New Player... should I TLE on Mangler?

The first expansion, Ruins of Kunark, brings three new cities, but there's no major benefit or drawback to being evil. The iksars of Cabilis basically hate everyone except themselves. There is a necro specific quest in Cabilis for the Demi Lich Skullcap which you'll need to faction up if you want to do, but it's not any sort of game changing item. You won't be welcome in Firiona Vie (good aligned city) but this is made up for by having access to the evil aligned Overthere outpost. These two small cities basically each serve the same purposes, the most notable of which is buying some level 51-60 Kunark spells. As long as you have access to one city or the other (or just know someone that does or can just roll an alt yourself) then you're fine.

There's some minor differences depending on your race in starting Coldain/Dragon/Giant factions for the second expansion, Scars of Velious, but it's very easy to swap sides if you choose.

For the third expansion, Shadows of Luclin, you'll be KOS in the cat people city of Shar Vahl, but that's irrelevant. Who wants to hang out there anyway? Also slightly lower starting faction in Shadow Haven, but it's very quick and easy to build faction there. And everyone is neutral in The Bazaar anyway which is a centrally located hub with vendors/bankers.

After that all new expansion content is completely race/alignment neutral as far as I can remember.

You didn't have to spell it all out in detail like that... but ****, I appreciate that!

One more thing and it seems like a lot of debate all over any resources I could find (due to softcaps etc), stat allocations for Dark Elf Necromancer -
25int/5stam or 25stam/5int or other?

Firstly keep in mind that long term the choice does not matter at all. The only consideration is some slight min maxing at different stages of your character's progression.

So, definitely don't put them in anything besides INT/STA. I guess there could be a slight consideration to go STR to increase your carrying capacity, but that's only really relevant super early on when you're hoarding rusty weapons for every shred of cash. And it's just not that important since you can always Origin/gate to sell stuff. So definitely focus INT/STA. Before any bonus points you'll start with 109 INT which is a decent starting value, and 65 STA which is pretty low. If you dump the max 25 into INT and 5 into STA, this will help you more very early on before you have much gear. Raising your mana cap is better than raising your hp cap, yes even as a necro who can lich their hp into mana. So for classic era, especially the lower levels, INT will be more beneficial. But the only reason why this isn't the slam dunk definitely correct choice is that later on once you've geared up some, it will be a lot easier to hit your INT cap than your STA cap. This is due both to the lower STA starting value and due to itemization. You'll typically be wearing a lot more +INT gear than +STA gear. This will lead to a point somewhere between Kunark-Luclin depending on your gear level that your INT is capped and your STA is not. So during that time period with capped INT, you'll be (slightly) better off with the increased hp cap if you pumped up STA at character creation. I don't recall how much HP difference this actually is, but it's rather small.

Then once you get around PoP-Gates or so, again depending on your gear level, then both stats will be capped and we've entered the land of nobody cares.

I might suggest either starting out on another TLP and playing around a bit in classic zones before it launches or playing for free on one of the live servers also sticking to classic zones until it launches. This will give you a feel for things so you are not literally starting out day one as a complete newb trying to just figure out the UI and such. As much as people are going to say "welcome" they will also turn their backs on you just as quickly if its obvious you don't have a clue. Not saying everyone will do this but there are a lot that will.

Try out some different classes to figure out what you might enjoy. Keep in mind if you play for free on live while you wait there might be some features available to you that wont be available on the TLP such as the extended target window. Also know that you will start out in crescent reach on live (unless you pay for all access which you can then change your starting city to your home city instead). In the event that you go this route simply find the plane of knowledge and use one of the stones to find your home city and act as if you were never in those zones. Find the soul binder and bind yourself to your home city and then start exploring from there.

Once you think you have a good idea about what class you might want to play you can either use the class section of the forums or the TLP section to get some class advise in advance. Hopefully enough people will answer what ever questions you have so you are prepared on day one the best you can be. Most classes in classic are not all that complex but some do require significantly more skill and knowledge than others to play. Good luck and welcome to the best game ever created imo.

Thanks Xyroff!

Thank you!

This is such a good idea. I'm assuming we can load up a saved UI to the new server, and just learning this will save a lot of prep time too!

Yes, you can. In Options, general tab, there is a button to copy layout from another character.

I am not sure about copying from live to a TLP but TLP to TLP should not be an issue.

Honestly I question the veracity of many " new " player posts on this forum... If you were truly a new player you would not even really know about the TLP servers unless you know someone that plays the game already. They require a sub and most people try EQ for free before subbing.

You take the time to post at the end of the thread without reading the very first post within that outlines my experiences as a new player as well as my experience with Time-Locked servers.

