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As I said before, I could never really figure out why this got put down so much?
Well, character models aside.
At launch it was a much different game. It ran poorly, you did not get to play the class you wanted till level 20. Tradeskills while more rewarding were more frustrating, there were way too many subcombines. The game was hardly balanced, some classes were uber while others could get sneezed on and die.
Though I am sure SOE's history did not help them any. The game has changed for the better and I for one am glad for it.
I think I am the only one who liked progressing through the classes at 10 and 20... it was like an extra goal.
Also, I miss the old betrayal quest. The old one was awesome... you meet the leader of the city, attempt to assassinate them, and instead are "killed" and dragged out of the city, left in the graveyard to wake up and make your escape. The way it was all presented was amazing... the new quest is stupidity.
I don't know how the Qeynos quest worked, but I liked how the entire Freeport betrayal quest was basically one giant trap.
Well, until that guy says you have to kill every named gnoll in Antonica, and ask some questions that cost you 1gp for every wrong answer. That just sucked.
So I won't be on Mistmoore with you guys, my mid 20s characters on Lucan are just too much fun to play again. I will be participating in this Game On from afar. If anyone's on the server I'll whip up some lowbie gear for you, just ask; it speeds things up if you can bring some of the components. I've got a tailor, scribe, and carpenter right now, and my zerker will be either an armorer or a weaponsmith, haven't decided.
Here's my mans on Lucan D'Lere, for anyone who wants to drop in or send a cross-server tell:
I feel it needs mentioning again: this game is goddamn gorgeous at times. Even when it's nothing but grays and browns, it's still so detailed. I mean, the surface of the sea acts like an ocean, not a big lake. There's stuff underwater you'll probably never see or get led to by a quest unless you seek it out. Forests don't just fog out the sky above, you can see it through the canopy. Little stuff like this makes the world an awesome place to run around in.
You know what else I forgot? How EQ2 uses vertical space in zones. The Caves in Qeynos are a great example, there's nothing like it in WoW. Stormhold is one gigantic 3-D maze, Blackburrow is a hole in the ground, the Wailing Caves just keep going down and down. I always wondered why I thought the areas of WoW felt so bland in comaprison, it's because they're mostly flat, with sometimes a sub-level or a twisty staircase.
It seems like such a small thing, but it's a pretty fundamental part of zone design and it makes a huge difference in how a zone feels.
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
AresProphet on
0
Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited January 2007
Oh god, yes. Stormhold is the most confusing place ever.
Granted, I'm the type that can never ever find the right way out of the Qeynos sewers, but saying Stormhold is vertical is somewhat of an understatement. I mean, there's a whole lot of ups and downs in the entry/chessboard are, then there's the big stairway, then there's more ups and downs in that area, and then I seem to remember some sort of stairway to an inquisitor or something like that, but I never went down there.
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
How you describe this aspect seems to be a complete reversal from EQ 1, where you had to exit the entire zone to break agro.
Sort of like turning the steering wheel in panic to avoid something in the road (EQ 1), but then overcompensating on the turn back and flipping the car over.
Can't they find a freakin' balance??
Oh, and Karnor's Castle was hell on earth. Don't you dare say otherwise.
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
How you describe this aspect seems to be a complete reversal from EQ 1, where you had to exit the entire zone to break agro.
Sort of like turning the steering wheel in panic to avoid something in the road (EQ 1), but then overcompensating on the turn back and flipping the car over.
Can't they find a freakin' balance??
Oh, and Karnor's Castle was hell on earth. Don't you dare say otherwise.
Karnor's Castle was nothing compared to Unrest or, especially,
Blackburrow. Seems like 50% of the time you zoned into those
places you would die immediately from a clusterfuck of NPCs
standing at the zone line. With Karnor's it was maybe 20%
And yeah, it was pretty stupid how you could get chased across
an entire outdoor zone. All it took was to aggro 1 thing you couldn't
kill by yourself (not a very hard thing to do in EQ1) and you were
screwed and had to leave the zone and come back. Lame.
As I said before, I could never really figure out why this got put down so much?
Well, character models aside.
At launch it was a much different game. It ran poorly, you did not get to play the class you wanted till level 20. Tradeskills while more rewarding were more frustrating, there were way too many subcombines. The game was hardly balanced, some classes were uber while others could get sneezed on and die.
Though I am sure SOE's history did not help them any. The game has changed for the better and I for one am glad for it.
It wasn't just balance, some of the basic game mechanics were fairly broken. For example, warrior-types use strength as a primary attribute and scout-types use agility as a primary attribute. Strength increases physical damage dealt and agility makes you harder to be hit, meaning that early on, warriors did more damage than rogues. This may just be messageboard whining, but I've heard that for a while, bards were also the best tanks, for a similar reason. Of course, early on it was possible to boost both evasion and mitigation above %100, making it impossible for raid encounters to do any significant damage to the tank. They eventually fixed this, but for a while they had to add a massive unmitigatable AoE to most bosses called Wrath of Fury just so that they would remain challanging.
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
How you describe this aspect seems to be a complete reversal from EQ 1, where you had to exit the entire zone to break agro.
Sort of like turning the steering wheel in panic to avoid something in the road (EQ 1), but then overcompensating on the turn back and flipping the car over.
Can't they find a freakin' balance??
Oh, and Karnor's Castle was hell on earth. Don't you dare say otherwise.
