The EverQuest updates have been pretty sparse since lately I’d only been watching the bazaar, looking for good deals on new equipment. I think I’ve milked it long enough though, so tonight I got back to some actual adventuring.

It was the Omens of War expansion’s turn, so I headed to Dranik’s Scar first, but it’s way too low-level and rather plain-looking. Connected to it is Noble’s Causeway, which was a bunch of long, winding paths with an upper and lower part. There were plenty of blue-con murkgliders there, and I charm-soloed them for a little while, but again they have the annoying stun immunity.

I moved on to Wall of Slaughter, a big circular area split in half by a wall in the middle, and a much better job at attempting to portray ominous architecture. My attempt to charm-solo some of the wanderers there ended horribly though, when I got overrun. There were just too many wanderers in that area, and of course they’re all stun-immune as well.

I couldn’t enter one connected zone, and the other led to the Muramite Proving Grounds, which was another maze of corridors that was filled with yellow and red cons, so that’s as deep as I dared go. I went back to WoS and got killed on another charm attempt thanks to them summoning, and I think that’s all I’ll try for now. I’m still missing my level 66-70 spells that drop here, though, so I may have to buy those on the bazaar.

I wound up going back to Halls of Honor and did some charm-soloing there for a while. It’s nice and easy compared to most other areas, and it didn’t take long to get 5 AAs there, though it gets dull after a while. I bought the last two points of Innate Enlightenment, and I’m still capped on INT, but it’s probably time to focus on other AAs for now, though. I also found an earring there that was a good upgrade for me and that must be a new item, since its stats are way too good for that era.

I briefly popped into EQ tonight and did a bit of charm soloing in Barundi, but it turned out to be another area where they’re immune to stuns and mitigate slows, and it wasn’t long before an unlucky charm break led to my demise again (I managed to earn 1 AA point, at least). I didn’t realize there was a zone line nearby that would have made things a lot safer, but I’m not sure I’d want to stick around there anyway.

I stuck my nose into the nearby Ferubi zone, but according to the map it was nothing but a huge series of corridors, and they could see through invis, so that place was right out. The other connected zone was Riwwi, which was another small hub of light blue monsters, and looped back around to Qinimi.

That’s really about it for how far into Gates of Discord I can get without a group or raid, and it’s just not a popular area anymore — it was the newest expansion area when I last played, but now it’s an “old” region that nobody goes to anymore. Barundi is about the only decent charm soloing spot in it, but it’s too much hassle for too little reward.

Next up will be the Omens of War areas, most likely. I’m not expecting any miracles though, since it’s really the other half of Gates of Discord.

Today I finally set off to explore more in EQ, and I figured I’d pick up where I left off a long time ago, in the Gates of Discord areas. There’s supposed to be a giant ship you can take from the Nedaria’s Landing zone, but after waiting a while I guessed that the boats are broken yet again and used the Magus nearby to teleport to it instead.

On the ship I discovered some quests for unlocking some expansion-specific parts of tradeskills, and went through the necessary intro steps for blacksmithing and jewelcrafting, but left it at that since it gets pretty tedious. I did spend a little while working on raising jewelcrafting a bit further, as apparently the cap has been raised to 300 now (was 250 before), and managed to gain 8 points. That cost me about a thousand plat in materials though, and I decided to leave it at that. There were some progression quests as well, but I’ll have to leave those for now since they all pretty much require groups or raids.

Moving on, the zone of Natimbi was next, but it’s pretty plain and there was hardly anything my level, just a bunch of grey, green, and light-blue monsters. Boring.

After that was Qinimi, which was sort of a fairly small hub zone connecting to a few others. Again, not much here of real interest to me, just a bunch of light-blue monsters.

And then after that I stuck my nose into Barindu, which had a much more consistent mix of blues and light blues. There was an annoyingly long corridor at the entrance, but it eventually opened up on the garden area below, and I think I’ll try fighting a bit here the next time I’m on.

