First Epics?

[jtmize]

Always been curious - how did the first people to get their epics figure out the quests? I assume no guides were out at the time since no one had figured it out yet. Did they really figure it out all by themselves? Similarly, what about the first players of EQ - how did they figure out where to level, quests, etc. Anyone here been on since Day 1?

[GardylooGubbins]

Not day one, but prior to Kunark release.

I remember just walking around hailing every NPC, following dialogue chains, and finding minor quests in this way. Of course, I often had no clue what some of the items/creatures/people mentioned were, or where to find them.

I remember spamming zone chat asking "Has anyone seen X?" or "Does anyone know where to find X?" Sometimes you'd get helpful answers, sometimes not.

The Prima strategy guides had some hints on lore and such, but weren't the most reliable things. (I still have some of those) And eventually, there was the spiral bound book of zone maps.

To sum up, I remember a lot of trial and error back in the day, along with unreliable speculation and rumor.

[tadkins]

Every class forum compiled their info and findings onto usually a single thread. It was something cool to see.

My main was a rogue back in the day when epics were released and I'd check the Safehouse every day for updates on worldwide epic progress.

[Zill]

Ahh yes, back in those days we had to hike uphill both ways to get to quest NPCs!

[Ooloo]

Yeah even back then knowledge was starting to become somewhat centralized on sites like everlore and caster's realm, the quests were basically just crowdsourced until all the steps were known. Wouldn't surprise me if a dev tipped people off to certain things either, but I dunno if that happened.

I remember being so fascinated by the sphynx in rathe mountains as a 13 year old kid. Shame it apparently isn't for anything.

[Kich867]

I've heard several times that GM's / Devs told people how to do them. The druid epic begins with talking to a rando who doesn't give you any indication of how to continue the conversation with him. Granted, the text isn't rocket science (you just ask him what he's doing there), but there isn't any boxed text suggesting you do that. I think there's a few others like that.

Further along in the druid epic you spawn some mobs that need to be engaged basically immediately or they despawn, and that just seems like another thing you'd need to know ahead of time or you'd have to start the quest over again, although maybe that's what people did.

[Selene]

i think the "identify" spell also helped with items you got along the way for turn ins, etc.

[Man0warr]

The Rogue one was one of the first to finish because it got leaked on Safehouse by an employee.

To be fair, I believe the Rogue epic was initially mostly unsolvable because the NPCs at some part of it didn't direct players to the next part correctly.

[Toxigen]

Leaked by devs / GMs to their friends, word of mouth afterward.

[Solist]

Leaked by devs / GMs to their friends, word of mouth afterward.

This, there was zero purity. Most of the devs were active players, direct leaks to their guilds etc.

[Jibartik]

Leaked by devs / GMs to their friends, word of mouth afterward.

I agree. Aint no way I believe people figure this stuff out.

"I'm gonna wait here for the 4th NPC to appear, and then I'll give them this item that took a raid to get to see what happens."

https://i.imgur.com/wvZ6gLV.gif

[Knuckle]

Always been curious - how did the first people to get their epics figure out the quests? I assume no guides were out at the time since no one had figured it out yet. Did they really figure it out all by themselves? Similarly, what about the first players of EQ - how did they figure out where to level, quests, etc. Anyone here been on since Day 1?

The devs played and there was some clue gathering done on the EQ sponsored websites like everlore people did get hints in the patch notes as well. At the end of the day, leaks is your answer.

[Krysea79]

My husband was the first person to get the wizard epic (first on any server) and I can assure you the devs did not help him in any way.

[Kich867]

My husband was the first person to get the wizard epic (first on any server) and I can assure you the devs did not help him in any way.

Does he happen to remember, when needing to give the guy 1000 plat, was there text that actually cited how much to give him, or was it just trial and error throwing hella money at the guy?

[Krysea79]

Does he happen to remember, when needing to give the guy 1000 plat, was there text that actually cited how much to give him, or was it just trial and error throwing hella money at the guy?

I asked him last night and he laughed and reminded me that it was 20 years ago that we played (oh I feel dated :eek:) He says he just remembers how terrifying it was turning in items and not knowing if it was correct and if he would just lose them all. I think at one point there was some write ups on when he finished it...but I haven't had a chance to google. His character name was Occy.

