Some of the highlights:
- Skills are back in! (Much like WoW did in beta, EQ2 was automatically upping skills with level for testing purposes). Now most skills will raise with use like the old EQLive system.
- Revamped spells and combat arts are in. They've added a bunch of new spells and ditched some of the old boring ones. They've added some "fun" spells for each class as well (One turns a group member into a beaver. And we all know nothing's more fun than playing with a big beaver.)
- New player housing options. They've added addresses and houses are now waypoint-able so you can find them easier. They've also made some adjustments to setting up shops in your house to make it easier. Also added elite housing that can only be purchased with guild stature.
- Quest journal changes - maximum number of quests in journal is now 50. However, you can finally delete quests not related specifically to class advancement (whee!). They've also added the ability to see group member quests (yay!).
- Fog of War map (initial implementation). Right now it's only for Isle of Refuge (newbie zone), but at launch the zone maps will utilize a fog of war system that reveals only the portion of the maps you've explored. Should really encourage exploration.
- Traits and racial traditions are in.
These are the major updates, along with tons of little bug fixes and minor tweaks.
EQ2 Patch Day - Goody Goody
Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus
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Coskesh
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A lot of bugs with this patch as well. They removed 2 of my spells as a cleric (heal over time and 30 sec limited dmg absorber buff) and gave me 2 shit ones, enduring breath and weakness (which doesn't work). Now that my HoT is gone, I can't do any HOs by myself.
None of my quests update now and the stuff I was killing solo now wups my ass (orcs in commonlands).
Guess it wouldn't be EQ if the patches didn't create bugs, I remember specifically avoiding EQ 1 on patch day.
Yes yes, I'm sure they'll fix it eventually, and I am glad they make major changes in each patch, but I'm hoping it becomes more conservative in release. Atleast maybe tested better when it goes live.
None of my quests update now and the stuff I was killing solo now wups my ass (orcs in commonlands).
Guess it wouldn't be EQ if the patches didn't create bugs, I remember specifically avoiding EQ 1 on patch day.
Yes yes, I'm sure they'll fix it eventually, and I am glad they make major changes in each patch, but I'm hoping it becomes more conservative in release. Atleast maybe tested better when it goes live.
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YellowKing
- Posts: 30178
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I agree, played a few hours last night and was mostly disappointed in this patch, which seemed to break more things than it fixed.
The Good:
- Nice to see at least some skills being earned rather than given to you
- Like the Group tab in the journal as well as the ability to delete quests
- NPCs more talkative and interactive in the cities
- Faction in, so all orcs now aggro (I thought it was dumb I could stand in the middle of an orc camp without fear)
- Traits in (though I can't figure out how they work - or even IF they work)
- Lots of names for locations now
- Mob heals reduced
- Cons for combat skills/spells to let you know when you need to upgrade them
The Bad:
- Clerics nerfed (no more regen - ouch)
- Solo mobs harder (totally agree about the orcs, I thought I was just going crazy but apparently I'm not imagining it)
- Quests bugged - quest helper does not update properly anymore
- Label typo - label runs into name now
- Many mobs still bugged (do not respond to being attacked)
- Many quests still too hard for level (they need to rebalance some of them or change the con)
This patch has been my first major disappointment with the game, and the reasoning is that it seemed to introduce some bugs that I can't imagine should have slipped through quality control, especially since I encountered most of them within 10 minutes of play. The stuff like harder mobs and nerfed clerics doesn't really bother me all that much, since I realize in beta a lot of times classes are beefed up or mobs toned down for testing then balanced back for release.
The new features are nice, but I can't help but think with this update they took one step forward and two steps back.
The Good:
- Nice to see at least some skills being earned rather than given to you
- Like the Group tab in the journal as well as the ability to delete quests
- NPCs more talkative and interactive in the cities
- Faction in, so all orcs now aggro (I thought it was dumb I could stand in the middle of an orc camp without fear)
- Traits in (though I can't figure out how they work - or even IF they work)
- Lots of names for locations now
- Mob heals reduced
- Cons for combat skills/spells to let you know when you need to upgrade them
The Bad:
- Clerics nerfed (no more regen - ouch)
- Solo mobs harder (totally agree about the orcs, I thought I was just going crazy but apparently I'm not imagining it)
- Quests bugged - quest helper does not update properly anymore
- Label typo - label runs into name now
- Many mobs still bugged (do not respond to being attacked)
- Many quests still too hard for level (they need to rebalance some of them or change the con)
This patch has been my first major disappointment with the game, and the reasoning is that it seemed to introduce some bugs that I can't imagine should have slipped through quality control, especially since I encountered most of them within 10 minutes of play. The stuff like harder mobs and nerfed clerics doesn't really bother me all that much, since I realize in beta a lot of times classes are beefed up or mobs toned down for testing then balanced back for release.
