Midoo's EQ Guide For WoW Refugees

A quick warning. You can skip this if you want.

I know for a fact most of you that I refer to this guide will not read it, so I'll just give you the short and skinny right now.

Go make a character, whatever you want it to be. Human necromancer with +30 stats in Dexterity or whatever, start him in Qeynos if you want. Gnome warrior, Iksar shaman, I don't really care. Die ten, twenty, fifty times. Lose a good few characters permanently. You'll get bored of this game within ten minutes and you'll quit. But the thought will fester at the back of your mind, and at some point you'll return and try again. This time, you'll be older and wiser and much more patient. That's when you'll start reading guides. That's when the rest of this page will finally make sense to you and that's when the design of the game will finally click.

I can tell you this, because I've experienced it. Except at the "coming back" part, there was no one central guide, and I had to constantly hunt for all of the information myself in individual pages of the P99 wiki. I've spared you that trouble and shortened everything you should know to get started in one page. You're welcome.

Author's introduction

Hello and welcome. My name is Midoo. I go by Odym Drekk, the Barbarian Shaman in-game.

Yours truly.

I started playing Everquest Classic about two years ago, frustrated with the direction World of Warcraft was headed. I left around the time WoD in general started, and somewhere in 2017 I recalled some of the memes and jokes back in the day about Everquest being World of Warcraft's harsher, yet relatively much more homey and complex ancestor; truly a boomer game. I was always drawn to classical things, whether it be in my musical taste, my choice of videogames, or my own personal beliefs. So I googled it and was introduced to Project1999. I've never been one of those people who started playing EQ when they were 9 and came back for the sake of nostalgia. I practically worship this game's level of depth, challenge and immersion, and these things keep me hooked daily. I guess you could say it's the Dark Souls of old school MMOs.

I always wanted to explain what's so good about EQ to a modern audience, but I could never really put my finger on it and I end up rambling for a few hours. Here's all of this rambling in text form. Have fun.

Guide starts here.

What's Everquest Classic?

Everquest Classic is an MMORPG with an antique design that focuses on class identity, exploration and grind. It's extremely sandbox-y, with the world being vastly open in front of you, and no one and nothing to hold your hand.

The appeal of the game is building yourself from absolutely nothing, going from punching bats for hours and hours on end to mass-nuking armies of werewolves in towers of ice for 1% of your XP bar. There's a lot of focus on earning really cool powers, because the game's absolutely crushing abyssal lows are constantly matched by the phenomenal, euphoric highs.

You'll rely on guides and the word of mouth from other players to know what to do and where to go. You will rely on players a lot, as the classes in Everquest are so unique that each of them can bring something to your group no one else can, like Druid portals or Shaman buffs, so make a lot of friends from every class, because you'll need them.

Content in EQ is not linear. There are no "main quest line" or story missions. Dungeons don't have a "final boss" or a linear path, and aren't instanced either. You choose where to go and what to do, how to plan out your adventure, what things to do along the way, and you look forward to your next batch of spells as the main driving force for leveling up and maybe, if you're persistent enough, join the raiding scene in a year or two.

What's so unique about this game?

Wall of text incoming. If you're under the age of 25 I hope you can come down from your ADD fueled trip for a moment to carefully read this paragraph word by word.

Everquest Classic is absolutely amazing. It's like a vintage car. It looks pretty chunky by modern standards, and it takes a bit of struggle to start up, but once you're up and running, with the wind to your face and the roads to your side blurring into pretty lines, there will be no greater euphoria than this. No greater feeling than nuking the mobs that once made your teen leveling experience hell, or obtaining that item that's marked as a pre-planar best-in-slot at level 30 with your own blood, sweat and tears, or scribing that new batch of spells that you've been holding onto in your backpack for the last four levels. You'll meet people who are well geared and experienced, and you'll remember your first few days, and you'll know that you finally belong in the tight circle of people who are "good" at this niche, unforgiving game, knowing that it practically made you rip your worth from its merciless grip, and that you actively worked hard for all that you earned.

