How did you first hear or get started on everquest?

[Bman703]

How did you first hear or get started on everquest?

[Sorn]

Well, as an innocent young 12-year-old, I was walking through the store game section when the Ruins of Kunark art caught my eye because there was a LIZARD on it and I loved LIZARDS and it looked like a DRAGON too and I happened to love DRAGONS EVEN MORE than I loved lizards (PS I still love both), so my parents got it for me. (My mom read the bit on the back mentioning that you'd never see your loved ones again after giving them this game and sighed.)

Little did I know that it would be a long time before I saw any dragons in game. I met a lot of cool people, though!

[Daywolf]

First hear of EQ? Back when I was playing UO while EQ was in development. Played both. Actually didn't stop playing UO up until a few years ago (though years on the UO emu just like the EQ emu). Still have yet to stop EQ. I take breaks though sometimes, few months at a time, not often though. But yeah, back in UO. We used to talk about all the new mmo's coming out early on, like all six of them hehe. Was working full time too at the time with tons of OT, played mmo's in my off time. I wish I had played DAoC too, but just didn't have the time. But I tried the other few mmo's that were around at the time. Played MUD's before mmo's... when they started being called "mmo's" anyway.

[Jimjam]

Went to a friend I played DnD with's house. He showed me a game him and his neighbour played. Saw it in stores when kunark was released and snapped it up.

[rajax]

Back in ye olden times of yore, I was convinced by a friend to play this new game called UO for a couple nights. I enjoyed the single player games when I was a kid and naively believed the MMO was similar. I mined for hours to get ore to make a set of basic armor & weapons. When I got back to town some random guy used pick pocketing to steal the ore and put a bomb in my bag which detonated in a crowd instantly killing me and severely maiming/killing random players in a fairly large radius. When I came back it was to the sight of my body being looted by random people and realized I had maximum bad "virtue" and as the guards closed in and I discovered I was now KoS basically everywhere. Uninstalled.

UO sold me and several friends on trying EQ around this same time about a month or so after it released. Generally friendly atmosphere, importance of your reputation/willingness to cooperate to advance and the far more interesting world to explore kept me playing pretty consistently through Planes of Power. I've tried other MMORPGs since that are far less time demanding, but none seem to have anything like the community I remember from early EQ.

[-Catherin-]

Went to a friend I played DnD with's house. He showed me a game him and his neighbour played. Saw it in stores when kunark was released and snapped it up.

got introduced by a D&D friend too :p

[iruinedyourday]

Sweet Thread! I was just about to start summer and thought I should play a game because school was over and I hadn't in a while. I bought a games magazine to see what was new and there was this big two page advert and it said it came out the next day. So I took that as a sign and picked it up for the PC, something I didnt even have. So I asked a friend if we could try it and basically spent the next 7 days taking turns 24 hours a day haha. Was the best times.

[Lifebar]

My parents had a subscription to Time Magazine, and I read this:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,25082,00.html

My computer was terrible, I was terrible, it was joyous.

When I went to Electronics Boutique at the mall to pick up a copy, the clerk told me to, "say goodbye to your life."

I regret nothing!

[Jauna]

I seen some elf titties on a box and my 13 year old self was on board.

[Bman703]

all really great stories my aunt played it back in 1999 as well as I did I was a 11 year old kid my first toon was wood elf ranger named tango and when I started the game and logged on I asked where the ranger guild was and someone said over there and I went over there fell off the bridge and was very dissapointed and camped and logged my ranger out and deleted him still to this day I hate the woodelf city

[Bman703]

My parents had a subscription to Time Magazine, and I read this:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,25082,00.html

My computer was terrible, I was terrible, it was joyous.

When I went to Electronics Boutique at the mall to pick up a copy, the clerk told me to, "say goodbye to your life."

I regret nothing!

haha! thats awesome

[khandman]

I had just bought the coveted 56k US Robotics sportster and my mate had told me I'd be able to play this game that he was testing at Video Logic on the graphics cards. It was Everquest.

