That one day at my sister's house, playing WoW did me in. I went home, reformatted my hard-drive and installed WinXP, then installed Everquest. I had to check it out again, after 5 years. I had spent so much time with my character, that when I loaded him up, it was like visiting a long lost friend. I talked with some of my old guildmates, and started a new character with another friend who had just gotten back into it. It was really cool!
Then I had a problem with Sony's CS department. Evidently, I misunderstood the rep I talked to, thinking he said I'd have 30 days to check out Everquest again before having to start the subscription. He said he told me 3 days. So after 3 days, in which I had just barely remembered how to open doors, move around, and set up my keyboard, my account was suspended. I called CS again, and this time I got an asshole for a CS rep. He told me he'd give me 3 more days, and that "You should be thankful that Sony was so nice. Now get that subscription going again."
I did log back on, and talked with my old friends, and played some more, to find out just how easy it had become. Sony had added mercenaries (NPC characters) which were better than real players. My old friends were still in a high-end guild, and one linked me an item gotten off a raid mob, and an item gotten off a single-group mob. They were nearly identical! The raid item was slightly superior, but the game designers had catered to the whining masses and made the game way too easy. There was no challenge.
That, coupled with the idiot CS rep made up my mind, and I just let my account expire. I took a few screenshots for old memories.
The best part of Everquest, as I remember it when I first got started, was the way the game made you feel you were IN the game. It was total immersion. I had played Doom and Half Life before, but nothing was like Everquest. Everquest was the Dungeons and Dragons of the new century. (Of course I had played D&D too!) Anyway, the game mechanics made me feel emotions as if it were real life. When my character advanced in levels, or skills, I felt like I was getting better. When my character died, there was a real sense of loss. One of the best parts of the original game was the fact that when your character died, you had to go find your corpse. If you waited too long, that corpse would "rot" and you'd lose everything on it. That was a HUGE incentive to 1.) Not die. and 2.) Be sure to get your corpse quickly. Of course when you died, you would spawn back at your original bind point, and where your corpse was may be quite far away.
Another facet of the game I really enjoyed was the seeming expanse of the world. One had to run everywhere! This gave the illusion of a very large world. Continents were seperated by oceans that one had to take a boat to cross. A boat ride would take ~ 10 minutes of real life time, adding to the illusion of a real world, with far-off places. Because of this, one didn't see too many races from the distant continents, and when you travelled to those far off places, you may not be welcome by all.
There was the constant threat of danger, which would wane as you grew in levels, but never quite disappear.
With the current Everquest, there is no risk. It's easy to pass from continent to continent by clicking on a stone. If you die, your corpse is easily accessible, with no dangerous corpse runs. They took all the fun out of the game to make it easy, the bastards!
Then I went searching for something I had heard about years before, an Everquest emulator. EQEmu was a project developed by fans of the game, who didn't like the direction the game was taking under Sony's leadership.
I found this site through Google. The play guide got me started, and after solving a few minor problems, I was up and running!
I read the descriptions of the various servers, and started off with VZ/TZ which is a Player vs. Player (PvP) server. PvP is quite different from PvE (Player vs. Environment), and it takes a little getting used to. Fighting a character that is controlled by a real live person is much more difficult than fighting an NPC (non-player character) that has been programmed to act and react a certain way. But with the higher difficulty, comes a more challenging (ie, FUN) experience.
I tried to get some of my friends to play, but they chickened out on the PvP aspect (You KNOW who you are...Kendes...Kolm...Barm.) Barm told me to check out another server Scars of Amerous, so I did. He told me to be sure to see the weapon merchant in Surefall Glade, where we pop into the game, then go fight in Crushbone.
The weapon merchant sold me, for nothing, gear that I had gotten before after months of raiding. He just gave it to me! That made me laugh, but nothing prepared me for running into this guy, weilding this weapon:
That weapon is the warrior epic 1.0, and in it's heyday, was the most awesome, and most desired weapon of any warrior class character. So I killed the Orc and took the epic. A few hours later, I was level 75.
Barm still tries to get me to play on that server, but it's too damn easy. I do like to stop in now and then though.
So, over the past several weeks, I've been playing EQ, and not blogging. Why did I take a break now? Not by choice. The man who manages the VZ/TZ server (the hardware, or "box") is moving, and the box is down for a few days.
Once it's up again...I'll probably be gone again.
I can't wait!
