EverQuest II: Visions of Vetrovia

I didn't even know they were working on one. I guess we'll find out something about it the day it goes live!

Are those last couple screenshots a new zone? All I see are isle of mara and what looks like that raid instance in the feerrott from back in the day.

 

The only thing that post actually announces is the title of the new expansion. Everything else in there is detail of the prelude event which has been on test a couple of weeks already so hardly really news now.

The 'new' zones are a re-used chunk of either Tranquil/Phantom Sea, the mentioned re-used Feerrott instance zone and a re-dress of Oakmyst Forest. I assumed they were simply being used by Kaitheel for his prelude content, but the way expansions have been shrinking lately who knows? That may be all we're getting! And I also expect to get the remaining details an hour after the expansion goes live

 

My, my, aren’t we being optimistic!

I’m betting day after…. Or during the first emergency downtime to fix whatever huge issue they managed to completely miss (or ignore).

 

AoM v2.0

Vampires, Pygmys, Pirates and the Shattered Seas.

Lots of reusing assets.

Same old same old.

 

There WILL be an expansion and we got the name. Nothing left to discus
The announcement has the same content like the prelude event. Null, nothing, nada...

 

So i played the prelude event.

The first Zone is a rehash of the sinking sands, the only difference back then on the way up were armadillos and now there are deinos. In the middle is house from the Rum Cellar Adventure Pack.
That is also the 6th Zone to be at the Sea lately. 5 Zones on the Moon were also at the sea, speaking of lazy design.

The second zone is not so much Oakmyste Forest but a rehash of the back part of the Isle of Mara. We might see the use of Fallen Dynasty even more seeing that crafing "Content" is in the Village of Shin.


The third zone is based on Feerott. But more interstingly it's a rehashed Zone based on another rehashed zone. Eq2Maps tells me that the zone was used for Bristlebane Day 2011........

 

The prelude event is terrible. It tells us nothing about the new expansion, gives us nothing as a taster. It's just unimaginative and lazy. A prelude should give you a taste of the new content and it fails miserably at that.

 

"Visions of ..." ... the first thing that came to mind is a saying that we have here: "If you are having visions - there is a specialist doctor for that!"

 

Panda, Panda, Panda! | EverQuest 2 Forums

Seems last minute details are definitely the new SOP. Whatever happened to giving us enough notice to plan and something to look forward to?

 

Gear Up, Level Up! | EverQuest 2 Forums
So 10 minutes ago he announced an event that started 2 hours ago. And as he immediately locked it we can't even have the annual ongoing query about exactly what does Double Status mean. I think communication is definitely dead.

And in other news they appear to have screwed up the panda event too.

 

Panda event had a good old "Buy this item for 0c, sell it for x plat to a merchant" exploit, so they had to pull that npc pretty damn quick.

GULU was due to start in 2 weeks if you believed the email they sent out.
GULU was due to start today if you believed Kander in Discord
GULU actually started multiple hours late than planned today as after 15 years they still can't schedule **** properly.

 

This is my surprised face.

I mean, there's not really any incentive for them to actually meet milestones or deadlines at this point. They KNOW that even if they screw up, the folks that are left will continue to play and continue to open their wallets. It's kind of like being noseblind to something that everyone else can smell: It happened gradually and over time, such that the noseblind one didn't even notice the increasing odor level. But when someone returns or a new friend comes over, it quickly smacks them in the face and they're like "OMG, what is THAT?!"

Until enough folks finally walk away, I wouldn't expect anything to change. *shrug*

 

That and it turns out that doing their job "is no fun!"

VD solo last mob | EverQuest 2 Forums

 

Well, then, by all means. Who cares if the players... those paying to play the game aren't having fun if making it fun for the players isn't fun for the developers.....

 

I've got 643 customers. Across those 643 customers I have a catalog of well over 50K different items with each one having multiple pages of specs that have to be met. Science ****, engineering ****, aesthetics, and metallurgy. I deal with weekly sales that bring in more money than the entire DBG company does in a year. Everybody wants their stuff RIGHT NOW, and a whole lot of the population, world wide, doesn't get to eat certain types of veggies, fruits, and nuts if they don't get it by at least tomorrow, metaphorically speaking. Chrol can F right off and do his job or find a different one.

 

Honestly I think what Chrol said there is fair. If he had to try balance solo zones for all of the classes, it'd take up so much time.

If all archetypes were relatively balanced, then sure, but balancing a zone for a templar vs a fury would be hard enough, let alone every other class.

It's a solo zone, the majority of players just breeze through them anyway.

 

Seems to me that sitting at the heart of the problem is the bloat that Kander claimed wasn't a big deal.

I'm guessing the issue here is a combination of % based reactive damage and the way scouts (especially rogues) proc damage?

P.S. Chrol admitted at the end there that he just doesn't have enough time or enough help to make these advanced solos balanced for all classes. He's a pretty good Dev, and I believe him about that.

 

The sceenshots look cool. If I didn't know better I'd almost want to spend $35 to explore the new zones.