New Everquest Progression Servers: Party in Neriak like it was 1999 (sort of)

That what I am running!

Do you all have an opinion on a server to start on? I am leaning toward the secondary one, Thornblade, as that will almost surely have less population and most likely no queues. I will fight through and roll up on the main server Mischief if others here want to, though.

Personally, I am not super concerned with being able to buy and trade loot and krono at the start. I just want to be able to log on, level at my own pace, and maybe have a better chance at some camps. Once population levels lower, I believe both servers will merge. I suppose it could be hard to say how long that would be, but most seem to think it would not be years and most likely months. Also, most seem to think you can server transfer for a cost, I believe.

Anyway, just wanted to start the discussion. I just want a chance to roll up on the server most of you all decide to, and may even make up a guild if people want.

I’m gonna guess both of these servers are going to be full for at least the first month. I think this ruleset is easily going to be the most popular TLP they’ve ever released. You also have the effect of people trying to get on Mischief, not being able to ever log on, and ending up on TB.

I would say to even have a marginal chance of logging on the first week, TB is the only option lol. That said, I doubt that’s going to be easy to get on either, we’ll see!

Server queues on a 22 year old game. The mind reels. I also need to stop reading this thread and even sort of thinking about it.

Is there a way to scale the UI size, text in particular? I’m debating jumping in for the progression server so thought I would poke around first and see if I could have fun with an ancient game like this. I see I can change text size in the chat window but I really want to scale the entire UI, everything is far too small at my resolution (3440x1440). Is the solution just to drop down resolution or is there a way to scale other text besides chat?

Oh man… good question. I guess I don’t know.

My wife and I are playing on Agnarr, which is locked at just after PoP. I believe that is the closest to classic right now. If you get on and want some buffs and/or a jump start, give me a shout.

You can right click on a window, and adjust ‘button size’, that will change quite a few things. All of the windows can be resized by just dragging to resize them. There is a setting under the display tab “allow window resizing”, make sure that’s on. Other than that, there is no way to globally resize the UI that I know of short of just setting a resolution. I always play EQ at 1080 so never run into this.

22 year old game, 2 servers just put up, 1 hour min Q…lol.

Yeah, I got home from work yesterday at 3pm and logged on within a minute of when they were supposed to go up. Right away it said a 1 minute queue and I waited and waited and after about 20 minutes just gave up. I logged on quick this morning before work and got in and got my name, but won’t have a chance to play until later this weekend.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing!

I got some time in yesterday and this morning.

I got up to level 8 on my enchanter and 6 on my cleric. I made both dark elves as I know that area better and I believe it makes it easier to run the stein quest. My wife is playing also and has her own two characters; a magician and a wizard.

We decided to roll up on Thornblade and it has been good so far. We are just in the newbie zone, though. Overall the launch seems to have been very smooth after that initial hour or two. We didn’t try to get in that first night, but ever since I have logged in whenever I wanted to.

Oh, I also got tailoring to 28 (36 now, raw silk is trivial!) and made a set of patchwork leather for my cleric and a few silk robes and assorted silk pieces for our casters so if anyone is on Thornblade and wants some made up, let me know. Just need ruined pelts for the leather and spider silk for the silk armor. Going to be chilling around the house all weekend and it is freezing out this morning (36 F) so not planning a lot outside, heh, so will be in EQ a lot. I am surprised how much I am enjoying it and haven’t even seen the random loot yet.

Oh, and I also got a few each of the level 7, 9, 14, 17 enchanter pet spells from Highkeep, so can hook people up with those if ya need and don’t want to make the run.

I’ve been really enjoying this, and am surprised at how well the launch went. DPG has never released a TLP that wasn’t a shit show, so this is pretty impressive. I love the ruleset on these servers.

They changed quite a bit from the last TLP I played, which was Agnarr at the start, I believe.

Things like Sense Heading 200/200 (this may have been in previous ones), Swimming and other assorted skills start at 5 and not 0, vendors to sell at the newbie zone entrance. Hmm, what else can I think of…

Up to 12 and 13 now so off to Upper Guk soon.

Just hit level 19 and killed our first named a few times, the scryer in Upper Guk. Two of the times we killed it it dropped 4 items from all over the place. One was an item I had never heard of and was from an obscure rare npc in S Karana and was a +5 wis helm! Wow! I think I am going to really like this! The free trade and especially this random loot is really breathing new life into this.

For me, this is the best EQ that has ever existed. Love the loot, love the timeline, great server.

Yeah it has been great. Just had all the Najena keys drop off one warden in U Guk so off to Najena now!

Made enough plat to grind research to the max of 54 with Vial of Pure Waters and just successfully made my first spell, Mesmerization! Life is good!

I just wanted to give a little update on some things that happened over the weekend, just in case anyone is reading this with interest in playing or just reading about it.

