Everquest: A Retrospective

[@Ev3rnub]

I remember luring my brother into the river of nektulos so the fish would eat em. It was awesome.. Thanx for the video.

[@Vareous]

chad verbus this is one of the best comments I've ever had on any of my videos!

[@ChodeMaster]

chad verbus holy shit.

[@Ev3rnub]

Holy shit?

[@TheFlamingPike]

+chad verbus Brothers... The perfect manipulable noob prototype. They trust you all the time.

[@itsbrettyo]

lmfao

[@cyne122]

I go back to this video every time I wanna feel nostalgic, but I just realized that it's almost 10 years old.... I'm getting to the point where I need retrospectives of my retrospectives.

[@v44n7]

hahahaha

[@clearjet]

I met my wife in EQ... I was OBT (Original Beta Tester on CT '99). In '05 I got a random /tell on my Rogue asking if I could help kill the Prince, Queen and King for her Cleric guild mate's Epic Clicky Rezzer. During the fun, she "got" all of my stupid jokes and we clicked. Married 8+ years now. Awesome raiding buddy to this day. :) I was not forced to write this. LOL

[@michaelm9519]

+Captain Learjet that's actually pretty cool , I feel like it's harder to meet friendly people online these days. Everybody wants to be a troll. Back them it seems like there was still some internet etiquette.

[@DarthSinistris]

+Mo Anderson "Netiquette"

[@KyrstensCloset]

+-=Sp00k=- Beta tester pride! I was on the RP server with the then-famous bard Jythri. I also ended up being friends with Baelish (We were both in Triton) and got rather drunk with him at the San Francisco Fan Fest. Sooooooo many great nostalgic memories. My friend who I had started playing with (CompUSA employee guild) even ended up marrying another Cleric from our later raiding guild. I know you two are far from the only ones.

[@unknownfoopa]

+-=Sp00k=- now that's what i want in life ;-;

[@Singleton-db2bw]

+Mo Anderson everyone gets offended so easily in eq2, i'm not even trolling, I just told a few jokes and now I'm a wanted criminal.... sure, the joke was me blowing up new York, but its all just for shits and giggles!

[@javmed77]

Former EverQuest game designer here. I wrote and implemented the Ranger, Druid, and Paladin epic quests, among other things. Nice video, Vareous. There are a lot of things I don't like about EQ, but I agree that the sense of "MMO", in games like UO and EQ and vanilla WoW, is something that, regrettably, has been lost in modern massive multiplayer games. While it's intimidating, it's also very rewarding.

[@Comstock73]

If you know the name of the guy who wrote and implemented the mage epic, I still owe him a punch to the face over the Quillmane camp.

[@LosN209]

LOL True that. Mage Epic in general was the roughest.

[@11bravo1789]

I remember helping my irl buddy do the shaman epic spear quest. I remember it being pretty lengthy but not impossible. That was when max level was 60. Such a fucking epic game man. I had a warrior first. Than a ranger.

[@MHChrono]

I would rage at you on behalf of all Druids for everything I had to go through for that Scimitar, but the Paladin epic was really fun so... I forgive you. (I still hate those damn Seahorses though.)

[@ebe7157]

The inno drop part for Ranger epic. That was the gate for me. I was OG Ranger from day one, when everyone shunned them. I loved my ranger. RIP bud.

[@Nibori]

no MMo will ever feel the same as everquest did if you never played it im sorry..

[@yugen]

True, no MMO will feel the same as EQ. But EQ never felt like UO, and UO felt like pure magic in 1998.

[@Dranex11]

keep your chin up.. play Pantheon Rise of the Fallen when it releases.. and Project 1999 is gunna release a new classic EQ server soon.. and thats as close as youll get to the real experience

[@sleepadventures]

I dont think i *want* the everquest experience again... i want a modern version of it though... death penalties, no hand holding, forced grouping unless u were a necro... 5am mornings helping a *stranger* do a corpse ... etc... lol... but thanks - if Pantheon can match the experience ill check it out

[@SlickMajestic]

Aye. UO was where the real magic happened. EQ paled in comparison to UO, especially in the community aspect.

[@kats2563]

+Edward Barlow Pantheon. I cannot wait. I have not been this excited for a game since EQ"Next" (When it was announced originally like 8 or 9 years ago). Oh wait... that never happened though! Daybreak can lick my balls!

[@Woobeee]

A Snake Kicks you for 5 damage - best attack ever ;)

[@uk1988tb303]

Best game I've ever played. Had spent easily over 1k hrs online in EQ. Why was it so enjoyable? It was hard. Brutally, unforgivingly hard. You had to join a guild, or at least make many, many friends, in order to progress. Being a cool, friendly, helpfull player was a necessity. Being a dick was a guarantee for social ostracisation and game stagnation. Even though many of the quest, the Lore and backstories, were really beautifully written and crafted, the community WAS the game! So many people loved EQ because the amazing work of the developers allowed so many people from around the world to explore this space and have fun together.

[@TheUltimateCreators]

Damn right, ninja loot even one time and you may as well delete your character.

[@elspoko]

I sighed heavily watching this vid. I came in during Kunark and made a woody ranger. I played this game extensivelt for years. Met my wife in game. Made it through college playing this game. Found out my wife was pregnant during a raid after my guildleader gave us a 10 min break so that my wife (main healer) and I (puller) could talk. I miss the game. I miss the difficulty. I miss the friends I made. Casting SoW by orc lift, donations appreciated..../tear

[@raywhite9069]

I miss being a broke ass druid and SoW'ing ppl for free but often being surprised by some high level dude tipping like 60pp.

[@kebonhawk1081]

I still use /(word), like /hug, in text messages and emails. People get what I'm saying but don't understand how ingrained those chat commands are still just stuck in my brain or where they come from. /camp

[@NinjaDimes]

@@raywhite9069 Come play on project 1999 green. I'm a broke A druid right now, lol

[@NinjaDimes]

@@kebonhawk1081 You should come play on p1999 green if you aren't already

[@DeadDad1]

Damn talk about some fond memories! My wife turned me on to the game and totally regretted it. I was addicted big time!

[@markoleary7214]

I'm just happy I was able to play it when I did, waaaaay back at the beginning. Nothing can compare. Things are so much different now, and I'm sad, and I'm growing old.

[@iceman888869]

If you have ever been trained, give me a thumbs up! Specially with no heads up!

[@thomaseatspomus]

/shout TRAIN

[@Uradamus]

In the old days I used to love trains when I was playing my chanter. There are few things as fun as camping the zone line in KC as an enchanter. I once derailed 3 trains in a row, that took my group like 10-15 minutes straight to clear with tons of close calls. Just a shame they nerfed the hell out of chanters over the years to the point where you really only need 1 per raid as a buff bot... All of our crowd control was rendered basically useless in nearly all raid encounters starting around the time of SoL or so and we were always crap as damage dealers compared to other int casters. So basically unless you were the chanter with the highest AAs for buff enhancements, there was really no place for you in most raids as a chanter, which killed nearly all of my enjoyment in the game at that point, at least with my main anyhow.

[@sixten7920]

Man back in the day when you had to strategize even regular encounters. Normal fights in EQ were like mini boss fights in games today. Every role mattered. The group pullers, the CC, the tanks, the DPS, the healers. A bad pull could wipe out not only your group but many others around, lmao.

[@sinsaiyang]

Most can't type and run at the same time lol

[@sarahg6248]

TRAIN TO ZONE! lol

[@tyrionlannister2354]

I just want to say that I had never played EverQuest until just recently. I'm playing on the Project 1999 server, and I'm having more fun than I've had with any MMO in years. The last time I had a similar gaming experience was when I first started playing WoW in 2006. It feels like I'm playing an MMO for the first time again. Probably has to do with the design philosophy being dramatically different from in modern MMOs. In terms of immersion, modern MMOs are a step above simply giving you a straight line of mobs to kill ad nauseam until you reach the level cap. In EQ you actually have to explore the zones looking for mobs to kill, and there's actually a sense of danger. There's something to be said for the sheer terror of encountering a vengeful lyricist as a lowbie in Everfrost. One of the fundamentals of game design is risk vs reward, and modern MMOs present little if any risk at all; death is never more than a minor inconvenience, whereas in EQ death can be devastating depending on the circumstances. The game is inconvenient, clunky, and dated. And yet somehow that makes it all the more rewarding an experience.