[blondeattk]

Read a review of EQ in march 2000 in a computer mag. Mentioned the launch of kunark so i went into the city and bought the expansion.

payiong on dial up was painful....cos of the 2hr cut off. Made nuub life even harder!

[Ivory]

I was 16 and at the store with parents getting a new computer game....looking at the back of the boxes, EQ stood out from all the rest.

Then....when I got home and finally installed it.....this blew me away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym9hIEbnijw

[OfftuneRZ]

Haha great thread. It was my bros 13th bday I think and we went out to find a new video game. The guy at the store insisted we buy EQ or Asherons call. From that day foward me, my brother, and even my mother was hooked on EQ. This was during early velious era

[Zill]

Went to Walmart at 12, convinced mom I would do a bunch of yard work and wash the windows if I got a new game. Mom agreed. I nabbed EQ. While checking out, the cashier noticed EQ and mentioned to my mom she was obsessed with the game and her parents made her get said job as a cashier to get away from it. My mom asked her what her "handle" was and the cashier said she played as "Jahidra".

I knew then I was getting into some srs business. Went home, rolled a human warrior of Qeynos. Saw a Gnome magician hanging out at the gates and freaked out about his earth pet and immediately rerolled. Ahhh the glory days

[Sirelk]

I think the first time I heard about EQ was on Sharky Extreme or similar in late 1998. There was a beta tester article and the guy was complaining about the long wait times for the boat, frequent server down-time for updates and how addicted he was to the game.

I forgot about it and went back to playing Quake 2 online and Half-Life. I happened to be at Bestbuy checking out the PC games section in early March 1999 when I saw EQ on the shelf and decided to give it a go. I didn't like the idea of a subscription service on top of the initial price of the game. It couldn't be played if I decided not to sub after the free month, but what the hell.

It came with the clothe map of Norrath, and I put this up on my wall behind my pc. I remember they only accepted Visa and Mastercard at the time and I had Discover. The credit card screen accepted my Discover card, but I had to call up Verant to fix credit card situation once my 30 days were up (I had to get a different credit card).

I loaded up and created a ranger. I accidentally attacked a SureFall Glades NPC within the first 10 min and had my first death. I gained a couple levels and grew tired of the difficulty and the clunky UI. I put it aside for a whole week and then came back to it, that's when the addiction kicked in and I started taking sick days like a madman.

[mgellan]

Jerry Pournelle of BYTE Magazine in 2000 started talking about this amazing new game he was playing, bought it, was hooked. Was on a cable modem so no worries on performance :)

Regards,
Mg

[nilbog]

I was at a magic tournament in a comic book store. There was a beta tester telling everyone they should check it out.

[iruinedyourday]

Sweet Thread! I was just about to start summer and thought I should play a game because school was over and I hadn't in a while. I bought a games magazine to see what was new and there was this big two page advert and it said it came out the next day. So I took that as a sign and picked it up for the PC, something I didnt even have. So I asked a friend if we could try it and basically spent the next 7 days taking turns 24 hours a day haha. Was the best times.

Hehe there is more to mys tory but I didn't want to make a tldr.. But I cant resist.

After like 7 days of nonstop turn taking EQ with my best friend, one of our non-gamer friends came over to 'check in' on her friends that had 'disappeared' . She said, 'why dont you guys put on a change of clothes and come get something to eat.' to which I responded, 'hmm that sounds great, but its already so late in the night, lets just go to breakfast in the morning!'.. to which, she replied, 'Guys..... It is 2:00 in the afternoon...'

My buddy and me were like, "WHAT THE FUCK? WE THOUGHT IT WAS LIKE MIDNIGHT!" We threw back the curtains to check and basically hissed at the sun like vampires.

[kjs86z]

I first heard about EQ in 1999, but I had already started playing Asheron's Call and never looked back.

