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Everquest I and II Slated For Expansions
GinoMGG writes "Talk about a quick release. Hot on the tail of Desert of Flames SOE is acting fast to give those at the 60 cap something to do. WhoDigs has news from Ubisoft Germany on the Everquest 2 expansion, 'Kingdom of Sky'." Gamespot has word on both the EQLive and EQ2 expansions, while Mobhunter has a closer look at Everquest's 11th expansion - The Prophecy of Ro. From the Gamespot article: "The second expansion for EQII, Kingdom of Sky, will add an all-new structured skill and ability achievement system and will raise the level cap for adventurer and artisans to level 70 and guilds to level 50. It will add 10 new zones, 25 new monsters, and 'troves' of new items. Its plot will concern the Overrealm, a new realm of floating islands suspended at high altitudes, as well as a plot by ancient foes of Norrath to wreak havoc."
Never having played Everquest, I had a look at the wikipedia entry and looks cool... and has TEN expansions to date not counting this one!
Talk about sequels... at least it doesn't have a prequel, does it?.
Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
Everquest's 11th expansion
And this is why I don't play EQ anymore.
you forgot to point out that EQ2 will have new PvP servers also! This has been posted many times on their offical forums.
Honestly, I am flabbergasted that they would do this. The server population is so low, that most servers have been combined with others at least twice, if not more often.
A friend of mine recently took Sony up on their offer for a free 21 day trial to an All Station Pass, and updated and logged into EQ. A virtual ghost town was what greeting him. Even the bazaar was mostly empty. And yet Sony put development resources into an expansion.
As for EQ2, an expansion for that is not a surprise, but PvP is. It was pretty much a bust in EQ, and since they really weren't doing a ton of balancing in EQ2, the nerf bat is about to start swinging with a vengence.
I couldn't get into EQ2, even though most of my old EQ friends went there instead of WoW. I tried if a few months after release, when most of the bugs were done, and it just didn't work for me.
11 expansions. That's impressive for any game, especially a game in the volatile category of MMORPG. With so many newer MMOs seeming to die within a couple years, one has to wonder what EQ is doing to maintain such a loyal fanbase.
"Everquest's 11th expansion"
That's obviously more than one a year. Why not, instead of monthly subscriptions, simply roll a yearly subscription into the price of all these frequent expansions?
Seriously, is anybody still playing EQ without any expansions?
So..anybody play? I thought it might be cool, but the "trial of the isle" demo was a ghetto noob-land and wasn't really fun at all.
I missed the PvP part. I didn't play EQ2 for long, but one of the saving graces that I felt it had was that there didnt' seem to be a danger of them falling into the "nerf everyone so that PvP will be 'ballanced'" trap.
Glad I didn't re-subscribe during the last couple months when I've been bored with WoW...
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
the first sentence should read "I missed the part of the story mentioning the addition of PvP to EQ2".
I post too quickly.
BTW, why does waiting between postings "allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment."? It's not like Joe Bob can't post when I do because I'm hogging the pencil.
Why not have the message just say "We don't want people posting with automated scripts and flooding the thread" and be clear about it?
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Why don't you just get an automated script to queue your posts, that's what the rest of us do.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The complaints and issues are not about new content its mainly about the level increase.
Yes The expansion is a good idea, New and well designed and tested content is always good.. More raids.. more to do...etc
AA's for EQ2, (advanced abilities) also a good idea.
DoF was ok but not tested and had missing zones / content by the bucket load.
Upping the level so soon from the last level increase which made most of the world obsolete is not a good idea for the players but maybe its great for the finance department. $$$
Basically if you increase the level by 10 levels 2 times within 6 months (i.e. 20 levels) all previous content becomes a ghost town. (i.e. Lavastorm)
With no one in these ghost except for those poor souls looking for a rare chance of a group that havent bought the latest LevelQuest Expansion (for what ever reason - maybe lil Jonny gets his subscription paid but Mom draws a line at $29 for 3 month then having to pay out on top another $60 over 6 months for 2 expansions)
Using what happened with DOF for example:
Anyone who didnt buy the last expansion is stuck at 50. unrewarding grouping with them. they no longer can group with friends.. they get bored.. they quit.
Hardcore games reach 60 within 2 - 3 weeks - but then find only a few place to play for reward.. Less areas will be available to level 70 compared with DoF as each expansion removes the common denominator to everyone..
