Call Me Mister Fixit : EQ2

For an adventurer in EQ2 the path from the sunny uplands of level 90 to the still sunnier pinnacle, the current maximum level of 95, can seem a long and arduous one. All the more so should you choose to travel it alone. What seems like several lifetimes ago Mrs Bhagpuss and I, often accompanied by sundry stalwarts from our small but still intermittently active guild (rising level 42 at time of writing) trudged uphill both ways through the yellow dust of Withered Lands, then the newest and highest-level overland zone, completing the first leg of that journey.

The cap at the time was 92 and it was from there that my Berserker picked up the trail last October, this time unaccompanied, unless you count his trusty mechanical mercenary, Dok-Tok, who only appears at times of dire emergency because of the unfortunate (some might say unreasonable, seeing he's a machine) demands he makes for an equal share of all xp earned. The best part of four months later he's completed the entire main solo timeline from the Chains of Eternity expansion plus all of the equivalent in Cobalt Scar save for the Siren's Grotto instance. He also spent much of the last double XP weekend, potioned up to the gills, running round Chelsith, Chardok and Sebilis. And he's still just under half a level short of 95.

A couple of evenings ago he was browsing through his quest journal looking for crumbs anything in Cobalt Scar he might still not have finished when he came across something called "Adding A Little Something". The notes he'd jotted down said something about gathering cobalt chiori from blue roots and as luck would have it there were some growing (and glowing, in that handy way quest items have nowadays) right by his feet.

That's how he came to be leveling his crafting, finishing four full levels in two sessions of about four or five hours in total, on his way to becoming a top-level weaponsmith. The chiori quest was the beginning of a series that had him bucking up Acting Supply Master Grant, recent recipient of a battlefield promotion that left him suffering a crisis of confidence. That in turn led to a non-combat version of a large segment of the Adventure timeline, in which he solved in thirty minutes the Mystery of the Undead Otters that had taken his adventurer alter-ego several hours to unravel.

On it went. Up in the stockaded camp on the cliffs he took a look at what everyone was doing and showed them how they could do it better. He fixed ballistas, discovered a saboteur and set a trap for him, painted protectives on tents and devised a short-term force-field to defend against attacks from the air. In the course of his busybodying selfless devotion to the cause he discovered and exposed the drunken incompetence of Quartermaster Fahris, last seen demoted to Blacksmith 3rd class and about as happy about it as you might expect.

It's a really enjoyable series of quests, smartly written with a lot of humor and a few surprises. Taking place in a very dangerous zone and encompassing a good deal of traveling, the entire sequence could be completed by a cautious high-level crafter who'd scarcely adventured at all (although the sequence in the otter camp, under constant attack by undead as it is, might present something of a challenge to anyone likely to be one-shotted by a glancing blow from a mob in the high 90s).

Cobalt Scar has quickly become one of my favorite EQ2 zones. It doesn't come across all that well in screenshots but in game it looks quite beautiful, especially around the cliffs. Both the crafting and adventure quests make excellent use of the z-axis, as indeed does most fresh EQ2 content nowadays. Flying around soaring crags, swooping down to land on vertiginous ledges to gather enchanted ice or teleport fallen soldiers back to base, can be positively exhilarating.

Questing in EQ2 since my return as a part-timer has been most enjoyable and in terms of quality of player experience there's little to choose between the equally involving, entertaining and satisfying  adventure and tradeskill timelines. For the character, however, the difference in Experience with a capital X is stark and immense. Each completed crafting quest stage gives a huge chunk of xp, often as much for one five-minute quest as an adventurer might receive in a session lasting a couple of hours or more. Moreover, all the things you are required to make give great xp as you go along and most of the ingredients are given to you for free!

There was a time when crafting in EQ2 was very much a grind and at certain times it still can be. I personally dislike the changes that were made to remove discovery xp and replace it with increased xp from grinding writs, for example. When it come to doing the last five levels, however, there's just no comparison.

