So when this new eq2 comes out, you can't transfer your character onto it? If so I'll be quitting and joining a different game..it's taken me too long to get lvl 60.

First EQ will be out for atleast two more years, the work required to cancel it without a bankruptcy proceeding when they have paid subscriptions for up to 2 years 6 months from now would be a nightmare along.

Secondaly as long as people pay enough to support the servers and bandwidth they most likely will continue it.

Finally: What about Moria and Larn, Sasharelle do you remember those ports?

In previous posts, an anonymous poster said:

>>1) Tradeskills are still a joke and you should be able to make money from them without spending three hours trying to auction to players.<<

and Serrasin said:

>>actually EQ is broken. the economy is shattered. there is nothing more depressing than to be a 50+ charater and see a level 6 whatever walking around with better gear than you.<<

aother anonymous poster (I will refer to him as Anonymous 2) said:

>> Personally I hate the idea of breakable or durable goods/weapons. Bad idea. The newby already has a hard enough time to get weapons, and gear, spells, food, and water. Lets add the worry of being without a working weapon because you can't afford the cost to repair it. Just plain Bad.<<

Anonymous 2 has given us a well written post, and I sympathize with his opinion. I just happen to disagree with it 100%. Trade skills are worthless in EQ beacause, as Anonymous 1 and Serrasin have already pointed out, the EQ economy is broken. They understate the case: the EQ economy is horribly, godawfully, unreasonably broken. And the cause is obvious.

Never mind trade skills for a moment. They are just one symptom of the root underlying problem. Please bear with this lengthy post and let me explain.

I am a 15 Paladin. My best armor piece is a Netherbian Chitin. It was worth 400 plat when I acquired it, and has been my best armor piece ever since. Through a whim of Brell Seralis (read: lucky game bug) I managed to get my hands on a second and gave it to a friend in exchange for some other gear. My buddy sold it for quick cash and got $300. Later on, I decided to take up smithing and reluctantly decided to give up my prized Netherbian, which has seen me safely through countless hair raising battles, to raise cash for my smithing education. The first day I decided to try auctioning it, the best price I was offered was 200 plat. I groaned to myself and mustered my patience, figuring this was a temporary market dip.

Wrong. The next day, the best price I could get was 150. The day after that, no one would offer any cash at all...my best offer was trade for a hand tailored backpack by a sympathetic tradeskiller. For the last three days, I have continued to look for a buyer. The best price I have been offered has been 100 plat. One quarter of the original value when I acquired it.

I could cry and whine about this, but would get laughed at. Every serious EverQuest player has been in exactly this situation with some prized acquisition he wants to resell. It is called deflation, and it is a basic, fundamental part of the EQ economy.

The reason is simple. EQ items never wear out.
Think about it a minute. The quantity of every item in the game is a number that never goes down, only up. Word of any decent quest or monster item rapidly gets around, and other characters duplicate the actions needed to have the server generate them one, be it killing a mob, delivering a quest item, jumping through GM hoops or whatever. Technical hardware constraints keep the number of players on a server from ever increasing once it has been in service for more than a few weeks.

Fixed market size plus ever increasing supply has an inevitable effect. The price goes down. Whine all you want, the law of supply and demand is merciless and doesn't care about your feelings. (Gotta be an idea for a new God there somewhere...perhaps we'll see Keynes Ferengi, god of profit and beloved of traders, in EQ2)

Tradeskills inevitably suffer from this. When a server is brand new, tradeskills are worthwhile. But after a few months of steady deflation, tradeskillers have grave trouble finding ANYTHING to make that will have a market value nearly as high as the cost of the materials it requires to make.

The exception to deflation is tradeskill items that by their nature DO wear out: potions, poisons, brews and baked foods. Not that there is much money in any of these, potions and poisons require ingredients that are notoriously difficult to get compared to the effects, and Verant has carefully set the recipes for baking and brewing so that you can make money at them, but only in amounts that are completely trivial on any mature server. But for tailors, jewelers and Brell help us, smiths, deflation dramatically decreases the value of our crafts.

For example, the 300 plat I had hoped to raise selling my Netherbian would have been enough to finance raising my skill to where I could make banded armor. The majority of EQ players would scoff at banded armor as merchant trash (a piece of EQ jargon whose very existence says volumes about how broken the economy is). Succeeding at acquiring this level of skill would mean I would have the privelege of making my very own banded armor, and the privelege of replacing my prized Netherbian, AC 20, +10 HP, sv fire +2, with a banded breastplate, AC 15, no stat bonuses. Oh joy. But the reality of deflation means I cannot develop that level of skill without further financing. With 100 plat I could maybe raise my skill enough to reliably make smithed weopons. Wonderful. Don't even get me started about how worthless smithed weopons are.

