| 1 | [[quoteright:335:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/335px-eq2_launch_queen_796.jpg]] |
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| 3 | ''[=EverQuest=] 2'' (2004) takes place 500 years after the original ''VideoGame/{{EverQuest}}''. Immediately after the events of the Plane of Time from the first game, the Gods all left, the Ogres started the 2nd Rallosian War and nearly conquered all of Antonica again, Norrath suffered from a great cataclysm known as The Rending that tore up the entire planet over the course of 300 years, and finally, "The Shattering" happened when the moon Luclin exploded, raining down on the face of Norrath. Antonica took the brunt of the armageddon, despite having already been split into several continents from the Rending. The initial myth arc was that the seas were finally calm enough after Luclin's fall to be sailed, and the adventurers were seeking out all the old lands. There was also a cold war going on between Freeport and Qeynos. The former fell under the hold of the mysterious Overlord Lucan D'Lere, the latter is ruled by the descendant of [=EQ1's=] Antonius Bayle, Antonia Bayle. |
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| 5 | Then came expansions. Well, first came "adventure packs", a concept sort of like a mini-expansion that didn't prove very popular. The continents of Faydwer, Kunark, Odus, and Velious would come soon enough, each continent having their own share of troubles. In addition to the expansions, content is added to the game in the form of "Live Updates". Sometimes the Live Update content is only available to players with the most recent expansion, but other times it's completely free. |
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| 7 | [=EQ2=] added a few new races to the game, as well as vastly different gameplay mechanics. Most notably, there is ample content for single players, and it is possible to advance to the maximum level (100 as of the ''Altar of Malice'' expansion) without ever stepping into a group. Quest lines are easier to follow, and rewards are easier to come by. However, [=EQ2=] now faces the same issue its predecessor does of too many players at the upper level. SOE has responded to this problem by trying to make it easier for players to rush through all of the "old world" content and get to maximum level as fast as possible. |
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| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | !!This game provides examples of: |
| 11 | * AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Qeynos and Freeport both have massive sprawling sewer systems that encompass 3 zones each and can keep an adventurer occupied from his newbie days through about level 30. Some parts of the sewers of Qeynos take this trope to such a ridiculous extreme that you might be forgiven for thinking you're in an underground cathedral (since there are those there as well.) Justified in that the sewers are also the catacombs where most of Qeynos' dead are laid to rest. Kinda like they used to do in Paris, France. Freeport's sewer system is significantly wetter and filthier (the deepest section, Edgewater Drains, is partially flooded), and was designed to filter the tides so that the ocean stays out of Freeport and no other city districts go the way of Sunken City. |
| 12 | * AdaptationalNiceGuy: A very downplayed example, but Lord Nagafen in the first game was just an evil monster who couldn't be reasoned with and tried to kill everyone he met on sight. Here he is a quest giver and not immediately hostile. While he's still a pretty big {{Jerkass}}, he comes across more as a WellIntentionedExtremist who is trying to stop Darathar (the game's orignal BigBad) and seems [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely distraught]] over Lady Vox being killed by Darathar's forces. |
| 13 | * AdaptationalVillainy: The Ring Of Scale in the first game was a faction of dragons that were more neutral that evil, started out non-hostile to everyone, and would give you quests if you raised your faction enough. Here they just seem to hate everyone, Perhaps due to Trakanon taking over at some point. |
| 14 | * AliensSpeakingEnglish: Averted, unlike [=EQ1=]. [=EQ2=] has "language quests", where you have to kill enemies of a certain race until they drop items, and when you've collected enough items then you learn to speak that language. Until you've done so, they're incomprehensible. The developers even included alien-sounding gibberish recorded voice lines for speaking [=NPCs=] and players who don't speak that language. |
| 15 | * AllegedlyFreeGame: The initial Free to Play business model had some hangups which upset and frustrated returning veteran players with the fact that their fully Mythical-geared level 90 Sarnak Bruiser now had to be unlocked by buying the right to play as both the Sarnak race and the Bruiser class first, as well as paying $10 per character slot past the most recent 2 you used, as well as $0.30 ''per mythical item'' to use said gear. This was ''very'' quickly patched with a formal apology and a refund of any such packs that were purchased, as grandfathered characters no longer have to buy the packs -- but still have to pay for the item unlocks. (''New'' characters, however, required the unlocks.) The [[{{Freemium}} gold subscription]] is still a valid option to avoid having to worry about all these, as the (very frequent) popups are quick to remind you. |
| 16 | * AllThereInTheManual: Inverted. A lot of the storyline that goes along with the expansions isn't readily available to players, or at best has to be pieced together bit by bit as you learn the lore. |
| 17 | * AlternateTimeline: Everquests 1 and 2 are alternate timelines of each other, diverging from the events of the Plane of Time when Druzil Ro sent the adventurers back in time to prevent them from learning the secrets of the Gods. It was essentially the place that [=EQ1's=] storyline was when [=EQ2=] was first released. For example, although in [=EQ1's=] timeline the Frogloks only held the city of Grobb (Gukta) for a few years, since [=EQ2=] came out while they did, in its timeline the Frogloks never lost Gukta. [[spoiler: In the [=EQ2=] ''Chains of Eternity'' expansion, [=EQ1's=] Cazic-Thule tries to invade the plane of Ethernere because he had been killed in [=EQ1=].]] The Tears of Veeshan expansion's storyline and the End of Ages storyline in Skyshrine goes into detail of the "Threads" of the Chrono Weave. Chronomancers study the time weave, and it's not unheard of for timelines to overlap through certain factors. A dragon by the name of Lady Ledenara is even able to move between timelines, as she is the same being who has played a part in both [=EQ1=] and [=EQ2=]'s storylines. |
| 18 | * AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: Roehn Theer, the BigBad of the expansion Sentinel's Fate, is fought on a flashing neon chessboard surrounded by a black and purple swirling acid trip. |
| 19 | * AmazonBrigade: The Tenets of Hate, an alliance consisting of Lanys T'Vyl - Goddess of Malice, Terris Thule- Goddess of Nightmares, Saryrn - Goddess of Torment, and Ullkorruuk - Goddess of Betrayal. They serve as the BigBadTriumvirate of the Planes of Prophecy expansion. |
| 20 | * AnchoredTeleportation: In the 500 years that have passed since ''[=EverQuest=]'''s timeline, access to Luclin was cut off and eventually [[DetonationMoon destroyed]], and with it the Nexus that the Combine teleport network was connected to. The Quellethulian Erudites took it upon themselves to create a new teleportation network just to help reconnect the various continents of Norrath that had been cut off from travel by the cataclysms. They erected teleportation anchors in the form of a trio of spires that pointed outward. The first network failed, but the Quellethulians were eventually successful in reestablishing their network, and even established anchors at old Combine spires as well. The various druid rings around Norrath would eventually have their own portal network reestablished thanks in part to adventurers helping to rebuild the ruined rings scattered around Norrath. |
| 21 | * AndYourRewardIsClothes: Subverted. ''Technically'' yes, you get rewarded for most things with clothes, but since your gear directly affects your stats, it's entirely functional. There are some quests that reward you with gear designed to be used in your appearance armor slot though. |
| 22 | * AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game has evolved over the years with quality of life improvements. |
| 23 | ** At the start of the game, the story dictated that everyone was an amnesiac refugee pulled out of the rough waters and taken to the Isle of Refuge to learn anew. You picked your basic archetype (fighter, mage, priest, scout), learned how to play, and chose your faction of being good or evil when you left the island. From there, you would pick a class at level 10, and your final subclass at level 20. Heroic encounters were found all over the overworld areas like Antonica right outside of Qeynos, and getting anywhere by soloing was pretty difficult for it. |
| 24 | ** The game eventually changed to let you pick your final subclass at character creation, and most of the heroic encounters in the overworld were revamped into solo content to help players. |
| 25 | ** The Betrayal quest was a pretty significant decision. The player could betray their city and move to the other. This could only be done once, and required players to manually pack their belongings and travel to the other city, with no readily available access to banks, brokers, or other amenities. The quest was eventually revamped to give a temporary settlement that they could store items and continue advancing tradeskills and such before they made the final move. |
| 26 | ** The addition of newer starting cities of Kelethin, Neriak, Gorowyn, and New Halas lead to more streamlined quest lines that settles new players into the game, including objectively better equipment than what players earned when they started on the Isles of Refuge. |
| 27 | ** Qeynos and Freeport were eventually removed as a starting location for new players, but were later added back in. Old players are now able to even travel back to Queen's Colony or the Overlord's Outpost if they want to relive the memories and quests. This is {{lampshaded}} with the presence of an orc skeleton NPC with long flowing hair, rocking out and screaming "WOOO NOSTALGIA!" |
| 28 | ** Any NPC needed for a quest will have a small feather listed next to their name, or if you need to specifically use an item on one, a bag icon. |
| 29 | ** Quest icons are color coded into yellow for the majority of one-and-done quests, Blue for repeatable quests, and green for tutorial progression quests specifically designed to help players advance. |
| 30 | * ArabianNightsDays: The setting of the ''Desert of Flames'' expansion. Two different kinds of deserts (a sandy one [Sinking Sands] and a rocky one [Pillars of Flame]). The city of Maj'Dul is the central quest hub, and it's full of feuding factions, has an opulent nobility on one side and a ton of beggars and muggers on the other. The two main dungeons are a floating Djinn palace (The Shining Citadel & Poet's Palace) and a lost city buried under the sands (The Living Tombs & The Silent City). |
| 31 | * ArbitraryWeaponRange: The game has a minimum range (usually 10 meters, just outside of melee combat for most monsters) required before anyone can use a ranged weapon such as a bow or throwing knives and shurikens. |
| 32 | * TheArchmage: Bellengere the Three, the master of the Concordium, Qeynos' current Mage's Guild after the Order of Three became the Forest Ruins zone, and a member of the Circle of Ten (Qeynos' governing body opposite the Queen). He's so named because he is said to have mastered all three of the Mage Classes available to Good aligned individuals - that is, Wizard, Illusionist, and Conjuror. However, having mastered those three disciplines, he's becoming very interested in the dark side of conjuration - Necromancy. [[spoiler:He's part of the Qeynosian faction that tries to overthrow Antonia Bayle in the events of [=LU64=], and he's the only one of them that manages to [[KarmaHoudini get away with it]].]] |
| 33 | * TheArtifact: [=EQ2=] doesn't have it quite as bad as its predecessor. For one thing, there are fewer outdoor zones, and thus nothing to be "reliced". Also, Sony sometimes lowers difficulty of monsters, or an entire zone, from "raid" to "group", or from "group" to "solo". Still, some formerly high end dungeons like Solusek's Eye now have little point to them. Also, leveling is so easy now that the low end dungeons just aren't necessary anymore, as a player could gain five levels in less time than it would take him to find a group. |
