Well, because I'm a sucker for both nostalgic reverie, and anything with the word 'Free' in it, I've gone hook line and sinker for the recent and quite unexpected SOE Living Legacy shindig. All strikes me as quite a clever marketing campaign; how can we get ourselves back in the headlines again? Answer; bung everyone that left a few free months on the house.
Ostensibly, this is all so we, the fickle and disloyal ex-Everquesters can see what's new, and how it's all improved over the months and years since we last had a go. Fight with Legends, the blurb says, and I'm quite flattered; me? A Legend? Ha! Both EQ and EQ2 are included in the two months freeplay, although I'm quite happy to leave my EQ1 days far behind me, thankyouverymuch, despite the various improvements mentioned over at West Karana.
EQ2 is different for me though. Quite liked that one, and only really left because I was satiated, and am a wanderer by nature anyway. Last time I was there, I was just getting started on the Desert of Flames stuff, with lots to go, and that's where I woke up. Chased skittish scarabs about for a bit, while trying to work out/remember what the hell it is was that all the buttons on my five(!) banks of hotkeys actually did. Total respec of the Achievement points didn't help matters, but eventually I got most of it worked out again. Quite a change of pace from my other current regulars, Tabula Rasa (10 hotkeys), and Guild Wars (8).
The most surprising one was the new Illusion: Clockwork that all Gnomes now seem to have as an innate racial ability since my last visit.
I've always been something of a traditionalist Gnome, and discovering that I can now become a clockwork robot helicopter made my day. Couldn't stop gigging all night! It makes a right old racket, even when Sneaking! Purely a cosmetic thing, although being a monster model, it seems to have all the combat animations worked out well and I've decided to permanently become Norrath's smallest Air Cavalry Recon Wing, and find myself constantly humming Ride of the Valkyries for some reason. Kerran don't surf!
On a more functional note, I can now finally run EQ2 on it's maximum detail settings, four years after it's launch. It doesn't look too shabby actually, and despite scoffing lots at the insane system specs (at the time), it seems this future-proofing was quite foresighted, as it turned out.
As part of the big promotion, Living Legacy Folks seem to get all the expansions, addons, whistles and bells for free too, so there's at least two new cities I've not seen, a whole new continent, two new player races, and an entirely separate, yet linked, customisable card game thing in there too. I accidentally clicked that option in the menu and got thoroughly overwhelmed by the new interface window. Ended up closing it in a bit of a panic. It's certainly no '/gems', and probably needs a session or two where I just log in, sit down some place, and give the card game bit my full attention for a few hours. I feel a bit daunted by the whole thing to be honest - almost too much stuff to do in there now, which is a problem for someone with as diffuse a focus as me!
Two months is quite a generous span for a reactivation thing like this, but given the sheer volume of new stuff to pick through, (let alone the 50 open and mostly grey quests clogging up my journal), it's probably quite necessary; certainly in my own case anyway. As for whether it will actually work, i.e, whether I'll actually stump up some cash at the start of August, well...we'll see...