Ark's Ark

I’ve covered Everquest 2 Extended a little bit already in my previous post, in which I looked at the different sorts of EX2X subscriber level. Today I’ve got an account up and running, and I’m going to take a look through the EQ2X Marketplace to see the differences from Live.

One change that will be immediately obvious to older players logging in is that SOGA models have become the default. SOGA models were an alternative set of character appearances that were added in 2005, mostly for the Asian market. There’s a good Flickr album of them here. They have a very anime feel to them, and you tend to either love them, or hate them. A major complain I have heard is that they are less customisable, and more prone to weird glitching with bits of the model sticking through solid objects during animations. You can choose whether to use the original or SOGA models on a per race basis. Ratonga don’t have a SOGA model, so I didn’t notice right away.

The main problem with having two sets of models is that you no longer get to decide what your character looks like to other people. If they’re set to use SOGA humans, you look like a SOGA human to them, even if you hate what that makes you look like. Most current players, though certainly not all, predominantly use the original models.

It’s not a massive deal to me, as I can still choose to set all my models to original flavour, and Ratonga are immune to SOGA anyway. Still, it is a bit of a weird change, until you consider that EQ2X is designed to break into the RMT-centric Asian market, then it starts making complete sense. I’m not sure yet as to whether SOGA will also be the default for EQ2 Live. I hope not.

To the Marketplace!

SOE have desperately wanted to be able to sell statted items to us for years, but have felt hemmed in by previous promises that that would never happen in EQ2. Creating EQ2X as a technically separate entity has allowed them to be able to claim the promise is being kept. The problem with that is, as the Live trial is being ended, and new players are being funnelled into EQ2X with no obvious path from there to EQ2 Live, the Live game is likely to dwindle as EQ2X grows.

So, what sort of things can we buy in EQ2X? Of course, EQ2X’s shop has everything that the original shop has, but with some important additions. The exchange rate is 100 Station Cash to 1 US dollar, so I’m going to use dollars going forward for clarity, as using points tends to obscure the fact that you’re spending real money.

It looks like all the rare crafted gear is in there. You can only see gear that is appropriate to your level and class, so on the Armor screen, Level 1 Maltheas sees this:

A full set of tier 1 bronze plate will cost $6. A weapon will cost another $2. Curiously, how much you’re charged for an item does not seem to have much to do with how many resources are used to make them. All these armor and weapon items all require a single rare ingredient, but the price ranges from 50 cents to $2. As we’ll see in a moment, the price of resources rises with tier, so it seems reasonable to suspect that the price of equipment will also be greater at higher levels.

While making all the crafted gear available in the shop might seem to be pretty awful for anyone who wants to be a crafter in EQ2X, fear not. Crafters too can skip all that pesky harvesting by purchasing their ingredients direct from Brell himself.

A stack of 200 common ore will set you back between $4 and $6, depending on tier. Curiously again, some common resources cost more than others. 200 loam, gems, or precious metal will only cost you $2 regardless of tier. Leather and wood cost from $2 to $4.

Rare ingredients are, unsurprisingly, more expensive. They are bought in packs of 5, and in this case a pack of 5 rare ore will cost between $6.50 and $10. Most other rare resource are a flat $6.50 across the tiers, apart from Kaborite and Ulteran Diamonds which are a whopping $15 for 5.

The oddest thing for me about all this is the realisation that I own thousands of dollars worth of crafting ingredients, if I were able to sell them for the same price as the Marketplace.

My concern with anything like this is how the tail ends up wagging the dog. If SOE find that people are willing to buy rare harvests, it will be natural for them to consider how many more they could sell if they tweaked the drop rate down a little bit. RMT becomes central to the design of the game, rather than being a little extra bit of income. Interestingly, even a lot of loyalists who have supported SOE on this journey down the slippery RMT slope are now raising their voices in opposition. Too late, I fear, as such realisations tend to be. “It’s a cookbook.”

There are also the race packs, each containing three races, for $7.50. I don’t have a problem with these in principle, as a F2P game does need things it can sell, were it not for it not being included for the gold/platinum subscribers.

There’s other bits and bobs. One surprise is that you will require a guild charter, costing $10, to form a guild. This would seem to be the case even for gold and platinum subscribers, making that one more additional expense on top of a $15 subscription that EQ2Xers will be expected to pay.

The big reveal has taken place. You’ve probably already read the details, but just in case, here’s Smokejumper’s announcement:

Hi there, Norrathians,

As they say, the one thing that’s always true about the world is that it changes. That’s true of the world in general, the game industry, and it’s always been true with “EverQuest II”.