Would I want the adventure xp to roll in as fast? No, not really. Well, perhaps a little. As it stands, though, the contrast acts a tonic. Just when you're beginning to flag, when your steps are dragging and the end of the road just doesn't seem to be getting any closer, unbuckle your armor, slip on your apron, trade your sword in for a rolling pin and watch the Prestige Points rack up as those levels fly by.

Hmm. I wonder if they know what they're doing over in Vesspyr Isles? Maybe I'd better just go cast an eye over the workmanship there.  You just can't get the staff these days, y'know.

Anything Else You'd Like Me To Help You With? : EQ2

The Cobalt Scar main quest sequence, like the Ethernere timeline from the Chains of Eternity expansion, is a long one. Long, but very enjoyable.

It benefits enormously from the strong nostalgic affection many longtime Everquest players must have for the original zone that inspired it. Alright, that I have for it, then. The nostalgia factor comes through very strongly even though in most respects the EQ2 version is scarcely recognizable as the same place. About the only thing that remains unchanged is the crescent shape of the water, water which, it transpires, (Spoiler Alert!) is no longer an ocean at all but a large lake.

Indeed the entire zone now has the feeling of someplace halfway up an Alp, with great swathes of nordic pine forest covering half the map and bears and stags roaming all over. It reminds me a lot of Timberline Falls, one of my favorite Tyrian landscapes.

Hey, I've got one of these at home! Smaller, and his head goes round and round.

Missing, and much missed, is the crazed musical score that so enlivened every day, and there were many, that we spent among the Othmir. I still whistle that tune at work now and again. The otter men themselves are there in force but no longer are they the jolly top-hat wearing comedy figures (and perpetual murder victims, although never at my hand) that once they were.

Now, in keeping with the grimmer mood that seems to prevail in almost every imaginary online world, they are desperate, driven refugees, harried on all sides by forces they don't understand and cannot hope to defeat. Well, not until I come along to sort it all out for them, as usual.

If we had a bridge we could play Pooh Sticks. Oh, sorry.. Funeral.

It's a pretty decent plot, too, as these things go. It certainly makes more sense than the Ethernere one, sticking to a much more down-to-earth mystery model than that confusing metaphysical mash-up. Actually, it's two mysteries. The Case of the Undead Othmir is solved but the Enigma of the Eerie Encampment remains just that - an enigma. Maybe I missed a step.

Along the way I got to participate in an Othmir funeral (they send the dead back to Prexus on rafts, Viking style, although without setting anything on fire), got turned into an Othmir (the nearest we'll ever get to having them as a playable race, sadly) and listened to foliage reliving the past (as exciting as it sounds).

Ulthork Man-O-War. Can't go wrong with a Classic.

I also had to kill about a hundred thousand bazillion things. The current design brief for EQ2 zones appears to be "Hey, you left a square foot of grass free over there! Put a mob on it! No, wait. Make it three!"). For every Kill Ten Ulthork quest (yes, there are Ulthorks, although no Bulthar that I saw) I'd estimate I ended up killing twenty. Often more. There wasn't any quest that I ever found to kill wasps but I killed dozens of them trying to get to the bears. And forget any thought of flying over all this stuff to avoid it - Cobalt Scar airspace is jealously guarded by flying snakes, drakes and plain old hawks.

I'm the one in the fancy hat.

For all that killing, and there was enough of it that my mouse finger was aching long before the end of every session, experience moved like treacle going uphill. With the entire timeline completed as far as the last segment that will take him into Siren's Grotto my Berserker stands at 93.65.

With luck and a following wind Siren's Grotto and Frostfell should take him to 94, at which point I'm hoping he'll be ready to start on the real current content. He certainly couldn't do it at 93.  That means back to the Ethernere for a cruise around the Vespyr Isles. And after that I imagine both he and I will be ready for a lie down.

