First Impression: Hour 1

[HaemishM]

I made a Good Barbarian Warrior named Haemish.

The character creation, while painless, really needs some umph. Most of the sliders do so little to whatever they are trying to effect, especially when you consider you will only get within about 3 feet of very few avatars, that it seems superfluous. The male hairstyles on every single race I looked at (about half of them) were flamingly gay. Straight out effeminate, which matches the almost universal effimininity of ALL the male characters. Seriously. It was very hard to find any BUTCH looking combo in the bunch. About 25% of all the hairstyles I saw were acceptable. The rest were fashion model gay. BADLY gay. The dark elf males were the WORST of all. I could not find one dark elf hairstyle that did not look gay.

Voiceovers are teh gud. Watch out for longwindedness. You will get people skipping over important bits. Incidentally, I find myself reading the word balloons more than listening, which I do in most games that give me subtitles on top of voiceovers.

I'm only level 3. I've died once. Why did I get experience debt on newbie island? BAD IDEA.

Once I've finished with newbie island, the "Skip the tutorial" checkmark on the character creation should light up. If I check this option, this should make sure that my new character NEVER HAS TO SEE NEWBIE ISLAND AGAIN. If it doesn't, that's going to get REAL old.

[schild]

I'm only level 3. I've died once. Why did I get experience debt on newbie island? BAD IDEA.

I got super flamed for this. I mean SUPER FLAMED. "You need to teach newbies about debt." "What if someone gets real pissed off and leaves when they discover debt on mainland." Blah blah blah blah blah. Meh, I don't want debt on newbie island, it's super stupid. It's also AMAZING how slow leveling up to 10 is. This is supposedly fixed. I'm gonna play a new character this week and see.

Once I've finished with newbie island, the "Skip the tutorial" checkmark on the character creation should light up. If I check this option, this should make sure that my new character NEVER HAS TO SEE NEWBIE ISLAND AGAIN. If it doesn't, that's going to get REAL old.

For some reason Tutorial = Far Journey. Tutorial != Island of Refuge. I hate that. Hate Hate Hate. I've played through the island 4 times. Yes, it's getting old. It's also one of the most well fleshed out areas of the game. So torn.

[Signe]

I've had a good time so far.  I don't mind n00b island a bit.  I feel quite at home there.  I have also started a new character just before Gordon woke up yesterday but haven't had a chance to play with her.  A couple of things that really annoy me so far:

Running downhill causes me to have falling down damage.  I am thankful for the game's concern, but really... I am NOT running with scissors!

If you zoom in too much the npcs in front of you or mob you're fighting will completely disappear.  

Bit's of me disappear if I'm just moving about.  This is especially bad for Gordon's character who is a wee dorf with a very smart beard.  Everyone knows that dorfs without beards are all gay.  

I won't complain about the horrendous lag in certain area's unless it's still there when I'm actually paying for the game.  And, yes, I pre-ordered and will probably play on release.  

I am now going to grap my bag of extra polygons and play until Gordon wakes up today and my fantasy world comes crashing down around me.

[HaemishM]

Hour 2 - 5 (or 6) - I'm putting these here just to compile all my thoughts on the whole game.

I made it off newbie island around level 5, avoiding the grouping quest Schild warned us about here. I just didn't feel like bothering trying to find someone on newbie island when I got the quest.

Voiceovers, while really good, are starting to get OLD. I hate to say this, I really, really hate to say this, mainly because the sound design in this game is leaps and bounds above every other MMOG out there. I mean worlds better, to the point that no game is even in the same league as far as sound design goes. But the voiceovers seem to drag on forever. The reason for this is the word balloons. I read the word balloons. I can't NOT read them. And I end up reading them faster than the voiceovers speak them. So as a result, I'm generally missing half the great acting work on these voiceovers because I just want to get to my quest and I click ahead. Granted, I guess that's not a big issue, I just feel like all the work and money that has gone into the voiceovers is going to be a money spent on something that will only be seen and used about half the time. It's fluff; while it certainly adds to the entertainment value, it can and has gotten somewhat tedious. I lament for the amount of effort that went into it that could have been spent elsewhere. I also worry about being able to add new content quickly and inexpensively after release.

The Qeynos Citizenship quest is a good idea. However, it is unclear what you are supposed to be doing. The text on that quest, both in the journal, as well as the NPC's explanation, need to be significantly re-written. In essence, I'm supposed to talk to the NPC's that are in that instance and if they attack me, I kill them. If they don't attack me, but repent, I am not supposed to kill them, but offer them forgiveness (I assumed since I was in the good city, that was what I needed to do). But, the text about the quest said something like "Judge the insurgents" or something, never telling me where they were or explaining just how I was to judge them. Newbies will be HORRIBLY confused, I think. Also, the way to reach this instance is by clicking on the sign, and suddenly you are zoned into the instance. Give us a door, because if immersion is important, this breaks it altogether. Give the Marshal a physical place in Qeynos, even if it is instanced. Furthermore, the first part of the quest, the "task" that is given was totally fiction breaking. I'm sent into Oakmyst forest with all the other n00bs to get five tokens. These tokens drop off of anything that exists in Oakmyst. Ummm... why am I killing these things exactly? Just because I can? We're talking about rats, deer, beetles, whatever. Why does killing random animals earn me more citizenship? Is there an overpopulation of the rodent population? It makes the quest feel like "Kill this, go here" etc. Granted, that's all it is, but at least attempt to make it something that makes sense in the world.

My "house's" caretaker is annoying. Can I kill her please?

I am on a sub-par machine (at home). 1.3 Ghz AMD Athlon, 512 MB RAM, Win98SE, ATI Radeon 9100 w/ 64MB RAM, SB Live Value! I had to replace my GF4 MX with the Radeon because, of course, the MX isn't supported. By playing with settings a lot, I can get this game playable, but the city makes my computer cry. I'll pause for upwards of 3-4 seconds while things I can't see are loaded. It also looks mostly like monkey ass. The textures (high) are well done, but for the rest, it looks muddy. I think there is way too much emphasis put on the bump-mapping, pixel shaders and specular lighting; when you don't have those enabled or have them turned down... monkey ass. If this isn't a professional enough term, replace the word monkey ass with the words "on par with EQ1 pre-Luclin, only with more polygons." The world looks specatcular; the characters much less so.

