Everquest 2 Review
by Loral on November 20, 2004
Note: I wrote this review for both Mobhunter and EQ2 Caster's Realm. For bonus points, find four pop culture references!
Since the days I began playing Everquest I heard about the development of Everquest 2. It took form over the years becoming less of a dream and more of a reality. I've bought games for the last twenty years now and I learned not to pay attention to previews. Ever since the days the glossy game mags touted Sewer Shark as a revolutionary step towards interactive entertainment, I learned to ignore the hype and pay attention to the game itself when released.
I felt different about Everquest 2 than most new games. I looked forward to its release, but I felt trepidation instead of giddy excitement. I still love Everquest. I still want to play it. I don't want my friends to leave; I don't want my guild to fall apart. SOE doesn't want players switching games either, they prefer to drag in a whole new pack of angry wizards, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. While I knew I would buy EQ2 and I was pretty sure I'd play it for a long while, part of me didn't WANT to like it. So it was with this trepidation that I opened up the beautifully packaged EQ2 box and installed the two DVDs filled with Norrath's new world.
For the past two weeks, young Pavlen, my half-elf rogue, reached level 15. What I've seen impresses me a lot. So today I write a review of Everquest 2 from the eyes of a long-time Everquest player.
Character generation alone shows the depth of this game. What impressed me most was how different two characters of the same race can look. The variations between two half-elves were as extreme as the difference between high elf, half elf, and wood elf. The wide range of hair styles, hair color, skin color, and even physical size helps create a truly unique character. The details of cheek hight, chin size, eye slant, and mouth width probably went too far; few people will see your big goofy Bruce Campbell chin as you race around the city, but more detail is always better. (That's two pop-culture references so far, Moorgard.)
While graphics in a game like Everquest get people to ooh and ahh at magazines, demonstrations, and videos, they matter little when compared to gameplay. Massive online games have to pay close attention to steady yet limitless progression, class desirability, class interdependence, social connectivity, and encounter variance. Graphics are important but people pay less and less attention to them the longer they play. But yes, the graphics are stunningly beautiful.
EQ2 includes graphic settings so advanced that EQ2 will push machines to their limits five years from now. I had to set my machine, which screams through Doom 3's most advanced settings, to performance-level to achieve a reliable framerate. This thread on setting graphic performances has a lot of good advise. One thing that will drastically increase your framerate is to set "complex shader distance" to "-1", all the way to the left, in your "Performance" menu under display options. It removes the pretty bumps from things but will result in sometimes a 20 FPS increase. It appears, however, that Everquest 2 graphics will scale well into the future. As hardware gets better, so will EQ2's appearance.
The quest journal is the core of Everquest 2. As I grew from a young adventurer on the Isle of Refuge to the seasoned hunter of Antonican Gnolls, I constantly added new quests into my quest journal. I didn't push to progress in levels or equipment. I pushed to find quests and complete them.
The quests in Everquest 2 follow a very wide range of tasks including delivery, collection, slaughter, exploration, completing tradeskills, and mini-zone clearing. Quests arrive from anywhere. Poke a wooden boat on the beach and find a strange rune inside that leads to a whole new quest. Get a brass key from a rat and discover a quest to unlock a room full of dark elf spies. Buy books in the library to learn of long lost treasures.
Quests follow every path of the game; whether you want to explore, hunt, tradeskill, or travel around a city. Quests drive you to find new zones and new places. Each quest is a small story for you to follow. The game doesn't force you down any one path; you choose which of these quests you wish to pursue; but there is little reason to hunt without having a quest to drive you.
The low-level quests from level 5 to 7, especially the collection and delivery quests, help you learn the layout of the huge cities of Qeynos and Freeport. These delivery quests frustrate people at first but once finished, it is far easier to find one's way around.
Quests lead you through all forms of progression. I spend little time worrying about my equipment or level. Instead, I watch my quest journal. What quests can I accomplish fast? Which ones are too old? Are there quests that other people have? One great feature lets you peek into your group member's quest books. If they have a quest you don't, you can learn where this quest starts and get it yourself.
It's far too early to tell if this will continue throughout Everquest 2. Much of what I describe is also true for Everquest 1 at this level. I do not know if quests become far fewer and less rewarding at the higher levels, forcing us to go back to camping in one spot and grinding experience.
So far it appears that Everquest 2 embraced its title. We may very well quest forever.
Now lets talk a little about the cities. After taking Pavlen up to level 15, I rolled up a dark elf enchanter and took him through level 7 in Freeport. The vast difference in atmosphere between Freeport and Qeynos astounded me. While Qeynos feels like Minis Tirith or Camelot, Freeport feels like H.P Lovecraft's version of planet Gidi Prime in Dune. Huge red tendrils of power hold a vast tower floating above the torn city. What horrors lie in that tower? What power could lift such a thing? Freeport is vast and scary. I love it.
EQ2's combat system is another big change from Everquest. Efficient combat requires a lot of interaction. Combinations of moves, a wide range of skills, and situational requirements require that a player constantly pay attention to the battle and press the right attack at the right time.
As a 15 rogue, nearly all of my damage comes from my variety of bending and twisting stabs and slashes. If I were to set on auto-attack and go get a pop-tart, my efficiency in group would drop to less than 10%. I have to pay attention.
Heroic opportunities, a mix of fighting-game style combinations and the most graphically advanced version of Simon Says, offer a collaborative dimension to combat. Some groups seem to ignore them completely, but when they work they're very exciting.
Everquest 2 based class dependence around archetypes. Each player decides on an archetype in two steps before picking a particular class. Each class has the basic abilities of the archetype. All scouts can improve run speed, track creatures, and hide in shadows. All priests can heal and resurrect. This breakout of four archetypes should help keep each class useful in any group. We cannot yet tell how this will work out at the higher levels, but it seems to work fine at the low.
Everquest 2 focuses on trying to give people more content at each level. Leveling too quickly robs the player of a lot of opportunities. Some players will always drive as high as they can go as far as they can go, like Icarus trying to reach the sun, but the best way to play this game is to enjoy it at your own pace and let leveling and gear come as they come.
Everquest 2 built in a lot of tools to improve social interaction. Players can invite other players into a group anywhere in a zone. Players can directly invite others from the "Looking for Group" tool. Players can target other players in a group and see their name highlighted across the zone no matter how far away. There are world-wide channels for new players, classes, and cities.
SOE streamlined the actions of getting into a group, finding your group, following your group, hunting in your group, and leaving your group. Every class, upon achieving citizenship in the citizenship quest, receives a daily gate to your home city helping players leave the game quickly when real life rears its ugly head and demands a sacrifice.
It is too early to poke big holes in a game this big but a couple of things stick out as potential problems. While raiding doesn't require more than 24 people, a limit that may radically change the forming of the dreaded uberguild, a level system for guilds promising a new path for content could alienate guilds of lower power or lower membership. This may not be a problem as long as it doesn't become the only form of progression available. EQ1 seemed to drive players into uberguilds once they reached a certain level. At the high levels joining a raiding guild became the only way to increase one's power. Still, a guild-based level system seems to stretch outside of simple social interaction and into the realm of cliques and elitism; something I detest in massive online games.
Everquest 2's biggest problem is time. I don't plan on quitting Everquest 1. I already filled my day with work, writing, the dreaded Tivo, and my nightly hunts in Everquest. I have yet to successfully play two massive online games at the same time. Whichever game I happen to be in, I feel like I'm missing something going on in the other.
Everquest 1's numbers certainly dropped in the last two weeks. However, I hear other guild leaders say that Halo 2, Half Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andraes, and the holidays in general take more players away from EQ than World of Warcraft or Everquest 2. While it looks like EQ numbers dropped in the last couple of weeks, we won't know its real impact until the worlds settle and we see where everyone ends up. I wouldn't count anything as fact until early next year.
It is easy to look at the release of Everqust 2 as an earth-shaking event. We play in a community where the decisions of a sword or a bow bring hundreds of angry rangers to the doors of SOE. From some of the passion we read on the EQ forums and even on the comments on previous Mobhunter articles, it would seem we traveled far outside the realm of a simple game.
But Everquest and Everquest 2 are games. We buy them, we install them, we play them, and we talk about them. Sure, these aren't like any other games before them. No couple ever met and got married over Ratchet and Clank. Everquest 2 is one of the best games I have ever seen. If my dollar is my vote, I bought two copies of the game, one as a gift, and signed up for a year-long subscription including all of the web features. The total price was over $200 but I expect a high entertainment reward for my investment. Everquest 2 is an amazing game and I look forward to watching young Pavlen progress through this vast world.
Loral Ciriclight
22 November 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Naladini on November 22, 2004 12:31 AM
Great writeup.
One of the features I really like about the game is spell (and ability) progression. When you level, you learn these new abilities automatically, and the abilities you already know will scale with your level. There are many opportunities to upgrade these abilities as you advance.
A key departure from EQ1 is that melees get a lot more abilities than they're used to early in life, and casters seem to get a lot fewer spells than they saw at the early levels of EQ1. A lot of thought seems to have gone into this system, and I'd say many people are adjusting to it and enjoying it.
I'm not sure how it is for melees, but for casters, spell upgrades seem far more important than gear upgrades, and I don't seem to run out of mana very often. Overall, its a very fun game so far.
Comment Posted by: Fred on November 22, 2004 01:08 AM
Are you going to do a review of World of Warcraft also when it comes out?
Comment Posted by: Eski on November 22, 2004 01:34 AM
I love EQ2, and am trying out freeport and qeynos to contrast the two. Freeport reminds me of Planescape, with one of the demi-planes sliding into the abyss.
Everyone is corrupt, or mad. The trolls are both. I've been playing as a renegade iksar, trying to subvert the city by doing those quests i see as being destructive rather than downright evil. Some I've had to delete because killing vagrants or any sentients who aren't hostile just doesn't feel right. I met some wood elf scouts who were indifferent. "Better" I thought. "This time round maybe they are learning.
My friend, Samuel of Qeynos, reports seeing no trolls, iksar or ogres. It is ... disappointing.
I know the path for my kind is a hard one, and Lucan does his best to tempt people into wickedness and hate. You want to know what holds his tower up? The misery, blood and loathing of his own people. He foments plots and poisonings. I am in his world, but not of it, and aim to leave it soon. My death lies on me like a leaden bar across my neck. I know, I know, that this will not be my end, but Lucan's presence threaten's worse.
He aims at no less than being a god, a new Cazic-Thule for my people to slave beneath.
I will not let that happen.
Comment Posted by: Eski on November 22, 2004 02:11 AM
In all serious, it's a good game except the market system. The makers of this game took ideas from EQ1 and SWG and blended them, then skimmed out the good bits and served the nasty bit at the bottom.
SWG had offline trading, but you lost some of your profit to the system. Still, for someone who might harvest raw m,aterials, you could usually make a decent profit.
EQ1 had centralisation. Every vendor/buyer was there in the bazaar and even if you couldn't sell there as a vendor, you could just undercut general prices and make a quick sale. A lot of people can't leave a pc dedicated to one game 24/7, i certainly can't, my new system chews through power and feels like a bar radiator.