Karnor's Castle was nothing compared to Unrest or, especially,
Blackburrow. Seems like 50% of the time you zoned into those
places you would die immediately from a clusterfuck of NPCs
standing at the zone line. With Karnor's it was maybe 20%
And yeah, it was pretty stupid how you could get chased across
an entire outdoor zone. All it took was to aggro 1 thing you couldn't
kill by yourself (not a very hard thing to do in EQ1) and you were
screwed and had to leave the zone and come back. Lame.
Take that, H-scroll!
Unrest was a bad one too. I think you're right that it was worse,
because there were mobs that could kill people in one shot from
halfway across the zone without being seen.
God that game had so many problems. I really do hope, for
SOE's sake, that they at least learned from their mistakes.
If you had a prior account with EverQuest II, and want to give the game a shot to check out the changes or to hang out with the guild, if you log into your account with the EQII client, it should give you a free week or two on your account. That's what it did for me, unexpectedly.
Say a certain someone (me) had an unopened collector's edition of EG2. When that certain someone (me) went to install it what would could he expect? Would he be left behind for not having any expansion packs? Say he did enjoy it and went out to buy one of the bundles that has the original client plus some of the expansions in it...will he get a "free" month out of that expansion pack like CoV did or will he have to pay for another month AND the expansion pack?
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
How you describe this aspect seems to be a complete reversal from EQ 1, where you had to exit the entire zone to break agro.
Sort of like turning the steering wheel in panic to avoid something in the road (EQ 1), but then overcompensating on the turn back and flipping the car over.
Can't they find a freakin' balance??
Oh, and Karnor's Castle was hell on earth. Don't you dare say otherwise.
Karnor's Castle was nothing compared to Unrest or, especially,
Blackburrow. Seems like 50% of the time you zoned into those
places you would die immediately from a clusterfuck of NPCs
standing at the zone line. With Karnor's it was maybe 20%
And yeah, it was pretty stupid how you could get chased across
an entire outdoor zone. All it took was to aggro 1 thing you couldn't
kill by yourself (not a very hard thing to do in EQ1) and you were
screwed and had to leave the zone and come back. Lame.
Take that, H-scroll!
Unrest was a bad one too. I think you're right that it was worse,
because there were mobs that could kill people in one shot from
halfway across the zone without being seen.
God that game had so many problems. I really do hope, for
SOE's sake, that they at least learned from their mistakes.
Actually the Kunark expansion of EQ fixed the whole "had to zone to lose agro" thing. There was a distance you could put between you and the mob where it would indeed forget you.
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
FaceballMcDougal on
xbl/psn/steam: jabbertrack
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Say a certain someone (me) had an unopened collector's edition of EG2. When that certain someone (me) went to install it what would could he expect? Would he be left behind for not having any expansion packs? Say he did enjoy it and went out to buy one of the bundles that has the original client plus some of the expansions in it...will he get a "free" month out of that expansion pack like CoV did or will he have to pay for another month AND the expansion pack?
No, the free month is only for new accounts. I was thinking of the same thing, but it says so on the box.
On the other side, you would not really be left behind. Sure, you wouldn't have access to the new shinies, but
you'd still be playing a hell of a game. Also, you'd get a baby dragon for your home.
Actually the Kunark expansion of EQ fixed the whole "had to zone to lose agro" thing. There was a distance you could put between you and the mob where it would indeed forget you.
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
I'm pretty sure that never happened, ever. You had a monk, so
you wouldn't know, because you had feign death. Which,
in fact, was the ONLY way to break agro short of zoning, (and necromancers had it too).
Lucky bastard.
Oh, and the constant shifting of classes from being insanely
overpowered to insanely underpowered after every patch/expansion
just got old. Rogues and Rangers, I'm looking at you.
Actually the Kunark expansion of EQ fixed the whole "had to zone to lose agro" thing. There was a distance you could put between you and the mob where it would indeed forget you.
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
I'm pretty sure that never happened, ever. You had a monk, so
you wouldn't know, because you had feign death. Which,
in fact, was the ONLY way to break agro short of zoning, (and necromancers had it too).
Lucky bastard.
Oh, and the constant shifting of classes from being insanely
overpowered to insanely underpowered after every patch/expansion
just got old. Rogues and Rangers, I'm looking at you.
AAAAAnyways, bout dat EQ2 thing.
It is only really easy to run off an enemy that you didn't mean to aggro, like they are KOS and chase you. If you have done something to get on its hate list it is a helluva lot harder to get to you. Because if you do something to get on its hate list, it puts you in combat, and then you lose all non-in-combat movement speed buffs and monsters are naturally faster in combat than players. Sprint helps, but if you are trying to run from a fight you are losing, you may around be out of power and can't sprint. I think it is balanced pretty well, easy to get away from a fight you didn't want (unless they root/stun/snare your ass) but harder from a fight you started.
It is only really easy to run off an enemy that you didn't mean to aggro, like they are KOS and chase you. If you have done something to get on its hate list it is a helluva lot harder to get to you. Because if you do something to get on its hate list, it puts you in combat, and then you lose all non-in-combat movement speed buffs and monsters are naturally faster in combat than players. Sprint helps, but if you are trying to run from a fight you are losing, you may around be out of power and can't sprint. I think it is balanced pretty well, easy to get away from a fight you didn't want (unless they root/stun/snare your ass) but harder from a fight you started.
That's cool. So, simply stumbling on an enemy =/= smacking it in the
face with your weapon. That would make many fights a lot more
controllable (as in, you decide where and when to fight).