I have serious concerns not only about the newbie island, but the entire 1-10 level game; i.e. the part that is meant to teach a player how to play the game until they pick their actual class. It's an extended tutorial, and with my concerns about the voiceovers included, this is going to be a REAL problem for those who make more than one character. And since we all know most people like to play alts, the idea that you'll have to go through almost all the same quests all over again for the first ten levels is a concern. There needs to be a point where a player can choose to skip ALL of that and start at level 10, with a baseline set of equipment and his class chosen. Maybe if your first character reaches 35, you can choose to go through it or skip it, but only if you choose the same starting city/alignment. I.e. if your first character is good and starts in Qeynos, any other characters you choose to play will be able to skip the newbie island and Qeynos quests and just choose a class. If they go Freeport, they get to do it all over again until they get a second character from that alignment to 35. Otherwise, that repeated content is going to be a chore, not a fun thing; it'll feel like a cockblock. Replace the word cockblock with grind if necessary.

Little pieces of my character disappeared on the newbie island with the latest Catalyst drivers, but I don't know if it's still happening in Qeynos.

First person camera needs arms. This is a pet peeve of mine, but I need to see my weapons swings. Not having that is just infuriating. Add to the frustration in that I don't seem to be able to move my 3rd person camera to a suitable "over the right shoulder" perspective. The aim here is to see myself as well as any opponents I'm fighting as welll as anything directly in front of me. I played EQ1 in 1st person because the 3rd person view was like this; but without the weapon swings, 1st person view bites. I feel more like an Eye of Zomm floating about limbless than I do immersed in the game. I don't give two shits if the artist tells you that the arms aren't in correct proportion to look right or whatever excuse was given for not adding them in SWG, or if they are distorted. I don't care. I want to feel like I have a presence in the world and without arms, I do not feel like an actor, but an observer.

The map... sigh. It looks so nice and is utterly worthless. Please, look at City of Heroes' mapping function. Please, please, please PUT WORDS ON THE MAP. Your symbols are nice, but a helmet doesn't tell me if that is Tumpy Irontoe's Armory or the Burial Ground of Fippy Darkpaw. Give me some idea of where I'm going, even if I have to go there first in order to have this option turned on. Qeynos is too big and too laggy to be wandering around aimlessly.

Exploration experience is luv. Keep that up.

Zoning. I am not a big fan of zoning. With the machine I have, zoning takes FOREVER. I seriously feel like I did when playing EQ1 and I had to wait so long to zone. I know this is because of the obscene number of models, polygons, bump maps, pixel shaders and sound files that need to be loaded. It hinders gameplay. Perhaps it isn't so bad for someone with better specs than mine, but honestly, the worse it runs on sub-optimal hardware, the smaller your target audience will be.

Trains. We have all seen how bad of a problem training was in EQ1. So why, WHY IN GOD'S NAME do we still have mob AI that does not give up ever? Perhaps I've just been the lucky one, but in the Peat Bog, I had two or three mobs aggro on me (they aggroed without any offensive action from me whatsoever) and just follow me the entire length of the zone all the way back to the guards to their death. No, I didn't die, but I can't help but feel this is going to get someone else killed if I zoned instead of stopped at the guards. This caused and still causes a HUGE CSR issue in EQ1 and that will continue in EQ2 if the AI isn't improved. Give them a pursuit radius and make it reasonable. Maybe in later areas this won't be an issue because of instancing or whatever, but in early ones, it will be huge.

Very good job on the targeting aspects of the game. I like that clicking on a mob will highlight other mobs that will aggro if I attack that mob. Nice idea. For this type of game, it really hopes gameplay.

More to come as I play more.

[Signe]

I fiddled around a bit today with crafting for the first time.   It was just dreadful.  I don't think you can be simply a crafter.  That, in itself, doesn't bother me much.  I'm happy to fight some mob for it's bits.  The main problem I found was that there are some items that you just plain can't get unless you buy them from a merchant.  Fuel, such as coal and candles, seem to be either non-existant or not implemented as a resource you can gather or make.  Money isn't the easiest thing to acquire early on, either, so you end up having to farm mobs for cash when you run out of fuel.  I have noticed some beehives hanging from trees so I'm hopeful that they will eventually return wax for candle making.   Perhaps there are coal mines in places other than refuge island?  

Resources, in general, are difficult to find.  On Refuge Island I have found only 3 or 4 rocks for mining.  I can mine 1 or 2 bits of tin or lead and then it's gone and you have to wait for it to respawn.  That takes long enough, but it's also first come, first serve.  If it remains like this, I predict that there will be queue's forming in front of the one tin rock on Refuge Island.  Sheesh... EQ was always a 'camping' sort of game, but I'll be damned if I'm going to camp tin rocks!

Another annoyance is the fact that it takes a huge amount of time to craft just one item and the xp return is very, very small, even for items that are at your crafting level.  You can't craft anything above your level to boost your xp, either.  You can only scribe recipes that are your crafting level or below.  I don't know if it gets any better as time goes on but its extremely hard to get started.  I really would have liked to persue crafting a bit further, but it's just such a wretched bore that I finally gave up.

I am hoping for a crafting 'miracle' patch!

[HaemishM]

Hour 7 and 8, Lunch Hours at Work:

This is a better machine. Intel P4 1.8 Ghz, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 9500 w/ 64 MB RAM, Onboard sound, T1 connection. However, I have only one thing to say about navigating in Qeynos.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

This machine should not be having this kind of a problem navigating through this game. Granted, it's still an older machine, but Jesus, how much horsepower do you expect people to have? I'm going to play with some settings tomorrow, but all I can say is that it is hellish laggy walking through the streets of Qeynos. And this is with only 29 players in a zone. I'm taking about 1 step every 20 seconds in some areas. It's especially bad with lots of NPC's loading, such as RIGHT AT THE ZONE ENTRANCE from South Qeynos. You need to move those 5 or 6 annoying NPC's that are staging their little dress up drama two steps from the zone. That will frustrate the ever-living piss out of players.

