EverQuest: Call of the Forsaken

An expansion filled with sidegrades, as far as the eye can see.

how is less complex tahn RT eq casual? RT was one of the absolute most unforgiving raids ever if ONE person screwed up or went ld in teh middle blech.

glad to see the improvements to raid functionality and such too, laas and rlaas yay (especially rlaas) etc
i actulaly think all of this is great

OH NO SIDEGRADES!

This is really gonna hurt us when inevitably the content isn't doable with the current gear set and, by extension, the gear set provided by CoF, and we die a ton! Cause that's why sidegrades are bad right? Not....just because we wanna see tons of bigger numbers?

Honestly it's funny really reading this thread. Before Danille's post:

"This is bad! It's way too soon after T4 because our gear is gonna be useless and easily upgraded by T1 CoF and we'll have spent all of like a month in T4 RoF!"

"Nah don't worry gear will be essentially the same as T4 RoF...at least in T1 CoF, so you can still get a lot of good use out of Heart of Fear "

"SIDEGRADES??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????"

Let's make up our minds people. Or are we just picking various reasons to hate the next expac for the sake of hating it?

Sidegrades is worse than not having more time in T4. Sidegrades is just going to mean the loot in the new raids rots quicker making the new raids obsolete faster than ever, no upgrades for an expansion? That needs to be rethought.

What am I raiding for again?

So we have a dragon coming named "Lendinaria". She came through the Ethernere, which is a big aspect of EQ2lore. in EQ2, "Lendiniara the Keeper" the dragon with the same name as our own Temple of Veeshan native, disappeared before Yelinak dies in the EQ2 timeline. Is this the same dragon? If so, why merge the timelines at all. If not, why unoriginal dragon names?

It's probably just a mistake and supposed to be Lendiniara like its named in EQ NToV and I think even EQ2 names it that way too

If you don't play EQ2, the Ethermere is where everyone goes when they die, before they travel on to be with their deity of choice (if that deity accepts them). So it makes sense that it could be the same dragon, just that she found a way to break from the afterlife and back to the world of the living.

Well, simplifying the raid mechanics from what RT had...sounds like it means no more multiple player mechanics. This means...no more multiple players clicking in Xorbb 3...no more multiple people jumping out a window or hugging a totem...or tanking the twins a certain distance apart...or needing multiple shrouders to handle different mobs...or having the raid move back then go closer in the arena...or tanking the 3 bosses in Kael...or clicking boulders while the tank positions the boss...or ducking to avoid a big axe...or getting cured before the DT hits...because any of those can cause issues when multiple players are involved.

RT jumping out of windows was silly...but it was only 3 toons if I recall it right...or hugging a totem. The book passing is iffy at best with the timing mechanics but that is a flaw in the mechanic....increase the success range to simplify the time when to pass.

Sure...smooth out the mechanics...but RT was a lot easier than RO, Pillars, or Sep 5...yet it is the example of complex? Not sure it is a fair label. Some of those other raids are just as complex as RT...maybe not RO which is more of a tank / healer issue...but the others are at least as complex as RT if you consider the full set of mechanics. Instead are we going back to the single mob that hits hard?

Time will tell exactly how simple...or casual...raids will be going forward.

@BoomWalker

Yeah... my hunch is that the average EQ player isn't the socially isolated neanderthal that Abazz seems to be making them out to be. The average EQ player is also smart enough (or can easily be pushed to play smart enough) to deal with things like traps, casters that need dispelling/interrupting, etc. LDoN 1.0 had all of that and it was great fun to overcome. It was one of the few times in the game's history when group content felt like the developers wanted me to actually think while playing it and not just react or follow a set formula all the time while clearing trash.

That said, I'm a bit sad to hear their intention is to make the missions level 95-100 only -- having it scalable down for low level characters, where it can function as an alternative leveling path for groups of friends building characters together, would be a very nice decision imo. I can also understand if the time isn't there for the implementation... but I'd really like to see the system expanded in the future, 'cause the game really needs something like it -- not just at endgame, but at all level ranges past level 10 or so.

As I've said elsewhere, if the system is really good (and if it can be made really scalable and extensible), I'd also be interested to see it back-implemented as an alternative way for generating LDoN Adventures.

Good question. You might want to think about that, as it seems you are only doing it for gear.

