Well, that happened. I was looking at my EQ2 housing and remembering all of the good moments I had in the game – and since I was already subscribed through station access (since I’ve been playing EQ1 for a month or so) I found myself purchasing the latest EQ2 expansion and trying to figure out what I was doing last time I played, back in 2016. Thing is, when you purchase a copy of the latest expansion they also toss in a 120 boost, I assume so you can get right back up to speed playing with friends (or whoever is left) so of course I used it on my main character.
That was a bit of a mistake. They don’t actually explain any of the game systems or mechanics to you, so now I’m 120 with even less of an idea of what to do than before. I haven’t started ascension, and everything I’m reading says the four NPC who handle that should talk to me (but they don’t). I didn’t know about the hidden daily familiar quest in Freeport/Qeynos (why would I, there’s no feather to mark it!) or what familiars were, or how to go about getting one. I knew about Overseer thanks to EQ1, but it works a bit different in EQ2. So far I only have three agents, and three quests available to me. I’m sure that will change with time. I need to be level 10 before I can start doing the daily for THAT, which is also in the starter cities.
I ended up doing the public quest for the tinkerer’s festival again, this time in Antonica. There’s an achievement for doing it 5 times, and it’s one of the most obnoxious PQ I’ve ever done. I did get a familiar for my efforts, so that was nice.
I attempted to head into a solo mission from the latest expansion, but it took me so long to kill anything, after the first two named I gave up and called it a night. No deaths, just incredibly long boring fights. I don’t want to start characters over yet since I’ve got a whole lot of them already sitting at 100 (or 120) but I feel like EQ2 does a very poor job of directing returning players to any direction at all. My inventory is filled with items I’ve gotten in the mail that port me to what I presume are the starters of various expansions – but examining these items doesn’t give me enough of a clue as to what expansion they belong to, or which one is newest. They’re more like “hey so and so wants to talk to you! Click this item to head there” type descriptions. Not useful if you haven’t kept up with the news/lore.
That doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying my (slow) return – I am. I just also find it frustrating, and after two days of trying to break into these systems I still don’t feel like I have any direction on what to do next. I have finally figured out familiars, I have figured out Overseer, I still have no idea what I’m missing ascension wise, and I’m not completely sure what I should be working on or what I missed that was important. I do plan on continuing on, and I’m doing my best to figure things out. I’m just also slightly frustrated.
I’m not going to atteempt to explain what you need to do but I’ll just say this: EQII is an almost completely different game since you last played. Seriously, just about everything has changed in terms of systems, mechanics, how to get xp, what stats you need etc etc. Whole new game-changing systems have been introduced, become dominant, been left to decay and been abandoned.
I’d suggest doing some research on the forums but even then you have to be careful that the advice is current. Starting at 120 is entirely possible but not if you just go out and try to play like it was 2010. That just won’t work any more. At the bare minimum, look up Yun Zi aka Panda Quests and do those and also make sure to look in the box on the floor in the Nexus and equip everything inside it that you can use. Those two things will get you to a minimum baseline for current solo content.
Also do keep on with Overseer. It will eventually get you better gear than even the main quest line provides although the rng element means that will only fill in some slots. Also upgrade all spells as far as you can – rares for the Expert level spells/CAs are cheap by historical standards and also easier to gather/mine than ever before, plus you get plenty from Overseer. It would actually make sense as a returning player who likes crafting to concentrate on levelling some crafters to the cap before adventuring because crafting has changed far less than adventuring and should seem fairly familiar. And as of the current expansion, crafted gear is very good for solo players.
Anyway, as I said, it’s far too complex now to explain in a comment – or indeed a post – so good luck! EQII is better than it ever was in my opinion but it’s at the expense of having changed almost out of recognition.