f13.net

Reviews are popping up on gaming sites. Too lazy to link them since there are so few of us actually playing EQ2, but they are largely orgasmic in tone.

- armor sets a la WoW
- Unrest and Mistmoore as 70+ zones
- Crushbone has Dvinn somewhere deep inside and the castle itself is immense
- Elves, dwarves and gnomes have starting cities (as well as the new fae race, of course)

Lots here for EQ1 nostaligists and EQ2 fans.

Launches November 14.

I'm really surprised that I'm actually looking forward to this.

As for the Dorf and gnome starting cities, I don't think they'll get them back. I think Kaladim and Steamfront are gonna be in the same vein as Rivervale. i.e., pretty to visit, full of adventure hooks, but not exactly noob safe. The gnome home city has been taken over by clockworks and the dorfs lost thiers to evil stunties or something like that.

Armor sets may be cool, I'll wait 'til I see 'em.
Cloaks? yes please.
Less swashies with pimp hats? hopefully.

Any screenshots of the armor sets?

I am just curious as to whether they can fuck up that concept too.

Fuck up the concept? SOE pretty much invented it with the coordinated sets from EQ1

Oh wait, you probably think WoW was the first game to have armor sets in it, don't you?

Nevermind.

While not the reason I am interested in EoF, the sub-class AAs that are leaking out are super-meh.

For those that don't know, KoS introduced Advanced Abilities in EQ2. Each class archetype (not the four basic ones but the next tier with two sub-classes each) has five trees. Once can earn up to 50 points to spend in these. Mastering an entire line costs 24 points. They are also re-speccable for a cash cost that increases with each subsequent re-spec.  It usually takes 4 points in an ability to open up the next one in the tree and the final ability has one rank only costing 8 points.

I am only really familiar with the Berserker/Guardian (i.e. Warrior line) which includes abilities like:

1) +chance to crit when wielding an axe
2) extra AEs attack when wielding a spear
3) +chance to double attack when using a buckler

EoF brings 5 more trees for each sub-class, meaning Berserker and Guardian will have separate lists. Once again 50 points will be the maximum allocation. Every AA earned can be allocated to either pool but once there, stays there.

Bottom line, the new abilities are really underwhelming with only a few that look even moderately worthwhile, not just for my class but for all classes. This is not really surprising since the devs are really just tacking them on since there is no level cap increase and people need something to advance.

For me, EoF is all about seeing Faydwer v2.0 and cloaks.

I am not in the EoF beta.

FWIW, I think even the original AAs are pretty meh, so EoF continuing in that vein doesn't surpise or bother me much.

This all sounds good with the exception of the armor sets.  It almost guarantees that people will all look alike at the higher levels. 

More character customization PLZ!

There are armor sets way before the max level. I don't know if there are sets for every tier (10 levels) but there are at least 3 sets a single character can progress through from 1-70, maybe more.

I think you know what I was getting at.  If these armor sets represent the best armor at ANY level, then most people will be wearing them (i.e. and all look alike with the minor exception of starting race).  Can't they give us good armor with a bunch of different looks/styles?  If I'm going to be in a "world" I'd like to look different than every other ratonga brigand my level. 

Take a deep breath and look at the forum area.  You my friend are in the land of EQ2.

Now proceed to make the argument that the development team on EQ2 has anyting in common in EQ.

EQ2 unfortunately cannot lay claim to anything in EQ - since anything worth copying they missed out - did too late - or did a poor job of.  We are not even talking about the same people/dev teams on EQ vs. EQ2 - they are completely different.

EQ did a lot - no question - but you assign that legacy to EQ2?  "Nevermind".

So herein lies the bet:  EQ2 dev team will fuck up armor sets. 

According to you - since the success of EQ in these efforts in somehow transferrable to EQ2 you would have to predict otherwise.

If EQ2 pulled this off I would have more interest in the game.  But I digress - you feel that the EQ and EQ2 share legacy on these success - and that similar conclusions can be drawn about EQ2.

Let's see what happens  :-D

PS - this is an EQ2 board - please leave WoW out of it    :wink:

EQ2 has a great deal in common with EQ now. In the two years now since launch, the EQ2 team has made a great deal of progress toward making me want to play it as much as I played EQ. So yes, while we're on the EQ2 board, EQ1 is still relevant. And it still doesn't negate the fact that the shot you took at the team that has done this work was faily unwarranted in light of that improvement.

And no, I never suggested that the success of EQ would carry over to EQ2. Im pretty sure SOE will not see those days again. That said, I still don't take the dim view of the game that you do.

And I'll keep WoW out of it when you do. Please don't let me go back to some of your earlier rants in this, as you put it "Land of EQ2" where you railed about how EQ2 failed in comparison to WoW.

I will agree though that we should see what happens.

Don't get me wrong though - EQ2 is a game I would like to see succeed.  I actually still pay for sub for it.  I log on once in awhile... and log off.

You're absolutely right EQ2 has made a lot of progress.  But it is been putting things back in the game - that were left out from EQ.  More importantly the low laying fruit changes are done.  Any further changes in this game - is going to take a big investment which the current sub/revenue base may not be able to support.

I realize everyone has their own taste.  EQ2 team was full of good ideas - horrific at execution.  No need to rehash it all on my end.

But the team that  made EQ great - is not the one working on EQ2.

On a more upbeat note - I am serious - if they do a good job with armor sets - it would make a big difference for a player like me (driven by asthetics).

I have to add. It would be huge. It's not a bad game but the I'm all upholstered look gets old real quick.

I agree, the, "look ma, I'm using a mattress for armor" look of a lot of the cloth stuff has got to go. But as you get to the higher end, some of the armor starts to look pretty damn cool. I'm a big sucker for the monk gis and the mid-level chain stuff that my ranger's sporting.

Could it all use a BIG splash of variety? Hell yes. And I'm hoping for a lot of that, but if it doesn't come, it won't stop me from playing.

I thought armour sets were first born in Diablo...

I remember armor sets in most rpgs. There was the magic avatar armor in Ultima 7.

The only reason EQ2 is still around is because they are taking WOW-refined ideas and putting them to use in their game. EQ2 at launch, with the "classic vision" or whatever you want to call it was awful. Soon as they started copying WOW, things picked up.

Well, who did WoW copy on it's inception? I would say it borrowed heavily from EQ...

The copying argument doesn't really fly with me.  All MMO's have taken ideas from each other.  It's a natural evolution of the genre.  I don't really see where EQ2 has blatantly copied  WoW (maybe the quest indicators over NPC heads - but WoW did not create that idea). I am not arguing your point, and sure you have some specific examples,  but what else have they "copied" that is exclusive to WoW? They have dumbed-down EQ a bit (travelling times, spell progression, etc.) to make it easier, and in turn making it accessible to a wider audience.

I hate going down the WoW vs EQ road, as it been done many times. Personally, I am a fan of both games.

