Midoo's EQ Guide For WoW Refugees (2024)

Before we begin, if I sent you this link you probably don't even know what EverQuest even is. This is my personal ramble about the game, from the perspective of someone in the minority of players who never got to experience the original 1999-2002 release, along with a short guide on how to get started.

Forget everything that World of Warcraft and FFXIV have conditioned you to expect from an MMO: the linear systems, the short 10 minute dungeons, the 4 caster classes that are just pure dps mage but a different color, pushing all of the content to max level because leveling is a chore that no one pays attention to... Forget all of that. EverQuest is not a DPS race and there is nothing at max level. If you played Runescape before, the experience will be familiar. EverQuest is a game about chill mob camps, trading rares and gameplay-changing class features. EverQuest is the kind of game where you can quietly grind slowly respawning mobs for XP while you do the laundry or tab out to Youtube, but it can also be the kind of game where you and six other Clerics rotate heals on your quickly melting tank while the raid boss you've been wiping to for weeks is now at 3% HP.

EverQuest has hundreds of camping spots across its levels. Every level range has dozens of zones you could visit all with different variable levels of difficulty and drops. EverQuest offers plenty of things to do if you're a busy dad or a college student, and it also offers content for sweaty high-APM poopsockers who start twitching if they have to stop playing for a moment-- the world is an open sandbox that won't hold your hand and won't funnel you to a specific playstyle. There's no story quests, no dungeon finders, no mounts, no baby-proofed teleportation mechanics; you land in this alien world called Norrath, and the game assumes you're an adult who can figure their way around.

A quick warning. You can skip this if you want.

I know for a fact most of you that I refer to this guide will not read it, so I'll just give you the short and skinny right now.

Go make a character, whatever you want it to be. Human necromancer with +30 stats in Dexterity or whatever, start him in Qeynos if you want. Gnome warrior, Iksar shaman, I don't really care. Die ten, twenty, fifty times. Lose a good few characters permanently. You'll get bored of this game within ten minutes and you'll quit. But the thought will fester at the back of your mind, and at some point you'll return and try again. This time, you'll be older and wiser and much more patient. That's when you'll start reading guides. That's when the rest of this page will finally make sense to you and that's when the design of the game will finally click.

I can tell you this, because I've experienced it. Except at the "coming back" part, most of the guides were written in 1999 for people who knew what they were doing, and I had to constantly hunt for all of the information myself in individual pages of the P99 wiki. I've spared you that trouble and tried to shorten everything you should know to get started as a restless zoomer in one page.

Author's introduction

Hello and welcome. My name is Midoo. I go by Odym, the Barbarian Shaman in-game.I started playing EverQuest Classic in 2017, after being deeply frustrated with the direction World of Warcraft was headed. I left around the time Legion ended, and soon after I recalled some of the memes and jokes from back in the day about EverQuest being World of Warcraft's harsher, yet relatively much more free-form and complex ancestor, and how much closer it was to DnD. I was always drawn to classical things, whether it be in my musical taste, my choice of videogames, or my own personal beliefs. Besides, the mindless hack & slash of World of Warcraft was getting tiring. So I googled it and was introduced to Project1999.

I always wanted to explain what's so good about EQ to a modern audience, but I could never really put my finger on it and I end up rambling for a few hours. Here's all of this rambling in text form. Have fun.

Guide starts here.

What's EverQuest Classic?

EverQuest is a sandbox MMORPG inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and Tolkien-style fantasy. Compared to its younger brothers World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV, EverQuest is a significantly more strategic experience where class composition can make or break your runs. Low-level EverQuest is fun albeit, on the surface, very grindy; you'll be finding yourself punching rats and bats on a second monitor for hours until you unlock your unique class abilities and become valuable to others. Once you climb the difficulty curve, high-level EverQuest will take you through maze-like dungeons, catacombs, caves and fortresses where enemies will crush you and your party if you don't know how to CC, root, split, levitate, invis, haste, slow, and other technical skills.

Each class offers a varied kit that often feels like playing a completely different game than other classes. Unlike other MMOs where the classes are palette swaps of "fill resource, consume resource" and the occasional offheal, EverQuest's classes each hold core grouping mechanics in the palm of their hand; the Enchanter's ability to stop the aggro of an entire room of enemies, the Bard's refreshing mana flowing spells, the Shaman's ability to turn his allies into berserking death machines, the Wizard's 100 to 0 elemental nukes, the Cleric's giant burst heals, the Knights' aggro-magnet abilities... Each class has something you can't replace, and it's all about picking and choosing and strategizing.

What's different about this game?

