Taking Advantage of Bonus Experience Weekends
stargrace 
The bonus experience was flowing nicely this weekend in both EQ2 and EQ. While it may have only been a 50% bonus to combat / tradeskill in EQ2, it was 100% bonus in EQ which made for some pretty fun times – unfortunately I didn’t spend nearly as much time taking advantage of it as I would have liked, but I suppose some time is better then none.
The greatest thing about the bonus experience is knowing how to use it to its fullest potential. So, Ninga (Wpus) and I logged in and headed to Loping Plains (along with 27 other people who had the same idea might I add). LP is not a hot zone but there are repeatable tasks throughout the zone. One of which is to kill wereorcs, and worgs.
I always chuckle to myself when I explore through this zone, I spent so much time here in EQ2 before ever adventuring in it in EQ. There’s similarities but plenty of differences too. We grabbed the two tasks to kill 20 worgs and wereorcs and set to work dpsing them down. Things were going fairly smooth (if not a bit slow) and before too long Ultann returned and logged in with his magician to add to the dps.
When you complete these tasks, you can decline accepting a reward and that was the key to maximizing the experience gain. Each time we completed them (for a maximum of 10 completed plus two more to turn in) we declined the reward (which has an option of extra experience) and saved it up. Then all at once turned them in with lesson of the devoted running which is a veteran reward that boosts your experience gain.
By turning in three quests I managed to net myself 15% experience easily, that’s a huge amount at level 81. In fact the experience was so great that Ultann managed to find himself brushing up against level 85, the current cap for EQ. WOOT! I was very excited for him. My necromancer inched her way through most of level 81 before we decided to head back to EQ for the remainder of the evening, I was starting to get a little tired and wanted to do a quick CoA run (and perhaps pick up the dirge epic starter) before crashing for the night. Ninga is almost level 85 as well, it’s great to see them hitting the cap once more. My little necromancer has quite a bit of time left before she’ll see 85 but this is the closest I’ve been to ‘end game’ in EQ. Granted the cap will probably go up again before I actually DO see it, but that’s alright. It would be nice to hit it just so that I could focus on gaining some achievements, since I am missing a huge chunk (like 1500 or so, hehe).
The game was VERY busy last night on Drinal as well. Over 381 people were in the general channels (there was a general, and a general1 since 200 players per channel is the cap) and while they may not have been the most talkative of people they were definitely out and about which was great to see. I can only assume that the hot zones would have been VERY busy with people too.
I hope everyone had a fantastic evening, and here’s looking forward to the rest of the week! I’ll see you in Norrath.