Fifey
Trakanon Raider
- 2,898
- 962
What Made EQ Great? Tell your stories to a filthy casual
- Thread starter Adebisi
- Start date
Well I'm a helpful guy! I also rememebred another time in Neverwinter Nights in the 90s, but the crappy graphics were a downside. Hard to get hot about a 6 pixel character. Shame age of conan tanked, that would have been good.
Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
- 1,887
- 750
taebin
Same trailer, different park
- 943
- 393
I've had a dead raid array for a few years that I finally revived and have a crapton of 1999 screenshots. Old Mithaniel Marr server stuff from before the formation of afterlife. Nag raids and hate and such. Some I probably had posted before on the old boards, but if I find anything storyish I'll post them when I get a chance.
Killer. Make some albums!
-----
The failed Royals Raid
OK so its probably during Luclin, there's something like 3-4 groups so this 'open raid' is a boring formality for folks to get epic drops.
For some reason we were just sitting there outside the Prince's room waiting for...something I forget. Well I get bored and start popping eyes into wall for exploring a bit. (casting eye of zomm pressed into a wall would force the eye to spawn in semi random parts of the zone based on where you were at the time)
Shoulda opted for some dirty talk instead.
After about 10 minutes the the whole area I was scouting is hopping crazy, eyeball after eyeball, at least 30 mobs looking to find me but with no path...both my roommate and the guy that got me into the game were there in our basement watching my screen saying stuff like:
HERV! Dude STOP thats gonna get ugly!
-Naw guys, they have no path to get up here, look at these dipshits... all running around like idiots, can't get to me!
Soon after, they all warped, vaped me, and ate the raid. I was dead so fast the raid had no clue who even brought the aggro until I could fess up, lotta folks were waiting on their loading... so it took a few times to inform them all how they wiped in an empty fucking hallway.
No epics tonight folks! Consent <Bummin Dude> and maybe hit the store for some snacks.
Namon
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 1,976
- 2,565
God, I've read about half of this thread so far and it just makes me spout some of my favorite memories. I started playing in December of 99 because I just read an article talking about how the FF creators had played and fell in love with EQ and wanted to do the same thing for Final Fantasy, and that they would be releasing Final Fantasy XI as an online game. Skeptical, I figured I'd buy EQ to see what all the fuss was about...
First server was Nameless because it was easy to remember since I figured out that the top server was not static... and changed to whichever one had the most people on it. But it was messed up names I couldn't remember like Cazic Thule (wtf), Tunare (huh?), or Queynos. I played on there until November of the next year. The most memorable moment from there was the first week of Kunark's release. My friends and I were in our 30's (I was one bub into level 30) and we decided to go to Kunark to try it out. Well one of the party members had the port to there (they were the highest level of the group) so off we go.... to only get split up, hopelessly lost and then hopelessly dead. For SIXTEEN HOURS we tried to find our corpses but we had no clue other than it was out in this snowy field of doom filled with creepy ass spider people and giant dogs. Finally some people came and we were able to locate all corpses, and in the meantime I remember me and my buddy were sitting naked on the Freeport docks (where we were bound), dueling each other out of boredom. Fun times fun times. Unfortunately, I was friends with the Guild Leader and his wife, and the obligatory ugly divorce came and I was somehow pulled into the whole mess and expected to take sides. Being young and retarded, I freaked out and left the server.
I ended up going to Morell Thule, where I had another amazing experience with a chance meeting with some guys there. We had met in Unrest, and hit it off, so we decided to do another night of grouping in Sol A a little while later. After that night we decided to form a guild. It was six of us and the guild leader had four friends willing to make it ten. Eventually the 6 became just four of us, and we were the only members of that guild and just perma grouped. It was Me (cleric), Warrior, Chanter, and Druid. So basically we could do whatever we wanted because we just had to fill out the other two slots with anyone. And who wasn't looking for a group back then? It was then revealed to me that the warrior and chanter were friends with someone in one of the higher end guilds and that we pretty much had a guarantee of getting in once we hit 46. I couldn't wait because ever since I laid eyes on planar gear, that was my only goal was to get in that armor and walk around to let everyone know I had been to the planes. I was so pumped about raiding and could not stop talking about it, and finally that magic day came. My first Fear Raid came and went and it was everything I could have dreamed for and then some. Danger, excitement, the fear of a wipe that would cost us days of time, the whole nine yards. Then it was Hate where my armor dropped and after a month or so I was a walking grape, and I was proud! Annnnd then we started to move on in the Raiding... and then I started to notice. That I really .. hated it.
