Aliens are in a lot of high fantasy actually, and have been since D&D. Also alarans are too much but moon aliens on luclin were fine? Heck there's been a UFO in qeynos since this game began.
There's a big difference between GoD mobs and Alarans, lol. One looked badass and not really like Aliens, imo...more like Predators crawling out of caves. And the other is a boring human-like mob model (which is actually one of my biggest problems with current Eq, humans in games are boo-oooooring unless it's a full medieval setup). And so are undeads, there's nothing "scary" about a skeleton and it's way overused by now. GoD actually "scared" me in some places (in a positive gaming feeling way ofc), and for me it was a huge success. If the following expansions didn't revert to the earlier artwork & "high fantasy", that's hardly all to blame on 1 single expansion that mixed things up a bit. I have a feeling some put all the blame on GoD, not because it actually sucked so much but for being a turning point. That's scapegoat mentality.
From The Guild Summit Report http://www.mobhunter.com/mobhunter_archive/001330.html "John Smedley stated first that Gates of Discord's release was SOE's worst mistake in five years. He personally apologized." "Smedley revealed the failed plan to bring out level 65 to 70 during the fifth year anniversary two months ago and Brenlo confirmed that SOE designed Gates of Discord with level 70 in mind. This explains a lot of the expansion's difficulty. I spoke with just about anyone who would listen about the overly long duration of sewer, Vxed, and Tipt trials and the designers agreed that four hours for an often failed event was too long." "- Gates was designed for level 70, thats why its so hard. ... - The graphic engine update we went through will help EQ stay graphically competitive with other MMOGs." [BA: I believe that the graphics update refers to a migration to a new version of DirectX and (might not be correct here) moving from a distance from two items collision detection bounding box to a method that did not ignore height. Until that was fully fixed it wrecked havoc on mob and player postioning.] Now players can certainly have their own take on the situation (GoD roXored! !!!111000011), but that's how a person who would know, John Smedley, saw things. Yes, Mr. Smedley might have been swayed by changes in the subscription rates and player complaints that necessitated having a Guild Summit, but I suggest such things are reasonable telemetry on the state of the game.
There are probably some people who would love Sour Lemon Cherrios, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to produce them. Maybe someday there will be a MMoRPG with nightmare mode, but so long as it didn't have rewards better than normal/fair play I doubt that large numbers of players would prefer playing the game that way.
Yup Battleaxe, John Smedley was a wise man.That's why it all went so well with SoE, hey i needed that laugh sorry!
His remarks during the Guild Summit (the summit wasn't held with things going great and SOE just wanting to throw a party) were one of the few times I remember him admitting to significant error. Would that he had done so more often and sooner - ideally before SOE threw money at things like MxO, The Agency, etc. Or in GoD's case before SOE tied its shoe laces together while trying to stay MMoRPG's top dog.
For it being such a broken expansion I sure see a lot of people grouping in it, compared to what I remember from tds.
Not locking zones behind progression is great for grouping. Same with being able to participate in tasks/missions in any order. It's an improvement to not getting left behind.
God was not so bad in my memories. I was in the 40-50ties and could only play the entry zones but had a loooonng time fun playing and leveling up there. But I must agree, I never got into Kod'Taz without being folded like a paper trash. But now at a high level I worked my way with a bunch of 65-70ties up to the raid areas and we all had more than great fun. At the time it was simply too hard to play after that but I personally needed the whole time for the entry zones and then OoW appeared and the transition was seamless. So I never missed the higher areas. But a level 70 upgrade would have been very good in this expansion. This expansion is simply no real expansion compared to TDS, God or even speak for PoP. There is only one real zone with love (Demiplanes Decay/Life) which are itself really really good designed. The map is creative, the design is something new, the areas are big and have very interesting underground areas and the idea with the Decay/Life switch is genious. I love that. Some parts remind me on the chaotic underground of Blackburrow. There are many about three spots for every named and every part of the map has another named spawn. Great. If this map would have made his way into all other areas then this expansion would be a real expansion. But besides Crypt of Sul, which is interesting, but a bit small to all it a real zone (more a cave), the rest is only recycled stuff. And because the mobs are only old school graphics it is more a kind of copy/paste feeling with pumped up amphetamin monsters with the same old used look. That is a real bad thing that the devs don't make real work and put new mob graphics and really new zones into the game which gives a complete new playing experience. GoD had that feeling somehow. The idea with gear which you can configurate individually and you have to collect it partly in the progression is also a plus for the collectors here. Sad that the devs spoiled the whole expansion with the most important thing - to produce a "good feeling" and that goes over playing and achieving something where you can say: my character has experience another step in his life, get better, get better gear, etc. - Gear is the Alpha and Omega and to reach that (besides Level and AA) should NEVER have so many bugs. Every little small detail like evolving spells can be buggy for a bit of time but never the essence of the game! So that failed the whole so-called expansion from the beginning - an alpha status which now reaches a kind of beta status with the last patch. But there would have been so many other things to avoid that dilemma. If other plus for the expansion would be there like Level 110 advancement to cope with the gear which had a Level 110 limit then this would have made so much up for the crappy outlay of the recycled maps. There