Actually the Kunark expansion of EQ fixed the whole "had to zone to lose agro" thing. There was a distance you could put between you and the mob where it would indeed forget you.
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
I'm pretty sure that never happened, ever. You had a monk, so
you wouldn't know, because you had feign death. Which,
in fact, was the ONLY way to break agro short of zoning, (and necromancers had it too).
Lucky bastard.
Oh, and the constant shifting of classes from being insanely
overpowered to insanely underpowered after every patch/expansion
just got old. Rogues and Rangers, I'm looking at you.
Nope... there was a distance at which mobs lost agro, this was implemented for Kunark and beyond. I think select mobs would maintain agro throughout though.
This was constantly demonstrated in old zones like Plane of Fear and all the way through high end Luclin zones like Vex Thal.
Being able to feign death was only part of the pulling/splitting game.
Getting off the agro list with distance enabled even non-FD characters to do splits with mobs that would outpace another mob.
Trust me... agro was my career in EQ, which was years long and for a high-end guild that is still in business.
The distance you had to run to lose aggro was huge. And if you approached the mob again, it would have a ginormous aggro range on you, much, much larger than normal.
Feign Death, Memblur, and zoning (or camping) were the only ways to assuredly reset aggro back to normal. Any other method was just a temporary fix.
Yes, it allowed you to split if you snared/rooted a mob and ran way the fuck away, but we're talking about distances that you can't manage in most zones. I used it a lot in West Wastes, but every time I came back to the original mob after killing the other it came running at me as soon as I could see it, sometimes even before if it was behind a hill or if it was snowing.
Unrest was only deadly before Kunark came out and LoIO took over for that level range, because of the hags that could nuke for 450ish (enough to kill most sub-20 characters, most sub-30 casters before major twink gear). Sometimes hags would just nuke through the wall, which was Verant's shitty coding at work. It wasn't so much a train, as it was bad AI.
Karnors was more brutal because of rooting mobs, level 50-55 nameds, and the sheer force that they hit for. That and the tradition of "train left" which meant that when someone trained right the carnage was just unfuckingbelievable, with all the AFKs and medders there.
I once watched someone train Gorenaire to the DL/KC zone, while a friend of theirs trained the jails to KC right, and some other trash to KC left. I've never seen so many rez requests in a zone.
I've never found myself out of power in a solo fight, not as my warden, my zerker, my warlock, nor my conjuror. If the shit hits the fan I'll know it because I'm at about half power and half HP, with the mobs nowhere near dead and my pet about to eat it. I can sprint for a good 18-24 seconds and get away, no trouble at all. The only times I die are falling from something high, getting rooted (Pin is the worst thing ever, mobs with a chance to root for 10 seconds on hit), or getting ambushed by even con+ Heroics at low HP when I'm finishing a dying mob.
I've never bitten off more than I could chew and died for it, I always get away. Sometimes with 10% health and no power, but knowing when to run and when to stand and fight isn't hard to figure out.
So no, Sprint is not simply a way to escape an "oops, didn't mean to do that" moment. Used properly it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for a soloer, every time. Groups are different, because a group hasn't really wiper until the healer is out of power and the tank is dead. Until then, almost any fight is winnable.
I think this is the first time I've actually enjoyed an MMORPG crafting system. It manages to keep you involved without being overly complicated. You actually control whether or not you get a substandard, standard or exceptional item and are rewarded for it. Plus your exceptional items are used in the creation of imbued items, which gives you something other than XP to look forward too (I made some pristine imbued clothes last night, one gives me a chance of healing myself whenever I'm struck in combat and the other has a chance of damaging an enemy whenever I'm struck in combat).
I think this is the first time I've actually enjoyed an MMORPG crafting system. It manages to keep you involved without being overly complicated. You actually control whether or not you get a substandard, standard or exceptional item and are rewarded for it. Plus your exceptional items are used in the creation of imbued items, which gives you something other than XP to look forward too (I made some pristine imbued clothes last night, one gives me a chance of healing myself whenever I'm struck in combat and the other has a chance of damaging an enemy whenever I'm struck in combat).
Man, they made crafting so much easier, and in a good goddamn way. No more fucking subcombines, hell yes!
That was the worst part, I'd have to do like 100 subcombines to make 10 cloth caps. Now it's just a breeze, and with stacks sizes increased up to 50 it removes the tedium from tradeskilling. It's something you can do casually and still get somewhere with, instead of devoting your life to it as you would your adventurer class.
Which was sort of the point, in the original design of the game: crafters and adventurers alongside one another at equal levels, one kills stuff, the other makes stuff. That got set aside before release, but the crafting system wasn't simplified to go along with it. So crafting was unreasonably hard and tedious compared to adventuring.
Can I be a pretty pretty faerie princess? because that is the only drawing point I'm seeing here
Yes. Yes you can.
And now that I'm a tailor, I can make you a "Damsel of the Harvest" dress. It doesn't offer any protection or stat bonuses, but I'm sure it'll help in your endeavor.
Invisible on
0
EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
edited January 2007
I'm gonna pop on early Sunday morning. See you guys there.
Fuck it, I was gonna go to Best Buy tomorrow morning and try to find a wii for my girlfriend, I guess I'll try and probably pick this up too
That's what we like hear. ; )
Esh on
0
FandyienBut Otto, what about us? Registered Userregular
edited January 2007
I bought this game on release, played once more just under a year ago and didn't really enjoy it too much. I just updated my video card and RAM for Vanguard (which I realized isn't terribly enjoyable) so I'm thinking about popping EQII back in again.
