Miragul's Planar Shard: Zone Feel

[Reahov]

<p>Please express your thoughts on the art, sound, population (distribution of mobs, pathing), and progression (puzzles, pacing) of the zone.</p>

[Homeskillet]

<p>Initial thoughts. Are there Lore reasons, buildup-support etc as to why perhaps one of the most powerful mages in the history of Norrath has circumvented his own blunders of Lichdom and is somehow back on Norrath? How will this impact things? Are other powers taking notice?</p><p>Or is this just a tossed in x4 raid zone?</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>The question on everyone's mind is, are the encounters defaulted to Normal mode, or Hard mode?</p>

[Homeskillet]

<p>From what I can tell, hard mode. It is accessed via the zone in for the TSO Miragul instances, and just gives one option. Inside you can purchase the items that affect it.</p>

[FimisOrbe]

<p>It's not on "Hard" mode set by default. Atleast not in the current form on Test. More like normal.</p>

[Patherpanchali]

<p>The zone is setup to be doable by most raiding groups, with some experience in fighting previous raids.  Only two of the zone denizens offer additional challenges for who are looking for a harder fight (with greater rewards).  The merchant items were placed there temporarily to make some of the entry mobs, who are already fairly straightforward, even easier.  The way these items will actually appear in game is still being worked out.  I just wanted to get the items in so that they could be tested.  The two mobs that offer greater challenge, for those seeking it, are Haladan and Miragul himself.  None of the other mobs are designed to be any harder than the mid-level mobs you find in Tomb of the Mad Crusader.  You may have to learn them, and they won't appear as easy at first, but once learned they should not prove much harder than the Naga or Xebnok in ToMC.</p>

[betatester7]

<p><cite>Homeskillet wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Initial thoughts. Are there Lore reasons, buildup-support etc as to why perhaps one of the most powerful mages in the history of Norrath has circumvented his own blunders of Lichdom and is somehow back on Norrath? How will this impact things? Are other powers taking notice?</p><p>Or is this just a tossed in x4 raid zone?</p></blockquote><p>Like the Dragon Vampire Zarrakon we don't know the lore reasons, but people just kill him for loot, I think this will be the same, just another zone for bored rairders who need more loot and less lore.</p><p>But it would be nice if we get lore for Zarrakon and for Miragul's Planar!</p><p>any thoughts about this lore-guy-who-lives-in-a-cage?</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>Yes. Please throw us a bone here, and establish the REASON why this zone exists in Norrath.</p><p>Not why it exists in Everquest 2. Why it exists in Norrath.</p>

[Morghus]

<p>Yes, more story and coherent lore in general is always good! Please let us not repeat the whole "oh hey, I'm a random Sarnak janitor who did not exist in Veeshan's Peak in the original game...but I can grant you access and teleport you to Trakanon's lair...and the King of the Ring will be no wiser as to why you are there!." Now we are invading Miragul's planar shard which as far as I know was supposed to have been unreachable.</p>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>betatester7 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Homeskillet wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Initial thoughts. Are there Lore reasons, buildup-support etc as to why perhaps one of the most powerful mages in the history of Norrath has circumvented his own blunders of Lichdom and is somehow back on Norrath? How will this impact things? Are other powers taking notice?</p><p>Or is this just a tossed in x4 raid zone?</p></blockquote><p>Like the Dragon Vampire Zarrakon we don't know the lore reasons, but people just kill him for loot, I think this will be the same, just another zone for bored rairders who need more loot and less lore.</p><p>But it would be nice if we get lore for Zarrakon and for Miragul's Planar!</p><p>any thoughts about this lore-guy-who-lives-in-a-cage?</p></blockquote><p>Yup, I have a big huge rant on the lack of explanations/lore and what I see as wasted characters in the history section though I think most people have simply lost interest in arguing any of the points brought up as not much will likely change even if our new lore guy reads it.</p>

[Cal]

