Lineage 2 was the first time I actually got into an MMO, because when I was like 9 years old I did attempt to play classic Runescape, and that didn't really work out.
For me Lineage 2 captured everything about a fantasy setting I wanted, I was also quite young (middle school) so it was easier to get my attention. I really liked the music, and the feel of the world even though it was quite empty other than mobs, it had really nice diverse scenery in each zone. Also I really liked the open PvP, within the first 10 minutes of playing I was ganked, which made me really want to get to the point where I could do that.
The world was open, teleporting back then really wasn't a thing so you would have to run everywhere, which really brought me into it. Also the grind was intense, but I loved the social aspect of it where people just treated grinding as a chat room, you ground out levels while interacting with clan mates or alliance mates, or just people in a party in the same area as you.
I'm sure I'm looking back with rose tinted glasses, but it was one of the best experiences in gaming ever for me.
Hmm -- my first experience with everquest 1 was falling out of kelethin. No railings in that city -- you fall and splat. On some of those bridges I used to use a top down view just to be careful and not splat.
Hmm -- my first experience with everquest 1 was falling out of kelethin. No railings in that city -- you fall and splat. On some of those bridges I used to use a top down view just to be careful and not splat.
And if you cast SoW on new players who are about to run around corners, they fall and splat faster. *cough* I mean ... people tell me ... I just hear these things.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
My first one was UO.....I hated it....I was killed within 5 minutes of logging in by players whose only joy was to kill anyone walking outside the gates of Brittain....It was until a couple years later that a friend recommended EQ and then I really liked the genre.
My first one was UO.....I hated it....I was killed within 5 minutes of logging in by players whose only joy was to kill anyone walking outside the gates of Brittain....It was until a couple years later that a friend recommended EQ and then I really liked the genre.
Those assholes ruined that fantastic game for so many people it's really sad.
Trammel should have been part of the game since day one.
But the developers themself admitted they underestimated the nuisance power of such "players".
Yet even today it seems developers haven't learned anything, still making self policing gank boxes....who knows why.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I cant actually remember which was my first one. I played a few different ones in the beginning, such as Ragnarok, Knight Online etc. My first MMO that I stuck with for a long time however was WoW, started playing back in vanilla and have been back for every expansion. Had alot of long breaks inbetween there though. It just felt "magic" back then, when I first started. It was unlike any other MMO I had played and it just reeled me in.
Peter Griffin: you know those germans, if you dont join the party, they?ll come get ya
My first one was UO.....I hated it....I was killed within 5 minutes of logging in by players whose only joy was to kill anyone walking outside the gates of Brittain....It was until a couple years later that a friend recommended EQ and then I really liked the genre.
Those assholes ruined that fantastic game for so many people it's really sad.
Trammel should have been part of the game since day one.
But the developers themself admitted they underestimated the nuisance power of such "players".
Yeah, the UO team was scrambling almost every week to fix some exploit that the griefer brigades had figured out.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
UO was closer to a real life simulation. I don't feel it was a mistake to let people grief in it. I'll admit it did dominate my experience in the game, but it also made it memorable. Joining others to fight PKers was fun. I don't think the same experience could happen now with all the games out there.
EQ was much more like D&D. You had classes, races, levels, dungeons, etc. Most of the things in it were very close to the D&D 1st and 2nd edition in terms of names, rules, and spells. If you were a fan of D&D fantasy novels it was easy to role play characters in it.
I remember going with my husband to this computer mall like thing and there was this game with an elf woman and my husband said hey that game looks interesting. I had just learned to use a computer and was gaming on a Playstation back then. So I bought it and then I had to get an upgrade to Voodoo something card which some guy in a PC shop put in for me.