It will never, ever, be possible to produce a stable tradeskill system that produces useful results unless either deflation is eliminated or Verant constantly refigures the recipes or ingredient prices so the production costs stay in line with the market value of the results. Figure the odds of Verant arranging that. Verant has ONE employee who works, part time, on the tradeskill system. His time is almost completely taken up in development of expansions. Sure, if we all just whine loud enough, they'll hire a staff of ten or so extra GM's to constantly check the market prices on each and every server and adjust the tradeskill recipes accordingly. About as likely as Brell donning a speedo and hitting the beach to work on his tan.

The fix for this is simple. Items must not last forever.

This is the primary thing I am looking for in EQ 2. If items will have the ability to wear out, the economy will have at least a chance of being stable, and tradeskills a chance of being worthwhile. Verant can still get it all wrong, but without that fundamental measure, they may as well just leave tradeskills out altogether.

Ok, rant over. Quit wasting time here and go teach some foul follower of Cazzic-Thule the error of his wicked ways. If you play on Mith Marr, send me a /tell.

Galogan, apprentice smith and Paladin of 15 seasons.

I think this is just a previewe of the ps2 eq game that is taking place 500 years before the current eq. Tha was annouced a while ago. This crap about classes and skills seems like bogus BS. The "it takes 30 mins to get level 6" is to detailed... i think the links are made for the Ps2 eq game, and the details are bogus. Thats that....

Sounds like DAoC. I guess if you can't beat 'em...

Honestly, I just got done upgrading my computer so that I could play with everything Luclin has to offer. (New models are all on now! YAY!) I have yet to explore most of the new continents. I've been to a few places on each, with the exception of Kunark and I still haven't been everywhere there.

Yes, there are things that need work in EverQuest. I'd like to see them fix the things they've been saying they will fix for over a year now.

Frankly, I don't think the economy needs work. It does smart when you see someone walking around better equipped than you are. But does that REALLY matter? Be proud of what you've done and let the rest do what they want is my motto on this. One of these days I'll have that UBAR item they have and I'm drooling over. Twinks? *shrugs* They have to have a higher level character to twink, and they put in the time and effort. So let 'em enjoy it.

Degrading weapons and items? GARG! I don't care if it's more realistic. What a pain in the a**. You're fighting ubermob_01 and your sword breaks. Great. Guess you'll be making a corpse run just to turn around and find a blacksmith. Thrill me.

No more classes, stats, etc at the start? So, I guess that is good from a RP standpoint. Your character can "grow". But it sounds confusing to me, and frankly I don't trust VI to make it clearer.

Ooooh, a little town for me and my groupies! PvP would rock for this. Otherwise, let's just stroke those egos, shall we?

Mobs can chase me across the zoneline? ARE YOU CRAZY? That's brilliant, really. I don't know how many times I have died steps from the zoneline. Thank you for making it *that* much harder, VI. You're all getting coal in your stockings, I swear.

Level 200??? Or for that matter, level 100??? Good gods, I haven't even managed to get to level 60 in the year and a half I've been playing! Oh wait, it'll be easier to level up, and you won't lose experience. But wait again, you incure an experience debt? Ok, now I'm confused. You're still penalizing us for dying, but it's not so obvious anymore? *shrugs* Whatever, that's a fix. Uh huh...

All in all...Not a game I am interested in buying or playing. I'll be sticking to the old EQ, *if* they keep it around. Guess that's what I'll ask for for Xmas.

Teneel Frostblade
Ranger of the Tribunal Server

Kerridwynn D'Veldrin
Yathrin of the Firiona Vie Server

Well, a new form of UO or Diablo or what ever pops in mind is just what we need. EverQuest has always been something unique and it always will be in my eyes. I just hope that we can continue to play the _OLD_ EQ and let those who want to play this new silly modification do so. There is a lot of adventure games on the market and you have to ask yourself one question, why do people buy EQ even today? Why do people that have played the game since it first game out still continue to play? The gameplay of course, it rocks totally and the game is constantly evolving with new addons, new improved graphics and so forth. Of course this could couse latency for some but ... this has always been a fact in the gaming business. Something new comes and if you linger behind with your upgrade on hardware you're ******* There is nothing new under the sun here.

