Next Expansion: Rise of Kunark

[Sky]

I really wish they'd make a download version with just Kunark. I can see making the inclusive pack for the shelfspace, but c'mon! Let's have some flexibility in pricing.

....maybe if it came with another character slot, two more for access pass members? ;)

[Numtini]

Well, in the past the downloadable version has been the same price as the shelf version. But the download has been only the expansion with no extras while the retail box included all the expansions and had some kind of fluff premium housepet.

And none of the previous "all in one" packs have included the adventure packs, which have entered the recursive "nobody plays them because nobody owns them because nobody plays them" loop.

So either way this is a better deal than they've offered in the past.

[tazelbain]

What's with the 140 AA levels?  70 in each line or is there a new AA line no one mentioned or are we storing AAs for the next expansion?

[shiznitz]

I usually just buy the digital download but the only EQ2 disks I have are the original and it is about time I got a full set.

[Cheddar]

The digital download link is up for Kunark. $40, includes the same junk you get in the store, and Kunark is a full all in one pack with all expansions AND all adventure packs.

Really, thats a grand deal.  I am getting pissed at LOTRO's crafting mechanic; evidently I am shallow.  This is beyond tempting.

[Numtini]

I don't think anyone knows what's going on with AAs. It says somewhere 70 in each line. But I think it might still be in flux. Up until recently we weren't getting any additional AAs. They've promised that we'll have two specs that we can switch between, which is a great idea, but really one of those things that sounds too good to be true. (Looks across the board at the wow tank thread.)

Spell consolidation won't be in and hopefully it will just disappear.
 

[Sky]

They shouldn't add AA points until they add more AA! As it is right now, AA really can differentiate characters, adding more points without anyhing more to spend them on just dilutes the whole process.

Also...level 80 cap. Oddly enough, I've seen people bitching about it. The complaint goes like this "Oh 80 sucks, everyone will powergame to 80 and then only have four dungeons to farm for the next two years" (going on the assumption the next expansion is like EoF and no level increase...and conveniently forgetting the new AA window, I guess). Yes, SOE, stop adding new content because the lunatic fringe will consume it in a month and then be bored again. Fuckin' mmogtards. Also, your game is apparently too easy for these idiots, too, when they create a fabled/mastered twink to stave off boredom.

[shiznitz]

Spell consolidation is dead and the 70/70 AA plan is on. Anything else is  .

[Soukyan]

This is going to be quite a fun expansion. Apparently SOE has learned something in all their years of producing EQ1. Dare I say they're doing things right in EQ2?

[UD_Delt]

And so the patching begins...

Here I thought by setting up the "download while I play option" I was getting ahead of the game...

Just logged on the laptop (which was fully patched) and it's bouncing between 23-38 hours. That's over a 1Gbps connection.

Guess I'll have to spend some time with the wife tonight damn it...

[shiznitz]

Weird. SOE said the servers would be down for 8 hours starting at 5am PST. Guess you can patch but not play. Either way, I never play the first day of an expansion so I will download tonight after work and play tomorrow.

What I find somewhat amusing are the reports out of beta (NDA lifted obviously) that RoK mobs hit a lot harder than what people are used to - EXACTLY like EQ1 Kunark. Also, the equipment is much more likely to have effects on it in RoK, e.g. +dps, +CA dmg, etc.

[Surlyboi]

They shouldn't add AA points until they add more AA! As it is right now, AA really can differentiate characters, adding more points without anyhing more to spend them on just dilutes the whole process.

Also...level 80 cap. Oddly enough, I've seen people bitching about it. The complaint goes like this "Oh 80 sucks, everyone will powergame to 80 and then only have four dungeons to farm for the next two years" (going on the assumption the next expansion is like EoF and no level increase...and conveniently forgetting the new AA window, I guess). Yes, SOE, stop adding new content because the lunatic fringe will consume it in a month and then be bored again. Fuckin' mmogtards. Also, your game is apparently too easy for these idiots, too, when they create a fabled/mastered twink to stave off boredom.

Apparently, they've streamlined the 20-70 grind too. Something else for the goofy-ass powergamers to bitch about.

[shiznitz]

The new veteran rewards include +exp potions again. I imagine there will be some 80s quite soon. Travel is going to be a huge time sink in RoK, though. Empty your bags of all the junk you are carrying before you head out to the new lands. It is a long way between banks/brokers/vendors.

[Sauced]

Hartsman has been saying in post-NDA interviews that they've had to tune the XP down a bit, there were too may 80s way to soon.  But I'll take the XP pots, and the -25% housing cost.  Maybe I'll finally move out of my one room.

The first quest line in RoK, for 65+, is to start unlocking the flight paths around Kylong Plains.  Once that's done it should be too painful - depending on where the evac points are.

