@laika: I remember having to log off my main a lot and play the token guild Mage or enchanter with the Shissar stick and be CotH bitch or Shiss, Clarity, Tash and Haste bitch. Mage bitch was only slightly more fun in raids before the rod nerf. You could lay them on the ground in lotsa fun ways! And getting healed by the clerics,and being fed mana by the necros (the true bitches of EQ) so you can shit out like 50-75 rods in a couple of mins. Your health bar would bounce up and down from full health to almost death every few seconds.

Ugh I gotta stop following this damn thread.

Mana Burn is Luclin :P

@sqrabbit: We had a mage on CoV faction specifically for CotHing people up to Yelinak to avoid that damn maze (we were a Kael-aligned guild). But, yeah, being a cleric during Velious, I definitely remember having mountains of mana rods laying around as I stared at the floor watching health meters in ToV.

@sqrabbit: Looks like it's still 32k hp according to the project 99 wiki if that is to be believed! But we don't have AA's though :( So we just zerged him down! :D

@marino: Yes. I love Risk and chance for loss. Again it's why I play games like Eve. Also bump me out to 2003. Thanks man, this whole thread has been great.

Oh and the ToV faction thing. I loved that it progressed. Eventually you were buddy buddy with Giants after farming the fuck out of that wing (whatever the best one was). Always felt bad for the mages that couldn't fuck thier Dragon standings so you didn't have to run the whole fucking thing. Same thing in VT. We ended up just having one mage perma stay in VT while we were actively running it. Knocked off 4 hours off easily

@laika: hey sorry I missed that he was playing on a level/content capped EQEmu server. I set an offline server up a few years ago just to run around the zones again.

Ahh EverQuest. The greatest game I'll ever play.

@marino: Hey Slowride/Xola:

I was in your guild from 2002-2004, ...with Phad, Beckah, Thecklos, Triumph, Faenor, Thufer, Aadin....those are the ones I remember. Of course I remember your Slowride Takeiteasy Barbarian character

Best MMO ever....I played Brynne (a bard) and was often in the Phad's group twisting like crazy...prolly why I have carpal tunnel today lol

Brynne :)

@brynne: Hey! Yeah, I definitely remember you. We didn't have too many bards most of the time if I recall. I'm a bit curious though as to how you found this. Triumph found me this way a couple years ago too.

I scrolled through a bunch of my old screenshots and found you a few times.

I was thinking about the EQ days and was wondering if anyone from the guild was still around. I think I just typed a few terms into google search and found this site. OMG I was still wearing the bard lambent greaves...lol I remember camping lower guk for that quest. Such fun times.

Brynne

I play elder scrolls online and this thread makes me smile ?

As a FFXI player I always looked upon the EQ1 people as our older brethren: FFXI was pretty much EQ1 but for PS2 really.

@marino: You do a great job telling these stories about early EQ! I've really enjoyed reading them. I even recognize some of the people you've been talking about. I remember Jeet from lower guk days when I was level 30 something and he was somewhat lower. A couple of the people in the group I was in were hating on him for some reason (think he may have trained us unintentionally) and somebody else in the group said to give him a break because he was only 14 (or something like that). How young that seemed, in Everquest! I remember Ravenmyst from your pained soul post too, and there's a pretty good chance I was in Sebilis while you were up above doing that camp. And I remember Dol Amroth too, though not sure why. The only other guild I can remember is Avatars of Discord. I can't even remember the names of the guilds I was in. How embarrassing. Anyway, I started on Rodcet Nife the day Everquest went live, with my one and only EQ character. I started fading when my friends started creating alts, which was just before Kunark shipped. Don't really blame them since they'd been level 50 a while and were all geared up but for some reason it bothered me, like they weren't supposed to be anyone other than the characters I knew them as. I bolted for DAoC with some other folks from Rodcet Nife, right when that came out. DAoC was sorely lacking in important things EQ had, though. Like, difficulty. Also, the social aspects. DAoC did have better graphics and some pretty great PvP but I ended up going back to EQ several times. It just wasn't the same after long absences, though. I always wished I'd just stayed put with EQ. Anyway, thanks very much for these old time EQ posts :)

@craigb:

Jeet could definitely be a dick sometimes, but he was a pretty good leader eventually. He and some other broke off from Eastern Keep and formed Echoes in Eternity, who then ended up allying with Dol Amroth. If you want a real blast from the past, this web page still exists for some damn reason.

