My brother was over a few days ago and I was showing him some of the Everquest 2 free trial. I wandered out into a lake and attacked a fish, which caused a whole school to attack me. Retreating to the safety of land, I turned to see the school of fish following me. I ran through the gate into the courtyard, fish are still behind me. Finally a crowd gathers and we kill them all off.
We are laughing our heads off at the stupidity of this. I had to try it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.
Fish that fight on land, oh yeah nice work there.
I picked up this news item from CorpNews.
Everquest 2 has released yet another producer’s roundtable. This one has an announcement that I think is very cool. They are adding mentoring to the game. Like City of Heroes, you can have a high level player work with a low level player.
The basic of it are as follows. A high level player selects a low level player, right-clicks and chooses to mentor them. The effect of this is that it drops the high level player down to the apprentice’s level. The mentor can use any spells/skills that would be appropriate for the apprentice’s level. They do not need to change armor or weapons, so I assume they are going to temporarily downgrade their power.
Both the mentor and the apprentice will gain XP. The mentor at a slightly lower rate than they would normally and the apprentice at a slightly higher level. The apprentice can have up to 5 mentors at one time and each gives the apprentice a small boost in XP.
Meanwhile World of Warcraft put up the latest “under development” page here. Unless the line that says “Please note: The New Features list is a sneak peek. It does not contain every addition, change, or bug fix going in the next patch.” is covering for a lot of stuff, I am quite disappointed in Blizzard’s effort to add new content and bug fixes. They have been well below the curve of most other MMORPG devs when it comes to speedy updates and this does not make me think it will change any time soon. But hey, chat bubbles man. That’s important stuff.
EQ2 and WoW have been out just about the same length of time. Which team has put out more patches? EQ2 by a long shot. 28 to 9 is the score I could find.
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Blizzard needs to change their frame of mind regarding content updates. They are moving too slow.
This is part of my fear, that the overwhelming popularity of WoW is very very bad for the game and possibly the genre. Everyone used to copy EQ, now they will start copying WoW. Granted, WoW is fun, but for how long?
Blizzard is sitting on a cash cow, what is left to motivate them?
Everquest 2 is offering a free trial for Fileplanet subscribers. I am a pseudo subscriber (friends in high places, hehe) so I downloaded the free trial and I have the key in my inbox. I’ll check it out this weekend because that is what I do.
My biggest question is this comment: “No need to rush, you have up to a year to try a variety of character types and experiment with various play styles.”
So, um, I understand that I cannot ever leave the “newb” island, but I will be able to play on it for a year? What is up with that? Odd.
EQ2 Producer’s Letter:
This generation of gamers is very different from those that have gone before. Many people out there (quite a few of the dev team included) just don’t have the large blocks of uninterrupted time that we used to. We still want to be able to come online, have fun, be challenged, and be rewarded for our efforts. Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they’re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were.
And:
In tomorrow’s update, expect significant solo and small group experience boosts across the board that allow for advancement that will be much more visible and feel much more satisfying.
In the following weeks’ updates, there will be a new class of creatures added to the game that present an increased challenge to soloers and small groups. Specific details will be posted in the message that accompanies the update. Soloing shouldn’t feel like a grind; it should be an exciting and fun style of play in its own right.
Also in those updates, brand new item rewards will be added for soloists and small-groupers. Additionally, some of the rewards that have been reserved solely for groups will also make their way, though more rarely, to the solo and small group encounters in the world. At the same time, expect group rewards to improve as well. The chances for some of the group-only ultra-rare drops will likewise be increased.
In the weeks following that, expect new dungeon instances to be made available for those who solo, duo, and trio. Exciting dungeon crawling is a core part of what people love the most about online fantasy games, and it shouldn’t be reserved solely for those who choose to play in full groups.
Essentially, the way it should work is like this:
Soloing and small grouping should be a way to advance at a satisfying rate. You should be able to earn good rewards that are exciting in their own right. Soloing and small grouping should also provide a chance at the great rewards that people might not expect in anything except the traditional six-person group.
This (depending on how it goes as I will be watching it) and the firesale price of the EQ2 game in stores may just be enough for me to try it. Well, not that likely.
SOE has released an Everquest 2 offline character creator to the general public. I played around with it some last night and was mildy impressed. I felt the customization did not have a lot of obvious effect, but at least there were lots of races to choose from.
Still, better than the meager choices World of Warcraft gives you.
Everquest 2 is officially going to be released on the 8th of November. Looks like another case of rushing a product out the door before the game is ready. I don’t see this really affecting most people waiting to play as the typical MMORPG gamer has sent a clear message to game companies. Let us play, you can fix the game later. No rush.
The latest rumor has World of Warcraft releasing on the 22nd of November, but I would be suprised by that for a few reasons. One: they have not even started open beta yet and they said that would last a few weeks. Two: they said on the forums that open beta will not be starting any time soon. They do intend on releasing before the end of the year, but I think November is looking unlikely. Heck, they would be better off waiting until EQ2 gets a month in so all the people quitting after the free month can jump right into WoW on the ground floor.
EQ2 not offering an open beta is bad business in my book. I’m not about to pay $50 just to try the game. If you want me to play your MMORPG, you need to offer a free trial or an open beta. EQ2 does not appear to have any plans of the sort.
“group content is heavily dispersed within the solo content”
“ridiculous aggro ranges”
“attempting to solo is just fraught with all sorts of hassles”
“The camping in the game is ridiculous.”
“typical quest is to collect parts of a mob but the parts are obscenely rare drops”
“spent all day trying to find a location because they are too lazy to provide some signs”
“EQ2 lacks a way for players to creatively problem solve.”
“This game is not for the casual, it’s not for the solo oriented. The intial experience may be dazzling, but if you’re of the casual/solo vein; you’re in the wrong place.”
“A good deal of the quests I’ve been assigned cannot be completed at their appropriate level without a group.”