I started played EQ about one month after release and played for 5 years. During that time I took breaks to try other games from one to three months but always returned to EQ. I loved that game. Even at the end I thought it was still great. I thought WoW was a good game as well but it only kept my interest about four months. EQ2 had me for about 9 months. I will never have that feeling ever again I had the first time I wandered out of Halas and was chased back shortly after by a skeleton. When a friend brought a lvl 12 wizard friend he made online to escort me to Qeynos the first time at lvl 5. I can not think of a time in RL that I was more scared. Train city in Blackburrow that could last for two hours. Running naked from Qeynos to Freeport and dieing about 10 yds from the zone line in High Pass when I paniced running by the orcs and started doing loops. Falling off the boat on the way to Antonica and having to swim to the dock based on people yelling me directions in the Ocean of Tears. Death falls from Kelethin. Undead trains in Unrest. Actually thinking it was a RPG and treating the evil races with contempt. The bad guy wasn't the orc it was the jerk wizard that could kill steal your group with one nuke. The griffon in EC wandering over your group and killing you. The sand giant in WC doing the same. Trains, training, kill stealing, camp stealing, all the "bad" things made the game more vibrant. I could list the good times during the early years forever. It was a game of discovery. You tried things and went there because you didn't know what was there or if things could be done. Could levitate get you to that ledge? I could write forever about all the fun I had. I miss it and I think because it was such a great experience those first two to three years I have never been satisfied with anything else even though the new games are more polished and less buggy. For me Everquest was the best game not just the best MMORPG. You can easily claim the F15 Eagle could destroy the P51 Mustang but I think the P51 was the greatest fighter.
Great post man. My experiences were different but I remember them as fondly as you. EQ had a certain magic about it, that will probably never be recreated.
This game kept me occupied for years. No other game before this could claim such a thing. There was even a point when I was so enthralled/addicted/immersed (pick one) that I considered working part-time so I could play more EQ...
Games since have been good, but not great like EQ1 And sadly, EQ1 doesn't offer the same experiences as it used to offer. But if I had more time, I would probably like to be in a good raiding guild again - achieving the raid goals with 54 people wonderful. It just takes too much time these days!
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
wow man there has been some awesome posts here. As duiss said on page 1 after i just started reading the threat- he mentioned how the balancing of classes messed with the game. I kinda agree with that, I was a bard pretty much from the beginning and i don't know WHY people whine about me lol. I played the game from pretty much month 1 and one of my fondest memories of my life is eq haha. I know that is sad to say, but i had so many friends on there and my guild it was a just a game that you could probably not experience again even if you tried. I have tried evertything to feel that, i honestlyh think i have tried every new MMO lol trying to experience that magic. Noone can say that when they played EQ 1 the east commons wasn't badass? Up to when i quit (gates of discord) i still visited freeport often... haha i remember how much i killed lucan and how much the north FP gaurds would pretty much love me. To me waiting for a camp was tedious but when you got it you were so freaking happy. What is up with games being SO LINEAR NOW?! Eq1 wasn;'t just quest based and i actually really liked the feeling of just getting a group and going to Lower guk to be like lets get some exp and maybe do some quests here while were at it. I must admit that i have gone back to eq1 several times, i don't know but those servers called the progression haha i actually played on there as a shaman and got an epic and everything it was pretty cool it was playing through the old days again. I quit though because people were rushing to unlock the new worlds. The game blatantly went down with luclin and if you don't think luclin did it, PoP definitely did it. Why would you whine about running? I mean i admit i whined, never complained to like a GM or anything but i was like "OH MY GOD NOT THE KARANAS OR DREADLANDS" . But its part of the game and the questing experience after all it is an adventure game.
Eq 1 forced you to actually adventure (until they put freaking maps in it WTF is with that). Nothing was better than getting lost in the karanas trying to find KFC bwhaha. Annoying, but when you look back at it, its pretty amazing. I played WoW for about 2 weeks worst game i've ever played. Before i start getting flamed, i just don't think it is worth all the hype and the subscribers. I can't clinch on to what is special about it. It is just too easy for me and not challenging enough. It was cool to have newbs begging at the north FP bank because you were level 50 hahaha. Its cool to throw them a few pp because at that time there really were no twinks. What the hell is with WoW, my RL friends who play it have multiple 60's or whatever the max level is now. Just ridiculous, i understand that its cool to level faster but whats with that at the same time.
