I started EQ at 14 in 1999. I made a Human Ranger first and I remember spending 30 mins running through West Karana running for my life from a lion.

Cabilis is actually my favorite city. I like that it's all messed up and non newbie friendly - and I had a greatr time doing iksar weapon questts in swamp of no hope. It's different and I get that it might not be everyones cup of tea, but for me it's perfect. And it's very atmospheric, with secret nooks here and there, it really builds that feeling that kunark is a dangerous place

One thing I like about Rivervale is how it feels like a secluded little haven that functions as a little passage between completely different regions of the world. Those areas feel so far apart, and I'd often go through Rivervale on that journey.

As an EQ oldhead I really enjoyed listening to this.

Wood Elf Warrior here. Played Kunark when I was 17 years old in high school in 2001. Mind was absolutely blown. Still playing EMU servers today.

I have never played Everquest in my life and clicked on this video just because I had the feeling it would be comfy. You delivered! Seeing all the footage of you wandering around the zones made me want to try Everquest '99 again. I made a character, logged in, was stuck in first person, tried every button on my keyboard to switch to third person, nothing worked, then I just sort of gave up.

I think it was in 2000 when I made a Human Shadowknight following Innoruuk. Yes, a blind human. But when I went to Neriak, woah, all those neon signs were so beautiful. Dark elves may have ultravision but never truly see the beauty of Neriak like a human can. These videos are making me nostalgic and I want to start playing once again, after 23-24 years!

I hear a lot of complaints about Halas and Everfrost's difficulty and remoteness, esp with the lack of night sight, but I agree with your assessment of it. I personally am biased towards the music, and Kelethin's just gets me.

As a new player this was really fun to watch through and learn about all the other cities, especially as an ogre who isn't exactly welcome in most of them. Very comfy video too. Excellent job!

Hell yeah! So looking forward to this. Thanks for the incredible EQ content. So grateful for you and all the work you put into these!

I have to disagree on Cabalis. The field of bone is an amazing newbie zone complete with one of the best first dungeons in the game with Kurn’s Tower. I had a blast leveling a monk and necro through these areas. Then there’s Warsliks woods with groups and the giant for and the brute caves (amazing non social static spawn camp, with good drops for plat)

Do a countdown on the best EQ Dungeons please.

My nostalgic city has to be Kelethin. The music, the proximity of CB, and not one, not two, but three other cities within two zones. That was one lively hub. Faydwer felt like a community in and of itself. CB belt quests, players trying to take on the PoD near the lift to predictable grisly and hilarious results, giant chessboards, insane unicorns, shadowmen, faeries villages and nearly invisible brownies, and the Estate of Unrest. More trains served than any station on Earth. Yeah, I loved that entire continent, but the Kelethin music just instantly drags me back to 1999.

I started in the Qeynos, Surefall, Halas area. Doing blackburrow and the Karanas and all that. It was a lot of running. Through the huge plains zones, then up the mountain into the highpass zones, then into kith forest, and finally into the common lands to barter. That was such a journey as a new player. I loved it.

Let me start out by saying awesome video. Brings back a whole lot of good memories. Subscribed. When you got to #2 I was going through my head trying to figure out which city was left to be #1. When I realized the only one left was Halas I almost fell out of my chair. The city itself isn't so bad other than the annoying ferry to get out to Everfrost. I always thought Everfrost Peaks was a nightmare as a new player especially. No night vision wandering through those paths in the snow. The Vengeful guys wandering through leaving newbie carnage were always fun too. Not my favorite at all. I think either Kaladim or Felwithe would be my favorites. Your description of running across the Karannas reminded me of when I first started the game. I created my first character in Qeynos and my co-worker who got me into the game was playing in the Freeport area. So one night after work he starts running me from Qeynos to FP. I think we got SoW before we left but of course that ran out. So we are running and running for like 45 minutes or so and I got killed a couple of zones short of FP. It was tragic but I was in awe of the scope of the world at that point. I think the next night he paid someone to port me instead of trying that again lol. Good times.

I started playing on Rallies Zen back in '99, as a Barb. This video sent me back big time. I miss the old world, and don't regret any time I spend playing, which was substantial. From when I was trying to figure out how to get from Halas zone to EFP over and over again because I couldn't see, to my guild being one of the few that killed the Sleeper, the journey was amazing. Thank you for this amazing video!

I really wish they would remake this entire game now

Kelethin higher on my list. The ambiance, being up above the canopy, the dark forest in all directions. i think they nailed the simple, all wood archetecture. Yes it's kind of a maze in the trees, but once you get used to it and know your way around, it's wonderful. And above all the music captures the mystic, hidden city in the forest essence so well. Takes me back every time i hear it.

