Beginner's Guide
EverQuest II isn’t a terribly difficult game to get the hang of. Some people have never played an RPG, let along a Massively Multiplayer one. This guide is for the beginner. The first thing to do after you install the game is to create a character.
Creating a Character
After you launch the game, you will come to a screen full of nice some scenery. Click "Create Character” on lower right of the screen. There will be a display of a character model, male and female buttons, and several thumbnails of Races to choose from.
Click the male or female button, then choose one of the races by clicking on its small thumbnail image. As you click on thumbnails, the character model will change. When you have decided on the gender and race you wish to play, click the “Next” button on the lower right of the screen. Choose good or evil, if applicable. Click “Next” Again. You will now see many buttons and adjustment sliders to change the appearance of character. Click a button such as "Eyes", choose a subcategory such as "Eye Brow" and adjust the sliders.
Once you are satisfied with the slider positions, you may click the "padlock" to lock-in that setting (optional) as you play with other sliders, or lock in some sliders and hit randomize for sliders you can't make up your mind on. Click Next Lower right of screen. Enter your name and choose a server, then click “Finish” on lower right.
On Character selection screen choose your character if you have more than one and click “Play” in lower right. Congratulations! You have just created a character for EverQuest II and can begin playing the game.
Tutorial
The EverQuest II tutorial is very well done and will explain everything you need to know. We are going to go over the tutorial, now. A voice over telling you about the game will commence. Also there will be a Message Dialog area with instructions on the Center / Top area of the screen. The tutorial begins on a ship that is in the middle of the ocean.
1st and 3rd person view instructions with the mouse wheel, mouselook by holding down right mouse button, W S A D movement, A D Strafe with mouselook, responding to an NPC, etc. etc. is covered by both voiceover and message dialog. You will then talk to the Captain of the ship by double left clicking on him.
The captain goes into a story of how you arrived on his ship. After some conversation, he will tell you to go talk to the first mate located towards the rear of the ship. The tutorial will start to tell you about quests and your quest journal. Follow the instructions, clicking “continue” in the tutorial dialog when necessary, then go over to the 1st mate and double left click to start a conversation with him. Your quest journal will be updated and you will continue your tutorial quest through him.
After you talk to the 1st mate, the tutorial will explain how experience points work and how you will gain levels and access to better abilities. The first mate will tell you to go look in some boxes for his hat, towards the front of the ship. The tutorial tells you about objects that glow and how to interact with them by double left clicking them.
After you find the hat and loot it from the box, the tutorial goes into managing your inventory, and equipping items. Go back to the 1st mate and talk to him. He will give you a reward for getting his hat and tell you to go talk to Ingrid, which is on the middle of the ship. She wants you to buy a piece of Luclin from Vim, the merchant on the front of the ship. Needless to say, this portion of the tutorial teaches you about buying and selling things. Sell the item you got from the 1st mate and buy the Luclin shard. Return to Ingrid and talk to her... you will get some money for your efforts. You then need to go talk to the Captain again... He will have you dispatch some rats on the ship. This will teach you basic Combat. Equip the Club that the Captain gives you...and go kill the rats. The tutorial will go into watching your health, considering an opponent, targeting, starting combat, and looting.
You advance to level 2 at this point. Go talk to the Captain again to finish the rat quest. A Drakota appears and sets fire to the ship... a caged goblin escapes that he captain tells you to go kill it. Kill the goblin and return to the Captain. Tell the Captain you are ready to go ashore and you will be on the Island of Refuge.
You need to talk to Garven Tralk by the Dock. This is where you select your Archtype. The 4 basic arch types are Fighter, Mage, Scout, and Priest. You will choose a class at level 10 and a sub-class at level 20. Basically each Class and sub-class can do the job of the chosen archtype equally as well. They just do their job a little differently. I suggest you read up on Classes and Archtypes from other guides or FAQs, to see what path of class or subclass interests you the most. You have 10 levels to decide, so there is no rush.
Garven will give you some more starting equipment to grab from a nearby rack, and a quest. The tutorial (Voiceover and message dialog instructions) will continue some on the Isle of Refuge, but you can discover the rest on your own.
Isle of Refuge
Isle of Refuge Map
On the Isle of Refuge, you will spend level 2 through 6 here. There is some merchants, trainers, and other NPC’s you need to talk to. Talk to EVERY NPC you find. This will fill your quest journal up or give you much needed information. As you complete quests, you should have a complete set of starting armor and good weapon, before your adventure on Isle of Refuge is through. You will start out killing goblins, and other creatures… then progress to areas where you need to group up to defeat the encounters. Looking for a group is as simple as clicking on your LFG button near the top of the screen. You can also type “/shout LFG” This will broadcast to a large area that you are looking for a group.
