Official EQ2 Q&A Thread

[schild]

Can they beat WoW to release?
Haemish won't agree with me on this (because EQ is RAPING HIS COMPUTERS) but EQ2 is less buggy than WoW. It's also more feature complete. Far more feature complete.

You just stated that EQ2 is more feature complete, but before that, you said the game is about 60% done in your mind,a nd 80% SOE.

Does that mean you feel WoW is less than 60% complete? Personally I feel WoW to be about 85% complete, and about 90% feature complete. But thats just me.

Because the fanbois are ruining EQ2. It's getting less complete as beta goes on. No, I'm not kidding. By complete I mean how close it is to becoming an excellent showing in the MMOG arena.

[Rasix]

By complete I mean how close it is to becoming an excellent showing in the MMOG arena.

Heh, then I'd argue WoW is pretty damn close.  Really, outside of PVP which I don't care much about, the game is nearly done. I've encountered like 2 bugs while playing recently (on a borrowed account I share with 2 people, uggggg) and I think only hunters have yet to get any talents.  Of course, if you read the class boards every class still needs about 6 months worth of balancing (which is probably half true, but this is evident of most games).

It's really too bad I won't be able to try EQ2 before it hits retail, because WoW has already earned at least a box purchase out of me.

[WayAbvPar]

/sigh

Schild, you are making me lean toward checking EQ2 out. What do I have to lose, other than $65, a few hours of my precious free time, and a chunk of what is left of my soul?

[schild]

Schild, you are making me lean toward checking EQ2 out. What do I have to lose, other than $65, a few hours of my precious free time, and a chunk of what is left of my soul?

It's worth it for newbie island. It's like a self-contained little world. I can't stress how much I loved the experience.

[Ardent]

a few hours of my precious free time

A FEW hours??? This is an MMORPG we're talking about.

[WayAbvPar]

a few hours of my precious free time

A FEW hours??? This is an MMORPG we're talking about.

You forget- I have done this before. MANY times before. I can tell <20 hours played whether it is gonna be worth it most of the time.

[kaid]

You can probably get more hours of fun out of the newbie island itself than many console games.

[MrHat]

a few hours of my precious free time

A FEW hours??? This is an MMORPG we're talking about.

You forget- I have done this before. MANY times before. I can tell <20 hours played whether it is gonna be worth it most of the time.

Good for you, it generally takes me about 2 months.

I love WoW and will buy at retail.  But I'm calling a hunch that EQ2 will be a better game all around.  It's really a shame that they have no plans for PvP implementation.  Battlegrounds > Me.

Edit: Schild, can you get permission to post a few screenies, I want to see your allegedly masculine character.

[HaemishM]

a few hours of my precious free time

A FEW hours??? This is an MMORPG we're talking about.

You forget- I have done this before. MANY times before. I can tell <20 hours played whether it is gonna be worth it most of the time.

Every MMOG I've played since I quit EQ1, I've been able to tell within abotu 30 minutes whether I'd really want to continue to play past the first month. The only false positive I ever got was Shadowbane, and who knew what a buggy clusterfuck that'd turn out to be a month after release.

[AOFanboi]

Haemish was telling me he didn't like the downtime. Personally, I think it's much better than CoH. Perhaps we just have different experiences. I also have a laptop next to me that usually has a movie on it. So my judgement of downtime is fubar.

This begs the question: Is there a well-working windowed mode? I refuse to play games with downtime if I cannot switch to a browser or something while waiting for some bar to fill. If it runs full screen and I need to play some GBA game while waiting instead, I might as well just play the GBA game.

[jpark]

You have a lot of questions here mate so if I understand if my questions get passed over:

1.  Tracking.  As important as it was in EQ?  (quests, raids etc.)
2.  Combat.  Is damage confined to the tank - or is the whole group attacked by zergs or AoE spells?
3.  Models.  Are they being improved - did I understand correctly the dwarven model is being improved - are others being worked on

Thanks.

[AOFanboi]

It's really a shame that they have no plans for PvP implementation.

In related news, the "Tribes: Vengeance" multiplayer demo is out now.

