EverQuest

This is part four of a four part playthrough of the 2004 PlayStation 2 hit, Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest. All four parts will be available at this link. As Pelys’ blast from the Horn of Ill Omen sends us hurtling through planar barriers, Firiona Vie contacts us once again to tell us just how very close we are to rescuing her. She calls us her champion, and says that win against Innoruuk or lose to him, this new age will become called the Age of Hate. ...

This is part three of a four part playthrough of the 2005 PlayStation 2 hit, Champions of Norrath: Realms of EverQuest. All four parts will be available at this link. Before we get started, I’m just going to put my notes up here. I’ve been trying to fit the geography of this game to the known geography of Norrath. Remember, we know what the whole of Norrath looks like, as we see it entire from the moon of Luclin in that expansion. There are no lost continents. This game came out during the time of EverQuest’s ninth expansion. Kunark, Velious, and Luclin were old expansions at that point. ...

I vahnt your cleecks We left off with King Leithkorias of Kelethin ordering us to follow the Black Scroll (a map that could not be understood by even the great Mayong Mistmoore) to the Underworld and there confront the orc commander that was fomenting so much Unrest (heh heh) in Faydwer. (In EverQuest, the subterranean realm is known as Underfoot, not Underworld, in another of the puzzling lore issues that should have been fixed.) ...

My post yesterday made me want to play EverQuest again. But one of the last things I want to do in gaming, is to play EverQuest again. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. In order to play either EQ1 or EQ2, I’d have to get really deep into it, and for a long time, because neither EverQuest is a game you play lightly or casually. I’ve done my time and waited out my parole. I did say I would be first in line for a new EverQuest and I wasn’t lying. I’ll dive deep into the next one to come out (and maybe that will be Pantheon, though with Aradune’s death, who knows if non-streamers will ever be allowed to play it?) ...

Before you start objecting to having an MMO up this far, I’m just going to present my bona fides: There’s a TON of games in the EverQuest series, and I’ve played most of them. EverQuest itself, obviously. EverQuest Online Adventures for the PS2? I have it. Champions of Norrath and its sequel, Champions: Return to Arms (which admittedly, did away with the EverQuest branding on its packaging)? I have them. Lords of Norrath, the RTS? Have it, played it. EverQuest pencil-and-paper RPG? Have it, ran a campaign in it as DM. EverQuest 2? Please. Landmark? Paid the hundred bucks, played it. ...

Tell me can I be your honey be, be strong... Every few years, I wonder whatever became of EQ Next. It was going to change the face of MMO gaming. Mobs that reacted to over-hunting or being left alone to become a bigger problem. Emergent events. A fully destructible world. All the old lore tossed away for bright shiny new lore. Simple control scheme for console play, but depth for PC players. ...

I can’t accept any kind of nostalgia server, like Ragefire or Lockjaw, while the Commonlands and Freeport are in such sad shape. Of all the things I did not like about the Prophecy of Ro expansion, I liked the “upgrades” to Freeport the least. Taking the advice of the more experienced, I snuck – sloooowly – through Kithicor, ran madly to the East Commonlands tunnel, and then snuck once again through North Ro to the newbie fields outside the Freeport NRo gate, working my way up to level 3. I wasn’t the only one hunting armadillos, but I got a few, enough to end up with a couple plat. That was money enough to go merchant diving for some tattered leather armor and a rusty spear – TOTES UPGRADES! ...

With the opening of the new Lockjaw progression server, life on Ragefire settled down enough for me to log in at prime time, and even find, eventually, all the moss snakes (who no longer seem to kick much, darn it) and black wolves I could want to destroy. After an hour of grinding, and thanks to a buff cast on me by a passing cleric, I made it a little bit into level 2. Couldn’t afford any upgrades… couldn’t afford to craft, either. ...

Tipa stabs again. I can’t even recall how long it’s been since I made Tipa v1.0. I do remember that I twinked her with a lot of Rygorr armor from the orc fort in Velious, so that was probably the timeframe. She was my sixth character, I think? Mehve the Erudite Wizard, Etha the Halfling Druid, Tsuki the Gnome Mage, Nashuya the Dark Elf Shadowknight, Nina the Halfling Fighter, and then Tipa. ...

Just for verisimilitude’s sake, I ran through the “Plight of the Undead” Befallen quest in actual EverQuest to get tips and pointers and you know what, I think my version of the quest is going to be better. The original quest really, really wants you to jump into the well and then work your way back up, fighting the quest NPCs plus all the other random Befallen trash. I really, really don’t want people to jump down the well (or at least, not live to regret it if they do). My fear is that players will jump in the well, kill all the uber mobs I’m going to put there, run around, kill Rethkan, and be done with it in five minutes. On the other hand, I want to leave that as an option. ...