Sarnaks! Epic Weapons! Rhino Mounts! Guild Level 80! Player Level 80! HOLY %#$&!!!

[Norrsken]

Scott said they are aiming at on par, or even larger than the original kunar exp pack. Now, if they reach that goal, I'd have to say, you raiders will prolly get your fill of raid zones. I am gonna enjoy this exp pack. And I am quite sure that you hardcore raiders will get more than the 4 or so raid zones you dont have on farm status currently.

[Rijacki]

Ponos wrote:

The only thing they didn't touch on was the skeleton revamp, new armor, and guild housing.  But my god -- everything else!

The skeleton revamp and guild housing will come in GUs, not in an Expansion.  There is mention of new armor.

[Norrsken]

Rijacki wrote:

Ponos wrote:

The only thing they didn't touch on was the skeleton revamp, new armor, and guild housing.  But my god -- everything else!

The skeleton revamp and guild housing will come in GUs, not in an Expansion.  There is mention of new armor.

Actually, pretty much anything that is floating around about the skeleton system is speculation. Theys aid they didnt wanna comment on it due to it not being done, and due to the massive speculations that it would give rise to. Heh. Cant win can they?

[Sphiriah]

Very happy to see that Kunark is the next expansion. Can't wait to see screenshots and get some more info.

[Besual]

Hm, 13 new zones... EoF was annouced with "over 20 new zones". Looks like at lunch RoK will be about 2/3 of the size of EoF. Level 80... yeah, finaly my main will see a true *DING* again after so many month. Epic quests for each class... yeah again. I have to admit that in EQ1 many fighter replaced their epic 1.0 quite fast with a better weapon but many other classes used their epics quite long. Sarnaks... I don't think we need with dragon blood weakened iksars After getting two kinds of moth I don't see the need for a new race. But I guess that is the boon for players who are not in T7 to buy the expansion. New mount... hopefully it won't be so ugly as the wrogs. Guild level 80... hm... new titles and a new mount @GL 70 and again @GL80? May be we will see more benefices leveling a guild.

[Mwahaha]

Well I am very excited about hearing this great news and can't wait for it to come out.  One thing I'm wondering about is that with the Sarnak as a new race along with the Arasai coming in the end of the month the evil races will outnumber the good/neutral ones.  So I wonder if they will add 2 new races in the future to balance this out.

[Norrsken]

Skeez@Nagafen wrote:

Well I am very excited about hearing this great news and can't wait for it to come out.  One thing I'm wondering about is that with the Sarnak as a new race along with the Arasai coming in the end of the month the evil races will outnumber the good/neutral ones.  So I wonder if they will add 2 new races in the future to balance this out.

Sarnaks are gonna be neutral, and so is the new city.

[Allisia]

The Sarnak and their starting city are currently expected to be Neutrally aligned according to the interview.

[Jal]

Since they said Sarnak starting area will be for all neutral races id assume the sarnak themselves will be neutral.

[Polywogus]

Besual wrote:

Hm, 13 new zones... EoF was annouced with "over 20 new zones". Looks like at lunch RoK will be about 2/3 of the size of EoF.

Somewhere in that mess, they did mention how more than 1 "zone" would often be in an area...sorta seamless zoning.  I think they mentioned Burned Woods in particular, so...

[Norrsken]

Polywogus wrote:

Besual wrote:

Hm, 13 new zones... EoF was annouced with "over 20 new zones". Looks like at lunch RoK will be about 2/3 of the size of EoF.

Somewhere in that mess, they did mention how more than 1 "zone" would often be in an area...sorta seamless zoning.  I think they mentioned Burned Woods in particular, so...

Yeah, they said that the zones would be quite a bit larger than EoF zones.

[The_Real_Ohno]

Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:

Polywogus wrote:

Besual wrote:

Hm, 13 new zones... EoF was annouced with "over 20 new zones". Looks like at lunch RoK will be about 2/3 of the size of EoF.

Somewhere in that mess, they did mention how more than 1 "zone" would often be in an area...sorta seamless zoning.  I think they mentioned Burned Woods in particular, so...

Yeah, they said that the zones would be quite a bit larger than EoF zones.

Thank god, my biggest let down of EoF was that most all the zones were so small, LP, BBM etc.

[Raahl]

Novusod wrote:

Raahl wrote:

Worried about out leveling the KoS content? 