Zoning takes FOREVER. It's 1998 again. You have found a game that makes my P4 machine run worse than my 200 mhz machine with a Voodoo 2. Ding, gratz.

Seriously, if there is one thing EQ2 needs to learn from WoW, it's to let me know UP FRONT what my quest reward will be. I took a sort of fed ex quest from Nettleville Hovel to North Qeynos to sketch the big sword statue. It took twenty minutes to do this thanks to the zoning lag and graphical lag. And I ended up with an 8 cp easel (which I assume could have gone in my apartment if I wanted to take 20 minutes to walk there) and 11 cp and some experience. I'd not have bothered.

The whole "ring the bell" to travel within Qeynos thing needs some explanation. I've been wandering about the city trying to find the caves until I finally gave out an OOC asking. And I'm told to ring a bell? WTF?  

Please give the EQ2 music team lots and lots of cookies. The music is fantastic. One piece in there reminds me of the score from Lawrence of Arabia. It is truly fantastic stuff. I had my headphones off while playing it at lunch today and got good comments from the lady two cubicles over from me. I like the music so much, I've copied the MP3 files out of the directory into a separate directory and added them to my Windows Media Player library. Thumbs up.

Give the design team whatever the music team is smoking.

[schild]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm running the game on a p4 2.8ghz machine, 1024 megs of DDR333, and a FX5200 Ultra.

FLAWLESS VICTORY!

If they release the game in February, their requirements should be less than Doom 3. To which I say, bravo.

Other than that, yea, needs some work. Lag has been special lately and it's why I haven't played...at all.

[Alluvian]

Didn't read this full thread yet, but schild was complaining about leveling.

Get out of EQLive mode is my suggestion.  Visit all the hamlets, do the quests.  I played a character to 10 on my wifes account, got him there in 3 days.  When I got my account I had the same character to 10 in about 6 hours.

Leveling through questing, especially early is blazingly fast to 10.  It slows down a lot after that, but mainly because once I hit 10 I have been doing more mapping than leveling.  Even then I accidentally seemed to have leveled to 13 by casually questing.

[HaemishM]

Another couple of hours, more bits of frustration.

I think I've managed to get performance to an acceptable level on this machine, knockcing the textures down to medium. Characters still look assy.

If I have to hear "Come and browse the finest wares Qeynos has to offer" one more goddamn time, I'm going homicidal. This same sound bite, with different voices, is used WAY too often by random merchants. No, changing the actor doesn't change the fact that the actors are saying the same thing. After the 6th time to hear it, it no longer becomes cool, it becomes annoying. Maybe if each of the actors said something different, but along the same lines, it would be ok.

Too many NPC's that just sit out in the middle of the street with no purpose whatsoever. Maybe this adds to immersion... except for the fact that they NEVER move, seem to have no lives and after the fifth or sixth time you see them in the same spot, morning, noon and night, well, immersion is totally broken at that point. Most of the NPC's suffer from the "I'm just a quest/merchandise/flavor text vending machine" feeling. None of it is dynamic. That doesn't immerse me. I'm really hoping that once I hit tenth level I never have to see Qeynos again, and that's a damn shame because so much work went into that city. But there are way too many zones, especially considering that you usually have to cross at least 3 zone borders to do one delivery quest, for maybe a bubble of experience.

So far, "hunting" seems like it would be as boring if not more so than in EQ1. The hunting zones I've been to (Peat Bog, Caves, Oakmyst Forest) are all extremely bland and boring. None of them holds the slightest candle to say Blackburrow, which was a valid hunting zone for a level 7 in EQ1. I hope it gets better.

I'm so wanting this to be something besides EQ with a shiny wrapper, voice acting and more quests, but it isn't so far.

[schild]

I'm so wanting this to be something besides EQ with a shiny wrapper, voice acting and more quests, but it isn't so far.

And there it is.

That's my biggest complaint. Where is EQ2 going? In that direction. It is becoming the best version of EQ1 that the world has to offer. While, personally, I think Freeport is far more fleshed out than Qeynos, which boarders on fabulously gay in most cases (seriously, it's gay, as in rather homosexual), the sound bite thing does get annoying.

Haemish thinks WoW will do better than EQ2. I don't think so. A. The people in the beta will burn themselves out and refuse to do the lower level content again, a la my problem with CoH. B. WoW has no longevity. The upper level shit will suck - I would put money on that happening because of the existance of Tigole and Furor on staff at Blizzard. Whew, that was a horribly structured sentence.

Anyway, EQ2 has it's flaws. But the biggest one that needs to be addressed is that it's EQ1. With bumpmapping.

[HaemishM]

The difference between WoW and EQ2 is that the setting of EQ2 has been done in this genre before. The setting of WoW, not to mention the fanbois, will give it around 200k subscriptions, while I think EQ2 as it currently is structured, will hover between 50k-100k.

[schild]

The difference between WoW and EQ2 is that the setting of EQ2 has been done in this genre before. The setting of WoW, not to mention the fanbois, will give it around 200k subscriptions, while I think EQ2 as it currently is structured, will hover between 50k-100k.

I think you underestimate how many of the 400k will come from EQ1. I'm confident EQ2 will hit 300k in the first couple months. It does what it does and it does it better than EQ1.

WoW will probably hit 500k at some point, but very drastically drop as people hit the high level game.

[Signe]

I'm sure they'll both do very well.  My first instinct is to say that EQ2 will do better because... well, it's EQ, innit?  Having said that, I've never seen such interest in a game as I have with WoW.  The insanity that followed the start of beta announcement was incredible.  

I have a feeling that Guild Wars will the the sleeper that amazes everyone one.  I think it'll be a huge hit... though, possibly, not in a way that'll be any good for me.  More in the "My parents don't care what I do online and I don't need a credit card to play this game. Yay! Bring on the grief!" sort of way.  That might kill it for me.

[Alluvian]

Haemish, one thing to remember is that many, if not most quests are level based.  You don't get them until you complete another quest, or get to a certain level, or both.  So those 'useless' npc's are not.  They are destinations of quests, and future quest givers for the higher levels usually.  Castleview for example gave me about 8 or so quests as a level 6 newbie (exact number is a guess).  I now have about 18 quests complete there with another 4 or so pending.  Just a single zone example.

