Whispers And Shadows

Shadows of Luclin is one of my favorite EverQuest expansions. Blood of Luclin is one of my favorite EverQuest II expansions. Luclin is my main EQ server. I've been Team Luclin for quite a while.

I don't believe I've ever met the goddess Luclin herself before, though, face to face. 

I have now.

The EverQuest games are hardly exemplars of good writing, even good genre writing. The plots meander and sprawl and mostly make no sense. The characters have names that can barely be read, let alone pronounced. Try saying Ssraeshza without swallowing your front teeth.

The dialog swings wildly between overblown hippy twaddle that would embarass even Jon Anderson and anachronistic slang that sounds suspiciously like someone got their teenage kid to write it. No-one could possibly take any of this preposterous stuff seriously.

And yet it works. It just does. If you've been playing the games for as long as I have, anyway. 

The latest Game Update (#117 if you're keeping count. Looks as though the expansion was #116)  brings the two-year Luclin storyline to a conclusion that I found quite unreasonably satisfying, even after the multiple problems I had getting started. I was expecting a letter or some other form of lead-in to the new Signature quest but no, there's nothing.

To save anyone else the trouble I had, all you need to do is go to Shar Vhal and speak to Head Scholar Nabihan. It is in the patch notes... right at the very end. The problem is, right at the very start of the self-same notes it tells you to "Travel across Shadeweaver's Thicket to the citadel of Vex Thal". 

Don't do that. You'll only have to come back.

 

There's some good stuff in the update other than the questline, including a bunch of class revamps that appear to buff a number of melee classes quite significantly. There are a host of quality of life improvements, the best of which to my mind is the updating of the Fast Travel map to add a number of very welcome locations:

• Obol Plains
• Tranquil Sea
• Phantom Sea
• Thalumbra
• Zek, the Scourge Wastes
• Obulus Frontier
• City of Fordel Midst [Luclin]
• The Blinding [Luclin]

Then there's the third Overseer Season, which takes us to the Kingdom of Sky, making me wonder if the plan is to go through all the expansions in order, something that, at the rate we're going, could take longer than the game might be around. I'd give chapter and verse on the new season only it involves levelling up your Overseer account before you gain access to any of the new quests, traits, agents or rewards and at the rate it's going I estimate I won't open the new content for a week or more. 

To start the new Signature quest you do, of course, need to have completed the one that came with Reign of Shadows. At first, when I couldn't find the questgiver, I wondered if perhaps I hadn't done that. It seems a ridiculously long time ago that I was working on it. Much, much more than a mere three months.

Once I got myself sorted out it turned out I had finished it. (I knew I had, really, but doubt creeps in). Nabihan brought me back up to date and off to Vex Thal we went.

Probably might want to skip this next part if you plan on doing it yourself. It's a bit spoilery.

 

It's a simple enough adventure, solo. It all takes place in a new zone, Oscuris, the Plane of Shadows. The small area we get to see is little more than a series of platforms hanging in the void but it's a haunting, rather lovely place. Dark, as you'd expect, but luscious with it.

None of the fights were particularly hard although one sub-boss did take me from almost full health to a couple of percent in what felt like a single hit. And I had almost a billion hit points at the time.

I've heard numerous reports since the expansion landed about soloists having terrible problems with their mercenaries not being able to keep up with the healing like they used to but I have to say I've seen none of it. Zel`Kriaz, my merc of choice, hasn't let me drop any more than he ever did and, as I mentioned a while back, he seems to have gotten a lot better at remembering to rez me when he does. 

There were no rezzes needed this time. All the bosses seemed to be tank and spank, which was just as well because there as yet no walkthroughs or guides available. The quest content wasn't in the beta for reasons of keeping the story reveals under wraps, which might explain it, although I've noticed the once-exemplary record-keeping at the wiki has tapered off somewhat since RoS.