[meathook]

A lot of quests (not just epics) were likely leaked or written up from the test server. Without some sort of leak or guidance there would be almost no way to figure out some of them.

For example, the Veeshan's Peak key requires killing Pained Soul. The PH for Pained Soul is just some random ghost in an area full of random ghosts in Trak's Tooth on a 6 minute timer. Pained Soul is super rare and might spawn once in a 24 hour period after consistently killing his PH. There is no way someone just randomly picked that one ghost and camped him for days on end to finish the quest, without some sort of hunch or understanding that this was the specific PH.

[Danth]

Sometimes it worked backwards. Lot of those types of areas weren't deserted like they are on P99, and folks trying to make experience would get a drop that they had no idea of the use of. For Pained Soul, medallions were obvious enough to someone doing the quest that as soon as someone posted someplace that this mob dropped some unknown medallion, that would've been all that was needed for it to rapidly turn into common public knowledge.

The epics, my understanding is that some of them were solved via a combination of community effort and brute-forcing trigger phrases, while some of the tougher ones needed a bit of quiet leaking or developer "help" before they got figured out. The epic quests definitely are not created equal.

Worst was original Fiery Avenger, quest was completely broken but devs said it was in and working so a lot of folks spent a lot of effort going noplace. The devs were not always to be trusted, something that bears rememberance when researching old posts for P99 purposes.

Danth

[Ooloo]

A lot of quests (not just epics) were likely leaked or written up from the test server. Without some sort of leak or guidance there would be almost no way to figure out some of them.

For example, the Veeshan's Peak key requires killing Pained Soul. The PH for Pained Soul is just some random ghost in an area full of random ghosts in Trak's Tooth on a 6 minute timer. Pained Soul is super rare and might spawn once in a 24 hour period after consistently killing his PH. There is no way someone just randomly picked that one ghost and camped him for days on end to finish the quest, without some sort of hunch or understanding that this was the specific PH.

Disagree, it's completely plausible. Back when kunark came out people were largely pretty naive about the game, and combined with the high server pops at the time they'd do things like form pickup groups in TT at the ruins around seb. The pained soul PH is static and doesn't roam, so it stands to reason that somebody just noticed one day while camping in that area that he popped right there and they made note of it.

[cd288]

Yup. Pained soul is one of the least relevant examples here. People would camp those ruins and just clear all the spectral guys. Eventually you’d get a pained soul.

probably took awhile for anyone to realize it only ever spawned off that one specific PH

[wunderon]

I was actually running to Seb one day on Green and ran right by PS. (Yes needed the medalion)

[Zuranthium]

My husband was the first person to get the wizard epic (first on any server) and I can assure you the devs did not help him in any way.

I asked him last night and he laughed and reminded me that it was 20 years ago that we played (oh I feel dated :eek:) He says he just remembers how terrifying it was turning in items and not knowing if it was correct and if he would just lose them all. I think at one point there was some write ups on when he finished it...but I haven't had a chance to google. His character name was Occy.

The Wizard epic "required" exactly 1000 platinum to be given to an NPC in order to get further necessary information about the quest. There isn't a good clue in the game about how much money he needs. It's very unlikely this information wasn't leaked (your husband didn't need to be told directly by a dev; he could have seen the leaked information online). That would be a ton of money to be dumping into an NPC randomly until figuring out the magic number of 1000, which people back then generally wouldn't have been able to afford.

[Fammaden]

AKA that poster is full of shit.

[Gustoo]

Imagining so many people playing that they camp ruins by seb.

[Trademaster]

P99 is great but the population here is nothing compared the the numbers of people across the servers. I remember at Kunark Launch, the Field of Bone was so busy it was hard to find a mob not engaged. It was a pain but I leveled my first Iksar in west/south freeport and then traveled back to Cabilis to train.

