by Ry “Roshen” Schueller Kerafyrm has turned the Temple of Veeshan into a floating fortress! Suspended by Kerafyrm’s magic, the Temple of Veeshan hovers ominously above Norrath. The first Tear of Veeshan has increased Kerafyrm’s power by an order of magnitude, and he is using the power of the Tear to force Temple of Veeshan through the veil between Norrath and Ethernere. Vulak’Aerr’s Dominion: This is the wing of the Temple of Veeshan where adventurers will encounter Kerafyrm’s most battle-hardened commanders. Will doing battle with the forces of Vulak’Aerr be too much for Norrathians to handle? Halls of the Betrayer: What was once known as the Halls of Testing is now more of a holding area for dragons who are waiting for Kerafyrm to decide if they are prisoners or honored “guests” of the Temple of Veeshan. Laboratory of Mutation: This area of the fortress is devoted to magical research and contains much of the Temple of Veeshan’s technology. It is here that players will witness the true nature of the research Kerafyrm has commissioned. What does Temple of Veeshan have in store for those brave - or perhaps foolhardy - enough to venture into this floating fortress? This expansion releases on Tuesday, November 12, 2013! Pre-order Tears of Veeshan today.
Probably because Veeshan's Peak is an imitation of Temple of Veeshan! Possibly lore wise anyway, I think ToV came first. Zone looks gorgous anyway
Release-wise....most of this expac is an imitation of every other zone we've already seen. Nice bright colors still dont hide the fact that they barely spent any effort on this release.....
I wouldn't say that I got a chance to peek at the temple on on the Beta as well as the Shissar Temple zones. There defently not rehashses of old zones, and the first one you go to, not the status chamber, made me feel a bit like Indiana Jones with the puzzle unlocks just to progress in the zone. High Keep is also very unique in design, while no real puzzles the zone look and feel is very different from what one would expect in the game. To be honest I can't really think of a way to put it in to proper words.
Yes. 80 hour weeks is "barely any effort". The team has been killing themselves to get this expansion done, but it's hard to make up for lost resources.
Similarities in the multi-verse. Gosh! I've been having a great time in beta. The team has created a very, very nice and welcome expansion. I'm also enjoying the storyline and quests. EQ2 still has the best graphics around. Beautiful. One of the neat facets of humanity is the quirkiness of deja-vu. Pity a number of EQ2 players lack that quirk. Cuz ya know, when one has seen Crater Lake and then Lake Tahoe one, of course, realizes the creator was using the same resources; they are just holes in the earth, filled with water, surrounded by forests; nothing new, right, old-time complainers? The fact there are thousands of different little details goes completely over your heads, right? Good job, team! Can't wait to bring my alts to and through ToV.
Waiting until the last minute to burn out something the size of an adventure pack, while just reskinning old zones, mobs, and armors, and continuing on an already 2 expansion old story, is hardly going to get sympathy from me even if they did spend 80 weeks on it. SoE, as a company, made the decision to lay off some of their best developers, and whatever they were doing since SoV came out until now, it doesn't seem like developing content was high on the list. This isn't just some lake that's similar to another, It's a lake someone remodelled with new plants and then claimed to have created from scratch. But to continue with this comparison, it would be appropriate to say that the fish this lake has will taste like a mediocre blend of any other fish you have ever tasted; and every other lake you see after this, whether it is another new lake or one that is older, will be negatively affected by this ones design. If you want to boat on this lake, you will have to relearn how to row with an oar, because this lake is redefining how to row a boat, again, unnecessarily.
This story has been going on a lot longer than 2 expansions, where have you been? I never heard any complaints about there being 3 books in "Lords of the Ring" series.(or the 14 books in The "Wheel of Time" series. The last big update, Cobalt Scars came out in April, and then GU67(yes reused zones) over the summer. I don't think the developers have just been sitting around twiddling their thumbs. There is a lot of new zone content, not just redecorated zones. I don't see why people who cleary have nothing good to say about this game, keep playing this game. Just do F2P and maybe you wont feel so cheated, or better yet go play WoW.
