f13.net

Welp, looks like EQ2 is joining the bandwagon, sorta.  They're adding free to play servers, as well as leaving subscription only servers.  I can't really say I'm all that surprised by this change.

Producer forum post:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=483443

F2P faq:
http://everquest2.com/free_to_play/extended_faq

F2P server membership tiers:
http://everquest2.com/_themes/default/images/extended/membershipMatrix.jpg

You are joking!

I was considering trying this again too.... Was looking at my CE just last night!

Still sifting through the info, but it's looking like the f2p accounts are really, really gimped.  Moreso than I would have expected or hoped for.

Wow, its smokejumper.

They get what they pay for - and the one-off $10 upgrade ungimps some of it.

His shield example is going to be a hot issue. Watch.

Except for the level cap, the free accounts have all the restrictions I would expect from a two-week trial. And then if you pay for a monthly subscription on the Extended servers, you still have to pay extra for features that are included in the identically-priced regular subscription. It's like they think that the point of free servers is to draw people in and then milk them for more than their regular players pay already.

I don't think that is what it said.

The gear and spell limits were what I was refering to.  Especially if it blocks the grandmaster/master II spell upgrades from leveling, or the class quest rewards, especially the lower level ones they just put in a few months back.  That seems a really weird restriction, especially since I'd put money on legendary/fabled gear showing up in the station store.

One year for 200 bucks? The fuck?

It is; look at "Player Character Races" in the "Gold" column.

Man, I was getting my hopes up when I clicked this thread, but that membership chart looks pretty blah. No AH, no mail, gimped storage/quest log, losing out on half the races and classes, best skills, inability to equip epic gear, "frequent upgrade popups" (:ye_gods:)? Eh, I hope they change some of this stuff.

I think the lotro f2p design is much much better: some convenience from the store but no 'musts', you can get access to locked content and remove your limitations by doing one-time purchases instead of forcing a subscription on players, etc.

Producer Dave Georgeson interview:

All those restrictions...AND pay $35 per character to transfer over? Notice even the platinum you have to buy character race options? The fuck? And as far as bringing new players into the game, they will then be stuck on the f2p ghetto server. Nice. I mean, I get the itch to play EQ2 every now and again, and I'm real casual, but the bronze and silver do nothing at all for me. They really aren't options for EQ2, being limited to expert spell tier and no fabled/legendary gear?

/ignore

Hey mmo genre? Good luck with this new direction, guys. :headscratch:

(plz to give normal subscribers the 20 shared bank slots and 10 character slots okthx)

Yeah, the free game seems a bit gimped for the hardcore crowd, but might be a fun game to put in the "I need an MMOG fix" rotation. 2-bags for the free option is a helluva restriction - you won't do any crafting with that. But EQ2 crafting blew, so no big loss.

Oddly that's the single best piece of gear my SK has, a fabled shield I got off the broker :| Slow-played to mid 40s and still the best gear I can get is someone's cast-off non-bound items. Grr.

And hell, that SK has raided.

EQ2 crafting doesn't blow, it's pretty good. You at least want crafted food, ammo and totems, even if you aren't a soloer (my SK's armor is all self-crafted and decent).

Have to wait to see how much things are going to cost to unlock I guess, before I go into a real nerd rage.  The $25 mounts from a few months ago do not bode well for this however.  It's like most game companies have forgotten the micro part of microtransaction.

Balls of steel. (http://kotaku.com/5597645/everquest-ii-goes-free+to+play-in-a-different-way?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kotaku%2Ffull+%28Kotaku%29)

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1725660/Posts/lagannf_patch.gif)

That 200 a year stuck me odd, I paid less than that for a lifetime to LOTRO.

Where is my free plantside fuckers?

The items you could craft in EQ2 were good quality items, you are right. The process and crafting UI, however, is pure shit.

true about everything (Craft et al).  This is a bad F2P model.  It has more clauses and fine print than a credit card application circa 2006.  Who's the audience for all this detail?

This model only might appeal to people who have never played EQ2 and are starting chars from 0.  It should've been a model that was also attractive for people who've quit and who might've been persuaded to return to dribble in some cash.  Instead, looks to do the opposite.

Couldn't they have just done, for example, 2 tiers?  "FREE" and "NOT FREE".  Although, I guess since this is EQ2 we have to nuance everything into multiple skills and tiers... Journeyman, Adept, Expert, Master, Epic, Fabled, Smedleyd...  == Bronze, Silver, GOLD BITCHAS, Platinum, Existing Sub Schmuck, With or Without Station topping....  MBAlolz

This is what I meant. One afternoon trying crafting drove me screaming from the crafting area never to return. Talk about a fucking grind of monumentally fucktarded proportion.

Perhaps they will add a crafting scroll then.

I was excited, then I realized it'll probably cost an arm and a leg to get a non-gimpy copy of my Arasai SK copied over and I lost interest.

I think I read 35$ transfers.

You could just buy a new game for that much.

$35 per character not per account and that includes 0 gold and only what you can carry (nothing in the bank or on the broker)

This is not the type of thing you'd transfer a character for, IMO. Start a new character. Since it'll be a virgin server, you'll have plenty of opportunity to group up with complete retards.

but then you'd be restricted to 4 gimpy good races and 8 vanilla classes


and then the joy of grinding 80+ levels again

No Shaman in Free Play means I don't care. No roaming around with my Everquest 1 Barbarian Shaman after his unfortunate Plane of Time Incident, telling the young ones to get off his lawn and asking everyone how they were stupid enough to misplace Halas.  :awesome_for_real:

$35 transfer....plus buying access to that race (arm) plus buying access to that class (leg).

I don't even remember what race/class my EQ2 character was. When I saw the thread title I was momentarily intrigued (especially since I came here directly from canceling my LOTRO sub), but it sounds like it is a rape job. Shocking from Sony.  :oh_i_see:

The funny thing is when I saw LotRO go f2p I thought "Hm, if EQ2 does that it might be interesting." Guess not. I guess I could do that $5 log in for a couple hours thing (since "72 hours" is about 3 hours of actual gameplay)  :oh_i_see:

Really...I don't understand what's going on at SOE, pretty much since Scott H left. All these announcements and playing the traditional model is still the only one that makes sense.

$200/year and you still have to pay extra on top just to get access to all the other races that you'd get access to via simply paying $15/mo on a standard live server?

Plus the $10 fee to upgrade you to "Silver" nets you almost nothing in return.

This is, like, double clownshoes.

While i find the idea of playing around in eq2 again attractive, some of that seems ify, I'm not sure how, after seeing other examples of F2P conversion some of that strikes someone at SOE as a good deal.

It's SOE. That's been the idea behind most of their pay-to-access features in all their games since day 1.

I was intrigued until I started reading this thread.  Turbine figured out a good way of doing this.  SOE, not so much.

I also love the kick in the teeth that is "Oh hey, go ahead and pay for a standard sub but you can't play any of the POPULAR races.  Erudite, Human, Half-Elf, Barbarian for you, even though you can make the locked races on every other server!"   :uhrr:

all joking aside, it's like they picked the worse set of compromises in coming up with this pricing scheme. 

SOE seems to have missed what works about the DDO model entirely. Segregating the population seems like the worst idea of all. :headscratch:

This is like a textbook on how not to do a cash shop game.

Wait, wait WAIT!! I just got it! In a moment of clarity it all came to me.


Conversely.. Since there will be no mas exodus, clearly F2P is something players don't want.  It's designed to fail and provide numbers support for continuing the traditional sub-based model.

Those magnificent Machiavellian bastards.

One thing the budding threadnaught on the EQ2 forums brings up is that with this, any prospective new players joining the game outside of recruit-a-friend trials will be shepherded onto the Extended server, since 14-day trials for the normal Live servers will be disabled. Should this really take off (which is pretty unlikely in itself), it'll basically kill any chance of population growth for the legacy servers, since there are no transfers off the Extended server; only on to it.

Even for SoE this is an impressive mess...  If it really is designed that way to sideline, choke and move the existing community onto their new charging model it is impressively evil.

An actually decent f2p scheme might've got me to dust off my old 60 illusionist and see what's changed since I'd stopped playing. But this mess of nickel and diming gotchas? nope. If I get the fantasy mmo bug bad enough to play but not sub there's decent f2p alternatives out there where you're not ghettoized.

Free to play is too expensive for EQ2.  I just can't abide games with such a crappy character customization process any more.

Did the computers catch up with EQ2's rendering engine or not yet?

Yes and no. From what I've been told, the game was essentially future-proofed for the wrong future: it was designed with the expectation that processors would still be single-core and just have ever-increasing clock speeds, so it's still way too CPU-heavy. It runs better than it did, but I tried it out in a trial a couple months ago after not playing it for years and it still ran pretty poorly unless I cranked the settings way down, even on a much newer rig that can play new games like Mass Effect 2 and Metro 2033 at very high settings without a hitch.

Yeah, the "wrong future" thing is what had me wonder. My only experience with it was the character creator or something to this effect i tried on previous computer and it was rather painfully slow. Now this one is faster and with free play i just might be tempted to check it out but... well.

There's no reason for anyone in the existing community to move to this, though. The only reason to would be if you want to play with a friend who doesn't have a sub, but at $35 to transfer you might as well just buy them a copy of the game.

I can see myself screwing around on the free servers when I get bored but if I were going to sink any money into the game at all, I'd just spend it on a regular subscription and reroll before I'd try to figure out how best to deal with their screwy cash shop.

edit: plus, didn't they implement separate microtrans-enabled servers a while ago? Presumably, everyone who wants to pay real money for gear (or play with those who do) is *already* segregated away from the rest of the player base.

From what I understand, the Station Exchange servers they have set up are essentially just servers where SOE plays middle-man for players selling stuff - characters, items, in-game money - to other players for real cash, with SOE taking a cut of the money. To my knowledge, the actual Station store itself currently only sells cosmetic junk, card game junk, and things like +XP potions. This new deal is flat-out Chinese/Korean cash-shop stuff: you literally buy equipment from SOE themselves. If you're on "Bronze" or "Silver" access tier (which don't allow usage of the auction house) you're essentially buying Mastercraft crafted armor straight from SOE, since there's no other reasonable way to get any of it.

This is a shame because I was really considering heading back for a month or two to fart around with it. For the regular sub fee you MUST give people everything they had when they were paying the sub fee three months prior. Sub fee AND I have to plink away cash for stuff I used to have? Not cool.

This will most likely cut off the supply of new players to the existing servers... and I believe they are already in decline.

Wait, rereading this it's even dumber than I thought. It's better to think of this as an entirely different GAME, with a separate client and everything. So nothing changes for the subscribers, unless by subscriber you upgrade to the Gold membership with your free to play account. God

I'd say the one thing you can guarantee with SOE is you never get what you pay for, just ask all the ppl that signed up for that premium server. :)

$200/year for platinum, normal subs is $180/yr...but platinum gets expansions for free. So unlock the race or class you want, buy platinum, and you're still paying less than on the normal servers.

Unless you're like me and 2/3rds of the expansions aren't aimed at you. Since SOE bundles all their expansions with every release, I save 66% right there. I'm surprised they're still bundling all the expansions with every release, it's very non-SOE (or at least more Scott H SOE than current SOE): customer friendly. Maybe on a non-WoW game you can afford to charge for each expansion separately, I dunno. I've said in the past it's one thing that has been a barrier to re-entry to WoW for me.

I'm assuming this may be how DC Universe Online's free-to-play will work as well.  But with no Live service at all.

It seems to me that the only thing Sony hasn't fucked up is Free Realms (oh wait, there's that combat change; they did fuck that up too).

I see no earthly reason why anyone would opt to play EQ2 on the F2P servers, other than to try out the game. 

Well, to be be fair, "Fucked up" is kind of subjective, if they are rolling in the income, can't really be fucked up can't it?

Given that they just laid off 35 people, I'm not sure how true your statement there is.

This is the end of me whiteknighting for SOE. Utter fucking clownshoes.

That would fall under the "not rolling in the income" section.

That 0.2% of interest I had in DCU just got sucked away

Agreed. It took a serious hit when Hartsman left, but meh.

So is it safe to say that EQ2's day in the sun was almost entirely due to one badassed developer at the helm?

I don't think that's quite fair to the team that worked with him, but I can't imagine his departure had a positive impact on that team.

I just wish he'd go work at Bioware Austin :)

This gave me a good laugh.  I have had the EQ2-resub idea roll around in my head a bit (yah, I know) and this scenario is not the least bit tempting.

Oh good god no.  Keep him on a team worth leading, please.  I'm still crossing my fingers on Rift.

Looks like SOE's goal is to make Turbine look good in comparison.

At the risk of parroting others, I think this is a stupid way to do f2p.  Let me play for free then tempt me with nice-looking gear and cool misc. items. 

Hopefully SOE, during the 'beta', will make changes to make  it more Turbine-like.  I'm not holding my breath. 

Looks like whatever vestiges of independence (in the form of the ability to resist stupid shit demanded of them from the suits) which the EQ2 live team enjoyed under Scott Hartsman have finally dissipated.   From the time Scott and his team were given free reign to do whatever they felt best to salvage EQ2 from its original retarded design and subsequent bitch-slapping by WoW at release, the experience of playing the game, interacting with the live team, and living with the results of their decisions and efforts has been completely unlike that of any other SOE offering.  It's been... pleasant.  I find it impossible to believe that the people who came up with this abhorrent, ill-considered and obviously quickly slapped together agglomeration of all the worst possible ways of implementing f2p for an existing subscription game are the same people who took such careful pains to craft elegant, non-intrusive implementations of controversial print-me-more-money demands from the suits like the LoN collectible card game and the Item Shop.  This whole fiasco smells of Smedley's handiwork, although he's certainly not the only possible source of bad decisions in SOE and Sony corporate.

The best hope for this having minimal impact on the "real" EQ2 is that they've isolated the two.  The worst signs of malicious intent towards the existing game though are the one-way transfers, and the elimination of the 14-day free trial.  I hope whatever is left of the live team that hasn't fallen under the sway of the dark side find a way to mitigate the damage.  If they can isolate the core game from the game the suits created and keep it healthy, then it may yet survive this latest management blunder. 

Two ideas that might help reduce the potential damage:
    change the one-way transfers into copies, so people can try out the new world without losing their progress in the old;
and/or
    allow transfers from the f2p ghetto to the full subscription world without any items bought from the shop which aren't available from the shop in the subscription game.

While it's not the NGE all over again (so don't bother accusing me of claiming it is, Grimwell!) they need to be exceedingly careful that this exciting new business direction doesn't result in starving the old game of attention or badly needed fresh blood (possible) while having the new game flop due to its incredibly bad implementation (probable).  That would be a brand new creative way of screwing the existing customer base in the hopes of making mad money off a new set of customers.  Of course, in today's business environment, adding that accomplishment to all the other bad management decisions at SOE is likely to end up in just another promotion for whoever is responsible, and layoffs for the people who've been holding it together up till now in spite of it all.

