Hello all! Sit a while and listen.
This post, I'm hoping, will have a few purposes, first as a_generic_guide_289 for my fellow newbies, an interesting read (hopefully) by the veterans, and as an open question of "Am I missing anything important?"
Preface: I started playing live just before Vel launched, and continued playing until the cap hit 70 before I quit, in that time I had an enchanter main, which raided very heavily through kunark/vel coming to a crescendo in luclin, and tapering off in PoP.
About 2 weeks ago, I stumbled across a blog comment about p1999 and gave it a try, after getting up to the teens, and being unable to find a group one late Thursday night, I thought to myself, "Self, why don't we see what other servers are on this emu launcher thingy"
Which leads me to:
Chapter 1, Discovery, and how to make yourself look like a noob.As I browse through the EQEmu launcher, I see "EZServer" once more I say, "Self, that sounds good, something relaxing and easy to occupy yourself with when we cant find a group."
"Yes that does sound nice doesn't it"
"Quite"
"Indeed"
Sorry readers, it was that Felspine camp years ago, I don't remember much after 50 hours, but when I regained consciousness I had the haste belt, and a friendly voice to chat with!
So with that I clicked launch(Yes, I know, Forgive me Hunter for I hath sinned), and moments later, I was at the con of my newly created enchanter.
Interesting, I'm in SFG.. I wander around a bit, check out the area. I hail the teleporter npc. "Cool, you can teleport anywhere."
I wander a bit more, come across the dock area with the 1-10 quest and the vendors. I check out the newbie vendor. "Cool, free stuff! and some not so free stuff.. Wow that costs alot of plat.."
I buy a set of rings, earrings etc. and go strike up a conversation with the quest npc. I accept the quest (only the optional one mind you) and then teleport to the field of bone.
Now my dear readers. Im sure you're screaming at the text in a odd combination of anger, pity and general shock, but yes, I teleported and started fighting mobs in the FoB with the following:
1. Titanium Client
2. Same client I connected to p1999 with. Dude where’s my spell gems, and why does my nuke look like enduring breath?
3. No weapon, except the starter sword.
4. Only accepted one quest.
5. Didn’t talk to the spell npc and get my spells.
It went, slow. Luckily for my sanity, whatever's left of it, it was late and after a few mobs it was time to sleep anyway, "Interesting server" I thought, maybe Ill check out the forums tomorrow.
With that, we bring chapter one to an end.
Chapter 2, research and de-noobing.The next day, work was thankfully slow, allowing me ample time to scour the forums, wiki and guides. I learnt a lot, especially from the sticky posts. And of course I learnt that EZ isn’t big on grouping, at least in the way I thought about it, play one character and group with others who are doing the same.
I discovered that most people box on this server, and did some in depth reading in the state of the classes as they pertain to EZ. I also learnt about different eq clients, available boxing software and all the supplementary software that goes with it. As well as things in the technical realm to not do, like say, logging into EZ with a titanium client that was configured for p99 perhaps? Yeah, lets just pretend that part didn't happen.
Yes, I also found out about the epic weapons vendor and felt a little foolish.
While I did this, I was getting more intrigued with the concept of multiboxing and wanting to give it a shot. So after work that day, I downloaded the UF client, Hatebournes file pack and followed his settings optimization guide. Couldn’t get MQ2 to work, but I think it’s a W7 64 bit thing, but that’s irrelevant as you will soon discover!
After a lot of thought and playing around with the clients, I settled on a 3 man team, a Warrior, who will be my MT, a Paladin that will heal and OT as needed(or MT until the warriors swords will proc as I discovered lol) and a Rogue for some nice dps.
I got the 3 clients setup the way I wanted, assist buttons, follow buttons etc. and did some practicing around SFG, making sure I could switch between windows easily, It was quite interesting taking your first few steps as a multiboxer as I’m sure every one of you readers know, or will know shortly.
FoB went well, I actually managed to get my team killed shortly after starting out, don’t know how I managed it, as I think the pally epic procs from level 1. But sure enough, I got all 3 killed.
Oasis, my next stop went better, and holy crap, kunark gear from orcs! And the crocs! 10 levels later, and only one Cazel related wipe, all 3 of my guys are only missing a piece or two each, knocked out paludal as well.
