From then to now, differences you remember

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Idget, Apr 30, 2020.

  1. Dracolindus Journeyman

    The advent of corpse summoners, grave yards, guild portals and instanced zones EQ.
    When I first started, I created my toon in Qeynos. My friends all started in Freeport. I really liked my name, so instead of making another character, I decided to run from Qeynos to Freeport.
    It was the scariest and most exhilirated I'd even been in a video game and I died over and over. However I was determined to get to Freeport, and to do it with this toon.
    Its what got me hooked. Because it was so dangerous, and had real, harsh consequences. At one point I made it to Highpass. The Gnolls got me and I had to start all the way over.
    There were also other people who saw a level 5 paladin die,and they were sympathetic to my plight that helped me get to Freeport, which was my first experience with random strangers, and their willingness to help.
    In the grand scheme of things, this was a boring story with no real drama or intrigue, but to me it encompasses what made this game so special, and why no game can ever duplicate the loyalty the EQ inspires in people.
  2. Wuvarien Lorekeeper


    10000x this



    Back during OoW when someone joined your group and had their 2.0, you just sat back and thought "This is going to be an amazing group"
    Voktar likes this.
  3. Zinth Augur


    Well...

    1. /consent gave the person permission to LOOT your corpse, not to drag it
    2. LoIO was newbiezone exp zem and was great to level in
    3. No RAID window, raid leader kept pen and papering the groups and the wizard grp got the exp
    4. killing guards were a thing
    5. Faydark full of red corpses because mages summoned plate gear and gave out to newbies
    6. camp/group lists like you mentioned
    7. no global channels
    8. portals required fragments to cast
    9. buffs required peridots to cast
    10. Oasis of Marr !!!
    11. Old Freeport, trading at the bank
    12. EC Tunnel selling crap at T1
    13. finding stuff on the group ppl dropped!!!
    14. losing your corpse in lava and getting saved by a kind necro
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  4. Tucoh Augur

  5. Monkman Augur

    Forgot the levels but it was like 14/36/44 when your buffs changed colors. I remember the first time I cast a buff after hitting lvl 44 and just felt a huge sense of accomplishment now that I had all these colors coming out of my hands.
    Funky and Voktar like this.
  6. Voktar Journeyman

    @Monkman: Agree on this. There where 3 buffs particle levels i think: 1 to 19, 20 to 39 and +40.

    The change of particles was epic. I remember my jaw dropping after seeing the first lvl40 lifetap spell graphics.

    Old spell effects rock! i disklipe very much the new ones.
  7. Chopin.Xegony Augur

    I remember you started with a red name because of the discord book that every newly created character started with in their bag.

    And I recall my father always reminding me to destroy that book.
  8. Iven Antonius Bayle

