Feldon A late night tweet from Domino indicates that the last batch of players who signed up for the Age of Discovery beta and signed the NDA are now welcome to try out the beta. There was a glitch with some of the invite emails but if you fit the above, download the Beta patcher anyway and give it a try!
Everyone who registered can get into beta but some emails were delayed 🙁 The last should be catching up now. Patcher: ow.ly/7NH4i
EQ2 Beta Launcher
EQ2 Beta Streaming Launcher
Note: Once the patcher starts, you should copy the paks and music folders from your live installation of EQ2 to your EQ2 Beta folder. The patch should take about 30-45 minutes if you do this.
Not everyone 🙁
What’s the point of inviting people in beta 2 days before the release ? oO
There’s this as well. Lost the entire day yesterday trying to figure this out:
BTW Feldon I’ve always come here first for all my EQ2 information since 2004. I’ve never posted, but have always enjoyed reading the articles here while having my coffee in the morning. Usually here, massively, then mmorpg.com. You’ve been a tremendous help to this community and I thank you for all you do and have done to support this game even in these discouraging times. Take care all and I hope AoD holds something for the rest of you, it’s just not for me. That and I just can’t watch Smed bleed this game dry anymore.
@ Cirth
Exactly my point… 2 days of beta is not worth the patching imo… or did I miss something?
Just for the hell of it, I tried downloading it since they so graciously invited me yesterday. I started downloading around 8pm, when I got up this morning it still had not completed the downloaded. If this is what it’s going to be like on Tuesday, we are so screwed.
That’s because you re-downloaded the entire 15GB game.
You will have the same problem on Tuesday if you erase your EQ2 folder and restart the download from scratch.
If you copy your paks and music folder from live to Beta, it’s a 30-45 minute patch.
I was just posting to let others know that no matter how long or how much money you’ve spent on EQ2, you can’t get into beta as a bronze or silver member. You have to pay to play:) I downloaded the Beta no problem, but Kept getting “you must subscribe” message. I actually thought it was a bug or a joke. I was wrong.
This will be the only expansion I haven’t bought. My only interest was Beastlord, so wanted to test it out and see if I thought the overpriced AoD was worth my purchase. Totally lost my interest when I received that e-mail…
Thanks for the tip Feldon, but I just figured it’s not worth the effort.
I just used the Streaming Beta client. Was in game in less than 30 mins. The new Freeport is Amazing.
I usually use the non-recurring gold cards, but I let my access lapse to take a break before the expansion. I just bought the $5 pass to be able to play beta. I’ve been on the fence about it, but since playing in beta the past two days I’m going to be getting it. Mercs are very useful for me, and beastlords are actually a ton of fun. Those are the big two selling points. The only reason I’d use reforging is for appearance gear with particle effects. I have a 90 tradeskill, but I’m guessing the uber gear will need raid drop components, and therefore be very expensive on broker.
I was invited Friday night at 10:30 pm. I played most of the day Saturday. I yet to log in today as charter cable is giving me fits being up and down all day.
Beast lords are fun to play until you hit around level 20 then they become very complex.
Reforging well its a joke, i did not see anything to do particle affects. And the changes in blue stats for some classes would not be worth the sacrifice.
Biggest complaint I have is the cost of mercs at level 90 5 plat to buy 25 gold per 30 minuest to keep hired, that is one thing I will not be using there are aleady enough plat sync’s in game as it is. It is to bad they are not piece this out. The only thing I like is the extra 20 AA’s and the beast lord.
I just didn’t see the point in downloading everything when it does live in a couple days anyway. If I had been invited a week ago sure, but not worth me checking it out for a few hours at most.
Luckily, a few hours is all you need to try a little bit of everything the expansion has to offer.
Finally got my invite. Way too late for me to care, I’ll just keep my ear to the ground and dig in on Tuesday.
Same, this was sent long after I realized there was nothing I care about in AoD.
Everybody been wondering so much about beast lord and the like. Well I spent some time in the revamped freeport. Guess what they done. You know places like stone-stair byway, and all the other suburbs. They no longer exist. yes that is right, they pulled them out, in order to get to them now you have to have a quest. All housing has been moved to the jade tiger in North freeport. Yea so much for living in the simple places that has been around for 8 years. I yet to get 1 single response from any of the dev staff about this.
Oh well I hate it when we remove stuff from the game thats has been there since day one.