EQ2 has decentralised merchants unless you pay 20% more, which makes buying a lot of the harvested items pretty pointless, and because most of it is tiny variations on a theme i end up discarding most of them rather than selling eg a_green_elm_tree_leaf, a_red_elm_tree_leaf. Otherwise my inventory quickly overloads. Every merchant has to be on 24/7 effectively and there's no offline trading so you can only ever sell a few bits. Perhaps it would not bother me if there were portable crafting stations and banks (ATMs?) setup in the zones where the harvesting can take place but that ain't gonna happen.
The instancing system means the load in any zone is never very high but it means you have to use the broker system and stay in your room if you want to sell anything. For example, I was selling some pretty decent low level armor. In the broker system, it was 6 SP not counting the 20 % tax (this is a fair bit for those non-players out there). I was spamming zone after zone that i was selling it for 3. No takers. Eventually i sell it to a merchant for 1 SP. I can't keep it on me or in the bank, no space, even with every 4 slot pack i can get (and i'm trying for a 6 slot).
As for the lumber and gems i make, can i sell them to other players for more than the cost of fuel etc? No. I'm very disappointed.
I've decided that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and only make money from bashing, but it's just a damn shame.
Comment Posted by: on November 22, 2004 02:36 AM
I will not be playing eq2 any time soon.
I am not sure if I going to play EQ any more much.
OH well the good guys die to, I had a good time.
Real life is fun again, over 700 hours on one troll, and I am about done with it. I am only level 39. Warriors are kind of useless now days and I do not want to learn to be a caster. I played a shaman up to nine to scout around. I do not belive Loral about so many quest in eq2. DO ALL the quest work or not. I took a three week break cause of OoW, I was on my server for hour to night with out seeing any body. 20 NOV
Comment Posted by: Aladinsane on November 22, 2004 02:41 AM
Well
I played the beta of eq2, and thgt it sucked donkey knobs.... laggy etc.
My wife bought the released game for me as a gift - and so I tried it
I was gob smacked - it was an awful lot better!
Some of us are getting frustrated - but step back and think why - even part time eq1 players were exposed to other things - high level players had farmed stuff so the economy was player controlled - this time round we are all new, so we all have to work
tradeskilling is important i think - case in point - took me about 3 hours of experimenting to make 6 to 8 slot storage boxes for the bank, and that makes a hell of a difference. Further to that, work on TS and get to level 10 in artisan - then you can make 47 silver in an hour doing a tradeskill quest... well worth it I think all would agree :)
working as a group is the key to game - I started with two friends, now expanded to four friends and we have found that working together, to all get the same quest and then complete it makes sense - and is faster
the closed map system works - exploration is fun again
In closing, think not of this as EQ - rather think of it as a new game - it is substantially different, so do not expect it to be the same
Comment Posted by: Eski on November 22, 2004 03:15 AM
If the bank contents were accessible every time you used the crafting machinery, the whole experience would be a lot more positive I think. Running to and from the bank to swap the type of crafting item is not fun.
Comment Posted by: Eski on November 22, 2004 06:19 AM
Also, i want to say that some of the ideas involved in the crafting system are mindblowing. The variety of paths is fantastic and fun. Making your own furniture (with a range of designer colours? EQ meets the sims?) is not something i can afford to do but judging by the market there are people out there doint it.
I think that the infrastructure needs improvement. Anyone who is a master chef delegates work; he doesn't have to hunt his own haddock or process the salt! Whilst it can be nice to have an option to do so, a more interesting real market is when the players have more say in it, and there's an incentive to be a miner, going out fighting to your claim, grabbing the ore, processign it into bricks, and carting it home again.
The eyecandy factor is fantastic. I find myself yearning to pet the kittens or feed the ducks. Or at least kill the troll who kills the kittens. One time samuel was approaced by a giant bear, and he decided all it really needs was a halfling huggle. Eski's response to the mindless snobbery of the dark elf kind is simply to shrug at their rigidity. The kerrans make him sad tho'; memories of his lost vah shir wife, their adopted children and modest home in shar vahl. Kerran seem shallow ... perhaps coming to qeynos will improve his opinion of their kind.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 22, 2004 09:54 AM
Very good writeup Loral.
I am having a blast in EQ2. I love almost every aspect of the game. There are some bugs, especially around the tradeskill system, but that's to be expected this early after release.
I agree that the merchant/vendor interface needs help. It's still a lot better than we had when EQ1 released (/auction selling banded armor for 2pp/ac!!), but the interface could be cleaned up and offline selling would really be beneficial to the economy as a whole. There's no technical reason I can think of why we couldn't just flag items in a special type of box in our bank as "for sale".
There is one area of the game that bothers me greatly. First, the relevant passage from your review.
"While raiding doesn't require more than 24 people, a limit that may radically change the forming of the dreaded uberguild, a level system for guilds promising a new path for content could alienate guilds of lower power or lower membership. This may not be a problem as long as it doesn't become the only form of progression available. EQ1 seemed to drive players into uberguilds once they reached a certain level. At the high levels joining a raiding guild became the only way to increase one's power. Still, a guild-based level system seems to stretch outside of simple social interaction and into the realm of cliques and elitism; something I detest in massive online games."
It's too early to say whether guilds will become required, and I hope they don't. I want for people to not have to feel like they have to be part of a guild, or a big guild.
That said, people like to form guilds, regardless of the reason. Sometimes it's friends who play together, other times consortiums of crafters, and sometimes just social organizations. SOE needs to recognize and support this.
There is one word that should be considered a four-letter word when it comes to any MMORPG, and that word is GRIND. Grinding is defined as having to do something repetitive and boring in order to advance. Grinding is a bad thing. No game system should ever expect a paying customer to do something they consider repetitive and boring, and penalize them if they do not.
EQ2 has done a great job of removing grinding from standard gameplay. You go out and adventure, and you level. You don't really have to try to level, just go play and you will. You can almost forget about the experience bar and still have fun. I've yet to meet a player who complained that they had to go sit and kill the same mobs over and over to level up. If you're tired of fighting gnolls, go pick on the undead. Go do quests. Go exploring. It's all there, more than enough of it, and no grinding that I've seen so far (level 20).
Tradeskills have come a long way too, there's very little grinding involved. In fact, tradeskill experience goes up so much per combine that if you just make things for yourself as you get the recipes, you'll level up - much less if you make things for other people. There's some issues with the way resource harvesting is implemented, but that is a different problem.
The place where EQ2 has a grind, and a bad one, is the guild leveling system. In order to gain guild experience, you must do city quests, or writs. This is great, except that the only writs available are the very lowest ones until your guild gets to level 6. It doesn't matter if all your members are level 30, until your guild is level 6, the only writs you can do involve slaughtering darkpaw youths or the equivalent outside the city gates. In order to level a guild once a week, you have to have 15 or 20 people doing several writs a day. To make matters even worse, guild experience DECAYS at faster rates as you level up. Folks with level 5 guilds tell me that they have to have all their patrons do at least 1 writ a day or they lose experience.
Add all this up and you have a huge GRIND, which is a lot harder to handle for smaller or time-limited guilds. The writs give individual status points, but without guild levels, those points are practically useless as well. This is one place where the promise of the system not to require or cater to large guilds fall through. In order to even have your guild tag visible, you have to have guild level 5. The first guild raid comes at level 5 and is a two-group encounter. These are just basic things - the really neat stuff comes at higher levels.
This is one thing that seriously frustrates a lot of players, and whether or not you agree with guild levels, if they're going to have them, they should not require grinding. This system turns at least half the online time of my guild members into a job, and not one that they really signed up for. Contrary to popular belief, people don't generally form guilds to be "better than the other guilds". They form guilds because they have a group of people that enjoy doing things together and a guild is the best way to keep those people together, add new people to the group, and experience some cool content that you couldn't normally do without a guild.
I like that guilds are not required, as far as I've seen. However, I don't think that players who want to be in guilds should have to grind for hours and hours just to keep the guild going. If anything, that's discouraging guilds and the growth of communities.
Darien
Guildleader, Claws of the Phoenix
Crushbone Server
Comment Posted by: Aethn on November 22, 2004 11:02 AM
>>>Are you going to do a review of World of Warcraft also when it comes out?<<<<
Why would he? This is a Everquest Fansite, I come here to read about Everquest not Worlds or Warcraft.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 22, 2004 11:53 AM
Everquest 2 is not Everquest. So if you came here to read about Everquest I presume you're now disappointed.
The bottom line is that Mobhunter will cover what Loral is currently interested in. If the members of my guild who intended to play both EQ and EQ2 are any guide, expect this to be an EQ2 site soon.
I'd be disappointed if I weren't planning to switch to WoW anyway.
Comment Posted by: Devirka on November 22, 2004 12:17 PM
A warning: The minimun requirements of the game are a lie.
Ether that or they consider the game playable at 5 frames per second while in city zones with the "extreme performance" settings.
Only buy it if your machine meets the RECOMENDED specs.
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 22, 2004 12:22 PM
"Why would he? This is a Everquest Fansite, I come here to read about Everquest not Worlds or Warcraft."
Where does it say on the main page that this is an Everquest fansite? It's called Mobhunter and well you hunt mobs in all types of games besides EQ. Yes I know it has been dedicated to EQ for years but that doesn't mean other games can't be mentioned or reviewed. There is a world outside of EQ that even the most rabid fanboys might be interested in. I think it would be a good idea to give a fair and objective overview of the competition.
As for EQ2 I played the beta. The beta was horrible and the game was nowhere near finished so I decided not to buy it. I've read many reports that much was better in release, the lag was gone as were many bugs but that doesn't change the fact that the game isn't finished and still needs a lot of work. There are some features in EQ2 I like and some I dislike. I may try it out in 6 months if a lot of positive changes are made.
As for WoW I played the beta. The open beta at the end also had a lot of lag which Blizzard did on purpose to test the servers, as I assume was the same reason for the lag in EQ2 beta. They made some changes to the newtwork code and the lag disappeared. The game is definately ready for release and is much more polished than EQ2 is. Then again WoW was in beta for 8-9 months which shows Blizzard's dedication to getting it right upon release, not releasing early and working out the kinks later (a practice I find disturbing).
All in all WoW runs much better than EQ2 does with better frame rates, especially on lower end machines. Graphical style is a matter of taste so there's no point in arguing that. WoW seems more bugfree than EQ2. WoW is less of a grind than EQ2 so probably better for the casual gamer. Everything is pretty straight forward in WoW so it should require less need for hint sites. EQ2 may have a better community than WoW at least for awhile because I have noticed the maturity level of some players in WoW isn't impressive. It remains to be seen if that holds true once people have to actually pay to play WoW. Overall I give the nod to WoW over EQ2. It just runs better, is more polished, finished, and player-friendly as far as quests and ease of learning.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 22, 2004 12:24 PM
Wow Teremar. Bad morning?
I don't know that any of us is in a position to tell another player which game to focus on, regardless of whether they write for a website or not. As far as I know, Loral doesn't get paid for this, even if SOE does wine and dine him sometimes.
