Lotusfly's 11th Birthday

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

It was Lotusfly's 11th birthday recently; I remember this, because she
was born in 1999 on my 23rd birthday, and I just turned... 34! Yes, I
have known quite a lot of you for over one decade.

I retired from EQ in 2003, which marks seven years of absence, and I
logged in again on Lotusfly's and my birthday. That is, after I found an
old lab notebook with my account name, recovering the password, and
re-installing. Did you know that it takes 3.5 hours to patch if you haven't
played for seven years? :)

Norrath looks very different. There are "adventure", "expedition", and
"bandolier" windows, and I have no idea what they all mean. I saw
timers on buffs, and rejoiced; I found that my bank has another eight
slots in it, and I rejoiced some more. I realised that I have absolutely no
chance of reaching the new 85 level cap, and promptly began pining for
those days when you and I used to gain exp, slowly working on AAs and
whatnot, without a care in the world.

I was reminded of how impossible such an endeavour would be these
days as I couldn't get more than 15 minutes alone at the computer
without getting called away for something or other. The days of spending
long, happy nights in the middle of a packed dungeon killing frogs seems
to be long passed, but they give me happy memories!

Wordsworth wrote that, in quiet moments, he took great pleasure in
recalling to memory the sights and sounds of the times he spent walking
in the English moors. While I have some of those kinds of memories
myself, I often find myself thinking of those days spent playing EQ. The
feeling of crossing Velious, with its wide open spaces; the feeling of dying
in Howling Stones over and over again; the feeling of sitting by the portal,
outside the Plane of Fear, wishing for my corpse back and praying for
sleep, surrounded by similar naked characters. Endless nights spent
fighting our way through the Temple of Veeshan.

Do you have any of those memories tucked away in there somewhere, or
am I being overly sentimental?

I found myself walking through a leafy park the other day, and thinking of
chasing griffons in the Karanas.

Life is different now; I've finally graduated from my PhD, and am
teaching engineering to undergraduates most days of the week. I have a
few students who turn up for tutorials looking immensely tired, claiming
that they have spent all night with their guilds in an on-line game. They
say "you wouldn't understand", but I know exactly how they feel.

I'd love to read of your news; what you're doing, what you're up to now.
I bumped into Malroi and Mortito in EQ, and want to hear from more of
you.

With my very best wishes,

An Old Friend :)

P.s. Could I please have access to the forums here? I can only see the
"General" forum!

P.p.s. If anyone has a collection of old EQ screenshots, do please post
them! I cannot find my original collection, and fear for their loss.

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 04:32 AM

Hey, you.

Fixed.

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

Thank'ee, Blaise!

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:32 AM

Lotus - the internet wayback machine has a decent selection of archives of the old KTF sites - I visit them every now and then.

I popped into EQ yesterday and saw that you had logged in as well.

Bassor, Trike, Bragga, Notthe, and a few others play EQ still.

Will send you a PM!

M

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

Thanks, Jason! I'll dig through the pages of the Wayback Machine and see what I can find. It's slow, but it'll get there :)

In a fit of Googling for my character name, I found the following fascinating tidbits!

EQ2 players with a familiar name:

...one of whom apparently decided to try even harder (why?!):

Then, it gets a bit more amusing. I found the following request from
some joker to join a Shadowbane guild. Note that this charming fool
claims to have been in KTF on Prexus, and uses an approximation to my
(admittedly highly annoying) writing style. Friends will know, however,
that I would be psycholgically prevented from mispelling "mutilated", nor
would I leave my "i" uncapitalised, nor would I use the contraction
"cause". However, I admire the use of the apostrophe in "til"! Amateurs!

As if just to torment me, the same person then uses "plz" while claiming
to be yours truly:

...before the chucklesome conclusion is later revealed that this player
seemingly hacked a few player accounts:

You'd need to be seriously troubled to bother passing yourself off as me. :)

Toodlepip,

An Old Friend

P.s. Are there any KTF players of EQ2? Though I haven't ventured into
the game before, I'd like to have a look at it.

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 12:34 AM

Lotus - I know Peileii still plays EQ2 every now and then when he has time away from piloting airplanes. There are some Prexians that play as well - you'd have to go to prexus.yuku.com and go to the non-EQ mmo forum and check the people who listed in the thread there.

I played for a while with Wamp and Nakilos - but that was quite some time ago.

Post subject: Re: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 01:52 AM

I still haven't had as much fun in a game nor the types of memories that I had in EQ. Perhaps it was because it was my first MMO but I still occasionally wach nostalgia videos and have been teary eyed missing some of the people I had so much fun sharing the EQ experience with. I still think ventrilo is an appreciably negative element in today's games and MMO's and does a lot to destroy any sense of immersion.

Post subject: Re: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2010 01:55 AM

Lotusfly Stewnicely wrote:

I have a
few students who turn up for tutorials looking immensely tired, claiming
that they have spent all night with their guilds in an on-line game. They
say "you wouldn't understand", but I know exactly how they feel.

That's awesome.

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

Thanks, chaps!

Kilerien, I recently found myself watching a lone Iksar monk running through Velketor's Labyrinth, in a Youtube 1080p video. It was terribly exciting, and there was nostalgia aplenty - I wish we had more KTF videos of our raids from back then. They're very entertaining =)

Toodlepip,

Lotus

Post subject: Re: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:19 AM

I just remember Rong training Velk's all the time on Prexus.

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

Who was Rong's previous character? I remember it being a wizard.
I have a vague memory that we may have been in the "Covenant of Blood"
guild together before I joined Eternal Fellowship. If it's the same chap, he
had a long break, before coming back as "Rong Way" - a nice guy, too!

At Marth's suggestion, I was recently re-reading the old EF news pages,
and came across an article describing two groups + Anram fighting our
way to the corner in the Plane of Fear. That was one of the most genuinely
terrifying moments of playing Everquest for me. Terrifying!

Almost as terrifying as trying to cross the "dead side" of Lower Guk with a group, praying that our individual Invis-vs-Undead spells would hold out, and that no-one would fall into pit-traps. Invariably, both happened, with predictable consequences... =)

Toodlepip,

Lotus

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

The level 90 Lotusfly in EQ2, shown above on the Guk server, is apparently Peileii - which is very pleasing. He has a "Wendy" druid, too!

The idea of 24 classes in EQ2 sounds particularly interesting.

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 11:38 PM

Rong was Smookey. I loved Smookey, even though he complained about loot once and quit his character, there were plenty of times where he made me cry I was laughing so hard.

Lotus, I remember the day we met. I think we were both in our 40s, and you were in oot at the cyclops island. I know Danate was in your group, and I was actually heading there to see if my regular-ish group was there camping them (they weren't). You ooc'd that you were trading <insert uber item here> for some wine. Even though I knew you wouldnt give me the item I still brought you some wine that I bought at the villagers hut just for fun.

It's weird how I remember everything that happened in EQ like it was yesterday. Yet it's been 10ish years!! Glad to hear that you're doing well Lotus, Toodlepip.

Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 598 Location: the army

Wish I had all my old EQ screenshots. They've all since been lost with computer upgrades. Sad

Post subject: Re: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 03:32 PM

Hey Becca, glad to hear you are doing well Smile

The Lucky Cabbage Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 134

Reiyadh wrote:

Lotus, I remember the day we met. I think we were both in our 40s, and you were in oot at the cyclops island. I know Danate was in your group, and I was actually heading there to see if my regular-ish group was there camping them (they weren't). You ooc'd that you were trading <insert uber item here> for some wine. Even though I knew you wouldnt give me the item I still brought you some wine that I bought at the villagers hut just for fun.

It's weird how I remember everything that happened in EQ like it was yesterday. Yet it's been 10ish years!! Glad to hear that you're doing well Lotus, Toodlepip.

It is amazing - when I logged back into Lotusfly, it was like trying on
a well-fitting old item of clothing. It fits, it's comfortable, but you can't
quite remember where all the pockets are.

