Where in the real world do you live?
The boondocks of Kentucky.
How long have you played EQ?
Pretty much 10 years, I started a few months before Kunark came out so during the first year of EQ.
What other SOE Games have you played?
I've sampled a few while under the station pass subscription, PlanetSide and Star Wars Galaxies. I tried EQ2 for the longest but it just wasn't my cup of tea, although that was only right after it came out. If I could get the expansions and subscribe again it looks like it's worth another look, especially the Kunark expansion as the original Kunark expansion is still my favorite of all original EQ expansions and it contained a lot of lore which I'm a sucker for, plus being able to play as a Sarnak looks fun.
What other MMOs have you played?
World of Warcraft of course… I don't think many EQ players could avoid at least trying it out and I really liked a lot of aspects of the game. I did give it a good long try and occasionally try to play it again when able to do so, while I overall prefer EQ I'm not one of those who rabidly take up one game and deride the competition and try to focus on the merits of each. Anytime I play WoW I find myself thinking how cool certain features of it would be in EQ like all the different armor looks, capes and hats (although in line with EQ's art style, not quite so… exaggerated), if beastlords had the ability to tame any pet from Norrath's fauna like WoW's Hunters, the auction system, etc. WoW did a lot of innovative things and made a good game but in the end I'm an EverQuest player.
City of Heroes was also one I played for a good period of time, the comic book style was just too alluring to pass up and even just after launch the character creation engine was great for someone like me who places importance on the look of my character. Plus being able to fly, super jump, super speed to get around the large environments was a lot of fun and when they were finally implemented the capes were the best I've seen in an MMO and well worth the wait. Again though these were all features I kept thinking how great it would be to see in EQ, so EverQuest never really left my mind.
I gave Eve Online a try as well and for the Sci-Fi genre it's a good game and very interesting provided you have the patience and get past the learning curve. The ability to have your own space ship and make your own way within the huge game world and community was very unique. If they keep adding to the game at the rate they have they'll do very well and I may have to give it another shot. Some of the areas I wish were different were character or in this case ship customization, they had some great ship designs but just the ability to change the paint job would be huge for me. Eve was just a very different and unique game, a lot more passive, the battles were more like an RTS game, not to say they couldn't get hectic and engaging but just not my thing for the long haul.
Phew, I think that's all the biggies, I tend to ramble but the basic point is I've tried a lot of MMOs and I think like a lot of people it's been an attempt to recapture the magic of EverQuest from the beginning which is hard to relate to those who weren't there from the beginning. I just wait for the day we reach a level of MMO experience we can hardly imagine now, the Tad Williams book series called Otherland presented a vision of future MMOs through one of its characters named Orlando that was a true virtual world and that image has stuck with me. The series and that vision was actually what prompted me to look into MMOs 10 years ago and how I found EverQuest so I'd recommend it as a read to any MMO fan.
What type of work do you do?
Other than artwork I do as I can for free I'm actually filing for disability. This is an area I don't like talking about but think I should at least answer that much. I try to keep my problems to myself, but I mention it as EverQuest is one of the few ways I interact with others at all and praise that as one of the greatest merits of MMO games.
They offer ways to interact with a community of people that can constantly surprise and amaze anyone and can be a real benefit to people who have problems or are unable to otherwise socialize with others. I've had the opportunity to get to in a real sense meet and befriend people from all around the world I never would have known otherwise and think that is one of the greatest benefits and most unique aspects of MMO games, the people are what matter.
How long is your typical gaming session when playing EQ?
Hmm… A typical session is difficult to nail down for me, if it's just a raid there's a defined goal and time frame so I could say around 3-4 hours on those occasions, but there's also other types of sessions with varying time frames. Working on a quest can offer a short 2 hour session or passively experiencing or working on other aspects like progression and such can run for a whole day off and on. Finally, just chatting while sitting in the guild lobby can be off and on while working on other things.
What does a typical EQ day consist of for you?
See above basically, it depends on the day and what's going on. That's one of EQ's big advantages actually, there's so much to do and work on there's just no such thing as a typical day and any day can become an adventure and memorable story.
