Have you ever spent a vacation or TAKEN a vacation from work to play EQ?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Buford T. Justice, Feb 26, 2018.

  1. Buford T. Justice New Member

    I did.

    A long, looong time ago, my guild announced that we would be breaking into the Plane of Hate. We planned on grinding out plat for 'port stones for our Wizards and the last bits of gear for our main tanks for a few days, then on to PoH.

    I used up a week of vacation pay at work and took the week off to play EQ.

    It was a GREAT vacation! I bought a ton of junk food (relax, I still went to the gym) and bought a few DVDs (this was before Netflix). I admit, I played for at least 12 hours each day, but I helped a ton of my guildies get gear, and made out very well myself. When it was time to confront Plane of Hate, I was more than ready.

    I was the main Shaman, so you can imagine how many times I died slowing things. Back in those days, the slower died almost as much as the MT. It didn't matter. We killed Inny on our first try, and everyone had a great time!
  2. Fohpo Augur

    Don't at least one of the hardcore guilds do this regularly for new raid races? I know it's relatively common on games like WoW and was on Wildstar.
  3. Poledo_EQ Elder

    This is what 90% of my vacation has been for 15 years. I met my wife on EQ, we play together here and on other things. I can't really afford a real vacation, so staycations with the wife and video games is time well spent.
  4. Wizlard Augur

  5. AlaskaJay Lorekeeper

    I was in between jobs when Nagafen (EQ2 PvP server) came out. Due to where I was at financially I chose to take about 2-3 months off before diving back into the job market.

    Got a few friends together to grind out tradeskills at server launch and back when EQ2Players actually kept track of that kind of thing our guild of 7 was the richest guild on the server even months after we got burnt out and quit. Many of us were server or Qeynos side firsts at cap for our respective tradeskill. I even remember forum posts about how I was a botter or a no live basement dweller. Despite sometimes logging in to lists and lists of materials with associated items requests that would sometimes take 2-3 hours to work though before "playing" it was genuinely one of the best times I have ever had in gaming.

    Jacob the Jeweler lives on in fond memories.
  6. Thoxsel Djess' Pet Warrior

    Yupp just recently with the RoS release. We were a guild group. Definitely doing the same next expansion. :) Was anti-climax though to get it ALL done in a mere few days... including hunter and all (not bugged) achievements.
  7. CrazyLarth Augur

    I think a lot of peeps would due it a new expansion. I try to take some time off during that time if work lets me.
  8. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    I did last year for Agnarr's launch. Was worth it.
  9. Qbert Gallifreyan

    I used to take a few days off (usually Wednesday /release day through the following Monday) for a stretch of about 8 expansions.

    I receive approximately 6 weeks vacation each year, and I don't like to travel, so I otherwise just cash in the days at the end of the year anyways instead of taking time off.

    TLDR: EQ no longer takes any significant amount of time to get through the group content that is beatable. There is less to do, and since I am not a raider, there is no reason for me to rush to max level/aa like I used to do in days past, thus obliterating the "need" to rush through anything.

    -----------

    I no longer take time off for releases for a few reasons, the most prominent of which (for me), I'll list below. For the first time in 15+ years I'm strongly considering investing time into an alt. Aside from my main character (about 1,000 days played) and my bazaar trader, I think my characters combined have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 hours played total, most of which are my shaman making potions and my gnome enchanting/tinkering/researching spells (before hybrids could make any spell/tome). Doing something twice in game (for myself) is not generally something I'd consider a fun time.