When I got to the final room and stood facing Emperor Ssraeshza himself and realized he was rated Epic 2X I was a little taken aback but then I remembered that's something the devs like to do in solos nowadays. I set about him with my greatsword and... he ignored me.

It took me a while to figure out why. I thought I'd been following the plot but I'd missed the part where it says only a Phantastic weapon can damage him. It doesn't mention he'll completely ignore you as though you aren't even there if you don't have one but he will.

 

After a good, long search through my bags I found I did have one after all. A Phantastic Gaffi. Whatever that is. It looks like a lump of rock tied to a stick.

One thing it wasn't was adorned. And it was a one-hander. My berserker's been using a two-hander for years.

I ended up having to leave the instance to go first to the bank, then to the Panda vendor and finally to the box on the floor in the Nexus just so I could scrounge up a shield and enough adorns for both of them. It does break the flow when you have to make your excuses to the arch-villain and ask if he wouldn't mind waiting while you go sort yourself out before the battle begins.

It also doesn't help when something you can neither see nor hit keeps attacking you while said arch-villain monologues at interminable length. It was the big climax and there was even voice acting but I can't tell you if it was any good because I couldn't hear much of it over the crashing and banging. I think the Godslayer has an American accent, though, if that helps set the mood.

Even when he was finished and the Goddess Luclin burst out of his slumped body like a dark Marilyn Monroe out of an evil birthday cake, something was still trying to bite me. It stopped as soon as she started talking so I think that part might have been intentional. Maybe it all was. Who knows?

 

And who cares, really? Despite all the things that went wrong, I loved it. It's Luclin, ffs! It's Luclin and she's talking to me!

She was pleasant enough, too, but she did make it quite clear I probably shouldn't come back. So I took a couple of selfies with her before I left. Who knows if I'll ever get another chance?

It's all a load of nonsense but it works for me. Or on me. I thought it was a pretty solid ending to a pretty solid story. That's Luclin (the moon, I mean) done with now, I'd imagine. Next expansion (always assuming there is one) I'd expect to be heading somewhere new.

Meanwhile, there's a new mission in the update I'll have to get to sooner or later: Vex Thal: Den of Shadows. It's the one from the top of the patch notes. I still don't think they really made that clear...

The reward for completing the Signature line, by the way, is a Mythical quality cloak. It hugely upgraded the Ethereal one I had from last summer, although I hadn't fully upgraded that one. The gear ladder in EQII is pretty much a gear sheer cliff face these days, which has its up sides. If you miss out on something that looks unmissable, just wait a couple of months. Something better will come along.

Looking at you, Overseer Season 3.

What's Old Is New Again : EverQuest

As a rule, I don't find all that much to complain about in EverQuest these days. Over the long years since I began playing, back at the death of the 20th Century, many of the wrinkles have been smoothed out and I like that. As much as I enjoyed the "up hill both ways in the snow" gameplay of 1999, I prefer the modern version. Coming back yet again after another break of six months or so I noticed a couple of improvements that had slipped under my radar.

Time Stands Still In Plane of Knowledge

Ever since the Guild Lobby was introduced with the Dragons of Norrath expansion in 2005 players have gathered there by the score because that's where time stands still.  If you go afk in the Lobby all your buffs will be in exactly that the same state of decay when you return as when you left. What's more, if you stand around running your idling animations for long enough you can guarantee some generous max-levels will spray MGBs all over you - and that's a good thing.

MGB means Mass Group Buffs - and retinal scarring.

The huge conglomeration of players, pets and mercs huddled in the center of the Lobby has long been known as the Lag pile for obvious reasons. As this thread suggests its not seen as a social activity by everyone but I've always appreciated it.

One thing I hadn't noticed until yesterday is that the temporal stasis effect now extends to both Plane of Knowledge and The Bazaar. I don't know when this change happened but it's incredibly convenient and most welcome. Being able to wander around PoK and go shopping in The Bazaar without having to worry about losing buffage or needing to swap to a "shopping" character is wonderful.

