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EverQuest II: The Year That Was For EQII
MMORPG.com Reporter Phil James writes this look back at some of the changes made to SOE's EverQuest II over the last year.
General Article By Guest Writer on January 06, 2010
As I write this, 2009 is almost over. In my personal life, I've gone through a bit of an upheaval. I've moved cities and my wife and I are expecting our first child. It's good to know that our favorite MMOs are always there. Everquest II has been a rock over the years.
Except that EQII has undergone a fair few changes itself, some of them well received, some not so much. We've had four game updates this year bringing us some major changes and of course many minor ones. I'm going to take a look at what has shaken up the lands of Norrath this year:
advertisement ELEMENTS OF CORRUPTION
The first update, 'Elements of Corruption', went live on March 31st. This brought some much needed love to the 'Lavastorm' zone.
It is becoming more accepted, due in no small part to World of Warcraft, to have all the overland zones in an MMO soloable, while dungeon delving is where it's at for groups. This can be a good thing as it's good to know that when running around on my own I'm fairly confident I won't get squished. Although something can be said for the 'realism' of having epic/heroic/super (whatever you want to call them) mobs hanging around with their weaker counterparts. Some folks hate this and see it as 'forced grouping'.
Sony Online Entertainment traditionally likes to make things tough and instead of one or two mobs being challenging, whole zones will be geared toward groups. This is fine if you are adventuring with hundreds of players at the same level as you, but it becomes a bit of a pain for new players in an old game with a lot of its player base at the level cap. Many companies recognize this problem and SOE is no exception, many changes were introduced this year to make the path to level 80 more solo friendly.
Lavastorm was one of those tough zones, and when I was leveling up, I came a bit too late to find groups at that level, so I had to bypass the whole area. Now SOE has reduced the difficulty of the mobs and added new quest lines to make Lavastorm a soloer's paradise.
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SOOTFOOT GOBLINS
The Sootfoot are the deranged tribe of goblins who give you most of the new quests in Lavastorm. They do things a little differently. Every player starts out at maximum reputation with this faction and every quest completed chips away at your standing with them. They also have a vendor who only sells to folks who are hated with the tribe. The mechanics of this works the same way as regular reputation gains, but it's a nice twist.
THREAT
Another addition to the game was the Threat Meter. The same thing arrived in WoW, and anyone who was checking out the forums in either game will be aware of the griping that went on. To some this change was 'pushing the easy mode button'. I for one don't mind knowing where I stand in the aggro charts. Recently I was performing at a comedy gig, and I was dealing with a persistent heckler. I clearly pushed the guy too far and I saw something snap behind his eyes. The second I left the stage the guy shot out of his seat and came for me, which I suspected he would. This is a real life threat meter, and until game graphics are realistic enough to show a mob look at me and get a furious look in its face that tells me to watch out because I'm next in line for a whupping, I'm happy with some numbers next to my name telling me how much I'm hated.
Elements of Corruption also furnished us with a new dungeon, 'Ward of Elements', again based in Lavastorm. Unlike the content outside, this is aimed at a party of 12 level 80 characters. There was also new loot and new armor sets for us to enjoy.
Great article and I think summed up the changes over a year and in a concise read. I have very fond memories of being a beta tester and retail player of this game for nearly 4 years and I still believe it is undervalued as an MMo experience
Strangely the 2 changes that I still wish they had not implemented was when they streamlined the char progression (very early days where your choice of class was made of up 3 steps over the first 20 levels and felt like you still had an ability to personalise you char well into the game and within the storyline) and the change the names of the skills and powers ( I like the feeling that I have a new skill rather than just a numbered upgrade of something existing).
Each time I read about EQ2 I am always tempted to go back
I still prefer the number thing, it is easier and faster then when you change your hotbars.
Still, they should have made it so the old skill disappear when you get the new instead, my skill book is full with old junk. Or they could at least added the option to hide all skills that you have a better version of. That would make things even easier and you wouldn't need a number after an attack.
Overall it was a very good year for EQ2. Most of the updates were well received by the community.
The one big bone of contention was changing the names of the spells and combat arts. Having new names at differant tiers gave a much bigger sense of advancement than, say, moving from Fireball II to Fireball III
I still prefer the number thing, it is easier and faster then when you change your hotbars.
Still, they should have made it so the old skill disappear when you get the new instead, my skill book is full with old junk. Or they could at least added the option to hide all skills that you have a better version of. That would make things even easier and you wouldn't need a number after an attack.
It would really suck if you leveled up mid-dungeon and your master rank spell was suddenly replaced with the new apprentice version.
I couldn't resist - just resubbed
I loved crafting in EQ2, but I won't resub until they fix their problem with reusing animations.
The wife and I returned after about 8 months off to find the changes. I like the numbered spells instead of all the different names of spells that basically did the same thing. One thing I don't like (and never have) is that a spell in MASTER (or even in some cases adept 3) was better than the apprentice version and I see they didn't change this. After gaining several levels I think it would make more sense if the apprentice level spell was equivelent to the master level spell that you received all the last time the spell updated..
As for the new numbering system..well it was sort of inevitable...I mean how many different names can you come up with for a spell that does the same thing? Smite is still smite regardless of what you call it..Why not just have levels of the same spell..?
Good summary. *nods* You just missed some of the stuff I like a lot too:
1. almost every housing unit got an additional room and the limit of items to be places inside got raised by hundred.
2. There are a lot of new quests that offer fluff rewards (clothing, decorative stuff for your home, effects like changing shape) and we got the monthly Magic Mushroom Events each 20th day of the month and the monthly weekly City Festivals - all offering fluff things for a lot of very nice and special housing items like walls, colums, plants, floor tiles etc. One can now truly customize the apartment or house, people have come up with awesome huge aquariums for example.
3. Guild halls!!! They are awesome, huge, have a lot of amenities one can rent like bank, teleporters, vendors, mail box, crafting - even harvester npc for the different ressource types (which collect no rares though), our guild is much closer now with the hall there since we all "see" each other literally quite often and seeing the char as avatar and not just chat line is different in perception.
Edit: Forgot, the slider to drain leveling xp into achievement points is nice and the many new items one can craft now are too. And the "what bugs you most" thread of the lead programmer to collect player feedback is nice too, curious to see what comes out of the latest installment.
grats for your futur child!eq2 should have added the new lfg system like wow instead of adopting dungeon
would have been easier to find group and much simpler then instancing if i understood you correctly!
Great article! I think Ill dust off my old alter ego and check out chronomagic. On a RL note, congrats on the impending new addition to the family and sorry to hear about that heckler. Its amazing what schmucks people can be (especially when there is some alcohol induced confidence)
Definitely the year for EQ2. I can't think of another MMO that received as many new features as this did in 2009. As the OP stated, almost all were very well received by the community.
They did not change all the master spells for all classes yet but they have upgraded the master spells and lower spells to better reflect the level. EQ2 will always be my favorite MMO even though I play WOW and others. Lots of quests and so many other things to do. WOW is just boring if you do not raid all the time. I really have nothing to do everytime I max. I only play it because i like leveling up and doing quests but WOW needs to add more quests to the game and other things to do besides redundant things like faction,pvp,etc. Peace.
Thanks to you all for the positive feedback.
I know I missed out a lot, but it's been such a good year for EQII updates that I decided to focus on my favourite changes. It was that or double the length of the piece.
Let us know in this forum anything else you loved from this year. Who knows, maybe we can convince some more people to sub/resub :)