Are We Nearly There Yet? : Everquest

I had a mind to photograph some rats. I say photograph. As far as I know, the gnomes of Norrath have yet to invent the camera. Insufficient inherent explosive potential, I imagine. Gnomish technology notwithstanding however, I set out to take some screenshots.

The rats in question live in Dragon Necropolis. Dragon Necropolis is in Western Wastes, a part of Velious as yet unrediscovered in EQ2 and probably undiscovered by many current players of the elder game because Western Wastes is a long way from anywhere. No wizard or druid can open a portal there, the Plane of Knowledge has no Book for it and the Guild Hall vendor has no Western Wastes Focus Stone in stock.

If you want to go to Western Wastes, the nearest you can get in one move is Cobalt Scar. A druid or a wizard can port there, but my highest level of either is a level 60 druid and while she has hunted in Western Wastes I deemed her a tad fragile for photographic journalism in underground tunnels infested by rats that stab first and ask questions never, so I logged in my level 84 Beastlord. Who turned out to be in Dragonscale Hills.

Wait here Wizard, this won't take long...

An hour and a half later I hit the hot-key for Throne of Heroes, the veteran reward that allows non-gating classes to click their heels like Dorothy as casters have been doing since 1999. Had I photographed any rats? I had not. I didn't have my stop-watch out but in rough numbers it had taken me about forty-five minutes to run all the way from Dragonscale Hills to Siren's Grotto and about as long again trying to get from one side of the Grotto to the other. Unsuccessfully.

All of which entertainment got me to thinking about Everquest going Free To Play. I'm very happy about that even though I have Station Access and can already play Everquest whenever the mood takes me. I love the idea of new people flooding (alright, trickling) back into the lower-level zones and bringing them to life. I particularly relish the thought of Plane of Knowledge filling up with chattering, bustling hordes of players and pets, flapping and clumping and blocking the bank doorway so I can't get in, just like the good old days.

Negotiations with the Chetari run into difficulties

But you forget just how big Everquest is. According to Wikipedia Everquest currently has 375 zones,a suspiciously round and unbelievably huge number. Three hundred and seventy five zones, of which Western Wastes is by no means the furthest-flung or hardest to reach. It may not be like the old days, when a cross-country trip from Qeynos to Freeport demanded research, preparation and a full play session (two if you died halfway and couldn't get a rez). Still, simply getting from one place to another in Everquest is going to require a great deal more time, attention and knowledge than the modern MMO player is accustomed to bring.

I knew exactly how to get to Western Wastes. I've been there many times. I have maps. To refresh my memory I even had the Zam page up. I was going there with a character to whom nothing posed a threat. And I still gave up in frustration after the umpteenth failure to find the top of the waterfall in Siren's Grotto. It was late and I knew I could log in Mrs Bhagpuss's wizard in the morning, port my Beastlord to Cobalt Scar and then Evac across Siren's Grotto as I should have done in the first place. As indeed I did do and have the photographs of rats to prove.

There's a Plane of Pork? Who knew?

It's going to be very interesting indeed to see how Everquest fares as a Free To Play title. The sheer volume of content is far beyond overwhelming. The systems to be learned are so convoluted and arcane after thirteen years of accretive expansion that even the developers barely understand some of them. Just getting from one place to another still offers more adventure than most MMOs offer in a full dungeon-run. Yet the game was always very easy to get into at the low levels and famously addictive. An awful lot of incomers are going to bounce right off the dark star density but some will inevitably stick, caught in Norrath's inexorable gravity well.

And welcome as the new blood will be, Everquest is hardly languishing. After thirteen years the game still has sixteen servers up and running. As I write this, deep in the night on the U.S. server where my Beastlord lives, there are too many players to count in the Guild Lobby and in the Bazaar, where more than 180 traders stand idling. Not everyone's hanging around afk in the Lobby and Bazaar either. Many more can be seen out in hunting zones, especially at the highest levels. I'd bet that a lot of much younger MMOs would be delighted to have a population like that during off-off-peak hours after a year or two, let alone a decade and a half.