As for me, I played a half-elf rogue on the Morell-Thule server. I picked the half-elf cause he was ruggedly handsome and a rogue cause I liked the idea of wearing all black. Pretty trivial stuff, and if I would have known I would've sunk years into the game, I would have probably thought about it more deeply. Haha...?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the game. I started playing the game late in high school, and while it didn't totally dominate my life during those three years I played, it came pretty close. I ended up joining a guild in my mid 50s and, after a couple years of growing and raiding almost daily, we eventually become the premier high end guild on my server. It was an absolute blast tackling all of the different encounters and conquering them one by one, but I really did end up sacrificing a lot of for the game. But still... I look back on the game fondly. It was really cool being there from the ground up and watching us grow into "the" guild on the server.

Favorite memory? Downing all of the gods in the fourth or fifth expansion, Plane of Powers, with my guild. We were the first guild on our server to do so, and it felt pretty great conquering the high end game, when a couple year before, we were still struggling with a lot of the Velious encounters. It was all pretty much downhill from there, which in restrospect, is an okay thing. I can't imagine playing the game to this day... yeek.

I also have a lot of fond memories playing with my dad when we were both n00bs. My dad was the one that actually got my hooked to the game and it was pretty much our bonding experience through my late teens. I eventually ended up passing him in level (cause, you know, he had a job and everything ) but for years, EQ and what was happening with our avatars was always a topic of excited conversation for us. Good times...

I played a druid because I loved to get around quickly (relatively speaking) and exploring. The druid with the combination of ports, spirit of the wolf, and camouflage allowed me to see many interesting places in the world. I also played as a rogue for similar reasons in WoW.

The other class that I played for a long time was an enchanter. I wanted to be desired by groups as well as the ability to solo high levels by charm kiting strong mobs.

My favorite memories tend to revolve around seeing rarely-visited locations such as the surface of Luclin (sp?) where there was no air, the plane with the druid god where I could run around unharassed, and accidentally getting in over my head a few times. There was a dungeon on Kunark that required a special key to get to which I have long forgotten the name. After working on getting the key I decided to check it out. I entered the dungeon and as soon as I loaded in I was in a room that had 4+ red mobs just barely out of aggro range. I was then very thankful that I could gate out and was thinking about how screwed I would be if I were a warrior/bard/ranger/etc.

EverQuest was my first MMO. I started playing back in May of 99 on the Innoruuk server. The wood elf ranger Elycion was actually the third of that name, the first two fell off Kelethin and died leaving me unable to find the corpses.

It quickly became an addiction for me. The game was everything I'd ever looked for especially since I had recently moved to a new state, had no local friends, and was home caring for my newborn son. My first (and only) all-nighter playing a game was a 36+ hour run in the Oasis of Marr committing lizard genocide to level quickly.

I took the explorer path early on, and ran from Kelethin to Erudin at level 5. It was fun being the only wood elf on that side of the world. I quickly drifted back to the Qeynos area and became a regular in Blackburrow. I made lots of friends there, including a barbarian warrior named Jarik who would be rather significant in my play later on.

I rapidly worked my way through the levels, hitting the usual spots. By the time I left the Temple of Cazic Thule I had nearly a full set of Rubicite armor, even the breastplate. I moved on to spend hundreds of hours in Lower Guk, and finally hit 50 killing the bugs in Solusek B. This was back in the day when a guide would show up in person to congratulate you and announce your level to the entire server.

I more or less stalled out at this point. There wasn't as much to do at 50, especially for someone without a guild. It was then that I re-encountered my old friend Jarik. He was the leader of a guild named The Pantheon and was playing a new character at this time as his main, an Erudite wizard he'd bought on Ebay named Gallenite. Yes, it was the same Gallenite who would later go on to lead both the EQ and EQ2 dev teams. At this point in time though he didn't yet work for Sony. Despite the eventual interpersonal conflicts that would tear it apart, The Pantheon was without question the greatest guild I have ever yet had the honor to be affiliated with.

