Officially Addicted to Everquest 2's New Server Wuoshi
Yesterday, Everquest 2 released a new time locked expansion server called Wuoshi and I can officially say I am addicted. Daybreak Games, the developers of Everquest 2 among other MMORPG titles, had one of the smoother server launches that I have been a part of. The demand for the new server was so great that they even had a queue to get in while they rolled out additional instances of the starting areas to ensure there was enough space for everyone to enjoy their journey. It was especially surprising seeing all of the players on this server because it is considered a subscription only server, meaning everyone who plays on there must have a sub to the daybreak games subscription service.
My first order of business when starting this new server was to create my Erudite Fury and navigate the character to the starting area of my choice, Neriak. On this server, I was unable to choose Neriak from the start, so in order to get there, I had to initially choose the starting location of Overlord's Outpost during character creation, finish the initial tutorial on the ship, then speak with the ship captain again to be sent over to Neriak. Once in Neriak, I spoke to the captain one more time to send me to the Darklight Wood, the starting area for the Neriak region. The ship captain does not immediately send you to the starter portion of Darklight Wood, so I had to walk to the most southeastern part of the zone to begin the starter quests.
Darklight Wood is such a great starting area because it gives you some very streamlined quests, both for leveling up your character and for initially leveling up your gathering and crafting as well. This particular launch, I have decided to go pretty heavy into crafting so that I can make some early gold in the game. I never usually am this excited for crafting or gathering in any MMORPG, but something about Everquest 2 and their more active crafting system makes it much more interesting to me. I spent a large majority of my time yesterday gathering everything in sight, and when I was ready, I went over to Neriak to begin my crafting progression.
I must have been one of the earlier people to do this, because I did not see that many bags listed on the auction house. My strategy was to get to the crafting trainer to finish the tutorial crafting quests as soon as possible so that I could specialize into an outfitter and start crafting bags for profit. My early gathering paid off immensely in this regard because I had all of the resources I needed to finish the tutorial crafting quests and even craft myself a full set of 12 slot bags. The 12 slot bags require a rare resource to craft and I luckily had found them prior to arriving. The 8 slot bags were what I was going to craft in mass for sale on the broker.
Initially, I started selling my 8 slot bags for a low price of 5 silver each, then 10, then 15, and just now I listed about 25 more 8 slot bags for 20 silver a piece. Overnight, pretty much everything sold out, so I assume that 20 silver a piece will also sell out because there were no more bags on the auction when I woke up this morning. Seeing that my crafting activities are paying off is making me want to continue to gather and craft a ton on this new server, especially during the early phases of the process. When I come back and stream my adventures again later today, I will be starting at nearly level 14 and should be able to get my crafting up to level 19 by the end of the day, in order to specialize in tailoring as my primary profession.
While I may have put the majority of my time into gathering and crafting, I did manage to get my character to level 15 through questing and killing open world mobs. I downloaded the EQ2 Maps addon which helped me identify where I needed to go for certain quests, but the majority of the quests were completed from memory as I had recently been through the Darklight Wood starting quests on another Everquest 2 server. I am relying on questing and killing named mobs primarily for my gear at present, but eventually, with my coin growing through crafting, I plan to eventually start buying some nice items as well.
As I said, I am very addicted to this new server. While my gameplay has been mainly solo to this point, by the time I get towards the end of Darklight Wood, I am almost certain that I will need to start grouping up as I get to the next areas of quest grind as the game will almost certainly get more difficult for solo gameplay at that point. As I have never been to areas outside of the starting zones, I look forward to the exploration that awaits me and others as we battle through Norath for fame and fortune. I hope everyone else who has been enjoying the new server has a fruitful day, and remember, the journey is more important than the destination, so just enjoy the adventure!
Until next time,
Blackboa