The Newbie Phoenix

So I have begun my journey anew, with a shiny human SK (I chose human for the location – being next to the EC trading tunnel is awesome). I went ahead and bought a couple Krono, since I was absolutely not looking forward to being a new tank with no gear. I spent about 6k gearing him up. Nothing fancy, but a solid set of gear to help make slaughtering those decaying skeletons a bit easier. Some will say this defeats the purpose of starting fresh on a TLP looking for the nostalgic experience. To them I say: wear some cloth armor as a tank and tell me how much fun you have reliving being beaten to death by a level 2 mob. No thanks!

Anyway, I spent the first 5 levels in commons, killing snakes and pumas near the trading tunnel. I even got lucky and found a helpful druid doing buffs at the entrance. Slipped her a few plat, and basically got a free PL from regen and DS as I ran about wildly killing anything that moved. After that slowed down, I found a couple guys heading to CB, got a TL, and charged headlong into battle. I made it to level 9, slashing and stabbing my way through Crushbone. Now this is what I remember! A fond memory here as a newbie was when a cheeky group member took advantage of me and cast invis on the whole group, causing me to run around wondering what the hell happened to everyone. “There are invisibility spells?! What kind of sorcery is this?!”

After I had sufficiently sated my appetite for orc blood, I spent an evening in Befallen, my first trip to the zone (ever). After about 15 minutes of solo killing at the entrance, I was able to piece together a group and head farther in. During our slaughter of the undead, we came across an enchanter looking for group with a 60 mage box. We happily let her join and were blessed with a high level damage shield from the boxed mage. We made our way to the basement and starting cleaning up. I was able to pound out 3 levels in about 3 hours, with most of the exp coming in the last hour. I went back later in the evening and managed to punch out the last 20% of another level, and dinged 13. Moving right along! My next target was Unrest, which seems to always have people LFM and has a great level range. I am hoping to make it to 30 in the zone, depending on how the exp plays out.

A little background

I originally started EQ a few weeks before Luclin was released. Of course, being a complete newbie at the time, I had no idea about the higher end content or game mechanics that were changed. I played through most of the early content as a druid, and made it to level 53 before deciding to try a new character (fond memories of snare kiting hill giants and Velious orcs). I leveled a shadow knight after that, passing along some plat and gear to re-start myself. My SK was my first character to hit max level, though that did not happen until after PoP was released. Following that, I ended up making a BST and WAR, with my warrior ending up being my main. Eventually I got into raiding, though I was never on the “cutting edge”. I joined a guild called Sequel, and spent some happy times progressing through raid content. I raided minimally in Luclin (SSRA, never did VT), but mostly in PoP, GoD, OOW, and DoN. Managed to get my epic 2.0 and had a great time, and was pretty proud of my warrior in his golden age, around OOW/DoN. Never was the “top” tank, but for a Halfling he was pretty good.

Anyway, upon hearing about these new TLP servers, I decided it was time to come back and give it a shot. After some debate and checking things out, I decided to start up on Phinny, which had the highest population. What follows is a journal of my adventures through the game, for better or worse. Enjoy!