EQ2 Slippage *gasp*

[noel]

Thanks to Pilsburry for some great well-sourced information:

Also on a side note I have been following EQ2's information pretty hard...they aren't going to meet thier deadline either, latest word is in the first few months of 2004. When someone said "like january or feburary 2004" to another poster, the Verant rep quickly corrected him and said that was an assumption he made and that while Jan/Feb are the 2 first months, he said the first FEW months. I take that to mean that Jan/Feb is an optimistic goal they might acheive, but they definately don't want to commit to.

Here is a quote of the quotes hehe

When he says winter 2004, he means somewhere around January and February. And hes said that a few times among the threads.

Please don't tell people I said something I didn't.

I have *never* said January or February. I said "early months." While those are certainly the two earliest months, they are not the only months in the early part of the year.

When I can tell you an exact release date, I will. Until then you can speculate, but please don't attribute things to me unless you have exact quotes to back it up. I realize when you're excited about something you tend to hear what you want to hear, but in this case I simply didn't say that.

Moorguar being formerly from Mobhunter and current SOE rep on Everquest-2.com. Here is the thread link http://www.everquest-2.com/phpbb/viewto ... sc&start=0

Not really a surprise here. I'm personally glad to see they're holding it back until it's ready. I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see if they'll have a more successful launch than the network issues Planetside had, or the Billing/Account issues that Star Wars Galaxies had.

[Pilsburry]

There are a lot of info items about EQ2 lately. Moorgard is quite active on http://www.everquest-2.com and that site does a great job of always linking all his posts no matter how retarded on the front page news site. I think they just have a query set up to automatically dredge up links to all his posts and the topic title since the news update.

Anyway some tidbits of knowledge.

Item decay had a lot fo people worried....I would like to state at present they let out that items will not decay over time or during use any more. They will take damage upon your death, but not if it is banked. They are not sure wheather all items on your person will take the damage, or just the equipped items.

Item repair They mentioned that each item will have a limited number of "cheap" repairs and then it will get more costly. This number of cheap repairs will be shown on inspection, so you won't get screwed when you buy used equipment.

Tradeskills They said it will be like mini-games, much mroe interactive then just clicking. For example you have to keep the fire at a certain temperature by adding wood, you can re-enforce or make it lighter, you can also keep it in the fire too long and make it weaker. Player skill will now be required.

Classes revealed slightly

You pick to specialize at levels 6, 15, and 30...from level 1-5 you are "commoner". The chart revealed so far is
no prefix = level 6 choice
#) = level 15 choice
a-c) = level 30 choice

Artisian (tradeskill class)
1)-?
..a)----?
..b)----?
2)-?
..a)---?
..b)---?

Fighter
1) Brawler
..a) Bruiser
..b) Monk
2) Crusader
..a) Shadowknight
..b) Paladin
3) Warrior
..a) Guardian
..b) ---?

Priest - all preists get rez
1)
..a)
..b)
2)
..a)
..b)
3)
..a)
..b)
Clerics and shaman definately will exist...not sure where they fall on chart.
Complete heal will not exist btw.

Scout - All scouts get picklocks
1) Predator
..a) Assassin
..b) Ranger
2)
..a)
..b)
3)
..a)
..b)
Theif and bard will exist again not sure where on chart.

Mage
1)
..a)
..b)
2)
..a)
..b)
3)
..a)
..b)
Enchanter will exist here somewhere.

[Pilsburry]

Picklocks will be used to open chest mobs can drop after a fight. Now your probably thinking "what if we don't have a scout type?" well...you can bash it open but you will damage the items inside...and it will cost cash to repair them.

Housing It will be instanced for players, you can put things like forges and such inside your instanced housing. Guilds can buy large guild houses on the game map, but they are limited in number..I beleive fairly costly and I think you need to have a high reputation in the city. It was also mentioned that you can set security levels within your house, so like newer members can not steal the guild blind.

More on tradeskills I forgot to mention the trade window will have a lockbox or something....the artisian can not run off with your rare item. Also the rare compnents are not lost on failure. So if you have like a hide of a dragon and fail on a dragon cape..you will lose components but not the dragon hide.

