For some reason this morning I decided to renew my EverQuest II account and check out how things have changed. I’ve done that a few times since I quit playing it a few years ago, but never stayed past that one month at a time. I did play the game for the first 9 months or so, starting on release day. I levelled a Wizard up to 45 (Provisioner level 50 – max level was 50 at the time), and switched to World of Warcraft mostly because of video card issues at the time, and my backup card just couldn’t handle EQ2.
I was hoping to log in after downloading/patching the game this afternoon, but for some reason the download just stopped part way through just after I went to bed. Oh well, maybe it’ll be done by the time I get home from work in the morning.
The game does seem to be much more solo-friendly than it was at release – that’s partly why I stopped playing. I wasn’t much into grouping back then, so it was hard to actually level after a certain point. Apparently it’s much easier now. And this feature from the newest expansion is sure to help future alts: “All of your characters will now receive a 10% experience bonus for each character at the maximum level. (Up to 50% max)”. WoW should have that… well, at least if it wasn’t so boring, I’d care.