EVERQUEST
2 in 2005:  A Year in Review

by Paul "SLiDE"
Shortt

Everquest 2 has evolved quite a bit
from its
first days of release.  In this time,
changes have made people laugh, cheer, cry and throw things, which is
quite
obvious from the Official Everquest 2 forums. 
Let’s take a look back at some of the things that have happened
to our
beloved game.

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=Development&month=032005&id=362&direction=back">Consider/Con
system

Oh, the consider system. 
Without this necessary feature we would have players fresh off
the Isle
of Refuge running full steam into the Windstalker Rumbler’s lair,
yelling “For
Qeynos!!!” just prior to their grisly demise.

The con system started off as a crude, yet
functional
tool.  The difficulty of a monster/ NPC
was shown by color, level number, and up or down arrows (to show added
or
decreased difficulty).  Sony then gave
players the option of using a brand new flashy-pants con system! style="">  Instead of ugly, pointy arrows, pretty
graphics appeared around the name to show enemy difficulty. style="">

Most recently Sony decided, “Hey, why not
use them both at
once!!” and behold, the creation of both a snazzy, technical con
system. 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=Development&month=032005&id=353&direction=back">Dynamic
Adventure Camps

One of the earliest ideas to grace the game was the addition
of "Dynamic Adventure Camps”.  This
added a little spice to some of the repetitive hacking and slashing out
in the
open.  Let me paint you a picture:

You and your buddy are leaping through the tall grass plains
of Antonica slaying gnolls, wolves, and badgers with glee. 
Just then you hear a call for help.  Without
much investigation, you come upon a
distressed merchant trapped by groups of gnolls.  Being
the helpful person that you are, you kill all the gnolls in
the surrounding area.  The merchant is
elated, gives you a hug, and then offers one of three things. style="">  He will either offer to sell you rare items,
sell you general items, or buy items from you for a good price. style="">  Most of these
instances can be found in
Antonica or the Commonlands.

style="font-weight: bold;">/Pizza

Although it is no longer in effect, SOE did offer an in-game
command to order pizza from Pizza Hut. 
By typing /pizza into your chat window, a web page would open
directly
to Pizza Hut’s online order form.  Fill
it out and you would have pizza delivered to your door without having
to dial
your pesky phone.  The only exercise
needed was that of getting up to answer the door… and chewing… which is
pretty
tough work. 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=Development&month=032005&id=396&direction=back">Mentoring

How cool is it to watch a level 50 Paladin run from a small
group of moat rats?  It’s very cool, and
thanks to the mentoring system for making that possible.


Now the barrier between different level characters has been
torn down, and everyone has the pleasure of grouping with each other. style="">  This turned out to be a very useful tool for
teaching new players how to play, or for out of range guild members to
help out
on certain quests.  Two
thumbs up from
me. 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=Development&month=032005&id=413&direction=back">Mail
System

Finally...  finally
you can just drop your Sharkbone Scepter in the mail instead of running
it
clear across Norrath to your buddy who, as it turns out, didn’t need it
in the first place.  Now
an invisible Norrathian mailman delivers your goods to anyone in your
city,
saving you much time and effort much better spent bonking goblins on
the noggin
with your mace.  Can
you imagine all the
god-awful exercise players had to endure before that patch? 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_archive.vm?section=News&month=042005&id=448&direction=back">Plague

This one makes me laugh as I look back.  I
remember logging in after a couple of
weeks of inactivity and watching my toon turn pea green as he proceeded
to
vomit on Angelia Clayton, the well known dancing girl in Starcrest. style="">  Does she ever get tired?

Anyway, the plague would affect anyone within the proximity
of another carrier.  It was superficial
and annoying more than a real hindrance. 
This world event tied into the Bloodlines
adventure
pack.  Darned
vampires, and their plot
to turn everyone green! 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=Development&month=042005&id=456&direction=back">Artisan
enhancements

Early April brought us tons of goodies.

style="font-weight: bold;">Offline Selling: 
This allowed players to sell without having to let their
character stand
idle for hours at a time.  Although, I
really miss standing around talking to my pet turkey…

/LFW (looking for work) Command: style="">  A complimentary command to the /LFG (looking
for group)
command.  This tag lets players know
that you want to run around and harvest things for them, or make them
pretty
things in a tradeskill instance.

