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EverQuest II: Difference between revisions
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EQ2 added a few new races to the game, as well as vastly different gameplay mechanics. Most notably, there is ample content for single players, and it is possible to advance to the maximum level (currently 90) without ever stepping into a group. Quest lines are easier to follow, and rewards are easier to come by. However, EQ2 now faces the same issue its predecessor does of too many players at the upper level. SOE has responded to this problem by trying to make it easier for players to rush through all of the "old world" content and get to level 92 as fast as possible.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]:Some parts of the sewers of Qeynos take this trope to such a ridiculous extreme that you might be forgiven for thinking you're in an underground cathedral (since there are those there as well.) Justified in that the sewers are also the catacombs where most of Qeynos' dead are laid to rest. Kinda like they used to do in Paris, France. Freeport's sewer systems on the other hand, are much MUCH larger, significantly filthier, and don't serve for any secondary functions other than being a sewer.
* [[As Himself]]: Proffesional baseball player Curt Schilling is a huge fan of ''EverQuest'' and MMO's in general. During an ''EverQuest'' 2 charity event, SOE created a character designed off of Curt himself using an anagram he created named Clint Gilcrush. Curt lent his voice to the dialogue of this character for the sake of the charity. Since then, Clint Gilcrush has been a permanent part of the game. He's secretly a triple-agent for both Qeynos and Freeport during the Betrayal questline, and the player is tasked with taking a bounty out on his head.
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* [[Bigger Bad]]: EQ2 now has {{spoiler|Kerafyrm}} as the grand daddy of all Big Bads, being the prominent character found at the core of the Age's End prophecy that Norrath is now facing.
* [[Big Good]]: Antonia Bayle started as one. She still technically is, but like Lucan, her plot relevance is steadily decreasing.
* [[Big
** Unrest in EQ2 is much scarier than the first envisioning. The zone is strongly story-driven. You're being watched and commented on by the [[Big Bad]] of the end zone as you discover the cause of the curse that rests upon the estate and how he brutally slaughtered the innocent family that lived there. Just before you fight him, he actually realizes that [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You|you are a player behind a computer monitor]], and tries to "jump" out of the screen at you when he pulls an [[Interface Screw]] on you before you approach him.
* [[Big Creepy Crawlies]]: During one of the revamps, all the frogs and slugs and bugs in the newbie zone The Peat Bog were enlarged massively. Now the frogs are as wide across as a male barbarian, and the more dangerous slugs in the back of the zone are 4 times bigger than a human.
* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: The entirety of the Sentinel's Fate expansion. The Erudites have a racial outlook that pretty much boils down to [[For Science!|"For Science!"]]. They messed around with necromancy, slaughtered Kerra and Hua Mein, and generally were jackasses to everyone. However, they were fighting to save Odus and possibly all of Norrath from either being torn apart by the Void itself or drawn into the Underfoot, and the Void Invaders and Guardians of the Underfoot are nowhere near as nice as the Erudites...
* [[Black and White Morality]]: Qeynos vs Freeport, and to a lesser extent Qeynos & Kelethin & New Halas vs Freeport & Neriak. (Gorowyn, the third "evil" city, has a policy of [[Pragmatic Villainy]], tolerates good aligned adventurers inside it and is diplomatic with Qeynos and Kelethin).
* [[Boss Game]]: In spades, especially when it comes to higher end content. Some raid zones don't even have "trash", it's just a gauntlet of boss after boss.
** The best example of this might be Toxxiulla's Mound. No trash, just a ring event involving dragons. The other good example would be The Palace of Roheen Theer. No trash, just epic after epic. It's worth noting that many raiders prefer the boss-only zones because generally killing "trash" doesn't result in loot drops which makes time not spent working on the bosses time wasted.
* [[Bottomless Bladder]]: Played straight for players. Not always so true for NPCs.
* [[Born
* [[Breast Plate]]: EQ2 almost completely averted this trope. Unarmored characters wear peasant-like clothing rather than underwear. In fact, there is '''one''' piece of gear in the game that shows any significant amount of skin on a female character, and it's a rather expensive prestige item that only acts as clothing instead of armor anyway.