[@admiralterrinaldscreed2591]

Where do you download project 1999 i have been searching for it for quiet some time now ?

[@tyrionlannister2354]

You need the Titanium Edition of the game. Its expensive to come by these days, but there are "other methods" of obtaining it. After you've set up a fresh install, go to the project 1999 website and follow the setup guide.

[@artakhas3005]

You can download it at SOE online. www.soe.com/home

[@Suntzurvr]

It looks exactly like a decaying skeleton.

[@tyrionlannister2354]

Never mind, now that the novelty has worn thin, its just a mind-numbing grind.

[@gogt6448]

Plane of fear pick up raid, which immediately leads to a 10 hour corpse run and a lost level or two. Fun times!

[@Uuforl--]

It's been 7 years bro are you alive how's life been are you married yet do you have children

[@erikdenning8611]

That was terrific thank you. I was fortunate to have started playing Everquest the first month it came out. That first years was incredible. Everything was so new to everybody and twinks didn't exist yet. Among my memories: 1. After a few days of playing, the excitement I felt the first time I saw a non-barbarian character run through Halas. 2. Struggling to acquire a suit of bronze armor to go with my fine steel sword. 3. Being in a party that stumbled into the Castle Mistmoore zone for the first time. None of us had heard anything about it before and the zone-in was littered with player corpses. What a rush. Real goosebumps. 4. Sand giants! 5. The misery that came from the game growing so quickly and the challenge of finding a place to hunt. It was severely overcrowded for awhile. 6. The first time I ran across a continent, led by someone more experienced, and taking a ship to another one. I was leaving my home city behind and setting out for the unknown. 7. The craziness that came from knowing there was ALWAYS something better to acquire. Whatever I had wasn't good enough. Part of the genius behind this game was that it could never truly be won. There were always things to improve. I finally quit EQ after 5 years. As fun as it was, it was also a terrible addiction. I will never play another MMORPG, because I can't afford to get sucked in like that again.

[@RhysticStudies]

thank you so much for this video. the nostalgia and magic and enchantment is so real.

[@RhysticStudies]

also, /ooc WTB Wurmy / Lamy PST

[@pugnaciousnoobeginnings8997]

I remember trying to buy skin like steel buff from a druid in east commons. He said he couldn't because he was working for this other low lvl person for a silver ruby veil. LoL. I still remember how uber I felt when I finally got gold jasper earrings on my druid. And the first set I sold on my enchanter (which ended up being my main). Charming people during a duel and sending them to die to a sand giant in oasis of mar, or even and deepwater croc, as I ran to zone so the NPC wouldn't come eat me lol. Good times, I miss them.

[@bigjyeager02]

TheMagicManSam...Looking for a SOW... HAHAHA

[@Tinfoiledhat]

Pugnacious NooBeginnings LOL! Ah the Oasis. Man this has truly sent me back in a time warp. Those were great times.

[@perogi21]

bigjyeager02 /em gives you a piggie.

[@PropaneTreeFiddy]

I'll tell you EXACTLY what you miss about the UI. This game was from a period when UI's were actually game-themed, not all sci-fi/simple boxes that can be dragged all over and made partially transparent. Same goes for runescape's UI.

[@thomaseubank1503]

I get the feeling that the same guy who made the Ultima Underworld UI must have designed the original Everquest UI. They are very similar.

[@burntorangeandblue]

Please do about four more hours on this. Like auto attacking your trainer while typing hail. Or falling off the elevators in Kelethin due to lag. Or the 20 minute boat wait. Jumping off to hit a merchant and hoping you are fast enough to get back on. Mob trains, camp breaking, different race/class combos needing different exp. Some races not seeing in the dark. Mobs being nearly impossible for a level one. Crushridge, Mistmoore. Deleveling and not being able to use the spells you just learned. Mobs actually being hard to kill. Places being scary to walk through. Good times.

[@Hightechprosolutions]

I agree at least 4 more hours!

[@SteveJames-nn9hp]

"Deleveling" My brother and I used this trick before they fixed it, got to level 40 something then deleveled to 30. So we had the stats of a level 40 but could still attack level 22's. Haha was almost evil. I really miss the small things too like shrinking potions, shadowknights could talk as their pet, illusion spells like you could turn yourself into a torch. Just little things like that made the game so fun.

[@whatismyname8483]

Crushbone

[@X-Prime123]

Yeah, one time me and my party were inside the mansion at Unrest in one of the top floor rooms, when the whole server went down. I logged back in after a few mins to find myself alone, in a fully respawned room with werebats and others right on me. I immediately freaked out and the best I could do as they started wailing on me, was to inch my way to one of the windows and jump out, so that when I died, I would at least have my body outside the house. Lol, and that's what happened. This took place 19 years ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

[@whatismyname8483]

@@X-Prime123 loved that story!

[@yorkshireyank9885]

TRAIN TO ZONE!!

[@CatnipDan]

Yorkshire Yank go left lol

[@jestergilbjo107]

That brings back some horrible stories of corpse runs lol

[@CatnipDan]

There would always be someone afk sitting down by the zone while train was heading his way lol poor soul

[@csucujo]

Train starter!! 😂

[@rlelinney4646]

god i miss unrest

[@Warwiz]

Honestly mate, just listening to the intro and music, seeing the game play - it really brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful experience that was back in the days, folks helping each other, fantastic community - was rushing home every day from work - being in Germany i spent countless hours at night raiding first with an american guild - later on then being a proud member of Mortalis. I have never ever felt that spirit again in any other MMORPG. I still feel sad that this time is over - life goes on - but i will always cherrish the years of fun i had with this game and its people. Simply fantastic :). Thanks so much to you for bringing all these fond memories back to life !

[@Warwiz]

PS: forgot to mention - how i loved and hated the XP-loss when you died - the dreaded corpse runs - the /consent and all your stuff got looted - running blind from Halas through Runnyeye etc etc - countless things - wonderful times :)

[@Royfokker73]

Warwiz I got killed on the boat from FP to Butcherblock by one of the damn Erollisi maidens when the boat stopped at that island. The Corpse traveled with the boat and got dumped somewhere. The GM's could not even find it for me. Thankfully I was only level 9, but that was one of my first characters back in the day. That was weeks worth of work!

[@arloreturn8371]

How about when you had to petition the GM because your corpse was stuck in a wall and you would sit for hours debating whether you could take out a gnoll commander with your fists.

[@jarls5890]

Warwiz Good times! Paladin Jarls (Mortalis)

[@sarahg6248]

Same here Warwiz, I had so much fun in EQ1!

[@herogamer555]

I wish I was born 10 years earlier so I could have played this remarkable game.

[@lunyone1]

You can, it is called Project 1999. I played it for some time and it only has 1 expansion (Kunark). If you can handle the lack of goodies that MMO's have nowadays then you will find out how it was really like.

[@TheHTMLCode]

***** I've just retiered from p99 but hoping to go back once I finish my last year of uni - man p99 is amazing!

[@lunyone1]

Yeah p99 is nice, but I wish we had at least the map option on the screen. The rest of it is fine by me. I did all of the hard work (printed out all of the maps I needed for what I wanted to do) so I'm just a bit picky when it comes to the maps :) I have a Level 40 Druid on p99, but haven't had the time to play it since moving earlier this year.

[@Inyofaictroll]

***** Does P99 progress, and if so is there a locked server you know of?

[@lunyone1]

Ijiki Kazimaru Progress? Not sure what you are talking about. There is only 1 "Live" server and I think a "Test" server, if I remember correctly.

