In the very very early days of Everquest, I rolled my first toon. A High elf Wizard. I wanted a more "serious" experience so I chose a PVP server (cant recall which of the original Zeks) This was looooong before such "protections" existed, but I recall trying to eek out a living blowing up the local fauna in the greater Faydark around the High elf castle of Felwithe. I had to deal with many of my "brethren" elves along with various gnomes and dwarves attacking me simply due to the way humans(IE grievers) play.
However one day I recall encountering my very first dark elf just outside of the wood elves tree top city. There amongst the dunes of wood elf corpses on the ground below the city I see in the distance a dark elf run by. I quickly followed to take a better look. I quickly saw that there were three dark elf females following in a perfect line. However by the time I noticed such, they too also noticed me and descended upon me dispatching and disposing of me almost instantly. Now this turned out to be the very beginning of a VERY long experience. Every time I spawned there was the trio ready to gut me anew within minutes. I died so many times I no longer had any money and was quickly loosing all the gear I had (back when you could still loot freely on a pvp server) Everywhere I tried to go to resume my leveling and money making work this boxed trio quickly found me.
So, because of this I realized I had to change my tactics. I did not simply give up and go offline to wait for this trio to lose interest. I decided I had to go elsewhere. Not simply because I was being harassed at that moment, but because it was a PVP server, and it was very disorienting and counter immerse to be more often than not slain by the species that my species was supposed to be on amiable terms with. So If I were to be killed I would rather be killed by "true" enemies, and I would even find myself less opposed to killing those "enemies" myself. So I set out on what was arguably the most grand and visceral adventure in my personal gaming history. This was loooong before maps of norrath were commonplace online. This was well before game wikis popped up a day after release. At the time, all I "knew" of this world was what the manual told me and the original map of Norrath.
Now I knew "of" the various races, but did not know that much about the various localities. I "knew" however that elves were reasonably accepted in Qeynos. A city on the other side of another continent. I knew it would be quite challenging but at the same time I saw this as a great opportunity to truly learn about this world. So with that I set out to find docks at the Dwarven capital.
The trip just to find these docks was riddled with perils for an elf with little more than a stick, a lantern and the shirt on its back. I still had not even made it to level 5 before setting off and I was well aware I would HAVE to travel across zones intended for much higher levels and thus crossing the paths of not only much higher level NPCs but PCs as well who would be no less forgiving than the ones I was leaving behind. So armed with my True north spell to help guide my course, Shadow step to try to evade dangers, and root to create distance from those I couldnt I found the docks and prepared to sail across the ocean of tears to the continent of Antonica, with the hopes I would be able to make just enough money before getting too far in to buy my gate spell in case I truly got lost and start over.
I crossed the OOT with little issue on layover. (outside of realizing there WAS a layover) and found myself in the city of freeport. I figured this would be a good location to bind, bank, make some quick cash, get my gate and depart to find Qeynos. I elected to help some of the local NPCs to pick up some quest cash. I recall needing to take a break to go afk. I figured, its a PVP server, and as the Arena was essentially always empty, it would make a good place to set for about an hour while I was away. Sadly I was mistaken because when I returned to my char, I quickly realized I had sat too close to the Arena PVP line leaving myself free game. My history showed that I was pick pocketed 12 times running through all my cash and painfully one shotted. Regrettably many valuable lessons learned.
Others would follow quickly. Such as the concept in the game of factions. I recall looking for the wizards guild and having a great deal of trouble locating it. I wandered aimlessly through the maze like city streets, checking every alley, building I could find. I opened one door in a filthy looking part of town to be taught the painful lesson of the location of the City necromancers guild hall. I was obliterated by several very irate Necro guild master NPCs. To which not understanding why I was Killed on sight by these humans and not others allowed me to understand how the faction system in the game worked. Simply not only will some races not like you, certain professions will not like you either.
Regardless of my painful but valuable missteps in freeport and finally getting my gate spell I felt confident I had the tools I needed to make this trip across a continent. With no other indication of where to go other than I needed to go west, the first place I found myself was Nektulous forest, the Home of the dark elves. Fittingly enough, I decided to exact a tiny bit of revenge for the initial events that had prompted this journey. So I carefully creeped around the zone until I finally found the entrance to their City, Neriak. I watched from the distance as the nubile Tier dal filtered in and out of the city. Carefully selecting my prey and stalking them until they found themselves separated from their protecting herd. I put down at least a dozen before feeling as if I had rebalanced the scales and decided to move on. Knowing that Nektulous forest would dead end me away from my desired path, I gated to FP and started anew.