Stat boosting items in Everquest are really rare. They're considered to be "magical items", and only drop from rare mobs, or as rewards for relatively long quest chains. Stat boosting is such a hard to earn thing in EQ that a hat with +3 Wisdom and +3 Intelligence on it for example is considered pre-raid BiS for some classes. I can practically name every single item I'm wearing on my main, along with its backstory and how I earned it. Not some bullshit lore story reason of why a quest giver made me kill 20 orcs in exchange for a blue quality chest item, but my own, personal sandbox story of farming hags in Unrest for days until the item dropped. Few games can ever give me that exhilarating feeling of worth, because they practically throw gear at people nowadays. It doesn't matter anymore. Stats aren't important. You'll get a Boot of +5578 Strength off a dungeon mob, while in Everquest an item with +4 Wisdom is considered the best non-raid item for your class. It's extremely humbling.

Bottom line: When people stereotype MMORPGs in media as being grindy, yet very immersive nerd fantasy games that require a lot of study to be good at, many relatively bullshit rules that need to be researched, and camping for overpowered items for days, they're not talking about World of Warcraft or Blade and Soul, they're talking about Everquest Classic.

a. Combat

• I could argue Everquest isn't an action game by modern standards. Melee combat is slow, repetitive and sluggish. You'll be auto attacking 80% of the time if you're melee.
• There's no "melee spells" for the most part like in WoW. No mortal strike, no whirlwind, no thunder clap, etc. If you choose a Melee class (more on that later), you're lucky if it has two Kick buttons, a Disarm and a Taunt.
• Spell animations are stiff. A fight with a mob your level is a death sentence if you don't know what you're doing. It's all about the strategy, hunting, planning, learning, and seeing the fruit of your plotting in the form of dying less often and winning more fights.
• You can forget about mass genociding enemies in droves like in other MMOs. Enemies your level are DANGEROUS in 1v1s, and even enemies lower level than you can be trouble if you're not careful. Fights in this game are EXTREMELY long compared to other games, and at lower levels they are mind-numbingly boring.

b. Spells

• Classes don't get their important spells right away. In WoW, you generally get your main spells at level 5 or so under the pretense that you'll get enough practice spamming your rotation by the time you finish leveling. In Everquest, massive class-defining abilities are obtained later on, as evenly spread milestones across all (currently) 60 levels of the game. Clerics get Resurrection at 29, Druids get their portals at 19, Enchanters get Charm at 12, etc. This guarantees that you always have something fun to look forward to that's right around the corner. In fact, looking forward to your next powerful line of spells is the main motivation for leveling up!
• Spells in Everquest aren't all meant to deal damage. This game's focus is to make you feel like you truly belong to your class, and this entails it having a whole set of unique, class-defining spells that reinforce class fantasy, or utility ones like Levitation, Invisibility, Teleportation for a few, etc..
• Buffs are very important in this game. Priest classes (Shaman, Druid, Cleric) cast the best long time buffs. A common tradition in EQ is for high level players to buff newbies wandering by to the point of immortality, the most iconic of them being the Shaman and Druid's Spirit of Wolf (SoW, speed buff), Enchanter's Clarity (Referred to as "crack", mana regen buff), Druid Skin spells and Regrowth, Cleric's Heroic Bond, etcetera...

c. Leveling

• Everquest isn't a race to max level like World of Warcraft is. Raids aren't the main course of the game. There is no instanced content. All of the good content is scattered equally across all levels. When you log on in WoW, you think about how much grind you have left until you're allowed to have fun. When you log on in Everquest, you ask around and google fun quests you can go on for your level, and you look around for spots to explore, items to hunt and friends to make.
• Leveling in EQ is much slower than in WoW. Quests aren't the main method of leveling up. If you're an instant gratification over slow, methodical growth type of person, then turn back now. People generally pick a quiet spot full of enemies their level that they can grind for hours on end, mostly with a group, and slowly watch their XP bar fill up.
• This is also balanced out by the fact that hitting max level isn't the point of this game. It's more like a medieval fantasy life simulator with a number that describes how powerful you are, and the higher that number is, the more exponentially fun the game is.
• Gear doesn't have "level requirements" to be worn like in WoW. Everything can be worn at level 1 if your class allows it.
• No one ever tells you where to go in this game, which forces you to explore, experiment, interact with the community and study guides. The act of grinding in a group also strengthens social bonds. People will remember you, and your actions will carry over across the community to your next group, for better or for worse.

d. Dungeons

• Dungeons are not linear hallways with bosses as checkpoints like in other MMOs. Dungeons are be massive, branching labyrinths with several wings designed like a player faction city would be with several parallel rooms that have rare mobs in them. The benefit of grinding mobs in dungeons rather than outdoors is generally that dungeon mobs drop better items, and that most dungeon kills grant more XP than outdoor kills.
• Dungeons are not instanced. That is offset by them being massive "xp hubs" with enough different branching alleyways, camps, and rooms to fit several groups fighting separately at once, rather than 20-minute boss rush rooms with a beginning and an end. Check out what HALF a dungeon looks like in Everquest!
• Dungeon mobs are numerous and bunched up, so as to make the place fatally dangerous for anything less than groups or really coordinated duos/trios past the entrance. This helps with congestion so people who don't bring a dedicated group can't cheese their way to valuable loot drops.

e. Factions

• There are no player factions in Everquest. No Alliance or Horde. ALL players in the game can interact equally, trade and speak to each other freely, invite each other and level together with no restriction.
• However, NPCs do not share your sense of tolerance, as they split into Good, Evil, Neutral and Iksar.
• Good races consist of the Barbarians, Dwarves, Halflings, High Elves and Wood Elves. Evil city guards will kill you on sight.
• Evil races consist of Dark Elves, Ogres and Trolls. Good city guards will kill you on sight
• Neutral races consist of Humans, Gnomes, Erudies and Half-Elves. These generally accept anyone who isn't an Iksar within their cities.
• Iksar are so vile and disliked that they merit their own category, being despised by nearly every living creature in the game bar their own kind, with the exception of SOME vendors who simply don't care.

f. Religion

• Religion is pretty unique in Everquest. Every race can worship one from a range of Gods. You can pick agnostic, unless you're a class whose power is derived from its faith, like the Necromancer or the Cleric.
• Enchanters have access to Illusions and Druids have a Wolf Form that allows them to get past the Good/Evil race dilemma. Religious hatred, however, can never be quelled, and simply existing within the aggro range of an NPC who has beef with your deity is akin to taunting them.
• Being agnostic is a safe bet. If that's not an option, just avoid Cazic Thule.

Five quick rules to not suck at this game.

Now, I know the start is confusing. It took me weeks myself to get used to the UI, and more to get used to the combat, and even moreso to be able to comfortably travel the world without obsessively alt-tabbing to the world map every two seconds. In order to lessen the agony of starting out in this unforgiving world, I'm gonna give you five tips that you PROMISE me you'll follow.

• ALWAYS RIGHT CLICK AN NPC FROM A SAFE DISTANCE TO CON IT BEFORE APPROACHING. I cannot stress this enough. To "con" a mob, or to /con a mob means to "consider" it. Check the chat box. If it says that they're "scowling at you" or "glaring threateningly", then they will attack you on sight. It means your faction level is pretty terrible with them (such as Humans to Iksar). And since the game doesn't outright tell you your target's level, it'll compare it to yours directly.

• RED is much higher than you, and means an absolute no-go under almost any circumstance.
• YELLOW is slightly higher than you, means avoid, unless a high level player buffed you to the point of immortality. In both cases, your spells will be resisted and your attacks will miss.
• WHITE is an acceptable challenge. Still almost a death sentence at most levels but great XP if you can tackle it.
• BLUE is slightly lower than you. It'll give you decent XP but will be relatively easier than a mob your level. Get used to farming these by the masses.
• GREEN means considerably lower than you, and little or no XP is rewarded. Generally a waste of time.

• THE PROJECT 1999 WIKI IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. LEARN TO OBSESSIVELY GOOGLE EVERYTHING. Any question you have can be answered by checking the Wiki. When in doubt, google whatever you want to ask about and follow it with "P99". Do you need a detailed map of the world? Or do you need specific guides for your class? Or do you want to know the names of every NPC in the game who happen to sell water flasks AND their coordinates? This website has got you covered. I couldn't imagine playing EQ without the wiki. It would be unplayable to people like us who didn't grow up with it or have the patience to experiment from the absolute zero ground up. Having at least three tabs open is mandatory for a beginner: the world map, the map of the zone you're currently in (can switch to the next zone by clicking the link to it in the page), and the wiki page for your class, so you know when you get spells, skills and such.

• I KNOW IT'S CALLED "EVERQUEST", BUT QUESTS ARE EXTREMELY SPARSE AND ARE NOT THE MAIN METHOD OF GAINING XP. This game is VERY grindy. The main way of leveling up consists of finiding a good spot in a zone with other people and farming that spot for hours on end, gaining 1% or 2% of your XP bar per kill on average. If you come here from WoW, you're probably assuming that you can follow some quest chain to max level. There is no quest log in this game. The closest thing I can think of that comes to WoW-style quests in Everquest is the turn-ins, which consist of giving a certain NPC items they ask for in exchange for some XP and sometimes trash vendor gear. The only worthwhile quests that DO exist in the game are mainly meant to reward decent pieces of gear in exchange for some ellaborate kill and collect routine.

• YOU WILL DIE AT SOME POINT. YOU WILL DROP YOUR LOOT WITH YOUR CORPSE, LOSE SOME XP, AND RESPAWN AT YOUR BIND SPOT. You lose 10% or so of your current XP bar from your experience. If you're still fresh, it's enough to drop you back one level. You can loot yourself when you find your corpse. No, other players can't loot you. You will respawn at your last bind spot. If you haven't binded before, it's usually right in front of the entrance to your main city. Most caster classes can cast Bind Affinity to bind you in major locations, and Gate to return themselves there. It helps for when you're farming in a far away zone and can't be bothered with a two hour corpse run. You can type /corpse if you're close enough but still can't right click it in order to drag it under you. I prefer to put it in a macro and spam it while running away from danger.

• BE NICE TO OTHER PEOPLE. I don't care if in some past life or alternate universe you were Nibbaslayerxx the Forsaken Rogue whose lore motivation was that he despises everyone, tags every mob, ninja loots items and taunts people in PvP. This isn't how we operate here. P99 is, likely due to the antique design of Everquest Classic itself, a server full of extremely wise, mature and charitable people (for the most part). You will meet people with families who play this game while their toddlers are asleep. You will camp Estate of Unrest with a 40 year old math teacher on his vacation days. You will meet a level 54 bard in a low level zone who will notice you're still in cheap cloth armor and will give you raid tier items they don't use anymore just because people who are still new to this game in 2019 deserve all the help and guidance they can get. You will meet Druids who will port you for free, Clerics who will Resurrect you on a whim, Shamans who will throw Spirit of Wolf on you and only expect a thank you in return. One day, you'll be a high level player, and the mantle of charity will be yours to bear. Make sure to respect people's camps, ask any questions that cross your mind, and err on the side of caution and forgiveness even when someone wrongs you.

Step ONE: Picking a class

I'm gonna make this fairly quick. Classes in other MMOs aren't really varied. All casters are just different colors of the Mage and all melee classes are just the Warrior with differently named moves. There is little to no utility and most abilities focus on raw numbers, either how much you can damage or how much you can heal; it's all massive dick measuring contest.

Everquest Classic is the opposite of that. Here you're judged by how well you perform your unique class duties rather than how fast you can kill mobs. So, before you pick a class, consider what your purpose in the world of Norrath will be. I have classified them in order of most to least beginner friendly. Athough how broad and simplified the descriptions are might seem a bit unjust to some of the veterans of EQ, remember that we're simplifying them to the modern audience

• Druid, the Versatile Traveler - Do you enjoy traveling the world? Do you want to be a living taxi that people call when they need portals? By virtue of being the simplest, most forgiving and effective beginner-friendly class, I highly suggest playing the Druid if it's your first time. You get portals at 19. I suggest the Halfling for melee builds, and the Wood Elf for magic builds.

• Enchanter, the Hypnotist - Would you like to hypnotize enemies into becoming your loyal pets, and make them fight each other as you sit and watch from the distance at level 12? Would you like to transform into any of the races and fool (most) city guards into letting you in? Then the Enchanter is for you. They get the Clarity buff at some point, which is one of the best mana regen spells in the game. I suggest the High Elf for their massive Charisma stat, which helps greatly with Charming.

• Magician, the Pet Master - Did you play a Warlock in World of Warcraft? Do you enjoy the idea of sitting back while your summoned magical minion rips and tears at your enemies? The Magician is a fairly straightforward class: send your pet in and watch it kill whatever moves. Although if your pet does more than 50% of the total damage to an enemy, you only get half the XP for that kill. Any race is fine.

