Everquest memories- Determination,Teamwork, and Diligence.

This memory was an easy one for me. Thinking back to that day in 2007 when I witnessed the most amazing feat of raid leadership in (my raiding) history. Even though my raiding days are long gone this was what I feel is the pinnacle of what 6 day a week raiding was about. Strong leadership in the face of impossible odds.

The ability of some people to lead others while at the same time analyze and develop a strategy is mind boggling. Where does this talent come from? I wish I could have even a fraction of that ability.






Fcseven (updated 3/30/23)

Everquest memories-What brought me back.

I have been back for several years now. I played pretty hard from 99-04 until I started college and worked 2 jobs so EQ had to go on the back burner. I actually kept paying my account until I was issued a new bank card and the numbers did not match for renewal. I returned to EQ when I got out of school in 2009 but only very casual as I was working 60-80 hours a week to get caught up in RL. I started playing again on a regular basis around 2011 once RL settled down a bit.

So what brought me back to the game when there are so many other options? EQ has that feeling unlike any other game I have ever experienced. It reminds me of when I was a child playing super Mario bros on an arcade machine at the corner gas station before NES was released. I would save all my quarters and spend hours playing a game I needed a stool to even reach the controls to play. Once NES was released there was this amazing game called The Legend of Zelda that was released and that started my real addiction for video games especially fantasy style games. Everquest took the elements of every game I had ever enjoyed with added things I had never encountered in a video game and created something that was not just a game but an actual experience. You did not just play EQ you lived it. You assumed the identity of your character and escaped from the real world. Having a stressful job in RL EQ has been my escape and mostly a therapeutic experience for me which has kept me loyal to the game and keeps me coming back day after day.




Aurastrider (From the Everquest forums May 2017)

Everquest memories-Camping the Manor.

Earliest, fondest memory: Camping the manor in unrest (this was way before the revamp of the zone) and argoing the floors above and below you. Usually not a problem because Unrest was crowded with people in those days...but in the dead in the morning (3-4am) no ones around but you (ma-ha-haa!)

Unrest

Jaw dropping, WOW, memory: The very first time I saw the Dwarf/Giant war in Velious.

Frost Giant in Great Divide

Reason coming back -
Went to a gaming convention and saw someone playing EQ. After talking, found out EQ was going to be opening up a 'classic' server and figured I could see if I can bring back some of the good memories.

Kyllvyn (from the EQ forums may 2017) 

Everquest memories- First time in Plane of Fear

Way back when I decided to lead my first raid into Fear. Totally cold. I'd never even zoned in before!

There were probably some where around forty of us in raid and I had no clue about invising on zone in or moving to a corner spot so we just sent a group in to see what would happen. This was the early days of EQ so when you die it could be a few minutes before you came back around. Needless to say the entire group went down in moments!









 Plan B; rush the entire raid in! They were ready for us.

Plan C; med and buff for thirty minutes naked on a full raid corpse run and try the bum-rush again, tanks first. Why I thought this would work better without any gear I'll never know!

Plan D, beg the server's top raiding guild to help us get all of our corpses back. That was the best decision I made all night!

Plane of Fear

What brought me back? I haven't left yet!



Tachyon (from the EQforums May 2017)

Everquest memories-So long ago.

Learning to group in Blackburrow (and finiding the music scary!) - I actually miss corpse runs and the occasional muppet who would lean over the pit, aggro a mob at the bottom and listen to the /ooc wails as the whole zone pulled to the entrance.

Blackburrow gnolls

Memorizing the kithicor woods tunnel because I made a human ranger and they couldn't see a thing in a tunnel or at night - I spent every EQ night fishing. WK bandits. The bard on the Freeport - Butcherblock boat who had a whole 1500 word story on macros. JBoots quest. EC Tunnel before the Bazaar. Running a guild, grouping in HHK for the goblins ('I still remember a useless melee cleric and a group member screaming "DALTE, HEAL FOR F*&£$ SAKE" - must have been 2001)

Why is it everything I loved about this game was so bloody long ago



Kyzvs (From the EQ forums May 2017)

Everquest memories- The Great Pet Pulling Nerf .

