Archive for the ‘Everquest 2’ Category
Posted by Stropp on
July 28, 2009
Since I've been playing more Everquest 2 than anything else lately, I figured it would be appropriate to post an update of where I'm at.
I'm not fighting the altaholism anymore (stopped attending the meetings) which is great since I joined a guild,
The Halasian Empire, which pretty much has a mandatory alt policy (mandatory crafting too ;-).) So I rolled (several) characters on Lucan D'Lere. These are:
- Bargears (pronounced BargeArse) - A Troll Shadowknight on adventure level 25 and tradeskill level 29 as a Carpenter. He's currently the character that I've been spending most of my time on, nearly six days played so far which might seem odd considering the relatively low level. I've been taking the leveling very slowly, as an experiment locking the adventure level and accumulating as many AA points as possible. So far he's gained 38 AA points since level 10 simply by doing as many quests from the available regions as possible.
- Stropp - A Froglok level 16 Templar, and level 22 Sage. I'll be spending more time on Stropp's tradeskilling than his adventuring, at least for the foreseeable future simply because he'll be responsible for spell upgrades.
- Motli - A Ratonga Necromancer sitting pretty on 13, and is also a level 25 Armorer. Also a character developed more for the tradeskills. Bargears is going to need that Master Crafted armor, and Motli will supply that need. When I do any adventuring, he'll get his spell upgrades from Stropp the Sage. Balance, eh?
- Stroppcat - A Kerran Illusionist, currently level 7 and a level 17 Scholar. Also chosen for the crafting, he'll be going down the Alchemist path. Alchemists supply the combat ability upgrades for the fighter archetype (Sages => Magic/Healing, Jewelers => Rogue) and will also be a support for Bargears. Having said that, I was pretty impressed the other day when I was doing the first crafting tutorial quest. It required gathering a bunch of raw materials and I decided to go through Oakmyst Forest since it has the best selection of nodes in the newbie areas. I managed to get close to one of the young (agro) bears and got some unwanted attention. This beastie was also pretty tough, registering as an orange mob. Fortunately I had my Personae out and cleaned him up. Pretty good for a clothie, another mage class would probably have been torn to shreds.
Even though I don't necessarily intend to adventure with all these characters right at the moment -- Bargears is proving an awful lot of fun and I want to take him as far as possible -- I made sure that I picked an adventuring class that I'm interested in trying out. Stroppcat particularly interests me, especially with that orange takedown, and might be a good subject for an extreme AA experiment I'm considering. (More on that later.)
There are a few other alts sitting in stasis, I did some experimenting with other classes just to see what they were like in the one to ten range. They might go on, or they might not, I haven't decided yet. However, it's a dead cert that sometime I'll create a new alt. I'll let you know when I do.
So that's the round-up. I'll keep working on Bargears, he's currently got a nearly full quest log with quests for The Thundering Steppes, Nektulos Forest, and The Butcherblock Mountains. Not to mention a bunch for various dungeons like Fallen Gate and Blackburrow. He'll remain level locked until most of those are cleared (except for Fallen Gate, he'll need 2 or 3 more levels to solo that dungeon) and that should add up to 10 more AA.
Posted by Stropp on
July 17, 2009
Back a couple of weeks ago the news became public that Blizzard had registered Cataclysm as a trademark.
And the MMORPG blogosphere erupted into speculation.
Not being above a little speculation myself, as well as not being above a little smart-arsedness, I suggested that the term Cataclysm sounded like something that would be used for an expansion. The smart-arsedness came in with the speculation that
WoW: Cataclysm could be about the destruction of the old Azeroth and a increase in starting level because Blizzard were sick of maintaining the old world and wanted to concentrate solely on adding levels to WoW. (That was the smart-arsedness btw.)
Of course, everyone else said that it was about the swirly thing in the middle of the world map, and they've probably got it right.
But today in the comments on the WoW: Cataclysm post,
Kiryn of the Eleven-Four blog, suggested that Cataclysm also sounded like it could be a sequel where the old world was destroyed and where everyone had to (from Outland) retake their old, shattered lands.