There were a lot of issues with class balance when I left last time, particularly with Berserkers. The cities also all felt totally dead, with a few high level players riding around and little else. Has any of this been remedied, or what?
Fandyien on
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited January 2007
Well I tried out the trial but it was a 4gb download and I only have 6gb left that has to last me 2 weeks. So, not this month. Awesomely, they didn't tell me the size of the download until after I had activated the trial account, so thats that name gone. :^:
I am interested in the monk class though. I'm curious, is there any decent character animation interactions? For example, teras kasi master in star wars galaxies, fighting against a humanoid opponent, had a range of kicks, strikes, blocks and counterattacks that made it look like a real fight. Of course that all died when you started spamming specials, but if you just left it on autoattack it was a nice touch if you were bored or fighting something easy. Do the hand to hand fighters (monk, bruiser) have this level of animation or is it just stand there, hit monster with same attack, don't try to move even if you have defense stance up, have dodge appear over your head in large letters to save animation budget, ala wow.
Also how good is a monk at solo content. I'm looking to play a melee character for the first time in a medieval fantasy game (usually play wizards) and I'm hoping for something that can be useful in a group but be fine on its own. Does monk suit this role?
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Well I tried out the trial but it was a 4gb download and I only have 6gb left that has to last me 2 weeks. So, not this month. Awesomely, they didn't tell me the size of the download until after I had activated the trial account, so thats that name gone. :^:
I am interested in the monk class though. I'm curious, is there any decent character animation interactions? For example, teras kasi master in star wars galaxies, fighting against a humanoid opponent, had a range of kicks, strikes, blocks and counterattacks that made it look like a real fight. Of course that all died when you started spamming specials, but if you just left it on autoattack it was a nice touch if you were bored or fighting something easy. Do the hand to hand fighters (monk, bruiser) have this level of animation or is it just stand there, hit monster with same attack, don't try to move even if you have defense stance up, have dodge appear over your head in large letters to save animation budget, ala wow.
Also how good is a monk at solo content. I'm looking to play a melee character for the first time in a medieval fantasy game (usually play wizards) and I'm hoping for something that can be useful in a group but be fine on its own. Does monk suit this role?
Monks have like the best fighting animations ever, actually all of the classes and each type of weapon have pretty cool animations. Parry, dodges, and stuff each have their own animations. There are abilities called knockdowns, and it knocks enemies to the floor, and you actually dodge attacks, and the parries have a metal clanging sound with interrupted sword strokes and sparks. Maybe if I can get fraps to work, I can show some of them off because that is where this game's graphics shine to me.
The art direction may be not top notch, but the animations in a lot of the game are great.
DeadlyVenom on
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Well I tried out the trial but it was a 4gb download and I only have 6gb left that has to last me 2 weeks. So, not this month. Awesomely, they didn't tell me the size of the download until after I had activated the trial account, so thats that name gone. :^:
I am interested in the monk class though. I'm curious, is there any decent character animation interactions? For example, teras kasi master in star wars galaxies, fighting against a humanoid opponent, had a range of kicks, strikes, blocks and counterattacks that made it look like a real fight. Of course that all died when you started spamming specials, but if you just left it on autoattack it was a nice touch if you were bored or fighting something easy. Do the hand to hand fighters (monk, bruiser) have this level of animation or is it just stand there, hit monster with same attack, don't try to move even if you have defense stance up, have dodge appear over your head in large letters to save animation budget, ala wow.
Also how good is a monk at solo content. I'm looking to play a melee character for the first time in a medieval fantasy game (usually play wizards) and I'm hoping for something that can be useful in a group but be fine on its own. Does monk suit this role?
Monks have like the best fighting animations ever, actually all of the classes and each type of weapon have pretty cool animations. Parry, dodges, and stuff each have their own animations. There are abilities called knockdowns, and it knocks enemies to the floor, and you actually dodge attacks, and the parries have a metal clanging sound with interrupted sword strokes and sparks. Maybe if I can get fraps to work, I can show some of them off because that is where this game's graphics shine to me.
The art direction may be not top notch, but the animations in a lot of the game are great.
Hmm, sold. Animations are what I favour the best in any game well over graphics. If something has a bad or lazy animation I tend to dislike it.
Good to hear, I'll definitely have to resign up for the trial next month.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Well I tried out the trial but it was a 4gb download and I only have 6gb left that has to last me 2 weeks. So, not this month. Awesomely, they didn't tell me the size of the download until after I had activated the trial account, so thats that name gone. :^:
I am interested in the monk class though. I'm curious, is there any decent character animation interactions? For example, teras kasi master in star wars galaxies, fighting against a humanoid opponent, had a range of kicks, strikes, blocks and counterattacks that made it look like a real fight. Of course that all died when you started spamming specials, but if you just left it on autoattack it was a nice touch if you were bored or fighting something easy. Do the hand to hand fighters (monk, bruiser) have this level of animation or is it just stand there, hit monster with same attack, don't try to move even if you have defense stance up, have dodge appear over your head in large letters to save animation budget, ala wow.
Also how good is a monk at solo content. I'm looking to play a melee character for the first time in a medieval fantasy game (usually play wizards) and I'm hoping for something that can be useful in a group but be fine on its own. Does monk suit this role?
