EQ2 Live Update #24 & Fallen Dynasty

[Slick Willey]

It is split into six major zonesas well as the non combat zone area, the city of Shin

Any word on whether this "non combat zone area" is still open PvP on the PvP servers? I'd imagine it is, but when I tried to zone into the new expansion from Nektulos last night, I got some error and EQ2 crashed

[Nakilos]

I like and dislike the tradeskill changes. While it was annoying to be unable to harvest trivial nodes (good change), the getting a large volume per node I don't think was too smart. It complements the current system, but it will have an effect on market prices I am sure for every tradeskill made item. Also they increased the rate rares are harvested if you are higher skill, by exactly how much I am not sure, but I expect those items to be much cheaper. I like and dislike the no sub combines thing too. As an alchemist, the bulk of my exp was making inks. I would make 120 or so for the first 5 levels of a tier and use the rest to make app4s and getting large sums of first time exp. Now I'll just have to grind out massive piles of app4 scrolls. Not that app4 was worth much anyway, but the volume will be an inventory hose when I make them. I guess we'll see the effect of the mass harvestables on market prices, but I expect everything to have very little value due to the commonality now.

The worst thing about doing tradeskills in this game is definately the UI, that UI summed it up rather well. Its next to impossible to sort by specific categories of items you want to make to cut down on clutter (I can have it just list scroll recipes, but I can't find a way to list poisons or potions only for example). Also most people just don't know how exactly the whack a mole game works, and its just not well explained at all.

It seems they are trying to go the WoW route of making tradeskills something everyone does because its pretty easy to do rather than allowing people to pick to be craftspersons or adventurers. I met many people who rarely go exp at all and only take orders on items all day, and the rarity of those people allowed them to have a unique place in the world, and I expect pretty much anyone who had an aversion to tradeskills to now max them out for the assorted quests which require them at high levels, removing that uniqueness.

Or I could be totally wrong about everything, and tradeskills will be fine. Who knows.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Abalieno

I think they should take time to develop new technology and redo the animation system as well the way new armor models are created, but I guess it's asking too much.

I'm glad you mentioned this.

I don't think it is. It's one of our longer term projects. No releasable details yet, but since Smed directly addressed character animations here originally, I'll say at least this much about it:

What we need to go through to make both armor/wearables and animations for 40-some different race-gender pairs across both US and Alt models isn't really tenable in the long term. Fixing that is something we'll be talking more about over the next year.

In the interest of efficiency, this project supercedes making a couple thousand new animations for the existing character system.

Doing that much animation work, just to have to throw it all away when the system itself is fixed (and delaying the system fixes by months in the process), wasn't really the best option for us.

That's not to say there won't be incremental animation improvements in the meanwhile like the tweaks that continue to come out with updates. Just not any massive-scale replacement. Hopefully the reasoning above explains why we think this is the smart call.

- Scott

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Nakilos

Or I could be totally wrong about everything, and tradeskills will be fine. Who knows.

Forum-insurance.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Slick Willey

Any word on whether this "non combat zone area" is still open PvP on the PvP servers? I'd imagine it is, but when I tried to zone into the new expansion from Nektulos last night, I got some error and EQ2 crashed

Just in case this is what you ran into:

If you preordered (or own Splitpaw), make sure to go into the patcher options and flip the download to "Download Now."

Otherwise you're background downloading it (via BITS). You can still get into the game, but it gets confused slightly when the zone files aren't entirely there.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

I'm glad you mentioned this.

I don't think it is. It's one of our longer term projects. No releasable details yet, but since Smed directly addressed character animations here originally, I'll say at least this much about it:

What we need to go through to make both armor/wearables and animations for 40-some different race-gender pairs across both US and Alt models isn't really tenable in the long term. Fixing that is something we'll be talking more about over the next year.

In the interest of efficiency, this project supercedes making a couple thousand new animations for the existing character system.

Doing that much animation work, just to have to throw it all away when the system itself is fixed (and delaying the system fixes by months in the process), wasn't really the best option for us.

That's not to say there won't be incremental animation improvements in the meanwhile like the tweaks that continue to come out with updates. Just not any massive-scale replacement. Hopefully the reasoning above explains why we think this is the smart call.

- Scott

I understand your reasoning. But I still think it is the wrong thinig to do. One of the major drawbacks to EQ2 at the moment is the animation system. You are making great strides in gameplay, accessibility, and design - but that doesn't matter when it is a complete pain to look at. Animations have always been rough even on high end computers with animations full on. They are herky jerky and almost robotic looking. It needs priority. You have enough content at the moment. If you took 2 months and dedicated the time to a new animation system across the board, you wouldn't lose much in terms of relativity when you have a seperate team working on an expansion.

When I ask people about trying out EQ2 now, (And you should conduct a poll on this somehow) one of the major drawbacks is the animations are simply too clunky and a pain to look it. Considering that no matter how many positive changes you make to the game you'll * Always * be looking at the world/animations - I'd say that needs to be priority 1 above anything else at the moment.

