Lake of Ill Omen was super freaking classic lol.

[Wakanda]

Does anyone disagree with this?

I remember being low level and grouping around windmill, and the getting higher level and grouping around the beach. Even though I couldn’t SEE them there would be like 200 people in the zone so I would stare at the ground most of the time to not lag. I remember the Sarmak Fort having every nook and cranny camped / there being multiple groups at the entrance and everywhere you looked.

Even remember “back door” groups, and deep Sarnak Fort groups that were close to where the chancellor spawned and groups debating on whether or not they should try to kill him based on whether or not he had a spear in his hand :D remember high level melee trying to camp the sarnak station earring. Spent an entire summer break doing this myself and still never saw it drop. (Apparently they are more common on p99? Wouldn’t know since no one groups there).

Also remember a goblin tunnel area in LOIO that people camped, and Tower groups for the tower area of the sarnark fort area that was closer to Overthere.

I remember you had finally made it when you could leave LOIO and go to the giant fort in Frontier Mountains :eek: none of this is a thing on P99. Would be kind of cool if it was, if for no other reason than nostalgia.

I frequently tell my younger friends who I play WoW with that LOIO was the original barrens chat. Was just lost to time.

[Arvan]

most zones were populated because the servers were populated

[Jimjam]

I feel it took a lot more effort to break out the lower levels, and people were likely to try put a few different classes without getting that high on any particular character. There was less focus on blasting through content and more on adventure.

This all made the loio the perfect storm for levelling.

[Reiwa]

Also remember a goblin tunnel area in LOIO that people camped

My friend's friend got the staff from there and ran a dwarf warrior up super quick in levels. He probably had a fungi too but I didn't know that at the time. I was jelly anyway.

[Ciderpress]

most zones were populated because the servers were populated

It's both that and the ignorance and naivete of the player base at the time. Even if p99 had 2500 players at peak hours this wouldn't be happening like op remembers.

I remember it too, consider yourself one of the lucky ones if you got to be there for it

[Trexller]

It's both that and the ignorance and naivete of the player base at the time.

Exactly. LOIO was just straight up open world fun, it didnt matter if the ZEM was like -1000, nobody knew better and nobody cared.

the exact opposite of the psychotic min/max data driven mindset

[Lune]

Does anyone disagree with this?

I remember being low level and grouping around windmill, and the getting higher level and grouping around the beach. Even though I couldn’t SEE them there would be like 200 people in the zone so I would stare at the ground most of the time to not lag. I remember the Sarmak Fort having every nook and cranny camped / there being multiple groups at the entrance and everywhere you looked.

Even remember “back door” groups, and deep Sarnak Fort groups that were close to where the chancellor spawned and groups debating on whether or not they should try to kill him based on whether or not he had a spear in his hand :D remember high level melee trying to camp the sarnak station earring. Spent an entire summer break doing this myself and still never saw it drop. (Apparently they are more common on p99? Wouldn’t know since no one groups there).

Also remember a goblin tunnel area in LOIO that people camped, and Tower groups for the tower area of the sarnark fort area that was closer to Overthere.

I remember you had finally made it when you could leave LOIO and go to the giant fort in Frontier Mountains :eek: none of this is a thing on P99. Would be kind of cool if it was, if for no other reason than nostalgia.

I frequently tell my younger friends who I play WoW with that LOIO was the original barrens chat. Was just lost to time.

LOIO was my absolute favorite back on live, to the point I always made sure to stop by when leveling a char on P99, even though it was always a ghost town after early Kunark. All of Kunark was lit like this back on live, you had groups all over Overthere and on every wall and corner of KC's exterior in the Dreadlands. Man.... it was the shittiest XP on Earth.

[Lune]

Also that harrowing fucking gauntlet from Firionia Vie if you were goodteam, following your EQAtlas map along a creek in a forest swarming with red con spiders, some of whom see invis, root you, and run at sow speed.

[shovelquest]

One day I will play on a 5000 pop classic server with 4999 people who have never played EQ before, except one, me, the god of the server, and I will treat everyone like plebs and stomp on their camps..

This is the future that AI will bring!

[Evia]

The year was 2001. I was on my half elf bard...27th level.... full lambent, schw, dual centi longswords... pulling for sarnak ledge group in loio.

3+ hrs. No issues. Then I get lost on a pull in the middle the the fort. Died. Rage quit. Got off and went to my friends house. My brother got on after I told him I quit eq forever and did my corpse run for me. 2 weeks later we were talking about how his Ranger finally hit lvl 25. I told him I wished I hadn't rage quit my bard because we could have duo'd together. He told me he logged on and did my corpse run for me that day. That was the day my brother and I because real true bros. Duod on that ranger/bard til oow era.

Good times.

TLDR: yes, loio is very classic

[Castle2.0]

No manastone. Not classic.

[Tethler]

Also that harrowing fucking gauntlet from Firionia Vie if you were goodteam, following your EQAtlas map along a creek in a forest swarming with red con spiders, some of whom see invis, root you, and run at sow speed.

That run sucked for evils too. That butthole wood elf guard that roams the zoneline to the tunnel entrance killed my dark elf warrior more than once back in the day due to him rooting me. I did get an earring while in a fort group though, which I was proud of.

[shovelquest]

I remember trying pretty hard to get a pair of sarnak earing and having to wait until project 1999 before I'd get any.

