Sorry to say that Stratos is not my favorite zone. The tiny islands and bridges are just asking for you to fall off them. And when you move between them you feel like you are going in a circle...because you are. I admire the boldness of the zone, attempting to be more than the usual. However, the practical side of me feels the last thing I want to do is have to go back there and navigate it for another expansion.
Interesting zone names. Could be a trip to the past of Norrath like SoD. So we have a new zone riddle there. Laurion Inn - Plane of Water / Reef of Coirnav (PoP) ? Ankexfen Keep - Pretty sure this is Permafrost Keep. The Ankexfen were a race created by Rallos Zek and four goblin races were created out of them after the race got exterminated by unnamed gods. Pal'Lomen - Does sound elvish and to friendly for being Teir'dal. The Hero's Forge - The armor feature got introduced with VoA. Could be a non-combat or war zone. Maybe a new crafting zone that is connected to PoK. Moors of Nokk - Blightfire Moors (TSS) ? Unkempt Woods - It is on the original map between Jaggedpine Forest and Everfrost Peaks. The blocked tunnel in JPF at the zone border might finally get unlocked. Timorous Falls - Should be located near Timorous Deep (TRoK). At Antonica, Faydwer or most likely on Kunark.
Just say no to water zones, the pathing is bad, Say no to zone where levi is disabled and you can fall off stuff. Say no to zones where you can't coth.
The entry zone to the expansion is a repurposed combination of Stratos + Kedge Keep. Stratos floats above Kedge Keep and if you fall off the Stratos top you land in the Kedge Keep bottom and have to navigate the maze to swim out. That's just the entry zone though, the other zones have no swimming. To get flagged to leave that zone you need to beat a mission 6 times. The mission is the hardest in the expansion and provides no group currency or group ores.
And if you attempt to zone to the next zone before completing the 6 missions it banishes you randomly to the original KK Phinny or The Hole Master Yael and disables all your portal / gate items and abilities so you must run back to PoK before you can use them.
I also have enjoyed water zones as well. The only complaint I have had is when half of you is above water and half below, or the mob is 50/50 in the water, you cannot land spells. Has to be completely out of water or completely under. I am also not a melee, where I think most melee seem to complain about melee range under water...
Melee range, and also the funky half-in/half-out. Take the large mushroom room in PD with the fish in the room. I have a hard time hitting them because either I am not fully in the water, or the fish are not fully in the water, or both. My main complaint, though, is lack of mouse-look movement in 3rd person like you can in other games (i.e. WoW). To do this I revert to 1st person view, then it is hard for me to see where the mob is (above/below) most of the time. Sure, I could navigate via keyboard only, but it is clunky. Also, I know that others have gaming mouses with stuff keybound to buttons that they use. IF they were to fix this one thing about underwater navigation, then I would be perfectly fine with water zones.
No puller likes water zones. I have no problem with being in water and moving around in zones like KK however pulling for these zones is worst than trying to pull on land. The issue with half in and half out where you can't cast spell (or well you can cast on them but it won't land) is terrible for zones with shallow water areas (darklight river is a nightmare for this trying to pull underwater mob where I have to shrink to be completely under water to cast on a mob). Pathing for water areas is just so bad and mobs can randomly run away from you instead of the straight path to you.
Kedge and Coirnav are awesome zones. Underwater combat sucks in EQ, but it's nice to have something different once in a while.
