Kudane's Journal Entry 1
 

First let me say thank you to the EQ2 team and SOE for giving Dolby and I permission to share our experiences in EQ2.

Ok, where to start. Well lets start with character creation. I have created (and deleted most of them) at least a dozen characters. I currently have a Woodelf, a Kerran, a Human and a Ratunga (4 is the max characters you can have at the moment. No word if this is going to carry into retail). I have tried all 4 beginning classes, Mage, Warrior, Priest, and Scout.
For my journal I will be following the adventures of my Kerran Priest.

You start the game as a commoner, the tutorial will walk you throught the controls and interface of the game. Some things will be familiar some will be very new. After the tutorial, (and optional starting point for all newly created characters from now on) you land on the Island of Refuge. Here you will spend the first 5 or 6 levels getting some newbie gear, and getting use to your characters basic abilities. As well as learn about the new combat system and how the massive quest system works. At the end the Ambassidor to your city will send you to see the Steward or Overlord (again depending on city) in your new town.

I didn't stay very long the first time and regretted it, there is some nice quest scattered around the island, I stay for these from now on

Next stop at level 5 or 6 (I suggest 6) is either Freeport or Qeynos (depending on good or evil). You will land in one of the subburbs of your city and find that you have a small apt and will be led through a quest to become a citizen of your new city. Each one of these "burbs" holds 2 races that make the city thier home. For example Baubleshire is home to the Gnomes and Halflings.

You can make any of the subburbs your home. For example, you could make baubleshire your home for any character if you wait to hail the steward in baubleshire. This an especially useful tip, if you and a friend want to play different races (but same alignment) but want to work together on the citizenship quest

After you compelte your quest to become a citizen, the world is your play ground. There are already hundreds of quest in the game and more coming all the time.

Well that's entry 1 for today. I am going to try and avoid posting spoiler info as much as I can (there will be plenty of site for that soon enough.) Watch for Dolby to post something about his adventures soon. And I will try and post a more detailed journal by the end of the week.

/bow

Kudane
*Text in Blue is personal preferences or personal tips.*

Hey Kudane couple o quick questions. If you think they are too spoilerish for this thread ya can always PM me at Stone boards if ya get time.

I'm curious about the subburb thing and being able to Hail for a different subburb. Other than where your apartment is, is there any other differences in the subburbs? Does which subburb you are in affect how the citizen quest is done? Does changing the subburb you call home change where your apartment is?

Cheers Jax

Hey Kudane, that just sounds increadibly addictive and fun!

When you go into detail, I'd be interested to hear how much more intuitive (or not) the game play is. Also, is this tutorial a great way to get you familiar with how to navigate, cimmunicate and basicly just guide you in the right direction or should it have been teaching you more along the way like the first EQ?

Thanks for the journal, looking forward to reading more!

/salute

--Esperant

I can share a bit more about subburbs, only because I was a little vague.

I have not seen a difference in the subburbs other than the quest that are given out (each has unique quest). they offer most of the same items for sale and etc (there are some minor diffs but not many) It only affects part of the citizenship quest (won't say which part, but its minor). And once you finish the Citizenship quest you can always move your apartment (your always given one in the zone you hail the steward or overlord in), if you don't like where your living.

So how does the gameplay in EQ II compare to that of the original (if you played that)? I understand that you can hit different parts of the enemy but does that really make a signifigant differance? Also i've heard that the city zones are really laggy and graphically demanding, is this true in any way?

Heh sorry for asking all these questions but im just curious. Btw, if any answer would be a breach of the NDA just state so, thanx.

/chuckle.. this made me laugh a lil :D

PS.. Vert says hi.