[@omgahamsandwich]

this is my favorite game of all time. I will never feel the absolute addiction to anything again like I felt to everquest. This game will forever be burned into my memory.

[@Melchior11]

EverQuest is heroin and we’ve all been chasing the dragon ever since that first high

[@stupedcraig]

Just don't listen to the sound track and youll be okay.

[@qeynoshills]

Thmbs up! I started in Qeynos. A friend of mine then found out about a quest in Faydwer for some two handed hammer which sells for a lot. Blinded by the riches we killed some dwarf in Qeynos for his head (Stumpy something or rather?) then ran all the way to freeport, then cross the ocean and finally to Kaladim. We were only lowbies then. Died so many times during the entire process including the stupid bandits in Karanas, but that was one of my greatest moments in gaming. I'll never forget that. I can imagine being an old man telling stories about it as if it really did happen in real life.

[@willsoule10]

Just hearing the EQ music makes me emotional. It takes me back to the grand sense of adventure on my bard the first time I ran from Qeynos to High Hold to get my PGT. The danger and excitement of pulling to the ledge in Overthere. The frustration of camping that Froglok supplier in lower guk (or Grachnist the Destroyer... I never did get that fking earring). Anyway, the only game that ever came close to the same sense of wonder was Dark Age of Camelot--and when they released Trials of Atlantis I felt like the game was ruined. Maybe because it was revolutionary in its time, or maybe because of all the memorable friends I made while playing it, no other game quite pulls the heartstrings like EQ. Last year I got on the EQ mac server that's frozen in the POP era and leveled up a new bard to lvl 65; it was still a lot of fun, but I ended up quitting because I couldn't get a group together to take down Trakanon twice to finish my epic... Thanks for sharing, man. Great video.

[@jumpjumpdiegaming]

I remember the first time I went to my cousins house and he showed me this. I miss this game, I had so many good times with my cousin playing this. Felt like a magical world... because it was!

[@doylegoregutz6010]

I had the exact same experience when I was 14. this game rocked

[@sLAyZY760]

Doyle Goregutz hell yea me too. i think i was 13 going on 14 when i got my mom to buy it for my bday! I ended up playing EQ off and on for 13 years lol. Nothing compares to classic EQ tho!

[@sLAyZY760]

"Felt like a magical world" is spot on!

[@johnlungo8080]

I always come back to this video for the nostalgia. Never hard to find either. Thank you for this! I played EverQuest when it first came out and it will always be the most memorable game I ever played.

[@JohnHoffman]

You can't express to people who have never played everquest just how meaningful everquest was. I have memories of all the places and probably still remember my way through dungeon mazes. I remember all those nasty deaths that seemed hopeless, everquest forced you to be social and it forced you to think, you died in the back side of cazic thule maze you had to look for people to help and everyone would! I still have friends I made in everquest and I still talk about things that happened in everquest with fond memories. Thank you for the video it actually brought tears to my eyes.

[@PunkinRB]

+John Hoffman agreed. Most fun i've ever had playing a video game came from my EQ days. I had a group of about 6-7 friends that all started playing it together one summer in highschool, when we weren't online playing (usually our parents would make us get out of the house during the day) we were hanging out and talking about EQ, or planning our night's hunt or whatever... DVINN to ZONE!!!

[@KyrstensCloset]

+John Hoffman I logged in about a year ago to run through some favorite dungeons for nostalgia points. I got hopelessly lost in Permafrost Keep trying to find Lady Vox.

[@zaynaleady2265]

+PunkinRB HAhAH Dvinn. Forgot all about him in Crushbone. That bastard killed me so many times when I was a noob. Man, he could hit HARD!

[@KyrstensCloset]

+Zayna Leady I just remember how hilarious it was that rogues could pick pocket his heart. Kali Ma!

[@PunkinRB]

+Elle Heilig oh jeeze, I seem to remember that rogues (with a high enough skill) could even pickpocket the rare items that bosses carried during the fight. Unless i'm mistaken I think that got patched pretty quickly, someone please correct me if i'm wrong, as I only leveled my rogue to about 30 or 40. Speaking of which (enter story mode, going off topic here)- that summer I mentioned above, after a while of playing on our original server we all switched to the brand new 'Quellious' server with the idea of leading the front-lines, which we did for the first few months- guild name 'How the Gods Kill'. One of my greatest memories of that time was a GM event in Kalimdor early on in the servers life where as a wood-elf rogue (named 'Dacient') I received the 'Jambiya', which I recall was pretty special at the time due to it having 2-3 points higher in dmg than the dragoon dirk dropped from Dvinn, which meant HUGE BACKSTABS for my level.

[@danielrowsey7667]

Hell levels. Corpse runs. "TRAIN TO ZONE!" Buffs that had no timer and could fail in 10 seconds or last an entire evening. Fizzling spells. "BOAT!" Damn I loved this game.

[@surfingcinv]

"BOAT!".... "OMG, im on the other side of the zone! I have whips to collect!" ....

[@johnsanchez5484]

You forgot to mention staring at a book to gain mana, no mounts, dragging corpses, keys for zones in your bags, weight limits, how long it took to make your first kill. I don't remember quest phrases having brackets until later on.

[@ottovonblood]

Duuude! Staring at that book! And I'll never forget the first time my character suddenly couldn't move. I had no idea what had happened. Finally figured out I was over my weight limit. Crazy what we put ourselves through, but I'll never forget it and never love anything as much.

[@bluesilverxiii9630]

medding!

[@Rubytyr]

Man, this game really screwed up my life for afew years - but I regret nothing :) Can't help but wonder how some of my old friends and guildmates are doing in life nowadays~

[@sarahg6248]

Me too, I've met so many great people in EQ1.

[@RadioDangerous]

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the beginning of Everquest. Looking back, no game has ever kept my attention, or stolen my time quite like EQ. I played for hours upon hours getting my rogue and monk their epics, attuning to multiple zones for raiding and spending many hours assisting in CR's on my rogue. Dragging bodies back to the zone line was a huge task to undertake, only to rebuff your raid and die all over again. The atmosphere, the community and the sheer difficulty of the game are second to none in my eyes. Thanks for making this video, I'm currently selling everything on me at T1, PST.

[@sinder9737]

One of the big things i think this video didn't touch enough on is the grouping done in this game. In new Games you solo from level 1 to max level with a few dungeons thrown in. (50+ boring hours) In EQ you solo to maybe level 5 then spent the whole game grouping up with people and talking. This really built a sense of community. You knew or at least had seen a good many of the people on the server as you leveled up. Today most servers are divided into small groups of players who barely know each other if at all and server chats are spammed by the loudest most annoying people....

[@bobdageek4193]

I know, in EQ1 one of my main chars was an enchanter... I could /ooc ENC LFG and have a group in a matter of seconds. Then again that was the days where strategy was required and crowd control was in high demand. Miss those days :-( I could mez an entire room full of froggies in Seb and keep them under control, until someone did something stupid like an AE nuke and you know who the froggies were mad at right? lol

[@tharpin]

+Bob Dageek Ohh man, the good memories of the chanter getting the aggro when a mistake was made. Loved this damn game...

[@kangsun201]

You actually had a public reputation. If you were crappy at your class it would be well known even mid level. If you ninja looted you'd be instantly blacklisted. People would see you yell for a group, and then they'd yell that you're a thief. You came into the game like a newborn. No cloths, no skills, barely able to defend yourself. As you built your character up you also built up a reputation and a social group. People that had helped you complete quests, or recover a corpse without any real benefit to themselves and vice versa. I remember when I had to get together 30+ people to help complete my epic when they got literally nothing out of the encounter. They spent most of a night playing just to help me get something that I really wanted. These were people with jobs, families, and things they wanted to do. They did that because we had spent a lot of time together and they considered me a friend. I still consider those to be real friendships we'd formed and grown. I was also there when they needed me. I'd stop doing whatever self serving thing I was doing to go spend hours and hours helping them do something they wanted to do. Hell spending hours working out the tactics to how we'd do high end content. Because failure meant no loot, and spending hours on corpse runs. Especially pre cleric epic. The social aspect was incredible. I'm kind of glad no game has recreated it. I spent a lot of time on it. I have to say though, I don't regret a thing. Grouping Plane of Fear. Making mad dashes through Veeshan to Plane of Mischief. Staying there a month to get cards to get resistance flowers. Knowing that if you died you couldn't get back to your corpse. I still value the time I spent playing with my friends. Both the ones I knew in real life and ones I met in Everquest. All those people were equally my friends. Some I still talk to 14 years later.