Not sure I'd play this, but it leaves me with two thoughts:

1.  If they do EQ1 in this fashion I'd play it.  Likely forever. 
2.  I expected that this is how EQ3 was going to be... but it just doesn't feel right for EQ2.

Grim doesn't have a horse in this race anymore, Count, so I doubt he'll accuse you of much of anything.

Such a complex payment scheme suggests many hands in its development as well as some sort of top down directive that the F2P model can't lose any money at all and that they'll be watching.

I'd also suspect that they are putting EQ2 on mothballs (moreso) once the newer SOE titles are out.

I believe this is how it does work. Though you'll lose access to items that are not available on the f2p server. Also quite limited in gear (no tradeables) and gold I think, which at least partly has to be to protect the economy of the new servers... unless you have a credit card I guess.

What other games have they mothballed?  SOE is like assisted-living for MMOs.

Lol. Thats kind of why I was surprised that it was THIS title they did this with first. Planetside, Vanguard and even the now defunct matrix would have my first guesses, not the "flagship" (If free realms hasn't taken this crown yet).

Does anyone play? I have no idea how the populations are, but when I left about a year ago, the announcement of Odus rather than Velius seemed to have discouraged a lot of players and it seemed to me the game was heading downwards. It may be the flagship, but if its dying, it might still be the first candidate for this.

I imagine the corporatetards have a 12 foot boner to make EQ3 a facebook app with stylized graphics.

I seriously doubt Vanguard or Matrix could have been retrofitted with a f2p model.  Vanguard was a catastrophe from a coding standpoint, and the Matrix was developed out of house with pretty much no one remaining on it from the development at the time it was canned.  EQ2 was probably the only one in their stable other than maybe Pirates of the Burning Sea that could have been retrofitted for it.

Speaking hypothetically: The matrix would be a great candidate for some kind of F2P system, it had a lot of emphasis on player looks, everything was instanced, you could potentially cut blocks of buildings (where most random created missions happened) or zones and stuff them into mini packs. Events, story line packs, stuff like that. I was thinking more of a DLC road, than a F2P with restrictions.

Yes and yes. This is the death knell for new players to the subscription-based EQ2.

I still think I'll play it when it goes live if I have time, but they definitely could have done better at not nickel and diming the players to death. But... SOE. /shrug

The beta is live on this, if anyone cares.  Money spent in beta carries over to live, they're saying. 

It's pretty much EQ2, but "free".  Before I had to spend $15 to remember why I don't like it.  Now, those memories are free!

There's too many rules on it and the cash shop stuff is quite a bit expensive.  $25 bags?  yeah....

I started playing last night. I like the new starting areas - Halas is the one I started in. Evoked good memories of the old EQ1 days, and it's a very directed experience, much superior to the Island and city quests that started the game the last time I played. I got through 9 levels in less than 2 hours just following the quests.

My plan is to see how long I can play for free without feeling the need to buy anything. Their approach to F2P is very business-centric as opposed to customer-centric. They really don't have clue one how to price this shit, and most of it is really expensive. But for free, I'm enjoying it until LOTRO goes F2P.

Just looking over the list I can tell they're doing the polar opposite of Turbine's more relaxed approach. I don't think it's going to work well for them

They are doing the bare minimum on the F2P to try to point people towards subscriptions. The SOE mindset is hard to break when it comes to the sub fee.

Which is funny considering they have Free Realms which just added a life-time membership that costs less than the box price of most MMOs.

Let's review SOE's business model:

• Announce a relatively cool idea
• Target audience says "Yay!"
• Wait a few weeks and then release details of your plans
• Target Audience yells "DO NOT WANT! Please do A, B, C, and we will give you all our monies!"
• Ignore the publics plea, lock threads in forums, have the CEO craft a letter that basically spells out that the public doesn't really know what it wants... SOE does.
• Roll out your original idea and ensure that all of the details your target audience despised are in. Also, for flavor, leave out several key features they had been excited about
• When subscription rates do not meet expectations, begin charging for things no other game charges for.
• When no one buys those things, raise general subscription rates.
• When Sony corporate finally asks why you aren't making more profit, Perform ancient Voodoo ritual only Smeadly knows, Sony corporate allows SOE to continue for several more years before the Voodoo spell wares off

EverQuest 2 indeed.

Since I'm stupid, I decided to give it a try.  I am always fascinated when I type in my userid/passwd on any site which I haven't visited in eons and it works.

Broker access should come with silver membership.  There's really no reason to not let people use the code that is in place.  Letting people have access to the broker opens up people to things like tradeskilling which can also be supported by the SC shop.

Oh, Jesus, I forgot how ugly this game is.  Terrible!  In fact, I named my character Terrible.  I remember that Neriak was one of my favorite places in EQ.  This one looks like a RenFaire during the off season.

Everville  :grin:

Im playing on Freeport as Kier 20 Wiz if anyone wants to group.  You can group but that's about it.

Hallas was fun, best starter zone yet with a mount at the end of one quest chain for 50% speed bonus.  Starter housing in Hallas is also the best looking IMO.

The streaming client is terrific --  no hitching and looks as good as EQ2 can be.  Yadda^3.

But wow the F2P is restrictive.  Aside from races and classes restrictions (and there are too many classes, but I like the race selection) I found I really miss the global chat.  There's nothing like being in an MMO with people all around grinding and not hearing a word.  Ya that can be a relief, but without any kind of chat channel you might as well be playing a console or web game.  And lack of a broker will be a pain.  They know where to kick you. 

It's a shame because I sense Freeport is largest server right now for players.  I'd resub if there was a reliable heavy population.

Freeport is the only server using the F2P stuff right now.

Totally agree about the Halas starting zone, it is top-notch, well-paced and moves you right along the levels with decent looking gear and that mount at the end. Even the starter house is totally boss. The client itself is good, but fuck's sake the goddamn launchpad is a nightmare. Half the time, it won't even launch the game correctly. But... beta.  :oh_i_see:

Yeah, the F2P really is restrictive. Not being able to use the broker is the compass pointing to magnetic wrong. That and the restrictions on what gear you can use make total sense if you consider that their entire goal with F2P is to drive you to subscribe with the Gold Plan. However, they'd probably make more money if they actually supported a real micro-transactional philosophy. Let me buy access to legendary items I get through quests one item at a time for like $1 or $2. Those nickel and dime transactions would add up. Instead, they'll likely never get a dime out of me.

Will people actually raid on the F2P servers? Will it be more expensive to do than subbing or will people manage to raid without paying?

I have no idea. I know there are people that have transferred their high-levels over to EQ2X and talked about raiding. The forum trolls mostly seem to think anyone playing for free (or even the one-time $10 Silver memberships) will never be able to raid because of the lack of legendary or fabled gear. /shrug My last experience with raiding was EQ1 in 2001, so who the fuck knows?

Why would you raid when you can't get raid gear? It's certainly not fun.  :why_so_serious:

I don't get the lack of global chat in F2P.  You should want your free players to make friends and get sucked into the social fabric.  If you cannot talk to people, there won't be that aura of "gotta get that ____" item.

Long ago I realized that "community" in a MMG is not tied to global chat, or even the population on the world server, its the smaller space around you that you create. Guild, local, or people you have grouped with.  I usually turn off any global chats now, and I feel I'm better for it. Certainly, my chat window scrolling has gone down considerably.

MMOG's without global chat are doing me a fucking favor, frankly. The vast population of MMOG's, the Internet and the world at large makes a very large vein in my head throb painfully.

No global chat is a huge cockblock to networking in an MMO if you don't already have a support network in place for getting into a decent guild, etc.  I would argue that not having some form of region/global chat in War was a huge reason it tanked out of the gate.  It was very difficult to figure out what the fuck was going on.  And for folks that have their group of people that they bounce from MMO to MMO with it is usually easy to turn of global.

Gold sellers.

EQ2 has level based chats and in the subscription flavor, they are the primary way to find groups and members for pug raids and they are probably the most efficient and pleasant methods of doing so I've found in any game.

I agree.  I think WoW should adopt these.  They help the lower levels seem a lot less lonely.

Those are very good. Is that in F2P?

no its definitely not.  There is no global chat at all.  You can /tell and /group and /guild even.  But you can't form guilds as free.  And as I discovered you can't "page" from the guild window any recruiters.  Hopefully you can just ask for a join.  So yeah I think that's a miss by SOE.  More chat mean more indication that the place is hopping.  And people want to play where it's popular. 

^^^^^^

See, I do have an answer to people who ask why I play a MMO if I don't like unbridled association with teenage dickbags: I will gladly pay someone to craft and maintain a large and interesting world for me and one or three of my close friends to adventure in.  So, why is soloing in a MMO better than a console game?  Larger, longer lifespan via updates, and built in co-op play.  I really, really don't understand why people want to force in a "must deal with pigfuckers" line item into these games' design.  Might as well say "hurr hurr if u dont liek corpse runs why dont u play a console gaem?"

I'm learning to embrace global chat in MMO's.  It's a form of entertainment while I'm grinding 645 rats to get the 5 tails I need for a quest.

Its usually the same conversation, constantly. I usually turn it off first thing. I like the level range feature in eq2, I also like the advice chat in LOTRO. Its a sad sad thing to see what trade chat has become in wow.

So I can be paying $15 a month for their gold service but still need to purchase access to races. Joy.

Well, here's proof that EQ2 is shit: the arrival of WUA.

Oh yeah, the sub level is shit. I fail to understand why they think someone would want Gold on the F2P server when they can pay the same price on the Live server with no restrictions whatsoever? Another example of how fucked in the head they are? To purchase access to the latest expansion on the Extended Server costs 4300 Station Cash - 1 Station Cash = $1. So you pay $43 to play the expansion content. The box itself is running $39.99. WTF?

As it is, I'm enjoying the game, but I don't intend to give them any money.

I found EQ2 Sentinel's Fate at amazon for 19.99 which apparently includes all the expansions? I don't know. For 20 bucks, I'm going to check it out.

Here's the link (http://www.amazon.com/Everquest-II-Sentinels-Fate-Pc/dp/B002W8XT9C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1282750168&sr=8-2) at amazon if you want to check out what comes with it.

The newest EQ2 box has always included all the previous expansions. Not sure that will continue given the current climate at SOE.

WTF indeed. There's a super-gimped free version of the game, a $10 charge that gets you not a whole hell of a lot, a subscription plan objectively inferior to what they already offer, and an uber-plan that gets you everything for what is overall a reasonable cost, but only if you play constantly for a year AND they expect you to hork up $200 up front to get it?

The :tinfoil: about it being meant to fail doesn't seem that crazy to me.

No conspiracy needed.  Its clear that Sony isn't sold on F2P so they are half-assing it.  I am not going to even going to bother with a game where the developer doesn't believe in what they are doing.  But I hope this works and they go full ass.  But I bet the reverse is more likely.  It fails because they half-ass it and discontinue it claiming F2P doesn't work.

You don't hear somebody wishing for a full ass everyday.  :grin:

However, I also get the same impression that they are using this as a testing ground without the full resources of what it takes. That's not a good way of testing the F2P method.

I have seen a hell of a lot of new toons who are not the F2P vanilla races and classes.  And some with the premium mounts.  Somebody is buying this stuff.

That'd be because P.T. Barnum was correct.  There were still subscribers to Matrix, TR and Auto Assault when they shut down., why shouldn't there be suckers here, too?

*obligatory "I liked Auto Assault" post*

Obligatory *point and laugh*.

edit: Although, in my review, I didn't completely hate on it.  In fact reading it again, I was pretty positive for the most part; deducting major points for being samey-samey.

I just can't understand how anyone who had ever played actual quality video games could do anything but loathe AA. God it was so bad. I think part of it is that I was really excited about a
Car Wars' type of MMOG, and got nothing of the sort.

Darkwind is much closer to what I wanted. Wish it had a bigger following it would grow/expand faster.

Auto Assault touched me in an extremely bad place and I've never fully recovered. I mean it. I don't think I was ever as stoked for a game prior to release. Except maybe Spore, which I followed religiously. But then I get into the AA beta and it's thief car, healer car, tank car and what the fuck how? HOW? I still don't see how you mess this up. It's a slam dunk.

I liked running people over and driving my car through walls, there really wasn't anything more to it. The tank car/healer car thing made me laugh more than it annoyed me, I don't know why.

The beta was so awesome. Tank/healer/dps cars, boring diku mechanics, uninstalled ten minutes later. There's just no time for that kind of nonsense.

I actually enjoyed the early TR beta, but I played exclusively as a grenade launcher guy. It was fun. Every patch made it less so.

Any game that lets me run people over in a giant, bright pink van just isn't completely terrible, in my mind. Yes, I liked Auto Assault, dammit!

I'd agree if that's what happened. Did you ever run over someone and miss? Like run right over them, full on, 120 mph and miss? I recall doing so. Everything was rolled. It was all an illusion.

How completely unexpected.  :roll:

(http://www.artsz.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Freud-art.jpg)

Back to the subject of EQ2X, they've announced on the forums that they WILL be selling individual classes to the Bronze/Silver players, and they will also be selling broker credits - i.e. for like 150 SC, you get 10 broker credits, one credit used per broker transaction. Depending on the prices, it may actually be worth spending some coin on once that goes in.

I would consider buying SK, especially if I could buy a single race instead of a pack with two I don't care about.  Seriously, I have to get a FROGLOCK if I want Arasai?  No, you can pay me for that honor.

I like Frogloks.  You people are why these game have mostly humans and elves.

I'm cool with non-humans.  I love games that offer tons of non-human options.  I prefer the Morrowind Argonians and Khajit to the Oblivon ones, and were exclusively what I played.

But frogloks?  No.  The only good froglok is the one served with butter.

I like the frogloks too, and to them, fae's look like delcious moths.

What's the dollar-to-Station Cash ratio anyway?

1 dollar is 100 SC.  I'm quite thankful they don't try to obfuscate prices.  Several times a year they have special double your SC purchase though.

Started this yesterday.

Prediction: this is going to be a run away success. The server is packed, there were 16 concurrent instances of the Halas starter zones. People seem to be really really enjoying it. The paywall is kinda clever, which was not my opinion when I first saw it in chart form. Essentially you can start up, play perfectly adequately without spending a penny. Sure you can't chat but what proportion of WoW players soloing in STV felt the need to talk? And once you join a guild of which there are dozens if not hundreds you can chat all you want - it never stops in mine. Eventually people will progress to the point where they start getting items that only work if they sub but that's quite a long way off. At low levels I think the onlly items you notice as gated are heritage quest rewards and master spells.

As with DDO there are an incredible amount of veterans mingling with the free players. In fact there are probably more veterans than free. I guess after years in the game they love it's fantastic to be able to run around with a huge hoard of starry-eyed newbies. Many of these vets are subbing to EQ2 regular and have taken out extra subs for EQ2E.

