Across 110th : EverQuest

Time for a very quick update on how my unexpected return to EverQuest is going. Amazingly well!

A bit more detail? Well, okay.

On Saturday morning my magician dinged 110. That, unbelievably, puts her at the start of the current expansion, Torment of Velious, at least in level range. Of course, she's not insane enough to try and go hunt there. Not yet. Maybe at 115.

Things have been moving fast. Two months ago she was getting to grips with the decade-old House of Thule. A month later she'd moved on just one expansion to 2011's Veil of Alaris. Two weeks ago it was 2013's Call of the Forsaken. And last night?

Last night she went to buy some spells in the Outpost in the uplevelled version of The Overthere that came with 2017's Ring of Scale. She'd been there before, to get her level 106 air pet, but she'd been very careful not to step outside the safety of the massive stone walls surrounding the friendly vendor area.

This time she poked her nose, very cautiously, outside. Maybe, just maybe, she might try hunting one, small creature. Something not too scary. Staying very close to the walls and the guards (not that they'd be likely to help). Ready at all times to cast Gate and book.

I knew it was taking a big risk but she was, I felt, about as prepared as she could be, short of waiting another level. At 111 she'll be able to buy, scribe and cast the spell that summons the current highest-available air elemental pet. She won't have the appropriate focus item to make it the strongest version it could be but it's the best she's going to get until the  level cap goes up again and that probably won't be for at least another  year, maybe two.

The sensible thing would be to wait for that but - dammit - I believed in her! I thought she was ready!

She ought to be, the money I've spent on her. Around the start of the month I made the hard decision to stop taking the easy way out when it came to making money. Instead of ending every hunting session by using the incredibly handy and accessible Barter system to sell whatever tradeskill mats had dropped, I set up my Bazaar trader on the other account.

Setting up and maintaining a trader in EverQuest is quite fiddly and very time-consuming. I'm not going to go into the hows and whys of it. It would take me all day. I learned the Trade trade back in the day, when Luclin was newish and every server had the maximum five hundred traders up at all times, with more waiting for someone to leave.

Most days now there are around a hundred and eighty traders on my server. Not the glory days but still a bustling marketplace. I spent a while checking the prices there against what I was getting from the buyers on barter and to no-one's surprise, I'm sure, it was obvious there was a lot more profit in selling to punters than to the trade.

That's not to say barter buyers rip players off. A few try it but most offer very fair prices for the convenience of being able to sell direct from the hunting grounds and not have to bother with all the rigmarole of trading. Nevertheless, if you can be bothered to make the effort, direct sale is where the money's at.

Over three weeks or so I made a couple of hundred thousand platinum and I plowed it all back into gear upgrades for the Mage. If I'd been planning on keeping her account subbed I could have bought better gear for less, which seems ironic, but I planned ahead  and stuck to the stuff anyone can wear.

She has Conflagrant items in sixteen slots now. That's the player-crafted gear you can equip from level 106. The  focus effects don't decay until the current cap of 115 so they're about the best Bazaar-bought kit a Silver account is going to get. I still have a couple more pieces to buy and that will be it for Conflagrant.

When she dinged I picked up several more items that required her to be 110. When I collect those last couple of player-made pieces, she'll be fully dressed in level-appropriate gear that should last her for the foreseeable future. Except for the shield slot. I just can't seem to find anything for that.

It all cost me a lot of money but I had to keep some back for spells. Apart from one or two key buffs and summons I hadn't bought her any new ones for about five levels. Time was when I would try to buy all the spells every level even if I knew she was never going to use them but at higher levels Magicians get a lot of spells and the price keeps going up and up. I'd be broke, fast, if I bought them all.

Instead I spent a good while on Allakhazam, reading them up before I took the Guild Hall portal to The Overthere to buy them. And even then it was confusing as hell. Every spell has a description plus a bunch of stats that supposedly tell you exactly how it works and yet more often than I'd like I still don't really understand what some of them do. Often the only way to be absolutely sure is to buy the blasted thing and fire it at something.

Even when I did understand what the spell itself did, I still had to correlate that with what line and/or school of spells it belonged to to see whether it would be enhanced by any of the Mage's various focus effects and AAs. It's a complicated process. But then, that's why it's fun. True, at times it makes my head hurt and I have to stop and take a break, but this degree of intellectual involvement is undoubtedly a key factor in the mysterious compulsion that keeps me coming back to this game over and over again.

