My time in EverQuest’s latest timelocked progression server, Aradune, didn’t go anywhere this summer. I still felt nostalgic for the older days of MMOs, though, and eventually I started reminiscing about those good old EverQuest II days.
EQ2 doesn’t get a lot of love. According to the latest news from Darkpaw’s new corporate overlords, the original EverQuest brings in more revenue and has more players. What was supposed to be a graphical revolution in MMOs, in 2020 pales in comparison to newer MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV.
For no good reason, I patched it up and logged on and made a new character – a Channeler, a class that was still pretty new the last time I’d played. Channelers are a healer class that focuses their power through a Construct, an invulnerable mobile focus that can intercept damage and provide other buffs, limited by the amount of dissonance generated when using its abilities. It’s an intriguingly indirect method of healing.
I started in Darklight Woods as a Neriak-based Freeblood (vampire), summoned my construct and went about relearning the game.
It was easy. And fast. What used to take several days was over in a few hours. I don’t even have any screenshots. I left the Woods, went to Neriak and got an apartment and picked up a mercenary at the entrance, a Shadow Knight. Then I plotted out my run to fifty.
My favorite times with Freeport-aligned characters start with Fallen Gate, a Neriak-themed dungeon off of the Commonlands. I went in at 20 and left several levels later, just at the right level for the Ruins of Varsoon off the Thundering Steppes.
It took a couple of tries, but I completed both it and its sub-dungeon, the Chamber of Immortality, in a night, gaining several more levels.
Now into my 30s, I went through Nektropos Castle in Nektulos Forest. This used to have an involved entrance quest, but no old content is locked anymore. I went in Nektropos at 32 and left at 34. I continued my leveling journey in Crushbone, leaving there at level 38. This was cheating a little bit, as Crushbone was not an original EQ2 dungeon.
I set the game aside for awhile while I played through Assassins Creed Valhalla. I came back intending to get to level fifty and work through the Prismatic Weapon quest, the first of EQ2’s epic weapons. This used to require a guild and a full raid force back in the day.
First I had to get to fifty. I started with Deathfist Citadel, a dungeon in Zek. We used to wonder, way back when, if this was intended to be what Crushbone had turned into in the 500 years since EQ1. (Nope).
This got me into the low forties. I wasn’t able to kill Emperor Fyst. Back in the day, this whole zone was a raid zone, and he was a huge fight. Then he was made the boss of a single group arena fight, which was what I expected when I went through the dungeon. Now, while the rest of the dungeon is “heroic”, the Emperor himself is a two group mob that I could not solo. I can prevent damage on my merc for awhile, but soon the dissonance built up faster than I could clear it while my merc was unable to do any real damage in return, so we wiped and I decided to move on elsewhere.
My journey to fifty was always going to end at the Temple of Cazic-Thule. That’s where I hit fifty on my first character, a long time ago. I did some leveling in Feerrott making my way to the dungeon, then headed in for some fun. Back in the day, there’d be groups at every inch of the place – at the entrance, up the steps, on each pyramid, and many spots in the mazes beneath.
I was stunned to see actual other players in the zone, at least one of whom seemed to also be leveling. This… was a first. I’d seen players now and then in my travels, but they always seemed to be on their way somewhere else.
There’s plenty of quests given in books and other drops in the dungeon, but a gnome in a dead end in the maze gave me the Heart of Fear quest, a long quest that ends in the Sanctum of Fear instance. That seemed as good a way to have an excuse to work through the zone as any, so I worked through the quest. I got killed by a dragon, Venorax (?), that was resting in the temple. It was gone later. I hadn’t expected it to aggro me.
The Sanctum of Fear wasn’t a lot of fun. I died a few times, but managed to work through it and kill Fright, a terrorfiend pulled from the Plane of Fear.
This still left me a couple levels shy of fifty, but it was close enough that I could start thinking about starting my Prismatic weapon quest. But for that, I would probably need a friend.
Luckily, my boyfriend was an EQ2 player (we met in EQ2), and I was able to coerce him into logging in while I finished leveling to fifty in the Obelisk of Lost Souls and the Temple of Solusek Ro in Lavastorm.
Just skipping vast amounts of content on the way to fifty. Ordinarily I’d have spent days or weeks in Lavastorm. That’s no longer necessary – experience in the old world is at least four times faster than when the game launched, at least on normal public server. Other, special, servers are at or near the original leveling rate.
Turned out he needn’t have bothered. The fight to start the quest, which used to require a raid, was one I could have soloed. Still, having Hamal with me made the several trips through Solusek’s Eye to Nagafen’s Lair a lot easier.
Since I had another character on my account who already had done the “To Speak as a Dragon” quest to learn Draconic, I didn’t have to run around to every single old world dungeon looking for draconic runes (although that would have been fun in its own way, I guess).
What follows are several raid level mobs. I peeked into one of the instances, and yes, they are advertised as taking two to four groups to defeat. We’re going to try and see if they can be finished with two players and two mercenaries and one ragged-looking construct instead.
After that? I don’t know. I mostly started to remember how to play EverQuest 2. It had been years since I’d last played, and all my high level characters were in places I barely recalled. If I really wanted to play again, I’d have to go through the pain of finding a guild, gearing up and so on. I could boost my Channeler up, but I have never played with her in a group – there are no groups at this level – and really have no idea how to heal as one. My merc is so powerful and I have to do so little to keep her alive (the construct passively does quite a lot of work, and mostly I am just keeping the construct alive).
Since my characters are on the same server and account, I had my tailor making master crafted leather armor each tier, but that’s the extend of the twinking.
Once I get the prismatic weapon, I may just set the game aside again. Lots of people enjoy the solo play, but I always like chatting with friends while playing. EQ2 is just too lonely for me.