Details of The Shadow Odyssey, the 5th Update for EverQuest II, have been announced at SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas.
- Journey through more than 20 new zones, including the new overland zone, Innothule.
- Experience nostalgic EverQuest dungeons as you and your friends adventure in the Ruins of Guk, Befallen, Najena, Mistmoore, and more.
- The Achievement Point level cap will be increased to 200 to offer new achievements for class-specific lines.
- A new Dungeon Delving mission system for players to replay content with new and different experiences.
- Five new Heritage Quests with unique rewards.
- A new, mysterious group of Erudites with powerful new armor and equipment that they will barter for void shards earned during your encounters.
- More deities have returned to Norrath, Rodect Nife and Anashti Sul.
Read more here.
This sounds very LDoN like (from EQ1). LDoN was fun...for the first 4 or so weeks of the release, until you completed all of the instances and found the loot at the end of the dungeon was no trade and not an upgrade. Upon completing the instance, you were awarded points that could be traded for armor and items. Unfortunately by the time you earned enough to get a meaningful item or armor set, most people had progressed to the point that the items or armor was a disapointment as well..
SO I guess we will have another expansion that is fun for a few weeks, then bored for 10 months waiting AGAIN for the level cap to raise....Can SOE developers be anymore lazy? Oh I know,....this is their "marketing strategy"....only raise the level cap once every 24 months to keep them wanting more..
I for one won't be around for the next level cap...this was the last straw for me....sorry...
not to mention the game runs like crap even on high end systems due to lack of multi core and SLi support.
Ah our 'I-bash-SOE,-no-matter-what-they-do' friends are first in this thread
Let's see what this expansion is like. After that, we will have to rate it.
What is great about this level cap thingy? It doesn't take the players any longer to reach it than they need to visit all (of 20 announced!) dungeons...
/agree. I built a rig to run EQ2 and VG on highest settings, phenom quad-core, 9800 sli, 4 gig of fastest ram, and window vista.
EQ2 looks gorgeous on high settings but will crash on highest instantly and ultra high settings. I looked for help in the forums and found people expeirencing the same error, 168 pages of it going back to 05'. It seem the problem can not be fixed.
VG? I can only run balanced. I give up on that game
Back to topic, I am glad they are adding more to EQ2, wonderfull game, if they would fix the graphics I would be back.
P.S please excuse my spelling and wording, it's early in the morning here and I am trying vigorously to give up my caffiene addictions *headache past 2 days ><*
(First non-hater post)
I'm happy, because I've only 5 (raid-)quests and 7 collections left in the game, need more input ^^
But what I'm really missing is a bigger house... My house is already filled with 600/600 parts, and for every new trophy I have to take out an old =(
http://www.the-unholy-inquisition.com/forum/album.php?albumid=2&pictureid=24
http://www.the-unholy-inquisition.com/forum/album.php?albumid=2&pictureid=34
/agree. I built a rig to run EQ2 and VG on highest settings, phenom quad-core, 9800 sli, 4 gig of fastest ram, and window vista.
EQ2 looks gorgeous on high settings but will crash on highest instantly and ultra high settings. I looked for help in the forums and found people expeirencing the same error, 168 pages of it going back to 05'. It seem the problem can not be fixed.
VG? I can only run balanced. I give up on that game
Back to topic, I am glad they are adding more to EQ2, wonderfull game, if they would fix the graphics I would be back.
P.S please excuse my spelling and wording, it's early in the morning here and I am trying vigorously to give up my caffiene addictions *headache past 2 days ><*
My friend gives me the same argument about how he hates EQ2 because its a poorly built game (and perhpas it is...Im no gamemaker or IT guy), but i have yet to groan about graphics or performance because i dont have any of these problems. Yes, my settings are on medium, not high. But that does not take away from the fun of the game for me. I rarely experience lag even on raids btw.