I only spent a little time in EQ tonight, but it was still enough to earn 4 more AAs, despite dying once when an unlucky break had three monsters beating on me. I’ve bought up three levels of the INT-cap-raising skill, getting me nearly 300 more mana, and should probably start looking at other skills to focus on as well.

But first, I should explore a bit. It’ll get boring rather quickly if I just sit in Plane of Storms and solo the same frogs over and over again, and I might be better off somewhere else anyway. Looking through the guides to each expansion tells me how to get to all of the new zones, and I’ll try and see as many of them as possible. I don’t know how much I’ll actually be able to do in a lot of those older zones, though. A lot of them have progression steps, and there might not be enough people around those old zones to make going through the progression practical. Especially when most of the loot is obsoleted by the newest couple of expansions anyway.

But I should at least drop in and say hi…

Tonight’s session in EQ was the one in which I actually started killing things. But first, I had to stop off and pick up one of the new mercenaries, which essentially gave me an AI-controlled duoing partner. You can select either a tank or a healer, and there are five tiers of each type, each higher one costing more than the others (there’s a one-time hiring fee and an ongoing every-15-minute continuation fee), though it’s not really exactly clear what the differences are. I picked a tier III dwarven healer and headed out to the Planes.

The most effective way to solo as an enchanter is through charm soloing, which is simply charming an enemy and sending it against other enemies to do your killing for you. Of course it’s not quite as easy as that — the charm can be resisted, it’s of random duration and could break at a bad time and leave you dealing with two enemies after you, some enemies will summon you directly to them and beat you up anyway, dealing with caster types can be a pain, it can drain a lot of mana very quickly, etc…

I was never really all that great at charm soloing before, but tonight it almost felt too easy, even though I’m severely out of practice. The healer merc gave me the HP buffs I normally wouldn’t have, it kept me and the charmed critter topped up so that I didn’t have to worry about HPs being worn down, and she kept me alive during the charm breaks that took a while to bring under control again. The healer even kept me alive through a really bad fight where a summoning giant somehow drained all my mana away and I was frantically looking for that restore-to-full veteran ability while charm broke at the same time, and even if I had died, the merc would have given me a rez.

I even made 5 AA points in only 4 hours, just practicing on light blues and a handful of dark blues in the Nightmare, Disease, and Storms planes. That’s crazy-fast compared to the rate I remember getting them before. I’ll mainly be spending them on the AA skills that raise the stat caps for now, since I’m severely capped on INT and that’ll get me more mana fairly easily. Beyond that, I’ll have to do a bit of research on just what the useful new AA skills are.

Today I finally got back into EverQuest in earnest. I started out by actually creating a whole new character, a gnome magician, and taking him through the new tutorial. Nothing really new was revealed that way, but it did get me used to the controls again. After switching back to my enchanter, I then spent a while fine-tuning the controls and UI, setting up windows, setting hot keys, creating spell lists, etc. The setup I’d used before is long gone, and I doubt it would have done me any good anyway.

I also grabbed a few map packs from map collection sites and installed them. They’re not nearly as pretty as WoW’s, but they’re still pretty much essential.

Somebody asked in /ooc how to get to some zone I hadn’t heard of, and my curiosity was piqued, so I followed their directions and headed there myself (via a stone-activated portal in the guild hall), and wound up in a rather spooky-looking part of the Depths of Darkhollows areas. It was all dark and underground like the fungal caverns of Luclin, but populated by mind-flayer-like creatures and weird, twisty paths. I might have to come back later for leveling, since the enemies were blue to me.

Back in PoK, I ran across an old guildie friend and we chatted for a bit, and then it was off to the bazaar to see what was available. I was afraid of what inflation might have done to the market, but managed to pick up five pieces of defiant silk armour that boosted my stats considerably, for not too much money. My HP went from 4352 to 5030, my mana from 5756 to 6263, and a bunch of other stat and regen increases as well. I’ll have to keep checking back for other good pieces, especially as I (hopefully) sell off some of my own stuff. Update: And I wound up selling my LoN booster deck for 55k plat, which should get me off to a pretty good start.

