76 thoughts on “Commentary: Are Epic 2.0 Quests Burying Players in Prerequisites?”

  1. Nice article.

    I think that the biggest thing, is that it doesn’t feel…epic.
    When Epic 1.0’s came out, people were doing challenging content in order to progress. Everything was difficult…fun.

    Now, it’s just a grind. I usually don’t cast a thing for the vast majority of these “quests” in the Epic 2.0. I put my merc up, and run from beginning to the end, and the merc kills everything without me lifting a finger. How is that fun?

    I see the real problem as there being no content in the game. Who hasn’t run the current heroics till their eyes bleed already…only 1 or 2 months after the expansion came out?

  2. Having mainchanged to an undesirable and unpopular class (Coercer) last year, to meet the needs of specific and rarely used mechanics (Charm & Power Feeds), I have been hit pretty hard by this Epic 2.0.

    Swapping classes for the sake of my guild, and allowing progression and new kills, has now meant that I am obliged to go back and do over 400+ quests, involving endless amounts of trivial content and untold misery.

    When I have done these quests multiple times over the years already on other classes, the desire to do them has certainly left me, and I feel my time in this game is coming to a rapid end. If it wasn’t for my guild, I would have left a long time ago.

    I struggle to see how anybody at DBG considered these epics to be ‘fun’ as a concept. The only conceivable part of them which is fun is figuring them out, which could have easily been made achievable without the need for trivial timesinks in the form of pre-reqs.

  3. Nice write-up Feldon. I’ve already decided just to skip the Epic 2.0 based on what I’ve been reading on the message boards. I’m definitely what people call a “casual” player. I have other hobbies, play other games – online and tabletop, and frankly have gotten too tired of anything that feels like a grind. I want to have fun when I play a game. Also I don’t like the new anti-alt feel of the game. I love my alts but it’s become to hard to even begin to keep them up with the amount of time I play. Every expansion I drop more and more alts off as far as keeping them up. I’m now down to 2 that are current as of ToT on both adv and crafting signature questlines and I’m even questioning if I can endure the KA sig quest line twice this time, much less Epic 2.0.

    I’m looking at moving to ESO at least to give it a try now that they’ve added what looks like promising housing and while this expansion isn’t the cause for me to look around, it’s certainly not making me want to stay. Will I quit EQ2? No nothing so dramatic. But I may go back to F2P when my current sub runs out if I like ESO.

  5. There might have been two issues omitted from this wonderful write-up. 1) the fact that existing content is being nerfed (under the guise of balancing) in order to make the ultimate epic 2.0 reward appear super, and 2) that Daybreak’s idea of game related next step clues amount to “go out and search among the tens of thousands of NPCs and hundreds of thousand of clickable items in the geography” some of which have nothing to do with past or present game lore. The entire 2.0 venture is a disservice to the EQ2 gaming community.

    1. Yes…and no. I’ve only been doing the priest epic so far, and while the starter is “find 3 caves in 3 old overland zones”, many of the followup quest steps are actually logical…if you are very knowledgable about the game.

      I need a great gemcutter…if I’ve done the white dragonscale epic (and remember it from years ago), I know one. I need very pure water…I can get that from a glacier, so Everfrost, Frostfang or Velious. Oops, someone killed my gemcutter…but I know my character can interact with the recently deceased as if they were living, and he’d ended up exactly where I’d look for him.

      It’s very hard, but not completely random.

  6. A few phrases and quotes I’ve been seeing (and saying) lately: “Tedium does not equal challenge” and “A riddle is easy to solve if you start with the answer”.

    I think people wouldn’t be so drained already if the trips to the past (1) fit the storyline in a way that seemed less like “kill some time by yourself over there for a while”, and (2) the hints and lore involved were less opaque so we could actually reason them out (as you said, they often make sense only in hindsight, and sometimes not even then). Maybe it will all make sense in the end, but right now, each required grind in the past burns a bit more goodwill.

