This week I’m continuing with my journey back into the new Norrath of EverQuest 2. I’ve switched gears from my travels and experiences with the legacy content of Qeynos and am now evaluating at the Faydwer newbie experience.
Released in 2006, Echoes of Faydwer was the first EverQuest 2 expansion to introduce a more polished and competitive newbie experience to the player. This was promoted brilliantly with the addition of a new and exciting playable race with wings called the Fay.
As in part 1 of this series of articles examining the newbie experience of EQ2, I will be wearing two hats: the first will try to simulate what a new player might experience and encounter, the second from the perspective of a game designer. There are no sacred cows here. Enter at your own risk…
Enter the Fay
After you create your character and enter the world, you get the red carpet treatment of a pleasing voice over and moving overhead camera that introduces you to the magical home of the new race called the Fay. It’s refreshing to see that SOE has actually learned presentation and polish lessons from Blizzard’s successful WoW. When the pseudo cinematic ends you find yourself in the Fay starting zone called The Hatchery.
The quests here seem to flow logically and are fairly easy to complete from the main outpost which serves as a quest hub. You are not bombarded with excessive NPCs that want to give you tutorials and quests as is the case in the older newbie zones.
The zone itself is completely isolated with the exception of one pathway that leads to the outside world — this is as it should be and represents state of the art professional newbie zone design as seen in popular MMOs. Also worth mention is that there are no distracting mariner’s bells with a plethora of destinations that could potentially confuse, befuddle and strand a new player unlike those found in the massive metropolises and suburbs of Freeport and Qeynos.
The artwork is outstanding with high fantasy overtones throughout. One interesting surprise is that we actually see a small child and she’s got an entertaining quest to share with you. Oddly enough, children seem to be absent in most MMOs these days except for WoW of course which has used them to great effect in creating the appearance of a living, breathing world.
So far, so good…
Kelethin: Maze in the Trees
The problems begin once the player enters Greater Faydark and is forced to encounter the capital city of Kelethin via the quests. It is at this point, my character who was around level 7-8 at the time hit a major roadblock and became lost in the city. Kelethin has to be one of the most oblique and impossible cities every devised in a MMO — even the original back in EverQuest was confusing.
Instead of creating a easy to use and functional city that is the standard these days in MMOs, the designers were intent on replicating the original design of Kelethin which itself is a homage to the city of Lothlorien in Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings.
Trying to find and get to any location in Kelethin was very frustrating and time consuming. Even using the EQ2 waypoint feature was fraught with problems as the banker NPC is not listed there as a banker — only by her full name which is rather pointless as a new player would never know she’s a banker. NPC’s that appear on the city map appear close as the crow flies but in reality can take many minutes as the player must navigate the complex pathways that link each tree branch.
Adding to the problem is that the icons that represent the various locations in cities blend in far too much. With all due respect to the fine artists at SOE, this is supposed to be a functional map not an impressionist painting.
I also found Kelethin to be a bit dark and dreary. I would have expected it to be cheerier, brighter with more whimsy and certainly full of shimmering lights much like Peter Jackson’s vision of Lothlorien in the Lord of the Rings films.
Someone needs to tell the folks that design cities at SOE that bigger is not always better. Cities in a MMO should be designed primarily with practicality and convenience in mind.
As an alternative to a complete revamp of Kelethin I would propose the following:
- More light sources both natural (wisps, faerie dust, sparkles, etc.) and manufactured (lamp posts, candles and lights) would be most welcome
- Create more inns, banks, brokers and crafting stations in close and convenient proximity to each other that can act as hubs for players
- Create specific areas for races indigenous to this area such as dwarves, high elves, wood elves and even half elves
- Give players who are in the city a speed buff “Haste of the Fay” so players can get from point A to point B faster
Kelethin Re-imagined
City design in virtual worlds probably deserves an in-depth study and examination. Cities fill many important needs in an MMO. However, first and foremost they should provide:
- utility for players
- be a place for social gatherings
- context for the storyline and indigenous races
- fodder for quests and events
I created my own vision of Kelethin that is more compact and stresses function over form. Cities designed around a hub with spokes that extend outward are the best examples of player cites in today’s MMOs; Ironforge and the Exodar in WoW are classic examples of this.