Edit: tip - if you have an old Sony Station account it may have Station Cash on it. I have 3 and the first one I looked at had 1250 (about $12.50). I've never bought any so they must have been giving it away at some stage. Took me straight up to Silver.

Is there a link to the costs of races, classes, equipment, etc.? I can't find them on the EQ2 marketplace on their website, and don't feel like signing up just to see how bad it is.

They haven't announced how much the individual classes will cost. The races are sold in packs of 3 for $7.50 (750 Station Cash). Equipment varies. The stuff you don't NEED in order to play (like mounts) is pretty expensive, but there are things as cheap as 100 or 200 SC. They are talking about broker credits being about $.15 a credit, sold in blocks of 10 credits or so.

Races: Human, Erudite, Barbarian and Half Elf are free. Others come in packs of 3 for $7.50.

Classes: Guardian, Berserker, Inquisitor, Templar, Wizard, Warlock, Brigand and Swashbuckler are free. Others TBA.

Equipment: you can't use legendary or fabled items on free accounts. You also can't use the broker. Since half the population is power gamer veterans it's very easy to find people who will shower you with free loot. This sits pretty nicely in the area of not a game breaker if you play for free but, once you have some nice items, very tempting to sub up and be awesome for a month.

Yea, I saw all the stuff on the payment options page about what races and classes were available. Didn't see the $7.50/3 though, thanks. I also know that you can't use legendary or fabled gear, but isn't there gear (with stats) that you can buy with SC?

From what I understand, it's pretty much just Mastercrafted-level gear, like what you make with tradeskilling.

The easiest way to resolve your curiosity is to fire it up. With the streaming it took about 15 minutes from first click to first kill. There's tons of guilds and they're all full of crafters, this game has always been absolutely glutted with crafters. People will just make you gear if you join a guild. I just made someone a staff, it was fun and he was delighted.

I always enjoyed EQII and I'm really pleased that the free service seems to be doing well. SOE put a huge amount of effort into improving the game following launch, and for me it's a lot more fun than WoW.

I'm also confused that the "gold" package on the free servers, at $14.95 a month, appears to offer less than a standard subscription, also $14.95 a month, in that you only have access to four races unless you pay more, but maybe it evens out because you never have to pay for the client?

Except you can almost always find some version of EQ2 for like $8 at Half-Price Books or other places.

The Gold sub on EQ2 does offer less than the same priced subscription on the regular game. If you're going to subscribe, I don't see a reason you wouldn't just buy the box and sub to the regular game.

Three reasons

1) Fresh server, server firsts, discoveries. If you're the first person on a server to see an item your name goes down in history on EQ2Players. Don't laugh, it seems to matter to some people.

2) It's busy. The older servers have been stagnant or declining for some time. I have no idea how EQ2E is affecting them. At a guess I'd say they're even more quiet because half of their player base is trying the new thing.

3) The Lords and Peasants thing. On Live the poorest person has a plat toothbrush and is level 90. Here if you have a mount people are like "Wow! Where did you get that?" Many MMO gamers love being part of the privileged few.

I have to confess that I've started over many times to play on a fresh MMO server.  I like playing with a young, less inflated economy where a majority of players are playing in the newbie zones for the first few weeks.

Yeah, but the reason that soe is doing this is because they see f2p as a shakedown. There's nothing to suggest they see this as anything other than a gimmicky free trial.

So they're being awfully generous to you, letting you play for so long on a 'free' server so why don't you repay that kindness with interest when you actually pony up?

Actually, if you go through the New Halas starter area and do all the quests (or find the one quest that does this), you get a mount as a free reward, +25% speed. Of course, you can buy a mount that gives +50% speed in the Store, but it's like $20.

Hell, MMO Betas are often better than they are after release for this reason.  Combined with the fact that people know everything will be wiped so they just play for fun instead of to accumulate shit.  I'm looking at you WAR.

I hope this is a success and they go full f2p, then I will return.

None of that will matter if lots of people play it and lots of people spend money, ripoff or not.

Listen, I'm not trying to argue that it should be successful. I'm reporting that it is successful. In many ways I'm scratching my head here as much as anyone else.

They added both the broker credits and the ability to purchase individual classes to the marketplace today. Broker credits are 150 SC ($1.50) for 10 credits. Classes are 750 SC ($7.50) per class. Not bad.

I checked mine and had 450. I wonder when they were giving it away. I never would've bought station cash during the time I played EQ2.

450's not really enough for anything except a handful of broker credits so I guess I'll let it sit there. Too bad your balance doesn't earn interest, in just a decade or two I could afford to be a third class silver person instead of a fourth class bronze.

I have 100 SC on my account. Wheee!

$15 to get my Arasai SK back is still a bit more than I'm willing to pay.  Maybe if I think of it as $7.50 from the double SC sales...

There is some armor I found for like 50SC that is pretty good for my level, though I haven't bought it yet. Want to see what the broker has. Broker pickings are a bit slim to start out, but now that everyone has or can buy broker access, I'm thinking it'll pick up.

I might be persuaded to transfer my main, but we'll see.

I recommend joining a guild.  Any guild.  I joined Fabled and we have 200+.  Not a lot of juvenalia and a helluva lot of instance running.  I never did so much in EQ2.  Population FTW.

As a dedicated pack rat and lover of crafting in EQ2, it is the lack of bag slots that is killing me right now. I've seen the 40 slot bag for sale and been slightly tempted, but I would much rather be able to open up bag slots (and more shared bank slots) as individual purchases.

Just to clarify, you don't actually 'transfer' your main, rather you make a copy of it.  The original stays put. 

With all gear?

My understanding (so read the fine print) is that it makes a copy and transfers anything soulbound, sans money.  All XP/AA transfers.  Again, read the fine print because I'm not putting money into this.

R.I.P. EQ2   :cry:

Sony really has gone and pulled another NGE.  Once again in pursuit of imagined riches as they try to transform an existing game into the MMO FOTM, they've abandoned their existing player base and botched their implementation of the new version pissing off pretty much all of their customers, both new and old. 

Unbelievable.

I've cancelled my account and been playing Eve for a month now.  I'm loving it but my wife is kinda iffy on it still and looking for a new place to get her fantasy MMORPG fix from.  Anything at all out there that is PvE, solo/duo & crafter friendly for someone burned out on EQ, AC, AO, CoH and WoW, and just plain burned by DAoC, FFXI, LotRO, and now EQ2?

While I think EQ2's flip into F2P is a failure for many reasons, I don't exactly understand how they've abandoned their existing playerbase.  If you pay $15/month you can go back to the game on regular servers exactly how it was before the switch.  Is there some part of this I'm missing?

It will cut off any new players going to those servers and slowly choke them to death.

To expand upon this point, it actively discourages new players from joining the current live servers. The 14-day free trial is gone, replaced by EQ2X, and EQ2X players cannot transfer off of the F2P servers. Plus, any money you sink into EQ2X is essentially wasted if you do move over to Live, since those extra bag slots, character race/class unlocks, mounts, auction house tokens, and other bits do absolutely nothing for you back on Live.

A person who has played a month or two of F2P and maybe bought a pack of three races, a class or two, and a couple of other miscellaneous things may decide to see what Live offers over F2P. They see that it's much cheaper in the short-to-medium-term due to all races/classes being unlocked, you have more character slots, and other various things. Then they find out that their character cannot transfer off the EQ2X server; they must start from scratch. That alone will kill most of the desire people have to switch over to the subscription game, and they'll probably either quit if they realize they're being ripped off, they'll suck it up and keep on trucking with what they have, or they'll upgrade to the "Gold" plan and get at least somewhat on par with someone who's playing on Live.

The only real way I can see bringing new blood to the old servers is through a massive organized word-of-mouth campaign from veteran players (since SOE has absolutely no incentive to do so, and probably wouldn't do it even if they did) with buddy code chains aplenty, coupled with generous donations to newbies, Goonswarm-in-EVE-style. Of course, I'm more likely to have nightly three-ways with Christina Hendricks and Zoe Saldana than this happening.

It's been a couple of weeks and I'm under the influence of cold meds (not to mention the cold!) but the things I recall off the bat was that they've trashed the basic UI in horrible ways, nerfed the spell graphics for all players even if you had the machine to handle them, and cut off the supply of new players by eliminating the free trial and not allowing transfers from the f2p servers.  The world event content train that was in high gear up through spring this year seems to have slowed to a crawl with (inaccessible) portions of Freeport still on fire from an event that happened, what, last winter?  There are also some more changes likely coming to the f2p servers that could spill over onto the classic servers unless handled carefully.  

Overall, it's more the feeling of impending doom from many many minor cuts rather than the huge sweep the rug out from under you they did with the NGE.  Everything they are doing seems to be focused on pushing people into the free2pay microtrans realm and that combined with the asstastic implementation of that reopens all the old wounds from SWG and EQ before that.  It's like the lesson they learned from the NGE was not to avoid changing the game under the existing playerbase, but rather to do it slowly instead of all at once.

I frankly don't trust them, and will not give them another $ unless it's for something I've thoroughly vetted as being exactly what I want.  In an ironic way, they have succeeded at converting me to a microtrans customer.  I may come back for Halloween month, if they add more fun stuff to the classic servers for that event, but it will only be a one month on-again off-again thing.  Same for any other new content.  If it looks interesting I'll buy it post-release by paying a one month sub then abandon them until they produce something else I'm interested in.  I'm no longer interested in throwing money at them month after month on the assumption that they will occasionally give me new toys to play with.  Apparently, they didn't like having a reliable monthly income so now they can scrabble for funds paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us.

I imagine that leaving the original servers alone was probably somewhat meant to placate the "free to play, ewwww icky people" response, but in the long run, if you're going to go to that model, you probably do need to make all the servers the same. There's a huge influx of returning players and new players in LOTRO F2P.

Yes, making the UI more like the market leader and reducing the system requirements/improving performance is clearly the next NGE.



:uhrr:

So making EQ2s graphics more cartoony like WoW would be a good thing too then, no?  Nevermind however many people were playing EQ2 because it didn't look cartoony like Wow? 

I have no problems with them adding more options to tone down the graphics requirements so folks with laptops can play, or make the UI more configurable so that you can make it work like game X you are already comfortable with.  I do have a problem with them taking away capabilities and functions I've been using and enjoying for years just in the hope that some new players might try it out.  See the difference there or are you some kind of Sony apologist who can't accept any criticism of Sony?

What capabilities and functions have been removed?

Other than a few minor (really minor) changes, it feels like the same EQ2 I play for one month every year or so.  I'm not sure what drastic changes there are.

Let's face it, the live EQ2 servers WERE DYING. The game is not quite on Vanguard maintenance mode, but money wise, subscriptions were probably pretty flat if not slowly declining over the last year or two. I'm guessing they saw the success Turbine had with DDO going F2P, saw the money they were getting from Free Realms and figured "Hey, here's a property that never really hit the big time, is probably breaking even or making a little money but is really on the downslope, how can we spice it up with a shot in the arm." Along comes the F2P microtans model, and I'm sure it'll make more money from that in the first two months than the last two months of subscription on Live have made, just from the novelty factor alone. The F2P model is built for people to either subscribe or nickel and dime themselves into a decent experience.

Your game was dying a slow death. The Live servers will probably keep dying until the F2P becomes the only option. And the game probably gained a year of life or more out of it.

Since you've eliminated all the big names you might want to try some of the decent f2p games like Runes of Magic, Atlantica and Perfect World. I play Atlantica now and then. It has some annoyances but I like the turn based squad combat.

Not sure what you are basing those assumptions on but my server was booming to the point of becoming overcrowded with new people as well as transfers showing up every day.  I know a couple of servers were becoming ghost towns but it seemed like there was growth over all and the crafting community at least was very engaged and excited.  And then came the surprise announcement of the F2P stuff.  Now the message boards are filled with threadnoughts of people quitting.  Not threatening to quit, but actually quitting.

Sure, curiosity and novelty will win them a boost over all for a couple of months, but I seriously doubt it added anything to the game's life.  I rather suspect it shortened it dramatically.  EQ2 is one of the most polished games out there right now, better in many ways than WoW even.  With a continuation of the resources it had and a coherent marketing campaign that showed off its best features it might have pulled an Eve and started growing again.  It really is/was that good.  But the F2P model they've chosen will choke the life out of it far faster than it can shake the last few coins out of the pockets of people who have many other options these days. The crafting and market sub-games are seriously crippled by their F2P implementation, they've included all sorts of "I win" options you can purchase from their store (not cheap either!), and they will become mandatory for raids and even just normal high-end dungeons because most people won't want to "upgrade" to the full subscription price to play a "free to play" game and thus wont be able to equip the gear necessary to survive in the tougher places without the "I win" short cuts.

If SoE had cared about the existing EQ2 player base they could have easily used the free play additions to rejuvenate the activity and population on those servers. The fact they've built it as a separate and higher profile system almost certainly means their numbers indicate micro-transactions as being more profitable over time. So take the hint and either pay to shift over or find another MMO.

Then again, I've never had much love for EQ2 and distrusted SoE since I was playing EQ... so all this is just confirmation for me.

This. 

F2P should revitalize your game, not remind your existing playerbase of the soul-crushing grinds that your game contains.  SOE missed a HUGE opportunity here by being greedy bastards.  If they had made f2p more user friendly, they may have upped their revenue incrementally.  Instead, they went for it all at once in a manner that demonstrated their disdain for the entire f2p premise.

I think the direction for EQ2's F2P conversion was, "You are going free-to-play now. The budget for this transition is $50. If we see any dip in the revenue of this title, you're all fired."

Business models (i.e. the system of collecting revenue to pay for your expenses) is critical for MMOs since the $15 a month plan isn't working so well anymore, but it doesn't look like the right people sit down and work out the details before throwing them out to the public.

Wow is going free to play?

Most of the games that have gone f2p are either those that failed (DDO) or were on a solid decline curve (LotRO, EQ2). Though why Warhammer has not gone F2P remains a mystery when it meets both of those criteria and PvP games need the population.

Yeah, really. I would give WAR another try with a F2P model.

Blizzard has already confirmed that F2P is their planned endgame for WoW sometime in the distant future.

They'll ride that Cataclysm horse into the ground well before they do it too.  I imagine F2P will do pretty damn well for them, since there's so many ease of life and cosmetic things they can charge for.  Opens up the audience quite a bit since WoW is probably the most accessible of the big MMOs as far as machine specs are concerned.

Yes, they said they'd consider it when wow is obsolete and in decline...

source (http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/06/30/blizzard-discuss-making-world-of-warcraft-free/)

I'm sure my grandkids 40 years from now will bitch about wow going f2p.

WoW and EvE are exceptions to almost every MMO rule. I can't think of a pure-sub title that has launched in the last 3 years and done well. Arguably the reason a number of titles are going F2P is so that they aren't competing with WoW in that space too.

I agree in that I can't think of an MMO that has launched in the last three years that hasn't been horribly flawed. Warhammer, Fallen Earth, APB, Aion.... seriously, wtf.

