Weekend of EQ2 Extended

Going for the Gold

I’m enjoying myself on EQ2 Extended while the kids and my nephew roll their eyes as they pass by.  I’m New Halas aligned but questing in Greater Faydark on a Warden. Obviously, I opted to subscribe Gold in order to have access to the only class I was interested in playing.  I also purchased two Station Cash Tokens in order to copy over my 36 Illusionist / 39 Provisioner from Antonia Bayle and my 27 Conjurer / 29 Carpenter from Nagafen.  As much as I dislike snowy zones, I’m operating out of Halas because of the excellent player housing.

Greatly Simplified Travel

It’s immediately evident to someone who hasn’t played EQ2 in many months, that some ease-of-use love has gone into the game.  The two most obvious changes are simplified travel and an increase in adventure XP.  The first time I noticed the travel globes that allow you to instantly travel to any continent, I was a very pleased person.  I find it funny that people, even veterans, forget the globes are available when players ask how they can get their low character to some far away destination.  I don’t know how anyone can forget, given how time consuming travel had been previously.  Rented (auto traveling) mounts have been pepper throughout every zone allowing for convenient hands-free travel. And in cities like Kelethin – big and circuitous, they’ve added Warden-like travel rings that will port you to commonly used areas.  I realize some players feel fast travel makes a virtual world seem smaller. I’m sure it can at times.  However, in games like EQ2 where each zone is very large, the world doesn’t feel smaller, just less annoying. *smile*

Accelerated Adventure XP Gain

I always struggled with leveling in EQ2.  The game’s style of questing doesn’t suit me and back in the day, this wasn’t a game that you could really level in by grinding mobs.  Before games like Wizard101, Runes of Magic and Warhammer Online, grinding mobs was my preferred form of leveling.  To me it wasn’t grinding though.  I do collection and kill quests, interspersed with finding mobs that are interesting to fight, pretty zones to be in, mobs that I hate (Murlocs!) or ones that drop components I need for crafting – remember I always craft.

An inability to level effectively by grinding mobs is one of the reasons that EQ2 and Lord of the Rings Online couldn’t keep me leveling for long. That appears to have changed in EQ2.  You can solo more easily and the XP gain seems to flow like water.  I’m already two levels past the few quests I have in my hand, level 10 having arrived in a blink.  And this is before I’ve even run around to beat up / grind out some Orcs.  Like killing pirates and Defias in WOW, for some strange reason I derive pleasure from spending time mowing through the Orcs.

With the XP coming too fast – at least for now, I’m using another new option – new to me, of funneling all of my XP gain into my AAs.  I don’t know what a good balance is but I think I’m going to leave it at 100% AA until I hit 10 then do a 50/50 split.  I believe you have to be a Gold subscriber for this option to be available.

Visiting the Old World T1 Zones

With the game funneling new players to start their adventures in the newer racial zones, the original T1 zones are dead.  This makes them very fertile ground for harvesting collection items and crafting components.  In roughly 10 minutes I had about 15 items from Oakmyst Forrest alone! The other areas were just as empty and fertile.  Plus you get discovery XP by visiting the zones and monuments within them.

Earning my Keep

My MMO adventures wouldn’t be complete without crafting.  I wish the other zone housing had been upgraded to be on par with New Halas, where the 1 room apartment has no equal.  My provisioner spent some time in T3 harvesting so I could begin accumulating some gold.  I had her sell everything except the wood.  Fortunately, there are enough Gold subscribed players that by the next time I logged in everything had sold.  I still want to offer trade goods to bronze and silver by selling direct but that will have to wait until I'm more settled into my main character. I spent another session harvesting T1 to make provisions for the Warden and T2 to acquire components for my carpenter.

Later that evening, I crafted for a couple of hours while listening to the audio version of Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I started on the provisioner who made T1 stat food and drink for the Warden. Then I hopped on the carpenter who made an imbued weapon and shield for the Warden, both of which were huge upgrades.  The rest of the time I created T2 furniture and decorations for the upstairs in my apartment.  It was an easy and relaxing thing to do at the end of the day.

Comments

[Stabs]

Nice to see you in game today (I'm the cleric called Brista you had a chat with).

It's certainly an entertaining experience and I love that fresh new server feel. I think the veterans out-number the new people but there's certainly plenty of both.

