Hmm…something positive then…how hard can that be? Ah, Echoes of Faydwer, impressions and explorations!
I grew up in Faydwer. My first real MMO experience was Everquest, and my first real character was a wood elf druid, (back when I was young enough to think that elves were mysterious, otherworldly and cool. I go for short comedy races nowadays...). Kelethin was my home, in quite a real sense. True, it was Rallos Zek, which lent a certain paranoid fear to my wanderings, but up on Kelethin, the wood elven treehouse platform city, there were generally enough guards wandering about to provide a certain relief and relaxation. It was a busy zone – one city in it, another opening out onto it - Felwithe, hunting for Lv1-15 or so, a dungeon, Crushbone, attached to it. Druid ring, Wizard spire, and onward connections to a number of popular places. Also, instead of the usual Eastern Commonlands tunnel 'market', the fear of random ganking meant that trading players needed the extra security of high-level NPC guards. Greater Faydark became our marketplace. (I'm not sure where the Evil players went - ah, now I remember....EVERYONE was Evil.)
I wandered extensively, being something of a pacifist on a Free-For-All PvP server, and spent much of my time looking for the most out of the way and hidden levelling spots possible, but it was still nice to come home, with it's lethal platforms with no handrails, narrow bank door that a single barbarian could render unusable, Crushbone trains, Felwithe-Kelethin bard-mail easy money, and down ramps which remain hidden until you’re already over the edge.
Later, when that life had gotten too much for what was, at the tend of the day, something you’re supposed to do for fun, I rolled a Gnome Magician on a Carebear server, and then developed a similar and lasting fondness for Ak’anon – the gnome home city, also on Faydwer.
Fast forward to EQ2, and my gnome fascination remains. My 'main' is a gnome swashbuckler, and a very traditional one at that, so I was understandably quite disappointed to learn that the gnomes now had to bunk up with the Halflings in some suburb of Qeynos. Worse still, tinkering had vanished entirely. I got used to it and carried on anyway, but this new expansion brings both my home and my craft back to the world!
My pilgrimage started in Nektulous Forest, and I could help but smile when I saw 'BOAT!' shouted out on the zonewide chat. It doesn’t get more nostalgic than that, and it’s nice to see them put a boat trip back in, rather than an instant teleport bell. Who knows…perhaps we’ll see the Ocean of Tears zone get put back in too?
Butcherblock Mountains, the original Dwarf newbie area, is quite spectacular now. Previously a rather low-poly maze of rocky canyons and grassy hills, the new zone is clearly far more detailed and majestic. Huge cliffs soar around the bay, and the interior keeps the canyon theme, but is more gritty and now has a number of underground tunnels connecting the various areas. The dwarves seem in retreat, relegated to small outposts in the north of the zone. Kaladim itself brings back memories, but clearly all is not well, given the huge gang of kobolds loitering outside the entrance – the place is now a dungeon, aimed at Lv35-45 or so.
One highpoint was finding The Chessboard, and discovering that it was my level! I always loved the inexplicability of the first one. Almost Easter-Egg-like in its bizarreness, it was half giant stone chess set, and half undead safari. I never saw a King or Queen, but certain saw enough trains out of there in EQ1. I turned up at the new one to find the Bishop and Knight up – both on the hard end of soloable – the Knight in particular being a very close fight. Both were Named though, and Blue++, meaning two more ticks on my Achievements list. Huzzah! I’ll definitely be back there – one of the few occasions in recent years where I’ve just killed mobs for the sake of it, rather than for a quest.
One thing I am noticing, is the confusion the new zone layout causes me. BB used to connect to GFay, and Dagnors Cauldron, but now connects to GFay, LFay, and Unrest directly. The map of the continent that came with the box tries to reconcile this alteration, and presumably the explanation is ‘shattered lands, isn’t it?’ or similar, but from a purely gaming point of view, it just feels wrong.
Greater Faydark is now a much more lush place than in my day. It carries familiar echoes, certainly – obvious landmarks I remember from before, but in strange places and unexpected forms – Kelethin now has a ground entrance, on a cliff, the Wizard Spires are half way up a cliff, the ground is much more varied, steep glens, ponds, small outposts dotted here and there. Of course if I’d wanted identical, I’d be playing EQ1 again, but the strange pseudo-familiarity of it all, compared to New Qeynos and New Freeport, which bear almost no resemblance to the EQ1 versions at all, is quite unsettling. I expect I’ll get used to it.
