Saffith
05-02-2002, 04:48 PM
http://saffith.homestead.com/files/eq2p17.jpg
http://saffith.homestead.com/files/eq2p18.jpg
Yep. Sorry the pictures are a bit grainy, but they're just magazine scans...
(Edit: Ok, I'm a bit behind on the pictures. SB mentioned a page in chat, though: http://everquest2.station.sony.com/index.jsp)
So, anyway. Seems they're changing quite a few things. It's still in Norrath, a bit into the future. There are just the original three continents again; the others got written out somehow. There's still no map, but you'll get a compass in an early quest.
When you first create a character, you decide only its race, sex, and appearance. When you reach level 6 (Which they say takes about half an hour), you decide whether to play a fighter, priest, mage, rogue, or tradesman. At level 15 you specialize some; e.g., a fighter can become a warrior, crusader, or brawler. And then again at level 30, where, for example, a crusader can choose to become a paladin, a shadow knight, or a ranger. There ar0 possible experience levels, and Sony's considering increasing that to 200 in expansions.
There are three stats that affect items and equipment use. And there are now "transient" items; weapons, armor, and just about anything else will eventually break. There's a mention of some sort of "karma" the will reward you for destroying useless stuff. "Clear the world of junk and receive attack bonuses!"
Corpse retrieval's different, too, but they're still not sure quite how. It may be similar to the system recently brought into EQ. Your body remains for a bit to be requrrected, and if it's not you'll reappear at a bind point with all but an item or two. There'll be experience loss, but that'll be handled differently too. You'll keep gaining experience from right where you were, but a bit of it goes to paying off your "experience debt." There'll be plenty of bind points; you should never be more than five minutes from one. Except there'll be none in any dungeons.
No more national bank, either; banks are localized, transporting items across the world will require you to buy a horse, a cart, or maybe a boat. You can own property, too. Buy a plot of land, build a small building. Have other people build nearby. After a while, the game'll bring in guards and various civic buildings. There can only be so many big buildings in the world, though. There'll be places for public performances, and tradespeople can buy and run playhouses. You can pay for different levels of wedding ceremonies, and maybe even hire celebrities to perform.
Battles are about the same, though. The big change is a hit-location option, so you can bypass armor or increse your odds of hitting.
And of course, the graphics are nice.
Oh, and EQII requires a 733MHz Pentium III or Athlon XP, 512 MB of RAM, And a GeForce3 or better. But it's not due out 'til October next year, so there's still some time to save up for it.
http://saffith.homestead.com/files/eq2p18.jpg
Yep. Sorry the pictures are a bit grainy, but they're just magazine scans...
(Edit: Ok, I'm a bit behind on the pictures. SB mentioned a page in chat, though: http://everquest2.station.sony.com/index.jsp)
So, anyway. Seems they're changing quite a few things. It's still in Norrath, a bit into the future. There are just the original three continents again; the others got written out somehow. There's still no map, but you'll get a compass in an early quest.
When you first create a character, you decide only its race, sex, and appearance. When you reach level 6 (Which they say takes about half an hour), you decide whether to play a fighter, priest, mage, rogue, or tradesman. At level 15 you specialize some; e.g., a fighter can become a warrior, crusader, or brawler. And then again at level 30, where, for example, a crusader can choose to become a paladin, a shadow knight, or a ranger. There ar0 possible experience levels, and Sony's considering increasing that to 200 in expansions.
There are three stats that affect items and equipment use. And there are now "transient" items; weapons, armor, and just about anything else will eventually break. There's a mention of some sort of "karma" the will reward you for destroying useless stuff. "Clear the world of junk and receive attack bonuses!"
Corpse retrieval's different, too, but they're still not sure quite how. It may be similar to the system recently brought into EQ. Your body remains for a bit to be requrrected, and if it's not you'll reappear at a bind point with all but an item or two. There'll be experience loss, but that'll be handled differently too. You'll keep gaining experience from right where you were, but a bit of it goes to paying off your "experience debt." There'll be plenty of bind points; you should never be more than five minutes from one. Except there'll be none in any dungeons.
No more national bank, either; banks are localized, transporting items across the world will require you to buy a horse, a cart, or maybe a boat. You can own property, too. Buy a plot of land, build a small building. Have other people build nearby. After a while, the game'll bring in guards and various civic buildings. There can only be so many big buildings in the world, though. There'll be places for public performances, and tradespeople can buy and run playhouses. You can pay for different levels of wedding ceremonies, and maybe even hire celebrities to perform.
Battles are about the same, though. The big change is a hit-location option, so you can bypass armor or increse your odds of hitting.
And of course, the graphics are nice.
Oh, and EQII requires a 733MHz Pentium III or Athlon XP, 512 MB of RAM, And a GeForce3 or better. But it's not due out 'til October next year, so there's still some time to save up for it.