Live Tweaks

[CrabClaw]

...Do you remember how bad the Legend and Lore quests were broken? Do you remember every zone needing an access quest? Mobs for regular quests that had respawn times in the hours. Or the fact that at level 20 you were expected to start raiding to get anything decent, but none of the raid loot tables were finished? Let's not forget the master chests that just... never... dropped...

Hmm actually it was level 40-ish, full sets of pristine crafted gear and some quest gear served well into the 40s (Vanguard-20s, FeySteel-30s, Ebon 40s etc...). Hours? What quests were these? Like the Epic 2x^^^ Windstalker Rumbler spawn? That was a fun event when he was up and you got some people (2 groups actually) together to take him. Checking every so often was part of the game, but the rewards were worth it! I agree the access quests were a fun part of the game as well for a lot of people, but optional is good. A lot of the other things were just bugs (or remember the Octopus exploit for Master Chests? or the massive rares duping ruining the tradeskill market?) that can be fixed.
But this aside, one of the good things about Emu's is that can be tweaked for your playstyle. EQ2 was a tale of two gamers. At first it was all about grouping and social gaming (my area of interest, usually I'll play Mass Effect or Oblivion for my solo-play) and then them trying to make the game solo-tastic, which kills groups for most of the group Ho's like me and make the only reason to group to hit raids and the bosses.
For a group player like me the game turns into baby food consistency. Nothing challenging, you are just running the numbers until MAX_LEVEL and going through with a duo or trio is overkill for most of the content. Actually, grouping hurts your XPs and drops too. But hey no problem! With the magic of Emu's we can have both worlds and not have some accountants and marketers patch to patch whim decide how we should play!
I was expressing my frustration over what happened to the game. SoE seemed, at that time to be NGE-ing the game every 90 days. My personal mix of difficulty would be at to take what they have now and tweak it up a notch, put back some of the ^^^'s and ^^'s, also making chest drops back the way they were (risk/reward wise) and reward people when they group up (yay new friends!). Master Chests dropping off green/grey solo critters is entertaining, but a bit anti-climactic.
Oh, and finally Bye Bye Harclave....my god what a bad idea. A scaleable zone you can go from 20 to 45 all alone, with great drops and great XPs, skipping most of the content in the game? Haha, I remember the Harclave even irking the EQ2 devs before they started to nerf the heck out it (I think Moorgaurd was the one complaining about it in his guild, although I played on Test a lot and corroborated the story with one of the 3d artists I knew.) when their own guildies used to drop out of guild events to 'finish levelingand farming' in the 'gnoll sweatshop'. When it came out, I remember TS, Nek, Zek,and EL going playerless, but hey the n-competition harvesting was cool, save for the occasional node-bot.
I do say use the current data as a base! Hell ya got to start somewhere! I was just stating what I liked about EQ2 back when I played. I do enjoy both styles of play though, also Roleplaying! On my Ascent RP server I am a apart of, we all start at max level and get custom items and such, the world is a mere backdrop to all of our own strange and geeky stories. We even mod areas for RP faction bases and such. You could imagine what a true EQ2 RP-PvP server would be like with custom military outposts and such, much, much greatness.
What I will be excited to enjoy is seeing your custom content! The best EQEmu servers have something unique I haven't played 12 alts x 50-60 levels over. So props, and good luck with that one! I'll pry be sneaking on to check out your creativity as well.

[ZexisStryfe]

What I will be excited to enjoy is seeing your custom content!

Click the sig, Crabs... and get a glimpse (not my EQ2 charbox, heh)

[CrabClaw]

Very nice! I can't wait too see how the lore and classes pans out and such. But a very interesting take on the world! This is the type of stuff I love to see.

[Wyn]

Newbie warning: First post on these forums.
That having been said, I loathe the changes that were made where you select your one class and have absolutely no growth. I like class trees and differentiation.
I loved my level 20 Monk who was a max level Carpenter.
I loved my level 40 Ratonga who had to start a riot to become an Enchanter, and betray Freeport to become an Illusionist.
I loved my level 40 High Elf Necromancer.
I also hated the 'you can maek evryting lulz' changes that they made to make crafting more friendly for people who wanted to play Everquest 2 as a Massively Single-Player Online Game. I accept that it's unlikely to be able to have the community to have every kind of crafter online at all times to make the stuff that you need, but that's what consignment merchants are for.
That's another thing - I never really got off on being able to buy stuff directly from the consignment merchant, even at a markup - what the heck was the point of making your house all nice and crap unless it was for a guild or for RP?
I really wish that guilds could purchase stores with various merchants who sold player-made items, and handed over a large percentage of the gold when the player who made the stuff came to visit.
</rant>
EDIT: I also have heard tell of a server which gives Illusionists the Coercer ability to charm. All I have to say to that is: BAD SERVER DEVS. Illusionists didn't get it for a reason, and as a former Illusionist, I agree!

[John Adams]

Holy necro, Batman.
And well said, more or less. The beauty of this project is (hopefully) you will be able to run the server YOU like, and (hopefully) others like. I myself like the original release EQ2 with all the faction opposing city stuff. Seems very carebear now, and MSORPG as you said.
Why anyone would pay a monthly fee to play an online game alone boggles the mind. But people are freaks, what can ya do?

[Wyn]

Holy necro, Batman.
And well said, more or less. The beauty of this project is (hopefully) you will be able to run the server YOU like, and (hopefully) others like. I myself like the original release EQ2 with all the faction opposing city stuff. Seems very carebear now, and MSORPG as you said.
Why anyone would pay a monthly fee to play an online game alone boggles the mind. But people are freaks, what can ya do?

Sorry about the liching. It was unavoidable, though, because, if I'm not mistaken, it was LU24 that absolutely f---ed up Everquest 2 for me. Chaps my ass, it does.
As for playing 'alone', I can understand - to a point. I tend to be very publicly unforgiving of laziness or stupidity, and I make it very known in most games that I play.
It tends to win me few friends, but the ones that it does get me tend to be people that I respect. I don't like playing alone, but I'm not a huge fan of other people, unless they're just as intolerant of stupidity and laziness as I am.
Having said that, I've always been a fan of people /whispering or /telling higher-levelled or more experienced people with questions. That's research. As opposed to people yelling a question at the whole zone and waiting for the answer to come to them. I've always made incredible amounts of fun of the latter; on the other hand, I have no qualms about not advancing my character in any way and spending three or four hours babysitting the former. (I really liked the mentoring system, which is about the only good thing I can say about EQII post-LU24.)