If only they'd released The Terminator in Norrath, the gnomes would have known this was going to happen.
While the quests are the standard fare, the setting really makes the zone impressive. There is a lot of green grass and impressive mountains, mixed in with geysers and enormous cogwheels and other machinery that suggest a certain untamed power to the landscape (much like the original Steamfont). The best part of all is the Gnomish outpost, though. It's called Gnomeland Security, which elicited a smile, but it's a very colourful and characteristic outpost that is far more memorable than most of the others in the game. The gnomes are also generally insane, which is both amusing and endearing. There's one particular quest where, if you make the right conversation choices, you can insist that a quest NPC squirts hot burning oil in both of your eyes - and he promptly obliges, blurring your vision for a couple of seconds and knocking a chunk of your health off. EQ2 generally isn't a particularly amusing game, but that bit nearly had me falling off my chair with laughter, simply because I couldn't believe they'd actually put it in.
Gnomeland Security headquarters, where you can insist on having flaming oil squirted into your eyes - a must for tourists or visitors alike.
The monsters in the zone are initially kobolds, minotaurs and the local wildlife, but later you get to tangle with the weaker renegade clockworks (who have taken over Ak'Anon and turned it into Klak'Anon), and finally some weird bird-man things that were quite high level and not something I wanted to tangle with pre-45. By this point you'll have seen most of the models in at least one place before, but they are still quite well animated and the rest of the zone makes up for the repetition of models. There's not really much else to say about it: it's well worth a visit.
'Your rock is leaking,' Choraz pointed out helpfully.
Anyways, I spent up until about mid-level 38 in Steamfont, only leaving because someone was recruiting a Runnyeye group. Steamfont is one of the best zones I've encountered thus far, so kudos to the dev team for making it - there's not much I'd change about it, which is rare.
Runnyeye is cool. 'Nuff said.
Runnyeye, too, was a lot of fun. Though people kept leaving and I literally spent upwards of four hours in there, I generally had a pretty good group in there and I thought the zone was reasonably well-designed too. It's located in the Enchanted Lands and is set into a mountain, and it has a good visual style right from the outset. It's nothing particularly special, but it has enough colour and consistency to make it effective. The fact the tunnels in the zone often head upwards and downwards also gives you a feel that you're actually working your way towards something, so even though the surroundings don't really change the dungeon manages to get around the problems of unclear progression that most other EQ2 dungeons seem to have. There's generally only one path to take, so it's a question of fighting through the place and that's actually quite fun.
Eyes are probably the most squishy and vulnerable part of a person, so being a giant eye must suck. Especially with a throne that spiky. If he's not careful, he'll have his eye out (ho ho ho...oh, I'll get my coat).
After you clear the main dungeon, there's two instances for you to do. There's some storyline about a rebellion in the Evil Eyes that I didn't really understand or care about, but the first instance involves killing the Runnyeye chieftain and the second one involves killing the big old Evil Eye in charge of the place. The fights were straightforward enough - the chieftain was a basic ring event with a couple of waves of monsters before he appeared, the evil eye boss was a straight fight - but the loot wasn't particularly good for us. Still, running the dungeon got me a lot of exp and AA, and I was basically level 40 when I'd finished it. And even after spending four hours in the place, I'd run it again. Much like the rest of the content from 30-40, it's very good.
This is a bridge. Sadly there's not much funny or interesting to say about it, beyond the fact you get ambushed by 5 goblins when you try and cross it (basically, this is as far as I could get into the instance solo when I went on my screenshot trip).
Naturally, it's not perfect though. Firstly, many of the quests would involve running the dungeon twice. Why do that? Because of the limited level range of each dungeon, you'd have to run the same place twice in about 48 hours, which is tedious. Secondly, there's a lot of named monsters that aren't up most of the time, instead with placeholders there. Just have them spawn every time, and turn down their loot drop frequency if you have to. I don't want to run the place twice with the same character, so I want to get the full experience on one run. And why not instance the entire thing and keep respawns to a minimum? In EQ2 it's very annoying if a groupie drops from the group, because it means you have to use an evac spell to get back to the entrance then fight right the way back to where you were. That can often take half an hour, and it's a real problem that can spoil things big time. Instancing would solve a lot of problems, and it really needs to be implemented.
Overall, though: level 35-40 was a very enjoyable experience with some excellent zones to play through. I just hope level 40+ maintains the same high standards.
No comments:
Post a Comment