Everquest 2: Shadow Odyssey and the Trial Trail

[Fozzle]

I had been waiting this month, in like the calm before the storm of gaming bankruptcy coming in September and October with spare game time to kill and I started looking at all the old MMOs out there, and how all of them have a couple of weeks of free play trials going on. I ended up with a list of about 12 I'd want to give another shot, if for nothing else but nostalgia. Adding up the time, that meant I had basically 6 months of free MMO time coming! Who can beat that right? I would remember the old times, see some games I missed along the way, and so on. Has anyone else tried this? Well, at any rate, I stumbled on my way down my 'free to play MMO era'. And the stumble was on EQ2, game 3 on my list.


I don't know if any of you have seen this game recently, or played around with it in the last year or so, but I have not. I was a charter member. (I have the little talking Shagwell doll in my house to prove it!) But after about a month or so of playing in 2004, I realized how incredibly not-fun the game was. I dumped it in disgust, ate some crow, went off to play the game the rest of my friends were playing, which was WoW and buried my copy of EQ2 in a shallow unmarked grave in the backyard.


Enter 2008 and the Trial Trail. I don't know what happened to EQ2 in between then and now, but I do know the game somehow during that time became ... fun! Who knew! Now you can solo. Now you can craft and actually enjoy yourself. Now you can find more quests then you can possibly do without them going green and grey. Now you can find nostalgic moments (if you were an EQ1 player) strewn all over the world. The game has polish, content, a decent player base, et. al. I was a bit shocked, to say the least.


I have a couple articles to link at this point, because I was so shocked, I went looking around to find some info on who fixed EQ2. I found:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14016


and also a list of changes at:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=362202


So, I know this game isn't going to come back and shock the world like it thought it was going to in 2004. But it seems that Sony can correct some mistakes. (as long as they aren't in space I guess) Does anyone else still play this game? Am I just reveling in nostalgia, or did they actually do something right here? What other trial period games are out there that have grown this much since launch? Sony seems to be working hard to really develop the SOE brand this year.


P.S. I don't think I said anything about the actual expansion. To tie into the topic subject.. the expansion is the propoganda that got me to pickup the free trial account, and eventually re-subscribe to my dusty old original account =)

[Adree]

I tried it last year, it was surprisingly not bad. The art style is still ass but there's quite a bit to do and I liked the idea of collecting monster parts to give me an advantage vs that monster. The problem is that while you can solo, it rapidly gets boring and there's huge bonuses to grouping properly. So if you subscribe, bring a friend.

[Creole Ned]

The art style of EQ2 is inconsistent but overall I think it ranges from decent to, at times, quite good. Note this does not apply to the clay-faced human models. :P

I picked up the game in December 2006, shortly after the Echoes of Faydwer expansion hit. I was curious to play it specifically because so many people in my gaming circle had said it was crappy and unfun. I couldn't believe it was *that* bad and had to see for myself.

And yeah, I'd say the game is probably still the best alternative to WoW if you're looking for a fantasy-flavored MMORPG. There are a ton of classes and races, plenty of places to explore and you can play a rat instead of hunting them. Who wouldn't like that?

There is also vastly more soloable content now, even compared to when I first checked it out nearly two years ago but there are questlines and raids a-plenty for groups, too. Really, my only big knocks on the game at this point would be inconsistent performance (framerate can vary from very high to low) and art. Everything else is pretty good and there are tons of little things that always make me think "I wish this was in WoW (or some other MMO)".

[Lucidvizion]

EQ2 is a very good game. I'd probably be playing it right now if I had any stomach for MMO's and/or RL friends that played it.

[Athryn]

EQ2 is a great game, if I weren't so sucked into Wow I would likely be playing it instead.

[John Reynolds]

EQ2 is a solid game, played it from launch until late 2006.

[Skipper]

I played it for 3 months at release and got my fill of a lot of the same thing I had in EQ. Teased skills that you can never be the best at, nerfing from the get-go, instancing so heavy I frequently had issues getting me and my friends in the same place, and the heavy need for grouping.

I understand a lot of that has changed, and I have a buddy who continuously hounds me about just how much so (he also started with me and has since gone back.) The problem is that there is so much choice out there right now it's really hard to leave WoW (with an expansion coming out) and not instead go to something even newer like Conan or Warhammer.

