Everquest 2 Launches 305
Though it's being drowned out by the Halo 2 news, Everquest 2 officially launches today. RPG Vault has a review available for perusal, GamerFeed has a hands on look, and if you're looking for crunchy, low fat coverage Gamespy has an interview with Heather Graham about her role in the game. If you're already tripping the light fantastic in Qeynos check out GamerGod's Qeynos Quest feature, or just cut out the middle man and look forward to the first content on Allakhazam. Finally, F13 provides usefully cynical commentary about the beta and launch of the game.
No reviews yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:as one of the beta testers... (Score:5, Insightful)
You should nkow that by now
Re:Slashdot usage (Score:3, Insightful)
See, it all makes sense. Unless he meant 36% of the original 100, which would be loony.
Re:as one of the beta testers... (Score:3, Insightful)
The first release will, and can only be, a best guess to how the game will react under such continuous, and unpredictable user behaviour.
Bad Advice (Score:2, Insightful)
Another Beta Tester here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Well in game play terms its a massive step backwards...locked encounters, limited number of classes (basically 4 with a bit of flavouring to make it look like more),poor options for solo play, no pvp etc. etc.
I couldnt help but feel that the game was designed by SoEs accounts and customer service departments with the sole purpose of minimising the main reasons for CS calls....Oh but it IS visually STUNNING and almost up there with morrowwind in the audio department, but even so I couldnt help but feel it was the most shallow gameplay experience I had in many years.
Re:Bad Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that with SOE's tendency toward "supermodel" releases (they look pretty but have no content), you won't miss the opportunity to do all that new stuff until at *least* six months after launch.
You'll just not be sick of staring at the prettiness when you do finally jump in.
In other news, you can finally fly spacecraft in SWG, just 200% longer after release than originally stated...
Re:Is it still only for people without a life? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Should" according to...?
A year is probably too long, but a month is way too short, for my satisfaction. I've been playing WoW for a couple months, very casually, because I have a four-month-old baby to take care of
Now, if you have no life, and play 40 hours a week in long uninterrupted blocks, you might make 50 in a month. But I wouldn't want to be you, if that was the case.
But WoW isn't great - EQ2 is more fun (Score:3, Insightful)
WoW is a much more polished game. Six months ago, WoW was more stable, playable, and finished then EQ2 was at the end of the beta this past Friday.
However, I just couldn't get into WoW. I tried. I've played for many long nights and I still find the game lacking. Some of it has to do with the graphics; the towns are too cookie-cutter, the NPC's are fairly generic, and the overall graphics engine just doesn't come close to EQ2. Of course, it doesn't crash as much as EQ2, and it runs much better - EQ2 looks great but the game engine is slow.
I roamed around. I found some quests and did them. I grouped with some people, explored around. Killed a few more mobs. Killed a few more.
With EQ2 you're immediately confronted with small quests, things to do, and places to see. The game puts you on the track from the beginning. In WoW, you'd dumped off in town and that's that. Both approaches have merit, but the EQ2 approach of pulling you into the game from the start seems more immersive.
EQ2 is very similar to EQ. Don't let anyone try to say otherwise. It's really almost exactly the same when it comes to a LOT of things. Group dynamics are identical, the classes are the same although there's this illusion that they are very different from EQ. But this doesn't signify a bad thing - EQ2 expands on EQ'2 successful grouping tactics and makes each class more valuable to the group then they were before with new special abilities, buffs, and offensive capabilities.
Unfortunately, I do believe they spent too much time trying to avoid all the problems in EQ. While I've always thought that Complete Heal was a mistake and I'm glad to see it gone, but they've really gone far and wide to stop twinking, muling, power leveling, and buffing non-grouped players. Fortunately though it doesn't get too much in the way of normal gameplay, but it is there.
Then there's the age group thing. WoW has and will attract a much younger crowd. If you like that, then it's perfect for you. But if you like an older crowd, you'll probably find it in EQ2. There's a ton of folks that have played EQ for years, and that generally means they've grown up a bit. The average EQ player is in the mid-20's or older. The biggest initial group of people to play EQ2 will be many of these same players. This isn't to say that there's not a fair share of 13 year old kiddies in EQ, but from what I've seen it's a lot less then WoW.
EQ2 isn't ready for release, but they will release it anyways. It's not like $50 is a huge investment, and neither is the monthly fee for a few months to decide whether you wish to continue to play it or not. It will be "ready" enough to play the game and do 95% of the things there is to do. I don't like it, but it's the way things go with computer games sometimes. You have a choice of whether you want to play now, or in four months when many of the bugs will be fixed.
We've all spent a lot more then that on completely stupid crap, so I don't see why one can't try both games and decide which they like more for themselves.
Re:Is it still only for people without a life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:as one of the beta testers... (Score:5, Insightful)
The first release will, and can only be, a best guess to how the game will react under such continuous, and unpredictable user behaviour.