    We’ll do it. Some now, some later, but folks will slog through it. But it’s already taking a toll. Folks didn’t expect this to be easy, but they didn’t expect to be spending so much time in past expansions, to the detriment of their alts and their time in the current content.

  7. By sheer chance I actually have most of the Fighter reqs completed on my Berserker but it doesn’t in the slightest encourage me to start the Epic. I never did the first Epic or the Mythical. I was playing EQ when the original Epics appeared and I never did those either. Even though it doesn’t affect me directly, though, I do find this an odd way to go for the game for exactly the reasons you outline..

    On the other hand, this expansion has inspired me to go back and do loads of older content I’ve missed or was too busy doing other things to do the first time round. I find I enjoy it MUCH more now I can follow a walkthrough and one-shot through it as a Level 100 than I ever did when I would have had to when I needed to play through it properly. I feel motivated to play in a way I haven’t for the previous two expansions, where I completed the Signature Line and then went back to playing other MMOs.

    I’m guessing that’s not how most players feel, though. EQ2 almost certainly will never attract any significant number of new players. It has to rely on keeping the core who already play and attracting back people who used to play in the past. As amply outlined above, the 2.0 requirements seem unlikely to do that.

    As you say, the game is 12 years old. And it has a much reduced team working on it. As players we probably need to revise our expectations accordingly but also as developers the team probably needs to consider what they can do that people would also like them to do.

    It is worth mentioning, though, that MMOs in general seem to be moving away from encouraging Alts or the playing of multiple characters of late. Similar issues have arisen in WoW and FFXIV in relation to their recent expansions. I hope its just a phase the genre is going through.

    1. FFXIV has made it super easy as far as alts go. I left Eq2 over Epics and the rune issues and have went back to ffxiv. POTD makes alts easy, Following the ques-tline gets you to 60 (or there about) your given gear that is good enough to do the quest duties. Party finder works, and its pretty fast.

      Using POTD to level gets you 2-3 levels before 20 and around one level per 10 floors untill 30 (ish) floors 1-10 take 7 mins in a speed run. After 40 its 2-3 runs of 1-10 to level.

      But it’s doable. I like to grind, love it in fact, but eq2 and the many layers of grind are just to much now. To many grind choices, between deity points, items, epic… I just stopped logging in. I think if ascension xp were not capped I would have stayed, that was the nail in the coffin for me and my alts.

    2. Hey Bhagpuss, We have had similar discussions on your blog, but I disagree with the “revising our expectations” part of your comment. The size of their team was a business decision on their end. We continually are given less content, smaller expansions at the same price. Where should we say enough? This entire post by Feldon is just the devs way of using older content to hide how little new content there is.

      1. this is normal for all things, have you noticed less cereal in the box for same price, or used to get 6 sausages in a package and now there are 5 for the same price. Its used everywhere

  8. I think one thing people don’t think about is that this is Ever quest! Questing and community are what the game is built on to begin with and not based on end game raids and gear alone. The past few years it has been possible for raid geared tools to just bypass the questing and go right into running instances and doing the dailies for instances in order to get better gear and raid asap. The game is supposed to be about the quests, lore, and community. I’m happy with the newest expansion, even though I have yet to do much adventuring with my 23 alts. I am a casual player and decorator, but I live how the community has come together. There is much less trolling in general chat and people are actually helping each other.

    1. People know its everquest, Many don’t mind questing and have done many of the quests before. Just not on the same characters, many of us have had to switch mains and do not see the need to run through 400+ quests again on our mains.

      Time invested at this point with such a small dev team just may not seem worth it.

      The only community portion of this quest really was finding the pieces, then your sent off alone into obscurity to grind out factions or old questlines alone.

  9. In the beginning of KA, i was really amazed, it looked like a very nice addon with many instances and raid encounters, but this quest . . .

