My eyes opened as though I was shocked with fire - rushing through my veins. I remember nothing before that, except barely existing. I was being called, I felt it. I groaned with the pressure of it ringing in my ears. Stumbling, I made my way to the council of six to see what was required of me. How I even found them I know not. It passed through my mind like a blur, some unreal dream that was actually reality. I stood before them - and they refused to talk to me. Refused to acknowledge that I was even there, groveling at their feet. I practically wept in despair until a voice called me across the room.

“Vasha, Ishbel” the woman said in greeting. She explained to me that I would have to prove myself worthy of the council’s attentions first. Doing a few very basic chores. It made sense to me in some weird way, and I went off to complete my tasks. First and foremost was learning of our history. I was given the Charter of Crescent Research, where I learned about the Drakkin and the scions of the six. Children of Veeshan, we were called. Living memory of Dragon’s Nest, which was defiled by a curse. We had a purpose, as future protector’s of Veeshan, we had the right to arm ourselves, and defend the city. Crescent Reach was our sanctuary.

Quizzed and found proficient enough to stand before the council, I was granted an audience. My knees quaked at the sight of them standing there, calm as could be. Still, in the background of my mind the flames licked and burned at me and I knew I had nothing to worry about. It was my calling. I’ve no idea how other Drakkin react to their own awakenings, but mine was intense. I suppose in that way it’s meant to be, so that we don’t ever forget.

Ithakis stared at me from his place in the council, observing me as I practically cowered before him. He sneered, almost doubting that I should be there at all. Somehow, I managed to stumble out my cause. He sent me on another task, which I completed with cool ease. I still felt as though I was walking in a dream. Returning to him he said nothing but nodded his head and pointed towards a door, the lifts that would take me to my dragon kin.

How I managed to get my feet under me enough to make that climb, I’ll never know. I stood before Atathus the Red Lord and quivered, dropping to my knees. I groveled before him. I think he smiled at me, if that’s possible. Can dragons smile? He bid me rise, and told me of a great spider and a poison sac that he’d have me collect. At some time during the conversation it seemed as though he almost doubted I could accomplish this task - but again I felt the heat and flames of my heritage sparking through me and knew I’d have no problems.

I went off in search of the spider, and stuck the tip of my staff through the spongy part of her body with ease. Ignoring the stench of the ooze I collected the venom sac, and headed back to Atathus the Red Lord. I dropped the sac at his feet, and waited.

He said nothing.

I tried again, I made sure it was from the right spider, and that it was not damaged.

“I have no need of this item, Ishbel” was all the red dragon breathed at me.

How could this be? What had I done to displease him? I collapsed to my knees and began weeping on the floor. I’d never felt so lost. I knew I wasn’t wrong, I felt the flames of my heritage still licking along the edges of my mind, fanned by my emotions.. what had I done wrong..

(( The quest for my Drakkin to earn her dragon breath attack is apparently broken, as I petitioned it yesterday and got a cut and past answer that there were issues with it. No idea when it will be fixed or why they couldn’t have just granted me the ability and taken away my quest item, but anyhow, that’s what sparked this post ))

Norrath’s added a new race since I played last. The Drakkin. They are the children of the dragon - or so I’ve gathered. They have tattoos of scales that cover their body in a decorative pattern, and at the character selection screen you get to figure out which dragon you’ll form yourself after. It’s for lore purposes only, and of course me being me, I don’t know anything about the lore. EverQuest was always a game I played with friends but never really delved into so to speak. Not for lack of wanting to, but that was just the way it was for me when I played. Of course now, I’m regretting it. I wish I knew everything. I won’t, there’s just too much. But I wish I did. In any case, they also have designs on their faces that represent the ‘horns’ and scales of their dragon kin. Very cool. It was only natural I play one. I’m typically an elf person, I know, how boring is that. Though I have been known to play halflings, and ratongas.

Anyhow. Since the Nostalgia group has been working on their racial armor quests I decided it was time to travel back home and see if I have any myself. I’m not sure yet, I didn’t quite make it that far before I was side tracked into viewing the six dragons that protect my home.