Man the memories I have of EQ back in the day though. And the shit my friends and I did daring each other to new levels of craziness.

[Creole Ned]

EQ2 is a dramatically different game from when it launched -- and for the better.

[Fozzle]

Ah great, so I am not the only one, and my MMO barometer is still close to accurate =)

Skipper it really is a different game. And I'd also point out here how interesting it is passing by things I knew and knew well in EQ1 that are re-envisioned 500 years later in EQ2. I passed by Kaladim the other day, You remember the run? Docks to Kaladim to Gfay?
Only know the dwarven tow is overrun by Kobolds.. But still it tugs at the ol EQ1 strings to picture that old haunt, now revisioned. There are a ton of these moments in EQ2, which are actually quite cool.

[Qenan]

This whole thing reminds me I have two EQ2 boxes sitting on a shelf that I've never played. Sandbox problem solved! For a month, anyhow.

[Skipper]

Ah great, so I am not the only one, and my MMO barometer is still close to accurate =)

Skipper it really is a different game. And I'd also point out here how interesting it is passing by things I knew and knew well in EQ1 that are re-envisioned 500 years later in EQ2. I passed by Kaladim the other day, You remember the run? Docks to Kaladim to Gfay?
Only know the dwarven tow is overrun by Kobolds.. But still it tugs at the ol EQ1 strings to picture that old haunt, now revisioned. There are a ton of these moments in EQ2, which are actually quite cool.

I'll dredge up some more, maybe they have EQ2 equivalents:

1) The run from Qeynos to Freeport.
2) The newbie trains of Blackburrow.
3) The first time I saw a sand giant in Oasis.
4) Standing on top of the Teleportation stones or Kelethin treehouses and jumping to your death.
5) Soloing city guards with my DE Necro.
6) Any of the dragon fights.
7) Charmed and forced to follow an Froglok waaaaay down into Guk with no friggin clue where I was.
8) The first time you actually see any of the much rumored giant sea creatures ... as you are swimming.
9) Trying not to fall off the icy pathways of Velk's Lab.
10) Two person Two-boxing through an LDON.

... I could go on and on. Then I stepped into EQ2 and was robbed of a lot of those memories simply because they changed too much.

[malkav11]

I'll dredge up some more, maybe they have EQ2 equivalents:

1) The run from Qeynos to Freeport.
2) The newbie trains of Blackburrow.
3) The first time I saw a sand giant in Oasis.
4) Standing on top of the Teleportation stones or Kelethin treehouses and jumping to your death.
5) Soloing city guards with my DE Necro.
6) Any of the dragon fights.
7) Charmed and forced to follow an Froglok waaaaay down into Guk with no friggin clue where I was.
8) The first time you actually see any of the much rumored giant sea creatures ... as you are swimming.
9) Trying not to fall off the icy pathways of Velk's Lab.
10) Two person Two-boxing through an LDON.

... I could go on and on. Then I stepped into EQ2 and was robbed of a lot of those memories simply because they changed too much.

Man. A lot of that stuff sounds very cool. Too bad EQ's game design did everything it possibly could to prevent me from having those kinds of experiences.

[Skipper]

Man. A lot of that stuff sounds very cool. Too bad EQ's game design did everything it possibly could to prevent me from having those kinds of experiences.

Yeah but it was the only choice back then really. UO was a different experience, EQ was the only first person perspective MMO for a while.

[The Bird Flu]

I'll dredge up some more, maybe they have EQ2 equivalents:

1) The run from Qeynos to Freeport.
2) The newbie trains of Blackburrow.
3) The first time I saw a sand giant in Oasis.
4) Standing on top of the Teleportation stones or Kelethin treehouses and jumping to your death.
5) Soloing city guards with my DE Necro.
6) Any of the dragon fights.
7) Charmed and forced to follow an Froglok waaaaay down into Guk with no friggin clue where I was.
8) The first time you actually see any of the much rumored giant sea creatures ... as you are swimming.
9) Trying not to fall off the icy pathways of Velk's Lab.
10) Two person Two-boxing through an LDON.

... I could go on and on. Then I stepped into EQ2 and was robbed of a lot of those memories simply because they changed too much.

Going to fear for the first time and seeing it actually start to rain blood made me so happy. I had so many good times in EQ.

