This post is in response to one I read over at Inventory Full and it probably won’t offer any useful information at all, but I did want to explain how I manage my time these days in order to be able to complete what I can in EQ2.
I “play” roughly two hours a day. I put quotes around play because I’m actually in game all day long. I have EQ2 set up on my MacBook Pro which I keep beside the couch, and the couch is basically where I live as I nurse the newborn / his change table is nearby / Netflix is nearby / etc. So when I’m nursing or doing something else I can still watch chat and while I may not actually be moving my character around, I can type on-handed, or my husband can drag me around an instance and I can hit accept for loot. I don’t consider this actively playing though.
What it comes down to is time management. It takes approximately one hour to grab the quests and run through every solo and advanced solo dungeon in KA (it takes myself as a necromancer and my husband as a wizard this amount of time, your time may vary). That leaves one more hour for whatever else happens to catch my fancy that isn’t group related, because on Antonia Bayle at least there’s no way I’m going to find a group in that time or complete a dungeon. Normally I just end up crafting or running through older instances. There are so few people on Antonia Bayle that the Jarsath Wastes PQ has failed multiple times now since the recent changes (the statue stays kneeling for less time than before). I do still manage to complete the PQs a few times a day though, since I’m logged into the game all day long and they respawn every two hours (approx). I complete each of them maybe three times. I typically leave my character in the guild hall transportation room or in JW / Fens in order to be right where the action is when it goes live. I can do all of that one handed, or have the husband move my characters for me.
Do I think the expansion was worth the cost? For the basic version, yes, I certainly do. I’m getting more than my monies worth out of it and I think the value is great, especially because there IS a lot of content – it’s just content that you have to repeat, every day. How many times do you want to run through the exact same solo / advanced solo dungeons before you get bored of it. The signature line takes my characters two or three days to complete, and I have 7 level 100 characters. I was also disappointed that Daybreak didn’t add any bonus experience or any Frostfell sales over the holidays, it just felt very un-festive.
That being said, there’s lots of things I’m not currently working on that I should / could / will one day work on. I need to complete the Thalumbra signature line on a few characters still. I kept up with crafting on that one, but not adventuring. I still haven’t completed all of the Frostfell quests. The Mushroom Grotto event was a bust (for me) since it doesn’t last enough time, and of course the holidays are busy for everyone.
With the spare time that I DO get in game, I make sure I know what I’m doing and I run off and do that right away because I don’t know how long that time will last. Lately that includes farming one very specific solo dungeon when my timers are up because an item there sells on our server for 150k (charm with 1k potency). I could really use that sort of cash.
Anyway. That’s how I’m spending my time these days. Again please do feel free to drop me a hello in game! I’m on Antonia Bayle as Stargrace / Quails / Mousical – it may take me a few to respond if I’m not actually around but in most cases I have no issue watching the chat scroll by. Helps to make me feel a bit more human instead of a constant milking machine…
Happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.
Literally as I type this there is a big argument going on in General chat over CoH/CoV “failing” to get people to JW for the PQ and apparently the reason is the zone is full. We have two and sometimes even three instances of the PQ zones up most times I’m playing these days and as I said I don’t even play in NA prime. It certainly is a turnaround – I was on Freeport before the merge, which had gone from the busiest server back in the F2P days to a quiet backwater.
Not sure whether I like it better busy or quiet. Maybe DBG should go for some kind of Megaserver or cluster tech like GW2 or WoW rather than merging.
From what I’ve heard, yes, most people moved off the server when there were free transfers. We’re the only server on the launcher that constantly shows as “low” population. Makes me incredibly sad, because it used to be the opposite for many years.
As I suspected you are vastly more organized than I am! Even so, it’s astonishing that it only takes you an hour to do all the KA solo and advanced solo dungeons. It would probably take me close on an hour to do one Advanced Solo instance, assuming I could do it all.
I wrote something recently about gear in MMOs but I do have it in mind to say something specifically about the utterly insane stat inflation that EQ2 is currently either enjoying or suffering, depending on your perspective. Content that took me hours and hours to do at level when it was new (Phantom Sea dungeons for example) now take the same character a few minutes. Mobs that were a huge struggle only a year ago he now one-shots. And that’s with nothing more than simple quest-reward gear from KA.
I’m going to install ACT soon just to heck numbers but from what I read on the forums DPS is now measured in millions and mob health in trillions. It’s insanity. How anyone is meant to create content for the potential range of abilities between a fresh 100 and a seasoned raider beats me – and beats the devs too much of the time.
That said, EQ2 has a vast range of horizontal as well as vertical content so if you can’t do one thing you cna always go do something else instead. There are few MMOs to match it in that respect. In all the time I’ve played I’ve never really done current expansion Heroic content, far less current raids, but the aforementioned gear inflation means I’m always confident of coming back to whatever I’ve missed later on. These days, though, with just about all content being replicated as solo, advanced solo and Heroic, there’s not that much to wait for.
It’s very interesting, and strange, to hear of the population issues on AB. On Skyfire, where I play outside of NA prime time, the place seems to be buzzing. All the PQs are well-attended every time they pop and I have yet to see any fail. People were complaining in general yesterday that the Iksar Hero was being killed too fast and they didn’t have time to get there.
Did AB have an exodus when the server merges happened or what?