New Expansion for EQ2: The Shadow Odyssey

Once a year, Everquest II devotees like myself look forward to the release of a new expansion. This year, it happens next Tuesday… or maybe Wednesday. G and I went in to Game Stop to pre-order two copies and they told us to pick it up on the 19th. Officially, however, the game was supposed to come out on the 18th. So… it comes out on one or the other.

Anyway, the expansion is the fourth for EQ2 and is called “The Shadow Odyssey”. For the first time, there is no character level increase included with the expansion and I am anxious to see how that plays out. I just hope there will be enough content to keep us all busy without the goal of getting new levels. Maybe they partially did that to give any newcomers to the game more of a chance to catch up. I heard that originally, the developers planned to take the character level cap all the way up to 200 eventually. Right now, the highest level you can get is 80, so we’re a long way from that yet.

Everquest 2 also officially just celebrated its 4th year, and both G and I have been playing pretty much the whole time, with small breaks here and there. Of course, four years ago, we didn’t know the other one existed. I remember very clearly that when this game came out, I was living in a Days Inn with my ex-husband because of a house fire. We didn’t have enough money at the time to get two computers, and of course he insisted that he had to have one. How much work he ever did on that computer, I’ll never know, but I have a feeling it was less work than it’s taken me to write this entry. He certainly played a lot of EQ2 though. When we moved back into our house in December, I got a new computer and also started playing. If someone had told me back then that I would someday meet the true love of my life while playing that game, and that being with him would make me truly happy, I would have never believed them. Yet, four years later, here we are. It’s amazing how life can change so much in such a short period of time.