Tunes For A New Moon 

Zoning into The Bazaar yesterday afternoon I was immediately aware of something whose wonderfulness was somewhat less certain: the new zone music. It was so striking that I tabbed out right away to google what had happened.

It seems that when the Shadows of Luclin expansion was released SOE simply forgot to include most of the music files. I know, right? You'd think someone might have noticed but I must have played for many hundreds of hours all across Norrath's ill-fated moon and I can't honestly say it ever occured to me to wonder why there was no orchestra accompanying my adventures.

You'd think she'd notice the lack of music with ears like that...

Dev Dzarn explains on the forums

Previously unreleased music for every Shadows of Luclin zone was recently unearthed from a dangerous trek through the studio archives. These musical pieces will now play when adventuring on Norrath's most cat-filled Moon.

So far I've only heard the music in The Bazaar, which the OP of the thread describes as "elevator music". That's a tad harsh but it certainly is on the jazz-lite end of the musical spectrum. I think whoever composed it might have been taking the "shopping mall" aspect of the zone somewhat too much to heart.

I look forward to exploring the new lunar musical assets at some future date. Right now I have a much more important discovery to unpick.

Gateway to adventure.

Get 'Em While They're Hot Zones

In another unexpected and very welcome evolution for this venerable game, DBG have revamped the way Hot Zones work. This happened back in April but news about EQ is hard to come by when you're not actively playing and I missed it.

It would have been sufficient news in itself to get me to log in again had I known but instead it came as a very pleasant surprise when I spoke to Franklin Teek a few days ago. I took his daily tasks for Levels 75, 80 and 85 and for the first time in many years he didn't ask me to go to Bloodfields or Oceangreen Hills.

Being a little out of practice I decided to start at the easy end with the Level 75 task. That turned out to be a great choice. Not only is Jewel of Atiiki a lovely zone to spend time in - light, airy, relaxing - but the mobs there are perfectly spaced for soloing and exactly the right difficulty level. What's more, with the Hot Zone bonus the xp ticks over nicely, at least by the standards of the late 80s.

I do like a nice, wide corridor.

 
 The Hollow World

Of my few complaints concerning latter-day EQ, near the top of the list would be overly dark zones. I am just about fed up of hunting in gloomy, overcast areas where it always rains and everything is green and brown. My favorite memories of Norrath are of the bright blue waters and glowing yellow sands of Oasis and the Deserts of Ro or the wide open plains and endless skies of the Karanas, not the murky hollows of Hills of Shade.

It was with surprise and delight, then, that I arrived in one of the many zones I've never before visited, Jewel of Atiiki, to find myself in an analog of ancient Egypt. Pyramids, sphinxes, efreeti, palm trees and...gorillas?

The zone is part of The Buried Sea expansion, which is one I have dabbled in before but never fully explored. I had no idea it went from Pirates to Pharaohs. I spent a couple of very happy hours there exploring the pyramids before getting down to the job in hand - finding and killing my five gorillas.

Now that is indoors, I'll  grant you.

Ironically, given the bright sunlight and clear skies, the entire expansion takes place deep underground. It's magic, I expect, although it must be mostly illusion, because although it might look like the wide open spaces down there, apparently it still counts as indoors and you can't ride mounts "indoors".

It meant I couldn't use the new mount I got from opening Legends of Norrath packs, which in turn meant I occasionally needed to take an old school sit and med break. Never mind. That's a small price to pay for being able to see what I'm doing for once.

Onwards And Upwards

With this great new hunting ground I'm confident of reaching level 90 at last. I made over 10% of level 89 yesterday, which feels as good as finishing a full level in most other MMOs. Where to go after that I'm not sure but I expect Franklin Teek will tell me.

