SOE, EQ2, and the NGE

[Ancalima]

A little backstory: I started playing Star Wars Galaxies as my first MMO a little bit before what was known as the Combat Upgrade (CU) to that game. At the time I began, I wasn't all too fond of it, I had a lot to learn, but it was an interesting experience. But the CU came quickly and changed a lot about the game, and for the most part I thought the changes were for the better. As a newbie, I got into my first guild a day or two after the CU, a brand new guild that was just starting. As I and the guild progressed, the game became more and more enjoyable for me. I had a lot of fun with the two expansion areas: space zones for Jump to Lightspeed, and Kashyyyk for Rage of the Wookiees. It seemed like there was a lot to do and I had fun people to do it all with. Then came the NGE. The game had changed significantly once again, only this time I was a veteran of the previous incarnation. I had grown to love the CU. SOE suddenly and unexpectedly gave their game a whole new concept without giving the CU much of a chance. No one foresaw the changes, and very few in my guild liked them. For most, it was the last straw: making two all encompassing, radical changes to the game was not a good sign. In a matter of weeks, the guild, full of casual and laid back players, deteriorated. Enter EQ2... I'm just starting in on my second SOE game, having gone on to try a bit of WoW and, more recently, LotrO. I'm no longer a newbie to the genre, though I still am very casual in my gameplay and have never gotten to the endgame like I did in SWG. I still play LotrO, but EQ2 caught my eye a few weeks ago. I was hesitant to start playing because I felt mistreated by SOE from my experiences in SWG. It wasn't that they nerfed an area of gameplay and we all up and quit: they changed the entire game. Everything I loved about SWG had been done away with, even the community. I didn't want that to happen again. But, I gave EQ2 a shot with the Play the Fae trial. Immediately, it reminded me of how SWG felt: interaction with the NPCs, a wide diversity of classes, an intriguing crafting system. It was not hard to recognize that these were the same developers from Star Wars Galaxies. But the community's plea to undo the changes of the NGE were unheard there: the plan rolled out anyway, and years later I'm assuming they're still trying to fix it. What I'm trying to get at is, does anyone feel like the NGE is possible with EQ2? That is to say, are the classes so unbalanced, the gameplay so buggy in certain areas, that SOE will feel the need to do with this game what they did with SWG? I don't think I could go through that again. I welcome change with open arms, but radical changes that are implemented poorly and that go against what the community desires does not interest me. I don't want to see more guilds fail, more community lost. What I'm asking is, what is the current state of EQ2 and its balance between classes, between crafters, and between gaming styles? Thanks in advance for any responses

[Karlen]

What's an NGE? I assume it is something bad? I think that, while there are certainly "issues", the classes in EQ2 are relatively well balanced.

[Calthine]

Loosely translated, NGE is a game-wide mega nerf (from the player perspective). I don't think there's oe in our future.  The devs worked tirelessly the first year or so to tune what they had, and atm it's a pretty decently balanced game.

[ke'la]

There have been changes to the game, IMO they have all been for the better. But nothing on the scale of the NGE or even the CU, the only MAJOR change was made in LU 13 and it accually did removed a good number of the Imbalances, wich included nerfing a number of classes, and they did make a change to how the Stat Caps worked, prior to EoF launching, but that really only hurt Min/Maxers as it added diminishing returns on all the stats as you got closer to a new higher stat cap, infact the more causual players benifited from it. As for drimatic changes in the future well first EQ2 is thier Flagship MMO and any major change like NGE would infact hurt their bottom line across the board, so I don't see it happening.

[novok]

I started playing SWG (my first MMORPG) exactly 3 weeks before the NGE. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that things had cahnged drastically, and not for the better.  2 days later I picked up a copy of EQ2 for 8 bucks and have been here ever since.

Over the last 20 months there have been plenty of changes, but almost every one of them has benefitted the game IMO. I think the devs have a pretty good idea where they are taking the game, and so far I have been enjoying the ride immensely. So no, I do not fear an NGE to EQ2 at this point in time at all.

PS Just someone gently pry the PvP nerf bat from Aerilik's fingers kk ?