Mistmoore was interesting, I never spent a lot of time there on live, as I started after kunark, so getting to know the layout was neat. Scored a primal bow for the warrior and OH dagger for the rogue.
Dulak, wandered around, got some levels, gear up the toons. Decided to take on some captains, nifty, VT gear, scored some haste items and got utterly destroyed by the named who spawns at the back of the highest level boat, I forgets it name. But he quads for 300 on my tank, the pally couldn’t keep him up.
Didn’t help that I had not yet discovered that nifty level 1 self buff that amplifies the pallys healing proc, I wouldn’t discover this until a little later, and on another character, but that about brings this chapter to a close, I now had a pretty decent grasp of the server itself from a complete newbies point of view.
Chapter 3, Boxing Evolved, or how I was annoyed enough to spend money.I was doing pretty good when I logged off after my first day of boxing, My 3 man squad was level 51, and after getting creamed by the non-captian named in dulak, I was hoping that jumping into the next ‘tier’ would garner some more upgrades, so I took a trip to velks. Did a few clears of TS, gaining nothing but diamonds other sellables, I gave the kobolds a try, 3 times. Wiped. 3 Times.
This frustrated me because I know damn well I should be able to kill them, it was my own clumsiness at boxing that was holding me back, the fears and gflux’s weren’t helping matters, but I knew about them already.
So, I begun looking into stuff like keyclone, and other muticasting software, and eventually tried out ISBoxer.
Yeah, take my money now please. No seriously, if you haven’t tried it out, go get the 7 day trial.
So with a fresh license of ISBoxer, I reconfigured my 3 man troop for use inside it, and once again headed back to dulak. Got that filthy ogre down to 30% this time(remember, I STILL was not amping my pallys heals with the self buff), and the other named on the dock that charms fell to my team finally, more upgrades yaye!
Now, with WinEQ2, I had limited myself to a 3 man team because it seemed like a good number to get the feel for everything, without overwhelming myself, but with ISBoxer, I started playing with the idea of more team members.
Which of course leads me to..
Chapter 4, A full group you say?After some firsthand experience with ISBoxer, I decided to start 3 more characters and get them caught up with my original 3, I chose a monk, zerker and cleric, giving me a final group composition of Warrior, Paladin, Rogue, Monk, Zerker and Cleric.
This went much, much faster, and within half a day played, my newest team members were level 35, along the way I discovered the amp buff on the cleric, and then figured out that the same one was on the pally, healing suddenly became alot easier.
I took a couple hours to do a bunch of setup and inventory tidying, this included setting up ISboxer for 6 clients. Setting up all the ingame hotkeys for assists, following etc. Once that was all said and done, it was time to jump back into dulak.
It was scary fast compared to the 3 man team I was working with before, and that smug ogre at the back of the boat fell again and again to my squad as I bounced between boats gearing up all the slots that were for the most part empty. After a fair bit of grinding, most of the troops had a full set of class armor, the rest only missing a piece or two ( I’ve come to the conclusion that the warrior bp just doesn’t drop
)
With the 3 new guys hitting level 48, and my ‘vets’ at level 54, it was time to re-try those pesky kobolds. Side note, are there more custom zones that are a PITA to bot in like velks? Contemplating a CoH ho.
Success! The mongrels fell to my troops handily and as I was groggily cursing the end of my weekend, my quests completed and I gated the squad back to SFG, camped and wandered off to sleep.
Epilogue. I look forward to playing more once this workday is over, especially what I read before I started writing, Mainly to try out fear instead of going back to velks. I still am unsure of guilds (fighter/mage) and when I should be starting those. Zerkers themselves, as well as all the new melee discs are still a bit confusing coming from a caster mains point of view.
Overall this has been a really cool experience, Hunter, thank you very much for hosting this server and all the work you’ve obviously put into it. Hate, thank you as well for all the guides, and from what I've read creating some level 70 spells that I look forward to eventually using.
And to everyone else, hope to see you all in game at one point or another, and If you see an ugly ogre named Nuurph leading around a ragtag group, feel free to say hi.
Jibekn out.