My system is moderate compared to most these days.... Dell xps 600 3.0 Pentum D, 4 gigs Ram, Nvidia 7800GTX (soon to be upgraded). Essentially, i could just run AoC on low/medium at about 24-36fps. Also, i have the ability for SLI, but dont use it because EQ2 doesnt support... :(
I know that fun is a subjective topic so im not going into those waters....The games is fun enough for me. rareley do i ever run into broken quests or bugs. Unlike VG...lvl 4 quests are broken to major questline after 1.5 years.
Just my experience in EQ2..
If you're just going to make a "I hate soe" post, then please don't. I'll see how the expansion is, then I'll rate it. Its the adult thing to do.
It is far more reasonable to wait until the expansion comes out before rating it but that being said, I am looking forward to it. It seems interesting, but I'll wait and see.
Everyone would like to see an engine revamp in the future but it doesn't bother me that much. I have a moderate system, as old as the game itself and I'm able to play on high setting without trouble but keep it in perspective, folks. Blaming a four year old game for being unable to keep up the change in direction modern technology has gone is irrational.
Exactly. Well said.
Still praying its about Odus. The graphics problems...yes they don't have quad-core or SLI support; but as far as crashing on high settings the only two places I have trouble even on the ultra is neriak (teleporters have memory leaks which demands 10+ gigs of RAM) and CBK (just a lil laggy) even with out the support the game looks great on ultra. But to cal you guys down they are supposed to add in that support before the november release date for EQ2:TSO.
Looks to me like they are bringing back Najena as a dungeon. They also show Befallen and another dungeon in the preview video. It's on youtube i believe if you want to watch it.
But I'll be buying it and playing it when it comes out. Dragging my SK, Ranger, and Bruiser around whatever they publish. Whether I stick to it will depend on how good it is and how good WAR is.
Same for me.
20 new zones? OMG that's awesome.................not
I barely visited half the zones (and I have 3 lvl 70), really more zones is not what I was looking for.
Better itemization, more armor choice and better looking, that's what I wanted (and I guess that s what most of us wanted, although SoE don t get it)
Also making it a little more challenging wouldn't hurt either, but that would be asking too much.
So I am out.
So you didn't see any of RoK? Since a level 70 wouldn't make it past the starting area...
And no one has seen:
"A new, mysterious group of Erudites with powerful new armor and equipment that they will barter for void shards earned during your encounters."
^^ What that armor/equipment looks like or how its itemized... AND the entire level 1-59 items were just redone...
So exactly what was it you were complaining about again?
I don't think anyone who has seen most of my post could say I'm an SOE fanboi... but your post comes acrossed a certain way... while I could have agreed with it at one time... I just have to wonder atm.
(RoK probably had the worst itemization of any part of EQ2... when the item dev is so lazy that they put all the healing stats on leather armor .. because all healers could wear it... totally screw over monk/bruiser since most of the armor they wore had healer stats... well then obviously there was a problem. I just find it odd to complain about this type of thing when they explicitly mention new gear that no one has seen.. so its hard to complain about it... in any logical sense.. until we see if its as screwed up as RoK was).
So you didn't see any of RoK? Since a level 70 wouldn't make it past the starting area...
That's my point...........
I didn't played lot of zones (even from previous expansions), cause there is too much choice.
Of course I played RoK but only the zones 60 to 70, which is a waste of programmers work for the zones 1 to 60.
That time could have been spent better by making high level content more challenging, by fixing the itemisation, and making new original looking armor models, which are the same that launched 4 years ago............
So the Erudites give away new fantastic Armor? Whoopy doopy doo...........
Yes the same fantastic Carbonite Plate looking armor which they keep reciclyng from day 1.
No thank you very much, this time I am gonna spend my money on something else.
AHHHH I see our SOE fanboyz and bootlickers are here to tell us the game is all butterflies and fuzzy bunnies....nothing wrong with making their customers wait 24 months to get another 10 levels....
Here's a question maybe one of you can answer.....What ever happened to the 4-5 adventure packs and 2 full expansions per year they promised us at release>??
