I’ve been posting about my Everquest 2 Extreme Quester, Maltheas, for years now. You might ask “But what in the wide world of Norrath, Ark, is Extreme Questing?”. Actually, quite a lot of folks have asked in the past. I told them, and they looked at me with a mixture of fear, awe, and pity. I thought it might be an idea if I actually write a proper post on it at long last.
Why is it “Extreme”? Well, it’s not really. I just like calling it that, but it is quite challenging. Upon reaching level 10, when you can start accumulating Alternate Advancement points, you take the AA slider and you whack it up to 100%. In the bad old days you simply turned off all combat xp, and grit your teeth over the xp from quests. To slow my levelling down yet further I would kill myself over and again to build up a good supply of negative xp before handing in a quest. These days you can turn quest xp off too, but with the addition of the AA slider this is no longer necessary. My Kills to Deaths ratio is still one of the worst in the world :( Extreme Questers tend to die quite a lot anyway though!
Only when you have run out of quests you can manage do you allow yourself to gain a level. How strict you are about this is up to you, of course, but I enjoy pitting myself against quests I have no business being in the same zone as, let alone completing. If new content comes out that’s lower than you are, mentor down as low as possible to do it.
Extreme Questers end up with a lot of AA. Maltheas has 111 AA at level 37, and he did almost 1000 quests before AA even existed. I dread to think how much AA he’d have if he had gained points for those as well, or if the AA slider had been about to convert his locked combat xp, but that is what any new extreme quester can look forward to. You’ll be, for your level, one of the mightiest adventurers around. Of course you need to be, to get the job done! For extra credit and AA, you can try to kill every named NPC in the zone too.
Don’t expect to ever reach the level cap. It’s not entirely impossible, but unlike most playstyles, reaching end-game is not the goal. Perhaps, more than any other playstyle, this is about the journey.
At its heart, Extreme Questing is about taking time to get to know the world. You’ll discover things about Norrath that you would never have noticed on a normal playthrough where you might only spend a few hours before outlevelling a zone.
Why not try it with an alt, and see Antonica and the Commonlands in a whole new light? Solo, duo, or even as an Extreme Team, it’s a whole lot of fun. Join the few. The proud. The certifiably insane. The Extreeeeem Questers!!!
p.s. I can thoroughly recommend the Questlist add-on at Fluffy.dk to help you keep track of your accomplishments, and find new deeds to do that you might have missed.
Maltheas’ splendid week of questing has continued with a final victory over Octagorgon in the Cove of Decay.
Maltheas faces the Octagorgon in Everquest 2
It’s hard to get a sense of scale in that picture. Octagorgon is still a good safe distance away, sitting in his favourite comfy sunken galleon. He is quite ridiculously large.
A famous undercon, he sits there looking all green and heroic level, luring in the unwise. As soon as you attack him, however, he’ll call in a bunch of skeletons to back him up, and he’ll keep calling more the longer you let him live. I’ve been trying to sort him out for a few levels now, but today was the charm. Let us not weep for all the previous attempts that resulted in Maltheas being cruelly devoured, for such is life of the extreme quester!
Defeating Octagorgon allowed Mal to finish the Polished Granite Tomahawk heritage quest, “An Axe from the Past”, and move to the next stage of the Manastone heritage quest “Stiletto’s Orders Intercepted.”. Unfortunately, like so many quests lying undone in his questbook, to finish Manastone is going to involve killing Varsoon the Undying, who is liable to render the Extreme Rat extremely dead. I won’t be able to put off the confrontation for very much longer though.
While I’m here, I’d like to welcome Syp, of the blog Biobreak, to Everquest 2, and to my server, Lucan D’Lere. It’s always great to see new players, especially ones who might encourage others to give EQ2 a try!
After my last post, not having a proper leaderboard to show niggled away at me, so I’ve cobbled this together. Seeing as EQ2 Players no longer has the functionality to let you set your own level ranges for the leaderboards, and all:
A combination of the top questers from the 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 ranges leaves Maltheas in a respectable 8th place. The 50-59 range puts in a surprisingly poor show, but perhaps folks who get to that level are more likely to power on to the higher tiers.
Brew some Maj’dul coffee, Mal. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
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!
As usual these days, there are a ridiculous number of different combinations of bonus items you can get, depending on who you order from. I went for the Direct2Drive Digital Deluxe option.
I was a little torn, as the TNG and Deep Space 9 uniforms offered by some retailers would have been nice, but this settled it for me:
Exclusive “KHAAAN!” Emote
An unforgettable moment from the second Star Trek Film. This exclusive emote allows players to relive Kirk’s unforgettable moment of fury, with the timeless cry… “KHAAAN!â€
That will never get old. NEVER!!!! KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This might also be fun, for an alt. Cap’n Arkenor Oakshadow will be a human, most likely.