So I start the game and I decided to try a half elf ranger because of all the models the half elf checks looked hottest. I started in Surefall Glade completely blind and trying to navigate the tunnel to Qeynos Hills. I finally made it out then after a couple of levels I decided to try to run to Qeynos itself. I was so scared and I was startled by some wolf that killed me. So I go back get my corpse and continue and then some mummy kills me. Finally after 4 or 5 attempts I make it to Qeynos. Then I am so happy I got there but did not know about binding myself and getting a player to bind me to the city. First death because I was overwhelmed by beetles and then the Queen Klicnik came along and I was dead. Loading please wait..... back in Qeynos Hills. I almost cried.
I had the 3dfx voodoo3 I think. It was also an addon card. There were a lot of heat issues with the early 3D video cards. I remember my room cooking like an oven.
I tried Neocron, even though I love cyberpunk I hated fighting giant mutant sewer rats with a feeble fragile dagger that couldn't carve it's way through enough rats to get past having to kill them. Really wanted to like the game but it never happened.
The next MMORPG I recall after that was City of Heroes. That clicked instantly.
As a previous poster mentioned the character creator was awesome. Killin' it from level one! And the enemies you fought were super drug crazed thugs, not small forest animals. My character could leap to the top of a bus stop with no effort, and the combat was very satisfying.
The primary/secondary/tertiary powerset system gave you lots of options, and flying, super speeding, super jumping through the city was awesome.
The game went on to have one of the best grouping systems of any MMORPG I'm aware of to date.
I hope someday there will be a worthy successor to that game. I'm not aware of any in the works that seem anywhere near promising.
UO was closer to a real life simulation. I don't feel it was a mistake to let people grief in it. I'll admit it did dominate my experience in the game, but it also made it memorable. Joining others to fight PKers was fun. I don't think the same experience could happen now with all the games out there.
EQ was much more like D&D. You had classes, races, levels, dungeons, etc. Most of the things in it were very close to the D&D 1st and 2nd edition in terms of names, rules, and spells. If you were a fan of D&D fantasy novels it was easy to role play characters in it.
Everyone left when Trammel hit. They voted against griefing with their feet.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Like you, @Amathe , EQ was my introduction to MMORPGs. I feel like I kind of cheated, though, since a couple of guys where I worked talked about it all the time. One of them even loaned me their Prima Guide on EQ. The chjoices presented within those pages are what really got me hooked.
My first hour consisted of making my first character, Kementhea, a Wood Elf Druid. After "spawning" in Kelethin, I had a note to find a druid guildmaster. No waypoint. No markers. No directions whatsoever.
What really brought home the "massiveness" of the game was maybe within the first month or so of playing, I was in a group and during some "pointless, awful, icky, wasteful, useless" downtime between fights, I learned our warrior was in Denmark and our Enchanter was in Japan. The rest of us "groupies" were in different areas of the US. That's when it hit me how world-wide massive this game was
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Asherons Call and I was sold on the loyalty system when I read up.
Then I played the game and nearly failed a uni course...
That was my first too but I was already well out of university by that point (maybe I should change my name to "OlderFart"?)
When UO came out i was all burnt out on Lord British and virtues having played all the single player games so I gave it a deliberate pass.
I was interested in EQ but at that time I had an ATI 3D card that didn't do whatever EQ required (Voodoo?) in those early days but AC worked just fine. That XP pyramid scheme though... weird man
But getting back to the title of this thread, not then and not ever has the first hour in any MMORPG ever done the trick for me. I need at least a good week or two before I make up my mind to stick around in any of them.
Old Fart more my mindset than my age
It's both for me
My son was a teenager when AC came out and I and his mother had just separated. AC was one of our ways of spending time together in the evenings. That's one of the reasons I have additional fond memories of AC.
When UO was out I was already a 27 adult with a daytime job, no more long holidays to play like when I was at school in the 80s...
You're not alone.
Youngsters....when UO came out I was 40, wife, 3 children and more than a full time job. when I was in school we had to play "board games" during the holidays.....
Uphill both ways and in the snow of course.
