Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
EverQuest II: Kingdom of the Sky Review
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Darren Bridle takes us down the review path of EverQuest II's Kingdom of the Sky expansion pack. This new addition to SOE's sequel world brings dragons, cities in the sky and much more. Find out if it's worth the price of admission.
;) One of the biggest and most notable changes from Deserts of Flames is the sheer number of sub and boss monsters. Its hard to run through Sanctum of Scaleborn for example without seeing upwards of 10 named as you go past. The loot is a good upgrade from Deserts of Flames with a much wider range of effects. For example armor pieces will tend to have the normal stats such as Wisdom or Intelligence, Strength and Stamina but also have additional bonuses such as Defense, Flowing Thought, Spell Crits, Melee Crits, etc.
Master chests are not as common as they were in Deserts and the original game. However, legendary chests drop a lot. Legendary items are very popular in the expansion, making fabled items very rare or raid dropped. |
You can read the full review here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
By the way, Yes I did try EQ2 on my comp for about 3 months, just could not get into it. Granted this was before the big revamp where they changed how your character starts out(the class system) and before they introduced PVP and stuff, but still.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
Nice review, especially liked hearing about the tradeskill part.
tigris67, if you haven't played in a few months I would give it a try, if only to change your opinion about the game. It's really a more solid and fun experience than when you played it. You mentioned that the game is nothing new, what would you like to see and what would you consider new in 2006? It's my contention that everything has been done on this planet, but I would love to be proved wrong.
The origonal EQ did not have Alternate advancement points nor did it have a level cap of 70 in it when it first started. They were introduced along the way whenever the expansions were released.
Sony seems to be doing the "exact" same thing with this model of the game. They started it out at level 50 and added expansions to get you to 70(same). They then added alternate advance points to the system(even calling them the same exact thing, copying from the origonal).
What I would have liked to have seen was this. Since they know how to create good MMO's now because they have a base game to look at(EQ1); I believe they should had started the game out With the level cap at 70(or atleast not have had any plans on changing it) as well as having alternate advancement points from the start, then they could add more later instead of just blatenly introducing them in some new expansion as if they are something brand new.
It could possibly be just the fact that I am an Everquest 1 veteran that I find these things to be repetetive and old because I have already experienced and gone through it all already but that is sort of what I was trying to get at.
I wanted them to add something else into EQ2 that differed from the origonal.
/end rant.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
You would almost think EQ2 was a sequel! What a rip off why didn't they say it was a sequel! oh wait they did with the big 2. It is almost as if they made a modern version of EQ1 with some new ideas and used the same base world. <gasps uncontrollably>
No game should ever be released with the maximum level ever. No matter what the devs do people will hit the cap quickly and leave the game when they have nothing to do at the cap. It happened in FFXI, WoW, L1, and EQ1.
AA didn't exist at the release of EQ2 because it was an different play model. Since they changed the model AA now fit into the game and were a requested feature on the official boards. And yes EQ2
has simularities to EQ1 now, but it is a different game from EQ1 and from EQ2 at release.
You should really play the modern EQ2 before you make comments that are months and months out of date.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
The origonal EQ did not have Alternate advancement points nor did it have a level cap of 70 in it when it first started. They were introduced along the way whenever the expansions were released.
Sony seems to be doing the "exact" same thing with this model of the game. They started it out at level 50 and added expansions to get you to 70(same). They then added alternate advance points to the system(even calling them the same exact thing, copying from the origonal).
What I would have liked to have seen was this. Since they know how to create good MMO's now because they have a base game to look at(EQ1); I believe they should had started the game out With the level cap at 70(or atleast not have had any plans on changing it) as well as having alternate advancement points from the start, then they could add more later instead of just blatenly introducing them in some new expansion as if they are something brand new.
It could possibly be just the fact that I am an Everquest 1 veteran that I find these things to be repetetive and old because I have already experienced and gone through it all already but that is sort of what I was trying to get at.
I wanted them to add something else into EQ2 that differed from the origonal.
/end rant.
ok, u say EQ2 started out at 50 and that copied EQ1. ur wrong here, EQ1 didnt start at lvl 50. also u mention how EQ2 calls the Achievements the same thing as EQ1( Alternative Advancement) ur wrong here, too. they call it Achievements, it also works on a tree system which u put points into, dont remember EQ1 doing that. maybe get ur facts straight before posting.
Is it me or do those screen shots look awful. I noticed the review gave the graphics 8/10, there is no way that those screenshots represent graphics that would warrant an 8, they look like they are from EQLive.
Responding to a number of posts here, yes those screenshots are aweful... the game itself looks fantastic and the KoS zones are some of the best looking yet.
The achievements system works differently in EQ2 than the alternate advancement system in EQ1, not that stealing ideas from EQ1 is a bad idea since it was an awesome game, and considering that it is the sequel I think they are entitled to take whatever ideas from the first that they want.
As others have mentioned the game has gone through massive changes since launch, its more user friendly and fun than ever before. While there have been expansion packs, most of the changes made in live updates have been to the core game adding everything from new alternate models for humanoids (which in my oppinion look a lot nicer, more anime styled), new challenges and quests, dungeon and loot overhauls and plenty of live events.
Still unsure about how to take the tradeskill changes, sometimes tradeskill was far too much work, but I still liked how intricate it was, making all the base components before making the final combine. It did get tedious though, and I guess these changes will make tradeskill more accessable to casual gamers.
One final note: the review states that there are 4 achievement lines for each class, there are 5, you forgot the agility stat line of achievements. The achievements are interesting and add variety to the different classes, granted it might be seen as a rip off of WoW or EQ1 AA, but who cares, it works.