Hmmm. Now that sounded familiar.
Everquest 2 is based exactly on that premise. Old Norrath was destroyed when the gods left (also destroying the moon Luclin) as they were upset at being continually ganked by the players. (I wonder if one of them was
Twixt?)
Big chunks of Luclin rained down upon the world and (I guess) the change in tidal forces ripped the continents apart. Residents of EQ2 are now basically rediscovering the old world through each expansion.
Now given Blizzards aptitude for taking what others have done and then improving on it through polishing it out the wazoo, it may be that they are looking (as Kiryn suggested) to be taking what EQ2 has done and adding the unique Blizzard/WoW touch.
So here's what to expect from WoW2: Cataclysm.
- The game will be set 500 years after the events of World of Warcraft 1.
- Several player species will be lost and will need to be rediscovered through quests, world events, and expansions.
- Some player species will be renamed. Expect Tauren to be renamed Minotauren.
- All of the player cities will be consolidated into two remaining large cities, one for each faction. Other old cities will be rediscovered over time.
- Players will be able to collect shiny objects on the ground.
- A butterfly winged race will be added. Probably Furbolgs will evolve wings over the 500 years (making them even more annoying.)
- Crafting will be added made more relevant and fun.
- Housing will be... err... Housing probably will never be added.
Release date: When it's ready.
Posted by Stropp on
June 17, 2009
After dipping my toes back into the world of Neo-Norrath (that's Everquest 2) and playing a few different classes, I ended up rolling on a Templar on Lucan D'Lere and joining up with a great guild there. That happened middle of last week.
The Halasian Empire is a long established guild, and has the added advantage of having a few Aussie members. It's nice to be able to be online with a folks from my own timezone. It's also includes a few blogger friends, some of whom I met in the Casualties of War.
Of course, none of the characters I'd previously rolled were on LDL, so a new class was necessary, and having not played a healer for a long long time (barring a stint as a Warrior Priest in WAR) I thought I might give the classic cleric a try. My side motivation was that clerics are often sought after for groups, and I'd definitely like to do some grouping, even if it's a majority of PUGs that I end up in.
I'm also trying a different style of play.
Normally I just rush to the level cap. Well, perhaps rush is the wrong word, but in essense I just tend to go where the levels are. But in Everquest 2, one can turn off adventure experience and quest experience in order to remain at the current adventure level. That can be pretty useful if you're doing a static group with friends and just want to play your character while your friends are offline. That way you never outlevel them.
But this has another advantage with EQ2. You can still earn AA points by completing level 10+ quests, killing named NPCs, or by exploring new areas. Those points can then be invested into various attributes and such in order to make that character more powerful.
So by stopping and smelling the roses, and visiting every zone that caters to my level and doing the rounds there, I'll end up with a stronger Templar when I'm grinding through the middle levels.
If I feel like I need some level advancement, I'll simply switch the adventure XP back on.
I'm also spending more effort crafting, and this is good because crafting in Everquest 2 puts the crafting in World of Warcraft and, dare I say it, LotRO to shame. I honestly have never seen the point of a crafting system where you just feed in a bunch of mats, press a button, and go make a cup of coffee. Macro much?
I picked the Sage profession for crafting mainly because I'll be able to create all the spells I'll need later on up to the Adept 3 level. Although that's changing in the latest Game Update. According to the GU52 patch notes the Apprentice 1 to 3 spells will be renamed to Apprentice, Apprentice 4 will be Journeyman, Adept 1 is Adept, Adept 3 is becoming Expert, and the Masters 1 and 2 will be called Master and Grandmaster respectively.
Unfortunately, SOE are also dumbifying (or perhaps I should say WoWifying) the spell names. Instead of a unique name for each level of a spell, they're just going to use the same name and number them sequentially. So the healing range of spells will simply be called Healing I - IV (or whatever the max is.) It's a real pity because it just seems SOE is catering to the lowest common denominator here when they don't really have to. (As an aside, even in WoW I have always thought the sequential number of spells and abilities is lame. It's always struck me as lazy and unimaginitive. Sad to see EQ2 pandering to that.)
