OK signed up for All Access, and am ready to play. However, don't quite understand all the different servers. So, here's my situation: I'm retired, so time is not an issue. I will be playing solo/molo, and I play slow - since I'm not in a hurry - and I grind quite a bit. I'm looking for a server where I can start in the very beginning and play all the way to level cap. The All Access came with 21 expansions. If I like the game, I'll purchase the last three expansions. I don't PvP and I don't box. Please let me know the best server for me to have fun. On the Steam forum, I asked about Trade Skill, if it was necessary to do this, and one player replied with, "You need to do those if you don't raid" (which I won't). Is this correct, and why. I was thinking of just gathering raw materials and selling them to the other players, but if I really need a Trade Skill so be it. Thanks for your help.
This is what makes EQ great - you can make and remake your characters, try different servers, different races, different classes. If you want the old style play then look at Agnarr that is how the game used to be played - it will be very hard. Having played the game since the beginning I went to Agnar last month to check it out and it seemed way harder than it used to be or I have gotten soft in my old age. I believe FV has special rule sets so I would avoid that till you know more, AB is mostly folks in Europe, not sure if the role playing server is still happening. After that any live server is fine - just make sure you start in tutorial so you learn how to play and get all the goodies. The #1 thing to learn in EQ is the search function - search google - search Alla - search Goodmaps - search EQ resource - Eq traders it goes on and on. There you will find 90% of what you need to know. The rest we can help you with. Many of us will help new folks out in game with answers or with some goodies so if you let us know where you decided to go and race/class/char name then we can get in touch with you in game
Xegony, Povar, Cazic-Thule, Bristlebane, and Firiona Vie all have pretty high populations of active players. Firiona Vie has special loot rules that makes almost anything that is No-Drop on other servers be able to be traded here. FV also has an experience bonus along with from what I can tell a good % of people that play all levels of toons.
If you are just doing Molo/Solo and no grouping/raiding then i would go FV. The two reasons why are the exp modifier which lets you go get exp faster and access to more gear you can buy if needed. Tradeskills will help you make good items but it is a game in itself or was. Seems to be easier than it was in 2008 when I played still a chore though. Now you just need to figure out a class that suits your game play.
OK, I'll go to FV or Xegony. Will definitely do the tutorial, have read about that. Research tells me that magician is best for soloing (and necro, too). So, figure my pets and a mercenary tank should do at the higher levels. I don't have a problem grouping (or raiding) with guildies, but I don't do pugs. I like to make alts, and probably will do that when the new server comes on line on 16 March. Thanks again everyone.
Join a large guild as soon as possible. The Everquest veterans are almost always awesome and more than willing to help new players, even if it's just answering questions.
I've been gone a very long time (15 years or so , so take what I say with a grain of salt, but back when I played, if you really detest trade skills, as a newb, you might actually do better by selling the mats to crafters, then buying crafted items you need from them. That's generally true in most old MMOs, where bored high level characters decide to take up crafting, and are willing to give newbs what amounts to a fortune to them (relative to what newbs can get otherwise) to avoid the tedium of killing stuff that is not experience for them, while you will get experience for doing it (spider silk, high quality hides, Morning Dew, bones, bat wings, etc.) But like I said, I've been gone for a long time, and EQ is so old it may be beyond that, so don't know if that's still the case. Worth a shot if you dislike crafting though.
The 21 expansions are free; you could have went completely free to play and you would have had access to them regardless. I would wait till you get to around 100 or so before worrying about buying anything more. Once you reach that level range, if it is around October-December, then check to see when the new expansion will come out and buy it, as that will give you all the currently available expansions. If it is earlier in the year than October, then it is up to you as you will likely still have thousands of AAs which you could spend time grinding if you do reach the 105 level cap. Zek is PvP server, so you'll want to avoid that. Agnarr, Fippy, Lockjaw, Ragefire, and Phingel are Progression servers which have yet to unlock most of the available content, so you may or may not be interested in that. If you want to really really take it slow you might consider these. (They require All Access, so you will lose access if you drop your subscription). Firiona Vie (FV) is a "role-playing" server in name only; the primary draw for it these days is the xp bonus and the fact that you can buy almost everything (on the normal servers most gear from raids is No Trade). Brekt is a server that characters from a short term event server were transferred to, it has the same rules regarding items as FV, but does not have the extra RP related rules. Any of the rest of the servers you could do what you are wanting on just fine. Some servers will have more active communities; some with more raiders, others with more casuals. Different servers also have different peak play times, though most are on US times with the exception of Antonius Bayle which is the European server. You can play on any of them. You don't need to TS, there are some class specific quests that require some TS combines, but the combines usually have low trivials (skill value at which it is a trivial combine [not the same as never fail]). As you level higher, there are a number of quests that you will come upon which have nice (for their level) rewards which require a number or all TSs to be maxed or near max to do. None of these things are required to advance your character, most are very nice to have though. Selling TS drops is a great way to make money. Since you have gotten an All-Access subscription, you can set up a /trader in the Bazaar and sell the components which you have at the price of your choosing. If you did not have All-Access you would be limited using /barter to sell the items to /buyers (also requires All-Access subscription), but you would be selling it to them for the price that they choose. You can also buy items from others using the /bazaar command. /barter and /bazaar can be used in any zone, but buying using the /bazaar window increases the cost by 10% so instead right click the seller's name in the window and a path will direct you to them. /barter has no negatives to using it anywhere. /trader and /buyer can only be used in specific locations within the Bazaar zone. Most TS gear is tradeable or at least attuneable (can trade until it is equipped).