OH You give up? The answer is simple....why do more work when you have to when you have a captive player base of bootlickers and fanboyz addicted to the game? See if everyone found fault in the game (and yes there is PLENTY of fault in this game) and complained BITTERLY to SOE they would have no choice but to give you what they promised....but since the likes of YOU think the game is perect why should they bother???
So my opinion is meaningless but yours is just fine? The adult thing to do is to tell SOE what's wrong with their game and expect that they fix it for their customers....The childish thing to do is just play the game and think it's just fine, no matter how broken or incomplete it is....
So you didn't see any of RoK? Since a level 70 wouldn't make it past the starting area...
And no one has seen:
"A new, mysterious group of Erudites with powerful new armor and equipment that they will barter for void shards earned during your encounters."
^^ What that armor/equipment looks like or how its itemized... AND the entire level 1-59 items were just redone...
So exactly what was it you were complaining about again?
I don't think anyone who has seen most of my post could say I'm an SOE fanboi... but your post comes acrossed a certain way... while I could have agreed with it at one time... I just have to wonder atm.
(RoK probably had the worst itemization of any part of EQ2... when the item dev is so lazy that they put all the healing stats on leather armor .. because all healers could wear it... totally screw over monk/bruiser since most of the armor they wore had healer stats... well then obviously there was a problem. I just find it odd to complain about this type of thing when they explicitly mention new gear that no one has seen.. so its hard to complain about it... in any logical sense.. until we see if its as screwed up as RoK was).
Did you play EQ1? This expansion sounds like a complete clone of Lost Dundeons of Norrath expansion. Level scaling instances that dropped good looking but inferior items and completing the instances earned you gems or some crap to trade for good looking but totally inferior armor and weapons.....This is just more pure laziness from the EQ2 developers. They don't have the imagination to come up with new and exciting expansions so they rehash stuff from the previous version of the game..How lame is that? Are you going to pay $50 for an expansion that was released 7 years ago in another form?
So my opinion is meaningless but yours is just fine? The adult thing to do is to tell SOE what's wrong with their game and expect that they fix it for their customers....The childish thing to do is just play the game and think it's just fine, no matter how broken or incomplete it is....
No, I'm sick of hearing the whining. If you don't like the game, either leave it, or go complain to the people that actually matter.
No, I'm sick of hearing the whining. If you don't like the game, either leave it, or go complain to the people that actually matter.
Since when you became SoE police on those forums?
We already have the Nazi moderation on the official forums, we don't need this crap here too.
If you want to read nice things about SoE just go and browse the official forums.
Let others express their opinion in a free forum like this one, will ya?
Yes it sounds like LDON... beyond that you lost me..
Since far as I know nobody has seen the items.. oh wait I already posted that.
Oh and no I'm not going to pay $50 either.
What I did say is I found it rather stupid to state facts about a product you don't know the details of.
Then again since every MMO out there has cloned something that came before... are you ever going to buy an MMO again? and pay like $50 for something that came out 10 years ago?
If you want to bitch about something... then crap on the fact it will be released as an "all in one" expansion which means it will most likely cost $39.99 as it includes all previous expansions and the base game.
Forget the fact that with living legacy anyone who paid for one month and had just used a trial account before.. has all the current expansions.
Now if you wanted to go that route I'd agree with you.
Dungeons are going to be all over ... most will scale with the lowest level person in your party... some are going to be 70+ (I think they said two).
Beyond that.. again .. nobody has seen it yet that I'm aware of... beta testing to start Sept 2nd or so.. is one rumor i saw.
I'd also say this new AA tree they are adding which you can put 60 points in .. aka the new 200 point cap.. will no doubt work out to be a disaster..
Or the price of the new guild halls verus size.. have already lit SOE's forums on fire.
There is plenty that was announced to crap on...
I was again just pointing out people like yourself making statements about things we don't know the details of yet... I at least state that type of thing as my opinion rather than some fact I pulled out of my ass.. because if you're wrong..
no doubt you won't come back here and admit you pulled it out of your ass and were wrong.