[Scrax]

I *heart* Unrest.

[LionelThompson]

Like an abused wife, I find myself going back to EQ2 over and over again. After getting burned on AoC, I returned again to my guild on Unrest. While WoW may be the big kid on the block, I genuinely prefer EQ2, and to a lesser extent, LoTRO.

For those who played at release, the game is not anything as you remember it. I won't even try to go through all of the changes, but some of the major ones: no more going scout for 20 levels before picking troubador, no more xp loss for the whole group when one person dies, a lot more solo friendly with most of the outdoor zones soloable and the dungeons saved for groups and raids.

The zoning is still there, with Freeport and Qeynos being the biggest offenders (I'd love to see them revisit these cities and consolidate them). It's better once you find an are to hunt, but it is still more than its competitors. Instancing is a non-issue, although it was briefly when Kunark was first released.

As for the plusses, the world is massive, the benefit of being around for nearly five years. The variety in classes leads to alt-itis because of the variety between them.

I've gone on and on about the game before, you can probably find old posts, but if anyone has any specific questions, let me know. I currently have an 80 conjuror, a 57 defiler, a 38 monk, and a low level coercer.

[Fozzle]

I do have a question: Just how beneficial is grouping and instancing versus soloing? I did get in a good PUG the other night, and teh XP seemed to be flowing freely, but I had chugged an xp potion, and I had rest XP, so I'm not really sure what the actual benefit is.

Also, I too used to love unrest. Parking in the basement near the blood pool for whole evenings with friends brings back some good memories! I hear the EQ2 version is very similar to the old unrest, but I haven't seen it yet.

[JonSaunders]

EQ2 is a very good game. I'd probably be playing it right now if I had any stomach for MMO's and/or RL friends that played it.


My guild kinda split up early in EQ2 or I would have probably stayed with it, then a few from the guild started in WoW ... rest is history as they say.

[malkav11]

Arise:

Ever since this thread I'd kind of been meaning to get around to giving EQII a poke or two. It sounded like they'd fixed a lot of what I disliked about the first game, and a lot of the issues it had back when it first came out to boot. And, well, I suspect my time with WAR will be coming to an end in the medium-distant future, since I've hit endgame and there's not a lot there. So I'm potentially in the market for a new MMO. Then SOE added a bunch of games, including EQII, to Steam, and suddenly I had my memory jogged.

So yesterday I downloaded the client and signed up for the trial, and today I tried things out, first with a Fae Conjurer (which stopped pretty quickly on account of how unbearably twee their starting area is), and then with my old standby from EQ1, an Iksar Necromancer, who's level 10 as of this posting. I started with my main gaming partner, the one whose assistance and companionship got me to 40 in WAR, but he had a matter-antimatter reaction to the game and I pretty much guarantee will not be coming back. I on the other hand found myself increasingly entranced.

The game's kind of ugly for the most part, particularly in its interface and character models (although it also has some attractive scenery and nice spell effects), and could stand to benefit from some of the UI improvements games like WoW and WAR have introduced, particularly quest-tracking related. The voice acting is an assault on the ears and should be turned off immediately (or better yet, never installed). And from the sound of it, the melee classes are still kind of dull and uninteractive compared to those in more modern MMOs - though, with most of the 24 classes being some variety of caster (which is my preferred character type anyhow) this isn't a huge issue for me personally.

On the other hand, they do some things I really appreciate, like the Achievement system - no, it's not what we're used to seeing these days. It's an alternate advancement system which functions somewhat like talents in WoW, except that you gather points to spend by killing unique monsters, finding rare treasure, completing quests, and similar feats of derring do. And it's not a straight one-for-one exchange, either. You earn credit towards a point by doing these things, so there's scope for plenty of advancement. (There's also an enormous additional tree added by the latest expansion, but the trial doesn't include that content.) Or the collection system - find groups of related items, and when you're done you get experience and some sort of handy reward. Or the way you just automatically receive your new spells at levelup, no purchase required (why oh why don't other games do this? There's no reason I can think of you wouldn't want new spells in WoW or WAR.). Especially in contrast to the original Everquest, which was terrifyingly bad about doling out new spells. They preserve a little of that system in the way you can upgrade each individual spell from Apprentice to Master and many steps in between. But it feels less like a grindy punishment for picking a caster and more like a way to have compelling loot for classes that don't do much with gear.

