The moment you knew...

[hedbonker]

That Everquest was going to be something special - Something different...

I had never played an MMO before EQ. Some folks at work started telling me about it and raving about it. So I bought it and it sat on the shelf for a month or so until one saturday I was bored and decided to install it and try it out.

After installing the base game and Kunark (that came with the base pack), I went in and created a character. I made a high elf Wizard. I chose Wizard because it sounded powerful. No other reason. I put most of my points into CHA since in previous single player RPGs, CHA got you better prices from merchants.

So, I log in and start checking my character out and see that I have a note to turn in to my guild master. After doing a bit of checking and wandering around, I give up trying to find the guy and OOC for some help (after trying to ask some NPCs where the GM was, in true newbie fashion)...

Another caster comes up and tells me to follow them and I do and they take me to the GM. I remember thinking, how in the hell did you figure out where this guy was???

So once I get all set and I have my new robe, I head out into Gfay. Looking around I remember thinking that the graphics were pretty crappy... So I kill a few bats, a few wasps and get owned by an Orc Pawn. The next encounter I manage to kill the pawn and he says that the legions of Crushbone Orcs will be after me now and I am like "Holy crap!" so I run over and hang out by the guards until it dawns on me that it was a hollow threat...

While I wait for the Orc army to arrive and slaughter me, I am looking at my skills and see that I have bind wound among other things. And I notice that people are asking for a bind in OOC. So I OOC that I can bind and that I am at the Felwithe gates.

So some human comes over and asks me for the bind and I start binding wound on him - I won't repeat what he said here, suffice it to say that he was neither pleased nor amused at my naivete.

About this time I am thinking the game is kinda meh. Nothing special. So I decide to follow the path out of the Felwithe newbie area and see where it leads me. So I am running along and then finally I crest this hill and I see Kelethin in the trees in all it's glory. I see a ton of players all over the place with particle effects going off all over and all kinds of activities going on.

It is at this moment that it dawns on me that this Everquest is something special. That it is a vibrant, living breathing world. And it is at this moment that I am hooked.

What's your story?

[Dac321]

I remember the day.

My brother had friends in the neighborhood that started to talk about this "online game" they started and how hard it was. We went over to his house and watched his father start playing it. The graphics were intense. At the time I was 13 years old living with my Dad. My brother and I had to convince our parents to actually pay a subsription for a game. Anyway, we finally agreed we would do chores to activiate it.

My very first character was a dwarf paladin on Rallos Zek, all i remember is grouping with characters and pvping other level 1 characters. I got an entire set of cloth armor and felt like I was leet. The game to this day, 10 years later (this server) gives me that same feeling.

The only way I can describe the feeling this game gives me is crazy excitement and the fact I can't wait to get home and log on after a long day.

[tinidas]

many many such moments but I think the first was simply watching the sunrise in qeynos hills from the hill near the lake after a 'night' of hunting skels and rats :)

[Messianic]

I played a text-based MMO, Gemstone III, before I played EQ, so I had some background.

I remember creating like 40 characters (many deleted) before I settled into a monk. I started out thinking I would play a Barb warrior and was absolutely enthralled by Everfrost, and at the time, those graphics were pretty awesome.

After deciding that warrior was boring, I messed around with a few other classes - I got a wizard to like 4-8, paladin/bard/sk...then my wizard some more...had a few friends give me some plat, and twinked a monk with a few really good weapons (KD's), and leveled incredibly fast. Monk stuck to me, not least because the class was really strong, but because I NEVER died. I'd bet that I didn't die once between 19-35 (curse those lguk casters), seldom until 60, and a few times on dragon raids. I learned pathing and as many FD/Sneak tricks as I could, practiced by intentionally going deep into the most dangerous areas and figuring a way out on my own, i'd piss off really strong mobs or casters and learn how to shake them by LoS or other tricks...

After my wizard is max-leveled and kunark comes out, i plan to do an iksar monk this time (I was previously human). There's nothing like twink monk soloability + awesome survivability.

[Anaiyah]

I made a Barbarian Warrior first, and spent the first couple of hours walking around halas.

Someone came up and said "Click run", and suddenly I was able to travel much faster, and was hooked for life. True story.

[Onadan]

Funny enough, when I got hooked was when I first ran over to Kelethin and saw the huge tree city.

