RoK...is it moving EQ2 in a good direction?

[Vendolyn]

My biggest qualms with RoK (tm):I hate soloing, and I'm specced for self res and heal crit.  Soloing as an option is great, and having that option is welcomed, especially when I only have time to mill about for a short duration of time.  But, in RoK, there seems to be 2 extremes.  There's soloing (which I've had 1 duo partner for so far), and then there's those mythical dungeon/instance things.  At 71 I'm not seeing them.  The outside of KC doesn't count ;pAs a healer specced for healing and one who prefers to function within groups, the mobs in KP take forever to kill.  It's nice that at 70 I was forced to see whether or not I'd be successful versus white and yellow con mobs.  I was!  It would take all of my mana healing through the spike damage.  The drolvargs, each fight lets me cast my swarm pet twice.  Taking all of my mana and over a minute per kill just isn't my idea of fun!The rewards for the solo quests are nice.  I've been able to upgrade a few pieces of gear (and I have 4 neck pieces to carry around since I can see each of them handy in different situations!).  What I'd *love* to see is in between.  I'd love for there to be areas where people can get together and accomplish goals.  I'm a very social person, and what drew me in to the MMO world was the fact that you can make friends, that there are other people sitting behind their characters just as you are.  Sitting LFG, maybe occasionally getting into EoF instances/dungeons after hours of /60s /70s 71 Warden looking for group to heal, trying to keep an eye on both channels and form groups myself...it becomes exhausting after awhile.I wish I had an answer, but I don't.  I love this game so much.  I ended up getting a second account so I now have a little bruiser who can kill things for my warden ; )

[feldon30]

Yes, if you kill 8 beavers, I will give you a piece of armor that took 7 hours to forge and adorn and then we had to find a lvl 71 wizard to imbue it.  Yep, that's an even trade.

[LordPazuzu]

Lady_of_Light wrote:

When I started to first play through Kunark I loved the expansion, it satisfied that human desire for wanting powerful rewards for little effort. And it certainly delivered in that aspect. It was fun for a while, getting loot that blew everything else out of the water for such easy quests. I am primarily a soloer and loved the layout of the zones and liked how fluidly the quests flowed, and how it is an expansion that seems designed for a player like me, however once I had reached 80 I felt a sense of disastisfaction. When I finally hit 70 it was awesome, felt like I earned it. RoK is so easy, its ultimately disappointing despite its pros. The solo quests take very little effort and the challenge, especially compared to the older expansions, is sorely lacking. You just don't feel like you really earned anything especially how the legendary, powerful rewards are so common.

The solo quest loot is certainly spiffy.  At level 80 I think I still have 2 whole pieces left I haven't replaced with far superior gear from heroic instances.  The loot may look spiffy on the surface, but the content difficulty has been increased so all the extra snazziness is needed just to effectively keep up.  Thus, the solo rewards aren't as great as they appear to be.  Sure they are superior in every way to the EoF gear we're all used too, but this should be expected.  It's a new teir. 

[Rqron]

******if the mobs in dreg's landing were as easy as the TT mobs of BS mobs then u would see people mass killing for loot. Also, the "solo to 80" (i call it solo to 75) helped to slow down the farmers, how long do you think is takes to level to 80 of trash solo mobs?******True,But what prevents farmers from doing solo quests? After all, they have people running the characters 24/7 and with that they will be 80 within less then a week.I have seen farmers go through the hoops to get grizzlefazzles quest reward and HooLoo hats...for them it is no problem getting to 80. I have seen a set of farmers (the typical scrambled name with no food and drink lvl 76-79 with no trade skill and all autofollow) go into Vaults yesterday. So i.m.h.o. it did nothing really to slow them down at least not a lot and it did a lot to impede the average game play.J.C.

[Kenazeer]

I think RoK took a lot of the "pleasure" out of gaming by doing two things.

1) They nuked the middle ground of content

2) They effectively forced a "goal oriented" approach to gameplay by the structure they chose for quests, encounters, and experience.

It was a good three years. Saw the direction the game is heading and decided it was time to move on though.

[Malcroix]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Dagorgil@Kithicor wrote:

For me, personally, there is far too much WoW in RoK.

Yep, precisely.

If I wanted to play WoW, I'd go play WoW. I don't like Blizzard's mostly dumbed-down approach to questing, & I'm sick of seeing it migrating to EQ2.