Even in a game as old as EverQuest, how can you NOT be impressed with dragons. They are the epitome of the fantasy genre mmo. Typically big bosses where ever you go. They’re imposing, impressive, and just plain awesome.

So now I am on my way to meet up with some people from my little town (is it little? Maybe it’s city sized, I honestly have no idea) and prove that I am one of their kin. Gain some rank with these dragon folk and tell them that I’m good enough to heal their people. Or anyone, for that matter.

I managed to ding level 12 wandering through paludal (sp) caves with Lackey. When I used to play EQ1 that was the best place I’d ever leveled. Best for power leveling too. I’d get myself nicely buffed with druid buffs (especially the damage shield) and just stand where all the phlargs were. They have a noxious debuff called “creeping crud” that requires some curing (and lasts a REALLY long time!) but other then that.. it was great.

I didn’t want to get too far ahead of the Nostalgia group though - so I of course have an alt (I think we all have alts now). A little necromancer. I finished off the tutorial last night with help from Lackey, and then in accordance to the little mail message we received upon hitting level 10, we headed to Najena. Which is the EQ2 server I play on. How amusing. We only managed a few pulls in there though before we called it a night. LOTS of adds. Lots of mean adds. I was only level 10 (necromancer) and he was level 12. The suggestion to go there was obviously meant for either a full group, or someone twinked (which neither of us are). It was still fun though, the few pulls we got in were great exp, about 10% each kill.

Surprisingly enough - not a SINGLE skeleton of the night (and I killed at least 10-15) dropped bone chips. How am I supposed to summon my pet? I ended up buying 5 off of the broker (that’s all that was for sale) just so I could be a competent necromancer. Oh well, I’ll save that search for another time. The sad part is that I deleted my 44 shadowknight, and on her in her inventory, were 60 things of bone chips. Little did I know they’d actually come in handy when I decided to delete them. Oh wells.

The day was filled with house items, and you can never go wrong with that. I started talking to an old friend of mine from my Lucan D’Lere days, Krai who plays a brigand. We’ve kept in touch despite me switching games, and servers, and I consider her a great friend. She also happens to know of my obsessive house item collecting passion and casually mentioned to me that she had a spare LoN painting that I could have. Of course I squealed and jumped around my living room in joy - she also mentioned she had a female dwarf mannequin that was sitting unused (also from LoN). Since we can both trade from that platform I logged in and she gave me the painting pictured above. What a fantastic image to have in my house. Of course now I need to design some sort of music area to take better advantage of it. Arysh does not have a piano in her house, unlike Stargrace and Petites. I’m not sure if I actually want to add one yet, or just keep with the smaller instruments, we’ll see.

The dwarf mannequin was actually pleasant to at, mostly because it now displays my newest crafting cloak - no, not the master cloak, but the T6 one that I’d quested for today. One thing I didn’t realize is that you don’t actually physically put the item on the mannequin. It doesn’t act as storage in other words. I have a small crafting area set up in the house (the woodworking station can be seen on the left hand side) and decided to display the cloak (which has a symbol of a bow and arrow I believe.. not too keen on it, it makes me feel like a ranger not a woodworker) for people to see if they ever venture into my house.

The items didn’t stop there, either. I had gotten an email from Rao, of Gestalt Mind, explaining the book quest he wrote about a few days prior. Apparently my site is being picky and not allowing some people to comment. I’m trying to figure it out (with no luck) to fix. Anyhow, I logged into game and saw he was online harvesting, and promptly in true Stargrace fashion began chattering away. Once I find an opening it’s hard to get rid of me, be warned *grins*.

I worked on the crafter tier quests, and finally got to the one I’d been wanting from the start - it rewards you with a book for your house. Not just any book, no, this is Bertox’s health guide.

Is it any wonder the liaison was sick to begin with if she was taking tips from that book on the floor covered in slime?

None the less it’s a fantastic house item and if you don’t mind traveling to and from your home city to sinking sands a few times, you’ll have no issues completing it. Lower level adventurers may have a harder time trying to navigate around a few aggressive cats and snakes, but it’s still completely doable.

