Rogue Epic 1.0

I have finally started my Rogue Epic 1.0 yesterday. Epic stands for a looong quest that is specific for each class and results in a superior weapon.

After the first two NPCs I went to go on a so-called side-quest. It consisted of getting some drops from kobolds in Nagafens Lair. That was my second "camp" in EQ1. The first one was trying to get a hotzone drop somewhere in Kunark - took hours of killing grey mobs, but that thing just refused to drop.

In Nagafens Lair there are actually three kobold groups that can be camped for nameds to spawn. Two of those nameds could probably drop the swords I need for that side quest. The good thing is that they are really close together.  The bad thing was that the spawn cycles were quite long, kobolds frequently run away pulling in extra trash mobs - I had to do a lot of killing to get at the nameds. So I had about 5 or 6 times spawned the kobold king but unfortunately did not get the sword I was hoping for. That was essentially about 3-4 hours wasted. Not completely wasted, as I still got some exp from green mobs there (made 1/2 of an AA) and also got some nice sellable loot.  The bracers that the king drops are more or less worthless to players nowadays, but sell for 166p to the NPC vendor.

Now today I was not going there again but went to Neriak 3rd gate to pickpocket a rogue NPC. Of course I had trained my pickpocketing beforehand - but only to level 21 or so - lol. The forums say one needs level 200.

Fortunately the mob is unable to kill me with my healer merc open. So I can just stop attacking and pickpocket for hours... which is what I am doing as I write this. Finally pickpocketed the stained parchment bottom - skill level 179. Took several hours to skill up. Went on to Kaladim trying to pickpocket the top parchment... took less time, but I came to the point where neither the parchment dropped nor skillups happened. Ended up buying 11 Levels from the GM to 200 and proceeded to just pick it at first try. So that was that first part of my epic.

Why Everquest I

Some people might ask: Why a new blog about an old game ?

Well - because I just started to play in earnest a few months ago and find the game very much underrepresented in the gaming community. All the hype goes tonewer games like AoC, WAR or the ever-hyped WoW - EQ1 is sometimes referenced, but seldom in a positive way.

Yet - it is still alive, people playing it since release and still there are people starting to play. The living legacy promotion this summer has had hundreds of players checking out the game again and a few of them stayed.

The two most commom complaints about EQ1 are a) subpar graphics and b) too much grind

a) subpar graphics
In short: Its true for old zones, but not so true for the newer ones. I.e. stuff that has been published in the last 3 years or so has much better looking graphics than stuff that remained unchanged since release (1999). For new characters only the serpent spine expansion and a few reworked old-world-zones have newer graphics. This unfortunately gives a bad "first impression", as some quests and hot-zones are located in these graphically challenged areas. Once you are post level 50 a lot of newer zones start opening for you that have nicer looking designs.

b) Too much grind.
For a game that is called Everquest there is actually a very small amount of quests in game. At least compared to WoW or EQ2. So there are zones where one can do little else than slay mobs, hope for drops and nameds to spawn. Sounds boring, I know, but would it really help having a "kill ten rats" type of quest going on ? I have endured the EQ2-RoK-Solo-Questline and felt more in a "grind" than in many EQ1 zones. At least I can pick and chose there when, where and how many mobs I want to kill. With so many zones to choose from the grind does not feel too cumbersome. It might change once I get 85, but I think even then there will be questlines I still have to do and zones I have yet to see.

About

This is a blog about Everquest. Mostly it will be about my EQ1 adventures, but occasionally I might write about EQ2 or other games I play.

I am currently playing a Rogue - Level 58 - which was is now kind of my main, since I retired my necro at level 52 for now. I won't mention the chars I have under level 20. I am part of a guild, which occasionaly helps me, but since they are mostly 70+ chars there are only rare chance to really play with them yet.