EQ2, who is it for

[Logato]

I've been playing EQ2 beta since late July. Thought I would let you all know who it's for.

EQ2 if for groupers. If you don't want to get into a group of 4 or more people, 99% of the meaningfull content after lvl 20 you will not be able to do.

You make be able to find mobs to solo, but you won't be able to finish class quests, item quests, access quests or even to get into some of the zones.

EQ2 is LESS for soloers and casual players than EQLive. The game is going to have fewer people playing it than SWG, and probably fewer than EQLive also.

[VoS Jamond]

The game is going to have fewer people playing it than SWG, and probably fewer than EQLive also.

So you can see the future?  Wow, must be cool.  And I doubt EQ2 will have fewer people playing it when EQLive is dead in a couple of years. /boggle

[Tukarai]

The game is going to have fewer people playing it than SWG, and probably fewer than EQLive also.

So you can see the future?  Wow, must be cool.  And I doubt EQ2 will have fewer people playing it when EQLive is dead in a couple of years. /boggle

It really has nothing to do with seeing into the future. EQII is a radically "different" game. I played in the beta. I didn't like it. Its not as solo friendly as SOE portrays it to be, nor is it as casual as EQLive and some other games. The depth of the content is severely lacking, as well as the immersion that drew so many to EQLive. I wish SOE luck with it, but I have my own doubts about its long term success.

The quests are nothing more than simple tasks hired out for menial rewards. Kill 10 X-mob and get a shiny piece of silver. Deliver X-supplies to random_npc_23 and get a piece of lowbie armor thats likely crappier than the junk you're wearing. The only "real" quests are the class specific ones.

Combat is horrid and clunky. Every mob employs the same set of scripted AI actions, with little variation or randomness. Linked mobs totally destroy any tactical decisions before the encounter. 4 mobs linked together? No problem, they're all coming. Maximum damage has replaced the need for any real tactics. If you have good gear, you can beat the encounter.

I could see a player reaching max level. Unquestionably. But would they want to do all the same "quests", and kill all the same mobs, for the life of a second character? I doubt it. I definitely wouldn't. I'll likely shelf the game and head for something else. At least until they expand the game. But then i'll only play the expansion out once as well. I still doubt i'd want to do the whole thing again.

I remember players proclaiming the death of EQLive right after RoK hit the shelves. Heh, funny how that worked out eh? :)

[avsfanboi]

Anyone remember when they came out with Ultima online II? It bombed so bad it didnt last 60 days?

Anyways I dont think EQ II will bomb, but I dont think you will see EQLive end in a couple of years. With more and more mmo games coming out, companys will have to lower the expectation for subscriber numbers. They just wont be enough market share for every game. All the games currently on the market(I include WOW and EQII) will lose current subscribers to the "new" game. So basically you will have people play between 100 MMO(within the next 5 years), I think there are about 20-30 currently on the market.It will divide all of the MMO population between alot more games. Except during a release of a new game when their subscriber numbers will be high upon release and level out over time(or the next new hyped release). Anyways I think EQLive will be around for another decade. Utlima online has already been around for 11 years, I am pretty sure. As has been said "Originals always live longer"



EQII is for a different crowd, with the new HO's its much easier to solo. even con solo mobs are easy now. I dont think the game is ready to be released on the Nov 8 date everyone is taking about. People will not be happy some of the problems. However, if people dont mind the current issues and the style of gameplay they will enjoy it. I however will not be playing it since I dont like...


XP Shared debt
Shard recovery
Locked encounters
Merchant/crafting system
plus a number of things, that I wont go into now. Maybe later

No Idea on the high end game since no one has been yet(Raid stuff)
Although this might have changed since I havent"tested"in a couple of weeks.
Needing a high end machine for decent FPS, you can play with a mid machine also. I would highly recommend 1GB Ram for any machine.

The thing I did like were the 2hander animations, very sweet. Bad side..everyone else has them same ones as a monk/brusier.

If anybody is interested in my opinion on this game let me know, I just dont feel like writing a long post unless people are interested.

I am a 43 brusier on the beta 1 server and have been for sometime.

[Logato]

>EQII is for a different crowd, with the new HO's its much easier to solo. even con solo mobs are easy now. I dont think the game is ready to be released on the Nov 8 date everyone is taking about. People will not be happy some of the problems. However, if people dont mind the current issues and the style of gameplay they will enjoy it. I however will not be playing it since I dont like...

This is no longer true. With the recent patch soloing is MUCH harder than it was and is no longer easy and viable. Now it's mind numbing and much fewer mobs exist for it because they've made some of the old soloable content to hard for anything but groups.

[Inunokami]

EQ2, who is is it good for???


Absolutely nothing???


Do I win  a prize? or was that the wrong answer :D ?

[Iskandar]

The quests are nothing more than simple tasks hired out for menial rewards. Kill 10 X-mob and get a shiny piece of silver. Deliver X-supplies to random_npc_23 and get a piece of lowbie armor thats likely crappier than the junk you're wearing. The only "real" quests are the class specific ones.

The same is true of EQLive quests though. Collect some Crushbone Belts, hand them in. Get some cash and cheap armor. Move up to Legionnaire Pads. Same thing. 60 levels later, hand in planar armor, get some gems. And the same is true of quests in other games, too. The only real fundamental difference between any of the quests in any of the different games is how they implement the drops -- in DAoC, one kill got you your quest drop... in EQ, you sometimes have to farm a spot for hours/days... in EQ2, it's a compromise between the two.

Keep in mind too that quests have a color con of their difficulty to your current level. If you're doing a quest for a weapon and the quest cons green or even grey, then yeah, the weapon is likely gonna be useless compared to your current gear. It's Risk vs Reward -- a level 50 EQ2 player doing a quest designed for level 10 players is gonna get a fairly useless reward for himself, just like a level 70 EQLive player doing noobie quests today.

Linked mobs totally destroy any tactical decisions before the encounter. 4 mobs linked together? No problem, they're all coming. Maximum damage has replaced the need for any real tactics. If you have good gear, you can beat the encounter.

A good group still uses tactics. Say, for example, you've got four gnolls, an orange ^^ group. One is a healer, one a caster, and two melee. Just gonna pull em all and hash it out? Nah -- it could work, sure, but it's not gonna be efficient, and there's a good chance you'll lose someone. And I doubt any of us will disagree that shared exp debt sucks :(  The best plan (and I say this because we do it all the time): root one melee, keep him off nice and safe. Engage the healer, burn him down fast so he doesn't keep the other gnolls healed. Then the caster, before he burns your own healers down. Then the two melee, who should both be slowed and dotted at this point. End result: four dead gnolls, and a live group with enough mana to do it again right off the bat. It's similar to the tactics we use now when a pull brings adds, except now they're not adds :P

[Tukarai]

The quests are nothing more than simple tasks hired out for menial rewards. Kill 10 X-mob and get a shiny piece of silver. Deliver X-supplies to random_npc_23 and get a piece of lowbie armor thats likely crappier than the junk you're wearing. The only "real" quests are the class specific ones.

The same is true of EQLive quests though. Collect some Crushbone Belts, hand them in. Get some cash and cheap armor. Move up to Legionnaire Pads. Same thing. 60 levels later, hand in planar armor, get some gems. And the same is true of quests in other games, too. The only real fundamental difference between any of the quests in any of the different games is how they implement the drops -- in DAoC, one kill got you your quest drop... in EQ, you sometimes have to farm a spot for hours/days... in EQ2, it's a compromise between the two.

Keep in mind too that quests have a color con of their difficulty to your current level. If you're doing a quest for a weapon and the quest cons green or even grey, then yeah, the weapon is likely gonna be useless compared to your current gear. It's Risk vs Reward -- a level 50 EQ2 player doing a quest designed for level 10 players is gonna get a fairly useless reward for himself, just like a level 70 EQLive player doing noobie quests today.

Linked mobs totally destroy any tactical decisions before the encounter. 4 mobs linked together? No problem, they're all coming. Maximum damage has replaced the need for any real tactics. If you have good gear, you can beat the encounter.

A good group still uses tactics. Say, for example, you've got four gnolls, an orange ^^ group. One is a healer, one a caster, and two melee. Just gonna pull em all and hash it out? Nah -- it could work, sure, but it's not gonna be efficient, and there's a good chance you'll lose someone. And I doubt any of us will disagree that shared exp debt sucks :(  The best plan (and I say this because we do it all the time): root one melee, keep him off nice and safe. Engage the healer, burn him down fast so he doesn't keep the other gnolls healed. Then the caster, before he burns your own healers down. Then the two melee, who should both be slowed and dotted at this point. End result: four dead gnolls, and a live group with enough mana to do it again right off the bat. It's similar to the tactics we use now when a pull brings adds, except now they're not adds :P

Sorry, but its nothing like EQ's combat system. Pulling is much more tactical than in EQII. The only use for a monks FD is to escape his own death now. No more tactical pulling using the inherent ability of the monk. Same for the cleric WoTing a room full of mobs for the tank to pull one at a time. Or druid HoN. Or a chanters mez. Rangers that can only use thier inherent bowyer skills to pull mobs. After that, they're a melee just like all the others. Combat for dummies is what EQII gives you. Nothing more. Pull a cluster of mobs, hack and slash to the pretty simon lights on the wheel. My kid had great fun. Hes 12.