    Most has been said by my previous speakers, so i will not repeat it in a detailled way. It is boredom and waste of time which is required here, not skill and powerful characters.

    This epic-fail-quest is one big part of the reason for me to cancel this game. A few more weeks to allow my force to find a replacement and thats it. For those remaining, i hope that the devs / decision makers will find some motivation and interest for EQ2 again.

  11. Hello,
    first the Epic quest were introduced in 2008 and i believed that 32 designer were involved. I thought Gnobrin did the design for the Epic 2.0 ?
    The alarming part of the new Epic is that they are considered “optional”, remember they are the selling point of this expansion besides the Ascension class.

    1. Fixed the 2008. The “18 designers” is a quote. All the devs are working on Epic 2.0, but the primary quests I think were written by Kander and Kaitheel. Happy to post corrections.

    2. Good point. What else would there be to DO a little over 2 months into this xpac if not for the epic?

      There is so little actual content in KA; and most of the epic content has been grinding old content that we all could have done without buying the xpac. SO long alts, so long new and returning player, so long main changes…
      Huge disappointment, and a terrible waste of time and money. If on the end epic 2 reward would be a full refund of the KA purchase price….

  12. I am playing my original character from 2004 and still haven’t done all the requirements. Many factions were irrelevant when new and it takes forever to grind it out now. This is not fun. We need a new bauble that lets you get credit for the whole account if you did the old quest lines and faction back when it was new. I see no need to repeat old content over and over and over and over.

    1. At the very least, I’m hoping that once a toon has completed the epic, they will be able to buy heirloom faction tokens. Make them 100p for +10k faction, one for each individual group needed (so you’d have to buy a lot of tokens to get full faction for each group), at least do something to mitigate the mindless repetition.

    2. Call me overly optimistic but I do think they’ll do something for alts….eventually. So far I’ve only done the priest epic (as far as ascension grrrr, will allow – serves me right for not picking up scrolls daily even though I’ve probably logged on daily). I totally agree about the factions point you’ve made though – some of them I didn’t bother with because there was nothing I wanted from them, it’s as simple as that. Also, for example the Greenmist HQ which I didn’t do ever on any character – for one, I’m a goodie so why would I help Fear, and two, I couldn’t use that weapon anyway – now I’ve had to catch up with doing it like 10 times so far and that wasn’t fun at all (though thanks for the pretty house item – I guess there’s always a bright side). Anyway, I hold out hope for my alt army – and failing that, as someone else has already said, housing is coming to ESO and it looks pretty nice.

  13. I’m lucky that my main had been my main since he was started as an alt back in 2005. So I’ve done just about all the content in the game on him.

    I sure as hell won’t be running an alt through this expansion any time soon though.

  14. Other than crafting…my alts will never see the inside of another heroic zone nor be a viable raid alt again. I simply do not have the time to grind out all this old content on more than 1 toon. This saddens me because I did enjoy playing my alts from time to time and as a raider always kept a 2nd toon raid ready for nights when we were short or needed an extra healer. The other thing I dislike is the amount of forced solo (doing old content) and TIME needed to complete this old content has taken players away from grouping. Of course 6 hour lockouts has hurt heroics groupage too but not nearly as bad as the amount of time every single toon needs to spend working on old greyed out content that doesn’t require a group. I’m finding myself quickly thinking/doing other things in R/L with all this time that is more enjoyable just so I don’t have to log in to do that old content. This is the 1st time since game launch that I have seriously thought of quitting.

  15. I very much doubt I will do Epic 2. Not because of the “grind”, I really don’t mind working for a reward, I did do epic 1 on my main back in the day. I just don’t think i want to invest so much time into one character on EQ2 anymore. I play most days, but I like to play alts (14 of them), depending on my mood this can change day to day. I play for fun, and I find EQ2 is still fun after all these years, but the fun comes from playing casually.