** Back with a vengeance as of ''Destiny of Velious'', as villaineses Cara Omica, Tserinna Syl'Tor and Sullon Zek all wear what amounts to armor in the shape of a bikini and stockings. Most PC armor remains reasonable and sensible, but as of LU63 female characters can wear halter top shaped breastplates.
* [[Canon Dis Continuity]]: In terms of the lore and history behind the world of Norrath, things are split up into two categories. First is that anything actually found inside [[Ever Quest]], [[Ever Quest]] 2 (up to a certain point in time for its own storyline with [[Ever Quest]]), and [[Ever Quest]] Online Adventures is official canon to the games. There's also the tabletop Pen & Paper versions of the games, which have much more detailed stories and lore, but aren't considered canon unless it's also covered in the game.
** How evil Rallos Zek is has varied from time to time. At his best he's been an "a shade below Neutral" type evil who abhorred Innoruuk, Cazic Thule and Bertoxxulus and respected the Marr twins. At his worst, he's more of a "kill everyone until everyone wants to kill everyone" type.
* [[Card
* [[Cash Cow Franchise]]: ''EverQuest 1'' was such a success that they took all the money from it and used that to create many new games (EQ 2 was just one of them), rather than improve ''EverQuest''. They mostly all failed. It's pretty obvious that the management has no regard for the original ''EverQuest'' other than to milk it dry.
** Besides ''EverQuest'' and ''EverQuest 2'', there is the online card game ''Legends of Norrath'', ''Champions of Norrath'' ([[PS 2]] game), ''Champions: Return to Arms'' ([[PS 2]] game), ''[[Ever Quest]] Online Adventures'' ([[PS 2]] game), ''[[Ever Quest]] Hero's Call'' (Pocket PC), ''[[Ever Quest]] Hero's Call 2'' (Pocket PC), ''Lords of [[Ever Quest]]'' (PC real-time strategy game), ''[[Ever Quest]] Role-Playing Game'' (a role-playing game produced in collaboration with White Wolf which uses the d20 system). Also a line of novels have been published in the world of EverQuest and there has been talk of a feature film for years.
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* [[The Dog Bites Back]]: Rallos Zek imprisoned Vallon Zek, God of Strategy, Tallon Zek, God of Tactics, and Sullon Zek, Demi-Goddess of Rage, in his fortress with the intentions of killing them and taking their powers in order to fight Kerafyrm. While Tallon and Vallon initially didn't know what was happening, imprisoning the God of Rage only [[Tranquil Fury|enraged her more]]... Thanks to the help from the adventurers, {{spoiler|the three of them [[Patricide|kill Rallos Zek]], and all three gods decide to govern in his stead as a triumvirate of war known as the Hounds of Zek.}}
* [[Down the Drain]]: Edgewater Drains is to date the only zone in EQ2 with a significant underwater area.
* [[Dual
* [[Easier Than Easy]]: Erudin Library. This is the dungeon that gives even casual players little to no trouble, and the good ones can clear it with two people.
** The Obelisk of Ahkzul. Can be soloed at 90, and gives about 6-12 plat a run and some level 80 stuff to transmute.
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* [[Floating Continent]]: EQ2 looovvess this trope. The entire Kingdom of Sky expansion pack took place on floating islands. Part of the Swamp of Innothule, although technically not floating, was so high off the ground it could only be accessed by airship. In the ''Sentinel's Fate'' expansion, the entire continent of Odus is floating because it's now located in an alternate dimension entirely.
* [[Forced Level Grinding]]: Leveling up is easy compared to EQ1. Now go get your 325 AA's.
* [[
* [[Forced Tutorial]]: Controversially removed from the game. The original game started all players out as "Level 1 Commoners" in a zone called "Isle of Refuge". You learned to play by completing the quests there, picked your archetype (fighter, mage, priest, scout), and an alignment (Qeynos or Freeport). The whole archetype and class picking part was done away with years ago, "to make the newbie experience more unique", and the Isle of Refuge was split into The Queen's Colony (for good characters) and Outpost of the Overlord (for evil ones). But as the focus of the game shifted away from Qeynos and Freeport and the gear from the two tutorial zones became outdated, SOE decided to just get rid of them entirely.
