Get Ready For Pretty Pictures!

My favorite part about doing these expansion reviews, is being able to show off the amazing art and hard work that the developers have put into these games.

And all YOU have to do is sit back and watch the pretty pictures…

So grab yourself a beverage, sit back and get ready for a feast for the eyes…

Because Rage of Cthurath is full of some of the most beautiful artwork in EverQuest II.

But I have to be completely brutally honest here…

I judged a book by its cover…

When the key art initially was dropped, along with the expansion name… I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really sold.

I mean, it’s hard to ignore the Lovecraft vibes, with tentacles and the name Cthurath…

And it’s no secret that I’m a bit of a high fantasy traditionalist.

Now, there is definitely some throw back to original D&D with the beholders in the artwork, which turn into a very wide variety of  beholder varieties in the game to gaze upon….(see what I did there).

And the expansion focuses on the Void, a topic I wasn’t a big fan of.

Until now.

If you can just be willing  to suspend your disbelief, to get over whatever preconceived ideas you have about the void storylines and the tangent that it leads down, you’ll be able to see what one beta player called some of the most interesting lore in the game in years.

Najena

It begins with our old friend Najena, and yes, that’s how I’m going to pronounce it. There will always be an ongoing debate about that, and you can check out the Say What Special about places and names in Norrath and how the developers and players pronounce them on the EverQuest Show Channel)…

So, Najena…

(Nah, Gina)

Yeah her…

She kicks off the beginning of the expansion in Antonica, where we investigate the void rifts, the portals that have opened up.

Heading into these portals leads us to the Void where none other than Lucan D’Lere is waiting. 

But something is wrong…

And by the way….before I go any further…

For the most part, this review will remain spoiler free on the full story of Rage of Cthurath, as I don’t want to give anything away that you may not want to see…

However, if you’re like me, and you want to feast your eyes on  some of the eye candy, and aren’t worried about being surprised by what’s actually happening, I have LOTS of cool video and eye candy for you to enjoy at the end of the video…

But don’t worry, there’s a LOT of cool video along the way too…

Ah yes, Lucan…

So, it’s no surprise that Lucan is here and is involved in ….something…

With more of Najena’s help we are able to free ourselves from Lucan’s hold and we’re pulled into the Void…where we find ourselves in the Starter zone for the expansion.

Yon Gorroth

This is Yon Gorroth. More specifically, you’ll begin in the Darou Village.

Lots of different creatures from many different realms and from across Norrath and Luclin have ended up trapped here in the void.

And the Darou are stuck here as well.

They’ve been using magic to hold off some of the attacks from various denizens in The Void. But the biggest threat is from the Oogothl Dominion…

That’s essentially all the evil eyes, beholders, gazers….

More on them in a moment…

Back in Yon Gorroth you’ll begin the signature quest line…

Exploring the various areas and play spaces….And despite the fact that you’re in the void…It’s much more organic than expected.

And Yon Gorroth is vibrant and colorful. And diverse. From the forest-like Goatman village, to the brighter farmland sections, to the peat bogs with their creepy artistic touches.

There’s this rift in the zone, with different levels of play areas, and then a mountain forest section.

Oogothl Sprawl

By the time you’ve finished the Yon Gorroth portion of the sig line and unlocked flying, you’re ready to hit the very cool looking void portal that will take you to the next zone: Oogothl Sprawl, and the heart of the Oogothl dominion.

Here the Eyes Have It, with beholders, gazers and evil eyes at every turn.

And the landscape itself looks like it’s part of a larger living creature or creatures.

This certainly is the darkest zone in the expansion, literally and figuratively.

This is what you would expect from an evil eye landscape in the void. It’s the expectation of a zone created with the theme defined in the key art.

Tentacles everywhere.

And not sure what’s alive and what’s not.

But that’s not to say it’s without beautiful areas. The Coral forest has its own color palette and tone.

And it’s just one of many varied biomes here.

There’s more story to unfold here about what the beholders are up to, with their torturous ways.

Within Oogothl Sprawl is the heart of the gazers lab, where they conduct experiments to try and create the ultimate monster.

Zon Zobboz

It’s called Zon Zobboz.

The giant eyeball entrance takes you into what initially is a dungeon hub.

Now in my earlier preview, I described this as a rather small zone.

