[EQ2] Information from Fan Faire

[Ham n Cheese]

New stuff seems cool for the most part. I still don't know how I'm going to truly care about the game until they get me excited about gear again.

[Xaxius]

Taken from the EQ2 boards. There is alot of new stuff mixed in with repeats. I personally found this entertaining, "One dev commented ... "wouldn't it be cool if the cities were all one zone"!

Gameplay/Mechanics/Engine/Graphics/MUSIC:
* You will reach Kunark by boat. When asked about druid and wizard ports the dev literally said OOPS ... he had forgotten all about that

* The new skeletel model system looks nice (we have nostrils now!!) but still far away from release. Does look neat and a lot more realistic.

* Zones are huge ... the Kylong zone is 3 kilometers by 4 kilometers in size ... that is over twice the size of The Commonlands. That one zone will have Field of Bone, Kurns Tower, Lake of Ill Omen, Swamp of No Hope, Karnors Castle.

* They have a new graphics ability that allows the look of the area you are in to change as you go from one part of a zone to another. So field of bone can be hot bright sun overhead and the swamp can be very dark and dreary.

* After Kunark, there will be a new Map system to replace what is in game now. Will come in two modes ... full screen high color mode and a permanant mini map. They are working with EQ2 Maps to coordinate compatibility.

* There will be an all new adaptive music system for combat. It will be dynamically created as you fight and will change as you are winning or losing as well as how long the fight is and how hard it is. So no more mundane looping music. They gave two examples ... one where you win a fight and one where you lose. Sounded very nice!

Lore:
* Sarnak were discovered by the Spiroc in a deep lab and accidentally woke them up 50 years ago

ZONES/MOBS:
* Two new zones are planned as Live Update Releases ... the Shard of Fear (group based zone) and the Shard of Hate (raid zone)!!

* Metrics of SOE show that folks hate grouping to gain XP in overland zones so nearly all mobs in overland zones will be solo mobs


Quests:
* There will be no new Heritage Quests since all the work needed to make the 24 class Epics. Class Epics quests will be like the Sword of Destiny style. You can get the first version of the Epic via grouping (the Legendary version) and to make it Fabled, you need to do Raid.

Spells/RACIAL TRAITS/AA:
* There will be changes to spells that will reduce the number of individual spells classes may have by combining similar functions into one icon; eg, if you have two debuffs they could be removed from game and replaced with a single spell that does both. Intent is to reduce the icon clutter (eg, 5 hotbars etc). Still lots of questions on how concentration slots would be affected and hate gain if multiple debuffs get sent in at once.

* The progression for new spells in Kunark will change such that all spell trees for a class will be upgraded in the 10 levels to 80 (no more waiting for 14 levels). Also upgrades for some of the ancient abilities from DoF will be introduced where appropreiate.

* The topic of player cast power drains came up and how they are worthless now. The dev responded that unfortunately the power drain concept is just one of those things that didn't quite work out the way they had hoped. As people may recall, at the release of EQ2, you could neutralize most named mobs by draining all their power ... thereby trivializing a lot of content. Well in response, mobs now have nearly limitless power pools. So the dev mentioned that as time goes on, any player spells or CAs that have power drains in them would be replaced with something else. No ETA given though.

* Two of the racial abilities of Sarnak are Dragon Breath (they breath fire) and Super Jump ... I guess they can jump far

* There will not be an increase in AAs .. so if you are already level 100 ... no change. But he did say that you can store two templates of how your AAs are allocated and swap back and forth via an item in your house. So you can have a Raid setup for AAs and a Solo setup for AAs.

Items/Armor/Weaps:
* There will be 3 sets of armor for all classes as part of the Kunark expansion. One legendary and two types of fabled. The top tier fabled will have abilities embedded in it that is only useful during T8 raids; such as the ability to avoid the crit damage mentioned earlier ... since only raid mobs will crit, will only have a value to raiders. Basically they are trying to make fabled armor more unique and powerful without overpowering base content.

* Mounts will be available that will go faster than any that are currently available.

Guild HALLS/GUILD:
* New mounts and titles for increase in guild level ... examples were a Rhino and the glowing dog things in Neriak .

* Guild Halls are now being actively worked on with completion sometime after Kunark ... say first Quarter of 2008

* Guild Halls would be islands placed just offshore from Antonica and the Commonlands. They would be instances so I imagine they will work similar to how apartments work, you click on something and enter your guilds own hall.

