Not too sure about EQII

Somnulus · August 2004

I have no personal investment in any single game that would motivate me to slam or troll here; I just wanted to get some feedback on some impressions I've gotten from in-game video and the FAQs on EQII.

The textures, landscapes and dynamic lighting are excellent; I am very impressed with the atmosphere presented so far through the media available at the site. The one thing I was disturbed by was the character models' dimensions.

During the deathfist citadel video, did anyone else think the characters assaulting the base looked rather misproportioned in relation to the fort? The movements overall of the player characters seemed rigid as well. I understand the game is still in development, but the player character models from both that video and the Dragon Raid at Cazic Thule just seemed... well, honestly, rather cartoony. Most specifically the heavily armored characters. Their upper bodies and shoulders were out of proportion compared with their lower bodies. Their heads also seemed to be just a little too large.

I know this is a minor concern in most respects, but it reminds me just a tad of Asheron's Call 2; excellent textures and lighting but the characters were just a little campy.

The other point that I feel is going to be a major issue is; are we exchanging awesome graphics for epic battles? My impression is that there will be very little large-mob action occurring. This was one of the major letdowns for me in Asheron's Call 2 compared to AC1; in AC1 you could be fighting in a massive room full of 40-50 Olthoi all attacking at one time and the drama was incredible. When you survived a battle like that, you felt like you had accomplished something. In AC2, there were no epic mobs and often you had a hard time simply fighting one or two targets at one time.

I'll be interested to see how the game really plays out in the long run.

nooblet · August 2004

Well first off videos can be mis leading , when your actually playing it always looks differnt from screenshots and videos..videos especially.

There most likely will be some areas with 40-50 monsters and what not , but for the most part i belive your right about fighting small groups of extremely difficult monsters. If youve read about the A.I in EQ2 youd know there takeing an extremely detailed approach with how the monster reacts and how it thinks , almost like a players controlling it.

Its not even in closed beta yet but i belive it will be shortly. Everything is prior to change before release and they havent given extreme details on anything yet so we'll just have to wait and see ::::20::

EQ2 Qeynos Guild- http://www.imperium-arcanum.com

Drakaeon · August 2004

I read half your post.

Now that that is out of the way. Let me tell you that videos suck. The programs used to take video are never up to par with that system's video card. You need a good video card, processor, and memory, and that game will look double-s-weet.

Somnulus · August 2004

Originally posted by Drakaeon

I read half your post.
Now that that is out of the way. Let me tell you that videos suck. The programs used to take video are never up to par with that system's video card. You need a good video card, processor, and memory, and that game will look double-s-weet.

Drakaeon, I seriously doubt they are using software to capture that video; it is more likely they are streaming it to a breakout box from a split DB monitor cable.

In any case, the quality of the video was not the issue; the issue was the character modelling and the complexity of the graphics negatively impacting gameplay.

RemyVorender · August 2004

at first i hated the character models, but after watching the E3 video...i personally feel that these are the best graphics ever in an mmo...breathtaking really.

EQ: Quantis Erudite 60pal-Bristlebane
DAoC: Vrix Kobold 50skald-Percival
L2: Jorrad DE 25 Palus Knight-Kain
CoH: Funeral 23drk/drk Def-Infinity
AC2: Thex 40 Lug Sage-Thistledown(playing)
FFXI: Wrython Elv 55brd/nin-Carbuncle
SWG: Astaroth Twi CH/Pistol
RYL: Kazeth 15 Attk - Beta Testing
Other: AC1, AO, SB, EVE, RoE, PS, FL..

---And I still haven't found what I'm looking for---

Veldrick · August 2004

Yeah, the graphics are awesome. The environment is simply amazing, and that water... wooh.

The character models are improving quite a bit, like the High Elf male ones. At first their faces were horrible, but now... well, again, simply amazing.

Coldmeat · August 2004

My only concern is the recent 'We can't get bulletpoint X into the game for release, but we'll add it in later. Honest injun.' posts, like pvp, racial mounts, and I swore there were some other things that got axed for release.

