EverQuest® II Sentinel's Fate™ Preview
Friday, 05 February 2010 12:26
New zones, new quests, new tactics needed to get through the massive array of places to see and things to do. That’s what this, the latest expansion to the Sony title EverQuest® II Sentinel's Fate™, brings to you. That and more.....
I was invited to the press tour for this and looked forward to it for a full week. I got there and was told I was not on the list, what publication was I from, who had my contact been etc. After frantic e-mails and me trying to phone my PR contact, I was finally assigned a group, this would be the English and French speakers together. Having worked in the industry I know these things happen, heck I've been on and seen a few of these run and my partner has been on, run, arranged more than a few in his time too.
The tour guide read from a script, or copy/pasted anyway, as we were run from one spot to another, losing one member along the way to a death and another member who got left behind then decided to log out, to be honest he was not getting anywhere with getting any questions answered and we were more often in fights than getting to actually see much of some areas. Again once they mentioned a bikini party on the Kerra Isle I even lost hope and left.
There will be quests that are solo quests, from level 78 and up, but to be honest a majority of what I have seen is geared toward teams and raid groups. The airship, for instance, was easy enough to get to and get quests for, but the very first mob I ran into was a level 92 triple up bad guy who whooped my cute lil butt in two shots! And I tried that with a fully kitted out Monk and then Conjurer both at level 90. The "run, find, report back" type quests were dead easy though so there is something to do.
First the zones:
In Sentinel's Fate, adventurers will be able to return to Erudin. Now for those of you who have played the original EverQuest this is not quite the Erudin you’ll remember, there have been changes. It is a dark and brooding place in some areas, elegant and seemingly serene in others.
But not all is well, as a trip to the Erudin Library will prove. Here you will have to use the combined wits of your group to solve a real who done it, a Clue type mystery within the great building.
Some of the zones and dungeons will need the strength of a raid party (x2 or more is my best guess, our guide couldn’t answer that question), and others (like the library) are restricted to a normal fighting group of 6 only. Severe penalties await if you try to bring more in, anyone else outside of the 6 will be teleported out, as a couple of our group were while on the press tour as it seems our guide wasn’t warned of that fact before attempting to bring us all in there.
Sundered Frontier;
Here you will find, in one of the easier zones of this expansion, the Erudite cities of Erudin and Paineel, as well as the Kerra Isle. You’ll get to finally see the old Kerra homeland, where a few sturdy Kerra still live today alongside the Kejak. This is the land that the Erudites used as their Kerra hunting grounds. There is also the Toxxulia forest, the lair of Toxxulia, the dragon mistress of the forest.
Stonebrunt Highlands;
This area, best for levels 85-90, will amaze you. Its beauty and ferocity will both astound and challenge you. Moonfield Hamlet, Quel'ule, the Masoleum of Scholars, Al'Kabor's Rest and the Erudin Gardens are all there for you to discover!
There’s also Vasty Deep;
“When the Erudites discovered that the waters of The Vasty Deep had magical powers, they built the Conservatory to discover the properties and nature of the magic. Now, the Conservatory has fallen into disrepair and has been overtaken by unknown sea creatures and a few remaining void-touched Erudites, its loot awaiting willing treasure-hunting adventurers.”
The city of Paineel and The Whole;
“The ancient city of Paineel was founded at the bottom of The Hole by heretics involved in all manner of dark sorcery. In their zeal for research and discovery, they unwittingly breached the seal on the vault and allowed the Underfoot entry into Norrath. In an effort to correct this mistake, the residents of Paineel relocated their city to the top of The Hole and sealed everything below to contain the scourge of the Underfoot.”
There are dungeons that get ever more difficult as you advance through them, just as you think you’ve mastered one part you turn a corner and find out just who your daddy really is! Every group going into these will need very good healers to keep the party alive as a lot of encounters are multiple mobs with AOE attacks, I found myself using group heals quite often in some spots.
Trade Skills:
This too you will be able to expand on with new levels (to 90 just as the adventuring) and recipes. Lots of new harvestable things too! There are 10 new items for the Provisioners to make into new foods for us, as well as the usual 2 new wood (regular and rare), 2 new hides, 2 new stones, 2 new ore, loams, roots, and all the rest.
Carpenters are going to be very busy! Eucalyptus, Sumac, Azure, Sapphire and Ruby, Verdant and Regal, are all lines of new furniture recipes for the carpenter to make. Verdant, as you might guess, come out a lush green colour while the Regal are, yes you guessed it, purple as the old Roman Emperors would have worn. This expansion is going to make every carpenter and interior decorator very happy with all the new beautiful items to decorate the guild halls and homes with. They can now also make new strong boxes, of course, of 40 and 44 spaces (the rare being the Eucalyptus at 44 slots).
Tailors will get to make new armour sets, the rare based Kerra suit had better stats than the legendary gear, as well as new backpacks (mottled (40 slots) so they’ll be back to the loom making these for adventurers to fill on those trips to new lands. The cloth armours are very well done too with both stats and looks being top notch.
All in all a good expansion if you have a good team, great if you're in a guild that raids often, and lots more for trade skillers but as for those of us who either prefer to solo or only team with a very few trusted friends I'm not really sure it's the best for that type of casual player that the game used to appeal to.