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Norrathian Stride - Returning To EverQuest II | MMORPG.com

SystemSystem Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
edited January 2021 in News & Features Discussion

imageNorrathian Stride - Returning To EverQuest II | MMORPG.com

For the majority of his twenties, Jonathan was a hardcore EverQuest player. When EverQuest II launched, J eagerly jumped back into Norrath, and while it hooked him for a while, he inevitably went back to the OG EQ. Now, in 2021, Jonathan has returned to Norrath - how does this experience hold up years later? Check out the first installment of the Norrathian Stride, a new column about EverQuest II.

Read the full story here


cheyanexpsync

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  • xpsyncxpsync Member EpicPosts: 1,854
    edited January 2021
    I was there at launch, fell head over heels, and wow happened RIP EQ2 2004 to 2008

    Best mmorpg gaming ever, the golden years, when mmorpg's were mmorpg's :)
    FirstKnight117Hluillshokadezz
    My faith is my shield! - Turalyon 2022

    Your legend ends here and now! - (Battles Won Long Ago)

    Currently Playing; Dragonflight and SWG:L
  • MmoFan2012MmoFan2012 Member UncommonPosts: 23
    just did the same. bought expansion and 3 month sub. servers were out the first week due to cloud issues.

    i applied the 120 token to my main and only found level 110 gear with the token. my last xpac was KA so i needed to do the panda quest to 2020 to adjust the accession level... at release of shadows i zoned in and got the 120 starter gear. i tried the new expansion for a few hours and was totally lost.

    so i started a level one vahshir BL. leveled quest timelines to about 30. logged in a second account with an old level 100 and did dungeons 10 levels higher with mentor to bring the BL up to 74.

    at this point i have sold items on broker and setup digs in qeynos. after 3 months all i have to show is a level 74 BL and a 120 main that needs to do some required back quests to do the current expansion.

    thought about jumping over to EQ and play my cleric. passed on that due to can't afford to have 3 accounts to PL the cleric to endgame.

    i also played WoW for 3 months, preordered their expansion but canceled. i then settled on EQ/EQ2 and think that was worth the cost.

    i don't plan to sub to any MMO anymore. have dropped console subs too. most games are on Steam-PCs and console wars need to resolve IMO.

    ARK and Fallout 76 have filled the craving that EQ/EQ2 used to cover. ESO and RPGs like skyrim, Halo complete, Fallout 4, Destiny 2, and Division 2 seem to be working for me.

    the EQ/EQ2 community seems to be hitting the AARP zone. Subs have to drop for me to visit EQ/EQ2/Wow more often. i will pay for games, just tired of paying for promises and i'm beyond FOMO mode now.
    xpsynccheyaneMendelTheocritusFTrunks21shokadezz
  • xpsyncxpsync Member EpicPosts: 1,854
    edited January 2021
    If you're having fun then you're not wasting your time.

    Me when i got into this mmorpg vice, i played SWG and EQ2 that was it, and mainly as i loved both but server down time was thing too. Nothing worse than going to log in and server down.

    Wow happened and spent so much time bouncing around to a new mmorpg every other week after i came to the realization that they have destroyed EQ2 for wow pie by 2008.

    Bouncing was fun I'll admit that, but what i loved most about mmorpgs is that everything i did and will do always counts, going adhd on them was a waste yet not a waste as it was fun, but once the fun was over, all i did, all i accomplished, was wasted as i went off to yet another mmorpg wow pie chaser.

    Today i play SWG:L and WOW as my EQ2 replacement, pay sub = play and earn, pc only, no real cash shop, and no real p2w unless you want to go broke, the token doesn't buy much, same deal as eve plex, don't like the token, but rather deal with that then deal with farmers, i mean farmers are real so pay to win always existed in every mmorpg like it or not.