Beyond that, I swear: if I see one more quest demanding that I harness such-&-such mob & escort it back, I think my head will explode.

It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" who maybe ought to go back to WoW, as it seems more suited to their limited gaming time & social skills.

Here - let me adjust that just a bit......

 "It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

[Lady_of_Lig]

I may have not expressed myself properly, but don't want to give the wrong impression. I do like that EQ2 has improved alot by looking at WoW, they have added many changes that have made the game less tedious thanks to WoW's massive influence, but RoK is just going too far. Because let's be honest, EQ2 wouldn't have kicked itself back up from that awful launch had they not looked to WoW and removed alot of tedium.

But now with RoK they have pretty much ripped out WoW's design philosphopy with the "solo all the way to max level but end-game do the same dungeons all day approach" It's wrong to me because it doesn't encourage any community spirit.... Once everyone reaches end-game and there's incentive to group...its all "me me me me" and only makes PUGs a disaster...just look at WoW who wants to gather a bunch of random people to group with, it doesn't work so well because everyone's used to soloing. It's too jarring. I really think they needed to add an alternative end-game to encourage socializing with others, which is supposed to be a big part of an MMO right - not force anyone - but give incentive, especially an end-game that doesn't consume so many hours in one go. That's what puts alot of casuals off with grouping with others, you have to sit there for so many hours, you can't just log off when you need to or you miss out on the rewards. Maybe city-building? At least a casual player with only a few hours can contribute to some grand player-made building or whatever. I know it'll never happen but hey nice to suggest it.

Doing a Kunark dungeon, or any dungeon for that matter, it usually takes so much time, and to me it can be so tedious. Don't get me wrong, I actually like WoW. It's a beautifully put together game, polished, easy to get into, just too shallow in the character development area. SOE I feel are mindlessly copying WoW just way too closely now, and they are not seeing its problems and trying to think of ways of improving it to make it even better then WoW.

[zorax15]

Shalla@Valor wrote:

Big problem is simply also that they made the "solo" mobs all to hard, better more heroics but some that you can solo/duo when they are green, then only solo mobs that some classes can't even solo when they are blue.

RoK really misses the content between the extremes since SOE has heared on all the "not enough challenge" whiners, that mostly are not soloers, but upped all mobs. Now as result we have no solo trash that we can "farm" like before for example gazers in TT or Barren Sky .. and we also have no Heroic Content that can be done in small groups of 2-3 persons .. so no motivation to visit the new zones again besides harvesting. However the "no challenge" whiners still cry that CoA is too easy and next expansions all Heroics will be orange-con and solo mobs have all two upgrades .. lol 

Ah and of course the "more mob AI needed" thing .. somebody here that really LOVES to tank in City of Mist ? Because its soooo funny with that ghosts ? 

Also .. where is the sense of AoE classes, if there is nearly no AoE content anymore " />

Same "not enough challenge" comments as there are in any other posts of yours. When do you start to actually make a point? How it is done can best be seen by the op`s post. He has an opinion and clearly states what he likes/doesn't like instead of telling fairy tales of your obviously hard eq2board experiences that you keep on telling till the end of the days.The op's post is exactly what I think of the new expansion. Though as a solo player his play style is completely differnet from mine we obviously have the same opinion concerning the boredom after all the solo quests are done. When I first saw all the very beautiful new  zones I was very pleased. But once a hit 80 and 90 % of the quests were done I can do 5 instances a d ay witch I hate by now and watch the chat.Absolute ly underwhelming. Really looking foward to the epi c quests and they better be very well designed

[Dagorgil]

Malcroix wrote:

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Dagorgil@Kithicor wrote:

For me, personally, there is far too much WoW in RoK.

Yep, precisely.

If I wanted to play WoW, I'd go play WoW. I don't like Blizzard's mostly dumbed-down approach to questing, & I'm sick of seeing it migrating to EQ2.

Beyond that, I swear: if I see one more quest demanding that I harness such-&-such mob & escort it back, I think my head will explode.

It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" who maybe ought to go back to WoW, as it seems more suited to their limited gaming time & social skills.

Here - let me adjust that just a bit......

 "It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

I think I found your errors, so I wanted to correct them for you...

