Ok so I realize I’m talking about EQ2 way too much but I really am loving this expansion… I keep thinking this is how EQ2 shoulda been at launch and can’t believe that one expansion can really change my perspective on the whole game. I went from being ok with the game to really and trully loving it. I hope that this continues.
So yesterday I made a trip to Antonica because I was starting to run out of quests to do in Greater Faydark and I also wanted to try to figure out how to get the teleport spells (turns out you need to be level 25). So this run includes a run through butcherblock in order to get to the boats which I can then use to get to go to the old world. I had gone to Butcherblock previously just quickly when I first got in the game to get a sense as to what each zone was like but that quick view didn’t do it justice.
The zone is again completely amazing. It is completely different from anything else in the game and it is huge. Again like Greater Faydark it is not onlyhorizontally large, it is vertically large. There is a dwarven NPC stronghold in the middle of the zone but you can also go up the mountain, in the mountain, over cliffs, etc… there is so much to explore. The mountains themselves are nothing short of awe inspiring… they felt grand… this is exactly what MMOs were made for.
I have hit level 20 since then and have returned to the new world and am now hunting in Butcherblock. The lowest thing in the zone is white to me but I have some quests here so this is where I am… The zone seems largely dominated by kobolds which I don’t think have been in the game before, though I could be wrong. I have never seen them before. I thought they always looked like goblins in most fiction, but in this game they look like strangely deformed gnolls… it is quite cool. I also saw on the way through that there were also gorillas in this zone! I don’t know why but that made me happy. I haven’t seen gorillas in an MMO since Ultima Online and for some reason that felt like such the coolest creature in that game (and walruses)… yet this is the first time since then and i am more than happy to see them again!
My happiness with the expansion continues.