EQ2

Multi-Housing Excitement #EQ2 #EverQuest2

stargrace April 29, 2011 4 Comments

I’ve always thought it was important that games play upon their strong points. The strong points are what set them apart from other games, and cause them to be ‘unique’ even if the remainder of the game duplicates something else. In EverQuest 2 I feel that this is player housing. The latest update allows players to own up to 10 homes at one time, and if you own a prestige home you are able to link all of these together via portals.  Prestige homes come in a variety of ways, you can earn them from veteran rewards and you can purchase them from the station cash store, as well as earn them through legends of Norrath.

I’m really excited about this feature even though I haven’t been playing that much EQ2. I have my Norrathian museum on the Antonia Bayle server and it takes up the entire 7-year veteran reward home that I own. Thanks to these linked portals I will be able to link a ‘regular’ house to the museum, allowing players (and myself of course) to tour each of them. Decorating homes and “owning” a piece of the game is a really big deal to some players (not all of them, there are always those who are simply not interested) and I think the fact that EQ2 is willing to explore and upgrade these features is fantastic. There is a LOT of housing available in the game, and a lot of housing items. In fact even if you don’t enjoy housing at all it’s almost impossible to avoid that potion of the game because you get housing rewards for numerous quests, there are vendors all over, and the station cash store is filled with awesome furniture you can purchase. Having an option of ‘something else’ to do in game aside from slaughter creatures is a really important ‘hook’ to keep people in game.

If you are into housing, don’t forget to /join antonia_bayle.homeshow for great discussions with other designers. Have you decided what you’re going to do with this new feature yet? Let me know in comments!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

A Good (Bad) Freeblood #EQ2

stargrace April 9, 2011 1 Comment

Thanks to the Velious rewards I received my Freeblood race once DoV went live in February. I held off on creating the new character because I really had no interest in yet another alt – not to mention I wasn’t really playing that much EQ2, and when I did play I already had 10 characters to choose from. Of course sooner or later the itch to level something up – This time I decided upon a ranger. I had no idea that Freeblood could be ‘good’ aligned  (as well as evil), but I’m a ranger starting in Halas – a very ‘good’ city. I’m sure the guards never noticed why some of their citizens were a little more pale then others, or why some went missing. Besides, I swear Kameeko (the ‘good’ ranger) had nothing to do with those things. Well. I’m almost convinced. I decided to go all out and also purchased the Freeblood lair when station cash was having a sale – the problem with this purchase is that it’s a one time use tied to the character. Not an issue for the average player perhaps but I’ve been known to delete level 90 characters (bye bye dirge) and re-create all of my characters minus a very small handful that I just can’t part with. This creates an issue for me on a few levels. Did I REALLY want a ranger? Well. I’ve had one before but again she was deleted some time back. I WANT to like the ranger, I just couldn’t create any sort of tie between me and the character, and in order to feel that (for lack of better word) longing, to play one – well. That bond has to be there.

I’ll give it another shot (haha, ranger, shot, see what I did there!) and maybe this time fall in love with the character – as long as she stays in her ‘natural’ state and doesn’t transform into the hideously ugly old lady that every vampire female seems to transform into at the click of a button. It’s gross, trust me.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Lets Talk Housing #EQ2

stargrace April 8, 2011 No Comments

I (and many others) have been eagerly waiting the changes that are coming to the housing system in EQ2. In EQ1 you can already purchase multiple homes (2) and while there are not quite as many options (smaller lots, etc) you can also purchase guild neighbourhoods from the station marketplace. Without getting into the RMT discussion, it’s at least nice to see that there are options out there. Lets face it, these days it’s not just hack and slash that is drawing us to games – it’s also the amount of personality we can interject into our characters and how much we can personalize them and their “life”.

Housing in EQ2 has grown by leaps and bounds over the years, but the next update will really take it to the next level. If you’ve been living under a rock (or perhaps playing that other game) and haven’t been listening to what the new updates will encompass, here’s a few questions answered:

Q: While you are putting in the ability to own more than one home, could you please also add in the ability to share homes with other characters?

