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Best EQ memory of the decade?
luckdragon
Member UncommonPosts: 34
in Everquest
Anyone care to share their best EQ memory from the past decade?
Comments
As a total, the great experience of EQ, for me, was a combination of world immersion and travel. It was the feeling that you were a part of the world; that the world was REAL; that my character did matter; and that my in-game relationships were meaningful.
Many of us in my guild were friends, or guildmates, because we wanted to be - not because we had to be to raid or something else.
And we raided, and we raided well.
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The best memory, overall, hmph.
(1) Leading my first raid in Plane of Hate. It went great. And I got items; or
(2) Leading, as Guild Leader, a raid in PoP (cannot remember zone exactly) and getting a kick-ass BP. I did NOT expect any sort-of reward or item. I was used to leading raids and not getting anything. And, on my Cleric, my ONLY crap item --everything else was actually very good-- was my BP. I was a Gnome Cleric, and a weightless BP dropped for Clerics.
Priceless moment, really. So many people died. So many did not think we coudl pull it off. I have said before, and I will say again, back in the day, great Clerics made or broke guilds. A few good Clerics could have such a far-reaching impact on raid capability.
My worst memory, overall:
As I mentioned, I was a Guild Leader. My worst memory was when my Raid Officer, when a Blade of Carnage could sell for a LOT of money, suggested to me that he sell the GUILD'S BoC and well split the money.
It was not easy for me in real-life to have to change the password on MY Warrior account and return the BoC to the guild and deal with the fallout politics.
We recovered, and we were stronger because of it.
I have a ton. There is still one feeling though that even though is a basic thing in EQ I still remember to this day and no MMO has recreated. The first time of leaving ferrott (ogre area) and making it to the desert and seeing sun and sand and huge huge spiders in the desert. This hooked me big time into EQ. I had been playing maybe 3 weeks was a total MMO newbie. Got in my first group and 4 ogres ran to the desert and I will never forget it
many memories but one that always sticks out in my mind , would have to be the time i asked dvinn in crushbone if he wanted to group lol.
he was trained to the zone when i was entering CB an i had no idea who he was never had seen him before, he looked like a player to me..he was standin in the corner at the ent , i walked right up to him, sat down an said 'Hey you wanna group?'
well he killed me an after i got done zoning i tried giving him a tell saying 'Well if you didnt want to group all you had to say was no!' lol..i finaly found out it was a NPC after tryin to send tells acouple times to it ..believe it was my 5th day playin EQ lol
That's funny Tarvik. I guess there a few good memories for me.
1. Exploring Blackburrow for the first time. Falling through the hidden trap in the tree and dieing. Trying repeatly to get my body back so I wouldn't lose that precious rusty sword and backpack in my inventory. Then consenting a high level bard to drag my body back to the top.
2. Killing hill giants for the first time with my guild and thinking what an epic experience it was.
3. Viewing the gate to the Plane of Fear, then trying to survive the "break in". It was my first raid, I guess you could imagine how nervous I was.
4. Running my level 2 halfling druid from Rivervale all the way to Qeynos to group with my friend. A level 50 ranger saw me about halfway and assisted me the rest of the way with spirit of the wolf, invis, and his swords.
There's more but that's just a few.
I loved this game! Why did I quit? LOL
My best memories were my brother-in-law talking me into buying the game (at the time pay-to-play was considered nuts!). Then having him get me totally hooked on the game when he followed me around keeping awesome buffs on me and helping when I needed it. That is one thing that is badly lacking in todays MMO's, is the ability to buff someone up just because you want to or because someone was paying good money for them. Todays MMO buffs just don't mean anything and they don't stay on you for very long. Seems like any buff you can do in current games can just as easily be obtained through potions, so class specific buffs are about meaningless anymore.
Also, I loved the randomness of item drops from bosses and the respawn timers. There was no guarantee of a certain item from a certain boss. Also, there was no telling how long it could take for a boss to respawn. That helped comraderie if you ask me. When you have nothing to do besides sit and wait, you actually have regular conversations with your group mates and get to know each other. I remember being quite upset when a guildmate died in real-life. He lost his battle with cancer, and because we spent time talking while waiting on bosses to respawn, I became what I felt was real friends with him, even though I never saw his face.
