Since we didn't have one of these , or I am an idiot (take your pick), I have made said thread. Currently running around on a Beastlord (BEESTLOARD!!!ONE!!ELEVENTY!!), enjoying the shit out of this. The freeport revamp is confusing but pretty. Erollisi day is in effect and you can go rose the heck out of everyone if you like. For those keeping track Erollisi was just revived, and there is much whispering she will be worshipable in the next update. The station cash store is strumming along, new houses to buy. I bought the last expansion pack, and this is how companions should be done. I go hire a ..whatever (if you can manage to get to them and hire them, you can have it but only one) then go out and bash heads in with help. It does seem to slightly nerf your loot drops but not enough that it is frustrating. You can suspend them, and draw them out only when you need the extra oomph. They do cost a upkeep, but as long as you are killing and looting not standing around chatting it won't matter. They managed to get reasonable halter top like chest pieces working, it is hilarious on an ilksar (lizard). There is still the semi lack of support, the general feel of a dying game but not the feel that say SWG had after the NGE. The interface issues can be largely assisted by installing say DrumsUI. The rest they have -gasp- worked on, but the native interface is still awful. I can't help it , the ability to grab 40 quests and do them how I wish to do them is winning me back. I can't do that even in wow now. Oh .. the dungeon creator, this is um..odd. I do suggest rolling around in it enough to get say weapons or the 48 slot box if you plan on being around. This is not available to non subscribers. I don't think the mercs are either. (companions) If you subscribe regularly they bribe you back with 500 station cash per month. So you get an instant 5 bucks off the sub that instead you can spend on frills. Reasonable.. NCsoft did that with City of Heroes. Remember Eq2 is free, I strongly suggest rolling on Antonia Bayle if you aren't too tied into a different server, as it tends to the highest population.
I actually just let my EQ2 subs lapse again. Yes, it's F2P so I can still technically log on, but the plat limitations make it not worth my while. For anyone at all curious about the game, I do think it's worth checking out. The world is massive, and there's a lot to do if you're just getting into the game. It's also full of a lot of jank that goes unfixed for months, and it's usually not the charming kind. Unfortunately, I am insanely bored of the existing content and there won't be more coming out till April, which will probably only take me another month to beat. :P A few random tidbits: - Their Dungeon Finder (not to be confused with the Dungeon Maker/Creator that Ryslin mentioned) is worse than useless. Don't bother with it. - On a related note: Don't expect to group at lower levels, due to the leveling pace. If you want to run < level 90 dungeons, your best bet is to find another person with the latest expansion and use mercs to make your way through them. - When you hit level 10, adjust your EXP->AA slider so that at least 50% of your EXP is being converted into AA gain. A lot of your key abilities come from AAs, so you are hurting yourself by not getting as much as you can. If you do roll on Antonia Bayle, I have a few crafters (Sage, Alchemist, Jeweler, Provisioner, and Carpenter). If you supply the mats, I can probably make stuff for you if you need it.
Just curious, how is EQ2 since it's gone F2P? My sub expired quite a while ago and I've been messing around in other things. I always loved this game, even when the numbers were slumping.
In what way? The intellectual level of the 1-9 chat has bottomed out, but it was never that high to begin with. I don't hear/see much about freebies on AB. It leans more to the silver and up level. Eq2 still has ridiculous restrictions on the free aspect, but one "can" gift a month of real play through station cash. The bugs mentioned aren't really felt at the mid levels where I tend to rest. I am not a end game instance runner. I am generally an explorer and have barely gotten past thundering steppes /neck forest. So much content is in the begining and just shortly after zones you can get lost just trying to get all of it done. However- I have consistently found quests for Freeport that are pointing to no longer existing NPCs due to how the revamp changed everything. So there is that. It is an old and rather dying game with a significant charm. Wander in it with that in mind.
Are you talking about the actual F2P implementation? If so, it's better than some games in some respects. For example, not having to buy quest packs is nice. Unfortunately, there are a number of restrictions that you can't just pay a one time fee to get around. For example, as a Bronze member you can only have 4.5 platinum at level 90. If you pay the $5 one time fee to upgrade to Silver, you can only hold 18 platinum. For reference, when I quit I had around 25,000 plat -- granted, I was sort of in the top % of rich players, but 18 plat won't buy you much. You also don't have a lot of classes available to you as a free player, though if you have an already existing character that's one of the now pay-for classes, you can still use it. It's definitely worth checking out, in my opinion. The game has a lot of charm and I will continue to go back to it every now and then.
Ahhh EQ2 memories! I'll never go back to that damn game, but it was fun back in the days of yore. I logged in again years later (during some free-to-resub event) and it was super weird seeing the global chat channel that I'd created still being used regularly by current players.
