Does anyone play EQ2?

[kaid]

One complaint I don't get about eq2 is it being grindy. I used to grind a ton in eqlive and swg but I have never yet in 41 levels ground xp in eq2. Hell I spend a great deal of time mentored down even and I still level very quickly. I have not yet hit any level where I felt I had to just mosh and mosh to gain levels. I have been to busy exploring the content I can access and doing quests like bloodlines that I have never found myself in a position that I had nothing fun I wanted to do and that I should just grind xp.

xp in eq2 is not as fast as WoW but it is by no means slow.

I mean sure if all you really want to do is sit in one place and pull I guess you can do that if that kinda thing floats your boat but it is really not necessary for fast advancement.

As for tradeskills being grindy it can be but the way I do it is I wait for my vitality to be a full levels worth and then I just make stuff for about 2 hours. Usually if I have a fair chunk of components on hand I can easily level in that time even at level 43. The biggest slow down is comps and at level 41/43 I usually just buy a lot of the stuff so I am only making final combines.  Spells may not sell quite as quickly as I would like but they do sell decently and with the offline selling all my crafting sessions are good money makers.

If you go for no vitality power leveling ya crafting could get kinda slow but again it all depends on how you play it. In the laid back way I handle it I am the highest level crafter in our guild so you really do not need to freak out and bust your fingers grinding.



kaid

[shiznitz]

I agree with you. For me, the grind-iest part of EQ2 is the goddamn travel back and forth during quests: go 2 zones, come back, go 2 or 3 zones, come back, kill 60 greys, come back. The good news is this can be avoided if you choose to do so. I do some of them but they progress slowly as I am only doing parts when I am in the right place at the right time.

If you want to solo in EQ2, levelling will be slow and boring. I cannot stand it for even 30 minutes. The game really shines, though, in a dungeon group. Not hard to get half a level in a 4 hour, action-packed session.

[Der Helm]

The game really shines, though, in a dungeon group. Not hard to get half a level in a 4 hour, action-packed session.

This statement just convinced me that I will NEVER be able to play this game, ever.

edit: for clarity

[shiznitz]

I am assuming two things from your comment:

1) you expect to solo and/or

2) you will rarely have 4 hours to play at one sitting

If 1) is true, then yes, I think EQ2 would be boring as shit but any MMO is boring as shit to me if I solo.

If 2) is your issue, does changing the sentence to "not hard to get 25% of a level in a 2 hour, action-packed session" make it less daunting? I find that rate of advancement quite tolerable. Once again, if you cannot play for 2 hours at a time, then MMOs are DEFINITELY not for you.

[Viin]

Bah, I play Guild Wars for a couple hours a week and I'm level *9*.

[kaid]

The running back and forth for quests can get a tad long but now that money is flowing in pretty well you can actually cut down most travel by buying an EL or ZEK ticket for the trip out as that cuts out big chunks of walking time. It is well worth the 60 silver especially when you start hunting the teir 4 and 5 zones. 

One thing I really loved about the whole bloodlines thing is aside from one trip back to qeynos its all contained in a close set of dungeons and is WEEKS worth of some of the best dungeon crawling adventures I have had a chance to play.

One thing to remember if I sound a big fanboyish is I tend to have a very consistant group of 4 folks. Grouping in eq2 while not required turns a decent mmrpg into one I find damn fun. The grouping dynamics in eq2 are alot better for me than what I find in WoW. In WoW there were so many times I felt I just did not have all the tools I needed to perform my role in a group as a druid or a warrior. In eq2 I have never felt unable to perform the job I was expected to do by a lack of proper skills or abilities.

kaid

[Der Helm]

I am assuming two things from your comment:

1) you expect to solo and/or

2) you will rarely have 4 hours to play at one sitting

If 1) is true, then yes, I think EQ2 would be boring as shit but any MMO is boring as shit to me if I solo.

If 2) is your issue, does changing the sentence to "not hard to get 25% of a level in a 2 hour, action-packed session" make it less daunting? I find that rate of advancement quite tolerable. Once again, if you cannot play for 2 hours at a time, then MMOs are DEFINITELY not for you.

