Kiranos

#### **Finding Everquest**

I starting playing EQ not long before the Luclin expansion launched. I don't remember exactly when I became aware of the game, but I know when I first played it -- at a LAN party at my buddy's house. I was in high school, and had no money, so my friend let me make a character on his account after he went to bed around 2am. When he woke up at about 10 the next morning, I was still playing, soloing skeletons at the Butcherblock chessboard. A day later I got a copy of the game, a subscription game card, and I was off.

#### **Memorable Stories**

* The Ocean of Tears

I fell of the boat. Well, more accurately, I feel *through*the boat. Either way, I was stranded in the middle of the ocean on my way to Freeport. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world, although all my real life friends thought I was a moron.

* Permafrost and Lady Vox raids

Back in the day, raiding Lady Vox and Lord Naggy was still a pretty big deal, and it was well organized too. I don't remember the name of the forum, but you had to make an account there and post in the thread to get on a raid. Also, you had to level lock at no higher than level 52. I ran the Vox raid probably half a dozen times, Naggy at least twice. My computer was so bad I had to charge those fights staring at the ground and on /follow. I remember once I looked up in a fight, wanting to just see the damn dragon I was fighting. My computer lagged out for about 15 seconds. When I came to, my whole group was dead. Oops.

## Everquest II

### **Kiranos, Fury, Crushbone/Najena/Unrest Server**

#### **Finding Everquest II**

I specifically bought a fancy laptop to play EQ2. I bought a laptop (rather than a desktop) because I assumed EQ2 would be like EQ1 in that I'd camp out in my friends' basements to play together and play between classes in college. That turned out to not quite be the case.

**Memorable Stories**

* Thundering Steppes

I first grouped here with some random strangers and with my brother.

First, my poor brother. He was an EQ1 veteran, played it far more than I did. I out-leveled him a bit in EQ2 during launch week, so we figured I could try to power level him a little bit. This failed miserably. He was playing a Mystic, and at the time, Mystics simply could not do any damage. Even with the few buffs I had, he couldn't effectively kill the deer near the train to TS docks. Really frustrating experience for us both. He would quick EQ2 not long after that.

Second, even though grouping with my brother didn't work out, I continued to solo effectively around the undead farm. That's when a couple of random guys, a Swashbuckler and a Guardian, invited me to their group. I don't remember their names, but we ran roughshod over TS that day. Altogether, I think we grouped for about 25 hours over the course of 3 days, and we probably killed every mob in the zone. These dudes were a lot of fun. I remember that each class got a special appearance-only buff. Furies got some sort of spell that made your eyes glow, for example, but Swashbucklers got the best: they could blow a little kiss at people. It was the dumbest thing ever. We would all laugh out asses off when this Swashbuckler guy would approach other people, say something like "check out my swarthiness," and blow a kiss before running away.

* Willow Wood (Qeynos)

After leaving the Isle of Refuge, this tiny little community was where my Wood Elf began life. It was simple and small, not nearly as grandiose as the rest of Qeynos or EQ1's Kelethin. But it was my character's adopted base of operations. This is where I always returned to sell items, communicate with people, and retreat from failed excursions into the nearby dungeon zones.

* Runnyeye

Best dungeon ever. I used to group with this guy named Maddcow for weeks, just running this dungeon over, and over, and over. He was a tank, I would heal... so we could just grab 4 other random people and absolutely steamroll the zone. First time I'd ever run a dungeon in an MMO and basically felt unkillable because of our skill, not because of the mechanics. Super fun times.