Just another newb....

[Mike]

Hello guys, I just wanted to make myself known. I played SWG with some of you. My players names were Arbaka and Kevo. I just wanted to say hello and i look forward to playing EQ2 with your guys. I have no way to put into words how bored I am with SWG even with going the fighting and crafting routes. So hopefully EQ2 will be a breath of fresh air.

[Tanadil]

Heya MIKE!!!!! This is your bud Dewec! Hope to see you in EQ2 buddy and we will let everyone know what servers we will begin on! many are in beta right now as well! not Whytstar and I, but we are awaiting the game to come out!

BTW...did you get my email?
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Tanadel Talonleaf - Great Grandchild of Tanadil Truecaller of EQ1---lvl 54 Ranja
Luthyien - lvl 23 cleric (wishes could be a Fury)
Anyone want a slice of /Pizza Click to enter and WIN!

[Mike]

Nope never got it, at least if you are speaking about a new one. I sent you one the other day but never got a reply. I figured it was 'cause your comp was down.

[Tanadil]

Well both our comps at home are down, but the one i have at work is good, and thats where i sent you that first email. hmmmmm...i think i have a TENNESSIAN LIAR on my hands.....
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Tanadel Talonleaf - Great Grandchild of Tanadil Truecaller of EQ1---lvl 54 Ranja
Luthyien - lvl 23 cleric (wishes could be a Fury)
Anyone want a slice of /Pizza Click to enter and WIN!

[Kaerai]

/wave Mike nice to see you here! Welcome to your new home . I promise you'll have lots of fun hehe.
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[Smawl]

how bored I am with SWG even with going the fighting and crafting routes. So hopefully EQ2 will be a breath of fresh air

EQ2 = SWG with swords instead of litsabers. same thing, different faces.
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dead drunk monk

[Tanadil]

BAH dont listen to him he just has it out for SoE and loves to be negative! Plus he just misses playing with friends....he's a loner. Love ya SMAWLS!!
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Tanadel Talonleaf - Great Grandchild of Tanadil Truecaller of EQ1---lvl 54 Ranja
Luthyien - lvl 23 cleric (wishes could be a Fury)
Anyone want a slice of /Pizza Click to enter and WIN!

[Smawl]

he just has it out for SoE

not entirely, but yes I dislike companies who do things the way $oE does.

and with the NDA lifted from EQII I can also back up my statement that EQII = SWG

btw beta buddies, how was the last patch? (I haven't logged in in a while)
I hear they up'de solo mobs a bit? a lot? not noticeable?

a HUGE increase in solo/unlinked mobs is about the only thing that would make me even want to consider picking it up off the shelf 6 monthes after release (it's coming before xmas but is in NO WAY ready, ie SWG)
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dead drunk monk

[Buchalter]

*********************************************
WARNING - EQ2 INFO BELOW
Do Not Read if you don't want Spoilers
(Not that any of this is real "HOT INFO" but hey...
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Now that the NDA is gone...

I'm not sure what you were finding, Smawl, but I've had not problem solo'ing - and I've take four characters past 10th level - one for each class type.

I will admit - there are not a lot of single, non grouped MOBs out there. But at low levels you really aren't killing MOBs for exp. You get much better exp by finishing quests than you do by killing. And a lot of the quests are just simple tasks that run you from zone to zone looking for NPCs and they don't even require you to kill anything.

One thing that made solo'ing a little harder was when they took out the HO's - or "Heroic Opportunities". HO's are like a bonus if you cast the right spells in the right order. For example - on my Mage, if I cast my DoT first (Static Field) then follow up with a Lightning spell, and then another Lightning spell, then BAM!!!! The MOB get's hit by an extra high-powered lightning spell that usually will finish him off.

The nice thing is - EVERYONE get's HO's - not just casters. My Ogre Crusader has chain where he kicks, then does his "Wild Swing" ability and finishes with a Taunt - that combo unleashes a very nice direct damage lighting bolt on the MOB for Big damage.

