My early EQ days was a sad story....
I was 16, never had a computer and didn't know anything about them what so ever. I grew up poor and had been working a full 80 hours a week since my 8th grade summer. I read about this game called EQ and set my mind to saving up money that summer to buy a computer. Well my teacher said she had this apple computer that she would sell me for $400 (my mom worked with her and mentioned my plans). I saved up, bought the computer and went to try and install. The bomb dropped....the computer didn't have anything close spec wise to run the game or do anything on it outside of fucking moon patrol and Organ Trail.
Luckily the teacher refunded my money and I went to Walmart and bought an Acer. Rushed home, tried to play and boom...bomb #2 drops; my computer didn't have a graphics card and wouldn't play EQ. Went and got one (remember I was a country boy who had no clue about anything computer related, all my gaming was Sega masters system, atarii,NES/SNES and PS1 up to that point).
Finally....the moment of truth came late November if I recall right after my birthday. We got internet setup, I jumped right in as a dark elf necro (I was always a wizard person and hated pets in single games but figured I'd try it out). I got so fucking lost in nek that after a few hours I rerolled as a Eudrite necro. I messed around for abit and then rerolled when Lanys server came up in December as HE wiz. Oh the memories of trying to race to 50....but that's for another thread.
The final part of the story that is the depressing/funny thing is....I was up in north Dakota in the fucking BOONIES. I was able to get DSL but our phone lines pre-dated Mr. Bell himself. That coupled with my bare min req computer....led to me having zone times of...8+ minutes. I shit you not. I used to try and take the boat from Freeport and by the time I zoned into Ocean of Oasis or whatever it was called the boat would be gone. I couldn't swim for shit and drowned and lost my body. We had a gm/guide named Grid on the server who after a few times of coming to rescue me finally would tell me to petition if I needed to get into the zone or go through it etc. I also played without sound for years until I upgraded my computer. When I bought a new one in college...oh my god. Going from 8 min zones to like 10 seconds and being able to 2 box was the greatest gift in the world.
I had a lot of good friends in EQ and ran fear raids etc but the one thing I think most would remember is me holding groups up for fucking ever "dude I told you I zone slow, I'm almost there!! (remember trying to get on Lguk Frenized camp lists....I got to the point I'd just stay in the zone so I didn't loose my group since they would get impatient heh. I didn't lag too much unless in raids but zoning...oh god the zoning.