The Everquest Chronicles: Veksar - The Underwater City
It all started in December 2000 when I purchased Everquest, the game. I have been a gamer since the early 1980s but had never played an MMO before.
In the next few weeks, @bingbabe would become an 'EQ Widow' as I was drawn into the harsh unforgiving world of Norrath, an obsession that would last for several years.
More recently I installed the Everquest client again on my PC. It's free to play now but a far cry from the heyday of the early noughties when adventurers banded together for quests and glory.
Many zones are now deserted as players have long since left the game for other ones with superior graphics, and easier gameplay.
This is the story replayed today as my level 70 73 Barbarian Shaman who can now freely roam through low and mid-level zones without fear of being killed.
If you are not a gamer and have never played an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) then you may not be able to relate to this at all.
Everquest was named 'Evercrack' due to its addictive nature and for good reason.
Other article's in this series:
The Everquest Chronicles: Halas and Everfrost
The Everquest Chronicles: The Entrance to Blackburrow
The Everquest Chronicles: Blackburrow and the Ice Giants
The Everquest Chronicles: The Bandits of Western Karana
The Everquest Chronicles: Northern and Eastern Karana
The Everquest Chronicles: HighHold Pass
The Everquest Chronicles: Kithicor and Beyond
The Everquest Chronicles: Freeport and The Ro's
The Everquest Chronicles: The Temple of Cazic-Thule
The Everquest Chronicles: Timorous Deep and Kunark
The Everquest Chronicles: The Lake of Ill Omen and The Sarnak Fortress
Veksar as a zone was not part of the original Ruins of Kunark expansion and added later. It always existed in the middle of the Lake of Ill Omen but was previously inaccessible.
It is now labelled as a Hot Zone which means you can gain more experience from fighting in there as well as possibly obtaining a nice augmentation for your gear.
Such an augmentation would not be necessarily great for me as this is a Level 50, zone and supposedly trivial for me at 70+.
Entering the Lake I looked over at Veksar and knew why the zone was so unpopular. People don’t like underwater areas as attacks can then come from above and below as well as the usual places.
Jumping in the water, we swam to the ruin and I dove down. I had to remember that 1st person is required to submerge, another piece of useless information lost in my mind.
A bunch of Bloodgill Goblin's guard the entrance, which were quickly dispatched by this expensive Mercenary of mine who demands more money when I level up.
Speaking of levelling, I am now 73 and have been using TWO buffs which when cast on 'Senadin' greatly speed up the mopping up of lower-level mobs.
Spirit of the Panther procs at 400 damage, and hits frequently due to the Shaman spell Talisman of Celerity which is a melee haste buff.
The best one is Lassitude which I now use all the time including general levelling. This is a defence proc spell that triggers a Slow that stacks with Turger's Insects and also heals 'Senedin' over time.
Talk about a game-changer, I can now solo Red con mobs, after debuffing, slowing, hitting them with 2 x DOTS and can then sit down and watch the action while picking my nose.
This game is not what it used to be and though far from trivial, is a lot easier to play solo.
After studying the map of Veksar I noted that it is a one-way system moving in an anti-clockwise direction.
The first area is filled with more Bloodgill Goblins which I gathered up in bunches of 10 or so before releasing ‘Senadin’ to kill.
All these mobs were Grey con, which means no experience, not that I was expecting any.
Explorer Gamus happened to be up and got beat up like the rest of his fellow goblins dropping a bad looking earring.
As you make your way around Veksar, the mobs' change and next were the undead Sentries and Crusaders. I spotted a real player in the zone and nearly fainted.
A Level 54 Paladin was lurking somewhere and had been killing as witnessed by a few corpses hanging around. I never did bump into him which was a shame.
The Iskar Golems were fun but had a lot of hit points. Some were conning Green which meant a touch of experience for me but it barely registered.
6 Golems on ‘Senadin’ were barely making an impact as long as I kept up Lassitude.
The Shopkeepers and Store Clerks in Veksar are far from friendly and attack everyone.
Making my way to the Highborn area, I came across a few Light Blue cons and had to drop a couple of heals on ‘Senadin’.
...'the stats on Defiant gear are outrageous. I would have killed for a Breastplate of this calibre 18 years ago'...
The amount of loot I was getting was huge and I was vowing to not leave until I could not cram another item into my bags.
At some points I could not resist using a Poison Area Effect spell; that lazy arse Mercenary is tough but doesn't half take his time killing mobs.
We Shaman’s get terrible AE spells but it’s always fun to use the crap ones we are blessed with.
At one point I went for a piss, such was the time he was taking to kill them all.
Getting through the fire portal I got stuck and figured I needed to use my Shrink spell to get through. That Mercenary is the same size as me and didn’t have any problems.
Not fair I say…
Just one last go in the Iskar Golem room as I aggroed every Golem I could see and put ‘Senadin’ to work. There must have been 15 wailing on him and this still did not faze him.
I was stacked with crap as I approached Ferin Lightfoot, a Barbarian Woman with massive breasts to sell my junk.
The drops may be crap (besides Defiant gear), but Bloodgill Caps are nice vendor shit at 476pp each.
I can see why Veksar is not popular for the level 50 brigade. As a melee class, how would you escape if in trouble? As a caster class, I can gate and don't appreciate how tough it is for the melee lot.
Next is Karnor’s Castle…
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I like this one
This looks like it was probably a really cool area. Something different from what you had been encountering before. I bet it was pretty exciting to get to this point the first time.
At the level you are supposed to go there, it's a tense experience (or was). You had to focus intently on what you were doing or the party would wipe. A corpse run could take hours and was not pretty.
Now, I can take my time and look at the decor of amazing 20 year old graphics hehe...
Thanks for continuing to make Hive awesome.
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I remember in the early 90s there was a PC magazine releasing monthly.
There was article 1 site long about the virtuel adventures of some guy playing an mmoprg ( I do not recall which one). He explained how he was hitting a virtuel bag for hours to receive some xp points and I was so fucking jelous that he could play that and within the month I was reading this article a dozens of times as it was my only window to a world I wish I could be a part of but could not as I did not have a Pc or internet.
So you could say I have a softspot for articles like that.
Waterleveles suck though!!!
I am having a right blast playing this dinosaur and died twice yesterday doing so hehe.., though dying is not the big deal it once was. Everquest is free to play now and still holds my attention (though I don't know why).
Fire post, respect.