THIS IS A PANDA?!?!?! [Author: Snowspinner]

First off, let’s get the picture of the panda out of the way.

Compare that with this, and you may see my objection.

Zoological oddities aside, however, how is the zone? I have to say, if this is the new Lake of Ill Omen, I’m glad I mostly hunted in South Karana.

Off the bat, let me complain bitterly about the way into Stonebrunt. I didn’t try binding in Paineel, but I’m assuming you can in fact bind in the newbie area there. Because if you can’t, the run from Erudin to Stonebrunt, while naked, would be obscene. Even with a Paineel bind, though, you get to traverse The Warrens.

I spent a bit of time in the Warrens trying to get through to Stonebrunt. A good ten minutes of hacking through kobalds and rats, trying to find a zone line, before I decided it was more productive to just pay 100pp for an escort. I have to say, it’s possibly the least graphically interesting zone I’ve ever encountered. Endless identical tunnels and kobalds. Hordes of kobalds. Making it an easy death trap. To say nothing of the possibilities of trains.

But this isn’t about The Warrens. This is about Stonebrunt Mountains. Which you just have to hack your way through The Warrens to get to.

So what do you get after wandering your way to Stonebrunt? I have to say, not a hell of a lot. You get an overly large zone (8000 by 6000) with a few low level kobald camps, some wandering zoology, and a shitty cat city that you can’t bind in.

Is it a pretty zone? Well, the geography is, yeah… but the mob templates don’t really impress. Aside from the, ummm… unique view of what a panda is, I have to say the Kerrans themselves did not stun me. Why? Ummm… because of this:

I recongize that these models probably haven’t been updated since the original release, but, um, this isn’t exactly stellar, even by EQ standards.

So what do we have here? An overly large zone with crappy models, continuing to expand a continent that was obviously unfinished at the time of release. This marks the fourth zone added to the continent of Odus. And it has a tunnel in the Kerran city that really obviously leads to a brick wall for them to add yet another zone to someday. Not that they might have put out the continent before they finished it. Not at all. They’d never do that.

So that’s an hour of my life, and 130pp of my savings trashed. You’re all damned lucky I enjoy this job, lemme tell you.

Pictures were provided by Allakhazam’s Magical Realm.