The Tattered Notebook: A rose-colored celebration of EverQuest
In honor of EverQuest's 12th Anniversary, EverQuest II is holding a special event in the game. Players can travel back in time to several instances, and they get to meet some of the infamous named mobs of EQ. If you've ever dodged Fippy Darkpaw's attack on the Qeynos gates, sailed far out to search for Allizewsaur, or camped for weeks at a time to find Quillmane, the elusive Pegasus, then you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane.
In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll travel back in time to meet these legendary nameds. Be warned, though, this does contain spoilers!
Fippy Darkpaw. This time around, Fippy Darkpaw actually has an advisor who tries to tell him it's not worth it to fling himself against the gates. He says he has them right where he wants them. Pull him out of his home if you haven't cleared the zone, because patrols march past his home and will add.
Quillmane. If you ever played a Magician in EverQuest and worked on the epic quest, you might consider bypassing this one to avoid the trauma of that horrible camp. As you zone in, a Ranger tells you that he's been trying to track Quillmane and that any mob in the zone could be a placeholder for the elusive Pegasus. You have to clear the zone, but compared to the endless plains of South Karana, this place is a cakewalk. Soon after, the named Gnoll Ishva Mal spawns, and killing him results in Quillmane's appearing in the sky above. It's a fairly straightforward kill, but in a hilarious twist, as soon as you finish him off, three Gnome Mages appear and bemoan the fact that they've been camping him for weeks and missed the kill. Even the Ranger tells my group that he's been tracking Quillmane for a while and that we were very lucky. We actually were pretty lucky, having gotten both the Pegasus Cloak and a gorgeous flaming katana that is wieldable by Furies. Must have!
Pyzjn. This wasn't a mob that I remembered as much as the others, but the charm of this portal zone is that you get to "camp" a named mob. Clear waves of skeletons over and over until you get the one that includes Pyzjn. If you never played EverQuest, take your experience and imagine stretching it over the course of three hours.
Oh, and stay away from the bears. If you kill one, Holly will run to find you, and she becomes a level 54 X4 mob that is essentially immune to damage. Just as in EQ, Holly is one sonofabee.
Minotaur Hero. Out in Steamfont is the portal to the Mino caves. In EQ, every so often, the Minotaur Hero would spawn and demolish the area outside the cave. I still remember him being a lot bigger than he actually was, and I also remember trying to take shelter in one of those little wagons inside the cave, to no avail. In this instance, you can once again see the Hero running around, and if you're careful enough, you can pull him without having to clear the entire zone. Sadly, there's no Meldrath this time around, but it's still a fun trip down memory lane.
Magus Rokyl. Oh how I miss monk pulls of the lava duct crawlers in Solusek! We used to marvel at how great the experience was, but that was back in a time when 50 million mob kills would yield a bubble of experience. The LDCs are back, and so is Magus. When you pull him, he comes with Warlord Skarlon, but make sure to kill Magus first and ease up on attacks every 25%. What happens is that he has a short-term buff that records what damage is done to him, and then when it drops, he does that amount back at you. I made the mistake of fighting through it and got flattened as a result. Fortunately, the corpse recovery was a lot less painful than it was in the original Solusek zone.
Ancient Cyclops. When you first zone in, you get to experience the "camp check" all over again. In the zone is a Ranger sitting on a rock, a Vah Shir Beastlord (if you ever wanted to see a beastlord in EQII, this is your chance), a Druid soloing ancient mummies, and a fear-kiting Necromancer, who is soloing a sand giant and talking quite a bit of trash. As you kill mobs, you also get to hear each "player's" take on what is needed to spawn the Ancient Cyclops. One says that you have to kill madmen, and another says you need to spawn and kill ancient mummies. Yet another says you have to do a /dance emote 500 times, and as outrageous as that sounds, I have no doubts that somewhere, someone suggested that! It would be several years before the true secret was revealed.
Eventually, after you clear the zone and also kill the ancient mummies from the graveyards, the Ancient Cyclops will spawn. But wait! What's that? Terrorantula?! And he's being trained upon you by all the other "players" in the zone! You've just been trained and KSed, but fortunately, karma works its charm. As you defend yourself from Terrorantula, the Ancient Cyclops annhilates all the NPC players in the zone, and you eventually have him all to yourself. If only that were the way in the good old days of EverQuest!
Allizewsaur. I made the mistake of trying to skip some trash at the entrance and go right for the big dinosaur. The only problem was this: As I was in the middle of fighting two goblins and an aqua goblin sacrifice, I was told by my guildmate Vadel that killing the aqua goblin spawns Allizewsaur and that he will aggro from pretty much anywhere you are in the zone. I was able to finish off my "controlled multi-pull" but was nowhere close to having enough mana for the dino. I ducked out of zone, and as I went back in, I noticed from afar that even though his model was much improved over the heavily pixelated original, he still ran the same way -- fast little legs but slow-moving overall. He also was as much of a beast as the original. This was always one of my favorite mobs, partially because of his sheer size, but partially because he was a rare spawn in a rather exotic location.
Ghoul Lord. This zone is a little rough, just as the original Guk was. It's pretty much a straight clear to the named mob's room, but that's when things get tricky. In EQ, if you got one of the Froglok nameds, you were pretty lucky, but here, you get them all -- Assassin, Executioner, Frenzied, and even the Ghoul Lord. On top of that, they're linked, so you have to fight them at the same time. This instance is for level 90s, and the nameds are level 95, so you might consider bringing a friend or two.
There are a few things that stand out for me as I complete these fun little zones, and I think it really shows how different the MMO territory is today. The kill-stealing, the camp claiming, the danger of travel, and the endless waiting are all things that I remember with some mixed feelings from EverQuest. I never minded it then, but that was because I was just out of college, with much more free time and few other choices when it came to MMOs. It also astounds me how much we put up with back then. Killing one mob at a certain time of day for a small chance at a pop? So much of what made EverQuest exciting was the chance to have something that the other guy couldn't get. It made the victory sweeter, but the frustration level was immense.
It was nice to see these events, because the EQII team definitely hit on many notes of what made EverQuest such a classic MMO. Reliving those glory days, even in such small and short doses, was definitely worth it. If you don't play EQII but would like to see the instances, you're in luck! I'll be livestreaming tonight (Monday, March 28th) at 9:00 p.m. EDT, so come join me on Massively TV.
From the snow-capped mountains of New Halas to the mysterious waters of the Vasty Deep, Karen Bryan explores the lands of Norrath to share her tales of adventure. Armed with just a scimitar, a quill, and a dented iron stein, she reports on all the latest news from EverQuest II in her weekly column, The Tattered Notebook. You can send feedback or elven spirits to karen@massively.com.
