New to EQ players/trying out Free to PlayFollow

1st of all welcome to anyone that gives EQ a chance with the upcoming free to play. I decided to start this thread separate from the F2P announcement to be more aimed at being helpful. Jessica's experience will be typical of anyone that has never played EQ:




Tips:

1. Read the FAQ several times. You'll still have questions but it helps a lot. Keep posting here on alla. Folks are helpful.

2. Know that this game is old and has some sadistic design. Example: in WoW the named probably respawns every 5 minutes. In EQ it might be weeks in between that named spawning, especially if you don't kill the placeholders. Tradeskills are intense effort/platinum investment for reward at low levels, especially on a new account. Caution there.

3. If truly starting new... use the tutorial to your advantage. The /open command (you should have a hot button) will open the barrels fast. The barrels can hold bags, bows, etc. in them. Keep the bigger bags. The arrows you can either use or sell in baz (not for much, but more than the vendor). It is worth spending an extra hour or two in the tutorial looting looting looting.

4. Again, if truly new. Play your first character through the Crescent Reach (starting city) levelling progression (as whatever race you want, you don't have to pick Drakkin to start there). It is on the modern quest system (so windows in game explain things... sort of). The connected zones are good xp and have nice loot for the level. Most of them are also currently hotzones so you increase your chances of meeting other players.

5. EQ can be fun solo, and even easy to do a lot of things with mercenaries (henchmen in other games). It really is much easier to do things in a decent guild though. This doesn't mean you have to be a raider, but most players are in established guilds that have been around for years. If you want community, you need to join it or be very active (and charming) in chat channels.

6. You have 8 character slots. Classes in EQ play very different 1-50 vs. 51 to about 65. By 65 most of the long-standing design decisions were set (though some classes will complain they have been stripped away since then). The point is... a character is very replacable even at 75... so reroll how ever often is fun.

My now-75 necro and stuck-at-65 since OoW cleric/chanter are the same. I note your winking...


If I rolled a new mage and got it to 80, even with a lot of AA, but decided I suddenly didn't like being a mage it wouldn't be a big deal to abandon the character. I have deleted level 50s characters, but certain old ones are untouchable even though I could make a better one (i.e., my cleric) in a few weeks effort.

I probably should have added for the new players: It really does help to focus on one character for a bit because that character can easily bankroll your lower level alts. Even a 60s mage/necro/druid can be very effective at farming plat.

Right - that was what I was getting at. My first-created character was played to about level 26 before I changed to what has now become my main (the level 80). Neither of them are going anywhere; the first one for sentimental reasons plus now using a merc I've regained interest in the class and that character is now level 60. Since I'm a soloer and the majority of my levels with my main were pre-merc and prior to moving to the FV server, later levels (55ish-61) were excrutiatingly slow.

Over the years I've created most classes, played them til about 20, then deleted them. That would likely equate now to playing one til 40+ so yes, those would be more "disposable."

Since the EC tunnel no longer exists (I'm still irked about that one!), it would be interesting to log into Tunare and see where your character is currently. If you do, I would be interested in hearing what you discovered - where EQ moved characters to that were logged in now non-existent locales. I'm thinking your character's starting city, but could be wrong on that.

Oh, I didn't even think of PoK...I bet you're right. At any rate it won't be the EC tunnel; and if it is...PLEASE Remianen...call me!!!! I've wanted to see that tunnel again!!!

This is correct. After a few days of talking to SOE CS (that account had been globally banned over 5 years ago for 'event disruption' in MxO. My corp and I tried to kill the Oracle and we all got the banhammer. So much for RP ). Logged Remi in and he was in the (new) Commons tunnel though a ways away from torch 2.