I quit today cause the game is just not fun anymore for me.

You also have to remember that if you are 40+ your at the top end of the levelling curve. The average level in this game is still around the level30-35 mark.

Off the top of my head, from a Qeynos standpoint:

Level 1 - 10:
The Caves
The Peatbog
Forest ruins
The Down Below

Level 10-20:
Vermins Syne
Crypt of Decay
Antonica
Stormhold
Some instanced zones in Antonica

Level 20-30
Stormhold
Condemned Catacombs
Crypt of Decay
Thundering Steppes
Ruins of Varsoon

Level 30-40
Ruins of Varsoon
Zek
Rivervale
D'Morte Burial Chambers

Level 40-50
Permafrost
Feerott
Cazic Thule
Lavastorm

I don't see how you can call this being a '1 tunnel maze'. I don't believe I've played a game less than six months from release with so much content. Also, the upcomming patches are changing a lot for the solo player.

The above does not even include the raid targets available from 20-50.

Some people rush through the game and then have a cheek to complain about no content.

I suppose I just fit into the market they are aiming at.

Just about everything you mentioned above is what I HATED about EQ1.

The boat rides. OMG, FUN? You sat on a dock waiting for near 25min for a boat...lucky if you didnt LD and drown, LD and be sent back or yes, get to the other side and wait 30mins for some snooty mage to bind your ****. God forbid you actually died and had to do it all over again.

Having ridiculously overpowered mobs in a n00b zone was madness and only existed due to the lack of real estate at launch. You get a group together, pulling giant kodiaks and wham! Hill giant wipes out party. Cue long naked run back to get corpse, rebuff, med and start making up the hour you just lost to a crappy death.

You have a dose of 'rose tinted specs' there. During the evolution of EQ, they removed half of the features you mention above.

Boats? Nah Translocates / Portals / PoK books.
Horrid exp/time loss on deaths? Nah, resses begin at level 12

Why is it more finesse to use Tank+Healer+CC and not Tank+Healer+DPS? Surely the latter is harder, CC makes encounters trivial, between that and FD pulling, its why they introduced the encounter system.

You seem to like timesinks in boat rides, exp loss on deaths, level loss but you don't support a timesink on an access quest? Strange..

Nemi, you hit the nail on the head perfectly, they catored this game for players like you... thats the bottom line because you think this game is great and stand up for it and its principle at all cost.
one thing i can gaurantee you is that everyone who shout outted neverlift and gave thier input on this post will probably dwindle out by May. What you see here isnt debates or counter arguements about the same old crap. Its a general concensus from players who expected more and got little or nothing but the same things they had for either 6 years or got somewhere else.
Then there are the Gage's and Nemis who think this is the best thing since sliced bread. Hey, to each his own.
But when someone said rat tunnel maze, they were alluding to the requirements for play, and the lack of diversification and individuality.
If at level 45 you dont have the FBSS, you are considered **** off the top. You dont have anything that makes your class unique, not armor, not ability, not skills, not mounts, not even jobs. 24 classes are corraled into 4 jobs. 2 of which are required for grouping. I would rather be a primary puller than a guardian in light armor. Its just not right.
Nothing about this is really that unique nemi, its the same stuff with prettier graphics. IMO, in a strictly PvE directed game, there should be 1 focus, the ENVIRONMENT. making things as fantasy based and fantastic as humanly possible.
The content approach is just a filter for players. Nothing more nothing less. The zones with the quest and loot worth doing is where the players will be. Not very complicated, so i ask you, dont splice points of views here or check on peoples rants. We came here to wish a friend well, and that we hope to hear from him somewhere around MMO land.
Not start a debate about it.
Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-05-2005 05:30 AM
Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-05-2005 05:37 AM

I'm sorry Sage, but I don't think its EQ2 thats to blame its the players.

Tell me what game out there offers more or better than EQ2?

WoW? Simplistic one player game that moves you along the EXACT same path as everyone else by tagging quests along.

EQ2 is 5 months old (well for UK). People rant at EQ2 and say EQ1 is better? Does anyone actually remember EQ1 at release?

Armour was Patchwork > Banded > Bronze > Rubicite that was it. Oracle Robe for casters or the one from LGuk (Shiny Metallic Robe?). You had nearly every class fighting to get Rubicite. At one point you zoned into CT and you could walk around as a level 1 noob from the zone to the pyramid because everything was camped! People created Ogre n00bs to convert FS weapons to cash for players for Gawds sake!

