Everquest 2 Player Diary - Levels 45-50

After my three month hiatus from EQ2, enforced by my internet connection, I returned with newfound enthusiasm for the game. Why? Well, because the Kunark expansion is due to come out on November the 13th, meaning that I had all of two and a half weeks to gain at least 20 levels (the proper Kunark content starting at 65). I burned through 45-50 in three days, mostly thanks to having rested (double) experience the whole way, and I actually really enjoyed it. This may be down to the break I'd had from the game, but I think it also had a lot to do with the zones I was in. Screenshots will come later, because I'm too busy trying to level to go and take them.

I kicked off in Steamfont, a zone I've mentioned before. I went from 45 to 47 there, hunting in the two high-level parts of the map I'd not explored before and refamiliarising myself with my character. Both had a few quests and were entertaining enough, helped by the fact that Steamfont is a very pretty zone. The water effects around the geysers are very well done too, as water effects in EQ2 generally are. Not much to say that hasn't already been said regarding Steamfont, though, so I'll move onto what came next.

At 47, I headed over to the Sinking Sands, the first zone in the first expansion pack - Desert of Flames. I thought it was a bit random at first to have an Arab-inspired continent in Everquest 2, given its high fantasy roots, but it quickly began to make sense when I discovered the continent was based on the Desert of Ro in the original EQ. It's a shame that it's a separate continent, really, as there aren't many desert zones in EQ2 and the fact they all seem to be on a continent of their own really serve to emphasise the fact that the in-game world is largely a series of unconnected zones, all surrounded by ocean. Faydwer and Kunark are entire continents and feel much better for it, so it seems a shame that Antonica is so disjointed. If it were joined together again (with the Desert of Flames re-integrated into it), the game would feel a hell of a lot more cohesive for it.

Previously, I had assumed the Desert of Flames would be crap. This was largely thanks to the fact it was released within a year of the original EQ2, so I assumed it would suffer from generally the same malaise as the rest of the release EQ2 zones. However, I'm glad to say that I was wrong - from what I've seen of it so far, the Desert of Flames is a superb expansion. Let's start with my old favourite, visual style. The vast expanses of sand are very striking, and the large numbers of undead and ruins with glowy green writing give a rather eerie feel that does bring back fond memories of the original Ro. The locals have also built their own structures in the classic Arabian style - brightly coloured spiralled towers are visible on the horizon, alongside fantastic palaces on floating islands in the sky and the like. It really does give the sensation of a land filled with powerful magic, and it gives you a very good feeling about the dungeons in the zone.

Onto zone design, and the Sinking Sands comes out pretty well. It's a large zone (though only one map page) and it's packed with content, so you get an awful lot of Achievement Experience for exploring it. The various areas are different from one another too, so it's not packed with content in the tedious sense of the Feerott - this is a proper zone in which you could happily spend three or four levels adventuring and exploring without getting bored. The number of quests is also pretty high and, if you do most of them (which you should do, as you get a lot of Achievement xp), you'll be sent everywhere in the zone. Some of them are quite interesting, too - treasure hunting and exploring, for example. The most intriguing one, however, was helping an armorer who needed intact scarab shells. To get them you would have to chase skittish scarabs into a valley of triple-heroic tarantulas, who would then kill them and let you steal the shell to return to them. Unfortunately, there's 9 quests in the line and to complete them all you'd have to herd well over a hundred scarabs to their doom, but certainly doing two or three is quite entertaining.

In terms of the old bugbear, wandering heroics, Sinking Sands doesn't do too badly. There are quite a lot of heroic monsters, such as the aforementioned tarantulas, but they generally stay in their valley and, besides, they're there for a quest. The only wandering double or triple heroics look like you should stay out of their way - the named heroic orcs have platemail on and the giants are, well, giant. As I mentioned in the last entry, I don't have a problem with a few wandering triple heroics in the zone, so long as they actually LOOK heroic and you can easily see them coming. Linked mobs are more common than in Faydwer, too, but they are confined to static camps in this zone (and only rarely are they linked heroics). Again, that's fine by me - I'd prefer if there weren't any linked mobs at all, but I'm not overly bothered by linked mobs if they don't wander and they're non heroic. Thus, in my book at least, the Sinking Sands has all the hallmarks of an excellent zone and it's left me looking forward to exploring the rest of the expansion.

The other thing I did between level 45 and 50 was go and visit Everfrost, one of my favourite zones from the original EQ. I didn't spend too long there (I earned perhaps 25% of level 48), but I went to level up my harvesting. Sinking Sands only has level 50 harvestables in it, which you need to be level 48 to have any chance to harvesting. Since I started in the SS at 47, I had to go back to Everfrost/Steamfont to get my harvesting up to the required level once I had hit 48. While I was there, I thought I'd have a peek around.

Overall, I have to say that I hated it in pretty much every way. The original Everfrost was mostly open tundra, with a mountain-based newbie zone for those fresh out of Halas, the barbarian city. The new one appears to be some kind of ice floe, and is frankly laughable in its design. You arrive on a dock which is not connected to the mainland, thus forcing you to jump off and swim. Sadly, there does not appear to be any way back up there once you have jumped, which is a bit of a shame if you happened to grab a quest or two off the NPC on the dock. That's pretty annoying and completely mystifying, but to make matters worse there's usually an epic x2 shark called Dreadwake swimming about in the water, ready to devour you when you try to swim for land. If not, the whole sea is filled with hostile and often heroic whales/sharks anyway, so your chances of actually making it to land are minimal anyway.

Fortunate as I am, though, I survived the water and found myself in a canyon. I fought through that, dying only when I was jumped by some linked triple heroic wolves that looked exactly like all the other wolves in the zone, and eventually found myself in some strange icy plateau. It was full of creatures, most non-hostile (except the wandering triple heroics), and eventually led me to a small dungeon filled with some ice spirit maiden things. As the journey had been rather dull, I was somewhat underwhelmed and wondered if there was anything else to the zone. Consulting my map, it appeared I had not even explored half of it, so I set about trying to find the rest of the zone. Turns out, to find the main part of the zone, you have to jump off the docks and swim through a couple of tiny, almost invisible tunnels that lead within the island (while trying not to get eaten by the sharks). Good luck finding that if you didn't already know about it...

When inside, the zone basically consists of (triple heroic) golems and skeletons with their models set to a transparent blue to represent ice. Beyond that there's finally a bit of tundra, filled with the familiar bears and mammoths of the original EQ. But there's few quests, and the mobs are all just milling around (often triple heroic), so it seems rather empty and pointless. Beyond that there's a load of giants guarding the entrance to Permafrost, another dungeon, and a sea filled with ice floes covered in goblins. I left the zone wondering why it had been made in the first place, as it seems only to exist to contain Permafrost. There are almost no quests, few interesting monsters and no friendly outposts to speak of, so overall it's a poor zone at best. Thank god we've got the Sinking Sands to get you to 50 then, eh?