The game also has more events than fit comfortably on the in-game calendar, with two or occasionally even more sometimes overlapping. If it hadn't been for a short news item on MassivelyOP, I might well have missed two of them just this week.
One wouldn't have been too much of a loss. The Heroes' Festival is a short, very enjoyable celebration that rolls around this time every year. It's the annual birthday celebration for the game itself, which turns nineteen this month. The centerpiece is the Mischeva's Clothworks event, during which a "strange woman and her band of play-actors" appear in various zones to put on a kind of mummery involving giant, patchwork puppets in the shape of infamous boss mobs like the dragon Trakanon or Roehn Theer aka "The Godslayer".
The event was one of EQII's early attempts at Public Quests, glorious all-pile-on affairs where anyone of any level can join in, always provided they can get there alive and manage not to stand in any AEs. The big attraction of this one for anyone under max level is safety; all the fights happen close to a portal, making access relatively straightforward but more importantly, crucially indeed, the Clothwork bosses don't fight back.
The downside is it can take forever to chip away at their vast mountain of hit points, especially if not enough people turn up. Even after all these years, though, many of the performances are well-attended. I haven't done one yet this year but as I was playing last night - and again this morning, in what would have been the dead hours of the middle of the night for the vast majority of players on my US server - I heard the usual call-outs for more people to go help bring them down.
There are plenty of other things to do in the Festival besides bash a patchwork dragon but I've done all of them quite a few times already and I don't feel much motivated to go round again. It's a short event, lasting just over a week. It finishes this year on the seventeenth, so there's still time to do everything if you're interested. There's one new quest, which once again is more of a collection. I'll get that done but it'll probably me my lot for this year.
I might possibly take Mitsu, who's only in the sixties, to some of the clothwork events. The armor and
weapons you can buy with the event currency used to be very good for levelling
characters but these days there are better options and anyway, who even levels any
more? Doesn't everyone just pop a max level potion?
Well, it's funny you should mention it but clearly someone at Darkpaw knows something I don't. (Quiet at the back!) As well as the Heroes' Festival, this week also sees another event I didn't realise was a thing in EQII: Extra Life Bonus Week.
I know all about Extra Life, the annual event that raises money for local children's hospitals across the United States. I just didn't realise we got in-game bonuses because of it.
And what bonuses! In celebration of Darkpaw's stellar success in fund-raising this year (They smashed the target they set themselves and currently stand second on the Team Leaderboard (Yes, there's a leaderboard...) to the folks from Magic: The Gathering.) EQII players are getting
- 250% bonus experience
- 40% increased rare drop chance
- Double currency rewards
- Double loot drops in current expansions
- 20% chance to drop an additional rare (on top of normal drops)
Those are some very generous percentages. So generous, in fact, I couldn't resist them, especially that super-juicy 250% to regular XP. The bonus event only lasts until 7am PST on November 14, but that ought to give me time to get my last few remaining major characters to the 125 cap in both Adventure and Tradeskill (Yes, it does appear the 250% bonus applies to crafting, which is highly significant. I haven't actually tested it but I did mouseover the Tradeskill XP bar and the bonus showed up so it looks legit.)
So much for the issue of knowing what's happening before it's already happened. This is where we come to the part about how tough it can be to keep up in the game itself.
Looking to get some value out of those bonuses, my first thought was to check all my characters to see who wasn't at the cap yet. I have about half a dozen characters I try to keep up to date and I've generally been pretty good about it, especially since level increases started happening only with every other expansion. It's been almost two years since the cap moved to 125 so I don't really have much of an excuse for falling behind.
And yet I have. When I checked I found I only had four of my Skyfire team of eight at the Adventure cap. That's not as bad as it sounds. I only really consider six of the eight active team members so I only have two of those to finish off and they're both at the previous cap of 120, so it shouldn't take long, right?
Yeah, you'd think. With a 250% XP bonus, full vitality, an 80% Veteran Bonus and an XP potion running, that gives me a massive 530% boost, always assuming they all stack. Which would be great if I could do the quests!
I'm so used to doing expansions as they come out, with characters whose spells I've upgraded and who are wearing all the right gear, that I forgot just how unforgiving levelling content can be in the upper reaches of the range. I started last night with my Inquisitor. This is how it went:
- Forgot which expansion she needed and went to the most recent by mistake.
- Was able to take the quests but fortunately realised before I went any further I was in the wrong place.
- Looked up when the level cap had changed and went to the correct zone in the right expansion.
- Did a non-combat quest and made most of a level on the hand-in. Looking good!
- Tried to do a quest that asked me to kill stuff and literally could not see the mob's health bar move.
- Realised I was probably under-geared. Checked and found I was right.
- Thought I'd go get Panda Gear since I've done all the quests this year and it's an Account-Wide unlock.
- Went to the vendor. Of course, it's all Level 125!
- Remembered Tishan's Lockbox, the free gear option at the start of all recent expansions.
- Went back and swapped out all my gear for that. Huge increase in stats.
- Even remembered to swap out all my Merc's Accolades too.
- Went back to kill the mob I couldn't put a dent in the first time. Killed it!
- It took about three minutes, going flat out.
- Slowly ground my way through the required six alligators. Took me about twenty minutes to do them all.
- I even died when I got an add! Who fricken dies, levelling up, these days?!
- Did the hand in. Got a follow-up quest to kill eight more.
- Took a break to calm down.
As I write this my Inquisitor is Level 123. I found a couple more non-combat quests (And died again trying to do one of them - mob density in the starting area is vicious.), levelled up again and my TTK began to improve. I will get her to 125 today (Edit: See picture below!) but what started out to be a goofy, fun romp has turned into serious MMO business.
I can very easily see how returning players get discouraged. Not only is there one hell of a lot to learn, but as a casual solo player, the gameplay itself is far more challenging when you're playing catch-up than it is when you're actually at level, doing new content. That seems counter-intuitive.
All of that only applies from Level 100 onward, though. That's when the entire game changes. I do have a couple of characters still in double figures. It would be a lot more fun to take them through some dungeons with that massive XP boost running so I'm going to do that for light relief.
I still will get my Inquisitor and my Wizard to the cap before the boost goes away. Last chance before the next expansion drops and we get another hard reset. And this one comes with a level increase, too. I don't want to have to do ten levels at normal XP to catch up.
As for Tradeskills, I only have one character in need of the last five levels. It's the Inquisitor again - she's also my Carpenter.
Busy week ahead for her!
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