    I tried to come back to EQ2 several times and to me, it's a mess, it's not what it once was, coming in new and fresh yeah it's probably a good mmo.
    cheyane
    My faith is my shield! - Turalyon 2022

    Your legend ends here and now! - (Battles Won Long Ago)

    Currently Playing; Dragonflight and SWG:L
  • blamo2000blamo2000 Member RarePosts: 1,130
    I went back like six months ago. What killed it for me is the treasure hunting nonsense. I wish I had it in me to skip things like that, but my OCD kicks in and I have to find this and that shell or bone or whatever. It wasn't bad when EQ2 was new and leveling was much slower and this system fit much better and you finished all of them and still had quests to do in the area, but now it is just like handcuffs to me and is a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass.
    xpsync
  • sybaritictrancesybaritictrance Member UncommonPosts: 27

    blamo2000 said:

    I went back like six months ago. What killed it for me is the treasure hunting nonsense. I wish I had it in me to skip things like that, but my OCD kicks in and I have to find this and that shell or bone or whatever. It wasn't bad when EQ2 was new and leveling was much slower and this system fit much better and you finished all of them and still had quests to do in the area, but now it is just like handcuffs to me and is a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass.



    Talking about Collections? Ugh, tell me about it. I can't just NOT pick up a shiny if I walk by it.
    xpsyncblamo2000Hluill
  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    I was there launch day ,seen it all,the chat the players inside the game and opinions.

    The majority were happy and had fun grouping together and exploring new areas and doing the armor/set quests.
    There was an outside presence however from i imagine hardcore EQ1 fans who despised everything about EQ2.I took it all as being jealous that a lot of EQ1 players were being lost to this new game.
    Yes there were bugs drawing npc mobs,yes there was the typical aggro through walls but overall i would say we were having fun.

    This was a new look for me having already been playing FFXI.So Wow came out about a week later,so i tried that as well but within the first minute i was already turned off.First the players were acting extremely immature in Wow and the way the game just dropped me off at some cheap looking caravan was a real poor way to immerse me into the game.So i went back and split time with FFXi and EQ2.

    IMO EQ2 went downhill at a point when al lof SOE seem to be struggling for money and as a whole.The team made some lame crap changes that told me the game was moving in the wrong direction.It also became clear the game was going to be a TIER game,just repeating the same cycle over and over at each new 10 level tier so it became boring for me.

    I should also point out that very early they also made changes to death penalties and we can blame the players for that,a lot of crying and blaming on deaths.I also want to point out that "scaling" is NEVER good.

    xpsync

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • seraphis79seraphis79 Member UncommonPosts: 312
    My wife and I joined EQ2 back when it launched. We started a guild that became somewhat successful for a short period of time, but real life happened and we had to let the officers take over. A year or so later when we returned both the guild and the game felt like it was a ghost town compared to how it was the year before.

    We still play off and on every once in a while, but it's definitely a game on life support and it shows. The new city SharVahl is nearly empty with very little life, content is being reused from previous expansions, and the numbers desperately need a major squish with some numbers in the billions.

    I purchased the new expansion, hit 120 with my Barb Paladin, finished all the sig and side quests along with all of the trade skill quests for the expansion. Although I didn't find much of the content to be challenging (only had issues with 2 bosses in solo instances due to my gear) I still feel I got my money's worth from the collector's edition ($90.00) and managed to talk my wife back into playing.

    We're messing around with the agnostic dungeons taking a break to do some questing when we hit levels where we missed the expansion content.

    xpsync
  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,875
    Couple of years ago my wife and I did just that. Joined a server, many in the community saw we were unguilded and leveling fresh chars. We got an invite to a very active guild with little effort and so many helped us with tip and items and people joining us for dungeon runs. 

    We were having a blast and was not long till we got max level. I rolled an Enchanter and my wife a Wizard if I remember right. When it come to join our guild for raids and dungeon runs at top end. Everyone had their set people they would team with and we were completely ignored. 

    After about a month of this, we decided to start looking for other guilds. No matter where we landed, the community was not looking for new people to join their rotation of players. 

