EverquestNext - Catch All

fangblackbone wrote:

Looks great! I just hope it comes out sometime in the near future...

Think 2-3 years and if you think that's near then cool:)

As someone who just got back into EQ and is even retrying EQ2 as well, i'm cool with that. EQN is so different from the ones that have gone before but it is interesting that EQ and EQ2 are just really solid content MMOs these days that newer MMOs don't feel like they've stood up to.

It's good to know Sony is workin so diligently on doing something so cool with the next everquest.

For EQ 1 F2P players there is a marked sludge once you hit level 50. It is probably a lot easier for subscribers since you get the journeyman rank mercenaries as opposed to apprentice rank for F2P. However, up until that point, apprentice mercenaries (go with the tank merc) and defiant armor work extremely well when soloing up to level 50.

Magicians and beastlords have the easiest time soloing with mercs because their pets are so strong to help the tank merc "solo" the enemy. Beastlords technically have weaker pets than necromancers but the beastlord pet proc does amazing damage and will not draw aggro from the tank merc.

I would probably still be playing if there wasn't such a stiff drop off at level 50+. And actually the drop off happens well before then but level 50-52 is when the last good "hot zone" stops giving experience. It is worth noting that double xp weekends help push you farther into the mid 50's.

I do subscribe, what you get for all access is simply too good. It's also very easy these days to dual box EQ1 (or 2, but 1 is just easy).

Run a copy on each monitor. My main is subscribed and bought the CotF expansion so things like AA's for my journeyman Merc are in play and in the 80s there's quests to upgrade the journeyman merc. You can level up into at least mid 90s with a subscriber merc.

I'm playing with that as my primary account with a backup account tagging along for DPS.

My main is a shadowknight. My backup toon is a necromancer. My journeyman merc will become a cleric post level 50ish and my apprentice merc on the free account will be some form of extra DPS.

I am having just absolute tons of fun running my dual toons together in EQ1.

It doesn't hurt that i have loyalty rewards dating back to the start of EQ1 either since i'm on my original account. Free mounts, free houses, etc etc.

In EQ2 i've just started a shadowknight dark fey. Unfortunately in EQ2, mercs are an account feature it costs like 1500 station cash to add:( I do have a 10 year vet reward there though that will give me some kind of super awesome veteran captain shadowknight and paladin mercs once i add the feature.

What's great about all this is the one subscription gives me premium in both EQ1 and EQ2 and EQNext when it comes out and H1Z1 when it comes out...that's hard to beat!

I have tried to get into EQ2 and TBH the only class that I love enough to play with any regularity is the beastlord. I like many of the other classes. They just get rote very quickly. SK is one of my top 3. And of course, that too is a big time station cash purchase like mercenaries. As far as mercenaries, it seems so many of the interesting ones are broken (necro) but at high levels the defiler is the one everyone goes with because of the near mandatory disease and poison cures.

I should have stocked up on station cash when they still had 2x, 3x SC deals.

The All Access pass is a terrific deal. I just play in heavy binges to make it worth it for more than a 2-3 weeks.

Oh and I love that you can pick mercs of all races. I just cannot pick anything other than a froglok merc. I tried am iksar when I was curious if they had improved regen. Only to find out that the race was cosmetic only. It would be cool if they threw players a bone with a chance at a few types of "special" mercs or ones with bonuses. (or I wish they would let cleric mercs attack)

EQ2 is so very different from EQ1.

I dislike EQ2's skill/ability/spell system compared to EQ1, but the game sure is beautiful and runs nice. The world is fantastic looking. The game systems like the quest systems etc work really well too.

Both games definitely still have something to offer.

I'm not sure i'd ever try a necromancer mercenary though:) lol. If i wanted a necro i'd play it myself and run a support Merc for that be it a tank or a healer type!

Some folks i've been gaming with are gonna give EQ2 a try so i'm gonna try an inquisitor with them and i plan to use either the 10 year veteran paladin or shadowknight as my merc with it. As a note i hear say that's an incredibly strong molo combo for moloing (solo +merc = molo) the most content.

Meanwhile in EQ1, my SK+ journeyman healer + Necromancer+apprentice whatever should be an incredibly strong combo for doing everything up to recent raids on my own.

Total play time to level 50 in EQ1 now days, apparently about 30 hours, or less if you're more experienced at it (i was pretty fresh meat after 13 years away).

You can do level 50 in EQ1 in about 20-22 hours pretty easily for many classes. The Burning Woods hot zone is blazingly fast leveling from 35-50. It is just I have tried so many areas after that and have found nothing better than fighting the scattered few light blues in Burning Woods to eke out the next few levels. From there I have no idea because my magician is level 54. Not having the journeyman tank really hurts at this point because every area I have tried, hot zone or not, is much more dangerous, or it takes twice as long to kill even the blue mob.

The leveling pace slows down enough to make the death xp penalty hurt so much more.

edit: 44 shammy @ 16+ hours, 44 WE beastlord @ 12.25 hours, 54 mag @ 40 hours (lots of death and aimless wandering, first character since coming back), 40 necro @ 16.25 hours, 41 ench @ 15 hours, 34 sk @ 13.5 hours, 32 ranger @ 14.75 hours, 43 bard @ 18.67 hours

So, Everquest Next, huh?