I had fun with the Qt3 gang (of whom I think only Fugitive is posting here on BF [as HalibutBarn]) and we managed to get our group up to the mid-70s before things petered out. One thing that is nice about EQ2 is there's plenty of group-related quests that don't mandate minimum party or level requirements (Heroic quests come to mind) so we were able to spend most of our time working on those rather than trivializing the solo quest stuff. I recently logged in with my old account but as a free-to-play player. All of my AAs had been reset, I had overflowing bags (two were no longer usable, so I had to shift stuff around), all of my keybindings and other settings were lost and the streaming client kept things chugging the entire time as I stood there on the dock at Butcherblock Mountains. So I logged out and haven't been back. But still, how many MMOs let you play a rat that rides a dinosaur? (my level 74 ratonga bruiser, Gnawbone)
I'm still subscribed to EQ2, but all I've really been doing lately (when I remember to do so) is popping on to do the daily tradeskill research quests, which have a chance of rewarding you with the gem needed for uber-level crafted items. Otherwise, I've pretty much exhausted the solo content in SoF and Velious, AoD didn't really add much of interest, and I haven't really had enough enthusiasm to hook up and do any new group stuff or raiding or the faction grinding. I've gotten kinda bored of it now, but there is a ton of stuff to do for new players. Heck, when our group was playing, there were whole zones and dungeons we barely even touched and we weren't exactly powerleveling.
Yes, I was. I played EQ2 for a good long period, I think I lost interest somewhere in the Kunark rehash expansion. There's still things I miss to this day, such as the tradeskill and housing / guild hall systems. I wonder if the silver account status would apply to both EQ2 and EQ1 when it goes F2P... I think I used the same station account for both games.
If they handle EQ1 like EQ2, you get silver status if you ever were a paying customer. Still playing EQ2 on and off, btw, but more to log on and hang out with friends than anything else. Not a bad game, though, the last two expansions, if you can call AoD such, were just somewhat lackluster. Will be interesting to see if they can turn this sinking ship around via F2P, but then again, it's Sony.
I loaded it up for old times sake, completely forgot how to play... Also I woke up mostly naked on a rock in the ocean, most of my money gone, game immediately spammed me with 15 popup messages, all AAs reset, many major spells missing, inventory overflowing. Made my way back home to find that deliquents had broken and stolen all my good wood panels! Tried to put some of my gear back on to be told my account wasn't worthy of it, half the slots were locked up for the same reason. Then I was kindly reminded to upgrade to a paid acct, and logged out. Maybe some day I will resub but f2p isn't for me :)
One of the stipulations of f2p accounts is that you can't wear legendary or better gear, unless you (wait for it) buy some special unlockers. From what I've gathered, most f2p players wear mastercrafted stuff as this is the best tier that is still free-to-wear.
Haha that explains a lot actually. If it were up to me (Obviously its not) I would just do the full game with no restrictions save one very annoying thing... perhaps an exp recoup rez penalty or maybe needing the spellbook open to meditate. The amount of coaxing me into paying was too much and kind of a turn off.
Well, maybe right now is not a good time to try out EQ2 actually, as Sony has just announced a deal for a partnership in Europe and has partnered with Pro7Sat1/alaplaya of all people (details here). People are not happy about this, and I tend to concur.
yeah.. cept this is typical Sony/Soe crap. Someone made a choice to partner with Pro7Sat1 and get money for doing so. The original EQ2 launch had the EU/US players separated. The underground rumor mill now is that if your characters are on the sold servers you are out of luck. (there is some hem and hawing about trying to allow transfers). Further rumors include the ..we don't care where you are actually from if you buy a US copy bla bla. Any international accounts on US servers are confirmed to stay (cept Australia is still in the air , no direct answer about their status yet). Supposedly new EU folks couldn't join. Then again , I point back to the rumor mill of if you purchase and play on a US server it is your call. However.. the big fuss is most the Testing folks were from the EU. They just lost their veteran player testers. Smooth move Smed.
Well, that and Alaplaya has a horrible reputation for being pay-to-win (link picked at random). So, aside from all the fun like Australian players on the British server who'll be locked out according to the FAQs, some of us Euros fear that Sony's pretty much written off the few European servers anyway and now uses them as an experiment to see just how far a playerbase can be milked, and washing their hands of it 'cause it's not them doing the pricing. I for one don't like doing any kind of business with Alaplaya, so if Sony doesn't offer free server transfers (and I sure won't reward their sleaze for paying for a transfer) I guess I'll call it a day.
