Anyone from Norrath out here?

Jidokwon

I bought my first computer shortly after watching my roommate play in EverQuest beta. I was hooked immediately. Almost two decades later, the Ring of Scales expansion is the first that I'm not preordering. I just can't justify not having the option to pause anymore. I'll miss grouping and the largest scaled raiding in any MMO that I'm aware of, but what finally put the nail in the coffin for me was not having the option to pause at any point. Being that EverQuest launched within the same era as the Baldur's Gate trilogy, I'm curious how many others have spent some time in Norrath.

Tawmis

Jidokwon said:

I bought my first computer shortly after watching my roommate play in EverQuest beta. I was hooked immediately. Almost two decades later, the Ring of Scales expansion is the first that I'm not preordering. I just can't justify not having the option to pause anymore. I'll miss grouping and the largest scaled raiding in any MMO that I'm aware of, but what finally put the nail in the coffin for me was not having the option to pause at any point. Being that EverQuest launched within the same era as the Baldur's Gate trilogy, I'm curious how many others have spent some time in Norrath.

I spent so much time on Norrath... I joined EQ just before Velius and was there through Planes of Power. Played on the Emarr Server. EQ was a game that was difficult to solo play, was my problem. So if you're guild wasn't on, or there wasn't a lot of people on (thanks Insomnia), finding a group to casually do something, was sometimes difficult. It was also brutal (all the other MMOs out there are sissies compared to EQ) - death = XP loss, you also respawn at your bind point - NAKED! Ah, those were the days. So many absolutely great, fun, stories from those days.

jjstraka34

The only way I'm ever going to play Everquest is if I manage to get in on the ground floor of their next progression server (I don't see the point once you fall a few months behind). I'm fairly excited for the Classic Vanilla WoW servers, but as an adult, it's hard to know if there are enough hours available to dedicate to Everquest, which is far, far harsher in that regard, though I suppose the original FFXI was even worse. I only finally downloaded it last year, and I sat in the tutorial cave for at least a few nights, and, oddly enough, I did learn why it was so popular, as I spent five hours grouping with someone and taking down the big boss in the area.

As for Norrath, what I'd really like is if Champions of Norrath wasn't regulated to only being available to play on a used PS2.

Tawmis

jjstraka34 said:

The only way I'm ever going to play Everquest is if I manage to get in on the ground floor of their next progression server (I don't see the point once you fall a few months behind). I'm fairly excited for the Classic Vanilla WoW servers, but as an adult, it's hard to know if there are enough hours available to dedicate to Everquest, which is far, far harsher in that regard, though I suppose the original FFXI was even worse. I only finally downloaded it last year, and I sat in the tutorial cave for at least a few nights, and, oddly enough, I did learn why it was so popular, as I spent five hours grouping with someone and taking down the big boss in the area.

Well, the one thing I loved about EQ is that people were always extremely helpful. I am playing EQ on Project99 with some folks - and it's EQ with Velius and that's it. No Planes of Power and such. So it's EQ when it was at it's "best hay day." People on there are always extremely helpful. There's been folks who run up to me, ask what I have - then run to the bank and get me equipment that they're not using and give it to me to have. Just like the original EQ days. To me, you don't need to get in with day 1 with EQ - because there was always people around to help out.

My qualm is, I can no longer afford to pay monthly for an MMO. This is why I enjoy Project 99 (among a few other MMOs, like SWTOR, LotRO, etc.) I enjoyed WoW (I played from beta through Lich King - and got three characters to 70, before I realized I was pretty much doing the same quests with different race/class). I don't think any MMO has caught up to what EverQuest did, in terms of size.

Ravenslight

I still spend time in Norrath. But my time there has been very limited for some time now. I no longer play EQI, but EQII is still my game of choice when I’m in the mood for MMO gaming.

A visit to Norrath during Frostfell is a holiday tradition here. Which reminds me, must be about that time now.

Tawmis

Ravenslight said:

I still spend time in Norrath. But my time there has been very limited for some time now. I no longer play EQI, but EQII is still my game of choice when I’m in the mood for MMO gaming.

A visit to Norrath during Frostfell is a holiday tradition here. Which reminds me, must be about that time now.

See. I played EQII for awhile... but my problem is - along with other MMOs that came out after the original EQ is - running out into the water, and literally being able to swim across an ocean from shore to shore, was no longer possible. In the original EQ, I remember jumping off the boat, in the middle of the ocean and swimming to different islands just to see what was out there. It felt so much bigger, because of it. Trivial, yes, but something I enjoyed.

Ravenslight

Oh you can swim in EQII. You can even fish while swimming and fight sharks and other beasties. Then cook up the fish for dinner. I really like their crafting system.

jjstraka34

In some ways, I just wish all older MMOs would make 95% of their content solo-able like FFXI has done over the years (by use of NPCs). The massive, massive (some would say endless world) of Everquest is something I would love to explore, but at this late date, without dedicating yourself to a hardcore guild, you are never going to see much of that content.