Besides chattering with friends, and all of the amazing house items I got today, last night I managed to get Petites (the templar) to level 74 from running quests and turning in a few collections that she’d yet to pick up. I’m hoping to be able to reach 75 tonight so that I can move on to the more interesting RoK zones. We’ll see how that goes. It was double exp weekend this weekend in EQ2, but the message failed to say what levels it was for. I’m not sure that my 70+’s are benefiting, as they typically make the bonus exp weekends for lower levels. It sure didn’t feel like she was getting double the amount in any case - I could be wrong. Tomorrow I’ll spend some time wandering around EQ1 and attempt a few quests, next Friday is another meeting of Nostalgia of course, and the goal is to reach close to level 15. Some have already done that in their eagerness, and I feel as though I’ll be left behind - however, arranging this as a weekly event is to prevent that from happening.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, no matter what realm you were in (yes, even real life).

We were early, a lot of us. Really early. Four hours early even. We gathered around eagerly awaiting adventures. Not really sure what to expect or who would show up. A lot showed up. A lot more then I had thought would. We (thanks to our faithful leader, Tipa) organized and split off into two groups, collecting tasks along the way to complete. It started off slow, killing rats, bats, spiders. Vermin nests. Remembering to sit to meditated and regain power. Playing in first person.

I met a lot of new people, and that was great. We chattered about various things but mostly kept focused on the goal of completing the tutorial. The quests slowly changed from solo easy quests to ones that were more difficult and required a full group. My group consisted of three people, an enchanter, brave warrior, and myeslf (cleric). Cordanim was around at the beginning as his rogue, but had to leave not too far into it. For the group of three we had, we did fantastic. We had no deaths at all, and even though it took some time to take encounters down, we still did great. It of course had its mishaps. My internet decided to wreck havoc on a named encounter as I closed my eyes in real life and hopped I hadn’t just caused the group to wipe. Our brave dwarf and his faithful enchanter pulled through, despite my mishaps (I am so sorry!).

We all hit level 10 within the tutorial, and walked to Plane of Knowledge to set up the fellowship. Another one of those “uhms, what are THOSE” moments for a few people, myself included. It lets you place campfires where people can gate to, apparently. Looking forward to using them in the future.

While the night was exciting and a lot of fun, and I did get to meet lots of new people, it was slightly disappointing in some ways as well. I’d had my heart set on FINALLY getting to group up with the fabled Tipa and play with her (after all, it was just three of us who wanted to give EQ1 another go originally) but it didn’t work out that way due to the numbers interested. Not that it’s a big deal, the more the better of course. It was just one of those “dang.. oh well” moments. I was also slightly concerned that there were so many rules and restrictions we all had to adhere to - but on some reflection (and a full nights sleep) I can understand why the rules are there - mainly because there ARE so many of us. We don’t want to out level, miss content that someone may want to explore, etc. No doubt Tipa has been swamped in details.

Hopefully everyone else had an amazing time as well, and next week will be just as fun. The main goal of the evening was to leave behind the blasted tutorial. While it did better equip us for our adventures in the actual world of Norrath, it was also.. well, very much a tutorial. Next week we’ll work on getting to 15, and traveling the world a little bit. Slowly, bit by bit, more commands and bits of information are coming back to me. I mean, it has been over three years since I’ve played. A lot has slipped through the cracks.

My main impression of the evening was that - if you were looking to play an old MMO to recapture what you had felt when you played the very first time, it probably won’t happen. You’ll always be pitting the past with the future, and over time, things change. It’s much the same as comparing EQ1 to EQ2. You simply can’t, because the two games are (though EQ2 is modeled after EQ1) in the end, very different. Our experiences and personal friendships and bonds, trials and tribulations, are also different over time. We (as human beings) tend to look at the past with rose coloured glasses and remember specific events and happenings in a certain way. It’s difficult to emulate those some time down the road.

However.

That doesn’t mean we can’t all form NEW opinions of the game we once loved. Form new friendships, learn new encounters. Reminisce of course about ‘the good ‘ol days’ with an open mind and heart for the future.

