So where were we? Leaving the Tutorial! Well, once out of the mines, I found myself in a barely recognisable Qeynos, a pokey low-polygon box-based affair spreading only two zones, instead of the twelve-zone-plus lavish Disney fairytale city of Everquest II. From an objective point of view, yes, Everquest 1's cities are look pants, but I'm quite fond of them, partly through the memories, but mostly because there is so many of them.

Each player race gets one, some get two, and all are distinctive and unique, if rather low-res. I miss that from EQ2, which has two cities: The Good City and The Bad City. These two do have sub-districts, but one of the distinctive things about the first game was the sheer diversity and sense of heritiage implied in each race's home. That just doesn't seem to apply with Qeynos II and Freeport II.

Particularly useful for my blog-writing, I discovered that the 'PoK Books', mass transit teleporters allowing near instant travel between all these cities, worked even though I don't have the 'Planes of Power'. (I'm not sure if these worked for me last time around or not...I think I may have forgotten to try one!)

So a whistle-stop tour of the various cities ensued; the frosty huts of Halas, home of the Barbarians, the creepy cave citadel of Neriak, home of Dark Elves, the steam-driven clattering Ak'anon, the Gnome home, Kelethin, the extremely dangerous tree-house city of the Wood Elves, and so on. There are about 15 player races, and at least that many cities, and it was a poignant trip; clearly a lot of thought, story, art, design and even love, went into these imaginary towns, yet almost without exception, I was the only player in any of them.

The whole Faded Victorian Seaside Town melancholy set in quite quickly, and it took me a while to find any players at all. It turns out that they're almost ALL loafing about in the 'Plane of Knowledge', the transit zone that connects to all the PoK Book teleporters, or 'The Bazaar'...or 'Bizzarre' as I call it (Boom-crash!), a strange inter-connected dimensional impossibility where players park their characters to engage in the baffling AFK-merchant selling system present in both games. 170 players in one, 290 in the other (Perhaps 5 of them actually there), and about 4 in any other zone.

Part of the problem is that pretty much anyone still playing Everquest now, is at least level 60+ on more than one character, and there really aren't any New Newbies anymore. Hell, even I've got a level 29 one somewhere. This all means that they're bored of the newbie cities, which have nothing to offer anyway. Add to that the allure of New Stuff, pretty much everyone will be in the bits I don't have expansions for. Indeed, one expansion, 'Lost Dungeons of Norrath' offers instanced dungeons purely for solo or single-group play. I'd be the last person to promote enforced grouping and high player density, but even I'd admit that it can be possible to go too far the other way.

Still, all this leaves most of the old world free for my own personal use, so the tour continues...

Cont Tomorrow - The Wilds...

(Fun fact: Qeynos spelled backwards is 'Sony EQ'!)