Sorry, added some "boldness" to my previous post.

to 1: Not true, I really enjoy grouping, the social interactions are the reason I play MMOG's and hardly the single player variant.

to 2: "I crawled through this dungeon for 4 hours straight, and all I got was half a level and this lousy t-shirt(teh shiney?)"

Developers keep designing content that take 4 hours to consume. And (as far as I understood) we are not talking about "raid-class" content here. I have no problem with playing a game for hours, if the game is fun. But I dislike the whole "carrot on a stick" design. I want my gratification and I want it in small, non lethal doses dammit. The missions in Coh are a great example, solo or in a group, I have no problem to complete several missions or even a whole story arc (non taskforce) in one play session. Same for most quests in WoW. Shit, even Shadowbane gave you at least a DING every other hour. Shit, looks like I am rambling, so I will stop here.

[shiznitz]

I didn't mean 4 hours to crawl a dungeon. I just meant 4 hours ina dungeon environment will yield a good chunk of exp. At level 31, the only dungeons that have (but do not require) long crawls are Nek Castle if you want to kill Lord Everling (about 3 hours or more if the encounters are above your level) and the Bloodlines which has been described above as weeks worth of content.

Dungeons like Ruins of Varsoon give you lots of opportunity to just run around killing things, getting loot and doing quests without leaving the dungeon. You can spend 2 hours or 10 hours in there.

[Der Helm]

That is what I meant, if I play a game for 4 hours, I want more than just a good chunk of exp.

[HaemishM]

Bah, I play Guild Wars for a couple hours a week and I'm level *9*.

But you had asstons of content to consume in those 9 levels. I've seen lots of different types of PVE, and Guild Wars will stand up to all of them, and beats many of them for amount of content.

The mechanics aren't as good as say CoH, but there's just as much content and less of a grind than CoH or EQ2 has.

[Shockeye]

Bah, I play Guild Wars for a couple hours a week and I'm level *9*.

But you had asstons of content to consume in those 9 levels. I've seen lots of different types of PVE, and Guild Wars will stand up to all of them, and beats many of them for amount of content.

The mechanics aren't as good as say CoH, but there's just as much content and less of a grind than CoH or EQ2 has.

I would trade half of that content for jump.

[HaemishM]

Jump, or just the ability to walk up or down an incline.  :-D

[WayAbvPar]

That is what drove me to quit until I get the guide. I want a freakin' detailed map to tell me where I am ALLOWED to go. Grrr.

[Shockeye]

That is what drove me to quit until I get the guide. I want a freakin' detailed map to tell me where I am ALLOWED to go. Grrr.

schild called me today and said the guide sucks.

[WayAbvPar]

You are trying to kill my inner child.

[Shockeye]

You are trying to kill my inner child.

I thought Shadowbane did that.

Wait, that was Rasix.

Damnit, I'm getting all you green names confused.

[WindupAtheist]

Someone just needs to make a game where the level cap is 8000, and let you ding every five minutes.

[Alkiera]

I am assuming two things from your comment:

1) you expect to solo and/or

2) you will rarely have 4 hours to play at one sitting

If 1) is true, then yes, I think EQ2 would be boring as shit but any MMO is boring as shit to me if I solo.

If 2) is your issue, does changing the sentence to "not hard to get 25% of a level in a 2 hour, action-packed session" make it less daunting? I find that rate of advancement quite tolerable. Once again, if you cannot play for 2 hours at a time, then MMOs are DEFINITELY not for you.

I did solo some as my SK, but also grouped quite a bit, as it's required to complete the vast majority of quests(well, group or outlevel it so it's grey).  I do rarely have 4 hours at one sitting to play.  2 hours sessions are more common.  But sit in one spot, pull mobs forever is NOT what I mean by grind.  I wasn't refering to XP at all, really.  However, when my quest requires that I spend my 2 hours in one spot, killing ghostly snakes, with hopes that the Great Ghostly Snake will show up so I can kill him, oh, and all the placeholders and mobs nearby are grey, and the named mob is a blue-con group^^ mob... that's a grind.  It's slow, mindnumbing, and just sucks in general.  Static named mobs with much more common placeholders 4tehlose.  Other grinds include crafting, killing crap for cash drops to afford to lose (lots of) money crafting, etc.

