I think the first time I heard about EQ was on Sharky Extreme or similar in late 1998. There was a beta tester article and the guy was complaining about the long wait times for the boat, frequent server down-time for updates and how addicted he was to the game.
I forgot about it and went back to playing Quake 2 online and Half-Life. I happened to be at Bestbuy checking out the PC games section in early March 1999 when I saw EQ on the shelf and decided to give it a go. I didn't like the idea of a subscription service on top of the initial price of the game. It couldn't be played if I decided not to sub after the free month, but what the hell.
It came with the clothe map of Norrath, and I put this up on my wall behind my pc. I remember they only accepted Visa and Mastercard at the time and I had Discover. The credit card screen accepted my Discover card, but I had to call up Verant to fix credit card situation once my 30 days were up (I had to get a different credit card).
I loaded up and created a ranger. I accidentally attacked a SureFall Glades NPC within the first 10 min and had my first death. I gained a couple levels and grew tired of the difficulty and the clunky UI. I put it aside for a whole week and then came back to it, that's when the addiction kicked in and I started taking sick days like a madman.
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