[@megandixon26]

I completely agree with you, these were real friendships. I actually ended up marrying someone I met in EQ. We have been together 13 years and have 3 children together.

[@Neva9999]

Really can not overstate how amazing this video is. Really captures why the game was awesome. Also motivated me to play project 1999 (never played EQ but always wanted to. I am now!)

[@killroykid76]

I spent more time dragging my corpse out of lower guk then anything ... god the was fun

[@atrainn]

I would get lost down there so many times

[@sixten7920]

I had just recently started up what would end up being my "main". A Gnome Mage. He came shortly after leveling to almost 25 as a Gnome Wizard, who I had dumped all of my creation points into STR on, because I wanted to be able to carry ALL the loot! Only to later realize I gimped the hell out of myself, because INT mattered hugely for your mana pool later on. Some Halfling Druid, buffed to the teeth with STR came walking up to me painstakingly slow. He was so encumbered he could barely walk. He opened up the trade chat with me and to my delight he placed a couple hundred platinum in the trade window and hit trade. I gladly accepted his offer! The only issue was, he had converted every bit of it to Copper. Here I was, pockets busting at the seams with back then was enough plat to last you well on into nearly level cap, and I couldn't move. I was within viewing distance of the zone entrance to Ak'Anon. Within about 20 minutes I had collaborated with several other lower level people in the zone. I had promised them a cut of the Plat if they would help me. We all took some of the copper, and slowly but surely made our way to the bank.

[@Hightechprosolutions]

1 bag at Torch 1. Oh how I miss the extremely difficult game of Everquest. I believe it took me over a year to get to lvl 60. I loved this game because of the forced interaction. I met some great friends on this game, grinding levels and learning thing without being spoon fed. I can remember the AC gear lol. Thanks for making this it brings back some old memories that are there forever.

[@garinstrait568]

I love this video so much bro, im not gonna lie i watch it and listen to it at work or when im at home, this is the most wonderful put together montage of everquest I've ever seen. Huge props and thank you. I want to save your video so i can show it to my daughter who loves watching me play and kill dragons now with my guild

[@ChrissREPoland]

Never played Ever Quest . But when watching how people can overcome some ingame problems on their own and for example make their own Economy Basicly is great and kinda interesting. I think it was far more of a social expierience to play that game . Bacause without everyone you would get nowhere

[@PKTEK]

+Chriss RE You have no idea sir! The entire game was basically run by the players. It was the most sand boxxy MMO even now. We didn't have Dungeons or anything to level. Quests were a joke unless you were doing some class/race/faction specific epic end game thing. Raids were crazy and messy. I mean, you actually had to talk to NPCs. This was my child hood.

[@BabyMitchy]

Well.... You dissed to classic UI of the game. Yes, it was a small area of graphics. Yes, there was no customization at the time. But... this game ran on my Pentium 100 Mhz computer. That is a SOCKET 7 CPU. Which I still have in perfect working condition today........ Regardless, I will state this: The small view area was necessary for the computers of the time and was in fact charming..... YES.. charming... in a world filled with HD megapixel this and that, I will still say that the classic small UI in EQ is charming and with the SPELL BOOK when you MEDITATE taking up the whole VIEW area it added a very special aspect to the game. Pleases Thumbs me up if you agree. - Terethian Corpseraiser, High Elf Cleric from CLASSIC Everquest on Zebuxoruck Server.

[@Vareous]

I was just using it as an opener to relate to people how modern games have such different UI structure. I then said how much I missed the UI. I preferred and used the classic UI all the way to the point I was forced to change it when they disabled it.

[@BabyMitchy]

Vareous No, No, I was way off base here. Let it be known I was watching this video drunk and I posted at a pause, if you pause the video when I did it sounds like a straight up dis of the UI. Then... after the negative comment you mention a kind of nostalgia to the UI...... so you are fine, this video is great. But I am a die hard classic fan. One of the crazy people that remembers fantasy from the beginning. So I am 100% classic Ever-quest all the way, Corpse runs, cloth armor,exp loss etc. It all adds character to the game. I apologize to you, formally, for my drunken comments.... which is more than Justin Bieber would offer you.... I promise!

[@BabyMitchy]

But if I was Justin Bieber I would just spit in your face and claim I was young and still learning about mistakes like this... but... oh wait... I always knew it was wrong to spit in someones face even before I was a kindergartner. ...well... I guess extreme singing skill makes up for common sense?

[@unusuallyquickloris]

Man this video brought back some fuzzy warm feelings from my childhood. There's so many little things I want to just revisit, but there's too many to really write out. Small things I remember: I'm going to refrain from googling and see just how much I can think of Fighting on Orc Hill when I was super low level Unleashing that little gnome magician who lived in the hole in that orc section near the wood elf town Running around in the barbarian ice world with a wood elf who helped show me around for hours Getting stuck in Kithikor woods at night when it all went to shit, and having to hide on the edge of the map Some guy trusting me to transfer like 10 insanely rare items from one of his character to another, and giving me a hammerhead helm Doing the quest for the rangers ivy swords (The name is escaping me for some reason), but then realizing that the root spell overwrote snare and just about no group would let me use them Realizing that we could just use Snare with our druids and absolutely farm the hell out of Dwarf NPCs by kiting them, and then we kind of broke the game by getting rich off selling axes.... I actually remember sharing a spawn with a friend and watching all 3 star wars movies on VHS while doing it. It was key to have 2 people because eventually you'd be encumbered and have to sell all the axes they dropped. We eventually just began to pay someone to drop them off. Crazy.. Not knowing that the hybrid classes has an insane hybrid leveling penalty... Winning Dwarven work boots right before I was going on vacation with my family, and the entire group thinking I was an asshole for leaving One huge moment was an insane battle I had with a group in Cazic thule. We got trained on (remember trains just ruining everything?!), and the entire group just got wrecked, and someone ran. I remember fighting all these mobs with this paladin (Was a ranger), and we were about to die and this guy lay of hands on me, and we somehow barely survived. It was epic. That guy thanked me and said I had courage...it was awesome lol So many weird memories, and I don't know what games really had this many strange memories associated with it, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it was a brand new kind of game, and there wasn't any real hand holding. I mean now, I don't think this mechanic works, but at the time there was a genuine feeling of discovery and mystery to everything. I guess it was addicting and time consuming, but I loved it.

[@lodragan]

All those or variations on those themes! Add to that - was on the GvE PVP server - so had the added threat of PVP breaking out while you're leveling... nothing like it today.

[@caseyobrien1082]

5 year veteran from 1999. Best game I've ever played, there is no doubt in my mind. It was so hard that it made you remember everything good and bad that happened to you. And the joy you felt when you got a super rare drop, or just figured something out on your own....Priceless. My friends and I still ramble on and on about this game sometimes, that's how much of an impact it had on us.

[@zaynaleady2265]

+Casey O'Brien I knew I won EQ when pulling mobs as a chanter pretty much any where we went. The guild which was top 10 guild in EQ would let me pull. AEing so many mobs you would lag in Seb, Chardok and quite a few other zones. I pulled King and queen outside castle in Chardok. Those were the days. So many good memories over the bad ones. What an incredible game.

[@sea-ferring]

The sense of achievement I felt running Qeynos to Freeport deathless was epic. Remember trying to get through the minotaur maze? Remember getting stomped by random Hill Giants or Sand Giants? I remember getting to a level where I could solo Hill Giants and doing it purely for the revenge and great feeling of doing it - no XP.