But after my playthrough of the Sig line working through Zon Zobboz, you get to see quite a bit of this island hopping dungeon, with portals taking you from island to island, since flying is disabled in this zone, as it’s a dungeon.

It’s quite detailed and there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye…so to speak.

And speaking of eyes….In the center of the zone is THIS, which raises even more questions about what’s going on here.

You’ll also see many of the creatures being experimented on by the gazers. And a nice touch in this gargantuan Ray flaying around the zone.

I would say I thought this was my favorite zone to play in…

But each zone was wonderful.

Gerion

By the end of the sig line, you’ll find your way back in Gerion, which, like Zon Zobboz is a dungeon hub. Various sections unlock through different quests and this is another zone that had me in awe of the attention to detail with the theme of each zone.

Again, I don’t want to give away too much here about the story of how Lucan is involved…

And more importantly Who or what exactly is Cthurath.

BUT, if you want to SEE Cthurath, also known as the Consumer, keep watching until the end of the episode.

Too much more time spent on Gerion will give away too much, but I also love that you can see Norrath from here.

The Unknown

The final zone in the expansion is The Unknown. Where you’ll work on unraveling more of the story after Gerion.

And just when you think the zones couldn’t get any better, The Unknown comes along and takes it a step further.

It takes everything that was done so well artistically in zones like Aether Wroughtlands and adds in layered play areas, with reveals and intriguing mysteries on the horizon.

There are more gritty areas with nightbloods and lamia.

But there are also very natural areas, with a variety of flora and fauna.

There are a mixture of new models, as well as EQ1 imports, and some familiar models to show the mix of trapped creatures in the void.

Now that you’ve had a chance to see the beautiful eye candy of the expansion, let’s talk about what’s Good, and Not so good with Rage of Cthurath.

The Good

As you’ve seen, and player feedback echoes, the art of the expansion, most specifically the environments, continues to be not just good, but exceptional. Going well beyond player expectations and setting the bar very very high.

In each biome to every zone, the color palette is unique, vibrant, purposeful and thematic. And the coordination with the creatures in those biomes to be complimentary.

Chef’s Kiss on that.

But there are other aspects of the expansion in which players that I spoke with also gave high marks.

The story telling continues to impress me, especially as an EQ player where the story telling is very different by the nature of the game’s design.

The expansion perfectly weaves story with good game design to encourage exploration, achievement and content consumption without making you realize you’re doing it.

The public quests for the expansion were another highlight, and I had a chance to experience one of these myself.

Seeing players from all over battling together through a scripted event, with some cool effects and creatures.

There was a community aspect here that was wonderful to experience and fun to be a part of.

But in the excitement department, nothing seemed to garner as much interest as the new Untold Heroic Dungeons.

This is a new type of zone arriving with Rage of Cthurath.

These zones are designed to challenge players with increasing difficulty…With over 80 stages going up in difficulty in increments.

These zones are just like the Heroic and Solo zones, but with different strats, designed to challenge players, with every 20 stages adding in more strats to what you already know.

Players found them very challenging and a welcome unique experience in the game.

The Bad

So now let’s get to the bad in the expansion.

While, I didn’t notice these issues personally, and I don’t have enough intimate knowledge of the game to notice it, I had several players respond to my inquiries regarding the expansion that there were some problems in the class balance department.

It’s a common gripe in most MMOs, but it seemed that some adjustments to increases made during beta caused some problems with balancing classes, or even understanding what the changes were.

Had I heard this just once I wouldn’t give it much weight, but it did seem to be a common theme from enough players that I thought it should be included in this review.

Admittedly I didn’t see any of these problem myself, but I’m not sure I would notice given my novice playstyle.

My Thoughts?

My own personal opinion on the expansion, despite my initial reservations on the theme is … that it’s actually my favorite EQ2 expansion I’ve reviewed and played through.

I want to play it more. I found myself wanting to log into EQ2 more than EQ1…And that is a BOLD statement for a devoted EQ1 player like myself.

And I just can’t get over how well done the zones, NPCs and story-telling are.

It managed to take the Void theme, and make it beautiful.

It took some traditional high fantasy themes, and make them unique. And it took what seems like a strange and foreign realm, and make it feel like it belongs in EverQuest II.