So, what was your character's name?

@marino: Wow, so much drama on that web page! But that's the way it was in Everquest, wasn't it? On the other hand all those personality conflicts wouldn't have happened if people didn't care about the game and their place in it as much as they did. Reading that kinda brings home how muddled my memory is after a decade and a half. I can sure see why there's a question mark instead of a date for most that stuff. For instance, I would have sworn I saw Avatars of Discord guild tags in South Ro the summer of 1999, but it seems I'm prolly mistaken about that. I tried to look up dates for a lot of things but there's virtually nothing out there, and not just for Rodcet Nife but for EQ in general. All the message boards people used to post on seem to be just... gone. Anyway, while I was looking I found this:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches.html

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches-1999.html

Seems to be an official patch history, from Smedley himself. But even that seems unreliable. For instance, notice he mentions in his December 8th of 1999 entry that both the plane of hate and the plane of fear were tuned to adjust drop rates, but no mention is made of the patch that actually added them!? My recollection is that one (Hate?) was added as part of a Halloween of 1999 event, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Also interesting, at least to me, is Smedley discussing the test fix for the "kill stealing problem" in November of 1999. Think they still had open looting (the original ninja looting) at that time, too, didn't they? And news release about the coming Kunark expansion in there, as well :)

Anyway, Dyvim always seemed like a big deal to me, ever since I was heading out with a buddy of mine to sneak onto a boat in Freeport to find this place "unrest" that allegedly had some loot we needed, and my friend bought Dyvim's old sword in East Commons on the way. He made us wait while he tested out his new one on a griffin, which seemed pretty amazing at the time, since word on the street was that a necro pet could beat a warrior, back then. Glad to see he has a prominent place on that web page. And I'd always thought Strago was the first level 50 shaman on Rodcet Nife. He sure was the first Shaman I saw with Blight Hammer of Scourge. I remember because I made it my mission to get myself one after I saw his. And I did! Then, a few months later, I lifted a Howling Harpoon off a random mob in Karnor's Castle, and it was better than Blight. So Blight went into the bank and was never carried by me again, after spending weeks if not months trying to get ahold of it. Oh well. It was still fun volunteering to go on all those dragon raids hoping to get that hammer. Anyway, I mentioned Strago because it seems a Shaman from Eastern Keep was the first to 50 on Rodcet Nife. I don't even remember seeing Eastern Keep guild tags until Velious days, but I was pretty casual and infrequent with EQ by then so I'm likely just not remembering things properly. Fitch, listed there as first rogue to 50, I recall... I think he may have been the first to get journeyman boots (the old way)? Not really sure. I'm surprised that's the only place he is mentioned, but then again, I guess he kinda vanished before most that stuff happened?

Found this on youtube, Dyvim is in there competing in the Best of the Best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r41O7tdPhaQ

Also found this on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsUDRW-82y0

Recollections of a Rodcet Nife player. Jeet on friends list, maybe you know them? I recognized Fargus and a couple other people, but I have a feeling most of that was from long after I stopped playing. Ragefire in it towards the end, too.

As for my character name, I'd rather not say, just in case somebody with a nerd grudge against me shows up here. I was nobody of much significance on the server, even when I was playing a lot :)

@craigb: I wasn't playing until 2000, so I can't verify a lot of those very early dates, but that list was saved from the old IGN boards before those shut down.

I think you're correct about Hate added near Halloween. The event was a result of a storyline in the game where dark elves and trolls attempted to take over High Pass (to block the trade route between Qeynos and Freeport). There was a giant GM event in Kithicor Forest with a PVP battle. The story was that Innoruuk entered the mortal plane to help sway the battle, thus leaving open a passage to his plane. This is also why Kith became full of level 50+ undead at night from then on out.

Dyvim Slorm was definitely a legend on RN. I think he was the first person I saw with the Jagged Blade of War (looked like light sabers basically).

You probably don't remember seeing Eastern Keep much because I think a large portion of them were Korean, so they were playing in the middle of the night.

Jboots...man...jboots. I've got an excellent story to tell about those. I really should start writing blogs about old EQ stuff again. Hopefully I'll get back to it soon.

@marino: Man, this post brings back so many memories. I was on RN as well, played until a little after the planes of power expansion. My mains were Chodo (half elf bard) and Ryoji (Erudite Cleric). Guild I was in was "Knights Templar", then "Dragonflyers" and then we merged with a couple of other guilds into another guild but that name eludes me.