• Necromancer, the Soloer - Did the idea of being a Magician not appeal you yet? Do you prefer being a robed harbinger of death, using diseases and poisons along with your trusty undead servant to slowly whittle down every enemy you see? The Necromancer is an amazing solo class, yet I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner due to the fact that they are despised in most cities, and that their playstyle needs quite a bit of getting used to. Gnome Necromancers are still reluctantly welcomed in cities if you want to do the crime but can't afford to do the time, and Iksar Necromancers have the best health regen stat by far if you're a min/maxer.

• Shaman, the Buffer - Do you want the best buffing spells in the game, able to improve almost every stat bar Wisdom? Does Cannibalizing yourself to restore mana sound metal as fuck? Does having the best movement speed buff in the game, Spirit of Wolf, appeal to you, along with countless utility spells like Levitation, Invisibilty and Shrinking? Do you want to be the wise old man who brews priceless buffing potions and makes a fortune out of selling them to adventurers? Then the Shaman is the class for you. The Ogre is great for its frontal stun immunity, and the Troll gets phenomenal health regen by nature. However, Barbarians are the only good Shaman race in terms of faction alignment and have the unique benefit of not being ugly, so weigh your options carefully.

• Wizard, the Nuker - Are you fine with blasting an enemy so violently that they leave a permanent shadow, but then having to hibernate for long periods of time to regenerate all of your mana? The Wizard is the most brutally straightforward class, with most of its kit consisting of direct damage spells of all varieties: single target nukes, AoE nukes, stun nukes, you name it. They get portals too, similar to the Druid's, but to different zones sometimes. I heard at some point that a Wizard player in a raid can use up all of his mana nuking a mob and then go AFK for the rest of the fight without anyone noticing. The Wizard would be much higher on this list for how comically simple it is to play, if it wasn't quite boring sometimes.

• Monk, the DPS Junkie - Does NOTHING matter to you more than pure, raw DPS? Do you like the idea of being a penniless vagabond who trails the world, murder on their mind and hatred in their fists? The Monk is the class for you. You'll be punching and kicking your way to level 60, but your Armor stat will suffer greatly if you carry more burden than you can bear. Monks are often called upon to round up and pull mobs to the group, since their Feign Death ability allows them to transfer all of the aggro to the group tank after they make it back.

• Rogue, the Stealthy - Do you like violence? Wanna stick nine inch nails to each one of the enemy's eyelids? Wanna copy Monks and do the same DPS that they did? The Rogue is a very interesting class, relying on their Backstab move to get the most out of their kit. However, this requires good positioning behind the enemy, and thus Rogues struggle to do great DPS on their own without a tank to orient the enemy for them. Still, sneaking around, hiding and critting on throwing weapons is extremely entertaining. Halflings make really cool rogues, and aren't as despised as Rogues of other races. Barbarians have the highest Strength, giving them technically the best Rogue stats if you care about min/maxing.

• Cleric, the Best Healer - Do you enjoy healing and nothing else? Do you want people to kiss your feet and beg you to join their groups, but be almost useless on your own? Play the Cleric. They have the best healing spells in the game and can RESURRECT dead players at level 29, later on restoring lost XP. I suggest a High Elf for the looks, or a Dwarf for the cool barrel roll jump animation.

• Paladin, the Healer Tank - Do you want to play a Cleric, but don't feel like being a pure healbot? Do you want to experience the Warrior playstyle of bashing and slashing enemies while also getting decent healing spells and amazing aggro? Do you want to be your group's dedicated emergency tank? The Paladin is just that, wearing plate armor and managing to pull great snap aggro at a moment's notice, or using their 3-hr cooldown Lay on Hands ability to fully heal a party member.

• Shadow Knight, the Evil Tank - Did you play a Death Knight in World of Warcraft, specifically one of the Unholy variety? Do you want to play a Necromancer, but don't like the idea of being a squishy caster? At the price of getting the same spells a bit later, the Shadow Knight is an amazing Necro/Warrior hybrid, being the best mid-level tank in the game with their disease and poison DoTs that can hold aggro for days. I suggest the Ogre as they're immune to being stunned from the front, or the Troll as their health regeneration is crazy. They're about as disliked as Necromancers.

• Ranger, the Decent - Essentially being a Druid who focuses more on the combat playstyle, while also having access to Archery. It's an extremely fun skill to master, but being in an awkward, sort of mediocre position has made the Ranger among the least played classes. I still recommend it if you like animals and nature but don't care about spells.

