Dragons of Norrath Preview
by Loral on February 10, 2005
Dragons of Norrath, the ninth Everquest expansion in six years, brings together the best elements of previous expansions and story lines into a single package. With features such as plot-driven single group missions, high end dragon raids, instanced guild halls, point-based equipment progression, and very useful user interface enhancements, Dragons of Norrath may prove to be the strongest of the nine Everquest expansions.
Back in May of last year, I wrote an article for the guild summit pompously entitled Loral's Evil Agenda. In it I brought suggestions based on my experiences and views for ways to improve Everquest in the future. I included seven main points I wanted addressed. Dragons of Norrath meets four of these seven items including increased single-group content, alternatives for corpse recovery, higher end point-based loot, and more Lost Dungeon style content. The other three have since become obsolete.
During the Summit I mentioned over and over how much I enjoyed Lost Dungeons of Norrath and how much I wanted to see a Lost Dungeons 2. Dragons of Norrath is as close as I could possibly expect. Dragons of Norrath is my Lost Dungeons 2, but it also answers many of the problems mentioned by the critics of the original Lost Dungeons expansion including cookie-cutter adventure types and a lack of good raid content.
For many, the guild hall alone is reason enough to buy this expansion. Each member of a guild, large or small, will have access to the instanced guild hall. The hall contains a teleporter to many known wizard locations for a hefty fee, a mana and hitpoint regenerating jacuzzi, a normal bank, a new guild bank that allows guild members to deposit items now available to other guild members, and a full set of tradeskill devices.
A non-instanced guild lobby leads to to the guild halls from the Plane of Knowledge. The lobby is available to all Dragons of Norrath purchasers whether in a guild or not. The Lobby contains the corpse summoners who, for a fee, will summon ressable bodies from anywhere in the game. This lobby also contains the "Guild Looking for Player" and "Player Looking for Guild" bulletin boards.
Dragons includes three new user interface enhancements: a weapon bandoleer, a potion bag, and a new in-game atlas. The bandoleer allows all players to swap between four sets of main, secondary, ranged, and ammo items. The potion bag lets players quickly activate potions without having to open up inventory bags. One nice feature of the potion bag is that it records the total number of potions of each type whether they stack or not. Drag a single invisibility potion over the potion box and all nine that you hold in inventory slots will appear. The atlas helps tie together the world for newer players. Players can click down from a game-wide map to individual continent maps, to zone-connection maps, and finally to the original Ykesha vertex-based maps.
I was happy to recently learn that the whispered in-game email system will be available to all players whether they purchase Dragons of Norrath or not. This email system will allow players to send messages to players not currently online. Future capabilities may include an ability to forward in-game messages to an out-of-game email address. This, along with the guild bulletin board feature, will help some guilds streamline their recruitment processes not to mention the general convenience of sending messages to off-line players.
The high-end cap on tradeskills will now increase to 300 along with a whole new variety of high skill tradeskill items. Rumors whisper of new cultural armor with very nice statistics and a new form of tradeskill augment along with its own specialized slot. Hopefully this increased skill cap will help players make the high powered, very high cost augments we began to see in Omens of War.
The mission system may be one of the most exciting innovations in Everquest since the original Lost Dungeon adventures. These story-based events take a group of players through a 60 to 90 minute mission. Unlike LDON's typical four adventure types, each of these missions is hand-made. Adventuring groups will plant bombs, rescue dragon eggs, attempt to forge or break alliances with goblin tribes, or investigate the tainting of ancient dragon nests. These missions take place across five zones starting at level 50 and working up to 70. Each mission has only one difficulty, but depending on the mission location, the missions scale up to Riftseeker-level difficulties.
Mission masters reward successful adventurers with shards, an in-game point metaphor that can be used for the purchase of new equipment or powerful augments. The highest power of these new items is a step up from the top-end LDON loot including augments with level 5 focus effects for nearly every focus type.
For the high-end raiders, Dragons contains the types of encounters that got most people raiding in the first place: dragons. Raid encounters include both overland and instanced raids including events beyond Anguish in difficulty. Raid content is hard to accurately review before an expansion comes but the dragon raids look to be a lot of fun.
Missions and dragon raids aren't the only content one will find in Dragons of Norrath. Like the last two expansions, Dragons of Norrath includes traditional overland zones full of some very impressive locations and dangerous beasts.
The dungeons in Dragons serve two purposes. One can enter a larger non-instanced version of a dungeon such as Lavaspinner's Lair and go on a traditional dungeon hunt, but Missions use an instanced part of that same dungeon. Certain passageways become unaccessible when working on the instanced mission version of a dungeon which keeps adventurers focused on the task at hand. This lets players choose whether they want to do the fast action mission or a more traditional longer dungeon crawl of the same dungeon.
The graphics of Dragons of Norrath continue to improve. Torchlight shines off of the hard shell backs of huge spiders. Lava flows down the scorched rock of the jagged teeth of the Broodlands. Ancient animated statues twist their stone heads to gaze over a land they have protected for thousands of years. The textures, bump-maps, and lighting of Omens continues to improve and it shows in Dragons.
As much as I gush about the new features and content of Dragons of Norrath, the expansion isn't without problems.
The largest of these problems is the obvious focus on players above level 45. In a new time where Everquest must compete against games six years after its release, SOE must spend what time it can reasonably afford to make the game appeal to a new audience. This drudges up the new question of the year: How can Everquest attract new players? Everyone has ideas, but it is clear that while a new expansion shows how strong this game can be, level 45 content won't attract level 1 players.
Many contend that the game already has an abundance of low level zones. However, zones alone aren't appealing enough to show the potential EQ now offers to higher level players. The rewards in lower-level content become quickly outdated by newer, more powerful, and cheaper gear available in the bazaar.
The mission system offers a huge amount of potential for lower level content. Missions could take younger players into older zones on a variety of new jobs that reward every group member for the work they do with new gear of appropriate power.
The recent revamp of Lavastorm shows how good lower level content can get. Large zones have areas for many level ranges. New improved quests offer updated rewards. Zone-based taskmasters offer experience rewards on top of the work of a typical experience hunt. While the cost of such a revamp is high, it is revamps like this that can offer enough exciting content at lower levels to compete with games like Everquest 2 and Worlds of Warcraft.
Level limit aside, Dragons of Norrath includes an abundance of content and features that take many of the best technological and game design concepts from previous expansions and weave them together into what may turn out to be the greatest of Everquest expansions. While it is impossible to fully review an expansion with months, perhaps years, of content in only a few days, I have little doubt that this expansion will be well worth the $30. I can't wait to dig in.
Below are screenshots I took during my guided tour of the Dragons of Norrath expansion:
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 11, 2005 12:29 AM
Yes the Mission system looks good.
I am very annoyed the Entrance area of Guildhalls isnt avaialable to anyone and not just those that purchase this expansion. POK population will be split fairly badly by this.
