I spent until level 18 in Darklight, finishing the quests there - the newer zones tend to have better quest rewards than the older games, and having played in the Commonlands when back when I played the month on the EU servers, I was well aware of how much I disliked the zone. Nektulous Forest was the other option, but that's a relatively dangerous zone that's best suited for level 22+ players. So after the three levels in Darklight, I took a bit of a break from adventuring and decided to tradeskill. That's covered in the next entry, which is entirely devoted to tradeskilling, due to it being quite an involved system. Harvesting for collectibles is also covered there too.
After getting my tradeskill level to a comparative level to my character level, I set about heading for the big two-zero. Done with Darklight, I headed off into the Commonlands. It's a big zone, and simply exploring it would give me a fair bit of experience and Achievement exp. So off I trundled off into the Commonlands, whereupon I found a sprawling great zone full of what I consider to be cardinal sins in terms of zone design, meaning it's one of my least favourite (I hear rumours the zone is being updated a little in the next Update to fix some of these issues, but we'll see). They're less noticeable when you've just come from Freeport, which I also dislike immensely, but coming from Darklight made them all very apparent very quickly.
Several of the problems quickly became apparent when I headed to the Crossroads, which is the main quest hub in the zone. As the Commonlands is so big that it fills two map pages, it's quite a long walk. The original EQ2 designers (not the current dev team), in their infinite wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to put a lot of aggressive Heroic monsters on the map, for seemingly no reason. There are a sizable group of level 16 monitor lizards that are double Heroic in the middle of the zone (which means they are much, much stronger than normal monsters of that level and really need groups to tackle), who have mauled me to death on several occasions, as well as numerous other seemingly-pointless Heroic foes littered around. Did I add that monsters will chase you for miles in this game, too? Basically, the zone is unnecessarily hazardous, and if you spend a couple of levels here I guarantee you you will be jumped and killed by an overpowered Heroic at some point. It just seems unnecessarily frustrating, though the old-guard of players usually argue 'it keeps you on your toes' and stops EQ becoming too easy. I'd argue that arbitrary death is simply annoying, rather than exciting. Get rid of the heroics, replace them with normal monsters - if one of them kills me then fair enough, but group content really shouldn't be strolling around attacking soloers (as the majority of players are).
These are some of the aforementioned bastard fucker monitor lizards. What the hell is the point, honestly? It's almost like the EQ2 team sat down and thought 'How can we make a zone that is less fun than being shot in the face?'. Well, they came up with this.
Second problem with the Commonlands is that it's incredibly tedious, mostly because it is so vast. There's not much design variation in the zone (it's literally just an enormous rectangle), just endless plains dotted with semi-wrecked towers. There are a lot of different monsters in the zone, but they're standard fare: savannah wildlife, skeletons, bandits and orcs. The zone would be fine if it was smaller and more compact, but it's just a huge desolate (and colourless) space that is not at all interesting to run across. In EQ1 the Commonlands were equally vast, but they were two separate zones, and the EQ2 version just seems pointless and bloated. There are numerous instances leading off them, but they're mostly pointless quest instances that all use the same map over and over, and seem to be there just for the sake of it.
The entire zone looks like this, and boy does the old 'empty, flat' look get old fast. By this point, being shot in the face was starting to look downright appealing.
The absolute WORST bit, however, is the Dervish quest line from the Crossroads. The quest giver is very much in the Eastern part of the Commonlands, while the dervish camp itself is literally as far West as you can possibly go. So if you actually find the bloody camp (surrounded by heroics and hidden behind two mountain ranges), you then go and report you've done it, which takes 5 minutes to run, then get told to kill some of the dervishes....so you run another 5 minutes back, slaughter some dervishes, then run back to the Crossroads, get told to change some plans around, so you run back and then run around the dervish camp for about ten minutes trying to find where the plans are (the quest gives you no instruction), then run back to the Crossroads, to be told you need to kill the dervish commander. So you run back, only to find that the damn commander is a rare spawn and you'd have to camp the dervishes (there's a LOT of them) for hours to finish the quest. It doesn't take a genius to see why EQ2 sucked at release, and I really hope the new dev team will find it in their hearts to remake the Commonlands. Because I honestly think if I had started in Freeport rather than Neriak with this diary, it would have ended with me cancelling my account before I hit level 10. No jokes. And don't even get me started on the fact that you can't see the other half of the Commonlands map, because I think I might end up stabbing someone (likely myself, which I would probably regret).
You will learn to hate this dervish camp with all your heart and soul. Oh yes you will.
Okay, so it's quite clear I hate the Commonlands, but there are other things to talk about too. First among them is guild recruiting. I found myself a guild, which is remarkably easy to do - it's a process that many other MMORPGS could learn from. Basically, you press 'U'. That brings up a list of the guilds that are recruiting, some info on them and what they are looking for, a description of themselves and a list of the recruiters who are online. You pore over it until you find one you like the sound of, then click a button to get in contact with a recruiter, who will usually only be too happy to bring another member on board. Very easy to do, almost left me impressed enough to stem the rising urge to kill that being in the Commonlands had brought on.
Second thing I did was get my first house. The housing in EQ2 is all instanced and multiple people can own the same property, so there's no shortage of it. Consequently, people are unlikely to visit your house and thus decorating the thing is more for personal enjoyment than anything else, but the option is certainly there to be pursued if you so desire. The main benefit of housing lies in the fact that owning property allows you more on the broker. With no house, you have one broker slot, which you naturally put a bag in. This usually allows about 12 items to be sold, though you do get containers up to 60 items big. Getting an inn, which all players get for free (with only a small weekly upkeep), allows you a second. Progressively larger houses allow you more slots. If you buy a salesbox, this allows people to visit your house and buy the items you are selling on the broker without paying broker commission (usually 20%), which allows you to mark up your prices slightly.
Third thing I did was run my first dungeon, the Fallen Gate. But that's a story for another time as I did it at level 20, so I'll cover that in the next entry along with the mentoring system that comes with it.
Hektor.
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