My biggest issue with the game at this point, is who is the target content for a group of 10+ level 12 mobs?  By the time a group can do that effectively without the cleric dying almost instantly the mobs are practically worthless to kill except to work towards a 'kill x' quest (most of which will be complete by that time from sniping smaller groups).

Some of these creature groups are just HUGE, and nobody attacks them.  They are balanced for nobody.

[HaemishM]

Played a few hours last night at home. As noted in the patch thread, have seen very little increase in performance, though zone times are down.

I have reached level 8 and chosen warrior as my profession. Have to read up more on the classes, because I want to be a berserker and haven't seen the opportunity for it.

I have one real big problem with the warrior combat in general, specifically with the heroic opportunity stuff. First off, the chain is the exact same sequence of moves every time. I hope this changes as I get more attacks, but right now, that is just lame. Instead of adding interactivity, making the chain the same just adds to the grinding feeling of doing the same thing every combat. But the biggest problem I have with the whole thing is the effect. As a fighter, I start the chain with a kick, then a wild swing, and then I can use taunt (or shout, a group taunt) to have this big mondo hit against my opponent(s). The effect is a gigantic lightning bolt from the sky that seems to hit my target right after I point at the target to taunt. Now, where exactly is this lightning bolt coming from? It looks like I'm casting a spell, instead of just taking advantage of an opportunity in melee. It completely breaks the fiction/immersion for me. I'm NOT a spell-caster, I don't want to be tossing spells. The animation should be one of an incredible melee move, like a gigantic cleaving swing or something. The other just reminds me that it's a game, and not really a very interesting one at that.

Combat just doesn't feel very interactive. It doesn't measure up to City of Heroes at all.

[Signe]

I have come to the conclusion, after fiddling a bit with the game today, that taunt is virtually useless.  I made a fighter today on the Beta 2 server and the taunt distance is so short, you may as well not bother.  It also seems that the opportunity to solo is rather short lived.  This has become apparent to me even in the n00b area.  I've talked to several people in game and it seems they find it too difficult to solo after around level 15 or so.  Surely a fighter, even if she is only human, should be able to solo somewhat beyond that?  I thought EQ2 was supposed to appeal to both sorts of playstyles.  Maybe I was wrong.  Right now, I'm not finding combat very immersive, either.

Is it possible to pull one mob from a group using either magic or taunt.  I've not found this to be the case.  I could just be very unlucky, however.  It should be a risk to do this, yes... but I think it should be possible.

The game has become very choppy for me, too.  Much more so than when I started.  Before, like Haemish, I was able to at least run it with a balanced setting and it was ok.  Now it has become choppy even with it set to maximum performance.  Yes, yes... I have a mediocre computer with lots of mediocre bits thrown in it, but it should be good enough to play just about anything and has been up until now.  There is just nothing left for me to turn off... I have given up any quality what so ever to play this game.  I've no texture at all... just big blocks of colour.  I've toned the colour down a bit so it isn't as Peter Max-y looking.  I'm glad I didn't create a gnome... they absolutely look like Lego people with configuration.

I'm still quite enjoying the quests and exploring.  The crafting might have potential... I've not made up my mind yet.  I really haven't given it much of a chance so far.  Finding resources seems a pain.  Perhaps later on this will change.  Resources seem so random... I haven't really figured out (if there is any figuring out to do, that is) how to find the materials I need, unless I just return to the area I found the resource in and wait until it respawns.  Perhaps there are vast area's in the game where there is an abundance of reources that I can eventually recognise without having to harvest it.  Don't know, haven't sussed it yet.

I'm hanging in there, but I'm not liking it quite as much as I did initially.

[HaemishM]

At level 9, soloing is a hit and miss proposition. I can say without doubt that I fucking HATE HATE HATE the Down Below in Qeynos. There are way too many chokepoints with grouped or aggro mobs that are much too high for the stuff that surrounds them. I go from green, non-aggro mobs to all of a sudden very yellow pissed off aggro mobs as well as entire rooms of aggro mobs that I have to cross.

Also, I can say with no hesitation that the lack of zone maps for hunting zones is a crime. It's a fucking shame. I can understand if you don't want to give me a map if I've never been there before. But if I've been through the damn zone 50 times, I should be able to pull up a map of it. Not having one is just annoying. City of Heroes spoiled me in this respect. At the worst, I should be able to buy maps that may or may not be reliable. It's not like I'm asking for mobs to be pointed out on it, or any kind of radar. I just want the general layout. The map feature in EQ2 is just way too barebones to be really useful as it stands.

Too many damn quests take me to the Down Below. Soloing there is a guaranteed one or two deaths.

Keep in mind I'm trying to evaluate the game's soloability.

[Alluvian]

I guess I am just playing a different game.  I have mostly been busy doing some contract work within the game that I can't discuss(not for sony, but an affiliate) (nda within a freaking nda), which has cut into my actual play for fun time, but I have grouped only with my wife maybe 5 times and have my future ranger up to 15 predator.  Have found soloing easy the whole way.

Being able to sneak is probably a boon, but my level 12 Ogre cleric has had an even easier time soloing than my ranger.  I have only played him for about 12 hours total and he is level 12.

The cleric can kill 3 mobs of level 10 or 2 mobs of level 11 or one mob of level 13 or 14 (14 takes some luck).

The predator can kill any single mob level 16 or below or groups three level 12's.  Have tried what his max duo is.  Gnolls are easier since the predator gnoll mastery attack you get from the gnoll mastery quest is very very nice.

Liking the game more the more I play it.  Picked up a bunch of quest books from the south qeynos mage tower and have been having fun with those.  I am leveling out on progress mainly because of the utter pain in the ass that antonica is right now.  Can't play there, especially as a scout class where timing is CRITICAL for getting in combat flanking moves off, and for constantly firing off the HOs.  I am pretty bottlenecked in kill gnoll quests where the particular gnolls I need in blackburrow are too high for me and the ones in antonica are cheating due to lag.  Multiple quests for things underwater which are seemingly even MORE lag effected than surface creatures.

Getting gnoll mastery in blackburrow was fun.  Working on doing some skeleton mastery in the final tower of forest ruins and the stone whatever dungeon east of thundering bluffs in antonica.

