Return to gaming!
Jun. 3rd, 2007 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhyssafireheartWell, I've officially returned to online gaming with the reactivation of my Everquest II account. I haven't played anything online since late August/early September and until recently, haven't missed it one bit. I was burnt out completely on the thought of playing anything online, and with my art duties for the different Vaults over at the Vault Network, I was staying busy. Still, I've been getting the itch to play something again and since my friend Grimwell plays EQ2 for work, I figured I'd go back there. Even if we don't get to game together much anymore (Central time versus Pacific time mostly) it's still someone I can talk to about the game.
So I patched up my client Saturday afternoon and jumped back into the game. He's primarily playing on the test server, so after popping onto my existing characters from the Nagafen server to check them out, I switched to test and got to work. On Nagafen I play the evil Freeport side, so I figured I'd go good this time around and made a Qeynos character. The monk seemed like an interesting class so there you go. I haven't been through the newbie island experience as a "goodie" (as they were called on Nagafen) so while the map was the same, more or less, the quest lines are completely different. I liked the changes and had no problems moving on along and completing ever quest I'd found there. Level 9 and off to Qeynos I go.
So I patched up my client Saturday afternoon and jumped back into the game. He's primarily playing on the test server, so after popping onto my existing characters from the Nagafen server to check them out, I switched to test and got to work. On Nagafen I play the evil Freeport side, so I figured I'd go good this time around and made a Qeynos character. The monk seemed like an interesting class so there you go. I haven't been through the newbie island experience as a "goodie" (as they were called on Nagafen) so while the map was the same, more or less, the quest lines are completely different. I liked the changes and had no problems moving on along and completing ever quest I'd found there. Level 9 and off to Qeynos I go.
That's as far as I got before speaking to Grim again. He said I should come to Neriak to play with him. Oh, he made an evil char. New character creation, here I come again.
Since I don't have the latest expansion pack, Echoes of Faydwer, I can't play the newest race of fae/arasai aka flying fairies. So it's dark elf for me again, but with Neriak as my home. I believe that Neriak is only on test right now, it hasn't been released to the rest of the servers yet. I could be wrong though, who knows. Still, the newbie experience was far, far different than the one I had just gone through.
For one thing, it resembles the WoW newbie game. You start in a small area set in it's own little corner of the map and venture out from there. No getting ported to the city of your choice. I could run from the starting town (name excapes me atm) right to the gates of Neriak if I wanted and knew the way. It's much more progressive instead of being a little self-contained zone now. You have assignments in the first town, then get sent off to an outpost for the next series of quests, and from there to another wandering faire for the next series of quests. Movement through the zone is built up through the quest lines. Not a bad deal, although I did keep running into quest issues. Not with the quests themselves, but the quest level compared to my level.
I was killing just what was needed for the quests themselves, no more, no less. If it was a kill x mobs, I did that. If it was a collect this item, then I killed whatever aggro mobs I needed to get that item or to clear the way so I could collect it from the ground. And I leveled up quickly, already level 12 at last logoff on my dark elf shadowknight. I picked a shadowknight for the whole "anti-paladin" vibe it gave off, really. "Go Evil. It's a growth industry!" (courtesy of Order of the Stick). Still, I kept running into instances where all the quests I had were yellow or higher to me (not many more than one level higher though, thank gods). The mobs involved in the quests were occasionally blue or white, which meant I could still work the quest, but it was a bit odd. And I'm a quest whore. I'll run through a zone or area and just grab every quest I can, and then work them until I need more. That's what I did when I finally hit the Wanderlust Faire, I think it's called. I'd been sent there and saw a bunch of quests waiting to be grabbed, but I waited until I finished all the ones for the previous outpost and then grabbed new ones.
One huge negative I noticed about this starting experience though was the armor. On newbie island, for both sides, the quests series you get result in new armor before leaving the island. This place though, I could have any of a dozen pairs of leggings before I finally got a new chest piece. And the only way I got that chest piece was by getting a drop off a mob. I don't mean that the quest rewards were items I couldn't wear either. Shadowknights wear plate, which means anything and everything up to plate armor. There simply weren't any offerings of chest pieces as rewards at all, not to mention no gloves, bracers, shoulder pieces, arms or helms. Nothing. I take that back, I did get a helm as a reward, but that was all. I ended up buying junk armor for the rest just to have some more protection.
Having to buy armor didn't bother me much at all, but at level 12, I have over 60 silver already, and that's after having died a few times and repairing. Newbie level repairs are still cheap as hell, but I know it gets worse as you level up and get the really good stuff. Still, almost a gold in coin already and that's just from selling anything I couldn't collect or couldn't use right off. That part pleases me greatly.
Speaking of collecting items, the collection spawns seem to have been upped since I last played. That includes on the newbie island as well. It's nice because sometimes finding collectible items can be big money. I'm sure it'll even out when I get to the other zones, but I haven't hit it yet. It's nice that I already have two collections completed, but I haven't seen the collector in Neriak to turn them it to yet. I might have to venture to Freeport instead, since I know where that person is. Oh, and another nice touch is the info pop up for collectible items will now tell you if you've collected all you can of something in red text. No more needing to examine it and then trying to determine if you can use it somewhere.
Neriak, City of Hate - My home town. This must be the EQ2 version of Menzoberranan from Forgotten Realms. If so, I LOVE IT! This is a freaking cool looking city. It's underground, so everything is built in caverns. The roof looks like it's sprinkled with stars/lights, there's an underground river and a pervading shade of indigo gloom over it all. Just terrific! And the best thing is, I can run from the Darklight Woods entrance all the way to the farthest back cavern where the palace is without hitting one, stinking, zone. It's one huge zone, just like the WoW cities are. Of course, this looks much cooler than the WoW cities, if you ask me. EQ2 art is something I really like for itself, and the architectural designs of Neriak are vaguely arabesque in nature.
The first quest you're given in Neriak is one that will having you running the whole city looking for some people to sign papers. It's their way of getting you to explore the city and find out where everything is as well as provide a method to move throughout the whole area without running everywhere. It's well done. The city layout is a bit winding because of the whole living in caverns thing, but still, it's still logical and interesting. I took some screenshots last night when running around that I'll have to post up when I get a chance. I want to make some wallpapers from them since they were so damn cool looking.
Speaking of cool looking, there are a few side caverns on the way to the newbie housing spot that I lingered in. Because of the way I have my text windows set up, I don't see NPC speech. I've since changed that after some non-aggro vampires standing around over a dead dark elf suddenly turned aggro and attacked me. When I went back to read their speech afterwards, I'd totally missed them warning me to go away and not bother them, LOL! Still, it was a bit scary since they were yellow and orange to me at the time. Guess they were honored guests and I disturbed their mealtime.
So far, I'm enjoying my time back ingame again, even if I'm essentially soloing right now. I'm sure I'll hook up with Grimwell sooner or later, given that I can play later into the night since I work from home. And it's kinda carebear of me to be on the regular test server instead of the pvp test server, but sometimes I just want to explore and enjoy myself without having to watch my back every second of the day. Without my guildmates around, I'd have no one to back me up anyways, so playing pvp would be a exercise in futility right now. I'll be the good little white dot and enjoy myself for now.
I'll post some links to screenshots once I get the uploaded or something.
Since I don't have the latest expansion pack, Echoes of Faydwer, I can't play the newest race of fae/arasai aka flying fairies. So it's dark elf for me again, but with Neriak as my home. I believe that Neriak is only on test right now, it hasn't been released to the rest of the servers yet. I could be wrong though, who knows. Still, the newbie experience was far, far different than the one I had just gone through.
For one thing, it resembles the WoW newbie game. You start in a small area set in it's own little corner of the map and venture out from there. No getting ported to the city of your choice. I could run from the starting town (name excapes me atm) right to the gates of Neriak if I wanted and knew the way. It's much more progressive instead of being a little self-contained zone now. You have assignments in the first town, then get sent off to an outpost for the next series of quests, and from there to another wandering faire for the next series of quests. Movement through the zone is built up through the quest lines. Not a bad deal, although I did keep running into quest issues. Not with the quests themselves, but the quest level compared to my level.
I was killing just what was needed for the quests themselves, no more, no less. If it was a kill x mobs, I did that. If it was a collect this item, then I killed whatever aggro mobs I needed to get that item or to clear the way so I could collect it from the ground. And I leveled up quickly, already level 12 at last logoff on my dark elf shadowknight. I picked a shadowknight for the whole "anti-paladin" vibe it gave off, really. "Go Evil. It's a growth industry!" (courtesy of Order of the Stick). Still, I kept running into instances where all the quests I had were yellow or higher to me (not many more than one level higher though, thank gods). The mobs involved in the quests were occasionally blue or white, which meant I could still work the quest, but it was a bit odd. And I'm a quest whore. I'll run through a zone or area and just grab every quest I can, and then work them until I need more. That's what I did when I finally hit the Wanderlust Faire, I think it's called. I'd been sent there and saw a bunch of quests waiting to be grabbed, but I waited until I finished all the ones for the previous outpost and then grabbed new ones.
One huge negative I noticed about this starting experience though was the armor. On newbie island, for both sides, the quests series you get result in new armor before leaving the island. This place though, I could have any of a dozen pairs of leggings before I finally got a new chest piece. And the only way I got that chest piece was by getting a drop off a mob. I don't mean that the quest rewards were items I couldn't wear either. Shadowknights wear plate, which means anything and everything up to plate armor. There simply weren't any offerings of chest pieces as rewards at all, not to mention no gloves, bracers, shoulder pieces, arms or helms. Nothing. I take that back, I did get a helm as a reward, but that was all. I ended up buying junk armor for the rest just to have some more protection.
Having to buy armor didn't bother me much at all, but at level 12, I have over 60 silver already, and that's after having died a few times and repairing. Newbie level repairs are still cheap as hell, but I know it gets worse as you level up and get the really good stuff. Still, almost a gold in coin already and that's just from selling anything I couldn't collect or couldn't use right off. That part pleases me greatly.
Speaking of collecting items, the collection spawns seem to have been upped since I last played. That includes on the newbie island as well. It's nice because sometimes finding collectible items can be big money. I'm sure it'll even out when I get to the other zones, but I haven't hit it yet. It's nice that I already have two collections completed, but I haven't seen the collector in Neriak to turn them it to yet. I might have to venture to Freeport instead, since I know where that person is. Oh, and another nice touch is the info pop up for collectible items will now tell you if you've collected all you can of something in red text. No more needing to examine it and then trying to determine if you can use it somewhere.
Neriak, City of Hate - My home town. This must be the EQ2 version of Menzoberranan from Forgotten Realms. If so, I LOVE IT! This is a freaking cool looking city. It's underground, so everything is built in caverns. The roof looks like it's sprinkled with stars/lights, there's an underground river and a pervading shade of indigo gloom over it all. Just terrific! And the best thing is, I can run from the Darklight Woods entrance all the way to the farthest back cavern where the palace is without hitting one, stinking, zone. It's one huge zone, just like the WoW cities are. Of course, this looks much cooler than the WoW cities, if you ask me. EQ2 art is something I really like for itself, and the architectural designs of Neriak are vaguely arabesque in nature.
The first quest you're given in Neriak is one that will having you running the whole city looking for some people to sign papers. It's their way of getting you to explore the city and find out where everything is as well as provide a method to move throughout the whole area without running everywhere. It's well done. The city layout is a bit winding because of the whole living in caverns thing, but still, it's still logical and interesting. I took some screenshots last night when running around that I'll have to post up when I get a chance. I want to make some wallpapers from them since they were so damn cool looking.
Speaking of cool looking, there are a few side caverns on the way to the newbie housing spot that I lingered in. Because of the way I have my text windows set up, I don't see NPC speech. I've since changed that after some non-aggro vampires standing around over a dead dark elf suddenly turned aggro and attacked me. When I went back to read their speech afterwards, I'd totally missed them warning me to go away and not bother them, LOL! Still, it was a bit scary since they were yellow and orange to me at the time. Guess they were honored guests and I disturbed their mealtime.
So far, I'm enjoying my time back ingame again, even if I'm essentially soloing right now. I'm sure I'll hook up with Grimwell sooner or later, given that I can play later into the night since I work from home. And it's kinda carebear of me to be on the regular test server instead of the pvp test server, but sometimes I just want to explore and enjoy myself without having to watch my back every second of the day. Without my guildmates around, I'd have no one to back me up anyways, so playing pvp would be a exercise in futility right now. I'll be the good little white dot and enjoy myself for now.
I'll post some links to screenshots once I get the uploaded or something.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 08:26 am (UTC)It was good to catch up to you tonight and do some grouping. Things go down pretty damn fast when a Shadowknight and Assassin are working them at the same time. I wasn't even having to use most of my combat abilities after the big backstab attacks.
I'm all the more motivated to be in the game earlier each night after work, since that makes it easier to meet up with ya.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 02:46 am (UTC)Just so happens that this weekend I decided to start a PvP toon; I almost never pvp to that in itself was a new experience; and instead of being a goody goody Q all the time I started in Neriak.
