I blame Tipa. Isn’t that always the way it goes? I’d seen her blog posts about EQ1 and felt that twinge. Now, I only played EQ1 for a year and a half and then EQ2 was released. So I don’t really classify myself as a veteran. I remember Bertox raids, Thul raids, Plane of Hate, my first time in time and other random bits and pieces. I wasn’t a huge raider and I stuck mostly to small things, but I remember all of that with a huge fondness for it. So I bought EQ1. Little did I know it would snowball from there (and I’m glad it did). I’m now a part of a group that will play together once a week and level up in EverQuest through all those zones we know and love. Exciting, hmms? I think it is.
The group consists of Tipa (ranger, as of now at least), Cordanim (rogue), Egat (enchanter), Einhorn (warrior), and Ishbel (myself, cleric). We do have room for one more – we’re looking for someone who can make Friday nights at 7pm EST on a constant basis. Even if we get more then one, we’ll be forming up a guild and I doubt it will be too much trouble to join and chatter, and maybe if enough join up start a second group. We’re playing on the luclin server, mostly due to my whining convincing, as I have higher level crafters there and can’t justify spending $50 to move around. As Tipa herself mentioned, I’m only willing to do so much in the name of nostalgia. I’d rather have a little coin and some higher level characters to play around on.
So we’ve created our characters (most of us) and are hanging out in the group area of the tutorial eagerly waiting for Friday night. We each had some key things to do, like grab maps, a new UI, making sure we owned all of the expansions, that sort of stuff. I managed to find a UI that I like quite a bit, even if I don’t remember what all the buttons do. Actually it’s quite similar to my UI from when I used to play, that helps. I’ve slowly been going through and memorizing commands, how to open certain windows, remembering that I have to play in 1st person rather then 3rd. You’d better believe that I’m taking notes. I spend lots of time looking over old items in my bank wondering to myself “what the hell was that for” or “why did I keep that” since I have no idea what more then half of it is for any more.
I was surprised to see as many people as I did in game. The open guild hall area (before you zone in to your particular hall) was filled with people hanging out and of course clerics peddling their wares (rez) in the lobby. It was really nice to see. There was even a raid going on, with room for pick ups. They gave out a channel name for those who were flagged, and then asked others to /join airpig which just made me giggle and remember how you can “piggy back” people into raids who are not flagged. The game is down for 8 hours today to patch, so not a whole lot has changed in that regard. Everything else is still very new to me though. Tipa mentioned guild banners, and campfires, and fellowships. I have no idea what any of that is. There’s also a tab on my UI for a currency exchange, and I don’t have the vaguest idea what that’s for. I do remember LDoN’s, and I do remember monster missions. I even remember how to do a few of them still. I remember how to open doors (which I didn’t remember last time I poked into EQ1) and I’ve gotten the hang of the camera views. The rest is still slow going. It feels great though.
Of course all because of the fact that I know I’ll be playing with wonderful people. It’s the community that pulls me the most. Plus, after all this time I’ll finally get a chance to play with Tipa, something we’ve never done before as we’ve always been on different servers. I’m almost giddy about it. It’ll be nice to play with Cordanim too, who I haven’t played with in quite some time. Chattered to, of course, but not played. I’ll also be starting up a little beastlord to play with a friend of mine who’s returning but is unable to make the Friday night schedule. I don’t know how far any of us will get in this trip down memory lane experience, but I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun in the mean time. Just simply remembering things like sitting down to regen and gaining meditation skill ups, has made me smile.
Must admit the last few posts have made me think of returning to eq..i do every now and again but cant really get the hang of it lol….
I definitely want to spend a good amount of time in the new zones. But if I have a vote, we’ll be visiting some favorite Kunark dungeons I have missed on EQ2, like Dalnir, Droga and Kaesora. Especially Kaesora. I love that zone so much. And Velious — hanging out in the bank in Thurgadin… killing the giants that prowl around Kael’s central square… exploring the nooks and crannies of Siren’s Grotto… mmm…
It takes three people from the fellowship to be in an area before you can drop a campfire. Twelve from a guild before you can drop a banner.
The different currencies are from different expansions and are usually gained from doing certain missions, or you can purchase it from players. Typically even with enough currency, the NPC merchant will only sell certain items to you based on your faction rank with them (back to the grind Tipa loves so well).
I’m all for attempting true nostalgia and levelling in the old world dungeons, however, doing the Serpent’s Spine route will provide us with gear for our characters that is acutally useful (ex. mana and health regen effects).
I want to see Velketor’s Lab one last time before I die :) This is going to be great!
When a guild banner is planted, anyone can port straight to it from the guild hall.
A fellowship is like a mini guild for friends who might not be in the same guild. It can be up to nine people. A fellowship can plant a campfire, which gives you some buffages if you’re in the area, and members of the fellowship can teleport right to it. So, let’s say we were doing Velk’s. I could run up to the entrance past all those bears and ice wurms and frost giants, plant the campfire inside, and everyone else could port straight to it. We’d fight our way to the crystal spider area and set the campfire up again there while we pulled the zone to us. It’s really neat. Both were part of The Burning Sea expansion — which is where all those currency types come from as well. The radiant crystals are from Dragons of Norrath. But we’ll be focusing on LDoNs for our earned loot.
Problem is, EQ is so, so huge that I suspect we’ll be outleveling vast amounts of content. We’re going to have to decide in advance what we’re doing so we have a chance to prepare for it. A lot of these places, like Befallen or Blackburrow, we may only get to do once. And even then, I’d rather do the quests in Serpent’s Spine since none of us have gone through that content before.