** Tutorials now exist as a series of pop-up windows and they aren't mandatory. There's no reason a newbie can't just start level grinding and ignore the hell out of all the quests.
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* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: Twenty-one in total (twenty if you count Kerrans and Vah Shir as the same race, which some do and some don't). High Elves, Halflings, Dwarves, Wood Elves, Frogloks, Humans, Barbarians, Half Elves, Gnomes, Erudites, Freeblood Vampires, Dark Elves, Ogres, Trolls, Iksar, Vah Shir, Ratonga, Kerran, Fae, Arasai, Sarnak. Have fun making those [[Altitis|characters.]]
** Mind you, that's only the ''playable'' races. Just for fun, here's a list of some of the non-playable races. <ref>Aviak, Bixie, Boarfiend, Brownie, Bugbear, Burynai, Centaur, Clockwork, Cyclops, Djinn, Drelock, Droag, Ettin, Fungusman, Gnoll, Goblin, Giant, Gruengach, Hua Mein, Kobold, Lizardman, Orc, Othmir, Ravasect, Roekillik, Shadowed Man, Tallonite, Vampire, Yah-lei.</ref>
* [[Money, Dear Boy]]: Many of the changes made to the game over the last few years were only for the sole purpose of raking in more dough and keeping the game alive. You can buy in game items with real life cash, and it just gets worse from there.
** For example, as of ''The Shadow Odyssey'', all subclasses got their own unique looking armor. Granted, there were only a few different base designs, but at least they bothered to palate-swap the armor. Ever since they started providing super-elaborate decorative armor in the Marketplace for real money, there have been five total armor texture schemes - plate mail, chain mail, leather armor, gi, and cloth armor.
** The Freeblood race was created just so players could buy and then play as a vampire race. The race itself has no lore behind it (though the developers ''tried'' to justify some connections with the ''Nights of the Dead'' Halloween events) other than that they used to be both Humans and Elves who were abducted by vampires, experimented on, showed resistance to sunlight, retained free will, and escaped from their captors.
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* [[Neglectful Precursors]]: The Combine Empire was seen as this for a long time.
* [[Nerf]]: In a rare case of nerfing the enemies rather than the players, the game did away with the concept of "critical mitigation" entirely.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: EQ2 did this in The Shadow Odyssey expansion. In their attempts to fight off the invading forces of the Void and prevent them from [[Cessation of Existence|destroying Norrath]], the players eventually had to fight against the former God of Health from Norrath's Pantheon, Anashti Sul. She had been banished to the Void for unleashing the Undead upon Norrath, and now she wanted revenge. When the players finally defeated her, they ended up breaking the proverbial leash that kept her bound in the Void, and was allowed to reform herself on Norrath. Even she could not have predicted such an outcome when she died, but was pleased nonetheless. She now exists on Norrath as the God of Eternal Life. She's still evil and bitter about what the gods did to her though.
** Sentinal's Fate, the follow up to the Shadow Odyssey has this again. When you defeat the 4 Rune Roheen Theer, you weaken him enough to allow {{spoiler|Kerafyrm}} to steal the power of his magic god-killing swords. With Roheen Theer out of the picture, the void's grip on Odus weakened, which forced the Erudites and adventurers to turn their attention to preventing the whole of Norrath from being pulled into the Underfoot.
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: In general, SOE does a fairly good job at providing both easy content for the casual players and really difficult stuff for the hardcore ones. Sentinel's Fate originally had two raid zones. It took the game's best guild 6 months to defeat the 4 Rune Roehn Theer boss, and almost as long to defeat Arkathanthis the Destroyer. Then, so the top level guilds didn't get complacent, they released the Underfoot Depths raid zone in LU57...
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** In EQ2, Za Za Lenska gives you a quest to get "potion ingredients to help her husband" that include snake venom (a reference to Zsa Zsa Gabor going through husbands).
** A character you're forced to fight one-on-one in a monk trial event is called Crush "The Icescale" Lizzard (shout out to Chuck "The Iceman" Liddel).
** The quest "The Number One Threat In the Butcherblock" requires you to kill [[
* [[Non
** Played straight with the Bixies, an NPC race of bees. They're insects, to be sure, but a cross between a bee and a woman, and their torso's carapaces all have two breasts.