[Slayde]

I played UO a little bit and some old school MUDs so I was already familiar with the concept. But when I heard about a 3D MMO I just had to play it. For a long time I would sit in my high school computer class and read Everlore.com. Then me and a good friend at the time got into the beta. I still have some SS of it lol. That's all it took. I knew EQ would be the start of something new and amazing. The day of release I got a copy and made a human ranger. Running around Qeynos Hills for what seemed like forever, trying my damnedest to get lvl 9. lol

[Dunes]

I remember it well.

It was early October 1999, and I was a freshman in college. I had played several MMO's before EQ, starting with "The Realm", followed by Ultima Online, so I knew a bit about the structure and thought I knew what I was in for. So I rolled over to Best Buy, picked up a shiny new copy of EQ, rushed back to the dorm, and installed it. I guess I knew I was in for a different experience when I saw the elaborate CGI intro for the game, but it didnt really sink in at the time.

So, I rolled a barbarian shaman and journeyed out into the snow drifts of Everfrost Peaks. I found myself blinded by the snow and dark, and wandered, lost, far into the canyons around Halas (only to die to a malicious skeleton). The 3D and atmosphere was amazing, and unlike anything I had ever seen before.

So I rolled an Erudite Wizard next, and made my way to Qeynos to meet up with some friends. Eventually I found myself sitting in a group, in the Qeynos catacombs, with 4 other casters and thats when it sank in - this is something different.

Fast Forward almost 11 years, and I have played many, many MMO's over the years. Yet always, EQ has been there, lingering and beckoning me to come back and relive the challenges of early EQ. Project 1999 has given us all precisly that opportunity, and I can honestly not thank the devs and administrators enough. Thanks for all that you do guys.

[ChubbyBubbles]

It was my second day in the Everquest world. I was a druid on Vallonzek.
There was another druid that I was learning the ropes from, some random person I had made friends with in the big world. On that fateful day she gave me my first 'cracked staff' and told me I would need it where we were going. She called it a 'vacation' from the Tree city. So she invited me to group and ported us both to one of the Karanas ( i cant remember which) Just being whisked away to a completely new area did it for me. I was completely hooked. We killed some mobs and then she left and I spent the rest of the day trying to find out how to get back to gfay.


Also the day I first saw Maverness Highness on Vallonzek. The first high level magician I had ever seen. She/he absolutely demolished blackburrow to help me retrieve a corpse I had lost.

[eqdruid76]

Additional fanciful, albeit untrue antecdote.

[Messianic]

Additional fanciful, albeit untrue antecdote.

Go back under your bridge

[hedbonker]

It's funny - After EQ I played DaoC, AO, SWG, WoW, Guildwars and countless others - And never found what I did in EQ. They say you can never go home again - But P1999 seems to be the closest I have come yet to that original experience...

Thanks to the devs for making this.

[Overcast]

It's funny - After EQ I played DaoC, AO, SWG, WoW, Guildwars and countless others - And never found what I did in EQ. They say you can never go home again - But P1999 seems to be the closest I have come yet to that original experience...

Thanks to the devs for making this.

Indeed.
You know what got me?

I made my first character on my wife's account a DE SK.

Wandered out a bit, looked at the dark trail through Nek Forest - thinking, OMG no way I'm going down there yet, I wonder what the heck's down there.. I would get so lost.

That was all it took, lol

[Seritaph]

I remember my wife and I were playing, and she died in Blackburrow at the very bottom. Fell through on the top level. She was very upset. An extremely nice high level barbarian shaman, who we had met casually at one point, went down there to retrieve her corpse.

Later on this same shaman replied to our pleas to find a way to get to Freeport. He cast SoW and levitate and literally ran us from Qeynos via the Karanas, HHP, Kith, etc, and bound us in Freeport. I remember the trip and how epic it felt. I was in awe of the giant chained bridge connecting NK to EK, and I knew at that point I was in for an incredible journey.

[nafsmar]

When I first read about it in Gamepro ( i think that was the mag) back in 99. My comp at the time couldn't handle EQ but in feb 2000 I upgraded to a new gateway comp and preceded to play for the next 5 years almost losing my girlfriend (now my wife) to it.

[Reiker]

I joined a group in the Jamtland Mountains. After 30-60 minutes of grinding on various animals, a Scout started picking off our group members. After we rezzed up we abandoned our exp grind and began hunting down the Scout. He unstealthed a little too close and killed our Kobold Shaman, and we were able to charge and kill him. Total adrenaline pump moment.

Oh wait, wrong game.