    It often was the same seen. 10-20 people would log on, team up or raid up. Do their content in 1-2 hours and just log off. Was odd. Wife and I just walked away after about 6 months of wasted time. Did enjoy the game itself though. 
    xpsyncHluill
  • MendelMendel Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
    just did the same. bought expansion and 3 month sub. servers were out the first week due to cloud issues.

    i applied the 120 token to my main and only found level 110 gear with the token. my last xpac was KA so i needed to do the panda quest to 2020 to adjust the accession level... at release of shadows i zoned in and got the 120 starter gear. i tried the new expansion for a few hours and was totally lost.

    so i started a level one vahshir BL. leveled quest timelines to about 30. logged in a second account with an old level 100 and did dungeons 10 levels higher with mentor to bring the BL up to 74.

    at this point i have sold items on broker and setup digs in qeynos. after 3 months all i have to show is a level 74 BL and a 120 main that needs to do some required back quests to do the current expansion.

    thought about jumping over to EQ and play my cleric. passed on that due to can't afford to have 3 accounts to PL the cleric to endgame.

    i also played WoW for 3 months, preordered their expansion but canceled. i then settled on EQ/EQ2 and think that was worth the cost.

    i don't plan to sub to any MMO anymore. have dropped console subs too. most games are on Steam-PCs and console wars need to resolve IMO.

    ARK and Fallout 76 have filled the craving that EQ/EQ2 used to cover. ESO and RPGs like skyrim, Halo complete, Fallout 4, Destiny 2, and Division 2 seem to be working for me.

    the EQ/EQ2 community seems to be hitting the AARP zone. Subs have to drop for me to visit EQ/EQ2/Wow more often. i will pay for games, just tired of paying for promises and i'm beyond FOMO mode now.

    If you think it's bad as an All Access player, you should try playing as truly F2P.  These older games, particularly EQ1 and EQ2 have changed so much that it is impractical or even impossible to play the base game and have any hope of catching up.  It really does take 2 or more accounts to progress a character from level 1 to max level.  Plus loads and loads of time.

    My current task in EQ1 is to earn enough Faycitum (sp?) to actually buy something for my 76th level Beastlord.  I'm at 108 today, minimum item price = 720+ for augments and about 2500+ for items (armor/weapons).  I'd really like a weapon or a weapon augment.  At my current pace and play time (roughly 1 hour a day), I'll be incredibly lucky to even come close this year.  And that includes the supposition that my health will somehow improve and allow me to tolerate more than 1 hour a day.

    And that's just to gear up enough to maybe handle content in the House of Thule expansion.

    It would be easy enough for DarkPaw to address.  1) Make Faycitum tradable so there's at least the possibility of supplementing this Alt Currency by buying it off other players.  2) Increase the rewards on these various tasks in Dawnshroud from 3 Fay per mission to 25 per mission.  3) Decrease the vendor prices on the Fay items.  This gear is old enough not to impact anything about the current high end game, but could help people level up without essentially requiring a life in POP/GOD/OOW raids to help gear up.



    [Deleted User]xpsync

    Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.

  • sakersaker Member RarePosts: 1,458
    Was in the beta, wow that was a mess, turned me off for a few years. Played and LUVED for awhile, before they did whatever expansion brought the Frogs back i think, and then it was all about endlessly re-running the same instances for 1 "new" currency to the next for crafting endless succession of upgrades and was just too tedious and boring... very sad. I'm hopeful that the real living EQ3 (you know what I'm talking about) will come and bring back (soon!, please!, any-and-all-God(s) please!) MMO fun that has been dead and gone for years.
    xpsync
  • xpsyncxpsync Member EpicPosts: 1,854
    edited January 2021
    Wizardry said:
    There was an outside presence however from i imagine hardcore EQ1 fans who despised everything about EQ2.I took it all as being jealous that a lot of EQ1 players were being lost to this new game.
    The guild i fell in with were all EQ1 vets whom also fell as hard in love as i did with it. After few months a few tried to go back and couldn't do it, where i too tried EQ1 and couldn't do it, EQ2 was the bomb!

