The Glade 4.0

Hi All,

So around 2006/early '07, soon after the PoR expansion, I retired my 71 Ranger and 65 cleric, which I used to dual box (ok, Alt-tab box) and occasionally raid. At some point, life, kids, career and all just got to be too much.

Over half a decade later, I'm getting that old itch again. Life's still busy, but I can probably throw a couple of hours here and there to group, duo/solo for experience and AA's. The problem is, so much time (and so many expansions) have passed, I'm at a loss as to where to begin my re-introduction. I was hoping those of you still playing could help point me in the right direction:

1) Any resources on how to modify the UI, install maps, etc.? Its been so long, I've forgotten that kind of basic stuff. The old rig I used to play on's been gutted and eventually trashed, so have to re-install everything.

2) Any resources on the higher end game - ranger specific skills, spells, etc. past level 70?

3) Has the ranger role changed at all? Are we still mostly pullers and damager dealers + light tanks? Any new must-have spells or skills that I should learn about since PoR came out?

4) How does the mercenary thing work? Is it even viable at level 70+, if I use my own healer? Does it drain a lot of money? I really don't have any time for plat grinding/farming anymore.

5) How does the pricing work now? Do you pay per month, year, etc? Do I have to purchase all of the new expansions, or are they free now?

I have like a thousand more questions, but figure at some point, i'll have to get back in and figure it out as I go alone. Thanks for any tips, pointers, links, etc!

Rolyen Greenblade
71 Ranger, Soldier of Tunare
The Rathe server (originally Terris Thule)

I haven't played EQ PC in the last year or so, but I'm sporadically playing on Mac.

I was growing dis-interested already, but the Veil or Alaris beta finally killed desire for me- the mudflation of stats with each expansion had gotten out of control.

That said, here are my best answers to your questions:




Maps- some are in game, others you should be able to find through links on The Newbie Zone on the EQLive Forums.

UI- EQInterface, and install instructions are with the UIs.



I'd go to EQOutrider- good resources, including on returning players.



Rangers are pretty decent all arounders. As for skills- there are lots. EQOutriders is your best bet for all of it.



For a merc, your best bet is the cleric merc. I found the tank mercs to be relatively non-useful, although I did use a Cleric Merc on my Ranger and a rogue merc on my shaman on occasion to box. And the plat drain isn't immense, but if you've got low reserves, it's pretty significant.



For a "basic" sub, things are free. That might work for you. Expansions up to House of Thule are also included, from what I recall, but I haven't played since EQ went free-to-play. If you want full access, it's per month or per year, as you like.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Mapfiend for maps

At 85 be sure to get Flusterbolt...I've just recently used it while doing kill tasks in Argath with a level 92 warrior guild mate (I'm still 85, need more AAs before i level again). He absolutely loves it when I can boot the add away so we can concentrate on the mob in camp.

I will second NephyrS about EQOutriders...very good resource for rangers

Rasper's Repository- He has quit playing but his site is still up and has some very good information on progression for the last 5 or 6 expansions.

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Oh yeah, forgot about Raspers. He has great walkthroughs in progression, quests, etc.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Thank you all for your help. Will definitely check out those resources.

Rolyen I just noticed you are on The Rathe server, which is now The Rathe Prexus server...same as me. I'm logged on 24/7 to keep the guild hall up and available for everyone. If you need help with anything just send me a /tell. I will get back to you asap!

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Also on Rathe if you need a hand Rolyen.

I find myself looking into the same thing. Heck, there's this Powersourse slot I have no clue what goes there.

Powersources. Starting in The Buried Sea, armor has "purity". Purity draws an extra amount of "power" from "powersources". Different powersources give different positive and negative stats, and slowly run out of juice.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Yea, I think I retired before that expansion. I have no armor with Purity on it ... in fact I have thought impure thoughts about my armor a few times while waiting for a resurrect. I assume in the short term this is something I don't need to worry about.

/sigh Ok, how does one assign spells to the hotbuttons? I'm tired of clicking.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Left click and hold over the spell icon you want to hotkey, then move to your hotbar and left click to set.

_________________
"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I wasn't holding it long enough.

So, I'm interested in running down memory lane, but I'm not sure what I should be doing? Most of my EQ days of yore were spent camping for gear and rolling poorly. The low-level areas I'm in are empty. Leveling is much much much much faster. I'm not sure what to work towards though. I just ran around Crushbone with my merc, but what else should I do other than level up?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Hah, I don't know why, but I also reloaded EQ and figured out how to get back on my old characters.



Maybe it was the Labor Day weekend XP bonus, but this does not begin to do it justice. Or, maybe it's because I was on Zek? Is there an XP bonus there? I know there used to be in the old days. Basically, I found an old 13 BL in Paludal Caverns, killed two mushrooms, and levelled. Twice. Yikes.

Anyway, yeah, lots of stuff has been added. So much so that it seems kind of overwhelming to jump back in. I can see that you would be able to keep up if you'd kept playing for the past 8 years (when I quit), and had it all introduced gradually, but, yeah, it's pretty crazy.

I ran through Gloomingdeep before I found my old characters, and got a Cleric Merc. Did absolutely nothing, as far as I could tell. At about 10% health (fighting something on the outside), I'm thinking, for sure he's gonna heal me now, right? Nope ...