Since my foray into EQ1, I decided to get station access activated again. Makes sense now that I’d have access to Vanguard, EQ1, and EQ2. The price is actually worth it, in this case. My WoW account is free for this month, so we’ll see where that goes. I haven’t logged in since Thursday. Hey, I never claimed to be one to settle down in any mmo. I’m slowly getting used to that fact though and not berating myself over it any more. After spending last night in EQ1 (more about that to come in another post) I decided this morning I’d patch my UI, update my maps, and log into EQ2.

Right away I spotted a quest giver next to me in South Qeynos. Closer inspection showed it offered one of the newer quests ‘dispelling the hate‘ which rewarded me with the house item pictured above. A fountain. Perfect for the garden Arysh has in the works. In all the time I’ve played EQ2, the house items are what always seem to get me. I just love them.

There’s idle talk of me leveling up my templar (who’s been 73 forever now) and maybe maybe maybe getting into some raiding with her. I’m not sure if I want to get back into that yet. We’ll see how it goes. Since I’ve limited my play time (by a huge amount) I am reluctant to throw myself into too much right now. Evenings of course are fairly free for me still with no other obligations. I’d also like to finish leveling up my coercer, who’s been sitting at 77 for quite some time. Especially with the revamp to the class incoming in a bit. I read this post that mentioned it gave some sort of house item reward, a book.. so of course now I have to figure out which quest that is and where it came from and how I too can have a new house item. I’ve missed the last couple of events, brew day, valentines, april fools and thus the items that are associated with them. Hopefully I can still pick up a few quests here and there that give items I’d like for my home though. Not to mention the enormous library Arysh has that encompasses a full wall. I want to continue working on that.

As far as ‘playable’ characters, I’ve got the 80 warden (Arysh), 77 coercer (Ishbel), and the 73 templar (Petites). The others (80 troubador, 75 illusionist, 58 necromancer) are sitting on Antonia Bayle still, where they’ll remain unless SOE allows some free transfers. I just can’t afford to move everyone all over the place. It’s difficult, now that I have friends who span across multiple games, multiple servers. How do you pick where to play, and what to do, and who to do it with. If anything, playing various games has taught me to work time management a whole lot.

I hit 20 on the shaman two days ago, and promptly started the level 20 water totem quest. I’m almost regretting that now, and wishing that I had held off for a little bit, or at least tried to convince my group to come along with me to do it. The first portion was alright, head to the city on Azuremyst Isle, and talk to the shaman trainer there. Great, no problem. He sends me to talk to a giant water elemental, who’s on Bloodmyst Isle. Well, of course since I left my home land at level 6 to go adventure with a dwarf, I had no clue where that even was. After talking with some friends I found out it’s actually an island north of the city. Alright, swim way out there, and I need the complete opposite side of the island. Of course. It couldn’t just be nice and simple. I use thottbot to look up the quest and get the locations I need, assuming that will make things easier.

The water elemental sends me on a quest to collect 6 pieces vials from other water elementals, up north. You’d think I could just walk there, but no, there are cliffs in the way and I need to walk 10 minutes out of my way up and around in order to get to where I need to go. A few kills later, I’ve collected my 6 vials and I return only to have him tell me he needs special water from a fountain in Auberdine.

Wait a second, Auberdine? Isn’t that the night elf town way out — yes, yes it is. Of course I’ve never been there yet, having hung around Westfall and Lakeshire the past twenty levels or so. I sigh inwardly to myself and begin the walk, picking up flightpaths along the way. I find the location of the fountain I need which is of course surrounded by level 24 elementals that like to quickly add. I’m level 20, and they hurt. I try to fight one, promptly get an add (remember, I’m not twinked) plop down a snare totem and run away. Rinse repeat. This is obviously not going anywhere. So I decide I’m frustrated enough with the game for one night and logged.