[Overcast]

When I first read about it in Gamepro ( i think that was the mag) back in 99. My comp at the time couldn't handle EQ but in feb 2000 I upgraded to a new gateway comp and preceded to play for the next 5 years almost losing my girlfriend (now my wife) to it.

Big question then - did she ever start playing then - or now? lol

[Weekapaug]

Before EQ I was all into strategy games....I'm a military history buff and computer gaming has always fed that particular interest for me, going all the way back to the early '80s playing text based wargames on the mainframe at my school, to the (kick ass) turn-based Avalon Hill adaptions for MAC that Atomic did in the early 90s, to RTSes, etc. I had played some RPGs before (M&M III was the main one) and liked them but strategy was always my thing.

Before they became Microsoft's Halo bitch, Bungie had a fantastic series of real-time tactical games called "Myth" which were rather ground-breaking for the time in the strategy genre and I was ALL ABOUT that when EQ came out...I think Myth II was the current one then....My friend bugged the piss out of me for weeks to get EQ and finally I caved and did...

I get into all of that because I'm trying to convey that I really didn't want to play EQ. I wanted to play Myth. And while I'm always open-minded about any game, I kind of had my head up my ass about it because I really wanted my friend to stop dicking around with EQ so we could go play Myth.

The first time I logged in to the Qeynos newbie yard and saw people slapping on bats and snakes with clubs and swords I thought to myself "He's completely lost it....This is the most retarded thing I've ever seen!" Sometime in the next 8-10 hours I was completely addicted. I just needed a little push, some time in-game, and a little tour around to see what I had to look forward to and that's all it took. When I saw those cyclopses in West Karanas for the first time I realized this game was going to be THE SHITE. Not sure why, but that's what did it.

Here we are 11 years later and I'm still playing. :)

[HippoNipple]

I remember it well.

It was early October 1999, and I was a freshman in college. I had played several MMO's before EQ, starting with "The Realm", followed by Ultima Online, so I knew a bit about the structure and thought I knew what I was in for. So I rolled over to Best Buy, picked up a shiny new copy of EQ, rushed back to the dorm, and installed it. I guess I knew I was in for a different experience when I saw the elaborate CGI intro for the game, but it didnt really sink in at the time.

So, I rolled a barbarian shaman and journeyed out into the snow drifts of Everfrost Peaks. I found myself blinded by the snow and dark, and wandered, lost, far into the canyons around Halas (only to die to a malicious skeleton). The 3D and atmosphere was amazing, and unlike anything I had ever seen before.

So I rolled an Erudite Wizard next, and made my way to Qeynos to meet up with some friends. Eventually I found myself sitting in a group, in the Qeynos catacombs, with 4 other casters and thats when it sank in - this is something different.

Fast Forward almost 11 years, and I have played many, many MMO's over the years. Yet always, EQ has been there, lingering and beckoning me to come back and relive the challenges of early EQ. Project 1999 has given us all precisly that opportunity, and I can honestly not thank the devs and administrators enough. Thanks for all that you do guys.


The Realm is what I played before Everquest. I had just gotten 5 of my accounts disabled and was pretty burnt out on the realm. A friend that played the realm said he had a rl friend playing everquest that would show me around. I also had another friend that played with me from The Realm. We made an enchanter and druid because this guy suggested it. The erudite wizards name was Meith, sound familiar?

[PhelanKA]

I was leveling in Oasis and someone had trained specters down to the beach. I can still recall the feeling of awe and dread as those grim reapers stalked us noobs across the desert to the zonelines. It was such a powerful experience that I literally had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards.

Then on my first Vox raid, and first for the Rallos Zek server, I was amazed at the amount of preperation and teamwork required. It was totally unlike anything I had ever done in a game.

[HippoNipple]

As for the threads question. I started out on Rallos because PvP was always my favorite thing to do in games, whether it was on bond 007 or like I previously mentioned above The Realm.

I made a gnome starting out and things were tough, I couldn't even buy spells at first. I got a few cloth pieces and got pked near the kobolds and lost one. I remember this making me very mad. After this happened I decided to hide up in the mountains near the kobold tents and wait for a victim of my own. After getting my first kill I was hooked... it was then my mission to level up and become as powerful as quickly as I could so I could kill stronger players.. and survive other players.

Later I found out the entire server turns on people who attack players and don't really let them play end game... which I really never understood since it was a PvP server.. but it was fun until then.

