Wow, EQ has grown it appears.Follow

Okay, I am in a rut. After Kunark, I stopped EQ for awhile, but got tied up in DAoC. Then AC2 and many others to the past two years, been playing WoW and CoH/CoV and EQ2 off and on and never really looked back to EQ. Remember, I last played when Kunark came out...

Now, after my jaded attitude towards WoW and EQ2, I am giving LOTRO and Vanguard some "growning up time" before I try them out.

So, a buddy of mine (an ex-EQ2 player) was brining up some info on EQ1 and it perked my interest. Especially the fact that SoE is trying to really upgrade the entire game and make some big changes to the engine.

So I do have some questions. Now bear with me, these are some questions that make me sound "spoiled" from WoW and EQ2. It has been so long, I dont know where to begin.

1. I know there is a ton of content in the world now. My question is about low level players. I know they have a level 10 noobie yard, but is it going to be desloate after that (like what happened to DAoC after they had the /level feature added).

2. Economy. I know it went through some rough economy problems earlier in it's life... how is it now?

3. This is a spoiled question... In alot of MMOs out now, they tell you can get quests from (quest markers over their heads, etc) and have a way to guiding you to the next best leveling area. Not something like "Hey, you are in the world now, figure the rest out". I don't want my hand held, but if EQ1 has gorwn to be so large, a little guidance is helpful. Especially if the low levels are kinda desolate (if that is true, at least).

4. How is the downtime... I know they are increasing the OOC (or modfying it at least), but anything else added to help with the massive down time, I seem to remember the game having?

5. The death penalty... I don't remember if there was an experience loss, but I do remember corpse runs. Any changes to that since Kunark?

6. I know that everyone can access the bazaar now, which is great... inflation a problem?

7. Any significant changes to combat since Kunark (not really interested on nerfs of buffed classes, just if the core aspects of combat has changed at all).

I am downloading the Escape from Norrath to get an idea of the game now, but since it is only level 10... that wont tell me a whole lot.

Thanks guys.

1. There is a tutorial zone where you can hang out and group, I think most of the really low level players are there.

2. The economy on each server is different but it seem stable to me.

3. There is an in-game e-mail system now and the game will e-mail you a recommended place to go each time you level. Also check this site to see where the "hot zones" are - those are zones with XP bonuses so you can usually show up in those zones and /occ an LFG message.

4. There is hardly any downtime anymore. After a short time of being out of battle an insane regen timer kicks in if you are sitting. You could kill a mob and be at near 0 HP and near 0 mana and be full health/mana in 2 minutes or less. Personally, I wish they would abolish this but it's the way it is now.

5. There is an XP penalty, but there is a special zone called the Guild Lobby off of POK now where you can summon your corpse for a small price (this killed the necro corpse summoning business). You can usually find clerics in that zone casting 96% rezzes. When you die you also now hover over your corpse for a limited time allowing a cleric to rez you and save you the trouble of zoning.

6. Inflation seems pretty stable and predictible to me. Each expansion changes prices a bit, but basic supply and demand seems to win.

7. One big change came with the addition of many potions. You can drink potions to buff your stats and heal yourself, and using these allows pure melee classes to solo more easily now than before. It is still slow to solo with melee classes but the potions make it more possible. There is also a feature calld Bandolier that allows you to switch weapon sets with one button, making it easier to switch weapons mid-battle to suit your needs.

P.S. EQ runs great on my Vista machine. Make sure you have dx9 loaded. I think Vista ships with only dx10.

Edited, Apr 11th 2007 12:39am by JoltinJoe

I think the others answered your other questions very well so no need for my input there.

For vista it does ship with DX9.0L and DX10 (They run independently of eachother) i do know that right off the bat vista is very incompatible with most games. what you need to do first is use microsofts DX web update which can be found by clicking "Get the Latest DirectX Here" at this site. Secondly make sure you have the latest graphics drivers from your video card manufacturer which can be found at Nvidia.com or ATI.com depending on which you have. Lastly if you still have issues with games try and find updated chipset drivers for your motherboard.

I do know that EQ runs like a charm with Vista once you have the appropriate DX updates and drivers as well as most games will. however there are still some that dont work so well if you have trouble with other games do a quick google search and see if the developer of that game has a patch available.



Edited, Apr 11th 2007 3:56am by notinterested

There is a stickied thread here that may have useable info for you.

Welcome Back.

I think most of the questions have been answered perfectly, but I would like to add that I play on Zek ( the pvp server) and even there I rarely have trouble with groups, especially if I start them. There seems to be plenty of people wanting to group, just take the lead and start it and you will be great. Plus, soloing is way easier now.