Not even sure how this landed in my recommended videos but I sure did enjoy it. I started playing EQ in Beta I and ended up working for Verant (later SOE) some time prior to RoK's release for about five years. Haven't played since then, though. Your video brought back a lot of fond memories, thanks! Oh and you rated Rivervale WAY too low! 😀

I fell in the hole as a newbie too lol. Being young and desperate I put in a petition for a GM to help. They told me "no" in a nice way and offered to give me a "starting kit" which consisted of a few basic weapons/armor for a level 1-2. I didn't necessarily appreciate the gesture at the time but looking back I'm really glad they took an extra step towards trying to help without breaking the rules.

Kaladim was a great newbie city. The layout was very intuitive and easy to navigate. Plenty of newbie quests like the scarab quests, skellie bones, Aviak talons, etc, to break up the usual monotony of early levels. It was always very easy to not only hit level 4-5 (when you can really start to branch out), but also get most of your armor slots filled up as well. It just really felt like Kaladim had a bigger emphasis on the quest aspect of Everquest.

One thing you missed about Odus is the Warrens, which is one of the more fun places to level through part of the teens if you can actually find anyone to group with (which is admittedly, and quite unfortunately, rare). That is in my top 5 favorite low level dungeons. Other than your bashing of Cabilis , I mostly agree with this list. Halas and Qeynos were always my favorite starting zones, but I may be biased due to starting the game with a barbarian warrior.

As someone who is new to EQ, and only done 3-4 cities Rivervale is by far my favorite so it being just "fine" was wild to me! I find it the only city I wasn't constantly lost in

Iksars found dead XD. I had a friend who played an Iksar necro and drowned in the blood pool in the guild. It's totally a nostalgic favorite for me though, great video!

My very first character was a Wood Elf Warrior. And you're right, I LOVE Kelethin as a result. I love that city so much, it would personally be my highest ranked city, and it's fine that it wasn't yours, but man I love Kelethin. Also, I played on the Xegony server which also used Gfay as its trading spot. Most everyone gathered at the Wizard spires, I dunno about on your server, but that's where the trading was done. In hindsight, kinda sucks for evil characters, lol, but hey that's what it was. But I digress, yeah, Kelethin is #1 for me.

Great video by the way. This got me back into playing on P99 Blue. ;)

Qeynos is tied for my favorite city as far as aesthetics and "underground" goes...... the false walls to the rogue's guild and evil/corruption was so cool to me. Feels like an outcast city and kinda was. I also loved that it was a throwback to the original creators of the game (SonyEQ backwards). Then you add in the proximity to blackburrow and the train fest that place is, the gnoll teeth questline giving massive xp, the scroll quest from splitpaw too..... such a good city. Kelethin was my other favorite city for the community it included..... whether grouping up with other lvl 1's to rush those early 3-5 levels, then heading over to the orc hill and then clan crushbone; the progression of the zone was fantastically designed and certainly as someone who has had bad internet, the single zone for most of the early grinding and selling was so nice to have instead of waiting for zone loading. I also can't even begin to praise the devs on their music for the city as well, it is by far the best in the game and creates such a peaceful feeling being amongst the treetops. the whole city creates such a nostalgic feeling.... so good. thanks for your list!

Man, It sounds like you actually pronounce Qeynos like I have since 99 though if I am honest nobody pronounces it correctly but I think our way sounds best and is the closest to the correct way among the most common mispronunciations. Thanks for the video!

Keep in mind that when Kunark came out the game was at the height of its popularity, many folks wanted to try out iksar. At the time and for sometime after, Cab was packed. Splitting into 2 zones alleviated the server load, even then they'd crash occasionally. FFXIV has the same issue even today, sqeenix will add more instances of an area to keep it stable. And I hate to be critical of someone's opinion, but I'm still passionate about EQ after all these years. However, many of your complaints are what made the game exciting as a new player back then. MMO players have it way to easy now. Everything is handed to you on a silver platter. Maps, quest journals, easy newbie areas where its nearly impossible to die...all these things take away from the sense of wonder that EQ gave you. EQ has added some things over the years, sure, but from 1999-2001, EQ was the pinnacle of feeling like you were on a true adventure, cheesy deaths and all.

Never played EQ before till last night when I decided to try P1999 as a wood elf. The amount of accidental deaths falling from those tree platforms just looking for the bank.. It was actually a thrilling experience to search for my body at night to loot back my gear.

I played in EQ Beta, and my first character was a Gnome, I spent a long time just trying to find my way out, finally gave up and rolled a Half-Elf Ranger

no way, paineel is absolutely amazing. So close to the best early level dungeon in the game!

