Considering Playing EQ

[Galleon]

Hello everyone. Finally my daughter has gone off to college and I find myself with more freetime. I have played other games recently but lately I am finding that they are lack-luster and expensive. I have heard about this Emulation system that appears to be becoming more and more popular. I played EQ back in the day c1999. I played all the way until they started to get really crazy with zones and the timesink and my guild decided to call it quits.

There appears to be TONS of stuff to do but making new friends and finding anyone to group with has been in the past, difficult for me due to the fact that I do not have a huge amount of time to put into playing a game. The second issue is that I am not one to run more than say 2 or 3 toons at once. I saw some rules posted but nothing specific on if two-boxing was allowed or not etc.

I tried to play p1999 but there appears to be alot of hate and animosity there. There seems to be a great, classic feel to the game but their forums etc. are all clouded with nastiness. I am a walking no-drama zombie of sorts and I work hard monday thru friday. I need release and relaxation. I bought Diablo 3 but it was not really all that much fun for the most part. I have not yet found what I seek but happened upon The Hidden Forest.

I have a few questions though:

1) How difficult is it to get started? Is Two-boxing even really allowed? I saw mention of bots but I am not clear on what a bot is besides some kind of summonable sidekick.

2) Without a full group, how far can one advance in the game? With 1 soloable character? What about 3 well rounded characters in tandem? I did see mention of custom content that might involve soloable content.

Lastly, your server looks great, nice work.

[mystickitty]

You will love THF. It is an amazeing server. And most of it's population is super helpful and will answer any questions and help you with whatever if you just ask.

You can box as many as you can handle here. Some get way crazy boxing. Playing a solo toon or two can get a bit boreing though. Can't do as much in the raid tiers without anyone else around really. And yes you are allowed to make as many bots as you like but you can only have 1 per group at a time.

Progression here is easy enough really. They have super nice quests to do the minute you log in. Like the one you get upon createing a toon and logging in is nice. Takes you around to the NPC in forrest who explain a lot. And you get 100pp for it too! Any class can really get to 70 solo with a bot easy . After that comes looking for a guild to raid with.

Well I hope you found that helpfull and hope you decide to try THF out. Welcome aboard if you do!

[Alulien]

1) How difficult is it to get started? Is Two-boxing even really allowed? I saw mention of bots but I am not clear on what a bot is besides some kind of summonable sidekick.

As Mystickitty said, everyone here is really friendly and super helpful!

To expand on what Mystickitty said you can box as many player characters as you want, there are no limitations other than your pc/internet connection. The best way to think of a bot is like a mage or necro pet only better: it follows you around and takes commands like a pet (using a #bot syntax) BUT it gets a class (ie. rogue or monk instead of being a "dps" pet) levels up and keeps the gear you give it (including epics and even donor gear). You can have as many bot characters as you want but only one with you at a time. So if you were to box 3 characters your group could effectively be 4 if you run a bot. Different bots have different nuances so bounce your group setup ideas off of people, you'll get great feedback.

Can't really answer your 2nd question as I box 6 and have done hardly any progression stuff though my guess would be boxing 3 + a bot you could do decently well assuming you take time to gear up, but I'm sure someone else can give you a better answer.

[bishbash]

What Mystickitty said really. Create any character you think you can have fun with and start playing.

You can box as many as you can play, but no cheating (Macroquest etc) and play nice is pretty much the flavour of the server.

You can solo, box, solo and bot, group, guild, and however else you like to play, but this server is not designed to be 'boxable' at the end-game, but there is nothing stopping you trying. I certainly love boxing end-game encounters as its a challenge.

It's a friendly server, and apart from Vaion (Developer) being clinically insane and making well thought out encounters that will give you headaches trying to defeat, all the behind-the-scenes staff work their hides off to ensure a great experience. I haven't got a bad word to say against the server staff.

I would say just create characters that you want to play, and go at your own pace. Any of the characters will work, but if you want to try to box something, cant go wrong with tank/healer as a start. (Any tank will do, PAL/SK/WAR are all balanced, well PAL/SK need a nerf!)

[Vaion]

Hey now! I've never been clinically evaluated... But it's probably safe to say that I would fail their sanity tests.

[Galleon]

I have decided that 3 characters is doable. I have a relatively powerful PC and the standard Xfinity 25mb connection speed remains pretty consistent. Only 1 screen though! Ill have to fix that.