They put HO's back in the game witht he last patch (they had to take them out for a while cuz they weren't working properly) and since then solo'ing is much easier. But even without the HO's, you really just had to stick to greens and single lt. blues and you would be fine. But with HO's, my Ogre was taking on 3 grouped Orcs at a time, green cons, and having no problem. And remember - you get bonus exp if you kill a grouped encounter as opposed to a single MOB. $$$

But again, I really need to stress - at low levels, newbie quests are the way to go for easy EXP and cash. And they really are a GREAT way to get to know your way around the cities and outlying areas... because they WILL run you all over the place. I made a point of NOT being that annoying jerk who /OOC "where is so-and-so?!?" ... I took the time to hunt out every NPC that I needed - not an easy feat without tracking! (Boy I miss that on my Ranger!)

Overall, I've found EQ2 to have a lot of stuff for a softcore player - many times I've just logged on for an hour or two on a afternoon and had plenty to do - NEVER been bored like in EQ1 where you log on and sit for hours because there is nothing rewarding to do. Honestly, I don't know if that will continue to be true as my characters get to higher levels, but so far it has held true. Like I said earlier - I wanted to get to know all four character types, so I've played them all to somewhere between 9th and 12th level.

My early impression on the classes... CASTER RULE! yeah, most of the gear is for the melees (just like EQ) but they need it! It's so much easier to be a Mage and just root your MOB, DoT it, and toss a couple spells on it. By the time the roots wear off, you're completing your HO, and BAM - dead MOB. Or, if you're a priest you get nice buffs, a decent nuke, and the ability to heal yourself. Again, very easy to solo.

Melees are a bit tougher to solo with, but still it's very do-able. HO's make it much easier to solo as a melee - without them you really have to be carefull. From what I could see from the recent patch, they aren't giving HO's to players until you do your first "class quest", so basically you won't have HO's until about 9th or 10th level. Not a biggie - as a melee you can just stick mostly to quests for your early EXP.

As for "class quests". The way classes work in EQ2 is kinda fun. You start as a basic class - Fighter, Priest, Mage, and Scout. (this is no news - you can read about this on the EQ2 web site) The fun part is that you start on a "newbie island" and have to do a few simple quests to leave. When you leave the island you have to choose which city to align yourself with - Freeport of Qeynos. If you're a 'good' or 'evil' race you have no choice - Good has to go to Qeynos and Evil has to go to Freeport. But Humans, Erudites, Barbarians, etc... they get a choice. (I was slightly disappoint that Ratonga are considered 'evil' and get no choice )

Once you go to that city you have to complete a "Citizenship Quest" to be allowed in the city proper. Each race has their own little "suburb" that they start in. As a new refuge to Qeynos you can freely trave from 'burb to 'burb, but you can't actually go into Qeynos until you do your citizenship quest. You also cannot level up to 7th level without finishing the citizenship quest - so you really can't put it off. Your EXP will "bank" tho, so if you kill stuff and are stuck at level 6 you will get credit for it. Many times I finished my citizenship quests and went straight to 8th level - almost 9th level! Shortly after you finish Citizenship you'll have to hunt out your Class trainer and do another series of quests to determie what sub-class you want to be. These quests are a bit tougher, but still - I did ALL my sub-class quests solo. You can't get 10th level until you're done with your subclass quests, so again - you're gonna want to do those as soon as possible.

Past that I really haven't explored much. I'm really anxious to see what starts to happen at higher levels, but I'm having so much fun messing around with all the different classes that I havne't really focused on any of them enough to get higher. Every time I think I've found my favorite class, I play one of my other characters and find that's pretty cool too!

Overall, speaking from a guy who was very sold on WoW just a couple months ago, I very much see myself giving EQ2 a chance.