I don't really care what you question about me or my post, but unless you have something to add to the conversation you're basically coming off as some troll clown.

Wow way to help the community and the game there debbie downer. Who cares if they are truly a new player, a returning player, or a veteran. If you actually like EQ you want it to succeed and it needs customers aka players to do this. Its people like yourself that are wrong with the community trying to run people away before they even give the game an honest try. There are more than enough threads for you to troll so why don't you go pick one and go to town playing your level 10 forum warrior.

Another quick update with my personal 'getting started with EQ' saga - my friend and I are having a lot of fun with the struggles of class/race combos and limitations (since we plan to level together), so are now at a pairing of Human Necro and Barbarian Shaman.

We plan to jump on a TLP server over the weekend and test some things out. I'm pretty excited to try out Fishing, although I've yet to really look into any Tradeskills yet.

Sincerely, there is endless thanks here for all the help that has been offered.

Just a quick suggestion about fishing look into bandoliers and making a fishing macro. I don't know when the bandolier unlocks on TLP but here is a basic fishing macro I use with a bandolier (not sure how to macro? Do some google searches EQ macros <Fanra has a nice wiki/almars guides has some nice info/lots of other pages on the web also)

/autoinventory
/Bandolier activate fishing (please note you need to create a fishing bandolier)
/doability # (on your actions box there is an ability tab and six ability buttons. Default one of them to fishing. The # depends on what button you assign fishing to. Top left 1, top right 2, middle left 3, middle right 4, bottom left 5, bottom right 6)
/autoinventory
/autoinventory

As long as you have enough fishing poles and bait on hand this macro will replace any broken fishing poles, autoinventory anything in your hands since you cant fish with anything on your cursor, and fish. You can also add pauses which you will learn about if you don't already know or you can just spam the button several times which is what I do to cut down on some of the boredom of fishing.

Bandolier was unlocked as a feature on all servers from launch, so you're all set there. Although Saints may be the first person in history to be "excited" about fishing in EQ

I was thinking the same thing. I hope he isn't as disappointed in the rest of the game as he surely will be in fishing.

ROFL!! My fishing expectations are at an all-time low, some mmos don't even attempt fishing anymore. Most games just botch what probably should be a chill gathering experience that lets you socialize while doing so and that sure beats jumping squares in Ironforge.
FFXI had some of the best fishing imo. Lots of different equipment with rods, bait, lures, and the catches were quite different depending on location and skill. On top of that, most catches had some kind of purpose for cooking, crafting, or otherwise.
But no, my hopes could not possibly be any lower, lol


-Does anyone know of any good resources to find some information lore?

I found a busted up timeline on allakazham, and many other sites don't even load. There is some zone information on there, and that is pretty useful: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/zone.html?ztype=Outdoor

I'm not a big lore junkie, but I like to take a look at it. If it contains EQ2 lore that would be fine, unless the lore doesn't really cross over since there is a gap in the timeline?


-Out of curiosity, what is the basic difference between TLP and Live (apart from the obvious things like new zones, etc)?
Did EQ have exp nerfs that change the leveling flow/make early game obsolete like so many other games do?


If any of you plan on playing on Mangler I will be glad to demonstrate my skills from all the information provided here by drowning in a lake while trying to collect my fish, getting KOS by guards, and getting stuck in the sewers, for your amusement.

This should just about do it... although note it doesn't have the most recent xpacs but I doubt you'll find anything better.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ths-lore-guide-1-the-history-of-norrath.2959/

And comments/additoinal info on that thread here:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...mments-on-beimeiths-lore-thread-go-here.2960/

Okay okay I lied... one last one for now:
http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/lore/

good info in this tread

Yeah! It really makes coming in to this a good experience!

Holy smokes that is a lot of information! Welp, see yas on the 16th!

EQ lore is pretty decent up until the point they decided to do a horrible crossover episode with EQ2. This mainly occurred with COTF and horribly again with TBM. They slightly redeemed themselves after that with EOK & ROS by playing the nostalgia card (and because dragons zOMG~!). I can't speak to how well TBL is put together but I was not impressed even though it was a return to the planes (which they could have done sooooo much with).

Access to content is the biggest difference. Also, some game features are restricted until you reach certain expansions. The extended target window is a good example -- on live, you have a window that lists all the mobs that are on aggro, and you can click the names in the list to target. That's not available on the TLP's until pretty far in.

For xp, it's kinda the opposite of what you mentioned. They have boosted XP on live so that new players can catch up more quickly over the years. It currently takes only a handful of hours to level 1-50 on live. The TLP's start out with XP slower than live, and gradually move toward the live rate as the server progresses.