"It seems to me there are a lot of few "real people with real lives" selfish and lazy players elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who don't like putting any effort into their characters and think anything requiring effort is "elitist" maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems they are incapable of complex thought more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

I think that covers it.  If you can't complete any of the old quests in one sitting, nothing stops you from finishing it another night.  So what if it takes more than 3 minutes to complete a quest.  I hardly log into EQ2 anymore because of RoK.  There's nothing to do but solo grind.  As much as I hate to say it.... sometimes I miss EQ1, because at least you could find a freakin' group to break the mind numbing boringness of "Fetch me 10 of these creatures.... kill 8 of these.  Kill 5 of these and 4 of these.  Ok... thanks, go to this guy.   HI! So this guy sent you here?  Ok... Fetch me 10 of these....."

[liveja]

Malcroix wrote:

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Dagorgil@Kithicor wrote:

For me, personally, there is far too much WoW in RoK.

Yep, precisely.

If I wanted to play WoW, I'd go play WoW. I don't like Blizzard's mostly dumbed-down approach to questing, & I'm sick of seeing it migrating to EQ2.

Beyond that, I swear: if I see one more quest demanding that I harness such-&-such mob & escort it back, I think my head will explode.

It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" who maybe ought to go back to WoW, as it seems more suited to their limited gaming time & social skills.

Here - let me adjust that just a bit......

 "It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

I know quite a few people with real world jobs & responsibilities who have no trouble getting things done in EQ2. They even go raiding. Imagine that.

I'm honestly getting sick to death of people whining about their "real world lives". Find another cop-out.

[Malcroix]

Dagorgil@Kithicor wrote:

Malcroix wrote:

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Dagorgil@Kithicor wrote:

For me, personally, there is far too much WoW in RoK.

Yep, precisely.

If I wanted to play WoW, I'd go play WoW. I don't like Blizzard's mostly dumbed-down approach to questing, & I'm sick of seeing it migrating to EQ2.

Beyond that, I swear: if I see one more quest demanding that I harness such-&-such mob & escort it back, I think my head will explode.

It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" who maybe ought to go back to WoW, as it seems more suited to their limited gaming time & social skills.

Here - let me adjust that just a bit......

 "It seems to me there are a few "real people with real lives" elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

I think I found your errors, so I wanted to correct them for you...

"It seems to me there are a lot of few "real people with real lives" selfish and lazy players elitist players with no real world jobs or responsibilities who don't like putting any effort into their characters and think anything requiring effort is "elitist" maybe ought to go back to WoW Everquest I and Vanguard as it seems they are incapable of complex thought more suited to their limited infinte gaming time & limited social skills."

I think that covers it.  If you can't complete any of the old quests in one sitting, nothing stops you from finishing it another night.  So what if it takes more than 3 minutes to complete a quest.  I hardly log into EQ2 anymore because of RoK.  There's nothing to do but solo grind.  As much as I hate to say it.... sometimes I miss EQ1, because at least you could find a freakin' group to break the mind numbing boringness of "Fetch me 10 of these creatures.... kill 8 of these.  Kill 5 of these and 4 of these.  Ok... thanks, go to this guy.   HI! So this guy sent you here?  Ok... Fetch me 10 of these....."

Lol - "players who don't like putting any effort into their characters".  Did you even look at what class I play?  Believe me, soloing RoK was no picnic.  And I wonder where some of my current armor pieces came from?  Yeah you're right - I probably just ebay'd the plat and bought it all on the broker.  Heck - I admit it - I even ebay'd the character!  roflmao....

I'll give the elitist grouper/raider types a hint on why EQ I style raiding and grouping needs to go the way of the do-do bird:

• I don't expect to schedule my off-hour entertainment with the same regimentation of my work life.  If I want to login and play RoK one evening - that means I expect to login and immediately start playing.  GASP!  UNACCEPTABLE HUBRIS!  BANISH YOURSELF TO LFG IMMEDIATELY!!!!!  I don't expect to be screwing around monitoring/spamming chat looking for a group (which is what RoK endgame had devolved into.  Let me know what solo aspect of endgame RoK I missed because from what I can tell, its non-existent). 
• I don't expect to be forced into a raid guild ruled by tyrannical [I cannot control my vocabulary]-hats to have a shot at earning fabled equipment.  Mind you I don't mind having to work for the gear - but puhleeze, what is the fascination with requiring multiple groups of tricked out virtual Navy Seal commandos to tackle raid content.  The current problem in a nutshell - "casual raid guild" is an oxymoron - discuss....
• I don't expect attaining fabled content to require scheduling my off-hours the way I schedule my work day.  I mean really - can the MMO genre possibly move past "raid guild looking for hardcore player that must commit to 4 days a week of raiding.  Raid times start promptly at 5pm EST and run until 8pm EST.  Non-attendance will result in reduction in DKP and/or removal from said guild."  It reads like a corporate day job complete with HR termination policy - thanks but I don't need that in entertainment - I already get that in my weekly 40.

