Anyone for a corpse run?
And it’s all thanks to a forgotten username and a closed-down email account.
That doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?
Let’s go back a bit.
The simple truth is this: Elden Ring reminds me a lot of my teenage years playing EverQuest.
Teenage decisions, eh?
This meant I started out in the village of Grobb – home of the trolls.
In the seemingly very far distance were zone entrances to move between different areas.
Again: no maps.
You had to figure the place out for yourself by learning the hard way.
There were few memorable locations within the swamp, making traversal complicated from the off.
I remember one time seeing a huge Sand Giant coming my way and knowing that death was unavoidable.
EQAtlas was full of hand-drawn maps.
They were true lifesavers in a world that was anything but welcoming.
Still, the rest of the game wasn’t so bad, right?
Death in EverQuest was a scary and potentially game-ending experience.
It was a long trek back, and you couldn’t fend anything off particularly well.
I was part of a raiding guild for a long time.
When conducted perfectly, it was still stressful but offered a huge sense of accomplishment.
this led to players shouting ‘train to zone end!’
to warn others that something very, very bad was coming for you.
Such huge issues were why, the next day, we’d always have a corpse run planned.
This was as bleak as it sounded.
EverQuest kept you nervous the whole time.
I played on a PvP server - Tallon Zek.
PvP was a tough experience because anyone eight levels higher than you could attack.
It was team-based, a little like Horde versus Alliance stuff in World of Warcraft, with two sides.
I wasn’t in one of the major guilds.
I didn’t really have the time and I wasn’t a particularly skilful player.
You learned to recognise the names of the best players and the best PvPers.
In the latter’s case, you’d genuinely fear them.
And yet, I loved it.
It came at the right time for me.
The game depended on you teaming up with others.
You couldn’t just dip in for 30 minutes on your own and expect to achieve much.
You could lose entire evenings to it while achieving surprisingly little.
When equipment is that hard to come by and keep, you check that to remember the names.
It was the wrong account details.
I forgot I had two accounts.
One was still accessible, but there was nothing there for me.
It’s fitting, I think.
Out of all the battles in EverQuest that I conquered, this is one I can’t win.
It’s probably for the best.
But as they always say, just remember: it actually was harder in the old days.