<p>Not saying that they shouldn't have lore, but sometimes it's ok to have a mob you just kill because. Doesn't have to be some great big reason, Many a dragonslayer did it just for the Loot!</p>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>Calse wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not saying that they shouldn't have lore, but sometimes it's ok to have a mob you just kill because. Doesn't have to be some great big reason, Many a dragonslayer did it just for the Loot!</p></blockquote><p>Yes, but there is no excuse when we are dealing with a character that is established in the lore as opposed to a character designed simply as a fill-in raid/heroic encounter. Many of the dragons in-game for example have established personalities/history and motives that are largely ignored.</p><p>The writing as of late just makes our characters "play dumb". Look to the darkmail gauntlets for an example. You spend the entire second half of the quest killing off high ranking members of the order you are trying to be a part of without even questioning it. Sure you kill the betrayer who sent you to do it but you overall just make a mess of things.</p>

[MadBarman]

<p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Calse wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not saying that they shouldn't have lore, but sometimes it's ok to have a mob you just kill because. Doesn't have to be some great big reason, Many a dragonslayer did it just for the Loot!</p></blockquote><p>Yes, but there is no excuse when we are dealing with a character that is established in the lore as opposed to a character designed simply as a fill-in raid/heroic encounter. Many of the dragons in-game for example have established personalities/history and motives that are largely ignored.</p><p>The writing as of late just makes our characters "play dumb". Look to the darkmail gauntlets for an example. You spend the entire second half of the quest killing off high ranking members of the order you are trying to be a part of without even questioning it. Sure you kill the betrayer who sent you to do it but you overall just make a mess of things.</p></blockquote><p>A lot of the darkmail gauntlet story is just taken from Oblivion assassin guilds story line anyway <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Homeskillet]

<p><cite>Calse wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not saying that they shouldn't have lore, but sometimes it's ok to have a mob you just kill because. Doesn't have to be some great big reason, Many a dragonslayer did it just for the Loot!</p></blockquote><p>Yes I can understand this, but even mobs like King Zalak in Commonlands back in T5 had at least a snippet of Lore to be like "This is who this guy is"</p><p>Now, Miragul is a famous EQ1 character, still leaves his mark in EQ2, is one of the most powerful and influential mages in history next to Varsoon, Al'Kabor etc...and they just toss in a raid zone? Is this just another manifestation of his mind and memories?</p><p>Even Zarrakon is another inexcusable toss in. Here is another world changing character with a long history in both games and he has a pet vampire dragon? [Removed for Content]?</p>

[Aera]

<p>Just want to add my voice to the crowd that wants some background and lore behind this addition.  I'm sure we 'll get it when we get closer to September (when the next GU will probably be?), but for now please give us at least a little bit.</p><p>Has anyone discovered any lore tidbits or dialogue in the zone itself yet?</p>

[revren]

<p><cite>Calse wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not saying that they shouldn't have lore, but sometimes it's ok to have a mob you just kill because. Doesn't have to be some great big reason, Many a dragonslayer did it just for the Loot!</p></blockquote><p>[Removed for Content] I agree w/ Calse /hides</p><p>--rev</p>

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

<p>It happens a lot, though, as a result of reduced dev time. I think they moved the lore guy somewhere else and never really replaced him? The current exclamation-mark happy writer doesn't seem top-of-the-barrel stuff ("I must kill 20 drakes! I must kill 10 drakes! I must report back and tell random_NPC I have killed the drakes! Oh my!").</p><p>The original game did things very well, especially for example the original Varsoon. For about 20 levels there was a gradual progression in quests pointing you towards RoV, and inside RoV itself there were books and lore that not only gave background, but also tips on how to beat him, even if they weren't *great* tips (society of varsoon research notes).</p><p>If you fast forward to ward of elements, there's some lore there, and an NPC that gives tips on how to beat each named, which is a good addition for casual raiders. I'd really like to see this integrated more into the instances and solo content though; for example if book quests gave books with information similar to the below;</p><p>"...our advance party were scouting ahead, when a great shadow descended upon us. Barely managing to make it to cover, we hid, terrified, as the General of the Ring of Scale himself advanced upon our comrades. As they scattered, his tail lashed not behind him, but infront, cutting a swathe through their ranks..."</p><p>This conveys the simple information (Trakanon's tail lash is frontal), in a more immersive way then the press-release 'how the Trakanon fight works v1.0' that was circulated accidentally or otherwise to most guilds. It also serves the double purpose of making heroic content rather more meaningful and linked to high end raiding, and lets raiders work on and learn strategies outside of raid time. It moves away from the zerg-wipe-read ACT-repeat-read forums approach to beating encounters and towards exploring the game and lore.</p><p>I'd feel personally the significant time recently put into cutscenes would be better spent on a greater and deeper volume of written data and lore-based quests, but I can only guess they're working off some feedback that modern gamers want a more obvious and cinematic experience.</p>