Classes I have never played: Druid, Paladin, Enchanter and Rogue. Where as perhaps the Paladin is the Bot and all 4 use different armors. The Druid allows some nice tracking ability, heals, dots and nukes, snares/roots, buffs including SOW, a Pet and Portability. The Enchanter affords Clarity, haste, slows/debuffs, stuns, nukes, dots, utility and mezzing. This group sounds like a fairly weak group at first glance but being able to handle a heavy, unpredictable pull is essential and this group might do ok I think if it can pull and manage adds effectively. It definately sounds...busy though. Another thing is that I can make them all good aligned and start in Qeynos. (I don't know if race matters as to where you can group up to start adventuring. If it doesn't ill make them the races that best suits the class) Thoughts?

[mystickitty]

Hey now! I've never been clinically evaluated... But it's probably safe to say that I would fail their sanity tests.

AHAHAHA !

[Jazar_Wolfheart]

Throw out everything you remember about starting cities and factions. They are all available to visit, but this server is a great deal different. Everyone starts out in the same zone, and the custom zones with the custom quests are all very easy to get to from that starting hub. I still head to Halas once in a while, just to check in with the Wolves of the North, but I spent most of my time in the custom zones to level/gear up.

As far as being able to box content...I have 4 boxed most every raid encounter up to the 7th tier. (The raid zones are set up in tiers, pretty much requiring the gear from the tier before to complete the next tier.) There are a few fights that make that really hard to do...but there is still a lot you should be able to do on your own. And if you are open to the idea of joining another's guild rather than just having a guild of your own (most of the raid zones are guild instanced...you have to be guilded to create the zone) even just a few people can make their way all the way up.

I was invited to play here by a friend that I played with on live, and I'm really glad I did. It is a great combination of the old to reminisce over and the new to keep things fresh.

One pointer...I played an enchanter on live and *loved* it. I leveled one up here as a part of my first group...but they don't bring as much to the table as they did on live. A lot to go into here, but the mind buffs are attainable elsewhere (there is a buffing NPC) and crowd control is rarely needed. I still love the chanter...but I eventually traded her out for a heavy DPSer to help me get through some content. Don't let me discourage you though...the experience moves pretty fast here...you play what you want, and you can try out a little bit of everything.

[Droonkan]

Great posts!

I'd also add that it's worth taking your time to enjoy the game early on. There is a ton of custom content and you will level through it arguably too fast to see it all. GoD was relatively recently customized and is a great option for questing/leveling up if the Antonica/Kunark/Velious/Luclin zones feel too familiar.

Not every zone has been customized. I'd recommend at the lower levels you sprinkle in nostalgic trips to zones/bosses as they were on live. Remember Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar? Shei Vinitras? Once you are 70, the old non-customized stuff ends up trivial compared to what you will be.

You already know how the end game story goes if you race through...

[Galleon]

Ok, I will give an initial view of playing on THF for anyone who is interested.

Playing EQ again with full graphics is sweet. I have a fairly powerful PC and with 25MB Xfinity, everything runs smoothly with 3 toons. I logged in each, set up their screens and chat boxes the way I used to. Got them all situated and following my main, a cleric.

I moved around a bit looking at everything and everyone in the Shadowed Grove. It took me a bit of time to learn that I had to get really close to the NPCs for them to talk to me. Once I discovered that I moved around and talked to almost each one starting with the queen who gave me a nifty porting device. I found the spell and discipline guy and also learned meditate and got all my cleric's 1st level spells, a time saver. I found the armor guy and loaded all the guys up with the basic planes armors, wow! Something else I did not expect. I found a quest person and took on a quest. I did not see a weapon npc though but with the armor, I didnt think I needed it. I found the bot guy and learned how to make and manage the bot I made. My MA a Paladin. With him I have a Cleric, Rogue and Ranger following me around with the Bot Paladin in tow. I went to someplace I knew like West Freeport. I have not boxed in a very long time I figure I could go here and get comfortable.

I practiced moving around, getting my guys on follow quickly, creating shortcuts for them etc. Killed a few Deathfist orcs and skellies and got my paladin a shield. When I tried to give him a hammer I found he would not hold it in his hand. Not sure why though. I zoned back to the grove and found those dummies to whack to raise weapon skills up quickly. I only wish there were a guy to hit back to raise defense skills but having all of this already is a huge time saver.

So far it all looks great. You've added just enough convenience to take out some of the tedium that was EQ so that players could get to the meat a little faster without destroying the feel of the game. Nice work I think I will be playing here for a long time. Goodbye P1999!

At this early level it is not efficient to try to get all of my guys involved in the combat. The fights are very short. I did see the quests involving Crushbone and Paleudal but I will need to level a bit for those I think and I am considering making a Monk to add to my entourage as I also never played one and always wanted to. (I always seem to play the caster classes in the past)

Question: Can I get rid of the Rules book that looks like a pearl necklace? Is there anything else important that I have not taken advantage of?