Frequently Asked Questions (EQ)  

Contents [hide] Gameplay Questions Technical and Billing Questions Ways to Reduce Lag
EverQuest Wikibase™ FAQs

Gameplay Questions

Many of these answers assume that you have the Serpents Spine expansion pack.

Q. What is the easiest class to solo with?

• A. For the easiest and most efficient class, a Necromancer. Necromancers have a snare, a pet and huge range of Damage over time spells (DoTs). Also, if you get into trouble you have an easy escape route: Feign death. You may also want to consider a bard. While much harder to play than a necromancer, a skilled bard can solo very efficiently using charm kiting. You can see the website EQDiva for strategies on playing a bard.

Q. Which server has the highest population?

• A. As Sony will not release any information regarding player subscriptions, or server populations, this is a very difficult question to answer. From anecdotal evidence, Antonius Bayle still has a relatively high population, as do Stromm and Maelin Starpyre. However, Firiona Vie, with a special roleplaying rule set has a very low population due to not being merged along with the other servers. If you're new, I would advise staying away from Firiona Vie. If you have friends on one server, think about joining that server.

Q. What is the best race for class xyx?

• A. As the game stands, it makes very little difference what race you play anymore, with the slight exception of the new Drakkin race, which gets a breath weapon that improves with levels. As it is very easy to max stats pick something that you like the feel of, and enjoy playing.

Q. Where should I head to get a group / What is the best zone to get gear / exp / money in?

• A. Route 1: When you start out you will spawn into the tutorial. This will guide you through the basics of the game or, if you are a returning player, bring you up to date with any changes that may have taken affect during your absence. Here you will find it easy to get a group and meet other players, and get your hands on some very nice newbie equipment. We didn't have that in my day!

• When you hit level 10 or 11 leave the tutorial. When you leave you will spawn in Plane of Knowledge (PoK). Press backspace to bring up your ingame map and head over to the stone which says Crescent Reach, which will take you to Blightfire Moors. Run west through Blightfire to Crescent Reach, and to the quests around there for armor and exp. Once you hit level 18 or so you can go to Paludal Caverns, where you can usually find a group pretty easily, and get nice exp.

• Route 2: Leave the tutorial as soon as you finish the "walkthrough" stage and head over to the Serpent's Spine via route 1. There are many questgivers in Crescent Reach up to the twenties I believe. This route gives slightly better equipment rewards than route 1.

Q. I'm thinking about returning to the game, which expansions should I buy?

• A. Buy the Anniversary Edition which was recently released, and contains all the expansions for the price of $19.99. The most important of these is the Serpent's Spine.

Q. I have not played for 3 years, are my characters still there? I do not remember my account password or name, I guess I would have to start all over again and I would rather not so I won't come back.

• You could not be more wrong, SOE wants you back, every account that has every been opened is still there with almost all the toons. Those under level 10 were deleted with the server merge, but all others will be on the account once you relog in. The deleted ones can be restored to you if you are prepared to spend a couple of prime workday hours on the phone bitching to costumer service, though most would not want to spend the time to do so, unless you kept all your platinum on a level 1 bazaar trader, then it might be worth it. If you have forgotten the password, and/or account name, you can get that information emailed to you provided you know the email address the account is registered under. You can find more information at this SOE Site. That link also tells you what you need to do if you have forgoten that account name, password and you no longer have access to the email address you registered the game under. Basically SOE has all the credit card information you paid for the account with and if you can match that information you will be given your account name and password and you will be back in the game with your old characters. This will require speaking to a customer srvice rep on the phone however and may take a little time.

• If it has been a few years your current credit card number might not be the one you used as it might have had last couple of digits changed when it was periodically reissued or if it was lost in that period. If you do not have that old information readily availible, you can call you credit card company and get that information. Do not listen if some ignorant costumer service rep says its not possible because it does not show up on the monitor, they are a finacial institution and they save everything. You just may need to talk to a supervisor and get directed to the appropriate department outside the customer service department and it may also take a few days to get the information to you, but don't take no for an answer.

• Finally, the above steps that you can take if you have forgotten your password/ account name will also work, even if you have sold or given away the account to someone else. So if you ebayed your old account or gave it to an old roommate you no no longer speak to, you can take back the account using these steps. SOE does not recognize account transfers and specifically forbids them in its policies and the recipients are out of luck according to SOE if the original account holder wants the account back. [

Q. What is OOC Regen?

• With TSS SOE came up with out of combat regen (OOC), a way to drastically reduce downtime (and put every chanter in game in the unemployment line). Now every mob that you agro will, once dead, give you a timer of 30 seconds for regular mobs and 5 minutes for raid mobs.

While in combat and in the timer period you will regen mana/hp/endurance just like you did pre-TSS, once the timer is gone you will start regening base 3% hp/mana/end per tick, and any mana regen effects you have (clarity line, AAs, beast crack, FT gear, etc.) will stack on top of the 3%. There are several new icons that go along with this system, they appear in your characters name box where your % health, mana, and endurance are displayed.

