I still think it have been better, to sell features and let the new zones come for free ^^ as it was intented with AoD..... and got closed down in almost the same time .....
I've been a paying subscriber since launch as well and will probably keep playing in some capacity until they turn off the lights, but I agree that the content is "thin" to put it nicely. Most that wanted to be are 95 already and it will be 1 or 2 weeks tops until all the the new raid stuff is cleared. I just don't know if the development team is capable of putting out come tent that raiders even from semi-casual guilds won't chew through in no time. Also, the requirement to do that tedious quest line makes me want to log out and watch Magic Mike instead.
Could anyone tell me where this questline starts? Now I've got to 95 this is obviously the next step but I flew around the first zone not finding much!
Strictly speaking they haven't, but it was alluded to (I think in one of the webcasts shortly after they first announced CoE) that pretty much everywhere in Norrath would have its own version in the Ethernere, so reading between the lines I would imagine thats what might be coming down the pipeline for the next year or two in terms of game updates when we're through with Velious next year. I could well be wrong however. Someone from SOE (maybe SJ or Holly, I don't remember who) also said that there wasn't going to be any more expansions, and that CoE would now probably be the last 'paid for' expansion (but don't count on it) and they needed to do it as a paid for expansion as they needed to generate some revenue. I am totally paraphrasing that, but it was somewhere along those lines, so again reading between the lines it looks to me like the original intention of the CoE content was that it was to be the next game update content after Velious was done with, but they realised they needed some more revenue to meet costs, so decided to, quite surprisingly for many of us release an expansion this year, by turning the project into a paid for expansion this summer so it could be released in time for the Christmas market, and possibly why it might appear a little more scantily clad than previous expansions. I am fairly ok with that, as long as they do flesh it out with more content in upcoming game updates for the next year or two, a la Velious. More quests, tradeskill quests, HQ's / signatures / instances / collections / lore and storyline, and I think every tier should have something major for each class to work on along the lines of the epic quest and epic repercussions. Maybe for a class defining spell, or some other unique class item. Or even a racial item. So I am really hoping that is what they have in mind with CoE.
I'm also disappointed if there are indeed no heroic quests. It's one thing to have A solo Signature Line, but to have that be THE ONLY main questline seems quite lame. Of course considering that the last expac's really difficult questlines ended up in completely useless rewards, I'm not sure which one i prefer. I miss mythical quests and claymore-type stuff (minus the spawn camping issues) and questlines that escalated from solo to heroic to contested heroic to final updates from epic X4 dungeons. The best quests take all kinds of adventuring - solo, group and raid. With some rewards in between and a major reward at the end that isn't useless to those able to actually get it (i'm looking at you rewards for Falling Swords (ex. Rallos), Sevelak and Eirreen kills).
Since ToS, they should've just told us they were had changed the method of the game to EverGrinding instead of EverQuesting. Grinding for everything is what this game is all about now. Like some others have posted; this game is 9 years old, and dieing as Sony is now working on other games like EQ3, etc. It was novel idea grinding tokens to make gear and such with ToS, but SF was to me a total waste of time and money. No real adventurous content, and the griind for marks and faction became monotinous with the rewards not up to par with the grind. At least DoV and AoD had some nice questlines, but to make us GRIND the same 3 solo, and however many heroic quests? to get faction, tokens, TS faction, was just too much. I refuse to " buy " anything else for this EverGrind game, and that includes COE. Like others, I have been addicted to EQ2 since Jan. of 2005. and will still "play" till I've run out of things to do with only the promise of being bored and just grinding the DoV/AoD crap till I pass out.
All MMO's are entirely a grind in some way or another... you could start playing single player games. Pay $40-$60 bucks for 4-8 hours max of entertainment till you beat it.
I may be wrong on this, but the initial community response to CoE seems to be one giant, collective yawn. At this rate, EQ2 risks ending like T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men": . . . "Not with a bang but a whimper." After I spend the 2K SC left over from my lapsed sub, I doubt I will put any more money into it.
Well, I bought it, but for only one account unlike what I usually do, And I'm pretty unhappy with it. Like some have said, not every expansion will suit every player, but this one has me feeling like I just got scammed for $40. If I could unbuy it I would. There will be at least as many who like it as those who don't, and the zones are very lovely, but that doesn't make me feel like I got my moneys worth. I guess I will level alts and decorate for now.