I agree that more needs to be done about the population issue, /lfg in other expansions will be pretty hard after half the players move to DON and there are no newbies moving up through older content.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Rthen on February 11, 2005 01:03 AM
I quit EQ1 around 6 months ago and I'm not goign to go back for this or any other expansion for 1 simple reason: Finding groups became impossible, finding a stable guild became impossible, and just about all my pals left the game.
The game requires a large population per server to play proerly and the numbers required for this are just not there. Why would anyone in their right mind ewaste more time on the game if there is hardly anyone left to play with?
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 11, 2005 02:06 AM
A fair number of servers actually appear to have good pop although timezones can be an issue even on them. so its situational, but yes its a problem on many servers.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 11, 2005 05:18 AM
Why can't they just make the new map system available to everyone instead of expansion buyers only? The same could even be said of the other new features. I believe expansions should expand the game, as in adding new levels, AAs, spells and zones. I don't like the idea of trying sell expansions by adding features that make life easier for people and should be added for everyone. Yes I know this is the way they have done it for a long time and eventually some of those features are available to everyone, like a year later, but it's still rubs me the wrong way.
"This drudges up the new question of the year: How can Everquest attract new players?"
This is hardly a "new question" as people have been talking about this for a long time. The answer is it can't unless they completely overhauled the entire game, which they aren't going to do because they already did it, aka Everquest 2. The real question is "how can Everquest attract some of the old players who quit to come back, or keep more people from quitting?" Making a quality expansion can help. It remains to be seen whether DoN will be quality or not when it actually goes live, not based on what it is in beta. Adding new features and making them available to everyone could also help. Lowering the price of an EQ subscription could help, and I think is in reality the best way to bring people back. Otherwise there really is no reason to return to EQ because so much of what is in EQ now can be gotten in other games and with better graphics/sound. The fact is the newer games are much more user friendly, do a good job of appealing to a wider audience of players, plus are just plain more modern.
I do not plan on returning to EQ because of this expansion but I will find it interesting to see comments from everyone on whether it is good or not. It seems with OOW that SoE had gotten their act together and delayed it to make it a quality expansion so maybe that's a sign of something positive.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 11, 2005 07:02 AM
"I quit EQ1 around 6 months ago and I'm not goign to go back for this or any other expansion for 1 simple reason: Finding groups became impossible, finding a stable guild became impossible, and just about all my pals left the game."
This is why I am excited about the Mission system, the guild bulletin boards, and the guild hall. The easiest time I had finding groups was when LDON came out. Groups formed quickly and got into the action quickly. When they broke up after an adventure, it wasn't tough getting into another group. The large amount of short duration single group missions will hopefully help people find groups.
With the guild hall, most people will want to be guilded. This is the first in-game feature that specifically targets guilds. It offers many unique features to those who are guilded. The "Looking for Guild" and "Guild Looking for Players" helps connect the right people to the right guild without having to use word of mouth or message forums that many players do not see or use. Hopefully these features help rebuild guilds back to their former state.
Lastly, Robert Pfister stated pretty clearly in his last EQ State of the Game note that should this expansion not help increase the population, they will consider consolidating servers. The recent Zek consolidation seems to have gone well and considering the rule-set change, people weren't all expected to be happy. Consolidating these four servers brought over 400 people to Knowledge on the first few nights.
We'll have to see over the next few weeks, but I can't think of much more SOE could do to help bring players back to the game beyond what this expansion offers. It looks really good.
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 11, 2005 09:15 AM
LDON's groups werent quick to form, it took typically an hour to get started, once we got going we could do several back to back if no one left.
If someone left it could take a while to replace the healer/slower etc. As a Paladin once my Pacify became useless gettin a group outside my guild became more difficult, as a Cleric I doubt you would have had problem Loral.
Of course these issues were the same with any groups regardless of LDON or not.
Whats left of my Guild is having the vital classes cherry picked by whats left of the raiding guilds in my timezone, if the Missions require balanced groups then we are out of luck.
People who want to be Guilded already are. They may wish to swap Guilds, and thats another matter. POK pop will plummet with those with the expansion in Guildhalls, no more MGB's and social interaction or at least whats left of it.
There are good aspects to this expansion if lag and frequent patches dont destroy playability, the last thing they need is to drive people away with an undertested expansion. This isnt OoW they RUSHED this in without much testing.
Population issues is making it difficult for my Guild to play in OoW, the same issues will make it difficult in DoN.
I am glad they are considerring server mergers after DoN, this is the first ray of hope I have seen in a while.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 11, 2005 09:19 AM
PS a lot of people are hanging back deciding on whether to renew their accounts, this will split the population between those within DON and those without. This has always happened with expansions, it just matters more now.
My Guild will have to do conventional CR's for people who cant access the alter, since Sony made the very stupid decision to limit the Guild atrium to DON holders only. so no bet benefit to us of the altar existing.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: crimsonsplat on February 11, 2005 10:38 AM
Didn't buy OOW, not buying DON. Fix enchanters because I'm not spending $30 to stand in the guild lobby casting c3 for hire because my class is less useful in an adventure than a zerker's DPS. For that matter, fix the population issue by drawing new players into the game. Server consolidation is just a stopgap.
You can't draw new players in without revamping content that was designed seven years ago. No one buying an MMORPG for the first time is going to be impressed by 2D trees, polygonal hills, and obvious texture boundries.
Like I said yesterday. If only they had half the balls & brains of the SWG design team, they might come up with something.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on February 11, 2005 12:30 PM
It appears that SOE has made a business decision to focus on reducing the number of subscribers it loses from EQ, not trying to gain new subscribers. Perhaps they don't want to compete with EQ2, perhaps they just don't think they could bring in many people no matter what they did. I think it's a reasonable decision, though naturally EQ players would prefer that SOE put unlimited resources into the game and do everything.
Given that reality, what SOE needs to hear most is what will keep current players playing. In other words, forget about those hypthetical new players and tell them what you yourself want! (Don't be short-sighted though--you might just get it.)
DoN sounds like a good expansion. Maybe as much fun as WoW. Of course "as much as" won't get people to come back, but if it keeps people from leaving that will be a significant achievement.
Comment Posted by: Barabasxev on February 11, 2005 01:41 PM
I agree with the above, they need to draw old players back to the game, the problem i see is, there not going to be able to do this by adding a new expantion, with better gear and spell i think they need to shake it up a bit, and add duel classing to the game, your 2nd class, could have a cap at 50th level, granted a few things would have to be reworked one of which complete heal ( for this, it should be made into a line of slow casting high healing spells, so the one you get at 39th might be a 9sec cast 4k heal, but the one at 70th could be a 9sec cast 12k heal).
