Hello all. I recently returned to EQ to try out the new TLP servers after a long absence. After browsing the forums, I happened upon a blog about a returning ranger on the live servers (nice reading too). I decided to give a run down of my experience on the TLP side of things, since I am feeling creative right now. A bit of background: I originally started EQ a few weeks before Luclin was released. Of course, being a complete newbie at the time, I had no idea about the higher end content or game mechanics that were changed. I played through most of the early content as a druid, and made it to level 53 before deciding to try a new character (fond memories of snare kiting hill giants and Velious orcs). I leveled a shadow knight after that, passing along some plat and gear to re-start myself. My SK was my first character to hit max level, though that did not happen until after PoP was released. Following that, I ended up making a BST and WAR, with my warrior ending up being my main. Eventually I got into raiding, though I was never on the “cutting edge”. I joined a guild called Sequel, and spent some happy times progressing through raid content. I raided minimally in Luclin (SSRA, never did VT), but mostly in PoP, GoD, OOW, and DoN. Managed to get my epic 2.0 and had a great time, and was pretty proud of my warrior in his golden age, around OOW/DoN. Never was the “top” tank, but for a Halfling he was pretty good. Anyway, upon hearing about these new TLP servers, I decided it was time to come back and give it a shot. After some debate and checking things out, I decided to start up on Phinny, which had the highest population. Though I did enjoy boxing, I decided getting back into the game would be easier with a single toon. I did try some boxing on Ragefire, but found I was very rusty. The Newbie PhoenixSo I have begun my journey anew, with a shiny human SK (I chose human for the location – being next to the EC trading tunnel is awesome). I went ahead and bought a couple Krono, since I was absolutely not looking forward to being a new tank with no gear. I spent about 6k gearing him up. Nothing fancy, but a solid set of gear to help make slaughtering those decaying skeletons a bit easier. Some will say this defeats the purpose of starting fresh on a TLP looking for the nostalgic experience. To them I say: wear some cloth armor as a tank and tell me how much fun you have reliving being beaten to death by a level 2 mob. No thanks! Anyway, I spent the first 5 levels in commons, killing snakes and pumas near the trading tunnel. I even got lucky and found a helpful druid doing buffs at the entrance. Slipped her a few plat, and basically got a free PL from regen and DS as I ran about wildly killing anything that moved. After that slowed down, I found a couple guys heading to CB, got a TL, and charged headlong into battle. I made it to level 9, slashing and stabbing my way through Crushbone. Now this is what I remember! A fond memory here as a newbie was when a cheeky group member took advantage of me and cast invis on the whole group, causing me to run around wondering what the hell happened to everyone. “There are invisibility spells?! What kind of sorcery is this?!” After I had sufficiently sated my appetite for orc blood, I spent an evening in Befallen, my first trip to the zone (ever). After about 15 minutes of solo killing at the entrance, I was able to piece together a group and head farther in. During our slaughter of the undead, we came across an enchanter looking for group with a 60 mage box. We happily let her join and were blessed with a high level damage shield from the boxed mage. We made our way to the basement and starting cleaning up. I was able to pound out 3 levels in about 3 hours, with most of the exp coming in the last hour. I went back later in the evening and managed to punch out the last 20% of another level, and dinged 13. Moving right along! My next target was Unrest, which seems to always have people LFM and has a great level range. I am hoping to make it to 30 in the zone, depending on how the exp plays out.
I made my way to Unrest via a druid port to BB. The run isn’t that bad, which I was a bit concerned with at first. Gotta get used to these old world runs to exp zones! I made it to the zone without incident, simply by following the edge of the map. I do have to be careful about the cliffs, if I simply auto run I will most likely end up entering the zone with half HP, or running into a train and meeting my demise. I found at level 13 I was still in the low end of the spectrum, and there wasn’t much in the way of open group spots. However, after soloing some of the zone in mobs, I was able to piece together a group and camp the gazebo, the lower level camp for the zone. The exp was actually pretty good, despite there being mostly blue con beetles and zombies. The respawn is fast and usually we had a few mobs being killed at once in camp. In an hour or so I hit 15, and we moved into what I found to be called the “MR” or main room camp. I stayed here a solid block of time, slaughtering with a myriad of people. I find that at this point, the camp spots are usually fully taken, with people simply being replaced as time went on. I ended up with a completely different group at the end of the day, having rotated through probably two groups worth of people. I did hit level 20 with about 60% into the level though, so the xp was flowing nicely. I found that it started slowing pretty quickly due to the mob level difference at this point, but we still managed to get a few yellow and red cons. I ended the day a happy camper, and returned to Commonlands via my origin (love being human). Stocked up on a few new gear pieces, and was ready to go again. I logged in the next day and spent some time starting up a boxed character. I decided to go ahead and give it a go, using my wife’s laptop as my second box. Fits nicely on the desk and I don’t have to hassle with another desktop (though getting used to a second mouse and not hitting my main keyboard is akin to learning to juggle). I started an Iksar shaman, hoping to benefit from the added regen. I jumped over to Emerald Jungle, which I found to have wizards running a taxi service most hours of the day. Scored a port to commons, bound in the tunnel, and loaded up on some gear from my waiting SK. While this was going on, I put LFG up on my SK just to see if I would get a bite. A cleric I had grouped with the day before invited me over to Mistmoore, which I had not been to for a long time. I decided to let my shaman hang out for a bit and got a port to BB once again, and headed over (LFay is huge!). We camped near the zone in, which was great for me since I don’t know the zone very well. I found that the mob levels were around even with me, but took a huge jump just a little way in at the graveyard area. Spawn times weren’t too bad, and I banged out a couple levels, ending up at 22.It went pretty well while there, though we did get trained twice and only lost one member, who was bound outside the zone. I would like to try the zone farther in when I get a couple more levels, seems like a fun place. Many trains though, from what I am told. After I headed out from MM, I started bringing my shaman up to speed. After grabbing a regen and DS from a guildie, I waltzed into Befallen and began slaying like a madman. After the DS wore off, I brought my SK over and helped by killing mobs once they hit 49% or less, which is surely not as fast as the old DS/Regen trick. However I got the shaman to level 7 in short order. I am probably going to get the shaman to a level that he gets XP with my SK, then group up and try to even out the levels so that we can hit up camps together and keep near the same level. I figure its going to be easier this way, rather than maxing out the SK and trying to level the shaman after the fact. On a side note, I am really happy that they included Origin as an innate AA you get at level 5. Using Origin to gather new spells and gate back to the Commonlands is leaps and bounds better than having to port over and run into town every time I need to stock up. I usually buy the next 5 levels of spells so I can focus on the exp grind as well. And that is the end of part one of my returning player log. Much nostalgia to be had, and I am really enjoying the strong player base. I will try to keep updating every so often as I level up or reach new milestones.