If that's true, then that really sucks tbh. Discovering new lands is one thing that made me want to buy an expansion and unraveling the story/plot that goes with it. Instead we're just going to get slightly morphed versions of old overland zones. I'm not sure why the EQ2 dev team has to restrict themselves to just the 5 continents of Classic EQ. Take a look at EQ1 and the new lands its been getting since 2004. EQ2 also has plenty of potential ideas that could be tapped into. Here are some that are spur of the moment: 1) Dead Hills expansion after CoE. 2) An expansion revolving around HighPass Keep. Beholders Maze, Old Runnyeye, Kithicor Forest, and a part of East Karana. They can have the plot take advantage of the current events of CoE or a potential Dead Hills expansion as well as pre-existing lore of EQ2's Kithicor such as how the island drains the life out of people upon coming close to it. 3) A Warsilk Forest/Frontier Mountains update. 4) Kedge Keep and Dagnars Cauldron. Since Prexus somewhat returned in DoV, add him as a diety. A deformed Dagnor's Cauldron is lifted out of the sea off the coast of Faydwer by Prexus. Make a plot involving the Yha-lei and the reborn Kedge that have disowned their god for allowing them to be extinct. The term 'P2W' is used a lot. Sometimes I don't think anyone knows what that means. Please direct me to the Plane of War gear being sold on Statiocash...
EQ2 had enough potential, surely.... but SoE did less, each xpac. We do need another epic or prismatic quest, or at least something BIG, probably a quest which leads through 1-2-3 xpacs to get a leet item at the end, maybe when we reach lvl 100 ingame or so.... but i know, this wont happen here
Fallen Swords was an epic quest. It led you from ToFS all the way to the Elements Of War and PoW. Is this any different from when the Swords of Destiny timeline that took months to unravel in 06-07? So what if they shortened the level caps down to 2-5 per update/expansion. Ever since RoK, the 71-81 to 79-89 have been nothing but meaningless filler that you either went to old zones to grind or quested in quest hubs. It is a known fact that EQ2 team has downsized in the past few years. SOE is relocating and transferring many people to work on EQ Next. That's going to be their main focus in the next two years. Whether you like it or not, that's going to be their new flagship title for the EQ franchise. I personally can't wait to see what they show at SoELive. I been going to these forums since 05. It hasn't changed a bit. People still flood the forums with complaint threads over and over. It's not new and it didn't start with SF or DoV.
I've been so let down by eq2 lately it's not funny. It seems like outside the art department you guys aren't even trying anymore. You "fix" waht isn't broken and leave massive bugs in the game. You removed the hex editor but left in the layout editor, why? Because if you took away the layout editor your subs from housing enthusists would take a nose dive. You shove half way done expansions down our throats that get progressively less satisfying. I've been with Everquest since Eq1 launched and all I can say is I am severely disappointed with the way things are going. If Everquest 2's current state is any indication of what eqnext will be like I will not be playing it. I really loved this game, i've spent nearly 8 years on eq2 alone and it makes me sick to see what its becoming. I was really excited about SOEmote as a roleplayer, but the tech is so flawed it makes your toon look like its in a perpetual "O" face. What happened SOE? Did Sony international cut your funding back 10x? Or are you just so greedy you don't care about your player base as long as they still play? -A discontented veteran...
Funny, I wasn't complaining one bit until the Marketplace was first thrust onto the live servers late in TSO with zero warning. In fact I hardly saw anyone complaining about anything before TSO save class balance issues which wasn't even really complaining.. Also on that same note, the first expansion I saw anyone complain about not being up to standards was AoD. (Constructive feedback and complaining aren't the same thing, but there is a point when you have to stand back and say "wow this is bad and can't be fixed..") Since the Prismatic Timeline in the base game* Also I think they meant that the majority of the story came from the quest-line, which is legitimate, before TSO the major story of the expansion was conveyed through the zone quests, since it's been conveyed through the signature quest. For that matter the lore of TSO had a lot more work put into it than SF or DoV, but I suppose that's because the individual that wrote it left SoE. Or why they can't just add new stuff themselves completely separate from EQ1, perhaps a lack of creativity is the reason for that though. Probably why instead of embracing Vanguard, basically EQ1 in the modern market, they are remaking EQ1. I think when you "re-imagine" something it means you're out of ideas. That may not be a bad thing though, don't mistake what I'm saying for negativity.
I didn't insert the Prismatic quest because it was rather short quest line despite it being the main and final plot of Launch EQ2. I guess the same could be said for the SoD questline in EoF. Eh nm then.
