As part of the EverQuest 25th anniversary rewards package (listed out here) was a level 100 heroic character upgrade for Daybreak All Access subscribers. Since I am subscribed for the Year of Darkpaw and my wanderings through old Norrath, I had one available to me but the offer only lasted until April 20th.
I did not want to waste it, but I have also not had great experiences with the EverQuest heroic character boost. A decade ago, during the EverQuest 15th anniversary events, I boosted a paladin to level 85 and then couldn’t do much with the character thereafter.
Valmont at level 85 on the Plane of Knowledge
The skills thrown at you, the spell book exploding into too many pages to be manageable, and even the game’s suggested path for a newly minted level 85 character ended up being essentially unusable to me.
Not learning my lesson, back at the 20th anniversary I boosted my level 50 cleric to 85 and likewise found the change to be an unmanageable mess. A character I played to level 50 essentially became unplayable.
So here at the 25th anniversary you might ask why I was so keen to do this again.
Well, first, level 100 is a little bit beyond the level 85 options, though level 85 is still a choice if you want that. The two are sold side by side. Level 100 is still well shy of the level cap. The game hit level 100 back in 2012, but that is another story.
Second, I wanted to see if the devs had made the experience any better.
Third, and finally, I have given up on any illusions about actually playing EverQuest. At the 15th and even the 20th I still harbored some ambition to maybe actually play for realsies. Now I am content with the idea that I will never really play the game again. I haven’t done so since our attempt at the Fippy Darkpaw server, which itself was more than a decade back. I quite enjoy the tutorial zone and have fun playing through it, but it promises a game that doesn’t get delivered once you leave.
So wrecking a character is much less of an issue. I was just going to use my free level 100 heroic no matter what. But I had a bit of a plan as well. You may have seen me mention druids and my regret at not making one as my first character in Norrath, fatally choosing a ranger instead.
Well, I had a level 18 druid on the Vox server. I figured I should finally realize my druidical ambitions. So I went to the character select screen and chose the heroic upgrade.
My level 100 boost
Then I went into the game to see what I had wrought.
The game had all sorts of things for me to do. It wanted to know if it could set my hotkeys for me.
May we?
I clicked on the “Yes Change” option and it gave me four bars of stuff I couldn’t tell you thing one about.
These all do something I am sure
Oh yeah… no images on the EQ hotkeys, but I am probably better off with the words. I bet Paralytic Spray is an AOE combat spell.
There was also the gear distribution, which starts correctly with a couple of great big bags. You will need them.
Storage space is all
Also some food and I guess a mount. A saddle usually summons a mount in EQ, though EQ mounts are… not always pretty and I always forget to use them.
Then there was actual gear.
Heroic gear list
That all gets dumped in your bags in some sort of order and you have to go dig each item out and equip it, which will remind you exactly how many equipment slots EQ has. You can have mis-matched bracers as there is a left and a right bracer slot in addition to sleeves.
My character’s inventory
Also, you can see they hand you some platinum… though with the way the Norrath economy has gone, that won’t buy you much at all. But if can keep your mercenary paid. I also keep forgetting I have a merc to call on to fight for me.
And then there are the Alternate Advancement points, which rain on you.
The AA point parade
Alternate Advancement was one of those ideas that was huge at the time… a way not to raise the level cap every single expansion with the possibility of “interesting choices” and all that. But AAs have been around since Luclin and more than 20 years of expansions and updates have made that window pretty much ungovernable for me.
Avert your eyes from the AA mess
But the game applied all my AA points… I think. It says I got the 14K AAs achievement and I have zero left to apply, but only 12,759 applied. No, I cannot think about AAs. That way lays madness!
And, of course, there is the spell book, mine now having been expanded to
The spell book threatens
One of the great errors corrected by World of Warcraft was when Blizz kept the same spell names and just gave them upgraded ranks rather than trying to come up with a whole new name for each upgrade. 86 pages of spells at 8 per page is 688 spells to manage… through what one can only describe as a cumbersome UI.
So I did all of that and have a level 100 character now with all my spells… at least I didn’t have to trying and buy them, that would be an nightmare all on its own… that I guess is good. I mean, these stats have no context for me, so I can’t tell if those are heroic numbers or not.
My level 100 druid stats
Anyway, I didn’t come here just to complain about a game I fully admit I am never going to be able to play seriously again. I did, as I alluded further up the page, have a plan… a plan beyond finally having the druid I should have rolled back in March of 1999.
Why a druid? Druids are big on travel spells. Druids can go places quickly. Druids don’t have to get caught up in adventures like trying to get to the Scarlet Desert. Yes, that was a good adventure, but EQ is a big place.
The size of things at the 20th anniversary
So, while I cannot make heads or tails out of most of the spells in my overloaded spell book, I can pick out thee travel spells pretty well, even through the clunky hierarchical menu. In fact, that menu is actually pretty well suited to my needs.
Where should I go today?
Those are nicely broken out into destinations.
And if you’re only really interested in exploring, what else do you need? I suppose I need to figure out what the upgraded version of Spirit of the Wolf is so I can run faster too… or maybe I use that mount, if I can find it… but I am now set to go where I will without being as constrained as my cleric was.
I did do one more thing. The heroic gear set is kind of bleh looking and probably marks you as a complete tool to the cool kids, so I spent some of my accumulated cash shop currency and bought the unlock for cosmetic gear, which comes with a full suit of better looking stuff.
Again, the interface for that is clunky and you have to apply it individually to each piece… but you know what? It is still better in some ways than WoW‘s transmog system. Sure, it doesn’t have the variety, but least I don’t have to go to a specific vendor and pay cash every time I want to change my look a bit or have a new piece of gear that I want to apply a look to.
So my druid, Alioto, is set for adventure and exploration.
Looking sharp, nice flaming staff and all
He will likely make it easier to continue my nostalgia tour as it will involve a lot less walking than before.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 