Archived from groups: alt.games.everquest (More info?)
So, after my old server broke disbanded, I took a break from EQ. I found
solace in playing games like Half-Life 2, Knights of the Old Republic II,
and some player-made campaigns for NeverWinter Nights (Rick Burton's
"Twilight" and "Midnight" modules are just awesome).
I flirted quite strongly with the idea of quitting EQ altogether, coming
very close to that decision a couple of times. When the guildchat went
silent, EQ was suddenly a very lonely game. Hard to get a group, no one to
just chat with, everyone I knew had gone to other games... a lot of the
social aspect had been taken out.
Still, I did enjoy the game, and wanted to continue to enjoy it. So I put
out some feelers. There was no way in heck I was joining the only remaining
uber-guild on Drinal, so I sent an inquiry to the guild recruiter for the
guild of another regular poster here in a.g.e, James Grahame. The recruiter
wanted to know what I was flagged for, and was pleased to learn I was
flagged through Txevu. I also talked to James's character, who indicated
that the guild was rebuilding, so if I joined I'd have to join them in
farming old content.
That seemed fine to me. So, now I had an alternative. The question I had
to ask myself was, did I really want to stay with EQ?
I logged on Monual and sat him in front of the bank in the Plane of
Knowledge. I started handing out buffs for free, refusing donations. With
my gear and AA's my Temp lasted 175 minutes and Virtue lasted 262.5 minutes,
so I was soon sought out for those buffs. I also advertised a "special
surprise buff" for level 45 characters, which was nothing more than Ancient
Aegolism, of course.
It felt good to do this, but I really wanted to group. So I made the
journey to Riftseekers and put up LFG. I actually got an invite from a
group in MPG, who told me they were at "odi". I had no idea where "odi" was
but it turned out to be quite close to the RS zone line.
I joined up and soon shook off the rust of a two-month layoff. The old
cleric reflexes were still there, and I was soon back in the familiar
healing rhythm. We got some nameds and runes began dropping. I had exactly
one level 66+ spell and desperately needed runes. When this group found
that out, they graciously allowed me to loot all runes that dropped because
they all had all their rune drops already. Their generosity blew me away.
The next day one of the members of that group invited me to a new group in
Riftseeker's. So I made my way there, and as soon as I joined he handed me
another rune. Truly, I was touched; a tremendously generous gesture. We
began pulls and almost immediately the tank was effusive with praise: "Hey,
this cleric actually heals!"
I was also recruited by another cleric to try and join the uber-guild. She
evidently didn't know anything about me or she wouldn't have even tried. =)
She was very nice and I was polite in return, but made it clear that as long
as their leadership remained, I could not in good conscience join the guild.
She still tried to convince me but in the end we parted on pleasant terms.
I continued to give away buffs in PoK, too, and sometimes ran into old
guildmates. Had a few conversations, people missed our guild but had found
other ways to enjoy the game.
Overall the experience was an extremely positive one and I was quite happy.
This was what I liked about EQ, this is what I enjoyed about the game. Good
people working together to accomplish a goal.
So, my decision was made. I'd move to another server and start over there.
I read the rules for transferring characters: I could move two from one
account with plat and equipment for $75. Nothing in the shared bank slot
would be transferred.
I looked over my characters across two accounts. I then made a difficult
decision: I'd cancel the account with Marrtuk and Rudnom on it. I just
didn't play EverQuest enough any more; Marrtuk has been barely touched since
he dinged 55. As much as I enjoyed playing him, I just didn't see that it
was worth maintaining the second account.
So I went through a lengthy process of stripping Rudnom and Marrtuk of their
droppables and plat. Most of their stuff I used for tribute for Monual,
since he was running quite low. Marrtuk's Cloak of Crystalline Waters I
kept, along with the Anklesmasher; I'll decide what to do with those later.
Marrtuk had a few pieces of no-drop gear (including a Fabled breastplate)
that I left on him. I deleted all my characters except Monual, Sterman (my
very first character and still level 14), and Marrtuk, who I just couldn't
quite bear to kill. Marrtuk remains alone in a cancelled account; since I
pre-paid, he'll be there for a while should I change my mind and decide to
bring him out of retirement.
After I had made certain my shared bank was empty, I put in for a server
move for Monual and Sterman. I got back an email saying that the transfer
could take three weeks. Wow, didn't know it would be that long.
I went back to grinding, and found that I was being sought after for RS
groups now. While I'd like to think it's because of my superior skill, I
have to be honest and say it's my lack of guild affiliation - during prime
raiding hours I'm certain it's very difficult to find well-geared clerics to
grind with.
