EverQuest

Everquest Walkthrough

Why another walkthrough? I have been playing Everquest for a while now, and I have several different characters. I was starting a new character (called an 'Alt') and assembling the information that I needed to play, and I realized the information is very uneven. Some of the data that is out there was wonderful when it was written, but is now out of date. Other sources of data are just wrong, or seek to be all things to all people. So, I figured I would contribute my two bits, and hopefully, help some people along the way.



Deciding your class and your race. You need to decide what race/class combination you want to play. The most important thing about this decision is playing something that will be fun for you. If you like your character, you will enjoy your time, and that is what counts.

If you are like me, you will also want to get some information to help min-max your choice. But first, a brief word on race.

Playing a dark race. Everquest does not have a clear cut concept of good versus evil. Instead, Everquest measures everything in terms of faction. Even so, there are races that are considered evil, and you can choose to be one of them. In the original revisions of the game, evil races had fewer merchants that would sell to them, fewer places they could go adventuring, and annoying things could happen like city guards coming along and killing you. If you are interested in a dark race there is good news. With the release of the Luclin and other expansions, there are now plenty of merchants to talk to, and plenty of places to go adventuring.

Soloing or grouping. There are several different playing styles in Everquest. This does have a bearing on what class you chose, as some classes do well at soloing, and others shine in group situations.

Soloing is pretty much as it sounds, just you and the mobs. You can make quite a bit of progress soloing, you don't spend any time looking for groups, and you don't have to split either the experience or the plat.

A step up from that is duoing, where you and a friend play together, splitting the plat and experience. Some folks duo by using two accounts on two different computers, something called "two-boxing". This does broaden the range of places you can play without having to bring a friend. If you have a good computer, you can two box on a single computer, which should really be called something else.

With the addition of Mercenaries to the game, you can hire a NPC that will follow you around and heal you as needed. You could hire a "tank" to fight for you, but 9 out of 10 times, the healer is better. Soloing with a mercenary is my preferred method of advancement.

Grouping is another common way of playing Everquest, a group of up to 6 people get together and work as a team. There are some tools built into Everquest that let you find other people to group with. The down side is that sometimes you can't find a group, or worse, you can end up grouped with bad players. There are some people who feel that it is too hard to get a group, and that you are being forced to solo or duo with your mercenary. My take is that if you want a group, and can't find a group, just start one.

Raiding usually only occurs at high levels of game play. Depending on the raid target, up to 12 groups (72 people) get together and act as a giant team. Not a lot of loot or experience comes this way, but the best items in the game are acquired through raiding, and someone in the raid will usually walk away with them, depending on how the raid leader decides to distribute things. Raids are usually operated within a guild, so if you are interested in raiding, you should look for a raiding guild.


So back to the class and race thing You can find some more information from the GUIDE TO CHOOSING AND CREATING A CHARACTER

Drakken get a quest series for a dot ( damage over time spell ) which seems like a pretty decent advantage to me.


Choosing attributes - Gender. A word on gender. Pick whatever gender you want, this is just a game. Some folks feel that female characters get better treatment from other players, and as far as I can see, this does seem to be true. On the other hand, female characters can sometimes get harassed in ways that male characters do not. You should keep in mind that many of the female characters are actually played by men, and that some of the male characters are actually played by females. Don't be a jerk, just be polite to everyone, and don't make any stupid assumptions.

Choosing a name. When it comes to names, you really should choose a name that is fairly easy for other people to type in. This means short, and not a lot of weird character combinations. It can greatly improve your chances of getting a group when the group leader can send you a tell.

What is twinking, what does it mean, and is it bad? Twinking is easy to explain. The idea is that you have a higher level character, and you transfer items and plat to your alt. This gives the twinked character a major advantage over other characters of similar level. This is a common practice, and in fact is considered one of the rewards for having a higher level character. In my opinion, twinking is not bad unless you either brag about it (which is very annoying to other players), or you rely so much on your gear that you don't learn how to play your class properly. You will often see people linking rediculously powerful gear that they are using, just tell them how cool it is and try not to be jealous that they have the support of high level characters feeding them gear, and you still have to rub coppers together to make silvers.