Right now i am playing LOTR online in beta and i just cna't feel it. I dunno i have not played a MMO in awhile
A. They have just gotten too easy! Everquest got to the point where it showed you were guys were in the city, bards basically didn't have to twist songs anymore. What the hell, one of the greatest challenges in EQ was to put together a good group because some idiot would always break mez with their pet or something, now pets can't attack mezzed crap. WHAT THE HELL!?
B. They started raising the prices per month!
C. Bazaar whoring... oh my god don't get me started with the asshats who ruined the economy.
D. Zerg guilds... E.G. Silent Resurgence -Innoruuk Server I was in a small guild on innoruuk myabe 40 people at its peak and we would be doing like i dunno Plane of growth and here comes the zerg guild running through everything, because if tghey die hell they got 913818283 other people that can replace their MT or there 504101383 clerics.
E. People don't help for shit anymore in games. People used to be pretty keen on helping you, like if you were in oh my god mistmoore if you needed something from a room people would sometimes pull that room for you if they were cmaping near it. They did it just to help you. That is freaking cool i think. Now its like i need the best loot and they're not even in the game for playing it, they are in it to shwo they have the best loot and they want to have the best of the best, IMO most MMO's now aren't communities they are just virtual bragging pits. "oh i got the best loot, oh i went to that instance" blah blah. Honestly who cares? The thing is i guess everyone cares , cause with the new MMO's i jsut don't feel the sense of a community. Where did all the real jackasses go too? The ones that set up invisible ogres in Cazic thule and block the zone out and train the entire zone bwhahahaha coolest shit i have ever seen. I must admit while all that was annoying, it was the idea that it was just a cool idea that someone had come up with it. It was annoying in a good way, doesn't make sense i know. In eq people were the shit AKA ruvaril who basically saved my ass 2000 times. If you're at this forum thanks.
"SOE's business decisions have pissed me off several times but Brad was just as much a part of the problem as anybody at SOE."
...And basically most of whatever Chief put in the posts.
O.K.
I'll grant you that Brad (and no I am not "Brad") isn't the second coming of Christ and not only bears significant responsibility for EQ mishaps but also for the complete failure of VSoH, which had enough depth and new ideas to be a real contender. As I see it now anyway, VSoH is a terminal patient and not long for this world.
We will have to agree to disagree however on the contributions and MMORPG-genealogy that I discussed and you see differently. To each their own. I am stunned by the lack of posters, with exceptions, that seem to not be able to analytically look at the MMORPG heavyweights and not see the original ideas, the mastering of old components along with the specific abject failure by every major MMORPG since 1999. I've played 95% of them and can applaud DAOC, EQ, CoH, AC1, AO, UO at least (and I leaving out many) for new extraordinary facets in their product that are unique to them or "mastered" old components like no one before.
The inability to appreciate your competitor’s skill or respect their achievements while lauding your champion seems myopic.
The idea that EQ is a dead game is as usual with the predictions of its doom premature.
7 and half years now that I've been playing this game pretty much continuously for the last 4 (took some breaks early on do to frustration with various aspects of the game) I've been raiding end game since around the time LDON released when I joined a EP/Time guild and have been at it pretty close to non-stop ever since.
No other game has held my interest for as long nor provided anywhere near the economical entertainment.
Admittedly I've not played any of the other MMO's mainly because I'm not interested in picking up another time sink. I spend probably 3-4 hours a night 3-5 nights a week (depending on wife /con) Those hours I mainly spend working with 53 other people trying to figure out how to beat these complex raid scripts.
I love the process of coming to an event that seem completely impossible to start and slowly getting a little further until the first hard won victory to when it moves to farm status because we've got it down so well we can almost do it on autopilot. It's what I find fun and 50 someodd other people who log in everynight to raid in my guild agree as do the the 50+ people in the other guilds in the top 10 and the 100+ guilds raiding DOD+ content or who knows how many hitting Omen's content.
I see this common trend in the EQ bashing everyone loved Velious or loved luclin or thought the game died with PoP.
PoP was when the game finally became really fun for me. It's also when I started raiding which opened up a whole nother diminsion to the game beyond the mindless pull monster kill monster rinse repeat.
People complained and for all the talk about the dev's not listening I've watch many of the complaints people had with the game get addressed sure it takes a long time and sometimes I think the devs drag their feet too much and get too set in their own opinions but over all things have steadily improved.