[Smawl]

i think maybe one of the harder parts i've been having is actually finding the quest people - and once finding them figuring out if the quest is actually for my level. i took on a bunch only to find out that they were level 15+ group quests...

between that and my horrible PC it seems I am zoning more than anything. by the time I find a decent quest it's time to zone mutiple times again...

for me soloability should be a good option, not the LAST option.

tradeskills.... they shoulda left it as an entirely seperate class... way too intense to be a casual sideline... sigh... one more thing that i like to do (besides solo, which isn't a "like" - more like my only option with the schedule i keep) that I won't be doing.

and (yes here we go again with antiSOE propoganda) although the game does have potential (I said that about SWG to) it will release WAY too early and be broken for some time. heroic ops weren't just "not working properly"... they were crashing entire zones at 5sec-10min intervals... hardly something you would expect from a game that is going to ship in a month or so... sure, these huge bugs will be fixed in time, but given the track record many more will remain in game because resources will be shifted to producing another half finished expansion...

so now... for the record... i LOVE everquest, just hate what keeps being done to it and having seen what soe has done to EQ since VI faded from the scene, and how SWG was dev'd it leaves me pretty certain about the overall experience I can expect from EQII

personally I haven't tried WoW, but would like to so I have something to compare EQ1 EQII to. reserving judgement 'till then (in the mean time I am twinking a bard on vazaelee !!!)
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dead drunk monk

[Renvik]

Honestly, with a low end PC and all of the possitive reviews coming from WoW, plus the accelerated progression, it might just be your game. People say a lot of really good things about it.

But I have to agree with Buch, I've had no problem soloing stuff for what I need to do, and tradeskills are tough to start but now that they have player merchants set up I can see it becomming a much more viable alternative since components can start to become redily available.

I'll agree, for the newbies the caster is the way to go, especially solo. Though I can take on two whites with both of my fighters at a time, it always leaves me pretty low health. My summoner can take on two whites at level 10 and still have 80% power left, which will regen in like 20 seconds. The lack of downtime, especially on casters, rules in this game.

Yea there's a lot of zoning. It would really piss me off with a slow computer. And I think the quests can be improved, but I've never started working on one I didn't think I could finish because of the con system. The quests have con colors in your journal, green for trivial, white for even, yellow for a little bit more difficult, orange for you'd probably need a group and red for you'll need a few more levels. I've seen very very few red quests given out, and a handful of orange, and so far I've never had any problem completing yellow quests at level 10 on my caster. For my fighters I need a healer along to do some yellow quests, but the number of people LFG never makes it hard.

People say the game changes at level 20 and there becomes less to do, but I'll see when I get there. It may be that a more permanent guild dynamic is what people need at that level to keep interested. Either way I'm glad that the game isn't spoon fed all the way to 50, and that you can't breeze through all the levels by yourself, cause I really wouldn't take any pride in my character if it was that easy.

So out of curiosity though, how does EQ2=SWG? I'm having a really hard time trying to think of any correlarry. Combat isn't anything similar, progression and class ability are totally different, graphics are different, quests are night and day different, there isn't anything like a 'mission' terminal, there's no offline selling, gear is unique, class restricted, takes effort to find and it makes a large difference, and there's no such thing as people selling buffs. Not only that, but you don't require buffs to be able to go out and do anything, which I found to be the biggest drawback of SWG.


P.S. Welcome Mike. I appologize for the derail
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[Tanadil]

Yes, Mike, Welcome to our boards HAHA!!! We are really good at derailing and hijacking threads on a whim!
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Tanadel Talonleaf - Great Grandchild of Tanadil Truecaller of EQ1---lvl 54 Ranja
Luthyien - lvl 23 cleric (wishes could be a Fury)
Anyone want a slice of /Pizza Click to enter and WIN!

[Kaerai]

Wade I know you have been burned by SOE I think we all have at some point, but I have to agree with Lud. EQII is nothing like SWG. They are complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Mike (Arbaka/Kevo) is now involved with beta and hopefully he can reiterate the difference . You know I thnk we all had our own ideas and hopes of what the game was going to be like and to be honest it turned out WAY different than I expected it to be, but that's okay. I hate the grouped mob thing and wish they would turn it back to social aggro, but you adjust to it. Like with any online RPG the game changes as it progresses. They get more feedback and maybe if you scream loud enough you will be heard. I only ask that you give the game enough of an opportunity when it launches to see us through to ES2.0. See what the game has to offer when all your friends are online. See what it's like in a guild setting and being in a raid. These aspects honestly are why I play the game. I can play any game solo. It's the friends I have that make the game enjoyable. Most of us here have families. EQ2 offers the break we all have been needing to be able to play a game, but not put our families on hold.

