My review of the EQ beta. (Very Long ;-)
Silverlock
have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
Because I am coming from UO and Diablo as my two most recent
"Social" online games (which is why I play primarily) I may reference
and compare to them to better discuss features.
Graphics:
EQ graphics are fairly well done. I am not a big FPS player
and don't have a lot of comparisons to go by so take this with a grain
of salt, however the graphics and scenery were certainly acceptable to
me with certain specific exceptions. One thing that stands out is that
the view and scenery in EQ isn't made up of tiles so can be different,
whereas in a tile based game such as UO, once you have seen a tile or
tile set of one cobblestone path you know all cobblestone paths will
look the same.
The specific instances where graphics are unacceptable to me
are as follows.
1) When beta phase 4 first started the "draw distance" was huge.
You could look out over an entire valley and see creatures moving on
the other side, and scenery all the way across the vale. They changed
and shortened the draw distance during the first week and IMHO
severely lowered the graphical standard of the game. It probably
dropped an entire letter grade if it was being graded that way. In
addition the distance at which players can be seen was also lowered.
This causes the unfortunate circumstance whereby you can see and
attack a monster and only when you approach it see the other players
who were already attacking the monster. This has gotten me called a
kill stealer and is not a good thing. If I can see the NPC I should be
able to see any pc that is near or fighting it.
2) Emote text color. In the text box, the color of the text for emotes
is dark blue. This color works well when you are in small screen mode
and it appears against a beige background but is practically
unreadable against the
black background of the semi-full screen mode which most players will
spend most of their time in.
3) Darkness. This is a problem that appears to plague only some people
and is not a global problem so you might not see it. For me however
night time can be extremely dark, and the Infravision that my
character had only helped when a body or npc or pc was onscreen. It
is so bad that to follow a road at night I MUST go full screen yet to
do so removes all contact or messages from my partners, or attack
messages from something hitting me from behind. This full screen mode
also doesn't show me when my spells are failing, which can be suicide.
Monster AI:
Here I would have to give this one totally to EQ over UO.
While the monsters in EQ aren't bright they do have a better AI then
the UO monsters.
They cannot be trapped on terrain and if they can it is an exploit and
will be fixed. Abusing such a terrain feature will get you banned.
They will run if hurt and will always try and call for help and get
you surrounded. Many of them are faster then you are normally and when
you get below 40% health you slow down even more and will probably
die. In addition attacking from the rear either you or them will yield
better results.
User Interface:
There are a number of small easily correctable flaws with the
UI of EQ, which makes me wonder why they weren't corrected. For
example when depositing money into or out of the bank, there is no
"deposit all" or "withdraw all" buttons. Instead you must click on
each coin type, click again to either select all or to decrease a
slider and then drag and drop each coin type. In addition there is no
autoconvert for coins. Also when you have slider bars you cannot click
and hold in the bar itself to scroll up, instead you have to click
click click, etc. This goes against windows standards and makes extra
work for the user. Another problem is that mouselook and moving
forward requires you to hold down the mouse keys instead of an easy
means to lock mouselook on or turn it off using the mouse buttons. Now
admittedly all of these things are MINOR and you can easily get used
to the way things work in EQ, however they all point to a lack of
polish on the user interface, sort of like the stacking things issues
which occur in UO, not critical but annoying. In addition the lack of
a totally mapable keyboard is a big negative.
Quests:
I was given two quests while in the beta, and was unable to
finish either. The first was a quest to repair a black box
(datastorage) for a rogue clockwork in Ak'Anon. Now I think I was
close to solving the quest and only needed one more part but am not
sure since there were no hints or any help involved. The second Quest,
was given to me at level 2, and was to go hunt down a Troll NPC and
bring the guy back his head. The problem is it is HIGHLY doubtful that
this quest is possible to be finished by someone anywhere near level
2. I am not sure but every other NPC I considered came up bright
tombstone red so I doubt I would have been able to complete this quest
before I had achieved a LOT of levels. Since there is no Quest log if
I had succeeded in the quest I might not have remembered where to
bring the head back too or even that I needed to do so. Still there is
a built in Quest engine and that is something that UO lacks.
Economy:
The economy in EQ is VERY TOUGH. It is possible to starve, and
doing so means your stamina, and Hitpoints do not regenerate. This
discourages sitting around talking because quite simply you are ALWAYS
on the clock.
A basic Food costs 1 silver and 8 coppers for me, and a water costs 1
silver and 1 copper. Not a lot but it does add up. Also you can't let
yourself starve and then put food in your pack and get around the food
requirement oh no, because if you are starving and put food in your
pack it will be consumed very fast until you have paid of your "Food
debt". This is obviously an anti twinking measure. I played many hours
over 4 weeks and achieved the level of 8 and in all that time my sum
total of money saved would probably be less then 10 platinum. Compare
that to the costs of spells; 1st rank, 1 gold, 2cnd rank 4 gold, 3rd
rank (level 8) 4 PLATINUM EACH! And there are 8+ spells in 3rd rank.
At the point I reached level 8 I had a choice to make, I could hunt
for experience primarily or for gold to buy the rest of my spells.
This nearly doubles the time requirement for the game and isn't a
"Fun" addition IMHO.
Trade skills:
There are two ways to go in an online game with trade skills,
you can make them profitable or not or some variation of that while
learning them. In UO for example learning a trade can almost always
allow you to break even. Another way is to make it impossible to break
even at anything less then mastery and thus force a "learning cost" on
would be tradesman. EQ takes an even harsher route then that. When you
try a trade there is always the chance that you will fail and use up
ALL RAW MATERIALS with nothing to show for it, not even a skill gain.
Even if you do succeed and this is true even at master levels from
what I hear, you will never be able to sell what you made to an NPC
for what you spent on raw materials. The thing is that in EQ those raw
materials are VERY EXPENSIVE. Tailoring, you need a pattern and some
fur and a sewing kit. If you fail the pattern disappears with the fur
(stupid IMHO) and patterns cost at least a few gold. Perhaps the skill
system will balance out in the long run, but currently no phase 4
players can really use it because at the levels we are at we cannot
afford to experiment with it.
Combat and Grouping:
Since I am only a level 8 and an Enchanter at that (a weak
class at low levels) I have had some opportunities to group. At the
stage my character is at he SHOULD group since it is much harder to
advance without a group. Good things: it is easy to target your group
mates with the function keys. Bad things: Your group mate might be
right behind you getting his ass chewed off and you might miss it in
the confusion. After seeing and getting used to the text over head way
of UO it is hard to adjust to a text box and the more limited view of
first person perspective. In addition the fact that you can only
target one thing at a time means that if your in a fight and try to
heal yourself or help your friend you basically stop fighting the
creature that is beating on you until you can retarget it. Because of
small flaws in the graphics engine it can be possible to target the
wrong thing in combat.
In addition because you might be fighting three monsters with the same
text description it can be necessary to target yourself in between
targeting them to make sure you have actually changed targets since
otherwise there is no way to tell if the text description in the box
is the old monster or new one.
It is my opinion that the lack of a lockable 3rd person perspective,
lack of some sort of textual, visual or sound cues to orient on
someone when they are not onscreen in first person view, and the lack
of a multi targeting ability, means that overall grouping will take
some work and getting used to at the least and will never be as easy
as healing or helping friends in UO's 3/4 overhead view.
In addition, there is very little player input required for actual
physical combat, you simply choose a target, hit the autoattack button
and sit back and watch. For warriors classes there are at higher
levels various other attacks and stuff which amount to pushing a
button when you can. For casters there is more variety and strategy,
considering you have a limited number of spell slots to choose from (8
only out of all the spells you could know) and choosing when and who
to cast on allows various strategies.
Classes and Skills:
Overall the classes are balanced although some are weaker at
certain levels. There is of course stricter skill and ability
restrictions then in UO. In fact the skill system practically
guarantees that every race class combination will have nearly
identical skills to every other of the same race and class and level.
This is because some skills are easy to train and rise to their level
max through normal use, and others like trade skills will never rise
unless you purposely choose to devote the massive money and time to
rasing them. This is a big disappointment to me since I had thought
that just because the skills were there for each class/race combo that
you would still be somewhat different based on what you chose to spend
your points on.
This is by and large not the case.
PK's and Jerks:
The one area where EQ shines so far completely and without
question over UO is the pk switch. True it does limit "realism" and
options, but it also provides worry free play. No one can loot you or
kill you or steal from you unless you let them. You can ignore people
easily and furthermore the EQ gm's have demonstrated a willingness to
act in situations that OSI has IMHO rarely shown. If only this switch
was in place in a better game overall ;-(
Magic System: IMHO this is another area where EQ has UO beat hands
down.
The different classes of magi have specialties which even at my low
level can be quite clearly seen. Mages don't heal themselves and
require clerical casters to do so. As an example of the variety, lets
examine two classes; the Wizard and the Enchanter.
Wizard is a very focused mage type and is basically a nuker. He has
very high damage spells and lots of area affect spells. In addition
his mana per damage rate is the most efficient. At high levels he get
teleport (recall type transport) spells and eventually even group
transport spells.
Enchanter: The Enchanter is weak at lower levels and will always solo
less well then a Wizard. This is because the Enchanter is designed
around making a group function better. He can buff the tanks, increase
their attack speed, slow the monster, stun extra attacking monsters,
charm them to attack their own kind, and summon an animated dagger or
sword to fight for him. He has a lot more variety then the wizard but
pays for it with lack of direct offensive abilities.
I only wish UO would have a magic system like this, even if it was
skill based rather then class based. The magic system is THE primary
reason I would play EQ.
Factions:
I can't really say too much about factions except that I have
seen some negative sides to them but wasn't around long enough to see
the positive sides.
If all that was it then despite how negative I sound I would still
play EQ mostly because I need a break from UO, but it isn't. There are
2 more issues which make me say no to EQ at the present time.
1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ. I achieved level 8
FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
lose exp and drop back to level 7. This is frustrating but not nearly
as frustrating as dying 4 zones away from your start point in an area
where you have no idea where your corpse is. Immediately you are
placed in a race to get back to your corpse and or find someone to
help you get to that corpse. This can be fun but usually is not. If
you die in a group and have to get your stuff back everyone else might
as well cut you loose because they will be sharing exp for kills with
you until you get back and you won't be contributing until you get
back. If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO. You
could recover from death with a monetary cost but without the huge
time cost.
And what happens if you die just before your supposed to go to work?
Well your corpse will probably be gone by the time you get back and
you will be out a substantial chunk of change. Bad playing incentive
and I hope they fix it.
2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
annoying bug
for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
I was leading a group of 2 others to a better hunting area when less
then 5 minutes from the guard zone I started to get the bug. I told
them to go on ahead and slowly ever so slowly bounced towards the
guard station. About 40-50 feet from the Station an Orc Runner with
missing textures appears in front of me. I know I'm dead because I
can't fight one normally much less when I am moving at about 1 frame
every second. I see the damage coming in, I see the guards sitting on
their fat asses in plain view, and I can't even get around the beast.
I get off one "help" shout before I die, with my health meter not even
registering my death until I am already dead. Then I crash. I am at
this point VERY frustrated and you know what, I don't play games to be
frustrated. I reboot my pc (total lockup) get my naked body back thru
the three zones to my corpse and hand off my 3 platinum worth of stuff
to the one group member still waiting and log out. Despite what I
consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
evidence that it affects most players.
In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
switch.
Min
>
>In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
>overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
>switch.
>
And let's see are you comparing EQ-beta to UO which has released a long time
ago and underwent numerous patches after patches and even an expansion pack?
Seems like if you want a fair comparison you should be comparing EQ beta to
UO beta, and we all know how that will compare.
You got some valid points about EQ's bugs but if you wish to make a
comparison then you have something fundamentally wrong with your argument.
-Min
Ken Nicolson
wrote:
[snip]
Good review! I bet most magazines aren't as honest as this!
>If all that was it then despite how negative I sound I would still
>play EQ mostly because I need a break from UO, but it isn't. There are
>2 more issues which make me say no to EQ at the present time.
>
>1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ.
Call me a daft bugger, but I like harsh death! UO is *far* too soft.
Perhaps, though, there can be a suitable middle-ground.
>I achieved level 8
>FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
>lose exp and drop back to level 7.
I like this part especially. Wasn't one easy way of sparring in UO to
find a wisp near a healer and die repeatedly?
>If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
>not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO. You
>could recover from death with a monetary cost but without the huge
>time cost.
Hmm, interesting, although no doubt people will find a money gold mine
and become rather immortal? Perhaps a res with penalties where you
randomly recover 50% of your items?
>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
>annoying bug
[snip fatal graphics driver (?) bug description]
So, what would you recommend to the many UO players who in the last
patch encounters a huge increase in client collapses?
>Despite what I
>consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th.
OSI released UO regardless of any sort of finished status themselves,
so sadly it seems like a trend has been established :-( I played the
UO beta, and it was horrendously bust. Due to geography, I'm not in
the EQ beta, but the bug level seems less based on the content of
a.g.eq and EQVault's Bugs board, and a high percentage of it seems to
be hardware incompatability.
>My
>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>bug will not exist in the final release,
Please tell me how you come to this conclusion. BTW, what graphics
card do you have? I'll assume you're up to date with drivers.
>although I don't see any
>evidence that it affects most players.
>
>In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
>overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
>switch.
Ken
Lord Sargas Minot
play the fuckin' UO beta anymore. He was summing up 2 games that are available
at the same time. Hell, you wouldn't compare Quake III with Doom would you?
I beta'd EQ. Fuck EQ. I'm waiting for ME. But I'm happy that OSI is starting
to take us more seriously...
"Everybody form their own opinions, then we'll box it out"
-Lord Sargas
Davian - LS
>
> I have now played the EQ beta phase 4 for close to 4 weeks and
> have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
> and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
>
Thanks for the review. :)
Sugarman
>
> Actually, I think Silverlock was correct in doing it the way he did. You can't
> play the fuckin' UO beta anymore. He was summing up 2 games that are available
> at the same time. Hell, you wouldn't compare Quake III with Doom would you?
>
> I beta'd EQ. Fuck EQ. I'm waiting for ME. But I'm happy that OSI is starting
> to take us more seriously...
Nothing like a little healthy competition, eh?
--sugarman--
Takatak and Massala on The Rathe
Sugarman
>
> On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 09:32:45 GMT, cro...@earthlink.net (Silverlock)
> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> Good review! I bet most magazines aren't as honest as this!
Well, it is hard to be objective of you want to get invited back to
those nifty E3 parties....
> >If all that was it then despite how negative I sound I would still
> >play EQ mostly because I need a break from UO, but it isn't. There are
> >2 more issues which make me say no to EQ at the present time.
> >
> >1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ.
>
> Call me a daft bugger, but I like harsh death! UO is *far* too soft.
> Perhaps, though, there can be a suitable middle-ground.
The middle ground, by my reasoning would be to keep some of the
penalties for XP and the like, but to reduce item costs into the realms
of sanity. Also, it might be nice for non-spell casters to be able to
grab a "Scroll of Bind" or "Scroll of corpse return". Expensive, one
shot items, but the kind of things you keep in the bank and will use
when you need to recover quickly from a death 4 zones away.
> >2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
> >annoying bug
>
> [snip fatal graphics driver (?) bug description]
>
> So, what would you recommend to the many UO players who in the last
> patch encounters a huge increase in client collapses?
>
> >Despite what I
> >consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
> >for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th.
>
> OSI released UO regardless of any sort of finished status themselves,
> so sadly it seems like a trend has been established :-( I played the
> UO beta, and it was horrendously bust. Due to geography, I'm not in
> the EQ beta, but the bug level seems less based on the content of
> a.g.eq and EQVault's Bugs board, and a high percentage of it seems to
> be hardware incompatability.
Industry wide problem. There are few products that I find that feel
finished even for fairly 'standard' systems, let alone obscure
chip/vid-card/sound/driver bugs that many patches seem to be issued for.