[@ClydeDay]

our bazzar was greater faydark or Faymart as it was known. hehehe

[@hungvuongfreespirit]

"Can I get a SOW please?" ... Haha Thank you for the trip back in memory lane.

[@jestergilbjo107]

lol made a bard for that reason! i could never get a sow when i needed it, and i was making silver grouping with people to get them through zones at a high rate of speed

[@csucujo]

Spirit of the wolf was a must! Otherwise, took for ever to run across the plains. 🤦‍♂️

[@yuchant]

It's sad to think I can't experience this any more. EQ was before the concept of trolling existed. Can you even imagine a world in which players in chat yelling at you to be quiet for using "/shout" actually meant something and wasn't full of meanless arguments? The world was so harsh that each zone felt like a real world. Hopping on a boat to Velious or Kunark felt like danger; like I was very far from home. Playing an iksar felt like a completely different game.

[@TheJdnight]

This! No current game makes you feel as though you are vulnerable, yet free at the same time. Old EQ made you feel like at any minute you could be killed by almost anything, yet, you had the freedom to try almost anything. Current player progression is so stream lined and almost static through out leveling. You progress in certain abilities at almost a mathematical pace. Old EQ was more random. Things were NOT balanced, yet any class could leverage abilities that no other(or very few) classes could duplicate or imitate. It made everything feel special, relevant, and real.

[@Tinfoiledhat]

I couldn't agree more with both of you! I remember literally waiting an hour for a boat ride wondering my fate on the other side, or just wondering around the Bazaar. Everquest 1 truly immersed you even with now "lame" graphics. In its time it was truly a masterpiece. Even when the UI took up half the screen. Man, I gotta exit this video, this is making me depressed! Miss those days!

[@cwhitney1972]

Jackson DeBolt I think too, though, that in games like WoW, everything has a purpose. Every single mob is placed in a certain area to play fodder for a couple of quests, and it's pretty easily regimented. It's not random and ultimately it seems totally calculated. EQ was different in that there wasn't any specific need to kill any particular mob, except those that dropped particular items. I think that led to zones being much more mysterious because the game never led you to investigate every area like it does in WoW. There really isn't anything in WoW you can discover for yourself. Everyone on that faction who's leveled up in that zone is aware of it. Compare that to zones in EQ, with its randomness and nonspecificity, along with, as noted here, the lack of ingame assistance. You could totally believe that there was a Megalodon in Lake Rathetear. There were ape spawns in the Emerald Jungle that probably weren't killed for years. The whole world seemed almost unknowable, that there was always something out there to discover. Compare that to when I played WoW, and when I got a second character to max level, I pretty much knew every single thing there was to know about every zone in the game.

[@soakedbearrd]

I loved the ropleplay aspect of it as well. Ogres and dwarves talking like ogres and dwarves. So many memories and you are right, the crowd certainly was more mature and intelligent.

[@sarahg6248]

Leveling is much faster too, while before, even though it was just a game, you felt like you had achieved something when you leveled up. And dying had consequences, so you were a lot more afraid of dying, which made it more immersive.

[@harambediedforus5157]

Thanks for the nostalgia trip Vareous. One of my favorite memories was 12 year old me setting out with my level 28ish iksar shaman to try to find the crypt of dalnir. And promptly dying to the brutes that guard the entrance. Another favorite was running along the beach in Field of Bone killing iksar bandits, seeing a mysterious island in the distance, swimming out to it, and immediately being murdered by the Tangrin.

[@mrsparkle001]

Nothing will ever compare to classic Everquest. My very first trek from Felwithe to Erudin with my very first character (high elf) was beyond epic. The boat rides, the run through the commons where I though everything was hostile so I zigzagged, the time it took, the weird names of players I've never seen before talking about dungeons I never heard of yet...so much nostalgia right now!

[@GeeiJho]

Here is why EQ will forwever, in my mind, be the best MMO ever, much like this video alluded to the entire time. It was CHALLENGING. It was difficult at EVERY stage of the game. Hell, you had to develop an actual skill (side-strafe running) to escape fights that went south. Dying was detrimental, spawns were rediculous....and binding next to a rare spawn that you needed to call for friends to help you kill and then falling asleep was the worst of both. (My friend lost 4 levels on his druid because he bound at the spawn). But that is what made it worth it. Yes the epic quest took forever, was tedious and frustrating and arduous. But I swear to god, getting the ragebringer, with the 1 pixel animation was one of the most rewarding feelings I have felt in any game, ever. Hell, at the time (I hadn't done all that much in my life) it was one of the most rewarding feelings of doing ANYTHING ever. It is why we had a call chain that we would use so that if a mob spawned at 3am we could round up enough bleary eyed people, from all walks of life, to group and take down the Council of Twelve, or something. I quit playing sortly after completing planes of power, right after the next endgame expansion came out and sold my account on one of those sites. I went to Miami for spring break with the nearly $2k I made. I turned 21; I drank, and I dated, and I went to college and lived my life. But years later, I wondered, while bored...wonder if y account ever got sold. With some effort I managed to find out that it hadn't, (the mislabelled the stats on the account so it seemed completely outpriced) and I was able to retieve my account. I logged in and went to the Nexus. I did a /who. And one moment later -> /tell Muadd "hey its Geeii, remember me?!" There was this player who played in a "Friends and Family" guild I was in as I was levelling, a player that I helped get HIS epic for long after I had gone on to a raiding guild. And here he was, running the largest guild on the server, 10 years later, and remembered every bit of it. This...This is why EQ is the best MMO ever.

[@stug3719]

That's is truly an amazing story. Now you've got me thinking about my old EQ friends lol. Haven't thought about them in a long time.

[@americanpig-dog7051]

I did the same. I sold my account, got nostalgic and tried to log back in. The guy never even changed my password or moved my characters. All he did was sell my fungal tunic. The character never even moved. He paid $850 for a fungal tunic.

[@elspoko]

Oh, you missed a few big parts of the game; crowd controlling/pulling and aggro management. In this game, there were no linked mobs until you got to the very top tier raid bosses. A skilled player (monks and bards usually) could pull 1 mob out of a pack slowly and carefully. This could make or break a raid group, as tanks actually had to protect the squishier members that died very easily, and more than one mob could crush (literally) a tank to death. "Parking" was the most advanced technique and reserved for the badasses of the game. You could pull a pack, run to your groups camp, and start rooting/mesmerizing them in place while the grp killed off 1 mob. This helped for faster kills, more exp, and more loot. I perfected this strat (that was taught to me by the paladin Heavyhands Soze and the bard Ethos) in Karnors Castle, or train central to those in the know. As for aggro management, this game was the king of it. There were no mods to tell you how close to pulling aggro on a mob away from the tank. But, you had to kill fast because the healer was running out of mana almost every pull and you didn't want the healer to go oom midfight, so you had to ride the electric wire of dpsing and aggroing. Further, a group didn't lose aggro by running far enough away. Once you aggrod a mob, that mob didn't reset until you were dead or ran to the next zone (which is called training...because the mobs hit like a train and they would follow a single track if you got a large pack.) To me, these two aspects really made the game challenging and a real rewarding experience to play. You had to be on your A game, every pull, and couldn't mess up. The rewards were that people noticed skilled players and wanted to group with them constantly.

[@Kentaku3]

I know this is a very late reply. But as a former main raid pulling monk who is dying of an EQ nostalgia I think you hit the nail on the head.