Next up, I’m going to have to get one of those fancy new mercs and get practicing on my charm soloing…

I caved.

I felt the MMORPG itch, but instead of turning back to WoW, I fell back into the arms of an old friend — EverQuest. I’d been meaning to give it one more shot for a long time now, so I caught up to the latest expansion tonight, logged in, and…I have no idea what I’m doing.

The problem is that it’s been almost five years since I last seriously played it. I have no idea what zones are new, what new features have been added, where the good leveling spots are now, how to get back into the old rhythm of play, who I should be looking for for good groups, what “obvious” things I should be configuring and setting up, where to get some good new equipment…

Fortunately I’ve found a few resources that should help: the EQSummoners’ Returning To EQ FAQ, Allakhazam’s expansion guides, and even the old enchanter forum is still around.

Looks like I’ve got a bit of reading and preparation to do… So far I’ve just taken my monk out of the zone he was in and back to the Plane of Knowledge, and just trying to remember what the available skills are and how to avoid aggro while traveling around was an adventure in itself, as well as getting lost in Blackburrow along the way.

I popped into EQ again tonight, but only to do a bit of shopping. Most of the good items in the bazaar were well out of my price range, since I haven’t exactly been earning much money lately, but there were a few lucky bargains. For just over 1000 plat out of the 8000 total I had, I managed to replace four of my weakest pieces of armour, for a net increase of 350 HP (a 13% increase), 282 mana, 21 AC, 15 INT, and 20 charisma. Unfortunately I’m capped on INT at the moment and will need to earn some more AA points before I can unlock a higher cap and actually use those extra points…

There’s a promotion going on now where returning EQ and EQ2 players can play for free for the next couple months (and trial accounts too, from the sounds of it), and I figured I may as well pop back into it for a bit.

I sold off some junk I was carrying around, and decided I may as well finally get around to processing the claimable items and veteran rewards I’d been accumulating. You get them for purchasing expansions or subscribing for a certain number of years, but I’d never gotten around to actually assigning them to a character, since I wasn’t sure if maybe I’d want them on an alt or something. I finally just stuck the major ones on my main enchanter, though of all of them, the only really important one is a self-resurrect ability. It’s only usable once a week, but it still means having to go begging for a res less often.

I also got a taste of just how out-of-date my gear is. Compare my current gloves on the left with the pair on the right that were being offered in trade chat (click for big):

I visited a few old places, and Qeynos was the same as ever and I was the only person there. I went on over to Erud’s Crossing, where I discovered that the Kerrans on the island there had somehow shrunk over the years…

Firiona Vie and Karnor’s Castle were also the same, though I was a bit surprised to find some people actually in Karnor’s. Freeport is a radically different city now, having been redone a few years back, but I don’t think it’s for the better. It’s too big and twisty now, and the graphics aren’t really *that* much better, with way too many perfectly flat surfaces and angles still (the rock texture looks really fake when you get closer).

And just for kicks, I took the boat to the Ocean of Tears, which has apparently also been redone. The boat’s a lot faster now, too.

I missed most of the later expansions, so I’m sure a lot of new zones have been added. Looking at the atlas, I can see the Buried Sea zones off of Toxx Forest, a bunch of new ones in Northern Antonica, off of Crescent Reach, a bunch off of the Lavastorm Mountains, a small handful in Faydwer, a couple in the southeast of Antonica, off the desert, and a bunch of new Planes, which will almost certainly be too high level for me.

Maybe I’ll get around to checking out some of those new zones, as soon as I figure out which ones are within my level range. And maybe I’ll go revisit a bunch of the older zones and put together a little travelogue of nostalgia…