My concern for EQ isn't for the bugs...Verant has shown to be pretty
good about patching regularly during the beta and attempting to quash
them. There is more of an unfinished 'feel' to the game, which begins
with the interface, and continues through to missing pictures for items
and a faction system which seems to be months away from being ready.
Lord Sargas Minot
as allways, my low regard for EQ is my own opinion... Most of my friends disagree
with me, but they're the same people that are anxiously awaiting Quake III. Me, I'm
just happy I grabbed Myth II(a very good game by the way). I think as EQ is released
and there is the inevitable loss of some UO players, that OSI will try to counter
strongly. I just hope that they don't do anything rash in their attempt to keep
players.
"Not the only kid on the block anymore..."
-Lord Sargas
Glaeken
current state of UO. Otherwise you'd be comparing different time periods of
software, if you know what i mean.
Silverlock, I agree with your opinion about UO graphics - After playing
multitudes of adventure/role playing games over the last 15 years, UO's overhead
isometric view is without a doubt the best layout I've seen yet. I've been
playing UO for 15 months now,
and despite all the problems such as GM indifference to cheating and breaking of
signup rules, its still the best pc entertainment I've ever seen. Even with the
pks. Town thieves might drive me out, but not the pks. I've tried Baldur's Gate,
and the combat system sucks in my opinion. Constant pausing is required, which
kindof ruins it.
Thanks for the review.
Glaeken of LS
Min wrote:
> >Silverlock wrote in message <36e24725...@news.earthlink.net>...
> >
> >In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
> >overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
> >switch.
> >
>
I'azu
think the future for MMRPG's is, if nothing else, going to be exciting for
the simple fact that there is now gonna be competition. Currently, UO has EQ
to watch out for. On the other hand, EQ and UO both have to worry about AC
and MM which are looming on the horizon (Although MM might be faltering).
It's gonna be very interesting just watching what happens over the next year
or so in both UO and EQ.
Sugarman <suga...@canada.com> wrote in message
news:36E27BDF...@canada.com...
Chris
Lord Sargas Minot wrote in message <36E28DCB...@ix.netcom.com>...
> I just hope that they don't do anything rash in their attempt to keep
>players.
>
>"Not the only kid on the block anymore..."
>-Lord Sargas
>
OSI has already completed a rash act. . . buy 3 months of UO time, get one
free. . . .
Hoorah for competition! As for me, I have a 200 mHz 2/MMX. . . I'm not
jumping from the UO ship unless I see some drastic improvements.
Kordell (Chesapeake Adventurer)
Ethan (Chesapeake Bowyer)
Rommel (Chesapeake Scribe/Cook)
a...@ultinet.net
This is NOT a review. It is mostly an overview of the current bugs
and shortcomings of EverQuest. You neglect to mention all the good
things EQ has, but proceed to attack its low points. And thats not
objective.
Now I understand that there are hundreds of other reviews out there
which praise EQ endlessly for what its been able to ahieve and you are
trying to shed some lights on the existing problems... just please
don't try to make it look like the game is plagued with bugs beyond
playability.
Artem
Co-Founder of The Way
a...@ultinet.net
http://delerium.inetsolve.com
Jason
Virtus
not giving EQ enough credit. First off, complaining about dying along way
away, big deal. 4 zones is nothing, wont take you long at all to get your
body back, and you have 8+ hours to do it. Hell a friend of mine claims to
have gotten killed, logged off went to sleep, went to work the next day, got
home and logged back in and his corpse was still there. I'm sorry but it
just seems like you guys never want to loose. What the hell point is there
in a game were you'll never loose? Easy ego boost? I hope not, cus thats
just LAME.
As far as the game being frustrating... Heh, I played UO ever since it came
out retail up until a few months ago. I had alot more times that I have
logged out of UO in frustration then times that I logged off with having
enjoyed playing. The only reason I played UO for as long as I did was
because of my friends. And once they quit I got so board of UO I gave up on
it. Player vrs player combat IMHO has no place in number based combat games.
What I mean is when you have to work on your skill levels before you can
fight real well, pvrsp sucks because the people who allways win are going to
be the ones who either have been playing longer or have no life and play
every day all day. That wouldnt even be bad if you could AVOID those people
but you cant. They go to all of the places were you want to go, dungeons,
the good spawn areas... Running you off. And by the time you DO get strong
in UO, by macroing or just sitting there like an idiot repeating the same BS
over and over again, you try to go to these locations again, but this time
you fight one guy, then 6 more show up. It happend to me over and over
again. Sure I could join a big guild so that I'd allways have people with me
to even the odds... But why the hell should I have to join a guild? For the
people who dont have time or the patience to get involved in guilds, UO =
Constently sitting in town doing BS. Its boaring and pointless, unless you
want to go pk yourself and then attack people that you KNOW you can beat,
which is the lamest thing in the world.
PvrsP should be kept to games DESIGNED for PvrsP, aka quake. Atleast then
its usually a fair fight.
EQ however, I've been playin since B4 started, and not once have I logged
out frustrated. The game is FUN. The class and skill system is great, its
not perfect but its a hell of alot better then UO's everybody is everything
system. There is alot more diversity of characters in EQ then UO, of course
yeah there could be even more but its a big improvement. Dying isnt painfull
at all, and if your smart it isnt even common. I have a level 8 barbarian
warrior that hasnt died once in the past 6 days, yet hes gained two levels
and a good ammount of cash.
As far as things being so expensive, by the time that your character is to
the point were those items wouldnt make him go up 20 levels in 10 minets,
they wont seem nearly so expensive. I have talked to a lot of higher level
players, one of them likes to buy bark potions on a regular basis, these
cost 100 plat each. Hes level 23. If you could afford all of that armor and
wepons at level 5, it would throw the game WAY out of scale. Also at around
level 10, you start to make alot more money. Another friend of mine is a
level 13 cleric, he has full chain armor and 26 plat in the bank and he made
all the cash himself.
Right now, I have a number of chars, a level 8 ranger, a level 8 barbarian
warrior, a level 5 magican, and a level 5 rogue. I've ventured from qeynos
to freeport, to greater faydark and back, to the tox forests and the bottoms
of black burrow. I've died, and there was only one single time that I
couldnt get my stuff back, but that was because my ranger got killed way out
in the karna plains before he was level 5 and his corpse decayed in 30
minets. I got back to the spot like 5 minets too late LOL. Oh well though, I
recovered very easily.
As far as the interface being a bit ackward, yeah it could be improved a bit
but its very easy to get used to. Targeting can be a little hard too, but
its not anywere near impossible. And I find that I can keep track of a
battle alot better in first person mode then in the IMHO cheap overhead view
UO offers. But then again I've done and am pretty good at most FPS's. Combat
in EQ is alot more interesting then UO. UO you were just allways sure that
you could get away from whatever you were fighting. Even other players,
getting away wasnt hard... Its just when you feel like raiding a dungeon
IMHO you should beable to, not be forced off by 6 12 year olds who have way
too much time on their hands.
And the bug your experiencing... Its something on your end. I've never
experienced anything like it, hell EQ has never run anything short of great
on my comp. I dont think its fair to rate a game based on how well it
performs, unless your using a very high end system and it STILL doesnt work.
But EQ runs awsome on mid and high level computers. If ya got a fast comp
then theres something wrong with your vid card, its more then likly a driver
issue, try and find updated drivers for your card. Most hardware is
compatible with EQ, most people dont have any problems. Except for the
banshee drivers (which really isnt sony's fault) I havent heard of any
really big incompatability problem.
Also, one last thing I want to point out. You guys are basing your opinions
on only a very small percentage of the game. You've made it up to what,
maybe level 10-15 max so far? unless you were in beta 3. You havent seen
very much of the game at all yet. As far as I'm concerned, UO is dead to me.
No way I'll be goin back. Doesnt matter how many improvements they put in,
they will never put in enough. And it makes me sick that the only time OSI
tries to really improve the game is when they have a chance of loosing some
money. They dont give a damn about the players, only the dollar signs. And
yes I do think that Sony is a bit different. They do alot more then they
have to as far as keeping players inline and helping. Anyone ever paged a GM
in UO? your lucky if they show up within a half hour or at all. I've paged a
couple in EQ though and they have allways been there within 2-5 minets.
Virtus
Virtus
Virtus
a...@ultinet.net wrote in message <36e2b70f...@news.ultinet.net>...
Damocles
Hamilton) wrote:
>
>Right now the biggest problem is not much you do in EQ is truly fun, its
>more like work. Soon as Verant finds out something is fun they take it
>away. :)
>
>Anjelika
The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
away.
The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
decision.
--------------
'Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.'
- Patti Smith, "Gloria"
ken
>annoying bug
>for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
>textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
>game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
1) Try setting your modem to 33k,28k,24k.(use &N12 type of command)
2) defragment your hd, and make sure there's space for 300meg virtual
memory (600meg is preferable)
3) Open the case and run
4) Try set your bois/jumper to slow your system down
this game is
>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
>evidence that it affects most players.
The thing is, there's bug in windows and hardware, as well as bad setting of
bios and heating problem etc.
ken
Damocles <phae...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com...
>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 17:38:13 GMT, anje...@pball.nospam.com (Anjelika
>Hamilton) wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Right now the biggest problem is not much you do in EQ is truly fun, its
>>more like work. Soon as Verant finds out something is fun they take it
>>away. :)
>>
>>Anjelika
>
>The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>away.
>
>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>decision.
You get 5 free food and water to start, and every time you die in level 1 to
3.
Also, instead of spending 17 copper and 11. It can be done with 6 copper +
6.
Another alternative is begging players. Someone nice like me ;-) or someone
with summon spells will give free food/water.
Jeff Gentry
: Yeah, I agree Artem, his review was rather one sided...
Considering that he had been one of the "I'm going to EQ over UO"
types, I don't think he was biased against EQ going into things.
a...@ultinet.net
notes whining about one bug or another or the complexity and
difficulty of the game.
I'd just like to remind everyone that
1) This is still beta
2) The game's difficulty level is hardly a downfall
And I do have faith in Sony's approach to EQ. It is based on Tanarus,
an online tank warfare game. EQ is based on its engine. I've played
Tanarus since beginning of beta until now... for YEARS. The way Sony
dealt with bugs, cheaters and the boredom factor was simply
outstanding. I believe EQ will not be any different.
Jeff Hoppe
ken wrote in message <36e2b...@news.hawaii.rr.com>...
>>The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>>away.
>>
>>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>>decision.
>
>You get 5 free food and water to start, and every time you die in level 1
to
>3.
Magicians cast food and water at 5th (or 4th) clerics get water at 5th lvl
and food at 9th. If you have a group, usually someone is making food for the
others. There are muffins you can buy for 6 copper.
It also makes cooking an important character based skill.
Jeff
Djar Lightbringer
the cited author.]
In article <36e24725...@news.earthlink.net>, cro...@earthlink.net
says...
I have one very MAJOR question: Did you report these bugs? That is why
you are there, NOT to play. Particularly the gradually missing textures
bug you discussed - I have not heard of anyone else that has this, so it
is likely something to do with either your h/w or the configuration of
your s/w.
> I have now played the EQ beta phase 4 for close to 4 weeks and
> have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
> and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
4 weeks and 8th level?! That is nothing. the game doesn't really start
until you hit level 10 or so.
> Graphics:
>
> The specific instances where graphics are unacceptable to me
> are as follows.
> 1) When beta phase 4 first started the "draw distance" was huge.
I just don't see a difference. It must be based on system configuration.
This is the one thing that a few people here are whining about, and I've
never noticed a change (and I've been playing since P2).
> 2) Emote text color. In the text box, the color of the text for emotes
> is dark blue. This color works well when you are in small screen mode
Okay, repeat after me - BETA. That is what the /feedback command is for,
so you can TELL them that you don't like it. This is a low priority
thing, and will be fixed. Most likely you will be able to set your own
color preferences.
> 3) Darkness. This is a problem that appears to plague only some people
> and is not a global problem so you might not see it. For me however
> night time can be extremely dark, and the Infravision that my
It is supposed to be dark - it's NIGHT. Just because UO has a token night
time, doesn't mean that every game should. If it is too dark, turn up
your Gamma correction - there is a setting in the Options section.
> Monster AI:
>
> Here I would have to give this one totally to EQ over UO.
> While the monsters in EQ aren't bright they do have a better AI then
> the UO monsters.
Agreed, and they are getting better all the time.
> User Interface:
>
> There are a number of small easily correctable flaws with the
> UI of EQ, which makes me wonder why they weren't corrected. For
> example when depositing money into or out of the bank, there is no
> "deposit all" or "withdraw all" buttons. Instead you must click on
That is an EXCELLENT suggestion - did you do a /feedback so that they
would know that that idea exists??
> each coin type, click again to either select all or to decrease a
> slider and then drag and drop each coin type. In addition there is no
> autoconvert for coins. Also when you have slider bars you cannot click
> and hold in the bar itself to scroll up, instead you have to click
> click click, etc. This goes against windows standards and makes extra
Again, did you /feedback it?
> Quests:
>
> I was given two quests while in the beta, and was unable to
> finish either. The first was a quest to repair a black box
> (datastorage) for a rogue clockwork in Ak'Anon. Now I think I was
> close to solving the quest and only needed one more part but am not
> sure since there were no hints or any help involved. The second Quest,
> was given to me at level 2, and was to go hunt down a Troll NPC and
> bring the guy back his head. The problem is it is HIGHLY doubtful that
> this quest is possible to be finished by someone anywhere near level
> 2. I am not sure but every other NPC I considered came up bright
> tombstone red so I doubt I would have been able to complete this quest
> before I had achieved a LOT of levels. Since there is no Quest log if
> I had succeeded in the quest I might not have remembered where to
> bring the head back too or even that I needed to do so. Still there is
> a built in Quest engine and that is something that UO lacks.
Quests are still being worked, but many work already. These are not your
average "go here and do this" quests for the most part. They require
thought and effort. If you are too low for a quest, they will tell you.
If they don't, then you need to /BUG it! That's why you are a TESTER.
> Economy:
>
> The economy in EQ is VERY TOUGH. It is possible to starve, and
Yes, and this is a GREAT thing. No millionaires over night. There is a
sense of accomplishment.
> doing so means your stamina, and Hitpoints do not regenerate. This
> discourages sitting around talking because quite simply you are ALWAYS
> on the clock.
So what? We had an in-game guild meeting last night and sat around in a
tavern for 2 hours just talking and drinking (you really have to get
drunk in EQ to experience it - it is almost exactly like getting drunk in
real life, including the nausea).
> A basic Food costs 1 silver and 8 coppers for me, and a water costs 1
> silver and 1 copper. Not a lot but it does add up. Also you can't let
I don't understand why people have a problem getting food. You either
fish so you can sell them for money to buy more food and water, or you go
out and kill things and sell what they drop. It's quite easy. If you are
REALLY in a bind, just kill the "green" creatures which take no effort
and get enough cash, quickly, to get back on your feet. It really isn't
hard at all.
> debt". This is obviously an anti twinking measure. I played many hours
> over 4 weeks and achieved the level of 8 and in all that time my sum
> total of money saved would probably be less then 10 platinum. Compare
> that to the costs of spells; 1st rank, 1 gold, 2cnd rank 4 gold, 3rd
> rank (level 8) 4 PLATINUM EACH! And there are 8+ spells in 3rd rank.
> At the point I reached level 8 I had a choice to make, I could hunt
> for experience primarily or for gold to buy the rest of my spells.
> This nearly doubles the time requirement for the game and isn't a
> "Fun" addition IMHO.
If you want to get some money, you need to take some risks. This means
grouping and going to a DUNGEON. People that try to stay w/in the safe
confines near a guard are NEVER going to have enough money. If, however,
you adventure (which is what EQ is all about anyway) you will always have
a little more cash than you need to survive.