Today I think I’ll just run my 49 hunter there (who does have flightpaths) and kill the elementals leaving their corpses on the ground so they don’t respawn so fast, and run my shaman over to the fountain while everything is dead. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when my group is on again and try to hack our way through the level 24 mobs. Of course, this is not the end of the quest. No, that would be too easy. Once I get this water I travel way back to the elemental who asked for it to begin with - and then I’m not sure what. I didn’t look the rest of the quest up to peek.

Shesh. I understand sending us all over to accomplish these goals, but for a level 20 quest, this one is hard. I’m almost starting to wish I were twinked up a little now. On the plus side, the quest (plus killing random things that got in my way as I traveled) has pushed me almost to level 21, so it was not as though the evening was a total loss. Tonight is my EverQuest Nostalgia night (see post below) so I won’t be playing WoW, but I already let my group know that will be a Friday night deal for me. I failed utterly at convincing any of them to come test the waters, and I’m sure more then a few have chuckled and laughed at this whole nostalgia expedition. Ah well.

While a lot has changed in EverQuest over the past three years (give or take) that I’ve been away, there are still a lot of familiar sights. If you weren’t around for the 2005 revamp of the bazaar, well, you’re looking at it now. The bazaar is split into three sections, a red section for selling, a blue section for buying, and the middle section hosts a few vendors and some crafting areas. If you’re an old player you remember (I was not around, but I heard stories) shouting about your wares in the EC tunnel (east commonlands?) and I heard many stories about this. Then a proper bazaar was added, and not much has changed since then. You still have to be online in order to sell.

Most people set up a trader character, and that’s exactly what I did. I have so much stuff on me that I’m just not sure what to do with any more. Old gear from deleted characters, and random bits and pieces. So I began the very long process of cleaning all that out. I deleted a few lower level characters who I knew I’d have no interest in playing. EQ1 is limited to 8 characters per server. I have my 70 rogue, 68 enchanter, and then I also have a 40 shaman, 31 druid who I am partial to. I have my level 3 cleric made for Friday Night Nostalgia, and a level 5 beastlord I am playing with a friend. My seventh character is a twinked out ranger named Starling, who I decided to use as my trader character. I loaded her up with trader satchels from the vendor (These weigh a lot, but there’s no weight boundaries in the bazaar, which make them great for bank space as they only cost 1p each) and then spent some time organizing all the prices.

Lets face it, almost everything I had for sale was exceptionally old, and for 90% of the items I didn’t see anything else for sale. A quick /who proved that EQ is certainly NOT dead, as there were too many people selling to finish the list. I loved seeing that. The channels were pretty active too. I even ran into someone from ‘way back when’, Krakerzz. A troll beastlord who was always very friendly. Turns out he’d recently returned to “da best game” after trying some others. I added him to friends (and his new shaman alt) and told him to keep in touch.

So did anything sell?

Actually, yes. I made 5,000p which is still only pennies according to EQ standards, but hey, it’s a start. I sold a soulscream belt (popular back in the day) and I even sold an opal encrusted stein - those charisma boosters from way back when. I’m sure the majority of my items won’t be good for anything other then guild tribute fodder, but it was fun none the less. Tonight of course is the first gathering of the EQ Nostalgia group, and I’m excited. We’ve set up forums, and if anyone else is keen on checking out the game but maybe can’t make the Friday schedule, PLEASE get in touch and join the guild, come chatter with people who share your love of the game. Hell, maybe you’ve never even played EverQuest before, but you’ve got station access and are looking for a community. You’ll find that here, too. I did some simple preparation like writing down what spells I need for the next five levels (that’s right, you aren’t told what to buy in game, you have to go hunting for spell lists, write them all out (or print them) and keep them close by. EQ is still very much a pen and paper game in a lot of ways) worked up my meditation, and tried to bribe new players to teach me their languages (as a Drakken I speak elder dragon and dragon, hoping the other group members will teach me their languages, as I remember that fairly fondly).

There was a huge patch yesterday that also eliminated a lot of keys and backflagging requirements. My banks were filled with portions of keys for random old zones, so I finally deleted them since they’re no longer needed. I’m debating taking Invis (the rogue with SoS) into a few zones to wander around and look at things I’ve never gotten to see before. Remember, I’ve never really been ‘uber’ in EverQuest, so a lot of this stuff is still new to me. Not to mention my memory is pretty bad, and things are slow coming back. Fingers crossed that I don’t wipe the group (I forget how to turn on HoTT…. is there a command for that??) and that the basic ‘how to play’ feeling returns.