Loral did say several weeks ago that he was planning to post this one, so I think it's unfair to call him to task for "abandoning EverQuest" as well.
Personally I would like it if the site covered both games, because I still play both games and I know many people who are playing in either game, or in both.
I stand by what I said a few articles back though - Loral really should consider finding more contributers for the site. As you have correctly observed, people only have so much time to spend - and so if Loral is in EQ2 more often, he'll probably write about EQ2 more often. It would be a good idea to have several volunteer writers for both games who contribute articles on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 22, 2004 12:30 PM
"EQ2 may have a better community than WoW at least for awhile because I have noticed the maturity level of some players in WoW isn't impressive. It remains to be seen if that holds true once people have to actually pay to play WoW. Overall I give the nod to WoW over EQ2. It just runs better, is more polished, finished, and player-friendly as far as quests and ease of learning."
If you get the chance, snag a friend's computer or something and revise your opinion. I'm not denying your beta experience, but all I've heard from beta testers since the game went live is "wow, this is so much better than it was the last week of beta!" I have a feeling a lot of the problems you encountered have been fixed.
I'm not knocking WoW, but as far as I can tell from what I'm hearing (I don't play it), I'd have to say that the games are pretty much neck-and-neck right now. Whichever one is "better" for a person is really just a question of their preferences and style more than anything else.
It remains to be seen how high-level play in EQ2 works out, and that may change things. But overall I am surprised that the game is doing so well, and is so bug-free, after such a short beta. I agree with you that it's better to have a longer beta and not release the game until it's ready, but it seems like SOE actually did a good job with the polish for once.
Comment Posted by: Dvaelix on November 22, 2004 12:42 PM
Few small tidbits
1. Sitting down makes precisely zero observable differance in health or power regeneration. Casters are not penalized for moving around during or in between fights.
2. Eating and drinking are not required, but when you eat your health regeneration is increased (eating produces a buff), and when you drink your power regeneration is increased (likewise, a buff.)
3. AoE attacks in a closed encounter cannot ever hit or aggro a non-aggressive mob outside the encounter. Likewise, an AoE attack cannot ever, ever, ever break mez unless it is targetted at the mezzed mob. The "splash damage" just doesn't hurt them.
4. All priests can rez. All priests can rez. Did I mention all priests can rez. (A group was stunned my druid could rez.)
5. All priests are equally able to main heal for groups. There are no "best healers" unless you prefer reactive heals in which case clerics are "best", but if you prefer regens then druids are best, and of course wards (which are identical to runes) make shamans "best." Clerics I think are the ones who has the in-combat rez spells, other priests have their own coolness.
6. Scouts are not a DPS class, not in the EQ sense. Scouts, like Fighters do some very nice melee DPS, Fighter do that level plus have the defenses to be tanks while Scouts have a plethora of stealth and "scouty" type skills that are actually useful. The DPS classes all are in the mage archetype.
7. Mages can do crowd control and enhance power regen, the enchanter class is better, but all mage classes can do this. And just like mez, attacking the mob your sorcerer or summoner has rooted via Arcane Binding (called "chaining" after its graphics) tends to break the root effect. (Just like in EQ1)
8. All fighter classes can tank, and all do so equally well, just using differant abilities. Believe me, this does not produce "but that means they are all the same!" effect folks worried about, but does mean if your group needs a tank you can look for any fighter archetype and do something instead of sitting around.
9. While archetypes produce the basic breakdown of abilities, classes and subclasses still provide their own "cool factor" both to play and to have in groups. While all fighters can tank, a monk or bruiser subclass might have a unique ability that really helps -here-.
Dvaelix, teir'dal sorcerer on Antonia Bayle
formerly
Zarros, koada'dal cleric on Saryrn
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 22, 2004 01:11 PM
I would try out EQ2 on a friend's computer if I had any friends who were actually playing it LOL. All my friends are either going to play WoW or not any MMORPG at all. I do believe people that say EQ2 released great, since I haven't seen anyone yet argue that. My point is though that there was stuff that needed more tweaking/balancing or just plain finishing in EQ2. I've read that many bugs were fixed but I'm not so sure how much stuff was tweaked or changed. I didn't particularly like the trade system in EQ2 for example and I think it should be simplified. Also the frame rates in EQ2 are pretty bad and unless they really overhauled the graphics system in the last patch before release I just don't see how it would run well on lower end machines. WoW on the other hand gives me 30+ FPS on my machine on average with the default settings and my computer isn't exactly top notch.
I gave the nod to WoW over EQ2 by comparing the betas because the condition of WoW was just so much better than EQ2, and I mean a lot. Still I will eventually give EQ2 a shot to see how it looks because I am a big MMORPG fan.
It's a good to hear EQ2 had such a good release and it's a good thing they did because if it was released in the condition it was in during beta it would've been bad press for them and could've hurt their numbers. My point is though that these changes should've been tested in beta instead of making all these last minute changes with no testing. A game shouldn't be released till it is working properly in beta, not patched at the last minute and hoping the patch is good. I have the feeling they rushed this out the door because of the impending release of WoW, hoping to beat them to the punch. This is pointless because it is not going to effect how many people play WoW anyway. I say let games be released when ready and not worry about what other companies are doing. After all Blizzard could've relased WoW months ago because it was pretty smooth then but decided to continue to perfect it instead.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 22, 2004 02:07 PM
I think my last post came across as more negative than I meant it to. I was amused that someone would say they came here to read about EQ and would object to seeing a WoW review when the current article was not about EQ. I'll stand by my virtual /bonk on that one.
But Loral can write about anything he pleases. If he's playing EQ and EQ2 by all means he should write about both of them. Nor is he required to review WoW out of some notion of "fairness." Frankly I wouldn't want him too unless he put at least as much time into it as he has put into EQ2--and maybe not even then because I do think he has a pro-SOE bias (just as I freely admit I have an anti-SOE bias). I intended my comment to be an observation of reality, not a criticism.
To this point most of the people in my guild who started playing EQ2 with the intention of playing both games have been almost or entirely absent from EQ. Given Loral's comments about struggling to play more than one game in the past, I think it's quite likely he'll end up doing the same. If nothing else, EQ2 has many of the features he has wanted for so long in EQ. And as he plays EQ2 more, he'll naturally want to write more about EQ2. Again, not a criticism, just an observation.
If I were sticking with EQ I would be disappointed to lose a good site, in the same sense I'm disappointed to see guildies leave. But I had more fun in the WoW open beta than I've had consistently in EQ since the glory days of Old Seb and the original Hate. My EQ account is paid up for another month, but I'm no different from everyone else who finds it hard to play more than one game at a time.
EQ built up strong social networks, and communities on the web like Mobhunter are as much a part of that as in-game guilds. But EQ is a game, and no one is or ought to be obligated to stick with a game just because of their place in a social network. If anything I would encourage Loral to drop EQ and move fully to EQ2 if that's what he's enjoying more.
Comment Posted by: Ryland on November 22, 2004 07:36 PM
Are you the Teremar that plays on Bertoxx??
Comment Posted by: Wyldrose on November 22, 2004 08:36 PM
I am goingto wait till the honeymoon is over before I dive into EQ2. After all EQ2 is sexy looking and has some new tricks, but once the newness wears off is when we will see how people truely feel about EQ2. I think by the time the first expansion comes out we will know how balanced the game play is.
So enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts ;-)
Wyldrose
Comment Posted by: jmillerc on November 23, 2004 08:08 AM
You mention a thread with advice on adjustments for graphic performance. I looked a bit with no luck. Could someone provide a link?
Thanks (and great review btw),
Piemur
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 23, 2004 08:12 AM
Actually, in order to be fair, I'd have to talk about Star Wars Galaxies, Ashron's Call, Dark Age, Anarchy Online, The Sims, Hello Kitty World and about a dozen other MMOGs.
I won't be writing a Warcraft review simply because I won't have time to play it. I am sure there won't be any lack of Warcraft editorials elsewhere on the vast world wide web.
I also don't plan to continually write about EQ2. I won't cover patch messages or forum news. There's simply too much information coming out for both games for me to cover both. I am playing it and some folks including Casters Realm asked for a review so I wrote one for both sites. I may bring EQ2 up from time to time but for the forseeable future, I will focus on EQLive.
Comment Posted by: wombat on November 23, 2004 10:10 AM
Najena is the Unofficial ANZAC server for those who wish to know...
11+ Oz Guilds and at least one Canadian so far.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 23, 2004 11:14 AM
Yep, that's me Ry...this is me? Whatever. ;)
Comment Posted by: Me on November 23, 2004 04:42 PM
There were peeps were I work lined up to by WOW.
We still have copies of EQ2 though.Nuff said.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 23, 2004 05:41 PM
Sorry for forgetting the performance thread. Here it is:
It has a slew of good tips to improve EQ2 performance.
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 24, 2004 07:33 AM
Yeah many stores in my area ran out of WoW before the end of the day. I was lucky to get it. EQ2 on the other hand has had plenty in stock at the stores on the day of release and still even now.
WoW was incredibly crowded on the first day, so much so there were problems with lag which Blizzard is working on. The game itself though is definately done, polished and bug-free as far as I know, I certainly didn't see any nor saw anyone else complain about any which is to be expected for a game that had such a thorough beta test like WoW did. The main problem was the confounded lag. I really don't understand it because in beta they stressed the servers good with the half a million people that signed up for it and got it pretty much cleaned up. I guess they got even more people playing in retail than in beta. It did seem way more crowded than in beta. Once they get that fixed it'll be running like a dream.
I am curious to see exactly how many copies sold the first day.
Comment Posted by: eski on November 24, 2004 10:47 PM
I've now played the tradeskills to level 10 and found the following:
1) No-one seems to be playing "miner". By that, I mean the role of harvesting ores etc in vast quantities and then selling them. Often these items must be obtained in dangerous zones. I think the trader system is a problem, there really doesn't seem to be many people motivated to use it and the one's who do have astonishingly high prices, presumably due to lack of competition.
2) Someone mentioned flagging some slots for use as a trader when offline; i think this is a good idea. Offline trading would allow people to waste less energy and in a time of global heating due to inefficient use of energy, it's irresponsible that SOE hasn't explored it here. Besides, the graphics cards used for the game chew through heaps of power, as do fans etc, and for what? There is no-one to see it's output!
Perhaps there's a way to have the computer run a vendor client which can work in a lower power mode, if SOE insists that there has to be a client running, but it seems reasonable to me that offline trading using the bank space would not consume more server side resources than the current system, as well as being a better experience for the player, since patches etc wouldn't be a problem for trading.
If there's one thing i dreaded, it was going away and finding that because of a patch or a lost net connection, my vendor in eq1 had sold nothing. Coming back from holidays or work to find i had made a profit was intensely enjoyable.
As there is a patch every day it seems, offline trading would minimise that negative impact at least.