What turned out to be my last XP group on Drinal came when I got an invite
to a Wall of Slaughter group. I'd never actually done an XP group there, so
I accepted. The group was all in their upper 60's and not well-geared, so I
was actually spending more mana healing them than I had in RS. Plus I was
getting much less experience. Still, the group was fun. The enchanter was
pulling, and got stunned during one pull. Two mobs came into camp, and I
expended a great deal of my mana but I kept everyone alive long enough to
kill them both. During the fight, the enchanter asked into group, "Wipe?"
"Nah," I responded. Afterwards the group was full of praise for my ability
to keep them alive. Not a bad way to spend my last day on Drinal.
During work the next day I checked my home email and found a message saying
that my server move had been completed, a week after I requested it. So I
went home with some mild anticipation and logged on. Sure enough, under
Quellious popped up my two characters.
I felt strange about that. Drinal, my home for four years, was now behind
me. Still, a home is just a place unless you have family there, too, and
almost all of my EQ friends had stopped playing on Drinal. I really had no
one to say goodbye to.
I logged on and found myself where I'd logged off on Drinal, in the Plane of
Knowledge. The first thing I noticed was that my windows had been reset and
my hotkeys were gone. I logged off, found my Mounal_drinal.ini file,
renamed it to Monual_quellious.ini, and logged back on. Ah, much better,
although I still had to put my windows back to where I wanted them.
I /ooc'd "Hail Quellious" and actually got a couple of response. I then
sent a tell to the guild recruiter, indicating I had finished my server
move. I had to remind him of who I was, but once he found out that I was
Time-flagged, he told me, "Get to Time".
Gosh, it had been quite a while since I'd done Time. I ran there and zoned
in. I found the raid inviter at the zone-in. He invited me into the raid
and told me they were now in Phase 3. I made my way there and was
immediately moved to a group that needed a cleric.
I asked the recruiter, a cleric, if there was a cleric channel. He told
they had a channel that all healers spammed heal messages into, and a
channel strictly for the Complete Heal Chain. I joined both while trying my
best to heal. We had stopped spamming heals long ago in my old guild and I
actually had no heal hotkeys anymore except for my CHC hotkey. I decided
against creating them right there because Phase 3 of Time is hectic enough
as it is.
Phase 3 was soon completed and the raid moved into Phase 4. I asked how
they did their CHC and was soon moved into a cleric-only group, which
included another cleric recruit. They set up the rotation and indicated
that their first target would be Tallon Zek. I asked where they stood
during the CHC and it turned out to be very close to where we stood in my
old guild.
We began, and the CHC is sloppy. The recruit has actually never been in a
raid before and struggles with the CHC. One cleric takes a few rotations to
actually participate. Despite all that, the Main Tank stays alive the
entire fight and we win. I smile and find that I'm quite enjoying myself; I
haven't raided in a long time and am finding that I still like it.
I run up to the corpse and check the drops, since I'm not in guildchat and
can't see the links. I wonder if I make anyone nervous by doing so, but no
one says anything. I don't need anything from Time anyway, my gear's pretty
good. Not that I wouldn't mind a Hammer of Holy Vengeance, though. =)
Still, such stuff would be a minor upgrade at best and I'm certain there are
people who need it far more than I do. Plus, of course, as a recruit I'm
certain it will be quite a while before I qualify for loot.
Vallon Zek and Terris Thule go down equally easily. I seem to be doing
well; I'm staying right with the CHC rotation and my mana is holding up
quite nicely, especially in comparison with the other recruit who quickly
runs out of mana. This is why I don't want to start over again with another
game like WoW or EQ2: I've worked quite hard to get Monual the gear he has
and I want to enjoy the benefits of that labor.
We move on to the last mob they fight in Phase 4: Saryn. Saryn has a nasty
AE effect that drains mana something fierce, but with a high enough disease
resist it's easy to overcome. I get a resist buff from a shaman and once
again find out where to position myself. I also find out that there's a
raid channel they forgot to invite me into, and that I've been missing the
instructions (and, incidentally, the loot drops) that have been sent to that
channel. I wonder why they need a raid channel when they could simply use
/raidsay, but decide it's not in my best interests to ask.
We begin. The rotation goes quite well and I'm resisting every one of
Saryn's AE casts, so I've got lots of mana. The other recruit and a couple
of other clerics get hit early and quickly run out of mana. In the end, the
CHC gets quite ragged but, amazingly, the tank lives throughout. I end up
with 30% mana despite getting hit with the AE towards the end. Again, I
feel good about my performance.
