I would have to agree with twinking them if you want them to stick around. Having come from more modern games, they might be expecting a lot more in the way of speed and convenience than EQ has to offer. Twinking will help take some of the early level sting out of it. Playing together + twinking I believe they might enjoy it more. Those that have played before have more motivation to push through early levels from scratch because of the memories it brings back.

If you want a game that is challenging no matter how much time you put into it, you can always go play Ghost and Goblins on the Nintendo. Most games however, if you spend enough time, they become much easier and not challenging based on your definition. To me, time consuming does equal challenging. Besides, EQ's challenge does not just come from how time consuming it is.

Coming from modern games, they are pretty much lost children in the Industrial Age. Everything has been done for them. Where's the next quest? Oh, I'll just follow this yellow line. Basically, they are used to the games playing them.

The only way that inexperienced players like this can come full circle and learn to love actual gameplay, mechanics, the guts and brains of games, is if they are wholly exceptional gamers in their own right, which you will have nothing to do with.

The odds are greatly against that.

If you follow even the best of these ideas, they will have literally zero impact on whether or not your friends will continue to play EverQuest or not. It is only a path to self-doubt and recrimination.

Oh boy, this discussion again. I'll bite.

WoW can be compared to EQ if you:
-Remove maps
-Remove quest prompts/quest instructions
-Make every mob "elite"
-Make travel player dependent
-Make economics non-automated
-Make Deaths more penalizing
-Make magic less accessible
-Make tradeskills fallible



Btw, thanks for all the suggestions guys. I'm going to be rolling a paladin, the semi-experienced player is going to be a barb rogue, we don't know about the third newbie yet, though.

It is extremely difficult to make an older game fun for someone who has never played it. For most of us the joy of playing on p99 is to relive the adventures of our younger years. Playing here brings back memories of simpler times allowing us to relate to the game on a different level. People who have started with the newer generation of games can not relate to the game as we do. They judge the game off graphics and the slow pace game play vs the "go go go" game play of WoW, GW2, Star Wars and other current mmos. Also, in Everquest everything you wanted took a great deal of hard work and time while newer mmos like to give handouts and make everything simpler. I would like to see a new player brought into the game but dont go the way of twinking the hell out of them. Help them with along the way but make sure they are learning to play the game as they should to avoid headaches for groups at higher levels.

As a person new to the server (highest is lv20), who did not play EQ Pre-Velious, i feel the most important thing you can do is not necessarily twink them (though having a decent weapon makes the game mroe enjoyable in my personal opinion), but to offer them guidance. It is extremely difficult to locate the banks, trainers, spell merchants, or even entire cities/zones with the absence of an ingame map. And being told to "check the wiki" is often frustrating because.. at least in my case, about 33% of the time the game crashes when I try to resume full screen and i have to restart my computer to fix the issue.

It is not necessary to be 100% twinked to have fun.. I started an sk on the server first, was a human.. I lost that acct info so now I play a dark elf. Someone had given me a couple pieces of flayed skin armor and a halfway decent weapon and I was happy as can be, and while WoW was not ym FIRST MMO (Late velious-early luclin era EQ was, in fact), I still found myself having a great desire to continue playing. Though it definitely helped, that I had encountered a few generous people that gave me an item or two as well as a not insubstantial stack of platinum (100 or so plat and a sword of skyfire and I was pretty well set)

Other than being a knowledge resource, and a couple items and a few plat for skills/spells, I would say the most important thing you can do is play WITH them, and I see you already have a handle on that.. Playing a paladin you will also be able to tank for them and that is good. I would recommend druid for your undecided friend as they cover almost all bases.. nukes, dots, heals, buffs, ports.. Pet classes are also a solid choice (magic and necromancer, depending on what he wants, more wizard-like capabilities or, as I was drawn to, the dark art of necromancy.. diseasing and draining the life of enemies and raising the dead)

Also, make sure they are 100% Aware that the game is far more challenging than other MMO's they may have played. It is not simply more time consuming as some have stated.. sure the time consumption is a big part of it.. requires a lot more careful planning and patience than modern MMO's, but it goes well beyond that.. Even decked out in full jarsath scale by level 15 as a shadowknight, I found myself still constantly wary of even con mobs.. The downtime between them is not worth the extra bit of EXP, but that's just my 2cp

Edit-- also I'd like to include that you may awnt to give them the option of enabling luclin graphics.. I know most people ont he server disagree with me when I say they look 150% better than the classic graphics, and they have a right to their opinion, but to someone who does not have a positive, nostalgiac feeling associated with blocky, unrealistic graphics, they might be more inclined to play if they felt they looked "cool"

Its almost 2013. Quit playing in full screen. :D

shaman

It's almost 2013, quit playing with crappy classic graphics

oh wait, you personally prefe rthem? Well I prefer full screen. the game is more immersive that way :P

I think Slave pretty much nailed it. If you want to try to convey the feeling of being hit by the nostalgia train, you might want to consider assuming the role of Dungeon Master, i.e. take over the role of facilitating the experience (a la WoW's UI to a certain degree). Map out a progression path that hits up quests, items, and places of interest. Give them a guided tour of the places you go.