[Toehammer]

I read about EQ in magazine print somewhere in 1998, and I saw something to the effect of "the game is so detailed a fireball from across the bay (in freeport?) will light up the sky for onlookers on the other shore" and "each rain drop individually exists when it falls from the sky" (this is what got my interest). Those aren't exact quotes, just what I seem to remember.

Then the moment I was hooked on EQ uberness was the last day of Beta testing in 1998. I thought I was badass, 12th barbarian warrior, a BRONZE two handed sword, and full tattered/rawhide and all the shitty gear from blackburrow. Everyone else was < lvl 12. Then in comes like a 20+ something ranger and has two mino battle axes and chain graphics armor, we were all just like oh my god wtf how did you get that!

Not many people I played with in beta seemed to understand the concept of grouping, i remember killing, sitting, and regening.

The last day of beta was the best, I got a SoW from someone and hit an ice giant with an arrow and said, "amass at the guards, if we all fight together we can kill a giant"... I must have gotten 50-60 sub level 10s slaughtered... again and again. Then I sold all my gear and got alcohol tolerance really high!

[thxer]

My brother talked me into playing. I was big on RPGs and knew I would get sucked in if I played and I didn't want it interfering with college. Well one day he gets me on, he powerlevels me a little bit with his ranger after I get my first few levels and he shows me Lesser Fay. I was hooked the second he yelled 'run!' and I saw some little brownie bastard with his hands lighting up in fire, killing me seconds later. The real sense of urgency made the game special, knowing such dangers could lurk around any corner was pretty cool.

[nafsmar]

Big question then - did she ever start playing then - or now? lol

unfortunately no but she agreed that since I was home not in a bar like some of her friends bf's that it it wasn't that bad and just dealt with it. BTW i gave up trying to get her to play.

[fuji]

When a friend suggested you could sell stuff on ebay instead of working a crummy summer job. I ended up selling nothing and got addicted and gaining 50lbs and type 2 diabetes.

[Arclanz]

Played UO which had lag so bad it was literally unplayable. No progress. Waited til UO Second Age came out. Prior to giving UO another go; I decided to check gamecenter.com for its reviews. Everyone was raving about EQ. I remember looking at the EQ box months earlier. This time I decided to buy it. 100x more playable than UO; no lag; first person perspective....freaking awesome. Hooked solid for a year.

[joran]

When a friend suggested you could sell stuff on ebay instead of working a crummy summer job. I ended up selling nothing and got addicted and gaining 50lbs and type 2 diabetes.

hehe .. I started too b/c i thought i could make money on it by selling a character... little did i know how much effort it took to get a char to a level that you could sell it... by then it was too late i was hooked...

[Maldan]

When I found out just how long it would take to run from Qeynos to Freeport.
Coming from UO where you could run from Yew to Trinsic in a fairly short amount of time, the prospect of taking an hour or two to make it from Q to FP was exciting to me.
My first character was a human wizard and the only person I knew playing the game played a dwarf warrior. At this stage in the game's release level 15s were uber so, at level 8, I decided to try and make the trek from Q to FP to meet up with my friend; no SoW, no port, just hoofin it. After a brief (lost) stop at the WK barb village (I had no idea the zones were giant rectangles so the concept of following the zone wall had no impact on me) I decided to keep heading onward and just follow the river. I zone into NK and eventually see a huge white bridge and tower...I run in there and am told I must be lost by an 18 shaman. He SoWd me after I explained where I was going and he gave me advice on how to get there. Off I went, keeping the river on my right until, there in the distance, a giant-chained bridge loomed. It was getting dark and my human eyesight just wasn't doing the job but I pressed on to EK. Yea, lioness matriarch + lvl 8 wizard = loading, please wait...
Never did get that corpse back but Verant/Sony got my money for a number of years thereafter.

[Lowlife]

when UO implemented trammel and no longer pwned EQ

[Jenithia]

Whenever my ex and I were at the store, we noticed the EQ box in the electronics department and thought it looked cool. Finally after about a month he bought a copy and started playing. He was hooked and I was pissed lol. About a month later he made me sit down and make a character. I think what made me like it first was that I could personalize my character. I made a human mage out of Qeynos. All I ever did was run her back and forth from Qeynos to Surefall Glade, killing small snakes and gnolls. Mostly I just pretended I was going on fishing trips and fished off the docks in SFG.

