Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Coming back...(I think)!
Well, I first played EQ1 about 10 years ago and never really went back to it or looked into it again once DAoC came out. After playing many of the newer MMOs out today I am tired of how bland and shallow they are.
Saw that a new expansion came out not too long ago so now I'm curious about hwo the game is now a days and wanting to play it again. I'll most likely just start over fresh with a new account and my wife is wanting to play it as well.
So, I have some questions:
1) How active is the game these days?
2) What server would be the best to play on for a couple of new players?
3) How much does it cost to get everything going (all expacs, etc)?
4) Is the game solo/duo friendly now a days?
5) How "grindy" is it? Like, are there still mobs where you have to camp for weeks/days to even see spawn?
All I can think of for now. >.<
Comments
I will try to answer some of these. I played about a year ago.
1) when I played there were still a decent amount of people playing and very friendly/helpful as usual.
2) not a clue
3) there have been expansions every year since you quit. They may have one thing where you buy the one xpac and get the rest but I am not sure. Log on to your station account and look in the store.
4) They put merceneries into the game now. It is pretty much like having a spare player with you. You can get a healer merc and pretty much solo everything but the raids.
5)It seemed like exp was gained a lot quicker. I rerolled a ranger when I played a year ago and got him go 60 or so in a week with a bunch of AA Points. Granted I did set up (with the in game macro system) with 2 friends + merc a way to farm in PoI while afk lol.
edit:
oh I forgot to mention this. If I were you I would wait til they release the progresion server. It will be the original EQ released with the expansions coming out every 6 months or so. Will start everyone back to zero and it will be OLD SCHOOL EQ. Myself and a ton of my friends who played are most likely going to start back up when this happens.
from what I also read about the prog. server, if you already have the expansion bought on the account you are playing it auto gets the expansion when released on it.
Also, they are now making a new EQ dubbed "eq next". Not much info has been released about it but I think this will be the next big thing for old school MMO'ers
The answer to #3 is that you get the whole game with all expansions when you buy the most recent expansion (House of Thule). You can get it from the station store or amazon as a digital download for about $40. Considering the number of expansions included, it's a bargain.
They've completely revamped the newbie experience, so that all races start in a new city called Crescent Reach after the tutorial. While you can start in the original cities, I don't think I'd recommend that if you want to play on a regular server now-- I'd recommend waiting for the Progression server for that.
I`ve been back playing EQ now for about 9 months, and I love the game. I had retired back in early 2005. After playing several MMO`s, I decided to come back.
The game is pretty active on the Nameless server. Population is good there. The game is top heavy (level wise) but there are a lot of lower lvl toons also. I have 2 toons on Fierona Vie server also but that server has a low population.
With the new expansion ($39.95 I think), you get all the content.
The game is much more solo friendly now. Very duoable. You level very fast at early levels now to get you up to higher end content with the majority of the players. I`d say levels 1-70 are pretty fast now. Defiant armor sets make leveling much easier now also. The Defiant gear is incredible. You can also get Mercenaries to help you level (and they help a lot). I don`t use them unless I have to because they take 1/2 your xp. They do a good job though.
As far as rare mobs go, there are still some rare mobs and rare drops. I`ve not had to camp anything for long periods of time though. I think the rare spawn rates were upped a lot to keep from tedious camping.
anyone know when the actual prog. server is coming out? I heard late this year early next year?
Wow, fast replies thanks all.
Definitely think we'll come check it out to this day I miss my Ranger a lot. :O
How newbie accessable is the game? Just something else I thought of to ask. Just curious to know if it's somewhat easy to get some decent starting gear and weapons, etc when you are starting from scratch.
Leveling is so much easier now as of late. With all the varieties of stuff to equip yourself with, dont be surprised at how easy it is to solo now.
It's been about 2 years now since i last played and the top ranked players has well over 40k hp/mana unbuffed. Now you're looking at close to 70-80k hp/mana unbuffed.