What was the race and class of your very first character?
Well I have to cheat a bit on this question, I started a couple of months before Ruins of Kunark was released and as soon as I saw that I knew I had to be an Iksar Warrior so I tend to consider that my first character. Technically however, in the intervening time I played a Wood Elf Ranger to learn the game and get to know people. The very first one promptly fell off of Kelethin and lost its corpse, then I didn't realize you had to go back to the same server so I lost the character completely and rolled another on a different server which became my home. This was back in the day where the Greater Faydark consistently had near 100 people on at peak times so it was a great place to be a newbie and I have a lot of good memories of that time. As soon as RoK was released I rolled up Straha and that was my main from then on. That old ranger eventually got deleted, my only real regret was I was unable to get the Naggy fireworks stick and other rewards for first year players since any Iksar was automatically a 2nd year character due to the release time of RoK.
What got you into gaming and what sort of games do you like the most?
What got me into gaming would have to be my dad, Sijandi in game. One of my earliest and best memories is my dad taking me out to a pool hall called Purples when I was probably 3 or 4 and playing some of the early arcade games. My dad would get a chair for me to stand on and we'd play away, always getting to the same spot and dying but just enjoying being out with him and doing something so grown up since it was mostly older kids and teens who played those new fangled games.
From then on I always had a love of games and tried to share that with my father as much as possible and most of my happiest memories revolve around games and my dad. I remember getting to sit in my much older and cooler teenage brother's room with him and my dad playing Karataka on a state of the art Commodore 64 when I was 6 or 7. A funny in retrospect memory of waiting at school for my dad to pick me up and him explaining he was late because he was trying to find the hidden dungeon in the original Legend of Zelda. Endless hours of sitting around the tv with my dad and half a dozen friends playing winner on fighting games passing the controller down the couch. Then of course finally convincing my dad he needed to socialize a little since his retirement and to just give this new computer game called EverQuest a try reluctantly, only to come back from work that evening to find him happily exploring the Emerald Jungle with a level 8 shaman and relating his adventures in Norrath while I was gone.
As for what type I enjoy the most there isn't any one type I enjoy the most, I like pretty much all types of games and have enjoyed watching them evolve over my lifetime, I was born at the beginning of the video game era and it's been a constant pleasure even at the lowest points of my life. More recently I've enjoyed teaching and sharing gaming with my identical twin nieces from the time they were 3 or 4 and doing as my dad did for me, using the games to teach other lessons like patience, ingenuity, problem solving, fair play and sharing and of course making sure they played and had an appreciation for the classics, because some games just can't be beat by their newer incarnations.
What other hobbies or activities do you take part in, other than playing EverQuest?
Art of course which has been my other constant love and which I've been privileged enough to share with others who seem to enjoy it. Though like any artist you meet I never think my work is good enough and am loathe to put it out for others to see, I've never met another artist who doesn't feel the same way deep down so keep that in mind when someone you know puts their work out for you to see. Recently I've been lucky enough to teach one of my twin nieces in art as it was found she had gotten the talent for it as well and is quite advanced for her age like I was. Being able to help guide her and teach her things I had to learn on my own, to explain to her why people react to her artwork so strangely in her eyes. To encourage her talent and see how excited and happy she is any time I come for a lesson is a highlight of my life as I love to teach and get along with kids much better than adults anyway.
What is your highest level in EQ?
82 at the moment, I've always been bad about experiencing, actually I have never been at the level cap before it was raised again, I always get close and then it goes up again which has been a bit of a running joke with friends for years now.
What race and class is your main character?
Iksar Warrior
What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character?
Mainly the ability of warriors to save the day by sacrificing themselves for others, being able to grab the attention of the mob and take the punishment while the others either get things under control or get away and save themselves. I think most warriors, or good warriors anyway are like that down deep, they like being able to help and protect others even if it means they suffer for it. The good thing about warriors until the advent of mercenaries and other advances was generally bad warriors didn't make it very far. Those horror stories you hear about the tank that asks in mid battle "What's this taunt button for" just didn't make the grade and would gravitate toward other classes while good warriors would tend to succeed and be remembered by group mates.
