View Full Forums : Return to EQ or not?
Mannas
04-18-2003, 07:01 PM
I've been away from the game for awhile and I don't have PoP or LoY expansions. Just wondering whether or not to subscribe again. Also, how important it would be to get both expansions. My main is a 58 druid. Thanks in advance.
Stormhaven
04-18-2003, 09:14 PM
Honest straight answer: it depends on why you play.
If you play just for the heck of it, and to sometimes hang out with friends, sad to say you may be too late. If left the game pre-PoP, your friends are probably 63+ by now, and have been "keyed" for the upper level PoP zones. If you have good friends, they may help you get into some of the second level PoP zones. If not, you may be stuck in the "noob" zones of PoP and often split away from the hunting spots youf friends hang out in.
If you're a tradeskill fan, PoP and LoY were pretty loaded. If you get xp fast and are crazy enough to try for multiple tradeskill masteries and create wild items in game, PoP and LoY should keep you well occupied.
If you're a big raid kind of person, and you still have good guild hookups, PoP is a (tedious) but fun place to raid if you're going there for the first time. However, if your guild is already in the elemental planes, they may not be able to back-flag for several months - leaving you split off from your guild's activities.
Do you need both? If you're only playing your main, don't have good contacts, LoY would probably be best. Other than the grand tomb of knowledge that is the Plane of Knowledge, without character flags, you won't really get to see much of PoP. If you've got friends who are more than willing to get you flagged, PoP is much bigger than LoY... but LoY does have Froggies....
Stat per stat, if asked to choose between LoY or PoP, I'd choose PoP just because it enables the levels 61-65 along with the new AA skills. Even if you have zero of your new spells, the jump from 60 to 65 is pretty immense.
If you could care less about leveling and AA, LoY has more "fun right out of the box" features like Frogs, armor dying, better GUI, etc.
Tudamorf
04-18-2003, 10:22 PM
I wouldn't subscribe unless I already had a group of friends playing EQ who wanted me to join. PoP is basically an uberguild-only expansion, and while the zones in LoY are nice, you will wear them out XP-wise after you hit level 60 and it's bring-your-own-group. And despite what the post above says, PoP killed trade skills for all but the upper uberguild folks.
Forget EQ, and keep an eye on upcoming MMPRGs (like EQ2) to get a nice fresh start.
Miss Foxfyre
04-18-2003, 11:14 PM
I'm leaning toward Tudamorf's answer.
The golden era, in my opinion, has passed.
There's no point in resubscribing if you don't buy PoP at least. If you are wanting to play again and make new acquaintances or whatever, not having PoP won't help, and if you're interested in rejoining guild life, then you should have both and be prepared to re-enter the leveling treadmill.
EQ is not a game I recommend to friends or family looking for an online RPG to entertain themselves with for the very reason that certain things take too long or demand too great an investment for them. (These are people I know, mind you.) I don't know you, so I don't know what your expectations are, and you gave little clue as to what they might be.
Just as an aside, the less time I put into EQ (over the last five months), the more I had to explore new interests, other games, and I even started doing volunteer social work. All these things have made me miss EQ NOT.
Mannas
04-19-2003, 12:10 PM
Thanks for the replies and the views. I was thinking it was going to be hard to get flagged, and your replies only confirm that. Thanks
Tiane
04-19-2003, 01:09 PM
Paging Sony!
Look up! In case there was ever any doubt that the overall mood of your customers and message boards affected your bottom line, there it is.
Tia
Stormhaven
04-19-2003, 10:04 PM
Yeah, I'll be honest, I never was a tradeskill hound, so my information on tradeskills is based solely on the list of "playermade items". I never really researched the how-to's and why's of the items. So if these folks say tradeskilling is still dead in PoP, take their word over mine.
Tudamorf
04-19-2003, 10:59 PM
Just to clarify what I mean on the tradeskill thing -
There ARE some very nice trade skill recipes in PoP. But they require access to the elemental planes (and rare ingredients from there). It's just uber loot with the added hassle of a trade skill combine, not a true trade skill. Even the handful of mediocre recipes (which no one longer wants) require Tier 2 components. There is certainly nothing PoTC-like.
Cassea
04-19-2003, 11:14 PM
I moved over to a PvP server to sample the type of play style there.
PvP servers offer a continuous sense of danger that EQ had when new and fresh in that there are few safe areas.