16 years later...December of 2015 - my buddies have been playing on P99 for a year now and finally convince me to give it a try.

3 months later, I'm a level 56 enchanter and totally hooked.

fuck. my. life.

[thufir]

My friends in college (we were all super into gaming) tried to get me to play during classic. I leveled my wizard to 7 and quit due to repeated deaths at the hands of asps. Six months later I had moved halfway across the country, but missed my buddies. Kunark had come out not long before. Bought the expansion, logged in, got sucked into the wizard, leveled hard to catch my buddies, and was playing all through to the end of Velious.

Ironically, some of those same friends are the people who introduced me to p99, over a decade later.

[Thugnuts]

I was 16. My brother bought the game, played for a few hours, and hated it. Next time he was at the house, he dropped me the install disc and his account info.

I didn't have the manual or any understanding of the game. I loaded up in Gfay and ran around for a long time before I figured out I was supposed to be killing things.

Killed things for awhile, but using my fists really sucked, so I asked another player where they got a sword. That's when I learned that inventory was something I should have checked right off the bat.

Got up a few levels and decided it was time to explore. Made a long and arduous journey to Freeport. When I arrived at the city gates, I was all like "I'm a traveler from a distant land across the ocean!" and people were like yah.. whateva.

Played my warrior until level 24ish... solo, because I didn't know any better. It really sucked, but I was gifted a suit of bronze and I had a surname... so I was a total bad ass. However, a GM deleted my surname.. so I retired the warrior.

Started a cleric. Found that I loved healing people, but didn't see the point of buffing... so I just didn't buy any buff spells past level 5 or whatever. Played him to level 39 without buffing any of my groupmates. When they'd ask, I'd just be like nope.. sorry... I'm a healer, not a buffer.

And that's how it began.

[mgriff02]

I was 15 and my mom's boyfriend at the time worked with a guy who was into EQ. So the BF bought us all an account to try it out, we all loved it, so that turned into 3 accounts. I had to share an account with my brother for years....

[eqravenprince]

It was March 1999. I was 22 just out of college and picked up a Sunday paper mainly to read the ads, specifically the Best Buy ad. Everquest caught my attention as it was brand new, came with a cloth map which was I thought was cool, I liked rpgs with big worlds. So I went to the store and found the EQ box on the shelf, looked at all the pictures, box art and read the stuff written. I don't remember being super excited. I was looking for something new to play and I thought what the hell I will give this a shot. At that point in time, I had been playing a lot of Red Alert and Civilization 2. I remember being a little pissed about having to pay to play, but I had already wasted my money, might as well waste a little more. Then I played no other game for the next 2+ years until DAOC came out.

[GeinHealy]

I was a two dimensional cartoon guy walking on Temple Street in a place called the WorldsAway dreamscape. Someone mentioned this new game being beta tested. Occasionally another cartoon being would mention that he or she (or it) had heard of this game and planned to try it. However, it was very rare to speak to someone that had actually been there. It was like an episode of the Twilight Zone... one day a guy would be telling others what "Everquest" was like and the next day their friends would be asking "what ever happened to...?" They were never heard from again.

Actually, now that I think about it, once I got enough information to find and join the beta, I never went back either.

[Dacien]

In 1999, one of my friends was talking about this game where "it takes a week to gain one level". For some reason that sounded awesome.

[DeadlyReza]

One of my friends (still plays on p99 red and blue to this day) introduced it to me at school, I was in grade 6 so I would've been 12 at the time? I came in just before luclin dropped.

I had previously had no interaction with D&D or any type of Role playing game prior to EQ, but it was amazing and I have been chasing that feeling ever since (/em crosses fingers for Pantheon: Ride of the fallen)

My mate actually introduced me to p99 as well :P

[Qtip]

Played quake. Couple people I played quake with also were playing Eq on the tallon zek server. Rolled on there and quit halfway through velious with one of top geared warriors on tallon zek.

