Journeys with Jaye

More Impressions of Sentinel’s Fate

It’s been a week, here are my thoughts so far about EQ2′s latest expansion:

-  10 years later, we still haven’t grown tired of jokes about “The Hole.”

Above: I don’t think, at this steep angle, that we should be sliding off.  What makes you think that?!

-  Quest items are killing me!  I’ve never been a fan of quest “stuff,” and this expansion seems to relish in sticking tons and tons of quest related items in my inventory.  I know we get bigger backpacks this expansion, but within the first two days, I was carrying around severed paws, rheumy eyeballs, idols of dartain, ghostly residuum, relics of paineel, three different leashes to capture creatures, and faction costumes.  On top of that, add in collectibles, status relics (several different kinds!), mystic stones, ethereal strands, meaty flesh bones, globes of water, lore and legend parts, adepts, and tradeskill recipes, and there’s basically no room for the fancy gear, weapons, and masters.  Pequin, a guildmate, won about a dozen rolls tonight with a full inventory, and seeing that red message over and over almost made me think we should coin a phrase – Need, Greed, or Pequin!

-  Leveling is refreshing (I can’t believe I’m saying that!) Dinging an AA is nothing like dinging a level.  The additional levels change how we’ve been playing the game for the past 2+ years.  Abilities, gear, skills, all need to be upgraded, and even more noteworthy, content from the past becomes much easier, it not trivial in some cases.  Those extra ten levels mean we get to go back and solo some horrible mob that gave us such fits in the past.  You know you love doing that.

Above:  The Vasty Deep.

-  For all the puzzle solving and challenges involved with completing TSO instances, there is a refreshing simplicity to the SF content I’ve experienced so far.  I’m not saying one is better than the other, but sometimes when you’ve done the kabuki dance a thousand times, it’s nice to veg out and do the sprinkler.  The sprinkler can get old, fast, however…

Above:  The Seal of the Underfoot.

-  Hooray for the Hole!  Yes, I know there were some less than savory things that people were doing in the Hole to speed level through to 90.  Yes, I know that there’s a good chance the zone runs the risk of being a disposable content ghost town by summer, once everyone has leveled to 90.  (Although that could be mitigated if the 30+ nameds share a couple of very rare and valuable items on their loot tables, like a Sentinel’s Fate version of the Runnyeye Cloak or Najena’s ring).  But right now, I’m having a great time in the Hole.  (Yep, insert joke here).

Above:  Yes, STO and Eve, we have our super cool star nebula, milky way, galaxy things too.  And our space ships are top-down convertibles, so warp this!

-  I love the fact that I can take a motley group to the Hole and get stuff done.  In TSO, a successful instance run often meant a very particular group set up, and as a result, the Holy Trinity was alive and well in EQ2.  So a group with a tank, healer, two rangers and two conjurors was unlikely.  I’ve heard the grumbling about the hole being too easy, but personally I prefer having the flexibility to bring good guildmates, and not have to worry about filling specific slots with specific classes.

-  I also love leveling by grinding mobs, rather than multitasking lots of little, piddly, quests.  I know I’m probably the only one left on the planet that feels that way, but I really don’t enjoy having quests drive my decisions on where to explore, what to kill, and when to leave.

-  I don’t get the whole costume/faction thing in the Hole, and I’ve read that it’s not even working properly, but any time I see a player run by me in the Gruengach illusion, I giggle.

Posted by jayernh under Uncategorized | Comments (2)