I really dont see how thos could imbalance the game ether, lets say, my 70th necro duel classed as a warrior, each level i make i gain the difference between the 2 classes in HP,mana, and attk, i could ofcourse duel weild and use swords, what keeps this in check is, there's nothing I could use as a 50th warrior, thats as good as the gear i have now, my hp's and AC would both go up a couple hundred.
At level 70 you become a transendant, meaning, by this point in the game youve killed gods, perhaps learnt some from them, and are no longer bound by the rules of mortal men, this would allow you to duel cass a class not normally allowed to your race, ( exceptions being an SK could not duel as a paladin, or ogre as a monk).
This would open up sooo many doors for new fun, a warrior that dueled as a cleric, could then halfass solo once he reaches 50th, a mage that duels as a shaman or necro, could solo better also.
Also, and i think this would help the game moreso than anything else, would to ether boost group size, or change the amount of xp in small raids (7-9 people) theres nothing worse than logging in and not able to get an xp group, as it stands now, a 6man group will net 20X the xp of a 7man raid, they could code this in a way where events ment for 6 people would still only allow 6 people into the event.
Comment Posted by: Zarquon on February 11, 2005 01:50 PM
I still want a new server with just the base game, Ruins of Kunark, and Scars of Velious...
Comment Posted by: The Perculator on February 11, 2005 02:30 PM
Well, what Baraba has described sounds too much like a different game, though it does sound fun. When I hear questions about bringing in new players I find myself thinking of two things: 1. how I could really use some nachos right now and 2. what brought me into the game. The later is rather difficult. I started playing once Kunark started. It was a lot of fun, but it was expensive for me at the time and I didn't know anyone else who played. I then quit and came back a little before Luclin. I now knew of some people that did play and that helped a lot. But what kept me going were the changes being made. I think the lower end game has not been "revamped" like some of the more high level content. However, it's now easier than ever to get a character to the 40s and 50s where you can go to so many fun places including new expansions.
Heck, I still love making toons and taking them to 30 or so, just to see other newbie zones and how others in the past have started their characters. With a few more bells and whistles, like graphics, communication, and movement improvements, I think that eq will still be bringing in more people to play. I still have a blast playing and I'm sure if others give it a try, they'll see the same. SOE will advertise a few months free or something and flash a lot of new neato and rad graphics and get some people in the game. On our side, we can also help this along by grabbing these people, getting to know them, and helping them understand the game. (and keep them away from the "I'm retired, this game suxxors, u lamo." type people) I still don't understand them and prolly never will. If I do ever stop playing, I'm sure not going to waste my time complaining about a game I don't play and poking fun at those who still do. There are too many nachos out there for that.
Comment Posted by: Thran on February 11, 2005 02:33 PM
I am very surprised to see such negative comments. This expansion seem to me a direct response to many wants and needs. I do agree LDoN really braught the server togther with uber guilded people grouping with bazaar built casual players. I hope this expansion will do the same. Server consolidation is probably inevitable as popluations decline. EQ 1 has been here for 6 years, how many other MMorpgs can or ever came this far. none, so kudos to the EQ team. I have been playing for 6 years and I have seen people complain since day one and sya they are leaving for everything from Asherons call to most recently Worlds of warcraft. The bottom line is if EQ keep improving people will stay. I have some suggestions for server mergers.
Distribute the levels more evenly. It wont do any good to have 95% of the population over 60. I know this wil upset people who plan on powerleveling their characters with their 70 druid, but so what poweveling take away from the game experience anyway. It might be prudent to create servers and move peopel accordingly by their level. Suchs as a newby servers where initial population is 1-20, middle class 21- 40,
, higher end 41- 70. The main reason that i do not play my lower level characters is ( at least on my server) there are rarely any players lfg from 1- 50 and 50- 65 isnt not that much better. right now the game seems to be race ( powerlevel, grind) to 65 and then play from 65- 70 to get loot and flags etc.. It also may be prudent to set up those servers to accomodate the levels. if 99% of the active players are over 60 , lets put some content that they can have fun with in the old newby levels. maybe just a mob or two. LDON and the new epic fights broaugh people back to older zones such as oasis who hadnt been there in maybe years. putting a a few level 60-70 mobs in some of the older zones would help possibly.
Another idea I had was a Group making tool. One in which when you logged you coudl enter a queu under a a archytype ( such as tank,DPS, healer or utility) and wait till a full group was assembled. this woudl be in reverse of how it is done now and would allow some of the less desrable classes a chance to get groups easier as well. You could put it in POK and then give a mission when group becomes full.
Comment Posted by: on February 11, 2005 03:18 PM
Loral said, 'Many contend that the game already has an abundance of low level zones. However, zones alone aren't appealing enough to show the potential EQ now offers to higher level players. The rewards in lower-level content become quickly outdated by newer, more powerful, and cheaper gear available in the bazaar.'
This is a primary factor in the drive for players to advance to the 'end game' as fast as possible, to shorten the time spent on 'obsolete' content (items/zones/whatever).
This is a PLAYER PROBLEM, not a game problem.
If players focused more on the journey than the destination, they would probably be more happy.
Of course the players that do that now are so few, they are (or were) stuck in the situation of insufficient support to actually use alot of the content designed for them. (meaning low populations at the low/mid levels)
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on February 11, 2005 04:39 PM
The current only viable option they'd have is a common low level server till maybe 60 and then branch out to whichever server they wish. For new players. For alts people will do whatever they want anyway.
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 11, 2005 07:30 PM
Concerning what Barabasxev mentioned about duel classing that is how it works in Final Fantasy XI and to tell the truth I wouldn't want to see that copied in EQ or any game for that matter. I wasn't impressed with FFXI at all and found the game to be too constricting, slow and with a horrible UI. It's like the devs there had in mind a certain way they want people to play the game and designed it in such a way to make sure people only play that way, like control freaks. I wouldn't copy much of anything from FFXI into EQ.
I disagree that the new expansion won't bring back people to EQ because it seems people have always returned to check out the new expansions. Although I have a feeling it will be less this time some will return. The question is how long will they stay back and the answer probably is not long. The problem is the newer games just look and play so much better that when people come back to EQ it will look bad by comparison if they have bene playing a newer game in recent months. There really is nothing that can be done about this because time has passed EQ by. If you read Smedly's letter that was posted today it seems he also is admitting EQ's better days are behind and they are more concerned with the future with new games. His letter can be seen here:
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Crier&message.id=80
Comment Posted by: danille on February 11, 2005 08:50 PM
Thank you SoE! You listened to what the players asked for and make the adjustments we wanted. This makes 2 fantastic expansions in a row and I am impressed. So much enjoyment, simply months and months of fun for the cost of one expansion $24.99 (download) is the same price as one tank of gas for your automobile.
This game is priceless!
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on February 12, 2005 12:32 AM
Was that sarcasm? Or are you serious? I guess with all the rampant SOE hate around, I find it hard to believe anyone other than me could be that happy with an expansion.