EQ today is the best game it's ever been. Non-raiders can get good solid gear through relatively simple easily repeatable missions as well as off of the many named mobs which can be completed in small discrete blocks of time.
With the release of TSS with it's out of combat regen system the game became about 90% more casual friendly by heavily reducing the down time for all classes.
Even the graphics beyond the character models are impressive sure the character models are kind of retro but at least they don't look like they'd be more in place on a saturday morning cartoon.
The biggest problem with the game today is the lack of new players caused mainly by Sony's refusal to actually invest anything in advertizing EQ instead pumping those resources into EQ2.
I'm sure all these other games are good and it is hard to deny that WoW is an increadibly successful product., but you gotta give EQ it's due. The only reason Blizard made WoW to begin with was because they wanted to cash in on the success that was EQ.
I do not think EQ is the best mmorpg ever, nor would I put it in the top three but this is my opinion, not a fact.
Let me explain why...
1) Eq introduced very little the genre other than a new graphics engine.
Raiding:
Meridian had raiding
UO had raiding
PVP:
UO had the best pvp pre trammal hands down out of any mmorpg to date. You could use exploding potions, trapped treasure chests, recall scrolls, selective teleportation, and you could fight on mounts. No game to this day comes close
PVE:
Eq in my opinion has the worst AI out o fany game. You basicly aggro and pull, aggro and pull, aggro and pull.
Enough said.
P.s. someone up top said EQ is the only game that forces you to adventure. I don't consider a game that forces you to do anything good. I think Brad just got lucky with EQ because there was a huge market for a non pvp game.
For me definitely EQ is up there. It gave me quite a headache at times and had a load of frustrations but it did have something kind of special to it. The dungeons, the adventure, the cities; - and thats before the grouping aspect and the classes. I think now with all the big money entering the genre this kind of niche appeal has maybe seen its end with Everquest. It is a shame that it was ruined.
I remember waiting for those blue boxes to scale along patcher 1.1. I was sitting at home thinking to myself relaying fantasies of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves to EQ (I was 13). I logged into Qeynos when it was raining; nothing like the warm rain splashing down on your shoulders from the docks.
I was a human rogue (ftw) and I followed my friend into Crow's. Of course I hit the pitfall and had to respawn.
I remember being terrified about zoning into Blackburrow. Back when Qey Hills were packed (on Cazic Thule) I was reading about how punishing the zone was. Not to mention I was terrified of those druids wandering in the Hills (I don't even remember their names now).
I remember when my Mom went away one weekend and Dad had to babysit. My Brother and I took turns playing 8 hour runs in High Hold pass and eating pizza. Remember when orcs had like five groups? Or when the PGT sold for 250pp?
Here are some other things that I miss.
*Snake caverns in blackburrow and the commie room. My heart was racing... so many gnolls and not enough groups. Only a few lvl 12 adventurers playing it cool in the summer of 2000.
*Fighting griphawns in NK at night without ultravision, another absolutely terrifying moment.
*Running between kithcor and FP. Only because it was hard. Folks who didn't hang to the wall and go slowly got eaten alive by the undead. It was so satisfying to cross that zone.
*I miss wisp isle and the tiki heads. I miss taking turns at 3am to kill wisps or trying to avoid the fire elemental that spawned their. I miss those sunsets.
*God I miss the staff of writhing and how cool lambent looked. I miss playing with my brother and my friends in Northern Ro. The pyramid was always camped and ghouls were so scary.
*I miss envying other characters for their awesome gear. I miss the sense of feeling like I was doing alright for myself with a dragoon dirk at lvl 21.
*Cazic Thule sugar bowl. Best day of 8th grade summer (besides Theif The Metal Age at Willie's house after his Naggy raid)!
*Waiting to pop 40 over in Dreadlands. I went back there 4 years ago and there was only one group outside of Karnor's on Cazic. My first time there, I was scared like hell. A troll SK showed me to Karnors and wacked all of the spiders that launched at me.
* Orcs in EC/WC.
*A full friends list.
*East Commonlands on Saturday morning. I remember zoning in for the first time and being blown aghast; there was so much chatting.
*I miss first torch and the feeling of having someone cast lev on you.
*I think what I miss most was just being in tiny non-raid guilds (but good guilds back before Kunark even. Cheers for Elder Conclave/ Cult Unseen) and talking. Nowadays on the emulated severs (which I think are great too, like SOD for instance) its reminiscing or raiding. I miss just having the day to chat and not even gain exp. Or just to chat, while soaking up a ton of exp and not even realizing it. I miss sitting next to my friends or my brother and just talking too. My nostalgia comes from watching Norrath through an LCD monitor on a 600mhz box, and spending the day with my close pals wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life.