  16. quite frankly what will get me to quit this game more than prereqs are the #%^^%#% constant stream of. game server wide mesages.. ‘the world of norath stands still,as monkeyboy takes control of the uber sword of lameness’ or other such unnecessary announcements that nobody cares about.

  17. This process was fun…at first. Then irritating. Then frustrating. Then…

    I don’t even know if I’m going to bother finishing phase two on my defiler.

    I have enough else going on I don’t need this.

  18. I’m (mostly) enjoying it. At time I get frustrated, definitely. When that happens I change gears and work on a different toon or help others with their epics or just run zones. Then I come back to the epic. I have talked to more people I didn’t know before doing epic 2.0 then I did in all of ToT. I think it is great the way a chunk of the community has pulled together to figure things out and help people out. Sure, there a few bad apples and sour grapes, but that happens with any large group of people.

  19. Yes the Prereq’s are getting a bit out of hand imo….and while feldon touched upon this somewhat the concern is few if any will intentionally do this questline on any alt….while my main has most but not all of the prereq’s done few if any alts do and considering the shear weight of whats being asked of us now…due to the population drop many of us play alts both group and raid as needed….this will not improve the situation only make it worse.

    And I agree the intentional nerfing of items such as greenmist/ethereal secondary just to make new epics appear epic is a shell game

  20. As a casual alt-a-holic, I do like that Epic is EPIC. I’ve always thought it was great that EQ2 announced the progress of guilds and Epic weapon achievements. Recognition for those achievements are still valid.

    It would be nice though if you’ve done the work on one, you could bypass, the more grindy parts on alts, either with a heirloom purchase or reduction of effort needed. EQ2 has always been an alt friendly game. WoW has gone down that road of making it less alt-friendly (much like SWTOR and TSW) with the grinds needed for certain ‘end-game’ items.

    I’m a quester and I enjoy questing, but I don’t like repetitive grinds particularly, repeating quests okay, but repeating it 20x to get rep gets old especially on multiple characters.

  21. Since I never did my Epic 1.0 until just before KA came out, I’m in no hurry for the Epic 2.0. With my play style, I simply don’t *need* it. I’ve actually been going through my quest journal and completing things that have sat there for years LOL. I have enjoyed the expansion though.

    Since all my alts are crafters primarily, it wasn’t that much effort to run them all through the KA crafting sig line. I did that before I started the adventure stuff on my main. I only have my one main for adventuring purposes because I hate doing stuff I have already done. I don’t mind the crafting quests because each one is increasing the skills that will help my main as well.

  22. With the way the Top End guilds have ripped through the current raid content, the devs had to figure out a way to keep those players around, therefore Tithe, Summer Ethereal Event etc. Now Epic2.0 will keep them around, and with the Ascension blockage, it keeps them playing even longer, especially with the scrolls and having to log in everyday to get them.

    It is a smart way to keep the grinding going, .

  23. I am doing the backlog of quests that were not required or even needed for my main which is now a wizard. The toons I originally did the work on are long since retired and I must say I have done repeatables until my hands are cramping. I don’t find many of the stuff relevant or even fun. I do it because this is my main and I won’t be able to raid if I don’t get the stuff needed. The game has reached a point that you either have a ton of time to do old content that no one cares about, or you are relegated to meritocracy. I will finish everything on my main, but when people are screaming in channel for this class that I no longer feel any desire to play due to the shear time it would take to get them ready, well all I can say is, now you know why groups are so hard to fill.

  24. I left the game over this. Too many years swapping between raid mains. Not one of them has all the prereqs and my current one has none, yet has all my time in tithe investment. I’ll be back one day, just not sure when.

  25. Repeatables suck. Period. I’ve been playing since beta and have run nearly all of the content on my main toon. That toon has 400+ days played (actually played), 3500+ quests completed and almost 100k items crafted. The two things that I have hated most over the years was the writ grind to level 100 crafting and running repeatables to earn faction.

