Moonflight: EQII

I'm going to close out the year with a bunch of pictures of my Berserker flying around various Blood of Luclin zones on his... flying thing. I'm not entirely sure what it is (or where he got it). On the ground it looks a bit like some kind of cat but it has weird magitech wings that unfurl out of nowhere as soon as it jumps into the air. Makes a change from the usual back-mounted bat flappers.

I'm in two minds about Daybreak's decision to make flying in the new expansion dependent on completing either the Tradeskill or Adventure Signature Line. It could have been frustrating but I didn't find it so. Travelling around on foot seemed perfectly pleasant most of the time. 

Better yet, as soon as I thought to swap out my stats cloak for an old one with Featherfall on it I pretty much felt as though I could fly anyway. The zones all have a significant degree of verticality, which meant I could do what I'm used to doing in Guild Wars 2 - climb up something high and jump off, then glide halfway across the zone.

Other people have reported that the precursors to flying mounts, Gliders and Leapers, work very well too. I was going to try that for myself but most of my characters managed to snag various Holiday and Event mounts that let them fly at low levels so they never bothered to get the lesser kinds.

I'm very glad that the rumor about the tradeskill questline not granting flight turned out to be false. As usual, the crafting timeline is a lot quicker and less trouble than the adventure. My Berserker finished the craft line a few days ago but he's barely half-way through the adventure version.

I'm not as motivated to finish it as I might be, either, because getting flight had the odd effect of making me feel like I'd "finished" on that character. The fact that he'd dinged 120 as a Berserker on the second day of the expansion and now was a Level 120 Weaponsmith as well just compounded the sense of completion.

Where I'm not sure about the need to earn the right to fly is that it has to be done separately for each character. An account-wide unlock might be more appropriate. Like many other MMORPGs these days, though, there seems to be no clear idea what constitutes character progression and what comes as part of owning an account. In principle I prefer things to be character-based so I don't really have much of an argument against the way Daybreak have chosen to go.

The most telling factor is probably that I'm not dreading unlocking flying on the rest of my characters. I certainly don't mind going through the crafting timeline a few more times with my Alchemist, Sage and Carpenter. I can't really see me doing the Adventure line more than once - twice at the outside - so the other two I'm planning on leveling are probably going to have to keep their feet on the ground.

I don't see that as a problem and even if I did I wouldn't mind betting that by the time it becomes an issue the rules will have changed to make things easier. That's what tends to happen in MMORPGs if you're patient.

If only the same was true of life in general.

Happy New Year!