They begin to clean up all the adds that Saryn spawns during the fight, when
suddenly a *ton* of mobs from Phase 5 suddenly appear. I blanche. Now,
there are a couple of ways you could interpret my next action. You could
say that, with my long experience of raids and raid adds, I could analyze
pretty quickly the likelihood of the raid surviving the onslaught of twenty
additional mobs with most healers very low and mana and determine that it
was to the raid's benefit that I back out and try to avoid aggro so I can
rez everyone later and thus save time. Or you could say that I was too
afraid of dying and chickened out. =)
I flee from the battle. The other clerics die quickly, followed by the rest
of the raid. I've never seen Phase 5 mobs add into a Phase 4 battle before
and comment about that in the group. Another cleric says it happens to them
quite a bit. I wonder if it's because of the order they do the mobs - my
old guild always did TT and Saryn first, then TZ and VZ.
The Phase 5 mobs have now killed everyone and are trying to path back. This
entails a quite lengthy path to one end of the room and back. And,
unfortunately, people keep getting aggro, including a cleric who camped but
came back too soon, and this force the mobs to start their long path all
over again. In the end, the rogues who survived start dragging corpses to
me, and I begin rezzing the raid.
In my old guild it was a running joke that I had a secret way of surviving
raids without dying, which I called the Monual Method. The joke was this:
don't heal. If you never get heal aggro, you'll survive every raid. The
Monual Method works equally well at preserving mana, too. I make that same
joke into the cleric group and it goes over like a lead balloon. Perhaps I
should wait a bit before making similar jokes in the future; I'm not
entirely certain they knew I wasn't serious. =)
It's quite late and lots of people have to log, so they call the raid after
the recovery. I thank the raid for having me and head back to PoK. I spend
a few minutes handing out buffs there, too. Another cleric, who
paradoxically is roleplaying in /ooc, compliments me for my altruism. This
cleric is evidently well-known for this and lots of people respond in /ooc.
There's lot's for me to learn about the people on this server, but I'm
looking forward to it.
There's a new expansion coming out soon, which I'll buy and take a look at.
When all is said and done, I do enjoy playing EverQuest and don't plan to
give it up anytime soon. Monual lives. =)
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Prelate of Rodcet Nife
Quellious server
So, after my old server broke disbanded, I took a break from EQ. I found
solace in playing games like Half-Life 2, Knights of the Old Republic II,
and some player-made campaigns for NeverWinter Nights (Rick Burton's
"Twilight" and "Midnight" modules are just awesome).
I flirted quite strongly with the idea of quitting EQ altogether, coming
very close to that decision a couple of times. When the guildchat went
silent, EQ was suddenly a very lonely game. Hard to get a group, no one to
just chat with, everyone I knew had gone to other games... a lot of the
social aspect had been taken out.
Still, I did enjoy the game, and wanted to continue to enjoy it. So I put
out some feelers. There was no way in heck I was joining the only remaining
uber-guild on Drinal, so I sent an inquiry to the guild recruiter for the
guild of another regular poster here in a.g.e, James Grahame. The recruiter
wanted to know what I was flagged for, and was pleased to learn I was
flagged through Txevu. I also talked to James's character, who indicated
that the guild was rebuilding, so if I joined I'd have to join them in
farming old content.
That seemed fine to me. So, now I had an alternative. The question I had
to ask myself was, did I really want to stay with EQ?
I logged on Monual and sat him in front of the bank in the Plane of
Knowledge. I started handing out buffs for free, refusing donations. With
my gear and AA's my Temp lasted 175 minutes and Virtue lasted 262.5 minutes,
so I was soon sought out for those buffs. I also advertised a "special
surprise buff" for level 45 characters, which was nothing more than Ancient
Aegolism, of course.
It felt good to do this, but I really wanted to group. So I made the
journey to Riftseekers and put up LFG. I actually got an invite from a
group in MPG, who told me they were at "odi". I had no idea where "odi" was
but it turned out to be quite close to the RS zone line.
I joined up and soon shook off the rust of a two-month layoff. The old
cleric reflexes were still there, and I was soon back in the familiar
healing rhythm. We got some nameds and runes began dropping. I had exactly
one level 66+ spell and desperately needed runes. When this group found
that out, they graciously allowed me to loot all runes that dropped because
they all had all their rune drops already. Their generosity blew me away.
The next day one of the members of that group invited me to a new group in
Riftseeker's. So I made my way there, and as soon as I joined he handed me
another rune. Truly, I was touched; a tremendously generous gesture. We
began pulls and almost immediately the tank was effusive with praise: "Hey,
this cleric actually heals!"
