EQ2

Frostfell Festivities – PartII

stargrace December 12, 2008 2 Comments

One of my favorite rewards from quests this year are of course the hanging Frostfell ornaments, the balls and the snowflakes. I was so impressed with the quests this year, and had so much fun working through them. Having new rewards was just the icing on the cake so to speak. 

The old quests are still there, like the one where you have to go to Frostfell past, present, and future. The puzzles are solved the same was as they used to be as well. This is fantastic for new players who may not have gotten to experience those quests, and for alts, of course. 

There’s also a quest that sends you off to Steamfont that I haven’t completed yet but I believe it was in game last year as well. Given by the fae in the Frostfell Wonderland standing by the massive (this year ice covered) tree. 

Another quest you can get before you even enter the zone, this one was new to me at least. It sends you to speak to any of the gigglegibbers out in Norrath (I spoke to the one inside the Frostfell instance) and then you’re off to enchanted lands to enter the instance under the dock.

I’d never done the quest before, and it was a LOT of fun. My only issue was that it seemed to be really particular about where I stood in order to bang on the drums (all day!) with my wooden spoon. After maneuvering myself around the little island of drums to the side, it finally updated even though I’m pretty sure I got every note wrong. 

You can also do quests for Frostfell trees again in your respective home city – although there are two new trees. One is snow flocked and to do it you’re hunting down shiny in Qeynos. The other I did in Neriak, which rewards you with a DEAD Christmas tree, much like Charlie Browns. 

If all of that was not enough, of course the winter wonderland is covered in harvestable presents for players, and there are new items to be crafted! Things like Frostfell hams, new stockings, presents, new candy shaped wall ornaments – and speaking of house items how about those new picture frame cards! I love them. SO much better then passing out books to everyone. 

There’s certainly a lot to see and do, and I’m really pleased at how well it all came out. A huge thank you and congratulations to the team who worked on this.

Frostfell Festivities – PartI

stargrace December 12, 2008 4 Comments

Yesterday was the first day of Frostfell, an event that I’ve enjoyed a LOT over the past four years. This year, developers have outdone themselves, and even if you’re not into the holiday season that much, I would HIGHLY suggest checking things out. If you don’t want spoilers, please don’t read any further. 

First of all. The Frostfell Wonderland itself has undergone a major change. All of the water that used to be between the islands has changed to ice, and when I say ice, I mean real ice. You slide your way along. To make matters even more interesting, there are icy snowballs in the zone, and they can physically push you along said ice. So why does this even matter? Well. There are purple shiny in the zone (that anyone can see, you’re not required to wear a special item) and you have to VERY carefully glide up to the object on the ground and try to harvest it while keeping your footing. Not only that, but anyone can walk up relatively close to you and toss a single snowball and send you flying down the ice, sans shiny. Leaving them free to pick up the reward. This happened to me numerous times yesterday, and while I haven’t tossed a snowball back in retaliation (I know it’s good fun but I’d feel bad if I caused someone else not to get a shiny they were at) it can also get frustrating!

The gift giver this year has been beaten up and all of his gifts taken away. You’ll find a new gift giver in town, and with it, new rewards for players. In fact All of the quests old and new have rewards we haven’t seen before. 

One of the new quests this year (and my favorite) is given to you by a member of the Freethinkers. He wants you to investigate the ‘secret’ frozen keep. The secret isn’t so hidden since it’s a HUGE frozen door near the entrance of the zone (the quest giver is just behind the magical closet that ported you into the zone). Entering has one of two options. Number one, there’s a yeti on the ground to your right that you can skin. Or number two, you can fight the heroic mobs in the instance. Since I have so many alts I did it twice and the first time I had arysh mentor my paladin (who hit level 50!) along with shadowgeist, the second time Stargrace went alone. 

There are a few named in the zone, who all give aa and they’ll also give you an extra token (the one the quest rewards you with). What are these tokens for? We’ll get to that later. 

This first quest requires you to place 10 listening devices. It took me a LONG time to figure out that the glowing boards on the ground were to build bridges, but once I did it made things far easier. You’ve got 30 minutes to place them once you skin the corpse by the door. 

Once you finish that quest and head down the rainbow in the wonderland zone, a goblin will talk to you. He gives you another quest for that same zone but it’s a lot more complicated and the rewards are AMAZING if you’re into house items and appearance gear at all. A baby dragon plushy, three tokens, and a snow and ice covered appearance head piece. 

So what do you do with all of those tokens you’ve been accumulating? There’s a vendor beside this goblin npc who will sell you SO many items it’ll make your head spin. We’re talking treasured gear, legendary gear, house items (lots of them), and baby plushie dragons. The quest sends you back into the keep to get a dragon egg. You have to build a bridge and make your way to a frozen goblin, and then knock in a rock jump down a chimney and then break two walls to get to a final room that has — a ^^ named on the ‘easy’ mode (two levels higher then me). This is where I had some trouble. The mob can’t be rooted. She also calls adds. While the quest may be on the ‘easy’ mode, that does NOT mean you can solo this. I managed to complete it when I had arysh shadowgeist and lithe, but when I went with just Stargrace I couldn’t beat the zone, even after teaming up with Kasul. 

Your group mates have to be on the same part of the quest to zone in, too. 

I had SO MUCH fun last night, and that’s just a glance at ONE of the quests. There are many more (which I’ll go into more detail about later). Like I said, my paladin managed to get from level 45-50, and… and.. AND! Stargrace, neglected since RoK came out – dinged level 79. ONE more to go!

I hope everyone else had a fantastic time too!