Tawmis

Ravenslight said:

Oh you can swim in EQII. You can even fish while swimming and fight sharks and other beasties. Then cook up the fish for dinner. I really like their crafting system.

What? I swear - most of the bodies of water I found, you could only go so far before it stopped you.

Tawmis

jjstraka34 said:

In some ways, I just wish all older MMOs would make 95% of their content solo-able like FFXI has done over the years (by use of NPCs). The massive, massive (some would say endless world) of Everquest is something I would love to explore, but at this late date, without dedicating yourself to a hardcore guild, you are never going to see much of that content.

I think the NPC idea is a cool one - and a lot of MMOs do that now. I think it may even be available in the newest version of the original EQ (they've made a ton of updates - including graphically doing some MAJOR updates), including now if you die, you respawn with all your equipment on you (no more corpse runs naked). I've not logged into the Sony version of EQ in a very long time; since I typically play on Project 1999 version of EQ.

Jidokwon

It's nice to see some replies. Outside of the grouping and large scale raiding, I think one of the main things that has brought me back so many times is that it's been more challenging than any other MMO that I've come across. Some of the penalties were harsh enough that they've kind of dumbed down the game a lot, but I don't necessarily think that the quality of life changes were all bad. Mercenaries were a *huge* change, that might have saved the shrinking community, but I know that quite a few players left then, too. I've asked repeatedly for a convenient option to turn off experience altogether. As it is in its current state, you can't hope to crawl through a dungeon one time or camp a rare before you'd outlevel everything and make it obsolete. I hate bottomfeeding with a passion, but there's soooo much older content that it's typically wasted as they herd everyone into current expansions. The challenges, though, I think that has been the main appeal for many of the older games that I continue to play today.

@Tawmis and @Ravenslight: I don't remember how water in EQII works. In EQ, it was possible to swim from small island to small island that were within the same zone, but that was about it. It's never been possible to even swim across a zone line, let alone swim from continent to continent. EQ did have some underwater content, though. Heh invisible walls were always kind of immersion breaking to me, but I digress.

@jjstraka34: EverQuest is one of the most top heavy MMOs that I've played, but it's also the oldest. Unlike the regular servers or even the fast paced progression servers, one of their newer ones (Agnarr, I think) is currently in Velious and will be locked at the Planes of Power expansion. I also wish that they'd allow multiple mercenaries at lower levels, but Agnarr(?) will have one of the healthier low to mid level populations throughout its existence, I think.

Ravenslight

I would think that if you go out far enough there would be a zone line, if that’s what you mean. I’ve never tested how far that is. But there are many large areas where you can swim and hunt. Even some quests that require you to swim in order to complete them.

As I’m thinking about it, I think that zone line might have been small in the newbie area when it first came out. Perhaps that is what you remember. They developed an entirely new starting zone in Halas a while back. It is much bigger than the island starting areas were. They do have free to play which includes most, though not all content. Perhaps you would enjoy checking out the changes that have been made since you were there last.

The thing that I still miss about EQI is the music, that and some of the spell effect sounds. They are good in EQ2, but they just never struck me quite the same as did those in EQI.

Jidokwon

@Ravenslight: Thank you. My wife and I played EQII for about two months and I did enjoy my time there, but it's been long enough that I couldn't even remember if it had zones or not. Two months has been the average shelf life of any MMO outside of EQ that we've played together. She rarely plays at all now, though, so I'm mostly going at things solo. Can you tell me if there's any convenient way of turning off experience altogether in EQII? One of the problems that I remember there, too, was leveling so fast that most of the world is trivialized.

Ravenslight

Yes, you can turn off xp gain for both adventure and crafting at any time. What is really neat for that sort of thing is that you may also choose to visit a chronomage NPC and temporarily reduce your adventure level to one that fits the content that you may now be to big for.

Jidokwon

@Ravenslight: Being able to turn off experience is enough for me to check it out again, thank you.

Tawmis

Jidokwon said:

In EQ, it was possible to swim from small island to small island that were within the same zone, but that was about it. It's never been possible to even swim across a zone line, let alone swim from continent to continent.

Sorry, you could not swim - say from North Ro to Kunark - but you could swim the oceans of North/South Karana back and forth and a few other zones had underwater swimming zones. I just remember jumping off the boat in... Ocean of Tears?... with a Level 1 guy we made in Freeport and just running amock (dying a lot, but since they were level 1 - we'd just jump back on the boat in Freeport and try again).

Tawmis

Jidokwon said:

@Ravenslight: Thank you. My wife and I played EQII for about two months and I did enjoy my time there, but it's been long enough that I couldn't even remember if it had zones or not. Two months has been the average shelf life of any MMO outside of EQ that we've played together. She rarely plays at all now, though, so I'm mostly going at things solo. Can you tell me if there's any convenient way of turning off experience altogether in EQII? One of the problems that I remember there, too, was leveling so fast that most of the world is trivialized.

Sounds like my wife and I. My friend Paul got us into EverQuest - he and his wife played, so my wife and I joined (a bunch of people at my work at the time played too - so we joined their guild). I will never forget though, when my wife made her Dark Elf warrior - some dude was like, "You new?" And she said "Yes." They took her into their guild - power leveled the heck out of her by killing treants and what not... it was ridiculous how quickly she leveled because of them!