> Trade skills:
I cut out all your comments on Trade skills in the interest of brevity.
It's simple - THEY WERE JUST ADDED! If you think they don't work right,
then let them know via /feedback and /bug! Once again, THAT IS WHY YOU
ARE HERE.
> Combat and Grouping:
>
> Bad things: Your group mate might be
> right behind you getting his ass chewed off and you might miss it in
> the confusion.
I don't understand this one. You have health bars of all group members
on your screen as well as a text box of information. If you see the
health drop, s/he is probably in trouble. In addition, you can SWITCH
views so that you can take in all the action. Outdoors I switch to the
3rd person camera views so that I can watch a fight and make sure nothing
sneaks up on us. This only takes a very little while to get used to.
It's just like the FAQ says - you can't stay in one view all the time or
you'll be in trouble.
> In addition, there is very little player input required for actual
> physical combat, you simply choose a target, hit the autoattack button
This is exactly like UO. But in EQ, spell casters get to cast spells,
meditate, warriors get specialty moves, etc. The logistics of an online
game, necessitate a lack of continual input from the player, or the
players with the better connections would always have an advantage.
> Classes and Skills:
One of EQ's forte's
> PK's and Jerks:
Another one. PK switch keeps most of the jackasses in check. There are
no "Hobbes" gangs running around in beta like there were in UO.
> Magic System:
Again we agree - the system is great, and with over 800 spells to boot!
> Factions:
>
> I can't really say too much about factions except that I have
> seen some negative sides to them but wasn't around long enough to see
> the positive sides.
You've experienced it all, because everything you do in EQ affects the
way someone else will feel about you. The one problem is that there
needs to be some kind of indication of how the killing of 'x' is
affecting 'y' and this is something they are working on.
> 1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ. I achieved level 8
> FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
> lose exp and drop back to level 7. This is frustrating but not nearly
This is a GREAT thing! Death actual has meaning! If you don't want the
risk of dying, play it safe, but you won't reap big rewards. If, however,
you take risks you get to reap rewards, but you also risk dying. There
are trade offs.
On another note, deaths become MUCH less frequent once you learn what to
fight, when to run, when to stand your ground, etc. My first character
died at least 3x per level to level 12, but my latest char has only died
3x total to level 9 and one of those was in a duel with a character that
was 5+ levels higher than me (it was for honor) and another was helping a
friend recover their corpse from a very bad spot.
> as frustrating as dying 4 zones away from your start point in an area
> where you have no idea where your corpse is. Immediately you are
Huh? You really need to start paying attention to where you are. I
always know where I died (or at least very close to where I died).
Sometimes I wish I DIDN'T know, because my corpse has been in difficult
places.
> back. If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
> not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO.
The insurance is to learn the game and your limitations, and then to
avoid really bad situations that might get you killed.
> 2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
> annoying bug
> for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
> textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
You REALLY need to /bug this, along with your system specs. I have not
heard of anyone else having this problem.
> In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
> overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
> switch.
I, respectfully, disagree. That is what makes the world great - you get
your opinion and I get mine. I just didn't want people to think that it
was all as bad as you make out.
Good luck in UO.
--
Djar Lightbringer, Chancellor of the HOA
Servant of Light, Deliverer of the Truth to Norrath
Sophist
> have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
> and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
>
> Because I am coming from UO and Diablo as my two most recent
> "Social" online games (which is why I play primarily) I may reference
> and compare to them to better discuss features.
>
Thanx for the review Silverlock! Some very good points there, both
pro and con.
Sophist
Sensei
food you can play for a VERY VERY long time. What I do is buy milk and
muffins. Both are 6 copper a piece. That comes out pretty cheap and they do
as well as all the other expensive food. You can also eat snake eggs for
food. :) That's cheap..all you gotta do is kill snakes.
Sensei
Damocles wrote in message <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>...
>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 17:38:13 GMT, anje...@pball.nospam.com (Anjelika
>Hamilton) wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Right now the biggest problem is not much you do in EQ is truly fun, its
>>more like work. Soon as Verant finds out something is fun they take it
>>away. :)
>>
>>Anjelika
>
>The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>away.
>
>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>decision.
>
>
Djar Lightbringer
the cited author.]
In article <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>, phae...@yahoo.com
says...
> The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
> and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
> fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
> a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
> away.
Don't believe everything you read. You do NOT die w/out food. You simply
will not recover stamina or health when you reach the point of
starvation. Food is not a big issue at all. Every time you die from
level 1-3 you get 5 each of food and water, and you can easily kill
creatures of lower levels if necessary to buy some more. I have NEVER
had a problem getting food.
I'azu
It's not a set rate, if your hurt a lot, or running a lot, then it'll go
down quicker. It also apparently depends on what zone/climate you're in. I
know that whenever I walk around one of the cities my consumption rate is
very low, but when I'm in the middle of the desert I just can't seem to hold
on to any water (realism, go figure).
Believe me, keeping yourself stocked with food and water is not that big
of a deal, especially with so many classes able to "make" food and water
(summoning food/water for spellcasting classes, and foraging for
rangers,wood elves and (I think) druids).
Jeff Hoppe <jho...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:SeAE2.399$h24....@news.flash.net...
>
>ken wrote in message <36e2b...@news.hawaii.rr.com>...
>
>>>The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>>>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>>>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>>>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>>>away.
>>>
>>>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>>>decision.
>>
K. Laisathit
>
>OSI has already completed a rash act. . . buy 3 months of UO time, get one
>free. . . .
>
>Hoorah for competition! As for me, I have a 200 mHz 2/MMX. . . I'm not
>jumping from the UO ship unless I see some drastic improvements.
Different stroke for different folks, I guess. I've been off again
on again on UO for the past two years. After getting hit by 2
jerks in level 4 Shame because I cast blade spirit, I quitted.
The irony was that just a few days before that I had a blast
joining in with a band of 3 German players exploring the exact
same dungeon.
Grouping with strangers is fun, but in UO, it hardly ever
happens. I know EQ has its share of problems, but then again,
I beta for UO and played there from day one (okay, actually day
three, but that's OSI's fault). EQ will offer me the chance to
group with strangers *all the time* without fear of having a
knife slit between my ribs when I'm not looking.
Later...
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
K I R A T I L A I S A T H I T kir...@u.washington.edu
K. Laisathit
>Geesh. Ok no offense intended but after reading this thread... You guys are
>not giving EQ enough credit. First off, complaining about dying along way
>away, big deal. 4 zones is nothing, wont take you long at all to get your
>body back, and you have 8+ hours to do it.
I'd also like to point out to Silverlock that at least you get
a chance to retrieve your gear. In UO, you might as well die
a few steps from the guard zone, I don't even remember when was
the last time I bother to check out my own corpse in UO. If
I die, rest assured that it'll be looted in 5 seconds flat.
In UO, the material wealth is the penalty for dying. In EQ,
the time requirement of the retrieval is the penalty in addition
to XP loss. I'm not sure it's fair to say which one is better
than the other.
>money. They dont give a damn about the players, only the dollar signs. And
>yes I do think that Sony is a bit different. They do alot more then they
>have to as far as keeping players inline and helping. Anyone ever paged a GM
>in UO? your lucky if they show up within a half hour or at all. I've paged a
>couple in EQ though and they have allways been there within 2-5 minets.
I think that's a tad harsh. The big difference between the two
game (beyond all the obvious) is the designer's position in
pvp. EQ requires two consenting adults for pvp to happen, UO
just requires one - the aggressor.
Anyhow, the GM situation is a tad premature to judge. Keep in
mind that the server load on EQ is nowhere near UO, 700 players
on average on EQ is nothing compared to thousands on average on
UO. If it takes 2 to 5 minutes to respond now, it could take
30 minutes when the retail version starts logging in en masse.
Skip Sanders
>Hamilton) wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Right now the biggest problem is not much you do in EQ is truly fun, its
>>more like work. Soon as Verant finds out something is fun they take it
>>away. :)
>>
>>Anjelika
>
>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>away.
>
>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>decision.
You don't 'die' without food and drink, you just don't regenerate hits,
stamina, and mana. So you won't want to FIGHT without them, no. You can
stand there forever without food and drink and not take damage, or anything.
You'll just get messages occasionally noting that you're without them.
They do NOT dissapear fast, 5 of each will last you probably 10 hours of
playtime. You have to make around, oh, 2 gold a day, to feel 'easy' about
food, that's all. Note that wandering decaying skeletons, a common newbie
monster, often have weapons, which sell for from 5 silver to a bit over a
gold. If you stay active and adventuring, you won't worry about food and
drink, once you get to level 5.
Silverlock
wrote:
>Weren't you leaving?
>
Me? No. I will continue to read both the UO and EQ newsgroups even if
I don't play them because I like games and particularly game design.
Silverlock
wrote:
>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 09:32:45 GMT, cro...@earthlink.net (Silverlock)
>wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>Good review! I bet most magazines aren't as honest as this!
>
>>If all that was it then despite how negative I sound I would still
>>play EQ mostly because I need a break from UO, but it isn't. There are
>>2 more issues which make me say no to EQ at the present time.
>>
>>1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ.
>
>Call me a daft bugger, but I like harsh death! UO is *far* too soft.
>Perhaps, though, there can be a suitable middle-ground.
>
Oh I like the idea of Harsh death, but the time cost is a little to
high in some cases. Now I will note that the time cost to me would
have been nearly totally alleviated once I reached level 12 and had
the spell Bind Affinity. I could then bind myself somewhere safe but
relatively close and thus the time cost in getting back into the
action would be much much less.
>>I achieved level 8
>>FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
>>lose exp and drop back to level 7.
>
>I like this part especially. Wasn't one easy way of sparring in UO to
>find a wisp near a healer and die repeatedly?
>
Yes it was, and if the deaths weren't things that were out of my
control I wouldn't have minded but in three of the 4 cases I had Zero
control over the outcome. I fell thru the elevators of Kelethin and
was ganked by npc's that i had no chance of running from or fighting.
>>If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
>>not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO. You
>>could recover from death with a monetary cost but without the huge
>>time cost.
>
>Hmm, interesting, although no doubt people will find a money gold mine
>and become rather immortal? Perhaps a res with penalties where you
>randomly recover 50% of your items?
>
For me time is the only real commodity, If I could "spend" time in
advance for insurance so that I wouldn't have to miss time in my group
it would be well worth it. Its the time missed from the group that
bugs me, not the time cost per se.
>>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
>>annoying bug
>
>[snip fatal graphics driver (?) bug description]
>
>So, what would you recommend to the many UO players who in the last
>patch encounters a huge increase in client collapses?
>
I would recommend they do exactly as I do. If I already owned the game
I would complain and do everything I could to get the problem
rectified. In the case of EQ since I don't yet own the game I have to
warn people that at least in my case I have a fatal bug. I would
complain just as loudly about UO's client crash bugs and note them as
well if I were reviewing UO. Since I haven't been playing UO the last
few weeks I haven't experienced the said client crashes but I
certainly have heard about them.
>>Despite what I
>>consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
>>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th.
>
>OSI released UO regardless of any sort of finished status themselves,
>so sadly it seems like a trend has been established :-( I played the
>UO beta, and it was horrendously bust. Due to geography, I'm not in
>the EQ beta, but the bug level seems less based on the content of
>a.g.eq and EQVault's Bugs board, and a high percentage of it seems to
>be hardware incompatability.
>
Oh no question, EQ is far far closer to release status then UO was at
release. Still its not ready. Of course given the way games are
marketed and space is reserved on shelves I will take it as a fact of
nature that no game will every be released bug free. In that area EQ
does amazingly well. In my review I forgot to mention that as far as
crashes, timewarps and lag EQ wins way over UO. I was able to
effectively play EQ with a ping in the 750 ms range and packet loss
near 15% to and from. At no time has a timewarp ever set me back
farther then 5 minutes.
>>My
>>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>>bug will not exist in the final release,
>
>Please tell me how you come to this conclusion. BTW, what graphics
>card do you have? I'll assume you're up to date with drivers.
>
I tried the latest drivers and couldn't even get online, but since
that was two weeks ago I will do as you suggest and try them again.
Well the code base for the cd has been set and is already in
duplication, and I have a feeling that the bug is client side rather
then server side. It seems to me to be more of a memory leak having to
do with not totally clearing out the texture memory of my video card
before attempting to load new textures. This obviously is a guess.
I have an AMD k-6 200 (not k6-2) with 64 megs of SDRAM, 300 megs of
space on the EQ hard drive, 300 megs of space on the windows hard
drive, and a viper 330 with 4 megs of video ram. A 4 meg video card is
I believe the minimum spec.
>>although I don't see any
>>evidence that it affects most players.
>>
>>In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
>>overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
>>switch.
>
>Ken
Silverlock
wrote:
>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 09:32:45 GMT, cro...@earthlink.net (Silverlock)
>wrote:
>
>> I have now played the EQ beta phase 4 for close to 4 weeks and
>>have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
>>and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
>>
>
>This is the sort of review I've been waiting for...thanks Silverlock.
>You've told me enough so that I'll wait for similarly detailed reviews
>to appear here before I buy, to see if any of these issues have been
>dealt with. The negatives that stood out for me were the handling of
>food, the unfinished quest engine and how monster combat tends to go
>down.
>
>
>--------------
>
>'Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.'
>- Patti Smith, "Gloria"
Take that with the grain of salt that I was still only a level 8
character. Which let me tell you is very low indeed. I have heard that
the food costs become far less important at higher levels and loot
increases drastically. I can't say that's the case because I never got
there but I just thought I should throw that out that I heard that was
the case.
Silverlock
<cerrakin@DON'TSENDSPAMusa.net> wrote:
> He makes it sound as though you've got to buy food constantly. With 5
>food you can play for a VERY VERY long time. What I do is buy milk and
>muffins. Both are 6 copper a piece. That comes out pretty cheap and they do
>as well as all the other expensive food. You can also eat snake eggs for
>food. :) That's cheap..all you gotta do is kill snakes.
>
>Sensei
Now that would have alleviated my concerns right there. The food and
milk would have cost less then a single food for my using what I was
buying. I never saw muffins or milk for sale in Ak'Anon though. ;-(
Also food summoned by magicians, disappears when you die, log off
(which I was forced to do every half hour because of the texture bug)
or zone so that wasn't a workable solution for me. I also will admit I
stand around and talk a bit more then most so and am a cheap person so
this is more of a concern to me then it would be to most.
>
>
>Damocles wrote in message <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>...
>>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 17:38:13 GMT, anje...@pball.nospam.com (Anjelika
>>Hamilton) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>Right now the biggest problem is not much you do in EQ is truly fun, its
>>>more like work. Soon as Verant finds out something is fun they take it
>>>away. :)
>>>
>>>Anjelika
>>
>>The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>>away.
>>
>>The bugs don't concern me, but this sounds like a poor design
>>decision.
>>
>>
Silverlock
I'm sorry I tried to be as objective as possible. Many of the things
that I state would obviously improve with more time played and higher
level. Others will naturally improve as the game goes retail and is
put under the spotlight of paying users by the thousands.
I will state that since the game is going retail in less then ten
days, pointing out bugs at this stage is very necessary. EQ cannot
hide behind the "it's only a beta" argument when its code has gone
gold and is being shipped even now, just as UO couldn't hide behind
that argument either. Again if the one big bug I experienced with
textures was fixed I would still play EQ because I have enjoyed doing
so despite what I feel are some flaws in its implementation and UI.
I doubt any game written by someone else will ever be perfect for me
;-)
If you wish to debate specific points I would be glad to do so.
>Hi.
>
>This is NOT a review. It is mostly an overview of the current bugs
>and shortcomings of EverQuest. You neglect to mention all the good
>things EQ has, but proceed to attack its low points. And thats not
>objective.
>
>Now I understand that there are hundreds of other reviews out there
>which praise EQ endlessly for what its been able to ahieve and you are
>trying to shed some lights on the existing problems... just please
>don't try to make it look like the game is plagued with bugs beyond
>playability.