[Drunk On NyQuil]

My roommate in college played EQ from launch, went out and bought it after watching him play.

To this day, I sleep better with the EQ rain and thunder sounds playing.

[Vilkata]

I was playing Diablo 2 so much my performance at work was suffering. Decided I needed a new game to play to take my mind off D2. Saw the vanilla cd of EQ. Life was just something I did between sleep and EQ after that.

[Hitpoint]

Me and my friends from middle school played mostly Blizzard games; SC, WC3, D2. When we saw the WoW trailers that were coming out, we were blown away by the whole idea of an open world, multiplayer, and character building. I didn't know what MMOs where back then - my best friend knew what EQ was, but he hadn't played it. We couldn't wait for WoW to come out, so we decided we should play EQ to tide us over until WoW released. It far surpassed our expectations. A year later, my best friend moved to WoW like we had originally planned, but I had become an EQ loyalist. As two young MMO addicts playing two different games and going to two different schools, we completely lost contact after that.

[Lunababy]

all really great stories my aunt played it back in 1999 as well as I did I was a 11 year old kid my first toon was wood elf ranger named tango and when I started the game and logged on I asked where the ranger guild was and someone said over there and I went over there fell off the bridge and was very dissapointed and camped and logged my ranger out and deleted him still to this day I hate the woodelf city

sig worthy

[symbi0nt]

My cousin and uncle, who were highly active raiders on RZ (Wudan I believe) recruited my dad to play with them; I was 11 and wanted to try it out too... I lasted about 2 weeks in pvp and actually gave up eq all together iirc - came back and created a char on BB shortly after Velious was released and the rest was(is?) full on immersion.

[vageta31]

I was playing UO at the time and was able to get myself into the final beta phase for EQ. My first character was a human ranger and I remember thinking something was wrong with my video card because it was nighttime in Surefall Glade and I couldn't see a thing. I could see the UI itself just fine, but the game was just a huge black square. Finally I caught glimpse of a torch and realized that human eyesight at night was horrific. I ended up rolling a wood elf ranger at launch, got him to 20 and then realized how bad rangers were. I then rolled up a wood elf Druid and kited my way to 50 before Plane of Fear first opened.

I was there on release day as well. I took the day off work only to find it impossible to login until around 11pm that night and was wishing I'd have taken the following day off instead.

[LethClaypool]

My dad use to play Dungeons and Dragons with his buddies at work and one them turned him on to the game. I was eight years old at the time and remember watching him play a wood elf Ranger.

I showed such an interest in watching him play that he paid for me an account. We played together for years up through Omens.

He's also responsible for telling me about p99.

He passed away December 17th of last year. He hadn't played EverQuest in a very long time but I can thank him to this day for my love of high fantasy. Feeling nostalgic about playing with him is actually what made me recently return to p99 after about a half year.

[myriverse]

Told a friend that I hated UO. He said, "You should be on EQ." A week later, I was. :D

[fan D]

i was doing naggy with brad mcquaid in 1994

[Ella`Ella]

Me and my friends from middle school played mostly Blizzard games; SC, WC3, D2. When we saw the WoW trailers that were coming out, we were blown away by the whole idea of an open world, multiplayer, and character building. I didn't know what MMOs where back then - my best friend knew what EQ was, but he hadn't played it. We couldn't wait for WoW to come out, so we decided we should play EQ to tide us over until WoW released. It far surpassed our expectations. A year later, my best friend moved to WoW like we had originally planned, but I had become an EQ loyalist. As two young MMO addicts playing two different games and going to two different schools, we completely lost contact after that.

Hey pal!

[Seltius]

When I was young my parents handed me a piece of slate and a slate pencil and taught to play games like tic tac toe and hangman as I grew up technology proceeded to advance. First came Pong, then the systems began to advance with the Commodore, then Atari, then Nintendo, as the consoles became more advanced so progressed computer games with Oregon Trail, and other games. I retired and realized I was bored with things and decided to check out games for my computer and found Everquest. Now 16 years later and I am still playing through content I was playing through then. It is funny how easily we can be amused sometimes.

