EQ F2P- Returning Players & Current Content

qwerty_sl said:

I'd go for shammy. Druid will let you get single pulls most of the time.

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so if I play EQMac are any of you fefs willing to group up / play together? I think I have like a level 3 druid there iirc.

Oh man, what am I getting myself into? Gonna roll a Bard on the test server. Sold my original account when WoW went live, so nothing to transfer over.

if rolling a bard, I suggest boxing with a mage and/or necro.

i second the necro, great combo

Needless_sl said:

Anybody on Test have an extra gnome illusion mask they can hook me up with for my bard?

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I would, if I had not just un-installed EQ like 4 days ago.

I gave out probably 10 of those masks to people in TFO.....maybe you can find one from someone else who quit playing?

if you are going to roll find lvl32bard and me and we will hook you up with shit before you testcopy to test so you can be way better off.

2nd page status is unacceptable. bump

I am playing this again with a vengeance for almost 2 months now. Last time I played EQ so hard was in 2008. Funny how nostalgia can pull you back in and then I get the bug again, for as long as it lasts. Off course I am boxing like a madman, but that has always been part of the fun for me ever since my first bout in EQ, back in 1999. Apart from fiddling with my boxes, I am still enjoying all the other multiplayer aspects of it, which seems to have picked up with FTP: chatter in General, people asking for help, people looking for group and encountering people all over the world (be it in desolate zones).

There are a few things that have people spread out a little more: anniversary quests usually take you all over the world, also to old world zones (a few quests are still up, others will be back next anniversary) and with the Rain of Fear xpack you now have achievements (hundreds if not thousands), a lot of which will also take you back to old zones: like how I went to Gargoyle Island in the Ocean of Tears to get my Slayer Skill achievement of killing a hundred gargoyles. You did not need to kill them in OOT, can get the achievement on any gargoyle, but I just remembered that zone and I was done quick. Nice to have knowledge of the game then, also fun to help a newbie out who wants to know.

I am a sucker for nostalgia, so I actually look forward to chores like this. I was not even alone in the zone since another guy was killing sisters for his Wood Elf Slayer kills achievement. These Slayer achievements get you a reward that is actually somewhat usefull: an AA ability called Banestrike, doing Bane damage to any mob that you have reached the 100-kill achievement for. Anyway, there are a lot of other achievements, like doing certain (old school) quest series, getting your epic and a billion other (types of) achievements, all with rewards ranging from Items, to Titles, to this Banestrike ability.

I will stop now, I sound like I am selling the RoF xpack door to door or some.

I want to ask though, apart from EQ being old and known, which of the old, or newfangled features actually puts people off to try this game out again from time to time? Old UI?, Fast regen? Lousy armor options? Empty zones? The latter is still true, but servers are pretty full nowadays, with lots of newbies asking wonderful questions that make me feel like a badass. At least my server is pretty alive (The Rathe). I have also played on EQMac and P1999, enjoyed a few levels(especially going to the Old Freeport and such) but since I am not a hardcore grouper I feel that "new" EQ actually fits me better. I mean, using clickies from within a bag, maybe even with some /useitem macro.......EQ may be old, the UI may be a mess, but the options nowadays are endless. And even with Mercs, there is still grouping in new EQ, or so I hear.

For me, one of the biggest gripes would be itemization: apart from the Defiant shit, anything from level 75 up is very linear and predictable. Having said this, itemization in a game like NWN online is WAY more linear even. And chasing good Augments in EQ, either through killing Nameds, (long) questseries or crafting, actually brings back some of the fun of itemization, I must add.

I guess the combat animations and the fact that your character is hitting the air are a turn-off too for many: I must say though, after playing NWN online, Tera and a few others, EQ combat still wins in the end, because of other factors. But yeah, that could be a big let down for many.

Concerning the lousy avatar-graphics and scarce armor-looks: With the Hero's Forge feature (which they actually fixed now) I think my Troll finally looks good. Apart from the Luclin model (which I always was fine with /duck) I think this looks so much better then the old "strap-look". Leather-wearing Trolls had like 2 armor-looks anyway, so a huge improvement imo. Anyway, here's a pic:

Fight_sl said:

I wrote this back in January, in my ROF overview:

"...the itemization is totally cookie cutter. The shoulders you get in one tier 1 zone are more or less completely equal to the shoulders you get in another tier 1 zone, with simply a name/icon change. Same focus abilities, same average stats, blah, blah, blah. Gone are the days of choosing this item over that one, for a focus on mana, or a cool clicky. Most everything is ALL/ALL, one size fits all. It's lazy design. Outside of quest armor, there seems to be no highly desired class only gear, that boost special abilities. It is just a shame and disappointing.