| 34 | ** The Thundering Steppes and Enchanted Lands are two of the original outdoor zones. Most of the original zones were "streamlined" ([=NPCs=] were moved closer to each other, quests were organized into a more linear timeline, monsters were moved around the zones to make them easier to find and most group-scaled content was scaled back to solo). Thundering Steppes and Enchanted Lands were never given large scale revamps and have barely changed since the game was first released in 2005. |
| 35 | ** With the Destiny of Velious expansion, [=EQ2=] did away with weight entirely, rendering the big-but-super-heavy bank container suddenly something you can carry around with no difficulty, and a boss whose trick was teleporting 9999 lb stones into your inventory rather pointless. |
| 36 | ** An unusual subversion in Everquest 2 is The Protector's Realm. As of the ''Rise of Kunark'' expansion, it was a high-end raid target. With the level cap raised by 10 and the stat bonuses conferred by gear vastly improved, it can generally be cleared with a single group (as opposed to four), and has found new life as a great area for money farming. A good "PR plat run" can net a player in the neighborhood of 30 plat. |
| 37 | ** 'Hail' itself is an artifact dating all the way back to the late 90s when [=EQ1=] was a roleplaying-expected game. The word itself is an antiquated way of opening a dialogue with someone else, just as "Hello" is today. While it's been phased out from modern language for the most part, 'hail' is way too ingrained in Everquest culture to be removed or changed. This was even lampshaded by an NPC in Nettleville Hovel. When you hailed her, her first reaction was that [[LiteralMinded she wasn't expecting any weather today.]] |
| 38 | ** Back in the early days of [=EQ1=], Spirit of Wolf was the single most important spell in the entire game - it was a run speed buff, and without it, aggroing a monster too strong for you was essentially a death sentence. The spell exists in [=EQ2=], but because combat in [=EQ2=] is so different from [=EQ1=], it was never more than a mild convenience. And then once the game made 150% movement speed mounts easily available, [=SoW=] became useless. |
| 39 | ** Like Spirit of Wolf, Infravision and Ultravision were two spells grandfathered in from [=EQ1=]. Back in the old days of [=EQ1=], nighttime, tunnels and some underground dungeons were realistically dark, and without a vision enhancing spell you couldn't see (unless you played a class that could, e.g. Dark Elves had innate ultravision). [=EQ1=] did away with realistically dark darkness a long time ago and [=EQ2=] never had it, yet the effects remain in the game. |
| 40 | ** In the Greater Faydark, above the tunnel to Crushbone Keep is a rushmore-style depiction of an [=EQ1=] orc's head, which is colored green despite that Crushbone Orcs have blue skin. |
| 41 | * ArtisticLicenseArachnids: The majority of spiders and some scorpions all over the world of Norrath are easily the size of a mid-sized dog. Aside from Norrath just generally being a magical place, this is mostly [[AntiFrustrationFeatures for convenience sake so the player can easily target them]]. Many of them can inflict poison damage, and only very few of them actually rely on using webbing to slow the player's attacks. One notable example exists in the region of the Sinking Sands: the Terrorantula, a legendary monster who has existed for centuries that very few adventurers have ever seen or survived to confirm its existence. It's a gigantic tarantula roughly the size of a 3 story house. Not only does its existence violate the SquareCubeLaw, but it has an exceptionally potent venom that acts faster than most smaller spiders. |
| 42 | * ArtisticLicenseBiology: Sometime around October of 2020, the message of the day would often be changed to something silly and comical if a guide event wasn't being advertised. One such MOTD invokes this. |
| 43 | -->Did you know? Other than plankton and small fishes, whale sharks pose no threat. However, off the shores of Sinking Sands are whale sharks that will attack you on sight, because ''this is [=EverQuest II=]''. |
| 44 | * AsHimself: Professional baseball player Curt Schilling is a huge fan of ''[=EverQuest=]'' and MMO's in general. During an ''[=EverQuest=]'' 2 charity event, SOE created a character designed off of Curt himself using an anagram he created named Clint Gilcrush. Curt lent his voice to the dialogue of this character for the sake of the charity. Since then, Clint Gilcrush has been a permanent part of the game. He's secretly a triple-agent for both Qeynos and Freeport during the Betrayal questline, and the player is tasked with taking a bounty out on his head. |
| 45 | * AttackAttackRetreatRetreat: The boss [[OurGiantsAreBigger Auliffe Chaoswind]] requires the players to do this as his gimmick. Namely, he will say [[Film/{{Watchmen}} " I am not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with ME"]] and create a ''white'' circle on the ground which kills anyone who goes outside it. At other times, he will say "back off! let's see how well you scramble!" and create a ''red'' circle on the ground which kills anyone who doesn't run off of it in time. |
| 46 | * AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: In general, evil overlords tend to be found at the end of dungeons behind a gauntlet of their generals and other elite soldiers. Said evil overlords are usually the toughest fight in the dungeon. The exceptions usually have the overlord unleash some kind of even stronger monster, e.g. Perah'Celsis teleporting away and freeing Waansu when he does. |
| 47 | * AwesomeButImpractical: Some AreaOfEffect attacks while soloing dungeons, particularly at low-mid levels. While facing a group of mobs with one of your [=AoE=] attacks active, hitting all of them at once sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Unfortunately, sometimes these will hit enemies behind walls, grabbing their attention and causing a swarm of them to ''clip through the dungeon walls'' to beat you up. Sometimes, you can aggro mobs - and even [[MiniBoss named enemies]] - from an '''entirely different floor'''. |
| 48 | * {{BackStab}}: The rogues take the scout archetype, though all scout classes excluding bards can backstab, the Assassin takes the cake for sheer overkill. Near end game they have at least 7 backstabs, a few location dependent abilities, and a few combat abilities that "stealth" the assassin after execution. They can simply out-damage any other class except some nukers; well, that is if they don't get squished after grabbing aggro. |
| 49 | * BeingGodIsHard: The eternal vampire Mayong Mistmoore managed to obtain Godhood in the backstory, just as he intended. However, after a few hundred years, he got bored with it and voluntarily changed himself back into a vampire. At least then he could be more of an impact on the mortals of Norrath. |
| 50 | * BigBadEnsemble: The main villains in the setting are Overlord Lucan D'lere of Freeport, Queen Cristanos Thex of Neriak, and Lord Nagafen. Then each expansion will have an ArcVillain or two temporarily join the ensemble. The expansion usually ends with their defeat. |
| 51 | * BigGood: Antonia Bayle started as one. She still technically is, but like Lucan, her plot relevance is steadily decreasing. |
| 52 | * BigBoosHaunt: |
| 53 | ** Fewer than in [=EQ1=], but [=EQ2=] had Ruins of Varsoon in the original, ''Desert of Flames'' had the Silent City and related instances, ''Kingdom of Sky'' had the Blackscale Sepulchral, ''Echoes of Faydwer'' had Castle Mistmoore and the Loping Planes... |
| 54 | ** Unrest in [=EQ2=] is much scarier than the first envisioning. The zone is strongly story-driven. You're being watched and commented on by the BigBad of the end zone as you discover the cause of the curse that rests upon the estate and how he brutally slaughtered the innocent family that lived there. Just before you fight him, he actually realizes that [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou you are a player behind a computer monitor]], and tries to "jump" out of the screen at you when he pulls an InterfaceScrew on you before you approach him. |
| 55 | * BigCreepyCrawlies: During the LU19 revamp, all the frogs and slugs and bugs in the newbie zone The Peat Bog were enlarged massively. Now the frogs are as wide across as a male barbarian, and the more dangerous slugs in the back of the zone are 4 times bigger than a human. |
| 56 | * BlackAndGreyMorality: The entirety of the Sentinel's Fate expansion. The Erudites have a racial outlook that pretty much boils down to [[ForScience "For Science!"]]. They messed around with necromancy, slaughtered Kerra and Hua Mein, and generally were jackasses to everyone. However, they were fighting to save Odus and possibly all of Norrath from either being torn apart by the Void itself or drawn into the Underfoot, and the Void Invaders and Guardians of the Underfoot are nowhere near as nice as the Erudites... |
| 57 | * BlackAndWhiteMorality: Qeynos vs Freeport, and to a lesser extent Qeynos & Kelethin & New Halas vs Freeport & Neriak. (Gorowyn, the third "evil" city, has a policy of PragmaticVillainy, tolerates good aligned adventurers inside it and is diplomatic with Qeynos and Kelethin). |
| 58 | * BossGame: In spades, especially when it comes to higher end content. Some raid zones don't even have "trash", it's just a gauntlet of boss after boss. |
| 59 | ** The best example of this might be Toxxiulla's Mound. No trash, just a ring event involving dragons. The other good example would be The Palace of Roheen Theer. No trash, just epic after epic. It's worth noting that many raiders prefer the boss-only zones because generally killing "trash" doesn't result in loot drops which makes time not spent working on the bosses time wasted. |
| 60 | * BottomlessBladder: Played straight for players. Not always so true for [=NPCs=]. |
| 61 | * BornAgainImmortality: The fae and arasai. When they die, either of natural or unnatural causes, a spirit bud is created which regenerates the body until they are ready to be reborn. However, the spirit bud can be destroyed, which leads to the fae or arasai's permanent death. |
| 62 | * BornFromPlants: The Fae are born from a special flower in a nursery not far off from the city of Kelethin. The race's affinity to nature means that whenever they pass away from natural causes or old age, their spirit is deposited into the flowers where a new Fae is born in a cycle of reincarnation. The Dark Elves of Neriak managed to steal away some of those flowers and used magic to corrupt them, leading to the creation of the evil Arasai race. |
| 63 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: [[TricksterGod Bristlebane, the Grand Prankster]] himself, during the [[AprilFoolsDayEpisode Bristlebane's Day]] holiday event. Many players ignore the text dialogue an NPC says and just clicks through the dialogue to get a quest. Bristlebane calls them out on this and puts them in a momentary daze. |
| 64 | -->'''Bristlebane:''' I love seeing all the fun being had this time of year. I'm as happy as a boarfiend riding a bovoch! Makes me want to dance like an imp in a flame!\ |
| 65 | '''Player:''' That sounds good to me.\ |
| 66 | '''Bristlebane:''' You just picked the top choice, didn't you? You don't even know what you agreed to. |
| 67 | * BreastPlate: [=EQ2=] almost completely averted this trope. Unarmored characters wear peasant-like clothing rather than underwear. In fact, For the most part of the early years of the game, there was only one piece of gear in the game that shows any significant amount of skin on a female character, and it was a rather expensive prestige item that only acted as clothing instead of armor anyway. That same dress style has since been adopted to brawler gis, and armor sets like the Arasai Racial armor and some Erollisi Day holiday gear shows off a little more skin. |
| 68 | ** Back with a vengeance as of ''Destiny of Velious'', as villaineses Cara Omica, Tserinna Syl'Tor and Sullon Zek all wear what amounts to armor in the shape of a bikini and stockings. Most PC armor remains reasonable and sensible, but as of [=LU63=] female characters can wear halter top shaped breastplates. |
| 69 | ** Queen Antonia used to have this until around LU64, when she, and Lucan D'lere, were revamped so that she wears a gown of the same color. There is a statue of the old version of her in the Qeynos Province District, however. |
| 70 | * BroughtDownToNormal: The fate of Roehn Theer after his defeat in ''Sentinel's Fate''. |
| 71 | * CanonDiscontinuity: In terms of the lore and history behind the world of Norrath, things are split up into two categories. First is that anything actually found inside [=EverQuest=], [=EverQuest=] 2 (up to a certain point in time for its own storyline with [=EverQuest=]), and [=EverQuest=] Online Adventures is official canon to the games. There's also the tabletop Pen & Paper versions of the games, which have much more detailed stories and lore, but aren't considered canon unless it's also covered in the game. |