Fear and Hate were fun because it felt like (to me at least) it was our army vs the mob's army. And it was chaotic and crazy and fun. But then starting with Kunark (which honestly was really just bosses at the end of the dungeons for the most part) and especially in Velious. It really felt like it was a six man dungeon buffed to the hilt so it took 40 people to do instead, and it was just boring. I felt completely busted, because I spent all that time of dreaming of the day that I could say "I am a raider." And when that day came, I was like "Bleh I am a raider and it sucks!" I quit not long after that, and I never really came back save for a couple of two or three month stints here and there. I then went to WoW and I never got into that game because of the same thing. I felt like I was obliged to play a healer to have a chance to get groups, and all I had to look forward to were more 40 man dungeon crawls that really should have been 5 man content. I'm not saying this is definitely how it was, but that was my perception.
Then in 06 I was married and had a kid on the way, and I hung up my MMO hat for the most part. I look back at EQ and I still say it was the best gaming experience I had ever had, and nothing will probably come close to it. It was a Bi Polar game of extremes. What was good, was awesome. What was Bad was nail into the dick painful or horrid. And I personally won't ever be able to dedicate myself that much to a game again (well at least until my kids grow up). However, I do wish that one day someone does try to recreate that magic. Not because I want to play it, but I would love for future generations to experience that same thing I did. While it won't quite be the same, since it wasn't just a new world. It was a new world using tech not really seen before on a mainstream level before hand, I still think future generations would love a good kick in the balls to wake them up in the morning. And that is why I sit back and quietly cheer for the Vanguards and whatever future endeavor Brad is trying to roll out, while I am sure at best I'll be playing the Titan's and Diablo III's.
First server was Nameless because it was easy to remember since I figured out that the top server was not static... and changed to whichever one had the most people on it. But it was messed up names I couldn't remember like Cazic Thule (wtf), Tunare (huh?), or Queynos. I played on there until November of the next year. The most memorable moment from there was the first week of Kunark's release. My friends and I were in our 30's (I was one bub into level 30) and we decided to go to Kunark to try it out. Well one of the party members had the port to there (they were the highest level of the group) so off we go.... to only get split up, hopelessly lost and then hopelessly dead. For SIXTEEN HOURS we tried to find our corpses but we had no clue other than it was out in this snowy field of doom filled with creepy ass spider people and giant dogs. Finally some people came and we were able to locate all corpses, and in the meantime I remember me and my buddy were sitting naked on the Freeport docks (where we were bound), dueling each other out of boredom. Fun times fun times. Unfortunately, I was friends with the Guild Leader and his wife, and the obligatory ugly divorce came and I was somehow pulled into the whole mess and expected to take sides. Being young and retarded, I freaked out and left the server.
I ended up going to Morell Thule, where I had another amazing experience with a chance meeting with some guys there. We had met in Unrest, and hit it off, so we decided to do another night of grouping in Sol A a little while later. After that night we decided to form a guild. It was six of us and the guild leader had four friends willing to make it ten. Eventually the 6 became just four of us, and we were the only members of that guild and just perma grouped. It was Me (cleric), Warrior, Chanter, and Druid. So basically we could do whatever we wanted because we just had to fill out the other two slots with anyone. And who wasn't looking for a group back then? It was then revealed to me that the warrior and chanter were friends with someone in one of the higher end guilds and that we pretty much had a guarantee of getting in once we hit 46. I couldn't wait because ever since I laid eyes on planar gear, that was my only goal was to get in that armor and walk around to let everyone know I had been to the planes. I was so pumped about raiding and could not stop talking about it, and finally that magic day came. My first Fear Raid came and went and it was everything I could have dreamed for and then some. Danger, excitement, the fear of a wipe that would cost us days of time, the whole nine yards. Then it was Hate where my armor dropped and after a month or so I was a walking grape, and I was proud! Annnnd then we started to move on in the Raiding... and then I started to notice. That I really .. hated it.