My complaints with the game are:
1, 2, and 3) Fix the fucking lag in the big zones like antonica and commonlands (antonica is much worse for some reason).
4) More diversification in subclasses from level 11 to 19 for the melee's.  This has already been said is underway, but it needs work right now.  I have like 2 different skills from a bard at level 15.  Those two skills are BIG combat defining skills which is cool, but more diversification would be welcome.  Basically what they have done with the priest archetype is nice.  That has been stated to be the template and I think that is a good plan.
5) Trade skills still suck ass.  Pressing a button when an icon flashes on the screen in not interactive or exiting.  It is about as fun as AC2 combat.
6) Inventory space.  As an adventurer I am fine with space.  The tradeskillers are seriously hurting here though.  They have to run back and forth to the bank to finish items, and the bank and crafting areas are in DIFFERENT ZONES.  This is outright fucked up.  Inventory must go up or the needs of crafters to stockpile must go down.  I don't know how to manage the second one so the first is staring you in the face.
7) Minor UI gripe.  How often do you want to split a stack of stuff when re-arranging inventory?  I would guess it is less than 5% of the time you want to move it.  Make the default drag and drop move the whole stack.  You can hold shift to move the whole stack, but make shift what you do to split the stack.  be nice to your crafters.  They are tortured enough by the stupid press a button game.


Good things:
1) I am loving combat solo and in groups.  I like it better than wow, but less than CoH.
2) Insane amount of content in terms of things to do.  At 15 I have over 100 completed quests and over 30 in progress.  That is just crazy.  I look at the mage tower and see another 40 or so quests I could buy any time.  I freakingclick on a ROCK and get a quest, I get quests from named drops or even off the freaking rats.  There are quests EVERYWHERE.  I like that.  I like that a whole lot of them have been noncombat as well.  I almost feel guilty being a rogue for them.  I got my bootstrutters 10 slot bp way earlier than most others will be able to.  I would like to see them waltz into hidden valley visible.  Or fangbreaker keep.  Then again running like heck also works.
3) Graphics.  Personal pref, I love them.  Game runs great client wise for me after the last patch (actually after the first few hotfixes after that) exept for sunken city, baubleshire, and qeynos harbor.  I know it is the water but I don't like needing to slide my water down for just three zones.  Although the new female run is stupid.  I can't fucking believe reading the thread that called for it.  First was modeled after olympic athletes.  but forum rats wanted 'a sexy run' so now they run like they are in heels or have a dildo up their ass.  Not sexy, pathetic. (I have to hear this from my wife every time she plays her nondwarf characters so I pass the love on to you)
4) zone design.  They appear much larger than they really are.  I like the arrangement of the newbie zones.  I love the caves with all the interconnectivity.  Every level has several emergency exits to the levels below.  Black burrow LOOKS great but is lacking the interconnectivity of old.  Antonica is staggering in it's size.  Just staggering.  Fun fact: The entire oakmyst forest zone very nearly fits within the confines of just crater lake.

More numeric gripes right now than bonuses, but gripes are so easier to rant on about.  That and most of them will supposedly be fixed.

I can see by this board that I might be the only one enjoying the game, but oh well.  I can't help what I like.  This and Planetside with be my mmog match upon release unless they botch it horribly or never manage to get control of that antonica lag.

[Signe]

I haven't actually leveled any character past eight or so, and I think this is my problem.  I've been trying the crafting side of the game because I really do think it has potential, although it is a bit rough as you said.  I have been suffering from a very choppy play and a lack of quality, but if I can overcome that, I'm sure I'll enjoy it much more.  I've just now upgraded my graphics drivers and plan to do a bit of configuring on my end.  Hopefully, I'll have a bit of an easier time of it.  

I'll be doing a bit more combat this week and will level my character so, perhaps, that'll give it a better feel for me.  From what you've indicated, Alluvian, it seems I can expect a lot more from combat in a short while. Yay!  I"m still at the stage of having very few combat skills to work with.  Righ has fared a bit better in that respect as he's not as interested in the tradeskills.  Unfortunately, we still can't play together as of yet.   I'll work on getting into groups, but as you all know, I am VERY shy and ladylike. (be careful how you respong to that!)  I'll dismiss all the rumours about soloing being difficult as I've not really experienced much of the game past n00b stage for myself anyway.   I haven't grouped once so far and crafting is a bit of a lonely job.  I still wish there was some way I could find the things I need with something more than a hit or miss chance. It's such slow going.  However, I very much like how I get bits and pieces of things to craft as I acquire more books.  I can make bags!  Woo hoo!

I LOVE all the content... There so many quests and so many things to keep me occupied that it seems you never run out of things to do.  The quests alone could sustain me for ages.  

I DO like this game so far, I didn't mean to give the impression that I'm giving up on it.  Maybe I was just over-excited.  That would explain the rash.  I really have to stop comparing my experiences to all the fun I had during Shadowbane beta... look what happened to THAT game in release!  It's not quite as shiny as it was in the beginning but I've been having those pesky performance issues.  The lack of quality really does subtract some of my enjoyment.  No worries... I'm due for a new graphics card soon and maybe I'll throw a bit more memory at it.  

I'm serious about giving this game a good go.  It seems more complete to me than any game I've played even at release in the past few years and it's not even been in beta very long.  I've pre-ordered it and I actually really do think it'll get better even before it's launched.  I still have a lot of faith in this game so far... there is potential everywhere and I really do think it will be a ton of fun, especially when I have some friends to share it with.

[HaemishM]

Keep in mind my experiences are tainted by a number of things, all of which will be in a disclaimer at the top of whatever article I write about this game.

1) I am so totally burned out on the EQ1 style of gameplay
2) I HATE HATE HATE item-centric games, especially because as a melee-centric player, item-centric games mean I am what I equip
3) I hate people, and am loathe to really participate in much of the social aspects of a game in beta unless I have friends already
4) The 2 computers I run this on are SERIOUSLY sub-optimal; I cannot overstate just how huge this is

I haven't played since yesterday's patch.

Antonica is a fucking nightmare for lag, and the Down Below in Qeynos is worse because of how hard it is to find my way around.

No automap feature in zones, especially in zones as big as Antonica or as twisty and important to low level progress as Down Below SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS!