Monks have like the best fighting animations ever, actually all of the classes and each type of weapon have pretty cool animations. Parry, dodges, and stuff each have their own animations. There are abilities called knockdowns, and it knocks enemies to the floor, and you actually dodge attacks, and the parries have a metal clanging sound with interrupted sword strokes and sparks. Maybe if I can get fraps to work, I can show some of them off because that is where this game's graphics shine to me.
The art direction may be not top notch, but the animations in a lot of the game are great.
Hmm, sold. Animations are what I favour the best in any game well over graphics. If something has a bad or lazy animation I tend to dislike it.
Good to hear, I'll definitely have to resign up for the trial next month.
Any fighter class with a staff = makes you come via animations.
When you see the character plant his staff, vault and kick an enemy in the face, then give the staff a flourish before returning to his stance...
Here is a youtube link of my dwarf monk doing some fighting...I got bored.
The quality is pretty terrible because I have yet to figure out the best way to compress it for youtube file sizes, and it is a little choppy because EQ2 + video capture = dead compootar machines, but it is decent for my first actual capture of a game...
Actually the Kunark expansion of EQ fixed the whole "had to zone to lose agro" thing. There was a distance you could put between you and the mob where it would indeed forget you.
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
I'm pretty sure that never happened, ever. You had a monk, so
you wouldn't know, because you had feign death. Which,
in fact, was the ONLY way to break agro short of zoning, (and necromancers had it too).
Lucky bastard.
Oh, and the constant shifting of classes from being insanely
overpowered to insanely underpowered after every patch/expansion
just got old. Rogues and Rangers, I'm looking at you.
Nope... there was a distance at which mobs lost agro, this was implemented for Kunark and beyond. I think select mobs would maintain agro throughout though.
This was constantly demonstrated in old zones like Plane of Fear and all the way through high end Luclin zones like Vex Thal.
Being able to feign death was only part of the pulling/splitting game.
Getting off the agro list with distance enabled even non-FD characters to do splits with mobs that would outpace another mob.
Trust me... agro was my career in EQ, which was years long and for a high-end guild that is still in business.
you guys got me interested in revisiting this game. i played at launch, then my usual mmo "burnout" cycle kicked in. i played nonstop then got tired of playing, all within a few months. anyway, i installed the new expansion from dvd. patching only happened twice, for a total of maybe 20-30 mins tops. not sure why you some of you had to patch for so long. i can confirm that your old station account will let you play for free. i can't tell how long of a trial i have going right now, but at least im able to play for a bit.
some questions. did they increase the speed that everything moves or something? (or is it just on the newb island?) cause i feel like im moving way faster than normal, well everything seems to move really fast. maybe its just that i havent played in such a long time - but the pacing seems real quick. is there a way in-game to show FPS? and finally, in the end does race really make a huge difference with the class you pick (stat-wise)? or should people just make any combination they think is awesome (and hopefully not get gimped for it).
i still have my level 20-something dwarf paladin. but i think i may want to try something else too. my characters are on mistmoore. once i figure out who i'm playing i'll post up my char names.
you guys got me interested in revisiting this game. i played at launch, then my usual mmo "burnout" cycle kicked in. i played nonstop then got tired of playing, all within a few months. anyway, i installed the new expansion from dvd. patching only happened twice, for a total of maybe 20-30 mins tops. not sure why you some of you had to patch for so long. i can confirm that your old station account will let you play for free. i can't tell how long of a trial i have going right now, but at least im able to play for a bit.
some questions. did they increase the speed that everything moves or something? (or is it just on the newb island?) cause i feel like im moving way faster than normal, well everything seems to move really fast. maybe its just that i havent played in such a long time - but the pacing seems real quick. is there a way in-game to show FPS? and finally, in the end does race really make a huge difference with the class you pick (stat-wise)? or should people just make any combination they think is awesome (and hopefully not get gimped for it).
i still have my level 20-something dwarf paladin. but i think i may want to try something else too. my characters are on mistmoore. once i figure out who i'm playing i'll post up my char names.
In the end race doesn't really effect your ability to function in the alte game, it can have some problems at the beginning if you choose funky combos, but those get ironed out by equipment.
this is wrong eq1 mobs never stopped until one of you dies, or you zone.
you're wrong
and AresProphet, you're right about staying on the agro list of a mob that stopped chasing you but you ran back in range of
FD wasn't a mem wipe either, there was still a chance you'd remain on the agro list of some of the more advanced mobs if they returned to their spawn point... but for the most part even major dragons wiped their agro list when they returned to spawn
any mob under level 32 was mem wiped by FD instantly though
anyway... pulling and FD in EQ1 was pretty much the bane of SOE... they couldn't design encounters like they wanted because some monk like me would figure out a way to pull it so they ended up designing zones and encounters with pulling in mind with things like "linked" mobs such as in the Avatar of War encounter
I have a level 15 Dwarven Zerker on Mistmoore now named Bavolis. He's currently linked to Qeynos but I'm working on betraying him to the better city
I had played an assassin before up to about level 27 when the game first came out, but my wife pulled me away to WoW. I have to say this is a fantastic game that does not screenshot well at all. You have to see things in motion to appreciate them. I turned on the asian models for most of the races (especially needed it for my dwarf) and I'm pretty happy with them. They look just a bit more artistic than the rubber doll look of the defaults.
The tradeskill system was buggy back then, but really fun regardless. Having a friend make ugly furniture for your slummy apartment is something to be experienced. If you were a fan of EQ1, you owe this game a trial just to see what they've done with the lore.