"HAD" to? I used those holidays to play D&D with my friends nearly every break/holiday we got! When did UO come out? 1997? I'd have been 30 at that time
When I started playing EQ in 2000, I was already married and divorced with a 13 year old son
[Edit] From what I've heard about UO, I wish I would not have passed it up. I think I had a "paper ad" for it in my Balder's Gate game box. I recall wondering what the hell this was before tossing it into the trash.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
My first was EQ too. Started with a Barbarian (Thief if I recall correctly) on a PvP server.
I had a friend who had (a little) experience with the game. He showed me how to create the "buttons", and some general ones that could be useful (/loc, etc.), and then pushed me out of town. I remember fighting and resting in the snowy mountains (and running from that darn Soloist who, for some reason, always popped in when I was in the middle of a fight...). I managed to get lost in that simple (3?) corridor map, running in circles.. but loved every moment of it.
Then we tried to get with our other buddies who started in Qeynos.. I was completely stressed out the whole time, looking left and right and behind every 3 steps. We managed to get to Freeport somehow, but then I was greeted by higher level players who made it their duty to welcome new characters by introducing them to the dirt of "their" land.. After a couple runs for me and me friends, where neither could reach the others without dying or getting ganked, we decided to roll on a normal server, at least until we had more experience with the game... (We never came back...)
I proceeded to roll a Wood Elf, and made him a Bard. I remember the 1st time I talked with the banker in Kelethin and accidentally pressed the attack key.... doh!
Bard ended up MY class, and I have never played any other class in EQ.
I don't quite recall why, but at around level 13-15, I had to re-roll, so I gave my gear to my best bud, and then rolled the new character (same race/class) and went to my friend so he can give me my stuff back. I tell him, ok, I'm here, trade please! and then I saw something like this in the chat : "Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!" "Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!" "Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!" "Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!" ...
Everything went silent as me and my friend understood what had just happened...
I started playing MUD and what really captured me was when the game closed down to be battlegrounds about killing others, it gave some sort of point to progression. When I started playing WoW it didn't really capture my imagination but what kept me playing was at first level progression and later on raiding.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
And I really don't know what captivated me for the first hour. All I did was hit dummies for the first +hour and then I proceeded to get my ass handed to me by a chicken
I think I'm just a sucker for punishment
Was that the Super Chicken?
In one of the funnier stories of early MMO's, UO's critters would grow in skill like players did. This chicken somehow never face a player that was able to kill it, maybe it started in the game's beginning and grew on complete newbs, and just by happenstance never got killed.
But GM's became aware that there was this Super Chicken running around, through complaints. Highly developed players would attack it thinking they'd get some feathers and get their arses handed to them. lol
So the GM's actually had to organize an event to gather a bunch of players and hunt the thing down and finally kill it.
That's when they added code to limit how far some critters could grow in skill and HPs.
Another interesting thing that people who started on feydwer right when everquest opened experienced...
I ran/hid from the first ogre PC I saw thinking it was zarchoomi.
I saw one in Northern Ro I think and thought it was an NPC because that was the first time I saw a playing character as an ogre female.
All this talk of EQ has me remembering "Fansy, the Famous Bard" that I read about years ago. I was recalling how he turned in his note and got his cloth shirt from his trainer and announced, "I just won EverQuest!" I remember that trumpet fanfare so well!
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I also started a ranger in Surefell human I think never got out deleted it because I ran out of food and no cheap food everything was one gold over iron rations it was.
Then I made an enchanter in the soup they called Toxxulia Forest. Lost my corpse so many times I was getting so agitated and upset while yelling /shout anyone seen my corpse please? I deleted her too and then made a high elf wizard and never looked back. Finally I can see in the night.
I remember thinking this game is so huge. I got lost everywhere . This was before I learnt about /loc and looking for maps online and relied on my crude drawings to get around. I was so hooked right from the start because the minute you log in it is like you're in another world and everything falls away and there is just this character and you and this amazing world. No game has ever come close to the feeling I got when I first logged into Norrath.
