The best of the year!  Podcast #58 will celebrate 10 years of EverQuest and St. Patrick's Day!!

The plan is

Interview #1 - EQ CRM Round Table - Alan Crosby, Alan VanCouvering, Tina Delzer, and Lydia Pope

Interview #2 - Josh "Autenil" Kriegshauser from the EQII team

Fun Feature #1 - Grumpy Old Gamer

Fun Feature #2 - Warm and Fuzzy Time, we want your EverQuest Memories.  It's been 10 years you've got to have something

If you have questions for the EQ CRMs past and present or Autenil, or even the Grumpy Old Gamer ask them in this thread.  Please post your EQ Memories here as well!!

We will be adding some Bailey's to our coffee this Podcast!  YUMMERS!  Don't forget to submit your listener emails!!

Fitting that you irish up your coffee for st patty's day...

One of my favorite EQ memories was back on stormhammer in the early days, before the release of the planes of power expansion.  There was this week long series of GM run quests trying to find and save 'the benevolent knight' that a bunch of the server was involved in. The last part was going really late, and the raid had just finished clearing fear and saving the GMNPC.  It was well past midnight eastern, close to 2am, by this time and all that was left was dividing the loot and going home.  I was too tired to stay up, and, being in college at the time, had classes in the morning, so I gated back to the bazaar and just turned my monitor off, flopping into bed.     Well, apperantly in the process of giving out the rewards they gave out a few titles to a few who were at every part of the event and RPed and the like.   The rest of this was told to me after the fact.  The GM NPC apperantly called my name asking for me to step forward... but i wasnt there.  Thinking i had just gated and was still online, I was summoned back to fear... very much already in bed and sleeping.  The GM poked me a few times, and they waved at me and called my name... to no response.  He then had the people in fear give suggestions for a title for me, and everyone in fear made suggestions and voted.   In the morning I woke up went to classes, and came back during some free periods and browed around the bazaar.  It wasnt even for a full 20 minutes or so until I even noticed the title.   At that time i didnt play in 3rd person / chase camera mode, so I didnt see it above my head, and only finally noticed it in my player info window where the character surname is displayed.

For the Grumpy Old Gamer:

Have you tried Dawn of War 2?

What do you think of the Sims phenonomen?

You should try playing an Entertainer in SWG, it might make you less grumpy!

I had a young female dwarf pally with black armor and a red beard & mustashe, a rare character I was told in those days; being a real female.  I had gone to Rivervale, and had to travel thru Kithor Forest, I think it was....well the skellies there had killed me so many times I was naked.  I gave a call out for help getting thru this dangerous area, and a brave dark elf came to my rescue.  He killed the skellies, and because I was naked, he became naked too.  He was the most beautiful sight that little dwarf had ever seen.  The dwarfee fell in love with this brave young dark elf, and we became close friends afterwards.  We had many fun adventures especially in the Oaiss of Marr.  I'll always remember my DE in shinning armor coming to my rescue.

I always enjoy hearing from the Community Relations Managers - their views of the games they represent and the players of those games. It will be nice to hear from Ms. Pope (Zatozia) again. She once was the CRM of EverQuest Online Adventures and was a fun person to interact with. It has been quite a while since we heard from her. I certainly enjoyed her writing on the podramedies. Please, let her know that I said "Hello!"

A general question to our podcast team, and please answer in the podcast so that more people will hear the answer: Will any SOE game become involved with SCEAs Home? I think this will be a great way to introduce SOE MMORPGs to those players who are not aware of them and the community who support such games.

Be seeing you. Ciao!

This is one of my first experiences in EQ from early 2001.

My first character I played in EQ was a half elf warrior starting in Freeport.  Now, some friends who were always chatting about EQ is a large part of why I started playing.  Some of them were starting a guild, in Qeynos.  So I was a mighty level 6 at the time they petitioned to have the guild set up.  This was back in the day you needed 10 people together in the same zone when the GM came to create your guild.  So I got to make the fun run of Freeport to Qeynos without any form of maps, how many zones to travel, or idea of how zones connected!

Luckily these were my friends, so they advised me to put all my gear in the bank since I would probably die at least 1 time on my run.  They were so optimistic!  So I stripped off my gear, put all my money away, and begged a sow off someone near the Freeport gate.  Time to start running!  Amazingly, I made it all the way to Kithikor before my first death.  I did not even see what hit me as I was running straight down the middle of the zone at night!  Oops!  My friends forgot to warn my about that one.  They did get a good laugh though!

I had many deaths and had become a frequent begger for sow.  One person started standing at my bind point in Freeport just waiting for me to pop back up.  They would giggle, buff me, and wish me luck on this attempt. 

By this point I was getting so many tells with advice of how to avoid death.  I mastered the art of running along the Kithikor zone walls finally!  A friend who was so uber to be a level 29 ranger had started to run to me to help guide me.  We had just crossed the bride into North Karana I believe it was when he went linkdead.  I could click on mobs and everything was so very much a red con to me there.  I received a lot of tells not to move!

