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Question - Hello all, returning after many years (1 Viewer)

Raizun

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2019
RedCents
100¢
I originally played during the LDON era for a very short period of time. I was rather young and didn't know what a pvp server was when I picked it. The game was very immersive but the constant pvping was an annoyance especially when I didn't have much time to play. I stopped shortly after hitting lvl 65 and getting a few dozen AA. I logged in to my one and only account about 2 weeks ago in the Zek server and found it to be rather dead. Asking questions in the general chat wasn't helpful at all. You would think that a low population server would welcome new/returning players but instead I got idiotic responses. I left pok to do the hotzone quest only to be met by a player trying to kill my toon who had earlier told me to do those to level up. I gated back to pok and logged out.

I tried the test server and the community there is completely different. I'm sure a part of their generosity stems from being able to hand out copies of their items but the people themselves (except for a few oddballs) have been very kind and informative. I made a few accounts on test to mess around with different classes and have been letting the mercenaries do all my dirty work for me as I get familiar with eq again. This led me to want to try multi boxing so I searched google and found this place. I was wondering if you guys have a trial version of your program? I don't know if I'm going to be playing long term or whether I should play on a normal server over test so I don't want to sub right away. If you guys have any suggestions on what server is best to start with and what kind of class setup up I should have for my first group please let me know. I picked test since it's gold membership but it feels like cheating with all the plat/items floating around. The classes I have in mind are war/cleric/bard/wizard.
 
First off, welcome back!

Second, you perfectly outlined why I dislike PVP servers. I stick to the "carebear" ones as, even with those restrictions you run into utter dicks... but at least the damage they can do to you is somewhat limited and has a few recourses.

As for a trial of RG's version of MQ... afraid not no. How ever an existing member can gift you a month or so of membership so you can test run things. I have never done as such before myself, but will give it a go. If things go right, you ought to have "level 2 access"

If you go the main screen https://www.redguides.com/community/ on the right hand side you will see a download section. There are builds for test, live, and emulators. Pick the build you want to use and download it.

There is a bit of a learning curve (just like EQ, heh) but a lot of the things are very intuitive once you start to understand how things are set up.

As far as servers... the Time Lock servers pretty well drained a lot of players (and before you ask, the TL servers are somewhat off limits for MQ.....I would avoid them. Especially while you figure out how to use MQ) Live servers would be your best bet.

I stick to playing on The Rathe server. It has some helpful folks hanging out most any time of the day... but the pool of folks who actually pay attention tot he general chat is rather small considering the population. By that I mean, don't be suprised to see 200-300 folks on, but only like 5 folks actually responding to general chat, heh.

As far as playing EQ... it sounds like you are getting into things fairly well. I usually recommend folks make breand new characters as the new tutorial is very helpful in illustrating EQ controls. Also various places like The Magician's Tower • Index page have wiki pages for returning members which help highlight a lot of the changes over the years.

Basically... toons change a LOT after 65... and don't really come into power until after 80-85ish. And then it is like a dragonball Z thing where they keep powering up. Each 5 levels or so makes a huge difference, with the available gear at that time making a big difference.

You will find that AA's have an "autogrant": option. If you want to really learn your characters at the fundamental levels, it is best to work your way up the slow way, exploring what your character can do as it gains levels, and "build" them with AA options. How ever as you found, this is a lonely road, unless you know someone else also building toons with you.

If you rather get up to the point where you might get someone to group with you... autogrant will give all AA (except tradeskills) that your character has access to as it levels (may have to log out/zone to get it to kick in at times) thus, you can concentrate on PLing your toon up to level 100 (where autogrant currently stops I believe) and go from there.


Feel free to post questions, plenty of helpful folks here. Though I do recommend using the search function on MQ related questions first... there is a ton of info here already available =)
 
Thank you very much Warlock. I read through some of the material in the link you provided and it is very informative. I look forward to trying this program out tonight or at least messing around with it when I get home. I was reading the kissassist guide and it is explained well but I have a feeling it's going to take me some time to learn it. Especially, as I keep leveling and needing to change the spells frequently. Once again, thank you.
 
On the bright side, that time spent learning and making changes as you level pays off in the long run. Try and use the shared ini's as a source for information and learning, rather then just as an ini to be used for your class.

Cut and paste often means there may be some settings you haven't changed or used before changing some behaviours unexpected to you
 
Progress Update:

I got the program installed and running last night. For someone not computer savvy it took some time to do. The very first thing that seemed wrong to me at the time was the group window having 3 social tabs in it blocking a chunk of the group window. I thought the custom ui had borked somewhere. Two friendly members in discord chat explained it was normal. These extra features were part of the targetinfo window that are combined in the group window. I tried various things to get this sorted out and after spending more time on it than I care to admit the simplest solution was to just drag the group window and make it larger...ugh :)

After this I spent even more time tweaking the tank and caster client windows so the ui looked appealing and compact. I need some help with cycling the next eq window so I can 1 button tab instead of alt + tab. Someone in discord mentioned the backtick key being the default for this but it isn't working for me. I set the nextwindow (whatever it's called) parameter in macroquest.ini to 1 but that doesn't help either.