The very nature of an MMO is change. We listen, we adapt, and the game grows in features, content, and fun factor as the months and years pass. Now, the expectations of gamers and the industry itself are changing around us, and it’s time for “EverQuest II” to spring forward so it can continue to expand and be successful.

Many of you are aware of the free-to-play model that’s being embraced by many of the big game developers out there. We’re not the first folks to entertain the idea for an MMO, but we do have the biggest and best virtual world to offer in such a model and we firmly believe that we can expose thousands and thousands of new players to the world of Norrath if we embrace that concept.

However, before going any further, I’d like to stop and say that we’re tied into what you, the community of EQII players, have said about selling items with stats and how they affect a game where you traditionally earn your way forward. We completely understand there’s a solid core of you that want nothing at all to do with that. We respect your wishes and, as I’ve personally stated previously, we’re not planning any changes to the current subscription worlds at all. Those servers, that subscription service and that gameplay will continue as normal. We’ll continue to support the existing Live service with content, expansions, features, and events…just as we’ve always done. In fact, we’re upping the ante by providing subscription rewards packages for active users that buy multi-month subscriptions, giving them rewards like cool, unique, exclusive items and Station Cash.

But the free-to-play concept is a strong way to expose the world of Norrath to hordes of new players. Think of it as a huge new way to run a “free trial” like we’ve always done, but without the “14-day” limit, and with a lot more content available to try before you decide whether you want to commit to the game or not. We’ve had over eight years to grow this game, its content and its features, and there’s simply nothing else like it out there.

So, we’re about to launch a bold new service named “EverQuest II Extended” (EQ2X). This is a completely separate service from the standard EQII Live subscription service (EQII). It’s aims are simply to attract new players to the world of “EverQuest II” and let them try it out before deciding if and how they want to pay for it.

“EverQuest II Extended” shares all the content and features of Live EQII. It plays the same. It looks the same. It *is* the same, with two obvious exceptions: a) it’s free-to-play, and b) it has a more robust marketplace.

What does “free-to-play” mean? It means that you can download the game and play all of it (except the most recent expansion) all the way up to level 80. Your character is restricted in a bunch of different ways (limited class selection, limited races, limited coin, etc.) and to unlock those features fully, you’ll need to subscribe to Gold level membership. Which, coincidentally, is $15/month. Sound familiar?

What is a “robust marketplace”? It’s exactly the same marketplace that you see on the EQII service, but it also adds lots of “convenience” items. Can’t find a good shield in-game? We sell one appropriate to your level and class. Want a healing potion to use in a pinch? Need an emergency buff? Want to shortcut your research time? Items like that are all available in the marketplace. Do we sell the very best items and equipment? Nope. Legendary and Fabled gear are better than what you can buy in the marketplace. Has the game been rebalanced so that you *need* to buy these “convenience” items? Nope. EQ2X is exactly the same game that you’re playing currently on the EQII servers. Those items are just there if you want them. They are true “convenience” items.

There’s lots more details about all of this (and you can find the FAQ at http://eq2players.station.sony.com/…ay/extended_faq), but remember…this only affects you if you want it to affect you. If you ignore EQ2X completely, then your existing subscription, game, and support are unchanged.

If you’re a current subscriber, and you’d like to take a peek at “EverQuest II Extended” on its new Test server, you can jump into the game at the Free membership level by clicking here and streaming down the game client you’ll need. (http://launch.soe.com/eq2x/) This is the Alpha version of the service and its currently only available to existing subscribers so you can see it for yourselves before the public sees it later. The beta launch of the EQ2X service will occur in mid-August.

Whether you check out the new stuff as a Live subscription player, or as an Extended player, you’ll see examples of how we upgrade the content simultaneously across both services. We’ve significantly improved the UI, skill progressions, new user quest content, tutorials, created the “Regions of Interest” system so you can see where your quests are located, and much more.

Enjoy.

It is not what I expected at all. It is going to be a completely separate game, with its own servers and forums. That’ll be good for some people, as it means we can pretty much ignore it going forward. Or we could if game design decisions made to benefit EQ2 Extended were not also going to affect EQ2 Live, which they blatantly will and probably have been for a while in the run up to this. I strongly suspect GU 57′s decision to make a bunch of classes neutral, and thus playable on both sides, has a lot to do with EQ2 Extended’s need to have it’s free classes available everywhere, but as it happens I think it’s a good change anyway.

By making this a separate service, the chance that it will bring life back to the EQ2 Live servers is limited. In many ways, it feels like a missed opportunity. I don’t see it repeating DDO’s success, for a variety of reasons.