Spent a couple days leveling up my shaman. Stocked up on spells before heading out, originally heading to Befallen for some group action. The zone was surprisingly empty though, so I spent some time killing at the zone in and eeked out a level, bringing me to level 9. While laying low some skeletons, I got an invite to another spot I had not been to before, the South Ro crocs. Since it wasn't too far of a run, I agreed to check it out. I made my way over and joined a jolly band of ruffians. The group banter was great. This was the EQ of old that I remembered. Not only did we get some great experience, we made some good friends and had some laughs. This reminded me of the magic of EQ - spending some time with strangers, having a good time, and progressing all at the same time. I know with the current status of live servers in the sub-top game, finding a group like this would probably be a near impossibility. Was a very enjoyable time. I managed to knock out some more levels, and ended up at level 15 before I knew it. I headed out, grabbed my next set of spells (got them up to level 20), and called it a night. Logged in again today and headed back to Unrest. Found a group on my first /ooc. Although the group lacked the personality of the day before, we still had a jolly time clearing the bottom floor of the mansion. So much so in fact, we were often waiting on repops. I hit level 17 and a tanking spot opened up, so I brought my SK into the group for my first true "boxing" time with my two characters. Since my SK was already level 22, tanking/pulling was pretty much a breeze. Slaughtered for a bit more and hit level 18 on the shaman, while still making 50% through 22 on my SK. Working on getting my socials set up on my shaman for easier spell casting will be essential. Did make a couple for slowing/nuking/healing, but plan to fine tune this as time goes on and I get more useful sets of spells.
Minor update today. Only had an hour or so of playtime, but I decided to try out SolA and see what kind of adventures could be had. I snagged a port to Lavastorm and made my way in with my SK and Shaman. There were a couple full groups already inside at other camps, but I was able to pull the 3-4 goblins near the entrance to see what kind of fights and xp I would get. I was very pleasantly surprised to find the XP here was amazing. I ended up duo’ing here for the majority of my play time. Even my 22 SK was getting good xp off the blue cons (and occasional white con), while my shaman had better gains off the yellow and red cons. I did have two incidents occur. My SK snare wore off a goblin who ran at low HP and warped through a wall, disappearing from view. He sent quite a few of his buddies to find me, and my SK ate a death while my shaman made his escape. A quick port back and I was in business again. Of course, my poor SK then fell into the lava and had to make a hot swim to SolB. When I got into SolB, I prepared to rush the exit, though I only had about 40% hp left (I struggled to find the way out of the lava pit). As I began my hopeless evacuation, I was rooted by a couple Kobolds. I attempted to use my wimpy lifetap to survive until root wore off, but death was near. As I watched my health hit 5%, then dip to 0%, I knew it was over. I waited a few seconds for the death notification, but nothing happened. I was still alive! I turned around wondering what the hell was going on, to find a level 60 Epic’ed Iksar monk standing over the bodies of the Kobolds. I had no idea where he came from, but he miraculously saved my bacon. I thanked him, joking he was my guardian angel. I turned and looked to see if any Kobolds were ahead, turned back around and he was gone. I made a quick dash to the zone line, then headed back to join my shaman at the entrance to SolB. Killed a few more mobs, ending with about a 30% - 40% gain on both toons. Not bad considering it was mostly a scouting expedition. I plan to return and hopefully join a group or get one going.
Moving this to an actual blog! Haven't decided if I will post updates on these forums still or just remain on the blog. Thanks for the reads! Site address: https://skeetseq.wordpress.com/
just reading this makes me want to play my 16 sk on phinny again.. sadly i never found or was able to form a group while there so decided to go back to my normal server... good to see people legit enjoying themselves tho =)
Glad you guys like it. Looking to do some updates to the format and layout soon, hoping to set it up by era. Will have to see what I can do.
