My first experience as a newbie

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Inusaa, Apr 26, 2020.

  1. Inusaa New Member

    So I completed the gloomerdeep tutorial just to learn the game, which helped me greatly, then I started a new character straight in the troll city.

    And God, what a world between this beginning area and the previous area. No quest journal to tell you anything, I'm very happy I noticed an npc journal to record all dialogues, because there was no informations about that in the previous tutorial.

    So, the very first adventure zone, which is the swamp, is looking like a hardcore end level of any " modern " mmo, with dangers everywhere.
    Mobs that are attacking you from far away, that are calling their friends, and swamps everywhere to make you wonder all the time how you can retreat in case of problem.
    Oh, and there is also very high level agressive monsters quite well hidden, so you have constantly to pay attention to where you go.
    I really love it.

    Ironicaly, there is no other players in this zone, but the kind of " vanilla " feeling makes it very alive.

    I tried to do as many quests as I could, because I suppose it's the best way to get stuffed, and I realised only after a few hours that the " bugged " npc that doesn't reply to your keywords are just asking sometimes more than just clicking on those words, but to make a proper sentence.

    I'm very very happy that the little kid that I was in 1999, that didn't know English, didn't know how to play, and didn't even have a computer, is now able to enjoy this game so much. As much as the passing time allowed me to enjoy this game. Because of course I wouldn't dare saying it's the same as the old days.
    But I'm very happy to start " properly " and learn the lore, and how to " play everquest ".

    If you want pictures of my adventures, I took screenshots on Steam, my name is Inusaa.
    You can comment them but please don't write to me in the Steam overlay while I am playing, I want to keep immersion :)

    I hope to become a great Everquest player and make friends with you :D
    Herf, Valdest, Duder and 4 others like this.
  2. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    Taking from the EQ bible (Prima's Official Strategy Guide) "Everquest: The Ruins of Kunark".

    [Grobb
    Grobb, the starting city for Trolls, lies at the far southern tip of Antonica. Compared to a busy metropolis like Qeynos, Grobb is relatively small and somewhat limited in resources, but residents are able to find all they need in the way of necessities like food, armor and weapons.

    Innothule Swamp separates the Troll city from it's neighbors. Newbies who quail not at the thought of slogging through decaying flora and fauna might find this a very rewarding place. Not the spot for a second vacation home, perhaps, but potentially lucrative nonetheless.]

    I believe snakes will generally leave you alone and good thing too as a lot are poisonous, at least in slightly higher level areas. But yea, everything else wants to kill you. ^^! I do not believe Trolls have ever been an abundant race, although there is the city of the Ogres not too far away, so it is generally quiet compared to other races like Humans and Elves for actual real player interactions. And those sounds of the swamps I find soothing. ^^!

    What is your class by the way?
    Inusaa likes this.
  3. matouoli Elder

    welcome to EQ, what server did you choose?

    there are many eq info's out there :
    almarsguides , fanra , allakhazam , eqresource , eqtraders , raidloot.com and many more.
    Inusaa likes this.
  4. Inusaa New Member

    Ah, cool to have a bit of lore, thank you :D
    It's cool to see you again on one of my topics, I really enjoy reading veteran players, and see their nostalgia like you do.

    Yes, snakes were horrible, I noticed they can give you until 3 stacks of poison, so I try to kill them as quick as possible, because even once they are dead their poison can take a big part of your life :D

    I am shadowknight, I love hybrids characters and putting debuffs until the points people become so weak and pathetic, so it's the perfect class. I also love trolls lore so I am very happy to play this race and this class.
    Also, Cazic Thule is the best, I will go visit his temple, since I saw it's just west of the swamps.

    I finally finished my horrible swamps adventures, but there is still mystery npc there then I should return one day to see what they are about.
    But I will still visit it from time to time to try to find this legendary fungus guardian a shadowknight master asked me to kill. I tried to look everywhere in the swamps for hours but never found it, so I was wondering if it was a bug. But apparently it's not, some monsters are rare to spawn, and they can even be killed by guards :(

    During loot, I found a lot of very strong items giving stats everywhere, but I refused to use them and sold them all, they don't look vanilla items.
    Even the first piece of shadowknight armor I managed to create have much lower stats, but I use it because I finally got it from long adventures.

    ps: After talking with one troll in the troll city, I finally understand where this elf pie story come from :D

    Thank you very much, but I try to not use any website for anything. Unless I suppose there is a bug or there is an unsaid rule about for example this fungus guardian I tried to find for hours. I just checked if this quest was bugged, not where he would spawn.