My favorite part was finding Gix early on (he's the Dark Elf that kicked your newbie butt over and over again in EQ1 when you tried to exp in the commonlands). I paused for a moment (because I was newbish and he had bullied me so much of my previous life) and then attacked him for the hell of it. Some bug made him taunt me in a woman's voice and I felt even less manly. Good times.
Anyway, I'm currently trying to finish my house to sell it and move, so my playtime is a bit strange, but normally I would be online most nights. I'll look up the names here in-game next time I'm on.
I turned on the asian models for most of the races (especially needed it for my dwarf) and I'm pretty happy with them. They look just a bit more artistic than the rubber doll look of the defaults.
where is the option to download these models? the help says its under the options, but i can only find the area to enable the new models. i still need to get them first.
some questions. did they increase the speed that everything moves or something? (or is it just on the newb island?) cause i feel like im moving way faster than normal, well everything seems to move really fast. maybe its just that i havent played in such a long time - but the pacing seems real quick.
You need to check to download all live additional content in the patcher. I would recommend using "instant download" too instead of downloading while playing, because I have no idea how or when it would do it otherwise. After that's done, you should be able to use the checkboxes.
Keep in mind that if you make your character using the asian model, you still have the option (once) to set how they look to other people who are not using the asian model. Once you've set them both up, apparently you can switch back and forth when you get tired of looking at one.
The alternate models are def better for human females and high elves I think. Some do look very asian inspired in my opinion like the wood elves. But I probably wouldn't go back to the normal models at this point as I like the alternates better.
I have a level 15 Dwarven Zerker on Mistmoore now named Bavolis. He's currently linked to Qeynos but I'm working on betraying him to the better city
I had played an assassin before up to about level 27 when the game first came out, but my wife pulled me away to WoW. I have to say this is a fantastic game that does not screenshot well at all. You have to see things in motion to appreciate them. I turned on the asian models for most of the races (especially needed it for my dwarf) and I'm pretty happy with them. They look just a bit more artistic than the rubber doll look of the defaults.
The tradeskill system was buggy back then, but really fun regardless. Having a friend make ugly furniture for your slummy apartment is something to be experienced. If you were a fan of EQ1, you owe this game a trial just to see what they've done with the lore.
My favorite part was finding Gix early on (he's the Dark Elf that kicked your newbie butt over and over again in EQ1 when you tried to exp in the commonlands). I paused for a moment (because I was newbish and he had bullied me so much of my previous life) and then attacked him for the hell of it. Some bug made him taunt me in a woman's voice and I felt even less manly. Good times.
Anyway, I'm currently trying to finish my house to sell it and move, so my playtime is a bit strange, but normally I would be online most nights. I'll look up the names here in-game next time I'm on.
The lore is what I get a kick out of... having played EQ1 for years.
I actually went back to EQ1 a bit to play around... my monk can solo Lucan in EQ1 so I went to kick his ass in the past for opressing my EQ2 character.
Posts
Well, until that guy says you have to kill every named gnoll in Antonica, and ask some questions that cost you 1gp for every wrong answer. That just sucked.
So I won't be on Mistmoore with you guys, my mid 20s characters on Lucan are just too much fun to play again. I will be participating in this Game On from afar. If anyone's on the server I'll whip up some lowbie gear for you, just ask; it speeds things up if you can bring some of the components. I've got a tailor, scribe, and carpenter right now, and my zerker will be either an armorer or a weaponsmith, haven't decided.
Here's my mans on Lucan D'Lere, for anyone who wants to drop in or send a cross-server tell:
Indasha the Warden/Tailor
Dentian the Berserker
Glynaith the Predator
Illiara the Conjuror/Scribe
Sanaddar the Warlock/Carpenter
I feel it needs mentioning again: this game is goddamn gorgeous at times. Even when it's nothing but grays and browns, it's still so detailed. I mean, the surface of the sea acts like an ocean, not a big lake. There's stuff underwater you'll probably never see or get led to by a quest unless you seek it out. Forests don't just fog out the sky above, you can see it through the canopy. Little stuff like this makes the world an awesome place to run around in.
You know what else I forgot? How EQ2 uses vertical space in zones. The Caves in Qeynos are a great example, there's nothing like it in WoW. Stormhold is one gigantic 3-D maze, Blackburrow is a hole in the ground, the Wailing Caves just keep going down and down. I always wondered why I thought the areas of WoW felt so bland in comaprison, it's because they're mostly flat, with sometimes a sub-level or a twisty staircase.
It seems like such a small thing, but it's a pretty fundamental part of zone design and it makes a huge difference in how a zone feels.
I still despise encounter locking and how an encounter "breaks" if you train it too far.Give me the trains of Karnors Castle any day, because the ability to run for 10 seconds and escape to total safety (especially with Sprinting) is just retarded.
Granted, I'm the type that can never ever find the right way out of the Qeynos sewers, but saying Stormhold is vertical is somewhat of an understatement. I mean, there's a whole lot of ups and downs in the entry/chessboard are, then there's the big stairway, then there's more ups and downs in that area, and then I seem to remember some sort of stairway to an inquisitor or something like that, but I never went down there.
And lets not even touch on the damned library.
Sort of like turning the steering wheel in panic to avoid something in the road (EQ 1), but then overcompensating on the turn back and flipping the car over.
Can't they find a freakin' balance??
