Everquest 2, expected late 2003

[Nadia]

home site
http://everquest2.station.sony.com/

fan sites
http://www.everquest-2.com/

http://eq2.stratics.com/

http://everlore2.rpglore.com/


EQ2 news at rpgdot.com
http://www.rpgdot.com/popup.php?popup=2&games=662




May's Computer Gaming World
http://pub146.ezboard.com/fthesafehouse ... D=98.topic
Character creation: lets see.. Click on a statue you want your race to be, use slider bars to alter your character's facial appearance, and choose a name. You won't have any stats to deal with. Those will come when you get strong enough to choose basic classes.

Says here racial stats will actually make a difference this time. Both Ogres and gnomes can become fighters, but the ogre's strength will give him a higher upper limit on his strength score, thus doing more damage. A gnome's higher dexterity will make him a more nimble fighter though.

Quest System: No more [bracketed quotes] to try responding to. They give you a list of dialogue choices that will be logged into your journal and you just click on the one.

No more Sense Heading. the Compass is here to stay.

Initial Class archetypes are as follows: Fighter, Rogue, Druids, Mage, Priest, or Tradesman.

Trademan: Instead of fighting you level up your character by creating equipment for other players to use- equipment of higher quality than a mob would drop. They'll have the same benefits of grouping as an adventurer would. There will even be these "Trade Raids" where a massive group of tradesmen work together to build monuments and the like such as temples. After the structure is built, maintanence is required to keep it up, but players will benefit from having them.

XP LOSS: Instead of losing your level when you die, you'll be put into XP debt which you will have to pay off before you can keep leveling up. It says that you can also just log off, and the XP Debt will recover itself while your offline, so you'd be good to go like 24 hours later or something.

At level 10 characters will choose thier basic class, and a sub class at 30. They use the example of choosing fighter, Crusader, and then finally Paladin to become a paladin, but you could have also choosen Fighter then Warrior or Brawler to become a ranger or shadowknight.

Characters can level up to 100, and the game engine is being built to allow development room up to level 200.

MOBS: Pathing is overworked, so mobs won't hit you through walls, but they will follow you to wherever you go all the same, even if it means a different elevation. You can still zone them, but the zones are significanlty larger than current EQ zones... be ready for a long run.

Areas of Comfort: Instead of training a ton of mobs to an unsuspecting group of players, A mob will focus soley on the person who pulled them. Once the player dies or escapes, the mobs will ignore all other players in the area and move back to thier area of comfort... Of course some mobs will feel at home just about anywhere in higher level zones so this might not always work.

COMBAT: Combat doesn't change too dramaticly, but each weapon is now given the ability to slash, peirce, and blunt a mob. What that means is you can slash a mob with a sword, or bash them with the sword hilt. Mobs will be more or less vulnerable to different combat types, so bashing a skeleton works better than slashing one.

You can target a mob's body parts to help deal damage. No you can't hack off creatures arms or anything, but you can deal more damage. If for example an ogre isn't wearing armor over it's arms, you can attack it's arms for an extra damage bonus to your overall attack. Mobs have weaknesses like that.

SPELLS: The spell system largely remains unchanged. You'll still have to mem spells and use mana to fire them off, but they're adding in a concentration system that lets you concentrate on the type of spell your casting. If you have the "mental Bandwith" as this article calls it, you can concentrate on making a fireball do more damage, or have your buffs never wear off on a player. Should you need to cast a different spell type, you can shut off your concentration and regain your mental capacities to cast the new spell.

CAMPING: Instead of fighting or waiting in line for the rights to camp a mob, players (and thier group) who are flagged for a certain part of a quest will be transported to thier own Pocket Zones where they can effectively camp the mob. These pocket zones can be created as many times as there are players wanting to camp that mob. No Fuss, no muss.

CORPSE RUNS: Gone. Instead of going back for your equipment your given 2 options when dying. you can hover around your corpse waiting for someone to rez you, or you can choose to have one randomly selected item to be taken off your character (including what your holding in your bank/personal storehouse) and removed. If you choose the later, the game will choose one item randomly, but it'll be level appropriate, and destroy it. Special and rare items will not be taken however.

There will be "Bind Shrines" (not the official name) scattered all over the game for players to bind themselves to, instead of having other players bind you.

EQ2 will offer the ability to freely communicate with players playing regular Everquest. Think Cross-game tells. Sony is also trying to think up a workable way of making characters created to be the direct decendants of your current EQ characters, and benefit them with some item or weapon or trinket of some sort for you to use.. nothing that would overly twink out a character though (so no epic).

[Awea]

Sooo, they've got the tradeskills of something like DAoC, the quest drops like DAoC/AO (pocket zone style) and some other stuff from other games. Looks a bit better than EQ1 for sure. Kinda irks me they've already got expansion in mind.

[GwildorBertanzetti]

It sounds really interesting. But I'm doubting my computers ability to run it... and my wallets ability to assist my computer run it...

But if so, I'll be there.

[Prazarael Raguel]

What about time sinks?

[Nadia]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/news/sd ... story=1613
Luclin has been destroyed and the debris from the destruction has transformed the world of Norrath into a much harsher place. Of the cities we know, only Freeport and Qeynos still remain standing. Freeport has become the center of evil and the new home of the dark races. Qeynos continues to stand out as a beacon of civilization in a dangerous world. A new race of half man/half rat has emerged and all of the races, however reluctantly, look to the humans to lead them out of the darkness. The classes have learned to further specialize and new tradeskill only classes have emerged. This is the changed world of Norrath that you will find in Everquest 2.


more info at link

[Ddrak]

Luclin has been destroyed

That's the best news I've heard in, like, forever!

Dd

[Surlley]

Anyone else getting the ... YOu are banned from everything... On the EQ2 forum boards.

The intraweb HAtes me..... Damn you I-n-t-e-r N-e-t DAMN youz

[rodric]

I have to think the launch of EQ2 is going to be the biggest MORG start ever. It will be interesting to see if SONY is ready to handle the player volume in the first weeks.

Rhodric

[Goodeye]

I remember when Sony launched the Firona Vie server that was role only and didnt allow moves to it. there were almost 400 toons in G Fay alone those first few days. It was insane. This could be every bit as bad as that.