What it amounts to is they're being pushed to release by a certain date to either beat, or stay close enough to WoW to retain the fence sitters. When this happens, the game invariably suffers. See SWG for reference. If they have a bad launch, that's going to hurt EQ2 alot. Given the huge popularity of both titles in the community, for many the first month will be the deciding factor as far as who wins.

It just reminds me alot of other episodes in EQ, and SWG especially. They end up cutting so many features, and corners to get the game out by whatever arbitrary date the suits set that it no longer resembles what they said it would all along, and what they do release is still buggy as hell, or not entirely implimented, like the Rathe Council in PoP.

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MegaWolf · August 2004

SOE seems aware that the the modeling doesnt look good. That is why they have been doing some fine tuning and re-doing models... a lot of them actually look a lot better now.

nooblet · August 2004

Originally posted by Coldmeat
My only concern is the recent 'We can't get bulletpoint X into the game for release, but we'll add it in later. Honest injun.' posts, like pvp, racial mounts, and I swore there were some other things that got axed for release.What it amounts to is they're being pushed to release by a certain date to either beat, or stay close enough to WoW to retain the fence sitters. When this happens, the game invariably suffers. See SWG for reference. If they have a bad launch, that's going to hurt EQ2 alot. Given the huge popularity of both titles in the community, for many the first month will be the deciding factor as far as who wins. It just reminds me alot of other episodes in EQ, and SWG especially. They end up cutting so many features, and corners to get the game out by whatever arbitrary date the suits set that it no longer resembles what they said it would all along, and what they do release is still buggy as hell, or not entirely implimented, like the Rathe Council in PoP.-------

I'll still continue to play it even if it has some serious growing pains at launch. Theres just too much good stuff about eq2 that i like ::::09::

EQ2 Qeynos Guild- http://www.imperium-arcanum.com

Coldmeat · August 2004

Originally posted by nooblet
I'll still continue to play it even if it has some serious growing pains at launch. Theres just too much good stuff about eq2 that i like

I learned my lesson with that back in the day when AO released. I will never spend my hard earned money on any product that doesn't work as described. I see no reason to continously reward publishers for pushing bug ridden software out the door, time and time again. Once upon a time games were released in a working state, and thoroughly tested. Then along came the internet, and suddenly it was release now, fix later. If people started waiting to buy games till they were fixed, and in good working order, then publishers might get the message and stop rushing games out the door before they're ready.

And yes, I have already heard all the arguements about how an MMO is never truly done, and no software is totally free of bugs, but there is still a certain minimum level of quality that should be expected by us as consumers.

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Somnulus · August 2004

I'd have to agree with you there, Coldmeat; I would rather they had two development goals in place, one being their ideal goals and one being their shorter-term release goals than to have a game released with a long list of concepts that are never implemented. That always comes off a little more like the company is lying.

I can understand failure to meet goals they honestly want to achieve, but an MMORPG studio should come right out with a combination of this long-short list and let their potential customer know up front that the short list is what they will absolutely achieve and the long list is what they want to achieve after release.

I think this goes back to my main concern in my original post; it just seems like the concept among MMORPG studios is leaning more towards trading graphics for content. I just hope this isn't the case here.

ksmith2629 · August 2004

No matter how great a MMORPG is, of course the more complete at launch the better, there will always be growing pains...or maybe call them maturing pains...at launch. SOE isn't going to commit one way or the other to the public what they are going to get in the game for launch, since they won't really know what all will be complete at that time. It's still a business therefore deadlines.

This is going to be a awesome game and no matter what is or isn't said, I for one will be on that boat come launch.