Ha, I love this. I also played on Tunare and am so glad someone else remembers when gfay was the auction house.

I loved Cabills, and its an evil brutal Vinice. I felt that it gave so much character to the iksar

So happy to see content from you, easily one if not my favorite EQ p99 content creators

Subscribed for your love of Snow Zones and Halas. I feel yah

You just spoke to my heart with saying you played on Tunare(might have spelt that wrong). I played an Iskar monk named Phryer Tuk. So many memories. Le sigh. Miss it so much.

I fondly remember Neriak, it was otherworldly and ornate, it had little secrets and one of my favourite features was the bar which looked out underwater. When training swimming I used to go down there and look in the bar hoping to catch a glimpse of all the random evil characters exploring the place. The music was memorable too, from creepy ambience to the bombastic theme of the Halls of the Dead. The dark elf king and queen hated each other (a recurring theme) and the lesser casters had their own faction which was literally called The Spurned. I mained a Rogue way back when (they were agile, dexterous, intelligent, had a natural hide ability and perfect night vision - that would make them the best choice right?) and the Ebon Mask was one of the best outfits in Norrath. Nektulous Forest had its problems, but the “newbie log” gathering point gave many a young dark elf their first taste of cooperation, and there were plenty of places to go afterwards. Hopefully the algorithm will drop this nostalgia bomb into more people’s feeds.

My first city was Neriak. I made a DE necro on Tunare around March of 2000. I got lost looking around the city, and then I fell in that tiny mote with bridge to those rooms with the troll in the back of 3rd gate. I drowned! That got me out of the city. I later moved to Vallon Zek, where I made a DE rogue. I had the idea that I would be picking the pockets of the opposing teams. I love Neriak and its atmosphere as well as the twists and turns and especially the secret tunnel to the foreign quarter from the commons. It has an ok newbie area in the zone outside the city. My next favorite is a tie between Qeynos and old Freeport. I desperately hate the revamped Freeport. Old Freeport had such style to it. The newbie zone was much better than Neriak, (No zoning to sell), and West Freeport had no surprise high-level mobs waiting to pounce you. When I first logged into Vallon Zek with my Rogue, there were no less than 80 people in each of the city zones, and the newbie area was over 100. Since I started on Tunare, I was a little familiar with the game I couldn't find any mobs to kill with so many people that I went to Travis Two Tone and grabbed a letter to the bards guild in North Freeport via the tunnel. I actually got to 2nd level with the quest. Since it was a PvP server, I got jumped my 3 human warriors. Exiting the bards guild, but since DE started with the ability to hide, I managed to escape the chase after I rounded a corner and hit hide. I was sweating bullets when they came around the corner. Back then, you got no message if you succeeded or failed to hide or sneak. I succeeded! The tunnels in west Freeport were brilliantly placed. The north tunnel allows the paladins to get to their guild hall as well as the bank, and the south tunnel ends in the evil guild halls to the left or you could get to the rogues guild or docks to the right. All this was underground out of sight, too. I exploited the hell out of this on the PvP server. Qeynos was just as good as Freeport, but it was the nicer city of the two. They had much better, friendlier quests than Freeport. The sewers and the rivalry of good vs. corrupt guards gave it more of the fantasy epic city feel. You could navigate through the sewers to the docks here, too, but with a lot more difficulty. You didn't need to leave the city walls to make it to 2nd level here with some quests! The newbie zone here is my favorite. There are only two mobs that will agro you that will kill a level 1. Once you figure that out, it's easy to avoid them. Again, no zoning to go sell, too! Qeynos has a more heroic adventure feel to it than the other starting cities. I guess I like it more than Freeport, maybe, but only by fractions.

Everyone knows you start as a gnome for any class and then immediately go to Qeynos

This video took a ton of work and just cozy as you remembered everything from back-in-the-day, I don't agree with ALL of your picks, but I learned a few things too!

can confirm I started in 2000 as a woodelf ranger and yes, kelethin was magical and when I think of EQ music, it's the opening/loading song and kelethin music.

Excellent ranking of the cities! Thanks for getting so much footage of them all! Qeynos area is among the best for me, I somewhat like that it is insulated from the rest of Antonica by the vast plains of Karana. Have you considered doing a ranking of the dungeons, either by nostalgia, or high end grouping adventure, such as Lower Guk, Mistmoore, Unrest, Befallen?

It’s a good day seeing a hour long video by Sage

I'd only ever make gnomes. I'm pretty sure I'll know where every single NPC is in there on my deathbed after I forget everything else.

