Anyone getting back into the game or looking for a raiding guild? I'm playing on Nektulos with a bunch of old Vita folks and we are running into a case of the summers. Post here or find me in game on Ponzi.

Don't worry, Neesha isn't playing anymore!

Correct. I just haunt the boards.

send me a pm intin, my 80 Bruiser is on Blackburrow is full decked out in t4 shards equip plus mythic/epic , I quit after we finished last expansion but been thinking of coming back.

If Friday turns out to be what everyone wants to hear, "EQ2 Velious expansion announced, playable race: Othmir" I am going to play this game once more.

me too !

awesome, too bad my zerker is at lvl80. I guess i should try to find a guild to work him up again with so i can be ready to try this out.

Haha Othmir would be awesome!

Wonder if they will say who won the war

Well nevermind...nothing at all worth fucking with in Velious. Yay flying mounts, who gives a fuck.

This has to be the most depressing announcement of an expansion yet, not to mention an overall Fan Fare.

EQnext = Free Realms 2 as well.

did they not bother going with Velious? I haven't bothered to google...

Wait, didn't Velious supposedly melt and sink or something during the Sundering/Cataclysm/Luclin explsoion etc etc ...

Gnome sub must have found it and resurrecteded it !

I'm actually getting ready to reinstall EQ2. Don't have any high level toons there though...so would just be leveling up and such...so probably no real help to you guys on that end.

Good to see people still playing it though.

Alot of criticism on the various boards already, so I'll summarize for the lazy:

- flying mounts that will function as regular mounts when on the ground (meaning you can control the z-axis and take-off/fly anywhere, including areas in previous expansions). Of course, the argument from fans here is... when the most interesting thing about a future expansion you focus on at a Fan Faire is flying mounts, what does that say about the rest of the expansion?

- Velious will come in 2 parts. Want Siren's Grotto? You have to wait for part 2.

- despite there being a TON of quests in Velious part 1, there are only 2 overland zones. The majority of new areas are instances or raid zones.
So the natural concern is with only 2 overland zones representing all of Velious, how laggy are they going to be? And how big/small?

- othmir will be in, but not as a playable race. In fact, no level cap raise and no new playable races that we know of at this point. AA increases and possibly new AAs, however.

And yes, as Givin mentioned, EQ Next (tm) is being compared to Free Realms.
Which is a bit scary, but we'll see. Way too far out at this point to make any judgement calls, based on one screenshot and a 1minute panel interview, it's hard to say what the game will be like.

Well I installed EQ2 last night and was amazed at how smooth it runs on even 4 year old hardware. Was running it on my Macbook Pro 17" Core Duo and had the settings pretty high and it looked incredible and ran very well. (Yes, I was running it in Windows 7 via Boot Camp)

It's too bad that this new expansion is so bleh...the game still in my opinion is one of the nicer ones out as far as being the complete package.

Personally I just wish Vanguard would have had a better release...I still think it had incredible potential. It's still fun to play now and then.

I play EQII on my MacBook Pro as well (Windows XP/Bootcamp) and always enjoyed this game but mostly its PvP. So, if anyone is on Nagafen look up Muligan or Fletchin (Templar, Ranger respectively)

I have to say i'm a little let down with the expansion as well. To be honest, outside of the dungeon content, Odus as a let down for me. New races/classes always add a little life to a game and that is really all that EQ2 needs. The game is really solid and has more pros than cons.

EQNext is scaring me a bit. Some of the artist renderings did not seem too bad but the landscape did... I'm not going to get too up or down as of yet since it is way too early. I could really care less what it looks like if it's a good game. Although, I think EQ has a style they missed in EQII and they need to gain with EQNext.

Yeah I was reading in the new expansion for EQ that they are introducing Player Housing.

I'm actually one of those rare freaks that likes Player Housing and enjoys it (most people I know say it's the most pointless thing ever)...that being said though, I just don't know that I'll appreciate it too much in EQ. I guess if it added storage space, that's great, but overall with the dated graphics of EQ I just can't imagine too much of an "ooooh" factor in it, hehe.

So far the thing about EQ2 that I'm enjoying the most is the community. While it still doesn't touch the original EQ community, or even the original SWG community in my opinion, it's pretty much the best thing going today. I guess I'm just old and grumpy now, but anytime my wife asks me to log into WoW to help her with something, it takes me all of about 2 minutes to get irritated with people there and want to leave.

Anyways, I went off topic talking about EQ2 too much in an EQ thread...my appologies.

I liked the housing in EQ2. Being able to display your Heritage Quest items was a nice touch. And who doesn't love plushies?!@

Luv plushies

Disturbing!

For anyone sick of WOW and can't find something to do, EQ2 really hits the spot at the moment. Outside of the pvp server, the maturity level of the average gamer is surprisingly high even in most general chat channels.

Game mechanics are a good median between eq1 and WOW. Raid zones reset pretty fast so if you are a big fan of raiding there is plenty to raid 4-5 nights a week 3-4 hours a night.

Classes aren't nearly as diverse and fun as Vanguard's but there the arch types are completely different from each other in most cases so still seems pretty unique. There is challenging group and X 2 content that gives a little bit of a carrot to the casual and entrance level raiding is very easy to get into.

We started playing on the pvp server maybe 3 months ago, went through a few guilds and got into one of the better ones and realized how retarded the player base was there and left for a pve server and couldn't be happier. We were lucky enough to get into the 2nd best guild on the server and I can honestly say the raid content is pretty challenging without being just pure fail mechanics. The hole has some fun encounters and Roheen Theer 3 & 4 rune are pretty dynamic fights. Raids aren't rocket science and get a bit cookie cutter (3 ae's, cure certain curses or wipes raid, deaths = heal mob etc) but usually have enough flair to keep some one entertained.