Anyways, back on track. Sage. Right. Over the weekend I leveled him up to 20 tradeskill level. The first ten levels are a snap. The crafting tutorial quests do all the work really. The next ten levels are a bit harder. The trick here is to craft something you've never made before each time since you get bonus XP for doing so. It took somewhere between two to three hours standing at the engraved desk in the guild hall, but I did hit 20 which makes me eligible to do crafting writs and earn a bit of status, both for myself and the guild.
So there you go. My current gaming status.
Oh, and one other thing. I cancelled my subscription to World of Warcraft.
That little duty has been on my mind for a couple of months now, since the bottom has fallen out of the job market especially. I'm saving pretty hard right now as my contract completes at the end of August (unless I get another extension.) Worried? Yep a little. I've even had a bit of insomnia as a result. So I'm cutting excess costs, and even though a sub to WoW is on the low end of expense, it's something I can't justify at the moment. And since I'm not playing much Eve at this time, that will probably go too.
At least resubscribing is an option when times get better.
Posted by Stropp on
May 31, 2009
There's been a little discussion of late about the nature of Everquest 3. Tipa has been
proposing that
EQ3 will use the client/server model that seems to work so well for Free Realms. This model works by streaming data as the user plays, not by downloading a single large patch before playing.
Ogrebears has taken the opposite viewpoint in that a hypothetical Everquest 3 would have a much larger data footprint than Free Realms which would make a streaming data model impractical (for a number of reasons.)
[adsense_id="1"]So why are we talking about Everquest 3?
Well, it appears that SOE have a new project in the works, and that this project has been the destination for a couple of high profile members of the EQ:OA and EQ2 teams. (Sorry, I read this the other day and can't find the article.) This would seem to suggest that the new project is something at least related to Everquest.
However, I'm going to disagree with Tipa's premise. I don't believe that SOE are developing Everquest 3. I think that the effect that EQ2 had on EQ1 is reason enough for them to go for a new IP.
Everquest 2 had a big impact on Everquest: Online Adventures. Players left for the new game and didn't come back when EQ2 wasn't what they had hoped for. (Some did come back, true, but WoWs arrival a few months later siphoned off a lot of disillusioned EQ2ers.)
So with both Everquest and Everquest 2 now seeing a measure of stability -- a player base that seems fairly healthy and consistent -- why would SOE jeopardize this by releasing another sequel?
But if the potential for destabilizing the existing playerbase is an issue, the other is lack of freedom. If SOE decide to go the EQ3 route they are constrained to follow the existing lore of both games closely. The alternative is to risk alienating the players who love the world and lore of Norrath. The big advantage of developing a new IP is that the developers can pretty much do anything they want, go in any direction they want. And the players get something fresh and new.
Finally, as has been pointed out before, there's a perception that MMORPG sequels don't tend to do all that well. Having said that, there have been precious few sequels to be able to validate this, and (as I believe) it has more to do with managing expectation and execution rather than the fact of being a sequel. But, there's a perception of greater risk with sequels, and I'd have thought this would have been taken into account by SOE's marketing department.
So I just don't think the new game will be EQ3 set on Norrath. I'm expecting something new.
Of course, I also don't see how Hollywood can justify doing sequels and remakes of old movies and TV shows out the wazoo either.
As just an aside, developing a new project is expensive. Given the current recession, perhaps this is a big part of why SOE have canned The Matrix Online, to open up some funds for whatever it is they are developing.
Posted by Stropp on
August 7, 2008
That should probably be rule numero uno in the Everquest 2 guide for noobs.
And there's a pretty darn good reason for it too. That is, spending five plus hours harvesting in order to raise your harvesting skills is about as boring as watching chili seeds grow*.
