So just to see, I downloaded the free version last night and logged in with my old account. We are talking characters that were created in 2000. I had one at max level, which at the time was 70, so that shows you how long ago since I played. I walked around in PoK and felt very lost. I saw a lot of people standing around with Mercs, which were not around when I played, so no idea how to use them. I'm many expansions behind and I'm sure my hard earned equipment is now obsolete. So my questions.. If I do come back, will I be hindered by my old equipment? Is there an advantage to purchasing a membership vs. free? Should I buy the $35 thing for all the missing expansions? The money isn't an issue, just want to make sure its something I will enjoy or even need before buying. Back when I played, it took days of grinding to get a level at the 55+ level range, is that still the case? If I start on one of the progression servers is there an experience rate difference? Will I be far behind at low levels without a high level to gear me up some? I mean, will I be hunting in Northern Ro with a rusty sword or are better items more plentiful these days. I would prefer to start over with a new character on a new server than to try to gear up my old characters. Would help to relearn everything anyway. Oh, and I don't like to box and usually solo or once in a while get into a PUG if I can find one. Is that still an option? I remember back when I first started and it felt like a huge accomplishment to find any item with even basic magic stats, like +1 str.. I haven't been totally away from EQ, I have played on some servers, so the controls will feel familiar. Sorry for the long post and all the questions. But these days my time is a lot more limited, no more 3 day long EQ marathons. These days I have to work, take care of my kids, etc. So a few hours a night is about the most I can put into it.
1st welcome back. 1st thing you should try is the tutorial. Start a new Character you will have to set up your UI Moving windows around To make it playable then just start Hailing npc and doing everything available in That Room. They explain mercenaries, chat basically all the normal systems . There are definite advantages to being a paid account. Too many to list here in a short message. If your highest character is 70 and you start playing now you will have a while till you need to purchase a new expansion. After the next patch next Wednesday all but the lvl 110 expansions will be available to you as a free account. Yes your gear will be Outdated they instituted a much improved systemOf gear that just drops from mobs in all zones. It is called defiant and has different levels. Good luck enjoy the game it is still fun especially give you find a Guild after you get back into playing.
I would hold off buying a subscription or expansion or both until you see what you can do without it. As a returning account you have many bonus - max veteran rewards, max loyalty points and access to general chat for a couple. As Derd said do all the tutorial - it explains a lot and then go to POK and do the 'continuing tutorial" from Seclana Gaylnor (?) she is next to Cresent Reach Stone and both are under your "find" key - she will offer some more tutorials that you can do at your leisure but most important is the one for Guild halls - it allows you to join the in game guild which they created just for returning players to be able to use the port feature until they find the guild they want to be in . This route is perfect for someone returning and as each one is fairly quick and easy they will fit in your time schedule well. There are a lot of armor and augs you can get free by doing daily tasks from Clayton Teek in POK - starting at level 20 or use your old guys - this will help you get up to par on armor that you can wear as free/silver account. BTW you are a "Silver" account which is a little better than free but not as good as pay Now that you have done some of that or whatever you can decide if you want to pay. There are some new TLP servers coming up you may be interested in or even one of the old ones but you have to have a subscription to play those. And WB! Its great to hear that someone remembered their old info and was able to download and log in just like that! No problems.
Expacs - Everything up to TDS (and, from the sound of the test server patch notes, TBM and EOK also, once patched) is free, so you don't need to spend a dime to get about 10-12 new expansion already. The two which are not free, RoS and TBL, have 110-level content, so you can hold off getting those for now. All-access - Highly recommended. With auto-grant, you can get (almost) all of the AAs for each level granted to you. That will save a LOT of time catching up in levels, plus getting the use out of all those AAs right away will help make up for some of the gear deficit. Gear - you don't mention your gear level. If you were raid geared, then you'll be fine... level 70 content is still level 70 content, after all! If your gear was more on the scrub side of things, then look for "defiant" gear in the Bazaar to help you get going. Help - in later expansions, each one had a system for getting group gear, and systems for getting gear with currencies from group missions. I'll add a couple links for good sites to learn where to go to get what you need: Rasper: http://www.shamanscrucible.com/desk/rasper/index.html - very helpful from PoR (about where you should be now) through VoA, when he wrapped up his involvement EQResource: https://eqresource.com/ - the current go-to site for this info, covers from HoT to current One other help: spells and tomes. Pretty much all rank 1s (the "rank" system started at level 71, in TSS) are available in PoK, in the main library. Which is not to say spells from before level 70 are not available there, they are. Get rank 2s where you can, obviously, but don't sweat bullets over that, hopefully you'll be leveling fairly quickly. But, no reason not to have a full spellbook of rank 1s. Finally: server? If you're on Tunare, PM me, I can help you out a bit. Tat
I think you should run the tutorial on live and see how FtP limits you and then try Test where you will be all access. At that point you can see the difference between paid and free. Once you have compared the two then you can decide. With a silver account you can get an Apprentice 5 mercenary which is much better than the FtP A2 but not nearly as good as the paid account journeyman mercenaries. I don't think you will have to sub until you get to 65-70 depending if you box or not. You should definitely check out the community on test server though.
