Hello all. After some time away, I am hoping to return to Norrath. Its been a long time! But I swear to this day my fondest memories adventuring in a video game was and still is Everquest. I haven't played in a very long time, and I am a bit overwhelmed here with all the changes, AA, spells, game features, even the loot system is new to me. So any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hope to be boxing a 2 toon team on Live servers. I read up on mercenary NPCs you are able to hire, but I have not had the chance to see it in action yet. Onto my concerns and questions then - 1. On live, is boxing a 2 man team (with or without mercs) possible or is more required at the higher end level cap? And what are recommended 2 man combinations? (personally I am hoping to make one of them a Shadow Knight). Also, is there still any sort of stigma for Boxxers or has that faded with time? Would a Box team be able to do group content like LDoNs etc, or what is the group content/dungeons now? 2. I do remember AA grinds being the meat and potatoes of the game, after reaching level cap thats only the first step. How many AA's to folks typically have nowdays? And do classes pretty much play the same at level cap, as they do during the level process (tankers tank, shamans slow, clerics heal, enchanters CC, etc) or do some classes wildly change play styles at a certain point? 3. Are Epics still a thing? Or do people even bother doing them anymore? Are they even used at higher levels? 4. I am not planning on hero boosting or whatever it is. Starting my adventures new, from scratch. Will there ever be a chance to catch up or is it forever in the dust? (i dont want to boost and be given tons of spells and abilities that i have ZERO idea how to use.) 5. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, which server? I am a EST player and hope to find an active server with a thriving community and hopefully still has guild recruitment. Are there any recommendations out there? Thanks a ton for reading and any advice and guidance you veterans can give to someone just starting their journey once again. ~Cryptman
1. Just about everyone boxes on Live at this point. The people who irrationally hate boxers are all on the TLPs now. SK pairs well with a Shaman and you can pick up a Healer and a Caster merc, or even just two Caster mercs, to round out your group. 2. You can Auto-Grant most AAs now (turn on Auto-Grant in the AA window and it gives you nearly all of them as you attain the level to unlock them). I think this works all the way up to AAs before the last expansion to increase a level cap. It doesn't include Tradeskill AAs and some others, but it greatly reduces how much you need to grind AAs. 3. Some classes still have really desirable Epics, others don't need them so much and they are more to say you've done them. I'm not the guy to tell you which is which, but someone here can. 4. You can turn heroic at any point along the way, though if you reach 85 and are auto-granting AA, I don't think there's a whole lot of point in doing it unless you're just lagging behind on gear. 5. Xegony and Luclin are apparently the highest population servers. Xegony has Lions of the Heart, which is a very large casual guild that welcomes new and returning players.
I came back a year ago on live. I picked a really low population server. I did a 3 box with 3 mercs. Took me a few weeks to get to 60. There happened to be a 50% exp thing going on during that time. 2 box might be interesting. If you think you can't man another char try an afk bard and just have him play songs will enhance your group without doing anything F2P vs Paid sub. You can get up to the 60s with F2P but after that you really need the J5 mercs. You have more ways to set up the clerics. Your capped at pretty low aaxp F2P. Basically you can play to 60 and see if you want to stay and buy the sub. I did enc/mage/mage it would be nice to have a real tank at times but they are highly aug and armor reliant. Watch the video on the advance loot system on Youtube. it can be confusing Ldon missons. I am 3 boxing with enc/cleric/mage. Takes me about 30 to 35 mins to do them When you get into the 70s somewhere you can look up Teek in PoK and he gives missions out that you get a lot of exp from. SK/Shamen with merc healer. Not sure how the Merc DPS guys are didn't use them much. If you do thee SK/Shamen a Mage might go well with them also. Just send in pet and put a 3 times spell cast on a button with delays in between casting. AAXP I think you get auto granted 3 expansions back or something like that. So it gets you close. I think i was auto granted 1000 or more at 70.
First off thanks for the advice! @Ebine ~ i only have a desktop and a laptop. I dont think i can run more than 1 copy of the game, but i am willing to have 2 subscriptions. Hence, the 2 boxing. About autogrant AA's, unless I am mistaken wont this mean you granted hundreds of AA on a level up? Wont that give you several abilities all at once that you have no idea what they do or how to use them? People dont get confused or lost doing that?
You can box on one computer - most of us are boxing 2-6 or more characters. Don't need 2 subscriptions to do that - most players have main account subscribed and other accounts free to play. Yes auto grant AA will give you hundreds or how many ever that class gets for its level at one time. When you level you will see yellow script racing past saying what you earned. You need to be a subscriber if you want to auto grant and need subscriber to get the best merc - the J5 Everyone has opinions when to auto grant, when to get the J5 merc, which merc to use and when they become useless. But keep in mind that everyone plays differently. My level 108 tank merc is currently tanking just fine on Frontier Mountain named. But that is on my box - for me the healer merc hardly looses 1 blue of mana healing my group there. Over all the best thing to do (even though it seems tedious) is start a level 1 guy and do the tutorial - at least the tasks that tell you about augs, mercs etc - then when you graduate from there continue the tutorial with Out Of Gloomingdeep from Secalna Galnor who is in POK. The reason to run thru those? They will teach you all about mercs, AA, augs, the bazaar, selling, buying, etc. After that you will have an excellent base to start your journeys.
An instance of EQ can basically run on a powerful calculator these days, so you shouldn't have any problem running multiple clients on one PC or laptop. If you do, make sure to set background FPS to at least 60. This will help tremendously when using /follow to move your characters around at the same time.
