'We had it so much harder when I was a newb!'

[Erikanudan]

- dropping 500p behind a tree in GFay, so you could PL that HIE chanter alt to lvl 12 by buying CB belts/pads JUST to be able to make your own Viscious Mana vials.

[Verdandi]

*gently scoots this to OOC, since it's only incidentally related to tradeskills*

One of my most vivid memories is of accompanying my smith friend on a trip from Halas to Highpass to buy ore to take back to Halas so he could smith. I went to help carry it, since it wasn't stackable of course. And for moral support. Instead, as we crept across West Karana, blind since I didn't have serpent sight yet, and oblivious to the safety to be had at the edge of the zone (not to mention mapless, of course), attempting to follow the crummy paths and signs. When we saw a hill giant coming we'd hide behind trees. We learned that hill giants can see through trees. So I asked the guild for help and our super powerful level 27ish wizard came out to help us get our bodies and lead us to safety. Porters were few and far between, it was much faster to just try to run it.

There were lots more hill giants, cause so few people were high enough to kill them, and so many more people hunted in the zones to spawn them.

Next time we tried it, it was the bandits that got us at that @%$^* ambush along the path. Those bandits die every time I go through there.

There was running from Halas to Oasis at 14 to get my first divination spells.

Learning the hard way just how serious Holly Windstalker and
Cros Treewind took their devotion to the wildlife of Qeynos Hills.

Crossing zones full of red creatures, without sow or invis, and making it! What a rush!! Learning to do it well, because you had to. *gets all misty*

[Lothay]

Ahhh... back in the day...

I can recall the wonderous time I first logged into EQ. With a friend on the phone rushing me through character creation. He'd played the beta, so he knew what he was doing.

And the Tunare server was only 3 days old. The highest level player was 12 or 13. The Minotaur Axe was the Ultimate Weapon, and patchwork armor was the order of the day...

Heck it was a dangrous trip to Qeynos from Halas! And the cost of a Backpack pattern was astronomical!

Ahhh the good ol' days.

~Lothay
*singing* These are the good ol' days!

[Chenier]

Two words:

KIZDEAN DIX

[Itzena]

Starting my first characters on Vallon (high elf enchanter) and watching GFay getting close to 4 figure occupation - and a good 50% or so of that being level eight gnaked gnome gnecros killing elves and looting their newbie robes/tunics/weapons.

Playing my second character (human necro in Qeynos) and having fear still work on players - fearkiting invaders was fun.

Creating Itzena as soon as Paineel was opened, and making the run to North Qeynos via the sewers and begging for hours for a bind there. And then having to do solid faction work in BB for a few days so I could use the bank in Qeynos (as there wasn't yet one in Qeynos catacombs). And I'm still max ally to Qeynos Merchants, even now.

[Cantatus]

Heh, I remember making Fine Plate for skill ups before sheets and ore stacked. It consisted of stocking up on as many molds as I could carry and fit in my bank (usually no room in my bank), run to Highpass Keep, then grab one block, zone to HPH, make a bracer, zone to HPK, sell bracer and buy two blocks, zone to HPH and make 2 bracers, repeat until out of molds. Then I would buy as many blocks of ore as I could, and zone to HPH (with werewolf form and invis for the extra str) to make them into as many sheets as I could. Then I would take that back to Freeport to get molds (none in Rivervale). That way I could net maybe about 15-17 combines per trip.

Pottery was simliar. I'd farm pelts in EK, then go to HPH to make pottery vials. Of course, I could only hold about 20 pelts at a time.

Fun memories.

[sumamael]

My most memorable experience was figuring out a safe and secure spot in freeport to do the 100ish item transfers needed to skill up on banded in a city where I was not welcome.

I have lost a lot of dropped bags to wandering people picking them up so I got fed up and found perfectly secure location where I didn't lose any.

Anyone who was newb in freeport lost at least one corpse in the undead pool in the catacombs I bet, so people A: stayed well clear of the pool B: died there and no one actually found the bags and platinum I dropped on the upper ledge on the far side of the pool.

I have been doing those mold transfers for weeks using a human paladin mule then someone told me a quick quested way to raise my faction and I could smith in freeport as a dark elf from there.

Fine steel smithing was a totally different story with stocking up on MQ ore in rathe and gating to the oggok forge only to realise that I forgot to my smithing hammer in the bank and was unable to move heh.

[eqNichola]

A big one no one's recalled so far: You used to have to take a bag out of the bank before you could manipluate the contents! This meant a LOT of juggling trying to get what you actually wanted in the right place. I remember a lot of people saying Rowyl was the BESTEST PERSON EVER for fixing that

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Yes, I remember when Paineel opened. There were no Erudite SKs before that and Erudite necros had a little hut in the woods, on the Erudite side of the river, yet. It's full of abandoned heretic pets now. Not fun for a newbie either way to open.

(Note: some of these are from my husband, who has played several more months than I have)

Things that made it easier:
Ol Tujim's Fierce Brew yielded five, thus actually giving a profit.
Pie Tins were also slightly profitable - 6 plat an hour, woot.

Things that were harder:
The search for a bind.
Necromancers could charm.
No use for low quality pelts - no leather padding and no bags.
No use for spiderling silk.
Best use for high quality bear pelts was to turn them into Chandra Miller for a cloak - no backpacks.
Class experience penalties.
No brewing components in Halas. Had a brew barrel, lots of bars, but no pieces. Also not sure about Fletching components.
Trolls had to smith in Oggok.
The planes (all two of them) were where you went to get gear and lose exp.


Just weird:
some smithing container recipes would return a file when the combine didn't have one (I think that's fixed)


Ah, memory lane...

Note on the ten slot large sewing kit - that was only around a couple of months at most.

[Draggar]

Pratice disarm by giving an orc pawn a rusty dagger, then disarm him, give it back, etc...

By that, you could also lower the attack rating of other creatures by giving them a rusty dagger...

As someone mentioned, picking trader's pockets in the Bazaar.. (Bad for you, good for me)

Hide and sneak across an entire zone... without any speed enhancement..

Morning dews were easier to forage

By Chenier
Two words:

KIZDEAN DIX

Add Divinn, Crush, Dorn.....

[Draggar]

Originally posted by Heartsong_Steelsoul
Things that were harder:
The search for a bind.

OMG - I remember once sitting outside the WFP gates begging for a bind for over 2 hours (real time) once, I even offered all my money (a whopping 5PP!)

Level one monsters yielded no drops, and if they did, they fetched you a few copper

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by Nimphe Wildwood
Ding Ding Ding...Dryanna gets a Cookie! Glass of milk with that sis? /hugs

Yes, Allakhazam and Baelish (CR) both played on THE One and Only True Server Povar. Name another famous EQ person who used to also play on Povar *excluding Lilosh lol* and get a brownie point!

R.A. Salvatore?


And me, of course.


-Lilosh

[Nimphe Wildwood]

Nope.

Answer is "Olethros once barbarian Shamaness and now Beastlord of the Povar server" of the famed EverQuest The Animated Adventures.

[Lilosh]

But R.A. Salvatore admitted to playing on Povar on more then one occasion.


:-(


-Lilosh

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Irontaail the Mad of the Plane of Mischief is on Povar.

There were no Looms. That made it harder for a newbie, anyway...

There was the original cruddy jewelcraft, immortalized on castersrealm when it comes back up...

Um, Castersrealm originally had just jewelry stuff on it. And then just Enchanter's info.