I think players have a touch of the heroin junkie in them, looking for that hit that will take them back to their very first rush.

thats exactly correct, but **I** personally didnt look at this game as a **new** game. It was Everquest 2 after all. Not some other game with a simialr principle.
I didnt expect PvP, or anything like that. I expected the most vast and diverse fantasy based online game for years to come.
i expected classes to be balanced by ability and style, not jobs. The archetype system is great, and if it were dont properly would have been revolutionary.
Might you ask what *right* wouldve been, it wouldve been basically split by traditional approach for defensive classes and the not so traditional approach for offensive classes. While the job function remained the same. For example:
A fury and warden.
Warden has a regen heal for 500 pts per tick out right. Where as a Fury has a 1000 damage nuke that grants a 100pt Regen per tick. (kill speed vs consistency)
A monk and a bruiser.
Monk is invulnerable to riposte damage and can boost his personal defensive skill. A bruiser can dish out incredible riposte damage and can boost his personal offensive skill. (killspeed vs consistency)
A guardian and berserker.
A guardian is the traditional approach with high defense and mitigation. A berserker is the offensive non traditional approach with really high dps capability WHILE tanking, but not otherwise. so he can kill mobs at the same rate that a guardian can survive. (kill speed vs consistency)
That TO ME, would be the way to achieve balance, uniqueness and diversity within the archetype system. But naturally SOE took the easy way out instead of spending the time needed to balance each and every skill against the other for the desired roles in game. So an offensive class would be able to do the same job just as well as a defensive class that withstood the damage for the sake of team work moreso.
At which point it would have been cut and dry and everyone knows thier place in game as either a tank or otherwise and thier wouldnt have been so much overlap that SOE is curing with nerfs and such.
Its things like this that negate the fact that the game is considered NEW nemi, you dont call spiderman the movie part 2 when it just starts from the beginning.
Thats what SOE has done here. Started from scratch and didnt take anything with them that actually made the first game GREAT and just weeded out the problems and exploits.
I love the encounter system, no more Kill stealing, i love the no kiting(almost) function of combat time, i love the influx of finances, could be twinked but doesnt need to be excessive either. i love attunement, it just makes sense!
Those are the new things that make eq2 better than eq1, but its apparent that they did not study one lick of Eq1's evolution as a game and went the please all route in an attempt to make a quick buck and fix problems the quick way Along the way.
but the game is still missing a few things that made eq1 great, Differnt mounts, class/look specific armor, ya know?
Really simple stuff that made the game great as it faded into the sunset for me. I cant emphasize how badly i want my bruiser to have class specific armors as well as all the other classes in game. How badly i want to see classes able to customize thier looks at a certain level that embodies thier class.
A fury with lightning bolt eyes...
a monk with defined muscle tone...
a paladin in shining armor....
a shadowknight with a flowing ominous cape...
While all these things seem cosmetic, tied in properly into the game they could make everquest trump games like city of heroes and WoW without a second thought. But soe seems to be going the simple and easy route of content over classes hoping that since they add a bunch of zones and spread the already thin population out even more, that its going to carry the game.

but outside of my personal wants and desires, fact still remains that when you call a game a sequel then it should be just that. A continuation of the old game in essence with the problems ironed out to perfection. And this game failed to deliver on that promise that is supposedly gauranteed with a sequel...

especially one of this magnitude.
Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-05-2005 06:42 AM

OK your thoughts on Archetype aside because we disagree =P

I totally agree with armors and mounts being crap. But again, look at EQ1 when it was released. There was absolutely no diversity there. You had leather, mail, banded and bronze. Rubicite was mail but red in color.

Even in WoW the graphical textures for armour and weapons are crap, hell the models are crap. The only saving grace is the colour palette and graphical style.

EQ2 shipped with TONS of content at release but I do think they dropped the ball on the graphical diversity and colour palette. However, given that the game is 5months old I hold out lots of hope that with the forthcoming patches, that will be resolved.

Was EQ2 rushed? Perhaps slightly, but it was fully functional and playable from release with working class and subclasses and tradeskills with over a 1000 quests. Thats a lot.

I enjoy the game and I also have the belief that EQ2 will seemlessly fit with expansions to come. No more dreaded Velious / Shadows of Luclin / Planes of Power expansions that make every zone and item before it obsolete.

