Am I crazy for still loving the Desert of Flames xpac?

[wayfaerer]

<p>I'm levelling my third character up now and having hit the 50s I find myself once again having the time of my life in the DoF areas. Up till this point I pretty much power levelled in dungeons, I haven't done basically any outdoor quests and have skipped many zones entirely just because I wanted to level faster.</p><p>But now in Sinking Sands I find myself doing every single quest I can find, even the repeatables. I hunt around looking for shinies, finding nameds, talking to every NPC. I look for every disco so I can get the exploration achievements.</p><p>I just love the feel/theme of the whole xpac. I ordinarily hate grinds and hate time sink questlines so normally I would expect a questline as full of those as the peacock line would be horrible. But I love it! Even the insanity of camping the sweepers for the 3 court keys for 3 different people in my group doesn't bother me in the slightest! Farming all those silly runes to activate the ghosts in Living Tombs? No problem!</p><p>Anashti Sul is my favourite deity as a result of her connection to this xpac and the Peacock questline. The Court of Al'Afaz is still my favourite raid zone. I still remember the amount of time I spent wiping over and over again to the Black Queen way back when.</p><p>On all 3 of my characters that have gotten to this level, I have completed every creature catalog from desert of flames (that you buy in the courts), and haven't done a single create catalog quest in any other zone! How wierd is that? I just do them because it gives me another excuse to explore and hang around in my favourite zones (SS & Shimmering Citadel mostly)!</p><p>Every time see I a thread with people talking about most hated or most loved xpacs I always see DoF being consistantly ranked near the bottom, so I figured I'd counter it with some love for it here. It's my favourite xpac to date.</p>

[Rezikai]

<p><cite>Phia@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm levelling my third character up now and having hit the 50s I find myself once again having the time of my life in the DoF areas. Up till this point I pretty much power levelled in dungeons, I haven't done basically any outdoor quests and have skipped many zones entirely just because I wanted to level faster.</p><p>But now in Sinking Sands I find myself doing every single quest I can find, even the repeatables. I hunt around looking for shinies, finding nameds, talking to every NPC. I look for every disco so I can get the exploration achievements.</p><p>I just love the feel/theme of the whole xpac. I ordinarily hate grinds and hate time sink questlines so normally I would expect a questline as full of those as the peacock line would be horrible. But I love it! Even the insanity of camping the sweepers for the 3 court keys for 3 different people in my group doesn't bother me in the slightest! Farming all those silly runes to activate the ghosts in Living Tombs? No problem!</p><p>Anashti Sul is my favourite deity as a result of her connection to this xpac and the Peacock questline. The Court of Al'Afaz is still my favourite raid zone. I still remember the amount of time I spent wiping over and over again to the Black Queen way back when.</p><p>On all 3 of my characters that have gotten to this level, I have completed every creature catalog from desert of flames (that you buy in the courts), and haven't done a single create catalog quest in any other zone! How wierd is that? I just do them because it gives me another excuse to explore and hang around in my favourite zones (SS & Shimmering Citadel mostly)!</p><p>Every time see I a thread with people talking about most hated or most loved xpacs I always see DoF being consistantly ranked near the bottom, so I figured I'd counter it with some love for it here. It's my favourite xpac to date.</p></blockquote><p>To be honest alot of people rank DOF as the lowest because of the drastic combat revamp that happened with the same update that basically changed the ENTIRE game as we knew it.</p><p>However from a lore perspective it was ok we met Malkonis and the Freethinkers got to see some old points in Ro revisted. Some... stuff I'm not <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/The_Discovery_of_the_Desert_of_Flames" target="_blank">allowed</a> to talk about happened and we get a Silent City Ahket Aten that was (unknown to norrath) for a zone and the final boss Godking with the lore surrounding these names and places and a new unknown ancient exiled goddess of Healing that was tossed away. You could see the Devs/Marketing were wanting to seperate themselves from the original EQ1 pantheon/storylines. While not making alot of sense in the shoe-horned way it was done, if you can let go the initial [Removed for Content] moments of what they were going to be IMO it's worked out well in the long run for those zones and having Anashti around for future storylines like in TSO.</p><p>We did get some hints at Mayong down there and the Ring of Fate quest in DoF was cruel and unusual fun. So I can see where you are miffed at the fact people trounce DoF so much in the rankings, but imo thats more a reflection of opinion of the mechanics change/direction the devs were doing with the whole situation back then with the <a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gameplay/40653-fire-aeralik-petition-thread-25.html#post869238" target="_blank">state</a> the game was in.</p><p>But aside from the mechanics issues the lore wasnt terrible... maybe the bottlenecking of the quests in Living tombs from the Peacock line but in hindsight i can forgive that. What would be nice if they finally opened up the entire southern 1/2 of the island as its always been inaccessable. Maybe im oldschool i like long runs to get with groupmates and huge worlds to get lost in. But i digress...</p><p>DoF had its moments the best I think was after we beat the godking and destroyed the Ewer (its a huge bowl looking thing atop the tower in Godkings palace) was our prismatic 2.0 the godkings weapons, to this day i use it for appearance on my rogue because the graphics over it are still unique.</p>

