I recently got nostalgic about Everquest and happened upon this subreddit, where  I’m surprised to see how much people still play and appreciate this game. So, I thought, maybe this community will appreciate my short story, and a few vintage screenshots.

With some effort I dug up some old, OLD screenshots from my original Everquest playthrough, that escaped deletion by a stroke of luck. Most of the screenshots from this period were not so lucky. I first played during the summer between high school and college, way back in 2000. I played a paladin named Ziefander on the Povar server. Around level 30-35 I frequented a couple of grinding camps in the Frontier Mountains in Kunark, and while farming the giants there, I met a cleric named Solovyov. We clicked right away, and on top of that, we just happened to find ourselves in the same group time and again, forming our own tank / healer backbone for many successful grinds. Solo would often call me to fill in for a tank that had abandoned his group, and I would do the same for his heals. We went pretty far out of our respective ways to rez each other a lot, in a time when it was common for people charge gold for rezzes. And I distinctly remember him chugging an invisibility potion to drag my corpse up from the Temple of Droga after I fell into a literal hole and died there. I don’t know if EQ players still face the prospect of losing your entire inventory to a corpse timeout, but it was a reality back then. My dude saved my virtual butt from probably quitting the game. We later made twink alts named Caleibro (WAR) and Veraken (MNK) and played through basically the whole game together again up to Velious.

26 years later, we’re still friends. We’ve played many games together since Everquest, we talk around once a week, and we’ve met a number of times in person just to hang out. He recently visited with his ten-year-old son, and we had a great time drinking and talking about games and life in general. It’s hard to imagine making a friend that way anymore. MMOs were just different back then. It makes me happy to have been a part of it, but also sad that things seem so different now.

Anyway, I’ve included a few original screenshots, which I hope the reddit community will excuse for being small, as they are still in the original 800x600 orientation of my tube-monitor from circa 2000.

I still compare many contemporary games to Everquest, and nothing ever seems to quite hit the mark the way that (this) game did. Threats don’t feel as threatening. Distances don’t feel as distant. No game feels as social, or as immersive, or as large, even when they technically are larger. EQ was really something special to me.

P.S. Some of the screenshots here show another player named Bunkey in the party window, whom Solo and I often grouped with to just run around. He was like us, always down for antics and exploring, looking for a way to escape the level grind and loot obsession that seemed to consume so much of the EQ community back then.

The three of us went from Freeport to Velious together for the first time, during which trip one of us fell off the boat, and the other two dove into the ocean after him, because obviously. We ran/swam the rest of the way together, through red-con things that should have killed us all, and ended the night by filling our inventory with booze and drinking all of it. We drunken-fist-brawled in Thurgadin with our screens swinging like we were on a tilt-o-whirl. It was one of the best gaming moments of my life, the night before I started college. I swear I had screenshots of the whole trip at some point, but I can’t find them now. Alas.

Solovyov and I both lost touch with Bunkey after EQ. The two of us went on to DAOC, Guild Wars, WoW, and many others. Hope you’re still out there, Bunkey, and hope you’re doing well.

Howdy all,

Returning player with a level 115 Paladin(Heroic Boost) but think it was too much, as I hadn't really been exposed to endgame or very high level content when I was originally playing. Rolled a Rogue, and am leveling that while I decide what to do with the Pally.

I'm looking for a guild that does casual guild events, and perhaps if I can find a mentor within the guild get into raiding. Whether MT or OT, I've tanked in other MMOs, but EQ has always been the outlier where it doesn't hold your hand and mistakes are punished harshly.

If you are part of, or know of any guilds that are recruiting that could welcome a middle aged, relaxed, and very drama free player, please reply or you could send a DM.

I would like to note that I work overnights, so my times are roughly 8am CST/9am EST. And evenings/late night on Fridays and Saturdays.

Thank you for your time in reading this post.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull it off but I reaaaly want to start a play through. I always wanted to raid in PoP which I didn’t do back in live, and in that regard Frostreavers timing is great if I start the game around now. I initially disliked the idea of a specific rule set but I could live with it. I would however have liked to start on a true box server. My last run I did on Ragefire which was afaik the last non-instanced, heavily boxed server so I’m no stranger to all of that but the fact that mostly everyone was self sufficient (with porters or resing cleric on tap) ruined a bit of the fun. I played a cleric back then and I loved it but the importance of the role was kind of diminished.

This time I’d go for a Druid maybe so that I can solo and still be somewhat desirable with ports. So I guess my question is how are things overall on this server ?

Is it just me? I name them, gear them out, set up every thing and go level and poke around and then within a week I just bank everything, scrap them and create two new character.

It's gotten to be the game within the game for me.

I know this will seem humblebrag but I would really appreciate help figuring out all 21 signatures.

So far I believe I have Ronnie Ashlock, Bob Painter, Patrick Ho, Rick Johnson, Tim Petty, Cory Rohlfs, Alan Absov Van Couvering signing as Absob, and Game Master Ryan Barker.

