The alternate planes of existence haven’t been opened yet in EverQuest 2. In EQ1, there was really no difference in the planes from any other zone, aside from there being a god or goddess lurking about. Some of them erased your levitation buff. Plane of Water (and Kedge Keep) required you had a water-breathing buff of some sort.
First time I entered Kedge Keep, I couldn’t draw an easy breath until I left. I felt on the edge of drowning the entire time. It perfectly captured the experience of swimming through an old underwater ruin, holding your breath.
I want there to be zones like that in EQ2, that give you a sense of being someplace very different, in the world or out of it.
So here are some modest suggestions for bringing that experience to EverQuest 2 without requiring a re-write of the whole game. These have nothing to do with SOE or any actual EQ2 plans, so don’t blame them.
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The Rot – A spongy mat of rotting vegetation deaden all sound in this gateway zone between the surface world and the Plane of Underfoot. Memories of the past echo here. Things not yet fully dead, or not yet fully born, wander about. Rule changes – no chat channels other than /say, /shout and /guild. The silence deadens all mystical communications. At random, a copy of a player character in the zone is made and wanders about the area as a random encounter, perhaps translucent so it is not mistaken for the actual player. The level and abilities of the monster would not depend upon those of the player from which it was copied, though its archetype class should match.
Aetheria – The vast void that separates the Kingdom of the Sky from the Planes of Air (domain of Xegony) and Sky (domain of Veeshan). Rule changes – there is no land and no gravity in this zone. People on carpets and Fae in general get no movement benefits here (though you’d think they should), because it would be unfair. The content of the zone is floating structures of bizarre dimensions; castles with towers jutting out in all directions; creatures roosting in and feasting on the spherical floating forests; comets providing omens to those trapped on the ground below. Groundward is Norrath spread out like a map; heavenward the moons Luclin and Drinal look incredibly close as they speed by. Movement is by swimming through the air or hitching a ride with a passing comet, many of which orbit quite close to the interesting features of the zone.
Soulforge – A demiplane composed entirely of flame; it was once Solusek Ro’s home before he built his eternal Tower. It is impossible for mortals to survive in this inferno, so Fennin Ro grants adventurers imperishable bodies while they sojourn here. Rules change – all players are given the form of a human made of flame and lava, but still wearing their equipment. This illusion also confers +1000 fire resistance – but the monsters of the zone don’t use fire based attacks. Fire to them is life; it wouldn’t occur to them any more than we’d consider splashing someone with lukewarm water a life-threatening attack. One of the rarest treasures in the zone is a ring that grants the wielder this illusion form in the normal material planes for a short amount of time.
Heart of the Nexus – The ruined Ulteran spires in Lavastorm (or Loping Plains, but that would require EoF) respond to the sympathetic vibrations of the spires the Gatecallers repaired. But its energies are wild and undirected, and blast the unwary straight to the heart of the shattered moon of Luclin. Rules changes – adventurers would prowl about on the inner surfaces of the moon, with the Heart of the Nexus blazing above them and pushing them away. Players would fall away from the core and not toward it, but in practice, up and down would operate as normal – up toward the Heart, down toward empty space, but there’s plenty of land and few chances to see the stars beneath your feet. The big change is the lighting — the Heart gives off an immense light, so shadows are sharp, dark areas are Stygian and light areas washed out. The creatures are the kind you would expect in a magically-charged environment, but expect the Centi and the Akheva to be struggling to survive in the deeper recesses of the zone.
(Old) Tunaria – The seams between fracturing realities are opening up rifts in Time. This would be an instance that sends players into the deep past before Solusek Ro drove the elves from Tunaria to Faydwer. The players would work to close the rift and put things back to the way they should have been, just as Druzzil Ro once tried to do (in the EQ2 reality, or succeeded in doing in the EQ1 reality, hence the reality fractures) in the Plane of Time. Rules change – all loot gained from the instance vanishes once the player leaves the instance. However, they could ‘bury’ an item gained before they leave the instance and try to uncover it (by clicking on a likely stone or mound of earth) when they return to the modern area. The millennia might have turned it into junk or treasure of real power.
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Good ideas