Ignoring the WoW vs EQ2 stuff - as an ex-EQ1 and ex-EQ2er, one of the things that disappointed me most about EQ2 when I tried it earlier this year was the lack of links to EQ1.  I was very disappointed not recognising any of Freeport, the Commonlands or Antonica.  I'm glad to see that Faydwer is more like old EQ1 with a lot of the old bad guys - very encouraging for resubbing and trying it out.

EQ2 has spent time discovering that things they removed from the original EQ game - retained by their competitors - were good ideas and deserve to be back in the game.  Things that EQ2 ignored / dropped from EQ that are now back in the game or should be:

1.  The Beastlord (Not in - yet hunters are popular...)
2.  Choosing your class at level 1.  (put back in)
3.  Pulling (not sure of status now)
4.  Distinct racial starting areas (weak to non existant)
5.  Class coolness > class balance (they seem to be working on it)
6.  Non-linked encounters (back in - now members external to encounter can aid you)
7.  Languages learning (not in that I know - from other players)

EQ2 is still in the process of discovering what elements made EQ a successful game that should be retained today.

1) They do have the Kerra (cat) race so that is halfway there, sort of.
2) Glad they reversed the original design here
3) Some of the newer zones require better pulling skills but the FD pull is still gone
4) Still suck for original EQ2 races, but the Fae will have theirs.
5) Cannot comment since I have only played one class (berserker) which is cool and balanced.
6) Up to the group leader to lock or unlock encounters
7) All the player race languages can be learned by buying a book for 12s. The NPC languages are learned through quests. EQ2 system is better than original.

Thanks for the update on some of those points.  (The beastlord if you recall was a class - and most races could be it in EQ - so the presence of Kerra in EQ2 does not address the absence of a beastlord in EQ2.  Ironic considering the wild popularity of the Hunter which is based on the Beastlord).

However, on # 7 I disagree.  This is a classic example of why EQ2 has less player community than EQ.

In EQ we used to have language events - where players would get together and learn languages from each other.  It was another reason to hang-out that did not involve raiding.  Not the kind of thing for everyone - but back in the day popular with my guild.  I even remember standing at a dock or some such - and receiving requests by a bystander to be taught a language.

Now EQ2 comes along and says all you have to do is buy a book to learn the language.  Yea... that's engaging.

Coupled with the original locked encounter decision and the absence of pvp - EQ2 at release had very little community.  That's improving - but this language decision in particular - still illustrates a failure to recognize what made EQ special in the first place.

EQ2 is still discovering EQ.

Well, I played EQ up until phase 3 beta and didn't ever touch it during release, so I'm not sure of this point.

But.... Birds that fly you around zones?

it's hard for me to quantify where exactly EQ2 has been trying to become more like WOW, because it's just another way of saying "they're trying to make the game more fun. You know, like WOW"

If I knew all the specifics I'd sell it.

EQ may or may  not have had many of the features, but I can bet that all of them were implemented better in WOW.

I believe Griffon Towers in EQ2 were available at release.  But they have definitely added more, to make travelling much much easier.

Regardless, I concur with the point you are trying to make.....I just believe it's not to the scope that you think.

Back to Echoes of Faydwer, EQ2Daily.com has a bunch of new screen shots of EoF.  Kind of makes me want to re-sub soon to check it out.

http://www.eq2daily.com/blog/rot%e2%80%99s-thoughts-echoes-of-faydwer-expansion-beta-part-2 (http://www.eq2daily.com/blog/rot%e2%80%99s-thoughts-echoes-of-faydwer-expansion-beta-part-2)

No, really. Fuck EQ2.

Also, when taking screenshots to show something off....notch the graphics up above 'ass'.

The NDA was officially canned yesterday. As such, I'll post a few pics with the graphics settings above "ass" at the first convenient opportunity.

Griffon towers were in since a looong time ago in EQ2 beta.
I guess there's no way to determine who copied who.

Still, there's no doubt that *since* release EQ2 has tried its best to copy wow simpliest features, but griffons aren't one of those.

Ok, first impressions now that the NDA is lifted...

Pretty damn cool.

Are there issues with some of the implementations? Of course there are. The slowness of the boats, the fact that the boat itself is fairly lackluster, (Nothing sweepingly grand like the first time you saw the boat to Kunark back in the day), Butcherblock and Gfay have changed immensely. This though, is all for the good. Greater Faydark really seems like it should have in EQ1. The effect of the trees closing in over you is that much more overwhelming with the EQ2 engine. Some of the WoW heads will say it looks too much like the night elf starting city and SoE is obviously trying to copy Blizzard yet again. I'm gonna have to disagree there and say that while it is vastly more engrossing than its EQ1 analog, this GFay is still very true to its sibling.

Butcherblock is still a dangerous trek for the uninitiated or the just plain unlucky. New Tunaria (Formerly the high elf starting city) doesn't take well to those that don't worship the tree-huggin' goddess. (I got a lot of glares from the local high elves who all probably would have jumped my half elf ass if I wasn't 10-15 levels above them.) Is it pretty? Hell yes, but still, having to regulate on the high elves didn't feel right, so I only killed a couple dozen.

Crushbone is indeed immense. And at the center of it is D'Vinn. A descendant of the original guy who's ass must've been kicked a million times over by people trying to get that dragoon dirk. Didn't get to see D'Vinn or crush on my swings through there, perhaps I'll try again and really make a concerted effort to find them.

Capes are nice, some of the newer armor is passable, but still a little meh so far. (Though some of the monk gear still ranks up there as my favorite armor in any game ever) The Dorfs and puntables...err, gnomes still can't start in their ancestral homes. Both Kaladim and Ak'anon are most definitely dungeons now.

The Fae? Cool haircuts and wings is the best I can say about them so far. Their realtively small size is a bit disorienting if you're like me and like to do the third person view thing. I've got an artificially inflated 70 Fae monk that I'm putting through the paces. Their racial traits are different enough from the other races I've played to make them slightly interesting. Again, we'll have to see where it goes in the next couple of weeks before live.

Overall, I like it. The engine runs smoother than it did before. And not just because I'm running it on a better machine than I was before, but also because I think they've done a little tinkering to make the game less of a handfull on more systems than it was before. The quest lines are good so far and the gods seem to be making a bit of a comeback in this new age on Norrath. I'm actually intrigued to find out what's going to happen next again in one of these games.

To answer Sky's question before he asks it, no, it's not completely solo-friendly, there's plenty of places you'll need a group. But there's still plenty of opportunities to strike out on your own a bit if you're resourceful.

zomg Darnassus

Fuck Darnassus in the goat ass.

Theres no need to hold back your feelings here. Tell us how you really feel.

I guess EQ2 decided to break the bank and hire an artist.  Finally.

Not bad - thanks for the screenshots.

My biggest beef with EQ2 was that it was fucking boring.  Not just boring, mind you, but fucking boring, which is a completely separate animal.  The classes were just atrocious compared to EQ's classes; for example, EQ magicians running around with glowy elementals that were useful allies, EQ2 conjurers having little shitty beetles that didn't do crap.  Only having two cities was bad enough, Freeport being a nasty shade of mud-color for most of the decor wasn't any help.  The graphics were awful, that 'our engine is so 1337 that nobody can run it and everyone has to play on settings where it looks like shit' philosophy didn't do them any favors.  It all just came together in a way that said... ugh.