Deep dive city tour could be really fun. Like really explore what every NPC, shop, quest, etc in each city.

Right off the bat the Cabilis rant killed me. So good.

On Drinal we used to use North Freeport as the player trade zone. Evil races would stick mostly to the sewers while a majority of the trading was done behind Jade. I liked it MUCH better than EC tunnel.

Fantastic video man! Food for thought to be sure.

Cabilis wasnt bad imo. Everything was easy to find except the necro spells like you said in the video. FoB is arguably the best newb area. I remember back on live alot of people getting a bind near cab just to use the FoB to level and making iksar alts to sell and bank. Made a bunch of plat as a newbei iksar selling all them bone chips to higher level people working on their iksar faction with trooper mozzo. Kelethin being rated so high even though you could fall to your death and lose hours of leveling was surprising for me. Back on live there was no restriction to losing exp at lower levels so it was a terrible city considering in 1999 most people using a dial up connection that could drop at any time a phone call was answered. All the cities with multiple zones like Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak could be very confusing and felt bad as well when you had to wait minutes between loading back in 1999. Imo Felwith and Kaladim were the best with decent newbei areas and close by starting dungeons that were very popular. Crushbone, Unrest, and Mistmoore all being close by was great to get new players started.

What made you think elves are the oldest and wisest playable race? Dwarves are the 2nd oldest race, after dragons. Friendly ghouls aren't just in Neriak, there is a ghoul assistant in the paineel library that helps organize books. The thing with Dark Elves, Ogres, and Trolls is that the trolls and ogres fear the dark elves, which tolerate them for their usefulness in their evil plans. A big chunk of Trolls even worship Innoruuk, mainly their Shadowknights and Shamans, which can choose Innoruuk as a deity. There's even a dark elf ambassador in Grobb which sends Innoruuk worshipping trolls off to Neriak to serve Innoruuk. But the Ogres see through the deceit of the dark elves. There is an ogre in Neriak who tells you that he wants to go back to Oggok because the dark elves are trying to trick him and are mean. There is an Ogre Warrior quest where you are sent off to intercept an orc runner which has a note revealing how the Dark Elves are ditching the Ogres in favor of an alliance with the Crushbone Orcs, to expand their reach in Faydwer. They are preparing to kill every Ogre in Neriak, and then invade Oggok. Upon showing this note to the questgiver, you are sent to assassinate the Dark Elven ambassadors in Oggok and Crushbone, and you become a Craknek hero. Trolls are more cooperative with Dark Elves, but the Ogres don't even worship Innoruuk at all. In Ogre society, Rallos Zek is above all, though a few Ogres worship Cazic Thule. A few ogres, such as Clurg and Marda, have become close in intellect to their race before their curse. Now time for me to argue with your ratings! If you haven't guessed already, I am an Ogre main, so I'll start with Oggok. The situation in Oggok is that there are 2 rival guilds, the Greenblood Knights and the Craknek Warriors. The Shamen of war are allied with the Greenbloods. Clurg, the famed creator of Ogre Swill and the Flaming Clurg, and one of the few smart Ogres, created the Bouncers after seeing them in bars across the lands he travelled, which serve as Guards, peacekeepers between the warring guilds, and of course they beat up rowdy drunkards as the name suggests. So for the levelling path, you have a lot in the Feerrott. 1-6 you can kill low level roamers. 4-7 you can do the lizard camps east of the river/bridge, 7-11ish you can do undead stone henges, roaming mobs, and lizard camps west of the river/bridge, 9-14 you can do the lizard island outside the temple of Cazic Thule (mobs will vary in level like 7-11ish I think), 10 - 13 you can do greenblood zombies swimming in the river, and 14-22 you can do crocs in oasis, 3 zones away. The Dark Assassin only roams the side west of the bridge, generally near the path to Rathe Mountains. There is a bouncer that will roam along the river and along the path to Rathe Mtns if you get in trouble. They will attack the dark assassin but usually die. There is another bouncer that roams along the southern area of the river, who will steamroll through the lizard island and kill a lot of the mobs up to the temple entrance guards, so you can get a free and safe escort to and from the temple by following this guard. I think it was recently discovered that the dark assassin was never kos in classic so on p99's next patch, they might no longer be an issue. South Qeynos was the first zone btw. Think that's all I wanted to say.

My first time playing EQ was on P99 few yrs ago and a Barb Shaman was my first toon and I did the same thing in Halas First time running from Everfrost to Freeport was a journey👍

Great list! It is low hanging fruit, but a listing ranking the Epic quests would be fun. Not necessarily the Epic items, but the quests & lore. Which ones had the best tie in with the lore of their classes. Which ones where fun, gave you some unique bonus rewards, and which ones where absolutely brutal. I'd focus less on the Epic Weapon rewards themselves, because everyone already know which ones suck and which are essential.

