History Repeating: EQ2

 And not in a good way.

Is that what you want? Is it?

We didn't get any trick-or-treaters for Halloween but I still got a nasty surprise. It just came a day late.

I never entirely recovered from the last revamp of Freeport. The one in the original game that came free alongside Prophecy of Ro, one of Everquest's least-memorable expansions. You probably don't recall the expansion even if you were playing EQ back than, but no-one could forget that revamp. It was the one that turned a charming, idiosyncratic, human-sized city into a soulless impersonal maze.

Okay the harbor was nice, but that's no excuse.

Nevertheless, when they announced at Fan Faire that EQ2's Freeport was going to get a makeover of it's own I was sanguine. I didn't feel the fear like Wilhelm. As you can see from my rather smug comment on TAGN's blog there, I had " a lot more confidence in the EQ2 team to do a better job". Well, soon we will see how well-placed that confidence was.

Breakfast on the terrace at The Blood Haze Inn.

My problem is that all the things listed as negatives about the current Freeport in the interview with Timothy "Hoahmaru" Heydelaar (of whose existence I was previously unaware. I don't think he posts on the forums much) are strong positives for me. They are the very things that have led me to base almost all my characters in Freeport over the last six years.

Lucan, no friend to the lawnmower

I love the down-at-heel Mediterranean port ambience. I love the "pale and desaturated" palette and the "broken stucco and plaster". I have three characters living in the inn in West Freeport that 's being rezoned "to be more military focused with training grounds taking up the area where the bar and inn were".

If anyone's been to Malta they'll know just how convincing Freeport is. The capital of Malta, Valetta, is a harbor fortress built by the Knights of St. John and it's about as close a real-world analog of Lucan's Freeport as you could hope to find. Architecturally, that is. It's not the fag end of a  corrupt empire, peopled by talking rats and eight-foot tall ogres, true, but then you can't have everything.

Valetta, blurred. I blame Cisk.

The new Freeport will have plenty of bling, we're told. They've "added a lot of rich golds to replace the rusty metals throughout and replaced a lot of brick with pattern work". I'm sure it's very tasteful, but don't we already have one city out of the Arabian Nights?

Oh well. At least SoE have had the decency to add an in-game "FRAPS" style video facility before they begin tearing down the house. I'm off to make my own nostalgia documentary before it's too late.