That being said, bringing back the unique cities for the different races is a very good step.  They contributed greatly to the original EQ's feel, I loved to travel and come across an unfamiliar city and go poking around it.

Now all they need to do is make the classes flashier and toss some of the crappy graphical elements and they'll be a very good way on the way to surpassing original EQ.

For now, though, if someone just did a ground-up DirectX 10 overhaul of EQ and tweaked some of the combat mechanics to be less 'autoattack, kick, bash, kick, bash', I'd consider it a vastly superior game to EQ2.

Well, don't get too excited about those explorable starter cities, like I said above, it's only Kelethin. Kaladim, Ak'Anon (now Klak'Anon) and Felwithe (now New Tunaria) are certainly not starter cities anymore. And most definitely not friendly enough for a casual stroll unless you're in the high 60s.

More screenies for ya...



These are three of the armor sets for the different types (leather, plate, chain)

Thanks for those screens.

Hmm still - I look at the depicted armor sets and I just don't see much to get excited about - I don't have any "shiny" reaction to them (although the plate one is not bad).

Truth be told, there's nothing really exciting on first blush with the armor I've seen, but some of the detailing is absolutely amazing. The gauntlets on the plate armor for instance have this feather etching effect that's insane. Maybe I'm crazy, but I kinda like that attention to detail over big, flashy, overwhelm-you-with-bling right off the bat dealies. YMMV.

There's still far too little variation I'll admit, but I like what I've seen for starters.

Two games in one day.  The EQ2 expansion and Gothic III.  Both will probably get ignored as I'm still hooked on FFXII.  Haven't even made it past the initial fight in NWN2.  Plus I have two betas that I've completely ignored.  For some reason having so many ignored games is making me stressy.

To be honest I was in agreement with most everything said once upon a time. I played for a little less then 2 months at launch then quit till around 4 months ago. Went back in and found the game to be vastly better then 2 years ago.

The classes are pretty distinct now from the get go. Playing a necro is definitely quite different from a mage to the point where the two classes (which were originally the same archtype when this mattered) are best suited to take on completely different opponents. Necros for instance rule against single higher level opponents while mages wipe the floor with small groups of mobs. And after playing up a necro to mid levels I've found the variety of pets available to be much greater then EQ1 necros ever dreamed of. Hell, for that matter my main in EQ1 was a BL and you have the same pet there from level 9 going on forever.

I find the quests in EQ2 to be superior and a fair bit more interesting then their counterparts in WoW. The collection quests alone are a great deal of fun (and often frustration) and the usual reward of a trophy of some sort to be displayed in the home is a nice touch if you like that kind of thing. Certainly the quantity of quests seem much greater then they did in WoW.

Graphics are still a little lacking. The quality is there but there's a lack of soul I guess would be the best term I can come up with. Granted I haven't seen the new areas in the expansion yet - this attitude may change. Freeport has really striking monumental architecture but as noted above the overall muddiness of the color scheme and the boring textures are such that I have a hard time levelling up an evil character cause I don't like staying around Freeport for any length of time. Part of what colored my dislike of the game at lauch was that my system then really couldn't handle the graphics. Everything was jerky and lag was soul destroying in places. My newer system now handles the EQ2 with only the occasional hiccup, something that wasn't as true with WoW where lag was an ongoing issue up until I quit several months ago.

Overall, I've found myself enjoying EQ2 now for a longer time than either of my two experiences with WoW. I enjoyed WoW greatly right up until I hit 60 with a character and then found myself with the choice of raiding or...... I don't seem to have a burning desire to get to the level cap in EQ2.

So overall the game is quite a bit better then it was when it first came out. It'll never be any kind of real competition for WoW in subscriptions but it seems to be a fairly good niche for me and I'll probably play it for a couple more years.

Yeah, the story of EQ2 was one of wasted potential.  It has an engine that can make beautiful settings... but an art department that made everything bland.  It has voice-acting and interesting quests... but a class system that made combat boring.  It has a great big world... but few actual points of interest to see in it.

Some of these things have been changed, some are in the process of changing, but I believe it's far, far too late.  First impressions make or break a MMOG, and I have never seen a MMOG that has risen above a bad first impression.  Just take Anarchy Online, its shitty bug-laden release doomed a pretty good game to languish in mediocrity.  EQ2 has all the seeds for a fantastic game in it, but I really doubt they'll ever get to bloom.

The wings and eyes are purdy.

The eyes are a bit too buglike/alien but the wings are indeed pretty.

For emphasis.

The class system is better but still weak.  When I play my templar I just can't remember all my abilities - they are numerous - minor - and lack significance.  I have a hard time identifying spells that are part of the same spell line but represent an upgrade.  This is low laying fruit they can address.

I wish EQ2 would copy COH in some regard on this - give classes fewer abilities - but increase their impact.

One of the reasons I stopped playing EQ2; too many fiddly bits with little discernable reason to use them. Basic 4 hotkeys for combat were sufficient, and consequently boring. Burrying your character in a mess of spells doesn't make your game less WoW-like if in the end you revert to using the same 4 attack functions as you would in WoW.

Have to agree here.  In many ways EQ > EQ2.

all that stuff requires lots of people to track and work at balancing.  I doubt SOE is looking to trim staff what with current attrition.  But yeah, they've got a lot of mouths to feed and keeping things complicated == content for them.

BTW, anyone on Oasis able to send me some money?  ingame name of "Scupper".  I'll Paypal for it if you have enough.  Won't go back without money for better gear and a horse.

Just a brief rundown of my first 30 minutes in EoF:

1) Boat from Thundering Steppes is less than a 10 minute wait. Sail for less than a minute, zone, sail along the cliffs of Butcherblock for about a minute to the docks.

2) Long, winding road up the cliffs from the dock area. Staying on the road brings Kaladim (60-70 group zone) into sight.

3) Jumped into a pickup group in Kaladim. This zone is very EQ1-ish. Mobs are thick and adds are common. I was getting pounded by equal level heroics while tanking although I am still wearing T5 armor at 61. Don't know how much the new mitigation changes were a factor.

4) After dying 5 times in 20 minutes, I decided to explore instead. The BB zone is similar to the original with some extra geography to explore. I found the Chessboard where it should be. Unrest (70+ zone) will be off BB but it isn't open yet.

5) Lesser Faydark (50-60 solo & heroics) is very different from EQ1. LFay has a pony express system to help people traverse it faster. There are a few heroic instances here. TONS of quest NPCs.

6) Logged after zoning into Gfay.

7) I like the cloaks.

In summary: The zones are HUGE and reminiscent of EQ1 but with their own EQ2 character as well. Just running around earns one a tons of explore exp. A guildmate of mine made 8 AA points from explore and nameds in 3 hours. That is insane. I made 1.5AAs just staying close to the beaten paths.