Besides the above problem, I changed a few things in the tanks .ini and was able to manually target a mob and start auto attack, mq2 would take over and kill the mob using the warriors combat skills and then auto loot. I couldn't figure out how I would make the tank auto target a mob and go kill it himself. It was getting late so I haven't gotten enough time to figure this one out yet, I will do more testing tonight.

Is setting the mq2eqbc server safe since it asks me to stop the firewall for it? I probably need this to box the group? I'm not suggesting I don't trust the program more so that do I need to take extra precautions with say someone who might use it as a means to get in to my computer (not from this community of course) but for example someone living next doors. I am only asking because I don't quite understand it. Is it just a harmless chat server that opens up a chat box like eq chat windows and nothing more or could it be a harm to my personal data?

Thanks for the help guys, it is fun trying to get this to work.
 
I would suggest simply making an exception for EQBC in the firewall program.

And unless you take the time to set it up properly, no one from the internet is going to access your EQBC. (I am assuming you are running it on the same machine you are using the toons. Takes a little more set up time to get it working over a home network, and even get it to work on the internet)
 
Personally I would suggest trying multiboxing manually, before going straight to MQ2. This may be a weird suggestion but to me it makes some sense. I think most people start multiboxing by doing things manually, and there are some advantages to it. For a start, there is a lot of technical setting up to make multiple boxing work, and there is a lot of technical setting up to make MQ2 work. I think if you had to do all of that at the same time, it could burn out your brain. Breaking this in to two parts might be a good idea. Also you might actually enjoy multiboxing manually, it can be extremely engaging and fun for some people. I think for everyone it is too much at first, but with (quite a lot of) practice you can tab back and forth between two characters and do some amazing things. I think even with just 2 characters, you can do a lot of the dungeons and nameds through most of the game. And doing content designed for 6 people with just 2 characters (and one person), is a big challenge and big thrill. Technically all you need to do is run the game twice, and then you can alt tab between the two characters and play them both together. Some things can help out like grouping them together and setting up a hotkey on one of them to auto follow the other one. Also you can use freebie software like AutoHotkey or macro software that comes with a posh mouse (like Logitech or whatever) to let you alt tab or even more, with just one press of a button.

And like I said, doing it all manually (or mostly manually) is something I think everyone should experience. In some ways it is like an old school tactical RPG, but instead of it being played with pause or turn based, you play it in real time in EQ which is very intense. No reloading a savegame if you screw up. Amazing experience really. Eventually you get good enough that you can't help but want to add a third character. At this point you can keep doing things manually, but it becomes even more intense, and no matter how good you are, there will be at least some loss in efficiency. While you are busy targetting something and hitting taunt or whatever on your first character, your other characters are standing still and doing nothing. That is not ideal, but you can still do really well if you get fast with it. Going beyond 3 characters is pretty brain boggling though. Also the more characters you add, the more of a chore it is to buff up. Some people don't seem to care about this but I hate buffing. Especially at lower levels when they only last 30 minutes or something. You are forever buffing...

MQ2 is not just "software that helps you box". I think of ISBoxer as "software that helps you box" because you still do things manually, and it broadcasts everything you do to the other characters. So you still play the game, and other characters follow your instructions. MQ2 is a lot better, more clever, and more advanced than that. It does have some stuff to help with boxing like a more advanced autofollow code, stuff to reduce CPU/GPU usage, etc. But with MQ2 you can set up what is essentially an AI Artificial Intelligence for each character. This can be as simple or advanced as you want. You could set it up to just follow you and cast buffs, but in time you can set it up to play a character as well as a real person. They do exactly what they are programmed to do, without hesitation every time. It never makes mistakes or gets tired or distracted, just acts perfectly every time. It is amazing to have characters set up to play themselves like that.

If you want to make progress through the game with minimal guidance from you personally, then MQ2 can do that better than anything. But it is worth bearing in mind that you can end up missing doing stuff yourself. Usually people will still 'drive' their main character which is usually a tank, and then the rest of the group (or a whole raid) will follow their lead and do their jobs automatically. But it means you wont get to tinker around with big nukes on your wizzy or save the day with split second snare from your druid or something. Because all of that will happen automatically every time. In other words, it is the best solution for making progress, but not necessarily the most fun way to play. Although going through the game, seeing all the dungeons, killing all the nameds, (or even all the raid content) all by yourself in charge of your one man army, is a lot of fun in itself. But my point is that you have the choice of how far you want to take it with MQ2. Also getting to this point requires quite a lot of tweaking to set up the characters to work well, and this can overwhelm people if they try to do it all in one go. So again I suggest doing it in stages over time. Gradually build up to do do exactly what you want it to do. After doing stuff manually you will really appreciate how powerful MQ2 is. But never lose sight of the fact that there can be a difference between playing for fun, or playing for the total annihilation of Norrath.