    Sure not every EQ1 player loved it, the hate for EQ2 from EQ1 players was quite prevalent, the humorous part was that they complained it was too easy compared to EQ1, which i dunno the peeps i played with said only in different ways and that EQ2 was much harder in other ways, to this day i still don't know much about EQ1, all in all if they thought EQ2 was easy /umm you guys ever hear about this game called wow? Eeeek! F me right, damn EQ2 was Hard AF.
    My faith is my shield! - Turalyon 2022

    Your legend ends here and now! - (Battles Won Long Ago)

    Currently Playing; Dragonflight and SWG:L
  • RandomCasualtyRandomCasualty Member UncommonPosts: 330
    Was great until they dumbed it down. Took me months to fully betray two wood elf characters to Assassin and Shadow Knight. Then only to see cash shops pop up with tokens for instant betrayal

    I liked how you had to work at things, even flight paths, but everything became so easy

    Favorite was the death penalty, they had it right the first time. Group penalty. Sitting waiting for a group member to navigate Nektulos while watching his health go down was just hilarious and "corpse runs" not quite as bad as EQ back in the day

    xpsyncsybaritictranceHluill
  • xpsyncxpsync Member EpicPosts: 1,854

    Taranx said:

    Was great until they dumbed it down. Took me months to fully betray two wood elf characters to Assassin and Shadow Knight. Then only to see cash shops pop up with tokens for instant betrayal



    I liked how you had to work at things, even flight paths, but everything became so easy



    Favorite was the death penalty, they had it right the first time. Group penalty. Sitting waiting for a group member to navigate Nektulos while watching his health go down was just hilarious and "corpse runs" not quite as bad as EQ back in the day






    Unfortunately, however fortunate for us that we were there, peeps today whom only ever played wow missed out huge.

    Wow at its launch, and now having played it recently in classic, i can understand the draw, but my gawd EQ2 was only a trillion times better in every conceivable way outside world raids. World Raids was the draw, i mean vanilla pve wow must have been extremely boring.

    Of all the time i've played WoW retail, my half a year in classic has a phenomenal amount of wonderful memories comparatively, where retail i dunno never really get any, but still i'm enjoying it, and then you have EQ2 and my 4 years there has more memories than my entire life of gaming combined.

    It's a real shame what they did to that game. To nutshell it, EQ2 i look back and i totally feel like i was there, in a world, a fantasy world, a true escape, complete immersion, i've never come across that again, and unfortunate for others who will never know what they missed out on, no gamer will ever again. It's kinda easy to blame wow, but, look at the dumpster fire of gaming today overall, it was inevitable. People just love to play with their wallets, it's mind blowing, i thought we play games so we can "PLAY!".
    RandomCasualty
    My faith is my shield! - Turalyon 2022

    Your legend ends here and now! - (Battles Won Long Ago)

    Currently Playing; Dragonflight and SWG:L
  • blamo2000blamo2000 Member RarePosts: 1,130

    blamo2000 said:

    I went back like six months ago. What killed it for me is the treasure hunting nonsense. I wish I had it in me to skip things like that, but my OCD kicks in and I have to find this and that shell or bone or whatever. It wasn't bad when EQ2 was new and leveling was much slower and this system fit much better and you finished all of them and still had quests to do in the area, but now it is just like handcuffs to me and is a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass.



    Talking about Collections? Ugh, tell me about it. I can't just NOT pick up a shiny if I walk by it.
    I wish it was just not being able to pick one up I see.  I have to finish all collections in one area before I can move to the next.  With their super fast leveling now (even jacking AA way up) I spent like a million times more trying to finish an area's collections than questing in the area.  
  • AkulasAkulas Member RarePosts: 3,028
    I might remove all my max level characters and start again as a total noob.
    Hluill

    This isn't a signature, you just think it is.

  • lahnmirlahnmir Member LegendaryPosts: 5,050
    Ugly, poorly optimised, skill bloat beyond belief, a frankenstein of systems, passives etc. And still I had fun for many, many hours. But going back? I’ve tried several times and just can’t do it anymore.

    /Cheers,
    Lahnmir
    Mendel[Deleted User]
    'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'

    Kyleran on yours sincerely 


    'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'

    Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...



    'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless. 

    It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.

    It is just huge resource waste....'

    Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer

  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
    Torval said:
    blamo2000 said:

    blamo2000 said:

    I went back like six months ago. What killed it for me is the treasure hunting nonsense. I wish I had it in me to skip things like that, but my OCD kicks in and I have to find this and that shell or bone or whatever. It wasn't bad when EQ2 was new and leveling was much slower and this system fit much better and you finished all of them and still had quests to do in the area, but now it is just like handcuffs to me and is a huge bottleneck and pain in the ass.



    Talking about Collections? Ugh, tell me about it. I can't just NOT pick up a shiny if I walk by it.
    I wish it was just not being able to pick one up I see.  I have to finish all collections in one area before I can move to the next.  With their super fast leveling now (even jacking AA way up) I spent like a million times more trying to finish an area's collections than questing in the area.  

    If you sub you can basically level lock, or could the last time I played. Can't you still turn down level XP to 0 and AA all the way up?

    yes

    Hluill
  • bloobersbloobers Member UncommonPosts: 23
    After I read this great article, I reactivated my account, bought RoS and started a Level 1 shadowknight. I thought, it would be a nice distraction from WoW Shadowlands, which I currently Ppay a lot.
    My SK in EQ2 is now Level 15 as I wrote this post and I play on EU English Server. Here are my pros and cons.

    Pros:
    1. Huge world
    2. Chest Drops (small to master)
    3. Nameds and heroics - love that
    4. Spell upgrades to master
    5. Collect shinies (glowing "?")
    6. Rewarding fights
    7. Not so fast paced fights - time to Chat in downtimes
    8. Buffs from other classes, which really make a different
    9. Group benefits and mechanics, really missed that
    10. Epic weapons quests
    11. Long quest lines
    12. Skill point based playing : You become better at xyz - this is still so great
    13. Discovery EXP, kill EXP, mob group kill EXP, Player Group kill exp
    14. reactive tradeskilling


    Cons:
    1. Outdated graphics
    2. Stand still and fight, can become boring
    3. Extremely low Server Population and overaged (not real life age, the EQ2 world age)
    4. Despite I have state of the art Computer in the year 2021, I have lag, character movement and fighting warps
    5. Responsiveness of spells is strange, Always like 500ms or 1s delay
    6. Mercs stand a few meters next to you, doing nothing, you have to move mobs to mercs
    7. Agroelist of mercs do not reset - you ride through mobs to a final destination, your agroelist is cleared, but your merc suddenly run back long distance to kill something
    8. Prices in AH are extremely high, compared to gold Drops
    9. Hard to find Groups


    Pro and Con:
    1. While this can be something good, it is also something not good - the sheer amount of spells - it is overwhelming and you just loose the overview
    2. Character customization with AA, Prestige AA and so on - again, it is really nice to be able to customize your char, but at the end, it is so overwhelmin and TBH I don't want to sit down for Hours EQ2 Theorycrafting - then you get a new drop, and for me, then impossible to tell, if better or not

    My conclusion:
    I stay in EQ2 for my 30 days RoS plus 30 days Crono, lets see if I will be still playing after 60 days - Currently, I enjoy it very much - it is so refereshing to other AAA on the market. If the graphic would be just todays Standard, more responsive and higher population, it would be a no brainer to stay - however, the overaged community.

    HF
    HluillRandomCasualty
  • CravaroCravaro Member UncommonPosts: 1
    Thanks for the guild shout out and welcome to Fallen Under. EQ2 today is nothing like it was back in it's hey day. I took several years away from EQ2 and returned about three years ago. I did not roll up a new character because I had exhausted all low and midgame experience long ago. So I picked up where I left off with my Monk main and never looked back. It's been a long crazy ride getting my Monk to where he is now. I learned so much about all the changes and new mechanics. Quite frankly it is a whole new game it seems. But I stuck with it and if I had not joined Fallen Under back then I probably would not have stayed. FU is an amazing guild with some very helpful folks. See you in game!
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