[Barx]

<p>I loved DoF raids and lore. Hero of Maj'Dul was also an epic questline and is still one of my favorite titles to have.</p><p>Farming for eyes to kill Godking sucked, but Gates and Courts were a lot of fun. Some of the higher raid zone (PPtR, DMP) were definately more annoying and more challenging, but the group I was with at the time still had a good time clearing Courts & Gates. Courts was especially fun when you just played "The Court of the Crimson King" on named pulls <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" /></p>

[TheSpin]

A lot of other good comments.. I just want to mention that I feel somewhat the same way about the desert. That area of the game has a really different feel from every other area in the entire game, and it is really refreshing to spend some time there on occasion.

[Cusashorn]

<p>I loved all the monk lore that the expansion gave me, revealing what had happened to the Ashen Order since they moved out of Freeport. The Peacock questline was seriously fun to do. I managed to get a lot of discoveries and helped find the solutions to many of those quests.</p>

[Alvane]

<p>It has never bothered me how peeps rank zones, raids, xpacs, adventure packs, etc. I play wherever I want on any or all of my characters. I happen to enjoy DoF. It was during DoF that I first began to play EQ2. I still enjoy it even with the changes SoE has done. The feel of the place is still there in SS, PoF, the group zones ........ to this day, I love hunting in Living Tombs and Silent City, even though most of the time no one else is in those zones.</p><p>I enjoy it and enjoy doing DoF regardless of what other peeps think or say. Why? Because it's my game and I play where I want.</p><p>KoS use to be a fun zone for me, too until SoE changed the feel of it by removing the cloud transportation from island to island. Now, it's beam me up.... I'm there from wherever to wherever. I was really amazed how such a simple change could effect so much. I have one character who is currently working the remainder of her quests in KoS which some time, I'll finish. But the remainder of my characters who had not yet experienced KoS will just skip that expac and go from DoF to LP and Isle of Mara instead.</p>

[Nebbeny]

DoF was one of my favourite expansions also, and the Hero of Maj'dul title I still keep selected as well, it's alot of work to get it and not many people have it! I wish more could of been done with the arena, I did enjoy the fights in there but hey, you win some you lose some.

