Come On In, The Water's Lovely! : EQ2

In my opinion, EQ2 may not have the most MMO holidays but it definitely has the best. The major events - Frostfell, Nights of the Dead, Tinkerfest, Brewday and the rest - come packed with enough quests and collections, races and achievements to keep regular players occupied for days, if not weeks.

As well as the big ticket events there are the monthly City Festivals and the Moonlight Enchantments that follow the lunar calendar. There's almost always something to do in Norrath so you might think there'd be no need to add any more annual events. The EQ2 team would beg to differ.

I only happened to notice the addition of the upcoming Oceansfull festival when I spotted a single-line entry on EQ2 Traders a few days ago. If it hadn't been for the accompanying picture I might have missed it altogether. The news squib links to a full description of the brand new holiday event, which is currently running on the Test server before it goes Live on June 8, when it runs for ten days until June 18.

Oceansfull is the Othmir celebration of thanks to their god, Prexus:

 "For generations, the othmir have been giving thanks to Prexus at this time of year for all he provides, above and beneath the waves. You are welcome to join any you may find celebrating along the oceans' edge, across Norrath. They say if you search the waters nearby their celebration locations, you're bound to find evidence of Prexus' generosity."

The new event seems to have been timed to fill that uncomfortable gap between the final flurry of festivals late Spring and the arrival of Tinkerfest in mid-summer. It's also been timed to make its first appearance almost exactly as I'm away on holiday. I will be back for the last few days, but rather than wait I decided to wake up a few of my old Test server characters and take a look right now.

Niami Denmother describes Oceansfull as "a mellow little festival", in keeping with the well-established gentle, whimsical nature of the ottter-like Othmir race. There may be people who don't like Othmir but if so I don't think I'd want to spend much time hanging out with them.

I've had an abiding affection for the fish-eating, hat-wearing seafolk since they first appeared in EverQuest's Scars of Velious expansion all the way back in the year 2000. I spent many happy hours helping the Othmir protect the beaches in Cobalt Scar, glaring with disapproval at the greedy druids and wizards who chose to slaughter my furry friends for the loot instead.

The Othmir have played a significant, if minor role in EQ lore ever since, cropping up in various contexts in both games. Several of my EQ2 characters have taken on Othmir tradeskill apprentices over the years. I still visit them now and again to give them some more training and copy down the new recipes they discover.

Playing on Test used to require two separate installations of the game but these days you can just toggle from Live to Beta to Test from the Launcher. It works perfectly. I did that, then looked at my large roster of Test characters.

Having played there for five years or so I have a wide range to choose from. I have several level  90s, the cap  when I moved to the Freeport server with the coming of F2P, and plenty more in most deciles down to level 20 or so. I picked my Level 90 Ratonga Bruiser, who was the character I was playing most often when I was a Test regular, logged him in and took him to the nearest qualifying beach, which happened to be at the Commonlands Dock.

I had time to take a single screenshot when the heavens opened and a massive thunderstorm began. EQ2 has some very dramatic weather effects. Freeport goes almost black when rain sets in and even in the Commonlands heavy rain reduces visibility to a few yards. It also leeches the color out of everything, rendering screenshots muddy and miserable. Not ideal for a blog post about a cheerful little summer festival.

Fortunately, travel in EQ2's version of Norrath is quick and easy, especially if you have an All Access Member's right to use the Fast version for free. In a matter of moments I was flying a griffin across Antonica to the Tower of the Oracles, where the handy list of locations at EQ2 Traders told me I'd find Othmir celebrants letting off fireworks and dancing.

I found the otters alright. It wasn't raining either so I was able to snap a few shots as they capered. There was a problem, though. The event consists almost entirely of opening giant clams to collect gifts. Clams live underwater. In EQ2, unlike GW2, you need special apparatus or magical assistance to breathe underwater.

You'd have thought that a level 90, who'd retired at the peak of a highly active adventuring career, would have some piece of equipment that would provide a basic function like Enduring Breath. Or at least a few Totems of the Otter, the crafted consumable that cast that spell. Yes, well... you'd be mistaken.