I have placed the bank, the broker and the mender — the most important city mechanics and NPCs that a player can use — all in the center of the Kelethin. My design ensures that no matter where the player is in Kelethin, the player will always be in close proximity to it’s center. This center also acts as a visual cue that any player can see from any point in the city and acts as a beacon which would prevent them from being lost and frustrated.
Less important city features have been placed on the periphery of the hub such as player housing.
At a glance, my design of Kelethin which is still in a conceptual stage seems symmetrical; this symmetry could easily be disguised by trees and other in-game artwork assets.
The Kelethin Roadblock
Just as I was starting to enjoy the pacing of Faydwer newbie experience, Kelethin presented me with a major roadblock. Instead of having fun slaying orcs and other assorted creatures, I was presented with a major distraction of trying to learn how to navigate this obtuse maze-like city in the trees. The previous momentum and fast pacing I had experienced had come to halt as I spent quite a few minutes trying to get from one part of this city to another. To make matters worse finding the tiny Fay NPCs was no easy task.
There are also far too many quests in Kelethin for the new player to digest. Blizzard calls this problem the “Christmas Tree” effect. This has the effect unintended consequence of diluting the focus of the player as he is perplexed as to which one he should complete first.
Below Kelethin
The area underneath the city is a lush, fantastical towering forest. It is very beautiful to behold and some of SOE’s finest work to date. The roads themselves could have been a bit more noticeable with more guard houses and patrolling guards to give the player a sense of the presence of the elves. I would have liked to have seen more lampposts and lights illuminating the roads; this would help balance out the nature aspect of the forest with easy to see contrasting humanoid structures, statues and visual cues for the player as they travel around. More evidence of Elven culture would have been nice.
There was far too much traveling to complete quests. Often it was very hard to figure out where to go as many of the quests were vague about directions. If you are going to have a quest centric MMO then at least ensure that players have enough information to complete the quests without resorting to finding solutions on the web.
You have to wonder why SOE has included a browser feature in EQ2. While a seemingly helpful and innocuous feature it is a tell tale sign that this MMO is probably too complex and would be almost impossible to play without the vast trove of information available via the Internet. More on this in a future article.
Another problem is that once you’ve completed a quest, the red quest book would only appear on the map once you are in close proximity to the quest NPC. Why confuse and befuddle a player like this by purposely not having this show up on the map until you are practically at the quest giver?
There is a also public horse system that allows players to travel to various points in Greater Faydark but you must visit *all* of the horse stables to have the privilege of being able to use them. Frankly this makes no sense whatsoever and as it could have had the potential to make travel a bit more convenient for players if horse travel is made available from the outset.
Another thing I would like to mention that at night it is very hard to see NPCs — especially those blue orcs that seem to blend in to their surroundings. Even when you target an NPC in EQ2 it’s still hard to see them. At least when you target something in WoW the color of the object or NPC brightens up. Again a lack of visual cues and feedback rewards for a player is a bit puzzling.
One bizarre thing I noticed is that there was a distinct scarcity of resource nodes compared to other newbie zones; the worst offender being a conspicuous lack of felled trees which is strange considering the forest nature of Greater Faydark.
Some general suggestions as far as adding cosmetic and visual cues:
- All roads and pathways should have elven lampposts to light the way for players
- More evidence of Elven culture should punctuate the areas below Kelethin providing more “civilized” points of interest to balance out the predominance of nature
- Roads leading to hostile areas could have tiki torches and totems posted to give the player the visual cue that danger lies ahead
- More patrolling guards on the roadways and more guards to populate NPC camps and outposts
Lack of Dramatic Impact in the Story Arc
As to the story of Kelethin and it’s immediate circumstances I never got the impression that the orcs were a real threat at all. It really didn’t feel like there was a threat to the established way of life here. The orcs seemed more like a pest control problem rather then a serious and believable threat to the oblivious Fay and their way of life.
I’m not sure at this point how integral a back story is to EQ2 as a whole so evaluating the degree of an actual storyline may be premature.