[TheSpin]

<p><cite>Nebbeny wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>DoF was one of my favourite expansions also, and the Hero of Maj'dul title I still keep selected as well, it's alot of work to get it and not many people have it! I wish more could of been done with the arena, I did enjoy the fights in there but hey, you win some you lose some.</blockquote><p>Yeah it'd be cool if they could incorporate this arena feature to go along with the battleground feature, since they are both pvp settings.  It was always fun, just maybe a little tweaking and adding in some tokens and it would become popular.</p>

[Stubbswick]

<p>I'm not a fan of DoF at all.  I didn't play when the expansion first came out, and maybe that's what makes all the difference.  For me I spend level 50-55 there, if at all.  I've leveled at least two of my characters up to 90 without really spending time in the DoF zones at all.</p><p>I think it's partly where the zones fall in relation to other zones.  I really enjoy playing through the revamped Everfrost (even before the finally made it easy to move around) - the quest rewards seem useful and interesting.  And that usually takes me up to about 50 or so.  Then at 55 I love jumping into Tenebrous Tangle and all those questlines.</p><p>So really there's just a minuscule window to capture my attention.  And it doesn't.  The quests are sparse and spread out, and give really horrible rewards.  It may be better since they changed the zone up, but honestly I haven't been back.  Pillars of Flame is a little bit better, but the quests dry up pretty fast there too.</p><p>There's no real interesting looking armor, except maybe the stuff you get from beetle herding (which I've only ever bothered to do once since the rewards are wearable by a handful of classes).</p><p>I don't know - for me it just doesn't hold up to the other zones.</p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>DoF is by far my favorite xpac to date when looking at the overall package presented. My primary reason for loving it was the lore AND the stories that went along with the questing. The NPC's all had reasons for asking you to do something for them. The agenda's were often unclear at first and crystal by the end. The Maj'Dul lines between the courts was fascinating. It was as intricate as any soap opera on television . . . love, betrayal, lies, murder, power struggles and more.</p><p>The GodKing and Djinn Master still remain 2 of my favorite raids, some for love of the zones and the stories behind them, some for the fun had experiencing it when it was the place to be. Hero of Maj'Dul is my favorite title (and I have acquired some 115+ Suffix titles alone), it was a journey of epic proportions to get it and I always felt I really had to earn that one. And yes, farming the eyes was a nightmare, although I wish they hadnt removed it and thus trivialized the accomplishments of those who gained access but I do think gaining access and farming the eyes once should have opened it to you forever on that toon.</p><p>There have been some interesting story lines since, of that there is no doubt but I dont think another xpac has been so well woven together on the whole.</p>

[Finora]

<p>I loved the zones from DOF and had a generally had a good time in it. I really enjoy the atmosphere of the zones. It's so silent with the wind whistling over the dunes. Feels very desolote, a good thing for a desert.</p><p>What I personally have always hated about the expansion was the quality of the loot. Even back when it was released, when gear was far inferior to todays gear, the gear just wasn't that great unless you were killing the raid mobs. This coming from someone who was dressed in various quested dropped treasured gear with an old mastercrafted spear at the time. I vendered so much of the stuff I got going through those zones. As a non-raider at the time, I think I actually wore like 2 or three pieces of gear I got from the expansion other than mastercrafted, and as I said this was back when the expansion came out.</p>

[Alvane]

