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[EverQuest] 19 years of misery and memories.
EWom
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKj36GJj_i8
10 Years ago EverQuest started it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSh6qYqxxg
The intro movie, prepared you for something completely different than what you were getting. What were you getting? You got your nuts placed an a smiths anvil, where he forged em into mighty balls, that could take anything any game since threw at you, or he just smashed them into little bits, and you are forever now ball-less because of it.
The difficulty level of this game is unmatched by todays standard MMO's (I know, UA was hardcore, and I'm sure there are some shitty korean MMOs out there that literally rape your mother if you don't perform well in the game.. that's why I said standard!)
Choose an evil race? Well then you've just eliminated 90% of the vendors in game. Choose an evil class, but a good race? Eh maybe you can sell in most of your town, but a lot of other towns will tell you to fuck off and die.
This game made me feel smaller and insignificant than any other MMO. And that was great. Few people were heroes, we were all shitheads killing spiders. Running to guards when we got in over our heads. Fighting over a +2 Dex ring off a dervish cutthroat. Yelling "CAMP CHECK!" As soon as we zoned into a new area. There were no instances, there was no fair. There was kill stealing, training, and general assholery all around. And that's what forged the community. "Bill ninja looted a Stilleto Dirk! Don't ever group with him" "FUCK YOU I"M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN USE IT!"
Ahh the memories are pouring in, but most of it is from the low end game. Before you really knew how to play. Your first group going into blackburrow, and getting down in there exploring the den of Gnolls, only to be trained otu by some prick who wanted that camp spot.
First time you ran along the Karana river, and that soothing music kicked in. Or when you got to the end of the river and noticed the band of barbarians named after Metallica.
The aviak roost in South Karana, the undead hordes of Kithicor Forest coming out at night. Trying to navigate through Neriak, or finding your first trainer in Qeynos (it's behind the door, through the false wall, through another false wall, down a false floor, to the right, the left, the right, through a false door, and bam, there you go your trainer! Who wouldn't have guessed that)
Good times, bad times, this thread is about memories, to one of the games that started it all. What have you got to tell?
10 Years ago EverQuest started it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSh6qYqxxg
The intro movie, prepared you for something completely different than what you were getting. What were you getting? You got your nuts placed an a smiths anvil, where he forged em into mighty balls, that could take anything any game since threw at you, or he just smashed them into little bits, and you are forever now ball-less because of it.
The difficulty level of this game is unmatched by todays standard MMO's (I know, UA was hardcore, and I'm sure there are some shitty korean MMOs out there that literally rape your mother if you don't perform well in the game.. that's why I said standard!)
Choose an evil race? Well then you've just eliminated 90% of the vendors in game. Choose an evil class, but a good race? Eh maybe you can sell in most of your town, but a lot of other towns will tell you to fuck off and die.
This game made me feel smaller and insignificant than any other MMO. And that was great. Few people were heroes, we were all shitheads killing spiders. Running to guards when we got in over our heads. Fighting over a +2 Dex ring off a dervish cutthroat. Yelling "CAMP CHECK!" As soon as we zoned into a new area. There were no instances, there was no fair. There was kill stealing, training, and general assholery all around. And that's what forged the community. "Bill ninja looted a Stilleto Dirk! Don't ever group with him" "FUCK YOU I"M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN USE IT!"
Ahh the memories are pouring in, but most of it is from the low end game. Before you really knew how to play. Your first group going into blackburrow, and getting down in there exploring the den of Gnolls, only to be trained otu by some prick who wanted that camp spot.
First time you ran along the Karana river, and that soothing music kicked in. Or when you got to the end of the river and noticed the band of barbarians named after Metallica.
The aviak roost in South Karana, the undead hordes of Kithicor Forest coming out at night. Trying to navigate through Neriak, or finding your first trainer in Qeynos (it's behind the door, through the false wall, through another false wall, down a false floor, to the right, the left, the right, through a false door, and bam, there you go your trainer! Who wouldn't have guessed that)Good times, bad times, this thread is about memories, to one of the games that started it all. What have you got to tell?
Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
Sterica on
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There have been rumors that they're going to start up another set of Progression servers this year, and the very thought of playing old-school EQ again makes me happy in a special place.
That said, you learned to live with it, and after a while, even enjoy the visuals. While the textures looked like ass, for the most part, the animations were top notch. They did an incredible job with the Kunark expansion.. I don't think I've since seen any game do so much with so little.