[alphys]

I found Everquest by accident. We just got highspeed internet, and Comcasts splash login page had " There is a LOT of realestate in Asheron's Call! " and a link to the beta.

Played that until it ended with amazing GM interaction, then was entirely focused on getting that game. Got all my 13 year old cash together and went to hastings... only.. It wasnt out yet, it was a beta! That had just ended ;w;

I was really bummed out, then saw the original box and the troll on the back. Just great color and spell effects. Snagged that instead. A little clever work to get my mom's credit card and I was playing. It was an instant blast, made a wizard first, got lost and died in G-fay, made an enchanter and stuck with it until 40, when I got stuck in the tunnel game.

Made thousands and thousands of plat and had tons of twinks but never got anything too high.

Hoping to actually break that cycle.

[Xaanka]

friends dad was an SOE dev, let us screw around with the game before it came out. cant remember if it was an actual beta server or just a sandbox mode because i never ran into another player. leveled a gnome necro up a little bit and i rolled a few level 1's to check out the starting towns. i remember the player animations were still really weird/rudimentary for some races like human.
bought the game and rolled a gnome magician on xegony when the servers went live.

[.eld]

Was too young to play when this first came but a few years when I grew older my cousin decided to show me the game. Thought it was really cool and ironically enough my dad already had it and I started playing it as an Iskar sk for my first roll, had no clue what the stats meant or any idea it effected the game so I probably dumped them all into charisma lmao.

[Morlaeth]

A few of my friends from school were playing. I think we were 12 when we started playing in 2000. Started up on Brell and played until about 2004.

My first character was a High Elf Enchanter but quickly rerolled Erudite Enchanter. When I realized I couldn't control my animated pets I lost interest...oh little did I know that I should've kept with that class. I rerolled Half Elf Ranger and that was my main the whole time =P

[Charak]

It was 1999 and I had just graduated from college. A friend told me about EQ and I applied for my first credit card so I could suscribe. Up until then my online game playing was limited to Doom and Diablo. So EQ was pretty incredible in its scope relative to these other games.

[Bman703]

All really great stories it's amazing how memories like those can bring everyone together to a game we all love

[Tarskin]

I was just about to goto University and while playing diablo 2 on battlenet, someone mentioned how EQ was going to end most diablo 2 guilds. I looked it up, grabbed my bike the next day, cycle to the next city and bought the box. The only thing I regret is that I didn't get any of my friends to try it to (in general, their first mmo was wow).

[Rygar]

My buddy told me of this new roleplaying game that is with an online community of actual people that you can join up with to have adventures and kill dragons and stuff. I'm like, "Sounds sweet, how do you beat it?". He's like, "You don't, you just make your own adventures killing stuff, raiding towns, questing... and every now and then they'll bring out expansions with new stuff to explore".

I was pretty sold after that, sounded different than what I was used to. He also told me how massive the world was, describing it as taking 4 hours to physically run across the whole globe (may even be more if you're waiting on the boats). Just sounded so cool and one of those games you dreamt about, felt like the future is now.

[Issar]

My dad use to play Dungeons and Dragons with his buddies at work and one them turned him on to the game. I was eight years old at the time and remember watching him play a wood elf Ranger.

I showed such an interest in watching him play that he paid for me an account. We played together for years up through Omens.

He's also responsible for telling me about p99.

He passed away December 17th of last year. He hadn't played EverQuest in a very long time but I can thank him to this day for my love of high fantasy. Feeling nostalgic about playing with him is actually what made me recently return to p99 after about a half year.

Sorry to hear of your loss. It sounds like your father was a solid guy. I hope to be able to share my love of high fantasy genres with my daughter as she grows up, and that she finds as much enjoyment in it as I.