<p><cite>Finora@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I loved the zones from DOF and had a generally had a good time in it. I really enjoy the atmosphere of the zones. It's so silent with the wind whistling over the dunes. Feels very desolote, a good thing for a desert.</p><p>What I personally have always hated about the expansion was the quality of the loot. Even back when it was released, when gear was far inferior to todays gear, the gear just wasn't that great unless you were killing the raid mobs. This coming from someone who was dressed in various quested dropped treasured gear with an old mastercrafted spear at the time. I vendered so much of the stuff I got going through those zones. As a non-raider at the time, I think I actually wore like 2 or three pieces of gear I got from the expansion other than mastercrafted, and as I said this was back when the expansion came out.</p></blockquote><p>Oh, my... one of the first things I did when I got to SS was the carpet quest!!!!! Then the Peacock Timeline taking you through Silent City and Living Tombs was full of fantastic gear all the way through from solo to heroic - even if you didn't do the raid part. The house items and spells from the Courts were nothing to ignore! The Shimmering Citadel with the 2nd/3rd instant transport Mirror & Carpet for your house! First was Splitpaw! Quests to PP that gave you some great great well above its time!</p><p>If you stuck to the quests of the monks or SS, true the gear was a bit underrated. But if you did the Peacock, SC, PP, Tombs, Silent City, Clefts, there was some above average gear even with the solo and group quests! Sorry you missed it all!</p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>For the sake of nostalgia I raided Poets Palace the Return last night on the very difficult scale and had a blast. Oddly, I think some changes have been made to the zone, all the named encounters now give AA and the XP was pretty good. We took a decently geared group of level 80-88 toons chronomaged to 70 through the zone gaining around 1 aa point and .30% of an xp level. Not bad for the time spent in this zone. I had forgotten about the power drains a few of the djinn named like to pull though. Nice little surprises~</p><p>And yes, there is an achievement now for killing Lathena at the end. </p><p>And one other thing I had forgotten, the doors in this version of Poets are clickable, no waiting for the timed things to open, lets translate that to the lower poets please!</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>DoF got a bad rep because of LU13, the expansion was actually alot of fun.  Sure it was a bit small (if you are thinking overland zones) and the whole arena stuff never panned out... but it was a time when the dev staff was easily double (perhaps triple) of what it is now.  Hell we had a few devs devoted entirely to LORE even.  Vhalen, the eq2 god of lore, was invloved up to TSO in backstory writing, but wasn't really in the trenches after EoF IMO.</p><p>So yeah DoF still has some great parts to it.</p>

[Evyn]

<p>Desert of Flames is my favorite expansion as well.  I loved the convoluted Peacock Club quest line, working your way through the 3 court factions - leading eventually to becoming the Hero of Maj'Dul, the two monk factions, the carpet questline...  Easily the best time I've had in game.  </p><p>I don't even remember LU-13 bothering me, but I remember all the fun I had with DoF.  Mostly the story lines involving the courts and the Peacock Club - I still remember the story of the cobbler's choice that destroyed his life, caused the fiancée he rejected to kill herself, and ruined the life of the princess of a different Court because of his unwanted advances.</p>

[Zeldaa]

<p style="text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;">Hi,</p><p>I'm basically new to the game even though my account is 3-4 yrs old..( too much WOW ). But I will say this, DOF has me very excited also, Ive been there really jut to look and only very fast (no questing). When I get to lvl 50, I am definately goin to spend MUCHO time there LOL. I love the way it looks and the whole atmosphere of it. Dying to visit! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p><cite>Zeldaa@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;">Hi,</p><p>I'm basically new to the game even though my account is 3-4 yrs old..( too much WOW ). But I will say this, DOF has me very excited also, Ive been there really jut to look and only very fast (no questing). When I get to lvl 50, I am definately goin to spend MUCHO time there LOL. I love the way it looks and the whole atmosphere of it. Dying to visit! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Everything (except the loot) is fantastic about that xpac imo. The storylines are really rich, dont just click through the NPC chat when you start your questing. If you enjoy the stories you will do yourself a big injustice if you do.</p><p>I love the environmental music in that xpac as well. Was very well done.</p><p>~Artemiz, Hero of Maj'Dul!</p>

[Juravael]

<p>Desert of Flames was and still is one of my favorite expansions for EQ2. I still enjoy running an alt through those zones while leveling them up and just finished doing just that on my Troubador a few weeks back <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[kelvmor]

<p>I don't like it because they removed the awesome orc models.</p><p>Other than that, it's tight, though.</p>

[Lera]

<p>I missed most of DoF since I levelled slowly, but finally got around to going through it a few weeks ago and had a great time with it. There are a lot of great storylines in there.</p><p>I do think LU13 (or, as I remember it, The Great Paladin Nerf) made it a much less fun expansion when it first came out, but now, it's quite fun. And I'm almost to the point where I think of Sinking Sands as an old zone. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Tenebrous Tangle and Butcherblock, though... still new.</p>

[Nole]