    1. I no longer raid (I raided from the earliest content/release (Naggy/Vox) to and including T2 Underfoot when all were current content). This means I no longer "have to" acquire max level as soon as possible, and I can leisurely work on aa points. Sadly, as with many recent expansions, I've already long-since maxed out my level and aa purchases. I don't even need/want to use as many glyphs as before, since they haven't all been updated to be effective up to level 110. Thus, I have less reason to grind more mindless experience.
    2. The expansions have come to provide less and less content over time and less and less time is needed to complete the group side. With a few notable exceptions (quests from some anniversaries . . . /rude the year that only raid content (Krasnok) was introduced, the quests out of the housing zone, the familiar quest in RoF, etc.), the quests have devolved into a very simplistic state. Note that this does not necessarily mean easy (hi, every GROUP mission in RoS that I probably won't beat until I'm level 115 or higher), just not very interesting/complicated.
    3. Related to #2, some of the content is exceedingly difficult when current and doesn't match my play style. I don't complain about it, I just accept it and wait to do the offending content when my relative power increases come in subsequent expansions.
    4. Since I have no route to obtain RoS group currency unless I keep repeating Cresta's task through HS/ST (and I haven't tested to see if it even gives me more currency), I don't need to invest time to upgrade some of my type 5 augments since I have no means to obtain them.
    5. Related to #2, because there has been an ever-dwindling amount of content, I have had that much more leftover time each expansion cycle to go back and clean up old things. This used to mean clearing up old raids solo/duo/trio . . . but that has been unavailable since Underfoot for the most part, since there is seemingly always a blocker raid that requires a minimum amount of people (larger than I can put together, at least - example BT tradeskill side raid, Feerrott raid, etc.). Again, not complaining, but it is a disappointment not to be able to at least bang my head against content to overcome any issues with time/levels.
    6. There used to be "chase" items (to use a dev's verbiage) that were still very rare but far less random. Those are the kinds of chase items I wish we still had. I don't chase the CotF/TDS/EoK/RoS rares because (a) it is a crap shoot and (b) there is no way to focus on getting something you actually want instead of something your class can't use. Examples include DoD rares, SoF rares, UF rares in some cases, and RoF items (though, for the latter two, the rare items were also rarely in the mission chest for the zone, so that made them less difficult to "farm"). If certain subsets of the EoK/RoS chase items were equally/more rare, but could each individually only drop in one zone and its related instances, I would be FAR more inclined to chase them.
    7. I have a lot of achievement points (28k?-ish), meaning I try to do most content, however trivial (read: all the content I can, less raids). I'm sure raiders have far more points than me, but that's to my point directly: so what? There has never been any value in achievement points, and I have to assume there never will be since extremely time-consuming endeavors are worth fewer points than some trivial tasks/steps (e.g. 10 points for Artisan's Prize).
    8. Wealth has been essentially been made worthless for me (and I'm sure many others). I don't dabble in Kronos, just platinum . . . but it really doesn't matter. There is very very little to buy that I don't already have, and some of the things I might buy (the items referred to in #5, among others) are too valuable/sell for too much to appear in the bazaar due to the price cap. I do not want to sit and watch the general channels for months to find a seller of an item I want to have. Granted, I've spent a lot more platinum in RoS at the onset of the expansion versus years past, but that was mostly before cash loot was added to zone population. Since that was added and I already have my t2 group visibles/non-visibles/augments/all quests, less VP/no missions done: I have tens of millions of platinum and counting with almost nothing to buy. Yet again a reason not to want to play as much as I used to play.
    eqgamer likes this.
  10. Febb Augur

    I'm usually traveling or doing something else besides playing games when I vacation.
  11. Kahna Augur

    Yes, I get significantly more vacation time from my job (30 days a year) than my husband (2 weeks) so unless I want to go do fun things without him I end up taking days off to just hang around the house. I don’t have a choice about using the days, if I don’t they poof, and I get to explain why I am not taking the time off I have earned. I don’t want to get lectured, so I take the extra time off and spend it playing games during expansion releases.
  12. svann Augur

    And the server went down!
  13. Aurastrider Augur

    Just got back from a 3 day mini vacation. I brought my laptop to log in during the evening and get my fix. This was my first "kid themed vacation" and lets just say by the time evening rolled around I felt like I had just went 12 rounds in a cage fight. My oldest who is 2 1/2 kept me running non stop all 3 days and I am fairly certain she managed to stay awake longer than me which is sad considering I work night shift and am usually up until well after the sun comes up. I don't think EQ will be in any of my future vacation plans unless I take a week off just to stay home for a little R&R because this was certainly not relaxing but it was a blast seeing the little ones having so much fun.
    Nennius likes this.
  14. Nennius Curmudgeon


    My wife and I have two 1 1/2 year old twin boys and I think EQ has helped me to retain some sanity. So far, anyway.
    Aurastrider likes this.
  15. Aurastrider Augur



    Mine are 2 1/2 and almost 1 and EQ is the only down time I get to relax and escape the grind so I can relate. As time consuming and frustrating as this game can be it really is a nice stress reliever when I stop and remember that its just a game.
  16. elumxe Elder

    I've taken a day or two off every month the past 18 years just for eq related stuff ;) it's addictive for sure...
  17. Critts Augur

    Yea! I wish that daybreak would announce new Expansions sooner so I could take some time off in advance. To many people that I work with take vacation around that time for me to wait for an Announcement.
  18. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    I never have, and never will, TAKE a vacation to play EQ.
    RL takes precedence over EQ anytime. (and i would never race lockouts for that very reason either)

    As probably most though of course i have spent PART of a vacation (especially when it was just a long weekend) playing EQ.
  19. Tachyon Augur

    Never a vacation, but many regular weeknights and weekends!