There were no zone emotes (remember Fippy Darkpaw from EQ?) that suggested that the orcs were planning an assault from their base of operations in Crushbone or that they were invading Kelethin; there were also no zone emotes from the resident Fay or the Elves either. For me this was a lost opportunity to further “sell” the idea that there is conflict in this world and that you the player are the “hero” that can address that conflict in some way.
Recommendations to help enhance story, culture and drama:
- More areas where the player can see the conflict between the fay/elves and the orcs in plain view
- Place guards at the bottom of each Kelethin lift and have them killing marauding orcs and aggressive beasts
- It would be nice to see some dwarven camps scattered throughout Greater Faydark as well
Thoughts About the EQ2 Quest System
Like WoW, EQ2 is a quest-centric MMO where you end up doing the bidding of quest giver NPCs. This is pretty much standard fare for most MMOs these days. The newbie experience in Echoes of Faydwer is smoother and more accessible then in the older newbie areas.
A few points that need to be addressed regarding quests:
- Quest hubs need to be closer to the quest targets
- More bread-crumbing quests that help guide the player from one part of a zone to another part
- More basic quests that help teach the players about how to:
- use a mailbox
- use a broker
- use and locate teleportation devices like boats and magic carpets
- use the research assistant
- There are far too many quests and there should be a limit on quests to prevent a player from being disoriented and overwhelmed
- The Quest journal needs to be made more attractive and functional
- I found the quest box a little too plain as it is black with white text
- Having scalable quest text for people who have vision problems and disabilities would also be a big help
- Less quest dialog
The Curse of Complexity
What concerns me more then anything about my experiences in EQ2 so far is the steep learning curve which creates a barrier to entry for new subscribers and those new to MMOs. This MMO is layered with so many complex features that I’m afraid that it may be too daunting for a new player or someone who’s only experience with the genre may be WoW.
While the list of features in EQ2 is ambitious and impressive, the lack of polish makes it feel like too little butter spread over toast. In a general sense, it seems the quantity of features was more important then the quality of features.
Another concern is that many of the game mechanics lack any kind of introduction for the player. For example, the player never really is told about what research assistants are and what they can do for them. There is no quest that directs the player to seek one out at level 20 when they become usable.
Having lots of good mechanics is one thing; introducing them gently to players is even more important lest they get overwhelmed. SOE would do well to study and incorporate Blizzard’s motto easy to learn, hard to master into EQ2. This design philosophy is no longer optional — it’s mandatory for success in the video game industry.
The Shining Light of Norrath: the Player Community
One thing in my incognito EQ2 travels that deserves special mention is the kindness of the EQ2 community. I am continually amazed at how genuinely helpful people are — just avoid the general 1-9 chat channel if you need to and use your ignore feature with extreme prejudice. However, if one is polite and asks respectful questions you will almost always get a series of tells from concerned players who are eager to help out a newbie such as myself.
There is something about this MMO that seems to attract wonderful players. And after all players are truly what an MMO is really all about. The high caliber of this community seems to be EQ2’s saving grace. At least it’s enough for me at this point to brave whatever inconveniences and speed bumps that lie ahead in wait.
Concluding Thoughts
Compared to what I’ve experienced with other characters adventuring in Qeynos and Antonica, the newbie experience of new characters starting in Kelethin is an improvement notwithstanding the problems I had navigating the city. Although there was nothing in the Faydwer experience that really stood out or broke new ground for MMOs, in general it is a pleasant surprise for EQ2 nonetheless.
This past month has been a very interesting and challenging experience for me in Norrath. I would be lying if I said if it’s been easy. Many times I was on the cusp of quitting in as I was frustrated during my struggle trying to grasp game mechanics such as crafting and the user interface. One thing that stood out like a sore thumb was that EQ2 lacked a “detect optimum setting” feature which left my high end machine with some ugly graphics and admittedly left me with a bad first impression.
