r2d242

Surely you're not suggesting more than one key was granted to the same IP address, more than once per minute!?

That would truly be shocking! (no, not really)

woosh. all gone in 26 minutes or less!

It's good that they had a thorough beta to work out all the balance issues and specific mechanics that wouldn't work in production.

Oh wait, my bad, nm.

( Fundamental changes like this, occurring after launch, screams incompetence from the bottom to the top of any organization that would push such unfinished drivel out the door. )

Unfortunately...

"
There is a limit to such accumulation so that users who play longer will not necessarily be able to have more labor power than those who play more occasionally.
"

This philosophy is going to drive away the exact demographic you're trying to attract. But otherwise, looks interesting.

Mortal Online. The devs literally drive their paying customers away, directly, in game and on the forums. Great business model, there.

Hold on a second... I thought F2P couldn't fail? I thought EVERYONE said it was the herald of the glorious second age of MMO gaming?

Heeeeere's another opinion:

When 1 million people say something that's false, it's still false. Just because a million people say something, that doesn't make it true.

Example: 1 Million people say Free To Play is the herald of the glorious second age of MMO gaming. Hmmm... Nope.

Guess what billing format all other successful long term ventures use? Oh right, it's monthly subscriptions. It has worked for electricity, water, any other utility, television, high speed Internet, mobile phones, telephones, banks, real estate, and insurance. It has also worked for MMO's since 1996. 14 years of profit can't be right? How about 110 years of profit? Maybe?

"
Do they mean westernized as in "translated to English and P2P"?
"

So far, yes. It's been confirmed (by fanboi's and devs) that the art assets will be identical between NA and Korean clients, so if you're looking for a visual distinction, there won't be one.

However, they have promised you can solo quest to max level, so... huzzah for teamwork? Oh wait... no no, let me try that again. Hooray for co-ordinated attacks in a group environment. Damn, I messed up again.

Last try:

Hooray for me, the hero, in a big shiny pretty chat room filled with other players solo'ing to max level! Just like every other MMO released since 2004! At least it will be yet another ego boost, right? Cause everyone is a fragile special snowflake. hee hee.

Even worse, upskirt running with female popori ! (now called Elin, not female popori)

http://tera-online.cc/gallery/renders/rases/popori-female/

What could go wrong? No way anything bad could happen with those playable, emotable models in game, right? Nah.

Nothing wrong with any of your suggestions, Karen, except they can't or won't do it in this game. Sony would rather spend the time and money on the next game, rather than band-aid'ing EQ2.

Which is a real shame, because the mechanics and graphics engine have the potential for extraordinary depth and complexity. The AA's could be so much better than they are, but they aren't.

It's almost like they had really good ideas during the past 7 years, thought them through 90% of the way, and implemented them about half as good as they could be. It doesn't help that pretty much the entire original team has been replaced, so the "new guys" don't know the systems nearly as well as the old guard.

A case in point is the number of times crafting in the game has fundamentally changed. Not just the interface, which is badly outdated compared to reality, but also the recipes and desirability of the items produced. At one point, there were 4 different qualities for every time, so the crafting interface has four 'tiers'. Except years ago, that was all done away with. You either make it, or you don't, but the interface still has 4 'tier's all of which result in the same thing. Pointless, really.

The ability to set your personal level to any previous arbitrary level would also be a great change, but they refuse to do it. Instead there's a clunky combination of mentoring and "chronomagerancyishness".

It doesn't help that (yes, as of this date & time) there is an AA xp bug that prevents a low level player from gaining AA experience for every kill, once their AA count exceeds their character level. Known bug, for months. No fix forthcoming, planned, or acknowledged. Basically it's a rounding error. WTH? A rounding error in a 7 year old so called AAA MMO? Holy Brell underground, fix that crap pronto! Don't believe me? Create a character, level to 10, then move the AA xp slider to 100%, so all your experience is devoted to AA. Now watch the AA xp bar. Note how 25-50% of the time, when you kill something, you don't gain AA xp. Now go search the official forums, and you'll find the problem enumerated by many players.

I agree the AA grind is a painful experience if you do it 'normally'. The problem is, for the past year, it's been possible to reach level 90 with 250 aa's in less than a weekend if you do it right. Wait for a double-XP weekend. You get a Refer-A-Friend account, have it mentor you, and get in a group killing nothing but triple-up heroics in contested dungeons. Nothing to it, you ding so fast it'll make your head spin.

Using the above method, you can get to level 90 in under 6 hours, is the current record. Want 90+250, it'll take about 36 hours.

The best part? Shadowknights and Berserkers, with the right gear, AA spec, and mentored are basically unkillable. I have personally witnessed a Berserker kill an entire room (I'm talking over 25 heroic mobs (all level +1 or level +2) with 5 other characters in tow, while mentored, and their health bar does not move more than 5% from maximum. It's ridiculous.

"Normal" players can take months to reach 90/250. Players in the know? Less than two days. Hm.. there's something not quite... I can't put my finger on it... Oh right, it's a snafubar!

Currently, properly spec'd and geared Necromancers can solo level 90 raid trash mobs. Not an exaggeration in the slightest. Solo, they can farm raid zones. Non stop. 24 x 7 if they want to. Should take 24 players. Takes one, of the right insanely overpowered class.

And yet, at least one quarter (if not one third) of the classes in the game, with full fabled / max level raid gear cannot solo a single heroic monster of their own level, in an instance. So you've got a range of personal power disparity the likes of which hasn't been seen since Asheron's Call 2 pre-nerf Tacticians.

Having been on this roller-coaster ride since EQ2 beta, I do not personally understand why it is so hard for the developers, designers, and management at SOE to actually follow the spreadsheets. Anyone, and I mean anyone with more than 1 year full-time dev experience in this genre could do a better job at future proofing balance than SOE has managed to do with EQ2. Every expansion, nerf, claw back, step forward. Next expansion, repeat. Two steps backwards, one step forward.

It's beyond incompetent. It's beyond silly. It's beyond stupid. It's like they're reading chapter and verse out of the "Big Book Of Fail".

Today, single hits in EQ2, in a raid environment, can exceed 200k damage. Typical hits for even a modestly geared player are around 10k per strike. How does that scale? Where do you draw the line in player power when you're hitting for 10-200k at level 90, and the game was originally planned for level 200? Really? Players are going to be hitting for millions or billions of damage, eventually? How is that balanced? Oh wait, it's not.

There is a lot to change (or could change), as you've potentially outlined, Karen. Unfortunately, at this point, given the effort, it would definitely be easier to start over, IMHO.

What? How is this possible? I thought F2P was the unstoppable wave of the future for all MMO's?