Return to Old school EQ?Follow

Hey...a friend and I both played EQ together a long time ago, back in the day when Kunark and Velious alone existed. Eventually they made Luclin and shortly after verant churned out PoP, we quit seeing EQ for nothing more than a cashcow.

Today we discussed how nostalgic we were for the days when it was good, and we basically came down to the question: Is it possible/feasible to play EQ without any of the expansions past luclin/velious? We would actually consider returning to EQ if we could do this.

How much of our gameplay would be affected? We haven't been following all the new additions to the game brought on by the various new expansions so would not having these make the game unplayable? As far as PoP...well we're not the types who are going to level to 65 (or is the max 70 these days?) and go to the planes...

Are Kunark and Velious sufficient?

Edited, Sun Sep 4 18:13:42 2005 by Dracion

It is possib;e but makes grouping hard since everyone else is going to be wearing either lvl 50-60 Velious and Kunark gear that is now cheep twink gear or items that are better than enything that was out then.

and thats at lvl 1

see...I don't even understand half of what you just said :-(

What's wrong with going without buffs?

And PoK is available even without owning the PoP exp.

Some stuff will never be the same. You will never have to go back to getting your below level 10 corpse. Your pets will not disappear when you zone, they will stay with you. New turtorial. The list goes on and on. The biggie as someone else pointed out, NO higher levels in zones, you'd be lucky to see any low levels in most zones. The ones you do see will mostly be twinks.

I, myself, love the changes and have watched them come, but I only played over 3 years. I still like EQ, but it is a different game, as life moves on, better I think. The learning curve when I started was daunting, there is still a lot to learn, but things like haveing to recover your newbie stuff at level 2,a million times is not one of them. I deleted a ton of toons, whose corpses I could not find. I absolutely hated not having maps.

like Dranic Scar last night?

to the OP: go for it, its doable. as long as you pick your Duo well (e.g. Shammie/Necro Duo), you'll be fine.

best to create the ruleset beforehand though, like
- buffs from other players
- presents from other players
- Bazaar ( I heard you, Kunark only, but still)
- potions

best of luck :)

PS: with "just" Kunark and Velious you can still make it to 70 I guess - if needed ;)

There are other considerations of course. Since there won't be other players in the older zones as often, simple things like getting a rez can be difficult at best. You'll need to make a hotkey explaining WHY you need a rez there even, because so many people will tell you to just summon your corpse at the corpse summoner if you ask for help with a CR. If you don't want to play with anything past Velious, just install the trilogy (if you have or can find it). I BELIEVE that if you only have the trilogy that you won't even be able to use most of the items/features from later expansions.

If you do this though, keep it true. When researching gear, only use gear that came out before PoP. Only do quests that were established before PoP (no newbie armor or tutorials). I know some people are going to argue that, but not using these "convienences" will put into perspective WHY these things were added in the first place. All new things aren't automatically bad. Traveling the boats sucked. It always sucked, at leats IMO. Spending hours on the boats to do the Trueshot quest when I was level 35 (because the bandits on sister isle kept killing me before that) sucked. The quest itself was fun, the traveling bit ***. Sitting in GFay for hours trying to guy an item, only to see it for sell cheaper 3 seconds later because you couldn't keep up with the spam, sucked. A lot of the changes were put in the game because it's what players at the time WANTED, and they usually wanted it for a reason.

I'm not trying to say playing the game "old school" style is wrong. If that's what you want to do, please do. That's what this game is about after all. When it's not fun anymore, it's not a game. Just be prepared for it to be a lot more difficult then it was when you quit, and think about why it was you quit in the first place (if it took up too much of your time, it's probably still going to take up too much of your time).

I miss it too... I can see both sides of the arguement. I believe what really ruined it for us old school gamers happened lats year with Gates of Discord/Omens of War and the Dragons of Norrath. They solved the last few complaints peopel had with the game... every whiner got their way now the game is easy to make 50 in a week and somehow farm a ton of plat... and buy uber twinked gear so you can solo quest mobs and get the hella uber no drop stuff.

I don't get it becuase I don't dedicate enough time to it. I play, occasionally read forums. I understand that if I had th eplat to twink it I could have a L65 Erudtie Necro in months... I don't wnat to be one of them... I am a L63 Ogre warrior and have been working on him for 5 years. The hard way cause Im as dumb as my ogre. (lots of downtime and out to sea time dont laugh to much) With the ellimination of every dificulty the learning curve is stil there... I met alot of dumbasses and wondered how they became an epic'd 65 with 50+ AA's then I realized it... EBAY.. its the only answer to how someone could make it so far in the game and not know a darn thing right?
WRONG! THey made it so easy to level fats and get uber gear with certain classes that those players never get to experience the game and learn from it. 6 months and your uber... uber dumb.

Ok so there are plenty of peopel buying plat online and buying toons online... I know sometimes though it seems so hopeless that it is all you can do to get caught up with your min/maxing (an old D&D insult) counterparts.

For shame all ye min/maxers and ebayers... not to mention the strategy guide types.

DsD I don't listen to Jonwin when it comes to EQ. He can drive me and daugther crazy with his imput on how to play our pc's. Sometimes I regret having introduce him to the game.

Course if I just was willing to play my Enchanter with him more often, I could make him happy.

Hey this is the OP.....thanks everyone for your overwhelming input. It was very informative, if a little depressing. The allure of the god old days is what we loved back then and it's what would bring us back if anything. It's sad to imagine that places we once frequented would all be barren of people. I guess everything's gone to Luclin.

I dunno we would probably have to do luclin just to buy stuff as someone pointed out. Be that as it is, which zones these days are the most common for levels 1-40? From what I remembered when I played it was EC -> Desert of Ro -> Oasis -> Lake of Ill Omen -> Overthere. Of course I don't know much about luclin or wherever else has been introduced...

Funny thing.....I was thinking of sugguesting this to a few friends or guildies to go back and no twink the old pre POP content. I never thought so many others would also be intrested. if anyone ever decided to set something up like this on one of the servers....I would love a chance to come join them.

Bah come to FV let me show you the no drop love...

Of course as always let me qualify, 1 toon per account means you live with your rep ( sure a level 50 or less could really care less but after that they do)

No drop can be a pain in trying to do epic etc type stuff as you will triv stuff that is in your way ( talk to me I will splain workaround)

On the positive what other server can tell you that you will be able to start with Anguish gear (( course you want retro and would have to be 70 to equip it and prolly buy it with green plats or live in bazaar but worst case you can be like me and drool, on other servers, bazaar means what is no drop, on FV it means the same as a Alla search OMFG if only...))

Also on the positive only server where you are likely to encounter any single player much less more then that interested in roleplay.

If you dont like it you have lost nothing, if you become like me it will be the only reason to bother with this game, I would still suggest checking it out if you are at all interested (( ps get out of Tutorial before you make a decision, and ya the tutorial really does gimp 1-10 horrible if you havent played for a while))

/nod