A: Prestige Homes allow this already. Add each character to the others’ trustee lists, then link the homes together via portals. Voila! Now your homes are linked and you can edit them freely.

Q: Change *Guild Port Doors* to be heirloom/attunable (heirloom selfishly because my main character buys all the doors for my other girls) rather than no-trade and let the location of our attuned guild port door be where the “Guild Portal to Player Housing” sends us to. This would allow us to use the “Guild Portal to Player Housing” to load in to whichever of our multiple housings we choose, or even into a home where we are trustee if that is what we desire.

A: More good news. This already works! You can place your Prestige Home portals in your Guild Hall directly, *and* the current “Member Housing” amenity now allows you to travel to any house that is linked in your home network. This can be a large amount of houses if you have lots of links and friends.

Q: Multiple Character Housing:  Add the feature “Tenant” to the house window’s access tab. When the owner of a house flags a character as “tenant” on the access tab, an option will unlock at the bottom of the house’s access tab for that trustee to “purchase room”. Any time thereafter that the trustee visits that house, they can open the house’s access tab and click on the “Purchase Room” button at the bottom of the screen.

A: So basically, [you want to] allow automation of the current thing you could do by making that player a trustee of that house and requiring rent to prevent you from turning off the Trustee flag on them? (RL landlords could only dream of having such an easy eviction process. I can see how that could make the system safer for “renters” by preventing easy landlord lockouts.

The attraction to the decorator is obvious. And we have a feature coming up that would allow easy advertisement of the properties, so yeah…this might work. I’ll jaw it over with the team.

Q: The limit to the number of displayed vending boxes should be removed all together, but if that is not possible, you should at least increase the number of displayed vending boxes allowed in the home by number of tenants (ie if a house can have 10 active displayed vending boxes placed within the home, each tenant added to the home should increase this number by, at the very least, the number of broker slots the house allows).

A: We might consider something like this in a future update. It’s a decent idea. Needs some considering. The current house vendor system is only marginally successful. There’s definitely room for improvement.

 

I am incredibly excited about the multi-housing feature, and all of the neat goodies that will go along with it (including some guild hall amenities). My museum currently fills one 7-year veteran reward estate, and I’ll be so happy to move Stargrace to an actual home, with like – a bedroom. She’s getting a sore back sleeping with all of those books pictured above. Housing is always the one feature about EQ2 that I simple adore (and this goes for EQ2, EQ, and Vanguard) and I still wish more games looked at it as a valuable part of game-play. It’s a great way to wind down after doing some adventuring, and gives players a location to just hang out and do their thing. Maybe some day in the future we’ll see more dedication towards it.

In the mean time, happy gaming. No matter where you find yourself!

Exploring Thurgadin #EQ2

stargrace March 27, 2011 1 Comment

I really love how the developers of EQ2 have designed Thurgadin. It’s one of my favorite zones in looks alone. I spent a few hours wandering around the city, listening to NPC and viewing the wonders that were hidden in nooks and crannies, and every detail is just done with such care. My coercer has her flying mount now (the only character I have who has finished the quest so far) and getting around quest hubs is much easier. I finished the crafting quests in The Great Divide, and have been working on the ones within Thurgadin. I also took the troubador out for a spin, after being much neglected. I decided to splurge and purchased the two portal weapons off of the broker (having already obtained the belt, all three come from the Guk portal) and then did a few Public Quests with her. I stayed away from SG, people have already proven that it’s the least liked of both, and every two hours I said I was LFR and eventually found myself in a group. I didn’t get any neat weapons or the chest piece or any runes, but I did get myself three pieces of legendary gear with +87 to agi and stam, and the three set bonus also granted me another extra 100 agi. The troubador was wearing level 80 gear from The Shadow Odyssey still, and this new gear was an enormous upgrade.

Since I qualified for the Free Blood race in February I decided just for laughs I’d create one, and purchase the home in case one of these days I wanted to decorate it. I honestly have no idea what the inside looks like yet, I haven’t bothered stepping into one. I’d like to continue working on my carpenter on the Antonia Bayle server, so that will probably be the plan for the next little while.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend – how have you been spending your game time? Let me know in comments below! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself. I’ll see you in New (and Old) Norrath!