I'll always have a soft spot for the original iksar graphics.
The game really made you appreciate the things you earned as well. No handouts here. You clawed your way for every upgrade and you knew someone was badass when they were lugging around dual yaks or you heard that jboots casting effect.
Spoilered for heug:
I was playing a wood elf rogue, level 8 or so, running around the Butcherblock Mountains with my trusty rusty tromb...er...spear. Some named Ogre appears (I forget the name); his head was part of a quest in the dwarf town. Of course, he starts wailing on me, so I run away while shouting that he had appeared so that other people could kill him. Some random folk show up and start attacking him, so he's not aggroed on me anymore.
At this point I'm nearly dead and figure that it's only fair to get something for my trouble. So I pickpocketed him. And somehow stole his head.
Needless to say I hightailed it out of the zone, just in time to hear (well, read) the angry shouts from the brave souls who had killed him. I'm not sure how the ogre didn't notice that his head was missing.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
I believe the ogre's name was Cornflunk. >)
then i ran to the guards for help after respawning and they totally ripped my face off.
then my buddy told me to turn off the freakin weaksause 2dmg AE DOT song that i had just gotten.
God, I had a friend run my druid into a lava pit I couldn't get down into to get my corpse from. Took me almost a whole level to figure out there was just no way down there. "How the fuck did you end up down there?!?!?! I was only gone for a few minutes!" I think I spent three days begging for a summon corpse, much less a rez.
A few years ago they released progression servers, where you could go back and play through the expansions in order again through unlocking methods. I played on The Sleeper and this was an argument I had to no end with people there. I just cannot understand why people thought the updated models looked worse. I admit some of them were not ideal (I kept old Ogres, Trolls, Halflings and Gnomes on). But most other basic humanoids looked better. Were people just so nostalgic for those old LEGOblock models or something? People said they hated the animations in the new models, but the old ones had shit models, too.
Anyways, I could go on about EQ a lot. I wish I had great screenshots or hilarious stories but my mind always goes blank when I try to remember specific things. They usually come to me while thinking of things completely unrelated. Most of my screenshots are on my old comp which I'm too lazy to salvage. I do have one from the progression server though:
Good ol' Kerafyrm.
The animations looked like a first year art student did them. They were wooden and boring. The originals were more like cartoons than anything else, so it was easier to look past the problems. Everything that moved had character to them, which was lost with the new models.
They didn't get any better with EQ2 either, models are terrible there as well.
Also, new progression server WOO! This time around I'll be in the top guild ruining the content for everyone else! I'm not so happy with that, but my friends will be in that guild and so will I.
In retrospect that was probably a good thing, since as soon as I touched my first MMO they have since completely consumed my leisure time.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Ruining the content? No one is telling you what pace to play at, no matter how quickly it's unlocked. I was in that guild and I was sick of people complaining to us to cater to their schedules.
I'm not sure I could take playing on yet another progression server. I'm only happy doing the unlocking, and that was a pretty rough schedule. Be prepared to do lots of late night and impromptu raids or else risk falling behind to a guild more willing to do so.
I remember lugging a ton of orc belts to the dwarf city for xp. I was so overburdened I needed fancy buff spells cast on me so I could walk. Even with the buffs I moved at a snails pace. After a long trek I finally make it to the city and walk up to the NPC I needed to turn the belts in to. Then I pressed 'A'. For a good hour my face was like this,
Even though the game was called Everquest, there certainly didn't seem to be to many quests. However the quests they did have were fun. A buddy of mine was part of some GM event and got himself some kind of glowing stone. He was pretty pumped. I remember pulling off the Stein of Magok(sp?) quest at lvl 14 with my Dark Elf Enchanter. Thank Innoruuk for illusion spells.
One thing I would love see make a come back to modern MMOs is the whole faction/religion system EQ had. Stuff like not being able to enter certain towns because of your race/hometown/religion/class added a bit of flavor to the world. Though maybe I am the only one who actually likes that kind of stuff.
Also of all the classes in game, even though I never leveled one up high, I think that the bard was one badass class.
Seeing that old intro CGI movie is actually disturbingly prophetic in that they look a lot like EQ2's models, which is not a complement.
