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Dragons of Norrath EQ Expansion Announced

Posted by Zonk on from the everquest-1-not-everquest-2 dept.

The EQ site has the details on the just announced new expansion for the original Everquest world, Dragons of Norrath. Aside from the usual new content areas and monsters, the expansion promises to provide some interesting new features for Norrathians of all stripes. From the article: "Featuring new lands with enhanced graphics, bold new storylines, and updated creatures including goblins, drakes and the ominous Frost Giant, EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath is the next great expansion pack for the fantasy saga that is EverQuest. Make ready with new features such as the ability to regenerate your mana/health before a battle, use your potion belt to access your inventory quickly, and quickly swap from Sword and Shield to Great Sword using the bandolier."

23 comments

  1. Yeesh by Jahf · · Score: 1, Interesting

    At least put your ads in banners.

    I usually say "but this is /." when people complain about threadvertising, but this is a new and blatant low.

    --
    It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
    1. Re:Yeesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, to be fair, this *is* games.slashdot.org and EQ is the most popular North American MMO. This does have appeal to a lot of people. But yes, the poster should have done more than just take the advertising blurb and post it as a story.

      A comment of how this will affect players and the existing game would have been nice.

    2. Re:Yeesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      g/is/s//was/
      g/lot/s//couple/

    3. Re:Yeesh by Alarash · · Score: 1

      How did you come to the conclusion that EQ is the most popular North American MMO? World of Warcraft is. And I don't mean to start a EQ vs WoW war here, it's just a fact : 600 000 just for the holiday season. Add to that 200 000 boxes that were bought prior to the holidays. EQ2 only has 310 000 players, and EQ Live never reached 500 000 according to this site. Yes, the site lists only 200 000 customers but hasn't been updated since late november.

    4. Re:Yeesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll answer you with a small statement.

      Lord of the Ring sold more copies this year than the Bible. Does that make it the most popular book(s)? No... there is more to life than *today*, my friend.

    5. Re:Yeesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Does that make it the most popular book(s)?"

      This year? Yes, absolutely. Popularity is a very fluid thing and what's popular today may not be tomorrow, but it doesn't change the fact that, in the moment, something which is far less influential or important may yet be more popular. We're not talking about quality or significance here, we're talking about popularity, and the popularity of WoW is undeniable even to the most dedicated EQ fanboi.

    6. Re:Yeesh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's ironic about your unsubtle ad-hominem is that I stopped playing EQ 6 months after it came out and never looked back. There is no bigger WoW fanboi than me. But I also know that EQ has taken in more money than god can count, and has had more players in and out of it than WoW can dream about.

      Will WoW take over the "most played and therefore most popular" slot? Absolutely. Did it do it in one month? No frigging way.

  2. Uh, what? by d3kk · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'm confused by what they mean by "potion belt." It's been a few years since I played, but I definitely remember being able to hotkey inventory items. This included setting up hotkeys to switch from one to two handed weapons.

    Looking at some of the other features...

    The regeneration thing is entirely worthless since you need to be at your guildhall to use it. It's not like you can use it to decrease downtime.

    The "new" NPCs they have listed all existed in the game years ago. Lame.

    It sounds like they're really searching for ideas these days. I'm glad I managed to break the habit when Luclin was released.

    1. Re:Uh, what? by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      Not having ever played EQ, I can't help but say that the new features sound surprisingly like Diablo II. Potion belt? Check. Switching weapon setups? Check. (It sounds more like switching between any weapon setup to any other with a hotkey, not just switching between one-handed and two-handed. I'd hope you could have macroed that ahead of time.)

      It seems like they're ripping features from Diablo II, for some reason...

      I have to wonder why they're announcing a new expansion pack too. You'd think they'd be pushing for players to migrate to EverQuest II, but apparently they're trying to keep people on EverQuest also. It sounds to me like all they're going to do is hurt the market for EverQuest II - but since they make money regardless, I guess it doesn't really matter.