[Reiella]

<p><cite>There@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Just want to add my voice to the crowd that wants some background and lore behind this addition.  I'm sure we 'll get it when we get closer to September (when the next GU will probably be?), but for now please give us at least a little bit.</p><p>Has anyone discovered any lore tidbits or dialogue in the zone itself yet?</p></blockquote><p>Just curious if I'm intentionally seeing stuff that isn't there already, but doesn't the live lore around the Eternal Prism kinda also explain what's going on?</p>

[Barx]

<p>Miragul is far too big a target and far too much in the Lore to not have at least a little lore in this zone, I hope. Or if not in the zone itself, released with the zone.</p>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Miragul is far too big a target and far too much in the Lore to not have at least a little lore in this zone, I hope. Or if not in the zone itself, released with the zone.</p></blockquote><p>A hopeless endeavor I fear, that type of injustice has already been done to a lot of characters who have deep roots within the lore. Trakanon, Opal Darkbriar, Byzola, Venril, Selrach Di'zok, Wuoshi, they all have very little to no lore in relation to how they reach their current situation in some cases, and others have nothing mentioned after the fact let alone why that we kill them.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>*Walks into the topic wearing a "Marauder of Miragul's Shard" suffix title*</p><p>The zone is just as I had feared. There is no rhyme or reason for it's existance on Norrath. No backstory, no setup. No lore.</p><p>That gnome at the zone in who sells that item that supposedly makes the zone easeier (haven't figured out what it does yet, but you gotta keep reclicking it) says that his master is quite interested in seeing our progress. I guess that's about as much Lore as we're gonna get.</p><p>The zone itself is Crucible. Nothing changed. It's Crucible in every way. There are amygdalans named Planar Warriors patrolling around. Off in the Library were a couple of named mobs who seemed hellbent on guarding the information they had gathered. Nothing was revealed when we killed them.</p><p>Over in the snow room, there's a Barbarian named Haladain Moonsweeper or something like that. His title is "Mythic Tundra Hero", but his name wasn't familiar from Norrath's history. He had a mammoth named Tuskers.</p><p>He didn't say anything except clues on how to defeat his encounter. If you attack his dogs first, he attacks with you, so you gotta attack him so he sends his dogs after you first.</p><p>That was as far as the raid force got.</p>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>*Walks into the topic wearing a "Marauder of Miragul's Shard" suffix title*</p><p>The zone is just as I had feared. There is no rhyme or reason for it's existance on Norrath. No backstory, no setup. No lore.</p><p>That gnome at the zone in who sells that item that supposedly makes the zone easeier (haven't figured out what it does yet, but you gotta keep reclicking it) says that his master is quite interested in seeing our progress. I guess that's about as much Lore as we're gonna get.</p><p>The zone itself is Crucible. Nothing changed. It's Crucible in every way. There are amygdalans named Planar Warriors patrolling around. Off in the Library were a couple of named mobs who seemed hellbent on guarding the information they had gathered. Nothing was revealed when we killed them.</p><p>Over in the snow room, there's a Barbarian named Haladain Moonsweeper or something like that. His title is "Mythic Tundra Hero", but his name wasn't familiar from Norrath's history. He had a mammoth named Tuskers.</p><p>He didn't say anything except clues on how to defeat his encounter. If you attack his dogs first, he attacks with you, so you gotta attack him so he sends his dogs after you first.</p><p>That was as far as the raid force got.</p></blockquote><p>Indeed, it is such a shame. I suppose even Miragul will go the way of the other characters I have mentioned in my history and lore thread...the way of characters that for one reason or another they seem to want to be rid of so they no longer have to write for or even acknowledge as having been part of the lore.</p><p>Such a sad, sad fate. It is much like if someone decided to continue the story of say the Lord of the Rings or really any other story with established lore and characters, and then deciding they want to get rid of as many of the lingering characters from the previous story as they can so that they no longer need to take them into account while introducing their own characters to somehow replace them.</p><p>At this rate, they may as well pronounce all the gods irrelevant, all the denizens of New Tunaria hopeless, all the dragons dead (even the ones we have yet to see as that is about the extent of their relevance anyways), etc...the only lore relevant characters they havent offed yet may as well be offed aside from Lucan/Antonia of course as they are the literal posterboy/girl of eq2 along with Mayong. Just watch, even Theer "The Godslayer" will be put away by players with little to no explanation.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>Did you not notice that someone we killed in the library of the shard tonight bore a very similar name to someone mentioned in the tome just recently uncovered based on the parchment from the Vaults of El'Arad......?</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>What was that guy's name we were fighting anyway? The guy in the book is Zal'Urid.</p>