Emotional wall of text incoming. If you're under the age of 25 I hope you can come down from your ADD trip for a moment to carefully read this paragraph word by word.

EverQuest Classic is like a vintage car. It looks pretty chunky by modern standards, and it takes a bit of struggle to start up, but once you're up and running, with the wind to your face and the roads to your side blurring into pretty lines, there will be no greater euphoria than this. It's fun to be comfortably nuking the mobs and being invited to high-end farming groups after months of slogging through hell dying to rats. It's fun to finally obtain that item that's marked as a pre-Planar best-in-slot at level 30 with your own blood, sweat and tears, or scribe that new batch of spells that you've been holding onto in your backpack for a week. You'll meet people who are well geared and experienced, and you'll remember your first few days, and you'll know that you finally belong in the tight circle of people who are "good" at this niche, unforgiving game, knowing that it practically made you rip your worth from its merciless grip, and that you actively worked hard for all that you earned.

Stat boosting items in EverQuest are really rare. They only drop from rare mobs, or as rewards for relatively involved quest chains. Stat boosting is such a hard thing to earn in EQ that a hat with +3 Wisdom and +3 Intelligence on it for example is considered pre-raid BiS for some classes. Because of the effort it takes to go out of your way and camp gear (or save up to buy it from other players) I can name every single item I'm wearing on my main along with its backstory and how I earned it. Not some bullsh*t lore story reason of why a quest giver made me kill 20 orcs in exchange for a +10 STR chest item, but my own, personal sandbox story of farming hags in Unrest, the people I've met, the times I've died, the insane room-breaking split pulling I had to perform, the high level clerics I had to beg to resurrect me, etc.Bottom line: EverQuest is a game that gets very grindy at points, with a steep learning curve that looks more like a cliff. But much like Runescape and other games of old, you discover an entire world to explore once you're past your front yard.

The combat is more like Runescape at first.

• EverQuest isn't an action game by modern standards. Melee combat is slow, repetitive and sluggish. You'll be auto attacking 80% of the time if you're melee; but the immediate act of fighting stuff itself isn't the focus.
• There's no "melee spells" for the most part like in WoW. No mortal strike, no whirlwind, no thunder clap, etc. If you choose a melee class (more on that later), you're lucky if it has two Kick buttons, a Disarm and a Taunt.
• Spell animations are stiff. A fight with a mob your level is a death sentence if you don't know what you're doing. It's all about the strategy, hunting, planning, learning, and seeing the fruit of your plotting in the form of dying less often and winning more fights.
• Enemies your level are DANGEROUS in 1v1s, and even enemies lower level than you can be trouble if you're not careful. Fights in this game are EXTREMELY long compared to other games, and at lower levels before you get your cool moves they are mind-numbingly boring.

It takes a while to understand why people find this game fun.

• Classes don't get their important spells right away. Massive class-defining abilities are obtained later on, as evenly spread milestones across all (currently) 60 levels of the game. Clerics get Resurrection at 29, Druids get their portals at 19, Enchanters get Charm at 12, etc. This guarantees that you always have something fun to look forward to that's right around the corner. In fact, looking forward to your next powerful line of spells is the main motivation for leveling up! Today you're a sh*tty warrior with a useless heal. Tomorrow you unlock spells that allow you to switch from meleeing stuff to death to DoTing and rooting from a distance. Next week you get a pet and the most efficient healing spells for your level range. Who knows what waits for you after that?
• Buffs are very important in this game. Priest classes (Shaman, Druid, Cleric) can buff you to the point of near immortality if you ask nicely. The difference between an unbuffed character and a buffed character can often be double or triple the damage output and health pool. Someday it'll be you bankstanding and getting whimpering tells from a level 4 Paladin who wants a Spirit of Wolf

Endgame-relevant content starts way before max level.

• EverQuest isn't a race to max level like World of Warcraft. Raids start at 46 but aren't the main course of the game. All of the good content is scattered equally across all levels-- some zones as early as level 25-30 have rare mobs that drop items you'll wear for years!
• Leveling in EQ is much slower than in WoW. Quests aren't the main method of leveling up. People generally pick a quiet spot full of enemies their level that they can grind for hours on end, mostly with a group, and slowly watch their XP bar fill up.
• Gear doesn't have "level requirements" to be worn like in WoW. Everything can be worn at level 1 if your class allows it. 99% of all gear is also tradeable!
• No one ever tells you where to go in this game, which forces you to explore, experiment, interact with the community and study guides. The act of grinding in a group also strengthens social bonds. People will remember you, and your actions will carry over across the community to your next group, for better or for worse. Have Loramin's Per-Level Hunting Guide bookmarked for a full list of all the good places you can visit in EQ.