I am very happy with the mission system, among other things.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on February 12, 2005 12:39 AM
One other thing I quite liked that I forgot to mention, is quests can be found in unexpected places.
I was fighting random trash mobs in Broodlands, and a spider I killed dropped an item called Coin of [some dragon]. I forgot the name, unfortunately. Well, I looted it, since I had no reason not to. However, the item did not appear in my inventory. Instead, a little window like the ones in the tutorial popped up and told me about [aforementioned dragon] and her journey. (I don't know if there was a voice or not, as I had my sound off at the time. People sleeping a room or two away.) It then asked if I wished to follow in the footsteps of said dragon, retracing her journey or something to that effect. When I said yes, a new quest was added to my task window. I thought it was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I promptly got wasted, lost my level and decided to re-betabuff, so I don't know how the story ends, but I thought it was a pretty cool way to start a quest. A nice change from:
You say, "Hail, Quest_NPC_653"
Quest_NPC_653 says, "Hello, Maitreya. Would you like to help me with a [dragon problem]."
You say, "What dragon problem?"
Quest_NPC_653 says, "You are not über enough. Come back when you've pwned a few more gnoll pups."
Well, maybe it usually doesn't go quite like that.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 12, 2005 09:41 AM
Yes. SOE now uses the task window for quest, tasks, and missions. You can already see how this works by hailing some of the NPCs in Lavastorm. They give you task-like quests but you can hold more than one. This new system looks a lot like the quest journal in EQ2 and I think it has a lot of potential to add a whole new layer to older content.
I would love to see a sword dropped off of some nasty beast that has its own storyline. When you pick up the sword or activate the quest it walks you through the story of the sword and a task that either improves the sword or gives you some other reward.
You could do a whole "Lord of the Rings" style quest with something like this. Evil undead wizard drops a black orb of nastyness, your job is to take it to some faraway place and destroy it.
There is a lot of potential here.
Comment Posted by: on February 12, 2005 12:36 PM
How about telling people about the lag? It is horrid in Lavastorm with no one there and running a machine that has no problems with EQ2 at high settings.
Besides just another worthless money grab that will be $9.95 in 3 months at your local game seller in the discount bin like all the other EQ crap out there.
Comment Posted by: BigFoot on February 12, 2005 02:30 PM
Do I have to buy a new computer, to keep playing?
I have not played for over to months. I have a 1.2 Ghz duron. I am not even sure I want to play anymore. I am geek and EQ was fake social life.
The money was never a real issue. Game play just got so lame. I am lazy geek and just play melee classes. I am not sure I want to play EQ any more the game was borken to me. The fun was always with the group and the social skills in game. A fake world with real friends, that is what I miss. Things can get broken up in a fake world to that why I left.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 12, 2005 03:03 PM
If you can run EQ2 fine but lavastorm lags, there is something wrong. The system specs and technology haven't changed since Omens.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on February 12, 2005 03:34 PM
I cannot run EQ2 on my comp, but I have no trouble with the new zones. The only time I ever had lag was around the piles of corpses in Broodlands, and even then it wasn't too bad. Better than the lag around the corpse piles in Oasis back in the day. For me, at least.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on February 13, 2005 03:10 AM
I get heavy lag in Lavastorm and DoN. Its nearly impossible to play in some DoN zones.
SOE needs to address this issue before any other. Its driving ppl away. No one likes to play when it feels like they are swimming in quicksand.
BTW, I run a new AMD 64 and a Radeon 9800 256 card, and it lags like crazy on a box with only EQ loaded on it.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on February 13, 2005 08:37 AM
"SOE needs to address this issue before any other. Its driving ppl away. No one likes to play when it feels like they are swimming in quicksand."
Keep in mind, lag on beta != lag on live servers.
Comment Posted by: Bobbarino on February 13, 2005 09:17 AM
[comment removed. Please avoid personal attacks and try to stay constructive. Contact loral@loralciriclight.com for more information.]
Comment Posted by: Beeshnaut on February 13, 2005 10:38 AM
Simply put I quit EQ, EQ2,and SWG not due to lack of content, but lack of any chance to solo play. I spent 5 years sending emails trying to get Sony to fix problem which were in nearly all cases ignored. Swg went the way of extinct species when they chose to revamp the toon I was playing and took away abilities I had spent weeks learning and began forcing folk to try and become Jedi, which I had no desire to become. Simply put the "new" expansion looks suspiciously like the game I have opted to play and have been since it came out. Last issue for me is the SOLO GROUP, still trying to force the group thing on folk even though groups arent available most of the time, unlikely this will bring people back to the game.
Comment Posted by: on February 13, 2005 01:05 PM
The lag I mentioned above in Lavastorm is on The Seventh Hammer so it is a live server. Same problem on Zek and Fironia vie.
The zone is a lag fest with the new graphics plain and simple.
I am sure that many of you won't realize it since you have never played a game without lag and are used to the craptastic graphics engine in EQ.
Comment Posted by: Dunshar_Veeshan on February 14, 2005 12:37 AM
After reading everything I can find about DoN I can only say the map feature sound interesting but thats all and its not enought to make me buy this expansion. My reasoning comes from the fact that possibly I'm 1 of the last of my kind a die hard soloer (1-59 np). So EQ's meant to be a group game big deal i dont group this expansions offers nothing to me and those like me) I want. Its becomming hard to keep interest in EQ unless you do what everyone else does EQ doesn't support you.
Comment Posted by: Velox on February 14, 2005 02:21 AM
I think they would do well to conjure up new server configurations. The prior persons idea of just the Basic/Kunark and Velious worlds would suit me fine. Or perhaps a server that allows access to all these LDON instanced zones. And any other rules they could come up with. The RP servers were fun especially the languae barrier. Redoing the graphics woudl be cool or just adding a sprinking of voice through the old lands. A better quest and tradeskill interface. A lot of the epxerience can be changed with small aesthetic and intelligent changes This alone would make the game more interesting to me than more of the same expansion stuff. The ability to play an Orc who obviously would be Kos to players.. I can think em up for hours ;)
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on February 14, 2005 02:56 AM
I still would very much like to see a server that brought back the old Project M rules.
I agree, voices would be neat. The only mobs I can think of that actually speak are the beggars in Qeynos catacombs: "Might I have some copper please?" I think adding voices for mobs would be pretty cool.
In other news: I discovered something that I found pretty cool in Lavastorm today. Near the Norrath's Keepers camp there were containers called "a pulsating drake egg." When opened, they hatched. The egg would pop open and a drakeling would appear. They were white at 65. Not sure if they're always 65 (doesn't seem likely for a drakeLING) or if they're just the level of the hatcher. I thought it was neat easter egg, no pun intended. This was on beta, not sure if it's live. Maybe I'll go check . . . sometime.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on February 14, 2005 02:03 PM
This is to Wombat. You had made comments about how the large raiding guilds were pulling in and picking people out of the family guilds, and how it has happened to your's. Well it has happened to my guild. In the last week my guild has been picked over completely. Our only hope is that we are able to keep at least 10 members so that it will not be deleted.
