Forever questing (?) Pt 2

This is insane. Originally, John should have finished the latest edrafted chapter of A Requiem From Winter Past. Unfortunately, he pulled off a cop-out amounting to a massive case of procrastination. Quite obviously, John L'Otter would want to blame the Norrathian trinity of Qeynos, New Halas, and Kelethin for this. If there's anything John is thankful for on this matter, it'd be new ideas amounting to a semi-Total Recall. In the words of this vid below, "Thank you, Isayama". Actually, John doesn't know how much an Isayama he's going to pull off.

So will Eren die a savior's death with Reiner becoming the true hero by delivering the killing blow? If so, then... "Thank you, Isayama, for your *bleep*ed sense of irony".

But why mention cleavage since it's an Everquest 1 kind of thing?

John L'Otter wants to ask everyone else (not him because he knew the answer already) an interesting question:
Would you still want to play video games if cleavage isn't part of the deal?

It's like John asking whether you'd still support He Ying Ying if she didn't don a low-cut dress during this year's Star Award. Of course, the textbook answer should be yes. The keyword being textbook. Everquest 2 also features cleavage. Can you believe John only realised Antonia Bayle was the poster girl after he started to play the game? Yeah, that sounds terribly fake since many guys tend to prefer boobs to the type of anti-Singaporean stuff shown below.

Server bait and switch

Okay, John attempted a stunt shortly after he finished Pt 1. Apparently, server sharing can be done by selecting the correct server. In John's case, that'd be the Antonia Bayle server. So what this means is this: John deleted Daeni the Human Berserker and chucked in an equally female Human Paladin named Viaa. After all, it'd be too boring using two male characters. Female characters can be every bit as good as their male counterparts when it comes to character creation and using them properly, you know. Never knew a female Paladin can be so good to use, though.

Currently lost (?)

The fun thing about choosing Qeynos is this: You have plenty of options when it comes to questing. In fact, chances are that you're bound to get yourself neck-deep in quest backlog. That's how insane things are if you decided to start off at Queen's Colony and end up in Qeynos. For a bastard named Layes Wolftree, the choice of starting city was New Halas. Or otherwise known as the most boring starting city. For Viaa Bellerouge, it's Queen's Colony.

[Note: Wolftree is 100% English while Bellerouge is 100% French. Maybe John should try Wolfbaum. Wait, Wolfstaude sounds better in German. Thank you, all you West European sons of a Germanic gun.]

Currently, the Half-Elf Fury is starting to get himself neck-deep in quest backlogging for a very good reason: Kelethin and Qeynos offer recipes for adornments and sprockets crafting, but not New Halas. Choosing between Kelethin and Qeynos wasn't that difficult. After all, it's a case of personal whims more than the fact that Qeynos is one hell of an extensive Queen's territory. Those who played the game N years ago (i.e. the majority of the existing gamers in Norrath) would tell you that navigating Qeynos is a nightmare. If you don't know how to use the zone bell, then good luck in trying to find your way here and there. If you know how to do it, it's not even half as bad as what John said. With that being said, John lost count how long it took his Paladin to discover a way back to Queen's Colony just because he assumed the Total Recall command would take her back to Queen's Colony (apparently, there's some problem trying to get back up on dry land after getting stuck at Razortooth Falls). To make things worse, using Total Recall just like that would port your character to the Qeynos Harbor. Simply put, trying to find the global bell requires the internet and Google. Actually, the global bell could be found just at the end of the Qeynos Harbor. No matter what, it makes one wonder how crazy MMO gamers were 15 years ago when there's nothing childproof and padded about navigation. Try finding the Crypt of Betrayal from Vermin's Snye, John dares you. Unless you're looking at the right place, you're going to end as a hamster stuck in a wheel. In fact, some of the quests can easily take you days to more than a week depending on the zone. The swimming trip to the bottom of New Halas would have been one of them if not for the internet, Google, and the wiki, Thundering Steppes in general is... well, aggro friendly when it comes to the Skeletor brigade even though you're no He-Man or She-Ra. Seriously, they're one of hardest dudes to take down in Thundering Steppes unless you break the level 30 ceiling. And to think it's considered a level 20-30 zone.

To be honest, this game is fast looking like a monster requiring an insane amount of time and effort to deal with. Who'd have imagined the questline system being absurdly non-linear?

[Note: Interesting fact about the real (?) Skeletor brigade can be found here.]

Running here and there

So far, Layes has journeyed only to the Thundering Steppes while Viaa is currently running around in Kelethin with one eye on Qeynos. If your character chooses Queen's Colony as the starting city, there's a chance of the Goblin dropping either the quest for Goblin language, Goblin lore book, or both. To make your life easier, take a trip to Kelethin asap. There are two Goblin territories, one at a lake and the other underground. You should be able to complete both quests or either in this way depending on your situation. Beyond that, it's up to you to decide whether to upgrade your enemies to the Crushbone Orcs since you can farm stuff for the Orcish language and lore book quests.

No matter where you start your level one, it's advisable to choose New Halas as your secondary city to travel. The reason why being that the Norrathian version of Hokkaido is easy to navigate. This is very important as every city will give you two crafting quests (one for adornments and the other for sprockets) and one transmutation quest. You need the transmutation quest to level up your transmutation. This is vital because you'll most likely need adornments once you start going into the level 20-30 zones (i.e. the real test lies beyond Antonica and the Commonlands save certain parts like Stormhold). As for the two crafting quests, they give you plenty of crafting XP. This is worthy of note because crafting in Everquest 2, unlike some (?) other MMO titles, is a necessity. From level 1 to 20, it may not be that evident depending on your class. Once you enter level 20-30 territories and even some of the quests in Antonia and Commonlands, that's where your crafting comes into the picture. At least it's a better investment than buying gear and weapons from the vendors since purchased stuff doesn't give you bonuses beyond mitigation and damage (spell skills if it's stuff like wands and symbols).