Certain things still pop up in my head over time, like when a cleric named Muffin retired I was crushed because I always looked up to her and her good bye video destroyed me at the time, haha. Taking a week off work to camp a dragon I needed for my epic weapon and it ended up spawning at 2 AM and no one in my guild was on so I got to stand there and watch another guild take him down... still bitter about never getting my epic cleric weapon. :P

Man all your posts is making me think of firing this up, not good! haha. Thanks for the great reads Marino.

@poserwannabe: If I had to guess, that merged guild was probably Anthology or Fires of Time.

Your Ragefire experience was a true nightmare scenario. Definitely not trying to rub it in, but if you saw my list of previous posts, the first one was about my insanely lucky Ragefire camp.

If you actually do fire it up again, definitely don't get on a "regular" server. Get on one of the legacy servers. They start with only original EQ open and then every couple months they open up another expansion. You'll never recapture the magic, but those legacy servers are the closest you're ever gonna get at this point.

@marino: I didn't remember Eastern Keep at all until I read that web page, and then when I was reminded of them, the only thing that came back to me was bad experiences in Velious, like how they used to come into Kael with 4 or 5 groups, when there were just a few people soloing and maybe a couple pick up groups, and they'd just take everything over. So you're probably right that I just didn't see them around that much before Velious. Anyway, I for one look forward to reading any posts you make about Old EQ :)

@poserwannabe: There were definitely some really terrible moments in EQ. Reading that archive post marino linked reminded me of a lot of things, about both myself and about others, that maybe I would have rather left forgotten. But there were also some real highs. And in my case on at least one occasion they came back to back. When I was new I was really into exploring. That's the main reason I always felt like I was a couple levels and a couple weeks behind the people at the front of the pack, even though I was putting in just as many hours as they were. That tended to get me into trouble, in addition to keeping me behind the curve. One example of when it did was when I was 20ish went into Runnyeye with a group of randoms who invited me soon as I showed up. I was relectunt to join cuz they were way far in, I didn't know any of them, and I was a stranger to that place. But they were persistent, so I joined. Long story short, things went sideways, I didn't even know which way to run, group disbanded and they bailed, leaving me naked outside runnyeye with my corpse and my stuff in the worst possible place. And at that point in the game there was only one person I felt I knew well enough to ask for help with something like that. And he wasn't online. One of the worst things that ever happened to me in EQ. I was sitting there contemplating what I was gonna do when I got tells from a couple people (learned later they were a couple in real life) I'd met in Crushbone (previous adventure as an explorer which went a lot better!) a few days earlier, asking what I was up to. Soon as I told my sob story they were on their way to me, without even being asked. Took many hours for them to get there (no fast travel then, nobody was high enough) and for the three of us to get down to where my corpse was, but we did it. And then the three of us held down that area where a full group of six had failed, and left there with some pretty good loot, which restored some of my hurt pride. And with that, one of my worst memories also became one of my best memories. I think that's part of the secret recipe that other games are missing. Without those brutal lows, the highs wouldn't be as spectacular. And for every sleazy creep in EQ, there was also a hero. Other games have the sleazy creeps but nobody really gets a chance to be a hero anymore, because nobody ever really needs help, anymore.

Wow, so I was feeling a bit nostalgic about EQ, and how much fun it was to raid back in the Scars of Velious and Planes of Power days... and I stumbled upon this thread.

I played Stargazeron (wood elf ranger) on Rodcet Nife - Was an officer in Dol Amroth. Quite often I'd be dual-boxing a friend's account on raids... usually a cleric. Remember grouping with both you @marino and you @brynne. That was back when I was in college, and that was some of the most fun I've ever had in a video game. I'll never forget raiding with Dol... I remember one 4th of July when we were doing a Plane of Time run (which was a 72 man raid), and 120 people logged on to do it. lol.

Or the time I killed Jeet (guild leader of Echoes in Eternity - the other guild in our alliance) on a plane of fire raid.

Or the (seemingly) weekly guild removes of Chubz. He eventually became the guild leader a while after I retired Stargazeron.

I logged into EQ (free account) not too long ago just to poke around. Turns out when I retired my ranger I camped him really high up on a wall in the Plane of Fire. Took me a while just to figure out how to get out of the zone. While the graphics of the game now are still the same, it has a weird feeling to me. I remember all the fun I used to have, but none of the people I remember are still there, and really that's what made the game fun.