[Josgar]

Yemkela wrote:

A little backstory: I started playing Star Wars Galaxies as my first MMO a little bit before what was known as the Combat Upgrade (CU) to that game. At the time I began, I wasn't all too fond of it, I had a lot to learn, but it was an interesting experience. But the CU came quickly and changed a lot about the game, and for the most part I thought the changes were for the better. As a newbie, I got into my first guild a day or two after the CU, a brand new guild that was just starting. As I and the guild progressed, the game became more and more enjoyable for me. I had a lot of fun with the two expansion areas: space zones for Jump to Lightspeed, and Kashyyyk for Rage of the Wookiees. It seemed like there was a lot to do and I had fun people to do it all with. Then came the NGE. The game had changed significantly once again, only this time I was a veteran of the previous incarnation. I had grown to love the CU. SOE suddenly and unexpectedly gave their game a whole new concept without giving the CU much of a chance. No one foresaw the changes, and very few in my guild liked them. For most, it was the last straw: making two all encompassing, radical changes to the game was not a good sign. In a matter of weeks, the guild, full of casual and laid back players, deteriorated. Enter EQ2... I'm just starting in on my second SOE game, having gone on to try a bit of WoW and, more recently, LotrO. I'm no longer a newbie to the genre, though I still am very casual in my gameplay and have never gotten to the endgame like I did in SWG. I still play LotrO, but EQ2 caught my eye a few weeks ago. I was hesitant to start playing because I felt mistreated by SOE from my experiences in SWG. It wasn't that they nerfed an area of gameplay and we all up and quit: they changed the entire game. Everything I loved about SWG had been done away with, even the community. I didn't want that to happen again. But, I gave EQ2 a shot with the Play the Fae trial. Immediately, it reminded me of how SWG felt: interaction with the NPCs, a wide diversity of classes, an intriguing crafting system. It was not hard to recognize that these were the same developers from Star Wars Galaxies. But the community's plea to undo the changes of the NGE were unheard there: the plan rolled out anyway, and years later I'm assuming they're still trying to fix it. What I'm trying to get at is, does anyone feel like the NGE is possible with EQ2? That is to say, are the classes so unbalanced, the gameplay so buggy in certain areas, that SOE will feel the need to do with this game what they did with SWG? I don't think I could go through that again. I welcome change with open arms, but radical changes that are implemented poorly and that go against what the community desires does not interest me. I don't want to see more guilds fail, more community lost. What I'm asking is, what is the current state of EQ2 and its balance between classes, between crafters, and between gaming styles? Thanks in advance for any responses

Nope, Lucas Arts isnt standing over SOE and telling them that EQ2 gameplay should be change... therefore you should be safe. (unless lucas arts somehow buys out SOE)

[DataOutlaw]

I came from the same background as you having a Wookie Bio-Engineer / Creature Handler as my maion character before CU2 and NGE. NGE definitely did it in for me because there was no more BE or CH after NGE.

For thos who are not familiar with the history SWG started out as a skill based game where you could choose from any number of skills to spend you skill points that were earned by gaining XP in that skill up to the maximum number of skill points a character can have. You got enough skill points to allow you to "master" two different classes or jsut maste rone class and spend the rest of your points picking up what you saw as the usefull skills (for you) from other classes. To get ther really powerfull class skills you had to master the class so the dabblers in your skill tree would never get the same advantage as you would by mastering it. The closest thing like it in the EQ2 world is the AA trees.

Then they started making changes... At the CU2 (Combat Upgrade 2) level they drastically changed what kind of armor and weapons you could equip so one day most people logged in to find all their hard earned gear no longer usable by them and had to go out and get all new gear. As if that wasn't bad enough then came NGE. NGE changed progression from the ground up. Skill based progression was done away with entirely and they put in class based progression like we have in EQ2 where a Necro is always a necro and a Templar is always a Templar and there is no way for a Necro to get some of the abilities of a Templar. It was a drastic change and pretty much alienated the existing player base with the only goal I could see of it was to attract new players more familair with class based progression. This was about the same time that EQ2 launched so I figured if it was going to be class based progression and I had to start over anyway since they eliminated my class I would just play EQ2.

I can't see that happening to EQ2. They have made a lot of changes since the launch of EQ2 but I see them as going the other direction of NGE. It seemed to me that at launch EQ2 was like an NGE of EQ1. Since then they have started modifying the game to make it more and more like EQ1. They did away with class archetypes so when you started as a Necro you start as a Necro and play as a Necro from level 1 (instead of starting as a Mage and then being a Summonor before finally becoming a Necro at level 20). They have started adding in more geography and now have different starting cities instead of jsut one coty for good and once city for evil. These changes are continuing with the next expansion this November and I can't wait to see what is going to happen next November!

