Sketch: Firiona Vie EverQuest (Patreon)

Firiona Vie from EverQuest.

TLDR: I love EQ, it gave me an experience I never quite got in any other MMO after that. It is an adventure I will cherish in my memories forever.

Incoming nostalgia trip:

Over Thanksgiving week, my dad and I were reminiscing about playing EverQuest in its prime. EQ was my very first MMO experience that my dad introduced me to and we would often explore the world together as our Wood Elf Ranger and Druid duo (me ALWAYS playing a druid if that was an option).

I still remember my first time zoning into the Greater Faydark ready to explore and........swiftly falling to my death to join the massive corpse pile of naked noob elves below the tree top city. I found the elevator down later.

We had to walk through all the zones as mounts were very expensive and people would kindly ask me if I could buff them with Spirit of Wolf so they could run faster. I remember the fuggin brownies (tiny aggressive wood elf creatures??) that would just murder me if you wandered into their path. And of course, corpse runs! You'd try not to foolishly die in a place where you can't recover your body since you'd have to run back completely naked or in crap gear from your bank to get your good gear and loot back.

I can still remember the first time someone yelled "TRAAAAINNNN!!!" in the orc zone and I was extremely confused, watching this huge line of orcs chasing a player till they exited the zone. After which, I was swiftly murdered by all those orcs because I happened to be gawking nearby not realizing they'd turn their attention to me after that person zoned out. Whoops.

Then they released an expansion with actual DUNGEON instances! Hooo boy did I love that. 

There was one time, while playing my High Elf Enchanter, where a monster we were fighting teleported mid battle to the very back of the dungeon. Turned out, that bastard aggroed the ENTIRE dungeon we hadn't cleared out yet and they all ran to us at the same time. We thought for sure were gonna wipe. I was stressed, but didn't give up hope. I mass mesmerized (put them to sleep) ALL of them for a brief few seconds and then swiftly mesmerized them one by one with a longer sleep spell. One by one we killed them all and we survived. We were all stunned that we did it and I was thanked for my quick thinking. I felt like a hero.

That is one of the single most amazing memories I have from this game and it still puts on a triumphant grin on my face to this day.

All of this of course, got me feeling very nostalgic for this old game. It had a lot of flaws and there's no way I could sink the time into it nowadays, but boy, was it a fun ride when it was in its prime!