For those of us who played EQ1 we remember the days of camping a named mob for hours and usually days on end.  Some of us remember getting in line for a fabled drop - staying up all night for our turn.

Personally, my most memorable camp was the Cyclops to get Jboots in Everquest One.  I spent an entire weekend waiting for him to spawn.  It was during this weekend that I got to know Reltok, the leader of ‘Champions of Norrath and All’.  He ended up helping me kill the Cyclops and I ended up joining his guild.

I think the best part of this story was that Myclawz (Tynecastle at the time) randomly walked into South Ro and asked if anyone saw the Cyclops.  Some had just killed him and let him loot the ring for the quest.  It took him all of 10 minutes.

What is your best camping story?

The fellow EQjunkies and I will always have a soft spot for EQ before those horrible expansions were released (everything past Velious).  I have often wondered how things would be like if I could go back to the original EQ today and relive the experience.  The EQClassic project has given all of us that opportunity.  Their goal is different than the regular progression servers: they will never release an expansion beyond Velious, they will only use items available in the game when the expansions were released, they will only use the old graphics models, etc.

EQClassic is a 100% volunteer project, so remember that as you are waiting for the official release and things to be worked on.  That being said, EQClassic presents us with a truly unique opportunity.  If you are interested check out their website and here is the info about the alpha beta test from their website:

Send an e-mail to ScottyCEQC@gmail.com with your answers to the following questions;

1. Are you capable and willing to be on the IRC server?

2. Do you have any experience with being in an alpha, or some sort of environment where you are testing software? If yes, please explain (briefly) what you did there.

3. What time periods would you be available through (Please also say what time zone you are in, we have people from all over the world here)? In addition, how much time would you consider being able to spend testing? Be careful when answering this question; you and I both know that you won’t be spending 6 hours a day, every day on this… unless your name is Tongpow. You don’t need big chunks of time every single day to devote; what we’re looking for with this question is a realistic estimate, so don’t give unrealistic numbers that aren’t true.

4. What experience do you have playing the game during the classic era?

5. Why do you want a return to the classic EQ world?

6. What is wrong with this situation:

“You and tongpow make two new halfling characters, and decide to test out conjuration skill ups by casting the spell “Dance of the Fireflies”. The spell description says it is usable at level 1 for druids and level 15 for rangers so you level your ranger up to 15, while he stays at level 1. You both cast the spell and it fails, giving the message “You can’t do that yet”.”

7. Is there anything else you wish to add that you think may be important?

Lastly, a few things I wish to stress;

Remember, this is completely a volunteer project by everyone involved. Do not come expecting it to work like a company. All of us here are here because we enjoyed the game as it was, and that is what we want to be recreated. Everything being done here is accomplished in the free time that is being given to this project by all the awesome people involved. So please remember that we want a fun productive environment for all involved so we can reach our end goal.