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One night in norrath (A beginning)

    • 61 posts
    November 9, 2018 7:04 AM PST

    I wanted to start a discussion of delving into our memories of day 1 in Everquest.

    I partially blame Brad for warping my little mind as it still weighs heavy in my memory, but I guess that is a good thing.

     

    My first few hours of EQ1:

    Loading into Qeynos Hills ….. no f’ing clue what I am supposed to do. I was just ….there. Initially this was frustrating as I had no direction, but after challenging a few rats and having basically a 50% win rate, I soon realized I was existing in a completely free world. I could do anything I wanted to, but almost every decision had the potential to come with repercussions. And boy did they as I would see learn!

    After a couple of kills, I found the cave to Surefall Glade, of course I was unaware of anything called Surefall glade due to the zone line being midway through this pitch black well of despair. I was traveling into the unknown with the assumption I was upon a dark corner of the zone containing untold riches and glory. Yup, I decided let’s go see what is in here. I then spent the next 30-40 minutes running into walls unable to tell what was up, down, left or right. I was pretty much lost in a five foot area because of a lack of a light source. Although, I was cussing up a storm due the frustrations of running into walls, once I did finally get out, it dawned on me the gloriousness of how this world worked.

    I did eventually manage to zone in to Surefal and explore a bitl, but of course I eventually had to venture back to Qeynos Hills to continue my dominations of rats, so back to spending a good 30 minutes just trying to find my way out through dark void.

    Once I did successfully manage to walk a straight line as if I was blindfolded and work my way to Qeynos Hills, I continued my pursuit of world dominance over EQ wildlife and I was actually starting to make progress, as I believe I managed to finally reach around level 3. I was really feeling pretty proud of myself and my accomplishments over the local wildlife and I was beginning to feel confident as if I was starting to get the hang of the game. I started having the foolish idea that “I got this!”.

    With my newfound confidence and superior war gear, a couple pieces of raw hide armor and a new stick I found on the ground, it was time to teach this zone what a true warrior I was. I decided venturing, after leaving the Surefall Glade cave, to the left was a good destination. Little did I know, I was about to experience a string of misfortune that would scar me for the rest of my life.

    I made my way using the zone wall as my guide on my left, as I wasn’t a complete fool. I had begun to understand this world was dangerous and caution would be my ally. As I moved deeper having little difficulty vanquishing the opponents upon my path, I soon saw upon the horizon what appeared to be ruins. My first thought was, cool ,a point of interest that I am sure will hold untold surprises for a go getting adventurer like myself. As I stated before, I was beginning to come to terms with Everquest and its lack of hand holding, so I approached cautiously and quietly.

    HAHAhahahaHAHahahahahah

    hahahAHAHAHAahahaahaah

    You have been hit for 5 points of damage!

    You have been hit for 3 points of damage!

    You have been hit for 2 points of damage!

    You have been hit for 4 points of damage!

    You have been hit for 5 points of damage!

    Death in a span of about 3.2 seconds.

    That laughter. It still hurts to this day. The sound of 7 or 8 skeletons all charging me at once and mockingly laughing with every sprint and every bony swing. Unlike previous failures, although painful, it was fairly easy to remedy this situation by memorizing my surrounding just before a fatal strike occurred. (I am sure you know why that is, as any EQ1 vet is aware, finding your corpse was not always a simple matter.) After my resurrection, I wasn’t too disappointed as my corpse location would be fairly simple to locate, so my thought process was that I had that going for me. Just head back, get my corpse and be little more reserved in what I was willing to challenge.

    Insert the next 45 frustrating minutes of just trying to recover my corpse without dying….again….and again….and again. After a couple failed recovery attempts, I was learning to run a little further backwards each death so I could approach my corpse without aggroing the environment, but I did not always accurately anticipate roaming paths and agro distance. It took a number of attempts to complete operation “pick up dead laundry”, but I did finally succeed with a lesson learned.

    “Let’s go elsewhere for now”, I thought:

    A rabid bear hits you for 12 points of damage.

    You have been diseased.

    A rabid bear hits you for 10 points of damage.

    Loading, please wait…

    “Oh for crying out loud!” “Grrrrrr, ok let’s get my corpse AGAIN!”

