So The Broken Mirror expansion is listed as having: 7 Expansion Zones – 4 completely new zones and 3 revamped zones. (See https://www.everquest.com/expansion-content) Demiplane of Life - New Zone Demiplane of Decay - New Zone Plane of Health - Revamp (Windsong) Crypt of Sul - Revamp (Temple of Bertoxxulous) Ruins of Lxanvom - Revamp (same name) Are Plane of Hate and Plane of Fear considered the other two new zones? Wouldn't those count as a revamp?
You can't really count Health/Sul as revamps because they're different names while fear/hate are the same zone names just revamped for current levels. We should be glad they used old zone geometry if they didn't health/sul wouldn't exist they obviously lack the art resources.
Hate and fear aren't new geometry but that doesn't mean they aren't new zones for this expansion. They are still two more zones of content for people at the upper end to do.
Ummm.. Daybreak stated 4 new and 3 revamped zones. If Hate and Fear are new zones and not "revamps" - would you care to explain which zones Daybreak meant BY revamps? -R
They aren't new zones, but they are also zones you can XP in at higher levels. We have a different definition of new stuff, which is fine. You want to see something brand new, I want to see something I can do level appropriate. Either way, it's new stuff we couldn't do before.
I thought Hate and Fear was raid only? Also are there no tiers in this expack? All nameds are listed as lvl 109.
Saying Demiplane of Health and Sul are new zones because their name is different is weak sauce. There really is no significant difference between what was done with Ruins of Lxanvom and Crypt of Sul besides one was renamed. If that is the defining difference between a new zone and a revamp, the definitions are worthless. They could have renamed Ruins of Lxanvom and advertised the expansion as 5 new zones and 2 revamps. The advertisement for The Buried Sea (https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/set-sail-on-the-darkened-sea.214693/) advertised 6 completely new zones, which there was. They also listed two zones as "two Re-imaged Zones". Brother's Island and Katta Castrum had about as much work done on them as Crypt of Sul and Demiplane of Health. So did the definition of "completely new zones" change in the last year?
I don't get the issue people have with the overall geometry of the zone being the extremely similar those from older expansions. It is not like we run around and see anything close to the same zone as well as the layout and addition of buildings and walls is noticeably different. If people had not pointed out that the basic outline on the maps is the same as older ones I wouldn't have even noticed. With the exception of Crypt of Sul looking similar just because it is a smallish dungeon with little that you can change to hide the original zone it was based off of; I would not have realized that any of the new zones were reusing old geometry.
I only see 1 new zone Demiplane of Life - New Zone Demiplane of Decay - Revamp of Life Plane of Health - Revamp (Windsong) Crypt of Sul - Revamp (Temple of Bertoxxulous) Ruins of Lxanvom - Revamp (same name) Hate - Revamp Fear - Revamp
It's about being honest about what they produced. It looks like The Broken Mirror should have been advertised as two new zones and five revamps. Even at that the two new zones used the same geometry so its more like 1.5 new zones and 5.5 revamps. The problem with that is it looks a lot less attractive and would sell less.
Your link is for the Darkened sea, not The Buried Sea; and sorry but the Wingsong to Demiplane of Health had far far more done to it than the Katta Castrum to Katta Castrum: Deluge had done to it to change it from the original geometry; you cannot even really recognize Demiplane of Health as being Windsong without looking at the map of one beside the map of the other. The Dungeon zones, I think were not changed very much on purpose to give the feel that our antagonist of the expansion is encroaching on the existing decay god as well as the health god.
No matter what they do, people will find the easiest zone to xp in whatever expansion even when new expansion is out, and stay there. Leaving so many zones unoccupied its not even funny. End zone of tds being a great example, very neat zone, lots of art and thought put into it. Great camps with quick respawn and... nobody goes there.
You could certainly look at it that way, if you were interested in zones that look different than anything we have before.
Not for EQ. There aren't enough people that come into the game now to warrant spending the resources on something like that, and if you really wanted to, you could shroud down or even make a new character to play with someone lower level.
Agreed the only thing some people would use mentoring for his trying to get better exp or PLing alts wouldnt be used for grouping with truly new people much. Plus daybreak will not do anything that would stop people from getting the new expansion.. while I think it is good and would be great if everyone was in the new expansion I don't always like the way they push people into it.
I would rather see them add 16 new shrouds to the system; these shrouds being straight versions of each of the exisiting PCs, give them max skills and gear for each level and no extras. We already know that level 50 versions of these exist; just need to do levels 5-45 and 55-70 (at 5 level increments). This would actually be the most efficient way for people to actually mentor people as well as play with their new and returning friends. Possibly, they could even have these specially PC class shrouds go to level 75 or maybe even all the way to level 85, that would put them near or at the HC entry level of today's game.
If you don't want to use it, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that they need to waste the time and effort to build a mentoring system. EQ is just not at that point in it's life anymore.
