Feldon So we’ve just posted our transcript of last night’s Freeport Revamp webcast. If you don’t want to read the whole thing and just want the top five items you should know, here you go:
| 5 | You will not be able to fly/leap/glide in Freeport. This is something that was promised by SmokeJumper at this year’s Fan Faire before the art team had put in the development hours. They found that framerates were absolutely abysmal if you were able to fly, leap, glide, etc. |
| 4 | You will not be able to start characters in Freeport. The revamped Freeport provides a smattering of new race-specific and class-specific questlines starting at level 20 ranging up to level 80. Some of these quests scale to your level. |
| 3 | All players with “inn” or newbie housing will now reach this housing via the Jade Tiger. Larger houses that have balconies and otherwise a view of the city of Freeport will have their exteriors changed to match the revitalized Freeport, while the interiors will remain unchanged. |
| 2 | North, South, East, and West Freeport have been combined into a single large zone. Some buildings have been demolished or changed, others spruced up. The ‘hoods or suburbs have been turned into instances and housing has been moved out of them. |
| 1 | Age of Discovery / Game Update 62 Beta is planned to start on Tuesday or Thursday of next week, assuming today’s internal company playtest goes well. |
and a sneak about Beastlords:
| ! | There will be over 50 animals that you can befriend or “tame” on your Beastlord. |
Wow, hopefully they will pull the plug on Qeynos update if this is what they consider an improvement.
This really bites >>> You will not be able to fly/leap/glide in Freeport
I am disappointed that I won’t be able to start a character in Freeport. I am quite tired of Gorowyn and Neriak. I don’t care if I can’t fly, leap, or glide.
Maybe they should actually invest into revamping the game engine? Of all the games I have ever played, I have never seen a more poorly optimized game than EverQuest 2.
No leaping, flying, gliding in a new zone? Seriously? They could have put in artifical ceilings like in thundering steppes or height restrictions like in any other zone …that is just pure laziness in my opinion.
Good news about beastlords ..although I did kinda like how in eq each race had its own regional style pet.
What about the “tons of information” SJ promised us this week regarding AoD? You know, answers to the repeated questions like:
1. Release date?
2. Does this expansion include all the other expansions?
3. Cost of the AoD expansion?
4. Pre-ordering? Perks for pre-ordering?
Plus the details of the expansion itself.
In typical $OE style, their CR fails the community again.
To bad were not getting the starting isles back, and that explanation they used was lamer than the first explanation of nobody was playing on them.
Oh well that’s my biggest gripe about it, you would have though all the post and threads over the past year they would have clued up but no, they are bound and determined to do whatever and ignore their play base input.
Oh well I guess I got to create my beast-lord in neriak yet again.
Is revamping the game engine even possible at this point?
SOE lied….Whats new?
It seems we are still not getting an answer with regards to Freeport breakout homes. Should we pack them or can we leave them?
You can still access the starting isle’s if you had a character camped there before access was removed from them.
@necromancer, yes we all know that, thats not the problem. The problem is rolling a new toon, your stuck with new halas (cough), neriak (ok), or fayland uggg. So if I want to create a beast-lord I best hope I can create an evil one.
The starting Isles were cool easy to do and fun, all the bs excuses we getting for them removing them don’t fly.
Im glad theres no flying and leaping in the city. It would be annoying having those obnoxious leapers bouncing all around the city. I hope they continue to add more quests from the cities.
Wow I’m glad I started enjoying LOTRO. So much negativity in EverQuest 2 these days, it’s bad for your health!
People should really stop blaming the players for pointing out obvious mistakes by SOE and EQ2 management.
When this site started, I brought up the “good” and the “bad” as fairly as I could. I still do, but the “good” side of the scale is awfully light these days. It also helped when I had communication with SOE and could give them a chance to respond/address issues before I’d roll with an article. They don’t want interaction with fansites anymore.
” They don’t want interaction with fansites anymore.”
Thats 100% correct, they do not give us the right information, they somehow manage to break things that were never meant to be broken (and for you omg coding omgs bugs, this is a Multi-million Dollar company, even mom and pop shops that designed websites take more responsibility.
Here’s my problem: why did the team find it necessary to put as they state “1000s” of hours into this revamp, when it doesn’t sound all that interesting or of value to the game? Aren’t there other projects that would keep the game fresh that would be of more value to the players? How about more public quests — or fix Storm Gorge so people actually want to participate in it? Fix the dungeon finder, so people actualy want to use it. On Butcherblock, the channels are still full of people LFG, so clearly they aren’t using the DF. I have used it twice, and both times it put me in the Shard of Love … no thanks. Small zone that gives house items, not really my thing more than once.
I understand that Freeport and Qeynos are “pivotal” to the game, but so much so you would devote this much team effort into making it one zone? Guild Halls are pivotal and a core part of the game now, not these two cities. I am just not getting it.
@feldon, its just not the fan sites, it the entire player base. That is the largest problem that we have, as in they don’t want to hear from us unless we say something they like or want to hear. I am sorry they are not talking to you, looks like there’s been a lot of changes in mid level management over at soe.
However we do appreciate everything you do feldon. I try not to be so negative but honestly some of the stuff the are pulling is the same old mistakes we seen in other games (SWG), and that is devs being totally disconnected from the player base.
@kwill its not only your server it is guk too, I see folks all the time in global channels looking for groups. I tried DF several times, and I always get with a group of folks who have no idea of what teamwork is. Thus making me go back to using global lfg channels (not the lfg tool).
What got me hot was when I read the transcript, and the dev team said we had nothing else to do so we did a revamp. I was like how about all the bugs, fix itemization, fix progression, fix SG, I could go on and on.
Please don’t get me wrong I love my eq2, and that is why I get so passionate about it when I see the dev team about to blow it yet again.
The line about “we had nothing else to do” by SmokeJokester was clearly stated in jest and got shocked looks from the devs. They genuinely feel that spending time revamping Freeport makes sense, unfortunately they missed the point by not making it a starting area, having no 1-20 content, and not allowing flying.
I understand they believe that Freeport is the place to put their energies, even though there are a myriad of other issues to deal with, but using sarcasm during a video cast is a very poorly chosen response. Everyone had to cover for him after that comment, as Feldon pointed out, and it was quite awkward. I will say this, Scott Hartsman would NEVER have said something that stupid. I know he wasn’t a favorite of everyone, and Rift leaves something to be desired, but he was a good team leader and did get things done, and never put his foot in his mouth (that I am aware of). That’s probably the reason the dev team doesn’t communicate as much any more, they don’t have an appropriate person who can do good PR. That never stopped SOE before, f course, but they had made some inroads in repairing community relations in the past. Today, they again have problems.
I suppose they feel currently that being involved with fan sites hasn’t gotten them the good PR that they hope for, and are circling the wagons. It’s a shame, but when there are more mistakes than triumphs there’s nothing to really say to the fan sites, is there?
I do hope they get it together and this Freeport revamp and the new expansion works for the dev team, and the players. I truly do.