    “There’s my corpse!” looking around carefully. “Yup, looks clear.” And I begin to start collecting my gear piece by piece and to replace it on my character with a certain realization that I was not the valiant warrior I thought I was.

    Pyzjn hits you 15 points of damage!

    Pyzjn’s pet hits you for 8 points of damage!

    Pyzjn begins to cast a spell!

    Pyzjn’s pet hits you for 9 points of damage!

    You take 21 points of damage!

    Loading, please wait...

     

    This was my first night playing Everquest and, as the story goes, I was hooked.

    • 3852 posts
    November 9, 2018 8:08 AM PST

    I suspect this will wind up in off-topic; and that fairly soon.

    • 61 posts
    November 9, 2018 8:15 AM PST

    Ah yea. Would be more appropiate in off-topic. But, could say, can we expect to see a similar stories in Pantheon? :P

    • 411 posts
    November 9, 2018 8:31 AM PST

    The primary aspect of your story that I related to was the feeling of "What am I supposed to do in this world?" very quickly turning into "I wonder what all the things are that I can do in this world?". You and I won't have that feeling in Pantheon. However, if they make a great game, all I can do is hope that there are some young folks who will have a chance at that feeling.

    When I first played EQ, it wasn't as if the concept of video games was foreign to me, but I had never played in a sandbox-ish virtual world. The final fantasy world that I had previously been playing was fleshed out and extremely immersive with some excellent storytelling. What I lacked was a knowledge of how MMOs functioned. Some people had played similar games before starting EQ, but a great many of us hadn't, so we entered a world that we had little understanding of and had to learn as we went along.

    Gamers young and old who haven't played an MMO will likely have the feeling that we did. They will enter a world and the world won't tell them "this is Terminus, in this world we want you to do X". They will quickly realize they need to learn as they go along and that they are in charge of determining what they want to do. However, if they've played just about any MMO to date, the overlap will be enough that they'll just transfer the objectives of the MMO they played (killing, questing, crafting, farming, making alts, and raiding) and likely just play with those objectives in mind. I think the closest we can hope for with MMO players is that they will have a slap in the face difficulty moment, where they get demolished by skeletons as you described and realize that this is a dangerous world. Then again later hopefully they get smashed in group content and that feeling returns.

    • 239 posts
    November 9, 2018 10:30 AM PST

    I do not recall my first day with that detail, but...

    I do recall I wanted to start simple, so I made a barbarian warrior.

    Halas was small enough, but still got a little lost and took about half hour to get the nerve up to jump in the water and 30 mins to swim across before I notice the raft fly past me. Once I made it outside in the tunnel and started down the hill to kill a few goblins and skeletons. The big thing I remember was it started getting dark and I could hardly see down the hill, so I sat by the guards and the camp fire trying to find the " rest" button. I finally gave up and shouted " how do I sleep till.morning so I can see"

    That's when I learned I was in their world, this game did not revolve around me. Haha.

    • 159 posts
    November 9, 2018 10:57 AM PST

    And pyzjin was never seen again...  damn rare spawns.

     

    I wish I could remember my first day playing eq, but i think the rage, or the symathy pains from the impacts, from the repeated falls off of Kelethin erased it from my memory. 

    • 200 posts
    November 9, 2018 2:35 PM PST
    I remember standing hopelessly confused in Freeport. And then dying to the first rat I attacked once I finally figured out how to fight something.

    It’s a funny memory because it didn’t take that long to feel right at home and comfortable. But that initial bewilderment... I’ll never forget that :D.
    • Moderator
    • 9115 posts
    November 9, 2018 3:11 PM PST

    Moved to Off-Topic, as it does not relate to General Pantheon.

    • 4 posts
    November 9, 2018 5:13 PM PST

    On launch day my first character was an Erudite Wizard.  He couldn't see in the dark and it seemed like it was constantly night in Toxxulia Forest.  Could almost never find my corpse.  In an attempt to find a brighter part of the world (with people) I meandered onto a boat to Qeynos, out into the Qeynos Hills and finally ended up the Western Plains of Karana.  Finally saw people yelling for help as they ran.  Figured my newly acquired root was the perfect helpful solution...

    - Casting Root...

    - A Cylcops resists your root

    - Loading...

    At this point I learned the importance of binding in new cities. :(