I blame Tipa. Isn’t that always the way it goes? I’d seen her blog posts about EQ1 and felt that twinge. Now, I only played EQ1 for a year and a half and then EQ2 was released. So I don’t really classify myself as a veteran. I remember Bertox raids, Thul raids, Plane of Hate, my first time in time and other random bits and pieces. I wasn’t a huge raider and I stuck mostly to small things, but I remember all of that with a huge fondness for it. So I bought EQ1. Little did I know it would snowball from there (and I’m glad it did). I’m now a part of a group that will play together once a week and level up in EverQuest through all those zones we know and love. Exciting, hmms? I think it is.

The group consists of Tipa (ranger, as of now at least), Cordanim (rogue), Egat (enchanter), Einhorn (warrior), and Ishbel (myself, cleric). We do have room for one more - we’re looking for someone who can make Friday nights at 7pm EST on a constant basis. Even if we get more then one, we’ll be forming up a guild and I doubt it will be too much trouble to join and chatter, and maybe if enough join up start a second group. We’re playing on the luclin server, mostly due to my whining convincing, as I have higher level crafters there and can’t justify spending $50 to move around. As Tipa herself mentioned, I’m only willing to do so much in the name of nostalgia. I’d rather have a little coin and some higher level characters to play around on.

So we’ve created our characters (most of us) and are hanging out in the group area of the tutorial eagerly waiting for Friday night. We each had some key things to do, like grab maps, a new UI, making sure we owned all of the expansions, that sort of stuff. I managed to find a UI that I like quite a bit, even if I don’t remember what all the buttons do. Actually it’s quite similar to my UI from when I used to play, that helps. I’ve slowly been going through and memorizing commands, how to open certain windows, remembering that I have to play in 1st person rather then 3rd. You’d better believe that I’m taking notes. I spend lots of time looking over old items in my bank wondering to myself “what the hell was that for” or “why did I keep that” since I have no idea what more then half of it is for any more.

I was surprised to see as many people as I did in game. The open guild hall area (before you zone in to your particular hall) was filled with people hanging out and of course clerics peddling their wares (rez) in the lobby. It was really nice to see. There was even a raid going on, with room for pick ups. They gave out a channel name for those who were flagged, and then asked others to /join airpig which just made me giggle and remember how you can “piggy back” people into raids who are not flagged. The game is down for 8 hours today to patch, so not a whole lot has changed in that regard. Everything else is still very new to me though. Tipa mentioned guild banners, and campfires, and fellowships. I have no idea what any of that is. There’s also a tab on my UI for a currency exchange, and I don’t have the vaguest idea what that’s for. I do remember LDoN’s, and I do remember monster missions. I even remember how to do a few of them still. I remember how to open doors (which I didn’t remember last time I poked into EQ1) and I’ve gotten the hang of the camera views. The rest is still slow going. It feels great though.

Of course all because of the fact that I know I’ll be playing with wonderful people. It’s the community that pulls me the most. Plus, after all this time I’ll finally get a chance to play with Tipa, something we’ve never done before as we’ve always been on different servers. I’m almost giddy about it. It’ll be nice to play with Cordanim too, who I haven’t played with in quite some time. Chattered to, of course, but not played. I’ll also be starting up a little beastlord to play with a friend of mine who’s returning but is unable to make the Friday night schedule. I don’t know how far any of us will get in this trip down memory lane experience, but I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun in the mean time. Just simply remembering things like sitting down to regen and gaining meditation skill ups, has made me smile.

