Heck the game is so slanted towards the crafters now, for a stated reason I understand but I don't agree with...Sony is TRYING to make things interdependent and allow the crafters to drive the economy, knowing that the adventurers will follow, but GM's will come down on adventurers using a high level toon to grey out a zone, and yet it is accepted to see level 40 artisians, with adventuring skills under 10 out in the field collecting, protected by the same exploit. Interdependence HAS to run both ways, starving the adventurer, making every piece attunable, no drop no trade, to prevent me from handing down items, and then allowing the artisans to utilize OBVIOUS exploits sort of high lights the SOE BS level and the usual corporate ***** that Smed has vomited forth since, he was declared a 'gamer' and NEW EQ SOE savior....*cough*cough*
The game is grahpically driven and INSANELY easy to bot or macro.
Something HAS to give..I bring in rares that are tied in a GIANT SPIRALING EVER DOWNWARD market, that has artificial supply input limits without the similar limits on the crafting economy. The rare drops have depreciated almost 40% due to generic competition, there is NO WAY to differentiate anything on the market, only be slightly cheaper than the next guy selling the EXACT same item, but the cost on the crafted items produced from these SAME drops has ESCALATED without recourse. Crafters are for whatever reasons, not passing on the market depreciations and the adventurers have NO OTHER RECOURSE. Sell the item in question to a vendor for peanuts or sell to a crafter for what the market will bear, while on the flip side THERE ARE NO ALTERNATIVES for food, abilities and spells, either deal with the ever shrinking re-sale margin while getting downsized on input via the natural process or do without until level 30 ? Items should be re-attunable, for a cost; suffer minor decay beyond the silly 10% for dying, but be repairable alterable, etc by said crafters. If sony can't make the equipment desireable by any means beyond force its a short term, dirty bandaid, more likely to spread rot than fix anything. Why can't a player armorer or weapon smith use a forge in TS and repair my stuff ? Why does EVERY PLAYER CRAFTED ITEM look the SAME ? Why can't I get street clothes with style for roleplay ? When will a footlocker ACTUALLY let you store somthing in it, or a chair be set in. Why don't they have guild logos, crests and such...
oh well I guess I too play too much pen and paper RPG, the sugary eye candy choices SONY made baffle me...No server side message filtering, the UI is decades behind where EQ's was, using the SAME FRAMEWORK !!! The in game map system is criminal, err NO pencils in future NORRATH ?? We can scribe spells but can't x marks the spot on our map ?? The macro system is, granted purposefully limited to prevent somthing bad , I am not sure what, but HECK THE SAME macro will execute differently at any given moment. Commands are executed in some arbitrary order that does not relate to the order in which they are issued, making group communication rather iffy. The overall message classing and routing system is awful. If you get the current plague, based on SOE msgs, you CAST IT ON YOURSELF, even if you are a warrior :) I can barely track my own maintained spells in any meaningful way as I AM THE TARGET FOR EVERYTHING. The in game ICONS appear to have been taken from public domain and have almost NO RELATIONSHIP to the spell in question, a reallly bad situation if the text messages get err, lost in the suffle or don't actually even refer to the event in question. The mob locking code while well intentioned, if POORLY conceived is causing all kinds of issues, resulting in invincible mobs, or no exp encounters. I can't even begin to rationalize the logic behind a grey mob, conned as you will easily vanquish it, being heroic and kicking the snot out of you, or going the distance for NO possible reward. Can we Con mobs on their strength compared to whom ever is conning. Can we get some SOCIAL AI to go with the HIVE MIND group cop-out mobs....There is no 'I' to go with the 'A', they don't run, use their powers in any meaningful manner, or generally interact with anything in any way except to charge and die. Languages for races with no social structure...nice, I wish I had not learned to speak gnoll..it was better listening to gibberish vs the LAME vocals they have....I'll bite your nose off, or the ever-popular YIP YIP YIP....what about social faction..the entire centaur race is 1 step from KOS to everyone, with all the trappings of a society but no interaction or substance...maybe all this is future planned but it IS or WAS current game content in EQ and SWG, and was left behind in place of an overload of eyecandy that adds nothing but lag to a hugly laggy game already. SoE can't even provide up to date game manuals...even the 2nd release...a month after the game was public is full of holes, contradictions and just plain missing info. The ingame support is AWFUL, ONE OPEN TICKET PER ACCOUNT ?!?! I had a critical crash that cost me items...I could not get the time of day without a ticket, but I had an open ticket with a dev for a server crash issue...my choice ? well lets say I deleted the repeatable zone crash issue in order to report the immediate issue, and the dev working on the issue dropped it, stating when a new ticket was sub'd he would follow up...well I can still crash ANY underground zone at ANY time, but I will be darned if I will suffer to explain that to support... a minor issue but just another slap from sony to the PAYING BETA staff we EQ2 players are....
BTW did the dev guy actually say thier software would NOT permit server wide item or mob reclassifications ?? LOL Following the zone wide mob and item nerfs that they somehow made their impossible software do...
oh well, i am playing on a 12 month game card my GF, WHO BTW HATES EQ got me for christmas. Non-refundable, non-transferable, and after she went the extra mile, I'll be darned if I will just leave it to SOE :(
I'd play EQ but the migrations have made high end raidng next to impossible due to lack of people, and EQ2 just doesn't provide that kind of Massive gaming experience. Is there a ZONE or INSTANCE that will EVEN SUPPORT 100 toons total, much less the scale of elemental raids. Even the small scale stuff is overt hack hack hack, the cookie cutter quest system ensures that everyone is on a similar path wearing out the grass to the same places....Why not some random quest generations, and instance based mobs that adjust to the group in question...Gotta love the huge difference between the evil and good archtypes...a mystic and a defiler, the same with different names for items and spells but other than that is a duplicate. There is little or NO ROOM for gameplay styles, generally ONE WAY and ONLY ONE WAY....
and LAST, WTF is sony thinking is the support chat room ? ONE ROOM and as soon as 40 people show up they moderate everyone and put the limit cap on the room. That will always help matters.....gag and silence your customers during any issue, gee I don't feel disenfranchised, or NOT a part of the so-called community.. I understand chat room monitoring, but IRC is what 30 years old and really solid, use a language script and spam bot to keep control in other rooms and let the people spread and talk. We all know the GM's in chat room are not devs, or likely even players but monitors, so drop the support room facade and just let everyone amuse themselves during downtime etc....
/rant, end verbal spewage..i feel better, and a karma ho I don't be...