Quote: all the newer mac's can run in windows compatibiltiy mode and run windows games just fine
Can they really? I mean can they run it up to speed with the PCs? The older windows Mac program last I knew had serious issues with running basic programs up to speed.. let alone games that are processor intensive.
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
1) They ARE the most greedy MMO company out there. Their approach to MMO gaming is lets make money while we can, release the game and we will fix it later.
Why I say this lets take the EQ 2 vs WOW deal.
When both games were coming out it was like battle with people taking sides which game will the masters of MMOS
EQ 2
The only good thing about this game upon release was the character costumization. After that the content, balance, class definition, zones were sub par. One more time SOE rushed the game out of the door to compete againts their rival. People ussually say that EQ 1 was teh greatest MMO ever, in my opinion EQ 1 was awesome because there was nothign out there to compete againsts. Plain and simple other companies better than SOE in everything didnt want to produce P2P games. Now lets talk about SOE greed, inb the time WOW released Burning Crusade which feels more like a complete game by itself. SOE released 3 adventure packs and 3 expansions. All of them for a price, the discounts for "pre-order" were like 2 bucks. What slap in the face for those players who spend 2 years with SOE in a game with broken transportation system (cloud system in KoS) and many other bugs. The raid zones in KoS were basically clones ot itself same lame area with a different monster.
I could ramble for hours about my rage againts SOE, but if I can recommend something to a developer is that please do not follow SOE corporate greed.
In my opinion Blizzard is so succesful, is becuase they give, they constantly do new updates and zones for free. The focused in game content instead of pretty graphics. They offer more that PvE, their PvP system is fun and their world is huge.
BTW congratz
SOE on registering your new expansion for the game.
Here are my two cents about SOE In my opinion Blizzard is so succesful, is becuase they give, they constantly do new updates and zones for free. The focused in game content instead of pretty graphics. They offer more that PvE, their PvP system is fun and their world is huge. BTW congratz SOE on registering your new expansion for the game.
I really had to laugh at that.
EQ2 has added about 6x as much content since release as WOW has. And if the BC expansion was so great (after being a year late), then why are so many people quitting WOW and going to EQ2 and LOTRO?
I am angry at SONY because of the combat revamps... It is not appropriate to completely revamp the game every year or 2. Every time they do this they inadvertently end up completely screwing one playstyle or another.
I had a very powerful templar with all legendary armor and items from farming tradeskill rares. I could solo powerful heroics with my decent gear that other skill and spell dependent classes might have had trouble with. Then they made legendary and fabled items practically useless and I wasn't able to solo anything.
Plain and simple, some classes depend more on equipment to do well and some classes depend more on skills. Equipment dependent classes (like templar) were obliterated by the nerfing of high quality items while at the same time skill based classes were bolstered by reduced resistances etc.
Roots and runcasts on some items were also nerfed reducing their usefulness...
Basically any time you find something fun and non cookie cutter in the game, or even just something that requires a lot of work but gives a decent reward, you get screwed by SOE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PROBABILITY(YOUR STATEMENTS BEING MOTIVATED BY FEAR(I>U)) > .5
Quote: all the newer mac's can run in windows compatibiltiy mode and run windows games just fine
Can they really? I mean can they run it up to speed with the PCs? The older windows Mac program last I knew had serious issues with running basic programs up to speed.. let alone games that are processor intensive.
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
Newer Macs are basically the same hardware you find in a PC so they can run Windows natively as long as a few things are set up when the machine boots. They run a bootloader called bootcamp which is very similar to the loaders that allow you to dual boot to Linux/Windows.
Here are my two cents about SOE In my opinion Blizzard is so succesful, is becuase they give, they constantly do new updates and zones for free. The focused in game content instead of pretty graphics. They offer more that PvE, their PvP system is fun and their world is huge. BTW congratz SOE on registering your new expansion for the game.
I really had to laugh at that.
EQ2 has added about 6x as much content since release as WOW has. And if the BC expansion was so great (after being a year late), then why are so many people quitting WOW and going to EQ2 and LOTRO?
I cant argue with this. Bliz has been horrible with adding new content to WoW. Its crazy with how much money they make every month that we get as little as we do. Pathetic.
