SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

Yeah, Early EQII was really good IMO. Newbie Island, the 3 tier class thing, crafting was the fucking bomb, difficulty overall was fine. Only thing I really never liked was the any race any class thing, more due to my own class prejudices, than anything. Trolls and Ogres smash, and summon spirits; they don't wiggle fingers and wear bathrobes. Well getting housing item drops seriously rustled my jimmies too...

Then they revamped and ruined crafting, and we got the huge combat system swings. One day things are normal and fine, then they are all of a sudden stupidly easy, and then a week later everything is a ^^ or ^^^ tethered to 2+ other mobs and a nightmare unless you were in a full group.

So many of the really well developed, and original, ideas the game had have been removed because of 'quality of life' changes. It's really sad that the devs were so eager to deviate from their plans to placate the "it's not fair, it's to hard" crowd.

I wouldn't blanket statement "early EQ2 was really good". It had glaring issues like shared xp debt, whatever it was called (soul shard?) that you had to recover to regain your full stats on death. Died deep in a dungeon and everyone bailed? Too bad for you. Gimped stats for days until that shit wore off.

And lets not forget the most glaring game mechanic issue with fully locked encounters! Some of the great memories in EQ were those near death experiences toe-to-toe vs a hard mob and some random guy runs by and tosses you a heal / buff saving the day. EQ2? Nope. Stand there and watch a dude die because you can't heal him or attack the mob. Great way to foster social player interaction there devs! That took months of player attrition before SOE listened and made locked encounters optional.

Jysin said:

I wouldn't blanket statement "early EQ2 was really good". It had glaring issues like shared xp debt, whatever it was called (soul shard?) that you had to recover to regain your full stats on death. Died deep in a dungeon and everyone bailed? Too bad for you. Gimped stats for days until that shit wore off.

And lets not forget the most glaring game mechanic issue with fully locked encounters! Some of the great memories in EQ were those near death experiences toe-to-toe vs a hard mob and some random guy runs by and tosses you a heal / buff saving the day. EQ2? Nope. Stand there and watch a dude die because you can't heal him or attack the mob. Great way to foster social player interaction there devs! That took months of player attrition before SOE listened and made locked encounters optional.

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The shards didn't bother me that much, but yeah, the not being able to help someone was bad. I had forgotten about that.

The newbie island and gradually choosing your class shit was just awful. Let me pick and play my class from level 1. If I don't like it, I'll play a few levels, realize it, and reroll. In their retarded system, I'd have to play 20 levels before realizing I didn't truly like the class. Not to mention it was absolutely fucking terribad for leveling an alt. Playing a bland archetype for the millionth time isn't fun, just give me my fucking class and abilities already.

Honestly it should have just been an option. Offer both "start as your class" and "I have no fucking clue what I'm doing let me explore my options."

Jysin said:

I am pretty sure they had the betrayal quest in from the beginning. Some classes were neutral, others were distinctly either good or evil. You could change your sub-class by betraying your home city for the other. I actually did this in the early days from Qeynos to Freeport. There was a pretty involved quest where you betrayed your home city to the point you were sent to the Queen herself (all voiced by Heather Graham) and she banished you from the city. You still weren't allowed in Freeport either until you completed loyalty quests. This was why that Exile city existed.

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Original betrayal quests had to be done before picking your sub-class

I don't think that lasted long tho..

McCheese said:

The newbie island and gradually choosing your class shit was just awful. Let me pick and play my class from level 1. If I don't like it, I'll play a few levels, realize it, and reroll. In their retarded system, I'd have to play 20 levels before realizing I didn't truly like the class. Not to mention it was absolutely fucking terribad for leveling an alt. Playing a bland archetype for the millionth time isn't fun, just give me my fucking class and abilities already.

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Once you knew what you were doing, you could be off the island in 10 minutes from starting a new character. But yea, it should have had an option for starting new on island or "been there, done that" and select at level 1 option.

Big_w_powah said:

Original betrayal quests had to be done before picking your sub-class

I don't think that lasted long tho..

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I also thought much later into the game it gave people the chance to swap between your final 2 choices. I thought I remember being able to switch from mystic to defiler like 2 or 3 years later into the game. I also smoked a bunch of pot back then, so I could be making that up.

daly said:

I also thought much later into the game it gave people the chance to swap between your final 2 choices. I thought I remember being able to switch from mystic to defiler like 2 or 3 years later into the game. I also smoked a bunch of pot back then, so I could be making that up.

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I want to say you're right.

Blizzard buying the EQ IP and having Furor design shit would be amusing.

We have so many "versus" universes so it would be kind of cool if the WoW races had to band together to combat this new opposing world/factions of Norrathians. It would be easy to villainize Norrath. You could essentially paint them as the races that irresponsibly consume resources and such leaving worlds in shambles. You know, Independence Day, Decepticon, etc. type story arcs... Essentially they left Norrath in ruins and now what is left has stumbled into Azeroth to establish a new Norrath and the WoW races are not accepting that. You could poke so much fun at how SoE/Daybreak ruined EQ/Norrath in the process it would be well worth it. Ultimately as you progress through the story (expansions) WoW could just kick their butt until Norrathians irresponsibly wake up the Sleeper or open up the Plans of Power or Plane of Time... all kinds of fun you could have with this angle.

All jokes aside, I can't think of anyone I would trust with the EQ IP either. I would rather see a young, indie studio get it but you would have to assume they simply wouldn't want to invest that kind of money into it.

Saurfang shouts "Norrathians, you've ruined your own lands, you'll not ruin mine!"

Mur said:

Saurfang shouts "Norrathians, you've ruined your own lands, you'll not ruin mine!"

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I creamed myself.