“Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.”

Well, as most people with even a passing interest in EQ2 know, tomorrow is expansion day.  More importantly than that, it is Kunark baby!

Ever since the NDA for beta was released, information and screenshots have been pouring across the web.  I got nearly giddy looking at the screenshots posted by Ogerbear and Tipa.

As with Echoes of Faydwer, it seems that there is both old and new.  The whispers of Ruins of Kunark from EQ1 are amazing… like the statue of the iksar raising his fist to the sky.  Little things like that are what will make this an amazing expansion for someone like me I think.

Oddly enough though, I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat waiting for tomorrow.  It is kind of odd since it was the act of hearing of this expansion that got me to come back to EQ2 in the first place.  Now that release date is here, I’m just kind of ‘blech’ about the whole thing.  Most likely, that is just because I am just now working through the Desert of Flames expansion.  I’ll most likely do the normal deal of making a sarnak alt just for the chance to see some of the new stuff, but I certainly won’t play a sarnak and I will quickly head back over to my other characters who really won’t be able to venture in Kunark for a few weeks (or months) yet anyway.

I made some more progress this weekend.  Friday, I logged on mostly to just do some node harvesting, but ended up running off and doing some instances with some guildies.  Saturday was spent hunting with my friend from EQ1 who then ended up hooking me up.  He contacted another guildie who has a maxed out armorsmith, provided him with the rares, and they gifted me with a full suit of cobalt armor.  I was shocked at what a difference there was in the stats and what a difference it made for me when I was out hunting.  Yesterday was spent doing a wide mixture of things.  I went off to the Pillars of Flame and explored the zone a bit as well as getting the carpet routes.  Then, my buddy took me off to show me around The Shimering Citadel… which was freaking AWESOME.  I ended the night by running one of the quests for the carpet in The Sinking Sands, doing a couple of faction quests, and running a couple of the lower end quests in Pillars of Flame.

Oh yeah… I also got the poop scared out of me by this guy.  If you haven’t seen him for yourself, words and that screenshot can’t quite do him justice.  See those other spiders around him?  Those are each a little bit larger than a normal player character… so you can just imagine how massive he actually is.  And, for a serious and dedicated arachnophobe like me, you can imagine how much I enjoyed it when he spawned right on top of me.

Now I’m just trying to decide what is next.  I went and picked up a scale and a blood pressure monitor yesterday to help monitor my progress with my attempts to get back into shape.  I knew my BP was bad.  I was fairly shocked when I saw for myself just how bad it is.  I could probably start in with the martial arts classes tonight.  I’m just trying to decide if I want to.  The original plan was to spend a few weeks trying to get my cardio back a bit, but I’ve already started talking myself out of doing it at all.  I figure if I don’t get started while I’m somewhat motivated, I probably won’t do it at all.

There are 2 things I don’t like though.  I really don’t like the time that the classes are held and I think this school is a bit too expensive. 

Oh well.  Tonight should be interesting to say the least.  I’m curious to see just how sore I’m going to be tomorrow when all is said and done.