Jval2529's Guide for People Coming from Modern MMOs (2024)

I recently started playing EQ on project 1999, I had absolutley no experiance when I came here. I posted many pointless questions and pestered many people to learn a few basics about the game. The most frutrating and difficult aspect to communicate was the unimportance of quests and gear at the beginning. I would like to present some of the newbies like me with a few questions that are difficult to find details on.

When you are born you have a few basic items: food, water, a sword, a book, maybe a couple spells and a note. The first thing you want to do is equip your sword. After that, learn your spells by dragging the scrolls from your inventory into your spellbook and putting the spells on your spell bar (called gemming). it takes a few seconds to memorize and learn spells(indicated by the bar at the bottom of your spellbook.)

Quests.

There are quests, with that said they are not like EQ2 or WoW. The Quests are not very simple and are meant for faction, experience and gear -- for the most part -- something you don't really need to worry about till maybe lvl 20. You will not see marked quests anywhere; EQclassic does NOT have a quest log. You can type notes to remember where quests are and what quests to do by typing "/note" or just writing it down on paper.If you really want to quest you probably want to look up the quests on p99 wiki, they are categorized by zone. In the beginning there are several quests that will give you far more XP than grinding will. These are quests that require you to turn in items found on mobs such as Crushbone belts/pads, bone chips, gnoll teeth, etc. Though it's advisable to hold on to bone chips for reasons explained later (on the "making money" section) in this guide. Also, there are epic quests, these are more important than regular quest but, I will not talk about them due to lack of experience, by the time you get one you should already know what you're doing anyway.

A Quick note on gear

There are no level restrictions for wearing gear, if you find it wear it if you find an upgrade wear that. Although there ARE class restrictions, the only thing close to a level restriction are magic weapons that proc when they hit, on these weapons it will proc but, until you are high enough level to use the proc, the game will say "Your will is not sufficient to command this weapon".

Finding your Guildmaster

When you start a character you are born with a note in your inventory, when you give the note to the person specified in the note (your Guildmaster or GM), she/he will give you your starter tunic/robe and some faction rep. Giving the note to the GM is up to you, I've heard contradicting information about turning in the note. Some say giving the note to the GM usually has some negative effects later in the game via factions and you shouldn't do it. Others say they've never had a problem and there's nothing to worry about, I will be doing some research to find out which is true and which is false. (they might both be right).

Making Money

There are several ways to make money, one of the best ways is to sell bone chips (necromancers of all levels need them) A single stack of 20 will earn you 10 plat easily, which is a lot for a low level character. Other then that just vendor all stuff you can't use. No matter what your is class it is advisable you grind to level 2-3 infront of your starting city before going anywhere. Spells cost money, and that's something you are not born with. Pick everything up from monsters and sell it to the vendor, there is usually one right at the entrance to the city.

Buy a Torch

On the subject of vendors, buy a torch from one. Torches are very cheap (about 5 coppers) and it gets very dark at night. Better safe than sorry.

Spells/getting spells/Where are the trainers and GM's?

Depending on your class your trainer could be in a few different areas, the note in your inventory will point you in the right direction by giving you the location and name of your GM. If you have trouble finding it look up the NPC( in this case your GM by name) on project 1999 wiki. If you're a druid or a ranger in Qeynos or Freeport your trainer will be at Surefall glade, this zone is next to North Qeynos hills and Northern Commonlands, through a tunnel at the opposite end of the zone, just follow the road stright and go through the tunnel.

If you have to walk to Surefall Glade there will be skeletons on the road sometimes and it is good to have to upperhand when you're alone. If you did grind to lvl 2 or 3 you should have enough money for a few spells as well, learnable spells appear as scrolls on the vendor interface, you can right click to see what the prerequisites are. the ussually appear as Druid(5) Ranger(19) that means that if you're a druid you can use the spell at level 5 and if you're a ranger you can use the spell at level 19.

Dying is an inevitable part of the world of Norrath, you will be dying a lot at first but this area of the guide is here to help you both die less and help you restore your character to normal after dying.

Grouping

You can likely make it to level 5 on your own but after that you might consider grouping with other players. This is what makes or breaks the game, you WILL get bored fast if you don't have fun people to go on adventures with and it will be harder to recover your body when you die without a group. This is what makes or breaks the game for many people, if you don't group you are missing out.

always /con check before you fight.

Lots of monsters share the same model, right clicking your target will tell you if it's a fair fight. Sometimes high level creatures wander into low level zones. I had an incident with a skeleton once, right click or die. Alternatively, you can click the monster and press "c".

Always Remember to Buff

If you don't buff you will die, unlike more modern games where buffs are pseudo-optional, you WILL notice an enormous difference when you are buffed with your own spells and others.

Death

You will die....a lot, when you die you lose all your gear and all your spells are deleted off the spell bar. Loot everything off your body and you are as good as new give or take a few xp. Don't leave stuff on your body, it will not disappear if you leave anything on it. In later levels you can receive rezzes (resurrection)from high level cleric that will restore xp lost when dying up to 96%. However, at low levels rezzes are not all that big a deal since you don't lose much xp on death anyway.

It's for PVP. If you're new, I would not advise using it, just destroy it. If another player kills you you will lose money and sometimes gear. If you want to pvp, give the book the the local Priest of Discord. He is in front of you when you log in for the first time.

about dropping/destroying items

Some items are no-drop, no-sell, no-trade *like your first weapon* once you outgrow an item like this go to your character screen ("I"), click the destroy button, click the item then confirm and ta-da! it's gone.

Giving Items to NPC's

You can give an item to an NPC by clicking the item and then dragging it over the desired NPC and clicking the NPC, an interface will pop up with the item you are going to give to them hit the "give" button.

You are now ready to make your own adventures, you can do whatever you want, you don't have quests to tell you what you do, you make your own adventures! find caves to explore and mysterious creatures to kill. it's all up to you. At about lvl 5-15 you can explore the Qeynos Aquaducts or maybe Blackborrow, but be careful and take plenty of friends.

Conclusion

That's about it, if I think of anything else I was confused about when I joined I will add it. If you see any improvements I can make tell me, I tried to make this guide as universal as possible and in the simpilist most discriptive language I can, because most awnsers seemed so vauge to me. I hope you guys enjoy it and it helps you. I didn't mean to make this a guide but I guess that's what it turned out to be, hopefully I don't get in trouble for posting it in this section, I just want to help some people pampered by newer mmo's out.

credits to

All the great people on the p99 forum who helped me correct mistakes and Extunarian who helped me create this page.