After my publishing my first article on EQ2, I have debated whether it’s even worth continuing examining this MMO from the perspective what a new player might feel, think and encounter. Given the history of SOE and the age of EQ2, I’ve also considered whether it’s even feasible to make improvements as the consensus seems to be that they are content to maintain this MMO primarily for their existing subscribers. The reality is that the horse is already well out of the barn and SOE is preaching to the converted. Regardless, I remain hopeful and will continue to share my reflections on EQ2 with regard to design issues that affect new players.
From what I have experienced so far, and to reiterate what I said in my initial article: this is unique MMO with unrealized potential to attract new subscribers weary of games like WoW. EQ2 has a mystique and charm that continues to fascinate me.
-Wolfshead
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Great article. It definitely reflects a lot of my thoughts also, and I know what you mean about the mystique and charm. I could understand totally how a new player might give up after a couple of hours, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
The big drawback I can see to a speed buff in Kelethin is the general propensity of people to fall off trees (which is bad enough as it is without speed buffs! 🙂 )
I’m not convinced that a symmetrical design is the way to go. It’s too easy to find yourself lost in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Despite having played WoW for several years, I still found myself going in the wrong direction in Undercity because the corridors look too similar. One way to combat this would be to make the borders between districts less abrupt or at least use non-identical landmarks. Compare and contrast Thunder Bluff with Darnassus, for example. Darnassus has a distinct feel to each area, with plenty of highly visible buildings to act as landmarks, while Thunder Bluff uses identical buildings and totems as starting points for the bridges. And good luck climbing the central totem without counting laps in your head.
Another excellent article – as an EQ2 veteran I really enjoy seeing your analysis of the game. You are also pointing out a lot of things that we vets have noticed but have learned to deal with. It’s easy to forget that new players don’t have that option. I definitely agree about the community, I know that I and many other players genuinely enjoy helping new folk to enjoy our game, and that it can be complicated.
A few notes – research assistants. These were only introduced to the game very recently and I’m sure a lot of players aren’t totally sure how they work!
As for centralizing services like brokers, bankers, etc I agree. Even in the cities it can be confusing as these essential NPCs tend to be located in unusual places and aren’t necessarily right on the beaten track. One thing to note is that functionally guild halls are starting to replace most of these scattered NPCs – most higher level guilds have a hall that has a broker, banker, mender, vendors, crafting stations, research assistants, tons of transportation options to almost any zone, and more. I don’t know if SOE meant for this to happen, but once you are in a guild, it becomes much less confusing to find all these things because you can use your guild hall teleport every 15 minutes and find every service you need, then jet off to more adventuring.
Quests – in the newer newbie areas (Darklight Woods and Timorous Deep) they have definitely taken your advice and made the quests much more on a hub basis, and the quest targets nearby. Greater Faydark is something of a hybrid – it is a newbie area but is also holds a city and some higher level quests – I believe this is the reason it seems more scattered.
As regards the number of quests round Kelethin, you’ll actually find they tend to overlap (though I admit some are slightly out of step with the others, and you need to get to step 2-3 to see it), and you’ll ultimately find yourself actually doing several quests at the same time, due to the proximity of the appropriate orcs.
As far as the layout of Kelethin, I agree it can be daunting initially. I always felt it needed some additional bridges linking some of the platforms to make it feel more cohesive. That said, your proposed hexagonal layout feels ‘wrong’ somehow, though I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s just because it seems a bit forced/artificial.
I agree that the city looks too hexogonal when you view it from an overhead map to feel a true “city in the trees” but realize that most maps never accurately portray how people physically experience a city in person. Also the map is not a finished product, just a rough idea of how a tree city could be functional.
Ambience, variety and the illusion of nature can always be added after the fact with artwork. The spokes of the city could vary in length and possibly in height to alleviate the geometrical feel.
Let’s also not forget that SOE’s actual city being built in the trees is for all intents and purposes implausible. No engineer could actually build a city in the trees like that to start with — so no matter what you do it will end up feeling unnatural. 🙂
I’m not sure a tree city should be viewed in such a… 2D perspective, no offense intended.
As for the size of Kelethin, I think it fits well into the theme of the game, and if you were to make it smaller and match something akin to your design, it would end up being the same size as the Village of Somborn (which is near Gfay, but for more experienced adventurors). Kelethin is a city, so should be a bit daunting and take a bit of navigating.
