New to P99 - and EverQuest in General

[Adamas83]

Greetings,

Unlike many posts I have read on these forums, I am not a returning player. I don't have first-hand nostalgia pulling me back to the golden era of this game. But I was in High School when this released, I did play other grind-heavy MMOs of the day, and I have always held EQ in high regard as the forefather of anything in the genre after it. My gateway drug was Redmoon Online and later Lineage 2. Happy to say I avoided WoW and still have never played it to date (wasn't a particular fan of anything Blizzard made beyond D2). So I do have nostalgia for this period of time and maybe that's why EQ has sunk its hooks into me at long last. Seriously, my YouTube feed is destroyed after the past week... I am aware of the pitfalls of the new player experience, but I am determined to push past the near vertical learning curve because I know there's an amazing game on the other side with more depth than most anything I have ever played.

All of this puts me in the unique position of getting to experience this game now, in my 40s, for the first time ever. I did my homework, and looked around specifically at the EQEmu space - too many bad encounters with retail PTW so not even an option for me. While other servers do seem to have this or that appealing feature, after last year's events I question their long term stability (in more ways than one). All roads led me here. I value the long term stability over the short term gains. I know the value of earning your way, and while I don't have hundreds of hours per week to invest - or the ability to binge the way I used to - I look forward to my journey here.

After much deliberation, I have settled on a Dark Elf Necro named Almadon. See y'all in game. Happy to be here.

[red_demonman]

Welcome to the server! Hope you enjoy your time here and enjoy the journey. If you are looking for a little headstart, PM me, I can set you up with some starter gear.

[sinnycool]

Lets go! Good choice

[GardylooGubbins]

Welcome to the game! Take time to explore and enjoy the atmosphere. Too many of us just rush through these days and ignore so much of the content that hooked us in the first place.

[BradZax]

damn dude in your 40s never played this before? I bet the nostalgia will hit different, like you'll notice things that pull you back to the era, but not the specific content pulling you back to the memories.

I hope we get to hear what you think!

[Adamas83]

Thanks all for the kind words and the generosity! I am really hoping it will be what I think it will; the EQ community is still much friendlier than any other MMOs I have played by a pretty wide margin overall. I have admittedly not actually played anything yet beyond the UI and Options simulator - still futzing around with the UI and trying to get either Savok's or Duxa to work correctly along with all the HD textures and the fullscreen fixes. Followed all the guides; still things I am not sure should or shouldn't be working in the UI.

Update: I got everything working correctly (DuxaUI), but for whatever reason it is not saving my chat filters or the Window > Lock setting when I log out and back in.

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by Adamas83 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thanks all for the kind words and the generosity! I am really hoping it will be what I think it will; the EQ community is still much friendlier than any other MMOs I have played by a pretty wide margin overall. I have admittedly not actually played anything yet beyond the UI and Options simulator - still futzing around with the UI and trying to get either Savok's or Duxa to work correctly along with all the HD textures and the fullscreen fixes. Followed all the guides; still things I am not sure should or shouldn't be working in the UI.

The big thing with DuxaUI is that its targeting option blows harder than anything I've ever seen while everything else is quite nice.

So you can instead make a new folder in the UI area, call it like DuxaUIVertTarget or something, copy everything from DuxaUI into it, then go find the target window in VertUI and copy/paste that into the new UI you've built.

This gives you Duxa's nice layout and Vert's nice target window.

Generally speaking, I do at least two central chat windows: the left is general chat, the right is combat chat. I then right click the general chat window and select "always chat here". On the right, you can right click it and select all combat/spell settings.

And then I have everything else collected in the bottom/center of my screen around those chat windows.

And then just general tips to get into the game: I'd highly recommend a second monitor with the wiki open, to the page for the zone you are in, at all times. Especially since I think you mentioned you're a dark elf, their town is multiple zones and sometimes kind of hard to navigate, and their newbie zone area can be easy to get lost in since its mostly just wide open and dark.

[Adamas83]

Honestly I'm not sure DuxaUI is the best option, but I couldn't get any version of Vert from EQ Interface to load for me (no idea why). I am open to suggestions, and I know it's very subjective. I just want to experience the game right, and I know two things for sure:

1. A good template or guide video would go a long way to get me started (have not been able to find either for P99 specifically)

2. The pre-packaged UIs are rough.

[Belambic]

Try the rustle2 UI Rise of the Apes. I've been using it for a while and really like the layout. The only thing I would change is the inventory screen. All bags show as 10 slot bags instead of what they actually are. Other than that I'm happy with it.
https://www.eqinterface.com/download...fo.php?id=6828

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by Adamas83 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Honestly I'm not sure DuxaUI is the best option, but I couldn't get any version of Vert from EQ Interface to load for me (no idea why). I am open to suggestions, and I know it's very subjective. I just want to experience the game right, and I know two things for sure:

1. A good template or guide video would go a long way to get me started (have not been able to find either for P99 specifically)

2. The pre-packaged UIs are rough.

Templates and guides are tough because there's no consistent starting experience and every class is going to take a slightly different path / approach to things, but in general, if you go to the wiki and look up necromancer guides you can get a decent bit of info and ideas from that.

For me, personally, I'm kind of boring and prefer efficiency over other things but the vast majority of my characters follow the same pattern:

1. Start as a race that is near by or has strong leveling newbie quests: Neriak, Kaladim, Qeynos, for instance all have very good newbie quests. As you're a dark elf, look at the wiki for the Fire Beetle Eyes quest and there's another I think its snake fangs and snake skins? These are things you can sometimes find by the dozen on vendors for like no money, and I often buy them out to essentially power level a dark elf for the first few shitty levels.

2. Around 12-14 depending on class, I go to East Karana. It's simply too good. You can cruise from 14 to 26-28 here (Asps/lions/brown spiders -> hounds/griffins -> crag spiders).

3. From there do whatever. South Karana to your 40's, dungeons, the overthere, up to you. Earlier I'd just go to south karana, but nowadays I kind of look for novelty so I just go to zones I haven't really lived in and go to those instead. Most of them so far have been surprisingly good.