Bags in Bags: 
SOE
decided it was time to allow players to fold up bags and put them in
other
bags.  This made sense to me. 
You should see all the old plastic grocery
bags my wife keeps balled up in one grocery bag.  What
we need with all those bags I’ll never know… but hey… if the
world goes on a plastic shortage we’ll be rich!!… I guess.

Bigger Bank Boxes: 
Whee! Now crafters can make bigger boxes so that you can store
more
junk!

New Artisan Skills: style=""> 
Apothecary, Weaving, Timbercraft and Geomancy. 
Before these nifty skills, we had to find an artisan to refine
materials so that final products could be made.

Rare Events: 
Lucky
crafters may trigger these and gain buffs, bonuses and even rare items
in some
cases.

Enchanted Item Recipe Books: 
Certain items can be imbued with magic.

Stone Harvesting: style=""> 
The drop rate for rare drops on stone harvests is now doubled! style="">          

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_ff.vm?FeatureName=frogloks&section=development">Frogloks

They might give you warts. 
They might smell fishy.  They
might even eat bugs, but wow, were they the latest rage.

For months, subscribers talked endlessly about the
race that
was not included with the release of the game. 
“Where are the frogloks. We want the frogloks. How do we unlock
the
frogloks?”  SONY, JUST GIVE THEM THE
FROGLOKS!!  Well finally they came, but
as another world event.  In order for a
specific server to unlock this race, a group of people had to finish a
particular quest.  There was a side
quest, however, that allowed a single player to unlock the race for
themselves
and themselves only.  Once players got
wind of the news, frogs started popping up everywhere. 
They started multiplying at an alarming
rate.  You just weren’t cool unless you
had a frog for an alternate character. 

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_archive.vm?section=News&month=042005&id=457&direction=back"> style="font-weight: bold;">Station Exchange href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_archive.vm?section=News&month=042005&id=457&direction=back"> style="font-weight: bold;">

Station Exchange opened two servers for play in July. 
These particular servers give players the
ability to buy and sell in-game items for real life money with a
percentage
given to SOE of course.  If a player has
little time and some money, they can buy themselves the best loot for
their
toon.  It’s a great concept for the
casual gamer who doesn’t want to sink all their time into raiding for
all their
legendary gear.

href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_archive.vm?section=News&month=042005&id=457&direction=back"> style="font-weight: bold;">Read the article by John Smedley

href="http://questforantonia.station.sony.com/en/index.vm">Quest for
Antonia

SOE decided to hold a modeling contest to find a real life
Antonia Bayle.  The winner would win a
10,000 modeling contract and other prizes. 
I won’t tell you what I thought
about the whole thing personally, except
that it’s come, it’s gone, we have a winner, yay. 

href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=stat&message.id=182">Combat
Changes for all!

Live update 13 was released and many players were in an
uproar.  SOE made changes to EQ2 that would
completely change the way the game is played. 
The game needed relearning after getting used to the combat
everyone had
known for the past 10 months or so. 
Creatures were attacking players that were once out of their
range. Mobs
that were once soloable were now too dangerous for one person. style="">  While the changes were made to fit the way
the game was supposed to work to begin with, many subscribers still cry
“Nerfed!” to this day.

style="font-weight: bold;">Adventure Packs and Expansions

Everquest 2 has released two adventure packs and
one
expansion within a year.

href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/adventures/bloodline/">Bloodlines: 
Vampires
wreak havok on Norrath.  What more could
I possibly say?

href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/desertofflames/">Desert
of Flames: Desert of Flames, EQ2’s first
expansion
was released with live update 13, a massive update in its own right. style="">

Desert of Flames, added a new
zone (The Sinking
Sands) and a new city (Maj’Dul) to the land of Norrath. 
These “Arabian Nights” themed zones were
geared toward the level 45-50 crowd and gave more content to players
who were
running thin.

Players who had already capped their levels at 50,
now had
the chance to increase their levels to 60 for adventuring and
tradeskilling.

Phew… a lot has happened in one year. 
I could go into further detail about
everything that has happened for hours, but I’ll leave some of that fun
to for
you folks to find. 

You can always check out the href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board?board.id=stat">update
threads by the Devs.

You can also take a look at the href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?month=112004&section=News">SOE
Everquest 2 news archives
starting with November 2004.

Happy Birthday Everquest2! 
We hope to have another year as exciting (or moreso) than the
last.