3) having access to your bank slots while crafting would take away some of the juggling and fiddling that goes on. As things stand, to make items, i frequestly have to run away from the machine i'm using, run up the stairs, zone, run to bank, find the item/s and reshuffle inventory, run back, zone, run to machine, which hopefully is still free or it's run to the next tradeskill place, join up, zone, run to machine and hope it's free, work for a bit and then repeat.
Since every combine i make usually provides a normal or pristine outcome at least, my inventory is flooded with subcombines, and while my bank space is large due to boxes etc, i can't really take advantage of it.
Being able to access the bank interface from the crafting machine would just make the focus on crafting rather than other things, as it should be. If soe wanted, they could create a parallel bank just for tradeskill ingredients which only works in the crafting area but i think the bank/machine combo is the simplest solution
4) If Soe flagged one of the servers as australasian preferred (eg korean, australian, new zealand, hong kong) and allowed a free server transfer to it, i think they'd have a lot of people taking them up on it. People need to be able to group with people in approx the same time zone to be able to guild together properly.
I've feedbacked all of these ideas but if other people don't do so then SOE won't act. If you like these ideas, use feedback. If they here positive and similar ideas from several quarters, they'll act on it.
Eski
Antonia Bayle,
13 brawler, 10 outfitter
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 25, 2004 03:37 AM
Don't count on Sony acting on many ideas, no matter how many people complain, if their attitude from EQ1 has carried over to EQ2. Top 10 lists for classes anyone?
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 25, 2004 07:48 AM
Anyone complaining about EQ2 after playing EQ1 deserves every bug known to man...
Comment Posted by: Achenar on November 25, 2004 09:39 AM
One thing I do not like about EQ2 is the fact that your guild experience decays. It should NOT decay. I can understand if a patron no longer wants to be a patron or leaves the guild you lose that xp, but to DECAY, no way. Another thing I don't likie is part of the tradeskilling. Making pristine elm lumber and then pristine planed lumber is EXTREMLEY difficult even if it is very easy for you and this should not be. If an item is very easy for you, it should not fail per se like it does. Now, overall I do enjoy EQ2 more than EQ1 but I can't just up and quit EQ1 as I've been playing it since it came out. I love the fact that you can choose which Antonica zone to zone into for example if others have too many people in them it creates another.
Comment Posted by: wombat on November 26, 2004 01:09 AM
WoW appears to be getting a lot of the 14 year old Battlenet crowd and EQ2 is the older players generally?
The should have ANZAC servers and North Asian Servers. This is because the Japanese and Korean players could flood and fill any servers tagged for them.
Korea used to be part of Japan during the last century and many Koreans live in Japan so perhaps several joint servers for them?
Many ANZAC Guilds have HK, TW and Singapore english speaking players so there shouldnt be any problems there.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Horzek on November 26, 2004 12:53 PM
I played beta in EQ2, WoW and even EQ for that matter. I have faithfully stuck with EQ for all these years and still play almost daily. Now I find that there are two new contenders for my time which is precious to me.
I liked the graphics in EQ2 and bought it the first day it was out. I installed it and was in creating and moving along although the newbee guide stuff was really getting annoying after the fourth or fifth character. One thing I noticed right away was that the graphics were much different in the final release. There is a plethora of adjustments that require a licensed engineer to get everything right. The game starts so dang dark you cant see at all at night unless you wade through all the dang settings and tinker for an hour. Not your old raise the gamma a little thing at all.
When I got to where I could see even a little I did the cleric line of quests a ways and in the early quest I had to kill some goblin war totems. I got to the area quickly and was very surprised. All the vegetation except the trees was gone. The goblin shamans were standing around or walking like zombies. IN the beta they would do a very cute little shaman dance once in a while and it was a little harder to see the totems because the bushes were blocking the view some. Losing them was a bad thing in my opinion. I felt like the game was dumbed down some. I did see that there was foragable wood all over the dang place though.
I also got my hands on World of Warcraft. As a rule in EQ if you want to do quests you first look them up in the web, print them out, then camp the various areas needed and you grind. I remember the quest for a shield I got as a halfing druid that took me weeks of camping in jaggedpines killing green stuff to raise my faction enough to talk to the correct npc. Questing in World of Warcraft is much much different.
The are really two things I have come to hate in EQ. One is Questing, and the other is acquiring spells. As I mentioned, in EQ if you want to do a quest you pretty much have to print it out from a web site and follow from there. If you want to get a new spell, especially the GoD spells or the OOW spells, you must find a group and you must camp and wait and wait and wait and wait. Then your group finally kills a named and there is a rune dropped. Does the druid or the cleric get the rune? The value on the spells is currently running about 50kpp so no, you dont get the rune, you get to roll on the thing. I lost 6 rolls in a row the other night and this seems to be a normal course of action.
Now I go to WoW and I look around. There is a NPC with a yellow exclamation point over his head. this means he has a quest for me. I speak with him and he offers me a meaningful quest to perform. It may just be a mail delivery or it may be something in the line of advancement for my particular class. I am currently following the Shaman and Druid classes. I dont think I have ever been so impressed with a quest as the one I did in WoW as part of my Druid advancement where I ended up healing sick deer in the forest. It was touching and amazing.
WoW includes a quest book as does EQ2 that you can follow. There is none of this go to the web and look the quest because the quest giver is speaking in such great ambiguity that it is impossible to know what is being talked about.
I cancelled the EQ2 account this week, I was greatly offended with the " extras " offered and all the nickel and dime stuff that made me really feel like the game was trying to take me for all the cash I have. It just feels dirty to have to buy the game, pay the subscription fees, then pay and pay and pay for all the things offered on the web as well.
I did not care for the spell progression in EQ2 for that matter. It was nice that you could get the first few spells but then you had to eitehr take up a craft or you had to find and pay for people to sell you upgrades. So far its still a great improvement over EQ in that way.
I managed to pick up a rune finally in EQ the other night and the spell I turned it in for was Confidence. Imagine getting a spell like that. It wont stack with Virtue, or the Aego line, it wont stack with the druid line of 9 spells. In short its a completely worthless spell that you could have paid 50k for. What they are thinking of here I have no idea. I am still 4 to 5 runes from Conviction which is one of the few new oow spells that is really class defining as a cleric and a total pain in the ass to acquire.. and of course its at the end of the level progression line so it could end up costing 300k to get or who knows how many groups and lost rolls.
When will they at EQ finally learn to make class defining spells attainable? Of all the lessons they refuse to learn, this one seems to be the toughest for them. I want good heals and I want the good buff spells. What is so hard to understand about that?
If I do quests, I want to have a clue at the start as to what the quest is about. WoW and even EQ2 seem to have this figured out.
I am afraid that I will see my time playing EQ diminish as I progress in WoW. It is just too dang fun. I hate to say it but in beta I played one day from 7 am till 11pm that night. The time flew by and I had a blast. If I had played Eq like that I would have never been able to tolerate it.
I anxiously look forward to seeing the mid and high level WoW and I am pretty sure I will never see that for EQ2.
One thing I know, every time I camp all evening in OOW somewhere just for the chance at a rune drop when I could have completed several quests or improved any of my minor or major professions in WoW I am going to think a heck of a lot harder about why IM sitting there in EQ when I could have had fun in WoW.
Horzek,
68 Cleric of Bristlebane
Comment Posted by: Siriln on November 26, 2004 02:51 PM
Eski, even if someone else is on your machine, you can still use it. *does the high elf happy dance* Charter of the Truthbringer is so crowded, it's common for there to be 3 to a machine for the popular trades (woodworking tables, stoves, chemistry tables, sewing tables, though no one seems to appreciate the beauty of my forge. I love the rest of your ideas. I think SOE just didn't realize how many crafters they were going to end up with. Heck, they even had to increase spawn time on tier one rescources so people could finally get the skill ups to get to Antonica (not to mention to make thing).
Two reasons no one is selling any sort of ore currently: getting mining and foresting up is TOUGH, you're looking at 5 hours each of roaming the newbie areas pouncing things before someone else does. So there aren't many miners able to go into Antonica after iron, etc yet. Second is, while cooking and alchemy goods are common, everything else is a major search to find, so when it IS found, it's saved for personal use or guild use (as I'm doing with anything I can harvest). As an aspiring weapon smith my enitre bank is overflowing with things from fungus patches, bushes and roots, but I have 2 stacks of tin, and 1 stack each or iron and lead. To make it worse, only harvested lead or malachite can be used to make the pristine version of fossil temper (as opposed to the vendor sold garbage).
Achenar, I have to disagree about guild decay. I think Sony put that in to prevent some guild with 30+ patrons from setting aside 12 hours or so and powering to level 10 as a guild, then not bothering to do anything else, possibly not even have patrons log on regularly. Working to maintain your position in the city is very RP to me, plus I like the fact that benefits have to be earned, you can't do it in one shot and boom, you're more uber than anyone else. What I DON'T like is the speed at which status decays. Many guilds have to have one writ per patron done every day, and that's a little more binding than I care for. My guild has enough gaming maniacs (who, me?) that our status actually progressed during Thanksgiving, but not everyone has the option/will to log on during holidays.
One thing I think Sony needs to tweak is the low end metalsmithing. I'm a future weaponsmith, and yet, most of the metalworking is qualified as runecraft (jewelers work). I made half a stack of tin throwing daggers from scratch, and only half the process (not counting washes) was smithing of some variety, making it hard to progress in skill as a metal worker. To make things worse, to smith weapons you need a jeweler, an alchemist, and a tailor. But I have yet to see a recipe from one of those three that required a smith. For tradeskill interdependancy, people who use a forge are getting left behind.
On a side note (which will likely get me blasted), I'm sort of shocked to see how many EQ clerics are spending time in EQ2. The more the merrier, I just have to keep fighting the urge to say "But you guys GET groups, why aren't you in EQ??" As a wizard in EQ, that was always my major annoyance, and one thing I don't miss at all in EQ2 (can't find a group? well, there are always quests that need done and deer that could be hunted). Yes, yes, I could form my own group, if I don't like how my class is treated I should go do something else (get the feeling I hear the same thing a LOT?) Oh wait... I did go do something else. I have an all access pass so I can have EQ and EQ2, but since EQ2's release, I haven't logged on to EQ once. All I can think about when I consider it is the 2+ hours LFG or putting one together, to get 5% XP in a 5 hour night. In that same 5 hours on EQ2, I could finish 2 writs, 3 minor or 2 major quests, harvest a deserted section of Antonica, and raise my outfitter level, and hopefully my skills therein. Maybe it's just a phase, but I'm curious how many other people just can't find the energy to log onto EQ with an easier alternative (EQ2 or WoW, which I haven't played). /ramble off
Siriln Taurethion of Felwithe
67 wizard of Erollisi Marr or
Taureth of Qeynos via Felwithe
14 rogue/12 outfitter of Antonia Bayle
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 27, 2004 08:06 AM
I am not surprised that EQ clerics wouldn't want to play EQ anymore. It's sooo boring being a cleric in EQ. Newer and better games are out that are WAY more fun so I can't blame any EQ player for wanting to find something else, whether they can get groups in EQ easily or not.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 27, 2004 08:41 AM
I still enjoy playing a cleric in EQ.