Dungeons are open XP hubs, not cinematic boss hallways.

• Dungeons are not linear A to B corridors of trash like in other MMOs. EQ dungeons are massive, branching, horizontal mazes with several wings that go in all directions, with respawning mobs and several rooms that house rare spawns. The intention is for you and your party to slowly break into whatever room you're interested in camping, then sit there as you farm spawns together.
• Dungeons are not instanced. This means you'll learn to share, and consequently makes rare items in this game much more valuable and symbolic of status.
• Dungeon mobs are numerous and bunched up, so as to make the place fatally dangerous for anything less than groups or really coordinated duos/trios past the entrance. Make friends! (or learn to play an Enchanter.)

EverQuest is cross-faction, but reputation matters.

• There are no player factions in EverQuest. No Alliance or Horde. ALL players in the game can interact equally, trade and speak to each other freely, invite each other and level together with no restriction.
• However, NPCs do not share your sense of tolerance, as they split into Good, Evil, Neutral and Iksar.
• Good races consist of the Barbarians, Dwarves, Halflings, High Elves and Wood Elves. Evil city guards will kill you on sight.
• Evil races consist of Dark Elves, Ogres and Trolls. Good city guards will kill you on sight
• Neutral races consist of Humans, Gnomes, Erudies and Half-Elves. These generally accept anyone who isn't an Iksar within their cities, or will defer to your religion for how they feel about you.
• Iksar are so disliked that they merit their own category, being despised by nearly every living creature in the game bar their own kind and some rare vendor NPCs outside the faction system for gameplay balance.

Religion? Just pick Agnostic.

• Religion affects some factions and allows you access to a couple of niche (mostly useless) items. You can pick agnostic, unless you're a class whose power is derived from its faith, like the Necromancer or the Cleric.
• Enchanters have access to Illusions and Druids have a Wolf Form that allows them to get past racial prejudice. Religious hatred, however, can never be quelled, and simply existing within the aggro range of an NPC who has beef with your deity will result in them refusing to interact with you at best and attacking you at worst.
• Being agnostic is a safe bet. If that's not an option, just avoid Cazic Thule, Bertoxxulious or Innoruuk.

Step ONE: Picking a class

The section below is dedicated to helping you choose what role you'll offer the world of Norrath, and what its people will expect from you.

TL;DR: Great Classes for Beginners:

• Druid: versatile semi-healer with great buffs and good solo potential and teleportation. Best first character if you're new to a server and want to make money porting.
• Magician: most of the damage is done by your pet; you can just sic it on someone and watch the wrestling happen.
• Paladin: if you want an easy spellsword class. They're like warriors who get Cleric spells too so you can find cheap gear easily and fill both roles.
• Ranger: is a fun Paladin alternative who's less tanky and more mobile. They're basically warriors who get some Druid spells.
• Monk: who's a little boring and featureless like all melee classes (compared to casters) but can pull some of the best DPS in the game practically naked.
• Necromancer: preferably Gnome because they're not as hated as the others or Dark Elf so you can hide to regenerate safely. They're a very capable and self-sufficient solo class.

TL;DR: Classes/Races to be wary of as a Beginner:

• Anything having to do with a Warrior. They're not a fun or casual melee DPS like WoW; EQ warrior is a highly specialized raid tank that's borderline useless without extremely expensive investments.
• Anything having to do with Ogres, Trolls, or Iksar. They are kill-on-sight in most cities and far away from civilization.
• Raid specialists: Rogues and Clerics rely on having other people to tank for them, making them functionally useless outside of groups and very hard to level as a beginner.
• Shadow Knights because of faction issues.
• The Shaman as the only races that can play it are either too isolated or hated by most NPCs.

Complete class breakdown:

A word on the Warrior class:

I noticed a lot of people make the mistake of rolling Warriors as their first character, because Warriors are typically fun and viable in other MMOs.
If you're new to this game, the Warrior class is a noob trap. Unlike its WoW counterpart, EQ's Warrior is an unpopular class that was mostly designed to be a raid tank for guild leaders and nothing else. It's outperformed by every single class in the game in both groups and solo content. It's only "playable" once it beings to scale up at level 50+ with extremely expensive high end gear.
If you want to tank, Paladin and Shadowknight are much better options, with strong kits that allow for splitting, snap aggro, retreating, supporting party members, etc. Warriors are specifically designed to be guild tanks: their only unique feature is their gigantic health pool that allows them to soak up endgame damage. Unless you're a raider with a whole guild dedicated to controlling rooms for you, you'll just be playing a gimped Rogue with no backstabs.