Quickblade

I first played EQ in the summer of 2001 (Velious) on the Veeshan server, and I quit for a few months, but when I was drawn back in I started on the new FV (role-playing) server, and I played for about a year through Luclin. Took off for about a year just before PoP came. I came back and found PoP had totally changed the game, played for another 2 years until I was burned out again. I went back for about a month in 2007, and by then the game was unrecognizable to me and only about 3 people I knew still played.

I played Ranger. Soloing was hard, but doable.

Everquest, for me, set such a high standard for "hard" and "grind" that I laugh when people tell me "XYZ is hard/grindy". I never played WoW (In fact, I made a personal vow I never would. Yes, I'm still salty from 2004 when the mass exodus to WoW/EQ2 happened).

Aside from EQ, there have only been 2 other MMOs I've really spent more than 2 years of my life on. Both have been accused of being "grindy". One has virtually died, partly because of said grind but that was more a reflection of internal economics. Aion is still around, but the calls of it being a "Korean grinder" were overblown in my opinion. Well, except for the latest, it's gotten pretty grindy for levels.

Tawmis said:

Jidokwon said:

In EQ, it was possible to swim from small island to small island that were within the same zone, but that was about it. It's never been possible to even swim across a zone line, let alone swim from continent to continent.

Sorry, you could not swim - say from North Ro to Kunark - but you could swim the oceans of North/South Karana back and forth and a few other zones had underwater swimming zones. I just remember jumping off the boat in... Ocean of Tears?... with a Level 1 guy we made in Freeport and just running amock (dying a lot, but since they were level 1 - we'd just jump back on the boat in Freeport and try again).

Yeah, Ocean of Tears. Pretty sure it was the longest zone in the vanilla game on a single axis, I know it was longer than West Karana. I think some later expansions might have had bigger zones.

I was a WE Ranger in particular, and I had a fondness for foraging Ocean of Tears' Marr Cherries and making chocolate cherries for a quest in Kejek Village in the Stonebrunt Mountains. So between visiting GFay for home and LFay for brownie parts (and using Tolan's BP for teleportation), I was around there a lot.

However, my favorite zones to be in were of Velious age. Stonebrunt Mountains that was added on Odus (Kejek village, I liked the oriental theme), and I personally sided with the Coldain/Claws of Veeshan in Velious, and had a good time hunting frost giants in my 60s, or when I was actually in my 50s and level/gear appropriate, I spent much time hunting various animals in Awakening Lands, Cobalt Scar, or Western Wastes.

Yeah, I had the...8th? Coldain Prayer Shawl, and got my Coldain Ring up to 9th, maybe 10th, I know I fought that war a few time. I never did fight in North Temple of Veeshan even when I could, didn't want to tank my dragon faction.

I don't think I'd have lasted nearly as long on any server but FV since it had removed the NODROP ruleset. What would later be called "bind on pickup" elsewhere to me was and is toxic. "Bind on equip", sure.

An aside, but to this day, I still check WTF Comics at least once per week to see if it's had updates, though it's been well over a year since the last one.

Tawmis

Quickblade said:

I first played EQ in the summer of 2001 (Velious) on the Veeshan server, and I quit for a few months, but when I was drawn back in I started on the new FV (role-playing) server, and I played for about a year through Luclin. Took off for about a year just before PoP came. I came back and found PoP had totally changed the game, played for another 2 years until I was burned out again. I went back for about a month in 2007, and by then the game was unrecognizable to me and only about 3 people I knew still played.

Planes of Power did change the game... a lot of Druids and Wizards were upset by that expansion, because the need for "ports" went away. You could just run to one of the 'spirals' and wait 15 minutes (at the most), and it took you to the Planes of Power - and from there, you could teleport down to pretty much anywhere you wanted.

Quickblade said:

I played Ranger. Soloing was hard, but doable.

My main was a Barbarian Shaman. Loved it. My first character was a Ranger, however. It's when I saw a Shaman with the 'spirit wolf' pet - that I said, "Well, now I am going to change." I was only like level 15 with my Ranger, so it wasn't a big deal.

Quickblade said:

Everquest, for me, set such a high standard for "hard" and "grind" that I laugh when people tell me "XYZ is hard/grindy". I never played WoW (In fact, I made a personal vow I never would. Yes, I'm still salty from 2004 when the mass exodus to WoW/EQ2 happened).

I think anyone who spent anytime playing EQ, laughs when someone says another MMO is difficult.

Our guild was ripped apart because of WoW. Almost all of them jumped to WoW - but the problem was, you can't group with opposing factions (Alliance and Horde). So half the guild wanted to play Alliance, the other half Horde - and it pretty much ruined everything for the guild. We made two different versions of the guild on WoW (The Appointed, our EQ guild name; and the Disappointed for the Horde version). Eventually both guilds fell apart as people left to join other guilds, because we were so fractured.