Everquest - Live Servers
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
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EQ was my first MMO, and thus will always have a fond place in my memory.
So many things gave it character. Rep really mattering, even in little ways like a shape-shifted druid gaining animal rep. Very real danger never far away, and quite seekable, as when my fledgling rogue got his illusion mask in the depths of terrifying Guk. The magic of zone lines; so treacherous just inside, so safe just outside. Starting areas with real personality, races with actual differences, classes not blunted into mediocrity.
So many things gave it character. Rep really mattering, even in little ways like a shape-shifted druid gaining animal rep. Very real danger never far away, and quite seekable, as when my fledgling rogue got his illusion mask in the depths of terrifying Guk. The magic of zone lines; so treacherous just inside, so safe just outside. Starting areas with real personality, races with actual differences, classes not blunted into mediocrity.
Synj
Dystopian Dreamer
- 8,108
- 35,786
Interestingly enough, even the "safe" side of the zone was always a risk. I remember chilling at CT and people dragging the Bouncers to zone line. Safer? Yes. Safe? No.
I remember that it took so long to log out and log in that if I was feeling brave I might afk for a second to grab a coke but I'd turn the volume up as loud as possible to make sure I could hear if I started getting ganked.
p02greengrocer
N00b
- 124
- 24
I remember making a human Karana Ranger as my first character. After spending hours trapped in the glade and getting murdered multiple times by those faggot evil druids, I made it though that cave tunnel.
Yay Qeynos Hills, awesome. Yay I can kill shit here.Blah blah you have been slain by Holly Windstalker. Took me a bit to clue in to not kill animals near here.
Came back with an Iksar necro much later on one day and made that bitch scream repeatedly lol. Funny how you sometimes had grudges vs certain NPC's.
Yay Qeynos Hills, awesome. Yay I can kill shit here.Blah blah you have been slain by Holly Windstalker. Took me a bit to clue in to not kill animals near here.
Came back with an Iksar necro much later on one day and made that bitch scream repeatedly lol. Funny how you sometimes had grudges vs certain NPC's.
Randin
Trakanon Raider
- 1,932
- 891
I remember my little noob dwarf warrior. I fell in the stream in Kaladim and couldn't figure out how the hell to swim upwards. I'm sitting there frantically flipping through the manual trying to find the fucking "swim up" button, while the breath bar slowly ticks down. Eventually end up drowning, decide there's no way I'm getting that corpse back, and end up just deleting and remaking the character.
Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 39,441
- 129,832
This kind of feels like a self inflicted problem though, as the quest hub style of gameplay that WoW introduced has been incorporated into every single game.
Yes, it'd be a problem for quest NPC's to be attackable in a game where every character is funneled into talking to that NPC and doing the quest it gives in order to proceed. But in EQ, that wasn't a thing. I started up playing this weekend, and it was a hard habit to break. I kept wanting to complete these random quests that EQ now has, but in reality they're mostly worthless. "Oh, a quest to grab 5 shimmering snake scales, I should do that," 30 minutes later, "Fuck that, why bother with this quest? It doesn't lead to anything else and I don't need the exp/items from it; I'll just move on."
It's actually interesting, but Everquest was probably one of the least quest based MMO's there's been. Every game since has required you to progress through quest hubs, or else you literally can't do anything (grinding mobs I guess is unpopular). The difference is, the quests that you DID do in Everquest were fucking epic (not necessarily the epic quests).
ZyyzYzzy
RIP USA
- 25,295
- 48,789
EQ exposed my young formative mind to trolling and allowed it to flourish. Classmate introduced me to the game. We were grouped up in everfrost at like lvl 3 with some random people. I group chat I asked him a question addressing him by his first name "hey tim how do I whatever". He flipped out, so i promptly "/shouted Tim Lastname of Town, State how do I whatever". Felt so good.
McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
- 6,918
- 4,315
I had a similar experience. First character was a barbarian, walked around a bit and got stuck in the Halas well. Drowned, deleted character.
First character was a High Elf Mage. I was playing for a few hours, wandering around summoning pets and killing stray orcs, you know, baller type shit. Then I find Kelethin and manage to fall off a walkway and die. I spent the next 2 hours or so blindly trying to find my body and getting killed by random orcs before saying fuck it and making a Half Elf Rogue. Good times.
Mahes
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 5,247
- 6,264
I enjoyed running GM events on my Beastlord..
When Beastlords first started, they could level their pet by pressing a button which took the pet to level 46. Then you could of course throw buffs and such to enhance the pet's abilities. There were items in the game that allowed any player to charm animals. Puppet strings came from the planes and thus was a little more difficult to acquire but it did allow a person to charm non-animals like orcs. I used the animal charm to take control of a puma in Oasis. This 12thish leveled cat would then be made 46th with a breath weapon, damage shield(My wife played the Druid), SoW and a nice list of other buffs. Then I would simply go to a different zone and set my love cat free.
Players in Oasis would suddenly shout out about this Puma that was beating the shit out of everyone. They of course thought it must be a GM event. It was awesome watching groups attempt to take the kitty down and usually ended when a higher leveled character would come in and kill it. I always loved how people over the chat would ask what it dropped and get the reply " a piece of meat and a ruined pelt".
Fun Times.
When Beastlords first started, they could level their pet by pressing a button which took the pet to level 46. Then you could of course throw buffs and such to enhance the pet's abilities. There were items in the game that allowed any player to charm animals. Puppet strings came from the planes and thus was a little more difficult to acquire but it did allow a person to charm non-animals like orcs. I used the animal charm to take control of a puma in Oasis. This 12thish leveled cat would then be made 46th with a breath weapon, damage shield(My wife played the Druid), SoW and a nice list of other buffs. Then I would simply go to a different zone and set my love cat free.
Players in Oasis would suddenly shout out about this Puma that was beating the shit out of everyone. They of course thought it must be a GM event. It was awesome watching groups attempt to take the kitty down and usually ended when a higher leveled character would come in and kill it. I always loved how people over the chat would ask what it dropped and get the reply " a piece of meat and a ruined pelt".
Fun Times.
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Hatorade
A nice asshole.
- 8,463
- 7,209
Ha I would do that with a druid/enchanter combo with the Kodiaks, super buff them bring to zone line then zone out and then back in and watch it travel across the zone destroying all.
Deruvian
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 659
- 123
Same here. Had a guy in Qeynos fall into a pool. Watched myself slowly drown while desperately trying to figure out what mechanism could even impact up/down movement. I don't think I even figured out the concept of mouselook or looking up or down for at least a few weeks later.
I also remember fishing for what seemed like hours to save up the 2pp needed to buy a leather vest. I figured this serious upgrade in AC would basically make me invincible. Mechanics were such a wonder back then.