And you obviously never did the newbie armor quests in Shar Vahl or Freeport. Both of those require tradeskilling the armor pieces yourself. The Crushbone "task" was just that. A simple collect and turn in quest. And the reward for the easy road to level 10 was quite obvious. A piece of crap leather armor for a lousy belt turn in that got you some xp and no skill ups.

The only meaningful quests in EQII are the Hallmark quests. And even those are quite easy. And since the tradeskillers are already whining for superior tradeskilled items, your quested armor, and likely your epic weapon, will be useless by the time the first expansion hits the shelves sometime in mid 2005. So much for compromise. Theyre making the same mistakes they made in EQ. And some new ones as well. I think i'm probably gonna bust a gut if SOE limits the number of characters to 4 per account. Another issue they're being tight lipped about while the beta players are freaking out about it.

And 32 classes? LOL Thats the clincher for me. Theres 4 classes with 4 versions of each that vary by miniscule amounts. And the only difference between the archetypes of each class is a good and evil version of each.  The difference between a warden and a fury? One is good, one is evil. With a couple of minor spell differences. Its still just one class no matter how you look at it. A schizophrenic druid. LOL

The voice overs are nice, for about 30 minutes. Then you just GOTTA load up an mp3 player to drown out thier annoyance while running around the cities doing those tasks.

But hey, if you find the game to your liking, and if you think its as immersive, or more immersive than EQ, its your dime. But I think i'll sit this dance out. I could probably tolerate leveling one toon through the game. But a second would be a stretch. Heh, all i'd need is one character slot, and about 6 weeks to get to level 50, then i'd shelf the game. :)

[Iskandar]

Actually, Shar Vahl and Shadeweaver's quest armors were what I wore till the 20's, when I had saved up enough to buy Rockhopper armor. Don't assume things :P

We seem to see the game from two very different perspectives, so arguing about it is kinda like arguing which pie is best, apple or cherry. :) Honestly, it doesn't seem like you spent much time playing around with EQ2 either. Don't like the voice overs? Turn em off in options. Everything can be adjusted there.

If you play EQ2 up into the 20's or 30's, you will see noticeable variations in the classes. Pre-20, yeah, two classes in the same archetype are very similar since they share the same core abilities -- the greater diversity is more noticeable at higher levels, when those initial abilities are upgraded to path-specific abilities. There will be overlap, which is intentional -- just as in EQLive, more than one class can heal, snare, or FD pull. The class designs were a direct result of the dislike current players have for the "holy trinity" of classes and allows players to create a group based on a more diverse set of characters. The difference between the good and evil classes is implementation of the core abilities -- nukes vs dots, lifetaps vs runes, etc.

Combat in EQ2 is more interactive than EQ1. If your 12 year old enjoys it, that's great! Glad to see the kid's having fun, since that's sorta the whole idea behind ANY online game :) EQ2 requires a bit more attention than the current "/autoattack on, go check the fridge" approach in EQLive however. Heroic Opportunities can be a deciding factor in a group's survival on some encounters, so it's important that a group work together to trigger them... and not go /afk to check HBO in mid fight :P  FD pulling works at the high end game, tho not the same as the way it is used in EQLive. Crowd Control is essential on most pulls -- roots, snares, mezzes... same stuff we use today. Or will you just pull a dragon and all his buddies and hack it out? I'd hate to see your shared exp debt :D

Tradeskilled items are supposed to be superior to loot drops and most quest items. That's the whole idea behind the system -- that's why it takes as much time and effort to become a level 50 Artisan as it does a level 50 non-trade class. And the quests will indeed be trivial if they con low enough to you -- they have recommended levels just like mobs do. You can see the con of a quest in your journal or in the name of the quest when it's up in the corner of your screen. It's Risk vs Reward -- you're not gonna get elemental gear by handing in a Crushbone belt after all. Name some pre-50 EQLive quests that you consider meaningful btw -- I'd be interested to see your definition.

I do agree on the 4 toons per account thing tho. That kinda sucks :( Hopefully they'll change that before release (they haven't had an official announcement that 4 is the set number, and they are asking for /feedback on it ingame, so it doesn't seem to be set in stone yet).

[Giledorm]

/puts on his Swami hat

Some of my friends and I were discussing the possible outcome for EQII.  Our prediction is as follows.  EQII will be phenominal out of the gate (as most of the other MMO's have been), but will lose steam quickly.  My guess is it'll last a year, and Sony will take the new stuff from EQII (graphics engine, quest system, etc) and try to put it into an expansion for EQI.  

and now I must rest... Long live Jambi...

/takes off his Swami hat

:)

[Lorathir]

You have a total of four character slots. They can all be on one server or spread across mulitple servers, however you wish.

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=general&message.id=231548&view=by_date_ascending&page=5&no_redir=true

Four charecters per account seems a bit stingy if you ask me. I think we get over 350 in EQ1 right now hehe

[Skanda]

EQ2 review from former EQ2vault writer

Concidering what he says in that article and the topic of this post it holds some incite.

[Tukarai]

EverQuest - $12.99 per month, 8 character slots per server, and the freedom and diversity to play them as you wish.

EverQuest 2 - $14.99 per month, 4 character slots per account, and the freedom and diversity to play them just like everyone else.

Awesome choice!

I think Giledorm's swami hat and crystal ball is likely going to be spot on when it comes to the games lasting appeal. One character, blasting away at all the quests, or at least as many as possible, and leveling to 50. End of game. At least in the "per player" sense. Rehashing all that with a second toon would drive me right off the deep end. I think i'd rather visit my dentist for back to back root canals.

"Noticable variation"? LOL, if it were that great, it would be "obvious difference". Grouping is a joke as well. 2 melee, 2 healers, 2 whatever. Done deal. Go kill stuff. And why should I have to wait until i'm in the twenties and thirties, and bored out of my mind, to see my characters diversity?

"Crowd Control is essential on most pulls -- roots, snares, mezzes... same stuff we use today"

Right, but with a twist. Now, you know "everything" is coming "before the pull". Every single time. So much for the element of surprise. You now know EXACTLY how you will deal with each and every encounter prior to the pull. And it will be the same every time, depending on the group composition. In EQLive, maybe just the pulled mob would come. Or maybe an add or two. Or maybe the entire camp. If you weren't at the top of your game for each pull, you were in for trouble. And the tactics are the same each and every time. You said it yourself, "they're not adds". So much for variation.

"The difference between the good and evil classes is implementation of the core abilities -- nukes vs dots, lifetaps vs runes, etc"

Thank you for the confirmation that there are really only half the classes they claim there are. Like I said, good and evil versions with minor spell differences. If the eveil version of any specific archetype is equally as effective as thier good counterpart, individuality just took a flying leap out the window.

And since you mentioned them, do you honestly believe that there are ANY quests in EQ2 that even come close by comparison to the Shar Vahl armor quests? Or the Freeport armor quests? In depth or immersion? Many of EQLives armor quests were much more involved and in depth that anything I saw in EQ2. The Thurgadin, Kael, and Skyshrine armor quests all required building factions first.

In the overall, EQ2 lacks depth and immersion. And that lack will likely be its undoing. Sure, people will pay to play. Of that I have no doubt. But the real questions is, "for how long?"

[Iskandar]

And since you mentioned them, do you honestly believe that there are ANY quests in EQ2 that even come close by comparison to the Shar Vahl armor quests? Or the Freeport armor quests? In depth or immersion? Many of EQLives armor quests were much more involved and in depth that anything I saw in EQ2. The Thurgadin, Kael, and Skyshrine armor quests all required building factions first.

There's nothing really immersive about chain pulling giants to get dragon faction though. And once the faction camping is complete, it's back to the same old "collect x item" quest structure that EQLive uses for every quest ingame. The city armor quests were neat with the backstory, but were otherwise the same "collect x item" model -- the NPC interactions are what adds spice to most of those quests. And the NPC interactions on some of the EQ2 quests are rather nicely done actually :)

On Beta 1 I didn't do much questing after the teens -- we were too focused on tradeskilling and levelling to try some mid level content. On Beta 2, I've slouched about and tried to find as many quests as possible. For a pre-20 quest, the "Veil" quest from Elddar Forest is rather nice.... good backstory, lot of steps (explained, but not so much so that you don't have to figure stuff out), interaction with a wide range of characters and locations, and very decent exp -- I actually found some areas I never even knew existed thanks to that quest, and the various rewards it provides were all well worth it.

The last patch (10/28 I think it was) kinda screwed up a LOT of things... limits on the number quests you can have active (which is lame imho -- the devs say this was necessary since the quest journal checking each and every mob for every player in the zone for quest items was part of the cause for zone lag issues), and a lot of the classes were changed around. From the looks of it, the class changes are attempting to add more diversity (especially pre-20), but it's still kinda awkward since the class balances are skewed now. They've also announced that social attributes will be added to most mobs now that factions are in... so you can indeed get "adds" now, which should be interesting.

Once I'm done watching the rest of Season 7 of Stargate I can get back to my Beta testing and see how things fly now :D

[Lorathir]

Are there weapon skill increases (ie You have gotten better at 1HS (11) ) and Dodge, Parry, Defence, Abjuration, Offence etc increases? I always liked the idea of having many skills I could concentrate on maxxing in EQ1. Especially Alcohol Tolerance. Is there the same sort of thing in EQ2?