Another thing - the quest types are no different from standard fare, really. Less interestingly themed a lot of the time than WoW or especially WAR - I think EQ's world is one of the most generic fantasy settings I've seen, in direct contrast to those games - but they definitely strike me as being richer in terms of moment to moment play. (At least, than pre-BC WoW, when I'd quit that game.) Sure, they all ultimately boil down to "talk to X" "Kill X of Y" "Collect X of Y", and the like, but in the meantime I had interaction like putting out live rodents to lure cliff-dwelling hawks down where I could kill them. Or an extended quest where I was collecting bits of a tattered message and trying to figure out what the enemy was planning and interfere with it based on what I could read. (It turned out to be planning an illicit meeting between lovers.)

I really think I may subscribe at the end of my trial. It doesn't hurt that I can just pay the first month's subscription and get everything through Rise of Kunark. Including some in-game rewards and nearly a year's account veterancy with attendant bonuses. Sure, that's not The Shadow Odyssey, and sure, I'd get most of that by shelling out $40 for Shadow Odyssey...but given that it's strictly aimed at high-end players, I'm okay with waiting for it.

[Lakedaimon]

yeah I was one of those folks who wasnt really interested in wow and started playing EQ2 instead. Was one of the highest level brigands on my server, and just before the expansion managed to get myself into the best guild in my timezone (solely because they had no high level brigs). So the expansion comes out and the guild is naturally able to chew through stuff but the dungeons are buggy, and worst of all many of the boss type creatures dropped either no loot or garbage - the expansion just wasnt itemized yet. So of course many people in the guild who had stuck around hoping the expansion would fix things quit in disgust because it was every bit as unfinished as the vanilla version.

[Creole Ned]

Oddly, I resubbed a few days ago myself. The biggest change I noticed from the last time I played was the revamped map system. All of the zone maps have been redrawn to be bigger, more detailed and in full color, a significant improvement on what they had before. They also have a proper mini-map now (only took 4+ years :P).

I've been messing around a bit with a new monk and getting acclimated to the game again. There are still a lot of rough edges, mostly in terms of art and performance (although the latter is much improved; the art is still inconsistent and sometimes downright unattractive), but the world and its systems are fairly deep and satisfying. It also doesn't trip the anachronism meter into the red the way WoW regularly does. That can be a pro or con depending on your perspective.

The retail box of The Shadow Odyssey has one advantage over the Steam or other online versions in that you get a dire bear pet that levels with your character. At level 20 it becomes a mount you can ride. A rather funny looking mount, but that's EQ2 for you.

http://creolened.com/images/eq2/eq2-coglok-bear.jpg

[malkav11]

...is that some sort of bear/walrus hybrid? Look at the tusks!

[frank austin]

The Bearlus may have sold me on giving this another go.

[JonSaunders]

Only reason I quit eq2 was because my high lvl guild disbanded, i just didn't have heart to find another after that so with some of hte people who were in the guild formed a WoW (that is still going today).

Actually preferred (and still do) to wow just the population is the issue, especially for the EU players.

[awdougherty]

How is EQ2 for soloing?

[Creole Ned]

EQ2 is fine for soloing, though there are definitely classes that solo at a more deliberate pace than others. The froglok pictured above is my templar. He's very tough, wearing plate armor and all, but he kills things at a most leisurely pace.

As for the weird tusken dire bear thingy, I'll claim the pet on a lowbie and see what he looks like in regular pet form. Here's hoping for cute and adorable!

[Fugitive]

I was always tempted by EQ2, but it was hard to shake the investment I already had in my EQ1 character (and still is in some ways; hearing about mercs in the latest expansion got me excited for a moment), and by the point it was time to move on, all of my friends were in WoW.

If they're still giving out trials for it, maybe that would at least satisfy my curiosity.

[Pogo]

If they're still doing trials, I might be willing to try this out. The comment that melee combat isn't very involving kind of puts me off, however.

[Creole Ned]

There is a trial that is linked off the main EQ2 page. As for melee, I actually find my ratonga assassin to be rather involved. He has a lot of attacks and most of them are positional or situational and since player-NPC collision is modeled, you can't "cheat" by slipping through an enemy to re-position yourself. Plus the rats just look very into it when they're stabbing and slicing things.