The new features are nice, but I can't help but think with this update they took one step forward and two steps back.
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Austin
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YellowKing
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My opinion has always been that no MMORPG is "ready" for release, and I've never seen a game get worse 2 months after release rather than better.YK and other beta testers. Do you really think this will be ready for November? It looks to me like a best bet would be to wait until Jan or so at least. What do you think?
However, having played EQ2 for a couple of weeks now, I can say that released as-is, it's still very playable, still very fun, and still much more complete than most MMORPGs I've played at launch (or even a month after launch). Barring any login server issues, this should not be another Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowbane, etc.
If you're a MMORPG junkie early adopter like me and but it on release, I don't think you'll be disappointed. If you have the patience to hold off, then by all means do so as there are still some performance issues and bugs.
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Austin
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Bugs yes... but things like the racial abilities or talents or whatever. Spell lists, cleric balance, and such. If I make a warrior on release, will he be recognizable 2-3 months later. It sounds like they are still tooling and retooling a whole lot. I agree that some of that is to be expected, my confidence has not been bolstered in this one so far though.YellowKing wrote:My opinion has always been that no MMORPG is "ready" for release, and I've never seen a game get worse 2 months after release rather than better.YK and other beta testers. Do you really think this will be ready for November? It looks to me like a best bet would be to wait until Jan or so at least. What do you think?
However, having played EQ2 for a couple of weeks now, I can say that released as-is, it's still very playable, still very fun, and still much more complete than most MMORPGs I've played at launch (or even a month after launch). Barring any login server issues, this should not be another Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowbane, etc.
If you're a MMORPG junkie early adopter like me and but it on release, I don't think you'll be disappointed. If you have the patience to hold off, then by all means do so as there are still some performance issues and bugs.
I won't be playing WoW so I figure if I wait a bit I can join up and beg you for stuff when I start playing. Still watching from the shadows... man a beta would have been nice for this one.
Edit to clarify. Man a beta in my hands would have been nice for this one.
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YellowKing
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No, actually they're not. The class balancing/customization has been done for some time (at least according to developer interviews I've read), it just hasn't been in the beta build (it has been tested in the internal builds). So a lot of the so-called "nerfing" and mob difficulty tweaking being done now is the way it was designed all along and is just now being patched in. Many of the spells/skills testers have been accustomed to were just placeholders for the finals coming in now.It sounds like they are still tooling and retooling a whole lot.
Some people may not buy that explanation, but I have no reason not to believe that this is indeed the case. This last phase of beta is obviously nothing more than a stress test, with the developers pushing out new builds on their own time frame - builds with features announced well ahead of time, not changes as a result of community feedback. And it has been pretty obvious that we weren't playing with a final build - I mean regen has always been meant for druids, not clerics. Orcs are obviously meant to be aggro. Leveling rate was obviously faster than normal, etc.
Also some more info on the patch. The tech director made a post on the forums today and apologized for not warning the testers that this last patch was going to be a little "bumpy." Apparently they pushed it out even though it had some known issues. The good news is that they've already released a hotfix that addresses several of the more obvious bugs introduced yesterday.
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Austin
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YellowKing
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Oh, I'll have plenty of hand-me-downs. 
Me, my friend, and his aunt have been playing nearly nightly to learn the early levels (up to 20) so that we can get through them as efficiently as as possible. We've mapped out making 10 and getting a full set of equipment by the end of the first day, and I fully expect to be 20 by the end of release week. So if you hold off and buy it even a month late, we should be in our 30s. The crew I'm playing with are old EQ vets that all had multiple 60th level characters, so we're not going to be messing around.
Me, my friend, and his aunt have been playing nearly nightly to learn the early levels (up to 20) so that we can get through them as efficiently as as possible. We've mapped out making 10 and getting a full set of equipment by the end of the first day, and I fully expect to be 20 by the end of release week. So if you hold off and buy it even a month late, we should be in our 30s. The crew I'm playing with are old EQ vets that all had multiple 60th level characters, so we're not going to be messing around.
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Debris
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I'm really looking forward to playing EQ2. I started EQ at launch and played for about 2-1/2 years before moving on to other games (not necessarily better).
Patches are a way of life with these types of games. Hell, developers can't get single player games bug free and perfect at the time of launch, why would anyone expect a complicated MMO game to be different. There are nerfs and increases, bug fixes and new bugs introduced with each patch, which makes a very dynamic and changing gameworld.
I'll be online on launch day as I believe if you are waiting for the game to be bug free and completely balanced, you'll never get to play the game.
