Well, yeah, that's okay for the TLE servers, I guess. ;-> I finally gave up on those after I hadn't been back to Fallen Gate ever since getting my free level 10 Leaper mount for everyone. :-/ Uwk still trying to find the one small nostalgic bone in my body...must be here somewhere -- ah! There it is! For pre-PoP content... ;->
There you go! I felt really, frankly, insulted when they so badly nerfed the things that we as crafters could make; it feels like they're deliberately out to get us. It's not just a matter of "oh, the Treasured items are like +2 points better than MC stuff," it's more logarithmic than that, it seems. Especially for the below-20th level crowd, where the stuff I can make for my "kids" is nearly useless compared to the quest reward gear now, but they can't survive long enough to get the quest rewards, even wearing what stuff I can make for them. :-/ And don't even get me started on adventuring level 100 gear. Thank goodness, I guess, for the "Crate of Wonders" up at the Plane of Magic entrance, otherwise 100 (gotten there honestly, by pure hard work and not $35) would be a nightmare. :-/ Uwk
Actually, I see the biggest issue with the Broker inflation being the insane Krono prices. If the very basic-most subscription was reasonable, for a reasonable price, and payable by something like a gift card "credit card" or a refillable card (since some F2P folks don't have credit cards?), I don't think they'd have the need for Kronos any more. :-/ Uwk who's never seen the logic behind offering the Krono for $17.95 when a monthly sub is $14.95 (maybe if folks were just signing in for the holidays or special weekends or something)... /shrug
Oy, "unbelievably poor marketing." Hit that nail squarely on its head! Granted, SOE was under the wing of SONY, which was puzzled by all this "MMORPG stuff" competing with their own in-house PlayStation. I'm surprised we were supported for very long at all. :-/ And if they had 2009 servers for PvP separately, I wouldn't mind a bit. But keep it out of my servers, frankly. If you want to Duel someone, or go to the Battle Grounds, enjoy. That's not "[my] way to play." :-/ Uwk who's played WoW as well and got very tired very quickly of being roped into PvP...not to mention the prevailing attitudes on even non-PvP servers there
There are any number of folks who see it as a better challenge than just PvE computer-run NPC opponents, who appreciate the mental joys of locking wits with another sentient, i.e. another player character, to "play chess with at 80 miles an hour," and who like the learning experience, one way or another ("Okay, that move worked; that other one got me killed. Note to self." /nod). Then there are the others; the loud, noisy, schoolyard bully types, who ruin it for everyone else, and who pretty much soured me on it it even in EQ1 (when Da Spousal Unit tried playing for about a day or two, didn't realize what type of server he'd been placed on, and got mugged for his first 4c trying to get to a Bank to deposit it, in his own city), let alone WoW. :-/ Uwk
I think it's beyond sad that a crate full of gear is needed to be handed out at the beginning of the expansion to complete the content and level the players equally again. At least at the beginning of KA, crafted KA gear was what was needed in order to play the zone, and you got new stuff from there.
I think SOE believed they did not need to market anything. They were SOE after all, a division of SONY, one of the big players. Everybody knows SONY and by virtue of knowing SONY, you know what they offer. Arrogance, plain and simple.
For the first 5 years of UO, we did not have a choice. Everywhere on every server was PvP, so you either accepted that you were going to be PK'd at some time, you learned to stealth a lot, you learned to fight back when you had to, or you never left town which means you didn't really play because the resources and everything to craft were outside of town, to gain any kind of skill was outside of town, to own a house was outside of town. You typically made friends, and/or joined a guild. If you were a pure crafter, typically a guild would have people that would keep the PKr's away while you harvested materials and return you safely to town as you supplied the guild with things they needed. We formed strong community bonds and had community standards which the PvP side here know nothing about at least from what I have read, there may be a few that do, but the bad apples spoil the barrel.
I'm glad about that box. I don't have to make a million handcrafted items. Only have to make mc gear when I get rares. The box gear is equivalent to hc usually. I'm already here with carpel tunnel. I remember making guildies hc gear every expansion for like months. I log in and can you make.... Yeah I love that little box.
Nope, the box stuff I saw isn't even remotely equivalent to MC stuff, let alone HC stuff, Uwk here was already a 100th Armorer, and the MC stuff he could make for his new 100th Adventurer self sucked nuclear warheads in comparison. It was pathetic, and I was steamed, quite frankly. :-/ Granted, it does save a lot of time and grinding of crafting, I hear ya there, but not all of my toons are at 100 at the same time (except for the Tokened-up ones; almost every one of 'em is a Carpy, just so I can safely harvest where I want ), so it's not that onerous, thank heavens. And when my toons of just about every tier get to x9, like 29th, 49th, 69th, whatever, I make them wait (move the slider to 100% AA) until I can get back to them, poor sods. ;-> (And yep, that's on the spreadsheet... ;->) Uwk
Not sure what you mean by that. HC PoP gear for level 100 has 15 resolve, just like the box gear from PoP. All my crafters and adventures are 110. Now the CD box has adornments, will give you that. MC is master crafted, so yeah it's better. I don't have any idea what you were crafting. PoP MC gear is level 105. My guess is that you don't have all your recipes...
Nope, I got the Advanced armorer's books for 90-99 and 100, and I wasn't even looking at Resolve, but all the other stats: attributes, protection/mitigation/whatever they're calling it now, etc., etc., etc., and in just about all respects, the stuff I can mastercraft is way underconned compared to the crate stuff. :-/ Uwk
iirc the crate stuff in POP was better than the mastercrafted stuff. But then at level 105 the new mastercrafted stuff was Hugely better, once I got to 105 and made all my new stuff POP was easy.
Handcrafted gear from PoP you get the recipes for when you get crafting higher. Like the boots for a sk is a level 107 recipe. PoP was level 100 to 110. Look up etherium boots on the broker, you will see what I am talking about. MC gear which is for level 105s would be rubicite boots. Those are the PoP gear recipes. The box gear of course is going to be way better than previous expansion recipes
Fun fact- before CD you could equip ftp in PoP handcrafted gear even if they didn't have the expansion. Not sure if they nerfed that though, I see they made CD gear where you have to have the expansion to equip it. I bought PoP for all the accounts in my house so can't check it. Renaa in my guild on Skyfire is in HC PoP gear if you want to look at it in eq2 uwire. I got her the expansion though. Keep in mind that is my daughter that hasn't played since 2008, so AAs etc probably not done
Yes, lol I am. I get them every expansion that raises levels, so they got PoP and will get the next one.