>
Guardian23
"loot". If you choose not to sell the loot, then it would get to be a
problem. But, I think that is why there are more "food" type loots on
creatures now days..
Grdian
Anjelika Hamilton wrote in message <36e701db...@newstoo.hiwaay.net>...
>On Sun, 7 Mar 1999 15:01:07 -0600, rac...@austin.rr.com (Djar
Lightbringer)
>wrote:
>
>>[This followup was posted to alt.games.everquest and a copy was sent to
>>the cited author.]
>>
>>In article <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>, phae...@yahoo.com
>>says...
>>> The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
>>> and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>>> fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>>> a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>>> away.
>>
>>Don't believe everything you read. You do NOT die w/out food. You simply
>>will not recover stamina or health when you reach the point of
>>starvation. Food is not a big issue at all. Every time you die from
>>level 1-3 you get 5 each of food and water, and you can easily kill
>>creatures of lower levels if necessary to buy some more. I have NEVER
>>had a problem getting food.
>
>Well, we know YOU are special. Its the others who HAVE had trouble with
>food we worry about. :p
>
>Besides, if you don't recover stamina and health then you WILL die sooner
or
>later since each time you fight you will be closer to death even if you win
the
>fight.
>
>No?
>
>Anje
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>anje...@pball.com
>I don't work here, I just play.
>
Virtus
CHALLANGE. Theres a difference. Hard means its not any fun, challange is
generally associated with it being fun.
EQ is definatly a challange. For me anyways, and everyone that I know who
plays it.
Virtus
Anjelika Hamilton wrote in message <36e2fde0...@newstoo.hiwaay.net>...
>On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 19:10:59 GMT, a...@ultinet.net wrote:
>
>>Now thats an enjoyable post to read after plowing through countless
>>notes whining about one bug or another or the complexity and
>>difficulty of the game.
>>
>>I'd just like to remind everyone that
>>1) This is still beta
>>2) The game's difficulty level is hardly a downfall
>
>Its not beta, the code being played right now is post-retail and the new
retail
>customers will download it when they log on.
>
>And being harder is not the same as being more fun. And should the game not
>be fun above all else?
>
>>
>>And I do have faith in Sony's approach to EQ. It is based on Tanarus,
>>an online tank warfare game. EQ is based on its engine. I've played
>>Tanarus since beginning of beta until now... for YEARS. The way Sony
>>dealt with bugs, cheaters and the boredom factor was simply
>>outstanding. I believe EQ will not be any differen
>
>EQ is also limited by its engine. Don't forget its a two-sided coin.
>
>Anje
>
>>
>>Artem
>>Co-Founder of The Way
>>a...@ultinet.net
>>http://delerium.inetsolve.com
>
Silverlock
wrote:
>In article <kGzE2.72$Zn6.1...@news1.mco>, Virtus <br...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>Geesh. Ok no offense intended but after reading this thread... You guys are
>>not giving EQ enough credit. First off, complaining about dying along way
>>away, big deal. 4 zones is nothing, wont take you long at all to get your
>>body back, and you have 8+ hours to do it.
>
>I'd also like to point out to Silverlock that at least you get
>a chance to retrieve your gear. In UO, you might as well die
>a few steps from the guard zone, I don't even remember when was
>the last time I bother to check out my own corpse in UO. If
>I die, rest assured that it'll be looted in 5 seconds flat.
>
This is true, but at least in my experience at no time in UO did I
ever have the possibility of losing two weeks worth of work which is
what my cloth armor cost me. Now UO had house breakins which COULD
cost that much and more that's true and I was lucky to never have
experienced one of those. Also if I had gotten to higher level the
cost of my armor would have been an increasingly smaller percent of my
income so it would have mattered less. I actually wish I had never
bought the armor because it sort of acted as a weight around my neck
forcing me to retrieve my corpse every time or lose that huge
investment.
>In UO, the material wealth is the penalty for dying. In EQ,
>the time requirement of the retrieval is the penalty in addition
>to XP loss. I'm not sure it's fair to say which one is better
>than the other.
>
I think either can work well, and again I was only a level 8 character
so I am sure the cost would have gotten easier to bear at later
levels.
>>money. They dont give a damn about the players, only the dollar signs. And
>>yes I do think that Sony is a bit different. They do alot more then they
>>have to as far as keeping players inline and helping. Anyone ever paged a GM
>>in UO? your lucky if they show up within a half hour or at all. I've paged a
>>couple in EQ though and they have allways been there within 2-5 minets.
>
Silverlock
wrote:
>>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
>>annoying bug
>>for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
>>textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
>>game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
>
>1) Try setting your modem to 33k,28k,24k.(use &N12 type of command)
>2) defragment your hd, and make sure there's space for 300meg virtual
> memory (600meg is preferable)
>3) Open the case and run
>4) Try set your bois/jumper to slow your system down
>
> this game is
>>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
>>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>>bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
>>evidence that it affects most players.
>
>The thing is, there's bug in windows and hardware, as well as bad setting of
>bios and heating problem etc.
>
>
>
When I first started experiencing the bug, I thought it was an
overheating problem. I uncovered my case, and checked and indeed the
fan in my powersupply was broken. I swapped everything out to a new
case and ran it that way. I don't believe the modem has anything to do
with it. I will however experiment with increasing hard drive space
and try that as well as some bios adjustments.
I certainly hope that will fix the problem and if so will let you
know.
Zur
> The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
> and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
> fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
> a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
> away.
I dont understand. Kill a single fire beetle (a lvl 2 mob), sell the eye,
and you can buy enough food to last for a few real time hours. (So at
higher levels, food is even less of an issue) Just dont buy the expensive
stuff. Food can go for a cheaply as 6cp...
And to top it off, you get free food and water untill lvl 3. The only
price is that you have to die, at least once every few hours, which is
very easy as a newbie ;) and you get few more hours worth of bread and
water...
.
Phaedra
time you hit 4th level you should be able to buy a fishing pole without
noticing a big drop in finances. You not only catch fish to eat, you also
catch sandals & swords (don't ask <G>) that you can sell. So food really
isn't that difficult to come by. Sitting on the docks while fishing,
chatting with people waiting for the ship can be fun in itself. 5th level
clerics & shaman can summon drinks, and no reagents are needed, just mana.
So if you're grouped with one you've got free drinks.
As far as money being difficult to come by I haven't noticed it as being a
problem. Certainly you don't get to buy everything you want to buy right
away but I don't consider that a problem. The end result for me is to
appreciate what I do get and strive to save for what I want. You won't see
newbies running around in plate or chainmail, but I don't believe that's the
way it should be.
Damocles wrote in message <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>...
|
|The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
|and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
|fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
|a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
|away.
|
bobobob
graphics card - well, the fact that it has 4 megs doesn't mean too much -
it's the chipset that matters...
bobobob
Europa
That said, it's time for an upgrade, Silverlock :) ...
a...@ultinet.net wrote in message <36e31a7...@news.ultinet.net>...
>K-6 200? 300 megs of disk space? 4 meg video hard? You couldn't run
>tetris without crashing. Although I am not sure on the exact minimum
>requirements Verant is advertising, in order to play any game with the
>graphics of EQ's level, you need a newer card and more HD space.
>
>Most older cards, such as yours have major faults in implementing D3D
>and OpenGL. It is a widely known fact and your major "bug" is not
>EQ's fault.
Du$T
a...@ultinet.net
>that was two weeks ago I will do as you suggest and try them again.
>Well the code base for the cd has been set and is already in
>duplication, and I have a feeling that the bug is client side rather
>then server side. It seems to me to be more of a memory leak having to
>do with not totally clearing out the texture memory of my video card
>before attempting to load new textures. This obviously is a guess.
>I have an AMD k-6 200 (not k6-2) with 64 megs of SDRAM, 300 megs of
>space on the EQ hard drive, 300 megs of space on the windows hard
>drive, and a viper 330 with 4 megs of video ram. A 4 meg video card is
>I believe the minimum spec.
K-6 200? 300 megs of disk space? 4 meg video hard? You couldn't run
Jason
K. Laisathit
Silverlock <cro...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>I'd also like to point out to Silverlock that at least you get
>>a chance to retrieve your gear. In UO, you might as well die
>>a few steps from the guard zone, I don't even remember when was
>>the last time I bother to check out my own corpse in UO. If
>>I die, rest assured that it'll be looted in 5 seconds flat.
>>
>
>This is true, but at least in my experience at no time in UO did I
>ever have the possibility of losing two weeks worth of work which is
>what my cloth armor cost me.
I'll grant you that the 8-hour corpse decay period, while generous,
does not always afford the players the luxury the designer intends.
Still, at the moment, it's a legitimate concern only in the
situation you described. There is a proposal floating around that
might remedy the situation. In particular, it is proposed that
corpses are logged out when the players do, or that the
decay counter doesn't advance when the players are not in play.
Whether or not the designer takes heed on these suggestions
remain to be seen. I don't think we can expect a change any
time soon. As I said, it's a concern in some certain situation
only.
>>In UO, the material wealth is the penalty for dying. In EQ,
>>the time requirement of the retrieval is the penalty in addition
>>to XP loss. I'm not sure it's fair to say which one is better
>>than the other.
>>
>
>I think either can work well, and again I was only a level 8 character
>so I am sure the cost would have gotten easier to bear at later
>levels.
Even so, the issue of material loss over stat loss was never
a consensus among UO players. Even Dundee was, at one time,
in favor of some form of universal stat/skill loss upon death,
IIRC. The truth though is that death in UO is never quite
devastating as it should.
K. Laisathit
Silverlock <cro...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Oh I like the idea of Harsh death, but the time cost is a little to
>high in some cases. Now I will note that the time cost to me would
>have been nearly totally alleviated once I reached level 12 and had
>the spell Bind Affinity. I could then bind myself somewhere safe but
>relatively close and thus the time cost in getting back into the
>action would be much much less.
You could always ask friendly wizards to bind you, you know.
Not that you can always find one such person.
>For me time is the only real commodity, If I could "spend" time in
>advance for insurance so that I wouldn't have to miss time in my group
>it would be well worth it. Its the time missed from the group that
>bugs me, not the time cost per se.
I think this dying insurance is a pretty good idea. Although,
I can see certain situation where it might unfairly nullify some
legitimate consequences. Corpses rotting (or burning, rather)
in lava are supposed to be lost beyond retrieval. I presume that
if certain restrictions are imposed, the idea of auto-corpse
retrieval might be made to work.
Jason
Plus, you don't start losing XP until close to 6th level.
Hearding
Du$T wrote in message <7bv12d$dmo$1...@news.cybercity.dk>...
>Ehm, excuse me I might be wrong, but isn't this a uo ng?
Yes and No.
This thread is crossposted to the uo ng and alt.games.everquest.
Iv TAZ vI
Lord Sargas Minot
"hmm..."
-Lord Sargas
Nick Ali
different TNT driver sets. popping the case and twidled any Knob I
could find. It was odd that it was more frequent in some zones (every
5minutes). Finally I UNDERclocked my graphic card and all is well.
Wierd it has a fan and never runs hot. There is always hope!
last night had 3 crashes while zoning, never happend before scary s 2x
I was being chased. Fortunately each time when I reconnected I was in
the new zone.
As an aside instant death that is not your 'fault' is no fun. Factions
dont appear to have been worked through completely. I finally
experienced the pet pathing problems people had mentioned (In freerott
lizardman village). Several other little niggles. This game has great
potential if they dont drop the ball at this late stage.
ro...@becketts.com
cro...@earthlink.net (Silverlock) wrote:
>snip most of a good post
> Combat and Grouping:
>
> Since I am only a level 8 and an Enchanter at that (a weak
> class at low levels) I have had some opportunities to group. At the
> stage my character is at he SHOULD group since it is much harder to
> advance without a group. Good things: it is easy to target your group
> mates with the function keys. Bad things: Your group mate might be
> right behind you getting his ass chewed off and you might miss it in
> the confusion. After seeing and getting used to the text over head way
> of UO it is hard to adjust to a text box and the more limited view of
> first person perspective.
Just FYI when grouped, on the right you see the health bars of the other
people grouped with you. HINT to can click on the heath bar to select the
person to cast the spell on, this over comes the targeting problem in the
main window for your group. Yes it is tough to target different monsters tho.
> 1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ. I achieved level 8
> FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
> lose exp and drop back to level 7. This is frustrating but not nearly
> as frustrating as dying 4 zones away from your start point in an area
> where you have no idea where your corpse is.
This is a plus and minus both, It really is a pain the times this has
happened to me if I'm alone I must search some time for the corpse, but when
I have been grouped I have always recieved help from the other members to
recover my corpse. Yes even when I was zones away. Maybe I'm finding a
better group of people but they have all been great. Grouping is is Best IMHO
part of this game. People must depend on one another. Also this is a reason
not to die which to me UO doesn't have.
> And what happens if you die just before your supposed to go to work?
I agree I never play unless I can play for hours.
>
> 2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
> annoying bug
> for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
> textures and slow down and eventually lock up.
I have not seen or hear of this, I hope they fix it. No I don't have some
super computer just a P200 mmx it has played fine except I did have the
darkness bug, I know this is still Beta but the GM's have been great nothing
like UO, and when a bug that effects a lot of people comes along they work on
it really fast. For those not in beta they will patch the game many times a
day to fix bugs. I don't know how many people are working on the code but
they seem to be on the ball.
Despite what I
> consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
> for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
> system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
> bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
> evidence that it affects most players.
I would agree that it may not be quite done, however they don't wait weeks
between patches ie UO. They have 8 more days and will crush most of them and
while it may not seem a mature as UO, I think is is farther along tan UO was
last year when I began to play. They may need to upgrade the min machine specs
as well.
>
> In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
> overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
> switch.
I would prefer a non-switch game for role-playing reasons and may go +PvP in
final, if EQ continues to be nearly Jerk free. I think UO can be, not is a
better game. I continue to hope they get the BlooPK problem handeled. I feel
UO seems to be under staffed or over worked, The patch was supposed to be
here in Feb, then the first of March. They had to spend a day fixing a crash
bug that they created. So they pushed the BlooPK patch back again. OK how
about one day late NOT, so they miss one day and push the patch how far?? One
week Two ? Who knows? I will not be back to UO until I see some real
improvement, OSI is afraid they will make some big change that will run off
all the PKer's well until they fix the problem, they have lost one
role-player. BTW which I am fee to do in EQ.
I snipped most of you post as I do agree with a big part of it. I hope to see
you in game whether it EQ now or UO later.
Rob
"It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious."
Roger Berg
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
ro...@becketts.com
I snipped most of your post as I do agree with a big part of it. I hope to see
PopWulf*SFL
Your description of your inability to see at night even with infravision
just doesn't match my experience. I'd suggest you need to crank up your
gamma.
Your concern about the cost of death surprises me. Most games I've
played have much more severe consequences for death. When I learned that
my corpse would actually lie undisturbed for 8 hours for me to find it
and get my stuff back I was elated! As to not finding your corpse, did
you ask a bard for help? I primarily play a bard and I'm always helping
people find their corpse.
Woodsong
ro...@becketts.com
the min card to 8 megs. Just MHO.
Rob
"It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious."
Roger Berg
In article <36e8066c...@news.earthlink.net>,
cro...@earthlink.net (Silverlock) wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999 08:52:09 -1000, "ken" <rav...@hawaii.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
> >>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
> >>annoying bug
> >>for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
> >>textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
> >>game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
> >
> >1) Try setting your modem to 33k,28k,24k.(use &N12 type of command)
> >2) defragment your hd, and make sure there's space for 300meg virtual
> > memory (600meg is preferable)
> >3) Open the case and run
> >4) Try set your bois/jumper to slow your system down
> >
> > this game is
> >>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
> >>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
> >>bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
> >>evidence that it affects most players.