This comes to mind a question: What if your starting city is the Ezoland of Norrath? Just choose Qeynos as your secondary city. The reason why being that Qeynos got plenty of quests for you to run. In this game, levelling up requires plenty of time and effort since the only thing childproof and padded would be the presence of the wiki site and those crazy fellows. Seriously, use those resources unless you're the kind of gamer who doesn't mind spending money to watch Aerith die since you don't need money to do an image search for Tifa's boobs. Of course, you'll need to run around and familiarize yourself with the city. Again, use the wiki if your attention span isn't the Witcher 3 gamer type (i.e. the gameplay, NOT Triss' cleavage). The convenient part about travelling in Qeynos has to be about the inter-city portal travel. Of course, the Irish folk also got their own inter-city travel in Kelethin, but that requires the fact that you cannot fall off the bridge. That plus the Irish portals look like a manhole cover. Not that it matters anyway.

[Note: Despite the combination of man and hole, there's nothing gay about a manhole.]

If your starting city is Kelethin due to being a Hibernophile, then use Qeynos as your post-20 questing hub with New Halas being your crafting XP convenience store.

At the end of the day, New Halas as a crafting XP hub is for those who favour convenience over the joy of travelling within Antonia Bayle's fortress or the Tuatha Dé Danann version of Gardens by the Bay. If you're either semi-retired or totally retired, then it's a different story.

Holy Fire and Fury: First impression on using a Fury and Paladin

Let's start on the Paladin first. Actually, Viaa Bellerouge is only 20 (i.e. the level, not her age).

Yes, John knows she looks 20 as well. Let's not make that a distraction, shall we? Anyway, this Paladin is still a work in progress. John won't be surprised if using a Paladin means having two loadout slots unless you're a PvP'er. But F2P games are not known for having even half-decent PvP gameplay balance due to a lopsided balance between the spenders and non-spenders amounting to the haves versus the have-nots.

A brief look at the Crusader tree (i.e. that's the category the Paladin is under together with his/her antithesis the Shadowknight) reveals a very straightforward build planning. So far, Viaa is far more a Crusader than a Paladin. The reason why being John chose to invest all the Alternate Advancement points thus far into that area. John is a firm believer of the whole "If you want to win, you have to survive and not do things like a suicidal bastard" gaming doctrine. While he used to play it overly cautious like J.Mou when he first started off by playing Neverwinter (please note that Neverwinter was the first game John played seriously on a prolonged basis because he spent like only a year playing Marvel Heroes before that as Black Panther plus his two female bodyguards compared to five years serving the Lord Pretender Dagult Neverember himself). Then slowly but surely, he started gaming like this German lion below.

Wonder if Joachim der Löwe can still maintain Germany's fast passing counter-offensive philosophy after three amigos got the Teutonic war axe.

The defensive base is still there, though. After all, John L'Otter has never forgotten his pragmatic roots like Didier Deschampion. This makes Viaa Bellerouge rather easy to use due to high mitigation and Holy Circle (i.e. Viaa's staple/only AoE move). Initially, it seemed that using only one healing spell should be enough. Running two quests involving the area surrounding Crushbone Keep taught John one very important lesson: Never go with just one healing spell (Faith Strike doesn't count in John's tactical dictionary btw). Due to John's main being a certified bastard (i.e. that's what Half-Elves are, to be politically incorrect), it means plenty of time to mess around with things.

At the same time, Knight's Stance is absurdly useful in solo PvE. You'd think Wrath Stance is good. And John believes so as well. But surprisingly, the daughter of House Bellerouge (?!) operates better as a lady knight. John actually tested it during the Orcish Information questline. The damage pacing was much slower, but the balance between defense and offense was much better. Of course, this is not to say Wrath Stance suck. You just need to strike a balance between the defensive and offensive. Which is quite dodgy for now because John doesn't really know how to do that. Actually, he doesn't know how to do it at all. Then again, those guys at the Crushbone Keep region (i.e. the area surrounding the actual place) are basically Orcs high and angry on steroids. You'd most likely see quite a number of yellow ranked enemies bumming around at level 20 there. Considering the fact that the quest given by Elonca Nusback was set at level 17, the whole process felt more like running a heroic than a mere solo quest. Seriously, don't try running this zone unless you really have to. If it's the final part of Orcish Information questline, then just go in, get out, and keep your fingers crossed (i.e. please sprint instead of just walking once you enter the area in order to minimize the risk of unwanted aggro). This zone isn't meant for anyone below 20 unless we're talking about Fighters. Due to the gear, you know why these stand-and-fight fellows can afford to do it. And even then, you'd be a suicidal bastard to think your level 20 Fighter can survive the actual Crushbone Keep. There's a reason why John chose not to continue Nusback's questline.

[Note: You'd most likely need to hit level 25 or so by John's estimation in order to survive the Crushbone Keep region if you happened to be a non-Fighter character. The info given by the wiki was clearly outdated when it states a Crushbone Centurion to be at level 17-18. The whole process actually involved a level 18 character running around in a level 20 zone. Completing both the third Orcish Information and Nuback's first quest, however, can easily give two levels' worth of XP if your level is near 20 due to the overall AI difficulty level plus the fact that they go around in groups of two or beyond. Needless to say, this logic only applies to Fighters with a good defensive game.]

P.S: Okay, this post is getting too long now. Might as well do a Pt 3 in the future.