I too played on Rallos Zek and miss the days & long nights of old. No gaming experience since has ever given the moments of exhilaration, terror or camaraderie as EQ did.  I remember my 2 sons and I huddled over the monitor during our very first EQ session and being completely amazed that there were other real people running around and talking to us!

There was a huge learning curve we had to overcome, we had no maps of the zones, so long corpse runs were a norm! Even my Bard locate corpse song used to run me into mountainsides in BB or have me running in circles.  I killed goblins for blood and brains to sell for 1 plat each and ran from the Wandering Greenblood till I could finally kill him and get his insignia!

My guildmates and I became fast friends and we relied on each other - rallying to help if we were PK'd,  looted and corpse camped and helping each other out of perilious situations. Those that had mapping skills shared their knowledge; we chat each other up in different languages for hours to learn them. Sometimes we'd jump off the towers into Lake Rathetear just for fun or explore the zones for secluded spots. There were cupcakes to bake for weddings and birthdays and ale for all!

Adventuring was fun and frustrating, As new players, every zone was a challenge and sometimes terrifying. The high level players were mentoring for the most part without giving up secrets. The GM's usually responded quickly and they were regarded with respect.

Oh well, now I am melancholy. I truly miss those old days and joined the Progression Servers to try to recapture it, but somehow it is not the same. I've never found a guild to rival the friendship in the VK. One sweet note is that my sons have chosen to play EQ over WOW and now are working their way through the new expansions. I am glad the game is still out there for them to play and enjoy.

First toon was a half elf Warrior, at lvl 5 I saw this awesome lookin blue Batman lookin bard runnin around ( half elf Lambent Armor). So i quit that toon and started a WE Bard. Took so long to finally get a helm and I discovered that the Woodelves had this stupid wing'd helm that was nothing like the dam half elf helm. I thought it was a bard helm, not a racial helm. So, I couldn't restart a half elf and had to live with that dam helm graphic till vellious..

I remember

Running the Sarnak Courier cycle SOOOO many times, finally got the ring.

Tryin to figure out that dam wood elf city.

Ganked by Kizdean Gix!!!

AOE Kiting 30 mobs in Maidens Eye

Charm Kiting flies in Plane of disease and werewolves in PoNightmare

EQL was awesome, now WoW is awesome, maybe WAR will be awesome..

Kilil Glitterkid

58 Bard, 7th Hammer

EQ was an amazing experience for me, great times yet to be recaptured in any other MMO.

I remember the overjoying satisfaction of completing the Greenmist quest with my Troll SK, all the hard work such as farming ludicrous amounts of skeleton bones to get my faction up with the Iksar.

Tough game but rewarded you for your efforts, not like these new mmo's that wrap you in cotton wool. Shame....

I remember hunting wisps and hoping for a Greater lightstone to drop. They were worth a couple platinum.

Hunting Wisps on Wisp Island, then heading to Oasis with full bags to deliver them for XP and money.

Kiting by the Lake in Loio, Kiting in OT, Hell, kiting anywhere! Quadkiting!

Gornit in OOT.

Running from Freeport to Qeynos, and back to ehm Oggok? for the Stein quest.

Hanging around the EC tunnel!

My first Velium weapon! (And many many months later kiting the mobs that dropped them)

Camp Checks...

KELETHIN MUSIC !

Goner.

But mostly the fun of playing the class right (played druid chanter and mage)

Originally posted by Shoal

 

 

*  You could meet up with real english-speaking GMs in-game.  And they could solve your problems?

*  You could go to the dedicated Chat window from the Log-in screen where there were dedicated moderators, GMs, and CRs available 24/7.  And, they could take care of issues for you.  Such as giving you a 'World-Kick' if you were stuck in the geometry somewhere?

*  Griefers and Abusive people were dealt with quickly and harshly.  Mainly because a GM was there to look at the logs and witness the bad behaviours?

*  A new piece of Leg Armor with +1 Wisdom on it was really, really, something special.

*  I remember getting my first Fine Steel (no bonuses) 9 dmg Mace for my young Druid.  It was a very nice gift from a passing high(er) level.  Worth about 2 or 3 Platinum (which was a LOT back in the day).

*  I remember how excited I was to discover I could gather Berries for my (ever hungry) Hafling Druid and would only have to BUY milk.  Allowing me to save those precious Coppers to buy my Spells.

I miss those good times.
When the world was new.
And a Druid's ability to Port was an important part of the game.

How many times did I gather up my Group's Copper and Silver, Port to Rivervale, ATM at the Bank, then Port back to my pre-set Bind point at the Camp.  Bringing back the converted, and now much lighter, consolidated coin (coin weighd a LOT then).

Good Times.

A spanish poet far in time XV century wrote this lines:

"Any past time was better"

Cualquiera tiempo pasado, fue mejor. - Jorge Manrique

Druids could port and give SOW. But Wizzy are the ones who could port to all the ports. druids only got a few. and Mages....they did nothing great only summon weapons but then if you log it would go away. nothing good about the mages

Damn... I could cry... played on Rallos Zek - FFA PvP

Being scared SH*TLESS to venture away from the starting area for the first time on my first toon (dwarf)

Wurmslayer + Lamentation combo

Being unkillable in pvp (at low levels) with a Fungi tunic and 150MR

Getting Ranger epic 1.0 pre-velious, and how amazing it felt (not to mention how uber it was)

Spending hundreds of hours Gathering & Crafting Blessed Faydark Thunderbolts

Winning BotB

Unrest... nuff said

Crossroads groups... prolly the most fun I had in the game

NToV...  so many dragons... so much loot... so dangerous!