      My favorite misquote from the article: "Players can now buy items!" You mean they couldn't before? (It sounds like they're adding a system to allow players to set prices on items and then other players could buy them off the player without any interaction. Like the bazaar system that Final Fantasy XI has.)

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:Uh, what? by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      You could hotkey inventory items, but that would take up hotkey slots - and unless you're pretty good at switching from one hotkey group to another, hotkey slots are at a premium. Also, you *can't* swap weapons via one button-push, though you could waste hotkey slots and main inventory slots to accomplish this by putting your equipment slot and a main inventory slot on a hotkey and then clicking the swapped items between them.

      Also, you really missed out on LDoN. 'Twas the best thing to happen to EQ since Velious. Of course, then they went and screwed things up with GoD and OoW, just in time for EQ2 and WoW to come out.

    3. Re:Uh, what? by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      actually the "players can buyt items" allows traders in the bazaar to buy items from other players by setting a price before hand, behaving like NPC vendors rather than sell-only trader mode.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    4. Re:Uh, what? by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      In other words: it works exactly like the bazaar system in Final Fantasy XI, like I said.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    5. Re:Uh, what? by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      I was under the impression that you had thought that EQ required both parties to be interacting in order to trade goods, my mistake.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  3. Whoopee by white1827 · · Score: 1

    Another bland expansion to EQ. For the record, after 5 years of extracting 10-13 a month from it's customers I think they can afford to redo a few monster models on their own dime. Each additional expansion seems to have ever decreasing amounts of features and content.

  4. Yawn by Shihar · · Score: 1

    the expansion promises to provide some interesting new features for Norrathians of all stripes insert completely non-inovative tweaks to the game here.

    To put it bluntly, who in the hell cares? You are either horribly addicted to the game such that your addiction defies reason and rationality and you will buy any crap they put out, or you are playing WoW. Either you are addicted and already lined up to buy this crap, or you came to your senses a couple years ago and are playing something different.

    Not that WoW is the end all be all of inovation, but Everquest sure as shit isn't either. This isn't news. Lots of new games are announced. Why in the hell another Everquest expansion that only caters to addicts with absolutely nothing inovative in it was announced on Slashdot is completely beyond me.

  5. Why is Sony doing this? by Pluvius · · Score: 1

    Isn't this just encouraging its audience not to buy EQ2, which is a bad idea at this point in time? I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this article coming right after one about WoW breaking sales records.

    Rob

    1. Re:Why is Sony doing this? by NBarnes · · Score: 1

      Hardly. Sony swore up and down for years upon years that Everquest 2 was not supposed to be a replacement for Everquest 1. They swore they'd continue to support EQ1 after they released EQ2. And for years these bizzare 'Sony will force us all to play EQ2 rumors!!!11!!!' rumors continued.

      Why, in Shiva's name, would Sony want to kill EQ1? To throttle their golden goose only to hope that EQ2 could catch the same lightning in a bigger, better, bump-mapped bottle? No, they did the smart thing all along; EQ2 wasn't supposed to kill EQ1, it was supposed to kill WoW.

      That said, it didn't kill WoW, but that was the idea, I'd imagine. And with EQ2 notably failing to set the world on fire (even without comparisons to WoW, EQ2 is not doing that great, and compared to WoW, EQ2 barely exists), I'd think that Sony plans to quite honestly do its best to keep EQ1 doing well for as long as possible.

      Of course, the last expansion they did for EQ1 that was honestly good stuff was LDoN (and that from a ex-hardcore raider (PoTime flagged and not quite Uqua-complete before I quit)). This sounds like they're getting away from the stupid-ass GoD / OoW alien invasion content they got into for some unknown reason, but I'm skeptical that they still have the touch at this point.

  6. 10 items in your hot bank by Tangurena · · Score: 1
    You could have 10 buttons in each hot bank. Abilities, spells, potions, clicky items. Shift + a number will switch to a different hotbank.

    The potion belt sounds like something off of Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights.

  7. still? by fearanddread · · Score: 1
    There they are...kicking that dead horse!

    I'd be curious to see how many subscribers they still have. I wonder if it's turned into the desolate wasteland I imagine it to be with everyone bailing for either Wow or EQII.