Last, had to be the corpse recovery runs, and the ways that others could help you get it. Someone of higher level could go grab it and drag it back to you if in a dangerous zone, you could get a ressurect, or you did it the hard way....try to run in your self and get your stuff back. In my opinion, there is no fear in dying in the more recent MMO's. None can compare to the feeling that EQ gave you when you knew you were about to die and already started to wonder how your going to safely get to your corpse. Not to mention you also had XP hits upon each death.
I say bring this kind of stuff to new upcoming MMO's!! It helped build friendship and teamwork. You know what teamwork is in todays games? It's this: " O.K. guys I got the item I came here for so ummm yeah uhhh see ya later" and group disbands. I know a lot of you would probably say "just go back to playing EQ then". Well, I tried that after being away for several years and had forgotten that even the keyboard controls were different from todays games, and that's the one thing I feel current games do well is the keyboard controls. Also, EQ is just dated and I'm way behind since many expansions have released since I last played. If they just gave EQ a facelift and started over fresh I would be in! Maybe they could do a prequel now! Isn't EQ2 somewhat a sequel to EQ? BTW EQ2 bothered me how they took away the ability to buff people your not grouped with and death didn't feel all that punishing to me. Basically EQ2 took everything I said above and did away with it! Start over EQ please!!!
this is going to sound silly but my best memory is a pickup group
it was myself (enchanter) and 5 cleric friends, all of us were level 60 and this was during the Luclin expansion
we were just hanging out in the revised Temple of Cazic Thule, fighting lizards and apes
and having fun with our odd group -- all the clerics were meleeing with their summoned hammers
may not be my best experience but it was my strangest experience that was memorable
EQ2 fan sites
Looking back, those early days right after launch, levelling my cleric in the newb area outside Qeynos. Hunting in the night and seeing a flash of lightning illuminate a decaying skeleton, hearing the sound of a klicknick beatle and fearing it was the queen. This was my first MMORPG and ignorance was bliss; not knowing what was in store for me and zoning into Qeynos Hills when I felt I was tough enough at level 5. Heading into Blackburrow the first time. My first group; I can still remember their names... a wizard named Anomalous and a warrior named Bloodbringer; ten years ago and I still recall, while I couldn't tell you who I teamed with in WoW yesterday. Things just seemed so wide open, and they were.
I was one of the highest level people early on my server...I played a enchanter named Slaine. I remember when I got Werewolf Illusion and running around and all the lowbies would run like hell from me lol I would run all over the starting area's terrorizing the low level people. And laugh when they would start shouting that they seen a "Slaine" monster.
Another funny one was I think the spell was called Minor Illusion. I started off a High Elf...if you was close to the entrance of the high elf City you would actually turn yourself into the whole building plus a huge amount of the zone wall. People would run down the middle of my illusion that I sat in front of the city entrance... slightly off to the side so they couldn't find the zone in.
Wow! Reading this stuff is bringing back so many memories! I have said for years now, there will never be another experience like that first online gaming. It was more of a feeling. Hard to explain but you all know what I mean. After beta testing the one that started it all, (Meridian 59) I remember sitting at my computer and hitting "log on" key for a very long time to finally get on. I was breathless! Unbeleiveable graphics. Got my Paladin up to level 54 but I remeber mostly taking like 8 days of fighting bats before venturing to East commons? and being scared of the bears. and the Griffins? oh my... Those were the days. <sniff sniff>
Nothing will ever be that feeling again.
King of the world
Yeah it's way different now...before it was a huge and exciting new adventure. now I see a mob and all I see is exp. I really don't even enjoy MMO's now. I'm currently playing EQ2 (started first day there as well) and I do like the game,but it's not the same as the olden days of MMO gaming.
When I finally got that G-DAMN CROWN OF ELEMENTAL MASTERY!!!(#!&@#&;^@#&;!*^# woooooooo omg woooo 6 years and im still psycho about getting that pain in the butt item on 7th island plane of sky. It changed my life FOR-E-VARRRRR.
So many memories. This was my first mmorpg.
I beta tested and so nobody knew what they were doing.
