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Thinking of a return to EQFollow

#1 Aug 08 2005 at 6:59 PM Rating: Decent
I've been gone from EQ for about 3 years and now toying with the idea of returning to EQ in the near future, but would appreciate some feedback on some issues.

1) Ive read a lot of the community forum on the Live EQ site and I am worried about the reports of dwindling population. How bad is it for example how many peoples could be found in the Common lands on a regular week day, weekend? if you have a better way to express density please feel free.

2) There are reports of players using 3rd party soft and using exploits to farm plats and items. How bad is it really? I mean in forums you do get problems being inflated but then again maybe its true :-), as a second part to this, as the economy been affected?

3) I only have Luclin and Kunark, so if I come back I would probably get the platnum combination if it ever gets "IN stock", should I add Omens of war and Dragons of Norrath to the purchase or better to wait and see, considering that OoW is getting a bit old do you know if it will be included in a new package offer?. Would creating a new station account provide me with the extra free month?

well 3) is pretty long :-D but any comments, opinions etc. about the re-integration of EQ in terms of value for the buck would be welcome.
#2 Aug 08 2005 at 8:20 PM Rating: Default
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Get platinum and get DoN. I still don't have DoN and before I stopped being able to play EQ it got really hard to do stuff with my guild because of some of the things i couldnt do without DoN.

My guild has always told me that unless you have a really high level character, you don't need OoW so I wouldnt worry about it unless you have one.
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#3 Aug 09 2005 at 4:04 AM Rating: Decent
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Greetings,

Ad 1: Yes, population has taken a huge hit, and I suspect people are still sort of drifting off. What this means is that the average level is rising, but in my experience at least it is never a problem finding a group even at lower levels - and I'm timezone-challenged and play outside of peak hours (Luclin server). SOE is very much aware of problems with too few players, and they merge servers to boost the population as needed. The good news is that this means that only people who take EQ seriously remains. The teeanagers with bad attitudes and a marked lack of patience with and interest in storyline and depth are leaving in droves - yay!

About exploits and such. Yes, they exist. No, you don't need them, and no, they won't ruin your experience unless you let it. The economy is as it always was - a reflection of supply and demand. Some claim prices have gone up, others say they are dropping fast - I don't care, I play the Bazaar and make all the virtual cash my characters can use by buying low and selling high - who cares what the actual numbers are?

You don't need Gates of Discord or Omens of War for a good while (GoD maybe never). I'd advise you to get every other expansion, though.

Shade and sweet water
#4 Aug 09 2005 at 6:56 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
1) Ive read a lot of the community forum on the Live EQ site and I am worried about the reports of dwindling population. How bad is it for example how many peoples could be found in the Common lands on a regular week day, weekend? if you have a better way to express density please feel free.
Server merges have solved that problem with ABayle haveing 100-300 people in PoK (light - heavy use periods) If you are hunting the common zones like PC, Echo, OT, etc you will have no problems getting groups.

Quote:
2) There are reports of players using 3rd party soft and using exploits to farm plats and items. How bad is it really? I mean in forums you do get problems being inflated but then again maybe its true :-), as a second part to this, as the economy been affected?
Never seen anyone expoiting, only ever seen 1 person using 3rd party software never been a problem, the ecconomy is as it was.

Very top items hugely priced, common twink items cheaper as more expansions come out and better items apear.
#5 Aug 09 2005 at 12:35 PM Rating: Decent
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If you already had an account you may want to verify if you're toons are still around. I for one left around Velious and created a new account to take advantage of the free month. Started from scratch only to learn months later that my toons had not been deleted. Hope this helps.
Dartanicusx
61 Paladin
Povar

P.S. Just wanted to add that if your old account was active for a long time you may be able to benefit from the veteran's rewards. I love the double exp :)

Edited, Tue Aug 9 17:04:20 2005 by Dartanicus
#6 Aug 09 2005 at 12:36 PM Rating: Decent
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The population is fine, however it can be very difficult to find a group once you hit about lvl 25sh (basically when you outgrow PC). For some reason its like all the lower players vanish once you hit about 25. Its ashame, cause at that level you can get mad exp doing LDON's, but there is never enough people LFG to get one together.
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#7 Aug 09 2005 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
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Pick up a copy of Platinum and come join us on Povar.
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#8 Aug 09 2005 at 1:11 PM Rating: Decent
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Get platinum and a new account for the free first 30 days. I would recomend DoN because it offers more than just high end content. The guild lobby being the biggest. OOW zones start around 40ish. GoD comes with the platinum which is only ~$30.

A lot of the regular posters here are on Povar (Was Morden before the merges).

Exploits aren't a big deal except on the zek server. A lot of Zek players transfered to blue servers because of it.

Start a toon on Povar and say hello Smiley: smile
#9 Aug 09 2005 at 2:13 PM Rating: Decent
I wanted to thank all who have taken the time to respond to my questions, it is very much appreciated. The answers have been very illuminating.

#10 Aug 10 2005 at 8:04 AM Rating: Decent
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Also, don't log in to servers and check the population by going to East Commonlands ... people don't play in the same zones anymore.

Plane of Knowledge or the Bazaar (the zone that deals with buying/selling/trading between players) are better places to get an idea of populations on a server.

There is also a trial EQ version, in which you are restricted to the tutorial. Its not at all the same tutorial from the first release of EQ, its been revamped twice now. The new one has its own server, its multiplayer, lets you level and equip characters, has tons of help, quests, decent things to do. Plus its free for a trial period so you could check that out without spending any money.

Like they said above, EQ:Platinum is a really good bundle to get. I have not yet heard of a new bundle package yet, but they usually do that once a year or so and EQ:Platinum came out about the same time Omens was released last year.

It would take a while to level up to where you really need Omens, but DoN could be useful because of the guild lobby.

Requirements for hardware are way up over what they had been too.

Edited, Wed Aug 10 09:08:57 2005 by Trellium
#11 Aug 10 2005 at 2:32 PM Rating: Decent
How much higher are the hardware requirement :-(???

I have an old Dell P3 750MHZ, 650mb ram and GeForce 2 Video (duno how much mem on that card sorry ), I am using a High speed cable connection and XP as my OS.
Is that enough?

I dont mind not using all the nifty new character models, just dont want to be in the heat of battle and have the box freeze up on me. I dont mind dying just dont like dying without a chance to fight or take a loc of my corpse to be hehe:-)

Where can I find info about that tutorial connection you mentioned?

Edited, Wed Aug 10 15:38:12 2005 by Allouette
#12 Aug 10 2005 at 2:52 PM Rating: Good
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it's gonna be tough with that hardware. espcially in new/crowded zones, and at raids.

I was running EQ on my old 1.4GHz, 384MB RAM, slightly over clocked GF3 Ti 200 w/ 64MB, and it was almost a slide show in many PoP elemental zones, and GoD zones, with mostly old models (most new models are ugly anyway). I could get acceptable performance when I turned the clipping plane to near zero, but it's still slow at times.
#13 Aug 10 2005 at 4:04 PM Rating: Decent
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heh, we have a computer very similar to the one Allouette has but with a slightly faster cpu. It plays EQ acceptably, it zones acceptably. Not great, not something we enjoy playing on ... but acceptably. You can play EQ with that setup.

The video card does surprisingly well, but you should know that nvidia is starting to drop that card for driver update support. Its teh same card we have here. There are now a few kinks (newest drivers don't work, I have to roll back several version before EQ runs).

We consider that computer on its last legs for playing EQ, but its still useable.
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