It looks like I have to eat crow, the prices on Quellious for runes dropped below 20k but did not reach the 10k mark I said they would. The prices fluctuate often but with normal group hunting I received about half a dozen runes. I will buy the rest when they reach 10k.
Quest NPCs in EQ2 don't have explination points over their heads, but they beckon to you when you approach them.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 27, 2004 10:20 AM
Couple of quick EQ2 comments:
On crafting - the system needs some tweaking. I personally don't like how even if a recipe is trivial to me, I have to sit there and waste two minutes making whatever component it is one at a time. Usually if I am making a trivial recipe it's a component I need for something bigger, I wish the fact that it was trivial would speed the process up or let me just click and have it done, etc.
There's not a big resources market yet because most people are gathering their own. I think this will change as players spread out more though. As for the quantity of resources - the tier 1 stuff is a pain in the butt, because everyone is out there harvesting it just to get their skills up. However, once you get those skills up, it gets a lot better. There is tier 2 stuff ALL over Antonica and the Commonlands, you just have to move around to find it. I have never had a problem gathering tier 2 resources. Case in point, I had a quest to gather 100 each of iron and maple in Antonica. It took me just under 2.5 hours of gameplay to get all of that during peak hours.
On the guild decay - 30 patrons would actually hurt more than help. Right now the best way to use the system is to have exactly 12 patrons no matter what size your guild is. The guild experience system is fundamentally flawed, and isn't fair to 75% of the guilds out there who don't play that way normally. Most guilds in EQ2 are not happy with it. I personally hate having to explain to my members why I can't make them patrons so they can contribute :(
On quests - It amazes me when I hear people say they don't like how quests are implemented in EQ2. There are quests EVERYWHERE. I constantly fight a full quest journal. I have yet to find a poorly written quest, although some were tongue-in-cheek. I have found one or two bugged quests, one I submitted a bug report on got fixed the next day, I'm still waiting on the others. But proportionally that's not bad. As I level, the rate of quests isn't coming down either. I went to the Thundering Steppes for the first time ever the other day, and came back 30 minutes later with 8 new quests in my journal.
As for finding the quests, the majority of quest giving NPCs will either speak when you pass them, or beckon you over with an emote. Maybe it's a personal preference thing, but I prefer that to anything out of character floating over their heads.
I am very happy with EQ2 because it has a much higher immersion level than EQ1 has had for years. I hope 3 years from now I can say the same. For me, the only thing I've encountered in EQ2 that drags down immersion is when there are simply too many players after the same thing. Instancing helps that a little, but it still seems like there are too many people in most of the instances.
On graphics and sound - My system auto-configured itself with a bunch of stuff turned off. Why, I'm not sure. At any rate, when I went back into the options and turned things like "flora" and "specular lighting" on, WOW!!. It was like a whole new game. There have been some zones where I have had to quickly turn a few options down to save framerate, but most of that was due to the number of other players. As far as graphics and sound goes, I just wish it would rain in Antonica so I can see what it would look like. Darn druids must have cast a permanent weather spell or something.
Comment Posted by: Sethan on November 29, 2004 12:18 PM
Honestly, I find EQ2 frustrating more than enenjoyable. The fact that you cannot buff anyone outside the group or heal anyone outside a group is innane. I understand SOE is trying to move away from the ability to power level someone, but,
Personally, I dont like standing there and watching someone die because there's nothing I can do unless they "yell". I can only use minor healing on someone who isnt grouped with me but I cannot cast it on someone while they are fighting.
I cant even revive someone without being grouped with them. Which means if they are grouped or I am grouped then one or both of us would have to leave our respective groups in order to REVIVE someone.
Traveling in the game is slow and boring, at level 19, spirit of wolf, is still very slow and not much of a run buff (not sure how it is at high levels).
Having to rebuff the group every 10-15 min, casting 6 SoWs every 15 min
Shamans dont do enough DPS to effectively solo. It's possible, but very slow. At this level, shaman can solo, but its very slow.
I also dont like the 'fine lines' among the preist classes. There is no real difference amoung the druid/shaman/cleric. It seems no classes have their basic role. Clerics sending people back to their towns, whats that about? I was quite disppointed that druids/shaman got res in EQ1, disheartening to see them carry it over to EQ2.
The XP grind in EQ2 is even more boring than it was in EQ1..
I've come to terms with group XP debt. let's see, your group wipes, you get debt for every member, but I've noticed that the debt goes away on its own(without XPing)..I like the fact that you dont lose levels like you did in EQ1.
My guild in EQ1, some went to EQ2 and others went to WoW, well, about 20 of those that went to EQ2 have already left EQ2 for WoW.
Having to pay for upkeep on a house(Inn room) and having to repair your armor, when you're already broke, isnt something I look forward to.
I am level 19 and already getting bored with EQ2. If I hadn't gotten 2 real life frieds to join EQ2, I would probably leave (
The graphics are spectacular and I dont get the lag that I did in EQ1..
I'm sorry but the ideas in EQ2 is a direct copy from all othe online games.
The quest system in EQ2 seems pretty cool so far, that is, if you like to do quests.
At least you dont have to go without your spells like in EQ1. When you level, you at least automatically receive the basic spell..
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 29, 2004 01:14 PM
"I am level 19 and already getting bored with EQ2. If I hadn't gotten 2 real life frieds to join EQ2, I would probably leave"
If you are bored with the game then leave, explain why to your friends and try to convince them to come to whatever game you choose to goto. I could never understand why people will continue to play a game they are bored with or dislike. So many people did that for years in EQ and for what? No matter how much time one invests in a game in the end it's all for nothing, it isn't like one is losing anything if one quits.
This leads me to a point I have been thinking about lately concerning online games and addiction to them, unrelated to the last post, just thinking out loud. There are 2 kinds of addiction to these types of games. What I call good addiction and bad addiciton. Good addiction is when you keep playing because it is so fun that you can't stop. Everytime you log into a game you are having fun doing things and accomplishing goals. Bad addiction is when you keep playing because you feel you have to in order to accomplish a goal, which fun is supposed to come after the goal. Sometimes these goals take a long to achieve and the process of getting there isn't necessarily fun itself but you want to achieve the goal so bad you must play, like getting to the Plane of Time for many people. The major difference between the two is that one usually has more short term, easier to achieve goals, that are fun to do and plentiful, like the questing system in WoW. You are constantly having fun because you are constantly doing these little quests. The other usually has big, long time commitment goals, which may actually be annoying or boring to do and not as plentiful. The end result may be rewarding but the process of getting there is not, like some of the epic quests were in EQ and the PoP flagging system. Usually in both case the feeling of joy at accomplishing the goal doesn't really last that long but in the good addiction method at least you always have another goal to be achieved right around the corner, the bad many times involves another long campfest or repeating the same raids over and over.
This is why so many people "feel" WoW is a special game, why that many ex EQ players prefer it over EQ. They feel like WoW is just more fun. Now in the end once a person get to the top level in WoW and runs out of raids to do, usually power gamers who don't stop to smell the roses and instead just rush through games, those people may crave EQ once more. In all honesty I think these people are hopeless, the are bad addiction type of gamers and well they will always be that way until RL dictates otherwise.
Comment Posted by: Kylanzek on November 29, 2004 02:09 PM
First off, if you come into EQ2 expecting EverQuest, you're in for a BIG shock. It's all apples and oranges. I've been playing EQ for 5 years or so now, and I expect over the next month or so that EQ2 will pull me completely away for good.
As mentioned in some of the posts above, I am finding it hard to find the motivation to sign into EQ and "waste" timeputting together a group or going off to solo the same dull mobs for the same dull reward. I never played EQ to be "leet" or "ubah". I'm not one of those folks that need to have the tape measure out and compairing who's the better. I like to quest and adventure.
When I sat down the first time to EQ2 I got exactly that. Two heaping platefulls and a stack of plates to revisit the ever-changing buffet. I have some of the same complaints with the market system and guild status, but other then that theres nothing to complain about. I've found maybe 2 bugged quests out of the 102 I've completed so far. All my bags and furniture and spells I crafted myself and darnit I'm as happy as a bug in a rug.
WoW I have no interest in. Nothing to do with the game itself. I can't comment on it as I haven't played it. Wish other's would take that stance myself :)
But I can say this: EQ2 can't be all that bad. I'm on one of the lowest load servers and there's always a load of people playing and more then one instance of popular zones.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 29, 2004 02:18 PM
Well said.
I haven't seen anything in EQ2 that is an actual long-term goal yet, unless you count leveling to 50, or killing Lady Vox. It rather amuses me that so many people have come to the game with a huge set of preconceptions from EQ1. I already see guilds recruiting based on class, or advertising that they're going to raid a lot. Considering the average character level right now is something like 13, and maybe one person in 500 has set foot on one of the other islands besides the two main ones, and I think it's pretty silly.
It seems to me like too many players out there are so used to playing games like EQ1, that have been out for a long while and where everything is known, that they completely miss the point of having a whole new world available. They're so focused on getting to the high level, and doing the "endgame", that they don't really enjoy the time they spend at lower levels or doing smaller things as much as they should. In the end, this will cause them to burn out no matter what game they end up playing.
Comment Posted by: Nobody on November 29, 2004 02:26 PM
I'm suprised how many people dont like a "challange". Eat candy all day and soon it wont taste so good. I personally play WoW and EQ2 (EQlive is active, but is getting real lonely for some playtime and I dont see any free time for it for awhile). I cant see why I cant play both (or all 3 for that matter). I guess if all I thought about was leveling or items instead of having fun... I would maybe have to pick one. And I do understand some cant afford to play them all, thats just life. My feelings on the two new games are simple.
WoW is a game of Candyland, colorfull,fun, very easy to grasp, little demand on my brain, and quick.
EQ2 is a game of Monopoly, It takes time, it takes effort, it takes thought, and can piss you off when things dont go right.
I personally feel in the long run the game that challanges me is the more fun, but some like it quick and easy, and now you have it. Sounds like we all have a game to play now, how can that be bad?
Comment Posted by: Heru-Ur on November 29, 2004 03:06 PM
From everything i've heard and read, EQ2 is a great game but not in the same ways that made the first EQ great. Most people agree that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be the "true" sequal to EverQuest. EQ2 is just a different kind of game.
Comment Posted by: Pants on November 29, 2004 06:41 PM
The Vision (tm) shall arise again in Vanguard LOL. No thanks.
Comment Posted by: Axon on November 30, 2004 01:46 AM
Just another game to get addicted to for another 5 years until EQ 3, and then you all can have the same conversation over again.
Comment Posted by: Bunion on November 30, 2004 04:24 AM
At least from Beta the amount of quests you get as you get higher in level tend to drop off. Except for the "Kill 10 of X mob" quests they tend to take a good amount of effort later on and generally aren't anything you can solo.
One thing you have to watch out for is there is a lot of low level content you can miss by leveling even at a normal rate. Firemyst Gully and Shattered Vale are pretty easy to advance past the point where you would want to go into them for anything or where the mobs would even give you experience anymore.