If you want to play for free, you’re going to be restricted in a number of ways.

Free Races: Humans, Erudites, Barbarians, and Half-Elves.

Free Classes: Swashbuckler, Brigand, Wizard, Warlock, Guardian, Berserker, Templar, and Inquisitor.

That’s fine. Obviously a F2Per needs to have things to purchase, and additional classes and races are perfect for that. The classes available are ample, though I think including halflings or dwarves in the free races might have been a good thing.

Here is a chart of the different capabilities of the various membership levels for EQ2 extended. It’s ridiculously wide, so you’ll probably need to click on the image to expand it to make it readable:

Everquest 2 Extended Membership Levels.

There’s a lot to take in, and I’ll probably revisit this once I’ve had a chance to mull things over. I have one major problem with it as it stands though.

In DDO, a F2Per is restricted in class and race choice, and also in available content, but within those parameters they can be exactly as effective as a subscriber. EQ2 is taking a very different road, and Bronze members will be restricted to the Adept version of any spell or ability, putting them at a great disadvantage to subscribers. Silver members will be restricted to Expert. They are also prevented from using any Legendary or Fabled gear. This will lead to behaviour very similar to Gearscore causes in WoW, where people will be unwilling to take the less shiny sorts of members along on raids and the like.

To be utterly blunt, Bronze and Silver players are going to be gimped. With their inferior spells, and Treasured level gear you would have to be either masochistic, or of exceptionally generous spirit, to want to take them along on anything remotely strenuous. While I can see that SOE would want to put as much pressure on people to upgrade as they can, I think they’ve missed the lessons that DDO taught. People buy extra content in DDO because they’re having fun and want more, not because they have to do it to be able to be on a level playing field. May Rodcet have mercy on the souls of any Bronze members who try to take part in Battlegrounds or other PvP.

If you want to use Master Level spells, and legendary/fabled gear, you have to be at least a Gold Member, which costs as much as an EQ2 Live Subscription does anyway!

It’s also a little peculiar how a Platinum membership costs more than a regular EQ2 live subscription, and they’re still restricted to only 4 races! Who is this for? Surely almost everyone willing to pay subscription level prices would rather play on the EQ2 Live servers? The whole thing seems weird, and I’m uncomfortable with it. This is not an F2P system like DDO or LOTRO’s where you can just buy little bits and pieces here and there as you choose, on a living server that you share with all the different sorts of player, and where being a Premium player (Basically an F2Per who occasionally buys things) is a perfectly viable choice for the long-term. It’s a glorified trial, designed to push people into subscribing.

If you’re willing to put up with being that badly inferior, then you’re probably never going to pay SOE any money for anything anyway. Everybody else would be far better off on a regular server. So again, I ask, who is this for?

However, I dwell on a regular server, where the effects of EQ2 Extended will hopefully be minor, though I fear they may not be if EQ2 Extended proves to be more profitable. Maybe it’ll garner us a few more players, once they get tired of dwelling in the odd Norrathian ghetto that EQ2 Extended is promising to be.

Update. I just noticed this in the FAQ:

Once Extended launches, the 14-day trial will no longer be available to the general public. New players can try the Extended free adventure service instead. However, 14-day trial passes for the EQII subscription service will still be distributed by active players on the live subscription service via the Recruit-a-Friend program. This way, friends can play together on the same server and still enjoy free time. The RAF program will be updated at a later point in time to include Extended invitations and rewards.

This is terrible news for EQ2 Live servers. Our gentle stream of new players coming in from the trial is going to dry up, with them being shunted over to the probably more profitable EQ2 Extended instead. EQ2 Live is going to be cannibalised by its younger sibling. The long-term effect of this could be dire.

The product new players are sent into will cost them more, requiring them to subscribe AND buy races and classes. Sadly, I fear that’s what this is all about. Rather than Turbine’s idea of getting less money per player, but having vastly more players and so making more profit, this EQ2 Extended scheme seems designed to just charge more for the same content.

So, there’s the first big effect EQ2 Extended will have upon the original game.

Update: I’ve followed this up with a look at what the EQ2X shop sells.

GU 57 went up on to Test earlier, and there are some interesting reports coming out of it. EQ2Wire reports that anyone trying to use the Auction House receives a curious error message:

You must upgrade to at least a Gold membership in order to purchase items from the broker.

The assumption is that this is a sign that Everquest 2 is going Free to Play, in a similar fashion to DDO, with multiple tiers of membership. I can’t think of any other explanation that would be plausible for that message to be occurring.

Last year I went out on a limb and forecast that EQ2 would inevitably have to take this step.