When asked to pay $15 a month for something, consumers typically want a product for their money.  WoW and EvE seem to be the only teams that realize this. 

The subscription model doesn't have to be dead.  It just requires a higher quality product than what the public demanded 6 years ago. 

WAR is probably still on the sub model because no one at Mythic wants to admit they put out a stinker of a product AND they probably have a burdensome license fee they must pay to Games Workshop every month for the IP. Knowing GW, the idea of free anything would send them into screaming WAAAGGGHH fits.

I rather thought the exec saying WAR would never go FTP was using code for "please make me redundant so I can get out of this crapheap with enough cash to last until people have forgotten I worked there".

I'm having a blast playing this game again.  Its great to be on a fresh server with tons of players at my level range.  I'm going to see how far I can go before I feel like not having a subscription restricts me, at which point I'll probably just stop playing.

I'd say the free to play model is probably going to work out fine for them given they've already pulled money out of my wallet for a class unlock.  They would have pulled even more money out of me if I could purchase an unlimited broker unlock and possibly more bag slots.

Of course, I'm not an Access Subscriber, or remotely interested in the Access service to the SOE mmo graveyard. Just fyi.

No great surprise but they've announced that 16 "live" servers, the traditional paid for servers, are to merge (to put it another way, eight will be closed). Of 27 live servers there will be 19 left.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=488823

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19965.0
 :awesome_for_real:

A useless bump, but I stumbled on this video, a celebration of EverQuest 2, and I just wanted to share it.

I am pretty sure it will be revolting to everyone except those very few ones who played and loved it. Still, I always thought this game had amazing art direction, barring the ridiculous characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZuA_q6jbNA

That entire game looks like someones Ray Tracing art project from 1995.

Their Halloween event looked and felt stunning. If you don't spoil it it is a little like one of those old adventure games, you remember, the ones where you think "damn, I've tried everything, where the hell is what I need to get on to the next part of the quest?" Moderately simple compared to the old days but enough to really feel like brain work.

It's also attracted some criticism for being in poor taste, presumably from people whose cultural experiences never extended as far as the Brothers Grimm.

I love the tech in that engine, such awesome looking areas. The mapping used is still some of my favorite in any game, their dank, rusty dungeons alone blow almost everything ever made out of the water. There's stuff they were doing in 2004 that still hasn't been touched by anyone else, single or multiplayer.

The animation is also worth a mention - every character in EQ2 looks shit loads better when they are actually moving - just a shame it was let down by the launch mechanics.

There's something about EQ2 graphics that you love or hate, it seems. Personally, I think it's one of the ugliest games ever made - as someone above says, it's like a first year students ray tracing program. *Nothing* in the game world looks right. Everything appears made of plastic, and even basic rocks and trees look artificial, as if they were dropped on top of things haphazardly. I don't know whether it's the textures or the alignment, but to me the entire world seems wrong and badly glued together - the basic joins between objects in the game world just aren't right. Add into that the shiny plastic feel to everything and it just looks a mess. EQ2 has a lot of praise from peopel for various things, but I've never heard anyone rave about its graphics before.

On the plus side, it did give birth to one of my favourite animal descriptions in gaming - the fearsome "sausage deer" from the starter island.

So, what would you consider to be the most visually attractive, fantasy MMO currently operating? 

Technically, I think Age of Conan on good settings is the best I've seen so far. I haven't really played some of the most recent offerings, but I haven't seen anything better.  LOTRO does fantastic with the environments, but the characters and character animations are horrid, IMO.

Functionally, well, you know the winner there.  Any game where I could participate in a 40 man raid playing the game off an external HD connected to my work laptop doesn't even have any competition.

I guess my standpoint, the normal mapping, shadows and lighting all come together to give EQ2 a certain feel, I dunno how to properly word it. Not 'realistic' really, just not disconnected, cartoony and gamey as stuff like LotRO or AoC. Both of which look nice, but there isn't much in the way of versimilitude vs the technical engine EQ2 employs, especially in places like the serpent sewer, which is just amazing.

In my limited amount of time playing EQ2, I was half-expecting those green plastic army guys to show up somewhere. They'd just seem to fit in that world.

To be fair to EQ2, if you choose the alternate models for characters, they are much better. Their animations still suck monkey ass, but they are better.

I still don't see what Sky's talking about. I like the environments well enough, but think LotRO's are much better while their characters are better than EQ2 but less so than the terrain.

Really?  I can't stand the LoTR characters.  They look terrible and their animations and stances are worse.  I'm pretty sure that's one of the main reasons I could never get into the game.

I'm so-so on the LotRO models. They are weirdly proportioned, but their animations have never bothered me. The vast majority of their items at least pre-level 50 are pretty silly looking as well, though certainly not as silly as the giant shoulder pads from WoW. EQ2's models are badly out of proportion, and the original models were terribly textured. Their animations are very jittery as well.

nvm. my response was said 10 times over...

When did you learn to Shut the Fuck Up?

YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES

And yeah, it's weird, because for me the game literally in a league of it's own here.  No other major game provokes this reaction in me, even outside the MMO world.  I have tried HARD to get into EQ2, assuming that I'd get used to the look of it after a while, but no, never.

I might criticize the look of other games, don't get me wrong, but for some reason EQ2 has just has a really strong lack of cohesion or togetherness or something that is just really really a barrier to me beyond a game that merely has "meh" art/graphics.  Yeah, looking at an individual game model, it looks ok... but somehow, when it's all on one screen, it is just... game-breakingly painful to look at for me.  "Ray-tracing project" actually sums it up quite well, unfortunately.

I hate to sound so insulting about it, but it's really significant from my perspective.

I think it comes down to the choices made by each designer or team in each area. Nektulos is great, but I totally see the so called "ray traced" look in some of the other area, namely the expansion part.

I could live with the plastic-y graphics in EQ2 if not for two things.  The original hair/beard styles, and the thoroughly ass-ugly gear.  Those are the two primary things in EQ2 that bothered me.  The alternate models somewhat alleviate the hair/beard thing, but only a bit. 

Other than those two, it was shiny plate armor, or the rocks.  The paladin npc in Antonica with the bright, shiny, plate armor.  Looked horrible back when. 
The large, dark rocks looked wrong for whatever reason, but I'm used to that because I see it a lot in other games as well.  For some reason some things look muddy, and pixilated, when they shouldn't.  I remember Baldurs Gate being bad about that.

when you found a broom to fuck yourself with.

Funny, whenever I express that in the LOTRO forum, I get jumped on.  :oh_i_see:

The payment models have stepped backwards from DDO. In DDO you only really needed to buy content and you were given about a third of the content free. Both EQ2 and Lotro have hideous game-breaking punishments for freeloading that hamper their chances. Lotro, by all accounts, is unplayably horrible with swift travel hidden behind the paywall. And EQ2 hides gear behind the paywall.

Both of these games are likely to be utterly utterly screwed if and when WoW goes free to play. Or if GW2 matches them for quality.

Personally I don't mind too much that gaining decent gear in EQ2 is basically pointless, even as Gold, since next month when my sub lapses it will all fall off. But the server already is starting to feel a little quiet. I'm level 41 and I do get groups without too much effort but as the newness wears off and the population levels up even the free to play server seems likely to turn into the standard grind solo to max level formula that is so off-putting to most new players. mentoring is good for playing with lowbie friends but it's not something people do just to pug with random strangers - it kills your exp.

I also find it significant that although they announced a few weeks ago they had a second server ready to go they haven't launched it yet. I think they just don't have the numbers yet. Which is bad because the numbers have probably already peaked.

WoW won't be F2P until sometime when I'm in my flying antigrav wheelchair, so best to stop even worrying about that. The Lotro licence only goes until 2015 or 2017 AFAIK so I wouldn't place a great deal of money on Lotro even existing when/if WoW goes F2P in the future. - After all, EQ1 still makes enough money to charge a sub fee. A higher one than WoW, in fact, due to the diehards.

That's because Nebu is good at giving reasoned arguments, and he's also expressed on several occasions the reasons he enjoys playing  LOTRO, so it makes sense that he would still be playing it, despite its flaws.  You, however, are a constant drone of "I hate everything about this game and I only play it because my friends like it."

Holy shit the new installer is fast and easy. You guys have been talking about it so much i decided to give it a look again. I spent 2 years in this title... wonder whats left.

EDIT: :( I can't play my necro! Much sadness!

I am underwhelmed by new Halas. I love snow, but everything is so blandly white here I keep wondering if my monitor brightness is somehow fucked up.

Leveling up is ridiculously fast.

Yes, new installer is a bomb.

The new installer/patcher was absolute shit the first month or so - it's still a bit hinky. But it seems to be working better now.

If you don't like New Halas, you probably won't like the rest of the world. New Halas is the latest starting area added, the rest will be a step back although they won't all be blindingly white.  :awesome_for_real: And your leveling will slow down after New Halas. That area was well-done in regards to proper leveling pace. Make sure you do the quest chain that gives you a free mount before you leave.

Don't get me wrong. I am an EQ2 lover, and one of the few sickos who even loved it at launch. I don't know what's not working for me so far in New Halas. Usually, in any game, snowy areas are my favourite. I really don't know.

I think I liked the original starting zones, the island and Freeport/Qeynos, much more than this. 

Ugh. I hated the Island and Qeynos and Freeport both had areas that made me scream. Like the sewers. New Halas had a very clear path - yes, it was linear but it moved new players along pretty swiftly with a good series of rewards.

Incorrect.
The main difference is that my formerly-positive experience has turned negative over time with a further sharp decline when the game went F2P, while others in the forum are either enjoying the game for the first time or had no issue and love Lotro regardless.

On EQ2 - A friend bought it and gave me a trial key when it first came out, but I only lasted about 6 days of the trial. I've heard Hartsman and co worked wonders on it, but the combination of SOE and WoW (even Lotro) kept me away. The announcement of F2P here made me raise a curious eyebrow until I saw the implementation...
 

The game has a new expansion coming out in November called Age of Discovery, with a new class and some zone revamps.

What I thought was interesting though was the "design your own dungeon" feature.

From an interview at mmorpg.com:


http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/2/feature/5448/EverQuest-II-Age-of-Discovery-Bringing-BIG-Changes.html

Games such as City of Heroes and Star Trek Online already allow players to create their own instances and it's being pushed as a major feature of Neverwinter. Is allowing players to create content going to become a standard feature of future MMOs? In some ways, as the interview I linked to points out, it's actually a return to the days when experienced MUD players were allowed to create rooms.

Welcome to my penis dungeon.

Saga of Ryzom, still ahead of its time.

How'd that work out for them?  :awesome_for_real:

No, just saying, seems innovation always comes from the indi side. Lots of games are adopting it now.

City of Heroes - introduced this, had players design "miaow" dungeons which gave out silly amounts of exp, started a player riot by banning regular Joes for trying out a player designed dungeon that gave super exp.

SWG - confounded people who thought the game was empty by publishing some astronomically high stat for the number of dungeons designed. Rewarded for its innovation and success with a knife in the back from Lucas Arts.


Anyone else?

I'd be more excited about the addition of mercenaries in EQ2 than about building my own dungeon.

None of this is aimed at us, the MMO vets. It is aimed at the countless 14 year olds that now infect Bree town in Lotro. Most common race and class will hardly seem like any restriction at all to them and after SOE has peeled away $5 or $10 of allowance money that they would not otherwise get, these folks will hit the road for the next ftp they haven't played. Its all about the churn and this will provide additional revenue.

Wait, what?

Dammit, EQ2. Sounds great, but I think between a year of Rift and TOR coming up, it's a bit too late.

This. I'll probably re-up my sub for a month or so just to play with the new mercs and maybe roll a beastlord; my only complaint about the class as-advertised is that it seems to recall the bad old days of WoW hunters where you have to level each pet up individually.

Same boat.  Seems like with all the stuff they're doing, they'd be better off just making EQ3  :why_so_serious:

I do believe they are making EQ3.

This.

I'm bored with Rift (done everything a group of 5 can do and hit rank 6 on my mage in pvp) and just want to kill time until TOR releases.  I'd love to have this in EQ2 NOW, but it's going to release the same time as TOR... and I know which I'd rather play. 

I dunno, I played at launch. For a few years. Recently tried the F2P version, was completely put off by the new start areas. YMMV. They made me finally understand why people kept saying "Scan line render from the 90's". Old areas did not have that "look".

EQ2 is a great game actually. A massive amount of content after all those expansions, loads of options for your character (all those different mounts and appearance items), housing and some nice features for guild and groups and it's free. I don't actually play any more but I had a lot of fun with it for six months or so. Here's a short film saying how great EQ2 is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he46vWHxWLk

I didn't say EQ2 wasn't a great game. I had a lot of fun with it for six years. It's my favorite mmo to date and the one I've played longest by an order of magnitude.

The free version is not great, the game was kinda stale after six years, then they decide to implement some cool-sounding features just as the biggest mmo in recent history launches. As it is, if they pushed that all out (and it wasn't too buggy/grindy), I'd drop Rift in a second and jump back in. But the reality is, this is a great idea with horrid timing.

Damn you did the R6 grind?  Not even I could stomach that.

I like PvP and don't have a guild to raid with.  After getting completely T2 geared and having 1000 extra plaques, PvP was the only other thing to do after leveling 4 toons to 50. 

I tried, I really did, to enjoy the raiding game but just couldn't stomach it.  I played with a progression guild and spending 4 hours a night watching the same idiots cause a wipe while simultaneously blaming it on someone else got old really fast.  I'll stick to single group and solo stuff.

Coincidentally that was my breaking point after killing the Lich King.  The same idiots had been standing in the "kill us all" stuff time and time again.   We killed him when they weren't there and I was done after that.

Yeesh.  At least most of our incapable ones recognize we are.

I've been messing around with EQ2 in the last three days (Trial, live edition); last time I played was back at the end of 2004/beginning of '05 :P.

Whoa, game surely improved, I'm really really liking it so far, more than Rift for sure, but maybe that's partially unfair (at least content-wise) cpmsidering how long Everquest 2 has been out.

Yeah, that is one thing Slap has/had going for it, our noobs usually know they're noobs. Although some of them don't quite get how bad they are, sometimes.


Anyway, EQ2 ... I tried it again a couple of months ago, and while I find being a fairy monk hilarious, I just ... can't get into the game. I think it's because it has TOO much and it's overwhelming to me now? I have the same issue with LotRO these days, really, there's all this NEW shit and I don't GET it and fuckit I'll just play WoW and wait for SWTOR to come out. Does this mean I'm dumb? I think it might mean I'm dumb. :(

Iy sounds to me like you got used to how it was using the old systems, and now you can;t be bothered retraining yourself to understanding the new systems. Which is a fair enough call, especially after time away and if you're not especially invested in the game or those characters.

