Furiel wrote:How has it changed. Call me lazy but I'm busy, especially tonight so I don't want to read up on all the changes...
Mmm, I'm still working on it lol... Not sure when you stopped playin last. TBH the game is pretty "top-heavy" so sub-80 content is pretty lonely. There are a lot of guilds recruiting new players though.
Mercenaries are one thing... much like having companions in SWTOR. There is an initial hiring fee and then they charge a maintenance fee every 30 minutes. Its pretty much negated as you kill though, since more cash loot drops in that 30 min than they require. Having these guys is pretty badass... Just my warlock and my Merc can down Heroic mobs in about 15 seconds.
AA's trees are completely changed. A lot of it was unfamiliar to me when I got back in, had to do some reading on the EQ2 forums to see the suggestions for Warlocks since I had been out of it so long. They are not as linear as they were, so you have more freedom to choose the things you want to invest in. There are also now Tradeskill AA's as well as Prestige AA's for adventure classes and Tradeskillers. They are like extra-heavy bumps to certain traits.
Qeynos and FP are no longer starting zones. All of their respective districts have been virtually destroyed or altered. You can only start in Neriak or Kelethin now... I think Gorowyn & New Halas too, but I don't remember.
You can "reforge" items, to change or add specs/effects/visual effects. Costs SC points to unlock the ability to do so.
Player-made dungeons, which apparently are the end-all-be-all for leveling.
They now have 2 new classes:
Beastlords are back.. they are a scout class. I haven't checked it out yet, but I plan to.
Channelers... they are a hybrid mage/scout/priest healer... one of my guildmates plays a lvl 90 and was explaining the mechanics to me. Sounds incredibly complicated.. awesome thing is you have to shoot arrows into people to cast your heals lol...
A number of graphic changes, on "High Quality" settings it actually runs better on my computer than SWTOR ever did. That in itself is crazy.
There is integrated voice chat as well.
I have not done really any crafting yet so I can't comment on that.
Not sure of the requirements, but I hear you can create a lvl 85 "heroic" character to try out for one level, then you can either keep him or delete him and try a different one. They come with 280AA's right out the gate. Have not done this yet but I may down the road, just to skip the grind.
and my most recent discovery... as soon as you hit lvl 90... virtually ALL of your stats double. Last Friday @ lvl 85 I was lucky to parse 3-5k and my health was around 16-19k... last night I parsed @ nearly 75k (max effort) and my health pool is over 110k with crap gear.
Apparently raid level/geared Necros, Assassins, and Warlocks are parsing up to (or around) 5mil/sec now. Doubt I'll ever see that though lol...
Lots of Housing options now. Level 85 Arasai and Fae can complete a quest to actually fly instead of the little ground flutter they do to move everywhere.
There are flying mounts... not just floating, but actual flying.
Lots of QOL improvements, just a few examples: You can access any major map zone now from Qeynos or FP docks. Quest markers on NPC's have been revamped for ease of recognition. Quest objective areas are highlighted on the minimaps now, and mobs are marked with a special icon if you have a quest that involves them. A lot of the newer expansions apparently had their quests made so that the objectives/mobs kind of overlapped so you wouldn't be running to 3 different edges of the map to complete 2 quests. Not always the case, but some of it goes that way.
Also, my understanding is that all equippable gear has been revamped for stats. There has been a lot of balancing going on (par for the course for EQ as always) over the past couple years.
Anyway, that's all I can attest to off the top of my head... I know there is a ton more than that, but I have not experienced it yet lol