I'm currently considering resubbing to either EQ2 or CoH.

Unlike Kitsune's impressions of EQ2 (see Nov 11th post) I've found it to be a pretty fast paced and fun game these days.  Much better balanced than at release, with ample support for solo play besides.

My issue with EQ2 is perhaps that it's a bit too big.  They merged the servers not from lack of players on individual servers so much as too few players to fill up all the areas they built in the game.  Plus, I'm a lowbie, I had purchased Kingdom of Sky thinking I'd enjoy the achievement system and fully knowing that it'd be forever and a day before I can access the cloud realm.  Now, here comes Echoes of Faydwer, a level 60-70 zone.  Guess that's one more place everybody's going to be that I can follow.

Hmm, but the whole thing can't be 60-70, right?  After all, they have a newbie starting area there.

The EoF expansion is not a 60-70 expansion.  It is actually a 1-70.  You can theoretically level up to 70 in the expansion alone.  Now would be a good time to sub to EQ2 if your thinking about it, as many people are starting again using the Fae (including myself).  Seems to be a great expansion so far.  Keep in mind, for those who had some performance issues with older computers.....the expansion seems to work out a bunch of those issues, I can now run a full level up (very high performanced to balanced) with little issues. 

EQ2 is pretty high on the list to play when I build a new pc next year. I'm dying to crank the visuals and I left off my 30ish SK with a ton of quests ready to go, so I've got a lot to do.

Unfortunately, it's also in quite a line of games I'm holding off on until I build...I'll have six months of good pc releases built up! But I should be back next March or so, I think. I was going to play this autumn, but CoV got me in its clutches. Masterminds rock for soloers imo.

I also dispute Kitsune's assertion that the first impression is a deal-breaker. I hated EQ2 on release, and even though I still really dislike some of the same things (group-only dungeons, linked mobs, ^^ mobs, etc), it's a vastly improved game that I really enjoyed playing.

I actually run with a 2.4 ghz, 1 meg ram, and ATI 850 - and everything in EQ2 runs smooth.  I have a bit of lag in a few graphic intensive areas (Kethelin, Qeynos Harbour), but overall I have no issues (just as a benchmark for you).  I could only imagine what that game looks like on High Graphics, as just moving to balanced is a huge step.

A guildmate did half of level 59 in less than 3 hours in Lesser Faydark, solo. Insane amount of quests in EoF. I ran through a greyed-out Crushbone castle (the outdoor part of Crushbone is part of GFay and not a separate zone.) Very cool zone as far as visuals but linear in terms of layout.

I plan to get a cloak with our guild emblem on it tonight and will post some screenies if they come out well. The cloaks flow well while running around.

It really depends on how much you want to see grey and brown done well.

Well, I went ahead and re-subbed to EverQuest 2.  My alt-a-holicism immediately flared up as I debated between a preexisting Illusionist or Swashbuckler.  I still am not entirely sure of the choice I made.  I'm now running around at level 27 without any access to Echoes of Faydwer wondering if I have an ice elemental's chance in Innoruk's realm of finding the necessary players to group with.  If I had the cash, I'd shell out for a copy of EoF and start a new character in Felwithe where it's probably a low level group gold mine right now.  Shoot, if I just had $15 to spend on re-subbing, maybe I should have gone CoH.  Retrospect is a merciless harpy.

I just bought EoF a few days ago.  As a newbie that started in kelethin as a high elf paladin (who very well may betray to SK if it is reasonable to do so), let me say that graphicallly and quest-wise Greater Faydark is a pretty impressive level 5-15 zone.  I can only hope that the same amount of quality continues throughout the expansion.  I played before up to level ~24 as a freeport citizen, and the difference is night and day.  This is just far better done.  The class system no longer sucks (starting as your specific class is so much better), and there are copious amount of AA's you can start getting at level 10 (which adds an interesting dimension to the game). 

I don't plan on going to the mainlands until I really have to, and thus far there is no impression that I will be forced to go there ever. I'm sure some quests will draw me there eventually though.

Do you really think that? I have seen many shots of Vanguard and thought that...but is that really a criticism of EQ2?  I really don't see it all, perhaps the city of Freeport, but other than that I just don't see it.

Hal just wants pink and chartreuse. I've never had problems with drab landscapes if the game is portraying a drab place. The world in general is a pretty drab place. Caves are drab. If you want to poke fun at EQ2's graphics, you're better off attacking the overall (lack of) design quality and flair, the boring and unvaried armor selections for most players.

I don't the the palette is particularly colourless in EQ2.  It's not as intensely bright and colourful as WoW... but it's going for the more realistic look, I guess.  I hate the character models and, like Sky and others have said, the armour is boring and I agree that the design of the world is mostly uninspired.   I also agree that Vanguard looks to have one of the dullest looking palettes I've ever seen which does nothing to motivate me to want to play it.  Although the huge cock rocks are amusing.

What do you expect from a Diku ?

Cock Rocks.

The cloaks just don't look as good in screen stills but here is the new horse animation (guild level 30 ghost horse, but all have the rearing animation if you <spacebar> while standing) on the boat to Butcherblock and you can see how the cloak doesn't drape stupidly. Cloaks have decent physics as to how they react to movement but the clipping is meh.  I bought a level 40 cloak for 9g. The higher level cloaks are longer and wider but I am half a level from being able to equip the one I really want and hope prices come down a bit.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v424/mrmrmrj/Drayek%20Raid/EQ2/EQ2_000037.jpg)

And this is the climb from the BB docks

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v424/mrmrmrj/Drayek%20Raid/EQ2/EQ2_000040.jpg)

I dunno, this seems like more MMO bullshit to me.

solo'ers who aren't twinked should pack up (http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=gameplay&message.id=139990)

I don't get buying another EQ2 expansion when all I wanted to do by lvl30 was finish my armor quests and Stormhold solo.  Sounds clear that you can't do solo heroic mobs anymore, which is funny to me because I could never anyways.

someone someday needs to make an MMO which has the intelligence to scale encounters (instanced or not) based on if you are grouped or solo and change the payouts and rewards accordingly.  How hard is that? 

The dude was trying to fight a ^^^ heroic solo.  With a priest class.  Even with a 7 level gain, that can be pretty iffy.

Solo content in EQ2 is complicated mostly because of the complicated consider system.  Heroic with one up arrow you might be able to take, but three up arrows are far beyond the efforts of most solo pclasses.  You start taking on entire groups of white con non-heroics and things are going great, but you run into your first heroics (or worse, epics) and suddenly the game is unsoloable.  Really, just like World of Warcraft, not all content is soloable and it's still solo friendly.

Can't be that hard, I hear Cryptic Studios is going to come out with something like that in another -3 years.

Once you get past the instinctive "throw more bodies at it!" response doing more harm than good, it's pretty worthwhile.

--GF

It's a lot harder if you have to take items into account.