Patches are a way of life with these types of games. Hell, developers can't get single player games bug free and perfect at the time of launch, why would anyone expect a complicated MMO game to be different. There are nerfs and increases, bug fixes and new bugs introduced with each patch, which makes a very dynamic and changing gameworld.
I'll be online on launch day as I believe if you are waiting for the game to be bug free and completely balanced, you'll never get to play the game.
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Dramatist
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I've decided to pre order to play on launch day.
EQ had a four year hold on me that was amazing and will probably never happen again. But I do imagine that I will enjoy EQII alot.
I agree with some of the others that these type of games are always gonna have bugs and issues. I find I enjoy em anyway. I've always been a glass half full kinda guy though.
EQ had a four year hold on me that was amazing and will probably never happen again. But I do imagine that I will enjoy EQII alot.
I agree with some of the others that these type of games are always gonna have bugs and issues. I find I enjoy em anyway. I've always been a glass half full kinda guy though.
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Austin
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I guess my concern is this.
They caught my attention with down times under 60 seconds. Than they seemed to bump them up.
They show one exp curve than make it steeper.
They show a mob difficulty and than ramp it up making solo play tougher.
I am concerned about a bait and switch. I buy a game expecting all these new things and lo and behold it has become EQ1 with better graphics and a slightly more robust combat/crafting system. (With a lessor selling system)
Anyway, I am not in beta and I do not follow the discussion much closer than what goes on here so take my concerns with a grain of salt. I am not interested in WoW and I was really excited about EQ2 at one point, but that excitement is dwindling. I think the biggest thing is the exp curve. (leveling curve) If I am constantly struggling to keep up with my friends and cannot login for an hour and put a dent in my current level than I think I'll pass it in the end. (actually if history repeats, someone *cough QP* will convince me to buy it and I'll give it a couple months before deciding it is too much of a grind.)
Edit: YK has done a good job in alleviating my down time concerns in another thread. Score another point for EQ2 again.
They caught my attention with down times under 60 seconds. Than they seemed to bump them up.
They show one exp curve than make it steeper.
They show a mob difficulty and than ramp it up making solo play tougher.
I am concerned about a bait and switch. I buy a game expecting all these new things and lo and behold it has become EQ1 with better graphics and a slightly more robust combat/crafting system. (With a lessor selling system
)Anyway, I am not in beta and I do not follow the discussion much closer than what goes on here so take my concerns with a grain of salt. I am not interested in WoW and I was really excited about EQ2 at one point, but that excitement is dwindling. I think the biggest thing is the exp curve. (leveling curve) If I am constantly struggling to keep up with my friends and cannot login for an hour and put a dent in my current level than I think I'll pass it in the end. (actually if history repeats, someone *cough QP* will convince me to buy it and I'll give it a couple months before deciding it is too much of a grind.)
Edit: YK has done a good job in alleviating my down time concerns in another thread. Score another point for EQ2 again.
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YellowKing
- Posts: 30178
- Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 2:02 pm
Austin:
Make no mistake, there is grind. Of course, it's the same way with any of these games.
EQ2 has a lot of quests though, if you don't want to just go out and hunt. My friend is Level 19. He has completed 85 quests and has 50 in his journal waiting to be done. And he's only been in two real zones - the city of Freeport and the Commonlands.
To be perfectly honest with you, WoW is probably more suitable to "an hour here, an hour there" casual solo play. My impression from EQ2 so far is that while it makes huge advances in facilitating casual play, solo play, and reducing downtime from what there was in EQ1, the core EQ concept of rewarding time investment and group play is still there.
Make no mistake, there is grind. Of course, it's the same way with any of these games.
EQ2 has a lot of quests though, if you don't want to just go out and hunt. My friend is Level 19. He has completed 85 quests and has 50 in his journal waiting to be done. And he's only been in two real zones - the city of Freeport and the Commonlands.
To be perfectly honest with you, WoW is probably more suitable to "an hour here, an hour there" casual solo play. My impression from EQ2 so far is that while it makes huge advances in facilitating casual play, solo play, and reducing downtime from what there was in EQ1, the core EQ concept of rewarding time investment and group play is still there.
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Coskesh
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Just want to backup what YK said, EQ is definitly not as casual friendly as WoW, but you can just do an hour here and an hour (atleast up to lvl 15.. which is where I'm at). The quests do get a bit tougher, but finding a group has never been a problem. Finding a good group, well.... it's liek any other game.
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Austin
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Hetz
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Bastard!!Redfive wrote:I would console you Hetz but I was about to log in.
Sorry man I know that was uncool.
Oh well, at least it is only about a week from going live. I've waited this long, I can wait another week. Plus, then it will be all new for me when I start playing.
I've got the Collectors Edition pre-ordered. I loved EQ and played it for years. I am hoping that EQ2 lives up to EQ's heritage.