Any Color You Like, So Long As It's Pink

Since that post, where I talked about deciding to play some EverQuest II,  then spending less than five minutes in the game, I'm happy to say I've now passed several happy hours there, having a very good time indeed. It felt refreshing to go back to a more structured gaming experience after the sandbox free-for-all of Palworld, although the degree to which my play in just about any game could reasonably be described as "structured" is relative, at best.

I did at least manage to complete the next instance in the Ballads of Zimara Signature Questline, along with several side-quests. Experience comes so very much more slowly in BoZ than in recent expansions. I'm still undecided whether I approve of the change or not but I'm fairly sure it will put a stop to any fantasies I had about leveling all my Skyfire characters to the cap before the next expansion.

That said, we are on a two-year cycle for level cap increases. Even with the hyper-accelerated xp we were getting, I don't think I ever capped all my characters until well into the second year. It may still be that I'll catch up in 2025, just in time to slide right back down the hill for the expansion after next, by which time the cap ought to go to 135.

I'm stuffed if I'm going to start planning two years ahead, anyway. I barely plan two days ahead, most of the time. If I were more organized, I'd have started in on the Erollisi Day event while there was more than four days left. Of course, that would have required me to have had some sort of plan to do the holiday content at all, which would have been be a plan I did not have at all, not until this morning. 

I logged in to finish off some of the aforementioned side-quests and it wasn't until I'd finished that I suddenly remembered there was a holiday going on in Norrath. I thought I'd read something about there being a new quest. I always try to do those for every holiday. It seems rude not to.

Mostly, these days, what Darkpaw calls holiday "quests" are what I'd call "collections". Which is fine. Collections are great. They're easy, they're fun, they're relaxing; they're ideal holiday content. They aren't bloody quests, though, so it would be nice if whoever writes the copy for the promos would stop calling them that.

I'm long, long past the day when I find it fun to run aimlessly around Freeport, looking for whichever NPC has been given the job of handing out the starter for a new questline. I had a quick look at the official announcement, where I learned the quest was called "Can't Fight This Feeling", then I googled to find out where to go.

Last time I did something like this, I mentioned my concern, when I found out the relevant Holiday page on the EQII wiki hadn't been updated, even though the event had been going on for a while. I am here now to tell you I'm no less worried this time. If anything, more so.

The Erollisi Day page on the wiki hasn't been touched since last year. The "New This Year" section reads

New This Year

The event will officially run from 02/9/2023 at 12:01am PST through 02/22/2023 at 11:59pm PST

That is... not encouraging.

Fortunately, we can always rely on Naimi Denmother for holiday updates. I went to EQ2 Traders
Corner and found everything I needed. The new quest is indeed a collection, of sorts. One of those where you do other quests and kill mobs and among the drops you find something unfamiliar that, when you examine it, offers up a "quest". 

That quest inevitably consists of carrying on doing whatever it was you were doing until a bunch more things drop, each of which updates your "quest" in exactly the way a collection would, except without troubling you to click them to add them to an actual collection. Then, when you have them all, you go talk to someone, who gives you a reward. Just like you'd hand in a completed collection.

You see where I'm going with this. I think the way it qualifies as a "quest" is that the person you give the stuff to has a short conversation with you, whereas the Collector would simply say "That's a decent find. I'll give you something for it" or words to that effect. That and not having to click anything. It's a fine definition, for sure.

According to EQ2 Traders, the quest starter drops either from mobs in The Shard of Love or Nektropos Castle: Love's Errand, a holiday version of the infamous necromancer's lair. I'm often complaining about how poor my memory is but one thing I do seem to be able to remember with worrying clarity is where things are in Norrath. Worrying, that is, because it shows how much of my life I must have spent there.

I seemed to recall the entrance to the Shard of Love being right next to the docks in Everfrost. I also thought I remembered it being a rather easy-to-navigate and generably enjoyable zone, unlike Nektropos Castle, which is a bit of a maze inside, with lots of locked and secret doors and hidden passages, as you'd expect in a dark and foreboding place like that.

To cut short what could easily turn into an unnecessarily long story, I was right in all respects. I found the entrance with no difficulty but then had to go in and come out again because the Shard only scales to 90 and I was on my Berserker, who's coming up to 128. There was an "Agnostic" version of the instance, one that works for any level, but I didn't remember what "Agnostic" meant in EQII until quite a bit later, so I ignored it.

It wouldn't have made much difference to my stated goal of doing the new quest, anyway. The mobs were all grey but they still dropped holiday items. I was going to carry on like that but what happened was, I spawned the first Named mob within a minute of entering the zone and then couldn't bear to think of killing it and not getting whatever it might drop. 

A quick trip back to Freeport to mentor down to 85 soon fixed that and it was just as well I took the trouble because I quickly realized what a really great holiday Erollisi Day is... if you like playing dressing up. Which, obviously, I do.

It's been a long time since I did this particular holiday with anything like serious intent. I'd forgotten it was one Mrs Bhagpuss and I used to farm for appearance gear and house items, back in the day. It was always very good for that and a lot more seems to have been added to the loot tables since then. All good stuff, too.

One thing dropped that I have never seen before and now find myself wondering if it's new this year and if so how many more like it we'll be seeing: a coupon for 20% off all Erollisi Day items in the Cash Shop. At this point I'd love to be able to tell you I was outraged and plan to cancel my subscription in protest but actually I was unreasonably excited. I went straight to the Cash Shop and spent ten enjoyable minutes going through everything in the relevant section, coming away with the gorgeous, pink pegasus you can see me riding in the screenshots.

I was only thinking yesterday, as I collected my monthly 500DBC stipend and saw the total tick past 33,000DBC that I probably ought to think about spending some of it. Now I have and if I get any more of those vouchers I'll almost certainly spend some more. There are some really nice things in there!

There are also some really nice things for sale on the Erollisi Day vendor and even more going free in the chests dropped by all the Named mobs in the Shard of Love. It didn't take me long to decide a pink mount  deserves a pink rider. I bought my Berserker a pink outfit and a pink hat. 

I also bought him a pink cloak and then another cloak, even flashier, albeit not so pink, dropped off one of the Nameds, but he isn't wearing either of them. That's because he was lucky enough to get the Valorous Wings as a drop in Mithaniel Marr's Lovely Treasure Trove chest on the first kill. Some people report having to wait a while for those. Like forty kills. Or more.

The reward for the new quest is also a back item - the Huntress' Mounted Quiver - so I'm spoiled for choice. Yet again, I'm reminded how incredibly generous EQII is with appearance gear and house items. 

I mean, yes, there's great-looking stuff in the Cash Shop, but the reason I have so much DBC saved up is that there's always such a fire-hose of really nice drops and rewards in the game itself, I hardly ever even think of spending my funny money. Coming from a decade of Guild Wars 2, one of the stingiest games for appearance and cosmetic gear I've ever played, it's hard to overstate just how refreshing it is to be able to log in knowing I have a great chance of getting something worth having every single session.

I'm working tomorrow and Nightingale arrives on Tuesday, the same day the Erollisi event ends, so I barely have any time to farm for more stuff. If I can fit in a session or two, I'd like to get some goodies for a few of my other characters, especially a couple on other servers, who won't have the benefit of the duplicate Heirlooms I've been getting as I farm.

It'll make a nice change from all that surviving - for a day or so. Then it's back to punching trees, I guess. At least until the next Norrathian holiday rolls around.