    I enjoy running quest series having done almost all of the HQs, SQs and tradeskill questlines. But to sit there and make us run the same quest repeatedly because there are no alternatives shows a complete lack of creativity. If you want us to spend more time to achieve a goal, don’t be lazy and make us run the same quest over and over.

    To me, the 70+ repetition requirement on the mage series is moronic. There are so many other ways that you can have us spend time. On the other hand, hearing folks complaining about running old content that they have never run before seems to be as lazy as choosing to use repeatables. If you want us to spend time to earn the goal, fine. Just have us doing something fun, not the same thing over and over.

      1. Well, I guess they don’t want to hear negative feedback, then?

        They kinda screwed things up. It’s a shame. But the blame is on them, not on you… If EQ2 loose subscribers, it is their fault.

        Personally, I came back last September after a 2 years hiatus (was playing since vanilla beta). I enjoyed the beginning of KA. But now, 2 months after release, I think I will go on hiatus again. And not because of Feldon 🙂 . Because EQ2 is the game I enjoyed no more. It’s sad.

      2. What a crock of shit. Their decision making stirs people up, gets people angry, and creates drama causing EQ2 to lose subscribers.

        I grinded the epic 2.0 from sun up to sun down for a week. Now I launch the patcher and can’t force myself to click the PLAY button. I just don’t want to play EQ2 right now. That’s the outcome of their decision making, not yours Feldon.

      3. Oof, that really sucks to hear that.

        I know it can’t be easy to hear people unhappy about something you put a lot of time into, but there are definitely some commonalities in all of the grumbles and complaints that should be heard and taken into consideration. Even with the “people are meaner on the internet” filter, there is still very good information from very passionate players.

        Daybreak are doing themselves (and the players) a disservice by dismissing the feedback and alienating the people who try to present the community concerns in a cohesive, factual way.

      4. Having met most of the dev team at events, I couldn’t imagine one of them saying that to you. But there are other folks who I could easily imagine saying that. And for the life of me, I still don’t know why they continue to be employed there.

        I believe the folks that matter know that you do a great job, Feldon. I also believe that they have seen this. And although I doubt they will change any of the epic 2.0 content, I hope they will take it to heart as they design content in the future.

      5. The players know what is fun or not fun as well as what works and what doesn’t. All you did was echo what we were already thinking. They don’t give their player base enough credit for intelligent and independent thought and that is a big part of their problem. Love all you do for the EQ2 community Feldon!

  27. The Epic 2.0 quest should be long and tedious and something you truly have to earn much like the original Epic weapon quests and the mythical quests once were. It’s funny to me how so many people have been complaining that EQ was too easy (and MMO’s in general) are now complaining that EQ2 is too hard.

    I will say that I personally that I do feel the EQ2 dev team has launched a “war on alts”. Now, this is a result of YEARS of content that made it possible to level, gear and maintain alts and now suddenly over the past 2 expansions it’s like a wall was built to keep you from having multiple characters. As a person who has always enjoyed EQ2 having multiple characters across multiple accounts, I seem to be playing the game less and less and spending less and less money on the game because I’ve played the game the same way off and on for over 12 years now and that’s being taken away from me. This isn’t to say I do not embrace change but it’s hard for me to find new ways of having fun in EQ2 when I’ve been playing the game pretty much the same way for over a decade. Now, that’s being taken away from me.

    Of course, these are just my personal opinions and feelings on the game. Of course, several thousands of people play and enjoy EQ2 in their own way and I always encourage people to spend their time and money on what they enjoy.

    1. Rock climbing = difficult.
      Putting a widget into a receptacle 800 times a day on an assembly line = tedious.

      Epic 1.0 was not tedious for me. It was current content, and the hardest part about it, which took months and months for me, was getting the heroic kills which were some of the most challenging heroic kills in the game at the time. In fact it was a refreshing respite from the awfulness of the 400 linked quests that dominated Kunark solo content. Tedium and difficulty will never be the same thing no matter how much people try to equate the two.