See, that's where PvP belongs. Not in Levelville.

[Liquidator]

Can they beat WoW to release?
Haemish won't agree with me on this (because EQ is RAPING HIS COMPUTERS) but EQ2 is less buggy than WoW. It's also more feature complete. Far more feature complete.

You just stated that EQ2 is more feature complete, but before that, you said the game is about 60% done in your mind,a nd 80% SOE.

Does that mean you feel WoW is less than 60% complete? Personally I feel WoW to be about 85% complete, and about 90% feature complete. But thats just me.

I'm with you on that one.  I'm surprised to hear that EQ2 is ahead of WoW in feature completeness and bugs for that matter, but I'm not in the beta so it's simply guess work on my part.

[Luxor]

Crafting
It's really fucking easy. You push some buttons, combine very few materials, and wala, you have your item. Anyone telling you it is hard is a stupid mouthbreather who needs to not be allowed in a guild.

Not hard as in 'omg mensa test'. However i'll quote direct from my friends email to the guild verbatim, feel free to delete stuff.

Heres where the fun starts. Each combine can take from 1 to 5 minutes. Its an interactive process. No more RSI inducing EQ combines. No, now once you initiate the combine, you get to play snap.
Just like the spells, and melee abilities, you now have tradeskill arts. It seems you get 3 per skill.
So now when you are making an item, you get a random "debuff" pop up. For example day dream. You then have a short period of time in which to press the corresponding "buff" such as snap out. These dont seem to actually do anything if you do catch them in time, however if you dont, then you can take damage.
Yes, thats right, tradeskilling in EQ2 can lead to death. The number of people on the beta board saying they have died more to TS then to mobs is astounding.
I am guessing it was put in to prevent the macro bots becoming masters in a short space of time, and honestly I think its a piss poor way to do it.

Never mind the fact that it takes so long to do 1 combine, now you have to sit there paying attention as other wise you might die.

Ive spent upwards of 3 hours, and made maybe 30 items, which equates to 20% in lvl 3 to 70 % in lvl 4.

Its not fun, and Im constantly sitting here thinking just get it over with. Its like smithing past 180 in EQ all over again. You dont care about the middle process, you just throw cash at it, and hope its over with soon.

Any of this go against how you have found tradeskills? Granted the guy is a tradeskill nut so he went into a lot of depth, but c'mon, a freaking subgame to do tradeskills? I'm surprised they havent got gems back in there.

[schild]

It's definately a lot like combat but with less visual shiny. Basically it's a testament to how much combat in MMORPGs suck. Crafting is crafting. I didn't even expect them to try as hard as they did, so maybe the underselling of it is why I don't think much of it. Tradeskill nuts don't make much sense to me anyway. Why is he playing EQ2 instead of ATITD2?

[Merusk]

Well, they tried as hard as they did because Artisan was supposed to be a class entierly unto itself until a few months ago. Looks like they figgured "this is so unfun that even tradeskill buffs wouldn't do it full time" and that's when they decided to roll crafting as being open to all the other professions.

It's a case of 'be careful what you ask for.'  For years in EQ the crafters begged for mastery of craft to be more difficult than just 'throwing money at it,' and  for crafting to be a 'meaningful' ways of progressing through the game. Well, now they've got the first stab at it, it looks like.  Though, while a mini-game for crafting would be nice, I'm sure none of them expected to die from doing it.  I think it's amusing, myself.

[schild]

Well, they tried as hard as they did because Artisan was supposed to be a class entierly unto itself until a few months ago.

Scrolling back through the beta forums and having played a bit of crafting since I got in - during the friends and family beta, it seems as though the artisan only thing was never actually implemented. It was always a little side thing you could do.

[Merusk]

Hm.. well the F&F beta started only a few months back, though.  Artisan as a class was wiped before the betas all started, and has been since wiped from the offical site.  I could probably dig-up a link but it'd mean a foray into the Vault or Stratics, and I'm just not that dedicated to the idea.

[Tige]

During group formation, have you noticed a biased either for or against any particular race or class by players yet?