> >
> >The thing is, there's bug in windows and hardware, as well as bad setting of
> >bios and heating problem etc.
> >
> >
> >
>
> When I first started experiencing the bug, I thought it was an
> overheating problem. I uncovered my case, and checked and indeed the
> fan in my powersupply was broken. I swapped everything out to a new
> case and ran it that way. I don't believe the modem has anything to do
> with it. I will however experiment with increasing hard drive space
> and try that as well as some bios adjustments.
> I certainly hope that will fix the problem and if so will let you
> know.
>
>
Korey Raburn
I can never find food for less than 3 silver in my town. Though I'm a
necro and that has a lot to do with it. Even at that price I have still
been able to put 4pp in the bank.
On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Zur wrote:
> In article <36e3cbac...@news.rdc1.va.home.com>, phae...@yahoo.com
> says...
>
> > The food thing sounds the worst to me. If you slowly die without food
> > and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
> > fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
> > a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
> > away.
>
Toe
(the dwarf city). Rations are the only thing ive found. 3silver, +copper a
pop. But i got to 9th level (cleric) and now no longer have to worry. That 1
gold peice spell has already saved me a plat i bet.
Korey Raburn wrote in message ...
S. Jason Enyart
pointed out in a some other posts) that he left out some of the
strong points of the game.
I do take issue with the assertion that you cannot make money at
any of the trades, although I would agree that the profit margin
is pretty slim when you sell to NPCs and you have to take a net
loss perhaps at low levels. For example: I have had fairly good
luck experimenting with tailoring as a barbarian. I put all of
my initial stat points that I could into INT (_the_ most important
character attribute IMHO). I stood outside Halas and beat the
hell out of bears, and even bought pelts. Some people will
sell them pretty cheap in the field so that they can just
unload them. The trick is to have lots of backpacks =) and do
your own hunting when you can. By level 5, I was making money.
I especially agree that the game has an unfinished feel yet. There
are still too many fatal errors, irritants in the interface,
unfinished graphics, unfinished sound. My guess is that 2 months
with the current server load and they could probably have a
fairly polished product.
Enjoy-
--
S. Jason Enyart | When you have shot and killed a man, you have in some
----------------- measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have
given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you
have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him. -R.A.L.
Charles B. Naumann
say so, and not list it as a minimum spec. There is no
excuse for a lock-up and crashing bug with a system at or near
the minimum spec. If it is a memory leak in the application
side, and not the drivers, it may be affecting all video
cards but it may take several hundred zone crossings before
it is seen in cards with more memory.
Charles Naumann
In alt.games.everquest a...@ultinet.net wrote:
:>I believe the minimum spec.
: K-6 200? 300 megs of disk space? 4 meg video hard? You couldn't run
: tetris without crashing. Although I am not sure on the exact minimum
: requirements Verant is advertising, in order to play any game with the
Silverlock
wrote:
>Just a couple of points...
>
>Your description of your inability to see at night even with infravision
>just doesn't match my experience. I'd suggest you need to crank up your
>gamma.
>
All that stuff is maxed both hardware and software. I actually took a
screenshot of the entrance to greater faydark from lesser but didn't
put it up because all it was was a black screen.
>Your concern about the cost of death surprises me. Most games I've
>played have much more severe consequences for death. When I learned that
>my corpse would actually lie undisturbed for 8 hours for me to find it
>and get my stuff back I was elated! As to not finding your corpse, did
>you ask a bard for help? I primarily play a bard and I'm always helping
>people find their corpse.
>
>Woodsong
Yes and I really appreciated their help, I was more concerned about
what if I have to log off 10 minutes after I die for an extended
period. I hear that they are considering having corpses log off with
the character which IMHO would completely solve that problem.
Charles B. Naumann
: I have one very MAJOR question: Did you report these bugs? That is why
: you are there, NOT to play.
Maybe I am just one of those unwashed P4's that likes to whine about
everything. Dang, they will let just about anyone play these games. Dude,
The NDA is over, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing bugs
to a public formum.
I think it is good to bring stuff like this out. I would not have though
of some of his suggestions, and I may /feedback them as well. I think it
will be much more effective for many people to /feedback a suggestion than
for one.
As has been pointed out many times, the Beta argument is not good anymore.
The code for the CDs is frozen, and we are now playing code more advanced
than what will be on the CD. In spite of what you old-time testers have
claiming, the code will be released with bugs. D'oh! There is no way they
will get all this fixed in the next week.
:> 2) Emote text color. In the text box, the color of the text for emotes
:> is dark blue. This color works well when you are in small screen mode
: Okay, repeat after me - BETA. That is what the /feedback command is for,
: so you can TELL them that you don't like it. This is a low priority
: thing, and will be fixed. Most likely you will be able to set your own
: color preferences.
Tell me, oh sage one, _when_ are they going to fix this? This maybe low
priority, but it is probably just a single line of code. This must have
been there forever. I don't think there is anyway in heck they are going
to add a color preferences interface between now and release.
: I cut out all your comments on Trade skills in the interest of brevity.
: It's simple - THEY WERE JUST ADDED! If you think they don't work right,
: then let them know via /feedback and /bug! Once again, THAT IS WHY YOU
: ARE HERE.
Yes, and some trade skills have not yet been added, and will therefore
never be tested.
A little defensive are we?
Charles Naumann
Wayne Sheppard
Damocles wrote in message <36e4ff85....@news.rdc1.va.home.com>...
>
>I will note that it's clear that EQ is in better shape than UO was
>went it went out the door, but I find these reports of an unfinished
>quest engine a bit disturbing. I thought the quest engine was the
>basis behind the game.
Some people have surmised that all of the quests have not been implemented
yet because they don't want everyone learning them before the final is
released. I doubt that is true, but you never know.....
Wayne
Wayne Sheppard
>and food costs money and money is hard to come by, you'd be constantly
>fighting the clock to survive. I like standing around and chatting for
>a while with my friends and not having to worry about slowly withering
>away.
>
>decision.
The food and water is not a big deal. You don't starve to death. You can
kill a 1st level skeleton and get some bone chips that sell for 1s2c. This
is about enough to buy a unit of food or water that should last some 10-20
minutes. And at the first 3 levels you get 5food/5water everytime you die.
So you won't be needing to buy food and water until level 4.
Wayne
Wayne Sheppard
Silverlock wrote in message <36e24725...@news.earthlink.net>...
>
>1) When beta phase 4 first started the "draw distance" was huge.
>You could look out over an entire valley and see creatures moving on
>the other side, and scenery all the way across the vale. They changed
>and shortened the draw distance during the first week and IMHO
>severely lowered the graphical standard of the game. It probably
>dropped an entire letter grade if it was being graded that way.
This does suck. Brad stated that they hope to include an option for hi-end
systems to have a larger display distance. I hope so.
>3) Darkness. This is a problem that appears to plague only some people
>and is not a global problem so you might not see it. For me however
>night time can be extremely dark, and the Infravision that my
>character had only helped when a body or npc or pc was onscreen. It
>is so bad that to follow a road at night I MUST go full screen yet to
>do so removes all contact or messages from my partners, or attack
>messages from something hitting me from behind. This full screen mode
>also doesn't show me when my spells are failing, which can be suicide.
I don't understand why you are not using the full screen with overlays.
This works great for me. As to the darkness, have you tried adjusting the
gamma?
>User Interface:
>
>Now
>admittedly all of these things are MINOR and you can easily get used
>to the way things work in EQ, however they all point to a lack of
>polish on the user interface, sort of like the stacking things issues
>which occur in UO, not critical but annoying. In addition the lack of
>a totally mapable keyboard is a big negative.
The user interface does need a bit of work. I have gotten used to it and
found it playable. But some improvements could be made.
>Economy:
>
> The economy in EQ is VERY TOUGH. It is possible to starve, and
>doing so means your stamina, and Hitpoints do not regenerate. This
>discourages sitting around talking because quite simply you are ALWAYS
>on the clock.
The food/water thing is not a big deal. As you gain levels you get better
loot, and the price of food always stays the same. You can kill a first
level monster and get enough loot to buy a food.
>Compare
>that to the costs of spells; 1st rank, 1 gold, 2cnd rank 4 gold, 3rd
>rank (level 8) 4 PLATINUM EACH! And there are 8+ spells in 3rd rank.
>At the point I reached level 8 I had a choice to make, I could hunt
>for experience primarily or for gold to buy the rest of my spells.
>This nearly doubles the time requirement for the game and isn't a
>"Fun" addition IMHO.
If money was as freeflowing as you want, then everyone would be able to buy
every spell as soon as they level up. There is no rason to buy all of your
spells as soon as you level. Buy the most important ones at level 8, then
buy another 2 spells at level 9 and so on.
>
>Trade skills:
>
>Even if you do succeed and this is true even at master levels from
>what I hear, you will never be able to sell what you made to an NPC
>for what you spent on raw materials. The thing is that in EQ those raw
>materials are VERY EXPENSIVE.
This was a conscious design decision. They didn't want someone sitting in
front of a merchant doing trade skills all day and making money.
- Get your own raw materials. Find your own pelts for free.
- Buy raw materials from players instead of NPCs (much cheaper)
- Sell your products to players instead of NPCs (much better profit)
IMO, this type of economy is much better that the "player driven economy" UO
dreamed of.
>Combat and Grouping:
>
> Since I am only a level 8 and an Enchanter at that (a weak
>class at low levels) I have had some opportunities to group. At the
>stage my character is at he SHOULD group since it is much harder to
>advance without a group. Good things: it is easy to target your group
>mates with the function keys. Bad things: Your group mate might be
>right behind you getting his ass chewed off and you might miss it in
>the confusion.
If you didn't use your full screen mode, you would get all of the combat
messages.
>In addition because you might be fighting three monsters with the same
>text description it can be necessary to target yourself in between
>targeting them to make sure you have actually changed targets since
>otherwise there is no way to tell if the text description in the box
>is the old monster or new one.
There does need to be some kind of visual indication as to which monster you
have targeted.
>In addition, there is very little player input required for actual
>physical combat, you simply choose a target, hit the autoattack button
>and sit back and watch. For warriors classes there are at higher
>levels various other attacks and stuff which amount to pushing a
>button when you can.
Warriors get "kick" at level one. I do like not having to press buttons for
every swing. It frees me up to type messages to my group.
>Classes and Skills:
>
> Overall the classes are balanced although some are weaker at
>certain levels. There is of course stricter skill and ability
>restrictions then in UO. In fact the skill system practically
>guarantees that every race class combination will have nearly
>identical skills to every other of the same race and class and level.
>This is because some skills are easy to train and rise to their level
>max through normal use, and others like trade skills will never rise
>unless you purposely choose to devote the massive money and time to
>rasing them. This is a big disappointment to me since I had thought
>that just because the skills were there for each class/race combo that
>you would still be somewhat different based on what you chose to spend
>your points on.
>This is by and large not the case.
I think there are 67 race/class combos. There are 12 races and 13 classes
to choose from. This is much better that the tank/mage or archer/mage
choices offered by UO.
And like you said, it is easy to max your skills. Therefore you might
consider spending points on one of the trade skills to make your character
unique.
>1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ. I achieved level 8
>FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
>lose exp and drop back to level 7. This is frustrating but not nearly
>as frustrating as dying 4 zones away from your start point in an area
>where you have no idea where your corpse is.
You can get a higher level spellcaster to bind you nearby. This will
shorten your travel distance if you do die.
> Immediately you are
>placed in a race to get back to your corpse and or find someone to
>help you get to that corpse. This can be fun but usually is not. If
>you die in a group and have to get your stuff back everyone else might
>as well cut you loose because they will be sharing exp for kills with
>you until you get back and you won't be contributing until you get
>back. If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
>not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO. You
>could recover from death with a monetary cost but without the huge
>time cost.
Death is supposed to be painful. But there are ways to make it easier to
find your corpse. Get a bard or necro to assist you in finding your corpse.
Always check out the landmarks, make sure you can find youway back to that
area again. Die in a good place, like on a path. Many times a fight is not
going well for me and I know I cannot make it back to the guards. I'll try
to run before I die to a spot that will be easily locatable.
>And what happens if you die just before your supposed to go to work?
>Well your corpse will probably be gone by the time you get back and
>you will be out a substantial chunk of change. Bad playing incentive
>and I hope they fix it.
Your corpse will last for 8 hours. If they make the time only tick while
you are logged in, this problem will be fixed.
>
>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
>annoying bug
>for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
>textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
>game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
>I was leading a group of 2 others to a better hunting area when less
>then 5 minutes from the guard zone I started to get the bug. I told
>them to go on ahead and slowly ever so slowly bounced towards the
>guard station. About 40-50 feet from the Station an Orc Runner with
>missing textures appears in front of me. I know I'm dead because I
>can't fight one normally much less when I am moving at about 1 frame
>every second. I see the damage coming in, I see the guards sitting on
>their fat asses in plain view, and I can't even get around the beast.
>I get off one "help" shout before I die, with my health meter not even
>registering my death until I am already dead. Then I crash. I am at
>this point VERY frustrated and you know what, I don't play games to be
>frustrated. I reboot my pc (total lockup) get my naked body back thru
>the three zones to my corpse and hand off my 3 platinum worth of stuff
>to the one group member still waiting and log out. Despite what I
>consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
>evidence that it affects most players.
[from your other post]
>I have an AMD k-6 200 (not k6-2) with 64 megs of SDRAM, 300 megs of
>space on the EQ hard drive, 300 megs of space on the windows hard
>drive, and a viper 330 with 4 megs of video ram. A 4 meg video card is
>I believe the minimum spec.
From the FAQ:
----
1.8 What kind of hardware and software will be required to play EverQuest?
The EverQuest client program requires a Pentium 166 (Pentium 200+
recommended), with a Direct 3D compliant 3D card and 32 megabytes of RAM.
The program runs under Windows 95 or 98. We recommend a 3D card at least as
fast as Voodoo Graphics from 3DFX. Note that this is estimate, and is
subject to change as game development progresses.
----
You have the bare minimum system it looks like. The k6-200 is about as fast
as the P166 (floating point performance is crucial). Your viper 330 can run
Everquest, although it is not as fast as a Voodoo.
Your slowdown must be related to a driver problem. But unfortunately, don't
expect new drivers for your old card. You might have to upgrade.
>In summary, EQ has a lot of hype going for it and some good stuff, but
>overall UO is the better game. In spite of UO's problems and lack of a
>switch.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Enjoy playing UO. If you can
upgrade your system, I'd suggest you give EQ another try in six months.
Hopefully Verant will constantly improve the game as time goes by.
Wayne
Brilhasti
>Its not beta, the code being played right now is post-retail and the new
retail
>customers will download it when they log on.
Exactly Anje that is what will happen so think again please. What we are
playing may not be the code on the retail CD but even post-retail CD code.
Unfortunately for your logic, the guys that will have a retail CD MUST
download the code as for March 16th. This means the retail code is the one
in place 8 days from now. Therefore Anje, what we are playing is still
pre-release and consequently BETA.
>And being harder is not the same as being more fun. And should the game not
>be fun above all else?
As for the hard vs challenge topic see Vrtus' post.
Ian Fan
COMPLETELY WRONG OR OVER ESTIMATED.
a...@ultinet.net wrote in message <36e2b70f...@news.ultinet.net>...
>Hi.
>
>This is NOT a review. It is mostly an overview of the current bugs
>and shortcomings of EverQuest. You neglect to mention all the good
>things EQ has, but proceed to attack its low points. And thats not
>objective.
>
>Now I understand that there are hundreds of other reviews out there
>which praise EQ endlessly for what its been able to ahieve and you are
>trying to shed some lights on the existing problems... just please
>don't try to make it look like the game is plagued with bugs beyond
>playability.
Ian Fan
-Gnomes can see quite well in the dark, I have had no problems with mine.