Sage: I said it before and I'll say it again; expectations suck. When you have high expectations you are bound to be let down. Just read your last post. You don't like EQ2 because it isn't what *you* expected it to be, not because it isn't what they said it was.
I've read many interviews with SoE staff (including Smed) where it was stated they wished they would've never called this game EQ2, because its so different.
Its only a sequel in the sense of setting (Norrath) and some of the creatures lore. The mechanics of the game are supposed to be (and for the most part are) totally different.
Also, as I've said 100x, you can NOT please everyone. No MMO out there is for everyone. If they made the changes you want, I'd leave. If they don't change it, you'll leave.
The point is I *LOVE* this game. Of the four MMOs I'm subscribed to right now, I play EQ2 99.9% of the time. I love it. When I played it in beta I knew it was going to be great.
Obviously you do not agree, and neither does Never (for different reasons); and while that sucks its going to be true for any MMO. The genre has a few inherent flaws, and balance is almost always crazy.
I'm sure D&D online will be good, but some people won't enjoy it. I'm sure Vanguard will be good, but a lot of people won't enjoy it either. EQ1 was great, and tons of people didn't enjoy it.
I just don't understand why people stay if they are so unhappy with how the game works. /shrug

I just don't understand why people stay if they are so unhappy with how the game works. /shrug
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
A.) Hoping for the best....expecting the worst...still hoping for the best.
B.) Waiting for City of Villains
C.) Waiting for beta on DDO
D.) WoW makes my eyes bleed
E.) Did i say hoping for the best?
F.) Moving colleges in august and need something to do in the mean time. After spring break Business has been slow lately.
LOL, but yeah... thats about right
EDIT: highly respectable and informational post gage. you should stick to that style = formal opinion without starting choas!!!. thanks
Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-05-2005 09:07 AM

/shrug

After playing EQ1 I just feel like honestly, the game is lacking. I wasn't excited about the game just because it was named 'EQ2'. I'm smart enough not to get the two confused. I was looking for that MMORPG magic.

I'm just wondering how many people who 'love this game' so much can look down the road and say they're in it for the long haul? I was a total fangirl at one point, arguing to everyone about how great the game was, how awesome the classes are, how much diversity there was, ect, and then I realzed that it really. Isn't. True. At. All.

People were arguing content because of the sheer amount of zones? Heh. Right. See, Content to me is something that you have access to right away, and don't have to kill yourself to finish. I've never been to Cauldron Hollow. In fact, I still have the access quest in my journal right now. Why? Because I'm in a very small guild who never does anything together, and no pickup groups were ever doing the quest.

Someone mentioned something about armor in EQ. That I found rather funny... Yeah, there was a very limited selection of armor for awhile in EQ. I didn't start playing that until about five months after launch. But there was a set of quested armor (And holy *cow* it was hard to quest that stuff for each class), in addition to the plane gear at 50. What do we have now that's class defining? ...Nothing. Nothing at all. Bruisers and Monks still look like friggin Furies/Wardens. I even see scouts wearing Enchanted Thicket now, so I can't even be unique in *that* right.

Just like someone else mentioned, I'm waiting. EQ2 is a young game. Very young. I enjoy most quests, I enjoy most zones, just now, the dislikes of the game are outweighing the idea of me leveling another nine times. I do seriously hope things change though. I was such a believer in this game, I overhauled my computer and bought a killer monitor for it. And no. I didn't do it because it was named 'EQ2', either.

-Ilina
The Cosmetic Monkie!

First off, at level 50 the game is getting old exponentially faster then it was prior to lvl 50. I can't imagine why anyone would try to reinvent the wheel but oh well, SoE has. People ask what MMO offers more and I have to say when it comes to class diversity I can think of no MMO in history that has offered as little in this area as EQ2. The game has 4 classes period and if you think defferently then grats SoE on conning you into thinking so. In this game you are either DPS, tank, healer or utility class. And while chanters and bards could have been truly needed and diverse classes, they simply are not.
Where are the class specific quests? At lvl 50 every class pretty much looks and acts exactly like everyone else of the same class. The game need AA points or something to allow our characters to grow some minute level of originality. We need class specific quests. We need less static zones. Kunark - Velios EQ was so uncomparably superior to where EQ2 is now. And comparing this game now to where EQ1 was when it came out is inane. They had 6 years to perfect that game and that knowledge should have yielded a game which at it's worst should have been better then EQ1 at its best. I am telling you as an end game character and as loyal a fan as DoE could have, this game is falling more and more short by the day and finding reasons to stay are getting more and more dificult. I have hopes that the expanssion will correct the short falls.

And comparing this game now to where EQ1 was when it came out is insane. They had 6 years to perfect that game and that knowledge should have yielded a game which at it's worst should have been better then EQ1 at its best.

