[Dekar2k4]

I have to give props to wiz who stated it clearly the magic has ended for most of us. I recently have gotton the drive to come back to EQ live, and not because I want to waste my money and be "Ghey" But because it was the first MMORPG, I played that I got deeply sucked into, it started with a converation back in 99 with a friend of mine. We were talking about random school things and the conversation soon came to Everquest.

"Wow my friend has a cool new game, and I've spent a few hours on it last night you should join", and slowly the convo enveloped 2 others at our table and soon we began our Everquest journey on Fennin Ro, one of the oldest servers created. It was fairly new back then and I can still remember laughing about previous nights adventures in class next morning talking about our chars camped out in that wierd new zone West Karana or how were hanging out in Aviaks roost.

Everquest for me was magical because of the people I met and the real life friends that played it, no matter what game I will get into EQ was part of my life for about 3 years. Never made it to 50 because I was restless and needed to start new classes everytime but i always found my highlevel fun with guildies or friends of mine that needed someone to play their ____ for a raid because they went off on a date or wherever. My main still resides at 49 Hum Pally somewhere in Karnors Castle (a ghost town most likely by now)

We talk about classic being the best but I see classic as the Trillogy and not just the three main Continents. Luclin broke Everquest in my opinion. With just Classic it would get monotonous and yes the leveling would be tedious as well as I recall all too well the origanal 1-2levels a day treck it sometime taking 4-5 hours just to level from 19-20 or 20-21. With the faster exp and new lands to explore in the Trillogy I think it would be worthwhile once again.

Luclin changed the world and it was the fulcrum of EQ development. There's no doubt in my mind that people would agree when I say Luclin turned the economy upside down, There was a point when Crystal Chitin was the uber shit next to Plane armor, and Quest armor. Spending a full month getting an entire set of this demi-godly armor (better then kunark's deepwater and the like) my once 25k (Ubah rich) armor fell to 5k in one day. Mino axe's became extinct, Ornate Rune blades, Arbitors combine, Nat's 2 hander all became common n00b twinks.

In an instant all hardwork dedicated was wiped out, once someone took a look at the moon and decided hmm a Nexus would be nice to have. EC tunnel deserted to the new found Bazaar. I know I mix a bit of emotion into my post but I think that without emotion of WOW I just recieved my Epic this is great, OMG plane armor, or even a simple omg camping Frogloks for my FBSS paid off jeez the 8 hour camp was hard but we got our belt!! congratz guys. You start to lose what EQ is about for alot of people. I was there when Fennin was decimated by the Ebay and Auction wars. Omg Cloak of flames still sells for 75$?? lets go raid naggy with whatever uber 52's we can muster (A direct quote form a TMO member) "Damn that runed bolster belt netted me a cool 125$" (Direct quote from a DoA member, these two being the best Guilds of the time on the server)

The powerlevel grind led to kill stealing, and clearing out a camp for your guild only with trains. If you weren't in "abc" Guild you weren't going to level quickly unless your class was good at soloing and if you weren't wearing "xyz" armor we don't want you in our party. Some of the newer expansions are foreign to me but from the revisisting of EQ and its Gui enchancements just shows me although the game may be geared toward the higher levels now they still haven't forgotton the perks that make the game enjoyable I like the link system to items, and the Link all for corpse looting, and the maps althogh new to me have proven useful. It's a Catch 22 in my eye for keeping people happy and keeping the community alive.

In order to keep a MMO a MMO you need to impliment grouping and interaction between players as a key role. Yet if you make it too group and interaction orientated then people complain you made it difficult as not everyone is friendly or available when you want them. Soloing to me is like playing a single person offline game. Sure you have to buy a new item from bazaar from someone but hell its not liek used to be where people had a convo and exchanged goods, its about the same as walking up to a NPC, except with occasional Haggling. Omg 10k for THAT! how about a 5k and my Sword of Mourning. Easy enogh but still not a MMO feeling. I welcome the new changes as im sure it will give me alot to do and although I'm still spending money monthly, its a hell of alot cheaper then spending 7 bucks at blockbuster 4 times a week trying to ammuse myself with a video game of my choice (even 25$ for an unlimited pass) or paying 50$ for an RPG I'm going to beat in 50-60hours = week 1/2 and im bored again. I'd like to say Congratz to the Dev's who's made EQEmu a great experiance, (although I still can't login to my own server after following 4 seperate guides.. *sigh* oh well) and Guys, don't lose the magic of a game, once you lose that you slowly lose the will to play.