Did you start in the Everquest forum?Follow

EQ still is a thing?

Sure, they keep pushing out expansions and everything. EQ forum is the most populated (game) forum on these boards these days, too.

Nope, not since the Lunar Mutants group (not because of, of course)

I doubt I'll invest the time into another MMORPG so it's unlikely that I'll seriously consider returning. I enjoyed my time in EQ and I'm glad that I had the experience of playing it when it was young and MMORPGs were still a bit magical. Some of the feelings I had while playing I know won't come again even from other, more sophisticated, games.

I think the only ones left here from the "old guard" of the EQ uBB days are myself, Gbaji, Samira and Debalic. And Smasharoo though he's more of a no-show these days. Twiz played later and I suppose I'm forgetting someone.

Memories? Well, first and foremost, like I said I'm glad I got in when I did. My years in the 80's were spent AD&D and owning computers. I remember dreaming of a way that you could have a group of people actually see and experience the world the DM was creating well before it was possible and Everquest felt like the realization of that fantasy. Its many quirks and design choices that were smoothed over for better game play came out of that "Make the RPG into a computer game" mentality and most of us rolled with them because, sure, you have the meditate with your book open and eat food and find out what each vendor is selling by actually checking them out and make your own maps if you want them, just because.

Game play, I had the same moments traveling the map that I assume most did: first time the Eastern Karana bridge came into view or the North Karana Spires or ice giants outside Permafrost or visiting seemingly confusing Freeport for the first time. On a more personal level, my first triumph was my level nine paladin dying in the pool at the bottom of Blackburrow with my precious bronze armor and the Marr's Promise someone gave me. I was trying to sneak back down, using a summoned warhammer and applications of lull and Flash of Light. Naturally, at some point, I got lost and swarmed and jumped of a ledge out of desperation only to land with my corpse at my feet. I grabbed my gear, used Lay on Hands and defeated the chasing gnolls once they reached me. Felt like a total boss.

I remember playing my bard back when they were still pretty rare, hadn't yet been nerfed to hell by a dev team that often seemed hostile to their existence and weren't yet Melody-bots to set on follow. I was with a group and we got lost in lower Sebilis which of course turned into a stream of frogs and shrooms. Each mob that went down, another would aggro on us from somewhere and we spent probably 15-20 minutes in combat. I spent the whole time on my bard, assisting the enchanter with mezzes, rejuvenating mana and health, charming frogloks to assist, hasting and slowing. The rest of the group was just as on-point: a paladin, a ranger, a wizard and a druid. The ranger forced to off-tank, the druid trying to keep up heals (this was back before either was viable in the role). When we survived without a death, we couldn't believe it.

I used to love pulling with my bard. Clearing Umbral Plains for Doomshade was always fun or bringing mobs to the 'safe island' by the skull in Skyfire. In both Sebilis and Sol Ro's Tower, I had a blast pulling a... challenging... number of mobs and keeping them locked down while the group cleaned them up. Had a hotkey saying "Pulling... lots" and told the team to stay sharp. Lots of other memories: getting my first epic and helping friends obtain there's, various other dungeon adventures, feats of soloing wackiness, dumb stuff like jumping down the PoK library elevator shaft and singing my levitate song right before I hit bottom (probably a 80% success rate!), all the usual new expansion exploration and experiences.

Had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people, both on my own and via the forums here. Guilds rose and fell, in-game friends would eventually find new interests and I guess I eventually became one of the people who did the same.

Joph, I started back here in the old Uub days too. I think I posted about 10 times on the old boards.

My favorite memory is my first time in EQ. I had a bunch of friends, from back when we all played the original NWN's on AOL. I message one that I had made my first character Primrose and was ingame. Next thing I knew I was twink with armor and weapons. I then spent many days trying not to die as I went across the bridges in Kelethin. A few weeks after I started playing, I was put on a new medication that gave me vertigo and I had to extic the game quickly, as I felt I was going to fall off the platforms.

Later they change Primrose's name to Primrosex due to some silly rule. I kept the name for laughs.

Jonwin still played the game up until this last year, when he started playing Civ5.

True story: I haven't played in, god, I don't know, 15 years? I still get a crazy feeling of anxiousness when I think of running a lowish level charcter from FV to the windmill. *sigh...quad kiting...*

Nexa

Halfling druid! Being an attractive character wouldn't be much of a fantasy escape. :P

Nexa

I actually installed EQ just yesterday. It's amazing seeing how far MMOs have advanced in the last 15 years.


See above.


Vox raids with the OOTers. And that time I got perma-banned for exploiting a bug in one of the expansions.

Now that you mention it, I've been posting here for roughly half of my life.

****, I'm old.

I started in Asheron's Call, which is where I learned grouping with random people was going to make for a horrible system.

It's EQ, not Facebook.

I don't know about that. I've become pretty damned picky in recent years. If it doesn't hold some kind of heavy nostalgia value for me personally, it'd better be damned good to hold my attention for more than five minutes.

I hear binders are more reliable.

You're right, I should have put a ring binder on it.

Although that does rather raise the question of where I'd keep all my women. Uh, hypothetically.