Diknak

EoF was good imo, but it was only good because it did not raise the level cap. If they tried to add a new tier AND provide content for all levels, it would have sucked donkey dick. As such, any expansion that raises the level cap should never try to provide all level content.

KoS was geared towards raiders, but it had some good things for non raiders too. I think if they were to change that formula, it would have been to provide a legendary claymore and then an upgraded fabled claymore like they did with the SoD line. If they would have done that, it would felt like more of an end game for non raiders.

Deson

What? KoS was probably the best balanced release by Sony ever which is actually kind of surprising. It had solo content, group content and raid content to the point where one didn't infringe on the other, you could advance purely by mass slaughter and the drops were good without being too good.

EoF was a gap filler and started the trend of No trade everywhere and group loot replacing previous expansion raid loot. The instances had their moments but overall were bland and the only contested dungeon worth being in made too many players cry.

The dev team should just make KoS their gold standard of content era's, nothing else compares.

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Sulan

KoS was a lazy, boring expansion. Tiny zones with cut and paste graphics are fucking lame. I'd prefer a Kunark sized high end expac, but with tons more heroic content and huge open zones, and huge, nonlinear, contested dungeons with contested epics, both x2 and x4. Tiny zones with tiny, linear dungeons and instances are slackass.

Also, I liked EoF. It provided an alternate leveling path than the same old crap the game shipped with. I remember one of the devs telling me at Fan Faire that it was one of their most successful expansions, though the game is at a much different stage of its life now and a 1-80 expac wouldn't do much for the game in terms of new subs and player retention. It might keep a handful of casual players, but that's about it. Expacs should be for endgame content only at this point, save lower teir content for free updates.

Also also- Sentinel's Fate is a gay name for an expac.

Diknak

When KoS came out, they were still learning how to develop expansions. Compare the progress they made from DoF and it is leaps and bounds. Yeah, the overland zones were small, but they said that they plan on sticking with overland = solo and dungeon = group. So if you ask for huge overland zones, don't expect them to be heroic. Also, They only had 6 months to develope KoS, unlike RoK when they had a full year.

Sulan

RoK outdoor zones were more then big enough to accomodate balanced amounts of solo and heroic content. Launching without a viable heroic leveling path is inexcusable. It's probably the one thing KoS got right, even if grinding in SoS made you want to vomit feces.

Diknak

I agree that KoS did an awesome job of providing multiple leveling paths, which is why I think it is the best expansion to date. I think they took data from what mobs were being killed and realized that no one killed heroics when they were not in dungeons (except for breeding grounds). If people got in groups, they were more likely to go to SoS or PoA to level than killing stuff in the overland areas.

I agree 100% that RoK was big enough to provide heroic content, but they just decided that it would be stupid to put heroic content in the game that wouldn't be utuilized, so it became all solo. SOE's real failure with RoK was lack of any kind of heroic zone progression and no starting point like SoS provided.

I dreded SoS at the time, but when I look at the options between SoS and soloing in RoK, I would take SoS any day of the week.

stivan

Looking back, KoS and Original EQ2 had the best grindage... DoF was so so.. RoK just sucked... 4 days of questing was... retardedly annoying. The sad part is that there is still no meaningful grind areas for the 70-80 range... 2 years later.

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Sulan

Bah, just caught that. That statement is utter bullshit. They had people on the dev team that had participated in the developement of both Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious, arguably the two best MMO expansions ever fucking made. There was no excuse for DoF sucking that badly.

Naie

No offense but you just seem all around negative about everything.

I mean you say earlier KoS was boring and slackass with cut and paste graphics but if you really think about it, it wasn't that badly done.

The overland zones looked pretty different from one another to me. There were a series of quest hubs, as well as all around good spots to grind.

The raid content was fun and had a good feel of progression and reward.

The only thing I can think of on the scale of cut and paste is that the raid mobs looked like the species of mob they belonged to. The armor and rewards looked and felt pretty fresh to me as well, however maybe I'm just missing something or played a different game than you.

You seem to think bigger is better, and that huge areas are great ideas. Well I'm sorry to break it to you, but they tried that shit with EoF and it was called Emerald Halls, and people bitched and moaned and shit was broken for stupidly long periods of time. So think about it on a scale of what they can ACTUALLY accomplish as a development team and how if they fuck it up, it will impact the game.

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Diknak

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I meant develop expansions for EQ2, not in general. They were still learning the capabilities of the game engine and what could be done. If you compare what overland zones look like in EoF and RoK to the old world zones like Antonica, the growth of developer knowledge is very apparent.