This time I headed south west. I quickly found a tunnel in the side of a mountain and was overwhelmed by the PC density. Surprisingly though I was never bothered in this location as it seemed to be the socially agreed upon trade center. Many races who would normally be aggressive from a RP perspective looked at me with utter indifference. Essentially no one paid any attention to me what so ever. I decided to see where this tunnel lead and found myself in the desert of Ro. I knew from my map that this would not be the most direct path, however it seemed very plausible that it might get me to Qeynos, if in a scenic path. So I worked my way across the desert and after trekking the dangerous dunes dodging giants, spiders and specters I finally moved out of the desert and encountered grass and trees again leading me to Innothule swamp.
This seemed entirely too far south to me and I was considering gating and starting over, but I knew from Lore, that the Ogres and Trolls had a long storied past and seeing on the map that the Ogre city was more along the path I needed to go, I thought it stood to reason there would have to be some likely way for these two species to interact on a regular basis. With very careful and precarious navigation from all the dangers the swamp held I eventually found the path out and saw local trolls traded for local ogres as I passed through the feerot. This felt like success because I was finally on the other side of the continent and it seemed like the only thing that stood in my way was to head north over the Rathe Mountains. However after finding the mountains and seeing how dangerous and complex of a maze it was to navigate I quickly found myself lost and in very powerful and hostile lands. It did not take me long at all to first trigger the ire of local giants that I was barely able to evade. Then I found all forward progression blocked because the one spot I needed to go to advance my exploration of the zone was essentially too well guarded by NPCs that would be impossible to avoid detection of. I first tried to get their attention and force them to follow me, then lose them and attempt to quickly double back and try to beat them back to the impasse they guarded but after several failed attempts I was finally discovered by high level PC Gnome who saw me as too good of an opportunity to pass up, Rooted me in place and lit me up sending me all the way back to freeport. Aggravation set in and the night had already wound to the late hours So I decided to pick up my adventure again the next morning, logged off and went to bed.
I started the next morning with more trepidation. I knew I would have to be much more careful in my explorations. I took what little money I had in the bank, made a new robe, picked up a fresh staff and spent my meager remainder on buying two invisibility potions. Given that I had explored the southern route and still was not sure if I would be able to get to Qeynos that way, I decided to push truly west and first aim for the halfee city of Rivervale. then push onward to Karana as it would be the most direct route. The common lands presented little obstacle outside of simply finding a zoneline that might lead to rivervale. I first found Befallen. Knowing it was a dungeon, it seemed like more of a dead end and I exited and eventually located the entrance to Kithicor wood.
It seemed like a fairly easy place but by sheer dumb luck while creeping past a house in the woods I was detected, dispatched and destroyed. Back in freeport I felt undeterred that this would be the right way to go, so I tried again. I had little choice as my costly invisibility potions were on that body. So working my way back I eventually located my corpse and pushed forward eventually finding the halfee city. I felt victorious as this seemed like the first real win for me because with the halflings being friendly I was able to freely bind in their city and it would be established as my new starting point so I could more easily push forward.
I began to explore their nubile lands in the Misty thicket and much like in the Greater Faydark I was harassed by every PC that I caught the gaze of. Based on my map the Misty thicket seemed far more north than I intended to go, but my previous experience on the south run taught me the way the world was laid out was not quite accurately depicted on the map. So I scoured around seeking a zone out. However the only one I could find was Clan Runnyeye, Home of local goblins and a dungeon. This worried me that this path would not work because it seemed like dungeons would be dead ends, not lead to other zones. However given that a complete scan of MT revealed no path westward, Runny eye seemed like the only alternative. So I pressed forward and carefully worked my way through the dungeon. Luckily it was fairly low level which made my survival much easier and thankfully my exploration proved fruitful as I stumbled out of the dungeon into the beholders maze. I had no clue where this was in relation to my target. I tried to work my way through the winding chasms but much like in Rathe Mnts, I found myself at a dangerous point of impasse. Not wishing to fall the same fate I went back to rivervale. I tried for a little while to stay away from the city line to avoid people and farm a bit to make some money because I had to decide if I was going to attempt to make it through the gorge or give up and go if not home at least to freeport where life seemed a tad bit easier. However PCs located me, and the living halflings were far more resentful of my presence than the NPC variety. So I decided to begin working my way back to free port. However this time through the darkened Kith wood I found myself lost and before I was able to get my bearings I stumbled into High keep, a mountain outpost for Humans. This presented promise of potentially another route to Qeynos.