Five minutes later I was back on the Griffin, heading across Antonica with my Level 60 Inquisitor. Inquisitors can cast spells that let themselves and their groups breathe underwater. So I did that. Then I swam around in the murky waters off the Antonical headland, opening clam after clam.

It's a gloriously soothing experience. The clams are huge and easy to spot  from a distance. There are plenty of them. They have a short timer before you can re-open them, so you can't just stand next to the same one and chain-click, but by the time you've done the rounds of nearby clams the ones you started on are ready again.

There seem to be a lot of items to get. It was a good while before I started seeing duplicates. A lot of the presents are house items in any case, so multiples are welcome. Especially so since GU106 added stackability to most house items.

As well as furniture I got a consumable Othmir illusion and several appearance weapons. It was addictive and fun. In the Test channel several people were saying exactly that, almost purring with satisfaction as the little bursts of dopamine stroked their pleasure centers. I notice no-one ever says developers are scoundrels for including this kind of content - it's ony when they lock it in a box and charge for a key that people begin to claim no-one wants it.

Oceansfull also brings a traditional shiny collection, which takes place on land. I found a few purple shinies but they seemed relatively scarce compared to the norm in other festivals. I didn't really spend long looking - I'll save that for the few days I have when the festival is Live.

All in all Oceansfull looks to be yet another excellent addition to the holiday calendar. It's quite astonishing that the small team left working on EQ2 is able to keep coming up with so much new stuff. This is a simple festival, yes, but it's fun and it fits with the lore, too.

Oceansfull is available on all servers including Progression/TLE from the 8th to the 18th of June. It can be enjoyed by characters of any level at a variety of beaches from starting areas to end game. There are no quests to get - jump right in the water and start opening those clams.

Just don't forget your diving gear!

Anything Else You'd Like Me To Help You With? : EQ2

The Cobalt Scar main quest sequence, like the Ethernere timeline from the Chains of Eternity expansion, is a long one. Long, but very enjoyable.

It benefits enormously from the strong nostalgic affection many longtime Everquest players must have for the original zone that inspired it. Alright, that I have for it, then. The nostalgia factor comes through very strongly even though in most respects the EQ2 version is scarcely recognizable as the same place. About the only thing that remains unchanged is the crescent shape of the water, water which, it transpires, (Spoiler Alert!) is no longer an ocean at all but a large lake.

Indeed the entire zone now has the feeling of someplace halfway up an Alp, with great swathes of nordic pine forest covering half the map and bears and stags roaming all over. It reminds me a lot of Timberline Falls, one of my favorite Tyrian landscapes.

Hey, I've got one of these at home! Smaller, and his head goes round and round.

Missing, and much missed, is the crazed musical score that so enlivened every day, and there were many, that we spent among the Othmir. I still whistle that tune at work now and again. The otter men themselves are there in force but no longer are they the jolly top-hat wearing comedy figures (and perpetual murder victims, although never at my hand) that once they were.

Now, in keeping with the grimmer mood that seems to prevail in almost every imaginary online world, they are desperate, driven refugees, harried on all sides by forces they don't understand and cannot hope to defeat. Well, not until I come along to sort it all out for them, as usual.

If we had a bridge we could play Pooh Sticks. Oh, sorry.. Funeral.

It's a pretty decent plot, too, as these things go. It certainly makes more sense than the Ethernere one, sticking to a much more down-to-earth mystery model than that confusing metaphysical mash-up. Actually, it's two mysteries. The Case of the Undead Othmir is solved but the Enigma of the Eerie Encampment remains just that - an enigma. Maybe I missed a step.

Along the way I got to participate in an Othmir funeral (they send the dead back to Prexus on rafts, Viking style, although without setting anything on fire), got turned into an Othmir (the nearest we'll ever get to having them as a playable race, sadly) and listened to foliage reliving the past (as exciting as it sounds).

Ulthork Man-O-War. Can't go wrong with a Classic.