Fear and Hate were fun because it felt like (to me at least) it was our army vs the mob's army. And it was chaotic and crazy and fun. But then starting with Kunark (which honestly was really just bosses at the end of the dungeons for the most part) and especially in Velious. It really felt like it was a six man dungeon buffed to the hilt so it took 40 people to do instead, and it was just boring. I felt completely busted, because I spent all that time of dreaming of the day that I could say "I am a raider." And when that day came, I was like "Bleh I am a raider and it sucks!" I quit not long after that, and I never really came back save for a couple of two or three month stints here and there. I then went to WoW and I never got into that game because of the same thing. I felt like I was obliged to play a healer to have a chance to get groups, and all I had to look forward to were more 40 man dungeon crawls that really should have been 5 man content. I'm not saying this is definitely how it was, but that was my perception.
Then in 06 I was married and had a kid on the way, and I hung up my MMO hat for the most part. I look back at EQ and I still say it was the best gaming experience I had ever had, and nothing will probably come close to it. It was a Bi Polar game of extremes. What was good, was awesome. What was Bad was nail into the dick painful or horrid. And I personally won't ever be able to dedicate myself that much to a game again (well at least until my kids grow up). However, I do wish that one day someone does try to recreate that magic. Not because I want to play it, but I would love for future generations to experience that same thing I did. While it won't quite be the same, since it wasn't just a new world. It was a new world using tech not really seen before on a mainstream level before hand, I still think future generations would love a good kick in the balls to wake them up in the morning. And that is why I sit back and quietly cheer for the Vanguards and whatever future endeavor Brad is trying to roll out, while I am sure at best I'll be playing the Titan's and Diablo III's.
Brell was an expansion server, the unofficial RP spot and general stoner server. I don't think we had a world first past 'page 8' on our rants board. OK I think we had the first BOTB Druid... there.
So in the winter of 99/00 there were a lot of open type Nagafen and Fear raids. My first Nagafen raid ended with abigepiphany.
My wizard was at the cap and could cast 5 Ice Comets, I don'tthinkyou could cherry pick gear in vanilla to get 6 off (this is when the spell hit for 1120, cost more DPM, original spell messages).
So we are all lining up for the 'buff circle' and then 'camping to chat' in #BrellNaggy and the leader sends me a tell: 'OK you're the only wizard on the raid, got IC? You know what to do right....?'
It was quickly apparent I didn't know what the fuck. So I got a quick lesson on what a belly caster is, and where to be when starting the cast. He knew I had five IC's and said we needed them to land with the five groups of 44-50's about to attack.
He inspected me and told me to take off all my FR gear, opened a trade window with MR gear (e.g. Tranix Crown, etc etc) and I got the 'good luck we're all counting on you' camp it yo, I will be healing you... just don't fuck up.
We all hop in, you know how it went if you played then... wave 1 go! wave 2 go! I was last wave, I come in and there are corpses everywhere, feared folks strollin' in random directions (everyone in walk mode).
Naggy cons RED (he was down to 40 health or so) this ain't gonna land... holy shit Lord Nagafen's skin freezes... FUCK YES! So there it went, just chasing Naggy around the lair as he ate the raid, I would either resist the dragon roar or get an SV roll out of the fear within a tick or two. The raid leader was healing me through the fire AE's and BAM:
You have slain Lord Nagafen!!
I had almost no hit points, no mana. All five landed. Fuck. Yes.
I learned about how red cons can have such a low CR so you can still hit em. Hey I was playing for about 4-5 months at that point.
And above all, wizards (at the time) kill raid targets.
That one was huge, also... learning how to burn down a mob with Sunstrike, using an enchanter 'tank' with Concussion. If you blew too far past Shiny Bob, you could count the Conc's it took to bring you back under Bob's aggro and try again, and again till you could ride just under Bob on the hate list. (SS, 2 Concs, SS, 3 Concs, Bob tanks the mob all the way)
Once you learned how hate worked and how to quantify it into a metric (4 concs = 1 sunstrike), compare it to the aggregate max swing of your MT's weapons with Dual Attack/Dual Wield, you could reliably predict how to add 25-50 percent more damage in the same timeframe... and above all, be number 2 on the hate list. Some MT's had really crap aggro and would need much more mitigation to keep the burn on. (Flux Staff clicky until waaay later on... like Luclin, could make Concussion work like PoP wizard pants... nice bug!)