Now, I had heard the story from my linkdead ranger friend so many times telling me about GrimFeather.  He told the tale of how GrimFeather had followed him through 3 zones once before he got away.  This mob had to be so scary if it followed you through zones!  I had never seen a mob zone while chasing me before.  I was almost shaking while I waited for him to come back to be able to defend me.   

So about 20 minutes go by and my friend has not been able to get back in game yet.  He played on dial up, so I could not call.  So another friend decided to try and instruct me.  West Karana was an easy one to run through, but I kept asking about 20 times how long I was supposed to run along the water edge. 

I was just about to zone into Qeynos when my ranger friend came back.  I ran up to the gates where I was bound immediately as to avoid any more traveling.  There was much cheering by those assembled for the guild creation and in my tells.  The person waiting at my Freeport bind spot was sad!

We had fun sitting around and chatting while waiting on the GM to come create the guild.  We got the guild created that evening though!

So, after it was all done and we could go out and play and explore as guildmates…I was asked in guild, “So Suli, do you want help running back to Freeport now?”

I soon discovered Qeynos was a lovely city.  I learned 3 very important things there.  The Karanas are not quite so scary, GrimFeather really does NOT follow you when you zone, and that druids were the best class ever!  I retired my baby warrior and my half elf druid was born.  A half elf of course so I could start near Qeynos.  Just in case….

One of my early days, I'd say maybe March of '02, I was adventuring in Unrest with a friend.  Two rangers, duoing courtyards, competing with one another and having a blast.  I was pulling...and boy howdy, did I ever pull...  I turned around and dear sweet Tunare, there were so many zombies and beetles and jack o' lanterns I couldn't even count.  Her and I stood our ground.  Being the chivalrous type, I took the beats while she kept me alive and did some damage.  Those huge early level Ranger 10 point heals where a flyin'.  Down to the last few mobs, and I fall unconscious.  She purple clubs me with a ten-point heal, and by some miracle of Norrath, I don't get blood aggro and everything jumps her.  I limped my way back to the zone line while she holds everything off.  I'm there a bit licking my wounds and freaking out and thinking she's going to have this crazy run from Greater Faydark back to Unrest when she pops up in front of me.

"We won."

This story is one of the defining moments of why I love EverQuest and the world of Norrath so much.

If by some chance, the folks that played Loranil, Flonaten, and Morialis on Firiona Vie hear this, you are missed.

/salute,

Kundow Firevine

Back in the day there was this place called North Freeport.  People used to spend hours there selling their goods around the bank, behind the Jade Inn, or down in the sewers.  Oh the good ole days.

I guess I have to give some props to EQ even though I've never played it (I'm not a fantasy fan).  If EQ never existed then SWG quite possibly would never have been created.  So in an indirect way, without EQ I probably wouldn't have gotten into MMO's - at least not as early on as I did.

Matt_NZ wrote:

I guess I have to give some props to EQ even though I've never played it (I'm not a fantasy fan).  If EQ never existed then SWG quite possibly would never have been created.  So in an indirect way, without EQ I probably wouldn't have gotten into MMO's - at least not as early on as I did.

I think SWG was influenced more by Ultima Online (at least in the original form that EQ) although I suspect without the success of EQ SOE would not have built SWG.

NeillM wrote:

Matt_NZ wrote:

I guess I have to give some props to EQ even though I've never played it (I'm not a fantasy fan).  If EQ never existed then SWG quite possibly would never have been created.  So in an indirect way, without EQ I probably wouldn't have gotten into MMO's - at least not as early on as I did.

I think SWG was influenced more by Ultima Online (at least in the original form that EQ) although I suspect without the success of EQ SOE would not have built SWG.

Yeah, that's more what I meant   LA probably wouldn't have picked SOE for SWG if they didn't have the success/experience of EQ.

Absolutely hands down the most fun I ever had in EQ was playing on the old PVP Team servers - Tallon Zek and Vallon Zek.  What a blast!!  For those that don't remember or if that was before your time those were the two PVP team servers where the players were assigned to a team.  There were four teams - the "Human team" or blue team which was made up of humans, barbarians and erudites.  The "Elf team" (whose names were in yellow) were the wood, high and half elves.  The "Shorty team" (pink names) were halflings, gnomes and dwarves and finally the "Evil team" (dark orange names) were dark elves, trolls and ogres.   When the first expansion came out the Iksar were put on the evil team.

The zones were "owned" by one team or another based on proxmity to the home cities.  You can look at the map of the original world and pretty much figure out who owned what.  The humans in Freeport, well they just had it rough cause they were surrounded by Darkies on all sides and the east and west Freeport zones were litte more than hunting grounds for the Darkies preying on newbie humans.  So most humans started out of Qeynos but still Freeport and the West Commonlands were the site of many great battles! 