Eventually I did make a wood elf druid. I had no idea what the stats meant so I loaded her up with STR instead of WIS because I thought it meant I could hit harder. The moment I spawned up in the trees I thought it was so pretty. I found my way down (fell a few times) to a grassy area, approached a wasp and went into battle! The excitement of almost dying to a large wasp was awesome lol.

I went on to play that druid for 52 levels before making a bard.

Does anyone remember how scary it was at the time to kill a kobald, watch it die then gasp when its arm flew up again for one last strike? lol

[azeth]

All I ever did was run her back and forth from Qeynos to Surefall Glade, killing small snakes and gnolls. Mostly I just pretended I was going on fishing trips and fished off the docks in SFG.


i love this.

[hedbonker]

Does anyone remember how scary it was at the time to kill a kobald, watch it die then gasp when its arm flew up again for one last strike? lol

First time I saw a Kobold was in SolB - That final paw swipe scared the crap out of me LOL.

[nicemace]

soloing frenzy with my necro and causing so much greif. was mad fun times. people had no idea you could do such a thing.

[Taluvill]

When i was sitting outside of surefall, and after having watched the Millers like they were gods (they were the first non gm/guard that was red that I had seen) and watching a necromancer solo them both simultaneously... that was incredible.

Also, running up to the big skele spot on the hill and watching the skeletons that looked like corpses come to life and beat the piss out of me. that was scary.

[Exavus]

I saw a few people that worked at a used game store playing EQ and I watched a few times and was amazed that there were other people online playing with them. I convinced my mom to let me get it and started it right up.

My first character was a Human Warrior and my graphics card was pretty bad so it was really laggy, but I was impressed by the game and the graphics were really good for 99/2000. I killed a ton of rats in Freeport until I couldn't level off them anymore and made friends with a few other newbies in the same area. I hung out there like it was my home and tried to help other people kill rats and orc pawns. Then I figured I might as well look at new areas.

I zoned into East Commonlands and looked around and saw all the trees.. A vast forest waiting to be explored and I was just amazed at how huge it was. I went further in to find tons of people running around, casting spells on each other.. I had no idea there were spells in the game and never really saw any until then. I grouped at an orc camp some then explored more.

I came across East Commonlands Tunnel and was amazed at how many people were there. At this point I realized this game was truely a gem and had hooked me from that point on followed by 4 years of a wonderful love/hate relationship with the game.

<i>Now....</i>

I found p99 and thought that this was too good to be true. I made a Human Warrior and started in freeport... I looked and I saw people leveling up on rats... wandering around.. High levels by the gate buffing people... I almost shed a tear.

I went into EC and ran to the tunnel to see at least 50 people. My heart was pounding and I realized that this gem lives on in other people too and not just mine.

[Aaryn]

When I saw my RL friend in Full Plate that he had bought from a merchant , a DE Cleric named Filter Soulblighter. I thought to myself OMG HE IS A GOD, I must have a set just like it!!!

[fugazi]

Does anyone remember how scary it was at the time to kill a kobald, watch it die then gasp when its arm flew up again for one last strike? lol

Hehe, not that she thought it was scary but my girlfriend killed her first kobold yesterday and mentioned exactly that.

I started getting interested in shit like AD&D, Warhammer and the likes at the age of 12. Then a friend of mine showed this awesome game he got from his parents. He played a human paladin and was just able to solo giant scarabs in the Ro deserts. I told him, move over, and rolled a trullish shaman because they looked menacing. The trull did not disappoint, though my main character a year and half or so later became a trull shadowknight. I can't ever forgive Sony for fucking up the trull model with Luclin, though they pretty much fucked up ALL models with Luclin. Seriously, who over at Sony thought that any of those models were a fucking improvement? The Velious armor sets, those were improvements.

[Tamika]

I knew the moment I joined a server and that classic everquest loading music blasted out of my tiny speakers (:

[Qaedain]

I stumbled upon Kelethin after slapping wasps, wolves and skellies for an hour or two.

The music. The people. The majesty. I was sold. I played for 5 years until I hung it up in 2004 for WoW.

[corradojeff]

EQ was the first MMORPG I really played. I had tried a mud or two when I was 11 or 12 and didn't get in to it much. I tried UO and didn't like it. When I was 15 my Dad and Uncle played EQ and I watched them a lot. With only one PC in the house and my dad playing EQ most of the time I didnt make a character. I got hooked just from watching him FD his monk. When he started to slow down on play time I made a character and played for a long time afterwards.