[Gilder]

I remember the LOIO sarnak fort groups very well. Good times

[Gustoo]

It was good times. I remember everyone telling me it was the place to go even tho exp was better for me wandering around the karanas as a ranger. I noticed the exp was trash but it was the new world and fun to see. And everyone was there.

[kaluppo]

Such good memories. My friend at work got me into Everquest in the fall of 2000. We were on the Tribunal server. I made a wood elf Druid but my buddy was a dark elf Shadow Knight. He had me take a boat to Freeport while I was still level one and we did a duo/grouping in EC to SRo to Oasis to LoiO.

We started at the windmill but soon moved to the sarnak fort where I leveled from 20-29 in a relatively short period of time. That place was so cool. From there we went to giant forts in FM then OT and then the Dreadlands for what seemed an eternity before I finally was high enough for KC groups. I was able to ding 60 in KC hands groups so it was my final stop back in those early days.

I tried to replicate that here on blur back in like 2015 but the sarnak fort was a ghost town. Turned out Unrest was the hot spot to get groups in the 20's. That was awesome too because I got to see zones the second time around that I never explored before.

Makes me want to log back in to P99 since I been away a few years. I lost interest after green and teal combined due to lack of population. Grouping became way harder.

[Wakanda]

It's both that and the ignorance and naivete of the player base at the time. Even if p99 had 2500 players at peak hours this wouldn't be happening like op remembers.

I remember it too, consider yourself one of the lucky ones if you got to be there for it

IDK if we were really that naive, at least my friend group. We were the level 9 players who were always pushing the limit to the point it scared most normies. Doing Unrest Trash at level 8, even solo if we had to etc. and remember a lot of people tell us we're nuts when we asked them to join us.

LOIO was just dramatically faster exp and the easiest way to level as far as we knew (granted, we weren't Necromancers, we were like Rogues, Warriors, Clerics etc.)

I don't think P99 experience is classic honestly and I think it misleads people about how fast leveling was 20+ years ago. I remember Unrest generally being a ghost town (no pun intended) once Kunark launched, and the exp being relatively bad compared to the LOIO > Frontier Mountains > OT > DL > KC > Sebilis train. Which is my fondest memories of classic.

[Wakanda]

Also that harrowing fucking gauntlet from Firionia Vie if you were goodteam, following your EQAtlas map along a creek in a forest swarming with red con spiders, some of whom see invis, root you, and run at sow speed.

I still have PTSD from this. I'm terrified of spiders IRL and can remember if I saw them casting it was a nightmare etc.

[Wakanda]

you had groups all over Overthere and on every wall and corner of KC's exterior in the Dreadlands. Man.... it was the shittiest XP on Earth.

The EXP was bad, but I think that was just classic and that these emulators have created a false idea of how fast exp was in other zones.

I'll give you an example. If you level on TLPs instead of P99, groups still regularly form in OT and DL doing the exact same camps. Nothing has changed. LOIO significantly less though.

[Wakanda]

That run sucked for evils too. That butthole wood elf guard that roams the zoneline to the tunnel entrance killed my dark elf warrior more than once back in the day due to him rooting me. I did get an earring while in a fort group though, which I was proud of.

Ironically he also saved me a few times since I was a wood elf :) I remember having aggro from a mob and realizing I was going to die, and then mister plate wearing elf man showed up to rescue me !

[Wakanda]

It was good times. I remember everyone telling me it was the place to go even tho exp was better for me wandering around the karanas as a ranger. I noticed the exp was trash but it was the new world and fun to see. And everyone was there.

I always played classes who really couldn't solo :p so from my perspective LOIO was the best exp. In hindsight maybe it really was just because I could easily find groups, but I still think the ZEMs are way off :cool:

[Wakanda]

I remember trying pretty hard to get a pair of sarnak earing and having to wait until project 1999 before I'd get any.

The drop rate on P99 has to be significantly higher because I always hear people talk about how easy they get the earrings. As a high schooler, I spent an entire summer break on my monk killing all the Sarnaks near Chancellor's room, all throughout the hallways, literally months, and never saw an earring drop. When I came to P99 I was like I bet those things weren't real and it was all a conspiracy theory that no sane person has ever heard of because I never saw one drop (even though I leveled a ton of alts in Sarnak Fort - possibly thousands of hours). But then I find out everyone on P99 has commonly seen them and I'm just like???

[Wakanda]

Such good memories. My friend at work got me into Everquest in the fall of 2000. We were on the Tribunal server. I made a wood elf Druid but my buddy was a dark elf Shadow Knight. He had me take a boat to Freeport while I was still level one and we did a duo/grouping in EC to SRo to Oasis to LoiO.

We started at the windmill but soon moved to the sarnak fort where I leveled from 20-29 in a relatively short period of time. That place was so cool. From there we went to giant forts in FM then OT and then the Dreadlands for what seemed an eternity before I finally was high enough for KC groups. I was able to ding 60 in KC hands groups so it was my final stop back in those early days.

I tried to replicate that here on blur back in like 2015 but the sarnak fort was a ghost town. Turned out Unrest was the hot spot to get groups in the 20's. That was awesome too because I got to see zones the second time around that I never explored before.

Makes me want to log back in to P99 since I been away a few years. I lost interest after green and teal combined due to lack of population. Grouping became way harder.

You just described the classic pipeline ;) makes me feel more sane because I think a lot of people on P99 have played on P99 so long they don't remember what true classic EQ was like, lol.