For whatever reason - I tend to think it's because they had control over the best zones - Guk, Oasis, Desert of Ro, Lavastorm, WC etc. the Darkie team grew to be the biggest team and were about the same size as the other three teams combined.  So an unofficial truce (for the most part) developed between the humans, elves and shorties and most of the players adopted a "light vs dark" team mentality.  But there were some "pureist" guilds that started to pop up that wanted to play along strict team lines but most played by the "light vs dark" rules.   You could attack anybody on a different team (within an 8 level PVP range) but we just chose not to.

Now you could almost always count on LOTS of action in West Commons, West Freeport and Nek forest!  The darkies would usually form up at the Nek zone and move to Freeport to hunt newbies and sometimes the lighties would rally and push them back out.  But for the most part these zones were owned by the darkies.  Now you might realize by now that there is the potential for a hell of a lot of fun as an enchanter with all those racial illusions!  I started a human enchanter in Freeport and along with a couple other hardy lighties managed to lvl up to 12.  Then it was time for some payback!

My most favorite trick was to sneak up to the hill that faced the Nek Forest zone in WC, the ones that were right next to those abandoned huts and do a minor illusion which turned me into a tree.  I could sit there and spy and report on darkie movements but whenever a darkweed snake would walk by I would charm it and send it after the darkies sitting at the nek zone recovering from battles, all while I am under the tree illusion LOL!  This was not without risk however as charm breaks and the snake turns on me and at lvl 12 that can hurt!  But it worked well enough most of the time!  Darkweeds were indifferent to everyone by default so a lot of times the darkies were wondering "Why is this snake attacking me?  I didn't hit it!!"  LOL

One day the Darkies launched a major coordinated invasion of Qeynos Hills and Blackburrow.  Now back in those days crossing the continent into enemy territory with no PoP books to click on was no small matter.  It was a long overland run and if you died and weren't bound close your corpse could be in enemy territory and you could be facing a nasty corpse retrieval.  But they did it anyway and they did it in large numbers.  Before this event I had only ever heard or seen one or two darkies in the Qeynos area and as soon as word got out that one was in the zone everyone swarmed to try and find them so they usually had to run - either camping out or gating or something.  So my enchanter and a couple other lighties are hanging out by the entrance to BlackBurrow when someone shouts "Darkies in the zone"!!  So we figure hey let's go watch the fun and start to head for the West Karana zoneline.  Bad move - we got steamrolled, LOL. 

There must have been about 50 darkies of all level ranges pouring into Qeynos hills.  They headed straight for BB and set up camp right there.  Some went inside BB and some stayed out.  Some small groups of lighties came in and got two or three groups together to counterattack but they didnt have a chance.  They occupied BB and Qeynos Hills for hours until finally enough lighties had gathered in Qeynos to launch a counterattack!  We ran towards BB and engaged the darkies.  I did a dark elf illusion and in the chaos ran around the flank and got in the rear of the darkie mob - what a rush, LOL.  I started to cast Tash on the darkies standing right next to their healers and all in the rear.  After about a minute one of the trolls figured out who I was and started whacking me so I ran for the BB zone and zoned in.  I don't think he followed me so as soon as I zoned I gated back to Qeynos.   By the time I got back to the fray the darkies had been pushed inside BB and there was a standoff at the zoneline.  That happened a lot back then - fighting at the zonelines.  Zoning out to escape or jumping somebody as soon as they zone in.  Kind of lame, yeah but that's just the way it worked.  I can't remember exactly how it ended but eventually the lighties pushed their way into BB and most of the darkies had logged off or gated.  The lighties celebrated but I think the darkies had proved their point.  They had held Qeynos Hills and BlackBurrow for hours and we couldn't kick them out!  A /salute to all the darkies who came to Qeynos that day!!

After Velious came out the PvP action dropped off a bit as the new expansion was explored.  But in my opinion what really killed the PvP team servers was when guilds started recruiting from all the teams.  In a way I guess the "lightie vs darkie" mentality led to this.  It began to seem like the light teams had grown and surpassed the dark team so 3 vs 1 was no longer fair.  I much rather would have seen an adjustment to the light vs dark teams than to see guilds start recruiting anybody and totally disregard the teams.  Guilds also recognized that by including members from all the teams they could get all the items from all the various areas so naturally this eventually took over but in the end I think it ruined the team pvp.  People are going to help a guild member and put the guild above a team member as defined by the game.  But it was great while it lasted - especially in the early days!  Tallon Zek forever!!!

Could you wish Valara, the outgoing SWG Community Manager, well on the podcast! I think we are going to miss her, I know it was a pleasure working with her when I was in the Senate and great to meet her at FanFaire last year.

hehe since you occasionally like to mention funny posts on the podcast:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/...topic_id=873005

You should look at the Hamster loot card on page 3 too