Everquest: Legends

[King Crispy]

Everquest Legends Beta! Ep. 1 - Falrash Plays First Look!

This looks like Guild Wars 2 but far worse. Yet I feel compelled to play this...

[Xenich]

Yeah, they are using all the original models. Interface is definitely more flexible, and there are different skins for it. There is an "addicting" nature to it with the item merging system. If you like gear chasing, leveling your gear, etc... it can be a big carrot to chase.

Here is a video with a lot more on various features of play going up the levels.
EverQuest Legends | My First Week of Closed Beta

[Finarfin]

[Xenich]

I have a feeling this is going to do a lot better than they anticipated. It has enough of the EQ of past in it to scratch that "itch", but formatted in such a different way with mechanics and design that it will keep a lot of modern players happy. The way they handle difficulty means you can really challenge yourself as well. In that, it has more than THJ had and many things have changed from spells, stances, abilities, etc... they really are customizing this to fit a whole different feel to the game. I think "hard core" players (in terms of difficulty in combat) and "casual" alike will find exactly the right level of content level they seek. I am just glad they didn't turn the game into a "modern casual easy mode" style of game.

One of the biggest limitations of EQ Emu development was being constrained to the client and not being able to customize the client to fit the Emu development. This project doesn't have those limitations, so they can make pretty serious changes to the game which could never be done with the Emu servers. So it should really be interesting to see how this turns out.

[Xenich]

hey @Tweed , I know you have some aversion to this, but knowing that you hate "old school" EQ in terms of it not "respecting your time", honestly, EQ Legends might be a good game for you. It has the right balance. You have difficulty selection for your instances, which increase the difficulty, the increase on + items, as well as it seems to have an increase on spawn times and you can choose "personal" instances only to you (or anyone you bring in) or choose to group publicly with others.

On top of that, a lot of the "inconvenience" aspects of play some dislike are removed. No corpse runs, if you die you spawn at the starting point in the instance or zone you were in. Since you have the ability to swap to any loadout of classes, it means you get all the benefits of the classes you choose and if it is in a city (ie you can only swap loadouts in cities or safe points, which at this point I will say is in or near city zones), you can do it instantly which means if you need sneak/hide, faction increases, etc... to buy and talk to NPCs it is quick and easy. You get a "origin" port + your bind point. The origin point is different (you select it and can change it) for each class loadout, so... getting around city starting points is very easy.

Also, place holders exist to an extent, but "rare" spawns are not an issue for special mobs you need. I see rare mobs all the time, though the rare rotation of items is there as well, but so far not to the level of "classic EQ" rare so far that I have seen. Point is, challenge exists, playing solo is completely viable, and how hard you want the content to be (and it can be hella hard) is up to you, the level of content you choose and the difficulty setting. Since the game is "build an item" so to speak, the higher tier difficulties are set to better drops and spawn timing. So you can choose to solo, grind up the difficulties, get solid items, work extra class rotations for AA, etc... and then take the content as you like, or... you can run with a group and do it with less gear power tackling higher content to get bigger rewards.

In the end, the game is actually far better than THJ in that respect, but... you will have to grind gear... though as to how much depends on your class loadouts, your skill and understanding of EQ to "make things happen".

Honestly man, I think you would like it.

BTW, that goes for you too @rusty_shackleford , I think you might get a kick out of it all things considered.