Thanks, Chief! Worked like a charm!!!! 

Ok I got my new SSD in.  Removed the old HDD and installed new one.  Set the Bios to boot from CD.  Installed my old HP recovery disk.....BOOM! Since the HDD was the last thing in my system that was from the HP I had the recovery disk will not load onto the new SSD.  Other than migrating the old HDD to the new SSD, which I was told could cause problems, how am I to get a Windows 10 OS on this new SSD?  I really dont want to go and buy Windows 10.....so I just put the old HHD back in.  Any tips on how I can get it to work? Will Microsoft send me just a copy of an OS on disk.....I still have the product key code.

Off-topic :

I've no insight on the effort required to adapt a un-used zone, so please forgive my ignorance, but what are the chances, or what is required for us to get more zones to play and progress in?

Looking over the zone-list I found so many interesting zones which was launched long after I quit live-eq back in the day (around Dragons of Norrath) and I thought to myself that it would be a lovely thing to get to play in some of these zones, get the experience, if nothing else then just for something else to do and as an alternative to the current standard road of progression.

//Ekiir

On this note I wish all the unused old zones had T7-10 level difficulty, solid experience and dropped standard loot (crystals / plat bags / gsoa etc. / maybe random essences). Seems like a waste of zones to not do this. I know I would spend a good deal of my time in old zones that happen to be fun and difficult - keeps it interesting. Eg. innothule swamp mobs could be lvl 78 and hit like t10 Would be fun to explore the old world again and add excitement entering old zones not knowing how tough the mobs will be. I bet this is a lot of work though even if the zones are not adjusted apart from loot tables and mob difficulty.

I wish that I could chill all day in your raid while you farmed PBs for me.   That would be cool.   I could go to work, chill with friends and still progress.

Since we are wishing.

You can't just chill for kill count credits anymore can you?  You actually have to hit the mob to get credit now, don't you?

That shouldnt be too hard.  Just increase the required level on all the lower versions.

Agreed. I just dont think its necessary. Why force people to play on a linear path. If they want to torture themselves and level UW along with their progression, thats how they choose to play. They just need help realizing it isn't necessary to do in progressing. If they want to play that way, let them.

Because then you get QQ posts like this.

I don't use ghold...just pet hold and let it follow the caster...since it is a box toon and with pet stonewall quest isn't vital to have pet in rear with dps toons and never have that problem.....maybe try pet follow?

You know what else I hate?  That UW5/UW6, which are pretty huge grinds as well, don't feel rewarding.  Their jump in power is so miniscule that your only excitement for finishing each grind is that you just don't have to do it anymore.  The reward itself is very disappointing.  The UW7 and UW8 jumps are solid and very good, respectively, and those are some of the easiest essences to attain.  I think the stats need to be re-worked a bit here.   Why give a good DPS jump for abyss essences and a 50% increase for anguish essences but like <5% gain on gminors and a 20% gain for gmajors?  That was so disappointing.  I think UW5 damage should be where UW6 is, and UW6 damage should be around 100k.  UW7 110k, UW8 125k and the rest as they are.  It would feel a lot more rewarding for the efforts involved.

I have been thinking about this comment today. It maybe a valid argument.  So to keep content from getting boring from grinding so may essences and to keep the complaining to a minimum....why not make the UW quest not accessible until the toon hits Loping Plains? Allows people to continue through content and then once they hit LP (the tier UW was introduced to game) it becomes an optional quest that they can then do and use saved/banked essences and/or back farming to get.

For the record:  I do not want the lower tiers to be easier.  If anything, I very much support them being harder.  I want newer players limited on 100-200k hp buffs (meaning they have no reason for them.  An improved buff bot as someone mentioned above would be great:  Maybe you hand the buff bot 50k plat and she gives you buffs equivalent to 20-30k HP?  That would be great help for LDON/QVIC but not game breaking.  

I want T1/T2 to be harder.  I want CT to feel meaningful.  I want CT to be placed behind T1/T2 and make the UW4 reward from CT be the meaningful jump in power.  As it stands, the only meaningful jump in UW power right now is UW3.  It's monumental.  Make CT meaningful, and gate UW4 behind it to make it feel rewarding.  

You know what else I hate?  That UW5/UW6, which are pretty huge grinds as well, don't feel rewarding.  Their jump in power is so miniscule that your only excitement for finishing each grind is that you just don't have to do it anymore.  The reward itself is very disappointing.  The UW7 and UW8 jumps are solid and very good, respectively, and those are some of the easiest essences to attain.  I think the stats need to be re-worked a bit here.   Why give a good DPS jump for abyss essences and a 50% increase for anguish essences but like <5% gain on gminors and a 20% gain for gmajors?  That was so disappointing.  I think UW5 damage should be where UW6 is, and UW6 damage should be around 100k.  UW7 110k, UW8 125k and the rest as they are.  It would feel a lot more rewarding for the efforts involved.

The changes I'm asking for have nothing to do with backfarming, have nothing to do with T10.  The only change to backfarming I'd request is somehow re-working dminors.  It's just such an awful farm.  Awful awful awful.  