I started in January of 2001 and you started outside the city no idea what to do luckily I had a person give my Paladin bronze armor and a decent sword and led me to the guild hall. I have tried to pass that on but I started out in Butcherblock and loved it was very challenging at the time, Then we went toward Crushbone different story. The game used to be way harder and challenging.

Just finished watching the video , and the memories that came back was insane. Somehow I knew Halas was going to be number 1 as it’s my number one also … I remember barb warrior . Everything you said was so true walking out of the ice caverns to the frozen tundra. Seeing giant spiders and wooly mammoths … making your way to blackburrow. Some of my best times on a game. As for my least favourite I’d have to say oggok even the trolls city never care much for em .

My order from favorite to least favorite: 01. Freeport - The iconic city of classic EQ imho. Large variety of stuff to do in nearby zones as well: Orc camps in wc,ec & oasis, derv camps in nro, crocs in oasis, undead in befallen. Just a lovely area with tons of stuff for newbies. Hands down my favorite starting region. 02. Halas - I love snowy zones. The dungeons blackburrow and permafrost are classic as well. Loved the frozen river. Only gripe is that it was easy to get lost trying to find blackburrow or halas. 03. Neriak - Awesome city. Nektulos forest is meh, but thankfully wc or nro is close enough. Many great dungeons nearby: befallen, najena, sola & solb. Lavastorm was cool as well. 04. Rivervale - Lovely town & Misty thicket is fantastic. Runnyeye is kind of meh, but thankfully highpass is nearby. Kithicor was horrible but Misty thicket makes up for it. 05. Qeynos - Overall nice city with solid nearby xp zones. Never got the hang of qeynos catacombs, but I feel like it could have been a great zone if it was slightly less complex and had better areas to group. I always lived to concept of the catacombs, but not the implementation. Also I never stopped searching for Pyzjn & the GBS. Never got it though. 06. Felwithe - Easy to navigate city that's close to CB. Was never a fan of High elves though. 07. Kaladim - Neat city. Close crushbone & unrest too. 08. Ak’anon - City was kind of dreary but I loved the clockwork theme. Steamfont was a great newbie zone. 09. Oggok - Nice design of the city. Newbie zone was kind of bad imho. Never cared for Temple of Cazic. Always lvl'd my ogres in uguk & lguk when possible. 10. Erudin - The city itself was nice, but toxx sucked. Until the warrens was added there was no great newbie dungeons on Odus unfortunately. 11. Cabalis - City design was bad, but boy did I love Field of Bones. Lake of Ill Omen was decent as well. A shame about WW & SoNH though. 12. Kelethin - The amount of time I got lost looking for the bank here incalculable. Or the amount of times I accidentally fell. Really loved crushbone though. 13. Grobb - Feels like the city was rushed. Bad newb zone, but uguk & lguk were great. 14. Paineel - Doesn't feel like much of a city tbh. The newb area included in the zone was decent though, as well as the warrens. Nothing makes up for the difficulty of figuring the key thing or falling into the hole though.

Felwith is the best starting City,. It is the easiest to get around, the newbies own outside is possibly the best in-game, and Crushbone nextdoor is possibly one of the better higher end starting zones. My first love for characters is a Wood Elf Ranger, I have to admit falling off those ramps was annoying.... FYI: my main character is a High Elf Cleric....

Qeynos is the best, it is the most productive area for someone fresh on a server with no gear help or higher level friends. There are so many quests and upgrades(esp for int caster) in Qeynos, catacombs, Qeynos hills, and Black Burrow. The experience generation is great in every zone either through zems or quest drops, and the starting zone has the bonus of a npc that will heal you for bone chips or small coin donations. There is a boat that leaves Qeynos and stops at an island with the most lucrative lower level mob to farm in the game, wisps, with the highest density of them. If you started as an Erudite magician and migrated to Qeynos (easy boat ride), by the time you were level 16 you could very possibly have 160+int, and well over 500 platinum, which is just a gross amount for a low level to get, basically enough to bank roll all the important spells to 50 or buy some nice starting gear. Enchanters would get all that plus they could snag a quest part of the Stein of Moggok quest before they left. The only real issue is there is basically little reason for higher level players to be there other than to power level people or they are passing by to Everfrost from the druid port in Surefall glade, so you won't get as many bonus buffs, and it can be a pain to get to the better mid level zones if you have to cross the Karanas at a lower level with no travel spells. This is why I would say if you don't mind getting help and the server is established, it's probably a better experience to start near EC/WC, and ask for buffs from higher level characters. More likely to get gifted junk starting gear as well. The most difficult is probably a Erudite Shadowknight. You are already frail, low stamina/strength, which in general is not good but really not good if are relying on a bigger mana pool to shore up the difference. Unless you get an invis or port out you are pretty much SOL and leveling in one of the worst areas. The added hole drop and gate lock out is just icing on the poop cake for that character.