[@choosetolivefree]

Luka B Check out Project 1999. Classic Everquest server. You'll be feeling that feeling again trust me

[@katywiggins581]

Memory lane indeed. There goes my WHOLE childhood. Who else laughed at the map? Or the EC tunnel clusterfuck? It sucks that I can't still play it, but it's just not the same. It hasn't aged well, and it's unrecognizable from the game I played 12-14 years ago. /EQNanticipationdance

[@martialharpistmatthew1837]

Katy Wiggins download project 1999.. And come back home

[@AJBernard]

So, I've played tons of MMOs after EQ1. EQ2, WoW, SW:TOR, Star Wars Galaxies... a lot of games. And even though I only played EQ1 for 5 years, it holds a special place in my heart. The crappy midi theme music at the start of the game really does fill my stomach with butterflies, just like Vareous said. The confusion, the doubt, the unknown elements of the game were amazing. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Too many great stories to tell here, but some of those places fill my heart with longing.

[@Navak_]

I didn't play EQ but this video nearly brought tears to my eyes. I played early WoW from day 1 and can relate to much of what you said. I see now the direct continuity from EQ to classic WoW and my how beautiful it is to have that put into context. I've always been a big baldur's gate player and this video has shown me just how perfectly EQ bridges the gap from BG to WoW. I loved classic WoW, it was the greatest experience of my life, but I was also there afterward to witness the slow death of all of these elements of community and mystery as that game and games to follow transitioned to a more mechanic-based, gameplay-oriented model. If EQ bridged baldur's gate and WoW, WoW bridged EQ and league of legends... and what a tragedy that is.

[@Navak_]

The computer I first played WoW on was so bad that the minimap didn't render and even the ground tiles were scattered and so massively pixelated that I couldn't even follow roads, and I couldn't see more than 100 yards at best. The effect of all of these failures was beautiful! The game world had such a sense of mystery and wonder to me, and it seemed so huge and easy to get lost. It made me fear straying from places I was familiar with, and it made the idea of traveling to someplace new very exciting and adventurous instead of tedious. There were no quest helper addons and until thottbot no external resources for game information. Everything you knew you had learned from word of mouth. People you met directed you to quests they thought were worth doing, and everyone was learning together. Even after thottbot and cosmos were released, most people never knew about them because the only way to know was again from word of mouth. News traveled slowly. Everything traveled slowly. I had played some MMOs before that and never hit level cap so I assumed from the start that I would never reach level cap in WoW... and those low expectations freed me to take my time and explore and enjoy everything I came across. I've never met another player who took more playtime to hit level cap than I did (700+ hours), and I've never met another player who loves the game as much as I do. I think the two are related!

[@liameknuj3701]

It's that first mmo experience I think. I had a friend who played DAoC and felt the same magic that we felt with eq or wow. I just want a difficult MMO to be released that has very little info before the release. Nowaday, every piece of data is mined from a game before it's released. Feels like everyone knows everything about a game right when it launches. No mystery left!

[@Grumpy_old_Boot]

Liame Knuj Loosing your MMO virginity is always a special thing.

[@GameHopping]

I laughed at the 'spamming sense heading'. So very true.

[@Weird_but_neat]

level 63 human shadow knight agnostic...I know kinda lame, but Damn I miss those days...

[@RichardLangis]

I loved EQ. I had a Dark Elf Enchanter and could never get my faction high enough for the high elves to allow her to finish her epic. And I LOVED Lower Guk. And Sebilis. I have deep dark elven roots...

[@petrameyer1121]

***** If you have a deity its useless. Main reason ENC always were agnostic..

[@sLAyZY760]

For whatever reason reading your posted reminded me about the zone Qeynos. I didnt figure out until like 8 years into playing EQ that it was backwards for SonyEQ loll!

[@petrameyer1121]

Jeff Mastio Tunare >nature ;)

[@TheKnightstalker73]

Everquest is still live and i still play it almost everyday , its changed alot since it started in 99 but the heart of the game is still there . I still enjoy it . I would rather play EQ than WoW or any other MMO because of the great memories it holds .

[@ModernCelt]

Years after I stopped playing my High Elf Paladin on Fennin Ro I started dating a woman who used to live in the upper MidWest of the US while I am in Pennsylvania. As we got to know each other she sheepishly told me that she used to play online MMOs. I perked up and said that I still played some. "Yeah, I was a High Elf Cleric in EverQuest". "No shit! I was a High Elf Paladin. Which server?" "Fennin Ro." "Holy hells! Me too! I was Findulas. Who were you?" She looked at me amazed, "You were Finduilas? I was Kalianna. I remember playing with you a few times." It was a blast.

[@prest0x]

My first 5 min in EQ in 1999 was trying to hail a guard, and instead, hit the attack button.

[@rdizzy1]

Many people did this to the priest of discord as well, or accidentally turned in the book without knowing and stuck in pvp.

[@MrTechFox]

Something truly wonderful was made in Everquest, and that has been entirely lost in modern MMORPGs. Here is to hoping that Everquest Next can bring back the strength of the genre.. but I doubt it, developers seem to think that in game "hassels", "annoyances", "penalties" are bad for the game because players complain.. when in fact, even though players complain, these things are what make the game a social virtual world that we invest in. Modern MMORPGs are a pale shallow shell compared to this pinnacle, I fear we will never see its like again.

[@Royfokker73]

Check out Pantheon:Rise of the Fallen - new game being created by Aradune. Nothing is ever going to re-capture the feel of Everquest, but anything close will probably come from that man!

[@MrTechFox]

Jeremy Barnes Thanks for the heads up, however I am already aware of this project. It is at least 3 years away from release, and that is if it even makes it. Given its failed kick starter origins and who is currently helming the project (Brad, who previously drove Vanguard into the ground), I just don't think I can get on board with that game until its more of a reality then a theory you know what I mean? My hopes right now are with Everquest Next, while it won't be what EQ1 was, it is promising to be nothing like what any of the "modern" MMORPGs since EQ1 are like either. Perhaps they will hit a new sweet spot.

[@Royfokker73]

The wife and I (we met through the original EQ) decided to re-sub for the original EQ for a few months again due to lack of anything else out there right now. We're having a good deal of fun but it is definitely not the same.

[@rawwhide]

Jeremy Barnes Project 1999 is currently in the Kunark expansion.

[@rawwhide]

MrTechFox Sony had more to do with driving Vangaurd into the ground than any other reason or person.

[@Chocolate_dragon]

Everquest was so great. Well no it sucked and was grindy and there were no quests. BUT I FUCKING LOVED IT! Anyone else remember making an elf, but your buddy made a human and started in free port...so you sit on a boat, for 2 hours, only to glitch off the boat and die? Then can't find your body with your stuff? LOVED IT!

[@gernsey7362]

I had 3 friends that all started playing this the same time as I did. I started in Kelethin, with 1 of the friends.. The other 2 started in Qeynos area. Literally as far as possible from where we started. it was decided that I and 1 of my friends would make the journey... Talk about an epic quest, we ran into players along the way that helped us through HIgh hold.. we ran for our lives across Kithicor (learned the difference between day and night). Learned to CON guards. It was from that moment i was so hooked in this game.. It was amazing in a way that no other game could touch. Jimii - Bard of Morrell Thule

[@Chocolate_dragon]

I agree I had more epic adventures on the game. Did you notice Qeynos is SonyEQ spelled backwards?

[@MrBalrog64]

I remember your name, Jimii. I too, was on Morell Thule. Truehammer was my main. Dwarf paladin. Everything you say brings back the greatness of old EQ. Today's live servers are sad. Every zone is a ghost town.

[@Yaguara]

chillyfog2427e7738 That's not the only funny spell in the game : Tunare = Nature, Tolapmuj = jumpalot (the froglok in front of Trakanon), the beetle named "Ringo" in paludal caverns, etc... :)

[@Yaguara]

I miss those old Everquest days... I remember the first time i went trhew Kael Drakkal, the rush to PoTime... That feeling when you hunt crocodiles in oasis and you ear a Sand Giant coming... I was Hestia (DE/Wiz) on Karana server.

[@cobravoice]

A few thing left out that all of us that played will never forger ... 1) If you didn't get to your corps in 4 or 5 days RL time ,ya lost everything. 2) Raiding was done in OOC and if you weren't in a high dps group ,you probably spent 4 or 5 hours not getting xp. 3) Just one death without a REZ meant hours of lost xp. 4) Most importantly without courage s self sacrificing people that were usually strangers and willing to help ,,you could be stuck in a 1,2,3 loop ... I think most that played way back when either knew or heard the call to go rescue a poor cleric that was trapped in the Naggy prep room in a bind death loop.

