IRL - What's your tale? - (What brought you to MacroQuest/RedGuides) (1 Viewer)

[RogueDuce]

Be warned, this is a long tale… Some might say a sad tale. A tale of woe, and lost innocence.

…

It all started with that first taste of EverQuest’s sweetness, back in 1999. I was there, and it was glorious.

The next 2 years where a whirlwind romance… If I wasn’t in the field, I was in EverQuest, and it was good.

But then a younger MMO caught my eye… Just this once, I told myself… It won’t happen again…

But it did.

Again, and again… and again.

After several flings, with newer and prettier MMO’s, I realized one day that none of it was any fun anymore… I was going through the motions, looking for adventure and whatever came my way, as they say. But more and more, all I was finding were milquetoast skinner-boxes, trying to be everything to everyone, all dressed up in their pretty MMO dresses, slathered in their challenging RPG makeup; but really, just selling themselves for a cheap buck…

And you too could mount up, and ride that train, for an extra $20, $40, or more.

I lost my way… Swore off MMO’s entirely. Cold turkey… Didn’t look back for over a decade.

Until one day… Late 2018, something changed. I honestly can’t remember what it was, or if it was anything at all really, only that for some reason I found myself curious.

What ever happened with EverQuest?

So I started a totally new account, and began playing a FTP character on the FV server. I figured, it was free trade loot, and had an EXP bonus… Win, win! Most of my old characters where on older servers, so I didn’t bother spinning up old accounts… yet.

By the time I hit Level 12, I figured I’d see which of my old accounts I could still log in to…

Sweet, they’re all accessible!

And Whats this? Heroic characters? Sign me up!

Took an old account, and bought an 85 Heroic slot… Logged into my old server, intent to bump up my old main, when it occurred to me that my old server was kind of dead. Not totally, but 9 of 10 people I saw in PoK were AFK farming buffs, and only about half a dozen people were actually chatting on General, etc… It might as well have been dead.

So I figured, I’d follow through with my first impulse. Logged into FV, and made myself a Heroic Druid. I figured I could quickly get around, and buff up alts at whim. Especially with that EXP bonus!

Only, I had no idea what half of what I was looking at, actually did.

Back when I walked away, AA’s had not been around long, and I had never actually earned a single one. Now, it seemed that AA’s were granting me abilities, like spells?!? And so many new buttons?!?

So, I turned off my brain and went into nostalgia mode… I was freacking level 85!! The highest level I had ever reached back when I played was like 52… (don’t ask… Lots and lots of alts) So, I immediately went storming though all my old nemesis dungeons, AOE blasting everything in sight… For the first time, I saw things I had only heard of… and it was good.

I did this for the entire weekend. I found myself banking all the oldies and goodies, being amazed at how easy it was to just empty entire old zones and walk out with 500pp worth of loot! …(heh)…

It, was somewhat satisfying… But it started to get old… Fast.

One evening, not long later, I found myself stuck in some new zone… again… and wondering which of the dozens of new transport spells I had, sent me to which of the hundreds of zones that now existed… When it dawned on me, that I wasn’t having fun anymore. Half of these bells and whistles I was looking at made no sense. None of the gear I was finding from these Hot Zones where worth wearing. It was like EverQuest was a totally different game, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

Then it downed on me… Maybe I could just re-experience the WHOLE thing, all over again on a TLP?

That way, I could learn with each new expansion! And hopefully have fun doing so!

Enter, the Coirnav TLP, all new and pretty. In 2018, It had been the newest of the now growing TLP servers, and had just unlocked Velious. I thought, sweet! It’s still in the original three! It would be like I was going back in time, to just around the time I started getting pulled away from the game… This will be fun, right?

I figured; I would roll up a Cleric… They are always in demand, and I never actually leveled one back in the day, so the newness, and all; might keep things fresh...

I spent the next two weeks, hitting the same half dozen buttons over and over and over again… While everyone else had all the fun. Then, by the time I hit the mid 30’s, no one needed a Cleric anymore. Seems they were doing just fine with their twinked out Shaman, and even Druids. Rangers were tanking?!? What is this?!? Nothing made any sense, except for the hour-long LFG’s and the short-lived groups…

Then it downed on me that the mid to late 30’s is right around that time that the twinks were able to group up with nearly maxed out mains, and get PL’d the rest of the way, rather quickly. I was unlikely to find anything close to the number of groups needing a non-twinked Cleric.

After another week or so of logging in, and trying to enjoy myself LFG-soloing a Cleric, I logged out and didn’t look back.

Well, for about two years…

As before, I honestly can’t remember why, but something got me thinking about EverQuest again. And wouldn't you know it, there was still a Test Server?!? I remember hearing about it, back in the day, but I always assumed it was a special place, you only got into if you knew someone, who knew someone. But, this was available right in the default patcher.

And what’s this?!? You get full access?!? And double EXP!?! And a free boost to level 25!!!

Where have you been all my life, oh you beautiful thing, you???

So… I found myself, yet again, staring at the character creation screen wondering what on earth I was going to play this time… You see, I didn’t know about the ‘testcopy’ command, or I would have just copied over my Heroic Druid and been done with it… But I was fortunate, because I didn’t. Instead, I asked myself, like when I started on Coirnav, what haven’t I played much before??

The answer was a resounding… Shadowknight. An Ogre Shadowknight, to be exact. I had never actually played an Ogre either… Go figure.

So I immediately buffed him to Level 25. Then, casually strode into PoK.

It was at that point I found myself doing something similar to what I first made my Heroic Druid… Having skipped all those levels, I stood there, next to the Blightfire TP, looking through my spells and skills, and setting up my UI, when someone walked up to me and struck up a conversation.

They where REALLY NICE too… The conversation turned to them asking to show me around. Why would I refuse? The EXP bonus on test helped a lot… In no time at all it was 3am, my SK was already in the 50’s, and I had to be at work in 4 hours… and it was good.

Oh, and I had been introduced to this new chat program called Discord… (heh)

That very next night, the two of us were at it again… They pulled out all their Alts, of all sorts of levels, each one at the right level to PL me into the next 20 or so levels… By the end of the third evening, and what was probably about a total of 12 hours? I was nearly max level… And during it all, they made several mentions of these things called Custom Servers, and MacroQuest…

Sweet!! Right??

I figured, sure… I may not know what any of these spells do yet. I had only the AA’s I got from finely enabling Auto Grant, and knew even less about them… It was like my Heroic Druid all over again. But I told myself, it’s ok… I can always ask them. They are cool… right?

Well, apparently real life struck them harder than me… Late nights, for a week, are fine when you have no obligations. But they had a newborn, and a spouse. And apparently a budget, that didn’t include playing EverQuest for a while… So there I was. Again… trying to play a character I had no idea how too, and not having any fun doing it.

But I did remember this thing they mentioned, called MacroQuest… Apparently, it lets you automate a lot of things, making playing whole groups at once, possible…

Diving into the forums, lead me for RedGuides. And I can not say how gald I am that you guys are here, doing this. It's literally saved my love of EverQuest.

Since then, I’ve come and gone from EQ a few more times. But I get the feeling I am ready to stick around a bit longer this time. Probably because the reasons I have are clear, and my eyes aren’t clouded by the nostalgia of youth any more.

I think I know what I’m in for… and it is good.

The’End.


Hope you enjoyed that… And PLEASE share your story, however long or short it may be.

 

[an_image]

We’re gald you’re here too @RogueDeus

 

[RogueDuce]

We’re gald you’re here too @RogueDeus

I think I got a little carried away... The sarcasm I attempted isn't normal for me, and might come off a bit... odd.


(Edit: You and I joined on the same day.)

 

[2ndGoat]

Back in Classic through Velious, I watched my neighbor play EQ. For hours. Occasionally, he'd let me jump in and play my wood elf druid on his account, but generally I just sat there and watched, enthralled.

Then I got to college and made my own account right before OoW was released. Then a friend told me about "boxing" and eventually handed over the reins of his account when he left EQ. I ran a zerk/dru combo fairly effectively up through DoN, then got burnt out with the hardcore raiding scene and left for WoW.

I had converted to Mac by that time, so I got rid of my old PC and thought I'd never see EQ again. A handful of years later, I learned about Al`Kabor, the Mac server that stopped at PoP. I made a wizard. Then a SK. Then a shm. Then a monk. It was glorious. I could 4-box on my little Macbook just fine and had a blast doing it. Eventually, my wife got tired of me playing video games and asked me to stop. Recognizing the issue - conveniently timed to the imminent shut-down of Al`Kabor - I again uninstalled for what I thought was the last time.

I was wrong.

About a year and a half ago, I recovered my old account in the hopes of getting a couple hundred bucks out of it on ECTunnel or Player Auctions. Once it was re-activated, I looked at the PC I was using and thought, "hmm... could I?" So I logged in, found my server dead, and of course nobody I used to game with over a decade earlier was still online with their same toons, so I started a new three-box (SK, Shm, Wiz) and leveled to mid-40s running that crew. I met a few new people, had a good time grouping, and then someone suggested a server with a higher population that he played on with his main.

I started there - again, from scratch - but this time I knew I could 4-box fairly effectively (alt-tabbing) and made SK, BRD, DRU, ZERK and went for it. I am an alt-aholic, so I mix-and-matched a bunch, but wound up with SK, SHM, ZERK, BARD, still alt-tabbing and using mercs to heal. I knew about MQ from my earlier days, but never wanted to figure out how to compile things, so I just ground around with alt-tabbing.

Then I wanted to start farming missions and baz items to help pay for the subs so I wouldn't spend real $ on the game. That led me to digging into how to do it, which led me to RedGuides, which then led me to a whole new world of EQ.

Now, I've got 1 crew that's almost fully max AA and I've started a second.

And I'm already thinking about a third...

 

[Cybris]

Set the Wayback machine to 2005. I was into running Showeq on a Linux box. I would check zones for raid targets another guildmate said he used macroquest and I was like what's that he was like it has more features but has the same functionality as Showeq.

One day I was looking for plat-making guides red guides had one I paid for it and found that Redguides also had people doing MQ2 complies and it brought back to my mind what my guildmate told me about MQ. I learned how to compile MQ2 and even shared them on Redguides.

I would come back to EQ on and off through the years and Redguides too. I always come back to EQ.

 

[Doc James]

Well my story isn't quite as in depth as yours. But interesting read!

I was in the game since beta, quit and came back about a half dozen times to date. Most of my breaks were not due to other games drawing me away, but personal advancement opportunities such as changing jobs, and working on my PhD. Finally broke down a couple years ago, and started using MQ to make life a lot easier (this is when I found RG). Between my job, family, and hobbies, I really don't have time to figure things out without MQ. It has allowed my wife and I to enjoy the game without a time sink of looking for groups, or being stuck with merc play.

Glad to have you here! Enjoy, and keep the stories coming!

 

[Shadow]

Well, I played since release and raided every expansion through Solteris with the same guild. I had multiple accounts and I used a different 3rd party suite back in the day to help manage. I legitimately 3 boxed for a very long time (3x computers, 3x monitors) and it was a lot of fun. Solteris burned us out. A lot of us left and we went to World of Warcraft.

With WoW, I played a multitude of classes but started with a Warrior and Priest 2 box combo. I got in and geared just a couple of months before The Burning Crusade expansion. I did the race like everyone else, and I was the first person to legit reach level 70 with 2 toons simultaneously. I think I was 1 day behind the world's first 70 guy. There still might be archived posts on MMO Champion. The collection questlines sucked, because back then you had to collect everything twice, once for each toon. Hence the slowdown. Additionally, I was on a PvP server so there were also some slowdowns for deaths. Plus I think I got munched by Megatron once or twice.

I bounced back and forth for a very long time between raiding at the top tiers in WoW, and FPS games. I would raid a couple of tiers in the World/US First races, take a break for a tier, come back again for a couple more races, etc. Jumped around a bit in some guilds during that time with Adept (World 9th 25m T11), and was the MT in Nightmare Asylum (US 1st 10m T15/16, US 2nd T14).

Left WoW for a stint in SWTOR and was in CKN (Cali Killed Nox) as the MT there for a few tiers pushing world firsts as well. After SWTOR, I ended up going back to FPS games for a bit, work, family, stuff. I came back to EQ in February 2022. I went back to the original 3rd party site I used back in the early 2000's but it went downhill, and wasn't as active as I remember. I heard about the CWTN plugins from here while doing research, and made the switch.

While I have taken breaks, sold accounts, decided to come back, sold accounts, come back, etc...every time I think I am quitting for good, something keeps drawing me back. So here I am, still.

 

[Doc James]

Well, I played since release and raided every expansion through Solteris with the same guild. I had multiple accounts and I used a different 3rd party suite back in the day to help manage. I legitimately 3 boxed for a very long time (3x computers, 3x monitors) and it was a lot of fun. Solteris burned us out. A lot of us left and we went to World of Warcraft.

With WoW, I played a multitude of classes but started with a Warrior and Priest 2 box combo. I got in and geared just a couple of months before The Burning Crusade expansion. I did the race like everyone else, and I was the first person to legit reach level 70 with 2 toons simultaneously. I think I was 1 day behind the world's first 70 guy. There still might be archived posts on MMO Champion. The collection questlines sucked, because back then you had to collect everything twice, once for each toon. Hence the slowdown. Additionally, I was on a PvP server so there were also some slowdowns for deaths. Plus I think I got munched by Megatron once or twice.

I bounced back and forth for a very long time between raiding at the top tiers in WoW, and FPS games. I would raid a couple of tiers in the World/US First races, take a break for a tier, come back again for a couple more races, etc. Jumped around a bit in some guilds during that time with Adept (World 9th 25m T11), and was the MT in Nightmare Asylum (US 1st 10m T15/16, US 2nd T14).

Left WoW for a stint in SWTOR and was in CKN (Cali Killed Nox) as the MT there for a few tiers pushing world firsts as well. After SWTOR, I ended up going back to FPS games for a bit, work, family, stuff. I came back to EQ in February 2022. I went back to the original 3rd party site I used back in the early 2000's but it went downhill, and wasn't as active as I remember. I heard about the CWTN plugins from here while doing research, and made the switch.

While I have taken breaks, sold accounts, decided to come back, sold accounts, come back, etc...every time I think I am quitting for good, something keeps drawing me back. So here I am, still.

Well thanks for sticking around! 🙌 🍻