What I don't understand is why people tell veterans that have been playing since launch and are unhappy with the decline in expansion quality to go play WoW. It's like they want this game to lose subscribers and expansion pack buyers. SoE can thank this kind of mentality for declining sales. As for me, I like this game alot. I like it so much, that when I agree with a large portion of other players who think this expansion needed more work, I'm going to tell them why I am not buying it. This way they will hopefully learn next year and produce something worth my dollar. Now, if you want to use LotR as an example, then lets roll with that. Lord of the Rings was already written to expand beyond the first book (or movie); Sauron was always the threat they were trying to battle and each story was a continuation of that battle. With this expac, Sauron would have had to been some legend for the first 6 movies in the series, and only recently become a real threat, with the last 2 and soon to be third movie dragging out the battle against him. In LotR, each movie took you to new places, introducing new enemies and allies. This expac takes us back to Moira, just Moira. But this time the stone is purple, and the cave trolls are cerulean; Balrog might be an ally now that Gandalf showed him the error of his ways, but that just means one BAMF we might have seen fight before now sends you to go feed his dog or something else out of place with the story. Is there a lot of content here? I wouldn't say alot but there is content here. Is there a lot of original content here? Certainly not. Is there enough content to justify the price tag? I dont think so, so I'll just wait until next year and hope that they do better then.
On the topic of... "Vesspyr isles looks like prettier version of KoS zones" and "rehashed mob models" = agree a bit "most of this expac is an imitation of every other zone we've already seen," = artistically, nope. (They may have reused encounter script and etc.. but it's traditional thing by now anyway) "gradual reduction on number of contents and scope with expansions recently" = Ya, personally knew that a long time ago. But excited about the new terrain editor and stuffs, nonetheless
I now wonder what you include when you say artistically they aren't imitations. I expected the dragons, droags, drakota, and wyverns to look the same, but every other mob i have found also looks the same, some just are a different hue. Alot of the dungeons use the same artwork as the originals they were garnered from, and the armors are the same as those found in DoV and CoE just again, with a different hue.
...What were you thinking? Not only are there few mobz with different textures, but also few whose shape actually look different a bit. And I already agreed on that "rehashed mob models" above, so no point keep harping on. " Alot of the dungeons use the same artwork as the originals they were garnered from" ? What do you mean by 'originals' anyway? EQ1 counterparts? Of course most EQ2 zones are modeled after EQ1 counterparts with some twists here and there, devs stated that long ago and we also knew that from day 1. See, I'm not even throwing out crap like "oh hey, many games out there also copy a bit from each other and that's a business practice by now. Should be fine with our game, too." but I frankly made mention of what looked the same, what looked different..etc I'm sorry to hear that you're disappointed with arts in this expansion, though.
I think perhaps I have seen more of the game than you have then, because all the mobs I have found in the overland share the same shape and texture of the originals they were copied from, just hued a different color. Aside from the overland being a copy of Tennebrous tangle, which is understandable considering CoE's basis for being Loping Plains and Feerrott rehashed, but the dungeons in it were original. In ToV, the dungeons we get are copies of other content in EQ2 like Guk, SoS, etc. Even the artwork from the walls/floors/ceilings/architecture are the same, just hued a different color. Sure they might have added a beehive here and there, but that doesn't shake the feeling that they cut some pretty large corners to produce this. Dont get me wrong, I think a parallel map of Norrath entirely done in the ethernere would be neat, but if they are going to give it to us a single zone at a time and charge us $40 for it I'm going to wait until they are done.
Ya, had to compare again the textures between Guk and Stratum of the Protectors... felt similar a few times I guess.. While it's not even like we have to buy this expansion, but sad state for eq2 fans for sure. (with recent layoffs and all such things) Really hoping to see... an expansion larger than RoK. xD
I've been through all 9 dungeons in the expansion. Can you please tell me which one is a copy of Sanctum of Scaleborn? Also, while some themes are borrowed from Guk in the Fractured Hive, it has been heavily reskinned with Bixie themes. High Keep, Temple of Veeshan, and the Shissar Temple are beautiful, massive new zones.