It has occured to me that I could circumvent all of this, or at least all of the scrimping and saving and "can I really afford this?" and  "do I really need it?" part, simply by buying a Krono for around the price of one month's subscription and selling it in the Bazaar for several million plat. Then I could buy all the gear I need, all the spells and I'd be done.

What would be the point of that, though? For me, at least, it would be a disaster. I can easily understand why someone who wanted to get to the meat of the game, grouping at top level and maybe moving into raiding, would find it an excellent, time-saving and sensible option. For players like me, though, pootling along with just a summoned pet and an NPC who has to be paid to be my friend, how to make the money to get the gear and spells I need is the game. If I bought a Krono and sold it to gear myself I'd be putting myself out of business.

Back in The Overthere, at the spell vendor, I made my selections and slotted my new spells. I re-buffed myself with my new buffs. Very  nice. Then I looked at my new nukes and minions. What the heck, I'm here now. Why not? I can only die, right?

Back in the days of the original Kunark, The Overthere was an excellent zone to hunt. It's big, square, and flat, with excellent visibility. The low-level version also had a zone exit in the middle of each of the four sides, which made running to safety an option from just about anywhere.

I can't say if that last part is true of the high-level zone but the rest certainly is. As I stood on the ramp leading out of the Outpost all I could see stretching away on all sides was flat grass, low hills and blue sky. And a sabertooth tiger.

Just the one big cat. Nothing else in sight. I conned him. Dark blue, level 109. One level below me. Three levels above the air pet. Hmm.

I can't remember the last time I fought a mob just one level below me. Not this return to Norrath, that's for sure. Possibly not this decade. Could it be tougher than a dark blue named, though? I'd killed a few of those recently. Only one way to find out.

It was a long fight but I was always in control. The pet could take the hits, the merc could handle the heals, I could bring the pain. I remembered to check the xp when the cat finally dropped. It was about three times what I'd been getting on light blues in an expansion from four years earlier. Of course, it had probably taken me  three times as long...

But it felt good. So I did it again. And again.

In the end I spent about an hour in The Overthere, scarcely moving twenty meters from the wall, being extremely careful only to pull safe singles. I was acutely aware that one add would mean I'd need to gate.

I didn't get an add. I got one nasty surprise when I pulled a cactus and found my health dropping alarmingly even though the plant was securely stuck to the pet. My mercenary pumped out the heals and kept us all alive but it was a worrying moment.

I checked the combat log and thought I'd figured out what was going on. The next cactus I saw I pulled too and confirmed my suspicions. The walking succulents open with an AE shower of spines that has a DoT effect and a ridiculous range. I'd been hit by that even though I was fifty feet away at least.

This is why hunting in a new zone is always a huge risk. All kinds of things you weren't planning for can happen. It's also why finding new places to hunt can be such fun. Provided you don't die. That can put a crimp in the day's entertainment for sure.

This time the magician didn't die. A load of big cats did, some cacti, a small crab, a chokkidai (sort of like a dinosaur's dog). I avoided the rhinos. I remember them being a pain to hunt the first time around. Also the cockatrices; they have an incredibly irritating and often fatal stun.

I saw a couple of Sarnaks, one of Norrath's several sentient, bipedal lizard races, strutiing about importantly in the distance. I'd have like to have tried one but they were too far out and anyway they conned white and yellow. Level 110 and 111. Too high.

For now. But not when I get that final air pet. With a level 111 tanking for me I think I can handle a single sarnak the same level. I'm looking forward to trying, anyway.

All of which puts me so far ahead of anywhere I ever thought I'd be in EQ it feels unreal. I'm only two expansions behind! I'm only five levels off the cap! All thanks to the Overseer feature, which is now officially my second-favorite expansion feature ever, after Mercenaries. Both of those renewed not only my interest in playing but my ability to follow through.

My immediate plan is to drop back a few expansions and tear through some relatively easy mobs to make not experience but money. I'm going to let the Overseer quests take care of the levelling while I go hunt rich mobs for spell money. It's going to be fun.

Then, when I get 111 and that last pet, we'll see.