Yup, last night we entered Vex Thal for the first time as a guild. Aten Ha Ra, your days are numbered, etc. (I don’t have to mention that we were trying to zone off a train, right? Good!)

I’ve always had a deep and abiding affection for Vex Thal. What’s not to love? A city devoted to the worship of a four-armed goddess who dresses like a Rocky Horror refugee and uses her moon as a footrest for her spike-heeled, black leather boots?

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Because FRAPS conked out on me, and I didn’t notice until after. there’s no screen shots of our night in the Bastion of Thunder.

No screen shots of our first, tentative pulls of the giants of the lightning wing.

None of Niiko zipping around at bard speed, threading the monsters with song into beads of pwn.

None of Mantis, trying to keep his warrior mercenary from breaking his own mezzes :) That was fun!

Coldheat’s just-in-time complete heals when we had three of them on us at once. Or Qutey’s heals taking up the slack in between her massive DoTs and nukes…

Kasul down in the foyer, getting more xp than all of us as he single pulled giants to his own merc pet.

No screen shots of the time when we realized that despite being just 60-61, we could kill the wing bosses, and we did.

No screen shots of those stupid lame pauldrons nobody wanted, but kept dropping.

Grats “Rigged Dice” Coldheat on a spectral parchment and a glyphed rune word AND some PoP quest shoulders.

We got a few more specs that were randomed off. Grats Qutey on her BoT tower key. And grats everyone on their new levels.

And sorry about the lack of screen shots. I was SO ANGRY when I saw I had nothing but memories left from the night. But the memories were good memories, so I guess it’s okay.

It’s hard to explain just how much the mercenaries of the Seeds of Destruction have changed EverQuest. It’s like a whole new game, now.

Reader and guildmate Egat pointed out that not only EverQuest 2 patched yesterday — so did its daddy, EverQuest. Here’s the patch notes, along with some commentary.

Seeds of Destruction Zone Sneak Preview: All active EverQuest subscribers with accounts in good standing will be able to experience all new EverQuest Seeds of Destruction zones two week before commercial release! During this special event players can participate in quest lines and group encounters as they assist Antonius Bayle and preserve the future of Qeynos! Zones include the eerie devastation of the Void, the lush wilderness of Oceangreen and the perilous Temple of Bertoxxulous. Beginning October 7, 2008 seek out the herald of Druzzil Ro in the Plane of Knowledge to be transported to a time rift that leads to the preview content! Preview content will be open to all players until October 13th, 2008.

An absolutely fantastic idea! Give people a sneak peak. And for those people who buy the expansion — they’ll already have downloaded everything and be pretty much ready to go. Good stuff.

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I’ll say straight out that I can be slow sometimes. Even after all the clues from the last update, even after I knew that the Herald of Druzzil Ro would be sending me into Norrath’s past, I didn’t really connect the dots, right away. I landed in a place called Oceangreen Hills, and the area chat channel was called The Void, so I just assumed that I had landed in a particularly verdant part of the (incredibly inaccurately named) Void.

It wasn’t until I stumbled upon this fishing cabin on a narrow lake, with a group camping it, that I realized the truth: This was Hadden’s cabin, the guy who once dropped the Fishbone Earring — he lived here. And Oceangreen Hills? They must be Qeynos Hills. In fact, every single place I had just visited seemed oddly familiar for a reason.

This fortress is approximately where Blackburrow will be dug, but it otherwise doesn’t resemble the place.

I got here through a long, twisty tunnel. This can only be Surefall Glade, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a tunnel behind that waterfall. I was being chased by too many things by now to really stop and look things over, though.

A spire surrounded by the adherents of Bertoxxulous. This would be just outside of Qeynos in ‘modern’ times, but by the time Qeynos was founded, the followers of Bertoxxulous would have moved to the sewers.

A fortress or keep under construction. Gone by modern times.

Oceangreen Village, AKA Qeynos.

This? Why, the road to West Karana, of course :) WK hasn’t been updated, unfortunately :/

The two zones were fairly busy with explorers and with groups. Really, actually, kinda looked like nice, but I didn’t see anything that really struck me as amazing. But then, how much can you actually learn by just running at top speed around the zone?

I didn’t find out how to get to any of the other new zones; I’d love to see Kaesora as it once was, though at 75 (was playing cleric), I am too low to get a group for any of the new zones. Which is EQ’s continuing tragedy. Without having a good guild or lots of friends, there’s not going to be many groups. Especially for clerics — most people can 2box a cleric, and now that druids and shaman get rezzes, there will be even less call for them outside of raids. But I guess that’s always the case for a support class.

I do hope the new expansion goes well; the zones I saw are as beautiful as anything else in EQ. But I can’t think of anything, besides hirelings, perhaps, that it offers people who aren’t max level and raiding.