Why do so few quests actually make use of the waypoint feature? I mean, it is used decently in the early n00b quests, and then completely dropped. I'm not asking to be led directly to mobs I'm supposed to kill. But it would be freaking nice if I was given the hint how to get back to the NPC who gave me the goddamn quest. Or even to an NPC within town when I'm given fedex quests. Most of those FedEx quests take about twice as long as they should simply because I have to hunt and peck through ginormous zones just to find the guy, and then I get a few coppers and shitty experience for it. That makes the tons of content not such a big deal, because frankly, most of the quests I've gotten aren't great. They boil down to "kill X" or "go click on other NPC and come back." The stories aren't bad, it's the actions required that make them mediocre.

My computer's performance is a huge factor in this, because it makes even simple quests an exercise in frustration, especially FedEx "Hunt for the NPC in the back of a building" quests. I am CRAWLING on my computer at home. There is NO REASON that the minimum system requirements should even list video cards less than GF 4 Ti's or ATI Radeon 9200 or less. What happens on the cards like my ATI Radeon 9100 isn't just an issue of performance. It's flat out shitty looking graphics. Entire pieces of characters go invisible. Textures change color AT RANDOM. And I don't mean subtle shifts, I mean grass goes from being white to gray to BRIGHT VIOLET BLUE. It's like I'm walking in clown hair at 2 FPS. Frankly, even on my work computer (with 9500 and a 1.8 Ghz processor) doesn't run it great, but it's acceptable. And on the acceptable computer, I've rarely found that the gameplay is worth me upgrading. I can play EQ1 much more smoothly, with just as much content, without having to do an upgrade I cannot afford to do. Not only that, I would prefer to be playing CoH, which I can play flawlessly on my current underpowered setup. Insert WoW, DAoC, Shadowbane, and just about every other MMOG out now, other than maybe SWG for CoH, and you see why I think EQ2 is heading for problems on the market. Hell, insert UT2k4 or perhaps even HL2 for COH if you really want to see what I'm feeling.

The things it does well, it does them very well. But gameplay isn't one of them.

[Signe]

I can't play properly in Qeynos either, but I have little problem in Freeport.  Early today I crashed 3 times in Refuge Island, twice in the area of the fallen pirates.  I died and my spirit shard was completely missing and there was no waypoint available.  (I knew exactly where I met my untimely demise but the shard was not there)  I started a new character (yes! again!) on a new account and I've had no problems since then.  I am even able to run the game on a balanced setting since this last update.  Woo hoo!  I am now using Gordon's account and he's using mine... we are so kinky behind closed doors!  Maybe start an evil character, Haemish?  My mediocre machine has a much easier time of it in Freeport.

Entire pieces of characters go invisible. Textures change color AT RANDOM. And I don't mean subtle shifts, I mean grass goes from being white to gray to BRIGHT VIOLET BLUE. It's like I'm walking in clown hair at 2 FPS.

This sort of thing was happening to me but maybe to a lesser degree. (though I though it was just the flashbacks kicking in again)  It's not now... the game is running much better for me.  These are the specs for the machine I'm using:

Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.60GHz
1.61 GHz
768 MB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400

I know exactly what you mean about being item-centric, Haemish. I definitely miss the diversity of skills and being able to customise myself as I did in SB.   Let's keep an eye out for an extra key for Mrs. Haemish and we can have a couples group!  NO SWINGING!!!  NO SEX!!!  I'd really like to get nicely leveled to check out the Guild stuff, anyway.  A nice, friendly guild of misanthropes would be perfect.  ;)  Yes, I know that makes no sense!

Maybe start an evil character, Haemish?  My very very very mediocre machine is having a much easier time of it.

[HaemishM]

My wife's computer won't run the thing. :( I've tried to get her to play on mine, but she's taken a few looks at it and just keeps getting less and less interested. We really need new computers, as I know she does't have the patience to put up with the performance issues like I do.

Tried to play yesterday at lunch. Could not get a heroic opportunity to start AT ALL in Antonica. Died twice fighting solo against solo yellows and said Fuck this. Played City of Heroes.

[Alluvian]

My wife and I both have an accout and on both of our systems it runs fine on balanced.

They are very similar systems and quite cheap these days.  Both 2500+ barton amds with 1 gig ram (dual channel mode), 8mb cache hard drives (mine 80 gig hers 40 gig).  Both running xp.

Mine has a GeForce 5900XT (the gainward golden sample thingy with the faster ram and warrantied to oc to the clockspeeds of the ULTRA model) while my wife has a GeForce 4200.

I can't complain about graphics.  closest 4 or 5 characters get all the bump mapping goodness and look very very nice.  None of the shiny ken doll crap from screenshots.  Very good skin textures.  Water is outright stunning.  So nice to have REAL reflections and refractions.

Gameplay wise it is not as good as CoH, but as good as WoW.  We all know WoW isn't the pinnacle of innovation and it sure isn't innovative in gameplay.  It is entertaining for me though.  I have enjoyed soloing with the scout where twitch skills are required and grouping has been fun as well.   I like the group interactivity of EQ more than the 6 people soloing near each other that you get in SWG, AC1, UO, etc...

For your system you are probably better off with WoW or Daoc which you were having fun with earlier.  EQ2 is really designed with future computers in mind and is only now slowly getting performace to the point where modern computers run it well.

Definately an issue with the game.  The hardware needed will shut many out right at the door.

[Signe]

I read your previous post, Alluvian, and you are spot on.  I've fixed my enthusiasm problem by creating a scout.  HOW FUN IS THAT???  Unfortunately, the scout class is so fun that I'm afraid there will be hardly anything else.

I 'sneak' around even when I don't have to.  :)  It just looks so cool.

[HaemishM]

I am beginning to build some hate for this game now.

Still cannot get any heroic opportunities to start, so I can't solo yellows for shit. Died twice in Antonica today. Both times I died, I had to exit from the game and return twice. The loading screen would come up, it'd get to "Loading UI Resources" then nothing. I'd hear sounds, but the loading screen wouldn't go away. Exit, come back, it tells me my account is in use, then offers me another login popup box. When I enter the right information, tells me passowrd invalid and drops me. Running the program AGAIN, and I can get in.