Worried that there won't be enough for a level 80 character to do in RoK?

Solution: Turn off your exp!  

I have an even better solution. Don't buy the expansion. Not like am losing out on the AA or anything since they are not adding new AA. If my highest charactor was only level 20 when KoS came out it was still worth it for me to buy KoS because my charactors could still get AA.

That is another solution.    And the final solution would be to go nuclear and cancel their subscription.

[Griffinhart]

I'm happy about this news so far. I'll have 3 level 70's by the time it comes out so it will be nice to be able to progress them again. I'm happy that there will be no new AA's this time.  Two of my characters were already high level when AA's were introduced so they are behind on AAs compared to characters started later.  This will let me max out AA's without falling further behind. I did love the old Kunark zones so it will be fun to visit the new versions. Epic Weapons!  I am extremely excited about this part.  I don't mind long involved quests if the get you a nice usefull and cool reward.  That's what EQ's epics were.  But without the contested spawns like Ragefire or rare drops from mobs like Finny. Ten more levels will be enough for smaller guilds to progress through KOS and EOF raid content without greying them out.  I realize that big raiding guilds aren't thrilled with this part, but for smaller more casual guilds it means they can progress and finish story lines like the Claymore.  

[interstellarmatter]

Yay! 

When is Sony going to make an official announcement here?

[Josgar]

... technically there will be less zones... they announced giant region zones like western kunark for example. And in there, there would be regions so you could not count by zones... Saranark will rock Darn iksar impire expanding and do not forget: There will be 1-20 in the ocean zone and then upper level zones on rest of kunark

[Galithdor]

I have a feeling like 2 or 3 zones will be for levels 1-60...lol like the first one is 1-20 then 20-35 then 35-60...who knows but its sort of funny that people complain when its not even out yet! Im excited about this expansion and nothing will change that...I like it when they add new races/content for all levels. A rhino mount is a good idea...just be happy it isnt a horse! Sarnaks are cool so i really dont care that they are dragons mated with iksar lol its a change from the fae .

The level cap increase should amke you people happy but you are complaining about them adding low level content along with it...sort of stupid if you ask me but meh, thats just my opinion. Low level content keeps a game interesting to some people, just like high level content keeps the game interesting for people like Kenman...so dont trash talk SoE's ideas of adding content for all players...because they wouldnt do it if it killed the game lol. It might "kill the game" for some people but it dosnt kill the game for others, some people like alts and dont wanna go through the same content over and over. Lol okay my rant is over

[dalaorn_eq2]

Novusod wrote:

Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7.

Raiders can cry me a river and go jump in it for all I care.  If they're too stupid to use the Mentor button to visit previous tiers, that's their problem.  If their only reason, in response to that, to raid is to horde "phat lewt" and stand around East Freeport to look uber instead of doing it for the sheer challenge, then maybe they need to brush off the cobwebs between their faces and their monitors and find a more constructive hobby.

[Josgar]

Galithdor wrote:

I have a feeling like 2 or 3 zones will be for levels 1-60...lol like the first one is 1-20 then 20-35 then 35-60...who knows but its sort of funny that people complain when its not even out yet! Im excited about this expansion and nothing will change that...I like it when they add new races/content for all levels. A rhino mount is a good idea...just be happy it isnt a horse! Sarnaks are cool so i really dont care that they are dragons mated with iksar lol its a change from the fae .

The level cap increase should amke you people happy but you are complaining about them adding low level content along with it...sort of stupid if you ask me but meh, thats just my opinion. Low level content keeps a game interesting to some people, just like high level content keeps the game interesting for people like Kenman...so dont trash talk SoE's ideas of adding content for all players...because they wouldnt do it if it killed the game lol. It might "kill the game" for some people but it dosnt kill the game for others, some people like alts and dont wanna go through the same content over and over. Lol okay my rant is over

Didn't the interveiw say after level 20 it would feed you into old content?

[Galithdor]

Josgar wrote:

Galithdor wrote:

I have a feeling like 2 or 3 zones will be for levels 1-60...lol like the first one is 1-20 then 20-35 then 35-60...who knows but its sort of funny that people complain when its not even out yet! Im excited about this expansion and nothing will change that...I like it when they add new races/content for all levels. A rhino mount is a good idea...just be happy it isnt a horse! Sarnaks are cool so i really dont care that they are dragons mated with iksar lol its a change from the fae .