It wouldn't surprise me if others felt differently, though. EQ2 is one of those kinds of games.

[malkav11]

I haven't played melee, but my friend was not impressed with berserkers, saying that all he did was put up a bunch of buffs and then push punch or kick every 10 seconds or so.

[malkav11]

I have a couple of quick questions: one - is circle strafing possible within EQII? And if so, how can it best be managed? This was apparently my friend's #1 complaint (I don't really understand the fuss myself) and might...*might*...be enough to get him to give it another go.

Second - at what point would I be likely to start to miss features contained in The Shadow Odyssey, if I were to skip it for now? The impression I'd gotten was that it was strictly for high-end players with little to no early to mid-game content. Certainly nothing like new races, starting zones, or classes. But seeing how the achievement system works, I wonder if that Shadows tab would already be active if I owned the expansion.

[Creole Ned]

The Shadow Odyssey is strictly level 50-80 content, with the emphasis on the higher end of that spectrum. If you have a character under 50, you'll really miss nothing by skipping it for now (and in fact Steam offers a $15 version of the game that includes every expansion *except* TSO). TSO does include a few extras (like the dire bear mount in the retail version) but nothing substantial.

The Achievements for the Shadows tab are gated by level but the tab itself will show up on any character.

I'm not sure what you mean with the circle-strafing thing.

[malkav11]

He likes to kite by strafing in a circular pattern around enemies (or go in for a backstab likewise). Typically accomplished by simultaneously pressing the turn and strafe keys, but that combination doesn't work in EQII, at least not under the default control scheme. It's not something I ever do so I didn't feel the lack, myself.

[Creole Ned]

You can certainly maneuver around enemies but if your friend wanted to kite without taking any hits, that's not really possible. I understand kiting was big in the original EQ (never played it) but the mechanics of combat in EQ2 pretty much prevent it, or at least hinder it from being risk-free (I can't speak to anything past the mid-30s, though. In fact, I'm pretty sure there must be *someone* around here with more in-depth knowledge of the game than me).

On an unrelated note, my human monk finished up the newbie island then made the trip over to Timorous Deep around level 10. Because the starting monk harness looks so dang silly, he went topless until nearly 12 when he finally got some chest armor as a reward item. He's 14 now and the levels are really flying by. I know the 20-70 XP requirements were trimmed but they must have tweaked the 1-20 XP as well.

The re-itemization of the older zones is definitely noticeable now, too. Before, the gear from Timorous Deep was ludicrously better than anything you'd find in other lowbie zones. Now the loot seems a lot more balanced and in some cases the pre-10 items I had from Queen's colony were slightly better than TD equivalents.

[malkav11]

Yeah, I'm currently averaging more than one level per hour /played (at 18 and a half as of yesterday, with 15 hours /played) and I'm doing a lot of screwing around, item collecting, green quests and the like. Plus I got invisibility and am abusing the shit out of it. (Stealth is one thing. Invisibility is fricking awesome. What's that, giant field full of aggressive enemies? No, I don't feel like fighting you. Buh-bye.)

[awdougherty]

Gave this a shot and it didn't really grab me right off, may give it a second shot. What did surprise me was Vanguard which I had heard nothing but bad things about. That actually hooked me more.

[JackBurton]

So I checked my SOE account and it looks like I have been given every expansion pack except the most recent one, So I think I'm going to be giving this another try this weekend and see if it hooks me...FWIW I have been hearing nothing but good things about the game lately.

[Creole Ned]

I'm halfway to 20 on my monk with about 10 hours played, so the pace so far has been about 2 levels per hour. After leaving the newbie island, pretty much every quest has been green or blue, too. He is outleveling them faster than he can work through them. Right now he is fighting with an apparently unbreakable bottle of rum in one hand and a stick in the other, alternating between punches and kicks. He can pull with taunts or throwing axes (one of those to the head gets your attention), can feign death (interesting when it doesn't work) and can heal himself in a pinch. All around, seems like a pretty solid class for soloing.

I'm curious to see how it goes once he leaves Timorous Deep, since the old world zones in the 20-30 level range don't offer an experience that's nearly as directed (TD feels a lot like WoW in the way it chains and clusters quests together. Compare that to Antonica, where a lot of the quests are found by just exploring through the zone on your own).