Now, I'm the first to say that an MMOG is never finished; if it is, there's something wrong. I basically agree with your statement. BUT...
After being in the EQ Luclin beta, and playing on Test server for 2 years, and playing the last bit of beta and the first several months of release of SWG, and then playing a bit of the WoW beta, I've come to realize that you really, really, REALLY can do better than SOE at creating a game. Yes, it is possible to realize that people are going to exploit something and fix it in advance sometimes. Better yet, it is actually possible that, even when you *didn't* forsee an exploit, you can fix it RIGHT AWAY, rather than simply penalizing people randomly and capriciously for using it for months before breaking the exploited thing as to make it not useful to anyone.
Re:AMAZON HAS IT!! (Score:2, Insightful)
use the following instead if you don't wanna halp out this creep:
Everquest II DVD [amazon.com]
Everquest II Collectors Edition [amazon.com]
Game Guide [amazon.com]
Re:Is it still only for people without a life? (Score:2, Insightful)
If the game isn't going to be fun unless you're leveling, why waste so much of your time?
Re:But WoW isn't great - EQ2 is more fun (Score:4, Insightful)
That is by far the best review I have heard. It cuts the fore play and gets down to the heart of it. Though, you could have made it even easier and simply said GRIND.
MMORPGs have been absolutely disgusting in how they utterly ignore the potential that exists. Every single MMORPG, yes, even WoW, relies on the never ending quest to level up. I personally can't wait for the day when someone makes a serious MMORPG that doesn't subsist off people being obsessive and compulsive. I fucking hate leveling and practicing skills. The day they cut out these things is the day that MMORPGs open up to a massive new market of no OCD gamers.
Re:It's not the same old grind. (Score:4, Insightful)
Insert some boring technical details about tweaks to EQ's basic level for the sake of leveling gameplay here.
Here is the problem with MMORPGs. They are currently about leveling. Period. They are the types of games where if you told someone that today your level will be frozen, they would quit their account on the spot. The entire point of the game is to get more levels. Obviously some people love this dumb crap and are more then happy to shell out 15 a month for it. Good for them. That said, the market for this kind of OCD game play is limited. You will never get me to play a game where the point of the game is to gain levels, get more spells and shits... so that you can gain more levels. That sounds like some sort of sick test you perform on rats, not humans. The fact that people can not conceive of a world without levels is utterly scary, and I hope that developers have equally as limited imaginations.
How do you build a world without levels? Simple, build a world based upon player skill, and offer a variety of player skill sets to pick from. Hell, just make a list of player skills and make it so that the game has games to accommodate them.
Twitch skills - Simple enough, make some combat based upon twitch skills. Acrobatic classes in particular would be very well suited for a 'twitchy' game play.
Tactical skills - Make it so that magic or some other element of combat is based upon tactics. Creating a complex magic system would go a long way to do this. Imagine if when a mage casts, every spell they cast results in good and bad side effects for many other spells.
Example: A mage starts by casting a spell that makes cold spells more likely to catastrophically fumble, and also has the side effect of making fire spells more powerful. He then starts to cast a fire spell that does damage to his opponent, but also leaves him weaker to cold spells. His opponent realizes what tactic is being used and so casts a spell that drastically delays the effect of fire spells from kicking in, giving him time to try and alter the effect into something more pleasant. Rinse and repeat. Instead of making it so that every spell is a boring +10 fire damage, all spells have massive draw backs. Two or three minutes of fighting like this and there could be a few dozen effects that both mages need to consider before spam casting at each other. They might even slow down, stop and think a little before casting. The game becomes far more tactical then just nuking the shit out of the other guy as fast as possible.
Puzzle Skills - Make the crafting system based on something like puzzle pirates or some other type of puzzle.
Social Skills - Create a complex political and leadership system. Throw in some sulk and dagger stuff in to give the twitch and tactical people some fun.
Strategic Skills - Have it so that leaders need to make complex overall decisions about resources and strategic defense and fighting. A person might rise through the social ranks to gain some grand strategic position. Hell, offer lower level strategic positions so that one guy can operate a local mine or what not. Make it so that there is actual depth to decisions, like a financial sim. Let people create trade guilds or other organizations of that nature.
Role playing skills - Throw the role players a bone and let them participate in a moderate in character senate or public debate.
PvP - Give the PvP people an outlet. Have actual wars. No, not those stupid free for alls of WoW and DAoC. Make it so that people can form marching lines. Combine strategy, tactics, and good old fashion twitching once the lines break apart.
Sneaking skills - Create a Thief life game to give the sneakers something to do.
My point? Levels are far from needed. You could build an action oriented MMORPG with all the fillings of a normal MMORPG, and do it completely without boring as shit levels. It doesn't have to be ATID, it could be exciting in wa