Does your main character worship a deity?
All Iksar are forced to worship Cazic-Thule on creation so technically yes, though roleplay wise he would more than likely be agnostic. That's an aspect I still hope is expanded on in game, the ability to undertake a quest or some other means to change a character's religion and more reasons to do so would be great. Deity specific items and such have been implemented but there's much more potential for the role of deity worship to play, EQ2 has used it to great effect so a similar system in EQ would be interesting.
How did you choose your main character's name?
The name comes from a book series called World War by Harry Turtledove, the character in that series is also a lizard humanoid though quite different from Iksar in EQ but personality wise it was a great fit and I liked the name.
Which classes in EQ have you NOT played?
Well I've played most classes at least to level 10, I know I haven't played a cleric, I simply have no talent whatsoever for the healing classes and clerics are so dedicated to the role I knew better than to try. I have great respect for those with the patience and aptitude to play the class but it's just not for me.
What is your favorite expansion?
Ruins of Kunark hands down.
What is your favorite zone?
That's a pretty hard one since there are so many great ones, but if I had to narrow it down to just one it would have to be Kurn's Tower, it's so well designed and is filled with a lot of lore right off the bat for new Iksar players. There are traps but nothing too crazy or horrible, multiple areas for a fairly wide level range and different mob types, all the Iksar class quests have some early parts there which prompted a lot of cooperation back in the days of RoK's release and it's just a great introduction to dungeons and dungeon crawling.
What is your favorite NPC?
That's a hard one, hard to narrow down but if I went with pure aesthetics and lore it's probably down to Mayong Mistmoore first, seeing him do the sword twirl was just awesome. Lore wise he was always a character that was surrounded by mystery and you always wondered whether he would be put back in the game, the little known fact he once occupied his castle but was removed so long ago just added to his mystique and over the years little clues were put in about him such as Tserrina in the Tower of Frozen Shadow. When the Depths of Darkhollow expansion came out and was being worked on there was a lot of debate in the lore community as information came out over who the mysterious "Master" would be and seeing it was indeed Mayong as I had thought was great, his implementation was just very well done.
A close second would be Meldrath the Malignant, the newer one that is. His Fortress Mechanotus and the story of him and his brother was always a favorite and I always thought he should be much more than the simple mob for the Ranger armor quest in the Minotaur caves. The lore sitting around about his fortress was so good I just imagined what it could be like as a real zone in game, how it would look, what kinds of things he would create as both a necromancer and a tinkerer nearly on par to the creator of the Plane of Innovation but crazy, the potential was so great I had to draw it in the strip, then when Meldrath and his Fortress was added to the game as a major focus of the Secrets of Faydwer expansion and seeing the art direction taken and how it was all implemented was everything I had ever hoped for from the old lore.
Which expansion do you like the least?
Probably it would have to be the Gates of Discord expansion. Unfortunately that was a bad time in EQ's history; it was a rushed expansion with high level content only that was actually tuned for the level cap for the next expansion which was being pushed out right after it. The lore was fairly weak, the Wayfarers and the storyline behind all those expansions was a good try but just seemed to come out of nowhere and struck a lot of people wrong. The progression introduced a lot of new features that had potential but were just poorly implemented and buggy at the time so just getting to the end zones was difficult and annoying enough, and the reward even more annoying events that are still reviled.
A lot of factors were just against that expansion, the state of the game at the time and problems with the expansion did result in some good things however, the community summit meeting eased the tension and strengthened the community and the events introduced in GoD paved the way for later events in other expansions which used the new features and abilities to great effect.
Which zone do you like the least?
Uqua…
Which NPC do you like the least?