I hope that the Expansion DoN with the guild halls and the ability to advertise there, will pull in more people that want a family guild over a raiding guild. Otherwise our guild like many others will dissapear into EQ History.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on February 14, 2005 03:02 PM
A suggestion for Solistic:
If people left on good terms, see if they'd be willing to leave an alt in the guild. The raiding guild that lured them away probably doesn't want alts anyway, but it will count for your ten-person minimum. It will also keep a tie going between them and your guild. Some of them may burn out on raiding and want to come back.
And do try to keep things on good terms. These people were your friends, even if they've decided they want to raid now. I know it's easy to feel betrayed, but try not to take it personally.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on February 14, 2005 06:08 PM
Thank you Teremar, I will do that, they are friends and would hate to loose that friendship.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 14, 2005 06:19 PM
Teremar, we do that with our family guild and it helps a lot. Last night we re-invited an older member who returned from his great wars abroad with a powerful guild.
Personally, I hope the guild hall, the Looking for Guild and Looking for Player system, and the missions will help people be more comfortable in family guilds their entire careers rather than feeling like the only way to progress is to raid.
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 14, 2005 09:33 PM
Hmm its a sad business. formerly the Raiding Guilds had such high entry requirements none of my Guild qualified (you needed all PoP flags etc).
Now they will take anyone 65+, they have skimmed the critical classes such as Clerics.
In many cases people wont join them because they are in a family guildbecause of time constraints and that will bite even if they join. The problem with lower numbers or no critcal classes the family guild they left may not be there for them to come back to.
We have had cases where people have left and come back because they couldnt do the long raids or be there all the time, at the start times laid down.
I have seen cases that when people wanted to return their old guild had disbanded or was so weak it wasnt worth coming back to if you wanted grouping opportunities. Those people then left the game.
When populations were high, ebb and flow didnt affect critical mass, now it does.
The raiding guilds find a cleric with 50 AA and sub EP gear needs gearing up and more AA's, this takes time so they try and get more clerics to make up in numbers what they dont have in quality. This further increases the drain on family guilds.
Social networks keep people playing EQ1 for as long as they do, when they are destroyed, people leave.
Hands up those who think DoN will get new players into EQ1?
Sony has said they will look at population issues after DoN, how LONG after DoN? Will they look at new accounts or old ones reactivated for a month to look at the new zones? The ones temporarilly returning will find the structure they want to return to, gone.
Newly returned character /LFG!! My Guild did a 2 group raid in Burundi for Cleric 1.5. There was a 65 Paladin 11khp /LFG for half an hour there until we told him the zone contained only us. He had just returned and went to his old /lfg spots, all empty.... His guild was gone and he didnt have OoW, he couldnt solo, his friends list was useless, so he had spent a week trying /lfg with hardly any success. This was Lunchtime USA EST.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on February 15, 2005 04:35 AM
Wombat, you could have said the same of people not having POP when it came and Im sure it will be quickly the same with people not having DoN.
If you are so far back that don't have the current expansion, you're out of luck of course.
The problem is not the game, it's the paladin.
Comment Posted by: Bearage on February 15, 2005 08:21 AM
DON will probably bring back a lot of members who have not actually had their accounts expire yet. The curiosity will make them. However, they will return for a few days - maybe a week - hell if they're still in a guild capable of raiding maybe they will kill a few mobs - given the excitement of racing/head stomping other guilds - however it wont last. Once they experience the old EQ symantics about needed classes, needed keys/flags (if any?), population, peak/non peak times, camps, spawns etc etc then I'm sure they'll /q.
EQ wont bring back players because:
1. Retailers don't sell EQ1.
2. Sony do not advertise EQ1.
3. If for some reason a player was going to mail order EQ1 from whatever source (Amazon/EB etc) then they'll probably find out their is an EQ2 and naturally NOT buy EQ1. Who the hell wants to buy a game that has been superceded by another wither more features and better graphics?
The only thing you can do is try to get the players that were heavy EQ1 players back from their new MMOs. Sony obviously don't want EQ2 players going back to 1 so their only option is to mimic WoW and other MMOs features to try to get their EQ player bases back into EQ1. Bleh - tough job. The EQ1 dev team are in a job with no career prospects.
If they want EQ1 to still able to hit the content I suggest they allow critical functions such as (CH, Def Disc, Resist buffing) to be spread out among a number of classes. It is kind of similiar to what someone said about SHM Mages and War CLRs earlier - only not so bold. Guild and Raid Leaders will appreciate how shafted you are when you dont have '4 clerics' or 2 warriors or a Bard. One step to allowing groups and raids to continue with reduced population is probably to give the full CH to 3-4 more classes, the BARD grp/AE resist buffs to 3-4 more classes and finally allow 3-4 more 'plate tanks' to actually tank huge hitting mobs.
Bearage.
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 15, 2005 09:09 AM
LOL give CH to other classes? I can see the wailing from clerics all over EQ now. Heck they did it when druids and shamans were given their supposed CH (as if a 2000 and 3000 HP heal is a CH). The sky is falling mentality reigned supreme then as clerics claimed their role was being taken away, and it would be even worse if other classes got a real CH. Honestly though I think that would be hilarious and in a way a good idea because clerics have dominated EQ as the number 1 needed class in the game since day 1.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on February 15, 2005 09:12 AM
To reply to the previous poster:
On the contrary for some time DoN will be a problem. Those who bought will xp there and those who haven't and won't will find even less people to play with and possibly play less or just turn casual and vanish. For the guild features to have some real use, you need the whole guild to have DoN which might not be so easy to make it happen with WoW having just opened in Europe too.
I doubt there will be much racing between guilds with so much instanced content since GoD.
Comment Posted by: Zmatil on February 15, 2005 09:37 AM
Before Luclin teh traditional meeting place on most servers was the east commonland tunnel.
After Luclin the main meeting place was the Nexus.
When PoP came out the meeting spot changed to the PoK but in deference to the Luclin meeting place most people currently use the grass in front of the Nexus stone for meeting and MGBing.
Now with DoN the meeting place will inevitably move again. The guild lobby is virtually guaranteed to supplant the nexus stone as the main focus of Norrathian life. With buffs suspended while in the lobby, immediate access to private guild quarters and their facilities and the teleporters it takes very little imagination to realise this will be the place of choice for the majority of people to wait while organising a group or raid. By default anyone not having DoN will be excluded from this meeeting place and so it will become an absolute requirement for everyone whether you want the expansion or not.