The only real issue I can find with your article is this:
“Another thing I would like to mention that at night it is very hard to see NPCs — especially those blue orcs that seem to blend in to their surroundings”
It seemed to me to be the strangest of statements, stating that orcs that hide and blend with their surroundings is bad for the game! They wouldn’t be very good baddies if they were florescent orange and glowed in the dark now would they! 🙂
Gotrik.
Nice article.
One thing I disagree on is part of the town design idea you have.
Creating simmetrical cities, which “feel” like they were designed for convenience could be disillusioning to the player. What I mean is, every time I enter a city that looks artificially convinient, I feel like I am playing a game, not participating in a world. It ruins my attempt to submerge.
Ways to combat this could be simply changing the length and curve of some corridors, making it feel more random and scattered, although I think there are better ways.
First, you could simply use the original maze-like concept, as it does add quite a bit of flavour to the place, but instead make a better city navigating system. Take the WoW feature to ask a guard for directions, and instead of a dot appearing on the minimap, you could have an arrow pointing the way to go. Naturally such arrow must be “smart” and point to the next road intersection you should take, and not in the general direction of the place you are going.
Even better, you could have the guard, or a helpful citizen escort you there, or even fly you there (or teleport), perhaps for a small fee. There is a ton of convenience you could add without resorting to artificially looking city. (City taxi service?)
Given that, one could look at the typical design of real, old towns, as I am a huge supporter of realism in games.
And most towns are build with convenience – you have the city square, or the main street, where are gathered all the important community buildings – the bank, the post office, the city hall, the court, the inn. Then you have branching streets and neighbourhoods, which are mostly living quarters, although as the town gets bigger you have local groceries, barber shops, bank branches etc.
Basically you have the city design right there, in reality, and it could be implemented directly. It would look much like the map you provide, but not as symmetrical, and hence more realistic.
About quests – why stop only at the WoW quest tracker improvements? You could have a feature that shows on the map the general area you need to go to, in order to complete a quests. This is a feature that is getting increasingly popular with good reason.
The area provided could scale, depending on how much of a “treasure hunt” you want your quest to be, but in most cases, for trivial quests it could be rather specific.
I will comment about two points: 1.) City Design and 2.) browser/quest helper arrow based questing.
1.) City Design has become an art form in contemporary MMOs. The cities shall look great, unique, and all should be very functional, too.
For example, placing bank and auction house rather far away of each other makes the city undesirable for auctioning/trading. I speak of Darnassus, compared to Ironforge and Stormwind. No wonder the elven capital is almost empty, but this can also be attributed to the fact that Teldrassil is/was a backwater area.
Undercity is also confusing the heck out of me, I totally agree, Hirvox.
I like your “New Kelethin”. You might want to break up the symmetry a bit, but adding more paths from one sector to another is definitely an improvement to a maze.
There must be a trade-off between functionality and looks. As Anakh pointed out already, many players use their guild hall for selling/trading and all that. It is the same in Guild Wars. Instead of going to the merchant and storage there, people pick a guild hall that has merchant and storage located in convenient places and then decide on the looks of the guild hall. There are a few highly unpopular guild halls because they place the most important NPCs /storage & merchant) far away from each other.
2.) Browser-features in MMOs.
They are not only related to questing, having a Wiki to explain the game, mechanics and all that has almost become the standard, which is a good thing.
But there is indeed a drawback, quests are often designed with little care, and as nobody reads the quest text, the -> follow arrows have become standard, too.
IMO we have to get rid of the majority of mundane quest tasks, bring/kill 10 foozles are not quests, they are boring work orders that do not require a quest text.
I am worried about the quest arrows and quest zone markers (think of WoW’s questhelper, MobMap and LOTRO’s quest tracker system) that are just too good to forget about them. I would be totally lost without them!
