The Spirit Realm

Been awhile!

A few months ago I had just pretty much had it with how things were going and decided to take a break from EQ. I want to say I like most of the dev's I've spoken to on a personal level, even if I disagree with some of the things they have done since SoF.

In general, it basically centers on SoF's invalidating (for most people) all content really prior to parts of Solteris. It's near impossible to find a guild which can field 54 people, which have the drive required to endure things like Demi-Plane, Deathknell and TSS content when they can single group armor with more raw stats then items they'd get from complex raid events. This combined with unlocking of all zones prior to TSS (keep in mind Fenier has over 32 completed keys ;( ) and the total lack of Priest balancing when it comes to raid content just flat burned me out good, and frankly most other people thinking I am crazy due to my beliefs on -attack debuffs didn't help matters much either ;/

So i re-activated my WoW account and have been leveling my Feral Druid and having quite a bit of fun seeing just how high I can get his Armor value as I level. I've also have an alt which is a Healing Shaman, the totem thing is pretty cool. Druid is moving through the low 60s and normally has 3-4k more hp and at least twice the armor of most of the Warriors and Paladins I've grouped with ;x For those interested the Armory is http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... s&n=Fenier

I've thought about renewing my account now and then, but I am having a hard time justifying it when I know the expansion this fall will unlock TSS and likely TBS, add new and exciting ways of grinding obscene amounts of faction (which I despise with all possible loathing) and basically compound the issues of class balance to mob power created in SoF with the attack changes, since any likely change is bound to be restricted to the level 80-85 range and not downscaled like they should be.

And finally, because it wouldn't be a post without me making a swipe at Tharkis, I found a recent personal ad of a women trying to get rid of him. You can read about it here: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/dal/705407729.html

Hope you all are having fun!

-Fenier

/cheers Fenier !

nice post

Doh

The website "http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/dal/705407729.html" is filtered under the denied category "Adult Content;Adult Material".



I like the early game of WoW. You can start 'doing stuff' much MUCH sooner than in Everquest. I did play WoW for a while, and did enjoy starting new classes just to see how they would play, because even at an early level each class was unique, and each class had a lot of abilities to play around with. (and now I sorta want to start playing again, damn you!)

Compare that to Everquest, which has a horrible early game experience. In my opinion. If a melee class, press auto attack and special attack every so often ... wait for mob to die. If caster, root mob, nuke (or send in pet, nuke).

However, what really seperates Everquest, and what MAKES the game at later levels are all the many (many many manymanymany) AAs. This is when EQ starts getting fun (for me). As a shaman, I like turning into a bear, into a werewolf, having a insta cast heal, having the ability to cause my hots to crit, being able to spirit call dogs to fight for me, being able to crit my damage over time spells, being able to ... you get the point. This is why I'm playing Everquest right now instead of WoW, because for me Everquest is more fun then WoW once you can forget leveling and start working on AAs.

That being said, I sincerely think Everquest NEEDS a major change at the lower levels to make the game fun. Don't make it like WoW, but DO make it so the game isn't cookie cutter at lower levels. I would absolutely LOVE to see classes get AA like abilities at lower levels. Make it possible for melee classes to solo efficiently. Make it so casters don't just root and nuke. To be honest, I don't care if the game is made 'easier' for the first 60 levels ... just make it more fun. Give rogues a one tick mez starting at level 5, so they can stop a mob from attacking, dance behind, and unleash a devestating backstab. I don't care if a rogue can solo something in under 5 seconds this way ... this is the way it SHOULD be. Put some spice back in the game, damn it! Give some short duration / short recast discs at lower levels so a class can do SOMETHING besides press attack and wait.

For casters, have a 'decoy' button, usable every 2 minutes. If a mob breaks root, hit decoy and it gets immediate aggro. Let it take 3 or 5 hits before it dies. This would let a crafty caster do something beside spam root, hope not to get interrupted (and killed) when leveling.

I am playing EQ right now because I have a level 80 shaman that is starting to work into the 'fun' part of the game. But if you were to ask me to start from level 1 ... well, I'd laugh and play WoW.

PS
Did you ever play on Prexus, Fennier? I remember a LONG time ago, as my enchanter, grouping with a druid called Fennier (I think!) in Mistmoore. This was back in, oh, 2001 or something. Just wondering if that might have been you.

WoW is very frontloaded compared to EQ. While EQ is really interesting once you get into higher levels, WoW starts off more interesting but frankly doesn't change much until very late, and then it can be argued that it doesn't change in ways that are desireable.

I too am I a bit frustrated with EQ at the moment, so I'm taking it really easy and relaxing and enjoying myself on a small scale.