Isest, yup, that’s pretty much the way it was described on here a while back.
EQ2 is dead to me now. What little chance there was in my coming back has now been wiped out by the knowledge that someday the same hamfisted ideas that have been foisted upon those who live in Freeport will plague Qeynos as well.
I find this strangely amusing. After silence from the devs about so many things, with no response to official threads on quite a few important topics, we have this post from Smokejumper on the official forums:
So the producer of the entire game is more than willing to answer a PM from this lady on the state of her characters after the merge. He doesn’t want to answer any of the complicated questions, but will take out time right before launch to help this lady out, personally.
There seems to be a lot of scrambling going on: he also posted there’s going to be yet another producer’s letter that will absolutely change our minds about this entire expansion, in response to a thread on why starting the game now might not be the best idea:
That’s nice, but since your big announcements and webcasts/videos have done less to impress than planned, I assume, another letter does seem like yet another bandaid on the hemorrhage of unhappy people right now.
fail.
/MEHquit
@kwill I read SJ comments as well, It will be interesting to see what he has to say. I am afraid for a lot of folks it might be to little to late.
Like the person before said; the streaming Beta client was painless and took hardly any time to download. The new launcher has an easy way to switch between accounts so boxing ‘should’ be simple.
Freeport was jumping all day. There were even pockets of the ‘look at my armor’ folks hangin’ out and some with WOWser BL wardens that they’d trained.
The 1-9 channel was busy, busy, busy with Wilhemina passing out her incredible information and Evensong assisting as well as bunches of other folks guiding and just generally helping out.
Sure there were folks complaining too. A lot sounding like cut and paste complaints and some almost original ))
The hoods are still there. They are quest hubs that scale to your level. They are not ripped out, gone, removed or whatever. You can get quests for all of them and the story lines are pretty good. They have an interesting look to them now.
The low level mercs are inexpensive and fun to have around yet really nice to be able to dismiss them too. They don’t charge when they are dismissed.
Tradeskill apprentices are pretty cool. Didn’t try re-forging.
All in all a nice release. It was terrific to see all the activity in the big city again.
Sorry to see all of you quit. Hope you find a game that pleases you as much as EQ2 did for a while.
I’m glad I pre-ordered.
The hoods are there, but you have to have a quest to get into them. Otherwise you can not enter. They now have become a quest instance. Just walking into them you cant do. There are 3 different threads about it. Also the one I did get in the bank was missing and the trade skill instance. There are threads asking for us to be allowed in to tour them now so yes the current ones have been replaced with something less than what we had. Removing content is bad, There should have been a way to preserve what we had while putting in quests. Even then there are reports of folks who have quest that can not get into the areas they need. They are not ready in any shape or form to put this in tuesday.
I did see about 20 folks in east freeport at the reforge person, I would hardly call that busy.
@Kwill, while I am similarly pessimistic about EQ2 and its devs, I will say that SJ has consistently been responding to people on the EQ2X forums about their character slot concerns, so having him do so on the live forums is not in any way out of character or something new.
As far as the neighborhoods go, the devs have been telling us for quite a while now that they would be instanced quest-content. That’s fine with me.
@Kwill Rijacki is more than just “some lady”, she has been a big part of the community for years. In fact, shes been around longer than SmokeJumper (as many of us have).
Is AoD redy to launch? Probably not, but no more so than any previous launch has been.
Is it Fun? That is prettu much open to individual tastes. I think, despite all my complaining, that I will have fun. Then again, I’m getting mine for free from going to this years Fan Faire. Had I actually needed to buy it, I probably would no enjoy it or evenbother to pick it up in the first place.
OK, if the ‘burbs are gone, what does that say for the sewers, or the other various ways good toons used to get around FP in the interests of quests, commerce, and general skullduggery? OR should I just check it out come Tuesday, if the Serverpocalypse allows? 😉
Morning coffee thought…wonder how many of the rage quitters are coming back F2P and will continue to complain?
I still like my Beta experience and given the memory of the Luclin expansion first few days lag fest will probably wait till Thursday to log in.
Feldon, this site is great. Many thanks to you and your team.
I didn’t mean any disrespect for Rijacki, I was just surprised at the personal service for one player when there is a host of other issues that need to be addressed — which apparently he did in the latest podcast interview, today. It wouldn’t have made any difference if it was a veteran player or someone fairly new, would it? I hope not.