Still, it degrades us almost to questfarm bots. Follow the green arrow, it is your best friend! Here is your play zone, kill the mobs and then follow the arrow back to your quest giver, HERO! *snickers*
Guild Wars has “Missions” that are, as all of GW, instanced. They offer a set challenge to the player, sometimes hidden bonus extras, and play a bit like a dungeon instance in WoW that you can fail if you die too often. The GW dungeons of “Eye of the North” are closer to WoW, you can die infinitely without losing and getting kicked out of the scenario/instance/mission.
Their latest idea was to allow more open and larger instances in AoC/Aion style for GW2. They would take the QUEST-NPCs of GW that basically teleport the party in their own instance inside the instance to do this specific quest or mission. This is somewhat similar to Blizzard’s phasing, I think people who played in Icecrown know what I mean.
3.) I did not even see the huge elevator in Aion’s Sanctum. I somehow have orientation problems in 3D MMOs, regardless how well they are set up. 🙁
Interestingly, I *never* had any issues with finding my way in Ultima Online’s isometric 3D view. With my usual praise for Ultima Online I end my comment. Farewell. 🙂
Great article!
As one of those who reacted skeptically to the objectivity of your previous forays, my impression here is that you kind of expected to have a hard time and were more distanced from the frustrations as a result when writing? Which in itself is revealing about the EQ2 newbie experience — if you were so frustrated with it that it affected your objectivity (I know you don’t agree, I’m just noting what I perceived when I read the previous posts), then the newbie experience is kind of sucky, 15 minutes or no 15 minutes. Learning a new game is always somewhat frustrating, but it shouldn’t make steam come out of the new player’s ears.
Either way, it’s a much more dispassionate (and yet compassionate, I like my contradictions) look at a game that is huge fun once you “get it” but that is damn near impossible to “get” without vast amounts of perseverance, luck, and/or external help.
Oh hey, regarding Kelethin being dark and dreary. (I think it’s partly the overly large wood textures and EQ2’s love of brown, but anyway.) Try turning on atmospheric bloom if you haven’t yet and your comp can handle it. It turned that place from a “Oh yeah, we’re in the trees” location to a much more fay-like place, especially at sunrise and sunset. Definitely worth a try — some places don’t look so great with the bloom, but Faydwer generally seems to benefit from it.
When the Faydwer expansion came out, I moved my Ogre Monk the Kelethin asap. For all I know he was the 1st ogre to gain Kelethin citizenship in the game.
I still get lost in that city though — as you say, it’s a frakkin’ maze and the various city services are so scattered it’s not only hard to find them, but then to remember where they are when I come back, and I also don’t like having to run all over the place in order to do it.
This has actually been a common complaint about all the cities since EQ2 came out, though. Certain subsections of Qeynos might have a broker, but not a bank, or a section has both, but they’re on extreme opposite ends of the zone, etc.
This is why all my evil toons share a single house in the same racial village in Freeport — I don’t have to know where the crap is in the larger city and I only need to know the layout of the 1 small zone I’m in that has everything I need. I’m told that South Freeport actually has “everything” now, but even with that I don’t care to move.
Oddly… the city of Gorowyn is actually quite excellent with the hub system — all the crafting, broker, bank, etc is right in front of all the housing. But with that said, it’s the most confusing of all the cities they’ve created so far. They’ve alleviated a little of it by adding a teleporter at the lower entrance to the city that takes you right to the housing area, but still…. I hate that place.
Neriak’s the best city, IMO — logically laid out, everything’s well “hubbed” and there are teleporters to make travel to distant parts of the city faster. Now if only it weren’t so graphically intensive that it kills my computer to go in there. . . . I would gladly move all my toons from Freeport to Neriak, but the lag. . . the lag. . . .
FWIW, the Darklight Woods and Gorowyn newbie experiences are (again, IMO) way better than the original or the Fae ones. I hope you’ll take the time to review them also.
