One is the lonliest number... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunday, November 27, 2005 -- Telegareth
As we continue to go deeper into the latest expansion of EverQuest, Depths of Darkhollow, I am reminded of some of the aspects of previous expansions that may not have been the most fun. I'm not sure why these aspects have come to the surface yet again, but I'm almost certain that it wasn't intentional. I firmly believe that the developers currently working on the game we all enjoy experiencing day after day want to create a challenging yet fun experience for those of us who like to live out on the edge where there are no spoilers, walkthroughs or batphones. What is it about the latest expansion that harkens back to Veeshan's Peak and Plane of Hate V1.0? We have trash mobs respawning at an alarming rate and pathing that is remarkable in it's departure from the laws of physics. I can understand the reasoning for having trash mobs, however I am not a fan of adding additional mobs to clear for the sole purpose of adding time to a raid. Do these mobs offer anything else? Perhaps there is something loot-wise that would make the tedium of clearing less painful? Nope, unless you really are a fan of the new spell research. How about experience? Nope, raid experience is still way below what it should be. These mobs and their accelerated spawn time appear to only serve the purpose of adding time to an already long raid.
What can be done to make the Demi-Plane of Blood more entertaining without cheapening the overall encounter? How about lengthen the respawn rates on mobs, alter the agro radius a slight bit to allow for the Player to use more than one strategy to get from Point A to Point B. All we are left with is brute force and mass slaying of everything in our path. There is no trickery, no sleight of hand, no flimflam, hocus-pocus or shenanigans. You go forward, and kill it all. If you get bogged down, you just added at least 30 minutes to your raid. This, my friends, is not fun.
With all of the above taken into consideration, the Demi-Plane of Blood is not all bad. The named encounters are fun by themselves, and fully challenging with little quirks that make things more interesting than "Heal Tank, don't sux"
This guy is the first encounter in Demi-Plane, and the first time you see him it can be a bit surprising. But in the end, he isn't as fearsome as one may have you believe. His loots are very nice, however, as shown below...
We've also received the Monk and Rogue class items, however the screenshots I have are from before they were revised. The rogue item is now a range, and the monk item is shoulders or back slot, I forget. Here are the screenshots anyway...
But we haven't been ignoring some of our old pals from the previous expansions. Oh no, too many people still want to finish off the Vish Eye quest and our good friend Overlord Mata Muram still drops some neato goodies. As an aside, I really want to know who has been poking Vishimtar the Fallen in one of his eyes to make it unusable in the quest. Or does he only have one eye to begin with?
Yes, he's dead again, and he gave us some sweet loot too!
I should have more stuff to share soon....
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Quotes and Notes.........
Been a little slack on the screenshot key, so only have one paladin quote for you this time.
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Tele's Top Five:
1. Getting Faction with Expedition 328 is a total PITA. We need more mobs that give this faction!
2. Customer Service - We need server GM's back. The current customer solution is a poster child for laziness.
3. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it! Fast spawn times and crappy pathing are not an example of fun.
4. The new spell research is annoying and totally un-fun. I mean, 5 sub-combines to even clean a piece of parchment is obnoxious. Whoever thought this would be cool probably still builds model airplanes....
5. For the love of whatever deity you worship make the target box on corpses larger. Yes, your mobs look neato, all 5 9 of them, but when they are dead, and I go to loot the body, I'm sick and tired of having to run around so i can click on the soles of feet or on the crotch to be able to get anything off the bod. Do all mobs hide their cash and goodies in their crotches? Killing a mob is less stressful than finding the correct spot on a corpse to click to get the loot. Something is amiss here and needs to be fixed.
Got anything you would like to share for the Top Five list? email Telegareth or go visit our boards and post something for me and I'll keep it for the next update list.
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Huge thanks to the awesome people at Bizfu....