Canceled my subscription already.  That was a freaking bust.  Problem is my heroes are level 27 and most players around that level are in Echoes of Faydwer... or gone entirely.  Suffice to say, barely any players around (Antonica topped out at about 60 and it's downhill from there) lead to my realizing there was no real point to sticking around.  If I had the EoF expansion it might be a different story, but I don't got the scratch, so I decided to wuss out instead.  Well, I've got 29 days of subscription time left, maybe I'll change my mind.  Meanwhile, I'm tempted to find another $15 I don't have and throw it at Cryptic.  Yes, my budget is currently such that $30 is pushing things way over the edge and $55 is right out. 

Not that know why I'm posting this here.  Chances are those reading a thread about Echoes of Faydwer are either considering getting it or already have it.  I did get to try out the cloaks.  Not bad, but Cryptic put a lot more physics details into the capes of City of Heroes.  Not that it's really a competition, the games are so radically different.  EQ2 does massive, CoH does different.  My problem seems ot be that EQ2 is a bit too massive - there's not enough players to go around even on a "heavy load" server.  It was bad before EoF, now it's extreme.

that suks Geldon, I was also hoping to get into it.  But I'm also not buying EoF yet -- I want my game working well on my PC first and I want to be able to solo reasonably well before committing more money.  I've got 3 gigs of RAM, 3.2Ghz CPU a good ATI card (forget, but <2 yrs old) and the game *still* looks like shit.  Turning the specs up it feel like I'm running on my old Pentium, chop suey.  Going to have to investigate why.

The servers and the world is far from empty, you just have to choose the right server. Of course the new sensation are the new lands no matter if you are a new or an old player, but until a week ago there was a lot of people in every zone of Norrath as usual. And the expansion only added new players to the base.
If you are creating a new char I'd suggest to pick one of the most populated servers: Antonia Bayle being a sure shot and Lucan D'Lere (my server) being another good choice. They are not PvP sadly, but they are RP one, meaning not so much elizabethian speech but a notable lack of wowtard juveniles.
Of course those without Faydwer are the dropouts right now, that's understandable, but the game is by no mean "too large". That happened in EQ1 and they learned the lesson: zones are wider right now so there are no deserted zones. Sure more population could do but give it time to stabilize things and the usual platoon of mid levelers will start flooding all areas once again.
A few hours ago I logged in in the Fae starting area, it was about 6am EST, and a /who returned 77 players. GUess more insatnce are running in peak hours. Not bad. As I said, everyone's there right now, but that won't last. Old world is as good as the new one and some servers are healthy no matter what. Plus old fags can't wait to try their new faes in the old dungeons and watch them stylishly destroying old enemies.

I suggest you to try a different server. You could even come to Lucan and drop me a /tell (Ruri or Roori, high level and low level sides of the same medal), I'd be glad to help/join/fight together.

Right now my characters are on Antonia Bayle, a server I had started over on deliberately awhile back in order to try to score higher populations.  Maybe I just need to take a better look around.  All I know for certain is I had been running around for about 4 hours and didn't manage to find a single group that wanted a level 27 Illusionist.

I moved with Bat Country to Oasis -- can you still character transfer?

Ugh, no idea about char transfer, and if Antonia Bayle *looks* empty, then it really means everyone is in fairyland, and I was wrong. Sorry :(

It's not really "empty", but things are sparse.  I run across quite a few players running around or idling about brokers and  whatnot - EQ2 is far from a ghost town.  My complaint is more about grouping opportunities.  Active players at my level range are cut randomly between 33% - 66% of being in EoF versus not, depending on where I look and when.   So about half of the usual grouping opportunities aren't there right now.  Granted, it's kinda hard to tell on a RP server since about half the players are in /role mode and therefore hidden from level range searches, but those that aren't form a reasonably good point of reference.

As for the character transfer option, it seems to be down right now.  In any case, it isn't free (unless I wanted to go to a Station Exchange server).  I tried to get the exact price but it was hidden behind a "character transfers are down right now" screen.  I seem to recall that they charge something like $50 to do a character transfer, which is way out my budget.  I could maybe shell out for a 10th of that.

Perhaps it's the alt-a-holicism speaking, but maybe the source of my dissatisfaction has something to do with my character.  But if an Illusionist and Swashbuckler aren't adequately enthralling me, I'm not sure there's an EQ2 class that can.

Man, are you going to keep moving this bullseye or what?

But even then, it's not like there are two completely separated and unrelated curves called "character power" and "gear power" which go up in arbitrary ways. There's one long curve called "character + gear power" which goes up at pretty much a consistent rate. Except near the end where you can't get any more character power, only more gear power, and then you're at "the endgame" which just means you move up the curve at a much more glacial pace.

Also, I wish I could unread that thread in the original reference. It seems to be somewhat full of people who are so desperate to believe they're enjoying themselves that they have to shout it loudly to anyone who comes nearby. Is every forum thread like that?

--GF

CoH's mission difficulty scaling algorithm is about as basic as it could possibly be. It doesn't even take into account the levels of all the party members, just the level of the mission owner. Now I haven't played EQ II for ages now so I'm sure things have changed quite a bit but originally while items did have level ranges they still could vary quite a bit in effectiveness within a given range. And then for spells/skills there were various ranks you could research or buy scrolls for that would boost the effectiveness of those spells/skills.

You could just do it the simplistic way like CoH does and base it on just the level of the quest owner and the total number of group members but I'm claiming there's a much larger variability in character "power" between equal level characters in EQ II than in CoH so just doing it the CoH way would either make it too easy or too hard for the majority of the groups.

I'm not saying that designing such an algorithm for EQ II would be near-impossible just that compared to CoH's it would be quite a bit more difficult to get it more-or-less balanced right.

If you're trying to make a mechanic that balances some instanced content to work for a specific group, it can be really difficult depending on how sophisticated your character balance is.  I've got to sympathise with Cryptic when I say that the way they allowed players to customize their heroes/villains assured that rarely are two characters at teh same level of potency, even when they're the same archetype.  The eventual solution they came up with is for the players to assign themselves one of five difficulty levels (through an NPC) that adjusts the foes they're likely to encounter.  It's a pretty good mechanic, it works.

I've seen a bit of EQ2's instanced content when I was betraying with my Swashbuckler.  Basically, they instanced all the mobs in the mission at the level of my character.  Unfortunately, despite the mission being equal leveled and the encounters being balanced to be soloable, my Swashy (then a Brigand) couldn't handle many of them in a toe to toe fight.  If I were an Illusionist/Coercer, Conjurer/Necromancer, or a Fighter type I probably could have done it, but my scout-type (despite having excellent gear and upgraded skills) couldn't. 

That's just another example of how hard instanced missions are to try to autobalance.  Due to the power disparities between different characters or parties, it'd take a considerable amount of work coming up with a mechanic that works for everybody.  Some games may be able to get around this by having very simple characters whose power can be easily balanced as equal regardless of class.  For the rest, Cryptic's solution that allows players to adjust their own difficulty is probably the quickest way to go about forming autoscaling instances that works well.