Step TWO: Explanation of the UI

I often hear that the UI is the most confusing aspect of starting the game for newcomers. So here's a simple breakdown of its features:

The Spellbar: This is where you'll put spells that you inscribed in your spellbook.

The Action Tabs: These split into 4 different tabs (the tiny icons); Main, Racial abilities, Melee Combat abilities, and Macros. You can hold and drag any into your hotbar.

The Hotbar: This is the bar that your keyboard buttons are bound to by default. When you press 1, whatever is in the first square will be executed, be it a spell, ability or macro. You can rebind them all in the menu.

The Chat: If you right click the top edge of the chat box, you can customize it all you want. You can also resize it and put it wherever you want, or create another separate tab.

Buffs and Debuffs: This is where your buffs and debuffs are tracked. It's pretty self explanatory. You can hold Alt to see their names or right click to remove a buff.

Target and Character Bars: These work the same way they would in any other RPG. In EQ linguo, a "bubble" is the small segment that represents 1/5th or 20%.

Group Menu: You can invite someone by targeting them and clicking Invite in the main tab of your Actions. You can also accept a group invite by clicking Follow in Actions. If you click someone's health bar, you'll target them.

The Inventory: Bound to I iirc, but I prefer to rebind it to C. It displays all of your equipment, stats, currencies and a basic 8 slot inventory. When you eventually get your hands on containers (bags, backpacks..) you can right click them from your inventory to open or close them.

The Spellbook: It contains all the spells you know. You learn spells in EQ by putting spell scrolls you're eligible to use (the right class and level) in empty square slots of your spellbook. You can "memorize" a spell by taking it from your spellbook and putting it somewhere on your Spellbar, where you can cast it from there.

Step THREE: Actually playing the game

Congratulations on picking a class. If you haven't decided what to play yet, just pick anything and give it a spin. I myself leveled every class at some point just to get an idea of how they play before ultimately deciding what I'll main.

Fix your keybinds!

Press Alt+O, and check out the Keys tab. If you come from World of Warcraft, you'll want to change your keybinds to be more comfortable. I myself like to bind Consider to W, my inventory/character sheet to C, "open all bags" to B, sitting to X, and Melee Attack to the little tilde ` corner button left of the number keys.

Equip your stuff!

Adjust your UI. Move things around, right click and Lock them in place just in case. Once you're happy with the UI, click the Sword or Club that you have and place it on your class logo to equip it.

Scribe your spells!

(If you're a warrior, rogue or monk, skip this entirely. If you're a shadow knight, paladin or ranger, don't fret, you get your first spells at level 9.)Open your Spellbook by clicking the tiny book button at the bottom of your spell bar. Drop the spell scrolls from your inventory (whose name start with "Spell: ") on empty squares in your spellbook to permanently learn them.Then, drag the spell icon from your spellbook to one of the little gems on the long spellbar.You can click and hold a gem in your spellbar until it detaches, then you can put it on your Hotbar. (The buttons 1, 2, 3... are by default bound to your Hotbar, not your Spellbar, so watch out for that.)

Once you're done scribing your newbie spells, hop on the P99 wiki and find a detailed map of your own home city. Halas for Barbarians, Freeport for Humans, etc. Type /loc to see your location, and keep in mind it prints out vertical position, then horizontal position, then altitude.

Find your class trainer!

Use the P99 wiki map, along with spamming /loc to find the class trainer in your city. Right click the little note in your inventory to read it; it'll generally have the name of the NPC you'll be giving it to. Drop the scroll on their head to receive a free armor piece.You can right click your trainer to open up the skill point allocation menu. You only get 5 every level, so don't waste them. The wiki page for your class will have a list of every skill you'll eventually unlock; to unlock a new skill, put 1 point in it.Memorize the location of this trainer, and check out nearby NPCs who might sell spells you need. Again, the wiki page for your class will also have a list of all its spells (if applicable) that you'll eventually unlock, and who sells them where.

Advanced Pro-Tip: Sense Heading Sense Heading is an INVALUABLE skill. When used, it prints out what cardinal direction you're facing in the chat box. Judging you're still fresh new to this game, it's extremely easy for you to get lost if you don't know at least where you're going. A clever trick to raise it is to drop it into a hotbar, then bind that corresponding hotbar key to A D, so you can spam it while running around or fighting.| A quick five minute video explanation. Relevant part starts around 2:30.