* [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]]: Yep, they're still the same, although the Coldain Dwarves have been changed by their environment enough that they easily stand out.
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* [[Our Ogres Are Hungrier]]: In EQ2, the Gods' departure lifted a curse that made the ogres stupid. With the curse gone, but their arrogance and massive physical size still there, they ended up a quite scary race of [[Genius Bruiser|Genius Bruisers]].
* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: EQ2's vampires seem to be rather similar to dark elves, and there are groups of vampires living openly in the dark elf city of Neriak. The game skirts around the issue of whether sunlight actually harms them or not. One instance in ''The Shadow Odyssey'' expansion requires adventurers to "become" vampires themselves, and fight a boss where natural sunlight is occasionally exposed to the area, and it's lethal to players.
** Eventually, [[Money, Dear Boy|entirely for the sake of money]], the developers created the Freeblood Vampire race. A race of vampires who used to be Humans and Elves that were abducted for vampire experiments. They managed to retain some of their free will, as well as proved that sunlight didn't affect them. They escaped and started living in the cities across Norrath.
* [[Power
* [[Phlebotinum Overload]]: {{spoiler|Kerafyrm}} now has the Power of the Nameless. However, the power was meant ''only'' for Roehn Theer, and Theer needed his swords Enoxus and Aeteok to properly channel it. {{spoiler|Kerafyrm}} has neither of the swords, his reasoning being that he now has the power, and the swords are just mundane vessels to store it, so he didn't need them. If he tries to use this power, Theer believes that it will "hasten the cataclysm foretold in the Age's End Prophecy" by literally unmaking the world.
** On top of that, Rallos Zek, the God of War himself, is after the power aswell to become the "True King", a kind of "God of Gods" to plunge the entire universe into war, but even if he does kill Kerafyrm, there is a chance killing the Prismatic Dragon will end the universe as well.
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* [[The Reveal]]: Players learned that Eva Corruno'thes, the Prophet of Tunare, was actually {{spoiler|Firiona Vie,}} who kept herself [[Hidden in Plain Sight]] until the time came for her to play her part in the Age's End story arc.
* [[Slobs Versus Snobs]]: Comes up every time the Erudites argue with anyone, but especially with their old rivals the nature-oriented Kerra.
* [[Some Call Me... Tim]]: Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar. Players call him Bob. The game even gives this a shout out - one of the achievements is "Defeat Lord Doljonijia... Bob"
* [[Stripperiffic]]: Antonia Bayle.
** SOE in general decided very deliberately to move away from using stripperiffic women to advertise the game. There's ''one'' skimpy dress (in various colors) that female characters can get in EQ2, but it's an optional prestige item. Antonia remains stripperiffic, but she isn't plastered all over the official art like Firiona Vie was in EQ1.
*** As of Destiny of Velious expansion they've been bringing it back. Tserrina Syl'Tor, Cara Omica and Sullon Zek all sport "armor" that is ludicrous at best.
* [[Tailor
* [[Temporal Paradox]]: The Shiny Metallic Robe heritage quest results in a paradox that leads to you finding a portal that takes you to 500 years in the past (in EQ1's time) where Clockworks have taken over the entire world. You meet a gnome enchanter who figures that if you're from the future, then she's trapped in a [[Alternate Universe|time bubble]] existing outside the normal timeline. She tells you that she was probably the cause of this alternate reality, and knows how to prevent it from happening with your help. This results in a [[Stable Time Loop]] that fixes the timeline by giving you the item that caused it in the first place; a package that is not to be delivered to you until 500 years later, back in the present time.
* [[Titled After the Song]]: Combined with [[Theme Naming]]. Quests surrounding Erollisi Day and the Returning Goddess zone are named after songs.
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* [[Weapon of X Slaying]]: Weapons with the "Bane" effect do extra damage to a particular species of monsters.
** Some of the weapons of a x4 boss in a contested zone also have a damage proc that only damages "those born of zek".
* [[What Measure Is a Non
* [[Wolfpack Boss]]:
** Ludmila Kystov and her party (Meldrath Klotik, Jracol Binari, Blorgok the Brutal, the Doomcoil) in the Protector's Realm
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