Tag Archives: everquest

A Mean Idea to Call My Own

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Traveling today, back in my adopted town tomorrow.

In the meantime … I’ve done some work on back info you might find amusing. As you’ve probably noticed, I revamped the look around AFK Gamer. (And if you’re reading blogs via feed reader only, you’re wrong.) More importantly, I fixed some of the static pages and expanded the historical record. If you’re the type who enjoys second-guessing others’ poor decisions (e.g. mine) — and we’re talking YEARS OLD decisions here — you might enjoy this.

Within the limits of blurred memories, I documented my game characters and guilds over the past ten years. Here’s an example of why this is mildly amusing: EQ – Original Main: Druid (soloing juggernaut), Next Main: Bard (post-Luclin soloing juggernaut), Constant Alt: Cleric (equip my Mains, kthxbye).

Takes me a while to figure out the system, but once I do, immersion and community be damed, I’m working it.

While it took me weeks to remember all that and piece together the dates, I realized that most of the memories had become fond ones. That’s one of the advantages of losing your mind.

You Will Not Evade Me!

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Some days I can’t help but miss some of the little things in past games I’ve played. Truly, the little things are what you remember in the end, not the phat loot piece #305830 you received.

Long ago, in a galaxy far far..err wrong content. Back when DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) was new, I hailed it as my final escape from Everquest (how wrong I was). The game itself wasn’t that bad, and it followed the general EQ way of things (which in the end was its Achille’s Heel, imo). PvP was very well done, however, I didn’t maintain interest in the overall game long enough to fully explore it.

The best part of DAoC were the zone-wide death messages. When anyone died in the same area you were in, you were greeted with “Soandso was slain by …..!”. I found it particularly amusing when the same boss killed the same group over and over and over again. Or when Noob_152 was killed by the same level 3 wolf and you wondered how they would ever survive and make it in the game (They’d just remake as a healer, since almost everything is forgiven when you’re the least-played, most-needed class). Whenever I noticed some douche I hated being repeatedly killed, I’d be compelled to just watch for more death spam. Often times my group would notice I stopped paying attention for prolonged periods of time. They would then decide to train me for making their lives difficult, and, my death spam was then broadcast much to the joy of others. Bastards.

Everquest had a similar feature, (it was later removed) zone-wide summon messages. Select higher level mobs had the ability to summon anyone on their hate list who was out of melee range. The shrooms in Sebilis (King especially) were some of the best bringers of hilarity. Once the spam ended, (You could easily get over 30 messages before a wipe) /yells of King camp now open! or /yell Good luck getting your corpses back without gear, douche bags! would follow. It was like Warcraft’s Barrens chat, but, instead of wanting to spoon your eyes out with a fork, you’d laugh your ass off.

Blizzard, you’ve followed the Everquest mold so closely in many regards. Why not take another step forward and add in the zone wide death messages? Think of all the fun times!

Choo Choo!

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No, that’s not the loot train pulling into its stop.

Long before EverQuest’s Karnor’s Castle garnered infamy, the art of training was in its infancy in a little zone called Solusek B (Sol B, sister zone to the lower level Sol A). Sol B was one of the higher end zones in the original EQ, with tiered levels of mobs providing experience from the upper 30’s well into the 50’s. Mobs were generally in larger packs than previous zones, spaced closer together, and had a decent respawn speed. Add in clueless noobs and the fact that most paths invariably crossed, pure chaos would ensue.

Upon zoning into Sol B (there was one main zone-in and multiple side zone-ins from Sol A), you were greeted by some form of Kobold. They hit rather hard for their level (when the zone was new, nobody had much in the way of gear) and occasionally had a healer packed in with them. They would also flee, and, god forbid you didn’t snare them or you could be sure many new friends would be racing to properly greet (kill) you.

If you were the only group there, this wouldn’t seem like a problem, since you could easily set up near the zone out and simply pull there and run 10 feet to the zone out if something went wrong. However, unlike World of Warcraft, there were no private instances at this time. Twenty hours of the day you could be sure there would be at least 30 others in Sol B and during peak hours there would be well over 70 people in the zone.

Mobs in Everquest were very social, meaning they would attack other groups if you hadn’t generated enough hate or someone zoned out and they were wandering back to their spawn spot (no evade+sprint back as in WoW). They would also chase until either they died or all aggro players were dead (unless you were a Monk, Necro, or Shadowknight with feign death). One bad pull from the back of the zone could easily make its way to the front and wipe out anyone caught in its path. This was known as training, and usually nobody bothered to warn anyone that one was incoming.

I can recall many 20+ Kobold trains wiping out half of the zone as you’d notice the zone’s population go from 70 to 40, and 5 minutes later the yelling would begin. The higher level mobs in Sol B (Bats, Lava Spiders) were also close to the lower level Kobolds making it that much easier for some moron to go wandering and bring the house down on you.

The biggest train I’d ever seen was one of about 10 Lava Spiders, 15 or so bats, and about 30 Kobolds. They even managed to pull the rare spawn Noxious Spider ensuring that everyone was poisoned and would die even after zoning out. Truly, it was one of those rare sights you just had to sit back and laugh.

To think some of these trains were not malicious would be naive. Hell, being a Monk myself, I purposely wiped many groups who dared to invade my group’s camp spot and pull our mobs, or to just kill off some asshat I didn’t like. Since I had feign death, there was little reason to worry about reprisal — if they did try something, I’d simply wipe them again. Scenarios like this lead to another phrase in Everquest, “Never fuck with a monk”.

Karnor’s Castle may have later claimed status as the largest and most frequent zone of trains, but everything has a beginning, and it was quite a bit of fun being part of it. I had some amazing trains in Karnor’s Castle as well, but that’s another story.