The next few years were filled with high end raiding. The Pantheon eventually fell apart after being the first guild into Sleeper's Tomb (Oh the joy of being the only people on the server with Primal Velium weapons.) I moved on to Ashen Vendetta and continued the seven day a week hardcore raid lifestyle. My wife started playing with me at this point and we happily rampaged through Vex Thal together and proceeded on to the Elemental planes and downed Quarm in the Plane of Time. The horrific Gates of Discord expansion finally killed Ashen Vendetta, as it did so many other guilds. Sony even flew myself and 50 or so other people to San Diego in a desperate "Guild Summit" to try and find a way to keep us all happy with their game, it didn't work fast enough.

The number 2 guild on Innoruuk at the time was a group of people all of us loathed, so changing guilds to keep raiding wasn't possible without also moving servers. It just so happened that two of the people in Ashen Vendetta were the Sony Online Executive VP/General Counsel and his wife. In amazingly short order we found ourselves applying to a guild named Blades of Wrath on the Torvonnilous server and within 24 hours Andy had driven to the SOE offices and moved all our characters to Torv. We stayed with Blades of Wrath for over a year, clearing through Gates of Discord and making our way into the Citadel of Anguish where once again the content was buggy and poorly tuned. With WoW and EQ2 releasing right at this time, it was too much to tolerate. Blades of Wrath was gutted as core members quit the game, and my wife and I followed suit.

Two years later we gave EverQuest another go. It kept us entertained for over a year, but progression in that game requires a level of dedication that we can no longer offer to it. It's a marvelous game to this day, but not one that's friendly to people with families and other demands on their time.

I have many amazing memories of EQ. The experience of my first MMO is something no other game is ever going to equal. It wasn't all sunshine and roses though, as for a good while I was far too neglectful of my wife and family while I spent all my free time hooked into the game. It's my great fortune to have married such a good woman who could show such patience with me until I realized what I was doing to my family and mended my ways.

Favorite Bits:

The Chessboard in Butcherblock Mountains. The Aviak Treehouse in South Karana. The Diving Board in Lake Rathe. The minotaur hero rampaging in Steamfont Mountains. The locked door and well of doom in Befallen. The mystery of Pyzin/Varsoon and others in Qeynos Hills. The mystery of the clickable orbs in Ak’anon. The tree city of Kelethin (and the piles of dead newbies underneath). Kithicor Forest at night. The wooden bridge between North and West Karana. The hags in the Estate of Unrest. Lower Guk. The creepy named evil eyes in Beholder’s Gorge. The narrow, orc and gnoll besieged pass of High Pass Hold. The spaceship temple of Rodcet Nife and his sacred Koliandl fish in Qeynos. Fippy-frakking-Darkpaw and Queen Kliknik in the Qeynos newbie yard. Ambassador D’vinn and Emporer Crush in Crushbone. Hunting Hill Giants for plat in Rathe Mountains. Lockjaw, Sand Giants, and spectres in the Oasis of Marr.

Played a Wood-Elf Ranger on Veeshan, and that list sums up all my memories. Especially the D'vinn and/or Emperor trains in the Crushbone tunnel. Can't even count how many times I got steamrolled by those.

Good times, good times.

Elycion,

Wiloden (Druid) and Dshazzarin (Necro) of Innoruuk, formerly of the guild "Spirit of the Moon."

Any of that ring a bell?

Several of my former guildmates still play under the Ashen Vendetta flag. Seems they're still blowing through content.

Macroing '==|==|==| TRAIN TO ZONE! CLEAR THE TRACKS |==|==|=='. Ah, Unrest. Too much fun there.

Soloing the damn shark in the underwater zone with my druid, finally emerging triumphant with an Abalone Gorget to give to my other half's cleric, back when it was an uber item (plate armor neck piece with a big +Wisdom bonus, there wasn't anything else like it back then.) Damn little fish kept breaking my invis by nibbling on me.