[Josgar]

Yemkela wrote:

A little backstory: I started playing Star Wars Galaxies as my first MMO a little bit before what was known as the Combat Upgrade (CU) to that game. At the time I began, I wasn't all too fond of it, I had a lot to learn, but it was an interesting experience. But the CU came quickly and changed a lot about the game, and for the most part I thought the changes were for the better. As a newbie, I got into my first guild a day or two after the CU, a brand new guild that was just starting. As I and the guild progressed, the game became more and more enjoyable for me. I had a lot of fun with the two expansion areas: space zones for Jump to Lightspeed, and Kashyyyk for Rage of the Wookiees. It seemed like there was a lot to do and I had fun people to do it all with. Then came the NGE. The game had changed significantly once again, only this time I was a veteran of the previous incarnation. I had grown to love the CU. SOE suddenly and unexpectedly gave their game a whole new concept without giving the CU much of a chance. No one foresaw the changes, and very few in my guild liked them. For most, it was the last straw: making two all encompassing, radical changes to the game was not a good sign. In a matter of weeks, the guild, full of casual and laid back players, deteriorated. Enter EQ2... I'm just starting in on my second SOE game, having gone on to try a bit of WoW and, more recently, LotrO. I'm no longer a newbie to the genre, though I still am very casual in my gameplay and have never gotten to the endgame like I did in SWG. I still play LotrO, but EQ2 caught my eye a few weeks ago. I was hesitant to start playing because I felt mistreated by SOE from my experiences in SWG. It wasn't that they nerfed an area of gameplay and we all up and quit: they changed the entire game. Everything I loved about SWG had been done away with, even the community. I didn't want that to happen again. But, I gave EQ2 a shot with the Play the Fae trial. Immediately, it reminded me of how SWG felt: interaction with the NPCs, a wide diversity of classes, an intriguing crafting system. It was not hard to recognize that these were the same developers from Star Wars Galaxies. But the community's plea to undo the changes of the NGE were unheard there: the plan rolled out anyway, and years later I'm assuming they're still trying to fix it. What I'm trying to get at is, does anyone feel like the NGE is possible with EQ2? That is to say, are the classes so unbalanced, the gameplay so buggy in certain areas, that SOE will feel the need to do with this game what they did with SWG? I don't think I could go through that again. I welcome change with open arms, but radical changes that are implemented poorly and that go against what the community desires does not interest me. I don't want to see more guilds fail, more community lost. What I'm asking is, what is the current state of EQ2 and its balance between classes, between crafters, and between gaming styles? Thanks in advance for any responses

Nope, Lucas Arts isnt standing over SOE and telling them that EQ2 gameplay should be change... therefore you should be safe. (unless lucas arts somehow buys out SOE)

[BungFoo]

Yemkela wrote:

A little backstory: I started playing Star Wars Galaxies as my first MMO a little bit before what was known as the Combat Upgrade (CU) to that game. At the time I began, I wasn't all too fond of it, I had a lot to learn, but it was an interesting experience. But the CU came quickly and changed a lot about the game, and for the most part I thought the changes were for the better. As a newbie, I got into my first guild a day or two after the CU, a brand new guild that was just starting. As I and the guild progressed, the game became more and more enjoyable for me. I had a lot of fun with the two expansion areas: space zones for Jump to Lightspeed, and Kashyyyk for Rage of the Wookiees. It seemed like there was a lot to do and I had fun people to do it all with. Then came the NGE. The game had changed significantly once again, only this time I was a veteran of the previous incarnation. I had grown to love the CU. SOE suddenly and unexpectedly gave their game a whole new concept without giving the CU much of a chance. No one foresaw the changes, and very few in my guild liked them. For most, it was the last straw: making two all encompassing, radical changes to the game was not a good sign. In a matter of weeks, the guild, full of casual and laid back players, deteriorated. Enter EQ2... I'm just starting in on my second SOE game, having gone on to try a bit of WoW and, more recently, LotrO. I'm no longer a newbie to the genre, though I still am very casual in my gameplay and have never gotten to the endgame like I did in SWG. I still play LotrO, but EQ2 caught my eye a few weeks ago. I was hesitant to start playing because I felt mistreated by SOE from my experiences in SWG. It wasn't that they nerfed an area of gameplay and we all up and quit: they changed the entire game. Everything I loved about SWG had been done away with, even the community. I didn't want that to happen again. But, I gave EQ2 a shot with the Play the Fae trial. Immediately, it reminded me of how SWG felt: interaction with the NPCs, a wide diversity of classes, an intriguing crafting system. It was not hard to recognize that these were the same developers from Star Wars Galaxies. But the community's plea to undo the changes of the NGE were unheard there: the plan rolled out anyway, and years later I'm assuming they're still trying to fix it. What I'm trying to get at is, does anyone feel like the NGE is possible with EQ2? That is to say, are the classes so unbalanced, the gameplay so buggy in certain areas, that SOE will feel the need to do with this game what they did with SWG? I don't think I could go through that again. I welcome change with open arms, but radical changes that are implemented poorly and that go against what the community desires does not interest me. I don't want to see more guilds fail, more community lost. What I'm asking is, what is the current state of EQ2 and its balance between classes, between crafters, and between gaming styles? Thanks in advance for any responses