Oh, and the "disable combat experience" feature is one of the greatest ever (don't know if other less popular MMOGs before or after EQ2 implemented it), especially if it's your first toon or you enjoy exploring instead of rushing to the endgame, so that you don't have to worry about outleveling your zone or your crafting skills.

Sky and I (Sky more than me) kind of beat the drum for EQ2 for a while.  It really grew into a great, engaging game about 3 or 4 years ago.  They absolutely changed everything, I don't think there is a skill in the game now that was in there at launch.  They even changed the basic class structure when they let you pick your class right from launch.  They have repopulated, I think, every zone in the game and re-engineered pretty much every quest.

The way I got back into it was first to play a new character up to 10 or so in the newest newbie zone available.  Then I logged in my main and to took every skill off my skill bar and removed every quest from my questbook.  After that I went and found an area where things were trivial and experimented with each skill that seemed relevant to get familiar with what they do now.  Finally I looked up on the internet (there are some great leveling timeline resources for EQ2 out there) and found where I should be at a little below my level and went there.  Of course there were still a lot of systems I didn't understand until later but it didn't take that long to figure everything out.

All that said, at the moment I think LotRO is a better game than EQ2...

It is hard to get back into a game after a long break, I think this is true for anyone one. Double time if the game is a MMO.

In fact, I had issues getting back into death-spank last night, I was completely lost as to where I was at. So no, your not dumb :)


Personally, I can't stand the new zones, WTF happened there.

I tried to play DAoC earlier this year on a whim of boredom.  After realizing they haven't moved one damned inch away from the "COMMAND LINE ALL THE THINGS!" way of doing things, I uninstalled promptly.

I think I played EQ2 back in... late 2005/early 2006 with my guild. At that time it just didn't seem worth playing compared to WOW (for me), and soloing was such a painful boring slog that we quit in the 20/30s out of frustration. I hear they've gotten a whole lot better since then, but now they'll be competing against SWTOR / GW2 / etc if they want my $.

More importantly, this 'design your own dungeon' thing is intriguing -- is there more info out there other than the blurb in that writeup? Like whether you can have dialogues / scripts / triggered events, have NPCs say / emote stuff, objects you can interact with, secondary goals, etc etc. I've always been a sucker for player-created content in mmogs (from building/coding MUD zones to GMing at RP UO shards to huge player events in SWG to designing story arcs in COH's Mission Architect), so this one feature by itself may cause me to sub. :awesome_for_real:

This is on the list of things I wish Bioware would put into TOR. Given it's a story based games that's supposed to be shared with friends (and that level ranges are so tight), you should put in every tool to make sure that we can stay in the same bracket. Hell, let me "bank" xp and level when I want to, so I could play through the story without being penalized for shutting off xp (if you leave it off too long, story elements would become unplayable without grinding). Blah.

For EQ2, it was a great feature, especially with so much content in each level band.

I played WoW for three months, didn't really like it. Didn't hate it, it's just clearly aimed at the LCD mass market and was pretty boring to me. EQ2's systems were so much better once they were able to recover from the bad launch, and I still use it for the benchmark for a lot of mmo game systems. The way abilities fired off, having individual refresh/recast timers that you could modify individually within the ability, I really hate the GCD. The full-on one-ahead ability queue. I bitched for soooo long to get that put into Rift, and I still don't like their implementation and end up hammering my abilities (I guess I should macro  :oh_i_see:), it's fucking awful and a leading reason I've cancelled Rift before my second month is up, and really it was 5 weeks for me, so less than half of WoW's attraction...despite the phenomenal soul/role system. Anyway...the exp disable, as mentioned. The broker, SO MUCH better than the shitty AH, I hate that TOR is going to follow WoW's AH rather than the eminently more functional EQ2 broker.

Probably the main reason my ambivalence toward WoW (it's ok) is slowly turning to utter dislike is that "3rd gen" mmo devs are going the path of least resistance and adopting WoW features that other games have done much better. Just because EQ1 had everyone stare at a spellbook, and that's what 'everyone knows', doesn't mean you go ahead and adopt that into a 'next-gen' game. You take the best of the last generation and improve on it. Not just fully rip the 800lb gorilla and add feature x and y. Gah.

Sorry. I really liked EQ2's systems. The only thing I could really complain about would be that it (along with WoW) introduced the "elite" mob concept (or the "fuck you" mob as I call them, as a casual soloer).

Familiarity is a powerful force to fight against.  Not only because you, the designer, have to forge ahead on other more unfamiliar paths, but you have to do it in a manner that won't confuse or alienate a customer familiar with the system you're abandoning.

Not that I don't think more should do it.. I just see why they don't.  This is the end result of big-budget games. They're all going to be as samey and formulaic as Prime Time TV.

Aye, I have to fight this daily working on a game with an old player-base. Sometimes, it really does not matter if the change is better. Its different, and thats all the reason needed to scream obscenities and talk about canceling  accounts.

Do you really think that the people who scream and cry like spoiled children represent the majority? I'd think most people would just adapt to the new system, and indeed, if you can improve on their previous experience it would be a barrier to exit back to the 800lb gorilla. Make it the same and why should everyone pull up their social roots just for feature X?

Not to mention, EQ2 isn't exactly a niche title. Rift in particular could've slid in a lot of EQ2 features without alienating too many folks (who would then lead the folks who hadn't played EQ2 into the 'new' systems).

No, but it doesn't mean you don't have to deal with it. Sometimes, its purely curmudgeon ideological, logic does not enter into the response.

I think I can cover this in a nutshell:

WoW favors the achiever whereas EQ2 favors the explorer. 

WoW is more game-like (i.e. platform) in style, EQ2 is more immersive and world-like. 

I recently went back to EQ2 and can really see some of the differences clearly after playing Rift heavily.  The EQ2 world is rich and alive, but lacks the console-like fight complexity that I had grown accustomed to in WoW/Rift.  It's very eye-opening to play this game after doing so much dungeon/raid stuff in Rift.  Two very different approaches. 

I hate you all. After escaping two years ago, I've been reading this,  perused the EQ2 boards and may have a raid spot if I grind to 90.

You really should avoid any topic concerning EQ2...

Silly EQ2, had you integrated your live servers with the EQ2Xtenz version, I would still play this today.  I just don't feel like rolling a new toon to play.  Oddly, I'd spend some cash in their store, too, unlike my experience with LotRO.

Oh, I started fresh, believe me. My old EQ2 characters were all under level 20 anyway, so I just started some new characters because I was losing nothing by doing so. So I was basically going in as a fresh new person. But it just felt so meh and I didn't know what the hell was going on and I was, of course, all alone, etc. I think whatever window  EQ2 had to get me has just long since passed, I guess. Maybe if I had played EQ at all (DAoC was my first MMO), I'd at least have felt some attachment to the world, but I didn't even have that to help me out. If that makes sense.

I dunno, the free to play announcement got me to avoid the game like the plague it was so bogus.

Bad news though, I have 45 free days to play.

Meh, I may give this another go while I wait for Old Republic.

I patched my game last night (haven't played since February) just because I wanted something to do.  At least all my characters are still guilded, lol.  Patching didn't take long at all but my UI is bugged (can't chat) and I need to fix that.  Had to make a macro just to log out.

As far as I can tell everything is still working. I got the new patcher for Profit and when I logged in everything was where I left it.

Check your accounts, I seem to have a month and a half on all games. Could that be related to the hacker disaster?

Yep, they gave everyone that time for the SOE hack.  I played mine already, kinda wasted it.  Regretting that decision now, I am. 

Cool, I thought it was a static time frame, not dependent on activation. Good deal, just as I quit Rift, I'll jump into EQ2 for a month and a half! Now to see if BC is still in existence, hah!

This thread and talk of the expansion has made me want to go back to my EQ2X character, but luckily, I have so much other stuff to play, I don't have time for it.

What's the difference between EQ2 and EQ2x?

EQ2x or Extended is the "free" server (in quotes because you still need to pay a sub if you want the full experience).

The traditional subscription servers are just called EQ2 or sometimes the "live servers", even though EQ2x is obviously live too. Hope that helps.

If they fixed their idiotic pricing, I'd be much more tempted to give it a whirl.  On their site they list $199 for a year as being the 'best deal' and '$70 savings'.  A year of $15 a month is $180 for the full normal game.  At $60/year or $99/lifetime, I'd bite.  $200/year just makes me laugh and go elsewhere.

I'd just like to point out that SOE was talking about "build your own dungeons" BEFORE RELEASE of EQ2. So, for them to pretend like this is a new revelation is just silly. They also talked about cellphone games for things like lock picking that would give you skill gain so you could still be playing while you were away from the game. They talked a lot of smack about a lot of things that might maybe make people not flee from their game in droves in the way they did. None of it ever came to be and the one, biggest thing they could have done to keep players... stop the constant and almost maniacal way in which they tried to price gouge and cheat their customers at every turn possible, wasn't something they'd even consider. Enjoy the last vestiges of a fan-base you somehow suckered into sinking $30+ per month into playing your game, the rest of us aren't coming back.

wat

Tell us where the bad man touched you...

u mad bro

DaoC is just really fucking old at this point. They keep slapping new paint on the models and stuff, but the actual mechanics haven't changed much at all since release.


/macro <assist> /assist Fordel /say I am assisting Fordel!!!

fordel
fordel
fordel

guys its not working

Don't make me break out the melee healer.

According to those I speak with, mystics are now uber.

Took long enough.

SOE authenticators just appeared in the store for anyone that actually plays. Amazing how fast they got on that after losing a couple of months of revenue.

I kinda expect all new mainstream MMO's to just include those in the box by default now. Or something like them.

Or at least include smartphone apps.

Just re-subbed (lvl 80 Dirge). took about 45 minutes of running around randomly mashing buttons to have it click how to play again. No interest in the eq2x, should hold me over tell ToR comes out.

I'm planning on hitting EQ2 around the end of next month, using up that 45 day credit. I think my wizard is 74 or so.  Root and nuke should be easy to remember :)

So I just found out about chrono mentoring.  :drill:

I don't know what that means. The last time I played I kept forgetting about the research assistant thing to upgrade spells (even though my wizard is also a sage).

I think that means higher levelled PCs can mentor down to your level to group with you.  This also gives the lower level guy an exp bonus.  This was a great way to play new content that came out after you levelled past it.  A level 80 mentored down to level 40 was also way more powerful than a regular level 40.

It's where you talk to an NPC (chronosomethingorother) and you get choose what level you mentor to, in blocks of 5. I seem to remember there being a special task/dungeon that you could do for them too, think it changed daily.

Do the dungeons in this game ever have any interesting encounters?  I've been playing a bit and am about level 65 now and the boss encounters are nothing more than tank and spank.  It's a shame.  While the dungeons are amazingly complex and beautiful to look at, the combat is dull dull dull.

With normal mentoring, you just need to group with a lower level player. Chrono mentoring is when you pay the NPC to lower your level, ie it is a solo version of mentoring allowing you to go do lower level solo material you may have missed.

In EQ2 this can be particularly useful because doing quests gives you AA experience, and one approach players can take is to gain as much AA experience per level as you possibly can, even if this slows down your levelling.

My understanding is that you're also overpowered when mentoring, so its common to mentor down and grind out heroic mobs you wouldn't be able to at your normal level.

You can now choose your research and claim it directly from the knowledge screen that contains all of your abilities.  No need to talk to a research assistant anymore.  It was a great change.

I've returned to the game as well, but not to the extended version.  Just playing on Crushbone.

It is hard to remember exactly, but there are definitely boss mobs in the higher level instances that have tricks to them.  Still, once you learn the tricks, it is just execution like always in a DIKU.  Solo boss fights have to be plain vanilla so all classes have a chance. 

Bottom line, EQ2 is a tank and spank platform.  No way around it, really.

I'm on crushbone as well, name is Htrik.

From the stuff I saw while raiding in Rift, the "tricks" are just gimmicks to break things up, but really no more involved or taking any more skill, than the "tank/spank". Oh, don't stand in the circle. Now everyone jump. Now swing your partner round and round. SASHAY TO THE LEFT.

That's right, "complex" mmo boss fights are lame square dances. I said it.

I forget what server I'm on...the Bat Country server, since I am (was?) the leader, hah. Although for the last several months I played I mostly just used it as a shared bank for my characters, but did have the first bank open to hand out sow totems and whatnot (I'm crafty).

edit - I guess I could've looked. We're (BC) on Oasis, which I think is still Oasis after the merge with Befallen? My 75ish wizard is Caviglia, and I've got a slew of alts, too. Lots of craftards.

I haven't raided in a couple of years and I don't know what they've done to it since then, but at least what I saw back then compared to Rift and WoW was that raiding in EQ2 was a lot more about playing your character and a lot less about doing a square dance. I think there's a bunch of things going on there, but a really big one was EQ2 had a lot more abilities and they weren't automated, so making choices of spell casting and such were a bigger factor than WoW where everything is automated and Rift where everything is in a giant macro chain. There also seemed to be a bigger diversity in how you could succeed at something.

But it was definitely challenging. And I've yet to see single player combat in any MMO that is.

There is no business incentive to make soloing dangerous. 

I guess I like lame square dances.  Take the Plutonus fight at the end of DSM in Rift.  While the mechanics are easy to master, they require my attention and make the encounter interesting.  What I enjoy about the mechanics of boss fights in WoW and Rift are that they reminds me that I have to look at the encounter and the surroundings.  In EQ2, I spend all of my time staring at my UI so that I don't miss a cooldown.  I don't want to play my UI.  I want to interact with the beautifully detailed game environment that EQ2 has.  


Combat in EQ2 feels slow.  I also have a false sense of decision making in that many of my abilities are similar.  Often, I just hit the one that isn't on cooldown abd that seems to be enough to maximize my dps by parser.  I've read the forums and understand how each class that I play works (I think I have 6 toons between levels 40 and 65), but it seems that many of the abilities I have could just as easily be replaced by a single ability with a shorter cooldown.  As above, I want to play the game... not my UI.  

Perhaps EQ2 just isn't for me.  I like the open world.  I like the sandbox elements (love crafting and housing).  I even appreciate the classes (though many of the pairings are nearly a carbon copy... more redundancy).  I just enjoy a bit twitchier game.  Might also explain why I gravitate toward pvp in these games.

Neat! I mostly play Snarkles, a Halfling necromancer.  I have a max level troubador named Aerieon as well, but that one mostly just gathers dust.

GU61 went live: http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/GU61

WARNING! WARNING! WALL OF TEXT BEHIND SPOILER!

tl;dr (from the notes themselves):

Not your typical patch for a seven year old game.

What is this? 

I thought that beastlord was the new player class being added in the next expansion. 

I had some good times in EQ2...I think it was 2008, when I brought along an Illusionist up into the 60s.

so the gear upgrade was  :grin: I went from having to use most of my CA's and songs in a fight to basically 2 shotting things.

Hm... I do have a mid-level illusionist (from 2006) kicking around. However, I read that enchanter types are buffbots now, and cc isn't necessary. c/d?