Taking my mage out of freeport at level 5 with my pet for the first time into east commons, back then those damn pets aggro'd everthing so it took a couple tries to explore. Seeing the houses and the griffon for the first time.
Tunnel to Ro standing at the cave entrance and looking around some fighter walks over and says" Hey guy group up with us" I reply "Umm ok" a minute passes "Hit accept Blak..." Me "Oh ok sorry never did this before"
"You see us on your screen to the upper right Blak?"
"Yea ok I see everyone"
Spent the next 8 hours in Ro near the temple ruins fighting mummies had to have been one of the top 5 most fun experiances I ever had in a MMORPG.
I had no idea what I was doing just set my pet on whatever the fighter was fighting and blast away, none of us really knew what we were doing back then. It was a unorganized chaos and we were talking, forming plans, tactics etc. Some worked, some got us all killed but we kept plucking away.
Everything was so new for everyone back then.
It was that beginning experience that awed people.
You had to earn your way, and you were rewarded for it (everyone but warriors, of course).
Trying to describe your first EQ experience is similar to trying to describe beauty, magnificence, or anything profoud: Words just seem too inadequate. The beauty of the moment of EQ is that while experiencing it, you were not only having fun but you knew you were doing something special - and you wanted, and look forward, to more.
I agree that it was the experience that awed me the most. I had never played an MMO and was sooo lost. The random factors were the best much like someone above mentioning not being able to see well in the dark, worrying it was Queen Klicknik that was behind you. Dying had a penalty and made your actions have to be thought out more instead of rush in and wipe, no big, try again.
My earliest fond memory wsa standing in front or blackburrow, at like lvl 8, scared to go in. A shaman came up and was lvl 32 I thought he was a god! He told me some tips on how to play, and gave me 3 or 4 gold, and then ran with me back to Qeynos and made me a full suit of banded mail. I still talk to him occassionally on WoW, along with many that I raided all the way through PoP with. Most left when EQ2 and WoW came out.
I miss all the little things that made me mad when i played the game. Not even knowing what direction you were facing until you spammed the button 9 million times. Learning how to keybind that to a movement key was awesome! Camping Hadden for a fishbone earring, then AFKing in the water to learn your swimming. Teaching each other languages. Train to zone!!
Now i wanna reload it.
I spent so much time in EQ its hard to pick my best memories.
In no order my best EQ memories from my 5+ years.
Falling down the well in befallen and thinking I just losted all my stuff and being really upset, trying to fight my nake dwarf down to the bottem to get my corpse back and dieing several times. I asked a druid running by outside of Befallen if she would help me, she did and she became my first guild leader. I loved that guild and I miss that druid, she has since pass away and I cried in RL when I heard the news, she ment that much to me, that whole guild did, they were like family to me.
The first time I tanked in a Raid, I was so scared I was going to screw up and get everyone killed. I do not remember the name of the zone anymore but it was a huge rock guy and it took our casaual guild about 30 minutes to kill it. I was hooked on raids after that. I loved the challenge.
Breaking into Fear the first time on my necromancer and learning that if you failed to break into fear correctly you would spend the rest of the day dragging bodeis out. Never did I use FD so much in my Necro's life then during fear break ins.
The day I became Time flagged with my guild on my necromancer. I have never been so proud of myself and my friends (guild). Clearing time was also very rewarding.
Getting into Candyland for the first time after doing that long long key quest - Vex thal?
SSRA - sill one of my favorite zones of all time, I do not know why but I loved to explore that zone.
Like I said, these are just a few things that spring to mind when thinking of my days in EQ1. I could write a book of all my memories. Not all are good but that is what makes playing games fun, the bad things that you must overcome to get the good. The good old RISK VS REWARD.
Sooner or Later
Wow, kindred spirits, it's creepy. My best memory is running my Dark Elf Wizard from Neriak to Qeynos to play with friends (my first day playing, learned a lot on the way). My favorite zone was Blackburrow, and when I tried again recently the first thing I did was run my Bard to Ro to play with the giants.
My first raid was PoF also, lol, and it was awesome. I'm pretty sure we wiped on the first attempt though. Wow.
I'll always love EQ, the only MMOG with challenging PvE.