Content at level 60 is sparce...Most content is now greyed out( no reward for killing). 70 will mean worse.
Content was and still is bugged in Dof.. (quests not added for months for tradeskillers, items not working, stats wrong, spells broken etc)
So considering this.. you'd think that they would fill out the level 60 content now and add the AA's and the PvP.. making the game better all round. instead of just thinning out the top and leaving the casual players behind.
But then again - its LevelQue$t2 i mean EverQue$t2
Mansfield, Nottingham., Jan. 3 -- Some Games Comp , a local county council leader in the online games industry, today announced that the second expan$ion for LevelQue$t(R) II, entitled '2 Max Level Zones but everything Else Grey"(TM), is scheduled to be available at retail and for download on Feb. 31. The retail SKU of '2 Max Level Zones but everything Else Grey" will sell at the recommended price of $29.99 and contains the full version of the base EverQuest II game so they if you bought it by mistake because of the box we might coax you into playing it,
The new expansion and a special in-game item. (also known as random server crashes, class Nerf Bat and a special new suffix Title: Beta Tester)
'2 Max Level Zones but everything Else Grey" offers something for all of our LevelQue$t II players," said Random Marketing person. "For the seasoned LevelQue$t II player, will instantly devalue all your items and tradeskills unless you keep up with the soon to be announce bi weekly paid for expansion$$ whilst at the same time provide increasing frustion at trying to get a group.
'2 Max Level Zones but everything Else Grey" pushes the boundaries of character development and adventure to new heights by giving the user the ability to have a new 'fun spell'. which in most cases will be some completely pointless emotion only ever used 4 times on the first day.
32 new enemies made from a total of 2 models varient but coloured in a many ways all open up fresh game play and visual experiences within the online world of LevelQue$t II.
Care to elaborate? :)
From the summary:
Its plot will concern the Overrealm, a new realm of floating islands suspended at high altitudes, as well as a plot by ancient foes of Norrath to wreak havoc.
That sounds an awfully lot like the WoW expansion, except it's Outlands, and it's a plot by the burning legion to destroy everything.
Wow, that sounds almost exactly like the WoW expansion. Good to know Blizzard is dedicated to making WoW slowly turn into EQ at endgame.
I think it has something to do with $$$ in their case too.
iRO was great in its way (for the 1.5 years I played). I love the idea of not paying for the game client PLUS monthly subscription fees. Until WOW, EQ/2, D&DO, etc., get away from making us pay for the game AND for the monthly access, I'll just go back to Diablo II or get more involved in Battlefield2 (again a sore subject on expansions -- making an 'expansion' that barely covers a few maps and some not-so-interesting in-game addons). I'm expected to pay to put the game on my harddrive, pay to play on their servers, pay to be included in the newest maps/adventures/etc., etc etc etc. Why can't these companies provide the client as a download for free? Use Bittorrent to spread out the bandwidth necessary. Or they can just bleed you people dry, and you're fine with it!
First off, companies are out to make money, not give away new content that cost them to make. Welcome to the real world of capitalism. Second off, I play eq2 and welcome any new content. Although I don't have a lvl 50 character yet, I was assume that if you get bored with your maxed out lvl character, start a new character. That's the reason you are given more than one character slot. This game, is far beyond WoW, especially graphically. I played WoW for a few weeks, and found it to be really really boring. With EQ2, I am less bored. All massive games get boring, but some are less boring than others. If you don't want to play, don't pay? Why complain about it?
Woody of gucomics.com has some bright things to say about the EQ1 expansion, namely that once again the whole nature of the game is being changed. (EQ1 will now feature "Spheres of Influence" within which game rules will change).
As such, as with some recent EQ1 expansions, this isn't really an optional expansion but required if one wishes to participate with others.
I don't mind when MMOGs expand, but theoretically an expansion is something you ought to want when you've finished up with what you've already bought, not a required purchase in addition to the monthly subscription.
The EQ2 expansion, on the other hand, is much more along those lines. New places and features, but anyone who's still happily plugging along in the original content won't be FUBAR.
This is not true. Back in May 2005, servers were merged on a 2 to 1 basis, the excpetion being the PvP servers which went from 4 to 1. And thats all the mergers that have happened.