I'm angry at SOE too!! I played EQ2 since around two months after it opened. Lots about the game was great, good graphics, gameplay, nice crafting and lots of variety. Grouping was fun and i really enjoyed my class (troubador). Over the course of the next 18mths everything changed completely.. roughly every three months or so i would find my class had been changed so much i had to completely relearn it. I persisted through sheer bloody-mindedness if nothing else, but recently decided enough was enough and cancelled. When i first rolled my troubador, we were one of the top classes for soloing and had a very respectable dps. This went back and forth through various live updates, and now we are arguably the worst soloing classes with very very low dps. Fine if that was what i wanted to play... but it wasn't. I'm not knocking class balancing, but putting all those hours of work into developing my character is frustrating when you end up with something completely opposite to what it was originally. I mean imagine in real life if you were a policeman for 20 years then got told you now had to be a nurse... EQ2 would still be great if SOE developed some kind of vision and stuck with it. I like to have some kind of consistancy in online games, too much messing about from SOE means i'll never go back now. And don't even get me started on the crafting revamp...
Why they keep nerfing and revamping things no1 wants? Didnt they learn with SWG? Gues not ... how can we trust and invest our time and money if theres no guarantee we will recieve what we were suposed too? SOE has no respect for customers, period.
I am angry at SONY because of the combat revamps... It is not appropriate to completely revamp the game every year or 2. Every time they do this they inadvertently end up completely screwing one playstyle or another. I had a very powerful templar with all legendary armor and items from farming tradeskill rares. I could solo powerful heroics with my decent gear that other skill and spell dependent classes might have had trouble with. Then they made legendary and fabled items practically useless and I wasn't able to solo anything.
You could solo powerful heroics and wonder why you got nerfed?
Plate wearers were simply too powerful in EQ2 prior to the DoF upgrade and you should have seen this coming. What we have now is very balanced classes, all can solo to some degree which has to be good for the game. If you want unnecessary combat changes, just look at SWG or even WoW.
And yes, legendary and fabled gear still very much has value, why do people still raid and do instances for them?
I am angry at SONY because of the combat revamps... It is not appropriate to completely revamp the game every year or 2. Every time they do this they inadvertently end up completely screwing one playstyle or another.
Uhm.. a bit late here are we not?
How long ago, exactly, did SOE nerf your overpowered character?
I am angry at SONY because of the combat revamps... It is not appropriate to completely revamp the game every year or 2. Every time they do this they inadvertently end up completely screwing one playstyle or another. I had a very powerful templar with all legendary armor and items from farming tradeskill rares. I could solo powerful heroics with my decent gear that other skill and spell dependent classes might have had trouble with. Then they made legendary and fabled items practically useless and I wasn't able to solo anything.
You could solo powerful heroics and wonder why you got nerfed?
Plate wearers were simply too powerful in EQ2 prior to the DoF upgrade and you should have seen this coming. What we have now is very balanced classes, all can solo to some degree which has to be good for the game. If you want unnecessary combat changes, just look at SWG or even WoW.
And yes, legendary and fabled gear still very much has value, why do people still raid and do instances for them?
QFT
and WoW does not add more in terms of content than EQ2, I played both but gave WoW up recently.
One thing missing though from EQ2 is just combat animations - you can't tell the difference between one class and another or one race and another - a barbarian zerker dual wielding has the same animations as a half elf swashbuckler. I just think they could just make this a bit more dynamic, like for example WoW or L2.
Quote: all the newer mac's can run in windows compatibiltiy mode and run windows games just fine
Can they really? I mean can they run it up to speed with the PCs? The older windows Mac program last I knew had serious issues with running basic programs up to speed.. let alone games that are processor intensive.
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
Newer Macs are basically the same hardware you find in a PC so they can run Windows natively as long as a few things are set up when the machine boots. They run a bootloader called bootcamp which is very similar to the loaders that allow you to dual boot to Linux/Windows.
Yes this is true. Newer macs, less than a year old or so, use Intel processors and are basically PC architecture. Most even come with fairly decent graphics cards. Apple's getting a little better at that.
To install Windows on a Mac, your friends will need to download a copy of Bootcamp (should be available from Apple, though I heard the beta is closing or closed, so finding it may be difficult until the next OS release), and have a copy of Windows. Run bootcamp and I guess the set-up is fairly simple (haven't tried it myself, but I hear it's easy). Later when they boot they should have a choice of runnng Windows or the Mac OS.
