New to EQ and P99! Few noob questions.
 

Hello everyone. Finally got the game installed with some help from the community! I wandered around for an hour completely lost lol.

Few tips would be awesome for a new player.

Noob friendly class / starting area? Something easy to navigate while I get used to the game.

Also read about getting a more updated UI called duaxi or something.. is that worth grabbing?
Anything helps. Thanks.

Welcome to Everquest! I was in your exact position there years ago as an MMO junkie who got bored of all the WoW clones and wanted to try something new:)

First off, Blue is the old saturated server. The economy is very inflated so it's easy to find god tier gear for cheap and bored veterans to help you level.

Green is what I'd consider the "default" EQ experience. We're currently progressing through the old content patches so the economy is still fresh, everyone is still leveling together, and you'll find many people on your level to experience things with. Definitely go for Green unless you prefer otherwise.

What tips I'd give you will mostly depend on what your experience with other MMOs is. But the constant is that EQ is a much more social game (soloing ranges from uncomfortable to downright impossible at high level for most classes, so group synergy is a massive part of the game)

First off, before anything: Make sure to press C on everything to consider them before attacking. The game doesn't explicitly tell you mob levels, but it tells them in relation to yours: Red and yellow = higher level, white = same level, blue = perfect xp, green = too low for you.

Classes are built around their class fantasy, rather than just being different palette swaps of Mage/Warrior like in World of Warcraft. You have support classes like the buffbot Shaman, the versatile Druid and Bard, the CC-oriented Enchanter, the subtle Necromancer, as well as your traditional tank classes (Warrior, Shadowknight, Paladin and Ranger in descending order of "tankiness") and pure DPS (Monks, Rogues, Magicians and Wizards.)

Items are much more rare than in other MMOs. There's no quests to hold your hand through levels so the gameplay loop consists of looking up places to grind, traveling there and camping rooms until a rare mob pops. Unless you go out of your way to actively research, explore and experiment, the game will give you nothing.

EverQuest's difficulty curve is VERY steep. I always say that for beginners in 2021 the game is completely unplayable without the wiki. Getting out of the starting zone will be your first challenge (around level 4 - 5). You'll have to learn how to navigate the game using the wiki maps and the /loc command, how to find your trainers and spell vendors, as well as where to buy food and water, and finally how to go to different zones.

There is no fast travel in the game except for Druid and Wizard portals. Everyone just walks everywhere! And instead of mounts, we have a buff called Spirit of Wolf given by Druids and Shamen and (relatively) cheap potions that increases your running speed to what would be considered "mount speed" in other games.

Everyone hangs out in a small tunnel between the Commonlands and the Desert of Ro. It's where we go to make friends and auction items to each other. The economy is entirely player-run, with no mailbox or auction house system, and almost all equippable items are free to trade even after you equip them.

To answer your questions:

Druid is the most noob friendly class on average. Decent heals, great dps, can mind control animals as well as teleport themselves and their group to 20+ different locations across the world. Speaking from experience, it's the least troublesome class to get to a high level and it's very capable of soloing.

If you'd rather melee, Monk or Rogue are safe options, but melee classes are notoriously gimped so you'll be very much helpless without healers and support classes to cover for you. Same goes for tanking: safest option for this role is probably Paladin or Ranger.

Avoid evil races (Ogre, Troll, Dark Elf) and evil classes (Necromancer, Shadowknight) since they're kill-on-sight in most places. Do not make the mistake of rolling an Iksar as they're KOS everywhere which makes it hell for a newbie. When it comes to religion, Agnostic is the safest choice when possible.

DuxaUI doesn't work on the Green server afaik. I'd advise a newbie to get used to the default UI anyway then learn to mod it once you know what you're doing.

Here's my Discord if you use that, you can hmu anytime if you want some help in-game: Midoo#2125

Good luck:)

https://wiki.project1999.com/Getting_Started should cover everything you need, technically, to get started.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Newbie_Guide has a wealth of advice to help you (for instance, it has an answer to the question What class should I pick?).

And just in general, https://wiki.project1999.com is your friend :)

For a noob friendly class try mage. Sent pet and nuke, can’t go wrong

In addition to the great advice from previous posters, I'd add that I think the best starting zone would *probably* be Greater Faydark, which has the two elven cities Kelethin and Felwithe nearby and not *too* long of a travel for dwarves (Kaladim) and gnomes (Ak'Anon). You can kill yard trash at first, then at level 4 you can start grouping with others at orc hill, then at level 7 can start moving into Crushbone for groups, then Unrest.

Definitely check out guides on the wiki like Loramin suggested. You'll want to be using the wiki as a reference a lot. https://wiki.project1999.com/Per-Level_Hunting_Guide is also really useful for letting you know good hunting areas.

Best to read the class descriptions and pick a race and class that sounds fun. Next it’s good to try and make friends and or join a guild and learn from them. All zones have surrounding areas that should allow you to level to at least 10 fairly easily. After that it will get more challenging. But meet people and ask for help often.

https://i.imgur.com/SeAp9wz.gif

(As the creator of that guide, it's so nice to see someone other than myself plugging it :))

Doin god's work that wiki, appreciate it

If you want to go in full risky be a monk. Tell people you are new. If not be a caster or a priest. Monk is the only melee you really don't need to twink to be good. (You might be poor for a while though.)

Or if you want to go the long road be a sk or a pal. Iksars aren't high up on the list of best race people pick for SK but with kunark release you should be able to find a group somewhere.

With that said I am unsure how well untwinked melee and tanks really pan out. I'd love for a pro to step in so maybe I can learn a lesson or two. I saw a non-twinked, I think it was gnome warrior, soloing at low levels. I felt bad and said, "Hey man do you want to group?" just to help him out. And he said, "No I got this watch" and then proceeded to solo quite well.

I've only ever leveled a caster untwinked. Like not even cloth because I didn't think I needed it lol. Bad idea in hindsight.