As I explored the outpost it became quickly apparent to me that this was in fact a city zone so after dodging a few intermittent but powerful orcs I finally made it to the safety of its gates. Once there I was lucky enough to be offered a bind and pointed in the direction of Karana which would lead me to Qeynos. I pushed forward past Gnoll and Orcs mostly waiting for existing groups to thin them out for me to pass, but still encountered choke points. Being filled with dogged determination my goal was within grasp I took the chance and used my invisibility potion to get past one choke point with ease. However it didnt take long before I found myself locked yet again. Still determined but much more pensively I used my last potion and darted through. Not long after I exited the zone into East Karana.
As I wound my way down the mountain path terrified of another choke point I was filled with joy as the landscape leveled into wide open plains. With little difficulty other than time consumption I traversed the great plains with comparatively great easy from the arduous trials that had came before. By the time I exited the Western Plain I was beginning to get a bit worried simply for the sheer vast landscape behind me away from my bind point, but as I entered Qeynos hills I knew I was in striking distance. With no real indication on which way to go I ventured north first and quickly located Blackburrow, a clutch for young gnolls. I could see it would be an ideal place to hunt once I was safely established within the city. So based on pure assumption if the first thing I encountered north was danger, the city would most likely either be south, or further west. Purposely second guessing the map due to its poor accuracy track record over the course of the trip I chose south and was rewarded as I finally zoned into Qeynos.
Now, while this long winded adventure does in fact represent the joys of exploration of what is essentially an unmapped world, that does not necessarily translate into immersion, at least in text format. The immersion from the trek came from the slow, plodding deliberate and methodical pace. The constant fear of the unknown. Automatic distrust of everyone and everything even from the safest of distance. Having to fail repeatedly and succeed only by a combination of dumb luck and determination. However for the purposes related to this article it still simply is not enough to convey the beneficial levels of immersion and just how impactful death can be from an experience.
So after I settled in in Qeynos I adjusted to this new life. For the most part the PCs seemed a tad friendlier, and the overall population in the area was far more sparse than Felwithe or Antonica, So it was a suitable location for forward progression in the game. I quickly worked my way up and pushed my way beyond my first real level milestone of level 10. Now learning from prior attempts to infiltrate Blackburrow that individually the gnolls there were of little challenge to me. However they rarely came or could be handled solo. The place was also far too lucrative to simply try to pass up. So as I progressed toward level 10 I repeatedly tested my ability to hold my own in the zone and delve deeper into its depths. By 10 I could normally make my way down fairly far and as I began to essentially make it my secondary home over time I learned much of its perplexing landscape.
One afternoon I had been farming and I was practically filled to the brim with materials to sell/quest and dropped coins to bank. Even with all the copper I was carrying to the edge of encumbrance I had on me an amount far greater than any single amount I had ever had at one time. I was finally starting to feel like I was coming into my own in the game. Yet while already engaged with a pair of gnolls that normally I would be able to easily dispense with I see from battle spam and rapid health drop I am being attacked and as I turn to see what is going on in the distance I see a robed dark elf lobbing spells at me. While I might be able to handle the gnolls, handling them as well as her would not be possible and the gnolls would not simply wait till I dealt with her. So I knew that if I wanted to survive I would have to retreat. I knew I was incredibly deep in the zone and almost to what I had perceived to be the bottom, and simply running to the exit would be very long and add half a zone worth of gnolls on a very undesirable train.