I do not think that having both extreme RMT AND a mandatory subscription charge is sustainable. I’d be happy for the RMT to go away, but I think that is not the way the MMO winds are blowing these days.

Given the success of Free Realms, I have a feeling that EQ2 may be making the leap to being Free to Play, supported by RMT, with an optional subscription like Free Realms and DDO have. The streaming technology used by Free Realms has been adapted for use in EQ2 (and was responsible for the dreadful memory issues many people experienced after Live Update 53), and will be enabled at the time of the next expansion to make for a smoother new player experience. We have been promised that there will, at that time, be a great influx of new players, and I doubt that’s going to happen just because they get to start in Halas. My prediction is that Everquest 2 is going F2P. Feel free to poke fun at me if I turn out to be wrong.

I got the timing a bit wrong, but then Halas didn’t make it in time for the Expansion either!

There is, apparently, a big announcement coming from SOE later today. I’ll be watching like a hawk. Whether this is going to work or not depends very much on the exact capabilities of the F2P accounts. If they are too heavily restricted then F2P is just a glorified trial which leads to subscribing. DDO takes the other route, making F2P with the occasional purchase a viable long-term option. That some level of accounts are being barred from the AH entirely is not a particularly great signal, but it depends exactly what a gold account is. If it is equivalent to a DDO subscription then that’s terrible, but if it is equal to a DDO Premium account (One that has bought points or subscribed at any point in its history) then that’s not so bad. Even so, even DDO accounts that have never paid a penny are still allowed to buy from the AH and post a single item for sale on it.

I’ll be back later, once we know what the score is. If it is done right, then I’ll support this move

With the dust setting from the introduction of Halas, and the Druid Circle world event, it’s time to check in again with Maltheas, and the Extreme Questers! When I last put together a leaderboard, just before Halas went live, it looked like this:

There’s big changes this month, as for the first time I’m including the 60-69 level range:

The level 49 Icelad, sitting on 3063, is extremely impressive, and I wonder if I can find another 400 doable quests before Maltheas himself reaches that level. He’s certainly the one to beat at the moment. The folks sitting on 49, 59, and 69 make me wonder if they are in fact Battlegrounds characters trying to max their AA points, rather than specifically extreme questers, but I’ll enjoy competing with them whatever their goal is!

Adding the level 60+ folks has obviously knocked Maltheas down the table a bit, but that is all good, because it gives me a bit more of an impetus. It’s important to be reminded that, even though Maltheas is doing well for his level, there’s a couple of thousand folks with more quests done lurking up ahead in the higher level tables.

Around a hundred of the new quests Malth has done are from the Halas and Frostfang Sea additions, with another 24 from the Druid Circle event. The rest come from a range of sources, particularly pushing deeper into the land of Everfrost, and the tier 4 heroic dungeons. Everfrost is pushing Maltheas to his very limits, and since I took the pictures for the new leaderboard I’ve let him to rise to level 42, allowing him a couple of equipment upgrades though nothing of much use in the way of new spells, so hopefully he can push a bit further.

Doing Frostfang and Everfrost so close together has left me a little snowblinded, so I’m glad of the opportunities to revisit greener lands that I have had recently when occasionally lending Stillwater and Deyotol a hand. I’m a bit of a soloist by nature, but it makes a nice change to share an adventure or two.

Maltheas vs Undertow - An Extreme Battle!

I’ve been helping a couple of newer players find their footing in EQ2 recently, and it has reminded me of how many aspects of Norrathian life are not immediately obvious to newer players. One example are the overland ring events. I’m not talking about the Druid Circle event that is still ongoing in EQ2. Rings events are always around, and always profitable, if you know where to look.

Ring events tend to involve a small gathering of monsters, clustered around an object of some sort. It could be a nest, or a campfire, or a tent, or any number of other things. You can tell something is going on because the object is targetable, and will come up with a white name in your target window.

Here is an example of one the the overland ring events in Antonica. The rat nest is probably the earliest ring event that a Qeynos side character will encounter. There are usually a few of them along the road which runs alongside the city moat.

The Rat Nest Ring Event in Everquest 2.

At first, it will just be surrounded by ordinary creatures. If you defeat all of those, then another sort of monster will appear, which we’ll call the intermediate monster, in this case a large moat rat. If you defeat that, then there is a good chance that a named monster, the Two-toed Rat, will appear. Like most Named monsters, it is guaranteed to drop a chest, making it a great source of loot for low level Qeynosians (or folks in need of low level loot to transmute). Many also grant AA xp. There are a few quests that require you to kill or catalogue intermediate or Named enemies from ring events, so it is important to be aware of them for that reason also.