I was also recruited by another cleric to try and join the uber-guild. She
evidently didn't know anything about me or she wouldn't have even tried. =)
She was very nice and I was polite in return, but made it clear that as long
as their leadership remained, I could not in good conscience join the guild.
She still tried to convince me but in the end we parted on pleasant terms.
I continued to give away buffs in PoK, too, and sometimes ran into old
guildmates. Had a few conversations, people missed our guild but had found
other ways to enjoy the game.
Overall the experience was an extremely positive one and I was quite happy.
This was what I liked about EQ, this is what I enjoyed about the game. Good
people working together to accomplish a goal.
So, my decision was made. I'd move to another server and start over there.
I read the rules for transferring characters: I could move two from one
account with plat and equipment for $75. Nothing in the shared bank slot
would be transferred.
I looked over my characters across two accounts. I then made a difficult
decision: I'd cancel the account with Marrtuk and Rudnom on it. I just
didn't play EverQuest enough any more; Marrtuk has been barely touched since
he dinged 55. As much as I enjoyed playing him, I just didn't see that it
was worth maintaining the second account.
So I went through a lengthy process of stripping Rudnom and Marrtuk of their
droppables and plat. Most of their stuff I used for tribute for Monual,
since he was running quite low. Marrtuk's Cloak of Crystalline Waters I
kept, along with the Anklesmasher; I'll decide what to do with those later.
Marrtuk had a few pieces of no-drop gear (including a Fabled breastplate)
that I left on him. I deleted all my characters except Monual, Sterman (my
very first character and still level 14), and Marrtuk, who I just couldn't
quite bear to kill. Marrtuk remains alone in a cancelled account; since I
pre-paid, he'll be there for a while should I change my mind and decide to
bring him out of retirement.
After I had made certain my shared bank was empty, I put in for a server
move for Monual and Sterman. I got back an email saying that the transfer
could take three weeks. Wow, didn't know it would be that long.
I went back to grinding, and found that I was being sought after for RS
groups now. While I'd like to think it's because of my superior skill, I
have to be honest and say it's my lack of guild affiliation - during prime
raiding hours I'm certain it's very difficult to find well-geared clerics to
grind with.
What turned out to be my last XP group on Drinal came when I got an invite
to a Wall of Slaughter group. I'd never actually done an XP group there, so
I accepted. The group was all in their upper 60's and not well-geared, so I
was actually spending more mana healing them than I had in RS. Plus I was
getting much less experience. Still, the group was fun. The enchanter was
pulling, and got stunned during one pull. Two mobs came into camp, and I
expended a great deal of my mana but I kept everyone alive long enough to
kill them both. During the fight, the enchanter asked into group, "Wipe?"
"Nah," I responded. Afterwards the group was full of praise for my ability
to keep them alive. Not a bad way to spend my last day on Drinal.
During work the next day I checked my home email and found a message saying
that my server move had been completed, a week after I requested it. So I
went home with some mild anticipation and logged on. Sure enough, under
Quellious popped up my two characters.
I felt strange about that. Drinal, my home for four years, was now behind
me. Still, a home is just a place unless you have family there, too, and
almost all of my EQ friends had stopped playing on Drinal. I really had no
one to say goodbye to.
I logged on and found myself where I'd logged off on Drinal, in the Plane of
Knowledge. The first thing I noticed was that my windows had been reset and
my hotkeys were gone. I logged off, found my Mounal_drinal.ini file,
renamed it to Monual_quellious.ini, and logged back on. Ah, much better,
although I still had to put my windows back to where I wanted them.
I /ooc'd "Hail Quellious" and actually got a couple of response. I then
sent a tell to the guild recruiter, indicating I had finished my server
move. I had to remind him of who I was, but once he found out that I was
Time-flagged, he told me, "Get to Time".
Gosh, it had been quite a while since I'd done Time. I ran there and zoned
in. I found the raid inviter at the zone-in. He invited me into the raid
and told me they were now in Phase 3. I made my way there and was
immediately moved to a group that needed a cleric.
I asked the recruiter, a cleric, if there was a cleric channel. He told
they had a channel that all healers spammed heal messages into, and a
channel strictly for the Complete Heal Chain. I joined both while trying my
best to heal. We had stopped spamming heals long ago in my old guild and I
actually had no heal hotkeys anymore except for my CHC hotkey. I decided
against creating them right there because Phase 3 of Time is hectic enough
as it is.