-Reading emotes is easy because the chat is merely tinted black, the color
is extremelly easy to read and I have had no problems with it
-Read point 1) or buy a latern or fire beetle eye. It is your choice to go
"full screen" if you choose to go full screen you must learn the
consequiences (sp). Or go semi-full screen.
-Concerning monster AI, I guess they are so intelligent they can run through
stone and tent walls right? Without even opening or going through the door.
-And even with sneak and camoflauge on they still can attack you when you
are coming up from behind right?
-You dont have to click click click, if you havent caught on you can hold
down the slider and drag it.
-Many people dont need to do with draw all or anything, they do the smart
thing and change it into larger currencies then click it twice for the
amount they want.
-There doesnt need to be a autoconvert, because there is a convertion that
is so easy to use all you have to do is drop it on a different coin label,
and if you cant do something as simple as that you should not be playing
EverQuest.
-If you also havent caught on NUM LOCK makes you autorun so you dont have to
hold forward.
-Quests cannot be judged as of now, there is only 1 city with working quests
and not all of the quests are implemented yet.
-Food is just realisim, I would compare a copper to a penny and a silver to
a dollar in real life and I dont know where you can buy bread for less than
a dollar and only eat one loaf a day. However I do think they should have
refillable water flasks that only require you to find a stream, and if you
do it from the ocean you just get thirstier.
-You CAN gain skills if you fail, I tailor and I should know this.
-Don't see to NPC's, sell to PCs which is what a player based economy is
for.
-Tailoring patterns are hardly "at least a few gold", they only cost 7
silver.
-If you cant manage 1st person perspective then dont use it when grouping,
and with all the people saying that they wish there was a view like UO,
Diablo, or Balders Gate then it wouldn't really be a 3D game with a view
like that. One of the best things I like in EQ is being able to look across
the horizon.
-You can have those sound cues if you have a EAX card with 4 or more
speakers.
-I myself always switch to over the top view when in combat.
-I dont know how you would be able to put more work into melee unless of
course Everquest was a full 3d virtual reality enviroment which required
goggles and the whole outfit.
-How hard it is to increase in a trade skill is strictly for realisim, if I
wanted to train in real life for tailoring without a machine to make armor
it would take a LONG time for me to make a tunic without training or mass
amounts of material.
-<rant on>If you think dieing is painful think of how I felt when I finally
made lvl 15 ranger after dieing 2 times from bugs in lvl 14 losing 1 bar
total which I had to spend around 2 hours in (a orc oracle in Lesser Faydark
was casting 400damage spells- a GM told me this was the damage after he had
half life left after it casted on him- I also fell when I logged in for 10
000 non-melee damage). Then at lvl 15 when I finally got new spells, dual
weild, and meditate I died another 2 times (once from the falling bug) and
the other from getting disconnected in the middle of running from a aqua
tidal goblin lord in Dragor's Cauldron. </rant off>
-Over all I think that dieing and losing xp is one of the best things in EQ
or otherwise there would be little punishment from dieing other than having
8 hours to get to your corpse (which is plenty IMHO).
-Your group probably wont cut you off, because you wont get money or xp
splits when in a different zone, unless your group doesnt know much at all
how anything works.
-Tip: Don't play right before you have little time to do your required prior
arrangments or obligations.
-I have never had your 2) bug and I probably have one of the worst systems
in EQ. 200mhz with 32mb RAM.
And.. In summary, don't write a "review" when you have hardly experienced
this game.
Silverlock wrote in message <36e24725...@news.earthlink.net>...
> I have now played the EQ beta phase 4 for close to 4 weeks and
>have decided to review it for you who have not had a chance to play it
>and might buy it based on hype or lack thereof.
>
> Because I am coming from UO and Diablo as my two most recent
>"Social" online games (which is why I play primarily) I may reference
>and compare to them to better discuss features.
>
>Graphics:
>
> EQ graphics are fairly well done. I am not a big FPS player
>and don't have a lot of comparisons to go by so take this with a grain
>of salt, however the graphics and scenery were certainly acceptable to
>me with certain specific exceptions. One thing that stands out is that
>the view and scenery in EQ isn't made up of tiles so can be different,
>whereas in a tile based game such as UO, once you have seen a tile or
>tile set of one cobblestone path you know all cobblestone paths will
>look the same.
> The specific instances where graphics are unacceptable to me
>are as follows.
>1) When beta phase 4 first started the "draw distance" was huge.
>You could look out over an entire valley and see creatures moving on
>the other side, and scenery all the way across the vale. They changed
>and shortened the draw distance during the first week and IMHO
>severely lowered the graphical standard of the game. It probably
>dropped an entire letter grade if it was being graded that way. In
>addition the distance at which players can be seen was also lowered.
>This causes the unfortunate circumstance whereby you can see and
>attack a monster and only when you approach it see the other players
>who were already attacking the monster. This has gotten me called a
>kill stealer and is not a good thing. If I can see the NPC I should be
>able to see any pc that is near or fighting it.
>
>2) Emote text color. In the text box, the color of the text for emotes
>is dark blue. This color works well when you are in small screen mode
>and it appears against a beige background but is practically
>unreadable against the
>black background of the semi-full screen mode which most players will
>spend most of their time in.
>
>3) Darkness. This is a problem that appears to plague only some people
>and is not a global problem so you might not see it. For me however
>night time can be extremely dark, and the Infravision that my
>character had only helped when a body or npc or pc was onscreen. It
>is so bad that to follow a road at night I MUST go full screen yet to
>do so removes all contact or messages from my partners, or attack
>messages from something hitting me from behind. This full screen mode
>also doesn't show me when my spells are failing, which can be suicide.
>
>
>
>Monster AI:
>
> Here I would have to give this one totally to EQ over UO.
>While the monsters in EQ aren't bright they do have a better AI then
>the UO monsters.
>They cannot be trapped on terrain and if they can it is an exploit and
>will be fixed. Abusing such a terrain feature will get you banned.
>They will run if hurt and will always try and call for help and get
>you surrounded. Many of them are faster then you are normally and when
>you get below 40% health you slow down even more and will probably
>die. In addition attacking from the rear either you or them will yield
>better results.
>
>User Interface:
>
> There are a number of small easily correctable flaws with the
>UI of EQ, which makes me wonder why they weren't corrected. For
>example when depositing money into or out of the bank, there is no
>"deposit all" or "withdraw all" buttons. Instead you must click on
>each coin type, click again to either select all or to decrease a
>slider and then drag and drop each coin type. In addition there is no
>autoconvert for coins. Also when you have slider bars you cannot click
>and hold in the bar itself to scroll up, instead you have to click
>click click, etc. This goes against windows standards and makes extra
>work for the user. Another problem is that mouselook and moving
>forward requires you to hold down the mouse keys instead of an easy
>means to lock mouselook on or turn it off using the mouse buttons. Now
>admittedly all of these things are MINOR and you can easily get used
>to the way things work in EQ, however they all point to a lack of
>polish on the user interface, sort of like the stacking things issues
>which occur in UO, not critical but annoying. In addition the lack of
>a totally mapable keyboard is a big negative.
>
>Quests:
>
> I was given two quests while in the beta, and was unable to
>finish either. The first was a quest to repair a black box
>(datastorage) for a rogue clockwork in Ak'Anon. Now I think I was
>close to solving the quest and only needed one more part but am not
>sure since there were no hints or any help involved. The second Quest,
>was given to me at level 2, and was to go hunt down a Troll NPC and
>bring the guy back his head. The problem is it is HIGHLY doubtful that
>this quest is possible to be finished by someone anywhere near level
>2. I am not sure but every other NPC I considered came up bright
>tombstone red so I doubt I would have been able to complete this quest
>before I had achieved a LOT of levels. Since there is no Quest log if
>I had succeeded in the quest I might not have remembered where to
>bring the head back too or even that I needed to do so. Still there is
>a built in Quest engine and that is something that UO lacks.
>
>Economy:
>
> The economy in EQ is VERY TOUGH. It is possible to starve, and
>doing so means your stamina, and Hitpoints do not regenerate. This
>discourages sitting around talking because quite simply you are ALWAYS
>on the clock.
>A basic Food costs 1 silver and 8 coppers for me, and a water costs 1
>silver and 1 copper. Not a lot but it does add up. Also you can't let
>yourself starve and then put food in your pack and get around the food
>requirement oh no, because if you are starving and put food in your
>pack it will be consumed very fast until you have paid of your "Food
>debt". This is obviously an anti twinking measure. I played many hours
>over 4 weeks and achieved the level of 8 and in all that time my sum
>total of money saved would probably be less then 10 platinum. Compare
>that to the costs of spells; 1st rank, 1 gold, 2cnd rank 4 gold, 3rd
>rank (level 8) 4 PLATINUM EACH! And there are 8+ spells in 3rd rank.
>At the point I reached level 8 I had a choice to make, I could hunt
>for experience primarily or for gold to buy the rest of my spells.
>This nearly doubles the time requirement for the game and isn't a
>"Fun" addition IMHO.
>
>Trade skills:
>
> There are two ways to go in an online game with trade skills,
>you can make them profitable or not or some variation of that while
>learning them. In UO for example learning a trade can almost always
>allow you to break even. Another way is to make it impossible to break
>even at anything less then mastery and thus force a "learning cost" on
>would be tradesman. EQ takes an even harsher route then that. When you
>try a trade there is always the chance that you will fail and use up
>ALL RAW MATERIALS with nothing to show for it, not even a skill gain.
>Even if you do succeed and this is true even at master levels from
>what I hear, you will never be able to sell what you made to an NPC
>for what you spent on raw materials. The thing is that in EQ those raw
>materials are VERY EXPENSIVE. Tailoring, you need a pattern and some
>fur and a sewing kit. If you fail the pattern disappears with the fur
>(stupid IMHO) and patterns cost at least a few gold. Perhaps the skill
>system will balance out in the long run, but currently no phase 4
>players can really use it because at the levels we are at we cannot
>afford to experiment with it.
>
>Combat and Grouping:
>
> Since I am only a level 8 and an Enchanter at that (a weak
>class at low levels) I have had some opportunities to group. At the
>stage my character is at he SHOULD group since it is much harder to
>advance without a group. Good things: it is easy to target your group
>mates with the function keys. Bad things: Your group mate might be
>right behind you getting his ass chewed off and you might miss it in
>the confusion. After seeing and getting used to the text over head way
>of UO it is hard to adjust to a text box and the more limited view of
>first person perspective. In addition the fact that you can only
>target one thing at a time means that if your in a fight and try to
>heal yourself or help your friend you basically stop fighting the
>creature that is beating on you until you can retarget it. Because of
>small flaws in the graphics engine it can be possible to target the
>wrong thing in combat.
>In addition because you might be fighting three monsters with the same
>text description it can be necessary to target yourself in between
>targeting them to make sure you have actually changed targets since
>otherwise there is no way to tell if the text description in the box
>is the old monster or new one.
>
>It is my opinion that the lack of a lockable 3rd person perspective,
>lack of some sort of textual, visual or sound cues to orient on
>someone when they are not onscreen in first person view, and the lack
>of a multi targeting ability, means that overall grouping will take
>some work and getting used to at the least and will never be as easy
>as healing or helping friends in UO's 3/4 overhead view.
>
>In addition, there is very little player input required for actual
>physical combat, you simply choose a target, hit the autoattack button
>and sit back and watch. For warriors classes there are at higher
>levels various other attacks and stuff which amount to pushing a
>button when you can. For casters there is more variety and strategy,
>considering you have a limited number of spell slots to choose from (8
>only out of all the spells you could know) and choosing when and who
>to cast on allows various strategies.
>
>Classes and Skills:
>
> Overall the classes are balanced although some are weaker at
>certain levels. There is of course stricter skill and ability
>restrictions then in UO. In fact the skill system practically
>guarantees that every race class combination will have nearly
>identical skills to every other of the same race and class and level.
>This is because some skills are easy to train and rise to their level
>max through normal use, and others like trade skills will never rise
>unless you purposely choose to devote the massive money and time to
>rasing them. This is a big disappointment to me since I had thought
>that just because the skills were there for each class/race combo that
>you would still be somewhat different based on what you chose to spend
>your points on.
>This is by and large not the case.
>
>PK's and Jerks:
>
> The one area where EQ shines so far completely and without
>question over UO is the pk switch. True it does limit "realism" and
>options, but it also provides worry free play. No one can loot you or
>kill you or steal from you unless you let them. You can ignore people
>easily and furthermore the EQ gm's have demonstrated a willingness to
>act in situations that OSI has IMHO rarely shown. If only this switch
>was in place in a better game overall ;-(
>
>Magic System: IMHO this is another area where EQ has UO beat hands
>down.
>The different classes of magi have specialties which even at my low
>level can be quite clearly seen. Mages don't heal themselves and
>require clerical casters to do so. As an example of the variety, lets
>examine two classes; the Wizard and the Enchanter.
>Wizard is a very focused mage type and is basically a nuker. He has
>very high damage spells and lots of area affect spells. In addition
>his mana per damage rate is the most efficient. At high levels he get
>teleport (recall type transport) spells and eventually even group
>transport spells.
>Enchanter: The Enchanter is weak at lower levels and will always solo
>less well then a Wizard. This is because the Enchanter is designed
>around making a group function better. He can buff the tanks, increase
>their attack speed, slow the monster, stun extra attacking monsters,
>charm them to attack their own kind, and summon an animated dagger or
>sword to fight for him. He has a lot more variety then the wizard but
>pays for it with lack of direct offensive abilities.
>I only wish UO would have a magic system like this, even if it was
>skill based rather then class based. The magic system is THE primary
>reason I would play EQ.
>
>Factions:
>
> I can't really say too much about factions except that I have
>seen some negative sides to them but wasn't around long enough to see
>the positive sides.
>
>If all that was it then despite how negative I sound I would still
>play EQ mostly because I need a break from UO, but it isn't. There are
>2 more issues which make me say no to EQ at the present time.
>
>1) Losing your corpse. Dying is very painful in EQ. I achieved level 8
>FOUR times because each time I would do so I would then get killed and
>lose exp and drop back to level 7. This is frustrating but not nearly
>as frustrating as dying 4 zones away from your start point in an area
>where you have no idea where your corpse is. Immediately you are
>placed in a race to get back to your corpse and or find someone to
>help you get to that corpse. This can be fun but usually is not. If
>you die in a group and have to get your stuff back everyone else might
>as well cut you loose because they will be sharing exp for kills with
>you until you get back and you won't be contributing until you get
>back. If there was a way, even a semi costly way, to buy insurance to
>not lose your corpse, it would make the game a lot more fun IMHO. You
>could recover from death with a monetary cost but without the huge
>time cost.
>And what happens if you die just before your supposed to go to work?
>Well your corpse will probably be gone by the time you get back and
>you will be out a substantial chunk of change. Bad playing incentive
>and I hope they fix it.
>
>2) The main reason I won't be playing is because I have a very
>annoying bug
>for close to three weeks now which will cause me to start losing
>textures and slow down and eventually lock up. I need to reboot the
>game when i cross 2-3 zones or when I have played for awhile. Tonight
>I was leading a group of 2 others to a better hunting area when less
>then 5 minutes from the guard zone I started to get the bug. I told
>them to go on ahead and slowly ever so slowly bounced towards the
>guard station. About 40-50 feet from the Station an Orc Runner with
>missing textures appears in front of me. I know I'm dead because I
>can't fight one normally much less when I am moving at about 1 frame
>every second. I see the damage coming in, I see the guards sitting on
>their fat asses in plain view, and I can't even get around the beast.
>I get off one "help" shout before I die, with my health meter not even
>registering my death until I am already dead. Then I crash. I am at
>this point VERY frustrated and you know what, I don't play games to be
>frustrated. I reboot my pc (total lockup) get my naked body back thru
>the three zones to my corpse and hand off my 3 platinum worth of stuff
>to the one group member still waiting and log out. Despite what I
>consider to be a superior GM attitude towards jerks etc, this game is
>for me simply NOT FINISHED. Yet it will be released on March 16th. My
>system meets the minimum specs and I have seen no indication that this
>bug will not exist in the final release, although I don't see any
>evidence that it affects most players.