The NGE in SWG was made at the insistence of lucas arts who was basically contracting SOE to develop and manage the game. EQ2 is pretty stable at this point. I doubt that SOE would make sweeping changes to the fundamental ways the game works. Especially given their admission that the NGE basically destroyed their reputation with SWG subscribers. In the past there were fundamental changes made, LU13 being infamous among older players, and there still are large scale changes made these days but they tend to be more in the form of additions to the existing game. For example, the home city of neriak, the playable race the Arsai and the level 1-20 zone Darklight Woods was added a few LU's ago. The mantra for the eq2 team is quality over quantity and it really shows. I seriously doubt that there will ever even be new classes added to the game since the devs have stated that they wouldn't even consider doing that until the existing classes are "perfectly balanced". To sum it up, EQ2 is a mature game that will continue to develop but shouldn't see any major changes happening for the foreseeable future. And it's fun too! You should definitely come play with us

[lstead]

During the time that SWG has been run into the ground, the EQ2 team has taken a pretty good game and turned it into the best game in the industry. I don't know whether this is The Galactic Gasbag's minions lording over SWG or whether it's differences between different teams or offices or divisions within SOE, but it's like night and day.

[Mabes]

I played SWG on and off from beta, until a little after NGE, and have played EQ2 since the first week of launch.  And yeah, I agree, NGE was the worst thing to happen in the history of video games.  Just thinking about it works me up into a furious rage.

However, I do not feel there will ever be something so horrible to happen in EQ2, classes are pretty well balenced for the most part, and the combat system is pretty stable.  I loved SWG throughout it's existance until NGE, but I gotta say I like EQ2 a lot more.  SWG is a dead, flaming pile of trash, while EQ2 is going strong, and will only get better imo.

So I don't think you have to worry about an NGE type change to EQ2.

[Mirander_1]

I doubt EQ2 will ever see something like the NGE. Actually, I recall seeing an interview with Smed some time ago where he essentially said "NGE was a bad idea.  We won't do that to a game agian." (paraphrasing, of course).

[TheMightyTaco]

I may be remembering incorrectly but I am too lazy to go look things up. A little footwork and you can get exact information.

No, I don't believe an NGE is going to strike EQ2. But it could be argued that we already had our equivalent. I believe the closest we came were two updates. They were GU9 and GU13 if I remember correctly (I could be off by a couple). Those updates saw the removal of most death penalties, the restructuring of all combat mathematics, and a major shift in class balance. Since then it's all been tweaks. Some big, but none of them sweeping.

As for it ever happening, I have to believe one thing. SoE doesn't want the population of EQ2 to drop off as drastically as it did in SWG. They'd be insane to do that again. Plus, there is no reason to change EQ2 into a first-person shooter. EQ2 is fun and full of content. SWG was neither of those things on it's own. SWG was fun but it wasn't the game itself. It was created by communities using the features available.

[Leemeg]

I doubt that we will see NGE type of update in EQ2. Three main reasons for this. 1) EQ2 isn't buggy, 2) the popularity of the game seems to grow, a 3) SoE has said that they have learned from the NGE (see below). Smed did post on the Vanguard forums when SoE bought Sigil/Vanguard about their plan for the game. One of his point was this:

We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

[Winterborne]

I think NGE = New Game Experience, which is a marketing phrase for, I hope you weren't too settled in, because we're changing it all on ya. In a way EQ2 has already gone through its NGE. It's nowhere near the game it was when it released. Now I think it's settled down, and most people are happy with it and any changes would be slight, or advancements like expansion pack stuff. That said, there are talks of possible changes to the crafting system, but I'm not sure where that is at.

