Stormhold, Open Dungeons in EQII
Nina and I decided to take a poke at Stormhold on Saturday evening in EQII. Her character, a Mystic, is of an appropriate level for it, and I mentored Shau the Monk down to match. Stormhold is a vast open dungeon in Antonica, and even having spent quite a while poking through it with Shau before, I still haven't seen all of it. Indeed, I've still got quests in there.
We rampaged through Stormhold for a good three hours. We both got killed a couple of times - once when we tried poking into the Tomb of Valor, which seemed to be a bit too tough for us still, and once as we came down toward the depths of the dungeon, and took on too many mobs at once. In the process, we got not one but two Exquisite Chests, giving Nina her first bits of Fabled loot to put on the broker, and a wide variety of lesser loot pieces to sell, as well as a couple of levels, completed quests, and AA.
It was very pleasing to be able to go in there and beat on things successfully, and even better because some of the fights were tough - a couple of times we finished out battles with both of us out of power, and both of us low on health. I'm pleased, too, to find that the monk can tank pretty well - there's an AoE for an initial 'grab their attention' move, and then a variety of taunts and other aggro-increasing tactics. Both monk and mystic can do respectable DPS, and the mystic can heal, so it all works out very nicely.
Stormhold is an open dungeon, so we occasionally ran into other people, and mobs respawn fairly quickly. I like that. It makes the dungeons seem more part of the world than when they're instanced, and it also brings me back to my very early MMO playing. Dark Age of Camelot had open dungeons, and some of my very earliest grouping experiences were in Muire's Tomb, camping in one alcove with three or four other characters, waiting for the Hellhag to respawn, and killing it (her?) over and over again. Good times.
And then I spent another while listing stuff on the broker, poking around the Guildhall for interior decoration tips, and adding a few extra details to my house. This was after an earlier mushroom ring run, of which I'll say more in another post, so it was a busy day for EQII.
Posted by Drew Shiel at November 23, 2009 11:35 AM