No, I'm sick of hearing the whining. If you don't like the game, either leave it, or go complain to the people that actually matter.
Now you know better than that...SOE doesn't allow complaints on the official EQ2 boards. Their MIB moderators will lock the thread and warn you...a few warnings and you get a suspension...
I will continue to post here and complain here...The SOE developers read these boards as much as they read their own forums....
You can go on licking their boots....
Not only this, but they send their employees in disguise to try to balance out the negative opinions.
Problem is, it isn't working, their games are still quite average at the very least, and there is no good hype that can change that.
They should put all of their effort in making sure the "changes" they do to their games don't piss off their current customer base, which apparently is their speciality.
No publisher has the ability to aggro so much their customers as SoE, maybe they should look into that instead of unleash their employees on several forums to defend their very average games.
Sigh... my relationship with EQ2 is one of love-hate. On the one hand as a games from day one with breaks (some larger) I always returned because of the complex and diverse gameplay.
However, I realized, when somehow over time I lost the big community network in the game I used to have - for many reasons - the result is that most of the content I can never see. At this moment most player only group with those they know, and I found myself being litterlly logged in for HOURS seeking a group for any of my chars in vain for weeks. Its aiways the same, I log in, seek a group, set myself to LFG, ask in channels - hours pass with waiting and reading a book, and I log off without a group. Now you might say join a big guild, but thats out of the question, since I am in my small guild of close friends, but those are too few, and so I am back where I was.
EQ2 has always only been for those with a big ingame network and a HIGH amount of monthly scheduling to coordinate the vearious quests. These days of spontaneous gaming this kind of "professional" gaming reminds me too much of work. I want to log in and have fun right away, and you can FORGET that in EQ2. Not to mention that a vast number of quests is almost not to be solved without looking for a guide in the internet, like "find an efreet in Lavastorm to talk to". Yeah. Thats precise... Sure, you can look at Allakhazham or ask, but it kinda takes the immersity out for me. EQ2 is a good game, but the subscriber numbers always show the fundamental flaw, that most casual gamers will not see 80% of all those shiny new areas anyways. A pity.
As someone who has a deep running hate against the existence of raids, I bemoan that there will be even more. I really wish raids would vanish from the MMO world, and it would be back on the track what a MMO is meant to be: a game for a small group of people, not soloism, not raids, end of the story. While soloism does not SO much damage (it does enough by corroding the community spirit, which NEED that people depend on others!), raids lead to a "class society": there are players and uber players with raid guilds in their back. The quality of gear should not be determined by the number of people he knows in a game! For any normal player - I am not taking about casual here, just those with medium time investment - those uber raid gear pieces will always be out of reach. I just don't see the reason in giving people better loot for an unhealthy and unreasonable playstyle, which the raid-madness just IS.
I dont play EQ2 any more ad I dont think I'll play it. But in a Nvidia 7900 GS, 2 gigs ram, AMD Athlon dual core 2,0ghz runs really fine. So no, the game doesnt run like crap. Not anymore. This issue is an issue from the past, in older computers.
"A new Dungeon Delving mission system for players to replay content with new and different experiences."
Yep, with that one sentence its gotta be exactly like LDON. That is the info ur using to assume its exactly like LDON, right, Ohreally? And even if it is like LDON, who cares, alot of ppl liked it back then and its been something alot of ppl wanted to be added to EQ2.
"I didn't played lot of zones (even from previous expansions), cause there is too much choice."
Complaining about too much choice? So u would rather it be one zone for each tier? yea, that wont get boring.
"What ever happened to the 4-5 adventure packs and 2 full expansions per year they promised us at release>??"
They have said that goin to one expansion a year would improve on the amount of content. Also it gives them more time to work on the expansion, so they arent as rushed as the ones that came out during the 2/year era. As for the adventure packs, I dont think they really took off like they hoped, most of those adventure pack zones are ghost towns.
"So my opinion is meaningless but yours is just fine? "
Actually, what the person was saying was, to put it simple, "Dont knock it before you try it."
