Returning Maybe - But KS'ing and Boxing ??

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Newcomer2019, Jun 22, 2019.

  1. Newcomer2019 New Member

    I played on the Tribunal from 1999 to 2004, and thought about returning to EQ, now that I have retired and have a lot of free time.

    I'm currently in the middle of downloading the game, however, while doing so, I have been visiting forums and other websites, trying to get a feel for what EQ is like now.

    With that said, I am actually being scared in not returning, due to so many posts about 'kill stealing' still a problem, and also players using multi-boxing in order to gain an advantage on the solo player by 24/7 campinging areas, training others at a camp, etc.

    If these issues are a problem, I'd rather not come back, as I am just looking for a relaxed gaming environment.

    One would think, that after 20 years, they have changed the game to where once you tag a mob, it was yours, and not a 'dps race' to see who gets the kill.

    Could any of you help with this? Talk me into staying, or confirm that EQ has these unaddressed issues.

    Thanks, before I begin wasting my time. Maybe the old saying is correct 'you can never return home' ... ?
  2. AcemoneyFV Augur

    Those kind of posts only apply to TLP servers.

    If you play on any LIVE server, these problems will likely never happen to you. I have never encountered these problems playing on FV for years now.
  3. hellohello123 Lorekeeper

    Don't waste your money. Game is dumbed down now, community went to hell too, devs are , and it is all being run by Russian money laundering . Get EQ E M U LATOR and play it offline. Or play on the new P99 Green server.
  4. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Agree with Acemoney - stay on live servers and you'll be fine. Plus the added bonus of being able to start off free to see if you like it. You have to pay to play on TLP. If you start in the tutorial you'll have a good base for how it works

    If you don't like it you can quit and your not out anything unless you can't let go and continue to haunt the forums with posts that are never helpful and just full of derogatory comments about the game, the devs etc.
  5. Fluid Augur

    Every instance of what could be interpreted as kill stealing I have seen on tlp servers has actually been a case of camp claiming. If someone wants it all, they just take it by having an inappropriately high level character for the spawn steal your kills until you go away. I can live with that.

    Most of the behavior is diluted. If you stay out of the main chats you will avoid people talking about having sex with your mother, talking about you having sex with your mother, how many people your mother has sex with, you get the picture.

    It's actually a pretty civilized game in its current incarnation. I've had people actually apologize for tagging MOBs I had engaged. Even tlp servers, I have never had so many characters apply free buffs in my entire history of playing. If you could play 1999 to 2004, it will seems like a different game played by mostly decent people in comparison.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    If you're concerned, just stay FTP for a while. 23/25 expansions are FREE. That's a lot of content to go through since your last login in 2004.

    Live servers have plenty of room and a smattering of groups of all levels, many are returning players like yourself. As Fluid mentioned above me, most servers are filled with good people and civility abounds. There are a few bad apples, but if you just accept that not every minute of gameplay will be perfect, you're in for a lot of fun!
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  7. BlueberryWerewolf Augur


    To be even more specific, the really toxic game play only is really occurring on whichever TLP is new and in the Classic era, which is Mangler at the moment, because that content becomes extremely limited and crowded now with everyone knowing where they are supposed to go and what items are worth chasing after. I don't think even Selo, which is just as new as Mangler but started in a later expansion, has that problem.

    A new TLP is just basically a Wild West Gold (Krono?) Rush server with the extremely limited in-game policing done by Daybreak.

    At the same point, I had a lot of fun playing casually on Mangler for a little while but the nostalgia bug really wore off as I ran out of things to meaningfully do in Classic content.
  8. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    To clarify, I have since moved to Live (Xegony) and have been playing there pretty steadily over the last month or so.
    code-zero likes this.
  9. Ebine Augur

    I have been on coirnav since launch. When I first came back I started on Vox but also had 2 chars on cazic thule/Brell. I 3 boxed on Vox and was able to get up to lvl 60 as FTP. I hardly ever saw anyone on that server. Moved back over to CT/Brell and paid so I can get my prestige items working. If you were a raider before you quit and try and come back to your original chars as FTP they will not have use of any prestige items you got. Not sure if you were playing when we started to get a mercenary for help. You can use the FTP Mercs till around 60 or so.