I last played a couple of months ago, and had a level 90 illusionist. Their main strength is buffing, but they make such a massive difference to the DPS output of the group that they love having you there, and that's pretty cool. Crowd control is useful only in a few specific encounters, such as boss fights where you are faced with three bosses at once. Basically, it's not needed most of the time. What illusionists can do, however, is to stun and stifle enemies (ie, the one you are actually killing) which not only helps groups but allows you to kill, slowly, some heroic stuff on your own.

Illusionists can also put out decent DPS now. They are a fun class.

is there any kind of LFD tool now?  I don't remember as of last year the LFG tool being that good, which was mostly about population.   I'd love a F2P sub to solo explore that game whenever I want, but I also want to see some of those dungeons at least once.

It should be in the next patch. Technically, it should have been in this patch, but they couldn't get it working in time.

Wait, they're actually putting in LFD?

Hrmmmmmm

Yeah, LFGrief, random assholes ragequitting or kicking you out of a group if you're not overgeared by at least 3 tiers will be mandatory as they are in WoW and Rift. Rah.

Actually, I've had very little issue with PUGs (and even the few PURs I've been on) like that.  Granted, I've not been into the most recent dungeons/content because I don't have DoV, but overall random groups in EQ2 seem much more sane than anything I ever saw in WoW.

And I'm adamantly opposed to LFD in those games because they don't have population issues. But in a game with a dwindling population? Yeah, I'm for it. That might be enough for me to check it out.

EQ2 is still the game I want to love so badly.

WoW didn't have a population issue at the time, but it did have the issue of "It takes an hour+ to form a group due having to rely on chat channels and random luck", along with a number of other social and archaic issues.  LFD may have it's problems, but it's a vast improvement over the past.

I disagree but my intent isn't to rehash arguments that I was tired of having nearly two years ago which aren't going to change my mind anyway. In *this* game, LFD may prove a godsend.

So many cool new additions to the game...maybe too many to get back into it cold turkey.

I've been playing EQ2 lately, and I realized exactly what I miss about EQ1 and AC and all of those games. I also realized why it's gone.

Groups aren't nearly as social as they once were. With quest hubs like we have now, all you do is load up on quests, run out and meet your objectives, run back to turn in and repeat.

Back when we used to camp the bandits in East Commonlands there was a lot of socializing going on while we waiting for the bandits to respawn.

Basically I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather camp a spawn with friends and just quest for items than use quests as the main form of gathering xp.

Bad gameplay makes for social gaming? That would explain facebook!  :why_so_serious:

Yeah, no interest in sitting around waiting to play the game in short bursts while nattering on with some nabobs.

To continue my comment from my last post, I kinda wish I had an open character slot to try to re-learn the game from scratch, because it's way too overwhelming at level 77.

I just leveled a Fury up to level 12 this morning and I'm currently runnin' around EC. I'm on Antonia Bayle if you'd like to join!

its just like riding a bike. If you had to input a 12 button rotation to make the bike go forward a foot.

Sky - unless you have a virulent hatred of RMT, you can buy extra character slots on the Station Marketplace to try out a new character.

For grouping, my guild has a "family group" as it's called.  One of the players got his dad and brother to play and in order to not have things be too overwhelming, they throttled back their XP gain in favor of AA gain, so even after over a year of playing they aren't max level and are just taking it slow.  They pick a set night to group up and do quests or exploration and other times, if someone feels like playing solo a bit or just crafting, they aren't going to outlevel the rest of the group too quickly.  The veteran players have other characters they can play on to level faster if they like, otherwise it's all about taking it slow and socializing.

Personally when I do play (not as much recently) I don't pay all that much attention to chat channels because they either scroll by so fast (crafting channel) or they're filled with drivel and e-peen waving (80-89 and 90 when 1-9 overflows).  I keep up with guild chat and that's about it.

I'm on AB as well and been with an awesome guild (Safe Haven) for years now.  We're not raiders (although we keep poking at it) and recently had a guild move from another server to join AB/us (co-worker of a guild member) who are more into raiding, so maybe that will grow some more.

I'm nearing the end of my trial and will probably buy the game. I was looking for a guild, so I checked out Safe Haven and seemed like a pretty okay place. Pretty casual place, you say?

Yep, there's no pressure on anyone to do anything or to make a specific type of character to fit into some pre-assembled group makeup.  Play what you like, people are majorly friendly and generally willing to help out someone that isn't begging for help every two seconds.  We're also pretty cautious about recruits though because we've been burned a few times (got our shared gbank and harvest depots cleared out), so recruits have a month evaluation period before being promoted.  Just FYI.

If you do like what you've heard about SH, mention you know Darema and I'll pop in to vouch on the boards. :)

Right on. It's hard to socialize when you're on the trial, though I doubt I'll wait until it's over before I buy. I'm just shy of level 20 now as a Fury, though I'm not entirely sure I like the class. Seems like I'm a damage oriented druid.

Let's say you go full on priest, like a cleric or something. Are you still pretty well able to solo or are you reliant on groups to level?

I've never had trouble leveling solo as an inquisitor or templar.  You won't be able to tackle the same difficulty of encounters solo as, say, a necromancer or a shadowknight, but they can definitely solo for experience.  Inquisitors are better at it than templars, but they're both capable.

My main is a defiler.  Between the slow pace of combat in EQ2 and the slow rate of soloing with a defiler, I lost patience with the game.  Loved decorating my house though!

Betray to mystic. We solo fine.

I loathe dungeon finders, but it's going to be very very easy to level alts. Dungeon XP in EQ2 is mad fast and always has been.

The point of playing a defiler was to NOT be a mystic.  How about they fix Defilers so they can solo better?

My Inquisitor was an absolute slaughtering machine last time I played. The Necro could more reliably solo ^^^s, but the Inq killed much faster and was much better at large groups. Even without the 100% melee crit ( :sad_panda: ) he's still a badass.

So the EQ2 foray into public quests are  :awesome_for_real: in a eq kinda way. No auto grouping, difficultly level scales only after you fail a hard wave of mobs, reward system is supposedly based on some contribution model but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just random rolls assuming you were actually hitting things during the event. Its the kind of stab at a PQ system I would have expected 5 years ago but this is EQ2.

Still love the game, but I've moved on. Played with the new starting area a bit a couple nights ago with a new monk, just not pulling me in anymore. And my higher level characters just have too much shit going on.

I was told by my guild that contribution is based primarily on what you do on the head boss of the final wave. You can actually sit the rest out with no effect. Whether or not you get a super rare though seems to be random. You just need to reach a certain level of contribution to qualify.

I got an email telling me that my account was re-activated for the weekend, so I'm going to fire it up and check out the changes. I think they're also doing double SC, which helps if I decide to reup for a month.

Double SC and double xp.

I'm downloading it now to give it a spin.  I miss my EQ2 Monk that my F'ing wife took.

I loaded it back up this weekend, and got my 26 Dirge to level 35.  I have to say, I have way too many abilities, and I hadn't really focused on getting AAs.  Many of the abilities were really kind of redundant, if not useless outside of certain scenarios.  I don't think it would hurt them any if they did a pass over all the abilities, and rolled a good many of them together, or just got rid of some of them.  Having to upgrade all those abilities was annoying too.

Other than that, and a few minor gripes, it's a solid game.

No, please keep the wow in wow. The number of abilities and other quirks are what makes EQ2 different.

I just played for about 1 hr.  Please tell me that the free download client isn't as visually appealing as the regular client.  I really seem to remember EQ2's graphics being pretty damn good and what I just saw with the free client is pretty rough.

I gotta figure out what class I want to play that is free because I'm goofing around with a iniquistor, but my real passion is the monk which has to be bought.

No clue about the free vs paid client, but having gone back to paid, time has not been kind and the graphics aren't nearly as good as I remembered.

My only complaint with the graphics is that the client is unwilling to render all character models in the 'High Quality' version or whatever (the max setting is 10 or something), so if you have 20 people on screen half of them are going to look like monochrome blurs. Everything else about the game still looks good to me, and that's after having played a bit this weekend.

I'll echo that. I kept going back to the options panel to see if I missed some setting. Looked far worse than I remember. They didn't run an optimization pass or anything, did they? The lights and mapping, even the cpu shadows (which I loved) seemed off.

Also, character models for LoD includes NPCs. I was sitting at a campfire with a dozen NPCs and a player runs up. She took another step and popped into her high quality version, quite jarring.

Unless something has changed in the three months or so since I stopped playing, the graphics in the free client and in the traditional client are exactly the same. I had accounts on both types of server.

Their downloader didn't work in Firefox mode. Once I spread my legs, whore style, and did it the IE way with every hole open it worked... I told them to go get raped in their peeholes with something seriously unpleasant.

Uninstalled asap.

You stay classy.

cant get the launcher to work.  I can't log into EQ2 directly anymore?  Do I have to use the Station launcher?

I thought the original and station launcher still worked (for now), but there's an entire new launcher.

http://www.everquest2.com/download/everquest2-trial

Best advice is don't do the streaming one.

The station launcher shits the bed every time I try to run EQ2. The standalone EQ2 launcher, even though it's looking ath the same game file location, works just fine. Nice job, SOE.

The streaming launcher client is ass on every conceivable level.

It is just baffling how what should be a simple front-end launcher cannot work.  Steam is effectively the same thing times 100 and it works great.

SOE.

ya its been elbow-jammingly fun trying to reactivate my old account as well.  So I guess I will try F2P.  But again, should I try the old EQ2 launcher (as just EQ2)  or the new streaming one?  The new streaming one ended up streaming everything again unnecessarily, since I already have the full client install.

I had no problems when I re-newbed for a month. I was using an old install that just had to patch up. The old launcher worked perfectly.

Supposedly both the old launcher and the station launcher are going away and the new one will be the only launcher. It's the worst of the lot and won't auto-load a character.

As others have said "SOE"

I don't think you play the F2P EQ without the shittastic launcher.

That's the one I was using. Craptastic graphics.

The launcher is the first thing the customer sees when they want to play. Amazing that so little attention is paid to it.

SOE's launchers look pretty but they are godawful. The DCUO launcher never worked for me during beta, ever, so I never got a chance to test the game. The EQ2X launcher freaked out on me a few times, and I often had to shut it down and restart it to get it to let me into the game.

It would help if they just stuck with one, but they keep changing and they keep getting worse.

They actually already did a few years ago. What you see now is the 'condensed skills' version  :awesome_for_real:

This is one of my two main complaints with EQ2. Too many skills that are barely different from each other. I'd have liked fewer skills that felt more distinct. My other complaint is that every spell seems to have a giant obnoxious spell effect, which means group combat is like watching a fireworks show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11NyIV6fIsA

Combat starts around 35 seconds in, good example of what I mean around 1:15. Music is pretty bad, so muting is advised. It's like the artists made the spell effect for every skill in a vacuum. I remember doing some level 20-30 content in a group with two other players, and it was like we were calling in airstrikes on any minor enemy we fought.

They reverted a bunch of graphics for the F2P version and the result was a lynch mob looking for developers, so they relented and turned them back. I "get" all the issues people have with EQ2, but these aren't just things that EQ2 players don't think are a problem, but things we actually see as the attractive parts of the game. Maybe we're wrong and trying to wow it up more would be the answer, but I think after the SWG NGE, they're reluctant to give up on dancing with the ones who brought them.

Why do you insist on calling this wow'ing it up when EQ1 had a similar philosophy re: spells? It seems like yet another way that eq2 tried and failed to break new ground.

I wandered back in for the first time in 6 months and the harvesting and tradeskills have had quite a shakeup. Particularly there's a talent now that gives you 1% bonus chance to find rares. Since before your chance was something like 0.05 +1 is actually amazing. I've already found 13 Ebon clusters in 2 evenings (I think I'd found about 2 before in 7 years).

It's made crafting really absorbing for me.

That's a nice talent.  I remember making it through entire tiers where I was able to make all of one item.

And every time a node yielded a rare loam I screamed.

I hated that while leveling, because the standard armor sucks and there's no reason to make it. You're there to make the rare armors, otherwise quests give better rewards.

So between that and the rarity making them a valuable commodity, the lower-level areas are filled with hoovering flying carpets (or whatever the fotm is), so appropriately-leveled characters questing in the area get a few table scraps. And most of the people doing the hoovering are total retards who can't comprehend the way the resource spawn table works and just cherry pick the hard metal nodes. If you harvest /everything/, including shinies, you'll end up with far more metal than if you just harvest metal.

Frustratingly passive-aggressive bullshit.

Good to see they've finally implemented it, although not being able to use it while mentored is shitty. If I didn't have a ton of stuff on my plate already I'd resub for a month to check it out. There's no mention of role selection in there; do you get to pick what role you would like to do, or is that automatic based on your class (aka can a Fury queue as a DPS)?

I look forward to never having to speak again in EQ2.

Mentoring is already OP for power levelling. If you were going to let people randomly queue mentored, you might as well just add the Level 90 button.

Seriously, even by the standards of my already low expectations from WoW and Rift, this DF is a complete and utter disaster. One group has a not-a-tank but DPS pushed into tanking. the other has three healers, a tank and 2 dps. And I just got dragged into one--I'm a raid ready 90 and I'm in a 87-89 group with no tank.

It seems to have no understanding of role or gear. It doesn't even get to the usual grievances of a LFG system. It can't even muster that.

Sounds like the early WoW meeting stone days.

I've mainly ignored this game until this weekend when I decided to give the F2P a shot.  Tell you what, it is a damn good game so far.  I'll play a bit more to determine if I want to upgrade to Silver (one time fee,) but so far it is looking like that's my direction. 

Now, this is from somebody that has no idea what happened before, what to compare against (normal servers, etc.,) nor really cares.  From the standpoint of finding something to occupy my gaming time for awhile, this was a great choice.  From a F2P perspective, it is the game.  Sure I'm limited in many areas, but I have not found a single point where I've HAD to buy anything.  My biggest issue is probably bag space, but that's minor so far (I'm lvl 14 by the way.) 

I really like the harvesting, crafting, collecting aspect of the game so far.  Very different from other MMO's, in that regard.  If I get anything from this, is another perspective on how an MMO could do crafting.  It's great that I can collect anything really.  I've always hated being limited on that in other MMO's. 

I absolutely love that there is housing.   Yes, I have housing on my F2P account. 

The biggest turn-off for me so far is the much debated character art.  Count me as one that just finds them to be creepy looking.  Don't try to make people look realistic, because it always falls short.  If anything mimic the super hero MMO's and just make people crazy over the top.  For some reason, my mind accepts that more than what they did in EQ2.

Can you still see your own character's eyeballs if you zoom all the way into first person?

Yup, sometimes some tongue and teeth too.

For realz this time:

http://kotaku.com/5858413/everquest-ii-fully-commits-to-free+to+play

No more split servers, it appears.  This looks to be, at face value, what I wanted from the start.  I might actually have to check this out again.

