Yesterday was my first trip to Magister’s Terrace, even though I’m now level 72 and it’s an instance for those at level 70 (burning crusade). I was doing the instance with Manos, warrior from guild (recently had Calreth join the guild as well with a mage, looking forward to that!) and I loved how complex the zone seemed. In EQ2 I’ve never had to look up a guide on a zone, I’ve never really had to learn a script, I could simply heal my way through it and very rarely does anything require me to react any differently (raids are different of course). In WoW I find that if I do not know a particular encounter I am probably going to die. There’s been everything from named exploding after they die (I have nightmares about those ones) to being gravity fluxed into the air and being required to swim around from giant energy balls or else risk being killed. I find WoW instances (at this moment in time) incredibly stressful, because I pride myself on being a good healer and when I don’t know the encounters it takes away from my ability as a healer.
Now, I could try to read up on every single instance and memorize what it is I need to do in each one. Or I could forgo the random dungeons and simply read up on specific ones until I learn them, or – well. Anyone else have suggestions?
Aside from learning the encounters in Magister’s Terrace, I also experienced my first (two) heroic dungeons. Again these were done in a team of two instead of a team of five, and they were burning crusade dungeons not Wrath, so they’re not exactly the most difficult of zones to do – but they were still incredibly fun. I managed to obtain the achievement for the heroic Blood Furnace, as well as the heroic Hellfire Ramparts. It was the first time I saw epic loot drop from a zone that wasn’t a boe world drop, and it was awesome to see how the zones changed compared to their ‘regular’ counterparts.
I did also experience my first Wrath dungeon, I headed to The Nexus and won a few pieces of nice loot including a new ring and an offhand. I’m mid way through level 72, and I’d probably be 80 already if I had any sort of dedication towards leveling just one character. As it is I constantly bounce around and I’m not exactly the quickest leveler. I get bored of quest grinding, which seems to be the best way to level up through the 70’s.
Now that a few more friends have started playing on my server I’m excited about us all leveling up and doing some fun things together. Whether we’ll actually stick with it or not I’m not sure yet, but it’s still incredibly fun in the mean time. Between EVE and WoW (and some EQ2 on the side) I really do have everything I want from an MMO (or two). I have the complexity of EVE and the sci fi factor (even though that factor means little to me personally) and I have the incredibly casual relaxed feeling of WoW – the only thing both games lack that I get from EQ2 is the housing. Which is something I miss dearly.
Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!
I’ve no idea what the gear score corresponds to, I just remember while levelling up still being able to wipe with a full group in a TBC heroic (ok multiple fears, but they were dangerous), whereas I completedl the WotLK ones largely in blues, level 80 epics and level 70 epics.
A couple had a challenge but I was shocked how easy they were in comparison, especially AN which gave loot for 15-20 minutes on our first run on normal, at the time I thought it was an error and expected them to make the dungeon tougher later on! Heroic wise only the HoL and oculos felt tough initially and the second only due to the vehicle mechanics. So I’d still put good money down to say that the TBC heroics are much harder then the WotLK ones.
For the EQ2 dungeons they only have simple scripts with the odd clever encounter here and there until TSO, where I found there were plenty of fights that would wipe you if you didn’t know what you were doing, Guk : Halls of the fallen is my favourite there just for the atmosphere, although that first void anchor dungeon has a crazy fun fight in there (flying around).
I went the other way MMO wise myself, I loved TBC (although I only got part way through T5 in raiding but it was an achievement), but found WotLK too easy outside of the raiding, I did actaully stop reading up on the strategies after Uldar, I then found the ToC raid very hard for certain fights not knowing the strategy early on, but later on the icecrown dungeons were all doable by figuring it out from the fight. I was on my way out of the game there though, basically I wanted a progression sort of game which TBC offered where I started at the beginning of the expac and progressed as far as I could by the end, the gear resets mid game in WotLK didn’t do anything for me, and I also enjoyed the dungeons where the WotLK ones were very easy from the go (no one every runs them on normal). At the same time I’d be dabbling in EQ2’s Rise of Kunark expansion and then The Shadow Odyssey expac came out which had a lot of dungeons with a progression of difficulty, which was exactly what I wanted.
Overall this is what I want from the game, scripted fights are fun, but I like to be able to work them out myself, some of the random scripted fights are some of my favourite though, Magisters terrace Priestess was always a solid challenge (there is a fight in EQ2 Miraguls something or other similar but not as well tuned), I just wish that they put that AI elsewhere in the game too.
Comparing EQ2 now to TBC then the big difference I see is the twitchiness, at times I wish EQ2 was that tough where one loose mob could one shot the healer, although say in conservatory many times a deathbloom has blown up the entire party so its swings and roundabouts, but I’m a long way from clearing all the zones myself so I’ve only experienced the easy ones.
@Lomax – No, the warrior I went with was level 79 at the time, with a very low GS (we’re both new) of I’d say less then 2k, my priest at 72 has a gs of 1600 or so – I realize that’s not the end all be all, but what it shows is that we’re not uber by any stretch of the imagination hehe. I purchased the keys just fine after getting my faction up, love doing faction work.
I find the EQ2 scripts boring, I’ve never had to look up a zone to see how to do it (this does not include SF raid zones, which are scripted through and through and require a lot of learning) and I’ve done all of the instances available. Even Varsoon has a small script (the level 35 one I mean) before DFC, and none of them (the scripts) include getting creamed if you loot a mob before the puff of poison poofs, lol.
When I switched to WoW from EQ2 about 3 years ago, wowwiki.com really helped to ease the trouble of actually having to “learn” the abilities of bosses even in group dungeons. Wait, WoW is not easymode compared to other MMOs? :o
“Aside from learning the encounters in Magister’s Terrace, I also experienced my first (two) heroic dungeons. Again these were done in a team of two instead of a team of five, and they were burning crusade dungeons not Wrath, so they’re not exactly the most difficult of zones to do – but they were still incredibly fun. I ”
Woah! Totally wrong :) Actually I think you’ll find that a burning crusade heroic mode dungeon is actually harder then the WotLK normal dungeon at the same level, and harder also then WotLK dungeons when you get to the final level. I’m guessing though that one of you is level 80 and in seriously good gear? As at level 72ish these would be quite tough on heroic mode (you still need to purchase the keys for this).
Magisters Terrace was a fun dungeon though, very hard when it first came out but good fun. In EQ2 the dungeons don’t start to get scripts until about level 40 (Deathfist citadel – although fairly simple), its not until level 50+ when you get scripted fights from places such as deep forge, or my favourite Guk : Halls of the fallen.
I really hope housing, especially guild housing with auctioneers and the like, is never ever added. Why? a) The cities will be deserted if guild housing’s full of features and b) as a former Second Life player I could never live with the restricted options an MMO would provide, and I’d really dislike it if it was like EQ2, where you don’t really have a house, just a doorway and then a cave. So yeah. No housing for me :P
I bemoan the lack of housing in WoW as well, even though I didn’t get into it nearly as much as you have in EQ2. Especially now that it’s come to be seen as a ubiquitous feature present even in free-to-play titles. Although housing won’t be coming in with Cataclysm, I hope that Blizzard at least takes the opportunity to lay the groundwork for it while they’re retooling Azeroth anyway.