As far as speed, it's not emulated, so it runs normal PC speed. They can play any PC Windows compatible game.
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased – he hates all creative people equally. -Robert A. Heinlein
As an ex-SWG player (pre-CU Jedi, Ahazi server) i dont really love SOE, to be very light ... but im playing EQ2 atm and i see a happy comunity there, ppl like the game and what SOE has been doing with it. Everybody says the game got a lot better. I dot like fantasy based MMOs much but i find EQ2 a very polished game. Its not perfect and not all about it pleases me but no MMO out there on the market is. SOE is doing a good job with this one.
The biggest problems I have are false promises, not listening to the customer base, bad communication with the customers, and unfinished content released with a full price tag.
Pretty much the same thing everybody else has experienced.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
Sony... I should have known better than to buy a Sony game. Worse than EA! Nothing nice to say AT ALL! Hate 'em with a passion and I'm gonna kick myself twice daily until the sub runs out so I never forget again.
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased – he hates all creative people equally. -Robert A. Heinlein
Amen to that.
That's why I decided to join the industry as an artist / animator / programmer (I'm not great at coding, but good enough to put it on my resume)... I'm employed at Atari currently, which I'm quitting to join something else, probably THQ, Activision, NC Soft, or Take Two (Firaxis hopefully). Atari isn't doing too well, and I say that lightly.
So yeah, I have a problem with SOE. Star Wars Galaxies was fine until they utterly destroyed it. I mean, sure, there are bad patches and updates now and then, it's common... but the *entire game* gets shot to hell because someone just had to reinvent the whole thing and produce a half-arsed game out of it? I would be fine with the changes now if they spent some time to polish it, but I'm sorry, it was a mess at the NGE launch and it still is.
They're trying desperately to do the same thing to EQ2, it would seem. Right when I joined, they nerfed the crafting system. I mean, seriously, I was willing to put SWG behind me and play another game, but they just changed it dramatically for the worst right as I started playing. That's not cool. While this may be a decision on the studio's part, and not the publisher's, I blame them because they screw up enough to warrant it .
SOE needs to take some time to re-think their development strategies and it wouldn't hurt them to replace some higher-ups with more intelligent and creative people.
What did they do to nerf crafting? It seems to be the same to me as it was when I first started playing the game. Of course I took a year or so off, but when I came back it was as I remembered it.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I don't have any dates or records or anything, so really you can just assume anything I'm saying about EQ2 is a total lie.
Anyway, the crafting system was "more powerful" before I joined, apparently.
After the nerf, when crafting, you make no money selling to the vendors and quest items are much more useful than anything you can make (at the lower levels, anyway, up through lvl 35 where I stopped leveling my Berserker and quit). So, when you try to sell something on the market, or whatever it was called (it was represented by an "accountant" or "Broker" or something I think, I forget the specific name), you had to use ultra-rare ingredients in order to just compete with stuff you can find through adventuring. Needless to say, you could save time by farming mobs for an hour or so for rare items rather than collecting stuff all day.
That's quite a nerf and time-sink, and it impacted a lot of aspiring crafters. Given that I mostly play the carebear in online games (mining, harvesting, crafting, entertaining, socializing, etc.), it upset me that anything I made wouldn't be worth my effort or the buyer's money.
Combat just isn't my thing if I'm given an option for otherwise. I like options that are worth the effort, but if they're just a needless time-sink, then I resent being given that as a choice.
The crafting system was "more powerful"? Ummm, no. It was more complicated. Once upon a time you had to make the combines for an item. For example; a piece or armor such as a helmet required a set amount of items crafted in order to make it. I forget the exact names of the combines, but you basically created the metal, leather, rivets, etc from the raw materials that you'd harvested, then you'd make your armor piece. This meant that for an armorer to make a full seven piece set of armor was incredibly time consuming and quite mind-numbing. Now you just take your raw materials, and hey presto, you item is made. Some vets hate this new system, but most think it is an improvement.