      1. I guess it really depended on what class you were playing at the time. Faction grinding, even if it is current content is tedious. I did the epic quest for two classes during Kunark – Assassin and Necromancer. Assassin took forever because of the faction grind and all the kills you had to do. Necromancer was a lot easier.

  28. Disclaimer: I have not played nor even purchased Kunark Ascending or Terrors of Thalumbra (took a 2 year break, will purchase them soon).

    I love that the new epics are tied into older content. I would run older content for fun, just to experience the story. Faction grinding is where it starts to hurt. I would be ok with grinding out a few factions (yes, grinding) on one character. Grinding factions on multiple characters is simply tedious. The rest of the prerequisites are scattered, so I’m not repeating too much by playing a Paladin and a Ranger. I would fully support an heirloom bauble that was factions-specific (i.e. main finishes grinding Thurgadin faction, buys a bauble for alt, alt is now allied with Thurgadin). Aren’t there some items like that already? They should expand that to cover all major factions (particuarly those with faction merchants).

    As for the logic puzzles and clues, they don’t seem anymore vague or confusing than the original epics. The Paladin Epic 1.0 starts with “help an oppressed person in a dark place” and the text doesn’t change until you complete the subquest. It was by luck that I found the froglok in Sebilis. Another was “look for a sign of Marr in a dark place”. That is neither puzzle nor logic. The riddles in the Fighter Epic 2.0 can at least be solved with lore.

  29. Uhhgg, I hate to say it but I am a whiner! I have alts, I don’t play them anymore. They are typically toons I played for a stint in the past then moved on. I now play one toon and it is hopefully my last. I came back to the game after a 2 year break at the beginning of last summer. I played a lot of catch up, only to run into this debacle, as I like to call it, for the epic 2.0. So the last couple of weeks I was ready to throw in the towel and just say screw it I’m going back to my shooters or anything but this. Then it hit me. I only play one toon now, and I created him durring DOV for raiding only. So I had never done old content and he was my only true mage. So now I have decided I will do the Epic 2.0 on him. And once I’m done, I am going back to do every quest in game humanly possible for this toon. For some stupid reason I have allowed myself once again to be dooped into going full blast again. Only if I find myself not interested again, I highly doubt I will ever return again. So for now, it’s back to the grindstone!

  30. Actually I don’t mind doing old quests and timelines, even if it takes hours to complete them. But doing the same repeatable quest 80+ times like for the mage ad heal (6-8 hours) does not gives me any sens of accomplishment or fun. It only leaves me we the feeling of having waste my time.

    They recently gave us a free level 100 character I really wonder why.

  31. I agree with the majority. It’s not the past content quests that are the problem, it is the repeatable faction grind. I’d rather have had them say “you have to do every single quest in the game once” than to get 50K of any faction that you earn 1-2K at a time.

    Then again, the entire Ascension system is nothing but a grind as well, so Epic 2.0 is a way to get axp.

  32. I left the game over this expansion. I have main changed numerous times over the years, some for raids, some for personal preference, and not a single toon is in a good place to start. The characters I made in 2004 are long gone, but most of my current stable of 100s were created in the 2006-2008 timeframe.

    Most annoyingly, the most behind one is my assassin who was my main, and who I did hours and weeks of grinding in ToT with to get my runes (and the cloak, and the duck hat, etc etc). My brigand is in a good place to start, quest-wise, but is a low level crafter, and I loathe crafting.

    To add to that the fact that you pretty much have to sub to be remotely viable at 100, and it’s just too much like work. That I’m paying someone to let me do. There are too many games out there now that are less restrictive. I don’t mind paying a sub, but the fun factor has to be there. Dailys are not fun.

