My beastlord is almost level 81 now, and yesterday she completed the ‘Goddess Rising’ world event. Sadly, none of the rewards were something that beastlords can use (a shield, and a bow) and the house item has the exact same graphic as the regular covered bow you get from The Shard of Love – but I did have a fantastic time with the story, and the zone was beautiful. I just wish there had of been more to do there. You enter the zone and collect 8 rocks (clickable boulders scattered throughout the zone) and then you kill 4 golems at the entrance until a piece you need drops. It’s a really beautiful zone that deserves a little more attention (imo). Ibeogur and I also ran through the regular shard of love instance and I was incredibly surprised. First of all, gear dropped. Actual PvE legendary gear. The zone has never dropped anything for me before aside from appearance stuff. I had to assume it was a bug. The fabled shield also dropped which I have never seen drop for me before, and I’ve ran this zone a LOT. At the end, the fabled wings dropped. It was a REALLY good run.
The last push from 80-90 is always a difficult one for me. First of all, beastlords don’t get to start their epics until level 90, so I can’t work on that which is something I would normally do early. I’m a bit too small for DoV, it’s best to head to the Great Divide at around 85-86. I haven’t done any of the TSO instances that scale with levels, so that’s probably where I’ll spend the majority of my time, completing the quests for those zones and dragging my mercenary along with me.
Speaking of, I claimed the warboar warder from the Age of Discovery collectors edition yesterday. He is GIGANTIC compared to my little ratonga (I shrunk him down in the screen shot) and plays the role of a tank. Although to be honest, I’m not sure how great a tank he is. I probably need some loyalty points and to actually spend his aa points. He couldn’t keep agro off of my beastlord yesterday, even though she’s wearing level 60 gear and has nothing but journeymen skills. I’m hoping to reach level 85 today, but it’s MUCH slower than it was getting 1-80 (which took less than 10 hours of game play) so we’ll see how it goes. In the mean time, I’m having fun completing the crafting apprentice quests each day, maybe I’ll get one of those reactants as a reward, they’re selling for 900-1400 plat at the moment, and the money sure would be nice.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
@Carson: people had level 90 beastlords on the same day the expansion was released. Leveling fast in EQ2 is easy if you want it to be (it helps if you have a friend or second account to mentor and drag your new toon around). Personally I prefer to take things a little more slowly.
She has a permanent 200% bonus from having capped characters, lots of xp potions, and a friend to mentor her who can just AE things down by the roomful. goes really fast when you do that.
Out of curiosity, how on earth does one get from 1-80 in less than 10 hours of game play?
I’ve had a few attempts at getting interested in EQ2 (it’s never stuck) and every time it’s been a couple of weeks of play (maybe 30 hours of gameplay?) to get to level 20-something.
Over the holidays I got my warden to 90 mostly solo with my merc. I spent the majority of 80-90 doing solo quest in Kunzar Jungle and Sundered Frontier and grinding in Seblis, Chardok and then The Hole. I only stopped over in Greater Divide to get some gear at 87 because the Quested weapon has much higher crit chance compared to older weapons. I’m currently working on leveling my Inquisitor and will probably take a similar path.
@Fred – it’s been in development for a while now. :)
Stargrace,
Do you know if SOE is considering development of Everquest III? I have been looking for this game for years!