"Right.....well you go right ahead and spend $50 on the expansion and then rate it...Do you think SOE will give a rat's ass what you think after you have spent the money? um...NOOOO they won't give a F*CK about you or your opinion....they got what they wanted..another sucker to send them $15 a month"
I dont think SOE makes their profit on box sales. I think their profit comes from Subscription fees. So, yes, I do think they will care about what their customers think about their expansion, because if ppl cancel their sub, then less money for them.
"Did you play EQ1? This expansion sounds like a complete clone of Lost Dundeons of Norrath expansion. Level scaling instances that dropped good looking but inferior items and completing the instances earned you gems or some crap to trade for good looking but totally inferior armor and weapons.....This is just more pure laziness from the EQ2 developers. They don't have the imagination to come up with new and exciting expansions so they rehash stuff from the previous version of the game..How lame is that? Are you going to pay $50 for an expansion that was released 7 years ago in another form? "
Where did you get the info that The Shadow Odyssey is like this? plz post link.
Just some info to some of your questions there, Ohreally. Some clarification, too.
Looking forward to it quite a bit.....Echoes and Kunark were both excellent.
I dont play EQ2 any more ad I dont think I'll play it. But in a Nvidia 7900 GS, 2 gigs ram, AMD Athlon dual core 2,0ghz runs really fine. So no, the game doesnt run like crap. Not anymore. This issue is an issue from the past, in older computers.
Right...so my 8600 should be able to get more than 15-20 FPS on a 3 month old high end machine? Old problem my ass....there are tons of new posts in the official tech support forums that say differently, but thanks for playing..
RoK just about killed this game....the ability to solo quest 10 levels destroyed grouping, the itemization is horrible, the reuse of old character models makes the game boring, if you aren't a member of a high end raid guild you will never achieve the mythical epic unless you pay some guild to take you...but other than that the expansion was excellent.....not...
SOE expansion logic is fubar. They continue to add more zones and content while most of Norrath goes unused and gets left behind. If they spent the extra time improving on the game engine instead of adding more content I think a lot more people would be happy in the long run.
It's FUBAR because SOE won't allow their precious resources redo the game. it's obvious from a business perspective what's happening here. SOE is milking EQ2 for everything they can get from it. To do that they have to curtail most activity that would cost them money...In other words, they are trying to get as much bang from their buck as they can. In order to do that, they have been reusing character models and old content in new expansions, limiting the number of expansions to one a year and totally shut down their adventure pack developement. Sonce SOE hasn't announced a major release in the last few years, my guess is they are using most of their resources to design something new (and secret) and using dying games such as EQ1 and EQ2 to finance the work. Since both of those games now have lost a large protion of their player base, money is tight. I would look for a new, major game release from SOE in 12-18 months...about teh time they figure they can either pull the plug on EQ1 or sell it to another comapney who will try to continue to milk it for a small profit. EQ2 won't be far behind. From the looks of things, EQ1 still has a bit larger player base than EQ2 so those 2 might be reversed....At any rate, SOE can't keep these games around for ever. Unlike most game developement companies, SOE is forced to turn a profit. They are a publically traded company and as such they are beholding to the Sony board of directors and the share holders....so once these games no longer make money they are gone...or at least sold off to someone else...
so what is your ideal expansion OhReally? or are you just one of those rabid SOE hating dumbasses that treats SOE as the devil and curses everything they do?
To me this expac seems pretty ideal
More AAs instead of upping the level cap
more heritage quests
4 progressive raid zones
new persistant/instanced dungeons for groups of all levels of play
no more running the same dungeon a billion times HOPING the item you want will drop.
sounds good to me.
not completely sure about this expansion. but i guss they are at least trying to give players what the wanted most after rok. people complained a lot that rok was too much solo focused so this expansion is focussing most about dungeons which usually need groups.
many players did not want a level increase, so adding new achievemnt tree and increasing achievement cap is also mainly what people wanted.
raiders probably won't be too happy about only 4 raid instances (3 bigger zones and 1 small one) and only one new avatar as only new contested, it will depend on difficulty and size of the 3 bigger zones how much raiding content it has.
overall the announcement wasn't that much a thing to get me excited as eof or rok anouncements. but rok sounded much better in theory than it was in reality for me so maybe this one will be better once it goes live than the anouncement made it.