The early leveling was pretty normal. My wife and I made dark elves and I started out just playing a cleric separately, but ended up bringing her along too just for the buffs and occasional heals. The Memorial Day weekend had a bonus to experience, faction changes, and chances for rares to spawn. I believe it was a boost of 50% to each. We just fought normal open world stuff from Nektolus Forest to Lavastorm and went down to Upper Guk at 13 or 14. We tried to kill as many skeletons for bone chips, animals for pelts, and spiders for silks to work on tailoring and to get some early silk and leather armor. The bone chips were more to collect to sell to necros, or to use later if we ever make one. Plus, the level 1-2 decaying skeletons drop early weapons and cloth gear to sell and wear. A cracked staff at level 1 that you can sell for 1 plat is quite a boon starting out!

One of the very nice quality of life features of the TLP servers now is the addition of additional “pick” zones. Once a zone fills up to a certain level, it will automatically spawn another instance that you can select to go into using the /pick command. We saw up to 4 picks in Upper Guk, and I believe places like Lower Guk can easily get to 10+ picks during busy times. We haven’t went down there yet. Another change from the early pick zone implementations is now when you pick you zone to the entrance (or perhaps alternate safe zone location). This helps quite a bit as before you would zone to the exact location you were in previously and would allow farmers to /pick between multiple instances and keep killing the same nameds in the same locations in all of them. Sure, you could still do this now, but you have to invis or sneak or fight to each location, so at least it hinders it some and allows more loot and kills to be spread around.

We fought a bit in two locations in Upper Guk to get to level 17 and decided to try our first named camp, the froglok scryer, which is level 21. This was very successful and were were able to get it to spawn maybe 65-70% of the time. The new TLP rules inherently have an increased chance for rares to spawn on Mischief and Thornblade, but with the 50% increase for the weekend, nameds were spawning more than 50% of the time all over.

One more thing that has changed with the power creep and QoL features of the TLP servers compared to when EQ first launched is the spawn times in dungeons are now much faster. I also learned it appears the extra pick spawned instances have a little faster spawn time than the main zone. In Upper Guk this was about 13 and 16 minutes and later on in Najena’s room it was 8 minutes!

So in Upper Guk we killed the scryer (level 21) and warden (level 25) maybe 5 times each and then went to Najena with the keys we got off the warden and killed Najena (level 28) maybe 6-7 times. This is what we learned:

In the level 20s at least, rare loot tables are shared in levels in 5 level increments. The warden and scryer had the same loot table level range and Najena was dropping things up to level 30. So, I am pretty sure level 21-25 and 26-30 share a rare loot table. I am not sure if this continues up to 50, but if it does, you can get things like Golden Efreeti Boots of any normal rare level 46-50 mob. Raids are supposed to be separate.

Another thing was each named we killed dropped from 2-5 items it seemed. Now, this was really cool and fun, and with the free trade you can send all sorts of cool stuff to your alts and friends, but it all seemed just a little too fast. But, I have done all this many times, and even 2 other times on TLP servers, so may as well get geared up quicker! Plus, I am getting drops for things I have never had a chance to get before, so that is all pretty cool. Last night Najena dropped 2 Pegasus Feather Cloaks! That was nuts! My wife is a magician and she screamed with excitement, hah! So, for those moments it is pretty freaking cool.

Some of the cool things we got off the Warden and Scryer: Ice Crystal Staff, Slime Crystal Staff, Ring of Xorbb, Crown of Leaves, Silverish Scimitar, Foreman’s Tunic, Obsidian Scimitar, Savant’s Cap, a couple weight reduction bags like the one from Perma and Highpass, Drake Hide Leggings, 3 keys for Najena at once! (Rathyl, Drelzna and Najena rooms).

Some from Najena: Charred Guardian Breastplate (2), Impskin Gloves, Mammoth Hide Cloak, Pegasus Feather Cloak (2), Flowing Black Robe (dropped every time), Turquoise Eyepatch.

There was more, but that is all I remember right now.

We also got a bunch of hides for researching spells and I made my level 16 AE mez and her level 22 water pet on the first try.

If anyone is on the fence and wants some help starting out, and a chance to group with people later (more than happy to have people join our groups), just give me a shout/PM. We are on Thornblade. I have no intention to raid later on with any regularity, if at all, but I have always loved a good single group dungeon dive, or just killing nameds in all sorts of out of the way places.

Interesting that the thread died a month ago. Did everyone stop their nostalgia trip? There’s another bonus XP weekend that started today.

I’ve actually gotten back into EQ now, after years away, but not on a TLP server. I’m back playing some of my old toons that have been around since launch. Took me a bit to find which server they had been migrated to. I’ve also started a new alt, but I’m curious about progression on live servers now.

Did the addition of Crescent Reach/Blightfire Moors/Goru’kar Mesa, etc basically make all of the other zones obsolete? You’re dumped there after the tutorial area and it seems you’re meant to stay.
Is there any reason to go back to Guk, or Unrest, or Natimbi, etc. Is any of the original or early expansion zone loot upgraded? It’s like all of the loot in the Crescent Reach line is much better.

Also, what’s the deal with guilds now? Can anyone just make one? No need to gather 10 people etc?

What is a good site for active EQ discussion? I feel like I’ll have a million questions lol.

I dunno, Allakhazam? Probably not. My guess is reddit, but I would never, ever, play Everquest again. My memories are overwhelmingly negative.

I am out golfing and for a meal, but my wife and I are still plugging away on the TLP Thornblade and having a good time! Will follow up when I get home later.