For a guy who dislikes the early levels of EQ that much, it's fun to see how you actually remember a single grouping experience 7 years ago... Not trying to bust your balls, but the early levels is excactly what have kept me playing EQ for all these years. Being "forced" to group (I play a ranger - duh) has made some great friendships over the years; and most of the people I interact and raid with today is a product of my early EQ years.
Without that aspect of the game, I sincerely doubt I would be playing still - or even getting ready for my 1000km motorbike trip to Belgium the day after tomorrow, to hook up for the annual guildmeeting weekend

How the lower levels perform today, I have no clue about - but I bet you my right nut it's alot easier than it used to be

(P.s.: Again, not trying to bust your balls; just pointing out it's not all bad )

I gave up on the idea that any MMO is "better" than any other MMO after I came back to EQ1 the 2nd (or 3rd?) time. Some people's personalities are better suited to one game over another. I'm glad EQ1 isn't the only game in town anymore. It's nice to take a break and play something else (while still getting my fix), so I can come back with a fresh look at the game. I also like that other MMOs have challenged EQ1 to toss out some of the more utterly idiotic aspects of The Vision (stare at that spellbook for 30 minutes until your mana is full!)

When I was in WoW beta, it was the best thing ever put into pixels. I loved it up to max level. And then for 4 or 5 more characters. But in the end I feel that EQ1 has staying power (for me!) - and EQ2 might, as well, if they'd just make some of the changes they keep promising (fewer @#^^*&n buttons to mash, please).

A month or 6, some changes to one game or another, and I may have a different preference. When Diablo 3 comes out, I'll probably take the MMO needle out entirely for a little bit. This is one of the few areas in life where you get to keep your options 100% blissfully open.

When EQ was relatively new, most people had to group - aside from a few solable classes, grouping was much easier than soloing, or even the only option.

Plus, there were a few places where everyone went to level. You went to particular places and /ooc'd for a group. There were plenty of people around at the lower levels to make pickup groups with, and it wasn't typically too hard to get a spot unless it was early in the morning or the place was really busy.

I knew a warrior was somewhat twinked, who'd solo on low blues one after another, fairly fast kills, until he got to 25% health, then bind wound up to 50% and go again. Imagine doing something like that in today's environment!

These days, most games are soloable, and grouping is something you do for special quests or instances, or something you do with people you know.

Hence, the lower levels of EQ don't compare to other games. EQ is designed around grouping, but there aren't the numbers levelling up that there were, and there are far more places to go, so people are no longer being funnelled into particular places to group together.

So, when you compare to a game like WoW or AoC, when everything is quest based, and you can solo all the way, EQ might seem lacking, but the differences are what made it such an interesting and social game in its time.

For me, WoW had some major advantages in terms of gameplay, to name a few:

1: The stuff you can make with tradeskills could be actual upgrades the entire time your leveling, and actually sell, compared to EQ where most people power to 300~ to make Racial armor.

2: Dungeons have scripts, even for low levels, and while it may seem minor, it's kinda cool to charge something and have it speak to you starting with the Deadmines, and moving all the way up. I liked doing Uludaman (sp) and hearing Grimlok say - Me Grimlok King! (which is a transformers reference) things like that amuse me ;x

3: Battlegrounds as a Druid are major fun. I love pouncing on casters =p Stupid Frost Mages tho ;(

I've played EQ 7 years now and I remember the grouping in Sol B, Lower GUk, Dreadlands etc. It was cool at the time, but as EQ's player base shrunk it became more and more of a raid focused game. Even that is fine, except content was designed in such a way that you were deadlocked into fielding X number of Warriors and Clerics. Other tanks simply can't cut it on certain encounters and Cleric burnout has to be at least 4 times faster then any other class. This worked for a long time when those people were available, but now that their not, it's causing issues with people trying to do older content.

Personally I would love to do Demi without an alliance, or Deathknell, and so on, but SoF's gear inflation pretty much wrecked that. It's near impossible to convince people to spend the hours learning Daosheen, Sullen and Suchan when DK is already open, even if that means you can't do A Ro.

That doesn't even cover the frustration of more events requiring near perfect performance from the entire raid force for a chance at completion, Forcing people into situations where they question the wisdom of fielding their entire force. It's not even that you could remove people that can't handle heavy emote encounters, because there is no one to replace them.

I haven't done raiding in WoW, it may be more of the same for all I know, but with smaller raids and more options for healing, tanking, and so forth I can't possibly see how it'd be worse.

I agree with most of what you say, Fenier, particularly the bit about Warriors, Clerics and Cleric burnout!

I have never been on a raid in WoW, but I have friends who have. My understanding is that you obviously still require healers, but shamans, paladins, priests and druids can all contribute roughly equally, and priests aren't necessarily the best healers for a particular situation. Warriors (with protection spec) are the tank of choice again though, with Druids (feral) and Paladins able to perform some basic tanking roles, but not many.