First Naggy/Vox raids

Gfay bank selling my goods

Getting corpse camped 24/7 by rotating members of an opposing guild...

Losing 12 hours playing time worth of exp in 15 minutes

Camping Stormfeather for 26 hours STRAIGHT

I could go on forever............

Got to page three....will read the rest later. But what I remember is...

Killing beetles till level ten in Misty Thickets on my halfling druid.

Grouping with random people and making pals that lasted several years as I played. The sense of community has never been duplicated in any other game.

Trying to med on the dock in Oasis as someone runs by with Lockjaw and I grab aggro and die, lol.

Finally getting levitate and high enough level that I could camp the Scryers(I think that was the mob. You know the skeleton/ghost that floated with a scythe) in Oasis.

Finally hitting level 60, which took me many months, not 4wks.

Going back to Misty Thickets and Rivervale at max level, killing the guards for their weapons to sell and then being KOS to my own faction. HA!

Oh and camping those damn birds in WK or SK and trying to find my way there. The fact you had no map and had to remember where things were added to the excitement/frustration of the game.

I remember sitting for up to an hour for a group to camp those damn things. While I waited I would talk in /ooc or with the surrounding groups.

Good times.

-EDIT-

I know I'm gonna get flamed for this...but oh well....

I remember rerolling on SZ when PoK came out. I was originally on Brell Serelis. I remembering running around in PoK at lvl12 and some bard spamming "casino". I was intrigued about this way to make quick cash. I went back to Brell and started the first "casino" on our server. I made a crap load of plat....but I also remember losing 20k plat to a DE SK who then gave me it all back because he had enough plat himself and had no real use for it.

It's how I bought my mount and geared my alts. Then I remember getting a 3-day suspension when some sore loser reported me and lied about me ripping him off and the GM was an ass and wouldn't look at the logs.

I remember when EQ was THE MMORPG to play. Only the dedicated, hardcore, intelligent, fans of the fantasy genre were capable of playing EQ. Of course u had your newbs who would sit around EC, "East Commonlands" naked begging for money, and ask me, "the almighty Rallithon Oakthornn all sorts of questions about Druids and where to level....

EQ was the only real MMO I enjoyed more than any other MMO combined. I remember leveling up to 30ish with just a full set of regular leather armor. My first real good piece of loot was when a few buddies and I found the ogre king camp in I believe West Karana. He dropped a nice facemask early 30's level and those batskull earings. Back then, those were like the most L33T items you could get. Then came Guk. OMG, I spent levels 32-50ish in there. Then Lavastorm was the place to be.. Finally as Kunark came out, more and more awesome camps opened up and the game got 10x better.

Not only was the world of EQ incredible, but the community was also a huge reason for the game's success. Gm's would handle your petitions within a couple hours, even during primetime hours. Verant Interactive actually cared for it's customers,,,every single one of them.

Being a druid, I LOVED when ppl would randomly im me asking for a port to feerot, lava,CS,etc,,some would pay me 2-300 plat just for the ride.  I loved how each class had it's own unique set of abilities and spells that no one else had.. These classes were very diverse and made the game that much more fun because of how unique they were. Then the Beastlord was introduced, and that totally screwed Shaman's and even druids,,,in a way.

I loved venturing out into the Western wastes and soloing/Kiting Dragons, and getting those dragonscale tunics that sold for like 30,000 plat,,which equaled around 280.00 of real life money at the time. Or camping Lodizal the Sea Turtle for 18-24 hours while someone else was camping Stormfeather. Even GM's would keep me company while I camped him.. When he'd finally spawn, all hell would break loose. It would take a good 20 minutes to get everyone there, buffed up and ready to go. Then we had to worry aobut another guild getting organized before us and beating me to it..Then when 2 shells would drop along with 2 belts, it was like hitting the lottery lol. Back then the belt and shield sold for 70,000plat, which equaled big bucks if you sold them online, lol. The great loot in EQ was soooo worth getting. I mean this is the loot u actually had to bust your butt and work hard to acquire. Nowadays with most games u can get really good loot without even trying,,,because the little moron kids dont understand how to work for things.

We will never have another game like EQ again. Vanguard was my last hope but SOE had to dumb the game down. Theres APW, but everything else is fairly easy to do with just one group..

As I sit here reminiscing about the good old days, it makes me sad because those days are long gone because these game companies want to make everything easy for single minded idiots. Since theres alot of gamers who happen to be stupid, these companies feel they must cater to them more than the old EQ vets like me,,,,the actual true hardcore fans of MMORPG's.

what pisses me off the most is how far SOE strayed from EQ when they made EQ2. I was so disappointed my first week playing it. The game play was just...not the same.

I hope they start a new progression server. I'd drive 2.5hrs back home from school just to get my cds and reinstall the game.