Valhallah's Holiday Giveaway and Forum Contest

This was really cool, enjoyed reading the submissions and hearing the stories. Thank you for sponsoring and giving us all another memory to share to have a happy holiday!

Gratz all winners.

Posting this somewhat anonymously, I enjoy my privacy...

I understand the events not going on (or at least not that I can see) Just been wanting to share this w/ Valhallah for quite some time now.

Figured I'd throw out a tidbit about my story, and why I always find myself returning to EQ right around the holidays!! I don't want this to come off as a "sad story" or anything like that, because trust me it's helped me grow into who I am today.

I first began my EQ journey when I was roughly 10 years old (2000ish) on an old work computer my Dad took home with him after he got sick. Sparing some of the details, I didn't have the greatest childhood growing up and was practically on my own during the holidays by the time I was 11. I still had friends outside of EQ, however the home-life wasn't anything to look forward to. My guild at the time, Knights of Prophecy, slowly overtime picked up on my situation and really began to "take me in" as one of their own.

I never got any gifts, or surprises from Santa, however my guild would literally shower me w/ random little gift packages of plat, armor, and always ensured I could tag along on raids / group content with them, despite me barely knowing how to play. =P This guild was essentially my escape from reality, and I always had them to look forward to during the holidays.

I got my first job when I was 12 years old working at a Tire Factory. (Small town, TX. Didn't exactly care about child labor laws) so my EQ time began becoming more and more limited. Once that other MMO (booo) came out in 2004, most of the guild broke up to go play that, and I was pretty crushed. I attempted to find a replacement guild without much luck and eventually gave up on EQ. When I was 16 (2006) I had saved enough to purchase my own car (2002 35th Anniversary Z28 Camaro) which I got a pretty sweet deal on. I had enough cash left over to build my first "gaming" computer. Haha, think at the time having 1gb of RAM meant you were balling. =P HOWEVER, the deal I got on the car turned out to be a little too good to be true; the brakes on it randomly quit working while I was driving home in the rain. Totaled the car, but apart from being incredibly sore, walked away unscathed. At this point I was almost completely on my own and would rarely come home before about 10 - 11pm (to avoid the drama) This was the first time I came back to EQ during the Holiday season, and was immediately hit with an incredible amount of nostalgia, despite it only being a couple year break.

Boxing wasn't really in my wheelhouse, and could barely find a group to play with, but I still had a great time roaming around, seeing the new (and old) zones.

I turned 17, and wanted to enlist into the military, more specifically, join the Special Operations community. I needed my Mother's signature, and can say this is probably the one kind gesture she did for me that saved our relationship today. (I don't think I would've talked to her again if she forced me to wait until I was 18) I wanted to leave that town so bad, I'll never be able to explain it.

I shipped out to Basic literally the Monday after I graduated High School when I was still 17. I ended up completing the various programs to eventually be selected for one of these SO units. I deployed to Afghanistan for the first time when I had just turned 19. We didn't have any internet on the COP (Combat Outpost) we were set-up out of, so couldn't do too much of any online gaming. I came back home to an empty barracks, a bottle of booze and Everquest. I had met a guy this time around who welcomed me into his guild, and we eventually became good gaming buddies. (So good I ended up flying out to be a Groomsman in his wedding!!) I spent my entire 2 weeks of Christmas leave chilling in my room, gaming it up with all of them and loved every second of it. Pre-deployment ramped up, so video games took a backseat again.

I deployed for the second time when I was 21, and fortunately we had internet. However the maximum speed we could get was about 1.5MB download and about 1MB upload. This was a bit of a rough deployment, and found that the one game that would run smoothly on this internet, was of course Everquest. This was considered a High Op-Tempo deployment. (Meaning we ran a lot of missions; in a 12 month stint I personally went on a little over 300) I feel like logging into EQ, running around and headshot farming on my RNG for 15 - 30 minutes at a time kept me somewhat sane.

After I got home this time, I was in a slightly darker mindset and wasn't too upbeat about much. I deployed for a third time less than a year after being back. About 4 months into this one, my truck was hit by an 95lb IED that somehow a few of us were lucky enough to survive. I wound up fracturing almost every disc in my lower back, as well getting a pretty severe TBI. (Traumatic Brain Injury). Despite this, I still managed to finish another three months of the deployment and upon returning this time, I was medically retired.

I became a Private Military Contractor which is probably the worst thing to do for your mental health, but it at least kept me moving. I spent another 2 years in Afghanistan, and a couple more in other places of the world. I bought a WIFI puck with an international roaming plan so I was effectively able to play EQ whenever I wanted. However, I was solo-playing again at this point as everyone else I knew had moved on. This was still my mental escape, even though a play session might've been dedicated to just running around in circles in PoK. My tradition has always been though when I come back, to go swim out to Lord Bergurgle's spawn, as this was my first ever time camping a named for an epic quest. (Hah!) I still get pretty giddy when I swim up to that underwater tower and everything just clicks back into place for me.

I've been on about a two to three year hiatus from video games all together to focus on mental and physical health. I just came back to EQ a couple of months ago because I'm in a much better place now and have found the community to actually be less toxic here than most of it's other online gaming competitors. I just have this same sense of wonder about it still that I had when I was a kid. I do wish EQ was slightly more friendly to the younger generations, but I also like the fact it seems more mature than your average FPS game.

Now that I'm back, I've already found a good group of friends to knock some content out with and am loving every second of it. And although my girlfriend absolutely hates video games (lol) she doesn't mind me playing EQ because she finds everything about it calming as well. She's also familiar with this being some weird form of mental therapy. I'm not sure why, but as soon as the temperature outside begins to drop, I'm immediately drawn back towards EQ as playing this was probably my most fondest childhood memory.

The up-turn to this story is that I love my life now that I'm in my 30s. I get to work with and help kids through their tough times, and coming from a lifetime of perpetual violence, It's great to know I can at least channel all of that into something beneficial. Everquest will always be my escape during the holidays as I (we) still don't really celebrate Christmas at all outside of the gift giving parts which we kinda do throughout the month.

I wanted to share this with all of you as I was able to attend one of your events while I was OCONUS, and I remember it was one thing that was able to give me a great laugh, and cheer me up.

Anyways, keep doing what ya'll are doing!!! I think there are people out there that appreciate this a little more than you know!!! Merry Christmas everyone!!