Newbie accessible as in you can jump in and start playing, and collect gear upgrades as you go along? Yes you can do that fairly easy these days. With access to mercenaries, NPC buddies that will either tank, heal, or dps for you, you can take one out and start having fun right away. Defiant gear is world drop so they can drop off any monsters you kill. There's also a lot of them for sale usually cheap on the vendors or in bazaar off player vendors.
I actually recommend starting from scratch because the game would essentially be new to you again, and it's easier to learn from scratch than jumping in on an existing old character and not knowing what spells or abilities you have....or not knowing where your character is parked at. Starting off in the tutorial should help you learn the basics, then going to Crescent Reach is a good idea afterwards because that's where most new players start off at.
Mercenaries are only available if you have Seeds of Destruction expansion. But that's all included if you purchase the latest House of Thule ($40), that'll flag you for all 17 expansions. If you start fresh and make a new account with it, you get the first 30 days free ($15 value). So for $40 you can easily jump in and start right back up again.
I believe they also have a starter pack, without the latest expansion but they are cheaper and allows you to jump in and still get a 30 day free if you use it with a brand new account. So if you are not sure, you can always go that route. 1 month sub cost $15 anyway, and starter pack is like $20 I believe.
Good luck, don't forget to visit EQ's forum, the newbie zone is the best place to ask EQ related questions as there are more helpful players that check there.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Last we've heard was January, that was pre-expansion where they were guestimating the time they need to get it ready. We'll have to wait and see when they'll announce a solid for sure date once they can get the time-locked progression server ruleset ready.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Oh! I do love me some good craftin!
How is the crafting system?
Oh, yeah! Probably the most important question that I can't believe that I didn't think of to ask earlier:
Does this game run on Vista/7?
Yes the game runs on Vista/7. Just make sure you take care of the usual, such as making sure Everquest.exe runs as administrator.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I just started playing using Windows 7 and it works fine; Vista should be no problem in that case. I'm planning on playing on the progression server in Jan but for now just getting a feel for things, trying classes ect.
Glad to hear that it runs on modern OSes.
How's the death penalty like these days? I know I've read that you no longer have to do corpse runs, but do you still delevel like back in the day?
The progression server does sound fun, too. Will most likely play on it but will play around with different classes, races, etc until then.
I ee that HoT has added housing. How pricey is the housing and how hard is it to make some cash?
In the old days when you die, you drop items on your corpse, and you had to retrieve your corpse or you lose your items. These days you do not drop items on your corpse, and there are npc's in guild lobby that allows you to retrieve your corpse there. So you never really have to go back to get your corpse if you don't want to.
You still do lose exp and lose your level if you are at 1% into your level and die. But if you get a 96% rez (either through player cleric or cleric mercenary) it's nothing to get your lost exp back.
And housing is quite popular in EQ since the expansion launch, SOE made a whole forum category for it so people can show off their houses: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/show.m?forum_id=1443
Plot prices vary but the cheapest ones are 420 plat to buy, gives you 40 items you can place on the yard. Once you have the plot, you can buy a house, 1 room house is 5k, 3-rooms are 10k. That may sound like a lot, but to put it in perspective. There are lvl 25-30 mobs that drop items you can sell to vendors for 100pp or more each. So it really isn't a lot.
There's also a new loyalty vendor that allows you to get a bag of platinum and get 15k+/- plat out of them for spending 100 loyalty crowns. You accumulate these crowns weekly by simply staying subscribed to the game. So that's free money, more than enough for you to get setup with a plot and house
Check out my guild's latest creation, we made a kelethin-like city out of the plots we've bought:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=170588
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Your tree city is very awesome. I'll be resubbing to this for sure in a month or so.
super impressive city!
Awesome! Thanks for the info. It put us over the top and we're going to play for sure!
What's a good server to play on?
Not sure if there's a best server but Luclin/Stromm is pretty good
You can ask around on EQ's forum in newbie zone, or check the guild recruitment forum: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/show.m?forum_id=1417
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Your awesome Kelethin city has made us wanna play on Stromm!