Nostalgia! EQ Launches Agnarr

My one and only screenshot this far, upon creating my second character. Neriak THIRD gate! Hope you know the maze that is Neriak, and also my home away from home, lol.

Today EverQuest has launched the new PoP-Locked progression server, Agnarr. The server became unlocked right as the clock rolled over to the hour. Kudos to the team for rolling it out so quickly! I managed to get into the character select with my account, my son on the other computer trying to get a name for Dire. We got characters made, then the server was so overloaded we were booted and stuck in a queue. Max capacity on the server, the wait time keeps going up and I do not expect to be able to log in for quite some time. My son was baffled how many people want to play on this type of server. I've been waiting on one for years and keep up with the requests in the forums I have seen for so many years. I am still sitting in the queue typing this 53 minutes after launch. I wish the capacity was larger, it will thin out in time.It is great to see so many people eager for this server. About time we got our wish!


I wrote a post, years ago when progression servers were rather new, how you can never go back. It was when Fippy launched. You can't go back, it will never be the same, but you can hold on to the type of setting you like on servers such as these. And as I said in the last post, I don't want to go back, but it is nice to go back to those places, if you see where I am coming from. When they are still alive, still current and populated.

I am not one for regular time locked or voting servers, I prefer special servers with unique rules or directions. I loved the Mayong 51/50 server which started you at 51 with 50 aa. This server has long since shut down, but it was a favorite of mine. I expect this new server to be quite popular, as it locks and stays in a 'golden era' of around the game's life at 2003. Which is great in my eyes, the game sort of lost a lot of charm after that point. I remember the casual group game getting progressively harder with mobs flattening people faster than you could heal them (yes, it was worse than normal, ha), people getting ruder. I didn't recognize this game, it wasn't the game I 'grew up' leveling in anymore. In casual groups I had to turn down tanks because they simply could not take the hits to keep a group going. I did not like this EQ and left for greener pastures in WoW when that released. So going back and just playing through the fun stuff? That sounds like a real treat. It will be more modern feeling, no hell levels, I don't think even I could stomach that again. There always comes a point when we play on live where my eyes glaze over after we leave all my beloved 'classic' zones.

To play on this server you must have a subscription, so there are people serious about playing here. Not all of us will stick with it. It will be three months until Kunark releases, just shy of a year until PoP releases. I wish it would have just launched with everything live. There are going to be some rough spots, but I am not going to complain. I got my magician ready for when I can play, at least I got one name saved for each of us.

The server comes at a good time for me. I thought about trying project 1999, but it was just not all that inviting of an idea for me. I am glad that DBG did release this as I can play on my dream server and still support the company whom the game belongs to. I am not against private servers, I used to be, though as I burn out on developers changing direction and goals I see the appeal to them more than ever. If you don't cater to what players want, there will be someone who will.

And I actually got back into EQ to make my second character, getting my second name on the list. Score! But the game spazzed out and now I am still waiting for the character to be removed from world so I can make another few. If anything I got the names I really wanted for my characters. For now I am going to keep trying to get my characters made and run over to where Dire will be starting up, in Kelethin. Leave your name in the comments, or send a tell to Angel if you would like group with us sometime! I don't plan on flying through the content, we still have plenty of time to get there.