As for your comments about the crafted items being a waste of time compared to the loot, well yes and no. Provisioners make food and drink, and it is always needed, and the bought stuff no way compares to crafted. Carpenters make furniture and sales crates. Not everyone wants these, but a lot do. Woodworkers make arrows; always needed by rangers and assassins. Sages, alchemists, & jewellers make the spells and items needed as you level, so are essential. Armorers, tailors, and weaponsmiths create the gear you need to re-equip every 10 levels. At level 10, 20, etc you can equip yourself with the basic gear that one of these can create for you. At levels 12, 22, etc you can equip the items made from rare harvest raws (slightly higher stats). Yes, of course certain looted items will have better stats, but you'd be hard pushed to equip yourself with everything you need. You'll find yourself outlevelling your armor and weaponry faster than you can loot it. Any experienced EQ2 player knows this, and will seek out an armorer/tailor and weaponsmith/woodworker to supply them with new items every 10 levels. They may get lucky and loot something they don't need to replace, but they'd never dream of letting their toon soldier on in the hope of looting it in the future.
The tradeskill system is constantly being updated, with new items being added frequently. The recent addition of a new tradeskill-only dev (Domino I believe her name is) means that this process has been speeded up. And she has promised to continue to improve the tradeskill system.
Personally I love EQ2's tradeskill system. If you know how to play it, you CAN make money from it. Certain items really do sell. Not all crafting vocations are sure-fire money winners from the start (armorers & weaponsmiths certainly struggle to begin with), but with a little time and investment put into them, you can soon make a profit.
Currently returned to Norrath after disliking Hyboria.
The crafting system was "more powerful"? Ummm, no. It was more complicated. Once upon a time you had to make the combines for an item. For example; a piece or armor such as a helmet required a set amount of items crafted in order to make it. I forget the exact names of the combines, but you basically created the metal, leather, rivets, etc from the raw materials that you'd harvested, then you'd make your armor piece. This meant that for an armorer to make a full seven piece set of armor was incredibly time consuming and quite mind-numbing. Now you just take your raw materials, and hey presto, you item is made. Some vets hate this new system, but most think it is an improvement. As for your comments about the crafted items being a waste of time compared to the loot, well yes and no. Provisioners make food and drink, and it is always needed, and the bought stuff no way compares to crafted. Carpenters make furniture and sales crates. Not everyone wants these, but a lot do. Woodworkers make arrows; always needed by rangers and assassins. Sages, alchemists, & jewellers make the spells and items needed as you level, so are essential. Armorers, tailors, and weaponsmiths create the gear you need to re-equip every 10 levels. At level 10, 20, etc you can equip yourself with the basic gear that one of these can create for you. At levels 12, 22, etc you can equip the items made from rare harvest raws (slightly higher stats). Yes, of course certain looted items will have better stats, but you'd be hard pushed to equip yourself with everything you need. You'll find yourself outlevelling your armor and weaponry faster than you can loot it. Any experienced EQ2 player knows this, and will seek out an armorer/tailor and weaponsmith/woodworker to supply them with new items every 10 levels. They may get lucky and loot something they don't need to replace, but they'd never dream of letting their toon soldier on in the hope of looting it in the future. The tradeskill system is constantly being updated, with new items being added frequently. The recent addition of a new tradeskill-only dev (Domino I believe her name is) means that this process has been speeded up. And she has promised to continue to improve the tradeskill system. Personally I love EQ2's tradeskill system. If you know how to play it, you CAN make money from it. Certain items really do sell. Not all crafting vocations are sure-fire money winners from the start (armorers & weaponsmiths certainly struggle to begin with), but with a little time and investment put into them, you can soon make a profit. i agree with this as I am an armorer, and i just reached lvl 40+ i made some good money on selling steel armor which has far higher stats then the base armor of the lvl 30-40 just as cobalt has far higher stats than fulginate. you just gotta know what sells and what doesnt. not everyoen can afford cobalt so you compete with people that are selling fulginate or whatever armor it is they make for that level. and yes as an armorer I am struggling as i just started to make money as I reached beyond lvl 30 with the feysteel rares. but in the end you get out what you put in. you invest your time, you ll make money, it requires patience. i like armoring, for the mere fact that it always fanscinated me, although my alts do spells, or cook but i did that merely for availability and non repetition between my player alts. but in any event, its just requires a bit of patience to get to. after that its smooth sailing, knowing what sells, what doesnt. researching the market for price flucuations etc.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
but on a side note, you dont have to just sell your armor or whatever you craft, there is so many things you can sell, collectibles, other various rares you cant use (i go harvesting alot just to both up my harvest skills, as well to get rares) and i make some major dinero. granted im not as prolific as most of my guildies, but ive made excess of 25 plat so far in the game. one item i sold for 11plat :P so there is always something to sell, something someone always going to need. just remember that.
there is always something to be sold to somebody.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
SOE is just another franchise doomed to fail because it is part of even bigger franchise. Owned by sony, it really has no freedom in how it functions and chooses its leader to make it function.