are things which should never happen but todays money-greedy industry lacks meanwhile completely on professionality and perfectionism for years. Sad. I am waiting for a company to compensate this missing part but because everybody in this sector makes that crap you can only choose from the bad examples The drops are cool and some armor is really great (and greater if the stupid errors are gone, like Charms/Range-items not working, Stats partly not on par with TDS, missing other stats then absolutely specialist real upgrades: Heal only, Spelldamage only, stupid Hero-Stats on Charisma on nearly all items instead of version for every class and every combination of playing style. What is also heavily missing are tradeskill-upgrades which can produce real cool upgrades to TDS but need also higher skills. The Tradeskill-System stopped at a certain point and never evolved further. Some armor combination are a dream (Shield of Dreams) and hopefully they don't nerf it but even if the Shield is beyond the usual stuff, it only makes partially effect because only one Class which has really the need in group game to be on top to even think about beating the 2nd or 3rd Hero Tasks to be successful in. And that is something which is a bit missing: Progression is at Hero Tasks level horrible difficult if you only are equipped with group gear. But I think that would be correct and a bit balance will be maintained in the next patches - so far I have played nearly all stuff up to Hero (excluding) and missing now collectibles and Hunter - so we have plenty of stuff to do to avoid making the Hero tasks. These bugs may be bad but only for the ubah players which surely have even no problem with the Hero tasks in the current condition. The idea with the additional Augment Slot 5 for standard gear gives a nice new option to raise stats and needs rethinking of your current gear. Some other stuff sadly lacks on real advancement. Rogue Backstab Augs are great, especially because there are two. Rogue Backstab Piercer (one) is great with that combo. Melee weapons are not Lore - great, BUT delay 19 instead of 18 and crappy procs compared to TDS means - waste of time. Beastlord and Monk are surely disappointed. Warriors Aggro Weapons are a shame, only one cleaver with a bit stun instead of typical aggro producers. The Face Mask for Aggro for War is a real cool part to aquire. The many new augments are GREAT, especially if you are not the Aug-Hunter and need to fill up. The SHIELD-only Augment is superb, a must have. The AC60-Augment is a group dream, a must have. The Shield of Dreams, regardless if that will be nerfed, is a must have. Once your warrior can say he runs around with 460+ AC and 6k+ HP! Such items will have the capacity to buy that expansion for every tank class. The zone-wide decay debuffs are a real challenge. But that it is not possible to cure them with the completion of all partisan and mercenary task disappoints. That would be a real nice achievement for feeling at home in the Crypt of Sul and Crypt of Decay. Some nice charms (if the augments would work) would have capacity because the upgrades in charms are really badly missing. The Enhanced Minion XVIII is a bit better than the TDS one and a bit easier to get. The spells drop like rain and TDS began to get boring in Arx because even after aquiring nearly all necessary armor this zone is not the thing you would call most fun and the quests at the end partly ridiculous for a group. Filling missing Rk.II-Spells is a big plus of this package. To be able to use the Plane of Fear/Hate to kill trash and minis even if you are only with a group in that instance sounds great and is more than needed (I didn't tried that so far but I am curious how that is working). Hopefully the minis are groupable without having raid gear (TBM-Gear is hopefully enough). The partisan and mercenary tasks are no horror and if you have TDS gear with RK-I/II-Combos you are mostly good in it. Some named like Arsin the Blaze need balancing and some Hero 3rd are a bit too complicated and difficult for group geared people but perhaps that could chance in the future with the next patch. A dream would be the option to go into the difficult instances with 12 people instead only 6. So you can take some friends along or optional mercs if you want to have more options to solve them. That is something I miss from the beginning of the 6-player-instancing. If this expansion will be called expansion, there should be a kind of Tier3 and Tier4 group upgrade. The raiders have enough material because the focus lays heavily on raiding targets. So this expansion has capacity. The question is: are the devs willing to make a real expansion out of that package? At moment in the current condition it is not worth the money and overpriced. But I have hope... my 2 cents....
Haven't bothered to buy it yet, and with ringing endorsements like this and the lack of interesting freebies for ordering it, I'm thinking I will wait quite some time before I bother.
Good post Bluey, yea the worst part is the recycled mobs. Taking old zone layouts is just a minor annoyance, i would prolly forget about it fast if i could have fun with new and interesting mobs in there. Eq has really stopped delivering in that area. I wish someone could make it clear to the Eq team: in every game where you run around and kill stuff, the mobs themselves are the one thing you always look at. So they should be the pinnacle of attention when developing new content...
But they've got PARASOLS! ...but seriously... mob design could have been expanded. Like most of the things in this expac it seems like it was 1/2as'd. Which is surprising to me because I'm not sure what else the art team was working on... oh, maybe the FOUR hero's forge sets we needed for this release
I must be one of the few.. but i still have yet to buy and wear any hero's forge stuff.. you do have to pay extra still to wear it right?
Yep. One time purchase to wear any hero's forge. It's something fun and does feel good to get a set done when they aren't stupid-easy to get but did we really need FOUR?! Two of those sets are raid only as well so most of the population won't ever get them (yes, I know they're tradeable but still).
My sole purpose for commenting is just to say how flippin' adorable this picture is. Is that a hamster!?
I agree, but you're going to get a lot of h8 too. There were a lot of people who mind bogglingly loved LDON. To each their own I guess.