Given the age of the game it's very encouraging indeed to see just how much work is still being done on it. Those Hot Zones had languished under SOE for so long that most people probably thought they'd never change again. Of course, most of the commenters in the thread seem to wish they hadn't changed even now, but that's EQ players for you.

Look at me, Ma! Top of the pyramid!

New Blood, Old Blood

There's change afoot out of the game, too. The most prominently reported of the recent bout of hires at DBG was the recruitment of Cryptic's Jack Emmet to be CEO of Daybreak's Austin studio, responsible for DCUO. Of more interest to me was the re-hiring of Ngreth, husband of EQ2Traders' Niami Denmother and longtime tradeskill dev for EverQuest.

For once the forum response was almost entirely enthusiastic. Ngreth, like Domino over at EQ2, has long had the respect of the players, crafters and adventurers alike. As I was pondering yesterday, Columbus Nova's plans are hard to fathom but the signs and portents continue to read very favorably from where I'm looking at them.

So, I'm back in EverQuest for yet another run. I will get my Mage to 90, which will allow her to upgrade the gear she got as part of the level 85 boost, all of which she is still wearing. How much further I can take her, solo, I'm not sure. The level cap now stands at 105. With the added incentive of some attractive new maps to explore I just might be able to make a dent in that before it recedes even further out of reach.

As always it will be fun trying.

The Whole Of The Moon : EQ2

I had a whole long, serious post about MMO payment models nearly finished but stuff that!

Someone mended Luclin!

I was flipping through Feedly after work when I saw EQ2Wire had the latest patch notes for EQ2. The first entry was something about Moonlight Enchantments. That might interest Mrs Bhagpuss, I thought. Must remember to tell her when she gets home.

Then I came to the the second entry...

"With Kerafyrm’s defeat, Freeport and Qeynos have finally broken the Awakened siege, and Luclin – now whole – shines brightly in the skies."

As Antonia Bayle's Bit On The Side (great handle!) says in the first comment - Wait! What?

"Now whole" ?!

I had absolutely no idea this was coming. Unlike many longtime EQ players, I loved the Shadows of Luclin expansion. I was Not Happy (although I was very excited) when Norrath's first moon was destroyed as part of the lead-in to the launch of EQ2.

I've always hoped and halfway expected that, one day, we'd get to visit to the remnants we've watched glower like a livid scar across the skies of Norrath ever since. I never, not for one moment, considered the possibility that Luclin might be restored.

If anyone wants an example of how MMOs can change and grow without making a song and dance about it, this is it. This is how it's done. No big PR push. No cinematics. No hype on social media. No warning at all. Just log in one day and there it is - the moon on a stick.

Of course it won't have come as a shock to everyone. The refurbishment of Luclin represents the culmination of the high-end storyline of the previous expansion, not to mention the underlying narrative of the last decade and more. You don't just drop something like that in as an afterthought.

If you're on the ball you'll have done the two-group raid that was added in the Age's End update earlier this month, where you get to see how it was done. I'll probably have to watch that on YouTube. Oh, wait, what's this in the patch notes...

"YouTube integration has been removed due to incompatibilities with Google’s API updates. Options are being explored to return video functionality". D'oh!

You don't have to be an end-game raider to stumble on a harbinger of things to come though. You just need to watch where you're going once in a while. As I was running through the the undead orc lands above the Commonlands dock, trying to get an angle on the new moon, something caught my eye.

Just a rabbit.

Hang on a minute...this is Norrath not Tyria. We don't have floppy bunnies lolloping across the bleached desert sands outside Freeport. Snow bunnies in Velious, those we have. Or had.

We especially don't have huge, plump rabbits that make eye contact, lock their gaze on you, turn when you turn and sit up on their haunches, drumming their great, fat, furry back feet with an audible thump.

Well, we do now. Whether we've had them since the first bunny mounts appeared for Easter or whether they've arrived in anticipation of the new bunny mounts due after the expansion I'm not sure. It's the first time I've seen one though.