It does seem there is an awful lot of 40th level+ content with Lavastorm, Feerrrot and Everfrost with whatever dungeons are in each of those zones.
There does seem to be people determined to get to 50 as quick as possible I already see several people in their upper 30's. I am in no major rush myself.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 30, 2004 08:13 AM
"They're so focused on getting to the high level, and doing the "endgame", that they don't really enjoy the time they spend at lower levels or doing smaller things as much as they should. In the end, this will cause them to burn out no matter what game they end up playing."
I agree completely. Funny though, the same thing can be said about EQ1. I know a lot of high levelers who never went through Ykesha or the lower level zones in Luclin. They tended to skip over all of this just to get to level 65 or 70 and see the "end game".
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 1, 2004 04:34 PM
----I agree completely. Funny though, the same thing can be said about EQ1. I know a lot of high levelers who never went through Ykesha or the lower level zones in Luclin. They tended to skip over all of this just to get to level 65 or 70 and see the "end game".----
In my opinion, this was a consequence of several factors in EQ1's design.
First, as any level-based game ages, people will eventually pool at the high end of the spectrum and the content. Depending on how the game is built, it may take a while to get there, but eventually they will get there. As more and more people get to the top, the newer players entering the game will feel more and more pressure to get there as well, because it's all they'll hear about from their fellow players. One of the strength's of EQ1's original content design was that even though the level system was bound to cause this, it was really mid-Velious era before there really was a general push to level for the majority of the player base.
Second, EQ's itemization system had the unfortunate side effect of promoting twinking like no game before it. First generation players did Crushbone in tattered leather armor. Second generation players in banded armor. Third generation players in cast-off sol ro armor, ry'gorr chain, and fine steel plate. By the time PoP rolled around, the simple fact that there was so much low-level equipment floating around the game trivialized low-level content and enabled most players to advance through those levels at 4 or 5 times the original envisioned rate.
Third, new expansions added zones with substantially greater experience rewards for low-level characters than had existed previously. Anytime you give someone more experience per kill, you increase their rate of advancement. As they advance faster, their focus shifts to the higher levels as a goal.
Finally, over the years the live team has done things in EQ to lessen the learning curve for new players. Things like no corpse retrieval until level 10, or increasing the rate of leveling through your first few levels, or starting characters off with a bag. Whether these changes were needed or not is really a point of opinion, but the fact is that they made it easier for new players to get in the game and level. By doing so, they also shifted the spotlight even further away from those levels and over to the bright shiny stuff in the endgame.
In short, the low-level game in Everquest has become much more trivial than it ever was before, and so it's only natural for most gamers to progress through it at what us old-timers would call lightning fast speeds.
I personally miss the days when in the eyes of all players Everquest was about adventure from level 1 to level 50, and wasn't about grinding experience to level 40 or 50 or 60 and then starting to actually go do interesting things.
Those days are long gone though, and it would take more changes than i think the live team is willing to make to bring them back - indeed, i don't know that the player population would even support it, as most EQ players have difficulty seeing the big picture and instead only concentrate on the levels and content that they're currently trying to complete or have yet to do.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 1, 2004 07:30 PM
Good points Talaen. I really miss the old days of EQ pre-Luclin myself. Also another reason why you'll never see a revamp of the lower end game to make it an adventure again is because there really aren't any true new people joining EQ anymore, or so few as to have no impact, thus why the devs wouldn't bother spending time on it. Now I know someone out there might post something like "I know a guy who just started EQ last month" but one or a few examples doesn't make it a common occurrence. I know that if I was new to MMORPGs I wouldn't be looking to join old games like UO, EQ or DAoC. I would be looking at CoH, EQ2 or WoW.
EQ in it's haydays was something special and quite a treat to play if you didn't obsess over levels and loot. Now I'm afraid it's just become a stale, highend raiding game, that does not focus on people who like to play casual or stop to smell the roses on the way up to 70. That's not to say you can't play EQ in that style but be aware you'll never accomplish much in the highend game, and really some of the newer games are much more casual player friendly. More than any other expansion I blame PoP for this. PoP really threw the game way out of whack with way too much emphasis on huge raids, which then continued with GoD which is basically PoP part 2.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on December 2, 2004 04:00 AM
I fully support the last two posts by Talaen and Pants. Hit the mark straight on there. However, I am sticking to my guns with EQ 1. I still love this game and am staying til the bitter end. I hope its not too soon.
I have noted the impact on my server of a few less bodies roaming and some guilds are feeling the squeeze, but this in fact is a good thing. We all knew EQ needed an enema anyway. Perhaps this shakeup of players is a good thing. It has encouraged me to go back and start a new alt. With emptier zones I am doing exactly what we say we have been missing in our game. I am leveling slowly, doing the little quests, and smelling the flowers so to speak.
Perhaps the exodus of players to EQ2 is the fix EQ needed.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 2, 2004 10:10 AM
I wonder if EQ1 can capitalize on its huge headroom and fewer instanced content to attract more social-friendly newbies that dislike straight jackets (eq2) or ldon cartoons (wow).
I'm exagerating but that's how some people have described both when disenchanted.
Back to EQ1, it's mainly about interdependence and progressively harder content. Even pre-kunark that implied raiding at some point but often single group content that was multi-group material one or two expansions ago. By definition that happens at the max level of the current expansion. Saying it's stale is maybe so from a non-achiever non-raider perspective, but in a game built around progression, non-achievers type of casual gamers that find raiding and guilds, stale, are just looking for the wrong features in the wrong game.
Maybe the Sim online is more contemplative but surely not EQ1.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 2, 2004 12:55 PM
"there really aren't any true new people joining EQ anymore" Unless you work for SOE, I don't think you have the data to support that statment. Over and over I see people making subjective statments as if they're objective statistical facts. We, the players of EQ, do not have any real stastics.
One way to fix the twink equipment problem is to offer better gear in quests. Take a look at the new newbie armor quests they put in. Those stats are sometimes better than the original Hate and Fear armor we hunted after so hard.
We talk about the glorious golden days for lower level people but LDON is an expansion that offered almost all of its content to people from level 20 and up. The task system in Omens works for level 5 and up. Every so often I like to make a new character and see what life is like at hte low levels. What I find is that I often have more fun going from 1 to 10 than I do going from 67 to 68.
With the addition of the knowledge stones, the food, water and bag, the newbie armor quests, the tutorial, the level 20 LDONs, and the task system, I would have loved to play the game now instead of starting the way it was back when I first played.
There is an interesting question with all of this. What can SOE do to get people to choose EQ1 over EQ2? What competitive features or content can they add that won't go too far outside of the game that already exists but will give people a clear idea why they would play EQ1.
I really think that with a little work the task system could support an EQ2-like quest journal. This game can't live on 54 person raids alone.
Comment Posted by: on December 2, 2004 03:10 PM
But Loral, SOE has already made it clear, it does not develop / refine / edit / build upon old content.
Kunark Epic quests -- out of date as of PoP (earlier for Ubers) -- somewhat revived by 1.5 and 2.0 epics
Velious factions / Quest armors -- out of date as of PoP
Luclin class armor quests -- out of date 2weeks before Luclin was released (those armor quests were crap)
LDoN dungeons / Adventure points --- out of date as of OoW
PoP Flags --- out of date as of OoW
The Task system is going to be trashed / ignored by SoE in <2 months, tops.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 2, 2004 04:12 PM
I don't need data from SOE that there are no true newbies anymore, not like they would honestly reveal such information. I have seen from practical experience over the last 2 years, of playing alts in newbie zones, of being aware of the type of behavior a true newbie would exhibit (ie: not knowing some of the ins and outs of EQ), by actually talking to people, that the newbie influx has sharply dropped off. It is also evident in EQ's flat subscription rates in the last few years (with the exception of a small spike arounf LDoN), and actually declining this year. People quit, some people make even more accounts but there is no large influx of new players to keep EQ growing despite this. Plus it's just common sense, EQ is old, there are newer games out there, most people looking to join anew this type of genre are going to look at newer stuff. It doesn't matter if you or anyone else wants to live in denial and refuse to see what is obvious if you would just take off the blinders of bias, but that doesn't change the fact that EQ is in slow decline and not really a very newbie friendly game, thus why there aren't many newbies. EQ still has years of life left in it but make no mistake that most of the people playing years from now will be hardcore EQ addicts who either will not or cannot quit.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 2, 2004 04:22 PM
Well that was a nice veiled insult Redcloud but you know why EQ is stale, not because it's from a point of view of a person who hasn't acheived anything, but because every expansion is the same, just ramp up mob difficulty and gear to go along with it, ramp up the levels or AAs, all wrapped around a poor combat system, poorly scripted encounters and substandard artwork. The whole style of playing EQ is the same way, stale. Either you goto spot A with a group, send someone out to pull and kill mob B, for hours on end; or you goto an instanced dungeon and run through the same exact map that you've already done for the 5000th time. Of course any game will eventually become stale like this once people play it long enough but that doesn't mean that EQ isn't stale right now. I really think that the original developement team, despite their shortcomings, was much more talented and creative than the current one. It just seems like the current team can't come up with anything groundbreaking or revolutionary for EQ so they just keep dishing out the same old crap every 6 months.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 2, 2004 08:01 PM
There are a lot of holes in your arguement. You say EQ is stale and always the same and then bring up instanced zones as an example when those even though Instanced zones are one of the great examples of how the game HAS changed.
You mention above that you don't believe people's subjective statistics but then come up with piles of your own subjective statistics admittedly not from any real objective data.
"the newbie influx has sharply dropped off." How many servers did you acquire data from? How many zones did you simultanously check over 24 hour periods? I don't claim to know one way or the other but I guarentee you and I don't know.
"EQ is in slow decline" can I see data for that? What constitutes fast or slow decline?
"It is also evident in EQ's flat subscription rates in the last few years" The only statistics I saw from EQ's own propaganda said that they gained 100,000 subscribers in the last couple of years.
How about we talk about what we DO know instead of making things up. We do know, as intelligent players, what we like and what we don't like. We know what might make the game more fun or easier for new players to get into.
"But Loral, SOE has already made it clear, it does not develop / refine / edit / build upon old content."
The newbie armor quests were new, opening up the knowledge stones to everyone was new, there is a huge task update happening on the 15th of December, the whole tutorial is new, the task system in general is wrapped around older content. Veeshan's Peaks, Veksar, Cazic Thule, Hate, the Hole, Mischief, Griegs End, Nurga, Droga, Runnyeye, Chardok B, Soulsek C, soon Mistmoore and Paw again; all of these zones were changed and modified well after their release. If they can incorporate changes that improve the game, they will do so. It's in their best interests as well as ours.
Comment Posted by: Merkava on December 3, 2004 02:41 AM
"But Loral, SOE has already made it clear, it does not develop / refine / edit / build upon old content."
Yes, they certainly made that clear when they built upon Odus by adding the Hole, the Warrens and Stonebrunt Mountains. When they added Jaggedpine Forest and Nedaria's Landing to Antonica. When they added another quest to the Qeynos Badge series. When they added berserker and beastlord armor sets to go along with the Temple of Solusek Ro and all 3 Velious faction quests. When they added more LDoN raids and another Takish Hiz theme zone.
