Comments on: EQ2: Karnor’s Castle — Beauty IS only skin deep.

By: Kendricke

Kendricke — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:39:38 +0000

We want to group in Karnor’s. We do. But the rewards and the size heavily discourage it. The new instances spawn around 50 people it seems, and frequently I’ve been in Karnor’s Castle where there are at least 30-50 people milling about, stepping all over each other, and basically just getting in each other’s ways.

There were several little areas that would have made great camps, but the respawn rates just couldn’t keep up and of course the experience was horrid.

Honestly, increase the respawn rates just a tad, boost the experience in the zone just a bit, and drop a few more quest lines in there and I think you’ve got yourself a great little dungeon. As it is now, we’re all but skipping it except to get the Drolvarg Legend and Lore book and the discovery experience.

By: The Common Sense Gamer » Weak in the knee

The Common Sense Gamer » Weak in the knee — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:35:59 +0000

[...] been reading for the expansion for long time EQ2 players seems to be loot drops, experience in areas like Karnor’s Castle and group experience rewards…not the fact that they pulled the epic [...]

By: Tipa

Tipa — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:36:42 +0000

SOE’s old strategy was to be TOO generous at start, then tune things downward — Runnyeye, for example, gave out fantastic loot at launch, but they removed some overpowered items and tuned it down a little until they got it right. That’s how you get people to come to your new playgrounds; you toss loot at people so that dungeon becomes part of their leveling plan. If it’s too much, you tune it down until your risk/reward ratio is where it needs to be for the game’s health.

KC isn’t that risky, if you’re careful. It’s far easier than EQ1′s KC, where it was all too easy to pull a dozen mobs on you by mistake and then you were training to the zone. Clerics were so rare that usually you’d have shaman and druids as your only healers, and they couldn’t rez (back then) (in fact it’s been so long, I’m not sure they can even rez now), and there was no respawning at zone in, so even one death could mean the end of a group — that made for some harrowing and exciting gameplay… back then.

The disappointment of finding a named up, killing it, and getting nothing except, perhaps, an adept or a tradeskill tome, and very little experience, is just going to kill this zone. I hope SOE moves quickly on this. Guildies say other dungeons are somewhat better — Chardok, also in Kylong Plains, is supposed to have better experience and loot — but I haven’t grouped there yet so can’t say.

Chardok in EQ1 was a very dangerous zone. Because of the risk, the rewards for experience and loot, were amazing. Charasis, another dungeon shared by both games, had even more risk, even better loot and experience, and had an intriguing zone design. In EQ1′s Kunark, risk vs reward was a well-understood ratio; if you were grouping in a dungeon doing level-appropriate stuff, you would be rewarded well.

Kaesora… another Kunark zone… you’d ding just walking in that place, I swear. With commensurate risk, of course.

By: almagill

almagill — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:11:59 +0000

OK, looking for a positive spin to put on that… at least KC is in. Now, as you point out, it ‘only’ needs some love and attention and upward conversion to make it THE place to be seen.

The KC of EQ does sound pretty amazing though.