Just as the EC tunnels is always empty and few groups meet up in the nexus, soon the grass in front of the nexus zone will become quiet and deserted. Just another forgotten memory.
Nexus Stone MGB's R.I.P. Feb 2005
Comment Posted by: on February 15, 2005 10:21 AM
2 hous sitting in POK watchching buff timer tick down. Been LFG and still no tells. Where can a simple rogue go to get xp........no where. If you are uber you may be able to solo some, ok a few, very few places, but if not uber you will loose more xp than you will gain in the attempt when the mobs agro on you. Try a task they say, good idea, except the dungeon where I have to kill 10 mobs to complete the task, agro me 3-4 at a time. The xp I gained for completing the task does not even touch the xp I lost trying to complete the task. So here I sit, preserving the xp I have knowing it will take 2 days to get it back if its lost.......To save this game SOE needs to increase the population. DON will not do this. DON is not for low level players. If SOE wants to help, then decrease mob agro, put temples in all zones where we can pay for healing or buy simple buffs. Make soloing easier and new peeps will come and play. New players get frustrated when they learn they can not do anything, get good items, make good plat,get good xp unless they are grouped, and since there are few low level peeps LFG we ask our selves, why spend the money to sit in POK whatching the buff timer.
Comment Posted by: on February 15, 2005 10:46 AM
I seriously doubt the guild lobby will put much dent in the POK meeting places and mgbs.
Comment Posted by: on February 15, 2005 10:54 AM
i say that everyone should go to another server and start of fresh. it it adds an entirely new twist to the game. basically you wont be able to twink toons so easily from the lack of cash you posess. i have done this recently and i dont even want to go back to the first server i was on. its fun and a challenge. you are not going to be able to tank red cons at lvl 10 because you have a full set of stitched burlap gear and not plate gear. everyone should at least try it and see what happens. the idea of a new server would be awesome, the only problem is getting people to go there. other than that i have no problem with the game.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on February 15, 2005 10:55 AM
Where you mention not much for under 45's in the new expansion, I would say this;
The whole point of the game is to advance, in experience, flags (grrr), gear and levels. I don't think expansions should cater greatly for the low 1 player. It should act as a motivator to get the player up in levels to see the new content. Remember as well that the task system was brought in for lower level players and not for higher. What worries me more is the revamp of zones. Not Lavastorm, they have left this the same level, that I like. Its mistmoore and Paw I wasnt so happy with. I don't think they should have done that, they are not really any good for high end players, the xp sucks, the pathing still sucks, and the content, for the level of the mobs is poor. A better idea maybe would have been a combination of this and the lavastorm idea. Revamp most of the zone at the same level, introduce a new drop or two, for the old level content,FIX THE PATHING, and maybe introduce a ramp up of mob levels up to a raid mob area, giving the lowbies, fair warning the content is getting harder, and giving raider some other choices. Lvl 65-70 dont need a revamped zone to fight in, they still have GoD, and OOW,(PoP and Luclin also for some), as you have said the expansions will take care of them.
As an aside, as SOE have stated they are not going to expand LDoN, I think we should be able to sell our ldon points. I am still plodding on with these to max out my aug charm. At lvl 70 I am pulling in 105 points an adventure. Most of my gear is post ldon now, and I have a growing number of points from these adventures. I would take 1 shard points for 2ldon? Even if this offer was only on for a limited time it would be better than nothing.
Comment Posted by: on February 15, 2005 11:43 AM
Unrelated note: the shaman link on the right is broken. Board is still up at http://forums.interealms.com/shaman/index.php though.
Comment Posted by: on February 15, 2005 12:37 PM
when is the estimated patch time?
Comment Posted by: Keuvan on February 15, 2005 03:06 PM
13 hours. Count on 16 w/multiple mini-patches.
There'll always be someone complaining about anything. Overall this expansion is likely going to be the best since Kunark/Velious. People complaining about LFG for long periods of time - it's been like that since day one. The ability to join/find a guild easier w/this expansion will help that.
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 15, 2005 07:20 PM
"i say that everyone should go to another server and start of fresh. it it adds an entirely new twist to the game."
How can it be an entirely new twist when a person has already done that the first time they started playing? All that really is doing is rehashing being a newbie again, except this time without as many people to group with. This is why not many people do that. You cannot recapture the magic EQ once had just by starting over because it won't be new to you. Really if people want a fresh and new experience the best thing to do is play another, fresher, newer game.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 15, 2005 08:11 PM
It's a much different game now than it once was. With the newbie armor quest, tutorials, and tasks, level 1 to 20 is a much different game and lots of fun. I have two lowbies I started up with recently.
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 15, 2005 11:04 PM
That doesn't make it new or fresh. You still know EQ. You still know how to play the game, what to do, where to go. If you've been playing EQ for years you've likely seen many of the zones or at least are familiar with them through other zones which are similiar. Nothing is going to shock you and make you go wow, well OK maybe if you're a rampant fanboi of EQ anything will do that but not your average person. Sorry but there is no way you will ever capture that same feeling of amazement in EQ that you had when you first started just by starting over again. You can have fun but that's not the same thing. The only real way to get that feeling again is to play something that is actually new and different, and even then many veterns of the genre won't have that same feeling they once had.
Comment Posted by: Seduca on February 16, 2005 04:38 AM
IMO Sony dug itself in a hole when they came out with EQ 2. Because no matter WHAT expansion they come out with now for EQ 1... you already know how its going to end. No matter how cool the next expansion may be, or what they will offer... The moon will still shatter, and the world will still be torn apart, and it eventually leads up to EQ 2, and in the future ( EQ 2) none of your EQ 1 chars are alive, and no one even rememebers them at all in any kind of story lore no matter what you may have achived in EQ.
Maybe this is part of the reason people choose not to play EQ 1.
My suggestion for sony is to make EQ 2 a seprate univerise story line... and just go crazy with EQ 1... I think Sony should make EQ 1 accts free to players who have EQ 2 accts, and vice versa (this will keep a strong flow of new players into both EQ 1 and 2)... and some how tie the story so that these seprate worlds are connected. I think if Sony did the marketing right, and story right.. the games would be a compliment of each other and not a competition of each other.
Im just giving my 2 cents ... i loved EQ 1 ... played it since it came out, but i quit to play EQ 2.
Whats the point of playing EQ 1 at all if you know how its going to end? ... no matter what this or the next expansion brings... you still know what happens in the end.
Just my 2cp ...
~ Sed
Comment Posted by: ironglove on February 16, 2005 04:52 AM
We all know the ending??
We all knew the ending to TITANIC this did not stop millions of peole going to watch it.
Whats your point?
Comment Posted by: on February 16, 2005 06:00 AM
Point is they sealed the coffin on EQ1 brining out EQ2.
This latest expansion is just another cheap knock up expansion in the same category as LDoN and LoY. Large scale well thought out expansions include Velious, Luclin and PoP. LDON, LOY and now DON are just mini expansions with copy and paste dungeons and throw in some guild tools/time savers to get people to buy it.