I'm thinking the ridiculous numbers surge for DCUO made someone go "Wait a second...."

Yet they are still limiting spell tiers.  WTF, Sony.  Don't limit the power of the player.  No choice but to sub if you want to do max dps.

Or heal or tank.

It's still levels of subscription with the game massively gimped if you don't buy a full subcription. Maybe the grid is different, but it's deck chairs on the titanic from my point of view.

I mean, the precedence for this kind of decision is in SOE's history.  But I still just cannot wrap my mind around the fact that they are so utterly blind to what makes this work.  Hell, even if they wanted to make the upper tiers a one-time unlock for $10, that I could understand.  They fundamentally don't understand that F2P success is directly linked to not limiting the player power level. 

Someone has a gigantic morning hardon for subscriptions still, even flying in the face of all the extra cash they could get doing F2P properly. 

I wonder if they still sell class unlocks as part of a "pack" only, with ridiculous prices.

It would be easy enough to require a "Master Spell Enablement Shard" to combine with the spell so you could learn it. Available for the low price of 50 station cash or somesuch. That also pushes you into repeated purchases of SC, which is what you want because with SC burning a hole in your pocket, suddenly buying the glowing green robe looks like a good idea. The subscription model just pushes you to avoid SC transactions. It makes no sense.

^ This.  It's perfect. 

Check the link, for the player matrix off to the side.   Classes are still only unlocked if you agree to sub for 14.99/ mo.   Free version remains 4 races 4 classes. Races can be bought classes require a sub.

Calling it "Fully commits to F2P" is another marketing line in a long string of them.  The good stuff is still only available to the subs, with no chance of buying it for cash and there will still be "Frequent Pop-Up Upgrade Reminders" for anyone not paying their $15/mo.

Ah, I misread that. I knew they offered some unlock in a pack of 3-4 that you had to buy to get what you wanted. It was probably races, then, which is still pretty stupid.

Regardless, I reccommend the game as F2P especially if you have never played it before.  You get way more than enough to start you off and allow you to know if you like the game or not.  I paid the one time fee thing to get silver (I think it was called,) and I come back from time to time.  I probably won't sub, but I also don't care about having everything I can in the game either.  I'm extremely casual with this one.

It's extremely good as a F2P game. The content is... well, it's MMOG quality, but there's a shitload of it, even as a free player. The worst part of the free thing is the class restriction to me, but even then it's like 8 classes not 4. But yes, SOE is still trying to get people to subscribe instead of micro-transact. It's SOE. They haven't met a good idea they can't fuck into oblivion.

I played before during free trials enough to know how things work.  However, the only classes I'm interested in are Shadowknight & Druid - which requires a sub or not playing. Guess which I'll choose!

As Haemish said.. it's a good idea being fucked up as is SOE's ususal MO.

I bought SK (and Arasai) with the initial f2p.  I don't think it'll be sub-or-nothing.

What I do find interesting is it seem SOE keeps giving me bits of Station Cash.  Last I knew I had 400-ish points.  When DC Universe went f2p, I had 1400-ish.  At this rate I'll never have to pay for the stuff I want if I play their games judiciously.

Welp, apparently I have 1110 Station Cash, even though I've never bought any. If I had any time to play EQ2X, I'd go back and see what I could spend that on.

I randomly had 600 points in DCUO too. I figured maybe it was related to the security breach a while back. Freebies to compensate, etc.

They do give out a little from time to time, I was just surprised at how much I had accumulated since I last played an SOE game.

Apparently they are selling master/fabled/etc unlockers at the rate of $7.50/25 unlocks. That may make the game playable.

That's one of the very few complaints I had.  I might have to get back into this then.

You can get by without the best gear until you reach level 70 or so anyway. I've been with tanks who were playing for free and they did ok.

I noticed on the F2P FAQ that Free toons have a 5gp/lvl cap and Silver toons have a 20gp/lvl cap.  With a game that is 7 years old, doesn't that put a cap on broker purchases for most characters due to mudflation?  My highest level toon was 55 or so, meaning I'm capped at 2.5 plat.  Upper spells were selling for 6+pp when I last played.  I understand why they want the caps in place, but legit players may not be able to keep up, or worse, the market bottoms to incorporate free players exposed to the cap.

I don't think you can use the AH as a free toon, so that's a moot point.

Interesting.  I saw it said 'restricted', but assumed that meant portions not available, like being unable to post auctions.  They should consider not letting free players post, but allowing them to buy. 

You can buy things on the auction house as a free player but you have to use broker tokens to do so. I think that's how I remember it working.

I'm a bit confused by this. I downloaded the F2P client (EQ2 Extended or something). Are F2P folks still sequestered on their own servers? Is the client the same?

The fully-open F2P hasn't gone into effect yet, I believe.  F2P people are still restricted to like 1 server.

That would be where my confusion arose from. Thanks.

This is really farcical. EQ2 is introducing... wait for it... a new launchpad (http://eq2wire.com/2011/11/29/introducing-eq2-launchpad-4-replaces-all-other-eq2-launchers/)!

For those counting, that's number 5.

Why the hell do they keep making new ones? It's like a running joke about the game at this point. Does anyone even look at any of the bullshit on these launcher apps besides the Play button?

Because the last one sucked more cock than a fluffer on the set of a gangbang?

You are not an executive. The fact that nobody uses it is exactly why they keep making new ones. And they will continue until people start using the functions the execs want them using or...profit? I dunno, I'm not an exec either, but I'm used to dealing with the mindset.

I have PotBS installed on my game machine though have not played in quite a while. The launcher appears to launch every SOE game except DCUO. When DCUO went free to play I found out the launcher for it requires flash installed. A am a flash developer but refuse to install flash on my game machine. So I am worried new SOE launchers are all going to require flash.

This went live today.

Very disappointing that I would be required to pay $7.50 just to unlock access to my class (55SK) that I've had for years.  I could even see disallowing me from making any new classes that I haven't purchased packs for, but locking out my toon that I created long ago seems a bit silly.  I might tinker around with a new class a bit, but I don't imagine I'll pay for this.

It's now on Steam.

 :ye_gods:

EQ2 general forums asploding right now as some players log in to find they have to pay for F2P.  Screenshots of all 5 player character slots full of locked toons floating around. 

SOE needs to step up and allow established characters to log in.

 :roffle: :rofl:

Oh, SOE, is there any player base you can't drive away?

There's so much beauty in the world.

Yep. To do anything with old characters, I'd have to drop 15.00 for each (race/class pack). Costs are too high on this.

I'm actually bummed they didn't go the POTBS model, since they're both under the Sony umbrella. POTBS gives you basically the whole game for free, equal to a sub from its sub based days. They give subscribers EXTRA stuff, rather than curtailing the frees. Looks awesome on paper.

Watching COX and now EQ2, one wonders if the western developers will manage to poison the F2P model in people's eyes. One also wonders if that is the intent.

A good compromise would have been letting old subscribers pick one free race/class to unlock. Enough to get you back in playing whatever your main was, but it still leaves room to make money off non-subscribers.

Is it too far-fetched to suppose they're just crap?

Yes, it is.

They're good games with inept f2p implementations. And they're ancient, but people still seem to play WoW for some reason.

Good at making games does not equal good at monetizing them.  I doubt there is a grand plot to tank their primary money makers in the hopes of reviving the sub model.

It's a hybrid model trying to retain their subscriber base while picking up some more players who would not subscribe. And then selling MT goods to both groups. It's a valid approach for an older game that isn't going to grab a huge share of f2p players. Largely because f2p works much better for something modern, flashy and fast to get into (eg. World of tanks, firefall, planetside 2).

Would they have made more going totally f2p? That's a good question and I've no idea what state EQ2 is in. But the vast majority of gamers are unlikely to care either way, games old and bad.

I think there are good f2p models in the West, though. That just makes it even more inexcusable.

I can't think of too many, and the only one I've played has been WoT. Most of the f2p titles seem to be things that would never sell subscriptions (the Dota clones) and those that failed to (EQ2, CoH, CO, D&D, LotRO).

That said EQ2 should have studied the CoH approach. Allowing the veterans credit for time played and expansions bought probably would have had a better outcome.

It's reasonably well established that LOTRO wasn't in any trouble with their subs. But their f2p model is great. You can actually play for free through the TPs for deeds mechanics, if you work at it. POTBS seems pretty boss, too, as I said. In fact, it surprised me how generous it is. WoT is fine, CO feels okay, can't comment on D&D, and then the EQ2 garbage.

Yeah, I discovered that all my old characters on the non-previously-free servers are locked because of class/race restrictions. Luckily, only one of those is beyond level 10, so if I had time to play it, I'd just have to do one class pack. Still seems kind of retarded not to allow at least one class/race unlock for established vet characters.

If it is, then they're even worse at business than they are at making games.  D&D and LOTR both had higher earnings after than before, right?   Done right (which this is definitely not) they should have seen a big uptick in profitability.  That is not going to be the case and I expect they're either going to close EQ2 or alter this model sometime in the next 6 months.

They are monitoring feedback and responding in a few instances.  One glaring issue is that if your account had a maximum number of characters and each of them are locked, literally your only recourse would be to delete a character, buy a character slot or start a new account.  So some people's accounts are completely locked up.  They're supposedly discussing options for that, which means they're looking at feedback. 

There is this interesting mix of people at the EQ2 forums, generalized into the 'locked established characters is wrong' crew and the 'you just want everything for free' SOE defender mouthbreathers.  The latter group is intriguing.  I can't fathom why it matters to them that F2P folks feel cheated. 

Can you pay a subscription any more for this title at all? Or is that all gone?

You would however think they would have grandfathered Vets with some of this stuff.

You can still play as a sub. It's just retitled as "gold level" and includes 500SC a month.

So, locked toons and slots only affect F2P players. I thought it was people paying Subs that had locked toons.

If for some reason I was to go back and play EQ2, I'd just sub up for it. Not only would most of my slots be locked anyway, it would really bother me to hit pay walls after playing the game for so many years.

But that ship has sailed.

On the other hand, if I were unemployed, it would really tick me off that I wouldn't be able to play any of my characters.

Looking at this model and everything I would need to get my main character going, I'm simply much better off subscribing.  Which somewhat defeats the purpose of the F2P model.  

Not to mention that my 55SK only has access to 11plat of his 50-ish that he has saved (20gp/lvl cap).  He is so severely limited for broker use because mudflation has driven basic prices up to levels greater than the he can collect due to the cap.  

The whole model is punitive and non-sustainable.  While I won't go so far as to say it will be gone in six months, I think they will have to quickly reassess this model or they will lose any chance at gaining a decent playerbase.  

Maybe this is their whole tactic to get people wanting to play EQ3 somehow.  :uhrr:

No if you want to sub, that's what they want. The rest is just a poison pill fake free to play.

My favorite "feature" on the chart for the free and $5/month is "frequent popups suggesting you upgrade."

Right exactly. The way you're supposed to do it is to spread the money you have to spend out so it's as diffuse as possible. Contrast with LOTRO, where you nab a quest zone for three bucks or whatever; if you're casual, that might last you a damn month of playtime. You also break it up as a la carte as possible; I don't need three races at 7.50 but I do need one race at a third of that. Guess which one I'm willing to play as a not terribly invested player?

The problem with logging into EQ2 right now, as a former subscriber, isn't that I have to pay. It's that the entry price is too steep.

The entry price being basically a subscription - which again, is what SOE is really wanting out of this. You can nickel and dime yourself, but you'd really be paying more than a sub price if you want to try it as an MT game. It's a really long, less restrictive free trial if you try to play F2P, but that's obviously ok with SOE because all they want is to continue the subscription gravy train. From a marketing standpoint, F2P is a lot better attraction than the old free trial.

In other words, it's SOE. They fucked up a Star Wars MMOG. Twice by all accounts. They could fuck up anything.

They should try fucking up, and in fucking that up, deliver the proper goods!

Someone at Sony HIRE ME NOW! I HAS A PLAN!

They announced that all characters created prior to Age of Discovery would be grand-fathered in and unlocked.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=510914

Pretty nice gesture.

Not sure I'd call it a gesture.  It is the correct thing to do for business, that's for sure. 

I'll have to check it out now that my SK is unlocked, but I suspect it still won't be viable due to bag slots locked and the cash cap.  We'll see.

They will make a lot more money if people can log in and start getting nickel and dimed than if they push a big up front cost on everyone and they don't log in. Still, I have faith in SOE. They'll screw it up somehow!

Wonder if the dungeon finder works yet. It's been a couple of months.

I gave it a try, but all my gear on the 90 coercer was locked and a good portion of it was stuck in locked bags.  It gave me the option of unlocking the gear at 150 SC per 5 items and I didn't bother to check on the cost for the bags.  I am currently uninstalling.

Given that reading three posts up seems to be beyond you, that's probably for the best.  :awesome_for_real:

Wow. What a joke. It's simply not playable at all without a full sub other than as a lower level trial.

Yah, I knew I had to unlock my gear, but I didn't expect to find half of it in containers I can't do anything with. There's no way to unlock as far as I can tell--the docs say F2P has 4 containers and Paid has 6, but in reality everyone has 6, F2P just has two locked and in my case full of all m stuff. I can join a guild! Wee! But I can't say anything in guild chat.  :uhrr: And virtually all equipment at my level is more expensive than the allowable plat.

Pretty dumb of them to do it like this. Even if they make more things free so that it becomes playable, chances are anyone who has been driven off at this point won't be back to see.

Yes.  I can't get back into it.  Partially from my changing taste in games lately, partially from EQ2 being 7 years old and partially from how they implemented the F2P.

If you release a brand new game that is F2P, there's not much issue if you want to nickel and dime your customers from the start.  They either choose to pay, deal with the hindrance or quit.

Any game that goes F2P after being a sub model needs to ensure that as much of the base game to which the subscriber had access remains there post-subscription.  I disliked that LotRO took away my quests that I already had, then tried to charge me to unlock them.  EQ2 is even more punitive, requiring me to unlock gear, broker access, spell tier access, classes and races, just to name a few.  Focus on retaining services that your existing customers have, and find ways to get them to pay for NEW services.  That's the trick, and it is what would make me pay.  Otherwise I'll just go elsewhere.

According to the matrix, you can talk in guild chat at both Free and Silver levels, just not create your own guild.

I wonder what that means to my character, which was GM of BC...

Someone forgot to tell the game. I was trying to ask about how to unlock things and nothing.

It's SOE. This shouldn't surprise anyone.  :awesome_for_real:

Apparently another thing the F2P matrix fails to mention is that you can't shift around how much of your XP goes into AA, which kinda sucks.

I'm somewhat enjoying exploring the world, but both visually and mechanically it's pretty ugly and clunky. There's no surprise in my mind at all that Blizzard pretty much stole their thunder.

