New Player from 2000
 

Hey, all! I played EQ back from '99-2000 and got a necromancer, shadowknight, and cleric to 60. Fantastic times as far as I remember. Anyway, I'm currently downloading everything and getting it all set up and I have to say that I'm really excited. However, I have a couple of questions.

First of all, I really want to play a paladin. I never did for whatever reason, so I want to remedy that. I'm torn between the Half Elf and the Dwarf for races. I looked on the wiki and there seems to be a huge disparity between their starting stats. How big of impact does this have on their viability? I remember Half Elf paladins not being too rare back in the day, so they can't be too gimped, but I want to make sure before starting.

Other than that, any tips for a newbie?

Yea, play on Red. Spawns aren't perma camped, raiding is open, and we have an insane exp bonus.

I don't think starting stats will have any major effect on gameplay since they can be easily maxed later in the game with buffs / gear. It's all cosmetic if you ask me. Half elfs + paladin I think = big exp penalty.

Don't forget it's really really slow from like 1-10. Grind in your starting area until mobs are green then move to something more viable.

I can't vouch for red since I play on blue .. but be prepared to see "join red join red!" thrown in your face all the time here. That pretty much makes me not want to join simply for the fact they are constantly talking about it.

Dwarves have the best paladin starting stats, and half-elves will suffer a bit from the low wisdom/mana. If you want to min-max, play a dwarf, though I personally went human for my pally alt, because I like the human plate look and I wanted to worship Mith Marr. In the end, play what you want.

If you do go dwarf, make sure to put the 5 points into agility to bring it up to a 75 so you wont take the AC negative, the rest can go into stam.

Thanks all. I think that I'm going to start a Half Elf tonight. Split points between stamina and wisdom, or all stamina?

Normally I think I'd say most/all in stam, but for a half elf I think I would go 10 stam/10 wis.

Are you planning on being a follower of Tunare? I ask because come Velious you will get access to a sweet weapon that is arguably better than your epic if you do.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Natures_Defender

Elves get the easy epic sword in velious. Dwarves have better stats. Dwarves have problem with large steps in velious and also lower charisma (more critical fails on those calms)

A half-elf who doesn't worship MM Randy Savage just seems wrong.

Sword is neat though; forgot it had so much AC.

Blue is fun but there is an absurd situation regarding raid mobs if you plan on being level 60.

Red has PVP which adds some spice to the server, and if you want to kill dragons you won't have any problem doing so.

But both servers are rock solid.

Personally I'd go dwarf or human

Not sure if it's too late, but go TUNARE! :p