My understanding is they are attempting to make all types of fighters, mages, rogues interchangeable with one another i.e. Paladin and Shadow Knight are equal when it comes to tanking or damage dealing.  Curious if the player base has already started to define classes and races differently.

-Tige

[schild]

During group formation, have you noticed a biased either for or against any particular race or class by players yet?

Not from level 1-20. No.

[Lounge]

How much of the content you ran into was instanced?

If you ran into any did it scale to your or a groups level?

[schild]

How much of the content you ran into was instanced?

If you ran into any did it scale to your or a groups level?

Not much. Seemed to, though it may just be the fact that our group was adequately equipped. Of course, scaling would give that illusion. How the hell do I answer that question?

[Venkman]

Is there a well-working windowed mode?

Yes.

It's also amazing how much SOE has released about EQ2 in general.

[Alkiera]

You stated before that combat for your scout was more like CoH...  Does this mean no auto-attack mode, press buttons for different attacks, or more like DAoC where there is autoattack, but you spend most of your time mashing a style button anyway?

Also, you said mages need strong robe-armor, and that their weapons were negligible...  Is there equipment to affect spells, a la the focus system in EQLive, or, aside from providing hp/mana you don't need equipment at all?

You mentioned crafting recipies are random drops(dumb)... is the same true of spells or combat abilities for melees?

--
Alkiera

P.S. yeah, I'm wanting to play EQ2 more now too... tho schilds comments regard it getting more and more EQ1 like are ominous.

[schild]

You stated before that combat for your scout was more like CoH...  Does this mean no auto-attack mode, press buttons for different attacks, or more like DAoC where there is autoattack, but you spend most of your time mashing a style button anyway?

I don't know why auto-attack turns people off. But of course there's autoattack. It's about as useful as Brawl in CoH though. In other words you can't win fights with it and can only rely on it as a last ditch (Even then, I'd run first). It's not like you can go away and get a sandwich. I think it's there just to keep the fight moving. CoH had autoattack btw. There just wasn't a default one. Illusion just covers up reality.

Also, you said mages need strong robe-armor, and that their weapons were negligible...  Is there equipment to affect spells, a la the focus system in EQLive, or, aside from providing hp/mana you don't need equipment at all?

Yes, there is equipment to help stuff - but I haven't seen any to help SPECIFIC abilities. Each class has a slot for a certain item that works only for the class, like the daruma for clerics. Much like the shrunken head shield slot in diablo for necros. Do they effect single spells? Not entirely sure, I'm a scout. Well, my scout is my highest level character. I Also have a priest and mage about to hit level 10 or so.

You mentioned crafting recipies are random drops(dumb)... is the same true of spells or combat abilities for melees?

You automatically get your spells and abilities. No training bullshit.

P.S. yeah, I'm wanting to play EQ2 more now too... tho schilds comments regard it getting more and more EQ1 like are ominous.

I agree. Don't blame me though, I've tried my best in those god awful 'yes-man' forums. I'm done with that.

[Alkiera]

You stated before that combat for your scout was more like CoH...  Does this mean no auto-attack mode, press buttons for different attacks, or more like DAoC where there is autoattack, but you spend most of your time mashing a style button anyway?

I don't know why auto-attack turns people off. But of course there's autoattack. It's about as useful as Brawl in CoH though. In other words you can't win fights with it and can only rely on it as a last ditch (Even then, I'd run first). It's not like you can go away and get a sandwich. I think it's there just to keep the fight moving. CoH had autoattack btw. There just wasn't a default one. Illusion just covers up reality.

I wasn't stating a preference, was just curious.  Is this more of a 'combat mode' toggle that happens when you first use an attack, like DAoC, then?  Or like EQ1, as a monk you could use just your kick/special punch and not actually activate auto-attack.  I'm a systems-whore, the Explorer in me doesn't wanna know what's over the next hill, it wants to know if I place a house on the hill, does the engine backfill underneath it, not let me place it, or does it cause the hill to appear inside part of the house...  (Example courtesy SimBeru)

Also, you said mages need strong robe-armor, and that their weapons were negligible...  Is there equipment to affect spells, a la the focus system in EQLive, or, aside from providing hp/mana you don't need equipment at all?