[Ancalima]

Thanks for all the responses everybody, it's really encouraging. As long as SOE is willing to learn from their mistakes, I'm willing to trust them with this game

[Ottergame]

I loved SWG.  I beta'ed it, bought the CE not long after release (just gave the game long enough to fix the launch bugs, there were to many of them).  I remember after playing in the beta and trying to PVP with a Teras Kasi Artist and getting just plain out whipped and curb stomped (quite litterally).  I was in awe.  When I bought the game after release I played a TKA.  I loved TKA and totally abanonded my idea of becoming a Jedi.  But I did start class grinding with my free points, I usually had just enough free points to master anything else.  I did the hologrind after that first Christmas, doing 12 other professions before deciding it wasn't worth the headache and just went back to TKA.

I did Janta missions for easy money, I did some Deathwatch bunker, some named mobs, went and collected badges, explored.  Never cared a whole lot for space so I mostly ignored it.  My Imperial bothan butt-whipper was fun.

Once the village came out and the path to Jedi was more structured, I went ahead and did the rest of the work to become (I had to only do half the usual process, because I had so much credit for mastering professions before it came out).  So, finally, one day I was a jedi initiate, a TKA with a lightsaber.

Not two weeks after unlocking Jedi, the first Combat Upgrade landed.  So, not only did I have to learn how to play a Jedi, I had to learn TKA all over again.  But that was ok, all my old tricks were worthless, but I was leveling up Jedi anyhow so I'd have to throw out the old playbook anyhow.  I finally mastered my templet (Full lightsaber, full powers, 4004 Enhance as I recall.  No defense and no healing.  I was a purely RP Jedi).

Then the [Removed for Content] NGE landed in our laps like so much unwanted scat.  All the hard work I had put into the game?  Gone, with nothing more then a pat on the shoulder and a kick in the rear.  I couldn't enjoy the game any more.  It was back to how it had been back in beta, a broken, bugging, sloppy mess, only this time the fun was all ripped out of it.  It sucked.  The combat sucked.  The sterrility of the classes suck.  The sameness of everyone sucked.

I just couldn't play it any more.  It was a weak mockery of the fun open sandbox game from before.  Yeah, the old game needed more structure and more content, but the NGE did nothing but dumb down the mechanics and did nothing to address the other problems the game had.

As should have been clear to everyone at Sony and LucasArts, the NGE devestated the game.  Old vets retired by the thousands.  Visit the game today and everywhere is an empty wasteland.  SWG has joined The Matrix, Planetside, EQ Mac, and now Vanguard as Sony's "on life support" games.

[Lornick]

Ottergame wrote:

As should have been clear to everyone at Sony and LucasArts, the NGE devestated the game.  Old vets retired by the thousands.  Visit the game today and everywhere is an empty wasteland.  SWG has joined The Matrix, Planetside, EQ Mac, and now Vanguard as Sony's "on life support" games.

Is Vanguard really a "life support" game?  I played a few hours of beta and it certainly has issues.  But I don't think it's completely beyond salvaging yet do you?  I still see people refer to certain classes in that game as good or interesting.  The graphics are nice and in time technology will catch up to the game.  With some effort I think it has potential to be polished up into a playable game.

[Lac]

Vangaurd was horrible.  And with all the problems it had, I don't see many people going back to it.  Personally, I'm bored with WoW.  The raiding has become rather blah, so I'm giving EQ2 a try.  I'm really just waiting for warhammer online though.

[Leemeg]

Lacis wrote:

Vangaurd was horrible.  And with all the problems it had, I don't see many people going back to it.  Personally, I'm bored with WoW.  The raiding has become rather blah, so I'm giving EQ2 a try.  I'm really just waiting for warhammer online though.

Just has to comment on this one. You know that many said that about EQ2 at launch? Bad performance, not fun, etc..? Now they actual says the opposite. SoE has about the same size in the VG team as they has on EQ2. My point is, give VG one to two years to remove some of the bugs and performance issues, and some time to add more content, and it will probably be good.

[Lithran]

Yeah I have Vanguard. I played beta and loved it. But right now the worse issue going for it is Performance. I have a decent system and can play EQ2 almost maxed out. But I can barely play VG on low setting. I love the game, I enjoyed it. But I cannot play it in low setting. I love graphics to much to play pixilated to the lowest denominator. Now, if in the future I upgrade to a much better system I might go back (I have station so I have access to all the games (and eer. yeah I do have a couple of them installed on my system *cough*eq1, vg, eq2 *cough*.