Creating my first character. It was a gnome warrior named Sajax. I spawned into Ak'Anon, tick... tick... tick... whirrr....tick..tick....whirr.... all the noises just kind of come over you. You realize at that moment that you must be a gnome. Your clockwork slaves, spiders, and minions that ride inside of these metal objects are just the product of cunning tinkering. You then ventured outside your home town. To witness the evil of Norrath. You're first encounter was a walking skeleton. It laughs at you as you attempt to smash it. Eventually, its bones fall to the ground only to find a new combatant: A kobold, and it has friends, you meet up with another player named Zilbus and began to find victory. Upon achieved rank and level it is time to venture elsewhere. You would search for a druid or wizard to blast you into the unknown. A new continent, plane, existence? I ended up in Greater Faydark. Alas, on top of the tree city I found a bank. Of course I had no money - but who needed money when there was so many individuals running about! Shouting and auctioning their goods. The lads getting drunk and falling off the tree bridges in a stumble of ignorance. A friendly elf handed me a crafted breast plate and some gnome skin leggings, I wasn't sure if it was sarcasm, or if she really skinned gnomes... Oh, nostalgia. Why can't we spawn in our home cities and get experience bonuses like Crescent Reach, is lore bad? Why did they have to implement Plane of Knowledge and eliminate the need to communicate with Wizards and Druids? Why did they make the bazaar automated? /sadface
I recently ventured into the cities of Rivervale, Qeynos, and Freeport. Wandered the old lands. No one... not one person, was in old Antonica. It's like those zones are there for nostalgia and are completely forgotten. They are ghost zones now.
Because if there doesn't happen to be a Druid or Wizard available, it could take an hour or more for a group to get together. I love to log in, play for an hour, and log out, and without PoK, SL, and Guild Hall teleporter, that would often be impossible.
Spawning in your home city gave you a sense of belonging, I started with a human wizard, whoever knew humans were so Blind! Getting lost on the sand in EC in the dark (way too close to the undead) that a Paladin had to come rescue me.. oh those were the days! Where did chivalry go? Maybe I lost it when I accidentally ported my entire group from Highhold Keep to Greater Fay..Oops! Or was that my first Paladin I killed in a duel.. Now I get told to run into a room first... I'm an Enchanter, seriously? (second main) Where's my pocket Paladin? Tunare - I tried not to kill you! I looked the other way in PoG, so I didn't see you die! (had nothing to do with being an illusioned enchanter) lol Bring back home city spawnpoints please, put life in the dead zones.
Gold players can choose racial home towns, but Crescent Reach is Metropolis a great melting pot where any race family can have its child start and grow up to be a hero (or villain). Currently much of TSS is hot zones, and I find that quite convenient, it might even be a good idea for those zones to mostly remain so and new hot zones be a second option to encourage diversity and more exploration.
Yes but the progression from Crescent Reach is extremely boring. If I was attempting to market "new players" to a diverse game, the entire aspect of making "home cities" plausible and provide the same experience as CR should at least be a thought.
I am just glad that I was there at the beginning and could make those memories and get that sense of belonging to your city/race. These memories, this familiarity with old starting cities and zones is what makes me come back to the game every time(after playing other games). I often revisit the old cities and zones and occasionally to the odd quest here and there. Everquest Lore is wonderful in its own right, I love those local, non-epic quests, with a touch. But the trickle of new players is simply too small to populate the starting cities *and* make a memorable experience of it. Back in the day, when EQ was almost toppling over from its own success, sometimes up to 5k players were trying to play on their server *at the same time*. Now those are numbers that you need when you want hustle and bustle in no less then 12 starting cities! And there was! Today, that is almost unheard off, also because the population gets sharded into instances, and most games have very few starting cities anyway. I would love for new folk to experience what we experienced in those days, but I do not see how it can be done anymore. Actually feeling conscious(and proud!) about your starting race and region/city, and getting a sense of attachment.....that is the stuff MMO's should be made off.
I think those of us who played from the beginning will always have some kind of extra connection to EQ. The world felt much bigger back then just with 1 continent than it does today. I wouldn't go back but it was incredible.
Early memories when Kunark was released: Was in Dreadlands killing chickens, playing a bard; I started shadow stepping the group. No one could figure out what was going on. I was cracking up watching the group getting ported small distances out of camp.
A lot of that nostalgia comes from being unfamiliar with how the game is played, and exploring new zones, when you don't know much of anything, there's mystery to it, that feeling of not knowing what's going to happen, there WAS danger in exploring new zones back then. when you get to know how things work, you become comfortable, and things don't have the same impact on you as they once did. I think we all want to recapture that good old EQ feeling, but those days are long gone, it's still the same game, you're just used to it now, and there's not many surprises left, or real danger like there used to be. There probably won't ever be another game like the original EQ, so be glad you got to experience it in its early days You can get that feeling starting out in other mmo's as well, but EQ imo tops em all.
To be honest I never felt that Crescent Reach as a metropolis, more like a mall, there is a few tents and the ruins of an old Pre fall of Zek Ogre City (actually the inhabited part I am spending a lot of time is one building), but Crescent Reach just feels like a gamey quest hub, which it is, the classic cities from EQ felt like cities, in fact Freeport was Detroit of Norath.