Now would I say WoW has solved this?  Absolutely not.  Neither WoW nor EQ II has dealt with this - both ultimately require their players to self-select themselves into guilds to have any hope of reliably completing both group and raid content.  Is breaking out of this hackneyed mold easy?  Of course not.  But hey - if EQ II (or maybe EQ III at this point) could figure out a way to do away with the EQ I era raid guild mentality, then I think SOE would have a major hit on their hands. 

Then again maybe SOE should just stick with their current shotgun approach of acquiring every half-[Removed for Content] half-baked MMO on the planet.....

[Mistress_of_Nihility]

Whoa.... hold on here.  My gaming family gets to see the best of both worlds here.

My husband has a high-powered job in the military.  He works from 6am until 5pm Monday - Friday, some weekends and has to go out to sea for weeks.  He gets an average of 4 hours a night to play, plus the occassional raiding when he is home on weekends.

Me - I'm a stay-at-home wife, with no children.  So once the house chores are done I get to play to my hearts content.

We BOTH see a problem with RoK and the way everything is designed.  With his job being so demanding, I often two and four box our four mains around to keep us in line with the rest of our guild and Raid Alliance.  We are falling behind because it is really getting boring repeating the same questlines over and over here.  I really don't care that the overland mobs are all solo as a warlock.  I have solo DoT's and DD's.. no biggy.  What I do have an issue with is that there is no point for others to group with us.  That is what we play this game for - the community.  If I wanted to play all-solo stuff and chat with people, I would load up Oblivion and Yahoo! Messanger at the same time.

We are level 74 now.  Finally.  Everyone else that we were even to before RoK came out are now 79-80 and doing the same instances over and over.  Let alone bringing their own alts up as well.  Suddenly this game became a grind - a long mind-numbing grind.  Hopefully with the Epic Weapons and a few more dungeons added - it will be less of one, but it is not as much fun as any of the end EoF areas in terms of quests or mobs right now for either of us.

The only alleviation we have is that we play on a PvP server, so the monotony is broken up with the occassional battle royale versus other players.

[Poetelia]

Malcroix wrote:

Lol - "players who don't like putting any effort into their characters".  Did you even look at what class I play?  Believe me, soloing RoK was no picnic.  And I wonder where some of my current armor pieces came from?  Yeah you're right - I probably just ebay'd the plat and bought it all on the broker.  Heck - I admit it - I even ebay'd the character!  roflmao....

I'll give the elitist grouper/raider types a hint on why EQ I style raiding and grouping needs to go the way of the do-do bird:

• I don't expect to schedule my off-hour entertainment with the same regimentation of my work life.  If I want to login and play RoK one evening - that means I expect to login and immediately start playing.  GASP!  UNACCEPTABLE HUBRIS!  BANISH YOURSELF TO LFG IMMEDIATELY!!!!!  I don't expect to be screwing around monitoring/spamming chat looking for a group (which is what RoK endgame had devolved into.  Let me know what solo aspect of endgame RoK I missed because from what I can tell, its non-existent). 
• I don't expect to be forced into a raid guild ruled by tyrannical [I cannot control my vocabulary]-hats to have a shot at earning fabled equipment.  Mind you I don't mind having to work for the gear - but puhleeze, what is the fascination with requiring multiple groups of tricked out virtual Navy Seal commandos to tackle raid content.  The current problem in a nutshell - "casual raid guild" is an oxymoron - discuss....
• I don't expect attaining fabled content to require scheduling my off-hours the way I schedule my work day.  I mean really - can the MMO genre possibly move past "raid guild looking for hardcore player that must commit to 4 days a week of raiding.  Raid times start promptly at 5pm EST and run until 8pm EST.  Non-attendance will result in reduction in DKP and/or removal from said guild."  It reads like a corporate day job complete with HR termination policy - thanks but I don't need that in entertainment - I already get that in my weekly 40.