Anyway, it's interesting to just run around and see how it's changed. Some of the new models are nice (spiders, mummies), some not (orcs). I'll probably log on every once in a while for kicks. Was never a raider or anything, though, certainly don't have to the time to get to 80 or 90 or whatever to start that now.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Even playing along, the rate of change ramped up really fast in the last couple of expansions.

With your cleric merc- what setting did you have him on? There's passive, aggressive, and balanced (iirc). Passive they won't do anything and won't get aggro, aggressive they'll spam everything they have, and balanced they'll conserve mana.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Hm, I dunno. Whatever the default was, I think. I'm gonna try and find one tonight, maybe for my Ranger. Thanks, I'll see if I can find those settings.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

They're going to be in the Merc Window (alt+m default, I think?). It's where you control all your merc's activities.

I highly recommend making hotkeys for them- I used it to turn my Merc on and off during pulls, conserve mana, etc.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Cleric merc stances are:

Passive - wont do anything and wont cost you the 15 min rate
Reactive - heals as you are damaged without regard to mana cost
Balanced - similar to Reactive but uses a slightly different spell set for moderate damage rates
Efficient - attempts to heal with the most mana efficient spells, but can pose trouble for fights with high damage spikes.

I use reactive 99% of the time.

OK, played on my rogue a bit last night, and hired a Tier II Tank merc (I'm a 29 Rogue). He rocks. Gets aggro, barely takes any damage that I can see, and let's me just sit there and backstab to my heart's content. I made my money back on the first kill. I'm beginning to think I could actually solo a bit longer with this guy in tow.

I'll go take a look at the cleric merc that I hired on my Ranger, now that I know where the box is. Thanks.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Actually, I realize I have a whole bunch of question/observations, now that I've been back a couple of days. Keep in mind that to get my EQ fix, i've been playing Shards of Dalaya on and off for the past few years, and some things work a little differently there.

Like, mobs that run. I'd completely forgotten that. They don't do that on SoD. And, the Death Penalty sucks. SoD uses an XP debt, so if you just dinged and then die, you don't de-level.

I revisited my old SK, too - had to ask in the SK channel where to find the Harm Touch button. Didn't expect to find it in the AA's window.

And, was it always the case that you can't bind past 70%? SoD lets you go right up to 100%.

I wandered into my guild halls on two characters (neither guild has been active in at least 8 years, but I still have the tags). I could barely move - as with PoK and the Guild Lobby. Oh, and Innothule, too - seems the revamped zone graphics added a lot of trees, and my machine is not up to the task. Much like certain zones in Kunark in the old days. I may have to appropriate my kids' machine ...

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

It used to be no binding past 50% I didn't know they had raised it.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Bind wounds used to be capped at 50%, but you could use tricks like removing gear to let you bind a few extra times. However that was changed some time ago. My memory on it is fuzzy since i havent used that skill in 5 years, but seems they gave warriors the ability to bing to something like 70%, then gave it to everyone. The gear trick probably still works, but i dont know.

Not all mobs run... It becomes a lot less common at higher levels and is still a factor of your HP level compared to theirs when they hit the flight checks. Of course with the finishing blow AA, running mobs make exp fights faster.

I dont recall at which level clerics get the 96% res, but with a cleric merc at those levels, a death is nearly meaningless, and even without, if you are in a HOT zone, the experience rate far outpaces any deaths.

There are actually two different guild halls now, though if your guild has been effectively defunct for the last couple years you probably only have the default. If you do have a second, using the guild hall dormon the left takes you to the new one, the door on the right takes you to the old default. The new ones will cause some lag depending on how large you bought, how its decorated and how many NPCs are inside (can have parsing dummies, tribute NPCs, merchants, bankers, mail and package, etc.)

I think it's level 56 they get the 96% rez at.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Good stuff guys, thanks. It was so painful to move in the Guild Lobby on this machine that I doubt I'll go back there for a while.

And, yeah, now that you mention the bind thing, I remember that. Had gotten so used to being able to bind all the way, I guess.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

OK, yeah, levelling (and plat-making) is much faster, even on a not-Zek server. I just levelled my rogue from 30 to 31 in 2 hours 6 minutes of play time, and that includes a couple of (dumb) deaths, long zonings, and just general farting around. If I really put my mind to it, crap, I could level like PLing in the old days.

Sheesh, what is power-levelling like? Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

And plat? I'd swear that I've made more plat in the last couple of days than I ever had in all my previous 29 levels on that guy.

I hired a Dwarf tank merc for a while, and he was cool - barely took damage, kept aggro all the time, didn't complain. He was Tier II, I think. So then I thought, well, hey, what am I doing with this midget?! Get an Ogre! Unfortunately, I asked the female merc liaison, and ended up with a female Ogre tank, tier III. She's pretty cool, though, so I guess I'll keep her.

Found a levelling guide (Almar's), and headed to Goru'kar Mesa. Holy cow, we're killing reds, just me and her. Weak ones, and one almost got us, but still, not at all what I'm used to doing as a solo Rogue. And I'm woefully undergeared (Crystal Grinder FTW!), what could I do if I was twinked or had decent stuff?

Can't imagine how people must have howled when mercs were introduced. Really makes it easy to just power up to the end game, no?

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge