EQ2 TLE - Varsoon server
- Thread starter Pharone
- Start date
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Guest, did you like the last podcast notification?? Well here's the second one, and for the third podcast! Yep. This Thursday 8-8-24 at 7pm Central
Go here to check out his podcast thread for info on topics and links!Go into the FoH discord and find the Happy Time Fun Hour channel and give it a listen!
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,231
- 901
We are having a great time but half our guild are suckers for EQ2 and the other had never played it. We've been ultra casual thus far with most of us low 40's / upper 30's. I really hate they are making the expansion unlocks so long though. As casual as we are, DoF coming out September (I think) is ridiculous. Population will drop pretty hard and i'm not sure how much people will swing back. I've actually been quite impressed how well population has held up to this point but we'll see in a few more weeks. Regardless, we're loving it and EQ2 has always been a fairly underrated game imo
- 2
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
- 1,258
- 1,116
My guild is made up mostly of people that were EQ1 TLP veterans and a handful of EQ2 experts, so the majority of us are in learning mode right now. We raced to 50 of course because of our EQ1 TLP habits, but we quickly realized how important gear was in EQ2 for starting those raids. We took a week doing necessary heritage quests and gearing, and our last raid night was really successful.
The odd thing is that I truly felt like EQ1 was the more hardcore of the two when it came to raiding all these years, and I'm starting to think that I might have been wrong. In EQ1, you race to 50, and then you go raid. You can literally just login to raid, and log out until next raid. You won't be min/max'd out, but you can do it and be effective to a certain extent. After you get enough raid gear upgrades, you're golden. Just login to raid, and log out. Easy peasy.
In EQ2, there is much more prep to being a raider. With only 24 members allowed on a raid, everybody has to be on point, and know what they are doing. There's a lot of "did you make sure to do quest x, so you could get quest y, in order to get quest z, so that you will be able to get the drop from this raid... etc", and "makes ure you learned the giant language, so you can talk to that giant in order to get the Nagafen quest. Oh but also make sure you did the magic language quest, or it wont matter because you can't learn to speak dragon unless you have done that, and Nagafen wont talk to you if you don't speak dragon." It's a lot of prep. And, on top of that, if your raiders don't have at least a minimal of good gear, they get decimated on the raid encounters. You don't really have that gray area of semi-geared people on raids because again, you only have 24 raiders. There is no buffer of 72 raiders for the raid bosses to munch through.
I have no idea how the raids and gearing go as the expansions come out, but as of right now, I am really loving EQ2. I think that WoW coming out when it did along with some of the truly stupid design decisions they made at EQ2 launch did this game a major disservice. As it stands today with all of the quality of life changes and de-stupidifying the design, EQ2 could have developed in to a really great MMO. Blizzard's popularity pushed an absolutely shit ton of the customer base in to WoW, and SoE just didn't have enough of the right variables in EQ2 launch to bring them back to EQ2 after the new wore off of WoW.
TL;DR ... I know... wall of text. Recap:
The odd thing is that I truly felt like EQ1 was the more hardcore of the two when it came to raiding all these years, and I'm starting to think that I might have been wrong. In EQ1, you race to 50, and then you go raid. You can literally just login to raid, and log out until next raid. You won't be min/max'd out, but you can do it and be effective to a certain extent. After you get enough raid gear upgrades, you're golden. Just login to raid, and log out. Easy peasy.
In EQ2, there is much more prep to being a raider. With only 24 members allowed on a raid, everybody has to be on point, and know what they are doing. There's a lot of "did you make sure to do quest x, so you could get quest y, in order to get quest z, so that you will be able to get the drop from this raid... etc", and "makes ure you learned the giant language, so you can talk to that giant in order to get the Nagafen quest. Oh but also make sure you did the magic language quest, or it wont matter because you can't learn to speak dragon unless you have done that, and Nagafen wont talk to you if you don't speak dragon." It's a lot of prep. And, on top of that, if your raiders don't have at least a minimal of good gear, they get decimated on the raid encounters. You don't really have that gray area of semi-geared people on raids because again, you only have 24 raiders. There is no buffer of 72 raiders for the raid bosses to munch through.
I have no idea how the raids and gearing go as the expansions come out, but as of right now, I am really loving EQ2. I think that WoW coming out when it did along with some of the truly stupid design decisions they made at EQ2 launch did this game a major disservice. As it stands today with all of the quality of life changes and de-stupidifying the design, EQ2 could have developed in to a really great MMO. Blizzard's popularity pushed an absolutely shit ton of the customer base in to WoW, and SoE just didn't have enough of the right variables in EQ2 launch to bring them back to EQ2 after the new wore off of WoW.
TL;DR ... I know... wall of text. Recap:
- Loving EQ2
- Raiding is not easy mode yet
- EQ2 could have been so much more if it didn't come out at the same time as WoW and they had not had stupid design failures like (group experience debt, etc)
- 1
Tearofsoul
Ancient MMO noob
- 1,791
- 1,257
It depends on how you define hardcore. Raiding was a revolutionize concept during EQ and its first expansions, it doesn't require much skill set beside showing up, pressing 1 and maybe 2 occasionally (depends on class), a simply time sink so to speak.
EQ2/WoW and later MMOs on the other hand, actually requires players to have a much higher skillset.
Personally, EQ is more like timecore instead of being hard.
EQ2/WoW and later MMOs on the other hand, actually requires players to have a much higher skillset.
Personally, EQ is more like timecore instead of being hard.
Korzax Stonehammer
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 772
- 433
I installed this, just having a look. The game did badly at launch cuz it was a bad game. It played like shit of so many systems.
- 1
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
- 1,258
- 1,116
One of the things that everybody talks about the first time they play EQ2 is the ugly character models. The faces look like ass in so many ways lol. If you can get past that, you will find a very interesting game with a lot of systems to explore.
Also, there are two different character model sets. You can switch between them at any time. Basically, at some point, SoE outsourced the character models to a company that made alternate ones for every race (this excludes the races that were created later on afterwords).
Kriptini
Vyemm Raider
- 3,675
- 3,572
It was for the Asian markets. SOE was worried that the game wouldn't do well in Asian markets due to ugly characters so all of the non-furry races got alternate models.
Nirgon
Log Wizard
- 13,743
- 21,580
Instanced EQ is easy.
Racing for mobs and executing kills under race conditions with another guild going for it is something completely different.
RobXIII
Urinal Cake Consumption King
- 3,848
- 2,212
Much truth in this. But the difficulty of chaining the quests makes the raids way more social and team orientated. A guildie that I didn't even know that well took the time out of his day to help me with that particular Nagafen quest. He even had a level 1 permanently in that zone to save you having to clear down Sol Eye for it lol. Hours spent getting language runes just to catch me up.
I have a few friends playing super casual, they should hit 50 in the next day or so. Never played before, but seem to be enjoying it. There is definitely 2 different games here though. The pop potions and get to 50 in a day to raid game, and the take your time and quest your way to 50 game.
- 1
Tearofsoul
Ancient MMO noob
- 1,791
- 1,257
The ability to login any hour to raid does not counted as player skill. Because of how new raiding was during EQ time, encounter mechanics are extremely simply and do not require much player skill even compared to EQ2, contested or not.
Instanced EQ prior to GoD is easy, tbh. When you start adding later xpac EQ mechanics, it gets complex rather fast - about the same as EQ2 complexity.
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
- 1,258
- 1,116
Still having a great time on the Varsoon server. EQ2 is literally taking up all of my time so far. I have barely had enough time to get my wizard in EQ1 to the 20s because I am spending all my time in EQ2 working on quests and such.
The guild got Fire and Ice completed, and we are about to start working on Deception. Primal weapons ... soon(tm).
If anybody needs tailoring or jewelry made, I have a 50 Tailor and 50 Jeweler on the server now. My next two master crafters will be Provisioner and Alchemist.
The guild got Fire and Ice completed, and we are about to start working on Deception. Primal weapons ... soon(tm).
If anybody needs tailoring or jewelry made, I have a 50 Tailor and 50 Jeweler on the server now. My next two master crafters will be Provisioner and Alchemist.
I'm still enjoying it, but I know that they need to keep up this quality in Splitpaw/Bloodlines/DoF as they did in SL or the server won't be having the same success still.
My worry is they'll start deep into the xpac cycle soon, we'll lose Caith, Mint or whomever on items to that, and we'll have terrible DoF itemization as Kaladim did where heroic gear beats raid tier gear.
- 1
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,231
- 901
How are you accessing Prestige Homes? May be a silly question but can you get to any of them or only ones within available zones? I was thinking about getting the Felwithe Mansion but was afraid there would be some catch to that since guild halls are not available yet....