Oh, and Karnor's Castle was hell on earth. Don't you dare say otherwise.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Karnor's Castle was nothing compared to Unrest or, especially,
Blackburrow. Seems like 50% of the time you zoned into those
places you would die immediately from a clusterfuck of NPCs
standing at the zone line. With Karnor's it was maybe 20%
And yeah, it was pretty stupid how you could get chased across
an entire outdoor zone. All it took was to aggro 1 thing you couldn't
kill by yourself (not a very hard thing to do in EQ1) and you were
screwed and had to leave the zone and come back. Lame.
Take that, H-scroll!
It wasn't just balance, some of the basic game mechanics were fairly broken. For example, warrior-types use strength as a primary attribute and scout-types use agility as a primary attribute. Strength increases physical damage dealt and agility makes you harder to be hit, meaning that early on, warriors did more damage than rogues. This may just be messageboard whining, but I've heard that for a while, bards were also the best tanks, for a similar reason. Of course, early on it was possible to boost both evasion and mitigation above %100, making it impossible for raid encounters to do any significant damage to the tank. They eventually fixed this, but for a while they had to add a massive unmitigatable AoE to most bosses called Wrath of Fury just so that they would remain challanging.
because there were mobs that could kill people in one shot from
halfway across the zone without being seen.
God that game had so many problems. I really do hope, for
SOE's sake, that they at least learned from their mistakes.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I was a monk... the kind of monk that got tells every week asking me if I could pull Plane of Fear or some such... so I do know.
I used to do all kinds of wacky splits even in Karnors... but ya... the distance was pretty long and chain agro in that place and most is actually the real issue.
god I miss pulling
No, the free month is only for new accounts. I was thinking of the same thing, but it says so on the box.
On the other side, you would not really be left behind. Sure, you wouldn't have access to the new shinies, but
you'd still be playing a hell of a game. Also, you'd get a baby dragon for your home.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
you wouldn't know, because you had feign death. Which,
in fact, was the ONLY way to break agro short of zoning, (and necromancers had it too).
Lucky bastard.
Oh, and the constant shifting of classes from being insanely
overpowered to insanely underpowered after every patch/expansion
just got old. Rogues and Rangers, I'm looking at you.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
AAAAAnyways, bout dat EQ2 thing.
It is only really easy to run off an enemy that you didn't mean to aggro, like they are KOS and chase you. If you have done something to get on its hate list it is a helluva lot harder to get to you. Because if you do something to get on its hate list, it puts you in combat, and then you lose all non-in-combat movement speed buffs and monsters are naturally faster in combat than players. Sprint helps, but if you are trying to run from a fight you are losing, you may around be out of power and can't sprint. I think it is balanced pretty well, easy to get away from a fight you didn't want (unless they root/stun/snare your ass) but harder from a fight you started.
face with your weapon. That would make many fights a lot more
controllable (as in, you decide where and when to fight).
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
This was constantly demonstrated in old zones like Plane of Fear and all the way through high end Luclin zones like Vex Thal.
Being able to feign death was only part of the pulling/splitting game.
Getting off the agro list with distance enabled even non-FD characters to do splits with mobs that would outpace another mob.
Trust me... agro was my career in EQ, which was years long and for a high-end guild that is still in business.
Feign Death, Memblur, and zoning (or camping) were the only ways to assuredly reset aggro back to normal. Any other method was just a temporary fix.
Yes, it allowed you to split if you snared/rooted a mob and ran way the fuck away, but we're talking about distances that you can't manage in most zones. I used it a lot in West Wastes, but every time I came back to the original mob after killing the other it came running at me as soon as I could see it, sometimes even before if it was behind a hill or if it was snowing.
Unrest was only deadly before Kunark came out and LoIO took over for that level range, because of the hags that could nuke for 450ish (enough to kill most sub-20 characters, most sub-30 casters before major twink gear). Sometimes hags would just nuke through the wall, which was Verant's shitty coding at work. It wasn't so much a train, as it was bad AI.
Karnors was more brutal because of rooting mobs, level 50-55 nameds, and the sheer force that they hit for. That and the tradition of "train left" which meant that when someone trained right the carnage was just unfuckingbelievable, with all the AFKs and medders there.
I once watched someone train Gorenaire to the DL/KC zone, while a friend of theirs trained the jails to KC right, and some other trash to KC left. I've never seen so many rez requests in a zone.
I've never found myself out of power in a solo fight, not as my warden, my zerker, my warlock, nor my conjuror. If the shit hits the fan I'll know it because I'm at about half power and half HP, with the mobs nowhere near dead and my pet about to eat it. I can sprint for a good 18-24 seconds and get away, no trouble at all. The only times I die are falling from something high, getting rooted (Pin is the worst thing ever, mobs with a chance to root for 10 seconds on hit), or getting ambushed by even con+ Heroics at low HP when I'm finishing a dying mob.
I've never bitten off more than I could chew and died for it, I always get away. Sometimes with 10% health and no power, but knowing when to run and when to stand and fight isn't hard to figure out.
So no, Sprint is not simply a way to escape an "oops, didn't mean to do that" moment. Used properly it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for a soloer, every time. Groups are different, because a group hasn't really wiper until the healer is out of power and the tank is dead. Until then, almost any fight is winnable.
Man, they made crafting so much easier, and in a good goddamn way. No more fucking subcombines, hell yes!
That was the worst part, I'd have to do like 100 subcombines to make 10 cloth caps. Now it's just a breeze, and with stacks sizes increased up to 50 it removes the tedium from tradeskilling. It's something you can do casually and still get somewhere with, instead of devoting your life to it as you would your adventurer class.