Keep in touch with people on this forum, it is extremely helpful and friendly too.
 
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Welcome Raizun,

I've taken a couple long breaks over my eq1 career, and each time the changes are unbelievable. I imagine you are in for quite an overwhelming task out the gate, but it does get easier.

You had mentioned you were looking at War/Clr/Brd/Wiz - There are definitely some find group makeups that include those 4 characters, altho in discussion it looks like people prefer to pair enchanters with casters (wizzies, mages, etc) and bards with melee (zerkers, rogues, beastlords, etc) --- btw I just got a zerker rolling this week and HOLY CRAP its like going on keto or crossfit, I just want to tell everyone about it.

Personally, if I were starting from day 1 I would do something like this (and this is just me, but I'll try and explain why)

SK, Clr, Bard, Zerk, Zerk, Bst and I would main the SK. SKs are great group content tanks, and they can FD (which as a necro main, I'm a junkie for FD), they can also PL really well, and are an overall fun class
SK - Great group content tank, huge AE aggro
CLR - Healsss
Bard - Huge Melee buffs, adps, cc, regen
Zerk - Massive, absolutely massive dps with little to no downtime
Bst - I really like my beastlord, has some group buffs, plus a pet in case things get sketchy


Some people like caster heavy groups

SK, CLR, ENC, MAG, WIZ, WIZ dropping the sham or wiz if you want to sub in something. rationale for each:
SK - Great group content tank, huge AE aggro
CLR - Healsss
MAG - cause they're so OP
WIZ - Great boom boom
ENC - cause you need that CC, slows, haste

William12 here once suggested:
pal, wiz, wiz, bard, enc, clr

Pal - great group tank with lots of self-sustain, heals etc
Wiz - Great Boom Boom
Bard - singing those caster songs
Enc - Twincast, caster buffs, CC, regen
Clr - healsss

Really a ton of good options

I currently run War, Clr, Bard, Necro, Beast, Zerker and I am having a really good time right now.

The nice thing about eq1 is no matter where you are there is stuff to do and it is enjoyable, and it pays for itself in the future via achievements unlocking future stuff etc.

This has a hell of a curve coming back after all of those years, but this is a great community and resource and the discord is active with people chatting if you have quick questions.

Good luck dude
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I really appreciate it.

I had the flu so was out of commission for a few days. I got mq2/KA running with simple settings in the character inis, got the eqbc set up along with mq2nav so far. I was able to get the characters (tank/cleric/bard) leveled up to around 57ish. In hunter mode the tank was going around in griegs end killing mobs on his own. The only major problem I have had with switching to mq2nav is that after the tank finds his target he will go to its location and kill it but if he has agroed more than 1 mob and said mob is just an arm's length away, perhaps beating on the cleric or another merc, the tank will stand in place and I will keep getting spammed with the out of melee range message until the merc kills the additional mobs. At this point the tank will select a new mob and mq2nav will set a path to it. It feels like the tank doesn't want to move away from his initial stop where he kills the mob until all agro is clear at which point he'll pick a new destination and rinse/repeat. I haven't had time to figure out what is causing this behavior yet due to getting sick but need to figure it out. Oh, the bard exhibits the same behavior as well and will get the out of melee range message. This did not happen prior to using mq2nav. Chatwiththisname was helping me figure it out last time I was playing and he recommended tweaking some melee range settings but it didn't work.

All in all, using this program has been fun. It hasn't been overwhelming since I have focused on getting bits of it working at a time. I'm in no rush to get it perfect any time soon either. So far I have been playing just the 3 classes mentioned above to keep it simple and have a tank/healer/dps merc to assist in the process while I learn to configure my own characters through the settings.

The reason I picked bard was for the speed he provides in getting around and the wizard for the ports. I am also going to level enchanter/mage/druid/sham for buffs etc. I like the idea of having a zerker in group for dps, I keep seeing that class mentioned a lot but I figured it would be helpful to get some support classes/buffs first and then worry about an efficient killing group later on.
 
Sounds like you're doin it right Raizun! Having fun should be the ultimate goal. Don't be shy asking questions or reading the old guides in the Strategies section - some really good info buried around here that is still valid today
 
Question - Hello all, returning after many years

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