Hello everyone! Like everyone else in this forum I am returning to the game, admittedly I have not played since 2002 or something and I never got past level 20 - but the game enchanted me back then and made me the gamer I am today, now having rifled through literally every other MMO out there and WoW having completely lost its sense of intrigue I thought I would give the original EQ a shot However! Being Australian, it's a little harder for me than most to find people online at the same time. And being such an old game, I'm sure population isn't huge as it is. Does anyone have any tips regarding servers where Australian people tend to congregate, or, just generally high population servers? Thanks so much ^_^
I'm looking at their website right now! Thanks Crystilla that sounds like a good place to start. I was thinking Vox otherwise, I hear there are more low level people there due to it being a new server? Edit: also, I was thinking of rolling a druid - how do these go with soloing? I will be getting a merc to help me, but am a little torn regarding what class to play. I remember druids being badass because of SoW and all that but am honestly a bit clueless.
Druids are fun, especially if you are as cute as I am, ports, general buffs, heals, nukes, we are rather more of a support and fill the void class these days. As I box a cleric, I get to nuke most of the time, but, my evil enchanter now has superior nukes to mine, still, I have fun. One point in your favor is that you can use a F2P account and if you don't care for the druid, it can be relegated to PLer, buffs and transport. Oh, I hear that New Zealand is a nice place to make a home, except during the floods and earthquakes.
My main is a level 100 druid. I usually say that druids can do anything...just not well. Druids are a great support class in groups or raids. Soloing is a bit tough with druids at some levels. Mercs have made it easier. Druids are one class that can dps and heal in the same fight. 4 buttons for dots: three buttons for heal, and one button for Exodus.
Soap box attack! Everything that made a Druid special has been given away to every other character type. This is a good thing, it illustrates exactly what I mean when I say people complaining about why this or that character type should have abilities taken away kill the game. Yes, Druids SoW used to be the only way other then Journeyman Boots or a personal escort by a bard of getting somewhere fast. Only people that didn't complain about it were bards who could run faster anyway. I never heard a Druid complain about having to hand out 30 or 40 free SoW a night to people. Plenty of people complained it was unfair and Druids were 'overpowered'. Shaman got the same exact spell and earlier too. I never heard anyone complain about Shaman. I can't recall even getting a single /tell on my Shaman asking for a SoW. So what happened? Level 51, everyone gets an AA that lets them run fast. It is good. Yes, Druids got ports, evacuations. Well Wizards got them too. The Nexus was the first move towards anyone being able to move freely across continents and the boat system of travel got a short cut. Now we have PoK with all the ports and things are good. I still run my Druids. Just ran one last night. My Druids are more fun then ever to run because I don't have a million /tells asking for a SoW or a port. Win:win. Now back on topic. Druids are far and away the most useful characters you can have in EQ. They don't do everything great, they just do everything well. When I need tracking my Druid comes out over my Ranger who has tracking and SoW just like a Druid. When I need a damage shield, I use the Druids over my Magicians. When an alternate account lower level character is having problems, I go for one of my Druids over any of the current power characters like Necro or Mage. Druids are the Swiss Army Knife of characters. It doesn't matter so much if you only run one account. If you run two accounts<or more> you almost need a Druid on each one to make life easier.
Druids got tagged with the "overpowered" tag early on because they could kite and port and powerlevel and heal. Other classes could do some of it -- Wizards could kite and port, Necros could snare-kite, Mages could DS and so on -- but, as you said, Druids seemed to be able to do ALL of it. In part, the problem was that many of us had only the vaguest idea of what we were doing back in 1999, so flashy abilities like kiting looked like "god mode". And, of course, mobs didn't summon back then It took a while for the dust to settle and for class abilities to be re-juggled, but when it happened, Druids lost much of their luster and were the red-haired stepchild of EQ for a while. But that's the way it works in online games -- "You're riding high in April, shot down in May ... back on top in June"
I remember aggro kiting with my magician back then. Just get a pocket full of Malachite. Drop the bomb on the mob with your first spell and run while your pet beats on it. Soon as it looked like the pet was going to die, just start running while clicking a fast casting spell. Trick was you would get 'interrupted' from the movement until you get the 'out of range' message. Out of range was the clue to coast to a stop and start summoning your new pet. Malachite is cheap! Ditto for a necro. I remember fear kiting Avaiks in South Karanas thinking "This is too good to be true! Someone must of made a mistake!" Things were maybe too good for Druids. Not only did Druids get the mix of aggro and fear kiting, they also got charmed pets, root and rot, root and nuke. One of my fondest memories from the early days was when a twink got in trouble with a hill giant and started yelling for help. Almost oom, I got lucky and charmed a griffon first try. It then proceeded to beat on the hill giant like a drum. I often spend time talking about how good things are now. Sometimes I almost forget that there were good times to be had back then too. Gone forever like a tear in the rain.