    TLP
    I only ran into issues if I was trying to do certain things.
    1)Camping epics even though Velious will be an issue.
    2) Items with large stat numbers. 10 int item from karana comes to mind.
    3) Key camps for VP
    4 Key camps for Vex thal
    5) Open world mobs. (That is some peoples thing though)
    During my normal play time I only ran into an issue maybe 3 times in 6 months.

    Other issues with TLP
    They start out with lots of Krono farmers and people
    There is a large population that only plays though PoP and then starts over again on the next TLP
    By the time GoD roles around there will be guilds starting to eat guilds.
    Once a new TLP comes out the last TLP pretty much is just as hard to lvl up a low level char as Live.
    Actually maybe harder since you can multi box on live and have to true box on TLP

    3 months on Cor or mangler and are an active raider you should be full high end items.
    I was in almost full Velious and am now in full PoP armor.
    I am only a 50% raider.

    Only other question to ask if your going to live is do you want to raid.
    Then see what raiding guilds need what you want to play and if they take recruits.
    If end result is you want to raid then I don't think population matters as much.
    If your just playing normal group game just pick a server with a good population.
  10. Ebine Augur

    One item about Coirnav. At end of july we get GoD. People will be starting lvl 1 beserkers.
    So there will be a lot of low leveling going on. We also get an uptick in exp.
  11. Silver-Crow Augur

    In a nutshell,

    TLP's are great if you've been away a long time, as you can often find one at the stage you were at when you originally left. The older ones are quite mature and generally have a stable population. The newest ones always have the highest population but a high proportion of these are krono farmers and 'entitled' -hats, so be warned.

    This year is a bit different though in that 2 new tlp's were released instead of one, Mangler and Selos.
    Mangler has the highest population.. but has all the 'drama' about bots/farmers/kill stealing and -hattery. Selos on the other hand doesn't have this issue, but has a lower population (But still decent). Whether this is because there's less bot armies and krono farmers, or less people like the ruleset I don't know.

    However the TLP population is fickle, and invariably jumps to the newest TLP when it's released... the jury is out on whether this is down to chasing nostalga or plain old chasing krono.

    The Live servers are all top heavy, so you'll be grouping with yourself and a merc for around 100 levels. There have been a lot of changes over the years too, so live may seem a bit confusing especially with all the new aa's and abilities. Pick your server well too as many have a very low population... check the eq status page for population levels and jump around a few to see how many are online when you'd normally play. What you will find with live... as with the older TLP's like Phinegal, is that the population is stable, and you won't see the same population boom to bust when new TLP's land.

    If you've been away since 2004 (around discord/oow) my advice would be to jump on to either Selos or Coirnav. Both are due to jump to Gates soon. Selos has fast xp, double faction and double named spawns... and releases an expac every month. Coirnav is slow xp and an expansion ever 2 or 3 months (2 months if there's no level increase, 3 months if there's a level increase). It really depends what your taste is. I should point out that Selos has plenty of guilds not trying to keep up with in era raids, so don't worry about falling behind.

    Live is also valid, but it will be a lonely experience for a long time.
    Beware of the Firiona Vie server... it's always busy, but the economy is very broken.
    Brekt has the same ruleset as FV (everything is tradeable) but it's very quiet.
  12. Herf Augur

    Try Agnarr. The population is smaller, but consistent. Most of the jerks moved to newer TLP servers. The people that remain are helpful, generally free newbie buffs in pok, and there seems to be a slow but regular generation of newbies (usually alts). Only downside is that finding groups up to lvl 20 can be challenging. Not a problem. Get to lvl 10, get some DS buffs in PoK, go to Kurns until lvl 20.
  13. Rasbis Lorekeeper

    I wanted to respond because ONE of those KSing post was probably mine but let me be more specific. I play characters on Coirnav and Povar. For the MOST part either server has been a good experience. The main problem I see is the "power leveling" services where I'm convinced is where my problems came in on Coirnav. I, like you, started playing in 2000 and stopped in 2004. I was able to have my original account restored, which now I realize was probably a mistake, so I play on Povar where those toons were restored too. My adult son plays on Coirnav so I started a toon there.

    Once again, sure it is pretty upsetting when someone acts like a jerk with their high lvl toon but in reality my particular instance turned out alright. The guy tried to train me twice and failed. His third attempt he ended up dying himself so who ended up looking like the jerk there?