[LethClaypool]

Sorry to hear of your loss. It sounds like your father was a solid guy. I hope to be able to share my love of high fantasy genres with my daughter as she grows up, and that she finds as much enjoyment in it as I.

Thanks for the kind words. I enjoyed my years playing with my dad. He made the game more immersion. When I got into raiding occasionally and high end grouping where he gave a lot of alts characters. To this day I still plan to see several of his characters personalities to end game.

[wkbuilder]

A coworker and I talked a lot at work. We worked at a place called Lucent Technologies. He had a group of friends and they would sit at a table on breaks/lunch and talked Everquest together. I would lurk on their conversation, but never really got involved. At this point I was 23, and just kind of getting out on my own, with my own place. I barely afforded furniture, and didn't own a computer yet. One day I asked him about EQ, and he was kind of surprised that I would be interested in it. Most of our conversations revolved around drinking, girls, sports, that kind of thing. I was more the type to go out to bars than play games he said. He was going on about something called "Scars of Velious" coming out next month, and that now was the time to start playing. He started telling me about his 56 Enchanter, and 52 druid. He said he could twink me, and power level me if I were to play. Any class/race I wanted. Anyway I was sold, and worked overtime for two weeks, blew off rent for a month and bought me a gateway, along with the game.

[gprater]

used to travel 3 hours for a weekend visit with my High school friend who turned his basement into a nerd paradise. Half the basement was for table top RPGing and the other half was lan party central. I would pack my desktop tower and monitor (CRT) and join the party except I made the decision in 2000 to try a game called Asheron's Call but I would always watch over my shoulder at he and his room mate playing EQ. My first experience was watching him explore this place called Blackburrow.

I would watch his friend , a ranger, do this repetitive task of making metal bits. Seemed awfully tedious. the next year I started playing EQ. :)

[HallyVee]

Had a good friend who spent tons of time at my house, eventually brought a game box over. His Uncle was a poopsocking neckbeard and occasionally let my friend use his account. We signed on at my house (it barely ran) and he showed me his characters, one of which was a shadow night female human, who eventually hit level 58 on the moon.

I tinkered a bit, never getting even to level 20. I recall installing an expansion which introduced new character models, I was only able to turn on one at a time. Chose dwarf because they rock.

Ended up just moving on, Halo came out, lan parties started, wasn't my account anyway, computer wasn't upgraded that year, etc. Also, meth happened.

Ooh I also played a hell of a lot of FF9 at that time. Good times.

[Bman703]

My dad use to play Dungeons and Dragons with his buddies at work and one them turned him on to the game. I was eight years old at the time and remember watching him play a wood elf Ranger.

I showed such an interest in watching him play that he paid for me an account. We played together for years up through Omens.

He's also responsible for telling me about p99.

He passed away December 17th of last year. He hadn't played EverQuest in a very long time but I can thank him to this day for my love of high fantasy. Feeling nostalgic about playing with him is actually what made me recently return to p99 after about a half year.

Sorry for your loss as well man atleast you and him had some good adventures

[Thurgrim]

Beta tested phase 3 and 4, with friends from Ultima Online.

[dude]

Dude played Isengard mud from there it didn't take him long, actually it did take him long. My friends kept on me to play its so much better than text based, your gonna be floored when you see this sh!t. And the Dude was most certainly floored when he made his DE rogue on vallon zek. They ple'd The Dude up to 50 in a few months then we de-leveld to 16 or so my god the slaughter Backstabbing the little ones for over 200. blood was in the streets, and the Dude was laughing at them all taken there hard earned platts. Until verrant patched the skills then the Dude was hunted by gangs of groups i couldn't go anywhere without and //ooc theres the f@#cker lets go get him. needless to say the Dude after 2 years of red went on to the blue server and never looked back. And Never played a rogue again. Dude likes to keep 1 spot open but just cant find it in him to hit the create button. That's trauma, of a red server.

Now that I have found p99 things are starting to look up once again for the dude. To new beginnings and such.