Commentary: Are Epic 2.0 Quests Burying Players in Prerequisites?

The original Epic Weapon quests introduced in 2009 were crafted by 18 designers working on nothing else for 3 months. All 24 quests required the completion of prior Heritage quests, befriending various Factions, and a fair share of “filler” content. It was expected, or certainly anticipated that the Epic Weapon 2.0 Quests would have similar prerequisites. However nothing could have prepared increasingly jaded players for the mountain of homework which has dropped into their laps as the curtain has been pulled back on Epic 2.0.

Only two characters have reached Ascension Level 8 at publication time, so we’re have yet to glimpse Parts 4 and 5 of these quests, yet even lifelong EQ2 fans are already begging for mercy. With the vague dialogue and inscrutable clues that only make sense in hindsight, players are at their wit’s end hailing NPCs by the thousands in a scattershot zone-by-zone grid search to figure out where to go next.

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Breaking news: Yes.

Only 2 people have hit ascension level 8 so far? Wow, I'm only 3 days out. I assumed I was a lot farther behind the speed racer crowd.

It feels to have had a impact on players regularly running heroic zones as well.... I mean, why would I invest 30 minutes to run a heroic zone for 2 infusers, 1 merc gear and maybe something with 100 potency on it?

The alternative is to work toward something we all expect to be "epic" which pulls us back into grey content working through mindless faction grinds and other miscellaneous garbledygook.

Someone's definitely redefined the word fun....

Just checked and we're up to 3.
http://census.daybreakgames.com/xml...cension_list,type.class,type.level&c:limit=10

Add to the list RNG drops from mobs and shinies in zones with 6-hour lockouts (and you can get duplicates of), and you get people becoming increasingly weary of speedbumps and time gates with each new one that is revealed.

(At least the zones with shinies are current content, so there is that...)

A little bit about another similar blunder in another MMO...

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/how-star-wars-galaxies-could-have-changed-the-world-1289240/2

People had no clue what they had to do to become a jedi and I kept telling my friends from the beginning to ignore the grind and that no one would become a jedi until SOE wanted them to be one. In fact going so far to say that I was sure that the system wasn't even in place and that the hologrind was just busy work until it was ready but no one listened. And one after another of my guildmates got burnt out on the grind and left.

And in the end, by deciding to ignore the grind and remain a Master Swordsman / Master Ranger who hunted and sold rare materials, I was one of the 3 richest player on my server who lived in an abandoned city that used to be a thriving Imperial outpost.

*edit* And after refusing to hologrind, I had the offer to become a jedi (you were visited by a "OLD WISE MAN" NPC) exactly around the same time as everyone else...

I quit shortly thereafter.

I did not see the level 100 crafter requirement for at least scouts and fighters mentioned in your lists of prerequisites

It's second from the bottom under "All Level 100 Characters":

I bet when all is said and done, if you already had all the prerequisites needed in old content, epic 2.0 would take 8 hours or less.

This with the epic being reduced to just 4 quests, 1 from each archetype, as opposed to 1 for each class. It was deliberately made as vague and annoying as possible while devs kept their fingers crossed that people would stick with such limited content for their money.

This game is 12 years old. I shouldn't have expected any less from an investment capital firm taking over a game company.

And Illegible Scrolls are the new Holocrons.

Whats up with the adornment requirements?

Perhaps I should include that elsewhere. The Deity/Tithe, Adornments, and Tradeskill Epic 2.0 aren't part of Epic Weapon 2.0, but if you want your character to excel in Kunark Ascending, you'll want these items. And to get them, you must participate in very time-consuming processes. Deity/Tithe is hundreds of hours of gameplay. Adornments recipes and components are from last year's Public Quests and a x4 raid zone. Tradeskill Epic 2.0 is something most adventurers haven't done.

I will get my epic 2.0, about 3 months after the game is closed... in my dreams! (or is that a nightmare?)

OK thanks for the clarification Feldon.

I was thinking about doing a similar list of all the perquisites.. I was going to call it the "Broken Soul Challenge"; a play off the tv show "broken skull challenge" where contestants are pushed to their physical limits in an obstacle course.

I hope I don't come off as nitpicky, but you also need to learn Giant to learn Dragon... unless they changed something recently. It's not a huge deal, but I did it on my alt in one of the old Kunark zones and due to RNG it took almost an hour to get all the tablets.

Again not a big deal, but it wasn't fun or challenging. Just irritating.

For me, I don't mind doing the old content that I haven't done already as long as everything is doable. However, if I get to something that requires a lot of people and no one is working on it so I'm stuck forever at that step. That I won't like.

It's things like this that get me.. We were told that each class will require two (2) factions at 50k... but for fighters it's really five (5) factions that need to be at 50k; that we know of so far.

Faction: Shields of Maldura (50k)
Faction: Thrael’Gorr (50k)
Faction: Sel’Nok Brigade (50k)
Faction: Clan Skeleross (50k)
Faction: Legion of Danak (50k)

Not to mention the sprinkling of other factions that need to be at 10K, 20k, or 40K (in the case of Epic 1), ect...

We were also told that no Epics were involved in the questline. This is a gray area to be sure but the 5th trial for fighters is a Epic x2 Spider which is heavily scripted. Some can solo it but most casuals will not be able too.. and trying to get help on this kill.. Well your better off trying to get people into the dentist for a root canal.

...if only I had a charm or a bauble of Pocket Chronomancy so my adventuring didn't get interrupted having to gate back to the GH or a city to chrono to the next level's grey area.