If I started playing EQ today...

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Will Power, Jan 5, 2015.

  1. Will Power New Member

    as a Free to play member how far can I progress with out paying a Sub?
  2. Lighteningrod Augur

    Depends upon what your definition of "how far" is.

    Without paying for a subscription, I've had 9 Silver accounts for over 3 years since FTP was launched. I've leveled 10 characters to various levels between 80 - 90 and up to 4500 AAs. I have been extremely pleased working my way through various Achievements, the Hero's Journey, and older content I didn't get to see before. All at an average cost of $1.70 per month per account in un-lockers and a few housing trinkets. This is an average cost per month per account. Out-of-pocket expenses vary from $50.00 to $100.00 in a lump sum to capitalize upon Station Cash sales for whichever accounts need something the most, usually AA un-lockers.

    Without paying for **anything** at all, ever again, including un-lockers. Not very. I wouldn't even bother unless you plan to re-roll alts 1 - 55 indefinitely.
  3. Brohg Augur

    Content isn't subscription-locked. Without purchasing the expansion, you can go to level 100, and do content through Rain of Fear expansion. That's fourteen years worth of game there, or was if you warped back to play it as it released :p If you do purchase the expansion, you can go to level 105 and do all content including Call of the Forsaken and The Darkened Sea. All without subscribing.

    What you will not be able to do without subscribing is train all your AA, or equip Prestige-tagged gear, or employ a good mercenary. These things are variously limiting based on the class chosen, especially vis-a-vis the "no Prestige" thing hitting tanks hard.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  4. Will Power New Member

    How many levels were there originally?
    The reason i'm asking is cause I'm a DC Universe Online player on the Playstation 4 and the way their DLC's work you get to go some where else to earn more to buy gear and so forth. Like DLC 1 gave us the ability to have something else to do to speed up getting marks with out replaying the same content with 1 or 2 different places to go.

    How many levels can a beginner Solo through?
  5. Borek-VS Augur

    Original Everquest was 50 levels. The way content works (now) is that there's very little discernible difference between Free and Gold with all expansions apart from a few zones and 5 levels (I mean with respect to content, not the Free account restrictions).

    I'd guess that a beginner with a Free account would be able to solo (or with a merc) to 65 with ease, and to 75 with little trouble, possibly a little dependent on class. Solo classes should be able to solo to 100 without unlockers/J5 mercs, but I wouldn't care to attempt it.

    If you are happy to spend cash on monthly subs any time you want to max out your AAs, then you could get all of your AAs to 90 with no problem, but would still be limited to non-prestige gear and a very weak merc.
  6. Jeanmirac Elder

    LMAO!
    Compared to 'Freemium' games like Clash of Clans - Gold account on EQ is a bargain...

    My name is Dennis <Hello Dennis> and I was a clasher for a year... <heads nod> but I've been clean for two months... <cheers!>
  7. Crystilla Augur

    Going to answer this a different way.

    Maximum level right now is 105. You *can* get to level 100 without paying a dime. As folks have said the difficulty in doing so rises at varying levels. Expansions are separated from the actual subscription (or free to play). All but the last 2 expansions are currently given out for free. Expansion purchases will include any prior expansions not yet obtained.
    • So for example, as a free player you would have access to everything but Call of the Forsaken and The Darkened Sea. You can't purchase CoF anymore but you can purchase TDS and then you get CoF as part of it.

    The first 10 levels or so you can do fairly quickly in the Tutorial. Once you exit the Tutorial to Crescent Reach, there are quest lines you can follow (called Hero's Journey) which will net you gear you need as you complete series of quests. These quests take you at least up to level 85. Note you don't have to do them - you can just kill in zones (and zones have named you can kill for drops) but the quest gear typically will be better in some ways than the regular zone drops.

    Hero's Journey starts to become a little more challenging to complete in the 50's I found when I took my druid through it. She's upper 50's so far so I can't speak on how the later levels of the quests are for her.

    Level 61 nets you the next highest level of cleric hit point buffs (something some people are interested in).
    Level 85 is another great spot because it means you can now join in heroic adventures, something available in the last/most recent 2 expansions (if you do decide to purchase the most recent expansions). Even though the expansions are level 100-105 expansions, they backfilled these instances down to level 85.

    Some classes are easier to play than others, and some do require more time spent on developing the character. AA's (alternate advancement) are not tree branches; you can obtain every AA your class can purchase with enough time. You don't have to choose what branch to go down. Basically that choice is made in your character selection and then can't be changed ever.

    Many people don't pay a subscription at all; due to things called Kronos. They're initially purchased from SoE and then can be resold inside the game to other players for plat, etc. So some players just farm the platinum to purchase these each month. The price on them has skyrocketed recently so that's not as viable an option as it once was, but it is an option.

    I've never purchased any of the unblockers from the marketplace (all my accounts have always been paying) so look to other people to address those challenges on how far you can go.
  8. Will Power New Member

    Thank you for the time it took you to write this.

    Anyone out there know how to turn my game into window verison?
  9. Crystilla Augur

    Do you mean a windowed version (so you can see your taskbar, etc.)?

    alt enter will do that (it toggles you in/out of window mode).
  10. Will Power New Member

    Thank you very much will it stay that way or will I have to Alt Enter every time.
  11. Crystilla Augur

    I don't play window'd mode myself, though sometimes I have used it for one reason or another and when I log out and come back, I'm still in windowed mode.

    So I *think* it stays but best listen to someone else who uses it more often.
  12. Will Power New Member

    I just reached Level 5 it told me to create a hotkey called Origin and I used it and now I'm in a Village and I want to get back to the Mine what do I do to get back there?
  13. guado Augur

    It does indeed stay in window mode if you leave it that way. :)
  14. guado Augur

    Camp, shortcut ctrl x, and at character select, click Enter Tutorial.
  15. Will Power New Member

    Thank you I'm such a Noob.
  16. guado Augur

    No problem. Everyone starts somewhere.
  17. Will Power New Member

    So any way I can turn my D-arrows on my keyboard into Camera controls I don't like having to use a Mouse to turn the camera.
  18. Crystilla Augur

    I forget if the window selector screen is up at tutorial. But if it is, on the left there's something called "options". Go to that and one of the tabs midway through allows you to change keyboard controls. If it's not there, the square EQ box click that and you'll see character options as one of the vertical menu selections.

    If the selection turns red it means something else is already using that control. (Note you can still use it then but may want to double check what you're conflicting with).
    Yther likes this.
  19. Yther Augur

    Alt+O is the shortcut for Options window. The window selection bar is Ctrl+W I think. Maybe Alt+W, as I never turn it off, since it has the email and mercenary buttons, that I've never learned the short cuts for.

    EQ button has almost everything on it as well.

    http://www.onlinegamecommands.com/everquest/everquestcommands.htm
    http://www.onlinegamecommands.com/everquest/everquestshortcuthotkeys.htm

    Those pages are older, so don't have all the newest ones, but cover the majority and the default settings, unless you change them under options for the shortcut keys.

    Not sure if you can keyboard the camera other than switching the views via the F9 key. Some people like using it. I don't in general game play. I seem to remember the option to set side view keys, as I recall at one time, I had Home and End on the numpad set for them, that was handy (or I'm thinking of another game).

    Anyway, hope some of this helps.

    Yther Ore.
  20. Brohg Augur


    CotF HAs available from level 75. Since Thanksgiving or so. Carry on.