I’m a new player to EverQuest haven’t played once until last week. Started as a wood elf Druid and I have to say this tree city is such a pain to navigate lol and it haunts me to know there are “worse” cities

Yoooo!!!!!! Fellow Tunare player here. I found it so weird when I started playing P99 and everyone used the tunnel.

I find it humorous that Grobb is considered the 13th-worst starting city of 14 in the game when the Troll players themselves petitioned the game by perpetually mob-killing the entire city after Verant took it away from the Trolls and gave it to the Frogloks in 2003. Verant did relent and gave the city back to the Trolls, but it made many other stupid decisions in EverQuest, like when it took the port of Firiona Vie away from the "good races" only to give it to the "evil races" and not do anything with the space.

Qeynos area is my absolute favorite. It's got the best rogues guild, and evil casters guild by far. Its got the most life and feel to it, its got a hippy guild across the way tucked away in the woods. And it's got the best music IMO

Zoning in my home city (Neriak in my case) gave me this profound sense of relief I never felt in any video game, online or otherwise. I was safe. I lived to see another day. I had loot to sell or quests to turn in. EQ was the only game that made me feel this way.

1)I agree that starting city makes a huge difference for a newbie! Back when I start it , I first tried Cabilis and Freeport, both were too confusing for me. I was ready to give up, but then I tried Rivervale and loved it! 2) Warrens is a great dungeon for lowbie heretics and erudites, i’m surprised you didn’t mention it. 3) Where is the halfling spy in Neriak? You mentioned him, but I didn’t see him in the video.

My most successful character was a Woodelf Warrior. I had a habit of bouncing back and forth between Kelethin and Qeynos. Luckily when I started, around 2001, you could get a Druid port straight into Surefall Glade. I think my best memories were running back and forth between Kelethin and Kaladim turning in those wristbands and shoulder pads.

This is amazing!

I noticed that most of the players who are super nostalgic about this game all played on the Tunare server (myself included). I think we had a unique experience compared to all of the other servers because you didn't really have to be part of a Guild to raid; the server was really inclusive and had a large sense of community when compared to other servers. We were also one of the most over-populated servers in the game, even after the merge to Drinal.

When I started in 2000 Qeynos was pretty busy. That whole western region was fun to explore. Busy enough to get groups together, but not so busy it was crowded. Back then, on the role-playing server where you could only have one character, Qeynos had a homey feel to it. You see the same folks everyday and it was easy to make friends.

I like this review, but I would re-position four of the fourteen cities in the list for new players: (1) Freeport really ought to be #1 on the list for a new player (you put it at #4). The city has all the advantages you listed, is well travelled, well connected, has great places for new players to start their adventuring in very nearby, and ramps of difficulty all look like they have been carefully worked out. As a tradeskill hub and as a neutral city, it caters to most character classes well. I'd advise any new player to start their first character here. (2) Felwithe is the one that gets #2 on my assessment. It perfectly supports all classes that High Elves can be, supports tradeskills well, is fairly well connected, and has a great newbie area that ramps up towards and into the wonderful Crushbone dungeon nearby. You admit to liking playing dark elves and dislike high elves, but I think it has affected your review too much. Felwithe was my personal first choice when I started EQ (and it remains it now, >20 years later). It is not quite as new-player friendly as Freeport, but more than makes up for it in ambiance. (3) I personally would move Kelethin up a few places, putting it at #5 rather than #8. It has more character than Kaladim or Erudin, and shares most of the advantages of Felwithe noted above. (4) Halas is hugely overrated in your review. I'd put it at #8, not #1! Indeed some of the reasons you made it "good" actually make it "bad" for a new player. The city is nice enough in itself, but it is not integrated into the rest of the world, and into the rest of the game. There are many things that a new player cannot ever do in that city, and the travel from there to anywhere else is terrible. The newbie zone has deadly stuff nearby (an issue that made you drop many other starting cities low down the list). You admit to being biased, and I guess everyone is, but this was the most badly placed city in this review list in my view. Thank you for the great review!