| 72 | ** [=EQ2=] came out during a relatively brief window of time when the Frogloks had taken over Grobb (hometown of the trolls) and renamed it Gukta. In the original [=EverQuest=], the Trolls would eventually retake their home town a few years later, but this never happened in [=EQ2=]'s timeline, so the Trolls getting kicked out is official canon to [=EQ2=]. Gukta itself was destroyed in the 2nd Rallosian War. That doesn't explain why Grobb is suddenly back in the Moors of Ykesha though. Seriously, no lore at all explaining when, how, or why it was re-founded. |
| 73 | ** When [=EQ2=] first came out, the continent of Faydwer was said very unambiguously to have been destroyed. Then it turned up just fine in the Faydwer expansion. |
| 74 | ** How evil Rallos Zek is has varied from time to time. At his best he's been an "a shade below Neutral" type evil who abhorred Innoruuk, Cazic Thule and Bertoxxulus and respected the Marr twins. At his worst, he's more of a "kill everyone until everyone wants to kill everyone" type. |
| 75 | * CardCarryingVillain: If your home city is Freeport or Neriak, all your pre-given dialogue when interacting with [=NPCs=] has you as almost a complete JerkAss. |
| 76 | * CatFolk: The Kerrans physically resemble large humanoid felines. Their bodies are covered in fur with colors and patterns denoting their lineage. |
| 77 | ** The Vah Shir, who have been ressurected as a side-effect of restoring Luclin as a cage for Kerafym, are this as well, mostly because the Kerrans are descended from them. |
| 78 | * CessationOfExistence: The Age's End prophecy that makes up the majority of the game's storyline. The prismatic dragon Kerafyrm is an OmnicidalManiac who wants to destroy Norrath and bring about a second Age of Scale where only his own dragonic kind may exist. To do this, he tricked mortals into defeating Roehn Theer, the Avatar of the Nameless who contains the power to kill Gods themselves, and then swooped in to absorb that power into himself. Norrath's pantheon of gods, as well as the dragons, are aware that if Kerafyrm is physically killed, then it will cause the complete erasure of all existence. |
| 79 | * ChaseStopsAtWater: Aquatic creatures are hard-coded to give up chasing you if you swim out of water onto land. Normal creatures will follow you from land into the water though. There are also (usually bipedal and intelligent) creatures like Sirens who will chase you out of the water and keep attacking. |
| 80 | * ChekhovsGunman: These have a habit of showing up. For example, Kyle Antihilus Bayle and El'Arad were both mentioned in the ''Kingdom of Sky'' expac. El'Arad showed up in person as a midlevel villain in ''Sentinel's Fate'', four expansions later. Kyle showed back up as of [=LU64=], trying to usurp the throne of Qeynos from Antonia Bayle. |
| 81 | ** A recent example - in the ''Sentinel's Fate'' era Roehn Theer raid boss fight (which a small minority of players will ever see), there are four runes with the names of former Gods that were killed by Theer. Those dead Gods became plot relevant in the ''Terrors of Thalumbra'' expansion. |
| 82 | * CloudCuckoolander: If a goblin isn't evil, it's ''definitely'' going to be this. If it is evil, it's only ''probably'' going to be this. A few gnomes qualify, too. |
| 83 | * CollectionSidequest: Quite common. |
| 84 | * CombatMedic: Furies, Inquisitors, and to a lesser extent Mystics can produce a significant amount of damage in addition to healing. |
| 85 | ** Channelers take this one step further since they have to use arrows on you to heal you. |
| 86 | * CommissarCap: You can buy one called the Good Gearman's Cap for real money at the in-game marketplace. However, it doesn't fit in with the setting and it clashes with pretty much every other item of clothing or armor you can obtain. And if you wear it your hair disappears. |
| 87 | * TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Monsters can use backstab abilities without being behind you. |
| 88 | * ConvectionSchmonvection: Players can float or jump right over lava without any problems. In the old days, falling into lava was an instant automatic death, but later it was changed so falling in gave you negligible damage. |
| 89 | * CriticalHit: In the Destiny of Velious expansion, being able to critical hit (by building up your Crit Chance stat) is literally essential to completing any content. As of ''Altar of Malice'', there are now multiple tiers of critical hits (normal, legendary, fabled and mythical). The higher the crit tier, the greater the multiplier applied to the base damage is. |
| 90 | * CultureChopSuey: The monk guilds in the human cities seem asian-influenced, in what is otherwise largely MedievalEuropeanFantasy. |
| 91 | ** While the city of Freeport maintains a largely medieval feel, the Freeport Militia have gained a distinctly [[AncientRome Roman]] aesthetic. |
| 92 | * DamageDiscrimination: Usually. Most monsters will not harm friendly monsters, though there are a few cases where they do. For example, in Tower of Nurga, there's a fight where you have to position a drake boss so that his fire blasts hit two goblins guarding an elevator. |
| 93 | ** This can lead to a FunnyBackgroundEvent in Everfrost, where a bunch of numbfoot hunters have been known to attack each other while attacking a stag that enters their agro range. |
| 94 | * DangerousForbiddenTechnique: There are two entire schools of forbidden magic: Death[[note]]it's not entirely clear how this differentiates from Necromancy[[/note]] and Decay[[note]]A druidic field of magic tied in to biological decay[[/note]]. Death Magic's the better known and more popular of the two forbidden magic schools - Maalus Shadowfyre, one of the tougher raid bosses from ''Sentinel's Fate'' was a Deathmage. Decay magic is far less frequently referenced - the most recent is from the ''Rise of Kunark'' era. A cult of druids started dabbling in it and accidentally turned themselves all into ''[[BodyHorror fungusmen]]''. |
| 95 | * DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: You have to pay to repair your armor, and you get a small xp penalty which regenerates if you have the game turned off. When the game first started, it was a bit more painful, as you'd have to retrieve your "spirit shard" from where you died to get 50% of your exp back, but that was done away with years ago. |
| 96 | * DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Mayong Mistmoore is the single most powerful vampire on Norrath, and is someone to be respected and feared with his knowledge of magics and his collection of artifacts. He once ascended to a god, but decided to give that up and go back to ruling his thralls on Norrath. He shows up now and then throughout the Age's End storyline. Near the end of the storyline, you must sneak into his castle to obtain an artifact. He is tipped off to your presence when you trip a magically locked door, and decides to use his magic to enthrall you and make you his servant. You initially play along before telling him that his powers are nothing compared to your numerous adventures of literally slaying gods, dragons, otherworldly nightmares and many other threats. He swears he'll get you back for humiliating him like that, and you wish him good luck in trying. |
| 97 | * DiedHappilyEverAfter: |
| 98 | ** [[ImpliedTrope implied]] with the [[FishPeople Yha-Lei.]] When you kill them they often say "I can feel the warm waters welcoming me" and ""The waves take me", which is usually taken to mean their idea of the afterlife. |
| 99 | ** Many an undead skeleton welcomes the sweet release. |
| 100 | --->'''Skeleton''': "Final death comes at last." |
| 101 | * DifficultButAwesome: The Beastlord and Channeler prestige classes each use different mechanics to manage their pets, but anyone who properly learns how they work can become quite powerful. |
| 102 | ** Channelers have to literally assemble their constructs [[ArtificialZombie piece by piece with various body parts]], which can result in different set-ups depending on what you use. While the class is primarily a healer, they can pull off some impressive DPS output with the right pet configuration and arrows for ammo. |
| 103 | ** Beastlords have to fight against various creatures in order to tame a warder that assists as part of the class functionality. The class itself can serve numerous functions beyond raw damage per second as a scout class, as the warder can also provide power to the group and tank if needed. |
| 104 | * DinosaursAreDragons: In one quest, your character is sent down into the depths of Perah'Celsis' laboratory and finds a Tyrannosaurus in a test-tube. S/he thinks it's a dragon of a type s/he doesn't recognize. |
| 105 | * DoctorWhomage: A quest giver during the Tinkerfest celebration is a gnome by the name of Professor Andipholitz Whatzzit, more commonly known as Professor What. He wears an unusually long scarf (for a gnome) and is interested in learning history about the city of Ak'Anon from before clockworks took it over. He is accompanied by his companion, Rosealyn. |
| 106 | * TheDogBitesBack: Rallos Zek imprisoned Vallon Zek, God of Strategy, Tallon Zek, God of Tactics, and Sullon Zek, Demi-Goddess of Rage, in his fortress with the intentions of killing them and taking their powers in order to fight Kerafyrm. While Tallon and Vallon initially didn't know what was happening, imprisoning the God of Rage only [[TranquilFury enraged her more]]... Thanks to the help from the adventurers, [[spoiler: the three of them [[{{Patricide}} kill Rallos Zek]], and all three gods decide to govern in his stead as a triumvirate of war known as the Hounds of Zek.]] |
| 107 | * DownTheDrain: Edgewater Drains, Veksar, and Kralet Penumbra all contain significant portions of their zones that are submerged underwater. |
| 108 | * DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler:Firiona Vie herself]] simply ''dropped dead'' in the prelude events to ''Chains of Eternity''. Of course, since [=CoE=] took place in the afterlife, she still played a major role in the expac. |
| 109 | * DualWielding: All the scout and fighter classes except Paladins and Shadowknights. |
| 110 | * DugTooDeep: The Solusek Mining Company set up their operation to drill deep into the volcano in Lavastorm Mountains with a giant drill. The drill ended up piercing through the bedrock and falling to its doom into the lavabed below, which caused the caverns to fill with lava and kill everyone inside. Players can still see the wrecked drill at the bottom, and the upper levels of the zone are filled with the ghosts of gnomish miners. |
| 111 | * DungeonBypass: There's a really big pit in Lavastorm where, if you have a safefall spell, you can just jump in and "glide" down to the bridges. |
| 112 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: With the initial game, most {{Non Player Character}}s actually had voice acting for their lines of dialogue. The longer the game ran, the more infrequent spoken lines became. At this point it's a little disconcerting to speak to some of the older [=NPCs=] and have them actually answer you - especially unimportant 'ecology' [=NPCs=] without their mouths moving. |
| 113 | * EasierThanEasy: |
| 114 | ** Erudin Library. This is the dungeon that gives even casual players little to no trouble, and the good ones can clear it with two people. |
| 115 | ** The Obelisk of Ahkzul. Can be soloed at 90, and gives about 6-12 plat a run and some level 80 stuff to transmute. |
| 116 | * EldritchAbomination: |
| 117 | ** The Void Invaders have some horrific alien appearances that are unlike anything natural to Norrath, even the weird creatures that the gods like Cazic-Thule considers normal. |
| 118 | ** Arkatanthis the Destroyer. He doesn't have a role in the story arc, but he's one of the Cthulu-inspired Amygdalans. After the Sentinel's Fate expansion came out, he had the distinction of being the toughest boss in the game. |
| 119 | * EldritchLocation: The Void exists as its own dimension separate from anything else. There is a gigantic black hole out on the horizon, slowly pulling everything towards complete oblivion. Somehow, life has developed here. They set up "anchors" on Norrath in order to extend their own existence little by little. |
| 120 | * EnoughToGoAround: It's not uncommon for the target of a quest to drop 3 or 6 copies of the needed quest item. |