So I felt the best chance was to root her in place, flee and try to put them down quickly outside of her casting range. I turned a corner I knew I would not aggro adds and quickly dispatched the weaker of the two in short order. However by this time I was informed my root had broken, So I started to head back toward the dark elf. I quickly targeted her and rooted her once again. I pushed for another corner from where I originally spotted her and started to work over the second gnoll. This time I was only able to knock off about half its health. So because it had worked the last time I tried to do my root/hide/nuke technique again. However this time she rooted me in place. If I was going to be stuck I chose to work on the gnoll while rooted. She managed to get off one light spell that did not do much damage before root broke and I tried to turn the corner again and finally put the gnoll to rest before the root broke on her. She came charging at me this time in the form of a troll. We slung spells at each other but seemingly being a troll gave her greater melee and health because I could see she was starting to gain the upper hand on me. Now normally I would not run from a fair fight, even if the odds are against me. If I have a legit chance, I will do my best to overcome and stick with it. However on this occasion I was more torn. I felt like using more strategy I could easily win this fight, but at the same time I knew in the back of my head this was a LOT of money and potential faction and would not want to lose it. However knowing that the exit was still a LONG way away trying to escape was no guarantee either.
So I chose to try to win the fight. I threw her off guard by taking a dangerous risk and Shadowstepping (Short random distance teleport) away. With luck It was outside of her line of sight, so I quickly sat down to hastily try to pit stop as much health and mana as I could before she found me again. I actually managed to rest all of my HP/MP back and stood to see if I could sneak out undetected. However as I crossed halfway of a bridge she finally caught up to me and got the upper hand by rooting me in place. This time she unleashed several volleys at me before it broke and took far more damage. We were roughly neck and neck with HP loss, however she was just above 50% HP and It dropped me to about 40% mana to get her there. So I knew I was not going to be able to cast her to death as I would run out of gas before she would run out of health. Knowing my environment I was on a bridge above water. However I had never been down that deep in the dungeon before. If she killed me or If I was killed by gnolls it wouldnt matter. She would loot my corpse and I wouldnt get that far down naked either way. So I decided to take a chance and when root broke refreshed root on her again and I dove off the bridge into the water. It was fairly deep, deep enough to pad my fall. I knew she would pursue the moment root broke, so knowing I had a breath potion in inventory I used it and sat underwater meditating for HP/MP as I waited for her root to break. As it did I watched her come flying off the bridge and with a tiny stroke of luck she ran off in pursuit of me.
I knew she wouldnt be fooled for long, so I only got a little splash before standing up. I used my eye spell (allows you to go out of body controlling an eye to scout ahead) to find her engaged with three gnolls. I used this distraction to my advantage and refilled the rest of my hp/mp. When I followed her, I saw she had finished off one gnoll already. However she quickly noticed me as I was casting and she summoned a pet that she directed at the gnolls and focused her attention on me. While she was down to 50% by this point I felt confident I could work off the remainder this time. However I was incorrect. Once her pet finished the second gnoll it redirected at me. It was almost dead so I tried to take it out, but as I cast so did she and promptly she vanished as her pet died. I assumed she had gated back to her bind point, but really didnt pay attention as I was still far from out of the woods being deeper in the zone than I had ever been with no idea how to get up to familiar territory. So once healed up I creeped along blindly trying to find the way up. About 5 minutes of wandering and thankfully only one easy npc incursion I made it back to the bridge I had jumped off earlier. However in a replay of the earlier showdown as I crossed it I was greeted by her charging head on at me. Right behind her was an immense train of at least a dozen gnolls. She ran right past me and as I turned around to follow her and avoid the mess she brought with her I saw she was already gone, so hoping to avoid aggro and armed with the new knowledge of the area below I jumped off the bridge again. Only two gnolls followed me and they were low enough that I was able to AOE them quickly.
Now knowing this girl had no aversion to fighting dirty, I felt no longer honor bound to do the same. So I decided that given that it was only her and I in the zone (3am EST-ish) that I would have to train the zone back up. As I made my beeline for the zone line I passed by her again searching for me as her train had already caught back up to her. I paid her no attention and ran right past as I only had about 40% hp left and still a very very long road to go. Thankfully she had brought most of the spawns with her initially so the path upward was no where near as dangerous as it normally would be, but I could see I still had a pair of gnolls nipping at my heels. I paid them no mind as I marched toward grass level and the exits. Once there I was still at about 35% so I turned to kill off the two as I could see a new player who had just zoned in at the zone line. Putting them down was easy enough, but as I moved to exit once again I was rooted in place. I turned to face the exit and again there she was this time right next to me in human form with fresh pet in tow. She only had about 25% left so I would try to break root and escape if I could and fend her off if I couldnt. It was an absolute slug out at this point. I was down to having to standing regen mana and cast lvl 1 spells as we were meleeing each other to death. As we whittled each other down she kept me rooted so I could not escape but I had no where near as much mana as she, so my little spells were not doing much. I was however unusually strong in melee and because of it I kept a sizable HP advantage over her. Finally root broke and she was unable to recast it. I figured she had finally ran out of mana too. So I tried to put myself right on the zoneline so I would be able to make a final stand and either I would finally put her down, or if she somehow got the better of me, I could simply tap the back arrow and make an instant retreat.