Beware!
I've seen this kind of complains a thousand times in EQ2. Lots of my younger guildees had the same issues, coming from different games, and they were so pissed off that some quit over it, while others tried harder until they eventually found out how to face the challenge. I am not trying to say that you are not a competent gamer, I know you are more than excellent, but I could bet myself that those instances are always always always doable with any class in the game. Point is, often, you need to be just a little more geared than what's usually allowed in other mmorpgs or in similar areas in EQ2. Then you have lots of skills and spells (the good and the bad of EQ2 :( ) and you need to know your class well, not just spamming what seemed to work elsewhere, including heroic opportunities. Last but not least, what works with 90% of the mobs not always works  in instances that are, in most cases, way more challenging.
I am not trying to say that the classes are perfectly balanced, of course they aren't. And there's lot of classes in a 24 jobs MMORPG that can solo that same instance in a whiff while you have to sweat your pants. But still I am pretty sure that the instances all scales well enough. In fact, I used to appreciate the increased difficulty of most of those, especially cause I was playing them solo. It is one of the very few occasions in my MMORPG life that I had the feeling of a challenge I had to take and overcome with my character resources and not upon leveling over it or calling in friends.
A great example was the Pit Champion in the gnoll adventure pack. That was almost impossible for certain classes at first (now he is a pushover), especially warriors, but I tried about 10 times on it... and when I finally did it felt great. I knew it was doable, and at last he fell.
Pit champion aside, the instances are in my opinion very well tailored and scales well and I dare to say that 99% of those who complained about not being able to finish a solo scaling instances in EQ2 should just try harder or try a different approach.

In a era where MMORPG are almost on auto-play as you just need to overgear and overlevel the challenges, and you always need to be grouped, I warmly welcomed this kind of stuff.

On another note, if one of your point is that it's unfair that some classes have instanced soloable scaling zones where they can go and farm xp, while some others have to work to gain the edge of it, well then no, there's no balance in EQ2 and probably there's no way it can be, given the too large number of 24 classes. Even with the difficult selector available in some of those (normal, hard, harder).

Responding to geldon's population observation, it is worth noting that EoF is only 10 days old. That said, EQ2 hasn't looked this busy is a long time - if you are in the expansion. The non-raid content in the older expansions is largely empty. Sanctum of the Scaleborn, the best 60-65 level dungeon in KoS has 20% of the normla population. We couldn't even fill a group in there recently while before EoF, it wasn't uncommon to have a group in every major room.

I wouldn't recommend anyone return to EQ2 right now without EoF. That said, EoF is sweet. Lesser Faydark is a 50-60 soloer's paradise with all the quests available. I get better exp there solo at 61 doing level 55 quests than in a full group in Sanctum where the mobs are densely packed and all level 62+.

can you dual box EQ2?


I have no idea how to play the game now as a soloer when the bulk of people are not grouping (Im not guilded) or just out of zone or level, and all the green non-heroic/raid quests still require ^^^ heroics.  Only solution is to RMT up for gear and movement, and get a heal/buffbot.  Possible?

I see your point about character balance, but I think balance may be a bit in the eye of the beholder.  Sure, some classes may have an easier time soloing instances (Splitpaw, Tear Grifter quests, and betrayal are the only scaled content I know of) but do not function as well in a group setting.  A templar being the easy example, they bring a ton of utility and healage to a group, but not much to solo play.  A monk would solo the shit out of that instance, but is not the ideal group or raid tank.  Classes serve roles, not balance for everything.   I enjoy that there are huge differences and unbalance between the various classes....arguing about balance is becoming tiresome and counter-productive. Are some classes behind the eight-ball in all categories (bard, illusionist)? Sure, but those are the classes I enjoy to play the most, their abilities are very situational, but shine in those circumstances....they actually bring a real challenge to gameplay. 

Besides, Achievement points are easy enought to get anymore.....you want to spec your Swashie for a little more solo play (I think they are sufficient soloers already)? then the option is yours.

You think CoX has it right? pffft. I love that game, but talk about dull, oh-so-generic missions.  That is really the achilles heel of the franchise, IMHO. CoX is a blast for a month, then I dread seeing the same type of base encounters, same tile set and same map layout.  It's easy for them to scale the shit out the missions, because there is no too much to scale.....and not loot to worry about.

In summary, character balance is completely fucking overrated and makes for dull gameplay when it comes down to it.

EDIT- On another note, if your think a defender can solo the same "scaled" content a Mastermind can, then your outta yer mind.

I have never two-boxed and the prospect frightens me. However, my guildies who did it in EQ1 do it in EQ2 and say it is easier. These are not hardcore players, just people that are rarely on when the rest of us are but don't want to leave the "family."

One thing EoF has in spades are named solo mobs. They have a single up arrow and a few friend sometimes. They have a decent loot table (tiny chance to get a master chest) and you get good AA exp for killing each named the first time. The EoF AA system isn't as powerful as the KoS one, but buying EoF gives you all expansions to date, I believe.

There are still zones where any group smaller than 4 has no chance and more where a full group of appropriate level members will be seriously challenged. In some of the new dungeon zones, pulling is very important given the mob density. I haven't had to watch a mob's pathing before pulling since EQ2 started. Now you have to.

You could solo heroic mobs? News to me, that fucking quest orc mob outside Freeport was still handing me my ass when I last tried him.

I was enjoying my SK, but I'm concerned that he will quickly become not-fun because he is a gear-dependent class, and I never group, thus never get to do dungeons or heroic mobs that might give good gear.

As I was saying in the Vanguard thread, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that mmo devs really aren't interested in crafting stuff for solo players. Throwing a few scraps and allowing non-dungeon adventure isn't my idea of a fun game.

I'm roleplaying Gandalf's retarded little brother who could never figure out the door to Moria.

yeah I could never solo any heroics, at best a single green ^.  There are at least 2 threads on official forums of soloers complaining stuff is more "boring" because heroics are apparently harder.  And so many quests and quest arcs are of course tied to finishing off some number of heroics.  To me I only need green ^^ and ^^^, but where the grey ^^^ can still kill me...

There's just something uncomfortable about moving zone to zone, or expansion to expansion with a quest log that still has 59 quests, maybe 2/3 of them that are green.  No exaggeration.  I don't know if I can $ agree with that.

My zerk can solo barely green heroic encounters with no ^^^ in them if I burn all my special AE attacks. 4 no arrow mobs drop quickly when I do this. With ^^^s it always comes down to the timing on the last few hits and whether or not my self-regen tics at the righ time. With the regen boost AAs in Eof, I bet odds would swing in my favor to 60-40 from 40-60.

They might have actually screwed up some of the betrayal missions, because I was running into situations where there was a room full of encounters that would be an even fight, and they assisted if I attacked one.  I was able to do some of them quite well and it was just a good challenge, but in the cases where there was alot of assisting going on and not enough room to avoid that, it was a futile effort. 