    Anybody still playing this badboy?

    1. Re:still? by chrisG23 · · Score: 1

      I have no hard numbers as none have been released, but its my guess that most EQ1 players, especially the hardcore players that probably form the core of EQ's subscription base, are reluctant to drop their up to 5 year investment in a 'uber' character with 'uber' gear and start from scratch as a level 1 nobody on EQ2.

      I bet SOE is making more money off of EQ1 right now than EQ2, and as EQ2 seems to be somewhere in the 3rd 4th or 5th place spot in the "wow id like to try that" factor, behind WoW, CoH, and possibly some of the other upcoming new and newer games, I think it possible that EQ2 may not even make as much money per month as EQ1, ever. (If it is right now, my guess it that it will hemorrhage users the way Star Wars Galaxies did after its wow factor wore off and people came to the conclusion that the game is not as fun as they hoped, and not being fixed fast enough).

      I know that if I start playing a MMO, WoW is my number 1 choice to try out, with EQ2 lower than EQ1 (I know lots of EverCrackheads that still play and would help me out, and I dont care about fancy graphics and sounds, and I have an older computer). First Post! (My first post on /.)

    2. Re:still? by Damvan · · Score: 1

      Right on the money Chris... All my friends who play EQ (which I quit 3 years ago due to SOE treating their customers like crap) steadfastly refuse to even try WoW. Something about being uber and not wanting to start over. So, rather than play a game they might enjoy (WoW) they continue to punish themselves with EQ cause they are high level (essentially finished the game). And they continually bitch about EQ and SOE.

    3. Re:still? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      EQ2 seems to have a lot of players, not as many as WoW does, certainly, but in the same ballpark. I'd guess around half, maybe as low as a third, given the sales numbers, server loads, and the player numbers both can sustain.

      Both of my current servers (PvP)in WoW, for example, are always lightly populated, even at peak times, which seems to be 1000 people. The orignal server I played (PvE), on the other hand, is usually high, which I heard is roughly around 2k-2.5k for WoW servers. EQ2 servers at peak, on the other hand, are typically heavy to "full", where full just means really heavy, not full. Supposedly, full is around 3-3.5k. Even at total off times, however, there are servers that never get below fully loaded, so these servers are probably higher than the previous estimate at peak -- which is why server transfers to new servers are being done. My server, on the other hand, is light on true off-peak times, but on weekend's off-peek, it's still usually medium or heavy; this server is generally one of the 5 least populated. Comparatively, WoW had around 80 servers last I knew, EQ2 just upped the number to 26 or 27 servers total.

      So to summarize, if the servers had the same populations, EQ2 would be about a third the population of WoW; however, given certain game design choices, it appears that EQ2 servers can handle more players per server, maybe a factor 1.5 at most probably. So I'd say less than half the players, but probably more than third. While I'm sure SOE would have liked to do better, this is good for a new game. If WoW wasn't there to compare with, these numbers would be considered a solid start, I would imagine.

      In the end, everyone has their opinion about what they like, and certainly everyone likes different types of games. In my opinion, both are great -- I just happen to greatly prefer EQ2.

      And to be clear on this, I was far more a Blizzard fan boy. I thought EQ 2 was going to be bad and WoW great. I bought EQ2 and left it sitting on my shelf for almost a month without opening it, until I quit WoW the first time after playing WoW for two weeks. I later tried WoW again, given the great reviews, but after three weeks, it just didn't compare. I always felt like I wanted to play one of my EQ2 characters instead, get a good group and explore someplace new.

      Personally, I don't care which is more profitable, or which game the average joe prefers. As long as SOE develops their game the way they did EQ1, it doesn't matter to me who wins the big cash grab. Until a better MMORPG comes around, I'll be having fun.

  8. Hooray! by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

    Once again Sony learns from the hackers, implementing features that we have used macros to perform (which I never considered to be cheating) for years. I cannot even remember how bad it was, playing EQ *WITHOUT* the ability to switch weapons with a hotkey.