  33. It feels like the quest lines were built to take up the bulk of the expansion as a way to keep players engaged. The top ten guilds have already cleared a good percentage of the raid content and with out the epics I imagine players with a focus on end-game would be getting bored already.

    My concern is that once we finally get these epic weapons after having spent so much time on them: how soon will they just be made obsolete?

    To the point of this commentary – the main thing the prerequisite barrier is doing is killing motivation for players to create alts. I switched to Monk this expac and feel completely demotivated to work on all of my characters.

    1. It should be in your Faydwer or Shattered Lands tabs. They are a sort of hidden lore gem… finding them is and raising their faction is supposed to be difficult… you almost have to seek them out. Start with the quest Mysterious Mark. The reward for getting faction with them previously was primarily title, housing items and what is essentially appearance gear. Until Epic 2.0 they were just an interesting find to follow up or not as you saw fit.

  35. That is a complete pile of crock whoever in DBG complained to you (Feldon) of shit stirring. You’re obviously one of the most dedicated EQ2 players out there, why else run a fan site and do all this additional “work”.

    All you’re doing is documenting what plenty of people think.

    I’ve got a plethora of characters over multiple accounts. My original and main has a decent number of quests done, but most of my others haven’t even got epic 1.0 done. I just PLed them to whatever the cap was at the time, did ER (a few have epic 1 before ER could be done independently) and away I went, doing the solo content of the latest xpac if needed and then into heroics.

    I’ve not started thinking about epic 2.0 and I’m disappointed I can’t offer more options in groups than just my main…as I definitely can’t be bothered doing every pre req multiple times. I may even just quit, as it’s not my idwa of fun.

  36. Feldon,

    Thank you for a clear and concise prerequisite list.

    Thank you for your hard work and excellent commentary. You see a problem, approach the problem and then discuss it in a neutral way. Personally, I would not be able to discuss it without my emotions overriding my clarity.

    I do agree KA is the alt killer, I had 40 toons on one account, I am down to currently playing one. I don’t like the alt killing at all.

    To the rat bastard saying Feldon is causing problems, either man up or *censored*

    Keep up the amazing work Feldon with your concise commentary.

  37. Originally posted by Regolas:

    That is a complete pile of crock whoever in DBG complained to you (Feldon) of shit stirring.

    Originally posted by Moose:

    To the rat bastard saying Feldon is causing problems, either man up or *censored*.

    Likely all one and the same.

    It’s an April 1st article, but those are actual facts.
    http://www.cracked.com/article_17215_the-7-most-idiotic-corporate-temper-tantrums.html

    Looking at the past Daybreak Game forum posts of So-Called Players, I smell dirty socks with hands inside. The truth must be burning the Grima Wormtongue in the building.

    The article opener is the real treasure. It was true then, was true before, and is true now:

    If you run a company, it’s inevitable you’re going to get criticized. But you don’t care, you’ve got your successful business, power and millions of dollars. You can just let those angry words roll right off you. Right?

    Well, you could do that, or you could throw a tantrum like an angry toddler.

    Well, Daybreak Games is two or so years old; toddler.

    Originally posted by Feldon:

    and create drama to cause EQ2 to lose subscribers.

    Or maybe I’m smelling desperation. Two ‘rags’ (not worth the links) estimated the purchase price of then SOE at $100 million or $200 million. Maybe they were right.

    Interesting link from a forum post. The article writer has bad background intel, but the numbers …

    http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/revenue-financial.daybreak_game_company_llc.b09df3fc383facb0.html

    “Revenue $93.43 (Estimated)”
    “Credit Rating Low”

    IF all those numbers are in the ballpark, Columbus Nova Has Not recouped their investment. Investment Bankers, in general, are not long term investors.

    Let’s see which way DBG leans in the Summer release/revision.

    /*

    “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
    Dwight D. Eisenhower

  38. A quest is a quest is a quest. If it were the exact same quest replaced with mobs in the same old end-game dungeons that you are about to run a million times any way, no one would be complaining. But OMG you have to go to old content if you didn’t do that part already. (Which would be new content for people who joined the game after that quest reward was no longer a “needed” item.)
    Have a cow man.