That's about the time it took me last night to bring all of my harvest skills to the point where I can harvest tier 4 resources. Unfortunately, when I started, my fishing and trapping skills were low at 22 and 63, while my mining, gathering and foresting were in the respectable 130s.
However, even my mining, gathering and lumberjacking skills needed some love. Ssirius the Sarnak Shadowknight has just reached 31 by doing quests in Nektulos Forest. While Nek is a treasure trove of quests and XP, it's a dismal dreary place, especially when it's raining. And it seems to rain all the time.
In search of nicer weather, I did some traveling to both the Enchanted Lands and Zek, both level 30 plus zones. At both locales I ran around loading up on quests -- I'm almost out of space in the quest log now -- and just looking around the early parts of the zone. However, when I tried to do some harvesting I was soundly rebuked.
So. I needed to improve my harvesting skills.
| Tier | Min Skill Req. | Final Skill Gain |
| Tier 1 | 1 | 32 |
| Tier 2 | 20 | 95 |
| Tier 3 | 90 | 155 |
| Tier 4 | 140 | ? |
| Tier 5 | 190 | ? |
| Tier 6 | 240 | ? |
| Tier 7 | 290 (varies) | ? |
| Tier 8 | 340 | ? |
I've thrown together this little table to give you an idea of what the skills are for each tier. The Final Skill Gain column is where the tier x nodes stop giving me skillups. I'm not sure what these values are after Tier 3 at this stage. I also pulled some of this data from the EQ2i wiki which states that the Tier 7 minimum requirements vary.
The EL and Zek are both Tier 4 zones, so I needed to get my minimum skill to 140. Unfortunately, my fishing was still in Tier 1, and my Trapping at Tier 2. So back to the newbie zones I went.
Fishing was relatively easy, if time consuming. I basically swam around the coast of Mok Rent looking for fish. At one and a half laps, I hit 95. At that point I dried off and went looking for nests to practice trapping. These were like looking for hens teeth. After just over an hour, the server came down with still 10 points to get. This was around 11:30pm. When it came back up, there were more nests than before and I quickly finished off.
Now it was off to Butcherblock. This was easier, but I needed to be more careful. In the newbie zone everything was gray to me. I could walk around raptors and man eating plants unhindered. In BB, it was mostly green. In any case, I ran around gathering from nodes like a madman until all of my skills were 140+. I finished of at 3:30am.
So take my caution. It's easier to harvest as you go along. If you craft you'll need the resources to make gear. If you don't craft, you'll need the rares to make cash. I ended up harvesting about ten rares in my session last night. I'm not sure if I'll sell them on the broker or use them to make some goodies. In both cases, having your harvest skill as high as possible will help you out later. Not to mention that some quests require certain high harvesting skills.
* Watching chili seed germinate is not all that interesting until they actually appear. I recently purchased some Dorset Naga seeds from the UK, and they are beginning to grow now. They are supposedly the hottest chili in the world with a SKU rating of approximately 1,000,000. In comparison the humble Habenero is around 100,000 - 200,000 SKU. Woo Hoo!
Posted by Stropp on
July 11, 2008
After an absence of a couple of months, with most of that time spent in Hyboria and a touch in Azeroth, I reentered the world of Norrath this week.
When I was last there, my Sarnak Shadowknight, SSirius, was a little way into level 26 and hanging around the Butcherblock Mountains. I remembered that I was starting to get a little bored with the Butcherblocks the last time I was there after I logged in and found myself wandering around looking for some critter and not being able to find it. A change of scenery was in order...
One of the things I've found -- in my experience -- when playing MMO games, is that the social experience of the game enhances the game itself. Even though I'm generally a solo player, I enjoy the interaction and dare I say it, the camaraderie of being in a guild. For me, being in a guild also adds to the personal longevity of the game. So as I was contemplating getting back into EQ2, getting into a guild was high on my list of priorities.