[Zuranthium]

Yeah, I miss all those now-underutilized areas being well populated, and people finding wherever to hunt instead of knowing the best progression path. Every outdoor zone in Kunark except Emerald Jungle had exp groups going all the time and most of them were packed. It's crazy what an insanely popular place Lake of Ill Omen was back then, to the point that they nerfed the exp modifier there (despite it not being higher than other outdoor zones), LOL. Literally everything in the zone was camped - and it's a huge zone!

I remember at Kunark Launch, the Field of Bone was so busy it was hard to find a mob not engaged. It was a pain but I leveled my first Iksar in west/south freeport and then traveled back to Cabilis to train.

You should have gone into da Swamp of No Hope.

[Swish]

P99 is great but the population here is nothing compared the the numbers of people across the servers. I remember at Kunark Launch, the Field of Bone was so busy it was hard to find a mob not engaged. It was a pain but I leveled my first Iksar in west/south freeport and then traveled back to Cabilis to train.

That happened on blue and green here too.

[cd288]

Yeah, I miss all those now-underutilized areas being well populated, and people finding wherever to hunt instead of knowing the best progression path. Every outdoor zone in Kunark except Emerald Jungle had exp groups going all the time and most of them were packed. It's crazy what an insanely popular place Lake of Ill Omen was back then, to the point that they nerfed the exp modifier there (despite it not being higher than other outdoor zones), LOL. Literally everything in the zone was camped - and it's a huge zone!



You should have gone into da Swamp of No Hope.

Yup. LOIO groups all the time, crawling into the Sarnak fortress, windmill, random trash pulling groups by the zone walls. Good times.

Outside KC usually had 2-3 groups going at any given time also. Pulling to the wall/ruins.

That was the best part about Green launch. Seeing groups at random orc/goblin camps in SRo, BB, etc. Felt like the old days.

[Gustoo]

It was crazy how popular LOIO was, and then frontier mountains giants and a billion people in OT, and grips and grips of dreadlands groups around KC.

The definition of an exp grind there were tons of mobs and not many trains it just worked for the way eq was developing and the huge amount of new players still piling into the game. Exp was slow but you could churn mobs for hours and hours without interruption.

I really hope a next p99 server can have forced progression of some kind where we can’t race to 50 to get end game stuff as fast as possible yet again.

I think the level caps would work super well for pvp since there’s a lot of incentive to get “level 20 BIS” meaning best junk you can get at level 20 in order to have some pvp power. Then the same at level 30 and so on. It would mean all zones would get exploited to their max while we work through the level caps slowly.

And with no legacy items to stress about we could focus on the fun parts of the game not just the most profitable plat per hour parts.

I’m really looking forward to red 2 or blue 3

[magnetaress]

It was normal to spend an entire weeks worth of days at a single camp in kunark. Just for exp/vendor trash. Not even any particular items. And ppl all had terrible gear. If a Warrior had a yak and some other random weapon u where in a group with a hardcore twink.

[Infectious]

It was normal to spend an entire weeks worth of days at a single camp in kunark. Just for exp/vendor trash. Not even any particular items. And ppl all had terrible gear. If a Warrior had a yak and some other random weapon u where in a group with a hardcore twink.

Shittt I remember camping the hermit in lake rathe while waiting for the 2 avaiks by the arena camp. Crazy to think of camping 1 mob every 6 minutes for hours...

[PatChapp]

Shittt I remember camping the hermit in lake rathe while waiting for the 2 avaiks by the arena camp. Crazy to think of camping 1 mob every 6 minutes for hours...

Lots of people do that on p99

[Baba]

Shittt I remember camping the hermit in lake rathe while waiting for the 2 avaiks by the arena camp. Crazy to think of camping 1 mob every 6 minutes for hours...

This is my p99 life.

[Chortles Snortles]

Shittt I remember camping the hermit in lake rathe while waiting for the 2 avaiks by the arena camp. Crazy to think of camping 1 mob every 6 minutes for hours...

oof this and Cordelia Minster on Live :eek:

[Infectious]

Lots of people do that on p99

Not the Sk Hermit. The one in lake rather, I have never seen anybody there, Jonah Brucker.

[cd288]

Not the Sk Hermit. The one in lake rather, I have never seen anybody there, Jonah Brucker.

He meant camp a single 6:40 spawn in general