The lower end content goes by quickly, unless you are farming for essences for UW as you go. You may find that going some tiers further in and then going back to the zone and "backfarm" is a better way to spend your time. (Assuming that's what is happening)

there are other means to acquire dminors, in the forms of expeditions, that take some of the pain away from farming the zones you love to hate.

Maybe Akka plans to fix the nerf bat that was swung at the dailies and make Dranik expedition and Abyss expedition (if this one will ever come back to the game) actually start dropping essences again....that would make a HUGE dent in the complaint factory that is the UW quest line.

I'd love to see reworking of UC and UW.  Make prism charms (v1) drop in all custom zones and at much higher rate. That way you can raise them up naturally as you progress and not spend so much time farming Ldon/Hoh/etc. Then for v2 & v3 have a trade-in system for prism charms where 100-200 prisms = uc2 upgrade and 400-500 = uc3 upgrade (tweak the numbers, whatever works). Right now doing UC is far too painful unless it's double loot.. And yes I'm aware it was much harder in the past, I did 2 UC's under the old system (2010 or so) but back then UC (v1) was actually the "ultimate" and it was end-game, and it wasn't exactly required, not for every single dingle toon, buffer etc..

Same for UW, way way too much grind, especially lower tiers. T1-2 and T3-4 make essences drop off all mobs not just bosses. T5 and up are generally ok, just increase the drop rate a little. Same for the Tofs essences, either increase drop rate dramatically, or eliminate them as a requirement for UW (best idea IMO).

Either that or tone down T10 a lot (mob HP and rampage - especially f'n rampage), and I don't think you want to do that. But if you're really going to require 18+ toons all with max UC & UW (or nearly all) just to progress at a decent rate in T10, then you need to make those items more realistic.  If this makes current UW-enabled players butthurt then enable them to turn in current UW's for a MegaUW or some crap that helps with their feelings... idk.

Right now I have 8 toons, all have UC1, two have UC2 and one has UC3, and 0 UW's, and T10 is just too slow. I can barely kill 1 mob per minute, and when the starting quest is 750 kills before you even get a single upgrade.. that just bites. And the only way to increase DPS would be to add more toons (and grind their UC's) or get UWs for a few toons, which is even worse. I don't even want to login any more. Some day when I'm super bored I'll probably give in and create 3-4 more toons and start grinding Qvic.. but not today :/

Right now T10 is easy compared to before. Everyone that got their T10 armor before the Akka fix grinded by killing 1-3 mobs at a time until they got their armor. We all had to deal with the crazy rampages, high hp's, and single juggers that can easily wipe out 18 people without a problem. Many including myself had to back track and get at least 2 max'd UW's, all UC2 on all toons, mana necks, strike augs, plus add on a couple more toons.

Spot on. This has been the story for every single zone that has come out! Previous group was lacking in new content because of x.....so make new toons roll them through old content so that you can handle the new content.  Heck I remember when T6 came out and I had Orthanos as my main. I learned quickly that a paladin could NOT tank t6...he did T5 just fine...so I made Raygan. When T9 first came out, and mobs hit like crazy, I made Wilddruidness.  At that time ,before T9 got nerfed, you HAD to have a druid for Skin of the Drake.....All my toons were made out of the need to optimize my group(s) to handle content. So making toons and learning the spells they can use (and some spells that are VERY beneficial in T10 are not EZ custom spells) and gearing toons up to the content they are in.

I made my stick command so that when a mob gates the pets wont chase after the mob and kill themselves (think Lord Venombite in T10)

/multiline ; /bca //attack off;/bca //target =Raygan
/pause 1
/bca //stick uw !front 18 hold
/pause 1
/multiline ; /bca //useitem 23 8;/bca //pet back;/bca //pet hold

Notes: the useitem 23 8 is for fastest travel clicky (so toons can keep together) this allows pets to come back loose aggro and wait for the mob (in this case Venombite) to come back w/o having to switch to the casters screens and click the {back} button on pet window.

Just in case anyone needs to have this list I stole it off a mage website:

Pet Commands
There are a number of commands you can use to control your pet, especially useful for macros. Some of them require you to learn specific alternate abilities in order to use them. Most of these commands are now available as buttons on the pet window (you can set buttons to any of the commands available to you, although it doesn't support the [on|off] options this way).

/pet attack - tells your pet to attack your current target (if it is attackable).

/pet gattack - tells your pet what target to attack next. If it is currently fighting something it will wait until that enemy is dead before attacking the new target.

/pet regroup - reorders your pet's hate (attack) list. [Needs clarification.]

/pet back (or back off) - tells your pet to stop attacking, but if it is attacked again it will resume attacking unless it is on "hold" (see /pet hold).