@stargzrr11: Damn. Hey, Stargazeron. Hope you're doin' well. I somehow didn't get a @ notification, but just happened to check the EQ out of habit and saw this. I haven't logged in for several years now. Mainly because I've been a Mac user for the last five years or so. I used to log in and run around with Slowirde just to see the old sites since I could do it without being seen. Like you said, the magic of the game was the people. Unfortunately, we'll never be able to recreate that. I tried for a while with other MMOs but it's just not the same.

I did a quick scan through my old screenshots. Looks like we were grouped together on the first time we got a burrower tunic to drop. Even with just 5 in our group, we somehow out-DPS'd everyone else. Ha!

@zakn: Sup Til2, Yaldiar here! The update to the wiki brought me in here and naturally the first thing I click on is EQ. I didn't expect to find an old Stoner! I hope all is well, such curious places we find ourselves. I was a High Elf Paladin if Marino is still updating this. I played on Zebuxoruk and was a member of Stone and later Dark Horizon way back in....2000-2005 I think.

Once or twice a year I find myself thinking about playing EQ again. This is one of those times.

@sothx: HOLY SHIT! How's It going old friend! I'm just shocked right now. I'll be back and DM You

@marino:

Holy cow, it's been forever since I played EQ. I logged in recently and it's just not the same game anymore.

I wish I had all my old screenshots.

Who am I?

Agahnim Sorast, Human Monk, Rodcet Nife, from September 1999, through about October 2002? I don't remember when I quit, but it coincided with a decision to get my life together, which culminated in me Joining the Navy at that point.

I was in Avatars of Discord and ran the AoD Website until I eventually quit EQ. I grew up being a monk under Satao, Bartox, Vyck (Though that was when we three made Monking sound so good, he ditched his ranger Vykdrago and joined the Monk train), Axine, Heimdall, Dwilgar, Sneak, Lofwyr, Katia. My roommates played with me and were also a part of AoD. Azmoran and Abrosum (Actually I don't remember if Abrosum made it in AoD)

Fondest memory, getting one of the last pre-nerf guise of the deceivers. Somewhere around October or November of 1999, they changed it to the mask of deception and enforced the BRD/ROG use on it. But it was practically a requirement for monks at that point because night vision sucked, carrying around a GLS sucked, and because being a night elf monk was badass. lol

So many memories come flooding back to me, it's nuts.

EDIT: Just finished reading all of the posts in this thread, more memories flooding back

- Alumar at the tunnels basically cornering the market on everything

- I was a player GM for a while. That was a lot of fun, but I abused the *shit* out of the role. I was a very bad choice of a GM. I don't think things were logged as well back then. We had a lot of commands we could type to help players get unstuck or respawn NPCs things like that. We had a set of beads that would levitate people, so I'd go invisible and levitate a full raid of people, then I'd turn them all to gnomes and let them kill Trak'anon as flying gnomes.

We had a /kill command that would take 32k hit points off of the target. Worked great on most mobs, then one of the expansions upped the max HP level, I forget which expansion it was. But then I had to use the command twice to kill some things. The caveat was if a mob died by /kill it disappeared or dropped no loot, I forget. I "helped" a raid once kill Trak'anon by using /kill, but they were rightfully upset when they got no loot from him. So I had to despawn the corpse, and respawn a new Trak'anon and just sit and watch them throw their faces at him repeatedly until eventually, they killed him.

@agahnim: Damn. I recognize a lot of those names. A few of them moved on to Ascent at some point. In the Summer of 2001, a small group of DA/EiE made it to Plane of Mischief and bound ourselves there. Vyck was one of the guys that was there all the time I think. Him and a dark elf cleric...started with a B? Bryelle or something? It was this weird situation where it was only about 10 of us that had constant access to the zone and even though we were rival guilds, those of that were there helped each other constantly. It was kind of amazing. It felt like we were in some kind of alternate universe whenever we were up there. The insane quests there had random elements. I ended have two stacks of monk dolls needed for the monk specific armor and he traded me for cleric ones that I needed at the time.

And, yeah...Alumar. I hadn't thought about him in a while. It was pretty crazy how everyone on the server knew he was the guy to go to for rare stuff. After giving up on finding one, I resorted to buy my Mark of Karn spell from him.

Does anybody play Project 99?