[Everquest] Ragefire (Classic progression) Opens May 20th, 2015!

Xackery

nope

chrisnl

I find myself hesitant to play classic Everquest again. I spent literally years of my life on that game, and the more I look at it the less I understand just why I did that. Yet, I find myself strangely intrigued by it. This is like the worst form of gaming addiction.

Pailryder

the good news is that its not really classic eq, it's the original zones but with all the current patches like exp rate changes, hell levels gone, etc. barring things that would let you get access to content released later (i.e. no plane of knowledge book access until that expansion is released). the bad news is that this server isn't part of the free 2 play stuff.

chrisnl

Well I wouldn't expect them to include a progression server in the F2P stuff. I hate the fact that I am still tempted by this, because in some ways I really loved the original Everquest. I know it had an amazing number of problems (and Ragefire apparently has a set of different problems, including Magicians being incredibly OP right now), but it was the first MMO I ever played (at Kunark release) and I had so much fun with it, despite starting out as a Dark Elf Shadowknight and being hated just about everywhere. If I played it again, I'd probably go for an Enchanter or a Cleric, because I just know that SKs are not very good, and I really enjoy the healing and support roles in MMOs quite a lot (I like the tanking and pulling roles too, but I just don't want to play a Warrior or Monk).

Esh

Ugh, this is tempting. I lovvvved original EQ. What do the patches/exp boost entail?

chrisnl

Well it has the latest interface, zones and NPC population. So if you hankered for old school Freeport, that's not there. They removed Hell Levels, which is of course fantastic. I don't know if you can hire mercenaries to help you level, and I don't think the Zone Experience Modifier (ZEM) is the same as it is on the live servers, that's supposedly pretty easy to change for each server. I don't know if they have "hot zones" with extra bonuses or not. I do not know if they have the "auto grant AAs" thing where when you hit certain levels, you can automatically get the necessary AAs for the appropriate expansion (not the most recent 3 or 4 I think), or if AAs are even available yet (would be nice to have the basic ones like run speed at least). It's as modern as the code for EQ ever gets, so it likely has fewer (and different) issues from what you remember.

Let's see, there is no way to get the old school Circlet of Shadow or Mask of the Deceiver, for example. Jboots are quested and not dropped. Parts for the epic weapon quests will drop if the mobs exist in the original zones, but you of course cannot complete the quests yet.

I am stupidly contemplating giving this a try, despite reading about how "everybody is 6-boxing mages" and supposedly one guild rules the end game completely (it's like 4-5 days since launch, that doesn't really matter to me).

Esh

I literally have not played since all there was was base EQ. The last I remember was camping a haunted mansion or something?

chrisnl

Reading up a bit more, it sounds like the experience gain is double what it was at launch, and that monk fists and mage/necro pets are ridiculously OP for the time being. So faster experience gain than Classic EQ, but significantly lower than it is now. They will also sell you experience potions through the real money shop, of course. Lots of things about the game have been modernized to an extent, so you don't have the old school interface where the actual visual part of the game only takes up like 1/3 of the screen with the rest being buttons and information about your character/group.

I'm sure there are people already at level 50 (the ones that killed Nagafen, Vox and the guy that unlocks the Planes were in their low to mid 40s). I am somewhat concerned that, since you can buy items that grant game time with real money, and then sell them in game (like EVE Online does with PLEX) that there will be a motivation for people to continually sit on the valuable spawns and raid targets. As it stands, a group of mages could lock down areas like Frenzy in Guk, and since none of the raid content is instanced that stuff can be locked down as well. This could be mitigated by the minimum of 6 months between expansions (at least early on, they said they might change that if the customers changed their minds), but it's often not a good idea to underestimate the sort of people who try to monopolize this sort of thing.

Yet, with all of that said, I am STILL tempted to give this a try. I really can't even say why, I know that the gameplay is ancient and not really that good. I know the graphics are terribad. But man, it's Everquest, and I loved this game for such a long time.

SeñorAmor

Never played EQ. Is this f2p? Did I miss a link to a website? I'm intrigued.

Esh

I'm downloading the client and bought in All Access for a month so I can check it out. I'll probably end up near the Wood Elf area as that's all I remember.

Esh

So, I have the client, logged in, but I don't even see the Ragefire server in the list.

chrisnl

Hrm that would be distressing. I logged in for a few minutes earlier and didn't see Ragefire, but I assumed that was because I am not an All Access Subscriber. I can commiserate, but I'm afraid I don't have any useful advice, sorry.

Esh

Ah god, I checked a normal server just to look around. I can't do it. I just can't. Interface, graphics, controls, uhggghhhh.

chrisnl

The funny thing is, I logged into a normal server just for the heck of it, and I was blown away by how comparatively modern the interface is (versus what it used to be). The graphics are terrible, of course, but the interface and controls can be modified relatively easily.

