A Newbie's Guide to Everquest

Fighting:

• If you've hit a new level and just got some brand new spells, immediately try them out on some creatures that con yellow or red to you. The spells are undoubtedly way more powerful than anything you've dealt with previously, and you're sure to kill anything in a few blasts! If it ends up killing you, it's because Verant obviously doesn't know jack shit about "balancing the game".
• If fighting in a group, the sole function of everybody else in that group is to keep you from dying. Remind them of this repeatedly, and if you ever get below 85% health, start shouting that you need heals.
• Instead of concentrating all damage on one creature, try to attack everything around you. You'll weaken them all down and just rake in the exp. with your killing spree! This goes well with our next point:
• Area-effect spells are the best type of spells in the game. Use them at every chance!
• Before going into combat, ask every single person in your zone for a SoW, regardless of their race or class. Since they have undoubtedly already cast Sow on themselves, and can run much faster than you, demand they come to you and cast it. If nobody responds, "/shout Sow plz!!!!!!" until you log off. Resume shouting next time you log back on. Once you get somebody to cast SoW on you, start shouting for another SoW, because it just might make you even faster.
• When losing in combat, be sure to "/shout HELP". This is the quickest way to elicit a response from fellow characters, and hoards of GMs should rush over to your aid within seconds. If nobody responds, bind a key to "/shout HELP" and keep pressing it until you die. If you die, be sure to blame everybody in the zone for refusing to help you because they're obviously idiots.

Death / dying:

• If you die, complain nonstop about how "Verant nerfed your spells" or about how "things were a LOT better before the last patch!" or how "Gordon screwed our class over SO BAD."
• If you know you're going to die, try to bring all the monsters over to somebody meditating, in the hopes they he will kill them. Don't bother asking for help, because if a caster is meditating, he can still see all around him (it's a power everybody else has but you). Then, when you die and cause the person mediating to be killed by your train, make sure to curse at the other person for not helping you out and killing all the monsters (yes, that's right Skorpio on the E'ci server, I'm talking about you, you jerk).
• Once you respawn, make sure to "/shout Anybdy c my corpse" over and over. Verant and Sony employ a team of hundreds of people to solely run around the servers, looking for and noting the location of every player's corpse. You'll have an exact location within seconds.
• If you die while fighting in a group, blame every other member of the group. Complain to the Clerics for not healing you enough, bitch at the tanks for not taunting more effectively, and whine to everybody for agreeing to let a Bard in. This relates to the next point:
• Death is NEVER your fault. Death is either the fault of your combat group, Verant, Internet connection, parents, computer speed, Gordon, weapon / class imbalances, the alignment of the stars, Hurricane Hugo, or the decline in tech stocks on the NASDAQ.
• If you are killed by something that cons blue to you, it's obviously a bug on Verant's part. Petition it immediately, demanding you are given all your experience back ASAP. Oh, and an extra 50 platinum for your inconvenience.
• Once you die, "/shout plz help!!!!! lost all my stuff to gnoll pup!!!!!!" and wait for those level 60 people to start showering you with platinum and weapons. Remember: everybody else playing EQ is there to help you!

Miscellaneous:

• Thanks to some serious twinking by your high level buddies in the "Eternal Warriors of N'Yarthamgon'as" guild, you can safely solo red monsters. Find something red, then "/shout WHAT LVL ARE X?" where X = the red creature's name. If nobody responds, make sure to petition the GMs and complain about how rude everybody is. Or complain about virtually anything, just make sure to use the /petition command to say something.
• There's lots of people who want to group with a level one character. When you first start up your player, immediately let everybody know you're a hot commodity and are on the market to group with a very lucky collection of people. Don't worry about spelling all the words correctly, they'll understand what you mean.
  The character "Mahon" knows he's got a lot to offer a group of people. Hopefully he'll only have to /shout 20 or 30 times before he finds that special bunch of EQ players!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka