Everquest II

sakkath

sakkath

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You can skip noob island if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it though especially if you want to do crafting - it's way easier to harvest on the island.

Being semi-forced to group is a big change compared to live. On live you can easily follow the trail of solo mobs all the way to level cap.

I mean you can still solo but you have to be very careful at times and will be extremely dangerous in dungeons like wailing caves and fallen hate.

I agree this origins server is likely to be short lived but I think I will enjoy it for a while. I'm trying not to get too carried away in beta!
 
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I really enjoyed eq2. If I had a squad and spare time I'd so be down to play through again. A lot of their systems and mechanics were cool. Great itemization (tho I only played through....shadow odyssey? So maybe everything became +gooder)
 
Flake

Flake

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How is it limited outside of DLC release? Obviously the Beta is limited for the 6 weeks.
 
sakkath

sakkath

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The beta is currently level locked, level cap is 12 I think and artisan level cap is 9.
The full release it looks like is going to be 2006 but without DoF (which was already out in 2006). They actually just patched out the maj'dul carpets which were accidentally still there (but didn't work).

Shop will supposedly be limited. They've stated no krono and I assume/hope no xp pots. Not sure what is usually in the shop though as until origins beta I hadn't played eq2 in years.
 
Hatorade

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Identikit said:
I have been playing beta origins. Honestly, I dont really see the major difference with origins to live. The only major difference I see is that you level much slower, and lower levels require grouping, and levels are limited into phases. Basically ghetto Seasons of discovery.


I honestly doubt this will be that popular if at all popular for long. The quest lines in original qeynos and freeport were not that fun, and once the novelty of the servers idea wears off and people start realizing that this is fundamentally no different than a live server with gatingn, This will likely go like all the other TLE servers that daybreak runs. Hype at the start, people will get bored of the content simply because its limited, so DBG will release more, and then eventually this just becomes any other TLE server.



so yeah, so far it just seems like a poor attempt to compete or compare with season of discovery, but without attempting to make unique content like blizzard did for that concept.

Unless they do something conceptually cool, or different than live, I dont see much in the allure here other than "Nostalgia" and hopeing that they can get subs from people that havent been playing eq2 for a while.

I mean enjoy it for a bit for the nostalgia at the start if its been a while since you last played, but make no mistake, the population will spike, and then fall like every other TLE. There wont be any true investment into the server by DBG to make this unique, or fun. They more than likely are just going to make it a flavorless grind. You will likely end up dissapointed in this server over time.
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Yeah EQ2 launch was not a very good game, best time I had was knocked people down cliffs with my bruiser in PvP. The little ally way instances were filled with furys just destroying whole areas and swashbucklers were king.

I did enjoy the tri faction pvp server for a bit and again when the Fae race was released but launch and live are bad games.
 
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rhinohelix

rhinohelix

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I wonder if I could get my characters back from 2004-2005/6?

Edit: Yep, all still there, with names changed/letters added through what I assume are due to server consolidation, although I am pretty sure no other people chose those names. Logged in as my 50 Berzerker and immediately overwhelmed with overflowing inventory, new skills, AA points, etc. AV immediately deleted Everquest2.exe on first run due to heuristics not liking the code for reporting reasons I am sure. Will maybe pick it up again, will do some research to see how soloable it is. I have some time off for Dr appts coming up.
 
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Identikit

Identikit

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So I have been playing beta origins here and there to see if its worth my time, and as I progress the experience they are crafting just seems to get worse.

  1. Traveling quality of life changes are pretty much gone, so expect to travel much more. This would be OK if the quests were meaningful, but at the start of the game a large portion of quests are pretty dull/redundant and just travel here, talk to this person, click a barrel. Doesnt feel that rewarding.
  2. quest XP is terrible to the point where you have to grind to level, which in my opinion is kind of counter intuitive to current games.
  3. discovery xp is insanely high, which will likely stay that way to fuel the internal economy. Also once they allow kronos to be bought and sold on the server ( which in my opinion over time they will) This will probably be the way they make money from whales without involving play to win items through their cash shop as they usually end up doing)
  4. Playing in groups is a little better, but combat at this level sort of feels pretty meaningless.
  5. The intent of some of their design choices are confusing. 2006 era wasnt that great in quite a bit of ways. For instance crusaders are nearly useless in a group. You can sort of hold instances of zones open to get multiple contested raid targets without anyone competing for them. There were problems during this era that persisted and were terrible.
  6. stupid bugs like stunning mobs still face you when being stunned.
  7. DBG tries to take input from their paying fans, which in theory is a great practice, but fails because of the toxicity of their playerbase.
I guess if you want a game to play with friends where little to no thinking is required its worth playing a little here and there.
 
RobXIII

RobXIII

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Identikit said:
So I have been playing beta origins here and there to see if its worth my time, and as I progress the experience they are crafting just seems to get worse.


"quest XP is terrible to the point where you have to grind to level, which in my opinion is kind of counter intuitive to current games."
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This and itemization have been a problem with every single TLE. I had fun doing some of the mystery / crime solving quests in Nektulos, but after traveling back and forth for like 20 minutes and finish the quest, you would get LESS exp than killing 2 dungeon mobs in a group. It was pointless to do anything else other than grind in a group.
 
Siliconemelons

Siliconemelons

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Quest exp was never a route to leveling in EQ or EQ2... while it was in WOW, this was a big difference as a EQ player - when I started WOW I just was like LETS GRIND and skipped many of the dumb quests but those dumb quests gave chucks of exp.
 
Identikit

Identikit

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Siliconemelons said:
Quest exp was never a route to leveling in EQ or EQ2... while it was in WOW, this was a big difference as a EQ player - when I started WOW I just was like LETS GRIND and skipped many of the dumb quests but those dumb quests gave chucks of exp.
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While this is correct initially, eventually experience was tuned so you can for the most part level to cap through questing, slower experience rates only worked in the past because eq2 had a sizeable server population at that time that were casual, or non veterans of the game. Eventually they tuned quest xp to facilitate leveling for the exact reason that returning to the quest experience rate in 2006 will end up driving casual players away.

This is kind of an inherent problem with eq2 itself. While the experiences initially with it were great, they cant be revived at all in the same way in which they existed.
 
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slippery

slippery

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They patched XP so that it's not so bad. Quests are solid now, and combat is a little better.

Crafting is going to be complete dicks if they don't put Writs back in. It's roughly GU26 that this, and in GU24 they did the crafting revamp and writs got removed while they fixed them for the new system and got added back in GU27. So in that snapshot they don't exist. But imo it's insanely fucking stupid if they don't add writs back.

Other than that things seem mostly okay honestly.
 
sakkath

sakkath

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It feels like XP is faster than it was back in the early days. Can make a level in 1.5h no trouble in dungeons at the moment.

It's been great run spending time clearing out WC, SH and FG again. On live you blow past all of these dungeons in an hour of solo questing.
 
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