Everquest II Details Discussed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to EQII Stratics' in-depth interview with the Everquest II development team. This keenly-anticipated PC MMORPG follow-up is due later in 2003, and questions answered include the increased use of teleportation in the sequel, to help ease down on travel time ("travel has always been a tricky thing... too much and it feels tedious, too little and the world feels extremely small."), and interesting changes when the player dies - you can either "..sacrifice an appropriate item.. and return to an appropriate bind point with all other items intact and equipped or.. remain in your corpse until another player or event resurrects you."

Sacrificing "appropriate items," I'm sure

[b00jah]

Now everyone will be carrying "Rat Fur" in their inventory for they can go to the bind location.

Re:Sacrificing "appropriate items," I'm sure

[Recoil_42]

Im sure it will be value based; ie good items will spawn you to that spot 10 feet from where you were versus "rat fur", which will respawn you halfway across the world.. or something like that...

but

[andy_fish]

they don't say anything about whether the chick on the cover of EQ2 will be hotter than the chick on the cover of EQ? Clearly this is a relevant issue.

Re:but

[krazydude]

absolutely, what will happen to EQ2 if the chick is not hot enough, all those lonely 30 year olds simply won't buy it.

In other words,

[Dachannien]

EQ2 will be a lot more like DAoC than EQ. In fact, the only real difference appears to be the lack of realm-style combat in EQ2. Admittedly, DAoC came out well after original EQ, and so they had ample time to learn from EQ's (and UO's) mistakes, but it really surprises me that SOE isn't making an effort with EQ2 to do DAoC one better. (Maybe they're depending on Star Wars Galaxies for that.)

On a side note, anyone notice that the official EQ2 web site [sony.com] requires Flash 6 to view anything on it? Anyone else

Doesn't surprise me, DAOC is too shallow

[DrSkwid]

I started my EQ account in July 1999

Played DAOC to level 36 but the very repetitive game play for the non PVP was getting too tedious.

MOBs always fought in the same patterns and the Environment didn't seem suited to the Mobs. I mean why are 4 skeleetons that drop Uber armour just stood in a square on a hillside, with another 4, 50 feet away, it just wasn't immersive enough.

They are tough acts to follow as no doubt EQ could just seem like a grind fest now.

All the upcoming MMORPGs, like all games I guess,

Gamespot.com

[SpiritHex]

Gamespot.com has some nice EQ II movies. It looks looks amazing, with Half Life 2 type graphics/anim. Hopefully the whole package is more than a simple eye candy upgrade. Dragons as I've seen them look incredibly "realistic", my jaw dropped to the floor when I first saw the animation. Many prescripted action sequences like ground shaking effects and whatever else have been added. Release date Nov 03. Horizons, another promising RPG shipping Sep 03

Non Adventuring Class Systems

[Shanoyu]

My immediate interest is drawn to the description of trades people. I once and ocassionaly play a mud [retromud.org] where merchants serve effectively the same role, building castles and doing all sorts of things like that, while not being very good at most forms of combat.

The immediate problem with this is that the vast majority of people don't want to play a 'tradesperson' full time. I would be suprized if there were more than twenty or thirty out of every ten thousand people who wanted to be a full-time tradesperson. Unfortunately for them, people wont go to a 'well known' tradesperson to buy whatever, they'll go to one of their friends alternate characters, which basically just means that in EQ Live having more than 1 character will be essentially required.

As far as PVP goes, I think games should have risk involved, and PVP poses the greatest risk. If you're wandering around at the bottom of some deep dank dungeon and some sketchy looking people show up, you should be worried. I'm not really at all interested in PvE at this time because I don't believe there is currently a development team in existence with the stamina and creativity to maintain a PvE experience for longer than a few months.

Re:Non Adventuring Class Systems

[Almost_anonymous_cow]

Star wars Galaxies takes care of this by having single character servers. And if you take a look at the skills and what not you will see that there are quite the number of non combat stuff to do so you in theory would never have to leave the town.

Dun Dun Duh....

[poindextrose]

Say it isn't so... a sequel to the most addictive game of all time... I still remember my eq withdrawl, and sometimes the only thing that keeps me from going back is the fact that I'd have to start from level 1 again, and I'd have no clue about all the new spells/skills/items. Now, EQ2 will be looming over my shoulder until its release, at which point, it would be a better career move for me to take up smoking crack. GOD HELP ME!!! KEEP THIS FOULD DEMON AWAY!!! AHHHHHHHH!!! /me runs and hides under his bl