Kunarick · August 2004

Originally posted by Coldmeat

My only concern is the recent 'We can't get bulletpoint X into the game for release, but we'll add it in later. Honest injun.' posts, like pvp, racial mounts, and I swore there were some other things that got axed for release.
What it amounts to is they're being pushed to release by a certain date to either beat, or stay close enough to WoW to retain the fence sitters. When this happens, the game invariably suffers. See SWG for reference. If they have a bad launch, that's going to hurt EQ2 alot. Given the huge popularity of both titles in the community, for many the first month will be the deciding factor as far as who wins.
It just reminds me alot of other episodes in EQ, and SWG especially. They end up cutting so many features, and corners to get the game out by whatever arbitrary date the suits set that it no longer resembles what they said it would all along, and what they do release is still buggy as hell, or not entirely implimented, like the Rathe Council in PoP.
-------

First off, Eq2 never promised to have PvP at release, that is an assumption on your part. Secondly, Eq2 never promised racial mounts. Until recently, there were going to be no mounts until after release. So they are including things they said they wouldn't. The only thing i have seen that they said they would and are not planing to anymore, is player owned boats, although they will still have player guided boats.

-----------------------------
The True Oracle of all that is EverQuest!!

dsorrent · August 2004

I think one of the issues today is alot of people base a game SOLELY on how it looks only to find out later, it sucks. Look at AC2 for instance. Incredible eye candy, but at release, this game lacked every other aspect which makes a game good. I'd prefer to have the "rigid" characters you mention and have that fixed during an update and have good content at release, personally.

The Ultima series comes to mind right away. Have you ever seen Ultima 1 or 2? That was like a game completely done in ascii art, but the content in the game was awesome. They have 10 sequels to prove that it's content that makes a game great, not necessarily eye candy.

I believe EQ2 will be great, for me, at release because I believe that the amount of content that will be included will be enough to keep me occupied to the point at which they add more. Powergamers might feel differently. At some point, SOE is going to make a judgement call on if they are ready to go live or not by taking into account the mechanics, content and looks of the game. If they are probably withing 80% of what they are striving for, overall, then it will probably be a go. That 80% marker is the average of the different aspects of the game, so be sure that if you're solely focused on the way things like, it could really be at 60-70% of what they promised where as another aspect, like mechanics is the item which is brining the overall up to 80%.

So, for me, when EQ2 is released, I think it will be perfect. However, to you (or someone else) it may feel very unfinished. Can't please everyone all the time, but I think they will try to make things right for those who feel slighted as soon as humanly possible.

sliver · August 2004

Its really not fair to use SWG as a comparison for anything. It was immediately apparent that, as usual, they were just using the Star Wars brand to rake in money from fans. Maybe if people stopped buying every game with a Star Wars liscense slapped on it theyd start making better ones. The fact that they are leaving out pvp and racial mounts isnt really a big deal, as neither of those were planned to be a part of the game at launch. EQ has never been about the pvp, and its not like they are cutting mounts completely, theyve got horses and magic carpets. Compare to SWG which cut their promised vehicles end player housing entirely. Personally, I would rather have game out on time and then have those little extra things added later.

Coldmeat · August 2004

I'd rather devs didn't promise us the world(and us get taken in every time). Do like Blizzard did. Don't talk about a feature until you have it in the game and working. Then no one can scream about how you promised X but didn't deliver it, or delivered Y instead.

As for using the Star Wars brand to rake in cash, if that were the case, then why would the Everquest name be any different? They are soley about making money, after all.

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Ragalorn · August 2004

I dont post very often but I read alot of these forums.

I am eagerly awaiting EQ2 and Wow (yes it is possible to like both).

That being said COLDMEAT raises, imo, excellent points about MMORPG's that have had NO good counter arguements yet.

Many MMORPG companies promise you everything and dont deliver.

My jadded feelings about MMORPG's started when AO was released, there are no words I can use to describe how I felt after having to wait 3 days JUST to register. The game crashed constantly, they promised us the ability to solo - lies, they nerfed the pistol and never gave us back our ability points used....anyway, I waited 6 months into the game and STILL it was full of bugs, crashes and lieing developers. I quit the game and will never go back, although I have read AO has become a success.

I just wish for once, companies would think before they speak....

Look Blizzard IS NOT going to release a crappy product (no matter how many anti-WoW people post about that here).

I am hoping EQ2 is a success just like the rest of you BUT I am very wary.

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