Joined Trill Race
The ability to play as a “Joined Trill†– a symbiote that grants you several lifetimes of experience.
Open Beta starts on the 12th. I’ll be sure to report on how things go.
Doing the Freeport side of the “Attack on the Crowns” World Event was proving to be a bit much for Maltheas. While he could, with an acceptable risk of dying, manage to get to Sir Tallen Yevix in West Freeport, he had no chance of getting into the heavily guarded Academy of Arcane Science to see Researcher Kendril. Not without some Frostfell Magic!
And amazingly, even though yesterday he had ten days to wait until he was eligible for the year 6 veteran pack, today it mysteriously became available. Having acquired the extraordinarily useful ability to teleport to a group member let our fearless ratonga bypass the guardian gargoyles and undead, and appear right next to the Researcher, who was eager for assistance. Though sadly not so grateful that he would tell the guards not to beat him up on the way out…
Malth made short work of finding the parts to Tinmizer’s Magnificent Messenger (slowed only by the one hour cooldown on Call of the Veteran), and being a master tinker, was even able to impress Sir Yevix by assembling the gadget for her. Whereupon we used it to contact Lucan, and find out where the heck he’s gotten to.
Turns out he’s gotten himself kidnapped by person or persons unknown. The smart money is on the Void. Sir Tallen managed to locate Soulfire’s hiding place and undertook to find it, to ensure its safety. Rather rudely, she refused to let Maltheas come with her. This would not do, as Maltheas had business of his own in the Overlord’s office. Fortunately, Researcher Kendril owed him a favour, and it was not long before, for the second time in his life, he stood within Lucan’s chambers. The last time he had been there, to assassinate the Overlord (that didn’t go so well), he had noticed something that bore further ….. investigation.
It was the deliciouses!!!
After having a quick nibble, he set to work stuffing several hundredweight of finely aged cheese into his bag of holding. The bulk of this was to be distributed to Ratonga families who had been driven into exile by Lucan for refusing to serve him. Revenge would be delicious, served hot or cold! Also, Maltheas’ annual Frostfell fondue party was assuredly going to be a big hit this year!
The important job dealt with, Sir Tallen arrived, and while she was a little annoyed Maltheas had managed to get there before her, she instantly forgave him, and set to work finding Soulfire. She seemed to have given the whole business quite a lot of thought! Even the room suddenly filling with Soulfires did not slow her down terribly much.
So confusings!!
Once she found the genuine Soulfire she declared herself the true ruler of Freeport, meaning that Lucan had been betrayed at least twice in one day. That’s Freeport for you, and entirely to be expected. Maybe she’s being possessed by a minion of the Void, but she didn’t seem anywhere near unpleasant enough. Actually she seems a lot nicer than Lucan, and unlike Lucan, actually likes Maltheas. We’ll have to see if we can persuade Queen Antonia to rethink trying to find the Overlord, though I suspect the Royals are going to stick together.
Seeing as the real Soulfire had already been stolen, Maltheas yoinked one of the fake ones to put on his wall, next to his replica Qeynos Claymore. It’ll make a great novelty cheese-knife for the party.
This week me’s have mostlys been defendings the shinies Qeynos city from mean Void nasties. Apparently everybody elses was unavailables.
This was the ending-results. Her Royal Highness (who should not leaves the house dressed like thats. She’ll catch a colds!), saved from a perilous fate by a mere Ratonga (yay!), after her Kerran (tee hee!) Captain of the Guard (*mirthful squeak!*) got possesseds by a spooky royal ancestrous rude ghost and tried to do her the mischiefs. We were too lates to prevent him stealing the Qeynos Claymore, a powerful magicy artifact that is the very very importants. Me’s not sure whys this sword, and hateds Overlord Lucan’s blade, Soulfire, are wanteds by the voids like they made of cheeses.
The writings on the swords is in Void Glyphs, which sniffs a lot like a clue to mes. Anyhowses, it looks like they’ve gots it, and whiles I’s the go-to rat for the existential threats these days, I doubts they going to sends mes into the void to go gets it.
Don't worries, Murrar Shar fans! He still breathings!
So I decideds to go save Frostfell. But then I be doings that every year. This year thoughs, while teachings McScroogle not to be sendings junkmails and not be sos McScroogley, I noticed somethings:
What is McScroogle doing with the Qeynos Claymore?
I’s been findings you’s sword, your Majestys!
Though knowings that McScroogle, it’ll be turnings out to be the cheaps unlicensed knock-offs made by underpaids gigglegibber goblin.