| 121 | * EquipmentHidingFashion: The game originally introduced the Appearance slots for players to visually wear whatever armor they wanted, but they were limited to what their class could use. The early game's itemization meant that classes that could wear plate armor usually could wear robes and leather if they so chose, but this meant that mages could never wear leather, chain, or plate in return. Eventually the Wardrobe tab was added to the character window. In exchange of a very small amount of premium currency, you can unlock 6-slot rows that lets you add any armor or weapon in the game for appearances regardless of class restrictions. |
| 122 | * ExpansionPack: Many many of these. They churn them out so often. As of now, [=EQ2=] has 13 full size expansion packs plus three "adventure packs". The adventure pack concept didn't turn out to be very popular. [=EQ2=] also release an amount of content that could be reasonably described as a mini-expansion pack about halfway between expansions, for free. |
| 123 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 124 | ** Kerrans to the Vah Shir, sort of. Kerrans existed in [=EQ1=], but not as a playable race. The Vah Shir race went extinct when Luclin was destroyed, but Kerrans were made playable to console Vah Shir fans. Official lore states that the Vah Shir adventurers who were trapped on Norrath when teleportation was cut off from Luclin all decided to live with the Kerra tribe and mate with them. The Kerra we see 500 years later are the genetic result of the Vah Shir and Kerra. |
| 125 | ** Real life holidays are celebrated in game, but they all have different names. Christmas is Frostfell, Valentine's Day is Erollisi Day, St. Patrick's Day is Brew Day, April Fools Day is Bristlebane Day, and Halloween is Nights of the Dead. |
| 126 | * EyesDoNotBelongThere: Cazic Thule's planar influence tends to mutate vegetation into growing eyes. Half of Eidolon Jungle has been corrupted by Fear's presence, and all the trees have multiple eyes that are always staring at you. |
| 127 | * FairyTrickster: Various faries across Norrath are known for being mischievous, but one stand-out example comes from the Dark Elf city of Neriak. An Arasai named Mur'ss Z'Hel'Viiryn tells you of a prank that he wants to play, and he doesn't say who the mark will be. He asks you to gather a few items around the city, and a special urn to collect them in, before giving them to a dark elf named Tsabrar. When you speak with Tsabrar, he becomes infuriated that the person who stole his urn in the first place is now trying to sell it back to him. You have to kill him in self defense. Mur'ss has a good laugh at you for falling for his prank. |
| 128 | * FalseProphet: During the Bristlebane's Day event, a group of stupid but not-malicious goblins known as the Gigglegibbers show up in the Enchanted Lands to partake in the festivities. Players who zone into the Enchanted Lands will find Bristlebane's actual prophet and his altar waiting for anyone curious to worship him as a deity. Not too far away, you'll find a Gigglegibber who claims to be "Bristlebane's Profit", hoping to find an adventurer dumb enough to not notice the obviously fake altar. The Gigglegibbers are ultimately harmless in comparison to more aggressive goblin tribes, but their lack of intelligence makes them rather amusing. |
| 129 | * FamilyThemeNaming: The Guide program's actors have a family of bards named the Loresingers who travel around Norrath and tell its history. Oyenna Loresinger will show up every now and then with her tales, but there also exists Oyenna's great-niece Oreyenna, and the family progenitors are Oyen and Oyni. |
| 130 | * FantasticRacism: Between the Kerrans and Erudites. Going all the way back to well before [=EQ1=] where the Erudites drove the Kerra off the mainland of Odus onto an island that became called Kerra Isle. With the original release of [=EQ2=] Lucan D'Lere proved how evil he was by making the Kerrans and Erudites share a slum. In ''Sentinel's Fate'' the old hostilities flared up, with the Kerrans hating the uncaring and disconnected-from-nature Erudites and the Erudites despising the backwards superstitious Kerra. |
| 131 | * FemmeFatale: ''Rise of Kunark'' raid boss Ludmila Kystov. She even has an ability called "Feminine Guile" that charms male characters. |
| 132 | * FetchQuest: Three of the most common kinds of quests in the game are 1) kill things for automatic updates, 2) kill things for loot drops, 3) harvest a certain amount of things. Some quests combine those three types of objectives in various ways. |
| 133 | * FleshGolem: One of the golem models look like patchwork ogres. They have pale white skin and large stiches and scars all over their body. There's a few of them found wandering the forest outside of Nektropos Castle, and players can discover who is creating them if they delve deep inside the castle to explore its mysteries. |
| 134 | * FloatingContinent: [=EQ2=] looovvess this trope. The entire Kingdom of Sky expansion pack took place on floating islands. Part of the Swamp of Innothule, although technically not floating, was so high off the ground it could only be accessed by airship. In the ''Sentinel's Fate'' expansion, the entire continent of Odus is floating because it's now located in an alternate dimension entirely. |
| 135 | * ForWantOfANail: The fate of the continent of Taelosia changes drastically due to the timeline split that happened after the Plane of Time. |
| 136 | ** In ''Everquest'', the gods withdrew their influence to punish mortals for invading their planes, which also removed a magical fog that originally prevented adventurers from safely navigating to the continent of Taelosia. Once they were able to reliably travel there, the native Nihil race then had a fighting chance against the Muramite army invading the continent from the realm of Discord. |
| 137 | ** In ''Everquest II'', the gods withdrew their influence to punish the mortals for invading their planes, but their absence eventually resulted in the Rending that shifted the continents and made the waters too violent to safely travel. As a result, the Muramite army conquered Taelosia and rendered the Nihil race completely extinct because there was nobody who could help fight back. Mayong Mistmoore and his armies eventually found the continent and wiped out the Muramite forces, sealing up the portal to Discord in the process. He then built Castle Vacrul for his two sons to live in, founded the city of Forlorn Gist at the base of the castle for his armies of the night to live, and renamed the continent to Vetrovia because there was nobody left alive who ever knew of the name "Taelosia". Some time later, a population of Quellious-worshipping centaurs founded Kamapor village along the coast of the Broken Shores in the Svarni Expanse, and a tribe of Pygmies moved into Karuupa Jungle. What remains of the Muramite army are a number of Kyv who were left behind and are just focusing on trying to survive. |
| 138 | * ForcedLevelGrinding: |
| 139 | ** Leveling up is easy compared to [=EQ1=]. The Agnostic dungeons were added into the game to intentionally help low level players level up to 96 faster than going through other dungeons. Now go get your 350 AA's. |
| 140 | ** Intentionally inverted after level 100. The Planes of Prophecy expansion increased the level cap from 100 to 110, but the XP requirements jumped so exponentially that you have no other choice but to complete quests within the Plane of Magic and expansion onward in order to level. It would take you literal years of grinding just to reach level 101. |
| 141 | * ForcedTutorial: Controversially removed from the game. The original game started all players out as "Level 1 Commoners" in a zone called "Isle of Refuge". You learned to play by completing the quests there, picked your archetype (fighter, mage, priest, scout), and an alignment (Qeynos or Freeport). The whole archetype and class picking part was done away with years ago, "to make the newbie experience more unique", and the Isle of Refuge was split into The Queen's Colony (for good characters) and Outpost of the Overlord (for evil ones). But as the focus of the game shifted away from Qeynos and Freeport and the gear from the two tutorial zones became outdated, SOE decided to just get rid of them entirely. These zones were eventually put back into the game, with new players allowed to experience the storyline presented in them, and older players allowed to visit at any level just for the sake of visiting and completing those quests. Tutorials now exist as a series of pop-up windows and they aren't mandatory. There's no reason a newbie can't just start level grinding and ignore the hell out of all the quests. |
| 142 | * TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: Inside the Estate of Unrest is an omnipresent malevolent spirit named Garanell Rucksif who taunts you after progressing at certain points. He's perplexed as to why he can't see into your soul like every other adventurer who wanders in. Eventually he discovers that the player is hiding himself behind a special pane of glass that prevents his influence from reaching them. As you make your way into the final area of the zone, the screen fills with static as a 3D skull screams at you. |
| 143 | * {{Freemium}}: ''[=EverQuest=]'' 2 opened up to a Free To Play model in 2011, initially allowing players to play the entire game for free, but at severe restrictions. The model underwent some redesigns, especially when Sony Online Entertainment sold the game to Daybreak Studios. As of 2018, free to play players have access to four character slots; can only use certain designated chat channels (an anti-spambot countermeasure); have alternate advancement points set at 50% and have no control over where those points are allocated; can only level to 20 levels lower than the adventure cap; have some restrictions on spell and gear quality; cannot trade certain items; have fully access to every expansion up unto the last 5 releases; and cannot access special event servers like Time-Locked Expansion servers or the PVP servers. The Freeblood and Aerakyn races, and the Channeler and Beastlord classes are still locked behind a freemium paywall, even for All Access subscribers (which is mitigated by the 500 Daybreak Cash given each per month.) As of 2023, all Free-To-Play accounts have access up to everything up to 2017's Planes of Prophecy expansion, which raises their max level to level 110. Buying a monthly subscription removes the limitations, but the player still needs to buy the current expansion to gain access to all locked-away content and reach the level cap. |
| 144 | * FrigidWaterIsHarmless: Everfrost's zone-in point places you on a large dock attached to an island that is separated from the rest of the continent. Before the ability to fly was put into the game, players had no choice but to jump into the shark-infested waters and swim to land. The local explorers complain about the cold to no end, but swimming around doesn't affect adventurers except for the occasional shark attack. |
| 145 | * FromNobodyToNightmare: Originally, Lucan D'Lere was just a paladin in the Order of Marr. Before [=EQ1=] took place, he [[FaceHeelTurn split from the Order]] and founded the Freeport Militia. Five hundred years later in [=EQ2=] he's the unquestioned ruler and tyrant of Freeport. To this day, only Lucan's most trusted adviser, a dark elf named Tayil N'Velex, knows that he is actually an immortal {{Lich}}, but even she doesn't know where he keeps the phylactery that contains his soul. |
| 146 | * FunWithAcronyms: There's a group of archaeologists known as the Dedicated Individuals Recovering Technology of Yesteryear, or D.I.R.T.Y for short. |
| 147 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: As the story explains, the Vah Shir race went extinct when travel to Luclin was cut off and Luclin itself was eventually destroyed. That event has now been undone thanks to time magic, so the Vah Shir are back and now finding themselves exploring a Norrath that is some 40-50 years into the future from where Luclin stands. Their own city of Shar Vahl is back as well and serves as a hub city in the Reign of Shadows expansion. For strictly mechanical purposes, all players are required to select between Qeynos, Freeport, New Halas, Gorowyn, Neriak, or Kelethin on Norrath as their starting city, depending on their class alignment. This means that Vah Shir players are forced to start on Norrath even though their own home city is back from destruction. |
| 148 | ** An ealier, and rarer, instance of this is that there are some quest givers that didn't get their diaglogue updated when the Norrathian gods returned during [=LU29=]. |
| 149 | * GetOnTheBoat: When [=EQ2=] first came out, GetOnTheBoat was one of the major themes of the game - get on the boat and sail to the newly rediscovered lands. You had to complete substantial quest lines before you were allowed to. Now? Not at all. The boat quests can still be completed but aren't necessary anymore. |
| 150 | * GiantEnemyCrab: Several, actually. The Scavanator (''Sentinel's Fate'' era raid boss) is probably the most famous of them though. |
