EverQuest 2 Sentinel’s Fate Beta Tour

This evening I had the pleasure of attending the EverQuest 2 Sentinel’s Fate beta tour hosted by Brenlo and company. I have to be honest and say this was one of the more enjoyable events I’ve attended lately even if things didn’t start off so well. Brenlo had technical difficulties from the onset but it actually made for some pretty good entertainment. Once he got everything on track we had the opportunity to see Sentinel’s Fate and have him answer questions. I do want to say thank you to Allen and his staff for hosting this and taking my questions! As always, it is greatly appreciated.

My biggest concern about Sentinel’s Fate was that it only included one x2 raid zone. As anyone who follows me knows I’m trying to make x2 content my bread and butter. When I asked Brenlo about it he said they were going to be adding more content for that demographic throughout the year. He was pretty clearly that they want to be aggressive in getting content out and by his tone that meant before the next expansion. That really eased my fears and made me happy. Great news there!

You’ll also know that I’m not a big fan of the battlegrounds being added to EQ2. My major concern is that the gear gains will trivialize the PvE game. Brenlo addressed that question too. He basically stated that the gear would be comparable to raid gear but that the “top end” items from raids would be better. Unfortunately the sound kind of cut out during the next part of his answer but the gist of what he said was that they wanted players to progress just through battlegrounds. I’m not a fan of this change, especially this late in the game’s life, but it is coming! At any rate as long as you don’t gain points from doing nothing in battlegrounds I’ll be placated. If you can just idle through and reap rewards I’ll be upset.

I also asked how steep the leveling curve was from 80 to 90. Brenlo stated it was pretty steep but not so much so that you wouldn’t feel progress. He said it would not be as bad as 50 to 75. That was a little odd when comparing 10 levels to 25 but I’m okay with it. I always appreciate it when you have to work for your levels. It makes it feel like you’re doing something so it was more of a curiosity than anything. I imagine the leveling process will be two to four weeks but that is not based on anything but my gut.

On the pro-gnoll front I could get no answers. “The Man” is still keeping the gnoll down. I did, however, learn not to insult halflings while Ashlanne is listening. Poor form on my part!

Someone asked a question about adornment changes and we received a curious answer. Brenlo said that it was still a rumor for now but I’m not sure in what way he means that. Adornments are very different in beta than they are in live! There are “colors” of adornments. White is play made. Red is a drop. We’ll have to see what makes it into the game at release time.

The visuals for the expansion were quite impressive. This is especially true since Brenlo wasn’t running shader 3. I was pretty thrilled by what I saw during the slide show/video. I can’t wait to get my character in there. I’m sure we’ll see more information as details come in but I know I’m pretty stoked for Sentinel’s Fate. I’ll have more as it filters in.