I mentioned the classes because I suspect part of the problem was that I was a Scout class.  Even though I had mastercrafted imbued armor and weaponry of the appropriate tier to complement my Scout's maxed out evasion skill, even though I know how to fight in such a way as to exploit my stuns to get side and back hits in after the fight has started, even though I had used potions and totems to max my chances, and am a Heroic Opportunities master: my poor Scout simply didn't have much in the way of staying power when that many things were hitting him.   Now, if I were an Enchanter I'd be able to mesmerise extras while having a pet to do some tanking, and if I were a Fighter type I'd be able to take a lot more damage.  Priest types have issues in that they may not inflict sufficient damage to down the foe before they're out of energy.  A Wizard/Warlock likely would have much the same issues my Scout did - lots of offense, but not enough defense.   So yes, class does make a difference when soloing instanced content.


I think that this is an issue one encounters with any working automatic instancing system.  A developer might have successfully instructed a computer to randomly generate content that properly challenges the player, but they can't expect missions to stand apart in the way they would hand crafted content.  Computers just don't have any creativity.  You can throw more and more content on them to randomize, but sooner or later the players are going to realize they're getting a generic blend of all the content in the engine and not a truly original experience.  Cryptic has partially resolved the issue by throwing in special content that radically changes the interior appearance of some instanced missions, but few are the players that can be perpetually deceived by different coats of paint on the same thing.  In the end, you either still like the gameplay mechanic or you're bored of it.  Time to take a break or try to discover another way to play the game you might have missed.

Alright, I believe you. Maybe in one of the million publishes they screwed up something more, it's actually more than possible.
Just to be sure, you do know that mobs (if NOT linked) add whenever they are social and you pull one of their neighbours with weapon or arts BUT don't notice you and don't join the fray when you bodypull them just entering their aggrorange for a sec, right?
I am sure you know this already, but I've seen more than a veteran ignoring this little mechanic so I gave it a shot.
No need to say there's a HUGE difference if you are able to pull single mobs (or single groups) in tight spaces instead of always getting the whole party when you were inviting just one.

I've found body pulls to be kinda iffy, to the point where sometimes I wonder if they're a myth even though other times they seem to work.  It seems that social mobs sometimes notice me getting their buddy's attention, even if I'm outside of their aggro range.

For my Scout, however, body pulls hurt as much as helped.  The reason being that a major chunk of my damage came from the surprise stealth attack.  If I'm poking my nose into a room unstealthed in order to try to separate groups, and I succeed in just snagging a single encounter, I'm already at a disadvantage because I don't get that sharp spike of stealth attack damage that would have brought me a quarter to a half way to defeating the encounter at the start.   I should qualify that by mentioning my betrayal happened before I had a power that would re-stealth me in mid fight, which I think was granted at 24.

So you did infact complete the betrayal?

Yes and no.  I had to abort those instanced betrayal missions I found to be incompletable due to excessive adding problems, but there's a random pool of betrayal missions that are assigned to me from the NPC, so I managed to get my betrayal done by milking the ones I could do through aborting the ones I knew I couldn't and asking again. 

There were about three I couldn't do and two I could.  One of those two because I just had to kill a single NPC, something I could manage to do before his buddies finished me off, after I had snuck past all the rest.  The other one because the groups were far enough apart as to avoid aggroing more than one.  It was tough, but I could take about 2 or 3 white con even framed at a time and that's about the size of encounters they came in, so it was completable as long as I kept it down to one encounter at a time.

Also, only one of the five betrayal options the NPC gives actually took place in instanced areas, so one could potentially complete their betrayal without doing one instanced mission.

when did you betray?  only curious because I did mine months ago before the big changes and it was semi-Ok and was considering doing it again for a healbot.

I betrayed about 3 months ago.  I'm pretty sure they haven't radically changed the betrayal system since then.  First you do a short line of quests that render you an exile, then you do a quite few out of a choice of five kinds of quests whose main purpose is to get your faction sufficiently up with the side you want to go on, then you do a short line of quests that make you an official member of the new city.

I hear Fae can't betray, yet.

Let me show off:

(http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-3-1164536585.jpg)

(http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-3-1164536597.jpg)

(http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-3-1164545955.jpg)

(http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-3-1164545977.jpg)

.


And that looks WAY better in motion. Screenshots never did much justice to EQ2.
How can people keep saying this game visuals and models are awful is beyond me...

.

The animations and details were always excellent.  The bodies of the original races were plaqstic and dumpy and completely uninspired.  The variety of clothing TWO years after launch is still disappointing.  Leonardo came up with ratio's for the perfectly pleasing human form nearly half a millenia ago, it would have been nice if they were aware of that.

:)

Still, this not just an EQ2 issue I guess :) But I see the point.

The screens of the avatar above do look good - the winged fearie.

Probably the only good model in the entire EQ2 line-up.

But like EQ, these guys would rather add "new" content than adjust existing content.  I was told they did not have the resources to adjust the existing models and were aware that there was discontent - of course they appear to have the dev resources for a new avatar...

When I asked Mr. Hartsman about changes to existing models - this is an excerpt from his email:


If it's a $$ issue, I would even be willing to pay for an "expansion" that offered changes to existing racial avatars (e.g. EQ styled, just more polygons - I would even settle for that) and armor variety.  I would pay for that.

Then tell it to Hartsman.  They could make EverQuest 2: The Legend of the Hearth, an expansion with new homes, new furnishings, one new quest, and oh yes, new models for the races.  19.95, please.  I actually like most of the SOGA avatars' faces, I just dislike the fact that they're stick-figures with spindly limbs.  If they would un-supermodel the models by feeding them a sandwich or two, I think it'd be pretty great.

I resubbed, had a ball over the weekend.  What changed for me is that a master1 spell I had on the (new for me) offline brokers sold finally for 75gp.  I geared up and progression took off.  Finally finished AQ2 quest in SH :)  nearly 2 years later lol

Yep. When I originally bought EQ2, I wanted to make my EQ1 necromancer, a Dark Elf. Apparently all dark elfs and most other elves have come out of the closet and are having a gay pride parade. And the humans and barbarians are all dumpy looking. And the Iksar shipped with one skin color. The EQ player models were and are terrible.

Falconeer, what's your rig?  What are you using for graphics to get that quality?

Why is the new model so much less fugly than the old ones?

New artists? Old artists had more time? Old artists woke up and smelled the mannequins with play doh hair?

The screenshots of the violet winged fae is from my laptop, Dell Inspiron 9400 dual core with a nVidia 7900gs go videocard. These 2 screenshots are taken in 1440x900.
The one with the white wings is from my desktop, an year old AMD cpu with a robust 7800 gtx 512 video card. Both have 2 gigs RAM. These two are 1280x960.

The game runs more than fine now, after the last patch that definitely improved the framerate for me (more noticeable if you are using the default UI). With more than fine I mean an average 30 fps everywhere, often more than that and with slowdowns kicking in only during the most fierce party fights. When I fight in a party I just turn off spell effects as I never liked those and they are a big hit for performance. Plus they are a mess.. I can't see anything with al those sparkles and smokes.