It is impossible to talk about the biggest nerfs in EQ history without mentioning pet pulling. A pulling tactic widely used well into the first decade of the millennium.. I like to think of it as something easy to learn but hard to master. Summoning a low level pet that you could send into a pack of angry red conning mobs and pull one out safely was its main function. It could mean the difference between a group winning or a group losing. It could elevate a lowly insignificant pawn into a superstar. Once the knowledge about it got out and more people started to use it, it's days were significantly shortened.

One of the best things about playing a pet class during the early years was learning and applying this tactic in the group as well as solo game. It was incredibly simple in concept but hard to pull off in practice.  Summon a low level pet send him in and get a single mob in return. Sounds easy enough. The problem was the pet getting destroyed in one hit. If that happened the mob and his friends would agro you. It was risky but rewarding.

The tactic at the time I learned of it was not considered an exploit. It was surrounded by shades of gray at worst. I thought it was simply part of the necromancer arsenal. Those who look back and just see exploit is not thinking of the time period. It was the early 2000s. Most of us were still completely new to the game and still learning the ropes. I honestly didn't know a approved of tactic from a game breaking exploit. Only as time went on did it become apparent the magnitude of it all. When guilds started to use it to circumvent raid mechanics the writing was on the wall.


In late 2006 the nerf hammer was brought down. The end of one of the greatest tactics in a pet classes history came to an end. I miss it.




Fcseven (updated 3/30/23)

Everquest memories- Random memories and hell levels.

(Forgot lake of ill omen trains at the Sarnak castle). Pick up raids to fear with the 7-9 hour corpse runs. Pick up raids to North TOV, Pick up raids in Kael Drakkel, AoW corpse runs. Pick up raids in Velks Lab. Prayer shawl questing, (horrible horrible trade skill maxing).
Hell levels. (Remember those).

Sarnak Castle in Lake of Ill Omen

rainemaker (from reddit)

Everquest memories- Bugs

I want to tell a story but hope no one gets mad.
I once was able to exploit a crazy bug that came over my game back in the day.
Every few times I zoned, my game would crash. I also figured out that if it was a clicky zone, instead of crashing, nothing would happen.

At some point I remember trying to trade with someone, but upon clicking "trade" I crashed. When I logged on I saw the items still in my inventory. Asked the guy I was trading with if he still wanted the items... to which he told me that I already gave them to him. BINGO!

I ended up clicking in and out of PoK until I couldn't zone (bug activated), and would hand a bag of goodies to a buddy upon which I would crash. Log back in and we would both have that bag.

I was on dial up at the time with a slow computer, so only did this two or three times. I was also super new and broke, so the bags were full of junk like spider silk, wis rings, and velious resist rings. So don't assume that I enriched myself in some crazy way (lol, simply because I couldn't).

Anyone else find any fun exploits?

P.S. - also remember that for a little bit after a particular patch, pet classes were able to summon multiple pets.




removedcomment (from reddit)

Everquest memories-Late night raiding.

Every night raiding late night till 3:00am on Inny with 70+ people in The Defiant guild wiping over and over, and then finally overcoming the mob.

Now I can solo most of those mobs with barely a scratch.


jdblaich (from reddit)

Everquest memories- Random memories.

Some random memories of old EQ in no particular order. Sitting in PoK on my gnome necromancer in service to bertoxxulous the palguebringer. A few RL christians come in and start proseletyizing for players to turn from the false gods of norrath and come to christ. I am not making this up. I then roleplayed the necros response to the followers of this upstart carpenter coming in to denounce his god. I might have said something about an inept ameture taking 3 whole days to raise the dead. The zone started keeping score. I was ahead when the GM showed up.