Itemization and Spells/AA's are so important to a great MMO experience, and ROF has definitely succumbed to "don't worry, it's +more gooder!". No sense of achievement in spending 200 AA's to make your characters mitigation go from 42.5% to 44.5% There is no heart or soul behind the upgrades, when they are 'All/All' side-grades for everyone. It is all homogenized and sanitized to the point nothing feels important or special. It is all spit out by an item generator."

This is a product of the WoW'ization of EQ. More named, more loot, more rewards... "If I play for 15 minutes, I should get a bright new shiny to show for it!!!" Gone are the days of the illusive Bilge Farfathom and mysterious kedge totem. EQ is now a slot machine, where you pull the crank and everyone wins. In order to feed the masses, you have to mass produce generic loot nobody ultimately cares about.

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Yes, agreed. There might be a glimmer of hope though: this threadhttps://forums.station.sony.com/eq/i...estion.201371/was started by Elidroth last Friday, you may have seen it already. Though he emphasizes that he is just gathering info it means that it has been noted. I see the problems he has with change though, it would probably either mean a complete overhaul or they have let it stay as it is.

the gear is uncreative, but it's better than the alternative. i can remember several years back, before basic group gear was implemented (its come along way, it used to be terrible: see first incarnation in TBS expansion with basic Energeiac group loot). during the dodh / por eras (05,06) smaller casual guilds were still raiding time and uqua, qvic, etc for loot. the amount of distance between expansions there was detrimental to the game. try tanking RSS in time gear or a Nest run. im all for epeens and a hierarchy between uber/family/noob guilds, but this shitty gear was necessary as the game began to die. if it werent for rof t1 gear, i doubt thered be many people, mostly casuals, in RoF or even VoA zones.

Lvl_32_Bard_LFG_sl said:

the gear is uncreative, but it's better than the alternative. i can remember several years back, before basic group gear was implemented (its come along way, it used to be terrible: see first incarnation in TBS expansion with basic Energeiac group loot). during the dodh / por eras (05,06) smaller casual guilds were still raiding time and uqua, qvic, etc for loot. the amount of distance between expansions there was detrimental to the game. try tanking RSS in time gear or a Nest run. im all for epeens and a hierarchy between uber/family/noob guilds, but this shitty gear was necessary as the game began to die. if it werent for rof t1 gear, i doubt thered be many people, mostly casuals, in RoF or even VoA zones.

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I miss the days when the best gear was hobbled together from all over the game/expansion, a mix of group and raid gear. Classic and Kunark really emphasized that, after that point there was a subtle and slow shift toward establishing a major difference between the raid and group/quest game loot.

I definitely understand the argument in favor of the current system, where gear is highly tiered but I can't help but enjoy the old way more. I dislike the whole idea of armor sets being the standard, every piece should be unique in some way. Ah, in a perfect world!

So I'm thinking about playing again and I'm trying to decide between monk, necro or ranger. I'm guessing Necro is the best for soloing, how are the other 2 and what's the best merc combo(s)?

Rangers are great for soloing house of thule and below content. Necro can solo all the way up to and including RoF named with a cleric merc. I'm not super familiar with monks at the endgame but based on what people say, they are on the lower end of class power right now.

Rangers are a lot easier to use for soloing older content if that's your plan. If you care more about current content, go with necro. They are excellent dps in a group, and one of the better at soloing.

Thanks for the info...Do you have any clue about what servers are good population wise?

Bristlebane seems to have a ton of people on it all the time. Now that I'm in the 70s, most of the hotzones have around 10 people in them (and I've even seen people form groups for 60+ hotzones).

One thing I learned just recently is the /barter command. You can sell to people directly. For example right now on BB there are buyers paying up to 230p PER sunshard ore. I used to destroy these all the time while I was grinding in the hole because they vendor for a couple copper. Here's the kicker, you can use barter from ANY where. So you can use it to sell items and clear your bags all while making money. Sometimes you won't make a ton, but its more than items vendor for and it opens up bag space so you can grind even longer.

taimaishoo_sl said:

Thanks for the info...Do you have any clue about what servers are good population wise?

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Test server all day.

Been needing a bit of a break from SWTOR so I installed this. I did transfer my old toon (Mage) over to Test but then decided to fuck around on a Ranger. Even more, I decided to engage in the Hero's Journey shit they added when the game went F2P instead of just straight grinding. I know, I'm a revolutionary. Questing in Everquest. Whodathunkit. With the exception of the normal quest rewards, they did good here. The Hero's Journey rewards far outstrip the normal rewards so you end up just dumping a lot of stuff but that's okay because that shit is pretty fucking good. I mean, my Ranger is capped out on normal stats at level 47. This ain't your mamma's EQ, that's for sure.