For example, 'q' being autoattack would almost certainly get me murdered as I reflexively tried to use it to strafe.

JediNight

Are you kidding me? There are already people that are L50 after four days? How? Even if EXP gain is doubled, I remember it took me a good year IRL and 50 days /played for L50 back then. It should still take like 14 days /played I would think?

About getting murdered by autoattack: The irony is, it used to be 'a' which was similarly bad, but worse than 'q'

darkmayo

I tried to go back a few years ago... was cool seeing some the of zone again but the gameplay just is painful, a very similar experience from what I recently tried to play DAoC again..

chrisnl

Well I'm not sure how many people are at 50, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a few. These are people that have been playing Everquest basically non-stop since launch for the most part. They know exactly where to go and exactly what to do to maximize experience, as well as having access to multiple extremely overpowered Mage pets at one time (presumably most of their leveling groups were 4+ mages and whatever other classes they felt necessary for the first few raids). They killed Nagafen, Vox and Phineas with 18 people, 8 of which were mages, and I think the highest level any of them were was 46 at the time. Since then they have at least killed Innoruuk and probably killed Cazic-Thule as well, so they have a bunch of 46+ now (and likely several 50s).

I logged in and made a new character on Vox with my account as a F2P level, and the new player experience (which doesn't apply to Ragefire at all) is worlds better than it used to be (actual quests with rewards, and a quest tracking window, and notifications when you finish stages of a quest), but it is still limited by the game engine and is far, far weaker than a more modern game. I'm not sure if I'm willing to take part in Ragefire or not at this point.

chrisnl

Just an update, but apparently Ragefire was so successful that they are planning to launch another server with identical rules (called Lockjaw which is awesome) perhaps as early as this weekend.

Jubal77

Interesting. People sat on original progression mobs just to ensure they were the only ones in the current zone so it wouldnt surprise me that it happens on this server. The original EQ for me was about exploring with friends and just having a good time. Being top tier in EQ required tons of minions at your beckon call and being available at any time of the day. The few times I got to kill dragons or anything of that nature was way after they had become obsolete. The top tier in EQ was quite brutal with the training and controlling nature of it.

JediNight

I'm hopeful that won't be the case Jubal, but not holding my breath. I mean, this is supposed to be a celebration of EQ and for nostalgia, etc. So you would HOPE that people would look to be at least somewhat inclusive of others to let everyone get their "nostalgia" in. Assuming they aren't Leeroy Jenkins level of derp. Then again, the first thing a number of them did was multi-box mages to cheese the progression content instantly, so yeah...

I'm imagining the class diversity will spread out once this initial frenzy is over with, as gearing a raid that was 2/3 mages is not practical at all. Especially with something like Hate Plane where there are only a few spawns for every class. Well... except for Clerics. Fuckers. Unless they eventually fixed that. (Grumbles about being an Enchanter and only having like 8 mobs in the entire zone that dropped my gear, so we got like 2 drops a raid, and 20 pieces of cleric armor)

I also hope this isn't premature, as I imagine the population will drop off considerably within a few weeks/months. Would be silly to have to re-merge Lockjaw back in with Ragefire a few months from now.

Jubal77

I actually did get to go to Fear when it was reasonably new as they needed a Shaman and I was college buds with one of the guild's officers. They let Shaman gear rot because I was new and was just there for the "experience". That was the mindset of early EQ top tier. I am not saying it will be this way now as MMOs have matured and so there will be distinct changes in the way the server is run by the population. I have logged into live servers to play around and have a 30 something BL that I play around in hot zones in for funsies. At this point i think i will just let the nostalgia stay where it is .

It is great that they finally made this server though.

Jubal77

All the nostalgia thoughts in my head brought back this lovely little gem.

http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php

I still laughed at a couple of the lines.

chrisnl

Well one of the big worries with Lockjaw is that the same people that rushed to high level to get all the first kills (Twisted Legacy) is just going to do it again, and then follow that up with killing every raid boss on both servers (all what, like four or five of them?) every time they spawn. Will it happen? Heck if I know. Could they do it if they felt like it? Yeah, probably.

The followup worry to the first one is that they will sit on valuable spawns and sell the drops for plat that they will use to purchase Krono (PLEX) or whatever it's called so that they aren't even paying for the accounts that are doing the camping.

This scenario is obviously a bad one, and I hope it doesn't happen, but quite frankly it very easily could. With sanctioned RMT thrown into the mix, it's quite possibly going to play out differently than the previous time locked progression servers did.

Sterica

If someone wants to make a proper OP that isn't a drive-by idiot pimping his YouTube channel, then feel free to.