How far does the "Trial of the Isle" go?Follow

The Isle of Refuge is indeed the place where all toons begin the game. Including the opening tutorial which takes place aboard a ship at sea, you will learn the basic game mechanics and be able to progress through level 6. Once on the island, the tutorial continues as you are walked through several encounters and quests, learning how to use the bank, buy & sell, fight, loot, solo, group, execute an HO, etc.

Once you reach level 6, your experience is capped and you cannot level any further till you leave the island bound for either Qeynos or Freeport. You can continue to play past this point and in fact, your experience will be *banked* until you leave the island and complete your citizenship quest in either city, you just can't collect the banked exerience until then. There is a 220% hard XP cap but it is tough to reach that on the island!

You can also learn to trade skill on the island since there is a complete TS instance for you to use. You can reach lvl 9 as a trade skiller on the island. You are capped there because there where you must choose an area to specialize in from lvl 10 till lvl 20 and that must be done in your starting city.

The island merchant has a complete selection of recipe books and fuels to let you dabble in any or all trade skills up to level 10.

My bet is that once you roll up a character and try out the island, you'll plunk down your money and join the rest of us in Norrath! See you there!

OldBlueDragon gave a really good post on the Isle of Refuge. I would like to elaborate on some of what he said and add some of my own recommendations.

The only part of OldBlueDragon's comments that I disagree with, is when he said it is tough to reach the experience cap for the Island of Refuge. If you were to shoot through the island experience as quickly as possible, just to get to your starting city, I can see that happening, but if you like to explore and do quests or just do a lot of fighting, I think you will be surprised how quickly you can max out. I was on the Island of Refuge for about 3 days and I maxed out at level 6 +220% XP within the first day, easily. I spent the rest of the time accomplishing quests and tradeskilling. I was able to reach level 8 Artisan (seperate from your adventuring rank) during that time period.

If you even think you might want to do some tradeskilling at some time during the game, I absolutely and emphatically advise that you practice on the Island of Refuge and build up your skill level there. Tradeskilling in Freeport was very intimidating to me and a little confusing and that is after I spent time building up 8 levels on the Island of Refuge. With starting cities, there can be extra information to process, like tradeskill societies, different tiers of recipe items, minimum skill levels for gathering in certain areas (Commonlands), etc. It is best to learn the basics of tradeskilling on the Island with as little distraction as possible. Once you have the basics down and understood, the more advanced stuff from your starting cities will be easier to digest.

Take the time while you are leveling your tradeskill to better equip yourself. Make items that you can use and accomplish quests. I was able to go to Freeport with equipment for most of my slots, 8 bags in my inventory, and about 8 silver in my bank. This gave me a firm ground to start on right away and a much better success rate of tackling the enemies in the nearby zones. Extra preperation can make the difference between successes and failures.

If you think you will be playing the free trial for sometime before you purchase the full game of Everquest 2, then I strongly recommend that you take the opportunity to take on some of these fun and challenging tasks.

Kill 500 Goblins or Skeletons for the Hunter Title

Complete every quest, including the Collection Quests

Fight and kill every Named Monster on the Island

Create interesting or amusing macros for your emotes

That last suggestion is for when you get really bored and if you have a lot of time on your hands, but it can be fun to play with and other players will remember you, especially if you do them well.

Good luck, have fun, and I hope to see you in game soon!

Xczaria
Teir'Dal Crusader
Neriak Server