Which was sort of the point, in the original design of the game: crafters and adventurers alongside one another at equal levels, one kills stuff, the other makes stuff. That got set aside before release, but the crafting system wasn't simplified to go along with it. So crafting was unreasonably hard and tedious compared to adventuring.
Can I be a pretty pretty faerie princess? because that is the only drawing point I'm seeing here
Yes. Yes you can.
And now that I'm a tailor, I can make you a "Damsel of the Harvest" dress. It doesn't offer any protection or stat bonuses, but I'm sure it'll help in your endeavor.
That's what we like hear. ; )
There were a lot of issues with class balance when I left last time, particularly with Berserkers. The cities also all felt totally dead, with a few high level players riding around and little else. Has any of this been remedied, or what?
I am interested in the monk class though. I'm curious, is there any decent character animation interactions? For example, teras kasi master in star wars galaxies, fighting against a humanoid opponent, had a range of kicks, strikes, blocks and counterattacks that made it look like a real fight. Of course that all died when you started spamming specials, but if you just left it on autoattack it was a nice touch if you were bored or fighting something easy. Do the hand to hand fighters (monk, bruiser) have this level of animation or is it just stand there, hit monster with same attack, don't try to move even if you have defense stance up, have dodge appear over your head in large letters to save animation budget, ala wow.
Also how good is a monk at solo content. I'm looking to play a melee character for the first time in a medieval fantasy game (usually play wizards) and I'm hoping for something that can be useful in a group but be fine on its own. Does monk suit this role?
Monks have like the best fighting animations ever, actually all of the classes and each type of weapon have pretty cool animations. Parry, dodges, and stuff each have their own animations. There are abilities called knockdowns, and it knocks enemies to the floor, and you actually dodge attacks, and the parries have a metal clanging sound with interrupted sword strokes and sparks. Maybe if I can get fraps to work, I can show some of them off because that is where this game's graphics shine to me.
The art direction may be not top notch, but the animations in a lot of the game are great.
Hmm, sold. Animations are what I favour the best in any game well over graphics. If something has a bad or lazy animation I tend to dislike it.
Good to hear, I'll definitely have to resign up for the trial next month.
Any fighter class with a staff = makes you come via animations.
When you see the character plant his staff, vault and kick an enemy in the face, then give the staff a flourish before returning to his stance...
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
The quality is pretty terrible because I have yet to figure out the best way to compress it for youtube file sizes, and it is a little choppy because EQ2 + video capture = dead compootar machines, but it is decent for my first actual capture of a game...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=g9ZH20URDZI
some questions. did they increase the speed that everything moves or something? (or is it just on the newb island?) cause i feel like im moving way faster than normal, well everything seems to move really fast. maybe its just that i havent played in such a long time - but the pacing seems real quick. is there a way in-game to show FPS? and finally, in the end does race really make a huge difference with the class you pick (stat-wise)? or should people just make any combination they think is awesome (and hopefully not get gimped for it).
i still have my level 20-something dwarf paladin. but i think i may want to try something else too. my characters are on mistmoore. once i figure out who i'm playing i'll post up my char names.
In the end race doesn't really effect your ability to function in the alte game, it can have some problems at the beginning if you choose funky combos, but those get ironed out by equipment.
and AresProphet, you're right about staying on the agro list of a mob that stopped chasing you but you ran back in range of
FD wasn't a mem wipe either, there was still a chance you'd remain on the agro list of some of the more advanced mobs if they returned to their spawn point... but for the most part even major dragons wiped their agro list when they returned to spawn
any mob under level 32 was mem wiped by FD instantly though
anyway... pulling and FD in EQ1 was pretty much the bane of SOE... they couldn't design encounters like they wanted because some monk like me would figure out a way to pull it so they ended up designing zones and encounters with pulling in mind with things like "linked" mobs such as in the Avatar of War encounter
I had played an assassin before up to about level 27 when the game first came out, but my wife pulled me away to WoW. I have to say this is a fantastic game that does not screenshot well at all. You have to see things in motion to appreciate them. I turned on the asian models for most of the races (especially needed it for my dwarf) and I'm pretty happy with them. They look just a bit more artistic than the rubber doll look of the defaults.
The tradeskill system was buggy back then, but really fun regardless. Having a friend make ugly furniture for your slummy apartment is something to be experienced. If you were a fan of EQ1, you owe this game a trial just to see what they've done with the lore.
My favorite part was finding Gix early on (he's the Dark Elf that kicked your newbie butt over and over again in EQ1 when you tried to exp in the commonlands). I paused for a moment (because I was newbish and he had bullied me so much of my previous life) and then attacked him for the hell of it. Some bug made him taunt me in a woman's voice and I felt even less manly. Good times.
Anyway, I'm currently trying to finish my house to sell it and move, so my playtime is a bit strange, but normally I would be online most nights. I'll look up the names here in-game next time I'm on.
where is the option to download these models? the help says its under the options, but i can only find the area to enable the new models. i still need to get them first.
They did in fact increase run speed a while ago.
Keep in mind that if you make your character using the asian model, you still have the option (once) to set how they look to other people who are not using the asian model. Once you've set them both up, apparently you can switch back and forth when you get tired of looking at one.
I actually went back to EQ1 a bit to play around... my monk can solo Lucan in EQ1 so I went to kick his ass in the past for opressing my EQ2 character.