Glad to see you guys got some recognition from Sony for your site. Thanks for the Journal, keep them coming :D

(by the way,just so it is known,Coffee and Maasuskii(from the EQinterface site) are one and the same,just thought I'd say...hmmm wonder if can change EQinterface name ...anyway)
Ok,now at first I had heard that they were going to allow some sort of legacy items(got the impression you would be able to leave an item from EQ as a gift for their "descendants" in EQ2)Now was I totally confused on this (Me confused? never ~giggling~),or are they still planning this?Have not heard any real word on this for quite some time and was wondering if they gave up on the idea.Not sure if that would fall under the non disclosure deal,but have been wanting to ask )
Thank You All again for the work that you all (you know who you are) do to keep us current and informed,and of course for the tremendous job you do on EQInterface,am looking forward to more of the same excellence with EQ2.
OH,also any word on the guide program for EQ2? Figure will ask you since you guys seem to be on the ball,and probably have better answers than the others I have spoken too .
~bows~

hey all
 

hey man can you tell me ween come out EQ 2 i mean full game? :)

nice, keep em coming!

Thanks for the info Kudane!!
 

Will you be doing any tradeskills? That is something I would like to see some information on as well. :)

How hard would it be to 'defect', i.e. a dark elf making it to Qeynos?

to save me a lot of "sorry thats under NDA" post. If I don't answer your question it means either I have no idea (which I will be honest here, that would be 90% of the answers), or I can't say.

If I see a question about something that I mentioned and kind of skimped on the details, then I will try to flesh it out.

But things like release dates and rewards from EQ1 I really have no idea, and if I did they would kill me if I said.

Hey Dazz, dunno if you've seen this one yet.

Tradeskills (Crafting)

Seems to be a nicely developing crafting site. There's prolly some others I'm unaware of as well.

Thx for the journal Kudane.

Heya Kudane, could you give a little more detail into the player housing? What did they come up with to use as storage for items? do you think that the player housing, from what you have seen so far was worth there effort or could it have just been left with something like guild storage, or the old style bank system? That is, if that isn't NDA type info.

player housing is still being implemented so I can't tell you much because its big-time in flux.

Hello Everyone
 

Hi everyone. Just wondering if any of those details on player housing ( as they're changing it ) would still be NDA locked or were they open for disclosure for you guys?

Well Kudane, I can see you're going to get pummeled with questions because of your journal but I do have one question I think can be answered with just an educated guess.

Do you REALLY think they're going to be able to pull this game off in the next month for full release. Just from what I've seen so far I think thats a far fetched dream. In fact it does'nt sound like it'll come out for another two months but perhaps within the year like they promised.

What do you think?

US full game release is slated for NOV. 15

I know that... but seriously... *cough* I highly doubt thats going to happen. It has'nt gone gold and there is just WAY to much they still need to finish. They have said themselves they will NOT release a game thats half finished or not to their own liking.

I finally got in beta, but it's another 198hours to patch :(

these journals are the only thing that keeps me patching. keep them comming

Gratz to you on getting into beta, be sure to drop in with your own beta journal if you can. If not, then verbaly twist our brains with teasing bits of info (that don't break NDA) and say hello. Don't forget about us...The few, The proud, The not in beta yet.

A little vegue? That's being a bit gracious. :p

I've gotten two chars upto lvl 12, tradeskills only to 4. I gave up tradeskills, the UI is a bit convoluted for my tastes (hopefully they can stream line it a bit--I've made a couple suggestions, but naturally your "hard core geeks" completed bashed it down thinking it will 'dummy' the game. /boggle)


[convoluted.. I've been using that word more and more when refering to EQII. Gee.. i wonder why.]


If I'm allowed to speak on this part, I can say I don't think so. There's TONS of changes going in all the time. If anything, that's a sure indicator there's still a lot of work to do.

By the end of the year is hard to say. Just cause of what I just said, there's TONS of changes going in all the time. The possibility to clean things up by the end of the year is quite possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The end of the year date, I'm sure, is by presure of the upper management. Remember, this game was originally slated to be released last year!

:eek: NNNNOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! :( :( :( :(


Now I hope to god I can get in on beta. The wait is just not fair! lol

:eek: hehehehehehe...it's as if some of you actually expected them to hit the Nov date.
Hehehehehehe,as one of this week's winners could tell you that is an illustration of the Wizard's First Rule .(All Due respect to Terry GoodKind,BTW) ;)