The new processor will need something for stress testing. I’ll get 3DMark as usual, but I’d also like to see how it handles certain games. EQ2’s 3D engine is something of a beast, and what do you know, they’re running a new free trial called “Play The Fae”.

It needed a couple of days to patch (!!), but I’ve been tinkering with it a bit as I wait for the hardware to arrive. Here’s a screen shot of my little fae:

She’s pretty cute, though I am getting tired of the Barbie Doll style breasts in games. Why are people scared of women? ::shrug::

Anyway, the color of certain wing sets are customizable while others are static. The colors on these particular wings were customizable.

The hair selection in EQ2 is generally down right awful, but they’ve put more effort into the Fae’s hair. There were a number of them that I thought were kind of cute. I went with this style for that “short & spunky” look, but after seeing some of the other styles in the game I’ve wondered if I shouldn’t have made a different choice. It’s not a huge deal, though, because there are now NPC hair stylists in the game (judging by the tags under certain NPC names).

These fae don’t necessarily “fly”, rather they hover just above the ground (as shown). The good news is that they do not suffer fall damage. So you’re free to go floating off of Kelethin’s platforms to your heart’s content from any height that you’d like. Which I did.

Weee!

Fluttering about Kelethin was kind of cool, and hearing a remixed version of the original music brought back some old (old) nostalgic memories. It’s a pretty tune.

Some tree trunks in the forest are capable of being scaled vertically, which at first is a really fun effect with a fae character. It feels as though they’re partially fluttering up the surface while guiding themselves up with their hands. After awhile, though, I couldn’t help but feel as though my character was a little bug moving up the trunk.

The quests are predictable EQ2 style missions which mostly consists of going off to kill something(s), though there are a few better tasks that I encountered such as netting snake-like creatures and releasing them into a separate area. For the most part, though, it quickly began to feel like the same’ol EQ2. Whether that’s bad or good will be completely up to how you feel about the game.

The 3D engine is as much of a beast as ever. My frame rate typically hovers at somewhere around 10 FPS or so on the “balanced” setting while in the forest, and dips (noticeably) into the single frames when traveling through the tree city. I’ll see if I can take some more specific FPS readings before I install the new hardware, but no promises. I’m feeling a bit lazy. :-p

Imageshack.us

Anyway, it’s okay I suppose. Kelethin actually feels more like EQ for me than any other part of EQ2 ever has. It’s kind of like someone, somewhere, for just a moment realized that this was supposed to be EverQuest 2 and not Generic Playdough Characters Online or some such. It’s a heck of a lot better than starting in Qeynos or Freeport, neither of which I could stand. They need to rip those cities out of the game and approach them from a completely different direction as far as I’m concerned.

There’s that anyway. Worth $40? Not in my opinion. Worth resubbing? Eh, no, but my opinion of EQ2 is obviously biased.

Oh, and before I forget, there are now cloaks in the game as well.

~Steph