Game has something for everyone, not going to claim its the 4th coming of jesus or anything but it does enough things well that I probably won't try another MMO until maybe EQnext unless Velious goes in the wrong direction. Personally I wish the itemization would give a bit more variety but its still slightly better then WOW and you feel a lot more achievement from being raid geared then I ever did in WOW outside of pushing early HM's.

WRU VANGUARD 2!!!!! /sigh

Turbo

what is the general time frame for a brand new player to get to raid viable?

I'd be safe to say with mentoring and the xp bounus that goes along with, you can be lvl 90 and 180aa in 3 weeks conservately, if not sooner if you have lots of play time.

Even at a level an hour that's still 90 hours of game time. Is that for real? 3 weeks playing semi casual? Level 90 and 180aa?

Very easily, especially if you have a recruit-a-friend account grouped with you. We're talking lvls 1-30 in a few hours, if that. Plus you can use exp potions.

I did 80-90 in less than a week, just popping potions and questing solo, you earn AA xp even if you have 100% going to reg xp, certain encounters, soloable named mobs and quest award Alt exp in addition to the reg xp so I would usually make at least 1 aa in addition to level, ie 80-81 plus 1 AA so forth and so on.

Don't forget you get vitatilty xp bonus, rest xp for short and it doesn't get used up rapidly and replenishes faster than you use it while in a town or offline

They messed with AA at the lower levels with the last patch when they tried to fix how exp bonus's interacted with each other so its a bit more difficult to get AA at the lower levels from grinding now (which I can't really blame them).

With a RAF in my group and my brother playing his decked out SK we basically knocked out 1-85 in a weekend with a fair amount of AA's. Granted we know the places to level and his SK is almost full T3 and HM loot but realistically you can be 90 and have enough AA's to get into a medium guild in 3 weeks if you work hard.

One word to the wise, if you are playing a raw dps class and have aspirations of being in a high end guild you better be damn good and have some connections or luck. HM fights and a lot of the hole encounters are getting to the point where we only have a 3-5 raw dps classes in the raid period because having 8 healers min for alot of fights is basically standard due to curses plus the dependency on support classes. Also melee classes are usually the classes asked to sit due to almost every fight evolving jousting.

If you aren't worried about the top few SF HM raids and some of the hole fights then most guilds are pretty slack on who they recruit as long as you are consistent and not a douche bag. Last night on Ark the destroyer HM we had a ranger, wizard, warlock, and brig as our only actual dps in the raid lol with two assassin 60-75k dps sitting on the bench but the fight is a fucking PITA

Amen, Turbo. Amen. Vanguard 2 probably won't ever happen, but I have faith something will come along eventually that brings back some of the great aspects that game had to offer. I still feel like firing it up again from time to time =/ Man, God knows how well it would run on my current computer as well. Very tempting. Wish I had more time these days.

I have not been paying EQ2 any attention at all. What are the general breakdowns of class/role and their general need?

If your going on pure need, the hardest classes to find to fill out raids are IMO:

Bard-Trouba or Dirge
Enchanter- Illusionist or Coercer
Chain healer(Shaman)- Mystic or Defiler

not in that specific order though

If I were to do it again, I'd definitely pick one of the Enchanter subclasses.

FYI, if you're thinking of re-installing EQ2, this upcoming long weekend is a double XP weekend.

Might be a good time to take advantage of easy/free XP.

sweetz I needz more aa =)

We are on Guk, going to do some massive alt aa grind and level up another alt this weekend so if someone is rerolling give me a hola on terbo and we can probably give you a hand. (might be on turb/tturbo)

As far as classes go, most raids want 1 consistent Illi now but with time warp changes coming they will be more attractable.

I'd say 90% of decent guilds run mandatory 3 dirges so if you are looking for a class that is desired that would be the best (rezzes, buffs, and has a great ability that takes the damage they do in a certain amount of time and then adds it to damage to the group).

My new raid main is a defiler and outside of only 1 group cure they are just hands down the best healers with wards. With raids going more towards NEEDING 8 healers for every encounter i'd suggest a defiler if you want the best healer class or a inq. if you want a little more balanced dps/healer.

On AB, loaded up about 3 days ago. Been on a 2.5 year break. So starting at Lvl 80 with 140 AA. Got to 82 quickly, but decided I should prob revisit the 2 exspansions I missed before the quests grey out and grind through them quickly for the AA exp with the slider to 100% before going back and continueing SF.

Think that's the best way to go about it, or should I just get 90 ASAP and worry about the AA later? Found that a LOT has changed for troubador. Used to stack INT... and have found many of the things that groups look for AA wise is 40+ AA out of reach.

As a Trouby, there's 2 new abilities that groups will want you for: Rhythmic Overture/Victorious Concerto (SF endline ability in Bard AA tree); and Upbeat Tempo (endline TSO AA - requires 180+ AA to get though).
Chances are you can re-arrange your AAs for RO/VC now - if not, you'll have it soon enough anyways in another dozen or so AAs.
And once you get closer to 90, you can bang out a couple dozen AAs further to get Upbeat Tempo (UT). I wouldn't worry too much about that.

FWIW, get to 85/86ish asap. At that point you can do the epic repurcussions quest, and start accumulating mark of manaar T1 gear / Hole faction merchant gear, which will put you on the right path. You can always get individual upgrades from boss mob drops after that.

If you want the AAs, just switch your AA xp to a good amount, or chronomage down some levels and knock out any quests you previously missed.

No worries.

18 AA today running moor solo quests, love the xp weekend.

+1 level and +13 more AA today. Hoping to break 200 aa before double exp ends.