Yesterday the latest patch for EQ2 went live, and while there were some glitches, it was still a pretty nice patch. The biggest news was that Halas went live, a new starter zone for players. Sadly, I am restricted to 12 character slots and all of those are filled with level 80+ characters. While I can run through the zone and still do the quests ‘grey’ it’s not something I want to do quite yet. That being said, I DID head over to the new zone and move two of my characters to the amazing 5-room housing that went live. I’m even debating moving my Norrathian museum to the new housing, although that would mean moving over 700 items and placing them again. This is not an idea I’m taking lightly, and it’s still something I’m trying to come to a decision about. I just love everything about the new homes.
With this update also came shader 3.0 – and my iksar pictured above looks great with it. Sadly, a lot of my characters do not look so great with it, they look a little too ‘shiny’ and some of them just look horrible (my gnome is now as white as a ghost, and my kerra is now charcoal grey instead of white). The housing and architecture of the game look amazing – for the most part. I have encountered some items that simply are not ‘complete’ like the frames to LoN paintings, the Venril Sathir painting with moving mist, and a few trees have lost their textures.
The new travel system is something I’m really enjoying. Selecting a location from a map rather then having to ‘zone’ from bell to bell. I haven’t had time to check out the new druid ring live event yet, but that is next on my list. There were some of the usual expected glitches, but over all it was a nice update. What does everyone else think of it so far? Let me know in comments!
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.
I look forward to exploring the new zone over the coming months. I’ve been pondering spinning up a new toon, but I’m leaning towards getting one of mine to 90/90 before I do it.
I did go ahead and move my main (83 Ranger) over to the 5 room New Halas house, and I too am enjoying it immensely.
The map system will take some getting used to, but I can already see the benefit. Now I just have to remember where everything is on the globe map. =)
I grouped up to do two of the Druid Ring quests a few times on Antonia Bayle (now currently in Zek), the harvesting one and the slaying one. Perhaps tonight I’ll tackle the crafting one.
@Sharon: When I played (not for very long, or beyond level 20 :P) I had trouble getting to the EU realms (I’m an EU resident.) Turns out if you change the language in your launcher from US English to British English you can play on the UK realms; I rolled a character up on the US realms then played on the EU ones, so I imagine you can do the same, albeit the other way round.
I’ve had fun with New Halas so far! I finally moved my (now 66!) fury out of Castleview Heights, and into a 5 bedroom house in New Halas. Sooooo pretty!! I’d also been dying to make a froglok, so I rolled a froggie monk and went through the new starter area quests last night. I was a little disappointed after hearing so many people rave about them. They seemed pretty dry, and there were no voice overs. The loot looked nice though, with its leather and fur. Shader 3.0 looked pretty amazing, and unlike a lot of other people, I didn’t notice a performance hit. I did have to turn up my ambient light though.
Someone told me yesterday that you can roll another set of characters on the EU servers. Do you know if that’s true? She said that’s where she plays when AB goes down.