I played EQ for many years early on. I have a 70 shaman, 60'ish necro, 45'ish SK on the Luclin Server (Go Sheep Guild!). I watched some recent videos of EQ gameplay, especially the progression servers, and I'm thinking of coming back. Would you all recommend trying to get back into the game at level 1 on a progression server, or maybe continue on with my existing characters (assuming they still exist... downloading the game now). I'm kind of leaning towards progression, even though it will pain me a bit to loose all the awesome items I gained over the years with the old characters. I was way into raiding and have some very rare stuff, especially on my shaman. Although, maybe all that stuff is pointless now? A lot of instant click items for levitation, thorn shields, dots, instant heals, etc. I remember logging in about 5 years ago just to play around a bit, see if I could solo some parts of Vex Thal, and felt quite lost. I had to ask around just to remember how to get back to some of the zones. So that makes me think I should just start fresh and re-learn the game, one expansion at a time. How is the health and community of the most recent progression server? I read it started in March. What expansion is it up to now?
That depends Right now on any of the progression servers there isn't a lot of low level characters to group with. The 2 newest, Agnarr and Coirnav would be your best bets if you wanted to come back now. Coirnav - will have all expansions and is currently on Velious. Slow xp - Wouldn't be too bad to catch up but not a lot of low level players any more, with the slower xp people are creating fewer alts to play. Though when Luclin unlocks there will be a rush of low level players to get their new cat peeps (Vah Shir) caught up. Could probably catch and ride the train. Agnarr - only goes up to Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion. Higher xp than coirnav, The Legacy of Ykesha should unlock soon. People create alts all the time here, but it has an end date since no expansions after LDoN. Maybe an easier time finding low level groups here especially on the weekends. - You can transfer your character off to live servers but a well geared 65 character on Agnarr will be a crappy geared 65 character on live and will have no one to group with till 100... Live servers go upto 110 if you have the latest expansion or 105 if you are free to play or havent bought the latest one. No big deal if your only 70. On live you can try and find a guild to help you out, most servers have at least 1. But you will most likely be on your own to level up from 70-100. Around 100 you can usually start to find groups. Most likely around March of 2019 they will launch a new TLP then. So you may want to try a TLP then or try one of the other 2 or head back to live.
Since you got your old account back it is called a Silver and is free so I would start a new character on regular server and go thru the tutorial to help learn some of the new stuff. Then you can decided if you want to pay to be on one of the TLP servers or stay on your Silver account for a while.
Thanks. "Most likely around March of 2019 they will launch a new TLP then" I think I'll just explore and re-learn until then and be prepared to switch to the new 20 year TLP. I've seen a lot of videos of people using mercenaries. That's something I've never done. So maybe I'll play a week on Cor, then a week with my 75 shaman using mercs and see what feels better.
If you have a level 70 character, you probably stopped playing somewhere between OoW to PoR era. Ragefire (and Lockjaw too) are currently in DoN era (DoDH coming in December) so it would be easier for you to jump into the expac train, so to speak. On both servers you'll find guilds who will recruit you as the population is low. Ragefire has an european centered guild, Darkwind, to offer a harbor to people who play at european times (raids are at 7 PM CET).
Thank you everyone. I've been re-exploring on my main's server for now. Created an alt necro and have been doing the crescent quests. I was tempted to 2box and log my main shaman on for buffs, but discovered that my old desktop pc reboots after 5 minutes playing (long story, I did a bit of debugging and have a thread in the support forum). Ended up being buffed continually by a 2 boxer power leveling his/her alts anyway (Luclin). So I'll just play around on Luclin until/if I want to upgrade and play a TLP. I'll probably wait until the new one, which I assume is 2019 March. Mercs are an interesting new thing to me. They probably existed back when I was playing, but I never had a need for them because I was in an active guild. It almost feels overpowered at times compared to what I'm used to. And sometimes, it feels chaotic because I can't really control their actions precisely. I'm guessing their are commands I can macro to make them wait and not attack, but I'll need to do some reading.
IMO, by the time that they announce, much less actually launch, a new progression server you'll have most likely caught up unless your playtimes are rather unusual, or you just don't make any effort to make friends and (if needed) find a currently active guild. There is no set time for Daybreak launching any new progression servers. If you ask me, the idea of one being launched during anniversary time (March-June) 2019 is a pushing it a bit. A new one being launched would likely depend on some of the existing ones either catching up to Live (not happening anytime soon) or some of them being merged (which is also unlikely). It could happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen till 2020 at that time. If 70 was the level cap when you left the game, then Mercs didn't exist at that point. Mercenaries were added with Seeds of Destruction, which launched in October of 2008 and increased the level cap to 85. Mercs are very useful, be it to fill a group till you find other actual players or to just help you do something by yourself when it is something that you don't want to bother others with. You just have to be aware that they are intended to be worse than players who put in a reasonable amount of effort in most situations, but there are also things that they will do which will make them seem stupid at times.
Right click on the toons in the party window and assign a role. If you are the puller, and you are using a merc tank, then assigning those roles can help in some scenarios. Are you playing your shaman? At 70ish, the game becomes harder by design, and tank mercs become less and less viable. An interpretation is that the game design is intended to help people catch up, so that the hours played before you can play with a max level stays roughly the same. Autogrant AA is key to this. Main advice: join a large “Family/Casual” guild on your server. It changes everything... Also, if you get a new PC and start boxing, there is a lot of threads and videos with tips for that. It beats soloing, but it does not beat grouping