The Half Elf Ranger of Surefall was also my first character. I got lost in the tunnels a lot due to the darkness. I also got lost in the Qeynos area and died a lot. The fire beetle eye was quite useful. Blackburrow was a mess, but lots of fun. I recall seeing the first gnoll wandering around Qeynos Hills and engaging it. Then I proceeded to run for my life. This would be a sign of what my future would be like as a Ranger. The highest I made it with that class was level 17. I had brought combine simitars and gotten dual wield. Light blue mobs were still occasionally killing me.
I recall a few times trying out a Dark Elf and bringing them to Freeport, Qeynos, and Kelethin to build faction. I actually spent the time to get friendly. I was an agnostic warrior, but I think some things were always KoS to me.
I eventually tried every single class in the game multiple times. I had a lot of frustration in early EQ after a certain level range. Druids started to really intrigue me due to their broad range of skills. I played one of those for a very long time. Eventually, I also had a high level Necromancer and Bard which I did mostly solo. I could never get into the Shaman. I really disliked classes like Cleric, Warrior, and Rogue as they didn't have any utility at all.
I did a lot of duoing with people at camps. Often they just wandered along. There was a good camp at lesser faydark with orcs. If you had a spell like lull or harmony you could break it up if you had good timing and kill the orcs solo. You had to be careful of respawns and wanderers. The mobs dropped platinum weapons and the place was almost never camped. People generally were happy to find me there because they couldn't solo it with their current class. The biggest problem was being stuck there too long because the people didn't want you to leave.
In the beginning, you could drop your items on the ground. This was the only way to transfer items between characters. My first experience with this wasn't so great. Someone picked up the items while I was logged out. Luckily the items you got in early EQ usually weren't that great. It might have been a platinum weapon, rusty weapon, leather clothes, cloth clothes, etc. I eventually found more remote locations. Kelethin had a lot of empty houses that no one went into as they served no purpose.
My travels through Runnyeye and Beholder's Maze on the way to Freeport were always a scary time. The route through Highpass Hold was just as bad if not worse. Even the Karanas was quite a journey. Wandering Lions, Hill Giants, Beholders, etc. would kick your butt. I often ended up on the wrong side of the zone in Karanas as it all looked the same. There was west Karanas and east Karanas.
I could actually talk about just about every class and every zone in original EQ as I spent so much time playing the game. I think I am running out of space in this post though.
my first MMO was WoW back in 2004... and to be honest, coming from pen'n'paper RPGs, at first I found it hard - very hard - to figure out what the goal of the game was and where the fun was. That's why it took me about 6 months to reach max level.
Once I came to terms with the fact that PC MMOs are nothing like tabletop RPGs, and that the fun lies in the quest-and-reward system of character progression, I had the best time of my life. The thrill of 40-man raiding, open world PvP, and guild drama was something I had never experienced before.
My first one was UO.....I hated it....I was killed within 5 minutes of logging in by players whose only joy was to kill anyone walking outside the gates of Brittain....It was until a couple years later that a friend recommended EQ and then I really liked the genre.
Those assholes ruined that fantastic game for so many people it's really sad.
Trammel should have been part of the game since day one.
But the developers themself admitted they underestimated the nuisance power of such "players".
RIght it was such a toxic environment...I was pretty shocked at how brutal people could be...I did retry several years later after Trammel was released and enjoyed it much more at that time.
UO was frustrating. I had the experience of being killed by a fireball when walking out of town for the first time and having items stolen over and over again. I still had a lot of fun though. I wasn't the type that really minded getting angry. I actually enjoyed could enjoy any emotion. Perhaps that's why I could survive in games like UO and EQ. It felt good to push forward and persevere when others were dropping out quickly. It also felt like bonds between players were stronger because of it. Sometimes it's just fun to experience any emotions regardless of whether they are anger, fear, joy, or whatever. This is especially true when you are young. As you get older you body gets burnt out and can't handle such things as well. By this point, you generally just want to get along with as little hassle as possible. I am reaching this point myself.
Comments
For me Lineage 2 captured everything about a fantasy setting I wanted, I was also quite young (middle school) so it was easier to get my attention. I really liked the music, and the feel of the world even though it was quite empty other than mobs, it had really nice diverse scenery in each zone. Also I really liked the open PvP, within the first 10 minutes of playing I was ganked, which made me really want to get to the point where I could do that.