The quests themselves were no more interesting than EQ1 quests, still kill X of Y, collect X of item Z from Y, kill rare named guy, etc... and the vast majority of it wasn't instanced, and while laid out well for a single player game, worked out horribly in multiplayer.  Multi-step quest, if you're grouped, killing named, or normal mobs, counts toward everyone's quest.  However, often times NPC's would despawn/respawn in different forms when finishing the quests, with 5-10 min timers to reset...  so it takes an hour for a full group to finish the quest.  Assuming no one else is trying to finish it as well.(Lightstone quest in commonlands, specifically, but others too)

Mostly, I got to the point where EQ2 felt too much like a single-player RPG with other people in it, which sucks... takes little to no advantage of the fact that there are, in fact, other people.  That, and the 'advancement as gameplay' mecahnic completely unchanged from EQ1, finally killed the game for me.

CoH at least recognizes that there are other people in your group in missions, has missions with goals that require multiple players(disable 3 bombs simultaneously, etc), and scales things to your level so you don't have to slaughter grey mobs to move to the next part of the quest.  And combat is much better paced than EQ2, better grouping mechanics, and a more interesting character system.

Alkiera

[Der Helm]

Can I send you my board password and let you write my posts ? You seem to be so much better at expressing my thoughts than I am.

[kaid]

Heheh I have not played guildwars but I am a close friend of the lady who did all the maps for the eq2 guide and the Guildwars guide. She was getting kinda stabby at the really widespread usage of ye old invisible wall in guild wars. She said the zones were really pretty but the invisible wall thing was driving her nuts trying to do complete accurate maps for the zones.


kaid

[Jayce]

I've played WoW since release.  I'm level 55 on my main, and have a level 25 alt.  55+25 = 80.  If kaid's 1/8 rules holds, I'd be level 10 in EQ2, playing approximately from release.

Looks like that's not the game for me!

[AlteredOne]

Heheh I have not played guildwars but I am a close friend of the lady who did all the maps for the eq2 guide and the Guildwars guide. She was getting kinda stabby at the really widespread usage of ye old invisible wall in guild wars. She said the zones were really pretty but the invisible wall thing was driving her nuts trying to do complete accurate maps for the zones.

New EQ2 marketing slogan:  "At least we don't have invisible walls!  Welcome our world."

[schild]

Maybe she could have told them to PUT IN A MOTHERFUCKING INDEX.

I hate strategy guides.

[kaid]

Unfortuantly she just does the maps and some scattered art as a freelancer so she does not get input on the format. If they did not put in an index somewhere in the book thats just freakin stupid.


kaid

[schild]

Unfortuantly she just does the maps and some scattered art as a freelancer so she does not get input on the format. If they did not put in an index somewhere in the book thats just freakin stupid.

City of Heroes. World of Warcraft. Everquest II. Guild Wars. These are books that do not have indexes. I'm also firmly convinced that the order in which shit appears in the book was laid out by a blind man.

[UD_Delt]

Other grinds include crafting, killing crap for cash drops to afford to lose (lots of) money crafting, etc.

Were you talking about EQ2 in your post? I'm confused as to how it's possible to lose money on crafting unless you are selling to other players for less than an NPC vendor would give you. Or if you are buying harvests from other players for more than they are worth. The crafting system is designed for players to break  even by selling to NPC merchants and in actual play I've found that you make a slight profit through NPC sales once you figure out what harvests are actually worth (ie... 6s per harvest at T5).

[Alkiera]

Other grinds include crafting, killing crap for cash drops to afford to lose (lots of) money crafting, etc.