Yes, SOE has certainly made it pretty clear that they never go back and develop / refine / edit / build upon old content.
"Kunark Epic quests -- out of date as of PoP (earlier for Ubers) -- somewhat revived by 1.5 and 2.0 epics"
I'm curious what you mean by "out of date" here. Sure they're not as powerful as some items you can get, but that doesn't make them out of date. The quests themselves are still a lot of fun. I'm currently working my way through the mage epic, and I'm having a blast. Who cares if the item I get in the end pales in comparison to many PoP weapons? I'm having fun, and I play EQ to have fun, not to get "uber" gear. Maybe you don't like the epics, but that doesn't make them "out of date." There are still people like me who work on and enjoy epic quests.
"Velious factions / Quest armors -- out of date as of PoP"
Same as above. You may not care about these factions, and you may not work on these armor quests, but other people still do. I've just finished getting my Coldain faction high enough, and I'm about to start collecting pieces for the armor, as well as working on CoV faction for those quests. I know several other people who have expressed an interest in doing the same. Again, just because there's better gear out there, it doesn't mean this armor is "out of date."
"LDoN dungeons / Adventure points --- out of date as of OoW"
I completely disagree. I still do and enjoy LDoN's. Some will argue that they get old fast as it's just the same thing over and over again, but isn't that all your raiding guild does when you kill raid_mob_x over and over so everyone can get his loot? Well, if you don't like LDoN and think it's repetitive, I hope you find something you enjoy more. However, I find that the variation in the themes and missions, as well as the different experience you get from doing it as a different class (I've done LDoN's with a warrior, a mage and a druid) is more than enough to keep me interested. Occasionally I decide it's time to do something, but I wouldn't say that it's out of date because of that. I just want to do something else for a while. As for adventure points, I hardly think they're up to date. They're still a great way to work toward a reward in small steps. I find this a much better way to work my way toward gear upgrades than killing mob_y over and over and hoping I get the armor piece I want. The only thing that would make the adventure point system better in my opinion is a way to return old items for a partial refund.
"PoP Flags --- out of date as of OoW"
How so? People still do flagging. My guild is starting to go through PoP content, and we're having a blast.
Right, that's enough rambling for now. I'm going to go work on my epic, then kill some giants for Velious Coldain and CoV faction, then do an LDoN or two.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on December 3, 2004 03:30 AM
STALE?
What game are you playing? Maybe if you are an uber raider who burns through all of an expansions content in a week it would become stale. You have exhautsted your own enjoyment..
i.e. all the purests who grind out exp. in game and then post here about stopping and smelling the flowers along the way.
After OOW there were 70 lvl players 3 days after the release date on my server. Did these guys play for the enjoyment of the content or for some other reason. Status? Snobbery? Bragging rights?
REGARDLESS... I as a "casual" gamer still have a lot of content that I have yet to explore in our little fake world. So no...its not stale for me yet!
BTW I enjoyed Merkava's post about the similarity between so called raiding and LDONs.
Basically the game is what you make of it. Either you have an imagination or not. Either you take your time or not. I really dont care. Like I said in a previous post: Perhaps the exodus of players to EQ2 is just what our game needs. BYE BYE!
I'll be staying right here.
Comment Posted by: on December 3, 2004 10:56 AM
I agree that for those that are leaving (and ostensibly not coming back), don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave.
However, Loral (and anyone else) who continuously denies that the newbie influx is going (if not already gone), is more in denial than the addicts (including myself) that continue to play despite knowing there are now superior games out there.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 3, 2004 12:58 PM
"However, Loral (and anyone else) who continuously denies that the newbie influx is going (if not already gone)"
Did I deny this? Could you quote me please?
What I simply say is that we players don't know who is going, how many are going, why they are going, or whether they will be back. I want to see SOE put new features into EQ that will bring back players who quit and bring in new players who aren't yet hooked. I, as a player, can only speak to what I do know and what I know is what I see in the game I have. I don't have statistics or management plans or task lists, I have the game itself and what I know is and isn't fun. Thats what I focus on and that is what I think helps SOE make EQ better.
So...instead of making up statistics or doom-and-gloom statements about how Hello Kitty World is killing Everquest, lets stick to what we know:
What features of EQ2 do we really like and what features would we like to see EQ acquire? What features could make these games better?
Comment Posted by: on December 3, 2004 01:41 PM
The original design team already had Odus, the intital Planes (fear and hate), and Kunark well into development when EQ 1st came out. Those zones were 'additions' yes, but were supposed to be part of the original release, or were part of the original planning / development.
Not since Velious has an expansion had any continuity with the original / existing world factions / quests etc. Even in Velious and Kunark the factions of the original release were all but irrelevant (only exception being the tie in of Ring of Scale and Mistmoore).
The additional zones released as part of the Legends service (several are still Legends only, including the additional Tak LDoN dungeons) were the only new zones added that were not part of an expansion / expansion tie in (Nadaria's Landing is the only expansion tie in).
Newbie armor quests and adding beastlord/beserker armors to class armor quests in Velious / Solro / Luclin: newbie armor quests were genuinely new, adding zerker and bst armor sets to existing quests - no brainer they had to if they are adding a class.
I stand behind my statement that SOE does not BUILD UPON existing content. They add new zones and release expansions that do not have in practical, meaningful, immersive ties to existing content.
If some people like chasing after SolRo armor for fun sake that does not mean that the content is out of date. If some people are still questing for Thurgadin armor, when they can smith/tailoer armor that is better in a third of the time, that does not mean that the quests are out-of-date.
Players / people continually do things 'because they are there.' But that does not mean that they are worth doing.
PoP flagging is out-of-date. Why bother when you can get better gear from OoW? "Because it's there" is the only reason. Well, trust me, you will get there, and realize, you wasted a lot of time doing it.
If SOE really wanted to bring some cohesiveness to their world, they would activate their much vaunted (but little realized) new questing engine. Why not develop a quest that bridges the Children of Dranik and the Claws of Veeshan, and the Ring of Scale... after the char does the 'emissary' quest, their factions get tied. All the +CoV faction they have gets added (in a fractional sense say they are ally to CoV, so they get +500 faction to CoD, and/ or +350 to RoS)
Tie MMC factions to Ring of Scale, just as MM factions are.
Have the NPCs of Felwithe talk meaningfully about their colony in Kunark.
Every expansion / change is really more of a graft onto EQ. SOE does not truely "extend" or "expand" upon their earlier work. They release new zones / mobs / items that are upgrades in bugs / difficulty / stats respectively. They will not "expand" upon LDoN. They will not "extend" Velious factions / quests. They will not "expand" upon killing all of the gods, defeating the 4 primal essences of existance and opening a rift in Time (after all, a minor demi-goddess steps in in the end to make you forget it happens in the first place).
My initial rebuke was directed at Loral for his "if they only make the task system better." Even after he rolled over on "extending" LDoN points etc.
Comment Posted by: on December 3, 2004 02:12 PM
What we know is what we see in the bazaar, in POK, in the zones we actually try to get a group and play in, and in our own guilds and other guilds.
We don't need any statistics or 'facts' to tell us what is already obvious if you open your eyes and play.
If reality is 'doom and gloom', then thats what you will hear.
Even if you just want to claim its 'perception' and 'opinion'.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 4, 2004 08:10 PM
There isn't really much I would want from EQ2 or WoW. The twitchy gameplay or the straight jacket, no thanks. The item decay? No thanks. Group content in form of instances will kill at some point the social appeal of the game. Handy but bad in the long run. What I can hope is that they do more expansions like OoW.
Do well thought through Risk vs Reward.
Don't blur even more the lines between classes. Don't make new classes. Ever.
Find new ways to have the biggest variety of encounters possible with the biggest variety of classes.
Find ways to expand character progression that isn't absolutely necessary for new gamers that would have a too high barrier of entry if they were to start today. 70 levels and 1000+ AAs is already high enough. Let alone gear.
Comment Posted by: Utzeil on December 5, 2004 02:25 AM
I'm a casual gamer and enjoy EQ totally. I've been playing for 3+years and still TONS of stuff I havent seen.<---- insert flame cause I'm not and UBER raider. I have RL friends to talk eq stuff to and group with. I dont really care if I dont get the BEST gear or if I'm in the UBEREST guild. I enjoy the conversations and the gameplay. EQ2 is choppy to me but I'm sure it's my resistance to change that is doing it to me.) I play a game to have fun. I think some people have remember the that games r meant to be fun.
Comment Posted by: Too said Fred on December 5, 2004 08:50 AM
So Loral how is that drive to get 1 million susbscribers to EQ going? You know the article you posted a few months ago. It's going great isn't it? You sit there and lecture people about how they don't know how susbscriptions in EQ are doing when you don't know a whole lot about the game itself, as proven by some of your hairbrained ideas and unrealisitic view of EQ. Most of your articles are nothing but promoting EQ and ignoring the glaring faults with it and the company that runs it. Oh but I forget if you don't witness it yourself it must not be true, brilliant deduction. How much does SOE pay you to run this site anyway?
Comment Posted by: eski on December 5, 2004 10:19 AM
EQ2 has twitchy gameplay? Speaking as someone who's hand-eye coordination is the worst i've seen outside of the legally disabled, i cope ok as a brawler by mashing keys. Sure i could do better if could mast er the opportunity wheel; but i do ok. It's not like doom 3.
Item decay? barely noticeable. Every few levels, a quest gives me a new item (yay moth ring!) or occasionally i make it myself, or buy or trade for it. Something new all the time. It's all good.
Not social? I belong to the freeport crafters chat channel. We trade with each other when we can, or give away our excess items, and try to act like an extended guild. I expect other chat channels will evolve with other agendas.. but for me this is the most active and fun group.
The instances i've been in mostly fit quite a few groups and i've got the key for an instance that is one group only. It's hardly quiet in the commonlands! I've gotten a group when i've wanted one and soloed a lot listeining in one the conversations, and adding my bit when i can. It's fun to see people forever stumped by a vague entry in one of the quests... where's cannix! Or their joy at discovering the griffon ride. Or the horror that is orc pawn panic... where the aggro radius of orc pawns means they swarm and you run over a hill... straight into the next horde.
All that said, the total population of eq1 is still huge; all they needis to lower the server transfer tariff and i think guilds would get the numbers they needed for any conceivable raid.
Eski, 15 brawler,outfitter, antonia Bayle (is a honey and voiced by the second sexiest woman on the planet)
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 5, 2004 06:19 PM
Too Said / Pants, if you are not happy with the editorials here, go somewhere else. You've posted over twenty times on this site and over twelve on this article alone. If you have constructive ideas or thoughts about the game, that's why we have a forum here. If you just want to throw mud at people, go somewhere else.
Consider yourself warned.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 5, 2004 07:17 PM
I can but only agree on your conclusion, Eski. EQ1 needs a 25USD max transfer rate and right now. Nowhere near the price of WOW or EQ2 for sure. That's the standard answer I got when asking people to come over: not worth 75USD. Period.