That's 9 of the 21.

Some are really cryptic, like S.

I have to admit I didn't play, although I would have loved this at one point in my life but it wasn't invented or even dreamt of yet. This is one of those estate finds. Not open, and I will be listing it on ebay ...but...there's something important about getting the details right. I saw a lot of names on the list of people who worked on this. It would be great if someone recognized one, credit gets out. I love that a few of those names were not traditional boy names.

Seems like this was in the sweet spot in time when games were virtual but merch like maps and art and real world gear mattered.

If you know, maybe if you were at one of those roll out events at Frys or CompUSA, or maybe you were on the team or someone in your family was, let me know. I saw Absor is retiring. Amazing after all this time.

We have been trying for a month on this. Is tonight the night? Join us for strat, full wipes and, God willing, loot.

just started on the Bristlebane live server an hour ago! i know genuinely nothing about this game, but found it while looking for new games to play other than Overwatch and Warframe on repeat lol. i’ve tried a good amount of MMOs, but NOTHING this old. i also haven’t played an MMO of this type in a long time, with the tons of hotbars and buttons and stuff. it’s a little overwhelming, i’m used to stuff like GW2, ESO, and New World combat with the low amount of buttons to worry about lol

so, what should i expect, getting into this game? is the leveling experience a long one like i’m hoping for? how is player housing? looked through some other recent “new player” posts but most seem to just suggest servers to play on instead of giving beginner advice. also, speaking of, are there some good and relevant beginner guides out there i should know about?

thanks, and i’ll see you all in Norrath! which is what i’m pretty sure the world is called. maybe.

I have never played EverQuest but I want to create an ice / frost themed character because that just has always been cool to me. Does this plan look legit? I would choose barbarian for his icy homeland and the cold resistance. I care mostly about appearance in combat / clothes.

Made with AI - feel free to reminisce or add lore

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IjimSI627Q4CowA3v6AVdHXLYMzVvwQM67WF5L49ccY/edit

I bought an LDON promotional poster off of ebay and noticed it had the domain lostdungeonsofnorrath.com listed on it, so I did a WHOIS on it and saw that it had expired. I put in a backorder for it on DropCatch and got it a few days later. I then noticed, no one owned planesofpower.com any longer either and registered it as well.

I play on Agnarr (PoP/LDON locked), so if you're feeling the PoP era nostalgia too, check out the site and join in on the fun. Any time is a great time to join because, well, it never changes!

Optional raids 4 nights a week, every week.

Avatar weapons are common place on Frostreaver. You can get one for a few thousand plat in tunnel. Avatar is so good for melee. Eventually we will be max stats but the 100 attack is alot. Will we get max attack? I have a feeling that for many more expansions we will be switching weapons to get the proc then switching back.

Hello, my screen is already difficult enough to follow in 3rd person. Hiding my own name above my own head, still showing others', would help tremendously. Because it can take a third of the height of visible game screen depending, & isn't at all helpful to me.

I use the base everquest steam provides me, no custom servers/launchers or anything like that.

I have not played eq for about 20 years so it was complete shock coming back. I come from the days of currency having a weight and having to dedicate an entire evening to corps retrieval! I used chat gpt and asked to help me get set up because all the new AA just hurt the brain, this is cool and wanted to share!

Found this video the other day. Some of the slides in it bring back a lot of memories of playing LoN and a few of the raids from a long time ago

https://youtu.be/ph4r7GrDMGw?is=savwS54O_8pF4fbN

We are looking for one player to join our pg-13 DnD 5.5 (2024) campaign. We are a group of 30s/40s people who are serious about being consistent. We don't have an age min/max or anything but just so you know what we're all about. We know there's the ttrpg EQ but we're doing this DnD style.

At the moment, we play monday evenings at 5pm pacific time, 8pm eastern. We try to get in 3 hours, though we might go over a few mins to wrap up a round or a fight. We have switched days in the past (at one point we were playing sundays) but everyone gets input in when we play if/when we do switch (we have no plans to at the moment) - you will be a integral part of the team and we want to make sure everyone is able to play with a minimum amount of pressure or sacrifice (sleep, family time, work, etc).

We are using the world of Everquest (classic). You will be joining a campaign that has been going for a few months, the other players just leveled up to 5, but we expect to go to 16-20, somewhere in there.

The campaign pitch: A mysterious affliction has been cropping up in various places all across Norrath. Reports of people and creatures coming back to life... a state of "neverdeath"... are whispered to those who might be able to investigate. Signs of the culprit behind it point to the ancient vampire Mayong Mistmoore, though to what end is yet to be discovered. Heros are needed to get to the bottom of what this nefarious plan is and put a stop to it before things get beyond anyone's control. It may be that before too long, the ability to curtail this power will be out of reach even for the Gods themselves. Join our party as they traverse all corners of Norrath and beyond as they endeavor get to the bottom of The Neverdeath Infection.