Gabbi
Bankrupt wiz on Sullon Zek that cannot afford to repair items if that's the case.

one of the possible new features is to be able to target a body part on a mob to hack at. i think this is a realy good idea. ( tear that leg off for a gheto snare, or take off an arm for a ghetto slow) i think that puts more sttrategies into place especialy in a higher level raid setting.

as far as these communities if it can be done well, i can see this adding allot to a PvP server.

now on the breakable weapons. in the past few months i have clawed my way from a level one nothing to a 51 epic ranger. i have mixed feelings about this and it greatly depends on how its done.
if the item loss is permanant , i know allot of people will never do the epic quests.
if it is temporary (IE like diablo2) then i can see it adding allot to the game. then on a full raid setting you may need to bring a master blacksmith with you as well of be able to gate there and back? but then the problem of a flooded market is stil there.

personally i think i would change to EQ2 it seems over all a more dynamic world and that is what i am looking forward to.

While it will be a shame to lose the high level characters we have spent so much time and effort in playing, it is getting to a stage where the game is turning into an item collecting game because thats all there is left to do.

I have tried most of the other games out there and keep coming back to EQ for a number of reasons. (a few of which are)

1) I can choose to play on a PvP or Non PvP server and it is not imposed on me;

2) You are not expected to upgraded your items every level just to kill the Mobs at the next level;

3) The world is big enough (now) for its population base,

There are areas where the game can be improved (again a few of which are)

1) Tradeskills are still a joke and you should be able to make money from them without spending three hours trying to auction to players.

2) Everyone of the same level is more differentiated by the equipment they have and not the choices in their characters development

3) Zoning times still suck, and if mobs follow you across, they may need a smoke break while waiting for us to cross :)

The end line is that VI will have to work out what made us all stick with their game and not move (permanently) to the newer games out there.

we'll have to see whether or not verant will release EQ2. yes the graphix look good but like other people have said , only those with really powerful pc's will be able to run it...plus will they just revamp the old EQ with the new program code or just expect everyone to swap to the new game ??.. maybe if verant are just going to release the new game they could offer all the existing players a move over? . plus it all depends on how much a month its going to cost us. as a side note it would be good if verant can take a bite out of dungeon sieges idea of being able to play single player offline , obviously with going online to dowload your chars stats to the mainframe so you can join in with other people and groups. but if they do that then theyre gonna have to be careful of people breaking the codes and giving themslves monty haul's while theyre offline....

Everquest as it stands cannot and will not survive as a mmorpg if it does not >>evolve<<. I hate to disagree with my fellow Evercrackwhores (you know who you are, dahlings), but the game as it stands is incredibly boring when starting out a character and not twinking it (I tried something a while back: When I create a new character, I make sure that character is the only one I have on any particular server, so I cannot twink it myself, and there would be no temptation). All due respect to Mr. Hobbithucker, if you were Verant, to whom would you rather lose your Everquest customers, another of your games (and keep the cash in your pocket), or to a competitor? Think about it, EQ is going to lose people, period, because of the engine plain and simple...They have to do something to keep bringing new blood into their universe.

As far as the item decay goes, if they engineer it so that you can go to a blacksmith (or tailor, depending) and have your worn-out weapon/armor repaired and restored to its full "potential", and make the cost equivalent with the "potential" of that item, kind of like recharging a magic item, then it would definitely add more RPG realism to the game. I mean come on, if things in RL were like stuff in EQ, I'd never have to a) Feed my dog; b)Take my VW into the shop; or c)Take a shower (or, for that matter, d)Go to the bathroom, rofl).

Anyway, the closer they can get EQ (or any other mmorpg that beats em to the punch) to being an ACTUAL roleplaying game, like us old fogies used to play on tabletop, the the happier I'll be.

My 2 coppers
/shrug

P.S. I think making your own little guild communities is a great idea. Being able to burn your enemies' down would be an even greater one.
/grin
/shout MMMBBWAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAAAAA

In a recent copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly, there was an article about Everquest for the PS2. In addition to the game, you have to buy the network card add-on, and hope that you have broadband access in your home. It too was called EQ2, and I'm wondering if all the changes proposed, are geared to make the game more compatable with a console enviroment. Even with a USB keyboard attached to a PS2, I doubt playing EQ on it will be very easy or rewarding. This is, after all, a role-playing game, and when you limit the social interaction to a few pre-determined messages, something will suffer.

My graphics card is attempting to go on strike. Just said if I were to play a game with that intense of graphics from VI it would kill me =/ doah!