The level cap increase should amke you people happy but you are complaining about them adding low level content along with it...sort of stupid if you ask me but meh, thats just my opinion. Low level content keeps a game interesting to some people, just like high level content keeps the game interesting for people like Kenman...so dont trash talk SoE's ideas of adding content for all players...because they wouldnt do it if it killed the game lol. It might "kill the game" for some people but it dosnt kill the game for others, some people like alts and dont wanna go through the same content over and over. Lol okay my rant is over

Didn't the interveiw say after level 20 it would feed you into old content?

Dunno lol i just woke up when i read it...but im trying to prove a point It is a good thing that they do not cater to just high level players

[Talz]

dalaorn_eq2 wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7.

Raiders can cry me a river and go jump in it for all I care.  If they're too stupid to use the Mentor button to visit previous tiers, that's their problem.  If their only reason, in response to that, to raid is to horde "phat lewt" and stand around East Freeport to look uber instead of doing it for the sheer challenge, then maybe they need to brush off the cobwebs between their faces and their monitors and find a more constructive hobby.

Grow up.  Really.

[Galithdor]

Talzar wrote:

dalaorn_eq2 wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7.

Raiders can cry me a river and go jump in it for all I care.  If they're too stupid to use the Mentor button to visit previous tiers, that's their problem.  If their only reason, in response to that, to raid is to horde "phat lewt" and stand around East Freeport to look uber instead of doing it for the sheer challenge, then maybe they need to brush off the cobwebs between their faces and their monitors and find a more constructive hobby.

Grow up.  Really.

I think hes trying to say that there is more to do then raiding things for the best loot...but i dunno lol i just try and look on the good side of things when it comes to games...i dont see a need to stress out about them lol

[Talz]

Novusod wrote:

Not impressed at all. - Boo to level 80 players. Not looking forward to replacing all my master spells or seeing what could possibly go wrong with the Bard class in T8. People will hit level 80 in two or three days after release and complain there is nothing to do. Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7. - Say no to Epic Weapons. Nothing will kill the game faster than uber 1337's monopolizing content. - Boo to no new AA trees. Enough said. - Sarnaks re-engineered. Recolored Iksar here we come. - Rhino Mounts. I was bored with wargs after 15 minutes and rhinos are even less interesting. - Guild lvl80. Confused at what a lvl 80 can do that a lvl 60 guild cannot.

The majority of guilds that raid aren't clearing top zones of the current era.  It just doesn't happen and has been like this since the first EQ1 raid zones.  If anybody doubts that they can go on any server forum the day before the expansion launches and ask for a list of guilds that clear EH, IS and so on and a list of guilds working on it.  I know which list will be longer and I would be amazed, truly amazed if any servers had more guilds that clear the current era raid zones than they had guilds working on it.  This is relevant because the top of the line T7 fabled will be more than acceptable T8 gear.  Now I'm not one of the many twits that see the word raid and am immediately filled with seething fury but I think the actions of SOE have shown that content isn't aimed at the weekly full content scheduled raider. That being said, don't discount epics so easily.  You're going to be doing a lot of raids to finish them.

[Talz]

Galithdor wrote:

Talzar wrote:

dalaorn_eq2 wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7.

Raiders can cry me a river and go jump in it for all I care.  If they're too stupid to use the Mentor button to visit previous tiers, that's their problem.  If their only reason, in response to that, to raid is to horde "phat lewt" and stand around East Freeport to look uber instead of doing it for the sheer challenge, then maybe they need to brush off the cobwebs between their faces and their monitors and find a more constructive hobby.

Grow up.  Really.

I think hes trying to say that there is more to do then raiding things for the best loot...but i dunno lol i just try and look on the good side of things when it comes to games...i dont see a need to stress out about them lol

I don't stress. It just would be nice if raid could be typed on this board without alarms going off and people manning their soapbox stations.

[Despak]

Talzar wrote:

Galithdor wrote:

Talzar wrote:

dalaorn_eq2 wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Especially going to hit raiders hard. Raiders will have to abandon 8 or so T7 zones get stuck with 4 or 5 T8 raid zones. Raiders will be stuck with half the content they had in T7.

