One of my absolute favorite things to do in EQ2 (well, in any game I suppose) is to travel through old zones doing old content. In EQ2 this is very easy to do with the self mentor system (which I adore, by the way) so that no matter what level I am, I can always go back to old content.
Last night I was looking through my defiler’s achievements (my current ‘main’) when I noticed that she had never completed Halls of Seeing before. So of course I decided to pay Venekor a visit and see how he was doing. The mobs in the zone varied from 72+ so I mentored down to 80 which would give me the ability to still obtain loot and aa from encounters. I do have my trusty shadowknight mercenary (nothing fancy, just the basic one that you can get from cities) and off I went.
One nice thing about HoS is that all of the loot is lore attuneable, which means you can sell it on the broker. I earned a handful of gear, some masters, and I had an absolute blast. I inched my way to 299 aa and 70% through by the time the evening was done – but of course it wasn’t just Venekor that I paid a visit to.
I also headed to Steamfont, and from there Klak’anon and paid a visit to the Clockwork Menace. The raid was a LOT easier than I remembered it being back when I was actually raiding current-tier content. You’ve basically got 8 minutes from start to finish, and I felt that I had a lot left over.
There was one more stop to make before I called it a night. The deserted Isle of Refuge, where Darathar resides. This really took me down memory lane. The Isle of Refuge used to be where you would start your character in EQ2. I remember it took me a WEEK to get my templar to level 7 when EQ2 first released. Back then I was still playing EQ1 pretty heavily, and I had no inclination to switch games at all. Little did I know.
The Isle of Refuge has since been removed as a starting point, in order to let the newer zones shine. So Darathar has it all to himself, and his minions. Darathar was also my first ‘real’ EQ2 raid. I remember so many details about that first raid. We stood in the water to avoid getting kicked. I was the lowest level character there. We were raiding well before fabled were ever added to the game, the Prismatic 1.0 (as it’s called these days) was legendary. I remember the script for Darathar, it has been tweaked over the years. He used to fly away and return, stunning the raid three times. Now he stays put on the ground. I raided with an Australian guild on the Najena server, and it was awesome. I miss it.
So that’s why I continue to go back to these older zones. The content holds strong memories for me. Plus, it was a really nice way to earn some aa.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
ah that does indeed bring back memories :) I played 2006 to 2010 (just pop on and noodle occasionally now) and I think the first proper raid I went on was Labs… was terrifying!
(I was also on starter island for aaages – was my first MMO, was still in single player RPG mode and I was very unsure of the whole business ;))