    What others have said about TLP and Live is somewhat true. Folks on the "live" servers have been most helpful. However for the most part folks on the TLP servers have been helpful as well. As far as "boxing" I will not admit or deny participating in the practice myself. HOWEVER due to low server population sometimes boxing is the only way to advance. On Live servers especially and is and accepted part of the game now. One thing to keep in mind, at least from my perspective, there are two different EQ games now, old and the new. The new "Live" servers are really a different ballgame and require a different style of play.

    Anyway, I have rambled on about nothing here, good luck.
  14. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    You should mention that Agnarr is an Era locked TLP server, it will never go beyond the PoP era (LDoN is the last expansion that unlocks).

    The first point which you mention would not apply to the OP, they only played until 2004 (the year GoD & OoW came out), prestige items (excluding augments) only start with T3 SoD gear. Similarly, mercs also did not come into being until SoD, so the OP doesn't have experience in EQ with them, but otherwise the quoted part about mercs is fine.
    Why is having your old account back a bad thing? I could understand if you said subbing immediately possibly being a mistake, but having your old account back doesn't really have any drawbacks, especially if you eventually decide to let it go without a sub for a period of time.

  15. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

  16. Rasbis Lorekeeper

    Well I enjoy the old accounts BUT I found myself on a server with a smaller population and everyone is level 110 and most their alts are well over 90. I ended up doing two heroic upgrades for my highest two then found that really didn't help as I still had no one to group with.

    I did develop a way to play boxing three diff accounts with their mercs. It is a blast. Then my son talked me into creating toons on Coirnav so I don't play on Povar much anymore. Point being is I could have just started a fresh account on Coirnav and ended up in the same place I am now.
  17. Fluid Augur

    hehe, having second thoughts about Agnarr myself. I've grown to love boxing vs jumping through hoops with multiple computers/truebox. I love AA auto grant with a passion, that or I really hate paying for time sink AA grinds. I love mercs too, really make it easy to enjoy the game. Logged into Agnarr last night and someone was selling Staff of Elemental: Earth loot rights for 2 kr or about $30. Yeah, right!

    I also logged into Mangler and while it was a great experience interacting with the people, took me like 10 hours to go from level 22 to level 23 with a Magician because of the Research only for pets in that range. I did get Research up to 50 something but hit a wall when I couldn't get the rare drop components.

    Then I remembered I had a few characters on Phinny. Logged in there and rambled a level 20 Magician to level 23 in a couple of hours. Didn't even notice they had Mercs available until I was done for the evening. :)

    Sometimes I just don't know what the best situation would be for me. I really enjoy tlp servers but mostly because of the type of people that chose to play them. I would have thought Agnarr would be a good fit so I could take a break and not come back so far behind people, my characters would be useless. I still enjoy the game of course. I may recruit one of my sons to play the second account for a bit to get me by the rough spots.
  18. AnzoRagespirit Augur

    Don't let any of these people lie to you, if you come back to the tribunal (bristlebane now) you will hate life. You'll have no choice but to gain your own box group and the guilds that say they're " family friendly and help with progression" are full of s*** they are full of cliques and if your not in them you're being ignored.

    As for camp stealing and KSing on tribunal/bristlebane if your in current content or even some spots in older content, you will be KSed and camp stolen if you want I can actually give you the names of who to look out for and what guilds they're in.

    So yah in MY opinion don't come back your better off finding a more modern game and if you do come back don't come to the two faced cesspool of bristlebane.
  19. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    You are welcome to join us on Xegony and in particular we would be happy to have you join us in Lions of the Heart.
  20. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    What time do you usually play? That tends to have more to do with finding groups a lot of the time. Also, did you attempt to look up any of your old friends in game? Groups today, far more than in the past, are a matter of making friends and getting to know people. Also, just going onto the server and saying in chat either /ooc or the General chat channel that you're just returned will usually get you some help and have people who can likely point you in the direction of guilds that welcome returning players on your original server.

    Also, you would not be in the same position if you had started a fresh account. You're old account was grandfathered in as Silver; so if at some point in the future you decide to stop your subscription you will not lose access to as many features as you would have if you had started with a fresh account.