April 29, 2009

To Speak as a Dragon

stargrace April 29, 2009 1Comment

The other bards laughed at me. Why on earth, they sneered, would you want to go visit Nagafen and resurrect Vox when there was so much NEW stuff to do. So many better adventures. With void creatures running a muck there was never a lack of stories to tell. I shrugged at them and continued with my path. They asked me why but to me it was simple. So many others were already traveling down those paths. It was getting redundant. I had already heard about the void creatures in various songs ten times that day alone. Had everyone suddenly forgotten the lore of days gone by? It was these things that pulled me in, these memories and thoughts that drew me to them like a moth to flame. And so I found myself staring face to face with Nagafen, asking the details on how to resurrect Vox, talking openly about Darathar as memories flooded past. It would make a great song, one day.

Needless to say I spent most of my in-game time working on ‘to speak as a dragon’ the language quest required for a number of other quests out there. I eagerly freed the sage from his dungeon in Lavastorm, and from there headed to Antonica to speak with the Oracles. Of course nothing is ever easy with them and they sent me out through the Shattered Lands hunting for runes in order to translate the language. 26 runes later (and quite out of breath) I returned and they imparted their wisdom. I dragged the bard and mystic along to accomplish this, if I was going to get it done it may as well be for both characters.

Once I’d mastered the language I headed back to Nagafen who shared with me the method of reviving Lady Vox, and how I would have to (eventually) travel to the Isle of Refuge and confront Darathar. This was all fine and dandy and I looked forward to it excitedly. Just like I looked forward to it four years ago.

Things have obviously changed. To obtain the draconic language now it’s a heroic instance, and no longer a raid. There are portals in Solusek Eye that will bring you to the lower levels instead of having to walk the entire way – and encounters are grey and worthless. When I first did the prismatic 1.0 quest none of these things were true. It took an incredibly long time to wander to and from Nagafen as many times as you had to for this quest. You had to bring a two group raid in order to even begin it – and all of this was for a LEGENDARY weapon. There were no such things as mythical. Fabled were practically unheard of. Adept3 were rare, and if you had adept1 you were doing great. There was no such thing as +heal or +spell damage.

I remember playing my templar (my first EQ2 character) with an Australian raid force on Najena. I was level 45, still five levels away from the current cap and they needed healers. I was THRILLED that they asked me to go. I was nervous. The raid force had to position itself numerous times. It was exciting to kill our way down to the beach where Darathar was sleeping and then learn the (at the time complex) strat to killing him.

Then the enormous let down as you didn’t get your weapon until AFTER you managed to walk back down to Nagafen. All of that work and you still had more ahead of you. After a few hours of raiding the last thing people typically wanted to do was kill their way back down, but we did it. Oh yes we did. We sported our ‘of the shard’ titles proudly. I still have the weapon on my templar, the only character of mine who has ever completed this raid.

The plan last night was to finish off speak as a dragon and then complete the first three raids that are required for Fire and Ice, then if there was time, to complete the next four raids for Deception, and face Darathar on the Isle of Refuge. Unfortunately one of the trio currently has a broken keyboard, and we’ve put the raids on hold until this gets sorted out. No use doing it if you’re not side by side with your friends. I’m excited though!