I started EQ with a few real-life friends from my lab, whose character
names I can't remember because they gave up before they reached
level 20. They always used to joke that I knew more about the layout
of Norrath than I did about the layout of our city. I just remembered
that a few weeks ago, and put it to the test: I can still remember the
various deserts, mountains, plains, and oceans of Norrath as if they
were real places. I'm sure that they would like very dated by modern
standards, but, somehow, they seemed quite real! So, I appear to have
ended up with very vivid, life-like memories of a place that doesn't
really exist. It's quite odd :)

I've been running around with Lotusfly for half-an-hour here and there,
when time allows. I ran through Guk to the Lord, who tried to hit me
with his ykesha (!), and then fought some spectres and the sorceress
who stands outside the portal to the Plane of Fear (Cyndreela?). It's
like ten years never passed. A decade! Aiee...

Toodlepip,

B :)

P.s. Hi Matt, and JP!

Joined: Apr 15, 2003 Posts: 80

hey lotus, its nice to see your name, its been so long, those times back then were so great, as much as a time sink EQ was i dont regret a second of it, as wierd as it sounds i think eq helped my life alot, its kept me away from a lot of bad stuff that was going on when i was that age

Joined: Apr 15, 2003 Posts: 722 Location: Windsor, Ontario

hey there lotus! i wish i could upload giant videos, i stil have footage i took of most of the plane of time bosses we did including quarm back when me and kivi went on a fraps recordnig spree

Joined: Apr 15, 2003 Posts: 80

i got the first kill shot on quarm!

Joined: Apr 15, 2003 Posts: 134 Location: North Carolina

Hi Becca! Nice to hear you're doing well. I'm just sort of dabbling again in WoW, but haven't played seriously since sometime in 2006.

I remember starting EQ and being on the phone with Dirt and Luks and threatening to quit like 20 times in the first two days. I could never find my corpse in the dark in Everfrost with that keen Barb eyesight.

I was browsing the EQ character stats site awhile back and noticed Rentor's 218 days played. Good lord, that was in about 3 years and not on the high end of folks that were playing in KTF then.

I remember that two group Fear break, crazy stuff.

Joined: Apr 17, 2003 Posts: 366 Location: Seattle, WA

I actually quit for like the 10th time last Oct. But Dirk just reactivated that account about 20 minutes ago so he'll be running around with him for now!

Joined: Apr 18, 2003 Posts: 27

Sometime this month would be 11 years for Belzadar also. It is amazing to me how many times I catch myself thinking about those days. Nothing will ever compare to looking out into Kith forest and actually being scared to run out, and then deciding to wait until it was daytime to head to the commons.
There are many things that I do miss about EQ. Your analogy about an old piece of clothing fits quite well.

It is good to see some very familiar names here. I wish everyone well.

David

Post subject: Re: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 05:10 AM

Dearest Lotusfly,

Indeed it is I who plays Lotusfly on Guk on EQ2. It is actually quite embarassing that you found out - I had hoped to tell you first. In fact, I had hoped to ask your permission first before creating the character, but knew of no way to get in touch with you!

Lotusfly (the Coercer) was made out of necessity for my guild last November, as we had a need for a Coercer to balance our raid force (My main was Lintley - an illusionist - at the time; I chose not to betray her). I tried about a dozen names that were rejected, and finally broke down and tried Lotusfly, my FAVORITE druid! Again, I was hoping to ask your permission before I did this, but alas, I got impatient. I had also intended to make Lotusfly a Warden (druid), but needless to say, this also went by the wayside. What's even worse... she's not a halfling, but a high-elf.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for pilfering your character! Please know it was made in homage to my most favorite druid in the world. Lotusfly is currently my main character; I raid about 4 nights per week, but still actively play Peileii. Please know that if you ever decide to come to EQ2, I will be more than happy to relenquish the name (I can buy a name change relatively inexpensively). Otherwise, I had planned (and still do) to someday go ahead and name change Lotus anyway and roll the halfling warden on my second accout.

I would love to chat again. If you like, you can drop me a line at jdavidandrews @ gmail.com. Toodlepip!

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:40 AM

Sadoe - if you want to upload the videos somewhere for folks to see, lemme know - I can arrange it.

Post subject: Lotusfly's 11th Birthday Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 09:18 PM

Sadoe, get those vids to Marth you dirty rogue! Smile

I have to see them.