It’s been quite a week in EQ2 for me. I thought after a week my curiosity would wear off and I’d return to my regular gaming habits. But truth be told I haven’t touched Guild Wars 2 since I started on Fallen Gate. I started the week at level 5 and have slowly fought my way to level 13.
At the beginning of the week I found myself doing more tutorial quests. One actually taught me about gathering and collectibles and gave me a nice materials chest for my bank so it wasn’t a waste of time. The boat I took from the Isle of Refuge was destroyed and I found myself in a very cold and desolate world of the Frost fang sea. Orcs seem to thrive here though because there are plenty of those all over the place.
Leveling from 5-9 had me doing quests for a band of travelers as they prepared to move to their next step on the journey toward New Halas. I collected things for them, I found missing children , and I even tamed some snow lions to get them through to the next leg. After all of that they still just sent me to the Great Shelf on my own. They didn’t even give me a lion for protection.
One of the things I’m finding is that the quests in EQ2, at least in this revamped starter island, are actually interesting. Each quest hub has a few quest lines that all tie together and form a coherent story for that particular area. I can’t even say that there is a main quest right now except getting to New Halas but the collection of side-quests really works for me. I especially like that I haven’t found a single one and done quest. Every quest giver has had three to five quests. It makes me feel like I’m actually helping this particular NPC instead of running around from person to person. Oh and I can’t forget to mention how much I like the little conversational flavor text for your character. Essentially their just next, yes, no, accept buttons but it’s so much more entertaining to make snide remarks instead of just blankly agreeing.
Let’s talk about quests for a minute on Fallen Gate. The quests have been out leveling me by a lot. I know I said I wanted to play this server and see all the old content but I did not expect to be level 13 and have all my available quests be level 16+. Was it like this at launch? Is this intentional? Maybe I’m just a spoiled millennial gamer but I’m not complaining, it makes accomplishing said quest a little victory all of it’s own.
Getting to level 10 felt like such a slog. I had a collection of gear and some skill books to use at level 10. I managed to find a repeatable quest where I slaughtered orcs and turned in the quest over and over again for about an hour until I finally dinged. I also received this hideous mount, the Pedipowered Posterior Punter. At first I didn’t get it, putting the mount on makes my Froglok walk instead of hop and he looks like a creepy marionette. And then I jumped…straight up a cliff. It’s been quite a useful tool for exploring and avoiding some encounters.
Levels 10-13 have had me take part in a war between the Orcs and the Dwarves that live here. There’s orcs of ever flavor, magic orcs, warrior orcs, lazy orcs, necromancer orcs, you name it, the Frost Fang Sea has an Orc for it. The nice things about leveling so slowly is that I’ve honed my orc killing techniques.
I can’t help but feel like I might be going about this leveling the wrong way. I’ve made it to the Cragged Spine and have been doing level 16 quests when I can. It’s been a slow go and I haven’t seen all that many people around me to group up with . Nevertheless, it’s been fun. I have my own little goal of completing all of the quests here, getting to New Halas, and leaving for the mainland. I think I still have a while to go but it’s definitely been an adventure so far.
Many Welps 
I’m glad you’re enjoying the game! I’ve played quite a bit this week and have a level 9 (as of last night) Fury on Fallen Gate. I’m also finding some quests where the mobs are three levels above me. I can take them as long as it’s one at a time. Luckily my character can heal herself, or death would be more certain and frequent.
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You’re almost there to get the mount! I’m really surprised how much this games been holding my attention.
If I wasn’t able to charm higher level mobs I’d be done for. I can reliably take on one mob but two things get dicey if I don’t keep my mesmerize up. And then sometimes I forget to recast charm and have 3 things attacking me and that’s how I usually die. I’m sure glad the XP penalty isn’t that much.
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As far as I can tell DBG have just reduced xp gain without making any changes to the quest flow at all. That means that if you stay in the same zone you use up a lot more quests as you level than the original quest design allows for, so you fall increasingly far behind where the game expects you to be. In terms of difficulty I didn’t find it a problem – I could comfortably kill mobs that con yellow or even orange, 2-4 levels above me.
Where it did become a problem was in the rewards. By the time I dinged ten I not only had a full set of Level 12 quest armor but I was starting to get pieces that were in the mid-teens. That was when I stopped questing in Frostfang and went back to Qeynos to go round the four starter areas there before going out into Antonica.
If you know the world and feel confident about moving around using the bells and griffins then it’s not a problem but for someone new to the game, trying to follow the main questline in a given zone, the way they’ve done the xp changes isn’t great. I recommend checking this page on the wiki and using it to explore (bearing in mind that not all of those zones are in game on FG as yet, of course).
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Zones_By_Level
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I knew there was something up with the quests. I know Fallen Gate is trying to bring that “old school” feel back to the game but grinding 4 levels from mobs to be at level for the quests seemed like a bit much.
Thanks for the link it looks super helpful. I will definitely be using it as a guide on my adventures.
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