So I decided to go get some hopefully better attack scrolls. Got a few FedEx quests, then ran into something so symptomatic of what I hate about this game.

There's a fedex quest in Elddar Grove. Seems this poncy ranger wants me to deliver some important perimeter reports to the guildmaster in the Arbor Tree. Which, it turns out, is about 15 feet from where I got the quest. I mean, literally, this guy could walk two steps, up the elevator and the job is done, but he gives me money for it. In addition, the reason I'm given the important perimeter reports, you know JUST SOME RANDOM BARBARIAN ON THE STREET, is that they don't have any rangers to spare. Like the two fuckers following him around are REALLY doing anything important. That's content. Very shitty content. Not only does it completely break the immersion of the world, it's just dumb. I can see if someone wants me to deliver something across the damn town, or even across zones. But that one just totally breaks it for me. I mean, it's not like we should expect the city to be attacked any minute now. Hell, there are guards in front of the gates standing within 20 feet of gnoll pups.

[schild]

I too played a scout. And I enjoy it much more than any class. If you can find an adept I sneak scroll, you can sneak past things that are about level 20 without the raid arrows. (from whatever level you find the scroll at).

[Signe]

I've just spent some time perusing other boards, including the official one, and many of the problems we've been experiencing are widespread, it seems.  The heroic opportunity feature has been responsible for loads of crashes... when it manages to work at all (it doesn't for me), missing shards and waypoints, tons of nastiness in Antonica, etc.  They have again patched in a hotfix and although I'm not entirely sure what it's for, I'm hoping it will at least resolve the Antonica issues and the crashes caused by heroic opportunity.  It's early morning, Righ is sound asleep after staying up til nearly 5 AM (his snoring has sent me running from the bedroom), so I'm off to see if I can get anywhere.

I don't know why I'm telling you all this... I really should be making coffee.

[Signe]

HO is still not kicking in for me but things seem generally better.  I have very little problem with movement and the game is not choppy at all, for the most part.  Either there is tons more stuff in the recipe books for crafting or I just didn't notice before.  I don't remember anything at all being in the cooking bit and now I can make all sorts of stuff... chocolate bars, breaded flounder, frog legs... well, I could if I ever find the resources.  I can't even locate pepper on R. Island anymore and I KNOW it used to be around.

Anyway, performance for me is tons better.  Still haven't sent anyone to the mainland, although I've done every quest on Refuge Island.  I wanted to get materials and craft in relative safety but I may have to leave if I don't find more resources.  I really like the way they have crafting set up but I HATE the resource gathering.  I do hope they implement a way to find specific materials and increase the quantity and spawn rates.

For such a nicely done crafting system, the harvesting side of it seems sorely lacking.

I shall check in later and talk to myself here again soon.  When it comes to chattering, I don't need company... I'll wibble on alone, if I have to. ;p

[Signe]

I have danced with every NPC on Refuge Island.  I will be dancing with mobs tomorrow.  Boy, am I knackered.

[Alluvian]

Christ people (mostly haemish) read the damn dev posts before bitching.  HO's have been turned off in a hotfix due to a bug in the last big server patch.  Right after that patch zones were crashing in mere seconds after being brought up.  The problem was traced back to HOs so they hotfixed them off till they could iron out the full problem.

They are just across the board turned off right now.

As far as antonica goes, don't fight there.  avoid it and commonlands.  They are still working on getting the server to agree with 300-400 people in the zone at once.  The zones are HUGE and can physically support that number, but the server code still needs a lot of work there.  Depending on your level you got vermin snye and blackburrow as other options.

I am checking out stormhold now for my 'super secret project' and holy fuck does that zone impress me.  It is tagged as befallen in the zonename and it is definately the spiritual successor.  This time the well of doom drops you a lot further and into an even nastier place to get out of.  At least this time it has a rim so you have to JUMP into it and can't just fall.  Zone is super slick, feels like a dnd adventure module.  TONS of quests and locked boxes inside for miniquests, talking swords that give out quests, a claymore on a huge pedestal that can be taken if meet it's requirements.

Loving the game.

Sure you can point to a bad quest.  Oh no, one quest was super easy.  I can point to some damn cool ones like the fippy darkpaw the forth manifest quest that had some 20+ steps starting from a simple book on in a stack...

Or the legend of motte double quest starting with a simple kill 10 highwaymen.

Even the eldaar grove quest to get the book from the big oak was pretty fun (bring a group).

Or the simple celler under the lighthouse.

Or the tour of antonica quest.

Or the whatshis nuts gnoll patrol quest that can monitor you walking trails and spawn npcs for you as you arrive.

or the dryad quests in oakmyst, or the druid letter quest in oakmyst, or the stone poem quest in oakmyst.

There are over a hundred quests on EACH SIDE before you even get to level 15 and you are bitching that one was a nearby delivery?  Besides, if I recall right wasn't that guy a patrollman who often moves around eldaar grove?

I can see you being bitter that your computer can't run the game without it looking like shit, that sucks.  They should support older systems better, but they don't.  Thing is they are trying to have the game still pretty in 2-3 years.  You can always play world of warcraft.  Should run fine on your system.  I suspect many will go that route.

You didn't see me bitching about the human quest I got to deliver a message to someone in the same bloody zone just down the road, less than a 60 second walk away.  Hell, I did three of those quests in my first 10 levels of wow at least.  The difference to me is that in wow by the time I reached 15 I had about 40 quests under my belt (even that number is exaggerated because of how they split one quest into 3 steps each with it's own name) where in EQ2 I had over 100.  Overall I would say quality of quests is about the same.  Most in BOTH games are delivery or kill x.  A certain percentage are better.  I have found more good ones in EQ2 so far.

[HaemishM]

Christ people (mostly haemish) read the damn dev posts before bitching.  HO's have been turned off in a hotfix due to a bug in the last big server patch.  Right after that patch zones were crashing in mere seconds after being brought up.  The problem was traced back to HOs so they hotfixed them off till they could iron out the full problem.

They are just across the board turned off right now.

Yes, you are probably right in that I should have read the dev posts. Unfortunately for all of us, I've stayed away from the boards because they make my brain hurt. I can't intelligently post on them because I've experienced so little of the game.