However, the raiding seems to be down similar lines in that on certain raids one person having an off day (or lag spike, or just being a guy who can't play too well who everyone likes too much to tell him he can't join in) can cause a wipe.

I'm not a kitty and I'm CERTAINLY not a kitten ! Die fenier!

The major difference in my understanding is:

EQ Tanking:

Warriors tank 99% of bosses
Paladins and Shadow Knights Offtank, SKs have AE aggro ability.

Defensive-esqe discs basically force the warrior requirement.

WoW Tanking:

Protection speced Paladin - AE Tanking, can become crit / crushing immune, allows them to tank some bosses.

Protection speced Warrior - high single target threat, can become crit / crushing blow immune, better for tanking casters.

Feral Druid - highest armor / health, can become crit immune, but can't block or parry. highest single target threat generation. Immune to polymorph. Not as good against raids where the main target puts out a ton of spell dps on the person tanking.

All 3 can tank, but certain ones are better in certain situations. This doesn't hold true to EQ, where a SK has way better AE aggro, but still falls over dead due to no defensive disc when tanking a boss.

I havent been back for very long, but I think I understand what's going on. Most of the raid encounters that would give you better loot than SoF group stuff is way too hard or way too complex. The guild I'm in is not hardcore at all, but we still enjoy raiding every now and then to get upgrades. We're not great at raiding on the whole and we're having issues right now finding the right stuff to do for upgrades for our ability level.

Also, faction work annoys the crap outa me. I mean, I understand that its meant to slow the game down so people dont reach max everything so fast (like in the old days where a guild would be through with PoTime in the matter of a few months and be bored waiting for the next expansion). But come on, can't you think of something better? And is it just my imagination but does everyone go to Crystallos and just about no where else? I'm not flagged for it yet, but it seems every group is for Crystallos or faction.

Is it just me or is everyone obsessed with cultural armor? I'm a troll and I dont have the time to do all the smithing and everything else to get that armor. And I dont know about the rest of your servers, but trolls are pretty rare, its not like I can easily find some cultural armor around. Although, to be honest, I havent looked into cultural all that much since I've been back. I may be sticking my foot in my mouth right here.

As for comparing WoW to EQ, there's not a whole lot of comparrison to do to be honest with you. WoW is a PvP/soloing oriented game. There is raiding there, but compared to EQ, it's rather simple (I've very rarely raided in WoW, so someone enlighten me if this point is wrong). EQ is a PvE/group based game. The raids are complex and it forces you to have alot of people around and generally is a more social affair. One of the biggest drawbacks I encountered in WoW is that you rarely form bonds with people like you do in EQ, for better or worse.

Anyway, just my opinions, and take them with a grain of salt. I'm not a hardcore raider anywhere and I dont play all that much either.

Fenier; I'm in a guild that raids CoA, ToB and DSK, so there is at least one guild doing that. The removal of flags helps us immensely to field those numbers, and because people haven't done the flag raids x bazillion times to get everyone flagged, they aren't burned out on raiding when they finally get to the good part, unlike Time back in the day. That they are horribly undergeared for the content is another matter...

And since i have the floor, permit me a rant...
My kids (5 and play WoW, so I play too, sort of. Some nights, after logging off EQ, I log in to do tradeskills in WoW just to wind down and I can actually accomplish something in 20+ minutes. Tradeskills in EQ are a joke (thank you Fletching for the nice carpal tunnel since 2003..), but that is the only aspect where I think WoW has an edge on EQ - I never really saw the point of PvP, and the incessant invitations to duels from people I never spoke to, the constant arrassment about signing a guild charter and the acceptance of gold sellers just boggles the mind, I don't see how anyone can stand that for hour after hour. And the traveling? What were Blizzard thinking? A game that actually encourages you to leave the computer for 10 minutes at a time?

Ahhh, that felt good

For travelling, I really like Tabula Rasa. Their system fits with the sci-fi nature of the game, but they have teleporters. You need to go there first yourself before you "learn" the destination - like WoW or like how EQ originally did portals in Velious, but once you have done so, travel between them is pretty much instant.

WoW travel is nice in that it gives you a sense of the size of the world, but going away to make a cup of tea while you fly gets a bit boring after a while.

I did like WoW tradeskills - they still have the time component, with the create bar (similar to a spell cast bar for those who've never played WoW), but no more tedious clicking. Even with the "new" tradeskill window in EQ, there's still a lot of clicking to make stuff.

I though the Velious teleport circles where you had to walk/sail there before you could teleport there was the best mechanism. It gave you a feeling of size of the world the first time and thereafter it gave you the convenience of being able to teleport there.

I would have very much like to have had that functionality continued onto further expansions and zones.