That and a future raid content aiming at 40-45 size even if allowing for 54. There's a definite decline in numbers across the board and I hope designers will catch the clue early.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 7, 2004 08:43 PM
Well I am not the only person in this house with access to this computer so I'll leave it at that. Everyone in my family has played EQ at one time or another and well one has rather strong bitter feelings about it. I shall have a talk with the offending party. As for myself overall EQ was a positive and fun experience for me but it's waned this year. I do feel some ideas posted here are a bit overly idealistic but maybe some people haven't played EQ as much as I have over the years so it's hasn't worn thin yet. I still think EQ has a long future ahead of it, it's just SOE needs to change their focus somewhat to keep the glow, as I posted some ideas in the next article what I feel they can do to accomplish that.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 7, 2004 11:32 PM
Thanks for clearing that up, Pants.
Comment Posted by: Nokras on December 15, 2004 03:14 PM
Nice write up but something bothered me greatly and it's just cause I am a BIG Dune fan. It's that H.P. Lovecraft didn't write dune. It was Frank Herbert.
Comment Posted by: Breen on January 12, 2005 06:18 PM
Without a doubt World of Warcraft is a superior experience.
The simple fact is while playing EQ2 I got frutstrated with it at least 15 times before level 20.
In World of Warcraft I'm level 49, and have been frustrated once... when my computer rebooted for no reason.
Enough reason for me to make a choice.
Comment Posted by: Canines on January 20, 2005 01:49 AM
The current concept of the MMORPG is fundamentally flawed; it cannot provide the customers with what they truly want while at the same time maintaining longevity. This paradox is not solely a result of corporate greed, but also the result of the players seemingly inherent inability to "let go."
I suspect EQ2 will go the same path as the original Everquest. People will begin to play and truly enjoy the game during the first year of its release. Experience, Quests, and overall game progress will perpetuate seemingly without effort. Then, as the game runs its course, the flaw will be revealed. We've experienced, we've leveled, we've traded, we've crafted, we've quested, we've fought monsters. What do we do now?
While both the service provider and the client are seperately forced to deal with this issue, SOE is in the best position to implement an effective solution. SOE's solution: Slow progress down and raise the bar. This lead to the dilapidation of Everquest and I predict it will also ruin Everquest 2. I could write detailed volumes describing the results of the implementation of SOE's solution, but in an effort for conciseness I will sum it up with a few words and phrases:
"GRINDING"
"UBERGUILDS"
"FARMING"
"my experience bar doesn't move"
"No, we're all dead and UberGuild002 is killing him now"
"no big mobs up, I can't find a group, gonna log"
Anyone having witnessed and dealt with the high end gameplay of Everquest will agree that it left a lot to be desired. The beauty of Norrath and the blissful immersion into "their world" were gone; all that remained was Grinding and Uberguilds. Those of us who couldn't or wouldn't quit, let go, or start over became slaves to Grinding and Uberguilds. No one wants to be a slave to anything and I believe most of us subjected ourselves to it because we didn't want to stop playing and starting over meant the game would leave us behind, due to the constant raising of the bar. For example, when I started playing EQ, the best weapon a warrior could wield was the Shortsword of Ykesha, 1HS 8dmg, 24dly. Todays high end Everquest warrior would destroy the high end warrior of three years ago in about five seconds.
To remain objective, one is forced to look at alternative solutions:
If progress is slowed down, and the bar isn't raised, players will complain that they have nothing to do.
If progress is not slowed down but the bar is still raised, SOE will be expected to create new content at an impossible rate and large portions of the world will quickly become obselete. This would allow players more enjoyment, but an unrealistic incoherency would still develop between casual and hardcore players. Hardcore players are impeded by hanging out with casual players; therefore, hardcore players congregate only with other hardcore players and inevitably bring about their own misery by reaching the pinnacle of the game too fast and missing game content that was intended.
This leaves only one option; don't slow down progress and don't raise the bar. This can be the only solution since Everquest has proved that the other solutions fail. SOE might disagree since by implementing "raise the bar, slow down progress" they got the longevity they needed for maximum profits; however, as consumers, we must realize that our addiction to the game, not enjoyment, was the only reason SOE continued to get our monthly payments.
Keeping overall game progress throughout the entire game similar to the advancement rate during the early levels is the only plausable solution to the fundamental flaw because in this solution we find the answer to our question; what do we do now? We die.
Everquest and most other MMORPG's are based on a fantasy world created by fiction writers. Not all worlds may be the same, but they all have one thing in common; the only immortal characters are Gods. In order to make game world immersion a better simulation of what it would be like to live in a surreal fantasy world, aging and death for all creatures who are not immortal Gods must be introduced. This must include not only NPC's, but also PC's.
Obviously no one wants to lose a character they have spent a long time developing, so the implementation of player aging would require careful implementation. I propose the following:
First, allow players advancement rates to remain constant and worthwhile throughout the entire span of levels obtainable for PC's. This advancement rate should be something like 15 levels in 2 weeks of casual playing.
Second, don't raise the bar by extending the level caps and creating expansions that make everything else prior in the game obselete. When the bar is raised consistently, the casual gamer can never obtain the pinnacle. This leaves a lot to be desired in terms of enjoyment of the entertainment paid for. Instead, create more zones with more quests, more high end encounters, and more of the same caliber items. Create more than could ever be obtained so that there is always something waiting to die somewhere. It is not surprising that as more people reach the high end game, more high end content is required. This was a major problem in Everquest. SOE might have thought they were creating more high end content by releasing the expansions when in fact they were only changing the high end content from the previous expansion to the new one.
Third, eliminate powerleveling. Prohibit characters from receiving any spell from a character more than 5 levels his/her senior. Closely monitor what weapons and items are allowed to be used by certain levels.
Fourth, spend some research money on Artificial Intelligence (AI). I'll give you a good example of bad AI: King Tormax standing with his nose in a corner beating on a midget warrior (who seemingly just won't die) while exposing his back to 60 characters who are stabbing him in the back. Allow the outcomes of encounters to depend more on the players skill and less on what kind of weapons and armor are being used. Any monster classified as uber should have an IQ higher than imbecile, and that means when attacked by a large group it should make all attempts to kill clerics first. Make the game more sophisticated; if a cleric is surrounded by 4 warriors, it should not be susceptible to melee dmg from anything. If a monstor is trapped in a corner, unless it can fly, gate or jump 20 feet in the air, it should be stuck there, not allowed to walk right through 30 people as if they weren't there so that it can go kill a cleric or some wizard who just cast a devasting spell on it. These things are common sense, but for whatever reason, SOE chose AI that left a lot to be desired.
Fifth, make unique items unique! This means a "rusty long sword" should be long and rusty when equipped. A sword wielded by a god should look like something a god would have, not the same graphic as a rusty long sword.
Finally, player characters must have ages. Starting and finishing ages would depend on race and class. For example, a nice starting point for fighter classes would be age 19. Allow the character to age at a rate such that with casual play the character will be in his/her prime (age 30) by the time he/she reaches the highest level obtainable (say lvl 50). When the character reaches retirement age, perhaps age 55 for fighters, the player is allowed the option to retire the character. If the character is retired he/she chooses to put down the sword for the most part. The character would still be able to go on quests, and engage enemies to defend his/herself without the risk of permanent death, but since the fighter has given up the life of combat his/her skills and level will slowly regress as he/she ages more. Perhaps 10% skill lose and lvl 45 by age 70, 25% skill lose and lvl 40 by age 90. 50% skill lose and lvl 30 by age 100, etc. If the player chooses not to retire the character, the character chooses not to put down the sword and continues a life of combat and adventure with absolutely no skill lose or level lose. Perhaps he/she even gains the possiblity of obtaining extra damage avoidance by being a well seasoned fighter. However, every time the character dies, he/she has a chance of being permanently killed. The probability of a permanent death would go up as the character continued to age.
I suspect most who played Everquest would immediately reject this idea. This is probably due to the memories of "hell levels" where the progress of experience was so slow that one could play all day and the experience bar would not move at all. I remind these skeptics that if the game advancement were to remain constant and worthwhile. A casual gamer would be able to start a new character and obtain lvl 50 in about 6 weeks. In Everquest, I remember it would take casual gamers 6 weeks just to get through one "hell lvl".
This would encourage players to play other class combinations, to try other races and develop more than one character; thus continuing the satisfaction of advancing a character, experiencing more of the beautiful fantasy world, and obtaining new items. Having several characters at the disposal of each player will drastically decrease the inability of guilds to function in situations where a certain number of key classes are necessary to conquer an encounter. It will also reduce the inability of players to find a small adventure group since groups usually need the right class composition.
There is really nothing that can be done about hardcore players. They have a right to play as hard, as fast, as often, and as fair as they want to. Raising the bar to accomodate their life-withering addiction so that they can feel good about themselves for being "on top" only diminishes the quality of the game world for everyone. Let the hardcore players sell their extra items. Let them use the money they receive (and they will receive a lot) to buy houses, shrines, temples, places to put their trophies, and entourages to travel with them. Let them distinguish themselves with these material things (in towns only), not weapons or abilities that without no casual player can be as effective. Also, keep in mind that with 2500-3000 people active on a server at a given time, at best 300 of those are in the top 4 guilds on that server, thats only 10-15%. I guarantee you at least 300 people on each server quit EQ at one of the hell levels between 40 and 60. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if the high end players don't like it, they won't be missed a whole lot if they quit.
The consequences of SOE's solution implementation to the fundamental flaw negatively affect only the consumer. Sony still maximizes its profit by creating longevity at the cost of our enjoyment. Personally, I'd rather play a MMORPG for the engrossing experiences I had during my first month of playing Everquest, not to be a slave to Grinding and Uber guilds.
I beleive the majority of the people paying SOE would agree with me when I say, "I'd rather be forced to start over - choosing to start in a new part of a truly MASSIVE game world - because my character became too old or died than become a slave to experience grinding and uber guild commitments.
Comment Posted by: Canines on January 20, 2005 02:08 AM
Then again, those high end players might be missed now that SOE's decisions have caused so many frustrated casual gamers to quit. I don't know what the server populations are like now, but I remember when they used to be very high.
Comment Posted by: Diemos on March 25, 2005 01:29 PM
A few items worth mentioning.
Playtime to date 20days 11hours (17701446 seconds)
I still love this game!
With the advent of the new mentoring system (which is a hybrid of sidekicks from City of Heroes as well as how the functionality of FF Online) You have the capability of doing level 30+ questing and then help a friends alt in the Wailing Caves at level 12 without missing a beat. Its also handy that you (the Mentor) can grey out all the mobs until you get to the boss and then turn on mentoring to activate the brawl (getting pretty good at casting my buffs before all battles).
They just introduced mail which is a fairly well thought out system utilizing mail kiosks around town (FP or Queynos).
The Quests are all new again any time I have the desire to clear out a few lowbee quests I just find a lowbee group and the rest is history, what was old is new again and replayable and both parties (Mentor and mentored) get a benefit.
My 2cp
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