EverQuest II: Echoes of Faydwer (PC) (gamespy)

- gamespy -

EverQuest II has resided in the shadow of World of Warcraft since both games launched two years ago. This fact is far from lost on Sony Online Entertainment, evident in the direction that they've taken the game during the past two years. The game's third retail expansion, Echoes of Faydwer, is essentially the culmination of this process. SOE has worked the sort of casual-friendly, directed play experience into EverQuest II in as many ways as could be reasonably applied to its formula, and without question, it's the players who benefit. Echoes of Faydwer, in short, is quite possibly the most thorough about-face ever seen in the MMO world that did not bring with it disastrous consequences.

If you played the game at launch, you'll remember just how precariously EQII straddled classical and modern MMO philosophies. The game offered brisk advancement, but quests weren't exactly in proliferation, and as a result, the preferred method for advancement was old-school party grinding. In many ways, this continues to be the case, which is exactly what makes Echoes of Faydwer's focus on quests just so monumental. Players who start new characters in Echoes can advance from level one to 70 almost exclusively by doing quests. Depending on who you talk to, there are a few "dry spells," but for the most part, all of the expansion's zones have quest content built into them appropriate to the levels of characters adventuring within their borders. One key stipulation applies: Only a handful of races can start their careers on the new continent of Faydwer (and thus access to the new leveling content), counting the all-new Fae. Those wanting to level up as evil characters are out of luck, unfortunately -- only certain good and neutral races are welcome.

As a side effect of this, the continent of Faydwer is laid out in a manner more logical than what EQII players have seen in the past. Every zone corresponds with a specific level range, and there are concrete quest hubs, hunting areas, and dungeons contained in each. The past two years have seen the game's designers trying to shoehorn this sort of flow into the game's existing zones, but apart from some of the content in the adventure packs, it's never worked this well. Your quest log will seldom be empty, and it's usually easy enough to stumble upon an all-new hub full of things to do. Experience and material rewards flow as liberally as you'd expect, so you're always decently equipped for your level. Ultimately, it's never been a better time to be a newb in EQII ... provided you don't want to play an evil character, anyway.

The new capital of Kelethin fits into EQII's existing faction dynamics in an interesting way. It's essentially a fourth faction (counting evil Freeport, good Qeynos, and the universally antagonized Exiles) that requires you to pledge citizenship to it exclusively. The treetop city itself is much more compact in size than Freeport or Qeynos, though it contains all of the same amenities. At press time, the quest that allows new players to become citizens of Kelethin is bugged for a large portion of the population, preventing them from fully settling in. Further, characters that start their careers in Kelethin are as of yet unable to betray to Freeport, and assume evil classes (note: According to SOE, this option will be made available in a future update).

Though you wouldn't expect the average MMO player to cotton to them, the Fae have actually become quite a popular race, due to their interesting racial abilities and their strategically advantageous small size. Their stats make them predisposed towards popular rogue and spellcasting classes, and their "slow fall" ability makes traversing their elevated capital city quite convenient. They also get some very good racial traits as they start to advance in level, including a particularly nice one that increases their in-combat movement speed. And then there's the fact that it's hard to devalue the humiliating effect of being beaten down by a cute little fairy in PvP. It wouldn't be surprising to learn this to be the key reason behind why they seem to be so popular.

It isn't all about the newbs, however; Echoes of Faydwer brings a good bit of content for higher level players, mostly in the form of dungeons (both instanced and non) and raids. Four new level-70 raids were introduced, ranging from entry-level to top-tier, and high-end guilds seem to have dived right in. Progress seems brisk enough, though players are reporting some bugged encounters. This is par for the course for a newly released MMO expansion, sure, but it's unfortunate nonetheless. Players can start experiencing non-instanced dungeons as early as the late teens, and the first Echoes instance is doable in the late 20s. From there, there is content of this type to take you to the level cap.

Echoes also brought with it two new major forms of character progression -- a deity system, and a new set of achievement trees to advance through. The deity system allows you to undertake quests for your chosen god in order to garner reputation points, which you can trade in for special, extremely powerful abilities (complete with long reuse timers, of course). The achievement trees, meanwhile, allow you to further customize your character within your class; think of them as class-specific talent trees that increase your capabilities in some cases, while granting you all-new powers in others. Some players have expressed misgivings about the implementation of this new system, since you can't reallocate points from the trees introduced in the Kingdom of Sky expansion. A valid enough gripe, which SOE will hopefully respond to.

Can Echoes of Faydwer validly be called EQII's first "real" expansion? It certainly is the first to introduce content for players of all levels. As for whether or not it's the one that's changed the game most appreciably for the better, it all depends on what sort of player you are. Higher level players might have gotten more mileage out of prior expansions, while PvPers were served in equal portions by Desert of Flames and Kingdom of Sky (and their respective live updates). Without question, however, Echoes of Faydwer seems to be paving the way for the EQII of tomorrow, and that is no small feat. If you've been curious about the game, this is without a doubt the best place to start. Just make sure you're OK playing as one of the good guys.