[Soukyan]

Travel is going to be a huge time sink in RoK, though. Empty your bags of all the junk you are carrying before you head out to the new lands. It is a long way between banks/brokers/vendors.

Just like Kunark in EQ1. ;)

[Hartsman]

Hartsman has been saying in post-NDA interviews that they've had to tune the XP down a bit, there were too may 80s way to soon.  But I'll take the XP pots, and the -25% housing cost.  Maybe I'll finally move out of my one room.

The first quest line in RoK, for 65+, is to start unlocking the flight paths around Kylong Plains.  Once that's done it should be too painful - depending on where the evac points are.

If that's the impression I gave, I really need to choose my words more carefully.  :)

We did the opposite -- Tuned the 20-70 experience requirement down to progress smoothly between the pre-20 Darklight/Faydark/Timorous experience, and the post-70 Kunark experience.

[Numtini]

Well I caught the boat and got a group in Karnor's and then ran around the dreadlands for a little while doing the dockside quests. It was laggy as hell, but a lot of fun.

They do seem to have screwed up the online purchasing thing. The station store listed only one option, which was Kunark and everything included. Their new "station launcher" had two options, one for just Kunark and the other for the all-in-one. But those of us who purchased from the station store got flagged for Kunark only.

[Sky]

We did the opposite -- Tuned the 20-70 experience requirement down to progress smoothly between the pre-20 Darklight/Faydark/Timorous experience, and the post-70 Kunark experience.

Ok. Maybe you need a publicist :P What does this mean? We level faster 20-70 now? Is this all experience, combat only, or what? With combat exp turned off I was already levelling a bit too fast for my taste!

Maybe just a "Make me level 70/80/cap" button for the people who don't actually want to play through your game?

 

Their new "station launcher" had two options, one for just Kunark and the other for the all-in-one.

Really? Interesting.

[UD_Delt]

I definately posted too soon. I guess the patcher just wasn't ready yet early in the afternoon.

I got home a little early yesterday and started patching around 4:30ish on my home PC. The patch was done around 5:15. Not bad at all. I was able to log in and start playing.

I spent a little time in Kylong doing the initial quests but it got a bit laggy and crowded (not to mention the mobs hit HARD) so went over to Loping Plains to do the quests there since I basically skipped almost all EoF content. Nothing worse than lag as a swashbuckler since the goal is to kill the mobs ASAP by chaining all your attacks together. Lag totally wipes that out and allows the mobs to beat on you longer than usual which is death for a swashy.

At the same time I started repatching the laptop and that was done about 30 minutes later.

All in all for me it was a perfect rollout. I'm not sure exactly what time the servers came up but I'm guessing I was on within at least the first hour of their being up and didn't have much of a problem at all.

[Ixxit]

Haven't picked this up yet, but a quick question:

If you want to re-roll and  start in Kunark,  do you have to roll a Sarnak or can other evil races start there as well.  Also can you start good races in Kunark at Firona Vie (or it's ruins) or something along those lines.

Sorry at work, so EQII players is blocked.

[UD_Delt]

We did the opposite -- Tuned the 20-70 experience requirement down to progress smoothly between the pre-20 Darklight/Faydark/Timorous experience, and the post-70 Kunark experience.

Ok. Maybe you need a publicist :P What does this mean? We level faster 20-70 now? Is this all experience, combat only, or what? With combat exp turned off I was already levelling a bit too fast for my taste!

Maybe just a "Make me level 70/80/cap" button for the people who don't actually want to play through your game?

 

I read it to mean exactly what it says...

Before the patch you would level to 50 and things would pretty much fly by. You'd hit 51 and things would almost hit a wall as you adjusted to the new exp rate. It seemed like it took basically the same amount of killing to do 51 to 60 as 1 to 50. Same thing happens again at 61 were it got REALLY slow to level. As in less than .1% exp per kill.

The way I read this now it takes exactly the same amount of exp to level 1 to 70 but instead of getting 5% per kill before level 20 and .1% per kill at 65 it is more balanced to be .5% - 1% per kill through the leveling curve.

My percentages are probably totally off but they server well enough as an example.

[Simond]

No more hell levels, then?
Whoa, talking about hell levels & Kunark. I seem to be posting from THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND.

[Hartsman]

We did the opposite -- Tuned the 20-70 experience requirement down to progress smoothly between the pre-20 Darklight/Faydark/Timorous experience, and the post-70 Kunark experience.

Ok. Maybe you need a publicist :P What does this mean? We level faster 20-70 now? Is this all experience, combat only, or what? With combat exp turned off I was already levelling a bit too fast for my taste!

Maybe just a "Make me level 70/80/cap" button for the people who don't actually want to play through your game?

 

I read it to mean exactly what it says...

Before the patch you would level to 50 and things would pretty much fly by. You'd hit 51 and things would almost hit a wall as you adjusted to the new exp rate. It seemed like it took basically the same amount of killing to do 51 to 60 as 1 to 50. Same thing happens again at 61 were it got REALLY slow to level. As in less than .1% exp per kill.