On the downside no matter what "side" you pick a certain part of the game (zones) are cut off from you and the enemy team holds the zones.
Verant screwed up big time in the locations of the books. While the locations make perfect sence on the regular servers they are horrible on the PvP servers.
Instead of fighting for zone control you now have teams of the enemy popping in at book locations right in the heart of newbie land. Unless you have people sitting at all the books waiting there is no way to defend your areas now that these books are all over the place. POP was intended to aid travel but the entire system while being a boon for travel also nearly destroys PvP. Since there are so few PvP servers there is little need to "fix" them from what I can see.
I do like the PvP servers. They add that element of danger that was all but absent from the other servers. If Verant could either move the books on the PvP servers (not likely) or instead maybe add some form of block so that members of the opposite teams either could not use certain books or would lose all buffs or a res type sickness then the PvP servers would once again be able to defend territory. The issue is most pronounced on Sullen Zek where there is no level kill limit. (A level 65 can wipe a level 7) Before that level 65 would have to cross a few zones to get to the newbie areas but now they simply book down and when you finally get enough people of proper level to come to repel these high levels bottom feeders they simply book back up till you leave. Oh how fun :(
But back to your question. I am playing on PvP as it offers something different. I would not go back to playing the same way as before. I tried the other online RPG's and Star Wars does nothing for me so when the freshness of PvP wears off I fear that so will EQ. EQ2 sounds good but so did AC2, Shadowbane etc... and they all were bust.
If EQ2 figures out a way to allow the casual players to play on an even level with the power gamer then maybe I'll give it a shot. For now I play EQ on a much more casual pace.
chenier
04-21-2003, 11:45 AM
TeriMoon
04-21-2003, 11:57 AM
I was having a fine time in EQ until PoP came along and killed it for me. There were certainly many improvements that came along to the game the the druid class with PoP, but it was the beginning of the end for me.
I was in EQ like I am in RL -- not committed to any particular path of doing things. I am a person who goes in "streaks" about fanatically doing things until I am sick of it. EQ was always like that for me but there was such variety that it was really perfect. When I wanted to do tradeskills, quests, experience, start a new toon, raid, etc etc, I could...before PoP. After PoP, there was so much anxiety to be in the right place, be logged on at the right time, have the "correct" tree of initial AA skills to be the most valuable, get the flags so you coyuld relax and breathe a minute....for me the sense of freedom and variety was lost. I couldn't continue to play with my friends unless I was committed to doing all the things they did just about everyday to get flagged or get ready to get flagged or make sure I was visible enough to get into a good enough guild to get flagged...everything I did was geared to flags!! This is not variety. I can't tell you how many weeks in a row that I spent every evening in Plane of Disease trying to get parchments when it first came out.
Never again. If I ever play another online game for fun, it will be "fun" for me. It will be a game that offers me the variety I need to keep things fresh and give me the ability to stay up with my friends easily. EQ had that before, it ceased to have that after PoP (this was my experience).
Its unfortunate that the people that are responsible for the game failed to take into consideration the social factors which have made it so popular and which had made players stay with in for years. I am not the sort who likes to endlessly make new friends. I like a stable group of folks to play with and some new people that come and sometimes stay but often go. That is what makes adventuring fun. Not killing a mob for the thousandth time. That gets old. Its reminiscing and trusting the people in your group which makes it fun for me. SOE forgot that this game consists of people with all sort of differing amounts of time to play and differing time zones in which to play, and that all these complications notwithstanding, we managed to make friendships and enjoy each other's company and find satisfyingly fun things to do in this game. Until PoP squeezed out most of the fun and made it like work again. It would be different if for a few weeks every couple months I could slack off of doing whatever the main bulk of my friends were wanting to do and pursue an alt or something to get me out of feeling fried, then come back to those friends and pick up again where we left off. THis was a pattern that had worked so well and had kept things fresh and fun for years. For me, PoP was the end of that carefree childhood and I was bustled off to work. No thanks. I have to be that responsible adult for all the rest of the hours in my day. I want a fantasy game to give me a different experience.
You see why I had to quit. Even after all this time, talking about it still makes me frustrated.
Miss Foxfyre
04-21-2003, 12:18 PM
Hehee it's not that I don't like tradeskills...I can't do them because I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome on and off in my right arm and wrist, and although I wear those typing braces, I couldn't tolerate doing tradeskills.
The game narrowed too much for me. =\
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