| 151 | * GirlsWithMustaches: Female Dwarf characters have a select of facial hair they can customize with in the character creation screen. They're not as heavy as what male Dwarves can choose, but still enough to be present. |
| 152 | * GodOfTheDead: Drinal. Visually inspired by Anubis of Egyptian mythology, Drinal used to be a natural spirit who oversaw the Ethernere, a limbo where people go after they die until such time that they are absorbed into the realms of their chosen dieties. However, with the actual slaying of Rallos Zek, the God of War in [=EQ2=]'s timeline, and Cazic Thule, the God of Fear in the original Everquest's timeline, the powers of both gods began to corrupt the physical lands of the afterlife, and Drinal himself ascended into the full God of Death and the Afterlife. He also ended up becoming corrupted by absorbing such raw powers of two dead gods, and it is up to the players to smack some sense into him and bring his powers under control in the Chains of Eternity expansion. |
| 153 | * [[TheGoodKing The Good Queen]]: Antonia Bayle. Granted, there are individuals who don't like the way she runs the place and imply she's just a child (she rose to power at the age of 24) and doesn't know what she's doing. In the LU64 Qeynos revamp, the shade of Kyle Antihilus Bayle and a group of Qeynosian nobles conspire to usurp power for the above reason. The player finds out through their own observation that Antonia's not only a lot wiser than her detractors claim, but is willing to personally get her hands dirty, [[note]]She sneaks out of the palace and disguises herself as a masked healer named Rinna so she can both see for herself and help repair the various catastrophes that afflict Qeynos[[/note]] |
| 154 | * GreaterScopeVillain: |
| 155 | ** Kerafyrm was the grand daddy of all Big Bads, being the prominent character found at the core of the Age's End prophecy. He did finally get involved, and ended up getting [[SealedEvilInACan sealed inside Luclin]], but he's still alive in there. |
| 156 | ** With Kerafyrm out of the picture, the Altar of Malice expansion brought Lanys Ty'Val, the Goddess of Strife back to life. Over the next few expansions, players found themselves always one step behind in stopping her plans of taking the Dresolisk Crystal from the original Everquest's timeline and using it to destroy Norrath in EQ2's timeline-- until you finally team up with the other gods and kill her by obliterating her very existence with the crystal itself in the Planes of Prophecy expansion. |
| 157 | ** Throughout the entire game-- in fact from the very beginning of ''VideoGame/{{EverQuest}}'' itself-- there has existed the Shissar Calendar. A large stone slab with unknown runes that have recorded every major event in Norrath's history, up to and including Kerafyrm's awakening and eventual sealing away inside of Luclin. Emperor Ssraeshza of the Shissar Empire is a powerful necromancer and a sooth-sayer who can see into the future and has mastered forms of bringing himself back to life. He knew that Luclin was going to be destroyed, so he ordered the construction of his temple on Luclin upside down so it would land right-side up in the Phantom Sea. He knew he himself was going to be killed at the hands of adventurers, but would be brought back to life when Luclin was restored with chronomancy. As of the Blood of Luclin expansion, he knew that us adventurers would decipher a section of Shissar Calendar that would explain that he knew that we would decipher a part of the Shissar Calendar in our efforts to put a stop to his plans of stealing the goddess Luclin's powers and using it to invade Norrath with his undead armies. The Duality is very aware that he has to calculate our next moves carefully, both through action and inaction to overcome this threat that knows we're trying to stop him. |
| 158 | * HalfBreedAngst: Half-Elves find themselves looking for a purpose in life since they're stuck between two cultures of Humans and Elves. They feel they don't truly fit into either one, so they reflect this by wearing wild hairstyles and facial piercings like a disaffected teenager. |
| 159 | * HammerSpace: Lampshaded during a quest from the Bristlebane Day (April Fools) celebration. You're tasked with recovering 50 novelty and joke items and gadgets from a pirate. When you return to the quest giver he asks how you managed to carry all of that on your person, and you reply with "You know... I have no idea." |
| 160 | * HealingShiv: The Channeler class is a healer that functions with bows and arrows. Healing basically amounts to them shooting you in the face. |
| 161 | * HeKnowsAboutTimedHits: Various [=NPCs=] in newbie starting zones will be designated as tutorials below their name, and their dialogue makes no effort to explain anything from an InUniverse standpoint. Voiced dialogue will tell you about the game's mechanics and how to perform certain functions. |
| 162 | * HelpingWouldBeKillstealing: Not even possible. One of [=EQ2's=] mechanics "locks" you and your opponent in combat and then other players can't help. However, other monsters can occasionally steal your kills if you're in one of the rare areas where they're programmed to attack each other. |
| 163 | * HiddenAgendaVillain: Lord Nagafen. His agenda is so hidden that he spends more time manipulating you into killing mutual enemies than trying to stop you in any way - but don't think for a split second that he's not villainous through and through. |
| 164 | * HitboxDissonance: Dear ''God'', Eirreen the Broken. Eirreen is a freakin' huge dragon. Her hitbox is roughly the part of her belly between her legs. You can be inside her tail without being inside her agro range. |
| 165 | * HotGoddess: Erollisi Marr, Sullon Zek, and Anash'ti Sul. Justified in Erollisi's case since one of her spheres of influence is love. |
| 166 | ** Subverted with Anashti Sul as well. Undead Anashti wears the same outfit as living Anashti. Only, she's undead, her skin is all red and her face is melty. |
| 167 | * HubUnderAttack: The game makes use of special instances of zones which allows them to be easily repurposed for story reasons, and has used this for live events and other game content. |
| 168 | ** In 2009, the game's story saw an unknown force successfully kidnap Lucan D'Lere, the tyrannical ruler of Freeport. Freeport is one of the three evil player cities and serves as the hub, but during this turmoil the entire hub zone was changed into a display of chaos. The Freeport Militia were battling against the Dreadnaughts and other minor factions vying for power and independence from a dictator, and the streets showed destruction and debris. These [=NPCs=] posed no threat to players and were cosmetic, but the city still functioned as normal. |
| 169 | ** A similar game event happened to both Qeynos and Freeport in 2013, when [[BigBad Kerafyrm's]] forces of the Awakened had launched an invasion across Norrath. In both cities, the guards were engaged in battle with drakes, drakota, and droags, while dragons flew around in the sky. This was also cosmetic didn't affect the gameplay of the players going about their daily lives. |
| 170 | ** 2012 saw a revamp of Qeynos and Freeport in order to update some mostly outdated content. When the game launched, Qeynos and Freeport had racial neighborhoods where the players would live when they started. Those neighborhoods were locked off from players and their homes moved to the Inns in the inner city as a central storyline was introduced for each city. In Qeynos in particular, areas like the Baubleshire, Willowwood, and Starcrest Commune were shut off because there were invading forces and the guards closed off the gates to keep the citizens safe. Certain racial quests and parts of the city timeline allow you to go inside and fight off the undead hordes, gnolls, and demonic invaders. Every neighborhood has some kind of conflict happening. |
| 171 | ** The Blood of Luclin expansion brought back the moon of Luclin into the game after being cut off for 500 years, destroyed in a cataclysm, and eventually reformed thanked to time magic. In EQ1, the city of Fordel Midst served as a neutral city and hub for adventurers before they go explore the moon. In EQ2's story, the city had been taken over by the lingering ghosts of the invading army and players had to fight their way through the Nexus, Shadowhaven, and the Bazaar in order to rediscover and secure the city. The Reign of Shadows expansion that came out after now uses a cleaned up and reinhabited Fordel Midst as the hub city and launching point for adventurers to explore the dark half of Luclin's surface. |
| 172 | * IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: In ''The Shadow Odyssey'' expansion, when you try to infiltrate the Brokenskull Pirates, they send you on a mission to kill kittens. Your other option is to collect the kittens in a sack and bring them to the pirates. |
| 173 | * ImpossibleItemDrop: The monsters in this game can run the gambit from incredibly tiny (such as the Brownies, who only stand a couple inches off the ground,) to absolutely gigantic (like Tarinax in Deathtoll). Since nearly all loot drops in the form of treasure chests, killing tiny monsters can result in a gigantic Master Chest spawning and completely crushing the corpse. |
| 174 | * InexplicableTreasureChests: How the loot system in this game works. Treasure chests containing loot appear out of nowhere when you kill monsters. |
| 175 | * InterfaceScrew: [[IntoxicationMechanic Alcohol blurs the screen]] and gives you double vision, and if you get drunk enough quadruple vision. Various spells cause similar blurring effects. |
| 176 | * InvulnerableCivilians: Most [=NPCs=] cannot be attacked. The primary exception is in the ''Desert of Flames'' zones. |
| 177 | ** The barkeep of the Fool's Gold Tavern in Rivervale is also excluded from this. |
| 178 | * ItemCrafting: Very much present. |
| 179 | * InterServiceRivalry: Official looking [=NPCs=] in Qeynos and Freeport have been known to mock other factions within their respective cities. |
| 180 | * JackOfAllStats: Humans in both games have average stats across the board. |
| 181 | * JumpScare: The aptly named "Scare" Crows that you can obtain during the Nights of the Dead event. When you place them in your home, at any time they may summon a zombie to jump up and scare you directly from your user interface. |
| 182 | * KangarooCourt: The Tribunal-- ''The Gods of Justice'' themselves-- do this to you at the start of the Chaos Descending expansion. Because you were present when the Dresolisk Crystal was detonated and killed Lanys T'Vyl-- the Goddess of Malice, at the end of the Planes of Prophecy expansion, the Tribunal charges you with deicide and is prepared to lock you up in the Plane of Justice for all eternity. This is in spite of the facts that it was justified self defense, as she was planning on detonating the crystal in order to destroy Norrath and numerous alternate timelines with it. It was also the combined efforts of Quellious, Mithaniel Marr, Karana, Morell Thule, Druzzil Ro, Solusek Ro, and Fennin Ro[[note]]The God of elemental Fire-- his power is stronger than the Tribunal itself[[/note]] to stop Lanys, and could have easily testified if the Tribunal had taken a moment to summon any of them. As such, Druzzil Ro decides to take responsibility for your mortal actions and takes the punishment for you. It's even worse if you didn't complete that storyline-- They're ready to cast judgement on you, a random mortal who had literally nothing to do with anything and weren't even there when she was killed. |
| 183 | * KickTheDog: Prior to [=LU61=], if you lived in Freeport, you could kick dogs. Cats and pigs too. Animals roamed around the residential areas in Freeport, and you can kill them if you so chose. Qeynosians had animals wandering around too, but they were unattackable. Still, any Qeynosian who badly wanted to indulge in some dog kicking could sneak into Freeport and kick dogs to their hearts content. |
| 184 | * KingIncognito: During "The City of Qeynos" questline, you come across an NPC named Rinna, who is doing humanitarian aid to Gnome and Halfling refugees who've been chased out of the Baubleshire. Her quests eventually lead to discovering criminal acts involving the Bloodsabers, who are trying to spread disease through the city. Rinna ends up being accused of a major crime during your investigation and goes on the run. You do rescue her, but she goes into hiding with the promise that you'll meet again somewhere. [[spoiler:You're later summoned to Queen Antonia's chambers to discuss a different quest, and you have the chance to look into her back room, where Rinna's outfit is displayed on a mannequin]]. |