If the stuff has 1-2 more ac and 20-40 more hp then that's fine. Its an increase for people to chase. If the content doesn't require stat increases then you don't need it.[/quote]

Merging the timelines because the dev teams for EQ and EQ2 will be merged and reduced in total size as the games decline in total user base with the mass exit to EQ Casual.

This will give the single dev team less to worry about from a lore perspective...since both games will be on one big timeline as the game is designed going forward.

Ultimately, EQ and EQ2 will just be different servers you can play from the EQ Old storyline...with the EQ New storyline getting all the attention.

Smokejumper said last year that they wanted the lore of EQ, EQ2 and EQ Next (and LoN too) to all basically merge more, or to effect each other for the most part, with the Ethernere being the single point that links all games.

This way you can play all 4 games, or you would have to read up on the lore of the other games to get the full picture of the story.

Lets pick a reason like this one: If T4 HoF raids are still the top loot (or equal to CotF gear) does that mean all the raids in CotF are T4 or are they T1 through T4 to give everyone more things to raid in the next game update...er...expansion.

Also, can we work on the names..SoF is Secrets of Fizzlemasters or something....

RoF gives you 13 NToV plus 12 other targets

SoF gives you 2 more targets

HoF gives you 3 targets and 3 mini bosses

Now are we going to get 4 more T1/2 (RoF) targets, 6 more T3 (SoF) targets, and 4 more T4 (HoF) targets? Oh...wait...it is a new 'expansion' so it isn't part of the T1-T4 of the previous expansion but the gear will be no greater than T4 from RoF/SoF/HoF.

Farming 12 T1/2 targets plus a few more T1/2 targets packed up in CotF is going to be so much fun...because all the raid currency we get from RoF will work in the new expansion right? So we can get that T1/2 raid gear for all of our toons.

Yea...I think sidegrades are a bad idea...

People read all the gibberish the NPCs say? Seriously? Don't most [folks] look for the keyword [term] that is used to active the [next] step in the [task]?

Or to put it another way...with a strong authoritarian voice...the average EQ player does not read the lore or the text of tasks. They [simply] look for keyword terms. Lore is for the elitist raiding snobs.

(*This is mostly tongue in cheek but I personally don't read nor care about the lore of EQ...it is all about that XP and AA bar millimetering forward...I would say inching but it doesn't move that fast anymore...)

The lore of EQ is what originally got my hooked. For the first few years I played, I was a casual grouper and that made finding all the lore difficult, since much was locked behind raids.

I love that these days, the group missions offer the same lore, and sometimes a little extra.

These days, I raid for the challenge. That being said, the lore is still a big part of my EQ enjoyment.

EQs dead goes to Shadow Rest, so that makes no sense.

[/quote]
I certainly don't raid for loot to rot, loot starts rotting and we stop doing those raids.

In a game that has forever been a gear chase... Only here could you find people that hate the gear chase.

The EQ community is one of the least sensible communities in MMO gaming.

ok guys everyoen goes on and on about how raids and gear usedto be useful for a few expansions not just part of 1, now we're getting mroe gear and not obsoleting the end of this year's gear..and you complain. think back to wehn oow god etc etc guilds wouldf raid 3-4 expansions at once not jsut 1, and now that theyre making that viable again it's a bad thing? yet everyone is always complaining how they want eq to return to that format. you guys beg and plead for stuff then you complain when it happens. they're right, no matter WHAT they do you will complain, so why bother trying to please anyone. EVERYTHING in the upcoming expansion so far has been literaly begged for for YEARS on these forums, and now all we'regetting is moaning andcomplaining. give it a rest guys

The social aspect changed a lot over the years but imo stuff that is like ldon such as kill tasks, slaughter, etc. with leaderboards, chests, rare named in instances, and fail timers(box crews may not be able to complete on time if too slow or undergeared) will bring back grouping lots.

I do not think I like the idea of side grades. I would prefer uf over that. Though it will be nice to give mid tier and low end raiders more time to complete raid content.

Part of the reason people solo/molo and box is because of partisan tasks or content being so easy they don't need to group. I won't point out certain classes that can solo with ease in this game.

We raid content that upgrades the players. As of now that means T3 and T4 raids only for most of us, if the gear doesn't improve then we're going to be looking at a 14 month farm of T4 content. Our alts, alts, alts, alts, alts will have alts that are T4 geared.