Leveling, Crafting, Exploring – Oh My!

Sentinel’s Fate is only one day away from being fully released, tomorrow the digital download becomes active for those who have not picked themselves up a retail copy of the game. As of right now, I have two level 90 crafters (alchemist and jeweler, so I can make skills for guild mates) as well as one level 90 adventurer (the troubador) and an 85 adventurer (the mystic). I’ve been very happy to have crafters at the level cap again, as EQ2 grants a 10% bonus (up to a max of 50%) for having characters at ‘end game’. The expansion still manages to get mixed reviews from players. I’ve been having a lot of fun questing my way with the second character, the zones are just absolutely amazing looking. I don’t typically enjoy quests that make me run from point A to point Z then back to point A, but since this is my first time through the quests, it’s not quite so bad.

I was a little disappointed that players didn’t get a new ‘unique’ skill at 90 like we did at 80, and I find it more then a little surprising that you can obtain your fabled epic weapon, reach levle 90, and then convert it to the buff that grants the mythical effects. I can understand why this is, after all who wants to continue to do Veeshan’s Peak flagging for the mythical weapons, but in my eye it also reduces the importance of the mythical. Those weapons were once status marks, but now they’re so easy to obtain (especially with the level cap being raised) that I almost feel as though they’ve been cheapened. I guess that comes with every expansion (Prismatic 1.0, Godking, Claymore, Soulfire) and its major ‘quest line’.

I was concerned before the game went live that the changes to stats may bother me (the fact that they were condensed so that players only require concentrating on one main stat no matter the class instead of spreading them around) but now that it’s live it’s really not bad. I don’t like the fact that two of my mythical weapons were nerfed two expansions after they were released (warden and mystic) but there’s not a lot I can do about it now. Battlegrounds will go live tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how that works and how it’s welcomed by the EQ2 community.

Raids last night included a lot of discoveries, but sadly the guild is required to be at level 90 before moving on to the next zone (in order to zone in). While a good chunk of players are level 90, not everyone is and that presents some problems. I imagine all raid guilds have the same issue when an expansion comes out.

I hope everyone else is still enjoying their adventures through Sentinel’s Fate. Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!