| 185 | * LampshadeHanging: [=EQ2=] has a fondness for this. There's a quest where you have to harvest Treant corpses (read: full sized trees) and carry them back to an NPC, who queries you on how you accomplished it. You answer him "Norrath has always been a land of mystery". The whole TwentyBearAsses thing has become a running joke, with a few [=NPCs=] even laughing at you for killing rats for quests. |
| 186 | ** One of the holiday quests for the April Fools Day expy Bristlebane Day is literally called "Kill 10 rats". The quest deconstructs and lampshades MMORPG cliches in general. |
| 187 | * TheLegionsOfHell: The Nightbloods, despite being aligned with the Void Invaders, look much more like legions of hell than shadow monsters. |
| 188 | * LethalLavaLand: Lavastorm and some of the connected dungeons (Solusek's Eye, Deep Forge, Najena's Hollow Tower). Also the Skyfire Mountains section of Jarsath Wastes, and Veeshan's Peak. And the Allu'thoa caverns in the newer expac. |
| 189 | * LevelLimiter: The game allows you to turn off both combat XP and quest XP if you want to level lock your toon or restrict your advancement through one method or the other. It also has the Chronomentor system, which allows a player to reduce their level range to farm lower-level content for loot. |
| 190 | * LightIsNotGood: The city of Sanctus Seru on Luclin. Lord Triskelian Seru has brainwashed his citizens and keep them pacified through magical means thanks to his devoted luminaries. The citizens are forced to stay in line and go about their daily lives by thinking that life is perfect and nothing is wrong. The city itself is kept in absolute pristine condition and isn't allowed to be blemished in any way without it being immediately fixed. Triskelian Seru is actual Lord Inquisitor Sanctus Seru, who uses time magic to keep himself from ever experiencing true death, and he genuinely believe that Mithanial Marr, the God of Valor, has blessed him on a mission to keep the Combine Empire pure from tainted influences of "evil" races. |
| 191 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: In addition to the Just for fun, here's a list of some of the non-playable sentient races: Aviak, Bixie, Boarfiend, Brownie, Bugbear, Burynai, Centaur, Clockwork, Cyclops, Djinn, Drakota, Drelock, Droag, Efreet, Ettin, Fungusman, Gnoll, Goblin, Giant, Gruengach, Hua Mein, Kobold, Lizardman, Minotaur, Nightblood, Orc, Othmir, Ravasect, Roekillik, Shadowed Man, Succubus, Vampire, War Elf, Yah-lei. |
| 192 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests: The game is ALL ABOUT THIS. It has Quest in its name! The majority of the thousands upon thousands of quests found in the game are sidequests compared to the few quests actually relating to each expansion's storylines. |
| 193 | * LockedOutOfTheLoop: During the Reign of Shadows storyline, you meet up with the Vah Shir race on the dark side of Luclin. When an Erudite introduces themselves as such, there is some confusion because they do not look like the men of Erud that they are familiar with. Luclin was cut off from Norrath centuries ago, and eventually destroyed, but your own actions resulted in the destruction being undone. The Vah Shir do not know of what has happened in that time, including the Erudites undergoing a magic-induced physical transformation. |
| 194 | * LovecraftLite: Cazic Thule, the God of Fear, loves to manifest his influence with lots of eyes and tentacles. Amygdalans are an entire race of nautilus creatures with tentacles where their mouths should be. Evil Eyes are common, and eyes even grow out of the trees that are corrupted by his influence. Cazic himself is known as "The Faceless" because he has no mouth or eyes on his being. |
| 195 | * MassiveRaceSelection: ''Twenty two'' in total. Dwarves, Fae, Frogloks, Halflings, High Elves, Wood Elves, Barbarians, Erudites, Half Elves, Freeblood Vampires, Gnomes, Humans, Kerran, Ratonga, Arasai, Dark Elves, Iksar, Ogres, Sarnak, Trolls, Aerykin, Vah Shir. Have fun making those [[{{AltItis}} characters.]] |
| 196 | * MasterRace: |
| 197 | ** The Renda'Dal of New Tunaria, formerly the High Elven city of Felwithe. After Queen Lenya Thex took control of her people following the death of the king, she believed the High Elves should be reformed to weed weakness out of their race. They began selective breeding to create the perfect elf, and have taken an aggressively xenophobic view towards all outsiders. The High Elf racial quest in Qeynos has you confront an emissary to New Tunaria, who openly judges your physical qualities to determine if you're worthy enough of joining New Tunaria, but you "politely" decline because you're not a stuck up snob who thinks of other races as being inferior. |
| 198 | ** BigBad Kerafyrm of the Age's End MythArc was attempting to bring about the Second Age of Scale, where he would actively destroy anyone and everyone who didn't submit into complete servitude towards him and the Dragon race, and his armies of lesser draconic races. |
| 199 | * MeleeDisarming: Used as a StatusEffect against players. Certain enemies are able to temporarily remove a player's weapons for a couple seconds at a time. This effectively halts all damage done from the player's auto-attacks, combat arts, and spell casting because it's not possible without a weapon in your main hand. |
| 200 | * MergerOfSouls: The Duality, the combined essences of the great wizard Al'Kabor and a powerful necromancer named Dartain sharing one body. His physical body morphs between the two personalities at frequent intervals. |
| 201 | * MeteorSummoningAttack: The Wizard class gains the Ice Comet spell at level 50. At the start of the game, it was the most powerful spell they had access to, but still remains one of the stronger direct damage spells at higher levels with proper spell upgrades. |
| 202 | * {{Microtransactions}}: Since going free-to-play, there are some items you can buy with real life cash, like cosmetic items and new races. With the exception of the Aerakin and Freeblood races, and the Channeler and Beastlord classes, everything is mostly cosmetic or offers no significant bonuses in combat that gives an advantage. |
| 203 | * AMoltenDateWithDeath: During the initial release of the game, falling into the lava in Lavastorm would result in instant death. This was later patched so that players would taking burning damage, but at least had a chance to escape. |
| 204 | * MoneySpider: Averted for the first decade or so of the game's life - monsters dropped various kinds of loot which could be sold rather than dropping money. As of Destiny of Velious however, the devs got lazy and now the local bears and insects and such just drop coins. |
| 205 | * MythArc: [=EQ2=] had them from the get-go, starting with "rescue the Froglok race". Now the arcs are connected. |
| 206 | * NatureEqualsPlants: Tunare, the Goddess of Growth and Nature, best represents her influence through the plants and other forms of growth that she can produce. Her influence is best felt in Lesser Faydark through the massively overgrown mushrooms, vines, and roots, thanks to a piece of the Plane of Growth itself located nearby. |
| 207 | * {{Nerf}}: In a rare case of nerfing the enemies rather than the players, the game did away with the concept of "critical mitigation" entirely. Then they introduced 'resolve' which, mechanically speaking, is almost the exact same thing. |
| 208 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 209 | ** The Shadow Odyssey expansion. In their attempts to fight off the invading forces of the Void and prevent them from [[CessationOfExistence destroying Norrath]], the players eventually had to fight against the former God of Health from Norrath's Pantheon, Anashti Sul. She had been banished to the Void for unleashing the Undead upon Norrath, and now she wanted revenge. When the players finally defeated her, they ended up breaking the proverbial leash that kept her bound in the Void, and was allowed to reform herself on Norrath. Even she could not have predicted such an outcome when she died, but was pleased nonetheless. She now exists on Norrath as the God of Eternal Life. She's still evil and bitter about what the gods did to her though. |
| 210 | ** Sentinal's Fate, the follow up to the Shadow Odyssey has this again. When you defeat the 4 Rune Roheen Theer, you weaken him enough to allow [[spoiler:Kerafyrm]] to steal the power of his magic god-killing swords. With Roheen Theer out of the picture, the void's grip on Odus weakened, which forced the Erudites and adventurers to turn their attention to preventing the whole of Norrath from being pulled into the Underfoot. |
| 211 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Way too many to list all of them, but here's a few... |
| 212 | ** Za Za Lenska gives you a quest to get "potion ingredients to help her husband" that include snake venom (a reference to Zsa Zsa Gabor going through husbands). |
| 213 | ** A character you're forced to fight one-on-one in a monk trial event is called Crush "The Icescale" Lizzard (shout out to Chuck "The Iceman" Liddel). |
| 214 | ** The quest "The Number One Threat In the Butcherblock" requires you to kill {{bears|AreBadNews}}. Given to you by Trapper [[Series/TheColbertReport Colbear]]. |
| 215 | ** At Gnomeland Security HQ in Steamfont, a Gnome named Adam Cogbuster and a Halfling named Jamie Spocketbreaker are developing complex and dangerous new weaponry. They look a ''lot'' like [[Series/MythBusters Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman]]. |
| 216 | * NonMammalMammaries: Thoroughly averted. The game features a few amphibian and reptilian races. Female Iksar are skinnier than males. Female Frogloks are virtually indistinguishable from males. Female Sarnaks are actually much bigger than male sarnaks (No less than 2 feet taller), although their facial horns and features are smaller, blunter and less elaborate. |
| 217 | ** Played straight with the Bixies, an NPC race of bees. They're insects, to be sure, but a cross between a bee and a woman, and their torso's carapaces all have two breasts. |
| 218 | * NoobCave: The Isle of Refuge, later replaced by Queen's Colony and Outpost of the Overlord. Later removed all together - the four starting zones have quest lines that gently ease you into the game the same way a Noob Cave would though. Queen's Colony and Outpost of the Overlord were later restored to the game. |
| 219 | * NotSoExtinct: The Vah Shir are the genetic ancestors of the modern day Kerrans. They were all destroyed along with Luclin when it blew up, but now they're back and adventuring throughout Norrath and Luclin again thanks to time magic undoing the destruction. |
| 220 | * OneWomanWail: |
| 221 | ** The music of Obol Plains mainly consists of this to help exemplify the fact that you inhabit Norrath's version of purgatory-- a land where souls must remain until their chosen god finally takes them to the afterlife. |
| 222 | ** Inside Harrow's End, a zone inside Obol Plains, is Melanie Everling, a woman who is now eternally bound to Drinal's servitude because she tried to break a contract with him. She lures adventurers to her chambers with a hauntingly enchanted wail as you fight through enemies along the way. |
| 223 | * OrcusOnHisThrone: For someone so monstrously powerful, Kerafyrm didn't do much. Of course, once he finally did, it didn't go so well for him. |
| 224 | * OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Yep, they're still the same, although the Coldain Dwarves have been changed enough by their environment that they easily stand out. |
| 225 | * OurElvesAreDifferent: |
| 226 | ** The haughty High Elves and the evil Dark Elves don't play well with others. Wood Elves are more easier going than other elven races. |
| 227 | ** [=EQ2's=] subversion is the Half Elves, who are known best for being obsessed with hair dye and piercings, and other means of standing out from the normal standards of society. Not having a culture to begin with (being stuck between Humans and Wood Elves), they created their own from the ground up. They've developed an rebellious outcast mentality towards most forms of authority, and visually reflect that with skin piercings and wild hair. So basically a race of disaffected teenagers. |
| 228 | ** The between-expansion packs content release [=LU60=] gave us the War Elves. Huge, muscular, grey skinned, red tattooed, immortal warriors. The lore goes that Rallos Zek was given some of the first Dark Elves by Innoruuk in exchange for not wiping out the rest of them. Rallos planned to use them as sacrificial peons, but his sons Vallon and Tallon Zek held the War Elves back when Rallos' legions attacked the Plane of Earth so that they weren't hit with the Rathe's Curse. |
