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 EQ2|Preview zu Desert of Flames
Veröffentlicht von: Gryphus am 24. 2005 um 20:43 Uhr
 IGN war auf der E3 und hat auch ein paar Informationen über "Desert of Flames" mitgebracht. In ihrem Preview beschreiben sie neben der wohl sehr schönen Landschaft auch noch einmal was uns durch das PvP erwartet. Welche Arten des PvPs wir ausüben können und wie es sich gestalten wird.
Link: Preview von IGN
Link: Sagt uns eure Meinung
Preview
Veröffentlicht von: Gryphus am 24. 2005 - 20:44 Uhr
E3 week is over, we have all returned home with aching feet and tired eyes but we had a lot of fun! My favorite part about E3 is always the people I get to meet, or people I haven`t seen in a while and I get the opportunity to hang out with again. Everyone at VN is always a pleasure to hang around and I met a lot of people this year I didn`t get the chance to meet last year. Thanks to everyone at Vault Network and IGN for the fun and it was nice to see every one of you. Also, thanks to everyone at SOE for being so nice to us in the booth and for answering our questions and showing us what Desert of Flames and EQII have to offer in the near future. We also had a great time partying with everyone from VN and SOE Wednesday night at karaoke, so thanks for the fun we had a blast!
On Thursday, May 19, some other EQ2 Vault staff members and I got the opportunity to visit the SOE booth at E3. There were displays for some EverQuest stuff as well as Planetside and Star Wars Galaxies. The EQII section consisted of a few computer screens for demos and a couple of large ones for display. The large ones featured a gameplay movie with footage from Desert Of Flames and the picture was complete with delightful commentary, courtesy of Mario Rizzo (Suleman). We got to hear a lot about the expansion which I will outline for you.
The city of Maj`Dul can be reached from the Sinking Sands, a zone you start out in. A lot of the theme in the expansion is centered around some extended storyline from Oasis of Marr and the surrounding Deserts of Ro from EQ Live. Sinking Sands is a really cool zone, it`s very colorful, I noticed that part right away. There are docks there, grass, colorful flowers in the landscape and palm trees. This is also where you find cliffs you can actually climb. Wall climbing looks really cool. There are certain spots in the cliffs that are textured indicating that you are able to climb them. There are even certain NPCs that can only be reached via wall climbing. It should also be noted that all classes in EQII can climb cliffs and mountain walls. Also, you can actually jump from the walls, but you can also die from this if it`s a long fall. Sometimes, there will be times when you have to jump from wall to wall to accomplish a quest or task, which should prove interesting.
From Sinking Sands you can take a griffin ride, only it`s not a griffin. The ride is flying carpet style! The carpet takes you to the great city of Maj`Dul where you have to proceed with caution since all the NPCs there can attack you if you are not careful. You can also attack them, so you must be mindful when hailing anyone in this town. Maj`Dul is very cool, it`s set in an Arabian Nights theme and is definitely a sight to see. Hopefully this week we will have some screenshots sent to us that we can show off.
In Desert of Flames, you can also engage in arena style fighting, player vs. player. You can fight as yourself, or you can transform yourself into an Arena Champion. There are games such as "Capture the Flag" style where one person grabs the flag and people in the opposing group must try to kill that player. They mentioned how taking the form of a goblin might be useful in this situation to give you an extra burst of speed. You can also engage in games like "Defend and Assault", or you can just do straight one on one fighting. There is a matching window that allows you the opportunity to join existing games in progress, or you can form your own. Lower levels can also play against higher level characters as Arena Champions, as well as higher levels can mentor down if they desire. There is definitely a lot of variety and fun when it comes to player vs. player.
The EQII team is currently doing daily play tests to adjust balance to ensure that PvP will be an excellent play experience for players who choose to use it. There are also efforts to make sure that the PvE aspect in EQII will not be affected as far as balancing is concerned. Spells and arts can have separate effects in PvP as opposed to PvE so that there is no adjusting the PvE content. I also found out that SOE will likely introduce PvP servers further down the road but was given no timeframe.
Some other familiar zone names and creatures are going to appear in Desert of Flames along with several new ones. There are crocodile caves, including Lockjaw`s Lair, which is an instanced zone. The silver dragon many of you have seen in videos from E3 is flying through the Pillars of Flame, another expansion pack zone. There are about a dozen new major zones plus many smaller instanced ones in the expansion pack. About half of the content in Desert of Flames is geared towards small groups and soloers with about half geared toward groups and large raids. The content should be very well spread out between all the different play styles so there`s something for everyone to do. Desert of Flames will also feature voice emotes. The lowdown on this is that there will be specific voice emotes for each race and gender. Some of the voices are directly tied to emotes and some are tied to new phrases, such as "heal me". While voice emotes are definitely going to be a fun new addition to EQII, they will also be very helpful in assisting with group communication.
Desert of Flames will also provide a raise in the level cap in EverQuest II from 50 to 60. There will be around 40 new types of creatures (including spectres, sand giants, mummies, and genies), new spells, arts, crafting recipes and much more. A lot of the content is geared toward levels 45-60 and the expansion pack is set to release September 2005. While the content is going to be geared for more higher level stuff, it should be noted that lower levels can safely get to the city of Maj`Dul and will be able to participate in the fun that is Arena of Champions. All in all, I would say the expansion looks to be sizing up very nicely and I can`t wait to play with it when it goes live! I had a lot of fun checking it out at E3 and hopefully we will have some screenshots for you later in the week. For now, you can check out the great gallery IGN has up.
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