[@gavincakes9431]

Well done Vareous - great video and I share your sentiments. You covered lots but it feels like we're still only scratching the surface. People who haven't played EQ won't understand and even then the first 3 years was dramatically different to EQ now. I don't think any game will ever compare. EQ was truly a thinking person's game, with significant difficulty, was massively multiplayer and all of the flaws & exploits made players become better players.

[@lunayoshi]

Time to die, a_Vareous_bard! My friends and I in high school were OBSESSED with this game. I played an Enchanter. Used to run around newbie areas handing out Clarity buffs so they'd never go out of mana for 20 minutes. Hey, I had to pay it forward after all those Druids ran by giving me Spirit of Wolf so I could run fast. I remember Hell Levels. 35 and every 5 levels until 50 took 3 times as long to grind through, and dying and losing that exp you just spent your whole weekend accumulating was HEARTBREAKING. BUT... it was totally worth it. That sense of accomplishment of getting your punk ass to 50 through 60 was epic and there was no way you could have done it alone. "Massively multiplayer" indeed. P.S. High Elf agnostic Enchanter was easy mode. Need to sell? Far from a neutral or friendly city? ILLUSION: [friendly race] and BOOM, vendors buy your stuff. Just had to hope your illusion buff didn't run out before you could zone back out. P.S.S. INC TRAIN TO DOCKS.

[@Cynidecia]

For me? Its agnostic human enchanter (Freeport starting city)

[@lunayoshi]

@@Cynidecia but... high elves have more Charisma!

[@Cynidecia]

@@lunayoshi but they're elves.

[@VeritechGirl]

oh yeah, fond memories of going Link Dead in the middle of a fight and finally coming back naked at your bind point!

[@yodaddy6540]

Emperor crush still scares me.

[@stug3719]

Link Dead!! OMG I completely forgot about going LD. Haven't thought about that in a long long time.

[@SweGunner71]

Thank you so much for this video! I played from 1999 to 2009, and now, 5 years after I quit, I still miss the game. Every bloody day. Everquest was hardcore in a way MMORPG players of today could never even fathom.

[@feathero3]

I never played this, but I greatly appreciate you sharing the experience of it. It really shows how far games have come, and helps me appreciate every single feature, no matter how small. Because there may have been a time that feature wasn't there.

[@Tinfoiledhat]

This brings me back to the memories of Kiting with my Druid and waiting for a damn whole hour IRL to ride a boat lmao. Such a classic game. Will never find anything like this again unfortunately. Simple, yet incredibly addicting.

[@wixom01]

MMORPG's are dead as dead now days. As the OP says, you can just throw caution to the wind in the current games, and you never need to talk to anyone if you don't want to. But EQ forced player and community interaction. No one could solo their way through it. I miss that game. I miss it a lot. /cry

[@Royfokker73]

So much love for this game. Two things I really hated that they changed though - the character models ugh! - and adding in the Bazaar. EQ tunnel went from the biggest collection of people selling wares and socializing and helping new/low level players out to a ghost town in a matter of weeks. It was truly sad :( Mind you if you played on a PvP server the bazaar was probably a blessing. I started on Rallos PvP and carrying all that plat around wasn't a good idea so there was no real commerce in EC.

[@Hightechprosolutions]

OH! Does anyone else remember the HELL levels? Holy sh*t that was a brutal time!

[@Matthew.Wade27]

Omg! This video brought back so many memories. Played the crap out of this game for about five years. Had several high level characters. I got pretty hood at solo power leveling up to the 50’s without needing groups. Such an amazing game once you figured it out.

[@musicbro8225]

Very precious video brother, you captured the essence! I played a shaman Troll named Horendous on a pvp server (I don't remember the server), I had a pet that was called Lassy (the wolf). PVP added the ability to deal with many of the rude characters, but often they were the players that spent ALL their time gearing and leveling up till they became unreasonably strong so guilds were almost a necessity. It was so chaotic at times, everytime you pop'd into a zone the first thing you did was check who was in the zone... Often the first clue you were being attacked was seeing that 'so and so begins to cast' and everyone would leap up and it would begin. These fights would often last for literally hours (people would die and get rez'd, get dressed and buffed and dive right back into the frey), it's amazing that anyone managed to level up hehe.

[@Sylvurdragon7]

Great video! I actually got back into EQ recently, since they changed the All Access membership to work with all SOE titles. My favorite (worst) memory of EQ - was the one time I died in Cobalt Scar, fighting Wyverns, back before you respawned with all of your gear...and I had to walk all the way from Ak'Anon to Cobalt Scar butt-ass naked. Luckily I was a mage and was able to acquire some malachite, so i was able to keep some mobs in Skyshrine occupied...but you try traversing the temple without clothes on...that was insane! People in current-gen MMO's have no idea what we had to go through! lol (AND IT WAS GREAT!)

[@bigjyeager]

Lol, I remember keeping a little extra gear in the bank just in case I died and had to go get my corpse

[@Skanras]

That was the worst! I remember being on the boat from Faydwer to Antonica. I got too close to the edge and the boat jumped out from underneath me. I started swimming in a direction, completely lost. I never swam because, "I'm a Paladin. They don't swim!" After an hour of swimming and going through my entire food and water store, I end up on the shore of the Cyclops island. Boom. Dead. All that work for a death. At least I didn't die in the water. (And my swimming skill had gained a few levels.) I'll never forget that.

[@kalubshaw2563]

Allen Lake Sad story Allen... You ever get you're body back? I once teleported my 37th lvl druid to an expansion and my parents wouldn't buy it and i lost my main DUDE! I also died in the Wyverns, sucked bad. Was there an amount of time you had to retrieve your corpse in this game or would it just stay there?? I always flipped out and stayed up for hours on end to get my corpse. Fuck school i need my gear lol

[@Skanras]

I did recover my corpse Kalub. My parents were yelling at my that we had to leave but the corpse stayed there for 7 days, so I had time. The next morning I got up like 3 hours before school and got someone hunting in the zone to help fight off the Cyclops while I looted my body. That sucks about the expansion! Losing your main dude just due to a bad teleport! Ugh!

[@Farkulooknat]

I remember drowning in the ocean with my Druid had all the money and gear I owned, luckily a higher lvl player came along and i gave her permission to drag my corpse up off the ocean floor. You could give permission for others to drag your corpse to safety or Necromancers to summon your corpse. It was funny to see people running across the zone dragging someone's corpse behind them.

[@TheNexusStream]

Early EQ was truly a Massively Multiplayer game... all the clones after it, while fun for a bit, just don't hold up to it. Just holding a dangerous camp in LGuk with a group of friends was an accomplishment in itself and I have not felt so fulfilled in any other game since EQ.

[@jwlove66]

I miss the pranks you could do the most ... for instance. Charming a level 1 wolf while your raid is waiting to port out. Then stacking that sucker with high level raid buffs before you leave. Along comes a level 1 to attack the little wolf ..... doh ! Or turning myself into a bag in the EC tunnel and watching people walk back and forth trying to pick me up.

[@Murdo2112]

Or freaking out newbies in Crushbone by dragging corpses towards them while invisible.

[@rlelinney4646]

you would have loved pvp then. stuff like casting dispel to remove a guys water breathing is mean. or levitate when your dead man floating in the clouds.

[@maxpower2511]

The feeling of coming home, dialing up to connect to the internet and launching this game will never be matched.

[@JonathanEren]

I still play Shards of Dalaya once and a while. Everquest was hands down my favorite MMO and I hope to see it get revitalized in Everquest NEXT as they have promised. Great video!