I also had to kill about a hundred thousand bazillion things. The current design brief for EQ2 zones appears to be "Hey, you left a square foot of grass free over there! Put a mob on it! No, wait. Make it three!"). For every Kill Ten Ulthork quest (yes, there are Ulthorks, although no Bulthar that I saw) I'd estimate I ended up killing twenty. Often more. There wasn't any quest that I ever found to kill wasps but I killed dozens of them trying to get to the bears. And forget any thought of flying over all this stuff to avoid it - Cobalt Scar airspace is jealously guarded by flying snakes, drakes and plain old hawks.

I'm the one in the fancy hat.

For all that killing, and there was enough of it that my mouse finger was aching long before the end of every session, experience moved like treacle going uphill. With the entire timeline completed as far as the last segment that will take him into Siren's Grotto my Berserker stands at 93.65.

With luck and a following wind Siren's Grotto and Frostfell should take him to 94, at which point I'm hoping he'll be ready to start on the real current content. He certainly couldn't do it at 93.  That means back to the Ethernere for a cruise around the Vespyr Isles. And after that I imagine both he and I will be ready for a lie down.

The Otter Potter

Back when I was spending most of my time in Telara I wrote about how I'd learned to love dailies. I'm not playing Rift so much anymore but I have a new round of daily tasks thanks to Norrath's Adopt-an-Otter program.

December's Age of Discovery expansion brought many pleasures. You could design your own dungeon, fill it with cartoon characters from your childhood, then kill them. You could add a sparkly glow to your favorite shillelagh, take up a new career as beastlord or hire a mercenary to follow you around making smart remarks. Maybe best of of all, though, you could welcome an othmir into your very own home.

He sings, he stabs, he snarks

Who wouldn't want an othmir? It's a six-foot tall otter in a fez for heaven's sake! Back in beta there were no othmir, just Coldain dwarves, if you can believe it. Dour, creepy little guys, all frown and suspicious undead pallor. I wouldn't have one in the house. Not again. I learned my lesson with the Coldain Butler. Anyway, there were protests and thankfully the research program was expanded to include human females (quiet at the back there!) and othmir.

The prospective apprentices stand around outside the headquarters of the crafting societies in Freeport and Qeynos like country girls at a hiring fair. If you've a modicum of skill at any craft then with just a few words and no paperwork of any kind you can have your very own otter. If you want your very own dwarf I really don't want to know about it.

You can get your sandy feet off the upholstery for a start!

Othmir aren't just decorative either, although they surely are that. Your otter will spend day and night researching tirelessly on your behalf, asking nothing from you but your good advice. Oh, and repairs. Whenever I'm around, all my othmirs seem to do is stare into space and scratch themselves. Thinking deep thoughts, probably. They must do something while I'm out though because every day when I ask them if there's anything I can do help speed up their research I find they've broken something or worn something out.

On average they seem to get through a leather apron or a toolbelt every four or five days. A wooden mallet lasts them no longer, no more does a knife. How do you wear out a leather apron in four days? How do you wear out a toolbelt at all? I don't ask. I just head off to to the woodworking bench or the forge or the loom and make whatever they need.

Every day I do this. Each of my crafting characters begins the day by offering an otter the benefit of his or her experience and then repairing whatever the otter broke the night before. Doing these two things both helps the research go faster and gets me a little otter bonus when he hands me back a Pouch of Unused Materials.

The things those otters don't use! Sometimes it's a pile of seahorse roe that I can only imagine fell out of his lunchtime sandwich. Often it's a very useful potion. Best of all, and not that infrequently either, it's a Reactant. Reactants are the secret ingredient needed to make the wonderful items the apprentices research. You can get them from powerful creatures around Norrath but I've had a lot more handed to me by my otter as surplus to his requirements.

Level 60. LEVEL 60!!

All of which brings me to the items themselves. Considering I'm the skilled craftsman and the othmir are the apprentices it's astounding how good the ideas they come up with turn out to be. Every single recipe they hand me makes something better than anything I could have hoped to make without their research. It'll be my name on the product when I get around to making it, though. And so it should be. It's right and proper for the master to take credit for the apprentice's labor after all. That's the way these things are done.