| 229 | ** Both subverted and played straight by the Renda'Dal, or "New Elf". Subverted in that, after taking huge losses after the War of the Fay, the inhabitants of the High Elven city of Felwithe decided that the best way to ensure racial survival was to inbreed and intentionally decrease their natural lifespan from 800 or so years to around 70, in order to ensure they reproduced more often. Played straight in that they're still exceptionally arrogant, but also maliciously xenophobic, attacking anyone, even other High Elves, who enter the city. Of course, they're also being manipulated by Mayong Mistmoore. |
| 230 | * OurGnomesAreWeirder: These gnomes are based heavily on the Literature/{{Dragonlance}} tinker gnomes, although they're much more competent (but still blamed for 99% of everything that ever goes wrong, even when they're not involved.) |
| 231 | * OurOgresAreHungrier: In [=EQ2=], the Gods' departure lifted a curse that made the ogres stupid. With the curse gone, but their arrogance and massive physical size still there, they ended up a quite scary race of [[GeniusBruiser Genius Bruisers]]. |
| 232 | * OurTrollsAreDifferent: [=EQ2=] trolls are based on standard D&D trolls - big, green, not very intelligent, regenerative, and weak to fire. Though the latter three traits are barely noticeable in these days of ridiculous stat inflation. |
| 233 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: [=EQ2=]'s vampires seem to be rather similar to dark elves, and there are groups of vampires living openly in the dark elf city of Neriak. The game skirts around the issue of whether sunlight actually harms them or not. One instance in ''The Shadow Odyssey'' expansion requires adventurers to "become" vampires themselves, and fight a boss where natural sunlight is occasionally exposed to the area, and it's lethal to players. |
| 234 | ** Eventually, [[MoneyDearBoy entirely for the sake of money]], the developers created the Freeblood Vampire race. A race of vampires who used to be Humans and Elves that were abducted for vampire experiments. They managed to retain some of their free will, as well as proved that sunlight didn't affect them. They escaped and started living in the cities across Norrath. |
| 235 | * PacifismIsCowardice: The Ogres racial questline in Freeport has you discovering the pacifistic followers of Quellious, Goddess of Tranquility, trying to peacefully resolve a conflict. The Ogre mentor tells you to bash their heads in, because anyone who doesn't embrace war and fighting is weak. |
| 236 | * PowerUpFood: Still exists. The best food gives increases to things like block chance, but has a very short duration making it too expensive to be practical. |
| 237 | * PhlebotinumOverload: Kerafyrm had the Power of the Nameless. However, the power was meant ''only'' for Roehn Theer, and Theer needed his swords Enoxus and Aeteok to properly channel it. Kerafyrm had neither of the swords, his reasoning being that he now has the power, and the swords are just mundane vessels to store it, so he didn't need them. Theer believed that if Kerafyrm tried to use this power, it would "hasten the cataclysm foretold in the Age's End Prophecy" by literally unmaking the world. |
| 238 | ** On top of that, Rallos Zek, the God of War himself, was after the power as well to become the "True King", a kind of "God of Gods" to plunge the entire universe into war. Even if he did kill Kerafyrm, there was a chance killing the Prismatic Dragon would have ended the universe as well. He ended up getting himself killed instead, though. |
| 239 | * PlayfulOtter: The Othmir, who play a pretty fair role in Velious. |
| 240 | * PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: Invoked. The developers were savvy enough to listen to the players whining about having to click through 5-6-7-8-12 dialogue boxes to get to the quests, so with the ''Sentinel's Fate'' expansion, along with the "Yes, please continue" and "No, I'm not interested" dialogue boxes, they started adding a "Yeah, yeah, skip the story, do you have any work for me or not?" dialogue box so players can just get the quest and get to work. |
| 241 | * PlotRelevantAgeUp: As part of the LU64 revamp of Qeynos, Antonia Bayle was aged up from her mid-20s to her mid-30s. |
| 242 | * PragmaticVillainy: |
| 243 | ** The Sarnak of Gorowyn. They lead a fairly militaristic lifestyle, but decided it would be much more profitable to make Gorowyn accessible to good-aligned adventurers as a waypoint between their lands and Kunark than to follow the standard Evil practice of killing them for the evulz. The only reason why they practice more evil professions is because it was the best way for them to survive in their environment. |
| 244 | ** Lucan D'Lere's motivation for allowing templars to start practicing in Freeport - after the riots, having healers who would actually heal (and preach of the wonderfullness of Lucan) as opposed to the inquisitor style "beatings will continue until morale improves" method of healing would help bring the populace back in line and improve their loyalty. |
| 245 | * {{Prehistoria}}: South Dshinn Island in the Tranquil Sea is inhabited by a primitive tribe of pygmies who make use of the bones of the Stegodons and other dinosaurs that they consider sacred. The island also has massive tar pits that creatures get stuck in. |
| 246 | * PunnyName: Oh so many of them. There are whole web pages which list them. |
| 247 | ** One example is the zone "Estate of Unrest" (State of unrest). |
| 248 | ** There are six of them on the Isle of Mara. |
| 249 | * RainbowPimpGear: Averted. Players have the ability to equip armor and weapons in an appearance slot. |
| 250 | * RandomDrop: Somewhat averted. The game went through a massive re-itemization in 2013, and now you know (or can quickly find out) which monsters will drop what kind of gear - and further more many if not most of the older zones are designed so that for every kind of gear there's a Named Mob to drop it. That being said, if you're after a particular piece of armor, you've got 1 in 7 odds of getting the right piece... |
| 251 | ** RareRandomDrop: ...and that's if you're looking for the more common stuff. Namers have a common drop and a rare drop, which appears much more rarely than the common drops. |
| 252 | * ReallyGetsAround: In The Sinking Sands, there's a minor boss - a high elf pirate named Lady Samiel. The southern islands in the zone absolutely teem with various kinds of "Samiel" half-elves (e.g. a Samiel pirate, a Samiel marauder, etc...). It's implied that all these dozens-if-not-hundreds of half-elves are her offspring. |
| 253 | * Really700YearsOld: Lucan D'lere is at the closer end of 600. He had betrayed the Knights of Marr and was stripped of his holy powers in his late twenties, then spent the next few decades learning necromantic powers to become a [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]]. He had already obtained his lich status in the original EQ, then eventually took control of Freeport and hasn't visibly aged in the 500 years since then. |
| 254 | ** In the Renda'Dal's backstory, it's implied that Koada'Dal have a lifespan of around 800 years; whether that applies to Fier'Dal and Tier'Dal is unknown. |
| 255 | * TheReveal: Players learned that Eva Corruno'thes, the Prophet of Tunare, was actually [[spoiler: Firiona Vie,]] who kept herself HiddenInPlainSight until the time came for her to play her part in the Age's End story arc. |
| 256 | * ScrappyMechanic: The critical mitigation stat - it mitigated the amount of bonus damage an enemy's critical hits did. It was so unpopular and added so little to the game that SOE actually [[{{invoked}} removed it]] from the game entirely. |
| 257 | * ScunthorpeProblem: Occasionally SOE will add something new to the list of banned names. If your character was created before the new banned thing was added it won't delete your character or change its name, but it will cause problems since the game's literally incapable of accepting the name. |
| 258 | * SdrawkcabName: The lizardmen names usually run like this. Alliz Evol Ew (We Love [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} Zilla]]), Alliz Tae Ew (We Eat Zilla), Alliz Raef Ew, Alliz Onu... |
| 259 | * SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:Kerafyrm]] was stopped by [[spoiler:sealing him into the interior of Luclin]]. |
| 260 | * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: One MythArc that had been building over the course of the game was the return of Kerafyrm and the eventual confrontation to prevent him from wiping out all lesser races and starting a new age of the dragons. Thanks to the combined efforts of Queen Antonia and the armies of Qeynos, Lucan D'Lere and the armies of Freeport, and the dragons of the Claws of Veeshan, a magic device was used to amplify powerful chronomagic to undo the destruction of Luclin, while sealing away both Kerafyrm and the Godslayer, Roehn Theer inside its core. Adventurers returning to Luclin would discover the the moon was brought back to the exact point in time where the Dresolisk Crystal that caused its destruction was detonated, but before its explosion could actually expand. The explosion itself was undone while the crystal was still destroyed. The citizens on Luclin are mostly unaware of anything that has happened, but a few mages are aware of the events of the destruction that transpired. |
| 261 | * SexyPackaging: The adventure packs and the first expansion featured a skimpily clad Antonia Bayle, the same way [=EQ1=] expansions featured Firiona Vie. ''Kingdom of Sky'' and ''Echoes of Faydwer'' moved her to the background, and she disappeared from the boxes as of ''The Shadow Odyssey''. |
| 262 | * SlobsVersusSnobs: Hoo boy. |
| 263 | ** The evil races are all about this. Dark Elves and Arasai consider all the other evil races to either be slobbish brutes fit only to be manipulated, or worthless sneaks. Iksar and Sarnak view themselves as the snobs, looking down on the Dark Elves and Arasai for being decadent weaklings and the others (including each other) for being either savages or sneaks. Ratonga and evil Gnomes consider themselves the snobs and consider the other evil races to be big oafs who aren't as smart as they think they are. Evil Erudites see themselves as the snobs and all the other races as slovenly imbeciles. Ogres, Trolls, and evil Barbarians, however, proudly view themselves as the slobs and the other evil races as prissy snobby stuck up weaklings. |
| 264 | ** The good races are more likely to make (mostly) good natured jokes than indulge in prejudice, but it still happens. High Elves think the Wood Elves lack proper elven dignity and morality, and Wood Elves think that High Elves are too haughty and self-righteous. Good Erudites still think they're smarter than everyone else, and they especially look down on the ancestor-worshipping kerrans. Dwarves and good Barbarians tend to be [[BoisterousBruiser boisterous bruisers]] and consider themselves good honest slobs compared to the others. |
| 265 | * ShouldersOfDoom: Elaborate shoulderpads were introduced with much fanfare in ''The Shadow Odyssey''. And the better the armor is, the more likely it is to come with elaborate shoulder pads, e.g. raid armor has fancier shoulderpads than dungeon dropped gear. |
| 266 | * ShoutOut: |
| 267 | ** In Windstalker Village in Antonica, you can find three human males named [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Dolph, Kearney, and Jimbo]] sparing with each other. |
| 268 | ** The Nights of the Dead quest "Survive the Night" is this towards ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies''. You can move around some plant creatures that will help damage the approaching waves of zombies. There's even a note on the porch of one of the houses that politely states the zombies are coming to eat them. |
| 269 | ** Some Burynai enemies can fire a [[VideoGame/StreetFighter1 Hadouken]]. |
| 270 | ** There's a zombie butler in the Tower of Frozen Shadow named [[Creator/JohnRomero Romero]]. |
| 271 | ** In Steamfont Mountains, you'll find two gnomes named [[WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce Emory and Oglethorpe]] who are working on a clockwork spider. The spider eventually goes out of control, requiring you to wrangle it in, and eventually finds itself in a programming feedback loop. |
| 272 | -->'''Arachnomechanicon:''' Do what now? |
| 273 | ** The entirety of the Swashbuckler Epic Weapon timeline has various shoutouts to the film ''Film/ThePrincessBride''. |
| 274 | * SomeCallMeTim: Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar. Players call him Bob. The game even gives this a shout out - one of the achievements is "Defeat Lord Doljonijia... Bob" |
| 275 | * SortingAlgorithmOfThreateningGeography: The original expansion. Depending on whether you're aligned with Qeynos or Freeport, the first large outdoor zone you'll explore (in your 10s, level wise) explored is either Antonica (a GreenHillZone) or The Commonlands (a savannah). In your 20s, it's on to The Thundering Steppes (plains beat to hell by a catacylsm) or Nektulos Forest (TheLostWoods). In your 30s, it's on to Zek, the Orcish Wastes (a barren wasteland) and The Enchanted Lands (a beautiful but eerie cursed island). And then in the 40s, it's on to Everfrost (SlippySlideyIceWorld mixed with GrimUpNorth) and Lavastorm (DeathMountain and LethalLavaLand in one). |
