You know those places in game like the back of your hand. It doesn’t matter which level they’re meant for, or what level YOU are, or how many times you’ve already been to those locations, I think all of us have a few ‘favorite’ zones in the games we play. I know there are some dungeons in World of Warcraft that I’ll run no matter what my level is simply because I love that dungeon. There are zones in EQ2 that I’m constantly headed towards just because I adore them so much.
Do you have a favorite zone story that you’d like to share? Post below and let me know! It doesn’t matter which game it’s coming from, I still want to hear.
Oh… oh… that’s bad. That’s very bad. That’s like going to the town you grew up in and finding out that they razed your childhood home to build a minimart.
They did this to East Freeport:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/freeporteast-pool.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/freeporteast-priest.jpg
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/scenery/freeporteast-crier.jpg
The redesign of the city is just so ugly.
I remember spending days in East Freeport hanging around the bank in my ‘new’ Bronze Armour, feeling like Achilles! Priceless…
Does anyone actually still play Eq1? I’d love to go back now that I have some willpower & the ability to turn the damn thing off now & again….
But is it worth it? As I said before, I imagine the magic was my guildmates & the whole naivety of it all. Are all of the old zones ghost towns, anyone have any (positive) experiences with Dalaya or EqProject? Apologies for the tangent Sg. Please delete if it’s too much.
What did they do to East Freeport? And.. oh man.. yeah. Freeport felt like the big city, the way that Raymond Chandler, Jack Kerouac, and Bukowski tell it: gritty and mean and almost a living being itself, so you’d better watch yourself!
I think my favorite zone was Halas in the old EQ. It wasn’t a big zone, or a very highly populated zone but it had so much character. A hardy tribe living just off the frozen wastes of Everfrost, led by their spiritual gurus from the Chantry of Justice, a temple carved into the mountainside. Or maybe the true leaders of the tribe are the shadowy rogues who have a hideout in the backroom of the bank… pulling strings from the shadows. It’s a great zone, and I think it really makes the atmosphere of the Barbarian race.
Of course, if I’m going by pure nostalgia I’d have to say East Freeport in EQ… the old East Freeport, before they took it away from us. I miss it, it had just as much character and intrigue as Halas does. I remember coming to Freeport for the first time and having that overwhelming sense that I was in the big city now.
Stormhold and Unrest in EQ2! They are both fun zones and hold a lot of fond memories for me.
For me it is Unrest and Loping plains in EQ2 for that Vincent price B movie horror feel ,awsome atmosphere in both zones I can run em over and over.
Oh, I’ll bet you get a lot of good responses with from this post, lady.
For myself:
EQ, 98-99-ish, first time I loaded up an MMO, my first class was a scout which meant I was in Freeport without a clue what I was doing, except knowing that scouts are sneaky. My first real trip was getting invited to go to blackburrow. I asked for directions, and I was told to go through Nek Forest, and then Highhold Pass (if I’m remember the zone names correctly). By the time I found Nek Forest, it was dark, and everything was eager and overly-able to kill me. I asked advise and was told I should wait for daylight. I started down the path anyway. After 15 heart-stopping minutes, I made it to Highhold where, as I recall, the first thing that happened was I got killed by a guard.
By the time I made it to blackburrow, the friend who had invited me had logged off. But that was when I decided that eq was the game for me. While I still played, I spent a lot of time in Nek and Highhold/keep. Those were the zones that I gravitated toward even though there was nothing to do there.
When I migrated to EQ2, I got the same sense of fun (without the adrenaline rush) grouping in Thundering Steppes, pre-DoF. If this were the game it was back then, I’d probably still be there, happily slaughtering giants. As is, I still run through and kill all the giants I can find, just for old time’s sake.
I think I would have to go with Unrest in EQ2. I love the story, I find the sound deeply atmospheric, and it is a zone in which every adventure we undertake gives us great fun. Our guild group has some great shared experiences in there.
Nek Castle in EQ2 would probably be number two
I loved Runnyeye in EQ2. The lore, the design, the music, it was just perfect. I spent hours and hours and hours in there and loved those levels. It was just the perfect dungeon for me :)
Hard question. MMO wise I’d have to go with the Down Below in EQ2. Probably for the same reasons RichY fondly remembers the stuff he writes about. The Mrs and me had some very exiting times in there back in the EQ2 days when you had to earn getting into Qeynos prober. I remember the game being much harder back then. Or we we’re bad players, whatever – we had fun!
This is more of a ‘Norrath in general’ Stargrace, sorry not being really zone specific….
Circa 1999, Having just earned my Lute I was a Bard exploring the realm & finding myself on my way to Faydark (I was a Human & my friends were playing Dwarves/Elves). I refused to start over & join them the easy way..to this day it remains my most memorable adventure (pre PoI Easymaps INC) I did not have a clue of the way there, it took me about three days, 200 Marlboro & my girlfriend (retrospect is a wonderful thing) to finally get there with countless heart stopping moments, corpses strewn all over the place & I realised then that the Bard was the class to play.
It was probably this baptism of fire that made me enjoy the Bard so much & for that i’m grateful to EQ for the memories, I’ve tried several other MMO’s since & not one of them comes close to the fondness I hold for that game. /salute EQ. I’m considering reinstalling it though I imagine the ‘magic’ has gone…..
I’m also pleased to say that I don’t live with my mum & am happily married with Two Sons :)
Been following your site for awhile now SG, please keep it up, it’s great reading.