>
Sam
<cnau...@HiWAAY.net> wrote:
>In alt.games.everquest Djar Lightbringer <rac...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>: I have one very MAJOR question: Did you report these bugs? That is why
>: you are there, NOT to play.
>
>Maybe I am just one of those unwashed P4's that likes to whine about
>everything. Dang, they will let just about anyone play these games. Dude,
>The NDA is over, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing bugs
>to a public formum.
You shouldn't even have responded to a statement like that. We're here
to play the game and report whatever bugs we find. How can we report
bugs without playing? That statement gets more ridiculous every time I
read it.
>I think it is good to bring stuff like this out. I would not have though
>of some of his suggestions, and I may /feedback them as well. I think it
>will be much more effective for many people to /feedback a suggestion than
>for one.
Exactly. Not everyone will notice every single bug in the game. They
might not even realize that something is a bug until they're told that
it is. I know that I've mistaken some bugs for gameplay features until
I've been told otherwise.
>As has been pointed out many times, the Beta argument is not good anymore.
>The code for the CDs is frozen, and we are now playing code more advanced
>than what will be on the CD. In spite of what you old-time testers have
>claiming, the code will be released with bugs. D'oh! There is no way they
>will get all this fixed in the next week.
The beta argument has gotten even less valid since EverQuest is a week
from going public.
>:> 2) Emote text color. In the text box, the color of the text for emotes
>:> is dark blue. This color works well when you are in small screen mode
>
>: Okay, repeat after me - BETA. That is what the /feedback command is for,
>: so you can TELL them that you don't like it. This is a low priority
>: thing, and will be fixed. Most likely you will be able to set your own
>: color preferences.
>
>Tell me, oh sage one, _when_ are they going to fix this? This maybe low
>priority, but it is probably just a single line of code. This must have
>been there forever. I don't think there is anyway in heck they are going
>to add a color preferences interface between now and release.
Again, you shouldn't have bothered responding. When people scream the
word 'BETA', it just means that they can't think of a logical solution
to a problem. One would think that Verant would rather have people
propose solutions to problems than to endlessly chant the tired beta
mantra.
>: I cut out all your comments on Trade skills in the interest of brevity.
>: It's simple - THEY WERE JUST ADDED! If you think they don't work right,
>: then let them know via /feedback and /bug! Once again, THAT IS WHY YOU
>: ARE HERE.
>
>Yes, and some trade skills have not yet been added, and will therefore
>never be tested.
>
>A little defensive are we?
Even a minor complaint is viewed as an outright attack by Verant
apologists. They also try to trivialize obvious problems by calling
the person who talks about them a "whiner", which I find to be a
detestable word. Ultima Online is like that and EverQuest is and will
be like that when it goes public. There's really nothing the more sane
people can do except ignore it.
>Charles Naumann
Jeff Hoppe
Silverlock wrote in message <36e44d05...@news.earthlink.net>...
>Yes and I really appreciated their help, I was more concerned about
>what if I have to log off 10 minutes after I die for an extended
>period. I hear that they are considering having corpses log off with
>the character which IMHO would completely solve that problem.
I hear it is being worked on. As well as friends commands in /who
Damocles
<MrW...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>
>The food and water is not a big deal. You don't starve to death. You can
>kill a 1st level skeleton and get some bone chips that sell for 1s2c. This
>is about enough to buy a unit of food or water that should last some 10-20
>minutes. And at the first 3 levels you get 5food/5water everytime you die.
>So you won't be needing to buy food and water until level 4.
>
>Wayne
>
Well, I'll find out when I get the game next week. I'm sure it will be
fun for a while, anyway.
--------------
'Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.'
- Patti Smith, "Gloria"
Sugarman
>
> On Mon, 08 Mar 1999 15:44:02 GMT, kenn...@gol.com (Ken Nicolson)
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 07 Mar 1999 22:31:27 GMT, anje...@pball.nospam.com (Anjelika
> >Hamilton) wrote:
> >
> >>Its not beta, the code being played right now is post-retail and the new retail
> >>customers will download it when they log on.
> >
> >night or so. I don't see why they won't have another code release next
> >week. Or are they going to pull them and reinstall the bugs?
> >
> >Or have you some top-secret line into Verant's development process,
> >advising Brad on his every move?
>
> The game has gone gold and is being prepared for distribution in eight
> days. The announcement was on all of the major web sites late last
> week. The continued patching just before release is exactly what OSI
> did with Ultima Online in the interim period between the end of the
> public beta and the official release.
>
> I will note that it's clear that EQ is in better shape than UO was
> went it went out the door, but I find these reports of an unfinished
> quest engine a bit disturbing. I thought the quest engine was the
> basis behind the game.
I was under the impression that the consensus is the quest engine is
fine, and they are just holding out on it so that the solutions to all
the quests aren't known/posted before the game actually goes live.
Ergo, lots of unfinished quests in beta.
--sugarman--
Alasdair Allan
> On Mon, 08 Mar 1999 15:44:02 GMT, kenn...@gol.com (Ken Nicolson)
> wrote:
> >What are you talking about? They posted yet another new patch last
> >night or so. I don't see why they won't have another code release next
> >week. Or are they going to pull them and reinstall the bugs?
> >
> >Or have you some top-secret line into Verant's development process,
> >advising Brad on his every move?
>
> The game has gone gold and is being prepared for distribution in eight
> days. The announcement was on all of the major web sites late last
> week. The continued patching just before release is exactly what OSI
> did with Ultima Online in the interim period between the end of the
> public beta and the official release.
I must be getting old but the terminology was a lot easier in the old days
when things were "mastered" and "gone gold" meant it had sold x,000 copies.
--
Alasdair Allan, Ibrox, Glasgow |England - Country where Marx developed
x-st...@null.net | the basis of Communism
X-Static's Rangers Webzine |Scotland - Country where Smith developed
http://www.x-static.demon.co.uk/ | the basis of Capitalism
Alasdair Allan
> Ken Nicolson wrote:
> > Call me a daft bugger, but I like harsh death! UO is *far* too soft.
> > Perhaps, though, there can be a suitable middle-ground.
>
> The middle ground, by my reasoning would be to keep some of the
> penalties for XP and the like, but to reduce item costs into the realms
> of sanity. Also, it might be nice for non-spell casters to be able to
> grab a "Scroll of Bind" or "Scroll of corpse return". Expensive, one
> shot items, but the kind of things you keep in the bank and will use
> when you need to recover quickly from a death 4 zones away.
Actually your post started me thinking about this.
The cost of a full set of plate *really* is as much as has been stated.
Unless there is some money bug discovered (and this doesn't look that
likely but is more than possible) whats the bet Everquest becomes the first
game to provoke a suicide in RL when someone loses their full set of Plate
that took 18 months saving to buy?
Flagg
wrote:
>
>This is the sort of review I've been waiting for...thanks Silverlock.
>You've told me enough so that I'll wait for similarly detailed reviews
>to appear here before I buy, to see if any of these issues have been
>dealt with. The negatives that stood out for me were the handling of
>food, the unfinished quest engine and how monster combat tends to go
>down.
well, depending on your character and such, food is really NO BIG
DEAL.
Clerics can summon food and water for free at relatively low levels.
I play a cleric and often give away lots of free food and water to
group members as well as strangers who need it.
Also, FISHING is a very cheap way to make money as well as provide for
low-cost food. Bait costs 4 copper and usually nets 1 fish once your
fishing skill gets halfway decent. 1 fish is the same as 1 ration or
1 summoned food.
Zur
> On Tue, 09 Mar 1999 21:35:08 GMT, "Alasdair Allan"
> <postm...@x-static.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> >Actually your post started me thinking about this.
> >
> >The cost of a full set of plate *really* is as much as has been stated.
> >Unless there is some money bug discovered (and this doesn't look that
> >likely but is more than possible) whats the bet Everquest becomes the first
> >game to provoke a suicide in RL when someone loses their full set of Plate
> >that took 18 months saving to buy?
No no no, you dont understand the EQ economy. Plate only looks expensive
to lower level players. When you're high enough level to afford it, it
doesn't take all that long to save for. I mean, sure, you'll be pissed
about losing it, but assuming you're level 30+, it wouldn't take so long
to replace. It would be frustrating and somewhat tedious, but not as
frustrating as you're thinking...
> I kinda like the idea. It will be easy to tell the worth/experience
> of a player by the armor he wears -- unlike UO, you will never see 7
> day old character roaming around in full plate.
It's called twinking(*), and I bet it will be rampant in final. Not at
first, but lets say a level 43 character, decides to give away some 25th
level quest chainmail that was really easy for him to get to his 3rd
level guildmate. At 43rd level, that chain isn't so valuable anymore, but
would make leveling a lot easier for the 3rd level guy...
(*)Although, it won't be considered "illegal" I'm still using the beta
term for it. IMHO, items should have level restrictions...
Ryan McGinnis
<postm...@x-static.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Actually your post started me thinking about this.
>
>The cost of a full set of plate *really* is as much as has been stated.
>Unless there is some money bug discovered (and this doesn't look that
>likely but is more than possible) whats the bet Everquest becomes the first
>game to provoke a suicide in RL when someone loses their full set of Plate
>that took 18 months saving to buy?
I kinda like the idea. It will be easy to tell the worth/experience
of a player by the armor he wears -- unlike UO, you will never see 7
day old character roaming around in full plate.
EQ kinda makes me wish I had something more than a P-133. I wonder,
what kind of chips will a 133 MB take? Upgrades are cheap....
-Ryan
Sugarman
>
> EQ kinda makes me wish I had something more than a P-133. I wonder,
> what kind of chips will a 133 MB take? Upgrades are cheap....
Check your MB specs. You might be able to toss in a 233MMX, or maybe
just a vanilla 200.
On an odd side tangent, P200's are worth more locally than 233MMX's
becasue people are doing exactly this thing...maxing out their old
MB's. Just can't find the damn things.
Supply & demand, dupply & demand...
--sugarman--
Takatak and Massala on The Rathe
James Adams
Zur wrote in message ...
>> <postm...@x-static.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
>It's called twinking(*), and I bet it will be rampant in final. Not at
>first, but lets say a level 43 character, decides to give away some 25th
>level quest chainmail that was really easy for him to get to his 3rd
>level guildmate. At 43rd level, that chain isn't so valuable anymore, but
>would make leveling a lot easier for the 3rd level guy...
No, there isn't anything to stop this. In fact, having a player run
economy is dependant on higher level people selling off their unused
armour/weapons. Brad has said in a post somewhere (I would link it, but I
don't remember where it is) that they know this will happen BUT, that high
level armour won't be as useful to the newbie. An items usefulness is
dependant on the wearer's "ability" to use it. A lower level character just
doesn't know how to use that high level stuff.
Flagg
wrote:
yea,except you can get a new super socket 7 motherboard for like $50.
You'd be MUCH better off replacing the mb as well.
Stupid
<MrW...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Some people have surmised that all of the quests have not been implemented
>yet because they don't want everyone learning them before the final is
>released. I doubt that is true, but you never know.....
There are currently zero (count 'em) quests available in Groob, the
city of Trolls. Trolls are KOS in some parts of Oggok, so there are
zero quests available for them there. I have not yet made the long
trip to Neriak yet, so I can't comment on the availability of quests
for a Troll there.
I sincerely hope that not all of the quests have been implemented yet.
--
Eric Penn STUPID's three rules to life:
stu...@jps.net Stick with what you're good at,
stu...@he.net Learn from your mistakes, and
ep...@calpoly.edu When in doubt, act stupid!
PGP Public Key: http://www.jps.net/stupid/pub_key.txt
Cullen
Stupid wrote
>There are currently zero (count 'em) quests available in Groob, the
>city of Trolls.
Well Stupid, I hate to tell you, but you're dead wrong. I just completed a
quest last night as amatter of fact, for the shadowknights guild. I got the
whole thing done, and it all worked. Had to look forever, and be a certain
level im sure, but they are there. You just have to knwo who to talk to.
I've found that there are at least 3 (count em) quests available to
shadowknights in Grobb, so look a little harder.
=)
~C~
Or Kazzaka
Zur
> There are currently zero (count 'em) quests available in Groob, the
> city of Trolls. Trolls are KOS in some parts of Oggok, so there are
> zero quests available for them there. I have not yet made the long
> trip to Neriak yet, so I can't comment on the availability of quests
> for a Troll there.
Considering that there seem to be so few dark elf quests in Neriak (one
warriors quest is all I've found) I would be surprised if trolls got more
quests.
> I sincerely hope that not all of the quests have been implemented yet.
Me too. I really hope that we haven't even seen half of them, yet. I love
the game, but if they don't add a helluva lot more quests in final, they
should really change the name...
Silverlock
>To correct quite a few of your wrong points,
First off, I'm not you and since I obviously DID have these problems
just because you didn't doesn't make them impossible.
>-Gnomes can see quite well in the dark, I have had no problems with mine.
The only Benefit Gnomes get to seeing in the dark is if there's a body
on screen, as I mentioned in the review.
>-Reading emotes is easy because the chat is merely tinted black, the color
>is extremelly easy to read and I have had no problems with it
Really, I have seen several people who agree with me that it's hard to
read so I can't be the only one.
>-Read point 1) or buy a latern or fire beetle eye. It is your choice to go
>"full screen" if you choose to go full screen you must learn the
>consequiences (sp). Or go semi-full screen.
Don't be an ass. I had a legitimate problem with darkness which BTW
Verant knew about and fixed via a patch to correct FAULTY gamma
correction with the Viper 550 cards. My card is a Viper 330 and had
the same problems, which have since eased considerably. My review is
being redone to reflect that but AT THE TIME WAS PERFECTLT VALID.
>-Concerning monster AI, I guess they are so intelligent they can run through
>stone and tent walls right? Without even opening or going through the door.
>-And even with sneak and camoflauge on they still can attack you when you
>are coming up from behind right?
What are you talking about?
>-You dont have to click click click, if you havent caught on you can hold
>down the slider and drag it.
Sure you can but what you cannot do is another windows standard, which
is to click in the bar and have it autoscroll. Telling me what you can
do doesn't change the fact that you can't do that and it's an
interface problem.
>-Many people dont need to do with draw all or anything, they do the smart
>thing and change it into larger currencies then click it twice for the
>amount they want.
Ahh I see, so complaining about any feature that might make the game
better in any way is off limits eh? Are your lips sewed to Verants
asshole or what? Adding a withdraw all/deposit all toggle, would be
Childs play and would make things easier. Adding autoconvert would
also. There's no reason not to have those two features at the bank
interface.
>-There doesnt need to be a autoconvert, because there is a convertion that
>is so easy to use all you have to do is drop it on a different coin label,
>and if you cant do something as simple as that you should not be playing
>EverQuest.
I can do it, so shut the hell up with the insults ok. Whether I can do
it or not isn't the issue, the issue is rather then drag and drop drag
and drop add infanauseum, there should be an easier way tog et out of
the bank quickly. Geeze did I somehow insult you personally, what did
you design the interface or something?
>-If you also havent caught on NUM LOCK makes you autorun so you dont have to
>hold forward.
I knew that from day one. Is your reading comprehension that low? I
wasn't complaining about that, but that there is no Mouse button only
means of activating mouselook, and or running while in mouselook.
There should be.
>-Quests cannot be judged as of now, there is only 1 city with working quests
>and not all of the quests are implemented yet.
If the game is Shipping this week end and the code is gold then they
damn well can be judged. If that is the case that the quests aren't
implemented its a big negative.
>-Food is just realisim, I would compare a copper to a penny and a silver to
>a dollar in real life and I dont know where you can buy bread for less than
>a dollar and only eat one loaf a day. However I do think they should have
>refillable water flasks that only require you to find a stream, and if you
>do it from the ocean you just get thirstier.
