antonica
Latest
The Tattered Notebook: EverQuest II's Antonica public quest
EverQuest II's upcoming Qeynos revamp brings many new changes, but one that runs the risk of getting overlooked is a new public quest in Antonica. It's not necessarily a surprise that a low-level PQ would be added, since there was one in the Commonlands after the Freeport revamp. But I actually didn't discover it until I stumbled on a feedback thread in the testing forums. I'm a big fan of public quests because I think they're a great way of bringing people together without the traditional grouping hurdles, so I'm definitely rooting for this little PQ. In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll take a peek at the Antonica public quest and see what's in store for Qeynosians with the arrival of game update 64, which is scheduled to hit live servers on July 24th.
"Hot Zones" provide extra experience in EQII this weekend
If you're leveling up an alt in EverQuest II, this weekend will provide an excellent opportunity to put a bunch of levels behind you, as certain zones will be positively burning with the tremendous heat that extra experience points generate. That's right -- some regular zones have become "Hot Zones" and players can enjoy a boosted XP rate whilst hunting in them over the weekend.There's a theme to the Hot Zones, and it's decidedly old-school. All of the affected zones are from the original game's release, with none o' them newfangled expansion areas included. The bonus zones are The Caves, Antonica, Sunken City, The Commonlands, Nektulos Forest, Enchanted Lands and Everfrost. EQII. The announcement on the community site also features quite a staggering number of screenshots of the aforementioned zones that are sure to poke at your nostalgia glands, and perhaps inspire you to get out there and make use of the XP bonuses on offer.
The Daily Grind: "Are we there yet?"
Some of you surely played EverQuest back in the day. Whether it was your first MMO or not, one thing's for sure: it was the first huge MMO. When we say huge, we're not referring to subscription numbers; we're talking about the size of the world. It was much grander than that of Ultima Online, Everyone who played EQ remembers his or her first trip from Freeport to Qeynos or vice versa.That trip was a very dire one, especially for a level 10 character. If memory serves, you had to go through Kithicor, the goblin dungeon of Runnyeye, the Beholder's maze (that was the most dangerous part, since it was all narrow canyons), the orc-sieged Highpass Hold, and of course all of the Karanas, griffins and giants be damned. It was not safe. It also took a really, really long time. If you were coming originally from Faydwer, before any of this you also had to take a fairly long boat ride -- certainly much longer than the almost-instant inter-continental rides in World of Warcraft.But the journey was exciting. It actually felt like it was an epic adventure. In most recent MMOs, fast travel is prevalent and everything is streamlined to take as little time as possible. As the genre has become more casual with regards to travel time and danger, have we lost something? Are there no more epic cross-continental treks full of thrilling close calls?