| 276 | * SticksToTheBack: All weapons and shields will either float on a character's back, will holster at the sides by the waist, or will be invisible until the character enters into combat. This can result in amusing combinations such as a toon using one hand to reach for thier shield and weapon from the back at once when entering combat. |
| 277 | * StoneWall: The Guardian is the most classic example (excellent defense, comparatively low damage output). |
| 278 | * {{Stripperiffic}}: Played straight and averted at various times. Antonia Bayle was stripperiffic in the tradition of Firiona Vie from [=EQ1=]. However, after the first two expansions SOE deliberately moved away from plastering her all over the boxes as an advertisement. Further, unlike in [=EQ1=], "unequipped" female characters wore peasant like clothing. There was ''one'' skimpy dress, but it was a prestige item. Then as of ''Destiny of Velious'', the trope came back with a vengeance. Villainesses Tserinna Syl'Tor, Cara Omica and Sullon Zek all sported "armor" that amounted to thigh high boots and a bikini, and plate mail halter tops became available to players. Then, a couple of live updates later, Antonia was given a full length gown to replace her previous bra and waist sash outfit. |
| 279 | * TailorMadePrison: Combined with a self-invoked SealedEvilInACan. The Goddess of Love, Erollisi Marr, was sealed up within her very own memorial shrine that was built in New Halas, in the statue that was forged by Verig Ro, the God of the Forge. After adventurers are tricked into tampering with the statue and creating a small crack on the surface, Erollisi was able to escape and reform herself. She reveals that Ullkorruuk, the Goddess of Betrayal, was the one who put her there in the first place, and the only way she could keep her locked away was if she locked herself up and used her powers to maintain the prison. When Erollisi escaped, she kicked Ullkorruuk's butt and showed her how her very own motivations for existence backfired against her. |
| 280 | * TemporalParadox: The Shiny Metallic Robe heritage quest results in a paradox that leads to you finding a portal that takes you to 500 years in the past (in [=EQ1=]'s time) where Clockworks have taken over the entire world. You meet a gnome enchanter who figures that if you're from the future, then she's trapped in a [[AlternateUniverse time bubble]] existing outside the normal timeline. She tells you that she was probably the cause of this alternate reality, and knows how to prevent it from happening with your help. This results in a StableTimeLoop that fixes the timeline by giving you the item that caused it in the first place; a package that is not to be delivered to you until 500 years later, back in the present time. |
| 281 | * TheGreys: Rodcet Nife's avatar, encountered during GU50, was one of these, which would fit with what shape the Temple of Life has. |
| 282 | * TimeMaster: Chronomancy is the practice of time magic. Some mages dabble in Chronomancy because during a few weeks in March every year, chronoportals to the past appear and let adventurers experience Norrath from 500 years ago without directly interfering with that timeline. Chronomancy plays a major part in the Tears of Veeshan timeline, when the Droag mage Jorlak uses the titular Tear of Veeshan to amplify his time magic to undo Luclin's destruction while sealing up Kerafyrm and Roehn Theer inside its core. |
| 283 | * TitledAfterTheSong: Combined with ThemeNaming. Quests surrounding Erollisi Day and the Returning Goddess zone are named after songs. |
| 284 | ** ''Shot Through The Heart'': Music/BonJovi (E-Day 2010) |
| 285 | ** ''Whats Love Got To Do With It?'': Tina Turner (E-Day 2011) |
| 286 | ** ''Total Eclipse Of The Heart'': Bonnie Tyler (E-Day 2011) |
| 287 | ** ''Captive Heart'': Selena Quintinilla (Returning Goddess) |
| 288 | ** ''Unbreak My Heart'': Toni Braxton (Returning Goddess) |
| 289 | ** ''Thief of Hearts'': {{Music/Madonna}} (Returning Goddess) |
| 290 | * TookALevelInBadass: The Fae. They are much more militant in the revamped Greater Faydark timeline and in most of their subsequent appearances than they were in the original Kelethin storyline. |
| 291 | * TookALevelInJerkass: Rallos Zek, the God of War, in the Destiny of Velious expansion pack and the subsequent patches "Children of War" and "The War of Zek". Rallos [[{{Retcon}} was always an evil god]], and has tried to put his ambitions of war and conquest into motion numerous times in the past, including the Planes of Power expansion pack in [=EverQuest=] and both Rallosian Wars. This time around, once Kerafyrm absorbed the powers of Roehn Theer, Rallos wanted to fight Kerafyrm immediately, even while knowing that one possible side effect of killing Kerafyrm would be the dissolution of all existence. Why? Because he believes that with the powers of Theer, he can become the True King and plunge Norrath into perpetual war. Not Jerkass enough for you? His plan is to kill his children Vallon, Tallon and Sullon Zek, and absorb their power back into himself to make himself a match for Kerafyrm, and after he's beaten Kerafyrm, use the power of Theer to kill all the other Gods and rule Norrath unopposed. |
| 292 | * ThongOfShielding: [[http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/File:Sullon_Zek_rear_view.png Sullon Zek]] |
| 293 | * ThugDojo: After Lucan D'Lere took over Freeport, he gave the Ashen Order of monks two choices: Bend to his will or leave. They packed up and left. A few more unsavory students stayed behind to form the Dreadnaughts, a literal group of thugs who believe more in fighting dirty and inflicting pain more than following a code of discipline. Lucan uses them to rough up shopkeepers who won't pay protection money and citizens who are late on their rent. |
| 294 | * TwentyBearAsses: [=EQ2=] pretty much revolves around this style of quest. |
| 295 | * UnderwaterRuins: Veksar, The Sunken City, was a resort built in the middle of the Lake of Ill Omen, and existed for 1000 years before disaster sunk it underwater. The place still mostly contains air, so some local goblins have turned it into their new home. |
| 296 | * UniquenessRule: Items listed with the Prestige tag usually end up being a Best-In-Slot item for any given expansion. The game restricts the player to only wearing 3 Prestige items to prevent them becoming even more overpowered. |
| 297 | * TheUsualAdversaries: The Bloodfist Orcs in the Commonlands for Freeport, the Crushbone orcs for Kelethin, and the Ry'Gorr orcs for New Halas. Qeynos gets the Blackburrow Gnolls, and Gorowyn gets a race of parrot Aviaks known as the Spiroc. Neriak doesn't have a single adversary who fills this role, but do have issues with some rogue vampires and an encampment of Dark Elf rebels known as the Thexians. |
| 298 | * {{Valkyries}}: They exist as monsters, mainly live in [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Everfrost]], and usually worship [[AnIcePerson E'ci, the goddess of winter.]] Despite looking like [[AngelicBeauty angelic beauties]] they are far from friendly - they start out at the very bottom of 'threatening' faction, where one single killed valkyrie makes all of them kill-on-sight. At launch, 1) there was no way to raise valkyrie faction, 2) you couldn't complete the then-mandatory Everfrost access quest without killing valkyries, ensuring that you'd be 'scowls' (the [=KoS=] faction standing) with them. The revamp of Everfrost added a small questline for raising valkyrie faction, but only to 'dubious.' Plus if you kill one and get into 'scowls', they won't let you do the questline, and there's no way to grind the faction up. |
| 299 | * TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: There aren't any anymore, but there were back in the days when Raid Progression was a thing that existed. From ''Kingdom of Sky'' through ''The Shadow Odyssey'', the game usually had a raid dungeon that you couldn't even enter if you hadn't beaten all the other raid dungeons. With ''Sentinel's Fate'' they switched over to having "hard mode" versions of bosses [[note]]for example, in The Palace of Roehn Theer, you fight Penda and Kendis Parmare separately, but you can activate a Hard Mode encounter by dragging them into sight of each other[[/note]], and then with ''Destiny of Velious'' just switched over to each dungeon having a normal and a hard mode, with the hard mode bosses having higher stats and tougher strategies required to beat them. |
| 300 | %%* VillainExitStageLeft:%%ZCEs and editorializing. Add context and cut the opinions. |
| 301 | %%** God ''dammit'', Maalus Shadowfyre... |
| 302 | %%** Tert Turganpuncher does the same damned thing! |
| 303 | %%** Maalus came BackForTheDead with the Drunder update. Hopefully we'll get another shot at Tert as well. |
| 304 | * WalkingOssuary: In the Altar of Malice expansion, the Cult of Primordial Malice is composed of many deranged necromancers who create numerous bone golems inside the Ossuary of Malevolence. The golems are often nothing more than assorted bones held together by magic. During the ritual in which the Goddess of Malice, Lanys T'Vyl, is resurrected, she summons the massive Construct of Malice to fend off adventurers, formed from the bones sewn into the very Ossuary itself. |
| 305 | * WeaponOfXSlaying: Weapons with the "Bane" effect do extra damage to a particular species of monsters. Some of the weapons of a x4 boss in a contested zone also have a damage proc that only damages "those born of zek". |
| 306 | * WhatDidIDoLastNight: One quest during the Brell's Brewday holiday event results in you and a Coldain dwarf drinking something so obscenely powerful that you both black out. Next thing you know, you wake up at the druid rings in the middle of Skyfire Mountains in Jarsath Wastes, and all of his clothes are missing. The dwarf admits it wasn't a good idea to mix all those drinks together, and now you have to scour Norrath for his missing equipment. |
| 307 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Giants look very human-like, if not absolutely huge, and seem to behold at least some intelligence... the thing is, [[IAmAHumanitarian you can kill them for meat]]! |
| 308 | * WolfpackBoss: |
| 309 | ** Ludmila Kystov and her party (Meldrath Klotik, Jracol Binari, Blorgok the Brutal, the Doomcoil) in the Protector's Realm |
| 310 | ** Octis, Sslortis, Sunrise and Nightfall in Emperor's Athenaeum. |
| 311 | * WorldSundering: Magic has been involved in quite a lot of the physical changes that Norrath has undergone over the last 500 years. The Rending itself was basically a series of magic-induced earthquakes that managed to affect even the planar realms of the Gods themselves, as the Shard of Fear details. Over on Velious, the Dragons went to great lengths to cause The Upheaval, which literally split Velious in half, separating the western half where the Dragons live by a gigantic impassible rock wall that sprang up a few thousand feet into the air. |
| 312 | * WorthlessYellowRocks: Both averted and played straight. When the game first started, gold was exceptionally hard to come by or save up, and any player who had even 1 Platinum coin was among the richest people in the game (100 copper = 1 silver, 100 silver = 1 gold, 100 gold = 1 platinum.) This late into the game, gold is generously given out by monsters and quests at high levels, and the value of platinum has dropped, leading to inflation because everyone has so much of it. It's common to see people throwing four to five hundred platinum at a single piece of gear. At the same time, copper and gold clusters are a commonly-found tier 1 and tier 3 tradeskill harvest, respectively. |
| 313 | ** With Gold clusters being so common, they're extremely cheap to buy on the market, usually 1 copper per. This is just the player-created economy though. |
| 314 | ** On the story side, the residents of Norrath themselves rarely ever make any mention or claim that gold is valuable. Goblins love the stuff, [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny but that's mainly because it's shiny.]] |
| 315 | *** On the flipside though, in terms of both the story and player economy, Silver clusters are extremely valuable. They're a high level rare harvest that players will pay a lot of platinum for, and some NPC's give quests that require them as various components for whatever they're doing. [[FridgeLogic You'd think that someone on Norrath would just get the idea to smelt down all the commonly found silver coins and just use that instead.]] |
| 316 |
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