people dont realize how cold a place original eq was.
exp was PAINFULLY slow, hell levels and class/race penalties (although halfling i know got a bonus to exp!) didnt make it any more fun. basicly if a human druid needed 100% to level than a hybrid needed an aditional 50% + if were ogre or troll then another 50% on top of that for 200% per level or some such pain... the exp penalty was the balance for hybrids being essentially warriors with spells...
meditation/downtime SUCKED , mana regen was rare (pretty much enchanters only and their friends) , and surely i dont miss staring at my spellbook with my cleric for pretty much 70-80% of his life to 50.
corpses could very easily be lost. there was no summon corpse spell for quite awhile. gm's didnt summon them for you unless it was bugged in a wall.
heck you had to /petition to get your last name at level20. petitioned one day, next day or two gm showed up on me in unrest and bestowed my grandness upon me.
tradeskills were just too confusing at the very begining. i didnt bother with them til after i was a year into the game other than fabricating some patchwork armor.
where was the medium bronze armor in the begining? took me forever to fill the gaps on my human cleric back on xegony. by the time i did get at_least_bronze in every slot it was loong past time for upgrades beyond that.
yay for the lines at drelzna, evileye,an frenzied ghoul! and pretty much everywhere else with decent loot.
yet for all that i thuroughly enjoyed original eq, it was so new and different compared to any other mmorpg available at the time. (pretty much UltimaOnline only thing out there and it hadnt been long since they completely redesigned the game nearly eliminating the pvp aspect while doing so)
anyways, i dinged my second character to 50 the night before kunark released, i remember being so pissed that they raised the level cap and we had to start grinding again haha. think my greatest accomplishments back then were being on Xegonys first vox raid(failed, didnt help that the GM's broadcasted to the entire server the time of the "event" our guild was doing an 300+showed up, yay crashing!) and our guild took down phinigel before kedge was itemized.(though definately not first on xegony hehe!)
fond memories!