of Knowledge and/or Guild Hall portal. There are guilds that exist solely for the purpose of making guild hall available to everyone, if that's an issue.

It's still pretty much a grouping game, but they have put in out-of-combat regen which has made soloing somewhat more feasible for some other classes.  (When it starts, you gain 3% of your hitpoints back per tick, no matter how many hp you have. Ditto for mana.)

Quest givers and mission starting NPCs are marked in newer expansions. For instance, you might see an NPC with (Quests 20-35) under their name, which indicates they have quests appropriate for levels 20-35.

I voted Velious, starting from the assumption that I'd want to play on said server. I wouldn't mind other expansions being retuned and added, though. Notably, I'd like to see Legacy of Ykesha added, maybe with an option to turn off the extra features for people who don't want them. (Sorry, folks, I like maps. I like them a whole lot. ) Legacy of Ykesha has relatively few zones that would be aimed mostly at the high end of a Classic server, with some drops that would be reasonable for Velious era, and some fun/cool encounters (instant spawn named, the triggered Innoruuk fight in Nadox, etc.)

So... Velious + LoY... and maybe LDoN at some point.

I've been playing on Stromm lately, and it is pretty good. That would be my recommendation.

I am usually very nice to everyone, but there was this one time in EQ...

My husband and I were holding Cazel (a named giant) in Oasis, waiting for a couple of more people, since we had an enchanter friend who needed the spoon he drops for her epic. Cazel has really high regen, so I wasn't really hurting him much, and I was level 65 (the cap at the time) and had a cleric standing next to me, so he wasn't hurting me much. My husband had rooted him, and I was hitting him because he was there and I was bored. Then this level 9 shaman came up and started "helping". He wasn't really hurting anything (least of all Cazel), but I suddenly had a fit of evil mischief and turned to my husband (IRL) and said, "Watch me kill this shaman." I took a step back and Cazel, like all rooted mobs in EQ, turned to hit the player closest to him. The shaman dropped like a rock.

And I laughed. A lot. And then we rezzed him and buffed him and gave him stuff for his trouble. He probably came out ahead on that death, so it wasn't THAT mean. It was just a little practical joke on my part.

He was very apologetic about stealing aggro from me. I never did tell him that I gave him the aggro on purpose. And if he's out there reading this now, it was all in fun. And I am sorry for killing you for sheer entertainment value.

I think I was disappointed the first time I tried EQ2 because it wasn't like EQ1. In particular, EQ2 shadow knights are not EQ1 shadow knights.

But I tried it later with a more open mind after a lot of the changes they've put in, looking at it as a game completely unrelated to EQ1, and I liked it better. I didn't like zoning so much in the original starter cities. Then EoF came along, and then Neriak, and that solved that problem. I enjoy the reminders of EQ1 places and lore while I play EQ2, but I understand that it just isn't the same game.

I am currently playing EQ1, but the draw of playable Sarnaks in EQ2 is pretty strong for me. What I have seen of them so far looks pretty interesting, but I have questions about the customization for Sarnaks and exactly was sort of treatment the re-interpretation of Kunark has gotten. I was pleased with EoF, so I am hopeful, but if it turns out to be awful... well, it wouldn't be the first time an expansion shattered my hopes and then stomped on all the pieces.

I had that problem. I think I made a new station account to get around it.

Edit: N/M. That didn't work.

I haven't really been a big fan of this whole Classic server idea, but I have given it some thought, and here is an idea:

Treat "EQ Classic" as a completely different product than EQ Live. Maybe even give it its own name-- EQ: A History Divided (or probably something better than that). Release a server that is original EQ, and then open Kunark and Velious on timers, and then add additional content later that does NOT include massively more powerful equipment, ZEMs out of line with existing zones, instant travel, instancing, or anything that would render the existing world obsolete. New armor, for instance, might have different focus effects or click spells or different combinations of stats (all in line with the stats on gear already in the world), or it might have new and original graphics that noone has seen before. All additional zones would relate to and be attached to existing zones, designed to enhance and extend the "classic" experience. And I would think that new zones should be added sparingly. New quests could be added over time relating to "classic" story elements and introducing new storyline with old elements-- Mayong Mistmoore doesn't have to become a demi-god to remain an interesting character that people could work against or for-- as a way of extending the game without extending real estate until there are a zillion unused zones or adding bigger and better items to the point that older items are trash.

Essentially, it would be an alternate timeline, as if they never found a way to Luclin or the Planes, etc. and would eventually contain content not in the original trilogy, in order to hold onto the people who "finish" the classic content, but with content specifically designed to keep the classic experience intact.

I am thinking a single PvE server and maybe a single FFA PvP server-- considering how many games and how much hardware SOE is already supporting, one would think they could take a chance on this. They won't. They probably won't even see this suggestion. But they could.

Even being an EQLive player now, I might come over to such a game, just to see where it ends up.