EverQuest... A Legacy of Sorts

Estate of Unrest... I just had to take him there ;) 

I think the last time my son asked to play Everquest was when he was a wee, little one. Asking to play Mommy's game with her. I followed him around on the game sometimes, but he was too young to really take an interest. Over the years he's been more of an RPG/Console player. With PC games more so preferring Minecraft over Warcraft, a lover of the older Diablo games, compared to the new one. Granted he has taken more of an interest over the past few years, making it to 90 on several characters in WoW, playing further than I ever did in D3, capping many characters.

Recently we were sitting outside, some family and us, one evening, chatting about older games, the 'glory days' and I brought up class diversity. Games lately just don't often have that feel in many ways. EQ2 still has it, Rift has it, and EQ has always had it. Still does after 14 years and 20 expansions later. We got started on great classes within games. My son knows a good bit about EverQuest, as he has watched Dire and I play for years, he's seen me play it since he was about three (doesn't that make me feel old), sat on my lap and watched it, so it has always been something he's heard about and seen. Other than playing around as a little kid, he's never been very interested in it. But that night he really was interested in the classes and the huge world.

Later that night I asked him if he wanted to try any of my characters, he said maybe. The next day he looked at the songs on my bard, ran around a few zones, then that was that. The day after he asked if I'd do a recruit a friend invite for him. Since then he's tried out a couple of classes into their 30's. I've taken him to a few zones on the first character, but he really hasn't gotten much power leveling. Dire thinks he should learn it and get a real feel for the game to see if he indeed likes it, to learn it. Which I am proud of how well he is picking it all up, there is so much to learn. But he does have the walking EQ encyclopedia for a mother, so that helps too, lol. I can navigate through most zones with my eyes closed, those which I am fuzzy on, Dire knows, heh. So, things are not too frustrating for him as a new player.

It is neat to see the game through the eyes of a fresh player though. He brought the laptop over to my mother's to show my brothers the game yesterday, he was pretty excited to show off his new ranger. Someone remarked on how slow the combat was but my son remarked how it was just a different type of game. Dire calls it a 'Gentlemen's Game'- A game with more of an acquired taste, more maturity, more class, than most newer games, which I think is cute. But my son seems to really be enjoying it because it has a lot of depth. It is odd to see someone his age take such a shine to it.

I'm not actively playing besides helping him, porting and buffing him up. Dire is though, once he settles on a main character and gets high enough to group with our characters I will pick back up with playing more. For now I've given him some plat, twinked him out. He's got a blade of carnage and a fungi tunic, among other old school twink items that never lose value in that area. How could I not twink out my son, lol. Honestly it does help, worrying less about gearing until 60 or 65, the gear will last that long, and he can focus on learning his class and the way around the game, there is so much to take in.

I was on tonight, popping in to port him to a new zone, as it can really be confusing to navigate to some of the older content, and I really kind of missed it. I think it will be fun to play as a trio, I really do hope he ends up liking the game, it is one of the few of the games I play that he has taken a liking to. It is also kind of contagious to talk about the old days and how much we had fun, just as he is now, when everything was fresh and new!