Interesting that many people grumbled about the death penalties in EQ, but if it weren't for that fear of losing XP and corpse runs that came with it, would the excitement of adventuring a new area be as ingrained in our memories?
Adventuring new places was exciting and dangerous, and was never taken lightly. Seeing other players and their unique look or gear because it wasn't as easy as 1-2-3 poof new gear, it took time and a lot of luck to acquire many items in game.
My first eq experience came at the request of a friend, after playing diablo and similar games, he had stumbled on some friends playing EQ and he got hooked, then showed it to me one day, so I bought it.
When dicussing classes he suggested a Paladin because they are warrior and cleric built into one(of course now we know it wasn't that easy). So I started my human Paladin in Freeport. Stumbled around lost for a while trying to figure out who I was supposed to talk to and how to find them. Spent much time killing rats by the WFP gates. I think it took me like 2-3 hours to get to lvl 3.
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FInally my buddy called and said he was loggin on. I told him I was in a place called West Freeport near an arch with some guards. He said he knew where I was and would be there shortly.
I continued fighting for about 20-30 mins, even stumbled on EC at one point and got my butt killed, so stayed near WFP.
As I'm fighting an orc I suddenly see spell effects around me, but I hadn't cast an heals on me. Finished my orc and ran off for th next one, and was like Whoa!!! I'm way faster, then I saw my buddy standing nearby, along with a pretty druid friend, who apparently had just cast SoW on me.
She threw a few more buffs on me and sent me a guild invite(although i had no idea what that was about at the time). She then said her goodbyes and my friend shadowed me while I spent the next few hours killing, as he was around a level 19 warrior at the time.
Took me quite some time to get levels up to group with those folks, but they would occasionally show up and assist me and whomever I was grouped with at the time.