[@jackdempsey3677]

I realize now just how similar the appeal of Dark Souls/Bloodborne is to Everquest. Both games thrust you into the unknown, amidst enemies that pose a real threat. Everquest did it first of course, and on a far grander scale. EQ had its drawbacks though. I remember mana/hitpoints used to take so long to fully regen, i kept a mini VHS tv next to my pc. So i'd have something to do while i wait. Or how about when your slain and you didn't make it to the corpse in time? And it just decayed, loosing all your $hit? .....This game was the grand-daddy of rage quit. And we loved every second of it.

[@sarahg6248]

The drawbacks you mentioned, as annoying as they might have been, were part of what made the game so immersive. You were actually afraid to die because of the consequences, the lost of experience, sometimes even lost of your level, and possible lost of your corpse (and everything in your inventory as well). When I started playing you looked up to high level players, level 50 was impressive, now when you hit level 50 (or even higher) you don't have that feeling of achievement, or at least its not as exciting (at least to me, still fun though), because its so much easier and faster to get there. There was no in map in game either, and I got lost quite a few times lol, but this too was part of the challenges that made the game immersive.

[@SJW456]

Everyone who misses (or missed) this game needs to checkout Project 1999

[@ColinPoole]

Camped for a Ghoulbane for months. Evergrind indeed.

[@kal-torakmtgarena8478]

Most fun I ever had playing a game, started in 99 and played for 10 years before I quit, I remember telling my wife I couldn't go somewhere on a Saturday afternoon because my guild was grouping up to do something and you just couldn't leave because they were helping you or you were helping someone else get something they needed. I really miss the comrade that this game had.

[@thelimatheou]

I played on one of the Zek servers, so EC tunnel was not a place to hang out. I loved the sense of danger. The despair I had at being killed by a player while waiting for that dude in the Rathe Mountains to get my J-boots. I had worked on it for so long...only to lose all my cash right when it was in my grasp! Had so much fun in EQ...despite the epic trains and corpse runs, no other game has been able to recreate that sense of danger and excitement. Thanks for the vid - bought back some cool memories

[@crowsbridge]

I don't think I would have liked the game as much had I not played on a pvp server. Good times

[@fet7259]

This was the greatest game of all-time. I have so many amazing memories and I have used my rogues game name ever since.

[@AeroicaGaming]

I remember casting KEI for gold for hours on end

[@bbender1986]

i played back when you could loot ALL corpses

[@CharlesLumia]

Early on me and my brother played on an old computer. The monitor was dying or something and everything was very dark (early Everquest had a lot of lighting fun, no mention of light sources but those were actually a thing). So due to that we would avoid dungeons and I would set us up camping in random spots, specifically the Aviaks in Lake Rathe (awesome zone) and the two bards in The Feerrott and Innothule Swamp. The poor kid would camp those guys for days, literal days, actual days, all spent in the same spot doing the same thing. The bards were the worst. They were level 25 and on 30 minute respawn timers. He camped those for so many levels it was and still is unbelievable to me. After a while I put together a new computer for him and he ended up being the best Warrior and probably the best player on the server (Fennin Ro). He ended up playing for years, much longer than I did. These days he's a well adjusted fellow with good priorities. We still regularly joke about Everquest. Good times. Good video too.

[@bostonspinach8144]

I love this video. What makes me even love it more than I should is the fact that your voice reminds me of Chris Hemsworth. So while watching and listening, all I imagine is Chris, as handsome as ever, playing EQ and talking about how awesome classic EQ was. This is a great vid to show people who play modern MMOs.

[@Metalwrath2]

These "negative" thing you said actually what makes these games fantastic. Nowadays the game itself handles everything for us and takes away all the fun

[@sarahg6248]

True.

[@Harleigh_19]

I feel like I have been VERY spoiled with the MMO's I have played growing up compared to this. I give a lot of props to anyone who had the patience to play this game =P

[@joelhulsey2800]

It was simply awesome!

[@BattletoadOVerload]

You have no idea. It was unlike any other, and there will never be an equal.

[@lukecarroll4052]

StNewt314 Its debatable whether that inequality is in its favour or against it, but I dig the enthusiasm

[@boot-strapper]

You aren't spoiled, you are deprived. You will probably never play a good MMo in your life, because they don't exist anymore.

[@goofayoo]

Chlorophant Agreed. Pre Planes of Power EQ was the golden age of MMO's. No auction house, no farmers or gold spammers; none of that cancer existed yet. You had to play the game to get the goods. Economy was 100% purely player generated. Long live the East Commons Tunnel and the art of the deal! Lets not forget GM events! No MMO since, and I've beta tested and played many, have come remotely close to anything as cool as a GM event. Winning some item from a GM that had your toon's name on it was the coolest. "Train to zone!" Miss that game. Rad post. When I heard the opening music, it took me back. Goosebumps.

[@glant2005]

What a trip down memory lane indeed! Awesome!

[@TheVigilantStewards]

It's amazing how much of that stuff sticks in your mind through the years. Thank you very much for posting up the video. Hearing that music and seeing the loading screen, wow. Loved Gfay and CB

[@ericbeall7675]

Played EQ all the way from 2000 to 2010 favorite memories; The questline getting your quintessence of elements to get into Plane of time. Killing essentially all of the gods to gain access to the Planes of timeA and B then being the main tank to kill Quarm the main boss of plane of timeB. Such a badass game. Will always hold a special place in my heart.

[@Theotan1191]

Well done. Really enjoyed this trip down memory lane.

[@defixon]

I couldn't agree more on every single thing you said in this video. I'm sure I'll never play a game like Everquest again, but I will never lose hope. All we need is an MMO that requires you to socialize with other people..is that too much to ask? :(

[@lucam1686]

This game is such a ripoff of world of Warcraft legion

[@yugen]

lol

[@tiggertiger9495]

7 year old vid, wild. I loved EQ, I remember when there was only 50 levels. This vid was great anyway, eq was so dope, even now it's funny looking at the graphics n stuff I'd still be happy to play it the way it was..

[@Asterra2]

A favorite anecdote: As a wizard, I was aware of the epic weapons the day they got patched in. My guild was killing Cazic Thule the moment the server came up, and we got the "Cazic skin" drop, which was eventually recognized as the rarest epic-related drop in the entire game (forcing the entire wizard epic quest to be rewritten). I offered to loot the (no-drop) skin in order to cast Identify on it, and that did reveal that it was "like dry parchment". Ultimately this was recognized as a clue to hand it to a new NPC in Butcherblock named Kandin. By that time, it was well-established that several sub-events for several epic quests involved significant battles requiring a couple of groups for success - losing obviously meant losing all related items and progress. In spite of this, I wasn't able to conveniently amass a just-in-case force, so I took a gamble and became the first person worldwide to hand over the Cazic skin and get rewarded "Kandin's bag". There was no mini-boss, fortunately. In the end, nobody who deserved "worldwide first" for the wizard epic actually got it, because the quest couldn't be completed, and on the day it got patched to fix the problems, all of the top wizards were busy duking it out in the wizard "Best of the Best" on test server. But I reckon my headstart counted for something.

[@kortt]

Great video! It brings back so many memories. My wife and I played for 7 or 8 years.

[@KiltedGamingFamily]

Lower Guk was the most amazing zone ever seen in Norrath

[@oddshapedboogerfling1597]

This video made my heart hurt.

[@mikegermanio324]

Awesome video man. So Glad I grew up with classic EQ. The kid's that are growing up with the MMO's today have no idea the sense of reward that came from finally hitting the level cap in this game. Was such a hard road but so many awesome memories.

[@cokeglas]

Why I came looking for this I don't know. I have memories of this game I'll never forget I guess. Trying to get from Freeport to the Karanas, heading thru West Commons as the sun does down knowing what is coming up next! Corpse runs and trains at Castle Mistmoore. One of the things I miss the most that no-one has ever done again is how dark the nights were. Having to carry a torch. Getting lost at night was truly terrifying and mega-stressful, I loved it!! OMG and the camping! Madness!! 28 hours for the Ancient Cyclops myself. Guk!