CitiesFreeport = Evil Qeynos=good

Races All previous races (except Veh Shiir are Kerrans now), and there is a new race "Ratonga" they are small sized rats..I beleive evil aligned and roguish. Trolls are more traditional in appearance, tall and lanky...Erudites are grey with glowing tattoos.

Character creation You can change hair style/color, nose length, weight, skin color, scars/tattoos, beards..it's way more in-depth then current EQ.

Cross GAME chat They mentioned EQ2 players and EQ1 players will be able to chat.

Solo'ing It's not going to be as common in EQ2 because it's more group-based...but there will be "lobby" areas outside of dungeons with a 1-2 hour time limit intended for solo'rs and people LFG. Also there will be single player quests available once per IRL day.

Encounters Mob encounters will be "closed set" I think they called them...meaning if you trigger an orc camp encounter all the linked mobs charge you. At that point outside involvement is not possible. There will be no kill stealing or power leveling.

Equipment You will have usage skills, so like a weapon will not be used properly until you have a certain skill with that weapon. This will reduce the value of twinking more then it has in the past.

more to come....

[Pilsburry]

Raid Encounters I think the limit to this is like 18-24 people maybe as high as 36, but capped per encounter so you can't zerg stuff, you have to have skill. This allows them to tune the encounter more and give for more unique strategy mob type stuff.

Death They are still working on that one....it was so that you would lose an item with the potential to get it back upon ressurection. And then exp debt. But they decided that was maybe too harsh and are re-thinking the process, they have something new on the test servers now but they won't comment on it. I remember somethign about spawning fully equipped...but I think that may have changed also...this area is very vague still.

Classes again It should be noted that classes will not be exaclty like they used to be, even if they use the same name. Like I mentioned CH is not to be expected, I think slow, mez, charm, snare, sow...those will all be re-tuned....maybe even gone...or moved between classes. Who knows. Also when you read "48 classes" keep in mind that includes all the sub-classes...think of it as 24 end classes + 4 trade classes. The rest are just temporary. That's still more classes then old EQ.

Weather It's not done yet, but you will be able to effect weather via spells again.

I'll post more when I can think of more topics to comment on...the news archive sucks.

[Pilsburry]

Tradeskills again...
When you successful make an item you don't get random skill points, you experience towards a level. So lets say one of the end classes is tailor (I dunno)...if he makes a lot of stuff he could be like a level 40 tailor.

NPC's NPC's will track your movement with thier heads, even call out your name. I think quests are going to be done using more of a "choose topic" response rather then the free-text form we have today thatis hard to trigger.

World It's like 500 years after last EQ, there was an event called "the shattering" and the moon (luclin) is gone, I think most of the cities are gone except Qeynos and freeport. As of this point now they are meant to be considered alternate realities though, they don't want future plot twists in EQ1 to affect EQ2. Some old zones and dungeons will exist but obviously revamped.

Fights Spell effects are cooler obviously, but I have seen pictures of a treant post-fire based attack, and it was burning....not surrounded by fire effects, but actually burning.

Regen Regen will scale with level....like say a % of total HP per tick or something. So like at level 50 it's not too unlikely to see a 125 hp per tick base regen. It's to minimize downtime.

Water They have been asked but not commented on if we can submerse ourselves in water. Dungeons like Kedge Keep etc...

mobs I have seen pictures of skeletons showing more then just weapons in thier possession...armor as well. I don't know if the items are actually in thier possession, or if it's to differentiate skeleton types via sight easier.

[Sionistic]

i hope they make the other cities into dungeons, kunark can be a truly dangerous area again

[Pilsburry]

The Shattering was pretty harsh, Luclin is gone.

The remaining races are based solely from Freeport and Qeynos...I assume because thier cities were decimated.

I'm not sure Kunark will exist on initial release, it may need to be re-discovered if it exists at all. Same goes for Velious. Yakesha, Lost Dungeons of Norrath, Planes of power.

Hell I'm not even sure the other 2 original continents exist at this point, Odus and Faydwer.