Raiders can cry me a river and go jump in it for all I care.  If they're too stupid to use the Mentor button to visit previous tiers, that's their problem.  If their only reason, in response to that, to raid is to horde "phat lewt" and stand around East Freeport to look uber instead of doing it for the sheer challenge, then maybe they need to brush off the cobwebs between their faces and their monitors and find a more constructive hobby.

Grow up.  Really.

I think hes trying to say that there is more to do then raiding things for the best loot...but i dunno lol i just try and look on the good side of things when it comes to games...i dont see a need to stress out about them lol

I don't stress. It just would be nice if raid could be typed on this board without alarms going off and people manning their soapbox stations.

I think his problem (and I have to agree with Novusod (and I raid btw), is he has a problem with the attitudes of our traditional raiding forum trolls.  They have no clue on what zones are in RoK but are are here to [Removed for Content] and whine anyway. 

Did these morons actually think that the game would stop at level 70 just so they can prance about like fairies in their armour at the harbour?

[Tash 1]

First of all peoples not complying about an expansion new zones or new races, only thing why people complain is the new level raise. There probably good things with higher levels but since I don’t like it I will just point out some of the bad things and let others point out the good. 1) Almost all previous zones are more or less abandon. Look at DoF Zones Lavastorm etc 2) Almost all older hard quest lines are abandon. Example Peacock Quest Line etc 3) It gets harder to get groups since the level difference make fewer player each layer available. If you on the other hand keep the level cap and just add new zones new content and abilities. That would lead to more content for everyone and have it easier to get groups. More different types of aa trees and equipment could let people tweak their toons into different directions and let a more variety of toon setups. In this issue Guild War have a very interesting solution. They just have 20 levels and peoples don’t seem to mind at all. Anarchy on the other hand has 220+ and I don’t have the feeling that it’s the many levels that attract peoples there. /Tash

[XHousedog]

Hmm very Raidunfriendly voices here, I'm not a hardcore raider at all but geared my toon up decently over the last half year. I'm a casual player all the way but managed to upgrade all of my spells at least to ad3. I think it will take me another year to get all this done for T8 then when ROK rolls on the servers. I can understand all the people being not to fond about the LvL increase. The best solution would be in my eyes to increase the LVL Cap to 75 to keep all the EOF and KOS stuff interesting. This would give both factions, the hardcore raider and the casual player new opportunities. And it would keep the "old" Legendary/Fabled Setitems/Items in value. Anyway no whining about this expansion from my side. When the levelcap is increased to 80, why not I will enjoy it It's just a game. Just my 2cent. Housedog

[Goozman]

The level cap is an awful idea. As people have said, the current raiding zones will be completely worthless, as tier 5 and 6 ones are. To all the anti-raider players welcoming it calling it "progression" (which it is not at all), you already have achievements available to you to continue enhancing your character. All they would have to do to increase character progression without wiping out all current content would be to add more aa's or increase the maximum aa's we can have.

All the work people have put into getting spell and gear for their characters will be immediately wasted if they screw up itemization like they did with KoS and the crafted gear upgraded. There is a chance they won't ruin it this time, however, if tier 7 raiding gear is still really good in tier 8; but considering this game's history, I HIGHLY doubt it will be.

If tier 8 crafted jewelry is 30 to all stats, or easy to get treasured stuff has the same mitigation as eof fabled loot, which I'm almost sure it will, then this expansion is going to be stupid.

If, however, a) tier 7 fabled gear is superior to sub-fabled tier 8 gear (with some exceptions), and b) the con range is increased so that 65-70 is still green to a level 80, then the level increase might not be so bad.

[Tandy]

I am looking forward to it. Think a level cap increase can be a good thing.  When you go without one for a long time you simply increase the gap between the hardcore raider and the solo type players.  This way....at lvl 80 everyone is gonna be on equal footing and people who didnt raid before wont feel 'locked out'.

Will take even the uberest guilds a while to get geared back out, and lets face it....its gonna take most people who really wanna lvl about the same amount of time to get to 80.  Could be days or weeks depending on how hard they make the content. 

Now I am in a guild that raids...and we have fun doing it.  I dont think any of us are gonna feel like the sky is falling.  With a lot of people from EQ 1 I think everyone is just happy to be getting back to Kunark and see whats going on.

Epics are gonna be so much fun again if they are done in such a way that no class gets left behind on doing them, and I am sure the dev's already are familiar with the problems with them in EQ 1.

