To get the header image, I had to find EverQuest II, re-install it, look for my Freeblood character, figure out where she was (Darklight Wood), figure out how to use a map (never actually did), figure out how to get to Nektulos Forest and thence to Nektropos Castle, and I had an epiphany.
I simply have no idea how to play EQ2, any more. And it used to be my main game. Contrast with EverQuest Legends that I could instantly play with no trouble whatsoever.
I did eventually make it, met a group of gray-to-level-43 dogs, hit auto attack, did approximately zero damage to them, they killed me, and then I respawned, ported back to my home (Neriak apparently), and logged off. Then I logged on again because I’d forgotten if the character was a Halfblood or a Freeblood.
Freeblood. EverQuest II’s “half dark elves” are Freebloods.
I would have been happy to explore Nektropos Castle once more if I’d remembered how to play and thought I could deal with the group-level mobs deeper into the castle. But not being able to deal with gray yard trash put paid to that.
The occasion of all this was a note posted to BlueSky (and, I’m sure, other places):
To our friends, and hopefully future partners.
The Everling estate will be closed to visitors for a time.
I would ask that this letter travels no further than your hands. You may have heard that there has been a death in the family. There have been seven.
My parents are not receiving guests. My father is not himself, and my mother is grieving.
I have tried to keep this inside these walls, but I can’t anymore. My guards are almost overwhelmed.
I am told you are capable. I am told, more usefully, that you are discreet.
Come to Nektropos. Meet with Ozval. Come before this becomes something the whole of Norrath is talking about.
Yours truly,
Lord Everling.
Based on this letter, we are not seeing the castle as it appears in EverQuest II, but at a point just after disease has taken the lives of all seven of Lord Everling’s daughters.
The castle is said to be a 1-to-1 recreation of the castle as it appears in EQ2, except without the ruins of centuries of decay. So expect puzzles, secret doors, traps, mysteries, and lots and lots of psychotic dolls.
I don’t know if the new race — “half dark elves” — is coming with the castle, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Nektropos Castle was in EQ2 from the beginning, but I think they added the vampiric Freebloods (arguably half dark elves) along with the new evil newbie zone of Darklight Woods. Freebloods aren’t directly associated with the Everling family — they were just your garden variety dark elves — but they might fit well into EverQuest Legends.
This would be a perfect opportunity for them to add Reincarnation.
Reincarnation (if I have the name right) reverts all your character levels to level 1, but (from what I understand) all your stats stay the same as they were before you reincarnated, so you get fifty more levels of stat increases. It’s almost certain that having reincarnated stats will be required to solo the later Kunark raids.
But, I don’t think Reincarnation or “half dark elves” are coming with Nektropos Castle; I think those are slated for the Rulers of Kunark expansion. Still. I think now is the perfect time for some vampirish folk to come on the scene.
We’ll see (perhaps) next Tuesday.