This leads me to a slightly off topic question:

Do you think the next generation has the same feeling about today's MMO's? What I mean is: did EQ give us this great feeling that no other game can give us because it was our first 3D MMO?

The reason I ask is because other people I talk to that started on WoW, or some other game, don't really like EQ. I wonder if they got those same feelings from their first game of choice. Or could they ge that feeling now from EQ if they would give it a chance.

[Overcast]

Whenever my ex and I were at the store, we noticed the EQ box in the electronics department and thought it looked cool. Finally after about a month he bought a copy and started playing. He was hooked and I was pissed lol. About a month later he made me sit down and make a character.

haha, how oddly familiar.

The Wife and I went to the computer store, I was going to pick up Baldur's Gate or something similar, actually - I'm not sure why I went, but it was to get a game.

She wanted... something... She looked around and found this game called 'Everquest'. I said, "There's NO WAY I'll pay a monthly fee for a game, that's stupid".

But - I was ok paying it for her, since if she was busy gaming, that meant I could be too, lol.

So at first I had this hardcore "No pay per month" for a game attitude. And would kinda ignore her playing. But as time went by, I'd watch a bit more and a bit more... She finally talked me into making a character. A DE SK.

I started out - the long dark trail in Nek just *amazed me* at what was down there. I bought the game a week or so later, lol. But she was playing a HE Cleric - so I made a Human Warrior - but didn't stick with that long, that was 'hardcore' for a newb such as I. She already had her set of friends, so by and large, we played separate for quite sometime.

[Gamkek]

Does anyone remember how scary it was at the time to kill a kobald, watch it die then gasp when its arm flew up again for one last strike? lol


Little things like this were what made EQ great for me.

My "it" experience was one of my first characters - a troll shaman. I hailed some troll NPCs in Grobb. They talked like trolls, they acted like trolls, they wanted me to do trollish things for them like bring them mushrooms, frog parts and bones.

I exited Grobb for the first time and walked out to the swamp - you could hear the bubbling of the gassy swamp water, the buzzing of insects. It was soooo dark, even with infrared troll vision. I waded through the water and mud smashing rats, tadpoles, skeletons...anything I could find and (in my mind) eating them!

I WAS a troll. It was amazing to feel that immersed. Classic EverQuest had and still has an atmosphere that games with 20x the visuals can't come close to. The imagination is way more powerful than the eye and sometimes less is more, if less is focused in the right places. EQ got it right by focusing on the NPC scripts and behavior, the sounds, the landscapes and the mechanics (harsh penalties, long distance travel, easy to die, etc.). Those things made the world feel alive.

[Dunes]

Do you think the next generation has the same feeling about today's MMO's? What I mean is: did EQ give us this great feeling that no other game can give us because it was our first 3D MMO?


I imagine it is a number of things:
1) I personally came from having played 2 MMO's before EQ, so for me atleast it wasnt the novelty of playing with other people (in general). Rather, it was the fact that grouping and forced social interaction was required in EQ, and in a good way. The challenge really brought people together, and the time spent at each step of the leveling ladder brought back that old high school experience - you worked your way up with the same group of people more or less. Frequently you would bump into many familiar faces across many zones and levels, and that developed a sense of comraderie.

2) The 3rd dimension and freedom of movement was a really new concept. Ultima Online had jungle tile sets, snow tile sets, etc, but could you jump into the ocean and swim? No. Did you have to deal with reduced visibility because it was raining or snowing? No. The atmosphere of EQ was cutting edge and hadnt been done in a visual MMO before

3) The vastness and depth of the world was unparalled. UO had a big world, but there were hazy distinctions between areas. Sure there were dungeons, but for the most part they were multi leveled caves with increasing difficulty. EQ created identifiable, distinct zones, and each offered a different challenge and opportunity to explore.

4) The "named" mobs created the concept of camps and the desire to acquire drops from said mobs. The size of the world, the complexity (yet predicability) of the drops drove a community of gamers to create online depositories of information (such as Allakhazam). We would then spend vast amounts of time perusing drops, seeking knowledge and strategies, and more, taking our addiction (call it "immersion" if you must!) to all new levels. We were now thinking about the game while not even playing it.

Anyway, Im sure there are many many other reasons, but some people may try to blow off the impact EQ had on us as being just a novelty. There was a lot more to it, and the sociological implications were far deeper than many realize.