The world was open, teleporting back then really wasn't a thing so you would have to run everywhere, which really brought me into it. Also the grind was intense, but I loved the social aspect of it where people just treated grinding as a chat room, you ground out levels while interacting with clan mates or alliance mates, or just people in a party in the same area as you.
I'm sure I'm looking back with rose tinted glasses, but it was one of the best experiences in gaming ever for me.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Peter Griffin: you know those germans, if you dont join the party, they?ll come get ya
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
UO was closer to a real life simulation. I don't feel it was a mistake to let people grief in it. I'll admit it did dominate my experience in the game, but it also made it memorable. Joining others to fight PKers was fun. I don't think the same experience could happen now with all the games out there.
EQ was much more like D&D. You had classes, races, levels, dungeons, etc. Most of the things in it were very close to the D&D 1st and 2nd edition in terms of names, rules, and spells. If you were a fan of D&D fantasy novels it was easy to role play characters in it.
So I start the game and I decided to try a half elf ranger because of all the models the half elf checks looked hottest. I started in Surefall Glade completely blind and trying to navigate the tunnel to Qeynos Hills. I finally made it out then after a couple of levels I decided to try to run to Qeynos itself. I was so scared and I was startled by some wolf that killed me. So I go back get my corpse and continue and then some mummy kills me. Finally after 4 or 5 attempts I make it to Qeynos. Then I am so happy I got there but did not know about binding myself and getting a player to bind me to the city. First death because I was overwhelmed by beetles and then the Queen Klicnik came along and I was dead. Loading please wait..... back in Qeynos Hills. I almost cried.
The next MMORPG I recall after that was City of Heroes. That clicked instantly.
As a previous poster mentioned the character creator was awesome. Killin' it from level one! And the enemies you fought were super drug crazed thugs, not small forest animals. My character could leap to the top of a bus stop with no effort, and the combat was very satisfying.
The primary/secondary/tertiary powerset system gave you lots of options, and flying, super speeding, super jumping through the city was awesome.
The game went on to have one of the best grouping systems of any MMORPG I'm aware of to date.
I hope someday there will be a worthy successor to that game. I'm not aware of any in the works that seem anywhere near promising.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
My first hour consisted of making my first character, Kementhea, a Wood Elf Druid. After "spawning" in Kelethin, I had a note to find a druid guildmaster. No waypoint. No markers. No directions whatsoever.
What really brought home the "massiveness" of the game was maybe within the first month or so of playing, I was in a group and during some "pointless, awful, icky, wasteful, useless" downtime between fights, I learned our warrior was in Denmark and our Enchanter was in Japan. The rest of us "groupies" were in different areas of the US. That's when it hit me how world-wide massive this game was
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
When I started playing EQ in 2000, I was already married and divorced with a 13 year old son
[Edit]
From what I've heard about UO, I wish I would not have passed it up. I think I had a "paper ad" for it in my Balder's Gate game box. I recall wondering what the hell this was before tossing it into the trash.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Started with a Barbarian (Thief if I recall correctly) on a PvP server.
I had a friend who had (a little) experience with the game. He showed me how to create the "buttons", and some general ones that could be useful (/loc, etc.), and then pushed me out of town.
I remember fighting and resting in the snowy mountains (and running from that darn Soloist who, for some reason, always popped in when I was in the middle of a fight...). I managed to get lost in that simple (3?) corridor map, running in circles.. but loved every moment of it.
Then we tried to get with our other buddies who started in Qeynos.. I was completely stressed out the whole time, looking left and right and behind every 3 steps. We managed to get to Freeport somehow, but then I was greeted by higher level players who made it their duty to welcome new characters by introducing them to the dirt of "their" land..
After a couple runs for me and me friends, where neither could reach the others without dying or getting ganked, we decided to roll on a normal server, at least until we had more experience with the game... (We never came back...)