[Lader]

<p>kelvin something or other i think.</p>

[Purrcey]

<p>Wrong forum</p>

[Hecula]

<p>The name of one of the security guards we killed was very similar to the name of a high-ranking member of the council of Paineel. It wasn't exactly the same but very close - perhaps a relative? I don't know how a high-ranking member of the council in Paineel could have been demoted to security detail so perhaps it's a daughter/niece/cousin?</p><p>(Dev: if it's supposed to be the same person, the names don't match - close but not an exact match - just FYI)</p>

[McBenzos]

<p>I think the real question everyone is thinking is, How long after this zone goes live will it take the casuals to complain enough to make Hard mode = easy mode and easy mode = even easier?</p>

[Hecula]

<p>The cries for dumbing down have already begun and it hasn't even hit live......</p>

[Tinthalas]

<p> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} span.genmed {mso-style-name:genmed;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <p >Having participated in the structured testing (the 30^th) thanks to <span ><a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=242375"><strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">Reahov</span></strong></a> my feedback is as follows:</span></p> <p ><span > </span></p> <p ><span >I pulled the first mob using my body doing so carefully so I thought only to come back with two mobs (not an encounter? I don’t think). One of the two was easier than the other. My first impression was why have the first pull suck? The named rooms took some figuring out and I refuse to give the reason why on the open forums but you understand what I mean… so why should the first pull on the trash suck? </span></p> <p ><span > </span></p> <p ><span >AE tanks will be happy to know the first named on the left is all theirs. As a guardian I felt basically useless and did my best to dps (ha). I would not call the encounter easy especially with his opening AE stun and the amount of damage received on the pull</span> (12k to 300hps in 1 shot). But overall the first named wasn’t horrible.</p> <p > </p> <p >The second named on the right with Tuskers was more fun to me because the trash was somewhat easier. I however thought Tuskers himself was a pain in the rear. Guardian’s AA abilities so they read basically state guaranteed agro for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, the spell should also read “Resisted 80% of the time”. Needless to say pulling Tuskers using *ALL* of the guardian AA special abilities as well as both my normal taunts still resulted in 1 healer and 1 dps dieing. This was funny to me because the dps could do no damage to tusk while the named was alive. The fact that as a guardian I had to duel wield, put on dps gear, and still had agro problems is not zone specific but it was especially frustrating on tusk because I couldn’t even try to dps him to gain the agro.</p> <p >Feel free to read: <a href="list.m?topic_id=452442">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=452442</a></p> <p > </p> <p >Trusks master as you already know is beyond painful. While I enjoy the added challenge and we did try him a few times, he will certainly not be a walk in the park. In fact I am assuming he will be the next great hurdle much like Xebnok is now for casual raiding guilds. Although, I would actually rate Tusk and his master as harder than Xebnok because the AE’s effect everyone.</p> <p > </p> <p >Having some trash mobs that dropped agro, much like the trash in Inner stronghold, to me felt like a repeat of something already annoying. I would much rather see the trash with a NEW spell. Change random people into a turkey or something – that to me would be fun and exciting.</p></p>

[Clowd]

<p>Zone look and feel.</p><p>Hm... I honestly wish I wasn't Crucible with raid mobs and new encounters.  Look and feel wise, I'm slightly disappointed as I was hoping for a new looking Miragul's instance.   The zone honestly feels too small for a raid zone, much too crowded for 24 people in my opinion.</p><p>Also, as mentioned before, Some lore on the place would be nice.</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<p>EQ2 is a game steeped in awesome stories and lore that I think hasnt been much of a focus over the last year+.  Tso while a good expansion didnt have the greatest story elements aside from a slightly confusing TSO questline. </p><p>Lore on the eq2players.com site is decent enough but players play for the stories for the most part... to feel as if they are PART of a story.  Please try to get more Lore elements into the game even if its a raid zone... it makes a difference.</p>