Conversation with other players is paramount to an MMORPG. Hitting the “Enter” key once, then typing a phrase, then hitting “Enter” again, is how you talk to people close by. Hitting /t (name of other player) will send him/her a private message (Like telepathy). You can hit the “R” key to reply to a most recent “tell”. The /g command lets you talk on a group channel. /guildsay for talking on a guild channel, and /ooc to broadcast zone-wide something that is not within Roleplay characteristics. You can also click on the little conversation ballon icon by where you enter text to talk, to set a default for the “Enter” key. For instance, let’s say you group up with a couple of players. Once grouped… you can click the little balloon icon and choose “Group”, so when you hit enter to type a phrase, it will automatically use the group channel. Once you are done grouping… set it back to “Say”.
Since grouping is a major part of this game, you need to know how to create, join, and leave groups. Creating a group is as simple as right clicking on another player and choosing “Invite to group” on the menu that pops up. Accepting an invitation is as simple as clicking OK if the dialog pops up. Leaving a group… just type /leave.
When grouping with other players, be sure to go after monsters that are specified as “Group Encounters”. You will get very little progression for killing monsters marked as “Solo”. There also will be something called a “Combat Wheel” that comes up. You will need to learn the association of the icon on the wheel vs. the icons of the combat arts you have, on whether you can trigger an “Heroic Opportunity” for some bonus damage to the encounter. The Combat Wheel will also come up when you solo fight, and you must learn the order of combat arts to execute to trigger that bonus damage. EQ 2 Vault also has a guide on the Combat wheel, so I won’t get into the detail of its workings.
As you Quest, fight, group, and adventure on the Isle of Refuge, you will really learn the most about how to play the game, how to group, and how to communicate with other players. You will also learn when to stay in the fight, and when to flee. If you should be defeated by an encounter, you will lie on the ground looking at yourself, because you are dead. You have the option to wait for some other player to resurrect you, or release to the nearest spawn point (a tent / camp). When you release you will lose a spirit shard (A ghost image of your corpse), and your equipment will take some damage (10%, but doesn’t affect it’s usefulness), and you will incur an Experience “Debt” (Red area on EXP bar that sucks up half your experience points until you pass the red area). You will also have some Stat point reduction like “19 strength instead of a normal 20”. Mend your equipment at the mender NPC in the town area. If you die more than 10 times and don’t repair your equipment, it will be destroyed. You will also have an orange glowing light beam to follow and show you where your spirit shard is. When you get close to your spirit shard… right click it and choose “Absorb”. Your “Experience Debt” (Red area on exp bar) will be greatly reduced. Also your stats will return to normal after spirit shard recovery.
I have marked some things on the Isle of Refuge Map to help you get started:
After you reach level 6 and have done just about Everything there is to do on the Isle of Refuge, talk to one of the city ambassadors and follow their directions. If you are a neutral race, you can get the instructions from either Freeport or Qeynos ambassador. You will need to return to the dock area and ring the bell for the city of your choice.
Starting City Strategies
You will be given 2 quests almost right away, as you arrive in the district of your race. Each city has 6 “District” Zones, and 4 main zones. Your first quest will take you to your apartment where you will learn about decorating it and keeping up on the rent. The other Quest is a “Citizenship Quest” that will allow you into the main city zones. Once you have completed those 2 quests… find the training hall for your Archtype in the Main City Zones. Find the NPC that will start you on your Archtype / Class quests, and begin doing those quests. Also, go to EVERY District, and talk to EVERY NPC. Fill your quest journal up with all the District Quests. Some will be delivery between districts, others will be kill monsters in some zones that are connected to some Districts. These quests will help you progress quickly, and learn the areas within the City. Cities with the District zones are HUGE. It would be wise to do every Quest you can. After Level 10, you can start doing Main City Quests other than your Trainer Quests. These will lead you outside the city, and onward. By now you should have real solid knowledge of how to play EverQuest II.
UI Tips
The User interface is completely customizable. You can rearrange any interface object on the screen, and you can also resize it to your liking. You can run the game in wide screen mode or full screen mode. The EQ Button on the lower left will bring up your main menu, and you can set things like Game options, Display options, etc. etc. etc.
A few Tips…
Right Clicking an Interface objects allows you to set “Window Options”, including opacity, whether it has a fancy frame, a separate opacity for the mouse being hovered over it, etc. It’s a very useful tool. You may find that you need to set the chat window to a stronger opacity, because by default it only flashes up messages, which can be distracting.
If you use wide screen mode, resize UI objects to fit much as possible in the “black areas”. Keep the things that are important you on the screen. Other UI objects open with hotkeys. Rearrange your Hotkey bar to suit your way of thinking. If you are a fighter… you may want to set “kick on the 1 key ”, “wild swing on the 2 key”, and “Taunt on the 3 key”. When you attack a critter, doing attacks in that order will bring up your solo combat wheel for bonus damage. Here is an example of some UI rearrangement:
Since you get a new ability at every level, check your abilities for the description of what they do, and arrange your hotkey bar at every level, so it always suits you. Dragging and dropping the icons on the bar, or from the abilities window is how you do this.
I hope this little guide helps the new comer out. For more detailed tips and tricks, check out the other guides that EQ 2 Vault provides.
Regards,
Taz