Man you guys eat and enjoy the same trash Sony keep feeding.
Yeh I bought the expansion because unfortunately unless you want to be left out then you need to - but don't tell me its one of the best - its a time filler - and a cash extraction tool to feed EQ2 developement..
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on February 16, 2005 08:24 AM
The dragon of Lavastorm made me go wow, does that count?
BTW since I'm on it, I wish SoE actually learned to work with terrain textures and reflections the way WoW does.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 16, 2005 09:52 AM
It made me go wow too. I took some screenshots of Tirranun last night:
http://loralciriclight.com/images/
The EQ2 storyline is now a divergent path from EQ1. EQ2's lore mentions nothing of the Muramites or of this recent breeching of the home of the Brood. Since Plane of Time, the two stories are in separate worlds. The fate of Norrath in EQ2 is not OUR fate. That is not our end. Still, I think it was a mistake to make our world blow up as the main plot line of EQ2.
"Man you guys eat and enjoy the same trash Sony keep feeding.
Yeh I bought the expansion because unfortunately unless you want to be left out then you need to"
Thats so awesome. How often can you see hypocracy so blatantly obvious?
Pants, I've played for just about six years now and there are still many lands I have hardly explored. A few weeks ago my guild leader took a few of us on a zone exploration of Luclin. There were caves underneath Hollowshade I never knew existed. There is so much content available now that no one person can ever really hunt in all of it. You could start four new characters and get them to 50 without ever going to the same zones.
Of course, if people aren't having fun than they very well should try another game. Everything I see in EQ2 and what I hear of WoW tells me that for a $40 investment, they're a pretty good deal.
I'm off to do some missions =)
Comment Posted by: Bearage on February 16, 2005 11:40 AM
'Thats so awesome. How often can you see hypocracy so blatantly obvious?'
Well the hypocracy was intended. What I should have added is that I am part of the same cog/wheel mechanism as you. What I was trying to point out that you love it - where as I am highly critical. You know Loral they'll still send you a plane ticket to next years summit even if you do speak out ! )
Err..but anyway - my point is that the expansion is clearly a copy and paste version of LoY. Take a look at the notice period of say Velious or PoP - months - 5/6 month? Now take a look at the notice period of DoN/LOY- 2 months?
Adding a few guild functions & enchanced task/dlon system for $24 is by far a rip off compared with Velious or PoP which had well thought out zones, mobs, quests and factions.
I am glad you are enjoying life at 50 again in some area you had never seen - but really - you are talking about a few hours of time - not months of content.
Bearage
Comment Posted by: Solistic on February 16, 2005 04:23 PM
Loral states: "There were caves underneath Hollowshade I never knew existed"
Does this mean you have never experienced the Hollowshade Wars.
I have always had complaints about Luclin, but never about the content. A prime example is the Hollowshade Wars. I seems to run on a continuous basis, even though it is triggerred. The script that is going on all the time in the back ground and the fighting of the four sepparate factions is awesome. I have helped complete or completed the war many times, taking a different side each time. I realize that this is a quest, but it was so well thought out. Yes the tunnels in Hollowshade are great. So are the tunnels under Shadeweaver's Thicket.
I have explored a lot in EQ but I can always find something or someplace I have never seen before.
Comment Posted by: Mr Angry on February 16, 2005 04:31 PM
To be honest I have a grievance following the release of the latest expansion - Dragons of Norrath.
While the previous expansions gave extra content to those who wished and could afford to purchase them the introduction of this latest expansion excludes those who are unable to purchase it from normal guild activities assuming that the guild decides to use the new functionality - Which in most cases I am sure they will.
How can the introduction of facilities that split guilds in 2 depending on real life financial ability enhance the game for anyone?
I really do feel very angry that we have been forced into this position having invested so much time and money in the game over the years.
Comment Posted by: Jaguwar on February 16, 2005 06:05 PM
I have not seen specific reference to Solo exp.
One thing I really like about EQ2 is I can log on anytime I want and consistenly get 10-12% of a level per hour with a Paladin. this rate has remained constant from teens to level 33.
Soloing right now just fits my time schedule. If this expansion allowed me to average 10% of a level (my current level 65) in an hour, I would probably come back to the game as it is now I just do not have the motivation to LFG LFG LFG and grind out 4 more levels.
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 16, 2005 07:05 PM
"While the previous expansions gave extra content to those who wished and could afford to purchase them the introduction of this latest expansion excludes those who are unable to purchase it from normal guild activities assuming that the guild decides to use the new functionality - Which in most cases I am sure they will"
Besides the guild bank and the corpse summoner, most of the features are nice to have but not necessary for daily guild activity.
It certainly hurts for people who don't have the expansion to miss out on things like the guild halls. I think it was worse when PoP had the raid tool but people.
Really its the same thing if your guild has hunts in zones you don't own. PoP, Luclin, and LDON had a lot of features like that. Some people had them and participated, some didn't.
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 16, 2005 09:25 PM
Yes you can get to 1-50 in 4 different ways.
IF you can solo, otherwise unless you are being PL'd you wont get the groups to do it.
Even 12 months ago my Rogue only made it because he was twinked to the eyebrows as groups were difficult even in KC/DL.
Content is no good if /lfg stops you experiencing it.
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 16, 2005 09:31 PM
Btw the Player Conference is USA only, its very disturbing that not even Canadians or Europeans (cheap to fly over) are invited. Its pretty cheap to fly someone in from Canada or Europe.
I am an Oz player and its expensive to go anywhere from here so I understand anyone from an Oz/Asian timezone being excluded. But why exclude Canadians? They are cuddly and polite, EH! Even Europeans are normally house trained, even the French ;) :P (although the French will run off with the women...)
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Glormane on February 17, 2005 08:51 AM
I only made it only made it on to DoN for an hour before they started the patches. I did like the new guild House, the new maps, and the Bandolier. But the main part of DoN, the new mission system is off line as the NPC's have been withdrawn 'for a while'. Apparently some unscrupulous people have found a way to duplicate crystals, so they have withdrawn the NPCs. I dont know who I am most angry at, the idiots who did it, for spoiling it for the rest of us, how did you not think you would get caught?? Or SOE for their lack of testing.
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 17, 2005 09:21 AM
Apparently if you know something about computer and game code theres certain things you can reliably look for to get around some programming. So the shards were duped.
My question is that if certain people were able to go straight to it and check it, and find the loophole, why couldnt SOE do the same thing and fix it before they started?