Perhaps all the complaining did get some action, after all, since we have an interview today, a producer’s letter coming out tomorrow, and more people invited to beta. In life, some people complain legitimately, some like to cause trouble, others are apologists for policy, and yet others just go with the flow. However, without people raising legitimate concerns and objections, no one will ever know that there are problems. It’s not in a corporations best interest to seek out flaws — so it is up to the consumer to keep them on track through reviews and commentary. The outcry against a bare-bones expansion that is $40 is a legitimate complaint, in my mind — of course much of it will be fun, but what folks have expected and received in the past and what we are getting tomorrow are two different things. The seeming lack of quality control, lack of confidence in team public apperances, and the rushed launch are also of concern, at least to some people. SJ has addressed some of this in his most recent podcast.
With the additon of F2P, they have changed the EQ2 that I know fundamentally, starting tomorrow. There’s a big difference in a game where everyone starts out with all the content and plays through, versus tiered levels of players and the ability to buy progression. It’s a mind set, more than anything. A month to month sub is different than paying as you go. I hope it will still be fun, and I think a lot of it will be, but as the F2P culture merges with the subscription culture, things will be different. For me personally, the fairly stable world of EQ2 was something I enjoyed, a get away from real life. Sometimes change and progress is the last thing you really want! For others, this can be a great opportunity to bring back friends and invite family to play on a casual basis, and make new friends in the game with the EQ2x merge.
The problem with Age of Destiny (AoD) all comes down to semantics. Yes, it seems a shame to have to argue semantics, but that is the crux of every action, transaction, and interaction between people: that we all understand and are on the same page (which keeps the lawyers fed and happy).
The issue with all of this (IMO) is they are calling AoD an “Expansion.” It was probably not the best thing, nor in their best interest to call it that. Had they called it a “Feature Pack” or new “Downloadable Content” (DLC) it probably would have been MUCH better received than it is now. To call it an “expansion” is a misnomer because it is in NO WAY (as thousands of comments would suggest) what most people would consider an expansion.
An expansion, to me, first and foremost, is new Content. And by content I mean new zones, new dungeons, new areas to explore. Any and all extra levels, AAs, classes, races, or other “features” (like the stuff AoD is giving us) are all bonuses and really cool things to get IN ADDITION TO the expansion. If the world itself is not expanding, even if it is only additional dungeons (Lost Dungeons of Norrath from EQ1 comes to mind) that are being added, how can it be even considered an expansion? An expansion EXPANDS the world. Heck, even the three Adventure Packs, Bloodline Chronicles, Splitpaw Saga, and Fallen Dynasty were MUCH more of what I would consider an expansion than what AoD is giving us.
Now I know Smokejumper has proposed, and is implementing a new business model. It seems like there won’t be any more traditional “expansions” anymore. All new content will be given to us for free. Metered (and hopefully not petered) out slowly over time instead of in the one fell swoop an expansion gives us. This has plusses and minuses.
Yes, we now get the new zones for “free” (IF (and that’s a big if) you purchased the DoV expansion, sold separately(tm)) and who doesn’t like free? And sure, we will be “constantly” (and I use that term loosely) getting new content for free with each game update. No longer will they put hundreds, thousands, heck, maybe even hundreds of thousands of “man hours” into making an expansion only to have people complete it in a month or three and then have to wait to get new content (thus risking the chance people will get bored and quit the game). Now, we’ll “always” (again, loosely) be getting new stuff to do to keep us in the SoE web (and by web I mean their cash flow).
Of course, it is also bad because it puts an artificial limit on how far we can go and how far we can progress in order to keep us here, not get tired of their game, quit and move onto to other games, never looking back. I DO hate artificial limits but, if expansions can be completed by players as quickly as they have been, that in itself is an artificial limit because we have to wait for them to come up with new stuff.
Is all this a good thing? Only time will tell, really. It depends on how much new content (i.e. new places to visit) they provide and how often. Now that the game is Free to Play, it makes it easier for us to no longer say, “That’s it, I quit!” and say, “I’m still gonna play, I’m just not gonna pay them for the next month or more and wait and see.”
It actually put more of the pressure on SoE. If they want our dollars and, in the long run, want to keep their jobs, they’ll NEED TO keep coming out with new and better content, for free, as they are promising, to get us to keep paying. Otherwise there may be a lot more Silver and Bronze members than SoE has bargained for . . .