Lud retired officially from EQ1 and the stress and weight of feeling so massively obligated to a game is now gone. Just last night he was saying how wonderful it is to come home and not have to worry about rushing to get online to be on time for a raid. I may be getting off on a tangent here, but I think that EQ2 is a wonderful game. I have been having so much fun with it and I really like seeing the ES bond continuing over.

I am hoping to at least get to test out one raid before the game goes live, but I doubt I will. As of Thursday I am working a ton since I have to cover maternity on a transcriptionist (which is great cuz it's more Christmas $$). Then I will be leaving on vacation on the 31st to Nov 4. So Mike, HAVE FUN .
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[Renvik]

I, personally, have never been burned by SoE. Seems all of the petitions I've ever made were answered and taken care of. Some things are obviously annoying, but patience usually cures it well enough, especially for $13 a month.

The only way I feel burned by SoE is indirectly with the lack of improvements the wizard class received in GoD and OoW. But, I feel that can be attributed to EQ maxing out. They no longer can put in the sweeping power increases that they have in the past because it will become rediculous. I don't blame SoE for that. In fact I attribute SoE for taking very dull, annoyance driven and generally weak classes developed and influenced by Verant through Velious and making them very advanced, in-depth, customizable and highly enjoyable classes in PoP and beyond. Even though that direction saturated class improvements, I wasn't expecting EQ to be able to last forever, and there's no way I would have been able to last 3 years as a Velious wizard.

[Smawl]

I'll admit I've way exceeded the value I get for $13 a month. like I said, I love the game.

as for EQ2=SWG... for every difference there are similarities, just depends which way you spin it.

the graphics for one - at least for me (I almost always play humans) scream SWG. the run animations are carbon copies of each other (I always play 3rd person so seen it up close a lot!). water and grass are also pretty much the same. as I am a fairly visual person this strikes a pretty deep cord when saying EQ2=SWG

tradeskills... player crafted loot, each with it's own stats (or durability) - the best items coming from rare dropped components = SWG. they did change the artisan class to a sideline - if not it woulda been like SWG (it's own class)

/bazaar, in this case "in house" vendoring as well as a town broker (thankfully in SWG you could at least have a droid to sell from your house OFFLINE)

housing

there's prolly more, but I am beat. and I am not saying the similarities are bad (although I really dislike the trade system) and honestly I wish there were some more things that were the same (no zoning and no group level restrictions + some others)

anyways, no matter, good/bad, same/different, it's all fine and dandy - cya in game
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dead drunk monk

[Kaerai]

[Tanadil]

JUST SAY NO! TO IMAGE DESIGN!
_________________
Tanadel Talonleaf - Great Grandchild of Tanadil Truecaller of EQ1---lvl 54 Ranja
Luthyien - lvl 23 cleric (wishes could be a Fury)
Anyone want a slice of /Pizza Click to enter and WIN!

[Renvik]

I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that there's no cantina or dancer profession!

And yea, the sprint animation in EQ2 sucks real bad. All they did was speed up walk. Would have been nice if they knew that people actually stretch their legs farther when running /boggle.

[Mike]

Here is a little tip for ya Keiri....make your house storage and dont try all that decorating crap and you wont have to worry about all that stuff like... what goes where and if something is straight. haha

[smawlfry]

How long has it been since you played SWG?

a while

but when I first logged into EQ2 I did a double take and had to double check to see which game I had launched. maybe side by side they're a lot more different, but I swear I had SWG deja-vue.

group level restictions... wouldn't work for EQ, but it was nice for SWG.
EVERYONE could go along for a group or raid no matter what level they were and you got back (%) of what you put in. the higher levels made more XP, the lowers got lower, seemed to work out ok.