EQ2 Velious Expansion brings back Memories

I played the original EQ shortly before Kunark came out, to the point I can barely remember the update for Kunark. Unlike later MMO's, there was no reason to get expansions in EQ unless you planned to specifically go there, and you can say that about WoW's expacs, but it will not be true. At least not to the extent of original Everquest.

Velious was my first expansion to an MMO that I looked forward to. A big ice continent was all I knew about it. Spoiler sites were more rare back then, so to find out about Velious for the first few months, you relied on people in your local sale zone for stories. It really was a kind of "what's going on in the New World" kind of atmosphere.

"Tell me of far away places and adventure!"

Velious is the prototype for modern MMO's. I know everyone says that MMO's haven't grown since WoW, but the truth is, Velious was the forerunner.

The new continent had living and moving cities, with people walking the roads, NPC's running scripts about talking to each other and visiting different houses. Furthermore the civilizations were in a sort of 3 way war, and you chose which side you were on. A kind of indirect "realm vs realm" went on here between Dwarves, Giants and Dragons. Each side had their own line of quests, allying with one meant being kill on sight by the others. They had their own equipment sets. Even their own raids and "leader" raids much like WoW factions do now.

Speaking of quest lines. What started with Epic quests in Everquest quickly expanded into regular quests here first. Whole story lines connected by threads into other story lines popped up in Velious. Velious was the first real "quest hub" in MMO's. Before you had to stumble upon quests and they all had little to do with each other. Velious' quests would change the landscape. They would determine who ruled which parts of Velious, they even determined what content was in game and what was gone forever.

Not many could forget the Coldain Ring quests, which involved tiny upgrades to a single object, and evolved into a several hour war between giants and dwarves.

Velious was a true marvel of MMO expansions, and it changed the game for the industry like no other expansion to an MMO ever. Though Moria now claims the title as my favorite MMO expansion, its only because Moria is like a Velious redone in "modern" mmo times.