Now would I say WoW has solved this?  Absolutely not.  Neither WoW nor EQ II has dealt with this - both ultimately require their players to self-select themselves into guilds to have any hope of reliably completing both group and raid content.  Is breaking out of this hackneyed mold easy?  Of course not.  But hey - if EQ II (or maybe EQ III at this point) could figure out a way to do away with the EQ I era raid guild mentality, then I think SOE would have a major hit on their hands. 

Then again maybe SOE should just stick with their current shotgun approach of acquiring every half-[Removed for Content] half-baked MMO on the planet.

Absolutely. Very well put. Its difficult to add anything else.

Guys, this is not really about soloing or grouping. This is not about casual or hardcore. This is not about being dedicated or not. As I have argued time and time and time and again, is perfectly possible to be hardcore and to dedicate a lot of time to the game AND not being a raider or even a die-hard grouper. Its perfectly possible to be a social person, able to have great times with groups in dungeons with your friends or even pugs and not wanting to submit to the the raid-cartel dictatorship or to the hour of inactivity looking at your screen because there is not a non-leather healer available to round the "new holy trinity" group. Some of us have complicated lives with tight schedules and dont want to live our game time as a 2nd job... mind you, that doesnt mean we dont want to commit, dedicate time and work to the game. I know for certain Im on line more time than your average raider and more days. My gametime must be my own, not what the guild leader decides.

The EQ1 raid mentality is very difficult to get rid of. I cant forget a post I read on the Vanguard forums 2 months before the launching. It was something like:

High-end game raiding guild forming. We are looking for dedicated raiders to tackle the end game. We are not here to help with leveling or quests. We just will be on for raids and we want you to commit to our strict timetible.

They didnt know how the game was going to work, they didnt know yet how the raiding was going to be. They didnt know if the game was going to be playable or not, or if it was going to be interesting to play. They didnt give a copper about any aspect of the game. They hadnt experienced high end raids on Vanguard, that even today are being introduced little by little.

They wanted to establish from day 1 what people perceive as the structured power base from which one can control the game and its development. That old EQ1 mentality: let the masses pay the bills while the designers work for us and develop our uber equipment. Yes... this is going the way of the do-do bird.

About RoK... the big problem as we have discussed elsewhere is probably the lack of what people here referred as the middle game. A solo based leveling system, which can drive nuts even the most hardened soloer... and once up there, hard-core grouping and raiding. We need some more middle content.

[liveja]

Malcroix wrote:

I don't expect to be forced into a raid guild ruled by tyrannical [I cannot control my vocabulary]-hats to have a shot at earning fabled equipment.  Mind you I don't mind having to work for the gear - but puhleeze, what is the fascination with requiring multiple groups of tricked out virtual Navy Seal commandos to tackle raid content.  The current problem in a nutshell - "casual raid guild" is an oxymoron - discuss....

Apparently, you think every single raid guild on every single server has bought into some secret SOE policy that requires them to act like paramilitary units.

Either that, or you're wholly exaggerating, know full well you're exaggerating, & are kinda-sorta hoping people like me won't smell you out. OOPS! Too late!

In either event, let me say this: your paragraph, quoted above, is probably an accurate description of SOME raid guilds, but it's most definitely not true of ALL of them, & quite possibly isn't even true of most. But you've allowed yourself to buy into the anti-raider hype, & so you spit all over them, even the ones of whom you know absolutely nothing at all.

& that, sir, is very poor form, made even more so by your pathetic appeal to your "real life". Like I said to you earlier, I know quite a few people with real lives & real jobs & real families who play this game, some of whom actually manage to go raiding. Your "I have a real life" spew is a pure cop-out. Please find another excuse.

[Gumgrol]

I just returned a few months ago and started back at 53 after RoK had been released.  As someone who has leveled up from 53 to 75 almost completely solo I have to say the EoF content was the best.  RoK is not bad but it is definitely a step down.I enjoy the abundance of quests and named in RoK there has never been a lack of any quests to do yet.  I don't like how groups are much harder to get now(no idea what causes this and for the most part don't care), I have yet  to actually see the inside of an RoK instance.  Also, RoK is the first time in any part of EQ2 I stopped and actually typed in group chat, "That is the worst tree I have ever seen in my life."  I really need to go back and get a screen shot of the tree.  Making zones appear huge is great and all, but not when they need to look like [Removed for Content].Overall its really not that bad, but I do see some old EQ1'ish gameplay sneak back in.  I am wondering if the decline of eq1 has caused some of the staff to be reassigned.