Another from that gnome, I was over on odus farming bone chips. Had this erudite /ooc "gnome go home, this is Paineel, the city of high men!". My immediate reply: /ooc You have improved your skill at Reading City Signs! (2)

Paineel
 

My wood elf ranger fletched his own trueshot back when that actually meant something. It did not mean much to the warrior in our group hunting bandits over in ro. He insisted on telling me my bow was for pulling only, and refused to hear anything to the contrary. The very next pull I landed 4 crit arrows in a single round. The bandit was under 20% life before it reached the tank :)
Also on that ranger, fishing off qeynos docks and being called a filthy hybrid by a spinning lantern, and wondering if it was some kind of GM event (I was new then...)

Teaming up with another wood elf ranger (it was my first toon) to take down wolves in gfay for pelts to make patchwork armor which was actually upgrades. This was long before the game turned into a monty haul campaign.

Riding the Maidens Voyage for the first time when Kunark launched. I remember the wings unfolding and thinking man, with this kind of sendoff this expansion is gonna be epic. Also remembering the epic pain of those !@#$%^ spiders in firiona...




Spiders in FV

Man I miss what the game used to be.


Kikinaak (from Reddit)

Everquest memories- EC IRL

What is reality? When I was attending philosophy classes at the UW we were taught to think of reality using our senses. Is it possible to be in one place and have it be as real as another even though it is artificial. What is an artificial environment compared to reality?

Back in the 1990s I would frequently visit a state park that was close to where I lived. I was in my early 20s, life was new, my friends and family had not yet moved on to the pages of history. I would walk for hours in this park. The portable cd player or cassette tape blasting my favorite music or audio book. I must have visited this park at least once a day.

The park had the feel of being magical. The strange layout, the strange hills, the place felt like it was straight out of the Terry Brooks audio books I was listing to. The feeling was especially special in fall. Around September or early October the weather was unreal. To this day nothing beats the feeling of sitting on one of the hills in the park, closing my eyes, and letting the crisp autumn air blow across my face. The feeling was spiritually magical. The entire park was a magical field embedded in my imagination.

Aztalan State park
 

Fast forward to 2001. The 90's were becoming a distant memory. Life had changed. I was way too busy with various responsibilities to visit the park everyday. The feeling of magic I had felt a decade earlier had been replaced by the responsibilities of life. Until that day I was gifted with a game called Everquest.

Taking my first steps into the EQ world was much like walking in my park. A zone called East Commonlands almost looked like it. A replica. Better then that, the feeling of magic was back and surrounding me. Now I was not only a spectator in the amazing stories of magic and adventure like in the Terry Brooks audio books, I was a participant.

East Commonlands



Fcseven (updated 3/30/23)**removed dead link to Youtube. 

Everquest memories-Cruel jokes.

My friends and I would play cruel jokes on each other. We would log on each others' accounts at odd hours of the night, bank their armor, and load them up with enough copper that would prevent them from walking faster than a snail's pace. We'd then slowly work our way to the Oasis and camp them out underwater, and wait for them to log in and drown.







AS_99 (from Reddit)

Everquest memories-Surrounded by kindness

I started playing Everquest when I was eight years old and essentially grew up on it off and on. When I was fifteen, I got computer privileges back after being grounded, and made a character on a new server because I decided to actually play. Before this, my max level was eighteen because this was back when death was very punishing and I was literally terrified to leave Gfay/crushbone.