Yep.  That's exactly the jumps that got smoothed - The ones that felt wrong.

Not precisely hell levels, per se, since the original EQ hell levels were "A place where goofy math(tm) related to the exponential term of the per-level exp requirement caused you to have one level that was incredibly long, followed by a second level that was ridiculously easy."  Basically, each tiering where the entire formula changed.  Changing exponents in an XP requirement is just a bad idea.

EQ2's were just linear jumps that were a little too vertical to feel right.

[UD_Delt]

Yep.  That's exactly the jumps that got smoothed - The ones that felt wrong.

Not precisely hell levels, per se, since the original EQ hell levels were "A place where goofy math(tm) related to the exponential term of the per-level exp requirement caused you to have one level that was incredibly long, followed by a second level that was ridiculously easy."  Basically, each tiering where the entire formula changed.  Changing exponents in an XP requirement is just a bad idea.

EQ2's were just linear jumps that were a little too vertical to feel right.

By the way did you happen to tune guild level 30? I just went through that particular hell level basically on my own since my guild right now is basically just used as shared storage between myself, my dad and one other guy. I'm the tradeskill monkey so most of the leveling was done by me alone just as a by-product of running trade skill writs.

I think it took about 5 weeks to get through level 30. In contrast it took about 4-5 days to get through 31. Level 30 was easily 4x as much exp needed as level 31.

[Sky]

EQ2's were just linear jumps that were a little too vertical to feel right.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess I either never noticed or there aren't any by level 42 :)

[Sauced]

If that's the impression I gave, I really need to choose my words more carefully.  :)

Podcast 25.   

[Murgos]

Yep.  That's exactly the jumps that got smoothed - The ones that felt wrong.

Not precisely hell levels, per se, since the original EQ hell levels were "A place where goofy math(tm) related to the exponential term of the per-level exp requirement caused you to have one level that was incredibly long, followed by a second level that was ridiculously easy."  Basically, each tiering where the entire formula changed.  Changing exponents in an XP requirement is just a bad idea.

EQ2's were just linear jumps that were a little too vertical to feel right.

Good, maybe now I can get out of the 60's.  I had noticed with my mid-20's alt that one kill of a white solo con mob would be about 2-3% exp with the rest exp bonus, the same type of white solo con mob at 63 was much less than 1% with rest exp bonus (i.e. 2 or 3 kills to see a 1% change when you hover over the exp bar).

It was really starting to feel like a grind, enough so that I was considering not getting Kunark, now I'll check out the exp gain tonight and pick it up off the online store.

[Sauced]

Kylong Plains is a little tough on a Ranger at 66, but in a little under an hour I managed to finish about 5 quests, get my sokokar flying pet, about 40% xp and 2 AAs.

Looks like there is quite a bit of faction grinding to make the vendors at the outposts useful, but maybe not so much different from DoF.

[Numtini]

Just a note. I had problems with the pre-order not giving me all the adventure packs. They fixed whatever it was. Not only do I have them all, I was even retroactively given two pre-order gifts I missed out on originally. But if you order now, be cautious, because there are two Kunark packs one with everything and one without.

[Soukyan]

RoK is proving to be mighty, mighty fun thus far. Of course, I am not a level cap raider either, so that play experience may be different, but for the casual gamers out there, this expansion is continuing and building upon a well done MMOG. Nice work, EQ2 team.

[Simond]

get my sokokar flying pet

Wait, they've got the flying dragon-frogs that were only mentioned in passing in original Kunark?

 

Question for Mr Hartsman: I know that Heritage Quests got nixed in favour of Epixx^^ for now, but is there a possibility of them getting patched in at a later date? My SK wants a Heritage Circlet of Shadow and/or Greenmist, Unholy Khukri of Rile. 

[Sauced]

Wait, they've got the flying dragon-frogs that were only mentioned in passing in original Kunark?

Haha, yup.  They are kinda like the "pets" you get for doing certain collection quests, they are there but don't do anything.  With these, of course, that changes when you click the stone at a "sokokar" station, where you can fly to any other station you've visited once you have the pet.

[shiznitz]

There is one known issue: none of the named in Karnor's Castle are dropping loot. Still, the zone has been packed the last two nights. It is true to the EQ1 version in layout and looks great. My group got a paladin Master from a regular mob. Of course, no paladin in the group and no active paladins in the guild so the winner will sell it for 60p+ (defensive stance worth a ton to anyone planning to raid at 80.)

[Surlyboi]

Train to right exit! 

[Morfiend]

So, I have been considering picking this up again and giving it a try. I love games with very fast advancement and from the talk it seems like it is pretty damn fast now. Is that true? How much /played would you say it would take to cap now?