    Every one has to complain about something, I guess. XD

    1. Epic 1.0 required current content and some of the most difficult heroic kills in the game. It was challenging and required teamwork.
      Epic 2.0 requires 300 or more grey quests. That is not challenge. That is tedium.

      Everyone has a RIGHT to complain.

      2. Still just a quest.
        I didn’t say they don’t have a right to complain. It’s a free country. They can pierce their nipples and flash the pope if they want.
        It’s a game. it’s Pixels. Hit boxes and RNG. Of course, I’m not one of the sheep that herd to the end game and never touch any thing else, so I guess I don’t find grey content as offensive as the rest. /shrug
        I just play to enjoy the whole game, not boost my ego with dome digital numbers and icons. Hell, I just chronoed down and did an instance from vanilla EQ2. XD I also betrayed a few toons and did the bone bladed claymore back when you needed 500 gnolls for one, 1000 sentient beings for the other. 300 grey mobs would be a breeze compared to that.

        If you want to point out tedium, did you do the crafting weeklies in Vesper Islands? Some non-crafting people were complaining that craters got the runes to easily… so the “fix” was to make the weekly take 20 minutes to craft (unless you had potions, but it still took about 8 minutes of staring at the crafting window and matching icons occasionally). Yah, someone had the right to complain then too.

  39. 2 cents. This 2.0 quest prerequisites SUCK. It wouldn’t be so bad on my old main as he did all the old quests but that toon is retired and this one did not do much by way of the old content. I have been doing repeatables till my eyes bleed. NOT FUN! I have been playing since day 1 and this expansion while it has some good stuff has taken the “Epic” out of the mix and made us do the “TEDIUM 1.0” lol

  40. > With the vague dialogue and inscrutable clues that only make sense in hindsight

    This is a big problem I have with the game in general right now. Both TOT and KA are like this. They decided to remove all of the POI regions which is fine, but the quest dialogue isn’t clear and often times leaves me confused as to where I’m supposed to go. It has to be one way or the other, either clearly tell me where I’m supposed to go and what I’m supposed to do, or just put it on the map.

  41. Played Everquest Q II at release in 2004, but stopped after a few months.
    I think it was because SOE started to charge money for new instances (not expansion)

    Restarted EQ II 3 weeks ago, subbed, bought mercenary and collectors edition of new expansion (even if i don’t need it for a long time) and are having a blast in levling my old character from 2004.

    I stumbled upon this article and was blown away by how much stuff you have to do to just get your epic I, and the crazy amount of stuff you have to do to get the 2.0.

    I will probably never be able to get the 2.0, and maybe not even 1.0
    Will that make me quit again?

    Nah, so far i have so much stuff to do that i will not run out of content in a long time after returning after 12 years.
    Questing, levling, crafting, getting house decorated, getting house items, learning languages, getting archievements, doing daylies, etc etc.

    As said i will probably never be able to get epic 2.0 or 1.0 but for now it’s one of the best games i restarted in 😀
    So Epic 2.0 should not scare away new players to start in EQ II.
    There is tons of stuff to do for new or returning players before they even have to worry about their Epic weapons.

  42. All I can say is that as long as the prize is worth it, and someone can accomplish it despite how grueling it is or may be, let it be. Your choice to not do it because said person QQs about it.

  43. EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Landmark all suffered from the same bad decisions, reasoning, and executive producer for years.

    Complain all you want, but the person at the top is untouchable and she has no qualms of destroying player loyalty or the entirety of the EverQuest franchise to make a profit for the company.

    Until a miracle happens and she’s replaced by someone who actually plays the game(s), understands, listens, and sympathizes with the players, it’s all destined to the slaughterhouse sooner rather than later.

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