Great article and I think summed up the changes over a year and in a concise read. I have very fond memories of being a beta tester and retail player of this game for nearly 4 years and I still believe it is undervalued as an MMo experience

Strangely the 2 changes that I still wish they had not implemented was when they streamlined the char progression (very early days where your choice of class was made of up 3 steps over the first 20 levels and felt like you still had an ability to personalise you char well into the game and  within the storyline) and the change the names of the skills and powers ( I like the feeling that I have a new skill rather than just a numbered upgrade of something existing).

Each time I read about EQ2 I am always tempted to go back

Originally posted by Neopsych

Great article and I think summed up the changes over a year and in a concise read. I have very fond memories of being a beta tester and retail player of this game for nearly 4 years and I still believe it is undervalued as an MMo experience

Strangely the 2 changes that I still wish they had not implemented was when they streamlined the char progression (very early days where your choice of class was made of up 3 steps over the first 20 levels and felt like you still had an ability to personalise you char well into the game and  within the storyline) and the change the names of the skills and powers ( I like the feeling that I have a new skill rather than just a numbered upgrade of something existing).

Each time I read about EQ2 I am always tempted to go back

I still prefer the number thing, it is easier and faster then when you change your hotbars.
 

Still, they should have made it so the old skill disappear when you get the new instead, my skill book is full with old junk. Or they could at least added the option to hide all skills that you have a better version of. That would make things even easier and you wouldn't need a number after an attack. 

Overall it was a very good year for EQ2. Most of the updates were well received by the community.

The one big bone of contention was changing the names of the spells and combat arts. Having new names at differant tiers gave a much bigger sense of advancement than, say,  moving from Fireball II to Fireball III

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Neopsych

Great article and I think summed up the changes over a year and in a concise read. I have very fond memories of being a beta tester and retail player of this game for nearly 4 years and I still believe it is undervalued as an MMo experience

Strangely the 2 changes that I still wish they had not implemented was when they streamlined the char progression (very early days where your choice of class was made of up 3 steps over the first 20 levels and felt like you still had an ability to personalise you char well into the game and  within the storyline) and the change the names of the skills and powers ( I like the feeling that I have a new skill rather than just a numbered upgrade of something existing).

Each time I read about EQ2 I am always tempted to go back

I still prefer the number thing, it is easier and faster then when you change your hotbars.
 

Still, they should have made it so the old skill disappear when you get the new instead, my skill book is full with old junk. Or they could at least added the option to hide all skills that you have a better version of. That would make things even easier and you wouldn't need a number after an attack. 

It would really suck if you leveled up mid-dungeon and your master rank spell was suddenly replaced with the new apprentice version.

I couldn't resist - just resubbed

I loved crafting in EQ2, but I won't resub until they fix their problem with reusing animations.

The wife and I returned after about 8 months off to find the changes. I like the numbered spells instead of all the different names of spells that basically did the same thing. One thing I don't like (and never have) is that a spell in MASTER (or even in some cases adept 3) was better than the apprentice version and I see they didn't change this. After gaining several levels I think it would make more sense if the apprentice level spell was equivelent to the master level spell that you received all the last time the spell updated..

As for the new numbering system..well it was sort of inevitable...I mean how many different names can you come up with for a spell that does the same thing? Smite is still smite regardless of what you call it..Why not just have levels of the same spell..?

Good summary. *nods* You just missed some of the stuff I like a lot too:

1. almost every housing unit got an additional room and the limit of items to be places inside got raised by hundred.

2. There are a lot of new quests that offer fluff rewards (clothing, decorative stuff for your home, effects like changing shape) and we got the monthly Magic Mushroom Events each 20th day of the month and the monthly weekly City Festivals - all offering fluff things for a lot of very nice and special housing items like walls, colums, plants, floor tiles etc. One can now truly customize the apartment or house, people have come up with awesome huge aquariums for example.

3. Guild halls!!! They are awesome, huge, have a lot of amenities one can rent like bank, teleporters, vendors, mail box, crafting - even harvester npc for the different ressource types (which collect no rares though), our guild is much closer now with the hall there since we all "see" each other literally quite often and seeing the char as avatar and not just chat line is different in perception.

Edit: Forgot, the slider to drain leveling xp into achievement points is nice and the many new items one can craft now are too. And the "what bugs you most" thread of the lead programmer to collect player feedback is nice too, curious to see what comes out of the latest installment.

grats for your futur child!eq2  should have added the new lfg system  like wow instead of adopting dungeon

would have been easier to find group and much simpler then instancing if i understood you correctly!

Great article!  I think Ill dust off my old alter ego and check out chronomagic.  On a RL note, congrats on the impending new addition to the family and sorry to hear about that heckler.  Its amazing what schmucks people can be (especially when there is some alcohol induced confidence)

Definitely the year for EQ2. I can't think of another MMO that received as many new features as this did in 2009. As the OP stated, almost all were very well received by the community.

They did not change all the master spells for all classes yet but they have upgraded the master spells and lower spells to better reflect the level. EQ2 will always be my favorite MMO even though I play WOW and others. Lots of quests and so many other things to do. WOW is just boring if you do not raid all the time. I really have nothing to do everytime I max. I only play it because i like leveling up and doing quests but WOW needs to add more quests to the game and other things to do besides redundant things like faction,pvp,etc. Peace.

Thanks to you all for the positive feedback.

I know I missed out a lot, but it's been such a good year for EQII updates that I decided to focus on my favourite changes.  It was that or double the length of the piece.

Let us know in this forum anything else you loved from this year.  Who knows, maybe we can convince some more people to sub/resub :)