Pictured above, my mystic swimming from the Sunken Theater (Veksar 2.0) over to the docks in Fens of Nathsar in EverQuest II. It got me thinking about what sort of zones I miss in certain games, or what zones I found inventive and creative. One thing that seems to be a carrying theme in pretty much any game I play is that I do NOT like zones that are under water. I just don’t enjoy them. Floating along, being unable to control where my character is positioned (and not to mention having to keep enduring breath of some sort up) is just not fun for me. I find it stressful.
However, I loved zones that had ‘air’ properties to them, or zones like ‘The Grey’ from EQ Live where you were required to also have enduring breath due to lack of air (rather then water).
There are lots of zones that carry themes in them, the molten rocks of Lavastorm, the icy cold of Everfrost, and the deep caverns of Befallen. I like zones that have themes to them, they add to the story lines and give players a world feeling to it. What other creative worlds / zones / instances come to mind besides the typical elemental ones? If you could create your own world what would it be compromised of?
In game, things are slowing down a little. The swashbuckler is still working on her epic, I need 300 foresting before I can move to the next part. The foresting is at 90 and moving fairly slow, which is exactly what I expected. Each time I level up a character I say to myself that I am going to work on their skills as I go along so that I’m not left at the end having to work them all up – but it never ends up that way.
Four of us headed to Veksar 2.0 yesterday (guardian, swashbuckler, troubador, and myself as mystic) we did die twice and once was more then likely my fault but I don’t think we did too bad. My mystic does have her mythical, but she’s not wearing raid gear like the rest of the people in the group. Doing the instance with four people was difficult, it was still also a lot of fun.
Rumor has it that GU53 will be coming out around the 22nd (next week) but I haven’t seen any confirmation of this yet, so I’m not holding my breath. It will certainly be nice to have the auto mentoring in effect as well as the new achievement system, and crafting goodies. If you haven’t peeked on test yet, well you’re in for a lot of great updates!
Happy Gaming no matter where it finds you!
ZEK maties ZEK,
Now that is the zone of all zones. 2 HQs, thousands of Orcs to slaughter and elves to save :) What could be better? Mega Harvesting regions althought EL is the best harvest region in the game until RoK came out.
Second best zone is the FENS. Really nice KILLER enviroment, awesome quests and harvests all over the place in bunches.
Third best zone was in EQ1…. THE DEEP….. The not so real bridge. What a laugh I had as I lead my guild mates on that fake bridge and laughed myself silly as we all fell to our deaths :) I was not liked very much after that thou :)
I love the look of that cloak (currently working on my third, I just can’t help myself!). Grats on getting there with the skills, the one I’m having trouble with is alcohol tolerance (in RL too these days!)
I sure am Lessling, hehe. Figured it’d be best to get them both done at the same time!
I loved Steamfont Mountains (spent years there in EQ). In EQ2 Nek Forest was so atmospheric and scared me constantly, I so miss that feeling when I go back with Alts.
Are you taking the opportunity to do the Mara Harvesting quests as you work on your foresting?
I’m pretty much an EQ2 newbie, but my favourite zone is the Tenebrous Tangle. It was basically the first high-level zone I visited – straight from the Commonlands, wandering around at about level ten, trying not to let anything see me and looting corpses & chests for vendor trash and broker stuff when higher-level characters couldn’t be bothered to loot their kills (and yes, I sent /tells asking if they minded me grabbing the chests when the timer expired. I was a newbie, and it seemed only polite.)
I’ve just managed to get my main high enough to start questing there, which I’ve been looking forward to since my first day in the game. Gained a few levels so far, and it’s still a nice place.
There are too many pretty zones to name!
I’ve played EQ, EQ2, WoW, Vanguard, LOTRO, Eve, and probably a few other MMOs, and they all had their beautiful zones. Veeshan’s Peak and Everfrost in EQ, Moors of Ykesha in EQ2, Caverns of Time in WoW, just about everything in Eve, and other zones in other games that I can’t even remember!
IMHO, finding and exploring those beautiful zones is one of the most rewarding parts of playing an MMO.
I will always have a softspot in my heart for Terrokar Forest in WoW. You enter TBC and you spend quite a while questing in Hellfire, which is all desolate and … on fire. Then you are eventually sent into Terrokar forest where you are presented with a blue hued swamp, with gorgeous orange and yellow glowy mushroom things. I dunno, something about the color scheme or art direction just struck a chord with me there.
Another zone that I adore is East Karana from old school EQ. When you first enter the zone from the west side, you enter it by crossing this huge wooden bridge with massive chains. You have a giant cyclops running around slaughtering people, which is always a bonus. However, the thing that branded this zone into my memory was the end of the Karanas and the path up up and up into the Highpass Hold area. Step off the edge and you plummet to your death. It was just so epic.
I remember my second or third day in EQ I was stationed out in the Qeynos area. My friends were stationed in Freeport. In order to be near them I decided to join up with a group ( my FIRST group in EQ btw ) who were making the trek across the world to Freeport. The entire way we were on edge. The trip took a long time to make and only one of us thought they knew the way. During this trip, we rested on the giant chain bridge and clung to the side of the cliff wall leading to Highpass for dear life. Kithicor was also terrifying during this trip. It was the perfect way to begin my days with EQ. I got this feeling that the world was massive in size and that there was limitless adventure to be had out there. PLUS, this was only one of THREE continents!
I better stop now. I could list half a dozen other zones that I loved from EQ. :)
To this day, Enchanted Lands is still my favorite zone for questing, harvesting and PvP. Aesthetically, Rivervale is my over all favorite zone. Ironically, Rivervale is the zone I dislike questing, harvesting and PvP in! XD