In EQOA for PS2 the original release had only the one continent....this might be the same.

I think I read something about Pirates attacking boats....but I can't remember where or much detail....I don't think it mentioned where the boat was going.

But on the other hand....if Rivervale was decimated, are there ruins left? And who lives there now? Same with Neriak, Halas, Grobb, Oggok, Highpass....those were all on the continent of Antonica.

[Krimson Klaw]

That guy came off as a cocksucker.

[Pilsburry]

http://eqvault.ign.com/articles/436/436 ... ?fromint=1

Few key things from the short interview

Class update One class within the Scout archetype is called Predator. Tracking, find/disarm traps, move silently, backstab type ability. The third tier choices are ranger or assassin. Ranger is not a druid/fighter hybrid...it's more traditional fantasy.

I updated the class tree in the original post

Housing info They also mentioned "You will be able to decide who can enter your home and who can add items or move them around" and this time the did not seem to be referring to guild housing, in fact it seemed to directly target "instanced housing"....regular player housing.

P.S. If anyone is interested in EQ2, I'll try and keep an update of any info leaked out in this thread as I see it.

[kyoukan]

FUCK ITEM DECAY

[Zamtuk]

It worked for Diablo!

[noel]

If SWG is any indication, item decay will affect gameplay exactly never.

[kyoukan]

if SWG is any indication then the game will be a steaming pile of horse shit.

[noel]

if SWG is any indication then the game will be a steaming pile of horse shit.

But not because of the item decay which has an effect on gameplay exactly never...

[Pilsburry]

Like I said, last comment they had item decay was reduced to most likely only the items you are wearing, and only when you die.

It's going to hit the sucky players the hardest...then the risk takers and uber guilds.

[Pilsburry]

I read about visible cloaks and mounts not making initial release. It sounds like they plan on it eventually, but not at release.

[Winnow]

Housing It will be instanced for players, you can put things like forges and such inside your instanced housing. Guilds can buy large guild houses on the game map, but they are limited in number..I beleive fairly costly and I think you need to have a high reputation in the city. It was also mentioned that you can set security levels within your house, so like newer members can not steal the guild blind.

I wonder who will be the first to hang a seventeen million dollar chandelier in the patio. (bonus points for anyone that can place what a paraphrased that quote from : )

Cross GAME chat They mentioned EQ2 players and EQ1 players will be able to chat.

Excellent feature. SOE recognizes that friendships build in online games and leaving a game shouldn't necessarily mean you have to stop chatting with friends while you're playing another game.

Races...Erudites are grey with glowing tattoos.

I believe that's a typo. It's glowing foreheads.

[Pilsburry]

If it's a typo it's an inherited typo...cause what I read whas somones comment after seeing a picture..of course an SoE rep commented on the post.

He just said something about erudites and the effects of dabling heavily in magic blah blah blah...didn't refute the description at all.

[Boogahz]

The more I look at this thread, the more it looks like SWG as well at release. If SWG would have had all it offered originally at release, it might be different....but this makes me wanna turn away from EQ2 even more.

I would not be suprised if they take some of the coding from SWG to get many of the features for EQ2, even though they have a different graphics engine (don't they?).

[Aabidano]

I didn't like UO, and SWG looked pretty sucky as well, EQ2 is supposed to have all the "features" of each.

No thanks.

When I played Meridian 59 items decayed, could be repaired etc.. It worked pretty well, the game was designed for it to happen. You'd repair something once or twice, then go get replacement. No biggy.

[vn_Tanc]

SWG rocks

[Animalor]

If SWG is any indication, item decay will affect gameplay exactly never.

huh??

I had a blaster that was at one point, badly crippled damage wise cause of decay.

[noel]

If SWG is any indication, item decay will affect gameplay exactly never.

huh??

I had a blaster that was at one point, badly crippled damage wise cause of decay.

I'm basing that statement on the following facts:

Weapons in SWG will last for weeks of combat unless you're spamming 'Overcharged Shot' ALL the time.

