Real life first name: Charley
Forum handle: Jayabalard
Main Character name: Jayabalard
Server: The Tribunal
Guild: Bhur Gcaird (Guildleader)

Where in the real life world do you live? Orlando, FL

How long have you played EQ? Since April 1, 2001 (5.5 years)

What other MMOs have you played? I've installed a few others, but I've not played any for more than a day or so; none of them grab my attention like EQ.

What type of work do you do? I'm an Application Developer doing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programming

How long is your typical gaming session when playing EQ? 1-3 hours, usually once or twice a week; anything longer than that usually requires some faction work with the_wife_01.

What does a typical EQ day consist of for you? We raid as a guild about once a week, mostly fielding 2-4 groups. Recently these have been primarily for finishing up our members Epic 1.5 quests. I try to be on for these as often as I can (since I'm the guildleader). On a non-raid day, if I have something planned (often the case), we group up and go. Chat while we buff up, and after the mission (pulling and playing a bard takes too much concentration to chat much). These are usually DoDH/PoR missions, with some DoN missions, and occasionally we'll do MPG trials. If I don't have a planned group: I mostly chat for a bit; I'll jump into a guild group if someone needs me, but otherwise I'm not worried about grabbing an actual group; I'll tradeskill, solo, or just chat for a bit.

What was the race and class of your very first character? Half Elf Bard (still my current main)

What got you into gaming and what sort of games do you like the most? I started off Pen & Paper games, mostly AD&D (before 2nd edition, and recently in D&D 3.5), various palladium games, GURPS, and a dozen or so lesser known ones. I started computer gaming on a Vic 20. My first "online gaming" would have been B.B.S. games: Tradewars, L.O.R.D. and such. RPG games are definitely my favorite type of game; when I first started playing PC/console games, I was a big fan of Adventure games (Sierra's kings/space/etc quest, and LucasArts), along with RPG's such as Phantasy.Star, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Zelda etc.

What other hobbies or activities do you take part in, other then playing EverQuest? I'm a fairly active alumnus of the University of Certral Florida, attending football and basketball games whenever I can. I'm also an active alumni member of my fraternity: Kappa Kappa Psi. I enjoy other video games (PS2), currently working through some of the older final fantasy games that I haven't played and Guitar hero. Cooking and watching Food Network with my wife; we like our good eats. Oh, and of course there's always the Beer and food quest… that one's always fun, whether it's going out to Lazy Moon or Mellow Mushroom for pizza and beer, or Ker's Winghouse for Wings and beer, or BBQing at a friend's house.

What is your highest level in EQ? Level 70 (with ~700 AA )

What race and class is your main character? Half Elf Bard

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character?
1. Flexibility: my guild has always been small, and the fact that I can fill any of several roles has made it easier for us to build groups.
2. Crowd Control/Pulling: it gives me a lot of control over how well my group does. It often seems that if I do my job well, we win.

Does your main character worship a deity? Agnostic, though I lean toward following Tunare.

How did you choose your main character's name? I tried various spellings of one of my AD&D characters, but the name filter kept rejected them; I started mixing those spellings with some other names and trying similar names from popular fantasy and wound up with Jayabalard.

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? Necromancer, Warrior, Beastlord

What is your favorite expansion? Omen's of War; the epic 1.5 quests are inventive, and generally fun/doable, even for small raid forces. MPG group trials are the epitome of group content design. The only locked zones were RSS (by level), and anguish (Raid key required, but it's only a raid zone anyway). It was definitely the right step to fix the problems brought on by PoP & GoD segregating players.

What is your favorite zone? The Estate of Unrest and Lower Guk; there's just a feeling you get from those twisty little dungeons that the newer zones can't seem match.

What is your favorite npc? The Winner is: Lady Vox; she was the first raid I had ever done. I was a guest of a friend of mine who was in Tuatha de Dannan at the time. I spent a while making sure I had my resist gear (a motley assortment of stuff to be sure) Runner up: The priest of Discord; it's kind of sad that he's not attackable anymore, so new players will never get to hear him shouting "Let this fool's meaningless death be a reminder to you all that the power of discord is absolute!" when he kills some newbie bard who forgot to turn of their AE dot.

Which expansion do you like the least? Planes of Power: I like a lot of the features from that expansion, but the flagging progression was just not a good design direction.

Which zone do you like the least? Ssra, after camping several items there.

Which npc do you like the least? Runner up: Kidzean Gix; I take my vengeance on him nearly every time I run through WC. But the winner is definitely: Cicero Quikwire… Sometimes I'd rather just let him run off and feed himself to the spiders than to try and save his stupid arse.

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? Hmmm, probably 90,000pp for an ornate boot mold; I had spent 6+ months looking for the mold, but hadn't found anyone selling one. Someone called for a PC on an ornate boot mold, and I asked if he was selling it; he was, so I offered 90k for them… he accepted.

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so what is it and why do you keep it? Lots of them: I keep my Flameweaver, the bard mace from the Halloween 2001 event; It didn't replace it for a long time.I keep my Epic 1.0; I remember thinking that I would never get it when I was still a newbie. I keep my Nostrolo's tambourine; it was a big drum upgrade at the time, and one of the first really useful quests that I did. I keep my Lambent armor, one of the first major quests that I did, though it's sitting on an alt due to bank space.I keep my ornate boots, since that was the biggest spending item I ever bought (though I've had a few close to that).

What do you like best about EverQuest? Getting together with my friends, and going out and winning without having the best gear, or the "optimal classes" in the group. I've been playing with some of them for years, and they're some great people.

Describe your best experience from playing EverQuest? Getting together with some bunch of people in game (mostly in my guild) to watch the Two Towers when it came out; we had great food (lasagna and cupcake yum), talked some EQ, played some soul caliber, and generally had a good time.

Do you run or work for an EverQuest Fan Site? I run my Guild's Site, which is woefully out of date; we're not really a fan site, but our library gets referenced from time to time when people talk about lore because of our collection of transcribed pre-luclin books, some of which are no longer in the game.