* Exile based guilds in PvP server would not have guild hall ... concern is that Exile guilds on PvP already get the best of everything ... no desire to give them even more of everything.

* Guild Halls will be HUGE ... bigger than deathfist citadell huge. Courtyard ... over 40 rooms can be unlocked and purchased. There will be two initial themes of look and feel. One very stately and following the style of Qeynos architechure. The other would be more foreboding gothic look.

* As your guild levels you can get more rooms (I imagine like how you get more bank slots in guild bank) and your guild can choose what that room will function as ... ideas include ... Guild Vault ... Mender ... Brokers ... Crafting Supply Merhcants ... Binding Rooms to call to ... rally points to launch to raids to ... the devs want folks to post ideas for rooms on the forums since they have a ton of rooms to fill

* There is customization to a degree for the halls ... banners ... statues ... your guild crest (from the cloak) on things ... etc.

* Will probably be able to get your first guild hall at guild level 10.

Gods:
* 3 new gods will be brought back ... Bertoxx ... Karana ... The Tribunal. There will be one more god release via a Live Update between now and the expansion release.

* The current gods will raise in level and so will the loot they drop.

* The other god that will be appearing between now and the Kunark expansion will be Bristlebane ... devs mentioned something about one of the miracles involved droping anvils on targets head

Raiding/Grouping:
* Raid progression is linear ... there will be 3 entry level raids and it will grow from there. All raids will be persistant. As a matter of fact all instances (even group instances) will be persistant.

* There will not be any 3 group raids ... there may be a couple of 2 gorup raids but the devs clearly don't think they bring much to the game.

* Veeshans Peak is one of the raid zones ... currently has 11 named with Trakannon leading them.

* There will be some Raid progression that requires you to have completed Raid Zone A before you can progress to Raid Zone B. Not everyone in raid will need to have completed the first to progress to the second.

* Two new zones are planned as Live Update Releases ... the Shard of Fear (group based zone) and the Shard of Hate (raid zone)!!

* There may or may not be contested mobs. The devs don't feel they bring much to the game for the amount of development needed to create them (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them).

Misc.:
* Timmorous Deep will be level 1-20 and then all other zones will be level 65 and up.
* The Sarnak starting city is now Evil (not neutral as originally released).
* Chardok zone will have the bottomless pit.
* They will be adding a new functionality to how clothing works. They are going to add a new layer of clothing that will fit over top of your armor so that you can control how you look regardless of how unmatched your armor is. This can be turned on and off.
* One dev commented ... "wouldn't it be cool if the cities were all one zone"!
* Tik Tok language is not in game and was never intended to be. Found that strange but that is what they said.
* Ventrilo or Teamspeak will not likely ever be built into the game ... why waste resourses when folks already have something they really like.
* None of the raid / heroic zones will be scaleable based on raid numbers or level. Takes just as much effort to do that as make all new zones.
* They would like to have a new character slot with expansion but can't promise since character slots are also tied into the Launcher and such which controlled by another division of SOE.
* Characters will not be sitting in chairs. The base code to scale body sizes and chair sizes just isn't there. Not like SWG where it was in there from day one.
* All avatars will be on the same timer like they are now (even if more are added).
* Rare item shinies for collections are not working out the way they wanted. Rares are too rare so probably won't repeat what they did on that with EoF for Kunark.
* If for some reason the Sarnaks are changed back to Neutral city, their class choices will be based off the Evil choices.
* One dev liked the idea of tintable furniture for rooms but tintable armor will never ever make it in game if he has any say

PVP:
* The topic of PvP came up and how to keep new folks joining the server from immediately getting slaughtered as they hit level 10 by the overpowered twinked level 14s with a billion AAs. Basically the dev said he was aware of the problem and is trying to think of ways to help such as making it easier to get purchased armor faster at lowest of levels and the AA cap was put in based on a players level. One thing he said they would NOT do was force players to level. Just not going to happen. Basically he said the PvP community needs to step up and protect the new folks.

Launcher:
* There will be a new launcher system that will replace the launchpad allowing you to easily launch any of the SOE games you own. There will also be background patching while you are not playing. So if you havent played for a while, when you log in, everything will be up to date (think of how MS Windows does the auto update thing). There will also be linking of ALL you friends lists (past and present) for all games allowing you to see who is online (even if on another game). You can go invisibile if you don't want to be seen online by your friends

[Ham n Cheese]

Now that I've read it all, some amazing stuff in there. One of the best which was already mentioned is
"But he did say that you can store two templates of how your AAs are allocated and swap back and forth via an item in your house. So you can have a Raid setup for AAs and a Solo setup for AAs."
This is awesome, I'm not sure of all the AAs available in EQ2, but I was just thinking about this option in something like WoW and how nice it'd be.