I reinstalled the game since my two level 25 characters were unlocked. I finally have a nice enough computer to just max settings and leave them there, whereas every time I tried the game previously I had to play with settings for an hour to get them to a place where I was happy with performance vs. appearance. The results? Man... the game is just really ugly. There is no getting around it. It was even more striking than the last time I played it (~4 years ago) because we've seen games like Rift come out that do a more realistic style with good performance.  Even on Ultra, EQ2 was still ugly plastic textures and weird armor pop in on all the NPCs and characters around you. It's not just the graphics, the UI also feels clunky as hell. Every item has like 4-5 description fields that ought to just be hidden from players.  It's the sort of polish you'd expect from a nameless low-budget Korean F2P MMO. The entire game feels like it was made by a company that doesn't know how to make games.

I've always treated EQ2 like a game that could be salvaged.

"Maybe if they toned down the spell effects"
"Maybe if they reduced some of the ability overlap"
"Maybe when I get a nicer computer"
"Maybe if it goes F2P without some of the silly restrictions"

I'm out of 'maybe ifs', and I just don't think the game is ever going to be something I'll enjoy.

Truth. I want to love it so much. There are so many systems I love. I love the crafting. I love most of the classes. I love the scale of the world. And I'm totally not a graphics whore. But goddamn, I cannot get past how ugly the game is.

The crafting is actually quite decent. That little mini-game is a reasonable balance of choking crafting production / automation without being too incredibly tedious. They've really put a lot of work into it.

The combat doesn't have nearly the same degree of love. The sluggishness of the controls, the way an arrow does its damage and then plays the animation (or doesn't, when the server was loaded animations would fail to play), the way the abilities become just grist for the combo wheel (which fires off cataclysmic level effects even for a warrior) and others means combat just doesn't feel right. Which is sort of a shame as you'll be doing a lot of it. And that AA tree is a monstrosity (as is AA). And they've also retained the EQ level design of bad textures, blocky maps, broad plains with a thick sprinkling of identical mobs. The original EQ halas felt more like a city than this one, I think because it was less directed both in development and intended play.

The houses are cool... but pretty much game-play neutral as far as I can see. They probably only really make sense as rooms in a guild space. A solo house is really just an exaggerated UI for achievement display that only you will see.

I must be looking at a different game when I play, because I'm totally missing the ugly.

Is it the prettiest thing out there?  No, but compared to the neon cartoon that was WoW, I was happy to go back to EQ2. 

Disclaimer: I've not played more recent games such as Skyrim, Rifts, et al because of lack of interest and/or funds, so take that as you will.

It's got zero unifying style. I can point to every single MMO I've ever played for longer than a week and describe the style. I can't do that with EQ2. Besides fugly.

You are very lucky, and should not risk losing that advantage.

I always loved the graphics (though the style was often underwhelming), the stuff they did with the old tech was amazing. Even with the stylish graphics, I cannot abide WoW's blocky awfulness.

But after Rift, I jumped into the new newbie area (around Halas?) and now that the graphics engine has aged, it's showing. I hadn't really played since 2009 (when I still liked the graphics), so they're finally dated imo. Had a nice 5yr on-and-off run with it, though.

Oh yeah, I'll agree the graphics are getting dated, the game did come out in 2004 after all.  But calling it downright ugly is what I have a problem with.  Course my standards may be a bit low since I did play AC for over 4 years, so what do I know?

Original areas: Stunning, well crafted, consistent. New areas: 90's scan line rendering.

I found it ugly at release personally, let alone now. Especially the character models. Hideous.

It's interesting that EQ1 is still both alive and not f2p, wonder how the numbers are going.

Is the New Halas area original EQ2 or a recent "new experience" addition? Because it's quite WoW in how much of a linear theme-park it is. Every mob is there because it has quests to kill it and the whole island is basically one spiral path, with the islands breaking it into content chunks. And new halas itself is weird, full of alien creatures (like arctic frogloks) and houses made up of boulders, neon tubes and engraved steel beams. I'm pretty sure the original had the rough hewn caves and wooden structures that felt a lot more like a barbarian outpost on the ass-end of a huge continent than this (plus snow effects unless my memory fails me).

Did get to experience an ancient EQ2 bug though. My griffon evaporated on zoning leaving me swimming deep in the ocean far from anywhere. EQ1 used to have terrible issues with its boats too.

I'd be surprised if EQ1 went F2P.  Their only subscribers are the diehards; I can't imagine many people go back to play it casually.  SOE would piss them off by going F2P, losing those customers AND the new customers that just aren't going to give a shit about a 12 year old game. 

I might tinker with it if it did, though.  What I want is the EQ, Kunark and Velious experience again, the way it was.  I'd play that.  Just that.  (and yea, I know of P1999, but it just isn't the same.)

EQ2 looks like a highschool kids first attempt at 3D modeling and/or a shitty deviant art portfolio.

The fact they used new space age technology (at the time) to make their art look like shit doesn't win it any bonus points from me.

New Halas is a new user experience and it beat the shit out of the old Trial island. If you follow the whole quest chain, you get a decent horse and some good gear out of it.

Was trial island the old new experience? I vaguely recall the original plan was you start off in freeport or queynos based on some light - dark choice and then could betray. But I guessed Halas was a modern experience since it looks like all the racial groups have been mashed into one space and the game-play is on rails. No horse so far (at level 20) though, which would be nice.

I also remember some terrible game-play decision where you'd go back and do other starting points noobie quests for bonus AA points. I assume they changed that at least. The latest expansion looks pretty weak too with mercenary pets, free to play and build you own dungeons. Which pretty much sounds like an admission they don't expect you to get groups or there to be that much new content for you.

And yeah, my only interest in EQ1 would be old-world tourism. EQ1 lost the world-building aspect and became about progression oriented expansions long before WoW/EQ2 came out.

I think the island went away like three or four years ago.

There have been like 5 different new player experiences over the years I think.

The horse is the reward for the last part of a particular quest chain - and no, it isn't readily apparent that you'll get a horse when you start the chain. The quest giver is on a kind of cliff/ice battlements overlooking the ocean with two or three other guys on the cliff. He's a barbarian I think.

These guys can't step in it fast enough. They had a huge 3-1 sale on station cash probably thinking they could kick some purchases for F2Players. Except you can buy the brand new expansion with SC, so the effect was that something loyal players preordered and paid $30 only two weeks ago was reduced to $10. The howling on the forums is monumental.

Only by the people who were too dumb to realise that there was bound to be a double-cash or better deal over Xmas. :smug:

The above offer doesn't work if you use the steam wallet though. It displays the 3x value but doesn't actually apply it. Working as intended and misleading or half-assed implementation? who knows.

It's SOE. Why can't it be both?  :awesome_for_real:

Last time they did one of these 3-1 SC deals, you had to buy physical cards to get the benefit. Purchasing the SC online didn't work; not sure this time.

I think what makes SOE truly great is they can manage things like offering a 3 for the price of 1 sale and actually irritate their customers by doing so.

Thanks for the heads up.  I actually had a 1500 SC card laying around from seven months ago and redeemed it/got the expansion essentially for nothing.  I haven't played EQ2 in a while, but I was two expansions behind and had nothing better to do with the card.

If I had bought the expansion for $30 though I'd be pretty pissed right now.

There are some terrible voice overs in this game. And the "Dance" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7x7arrg0Gk) emote (one of the xmas mobs does it on a quest hand in) is perhaps one of the most painful things I've ever seen.

I'm glad to have my suspicion that I don't care about player housing confirmed. Pretty much the only reason to have one is because quests, especially the xmas quests, keep giving me furnishings and I need somewhere to store those (since the bank space is tiny). When I stop paying my rent hopefully it will all vanish into null-space.

Neriak was sort of cool though, probably better than the EQ version in a way that neo-Halas was not.

People spent a lot of time decorating guild halls, particularly if you had a guild that did a lot of joint or PUG grouping/raiding and had outsiders visiting on a regular basis, but for private housing, I never saw a lot of point since nobody can see it.

Guild halls I can understand, since it is a shared social space and you can put raid achievement tokens (though that would work better with a visible frontage). There's some attempt to provide the same interest with private residences where I can invite joe random to come and critique the fashion value in my object placement and arrangement but that runs quickly into the "who cares?" barrier.

I thought you could flag houses as Public in EQ2 and it was the only way to place your own AH-type vendor mob or set yourself AFK a vendor or whatever the system was; Similar to SWG.  In which case decoration makes at least some sense.

There's some functionality in houses, but most of it is for you. The one exception is if you want to save the commission on a purchase, you can go to the person's house and buy it direct. I think that's the only time I ever went to someone's house, to buy some very very expensive masters where I was saving several plat by not paying commission. I don't remember anything about the house though.

Alas, since those spells cost far more than the allowable plat you can have as a free player, the commission is rendered unimportant  :awesome_for_real:

Neriak is an abomination. Compared to old game zones.

I used to do a lot of business on the broker and went to many houses to pick stuff up. I loved checking out what some people had done, it's funny how much places reflect the owner.

I really enjoyed that aspect of the game.

That's how vendors worked at first but they got rid of it some time ago, thankfully.

You used to have to sit AFK in your house to sell items on the broker (ie the auction house). Being a successful crafter meant you had to leave EQ2 running on the computer for hours on end while your character simply sat in the house, otherwise you couldn't sell your goods. Totally insane, but gone now.

Ah that explains why I remembered it that way.

I agree it was insane, but it's the same way EQ1 did it so they just copied the system over.  Ah the days of multiple accounts and one just sitting in the Nexus Bazaar /afk for days on end.

Selling in a shared space in EQ1 actually had some community aspects, especially since they couldn't sell AFK. Not that it was a good system. And it had been replaced by an off-line system before EQ2 launched.


Really? I guess my expectations had been sufficiently lowered by new halas. Neriak certainly is an amazing character killer though, lots of blind drops into the insta-kill abyss. I thought the old Kelethin (noobie elves falling out of tree's) was bad.

I bought at launch, fell out of Kelethin, lost my corpse, and quit the game until Velius came out.

You're thinking of the tunnel between EC and Oasis. This is not what I was talking about.  I meant the bazaar in the Nexus where you could totally sell AFK.

How can you forget the rows of dead-eyed merchant-mode people from EQ1, which had no timed disconnect.  People who would bump trade rivals to the back of the stalls until collision was removed for the zone. (Or did they make it so merchant modes couldn't be bumped.. I don't remember..)

I forget the /slash command but you worked like any other vendor and you set the price for each slot in your special bags.  I recall stories of many a non-careful person losing rare items because they mistakenly put them in their /trade bag for far less than market value.

There was a similar noob killer in halas where you could either fall into the well and drown, possibly combined with the corridor too dark for any barbarian to actually see anything in (like a solid black screen).

No corpse loss (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bm_fOFyAhA) in EQ2 though so that element has all gone. As are weather effects as far as I can see. Indeed EQ2 continues to confirm my suspicion that SOE have no sense of style and that EQ1 was a lucky accident at an early and innocent age in MMO's.

I thought they made the Bazaar capable of offline selling, but my memory is hazy. Though I do remember taking advantage of someone mis-pricing SOW potions.

Bazaar is sill online only.  They added the capability for people to sell to your vendor at some time after I left.  You set x price and people can show up and drop stuff off.  I think you had to choose if you wanted to buy or sell for the allotted time, because they were different zones.  I think.

/baz

Griff to tunnel!  :why_so_serious:

EQ2 does have some beautiful areas. The outdoor zones from the Rise of Kunark and Sentinel's Fate expansions (eg Kylong Plains and Stonebrunt Highlands respectively) look really nice.

Most of the zones that shipped with the vanilla game, and some of the more recent ones, are horrible. It's like there's only a limited number of people out there who know how to coax the graphics engine into producing pretty pictures, and they're usually unavailable.

Was not commenting on the level design, but more on the aesthetics.

The new Neriak is depressingly neon purple and dark.  The old one had a little bit of that, but they went overboard in EQ2.

The population of the game seem to be in deep denial. "revamp all the original zones!", "TV advertising with a big celebrity". Surely the game isn't holding the subs to justify any of that.

The latest expansion seems to be mostly a dungeon maker and mercenary pets which is pretty much the developer telling the playerbase to do it themselves.

Just how flexible is that dungeon maker when compared to, say, COH's Mission Architect? Can you write dialogue, add custom items (maybe not actual items, just quest items / scrolls with some text on them), customize mob looks (within reason, ie. using the game's own models) and behaviors (spell use, etc)? Can you have chained objectives (or any objective that is not "kill everything"), event-triggered spawns, etc? Is there incentive for players to play through custom dungeons, and is there any incentive to create or play anything other than a min-maxed "most loot with least effort" dungeon?

As an oldschool MUD builder and Mission Architect fanatic, player-created content systems are extremely interesting to me... even if the game they are attached to isn't the 'best thing around'.  :awesome_for_real:

I can't really answer that, as you need the expansion to make dungeons. The add for it is on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RziFwzFTz2Q). I have been picking up tokens that let me place different types of mobs.

I can do them though, so I selected a dungeon that had a (SOLO) tag and entered a simple map with lots of props and mobs. My fresh L21 character was asked to pick a L50 monster to play as and started fairly easily killing mobs. Pretty easy,  dull (since it replaced all my skill buttons), no flavor, no coherent setting and massive amounts of xp (a level in about 20 minutes) for sleep-walking through it. So either I'll get banned for just having exploited the game or they learnt absolutely nothing from the CoH experience. Also some tokens I can trade in for stuff no doubt.

So, doesn't look too impressive.

This is a game that I have played to death and really on some level love. But at this point, most regulars have a very deep case of Stockholm Syndrome.

I loved EQ2.  Three years ago.  When your choices were WoW, EQ2, EVE or non-FTP non-revamped LotRO.  Actually that may have been 4 years ago, it was before I met my wife...

Personally, I think LotRO as it currently stands blows it out of the water (even just the beginning to end continuity of the epic quest line is reason enough to pick it over EQ2 or WoW to me).  There is a lot to love with EQ2, Hartsman really did a lot for it before moving on to Trion and the team he left behind followed on in the best way but it's just so dated now I could never go back even if there is butt loads of content and three (?) expansions since I left.

"Ground breaking!"

 :oh_i_see:

I haven't seen anything that I thought was at all interesting since Kunark. After that it went to points and tiered armor and all of that and really just became a bad copy of WoW instead of an alternative.

I too am playing lotro, I wonder if there's something they've captured that we used to find in EQ2. Also, their free to play model by not forcing me to subscribe has managed to get me to part with $100 where SOE's money grubbing made me walk away.

Good info (if a bit disappointing), thanks! I really wish someone'd take a look at the Mission Architect and improve upon that / implement it in a 'mainstream-y' game... alas.

Holy crap, finding the "right" Station Launcher app to update within my EQ2 folder was a PITA.  Finally got it, so now it's taking forever and a day to update since I've not logged in since September or so.  Just felt bored tonight and wanted something online, so I started the updates.  Now I'm determined to complete this and at least login to see where all my characters are, if nothing else.