My crafting books are filling up with wonderful new recipes as I do my daily Otter Potter. It's relaxing, amusing, satisfying and highly worthwhile. Best of all, my otters seem to have a truly vast store of new ideas that need looking into. Going to be a long time before these othmir finish their apprenticeships. Well, it will if I have any say in it.

Can't Judge a Book

Sometimes even Bo gets it wrong. Every novel has an author. There's the name on the spine. Movies have credits that seem to last longer than the film. Even journalists get a byline. Most of us pay at least some attention to who wrote, directed or performed what we read and watch. It helps us decide how to spend our time and money in the future.

I've done a lot of questing this week. Last weekend was double everything in EQ2 and I popped in to visit and ended up staying. I bought the Destiny of Velious expansion pack and asked the Othmirs to let me ride their giant turtle to the land of ice and snow.

We're going to need a bigger tureen!

 
I'm playing on EQ2X's Freeport server and my highest character there is a level 80 berserker. There is pretty much nothing you can do in Velious until your level hits 85, so after I'd looked around the docks and chatted to some more Othmirs I was stumped for a moment.

Then I remembered my Berserker was also a level 82 weaponsmith. And I recalled reading that there's a whole line of crafting quests in Velious that leads to you getting your very own flying griffin mount. And it's much, much faster to raise your crafting level in EQ2 than your adventure level. With double xp and full vitality it took me no time to make 85 and begin making myself useful to the Far Seas Supply Division and sundry indigenous othmir, coldain and snowfang gnolls.

Oh Ruffin, if only the other gnolls were as clever as you!

The quests came thick and fast and were a joy both to do and to read. The prose was crisp and clean, the dialog sharp and witty, the plots were amusing and engaging, the tasks were interesting and absorbing. Mrs Bhagpuss and I spent most of Sunday and Monday doing the entire flying mount quest-line, and the pack pony quest-line.  The whole experience was exemplary. Everything that's good about questing was here and there was little or nothing of the old nonsense that's given MMO questing such bad press of late.

With my young griffin trailing along behind, still growing to the size needed to carry the weight of a ratonga in full plate armor, I returned somewhat reluctantly to Paineel and the previous expansion to resume the long, slow journey to level 85 in adventuring. And trust me, on a silver account with the xp/aaxp pegged at 50/50 it really is a plod.

By last night I was halfway through 84th, my griffin was ready to fly and I really wanted a break from the perpetual yellow palette  of Odus. It occurred to me that I'd not yet done the newish beastlord prequel questline, so I took the spires back to The Commonlands and picked up the starter quest.

Does the marketing department know about this?

What a contrast. Everything I'd enjoyed about the griffin and pony quests, all vanished. Instead I plowed through speech after speech of overblown, overwritten, pompous twaddle. Terrible leaden prose, complete absence of any form of wit, elan, spark or interest. An incomprehensible "plot" utterly devoid of amusement or entertainment. Utter rubbish, in fact. The only saving grace of this horrible farrago of amateurish drivel was that it was soon over.

Don't know. Don't care.

Now I understand that people have different tastes. Some people probably like this sort of thing. I also understand that you can't have your best people on every part of every project all the time. I've read enough Gerry Conway fill-ins, after all. No, the problem with quests in MMOs is you have no way of knowing before you begin whether the new line was written by the person who wrote that great quest you did last week, the one that had you laughing so hard you snorted coffee all over your keyboard, or by the twerp who wrote that numbingly tedious, po-faced saga you ended up tabbing through the month before.

Credits. Let's have credits. I want to know who to follow and who to avoid. Whose work to look forward to and whose to dread. Mrs Bhagpuss had a great idea. Let's have an in-game review system for quests, like the new Housing Leaderboard. I'd give five stars to those Velious craft quests and half a star to the beastlord one. And really it doesn't deserve half.