    I play on the european server, Antonica Bayle something :D
  5. Herf Augur

    Once you get to a lvl where it's safe to travel, you may want to go one zone over to Oggok, the Ogre city. They should be either friendly, or at least dubious, so it's safe. Oggok is bigger than Grobb and has better vendors for things, including items needed for recipes.
    Inusaa likes this.
  6. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    This is a noble goal, but I will at least warn you that especially in very old content, a lot of quests have extremely vague information provided to the player, and there are a LOT of extremely rare and hard to find targets out there. Even after using web resources to determine exactly where you need to be and exactly what creatures you need to kill in order to spawn what you're looking for, it can sometimes take hours, and hours, and more hours until you actually find your target. A lot of these quests were designed with the idea there would be a large community of people who could share information with one another. "Oh you're looking for a Priestess? Well I saw one on tracking as I ran through Felwithe, maybe that's her?" etc. Some quests would be nearly impossible to just complete start to finish on your own with absolutely no information from anyone else, and they weren't really designed to be done that way. This changes significantly in more modern expansions, where most tasks use the quest window and have step by step explanations.
    Whoops, Herf and Inusaa like this.
  7. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    I was wondering why a lot of my quests were not saving in the journal. They did not do backwards compatibility, only the new ones to keep a log of the quests? I just started writing down who wanted what and where like I did back in the day. ^^!

    And although I am the same with not wanting to get too powerful a weapon or piece of armour unearned, be aware sometimes you would come across this in Classic where one high level guy was going around killing the mobs much lower then them, but much higher than you and left. Any reasonable troll would of course rummage through the dead to find anything useful, if nothing else but to sell. Of course any respectable player would shout first to make sure that the person doing the mob killing had no intention of coming back for the loot.

    Then again if you still feel that is too much of a leg up, just leave it there. Some of the stuff sells for good plat, but even that would be helping too much. I just stay away from those who want to openly give you something more powerful. They mean well, but do not understand our mindset, sort of like S&M. ^^!
    Inusaa likes this.
  8. matouoli Elder

    @ inusaa . when we start to play this game, sometime we want to try another class, ect, i would suggest you to not choose the same account , just create another account and start another toon there .

    at some point later , you might want to try to box , and not having all your toon on the same account you could add some to try to box later.

    i started with one too for quite some time, then i added another one to box , then i went to box 3 then 4 and now i play 5 .

    many times i play them outside group to help on dps, ect , to kill mobs faster when i am grouped with friends or guildies.
    Inusaa likes this.
  9. Aradar New Member

    Also consider a progression server when next one opens up later this year. I think you would like that, since all those zones you are visiting now will be full of players.
    Inusaa likes this.
  10. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur



    But how Classic would the servers actually be? Are they truly like they were back in the day, as unforgiving as ever- where money weighted you down, armour was basic at best, death meant a corpse run and a resurrection, wizards served a very unique purpose, Sense Heading has to be leveled as it does not start maxed, no map or compass to hand hold you through the game, starting stats/perks/exp penalties count, the graphics are forced to old, etc. Or they are modernized where it feels like Classic, but is not Classic?

    If it is truly Classic, do they become more modern as they really did back when the expansions first came out and thus unlocked on the servers? Or as stated above, not Classic to begin with so the transition is not much, only basically zones and spells are unlocked and opened to the players?
    Inusaa likes this.
  11. Herf Augur

    Something to keep in mind: when Kunark first came out, most of us were still playing at home with modems that required us to stay on our phone line to play. My dad complained that he couldn't get through to me in the evenings :).. So it was a long time ago and the feature set of the original game was very primitive. You probably don't want to relive the world where:

    - when you died your stuff stayed on your body. They could not drag your body, but you could give them permission to LOOT your body and bring your stuff to you...if you trusted them.

    - leveling was VERY VERY slow. And certain lvls such as 30 were even worse due to a math error which was eventually fixed.

    - what was it, lvl 50?, was the highest you could go. Sebilis was a very dangerous area to go to get the good high end gear. Seeing a lvl 50 in your zone was like seeing a God :)
    Inusaa likes this.
  12. Inusaa New Member

    Even if the game on the " normal " servers is not as epic as it was before, for me it's still much more epic than all the modern games. We litterally have to be carefull all the time, about anything.

    I hope the modern expansions of this game are good, what do you think about those ?

    Oh, I crashed for the first time, and it was during a fight. At my big surprise, the game didn't disconnected me, but teleported me " in the future " a few second later once internet worked again. So it's very cool I Don't need to disconnect the game and launch it again, which would take so much more time it would be mortal.
    Whoops likes this.
  13. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur



    Actually some of us do. Imagine a game where each race and class served a purpose. Each zone, especially starter ones, a reason to be born there or work the mobs in said area or be closer to a bigger friendlier city. Some classes could only bring home the bacon, as it were, by doing corpse runs, rezzing, pathfinding, warping, finding and opening/disarming locks/traps, crafting, etc. If nothing else it helped to fill out any short comings they otherwise would of had due to expensive gear, spells to purchase, harder to group in certain situations, were weak on their own, less aligned guards/factions, you name it.