Yes, there is equipment to help stuff - but I haven't seen any to help SPECIFIC abilities. Each class has a slot for a certain item that works only for the class, like the daruma for clerics. Much like the shrunken head shield slot in diablo for necros. Do they effect single spells? Not entirely sure, I'm a scout. Well, my scout is my highest level character. I Also have a priest and mage about to hit level 10 or so.

This is more a question of 'are equipment requirements balanced across classes?'.  I.e., in EQLive, a warrior NEEDED good armor to be effective, and useful weapons to keep agro.  A rogue NEEDED good piercing weapons or they were useless.  A necro could be standing there in his newbie robe, and as long as he didn't get agro, he was nearly as effective as a necro with a lot more advanced equipment(pre foci and +mana regen items, anyway)

I played an Enchanter in EQLive, which is why all the odd questions.  I'm kinda curious how Crowd Control comes out in a system where you indicated you occasionally fought zerg-like mobs and smashed thru them in a near-CoH like frenzy.  A CoH-like combat system and player/mob balance in a complete fantasy MMOG setting would have my $15/month, almost assuredly.

--
Alkiera

[schild]

I wasn't stating a preference, was just curious.  Is this more of a 'combat mode' toggle that happens when you first use an attack, like DAoC, then?

Hmm, I guess that would be an adequate description.

This is more a question of 'are equipment requirements balanced across classes?'.  I.e., in EQLive, a warrior NEEDED good armor to be effective, and useful weapons to keep agro.  A rogue NEEDED good piercing weapons or they were useless.  A necro could be standing there in his newbie robe, and as long as he didn't get agro, he was nearly as effective as a necro with a lot more advanced equipment(pre foci and +mana regen items, anyway)

I played an Enchanter in EQLive, which is why all the odd questions.  I'm kinda curious how Crowd Control comes out in a system where you indicated you occasionally fought zerg-like mobs and smashed thru them in a near-CoH like frenzy.  A CoH-like combat system and player/mob balance in a complete fantasy MMOG setting would have my $15/month, almost assuredly.

Player/Mob balance is still off a bit. The aggro code is fucking horrible. I'm using 'fucking' there because it's just _That_Bad. So bad in fact, they need to start over. It's one of my biggest complaints besides crafting catering to powerguilds (who can work around the clocks to scavenger hunt for those damnable books).

As far as weapon balance goes. I was broke around level 8 and was using a woefully inadequate weapon in terms of game level. I was still effective in a group. But scouts have debuffs that aren't weapon dependent and combat attacks that have pretty decent multipliers. I'm not sure I'm properly equipped to fully answer the question otherwise. My experience with a casting class goes thusly: Priests SEEM to be able to solo the best. That's pretty much it. (As a priest I was able to solo everything except for 2 creatures on newbie island) If you need more info, I can dig through the beta forums, particularly for very specific things.

Another thing to note is quite a number of seemingly class/race specific quests didn't have rewards when I did them, but since then they've been added. Which returns me to something I can't stress enough - I'm not allowing myself to get burned out before release.

[HaemishM]

So as not to break the NDA, I will say I have NOT done crafting in anyway shape or form while in the beta. I just want to comment on the system as schild illuminated it.

It sounds half-assed to me. I'm all for crafting being subgames, being a mini-game, but they should be a fully-fleshed out mini-game, like EQ Gems. Just making it like combat falls into the problem most MMOG's have; their combat is generally boring unless it's against another player (CoH excepted among released games). If that's the way crafting is in EQ2, I may never touch it.

[Ardent]

You automatically get your spells and abilities. No training bullshit.

A small point of order:

You gain your spells and abilities automatically, but you do have to find a trainer or scribe to upgrade the power levels of your abilities.

Quoted from the web site Darniaq referenced above:

Scribing:  Sages possess an unsurpassed knowledge of the arcane.  They apply this knowledge by scribing combat arts and spells onto scrolls that increase the might of adventurers.