The man in charge is not really a video gamer at heart, but a businessman, and that is why SOE is in the rut it is now. Businessmen try to make money instead of giving the people what they want, and that has backfired in a major way.
Instead of attracting new players, everything has been vamped, and the spit on by the palyers themselves.
Yeah, exactly. Also all the other mmos are the same. They are based on the same formula so there wont be major differences at all and it seems that all the new and upcoming mmos are following the same footsteps. So not much diff at all, every one of em want to make money.
Comments
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
Here are my two cents about SOE
1) They ARE the most greedy MMO company out there. Their approach to MMO gaming is lets make money while we can, release the game and we will fix it later.
Why I say this lets take the EQ 2 vs WOW deal.
When both games were coming out it was like battle with people taking sides which game will the masters of MMOS
EQ 2
The only good thing about this game upon release was the character costumization. After that the content, balance, class definition, zones were sub par. One more time SOE rushed the game out of the door to compete againts their rival. People ussually say that EQ 1 was teh greatest MMO ever, in my opinion EQ 1 was awesome because there was nothign out there to compete againsts. Plain and simple other companies better than SOE in everything didnt want to produce P2P games. Now lets talk about SOE greed, inb the time WOW released Burning Crusade which feels more like a complete game by itself. SOE released 3 adventure packs and 3 expansions. All of them for a price, the discounts for "pre-order" were like 2 bucks. What slap in the face for those players who spend 2 years with SOE in a game with broken transportation system (cloud system in KoS) and many other bugs. The raid zones in KoS were basically clones ot itself same lame area with a different monster.
I could ramble for hours about my rage againts SOE, but if I can recommend something to a developer is that please do not follow SOE corporate greed.
In my opinion Blizzard is so succesful, is becuase they give, they constantly do new updates and zones for free. The focused in game content instead of pretty graphics. They offer more that PvE, their PvP system is fun and their world is huge.
BTW congratz
SOE on registering your new expansion for the game.
I really had to laugh at that.
EQ2 has added about 6x as much content since release as WOW has. And if the BC expansion was so great (after being a year late), then why are so many people quitting WOW and going to EQ2 and LOTRO?
I am angry at SONY because of the combat revamps... It is not appropriate to completely revamp the game every year or 2. Every time they do this they inadvertently end up completely screwing one playstyle or another.
I had a very powerful templar with all legendary armor and items from farming tradeskill rares. I could solo powerful heroics with my decent gear that other skill and spell dependent classes might have had trouble with. Then they made legendary and fabled items practically useless and I wasn't able to solo anything.
Plain and simple, some classes depend more on equipment to do well and some classes depend more on skills. Equipment dependent classes (like templar) were obliterated by the nerfing of high quality items while at the same time skill based classes were bolstered by reduced resistances etc.
Roots and runcasts on some items were also nerfed reducing their usefulness...
Basically any time you find something fun and non cookie cutter in the game, or even just something that requires a lot of work but gives a decent reward, you get screwed by SOE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PROBABILITY(YOUR STATEMENTS BEING MOTIVATED BY FEAR(I>U)) > .5
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
I really had to laugh at that.
EQ2 has added about 6x as much content since release as WOW has. And if the BC expansion was so great (after being a year late), then why are so many people quitting WOW and going to EQ2 and LOTRO?
I cant argue with this. Bliz has been horrible with adding new content to WoW. Its crazy with how much money they make every month that we get as little as we do. Pathetic.
Why they keep nerfing and revamping things no1 wants? Didnt they learn with SWG? Gues not ... how can we trust and invest our time and money if theres no guarantee we will recieve what we were suposed too? SOE has no respect for customers, period.