I like the idea of cities being 1 zone, but I also like the idea of the cities not being wasted with space and stair climbs all over too. Zoning doesn't take that long and it doesn't bother me, things will still be spread out everywhere. Which leads me into the zone thats like 5x bigger than commonlands. This is good... IF there is a sufficient amount of griffins.

Really reading that though got me excited about the future of EQ2. I just have such hard times playing it. The epic weapons make me want to play a melee like nobody's business, but the spam combat is still there and the lack of equipment meaning a damn. I can't imagine getting that excited about an epic weapon on my illusionist. Same goes for the armor quests.

Who had the Sarnaks locked away in a sleep chamber anyway? Their racial abilities seem lame and awesome. Fire breath obviously won't be really powerful or everyone will be a Sarnak but Super Jump sounds badass and a good way to save your ass if you're dying.

Also 3 gods brought back? Where did they go. What's those 3 doing in Kunark anyway? What are the current gods already in EQ2 and what's their story?

[Abalieno]

Originally Posted by Xaxius

* The new skeletel model system looks nice (we have nostrils now!!) but still far away from release. Does look neat and a lot more realistic.

I prefer having better framerate than nostrils, personally.

[Muligan]

Wow.... these are some bold steps. Personally, I like all of them well but, I'm not sure how the planes will be received. They must be working their way toward a Planes of Power'ish expansion (which would be cool)


I love the epics being what they are. I'm a PvP player and when something comes out that the majority of the server wants it really makes for good brawling fun.

VP should be fun as well. I like that they tied Trak into it. Pretty cool idea.. I have been continually impressed with EQ2's lore.


I'm very proud of Scott and his crew. Keep it up guys. I think EQ2 is winding up to be one the best games out!

[xregg]

yes although i have some complaints about the way the engine runs and some other things I find the game very appealing and think the new expansion will put it over the top.

I assume no one said anything about the engine and if it will be upgraded at all all weekend?

[Menion]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

Which leads me into the zone thats like 5x bigger than commonlands. This is good... IF there is a sufficient amount of griffins.

The new zone they showed off yesterday was 2X bigger than Commonlands and they commented that yes there would be flight paths.

Who had the Sarnaks locked away in a sleep chamber anyway? Their racial abilities seem lame and awesome. Fire breath obviously won't be really powerful or everyone will be a Sarnak but Super Jump sounds badass and a good way to save your ass if you're dying.

Superjump may or may not stay, Lyndro said that the Superjump ability just didn't look right to them so it may go away in place of something else.

[Moontayle]

* One dev commented ... "wouldn't it be cool if the cities were all one zone"!

Yes, yes, yes! I guess with the new environmental blending they can do this now since the reason there's so many zones is because they wanted each town area to have a different look.

Sooner rather than later, Scott. Sooner rather than later.

[Laerazi]

Regarding the new skeletal system, do the models actually look different... or do they just have nostrils now?

[Vatoreus]

Kinda sad about the no sitting in chairs and no tintable armor stuff. Very disappointing.

[Lourdin]

Originally Posted by Vatoreus

Kinda sad about the no sitting in chairs and no tintable armor stuff. Very disappointing.

Tintable armor sucks; I think it killed armor look in EQ all on its own.

Sitting in chairs? Who the hell cares about that when so much else they are doing is good.

[xregg]

One thing that annoys me is that this is as far as i can zoom out. WTF!

Is there some kind of workaround or something to get it to go further back? I have the setting maxed.

[Xaxius]

Originally Posted by xregg

One thing that annoys me is that this is as far as i can zoom out. WTF!

Is there some kind of workaround or something to get it to go further back? I have the setting maxed.

Put the below line in your EQ2.ini file. It can be found in the Everquest II root directory.

ics_maxcameradistance 20.000

That will fix the issue for you bud. Enjoy!

[Shutup]

Not sure what you are doing wrong, but you should definitely be able to zoom out more than that.

[Locithon]

What's the end-game like in EQ2 anyways. Is it dungeon-farming for gear like WoW?