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.
(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.