I'm at the end of my college career now. I remember this necromancer named Itralon. He quit because he was failing out of college (I wish I still had his SN on aim). Anyways he told me that the best part about college was the freedom to play EQ all day (this was when Kunark came out). That's what I would tell my dad-- that's why I wanted to go to college.
Itralon must be 30 now. I'm 21 and on my last leg of school. I hardly have the time to play anything anymore... but I still have a lot of time to miss it and to be nostalgic for it.
Everquest I/Kunark/Velious/Luclin/Pop - that was the highest I went. I only had a lvl 51 necro when I quit. My brother had a 55 druid. We quit when we felt like we were too far behind to catch up with anyone.
[We never used Velious/Luclin/Pop much. We just bought the expansions for the possibilities. My folks hated the game. Every once in a while when it was raining in the winter my dad would take us to a LAN so that my brother and I could group (we had 56k for the longest time). That also reminds me of how my brother and I liked to end ski trips early so that we could go home and play.]
For me, Everquest was that large chunk of my childhood that gave me an outlet to make friends outside of my DnD group at school. It helped me learn to socialize, it gave me confidence, and it brought me extremely close (emotionally) to other people. It was a huge part of my life (on and off) until my first year of college (by then I was playing by myself and my RA infrequently).
Perhaps I'm just addicted and this game is just sewn into my skin. Its kind of strange how this game can cloud up so much of my mind and my feelings, but it does. And I have played SoD (its emu) and other emu severs and the game is just missing something. And that could be my childhood or just the time of day: an august afternoon to switch out from the Temple of Cazic Thule to the Outer Steppes in D2.
Man I miss that game. I miss Those summer days and those people. I miss being a kid and I miss how hot August used to feel back then.
I was online August 1, 2001, talking to an online friend and he told me: I have school tomorrow. I told him (something like): For now, lets just play and when we wake up, you'll have school. But August is August, and we will still have the evenings.
Don't know what happened to that guy, but his name was Nick.
So now, it is August again in my heart. I'm going to be up tonight reading for class and working on my jazz repetoire. I was tempted to install titanium tonight. I'm glad I found this board instead. Nothing can bring back EQ 1 but sentiments (I'm afraid).
And of course I have handfulls of other wonderful experiences like my first college job, sex, being rambunctious, being sad, feeling alive, being in love. I just miss it on these summer nights.
Thanks for being online and playing with me throughout all of these years. Our memories, they will never fade.
Send me a PM or AIM (dstanzler) if you just want to chat about the nostalgia.
Comments
Great post man. My experiences were different but I remember them as fondly as you. EQ had a certain magic about it, that will probably never be recreated.
This game kept me occupied for years. No other game before this could claim such a thing. There was even a point when I was so enthralled/addicted/immersed (pick one) that I considered working part-time so I could play more EQ...
Games since have been good, but not great like EQ1
And sadly, EQ1 doesn't offer the same experiences as it used to offer. But if I had more time, I would probably like to be in a good raiding guild again - achieving the raid goals with 54 people wonderful. It just takes too much time these days!
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
wow man there has been some awesome posts here. As duiss said on page 1 after i just started reading the threat- he mentioned how the balancing of classes messed with the game. I kinda agree with that, I was a bard pretty much from the beginning and i don't know WHY people whine about me lol. I played the game from pretty much month 1 and one of my fondest memories of my life is eq haha. I know that is sad to say, but i had so many friends on there and my guild it was a just a game that you could probably not experience again even if you tried. I have tried evertything to feel that, i honestlyh think i have tried every new MMO lol trying to experience that magic. Noone can say that when they played EQ 1 the east commons wasn't badass? Up to when i quit (gates of discord) i still visited freeport often... haha i remember how much i killed lucan and how much the north FP gaurds would pretty much love me. To me waiting for a camp was tedious but when you got it you were so freaking happy. What is up with games being SO LINEAR NOW?! Eq1 wasn;'t just quest based and i actually really liked the feeling of just getting a group and going to Lower guk to be like lets get some exp and maybe do some quests here while were at it. I must admit that i have gone back to eq1 several times, i don't know but those servers called the progression haha i actually played on there as a shaman and got an epic and everything it was pretty cool it was playing through the old days again. I quit though because people were rushing to unlock the new worlds. The game blatantly went down with luclin and if you don't think luclin did it, PoP definitely did it. Why would you whine about running? I mean i admit i whined, never complained to like a GM or anything but i was like "OH MY GOD NOT THE KARANAS OR DREADLANDS" . But its part of the game and the questing experience after all it is an adventure game.
