EverQuest Legends launched at the end of July. I stayed clear of the beta and the pre-order stuff. I didn’t want to help test, I just wanted to see the end result.
EverQuest Legends
I was, however, committed to the final product. I have been on about Daybreak serving this particular non-hardcore slice of potential fans who maybe don’t want the full Norrath experience of old. Even with mercenaries and the gradual easing of how things play on the live servers over the years there is still a lot of content out there you need to group up to see.
Daybreak continued to trade on that whole “hardcore heritage” thing even as the reality of their potential audience has shifted over the years.
Any by “potential audience,” I mean me. I mean, it is likely an audience much larger than just one person, but I can only really speak for me even if I feel, in my gut, that there might be potential beyond just me.
And EverQuest Legends is very much aimed at that demographic that wants to go live out some adventures in a 27 year old video game with graphics that look like bad linoliuem on some random polygons. But I was down for it, so bought the game on Friday afternoon.
The game is $20, plus a $10 a month subscription after your first month. You order through the Daybreak account management portal, which tells you exactly who is running the show here. To align with that I have decided to categorize any posts about EQL as EverQuest with a tag specifying this particular flavor of the game, the way I would any of the special servers.
So I bought the game, declined to buy any of the special currency for the in-game cash shop, downloaded the client, installed it on my apps drive (and not in whatever God forsaken location in the Windows directory it was trying to get to) and logged in.
There I found the server selection screen, following the long established EQ layered pattern of getting into the damn game. On Friday evening all the choices had population listed as “High” but I was going to go straight to Qeynos no matter what.
EverQuest Legends Servers
That screenshot was taken during the AM on a weekday when only the people of Freeport are getting high.
I was interested to see that there was a column for “True Box,” which is Daybreak’s “no multi-boxing” rule set, as well as a column for “Subscription,” which implies that there was at least a thought given to a free to play option. We’ll see if we get there some day. For now it is all pay to play.
The EQL site asked me to go watch a 30 minute video about the game in order to learn to play. But screw that. I have no desire to spend 30 minutes watching somebody yammer on to deliver maybe 5 minutes worth of information.
Seriously, this routine is a plague on gaming. I am sure you’re a very nice person, but I honestly don’t care about your back story or that you had to delete a character to do this video (see, I started watching the damn thing), I want you to communicate something useful. This is not a chat down at the pub. We’re not making small talk. I have the game running in another window, so spit it out!
That is an impossible request. If you make instructional videos you seem to be required by law to spend at least 40% of each video talking about something else.
Also, what kind of retro experience would it be to watch a video? We didn’t watch videos explaining games to us back in 1999. Hell, I didn’t even read the damn manual that came with EverQuest until months had gone by. On that first night I jumped in and rolled up a half-elf in Surefall Glade and got on with it, which was exactly my plan for the evening.
(Later, when I did go looking for some information about EQL all I could find were freaking videos. There was only one written guide, and it was from a gold seller site. Far be it for me to side with illicit RMT, but who else is out there actually serving the community?)
So, channeling 1999 me, I repeated my experience from day one and chose a half-elf. However, I deviated from 1999 in that I went with druid as my primary class. Back in 99 a friend had already “called” druid and I didn’t want to double up, so I rolled a ranger… and rolling a ranger is always a mistake, so I wasn’t going to do that again.
Your primary class is locked to the usual race limitations. But then you get to pick a second class. I had heard somewhere that having a tank class in the mix was good, so I went with warrior.
I want to be able to cast Spirit of the Wolf and kick snakes. So there we go.
I also went with my 1999 first pick name, which had not been taken, then pressed the button to carry on to Surefall Glade… and found myself with Doug.
Doug is close enough to interact with
Doug, his dad, his dead grand dad, and his… sister?… mother?… some female relation are there to show you how to do some of the basic things. All of them are named Doug, except for Dougina, who runs the shop. It is a decent little tutorial I suppose, and teaches you how to do things which is actually useful because if you played WoW you’re going to be very confused about simple things like moving items in your inventory. And handing something to an NPC? Forget about it.