Level 1-10 Playing the Tutorial A lot of folks will tell you to ignore the tutorial, and how lame it is, and all of that. Ignore them. There are always people that will tell you foolish things, that seems to be a central part of Everquest. If you work your way through the Tutorial, you can score this nifty


While you are getting it, you may learn something about the game you did not already know, which is nice.

Another thing about the Tutorial, you can work your way through your first nine or ten levels easily. You can meet up with other newbie players that are just learning their craft. Generally speaking you will probably never see these players again.

You might also get your first experience with trains. A train is when a character (or a group) tangles with one or more monsters (often called 'mobs') that proves to be too much to handle. When they realize they are about to be slaughtered, they will turn tail and run for either the zone line or for the guards (if there are any available). It is important to learn about trains, and how to avoid them. You will be dealing with them (or starting them) pretty much from now on.

How to consider a monster
As you will learn from the Tutorial, you right click on the critter from a distance with your mouse. Or you can target it and press '/con', or maybe even just '/c'. Another way to tell is by looking at the targeting ring. This command is also defaulted to the 'c' key for a quick con of a target.

GRAY	16 or more levels below you	No challenge, not worth any XP
GREEN	11-15 levels below you	Easy, but not worth much XP
LIGHT BLUE	6-10 levels below you	Easy
DARK BLUE	1-5 levels below you
WHITE	your level	Good XP
YELLOW	1-3 levels higher	Might be dangerous
RED	3 or more levels higher	What would you like your tombstone to say?

Leaving the Tutorial Zone?
Once you have fought your way to level 9 or 10, find and enter the zone to Crescent Reach.



Level 10-20 Crescent Reach
Once you land in Crescent Reach, you should be next to a quest giver, and ready to continue questing and leveling up. There are other possible starting cities, but none of them are as good as Crescent Reach for items and XP.

Find the Soul Binder
Talking to a Soul Binder will let you change where you start if you should happen to die. Use your Find tool (Control-F, remember the tutorial?), find your soul binder, and ask him or her to Bind my soul. If you don't do this now, you might later have a problem being zoned into the tutorial and then being zoned into Crescent Reach after each death.

Find your GM
Everquest has two different things that have the initials GM, the GM we are talking about this time is Guild Master. It's time to use that Find tool again. You start with a note in your inventory, find your GM and hand it to him, generally you get a newbie chest armor item for this. Don't wait, if you hold off too long, you won't get the reward. BTW, the other thing that GM stands for is Game Master, which is a referee.

Find the Bank
As you may remember from the tutorial, the banker is a handy place to put extra equipment and items for storage. Find a banker, you will get to know them well.

Newbie Armor Quests.
Cities are very complex, and there are quests that will both give you a clue about your city, and some experience. If you have no access to any other gear ( in other words, not a twink ) this is probably worth doing. For the most part, a newbie quest goes like this: Find me (list) and I will give you (item). Then you go to the newbie zone, and work on killing various monsters until you fill out the list. Turn in the items, and get the gear.

Level up to 20.
Stay in the Crescent Reach newbie yard until you reach level 20. The XP comes faster here than in most other equivalent low level zones, you may as well go ahead and get the leveling taken care of.

Find the way to the main zones
The game originally intended that you to use your starting city as a home base, but instead, it is time to head to the most important zone in the game.

If you are in Crescent Reach, head East to the Blightfire Moors zone line. Once you are in the Moors, head east until you find the PoK book. You should be big enough to handle any rats or snakes that you run into, but you might want to avoid the hedge devils.

East exit out of Crescent Reach

Find the Soul Binder
Use your Find tool to locate Soulbinder Jera, go find her and ask her to Bind my soul.

Walkabout
You need to learn where some critical locations are in the Plane of Knowledge.

First, look at this map:

You need to know the Main Bank (sometimes called the Big Bank). You need to know how to find Dogle Pitt (sometimes called the Small Bank). You may also need to know where the stone to your home city can be found.

Find the Banks
There are two banks in PoK, the Main Bank and Dogle Pitt (sometimes called the Small Bank). You can use your Ctrl+F Find tool to locate Dogle Pitt first, then any one of the other bankers.