Oh I got so many stories, They are all my best memories of EQ. This one may be very long, but I think it will be worth reading.
Setting: Classic EQ, about 2-3 weeks after the game launched.
Location: Unrest
Ok, this was probably one of my all time favorite zones, at least as a cleric.
We were not in a guild and we did not have any affiliation with anyone other than ourselves. We were the Dwarven Wrecking Crew!
5 dwarven clerics and a dwarven Warrior, (We also had 1 hobbit that played with us from time to time). What we lacked in dps, we made up for with ingenuity.
We had been in unrest for a few days now, there was a group of folks that was just slightly ahead of us in levels and we got to see many wonderful and horrible things coming from inside that house. The big bad ass was the hag! We saw them fight one every now and then and boy did it look nasty. We had already taken our fair share of deaths from the random ones that would walk around in the yard so we were amazed to watch them go at her and some of the other creatures from inside the house. Well, one night it happened. They pulled from the house to the courtyard to fight. They had accidently pulled several hags from the house at the same time and had a few other creatures in tow.
It looked like 4th of july over there with all the fireworks going on, then BAM! every single one of those guys were charmed by the hags and ever so slowely taken back into the house to be killed one by one as their charm wore off. I swear to god, you could actually see the fear in their faces as they lumbered unwillingly back into the mansion. Oh my god was that an awesome sight to see.
If that wasn't enough, just a couple days later, our group was now pulling from the mansion and we got our first hag pull. Everything was going right, It was taking us a long time as we were not very dps heavy if you know what I mean. Here was our mistake, we was fighting her right in the center of the courtyard. During this time, a bad pull from another group sent them running to the zone. We had JUST killed the hag when another hag showed up from that bad pull and jumped us. We fought her for all it was worth, just before she died we had another hag jump in, Boy were we sweating bullets at this time. We were rotating cleric heals trying to conserve every last drop of mana and all of our mana was starting to go down fast. Now before this third hag went down, we had a mummie jump in (also from that other groups bad pull). Well, to make this a shorter story, this continued for right at 30 minutes straight. One long string of fights that we thought was never going to end! For the last 15 minutes of the fight it was touch and go, we could all die any second now but I do believe the gods were watching us that night. Every cleric at this point was almost bone dry of mana, we were trying to rest and get just enough back for that next heal, our warrior had not seen his hitpoints be above 50% since the second fight and many times he was down to just a sliver of health and remained that way for the almost the entire fight. We had what seemed like the entire zone watching us during the fight and some of them would grab the random beetles that would jump in on the clerics trying to rest to get back more mana. When we got done with that fight, I swear I was soooo tired afterwards. I was absolutely emotionally drained at that point and all we could do at that point was sit back, rest, and laughed about how we just cheated death and survived a 30 minute long fight. The crowd on the other side of the courtyard was cheering us, telling us how great of a job we did and one of them asked, How were you able to do that? Our reply was: Its simple, we ARE the Dwarven Wrecking Crew!
That my friends has never been matched in any other game. And the truely great part about that story is that there are many many more just like it from our adventures together. Show me a game today that can give you that kind of feeling!
Best memory-getting $900.00 for my warrior
Worst memory-dropping my awesome Necromancer for the stupid Warrior, what was I thinking?!
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
Great story, man those were the days. I remember that zone well. Yea I can think of a hundred times playing EQ thinking that I was going to die but some how pulling it off.
The one part of your story that I love the best is the other people cheering you on, I remember that all to often in EQ, the random people cheering you on in zone chat. God the community in EQ was great for the most part.
Sooner or Later
Running into Kithicor forest at level 10, and not knowing any better, staying there until night.
OMFG I almost forgot about that. Geez Kithicor forest at night. Dam thanks for bring back those memories.
Sooner or Later
EQ's are my best gaming memories by far.
And yes it all has to do with risk.
If there is no risk there is no fear, no fun, no satisfaction.
My pet memory was in that goblins zone in caves under a castle, i forgot the zone's name but it was between a human town and the elvish/dwarf ones.
These tunnels/caves were fricking awesome.
The whole game is just awesome and yes it is hard and that's why it's good.
Newbies and young people have no idea, They can't even begin to imagine what a real good game is.