Now the tricky part: Settings.

First of all, I set it on the preset "high quality", then I only change the texture quality, shifting both character and terrain on max. All the other settings are default but (and this is a great but) from what I heard months ago in the official board, the presets are not static, I mean, they adjust and scale themself based on the computer they are running on. Meaning (again, if I get it the right way) that my "high setting preset" isn't actual the same "high setting" you could get on a different computer. Not sure if this is true or not, but I wanted to add this as I saw lot of confusions about people trying to replicate someone else's setting and not getting the same quality.
Oh, under "Environment" I usually turn off the blooms as I really don't like it, but honestly I can't remember if I turned it off recently. It's probably on on the laptop and off on the desktop, anyway it shows a lot in certain zones and close to nil in some others.

Anyway, the final touches are of course AntiAliasing 4x and Anisotropic Filter 16x. Now, not sure if you know this, but theoretically EQ2 doesn't support AA, so no matter if you turn it on or off in your videocard settings, EQ2 will continue to ignore it.

To actually have AA working in EQ2 you just have to add a line in the eq2.ini file in the main EQ2 directory.

The line is:

r_aa_blit 1

Add this to eq2.ini (create it if there's no eq2.ini in your main directory) and AA will finally work.
Sorry if you already knew all this stuff, I just thought it could be useful anyway.

didn't know any of it :)  thank ye

Since no one replied to my artist query I'm wondering if no one knows. I see lots of obsessive following of dev projects here, but no one ever mentions the artists. Since there's far more difference in the quality of the art (utter crap to great) than the quality of most of the MMOs (utter crap to decent) it would be nice to see what the artists I've liked in the past are currently working on.

They messed with people soloing heroic mobs? Does anyone play a bard class, or know someone who does? I solo'd my Dirge from ~33 to 45 exclusively kiting ^^ and ^^^ heroics.

edit: if i can't solo i doubt i'll resub anytime soon. it's too hard to find consistent groups on the pvp server.

SOE boosted solo exp quite a bit some months ago to the point that even if you can solo heroics, the relative exp gain compared to soloing greens is crappy. I can churn through low greens at 3 per minute if they are densely packed enough and each kill is about .3%. Add in the plentiful quest exp available while soloing and levelling alone is quite easy. My zerk is level 62 in mostly player-made gear.

EoF solo quests also seem to have quite generous cash rewards. Most of the Lesser Faydark quests (50-60 zone) pay 9-15g. One of my guildies (high 59 monk when he started, 61 monk now) did over 30 quests in LFay over several nights. Add in the proceeds from selling the loot and quest rewards and he earned almost 7 plat. That buys a full suit of the player-made T7 armor and all the Adept1 spells he will need up to 70.

If you're kiting then all bets are off if you can or cannot solo a ^^^ mob.  Personally, I've never had that much luck with kiting in EQ2 because they've anti-kiting code that does cute little things like render a kited mob suddenly worth no xp.

Any bets that the rewards are nerfed before I get around to playing EQ2 again in a few months? It's pretty much SOE policy to launch an expansion with phat lewtz and nerf it a few months later.

I played EQ2 fof 2 years and it is still my favourite MMORPG after EQ1 and UO.
But I hated it on and off in these last 2 years too.
Most of the time I wasn't sure about the reasons, only had to take breaks before the boredom could become lethal, and I usually came back after a couple of weeks.
Now, after exactly 24 months from launch, after 24 staright months of subscription and lots of characters in the higher level range, I understood what I always hated about EQ2 combat and couldn't put into words:

The combat animation is not synched with the damage you deal.
Your character basically plays a combat animation that takes too much to complete, meaning that if you cast a spell meanwhile or if you are hasted somehow, you don't get the "right" feeling of it. It happens all the time with my berserker... I hit like 10 times in 2 seconds, but what I see is a lot of orange numbers and just a couple of swings. What happened to the remaining 8 hits? The animation is slower than your actual damage so there's no way for you to actually feel all those 10 hits.

That is simply not right. IT doesn't feel right. And yes, took me 2 years to understand that it was an issue about synchronization of the animation with what actually happens damage-wise.
I am not sure, but I think none of the other big enough MMOs have similar issues.

Why I put this here? Don't know.... it's just not worth a new topic.
But this is my bottom line: animations, visuals, gameplay, the world.. it's all great I love EQ2. Only combat... just doesn't feel right to me.
Darn.. 24 months...

Right, but there are tricks for getting around the anti-kiting code. I think I stopped playing in May or June of this year, and it working fine up until I quit. Best part about soloing the ^^^ mobs was the loot. I was/am Dave Chappelle rich.  Exp didn't matter quite as much, at least in the PVP environment. I could have leveled faster but I would have gotten steamrolled by not being able to keep my equipment/skills up to par.

In regards to the screenshots. You made a monk, monks are the only class that look good in the game. Your noobie armor looks good, your lvl 20 quest armor looks good. All the rest armors for your class stink. And if you want to see a styling monk, talk Singe into logging on. Her monk rocks.

You mean Feet? She's a stylish monk? I demand proof (and screenshots).

SINGE!!!  I like that!

Not bad. Plus you have your own castle.
Beware of Dirk the Daring though.

(http://www.exotica.org.uk/gallery/games/images/d/DragonsLair-t.jpg)

I have the expansion and I've made a couple of characters with wings and really tried to get back into the game.  I must be going through some sort of unmotivated mood thingy or something.  It's not just EQ2, it's all of them... single player rpgs, console games...  even FFXII... and I was so loving that game.  CoX always calls me back, however.  I really enjoy the combat and, of course, all the dressing up.

It's the darn un-synched combat animation. It's exhausting.

Now with wings. Those look pretty hawk during flight animations.

Also,
(http://www.infovisual.info/02/img_fr/076%20Anatomie%20interne%20singe.jpg)

Paycheck's in, I'm alt around too much in CoH to really enjoy it, so I caved and bought it.

Echoes of Faydwer, that is, not the anatomy of an ape.

I got the expansion but am still tooling around with my mouse.  All in all, the expansion shines.  Much better world building and Kelethin is way easier to navigate, even will all the levels.  More "cozy" the whole thing.  Also, my gf bought and resubbed and has successfully transferred her OCD with her WoW Pally harvesting to EQ2.  Her favorite feature?  "jumping off stuff!"  :p

And no one ever talks about shinies and collections, one of the nicest little new features in MMORPGs all around.

Which would be great, but lets just think of some MMOGs that *have* managed to retrofit all-new PC models at some point after launch ...

EQ1 (Luclin)
Daoc (Catacombs)
UO (or so I imagine - people keep talking about various graphics engines it's been through anyway)
Oh, hang on... EQ2 (Soga)

...so I seriously doubt that it is beyond the wit of man to do a rework of 52 chracter models in less than 60 man years.

Some of them are ok as they are anyhow (frog, troll, cat, erudite, almost anything without human style skin tbh).