I know people are probably more eager to read about the EQ Nostalgia group then about my trek through WoW, but be patient, that post is next. Last night found Gozad, Daegon and myself eager to level so we decided to knock out a few more of our Redridge quests. We killed everything in our path, or at least tried to. It was a little rocky, we had a few deaths. The quests we’re working on now are level 23+ where as Daegon and myself were still only level 19. I hate mobs that run, what I wouldn’t give to have a warlock join our little static group so that they can curse and prevent that sort of thing. As it is, the warrior, hunter, and shaman combo make a poor one for stopping them in their tracks. At least for now. I know the hunter has the concussion shot, but it’s got a long recast and at times isn’t enough to stop everything from running we’d like.

I’ve stayed away from tradeskilling on the shaman, and haven’t worked it much on the other two characters lately either. I played a lot this weekend and it’s nice not to have a set schedule per say in order to get things done.

So Gozad dinged 21, while Daegon and myself hit 20. I went to my trainer expecting to have to do a quest for ghost wolf form, and was surprised to find out it was just a regular bought spell. I did of course have a quest to pick up as well, for water stuff. I’ve already learned fire and earth, I’m hoping water is healing. I could use more heals. It’s hard to play the shaman with only one heal. Well, hard for me at least. I didn’t do any research into the class at all and had never listened to the hype about them so this is all very new to me. I’ve spec’d down the restoration aa line and have been having a good time of it.

So I picked up my level 20 quest, headed way back to Azuremyst Isle from Ironforge, and then decided to call it a night. Plagued by annoying headaches that refused to leave through out the day. Mayadhros was unable to play last night due to real life restrictions, I’m sure he’s starting to get frantic now that we’ve reached our 20’s. We haven’t done any instance runs yet, but maybe we can do a Deadmines run (a real one, with the group as opposed to my hunter taking everyone through) for a few remaining quest updates that folks have as well as the major quest lines that Minxes has yet to complete (even though everyone else has). We’ll see how it goes. It would of course be better if Mayadhros were there for some heals / dps / tanking too *hint hint* and Klorel reached level 15 last night on his warrior (who’s spec’ing down the dps line I believe). It’s great to be playing with friends in so many games lately. I think that’s what I’m loving most of all about any of these games. I’m playing with friends in all of them.

 That’s right, the screen shot does not lie. Yesterday as the other half decided to pick up a PS3, I browsed through the pc games and happened to find a copy of Secrets of Faydwer. $40 for all 14 expansions of EQ1 with a few other tid bits (claim items) thrown in for good measure. It itched. I looked at the case, thought about Tipa’s posts, and in the end ultimately decided “hell, why not”. The 2 DVD disks are a far cry from the 10+ I have kicking around the house that I’d have to install (and patch) and who can pass up /claim goodies anyhow.

So that’s how it came to be that I installed EverQuest last night. This morning, I logged in slightly nervous and sat at character select (which is completely different then I remember it might I add) looking at characters I haven’t played for three years now.

Needless to say, I’ve forgotten a lot. Like how do I get my actual items to show up as I mouse over them instead of just the name of it. If anyone knows how I can do that simple thing I’ll be eternally in debt. I kept wanting to actually LOOK at the stats on my gear, to be able to tell what is better then what. I tried to look through key bindings and simply couldn’t find it. That’s step one. Step two, anyone know if UI mods are still made for EQ1? Default is slightly, annoying. Though I can make due I suppose. I decided after peeking at my characters and being unable to tell much from them that I’d run through the tutorias. Of course, being unable to actually see the stats of anything in my bags or that I’m wearing made it frustrating, so for now I set it aside. I have forgotten so very much.

I do have plans to play (off and on) for a month though, I figure I’ll wander around lost and nostalgic in between other things, for short spurts. I have a friend who I used to play with in EQ1 way back when also activating his account, I imagine we’ll wander around together some. I haven’t been back in so long, and I don’t even know what was added any more, but it’s still a lot of fun. I need a quick sheet of all the commands I’ve forgotten over the years.

I also need to figure out how to free the mouse so I can get front views of my characters (is that even possible?) for now the screen shot has me looking at the title screen as I test out other commands to try to make the gear / inventory items have more then just their names showing.

Oh, and Tipa, there’s a new level 2 necromancer named Stargrace wandering around your server apparently. She forgets the names of your characters though to add to friends *grins*