I've been following the efforts of the Nostalgia project over on Tipa's blog West Karana and Stargrace's MmoQuests.com. The Nostagia guild originally started to gather together current and ex Everquest players so that they could revisit some of the great areas of the original Everquest. Nostalgia the Guild didn't take very long to become quite successful. You can read about their adventures on both Tipa's and Stargrace's blog.
At the time I gave a few moments consideration to loading up my old Everquest install, getting it up to date and joining in the fun. Unfortunately, I was already playing WoW, EQ2, and waiting on Age of Conan -- not to mention about to go away for a couple weeks holiday. It really is true -- too many games, not enough time.
It didn't take long before Stargrace hatched the idea to start up an offshoot of Nostalgia for Everquest 2. She got a number of the EQ Nostalgia members together and created Nostalgia on the Najena server.
So the other day, after transferring SSirius over to the Najena server, I contacted Stargrace in the game and joined up with Nostalgia.
Once I was joined up, it was time to get to work. I set up my chat client to set up a guild tab, something I always do when I'm in a guild, it makes tracking conversations much easier when the general chat spam doesn't mess it all up.
I also decided that I'd had enough of the Butcherblock Mountains for the time being, so I headed over to Nektulos Forest. The beach area there has a few level 20+ quests, so I added those to my quest log and started working on them. After about an hour I dinged 27, and then decided to go exploring the forest. I found the camp at the Commonlands entrance, picked up all the quests there, did a couple and continued exploring.
By the end of the evening, I'd trudged most of the paths of the dreary rainy forest, completed the gryphon egg quest that opens up the gryphon flight paths, died by sticking my nose into an area I probably shouldn't have, and opened up most of the map. At least opened the map areas I was able to get to. I also added a level of achievement experience and nearly half a level of adventure experience.
The next step is to go back and complete all the quests in my quest log for the forest. That should get me to level 30. At that point, I either go back to the Butcherblock Mountains, or head to one of the other 30+ areas; the Enchanted Lands or Zek, or maybe all of the above.
Posted by Stropp on
March 10, 2008
Thanks to Mordraeth, I discovered a cluster of easier quests near the entrance to Greater Faydark. There's two camps, some Dwarves at the bulwark and some Dark Elves and Arasai back a bit toward the Greater Faydark zone. These quests quite comfortably sent me through 20 and 21.
Once I'd completed them, it was time to head back to the Butcherblock Docks and continue with the quests there. Now that I had a couple more levels it was significantly easier.
I did have one quest that presented a bit of a problem. A Dark Elf by the name of Ninion D'syl wanted me to get her some fletching supplies. She was in a bit of a mood about it too. The problem was that the Butcherblock require gathering skills of 90 and over. My best was the mining at 65. D'Syl wanted me to harvest some wood for arrow shafts and I wasn't up to the task.
So it was back to Timorous Deep.
I spent a good afternoon working on the various gathering skills and managed to bring my mining, gathering, and foresting up to the low to mid 90's. I didn't bother much with the fishing, and brought trapping to the mid-sixties - I'll probably have to head back at some point to raise that too - before I called it a day.
The next day, I hit the bank to deposit all my gatherings, at which point I discovered that there was another questline open. It probably popped at 20 and since I was 19 when I left, I missed it. If there's one thing I reckon that EQ2 should copy from WoW and other games, it's the grayed out quest marker. It's definitely handy to know a quest will pop in the next couple of levels. Anyway, I did those quests and headed into Gorowyn.
Since I had all these raw materials in the bank I decided to look into the tradeskill quests. I'd already picked up the first quest which was to make a spiffy candelabra. I completed that and worked through all the tradeskill quests. That got me to level 9 so I headed over to the career advisor and picked up the Outfitter trade.
I figure for a Shadowknight there would be two useful paths I could take. Ultimately, provisioner for the food and drink, or Armorer for the nifty battle-threads.
I considered Alchemist for the fighter skill upgrades but for the most part these would be one offs. Once I'd created a skill upgrade for myself I'd have no need to create it again - I'm not really into crafting in most MMOs, the trades never seem deep enough for me. Alchemist would also have enabled me to create potions and poisons, quite possibly very useful.