[Malcroix]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Malcroix wrote:

I don't expect to be forced into a raid guild ruled by tyrannical [I cannot control my vocabulary]-hats to have a shot at earning fabled equipment.  Mind you I don't mind having to work for the gear - but puhleeze, what is the fascination with requiring multiple groups of tricked out virtual Navy Seal commandos to tackle raid content.  The current problem in a nutshell - "casual raid guild" is an oxymoron - discuss....

Apparently, you think every single raid guild on every single server has bought into some secret SOE policy that requires them to act like paramilitary units.

Either that, or you're wholly exaggerating, know full well you're exaggerating, & are kinda-sorta hoping people like me won't smell you out. OOPS! Too late!

In either event, let me say this: your paragraph, quoted above, is probably an accurate description of SOME raid guilds, but it's most definitely not true of ALL of them, & quite possibly isn't even true of most. But you've allowed yourself to buy into the anti-raider hype, & so you spit all over them, even the ones of whom you know absolutely nothing at all.

& that, sir, is very poor form, made even more so by your pathetic appeal to your "real life". Like I said to you earlier, I know quite a few people with real lives & real jobs & real families who play this game, some of whom actually manage to go raiding. Your "I have a real life" spew is a pure cop-out. Please find another excuse.

Since you are claiming you represent the "fuzzy teddy bear raiding guild society" do tell about this kindler, gentler beast.  Links to your guild's raid attendance and raid preparation requirements would be most interesting.  Also statistics on current raid progression, raid attempt success rates, raid makeup (do you min-max? which classes are FOTM and which classes need not ever apply?), gear pre-requisites, loot distribution/DKP rules,  computer/network requirements, etc.. would also be most enlightening.  Betcha' $50 if you actually posted all that information it would, as I stated above, read like a combination of corporate HR policy and a sergeant's guide on managing Marine platoons. 

MMOs crank up the difficulty of raid content to nosebleed levels because that's what the elitists have decreed to be the "one true way".  Net result is that the only way to make substantial progress into raid content is with strict guild rules that maximize the chances of success on each raid attempt.

Now if there was actually an endgame progression that was rewarding and had nothing to do with raiding I'd be happy as a clam.  The elitist raider crowd could go raid, and the rest of us lesser beings could do something else.  At this point though even the endgame group content is wearing thin.  Other than 3 more class set pieces, and a long-shot Drusella fabled drop, there is nothing else endgame-wise to do other than raid progression (I'm not including levelling alts since its not my personal cup of tea).

Given the structure of RoK endgame though its absolutely amazing that the EQI/Vanguard diehard crowd incessantly complains about solo'ing in RoK.  RoK has a nice solo progression path that lasts for a few weeks *at most*.  The other 11 months or so that RoK will be around is all grouping, and even worse, primarily raiding since nothing else is left after the group content has been farmed out.  Yeah - that certainly sounds like a solo heavy expansion to me. 

[LanceValerien]

So far, what I've seen of RoK from 68-71 has not impressed me.  I was a long-time player of EQ1, and played EQ1 from the day it launched, so first walking into Kunark was great.  Drachnids, tatterbacks, di'zoks, and drolvargs!  But then I realized why EQ2 doesn't do for me what EQ1 did.  All the mobs are in neat little groups on leashes on a very short path.  So you can run through this big mass of mobs without worrying about dying.  And everything just feels so... contrived and designed to be easy. 

Not to mention RoK is not about groups so far.  It's all about running around solo doing silly quests.  I feel like I'm on a yo-yo or being played like a puppet.  It's like, how much crap quest-grind content can they put in to keep people from realizing they're bored and not really doing anything other than watching the xp and AA xp lines move?  I mean, it would be just as much fun to sit there and click a button saying quest complete every 3 minutes.  There's no challenge in the quests - they're easy as heck to solo.  There's no need to talk to anybody.  It feels like I'm playing a solo game with other people occasionally passing by me and people only interacting on the broker.

