/Cheers to Classic EQ

[Ion Blaze]

Hi everyone, it’s awesome to be here. I run as Ayonic, a 35 bard. If you need any help when you’re in the area, please don’t hesitate to ask (corpse runs, joining the exp group for swarms, tracking a mob down, quick mana regen, or a SOW through the zone). It seems like bards get a bad reputation overall from some rude players but I intend to be nice and make friends because I like the feeling of when you have such a mastery over a class, people really want you in their group. It’s happened a couple times already.

I have a couple stories about Everquest. I first started playing when I was around 6-7 when my Dad got the game around 2000. I was too young to know what I was doing but I learned some valuable skills. I was semi-literate and unable to type at the time but by playing EQ for a year, I learned to read and type on the level of an adult as a child. Everquest taught me literacy on a level that school never did even in high school. I find it funny how schools try to use video games now to teach kids to read and write but the games are so boring in comparison to EQ. It doesn’t seem to work.
Anyways, I ran as a bard until my Dad switched to EQ2 and I ran as a troubadour over there. SOE ruined bards on live EQ1 and EQ2 so it’s really nice to be able to see the versatility they had in classic. The strange thing is that I started to pick up an instrument after I hit max level in EQ2. I never knew I had such songwriting ability. But to this day, I have written 7 full indie/rock albums. After years of playing a bard in Everquest, I became one in real life.

My favorite experience so far on P99 has been in Unrest. I was in a group that camped inside the first floor of the mansion. As we all know, Unrest is horrible for trains and adds. My group was killing one mob and this huge train of 15 even and yellow cons went running by and attacked our group. I slapped on the AOE mez song and held it for who knows how long while our group killed each mob individually. Towards the last 4 mobs, the healers completely ran out of mana and I had 40% health left due to the aggro mez generates. If I died, the mez would have dropped which would have led to a full group wipe. Somehow, we killed the whole train and I had only 5% health left.

Ultimately, this game is fun because of the huge risk/reward. The penalties for death and other negative actions are so muted in today’s modern MMO that it doesn’t elicit any emotions of fear or excitement. Getting that rare drop you have been camping for months is an incredible hit of dopamine. Thank you all for reading.

[sounion]

Definitely agree on the risk/reward and a true sense of accomplishment and joy from eq moments. I switched to wow eventually and didn't last long there. It was easy mode.

[Keggernuts]

Awesome post! I'm glad you had such a growth experience with the game.

Also glad yer a nice bard that groups!