• Bard, the Mass Kiter - Have you played this game before? Do you have the skill it takes to pull an entire zone of enemies while literally juggling 3 - 4 different six second buffs and casting while running? Play the Bard. It's extremely difficult to get used to and differs wildly from the rest of the classes, so I suggest staying away from it if you're genuinely new to Everquest. If you decide to play it, I suggest the Half-Elf for its amazing stats.

• Warrior, the Raid Tank - If you're new to this game, avoid this class at all costs unless you're some sort of masochist. I left this one last for a reason. If you came here expecting the Warrior class to be a fun, reliable DPS class like in World of Warcraft, you'll be sorely disappointed. Everquest's Warrior class is one of the least beginner friendly for a simple reason: anything the Warrior can tank, the Shadow Knight or the Paladin can tank much better. It's not supposed to be a DPS class either since it's almost unplayable in that regard. The only truly unique thing about it is the Disciplines, which allow them to tank level 60 raids like no other class and properly shine. To sum it up, the Warrior is a raid-specialized tank who should only ever be considered if you're sure you're gonna invest months or years taking it to level 60 and only doing raids.

TL;DR: Great Class/Race Combos for Beginners:

• Halfling or Wood Elf Druid: versatile semi-healer with great buffs and good solo potential and teleportation.
• High Elf or Gnome Enchanter: indispensable mana regen buff and the ability to transform yourself into any race.
• High Elf or Gnome Wizard: pure nuker with insane damage and teleportation. Can solo, but expect to take loooong mana breaks.
• High Elf or Dwarf Cleric if you're constantly in a friend group and are expected to be the healer! (can't solo well)
• Paladin if you plan to pick up tanking later. They're very underplayed so you can find cheap gear easily.
• If you insist on playing a Dark Elf, let it be an AGNOSTIC Enchanter so you can illusion your way around faction issues.

TL;DR: Class/Race Combos to AVOID as a Beginner:

• Anything having to do with a Warrior. Ever. You will regret it.
• Anything having to do with Ogres, Trolls, or Iksar. They are kill-on-sight in most cities.
• Any pure melee class: Monks and Rogues are very effective but relatively boring and featureless.
• Any Necromancers and Shadow Knights because of faction issues.

Step TWO: Introduction To The UI

I often hear that the UI is the most confusing aspect of starting the game for newcomers. So here's a simple breakdown of its features:

The Spellbar: This is where you'll put spells that you inscribed in your spellbook. They're bound to Alt+number by default, but I like rebinding them to 1 to 0.

The Action Tabs: These split into 4 different tabs (the tiny icons); Main, Racial abilities, Melee Combat abilities, and Macros. You can hold and drag any into your hotbar.

The Hotbar: This is the bar that your keyboard buttons are bound to by default. When you press 1, whatever is in the first square will be executed, be it a spell, ability or macro.

The Chat: If you right click the top edge of the chat box, you can customize it all you want. You can also resize it and put it wherever you want, or create another separate tab.

Buffs and Debuffs: This is where your buffs and debuffs are tracked. It's pretty self explanatory. You can hold Alt to see their names or right click to remove a buff.

Target and Character Bars: These work the same way they would in any other RPG game. In EQ linguo, a "bubble" is the small segment that represents 1/5th or 20%.

Group Menu: You can invite someone by targeting them and clicking Invite in the main tab of your Actions. You can also accept a group invite by clicking Follow in Actions. If you click someone's health bar, you'll target them.

The Inventory: Bound to B iirc, but I prefer to rebind it to C. It displays all of your equipment, stats, currencies and a basic 8 slot inventory. When you eventually get your hands on containers (bags, backpacks..) you can right click them from your inventory to open or close them.

The Spellbook: It contains all the spells you know. You learn spells in EQ by putting spell scrolls you're eligible to use (the right class and level) in empty square slots of your spellbook. You can "memorize" a spell by taking it from your spellbook and putting it somewhere on your Spellbar, where you can cast it from there.

Step THREE: You're In Our World Now™

From scroll, to spellbook, to spellbar, to hotbar.

Congratulations on picking a class. If you haven't decide what to play yet, just pick anything and give it a spin. I myself leveled every single class to level 12 just to get an idea of how they play before ultimately deciding what I'll main.