Plate wearers were simply too powerful in EQ2 prior to the DoF upgrade and you should have seen this coming. What we have now is very balanced classes, all can solo to some degree which has to be good for the game. If you want unnecessary combat changes, just look at SWG or even WoW.
And yes, legendary and fabled gear still very much has value, why do people still raid and do instances for them?
Uhm.. a bit late here are we not?
How long ago, exactly, did SOE nerf your overpowered character?
Plate wearers were simply too powerful in EQ2 prior to the DoF upgrade and you should have seen this coming. What we have now is very balanced classes, all can solo to some degree which has to be good for the game. If you want unnecessary combat changes, just look at SWG or even WoW.
And yes, legendary and fabled gear still very much has value, why do people still raid and do instances for them?
QFT
and WoW does not add more in terms of content than EQ2, I played both but gave WoW up recently.
One thing missing though from EQ2 is just combat animations - you can't tell the difference between one class and another or one race and another - a barbarian zerker dual wielding has the same animations as a half elf swashbuckler. I just think they could just make this a bit more dynamic, like for example WoW or L2.
If that has changed all i can say is WOOT, its about time.
Yes this is true. Newer macs, less than a year old or so, use Intel processors and are basically PC architecture. Most even come with fairly decent graphics cards. Apple's getting a little better at that.
To install Windows on a Mac, your friends will need to download a copy of Bootcamp (should be available from Apple, though I heard the beta is closing or closed, so finding it may be difficult until the next OS release), and have a copy of Windows. Run bootcamp and I guess the set-up is fairly simple (haven't tried it myself, but I hear it's easy). Later when they boot they should have a choice of runnng Windows or the Mac OS.
As far as speed, it's not emulated, so it runs normal PC speed. They can play any PC Windows compatible game.
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased – he hates all creative people equally. -Robert A. Heinlein
As an ex-SWG player (pre-CU Jedi, Ahazi server) i dont really love SOE, to be very light ... but im playing EQ2 atm and i see a happy comunity there, ppl like the game and what SOE has been doing with it. Everybody says the game got a lot better. I dot like fantasy based MMOs much but i find EQ2 a very polished game. Its not perfect and not all about it pleases me but no MMO out there on the market is. SOE is doing a good job with this one.
The biggest problems I have are false promises, not listening to the customer base, bad communication with the customers, and unfinished content released with a full price tag.
Pretty much the same thing everybody else has experienced.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
Sony... I should have known better than to buy a Sony game. Worse than EA! Nothing nice to say AT ALL! Hate 'em with a passion and I'm gonna kick myself twice daily until the sub runs out so I never forget again.
could say this about almost any MMO
WoW was released with no battlegrounds
(despite this being in the game manual)
Blizzard didnt add the missing Battlegrounds until 8 months later
EQ2 fan sites
Amen to that.
That's why I decided to join the industry as an artist / animator / programmer (I'm not great at coding, but good enough to put it on my resume)... I'm employed at Atari currently, which I'm quitting to join something else, probably THQ, Activision, NC Soft, or Take Two (Firaxis hopefully). Atari isn't doing too well, and I say that lightly.
So yeah, I have a problem with SOE. Star Wars Galaxies was fine until they utterly destroyed it. I mean, sure, there are bad patches and updates now and then, it's common... but the *entire game* gets shot to hell because someone just had to reinvent the whole thing and produce a half-arsed game out of it? I would be fine with the changes now if they spent some time to polish it, but I'm sorry, it was a mess at the NGE launch and it still is.
They're trying desperately to do the same thing to EQ2, it would seem. Right when I joined, they nerfed the crafting system. I mean, seriously, I was willing to put SWG behind me and play another game, but they just changed it dramatically for the worst right as I started playing. That's not cool. While this may be a decision on the studio's part, and not the publisher's, I blame them because they screw up enough to warrant it
.
SOE needs to take some time to re-think their development strategies and it wouldn't hurt them to replace some higher-ups with more intelligent and creative people.
What did they do to nerf crafting? It seems to be the same to me as it was when I first started playing the game. Of course I took a year or so off, but when I came back it was as I remembered it.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I don't have any dates or records or anything, so really you can just assume anything I'm saying about EQ2 is a total lie.
Anyway, the crafting system was "more powerful" before I joined, apparently.