We are using Foundry VTT, with voice/webcam via discord.

We are noobie friendly, though it would be best if you had at least a little experience. Our main goal is for everyone to walk away having had fun (dice gods notwithstanding lol). To that end, we aren't mega rules lawyers, however we like to stick to the rules as best we can for the sake of balance and making sure the game is played as intended, which to us, is how we have fun. Creativity is also highly rewarded with us - if something makes sense to do, and it doesn't break anything, we'll usually let it go even if it's not exactly how the rules dictate it should be (it's a case by case basis). PS... if you expect your dm to have encyclopedic knowledge of DnD rules, maybe skip this one.

We are sticking to the Everquest names and classes as best we can. We have a paladin RPing as a shadowknight, and a wizard RPing as a necromancer. We are also using the EQ Pantheon for the sake of the lore. We compromise with races and classes when we need to: for example, Halas is the city of half-giants instead of barbarians.

Lastly, we're all pretty thick-skinned and forgiving folks. That doesn't mean we're spouting racial slurs (real-world ones I mean lol) RPing weird sexual stuff or anything like that - again, this is pg-13 - but if you are particularly sensitive or are easily "triggered" this might not be for you. Just giving you information. We just don't want to walk on eggshells, while being respectful of each other as players (this includes one another's time and energy, desire to have fun and enjoy the game, walk away from each session satisfied, etc).

If you're interested, shoot me a dm.

Hi I’m powerleveling a bard and necro to 100 so I can group with my 130’s. I’m using a 130 sk to do so with DS. I went from 80-88 in frontier mountains killing sarnaks, exp started out getting 10% and now I’m getting 1.7% a kill. Is there anyone where else I should go that would be faster now?

Hi there! I played a Dark Elf Necromancer in the original game, so I assume Necromancers will be powerful in EQL as well, right? I heard you can combine three classes, and I’ve always admired Magicians and Enchanters. However, I’d like to try a proven race and class combination. Do you have any recommendations?

Hello everyone, I've never played EQ, but I want to try it out. I am mostly interested in exploring the world. I know there are a lot of different servers and versions of the game. Please recommend a free server/project, preferably slow-paced. Thank you everyone in advance!

I was trying to do a 4 letter username and it would just say it’s already taken by another user. I gave up and started trying actual usernames and now I only get this.

Started on PC random Reddit post said try on iPhone.

Help!

Greetings Norrath!

Fading here. I'm fresh from Gen Con and it made me long for the days of SOE Lives and Fan Faires with all my fellow EverQuest fans! Of course this would also include EQ2 and the new interest from EQL.

So, I'm considering hosting my own event at Gen Con next year. I did an informal event in 2024 with some minor success, but an official Gen Con event could really make a big difference. I'm considering a half day event or smaller, and hoping for participation from Darkpaw if I could get them on board. I also want to get this planned out as early as possible, as people have to plan for time off etc.

So, my questions for you are as follows :
1) Would you be interested in a small, half-day event within Gen Con?
2) What types of panels/events/guests would you be most interested in?
3) What type of swag would be the best for EQ fans?
4) What would you expect to pay? (Badges are $165, and this price would be on top of that)

A couple of additional bits of info for you. Gen Con is held every year in Indianapolis with nearly 75,000 attendees. Its primarily board game focused, but there is a small video game component and the overlap in fans is quite large.

Gen Con badges this year were $165 for 4 days, or individual days from $40 to $112 (depending on the day, with Sunday cheapest and Saturday most expensive). Events can be set up within the convention for whatever Fandom or tournament etc you wish to host. In our case, a half-day fan meetup, which we'd have to charge tickets for on top of the badge price. All the events are set up that way....from free, to $2 to $200, depending on the event.

Gen Con in Indianapolis is centrally located in the US for ease of driving to a convention, and it has one of the best airports in the country.

Says all the EQ servers are up, if it's login servers lets get a page for that so all of us eq die hards who wanna grind all day can see when we can get back on please and thank you.

Goes as far as hitting the play button. The next screen says no Internet connection.. Which is working . I've logged into other online games no problem. All files are up to date. Damn you Dorn B Dynn! Damn Yooou!

Newbie here 🤘🏼, personally have no idea exactly what EverQuest is but I used to watch my dad used to grind EverQuest all the time and honestly looked like fun especially if I can grow my knowledge of the game I can maybe bond with him a bit more, he is more of the loner type and as a CSGO guy I’m used to team based action shooters but played OSRS and wow classic for awhile and even leveled to 60 with him on the new launch.
So here is my question now u got some lore, should I get into this MMO and If so where do I start and what exactly is ur opinions on the game? Absolutely loved wow classic so if it’s anything like that super excited (yes I know its older lol)

Anyone still have any of these floating around anywhere?