Druids and Mages would try to follow you into that zone and get summoned/eaten (they didn't know what that Mez looking spell was doing), was almost not fair!
This game was a lot of fun. Fin.
e: Stuff
So in the winter of 99/00 there were a lot of open type Nagafen and Fear raids. My first Nagafen raid ended with abigepiphany.
My wizard was at the cap and could cast 5 Ice Comets, I don'tthinkyou could cherry pick gear in vanilla to get 6 off (this is when the spell hit for 1120, cost more DPM, original spell messages).
So we are all lining up for the 'buff circle' and then 'camping to chat' in #BrellNaggy and the leader sends me a tell: 'OK you're the only wizard on the raid, got IC? You know what to do right....?'
It was quickly apparent I didn't know what the fuck. So I got a quick lesson on what a belly caster is, and where to be when starting the cast. He knew I had five IC's and said we needed them to land with the five groups of 44-50's about to attack.
He inspected me and told me to take off all my FR gear, opened a trade window with MR gear (e.g. Tranix Crown, etc etc) and I got the 'good luck we're all counting on you' camp it yo, I will be healing you... just don't fuck up.
We all hop in, you know how it went if you played then... wave 1 go! wave 2 go! I was last wave, I come in and there are corpses everywhere, feared folks strollin' in random directions (everyone in walk mode).
Naggy cons RED (he was down to 40 health or so) this ain't gonna land... holy shit Lord Nagafen's skin freezes... FUCK YES! So there it went, just chasing Naggy around the lair as he ate the raid, I would either resist the dragon roar or get an SV roll out of the fear within a tick or two. The raid leader was healing me through the fire AE's and BAM:
You have slain Lord Nagafen!!
I had almost no hit points, no mana. All five landed. Fuck. Yes.
I learned about how red cons can have such a low CR so you can still hit em. Hey I was playing for about 4-5 months at that point.
And above all, wizards (at the time) kill raid targets.
That one was huge, also... learning how to burn down a mob with Sunstrike, using an enchanter 'tank' with Concussion. If you blew too far past Shiny Bob, you could count the Conc's it took to bring you back under Bob's aggro and try again, and again till you could ride just under Bob on the hate list. (SS, 2 Concs, SS, 3 Concs, Bob tanks the mob all the way)
Once you learned how hate worked and how to quantify it into a metric (4 concs = 1 sunstrike), compare it to the aggregate max swing of your MT's weapons with Dual Attack/Dual Wield, you could reliably predict how to add 25-50 percent more damage in the same timeframe... and above all, be number 2 on the hate list. Some MT's had really crap aggro and would need much more mitigation to keep the burn on. (Flux Staff clicky until waaay later on... like Luclin, could make Concussion work like PoP wizard pants... nice bug!)
Druids and Mages would try to follow you into that zone and get summoned/eaten (they didn't know what that Mez looking spell was doing), was almost not fair!
This game was a lot of fun. Fin.
e: Stuff
In the folders I've dug through so far, my first nag raid was on november the 7th in 99. Afterlife wouldn't form for another month and a half or so, so there were lots of raids with various family style mith marr guilds involved. I played hard at launch but quit for several months in my 20's so I knew some people from the early days when there were just a few people in cazicthule, others I had known since beta (quite a few beta folk came to mith marr) but most were new to me.
These days were cool because you could look at someone and see where they had been based on what they had equipped. A fellow game developer Harman got me into this I think. He was at this raid somewhere. He and I both started playing heavily when our employer went under.
Look at my ping meter in the upper left. I can't remember what kind of connection I was on back then, but it must have been crappy.
Hate on December 7th
Then there were 2 nags and voxes with a day inbetween them, must have been a patch day.