Organizing and running a killer Hate raid, the first planes raid for the guild I was in at the time. My other half completed her purple armor set that raid. It went smooth as silk, followed by the two of us leaving the guild in disgust a few days later, political BS. That guild never did manage another planes raid before it finally self-destructed.

I stopped playing after Scars, before Luclin. Too many wasted years there, I actually poked my nose back in for a few days last year, and I shouldn't have. You can't go home.

Yes, SotM was a very nice family guild. "Hail to the Moon!" Ha-ha!

The entire Qeynos area was magical for me. I just loved leveling up characters in that area. I could probably run through all of those old Blackburrow quests from memory...

Worst camp: farming Druarg (I think?) for LGuk faction so I could get my wood elf mask. It was pretty much my go to spot when I was a bored level 60 with nothing to do. I must've spent an upwards of 20 hours in that zone to turn into a wood elf. But I was a pretty sexy wood elf if I do say so myself...

That was actually one of my favorite things about being a rogue: all those awesome illusion masks. I still remember getting my Dark Elf mask and causing trains all over the Dark Elf starting city when the mask effect would wear off. Oops.

I started Everquest not long after it came out. My first experiences were stumbling around the forest, with no one who would talk to me in between camping good monsters and not tossing me a heal while they stood and watched me die. I struggled through the first few levels, however, and finally got to the point where I could start buying some nice spells.

Then I did the math on the prices and the amount of work I'd have to do to get them and promptly quit the game. I started Asheron's Call a few months after that and never looked back. Everquest at that time seemed to me to be designed to keep you logged in and playing for as long as possible, rather than a game you played to enjoy the game.

Wow, this brings back memories. Remember the days of player-interactive GM-led quests? Does any game do anything remotely similar anymore? I admit, at the time I didn't think they were all that exciting, but looking back, they did have a certain charm that seems larger now that I can sense their absence. UO had Lord British appearing in game (and getting assassinated), EQ had these GM-quests, and AC had the monthly game-changing plot stuff, but I'm hard pressed to recall anything else in the last, uh, 8 or so years. Lost art? Too expensive, probably.

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I was reading through a thread on another forum (F13 I think, I forget) the other day and was interested in some discussion on why EQ seemed so immersive. I cut and paste some choice bits that I think sums up what I think about the game too, and why it was so great despite its faults:

I kinda agree; I liked the open, sometimes empty landscape. I mean, I spent hours running through WKarana at level 6 with no SOW to get back to my corpse in Splitpaw (bound in Qeynos), so I'm aware of how big and slow it could be. But it makes for a more immersive world. Part of Brad's painful Vision(tm) was right. Keep the large zones. Keep the slow travel. Just update the graphics, remove the painful death penalty (or at a minimum remove the ability to de-level), remove the spellbook meditation, up the regen rates a little, and I'd be happy with original EQ (everything pre-Luclin). I think. Maybe.

The only real pet peeve I have with Lord of the Rings Online is exactly your point about the empty landscape. There are many times where I'm passing through an area where it would honestly feel more realistic and immersive for it to be devoid of all but the occasional mob here or there. There are still plenty of places where it can remain densely populated with meatbags to slaughter, but it'd be nice to have wilderness areas that are largely empty of aggressive wildlife as well.

If they re-released EQ1 the way you just described, I absolutely would like it and buy it.

Oh the memories. I was a high elf wizzy on erollisi marr. It was the name generator that came up with nuean, which I have used in every game since.

I had a lot of good times in that game.

If I were to EVER pick up EQ again, it would be grounds for divorce. My wife absolutely detested that game, but had no problems with WoW. /shrug

I honestly don't remember what server I was on, but had a 70 elf cleric named Whyyme Faithfinder.

I agree; I enjoyed the combat, I hated the forced downtime. Granted, when you were able to pull a good group together, there wasn't really any downtime except when the humans behind the computers needed it.