Anyway, the story starts with me going to guide event and meeting these two people who were role playing alongside--I was fifteen, gawky, headgear, long tangled hair and maybe seventy pounds and TALL. And I loved writing. I instantly wanted to know all about their guild. As soon as I could I was writing a backstory for the application process and became a member of the Sigils, one of the oldest still active role playing guilds on live--it's still going on the Emarr server (originally inno).
And I loved the Sigils so much that I started telling everyone about it. I recruited something like twenty people to the guild, including cross server, because I briefly revived the server wide roleplay channel from the live forums. While I played I grew up, I met a boy, and that boy was abusive. Things sucked so much in my normal life, in high school. I was desperate to stay as thin as I was as a kid and my boyfriend would alternately scream abusive insults and cry in my arms, before escalating to punching walls and sometimes my arms. When I logged in that shit didn't matter. I was a powerful shadow knight with these intricate and cool storylines. I was made an officer in the guild. The Sigils weren't just a role playing guild, we did high tier grouping content--when Underfoot launched I got a few server firsts.


I'll always remember my absolute best moment in Everquest. We got a huge force together to raid the demi plane of blood for the chance at an epic 2.5 drop. We brought the allied guilds I'd negotiated as ambassador. And some more that loved the Sigils from years ago. It was my first ever raid, and I loved every second of it. At the end, a melee 2.5 aug dropped--I couldn't believe it. All the melee present rolled and--I didn't get the high roll. The people who rolled above me were the raid leader, who'd played ten years straight and cared so much about his paladin, the person who recruited me who knew an insane amount about numbers and had been talking about getting this aug for months, and a longtime ally who was a top tier raider and made a lot of our ambitious adventures possible with his support.
And they all passed to me.

Demi

I remember my guild leader, who was like a second mom to me, calling me while I was crying at the computer and saying, you deserve it, kiddo!

They passed it to me not because they thought I had the shitties life, that I had done the most for the guild, but because every single person there got a genuine kick out of being kind and generous. That's what Everquest was to me. A place I could go when things were really tough to be surrounded by kindness. It was more than an escape--it was a vacation.

I quit playing in college and only really log in to say hi to my guildies now. But I wouldn't have survived high school and become the confident, self-assured and happy grown woman I am today without the kindness of a bunch of people to an awkward teenager back then. Thanks, EQ.








calowyn (From Reddit)

Everquest memories-Fallen in Kurn's Tower

My first toon was a female Iksar monk named Milstermangoons. I didn't realize my monk was female until I met a fellow Iksar monk named Pidiot in the field of bone. We automatically connected and started to venture into dangerous areas like Kurn's tower. We ventured deep inside the tower and took on more than we could handle.

 

 

I ended up falling down this huge hole in the tower and died. I was terrified, all my hard earned gear gone and no way for me to gather my corpse... all hope was lost. Until, my friend Pidiot told me to hold tight, a few moments later I get a group invite from this level 53 Halfing Druid. It was Pidiot to my rescue.

 

 

 

He cast Levitate on himself, dropped down to my corpse and dragged it all the way to the zone in for me. I've just made my 1st MMO Best friend and I miss Pidiot to this day, we hung together until our real life's took over but I wish I remained in contact with him. MY MMO BFF forever, luv ya Pidiot, thank god for your Druid!       

 

 

 

 

 

Kurn's Tower

Novell Erfane (from YouTube)

Everquest memories-Thinking back.

My favorite moments were playing in Unrest and Castle Mistmoore back in 1999. They were fun and challenging zones with lots of adds, and they required people to be on their toes. A lot of players learned to play their classes in those zones.

Castle Mistmoore

Unfortunately, after Kunark was released, everyone just wanted to grind in the Overthere and Dreadlands. It became extremely difficult to get people into the dungeons thereafter. Everyone wanted to play it safe.


Another favorite zone of mine was Najena. It was fun, it was different, and if you were a magician you spent a good amount of time there to gather components for the early pet focuses.
Also, want to throw this out there. By far, the most difficult quest/mission I've been a part of was Tipt. Mind you, this is while being level 70 to boot. I can't imagine how painful that hurdle was for level 65s when Gates of Discord first came out.







sewergolem (From Reddit)

Everquest memories- The Friendly Ranger

I was a halfling rogue, it was 1999 and I had just made level 10 and some friends suggested I go to crush bone. Being a new game and a new player, I knew very little and started my run. I Made it through kithicor forest, cross the common lands and on to the boat in Fremont. The boat stopped on Sisters Island and I thought, huh, an island and got off the boat to explore. As soon as I stepped off the boat I was immediately killed by an inhabitant and back in Misty Thicket naked, no money and no idea how to get my body back.