    Now choosing an Ogre for it's frontal immunity to physical stun is not as important as it once was, in fact with souped-up gear and or AA points you can get the same effect and you will get there much faster due to power leveling, skipping over much of, if not all the old zones. Being a Troll that regened faster is not so much a deal breaker and especially, from what I am being told, exp penalty is now non-existent. Being born in a starting city has completely lost it's purpose or even appeal. Why call on a wizard when you can just use a book to teleport? Why ask a necro for a corpse run or a cleric for a rez when you do not lose much, if anything any more. All those risks and rewards are now taken from you. The community less dependent on one another. It has become, dare I even utter the words, a completely different game and one more akin to the other ones it tries to mimic, when others were mimicking it in it's golden years.

    Playing a game where each choice really mattered. Where you had to put your money in the bank and any extra items otherwise they would greatly hinder you (money used to weigh a lot, best thing to do was exchange all your loose change for plat) and could potentially be lost. Now you go willy-nilly into battle or into a dangerous location and only worry about a little exp being lost instead of an entire day's worth and possibly all your gear, some really good stuff. Maybe the higher levels are different, correct me if I am wrong.

    Team work was really needed back then. I am not saying it is not now, but back then it was a must. The community as a whole all played the same game. I am not saying there were not power levelers or griefers, but certainly not to the extent that there are now. People used to role play as well. That has become, from what I have seen anyway, nonexistent. Maybe they are all doing these glorious things on the higher planes. But the core mechanics have been changed and I dare say not for the better.

    If you took Classic, as it was back in the day and compared it to the modern EQ, besides the lore and base characters and window dressings of the zones, it is a completely different game. So
    many servers and not a single one stuck on Classic (I am speaking of only Trilogy, maybe Luclin) and it is something people have been clamouring for years and have since went elsewhere to get their fix. Yes level 50 or 55 I can not remember, those people earned their place among the pantheons of walking mortal gods. And it was a good day to be graced by their favor. ^^!
  14. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    They are not classic. They are not designed to be classic. They have a LOT of modern quality of life improvements that did not exist back when the game was new. Universal chat channels, compass, in game maps, lfg system, faster xp, no gear retrieval upon death, instanced raid zones, extra versions of popular dungeons to accomodate the large population, raid window tool, and a lot more. From the tone of basically all of your posts, p99 is the server for you. Some players prefer as close to a "classic" experience as possible, while sacrificing these quality of life changes the live game has made over the years. Players like you. Some players prefer the "classic-esque" environment of playing in classic zones but with modern changes. Accessibility of instanced raid content and /pick zones for dungeons, etc. are hugely important for players on TLP servers who would like to be able to log on each evening and be certain they have access to the content they want to do.

    If you're a stop and smell the roses, do low level quests, spend 10 hours grinding one level, naked corpse running, nostalgia seeking type player, play on p99. Just avoid the raid scene there unless you're a no lifer. Which by the way being a no lifer is fine if that's your thing. A lot of us on TLP's want a chance to just enjoy raiding with our buddies without having to set up batphone sytems to get good targets.
    Shanarias likes this.
  15. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur



    So if nothing Classic is in these progression servers, quite literally from your explanation, and I thank you for taking the time to explain it, why are there progression servers? If it is not Classic, why bother in the first place? It is by choice that people jump to the other planes, dimensions or what ever. If people really wanted the old content with the new handy interfaces, why would they not just stick around the old zones to begin with? I'm not getting it. :oops:
  16. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    Because hanging around old zones by yourself is a lot less fun than hanging around them with thousands of other players. "Forced progression" type guilds, i.e. saying "we will stay at level 50 cap and only use classic gear!" on regular servers just simply aren't successful. They don't draw enough players, the server xp rates are very inflated, there's always that temptation to "cheat" by using a mercenary or some out of era gear, etc. On TLP servers, thousands of other players are starting totally fresh at the same time. There's no millions of plat already circulating in the server economy. Everyone is on a level playing field. There's hundreds of groups going in classic zones at all hours of the day. There's dozens of guilds clearing the current raid content for your era, in lots of different time zones. It's a completely different, and far better (imo) experience than just restricting yourself to old content on a regular server.

    EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention Agents of Change and Mitigation/Presence of the Mighty. Modern TLP servers feature Agents of Change to spawn raid instances on demand. These do not exist on regular servers. This allows every guild on the server to schedule their raids at a time that works for them. No 24 hour dragon monitoring to fire up the batphone. You log in and kill the dragon when it works for you. And Mitigation of the Mighty is a TLP specific buff that all raid bosses have. It vastly increases their damage mitigation. With all the modern changes to EQ, classic raid bosses became a complete joke to kill. They were just simply not challenging. By adding MotM, your overall raid dps essentially decreases by around 40%. Presence of the Mighty decreases your entire raid's resists so AE's are harder to resist. Again this is generally considered a good thing to keep the raid content somewhat challenging, and none of these things exist on regular servers.