Phase 3 was soon completed and the raid moved into Phase 4. I asked how
they did their CHC and was soon moved into a cleric-only group, which
included another cleric recruit. They set up the rotation and indicated
that their first target would be Tallon Zek. I asked where they stood
during the CHC and it turned out to be very close to where we stood in my
old guild.
We began, and the CHC is sloppy. The recruit has actually never been in a
raid before and struggles with the CHC. One cleric takes a few rotations to
actually participate. Despite all that, the Main Tank stays alive the
entire fight and we win. I smile and find that I'm quite enjoying myself; I
haven't raided in a long time and am finding that I still like it.
I run up to the corpse and check the drops, since I'm not in guildchat and
can't see the links. I wonder if I make anyone nervous by doing so, but no
one says anything. I don't need anything from Time anyway, my gear's pretty
good. Not that I wouldn't mind a Hammer of Holy Vengeance, though. =)
Still, such stuff would be a minor upgrade at best and I'm certain there are
people who need it far more than I do. Plus, of course, as a recruit I'm
certain it will be quite a while before I qualify for loot.
Vallon Zek and Terris Thule go down equally easily. I seem to be doing
well; I'm staying right with the CHC rotation and my mana is holding up
quite nicely, especially in comparison with the other recruit who quickly
runs out of mana. This is why I don't want to start over again with another
game like WoW or EQ2: I've worked quite hard to get Monual the gear he has
and I want to enjoy the benefits of that labor.
We move on to the last mob they fight in Phase 4: Saryn. Saryn has a nasty
AE effect that drains mana something fierce, but with a high enough disease
resist it's easy to overcome. I get a resist buff from a shaman and once
again find out where to position myself. I also find out that there's a
raid channel they forgot to invite me into, and that I've been missing the
instructions (and, incidentally, the loot drops) that have been sent to that
channel. I wonder why they need a raid channel when they could simply use
/raidsay, but decide it's not in my best interests to ask.
We begin. The rotation goes quite well and I'm resisting every one of
Saryn's AE casts, so I've got lots of mana. The other recruit and a couple
of other clerics get hit early and quickly run out of mana. In the end, the
CHC gets quite ragged but, amazingly, the tank lives throughout. I end up
with 30% mana despite getting hit with the AE towards the end. Again, I
feel good about my performance.
They begin to clean up all the adds that Saryn spawns during the fight, when
suddenly a *ton* of mobs from Phase 5 suddenly appear. I blanche. Now,
there are a couple of ways you could interpret my next action. You could
say that, with my long experience of raids and raid adds, I could analyze
pretty quickly the likelihood of the raid surviving the onslaught of twenty
additional mobs with most healers very low and mana and determine that it
was to the raid's benefit that I back out and try to avoid aggro so I can
rez everyone later and thus save time. Or you could say that I was too
afraid of dying and chickened out. =)
I flee from the battle. The other clerics die quickly, followed by the rest
of the raid. I've never seen Phase 5 mobs add into a Phase 4 battle before
and comment about that in the group. Another cleric says it happens to them
quite a bit. I wonder if it's because of the order they do the mobs - my
old guild always did TT and Saryn first, then TZ and VZ.
The Phase 5 mobs have now killed everyone and are trying to path back. This
entails a quite lengthy path to one end of the room and back. And,
unfortunately, people keep getting aggro, including a cleric who camped but
came back too soon, and this force the mobs to start their long path all
over again. In the end, the rogues who survived start dragging corpses to
me, and I begin rezzing the raid.
In my old guild it was a running joke that I had a secret way of surviving
raids without dying, which I called the Monual Method. The joke was this:
don't heal. If you never get heal aggro, you'll survive every raid. The
Monual Method works equally well at preserving mana, too. I make that same
joke into the cleric group and it goes over like a lead balloon. Perhaps I
should wait a bit before making similar jokes in the future; I'm not
entirely certain they knew I wasn't serious. =)
It's quite late and lots of people have to log, so they call the raid after
the recovery. I thank the raid for having me and head back to PoK. I spend
a few minutes handing out buffs there, too. Another cleric, who
paradoxically is roleplaying in /ooc, compliments me for my altruism. This
cleric is evidently well-known for this and lots of people respond in /ooc.
There's lot's for me to learn about the people on this server, but I'm
looking forward to it.
There's a new expansion coming out soon, which I'll buy and take a look at.
When all is said and done, I do enjoy playing EverQuest and don't plan to
give it up anytime soon. Monual lives. =)
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Prelate of Rodcet Nife
Quellious server
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