I finished my “one character of each armor type” and “exploring all of the starter zones” experiment in EQ2 and it was a really fun way to spend my gaming time during my holidays. Oddly enough, the Dirge ended up two levels higher than the other characters by the time he had finished Timorous Deep – I am not sure if I missed side quests in other others or not – but each ended up in their main city in an Inn room, with their items placed. They all now have a home and I can continue the journeys (of one or more) knowing that I was fair to them. Odd that I feel the need to treat my online characters with care. Oddly enough – they all have quests pointing them to Butcherblock. Is there a single, recommended path on the way forward through that Zone? Do the four starters funnel into it? (this makes me curious if the leveling experience becomes less varied). I did read of a “golden path” quest line once you hit mid thirties, and Butcherblock goes to 35. Perhaps there is just the one path. I hope there isn’t, because I did enjoy the differences in getting my stable of characters through the varied and interesting zones. Technically, there is still the “original” levelling experience through Freeport and Qeynos. I say “technically because I am unsure if that has been updated to be as smooth as the others.
The best housing haul (housing items just from questing) hands down goes to the Dark Elves. Look above, all of those things were just from running the starting area. Weird though, the outdoor tent and other items feel very “outdoor prestige zone. Compare that to the haul of the Dirge, below:
Four books, a steam machine, and a trophy. Seems like a rip off compared to the Dark Elves, but then again – the DE are probably far more pompous, right?
While it is fresh in my memory, I have different impressions of all of the starter zones. I have different rankings of the four zones for different qualifiers. For example, in terms of story, I would probably rank:
Frostfang Sea – Darklight Woods – Timorous Deep – Greater Faydark
Smoothness of the questing experience (lack of backtracking, easy to navigate, etc) would be in this order:
Greater Faydark – Timorous Deep – Frostfang Sea – Darklight Woods
Housing Items received would be:
Darklight Woods – Frostfang Sea – Greater Faydark – Timorous Deep
Gear Quality received would be:
Timorous Deep – Darklight Woods – Frostfang Sea – Greater Faydark
All of those are very subjective, of course. Just how I felt. I didn’t add up the gear levels or quality. Each had varying named bosses to fight (which I always did when i found them) and those bosses could drop a boring old treasure chest, up to an Ornate one – which had superior loot. That was the luck of the draw.
Since all roads lead to Butcherblock it’s an easy next step. I am still a bit torn on the Paladin or Coercer for this next leg of the journey, but am going to start with the Coercer and see how it goes. I am excited to see what happens next.
On a side note – I hope there is a “shared house” option for your characters and alts where they can all decorate their own rooms and areas and share them all. That really is my hope as I suspect at least two will not see much play as I do want to “catch up” to modern EQ2 eventually – and a little focus will help there. I also have my year in review posts to finish, so experiences with DDO, and my year looking forward posts to complete. I see a lot of blogging to start the year but none of it will be very timely. Whatever inspires me to write will be the subject matter. Also looking for suggestions on best way to give Daybreak some money, they deserve it! I am sure their purchase options will be as interesting and opaque as many of their in game systems. I mean that in a good way.
I am glad to have taken the jump in EQ2, it has been a nice experience.
Very quick reply before work – I’ll try to come back later with a bit more detail. Yes, you are on the Golden Path. It’s a guided questline that was added to give people who need it a definite route to follow while leveling. If you take it you will end up covering the same content wherever you started, obviously.
You don’t have to follow it and you have lots of other choices of places to level and quests to do. You could go to Nektulos Forest or Thundering Steppes instead of BB. You could level in dungeons like Wailing Caves and Fallen Gate. You could do the Adventure pack content in the Bloodline Chronicles or Splitpaw Saga. You could probably level all four characters to around 90 without duplicating too much content. After 90 it does channel into more of a single path.
That said, the Golden Path is designed to give you the best loot.
As for housing, you can set permissions to allow all your characters full control over each house they own. But now i have to go to work!
Good to know. The information I have been finding online is spotty at best, and outdated at worst. Good to know I can do different things and they can take a different path. And thanks, I did just find the Trustee option on the housing tab. Which means more hours spent designing home fronts =) A strange family that will be!
There’s quite a lot of good information available for EQ2. The wiki is extremely well-curated and up-to-date and Zam, although it no longer covers new content, has exhaustive coverage of everything up to a couple of years back. There’s also The EQ2 Library, which is invaluable for detailed explanations of the latest mechanics.
If you feel like stepping off The Golden Path but you still want some kind of structure, all you really need to do is look at the Soloing Timeline on the wiki http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Soloing_Timeline . You can see from that how many choices you have at each level. Each of those Timelines is a lengthy series of linked quests. If you want to go completely off piste then just use the Zones By Level chart and go wherever the fancy takes you.
From Level 20 you can also, in theory, adventure in a wide range of “Level Agnostic” dungeons up to the 90s or so. These allow players of all levels to group together and get xp and appropriate-level loot. I have never tried it though and I’m not very clear on how it works.
Have you got access to Mercenaries, by the way? You either have to own the Age of Discovery expansion or buy the Mercenary Feature from the Daybreak Store. I’d suggest that, if you want to send some money DBG’s way as you said, buying some Daybreak Cash and spending 1500DC on opening Mercs would be an excellent way to do it.
With a Merc you can start thinking about soloing dungeons and that’s fun!
Sorry – forgot to include the Zones by Level link : http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Zones_By_Level
This was visual and amazing!
I had a veteran reward for access to two special mercs – havent bothered checking that yet though!