[Bhagpuss]

Saw you chatting in /auction. At least I assume Saylah there is you :)

I'm loving EQ2X so far. Mrs Bhagpuss and I are playing Silver to have the restrictions. We have Station Access accounts so we could have gone Gold, but that would have been pretty much the same as playing on Live, so what would be the point?

We made our own guild using two Silver, two gold and two bronze accounts. I can see why they are requiring a 1000SC token to make a guild, since they don;t seem to be placing any restriction on how many free accounts you can make. I didn't even need to use different email addresses.

The most interesting thing so far has been inviting two people from WoW into our little guild. The incredible number of things we take completely for granted that are utterly mystifying to them really brings home what a mountain every game company has to climb if they hope to snag any bored WoW players. I have to say that in quite a few cases there reall doesn't seem to be a good reason why things are done "this way" other than "they just are".

Anyway, back to raising Weaponsmith.

[Bhagpuss]

Saw you chatting in /auction. At least I assume Saylah is you :)

I'm loving EQ2X so far. Mrs Bhagpuss and I are playing Silver to have the restrictions. We have Station Access accounts so we could have gone Gold, but that would have been pretty much the same as playing on Live, so what would be the point?

We made our own guild using two Silver, two gold and two bronze accounts. I can see why they are requiring a 1000SC token to make a guild, since they don;t seem to be placing any restriction on how many free accounts you can make. I didn't even need to use different email addresses.

The most interesting thing so far has been inviting two people from WoW into our little guild. The incredible number of things we take completely for granted that are utterly mystifying to them really brings home what a mountain every game company has to climb if they hope to snag any bored WoW players. I have to say that in quite a few cases there reall doesn't seem to be a good reason why things are done "this way" other than "they just are".

Anyway, back to raising Weaponsmith.

[Bhagpuss]

Saw you chatting in /auction. At least I assume Saylah is you :)

I'm loving EQ2X so far. Mrs Bhagpuss and I are playing Silver to have the restrictions. We have Station Access accounts so we could have gone Gold, but that would have been pretty much the same as playing on Live, so what would be the point?

We made our own guild using two Silver, two gold and two bronze accounts. I can see why they are requiring a 1000SC token to make a guild, since they don;t seem to be placing any restriction on how many free accounts you can make. I didn't even need to use different email addresses.

The most interesting thing so far has been inviting two people from WoW into our little guild. The incredible number of things we take completely for granted that are utterly mystifying to them really brings home what a mountain every game company has to climb if they hope to snag any bored WoW players. I have to say that in quite a few cases there reall doesn't seem to be a good reason why things are done "this way" other than "they just are".

Anyway, back to raising Weaponsmith.

[Bhagpuss]

Can't post ?

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Sorry about that, I sometimes get caught in the spam filter too. I don't see what caused it. I also released a comment from Grimmjack too. :-)

Yeppers that was me. Saylah is my Warden. The character I plan on leveling at this point. I had considered doing the Illy since I've never made it out of T3 but the forums aren't very happy with the state of the class and it's been like that for a long time. I really enjoy hybrids so I figured might as well start one in EQ2.

Since there's only one server, it's nice that we can run into each other. I bumped into three readers today.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Hi Stabs! It was nice meeting and chatting with you in the game today. A bit later I ran into two others which is always a blast.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Speaking of confusing... I hear ya. There are a few things that are opposite of obvious in EQ2 even if you've played other MMOs. The chat channels is the first of them. There's something very unintuitive about the way the work. I find it hard to tell what channel people are actually speaking in and sometimes I'm replying to them in the wrong one. The abbreviations for changing channels isn't what you'd guess at in some cases and it doesn't seem sticky. I have to specifically say which channel to chat in even if I've only been chatting in one. Is there an option or something to control that?

Getting to someone in a different instance of the game isn't obvious either. I had to meet up with a couple of people and I had to zone somewhere else to go out and back in so I could pick. Seems like a game with multiple copies of the same zone would have a command/feature to let you hop when needed.

Some vets are probably unhappy about the clarifications/simplifications being made but as you've said, they must do these things to encourage new players to stick past a trial.

[We Fly Spitfires]

Sounds like you're having a lot of fun with EQ2 :) Makes me miss the game a lot actually :(

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Fun today could be burned out tomorrow. *Smile* I tend to a hit wall leveling in EQ2 but not worried about it at the moment. Just enjoying things.

[KiwiRed .]

I'm finding the game to be a fun distraction - rolled a 2nd character today so I can alternate between the two (Swashbuckler and Inquisitor) for a bit of play-style variety (and give a second tradeskill a try).