EQ live F2P

[Munyo]

Anyone giving live EQ a shot now that its F2P?

[Deverell]

No. I wanted to give EQMac a shot, but it's barely playable on a PC because the client has to be jury-rigged which results in all kinds of buggy shit. Can't scroll out to 3rd person, can't cycle nearest targets, bazaar search is fucked up and other stuff. If not for that, I'd be 3-boxing the shit out of it.

[webrunner5]

I tried it. Can only use the crappy Mercs. Can only have like 4 toons. Like 3 races. 4 Classes. Only I think 100 AA's. I mean it is not crap but in the long haul you will be back to wanting the whole thing at $14.99 a month.

The nice thing about live over here is there is a zillion zones you can go to explore and if you die you can get back your body. Most people have only been to a few zones here.

But I still am here. So it hasn't swayed me enough yet.

[Danyelle]

If you connect to the Test server as opposed to the Live servers you get flagged Gold without any cash exchange and no restrictions. Test seems to function no differently than the Live servers with the exception of a more Emu-like population. Also may have something like an xp bonus for testing purposes...decent sized one at that. You change by clicking the little gears on the launcher right above the loading bar, Selecting the "Select Game Version", and selecting "Test" from the drop down. Let it repatch. Done.

As for how Live plays these days? The content is absolutely terrible and, for the most part, poorly designed these days. HOWEVER the client itself, and the new features, is... *shivers*..orgasmic. Far superior to filthy pig-disgusting Titanium.

If only there was a Classic-Velious server with Veil of Alaris client compatibility... *sigh*

[Brimacombe]

Personally, I do not care for EQ live any more. I have a capped Enchanter on a server which I forget that I doubt I will ever play again. My experience was everyone rusting at cap, and no one grouping all the way to cap. I was forced to solo the entire way up due to the fact that the only people leveling characters are boxing and don't want anyone else cutting into their xps. This took a month and a half of poop-socking in what was effectively a single person game.
Add to this Defiant gear, which drops like wolf meat, which is better than planes gear and is available at level 5. Between this and the mercs, the content is pretty trivial for a long time.
Until you reach a certain point, when the content is designed for full groups of raid geared characters. Pretty much all of the content from SoD onwards is immune to mez, root, and stun - forcing you to tank everything yourself. Tank mercs help, but unless you want to play a healer, your tank goes down pretty quickly with hasted SoD+ mobs wailing on them.
By the time I reached cap, it had just started, I had to get geared to my peers, which meant another month of grinding for gear before I could get a group.
Add to this the ubiquitous mentality for live MMOs that you are not a human being until your character caps, and I am done with EQ live. I don't play 1999 for financial reasons, but for the population, game play, and challenge.

- Brimacombe

[Kevlar]

I tried it but even with leveling after 4 kills I got bored around lvl 30.

[Zithax]

EQ's modern develops DO NOT EVEN PLAY THE GAME. They are idiots who play WoW endlessly and throw rehashed awful WoW concepts into EQ and half-ass their jobs. They've ruined the game (as if it wasnt ruined already) they've tried to reinvent the game too many times and they've failed at each time miserably. They need to give up. EQ classic or bust. SOE is a horrible dev house and only fosters more horrible untalented unmotivated workers.

[necrosaurio]

EQ Live has nothing to do with the classic EQ of 1999 (pun intended).

It's a lot faster game, where everything happens in the last 5 of 95 levels.

Levels 1-70 are done 90% solo, with a merc, although you can find some groups. The defiant gear is so overpowered that you can just get hit and not notice it until the higher levels.

70-90, you can group in a couple of places (DSH, Loping Plains) but get ready to play the same few zones because nobody plays anywhere else.

The "game" starts at level 90 these days but first you have to gear yourself, something which is stupidly expensive or time consuming.

The gear lasts for 5 levels, 10 tops, there is nothing that you would keep for more than those levels. All the gear from the next expansion is better in ALL stats, so most people just get PLd to 80 or even 90 and start gathering some gear then. On top of that, you have to get all the augs and a million AAs so your char doesn't get one rounded.

Silver players (people who have paid at least for 1 month in the past or pay $5 once) can get up to 1000AAs of between 6 and 9 thousand, if I remember correctly. That's barely enough to play a necro, a wiz, an enchanter or a bard and be useful. Healers, hybrids have it hard but tanks are REALLY screwed as they can't use most augments and, with that AA count, they won't last a second.

Frankly, I play it because I tend to solo most of the time and none of my chars are anywhere near competitive, otherwise, it would be hell to play without paying.

I play P1999 because it's a lot more relaxed and simpler, although a lot harder. I never got to play back in the day so, for me, it's not about nostalgia.

[Scavrefamn]

Two-boxing.




gg.

[necrosaurio]

Two-boxing.




gg.

Oh yea, I forgot that. Everybody two or three boxes. There are a million shamans and bards and 99% of them are boxed. With 3 chars and mercs you have a full group and many, many people don't bother grouping anymore.

[Swish]

Oh yea, I forgot that. Everybody two or three boxes. There are a million shamans and bards and 99% of them are boxed. With 3 chars and mercs you have a full group and many, many people don't bother grouping anymore.

I never understood that and still can't fathom it. I came back to EQ when a new blue server came up (Trakanon), having never really used mercs I soon got used to them. My shaman had a warrior merc who was extremely good and definitely a sustainable duo.

I don't like mercs, but in my mind they eliminated the need to give SOE your hard (or not hard) earned cash 3 times over :s

[Yondiloons]

tank mercs can solo anything lvls 1-60

if they take out the overpowered mercs and defiant drops i think it would be fun, but of course soe just wants everyone to get as powerful as they can be to play the newest expansion

[Danyelle]

tank mercs can solo anything lvls 1-60

if they take out the overpowered mercs and defiant drops i think it would be fun, but of course soe just wants everyone to get as powerful as they can be to play the newest expansion

It's less about "OMG Gotta get them into Veil of Alaris right now!" and more about "99% of our player base is long time players, and anyone new is likely a friend of one of those players and we don't want that friend sitting in the 50s for 4 months straight unable to play with their level 95 friend."

The level gap is just too big now. So they speed you through until like 70. Then level it off again.

[necrosaurio]

I never understood that and still can't fathom it. I came back to EQ when a new blue server came up (Trakanon), having never really used mercs I soon got used to them. My shaman had a warrior merc who was extremely good and definitely a sustainable duo.

I don't like mercs, but in my mind they eliminated the need to give SOE your hard (or not hard) earned cash 3 times over :s

Later on it's impossible to keep a merc up and kill stuff with just a shaman and tank in the group, you will need some extra chars. The easiest way forward? Box a DPS with a cleric merc. That's your second account.

Once you start boxing, it kind of becomes addictive because you realise that you don't need a group for anything, you HAVE a group. Then most people add another box, normally a shaman or bard because of the ADPS and ease of boxing.

If I remember correctly, it seems like most people 3 box, at least that's what seems to be discussed most often. That gives you a full group available 100% of the time.

[webrunner5]

I used to 5 box all the time. 5 toons and one killer teir 5 Cleric Merc I had. Was pretty easy to do after awhile. Note: I had a pretty uber computer to do it with.

[Destan]

The only thing I can get into on live anymore is the progression servers (which I left to start here). They are fun, for a time, but honestly still progress far too fast. When EQ went F2P I booted up a new toon on Vox and thought I might be able to make it work..but disgustingly logged off around level 10.

It's not the game I love anymore, so free or not I'll pass. Here's to hoping EQ Next is just classic EQ revamped with the same mechanics but cleaner graphics, am I right?