While the choice of gems in the above picture may not exactly be something you’re into, we all love free things! EverQuest II has a very short promotion right now where players can claim these items from the station marketplace for no cost – and you can’t really complain TOO much, since they’re free. This is a pretty good marketing tactic, although I’d rather have a choice of free things to claim that’s just me. Players who have perhaps never opened the market window before will be drawn to do so. Those who were not even aware of it existing suddenly have a reason to peek at the other goodies that are located in there. Will it increase sales? Probably.
There is another promotion much like this one taking place on the days around the release of Halas, an ice cat that will be ‘free’ in the marketplace for players to claim. That one I’m quite excited about, even though I haven’t shown much enthusiasm for Halas in general.
Why am I not excited about Halas?
- It’s a starter zone, and I can create no more characters thanks to the very strict “7 or 12” character limit depending on your subscription plan.
- I have no motivation to grind aa since I have everything I want on my main character, and SOE scrapped the idea to add an extra 20 aa so that players could finish out their lines.
- Halas is great (starter zone) and with it comes two new raid zones. Except I no longer raid, so that means for players like me there is very little about this update to get excited about. A starter zone and raids. No mid-level content.
I think that I’m simply in a phase right now where I’m bored of EQ2. I’ve been playing other games (EVE and WoW) and content doing so. No, I’m not leaving EQ2, I never do, but it’s been a while since I’ve taken a break from it and I’m embracing the idea while I have it.
There are a few things I would love to see implemented that would refresh this burnout feeling I have but number one would have to be:
- Allow players to gain thousands of aa even if it’s for meaningless goals. Examples of these would be removing the racial abilities and character traits and allowing people to grind aa towards them. Things like Enduring breath, extended food, drink, poisons, and potions. Allowing characters to select more then one craft default. Allowing us to grind aa towards innate run speed. Silly little things that we all know are just a meaningless grind but keep us motivated and working towards a goal. Currently, in EQ2, if you are not a raider, once you hit level 90 (unless you’d like to constantly grind battlegrounds) the only thing left to do is create a new character. What happens when you’ve created all of the characters you possibly can.
Perhaps I’m a little bitter this morning, but in the mean time EQ2 is simply on the back burner for me. Though I did add another 6 books to my player written book collection, which was fantastic. 326?! Yes please!
I have to say I agree with star, I want end goals for my character, I don’t want unlimited anything and never appreciated the EQ1 AA system. Making an alt already takes forever because you have to grind AA’s, not just get to 90, to make them effective, especially if you are like my current alt, a tank. Not that I can’t see your point and I’m sure many agree with you.
I know exactly what you mean. Over the years EQII and WoW have been my main two games, and I’ve grown bored with each of them at times. At the moment, I’m well into EQII again and my sub for WoW has expired, but I’m starting to get that itch and I know I’ll be hitting WoW pretty hard again soon. It’s just the circle of mmo life.
@Green – “There isn’t a point in having a tree if it doesn’t force you to make strategic choices”
I just don’t agree with this. In EQ1 there’s basically no limit to the amount of aa you can obtain, the ‘difficult’ portion comes from deciding which ones to work on first, as opposed to which aa are ‘unobtainable’ – in WoW there’s also no real strategic choices, especially since you can dual spec and switch them out at the drop of a hat. Even in EQ2 you can dual spec and switch everything around with your achievement mirrors. Perhaps for your class personally, these 20 would allow you to give up the need for ‘choice’ but my main (mystic) already has everything I could possibly want, and the extra 20 would do nothing to change that – except give me another ‘goal’ of things to work towards.
“SOE scrapped the idea to add an extra 20 aa so that players could finish out their lines.”
I actually think this is a good design choice, even if it means one (or twenty) less things to work on. If you gave me those extra 10 points, in many trees I would literally have every AA that I want. There isn’t a point in having a tree if it doesn’t force you to make strategic choices.
As for your general state of the game, here’s my insight as a fellow multi-gamer: always leave something left on your to-do list. For me, there’s a huge difference in how I feel when I walk away from a game depending on whether I finished absolutely everything I was thinking about doing versus if there was something that I was meaning to do that I left unfinished. In the former case, I’ve probably been sucked into doing something grindy that wasn’t that fun, and my parting impression is as much relief and frustration as anything. In the latter, I have something to look forward to for when I come back (which I pretty much always have to the games I’ve played recently).
In my view, based on what you’re saying, stepping back from EQ2 right now is sounding like the right call for you.
Hey Stargrace,
I know exactly how ya feel, i am having the same burnout feeling, Eq2 is just not captivating me like it use too. I too am not going to leave but have been doing other things, DDO & STO and still debating if i should re-up my WOW account. hopefully this will all pass soon and i can get back to the game i love the most.
Chubby
@Dril and @Sharon, I agree completely. I enjoy my break away from EQ2, I’m having a lot of fun in WoW (I’ve played off and on since release, but my highest level character is only 63) and I’m having a blast in EVE. Of course I’ll always return to EQ2, it’s “home” for me – but I’ve found that doing exactly what you two mention, moving on to another game for even just a short while, will refresh my enthusiasm for my ‘home’ – it’s incredibly nice to see that I am not the only one!
I’m similar to Sharon: I stopped raiding by choice and there really is nothing to do, especially since I didn’t even need gear due to having a lot from raiding in the first place. Sure, you can grind monies or get some titles, but what’s the point? I think it’s times like this when even friends can’t help you keep going; all you can do is try a new game. You’ll either have something so engrossing that you’ll be able to go back to EQ2 (or WoW in my case) when it starts to interest you again, or you look at the new game and think: god, I wish I had my old MMO back…and bam, you remember loads of stuff you could do.
@Victor – You can search on the broker for player-written books (it’s a category) so all of your books are right there listed. On AB I find there are the most authors, being a roleplay server has that effect. As far as creating the actual library, sages make the blank book from a quest at level 50 and well, that’s about all there is to it. Patience and a lot of money. I purchase all of the books from the broker and check every day for new ones. A few have been donated, but the vast majority of my specific collection have been purchased. I also posted on the eq2player forums searching for books, and a few authors contacted me from that. :) Hope that helps!
I completely understand your sentiments because it’s exactly how I feel about WoW, and why I jumped over to EQ2 in February. With a whole mess of level 80s, there’s really nothing left for me to do in WoW besides run the same raids over and over, and Cataclysm isn’t offering anything I’m excited about at all. It’s good that there are so many other games out there to keep us busy when we get burnt out on one. :)
What to do at level 90?
Perhaps there are clues in your own basement.
I’ve been taking an EQ2 break in the last week too — unintentionally, but the char- and server-hopping I was doing should probably have tipped me off. ;)
You know, I would love to add a book of my own writing to your collection or to make my own collection.
How would one go about starting a library anyway? Got any decorating tips to make it easy, or some specific authors who are prolific in EQ2?