I am waiting for expansion beta and hopefully i get a space there, if not then i will wiat till nda gets dropped and i can hear from players that played before i make my judgement on this expansion.
I would have to agree with OhReally on this one. Taking what some others have said in the past, EQ2 is now in maintenance mode and has been for quite some time. They won't put any real effort into re-engineering the game and most of their devs have moved on to other projects. Leaving behind a small staff to maintain the game.
The SOE expansion model is a rinse and repeat process which is good for spitting out expansions every year, but leaves little room for new and innovative ideas. I expected more from EQ2, but perhaps the game engine itself hinders creativity and originality.
By the way, I still have an active sub to EQ2 so don't take me for a hater. It's the only mmorpg I play currently because I love the EQ lore. I just wanted more...
Right...so my 8600 should be able to get more than 15-20 FPS on a 3 month old high end machine? Old problem my ass....there are tons of new posts in the official tech support forums that say differently, but thanks for playing..
ohreally, a couple things first if you are running a single 8600 even if you box is 3 months old it is far from a high end system. However you should be able to get a much better fps then your 15-20. If it even matters to you I started a thread in the EQ2 forums here about graphic setting that may help. I post a lot of screens of EQ2 here to show how good it can look. I have gotten a lot of e-mails wanting to know how come it looks so good on my sytem and some e-mails simple call me a liar. So I started the thread to help others setup their graphic options better. You might check it out. EQ2 is trickv no doubt about it but if you do your homework a player can get it to run pretty well on mid range systems like yours. It is unfortunate you have to work that hard to get it working right but it is possible to get EQ2 looking and playing really well.
i Have a duel core OC to 3.6
2 x raptor 74 Gig HD ( Raid 0)
8800GTX OC
I have no problem at all running it on extreme ***i even move some silders even higher after putting it on extreme** and i can pull 25 to 45 FPS ***and sometimes higher***. So if you cant pull more then what you are saying with your rig... maybe its not so much the game but the person behind the PC.
I do agree that the game would run much smoother if they re-work the engine but to say you can only get 15-20FPS.....
As a Side note i have AA set to 16 and my AF set to 16 which also kills FPS.
Here is a SS and its set to extreme and if you look at the FPS (top of the screen towards the middle) you can see what im pulling.
I know its hard to see but its 40 FPS
My fps tends to vary between 15 and 20 in the city's and 40 or higher out in the big open areas.
You should check out Dungeons and Dragons Online - they've kept the focus on single-group adventuring, and I love that. Still, EQ2 is not so bad in this respect. Most have followed the EQ1 template, where its really ALL about the raiding, EQ2 has kept a better balance so far, and I hope that continues with the new expansion, Since the dungeons SCALE, they provide content on the high end too, and single-groupable. If we have stuff to do that gives us meaningful rewards, I have no problem with the raiders getting their candy, too. Yeah, there's that class thing - but its the raid content that requires raid gear. As long as we can improve our characters, its all good, and don't forget the new AA's - no raid required.
Intel Core2 Duo E6750, 8800 GTS (G92), 4GB RAM - maybe not the ultimate, but not TOO bad lol. EQ2 runs on highest settings with quite acceptable performance, and looks great too. Could be that it chokes on SLI, but thats a driver problem, right? I don't think multi-cores are really a problem. I can run Vanguard with everything maxed too, and no multi-core support there either.
Upgrading the graphics engine is a big, expensive deal. I don't know if we're going to see that for these older games. It looks a helluva lot better than EQ1's Norrath, and that's good enough for me.
/Agree totally
It's what ruined my love affair with WoW *sniffle*
I cant see it ever changing in the future. I think casual gamers are a dying breed in the MMO world