Ulump Pujluk, to this day I hate that frog with a passion and I still swear the feeling is mutual. One stage of the Iksar Warrior Pike quests was to go to the Froglok village of Krup in the Swamp of No Hope and gather some Krup Shields, the level of the quest was around 30 and it wasn't that bad. However, Ulump was added as part of the Druid Epic quest and he happened to stand not very far from the entrance to the village… and he had a huge agro radius… especially social agro, as in if you happened to be killing the level 30 mobs in the city. The first time I was chasing down one of the shield dropping frogs and noticed a rather larger Froglok hopping towards me, very fast… by the time I conned him and saw he was very red there was a quick blur of hits and bam, down I went, unfortunately my bind point happened to still be on Faydwer so that resulted in a long corpse run only to find Ulump sitting on top of my corpse after the 30 minute run back… After that things just got worse, any time I was in that swamp Ulump seemed to find me, no matter how far he had to run to get to me, I'd even turn a corner halfway across the zone from his spawn point to see him waiting for me, that damn frog killed me a dozen times. Thus I still take great delight in slaughtering him any time I'm back in the area.
What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters?
Hmm… that's a long history of purchases, probably around 100-200k as I was always loathe spending large amounts of plat on anything at one time, preferring to find a way to get it myself rather than pay so much. Even today with over a million in the bank I still don't like spending much over 100k max for any one item. Given the economy since the release of defiant items however prices on most old drops have been drastically reduced so it doesn't come up that often.
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?
Boy there's so many taking up space in my bank I can't wait for the next expansion to bank space to come. There's the Epic 1.0 of course, I always found the look and lore of the original epics so much better that the later epics I can't bring myself to get rid of them. Then there are all kinds of fun items like the Staff of Adventure, Illusion items, The Iksar Warrior Mancatcher even though they weren't on par with the Necromancer, Shaman and Monk quest lines they each gave a new rank within the Iksar Warrior guild lore wise like Legionnaire, Champion and War Baron. There's just too many to list them all as I'm a horrible pack rat.
What do you like best about EverQuest?
Overall, the lore and world of Norrath are probably my favorite aspect. I collect lore like trading cards and love how detailed the story of Norrath is and how knowing the lore can enrich the playing experience. I've read there's basically a big file cabinet at SOE with all the lore dating back to when Norrath was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign and would love to get my hands on that just to read it and see how it's all implemented in game. Just the lore available in game and through various sources like Expansion Manuals or the short lived EQ RPG books and such is so much and so detailed but there are gaps and interesting clues that have so much potential and could be implemented at any time.
The lore of Norrath is the main reason I started making the comic strip, the story and world was so rich that there was so much potential to tell great stories about the world many players might be totally unaware of while playing through the world. If given the chance I'd happily just go through the lore and write new content just to see how it was implemented in game. Things like Meldrath's twin Meldrath the Magnificent who built the Plane of Innovation and the Time Machine contained within, he could offer lots of content and quests. Or the gods still not represented in game, Torvonnilous and the Plane of Greed, Brell and the Plane of Underfoot with it's sealed entrance in the Hole, Luclin and the Plane of Shadow, Prexus and the Plane of Ocean, and several others, enough to make an add on expansion to the Planes of Power. There's just so much good story there waiting to be discovered in game, finding and going over that lore has always been fun for me and it's the world of Norrath that keeps me in EQ.
What do you get out of playing EverQuest?
Mainly socialization, of course there's a lot more that I've already rambled on about above but socializing is the main thing when I can. I have problems dealing with people and just getting out and EQ offers an environment that's allows me to socialize with people from around the world.
Describe your best experience from playing EverQuest?
That's hard to narrow down, but if I had to pick just one it would probably be completing the original Epic quest. That quest took a long time and the lore behind it and final reward were one of the high points of all my time playing EQ. I still hope for a way to improve those old lightsabers so they can be used again, I just prefer the swords crafted by Rallos himself over the random sword from an alternate dimension with the 1.5/2.0. Plus with the Warrior epic there was the added bonus of being able to transform them from 2 one hand swords into 1 two handed sword, making them still one of the most unique weapons in EQ.
Do you run or work for an EverQuest Fan Site?
Yes, I run WTF Comics.
