When last we checked in on Maltheas, extremiest of all extreme Everquest 2 questers, the leaderboard looked something like this:
He was doing pretty well, the highest placed 30-something in the world, with only 3 people of 50 or less ahead of him.
Sadly, the new and “improved” EQ2 Players website will now only allow me to create leaderboards within my own level tier, instead of choosing the level range for myself. This makes it almost entirely useless for my purposes. I truly hope that it eventually regains the functionality of the old system, because I am hugely unimpressed by the changes to the EQ2 Players website.
You *can* also make a leaderboard with no level restrictions, but level 36 Maltheas, while doing great for his level, does not appear on a board which allows level 80s onto it.
Anyhows, here is the current leaderboard for the 30-39 range:
What sorcery is this??? In spite of Maltheas completing a couple of hundred quests since last time, Annyya and Kirskax have come from nowhere, toppling Maltheas from his rightful place at the top! Admittedly, they’re both three levels higher, but nevertheless it seems Mal has some serious competition again. A little research shows them both to be part of the same guild, so they’re either a questing team, or a multi-boxer, either of which would have a bit of an advantage over a soloing rat. The Legion of Apathy show themselves to be anything but apathetic, and Maltheas will have to quest hard to catch up with them.
But he will. The Gods of Norrath have shown him a sign this very evening.
Maltheas finally completes the Everquest 2 quest, Lion Mane Helm.
Lion Mane Helm, finally completed. After years of smashing the Tortured Maid every time he rode past Zarvonn’s Tower, she finally dropped the quest starter “an unfinished helm”.
Mal has had quite a lot of luck clearing up low level item-dropped quests recently. Maybe the stars were aligned correctly, or maybe the drop-rate got upped, but either way every time one of those starters dropped it felt like finding a dragonhoard.
I *might* even celebrate by letting him level tonight!
Update: I knocked together a more useful and informative leaderboard.
Heya,
Imagine me being bored at work here and looking through EQ2 sites, seeing a post from you on the forums, and realizing that you actually have a blog ….
First, as an order of introduction, I am a long-time gamer with a partner in crime who decided to see how far we could push the questing envelope. We began our characters while EQ2 was still young and at a time when our guild was actually active. We pursued the insanities of all of the Qeynos suburbian quests as diligently as possible before betraying to Freeport just in time to also perform all of the Freeport suburbian quests. It is a shame that most of those suburbian quests are now gone and never to be seen again. My particular favorite character in all of that was Skaaga of Big Bend.
So, following that nonsense, we plowed ahead into the vast number of quests available in Commonlands, Antonica, etc. As you noted in one of your blogs, we struggled with the issue of levelling too quickly since one could not turn off quest experience in the beginning. We mitigated that somewhat by refusing to select a final class, but that solution did not help once we had finished the quests from the late teens and early twenties. We too arranged our deaths numerous times, but we hit a final frustration when they lessened the experience debt from dying and it took even more deaths to slow the inevitable pace of levelling.
Due to that and other real life issues, we took a long break from the game, and only decided to return about seven months ago. Much of our reason for returning was due to learning the news from a friend that the game now allowed one to turn off quest experience too. With that impediment removed, we decided to see how far we could push this whole thing.
My partner does not play nearly as much as I do, but she does attend during particularly difficult dungeon crawls and fights where my mastery of both characters is lacking. You are correct that having a companion is a huge help in some of the fights, but it also means delays in having to get both of us each dropped quest starter. Oh well, if it was easy, I likely would not be doing it.
I was happy to read your post on the Lion Mane Helm. Congratulations on obtaining that quest starter — some of these drop starters are pure evil. I will take that posting as further encouragement to keep killing that stupid tortured maid. I finally retrieved the Holey Hide Boots for Annyya a few days ago, but sadly, I am still missing that quest, and the fallen orcs outside Freeport are getting tired of seeing me.
Perhaps, I am revealing my own twisted nature by now admitting some anger that one can now perform city writs while mentored. In case you had not followed our history, we had actually betrayed every five levels to allow ourselves the full capability of performing writs. I think we will continue the betrayals just to keep the maximum number of quests possible per level, but I was still disappointed.
I apologize for being so long winded. Please take care in your travels, and I hope to have more bored days here at work to read your blog.
Lt. Kirskax Lunaria
The Legion of Apathy
Greetings! I’m so glad to know I’m not the only crazy one out there! Gives me someone to try to beat!
Betraying every 5 levels is something I considered, but decided against. I may betray one day to snag the Neriak and Gorowyn writs, but at the moment I don’t think I could bare to put myself through betraying there and back! Same as I sometimes consider switching craft, but decide *later*. I’d always kept up with the Freeport ones, because bizarrely the questgivers will actually give me the writs there.
Maltheas is an old enough character to have been able to do all the early city quests on both sides that were removed. I do wish they’ed bring them back. They were rather entertaining!
I’ll be checking in with Maltheas on the 4th when Erollisi day starts. Might whack up an updated 1-60 leaderboard then. You’re still ahead of me” *shakes fist*.
Yes, if you decide to create a list of crazy people, you can put me on it.
I had not indulged in switching crafting professions yet, but that thought had occurred to me (along with the obvious pain in crafting that many items). I will have to think on that some more. Perhaps this is where I breach my original agreement with Annyya and put Kirskax in her rightful spot as quest leader for 30-39. Bwahahah.
In case it is not obvious I find “the gaming of systems” (i.e. obtaining an extreme or unintended result through the creative application of a system’s internal ruleset) to be an interesting intellectual exercise. I find that EQ2’s questing ruleset is complicated enough to satisfy my urge to game complex systems. It took me a long time to realize that might be the allure of this exercise — but perhaps it was merely an intellectual frosting applied to my interest in online gaming.
Cheers!
Being ridiculously powerful for our level is a nice bonus too :) Though I couldn’t do everything I do if I wasn’t. Will still be a while before I manage to put Everling in his place though.
I just find it rather fun and adventurous, and it caters to my competitive streak, even though, until now, nobody knew I was competing with them!