Head out to your newbie yard and start farming!Again, use your wiki map and macro smashing skills to leave the city and head for the newbie yard. Start farming mobs. At this point, you've been well introduced to the game. Save up enough cash and go back to buy a few Backpacks. That should be your first milestone. Then, check the P99 wiki page for your class to know at what level you get your first batch of spells. Once you're level 5, browse the Per-Level Hunting Guide to know where to go and what places to explore.

FINALLY: CORE things to remember

Now, I know the first few hours are confusing. It took me weeks myself to get used to the UI, and more to get used to the combat, and even moreso to be able to comfortably travel the world without obsessively alt-tabbing to the world map every two seconds. In order to lessen the agony of starting out in this unforgiving world, I'm gonna give you five tips that you PROMISE me you'll follow.

Always right click a creature to /con it before approaching.

The game does NOT tell you what level creatures are, but it'll tell you how much stronger or weaker than you they are.To "con" a mob, or to /con a mob means to "consider" it. Check the chat box. If it says that they're "scowling at you" or "glaring threateningly", then they will attack you on sight.

• RED is much higher than you, and means an absolute no-go under almost any circ*mstance.
• YELLOW is slightly higher than you, means avoid, unless a high level player buffed you to the point of immortality. In both cases, your spells will be resisted and your attacks will miss.
• WHITE is an acceptable challenge. Still almost a death sentence at most levels but great XP if you can tackle it.
• BLUE is slightly lower than you. It'll give you decent XP but will be relatively easier than a mob your level. Get used to farming these by the masses.
• GREEN means considerably lower than you, and little or no XP is rewarded. Generally a waste of time.

Learn to obsessively google the P99 wiki for everything.

Any question you have can be answered by checking the Wiki. When in doubt, google whatever you want to ask about and follow it with "P99". Do you need a detailed map of the world? Or do you need specific guides for your class? Or do you want to know the names of every NPC in the game who happen to sell water flasks AND their coordinates? This website has got you covered. I couldn't imagine playing EQ without the wiki. It would be unplayable to people like us who didn't grow up with it or have the patience to experiment from zero. Having at least three tabs open is mandatory for a beginner: the world map, the map of the zone you're currently in (can switch to the next zone by clicking the link to it in the page), and the wiki page for your class, so you know when you get spells, skills and such.

"Quests" here are just turn-ins.

You level by mob grinding, just like Runescape. You find a good spot in a zone with other people and farming respawning creatures for hours on end, gaining 1% or 2% of your XP bar per kill on average. There is no quest log in this game. Some NPCs DO give you XP for item turn-ins (like bone chips quests, gnoll fangs or Crushbone belts) but they're intended to be bonuses that supplement grinding while low level.

Get acquainted with death.

You lose 10% or so of your current XP bar from your experience. If you're still fresh, it's enough to drop you back one level. You can loot yourself when you find your corpse. No, other players can't loot you. You will respawn at your last bind spot. If you haven't re-binded it elsewhere, it's usually right in front of the entrance to your main city. Most caster classes can cast Bind Affinity to bind you in major locations, and Gate to return themselves there. It helps for when you're farming in a far away zone and can't be bothered with a two hour corpse run. You can type /corpse if you're close enough but still can't right click it in order to drag it under you. I prefer to put it in a macro and spam it while running away from danger.

Remember to have fun and be yourself:)

EverQuest is a heavily social game. Leveling a character takes over a year of casual play, sometimes years, during which you meet hundreds of people, and imprint your name in the minds of dozens. There is no random dungeon finder or raid finder to throw you into the action-- your participation in the game relies on people actively wanting to invite you. This means if you're an asshole who ninjas, tags, griefs and trains, people will remember you, and there goes any hope of being invited to a farming camp or raid ever again. You will meet people with families who play this game while their toddlers are asleep. You will camp Estate of Unrest with a 40 year old math teacher on his vacation days. You will meet a level 54 bard in a low level zone who will notice you're still in cheap cloth armor and will give you raid tier items they don't use anymore just because people who are still new to this game deserve all the help and guidance they can get. You will meet Druids who will port you for free, Clerics who will Resurrect you on a whim, Shamans who will throw Spirit of Wolf on you and only expect a thank you in return. One day, you'll be a high level player, and the mantle of charity will be yours. Make sure to respect people's camps, ask any questions that cross your mind, and err on the side of caution and forgiveness even when someone wrongs you.

Thank you for reading. Good luck, and have fun in the world of Norrath, and I hope I eased some of the pain and confusion that comes with being the new guy in town, and don't forget: this guide is only the beginning. If you want to get good at this game, you'll be reading a LOT more.