Eq 1 forced you to actually adventure (until they put freaking maps in it WTF is with that). Nothing was better than getting lost in the karanas trying to find KFC bwhaha. Annoying, but when you look back at it, its pretty amazing. I played WoW for about 2 weeks worst game i've ever played. Before i start getting flamed, i just don't think it is worth all the hype and the subscribers. I can't clinch on to what is special about it. It is just too easy for me and not challenging enough. It was cool to have newbs begging at the north FP bank because you were level 50 hahaha. Its cool to throw them a few pp because at that time there really were no twinks. What the hell is with WoW, my RL friends who play it have multiple 60's or whatever the max level is now. Just ridiculous, i understand that its cool to level faster but whats with that at the same time.
Right now i am playing LOTR online in beta and i just cna't feel it. I dunno i have not played a MMO in awhile
A. They have just gotten too easy! Everquest got to the point where it showed you were guys were in the city, bards basically didn't have to twist songs anymore. What the hell, one of the greatest challenges in EQ was to put together a good group because some idiot would always break mez with their pet or something, now pets can't attack mezzed crap. WHAT THE HELL!?
B. They started raising the prices per month!
C. Bazaar whoring... oh my god don't get me started with the asshats who ruined the economy.
D. Zerg guilds... E.G. Silent Resurgence -Innoruuk Server I was in a small guild on innoruuk myabe 40 people at its peak and we would be doing like i dunno Plane of growth and here comes the zerg guild running through everything, because if tghey die hell they got 913818283 other people that can replace their MT or there 504101383 clerics.
E. People don't help for shit anymore in games. People used to be pretty keen on helping you, like if you were in oh my god mistmoore if you needed something from a room people would sometimes pull that room for you if they were cmaping near it. They did it just to help you. That is freaking cool i think. Now its like i need the best loot and they're not even in the game for playing it, they are in it to shwo they have the best loot and they want to have the best of the best, IMO most MMO's now aren't communities they are just virtual bragging pits. "oh i got the best loot, oh i went to that instance" blah blah. Honestly who cares? The thing is i guess everyone cares , cause with the new MMO's i jsut don't feel the sense of a community. Where did all the real jackasses go too? The ones that set up invisible ogres in Cazic thule and block the zone out and train the entire zone bwhahahaha coolest shit i have ever seen. I must admit while all that was annoying, it was the idea that it was just a cool idea that someone had come up with it. It was annoying in a good way, doesn't make sense i know. In eq people were the shit AKA ruvaril who basically saved my ass 2000 times. If you're at this forum thanks.
Anyways enough ranting for me that is my 2 cents.
Stormyfeet Manabattery 65 bard innoruuk
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
"SOE's business decisions have pissed me off several times but Brad was just as much a part of the problem as anybody at SOE."
O.K.
I'll grant you that Brad (and no I am not "Brad") isn't the second coming of Christ and not only bears significant responsibility for EQ mishaps but also for the complete failure of VSoH, which had enough depth and new ideas to be a real contender. As I see it now anyway, VSoH is a terminal patient and not long for this world.
We will have to agree to disagree however on the contributions and MMORPG-genealogy that I discussed and you see differently. To each their own. I am stunned by the lack of posters, with exceptions, that seem to not be able to analytically look at the MMORPG heavyweights and not see the original ideas, the mastering of old components along with the specific abject failure by every major MMORPG since 1999. I've played 95% of them and can applaud DAOC, EQ, CoH, AC1, AO, UO at least (and I leaving out many) for new extraordinary facets in their product that are unique to them or "mastered" old components like no one before.
The inability to appreciate your competitor’s skill or respect their achievements while lauding your champion seems myopic.
Duiss HunEtte
70 Necromancer
Collander McGovern
70 Warrior
The idea that EQ is a dead game is as usual with the predictions of its doom premature.
7 and half years now that I've been playing this game pretty much continuously for the last 4 (took some breaks early on do to frustration with various aspects of the game) I've been raiding end game since around the time LDON released when I joined a EP/Time guild and have been at it pretty close to non-stop ever since.