The only problem is that this fix doesn't generate initial revenue like an expansion or adventure pack. Don't worry about it. I think you are losing opportunity costs on not having those subscribers more so than releasing an expansion 2 months earlier. Get the animation work done and it will pay for itself.

[Soygen]

While I agree the animations need work, I think it's a good thing that the animations are really one of the only issues with EQ2 at the moment.

[Draz]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

I understand your reasoning. But I still think it is the wrong thinig to do. One of the major drawbacks to EQ2 at the moment is the animation system. You are making great strides in gameplay, accessibility, and design - but that doesn't matter when it is a complete pain to look at. Animations have always been rough even on high end computers with animations full on. They are herky jerky and almost robotic looking. It needs priority. You have enough content at the moment. If you took 2 months and dedicated the time to a new animation system across the board, you wouldn't lose much in terms of relativity when you have a seperate team working on an expansion.

When I ask people about trying out EQ2 now, (And you should conduct a poll on this somehow) one of the major drawbacks is the animations are simply too clunky and a pain to look it. Considering that no matter how many positive changes you make to the game you'll * Always * be looking at the world/animations - I'd say that needs to be priority 1 above anything else at the moment.

The only problem is that this fix doesn't generate initial revenue like an expansion or adventure pack. Don't worry about it. I think you are losing opportunity costs on not having those subscribers more so than releasing an expansion 2 months earlier. Get the animation work done and it will pay for itself.

blah blah blah

Arm Chair Designers 4tw!

No I didnt read what he said.

[Abalieno]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

Get the animation work done and it will pay for itself.

Prioritizing this would be nice, but doing it right is even better.

The next expansion has already a release date. I just hope that the work on the new system won't be pushed back too much.

And I hope they'll develop it with *performance* on mind.

[...]

My girl didn't want to try eq2 over the animation. It's definately something some folks use to determine if they'll play a game. On a side note, I bet if they just souped up animation on the darkelf, highelf, wood elf, half elf, and human models they'd have 90% of the player base covered.

[Schatze]

I personally loved the HUGE stealth nerf to wizards.

As you may know, wizards and warlocks have by far the worst aggro reduction tools in the game. Scouts can flat out drop an aggro slot and clear threat, have multiple abilities.

Wizards had two abilities beforehand. One was concussion that was a long cast time with a long refresh that clears less aggro then the spell you're using will cause, and iceshield. Ahh, ice shield. The damage from that was attributed to the tank. It was our form of aggro transfer, and helped keep the mobs off me.

Well, no more. Iceshield no longer attributes damage or hate to the tank, and as compensation they gave us a piddling 700 hate reduction on another long recast spell which also happens to be a stifle with damage so that the net reduction in hate transfer is far lower.

What does this mean in practical terms? I can't use my spells. Doesn't matter how good the tank is, my DPS will pull aggro. In groups I now do low tier 2 damage simply because i'll end up tanking if I don't, and on raids I need to keep my damage to a minimum and wait for rescue to refresh before i can really use my primary nukes.

BRAVO! What a WELL THOUGHT OUT CHANGE. I guess I will spend the time waiting for the tank to build aggro by playing Xbox or something. Or I could let them get a brigand or an assassin or any other class with actual aggro tools and let them help the group by doing more DPS and utility.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. SOE is so schizophrenic. Between this and 80% resists in PVP... Gah. Wizard shelved.

[Mithandriel]

So far I'm digging the tradeskill changes. I have not tried leveling my higher level crafters yet but I went back and leveled my armorer (outfitter technically) who had been shelved and sitting at level 17 for the longest time. I got him from midway through 17 to 20 in almost no time.

I also leveled another toon (another outfitter that will be a tailor) from 3 to 19 in very short time with almost no "grinding." I think the only level I had to grind a few items was 17. The rest of the time, I was able to level off of making pristines off of the new recipes and getting the bonus xp. I'm sure that will change at 20 when you only get 3 or so new recipes a level.

I'm also liking the new harvesting system. I've gotten a bunch of rares and the overall harvesting is definitely faster. I've noticed the yield on certain nodes like ore and roots is lower but that could also just be the luck of the draw. I've also yet to harvest any rare metals or gems while at the same time pulling several rare pets, roots and glowing/sparkling type items.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Deris

Know what I noticed out of all that?


NOT A SINGLE SHADOWKNIGHT CHANGE

GJ SOE, still keeping the man down I see!

It's a SOE tradition, like breaking bards.

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

If you took 2 months and dedicated the time to a new animation system across the board, you wouldn't lose much in terms of relativity when you have a seperate team working on an expansion.

Pretty sure making a whole new animation system across the board will take longer than 2 months, don't you think?

[Venjenz]

Ditto to liking and disliking the tradeskill changes.

I do like harvesting better now, but I had an alchemist for making my sage's inks, and the process of refining paper, inks and quills was sick exp, if very time consuming.

Haven't gotten anymore rares for making Adept IIIs, but I didn't play too long last night. We'll see this weekend when I put my 500+ roots/timber/metal grindfest on.

I do know I am super glad I never got around to making all my roots into washes the other day. I still have my box full of roots, and now can just pump out App IV scrolls to level up.