The first symbol is a golden circle it means you are currently in OOC regen and getting 3% everything back per tick- you MUST be seated for this to work, just like normal medding. Next symbol is a blue circle and it means you aren't in combat and you have no timers, you're just not seated (also you have to be stationary, so moving on a mount won't let you regen mana). Crossed swords mean you're in combat and an hour glass means you have a timer. Your timer will be displayed below your endurance as a grey bar with the amount of time you have left displayed beside it. When it runs out it disappears. If you have a detrimental buff (malo, slow, rezz effects) you will have a flame symbol that means you need to be cured before you can go OOC.

In the case of rezz effects you just have to wait till it fades. To keep mobs that may have agroed on you but are now out of your range from keeping you in combat now mobs will drop agro if you are out of their range for over 30 seconds or so. FD pullers -- now you have a visual way to see if a mob is back at it's spawn point yet if you can't actually see the spawn point, just wait for the swords to go to an hour glass *this will only work if you don't have a mob dotted*.

Lastly, buffing a player with a timer will give you their timer, and if you die to raid mob you will still have the timer after you are rezzed.

Q: So it seems I have forgotten some of the basics, like how to get stuff on the hotbars and such. Can anyone point me in the right direction to get some info?

• To get stuff on hotbars:

• Spells

• Put your cursor over the spell that you want to move to the hot bar. Hold down the left click button. A new icon will appear on your cursor. Drag it to the hot bar slot that you want to click to cast from. Voila! You can now either press the respective key for that hotbar slot (1,2,3,4,5... etc) or left click it with your mouse.

1. Clickies

• It's pretty much the same thing. Bring up your inventory and find the item which you want to drag. Hold down left click over the top of it, drag it to the hotbar.

• For AAs or leader AAs bring up the applicable window (aa - press V, LAA press L) then select the ability you want, on the right side of the window for AAs it will have a button that says make hot key. Click here and you will have your button. For leadership it's a little different based on things that have 3 ranks (mark npc) -- on the right there is a section called create hotkey with a 1, 2, and 3 under it. Create hotkey one will work for anything with one rank (health of target's target, find path, delegate mark, delegate assist) and the 2 and 3 are used for things with multiple ranks (inspect buffs, and mark npc).

• Also there are now 4 hotbars! To bring up your hotbars click on the EQ button in the bottom left corner then go to *actions* and click on which hotbar you want to open. I use all 4. Hotbars one and two are horizontal while three and four are verticle. Bring up your options window *ctrl O* and go to *keys* to change buttons associated with your hotbars, each hotbar has its own selection in the drop down window.

• The bandolier window also has hotkey creating capabilities - Bring up the bandolier window (B), select the setup you want to hotkey and press "hot button". Last thing is for clickies. If you use your mouse on clickies make sure you right click on them, otherwise you'll simply be picking them up with your mouse (which isn't good when you're clicking a defensive ability on your BP in combat and accidently unequip it and lose AC in battle)

For further information, you can visit "The Returning Player FAQ Thread" on the official EverQuest forums.

Technical and Billing Questions

• Which DirectX version do I need?

• EQ requires at least DX9.0C. EQ will run on DX10 systems, but DX10 is missing several files that EQ is reliant on, so it is necessary to install 9.0c over DX10. This can be done without damaging your existing DX10 installation.

• Where can I download the necessary version of DirectX?

• You can get it here.

• I got an error that says d3dx9_30.dll is missing, what's up?

• Download and install the latest direct X version as found in the previous question.

• What's the deal with NVidia vs. ATI? How about Intel vs. AMD?

• What are the minimum system specs for EQ? What's recommended?

• Minimum Specs:
• Windows� 2000/XP/Vista
• Pentium� 4 or better
• 512 MB RAM
• ATI Radeon 8500/NVidia GeForce 4 equivalent or greater
• 56.6k + Internet Connection
• 16X Speed CD-ROM
• 1.5+ GB Hard Drive Space
• DirectX 9.0c

• Recommended System Specs:
• Windows XP/Vista
• Highend Pentium� 4 or better
• 1024-2048 MB RAM
• Geforce 6-7 series or better
• Broadband internet connection
• 16X speed CD-ROM
• 2 GB+ hard drive space

• What pricing plans are offered for my EQ subscription?

• 1 month - $14.99
• 3 month - $41.97
• 6 month - $77.94
• 12 month - $143.88
• 24 month - $199.95

• My veteran rewards disappeared, how do I fix this?

• This thread from the EQLive boards should address most issues you have with veteran rewards disappearing, or with determining your veteran rewards eligibility.

Ways to Reduce Lag

• /showgrass off -- Used to turn off grass models... mainly obsolete in the non-revamped zones, but the newer ones have a lot of grass, which creates a lot of lag.

• /leave -- Oddly enough, the chat channels can create a bit of lag. It's more noticeable during raids, but it is still there.

• Turning off spell particles, environment particles, and player particles is a good way to reduce graphics lag. Another way to do this is by filtering which names you see for players (/showname, I believe is the command. You can choose to show first, first and last, or first, last, title, guild, etc.)

• Turning off/down the sky model always helps. You can choose complex, simple, or off as toggles for the sky. Complex means you see the sun, stars, moon, clouds (that move), and other such things. Simple gets rid of the clouds, and off gets rid of everything.