^^^^ cant believe i didnt get to that statement first.... my point exactly

You had some good things to share NeverLift take care and best of luck in all you do.
Message Edited by kerra on 04-05-2005 10:41 AM

Here's the problem with that form of balance: The warden heals five times better than the fury, and that thousand damage is insignificant compared to group damage output. So the warden always gets the healer slot. The berserker can kill faster than the guardian, but the berserker will never get the tank job. Why? His extra damage output is irrelevant when factored in with the rest of the group's damage output. If he tanks 25% worse than a guardian, then to have the same damage taken over a while fight he'll have to enough damage that it raises the DPS of the GROUP by 25% - so he's doing double the guardian's damage. But that makes a berserker massively better in solo/duo. It seems like a good concept but the balance is missing.

I realize I'm quibbling over concepts you invented just to frame your expectations, but if you think that balance is that easy you really need to think about it some more. I think things are pretty [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] balanced right now for everything other than epic fights, and I don't have the experience doing epic mobs to comment intelligently on that.

Ah so your problem is that EQ2 isn't perfect, because 6 years have passed?

Excuse me, point me to a MMORPG that is?

And for the person that stated that no MMORPG offered less that EQ2. Um, hello? WoW? Cookie cutter anyone? Fact is, you can't knock EQ2 because there isnt a game on the market that can beat it. You can whine and moan that the game isn't perfect and that you *expected* more, but bottom line is: EQ2 is not EQ1 and is not the sequel to EQ1. I'm sorry you all thought that when you bought the game.

And please, if the worst you can put against it is that there isnt variety in the armour textures then I think SoE have done very well.

Nemi, I never said perfect. I don't expect perfection. This game just isn't really that good is the problem. And a game as bad as SWG had uncomparably more diversity out of the box. And this isn't about whining, it is about having standards. If you make something to replace something else, you improve on it or mimic it with better graphics. That's not only good business sense, it's common sense. You don't start over. SoE set a standard with EQ1. There new product while I agree has some strong points, does not meet that standard. If you are content with this game, I am not only happy for you, I envy you in some respects. I have been taught by SoE in particular to expect more. More then four classes. More then the same look. More then having to group in order to level at a resonable pace. Now I spend most of my time trying to acclimate to less.

SWG has better character customization and no content. No raids, no reason to group, amazingly unbalanced PvP and the biggest timesink and grind of any game, Jedi Knight. Besides, SWG is the *KING* of Flavor of the Month classes/templates. OMG combat medic, omg doctor/*insert class here*, omg creature handler, omg jedi. Its always something. Oh yeah, OMG RIFLEMAN!
So I'll glady take this trade off.
Besides, this isn't ment to replace EQ1, its ment for the people who didn't like EQ1.
So that SoE can capture both the hardcore and the casual audience.
Message Edited by Gage-Mikel on 04-05-2005 12:18 PM

well guys its not so much of a debate as i said before...
its moreso just an agreement that hey, we can all say:
Sage says, " Then for that matter why did they call it EQ2???"
Gage says, " Yeah that was pretty dumb of them, i feel your pain bro"
_________________________________________________________- thats it.. simple discussion for the most part.

but as for the class balancing, im just saying that there should have been more time spent in finding roles for each class instead of each archetype to keep things simple for themselves.
As well as ways to balance them within the archetype system without making them the same with different spell names which seems to be the end result at the four extremes of this situation.
Those being pure tanks - pure healers - pure mages - pure scouts.
Its apparent that not much time was spent in class balancing BEFORE release. And in a situation where you have 24 classes that is everything next to a requirement. The scheme we have now, basically makes 4 classes that cant do their job in all situations with 2 being easily solved, give a bard more
dps = give a enchanter more dps = give a conjurer a higher level pet... viola, balanced for thier roles.
But wardens are a bit intangible at present, as well as brawlers being balanced next to mitigation. Two gaps that dont seem to be closable fully...

But to basically sum up the approach i expected with the archetype system..... From a FAQ of an upcoming MMO that i will leave nameless, find it on your own. :smileyhappy:

In the context of the game, what is a class and a role?

Message Edited by SageMarrow on 04-05-2005 01:24 PM

QFE :smileysad:
....And I too, envy the people that are enjoying this game. I wish I could.

everyone here posting about their issues with the game need to read this post in its entirety, i did at least.
Now IMO, that is the route to go when giving an overview of your overall goals for a game, truthful, open, and honest with no gimmicks involved. Awesome FAQ to me..

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/faq.php?...e Game) Philosophy (Original Sigil Games FAQ)