<p>This was also my favorite expansion (though I wasn't playing when it came out). I levelled my main with combat exp turned off, so I spent a long time at every level range, and I have to say my time in the desert was my favorite. I still use the title , Hero of Maj'dul.</p><p>I didn't do that many of the raids there (Court of Al'Afaz(?) while I was appropriate level, and soloed Godking at 80 to finally finish off the Peacock line after keeping it in my journal for over 2 years).</p><p>I do find it hard to do it again on my other chars though. I feel that the lore was awesome, but the actual doing of the quests was pretty annoying, and farming to improve my standings for the Hero of Maj'dul quest is not something I'm likely to repeat on a class less incredibly awesome than my SK <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Nole]

<p><cite>Alvane@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>KoS use to be a fun zone for me, too until SoE changed the feel of it by removing the cloud transportation from island to island. Now, it's beam me up.... I'm there from wherever to wherever. I was really amazed how such a simple change could effect so much. I have one character who is currently working the remainder of her quests in KoS which some time, I'll finish. But the remainder of my characters who had not yet experienced KoS will just skip that expac and go from DoF to LP and Isle of Mara instead.</p></blockquote><p>Gah! How am I supposed to float down to the rooftops of the Halls of Fate now? Did they remember to move that NPC you could only access via jumping off a cloud mid-journey?</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>yeah, they moved him.</p>

[troodon]

<p>crazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazy</p>

[Alvane]

<p><cite>Aiya@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Alvane@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>KoS use to be a fun zone for me, too until SoE changed the feel of it by removing the cloud transportation from island to island. Now, it's beam me up.... I'm there from wherever to wherever. I was really amazed how such a simple change could effect so much. I have one character who is currently working the remainder of her quests in KoS which some time, I'll finish. But the remainder of my characters who had not yet experienced KoS will just skip that expac and go from DoF to LP and Isle of Mara instead.</p></blockquote><p>Gah! How am I supposed to float down to the rooftops of the Halls of Fate now? Did they remember to move that NPC you could only access via jumping off a cloud mid-journey?</p></blockquote><p>Same thing with SS - no more jumping off your carpet ride or viewing the surroundings when teleporting to Maj''dul instead of flying on a carpet through the desert areas.</p><p>And yeah, that NPC/quest was removed and that was fun to do. Was looking forward for several other characters of mine, doing that! How sad.</p><p>And I'm sure, soon, they'll do the same thing in SF - so when you go for a disc ride, you get beamed up instead. SoE doesn't believe in magic carpet rides, cloud rides ......... all gone like the dodo bird</p>

[betatester7]

<p>I love Desert of the Flames, just watch this trailer!</p><p>SOE must put more quality in the story driven and lore like DoF, in the future expansions. Well just watch it</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAAWQpiOcM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAAWQpiOcM</a></p>

[Ragnaphore]

<p>Lore wise DoF is still the best xpac (imo) but for every other aspect of the game it's "meh" at best. </p>

[DeBasilisk]

<p>You're not crazy. I've been playing since launch, and DOF is easily in my top 2 or 3 xps.</p>

[Vortexelemental]

<p>The best stuff was most definitely back in the day.</p>

[Anestacia]

<p>While at it's launch I didnt care for it and EoF is still my favorite expansion, DoF is defitantly to be respected.  The lore was great and the small details of the world are like no other expansion.  The architecture was great and the D'jinn areas are still some of my favorite places in all of EQ2.</p>

[Asif]

<p>Leveling my 5th toon to 90 and i still love sinking sands and the way they fixed it up but pillar of flames needs some love big time i usually just skip it except for L&L stuff and names and move on to TT.</p>

[Dreyco]

<p>There are still so many things in that video that never got in... that was a trend that was seen in a lot of expansions that era.  Things were unfinished, and a some things that seemed really cool just never were in there.  It was a bit overbloated.</p><p>What did make it in was awesome, yes, but I hated how much they always seemed to promise so much, yet never deliver on a chunk of it.</p>