post two of blaugust – not too late to join in!
One of the unique characteristics of MMOs is conquering a dungeon with your friends. So I thought I’d make a list of the dungeons I have really enjoyed and take a look at why they were so fun. (In these posts I’m defining dungeons as both group and raid instances rather than public dungeons). I’ve had a quick reckoning and in EQ2 I ran around 104 different dungeons over the years and expansions (all at level and not including the short minor dungeons), 15 raids at end-game and a further 15-20 mentored in a mixed level raid group. Lotro is a slightly different story as I played for less time, so I’ve run far less, around 28 dungeons at level (this does include some up-scaled dungeons) and only 6 raid zones (again including some upscaled ones). In EQ2 all group dungeons were for 6 people and the majority of raids were for 24 people. In Lotro, the group dungeons are for 3 or 6 people and the majority of raids are for 12 people. Just to be clear, many of these zones are now trivial but at the time they weren’t and that is when they were fun and are so described.
So at number 10, we have EQ2 ~ Obelisk of Ahzkul
This was a really easy, quick to run dungeon, once you had the strat down. It was mostly tank n spank but there was one fight which made it stand out. Kierax the Energy Wielder floats above an energy vortex and emits an aoe when he absorbs enough of his power orbs. This aoe is brutal, your group may survive one but not two. To win the fight, any non ranged classes (including tank and healer) should jump onto the vortex and while you are jumping up and caught in the energy swell you should try to manoeuvre yourself to absorb the energy orbs before Kierax does. In the meantime, the ranged dps should burn him down. If you feel between the edge of the platform and the energy area, you died. I’m not sure which was more fun: my ranger pulling out all the stops to dps him down or bouncing around mid air trying to collide with energy orbs.
I seem to remember some reluctance from some group members about this, which was pretty understandable. It was far outside any normal dungeon tactic we had dealt with so far and I’d been pretty nervous the first time I’d been up jumping. Once you got the hang of it though, it was pretty easy and a lot of fun.
StarShadow 
Wish I played EQ2 when it came out, I am sure i would have played that game for years and years.
I loved my time there, was in a great guild, many fun times 🙂 I still pop back every now and then, a few friends are still playing and I’m still convinced that EQ2 has the best housing system… ever 🙂
Obelisk of Akzhul was a fun dungeon. Pretty short and not too hard, so good for just getting some friends together and relaxing. I still have some conflicting feelings about the “jumping fight” though. I guess it might be because I usually was stuck with the job of doing the jumping and although that is amusing the first time it wasn’t nearly as amusing the other times.
you know… I think I didn’t get to do the jumping for quite a long while as I was needed on burn down duty (ranger), maybe that’s why I remember it as so much fun – all that time enviously watching other people play on the bouncy castle? 😉
I am so pumped that you are choosing to do a series like this 🙂 Also I have so many fond memories of EQ2. Still has some of the cooler dungeons in any game.
woot 😀 yeah I really miss those days – we had stupid amounts of fun dungeon running back then 🙂 be interesting to see how my list compares to other people’s