Someone on the list told me to buy muffins and milk which cut the food
cost in half for me easily. The new review will reflect that.
>-You CAN gain skills if you fail, I tailor and I should know this.
I didn't say you couldn't I said you Might not.
>-Don't see to NPC's, sell to PCs which is what a player based economy is
>for.
Yes and until there are large numbers of players with available cash
no such market exists to test the very viability of such a market.
Since you are basically forced to sell to NPC's at a loss or PC's (who
aren't interested for the most part in beta) this also is a valid
complaint.
>-Tailoring patterns are hardly "at least a few gold", they only cost 7
>silver.
This is correct and will be reflected in the new review.
>-If you cant manage 1st person perspective then dont use it when grouping,
>and with all the people saying that they wish there was a view like UO,
>Diablo, or Balders Gate then it wouldn't really be a 3D game with a view
>like that. One of the best things I like in EQ is being able to look across
>the horizon.
You can see the horizon? With the shortened draw distance I see just a
backdrop with reverse fading in trees.
>-You can have those sound cues if you have a EAX card with 4 or more
>speakers.
Well I certainly hope they prominently display that Minimum
requirement on the box. SOUND: REQUIRES EAX SPEAKERS (4 MINUMUM) FOR
ANY TYPE OF REALISTIC DIRECTIONAL SOUND.
>-I myself always switch to over the top view when in combat.
>-I dont know how you would be able to put more work into melee unless of
>course Everquest was a full 3d virtual reality enviroment which required
>goggles and the whole outfit.
Well for example take Asherons call. They allow the person fighting in
melee to choose a high or low strike, and then hold down the mouse
click for a power rating which determines if its a full roundhouse
which can put you off balance if it fails or a quick jab that's easily
recovered from.
>-How hard it is to increase in a trade skill is strictly for realisim, if I
>wanted to train in real life for tailoring without a machine to make armor
>it would take a LONG time for me to make a tunic without training or mass
>amounts of material.
>-<rant on>If you think dieing is painful think of how I felt when I finally
>made lvl 15 ranger after dieing 2 times from bugs in lvl 14 losing 1 bar
>total which I had to spend around 2 hours in (a orc oracle in Lesser Faydark
>was casting 400damage spells- a GM told me this was the damage after he had
>half life left after it casted on him- I also fell when I logged in for 10
>000 non-melee damage). Then at lvl 15 when I finally got new spells, dual
>weild, and meditate I died another 2 times (once from the falling bug) and
>the other from getting disconnected in the middle of running from a aqua
>tidal goblin lord in Dragor's Cauldron. </rant off>
Good so you agree with me then, dying is currently too painful. Or can
be.
>-Over all I think that dieing and losing xp is one of the best things in EQ
>or otherwise there would be little punishment from dieing other than having
>8 hours to get to your corpse (which is plenty IMHO).
>-Your group probably wont cut you off, because you wont get money or xp
>splits when in a different zone, unless your group doesnt know much at all
>how anything works.
>-Tip: Don't play right before you have little time to do your required prior
>arrangments or obligations.
Another valid complaint I made which is being addressed. i asked Brad
in a chat recently about logging out corpses with the owner and he
said it wouldn't be in release but they were working on it or
something to that effect.
>-I have never had your 2) bug and I probably have one of the worst systems
>in EQ. 200mhz with 32mb RAM.
>
The bug was cured by new drivers for my video card, and this will
also be mentioned in the review. I should have waited one more week
for the review since 3-4 problems were fixed during that week. I will
redo the review on saturday.
>And.. In summary, don't write a "review" when you have hardly experienced
>this game.
>
Oh BS. I can and will write a review based on what I experience and
think of the game. I experienced enough to judge for myself and put
what I felt up on the page to be read. No one has to take my word for
it, I'm not asking them to believe me or I'll jump off a cliff, or
anything.
Jeff Hoppe
Stupid wrote in message <36ecb915....@news.jps.net>...
>On Mon, 8 Mar 1999 19:41:42 -0500, "Wayne Sheppard"
><MrW...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>Some people have surmised that all of the quests have not been implemented
>>yet because they don't want everyone learning them before the final is
>>released. I doubt that is true, but you never know.....
>
>city of Trolls. Trolls are KOS in some parts of Oggok, so there are
>zero quests available for them there. I have not yet made the long
>trip to Neriak yet, so I can't comment on the availability of quests
>for a Troll there.
>
What about the escaped Froglok prisoner quest? I saw someone on it who was a
troll.
Jeff
Sugarman
Well, yeah, I know. That's why I ditched the P200 and got a 233MMX and
a MB out of the deal. Thanks for doing business.
Wayne Sheppard
Silverlock wrote in message <36e8584...@news.earthlink.net>...
>On Mon, 8 Mar 1999 16:32:47 -0500, "Ian Fan" <i...@v-wave.com> wrote:
>
>>-You can have those sound cues if you have a EAX card with 4 or more
>>speakers.
>
>Well I certainly hope they prominently display that Minimum
>requirement on the box. SOUND: REQUIRES EAX SPEAKERS (4 MINUMUM) FOR
>ANY TYPE OF REALISTIC DIRECTIONAL SOUND.
This isn't a fair statement. Anyone should know that you need a 3d sound
card to get 3d sounds.
>
>Good so you agree with me then, dying is currently too painful. Or can
>be.
>
If I was slashed to death by a pack of gnolls, I would think that it would
be painful :)
Wayne
Ian Fan
>
>>To correct quite a few of your wrong points,
>
>First off, I'm not you and since I obviously DID have these problems
>just because you didn't doesn't make them impossible.
>
>
>>-Gnomes can see quite well in the dark, I have had no problems with mine.
>
>The only Benefit Gnomes get to seeing in the dark is if there's a body
>on screen, as I mentioned in the review.
-As I said, my gnome can see easily in the dark, not just seeing paths and
monsters (what infravision does)
>>-Reading emotes is easy because the chat is merely tinted black, the color
>>is extremelly easy to read and I have had no problems with it
>
>Really, I have seen several people who agree with me that it's hard to
>read so I can't be the only one.
-I think seeing the purple, red, or green against the tinted black
background is fairly easy. If it is hard for some people then use /feedback
(or whatever the command i) and tell them they shouldnt have the chat
background transparent just might it beige like the windowed screen.
>>-Read point 1) or buy a latern or fire beetle eye. It is your choice to go
>>"full screen" if you choose to go full screen you must learn the
>>consequiences (sp). Or go semi-full screen.
>
>Don't be an ass. I had a legitimate problem with darkness which BTW
>Verant knew about and fixed via a patch to correct FAULTY gamma
>correction with the Viper 550 cards. My card is a Viper 330 and had
>the same problems, which have since eased considerably. My review is
>being redone to reflect that but AT THE TIME WAS PERFECTLT VALID.
-Yes I heard about that bug, and how was I supposed to know what type of
video card you have? This possibly could be the reason your gnome can't see
well in the dark.
>>-Concerning monster AI, I guess they are so intelligent they can run
through
>>stone and tent walls right? Without even opening or going through the
door.
>>-And even with sneak and camoflauge on they still can attack you when you
>>are coming up from behind right?
>
>What are you talking about?
-The fact that if you attack something linked with something else, and the
other person is inside a building it goes right through it. Or, for example,
go to Butcherblock and to the crossroads Nyzil Bloodforge is always going
RIGHT through the wall whenever a monster comes by.
>
>>-You dont have to click click click, if you havent caught on you can hold
>>down the slider and drag it.
>
>Sure you can but what you cannot do is another windows standard, which
>is to click in the bar and have it autoscroll. Telling me what you can
>do doesn't change the fact that you can't do that and it's an
>interface problem.
-Yes but you said you had to constantly click, which is something different.
I would however like to see the dragging of multiple items like Ultima
Online's interface which just let you type in the number.
>>-Many people dont need to do with draw all or anything, they do the smart
>>thing and change it into larger currencies then click it twice for the
>>amount they want.
>
>Ahh I see, so complaining about any feature that might make the game
>better in any way is off limits eh? Are your lips sewed to Verants
>asshole or what? Adding a withdraw all/deposit all toggle, would be
>Childs play and would make things easier. Adding autoconvert would
>also. There's no reason not to have those two features at the bank
>interface.
-I look back at your message now and forgot about the deposit all, a command
like that would be nice on slower computers (ie. mine) and it is a good
idea. Also a withdraw <x> would be nice, but there may be some exploits when
a person gets rich and if he draws it all some might go on the floor (I
don't know, just probably used to prevent future bug abuse).
>>-There doesnt need to be a autoconvert, because there is a convertion that
>>is so easy to use all you have to do is drop it on a different coin label,
>>and if you cant do something as simple as that you should not be playing
>>EverQuest.
>
>I can do it, so shut the hell up with the insults ok. Whether I can do
>it or not isn't the issue, the issue is rather then drag and drop drag
>and drop add infanauseum, there should be an easier way tog et out of
>the bank quickly. Geeze did I somehow insult you personally, what did
>you design the interface or something?
-Dragging and dropping isn't that hard. Maybe on slower computers but it
will only cost you a few seconds time.
>>-If you also havent caught on NUM LOCK makes you autorun so you dont have
to
>>hold forward.
>
>I knew that from day one. Is your reading comprehension that low? I
>wasn't complaining about that, but that there is no Mouse button only
>means of activating mouselook, and or running while in mouselook.
>There should be.
-I also read this one wrong and now see that you meant to right click hold
on the screen as if mouselook was default.
>>-Quests cannot be judged as of now, there is only 1 city with working
quests
>>and not all of the quests are implemented yet.
>
>If the game is Shipping this week end and the code is gold then they
>damn well can be judged. If that is the case that the quests aren't
>implemented its a big negative.
-I assume the CD will be shipping with all 100 unimplemented quests.
>>-Food is just realisim, I would compare a copper to a penny and a silver
to
>>a dollar in real life and I dont know where you can buy bread for less
than
>>a dollar and only eat one loaf a day. However I do think they should have
>>refillable water flasks that only require you to find a stream, and if you
>>do it from the ocean you just get thirstier.
>
>Someone on the list told me to buy muffins and milk which cut the food
>cost in half for me easily. The new review will reflect that.
-Snake eggs only cost a few copper and can be used as food.
>>-You CAN gain skills if you fail, I tailor and I should know this.
>
>I didn't say you couldn't I said you Might not.
Cut&paste from your review:
"When you
try a trade there is always the chance that you will fail and use up
ALL RAW MATERIALS with nothing to show for it, not even a skill gain."
>
>>-Don't see to NPC's, sell to PCs which is what a player based economy is
>>for.
>
>Yes and until there are large numbers of players with available cash
>no such market exists to test the very viability of such a market.
>Since you are basically forced to sell to NPC's at a loss or PC's (who
>aren't interested for the most part in beta) this also is a valid
>complaint.
-And as of right now since we have low trade skills (most likely) we won't
be able to make the expensive stuff anyways, and can only make (or only want
to make) the cheaper, easier stuff to make such as patchwork, normal bows.
>>-If you cant manage 1st person perspective then dont use it when grouping,
>>and with all the people saying that they wish there was a view like UO,
>>Diablo, or Balders Gate then it wouldn't really be a 3D game with a view
>>like that. One of the best things I like in EQ is being able to look
across
>>the horizon.
>
>You can see the horizon? With the shortened draw distance I see just a
>backdrop with reverse fading in trees.
Watching the sun or moon rise looks extremelly realistic, which is one of
the things I like about it. I do however think it is unrealistic that if you
are far away from something, it becomes transparent and you see the horizon.
>>-You can have those sound cues if you have a EAX card with 4 or more
>>speakers.
>
>Well I certainly hope they prominently display that Minimum
>requirement on the box. SOUND: REQUIRES EAX SPEAKERS (4 MINUMUM) FOR
>ANY TYPE OF REALISTIC DIRECTIONAL SOUND.
>
>>-I myself always switch to over the top view when in combat.
>>-I dont know how you would be able to put more work into melee unless of
>>course Everquest was a full 3d virtual reality enviroment which required
>>goggles and the whole outfit.
>
>Well for example take Asherons call. They allow the person fighting in
>melee to choose a high or low strike, and then hold down the mouse
>click for a power rating which determines if its a full roundhouse
>which can put you off balance if it fails or a quick jab that's easily
>recovered from.
-I think that would be more like Streetfighter or any other of those "old"
fighting type games. And IMHO I think it would just be 'stupid'. And monks
have those special moves which you have to hit keys for but failing doesnt
have any consequiences (once again sp).
>>-<rant on>If you think dieing is painful think of how I felt when I
finally
>>made lvl 15 ranger after dieing 2 times from bugs in lvl 14 losing 1 bar
>>total which I had to spend around 2 hours in (a orc oracle in Lesser
Faydark
>>was casting 400damage spells- a GM told me this was the damage after he
had
>>half life left after it casted on him- I also fell when I logged in for 10
>>000 non-melee damage). Then at lvl 15 when I finally got new spells, dual
>>weild, and meditate I died another 2 times (once from the falling bug) and
>>the other from getting disconnected in the middle of running from a aqua
>>tidal goblin lord in Dragor's Cauldron. </rant off>
>
>Good so you agree with me then, dying is currently too painful. Or can
>be.
-Painful but fair, but with the current bugs it isn't at all. If there were
none of these bugs and in a perfect world I wouldn't mind it at all.
>>-Over all I think that dieing and losing xp is one of the best things in
EQ
>>or otherwise there would be little punishment from dieing other than
having
>>8 hours to get to your corpse (which is plenty IMHO).
>>-Your group probably wont cut you off, because you wont get money or xp
>>splits when in a different zone, unless your group doesnt know much at all
>>how anything works.
>>-Tip: Don't play right before you have little time to do your required
prior
>>arrangments or obligations.
>
>Another valid complaint I made which is being addressed. i asked Brad
>in a chat recently about logging out corpses with the owner and he
>said it wouldn't be in release but they were working on it or
>something to that effect.
-With 7 days now (for lvl 6+ chars) to get to your corpse it should be
plenty of time for anyone. But then again this was after your review.
>>-I have never had your 2) bug and I probably have one of the worst systems
>>in EQ. 200mhz with 32mb RAM.
>>
>
>The bug was cured by new drivers for my video card, and this will
>also be mentioned in the review. I should have waited one more week
>for the review since 3-4 problems were fixed during that week. I will
>redo the review on saturday.
-This is a beta after all and 989/Verant is trying to fix as many bugs as
they can with their rapidly closing deadline.
>>And.. In summary, don't write a "review" when you have hardly experienced
>>this game.
>>
>
>Oh BS. I can and will write a review based on what I experience and
>think of the game. I experienced enough to judge for myself and put
>what I felt up on the page to be read. No one has to take my word for
>it, I'm not asking them to believe me or I'll jump off a cliff, or
>anything.
I apologize for this comment and realize you put alot of pride, effort, and
time into your review.
Ian Fan
>>
>>I didn't say you couldn't I said you Might not.
>
>Cut&paste from your review:
>"When you
>try a trade there is always the chance that you will fail and use up
>ALL RAW MATERIALS with nothing to show for it, not even a skill gain."
What I meant to say was that you shouldn't always gain skill, otherwise,
obviously, it would be extremelly easy to gain skill.
And there should, and hopefully always will have risks involved to making
anything.
Shane
<cerrakin@DON'TSENDSPAMusa.net> wrote:
> You can also eat snake eggs for
>food. :) That's cheap..all you gotta do is kill snakes.
And let's not forget the occasional piece of meat you can get off a
kill...
Stupid
wrote:
>I've found that there are at least 3 (count em) quests available to
>shadowknights in Grobb, so look a little harder.
I'm not a shadowknight.
Some quests were added in the last week of the beta. Even more were
added on the last DAY of the beta. Figure that out.