After the nerf, when crafting, you make no money selling to the vendors and quest items are much more useful than anything you can make (at the lower levels, anyway, up through lvl 35 where I stopped leveling my Berserker and quit). So, when you try to sell something on the market, or whatever it was called (it was represented by an "accountant" or "Broker" or something I think, I forget the specific name), you had to use ultra-rare ingredients in order to just compete with stuff you can find through adventuring. Needless to say, you could save time by farming mobs for an hour or so for rare items rather than collecting stuff all day.
That's quite a nerf and time-sink, and it impacted a lot of aspiring crafters. Given that I mostly play the carebear in online games (mining, harvesting, crafting, entertaining, socializing, etc.), it upset me that anything I made wouldn't be worth my effort or the buyer's money.
Combat just isn't my thing if I'm given an option for otherwise. I like options that are worth the effort, but if they're just a needless time-sink, then I resent being given that as a choice.
The crafting system was "more powerful"? Ummm, no. It was more complicated. Once upon a time you had to make the combines for an item. For example; a piece or armor such as a helmet required a set amount of items crafted in order to make it. I forget the exact names of the combines, but you basically created the metal, leather, rivets, etc from the raw materials that you'd harvested, then you'd make your armor piece. This meant that for an armorer to make a full seven piece set of armor was incredibly time consuming and quite mind-numbing. Now you just take your raw materials, and hey presto, you item is made. Some vets hate this new system, but most think it is an improvement.
As for your comments about the crafted items being a waste of time compared to the loot, well yes and no. Provisioners make food and drink, and it is always needed, and the bought stuff no way compares to crafted. Carpenters make furniture and sales crates. Not everyone wants these, but a lot do. Woodworkers make arrows; always needed by rangers and assassins. Sages, alchemists, & jewellers make the spells and items needed as you level, so are essential. Armorers, tailors, and weaponsmiths create the gear you need to re-equip every 10 levels. At level 10, 20, etc you can equip yourself with the basic gear that one of these can create for you. At levels 12, 22, etc you can equip the items made from rare harvest raws (slightly higher stats). Yes, of course certain looted items will have better stats, but you'd be hard pushed to equip yourself with everything you need. You'll find yourself outlevelling your armor and weaponry faster than you can loot it. Any experienced EQ2 player knows this, and will seek out an armorer/tailor and weaponsmith/woodworker to supply them with new items every 10 levels. They may get lucky and loot something they don't need to replace, but they'd never dream of letting their toon soldier on in the hope of looting it in the future.
The tradeskill system is constantly being updated, with new items being added frequently. The recent addition of a new tradeskill-only dev (Domino I believe her name is) means that this process has been speeded up. And she has promised to continue to improve the tradeskill system.
Personally I love EQ2's tradeskill system. If you know how to play it, you CAN make money from it. Certain items really do sell. Not all crafting vocations are sure-fire money winners from the start (armorers & weaponsmiths certainly struggle to begin with), but with a little time and investment put into them, you can soon make a profit.
Currently returned to Norrath after disliking Hyboria.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
but on a side note, you dont have to just sell your armor or whatever you craft, there is so many things you can sell, collectibles, other various rares you cant use (i go harvesting alot just to both up my harvest skills, as well to get rares) and i make some major dinero. granted im not as prolific as most of my guildies, but ive made excess of 25 plat so far in the game. one item i sold for 11plat :P so there is always something to sell, something someone always going to need. just remember that.
there is always something to be sold to somebody.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
SOE is just another franchise doomed to fail because it is part of even bigger franchise. Owned by sony, it really has no freedom in how it functions and chooses its leader to make it function.
The man in charge is not really a video gamer at heart, but a businessman, and that is why SOE is in the rut it is now. Businessmen try to make money instead of giving the people what they want, and that has backfired in a major way.
Instead of attracting new players, everything has been vamped, and the spit on by the palyers themselves.
wai2go
I realize this is the SOE rant thread
but how is Sony and SOE - any different than Vivendi and Blizzard?
Vivendi is a french multimedia conglomerate concerned about bucks too !
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi_Games
EQ2 fan sites
Yeah, exactly. Also all the other mmos are the same. They are based on the same formula so there wont be major differences at all and it seems that all the new and upcoming mmos are following the same footsteps. So not much diff at all, every one of em want to make money.