Gave this a shot and it didn't really grab me right off, may give it a second shot. What did surprise me was Vanguard which I had heard nothing but bad things about. That actually hooked me more.
What's funny about Vanguard is I played in the beta but never picked up the retail version (the beta performed horribly and left me cold) but apparently all beta accounts are included in the re-activations they've handed out. I think I've had something like two and a half months of free game time without having ever dropped any money on it. The game is vastly improved over beta but it's never grabbed me enough to get me past the lowbie starting areas.

[Lakedaimon]

stopping kiting was one of the big priorities when the game was made. as was killstealing - so encounters "lock" once someone has aggro, and you lose any speed buffs. at least this is how it was at launch.

with some practice, rogue types could stun an enemy then quickly circle around (or even easier jump over them) and usually get one off before the stun would wear off. but without stun or someone/something else on top of the hate list you really couldnt backstab.

when i was still playing the monks were the most broken class in the game - could tank almost everything as well as the plate classes and the bruiser did better damage than even the rogues. but this was 4 years ago.

[Reemul]

LoL, there really is no comparison on the game from 4 years ago. It just isn't the same game and for someone going into it who has never played it it really is worth it. Loads of classes, starting zones and stuff to do.

You can even solo right through if you really want to and with the right class even do some of the instances as well no problems.

[Robert Sharp]

You've just about got me sold. Question. Ruins of Kunark is like 20 bucks, and Shadows is a bit more. If I just want to start playing, will Ruins be enough for now? It seems to contain the core game and a bunch of expansions, minus Shadows.

[malkav11]

You've just about got me sold. Question. Ruins of Kunark is like 20 bucks, and Shadows is a bit more. If I just want to start playing, will Ruins be enough for now? It seems to contain the core game and a bunch of expansions, minus Shadows.

I asked this earlier, and yeah, it pretty much is, I'm finding. There are two main components of The Shadow Odyssey - some high level zones and the Shadows achievement tree. I don't know if you'd be able to add points to the Shadows tree right off the bat or not, but my impression is that there's no need to - the two trees you already have access to will keep you in achievement point spending for many levels. (Well, and the retail version has the bear/walrus.)

You can save a little bit of money by starting a free trial and then rolling over into a paid subscription. The trial includes all the expansion content pre-TSO. As far as I can tell the only advantage of buying the Rise of the Kunark expansion (not Ruins, which was the first EQ1 expansion - confusing, I know) package over just rolling into a paid subscription are a few /claimable in-game items, and I can't really imagine they're worth the money.

Unless of course you manage to find that package for under $15.

[Robert Sharp]

Thanks, malkav. Of course, there's also the DL. If I get the actual DVD, the install may go faster than actually DL the 10 gigs or so of EQ2 stuff, right?

[malkav11]

I'd expect so, but I downloaded it overnight without issue. And I think they must have a pretty impressive compression system because when (on a whim) I tried out Matrix Online, it installed to about 5 gigs but downloaded in under an hour. (And I may have a 5Mbps connection, but it's definitely not 5 gigabytes/hr.)

The other advantage of doing the trial, of course, is that you get to confirm that you actually like the game before paying for it.

[Robert Sharp]

OK, DLing the trial. Why is calling itself Play the Fae? Do I have to play as a fairy in the trial?

[Creole Ned]

The last big trial release was right after Echoes of Faydwer came out, the expansion that introduced the Fae and the Faydark zones. If they've updated that version of the trial it should let you start as any race but the emphasis was on Fae because they were new and shiny at the time.

The Rise of Kunark pack will give you tons of content prior to the 50+ content that The Shadow Odyssey focuses on (and most of *that* is actually geared toward 70+ characters, not 50+). You miss out on the Shadow line of achievements (which can be used as soon as achievement points open up at level 10) but you really don't need them early on. You're much better off putting points into your class/archetype trees.

[malkav11]

OK, DLing the trial. Why is calling itself Play the Fae? Do I have to play as a fairy in the trial?

That's the post-Echoes of Faydwer trial. You might be able to run with that, but I would recommend downloading the Station Launcher beta and snagging the EQII trial in that, because I know for a fact that's the right version.