It is a lovely (if that's the right word) zone. Starting out in Hates Envy and working onwards to Wanderlust Faire I rattled through NPC missions as they were offered, killed whatever was nearby to level up a bit faster and dinged 16 before starting to die a lot at the hands of some Q's who had taken to camping the Faire. In some other games that'd be the signal for either an outbreak of forum posts screaming blue murder or a general throwing down of the toys as people stomped off in irritation.
It was really good to find EQII players being so willing to team up and go hunting the hunters. Slightly confusing when half the hunting team have got themselves in a different instance but hey...
There is a definite wow-ish feel to the arrangement of Neriak but unlike Blizzards offering, and the normal starter isles, things feel a lot less linear. I know I ditched a few side quests and am still finding great chunks of the map that I've not explored.
Oh, and get your screen laid out so you can read the npc chatter... some of it is really funny.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-07 12:50 am (UTC)I find I don't miss having to watch my back ever second when running around CL, but I still have the mentality. I have to keep reminding myself that I can leave my torch equipped, it's not going to give me away to raiders. I do miss the sense of danger from PvP though. Still, exploring the game at my own pace is nice for once. I don't miss dealing with FG being camped on a regular basis, that's for sure (of course, camping it right back was fun!).
Atmosphere and community are the biggest things that can make or break PvP, IMO. If you have a good community behind the idea, then PvP is awesome and it really is player versus player. It seems as if over time though, the brat element seeps in and the whole community goes south and the atmosphere becomes a pain in the arse to deal with. Of course, I have to push myself to be more social when I'm playing games outside my guild. It took me ages before I was comfortable just joining pick-up groups (PUGs) in EQ2 because of some previous experiences I'd had in the past, most recently WoW. Once I finally forced myself to go LFG, the PUG experiences I had were pretty much all positive, very much so. It's more of a determined casual attitude, but different than the throw-away casual that WoW had, if that makes sense.
So far, the teamwork attitude and sense of community that I've run across in EQ2 (both on Test and before on Nagafen) have been positive and pretty strong. That's a big plus to the entertainment factor. The test guild that Grimwell helped me get into has been great. They have a nice even presence across several time zones and say hi and bye to everyone. There's a huge level of comradary in it all. And they even laugh at my jokes! :)
I've gotten my chat windows changed around some so I can see more in one or two windows instead of having it spread out amongst several like I'd had previously. It's better but I'm still working things out. I copied previous layouts from my Nagafen characters and I'm still wondering why I'd set things up the way they are now. I'm sure I had a reason at one time, but who can remember that far back?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-07 10:10 pm (UTC)I don't play Test often enough to call myself a regular player there so haven't hussled my way into any guilds on TC but I learned early on to join the test chat channel and the folk there are great. Mainly polite, funny and they know the game backwards so it's very much the goto place if I get stuck.
Also it's nice to have them chattering away in the background as I plough my way through another field of gnolls.
Maybe catch you ingame sometime!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-13 12:12 am (UTC)I completely understand about liking to see/hear chatter, even if it's in the background. I didn't realize how quiet everything was, or how much I missed seeing even general chatter, until I was tagged. And then, it's something to read and reply to. Even if I ignored it, there's the fact that I would know it's there that helps.
If you do pop in on Test, I'm there as Dareka currently. Need to get my time organized again and get back to leveling. I should have some nice rest time bonus stocked up though, which will help when I start plowing through those CL quests.
Oh, and unless you get a really bad batch, PUGs in EQ2 are so much nicer than PUGs in WoW ever were. I usually enjoyed myself and came out of it with some new names on the friends list (on Nagafen at least). Several times I'd log in and get a tell asking me to come join a group because of those new friends (well, that could have been because I had master mana regen song too, as well :D ) It's worth a shot at least once to try a PUG.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-13 08:56 am (UTC)I have been in a few PUGs on EQII, usually when somebody hollers for help killing a named. I mean who can resist, XP, loot AND AA?
Back when I played SWG a lot, and I mean a *lot*, it was pretty much all PUGs. I ran a ranger so had tracking and creature knowledge (as well as the most awesome camps. By far the best eyecandy items I'd seen in any MMO at that point). If I wasn't out hunting to get stacks of meat, hide and bone for the servers crafters and medics or just puttering about exploring and enjoying the really excellent scenery, I'd head into Mos Eisley and start a PUG to head out and help some lowbies grind.
Well, we'll not get into the whole 'ah but that was in the good old days' schtick. But yeah, they were good old days...
;)