Everquest II Player Diary - Level 25-30

After hitting level 25 with my adventures in Fallen Gate, I decided to broaden my horizons somewhat and travel to the new zones in the Echoes of Faydwer expansion. Though these zones range from levels 1-70 (you're perfectly able to hit max level without ever leaving the new continent, if you so desire), I'd already played a character to level 20 in Faydwer in the one month I played the game on release of EoF. I only decided to head back when there would be new content for me to discover, in this case, Crushbone Keep.

To get to Faydwer, you catch a boat from either the Thundering Steppes or Nektulous Forest. Unlike the zones in the original game, you can't simply click a Mariner's Bell - you actually have to catch the boat. However, the dev team have made this relatively painless and I feel it is actually a wise choice by them. The boat is on something like a five minute timer, which is enough not to inconvenience a player too much but is sufficiently long to give you a genuine sense of travel. I hope they continue the good work when Kunark is released, and bring back the enormous ships used to travel to Kunark in EQ1. At the end of the day, travel between continents should not be instantaneous (unless you have the wizard or druid teleport spells), because it takes away some of the sense of scale that a good world should enjoy.

Choraz broke out the popcorn and watched the ships playing chicken.

On arrival, you land in Butcherblock. This is a level 20-30 zone, so it's pretty dangerous to run through until you hit at least the minimum level. It's a nice introduction to Faydwer, as it is a real visual treat in some areas (the dock being one of them). I picked up level 26 by grinding blues here for half an hour after I finished Crushbone, and I'm also quite a fan of some of the monsters. The spiders here are different models to the ones in the original EQ2 zones, which is nice - especially as they look pretty damn unpleasant now. The gorillas are well detailed, with nice fighting and death animations. The rock elementals are the same models as before, but when you're fighting one that's ten feet tall you'll appreciate that they are quite impressive. There's also a lot of Kobolds, but they're generally linked groups or Heroics so I didn't attack them. The Aviaks (birdmen) were also nice to see, as they too were nicely animated. Only complaint I had about the zone as a whole were that some areas were far too grey and rocky. At least make the ground grassy, and then you have a very attractive zone indeed. Anyway, kudos to the developers for their work on Butcherblock. Nice zone.

In the grassy areas, Butcherblock is a very striking zone.

From Butcherblock I went to the Greater Faydark, a zone I'm pretty familiar with from playing my wizard there a few months ago. I'm not as big a fan of it as I was Butcherblock, because it's quite a dark zone and I'm not a fan of the design, which uses a lot of different levels. This makes the zone a nightmare to navigate, as you'll frequently run towards the place you're looking for, only to find your path blocked by a river or a cliff face. Then you'll have to follow it for two or three minutes until you find a way around it, then head back to your intended destination. It can get very frustrating indeed, which is a shame as the zone is well-designed in other aspect. The problem gets a little easier at higher levels where you can survive the damage entailed with falling off a cliff, but it's still rather irritating. Maybe the new minimap will cure some of the problems, but the current in-game maps really are totally inadequate to displaying multi-levelled terrain. Choraz also couldn't use Kelethin, as he was an evil character, but the city is okay. It's all one zone, which ranks it about Qeynos and Freeport, but it's not as well-designed as Neriak in terms of layout nor visual style. Currently still the best city for a good character to start in, though.

Clan Crushbone lies in one corner of the Greater Faydark, and contains an awful lot of orcs. The initial camps of orcs provide some decent soloing opportunities, despite being linked. Then there's some higher-level group content outside the castle, and finally the castle zone itself - Crushbone Keep, which is where I was heading. Inside the castle are three levels of orc-filled fun, the top level containing an instance for players in their late twenties. There is actually another instance for level 50+ people in the castle, but Choraz didn't fancy visiting that so I'm not going to cover it.

'That's one big tree', Choraz thought.

First thing to say about the zone is that I liked the look. It looked like it had been partially inspired by Blackrock Spire, with lots of fire dotted around, and it looks good. It's definitely darker than the original Crushbone of EQ1, but in a good way - it's grown up. However, I do have some quibbles. The orcs are too samey. Remember Blackrock Spire, with the robed caster orcs and the leather clad assassin orcs with hoods and daggers (actually dual-wielded Brutality Blades - nice!), as well as the warrior orcs? Well, there isn't that much variation here. It's a shame. Yes, not all the orcs fight in exactly the same way, but we could do with a lot more graphical differentiation between them. Secondly, I'm going to complain about the layout of the place again. Before I begin, I'd like to say that the zone is a step up from Fallen Gate and it doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much, but it could still have been done better.

Choraz started to wonder if he had taken a wrong turning on the way to the hairdressers.

First up, the zone isn't an instance. I don't see why not. There's plenty of content outside the castle for people to share, so the castle should be an instance (alternatively, make the upstairs an instance with an entrance right by the front door and keep the other two floors as is). I also think the progression isn't very logical. I'm all up for having a zone where you can choose to fight in different areas if you so desire, but it should be structured that you can choose a path from the entrance and then fight down it until it reaches its logical conclusion. The EQ2 dungeons are too open-ended, which makes them more like an outdoor zone except with a group - instances should be a different type of play to that.

Once you actually reach the instance (the D'Vinnian Throne), things get rather confusing. You've got to run all over and kill various Orcs to get keys to open various doors so you can challenge D'vinn at the end of it. This is a silly idea. Obviously, this means that there IS a logical progression in the way you do the zone, because you have to kill the orcs in a certain order. Thus, get rid of the puzzle element and make the zone a single straight line with a series of boss fights to unlock the doors the D'vinn. The visual style of the zone is, again, okay - but it doesn't get steadily more impressive as you approach D'vinn. You should be able to tell how far you are from the end by looking at the decoration of the room you're in. There's also no set-piece battles. Think of Blackrock Spire, with the little arena you have to endure before you fight the orc leader Blackhand. Given the way the zone ends, this would have been an ideal thing to implement.

Anyway, after all the messing around we finally reached D'vinn, who promptly buggered off after he called in Vindicator Crush, the final boss. Crush's pretty easy, really, but he does look pretty damn badass and he dropped some nice loot. I think it's a shame that the encounter wasn't done more to the tune of the UBRS encounter with Blackhand mentioned above, where Victor Nefarius looks on in a similar way to how D'vinn does. Only thing was that the room design was much more appropriate in World of Warcraft, whereas in EQ2 the final room is basically like all of the rest of the previous rooms. It makes the whole thing feel less cinematic and that much less of an achievement to do.

At the end of the day, I finished the Crushbone instance at level 30 after having spent about 5 hours in the zone - mostly because every time I managed to assemble a full group, someone dropped out and we had to replace them. I enjoyed it, but I do think that there is wasted potential there. I found the World of Warcraft dungeons far more fun to play, and while Crushbone was not unenjoyable I think it could have been excellent. I'd love to see Everquest 2 become the best MMORPG on the market in every way, so I really hope some of the designers upgrade it a bit.

I will say that Crushbone did not really feel like grinding, as I gained the levels without really thinking about it, and I enjoyed the grouping. I learned how to tank properly in the zone, and a couple of times I looked at my experience bar and realised I'd gained half a level without realising it. I'm also a fan of the new expansion zones, as they are much better designed than those from the original EQ2 lands. Playing the game on Extreme graphical settings (which I can do when I'm soloing), the game looks beautiful. It's just a shame there's still a few issues with the zones that stop EQ2 from being completely brilliant. Next entry, up to level 35 - Enchanted Lands and maybe Ruins of Varsoon. We'll see.