A weapon repair kit costs so little to make that most weapon smiths will make them for you for free. They have 5 charges and most weapons can take 10-20 repairs before needing to be replaced. Weapons can be repaired at any time, including in combat, by ANYONE with a weapon repair kit. There is no advantage to having a master weapon smith do the repair; a brand new newbie character has just as much chance to successfully repair an item as anyone.

BRAND NEW blasters cost AT THE MOST 20k credits. If your Scout Blaster becomes unrepairable, you go get another one at any one of the weapon smith shops. Buying and selling items is part of the game and it's not like you're not going to find a blaster that's just as good if not better from one of the many master weapon smiths. There's a lot more to SWG than just combat, and credits in SWG flow like water for anyone with any clue as to how to manage money.

Finally, most ranged weapon users that know what they're doing will be carrying multiple weapons of a given type in order to do the appropriate kind of damage to a given mob's weakness. As an example with Carbines, Laser - Energy, E11 - Heat, DRX6 - Acid, so even if you totally weren't paying attention to your weapon for weeks at a time, chances are you'd have a backup you could use.

So to clarify, item decay/structure maintenance is a part of the game, but it's not something you need to be worried about all the time. Rather it’s something that happens but with almost no impact on game play given the incredibly slow timeframe with which items decay. There are definitely ways to speed up decay on an item, but I have yet to see one where the benefit outweighed the cost.

[Pilsburry]

Housing
There will be affordable housing for low level characters.
Some guild houses will have advantages others do not.

Boats
Boats will be player owned, but stored with a mariner at the docks (no clutter).
At release boats can hold a party of 6. But larger might be available later.
They are cusomizable to some degree.
Destinations are selected from a list. The list expands as players follow clues to discover new areas...it sounds like if you opened an area, everyone gets access to the new area.

This information is complents of the following FAQ
http://www.eqii.com/displayarticle.php?article=12

[Pilsburry]

Quests - There will be a journal for quests, who the quest giver was, and what you still need to do in-game. If you choose you can move a quest to in-active to get rid of peon quests and avoid clutter. Also they mentioned there will be quests with upgradable rewards like the coldain shawl or ring quest.

http://eq2.stratics.com/content/interviews/trio1.shtml

[Xzion]

racist basterds, takin out EQs only black race

no more EQ here...

[Pilsburry]

You can tint your skin.....so you can theoretically make a few races (most likely human atleast) appear to be black.

[Pilsburry]

http://www.gameclubcentral.com/modules. ... e&artid=35

The main points of interest in this article are:

1. Languages - Languages will be more useful then in the past, dungeons may have a language all thier own and learning the language will enable you to do quests, decipher tradeskill recipes, or learn new spells.

2. Guilds - Guilds will have monetary and status requirements within a city, that's nothing new although money was never specifically mentioned previous. However now they mention there are also things called "families", which are smaller units. A person can belong to both a guild and a family, and both of those will have seperate obligations within the city and such.

[Pilsburry]

http://eqvault.ign.com/articles/451/451 ... ?fromint=1

OMG this one is incredible I suggest you just read the link otherwise it will sound like I'm making shit up.

Guilds Not only do they pledge allegience to a city, but they have to pledge to one of the 5 factions in the city. A citizen of Qeynos can however join a freeport guild, but they won't see all the benefits of thet membership.

Families I mentioned this before, I saw this term tossed around. Now it is apparent that members of a family will automatically share the same surname. You can leave the family and join a new one but your surname will change.

***Fellowships*** This is especially important to me. This is a group of up to 6 people who will share exp (A percentage, even when OFF-LINE), thus enabling them to level at the same pace.

Character Uniqueness They stated that not only do you choose race, class, clothing, armor, etc...but the faction you pledge to support will also give you access to unique spells or abilities.

[Pilsburry]

More info on tradeskills...

http://www.everquest-2.com/displayartic ... article=14

Basically interesting comments are potential raid-style tradeskill quests and rare artifacts.

But nothing seemed concrete or had much detail.

[Krimson Klaw]

Dang I can't help it but it sounds interesting. Too bad its Sony.