Zoning in EQ2?

Comments

• Xtromass Member Posts: 662

  November 2006

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  Originally posted by Tuutob
  A few questions: *Does it take away from explanation? When trying to reach a destination, will zoning elongate your travel time ridiculously? *Doesn't have to do with zoning, but can you jump, swim, and interact with the environment enough to make it feel like a place to explore and interact with, not just a place to dump creatures for you to level off of? *Is it hard to meet up with people, due to the different instances of the same map? For example, if you want to meet a friend in one area, but an instance fills up, will you have to try and try again to get in the same instance? This happened in the Guild Wars cities sometimes, and it was frustrating. *Will you have explored every area by the time you hit max level, or will there be more to see afterwards. Exploring at max level gives a fun sense of exploration and plain being a badass, and I'd love to do it in a beautiful game such as this. Thanks!

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  Didn't quite understand the first question, but I can answer the second and third (Haven't reached max lvl so cannot answer the last) Q2. Yes, you can jump and swim and make it feel like a place to explore.
  Q3. There are different zones in eq2, but when you enter that zone you will be asked which one you want to enter.
  
  
  
• Flem Member UncommonPosts: 2,870

  November 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by Tuutob
  
  A few questions:
  *Does it take away from explanation? When trying to reach a destination, will zoning elongate your travel time ridiculously?
  I guess you mean exploration not explanation? If so then in my opinion no it doesnt take away from it.  Also zone times vary per rig of course, if you have a decent rig with at least 1gig ram then zoning will not take long, im usually at under 30 sec.
  *Doesn't have to do with zoning, but can you jump, swim, and interact with the environment enough to make it feel like a place to explore and interact with, not just a place to dump creatures for you to level off of?
  Yes you can swim and jump.  Theres some stuff you need to swim underwater for here and there, also you can climb walls, building etc which was introduced in the DoF expansion.
  *Is it hard to meet up with people, due to the different instances of the same map? For example, if you want to meet a friend in one area, but an instance fills up, will you have to try and try again to get in the same instance? This happened in the Guild Wars cities sometimes, and it was frustrating.
  You get to pick, so you just need to know what instance you want then pick it when you zone.  But honestly i havent seen multiple versions of the same zone for a looong time.
  *Will you have explored every area by the time you hit max level, or will there be more to see afterwards. Exploring at max level gives a fun sense of exploration and plain being a badass, and I'd love to do it in a beautiful game such as this.
  Sure can, there were a couple of zones i hardly ventured into so i had hit max at the time and hadnt explored two zones.  I actually enjoyed exploring them without the hassle of getting pounced on by mobs and it also gave me a place i could bring a lower alt having not experienced it levelling wise.
  Thanks!
  

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• lomiller Member Posts: 1,810

  November 2006

  
  

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  Originally posted by Tuutob

  A few questions:

  *Does it take away from exploration? When trying to reach a destination, will zoning elongate your travel time ridiculously?

  In EQ2 zoneing is generally used to reduce travel times.  It allows you to go from one place to a distinctly different place very quickly.  The entry point to any zone in the worlds isn’t usually more then 5-10 min away from you.  The worst time is in the early game in Freeport/Qeynos because you have 5 villages, 4 city zones, and 3 noob adventuring areas all in close proximity, but they have streemlined the quests a lot so you are not running back and forth between them like you used to. 

   

  The only time I find zoneing increases my travel time is when I have to run to a bunch of different houses in Qeynos to buy materials for crafting.  Then the time starts to add up.  In EoF the city, noob area and main level 1-20 area including an extensive underground are all in a single zone so zone times are non-existant.

  *Doesn't have to do with zoning, but can you jump, swim, and interact with the environment enough to make it feel like a place to explore and interact with, not just a place to dump creatures for you to level off of?

  You can jump, swim, climb, drown or even fall to your death if you like, and if you are not Fae there are some places where that last one are going to happen quite often if you are not careful .

  *Is it hard to meet up with people, due to the different instances of the same map? For example, if you want to meet a friend in one area, but an instance fills up, will you have to try and try again to get in the same instance? This happened in the Guild Wars cities sometimes, and it was frustrating.

  The new lower level zones often have 2-3 instances going.  I believe that even if an instance of a zone is full or locked because it’s about to be collapsed an exception will be made if you are grouped with someone already in it.  Just click on their name in the group menu and you will be given to option to switch to the zone instance they are in.

  *Will you have explored every area by the time you hit max level, or will there be more to see afterwards. Exploring at max level gives a fun sense of exploration and plain being a badass, and I'd love to do it in a beautiful game such as this.

  If you are the type that likes to explore you will probably have explored a lot of it but I don’t think most people have seen absolutely everything.  Even before the EoF expansion there are several major dungeons I have not been to at all, and others that I have only been to a few times. 

   

  The new expansion adds a lot of extra area and is a lot trickier to explore.  I.E. in the older zones you can travel in straight lines most of the time, so getting to any particular place tends to be just a matter of pointing yourself in the right direction and running.  Even running through lavastorm to get to sol eye, which takes a while and weaves through a lot of the zone only really has one route.  In EoF you can often see there is something nearby but have to work at finding a way to get there, which for me at least has made exploration a lot more interesting, and it was allready something I enjoyed.

  
  

  Thanks!

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• Unknown

  November 2006

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  Originally posted by Tuutob
  A few questions: *Does it take away from exploration? When trying to reach a destination, will zoning elongate your travel time ridiculously?
  Most zones are made in such a way that the  barriers makes sense.  Like a gate or a dock.  Most zones are quite large.  You could run around antonica all night long and only zone to go back into the city for whatever reason.  Running around the city though does require a good bit of zoning though.
  
  *Doesn't have to do with zoning, but can you jump, swim, and interact with the environment enough to make it feel like a place to explore and interact with, not just a place to dump creatures for you to level off of?
  Yes defintely.  In fact because of the lighting effects I found explorign in EQ2 better than WoW.
  
  *Is it hard to meet up with people, due to the different instances of the same map? For example, if you want to meet a friend in one area, but an instance fills up, will you have to try and try again to get in the same instance? This happened in the Guild Wars cities sometimes, and it was frustrating.
  No you can generally switch freely or jsut agree to meet in a particular clone.  Also they have an LFG tool.
  
  *Will you have explored every area by the time you hit max level, or will there be more to see afterwards. Exploring at max level gives a fun sense of exploration and plain being a badass, and I'd love to do it in a beautiful game such as this.
  
  I don't really know, but I suspect you will have seen most stuff by max level, assuming you don't just grind over and over.
  Thanks!

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