[Haldiri]

Hey Everyone,
I’m a complete noob to EQ... well almost. The original EQ was released when I was in college. I didn’t really play a lot of games during this time of my life because I was just trying to make it on my own and get through school. I remember taking random jobs just to pay for school. But I do remember vividly one summer. It was July 1999. I was with my college room mate and we took a summer and stayed at a friends house in FL to earn some extra cash for school. I remember going into this guys room. He had a PC setup in his bedroom and there he was playing... yes, you guessed it, “Evercrack”.😀 At the time I didn’t know much about it. The game had only been out a few months. This was early morning and there I saw his character on screen wacking on a tree with a stick, or a club or something, IDK. There were a few others (in game) there with him. I picked up the box and was like, “ oh , cool game, Man.” Shorty after that, me and my roommate left for the day. We were running errands and it was nice to have a day off to relax. We got home that night around 10pm. We went in his room to see what he was up to, and there he was in the same place, wacking on this giant tree. Except now it looked like there where 20 other characters on screen (could be off there) all attacking this giant tree. I’m like, “Dude, you’ve been doing this for over 14 hrs! Maybe you should take a break?” We teased him a little about it. At the time, I just couldn’t understand what could be so compelling that he’d spent his entire Saturday in that same spot. I thought to myself, “well, that’s commitment.” Me and my roommate moved on and didn’t say much more about it. It’s not something I ever considered getting into bc we just didn’t have time for that kind of thing. Years later, around 2006-2007, I got more into gaming again and started trying out different MMO’s The genre was much more popular by this time and they were popping up everywhere. Over the years, I’ve tried quite a few of them and some of them are entertaining, but eventually, I lose interest and move on to something else.
Recently, I’d been thinking more about it and even texted that buddy of mine from years ago and asked him what he thought. He didn’t say much, just that it was a special time in his life and that there really isn’t anything quite like it.
Of course that intrigued me, so I looked into it some more and realized the game went free to play quite a few yrs ago. I downloaded it and I’m currently playing a Halfling Rogue. I’ve enjoyed it a bit. Haven’t gotten too far. Only level 8 and just figuring out the mechanics because it is very different from modern games. But the free to play game doesn’t seem like what I remembered seeing and the micro transactions are a bit annoying and I realized quickly this is not really the same game from 1999. I dug a little deeper and stumbled across project1999. So, here I am. Sorry for the long introduction, but I felt like it was important to explain how I got to this point. I’m intrigued by it all, and have enjoyed this fantasy world, but I’ve also been told how brutal it can be. So, my question now is, tell me why I should or should not play EQ Classic. Again, I’m very intrigued, but before I purchase a copy of the Titanium Edition, I thought I would post here, check out the player community, and go from there. Let me know your thoughts. I appreciate it.

~Haldiri