I’m not dead, in the header picture. I’m just pretending. Farming the Game Master for his best-in-slot earring is… five minutes of terror punctuated by fifteen minutes of boredom. I find a pet, charm it, kill Game Master when he pops, then feign death, releasing my pet to go wander around outside the room until I need it again.
I treat my pets well.
But hey, today is about a month to the first EverQuest Legends expansion, Rules of Kunark. The ancient empires that were memories in the classic EverQuest are thriving here. Cabilis is still a power; the lich Venril Sathir has left his wife in charge of Karnor’s Castle. The Shissar are lurking about. The Sarnak are still very much a force in the area. And the Drolvarg — the giant gnolls — have taken over that area of the Lake of Ill Omen that used to be named after Firiona Vie.
The expansion comes in three flavors — standard, premium and deluxe. Controversially, core Kunark game features are locked behind the upgraded editions. Typically, the premium packages of these sorts of games contain cosmetics or temporary boosts of some sort of another. But what EQL has on offer goes somewhat beyond that.
Reincarnation System
This is available to all packages, even the lowest level one. When you have a race/three class combo at level 50, you can pay three Void-Touched Potentials, obtainable from raids (at a maximum of three per week) to get a Reincarnation token that you can spend to set your current race and classes all to level 1. Each time you do this with a specific race or class, that race or class powers up a race- or class-specific ability, to a maximum of three. With sixteen classes, this means a total of 48 trips through the leveling journey to get the fully powered up race and class abilities. (This is assuming you have all the races unlocked).
Since the VTPs are used to fully power up gear, spells and (now) disciplines, reincarnating means going a year without any max level upgrades.
Reincarnation tokens are available on the shop for US$5. So those people who are used to leveling up a new race/class combo in a couple of days are feeling forced to spend money to power up their characters while still being able to power up their gear.
Breezing through the levels so quickly was possibly by leaning heavily into a character built entirely around the use of the bard song Denon’s Desperate Dirge (DDD) to quickly groups of mobs, right to max level. My partner Kasul uses this build to easily clear the Plane of Fear; he empties the entire thing in a few pulls. EverQuest Legends has nerfed this in the latest patch; a certain mob cannot have DDD cast on it more than once in two ticks — 12 to 18 seconds. This completely destroys the all-bard groups that clear the planes on the highest difficulties in a few minutes, as they can’t all pile on a group of enemies or a boss. It also makes the song almost useless for solo bards, as Kasul and I found last night while doing the weekly raids.
So anyway, the reincarnation system (which is open for use now if you pre-order a premium or deluxe package) is more or less broken.
The premium package comes with two reincarnation tokens, and the deluxe with three. This was originally three and five, respectively, but they changed their minds for reasons unknown.
Collection System
Facts are scarce, but it seems that the Collection System grant rewards based on collecting related sets of items. I’d think the class-specific armor sets from Hate and Fear and the quest rewards from Sky would count. There will be a new collection tab on your inventory to keep these things, because otherwise they would not all fit in your inventory and bank without purchasing extra space. My feeling is that the reward would be ornamentations that give special looks to your armor and/or weapons consistent with that collection.
The standard expansion does not include the collection system. The premium package only has a Kunark collection system, while the deluxe package includes the classic zones as well. Shutting off an entire game mechanic behind the upgraded expansion purchase is not going over well.
Auction House Slots
Instead of going with the East Commons Tunnel/Greater Faydark market (original EQ) or the Bazaar (Planes of Power), Game Jawn has opted for an Auction House setup. It’s a good possibility that they will add Auction NPCs in the world, but I suspect they will just let you bring up an Auction window anywhere you happen to be.
Which would be unusual, but not unheard of. Again, I don’t actually know how they plan to enable this for the player.
The three packages allow for differing number of items you can have on offer — 50, 75 or 100. Auction winnings are sent to you via the Parcels NPCs in all the starting cities; or you can spend a Delivery Voucher to have it sent straight to your inventory. The premium package gets five of these, the deluxe package, ten. I imagine they will also be available in the shop.
Alias System
People who named their Kerran bard Tabbytha Cuddlyfur have a real problem when they swap loadouts to their ogre shadowknight but are forced to be deadnamed for all to see. So embarassing. The Alias System allows you to give a loadout a name unique to that loadout. The deluxe package has one free alias slot; it’s certain more will be available on the marketplace.
Miscellaneous
The remainder of the package rewards are more along the lines of what you might expect; race and class unlock tokens, XP potions and such. One stands out: Epic Weapon Ornamentation.
In EverQuest Legends, ornamentations are the look of a visible armor piece or a weapon that you can socket into other armor pieces or weapons to take on their appearance. These cost money to buy from the marketplace.
Having a free Epic Weapon Ornamentation implies, to me, that GJ plans to let people show off the look of an epic weapon that they did not quest for. Out of all the things on this list, this is the one that infuriates me. Epic weapons were achievements; back in classic EQ, it meant that not only did you put in a lot of work, but you were able to get enough friends together to do the required raids. The guilds I was in only considered the cleric epic (the Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh) worth adding to the raid schedule, due to the required free 90% resurrection effect that could bring a raid back from a bad wipe in just minutes. I used to run so many epic raids off schedule; it was a community thing. People would be so happy with their new cool weapon. It was a real rite of passage back in the day.
To see a rando cheapen that by just buying the skin for money… well… come ON. You’ll be able to solo the epic quests in Kunark, just do the damn quest. Earn it.
The Controversy
The EQL Discord is full of angry people. The nerfing of DDD, combined with the collision of wanting to upgrade spells and gear vs being able to upgrade your character via the reincarnation system, and charging a subscription fee, a box fee, and also a cash shop that many feel is forcing them to spend even more money just to play as they like all combine to make for an unhappy player base.
And it’s hard to disagree. I’m not angry — well, aside from the Epic Weapon Ornamentation. I guess I am a little bit angry. But then, I didn’t spend a lot of time building a bard around DDD, and I can’t imagine wanting to do the reincarnation thing 48 times. I might do it once or twice, and only because the trip through the lower levels with best-in-slot gear is an excellent way of earning AAs and motes.
But there are people who did build their character around DDD and do want to reincarnate several times a week (presumably intending to rely upon DDD to speed through the latter half of the leveling), and they are very much not happy campers.
Ya know, I got to the end of this post and realized I spent so much time talking about the different expansion packages, that I didn’t talk much about Kunark itself!
Weird. Another time, I guess.
Aw, that kinda sucks.
I got off the bus when they inexplicably took my horse AA away for no reason I could figure out.