Find the Bazaar
The Bazaar is where players go to sell gear and tradeskill drops to other players. A brief word about gear. Everquest introduced a series of gear sets, "Defiant" gear. Typically at lower levels, you can't easily find any better gear. If you are twinking an alt, you will often put together a set of this gear, depending on the alt's level. If you can afford upgrades in the Bazaar, the stats on these pieces are usually very good compared to the amount of plat you pay for them.

When you step into the Bazaar, type /baz, type in the group you are looking for, and see if there are any upgrades waiting for you.

There are two glowing armor sets worth mentioning, although you won't need either of them for quite a while. They are not cheap, but they may be the best tradable gear in the game.

Find the Guild Lobby
The Guild Lobby is where most of the players that are not busy can be found. One of the advantages to being in the Guild Lobby is that your buff timers do not run down while you are there.

Find the Soul Binder
Use your Find tool to locate a Soulbinder ask her to Bind my soul.

Get Buffed
You can get higher level characters to cast long lasting 'buffs' to improve your odds of survival. There are two ways to get these cast on you. First, you can catch a MGB ( Mass Group Buff ). These are cast randomy in the guild lobby at different times, and if you are high enough level for the buffs being cast, you can get them for free. Look for a group of players clumped together, this location will vary depending on your server.

Get Buffed for plat.
These spells are generally given in exchange for plat. If you are a truely new character, you probably don't have access to much plat, but higher level characters usually take pity on lower level ones, and might buff you anyway.

If you have access to some plat (12 to 25 plat), you should /ooc that you are seeking Temprance. Temprance is a long lasting cleric buff that will give you 800 extra hp and some AC. You want to encourage the practice of people selling buffs, and have a good reputation with the clerics of your new home, so you want to be as generous as you can afford. My rule of thumb for buffing is 25 plat for a Temprance. This is a lot of plat for a new character, but you will find most clerics are willing to cast Temperance "donations not required". Watch the OOC traffic for messages from these helpful people.

Once you are 'buffed', you need to hurry to your XP zone.

If you get a mercenary healer, which I do suggest, you will get Temperance and better as you level up, and you no longer have to buy cleric buffs. You will also not need to be in quite as much of a hurry to get your adventuring done before your buffs wear off.

Where do I go now?
Get to PoK, and Ctrl-F find Franklin Teek. He is just outside of the guild lobby. He will let you know where the hot zone for your level is at. A "hot zone" gives you more XP than other zones of a similar level. This is usually the best place to go find experience, although they can sometimes vary in difficulty. If you arrive in a new hot zone, and there is no one there, you might want to ask in the General channel if you are in a good place for XP, or where would be a better place to go.

Go ahead and get Franklins task too, there are some decent plat and item rewards.

How can you find a group at higher levels?
First, type '/lfg'. Click the button that tells people you are looking for a group. Sooner or later you may get a tell from someone who has need of your skills.

Next, type '/who lfg' in whatever zone you happen to be in. This gives you a general idea if this is a good zone to be looking for a group, or if it is the right level or not.

Now look for people your level, and see where they are at. If you are level 36 for example, you would type '/who all 36'. You can ignore results such as the Bazaar, Poknowlege or Nexus, these are not XP zones. If you see people your level in a particular zone, head there. Ask one of them in a tell if it is a good XP zone, or just go there and hope to get lucky.

Another way to find a good place to hunt is to go to the Guild Lobby, and /ooc Where is a good place to hunt at my level?

What about AAs
AA stands for Alternate Advancement. This form of advancement becomes available at level 51. The way the system works now, you get decent AA when you are hunting mobs that are around your level. The old wisdom was that you shot your way to max level, and then worried about AA, but now it looks like it might be better to go ahead and get them as you go along. Some people like to set a percentage of their XP to AA, and level up, but I have always been more of an all or nothing kind of person. I suggest you toggle to 100% AA, get all the AAs that sound interesting, then get 30 extra ( the most you can carry with you ) and go back to 100% XP. There is a batch of AA that you can get at 51, then another batch at 55, and there are AAs at every level after that.