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Everquest 2019 (A Trip Back In Time)
After a lack of good MMOS, I decided to revisit the first game that started it all for me as I am sure it did for many. Everquest has come a good long way since it started back in 1999. 20 years and numerous expansions later, you can see the age-ness of the game but a visit back brought back fond memories (for me anyway) of what seems to be missing in a lot of MMOS today. Norrath is still rich with quests and endless things to do. There are now so many zones added on that I really couldn't even remember where half of them are now. Lucky for me, I had started a new druid a long time ago on the Firiona Vie Server when SoE started giving out free level upgrades to level 85; so this enabled me to at least see some of the new zones without incurring insta-death whenever a mob looked at me. Trash mobs now seem to have hundreds of thousands of hitpoints, summon, and hit harder than the Hulk on drugs. But to me though that was 'ok' since I wasn't intent on staying for long and grinding my way to the new level 110 max level cap.
But the game does still have a way of drawing you back in and soon I found myself hunting for the old familiar named spawns, Severilious, Trakanon, Kelorek'Dar (miscellaneous dragons), Griegs, Inquisitor Seru, etc. It was the old urge to hunt down named spawns just to relive the old glory days of hours long raids just to take down one named mob, but this time solo. And this was when the biggest change of all to the game and the community hit me. See, as time progressed and the player base drifted away, SoE opened EQ up as F2P. This was coupled with the free upgrades to max level which many people took advantage of. Some would say by necessity (and I tend to agree with this to a certain extent) since there was now an insufficient player base that people needed to box multiple characters or they wouldn't be able to get much of anything done. The other side of the coin to this is that when you have just one person boxing, e.g. a full group of max level characters, there really isn't anyone in the group to be a voice of reason or conscience. Thus I soon discovered that practically everything level 70 and below was permanently camped by these players. And I do mean 'perma-camped'. Daybreak, the company that has taken over from SoE, has apparently made it clear that they do not recognise camping of mobs. Basically it means that it's a free-for-all, so if you can out dps the camper and get the kill then the mob is yours.
This of course is unrealistic since it is unlikely that a solo player can out-dps a full group, even if everyone was on an equal max level footing. The option of course is to simply purchase multiple max level upgrades to multiple free accounts and basically move around in your own full group to kill steal. After 3 weeks of off and on gameplay, I decided that perhaps there was no point to trying to kill these named mobs since all I wanted was to have a trip down memory lane. And so I started a newly minted ranger and started leveling in the old zones, e.g. Blackburrow, the Karanas (Yes, someone was sitting on Quillmane for the few days that I was killing Aviaks), and even Stonebrunt. Leveling these days is also very different from the old days. Granted the FV server is supposed to have a permanent 50% xp boost but even then the ‘Dings !” came so hard and fast that I soon found myself stuck having to powerlevel with my druid. Remember all those perma-camps ? Well there goes any plans you may have had for twink gear. Luckily, SoE had enough foresight to make sure that random gear dropped off trash mobs (Defiant gear) which would enable you to at least have some gear as you progress. Even then though, you will find yourself out leveling anything you can pick up
Very soon I hit 50, we’re talking a matter of days without any real dedicated gameplay. And so I thought to chase down the ranger epic. The start of this quest was fine since it was mainly solo but the wall soon came when it required drops from mobs in the Plane of Hate. This was when the impact of those ‘perma camps” really hit home because these days, there is now no such thing as camp checks or even a semblance of respecting another person’s camp. It will not matter that you may have spent hours clearing the ph because if the named spawns and someone else zones in and sees it, they will simply kill it. From the chats I have seen, apparently this is now the trend on all servers, where basically kill stealing is the norm.
So if you are a returning player or a new player wanting to try out the grandmother of MMOS be aware that, you will be quite restricted to simply leveling and enjoying the travel through Norrath. Anything that you may need to do which requires any sort of contesting with another player for a mob will likely require you shelling out a lot of money to auto upgrade your characters to max level 85 in order to have a chance in the contest. Remember though that these other players will likely be level 110 so even then your chances of winning the contest are slim to none. You could join a guild to get some assistance but then, it’s very likely that the players doing all these kill stealing are from those same guilds that you are intending to join. So, if kill stealing and perma camping isn’t your thing then perhaps EQ is not the game for you to consider as a long term investment in both time and effort.
I will admit that it was fun to return after such a long absence. Hearing those “Dings !”, or Fippy Darkpaw going “I will not let you ruin our lands !” and tagging Hill Giants all over again did bring back some very fond memories. But like everything else in life, the past is history and you can never ever go back again. It exists only in your own mind and sometimes all you can do is rifle through those memories like old faded photographs and remember the days when MMOS were great.
Oh, a couple quick points on what's new -