From Official forums under Expansions

[Exeugi]

Originally Posted by Ilucide

I don't have time to read the whole thread right now, but they'll be getting new loot tables, and yes, new abilities.

No, current avatar loot will not be scaled upward. I'm not sure where that idea came from. The strengthened avatars will come well equipped with new toys. =)

-Ilu

..

[Exeugi]

Originally Posted by Pylon

WTB a pure raiding server, where every zone is epic and there are contesteds everywhere. :P

Fuck I actually thought of that wacky idea a long ass time ago. It would be pretty badass to have pure solo, group and raid servers. Like, every mob on a solo server is solo, so you never group or anything, every mob on a group server is heroic and every mob on a raid server is x2-x4. Imagine raiding from 1-70 or 1-80. But that won't happen anytime soon

[Stoic]

It saddens me to know the game i so thoroughly enjoyed playing and giving it my money is going to be dumbed down so badly. SOE's track record speaks for itself. This expansion is going to make or break it, and if they want to compete with WOW for the casual mindless playstyle then they will shoot themselves in the foot. No one plays EQ2 so that they can just play a carbon copy of WOW. We play EQ2 cause it ISN'T WOW. Plus EQ2 has no idea how to market its game. Finding new blood is extremly difficult if you don't even advertise or make most game retailers sell your product. Finding EQ2 products is difficult to say the least. Might want to consider wal-mart for your merchandising needs, WOW did, and look at how successfull they are now?

A damn shame, least age of conan and Warhammer are coming out and who knows what other MMO's. Thank goodness there is a variety.

[Niber]

Originally Posted by Stoic

It saddens me to know the game i so thoroughly enjoyed playing and giving it my money is going to be dumbed down so badly. SOE's track record speaks for itself. This expansion is going to make or break it, and if they want to compete with WOW for the casual mindless playstyle then they will shoot themselves in the foot. No one plays EQ2 so that they can just play a carbon copy of WOW. We play EQ2 cause it ISN'T WOW. Plus EQ2 has no idea how to market its game. Finding new blood is extremly difficult if you don't even advertise or make most game retailers sell your product. Finding EQ2 products is difficult to say the least. Might want to consider wal-mart for your merchandising needs, WOW did, and look at how successfull they are now?

A damn shame, least age of conan and Warhammer are coming out and who knows what other MMO's. Thank goodness there is a variety.

I think it's a bit premature to write off RoK already. Especially with all the misinformation flying around. Most of what's being reported is either false or not set in stone. Don't become another alarmist. The sky isn't falling.

The current development team has made amazing strides in the last 4-5 months. I don't see why they would take a step back now. Itemization use to be complete crap.. now it's somewhere between perfect and overpowered. (A step in the right direction.) Hopefully by reusing some of the current Avatars they can add even more uniqueness to them giving raiders exactly what they want (hard/complex/contested encounters). And as an added bonus progression is no longer based on when they decide to reboot the server! I don't see how that could be a bad thing.

EDIT:

I do hope they reconsider the way Avatars spawn. I imagine on most servers it goes something like this .. Valor > Growth > Flame > War > Repeat. Adding more Avatars will only further the problem of never seeing the "rare" ones because nobody does their deity quests.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by Ilucide

I don't have time to read the whole thread right now, but they'll be getting new loot tables, and yes, new abilities.

No, current avatar loot will not be scaled upward. I'm not sure where that idea came from. The strengthened avatars will come well equipped with new toys. =)

-Ilu

Does this mean the loot obtainable now will no longer exist?

Better get those resplendent robes, chime items, power/dmg proc items, stoneskin proc items, spell reuse reduction items, etc.. soon!!!

[Meta]

I agree it sucks about no new contesteds, but I'm kinda living in hope that this is just phase 1 of T8. Like some decent instances with interesting scripts that maybe, just maybe, might keep us busy until close to the next phase being released. Ok yeah that seems far fetched.

I was going to draw a comparison to KoS and how superior EoF was, but... I just realised, KoS had contesteds and AA's. So that's a crap comparison.

[Hammerfist]

Originally Posted by Pylon

WTB a pure raiding server, where every zone is epic and there are contesteds everywhere. :P

I've mentioned a server just like that before. The lag in Q Harbor and EF would be unbelievable though with all those toons standing around.

[Firza]

about the contested it sounds like we will have more contested in RoK then ever before. If they take all avatars, and add new once (as long as they add 2-3) RoK will have more contested then EOF did.

So what if they have the same appearance, as long as that they are relatively harder then normal T8 raids they will function well enough.

[Raina]

Dude you could have 50 avatars and if they are all on the same spawn timer its basically just 1 contested you have to worry about. More avatars doesn't mean more contested unless they seperate the spawns.

[kyros]

Originally Posted by Niber

I think it's a bit premature to write off RoK already. Especially with all the misinformation flying around. Most of what's being reported is either false or not set in stone. Don't become another alarmist. The sky isn't falling.

i think they've been screwing things up long enough.
it's not alarmist to see MORE changes coming and say that, well, you've just had enough.
everyone either sees it as the savior or the apocalypse. what keeps you playing if you don't think that "things will be fun again".
they might, for a few months. then stuff starts changing again, or they don't have the epic quests finished, or there's still content to be released, and you realize that it's the last expansion all over again. more flashy patch notes with shabby content inside.
eventually you just get fed up with it, and realize the sky fell a long time ago.