Cool video. I've been trying a bunch of races as I unsuccessfully try to get into P99/EQ. Problem is I like the evil cities best, but then you're evil. For example, Paineel is a cool as heck city to me, but trying to leave is a hassle (and you're likely to get murdered the moment you set foot in Qeynos). Felwithe, Kaladim and Kelethin are pretty good overall I think although I've always found Felwithe's newbie area to have barely any mobs. My personal favorite has always been Qeynos as it has basically everything you need, and has a progression path wihout any major surprises (killing an animal near Holly notwithstanding) as opposed to say East Commons where you can easily run into an invisble high level elemental or a griffin. As an outsider looking in, a lot of their decisions make little sense even coming from a traditional RPG background.

I was happy to see that you seemed to have put a lot of thought into this. I was surprised that Halas was your top choice, but i understand why. I started out as a Barb Shaman, and didnt make a 2nd character until the last weeks of vanilla ( and it was a Barb Rogue ). So I am as or more biased than you. I was going to mention Surefall Glade ( I started the comment before i got the the wrap up at the end ). You did miss Shar Val.

Your criticisms about Paineel are definitely valid, but with that said it’s still one of my favorite cities. I’ve always loved the Heretic lore and vibe, and the yard is hands-down one of the best newbie areas.

my first char was a Dark Elf Shadowknight.... took me about 5 hrs trying to find my way out. I didnt even know there was a damn forest outside. I DIDNT KNOW THERE WAS ANYTHING OUTSIDE!!!

Kelethin is an F Tier city and anyone who thinks otherwise is just straight up wrong. I love wood elves. I love crushbone right next door I take every character there. I'd rather get shot than run around in kelethin.

Halas is actually one of my worst because of location, that stupid raft to get in. was honestly surprised that water part you have to cross didnt knock halas down. Honestly, Neriak, and Felwithe would probably be my top two, with the only knock on neriak is the size can be daunting, and felwith being that the better part of gfay is near kelethin. Kelethin will always hold a special place in my heart, it's big knock is that can be confusing at first to navigate.

I spent 1 hour awing over Neriak 3rd gate when i started in May 2001 as a DE Necro, such a cool place.

It's possible they split Cabilis up to reduce the max visible polycount. I remember that, back in those days, EQ didn't have proper occlusion culling. It caused issues on low-end PCs in some other zones (e.g. Rivervale). Also Cabilis is really dumb and they could have put the entire city in field of bone, Kelethin style. If you're a druid, Rivervale is the only S tier city because it's the closest bank to a druid ring. If you're an agnostic human mage, those ghouls in Neriak will attack, and the guards will assist them. IMO the most important feature of a city is the bank, and Surefall Glade doesn't have one.

I just started playing P99 and though I agree with most of your rankings, I think Qeynos edges out Halas by just a bit. The Vengeful Lyricists and cast have been such a nightmare for my low level Barbarian and the twisting paths of Everfrost are extremely easy to get lost in even for an intermediate player like myself. I love that you pointed out the creepiness and the beauty of Neriak though. It’s an extremely underrated city that is my nomination for the best city for the evil races.

lol Most common direction when asked. Follow the wall till you hit the first tunnel then go in and keep to the left side wall and follow it all the way through. lol Everything was done by following right or left sides. I had maps printed out and used them quite a lot. In fact I still have my map and quest binder for EQ.

I started playing EQ late in the game so my first character was a vah shir from Shar Val. I didn't mind that as a starting city. The spell merchants and melee tomes were easy to find, banking was available and once you've been there 1000 X's it gets easier to run through without using the game map.

Back in the day Freeport was 3 zones. As a human Paladin you had to run EFP because you were kos to the guards. NFP had the bank and where our server had its market, WFP was great newbie zone... and EFP was between the two.

Fun fact : Kithicor forest originally was a normal newbie zone. But then they added the undeads after an in game events whose lore I don't remember and for some reason they kept them after the event was done (my memory is very blurry I don't remember well)

"Ogurz! Meet the Ogurz! Dey iz Norrath's Stone Age Family! From the town of Oggok, Which smells like a sausage factory!"

i do believe that Kithicore was once always a newbie zone but then they did the battle of bloody kithicore event and it became cursed after that point. So it made sense back then but afterwards .... not so much.

i mean i am only at 7:20 into the video and i dont agree with you about the randomness where high level mobs can randomly appear in newbie areas, i think that is part of what makes everquest everquest. it gives the world a sense of danger, a sense of realness, overly polished games like world of warcraft you can almost feel how the developers were manually placing out the mobs in certain areas and there is never any surprises. to me that kills the immersion.