But obviously we gamers of the old generation are of no consequence to the businesses that run game companies nowadays, so we arent getting any real game anytime soon.
I guess my rant is boring and overdone so i'll try to remember these times in that zone.
Getting there led by someone else, watching the first room where fighting occured and being totally bewildered, scared silly and prodigiously excited.
Slowly getting used to the place by getting into a party, learning day after day how to handle things. Raising up in level and going down to harder rooms. Learning to know the whole zone well, how to fight every mob, what spawns where and how they were timed and how to deal with them with each class of party member... getting down to the hardest parts, managing teams, and finally waiting solo for the next spawn of the hardest lowest room... feeling like i was ruling the place.
It was so good that i made another char and leveled it through this zone once again.
The people you met there, the high levels who were in the upper castle camping the guards, the people asking you for buffs or for supplies in global chat, such a bunch of great people you met and saw how great they were in a few sentences.
But yeah it comes all down to risk. You have to risk your skin, and also your time, There has to be punishment for there to be reward, satisfaction and fun. There has to be work. It's a fun work but if there is no work there is no fun.
Comparing to what i'm playing now, silkroad online, the work in silkroad is about managing groups because the game is so easy that there is nothing to learn in there.
Anyway any former EQ player beats any game and any gamer, i've met a few in other mmos, they play like gods compared to the average player of those games. Because in EQ you got to know your job or everybody's dead and has lost 10-15 minutes... and that's at the lowest character-levels!! Not to mention endgame which i never saw.
I can say i'm happy to have experienced the EQ good days, even in a limited way as i did.
It's like being from another planet compared to the average nowadays mmo player.
You are talking about HighKeep I'm pretty sure, and I have a lot of fond memories of that zone as well. The first time I went there and saw those RED goblins (red to me anyway) I remember being actually scared to death. I just knew I was gonna die there and never find my corpse. It was one of the most interactive, real moments I've ever experienced in a game. I was sweating and wanted to run like hell, but my in-game friend reassured me we'd be fine, all we needed was to get into a group. We eventually did, and I spent a good 2 weeks there levelling and enjoying the various people who came and went. The most fun I've ever had in any MMO by far.
well said
ahhh... High Pass Hold and High keep... the SBH, PGT, the friends I made there.. i got my first guild in the Keep the first time I was there and they were with me for years.
Good times
I have a lot of great memories of EverQuest, it's hard to pick one...
From all the friends I made as a cleric in The Overthere, including another cleric I grouped with often, to the pet groups in the Bastion of Thunder I ran with my brother, to grouping with a paladin buddy and hunting in Veksar on my Beastlord, to falling asleep at my keyboard in Frenzy camp in LGuk right after dinging 46(back when 45 was hell level), to fizzling a complete heal and wiping a raid on Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar in Velk's, to having a beastlord epic spawn stolen by a jaded beastlord who claimed I killed her lvl 10 ranger on purpose(I was bored so I decided to kill some raptors, unfortunately her lvl 10 was sitting and a tastier target for the raptor).
Funny thing was, I had been camping it for a looong time before she showed up on her ranger. I had a 3 day weekend off from work and spent all 3 days there, only sleeping for 4 hours total(my guild leader was watching spawn at those times and had my phone number if it spawned). The moment it spawned my guild was on the way to the isle and the jaded beastlord comes running up the hill and grabs the spawn.... Her and I argued a bit, but it turns out the beastlord herself was friends with a GM and someone told me the spawn was up again that same day(3 day spawn). Interestingly, that same GM was moved to a different server only a few days after this happened. Not really the best memory, but one that sticks out.
I also remember the time when some dark elves were roleplaying as invaders in Rivervale. They kept killing the banker even though they were asked repeatedly not to. A group of us got together and decided to have the mayor and guards get revenge. I was volunteered because my little gnome warrior was the highest level(only like lvl 31). Unfortunately, the only way to get any guards to the zone is to commit a crime. So I took a swing at the mayor and jumped out the window. I bolted for the zone and in turning the corner....I got stuck against a dark elf.... Needless to say, I died. But, on that day, the guards and the lowly mayor finally had their revenge and two of the invaders were laid to rest.
That's what I have, off the top of my head.