Things like turning off HO's, though, that needs to be in HUGE FUCKING BOLD LETTERS, either at the top of the patch message, or when you log into the game. That's like taking at least a level away from my warrior. He cannot compete against anything yellow, weak yellow or not. So I've been fedexing.

As far as antonica goes, don't fight there. avoid it and commonlands. They are still working on getting the server to agree with 300-400 people in the zone at once. The zones are HUGE and can physically support that number, but the server code still needs a lot of work there. Depending on your level you got vermin snye and blackburrow as other options.

I haven't even seen Blackburrow. I hate the Down Below and any zones like it with a passion. They are just horribly designed zones. Horrible, horrible zones. But, they'll probably force people to group, so YAY. Antonica is the best "hunting" type zone for a soloer that I've seen yet, ergo, I try to hunt there.

The quest thing is infuriating to me. Part of it is the performance, part of it is the zoning. Frankly, I hate quests that require me to zone because they take forever, but the quests that require me to walk something two feet just break immersion to me. I've gotten in on the Intriguing Eye quest, but I died MANY, MANY times trying to find the mobs to kill because they were in the Down Below. Hey look, I ran around a corner and 3 skels wiped the floor with me. YAY! SO FUN!

I'm not pointing at WoW as an example of a great game, BTW. Frankly, I'm as bored of the concept of WoW as I am with the execution in EQ2. But WoW's system requirements will get it twice as many subscribers as EQ2's sound design and content quantity. Not having to see a "Zoning" screen is to me a huge thing; I absolutely HATE zone loading screens. Yet, they didn't bother me in CoH, even though it's a lot more arbitrary seeming. Probably because it takes me about 1/4 of the time to zone.

[Signe]

Yes, I did read the posts and found out that HOs were turned off.  It puts a cramp in my style, but there is so much to do that I've hardly noticed.  The only bit that irritates me, somewhat, is doing a quest and getting no xp for the mobs I kill.  THEN I noticed that the quests are colour coordinated in the same way as mob considerations.  D'oh!  Perhaps I would not have taken those quests if I had been able to tell that before I agreed to the task.  Oh well.  Once taken, however, I am compelled to complete them, if only to remove them from my active list.  That is the OCD side of me kicking in.  The fedex quests at least give me an opportunity to learn the towns and I don't mind them at all.  I do wish there were waypoints back to the original quest giver, but maybe I'm just being a lazy git.

There are some quests that are just impossible for me, even if they are alledgedly easy, mob-wise.  The one where I have to find someone in the commonlands is an example.  There was no way for me to find my target because of the difficulty of the aggressive mobs I will encounter along the way.  By the time I'm able to deal with that area, I'm afraid the mobs will give me no xp.  Sometimes, such as with the rust monster blood quest, there are not enough mobs to go around and they seem to spawn very slowly... sometimes they don't turn up for ages.  If it remains like that, I fear the tedious mob camping scenarios.

There is also the difficulty of finding soloable mobs.  There are some area's where I've found an abundance of group mobs, but very, very few solo mobs.  I've gone after white when there is a quest involved and, it seems, they can sometimes cause me to run screaming for a guard.  The annoying thing is that I get no xp from, what can be, a very difficult fight.

The last few days, I've spent a lot of time playing and, I admit, the more I play it, the more I like it.  I didn't like EQ at all and didn't last more than a couple of months, back in the day.  This game is so much better than that, in every respect.  I have begun to quite enjoy myself... which is good because I become a nice girl when I'm entertained.

[Righ]

Probably the two things that annoy me most are (1) not being able to pull a mob out of a group (2) an over-abundance of quest reliance on "solo group" mobs. The fact that the scout graduation quest is "kill five rust monsters", and rust monsters are lowbie solo mobs that are pumped up in health and attack strength and labelled "group", suggests that solo play is not intended. That's okay, I'm sure I'll adapt, but don't the devs profess that they want this game to be accessible to people who want to solo for significant amounts of time? Perhaps that's the crafting aspect.

It is a shame that HOs have been turned off, but waiting for zones to reboot endlessly was more frustrating. Zoning causes zoning. They're making progress in speeding it up, but there is some way to go. Maybe we just need to wait until we have dual-core processors pumped to terahertz speeds. That should be some time next year, so long as we have a few grand to spend on EQ. :)

The facial animations during the voice acting are superb. This is one of the few MMOGs that hasn't caused me to turn the sound off entirely on day one. Some of the quests are very neat, some are indeed throwaway. I haven't had too much of an issue with the cross-zone fedex quests to be honest. I have tended to run around each zone, talking to all the NPCs, and learning the map. So I was going to the next zone, and the next anyhow. I've hit over a hundred quests in progress at one time. That said, I've only played one character in Queynos, one in Freeport. It could get old second time round.

I'm enjoying this game, and I suspect I'd enjoy it even more in a group of friends. I'm somewhat of a unique case, given that my experience of EQ has consisted of three aborted attempts during which I never got past level 6 or so before the interface, camera and reroll wankers who know how to piss me off pissed me off. As a result, much of this is brand new to me, and I'm not seeing it as a tarted up version of a game I played before.

I hope that they fix the catastrophic bugs before launch. Running at sprint speeds while in sneak could be problematic. I found that one and grassed it up. This being an MMOG beta, it goes without saying that there is also a dupe bug somewhere, and its telling that as usual it hasn't surfaced in beta. No doubt it will be exposed post launch with some Ebay auctions.

[Resvrgam]

Haemish, I know this isn't supposed to be funny but:

I'm getting a huge laugh as I read your downward spiral of frustration with the game.  It's like that "12 Pains of Christmas" song.  

"The sound is cool...hour 8...the sound is too repetitious....hour 12: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ENOUGH WITH THE WARES SOUND BITE!"

Thanks for the enduring the bad stuff for us: canaries in caves are hardly ever thanked.

[Margalis]

Voice in games is often a big problem. Ever play a game where the background music had human voices in it? It gets annoying FAST. There is a reason why game music is instrumental.

Same thing with voices. IMO it makes sense for things like cutscenes you only see once to have voices, but anything that repeats probably shouldn't have, or there should be a "only play out loud the first time" option.