Neriak #1. Just great execution on mood and atmosphere. And dark elves rule. Cabilis hands down there worst. Agree that West cab is pointless, and OMG the canals. Would be ok if it wasn't such a PITA to find and use the ladders to get out. Would have been hugely improved if the walls were angled so you could get out wherever

Great video and I think it was mostly spot-on. You could tell Qeynos was the first city made with all the lore and random little quests you can pick up. They put a lot of effort in there and tried a bunch of different things. For instance there's that one quest with Guard Weleth that has you return a crate of arrows to a merchant, who gives you a voucher to bring back. You could take one of two routes with that quest; bring it back to Weleth and help him fix his mistake, or tattle on him to his superior officer (who is very corrupt). Just left room for multiple choices and I kinda wish more quests were like that. Neriak too is great. If you pick certain classes and pick Innoruuk as a deity on them as a dark elf, and know who to talk to, you can start off with three empty bags for quests right out of the gate. The ambience to the city is top notch too. I remember rerolling a high elf paladin I had to a dark elf shadowknight, and just felt so sinister and evil as I betrayed everything I once loved. It was the best. :) Only thing I'd really change is swapping the placements of Cabilis and Oggok. Cabilis has multiple good quests, a great newbie dungeon nearby and a self-containted route to high levels all nearby in Kunark. I think the intent of that city was to portray the Iksar as an embattled race with threats on literally all sides. It's smack dab in the middle of the continent so it makes sense to have those four "newbie" zones, though it's as you say and only two of those really work for newbs. Oggok on the other hand is just the most terrible place imo. The tunnels are impossible, the factions in the city are messed up, and the newb zone has very little to do past level 5 with no real way of knowing where to go next.

I understand the Qeynos ranking, but man I always got so lost there before maps that I hated the few times I had to go there when leveling.

39:40 I still remember the old layout. Good times. Glad i get to see it again in this video.

I started in Kelethin and I was in awe

Neriak has always been my favorite city. Followed closely by Qeynos. Its a heck of a task to bring a DE Rogue's faction up to walk freely in Qeynos. Just watch out for Hansl, he's an ass.

I started playing in 99 sometime on some crappy computer with dial up internet. Finally loaded the game and created an Ogre warrior. I went through the tutorial then realized the computer and internet combo couldn't handle the game once in the actual server with other players. I remember when it wasn't lagging Oggok was so damn dark i couldn't see anything and had no idea about raising gamma at the time. After my family upgraded the internet and computer i tried again i think in year 2000. I made a woodelf ranger, and despite the name I just loved how bright it was in greater faydark. My earliest memories of EQ and starting out

When I was a little boy I used to love making maps for zones like cabalis and oggok on my own on level 1 characters. There was a point that I'd be like a guide for noobies trying to find certain locations of a zone. A gm messaged me one day and acknowledged I was a big help to their server. When I watched this video I had a lot of laughs when the guy badmouthed certain starting areas in their own teir. It takes a good few days before you get comfortable with a "bad zone" but honestly that's part of the charm. Us nerds get zero benefits on live servers because everyone starts on CR. But man if you really want to get immersed, learn these "bad" zones. It brings such a sense of accomplishment. Hunt for some lore (or broken quests...) it might do you some good =p

Both Tallon Zeke and Emarr had heavy trade in Kelethin. Real good place to be a brand new player back in the day.

I’ve played EverQuest on and off since the very beginning and I never knew that the wood elf city was named anything other than Greater Faydark 😅. I was reading the comments wondering how no one else liked gfay and where this kelethin place was.

Originally Kithicor forest did not have the super scary night time. It was a pretty easy place to level in low levels. Then there was an event for the introduction of Plane of hate which turned it to a night time danger. Part of me wants to say I remember later on EQ added a portal to PoH in Neriak, but not sure. I do know that you had to get the soul stone (I think it was called) from the cleric guild in 3rd gate to get to PoH. I had a Dark Elf Cleric after my paladin which ended up being my main and I thought I was hot shit when I got all my planar cleric armor back then lol.

At 23:20 Al'Anon water features.... I just thought of something while watching your video. There's a possibility that all that water flowing is a way of powering the city in various things in it. The gnomes tinker a lot, so maybe they tinkered up water wheels and stuff that you can't see under the water....

My first two characters were an Erudite Wizard and a Troll Shaman. Those cities and newbie zones were awful but when I later started in other zones the game seemed so much easier! 😊

It's unbelievable how based the developers had to be to put Kelethin in the game from a game design standpoint. Absolutely merciless 😂

Halas noobieyard is the most unforgiving out of all the newbieyards. The city itself is really comfy and easy to navigate. I still think it should get the lowest ranking.