I was practically panting. It felt like electricity was shooting through my fingers and heat was steaming out of my ears. Much later in life I would realize what this physiological sensation was. It was the feeling of literally fighting for your survival. It was at the time one of the most intense sensations I had ever had in my life.
However, unexpectedly she launched off a nuke right as I got to the zone line and had turned to resume the final assault. That nuke however was unexpectedly powerful and I had to evacuate out. Before the loading message her pet made one final swing. As I zoned I had assumed I had survived until when I had zoned in it was to my bind point. I reviewed the battle spam, and it was clear the message "Loading... Please wait" came first, but was NOT followed by any additional damage and then the message you have died. However there was no second Loading please wait indicating return to spawn as if the damage occurred on the other side and she simply had a better connection than me.
I screamed in fury. I slung the keyboard across the room completely obliterating it, leaving a hole in the wall where it hit and I punched the wall next to the PC leaving a hole there too. My eyes were twitching, my pulse was absolutely pounding. However it was not from the anger. My blood had been pumping through the latter half of this whole event which while I am not sure exactly how long it lasted as I never had the time to look for survivals sake had to be at least 15 to 20 minutes long. My fingers ached, my mouth was dry. I was indeed furious because I had felt that if I zoned, it should auto negate all damage from the exact point I zoned. I was furious that despite repeatedly having advantages and overcoming dirty tricks, outmatched odds, and even the simple fact she was a level higher than I that I SHOULD have survived.
What made it worse was the fact my corpse was not actually in Blackburrow where we fought. It was on the other side of the zone line. By every technical possibility in the game I had in fact survived to zone out. Hence the reason why my corpse was on the outside instead of in. As I looted my corpse I found it empty. At this point I was seething. Teeth clenched and fuming. While I was still in "loot" looking at all the progress I had lost, once again while naked I was obliterated by this dark elf. I slung everything off the desktop including the replacement keyboard.
After calming down and reconnecting the mouse and keyboard I petitioned because if I zoned out I could not have died in BB, yet no damage could have happened on the other side because I never zoned in and went directly to my bind point. Once the GM got involved, it confirmed that I had NOT died in BB, that I still had 6 hp left on zone out. There was a programming error because when the server tried to zone me in, it registered me as -6 hp, sent my location to the zone out as if I had 6 hp but as the zone I was transferring to saw it as -6 it simply dropped a corpse and forced me back to bind without actually having died. Despite the GM knowing I had not actually died I was told it was beyond their ability to do anything about it and the most it was willing to do would be to throw me a couple of long lasting buffs.
Completely outraged I declined and logged out. I was beyond pissed, My nerves were frayed. I felt almost as if I had been in an actual fight, and in some ways much worse. My chest even began to ache as if it was causing actual stress on my heart. I thought at the time, If I could allow myself to get that worked up and physically distressed over a video game, I shouldnt be playing that video game, which at the time it seemed like the well reasoned thing to do was to quit the game. I cancelled my subscription that day, even though it had just been renewed a week earlier. I felt no compulsion to play and instead went back to working on PSX games. It wasnt till almost a half year later after the memory of that event had mostly faded that Its memory did not even cross my mind at the time I saw the new expansion Ruins of Kunark that I found myself intrigued and went ahead and bought it. I did come to enjoy the game for a few years after that with no problems as I thought it for the best to play on a non PVP server. It was during that time I made most of the friends I did from EQ, and was the period of the largest bulk of my memories of the game.
However, the point of this whole elongated tale was that one experience, that intense fight for survival. The long back and forth turning the tide of battle, Even the effects of the long cross continent trek and its fear of unknown and threats to survival are the reason why these are two of the most profound moments I had. Not in the game. In my entire pushing 40 year long gaming history. No other experience in gaming either before, or since has came anywhere near close to producing such an experience that successfully tapped into raw emotion and primal natures.