I was never super into EQ. The highest I got was level 55 or so on an enchanter during the Luclin-PoPish era, and I was always sort of clueless. The one thing that game taught me though is in an MMO I sure as fuck do enjoy picking the class that has "crack" or some other equivalent super desirable group buffing powers, because everybody will be your friend. Being a buff pusher in that game was so rewarding, I hardly ever wanted for groups and everybody was falling over themselves to be on my good side.
I will say this though, I find it somewhat appalling that nobody has been able to do GM events like EQ did, even 10 years down the line. My favorite memory of EQ was a GM event involving a crushbone orc invasion on lesser faydark. It started with a zone announcement stating to the effect that the orcs were marching, and I happened to be the only person near the crushbone zone line, when I should look over and my mouth hits the floor.
A literal fucking phalanx of crushbone orcs is marching out of the cave mouth and the zone NPCs are going crazy and I started trying to describe in zone shout, as other people replied in disbelief. Soon enough an entire army of orcs engulfed "orc hill" and the areas surrounding kelethin and there was a full scale battle between the guards, lowbies (who didn't stand a chance
Another GM event involved a GM spawning as a GIANT GNOME (seriously, like 10 feet tall) also in lesser faydark on "orc hill", and he was just acting all ornery and telling us to "get off his lawn". He was set as an attackable NPC though so eventually we all just started beating him up (like 30 people). He tried to warn us to stop, we didn't of course, then he did an AOE attack that kicked everyone around him for like 1000 damage, killing us all and then he disappeared in a puff of smoke while laughing at us.
I also used to put on "shows" where I, as a level 13 enchanter, would "kill" the Priest of Discord (a very high level NPC in starting areas) by using a trick with mind control where I take control of a bat and send it to attack the PoD, who then goes aggro on me, which in turn pisses off the 2-3 Kelethin guards nearby and then they duke it out with spectacular numbers and spell effects flying everywhere. I even got a GM to come watch once.
I actually played EQ and EQ2 recently. EQ2 has really good graphics and models, I don't know what you guys are complaining about.
leveling in EQ is really really easy now, I'm talking 1-60 in three weeks casual play time. New gear has also outstripped anything from the original game.
I remember dueling a paladin repeatedly just after launch. I was a human shadowknight and told him I was also a paladin. Then came level 9 and my dark powers were revealed! We dueled and I beat him the first time. The next time we met, he was level 15 and I was 11. He beat me bad and it just got worse after that. I think the last time we dueled I was 17 and he was 32.
And then the same ranger in full ivy gear dual wielding those ranger blades that would proc root trollin around Lake of Ill Omen. The good times.
And then My first trip to emerald jungle had me running along just fine when suddenly I found a cliff and fell to my brutal death. And being chased by those fucking faceless undead gorillas I swear it took me hours to find that body, surprised it didn't make a crater from the impact.
Then my brutal quest leading to acquiring the eye patch of plunder.
So so many tumpy tonics.
My god the memories.
My first character was a dark elf shadowknight, I get into the game and theres a raid on neriak, I see people running around killing guards and such and have no idea what's going on, but it's exciting. I see a huge ogre walking by, so I follow him (to the bank as it turns out) shouting all the while about how important I am and that people really should leave my guards alone, and for some reason I start going on and on about how I'm royalty ("naked" male dark elves look like they have some kind of royal pajamas I always thought). The ogre turns to me and gives me a full suit of bronze armor and a bronze scythe, saying that someone so important should look like it. I was so cool looking.
I ran around killing moss snakes for a while and logged out at the newbie log in nektulos forest.
The next time I logged in, I ran into a couple of dark elves, one was a shadowknight like me, but his patchwork armor was not as cool and he didn't have a scythe. The other one was a necromancer in a shabby gray robe. I informed them that I was a dark elven prince, and they said I had really cool armor. I joined their party and they tell me they're waiting on a friend of theirs, an ogre shadowknight. We all kill things together for a while, and eventually some guy invites us all to a guild that he made. Eventually I obtain control of this guild, as I clearly have the best armor of everyone.
Now this whole time, I've been obsessed with the Dragoons. Once I found out you could get a dragoon dirk from them, I made it my mission to obtain one. Long story short, I got one, and found out I couldn't equip it, so I ended up making a rogue and exploring the world.
I had hundreds of awesome adventures over the first couple years, and I still get nostalgic when I hear the music. I met a lot of cool people, and even though the game kicked you in the nuts just for logging in, we had a lot of really great times that I haven't had in any game since.
