Producer's Letter: Expansion 17, Beta and Preorders!

These updates do not bode well for what the new expansion will have to offer.

 

A proper revamp would require them to not be (a) creatively bankrupt (b) lazy (c) operating under the knowledge they work for a Rooski money laundering front so it doesn't actually matter (d) all of the above...

 

Ah, thank you My only channeler is on test and barely used so I've never noticed. Probably haven't allocated her AAs either - she just makes pointy things!

 

Some Players were expressing the concern that the devs cut some of the content for Beta Start, thus the reasoning of not more information beforehand.

Seeing the information available on the Beta Forums suggests they are right.

Kander mentioned on a Podcast to lower the number of 12 Heroic Zones for Contestant Dungeons and more quests.

I counted 9 Heroic /Solo Zones but no Contestant Dungeons.

The other major City (Kattika ?) also seems to be missing.

Raidcontent:

There are 4 Raidzones, one of them is labeled "Raidventure" by Gninja, making it 3 Zones with a total of 14 Raidmobs.

Vex Thal is half of what it is in Eq1, 6 instead of 12 Raidmobs.

Gninja mentioned that not all (Raid) Content is pushed to Beta/live, he said the first GU will have the conclusion of the Storyline and more content.
Let's hope this apply to all content.

 

To be honest? It's more than I expected - I figured they'd just keep saying "Oh, we've got a great AA revamp, it's the best ever, and it'll be here in 2 weeks" for the next couple years, then just quietly drop it.

I'm struggling to even find the motivation to log in once a month just to make sure guild hall upkeep is still good, etc. Hell, I even uninstalled the 2-box account after getting tired of seeing unused icons loitering on the corner of my desktop.

 

*whistles innocently*

 

I bet they forgot their promise of revamping the aa trees and someone brought it up at a meeting a few weeks ago so they quickly brainstormed of the quickest way they could do it... adding fervor to stuff was their answer.

 

They managed to make reforging completely useless too...
From the beta patch notes
"Reforging will now only give the option of Potency, Crit Bonus, and Ability Modifier as destination stats."

Don't have enough reuse, casting speed, recovery speed, hate gain, strikethrough, etc? Tough ****. And given the way they've been itemizing gear, I doubt they're going to adjust it for the changes to reforging.

 

So, AB, which everybody reforges out of for DPS, is now one of only 3 things you can reforge into? And DPS isn't one of the three?

 

Auto Attack is anyways nerfed if you don't have 100 % strikethrough and a good amount of accuracy. The dps mod itself is also nerfed, the more dps mod the lesser is the difference.
Flurry is no longer additional attacks but a damage multplier.

 

Color me unimpressed. Same lack of details, and what meager information is given in pre-order resembles more of the same. They try to push the fluff and dazzle you with that, but underneath it all is more of the same lack of content and what is there is just more grinding and repetition. People are asking why there isn't a developer live stream. I am sure that is because the expansion will release largely unfinished and full of bugs just like BOL was.

 

On a personal level, it's probably a good thing they require us to pay to beta test. I have just enough hope left that I'd beta test and help out the friends I've made testing over the years to test and document if I wasn't required to pay for the... privilege.

 

Just skimmed through the general section of the beta forums... and oboy... the bugs that people are reporting tells me the expansion is another quick hack to get out and that almost nothing have been tested internally.

Wonder if the missing recipes for skills and spells have been added yet, it's been a year now...

Also, inb4 Aimee reports she bought 5 of the premium preorders for her accounts and once again complains about how much money she spends without getting what she think she will...

 

So, has anyone here taken the plunge? I'm curious about in-game impressions. I'm also curious about the new AA trees.

 

Have not bought alpha testing ermmm beta I mean of course.... I might buy the game when it comes out, got 20 or so Krono so only need to pay for the expac. But whet I read so far is not reassuring.... mob pathing is not sorted and forgetting to add a zone exit... basics

 

And now apparently the patcher is crashing which means that people can't even download the update to get into the game - beta or live.

 

I refuse to buy an expac I'll never use just to test out AA revamps (and pointing that out on the OF sent my post into a black hole ).

In other news there are multiple threads indicating problems with the beta patching - again. Doesn't this happen every year now? And in the midst of it all our favourite troll has decided to turn his hand to tech support:
Unable to download SocketError | EverQuest 2 Forums

Wonder if any of them thought to check their wifi?!