It took about 10 hours to get my corpse back because none of my friends and my naked self could kill the sister on the dock. A level 30 ranger joined us and killed the mob so I could get my gear back. I've been real life friends with that ranger since, 18 years.

Misty Thicket

RangorP (From Reddit)

Everquest memories-Rune Totem Staff

When I started in '99 there were not a lot of shamans. I remember running down to South Karana at level 23 or so, with a bag full of spells to buff folks at the ramp for donations while ibwaited on a group to get to 24! And that first Rune Totem Staff from the lake!









By FingerIsMySafety (from Reddit)

Everquest memories-Yar'Lir

Raiding with Republic of the Dragon on Stromm from 2006 to 2009 or so is still the most fun I have ever had gaming. One stand out evening was in January of 2008 when we finally defeated Yar'Lir in the DoN expansion.


 The details are fuzzy now but I know many attempts were made before we finally pulled it off. We were one of the more casual raiding guilds, only going out for maybe 2 hours, 3 nights a week, and we usually only had 5 to 6 groups.

I believe we cleared all three in the video that night, but the first run at Yar'Lir was a wipe. The footage from the video was on the second run when we finally nailed it. We were tired, cranky, frustrated that a dumb mistake had wiped us the first time, and if we had wiped the second time, we were throwing in the towel. Fortunately, that did not happen.

By dtwork (from Reddit)

Everquest memories-Befallen Run.

Classic Everquest doing a Befallen run.
I was a lvl 18 Paladin and our little PUG of 5 managed to make it all the way to the Troll spawn at the end. As you know EQ, this is no small feat. Any death means everyone dies. At our level, we're going to have to beg someone to help us with the corpse run which would likely be 1-2 hours.

We were all on edge and the Troll actually spawned and had the Bone Bladed Claymore! We took him down and the group GAVE the weapon to me.

I offered to pay everyone to compensate them and every single group member refused. That meant so much to young me. It was sheer camaraderie at the end of a long hard dungeon. I'll remember that feeling for my entire life.

Befallen

Legion_009 (from reddit)

Everquest memories-Project M

First thing that comes to mind is the ill-thought-out, short-lived but brilliant "Be a Mob" feature. Project M

One little button on character select, I think only on PvP servers, that had you spawn in as a random NPC in a random zone.

You could see what you'd drop if killed, you had whatever abilities that mob normally has and you couldn't chat. However you could kill other NPCs and level up or if you were lucky enough to spawn as a fairly tough mob further into a zone you could run out to the front and smash nub skulls.

Looking back nothing even slightly similar would make it past testing these days let alone actually going live to a real server. People obviously abused the shit out of it but those first few days of pure innocent fun were just incredible.

The concept of being a mob other players could kill for XP in the MMO I loved just completely blew my young gamer mind and I couldn't get enough of it.






 Orsenfelt (from reddit)

Everquest memories- An Epic request for Enchanters.

As I think back to last week (and the video I was preparing for my YouTube channel) I have to chuckle. It was a difficult one form start to finish.

Krog Losaf adds to my frustration

 

Not that the task was overly difficult. It was a multitude of other things that included a crazy quest with a lot of running around. Think small rooms in a carnival maze.

Which way do I go again?

The write-up I was using was completely wrong. The video capture software was cutting in and out. To top it off I uploaded what I thought was a finished product to YouTube and for some reason the video was warped! It was up a full day and out to all my subscribers unwatchable. Ugh.




Well it is complete and in the end things worked out. The finished product is below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fcseven (updated 5/10/17)