No, I wasn't raid geared, I usually just soloed, sometimes would find a small group. From what I've read Mercs will be a lot of help for my solo playstyle but I'll need a paid sub to get the better ones. Also need a sub in order to join the TLP servers, which I think would be the best option for me. My biggest problem, what class do I want to be and what merc will go best with it. Obviously if I'm a tank I'll want a healer, and vice versa. It's a lot to consider. Hopefully I can figure out what I'm going to do by the time I'm off work today, then i'll have the weekend to play and start to get caught up with things I've missed over the years.
If you are soloing or moloing with a merc its to your advantage to go all access soon after leaving the tutorial. The journeyman mercs are much stronger. I use a tank merc for the most part as the J1 tank overpowers content and their regen is crazy for a long time (until level 60 or so). You can always change mercs by dismissing and hiring a new one. There are additional merc slots available for purchase in the SC store so you can have a couple different types and switch between them depending on what you need at time. Also please list name and server. I have toons on a couple live servers as well as Test and can see if I can help with starting cash or gear.
I'm not sure what server to pick if I start over on a TLP server. All my old characters are on Saryrn and have plenty of cash for some reason. Around 70k plat. Which I assume is pretty good still. But I don't really feel like playing on my old server, I want to start fresh and experience EQ from the start again.
Hehe, I have ~1.4M plat across all my chars, and consider myself fairly poor! However, I mainly play a max level toon. If you're starting fresh, or going with the level 70, you'll have no issues having 70kpp to play with.
So if I buy an all access membership and start new on phinny, what's a better combo, a mage with a healer merc, or a shaman with a tank merc? I enjoyed my shaman before, but was always hard to solo, but with a merc I think it would be a lot easier. But at higher levels I don't know how well a merc tank does compared to using a pet tank and a merc healer.
Tank mercs at higher levels are really bad. There is a patch on test to address this, but it's only for 106-110 level mercs, and we don't know if they even did a good job with it. I don't know what max level is on Phinny. People consider tank mercs OP up to about level 60-65 (strange, huh? OP early, stinks later). So, the shaman/tank merc may be fine on that server.
I think you can only hit level 85 max on that server right now. So that will probably be my combo then. And maybe by the time I hit max level they will fix the higher level merc tanks.
New TLPs will launch in a month's time in conjunction with the 20th anniversary. These may or may not be of interest to you, but it does represent a broader range of choices available once you subscribe. What I would do is play for free for a month on the server where your old toons are now, and get back into the feel of the game. Do the Secalna Gaynor PoP tutorial quests with one of your old toons, these overlap much of what is covered in the stand-alone tutorial zone anyway. You'll hire a merc, get a free bag, and check out the Guild Hall and the housing zones. Then do the hotzone quests offered by Franklin Teek, who is also in PoP. You'll get enough XP for at least a few more levels, and you'll get some decent Defiant armor drops which will be a >major< upgrade from what you have now. The Defiant armor drops are global, which means kill anything and you can get stuff, with the quality proportional to the levels of what you kill. Spend your loyalty points at the loyalty vendor for more character slots, more bags, or some of both. If you have a surplus of plat, there should be more level-appropriate Defiant armor pieces for sale in the bazaar. If you finish all that, and you've dinged 75, you can either (a) subscribe and claim a bunch of auto-granted AAs immediately, (b) work through modern progression quests as a molo (starting anywhere from TSS to SoD zones) and grind out your first 1000 AAs, or (c) roll a new toon, do the tutorial zone, and play through as much as you can of the Hero's Journey quest line starting in Crescent Reach. Come mid-March, I can pretty much guarantee you'll have a good idea of what you want to do next, whether it's on a live server or a TLP.
You can get all Merck’s and swap them out as necessary (though I think there’s limits on how many you can have as f2p) and yes, TLPs are a good choice for returning players if you want to go that route
Thanks for the info. I think a good idea for me then is keep going on vox, maybe wait and make decision when the new servers come on. Between now and then soak up as much info as I can about playing, try out some different classes, and have fun. Thanks again