I really miss games like EQ1 where a community was forged on taking on a tough, ruthless, challenging world together.  Where you *could* solo, but it wasn't easy like EQ2.  Where groups mattered.  Where the "grind" was adventuring through dungeons and having fun rather than solo quest-grinds.  People talk about not wanting to grind like they did in EQ1, but in reality, EQ2 is just as much of a grind - it's just that you're running these simple quests non-stop.  I miss the adventure in dungeons where wipes were a real risk and painful, so people really learned to play their class well. 

*sigh*.  I wish they would just re-release an EQ1 with up through Velious only.  That was the best MMORPG gaming has ever been.  All this focus on silly, easy quests (btw, levelling is way too fast at these levels... I've gone from 68 to 71 and 94 AA to 100 AA in a couple of short nights) is just putting us on a treadmill. 

[TheKane]

/philosophyon 

This thread shows what I love about people who play EQ2.  Everyone wants something different from it.  It is the one constant you can always depend upon.  And you know what that means?  Some parts of the content (or even whole expansions) will suit you.  Others will not. 

And that is just fine.

I have always felt that forums like these provide both a needed support and a lamentable crutch to gameplay.  There should always be a place where people can provide helpful, insightful feedback for games like EQ2.  It gives the chance that the gaming experience can be improved.  But let's also be honest: learning how to play a game successfully is ultimately what it is all about, even if the arbitrary rules make you wince from time to time.  Learning how to make the best of artificially created circumstances is at the heart of a gaming experience.  Do you think that Rooks should move in a diagonal line on a chessboard?  Do you think you should move counterclockwise around a Monopoly board?  Do you wish that you wish that Crysis was an RTS style game not an FPS?  (You may well but if you want to play the content you decide to play within the parameters laid out, no?)

I accept that massively online experiences like EQ2 have fundamentally changed the expectations of gamers over the last ten years or so.  When you devote time over several years to something you develop a sense of personal ownership that defies labelling it as a mere "gaming" experience.  But even so I think it benefits all players to remember that part of what makes EQ2 compelling is playing with the hand dealt by the content.  If you do not like it, make comment and deal with it.  Move on if you need to and play something else if you need to.  But above be able to say to yourself that you tackled the challenges head on and gave it your all.

/philosophyoff

As for ROK:

My experience of ROK so far has been positive.  I left EQ2 after the release of KOS - it was not that the game was becoming stale but simply that my life changed and I had fewer ours to devote to the game in order to create the type of character I wanted to be.  At that point I had led/co-led two large guilds, been Main Tank and Second Tank for T5, T6 and some T7 content, done my Prismatic/Peacock quests.  When I suddenly had less hours to devote I decided to leave because I felt that I could not do justice to my character the way that I truly wanted to.

Then along came ROK.

To be honest if ROK had less solo content that it does I do not think I would have returned.  I think that when I turn 80 (I am 77 at the moment) I would like to give the raid content a bash in a big way but for now I (and that means my wife and two baby daughters) am not worried about it.  It is fun to level and play with the content.  And becuase I can turn it "on and off" in a way that I could not if I was more dependent on group heroic play it is actually building me back to the point where I should be able to spend more time on the heroic group and raid content.  (Anyone who has a young family will know what I mean here - you boil the frog slowly, not just drop it into hot water!  Other family members tend to notice when another suddenly is closetted in a PC room for 8+ hours per day.)

Soloing in ROK at level 68 with KOS level 60'ish gear and no AA exp was initially....painful.  Hah!  I did not even notice that my racial traits and Master IIs had been resent during the last two years!  But damned if it was not a lot of fun.  It made me use all of my abilities to survive.  Now I find that I can tackle several yellows at once if I am smart about the sequencing of my attacks.  I cannot tell you how much fun that has been!  And truth be told it has made me a better player than previously as it has compelled me to understand my class much more thoroughly than before.

What happens from here?  Well, I will know in the coming month.  Am I worried about it?  No.  Hopefully the people that I will meet in Norrath will feel the same way too.

Happy gaming. 

Kaene the Returned.

PS: If you find yourself disappointed by the game: do not worry, leave, do something else, enjoy yourself and wait and see.  EQ2's greatest strength is that it consistently re-invents itself through the expansion process.  If one does not suit you, so what?  The next one may.  God help me for suggesting the heresy that people might enjoy the game more all the better for taking the occasional break from it.  But there it is.