Were you talking about EQ2 in your post? I'm confused as to how it's possible to lose money on crafting unless you are selling to other players for less than an NPC vendor would give you. Or if you are buying harvests from other players for more than they are worth. The crafting system is designed for players to break  even by selling to NPC merchants and in actual play I've found that you make a slight profit through NPC sales once you figure out what harvests are actually worth (ie... 6s per harvest at T5).

I'd mostly stopped crafting before the last major re-write of the NPC buy-back valuation system, but I did try it some to see how much things had changed.  IIRC, you only broke even if you harvested the components for stuff yourself, and made all the subcomponents yourself; harvested components were not assigned value for the purposes of the price for final items to NPCs, last I recall.  My highest crafter was a lvl 21 Sage, she reached 20 before the make-your-own subcomponents system, hit 21 afterward.  Making your own subs was rather tedious, and buying them from players was almost guaranteed to lose you money, given a few things:

a) that you needed to make many, many more final products than will sell in a reasonable amount of time, in order to level at reasonable rate.
b) subcomponent dealers want to make a profit on their goods.  However, when you do the combines, and then sell the final to an NPC, you only get back the cost to make the subcomponents, not the price you paid.
c) on Guk, at least, prices for subcomponents were very high, when they were available at all, which wasn't very frequently.

Alkiera

[AOFanboi]

Someone just needs to make a game where the level cap is 8000, and let you ding every five minutes.

Here you go, sans the 3D graphics.

[Polysorbate80]

Someone just needs to make a game where the level cap is 8000, and let you ding every five minutes.

Here you go, sans the 3D graphics.

Considering that my land-squid bastard-lunatic character looted a 'kobold penis', I'm thankful for the lack of graphics....

[jpark]

SOE never expected EQ to do this well.
When it did, they didn't understand why.
When they tried to repeat it, they failed.

Agreed.  The ironic thing is that for the most part, Blizzard learned from EQ's while SOE failed to do so.

[Soukyan]

Unfortuantly she just does the maps and some scattered art as a freelancer so she does not get input on the format. If they did not put in an index somewhere in the book thats just freakin stupid.

City of Heroes. World of Warcraft. Everquest II. Guild Wars. These are books that do not have indexes. I'm also firmly convinced that the order in which shit appears in the book was laid out by a blind man.

When strategy guides get real authors to write them and real publishers to print them, then perhaps you'll see a proper index and good layout.

[schild]

Prima and the other groups have been around long enough that they have no excuse. They should have acquired the skills and should have at least a few people on staff who can make up for the total fuckups of their shitty, amateur authors.

[UD_Delt]

I'd mostly stopped crafting before the last major re-write of the NPC buy-back valuation system, but I did try it some to see how much things had changed.  IIRC, you only broke even if you harvested the components for stuff yourself, and made all the subcomponents yourself; harvested components were not assigned value for the purposes of the price for final items to NPCs, last I recall.

That's mostly fixed now. Buyback is now the exact cost it took to make an item + a value for each harvest that was used. I know tier 5's are worth 6s but not sure about the rest of the tiers. So provided you buy the harvests for less than 6s in tier 5 and make your own subs you are guaranteed a minimal profit. I just started doing wholesaler tasks last night now that I have a ton of subs and I'm finding those return around a 60% profit. I'm making things that vendor for 1g 7s and the tasks call for 10 of those and return 17g 80s.

Personally I think the current system is MUCH better than the initial system. I was just on the cusp of starting to make an insane amount of cash before things were changed. It really would have killed the economy if things were left as is. It seems fairly well balanced now given money/time with my 48 Weaponsmith making a bit more by doing tasks than my 39 Swashbuckler out adventuring.

[Jayce]

Prima and the other groups have been around long enough that they have no excuse. They should have acquired the skills and should have at least a few people on staff who can make up for the total fuckups of their shitty, amateur authors.

Given how few non-Prima guides there are out there, we might just be seeing the effects of little to no competition in this area.

I certainly can't think of any.

[Signe]

Maybe f13 should start it's own line of Usefully Cynical Strategy Guides.  Having indexes could be a clever marketing ploy.