I expect everyone will probably be surprised by how much content is there for high level players when it comes out. With something the size of Kunark to work with, I think the dev's know they have to keep the raid content on par with what we have now and CAN do it with whats there. 

Lets at least wait and see what is said in the next few months before going to the extreme worst case.

[Azzikai]

Since people have apparently NOT read/listened to the interview:

There is ONE leve 1-20 zone, Timorous Deep. It is the starting area for the Sarnak and other neutral races. After that they are being fed back into old content.

Timorous Deep is an ocean full of islands and the new city of Gorowin.  And that area is going to be level 1-20.  And once you get beyond that, the Sarnak story line for those folks who are starting out brand new characters, their whole story is all about getting back home and rejoining their race and finding out what happened.  Because really so much time has gone on that these people are exiles. It's essentially the classic hero's journey where they go through this period of innocence, they go through the rediscovering of the fact that there's an outside world, and then there's the eventual triumphant return home to defeat the bad guys and be reunited with their own history.  So, that journey will take them from Timorous Deep back to the old world, up through Kingdom of Sky and Desert of Flames if people choose to go and level up there and then come back over to Kunark where the real bad guys are.  

Epics won't be the "sit in Lake Rathe for days" like it was.

Scott:  That's  a very good question.  What we're looking to do with these is we're looking to make sure... The refer to that as: What's your gating factor?  In order for there to be a certain amount of rarity there has to be a gating factor.  One of the big points of frustration that happened with a lot of the original EQ epics was the gating factor was always rare and long spawns.  Rare long contested spawns, whether that was Cazic Thule or whether that was Ragefire or whether that was... ya know.  And those things turned out to be an excellent way to make sure that there were very few epics or there was a very steady controlled stream of epics coming into the world at a predictable rate.   These days, 2007, people don't really balance MMOs that way anymore.  EQ doesn't even balance their later upgrades, they don't make those mistakes of the past either.  In a lot of ways we've been learning a lot from the EverQuest Live team as they've enhanced and changed their way of doing work too.  So what we'll be doing is trying to make sure our quests are gated on the difficulty of events, the difficulty of the quests, your ability to find other people to go help.  It's things that are in your control to go do.  What we will not be doing is having you sit on a spot for three days hoping some guy is gonna spawn.  There's no need to control player action to that level.  It's just not important for the overall health of the game.  The most important thing is to make sure that when a person logs on their next step is in their control, not at the control of some arbitrary delay.  So, yeah.  We like the good parts of the original EverQuest epics which was everyone had a cool way and there was this feeling of brotherhood with other people of your class who all went through the same stuff.  You know, you see the weapon and you go: I know you've killed Cazic Thule cause you have this thing, congratulations.  Without the bad parts of, you know, you have your cleric one, you must have sat in Sol B for 900 weeks, I'm so sorry.  So yeah, we're aiming for power and we're aiming for a satisfying quest but we're not aiming for all the frustration that occured in the first generation.

And those other TWELVE zones that aren't the 1-20 content?

Instead of just making our outdoor areas single zones, we're making them bigger and making them full on regions of the continent.  So the continent is broken up into a number of these regions and within each of these regions you're going to find very distinct zones that will have some familiarity.  Yes the environment is going to change, the lighting will change, the sky changes, you get a little pop up on screen that says: Now entering the Burning Wood, but you didn't have to zone to do that. There will still be zoning between these big huge regions, but the zoning shouldn't be any worse a user experience than it was in Echoes of Faydwer.  So you'll be able to see a whole lot of areas that you did see in the past.  We're actually really really excited about that, one of the things that we've always wanted to do was making zoning less of a factor when it comes to gameplay. Tamat:  More seamless. Scott:  Exactly.  And you can ever really take one of these zoned worlds and make them fully seamless, at least not on the scale that our world is, but we can do stuff with these ginormous regions that we have now that we're a few years in and the engine is optimized a whole lot better than it ever has been before so we're able to do stuff like have a Field of Bone and have Dreadlands and Burning Wood.  We can have a lot of these areas that you're familiar with but you'll actually be playing in a larger region and so... But there's the standard compliment of dungeons and instances that will be around too.

Honestly, if people are going to complain about something you would expect them to complain about something that wasn't covered in the interview.