[Sky]

Just making it like combat falls into the problem most MMOG's have; their combat is generally boring unless it's against another player (CoH excepted among released games).

I bet Planetside's combat model would be a lot of fun in pve. I mean, you really can't beat lobbing shells into the midst of the enemy imo. Slap in some ragdoll physics for maximum comedic effect...

[schild]

You automatically get your spells and abilities. No training bullshit.

A small point of order:

You gain your spells and abilities automatically, but you do have to find a trainer or scribe to upgrade the power levels of your abilities.

Quoted from the web site Darniaq referenced above:

Scribing:  Sages possess an unsurpassed knowledge of the arcane.  They apply this knowledge by scribing combat arts and spells onto scrolls that increase the might of adventurers.

/queue Flight of the valkyrie - SO MISLEADING, SO MISLEADING, SO MISLEADING.

No. You just go buy some scrolls and read them. There is no trainer or shit to UPGRADE the power. Also, the shit you can buy from trainers - almost useless. You need to find or pay out the ass for adept level scrolls. I'm not willing to waste my time on the negligble differences between apprentice I and III.

[Aenovae]

Thanks for answering these questions so far, schild.  Here's some more!

Did you turn on the FPS counter?  What were your actual FPS in combat, town, and wilderness?

Does the chat work?  Seriously.

How big are the zones compared to EQ?  How long does it take a zone to load?

When fighting in groups for exp, do you camp an area like EQ and DAoC?  I.e., you hunker down in a clear area or in a corner or at a zone line and pull mobs from other areas to your location.  Or do you keep moving from area to area like WoW?

When soloing, if things go bad, can you just turn around and run away fast enough to get to the zone?  Do the monsters give up easily (like WoW) or do they chase you all the way to the zone line (like FFXI)?

How customizable is the interface?  Did they keep the snazzy XML do-whatever-you-want feature from EQ?

[schild]

Did you turn on the FPS counter?  What were your actual FPS in combat, town, and wilderness?

Varies from 24-8. Depends on where, when, and graphics detail level.

Does the chat work?  Seriously.

Yes, but I don't use it often. /reply will actually send /tell <name> rather then the last person who may interrupt while you're typing.

How big are the zones compared to EQ?  How long does it take a zone to load?

Commonlands is huge. Some zones are Deus Ex 2 small. Takes me forever to load or no time to load. They are still working on it.

When fighting in groups for exp, do you camp an area like EQ and DAoC?  I.e., you hunker down in a clear area or in a corner or at a zone line and pull mobs from other areas to your location.  Or do you keep moving from area to area like WoW?

Depends on the zone. Some can be cleaned out and moved through, like the graveyard. And some have a spawn rate so ludicrous that you can just 'hunker down.' Another thing to note is I really did get most of my exp through questing, while sometimes it didn't seem like it. Maybe I just wanted to lie to myself, I don't know, but grinding isn't exceptionally necessary.

When soloing, if things go bad, can you just turn around and run away fast enough to get to the zone?  Do the monsters give up easily (like WoW) or do they chase you all the way to the zone line (like FFXI)?

Aggro code is broke. If they don't fix it I will be sorely pissed. I should probably do an article on just how broke it is.

How customizable is the interface?  Did they keep the snazzy XML do-whatever-you-want feature from EQ?

The game is widescreen with adjustable black bars. Absolutely glorious. It's extremely customizable. Lemme indulge you.



Yes, that's a sword and spear I'm wielding. It's pretty cool. Scouts look like cuisinarts. I like that. </drooling moron>

Oh, and half of the windows hide until you mouse over them. Some people hate the system, I love it.

[Rasix]

You broke the thread!

[Ardent]

/queue Flight of the valkyrie - SO MISLEADING, SO MISLEADING, SO MISLEADING.

For Christ's sake, I was just trying to state a fact, not give an opinion.

You. Have. To. Get. Scrolls. To. Upgrade. Your. Abilities. And. Spells.

Whether or not YOU think it's useful is an opinion, I was just trying to clarify the game mechanic. Sheesh.