[KnuckleSangwich]

Funny enough, when I got hooked was when I first ran over to Kelethin and saw the huge tree city.

Haha, I remember creating my first character (human mage in Freeport) and while killing my first few mobs I could have sworn that looking down at the rats directly (in first person) was allowing me to hit them harder.

Whoa!

[knottyb0y]

For me I remember after weeks of struggling with dial up and disconnects finally getting my first cable modem. Finally! I was able to play my dark elf magician without interruption. The moment I remember clear as day was at level 12 camping Aviaks with two friends and stopping for a minute to watch the sun rise over Lake Rathetear. I played several different characters since that one and the absolute biggest part of EQ to me were the people I met and grouped with and guilded with. The social aspect of this game is what put it over the top, knowing that at anytime i can log on to this world and find someone to play with, someone who actually cared about their character and usually enjoyed the game as much as I.

I really hope this server can recreate that experience, logged in last night to see Gfaydark full and teaming with life. This is a good sign.

Knottyb0y * Gagresh * Tallon Zek * Dendris * Project 1999

[azeth]

The moment I remember clear as day was at level 12 camping Aviaks with two friends and stopping for a minute to watch the sun rise over Lake Rathetear.

Bout 1.5 months ago when kash and i were grinding the 3 spawn tower we caught the sun coming up in the horizon. It is truly epic in lake Rathe.

[fuji]

Does anyone ever have a frustrating night, swear they will never play the game again, uninstall, break the game discs, then the next day you are downloading the installer?

[ukaking]

Two instances really made me realize what I was dealing with in EQ. I started a month after Kunark released. I can remember getting a few levels and starting to really lay the smack down on the wolf pups in Field of Bone. As I ventured a little ways down the path, I slowly crept into the "pit". My gamma was set a little low so I couldnt even see the other side of the pit. To me it appeared to be a vast wasteland! I thought I knew what I was talking about, until...levels later, around 20, a bard friend came and took me from the safety of the Field of Bone, ran me with Selo's through the trees and branches in Warsilks Woods, I had no idea where I was, and took me to the Overthere. I couldnt believe my eyes. Rhinos, Sarnaks, Chickens! I started taking screenshots and printed them out to take to work the next day to show to guildmates. Truly a humbling experience.

[Loquan]

Your co-workers played too? That'd be badass :D

[ukaking]

Your co-workers played too? That'd be badass :D

Yeah, actually we had one guy already playing original content, then he came to work with the new Kunark expansion and was reading the booklets at lunch. When I saw the Iksar and found out there were "servers where you can kill other people" myself and four other guys from work went and got the game. We all formed an all iksar guild with people we had met on the game over the first few weeks and we quickly realized that the game was hard enough and PvP was only scratching the surface.
Still play to this day with one of my workmates and former officer of the guild AND my top officer that I met in game back then right here on P99!
It truly is amazing that I developed such a bond with my guildmates that it lasts even today, 7 years after the guild was gone.

[Aetherial]

The first time I had the nerve to zone from Qeynos to WKaranas... someone pulled a train of bandits to tower2, People Shouted for help and about 20 people eventually took care of all the bandits.

The rush, and the feeling of community was incredible.

[Malrubius]

The moment you knew...
The first time I played and never could find my way out of Neriak.

The second time I played and saw Kelethin.

[Shirley Rose]

I grew up playing this game, so it's kind of hard wired into my brain, but I can't think of any particular moment that latched me on for good. It was all the adventures I got to go on as a 10 year old having only the most basic grasp of gameplay. Falling off boats and being terrified of losing all the statless armor I had collected then finally finding land only to be immediately killed by sirens, which I never actually saw. Running aimlessly in Gfay unable to see anything and getting lost. I was killed by an orc centurion, neither of which were words I was familiar with(I think at the time I thought it was some kind of centaur...)... When I found the sewers in Freeport I thought I was the only one who knew about them(I didn't think anyone else would spend time running into walls to see if you could go through any of them), until I found a few backpacks that held a fungi tunic and several other wonderful things... My mom said someone was killing themselves somewhere right now, but I, on the other hand had a few shiny new toys to go get killed with. Fun times. I am very far from 10 years old now, but I still do the exact same thing in classic eq. I refuse to fight in a zone that doesn't slightly terrify me.

[hedbonker]

One of the things I always liked was that I could never predict what would happen when I logged on. Might get a terrible group and die a lot or I might get a great group and have a great adventure...