Anyway cool to see old gear and such. May not be of much interest unless you were on mithmarr. Next time I've got a bunch from fear with team Japan. People were rotating in and out and keeping the zone clear.
These days were cool because you could look at someone and see where they had been based on what they had equipped. A fellow game developer Harman got me into this I think. He was at this raid somewhere. He and I both started playing heavily when our employer went under.
Look at my ping meter in the upper left. I can't remember what kind of connection I was on back then, but it must have been crappy.
Hate on December 7th
Then there were 2 nags and voxes with a day inbetween them, must have been a patch day.
Anyway cool to see old gear and such. May not be of much interest unless you were on mithmarr. Next time I've got a bunch from fear with team Japan. People were rotating in and out and keeping the zone clear.
Namon
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 1,976
- 2,565
Wow talk about blurring memories... I didn't think that full screen UI came out until end of Kunark/ beginning of Velious. I remember playing in that god awful partial screen UI with the bright white that took up two thirds of the screen that blinded you.
Xarpolis
Life's a Dream
- 14,111
- 15,615
Nah, full screen existed back in classic as shown in his post. The only difference from that and the Kunark UI is that Kunark allowed you to move the bars around. In classic, they were locked in place. And there wasn't a separate bard song bar, so they would chew up a lot of your buff slots.
Stop talking about me Cybsled. i was THE BEST MONK on CT. you were always jealous. lol
Terial
Trakanon Raider
- 1,269
- 585
This is what made EQ so great, i have not seen a video this good describing what made EQ so wonderful.
you can skip forward to the 7 min mark as that is where it gets more nostalgic, but the whole video is really well worth it.
Like i said, best EQ video i've ever seen.
you can skip forward to the 7 min mark as that is where it gets more nostalgic, but the whole video is really well worth it.
Like i said, best EQ video i've ever seen.
Gryphe
Golden Knight of the Realm
- 63
- 9
First of all, EQ was so great, because there was nothing like it. Since there was nothing like it, devs didn't have total control of every game mechanic either. It was more or less a journey into the unknown for everyone.
Also EQ had a very unique concept and that was huge content hidden below the surface. You could walk into a small mid-level dungeon, take a wrong turn and all of a sudden end up in a huge high level dungeon that could support up to 20 groups at the same time (which was a lot). Everything was hand-crafted and not a bunch of modules that were just glued together.
Another really awesome thing was that things that seemed to be impossible to do could be figured out. There was actually a lot of skill involved. EQ wasn't all about mashing buttons. You had to "micro" your character to be successful. One mistake could kill a group and everyone would get punished for it. If you played your character well, people would invite you back. If not then not.
Finally there was a lot of social stuff going on. Players knew each other and everyone had a reputation. There were the friendly guys, the assholes, the bullies, the cheaters, the stat-nerds, the cool people....everything.
Listen to original EQ soundtrack. Even the music was awesome!
P.S.: That video above describes it perfectly. You wouldn't want the game any other way. Despite all the shit it was perfect the way it was.
Also EQ had a very unique concept and that was huge content hidden below the surface. You could walk into a small mid-level dungeon, take a wrong turn and all of a sudden end up in a huge high level dungeon that could support up to 20 groups at the same time (which was a lot). Everything was hand-crafted and not a bunch of modules that were just glued together.
Another really awesome thing was that things that seemed to be impossible to do could be figured out. There was actually a lot of skill involved. EQ wasn't all about mashing buttons. You had to "micro" your character to be successful. One mistake could kill a group and everyone would get punished for it. If you played your character well, people would invite you back. If not then not.
Finally there was a lot of social stuff going on. Players knew each other and everyone had a reputation. There were the friendly guys, the assholes, the bullies, the cheaters, the stat-nerds, the cool people....everything.
Listen to original EQ soundtrack. Even the music was awesome!
P.S.: That video above describes it perfectly. You wouldn't want the game any other way. Despite all the shit it was perfect the way it was.
I was curious for quite a long time as to what happened that day. Good to finally know the truth!
I drove you back. It was like the middle of the afternoon and neither of us were drunk. You bailed so fast and so awkwardly I didn't exactly get a chance. I was not what anyone would call a tease in 2002.
Hi CybsleepCybsled_sl said:
