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

RogueDuce

Active member
Joined
Oct 25, 2020
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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.
 
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We’re gald you’re here too @RogueDeus

Joining Welcome Home GIF
 
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...
 
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.
 
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! :D
 
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, 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! 🙌 🍻 :)
 
I'd grown up playing EQ since I was about 9 years old (Around the time Velious was out, I had played every class to around level 14.) In those days, there was constant New Player Seeks Help spam in every starting zone. I remember receiving a Coldain Dwarf Velious Ice Shield or whatever it was called, the shimmering icy-see-through kind. That was always my favorite graphic in the game. I played on-and-off, mostly P99 Blue when it launched. I got into boxing around Ragefire when I had a lot of spare cash. I got into automation using kissassist and these forums around 2016. Me and my brother played a little, I got an IS Boxer sub and loaded some toons with kissassist.

Then the true-box server Agnarr came out and I bought 8 old military laptops and connected them with software that allowed me to use one mouse/keyboard and just a lot of hotbuttons, you could drag your mouse over each screen and spam the button needed. It took me about 9 months to get it right using completely legitimate means, but it was burn-out city. By the time I was able to run a whole crew I was looking at the game from the wrong perspective. Instead of playing and enjoying the progress, I wanted to have my characters at 60 so all I had to focus on was gearing, so I bought 8 toons, got them going, then promptly stopped playing and still have not returned to them.

But recently, what got me BACK here, is that I've decided EverQuest is my MMO. It's the one I want to play, I'd rather do this as a long-term hobby and enjoy it in ways I have not yet.

I know classic everquest like the back of my hand. New Everquest is confusing and strange.
So I decided if I want to box 6 characters I'm going to use the new CWTN/Sic projects and run a Level 100 heroic 6 box.
They are level 108 so far!

I feel like I can learn the game without burning out now, but I would still like to enjoy the social dynamic of the game.
 
I started playing in 2000/2001, didnt raid until 2004 and quit in 2005 for the first time, came back in 2008/2009, again in 2011, 2014, 2016 for phinny, 2020 and 2021.

I always quit for the same reasons, lack of groups so I was just bored and boxing my own group was tedious to do at a reasonably high level (War, sham, bard, mage).

during my 2020 run I noticed a guy in scorched woods at the sarnak fort. He had 7-8 characters there and he was just mass slaughtering with a 110 SK and 2 zerkers. I was working on my Hunter at the time so I usually messaged the tank (I assumed the one he had eyes on the most) and asked a few times if I could steal a named kill and give him the loot. I was never answered. I thought the ability to automate the group was really cool.

So I quit again early 2020, played Wow Classic which I left because of the toxicity, FF14 was awesome but wasn't quite scratching the itch and SWTOR gear system wasn't keeping me engaged (basically you upgraded incrementally based on your item level, so you could run a dungeon and a grp mate would get top I-lvl stuff versus my mid tier reward for the same task). I remembered this dude in scorched woods and thought to myself, "Screw it, I'm going to try this automated stuff and see what I think."

So I did some google searching for macroquest and automated EQ and came across redguides. Watched some videos, joined up and rolled 6 new accounts on test server. I played around for a week learning kissassist, levelling the grp and doing epics. I was having an absolute blast going through the game at my pace, doing what I wanted with a functioning group that was exceeding my expectations in performance. I loved the change in how I veiwed the game, went from playing 1 character to playing 6 in a high fantasy medival party manager sense and I loved having a group of chars that I loved equally. I jumped in and piloted whoever I wanted that day and it was great.
My DPS went from 300-500 in my manual boxed group to over 1 million. I was flabergasted by this change so I decided to make the switch to live and try the FV server.

Made 1 group, got to level 110, geared them up and max AA'd just in time for the massive ban wave to catch 3 of my 6 characters. This killed a bit of my interest in the game, not that i was surprised or angry because I knew what I was getting into. I was more frustrated by this time because of how prevalent I knew automated boxing was becoming. I started to notice it quite often and in many places. I was baffled by darkpaws inability to come up with a way to capitalize or monetize something that a large amount of players clearly wanted. Heck, even just letting a dude fill out a group of mercs that functioned a step above the current ones would have made a difference.

So I went off and played FF14 some more, tried GW2 again, WoW live and eventually stopped playing MMOs until late 2022/early 2023 when I was reading some EQ forums and guys were talking about the naggy/vox OMM rez stick. I thought it'd be funny to log in all my 85+ characters, run them through solteris quick and then try my hand at getting the rez stick. I completed the task and decided to expand the operation into trying to play the game for free. So for the majority of this year I've been levelling up characters, putting together groups and gearing them all up to start a bit of a farming operation to see how much krono I can generate on a half assed basis. I had 2 gold tanks, 1 full time gold bazaar mule and alternated gold on 14 more accounts to max AAs.

Currently I have (seperate accts):
(SKs and mule are gold)
sk/cle/enc/mag x3
sk/sham/bard/zerk/rogue/bst
1 bazaar mule

1 FTP group
SK/Cler/Sham/Enc/Mag/Mag

2 FTP gear mules
2 FTP tradeskill mules

6 lvl 90 forage bots (2 druis, 4 rangers in defiant gear and all forage AAs)

6 115 FTP farmers - 3 zerkers, 2 rogue, 1 bst
2 rangers for headshot PLing
1 PL account to roll FTP bards to PL with
1 druid for buffs/ports
1 wizzy for ports

6 test server accounts

1 account I play on mischief
3 FTP accounts on a traditional live server (SK,BST,Rog) to cash farm and buy lower cost krono than FV

Eventually going to do a 3-4 box on mischief and raid with 1 char seperate from my box group when relaxed truebox hits

So right now I'm just leaning into the automation I've gotten a lot better with kiss and making functional inis, making 6-10 krono per month as passively as I can and just enjoying the ride as covertly as I can until I'm hit with the next suspension wave. I don't run more than 8 or 9 characters at a time and try to change up locations I farm and where I set my guys up to stay as low key as I can.

I've thought about learning to code LUAs and macros and then make a raid crew but I havent taken the plunge yet. I've mainly used RG as a tool to keep my main character up to date and grind out the mindless tasks that I'd normally get burned out with. It keeps the game exciting and engaging when I'm not dreading about logging in to do a boring camp or sit and do tradeskills over and over because now I can do those tasks and just pay a small amount of attention to whats happening.
 
I’ve played EQ since the pretty much the “Days of Old” I watched the launch of PoK and was on the Prexus server.
I mained an Enchanter and had a blast for years. I always heard about the MQ squads when they started popping up I was always scared of loosing all I worked so hard to achieve in the game.
Like most folks when the shiny MMO Wow came on the scene and the server mergers and player population started happening, I have to admit I thought EQ was doomed. I didn’t want to keep sinking my time in a dieng game and left for Shiny new MMO

Years later I was bored and came back and was playing on Test and the box crews were everywhere. I talked to someone and they were like “No one cares anyway it’s test and your out nothing if they ban you anyway” I thought about it, and i ended up here and cranked out my box set and never looked back.
I have came and went few times but always come back crank up a 6 box set and have a ball doing it.
 
IRL - What's your tale? - (What brought you to MacroQuest/RedGuides)

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