Don't look at me. Fuzzballx started it *points shaky finger*

garion333 wrote:

So, Everquest Next, huh? ;)

Just pointin out, waitin for it, cause it's a good line of games:) Games that are still good and have aged really well.

Worth re-checking out the "old" ones while waitin for the new one.

Regarding good leveling spots in the modern EQ1: http://almarsguides.com/eq/leveling/

The premier level guide imho. Good stuff!

Oh I am well versed in Almar's leveling guide. I have just found that all of the suggestions for 50+ all have serious issues. (for F2P players with apprentice mercs) And yes I have tried all of them.

My hope for EQN is that like a lot of other modern mmo's, you have a choice with how you want to level. So if you want to quest, you quest. If you want to grind you grind. But I hope that there are further granular choices within these options. So if you would rather grind on fewer tougher monsters with longer battles, you can. Or if you have limited time and want to wholesale slaughter peon strength minions, go at it. Likewise, if you want staged quests, the length and number of the stages is customizable. I think this is one area where DDO was way ahead of its time and its innovation is often overlooked.

If the storybricks stuff can enhance this it is a win/win all around.

fangblackbone wrote:

Oh I am well versed in Almar's leveling guide. I have just found that all of the suggestions for 50+ all have serious issues. (for F2P players with apprentice mercs) And yes I have tried all of them.

My hope for EQN is that like a lot of other modern mmo's, you have a choice with how you want to level. So if you want to quest, you quest. If you want to grind you grind. But I hope that there are further granular choices within these options. So if you would rather grind on fewer tougher monsters with longer battles, you can. Or if you have limited time and want to wholesale slaughter peon strength minions, go at it. Likewise, if you want staged quests, the length and number of the stages is customizable. I think this is one area where DDO was way ahead of its time and its innovation is often overlooked.

If the storybricks stuff can enhance this it is a win/win all around.

Yea, the apprentice mercs for F2P really do fall off hard before the 50s. I can't blame em though. Can't let free players have ALL the goodies or they'll never pay anything and well, then there wouldn't be a game:)

It would be amazing if a game like EQN could come along and allow you to play how you want and not get penalized or left out for it.

That's a tough road to pave though. And, one thing i'm QUITE certain of is, you'll want All Access when it comes to EQN too:)

FWIW I have spent probably $75 on F2P EQ on race/class combos and character slots. (at least $25 of that is double cash I believe)

I would easily spend another $10-15 or even possibly $20 on the ability to use journeyman mercs (even if only rank 1 was allowed)

Trust me, they are making money off F2P players... Especially since a lot of the races and classes I bought are now free I believe (all are free?). I really doubt there are F2P players that are able to do much on a completely free account.

I think that is something that EQN should consider if they really want buy in for their expansions. They should include a feature/perk not previously available to F2P players (like extra slots, merc slots, merc ranks, class/race combos, specialized or splinter group races). Plus GW2 is/was making plenty of money off of character slots and cosmetics.

Damn teases! Thought I was missing something cool while I've been moving but it's nothing.

I loved EQ2 back in the day, it wasn't the first MMO to introduce me to crafting but it was the first MMO that made me pay attention to it. The mini-game it offers you is a blast, allowing you the chance to craft a much better item for just paying attention. Unfortunately, EQ2 has ruined crafting in all other MMOs for me. Ever since discovering EQ2's crafting, all other games have what I call the "Ron Popeil crafting method" of "Set it and forget it". Twenty heavy leather, ten cloth and ten thread makes ten of Item X so you can lvl up towards the next tier.

I truly hope that EQN retains EQ2's crafting scheme but, from what little I've heard, it doesn't

Interesting. My only issue is how is this info conveyed to the player?

Perhaps they answer that in the full version.

So if you side with the dryads and continually hold back the dark elves can you push into dark elf territory? To the point of locking them into their host city or even overtaking that?

If you repeatedly hold back the dark elves, can the dryads gain a permanent foothold and become a playable race?

Just saw this from 4 months ago :(

Storybricks

The tech they were responsible for was one of the reasons i was super excited about this game. I'm even more worried now that Next may not see the light of day.

When it does I imagine it's going to be cut down in scope. That much seemed clear when this all went down. Or so I thought.

Between the Storybricks news back then, and the staff shakedown after Sony sold SOE to Daybreak Games, I assume it's a safe assumption that whatever form EQNext may take -- if it even sees the light of day -- will be a pale imitation of what the team was trying to build.

Makes me sad, it's disappointingly reminiscent of the way that Ultima Online 2 withered on the vine and died.

Whew. I thought after all this time with no updates, someone had just posted the EQ:N was canceled.

Thankfully it is just a months old necro. (I'm looking at you ran! Thanks for the near heart attack...)

Farscry wrote:

Makes me sad, it's disappointingly reminiscent of the way that Ultima Online 2 withered on the vine and died.

fangblackbone wrote:

Whew. I thought after all this time with no updates, someone had just posted the EQ:N was canceled.

Thankfully it is just a months old necro. (I'm looking at you ran! Thanks for the near heart attack...)

Sorry! I got worried myself when i hadnt received an email from them in a couple months and went looking for news.

ranalin wrote:
Farscry wrote:

Makes me sad, it's disappointingly reminiscent of the way that Ultima Online 2 withered on the vine and died.

I remember at an E3 playing UO2 and thinking to myself how cool it was...pretty sure it got canned shortly afterwards.