No other game has held my interest for as long nor provided anywhere near the economical entertainment.
Admittedly I've not played any of the other MMO's mainly because I'm not interested in picking up another time sink. I spend probably 3-4 hours a night 3-5 nights a week (depending on wife /con) Those hours I mainly spend working with 53 other people trying to figure out how to beat these complex raid scripts.
I love the process of coming to an event that seem completely impossible to start and slowly getting a little further until the first hard won victory to when it moves to farm status because we've got it down so well we can almost do it on autopilot. It's what I find fun and 50 someodd other people who log in everynight to raid in my guild agree as do the the 50+ people in the other guilds in the top 10 and the 100+ guilds raiding DOD+ content or who knows how many hitting Omen's content.
I see this common trend in the EQ bashing everyone loved Velious or loved luclin or thought the game died with PoP.
PoP was when the game finally became really fun for me. It's also when I started raiding which opened up a whole nother diminsion to the game beyond the mindless pull monster kill monster rinse repeat.
People complained and for all the talk about the dev's not listening I've watch many of the complaints people had with the game get addressed sure it takes a long time and sometimes I think the devs drag their feet too much and get too set in their own opinions but over all things have steadily improved.
EQ today is the best game it's ever been. Non-raiders can get good solid gear through relatively simple easily repeatable missions as well as off of the many named mobs which can be completed in small discrete blocks of time.
With the release of TSS with it's out of combat regen system the game became about 90% more casual friendly by heavily reducing the down time for all classes.
Even the graphics beyond the character models are impressive sure the character models are kind of retro but at least they don't look like they'd be more in place on a saturday morning cartoon.
The biggest problem with the game today is the lack of new players caused mainly by Sony's refusal to actually invest anything in advertizing EQ instead pumping those resources into EQ2.
I'm sure all these other games are good and it is hard to deny that WoW is an increadibly successful product., but you gotta give EQ it's due. The only reason Blizard made WoW to begin with was because they wanted to cash in on the success that was EQ.
Nope its PreCU SWG , Too bad it does not exist ...yet. Love that Jestor!
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Nope its PreCU SWG , Too bad it does not exist ...yet. Love that Jestor!
/agreePreCU all the way!
LotRO: Meneldor: Riders of the Riddermark
I do not think EQ is the best mmorpg ever, nor would I put it in the top three but this is my opinion, not a fact.
Let me explain why...
1) Eq introduced very little the genre other than a new graphics engine.
Raiding:
Meridian had raiding
UO had raiding
PVP:
UO had the best pvp pre trammal hands down out of any mmorpg to date. You could use exploding potions, trapped treasure chests, recall scrolls, selective teleportation, and you could fight on mounts. No game to this day comes close
PVE:
Eq in my opinion has the worst AI out o fany game. You basicly aggro and pull, aggro and pull, aggro and pull.
Enough said.
P.s. someone up top said EQ is the only game that forces you to adventure. I don't consider a game that forces you to do anything good. I think Brad just got lucky with EQ because there was a huge market for a non pvp game.
For me definitely EQ is up there. It gave me quite a headache at times and had a load of frustrations but it did have something kind of special to it. The dungeons, the adventure, the cities; - and thats before the grouping aspect and the classes. I think now with all the big money entering the genre this kind of niche appeal has maybe seen its end with Everquest. It is a shame that it was ruined.
Pre Tram Ultima Online hands down.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA!!!! Wow man.. you sure are a comedian. Tell us another one.
First time I ever played:
I remember waiting for those blue boxes to scale along patcher 1.1. I was sitting at home thinking to myself relaying fantasies of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves to EQ (I was 13). I logged into Qeynos when it was raining; nothing like the warm rain splashing down on your shoulders from the docks.
I was a human rogue (ftw) and I followed my friend into Crow's. Of course I hit the pitfall and had to respawn.
I remember being terrified about zoning into Blackburrow. Back when Qey Hills were packed (on Cazic Thule) I was reading about how punishing the zone was. Not to mention I was terrified of those druids wandering in the Hills (I don't even remember their names now).
I remember when my Mom went away one weekend and Dad had to babysit. My Brother and I took turns playing 8 hour runs in High Hold pass and eating pizza. Remember when orcs had like five groups? Or when the PGT sold for 250pp?
Here are some other things that I miss.
*Snake caverns in blackburrow and the commie room. My heart was racing... so many gnolls and not enough groups. Only a few lvl 12 adventurers playing it cool in the summer of 2000.