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Solistic on February 17, 2005 02:53 PM
I bet their Boss is yelling the exact same question at them. LOL
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 17, 2005 09:02 PM
Actually SOE has had problems for a long time of not properly testing things. It's not just the expansions either, it's their patches too (as any Bard will tell you LOL). Many times there are bugs or unplanned changes on the test server that are reported by people and ignored, then requiring an emergency patch because they didn't read the bug reports. An example of this happened a year or so ago when feign death somehow got changed to instant mem-wipe on the test server. Now FD hasn't been like that in years so many people petitioned it, bug reported it, did feedbacks, posted about it on various forums, basically every reporting method possible. Well apparently noone bothered to read any of these reports and the patch went live with it like that. Then a few days later they do an emergency patch to put FD back the way it was because it wasn't "working as intended." Then when confronted with questions about the situation Absor claimed they received zero bug reports about it and had no idea it was messed up on the test server, and claimed that their bug reporting tool was working properly. So I guess all the people who said they reported it, and posted so while it was still on test are liars according to Absor. That was truly a pathetic situation for SOE.
What I don't understand is if SOE pushed back OOW for 2 months to get it right, and did in fact use the time wisely, why the rush to get DoN out right on their 5-6 months schedule? Why was it in beta for such a short time? Maybe it's back to the same old business with them.
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 17, 2005 09:18 PM
They were rushing to beat WoW european release.
14 people in POK last night at 11am USA EST compared to the usual 35 people, so I would say the guild atriums are effective in removing the prospects of intereaction in POK.
There were a few plaintive souls /lfg looking for buffs around the big bank without luck. On the plus side there was no lag!
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 18, 2005 08:34 AM
Rushing to beat the European release of WoW? Why bother? It didn't hurt WoW sales in Europe one bit. If that's their real reason they better come up with a better plan in the future and worry about maintaining their current playerbase rather than worry about WoW. WoW is a steamroller and nothing can stop it except Blizzard themselves by messing up. Heck even their server problems they've had hasn't hurt them.
By the way I do find it kind of sad how there is such a lack of people around interacting in EQ now. They are further seperating people by continuing to come out with expansions that aren't needed and with features that introduce more instancing. At first I loved LDoN and the whole idea of it but now I'm starting to wonder if it's a mistake to do this every expansion. It's so sad because I remember fondly the days of GFay/ECommons having so many people together, even Bazaar and PoK later on. I don't see how some people can play like it is. On some servers it must get lonely.
Comment Posted by: Melkor on February 18, 2005 08:54 AM
I'm just very curious, has anyone noticed a difference in the overall population for grouping since DoN came out? Not just on Knowledge (Yes, it is a good indicator, or was rather), but rather an amount of people coming and going? With the introduction of the new static and instanced (Are the missions working again after the idiocy?) and the new guild hall, PoK has lost its "center of Norrath" status for now, making the overall population levels rather hard to judge. The only thing that could make me buy this expansion, heck even be mildly interested in it, would be the Missions, and until they're back, well *shrug* that's that I guess. Just kind of looking forward to getting an actual nice set of gear instead of just 6 pieces with 200 some odd wins this time around ^_^ and hey, maybe this one won't go completely obsolete later on.
Beastlord pullin, head for the hills!
Comment Posted by: Horzek on February 18, 2005 03:33 PM
I thought I would drop in and ask you how DoN was doing. Are you having the fun you had hoped for?
I am tempted to drop in and say hello to my guildies and friends this weekend before my subscription expires at the end of the month. Should I bother?
I was hoping to get a report or two back on the missions and what not. I really enjoyed LDoN last year and put in a lot of time, close to 400 ldon runs between my warrior and my cleric. I thoroughly liked the idea of being able to get decent gear and equipment simply by working for it. I know, in some guilds that is a traitorous concept but it worked for me.
I would appreciate a few comments from those who are actually experiencing the new release and how it is effecting the game play for those who dont have it as well as for those that do.
WoW is still pretty fun so I dont know if you can tempt me back too much but after 6 plus years of playing eQ, I still am curious how its all coming together.
Thanks
Horzek
Comment Posted by: Loral on February 19, 2005 07:27 AM
Missions are up and online. Crystals are currently no-drop and mission vendors are down until they fix an exploit, but you can go on missions and earn the crystals in the mean time.
Comment Posted by: Pants on February 20, 2005 09:02 AM
I have been reading various forums and have been seeing a ton of complaints about the new bazaar layout, saying it's confusing and annoying to find traders. Why they had to change it I don't know because it was fine the way it was. The hide traders feature along with turning clipping down to minimum made video lag a non-problem. Quite simply it worked and if it isn't broken don't fix it. None the less though I am curious since and I don't play anymore I can't see it for myself. Can someone explain exactly how it is laid out now and has there been an official reason as to why it was changed?
Comment Posted by: Tolian on February 20, 2005 09:06 AM
The mission system is interesting from what I've seen so far, I've only done a few though so I can't really make a solid opinion on the expansion yet.
It does feel a little small though, with only a handful of zones. I wonder if we will ever see grand expansions similar to Kunark, Velious now that they're churning expansions out every 6 months.
I wish their artists would stop adding shaders to everything they make as well. They could be a bit more subtle with the effects, some of the mobs look a bit too shiny.
I've only met one dragon and he did look very impressive. I do not feel at this stage that this expansion has the compelling depth that Velious did, but time will tell.
Early indications show that it's pretty good.
Comment Posted by: wombat on February 20, 2005 10:00 AM
My EQ1 account expired today. With great regret I am not renewing it unless population improves on my server.
I am playing EQ2 in the meantime as I can always find something to do while /lfg. I was one of the last old timers in my Guild, the remainder are talking of leaving also. No one wants to transfer servers at the current costs. Its as much a morale issue as a cash one. Sony is seen as gouging those being forced to move servers in order to continue to play.
Good luck to those who remain. :D
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Merika Rock on February 20, 2005 07:06 PM
Just to let you know the real life model for the new Dragon of Norrath Cover can be located at www.mrockstyle.com. After you go to that home page, click on portforlio and there she is. (F.Y.I.- her real hair color is brown.)
Comment Posted by: Wombat on February 20, 2005 10:11 PM
Link doesnt work, I get the not found on any of the Google options or using the address you just gave.
Is it a centrefold? :p
Wombat
Comment Posted by: Merika Rock on February 22, 2005 04:14 PM
If this link doesn't work, try copy and pasting the address. www.mrockstyle.com and then look under portfolio.
Comment Posted by: Skeletor on March 6, 2005 04:29 PM
speaking of population, soe needs to allow people to transfer in to FV and allow people to have more then one toon per account. since people only have one toon the low lvl population is horrid. you can go to PC at times and find it empty. All this before WoW or EQ2 came out. I quit EQ1 for WoW and I must say it is alot more fun. No excessive downtime, no grinding for hours on end. Trade skills aren't to hard. The one thing eq has over wow though is greater playabitity once you hit the cap. In eq you still have AAs you can work on but in wow once your 60 thats it only raiding or ganking. Since I play on PVP.
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