It takes a whole hell of a lot of work to bring us "content" in an expansion. EQ2 is an aged\ing game, they don't have hundreds of developers working on the content. While some of the zones might be rehashed older versions, there's a ton of code and script design that has to be worked through on a daily basis - coupled with user feedback on Beta - of which they probably get hundreds of /feedback reports daily. To say the developer team, which may be no more than 15 at this point, has put in little effort on bringing us a new expansion is both arrogant and ignorant. Those of us that have tested Beta Raid content can attest to the ~30 hours we spent personally during raid time with the raid developers trying to twist and turn the knobs to get encounters to at least act as intended, and at the end of each night, there was still much work to do. Days later, when we returned on our normal raid night to help again, a heap of work had been hashed out between them, and encounters that had been broken when we previously tested them, were not anymore. This whole time, these developers are at work after hours - we don't raid during business hours - listening to what was working and what wasn't, taking notes, fixing script on the fly, and banging their heads against the wall when some encounters couldn't be tweaked immediately and would have to wait till the next day of work. Those heroic dungeons you so easily spit on as half-worked resubmits from past expansions have also had countless hours of player feedback and testing that the developers have to go back and fix, tweak, and style daily. This is evident by the many beta updates we've installed since beta launch. A game is much more than just the art and textures. If it wasn't, we would be in a very buggy, non-working world called Everstressed 2. Perhaps the day when creating a game is as easy as scribbling on some paper and wa-la everything is suddenly in its right place and works perfectly a small team of developers will be able to bring us an expansion more fitting to the naysayers' grandiose schemes. Until then, thanks to the Everquest 2 Development team and staff for their hard work, late nights, and drive to bring us a bangin' expansion. Cheers! A quote for you developers in parting below. "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." -David Brinkley
@Feldon: I wouldn't say Fractured hive is heavily reskinned with bixie themes, most of it still looked like Guk. As far as SoS goes, it's the one you enter for vision of scale. Yes HIgh Keep looks really neat, though I still wonder how it's supposed to fit into the Dragon afterlife lore-wise. Temple of Veeshan and Nexus still feel too familiar, but I just cant put my thumb on from where. @Gindotto: I'm glad they are putting so much effort into raiding and making sure it works before launch because it wont take long for raiders to get to that content. But to defend them for the hours of coding and scripting they have done to produce this expansion is foolhardy. If they weren't wasting time readjusting MA for DPS to reduce lag, then adding rolls to enemy MAs which will cause more lag, perhaps they could have gotten more done. My biggest issues with this expansion is two fold. There certainly isn't enough content to justify the price and that the content that is provided is a bad indication of the future of the game. The overland is going to take casual players about a week to clear, and then there will be nothing but dungeon diving for them. If they never see raiding, than the 30+ hours a week the devs are spending now will never be appreciated. What players are buying to enjoy is repeatedly grinding out dungeons until the next big update that finally adds content. Second, the content is shortsighted. They wanted to make this expansion progressive without giving the players progression. Equipment isn't tied to AA, so making stronger equipment for level 95's just means more players are going to skip CoE content in favor of ToV. If any content is released after this, it's going to need to further this ill-fated decision or rework everything from DOV on in order to add more levels. Otherwise the AA plateau we get at 90 will be mirrored in a gear plateau at 95. Characters will be so powerful at 96, that it will be possible for single groups to go into DOV raid zones unmentored and farm them. Perhaps Soloing CoE heroic content as well, who knows. Now this may not effect you directly and you may not care, but for the overall future of the game we'll see a similar decision as the platfarming-nerf from not so long ago. So why am I so critical of this expac? Because I believe that even with all the work they have done, and are going to do still, it's all misdirected. After every encounter is running properly, all rewards are appropriate, and every art glitch is patched; what we are left with is a short sprint to end game grinding, whether it's Solo, grouped, or raid. That this sprint is in the wrong direction, and it will take even more work after this to lengthen the game. And that $40 isn't worth it.