Either way, this is how you get someone's interest. Okay, it's how you get my interest. And my loyalty. And my word of mouth. And my money.

Roll on November!

Never Coming Back: Beastlords in EQ2

I know the Very Thing to go here. And no, they're never coming back.

According to Smokejumper's somewhat garbled interview, helpfully summarized by Feldon at EQ2Wire, both the expansion that brings back Beastlords and the Game Update that ruins revamps Freeport will go to closed Beta (from Friends and Family Beta presumably) on Tuesday November 8th. I'm as excited about one as I'm nervous about the other.

I have an affinity for pet classes that long pre-dates MMOs. The first time I ran into the idea was back in the very early '80s in a tabletop RPG called Dragonquest, a quirky ruleset that offered an unusual choice of career paths. I didn't much fancy Military Scientist, Astrologer or Courtesan but I liked the sound of Beast Master. It reminded me of Daniel P Mannix with attitude (if Mannix didn't already have more than enough attitude to be going on with).

Oh sorry! Was he yours?

I loved the catching and taming part but almost immediately I ran into a fundamental design flaw. Should have spotted it earlier, really, given that it was quite literally part of the Beast Master's job description: "A Beast Master will, in almost all cases, become very fond of animals". All too true as I found out when I was repeatedly required to bury the dead after ordering my furry friends to fight monsters much bigger and tougher than they were.


Several dead pets into our group's campaign it became apparent that a Beast Master who was a) rapidly running out of beasts that took months to train and b) increasingly reluctant to allow any of the few he had left to take any risks whatsoever in case "something bad" happened to them, was going to be of limited use outside of a petting zoo. I re-rolled as something less emo and that was about the last I thought of pet classes until I stepped into Norrath some fifteen years later.

We don't do "cute"

For a good while "pet class" in Everquest meant someone who raised the dead or animated rocks. This had two big advantages over the Beast Master, namely that skeletons and earth elementals cannot strictly be called "cuddly" and that if they "die" you just raise or animate a new one. Nothing to bury, nothing to mourn.


Shamans did have a pet that looked like a wolf, but it turned out to be a spirit. It looked cuddly but your hand would just go right through. You couldn't rest a pint on his back like I used to do with the landlord's labrador in a pub where I used to drink. We were close, but we weren't quite there. We'd dealt with the downside but something was still missing. Then came the beastlord.

I arrived late on Luclin, Norrath's doomed moon. We were off playing something else at the time, Dark Age of Camelot probably, so I missed the birth of the Beastlord. When we returned, though, I made a Vah Shir Beastlord immediately. A tiger-girl with a tiger pet? Come on!

I took to the class right away. It had all the things I'd always wanted in a pet class: a really powerful pet that would fight beside me, not a weak creature I'd need to protect nor a living wall I'd hide behind. My warder and I stood hip to shoulder as we fought, falling back or surging forward to support and sustain each other as Shissars hissed or Akhevans made that weird chittering noise they make before they fell to our claws.

What have I told you about claws in town?

My beastlord ended up being the Everquest character I played most over the years. She's my highest level still, beached at 84th. I could understand, though, why Beastlords were lost when Luclin exploded. In many ways they were too powerful, too versatile. Just too damn good. Once you've played a beastlord it's hard to settle for less. The balancing issues that beastlords brought had ripped through Everquest for years and since EQ2 seemed to have "avoiding anything that gave us trouble in EQ1" as its core design brief it must have been an opportunity too tempting to resist. Although Blizzard seemed willing to take the risk when they added the Hunter class to WoW. Wonder how that worked out for them...

For many years Beastlord became the class that dare not say its name. They all died on Luclin. Every last one. They're never coming back. Except they are. Next Tuesday in beta and, with luck and a following wind, by the end of the month for the rest of us. There'll probably be five thousand new beastlords in Freeport on the first day and I'll be one of them. And I'll be keeping a diary.