I proceeded to roll a Wood Elf, and made him a Bard. I remember the 1st time I talked with the banker in Kelethin and accidentally pressed the attack key.... doh!
Bard ended up MY class, and I have never played any other class in EQ.
I don't quite recall why, but at around level 13-15, I had to re-roll, so I gave my gear to my best bud, and then rolled the new character (same race/class) and went to my friend so he can give me my stuff back. I tell him, ok, I'm here, trade please! and then I saw something like this in the chat :
"Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!"
"Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!"
"Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!"
"Guard XYZ: Thanks, though I don't need that!"
...
Everything went silent as me and my friend understood what had just happened...
...
Fun times, that I'll never forget!
I ran/hid from the first ogre PC I saw thinking it was zarchoomi.
In one of the funnier stories of early MMO's, UO's critters would grow in skill like players did.
This chicken somehow never face a player that was able to kill it, maybe it started in the game's beginning and grew on complete newbs, and just by happenstance never got killed.
But GM's became aware that there was this Super Chicken running around, through complaints. Highly developed players would attack it thinking they'd get some feathers and get their arses handed to them. lol
So the GM's actually had to organize an event to gather a bunch of players and hunt the thing down and finally kill it.
That's when they added code to limit how far some critters could grow in skill and HPs.
Once upon a time....
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Then I made an enchanter in the soup they called Toxxulia Forest. Lost my corpse so many times I was getting so agitated and upset while yelling /shout anyone seen my corpse please? I deleted her too and then made a high elf wizard and never looked back. Finally I can see in the night.
I remember thinking this game is so huge. I got lost everywhere . This was before I learnt about /loc and looking for maps online and relied on my crude drawings to get around. I was so hooked right from the start because the minute you log in it is like you're in another world and everything falls away and there is just this character and you and this amazing world. No game has ever come close to the feeling I got when I first logged into Norrath.
I recall a few times trying out a Dark Elf and bringing them to Freeport, Qeynos, and Kelethin to build faction. I actually spent the time to get friendly. I was an agnostic warrior, but I think some things were always KoS to me.
I eventually tried every single class in the game multiple times. I had a lot of frustration in early EQ after a certain level range. Druids started to really intrigue me due to their broad range of skills. I played one of those for a very long time. Eventually, I also had a high level Necromancer and Bard which I did mostly solo. I could never get into the Shaman. I really disliked classes like Cleric, Warrior, and Rogue as they didn't have any utility at all.
I did a lot of duoing with people at camps. Often they just wandered along. There was a good camp at lesser faydark with orcs. If you had a spell like lull or harmony you could break it up if you had good timing and kill the orcs solo. You had to be careful of respawns and wanderers. The mobs dropped platinum weapons and the place was almost never camped. People generally were happy to find me there because they couldn't solo it with their current class. The biggest problem was being stuck there too long because the people didn't want you to leave.
In the beginning, you could drop your items on the ground. This was the only way to transfer items between characters. My first experience with this wasn't so great. Someone picked up the items while I was logged out. Luckily the items you got in early EQ usually weren't that great. It might have been a platinum weapon, rusty weapon, leather clothes, cloth clothes, etc. I eventually found more remote locations. Kelethin had a lot of empty houses that no one went into as they served no purpose.
My travels through Runnyeye and Beholder's Maze on the way to Freeport were always a scary time. The route through Highpass Hold was just as bad if not worse. Even the Karanas was quite a journey. Wandering Lions, Hill Giants, Beholders, etc. would kick your butt. I often ended up on the wrong side of the zone in Karanas as it all looked the same. There was west Karanas and east Karanas.
I could actually talk about just about every class and every zone in original EQ as I spent so much time playing the game. I think I am running out of space in this post though.
Once I came to terms with the fact that PC MMOs are nothing like tabletop RPGs, and that the fun lies in the quest-and-reward system of character progression, I had the best time of my life. The thrill of 40-man raiding, open world PvP, and guild drama was something I had never experienced before.