Fix your keybinds! You spawn in your own home city, in front of an NPC called the "Priest of Discord". This guy is meant for PvP, which almost absolutely no one ever does in P99 Blue. Press Alt+O, and check out the Keys tab. If you come from World of Warcraft, you'll want to change your keybinds to be more comfortable. I myself like to put my inventory/character sheet on C, "open all bags" on B, sitting on X, and Melee Attack on the corner button just left of "1" in the keyboard.

Equip your stuff! The first thing you want to do in this game is to open up your inventory, and destroy the Tome of Order and Discord. (Click it, then click the Destroy button with it on your cursor.) Then, you'll want to adjust your UI. Move things around, right click and Lock them in place just in case, the usual deal. Once you're happy with the UI, click the Sword or Club that you have and place it on your class logo to equip it.

Scribe your spells! (If you're a warrior, rogue or monk, skip this entirely. If you're a shadow knight, paladin or ranger, don't fret, you get your first spells at level 9.) Open your Spellbook by clicking the tiny book button at the bottom of your spell bar. Then drag spell scrolls from your inventory (whose name start with "Spell: ") and place them on empty squares to "scribe" them. Then, click the spell icon from your spellbook, and click an empty spot in your spell bar. You can hold a spot (empty or full) in your spell bar with the left click until it detaches, then you can put it on your Hotbar. (The buttons 1, 2, 3... are by default bound to your Hotbar, not your Spellbar, so watch out for that.)

Once you're done scribing your newbie spells, hop on the P99 wiki and find a detailed map of your own home city. Halas for Barbarians, Freeport for Humans, etc. Type /loc to see your location, and keep in mind it prints out vertical position, then horizontal position, then altitude

Find your trainer and turn your homework in! Use the P99 wiki map, along with spamming /loc to find the class trainer in your city. Right click the little note in your inventory to read it; it'll generally have the name of the NPC you'll be giving it to. Once you find the guy or gal, click the note off your inventory and click them with it to give it to them. They will give you a tunic in return, which you should promptly wear. You should also talk to them by right clicking and training 1 point in Sense Heading, which will be extremely important for the next step. Again, check the wiki page on your class, and scroll down to the "Skills" segment to know at which levels you should come back to learn a new ability. The most important one by far for anyone with a mana bar is Meditate, which is an early game passive that allows you to considerably regenerate mana while sitting.

Memorize the location of this trainer, as it is generally in this vicinity where you will find vendors that sell more spell scrolls for your class. Come back once you can afford them.

Advanced Pro-Tip: Sense Heading Sense Heading is an INVALUABLE skill. When used, it prints out what cardinal direction you're facing in the chat box. Judging you're still fresh new to this game, if someone plopped you in the Greater Faydark and told you to head for Butcherblock Mountains, I could give you three hours and you'll accidentally end up in Crushbone or something. That is why having Sense Heading matters so much in a game where there's no maps; to orient yourself and know you're headed the right way.

1. Open up your keybind menu by pressing Alt+O and the clicking the Keys tab.
2. Go to Hotbar 1, and find buttons 9 and 10. Change their bindings to D and S, and alternatively W and A.
3. Each of the four movement keys should be bound to either the ninth or tenth button of your Hotbar.
4. Go to the actions window, turn the page a couple of times, right click one of the squares and choose Sense Heading
5. Drag it twice, once from Actions to the ninth button of your hotbar, and once again from Actions to the tenth button.

| A quick five minute video explanation. Relevant part starts around 2:30.

Using this genius idea, you'll essentially use Sense Heading every time you move or turn, and over a few hours or days you'll max the ability, so that every use of it will be almost 100% guaranteed to be successful. Bear in mind that sense heading will NOT level up unless you invest at least 1 point into it by talking to your class trainer.

Head out to your newbie yard and start farming! Again, use your wiki map and macro smashing skills to leave the city and head for the newbie yard. Start farming mobs. At this point, you've been well introduced to the game. Save up enough cash and go back to buy a few Backpacks. That should be your first milestone. Then, check the P99 wiki page for your class to know at what level you get your first batch of spells. Once you're level 5, browse the Per-Level Hunting Guide to know where to go and what cool places to explore.

Thank you for reading. Good luck, and have fun in the world of Norrath, and I hope I eased some of the pain and confusion that comes with being the new guy in town, and don't forget: this guide is only the beginning. If you want to get good at this game, you'll be reading a LOT more.