The Fae are funny, and totally not gay, as pointed out in the FalconTwin.com podcast. It makes sense – enough wood elves fall off of Kelethin over the centuries, and sooner or later some of them will evolve into a form with a much lower surface-area-to-volume ratio, and which can natively fly, or at least inherently Safe Fall. Darwinism at work! My own swashbuckler Safe Fall is now at that difficult stage where I can land safely 100% of the time from falls which would do me no significant damage, and to skill-up further, I need to start throwing myself off really dangerous cliffs, but not so dangerous that I’d have no chance of survival, a tricky guestimate at the best of times. I found a pretty handy cliff on the Green Knoll bit that I’m training on, and some day soon, hope to survive a fall from New Kelethin!
All very nice, but not my real reason for being on the continent – Ak’anon. It took me a few goes to find Steamfont Mountains. GFay has a lot more exits than I’m used to, one of which led me to ‘The Loping Plains’, an entirely new zone aimed at ever so much higher levels than me, and seems to be some kind of outlying Mistmoore Manor type of thing, all bats and ghosts and the like. The next go took me to a truly psychedelic fungal overload which bore no resemblance to the Lesser Faydark of my youth. Again, much higher levelled than me. It’s good though – the modern EQ2 layout works on very specific continents with a ten level range each. Previously, there were only two alternatives for any given level (one if you were Lv51+), and more variety is always good. EoF adds a new alternative zone for pretty much every level, helping with those mid-level-band blues a bit. Not wanting to find out if EQ1 LFay’s massively over-levelled and insanely hostile undead unicorn thing had made it down the ages, I backtracked, and found that Steamfont actually connects to GFay now.
Steamfont itself, the old gnome newbie area, bears a great deal of similarity to Butcherblock, but with gnomish cogwork wreckage pretty much everywhere. This land is aimed at my level, which is good news, on a par with Enchanted Lands and Zek, so I’ll be spending a while here I think. A bit of hunting found me the Gnomeland Security Headquarters, where my people now seem to be holed up. This took longer to find than it ought to, as I’d totally forgotten that they’d added climbing walls in Desert of Flames. They don’t add an awful lot as a gameplay mechanic, but are tremendous fun all the same – look out for the special rockfaces with the hooks sticking out, and up you go!
Alas, as with Kaladim, Ak'anon is overrun. It’s another dungeon, now called 'Klak'anon', aimed at Lv40-50 folk, and is riddled with crazy clockwork mechanicals. Hell, I could have told them that was going to happen, but no-one listens to me, oh noooo. Being a traditional gnome of the old school, I now have a purpose in my EQ2 life – get powerful enough and drive those malfunctioning scrapheaps out of my home! Perhaps most startling of all, was stealthing through the place, on initial recon, and seeing that the map was almost identical to the old map of Ak'anon from EQ1. Outstanding! I got as far as the old warrior guild before some flying buzz-saw with see-invisible ganked me. I’ll be back!
Speaking of things old-school and gnomish, I took Tinkering, of course. It nestles well with my Jewelling, using many of the same materials, and the workbench. It’s much more difficult than Jewelling though, requiring many more raw materials per go, and seeming to skill-up much more slowly. Possibly a bit of a cash-sink, like the Transmuting. I don’t care though – once I can make myself a Gnomish Cyclone Generator of Ultimate Evil, I’ll show them, I’ll show them all! Its a nice change from grinding out Runes and Earrings, but given the huge quantity of very low level minables required, and sudden uptake, it does seem to be playing hell with the resource markets at present. Good job I enjoy harvesting my own stuff really!
I’ve still not seen the new Unrest, Mistmoore, Felwithe and Crushbone yet, but so far I’m mightily impressed with the expansion, and am even considering moving to Kelethin full-time, for want of an Inn Room at the Gnomeland HQ.
All in all, a good expansion, and unlike Desert of Flames and Kingdom of Sky, well worth the extra box-cost, whatever your level.
Incidentally, some interesting speculation on what the next EQ2 Expansion might be here:
The Ancient Gaming Noob: The Next EverQuest II Expansion?
Kunark would be my guess, although Odus is a close second, which would then complete all the landmasses of the Old World. They've already blown Luclin up (That's the big shatttered moon in the skybox in EQ2), a popular move with many, and personally, I hope Vellious died in a fire. One thing everyone does seem to be agreeing on, is that an Expansion, for any game of this type, should include a new race and/or class, and should have zones and content for ALL the existing players...not just the ones who have 'finished' the basic game...