Too much has changed though, it's just not the same now. They changed my beloved freeport, it had my favorite music in the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaGSNlQhUcg
I think it was the best during velious, once the planes of power came along and you could warp anywhere, the world just didnt feel huge anymore. Looking back after playing wow, it seems insane to me that there were no mounts or flightpaths, and that you could accidently attack your own guards and vendors.
I still hope they'll do a non-mmo remake of everquest, it had some really cool story elements and locales. I'd like to go through Kurn's Tower again.
EQ2 does have great graphics. I think people were upset with the "plainness" of them, more than them being ugly. However, anyone who says the animations in EQ2 were bad needs to have their eyes checked. A fighter class with a staff? Oh man... planting the staff, using it to vault up and kick a monster in the face, then landing and readying the staff with a flourish...
I couldn't wait until Kick was ready again.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Also, i will say community made EQ. They actualy had to be "civil" set up unwritten rules like how camps worked and people getting on waiting lists, setting up a calander for raids so all guilds got a shot at raid mobs / raid dungeans etc.
That would be a great idea, I think. Set it up so you could have, say, 1-12 players, with NPC adventure parties running around to liven up the world a little. I'd buy it.
This game was the first OMG it's huge! (the games big too) game i played. Everything before was dungeon crawl, platformer etc. This one was wide open spaces and rape around every corner.
I remember taking my newly leveled lvl 2 wizard into the secret wall out side the front gate of freeport thinking wow i just found something neat...When invariably it turns out some undead found me that had their rape faces on. I learned early about corpse summon, and de-leveling.
I still have my binder of maps that i scoured the net for / made by hand to help navigate zones.
My Wizard once leveled up actually got the staff from the GM event in Western wastes (eastern?) 2 weeks after completing my staff of the four (epic weapon quests FTW!)
/nostalgia
I remember drawing up a scale map of the feerrott using graph paper, a pencil and some crayons. I even drew in landmarks like the stone henge and the pyramid. I did the same thing for innothule swamp
I only recently threw it out.. found it at the bottom of a stack of papers in a drawer and figured it was time to let it go.
Gave eight years to that game, don't really regret it. Good times.
this game
I've still got the atlas for this. Bought it after I'd quit, to have something to remember it by. Exploration was always my favorite part. Never got past like level 35 or 37 on my enchanter because I spent the entire game seeing how far into way higher level areas I could make it.
Biggest record was the western wastes and the Sleeper's Den at level 30. Good times.
I'll be surprised if I ever have time to really dive into an MMO again, but it doesn't matter. Nothing's going to be able to compare to EQ. The technology might improve, sure, but I'll never be a young, wide-eyed gamer who's completely blown away by something unlike anything I've ever seen again.
I loved the size of the game. i imagine that the original eq size wise is bigger then WoW with all it's expansions (at least it "feels" like it. Towns and cities were huge and they felt like population centers not like a spot on a map where 50 NPCs got together to drink tea.
I loved the diversity of classes. I am an alt-oholic but i did level up a high 60s / low 70s enchanter (i can't remember what level i stopped at). But i also loved the monk class and the bard class (hooray carpal tunnel)
I really loved the variety of the game. I loved how areas had their own unique looks and mobs weren't just recolored and bigger to show me they were higher level.
I hated corpse runs. I didn't mind that there was a fear that you'd be punished if you took on too much and the rewards for being in a "dungeon" were greater but having to log out and hope that you could get on during prime time and find a necro to summon your body was just horrible.
I hated the way the game progressed at the higher ends. I hated Plane of Knowledge. Although Luclin was hyper inflated difficulty it did something cool by adding a whole new world with low level, mid level, AND high level content.
I loved that new content came out on a regular basis.
I loved that dragons kicked ass.
I hated that for a very long time if you picked certain classes you spent a lot of time staring at a book (fixed during kunark i think), or just medding or healing with nothing else to do (but i did love the community chat).
SLATE TO TUNNEL!
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Sit there trying to regain some mana, suddenly you hear that bone-crunching crit noise and there's an angry frog in your face.
God the trains in Unrest were epic. That whole house would be empty and at the zone line. Sometimes I miss camps. I mean running quests and dungeons is great and all but there was something really fun about clearing your way to a camp in sebelis and just parking it for a few hours of killing.
I doubt any gaming achievement I ever achieve will feel as good as the first Fear break our guild accomplished. Pre Kunark it was fucking brutal.