And then I look forward to how you “cuss out” Gorowyn for being so crappy in its overall design 😉
If/when you get into your upper 40’s/lower 50’s go give Lesser Faydark a whirl — it’s a much brighter zone than Gfay. I love the look and atmosphere in there. It’s seems like it’s a maze at 1st also, but once you run through it a time or 3, you realize it’s actually a pretty good quest hub model. Too bad there are so few actual quests in there 🙁
I totally agree that when you finish a quest that you have to go turn in that the “come back here” thing should show on the map no matter how far you are. With my alt-itis I sometimes will go years between playing various toons, and finishing a quest on a long uplayed alt and then having to go “Crap! Who gave this to me and where is s/he?” isn’t very fun (and I’m a launch day vet of the game, so one would think I’d be pretty familiar with it).
Anyway… loved the write-up, and am looking forward to more in the future for however long you keep it up!
Just wanted to say I think your review is spot on. I had the exact same feeling after playing through the Fae starting area. As soon as I got to Kelethin, I felt frustrated and overwhelmed.
I began playing MMOs with EQ, so it is not as though I can’t deal with having less handholding. In fact sometimes I enjoy it not being spoonfed everything. But I do have less tolerance these days for things just being difficult that don’t have to be. And I can totally imagine what a player coming from WoW or another more modern MMO would feel. It is a shame, because EQ2 is so vast and a great game in its own right.
Faydwer is a great starting area. One thing I admire about EQ2 is that you can really see and the feel the evolution of the developers and the game over the years. Neriak and Timorous Deep are also two very starting areas and you can really see how the dev took on board the lessons learnt from their competitors and altered the experience to make it more streamlined and immersive.
Saying that, I agree that EQ2 is too complex. I like difficult games but EQ is complex in a bad way, with complexity for the sake of it. They could really do with streamlining the game and re-releasing it 🙂
Thanks, it was a very good read, really couldn’t find anything to disagree on, but I found a lot that made me think.
Well the only small thing I could say was on the harvesting resources, you can get unlucky and arrive just after someone has slowly farmed one particular resource over and over again leaving you with 1001 bushes due to the random way they spawn in some zones 😛
They are changing this mechanic in the new expansion (probably that area only) to spawn in a completely fixed manner like in WoW which says it all really.
While I want to avoid the whole dumbing down of questing (something that puts me off the PVE game in WAR, its just so easy to quest that after completing 100 of them I could only remember what 1 or 2 of them were actually about) I do think the map remembering the location of the person to hand the quest in would be welcome.
And I definitely agree with the idea of quests being offered to encourage the new player to learn how to play the game.
The comment about the browser needed is spot on, I feel like I’ve failed when I reach for it, yet its the only way if the alternative is to hop around for 1 hour in a zone infested with high level enemies for a low level reward. Really not sure what the answer is there, redesign the quest?
I think the game needs a lot of simplification on one hand, but in other areas like combat it could do with more depth being added.
They are moving in the right direction removing a few redundant stats for a starter with the new expansion, but when I see a weapon with a toolbox 1/2 a page deep something is wrong, less text is definitely more. The new Mythical weapons are prime hum dingers for that, I know they are meant to be epic, but epic should be explainable in a couple of lines, here’s an example
Eye of the Siren (Mythical), 43 lines of text not including blank lines. I love complexity, but this is one item of equipment amongst many.
If they want to make me listen through a long dialogue then real speech or a reward to do so (interactive please too – its so refreshing to play a MMO where there is a choice of responses, one unique thing I love about EQ2) would be better.
Over all I’m starting to wonder if you are right that SOE are prepared to change the game, Brenlo did say at the 2009 fanfaire that they want to produce “the best starting MMO experience ever” with their new starting zone so it appears that they are at least saying that they will. And in recent dev discussions on the user interface on the forums the developer has mentioned about streamlining things…
But in the background I worry that SOE were burned by their experience with changing SWG in a large way, NGE went down as a legend in bad MMO decisions, are they still haunted by that?
Looking at Blizzard they have, and still are changing WoW in breathtakingly massive ways. The cataclysm expansion idea I think is a good one, although I think the content will be pitched too easy if its the same sort of questing etc as the WotLK expansion that drove me off.
(And lastly, it took a long time, but I’m seeing what you mean about some of the player character looks, playing a Froglok which looks very good stopped me from seeing how wrong some of the races textures and shapes were, still wouldn’t want Aion like, too false for me 😉 ).