The Rat Nest Ring Event is the simplest sort, with your only possibilities being either getting a named, or not. Other ring events may also have a chance of a glowing object appearing in the world. Using that object will give your group a buff for a time, perhaps even turning you all into lions or wolves for a while!

For another example, the Antonican camps with gnoll youths and gnoll mystics, if cleared, have the intermediate monster “Darkpaw Packleader”. Killing him may lead to a glowing buff object, the named “Tark Searfang”, or even both (or neither)! There are several other sorts of gnoll camp in Antonica, each with their own possibilities.

Some ring event spots can play host to a Distressed Merchant. These poor folks have had their escape route cut off. If only someone would get rid of these nasty monsters, the merchant would be extremely grateful!

Everquest 2 - Maltheas saves a distressed merchant

In addition to being able to do your selling and repairing with such a merchant, they also sell a number of creature catalogue quest books that you can’t get anywhere else, so saving a distressed merchant can be great for building up your library!

There are ring events all around Norrath, especially in the older overland zones. Keep your eyes open, and who knows what you’ll find, and who you’ll meet!

It's Quacker Yig!!!

Oh, Quacker Yig. Your name speaks of formless and ancient horrors from beyond time and space, but you’re so cute! What is your purpose amongst us? Do you mean us harm, or are you here to guide us to wisdom? Do you desire to devour our souls, or just a few morsels of moistened bread? Such are the mysteries of Quacker Yig.

As half of the EQ2 servers are down for 7 hours or so for extended maintenance (though not mine, which is just down for about an hour for the patch), let’s have a quick peek at today’s update notes!

The important change for me in today’s update is the Halas Writs. Until now, they’ve had a very small level range, meaning you would only ever be offered one at once. This meant that if you only used the chronomancers for automentoring, their five-level steps were too wide for you to be able to get all the writs. That’s being sorted, hopefully giving new players a bit more of a choice of writ.

A shrub which shows your progress on the Druid Circles event is also useful, but comes too late to be much help to most servers. This is not the first time that a progress counter has been added long after the start of an event. Something to keep in mind for the next one.

The full notes are after the leap:

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I occasionally get asked what quests Maltheas is working on, so in the absence of any desire to talk about the iPhone 4, I thought I’d share his current quest journal!

In the early days of EQ2, collections counted towards your quest limit! Thankfully those dark days for questers are no longer with us, but we are still often up against the generous limit of 90 active quests. Maltheas has 5 free slots at the moment, after a serious effort to clear up some tome quests, which will quickly vanish the next time he decides to load up.

Maltheas' Quest Journal

The lowest level one there, “A Key to the Past” has been a thorn in my side for about four years. It is a quest set in a peculiar little instance called the Tomb of Valor in Stormhold. A chamber is filled with wandering undead, and sarcophagi which begin to open. You need to quickly close them again, or else more undead appear. While being attacked you can’t shut sarcophagi, so it starts going downhill from there. Malth is at the point where he is in very little danger down there, but he still can’t deal with the undead fast enough to keep all the sarcophagi shut and get Lord Chesgard to spawn. I haven’t given that a go for a couple of levels, so should probably have another try sometime soon. I’d probably do better if I did not feel bound to chronomancer down to a level where the undead are green, to give them a fighting chance!

Most of the greener ones are in heroic dungeons, such as Runnyeye. Heroic dungeons are soloable, but you do have to accept that it’s going to be a bit of a slog, and you usually need to be a few levels higher than if you were grouping. Maltheas can currently get about halfway through Runnyeye before it starts getting totally impossible, and it’s the quests that need to go further that remain. Deathfist Citadel is similarly unpleasant, and only the sewers beneath it are survivable at the moment. The green Nektulos quests are actually in the D’Morte Burial Chambers, from the old Bloodline Chronicles adventure pack.

For every quest there is a time, and their time has not yet come. Extreme Questers enjoy pushing their limits, but at some point you have to accept that certain things are impossible at your current level!

N'Kzak the Unnatural - A battle for another day.

I’m probably going to let Maltheas level in the next few days, once I’ve cleared up the rest of the quests in his journal that I think might be doable. Levelling to 42 is tempting, as you get a big power boost from being able to use mastercrafted gear, but I’ll try to see what 41 can manage first. Maybe that will be the magic number that brings Lord Chesgard to his well-deserved end.

Do you have a quest, in whatever MMO you play, that has been sitting in your quest journal for years?

Edit: It seems this video is autoplaying for some Internet Explorer users. I’ve moved the entire post below the “keep reading” link”. – Ark

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