    • Alot players did hate to have a rogue in the group because of pickpocket and it was common to demand: "No pickpocket plz !" ...suuure ! :cool: With two rogues in a grp the mobs never dropped diamonds. :D
    • There was no Advanced Loot System in the past and every corpse had to be clicked and looted piece by piece.
    • All good loot did get rolled with a dice (/ran 100).
    • About every group did had a master looter and often those did steal alot items and coins. Honest MLs with a good reputation were very welcome in groups.
    • Groups was called parties and when a new one was formed it was common to introduce the class and its level.
    • Run speed was slow and about everyone was begging for a SoW buff.
    • No mounts until Shadows of Luclin. The first mounts was just horses and had to be bought in the old bazaar for up to 105k pp which was more money than most players did had. Maybe the biggest money sink in EQ history. The money sink was maybe the main reason why mounts got introduced.
    • Other classes beside druid and wizard had to travel between Antonica, Faydwer, Odus, Kunark and Velious by ship which was called boat because the one of the Ocean of Tears looked like a viking boat. When a ship spawned in the zone players on the docks did shout "BOAT !"
    • It was rare to have items with effects like Ultravision, See Invisible, Enduring Breath and Levitation and races like human and barbarian had serious troubles to see anything during a night.
    • For the first years there was only a standard UI with a natural resolution of 640 x 480 available which could interpolated (stretched) to 800 x 600 and 1024 x 800 but most players only had a screen resolution of 800 x 600, playing on 14" and 15" CRT/Tube screens. TFT/LCD screens was very expensive and uncommon. Even regular CRT screens of a good quality was expensive.
    • Most players did not know that it was possible to switch to the desktop while playing on most operating systems like Windows 95 and maybe this was even unpossible in the first few years. This had to be done with Alt-Enter like now but the mouse had to be releases also by hitting Alt-R and Alt-Shift-R.
    • The game was alot more immersive because of the point above and other reasons. Player characters was not just called "toons" like now, instead the players did identify themselves with the player character which even caused serious psychological problems to some players.
    • Players who were not native english speakers made use of english dictionary books alot which did slow down chat conversations. I even bough myself a digital translator and it got used primary for EQ.
    • Kelethin was a dangerous place because or roaming orc centurions and players falling down from the tree city. So many corpses below Kelethin. :D
    • There was "only" midi music inside the game and no mp3 until Shadows of Luclin. The devs even developed an internal mp3 player later (/mp3, /mcicontrol [file / driver / device]).
    • Freeport, EC (East Commonlands) and Kelethin were the primary hubs of Norrath and alwayys well populated. About all servers had their bazaars there. While it was NFP for Drinal it was EC tunnel for Antonius Bayle and Kelethin/GFAY on some other servers.
    • People did farm bone chips and bat wings in zones like West Freeport and Greater Faydark and sold them in stacks of 20 for a few pp to necromancers, shadow knights and classes who had the Levitation spell. There was always a high demand for them.
    • The Hill Giants hill in the Rathe Mountains was the place to go for farming big amounts of cash and always camped by a few players. The location of the hill giants got changed after some years.
    x (x)
    Aenvar likes this.
  9. kizant Augur

    The use of 'toon' to refer to a character was common even in early EQ. Anyone who played a Diku based mud prior to EQ would have been used to it already.

    The worst part about the old UI was having to stare at your spellbook to meditate...
  10. SunDrake Augur

    It was all very, very dark.
  11. Whulfgar Augur

    I miss the deadlyness of old school play..
    Eaedyilye and Nennius like this.
  12. Caell Augur

    As a lowbie chanter in Greater Faydark, I used to like to charm a hornet and send it to attack the PoD, as long as you didn't attack the PoD he would not attack you, but it would then cause the guards to attack the PoD, was always fun to see who would win, and have other players asking in shout "Why are the guards fighting the PoD?" They eventually nerfed this behavior, which was a sad day.

    Sentinel lagging out people.

    Dropping a coin on the ground then casting minor illusion, pick up the coin you dropped and then wait for people who would to try to pick up the "free money" on the ground but couldn't since it was you.

    Ah those were the days, when chanters had a few tricks to play on other players.
  13. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Good times. :)
    Whulfgar likes this.
  14. Zinth Augur

    never called groups for parties

    but another thing I remember is that all Luclin ports could only be cast ON Luclin, except for the Nexus one, which cost double the mana of all other port spells... So to getting from Norrath to anywhere else than Nexus on Luclin was a 2 port jump and took huge amounts of mana
  15. Whulfgar Augur

    The nostalgia is not content driven.. but player driven..

    Getting into or forming up a party becsuse you heard a forrest was haunted and high lvl werewolves hunted in it at night..

    Taking a grp there not having maps .. and none of us high level at all.. but all of us excited to just be there..

    And every one of us typing in grp chat.. zero voice channels discord or ts or what have ya.. made the feelings of the moment just that much more surreal..
  16. Xyphen Maximum Augur

    That one time /pizza let you order from Domino's

    Trying to kill a mob before my brother's gf called and disconnected me
    Whulfgar likes this.
  17. Sissruukk Rogue One

    Playing on TZ when it first went live, and having to run and bag your gear instead of staying to fight a higher level toon so that you wouldn't lose your bronze armor/weapons.
    Whulfgar likes this.
  18. Idget Lorekeeper

    I was on Povar and the place to trade was in front of the bank in the yree city inGfay.
  19. Velisaris_MS Augur

    I was on Povar back then. :) You either crowded around the Kelethin bank, thereby making it impossible for someone to actually go in there and "bank", or you sat between or around the wizard spires spamming your wares on the /auction channel.

    Good times.
  20. svann Augur

    bard had to do alot
    1 1, 2 2, 3 3, 4 4...
    And in between those
    equip: sword, lute, sword, drum, sword, etc
    Whulfgar likes this.