/pet stop - tells your pet to stop attacking, but it will resume attacking unless it is on "hold" (see /pet hold). [Need to clarify the difference between this and /pet back]

/pet hold [on|off] - switches your pet between attacking and not attacking new enemies. If a pet is on hold it won't attack even to defend itself or you. When you tell a held pet to attack it will attack until its target and anything else that attacks at the same time is dead. [Requires Pet Discipline]

/pet ghold [on|off] - similar to /pet hold, but when on this will cause pet ONLY to attack what you tell it to and nothing else. [Requires Pet Discipline]

/pet spellhold - tells your pet not to cast any spells. [Requires Advanced Pet Discipline 2]

/pet follow - tells your pet to follow you.

/pet guard - tells your pet to stay where it currently is. An ecample of where you might use this is to have pet at a spot to where someone in group is pulling foes, so you can sit back out of the way and not have your pet take the time to travel to that spot, thus allowing it to engage a little sooner. Don't forget to tell your pet to follow if you move to a new spot.

/pet taunt [on|off] - switchs your pet between taunting and not taunting it's target. You might want to turn off taunting when you have someone that is tanking and doesn't want your pet to taunt the target off them.

/pet notaunt - tells your pet to not taunt. The same as '/pet taunt off.'

/pet focus [on|off] - switchs your pet between focusing on a single enemy or sharing its attacks among the enemies in range. Most of the time you will probably want your pet to focus on killing one enemy at a time, but there are times you might want them to keep multiple enemies engaged so they don't attack someone else. [Requires Advanced Pet Discipline 1]

/pet leave - causes your current pet leave you. This can be used to dismiss a familiar as well (leaving any buff from the familiar atill active). This was a useful command when "chaining" pets, i.e. summoning a new pet to replace one that is dying. To do this, start summoning a new pet, and just before the summon completes do "/pet leave."

/pet target - sets your target to your pet's current target. This is useful when your pet is fighting multiple enemies and you want to be sure to target the same one. Best used when the pet is focused because an unfocused pet might switch between multiple enemies.

/pet sit - causes your pet to "sit" to regenerate hit points and mana faster. Since pets seem to regenerate quickly anyway, this command is probably not all that useful any more. A sitting pet won't attack or do anything else, so make sure you make it stand when you need it.

/pet stand - makes pet stand up after you have had it 'sitting'

/pet health - tells your pet to list their percentage of hit points left and any spell effects on them (probably not that useful any more).

/pet leader - makes your pet say who their leader (not a very useful command).

Akka have plat bag/chest bulk sales been fixed or is that still bugged?

Bugged for now

I didn't know you could answer like that! I was looking at my post and thinking, "I don't remember typing that." hehehe 

[But I kinda thought that was the point of it all. If it's not, then I have a ton of recommendations for T9 changes =D]

Things actually seem a lot better now, than they used to. Instances. Resists. People MGB'in all over the place, the EZ-Wiki (I had to bother Chunka every other minute back in the day), extensive guides etc. for the most part, people even seem friendly in OOC.

Lots of the crap that has been listed in this thread are 1st world problems. And I honestly don't think, that this server caters to absolute EverQuest virgins, unless they have some sort of masochistic need for timesinks and RNG frustration.

But hey I could be wrong, haven't played T1-4 in 5+ years - but back then, it really sucked too. Thankfully, there were a lot of peers in the same pool of piss as you, that you could team up with and uberleets, who'd show up to give a small leg up here and there. That may not be the case anymore.

But I kinda thought that was the point of it all. If it's not, then I have a ton of recommendations for T9 changes =D

LOL!

Akka have plat bag/chest bulk sales been fixed or is that still bugged?

Bugged for now

UC2's give a HUGE boost to spell/proc damage and healing...UC3 even more. Also with mana necks I take it you are heavy caster classes.  That's a plus! Hate designed T10 for casters since they were classes rarely used and he looked to build content to make them more useful. You do need to finish UC2's at bare minimum.....I would work on doing anything and everything I could to boost dps.  The faster you can kill something the less it will beat on your tank and kill them....kinda like the best defense is a good offense theory.

Gell, I hate to say this but the reason you are going slowly is because you havent taken the time to gear your toons before moving into T10. I don't have UW on two of my 3 groups.....and I dont have SoA on every toon either.  I have UC3 on healers/tanks primarily (pally,clr,druid,shm,war,war and maybe 3 dps toons monk/zerker/zerker maybe a rogue)....when you are running T10 with toons that only have a UC1 when a UC2 is sooooo easy to get then you kinda lost the argument on nefing T10.....T10 has been nerfed....nothing else needs to be nerfed there.


I like your idea of taking ToFS esse's out of the UW recipe though.  They weren't there to start with.

As for too much grind to get the 100 esse's, no....can't agree with that....is it a pita...boring....YES! I don't want it to be an item that you don't have to grind for.

Now I did propose an idea to Akka about making T10 epics have UW aug slots....no clue if that is going to stick or not. I would like to be able to spend berries on toons that dont have an UW for augs that aren't game breaking (because if they were they wouldnt be in-game) and the epic 10 is a grind all too itself. As I have said I am on last faction and have several sun shards (just waiting on faction at this point) and I will have UA and everything for UW BEFORE I get the t10 epic! With that kind of grind I would expect a better than normal epic weapon for each toon......all this is of course my opinion...so you can take it or leave it.