*Fighting griphawns in NK at night without ultravision, another absolutely terrifying moment.
*Running between kithcor and FP. Only because it was hard. Folks who didn't hang to the wall and go slowly got eaten alive by the undead. It was so satisfying to cross that zone.
*I miss wisp isle and the tiki heads. I miss taking turns at 3am to kill wisps or trying to avoid the fire elemental that spawned their. I miss those sunsets.
*God I miss the staff of writhing and how cool lambent looked. I miss playing with my brother and my friends in Northern Ro. The pyramid was always camped and ghouls were so scary.
*I miss envying other characters for their awesome gear. I miss the sense of feeling like I was doing alright for myself with a dragoon dirk at lvl 21.
*Cazic Thule sugar bowl. Best day of 8th grade summer (besides Theif The Metal Age at Willie's house after his Naggy raid)!
*Waiting to pop 40 over in Dreadlands. I went back there 4 years ago and there was only one group outside of Karnor's on Cazic. My first time there, I was scared like hell. A troll SK showed me to Karnors and wacked all of the spiders that launched at me.
* Orcs in EC/WC.
*A full friends list.
*East Commonlands on Saturday morning. I remember zoning in for the first time and being blown aghast; there was so much chatting.
*I miss first torch and the feeling of having someone cast lev on you.
*I think what I miss most was just being in tiny non-raid guilds (but good guilds back before Kunark even. Cheers for Elder Conclave/ Cult Unseen) and talking. Nowadays on the emulated severs (which I think are great too, like SOD for instance) its reminiscing or raiding. I miss just having the day to chat and not even gain exp. Or just to chat, while soaking up a ton of exp and not even realizing it. I miss sitting next to my friends or my brother and just talking too. My nostalgia comes from watching Norrath through an LCD monitor on a 600mhz box, and spending the day with my close pals wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life.
I'm at the end of my college career now. I remember this necromancer named Itralon. He quit because he was failing out of college (I wish I still had his SN on aim). Anyways he told me that the best part about college was the freedom to play EQ all day (this was when Kunark came out). That's what I would tell my dad-- that's why I wanted to go to college.
Itralon must be 30 now. I'm 21 and on my last leg of school. I hardly have the time to play anything anymore... but I still have a lot of time to miss it and to be nostalgic for it.
Everquest I/Kunark/Velious/Luclin/Pop - that was the highest I went. I only had a lvl 51 necro when I quit. My brother had a 55 druid. We quit when we felt like we were too far behind to catch up with anyone.
[We never used Velious/Luclin/Pop much. We just bought the expansions for the possibilities. My folks hated the game. Every once in a while when it was raining in the winter my dad would take us to a LAN so that my brother and I could group (we had 56k for the longest time). That also reminds me of how my brother and I liked to end ski trips early so that we could go home and play.]
For me, Everquest was that large chunk of my childhood that gave me an outlet to make friends outside of my DnD group at school. It helped me learn to socialize, it gave me confidence, and it brought me extremely close (emotionally) to other people. It was a huge part of my life (on and off) until my first year of college (by then I was playing by myself and my RA infrequently).
Perhaps I'm just addicted and this game is just sewn into my skin. Its kind of strange how this game can cloud up so much of my mind and my feelings, but it does. And I have played SoD (its emu) and other emu severs and the game is just missing something. And that could be my childhood or just the time of day: an august afternoon to switch out from the Temple of Cazic Thule to the Outer Steppes in D2.
Man I miss that game. I miss Those summer days and those people. I miss being a kid and I miss how hot August used to feel back then.
I was online August 1, 2001, talking to an online friend and he told me: I have school tomorrow. I told him (something like): For now, lets just play and when we wake up, you'll have school. But August is August, and we will still have the evenings.
Don't know what happened to that guy, but his name was Nick.
So now, it is August again in my heart. I'm going to be up tonight reading for class and working on my jazz repetoire. I was tempted to install titanium tonight. I'm glad I found this board instead. Nothing can bring back EQ 1 but sentiments (I'm afraid).
And of course I have handfulls of other wonderful experiences like my first college job, sex, being rambunctious, being sad, feeling alive, being in love. I just miss it on these summer nights.
Thanks for being online and playing with me throughout all of these years. Our memories, they will never fade.
Send me a PM or AIM (dstanzler) if you just want to chat about the nostalgia.
PS
*Gnoll fang quests
Dave