The euro thing has kinda come and gone with the whole process being so fubar as to not be noticed. Since CoH has left us , this is one of the few games left where you can build /decorate/alter the game for your personal enjoyment. It has slipped even further down the home simulator online path, but the Qeynos update is nice. All former qyenosian sub zones hovel rooms are at the lion's den? inn. This is the big inn that was south qeynos. All other housing has been left where it was. There has been much crying for the loss of baubleshire and willow wood, otherwise the game goes on per normal.
Euro thing hasn't happened yet, at least not for EQ2. Rumor mill has it that they ran into troubles with DCUO (like Pro7 terms of service restricting you to one account per person) and that's what's causing the delay. Could be wrong, though, I must admit I'm not really paying attention anymore. But yes, I do miss the quaint little old zones like Willow Wood, even though they were pretty deserted ever since guild halls came around.
I jumped into EQ2 a few days ago to take a look at Qeynos 2.0 and even though I did a full client install first (about 13GB) I still found the game would sometimes freeze for up to 15-20 seconds at a time. I don't know if it was just caching or if my HD was flaking out or what but it pretty much turned me off trying to get back into it. But I know me and I will try again. Just not now. (Qeynos 2.0 looked pretty enough.)
Streaming client doesn't load everything in, so periodically it seems to check your local to find out if there is something in view that you don't have. I have also found steam really gives it annoying jerks. I shut that off and run full screen to get the minimal amount of jerk. My current issue is some form of texture corruption, seems to happen most often with older zones. Say the sewer under freeport. I have shadows turned off , occlusion off, godrays off, so on so forth still get it. I can only at this point look at my driver set (always a problem with ATI) or the game. It isn't game breaking for me though. It is still a nice place to get your quest on, there is always -something- you could do to progress. It also doesn't give me nightmares. TSW gives me nightmares after about a week of play. Takes a month to get back to it. -shudder- Dragon asylum is worse than Black House.
The biggest limiter still is how far out you set particle effects and render distance. If you have an amd chip you will still suffer performance issues vs a intel due to the original coding of the game. Same happens with Ati vs Nvidia..in favor of the nvidia chip. There is no current setup but the numbers haven't changed all that much. Set to the spec's you have found, then inch things up and down til you find your sweet spot. The lighting sources/particles so on are -still- dead on since our cards do not process the way that was "planned" for.
Make sure you have outdoor shadows set to use the GPU. That was changed a few years back. If you haven't, do a full install of the game so it doesn't keep trying to stream data. I tried looking for some current guides on the official forum but it's a mess of mostly outdated info there, too.
Log in if you like the game, they have been messing with the engine again. It looks and behaves much spiffier.
Yeah, I looked through all the recent update notes and didn't find anything new regarding the engine, so I'm curious as well.
Yeah, I popped on and didn't really notice anything different either. On another note, Sunday is a triple station cash day, if you want to stock up. You can't buy expansions with station points anymore, though; too bad, as it was about the only way to make Age of Discovery actually worth what you pay...
Works far better on my ATI , speedy and things. I have never seen patch notes that indicate they have done any amount of graphical work. I then notice things like the low end armor being colored differently now, and far more vividly. Specular working better so on. Was noticed by me , my other half and another that plays. Then again we hadn't played since -thinks- June. You can buy Kronos though and that is game time, sell that for plat if you like(since its a game item) or save game time for when you don't have any. Halloween is still on til Tues so is double xp.
A new expansion is out, but...it doesn't really sound all that great. Two new zones, but they're really just alternate-universe revamps of two existing zones, Loping Plains and Feerrott. Everyone loves Feerrott, right? Plus some new raid zones, for the hardcore players. It was a lot of fun before, but it feels like EQ2's been stagnating a lot lately. Maybe they've just turned most of their internal focus onto EQNext now.
yes we are effectively giving them money to keep developing eq next. I am ok with this. That said there was some interesting revamps behind the scenes in crafting. You now get crafting AA from crafting xp (a welcome change) and there are crafting prestige levels. For those interested in that side of things. All said, I am glad they aren't shutting it down like say ..CoH.
Hm, I was having a decent time in EQ2 when I started playing my Necromancer again a few months ago, after having quit about a year after the game came out. Then I realized that I wasn't allowed to carry more than 10 platinum, wear any legendary/fabled gear or use the auction house, despite being a silver member. I might give this another look, although it's a little lame that they don't include any of the more recent expansions in their free to play model. I don't think I'd bother to go back to EQ1 even if it was 100% free to play, though. 5 years was enough.
As far as I know, you still won't be able to wear legendary/fabled (if he's clarified this somewhere else, I just haven't looked that hard). And I'm not sure the bag slot & shared bank restrictions will affect the amount of plat you can carry.