There are also a couple of sign boards just as you zone in that give you some information about the keyboard controls, including the most vital information you will ever receive, which is how to get out of the water without drowning when you fall in.
Read this, remember this
Seriously, some new character’s body in the bottom of the pond outside of Crow’s in Qeynos was practically a meme back in the day. I have mentioned it in the past and almost saw it happen to Potshot back when we tried out the Fippy Darkpaw server.
Dead man’s float?
Anyway, I completed the trials of Doug, got my two pairs of boots, merged them into one slightly better pair of boots, and then asked him to send me to Surefall Glade.
There it was, as dull as ever. Seriously, I don’t know why I pick it. It is likely the worst starting town of them all. But it is MY damn starting town.
Surefall Glade at twilight… it doesn’t get better than that… and even that is crap
But it is close to Qeynos. So I left Surefall to go out into the Qeynos Hills, walked around a bit, killed a few wee mobs, saw my xp bar go up, waved to Holly Windstalker as she wandered by (and pretended I hadn’t been eyeing the wolves or the bears), then decided to go to Qeynos.
There is, of course, no more pathetically normal start to the game than to stand out in the front yard of Qeynos to kill beetles and snakes and whatever. Might as well live the whole experience.
On zoning into Qeynos I found myself next to the gnoll, the legend, Fippy Darkpaw himself. I immediately attacked. While he con’d some levels above me, this was my opportunity to see exactly what I, a level 1 druid/warrior, might be able to solo.
So I went at him with my splintered club and my level 1 fire spell… I couldn’t even use flame lick yet because I hadn’t yet found a fire beetle eye, the required reagent, which for some reason I still remember after all of these years. Anyway, it was “Have at you!”
Fippy Darkpaw! We meet again!
It was a near run thing too. But I managed it, and while I had taken a lot of damage, it was Fippy who turned to flee… I had forgotten about that behavior, but it a battle to the last few hit points it is a wonderful feeling when the foe starts to run… and down he went.
Fippy Darkpaw Slain!
That was pretty much the game there, all goals accomplished! Hah!
Anyway, I got to loot his paw, which I am sure was a quest item at some point in time. That also got me the look UI, which isn’t completely different from live, but which has a sell button on it so you don’t have to keep visiting your local vendor.
The loot of Fippy Darkpaw
Is it like that in live? I haven’t played there in a while.
So I was now out in front of Qeynos which, unlike Surefall Glade, had some people hanging around. Somebody even randomly handed me the Hierophant’s Crook, a real old school druid weapon giving me the classic druid look of a homeless half-elf with a giant stick.
Let me show you my 2H Blunt!
Fippy got me to level 2 and I ran around beating on things and casting Flame Lick once I got my fire beetle eye, and generally did the old school traditional grind, getting myself to the exhalted height of level 4, at which point I was able to solo one of the willowwisps in Qeynos Hills, one of those pinnacle moments back in the day. (Only a burnt out lightstone dropped however. Bah.)
Willowisp ran and I finished it off
I used a lot of mana on that one and more than a few heals were cast.
I was also happy to see that, on leveling up, you were simply granted skills.
Level 4, have a couple spells
First, there are few things as annoying as trying to figure out which spells to even buy in old EverQuest. Finding the vendor and going through the list where you have to get detailed info on each spell to figure out if your class can use that spell at your current level.
That doesn’t even get to the usual “Do I even have the money?” aspect of buying spells, or how screwed you can be if you blow your whole wad on the wrong spell.
Otherwise I am still figuring out what the dual class thing really means and how each one levels up and what the stances really do, but I got started on my way just doing the classic path into the game.
Then the game was down some over the weekend and when it was up I was off playing Planet Crafter with Potshot. But I have started. Now I need to go back to that RMT site to read their guide.