Seeds of Destruction in Review

Yeah, it’s been awhile, I know.  I’m really bad at remembering to post.

So far, I’d give Seeds of Destruction a “C”.  It has a lot of issues, but it’s not as bad as some make it out to be.  On the positive side, I love the new mercs.  The days have sitting around doing nothing because you can’t find a cleric are over.  The mercs sometimes go stupid on you, but in general they do a nice job.  It’s opened up a lot of options for a lot of playerys.  I think the developers spent a lot of time working on the mercenaries, and they came out pretty well.

On the negative side, the entire expansion feels unfinished.  There were some broken raid events (some that are still pretty buggy).  The raid breastplates didn’t have clickies at launch and the entire line of other clickies (both group and raid) are entirely missing.  There are no “form of”, overhaste, manapool, etc type clickies at all in either group content or raids.  If you’re good at sifting through Lucy, you’ll notice the raid clicks were created before Seeds of Destruction, but were never added to the game.  I can’t quite figure out why they seem to think attaching the clickies to the items would be too difficult.  It’s frustrating to say the least.  In all, for a one year expansion, it feels painfully unfinished.

EmEmOh Not Dead!!

In case you’re wondering, the site isn’t dead.  I’ve just been a bit busy with Seeds of Destruction stuff.  Oh, and some techincal problems recently where I thought I lost the site.  Yuck!

Seeds of Destruction is a little over a month old and there’s plenty going on.  Current hot topics include the group weapons revamp and wizard DPS.  I’ll probably let my opinion be known on that stuff soon enough.

Oh, and for anybody working on SoD stuff, make sure to check out Rasper’s.  There’s still a few things missing, but it’ll get you through the progression and collection quests nice and easy!

Seeds of Destruction Beta Now Open

Over at the EQ Dev Blog they’ve indicated that the beta for Seeds of Destruction has just been opened. Grats to anybody that got in!

If you still haven’t applied, you can do so here. It looks like they’ll be letting players join in stages, so don’t get discouraged if they don’t pick you right away!

Seeds of Destruction

Well folks, here it is.  EverQuest, Seeds of Destruction, is officially announced. Allakhazam has a post on it.

To prevent the cataclysm and defeat the forces of chaos, players must journey through time portals to the greatest moments in EverQuest history. From the founding of Qeynos to the battle of Bloody Kithicor, players will be called upon to safeguard history and ensure that events unfold without interference from the gods of Discord.

EverQuest® Seeds of DestructionTM Features :

* Mercenaries Player controlled NPCs are available in EverQuest for the first time! Visit the EverQuest home page for a video demonstration!
* 20 New Zones Features re-imagined classic content as well as brand new realms to explore! Check the EQ Players community website for regular features on zones, NPCs and more!
* Level Cap Increase

The parts I bolded I found the most interesting. Lore wise, this sounds like a pretty dang neat expansion. Go through time and protect EQ’s events. I’m guessing there could be some pretty nifty content here. That’s got me pretty excited.

The mercenaries, on the other hand, scare me a bit. Obviously, until I actually know how they work, it’s all just speculation. I look at it two ways. On one hand, they will be effective, work in all zones, and get used a lot. To me, this would almost be a bad thing. I understand that the group game needs some help, but this would all but kill pickup groups. On the other hand, they could either be too weak or only work in certain instances, and will go pretty much unused (hello shrouds). I’m definitely interested in learning more about the mercenaries.

SOE Pushing EQ Players to EQ2

I thought the Living Legacy was over, but I guess not. Over in the EQ2 world, the Living Legacy promotion was such a hit (or perhaps failure?) that they’ve decided to continue it. The strange twist? They aren’t targeting former EQ2 players, they’re targeting former EQ players.

It makes sense they would want to funnel their players to their latest game, but this move shocks me a bit. Why did they extend this offer only to former EQ players? Why isn’t EQ getting any sort of Living Legacy extension? Is this a sign that perhaps EQ2 isn’t performing as they would like? Why wouldn’t they also extend this offer to EQ and let former EQ2 players try out EQ? Or, at the very least, allow the offer for former EQ players to play EQ to go on a little longer.

My gut tells me that they want to move as many players as possible to EQ2, but there’s plenty of ways you could try and read between the lines.

EverQuest Needs Offline Trading

I had to add this.  This is one of the silliest things still left in EQ.  If you’ve never played EQ, let me explain how selling works in EverQuest.  First, you zone into the Bazaar.  From there, you grab some Trader’s Satchels to stuff your loot in.  You run to the appropriate selling area and type in /trader.  You add your prices and voila, you’re selling.  Ok, so that’s pretty easy right?  What’s the problem?

Problem
You have to be logged in the whole time you’re selling! Yes, that’s right. Leave the computer on all day all night, whatever. Just to sell stuff. If you want to actually play, you can’t sell unless you have a separate account. Quite simply, that’s annoying.

Solution
All right, I’ll be honest, the solution is obvious. Give us offline trading! EQ2 has it. WoW has it. Figure it out. It can’t be that hard. At launch EQ2 didn’t have offline trading, now it does. Implementing it must not be too difficult. We need it. It’s a terrible, terrible part of the game. Although new players are getting rare, anytime the selling system is explained to them, they always react the same way; “You mean I have to stay logged in the whole time?!” It’s silly and needs to die. /rant off