The other useful skills, Carpenter or Fletcher would be much the same. Picking Carpenter would allow me to create furniture and the like for my house, but eh.
Provisioner would be useful. Everquest 2 makes good use of any cooking that a player does. Since food and drink are consumed a lot in this game, it would come in quite handy.
Ultimately, I figured that Outfitter/Armorer will be the most useful. The Shadowknight is a plate wearer, and since I solo a lot being able to make my own high level armor may be very useful. It's my understanding - not confirmed - that crafter gear is actually quite good in EQ2 even at the lower and middle levels.
The Outfitter has one other thing up his sleeve. He can create bags. Very useful for someone like me who hoards a lot of gear. It will be the tailor who makes the most capacious bags, but at least up to twenty, I'll be able to make a few with more than four slots.
After a couple of hours sweating over a hot forge, I took Ssirius back to the Butcherblocks. But before I headed back I went searching for that elusive quest giver that I had trouble finding. This time success! He was right in the back and I had to jump down from one platform to get to him.
Unfortunately, he wasn't giving out quests as such, but writs that required hunting a bunch of critters. I decided not to worry about it, declined, and made my way to the gryphon heading for the Butcherblock Mountains.
Once there I handed in a couple of quests, and started a couple more. I began harvesting fallen lumber to collect the arrow shafts for D'Syl, my reason for going back to Timorous Deep in the first place, and collected a few of them.
At log off Ssirius is three quarters of the way to 23. I still have quite a few blue and white quests at this point. I expect that he'll be 25 by the time I finish these.
Posted by Stropp on
March 5, 2008
My foray back into Everquest 2 continued over the last weekend.
Ssirius the dragon-like Sarnak Shadowknight finally completed the majority of the quests in Timorous Deep with the exception of one or two that I couldn't find my way to. The Sarnak home city is Gorowyn and is located in a vast cavern inside a active volcano. Property values must be cheap there. Available quests in EQ2 are represent by a hollow orange circle on the mini-map. Try as I might I couldn't find the way to the last one.
I also didn't do the tradeskill quest chain. I've mined my way up to a skill level of 60 though I haven't really touched the other harvesting skills. I figure if I end up working on tradeskills it will probably be one of the metalworking ones, either for armor or weapons.
The bulk of the Timorous Deep quests were about the ongoing struggle the Sarnak were having with the Haoaerans, one of the Aviak races. Seems the Haoaerans were horning in on the Sarnak lands, digging up Sarnak relics, and overall being bad neighbors. These quests effectively took me from level one and petered out around halfway through level 19. It was here that the last questgiver directed me to head to the Butcherblock mountains where I was to check out a possible alliance between the Haoaerans and the Aviaks there.
So like a dutiful Shadowknight I caught the first griffon to the Butcherblocks.
Apart from going back to Gorowyn, since I keep all my stuff there, the next time I'll see the Kunark content is when I get to the 50's or 60's.
The problem now is that the Butcherblock quests are a little tough for level 19. Once I hit twenty some of the fights got a bit easier, but there are still a few ^ mobs that I have to kill as well as a few orange quests. I don't really expect to progress quickly here, at least for a couple more levels.
That's one of the differences between EQ2 and WoW. Properly geared in WoW, I normally don't have much trouble with mobs 2 or 3 levels above me. Once they get above that my hit miss ratio heads more towards the miss. With EQ2 even two levels drops my hit rate drastically. That could be gear, but I'm wearing all the quest reward gear, and have picked up some nice drops as well, so I'm not sure it's that.
One thing I know, is that it has been a while since I've everquested so I'm not necessarily up on all the knowhow, or all the changes. One thing though, EQ2 has a lot of depth, and a huge amount of content.
The downside of EQ2 is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of current content. The forums have some good info, but I haven't really been able to find any good guides to Shadowknight AA, or just to Shadowknights in general. A lot of what I've found by googling is related to earlier content, or even to the original Everquest.
